The Cabin (5 page)

Maggie sank back against the couch. “This isn’t a

double standard. We’re not expecting you to take on the

wooing because you’re a man, but because it’s so obvi-

ously what Mom wants, and it’s so—Dad, come on. It’s

so
simple.
”

Nothing involving Susanna Dunning Galway had

ever been simple. Jack shook his head. “What kind of

classes have you two been taking up in Boston?”

Neither girl was backing down. Ellen said, “You

were distracted in the weeks before we moved north.

Remember? You had that police corruption case. You

hate corruption cases, you didn’t want to talk about it,

and I think it affected you more than you or Mom real-

ized at the time.”

Jack couldn’t believe he was having a conversation

with his daughters about the ramifications of his work

on his relationship with his wife. “I liked you two bet-

ter when I could stick you in a playpen. My work and

my family life are separate. There’s a fire wall be-

tween them.”

“There! You said it!” Ellen pointed at him in victory.

“You keep a part of yourself walled off from Mom. You

don’t talk to her.”

Who was the one still pretending she wasn’t worth

millions? He got to his feet. He should have ended this

conversation the minute they’d said “woo.” It could go

nowhere he wanted to go. He started for the kitchen.

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Carla Neggers

“Your mother knows the score with me and my work. I

don’t need to tell her. She knows where she stands.”

“Yeah,” Maggie said half under her breath, “she

sure does.”

His spine stiffened, but he decided to pretend he

hadn’t heard that one, if only because he was putting his

daughters on a plane in less than twenty-four hours.

They’d be off on their own soon enough. They weren’t

kids—they were young women. He couldn’t control

their every word, thought and deed. Sometimes he

wished he could. Like now.

At least their instinct was to defend their mother.

Even if he were willing to fall on his sword over the

problems in their marriage, take the blame for her move

to Boston, say everything was his fault, it wouldn’t

solve anything. It was going to take a hell of a lot more

than lavender sachets and fresh roses to repair what

they’d had.

He stormed out to the patio and kicked a chair. “A

little goddamn honesty wouldn’t hurt.”

And he knew where it would begin—with his wife,

not himself.

He could be stubborn, too.

Wooing Susanna. Taking her for granted. What did

that mean? Susanna was about as unsentimental and un-

romantic as he was. What would she do if he started

writing her poetry? He stared up at the clear south Texas

sky and thought about Boston and its high today of

eighteen degrees.

Maybe he didn’t get it.

He was still thinking about kicking more chairs when

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39

Maggie and Ellen headed out to the mall with a couple

of their friends. Two minutes after they pulled out of the

driveway, Alice Parker showed up at his front door.

He’d forgotten how small she was. It was a wonder

she’d made it through the police academy. She looked

pale and tentative—the effects of her months in prison.

Her blond hair was longer, pulled back in a prosaic po-

nytail, and she wore a white T-shirt, jeans and a lot of

inexpensive gold jewelry.

“Afternoon, Miss Parker,” Jack said, his voice steady,

formal. “If you have something to say to me, it can wait

until I’m on duty. Not now. I don’t want you at my

house.”

“I know—I know. I tried calling you, but they said

you were off today.” Some of the tentativeness went out

of her gray eyes. She was attractive—cute—but she

looked tired, even drained. She met his eye. “I served

my time, Lieutenant.”

“All right. What do you want?”

“To apologize.” She breathed in, her jaw set hard, as

if the words were hard to get out. “I shouldn’t have

asked you to look the other way. That was out of line.”

“Apology accepted.” He didn’t ask about the rest of

it—the trampling of evidence, the witness tampering,

the sense he had that she was still holding back on him.

A murder remained unsolved at least partially because

of her actions. “Get yourself a job, Miss Parker. Move

on. Rebuild your life.”

“Beau McGarrity—he’s still a free man.”

Jack said nothing.

“I guess I’ll have to live with that. My police depart-

40

Carla Neggers

ment—they’re not going to solve the case. You know

that, sir. They don’t want it to be Beau, they don’t want

to stir things up again. You know, people think I tried to

frame him.”

“Miss Parker—”

“I’m thinking about moving to Australia.”

“Good luck.”

She smiled bitterly. “You don’t mean that. What do

you hate worse, Lieutenant, that I paid a guy to lie about

seeing Beau in the azaleas—or that I’m a royal fuck-up?”

“What I hate is seeing Rachel McGarrity’s murder go

unsolved.” Jack narrowed his eyes on the younger

woman. “There’s nothing else you want to tell me, Miss

Parker?”

“Like what?”

“Why did the anonymous call to check out the Mc-

Garrity ranch come to you that night? And your re-

lationship with Rachel McGarrity. I think you two were

better friends than you’ve let on. Her murder isn’t my

case, but you still haven’t told the whole story as far as

I’m concerned.”

“Like you said, some things you just have to live

with. See you around, Lieutenant.”

“Stay away from my house,” he said. “I don’t want

you near my family.”

She shrugged. “Understood, sir.”

She left.

Jack decided it might be just as well that the girls

were heading back to Boston in the morning. That Su-

sanna was there. Alice Parker obviously hadn’t put Ra-

chel McGarrity’s murder behind her. She’d had a year

The Cabin

41

in prison to stew. Now she was free, and if she wanted

to knock on his door on a warm January afternoon, she

could do it. It didn’t break any laws.

��

Three

She couldn’t breathe.

Alice Parker had to pull over and concentrate on the

breathing exercises she’d learned in prison to stop her

panic attacks. She hated being cooped up. Even as a lit-

tle kid, she couldn’t stand sleeping with the door to her

room shut.

Ranger Jack scared the living shit out of her. He al-

ways had. She remembered the day he’d shown up to

ask her a few questions. She’d known her goose was

cooked. He was a hard man.

He’d never forgive her. She didn’t even want his for-

giveness—she didn’t know what had possessed her to

go out to his house. She just wanted money. A chance

to start over in Australia and forget who she was, a lit-

tle screw-up cop who’d made sure a murderer walked.

Beau McGarrity had killed her friend and mentor, and

he’d never be brought to justice for it.

Yeah, learn to live with it. Forget that. She planned

to get some money off the murdering son of a bitch.

The Cabin

43

Feeling better, Alice drove to the small town where

she’d spent all her life, except for her year in prison. She

was driving a rusted little tank of a car that she’d bought

from a fellow inmate’s mother for seven hundred dollars.

She had to watch her finances. She’d been out of prison

three days, and she’d already plowed through a good

chunk of her savings. She had a job waiting tables down-

town, but that was more for show than real income—it

sure as hell wasn’t going to get her to Australia.

She gripped the steering wheel with both hands, feel-

ing the familiar tightness in her chest, the physical long-

ing, whenever she thought about Australia. She’d gotten

as many books out of the prison library as she could on

Australia and dreamed of it every night from the moment

she’d decided that was where she wanted to be, where she

wanted to start over. Sidney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide—

any city would do. They’d talked to her in prison about set-

ting attainable goals. Australia seemed attainable to her.

She just needed the money to get there and get started.

The McGarrity ranch was out of town. It hadn’t

changed in the past year. There were still the pecan and

cypress trees, the live oaks, the huge azalea bushes in front

of the sprawling, one-story house. Alice turned onto the

long, paved driveway. Before she’d discovered Australia,

she used to dream of living in a place like this and being

a Texas Ranger. She’d downloaded the names and pictures

of all hundred-plus Texas Rangers off the Internet and

memorized them. Rachel McGarrity used to tell her about

how, if she wanted something, she needed to visualize it,

make it real to her. Then it was more likely to come to be.

Alice wasn’t so sure about that anymore. She’d never

44

Carla Neggers

visualized herself in prison, but she’d sat in a cell for a

year. The stink of it was still on her, and her skin was

still gray and pasty. She hadn’t curled her hair or done

her nails in months.

She parked in the spot where Rachel had parked the

night she died and started to hyperventilate. She shut her

eyes, controlling her breathing the way she’d learned

from her yoga books and prison classes. She’d done ev-

erything she could to better herself in prison. She hadn’t

wasted a minute. Her grandma would have been proud

of her for that part, but at least she wasn’t alive for the

other parts—the humiliation of her arrest, the coward-

ice of her plea bargain, the defeat of seeing Beau Mc-

Garrity remain a free man. Grandma had missed all that.

Rachel had loved it in south Texas. She said it was

so different from the rich neighborhood in Philadelphia

where she grew up. She’d been drawn to the romance

of Texas, marrying a Texan—it blinded her to what she

was really getting. A mean, crazy bastard who’d shoot

her in the back and try to frame her best friend for her

murder.

Best friend might be a stretch. Alice sighed, remem-

bering how they’d only met because she’d stopped Ra-

chel for a broken headlight. She’d invited Alice to meet

her for coffee. Alice thought that was kind of weird, but

she’d agreed. Rachel had slipped into the coffee shop

like she was working for the CIA, and she’d talked

about flowers and antiques until she finally got to the

point—she wanted Alice to do some private investiga-

tive work for her.

Rachel was so fine-mannered and naive, so sincere,

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45

that Alice went against her better judgment and said

sure, she’d do what she could. They met almost every

day after that, for a month, and Alice was never too clear

on what it was she was investigating—just that it in-

volved Susanna Galway somehow. Rachel had all the

pieces, the big picture, and it all seemed to evaporate

when she was killed. Alice hadn’t ever told Ranger Jack

about it. No one else mentioned anything, so she didn’t.

It seemed like an invasion of privacy.

And she’d been afraid she’d end up dead if she said

too much. Damn afraid. She remembered her horror

when she’d spotted her change purse in a pool of Ra-

chel’s blood on the driveway. It was monogrammed

with her initials. Her grandma had given it to her for

Christmas one year.

Her only thought had been to get rid of the change

purse and scour the crime scene for any other incrimi-

nating evidence. Let people say she was a moron cop—

she didn’t care.

Later, she’d realized that was what Beau had expected

her to do. Panic and contaminate the crime scene, make

it impossible for the evidence to lead investigators to

him. Alice had felt stupid, like an unwitting co-conspir-

ator. In the midst of her self-loathing, she’d come up with

the idea of her bogus eyewitness. Beau hadn’t expected

that—she remembered the edge of panic in his voice that

day in Susanna Galway’s kitchen, when he’d tried to get

Susanna to intervene with her husband on his behalf.

But that wasn’t the only reason he’d gone to see Su-

sanna. She had some connection to what all had gone

on, but Alice didn’t know what.

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Carla Neggers

In any case, her fabricated eyewitness hadn’t worked

out. Jack Galway had seen to that.

Alice took the curving rock walk to the front door,

which opened just as she got to the steps. Beau

McGarrity came out. It was a clear, cool afternoon,

squirrels chattering in nearby trees. In summer, there’d

be a field of sunflowers out back, although Beau leased

out most of his land to working ranchers. He just

owned the place for show. Rachel had bought into the