Evensong

A Collect for Aid Against Perils

 

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.

 

5:00 P.M.

They looked like a hokey tableau in one of those British sex farces. There she sat in nothing but a robe, which, she discovered as she followed Hugh’s eyes, had loosened up noticeably while she was bending and stretching in the kitchen and was now showing off a good deal more of her chest than she had intended. There sat Russ, superficially relaxed, tension radiating from every line, his attempt at appearing casual and friendly marred by a defensive glare that screamed guilt. And there stood Hugh, wine bottle in hand, storm clouds rumbling across his face, glancing back and forth between them as if waiting for someone to say the first line and start the scene.

Clare resisted the urge to yank her robe tightly together and insist, It’s not what you think. Instead she smiled brightly and said, “Hugh! I was wondering where you were. I hope the drive wasn’t too bad. You remember Russ Van Alstyne, don’t you?”

The two men looked at each other with loathing.

“Russ dropped by as I was ladling up some soup.” She felt a spark of unease at how easily the lie slipped out. “Would you like some?”

“No. Thank you.” Usually, Hugh was the embodiment of Prince Charming, with twinkling eyes and dimples on both cheeks he flashed to great effect. This closed-faced, tightmouthed man was somebody she had never met. “I find I’m not very hungry.” He looked at Russ again. “I’ve heard of neighborhood policing, but I’ve never seen it practiced in such an intimate way.”

“I’m off duty,” Russ growled.

“Ah. Yes. I take it from your costume you’ve been looking for animals to kill? You know what Wilde said about hunting. ‘The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.’”

Russ rose from his seat. “Oscar Wilde was talking about hunting foxes, not deer.” Clare blinked in surprise. Hugh did as well. Russ looked Hugh up and down, taking in his purple corduroy pants and floral button-down shirt. “You ought to quote him correctly if you’re going to dress like him.” He turned to Clare. “Thanks for the soup, Clare. I’ll see you later.”

He vanished between the swinging doors. A moment later, she heard the kitchen door shutting. She was alone with Hugh.

If you’re trapped with no way out, you’ve got two options, Hardball Wright said. Surrender or attack. Since I don’t expect anybody who’s gone through my course to surrender, that means you attack.

“I’ll thank you to treat my guests civilly,” she said, rising from her chair and picking up the soup bowls.

“Me?” Hugh’s jaw dropped. “What about him?” She swept past him toward the kitchen. “And what about you?” he continued, dogging her through the doors.

She dropped the bowls in the sink and turned on the faucet. “I think you look fine,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding his question. “Very English. American men are scared of color and pattern.”

“I’m not talking about my damn outfit. I don’t give a rat’s ass what Dick Van Dyke there thinks about my clothing. What were you doing sitting there with him practically nude?”

She considered saying, I don’t understand. He was fully dressed, but figured one purposefully obtuse response was her daily limit. “I’m perfectly decent,” she said firmly. “He happened to stop in right after I got out of the shower. I didn’t think he was staying long enough for me to excuse myself and get dressed.”

“Oh, but he stayed long enough for a bowl of soup and a cozy little chat.”

She turned to face him, bracing her hands against the counter. In her bare feet, she was only a few inches shorter than him. “What exactly are you trying to say, Hugh?”

“I don’t think you realize how much you talk about him. When you’re on the phone to me.” He raised his voice to imitate her. “ ‘I was having lunch with Chief Van Alstyne the other day and . . . I asked Chief Van Alstyne about . . . Chief Van Alstyne says . . .’”

“He’s my friend. I’m sure I also mention my friends Anne Vining-Ellis and Roxanne Lunt.”

“But I don’t find you sitting around sharing soup in the buff with them!” The word “soup” curled off his tongue with a salacious hiss.

She tilted her head up, searching for a ray of calm to settle her enough to talk to Hugh without tearing his head off. He was angry and troubled, and it was her job to help people who were hurting, not to exacerbate their wounds.

“I’m sorry you’re upset about walking in on us like that,” she said, taking a measure of pride in how even her voice was. “But I can assure you, Russ and I didn’t do anything while he was here that we couldn’t have done right in front of you, if you had gotten here earlier.”

“Lovely. I’m assured you didn’t have a before-dinner cock-tail.”

Her mouth gaped open. “That is just plain nasty!” Her voice, no longer even, sounded distinctly screechy, even to her. “Maybe you ought to hightail it over to the hotel. I’ll meet you there later when you’ve had a chance to rinse your mouth out.”

“There’s another thing. We’ve been dating for over a year now, and every time I visit you I have to make shift in a damn bed-and-breakfast.”

“I’ve told you I can’t have a man staying in the rectory with me. For God’s sake, Hugh, my church is right next door.”

“That doesn’t explain why you won’t stay with me in my apartment when you come to the city.”

She looked down. “Is your friend Jackie complaining?” Clare had been the guest of a divorced coworker of Hugh’s during the three times she had visited New York.

“Of course she’s not. But even if you’re paranoid enough to think it might get back to your congregation if you shack up in my apartment, there’s no way you can tell me anyone would know if we spent a discreet afternoon or evening together.”

“I’d know.” She pushed the sleeves of her robe up. “I’m not just playing goody-goody because I’m afraid I’ll get caught. I believe that sex should be reserved for a committed, monogamous relationship.”

“Then how do you explain Chief Vincent Van Gogh in your living room?”

She stepped toward him. “I swear, in Jesus’ holy name, that I have never, ever had sex with Russ Van Alstyne.”

“Ah, but Vicar.” Hugh looked at her ruefully. “Can you swear you don’t want to?”

Her silence condemned her. She knew it, but she couldn’t bring herself to play Peter and deny her feelings three times. Finally she managed, “What I want or don’t want isn’t important. It’s what I do.”

“He’s married, isn’t he?” Hugh’s voice was gentle.

“Yes.”

“And I suppose his wife is a real piece of work.”

Clare looked at the kitchen wall. “His wife is a beautiful, dynamic woman who loves him very much. A sentiment that he returns.”

“Ah.” He stared at the bottle of wine he’d been holding since he walked in. “What say we crack this open and have a couple of glasses while we talk?”

 

5:05 P.M.

Randy Schoof was being very cautious. Thinking before acting. Lisa would be pleased. He had debated hiding his truck as best he could by the old mill but had decided parking it in plain sight in the employee lot was better. There was always a collection of vehicles there, and no one in a hurry to clock in or rushing to get home would be curious about one more. He had carried everything—his backpack, his sleeping bag, the groceries—in one big load rather than hiking back and forth from the mill to the parking lot. He stuck to the shadows next to the rotting clapboard as he worked his way through the skeletons of waist-high weeds. And he was quiet, as quiet as could be, despite the roar of water over the dam washing out the sound of his footsteps. At the small side door, sheltered by an enclosed overhang, he fished out his ATM card. The door was locked, but Mike, who had snuck into the building every once in a while for a joint before he was laid off, had told him the secret: The lock was crap. You could pop it with a card and reset it from inside.

A jiggle, a lift, and Mike was proved right. He pocketed the card, slipped inside, and shut the door behind him. He took a few steps and was reaching into his backpack for his small emergency-use flashlight when he tripped over something square and painfully solid.

“Shit!” he cried, smashing into the floor, the flashlight and the bags flying, jars and boxes thudding and clunking, his sleeping bag bouncing off into the darkness. “Shit! Shit!”

“Who’s there?”

He froze.

“Who’s there?”

It was a woman. Faint and seemingly far away, but a woman. How in the hell had a woman gotten in here?

“Look, whoever you are!”

Christ, they didn’t have some sort of security guard now, did they?

“I don’t care what you’re doing here! I’m trapped, and I need help!”

He climbed to his feet. Now what was he supposed to do? Silently he bent over, feeling for his backpack. He brushed it with the back of his hand and grabbed it. The zippers jingled, a faint noise he heard as a clash of cymbals.

“I know you’re here. I heard you fall over something.”

Maybe he could just stand still. Stay quiet over here by the door. Maybe he could open and close the door, pretending to leave.

“Help me! Please, please, help me! Please!”

Oh, God. He was never going to be able to ignore that. “Hang on,” he yelled. “I’m looking for my flashlight.” He knelt carefully and began patting down the floor, feeling for the narrow cylinder.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

He got a fat bottle and a loaf of bread and something smooth and cool that he managed to identify as a knife before he sliced his palm open. He jammed everything into his backpack. Everything except his flashlight, which was nowhere within reach. “Crap,” he said.

“What is it?” the woman called.

“I can’t find my flashlight.” He had one in the glove compartment of his truck, but he didn’t want to appear out in the open again so soon. Maybe later.

“Talk to me,” he said loudly. “I’ll find you by sound.”

“I’m over here,” she said. “Near the far wall, the one closest to the river. Over here. Watch out for the stacks of pallets and the—”

“Oof!” There was a clang as he ran straight into something large and immovable.

“—the big machinery parts.”

He groaned. “What are you doing here? What do you mean, you’re trapped?” He could imagine maybe one of these machines dislodging and pinning someone. But in that case, he’d expect her to sound like she was in pain.

There was a pause. A long pause. Finally she said, “It’s embarrassing.”

Embarrassing? Like what? The only thing that embarrassed Lisa was stuff like other people knowing she had her period, or that time he told a couple friends about her getting the hair on her upper lip zapped. “Keep talking,” he said. He meant so he could find her, but she took it as an order.

“I met up with someone here. We were going to . . . do a bondage thing. But instead, he tied me up and left me here.”

Randy felt a flash of heat in his belly. Christ almighty. Maybe she was wearing some weird leather getup. Or nothing at all. Not that he’d do anything. He loved his wife. But Christ, what a story to tell the guys. Then he remembered that he wasn’t going to be telling this story to anyone. Because he wasn’t here.

His eyes had adjusted, and he could make out shapes in the darkness. Still, he almost stumbled across her. She was on the floor, leaning against another stack of pallets. The rectangular windows a story above them shed enough moonlight across the blackness that he could make out her legs, stretched out and covered in something pale. He dropped to his knees.

She was rolled loosely into a blanket, so he couldn’t see what she had on. He couldn’t make out the details of her face, but he figured that was just as well, since that meant she couldn’t see him too well, either.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” She sounded like a runner after a race, breathing hard but trying to bring herself under control. “I’m . . . my hands and ankles are bound.”

He reached for the blanket covering her, not touching it. “You mind if I . . . ?”

“Please.”

He could tell by the way she talked that she wasn’t from here. “What’s your name?” he said, still not touching the blanket.

“M-Mel. Melanie.” She sounded as if she wasn’t sure.

“Nice to meet ya, Melanie. I’m Mike.” He had thought the fake name up while he was crossing the floor. No use hiding out if someone could identify him by name. “I’m, uh, going to take the blanket off now.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t see you very well.”

“It’s fine,” she said impatiently.

Maybe she wasn’t the modest type. He tugged the blanket away, using both hands to unwrap it.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just that I’ve been tied up like this all day, and it feels as if my shoulders are going to break off at this point.”

He wasn’t interested in her explanations. He was interested in why she was trying to sell him a bullshit story about bondage gone bad. He and Lisa had married right out of high school, and he didn’t have a whole lot of experience, but he knew for sure that no woman would show up for a kinky scene with her lover dressed in a flannel shirt and sweatpants. And hiking boots? He could imagine—just—some guy getting turned on enough by the idea of struggling to undress her to leave the clothes on while he trussed her up. But hiking boots?

His hand slipped down to her wrists, and he felt the unmistakable texture of duct tape. “I need to get my knife,” he said.

“Of course. Thank you. Thank you.”

He stood up and threaded his way back to the backpack and plastic bag. Thinking hard the whole way.

His camping kit had a utility knife, but he grabbed the kitchen knife Lisa had tossed in with the groceries instead. Its serrated edge would go through the duct tape a lot faster. If he used it. He made his way back to her, this time stopping a few feet away, when he could see her outline in the dark.

“I have the knife,” he said.

“Thank God.” There was a quiet clink as she bent forward, like an iron manacle tapping against the cement floor. “Please, undo my hands first. My arms are numb.”

“Yeah. Sure.” He squatted. “Just, I want to know what you’re really doing here first.”

She stopped moving. “I told you.”

He waited, not saying anything. It was what his dad used to do whenever he thought Randy was lying. He wouldn’t argue; he wouldn’t explain why he thought Randy wasn’t telling the truth. He’d just sit there. Quiet. Until Randy broke.

“Cut it off! I told you, I was meeting someone here and he tied me up. I thought it was for fun.”

He squatted, silent. He held the knife out and tilted it until the blade caught a dull gleam of light from the faraway windows.

“Please!”

Part of him wanted to giggle. Who would have thought it, him using his dad’s silent treatment instead of blowing up? He felt strange, grown-up and aware that he was feeling grown-up, all at the same time. Like the first time he and Lisa slept in his parents’ house, after they’d gotten married.

“All right,” she snarled, and he was jerked into the present. “All right. Cut me loose and I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me and I’ll cut you loose.”

She made a noise. “Okay.” She took a breath. “I saw a man kill my brother. He put me in his car and brought me here. I think he’s trying to decide if he’s going to kill me or not.”

His head whited out for a moment while he tried to fit that statement into the real world he lived in. The first thing he thought was Again, my luck is lousy. He had stumbled into a freaking Sopranos episode. If he let this woman go, he’d have some contract killer after him.

“What . . . what was your brother into? So that this guy killed him?”

“Into? He wasn’t into anything.” Her voice broke. “He was a recluse who lived in the mountains and never saw anyone except me and my sister if he could help it. I don’t know why he was killed. I don’t know anything about what’s going on.”

Recluse. Mountain. Lisa saying, Oh, honey, it’s terrible. Mr. van der Hoeven’s been killed!

“You’re not Melanie. You’re van der Hoeven’s sister, Millie,” he said.

She was silent for a moment. “Yeah,” she finally said.

“You’re missing!”

“If you cut me loose, believe me, I won’t be.”

He moved behind her and worked the tip of the knife under the fraying edge of one of her duct-tape manacles. He sawed back and forth. He had found the missing woman. Maybe she’d be so grateful, she’d give him an alibi. The duct tape parted around one of her wrists, and with a groan of pain she brought her arms around to her front.

“God.” She bent over, rocking back and forth. “Oh, that hurts.”

“Um.” He sat down, scootching a little way from her so he was out of range, in case her arms weren’t really as useless as they seemed. “Maybe since I’m helping you out, you could help me out.”

She made a noise that might have been an encouragement to continue.

“I’m, um, in a bit of trouble. That’s why I’m here. Maybe you could say that I was with you earlier? Like, in the middle of the day for a few hours?”

“I could,” she said, her voice thin with pain, “but don’t you think it would look odd that you left me tied up all day? Whatever trouble you’re in, I bet kidnapping would be worse.” Her voice changed. Became harder. “Besides, it’s up to me to get the man who killed Gene. I was the only witness to what that bastard did.”

“What happened?”

“I was . . .” She hesitated. “I was in an old observation tower. It’s a good walk away from where our camp is now. This man tried to take me, and my brother was protecting me, and he—the man—threw him over the railing.” She wavered for a moment before going on. “The bastard left him lying there, out in the open. Like garbage. I have to get to him, take care of his body before—” She broke off.

Randy thought of what could happen to a body left out in the woods for a few days. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too. And so will that rat bastard be. As soon as I get out of here, I’m heading straight to the cops.”

Randy twitched. It sounded too close to his own actions today. Maybe the man who killed her brother had been a cold-blooded murderer. But maybe he had been like Randy, someone who just took one more kick from life than he could take and was then left frantically pedaling to get out from under what he hadn’t even meant to do in the first place. It didn’t seem fair that a man could spend his whole life doing the right thing and then blow it all up in five minutes’ time.

“Who was he? This guy. I mean, why was he after you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know his name.” He couldn’t see her face at all, hunched over like she was, but he could hear the edge of satisfaction in her voice when she said, “But I got his license plate number. Right before he dumped me in the back of his Mercedes. I said it over and over to myself while I was locked in there.”

Randy stared into the darkness, seeing not the cold and grimy old mill but the Haudenosaunee driveway under brilliant sunshine. The driveway that was blocked by a black Mercedes.

“This Mercedes,” he said. “Did you see a bumper sticker on it? Something about the Sierra club?”

A swish of hair. She lifted her head. “Yeah.”

“Shaun Reid,” he said, scared and exultant. “That’s who killed your brother. The guy who owns this mill. Shaun Reid.”

 

5:10 P.M.

Lisa was expecting the two squad cars that pulled into her drive. After Randy left, she had gone about her normal routine for a Saturday afternoon, showering, a load of laundry, cooking. She had a big pot of stew simmering on the stove, figuring that if she really didn’t know what her husband had done or where he had gone, she’d have dinner waiting for him. She stuck Titanic in the VCR and poured herself a glass of rum and Diet Coke, props to simulate a normal afternoon: hanging out, watching a chick flick, waiting for her husband to get home. She picked up the drink, thinking to calm her nerves, but decided the last thing she needed was to have any of her edges dulled by alcohol. Instead she swilled some around in her mouth and spat it into the sink, following that with half the contents of the glass. Simulation. The illusion of reality.

So she shouldn’t have felt sick to her stomach when she saw the headlights swinging into her dooryard. She did take a swallow of the rum and Coke then, for real, and breathed slowly and deeply before walking to the door. No sense pretending she hadn’t heard anyone driving up the road. She dropped her hand to the doorknob.

I don’t know anything. I didn’t do anything. I’m innocent. I know nothing.

She opened the door. Not surprisingly, it was Kevin again, and some old cop who was, with his brush-cut hair and weight-lifting body, a preview of what her sister’s husband was going to look like in thirty years. She supposed she should be grateful. At least they didn’t send Mark out for this.

“Lisa?” No smiles this time. “May we come in?”

She stepped back, opening the door. “What’s the matter?” She had thought about this, about how she’d first react. Tossing bagged veggies into the stew pot, she’d considered what she would have thought if the police had come to her door last Saturday, a time that was forever now going to be set off as before. Now was after. And she did as she rehearsed.

“Oh, my God.” A hitch of breath. “Is it Randy? Has he been in an accident?”

The old cop smiled as he walked past her, crinkling up his eyes, as if he were playing Santa Claus. “No accident.” He held out his hand. “I’m Lyle MacAuley, Mrs. Schoof.” She took his hand, staring mostly at Kevin the whole while.

“What is it, then? Is it Mark?”

Kevin shook his head.

“Kevin was here earlier, asking about what you might have seen at Haudenosaunee.”

She nodded. Realized she was standing there with the warm air pouring out of the house. Shut the door.

“There’s been another incident today. A young woman was beaten and left on one of the logging roads on Haudenosaunee. Did your husband mention it to you?”

“No,” she said. How would I react to this news? she wondered. I would be scared of it happening to me. She glanced toward the window nervously.

“Why don’t we sit down?” The old guy phrased it like a suggestion, but he was already crossing the room, taking in everything, the movie, the drink, the stack of bills by the phone, the water stain on the ceiling. “Is your husband home?” he asked, sitting on one end of the couch.

“No.” She glanced back toward the door. “Do I need to worry about being alone out here?”

Kevin crossed his arms over his chest. “Where’s Randy?”

Lyle MacAuley patted the couch next to him. “Calm down, Kevin. Let the lady have a seat.”

She couldn’t not sit after that. She wedged herself in the corner opposite MacAuley.

“You certainly don’t have to worry right now,” MacAuley said, smiling again. “And if you’d like, we’d be glad to drop you off at a friend’s or neighbor’s when we go. If your husband isn’t home yet. Do you expect him soon?”

“By dinnertime,” she said. “He didn’t say he’d be gone longer than that.”

“Where’s he off to?”

“Errands, I guess. I was in the shower when he left.”

“When was that?” Kevin said.

MacAuley shot him a look. “I’d hate to leave you alone out here if you feel uncomfortable,” he said. “Do you have someone you usually stay with?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know. If things blow up and one or the other of you has to cool down.”

“You mean Randy and me? We don’t fight like that.”

“No?” His expression invited confidence. “I’ve been there myself. You’re young, married, money’s tight, one or the other of you is always working . . . you mean to say you never fight?”

“Of course, we have fights. I mean . . . not so’s one of us has to leave.”

“He’s never gotten a little rough?”

She was genuinely outraged. “No!”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Whatever. I don’t like to interfere between husband and wife.” He smiled. “Has your husband ever mentioned a woman named Becky Castle?”

Her heart jumped so hard she knew he must have seen it in her throat. She shook her head.

“I’m sorry?”

“No,” she said. “Kevin asked us if we knew her. Earlier.”

He leaned forward. “I don’t want to upset you, here, but . . . have you ever suspected your husband might be seeing someone else?”

“No!” She glared at Kevin. “Kevin, what’s this about?”

This time, he kept his mouth shut. “Becky Castle was the young woman who was assaulted today,” MacAuley said. “The poor thing was beaten so badly she had to undergo surgery to stop her internal bleeding. Somebody punched her and kicked her and hit her until she was so much raw hamburger.”

The words, the images, were so ugly she wanted to slap her hands over her ears and howl until they burned themselves out of her brain.

“We think your husband might be able to help us in our inquiries,” MacAuley went on. “It’s important we talk with him as soon as possible.”

She forced herself to nod. “Of course. I’ll have him call you as soon as he gets home.”

“Is there anyplace he’s more likely to be? At a bar, or a friend’s house? Time is important. You know, we always say the first twenty-four hours of an investigation are the most important. ‘The golden hours,’ we call them. We want to be able to talk to anyone who may know something as quickly as possible.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He was at Mike’s earlier. Mike Yablonski.”

MacAuley glanced at Kevin, who nodded once.

MacAuley stood, startling her. “Okay, then. Thanks, Mrs. Schoof.”

She unfolded herself from the couch and joined the two police officers heading for the door. She didn’t understand. She had thought he would keep at her. Ask her more about her husband. “I’ll be sure to have Randy call you as soon as he gets home tonight,” she repeated.

MacAuley smiled at her, eyes crinkling, bushy brows rising. “We’d sure appreciate it.”

“Um . . . is there anything else I can do to help?”

He smiled even more broadly, looking less like Santa and more like the cat who swallowed the canary. “Why, yes,” he said. “Can we have a look around the house?”

 

5:15 P.M.

Clare looked into the burgundy surface of her wine. If she sat very, very still, she could see her reflection. Or rather, the reflection of her eye. For now we see through a glass, darkly, she thought.

Hugh thumped his glass against the table. They were sitting in the kitchen. The only other spot to sit face-to-face downstairs was in her living room, where she and Russ had been talking. By mutual, unspoken agreement, Clare and Hugh avoided that room when she returned downstairs dressed in a sweater and jeans.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at a loss for words,” Hugh said.

“There’s nothing to say.” In a way, she was telling the truth. For close to two years now, she had kept her mouth soldered shut, refusing to even think about the unthinkable. She had cracked and admitted it to herself; eventually, she had admitted it to Russ. It terrified her to think that the truth was so close to her surface that she was on the verge of admitting it to a nice man she saw every six or seven weeks. “There’s nothing to say,” she repeated.

“Is he going to divorce the little woman?”

That made her look up from the depths of her glass. “No.”

“Are you planning on chucking the whole priest thing and living a life of wickedness as a kept woman?”

She couldn’t help it; her lips twitched. “No.”

“Bit of a sticky wicket, eh?”

“You sound like someone in the 1939 version of The Four Feathers. ” She took a sip of the Shiraz. They had discovered, on her first trip to New York, that they shared a common devotion to prewar British films.

“The fellow who went blind and gave up the girl because it was the right thing to do, no doubt.”

She smiled into her wineglass.

He swallowed a gulp of wine. “Where do you think this thing is going? With you and me, I mean.”

She was surprised. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”

“Good Lord. You must be the only single woman over thirty I know who isn’t thinking about how to get herself married off.” He spread his arms and looked down at himself. “Am I not eligible? Not repulsive, don’t drool or pick my teeth in public, ready for housetraining.”

She took another sip, uncertain if he was joking or not. “Hugh, are you proposing? Or just looking for more affirmation that your shirt looks okay?”

“I’m just trying to figure out why you don’t at least eyeball me as potential husband material.”

She sighed. “Because for the past six or seven years, I’ve thought of myself as someone who is never going to get married. It’s not as if I’ve had men throwing themselves at me. Believe me. When I realized my calling, it sort of dovetailed with my spectacular lack of a love life. I figured I was meant to be a celibate.”

“Okay.” He ticked off one finger. “So, aspirations to be bride of God. Anything else?”

“Hugh.” She interlaced her fingers and propped her chin on the back of her hands. “Look at you. You’re urban, you’re trendy, your job involves travel and parties and reveling in the spoils of capitalism. I’m a priest who has settled in a little Adirondack backwater. Can you honestly see any way of me fitting into your life? Or you fitting into mine?”

He ticked off another finger. “Lifestyle differences. Anything else?”

I’m in love with somebody else. Something in her face must have given her thoughts away, because he held up a third finger. “Emotional complications.” He waggled the fingers at her. “It’s rather like choosing a substantial investment, isn’t it?”

“Spoken like a true venture capitalist.”

He took another sip of wine. “You have two candidates vying for your investment.”

“I don’t—”

“One is old enough to be your father, entombed in the same small town where he was born, and, oh, yes, is married.”

She drained her glass and poured herself another.

“The other,” he spread his arms again, showing off the floral shirt in all its splendor, “is handsome, youthful—comparatively speaking—amusing, well educated, has a healthy bank account and a career that gives him some flexibility in relocating as you climb the ladder to ecclesiastical success. Oh, and is single.” He leaned back in his chair. “And,” he stressed, “is Anglican.”

“Your virtues are exceeded only by your modesty.” She slid the bottle toward him. “You still haven’t told me if you’re proposing or not.”

“Not. Not yet,” he amended. “I’m not sure yet if you and I are suited for the long haul together.” His voice sharpened. “But I’d like a chance to find out without the local law enforcement cramping my style.” His chair scraped as he stood up. “I’d better get over to the hotel. I want to check in and freshen up before dinner. Do you want me to come back and pick you up?”

She shook her head automatically. “No, it doesn’t make sense for you to drive in and out of town twice.”

“I could wait for you to get dressed. We could lounge about the hotel together.”

“No. I still have to get to the dry cleaners and pick up my dress after you go. Then I’m going to make a quick hospital visit to a family I was with this afternoon before coming back here to get ready.”

“Right. I’ll see you later, then.”

“Wait!” She stood up. “What about—what about all this?” She waved her hand, indicating the table, the glasses, the remnants of conversation hanging in the air. “What are you going to do?”

He looked surprised. “I’m not going to do anything. We’re still friends, right?”

She nodded.

“And we can keep seeing one another occasionally?”

“Of course.”

“Then I don’t have to do anything. Except wait.” He stepped closer. “Because sooner or later, the choice you’ve made is going to blow up in your face. Bad investments always do. And when it does,” he smiled, “I’ll be here.”

She was still pondering his words when she heard his car pulling out of her drive. She hadn’t dated the whole time she had been at Virginia Episcopal Seminary. Now, in the space of one afternoon, she had two men in her house who wanted her. Who knew a clerical collar was such a turn-on? Of course, neither was exactly what you’d call a healthy, promising relationship. “Is this one of Your little jokes?” she asked. “Because if You’re trying to give me a message about what I should do with my life, I wish You’d be more clear.”

 

5:40 P.M.

She should have called a lawyer. She should have told them no, they couldn’t look through her house, they couldn’t try to find some scrap of something tying her husband to Becky Castle. But it was too late now. If she said no, if she said stop, if she made Lyle MacAuley come down from upstairs, where she could hear him lumping around in her bedroom, looking at God knows what, they’d know. They’d know she’d folded. That she knew what her husband had done, and therefore that she probably knew where he was and when he was coming back. Her supposed innocence and the fact that Randy had gotten rid of any evidence were the only cards she held now. She had to play them.

Lisa sat on her couch, facing Kevin. They had spilt up, him and MacAuley, and Kevin was sticking to her like glue, supposedly so she wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable having some old cop pawing through her underwear drawer. She knew the real reason was to make sure she didn’t pick up the phone and warn her husband not to come home.

“Can I get you anything? A soda? Water?”

Kevin shook his head. “No, thanks.”

She stood, stretched. “I think I’ll make myself some coffee.”

Kevin stood as well. “I guess I will have a cup, if you’re going to make one.” He followed her into the kitchen.

She had just pulled the box of filters out when the phone rang. She froze. Oh, no. Not now. Please, no. Before she could recover and lunge for the phone, Kevin crossed the floor and snatched up the receiver. He held it out a few inches, so they could both hear, and beckoned her over. At that moment, she hated him. If she had thought she could get away with it, she would have clawed the receiver out of his hand and clubbed him to death with it.

He motioned again, fiercely. She walked over to his side. “Hello?”

“Lisa? Is that you? You sound like you’re on a speakerphone.” Lisa trembled with the effort of not sagging with relief. “It’s my sister,” she said.

“What?” Rachel said.

Kevin handed her the receiver and went back to the coffeepot as if it were perfectly normal for him to hijack someone’s phone.

“Sorry, Rache.” Lisa glanced toward Kevin. “Kevin Flynn is over, and he mistakenly thought you were a call he was expecting.”

There was a long pause on her sister’s end. “Is he alone?” Rachel eventually asked.

“Nope.”

“Oh, God, they didn’t send Mark over, did they? He called me just a little while ago. He has to go in to work early.”

“Mark was a real sweetheart to drive me to my job this morning. Will you be sure to thank him for me when you see him?”

There was another pause as Rachel parsed Lisa’s statement. “You need to be careful,” she said. “Mark told me they’re calling everybody in, all shifts, the part-time guys, everybody. The only time they usually do that is when things get really crazy, Christmas week, New Year’s, stuff like that.”

“Uh-huh,” Lisa said. Across from her, Kevin was scooping coffee out of a can. “Why do you think Mom and Dad are doing that?”

“Mark didn’t say, but I’m guessing they’re pulling out all the stops to find your husband. Lise, you need to think about hiring a good lawyer and having Randy turn himself in. This isn’t like ducking out of a traffic ticket. Mark and the rest of them will be searching for someone they think is dangerous. They have guns. People get killed evading arrest.”

Lisa’s throat closed up.

“Look, I’m off shift. I’m going to pick up Madeline from the neighbor’s, and then we’re coming over to keep you company.”

“With what’s going on? Mark won’t like it.” Her sister and Mark were both control freaks. They tended to wrangle a lot.

“He doesn’t get a vote. Besides, he’ll be at work. He doesn’t need to know. The important thing is, will it help, me being there? Or would you rather be alone?”

“I’d love you to come over,” Lisa said gratefully.

“Okay. I’ll see you when I get there. Till then, keep your legs crossed and your mind on higher things, as Mom would say.”

Lisa was laughing as she hung up.

Kevin looked at her. “What’s up?”

Her brief bubble of good humor faded into air. She shrugged. “Our parents.”

“I know how that can be. Coffee’s almost ready, if you want to get the cups.”

Lisa turned over possibilities as she unloaded two clean mugs from the dishwasher and took out the sugar bowl and spoons. She could do as Rachel suggested. Find a lawyer, tell Randy to turn himself in when he called. But then where would they be? If Randy was found guilty, he’d do time, no way around it. They knew a guy who got into a bar fight in Lake George with somebody who’d been messing with his girlfriend. Busted him up. Got sent to Plattsburgh for a year. How would she and Randy survive for a year without his income? They’d have the lawyer’s bills to pay, on top of the loans and the credit cards and everything else.

She opened the refrigerator and removed the jug of milk. Ultimately it boiled down to the fact that prison would kill Randy. He needed to be outdoors. He hated the jobs that shut him up inside; being locked away for a year or more would gut him. Then there was his temper. He needed to have her around for ballast. On his own, bottled up and seething, he’d explode. And some drug dealer, some guy who was a real criminal, unlike Randy, would knife him.

The coffee ceased bubbling out of the filter. She waited a second to see if any last drips fell, then pulled out the pot and poured two cups. So. No lawyer, no surrender. Or not yet. That could always be their reserve, their fallback position.

Clumping on the stairs. MacAuley poked his head through the doorway. “Thought I smelled coffee.”

Lisa forced a smile. “Can I get you a cup?”

“Sure.” He sauntered in and took up a post leaning against the refrigerator. “Nice place you have.”

She poured MacAuley a cup and handed it to him. “Thanks,” he said. He slopped in enough milk to turn it tan and took a deep, appreciative drink. Then he looked at her over the rim of the cup. “I hate to cause you distress, ma’am, but we do have reason to believe your husband may have been seeing Becky Castle.”

Lisa had split firewood before, and she knew what he was about. He was poking at the surface of the log, looking for a crack he could wedge his splitter into. It could take hours to chop apart a log with an ax. You needed an opening. It didn’t matter how small: Once you worked a splitter into it, down came the maul, and that log was gone, split in two, ready for the woodstove.

She took out her own splitter. “No, he wasn’t. And I know that to be true, because I know who she was seeing.”

MacAuley’s bushy eyebrows flicked upward. She had caught him off guard. “Who?”

“Shaun Reid.”

“The guy who owns the mill?” Kevin made a face. “Get out! He’s older than my father!”

MacAuley looked at him wearily. “It doesn’t shrivel up and drop off when you turn fifty, Kevin.” He turned to Lisa. “How do you know this?”

The first rule of lying: Keep as close to the truth as possible. “I clean for the Reids. Thursdays. And I was at Millers Kill High when she was. I know some of the same people she knows. There’s always talk. It’s a small town.”

“She lives in Albany now.”

“He never travels ‘on business’? She never comes up to ‘visit her folks’?” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ve got it wrong. But I’ve never heard any whispers about her and my husband.”

MacAuley set down his mug. “Mrs. Schoof, what would you say if you I told you that Becky Castle has named your husband as the man who assaulted her?”

“I’d ask why on earth Randy would want to hurt a woman he can barely remember from school.”

“She says he was planning on stealing her father’s logging equipment. She took pictures of him, and when she wouldn’t surrender the camera to him, he beat her up.”

“Oh, please. Randy was going to steal a skidder? And what, escape with it down the highway at twenty-five miles an hour?” Ladling scorn kept her from wincing. She knew Randy tended to act without considering the consequences, but she hoped even he wasn’t stupid enough to try to guarantee job security by ripping off heavy equipment. “Who’s more likely to have a reason to try to shut her up for good? A man who wants to get a good recommendation from her father? Or a man who’s already been through one expensive divorce and can’t face another one?”

MacAuley and Kevin glanced at each other. She clicked her teeth together. The second rule of lying: Don’t say too much.

“Miss Castle told us she ran into your husband’s motorcycle at her father’s house this afternoon. She called the tow truck and had it taken to Jimino’s garage on her dime. We’ve got a confirmation on that from the tow truck dispatcher and the mechanic.”

Lisa noticed MacAuley had dropped the “what would you say if I said” fig leaf. She looked him straight in the eye. “So she did meet up with him today. That explains why she used his name when she had to find someone to pin her injuries on.”

“Oh, come off it,” Kevin said.

Lisa put her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve never known a battered woman to lie about what happened to her because she was afraid of the guy who hit her? Or in love with him?” She let her anger and her irritation show fully in her face, so they wouldn’t see past those emotions to where she was desperate and afraid.

Lyle looked at her as if he were measuring her. Finally he swung his gaze toward Kevin. “Time to go,” he said. Kevin promptly put his cup down, coffee untouched.

“When your husband comes home,” MacAuley said, “have him contact us immediately. Whether he’s responsible or not, things will go a lot easier for him if he does.”

Thunk. Thunk. The sound she heard as she ushered them out of her house was the echo of two pieces of wood falling, neatly and sweetly cloven in two.

 

5:55 P.M.

Clare barely made it into the dry cleaners before they closed. She wasn’t the only person to wait until the last possible moment. Ahead of her, a harried-looking woman balanced a cranky toddler on her hip while accepting a stack of shirts. Behind her, the door chimed in a good-looking young man whose suit and camel coat looked decidedly out of place on a Saturday in Millers Kill.

“Clare Fergusson,” she told the attendant, after the woman had struggled away with kid and clothing. “One dress and two blouses.”

The woman took her slip and nodded past her at the young man. “You?”

He reached past Clare to hand in his pink receipts. “Jeremy Reid and Shaun Reid.”

Clare twisted around, interested. “Excuse me,” she said as the woman bustled toward the back. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but are you related to Courtney Reid?”

He raised his dark brows. “She’s my stepmother.” He looked at Clare. “And you’ll have to excuse me, but you don’t look at all like one of Courtney’s usual friends.”

“I’m the priest at St. Alban’s. Clare Fergusson.” She held out her hand.

He shook it. “I remember. One dress, two blouses. I’m Jeremy Reid.” He grinned, exposing teeth so dazzlingly white they had to have been bleached.

“Are you home for a visit?” Behind the counter, she heard hangers rattling. Millers Kill boasted the last dry cleaner in America to resist automation.

“Nope. I work here. Well, not here, exactly. At the new resort.”

“Oh! I’m going to be there tonight. At the grand-opening dinner dance. At least,” she considered, “I think I’m going. If it’s still on.”

“It’s still on. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because of the van der Hoevens.” A plastic thwap-thwap drew her around. The woman laid Clare’s clothes on the counter.

“Twenty dollars,” the attendant said, her impatient expression signaling that she was mentally already locked up and gone.

“What about them?”

Clare dug her wallet out of her jacket pocket. “Millie van der Hoeven is missing.” She dropped her voice. “And I don’t think it’s made the news yet, but Eugene van der Hoeven died today.”

“Holy shit!” His eyes went to her collar, which she had put on for her hospital visit, and he blushed slightly, burnishing his high cheekbones. She smiled to herself. Her sister Grace would have gone after this one with both hands. “Sorry. But no, we haven’t heard anything about canceling the dinner dance. When I left, preparations were in full swing.”

She handed over her twenty. “Who’s sponsoring the event?”

“GWP, the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation, and the resort. It’s not just for the land transaction, you know? It’s also a thank-you for Mr. Opperman’s investors and big donors to the ACC.” He frowned. “Even without the van der Hoevens, I don’t think Mr. Opperman would pull the plug. He wants to open the resort with a bang.”

“Mmmm.” She had met John Opperman two summers ago, when the resort was just breaking ground. He had engaged in the most cold-blooded business dealings she had ever witnessed. She had destroyed his corporate helicopter. It was safe to say neither had been left with a good feeling about the other.

The clerk hoisted a stack of suits and shirts onto the counter. “Forty-three bucks,” she said. Jeremy handed her a card.

“Do you think your father will be worried? If the land deal is off?”

He looked at her sharply.

“I heard the company buying the property was on the verge of making a bid for your family’s mill.”

“That’s not widely known.”

She smiled in what she hoped was a disarming fashion. “Priests hear all sorts of stuff that’s not widely known.”

He bent over to sign the charge slip. “Yeah, well, Dad won’t be shedding any tears if the deal doesn’t come through.”

“Oh? I heard he was looking forward to retirement and travel.”

Jeremy stood. “Courtney told you, right? I swear, Dad could shave his head and become a Buddhist monk and she wouldn’t notice if it didn’t fit in with her worldview.” He dragged his clothing off the counter. “He’s not happy about the acquisition. I think it’ll be good for the company and good for him, and I’m trying to convince him of that, but I’m not fooling myself into thinking he’s all okay with it.”

“Excuse me,” the woman behind the counter said. “We’re closed now.” She stared pointedly at Clare’s dress and blouses, still on the counter.

“Right. Sorry.” Clare scooped up her clothing. “What do you think your dad will do? If the company gets bought out?”

Jeremy shrugged. “Join the twenty-first century? There’s not much call for small manufacturers who want to pass down the business from father to son like a feudal lord. Maybe if he’s forced to hand over the reins, he’ll finally accept that I’m not going to be the fifth generation of Reids to spend his life chained to a paper mill.”

“Excuse me,” the woman said loudly. “We’re. Closed. Now.”

Jeremy stepped ahead of Clare and opened the door for her. “Thanks,” she said.

“My pleasure. I’ll see you at the dance tonight.” He flapped the plastic bags. “You’ll recognize me by my neatly pressed dinner jacket.”

She smiled. “Nice meeting you, Jeremy.” She watched him cross the street before turning and walking down the sidewalk to her car. She had parked in front of Coffee To Go and was considering getting a cup before heading over to the hospital when she became aware of a large red pickup parked behind her little Shelby.

She laid her dress and blouses in her car and crossed to the truck’s passenger side. The window rolled down. Warm air and the sound of country music spilled out of the truck cab.

“Are you following me?”

Russ hooked one hand over the steering wheel. “I’m on my way from the station to the hospital. I saw your car. There was a parking space right behind it.”

“That’s quite a coincidence.”

In the faint light from his dashboard, she thought she could see him blush. “It’s not entirely coincidental. I, um, remembered you said you were going to the dry cleaners.”

“And to the hospital?”

“Mmm.”

She couldn’t stop her mouth from curving into a smile. “Why don’t you walk with me, then?”

“Walk?”

“Sure. It’s only, what, five or six blocks away?”

“More like eight or nine,” he said, but he was already shutting down the engine and sliding out of the truck.

“C’mon. Walking’s supposed to be good for you senior citizen types.”

He gave her his death-ray glare. She laughed.

“Just you wait, darlin’,” he warned. “First time you jaywalk—you’ll feel the long arm of the law.”

 

6:00 P.M.

“Help me get this stuff off my ankles.”

“No.”

“For chrissakes, then!” Millie stood up from the box where she had been sitting. “Just give me the damn knife! I’ll do it myself!”

Randy backed out of reach. “No.”

“I thought you were going to help me!” Anger fueled her stride, and she tried to stalk toward the man fading into the darkness. The six inches of duct tape stubbornly twined around her ankles caught her up short, and she would have plunged face forward onto the dirty floor if she hadn’t flung her arms wide and dropped into a squat. Finally her yoga lessons were paying off.

“I have helped you.” She couldn’t see him at all now. “I cut your hands free, I gave you food, I helped you to the bathroom—”

Her face burned. “You’re keeping me as much a prisoner here as Shaun Reid is.” Her gratitude toward this guy for putting a name to her brother’s murderer had shriveled up somewhere between the sandwich and the potty break, when she realized he was keeping her hobbled for a reason. “You’re probably in it with him.”

“I am not!”

She had learned a few things about Randy Schoof in the hour or so since he had stumbled into her new prison. One: He had little, if any, control over his emotions. Her father would have rolled his eyes at the way Schoof revealed his passion and his envy as he spoke about his wife, his hard luck, and Shaun Reid. He gave himself away with both hands, something van der Hoevens learned not to do by the age of four.

Two: Randy Schoof wasn’t very bright. She discounted formal education—she knew several environmental activists who hadn’t graduated high school and yet were razor sharp and well read—but Randy didn’t fall into that class. He seemed little informed about and less interested in the world. She got the feeling that in the right circumstances he might be downright gullible.

Three: He was scared of something. And that made her scared as well, because he had all the impulse control of a fourteen-year-old with ADHD. If it was Shaun Reid who frightened him, she might be in bigger trouble than before.

She sat back down. She needed to keep him her friend. “Just tell me what it is that’s keeping us here. You know, I have friends and connections all over the country. I could help you disappear.”

“I don’t want to disappear. I just want to stay in my house, with Lisa.”

“Lisa could come with you. I have an awful lot of money, you know.” Actually, compared to her parents in their heyday, she was practically a pauper. But she was pretty sure that in Randy Schoof’s eyes, she was rich.

“I don’t want a handout.” He was only a shadowy form as he spoke. Moonlight from the window above them shafted onto the floor several feet away. “I wasn’t looking for no special favors. I just want a chance to make a decent living out in the woods. That’s all I want. But you know, everything’s stacked against a guy like me. If you didn’t get into the business forty years ago, like Ed Castle, forget it.”

“Look, all I’m saying is that I can help you. But you have to help me.”

“I will. But we need to stay put for a while. I’m gonna call my wife soon, and then we’ll see.”

Theoretically, there was nothing keeping her from getting to her feet and inching her way across the warehouse until she found the door to the outside. She had more than a hunch that he’d stop her by force if he had to, though. Her arms were untied, but she didn’t have any illusions on that account. He had carried her into the ancient and odiferous water closet, and although he wasn’t much taller than she was, he was built like a hunk of Adirondack granite. It was, she thought, a kind of game. If she put him into a position where he felt he had to restrain her, she would lose. In order to keep playing, she had to stay on his side.

“Why don’t you go call her, then?”

She felt, rather than saw, his consideration.

“I won’t try to leave,” she promised. “If you want, you can even tie up my hands.” She forced a chuckle. “Although I’d appreciate it if you did it in front instead of in back. My shoulders are still aching.”

“Well . . .”

She crammed her fear and desperation into a tiny, tight box and pushed it to the back of her mind. She spoke to her latest captor in the jolly “we’re all in it together” tones that she used to cajole agreement out of sulky activists trapped in overlong meetings. “C’mon. I’m in a jam. You’re in a jam. I know you need to talk to your wife before you do anything else. The sooner you do that, the sooner we can get out of here.”

“Okay.”

His capitulation surprised her. “Okay,” she echoed. Stay on his side. Show him how well you cooperate. “Um . . . do you want to tie up my hands?”

“Naw. I figure you ain’t going nowhere. Even if you made it to the door, I’d be back by the time you could get outside. And outside, there isn’t no place to hide.” There was a scraping sound. Millie stiffened, but it was only him rising from whatever crate he had been perched on. “I’ll be back.”

She was alone in the darkness again.

 

6:05 P.M.

Millers Kill was closing down for the night. Russ walked with Clare along Main Street, hearing the door chimes jingling as shopkeepers locked up, looking into store windows where display lights simmered like fires banked to last out the night. This being one of the last dry towns in New York, there were no bars or pubs springing to life, no restaurants gearing up for an influx of customers. Except for gamers hanging out at All Techtronik or dads dashing into MacPherson’s Video for the latest movies—action for him, chick flick for her, Disney for the kids—the streets emptied out. If you lived in Millers Kill, you went elsewhere on a Saturday night. To the Dew Drop Inn across the Cossayuharie line, or to the second-run cinema in Fort Henry, four screens, no waiting. If you wanted Dolby Sensurround and well-sprung seats, it was another half hour to the Aviation Mall in Glens Falls. If you wanted to drink in a place where the bartender didn’t look at you funny for ordering a martini, well, Saratoga was forty minutes and a whole cultural time zone away.

“Are you having second thoughts?”

Clare’s voice broke him out of his reverie. “About what?”

She jammed her hands into her bomber jacket pockets and stared straight ahead. “Walking with me. In public.”

He laughed. “Are you kidding?” He looked at her more closely. Under a sodium streetlight, she was burnished orange, striped by black shadows from a leafless maple arcing over them. Like a kid wearing tiger face paint for Halloween. “No,” he said more seriously. “I don’t worry about stuff like that.” He hesitated. “Do you? Did—has anyone said anything to you?” By anyone, he meant Hugh Parteger. He was trying, he really was, not to be unreasonably jealous, especially because he recognized that if he were a better friend to Clare, he’d be throwing her toward the rich, single guy who was obviously nuts for her, instead of snarling like a dog in the manger.

She glanced behind her. “I had a visit from the diocesan deacon this afternoon. Before you, uh, arrived.”

“I hope you didn’t entertain him in your bathrobe, too.”

She glared at him, then blew at a strand of hair that had worked its way free of her usual knot. “It turns out the bishop sent Father Aberforth to—”

“Wait a sec. Who’s Father Aberforth?”

“The diocesan deacon.”

“Shouldn’t he be Deacon Aberforth?”

She glanced up at him sideways, the ghost of a smile in her eyes. “Somebody hasn’t been reading The History and Customs of the Episcopal Church in America. Career deacons are, in fact, properly designated ‘Father.’ Unless, of course, they’re women, in which case I’m sure Aberforth refers to them as ‘Ms.’ ” She snorted. “Anyway, he was there to call me out on a serious matter. One that he attributed to my inexperience and to not understanding how people will talk in a small town. A matter he wanted to keep quiet so as not to give any other priests bad ideas.”

His stomach sank.

“Us?” “Ha! Exactly what I thought. I was sure someone had come tattling to the bishop about seeing the two of us together.”

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” he said automatically.

“Oh, Russ.” She looked up at him ruefully. “Tell me you’d have no qualms describing our relationship to your wife. And make me believe it.”

He kept his mouth shut.

“Anyway, it turned out he and the bishop are hot under the collar about Emil Dvorak’s and Paul Foubert’s union ceremony. I was supposed to apologize and repent, and I wouldn’t—”

“What a surprise,” he said under his breath.

“—so Father Aberforth is going to talk to the bishop and let me know what shape my discipline will take.”

“Discipline? This isn’t just them getting cranky?”

She shook her head, sending another strand of hair floating loose.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I could be removed. Have to try to find a position in another diocese with a disrecommendation from my bishop.”

“Another diocese. In New York?” Leave? Leave? How could you leave?

“Maybe. I’d probably have better luck in one of the more liberal dioceses, like Maine or New Hampshire.”

Okay. New Hampshire wasn’t that far away. Of course, coming up with an excuse to visit there would be a challenge. And traveling to see Clare would be tantamount to acknowledging, to himself at least, that they were having an affair. Whether or not they were sleeping together. He tasted the idea: him and Clare, together, somewhere no one knew his name or marital status. How long would his self-control and fidelity to his vows, both of which he took great pride in, last under those circumstances?

About forty minutes, was his guess.

She looked up at him, her face grim, and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing. “It’s not getting censured that upsets me. It’s the fact that the whole time I thought Father Aberforth was talking about us, I was frantically thinking of ways to discredit what he might have heard.”

“That’s natural. Your bishop can’t get on you for your thoughts, Clare. Only for your actions.”

“Don’t you see? I wasn’t thinking about what was true, or what was right, or about being honest in my relationship with my church. I was thinking about covering my ass. Period.”

They had come to the intersection of Main and Radcliff. A wind off the mountains skirled across the open streets, rustling dried leaves and drawing a shiver from Clare. At least, he hoped it was the wind making her cold. They turned left toward the hospital. He considered, and rejected, several variations on Buck up! It’s not so bad! Finally he settled on “What can I do to help?”

Her lips curved. “You make me think of that Star Trek episode. Where Captain Kirk tells his love interest ‘Can I help’ is the most beautiful phrase in the universe.”

“Yeah, and then she gets run over by a truck. Let’s not go there.”

She looked away from him. “I’m wondering if I ought to talk with someone. About”—she waved a hand, indicating him, her, the town, everything— “the situation.” She glanced up at him again, and in the streetlight he could see her anxiety. “I wouldn’t have to name you.”

He was embarrassed. That had been his first thought, that he would be exposed. “To Father Aberforth?”

“Probably not. He hasn’t struck me as the sympathetic sort so far.”

He gagged the part of him that was yelling, Tell? Are you crazy? This was about her, not about him. “Is that what you want?” he asked carefully. “Sympathy?”

Her shoulder sagged. “I don’t know what I want. Absolution, I guess. For someone to tell me that I can sustain this tightrope act with you without hopelessly compromising my standards. For someone to confirm that what I feel for you isn’t wrong, that it’s a gift from God.”

“Some gift.” They rounded the corner and saw the Washington County Hospital sign glowing white and blue in the darkness. “ ‘Here, here’s your soul mate, the person who completes you. Whoops, did I mention you can’t actually be together? Have a nice day.’ ”

He glanced down at her. She was looking ahead, a complicated smile on her face. “That’s the nature of His gifts. He wants to see what you do with them.”

“Thanks, but I’ll stick to stuff from stores that take a return with receipt.” They had reached the walkway to the admissions lobby. Smokers clustered along the wall, the tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark. From the parking lot, visitors drifted up in twos and threes toward the doors. A nurse and a man in a wheelchair waited for a car making its way along the circular drive.

He turned to Clare. “If you need to talk with someone, do it.”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“I mean it. This”—he waved his hand in exactly the same way she had earlier, wondering why he couldn’t come up with a better way to indicate an emotional tidal wave threatening to swamp his life— “shouldn’t make you less of who you are. I don’t want that, and if you have to go to confession or talk to the bishop or whatever, you should do it.”

“And name names?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “If you have to. Although, I gotta tell you the truth, I’d rather you fudged the identity thing if you can. But if you have to, go ahead.” He settled his glasses firmly over his ears. “Just don’t make yourself smaller for me.”

She nodded.

“Let’s get inside. Talk to people who have worse problems than we do.”

 

6:10 P.M.

The first thing Rachel said when Lisa opened the door was “You do know your house is being watched, don’t you?” “What? Where?” Lisa stepped past her sister onto the doorstep. The automatic floodlight had come on when Rachel drove into the dooryard, and the beaten dirt and withered grass were brilliantly, if temporarily, lit. “I don’t see anybody.”

“Across the road from the start of your drive. I could see the squad car. I don’t know who’s staking you out, but it’s not Mark.”

Lisa stepped back inside and pulled the door shut behind her. “How do you know?”

Madeline was sound asleep on her sister’s shoulder, her eyelids almost translucent to her fine blue veins, her pink mouth open. A tiny snore bubbled from her nose. “Here, take her for a moment,” Rachel said, easing the five-year-old off her shoulder. Lisa took her niece, grunting slightly. Maddy’s frail baby-girl look was deceiving.

Rachel stripped off her coat. “Whoever was in the squad car waved to me. Mark would’ve flashed his lights.” She wiggled Madeline’s jacket off the little girl. “She fell asleep in the car,” she explained. “Mark dropped her off with the Tuckers when he was called in. Three little girls and a hyperactive dog—she probably didn’t stop running the whole time she was there.”

“You want to put her down in my bed?”

“Thanks.”

Lisa mounted the stairs, one hand on the banister to keep her from keeling over backward beneath the unexpected weight. Rachel slipped past her in the hall, and by the time Lisa reached her bedroom, her sister had the covers drawn back on the double bed. Lisa laid her niece down. The little girl curled like a bear cub in its den and buried her face in the pillow. Rachel tucked the bedclothes around Madeline, and the two sisters stood looking at her in the light shafting in from the hallway.

“She looks like a total angel,” Lisa said quietly.

“It’s an adaptive trait,” her sister said in the same low voice. “The child who looks sweet and adorable while sleeping is the child whose parents forget what a pain in the butt she can be when awake.”

Lisa smiled lopsidedly. Rachel could afford to be cynical about kids. She already had one. Lisa had hoped, this year, maybe . . . but if Randy went to prison, there weren’t going to be any kids, not this year. Maybe not ever.

Rachel, perhaps reading her mind, wrapped an arm around Lisa’s waist and hugged her. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go downstairs and have a drink.”

In the kitchen, Lisa ladled out two bowls of stew to go with their rum and Cokes. Rachel dug into hers, but Lisa had no appetite. She sat and watched her sister eat and listened to her dole out sensible advice between bites.

“You have got to call an attorney. Forget the whole court-appointed thing. Believe me, when it comes to criminal trials, you get what you pay for, and you have to be willing to pay for the best.”

“How are we going to afford that?”

“Mortgage your house? Sell it? You’ll find a way. Mom and Dad may help out.”

Lisa stared into her stew. “Great. Then we can spend the rest of our lives getting out from under a mountain of debt.”

“I’m only saying. If it was Mark, that’s what I’d do.”

“What if they don’t find Randy?”

Rachel wiped her mouth and pointed the napkin at her sister. “Lisa, you can’t get on a Greyhound bus nowadays without showing some ID. Even tiny little police departments like ours have computerized records and access to national databases. How long do you think Randy could last out there under those circumstances?”

“But you’re always hearing about crimes where no one was caught.”

“No one was caught because no one was ever identified as the perpetrator. That’s not what’s happening here. The woman ID’d Randy.”

“Then it’s her word against his! And he has an alibi!”

Rachel put her spoon down. “And that’s exactly why he needs a sharp laywer. Somebody who can take whatever holes exist and tear ’em open enough so that the jury has a reasonable doubt about whether Randy did it.”

Lisa wanted to shove her bowl and spoon out of the way, to set her forehead against the table and weep. She wanted a way out of this nightmare, and her sister, with her steady, implacable voice, was telling her there was none.

The phone rang.

“You want me to get that?” Rachel said.

“No.” Lisa rose from her chair and crossed the kitchen. “Hello,” she said into the receiver, already thinking about how quickly she could get off the phone and how on earth she was supposed to find a good criminal lawyer.

“Hey, honey. It’s me. Can you talk?”

“Randy!” Across the kitchen, Rachel sat up straighter. “Babe, where are you? No, wait, don’t tell me yet. Are you safe?”

“I’m fine. Look, I need to talk with you.”

“So talk.”

“In person.”

Her eyes widened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s really important. I think I have a way to get out of this mess. Remember how I told you I left some stuff in Mr. Reid’s office? To, you know, make him look suspicious instead of me?”

“I do, babe. That was so smart of you.”

“What if I told you I might have a way to get him to confess that he beat up Becky Castle?”

Lisa stared at the phone. Now what was he thinking? She couldn’t begin to imagine, which probably meant it wasn’t that good an idea. “I’d say that sounds . . . not very likely,” she said.

“I don’t want to get into all the details right now,” he said. “Please, honey. You gotta trust me. I need you to help me pull this off.”

Oh, boy, she was going to regret this. “Okay.”

“Great! Come to the Reid-Gruyn mill. Park in the back of the employee parking lot. You’ll see my truck. I’ll meet you there.”

The Reid-Gruyn mill? She had figured he would be halfway to Plattsburgh, holed up in a motel by now. “Where are you calling from?”

“The employee break room.”

“That’s crazy! Somebody will spot you!”

“That’s why I want to get off the phone.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said. “I love you. Bye.” She hung up without waiting to hear his reply.

“What’s going on?” Rachel’s voice, behind her, startled her. While she was wrapped up in the call, Rachel had risen from the table and was now standing in the doorway.

“He wants me to meet him.”

“Where is he?”

Lisa looked at her sister. Rachel’s face colored. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! What do you think I’m going to do?”

“Oh, Rache.” Lisa opened her arms and gathered her reluctant sister into an embrace. “If you don’t know anything, you won’t have to choose between protecting me or lying to Mark.”

Rachel took Lisa by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “Please, please promise me you’ll consider what I said. About getting a lawyer.”

“I will. I am.”

Lisa broke away and strode through the living room. She had opened the closet door and had her hand on her jacket when Rachel said, “Not that way. You’ll be followed.”

“Huh?”

Rachel pushed Lisa’s jacket back into the closet. She grabbed her bright red parka from where she had tossed it over the back of a chair. “Wear this.”

Lisa put it on.

“My keys are in the car,” Rachel said. “Wave to the cop watching the end of your drive. If any car flashes its lights at you, flash back.”

“What about Maddy’s booster seat? Will he notice that it’s empty?”

“I’ve got a tote bag full of books and Maddy’s backpack in there. Stack them in the seat and drape one of her blankies over everything.” She hugged her sister. “For God’s sake, be careful.”

The expression on Rachel’s face made Lisa pause. “Are you sure?” she said. “I don’t want to screw up your marriage or get you into trouble.”

Rachel smiled an echo of a smile. “We’re sisters. Of course I’m sure. Now go. The faster you get to wherever it is, the faster you can get back.”

There was something about starting up Rachel’s car, wearing Rachel’s parka, that made Lisa feel less like a desperate wife out to help her fugitive husband and more like a teenager breaking curfew. Her hands shook with nervous excitement as she shifted into gear, and she held her breath as she rolled down the length of her drive.

She reached the hardtop road and put on her blinkers in the opposite direction from where she intended to go—just in case. Sure enough, parked in the darkness, sat a squad car, just as Rachel had said. Lisa hunched into the parka, and as she turned onto the road and passed the cop car, she raised her whole arm and waved, putting as much sleeve between her face and the window as possible.

She drove in a state of suspended animation for the next several minutes, her eyes on the rearview mirror instead of the road, expecting at any moment to see swirling red lights and headlights flashing her to the side of the road. But nothing happened. No one was following her. She had gotten away with it. She grinned, and the feeling of power and relief that flooded her body was almost enough to make the earlier fear and anxiety worthwhile. She switched her attention to the road in front of her. She had to find a crossroad to take her to one of the roads that would set her on the route to the Reid-Gruyn mill.

 

6:15 P.M.

The first thing Clare heard was raised voices. Halfway down the hall from Becky Castle’s room, she stopped in her tracks as Ed Castle bellowed, “Goddammit, whyn’t you stop harassing her and find the son of a bitch who put her here!”

Russ frowned and quickened his pace. In other rooms, behind half-closed doors, hushed visitors clutched bouquets and green plants and peered toward the hall. Suzanne Castle’s voice fed the interest: “Will you be quiet, Ed! You’re upsetting her!”

Clare broke into a jog, catching up with Russ in time to round the corner and see him plunge through the door to Becky’s room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Ed Castle snarled. She couldn’t see his expression, but he didn’t sound like a man ready to forgive and forget.

Clare hovered in the doorway. Russ filled the minuscule hallway between the toilet and the rest of the room, and she didn’t want to squeeze past him and stick her foot through the moment.

“Whyn’t you lower your voice, Ed.” Russ sounded like a twenty-year sergeant reining in a frightened PFC, simultaneously nerve-settling and authoritative. “I don’t think you want everyone in the hospital knowing your business.” He nodded in the direction of the far bed. “Becky, I’m glad to see you feeling better. Lyle.”

Clare edged along the wall behind Russ until she spotted Lyle MacAuley, propped up against the window.

“You’re not welcome here.” That was Ed. She still couldn’t see him, but she didn’t need to. The anger threading through his words spoke for itself.

“Ed, I’m sorry about what happened this afternoon. I truly regret it, and I wish I’d never been put in a position where I had to choose between a friendship and doing my job. But I wouldn’t be any kind of a cop, and I wouldn’t be keeping the people of this town safe, if I had done otherwise.”

“Safe? Safe?” Clare heard a footfall. “Look at my little girl! You call this keeping us safe? If there weren’t ladies present, I’d tell you where you can stick your apology.”

“Ed,” his wife soothed.

Russ stepped into the room, enabling Clare to see the Castles for the first time. Ed was standing pugnaciously beside the head of Becky’s bed; Suzanne was rising from a chair, her hands stretched toward him. When Russ took one more step toward his deputy chief, she finally saw Becky Castle.

And gasped.

Lyle’s gaze flicked toward her. His bushy brows raised, in surprise or salute, she couldn’t tell. Suzanne caught sight of her, too; the older woman wrenched her mouth into something halfway between a grimace and a smile. Ed kept his eyes on Russ.

“I’m not just here to apologize,” Russ said. “Lyle and I need to talk with Becky.”

“Talk with her? What’s wrong with you people? She’s told you who beat her up. I gave you his address! What else do we have to do, make the arrest?”

“We’ve been out to Randy Schoof’s place,” Lyle said. “He’s not home, but we have an officer staking out his drive. I’ve interviewed a friend he was with earlier. The friend alibis him, but he did give a list of places Schoof might be.”

“Fine. Get out there and find the little bastard.”

“We intend to, Ed. But we need to cover all the bases.” Lyle twisted so that he was facing Becky directly. He smiled at her as if she were still a pretty girl. “Becky, do you know a man named Shaun Reid?”

“Sure.” Her injured mouth slurred the word. “He owns Reid-Gruyn Pulp an’ Paper.”

“What’s your relationship with Shaun Reid?”

Despite her stitches, Becky frowned. “Wha’ d’ you mean?”

“Is it professional? Personal?”

“I don’ have a relationship with him. I know who he is, that’s all.”

Lyle glanced up at Ed and Suzanne, a protective wall of parenting. “Maybe we should talk about this without your mom and dad here.”

“The hell you say.” Ed bristled. “Anything you got to ask Becky, you can ask in front of us.”

Lyle’s cool gaze flickered toward Russ. Russ nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Becky,” Lyle said, “are you involved with Shaun Reid?”

“Wha’? No!”

“For chrissakes, Reid is married. And he’s practically my age! What does this have to do with Becky’s assault?”

Lyle ignored Ed. “Becky, we’ve heard there’s a rumor around town that you’ve been seeing Shaun Reid. We’d like to know if there’s any truth to it, and if there’s anything more you’d like to tell us about when you were attacked.”

“Randy Schoof attacked me.” Becky spoke slowly, enunciating the words carefully. “When I wouldn’ give him the camera. I don’ know Shaun Reid personally.”

“You heard her. Now get out and arrest this Schoof before I—”

Russ raised one hand. “Ed, you really, really don’t want to be making threats in front of two peace officers.”

Suzanne stepped forward for the first time, laying her hand lightly on her daughter’s shoulder. “Please. Find the man who did this.” She looked at Russ, then Lyle. “Please.”

Lyle glanced at Russ again and saw something there Clare wasn’t privy to. The deputy chief nodded. “We will, Suzanne. You all take care. I’ll let you know as soon as we have more information.” He slipped past Russ and vanished into the hall.

“Ed,” Russ said. The older man scowled at him. “I’m sorry.”

Ed waved him off. “Words are cheap. Show me by bringing in that punk Randy Schoof.”

She could hear Russ take a breath, as if he were going to say more. Instead, he nodded, as Lyle had done, and trudged out of the room. Clare stepped into the space he had vacated. “Hi.” She put on a cheery smile. “I thought I’d stop by and see how everybody was doing.”

 

6:25 P.M.

“What do you think?” Lyle was leaning against the wall opposite the elevator bank.

“I think she’s either telling the truth, and it was Schoof, or she’s afraid to say anything in front of her parents, and Reid is somehow involved.” Russ removed his glasses and polished them on the sleeve of his thermal shirt.

“You want me to clear the room? Question her again?”

“No. We’ve pissed off the family more than enough for now. Schoof is our main target. Shaun’s probably a dead end. Consider the source of the information. If we uncover anything to change that, then we’ll come in with the full court press.”

“We’ve got an APB out on Schoof, and Noble’s cruising the town, checking out places he’s been associated with. Relatives’ houses, places of employment, the works.” Lyle’s radio squawked for attention. He unhooked it from his belt and keyed the mike. “MacAuley here.”

“Lyle, it’s Noble.”

Lyle looked at Russ. “Go ahead.”

“I’ve found the Castle girl’s missing car.”

“Good work. Where is it?”

“In the office parking lot at the Reid-Gruyn mill.”

Russ rehooked his glasses over his ears and reached for the mike. “Noble? It’s Russ. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Hold down the fort.”

“Will do, Chief.”

Lyle turned off the radio and stowed it. “So. Maybe there is something to the Reid angle after all.”

“We’ll see. I want you to follow up with Schoof’s buddies. Lean on the guy he said he was hunting with. See if you can shake anything else loose.”

“Okay. Anything new on the van der Hoevens?”

“Eric and the state lab guys were on site when I left.” Russ glanced at his watch. “If Judge Ryswick has come through with a warrant, Eric should be searching the house right now. Mark’s running the black Mercedes angle with the DMV. Washington County first, then surrounding counties.”

“That’s going to be the proverbial needle in the haystack.”

“I know. I’d pay good money for a single other lead as to where Millie van der Hoeven has gone, but the Mercedes, right now, is our best bet. You wouldn’t believe how many Mercedes have been registered in the tri-county area in the past two years.”

“And you didn’t believe ’em when they said the economy was recovering.”

Russ snorted. “Wanna guess the most popular color for Mercedes sedans?”

Lyle rolled his eyes. “Black?”

“There you go. That’s why you get to be the deputy.”

Lyle shoved away from the wall and punched the elevator button. “Coming?”

Russ jerked his head toward the other end of the hall. “I want a word with Clare before I go.”

“We should have her pry the truth out of the Castle girl.”

“No lie.” The elevator dinged, and the doors whooshed open. Russ slapped his hand against the edge of the door. “You know, she told me something earlier. Thinking about Shaun Reid.”

“What?”

“Have you heard anything about this GWP buying the mill out from under him?”

Lyle shook his head. The door dinged impatiently.

“According to the new Mrs. Reid, it’s on the table—if the Haudenosaunee land sale goes through. The question is, does Reid want to sell the place? Or would he be willing to try to throw a spanner in the works?” He let go of the door and was rewarded by the sight of Lyle’s thoughtful expression as the doors slid closed.

 

6:40 P.M.

Russ had always liked the Reid-Gruyn mill. When he had been a high school student, he had occasionally met up with Shaun at his father’s office, which even back in the late sixties had the ossified feel of a memorial to an industrial age long passed. He swung by regularly on patrol, but he hadn’t been past the twin stone pillars in decades. Driving through the remains of the gates—the actual iron grills had been taken down before Russ was born—he was pleased to see nothing had changed.

The old mill, moldering into the river, was a half-hidden shadow, tucked behind the new mill and far removed from the parking lot’s faded white lights. The new mill, which hadn’t been new since Calvin Coolidge was president, loomed beside the black, glittering rush of water. Even from the edge of the gate, Russ could see the phosphorescent white of the dam spill and, fronting the mill, long and low, the offices. Russ wondered how many of them were still occupied in an age of downsizing and outsourcing.

Noble was parked in the row of reserved spaces in front of the offices. His squad car was angled so its headlights bounced off an apple green Prius. Russ pulled in alongside him and got out.

Noble got out of his car. “Hey, Chief.”

“You got a flashlight?”

Noble handed over his Maglite. Russ shone it through the windows. The light picked out an overnight bag, a pair of sneakers, and the usual junk that collects in busy people’s cars: CD cases, crumpled fast food wrappers, an empty soda bottle.

“No dress.” Russ looked up at Noble. “She was supposed to be going to the big shindig at the new resort. Where’s her dress?”

“In the bag?” Noble was a bachelor, which led him to misinterpret women once in a while. Like now.

Russ shook his head. “Women don’t roll long dresses up in little bags. It’s like a guy’s suit. It has to be on a hanger.”

He fished his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and dialed 411 while handing the flashlight back to Noble.

“Millers Kill. New York,” he said. “Shaun Reid. Please connect me.”

His phone rang once. Twice. Three times. Then a female voice: “Hello, Reid residence.”

“Hi. Could I speak to Shaun, please?”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Russ Van Alstyne. From the Millers Kill police.”

There was a beat. “Has something happened to Jeremy?”

Jeremy? Was that Shaun’s kid’s name? “No, ma’am. Nothing like that.”

“Are you fund-raising?”

Russ felt his temper turn over, like a lazy engine on a cold morning. “Ma’am, it’s illegal for police to solicit funds. I need to speak to Shaun Reid on official business.”

“Well.” He could almost hear her unspoken rejoinder. There’s no need to get huffy about it. “I’ll get him for you.”

He stared at the finish of the gas-electric hybrid while waiting for Shaun to get to the phone. It was fresh and pretty and young. Like its owner. He was 95 percent sure that she had told them the truth, and Randy Schoof was their man. But Lyle had this story about Shaun’s involvement, and now here was the Castle girl’s car sitting smack-dab in front of his office. Two points of contact. Could be coincidental, but Russ didn’t like coincidences.

“Russ? Hey, long time no see. When was it, the Rotary Club meeting last year?” Shaun sounded upbeat, as if hearing from his old high school buddy were the highlight of his Saturday evening.

“Has it been that long? Time flies.”

“It sure does. How are you doing? How’s that beautiful wife of yours?”

“Linda’s great. Look, I have a little situation here at your mill, and I wonder if you could come over and take a look at it with me.”

The pause over the line was so long, Russ held the cell phone away from his ear to make sure he still had a signal. “Shaun?” he said.

“Sorry. A situation at the mill? What is it?”

“I’d rather explain it when you get here.”

“I’m, uh, due to be at the Algonquin Waters resort by seven-thirty tonight. Courtney and I are going to a dinner dance there. Business with some overseas guys. I really can’t miss it.”

“Don’t worry. I shouldn’t keep you too long. Linda and I are going, too, and she’ll have my head if I stand her up.”

“Ah. Yeah? Okay, then. I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be waiting right here in the parking lot.” He said good-bye and switched the phone off, wondering if maybe, just maybe, there was something to Lyle’s rumor after all. Shaun certainly sounded nervous about something.

 

7:00 P.M.

His palms were so damp the steering wheel slicked through his grip as he cornered the car. Shaun started to wipe his hands on his thighs and stopped himself at the last moment before making sweaty streaks on his tuxedo pants. Then he barked an unpleasant laugh. In a matter of minutes, he might be the best-dressed occupant of the Washington County jail.

He noticed the speedometer and eased up on the gas. He had taken Courtney’s Volvo wagon, since his Mercedes still had a small fan blowing across the driver’s seat. He knew his wife would want to appear at the dance in the sedan, and he had no way to explain the wet leather. It had, at the most, another thirty minutes to dry. That was if he made it to the dance, of course.

What had Russ found? What did he know? The list of possibilities was short and terrifying, so he refused to think about it. He breathed: in with the calm, out with the fear. He needed to be cool, collected, at the top of his game. Maybe this was just a fishing expedition. If it was, he had a chance to sail away unscathed—if he didn’t look like Richard Nixon proclaiming he wasn’t a crook. Russ had been a lifelong army guy. Narrow-minded. Unimaginative. Shaun had successfully gone toe to toe with CEOs and shareholders and bankers. He could handle Russ. Yes. In. Out.

His first surprise was seeing a squad car parked right up front, by the offices. Its headlights were trained on some little green car. Not that he was going to complain. The farther away Russ stayed from the old mill, the happier Shaun would be. He coasted to a stop a few spaces away from the mystery car and, retrieving tissues from Courtney’s center compartment, hastily wiped his palms dry.

Russ and a uniformed cop were flanking the car. Shaun walked forward, arm outstretched, on the offensive. “Russ, my man. What’s going on? What’s this car?”

Russ shook his hand. Then his eyes widened. “What the hell happened to your face?”

Shaun was ready for this one. He touched his cheek with two fingers and laughed ruefully. “This is what happens when you try Rollerblades at our age. I flew straight off the sidewalk and ran into a tree.”

“I hope the tree looks worse.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t.”

Russ gestured toward the green car with a solid-looking flashlight. “You recognize this car?”

“Never seen it before. It’s one of those hybrids, isn’t it?”

“Yep.” Russ shone the flashlight into the interior. Shaun could see a cheap tapestry overnight bag.

“Is it stolen?”

“Nope. It’s been missing, though.”

Shaun felt an electric prod against the small of his back. Christ. What if it was Millie van der Hoeven’s car? What was it doing here?

“It belongs to a young woman named Becky Castle. You know her?”

What the hell? “No.”

Russ made a grunting sound. “There should be a fancy dress hanging in here. I don’t see anything, do you?”

“No.” What was going on? What was Russ suspicious of? Shaun felt himself stretching out, seeking balance, looking for the right path through a potential minefield. Information was power, and he had precious little of it right now.

“This is where someone would park if they came to your office, right? It doesn’t look like the layout’s changed since your dad’s time.”

“There was no need to change it.”

“Were you in the office today?”

“Yes.” That sounded too bald. “It’s not unusual for me to come in on a Saturday for a while. I can get a lot of work done without any calls and faxes coming in.”

“I bet. About what time were you here?”

Shaun calculated rapidly. “Noon until two-thirty.”

Russ tipped the flashlight so the beam pointed at Shaun’s starched white shirt. The edge of the light splashed across his face. “Could we take a quick look inside your office?”

“Sure.” He needed to know what Russ was looking for. He had nothing to do with this car, and there wasn’t anything in his office that might point toward the van der Hoevens. But why did Russ have him come out to see Becky Castle’s car? Wait a second. Castle. He knew a Castle. “Is this Becky Castle related to Ed Castle? Castle Logging?”

“His daughter.” Russ pointed his flashlight toward the station wagon. “Is that your car?”

Shaun’s face tightened. He forced a light tone into his answer. “Sure is.”

“Were you using it earlier today?”

“Yeah,” he lied. He dug into his pants pocket, fumbling for the office keys. “Here we are,” he said when he found them. “Let’s go on in.”

Inside the door, he flicked on the lights. The reception area sprang to life. Thank God, there was nothing amiss. He crossed the floor and unlocked the door to the inner offices. He flung it wide open. “Here they are. Nothing much has changed. Mine is where my dad’s used to be.”

Russ strolled into Shaun’s office, his gaze taking in everything. “Looks like you did some redecorating.”

“Courtney,” Shaun said.

“Nice couch. Long enough to really stretch out on.”

“Yeah, she has an eye for—” He spotted the pale pink fabric wedged in the cushions the same time Russ did.

Russ leaned forward and pulled it free. It was a pair of pink thong panties. Russ held them up on one finger. “Yours?”

“Where the hell did that come from?”

Russ bent over and pulled the leather cushions away from the couch frame. There was a scattering of coins, some crumbs, and, balled into one side, another piece of fabric. Russ lifted it, and it unfolded into filmy pale pink pantyhose. He looked at Shaun.

“I swear. I have no idea how those things got here. I never saw them before in my life.”

“Where’s that door lead to?” Russ nodded toward the far wall.

“It’s my bathroom.”

“Anybody else use it? Your secretary, maybe?” Russ opened the door and switched on the light.

“Not . . . usually.”

Russ’s large frame blocked Shaun’s view into the bathroom. “You sure you don’t want to rethink your statement about not knowing Becky Castle?”

“I’ve never met the woman!” Shaun struggled to keep his breathing even. In with the calm. Out with the fear. It didn’t matter what Russ thought about this Castle woman. In that, Shaun was completely, utterly blameless. The important thing was to make sure they didn’t link him to Eugene van der Hoeven. And that they stayed away from the old mill.

“Come on in and take a look.”

Shaun squeezed into the bathroom next to Russ. There, on the vanity, was a woman’s makeup bag, unzipped. Next to it was a pair of dangling chandelier-style earrings, the kind that would go with a—Shaun caught a flash of hot pink out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see a full-length strapless satin dress on the shower rod. It was dangling crookedly from its straps, as if someone had hastily looped them over the hanger and then hurried away.

“It looks to me,” Russ said, “as if a woman came in here to give someone a private showing of her fancy ball gown and all its accessories. And then she let someone take them all off.” He looked down at Shaun. “Or I suppose it could be that you’re a transvestite.”

“I am not a cross-dresser!” Shaun managed to get out.

Russ nodded. “Pink would be a lousy color for you, anyway.” He moved toward the door, forcing Shaun to back out ahead of him. “We’re still missing Becky’s coat.”

“This is ridiculous. You have no proof these are Becky Castle’s.”

Russ ignored Shaun’s protest in favor of walking back to the reception area. “This where you hang your coats?” He rolled the closet door open.

Thank God, there weren’t any strange articles of clothing hanging there. “That’s my secretary’s raincoat,” he said, “and the other two are mine.”

Russ ran his boot across the floor of the closet before patting down the coats. He dipped his hand into Shaun’s jacket’s pocket and came up with a shiny clutch of keys.

“Yours?”

Shaun shook his head. He was speechless.

“Let’s see if the slipper fits, huh?” Russ crossed to the door and stepped outside. Shaun hurried after him. Next to the green Prius, Russ bent over and, careful not to touch the car itself, inserted one of the keys. He turned it. There was a popping sound as all the locks sprang free.

Russ straightened and spoke to the uniformed cop. “Noble, will you get on the horn and get a crime scene investigation unit over here? And since Lyle headed up Becky Castle’s questioning, let’s get him on the scene, too.”

The cop nodded and disappeared into his squad car.

Russ turned to Shaun, a mournful expression hanging from his face. “So, old friend. Anything you want to tell me?”