“And I became part of the mob just because of a weird Christmas card. I’m smarter than that. Aren’t I?”
“You are the smartest woman I know.”
“The smartest
woman
you know?”
“The smartest person I know in the whole, entire universe. Now eat your sandwich.”
Andrew lifted his sandwich and was about to bite in with gusto when Tonya tilted her head. “Andrew, why did you hire Marissa Gray when she said your brother murdered Gretchen?”
Andrew looked like he wanted to groan and laid down his sandwich. “She’s smart, she’s young but shows signs of becoming an excellent reporter, with wonderful credentials, and I always thought she and her sister were fairly great people. I also don’t believe she
lied
about Dillon pushing Gretchen. She and Gretchen were
so
close, like sisters, that I think the shock of that night caused her to think she saw something she didn’t.” He paused. “I’ve never discussed this with her, but after all this time to calm down and really analyze what she saw I’d bet you a hundred dollars she’d no longer swear she saw Dillon push Gretchen.”
“I’m glad you have so much faith in her, but I think you’d better count on having a hundred dollars less to spend on my Christmas gift.”
Andrew laughed and then slowly grew sober. “My God,
you’re
not going to ask Marissa what she saw the night of Gretchen’s fall, are you?” Tonya remained silent. “Tonya, let this whole thing alone. You’re right—this is our first Christmas together and I want it to be perfect, not spoiled by dredging up all that awful business with Gretchen.
Promise me.
”
Tonya looked at him intensely, then relaxed and smiled. “Nothing is going to ruin our Christmas. I promise.”
Chapter 7
1
As Marissa finished her last obituary, Andrew casually walked to her desk and said softly, “Time for you to go home.”
“Home? It’s not four fifteen. Did I mess up an obituary? Offend a judge on the board of the Doggie Santa Claus Costume Competition? Drink too much expresso?”
“The latter. You’ve been running on empty since about noon. I should have made you take the day off, but I knew you’d argue. Anyway, I don’t want you fainting from exhaustion. I’ll get a reputation for being a slave driver.” Andrew grinned. “Take the extra time, Marissa, and don’t fight me. I promise the paper won’t collapse without you, even if you are one of our finest reporters.”
“That’s not fair—ending an order with a compliment.”
“Life isn’t fair,” Andrew said, walking away. “Get used to it.”
Secretly Marissa could have kissed Andrew for letting her go early. She
was
exhausted. She also had an errand she wanted to do before evening fell so maddeningly early in the winter. She knew many people considered her audacious, but she wasn’t daring enough to run around at night with a murderer on the loose.
Exhausted, again furious at the sight of her clunky rental car, and depressed by the weather, Marissa gritted her teeth and drove to the florist nearest the
Gazette
offices. Once she stepped inside, the gloomy, pewter-skied day disappeared as a world of red, green, gold, and silver surrounded her. Wreaths hung everywhere—pine, balsam, cedar, fir—emitting delectable scents and decorated with pine cones, red and plaid ribbons, crab apples, and red berries. “Good King Wenceslas” played just loud enough to be pleasant. The tangy smells, the lights, and the music raised her spirits.
Marissa spent at least half an hour looking at real and artificial wreaths as well as beautiful table enhancements. Moving on to the living, potted Christmas decorations, Marissa dithered mentally for a few minutes and then decided on Prestige Red poinsettias growing in a gold foil–wrapped pot with a green velveteen bow. When she left the store, she felt as if she’d stepped out of a fairyland so she could visit a place that always gave her an ache in her heart.
Marissa thought Aurora Falls Cemetery was one of the loveliest cemeteries she’d ever seen. Just outside the city, the waterfall formed a beautiful backdrop for the cemetery and provided the ever-present sound of rushing water. On most days, sunshine gleamed on the falls creating a rainbow of color. Marissa’s parents were buried here, but it was not their graves she’d come to visit.
She drove through the stone-columned entrance and turned right on one of the narrow roads curving through the cemetery. As she neared a towering, dense blue spruce tree, she slowed, hesitated, then pulled slightly off the road and stopped behind the police cruiser.
He didn’t even glance at her until she said, “Hello, Eric,” as she held her pot of poinsettias and looked at the man crouched at the grave of Gretchen Montgomery.
His blond head snapped up. He blinked twice as if coming out of a trance, then returned Marissa’s gaze stonily. “I didn’t hear you drive up.”
“I know.” He started to rise, but Marissa crouched quickly on the opposite side of the grave and spoke, hoping he wouldn’t leave: “Gretchen loved Prestige Red.”
Eric, hat in his hand, frowned at her. “What’s Prestige Red?”
“Poinsettias.” She placed the large pot near the headstone. “This shade is Prestige Red.”
Eric looked at the beautiful, vibrantly red plant. “Why didn’t I know that?”
“I don’t think most girls discuss their favorite shade of poinsettia with their brothers. It isn’t as if you didn’t know her birth date.”
“Or her death date.”
Well, I stepped right into that one, Marissa thought regretfully. She wouldn’t give up, although she didn’t want to ask about Buddy. She didn’t want Eric to think she was pumping him for recent information about the murder. “Do you have any leads on who might have caused my wreck?”
“No. I told you the blizzard destroyed any physical evidence he might have left.” Eric paused as if deciding whether he wanted to talk to her. “We went over the area as thoroughly as we could.”
“I didn’t think you’d be able to find anything.” She paused. “Catherine was really unhappy with me for causing such a scene at headquarters on Monday, but you know how I get when I’m passionate about something.”
Eric’s golden-flecked brown eyes seemed to bore a hole through her own until he said with quiet fury, “You certainly weren’t passionate about seeing Dillon Archer kill my sister.”
Marissa felt as if Eric had punched her in the abdomen. She only had enough air to whisper,
“What?”
“You heard me. You
saw
Dillon push Gretchen off that balcony, but when the police questioned you the assertive, confident, tenacious girl I’d known for years vanished. ‘It happened so fast,’” he mimicked what she’d said to the police. “‘The light was bad.’ ‘Tonya was closer to her than I was.’ It’s no wonder Mitch Farrell didn’t arrest Dillon on the spot.” His voice grew louder: “And now here you are with your poinsettias as if they matter to my sister whose
murder
you could have avenged!”
Fury and shock washed through Marissa. Eric started to stand up, but Marissa leaned across the grave, reached out, and with strength she didn’t know she possessed placed her hands on his shoulders and then pushed him flat to the ground on his rear. “How
dare
you imply I didn’t do everything I could for Gretchen that night?” she nearly shouted. “How can you mock me, claiming I said the light was bad, things happened too fast, Tonya was closer than I was to Gretchen? Dillon, Tonya, and Andrew were harping on those things, not me!”
“You could have sounded like you
meant
what you said,” Eric flared. “No ifs, ands, or buts. No wavering. You could have sounded like you
knew
what happened!”
Marissa drew a deep breath, seething. “Eric Montgomery, I told the truth. Did I acknowledge that the lighting was bad? Yes. It was. Did I argue when Tonya said she was closer to Gretchen than I was? No, because Tonya
was
closer. But I knew what I saw, I told the police what I saw, and I did
not
waver.”
Eric still sat on the cold ground and turned his head away from her. Marissa kneeled, leaned over the grave again, her knees digging deeper into the snow, took hold of his chin, and forced him to face her. “Are you even
listening
to me? I told the police
exactly
what I saw,” she said between clenched teeth. “I saw Dillon lean closer to Gretchen, I saw him reach out with both arms. I thought he intended to grab her around the thighs and drag her down, but he only put his
left
arm around her. With his right hand, he
pushed
her. Then he did a lot of flailing around as if she’d fallen in spite of his efforts. I’ve gone over this hundreds of times in my mind. I
saw
what he did and I’ll never say differently.
“Afterward, Tonya told the police the light was bad in that loft—there were a couple of flashlights and candles only—which was true,” Marissa continued. “She said she was standing closer to Gretchen than I was, which was also true. She swore she saw both of Dillon’s arms close around Gretchen’s thighs and pull her toward the loft. That was not what happened and I
said
so to the police.”
“But not with any fervor.”
Marissa was stunned. “So you were furious with me because I wasn’t strident enough to suit you?” Eric turned his head. “Look at me, dammit!” Eric’s gaze slowly returned to her. “No, I didn’t scream that Tonya was wrong because I would have seemed hysterical and I didn’t want the police to dismiss me as a horror-stricken girl not sure of
what
she’d seen. I admitted that the light was dim in the loft, but I told them about my above-average vision. I told them Tonya was closer to Gretchen than I was but only by a couple of feet. I wasn’t going to lie.”
“Oh, God forbid that you sully your soul by lying!”
“God forbid that I sully my credibility. And I wasn’t the only person on the balcony.”
“Oh yes, Andrew was there. Andrew, Dillon’s
brother.
”
“Andrew who said nothing except to agree that the light was bad. That’s all he said to defend Dillon, his own brother. I think he saw what I did. I always have. But he managed to lose himself in all the commotion that night.”
Eric withdrew behind his eyes. Marissa knew the expression well. He was no longer looking at her. He was lost in the labyrinth of his mind. She glanced up to see a couple placing a small gold and red wreath on a grave. The woman sniffled into a handkerchief. The man glowered at Marissa and Eric. Marissa didn’t resent the expression. A cemetery was no place to have a shouting argument, but for the first time since Gretchen’s death Eric was
really
talking to her, spilling out his feelings—his hurt, his resentment, his blame—and Marissa would do nothing to stop him, no matter how many people they offended.
Finally, she said, “Eric, Mitch Farrell came that night. He’s known me for all of my life. He knows my vision is especially keen. He knows I wouldn’t accuse someone of pushing Gretchen off that railing unless I was positive that’s what I saw. He also knew Tonya and Dillon. Neither one of them had a spotless reputation, especially Dillon.
“Eric, I knew Mitch’s questions weren’t going to end that night in the church. I knew he’d question us again and again and, as crushed as I was about Gretchen, my answers weren’t going to change one tiny bit. They were only going to become clearer when I could better demonstrate that small difference in the placement of Dillon’s hands that made all the difference.” Marissa sighed. “But Tonya told the same story as Dillon. Mitch was stuck with conflicting eyewitness versions. Dillon didn’t have a shining reputation around here, but he’d
never
been arrested or even brought into police headquarters for questioning. Mitch didn’t have time to do a thorough investigation that night, but he did assign twenty-four-hour surveillance on Dillon, which protocol didn’t demand.”
“Yes, he assigned that idiot deputy Buddy Pruitt, Dillon’s
friend.
” Eric took off his hat and ran his right hand through his hair. “I’ve always admired Mitch Farrell. He’s the reason I decided when I was twelve I wanted to be a cop. He was sharp and meticulous and relentless. Except for the night my sister was killed.”
“Did you expect Mitch to come to Gray’s Island, arrest warrant for Dillon Archer in hand? He did have conflicting accounts of Gretchen’s fall.”
Eric looked at Marissa. “There’s no point in going over this again. Intellectually I know Mitch did all he could. All I can blame him for was having Buddy Pruitt as his watchdog.” Eric put his hat back on and gave her a hard look. “But what about us?”
“What
about
us?”
“We should have been in that church, Marissa, but you suggested breaking away from the pack for a while to enjoy the stars. When I’d say we should go find the others, you’d say, ‘Just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes.’ Well, those minutes turned into an hour and look what happened!”
Marissa gaped at him. “Eric Montgomery, I didn’t have you tied to posts in the ground. You could have left any time you wanted. You stayed and you’re blaming
me
! All these years you’ve been picturing me as this seductress, a Greek siren luring the sailors to the treacherous rocks. I cannot believe it!”
“Marissa, you’re shouting.”
“Are you worried about your public image? Well, I don’t care! The idea that I could have been in love with a man so weak he’d be manipulated by a couple of playful pleas from a woman for him to stay with her when he should have been looking for another one who was in danger is beyond insulting!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t use those exact words, but it’s what you’ve been thinking.”
Eric looked at her angrily. “Do
not
tell me what I’m thinking!”
“Swear to me it never crossed your mind that if Marissa hadn’t been asking you to spend some ‘alone’ time with her, you would have gone to the church earlier and saved Gretchen.” A wave of guilt flashed over his face. “Yes, it has. And I’ll tell you again, you were never so malleable, so weak! You wanted to stay with me—alone—for a while. You weren’t worried that Gretchen briefly went off with the others. Only when you realized more time had passed than you realized did you get worried! And you knew so much time hadn’t passed because I was begging you to stay with me. It passed because you didn’t want to leave me any more than I wanted you to leave. Do you hear me? You didn’t
want
to leave so you could babysit your sister like you had most of your life!”