He mulled that over. But he knew from hard experience that trust was a fragile thing, too often misplaced. “She seems to think it’s the other way around. That you need her.”
“I do,” Gillian said, if a bit defensively. “We have a good time.”
“The sneer sisters.”
“She told you about that?”
“High school can be so much fun.”
“Yeah, if you get them before they get you.”
It struck Gillian how true that was for all her life. She looked out the window at the passing landscape. The lake was an Army Corps of Engineers wonder in the middle of the Cumberland Mountains. Four rivers spilled into it, and there were still hundreds of miles of undeveloped shore-front. To most it was a wooded paradise, but every time she got close enough, she felt the same apprehension. She knew what was waiting at the water’s edge.
She’d wanted to drive herself. She always drove. It was part of the ritual. Whenever she came home, she’d see Harley. As if somehow, in the space of time between her last visit and the current one, something would have changed. Some new evidence. A new theory. Harley had married, had a couple of kids, divorced, retired. And still she came. Year after year at first, then less frequently, but even when it became clear there would never be anything new, she came. She outgrew hope, but not the trip to see Harley.
And now the ritual had become compulsory.
So she wanted to drive. But Ray had just looked at her. He’d come from Maddie’s room, and they’d met in the hallway, both marching toward the stairs. He’d automatically slowed his longer strides to keep pace with her, but the minute she mentioned getting the keys to one of her grandparents’ cars, he stopped. Swung his head toward her like a bull in a field who intended to keep intruders out.
“Can you corner left doing sixty-five? Do you know what to look for in an ambush? How to avoid a stopper? How to get out of the kill zone?” He waited a requisite beat. “I’ll drive,” he said.
And so for the first time, she didn’t go alone. She bounced along in a strange pickup with a strange man beside her. And thought about another first. The first visit with a new murder.
Harley met them at the battered mailbox, where a gravel drive kissed the road. Hands shoved in his pockets, he rocked back and forth on his heels while they parked and got out of the car. Harley wasn’t what she’d call a neat man, and retirement had tilted him even more toward slovenly. Couple of days’ worth of stubble. An apple-shaped beer belly. A pair of red suspenders holding up his rumpled khakis.
She started to introduce them, but Harley was ahead of her.
“I remember you. Ray Pearce, right?” He and Ray shook hands like old friends. “Ole Sergeant Burke’s son-in-law.”
“Ex-son-in-law, but yes.”
“Ex? Hell, sorry to hear that, son.” He gave Ray a chagrined smile. “But it happens to the best of us.”
Ray nodded stiffly. Didn’t seem eager to comment on the longevity of the modern marriage or his own contribution to the divorce rate.
Harley didn’t seem to mind. “Working cold cases?”
“Not exactly.”
He gave Ray a long look. “Seem to recall you made detective.” He clapped Ray on the back. Had to reach up to do it. “You were young for it, too. But smart. I’ll give you that.”
Ray shifted, a flush seeping up his neck. “Appreciate you saying so.” He cleared his throat. “But I’m not on the job anymore.”
“You’re not . . . ” Harley faltered. Looked from Ray to her. The look clearly asked what he was doing there, then.
“He’s with me,” she said. As if that weren’t obvious.
They started toward the house, a small cabin recessed into the woods. Through the trees she could just catch a glimpse of sun sparkling off water.
As usual, Ray hung back, guarding her rear. And as usual, he practically stripped her shoes off. But she was getting used to him now. To the awareness of his body behind her. Tall. Big-shouldered.
Harley leaned in. Whispered, “Boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “Bodyguard.”
Inside, the house always smelled the same. Stale fried things and bait. It slammed her back through all the years and all the visits. The time he taught her to fish. The time she finished his jigsaw puzzle.
She looked to the corner now, saw the card table was right where it always was. A half-finished puzzle covered the surface.
“You don’t change much, do you, Harley?” It was one of the things she liked about him. He was constant. A steady orb around which her crazy world spun.
“Should I?” He put an arm around her shoulder. Squeezed. “How about a beer?”
She nodded, and he disappeared into the kitchen. While he was gone, she took stock of the rest of the room. The beat-up brown couch with its puffy pillows sat across the way. An indentation on the left cushion showed where Harley liked to sit. In front of the sofa was the same battered coffee table that had been there for years. On top of the table, like always, was the deep, white Dillard’s box.
Her heart lurched when she saw it, just as it always did. And as always, she tried hard to repress the flutter. Glanced out the window toward the lake and the serene water.
Harley came back with two bottles. Ray refused his, but Gillian twisted the cap off hers.
She and Harley clinked bottles. Drank. “Time was, I’d be offering you a Coke,” Harley said.
Gillian smiled. “Time was, I’d be sneaking the beer.”
Harley laughed good-naturedly, and Ray peeked out one of the windows.
“I’m going to have a look around.” He eyed Harley. “You okay in here?”
Harley shot him an amused but tolerant glance. “I think I can handle it.”
Ray slipped out the door, and Harley watched him go.
“Those boys don’t like an unfamiliar setting,” he said. He seemed to ponder that for a moment. Pondering Ray, she suspected, and the choices he’d made.
Then, as if he couldn’t figure it out and wouldn’t try, he sighed. Eased into the couch. Patted the cushion beside him. “So, baby girl. Catch me up.” He nodded toward the door Ray had just exited. “You in trouble again?”
Harley didn’t take the paper, and he didn’t have a television. The radio was always tuned to music, jazz mostly. Not much for the news anymore, he always said. Privileges of rank, or lack thereof. So Gillian had to recount for him the assault at the museum and the replicant murder.
“It’s him,” she said, the beer forgotten, her voice low and unwavering. “He’s out there. He’s doing it again.”
Harley held up his hands. “Now hold on. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
She pulled the Dillard’s box toward her. “There has to be something we missed. Something that would help catch him.”
Harley sighed. “Honey, you’ve been saying that for over twenty years.” He looked away. “I know I failed you,” he said softly, “failed your family, but after all this time I don’t think—”
She shook her head wildly, as if the movement could block out the sound of his words. “No, don’t say it.”
Harley laid a hand over the top of the box. “Can’t we skip this part of the visit? Just this once? It’s so hurtful to you. Breaks my heart to watch. And it ain’t going to change anything.”
Gillian thought about it. Her heart was already thumping, the sickness she’d feel when she opened the box was just below the surface, waiting to spring. What a relief not to look. Not to deal. Not to remember.
Then the image of the recently murdered woman crowded out her own pain. “Sorry, Harley.”
Slowly she lifted the top off the box.
When Ray returned, he found Gillian and Harley on the couch, huddled over a mess of papers. The top of an empty gift box lay forgotten on the floor; the box itself sat askew on the couch next to Gillian.
The two made a cozy picture with their heads bent. The old man, like a big, fat teddy bear, and in the shadow of his rotund form, the sprite of a woman.
Ray felt reasonably comfortable that they were safe here. The cabin was isolated enough, and he had seen no tracks leading in or out except their own. He’d hear a boat coming easy. Hear any kind of vehicle. Worse came to worst, he’d mapped out an escape route through the woods, then moved the truck to make it more accessible. But he wanted to get going before dark. Carlson had sent someone over to the hotel, and while Ray was outside, he’d received the security checklist on his BlackBerry. Everything looked good, but he wouldn’t feel right until he’d checked it out himself.
“How much longer—” He stopped short when Gillian looked up from the paper she held in her hand. His benign first impression vanished. Tears streaked her pretty angel face. She looked broken. Tortured.
“What the—” He turned on Harley. “What’s going on?” He freed the thing from Gillian’s fingers.
“It’s okay.” She scraped at her face. But the words and movement came from a distance because all he could see was the photograph in his hand.
The crime-scene photograph.
The kitchen, the body on the floor. The blood.
It was a lousy picture. A black-and-white photocopy, much used. The upper right-hand corner was missing, and the whole thing looked like it had been crumpled then smoothed out again.
But there was no mistaking what it was.
The kitchen was less perfect, less pristine. An ordinary room with a spotted linoleum floor. No strange, eerie light came through an unseen window. The victim wasn’t a schoolgirl, but she was young enough, even in death.
He tore his gaze away and looked at Harley. Harley stared right back at him, no apology in his eyes.
“You were the lead?” Ray asked.
“That’s right.”
Ray picked through scattered papers. Saw familiar forms, reports. “You got the whole file here? All the casework?”
“Every last note, statement, evidence report.”
Ray swallowed panic. He glanced at Gillian’s haunted face and knew there was nothing he could do to fix it.
He turned on Harley. “Are you crazy?”
“Shut up, Ray,” Gillian said. “You can’t talk to him like that.”
“He has no business showing this stuff to you.”
“No business? Who the hell’s business is it if not mine?”
“It’s tearing you apart.”
“So what? The price of justice.”
But it wasn’t a price he was easy about paying. Especially if it meant he had to watch. “Let’s go. We’re leaving.”
She stood her ground. “Like hell we are.”
Harley stepped between them. “Hey, baby girl, why don’t you take your walk around the lake? Me and Ray can have a few words.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gillian said.
“She can’t go walking alone out there,” Ray said.
At which, her face set, her chin hardened. “I can do whatever I damn well please.” And despite her declaration to the contrary, she pivoted and charged out.
“Hey!” Ray took off after her, but Harley got in his way.
“Let her go. You can keep an eye on her through the kitchen window.”
“Christ,” Ray muttered. But Harley was right. He could see her clearly. At least, the back view. Spine straight, shoulders rigid. She looked lost in front of the wide expanse of lake. Dwarfed by the trees.
“Don’t be so hard on her,” Harley said softly.
Hard on her? The man should crawl inside his skull and look around. All Ray wanted to do was race out there and make it right. Do whatever it took to make the bad stuff go away. The urge crept over him like a cold sweat. That’s all he ever wanted to do. When would he learn he was no good at it? He could keep someone alive, but making them happy was magic he could never work.
“No one should have to see pictures of her own mother’s murder,” he said.
“Better than pretending it never happened.”
“Pretending? What do you mean? That woman doesn’t know how to pretend.”
“But the cold bitch up at the Gray house does.” Harley shoved his hands in his pockets. Rocked a bit. “After the funeral, it was like her daughter had never lived, let alone died. Subject closed with a big ole padlock.”
Ray shook his head. “I’ve seen Mrs. Gray. Even the sight of a uniform gets her going. She’s neither forgiven nor forgotten.”
“Maybe. But she don’t talk about it neither.” Harley raised a questioning brow. “You ever hear her mention her daughter? Mention the murder? Even say the word?”
Ray thought back. Slowly shook his head.
“Gillian came to me when she was, oh, maybe thirteen. A pure mess. Little bottle of rage all stoppered up. You ever see what fury can do if it don’t have a way of exploding? You were a cop. You saw the drugs, shoplifting, the joy rides and vandalism.”
Ray nodded. Everyone who rode a patrol car saw kids out of control.
“What happens if you don’t do any of those things? Where does the anger go? She had no one to talk to about what had happened. Family wouldn’t even send her to counseling. Refused to admit there was anything wrong. But she’s had problems, son . . . you couldn’t begin to imagine.”
Ray didn’t have to. Whatever it was, he could sense it coming off her like an aura. It’s what drew him and repelled him at the same time. Torn souls in need of mending.