House of Secrets - v4 (45 page)

Abruptly, Christine halted in her tracks.

“Did he know?”

Lillian slowed and then stopped. Reluctantly, she turned to face her daughter. The raw wind picked up her hair.

“Did who know?”

“Peter. Did he know this? Did you tell him?”

Lillian’s head moved almost imperceptibly. “I never told him.”

“Did Chris?”

“I made him promise he never would.”

The wind gusted, and a buckshot of sand slapped against Christine’s face. “But you told Whitney. You don’t even have to say; it’s obvious he knew. All the crap he threw at Peter… it all makes so much sense now. That’s why he hounded that poor boy! He was really hounding you.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“You don’t
disagree?”
Christine’s voice pitched harshly against the wind. “How about maybe you
do
something! Did that ever occur to you? You stood by while that man punished you through your own son, and then you watched as that poor unloved boy just withered away and died.”

“Peter was not un—”

“He
died!
He’s not here anymore! All he wanted was a little love from his father, and the poor thing didn’t even know he was looking in the wrong place. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of anything so cruel.”

Lillian remained silent. Christine waited for her to speak, not knowing what it was she expected the woman to say. She’d already said plenty. Perhaps the best thing would be for her to go completely mute for the remainder of her visit. It seemed to be Lillian’s specialty: open mouth, wreak havoc.

As Christine stood bracing against the wind, a fresh thought popped into her head. More accurately, it erupted. Rising up from a place where in all likelihood it had always existed, merely waiting for its moment.

“I’m not Whitney’s, either.”

The words did not come out as a question. Christine’s voice was so small the wind nearly took them away. But Lillian heard them. Her hands came together, and she brought her fingertips to her lips.

“Oh my God. It’s not just Peter. It’s me, too.”

Lillian’s eyes closed. Her head tipped forward. It was impossible to tell if she was praying or presenting herself for execution.

M
egan Lamb would have preferred taking the Taconic State Parkway north and then cutting over to the west, but the first available cutover was well beyond her destination. Besides which, Megan didn’t much like the name of the cutover. Pudding Street. How much pedal to the metal could a person expect to use on something called Pudding Street?

A call came over her radio as she passed the village of Yorktown. Megan lifted her transmitter and thumbed the switch.

“I read. What’ve you got?”

What they had was substantial. Robert Smallwood’s car had been located. Megan’s foot involuntarily squeezed down harder on the accelerator.

“Where?”

The car had been located on a residential street near the train station in the town of Huntington, on the north shore of Long Island. It had been parked legally, and it might have remained there unnoticed through the weekend except for part of a large branch on a nearby tree that had broken off during the recent storm and landed on the car’s hood. When the Huntington police showed up and ran the license plate number, bells went off in the system.

Nice
, Megan thought ruefully as she crossed the Taconic.
An act of God. Everybody’s getting in on this one
.

Megan was told that there was no sign of Robert Smallwood or Michelle Foster. But the car was still being licked clean by the police. If the girl had spent any time at all in the vehicle, some trace of her would arise.

The FBI was descending on Huntington. Immediate speculation was on the nearby train station. Abandoning his car within sight of the station strongly suggested that Smallwood had opted to continue on via the rails. This was not necessarily a good sign. If he was traveling with Michelle it was difficult to imagine the girl cooperating placidly with the stranger, especially after so traumatic an abduction. The only imaginable way it seemed Smallwood could have boarded a train in public view would have been if the child was locked away in a large roller or duffel bag of some sort. And if she wasn’t with him, where was she?

Megan goosed the speedometer up another inch.

S
he hit Route 9 and took it north. To her left, the Hudson flashed through the trees. Occasionally the trees opened up and the broad expanse of the river revealed itself. She spotted the Circle Line boat moving south, back toward Manhattan after its day trip upriver to West Point. Otherwise the river was essentially empty.

The massive granite outcropping on which the West Point Academy was built came into view on the far side of the river. Most of the academy’s buildings were constructed of the same gray granite, which lent to the impression of an earth-forged fortress rising up from the bank of the river. The original West Point fortress had been built at this part of the river, where it narrows, making it ideally suited for wreaking havoc on unwelcome ships. Megan recalled hearing how chains would be stretched from the fortress to the far shore across the narrow portion of the river, submerged several feet so as to remain unseen. With a full head of steam — more accurately, wind — a ship could possibly overcome the chain and snap it. But traveling at more subdued speeds, the wooden hulls would experience serious damage. At the very least, the craft would be slowed down as it contended with the obstruction, making it an easy target from the rocks above.

Across the river from West Point was the village of Garrison, a collection of homes cast so disparately about the woods as to barely qualify for the term
village
. Several artisans selling ceramics and watercolor renderings of the area occupied a few low-roofed buildings adjacent to the train station; this was the extent of commerce as far as Garrison was concerned. Only fifty minutes north of Manhattan by train, the rural suburb was light-years away by any other standard.

Robert Smallwood’s grandmother lived in Garrison. She occupied a white neoclassical-style farmhouse dating back to the eighteenth century and located at the end of a quarter-mile unpaved driveway roughly three miles inland from the river. Following Judy Resnick’s instructions, Megan left Route 9 and began making her way along a narrow serpentine road leading up the steep hill next to the tracks. The hill was thick with trees, and a welcoming chill moved into the car the moment Megan began her ascent.

Megan removed her sunglasses and tossed them onto the dashboard. She glanced at her gas gauge, making a mental note not to pass up the next opportunity for fuel.

A call came in over the radio. It was Brian Armstrong. Headquarters was patching him through.

“Where do we stand, Detective?” Armstrong asked brusquely. “What’s your progress?”

Megan took a beat. Her natural response to the man’s curtness was not going to be helpful. Megan had her own experience with losing a partner in the process of a criminal investigation. By all available evidence, Agent Armstrong was conducting himself with a hell of a lot steadier hand than Megan had done under similar circumstances. A
hell
of a lot. Even though Megan’s experience was several years in the past, her default whenever the matter threatened to rise into her mind was to shove it back in the black bag and stuff it out of sight.

Megan asked, “You’ve heard about the car?”

“Roger. Got that one. Looks like he got straight on the first available train out of there.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Not yet.”

“The conductor?”

“I said not yet.”

Megan took a beat. “What are you thinking about Michelle? Do we see Smallwood dragging her around with him onto a train?”

There was a crackle over the radio. “I don’t,” Armstrong said. “We’re going with the Foster girl being kept somewhere. I think Smallwood is traveling solo.”

“Shelter Island? She could still be there.”

“We’ve got a team out there. We’re combing the whole island.”

Megan backed off the accelerator to better navigate an S curve, just missing an oncoming car by several inches. The blare of its horn faded quickly. Armstrong continued.

“We’re looking for freshly dug holes. It’s sandy enough soil, a man Smallwood’s size could make quick work of it.”

“I don’t like it. It’s missing logic. Why would he kill her?”

“It’s what killers do.” Armstrong did little to mask his sarcasm.

Megan pressed. “He’s not killing merely to kill. He had a specific reason for going after his cousin. On some level the woman pushed a major button.”

“And Marion Mann?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she pushed the same button. I’m just saying Michelle Foster was taken for a reason. It has to do with the senator. That’s his target. Michelle is simply the means.”

There was a pause on the radio. “Look, I don’t want to think she’s dead, either. Another option is that he stashed her someplace else before going out to the island and now he’s heading back to her.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to ask him when we find him.”

“Shit!”

Megan slammed on the brake. The rear of the car fishtailed as a zigzag of rubber appeared on the road.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I just missed a turn,” Megan reversed the car and took a left onto another country road, in accordance with her instructions. “Look, I’m heading for a talk with Smallwood’s granny. It was she and her husband who bought the Shelter Island place way back when. According to Smallwood’s aunt, he and his grandmother always got on well together. She says the grandmother speaks his language. Maybe she can shed some light on his thinking.”

“That would be nice.”

Megan had no choice but to drive more slowly. The narrow road was little more than a series of blind curves.

“By the way, I’ve got a name to pass on to you,” Megan said. She gave it to him. “A buddy of Smallwood’s during high school and possibly into college.”

The radio crackled again. “Cole. Yeah. I got that one already. But thanks.”

“Good. Anything come of it yet?”

“Negative,” Armstrong said. “Mr. Cole’s a goner. He died three years ago. A lover’s quarrel. In this case, a boyfriend.”

“Cole was
killed
?”

“Yeah. His boyfriend shot him.”

“Whoa.” Megan braked and let the car drift to a stop. She couldn’t follow Judy Resnick’s directions and keep up this conversation at the same time. “Where’d you get this?”

“One of Smallwood’s old high school teachers. She seemed up on all the alumni news.”

Megan realized she was staring out the windshield at a deer. The animal was standing just off the roadway in a clearing no larger than a child’s wading pool. The deer was stock-still, its large black eyes fixed on the motionless vehicle.

Armstrong continued, “Apparently Cole’s boyfriend shot the guy while he was taking a bath.”

Megan jerked in her seat, and the deer’s head jerked up. “A
bath?”

“Yeah. Cole was blown away while he was taking a bubble bath, then his boyfriend turned the gun around and offed himself. Right there in the bathroom. At least it was easier to clean up for everyone else.”

Megan was barely hearing the agent’s ramblings. She was peering out the windshield, tracking the deer’s brilliant white tail end as the animal bounded deep into the trees.

“
H
e’s
here?”

Christine was holding on to her mother’s arm to steady herself while she wiped the wet sand from her feet and put her shoes back on. The two had reached the end of the beach.

“He is,” Lillian said.

“How do you know?”

“How do you think I know, darling? I called him before I left Denver and asked if he could come up to see me. He told me his brother and the family are away on vacation and that the house is empty. With all that’s going on with him right now he thought it would be a perfect time to slip away.”

Christine darkened. “What you’re telling me is that you tricked me into coming out here.”