The Cabin (11 page)

wanted to be more of an
über
-girl. She almost didn’t

make it as a police officer because of her size. People

liked to tell her she was cute. She didn’t have Susanna

Galway’s dramatic good looks.

“If you wanted a fresh start,” Susanna went on

tightly, “you wouldn’t be here in Boston, in my neigh-

borhood. That just doesn’t wash, Miss Parker.”

“I know.” She spoke quietly, respectfully, aware of

Jim Haviland and Davey Ahearn watching her, listen-

ing, ready to act if she did anything stupid. She had re-

hearsed this moment a thousand times in the past few

weeks. “I came up here because I wanted to make up

for any damage I’d done. I heard you’d left your hus-

band after I got arrested—”

“That had nothing to do with you,” Susanna said

stonily.

Alice wasn’t so sure about that, but she nodded any-

way. “I can see that now. I probably knew it even be-

fore I got here.”

“But you stayed.”

“Where else was I supposed to go? I’m saving for

Australia. Did Iris tell you that? I like her a lot, Mrs. Gal-

way. I’d never do anything to hurt her. I mean, if I were

up here to get revenge, I’ve had weeks.”

Susanna went slightly pale at Alice’s last words.

“Please believe me,” Alice said quietly, earnestly.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe or don’t believe.”

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89

Susanna stuffed her hands into her coat pockets, every-

thing about her rigid, serious, determined. And scared,

Alice thought. Susanna Galway wasn’t one who liked

admitting she was scared. “I don’t want you anywhere

near my grandmother or my daughters.”

Alice nodded. “All right. I understand.”

But her tone didn’t come out quite right, and she

could see that Susanna had read her words the way Alice

had really meant them—defiant and in-your-face de-

fensive. She didn’t have to stay away from anybody. She

was a free woman. She hadn’t threatened Iris or Mag-

gie and Ellen Galway. She hadn’t stalked them. She

hadn’t broken the law. Her presence in Susanna’s neigh-

borhood was provocative, yes. But it wasn’t illegal.

“Stay away from my family,” Susanna said.

Alice didn’t argue, although she couldn’t imagine not

seeing Iris again—at least to explain who she was, why

she’d lied to her. She didn’t want Iris to think badly of

her. She didn’t know why, but the old woman’s opinion

mattered to her.

Susanna swept out of the bar, and Alice looked up at

Jim Haviland, feeling her eyes fill with tears. “I suppose

you think I’m pretty awful.”

“I think you’re scaring the shit out of Susanna Gal-

way and used an innocent old woman—”

“I’d never hurt Iris. Never. I consider her a friend.”

But she could see she wasn’t getting anywhere with

him, and down the bar, Davey Ahearn looked ready to

take her out and shove her face into a snowbank. She

jumped off her stool and tossed money on the bar, next

to her barely touched bowl of chowder. She mostly

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Carla Neggers

choked down the clams, anyway. She couldn’t understand

why New Englanders had clam chowder contests. It

wasn’t even in the same universe as a good bowl of chili.

She sniffled, knowing she wasn’t eliciting an ounce

of sympathy from either man. “I’m a free woman,” she

said. “I can come and go as I please.”

“Then go,” Davey Ahearn said with an edge of sar-

casm. “Please.”

She did, grabbing her parka but not bothering to put

it on. One of them would call Jack Galway. Jim, Davey,

Susanna. Jack wouldn’t stand by while a woman he’d

put in prison, a corrupt fellow officer of the law, slipped

into the neighborhood where his wife and daughters

were living. It didn’t matter what was going on between

him and Susanna. He’d be on the next plane out of San

Antonio the minute he found out.

Alice pushed out the door into the cold night. There

was a time when she’d wanted to stick it to Jack Gal-

way for what he’d done to her, when she’d have been

happy to think he was worried sick about his family be-

cause of her.

That wasn’t what this was about, she told herself. Re-

venge was pointless. This was about money for Aus-

tralia and her new beginning.

Not that it’d make any difference to Jack Galway,

Texas Ranger, but it did to her. She had a higher pur-

pose in mind.

If he was about to find out she was up here with his

wife and daughters, Alice couldn’t fool herself. There

were no two ways about it. The squeeze was on, and she

was running out of time.

��

Six

On the drive to the San Antonio airport, Sam Temple

tried to talk Jack into calling Susanna and telling her he

was on his way. “She’s the crack of dawn type,” Sam

said. “She’ll be up.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m not arguing with her.”

They were in Sam’s slick car, the beautiful early

morning doing nothing to improve either man’s mood.

“You don’t argue,” Sam said. “You say, ‘Suze, babe, I’m

coming to Boston whether you like it or not.’”

“That’d work,” Jack said dryly.

“I’m not talking about going Neanderthal on her.”

Sam was driving fast, as alert at six o’clock in the morn-

ing as any other time of the day or night. Nothing

seemed to affect him. “Women don’t like men popping

up out of nowhere.”

“Susanna’s my wife. I’ve known her since she was a

skinny college kid with a calculator brain.”

Sam grinned at him. He was dressed for work, wear-

ing a suit and the white cowboy hat that was customary

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Carla Neggers

among Texas Rangers. His Oakley sunglasses were not.

“It wasn’t her calculator brain that caught your attention.”

Jack said nothing. He’d been thinking about his wife

since he’d checked his voice mail an hour ago and got

her message. It had taken him exactly fifteen minutes to

book a flight to Boston, call Sam and pack his bag. He’d

been up early for his run, which meant he could catch one

of the first flights out of town and be in Massachusetts

before it would occur to Susanna that she’d pushed the

wrong buttons with him and he might just be on his way.

She knew what she was doing last night when she’d left

that message. Susanna always knew what she was doing.

“Jack? I thought I’d catch you.”
That was bullshit.

She’d deliberately called his cell phone number because

she knew it was midnight and he was home in bed, next

to their home phone.
“I wanted to let you know that

Alice Parker has turned up in Boston. Well, in Somer-

ville. She and Gran have become pretty good friends

over the past few weeks, which is unnerving, I know, but

I spoke to her tonight—Alice, I mean.”

This last comment had gone right up his spine, be-

cause it meant Susanna had jumped in and confronted

Alice Parker without first calling him and asking his ad-

vice on how to handle her. Or, more specifically, on

what in hell not to do.

“She’s changed her name to Audrey Melbourne. She

assured me she means us no harm. She came up here to

make amends and basically ended up sticking around

longer than she meant to. The situation’s under control.

I’m just telling you because I know you were concerned

about her. If you have any questions, call me. Bye.”

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93

If he had any questions. Hell, he had no questions at

all. He knew what he was going to do—fly to Boston

and throttle his wife. Then he’d see about Alice Parker,

aka Audrey Melbourne.

“You’re going unarmed?” Sam asked.

Jack nodded. He wasn’t on official business. This

was strictly personal. He had to follow Massachusetts

gun laws just like anyone else. He wasn’t a law en-

forcement officer anywhere but Texas.

“Not me,” Sam said. “I’d go armed to the teeth.”

“And you’d be fired.”

They arrived at the airport. Jack got his bag from the

back seat and started out, but Sam tried one more time.

“You want me to call her?”

“Sure. You call her.”

Sam grinned. “She can’t hurt me over the phone.”

But he added in a more serious tone, “I’ll keep an eye

on things down here, maybe take a ride out and see

what Beau McGarrity’s been up to.”

“Thanks.”

“Alice Parker isn’t in your wife’s neighborhood to

make amends or any damn thing. You know that, don’t

you, Jack?” Sam gripped the wheel with both hands.

“She thinks it’s your fault Beau’s still a free man. Su-

sanna has a point—if Alice planned to hurt any of them,

she’d have done it by now. She’s got something else up

her sleeve.”

Jack agreed. Alice had careened into committing a

felony and landing herself in prison for a year—he could

see her careening into revenge, getting in over her head

again, with the law, or, even worse, with Beau McGar-

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Carla Neggers

rity. She’d risked everything to nail McGarrity for mur-

der and lost. What was to stop her from trying again?

“I should have bought her a damn ticket to Australia the

day she was at my house. If I hit on anything up north—

anything at all—I’ll notify the local police and bring her

in. Keep me posted on what’s going on down here.”

“Will do.”

Jack climbed out and shut the door. His stomach

tightened at the thought of seeing Susanna again. None

of the intensity of his feelings for her had lessened in

twenty years, whether he was loving her or so mad at

her he couldn’t see straight—like now.

“Hey, Lieutenant.”

Sam Temple had gotten out of his car and was look-

ing out over the roof. Jack could feel the warm morn-

ing sun on his back. “What is it?”

Sam grinned. “They have telephones on planes now-

adays. You can still call her.”

Susanna treated herself to professionally brewed cof-

fee and a fresh almond biscotti at Fanueil Hall Market-

place. It was the sort of mid-February day that made

Bostonians rhapsodic—highs in the forties, bright sun,

melting snow. Even the potholes forming in the streets

didn’t sour their mood. As far as they were concerned,

there was a whiff of spring in the air. But Susanna had

lived in south Texas too long to consider forty-four de-

grees spring, especially when she knew it wouldn’t last.

There was already talk of more snow that weekend, but

not before she and the girls were on their way to the

mountains. Gran was leaning toward joining them. The

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95

revelation that her new friend was an ex-convict Su-

sanna’s husband had put in prison didn’t sit well with her.

“I feel like an old fool,” she’d told Susanna the pre-

vious night.

“Don’t, Gran. Alice has been here for weeks, and

none of us had any idea. Come up to the mountains with

us. The change of scenery will do us all some good.”

Iris admitted it probably would, but her ambivalence

about the trip surprised Susanna. She was beginning to

wonder if there was more to Gran’s past on Blackwater

Lake than she’d ever let on. Going back was obviously

harder for her than Susanna had anticipated, not the ad-

venture she’d wanted it to be.

She’d sell the cabin and never set foot near Black-

water Lake again if that was what Gran wanted.

Maggie and Ellen had taken the news about Alice in

stride, much more so than Susanna had. They had grown

up with a Texas Ranger as their father and were deter-

mined not to overreact now that his work had spilled

over into their lives.

When they found out their mother had left him a

message on his voice mail, they saw right through her.

Maggie had grinned. “Gee, Mom, why don’t you just

poke him with a sharp stick?”

Ellen was appalled. “I don’t know, Mom, you might

have really stepped in it this time. You haven’t seen Dad

in a while. You don’t know what he’s like these days.”

“Ellen’s right,” Maggie said. “He’s a lot edgier.”

But Susanna didn’t need her daughters telling her

what her husband was like. She knew. Edgier or not, he

wouldn’t take well to her midnight voice mail—he’d

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Carla Neggers

take even less well to Alice Parker cozying up to Gran

and the girls. He would see dire motives, conspiracies,

all the awful, deadly, nasty possibilities, because that

was his training and his nature.

No, she thought, because that was what circum-

stances would lead anyone to think. She was thinking

the same thing, and she hated it. If nothing else, it meant

that fleeing to Boston with her daughters hadn’t made

her safe—Alice Parker was
here.

She’d tossed and turned most of last night, consid-

ering the same motives, conspiracies and possibilities