Bet walked into the tavern as she had a thousand times before, Schweitzer on her heels. The room felt welcoming, with only a few Lakers at the bar. The jukebox in the corner played an old bluegrass tune.
Walking out to the back deck, Bet saw a familiar figure at her favorite table, his beaver-fur hat balanced on its rim. Two glasses of single-malt scotch sat in front of him alongside a white envelope.
Bet sat down and Schweitzer slid under the table, hopeful a few french fries might fall his way. Bet picked up her glass and sipped the exquisite liquor, tracing its heat as it slid past her heart lodged in her throat.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
“Are you?”
Bet didn’t answer. Instead she looked at the light shining through the slats of the deck onto the cold, black water below. Fall in Collier, her favorite season. With October here, snow was just around the corner and the weather was crisp and sharp, sending summer into hiding for another year. The election had been canceled when it became clear Dale’s injuries would prevent him from running. Hypoxia had impacted his speech and movements. It wasn’t clear how much he would recover. She decided it was pointless to make Dale’s tricks on her public now; she was, after all, fully ensconced as the sheriff of Collier.
At least for the next four years.
“You okay?” Rob asked.
“I will be. I need to know the truth.”
“What’s the latest with Eric?” Rob asked after a moment of silence, neither moving to open the letter.
“His attorney is trying for diminished capacity; he wants to have the charge reduced to manslaughter. Along with the divorce and the death of his mother, the attorney is using Eric’s bizarre hoarding down in the cave as a way to show he suffered from psychological issues and that the shooting was in self-defense. Seeley had that old revolver, which we think he discharged; tests on the gun showed it was fired recently. Eric states Emma was caught in the crossfire. With Seeley still unable to remember, there isn’t a lot of evidence to the contrary.”
“Why not go for an out-and-out insanity defense?”
“Eric evaded prosecution, lied to me for days; he appeared perfectly sane to a lot of people long after the crime happened. I think the attorney knows he can’t win that one, so he’s trying to figure out what he can win. They may plead him out.”
Thomás came out, but Bet waved him away, asking for a few more minutes.
“Want to know the worst part of all this?” Bet said.
“What’s that?”
“Those kids, with their diary and hope to find gold. If they’d only waited and told me about it, I would never have let them go down there. They wouldn’t have surprised Eric in his cave and none of this would have happened.”
“Most violent deaths are that way, Elizabeth.” Rob touched her arm, his fingers warm. “One little thing would have prevented a tragedy. You can’t let that get to you.”
“I know. It’s just sad.” The two sat for a moment with thoughts for the dead.
Bet couldn’t imagine the terror Seeley had gone through, down in that cave all those days alone, endlessly searching for a way back to the surface. Victim of a gunshot because Eric had protected his father’s legacy at all costs. Emma dying because Eric had hoped his father might one day return.
Bet reflected on Lillian’s death. She thought Eric’s story was probably true and Lillian had died in a terrible accident. The medical examiner had confirmed that Lillian had died from a cervical fracture of the fourth vertebra. She would have died almost immediately from asphyxiation brought on by paralysis, consistent with a fall.
Bet returned to the reason she’d met with Rob this evening.
“If it’s not me, it has to be Dylan, right? We were born at the same time. We’re the only two children in Collier that make sense. The affair with your father had to be my mother or Tracy Chandler.”
Rob nodded, but Bet couldn’t tell what he was thinking. They’d spent a lot of time together over the last month. He’d helped her move the last of her father’s personal stuff out of the house, they’d shared meals and long walks, but he remained very much a mystery.
Bet looked at the envelope. “Let’s find out.”
“This won’t tell us everything.”
“I know. There will still be unanswered questions. But it’s a start.”
Bet imagined the miners, their bones entombed in the earth. And the gold. The veins she’d seen in the little room before her last ride into the lake. She’d never told anyone, not even Rob.
Rob picked up the results of their DNA tests and tore the envelope open, staring for a long moment at the piece of paper in his hand, his face expressionless.
“Well?” Bet prompted him. “What does it say?”
“What are you hoping the answer will be?”
Bet had thought about that question ever since they’d decided to send their DNA in to be analyzed. She’d never had a brother. She’d always been an only child. But then, she’d had Dylan and Eric. They had been like brothers once.
But that wasn’t the relationship she pictured with Rob.
She looked at his face, lit in the warmth of the Christmas lights tacked to the walls above his head, and knew her answer.
“I don’t want to be your sister, Mr. Collier.”
Rob leaned over and kissed Bet, gently, on the lips.
“Be careful what you ask for, Elizabeth.”