Stride and Serena led a parade of cars away from the cemetery. They headed north on Tower Avenue and turned into the parking lot of a bookstore and café where they often stopped for soup and coffee when they were on the east side of the Twin Ports. Maggie followed them into the lot, and so did Tish. The four of them went inside together, where nutmeg and blueberries wafted in the air. Amanda, who ran the store, waved at them and broke off from the stacks of books long enough to get a hug from Stride.
They took chairs in the café at a table by the window. Stride leaned his head against the wall. The sky through the glass was gray and burgundy, as dusk sped quickly into night.
“What can I get everyone?” Maggie asked.
Stride shrugged. “Coffee.”
“You, boss? Plain old coffee? I figured you for a moka-loco apple fritter latte.”
Stride gave her a withering stare.
“How about you, Serena?” Maggie asked. “You want to join me in a chai tea?”
“I’d love one, but you may as well take a hypo and shoot it into my thighs. Get me a bottled water.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Tish?”
“Nothing, thanks. I have to head to the airport soon.”
Maggie sighed and went to the café register. She placed their order and wandered over to the books counter to chat with Amanda.
“How’s the book coming?” Serena asked Tish.
“It’s almost done.”
Tish tugged nervously at the sleeves of her burgundy blouse. Her blond hair was pulled back away from her face and pinned behind her head.
“Do you leave tonight?”
Tish nodded. “My suitcase is in the car.” She added, “I suppose you’ll both be happy to see me go.”
Stride and Serena didn’t say anything.
“When I came here, I didn’t really think about what would happen,” Tish went on. “I was naive. I should have listened to you.”
She waited, but the silence stretched out.
“I know you feel bad about Clark Biggs,” Tish told Stride. “And Finn, too.”
“I don’t think you know how I feel at all,” Stride replied.
He saw the café manager put their drinks on the counter, and he retrieved his mug of coffee and Serena’s bottle of water and sat down again. When he took a sip, the coffee was smoky and hot. Over Tish’s shoulder, he spotted movement in the foyer and was surprised to see Rikke Mathisen enter the store from the parking lot. Her upper lip was sucked between her teeth. She saw them in the corner, and her stare lingered with venom before she disappeared into a row of biographies in the bookstore.
They sat in silence.
“Maybe I should go,” Tish said finally.
Stride shrugged. “Then go.”
“I know you blame me,” Tish said. “I get it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Stride put his coffee down and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “Do I think things might have been different if you had been honest with me? Yes. Do I think things might have been different if you had come forward when Laura was murdered? Yes. But I don’t know any of that for sure. The truth is, I had no idea Finn was involved until you came to town. I didn’t know anything about the murder of his mother. He was sick. He was desperate. A combination like that can leave someone dead. So no, I don’t blame you for what happened to Finn. And Clark Biggs? That’s a tragedy, but he put himself on that beach. I didn’t. You didn’t.”
Tish folded her arms. “So what is it then?”
“Oh, come on, Tish,” Serena murmured.
Tish looked at her and understood. “Cindy.”
“I’d like to know why she never told me about you,” Stride said.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
Stride scowled and stared at the night sky outside. “I deserve more than that.”
“I know you do.” He watched the struggle in her face. “Look, please don’t blame Cindy. Blame me. When we reconnected, I asked her not to tell you about me. I knew you’d find out that I was in Duluth that night. Cindy didn’t want to keep secrets from you, but you weren’t just her husband. You were a cop. She couldn’t ask you to ignore it if you knew. You’d have to be on my doorstep the next day, and I wasn’t ready for that. It was something I needed to come to in my own time.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.” Tish clutched her purse and stood up. “I really have to go to the airport. I’m grateful to you, Jon. You could have shut me out. I would have understood if you did.”
She turned for the door, and Stride got up and walked beside her. His hands were in his pockets. He escorted her as far as the outer door that led to the parking lot and opened it so she could pass him. The warm air spilled in with the breeze.
“We’re alone,” Stride said. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“There’s nothing,” she replied.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Stride frowned. “Good-bye, Tish.”
She took a step closer. Her eyes reminded him of Cindy’s eyes again. She laid a soft hand on his face. “You know that Cindy loved you, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Then nothing else matters, does it?”
Tish backed up awkwardly, tucked her head into her neck, and marched toward her car. Stride let the door swing shut and returned to the interior of the bookstore. Serena was watching him, but he didn’t go back to their table. Instead, he wandered idly down the aisles of the store, occasionally reaching out and touching the spines of books without really seeing them. He tried to understand what he was feeling and decided it was loss. He remembered telling Tish that the one thing he feared in life was endings, and this was a door shutting in his soul.
Maybe, on some level, he had wanted Laura’s murder to remain unsolved. As long as the case was out there, open, then Cindy would be there, too. She would be young. They would be first-time lovers. Ray would be incorruptible. Life would be a mystery. Now that he had the answers, they didn’t give him peace. They simply left him mourning another ending.
Or was it something more than that?
He spied Rikke near the lobby of the bookstore. She stared at him defiantly before she left the shop. He turned a corner and found himself face to face with Maggie and Amanda, who were poring over a book on child rearing. Maggie looked up and read his face.
“You okay?” she asked.
Stride shrugged and shook his head. Maggie squeezed his shoulder.
He pointed at the book she was holding. “What’s this about?”
Maggie shared a secret glance with Amanda. “Think I should tell him?”
Amanda laughed. “Oh, why not.”
“I’m going for it,” Maggie told Stride. “I’ve decided to pursue the adoption thing all the way. I don’t care what it takes. I want a kid.”
Stride smiled. “Good for you, Mags. I couldn’t be happier for you. Really.”
“I just hope it’s a boy.”
“Why is that?” he asked.
“Are you kidding? Me with a little girl? That poor kid would be scarred for life having a parent like me. I couldn’t do that to a child.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “He’s a man, darling,” she said, with a British accent full of exasperation. “He doesn’t understand the curse we women face and the terrible legacy we pass on to our daughters.”
“Curse?” Stride asked.
Maggie spread her hands, as if it were obvious.
“Sooner or later, we’re all destined to become our mothers,” Amanda whispered in his ear.
Stride grunted and decided this was a conversation that didn’t need a man in it. He turned away to let Maggie and Amanda continue talking about mothers and daughters, and then he froze in his tracks. He spun around so quickly that both women jumped.
“What did you say?”
Tish reached behind her head and undid her ponytail, letting her blond hair blow loosely in the warm wind. Her leather purse dangled from her shoulder. She was angry at herself and felt guilty for walking away. When she gazed at the back-and-forth parade of traffic on the street, she almost turned around and went back inside the store. The letter from Cindy was inside her purse, and she knew she should give it to Stride. She owed it to both of them, but she felt as if she were on a high bridge, paralyzed as she looked down. She couldn’t face the truth.
She unlocked her car and got inside. She threw her purse on the opposite seat and put the key in the ignition, but she sat there without moving or starting the car, wrestling with whether she should stay. If she went to the airport and got on the flight to Minneapolis, she knew she would never come back to Duluth. Not ever.
Maybe it had been a huge mistake to come back in the first place.
Tish turned the key, and the engine fired. She put the Civic in reverse, but when she backed up, she heard metal grinding on asphalt and felt the car lurch as if it were bouncing over something heavy. She stopped, shut off the engine again, and climbed out, leaving the driver’s door open. When she went around to the front of the car, she cursed, seeing the hood slumped to one side. Through the glare of the headlights, she saw that the right front tire was flat on the ground.
“Oh, hell,” she murmured.
She squatted by the tire and checked her watch. She knew nothing about changing tires, and she had no idea if there was a service station nearby. The answer was obvious. Go get Stride. Even so, she hesitated to see him again when she had just shut the door in his face.
Tish got up, turned around, and screamed.
Rikke Mathisen stood directly behind her, so close that their bodies were nearly touching.
“Are you having problems?” Rikke asked.
Tish backed up to give herself space. “Flat tire,” she said.
Rikke towered over her by nearly a foot. Her eyes flicked to the disabled tire, and her face was impassive. “Do you need to be somewhere?”
“I’m heading to the airport.”
“Leaving town?”
Tish nodded.
“I can drive you,” Rikke told her. “Put your things in my car.”
Tish attempted a smile. “You don’t have to do that. I can get the tire changed.”
“It will give us a chance to talk,” Rikke said. “Don’t you think we should talk, Tish?”
Tish rubbed the skin on her forearms. She was cold. “Sure, but it’s a rental car. I can’t just leave it.”
“This isn’t the big city. You can call them. They’ll send someone to get the car.”
“I have friends inside,” Tish said, glancing at the entrance to the bookstore and suddenly wishing she could see Stride’s face. “I’m sure one of them can drive me. You probably want to be alone.”
“I said I would drive you, so let’s go.”
Tish hesitated for another second. Rikke was angry about the death of her brother, but if she wanted an opportunity to vent her poison at Tish, so be it. Tish didn’t care. On some level, she deserved it.
“Sure, okay,” Tish said. “Why not?”
She retrieved her purse, turned off the lights on the Civic, and popped the trunk. She removed her suitcase and relocated it to the trunk of Rikke’s tan Impala, which was parked next to her. Rikke made no move to help. She waited until Tish had closed the trunk and then climbed inside the driver’s door and started the engine.
Tish got inside the Impala and went to put on her seat belt. The strap was broken.
“Sorry, I’ve been meaning to get that fixed,” Rikke said.
She drove out of the parking lot, leaving Tish’s stranded Civic behind them.
“Which bridge do you want me to take?” Rikke asked.
“Whichever is lower,” Tish said. “I hate heights.”