• twenty-four •

“He is a good and great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest in his progress, he should trample them down.”

—Jane to Diana Rivers, Jane Eyre

Emily invited Jamie for dinner Sunday night, partly so they could finish up the paperwork on the Reed trust but also to try to force Katie to abandon her superstitious belief that Jamie’s love for her was putting him in danger. She’d told Katie only to plan for an extra person, not mentioning Jamie’s name so Katie wouldn’t have an opportunity to protest.

Jamie arrived fifteen minutes late, which was quite unlike him. Emily opened the door to see Luke standing behind him and the sheriff’s department SUV on the drive. Jamie’s ancient Honda was nowhere in sight.

The young redhead’s freckles stood out against his white skin. As she took his coat she saw his hands were shaking.

“What’s going on? Did you have an accident?”

“He near as all get-out got himself run off the road.” Emily chose to attribute the steel in Luke’s eyes to that incident alone. “Damn lucky to be alive.”

Emily was stunned. Could Katie’s superstitious fear have grounds in reality after all? Had she herself endangered Jamie’s life by inviting him here?

“Come into the library. You need some sherry.”

She settled Jamie in her own chair in front of the fire with a generous glass of Harveys Bristol Cream. “Now tell me what happened.”

Jamie gathered breath with difficulty. “I was on the highway north of Tillamook. You know that bit where it runs right up close to the bay on the west side and the marsh on the east?”

Emily nodded. That section of road always made her uncomfortable, although it was safe enough under ordinary conditions.

“This car came up behind me. Big old thing, one of the old gas-guzzlers. Pontiac, maybe, I don’t know. First thing I knew, he was right on my bumper. I would’ve pulled over and let him by, but there’s no shoulder to speak of along there.” Jamie shuddered and took another drink of sherry. “So I sped up instead. But he sped up right along with me till it wasn’t safe to go any faster. Not on that winding wet road.”

Luke took up the tale. “Thank God I was right behind the bugger. Saw him nuzzle up to Jamie’s bumper—didn’t know it was Jamie at the time—and put on my siren. Guess he hadn’t seen me before that. He swerved left, sideswiped the Honda and pushed it onto the shoulder, and roared off down the road. Jamie was past the marsh by that time so he ended up on firm ground.”

Emily’s heart was racing as fast as the unknown car. “Did you go after him?”

Luke shook his head. “Stopped to make sure Jamie was okay—recognized his car at that point. But I called in the other guy’s license number, so he should’ve been picked up by now. Distinctive car—light blue Pontiac, ’bout a ’78, I’d say. Hard to hide in that.”

She turned to Jamie. “You weren’t hurt?”

“Just shaken up. I may have to break down and get a new car, though.” He gave a pale smile. “I hate to think what would’ve happened if Lieutenant Richards hadn’t been there.”

“Did you recognize the driver?”

“No. I was too busy trying to stay on the road to get a good look at him.”

“Who’d want to hurt Jamie?” she asked Luke. “It’s not like he’s a criminal lawyer who’s put some killer away for life. He handles property transactions, for pity’s sake.”

Katie spoke from the doorway. How long had she been standing there? “I know who’d want to hurt him. Or rather what. I told you, but you wouldn’t listen. It’s the curse.”

*   *   *

It’s true. I am cursed. And now the curse has fallen on Jamie.

None of them will believe me—though Jamie, sweetly, looked as if he wanted to—but I know it. The curse is real.

I will never be able to allow a man to love me, lest he die.

And somehow I know it just has to be all Jake’s fault. If he weren’t already dead, I’d kill him. He may as well have killed me.

*   *   *

Luke stayed for dinner at Emily’s, then took Jamie back to his own place for the night. Dinner with Emily was excruciating given the way he felt about her right now, but he wanted to keep an eye on the boy until he had a better idea of what was behind the incident on the road.

Monday morning he drove Jamie back to his car to wait for the tow truck, then at Jamie’s insistence took him to his office. “I won’t be driving anywhere for a while,” Jamie said, and Luke couldn’t argue with that.

He went on into the office. The guilty driver had not been caught the night before, but Heather had left Luke the name and address of the owner of the vehicle—a name he didn’t recognize, and a house on the south side of town, near Jeremiah Edwards’s place. Luke drove down there. No one was home, and the car was nowhere to be seen. The mailbox bulged as if the owners had been gone for several days.

Strange. Luke checked the DMV report—the only phone number listed was a local one, no cell. Not much point in calling then.

He was turning to go when a quavery voice called to him from across the street. “Jenkinses are out of town.”

Luke squinted toward the voice and saw an old woman leaning on her porch rail. He started toward her. “How long they been gone?”

“’Bout a week. Flew to California to see their kids.”

“Flew? Where’s their car?”

The old woman shrugged. “Preacher drove them to Portland to the airport. Maybe he’s using it.”

“Preacher?”

“Preacher Edwards. He lives right there.” She gestured toward the house to her left, which Luke remembered from his previous visit. “Not home now, though.”

No, he wouldn’t be. He’d be at Emily’s, working. Luke tried to picture Edwards behind the wheel of the old blue Pontiac, zooming up on Jamie’s bumper with apparent intent to kill. He couldn’t put it together. What on Earth could Edwards have against Jamie?

Maybe the Pontiac had been stolen, or lent to someone else. He needed to find that car.

He called Heather and asked her to relay an APB to points north of Stony Beach all along the coast. But he didn’t expect results from that. If the driver had kept going, he either would’ve been picked up or he’d be in Canada by now. More likely he’d ditched the car, especially if it wasn’t his own.

Luke drove slowly back toward the spot where Jamie’s Honda had left the road, scanning both sides of the highway. About a mile south of Stony Beach he spotted a flash of sky blue amid the green of the forest and undergrowth along the right side of the road. He pulled over and walked back, his coat sleeves and trouser legs snagging on blackberry brambles as he pushed through the brush.

Yep, there it was, an old blue Pontiac. He checked his notes—the license number matched.

The car was locked and showed no signs of forced entry. The paint along the right side was badly scratched, consistent with its having scraped the driver’s side of Jamie’s car. Luke shined his flashlight inside but couldn’t see anything of significance. The interior was neat and mostly clean, with only a bit of dried mud on the driver’s side floor mat off somebody’s boots.

If he could get at the mud, he might be able to match it to the perp’s boot treads. Long shot, but it was all he had. He jimmied the window down, unlocked the door, leaned in, and took flash photos with his pocket camera. Photos of the position of the mud clots would be a lot more useful than the clots themselves, which would no doubt crumble as soon as they were touched.

While he was there, he checked the glove compartment. Car manual, registration in the name of Howard Jenkins, a flashlight, and a first aid kit. Nothing personal, nothing whatsoever to show who’d been driving the car. He trained his own flashlight along the back of the driver’s seat, hoping for a hair or two. No joy, but he ran a tissue along the smooth vinyl. It came away greasy, and he dropped it into an evidence bag to be tested for DNA. He also dusted the door handles, steering wheel, and dashboard for fingerprints but found nothing usable, only smudges. Apparently yesterday’s driver had been wearing gloves.

He called for a tow, thankful he’d found the car on his own turf. The incident itself had happened outside his bailiwick, but finding the car here would give him reason enough to claim the case. And he had a gut feeling the car was going to lead him a lot farther than to this lonely spot in the woods.

When Luke got back to the office, the autopsy report on Roman was waiting for him. It showed a number of injuries consistent with his three-story fall, but one finding had the ME puzzled: a wide bruise that wrapped most of the way around the left ankle, made shortly before death.

Luke studied the photo of the bruise and thought about the trajectory of Roman’s fall. Several things he might have run into on the way down—drainpipe, porch roof, even creepers on the porch columns—but nothing that would wrap around his ankle like that. Nor could he see how the final impact with the driveway could cause such a mark.

That bruise looked like it was made by a hand. He grabbed his hat and headed out to Windy Corner.

*   *   *

The work on Emily’s private sitting room was drawing to a close, and she went up Monday morning to inspect it. She stood in her new sitting room and pivoted slowly, imagining how her chosen furniture—assembled from the Windy Corner attic, Lacey Luxuries, and Remembrance of Things Past—would fit into the space. The love seat would go nicely under the window, chairs and end tables to the sides. But once she put the long bookcase along the inside wall, the extra two feet occupied by that inexplicable paneled wall Jeremiah had uncovered were going to seriously cut into the space she had to move around in. Of all things, she hated a crowded room.

She pulled out a tape measure to be sure her instinct was correct. Yes, once the furniture was in place, she’d have only about a two-foot-wide passage between the chairs and the bookcase. Definitely not enough.

Emily hadn’t forgotten the peculiar feeling that came over her when she touched that wall nor the reason for her decision to retain it. But she couldn’t live in a cramped space. Funny feeling or no funny feeling, that inexplicable wall would have to go.

“Jeremiah!” she called.

“Yes, ma’am?” he answered from the small storage room that was being transformed into a bathroom.

“We’re going to have to get rid of this wall.”

Jeremiah ducked his head under the lintel. He was looking even more haggard since his daughter’s burial. Emily hadn’t dared let him know she knew about that; he was such a private person, and lately a bit frightening. The dark shadows under his eyes, combined with his drawn cheeks and lantern jaw, made him look like crazy Jonathan from Arsenic and Old Lace.

Now he frowned deeply, accentuating the resemblance further. “Don’t think that’s a good idea, ma’am. That wall has some good reason to be there. Could be structural.”

“How could it be when it isn’t even in the plans?”

“Maybe the plans were bad. Builder realized that as he worked and put this wall in to fix it. Better leave it alone.”

Emily looked askance at him. When they’d discussed the wall before, he’d been ready to do whatever she decided. Why change his mind now? If he’d discovered any legitimate reason to leave the wall alone, he would tell her, but instead he was making up silly excuses. His daughter’s death must be affecting him even more deeply than she’d guessed.

Under the circumstances, she decided not to press the issue. She’d get Charlie Cartwright to come over when Jeremiah wasn’t around and give her a second opinion.

*   *   *

Luke banged on the front door of Windy Corner with more urgency than usual. Within seconds Emily opened it. “Luke! What brings you here?”

He winced at the appropriateness of that question, which only a week ago would have been no question at all. Emily would have brought him there—no excuse required.

“Developments. Is Edwards here?”

“Upstairs. They’re working on my bathroom. Why?”

“I’ve got several little matters I want to go over with him.” An understatement, but he didn’t want to worry her.

She frowned. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to talk to you about Jeremiah myself. Come into the library.”

Luke listened in growing concern as Emily told him about her conversation with Mrs. Elliott a couple of days before. So Edwards’s daughter was dead—pregnant and dead. He narrowed his eyes, remembering his talk with Charlie Cartwright weeks ago. “I wonder … Charlie told me Edwards had accused his boy Eli of making improper advances toward Rachel at a party. Maybe he suspected Rachel’d been raped. Must’ve known it wasn’t really Eli. Knowing Jake’s reputation, wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to pin the rape on him.”

“You think Jeremiah’s capable of murder?” Emily’s voice became a shocked whisper.

“To avenge his daughter’s death? I wouldn’t put it past him. And I haven’t told you what I found out this morning. It could’ve been Edwards who was driving the car that tried to run Jamie down.” He related the trail that had led him to the Pontiac. “On top of that, there’s some reason to believe Roman might have had a little help falling off your roof. He has a bruise on his ankle I can’t see any other way to account for.”

“And Jeremiah was the only one near him when he fell.”

Luke nodded. “Nothing conclusive, but facts seem to be piling up against the good preacher.”

Emily’s brow furrowed. He’d always liked that look on her, loved her braininess and the way she always tried to see all sides of a question. If only she hadn’t put blinders on where Katie was concerned. “I can see why he might kill Jake. But what about Roman? He couldn’t have thought them both responsible for Rachel’s pregnancy.”

“Maybe Roman knew something. Saw him near the stairwell when Jake was killed.”

“Why wouldn’t Roman have spoken up right away? I don’t see him having the kind of loyalty to Jeremiah that would make him lie for him.”

Luke shrugged. “Maybe he was blackmailing him. Edwards went along for a bit, then decided to put an end to it.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” Emily didn’t look convinced. “But why in the world would he go after Jamie? That makes no sense at all.”

“Yeah, you got me there.” Katie’s idea of a curse wasn’t even worth considering.

“And besides—if Jeremiah killed Jake, he would have had to come out of the stairwell through the bedroom. Even if he came out of that room before Roman, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds before. Wouldn’t Matthew have seen him, too?”

That point had been bothering Luke as well. The time was so tight, no way the murderer could’ve escaped unseen. “That’s one hell of a wrinkle, all right. But like Sherlock Holmes says—”

“‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”

“That’s right.” Here she was finishing his sentences again. The two of them made such a good team, professionally as well as personally. Why couldn’t she have trusted him?

He stood. “I’m going up to talk to Edwards. You better stay here—just in case he gets nasty.”