Copper Lake Confidential (24 page)

But damned if Stephen didn’t still believe she was guilty.

Drawing a deep breath, he went out the door and walked over to the lone occupied table. “Duncan West? I’m Stephen—” a slight hesitation, then he offered his middle name instead of his last “—Keith. I understand you’re in charge of volunteers around here. I’d like to talk to you about that.”

Chapter 14

T
he second dealer, an elderly man by the
name of Bartlett, was so pleased with everything Macy had shown him that she’d
half expected him to want to carry it all away with him. He pronounced every
piece excellent, exquisite or extraordinary and told her he could sell every one
of the paintings that very day to customers who kept him on the lookout for
those artists. He’d even known of a small museum that would pay handsomely for
the wedding portrait.

That one, she’d said drily, wasn’t for sale. She still intended
to destroy it.

Mr. Bartlett had left the house shortly before noon. They’d
taken a break for lunch in town, where they’d run into Anamaria and her
sister-in-law, Jessica, who had promptly invited Clary to join their kids for a
play-day at the library. Macy had agreed because the child needed a break and
time with kids her own age. Besides, this afternoon the primary thing on the
schedule was getting Mark’s office and the nurseries packed up.

“Where is Stephen?” Brent asked when they returned to the
house.

“He had things to do.” What things, she’d wondered all morning,
and did they involve her? Conceit to think that his entire life revolved around
her now when a week ago he hadn’t known she existed. But she couldn’t shake the
unsettled feeling that she was the reason for his absence.

As she set her purse on the counter, Brent wrapped his arm
around her. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you. You’re a grown woman. You don’t
have to sneak out in the middle of the night to visit your boyfriend.”

Her face turned deep red, making both him and Anne laugh.
“You’re such a
good
girl,” Anne said, pinching her
cheek on the way past.

“You know, he could have just spent the night here.”

Macy didn’t mention that the point had been for
her
to get out of the house. She didn’t need to, since
Anne scrunched up her face. “New lover in worthless husband’s bed? Eww.”

Her cheeks burned hotter, and she felt the need to pull her
shirt from her throat to ease the constriction. Problem was, the scoop-neck tank
was nowhere near her throat.

Anne laughed again and hugged both of them. “No more teasing
about cute little nerd vet. Let’s get to work. Where do you want me?”

Three rooms on the agenda, and Macy couldn’t bring herself to
set foot in two of them. Something must have shown in her expression because
Anne’s own expression turned serious, her voice gentle. “I’ll take care of the
baby’s room, okay?”

All she could manage was a grateful—and guilty—nod. Stephen was
wrong for even considering bad things of Brent or Anne. They were good people
who loved her and showed it every day. She would accept it was Mark’s ghost
haunting her before she’d believe it could be either of them.

When she walked into Clary’s room five minutes later with an
armful of packing material, she realized how tense she’d been by the sudden ease
that flowed through her. Her shoulders and neck relaxed, her gut unknotted and
the taut lines across her forehead went away. The room smelled of her daughter,
powdery, sweet, innocent, and she swore if she closed her eyes, giggles and soft
snores would echo off the walls.

She was sorting baby clothes when a distant ring sounded. Her
hand automatically went to her pocket, where her cell phone sat silent. A moment
later Brent called up the stairs, “You just got a hang-up, Anne.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” Anne passed the open doorway on her way to
the stairs. “Can you toss it up to me?”

“What if it breaks?”

“Are you doubting my ability to catch? Or yours to throw
accurately?”

Macy smiled as she started folding a pile of spit-up-free
clothing and stacked them in a box, then immediately her mouth slipped into a
frown. What if Stephen wasn’t wrong? What if it
was
her brother or her sister-in-law, or both of them working together? What
if they’d decided she wasn’t fit to have Clary on her own? If they’d decided
they would rather have her daughter and their money than have Macy in their
lives?

Could Brent sell her out for money? Could Anne?

If either of them were guilty, she would be devastated. But
devastation healed. She’d been there before with Mark, with the baby, and she’d
made it back. Well, almost back. She would recover, but she would be, oh, so
much sadder for it.

The cell phone rang again, this time just down and across the
hall. Anne answered quickly, sounding as breezy and carefree as ever. That was
one of the things Macy admired about her. No matter how grim life was, she
always sounded as if it were good.
If you could pretend it,
you could be it.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Anne was saying. “I left my cell at
the house when we went to lunch. What do you need?”

Where
was
Stephen? Macy hadn’t
thought to ask him how long his business would take. It was amazing how much she
missed him. The very last thing she’d expected when she’d driven up from
Charleston last week was to fall in love. She wasn’t sure she would ever do that
again in this lifetime. But here she was. And she was hopeful in ways she hadn’t
known possible when she’d fallen in love with Mark.

Anne passed the room, blowing out a harsh breath, then headed
downstairs. The sound of her voice, tight and controlled, floated back up, but
her words were indistinguishable. Macy hoped she wasn’t getting bad news about
her sister.

If she existed. If anyone outside the Irelands existed in
Anne’s life.

Damn it, she
hated
this! She wasn’t
a suspicious person. She gave her trust and didn’t take it back until it was
proved a dozen times over that it wasn’t deserved. She
wouldn’t
let doubt taint two of the closest relationships in her
life.

“Macy?” Anne called from below. “Could you come down here a
minute?”

Her muscles knotted, her heart fluttered and sweat broke out
across her forehead. She tried to tell herself she was overreacting; it was just
the near-constant stress, all the reminders of Mark and the true evil she’d
lived with. There was no reason to panic.

But that was the hell of panic attacks. There
was
no reason.

She forced her fists to unclench from the tiny pink silk dress
she held, laid it aside and rose from the rocker. Because she was shaky, she
held the railing all the way down the stairs, then walked to the back of the
house. Finding the kitchen empty, she pivoted toward the office door, stopping
at the threshold as she heard the low rumble of the garage door opening.

“Where’s Anne?” she asked of Brent, who was loading a batch of
files into a carton.

“She’ll be here in a second. How’s it going upstairs?”

“Okay. Here?”

He gestured toward the sealed cartons stacked in the middle of
the room. “Did you know this desk has three hidden compartments?”

“I’m not surprised. A lot of old furniture does.”

“Nothing hidden in any of them.”

“Because Mark’s greatest secret was hidden in his soul.”

“If he had one,” Brent agreed.

Macy’s gaze was drawn to the credenza, and she shifted
uncomfortably. Brent had gathered all the photographs in the room there, two
dozen or so, mostly portraits though also a few snapshots. One in particular
stood out to her, a picture of Mark when he was a teenager, standing beside his
grandfather, both of them grinning ear to ear as if they had known something no
one else in the world knew.

And they had. He was fourteen the first time he’d killed.
Probably half the bodies unearthed at Fair Winds had been his work.

Queasiness swept through her. A handsome kid, a strong
impressive man, the majesty of Fair Winds rising behind them. Monsters and the
place that spawned them.

Something rippled across the surface of the photo. Just a
reflection, she told herself. A dust mote caught by the sun. But the rippling
continued, chilling her blood, drawing her across the threshold, first one step,
then two, more. Her hand shook as she reached for the frame. The wood was hot,
the glass shimmering, the picture changing, transforming.

“Macy?”

Brent’s voice sounded distant, but she couldn’t answer. Her
jaws were locked tight, her teeth clamped together, goose bumps giving birth to
goose bumps all up her spine.
Monsters.
But not two.
Three. Superimposed right next to Mark was Anne with her ready smile, her
compassionate eyes. An unholy trinity of evil.

“Oh, dear God,” she whispered just as Anne’s voice came from
the dining room.

“In here. Now.”

Footsteps shuffled, a shoving sound, a muffled curse. Macy
looked at the photograph again and saw nothing but what had always been: Mark
and his grandfather, grinning at the camera. The glass was normal glass, the
wood just wood. She turned slowly, seeing Brent still behind the desk but on his
feet, a stunned and bewildered look on his face, and she turned more and saw
Stephen, dazed, disheveled, barely able to sit upright in the chair nearest the
desk. A man stood a few feet behind him, his white shirt rumpled and stained,
his face vaguely familiar, and Anne was in the doorway.

Anne, her sister-in-law, her friend, her daughter’s second
mother, holding a gun on them all.

* * *

“Anne...what the hell—?”

She smiled tightly at Brent’s shocked words. “Yeah, that was my
first thought, too, when this idiot called and said he’d kidnapped our cute
little nerd vet. What the hell.”

“He was
asking
questions about
you!” the man protested.

“Any fool can ask questions. It’s putting the answers together
in the right way that matters, and this fool couldn’t have done that.” Disgust
crossed her face. “We had a plan, Duncan. All you had to do was stick to it. You
didn’t have to drag Stephen into it. You didn’t have to drag yourself any
further into it than you already were. But you panicked.”

Macy looked from Duncan to Stephen. His eyes were glazed, and
his rumpled hair showed blood crusted and drying at the crown of his head. He
shook his head several times as if trying to clear it without success.

From somewhere upstairs came Scooter’s barking, and she
realized she hadn’t seen the dog since they’d returned from lunch. He’d probably
gone to snooze on her bed while they were gone, and Anne had closed the door,
shutting him in. At least he’d be safe up there.

“What’s going on, Anne?” Brent demanded. “Who is this guy?”

“He works at Claremont,” Macy said. “In administration, I
think.”

The man shot Anne a look as if her recognition justified his
kidnapping Stephen.

Claremont, Anne, a kidnapping, a gun... Oh, God, Stephen had
been right. Anne had wanted everyone to think Macy was insane. She wanted
possibly her daughter and definitely their money, and she was willing to do
anything to get it. Marry Brent. Befriend Macy. Mother Clary. Lie and deceive
and torment.

Murder. Just like Mark.

Brent’s shoulders slumped, and a look of such anguish crossed
his face that Macy’s heart broke for him. “You want the money? You married me so
you could get access to my sister? To her money?”

“You think I’d go to this much trouble for Macy’s inheritance?
Invest more than a year of my life for her piddling little fortune?” Anne shook
her head with mock disappointment. “I want Clary’s money. And Clary.”

Anger surged through the numbness that had fallen over Macy.
“You can’t have my daughter.”

“Oh, sweetie, I can.” Anne’s voice was so normal, her
sympathetic look so familiar. She could even convince Macy—had almost convinced
her—that she was losing her mind. “You made Brent her guardian in the event that
something happened to you, and Brent made
me
her
guardian in the event that something happened to him. So if you die, and he
dies... Your mom and dad have already said they can’t raise her, and they know
how much I love her, and Mark’s mother doesn’t really give a damn. Who’s going
to fight me for her?”

Stephen stirred, grimacing as if the movement nauseated him.
“My sister. I called her before I left the house this morning.” The words were
slow, slurred. Had Duncan been satisfied with cracking him over the head with
something, or had he also drugged him?

“What could you have told your sister?” Duncan scoffed. “You
didn’t know anything.”

“I knew that Anne had substituted blood pressure medicine for
Macy’s antianxiety drug. I knew enough to be suspicious of her.” Stephen lifted
his head and swayed unsteadily, swallowing hard but maintaining eye contact with
Duncan. “I knew enough to go straight to you, didn’t I?”

Such a huge sense of relief washed over Macy. Her pills hadn’t
stopped working because she was losing control again! Anyone with anxiety
disorder would be likely to start having problems again if they stopped their
medication.

She bared her teeth at Anne’s partner in a semblance of a
smile. “How’s your blood pressure, Duncan? Just about high enough right now to
make your brain explode, I’d imagine.”

He bared his teeth back. “It’s fine. I told one of the doctors
at work I lost mine, so he refilled it for me, no questions asked.” Turning back
to Stephen, he said, “So you told your sister. Big deal. What can she do?”

The answer seemed beyond Stephen at the moment, so Macy
responded for him. “She works for the local police department. She’ll prove my
medicine was tampered with.”

Alarm stiffened his body, turning his cheeks and throat deep
red. “Damn it, Anne!”

Irritation crossed Anne’s face, an expression Macy had never
seen there before. What an incredible actress she was. If she’d set her sights
on Hollywood instead of the Howard inheritance, she could have made a fortune of
her own. “Shut up, Duncan. It’s part of the plan.”

As Anne’s irritation deepened, Macy thought he might be on the
hit list, too, but didn’t realize it. He’d provided Anne with information on
Macy when she was committed and with the medication to make the switch, but once
she’d reached her goal and no longer needed his help, he was a liability.