Darker Than Midnight
Darker Than Midnight
Maggie Shayne
MICHAEL "RIVER" CORBETT–
Confined in the state mental hospital and heavily drugged since the death of his wife, River cannot remember what truly happened the night he was arrested for her murder. But now someone is trying to kill him, and he is forced to run for his life. A fugitive from the law and from someone who wants him dead, all he wants is the truth.
CASSANDRA JAX JACKSON
The uncompromising police lieutenant knows she's putting her career on the line when she encounters this desperate stranger and doesn't turn him in. Something in River's eyes has Jax convinced he's worth savingwhether he wants it or not.
DAWN JONES
The daughter of a madman, Jax's young friend is haunted by voices she doesn't want to hear. But she can no longer ignore the curse she inherited from her twisted fatherbecause unless she listens to what the dead are telling her, Jax might be doomed to join them.
Praise for the novels of USA TODAY bestselling author
MAGGIE SHAYNE
“A tasty, tension-packed read.”
—Publishers Weekly on Thicker Than Water
“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb touch, blending fantasy and romance into an outstanding reading experience.”
—Romantic Times on Embrace the Twilight
“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She satisfies every wicked craving.”
—Bestselling author Suzanne Forster
“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new and old of her vampire series can rejoice.”
—Romantic Times on Twilight Hunger
“Shayne’s haunting tale is intricately woven…. A moving mix of high suspense and romance, this haunting Halloween thriller will propel readers to bolt their doors at night!”
—Publishers Weekly on The Gingerbread Man
“Shayne’s talent knows no bounds!”
—Rendezvous
“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping intensity and bewitching passion.”
—Bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
“Shayne’s gift has made her one of the preeminent voices in paranormal romance today!”
—Romantic Times
MAGGIE SHAYNE
DARKERTHAN MIDNIGHT
This book is dedicated to my mom,
with all my love. All the very best
parts of me come from you.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Prologue
Fourteen Years Ago…
Cassandra Marie Jackson clutched her mother’s hand as the man who’d raped and murdered her sister rose to his feet to hear the verdict. Time seemed to stretch, and to slow. She could hear the clock in the back of the courtroom, and it seemed there was an unnaturally long pause between every tick. She closed her eyes and tried to block the past, but it came rushing at her, anyway—the memory of that moment when her life had been turned upside down.
The knock at the door came at ten o’clock. She’d been on the sofa, doing homework. Dad was going over some notes—he had to perform surgery early the next morning, and as always, he spent time double-checking everything. Mom was watching a movie and crocheting. The afghan she was working on was almost done. Purple and white. Cassie remembered it perfectly.
She’d looked up briefly when her mother went to answer the door, then frowned when she saw the policeman on the other side. Before the officer said a word, her mother turned, her face pale. Almost as if she knew. “Ben,” she called. “Ben, come here.”
Dad came in from his study, pausing halfway across the living room with a file folder in one hand. He took off his reading glasses, tucked them into his shirt pocket and went to the door.
“Dr. Benjamin Jackson?” the officer asked.
“Yes?”
“Do you have a daughter named Carrie?”
Cassie was off the sofa by then. Something clenched in her stomach when she heard her older sister’s name, and she automatically looked at the clock on the wall. It was only ten. Carrie’s curfew wasn’t until eleven. In some warped way that meant nothing could be wrong.
Her mother was clutching her father’s hand as he said, “Yes.” But there was something different about his voice that time. It was lifeless, flat.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Dr. Jackson, Mrs. Jackson, but your daughter…”
Cassie didn’t know what else he’d said, but she knew what it meant. Maybe she’d forgotten the words because of what had followed them. Her father dropped the precious notes, white sheets fluttering everywhere, like the feathers of a murdered dove. Her mother screamed; first it was the word “no” over and over again, but then it became a hoarse, choked cry that wasn’t a word at all, because there was no word that could express the pain. And with every sound she emitted, it seemed more of her life left her body, until she backed away from the door and dropped gracelessly onto the carpet, empty. Then Cassie’s father and the policeman were hovering over her, trying to help her up, to calm her. But there was no calming Mariah Jackson. Not until Dad managed to get a hypodermic from his bag and inject her with something.
Cassie knelt beside her mother on the floor, holding her as tightly as she could, and thinking how wrong it was that she was hugging her weeping mother. She’d never seen her mom like this. Not like this. It was like the end of the world. It was like everything that had ever been was gone. Torn apart, turned inside out. But she held her mother, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, until, still sobbing, Mariah fell asleep in Cassie’s arms, right there on the floor.
Dad had been standing nearby, watching, helpless, and speaking in low tones to the police. There were two of them. Cassie had only seen one at first.
Bending, Dad scooped her mother up and carried her to the sofa.
Cassie had to let her go, but for some reason she couldn’t get far from her. She felt as if she might fall into some bottomless pit if she did. Nothing was real, things seemed like a dream—a nightmare. Her sister couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be.
And even then she hadn’t known the true horror that had visited her family. She thought it must have been a car accident, and wondered which of Carrie’s friends had been involved and whether they were hurt, too.
“Will you be all right?” her father asked. “I have to go with the officer….”
To identify the body, Cassie thought, the phrase floating into her mind from countless TV cop shows.
“Officer Crowley can stay with them,” the policeman said. And Cassie looked up to see that the second cop was a woman in uniform, standing just inside the doorway, battling tears. She wasn’t very old, Cassie thought. Not more than a few years older than Carrie.
Cassie met her father’s eyes, nodded to tell him it was all right for him to go. He hugged her hard. Told her he loved her.
She spent the next hour in a state of shock, mostly staring at Carrie’s senior-class picture in its frame on the wall. She kept thinking she should be crying. But she couldn’t, because it wasn’t real. She still expected Carrie to come walking through the front door, asking what all the fuss was about. Cassie remembered the lady cop telling her that they would catch the man who did it. She made it a promise, a vow, and there was fire in her eyes when she said it.
It was only in that moment that Cassie realized her sister hadn’t died in some senseless car accident. Someone had killed her.
Killed her.
Somehow, Cassie got through that night. She would always think that lady cop had a lot to do with it. Her promise that they would get the man had given Cassie a focus—a dark, faceless him to hate and wish dead. The man who’d killed her sister. A target for her rage. She hoped the cops wouldn’t arrest him—surely they would just shoot him instead. How could they not? He’d killed Carrie.
They hadn’t, of course. They’d arrested him.
Jeffrey Allen Dunkirk had been their neighbor for more than a year. A seemingly harmless, always friendly, forty-five-year-old divorced father, who used to pay Cassie and Carrie to watch his twin sons from time to time. He only had the boys every other weekend. The cops said he’d spotted Carrie walking home from her best friend’s house, three blocks away, and had stopped and offered her a ride. Then he’d driven her to a park five miles out of town, raped her, strangled her and left her lying in a ditch, with her clothes and her purse tossed in beside her broken eighteen-year-old body. There was no question. His semen was inside her. Her hairs and fingerprints were all over his car. He had no alibi.
In the courtroom, the man standing there, waiting for the verdict to be read, was not the man Cassie knew. He was jittery, jerky, fidgety. Throughout the trial he’d alternated between sitting in a zoned-out stupor, and fidgeting as if he were going to jump out of his chair, while occasionally talking to himself in urgent whispers.
All an act designed to support his claim of insanity, because it was the only defense his lawyers could come up with. It made Cassie angry enough to claw out his eyes. And maybe that was good, because the anger took the edge off the grief.
A slip of paper was passed from the jury foreman to the bailiff, to the judge, who unfolded and read it, then handed it back to the bailiff, who carried it back to the juror. And finally, the foreman cleared his throat and read.
“In the case of New York State versus Jeffrey Allen Dunkirk, on the charge of murder in the first degree, we the jury find the defendant…”
Cassie’s mom squeezed her hand even tighter. Her father just sat there, as if he’d turned to stone.
“Not guilty by reason of mental defect or impairment.”
There was a collective gasp in the courtroom, followed by noisy murmurs, even as Cassie’s mother slumped in her chair. Cassie turned to her father, seeking his strength, his comfort, but he was on his feet, reaching into his suit jacket while the judge banged his gavel and shouted for silence. Cassie watched, paralyzed with shock, as her father’s hand emerged again, with a gun. The weapon bucked hard when it exploded in his hand, three times in quick succession, before men were hurling themselves at him. Cassie’s chair was knocked over in the rush, and she landed awkwardly on the floor, her eyes searching for her father beneath the pile of bodies on top of him.
She couldn’t see him, and her gaze was drawn to the crowd gathered across the aisle. In the midst of that crowd she could see Jeffrey Allen Dunkirk lying on the floor, a thick red puddle forming around him. Someone said, “He’s dead!”
Cassie got to her feet and stumbled to her mother, who was standing, sobbing, her entire body quaking. She put her arms around her mom as men hauled her father to his feet. An officer pulled the esteemed surgeon’s hands behind his back and snapped handcuffs around his wrists as he said, “Dr. Benjamin Jackson, I’m placing you under arrest.” Then he put a hand on her father’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry,” before continuing on, reciting the familiar Miranda rights.
1
Present Day…
River sat on the floor in the room’s deepest corner, his back to the wall, his arms wrapped around his waist. He couldn’t move them. The straitjacket held them too tightly for that. The room was white, its walls padded like the ones in the old Blackberry High School gymnasium. It didn’t smell like the gym, though. No mingling of hardwood floor polish and B.O. Here, the smell was a sickening combination of urine and bleach. Aside from that minor distraction, though, his mind was clouded in an almost pleasant fog, and yet turbulence kept surfacing from its depths. Specific analysis was impossible at this point. He only knew he was in trouble. Terrible trouble. And that he had to do something or he was going to die. So he sat there, rocking and struggling to capture coherence, because he couldn’t do anything unless he could remember what it was he had to do.
Sounds brought his head up; the locks on his door were turning. He strained his eyes as the door swung open, and slowly managed to bring the man who entered into focus. Ethan. Thank God.
Ethan crossed the room, a gentle smile on his face. He hunkered down in front of River, his white coat spotless and almost too bright, his name tag pinned neatly to a pocket. Dr. E. Melrose, M.D. Chief of Psychiatry. He put a hand on River’s shoulder.
“How you doing, pal? Better?”
River shook his head slowly. “Worse,” he said. “Getting worse, Ethan.”
Ethan frowned, studying River’s face, stared into his eyes. It made River think of when they were kids and they would stare at each other until one of them blinked. And then Ethan blinked and River laughed. “I win.”
“I’ll order more medication,” Ethan said.
“No!”
Ethan’s reaction—the way he jerked away from River—made its way through the fog in River’s mind enough to hurt. Enough to tell him that even his best friend was afraid of him. He licked his dry lips and tried again, though forming sentences was a challenge at best.
“No more drugs.”
“I know you don’t like taking the meds, Riv, but right now they’re the only thing keeping you—”
“You said…I’d get…better.” He knew his speech was slurred; he lisped his s’s and dulled his r’ s. He couldn’t help it. “I’m getting worse.”
“I know. I’m doing all I can for you.” Ethan moved to one side, reaching behind River to unfasten the straitjacket. When the sleeves came loose, River lowered his arms, sighing in relief at finally being able to change their position. Then he sat forward and let his friend pull the jacket off him. “Do you feel like talking?”
River nodded. “Try.”
“I know. I know it’s hard to talk. That’s due to the drugs, but…I’m sorry, Riv.”
River nodded. “Before Steph died…” His tongue felt thick and clumsy, and the words he formed in his mind didn’t make it all the way to his lips. He felt much like he had on prom night a hundred years ago when he and the jocks from the team had spiked the punch and he’d drunk way more than his share. Ethan had saved his ass that night. Practically carried him home, poured him into bed and then covered for him.
“Wasn’t this bad—jus’ the blackouts. And not rememememem…”
“Remembering,” Ethan finished. “I know.”
“Now…I can…barely…funchin…funchin…fun—”
“Function,” Ethan said.
Nodding, River lifted a hand to his lips, wiped and felt moisture. “Jesus. Ethan…I’m drooling.”
“I know. I know. I didn’t expect this, either.”
“It’s meds. Gotta be. Meds.”
Ethan nodded. “It’s possible. But River, you’ve got to stop getting violent with the staff here. It’s only making things worse. They’re here to help you. The way you’ve been acting the past few days, I’m afraid that without the medication, you might hurt someone.”
River narrowed his eyes on his friend. “Someone…tried…kill me.”
“What?”
“Pillow…on my face. Couldn’t see who. Came up sing—sing—”
“Swinging?”
“And…and they came in. I kep’ fighting. I din’t know…who—”
“All right, all right. Calm down. Don’t get agitated again.”
River took a few breaths, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Not a violent…man. Din’t…kill Steph. You know that.”
“I know,” Ethan said, lowering his eyes.
“S’posed to get better…here.”
Ethan sighed. “River, I’m going to review your meds, see where we can start lightening up the doses, and gradually bring you off them. Then we can get an idea where you are without chemical help. And I’ll speak to the staff, make sure you’re safe. I’ll have them keep your room locked while you sleep, have them keep a closer eye on you. All right?”
“Can’t jus’ stop…meds? Jus’ stop them?”
Ethan shook his head slowly. “Not all at once, no. You’d be a mess if we did that. I’ll start lowering the doses today. I promise.”
River sighed. “Okay. Okay.”
“Okay.” Ethan clasped his shoulders one last time, then got up and went through the door.
River struggled to his feet, though he had to press his palms to the wall to do it. Then he clung to that wall, pushing himself along it, around a corner and to the door. Exhausted, he leaned against it, his head resting on its smooth, cool surface, his ear pressed tight, because he thought someone might be out there waiting to come in when Ethan left. He had to be careful. Be aware.
“…must be so hard for you, seeing him like this,” a woman was saying. “He’s not the same man he was when he came here. But I suppose it’s eating away at him. He killed his pregnant wife, for heaven’s sake.”
“Doctor, he’s drooling a bit,” a second female voice said. “Did you notice it?”
“Yes. I’m afraid he’s getting worse,” Ethan said. “Showing signs of increased paranoia. Brand-new set of delusions. We’re going to need to increase his meds.”
“But, Doctor, he’s exhibiting extrapyramidal side effects,” the second voice said. “Doesn’t that indicate he should be taken off the Haldol altogether?”
“Excuse me, who are you exactly?” Ethan asked.
The first woman spoke. “She’s new here, Doctor. Forgive her. Nurse Jensen, Dr. Melrose is an excellent psychiatrist. He knows his job.”
“I know mine, too,” the nurse said, but softly.
River heard footsteps, then the first nurse again. “I apologize, Doctor. I’ll see to it she learns her place.”
“Oh, don’t be too hard on her. You know how overzealous new nurses can be. Uh, maybe it would be a good idea to keep her away from this particular patient, though. All right? I don’t want anything interfering with his treatment.”
“You’re a good friend. He’s lucky to have you,” she said. “I’ll see to it immediately.”
“Thanks, Judy.” River heard scraping sounds, knew Ethan was taking his chart from the plastic holder there, probably writing in it. “Meanwhile, let’s increase the Haldol. See if it doesn’t help.”
River groaned softly and gave up his hold on the door, letting himself sink to the floor. Ethan didn’t believe him. His best friend didn’t believe him. His head spun and he fought, fought hard to latch onto a thought. A single thought, anything, to save himself from the madness that was trying so hard to swallow him up.
He wasn’t insane. It was the meds. The meds were killing him. Good. Good. What then? What could help him? He struggled; fog closed in but he pushed it back.
Nurse Jensen…she knew. But no, she couldn’t help him. No one could help him. He was on his own. Okay. So he was on his own. And on his own, he had to get out of this place. There. That was it, that was the answer he’d been seeking through the fog. He had to get out of this place.
Cassandra Jackson—Jax to her friends—sat in the front seat of Chief Frankie Parker’s SUV as the countryside of Blackberry, Vermont, unwound before her. She’d been here before, but she would never get over the beauty of a Vermont winter. The entire place looked like a Christmas card—sugar-coated pine trees, leafless maples and poplars glittering with icicles, blankets of snow covering every gentle slope and level field. Frankie drove, smiling and talking nonstop about the benefits of being police chief of a small town. Jax’s parents, Ben and Mariah, rode in the back, agreeing with every word Frankie said.
“You were so right about this place, honey,” Mariah said. “When you told us a year ago that we’d love it here, I thought you were crazy, but it’s wonderful. Truly.”
Jax shrugged. “Perfect for you doesn’t necessarily mean perfect for me.” Which was a lie and she knew it. She’d hit a glass ceiling in the Syracuse Police Department. Maybe because she was a woman, but more likely because her father was a convicted murderer who’d only been out of prison for two years. Either way, she’d gone as far as she could go there.
So when Frankie Parker phoned her with the job offer, she’d been quick to take some vacation time and come up here to check things out. It made a nice excuse to visit her parents.
She’d fallen in love with the town of Blackberry when she’d been up here a year ago, helping a friend and hunting a killer. Her friends were still here—the killer long dead. And now her parents had settled in nearby to boot, adding to the little town’s attraction.
“It would be so nice to have you close by, right in the next town,” her father said, speaking slow and softly. “After all, we’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”
“That would be nice,” Jax agreed. God knew she hadn’t had enough time with her father—a lifetime wouldn’t be enough. He’d served twelve hard years in prison, and lost his brilliant medical career because of it. He would never be able to practice medicine again—at least not on human beings. But he hadn’t become despondent. He’d written every day, as had she. And he’d begun studying veterinary medicine while still in prison, and completed his work during the two years since his release. Only six months ago, the AVMA board had voted to grant him a license to practice. He had joined an aging veterinarian at the Blackberry-Pinedale Animal Hospital, and he seemed fulfilled and content.
He’d aged thirty years in prison. He was skinny as a rail, his hair pure white and thinning, and he was quiet—far more quiet than he’d ever been before. Almost as if he was always far too deep in thought to be bothered with conversation.
“It would be nice for me, too,” Frankie said. “I’ve been wanting to retire for months, but reluctant to leave the department in less than capable hands. When I thought of you, Jax, it was like a load off my shoulders. I’m convinced you’re the one for the job.”
“Yeah, yeah, flattery will probably work. Keep it coming,” Jax told her.
Frankie grinned at her, adding wrinkles to her wrinkles. Jax still wasn’t used to thinking of a sixty-plus-year-old with kinky silver curls as chief of police, but she knew from experience Frankie Parker was a good cop. Her looks just tended to lull you into thinking she was harmless. That probably worked to her advantage.
“The town board will approve you on my say-so,” she said. “No problem there. It’s really up to you.”
Again Jax nodded. “Why aren’t you promoting one of the officers from your department, Frankie?”
“Neither Matthews nor Campanelli are interested,” she said. “Too much paperwork, too much pressure. Though, compared to a big department like Syracuse has, you’ll find it a piece of cake,” she added quickly. “I’ve got one other, Kurt Parker, but frankly, he hasn’t got the temperament for it. Hell, he probably wouldn’t be working for me at all if he wasn’t my nephew.”
Jax nodded, mulling that over. She hadn’t met Officer Parker. He’d been away on vacation when she’d been here last. Then she thought of someone else who could fill the position. “What about Josh Kendall? He was DEA. Surely he could fill the spot.”
“Kendall?” Frankie shook her head. “I like that we think alike, Jax. Josh was on top of my list. Fact is, I offered him the job and he turned me down flat. I think he and Beth have had enough excitement to last them several lifetimes. They’re both content to make their way as the humble keepers of the Blackberry Inn. Can’t say as I blame them.” She slowed the car, glanced at Jax with a smile. “Here’s the house that comes with the job.”
Jax looked, then looked again. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope.”
She’d expected the house, a perk that came along with the job as police chief, to be a functional cracker box at the edge of the village. Instead, Frankie was pulling into the driveway of a flat-roofed, white Victorian that took her breath away. Tall narrow windows were flanked by forest-green shutters, with elaborate scrollwork trim in that same green, as well as mauve. The paint was new. The place looked perfect.
“Town claimed it for back taxes and other money owed a while back. They did some initial repairs, and kept it in tiptop shape since. Were thinking about selling it, but we had a budget surplus this year. I convinced them to offer it to the new police chief, make up for the pay being lower than you could make elsewhere. Told ’em we’d have to do something special to get someone good enough to fill my shoes.”
“Must be some damn big shoes,” Jax muttered. “What are you, a twelve extra-wide?”
“Ahh, it’s not so much. Used to be twice this size,” Frankie said. “But an entire wing had to be torn down. Wait till you see inside.” She shut the motor off and got out, making footprints in the snow. She tugged her furry collar up to her ears and trudged forward, taking a set of keys from her black, leatherlike cop-jacket’s pocket.
Jax got out, too, waiting for her parents to join her before hurrying toward the front door. She was nearly there when a large black-and-brown dog lunged out from underneath the front porch, barked twice with its pointy ears laid back, then turned and ran away. It vanished into the woods across the street. Jax just stood there, staring after it and swearing under her breath.
“That was a police dog, wasn’t it?” Mariah asked. “I think it’s a sign!”
Jax pursed her lips and refrained from correcting her mother. She’d always referred to German shepherds as “police dogs” and always would. “That was one sad-looking case,” Jax said. “Seemed as if it’s been living on tree bark and swamp water.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that dog.” Frankie shook her head so that her tight silver curls bounced. “He’s a menace. We’ve been trying to collar him for a year without any luck. He’s cagey enough to get by on his own.”
Jax tipped her head to one side. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”
“How so?” Frankie asked.
Jax shrugged. “He’s no mongrel, looked like a purebred. He must have belonged to someone once.”
“I didn’t know you were a dog lover, Jax,” Frankie said.
“I could care less about dogs.” It was a lie and she knew it, but she didn’t want to go blowing her anti-girlie image by painting herself as a bleeding-heart puppy cuddler. “You have a father who’s a vet, you pick up a few things, that’s all.”
“Well, that mutt may be a purebred, but I can tell you he’s one hundred percent pure pain in my backside now. Don’t worry, Jax, we won’t let him pester you. Come on, come see the house.”
Jax nodded and followed Chief Frankie inside, trying unsuccessfully to put the dog out of her mind. It wasn’t easy. His brown eyes had met hers for just a moment, and managed to beam right past her hard-shell exterior to the soft, mushy parts she didn’t let anyone see.
She didn’t like those parts, kept them concealed and confined. Mostly because she lived and worked in a man’s world and she’d learned to act the part. But she knew, too, it was partly because her sister had been soft. She’d been friendly, open and utterly trusting. Jax had learned at sixteen where those soft parts could get you. In her line of work, and in life in general, a woman just couldn’t afford to indulge them.
Still, the whole time Frankie showed her around the house, which was just as gorgeous on the inside, she kept thinking about the dog. And before the tour was finished, she’d decided to pick up a bag of dog food and leave some out for him. Of course, she wouldn’t tell anyone. But she’d always had a soft spot for strays.
“Now, the fireplace has been checked over thoroughly. It’s ready to use, but there’s also a new furnace in the basement that heats the place just fine,” Frankie said.
Jax nodded, and couldn’t help imagining the redbrick fireplace aglow with a big fire, even as she walked around the living room. When she got to the far wall, she hugged her arms. “Chilly on this side of the room.” When she spoke she could see her breath. “Whoa, real chilly.”
“Must be the side the wind’s blowing on,” Mariah said, smiling. Her mother, Jax realized, wasn’t going to find any fault with the house that might become her daughter’s new home. No matter what.
“It’s always chilly on the east side of the house. I suspect it could use another layer of insulation,” Frankie said. “Upstairs there are three bedrooms and a bathroom. One bathroom down here, as well.”
“More than one cop needs,” Jax said.
“Sure wouldn’t be as cramped as your apartment in Syracuse, would it, Cassie?” Mariah asked.
It wasn’t really a question.
“Come on, let me show you the kitchen,” Frankie said.
As they trooped through the place, Jax looked back to see her father standing on the far side of the living room, studying the clouds of steam his breath made, a frown etched on his brow.
“Dad?”
He glanced her way, softened his face so the frown vanished.
“You okay?” Jax asked.
He nodded and joined her in the dining room. Mariah and Frankie were already in the kitchen, chattering. Benjamin slipped an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “The place seems lonely,” he said. “Almost…sad. I think it needs you.”
“Yeah?”
“And it would make your mother awfully happy.”
“I know, Dad. I’m considering it, I really am.”
“That’s all we can ask.”
She could have told him she was thinking this whole thing a little too good to be true, and trying to figure out a way to find the catch in the entire offer without hurting Frankie’s feelings. Hell, they were just going to hand her a house? Something had to be off. If there wasn’t, she’d be an idiot not to take the job. Still, as she took the grand tour, liking the place more with every room she saw, she knew there had to be a downside.
Later, as they drove away from the house, Jax noticed a shape peering out from beneath the snow right beside the place. “Is that a foundation?” she asked.
Frankie glanced where she was looking and nodded. “That was the wing that had to be torn down. It was never part of the original structure, anyway. It was added on in the seventies—seventy-five, I think. Two-car garage and a game room on the ground floor, extra bedrooms up above.”
“So what happened to it? Why’d it have to go? Shoddy construction work?”
Frankie shook her head. “There was a fire couple of years back. Sad story, really. A woman was killed.” She narrowed her eyes on Jax’s face. “That’s not gonna spook you now, is it?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts, if that’s what you mean.” Right, so what was that little shiver up her spine just now? she wondered. And deep down in her brain an irritating voice said, “Hey, kid, maybe you just found your downside.”
Frankie brightened. “Good. Because I’d like you to spend your two-week vacation at the house,” she said. “You can shadow me on the job, get a real feeling for what it will be like to live and work here in Blackberry. After that, if you decide to take the job, the house is yours, rent free. If you stay five years, you get the deed, as well.”
“That’s an incredibly generous offer, Frankie. Almost too generous.” Jax faced the woman, reminded herself Frankie was something of a kindred spirit, and decided to stop pulling punches. “So what’s the catch?”
Frankie held her eyes, probably to make it clear she had nothing to hide. “No catch. It’s meant to be an offer that’s too good to turn down,” she said. “Of course, the pay isn’t the greatest, but it’s nothing to sneeze at, either. Best of all, Blackberry’s a safe place to be a cop. Nothing bad ever happens here.”
Jax crooked one brow. “Aren’t you forgetting your run-in with Mordecai Young last year? I was here for that, Frankie. Remember?”
Frankie’s smile died. “Not likely to forget. He murdered my best friend.” She sighed, shaking her head. “God rest your soul, Maudie Bickham.” Then she focused on Jax again. “That was a once in a lifetime event. Honestly, Jax, I mean it. Bad things don’t happen in Blackberry.”
Jax nodded, but she thought about the foundation, the fire that had burned a wing of the house. A woman had been killed, Frankie said. Surely that qualified as a “bad thing.” Jax wondered briefly if the pristine purity of Blackberry, Vermont was anything more than a convincing and beautiful illusion.
A nurse brought River back to his room, speaking softly to him all the way. He checked her name tag, but she was neither a “Judy” nor a “Jensen.” He wasn’t really sure why he was checking. When she got him to his room, he looked around—everything here was becoming familiar. The bed. The mesh-lined glass of the single window. The door to the tiny bathroom. He needed to remember what he had to do. That was all he struggled for. To remember what he had to do. Get away. Get out.
“There now, I’m so glad to see you’re feeling better this afternoon,” the nurse said, leading him to the easy chair, expecting him to sit down, he realized, when she paused there, just looking at him. So he did. Then she brought out the pills, as he had known she would. She poured water from a pitcher and handed him the tiny medicine cup that held the tablets.
Remember, he told himself. Remember what to do.
He took the pills, drank the water, swallowed them.
“Let’s see,” she chirped, as if she were speaking to a four-year-old.
River obediently opened his mouth, lifted his tongue, let her assure herself he’d swallowed the pills.
“Good, good for you, Michael.”
He could have told her to call him River. He’d started out correcting everyone here. No one had called him Michael since he was thirteen years old. Ethan’s dad had started it that summer after the rapids had gobbled up his canoe and spit him out onto the shore. But River didn’t care what anyone called him anymore. He wasn’t sure who the hell he was, anyway, so what difference did it make?
“Now if you put in a good night, you’ll get your privileges back tomorrow. You want to go to the community room, don’t you?”
He nodded, tried to force a smile, and just wished she would leave so he could try to make himself cough up the pills before he forgot.
“That’s good,” she said. “You just take it easy for tonight. You’ve had a hard day. Do you need anything before I go?”
“No.”
“All right then. Good night, Michael.”
“’Night.”
He waited until she had closed the door behind her. He heard the lock snap into place.
Focus. The meds—have to get rid of them.
He got to his feet and went into the bathroom, angry that hurrying wasn’t much of an option. He shuffled when he walked. Opening the toilet lid, he leaned over the bowl, stuck a finger down his throat, started to gag.
“Oh, now, Michael. That’s no way to behave yourself, is it?”
He straightened fast, but it made him dizzy, and when he spun around he fell, landing on the seat. Which turned out to be a lucky thing, because the orderly standing over him was swinging a knife at him. River’s clumsiness caused him to duck the blow that would have slit his throat.
He reacted with the instinct of a veteran cop, not a mental patient. It was almost as if he were standing aside, observing, silently amazed that his years of training hadn’t been entirely erased, even by the drugs. His body remembered. It didn’t need his mind’s coherent instructions to move; it just reacted. He drove his head into the man’s belly, shot to his feet as the guy doubled over, clasped his fists together and brought them down as one, hammering the back of the orderly’s head.
The man went down hard, his forehead cracking against the toilet seat on the way. And then he just lay there, not moving.
River stared down at him, shocked. His heart was pounding as hard as the drugs would allow.
The drugs! Dammit.
He grabbed up the knife the downed orderly had been wielding, long instinct refusing to let it lie there beside the man. Then he shoved the limp body out from in front of the toilet, and tried again to vomit. He managed to bring up a little. Enough, he hoped. Prayed. Let it be enough.
The orderly still hadn’t moved. The toilet seat was cracked, River realized, and so was the bowl underneath it. Water was seeping onto the floor.
River started to shake as he knelt beside the man, checking for a pulse. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to find it in his condition even if there had been one. So many drugs floating through his bloodstream—even if he had brought up the most recent batch. Still, he tried to find a pulse. But he didn’t think the man was alive.
He sank onto the floor, rocking back and forth, trying to organize his thoughts. He had to get out of here. He had to. But God, it was so hard to think. Maybe if he’d managed to avoid swallowing his meds for a few days. Maybe then he could have—
Not then. Now. You have to get out of here now.
Somehow, he latched onto a thought, a goal. And slowly, clumsily, he began to remove the fallen man’s clothes. All of them, even the lanyard around his neck with the magnetically stripped key card. The front of the card bore a photo of the orderly. His name had been Kyle. Kyle W. Maples.
It took forever, the better part of an hour, River thought, or maybe longer. But eventually, he was dressed in the orderly’s white uniform, with the hunting knife hidden in a deep pocket and the lanyard around his own neck. The orderly was wearing River’s own powder-blue patient pajamas. They were on him crookedly, the top inside out, but it didn’t matter. He’d done the best he could.
River lifted the dead man’s head by its hair, and grimacing, smashed his face on the toilet seat three times, hard enough to obliterate his features.
When he finished, he managed to empty the remaining contents of his stomach without any trouble at all.
Sighing, breathless, he turned to the sink, washed his face and rinsed his mouth. Then he wet his hands, smoothed down his hair as best he could, wiped the spittle from his chin.
Have to get out. But how? The door’s locked from the outside.
Get a nurse to open it. Get a nurse to come in.
Nodding, River hit the bathroom’s emergency call button.
After a moment, a nurse’s voice came on. “What is it, Mr. Corbett?”
He drew a breath, swallowed hard. He was forgetting something, more than likely. He wasn’t in any condition to plan an escape that would work. But he had to try. “I…I fell. I’m…hurt.”
He released the button and went back into the room, standing against the wall, beside the door. He could hear the nurse’s voice coming over the speaker, asking if he were all right, then telling him she would be there promptly. When the lock on the door clicked, he pressed his back to the wall, so that when the door swung open, it hid him.
The nurse paused in the doorway at the sight of the legs sticking out from the open bathroom door. Then she rushed into the bathroom, and he heard her whisper, “Oh, my God,” as he slipped out of his room and down the hall.
Within seconds, staff members were rushing toward his room, barely noticing one lone orderly in the corridor, moving in the opposite direction. He found the stair door, used the key card that hung from the orderly’s lanyard to unlock it, and took the stairs rather than the elevators. All the way down, all the way to the basement garage, where his footsteps echoed in the cool, exhaust-scented air.
God, it was getting harder and harder to walk. To focus. Maybe some of the meds had dissolved before he threw them up. Or maybe he was just tired. He didn’t know what to do next, and he groped in the orderly’s pockets as if for an answer. His hands closed around a set of keys, and he pulled them out and stared at them.
Car keys? They had a remote device on them. The kind with the button you could press to start your car from a distance, another to unlock the doors and yet another that had an emblem of a horn on it. Frowning, River pressed that button and heard, in the distance, two short beeps.
Blinking, trying to focus, he followed the sound, thanking his lucky stars. After a while, he hit the button again, and again the car’s horn sounded, guiding him in. It was a small Toyota. Yellow. He hit the unlock button and got behind the wheel. And he knew damn well he shouldn’t be driving, but he had no choice.
It was a strain to steer the vehicle. Had another car come along he would have surely hit it, or hit one of the parked cars trying to avoid it. But no other car came, and finally, he was at the gate, where a striped bar blocked his exit, and a little box with a blinking yellow light stood beside him.
He nearly panicked. There was a man inside the small booth, smiling at him and shaking his head, then he pointed at the box and held up a little card.
Right. Put the card in the slot in the box. That’s all. He took the lanyard off his neck, turned to thrust the key card into the box and banged his hand against the closed window. Swallowing his panic, he put the window down, tried again. He put the card into the slot. Pulled it back out. The gate rose. The man in the booth waved at him. River waved back, tried to smile, and struggled to steer the car out of the garage and onto the long strip of pavement that wound away from the Vermont State Mental Hospital.
He pressed the accelerator a little harder and left the place behind.
When he made it to the highway, he hesitated for one brief moment, wondering where on earth he was going to go where they wouldn’t find him. Because eventually, they were going to realize the dead man in his room was not Michael “River” Corbett. Hell, they’d probably call what he’d done back there murder.
That would be two on the list. Three, he reminded himself. He mustn’t forget—couldn’t forget—the baby. Three murders.
It didn’t matter if he was found, if he was caught, if he ended up dead—nothing mattered except learning the truth. He had to know what had happened the night of the fire. He couldn’t have murdered his wife and his child.
For a moment, as he sat there, turn signal blinking incessantly, he closed his eyes, and it came rushing back to him as if it were happening all over again.
He found himself lying on the lawn in the cool green grass, surrounded by searing heat and light and a stench that burned his lungs. Rex was there, licking his face, whining plaintively. And even as he slowly fought to grasp what was happening, he realized he’d had another damn blackout. Yet another episode when he lost minutes, sometimes hours of his life, only to return to himself with no idea of what he’d done during that time. He patted the dog’s head. “Okay, boy, okay. I’m back.”
But this time was different. He’d felt it even before he struggled to sit up, and then leaped to his feet at the sight of his beautiful home going up in flames.
He screamed his wife’s name, lunged forward, only to be clasped by a pair of strong hands that held him back. “Easy, Mr. Corbett. Easy. We’re doing all we can.”
He blinked up at the face of the firefighter, a young man, one he didn’t recognize, though he’d met most of the men in Blackberry by then. Rex was barking at the man, and he told the dog it was all right, to quiet down.
Rex sat obediently, but still whined every now and then.
“Thanks,” the firefighter said, and then the young man’s face changed. It turned ugly as he sniffed. Then he looked at the ground beside River’s feet and his eyes widened.
River looked, too. A gasoline can lay there, toppled onto its side, no cap in place. A high-heeled shoe lay beside it, bright orange in the flashing lights.
It might be Steph’s shoe. He didn’t recognize it, but God knew she had so many—maybe she got out already.
“Just why is it you’ve got gas on you, pal?” the firefighter asked.
River frowned, and then he smelled the gas, as well. Not just from the fumes that open can emitted. The smell of gas was coming from him. From his hands. From his clothes.
“I think you’d better come with me, Mr. Corbett,” the firefighter said. And then he took River by the arm and walked him toward the flashing lights of Frankie Parker’s police car, a black-and-white SUV.
A horn blew, jerking River from his muddled thoughts and gap-riddled memories. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw a car behind him, the driver waiting impatiently to get on the highway. Sighing, he flicked his own signal light off again, opting instead to take back roads. Less chance of killing someone. God knew he didn’t need any more blood on his hands. And he knew the way. He knew the back roads of Vermont so well he could find his way even from within the thick chemical clouds in his brain.
If he’d murdered Stephanie, he deserved whatever he got. But dammit, he had to know. He had to know the truth. And there was only one place where he would find it.
He had to go back home to Blackberry.
That was where all the secrets were buried.
2
“Stop!”
Dawn shouted the word and Bryan hit the brakes of her Jeep. It skidded a little on the road, then came to a stop right in front of the empty, beautifully painted Victorian house that sat alone a few yards away.
“What?” Bryan asked. “What’s wrong?”
He knew something was. Something had been wrong for months now, and she was running out of ways to deny it, or avoid it, or block it out.
She swallowed hard, tried not to notice the worry in his dark eyes, or the way his hair had fallen over his forehead, making her want to smooth it away. He hadn’t cut it since they’d started college. She liked it this way.
“Dawn?”
“There was something in the road….” She watched his face, knowing immediately there had been nothing there. Nothing he had been able to see, anyway. Certainly not a woman in a white nightgown, holding a baby in her arms. Certainly not that.
Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “Sorry, Bry. I—it was just a squirrel. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He sighed in relief, seemed to relax visibly. “You’re wound awfully tight lately, Dawn. I’m really glad you’re gonna spend Thanksgiving break at the inn with Beth and my dad.” He smiled. “And me.”
She shrugged and chose to ignore the final part of his comment. He knew she needed to cool things off between them. He didn’t know why—pretended to accept her decision and be fine with it. But he wasn’t fine. She’d hurt him and she knew that. If there were any other way—
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. I get a little torn. It’s tough, trying to find time to spend with both families—breaks from college are few and far between.”
He nodded. “At least your adoptive mom is cool with you spending time with your birth mom,” he put in. “That helps.”
It also helped that her birth mother, Beth, was married to Bryan’s dad, Joshua. Or it would have helped, if she weren’t trying so hard to put some distance between herself and Bry—for his sake, mostly.
“Let’s get going. Beth and Josh are waiting for us,” she said.
Bryan set the Jeep into motion. But as they drove away, Dawn couldn’t stop her gaze from straying back to that dark, lonely house. And as she did, she saw the woman again, a filmy, nearly transparent shape in the night. Not real, Dawn knew. She wasn’t real at all. None of them were.
It’s not going to work, you know, she thought. You’re never going to make it work, Father. Never.
The best restaurant in Blackberry, the Sugar Tree, was a two-story log cabin with picture windows that looked out on to a rolling, snow-covered lawn. In the summer, the hostess told Jax, there were glorious flowers and blossoming trees, a tiny pond with a fountain in the center, and outdoor tables. But this time of year, all the fun was indoors. The second floor was loft-style on all four sides, leaving the center of the place open clear to the rafters. It was a hell of a place.
The hostess seated them at a table near the huge stone fireplace with a window nearby, leaned closer and said, “Welcome back to Blackberry, Lieutenant Jackson. We sure hope you like it enough to stay.” She sent her a wink. “Your waitress will be right over to take your drink orders. Enjoy your dinner.”
Jax lifted her brows and sent a look at the three coconspirators who sat around the circular table. “So, does the whole town know what I’m doing here?”
“Honey,” Frankie said, “this is Blackberry. The whole town probably knows what time you arrived and what your mother made you for breakfast.”
“Small towns,” Jax said with a shake of her head.
“It’s not all bad,” her mom told her. “People may know a lot of your business, but not all of it. It’s nice that they care enough to want to know what you’re willing to share, but also enough to know when to leave it alone.”
Jax shot a look at her father.
“She means they don’t pry here,” her father interjected. “I’ve confided in Frankie about my past. But I’ve seen no sign that it’s gone any further.”
“It hasn’t,” Frankie assured him. “Nor will it.”
He nodded. “I don’t deserve your loyalty, Frankie, but I do appreciate it.”
“Of course you deserve it.” Frankie patted his hand across the table. “We’ve all done things we wish we could undo.”
“Few as much as I,” he said softly.
“Dad, you paid for what you did.”
He met Jax’s eyes, and for a moment they were so dark, so sullen, she didn’t even recognize them. But then he looked away. Her father was a haunted man. Sometimes she wondered if he knew the truth—but no. He couldn’t possibly. It would kill him if he knew.
Mariah said, “You’ve had all day to think it over, Cassie. Don’t keep us in suspense any longer than you have to. Have you made a decision yet?”
Jax tore her worried gaze from her father, sent her mother a nod and a smile, then focused on the chief of police. “I’ve decided to take you up on your offer to stay in the house and shadow you on the job for the next two weeks. And—hell, there’s not much point playing cutesy, is there? Unless something really troubling crops up, or you decide to withdraw the offer, I imagine I’ll be accepting the job when the two weeks are up.”
“Hot damn!” Frankie said with a smile. “Well, this calls for a celebration!” Even as she said it, a pretty young waitress arrived, dressed in black pants with a knife-sharp crease, spotless white blouse, red ribbon tied in a bow at her collar, and carrying an order pad in her hand.
“Champagne?” Frankie asked the others.
“I prefer a nice cold beer,” Jax said. “In the bottle.”
“Ahh, me, too,” Frankie said. “But make mine an N.A., in a frosted mug.”
“Mariah and I will have wine. A nice merlot. You choose,” Ben told the waitress.
The girl smiled brightly and trotted off to get the drinks. Jax said, “I’m kind of looking forward to spending the night at the house tonight.”
“Tonight?” her mother asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Well, the power’s not turned on. There’s no phone yet, no heat….”
“I can have the utilities turned on fast,” Frankie said. “But not that fast. By tomorrow, for sure.” She shrugged. “On the other hand, I’ve already got a bed set up in the master bedroom. Even took over some fresh sheets and blankets for you, got it all made up and ready. No other furniture in the place yet—I planned to do that tomorrow, as well.”
“You don’t need to furnish the house, Frankie. That’s asking too much,” Jax said.
“Oh, I won’t be. Not all by myself. Your parents have some things in storage, and several others around town have items they want to contribute. I mean, you’ll want your own things once you decide to make it your permanent home, but these will do for your two-week trial period,” Frankie said with a smile, as if she knew damn well Jax would be staying.
“You should stay with us tonight, hon,” Mariah said. “It’s not safe to be in that house all alone.”
Jax put a hand over her mother’s on the table. “It’ll be an adventure. Like camping out when we were kids.”
“Carrie always hated it,” Mariah said softly.
“Only because I always managed to find something slimy to put in her sleeping bag before sunup. Frogs, lizards—”
“You were such a brat.” Her mother turned her hand over, closing it around Jax’s.
“I’ll have the fireplace for heat. Dad, you can loan me a couple of your lanterns. It’ll be fun.”
Mariah looked to her husband as if for backup. But Benjamin was studying his daughter and nodding in reluctant approval. “She’s a grown woman, a police officer, Mariah. She’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded, smiling slightly.
The waitress arrived with their drinks and handed them around. Jax twisted the cap off her longneck bottle. Frankie lifted her mug. “Here’s to the newest resident of Blackberry,” she said. “Welcome home, Jax.”
“Welcome home,” her parents echoed.
They clanked their drinks together as the waitress hovered, ready to take their orders.
Driving the dead orderly’s car had become more and more difficult, and finally impossible. The third time River veered off the road, and went skidding through the slush on the shoulder, he’d taken out two mailboxes. At first, he thought he’d hit two human beings. It shook him too much to continue. He didn’t want to kill anyone else. He didn’t want to end up dead himself—not until he found the answers he needed to find, at least.
Besides, he was pretty sure he’d been seen. Another car had passed, heading in the opposite direction, just as he’d lost control that last time. The driver probably called the cops. Probably reported him as a drunk driver. Maybe not.
Didn’t matter. He couldn’t drive anymore.
He steered the car up a side road, where the only other tracks in the snow had been made by a logging truck, by the looks of them. And then he drove until the tires spun in the snow.
After that, he got out and took a look around. His mind kept wandering, but he managed to keep tugging it back on track. He knew where he was. In a tall pine forest outside Blackberry. Five miles to town, on foot, but less if he cut through the woods. It had been a while since he’d spent any time in the woods.
He used to, though. All the time. Him and Ethan. When they were kids. The trips with Ethan’s dad. Camping and hiking. As adults, they’d bought a hunting cabin together, the two of them. It wasn’t far from here—too far to walk, though. An hour by car. It had been their getaway. Stephanie called it their “He-Man Woman Haters Club.” God, they’d had some good times there.
River stopped walking, vaguely aware he’d let his mind wander again. He wasn’t sure which way he’d gone, had to check his tracks in the snow to tell which direction the road was. “Have to stay focused,” he muttered. He managed to get his bearings. The fire trail was off to his left. He headed for it, knowing it cut kitty-corner through the southeastern edge of Blackberry and ended at the pond across the street from his house.
He was weak, he realized as he set off again. Every step in the packed snow was an effort, and every steamy breath came harder. It was probably no wonder. He’d done nothing but sit in a hospital for a year. The meds had killed his appetite months ago, to the point where only the threat of a feeding tube forced him to down a few bites of the meals that were brought to him, and even that small amount made his stomach buck in rebellion. Four miles. Surely he could manage that much.
He did, but by the time he emerged from the woods across the street from his long-lost home, he was so cold he’d stopped shivering. No coat. He should have taken that into account. The orderly’s shoes were a size too small, and designed for padding softly through hospital corridors, not for trudging through snow. River’s feet had long since gone numb, so his stumbling gait had more than just a chemical cause.
It was night; he couldn’t guess how late, but it wasn’t dark. The full moon hung low, spilling its milky light over the snow, over his house. Or what remained of it. He noted the absence of the entire wing, but also noted that the place looked to be in excellent condition, given what had happened.
The square, main part of the house remained, pristine white with those green shutters and purplish trim, colors Steph had chosen. The big oak door. It had an arched, stained-glass panel above that matched the slender ones to either side. He looked up higher, at the tall, narrow bedroom windows on the second floor. One of those bedrooms had been his and Stephanie’s. Another was going to be the nursery. The wing had held a two-car garage and a huge family room, with guest rooms upstairs. One of those guest rooms was the room where Stephanie had died.
Gone now, except for bits of the foundation showing through the snow. Vanished, like his life. And any possible reason he might have had for living it.
He sank to his knees in the snow, braced his hands in its frigid depths to keep from falling facedown. God, he was cold. And dizzy. And so very tired. The walk had drained him. He hadn’t walked more than a few yards at a stretch during his time in the hospital. From his room to the community room. More often just within the confines of his room, where he’d preferred to stay alone. He never had to walk to the isolation room, the proverbial “rubber room,” where they took him when they decided he had become agitated or violent. He had found himself there a number of times, confined in a straitjacket. Ethan would tell him the things he’d done, but he wouldn’t remember them. It was sheer hell to finally realize he was capable of violence during his blackouts. He would never have believed it if Ethan hadn’t told him himself, witnessed it himself.
Maybe River had killed Stephanie.
His hands were going numb. The wind burned his face and ears. He sat up slowly, his fogged mind telling him he had to find shelter. A warm place to sleep. If he stayed where he was, he’d likely be dead by morning.
With what felt like superhuman effort, he got to his feet again and turned in a slow circle, studying the intact part of his house. Well, not his house. Not anymore.
It stood there, dark and silent. Not a light on in the place, no car in the driveway. The house exuded emptiness. As he moved closer he realized there were no curtains in the windows. So maybe his house was still empty. Hell, he didn’t wonder at that. Who would want to live in a place with so much horror in its past?
No one. Certainly not him. When it had gone to the town in lieu of taxes he hadn’t even cared. He never intended to set foot there again.
And now he was doing just that.
He walked up onto the porch and tried the door. It was locked, naturally. Sighing, he lowered his head and left the porch. He walked around the place, tracking through the snow, until he reached the back door. And by then he was barely holding his eyes open. There was no time for subtlety here. He wasn’t going to be able to stay on his feet much longer. He tapped a windowpane with his knuckles, then tapped it a little harder. The third time, he hit it hard enough to break the glass, then he reached through, scratching his arm on the way. He found the doorknob, the lock, flipped it free, opened the door, and stepped into the kitchen.
He stood, none too steadily for a moment, looking around the place. It felt so familiar he almost collapsed from the force of the memories rushing at him. And he could only be grateful it was too dark to see much, or it might have been even worse.
“Just get on with it, already.”
There was no kitchen table. No chairs. No place where he could sit to remove his shoes, so he sank onto the floor and wrestled the frozen, snow-coated things off his feet. He’d have killed for a pair of warm, dry socks. His feet were heavy stumps with hardly any feeling left in them, and he sat there for a moment, rubbing them until he felt the intense sensation of needles pricking them all over as the feeling slowly returned.
His feet burned when he managed to get back up on them, and the blood rushed into them. He found a light switch and snapped it on, but nothing happened. Frowning, he limped to the refrigerator, but found it empty, spotless and unplugged. Its door was propped slightly open by a foam block sitting in the bottom.
Clearly, no one had lived in the house for a while. Maybe not since the fire, though someone had made repairs. Maybe the Fates had finally decided to cut him a break. He stumbled through the kitchen, found the stairway and limped up it. It was even darker in the upstairs hallway, but moonlight flooded through the windows of the first bedroom he reached. It spilled onto a neatly made bed as if angels were pointing the way for him. He almost laughed at the absurdity of the notion, even as he moved forward, clasping the comforter in his eager hands, tugging it back, seeing the thick pillows awaiting his tired head.
He wanted to collapse into the bed right that instant, but managed to hold off long enough to struggle free of his wet, frozen clothes. Then, at last, he crawled into the bed, pulling the covers tight around him, tucking them in on all sides and around the bottoms of his feet. He lay on his side, wrapped in a soft cocoon, and he was still waiting for warmth to seep into his bones when he fell into a deep sleep.
Jax stopped off at her parents’ house to pick up the lanterns her father had promised to loan her, but she did so largely to soothe her mother’s constant worry. She couldn’t blame her mom for worrying about her. She’d lost one daughter, so it was natural she would become overprotective of the other. Even though Jax was on the fast track to thirty, and a decorated police officer, her mother hadn’t managed to make the leap. She still worried, still fussed.
Probably always would.
Carrie had been the one who’d needed fussing over—the one who’d thrived on it. She’d been very much a girlie-girl, while Cassie had been the tomboy. It chafed when her mother fussed, but not so much that she would ever complain.
Jax wasn’t worried in the least. She could handle herself. She’d kicked the asses of countless perps who thought they could outdo her on the streets. And probably an even greater number of male colleagues in the gym, when they underestimated her abilities. A few responded by developing a grudging respect. Most just got their boxers in a twist over having their ultrafragile male egos bruised, and became more hostile than ever.
Assholes.
It was a fine line she’d learned to walk. Frankly, it was a damn tightrope, and she resented having to walk it. Moreover, she was tired of it. Here, it would be different. Instead of an entire city PD full of men to whom she had to prove herself even while tiptoeing over their machismo, she would have three fellow officers. She could make this work. She knew she could. Without tiptoeing, bowing, scraping or leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
It was going to be great.
As she pulled her dependable red Ford Taurus into the driveway of the pitch-dark house, she didn’t feel a single hint of apprehension about going inside, spending the night there alone. She had her flashlight—always carried one in the car—and her personal handgun strapped to her side, not that she expected to need it. She had a spare gun in the glove compartment for emergencies. There wouldn’t be any, of course. After all, nothing bad ever happened in Blackberry.
Right.
The driveway was freshly plowed. Frankie must have made a phone call or her father had sent someone over. There wasn’t a lot of snow on the ground, not yet. Six inches of packy, rapidly melting white stuff, with hardly any base to it. Stones and dirt showed through where the plow blade had scraped. She pulled her car to a stop close to the porch, left the headlights on, hit the trunk release button, then got out and went around to the back.
She took the megasize dog dishes from their blue plastic Wal-Mart bag. She’d made a stop on the way back from her parents’ at a store they had assured her was almost always open. She’d purchased some bottled water, a giant bag of dog food, a windup alarm clock, the dog dishes and, most essential of all, a small coffeemaker with filters, a pound of ground roast and a travel mug. She was good to go. The humongous, thick, cushy dog bed had been an afterthought. Another chink in her armor.
She filled the dish with food and left the big bag of dog food there in the trunk for the night. No point bringing it inside and leaving it out where it would attract any curious mice or chipmunks that might have taken up residence in the vacant house.
She took the other purchases out, threading her arm through the plastic handles of the overloaded bag, wedging the dog bed between her inner arm and her body, and, dog dish in one hand, flashlight in the other, she closed the trunk. Then Cassie walked over the nicely plowed driveway toward the porch, seeing that whoever had scraped away the snow had taken a shovel to the sidewalk, too, and even cleaned off the front steps. Nice.
She set the items down, taking only her flashlight and the dog bed with her as she trudged through the snow to the spot where the dog had emerged from underneath the porch today. A couple of boards were missing, giving the shepherd a handy entrance. She shone the light inside, but there was no sign of the dog right now. Still, she shoved the dog bed through the opening, pushing it back as far as she could reach. The cover could be unzipped, removed and washed. The inner part was waterproof and cedar filled. You could empty it out and refill it with fresh stuffing if you wanted. Not that she would. Only a real sucker would go to that much trouble for a stray.
She backed out of the opening once she was satisfied the bed was back far enough to stay dry and be sheltered from the wind. Then she got the bowl of food and tucked it inside the opening, as well.
She decided against filling the water dish just now. It would only freeze overnight, and she had no idea if the dog would be back. He’d probably become accustomed to eating snow or drinking from an icy stream somewhere. Water could wait until tomorrow. She paused a moment, to turn and look around in the darkness, seeing plenty of tracks in the snow around the house, some made by her dad as he’d checked the place out from one end to the other earlier today. Others no doubt made by the big dog snooping around. He’d be back. She was sure of it.
She returned to the car for her duffel bag, in which she’d packed what she hoped were enough clothes for a two-week stay. Slinging it over her shoulder, she returned to the porch, picked up her shopping bag, got out the keys Frankie had given her, and let herself in through the front door.
Damn, but she liked this house. Bathed in moonlight, the cozy living room spread out before her like an old friend opening its arms. The walls were a deep forest-green, the woodwork trim and floorboards, knotty pine. She crossed the room and set her shopping bag on the stone hearth, then knelt to remove the screen. A fire lay ready; a handful of logs were stacked nearby. Another thoughtful surprise from Frankie, or more likely, one of her boys in blue.
She dropped her duffel and dug in her shopping bag for the long-snouted lighter she’d picked up, then flicked it and touched it to the waiting papers. They caught, curling and blazing up. She sat there and watched the fire take off, its flames feeding on the newspapers, then the kindling and then licking hungrily at the larger logs cleverly stacked in a teepee shape overtop. She replaced the screen and sat a while longer, holding out her hands to feel the warmth seeping into them, into her body. It felt good. As the room grew warmer she took off her coat and hung it from a doorknob.
When she could safely add more logs without risk of putting out the burgeoning flames, she added several all at once, hoping to create enough heat to warm her even in the upstairs bedroom, and ensure there would be warm, glowing coals when she woke up in the morning.
The far side of the living room was still just as cold, though. She walked along the wall, one hand out, feeling for a draft or some other source for the unnatural chill. But she couldn’t find one. That was the side of the house that used to extend farther, she recalled. The one that had burned.
Shivers danced up her spine as she paused near the window. Something caught her eye, and she held her breath, leaned closer to the glass and peered outside. For just an instant she’d glimpsed something—a shape, a vague sense of flowing white fabric. But of course, there was nothing there. Probably a trick of the firelight on the glass.
Sighing, she reached for her new alarm clock, set it by her watch, wound it tight and put the alarm on 6:00 a.m. She wanted to arrive at the Blackberry PD bright and early, and she had to leave time to stop by her parents’ place for a shower and one of her mother’s high-calorie breakfasts on the way.
Jax was smiling as she hoisted her duffel and flashlight, and walked up the stairs, into the first bedroom. The moon was high now, but a corner could still be seen from the very top of one of the bedroom windows, spilling a small amount of light into the room. It touched the bottom of a bed, and the blue-and-green-patterned comforter Frankie had contributed to the cause.
Jax set her flashlight on the floor and peeled her sweatshirt over her head. Cool air touched her skin—too cold to take off much more, she thought. She’d keep the T-shirt on, maybe her socks, too. But the shoulder holster and sidearm, jeans and suede Columbia boots had to go. She took off the holster first, setting it on the nearby dresser, then bent to untie the first boot. She paused there, because she heard a sound in the room.
A sound she should have noted when she’d first come in, but she supposed she’d been moving around, making noise of her own. In a break between motions, as she reached for her shoelace, she heard it.
Breathing.
A long, slow, relaxed exhale.
A broken, unsteady inhale.
An unnatural pause.
A long, slow exhale.
A soft moan.
Shit.
Jax’s hand snapped around the cool metallic grip of her Maglite flashlight. She yanked it up even as she straightened, and aimed its eye at the bed, where the breathing was coming from, training her own eyes that way as well, while reaching to the dresser with her free hand.
There was a man sound asleep in her bed. Her fingers closed on the gun, sliding it smoothly from its holster. Her heart pounding in her chest, she inched closer to the bed.
“Hey! Hey you, wake up!”
There was another low moan, and the man moved a little, then snuggled deeper into the covers with a sigh. He had a face carved of granite. Bones that were unnaturally prominent, but would be sharply delineated even under a normal layer of flesh.
She used her foot to nudge his shoulder, pushing him from his side onto his back, and she saw his collarbones and winced. He had to be a homeless person, though he would be the first one she’d encountered here in Blackberry. She had begun to think they didn’t have any.
“Wake up, dammit!”
Eyes flew open, stark and surprised, first confused and then intense in the glow of her flashlight. There was something riveting about them. Something familiar. And then she realized what it was. They held that same wary, mistrusting look she’d seen in the stray dog’s eyes. And they were just as brown.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?”
It seemed the eyes widened after an unnatural time, as if it took extra beats for her words to make their way through his mind. Then he leaped out of the bed, stark naked.
God, he was thin. Beautiful, and painfully thin. He’d been muscled once; she could still see the remnants, the lines sculpted in his flesh, just rapidly losing definition. Shrinking.
He glanced down at himself, then at his clothes on the floor near his feet.
“Go ahead, get dressed. But don’t try anything.”
He reached for the pants. They looked to be part of some sort of uniform—white pants, as if he worked in an ice cream parlor or a hospital or something. Not warm, that was for sure. He pulled them on, did them up. His feet were bare. He pulled on a T-shirt, then a white uniform shirt over it.
“I…umm…I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
His words were slurred, as if he’d been drinking, but she didn’t smell alcohol on his breath. His hair was messy. Dark, too long, as if it hadn’t been trimmed in a long time. And his face had the dark shadow of beard coming in, as if he hadn’t shaved today or maybe yesterday, either. She lowered the gun, tucked it into the back of her pants while he finished dressing, knowing she could handle him fine without it. He was in no shape to fight her and win.
He took a step toward the bedroom door.
“No, just a minute,” she said, shining her light on him. “You’re not going anywhere—not until you tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”
She saw the hint of panic in his eyes just before he lunged for the door. She stepped into his path, the heel of her hand slamming him square in the chest. The impact put him flat on his back and sent her flashlight crashing to the floor. It rolled to the fallen man, came to rest with its beam in his eyes.
“I’ll ask you again,” she said, standing over him. She was a little breathless, but it was from excitement, not exertion. She loved her work—especially this part of it: the rush of adrenaline, the certainty of a win. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”
He got to his feet, picking up her flashlight on the way. She took a step backward, and let him, even while reaching behind her to snug a hand around her handgun, just in case.
He lifted the light, held it high and shone it on her face, so that she had to shield her eyes. “This was a mistake,” he said, and it seemed to Jax he had to focus intently on each syllable. He was trying hard not to slur his speech. She thought he might be on something. “I’m going now. Y-you’ll n-n-never shee me again.”
Then he turned the flashlight off, flipped it over and handed it to her. She could see him in the moonlight, standing there, holding her light out to her. It trembled in his hand. He was shaking. She released her grip on the handgun, reached out to take the light, lowered her guard.
He moved closer, one step, and even as he shoved her chest with the flat of his hand, his foot hooked behind one of hers, ensuring she would go down, and she did. And dammit, she landed on the handgun and bruised her tailbone to hell and gone, which resulted in her barking a stream of cuss words as the man fled. His feet pounded down the stairs.
She surged to her feet, pulling the gun and rubbing her ass with her free hand. Then she grabbed the light and limped into the hall after him as she flicked it on.
The sounds of his retreat were clumsy. He didn’t go out the front door, but through the back, through the kitchen, where she thought he might have fallen down once. She raced through the house, but by the time she reached the kitchen, he was gone.
The back door stood wide open, and as she swung her light around the room, she noticed the broken pane of glass, its sharp fingers pointing inward, while other bits of glass lay on the floor. His point of entry. There were a pair of socks there, too, and puddles where shoes must have been standing.
He’d run out into the Vermont winter night with thin pants, no socks, and no coat that she knew of. And he’d held that flashlight on her in a very telling way. Overhead, above eye level. And in his left hand. He held that flashlight like a cop held a flashlight.
She still had her boots on, no coat, but she’d survive. She had to see where he had gone. So she stepped outside, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, and studied the footprints in the snow.
He’d headed around the house, and she followed the tracks. She had no intention of chasing this guy down, just wanted to see where he went, whether he had a vehicle or not, and if so, get the stats on it. Make, model, plates.
But she didn’t see a car. The tracks vanished at the neatly plowed driveway. She walked around a bit more, and when she heard a sound, she crossed the street and moved off the road a bit, trudging past trees to the large, flat, snow-covered meadow that lay just behind them.
She shone her light around that meadow, looking for footprints, but there were none. She was sure he had come this way. She took a few more steps, shining her light this way and that.
“Why are you running away?” she called. “What is it you have to hide?”
She took a few more steps, then stood still, just listening. The night wind blew softly, whispering and even whining now and then as it blew past the naked limbs of wintry trees. And then there was another sound, a sharp creaking, cracking, snapping sound that seemed to grow louder. She swung her head left and right, because the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
And then she felt the icy rush of water over her boots, and snapped her head down. The snowy meadow on which she stood wasn’t a meadow at all. It was a pond. A frozen pond. She’d wandered almost to its center, and the ice was giving way beneath her feet.
3
“Oh, hell,” she muttered, and then the ice gave way completely, and her body plunged into the freezing water. The shock of the cold engulfed her, made her go rigid, drove the breath from her lungs as the water closed over her head. And then she forced herself to move, to struggle for the surface. She kicked with her legs, reaching above her head with her arms, flailing in search of a handhold. Once, she felt the edges of the ice above her, and tried to grab on, but the ice broke away in her grip.
She tried again, her lungs nearly bursting with need. And this time, something gripped her. Someone gripped her, a slick hold on one wrist, then the other, and then she was being pulled steadily upward. Her head broke the surface and she sucked in greedy gulps of air even as she blinked her eyes.
The man lay on his belly on the ice beside the hole her body had made. His eyes met hers and held them, clearer than they had been before, but still…off somehow. “Try not to move. I’ll get you out.”
She nodded, the motion jerky. God, she was so cold her entire body was shaking with it. He crept backward on his belly, drawing her with him. Her upper body slid up onto the ice. But then the ice crumbled and she went into the water again. Still the man didn’t let go. He held on to her and kept moving backward, steadily, constantly, until he’d pulled her onto the ice again. This time, she made it farther, but when the ice gave yet again, it gave utterly, and she realized as she went under for the third time that he was in the water, too. Beside her in the hellish cold. God, they were both going to die.
He put his hands on her waist, thrusting them both up to the surface again. With a solid boost, he shoved her up and out of the water. From the waist up, she was on the surface of the ice. He gripped her backside and pushed her up higher, and she helped, pressing her palms to the ice to pull herself along. She drew her legs up beside her, shivering so hard she could hear her teeth chattering as she looked back at him. He was still in the water, hands on the ice, trying to pull himself up, but he was having no luck. He seemed exhausted.
She reached for him.
He shook his head. “C-c-crawl on your belly b-back to shore. Go on.”
“No!” She was panting, breathless. The cold burned through her. “N-not without you.” She moved closer, locking her frozen, nearly numb hands underneath his arms. “Come on.”
She pulled; he pushed as best he could. And finally, finally, they both lay on the ice, soaked, frozen. And even then she knew it wasn’t safe to linger. She struggled to her knees, shook his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
He lifted his head, nodded once, weakly, and began crawling. When they were nearly to shore, they got to their feet, arms around each other because it was the only way either of them could stand, and trudged off the pond and onto the land, through the line of trees to the road. There, he stopped walking, took his arm from around her shoulders, turned away and started off on his own.
Jax gripped his arm. “C-come inside. Just—to g-g-get warm.”
“Can’t.”
“Have to. You’ll d-die out here.”
He held her eyes for a moment, finally gave a single nod and walked with her to the house. She wanted to run the rest of the way, but could barely move at all, much less quickly. They mounted the steps and stumbled over the porch and through the door. She closed it, turned the lock and, gripping his arm, led him straight to the fireplace.
“Get the wet things off,” she told him, stammering, shivering. “I’ll—f-find something.”
He nodded, heeled off his shoes and started to undress. Jax struggled out of her boots and then went to work on her soaked, frozen jeans, her numb fingers barely managing the button. As she struggled out of them and felt his eyes on her, she turned to look at him, and saw him focusing on her legs, from her feet to the hem of her T-shirt. The gun that had been tucked in back clattered to the floor, and she stared down at it, then caught him doing the same.
“G-guess that’ll be no good to me until I’ve had a ch-chance to dry it out.” She picked the weapon up, kicked the jeans aside and stumbled upstairs to the bedroom, setting the gun in a drawer, removing the clip and tucking it underneath her mattress. Then she peeled off her T-shirt and bra, heading for the bathroom, where, thank goodness, she found a stack of towels. No hot water—not yet. She’d have killed for a hot bath. But towels would do. She wiped her skin dry, wrapped her body in one towel, her hair in another, then opened her duffel bag and shook out its contents. She dragged on a pair of sweat pants, a sweatshirt and thick socks. Then she located another pair of socks, big bulky ones, the most oversize pair of sweatpants she owned, a nightshirt big enough to serve as a T-shirt for him, and a big hooded sweatshirt with the Syracuse University logo in bright orange on the front. She yanked the blanket, pillows and comforter from the bed and still shivering, moved back down the stairs, trailing fabric behind her.
He sat on the floor, naked, knees drawn up, arms locked around them, head resting against them. He was close to the fire, apparently soaking up the heat. For a moment, she hesitated, just looking at him. Sitting there like that, in the firelight, he looked like a sculpture. Man in Hell, she thought. Who was this stranger who’d just saved her life? And how smart was she to let him into her house?
She sighed, left the bedding on the bottom step, then moved toward him, deciding it wasn’t smart at all, but it was necessary. She didn’t have a choice.
He lifted his head, and those eyes pinned her to the spot.
“Here,” she said, handing him a dry towel. “Wipe down and then put these on.”
He took the towel from her, seeming wary. She set the clothes on the mantel, then turned her back to him, removing the towel from her head and using it to wipe up the spots of water they’d left on the floor.
When the floor was dry, she took the comforter and spread it there, tossed the pillows on top and set the blanket nearby. Then she moved the fireplace screen aside and added more logs to the fire.
By the time she had replaced the screen, he was dressed. The sweatpants were comically short on his long legs, but the hooded sweatshirt was roomy enough. He’d pulled on the thick socks and rubbed his wet, dark hair with a towel so that it stuck up like the feathers of a wet hen, and he stood there, looking uncomfortable.
She picked up her wet jeans, hung them over the fireplace screen, then reached for his discarded clothes to do the same. But as she began hanging them, he took them from her rather hastily.
She stood there, blinking at him as he clutched the wet garments in his hands. “What are you afraid of?” she asked softly.
He averted his eyes, draping the items over the screen himself, with great care. “I’ll go as soon as they’re dry.”
“You’re on the run,” she said. “You’re in hiding.”
He said nothing, just bent to pick up the shoes, and placed them on the hearthstone, nearer the heat.
“Listen, you just saved my life, okay? Stay here until morning. If you don’t want me to ask any questions, I won’t. I owe you that much.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I…can’t…no one can know I’ve been here.”
“No? Why not?”
He lowered his head tiredly.
“I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t ask questions, didn’t I?”
He drew a breath, shivered a little.
Jax lay down on the comforter and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. “It’s up to you,” she said. “Stay or go.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Finally, he said, “If you tell anyone…I’m here…I’m as good as dead.”
She opened her eyes, met his. She thought he might be a cop. She knew he was in trouble, on the run, from what she didn’t know. But he had saved her life, risked his own to do so. And she wasn’t the least bit afraid of him. “I sure as hell won’t be telling anyone tonight,” she said. “No phones hooked up yet. Cell doesn’t get reception in this spot, either. You have to drive up the road a mile.”
He hesitated a moment longer, then he crawled into her makeshift nest on the floor, curling under the covers beside her.
“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, “you’ll feel more like talking. Maybe I can help you with…with whatever it is that’s wrong.”
“No one can help me,” he said. And his voice sounded utterly hopeless. It clutched at her heart. Then he went on. “Why do you carry a gun?”
Something told her not to tell him she was a cop. Hell, he’d find out soon enough if he was in this town long. Everyone here knew she was a cop. But she had a feeling if she told him tonight, he would bolt. Not that she was sure he was a criminal, exactly. But he was definitely running from something.
“Protection,” she told him. “A woman, living all alone.”
“You’re not afraid of living alone.”
She lifted her brows and rolled onto her side to face him. “And how do you know that?”
“You’re not afraid of me,” he told her.
“Should I be?”
He closed his eyes as if the question brought great pain. They didn’t open again.
“Should I be afraid of you?” she asked again.
“I don’t know.” His lashes were wet. Not from the water, but from tears squeezing out from his deep brown eyes. “Maybe. Probably.”
Her heart contracted in her chest. His words might be a warning, or a sign of the confusion she’d sensed in him when she’d found him sleeping in her bed. “Maybe I should sleep upstairs,” she whispered.
He said nothing, so she started to sit up. And then she gasped as the man’s arms came around her. His head lay against her chest, and she thought he might be crying. “Please stay,” he said.
Frowning hard, utterly confused and wishing the hell she’d kept her gun with her, she found herself touching his still-damp hair, gently moving her fingers through it. “All right,” she said. “All right.”
She relaxed against the pillows and held the troubled man, soothing his quaking shoulders, until he went still, and she knew he was deeply asleep.
And then, even though the warmth of the fire was seeping into her, chasing the chill from deep in her bones, soothing her muscles, making her feel sleepy, and even though she hadn’t had a hot-looking man—even a skinny one like this—in her arms in what seemed like an eternity, she eased herself away from him, out from under the covers, and got up to her feet. She stood there a moment, staring down at him as he slept.
A fellow cop, in deep trouble, either real or imagined, had just saved her life. She owed the man. Owed him enough to let him stay the night, let him get warm. Maybe even enough not to turn him in for breaking and entering, or mention his presence here until she had figured out who he was and what was going on with him. She did not, however, owe him so much that she needed to become a naive idiot in order to repay him. She went up to her bedroom and spent the next half hour patiently cleaning and drying her weapon. When she put it back together, she loaded it with a fresh, dry clip. She took the bullets out of the other clip, dried it thoroughly and set it aside. She’d toss the bullets. They might fire, but they might not, and she didn’t ever want to be in a predicament where she couldn’t be sure her gun would work. She’d buy some more ammo tomorrow.
She went back downstairs, took her pillow from the comforter and her coat from the hook by the door. She wrapped the coat around herself, rested the pillow against the wall and leaned against it, near the fire, in a spot where she could have a full view of her houseguest.
It wasn’t a very exciting show. He slept like the dead.
Ethan had turned off his pager after work at his wife’s request. They were having dinner with her parents that evening. It was important, she said, and that thing going off in the middle of a conversation was just rude.
He’d indulged her. He always indulged Victoria. And there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for her parents. They thought the world of him.
So he’d spent the evening at the Richardsons’ endless and elegant dining room table beneath a crystal chandelier. Their newest pretty maid, Lorraine, served them in her crisp black-and-white uniform. It was nice, the life Randall and Jennifer Richardson shared. A life into which they’d welcomed him with open arms.
They treated him far better than his own father ever had.
So the least he could do was turn off the damn pager.
Of course, it turned out to be the one night he shouldn’t have done so.
By the time he and Victoria returned home, the hospital had left six messages on his voice mail. He saw the light blinking even as he helped Victoria out of her coat, the fur soft against his palms. It was rabbit. She’d wanted mink. Maybe next year.
“Oh, honey, must you?” she asked, pursing her lips when she saw his eyes on the telephone. “It’s been such a beautiful evening. I was hoping we could end it together.”
He slid his hand around her nape, his fingers tickled by the touch of her short brown hair, and kissed her forehead. “There’s nothing I’d like more,” he told her. “But I’d better at least check, okay?”
Sighing, she nodded, hugged him close, then turned and hurried through the house, lifting her shapely calves in between steps to tug off her stiletto heels. “I’m going to run a bath, love.”
“I’ll be right up.” He watched her go toward the stairs as he punched the button for messages.
Their contents stunned him. He closed his eyes, lowered his head. “Oh, God,” he muttered.
Victoria paused halfway up the stairs. He heard her steps cease, heard her whisper, “Darling? I couldn’t hear. What is it?”
He lifted his head, met her eyes. “It’s River.”
Her hand flew to her lips.
“He’s…he’s dead, baby.”
“Oh, Ethan!” Victoria ran back down the stairs and flung herself into her husband’s arms, wrapping her own tight around his neck. He let the phone fall to the floor and held her, felt her body jerking softly with her sobs. “How? Why?”
“Looks like an accident. Apparently, he fell in the bathroom. Hit his skull.”
She shook her head where it rested against his shoulder. He felt her tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt. “Poor River. God, poor River.”
Ethan nodded. “At least…at least he’s not suffering anymore,” he told her.
She sniffled. “Maybe…maybe he and Steph can both rest in peace now. Maybe…maybe they’ll find each other again—somewhere.”
“God, I hope so,” he said.
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Do you have to go in?”
He shook his head. “In the morning. There will be an inquest, an autopsy. But in the morning.” He turned her to the side, put his arm around her shoulders and held her close beside him as he started up the stairs.
“I miss them,” she said. “The four of us, we used to be so close. We haven’t had friends like them since—since Stephanie…”
“I know. I miss them, too.”
She lowered her head to his shoulder. “Why do you suppose such terrible things happen to such wonderful people?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know, baby. I wish I did.”
Jax had no intention of closing her eyes, but at some point she must have, because when she opened them again, the sun was beaming in through the living room windows and the steady, if distant, call of the alarm clock was chirping away in the upstairs bedroom. The fire had died down, though the mound of glowing hot coals still threw off a lot of heat. The makeshift bed on the floor was empty, and the blanket that had been over the stranger was tucked snugly around her instead. The shoes he’d left on the hearthstone to dry were gone. So, she realized, were his clothes.
Her sweatpants, and the nightshirt she’d loaned him, were folded and stacked atop the bedding. He’d kept the socks and the hooded sweatshirt. She was glad of it. He’d freeze his ass off outside without so much as a jacket.
She searched the house, just for the hell of it, even though she knew the man was long gone. He hadn’t even told her his name.
Jax wanted to know who he was, and what he was running from. She really ought to report his presence to Frankie when she saw her this morning, she thought. But she hadn’t made up her mind to do so. Having her own private mystery to solve was invigorating, and something deep inside her was telling her to hold off, to learn a little more before blowing the stranger’s cover. The memory of the way he’d held her, of the sight of him nude by firelight, may have contributed to that notion, but not a lot. She wasn’t a guy, after all.
She gathered up the blankets and pillows, and the still-damp towels, and carried the pile upstairs, hanging the towels on the racks in the bathroom, and making up the bed. Then she grabbed some clean clothes, clothes suitable for work in a small-town police department, or at least clothes she hoped were suitable. She wasn’t on duty, so she couldn’t really show up in her uniform. So she picked out a pair of navy trousers with a neat crease, a white cotton button-down blouse and a navy blazer. She tucked the clothes into a bag, along with fresh undergarments, her shoulder holster and her .45, then was ready to head over to her parents’ place for breakfast and a shower.
As she stepped out onto the porch, a noise made her jump a little, but a quick look under the porch told her it was only the big dog, downing the entire bowl of dog food she’d left for him. “You’re a noisy eater,” she quipped, and glanced at his backside. “Figures. You’re a male.”
He stopped eating when she spoke, looking at her as warily as—as the stranger had last night, she thought.
“Hey there, fella,” Jax said softly. “You don’t have to be afraid. It’s all right.” She held out a hand, figuring it might be more appealing if there was a steak clutched in her grip, but tried anyway. “Come on. Come say hello.”
The dog stared at her, even took a single step forward. But then he lunged past her and loped away, out of sight.
Jax shrugged, put her things in the car and popped the trunk. Then she went back to get the dish—the dog had eaten every last crumb—and refilled it with fresh dog food.
“At least he’s getting fed,” she muttered, and thought briefly how malnourished her stranger from last night had looked, sitting naked in front of the fire. That “naked in front of the fire” image just wasn’t going to quit, was it? she wondered with a smile. What the hell. She was human and straight, and he…he was something. Even though she could see his ribs, his shoulder blades, he was something.
She pushed the thought from her mind and took the dog’s bowl back to the porch, only this time, instead of putting it underneath, she set it on the porch itself, hoping to lure the animal closer.
Then she took one last look around, unsure which stray she sought. Seeing no sign of either one of them, she got into her car and drove to her parents’ place.
River had awakened groggy, to find himself warm as toast in a bundle of blankets on the floor, in front of a dying fire. As he sat up, searching his memory for clues what he was doing there, his gaze fell on the woman in the corner. She leaned back against the wall, a pillow cushioning her, her head cocked at an angle that would probably result in her having a stiff neck all day. The red-orange rays of the rising sun painted her face in brushstrokes of light and shadow. Long blond hair framed her face. She had a small nose, round high cheekbones, and the neck of a swan. Deceptive, her fragile looks. She’d knocked him flat on his ass last night. As his gaze slid over her small form, it stopped on the place where her hand rested atop her folded legs, because it held a gun. A .45.
He closed his eyes slowly, and his memory of the night before returned. He examined that memory thoroughly, in search of gaps. He remembered taking refuge here, in his former home. He’d thought it was empty. He remembered waking to find her standing in the bedroom shining a flashlight in his face, demanding to know who he was. And he remembered, vividly, the way she’d taken him out when he’d tried to lunge past her.
He’d escaped into the cold, snowy night, only to hunch in the woods, wondering where the hell he was going to go. And then he’d seen her, creeping out of the house, looking for him, shining that damn light around.
He’d backed off, got out of her range and started to walk away. He still hadn’t known where he would go—he only knew he needed to put some distance between himself and the curious woman. But then he’d made the mistake of glancing back, just once more, and he’d seen her walking out across the frozen pond as if she didn’t even know what it was. And then he realized she probably didn’t.
When she went through the ice, every instinct he’d ever possessed kicked into high gear. He didn’t think, he simply reacted, the way any veteran cop would. By the time he stopped to think, he was already on his belly, arms plunging into the icy water in search of the woman.
God, when he thought about how close it had been…He got her out, only to go through himself. And she’d refused to leave him—pulled him out, her tiny body showing its hidden strength and power. Then she’d insisted he come into the house with her to get warm, even brought him dry clothes to put on.
He’d looked down at himself as he remembered, noting the too-small sweatpants he wore. Then he looked again at the woman, and another memory came. The rush of emotion that had swamped him in his drugged, overwrought state, probably aggravated by nearly freezing to death, and by exhaustion and by hunger, and by being there in that house again. He’d clung to the woman. He might even have wept.
He remembered her hesitation and then slow acceptance. The way her hands had moved through his hair and her voice, deep and comforting somehow, had told him it was okay.
It wasn’t, of course. It never would be. But it had been nice to be in a woman’s arms. Human contact, physical touch had vanished from his life. It had been limited to being manhandled by orderlies or injected by nurses. No one touched mental patients any more than was absolutely necessary. He hadn’t been aware how much he’d missed that, being touched, touching back.
Even now, something in him whispered that he could touch her again. That if he sat there beside her, and wrapped her in his arms, she might not turn away. Amazing, to think she wouldn’t—that she hadn’t. He was a stranger to her, and she wasn’t gullible or naive enough to trust a stranger just because he’d pulled her from the icy jaws of certain death. The gun she held was proof enough of that.
He slid slowly out of the bundle of blankets and took his own clothing from the fireplace screen. It was dry. The knife he’d taken from the orderly was still tucked deep in the pocket of the thin pants. She hadn’t found it. His brain was functioning at a better level than it had been last night, and it occurred to him that he ought to stash that blade somewhere, in case it still had the dead orderly’s prints on it. It would be the only proof, beyond his word, that he’d killed the man in self-defense. The longer he carried the blade around, the more likely the prints would get rubbed off.
He left it where it was, for the moment, in the pocket of the pants as he removed his borrowed ones and put them on. He took off the hooded sweatshirt and the nightshirt she’d loaned him. Put on his own T-shirt, then the uniform shirt over it, and after a moment’s hesitation, pulled the hood back on over them both. The shoes were dry, so he put them on, as well. He added two blocks of wood to the fire and set the screen in place. Then he took the blanket she’d left wrapped around him, walked across the room to where she lay, and bent low to spread it gently over her.
For a long moment he knelt there, looking at her. She’d given him something last night. A couple of things. A chance to call up the cop that still lived deep inside him—the man he’d believed was long dead. A chance to prove to himself that he was still a human being, and maybe not an entirely bad one.
And her touch. Her embrace. Her warmth and her soothing voice.
He wondered if she would ever know how much those things had meant.
Finally, he turned away from her and crept out of the house. He had work to do. A long-buried truth to uncover. And he was damned if he even knew where to begin, but he supposed the first thing was to find a hideaway. A place to live, to sleep, to heal. And food. Damn, he needed food. And clothes to wear. Those would be today’s missions, he thought. Today, he would work on covering his basic human needs while the drugs worked their way out of his system.
After that, he’d begin digging into the secrets of his past.
So he walked—walked for hours over back roads, in search of an empty barn or hovel he where he could hole up—but he didn’t find anything. Giving that up, he walked to the very edge of town, thought about lingering in the laundromat until someone left some clothes unattended, and maybe snatching a pair of jeans or an outing shirt that would fit him. But he didn’t dare get any closer to town than that. He didn’t know if they were looking for him yet. And there was nowhere he’d be able to go where people in this town wouldn’t recognize him. His story had been a big one almost two years ago. God, had it really been that long? Retired NYPD cop goes bad. Everyone in town must have been talking about it.
Hell, he didn’t have a dime to his name. Nowhere to go. If his bloodstream wasn’t so clogged up with a year’s worth of psychotropic drugs, he might be able to come up with a way to scam a meal, but as it was, it was useless.
It’s not useless, dammit. I can do this. Hell, I have to do this.
Swallowing his uncertainty, he pulled the hood up over his head and walked into the town of Blackberry. He would do what he needed to do, make it fast and get back out of town as quickly as possible.
Dawn rose early, and crept through the house while everyone was still asleep. There were no guests at the inn this week. She had the place to herself. Bryan was sound asleep in his room, Beth and Joshua asleep in theirs. She’d been given the guest room of her choice, and she’d deliberately chosen one at the far end of the hall, away from everyone else. Aside from a few raised eyebrows, no one had commented on her pick. She needed privacy. She never knew when they would show up.
Nothing so far today. That was good. A day without them was a good day. As good a day as she got anymore.
She padded downstairs, into the kitchen in her gorilla slippers and plush powder-blue robe, made a pot of coffee and sat at the table to watch it brew. The sun was shining. That couldn’t be a bad thing.
When she heard footsteps, she thought someone else was up, and hoped it wasn’t Bryan. The two of them alone in the kitchen of the sleepy inn would be too intimate. He didn’t understand her withdrawal. How could he?
She stiffened her resolve—it wasn’t easy—as she filled a cup with the heavenly smelling brew, and turned to see who was about to join her in the kitchen.
He stood in the doorway, staring at her, and though he didn’t look the same way he had the last time she’d seen him, as he’d drawn his last breaths, she knew him. She knew his eyes. He had the most piercing, deep brown eyes she’d ever seen. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. He lifted a hand, took a single step toward her, and the cup fell from her boneless hand. The sound of it shattering seemed to break the paralysis, and her scream broke free of its prison in her chest.
She turned her back, covered her eyes. “No, no, no. I won’t see you, I don’t want you. Go away, dammit, go away!”
A hand fell on her shoulder, and she lurched away from it so fast she tumbled over a chair, tipping it sideways and landing on the floor beside it.
“Dawn, it’s okay. It’s okay, babe.”
Blinking through her tears, she looked up. It was Bryan, bending over her, looking terrified and sleepy and disheveled. And behind him, Beth and Josh came running into the kitchen, and Josh appeared ready for battle.
“What happened?” Beth asked. “Dawnie, are you okay?”
She blinked, looking past them, her gaze darting from one end of the kitchen to the other. But he wasn’t there. Mordecai Young, her father, wasn’t there. He was dead. Gone.
“I…I think I was sleepwalking,” she managed to say.
She saw them, saw them all looking from the broken cup and spilled coffee on the floor to the nearly full pot on the counter, to the robe and slippers she had put on. They didn’t believe her.
She didn’t blame them.
4
Jax sipped her coffee and actively resisted the temptation to revisit the platter of sausage links on her mother’s perfectly set kitchen table.
“Have some more, hon. You’re too thin.”
She smiled. Her mother would say she was too thin no matter what her current weight was. Though, in Jax’s considered opinion, her mom could use a few pounds of padding. The woman had the body of a thirty-year-old. Only her face showed the signs of her age—or, more likely, the stresses of her past. You didn’t see it in her blond hair. She kept it colored, cut and styled to perfection.
“I couldn’t eat another bite, Mom. Besides, I have to get into town. Don’t want to be late my first day.”
“Oh.” Mariah frowned. “Oh, well, then, never mind.”
Jax slanted a look from her mother to her father, who shook his head. “Don’t bother Cassie today, hon. I told you, I can take that stuff over for her and drop the other things off, as well.”
Frowning, and curious, Jax said, “What stuff?”
“Your mother has an ice chest packed full of food for you, is all,” her father said. “Thinks you might starve to death in a house without groceries, and a whole mile from the nearest store.” He pointed to a cooler in the corner of the room. It sat right beside a box of clothing.
Jax smiled, because he’d nailed her mom so well. “I can take it for you.”
“No, I won’t hear of it,” Ben said. “I’ve got to go into town anyway, take that box of castoffs to the Goodwill.”
An idea crept into her brain as she followed his gaze to the huge cardboard box that sat in the corner near the cooler. Piles of folded clothes filled it. She tried to ignore the notion, and couldn’t. “What sorts of castoffs?”
“Clothes. Shoes. Your mother didn’t throw a thing of mine out the entire time I was…away. Kept everything. Most of those don’t even fit me anymore. Came across them in the attic, when we were going through it looking for things you could use for the house.”
Mariah shot him a look. “Ben, I asked you a dozen times to sort those things before we ever moved out here. Had you got around to it when you should have, we wouldn’t have ended up packing them and moving them with us.”
“I told you I didn’t need them.”
“There were perfectly good things in there!”
Jax held up a hand. Even though their bickering was good-natured, she didn’t like it. And she supposed it was silly, after all this time, for her to still be afraid they’d end up splitting like so many couples did after a tragedy. But silly or not, she did worry. Her mother seemed to have recovered, for the most part. But her father—God, there was still something dark and enormous that haunted her father.
Those two had lost a daughter. They’d survived her father’s lengthy prison sentence. And yet they’d stayed together. But they were not the same. Neither of them was.
Jax wasn’t, either. She’d been the youngest daughter, a tough little hellion, but still…She had become the oldest, abandoned by her big sister, and by her dad, whom she’d thought would always be there for her. She’d become a caregiver to her mother—and there had been no one left to be a caregiver to her. So she’d grown up and she’d done it fast. Hadn’t done her a bit of harm, either, she reminded herself, just in case a hint of self-pity tried to creep in. She didn’t believe in that kind of garbage.
Hell, it amazed her how solid her parents’ relationship must be to have weathered so much. And yet there was something lurking underneath. Something waiting, ready to pounce and ruin it all. And she thought they both sensed it, even if they didn’t know what it was.
“I’ll be glad to take those things for you,” she said, breaking free of the silence into which she’d fallen. “Really. It’s no trouble.”
Her father frowned. “Only if you’re sure.”
“Do you need me to phone Frankie for you, hon?” her mother asked. “I could explain you might be a few minutes late.”
Jax laughed. She couldn’t help it. She lowered her head and laughed.
“Well…what did I say that’s so funny?” Mariah demanded, sounding defensive.
Ben patted her hand. “Honey, our daughter is a grown-up woman. She doesn’t need you to write an excuse to her teacher.”
Mariah pressed her lips together.
“It’ll be fine, Mom. If I leave right now, I can still make it on time. That Taurus knows what to do when I stomp on the gas, and the roads are blessedly bare.”
“Don’t you even think about breaking any speed limits, Cassie,” her mother warned.
Jax got to her feet, gave her mom a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for breakfast. It was fabulous.”
“You barely touched it.”
One egg, two sausage links, a scoop of home fries and a pancake were apparently her mother’s idea of barely touching. “I’ll see you later, Mom.”
Her father grabbed the ice chest and carried it out to her car, sliding it into the back seat. Jax carried the box of clothes, and even as she loaded them in and closed the door, she knew she wasn’t going to take them to the Goodwill in town.
She was going to leave them on the porch of her home, right beside the cooler of food. It was stupid. The scrawny hunk was long gone, and she would probably never see him again. Then again, she couldn’t very well justify leaving a warm bed and food for a stray dog and not doing as much for a stray human being. Particularly one who’d saved her life.
Dr. Ethan Melrose stood over the slab in the hospital morgue and waited while the attendant pulled a sheet from the dead man’s face. They needed to do a postmortem. And since he was both River’s doctor and his best friend, he wanted to oversee it personally.
But as soon as he looked at the body, he knew something was wrong.
“How did he do that much damage to his face with a simple fall?”
The attendant flipped open a metal folder, reading from a chart. “Hit the toilet, facefirst.”
“No way in hell,” Ethan said. “Get this cleaned up. I can’t even see him, much less examine him.”
He paced the room while the attendant worked, but when he turned again and saw more of the corpse’s face, he thought his heart flipped over in his chest. It was pummeled, yes. The nose broken, maybe a cheekbone, too. But he was certain of one thing.
“That man is not Michael Corbett,” he said.
“What?”
Lunging forward, Ethan grabbed the dead man’s wrist, lifting it. “Jesus, where’s his wrist band? Didn’t anyone even bother to check his wrist band?”
“Oh, God,” the attendant muttered. “He…the patient’s room was locked. He was the only one inside. No one even thought to question—Doctor, if this isn’t Michael Corbett, then who the hell is it?”
“I don’t know. But I think we have a more pressing question to answer right now. If this isn’t Michael Corbett, then where the hell is he?”
“Jesus, he escaped.”
Ethan nodded. “Better call the state police. And find out the name of every male staff member who was on duty last night. See who’s not accounted for.”
He walked out of the room, but had to stop halfway down the hall, because his knees were shaking so badly he thought he might fall. He braced his arms against a wall, lowered his head between them. “Dammit, River. Where are you?”
“Welcome to the Blackberry Police Department,” Frankie said, beaming a smile at her as Jax walked through the door. The police department took up fully half of a neat brick building with a huge parking lot that rolled out in back of it. The other half held the town post office.
The first room was a reception area, more or less. It held a desk, where a pretty brunette with a nameplate that read Rosie Monroe jumped to her feet as soon as Jax entered the room.
“Hi, Lieutenant Jackson,” she said. “I don’t think we really met last time you were in town.”
“Well, there was a lot going on last time I was in town,” Jax said, extending a hand. “Chief Parker tells me you practically run this department.”
Rosie shrugged, shaking, her grip entirely too gentle, her hand cool. “I’ve been here ten years. It’s kind of second nature.”
Jax released her hand and looked around the room. Besides Rosie’s desk, this end held a small sofa and love seat in fake green leather. Between them was a stand with a coffeepot, creamer and sugar containers, and a large white box that she guessed, from the aroma, contained fresh doughnuts. It had Susy-Q’s Bakery stamped on the lid.
The other side of the room opened out wider, held three desks and was lined with file cabinets. Every desk had a typewriter, and there was one computer in the room, which the men apparently had to share.
The officers were coming over now, two of them smiling and vaguely familiar—she’d worked with both of them during the Mordecai Young incident last year. Good men. She held out a hand. “Campanelli, Matthews, good to see you again.”
Bill Campanelli shook her hand warmly, his smile genuine. All of five-six, and nearly as big around, Bill had a thin layer of carrot-red hair remaining on his rapidly balding head, and when he smiled, his whole face lit up. “Same here,” he said.
Mike “Icabod” Matthews took his turn, adding a pat to her shoulder. “If anyone can fill Frankie’s shoes, we figure it’ll be you.”
Cassie shook her head. “Either one of you could handle the job,” she said.
They exchanged looks and winked. “Neither one of us wants it,” Campanelli said. “Hell, I retire in five years. And Matthews, he’s got so many side projects going he wants to have himself cloned.”
“Town couldn’t take two of me,” the other man joked.
The third man stood off to one side, waiting his turn. His pale blue eyes were cold, his smile forced in his square-jawed face. He was built like a boxer—stocky and solid. Jax knew the type. Big chip on his shoulder and probably had issues working under a woman. It might have been different with Frankie, since she was the man’s aunt. But Jax was not only female, but a younger female at that. And stepping into the job he had coveted for himself. She read all of that with her first look at the guy, pegged him as an asshole, and didn’t doubt she’d be proved right, given time.
She extended a hand. “You must be Officer Parker,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” It was a lie, but what the hell.
“Lieutenant,” he said with a nod.
She almost told him to call her Jax, but decided against it. She’d need every edge she could get with this fellow, and establishing a pattern of respect would be a good start.
“I hear you stayed out at that old empty house last night. How do you like it?”
“Love it,” she said.
He lifted his brows, maybe a little surprised. “Really? I’d have thought being way out there like that might make a city girl a little uncomfortable.”
“I’m from Syracuse, Officer Parker, not Manhattan.”
He shrugged. “Still city, compared to here.”
“I like the country. It’s quiet.”
“Not a neighbor within a mile of you,” he said. “A lot of the locals claim to have seen things out there, since the fire.”
“What kinds of things?” she asked, looking him square in the eye.
“Just things. Things that spooked ’em.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I don’t spook easily. I didn’t have power or a phone last night. And even that didn’t spook me.”
“Those will be on by the time you get home,” Frankie told her, coming out of her office to join them. “Power company said by noon today, and the phone guy told me dinnertime at the latest.” She smiled. “So did you really like the place?”
“I’ve never spent a more interesting evening,” she said, and it was a perfectly honest answer.
“Well, now you’ve got me curious. Come on, you can tell me about it while I give you the grand tour.”
“Nothing to tell, Frankie. Honest, I love the house.”
Frankie led her through the station, showing her the files, the communal computer, the supply closet, which was packed full. Jax noted a holding cell in what looked like a new part of the station. “Just the one cell?” she asked.
“We didn’t have any until this past year,” Frankie told her. “It’s brand-new.”
“What did you do with the criminals before now?”
Overhearing her, Kurt Parker released a bark of laughter. “Hell, honey, this isn’t some city police department. We barely have any criminals.”
She shot him a look, but before she could say a thing, Frankie cut in. “I’m pretty sure I did introduce you, didn’t I, Kurt? The woman’s name is Lieutenant Jackson. Not ‘honey.’”
He looked as if he was about to say something belligerent, but by then the other two officers were chiming in. “You’d think some of us had been raised in a cave,” Matthews said.
“Hey, Parker, you want some more coffee? Honey?”
“Yeah, how about it, sweetie pie?”
Parker’s face reddened, and he turned to stomp off to his desk as if he had something pressing awaiting him there.
Rolling her eyes, Frankie led Jax into her office and closed the door. There was a smaller desk set up in the corner with a blotter, a cup full of pencils and pens, and a Blackberry Police Department coffee mug with a blue ribbon fastened to the handle.
“Aw, heck. Is that for me?”
“Sure is,” Frankie said. “That’s your desk. At least, until you move on over to this one.” She patted her own desk. “And to answer your earlier question, when we needed to make arrests, we’d call the county boys in. We’d get the paperwork, they’d get to hold the prisoners. It sounds complicated, but we had got it running like clockwork. Still, having a holding cell of our own is nice. And Kurt was right about one thing—we very rarely have to make any arrests.”
There was a tap on the door, then it opened and Rosie poked her head through. “Got a call, Chief.”
Frankie lifted her brows and waited, and Jax felt herself tense, just as she always did on the job when a call came her way.
“Purdy says someone just snatched some fruit from his produce section, and took off without paying.”
Jax blinked. Frankie nodded. “And what did this dangerous felon make off with?”
“An orange and a bunch of grapes, near as he could figure.”
Frankie nodded and smiled at Jax. “Welcome to high crime in Blackberry,” she said, her eyes twinkling. Then, to Rosie, “Description?”
“Male. Couldn’t see his face. He was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt with some kind of bright orange logo on the front.”
Jax felt her own smile freeze in place and slowly die. Damn, she hoped the stranger went back by her place, so he would find the offerings she’d left and not feel compelled to steal. Apparently, he wasn’t very good at it. An orange and some grapes? Freaking pathetic.
“Suggestions, Lieutenant Jackson?” Frankie asked.
“Maybe the store’s security camera got him on tape?” she said.
“Nope. No security cams around here, except at the bank and post office.” She nodded to Rosie. “Why don’t you send Kurt over to take a report? He needs something to get his mind off his hurt feelings.”
“Sure thing, Chief.” Rosie backed out of the office.
Frankie sighed. “May as well get comfortable,” she told Jax. “We’ll take a look at the notices from the state police, and the county, and then we’ll head on over to the coffee shop.”
“But there’s coffee here,” Jax said.
“Ah, but we don’t go for coffee. We go for gossip. Best way to keep your finger on the pulse of this town. The good old grapevine—Blackberry’s lifeblood flows through it.”
“I can see I’ve got to get used to a whole new way of working, huh?”
“You’ll pick it up in no time, Jax.” The telephone on her desk rang, and Frankie reached for it. Her smile faded about three seconds into the phone call. Her face seemed to pale, as she scribbled notes. When she hung up she was already on her feet.
“What have we got?” Jax asked, getting to her feet, as well.
“Trouble. Come with me.” She went out of her office. “Rosie, there will be a fax coming through any minute. I’m gonna want a dozen copies, pronto.”
“On it,” Rosie said, and even as she spoke, the fax machine beside her desk was ringing and churning to life.
Matthews and Campanelli came over from their desks. Kurt Parker had apparently already gone to check out the great produce heist.
“Michael Corbett escaped from the state hospital last night,” Frankie said. “Killed an orderly in the process.”
“Holy shit,” Matthews muttered. “They think he’ll head here?”
“He’d be stupid to come here,” Frankie said. “But we need to be ready, just in case.”
“Wait, someone needs to bring me up to speed,” Jax said. “Who is this Corbett? Is he dangerous?”
With a heavy sigh, Frankie turned to her. “Hell, I didn’t want to dump all this on you your first night in town and maybe scare you off. But…well, I already told you the house—your house—has a history.”
“You said a whole wing was destroyed in a fire, and a woman was killed.” A little shiver ran up her spine, but Jax shook it off. She was a cop. Those kinds of shivers had no place in her life. And yet she kept thinking about the odd white shape she’d glimpsed outside, and Kurt Parker’s words about the place spooking people. And the cold spot on one side of the house that never seemed to get warm.
“The house belonged to the Corbetts, and the fire was arson,” Frankie said. “Corbett was found on the lawn with a gas can at his feet. His wife died in the fire—was pregnant at the time, too. Corbett claimed he couldn’t remember a thing, and he had some history of blackouts to back it up and a top-notch shrink on his side. The D.A. accepted an insanity plea and shipped him off to the state hospital, where everyone expected him to spend the rest of his life.”
Jax lifted her brows. “I thought you said nothing bad ever happened here?”
“I may have exaggerated just a tad. Hell, I’ve only given you the digest version. Rosie, dig out those old files so Jax can get caught up. Got that fax yet?”
“Got it.” Rosie handed the faxed sheet to Frankie, who looked at it and shook her head sadly. “That’s our man. Shame, crying shame. He was a cop once. A damn good one, as I understand it.” She passed the sheet to Jax. “We’ll get some posters up around town, keep a keen eye out for him.”
Jax barely heard her. Instead, she stared down at the face of the man who had spent the night in her house. The man who had saved her life at the risk of his own, who had wept in her arms and then slipped away before she woke. The man who, even now, might be finding the food and clothing she had provided for him.
Clothing—that belonged to her father, who was an ex-con and couldn’t afford to be tied to an escaped killer. God, what the hell had she done?
Her first day on the job, and already she was guilty of aiding and abetting an escaped criminal. That wasn’t going to earn her any points. She wouldn’t be surprised if Frankie withdrew the job offer when she found out. Jax knew that in her place, that’s what she would do.
She couldn’t believe she’d done it. She’d helped a murderer—one who’d got off on an insanity plea—much like the man accused of murdering her own sister had nearly done twelve years ago.
And maybe that was why. Not that she believed in fate, or karma or any of that hokey new age garbage. But damn, at the very least, the universe had one sick sense of humor.
He wasn’t doing well.
His feet scuffed through the dusting of snow along the winding road’s shoulder. He knew he was leaving a distinct trail, but doubted anyone was following it. The cold seemed to knife straight through to his bones. He ached with it.
He’d expected to feel better by now. To be starting to feel strong again after a good night’s sleep, in a warm, dry place. But he wasn’t feeling strong. He was shaky. His head felt heavy and cotton filled, and he was having trouble convincing his feet to pick up off the pavement. His chest hurt, too, ached and burned. And every now and then a full body shiver racked him from head to toe.
Taking the grapes from his pocket, he ate them as he walked. When there was nothing left but the spiny stem, he tossed it, and took out the orange. But he couldn’t manage to get a start on peeling it. His fingers were thick and stiff. No dexterity, very little hand-eye coordination.
He closed his eyes, giving up on the orange and dropping it into the pocket of his borrowed hoodie. Then he looked up to gauge how far he’d come, and found himself standing in front of his house—or her house. The place where he’d spent the night.
River lowered his head, shaking it slowly even as the specter of that fireplace rose up to tempt him to come inside. “No,” he muttered. “I’m not dragging some stranger into my messed-up life.”
He took another step, intending to walk right by the place. But then he saw the ice chest on the porch and hesitated. What the hell?
He moved closer, wondering if the woman could have deliberately left it outside for him to discover, but he found that hard to believe. More likely it was bait of some kind. Surely, by now they’d figured out the dead man in his hospital room wasn’t him. Surely, they would have alerted the authorities in this small town, and the word was out. Maybe by now she’d heard about him, and gone to Chief Parker to tell her about the stranger who’d spent the night under her roof. The cooler, left on her porch, could easily be meant to lure him in. They might be waiting, even now. He had no desire to deal with those officers again. They were less than gentle, those hometown boys in the Blackberry PD. At least, the one he’d dealt with back then.
His stomach growled and churned. He needed food. His body was at war with his brain. Hell, if he didn’t get physically up and running again, this entire mission was no more than one big waste of time.
He crouched in the trees across the street, watched the place for a while. Eventually an electric company truck rolled up. Men went around to the back, messed with the box mounted to the side of the house. They left again. Her power had been turned on.
He waited longer, kept watching the place. No movement. No sign of anyone nearby. Swallowing hard, he came out of his cover, and started moving across the street. He was slow, clumsy and wary. He told himself to turn and run at the first sign of a trap, but doubted he’d be able to outrun anyone. And then he heard a low, deep growl, and froze in his tracks.
The woman had a dog? He didn’t remember a dog from last night.
The growling grew louder, and he saw the animal’s large head emerge from underneath the broken boards in the porch. It barked at him once, twice, three times. River went stiff, looking around for people to come running, cops with guns drawn, at the dog’s summons, but none came. Maybe it wasn’t a trap, after all.
The dog came the rest of the way out; the barking ceased. It looked at him, growling deep, stepping forward, hesitant, wary.
River frowned, eyeing the skinny animal, the way his stomach seemed concave, and the familiar markings on his face. “Rex?” he whispered. Then louder. “Rex, boy? Is it you?”
The dog went still, head tipping to one side. It whined once.
“Rex, it’s me. God, boy, you look as bad I must. Come here. Come here, Rex.”
Tail wagging slightly, the dog came closer, wary and pausing between steps. River knelt down, right there in the road, and held out a hand. The German shepherd moved nearer, sniffing at him. Then, suddenly, the dog burst into a loud chorus of barks and jumped on him, paws to his chest knocking him flat on his back, tongue licking his face and neck.
River smiled. It hurt, pulling at facial muscles that hadn’t been used in months. Burying his hands in Rex’s fur, he hugged the dog, and wondered why he was feeling so damn emotional. It was an animal.
But he knew. Rex was a piece of his old life. The life he’d had before everything had been taken from him. The life he’d thought had been entirely obliterated. Rex remained. And if he did, then there was hope.
River pushed the dog off him, and then used his old friend to help pull himself to his feet. Keeping one hand on the animal, he moved across the road and into the driveway, trying to walk in the nicely plowed spots, where he wouldn’t leave obvious footprints. He went up onto the porch, then turned, realizing Rex was no longer beside him. The dog sat at the bottom of the steps. Too wary, perhaps, to come closer.
“It’s okay, pal. I’m pretty sure there’s no one around. Come on.” He slapped his hand against his thigh. Rex came up the steps and onto the porch, where he proceeded to explore and sniff the length and breadth, with special attention to the corners and the empty dog food dish that still held a few telltale crumbs.
She’d fed his dog.
River moved to the cooler, lifting the lid up and peering inside. “And now she’s feeding me,” he muttered.
Tupperware dishes lined the thing. He found one full of homemade rolls, and couldn’t stop himself from taking one. He bit into it, then felt Rex’s eyes on him, and saw the dog watching intently as he chewed.
“Okay, one for you, too, boy,” he said, tossing the dog a roll.
Rex caught it and ate it eagerly, tail wagging, while River examined the other containers. One held a stew, thick with gravy, vegetables and meat. Impossible to eat that, really, without utensils. The next dish he opened held cold fried chicken.
“God, Rex, I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” He took out two pieces of the chicken and, forgetting his caution, sat right there on the porch to eat them. But before he got more than a bite off the second drumstick, his stomach was protesting. It had been too long. He just couldn’t hold food the way he would have liked to. Couldn’t do this meal justice.
There were other dishes in the cooler, and bottles of water, as well. He didn’t go through them, just peeled the remaining meat off the chicken bone for Rex, then put the bone itself back into the container, because he didn’t want the dog eating that, and set the container back in the cooler. He helped himself to a bottle of water, and only as he took his first sip did it occur to him that he hadn’t had a drop of water since before leaving the hospital—aside from the icy pond water he’d swallowed last night.
He drained the bottle, too thirsty, suddenly, to take it slow. And then his stomach convulsed and heaved. He ran off the porch, the dog at his heels, and only just made it into the thick brush across the road before he lost his lunch. The heaving left him weak and trembling, his stomach feeling far too queasy for him to even consider trying again to put food into it.
Rex nudged his thigh, whined a little.
He petted the dog’s neck and straightened. “It’s okay, boy. I’ll live. Maybe.” Lifting his head, he eyed the house. “You don’t suppose I could crawl under that porch with you, rest up for the day, do you?”
The dog barked once, and then the two of them made their way back across the street. River paused long enough to go through the box of clothing. Men’s clothing, all of it. There were jeans and flannel shirts, T-shirts and button-down shirts, ties, several pairs of shoes, and best of all, sweaters. Four of them, thick and heavy and warm. And a denim coat with a fleece lining, and even a knit cap.
“Heaven,” he said again. He took the jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, socks and the coat. He took only one pair of shoes, a pair of lined, waterproof boots that were more valuable to him right then than a million dollars would have been. He tried to arrange the remaining items—the dress shirts, ties, suit pants and jackets—in such a way that it wasn’t utterly obvious things were missing from the box. But it was pretty clear.
He bundled up his treasures, and went, with the dog, to the open spot under the porch, then knelt and crawled in.
And then he let his eyes adjust to the darkness. When they did, he realized that the woman who lived here was a pushover. There was a brand-new dog bed under the porch.
But there was something else even better. Something he had known about, once, but forgotten long ago. There was a hole in the cinder block foundation, made for a casement window. But there was no window in the hole.
He peeked through, into the house’s cellar. The furnace was running. The warmth of it touched his face.
He closed his eyes, told himself this woman was too nice to be treated this way. She didn’t deserve to have a confessed murderer, much less an escapee from a mental hospital, hiding out in her basement.
And yet he didn’t see that he had much of a choice in the matter.
He tossed the clothes into the basement, then went back to the porch to get the bottles of water, the chicken and the rolls from the cooler, and took those back with him. His list of earthly possessions was growing. He had clothes now. He had food and water, and he had shelter. He also had a knife with a six-inch, razor sharp blade and his assailant’s fingerprints, he hoped, preserved on the handle. He’d wrapped it in a rag he’d found along the roadside to keep the prints from being smudged. A plastic zipper bag would have been better.
This time, when he crawled underneath the porch, he kept on going, through the missing window, into the cellar.
Turning, he wondered if Rex would try to come in, too. If he did, and she came home, the dog would surely give him away. But Rex was happily curled up on his dog bed, already snoring.
Dawn came out of the laundry room with an overflowing basket of clothes. She tended to let her laundry pile up at the dorm, so she’d brought it all with her to wash during the holiday break. And this was the last of it.
Everyone had been watching her too closely today. It made her want to cut and run, but she kept reminding herself it was only because they cared about her. Still, the searching looks, the leading questions—it was wearing thin.
She walked through the living room with her basket of clothes, and felt the chill as soon as she entered the room. That chill—it wasn’t a normal one. It only came when one of them was close, and Dawn’s entire body tensed with anticipation.
Beth stood there, talking to a man as a woman stood nearby. The man was tall, slender, dignified looking and soft spoken. He had a worried look about him, and his shoulders nearly slumped from whatever weight they were carrying.
The woman…oh. Her again.
She was semisolid, her white nightgown stained with soot and black spots, as if it had been burned. So was her face, for that matter. One side of it was twisted and scarred. She held a baby in her arms, wrapped in a scorched, sooty blanket, and she stared. Not at Beth, or at the man, but at Dawn.
Dawn’s fear turned to anger. It was one thing for them to harass her, entirely another to get within a mile of her family. Screw this. She set the basket down on the floor and marched forward, making her stride aggressive and sending the dead woman a look meant to chase her off.
Beth turned, and Dawn plastered a more pleasant expression on her face, but not before Beth had seen her.
“You feeling all right, Dawn?”
“Fine,” she said. And she beamed a smile at the man who was looking her way.
“This is Dr. Melrose, Dawn,” Beth said. “He’s taking a room for a couple of days.”
“It seems silly, my living only an hour from here,” he said. “But then again, driving back and forth until my business in town is finished would be even sillier.”
“Dawn Jones,” she said, taking his hand, which was so icy it nearly made her pull hers away. “Welcome to the Blackberry Inn.”
“Thank you.”
“So you’re a doctor.”
“Psychiatrist, actually.”
Dawn shot Beth a look, wondering just for a moment if this was some kind of setup. Had she managed to convince her birth mother that she was losing her mind? Hell, why not? She was half convinced of it herself.
She glanced past the man. The dead woman was gone.
For now.
5
When Jax came home from work that afternoon, her father’s four-wheel-drive pickup sat in the driveway with the tailgate down. Her front door was unlocked, and when she went inside, she found her house brimming with…stuff. A brown velour sofa stood in her living room, with a glass-topped coffee table in front of it. A television set sat opposite. It wasn’t a floor model, so it looked odd there. There were a couple of mismatched, overstuffed chairs, too. A burnt orange one big enough for a linebacker, and a pale blue rocker-recliner. Underneath all of it, a big, braided, oval area rug covered the floor.
Her parents had been busy.
She moved through the dining room, which still held no furniture, and into the kitchen, where her mother was stacking plates in a cupboard and her father was carefully applying caulk to the windowpane in the back door.
“You guys are going to spoil me, aren’t you?” Jax asked, leaning in the doorway and folding her arms over her chest.
Her mother looked up, a kerchief over her hair, and beamed a bright smile at her. “Give the independent streak a rest, Cassie. I couldn’t have you living here without the barest essentials. Honestly, I don’t know how you got by last night—the place was Spartan.”
“I didn’t need to do anything but sleep, Mom.” Jax moved across the room to give her mother a hug, then looked past her into the cupboard, which was stocked with plates, bowls, saucers, coffee cups and glasses. She opened another door to find mixing bowls and measuring cups, and yet another where cookware and bakeware filled the shelves. There was a small kitchen table—metal legs, red Formica top—in the center of the room, with old-fashioned chairs around it—metal frames with padded red vinyl seats and backs. She opened the fridge, found it clean, fresh smelling and stocked with food. The red cooler sat empty on the floor. She wondered briefly if they’d noticed the box of castoffs on her porch as well, but got distracted when she realized the light in the fridge had come on when she’d opened the door.
“Power’s on?” she asked, needlessly.
“Phone lines, too,” her mother said, pointing to the brand-new cordless telephone resting in its base, which was mounted to the wall. They had to have bought it for her.
“What happened to the window?” her father asked. “You have trouble out here last night?”
Jax sent him a bright smile, one designed to hide the lie. “Trouble? Hell, no. Who in their right mind would give me any trouble? I was clumsy. I, uh, was carrying some wood in, from the pile out back, and I slipped. A log flew out of my hand and smashed right through the window.” She shook her head and then moved on to a new subject. “Dad, you didn’t see a dog outside when you arrived, did you?”
He shook his head slowly, wiping the caulking knife on a rag and dropping it into his tool belt. The windowpane was repaired and perfect. Her father was just as capable with a hammer and nails as he was with a scalpel and clamps. Just as comfortable in a pair of overalls as he had once been in an expensive suit or surgical scrubs.
“No, I didn’t see any. Did see the box of stuff we sent home with you…” He smiled. “I see you helped yourself to a few things. It was considerably lighter when I took it to the Goodwill. So are you expecting a dog?”
She nodded. “That stray we spotted here the first day. It’s been hiding out under the porch sometimes.” Her father frowned, and she rushed on. “He’s all alone, Dad. Doesn’t seem aggressive at all, just wary. I left some food for him and he ate it.”
Ben nodded. “I saw the empty bowl. You shouldn’t get too close until I’ve had a look at him. Make sure he’s all right.”
“I’ll be careful. Wait till you get a good look at him, Dad. He’s kind of scrawny, a little rough around the edges, but underneath all that, he’s gorgeous.” She found the fugitive’s face, not the dog’s, creeping into her mind. “You can tell he’s something special. Frankie says he’s been making a nuisance of himself for a while, but no one’s been able to corner him.”
Her dad’s lips pulled into a rare smile, not a full one, kind of sad, like all his smiles were. “You thinking of making a pet out of him?”
She was startled by the question, considering where her thoughts had taken her. “I don’t even know if I’m staying yet.”
“Of course you know,” her mother muttered. She picked up the dishpan full of soapy water and poured it down the sink, then wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Well, I know I’ll feel better knowing you’ve at least got the necessities.”
“How much did you two spend?”
“Nothing at all,” Mariah said. “The dishes have been in my cupboards for years. How many can two people use, after all? Ditto with the extra towels and linens and bedding. Oh, and I didn’t get a chance to hang them yet, but we brought you a pile of curtains and rods, too. Just stuff I had in the closets.”
“And the food?” Jax opened another cupboard door. “You’ve stocked the cupboards and the fridge. There’s enough here to feed me for six months—if I have half the town in for snacks every day, that is. And that telephone is new.” She looked upward. “You even put lightbulbs in all the fixtures.” She sent her mother a suspicious look. “Did you stock the bathroom, as well?”
“It makes your mother happy, being able to do things for you, Cassie. Don’t you hurt her feelings by trying to pay us for this stuff.” Ben shrugged. “Besides, we do fine at the clinic.”
Jax smiled and put a hand on her father’s cheek. “I want to spend a morning over there with you one of these days, Dad. I’d love to see you work.”
“I enjoy it,” he said, and she knew it was nothing short of the truth. There didn’t seem to be much in life that gave him pleasure anymore, so that was worth a lot. Jax mourned the loss of his former career—sometimes, she thought, more than he did. “Animals are great,” he went on. “They don’t argue. They don’t judge and they don’t hate.”
“And they almost never sue,” Mariah added, to lighten the weight of Ben’s words.
Jax pretended to laugh, but damn, her father’s mood worried her. “Do you guys want to stay for dinner? The least I can do is feed you after all this.”
“Perfect!” Mariah said, clapping her hands together. “That’ll just give me time to hang those curtains.”
Her mother, Jax thought, after her parents said good-night, was the Jackson family’s answer to Martha Stewart. Sunflower patterned curtains hung in the kitchen windows and there were matching towels and potholders dangling from every cupboard doorknob. The kitchen was fully functional. She’d set a toaster beside Jax’s coffeepot on the counter, mounted a paper towel holder to the wall and filled it, set a coffee mug tree on the table and hung clean cups from every branch, filled a sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers, too. Even left a pack of sponges and a scrubber near the sink. The place looked as if someone had been living there comfortably for years.
The other rooms were not as complete, but Mariah had made a good start. The dining room was still empty, and begging for furniture. But it had curtains now—Mariah had insisted on hanging them after dinner. The living room was furnished, aside from the lack of a TV stand, and felt cozy. Lacy doilies lay on the arms of the sofa and chairs, a runner on the coffee table, and a stack of coasters sat in the center, next to the TV remote. She’d even placed a framed family photo on the mantel—an old one, from a long time ago, that included the whole family, even Carrie.
Seeing that brought a lump to her throat, but Jax didn’t say anything. Her mother didn’t like to talk about the past. She remembered—but quietly. It was her way.
Mariah had even hit the bathrooms, filling them with stacks of towels and washcloths, new shower curtains and bath mats, curtains in the windows, toilet paper on the rollers. The woman was a wizard.
By the time her parents left, the house felt much more like a home, and as Jax settled down in the living room with a cup of hot coffee, and the bulging file folder full of photocopies she’d brought home from the Blackberry PD, she couldn’t help thinking about how the things from her old apartment back in Syracuse would look here. The wildlife prints on her walls, the entertainment center. Her own TV—wide-screen with surround sound. And her stereo system.
If she decided to stay.
She leaned back in the sofa with a contented sigh, listening to the quiet. Hell, who was she kidding? She was going to stay. She wanted this job.
And that thought brought another: the fact that she may have already blundered herself right out of this job, by giving refuge to a fugitive. Surely, the best thing she could have done this morning would have been to come clean, immediately. And yet…there was something wrong. Something off about this whole thing. She’d dealt with a lot of criminals, prided herself on her instinct. And that man last night hadn’t seemed like a criminal to her. Wounded, wary and probably under the influence of heavy chemicals. Now that she knew he had just escaped from a mental ward, she could understand that a little better. But criminals did not risk their lives to save the lives of strangers. Especially strangers who could turn around and blow the whistle on them the very next day. And he was a cop, on top of all that. A good one, Frankie had said.
If she’d learned nothing more in her life, Jax had learned to give the apparently guilty the benefit of the doubt.
God, how she’d learned that.
So she’d decided to give it one more night. Frankie had let her make copies of the files on the Corbett case, so she could take them home and read them. Get caught up on the facts of the case.
Frankie Parker, Jax discovered as she opened the bulging folder, was one thorough cop.
At the top of the pile were records of Michael Corbett’s service with the NYPD. Jax scanned page after page of them, noting several commendations, a nearly spotless record, until a shooting incident in which he had been injured, and which had been investigated by the Internal Affairs Division. Which meant nothing—anytime an officer fired his weapon in the line of duty, it had to be investigated.
She sipped her coffee, flipped a page and found one officer’s report on the shooting. She waded through the dry language of the account, knowing from experience she’d find no hint of emotion anywhere within its pages. “Just the facts, ma’am” was more than just a catchphrase. What it came down to was that Corbett and other officers had responded to numerous complaints about a crack house. Suspects in the house opened fire on the police officers almost as soon as they were out of their vehicles, and they returned it. One of the suspects’ bullets had hit Corbett in the head before the shooters fled the scene, evading officers who gave chase. Other officers remained with the wounded Corbett until paramedics arrived.
Jax scanned pages until she located the I.A.D.’s final report on the investigation, which cleared Corbett and his fellow officers of any wrongdoing. She frowned, wondering what any of this had to do with the investigation into the murder of Corbett’s wife. But then she found her answers. Corbett had been left with a bullet in his brain, and side effects that made it impossible for him to continue in his job. He’d been retired with a clean record and full pension.
Frankie had made her own notes, detailing Corbett’s health situation according to information she’d gleaned from interviews with his doctor. She wrote that he was prone to blackouts, periods during which he would lose time, and return to himself with no idea what had transpired. It was during one of those blackouts that his house had been torched, his wife killed.
Neither Frankie nor the state of Vermont were eager to prosecute him for murder, not with the testimony of his doctor likely to get him off on an insanity plea, anyway. The result would have been confinement in a mental hospital. And he’d been willing to take that sentence voluntarily, which saved the state the cost of a trial they might have lost. A hero cop, wounded in the line of duty, didn’t make for the easiest defendant.
Jax stared at the pages, but she wasn’t seeing the print. Instead, she was recalling the look in the man’s eyes last night. The desperate, haunted look about him. No wonder—if he’d killed his wife, and couldn’t even remember doing it—hell, that would be enough to haunt anyone. But why would he have risked prison by busting out of the state hospital?
By killing an orderly and then busting out, her inner voice reminded her.
There was more, reams more in the folder, and she turned to a new page and read, and read, until her eyes grew so weary that they drooped slowly closed, and her head fell to one side.
Then there was a sound—a soft sound, like weeping. A woman weeping—and then it changed, and became the gentle coo of a very young baby crying. That snuffly, congested newborn bleat. The smell of smoke touched her nostrils, and a strangled voice whispered….
Help me! Please!
She sat up fast, her eyes flying wide.
The living room was perfectly empty. There were no sounds. No whispers. No babies crying. No smell of smoke. She’d fallen asleep.
No such things as ghosts, she reminded herself, rubbing down the goose bumps that had risen on her arms. Hell, she was letting Kurt Parker’s spook stories get to her.
Jax stretched her arms, folded the file and got up from the sofa. She was letting her imagination take hold, and that was totally unlike her. Maybe she’d better call it a night. She turned for the stairs, but stopped in midmotion at a sound—a real one this time. It sounded like something dropping to the floor.
Frowning, she turned her head in the direction from which the sound had come, the kitchen. “Yeah. It’s probably a whole troop of ghosts,” she taunted herself. “Who you gonna call, Jax?” Sighing, she moved slowly. Because while she didn’t believe in spooks, despite her new colleague’s tales, she did believe in escaped mental patients. Her gun was hanging with her coat in the living room closet—not her choice of a permanent spot to keep it; just where she’d happened to hang it when she came home. Her mother hated seeing it on her. Jax supposed it was a reminder of how dangerous her job could be, and the thought of her only remaining daughter at risk was a little too much for her to handle.
Mariah was delicate. More so than she let on. There had been far more of her in Carrie than there had ever been in Jax.
Jax took the shoulder holster and pulled it on. She didn’t need to check the gun to know it was loaded with a full clip, but there was no bullet in the chamber and the safety was on. She knew her weapon as well as she knew her own body. She kept her hand on the butt as she moved through the house into the kitchen, where she flipped on the light and then stood still, watching, listening.
The room was spotless. The dishes done, leftovers put away, the white ceramic-tiled counters gleaming. The back door was closed and still locked, its new windowpane still in place. Nothing seemed unusual or alarming.
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Maggie Shayne
MICHAEL "RIVER" CORBETT–
Confined in the state mental hospital and heavily drugged since the death of his wife, River cannot remember what truly happened the night he was arrested for her murder. But now someone is trying to kill him, and he is forced to run for his life. A fugitive from the law and from someone who wants him dead, all he wants is the truth.
CASSANDRA JAX JACKSON
The uncompromising police lieutenant knows she's putting her career on the line when she encounters this desperate stranger and doesn't turn him in. Something in River's eyes has Jax convinced he's worth savingwhether he wants it or not.
DAWN JONES
The daughter of a madman, Jax's young friend is haunted by voices she doesn't want to hear. But she can no longer ignore the curse she inherited from her twisted fatherbecause unless she listens to what the dead are telling her, Jax might be doomed to join them.
Praise for the novels of USA TODAY bestselling author
MAGGIE SHAYNE
“A tasty, tension-packed read.”
—Publishers Weekly on Thicker Than Water
“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb touch, blending fantasy and romance into an outstanding reading experience.”
—Romantic Times on Embrace the Twilight
“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She satisfies every wicked craving.”
—Bestselling author Suzanne Forster
“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new and old of her vampire series can rejoice.”
—Romantic Times on Twilight Hunger
“Shayne’s haunting tale is intricately woven…. A moving mix of high suspense and romance, this haunting Halloween thriller will propel readers to bolt their doors at night!”
—Publishers Weekly on The Gingerbread Man
“Shayne’s talent knows no bounds!”
—Rendezvous
“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping intensity and bewitching passion.”
—Bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
“Shayne’s gift has made her one of the preeminent voices in paranormal romance today!”
—Romantic Times
MAGGIE SHAYNE
DARKERTHAN MIDNIGHT
This book is dedicated to my mom,
with all my love. All the very best
parts of me come from you.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Prologue
Fourteen Years Ago…
Cassandra Marie Jackson clutched her mother’s hand as the man who’d raped and murdered her sister rose to his feet to hear the verdict. Time seemed to stretch, and to slow. She could hear the clock in the back of the courtroom, and it seemed there was an unnaturally long pause between every tick. She closed her eyes and tried to block the past, but it came rushing at her, anyway—the memory of that moment when her life had been turned upside down.
The knock at the door came at ten o’clock. She’d been on the sofa, doing homework. Dad was going over some notes—he had to perform surgery early the next morning, and as always, he spent time double-checking everything. Mom was watching a movie and crocheting. The afghan she was working on was almost done. Purple and white. Cassie remembered it perfectly.
She’d looked up briefly when her mother went to answer the door, then frowned when she saw the policeman on the other side. Before the officer said a word, her mother turned, her face pale. Almost as if she knew. “Ben,” she called. “Ben, come here.”
Dad came in from his study, pausing halfway across the living room with a file folder in one hand. He took off his reading glasses, tucked them into his shirt pocket and went to the door.
“Dr. Benjamin Jackson?” the officer asked.
“Yes?”
“Do you have a daughter named Carrie?”
Cassie was off the sofa by then. Something clenched in her stomach when she heard her older sister’s name, and she automatically looked at the clock on the wall. It was only ten. Carrie’s curfew wasn’t until eleven. In some warped way that meant nothing could be wrong.
Her mother was clutching her father’s hand as he said, “Yes.” But there was something different about his voice that time. It was lifeless, flat.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Dr. Jackson, Mrs. Jackson, but your daughter…”
Cassie didn’t know what else he’d said, but she knew what it meant. Maybe she’d forgotten the words because of what had followed them. Her father dropped the precious notes, white sheets fluttering everywhere, like the feathers of a murdered dove. Her mother screamed; first it was the word “no” over and over again, but then it became a hoarse, choked cry that wasn’t a word at all, because there was no word that could express the pain. And with every sound she emitted, it seemed more of her life left her body, until she backed away from the door and dropped gracelessly onto the carpet, empty. Then Cassie’s father and the policeman were hovering over her, trying to help her up, to calm her. But there was no calming Mariah Jackson. Not until Dad managed to get a hypodermic from his bag and inject her with something.
Cassie knelt beside her mother on the floor, holding her as tightly as she could, and thinking how wrong it was that she was hugging her weeping mother. She’d never seen her mom like this. Not like this. It was like the end of the world. It was like everything that had ever been was gone. Torn apart, turned inside out. But she held her mother, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, until, still sobbing, Mariah fell asleep in Cassie’s arms, right there on the floor.
Dad had been standing nearby, watching, helpless, and speaking in low tones to the police. There were two of them. Cassie had only seen one at first.
Bending, Dad scooped her mother up and carried her to the sofa.
Cassie had to let her go, but for some reason she couldn’t get far from her. She felt as if she might fall into some bottomless pit if she did. Nothing was real, things seemed like a dream—a nightmare. Her sister couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be.
And even then she hadn’t known the true horror that had visited her family. She thought it must have been a car accident, and wondered which of Carrie’s friends had been involved and whether they were hurt, too.
“Will you be all right?” her father asked. “I have to go with the officer….”
To identify the body, Cassie thought, the phrase floating into her mind from countless TV cop shows.
“Officer Crowley can stay with them,” the policeman said. And Cassie looked up to see that the second cop was a woman in uniform, standing just inside the doorway, battling tears. She wasn’t very old, Cassie thought. Not more than a few years older than Carrie.
Cassie met her father’s eyes, nodded to tell him it was all right for him to go. He hugged her hard. Told her he loved her.
She spent the next hour in a state of shock, mostly staring at Carrie’s senior-class picture in its frame on the wall. She kept thinking she should be crying. But she couldn’t, because it wasn’t real. She still expected Carrie to come walking through the front door, asking what all the fuss was about. Cassie remembered the lady cop telling her that they would catch the man who did it. She made it a promise, a vow, and there was fire in her eyes when she said it.
It was only in that moment that Cassie realized her sister hadn’t died in some senseless car accident. Someone had killed her.
Killed her.
Somehow, Cassie got through that night. She would always think that lady cop had a lot to do with it. Her promise that they would get the man had given Cassie a focus—a dark, faceless him to hate and wish dead. The man who’d killed her sister. A target for her rage. She hoped the cops wouldn’t arrest him—surely they would just shoot him instead. How could they not? He’d killed Carrie.
They hadn’t, of course. They’d arrested him.
Jeffrey Allen Dunkirk had been their neighbor for more than a year. A seemingly harmless, always friendly, forty-five-year-old divorced father, who used to pay Cassie and Carrie to watch his twin sons from time to time. He only had the boys every other weekend. The cops said he’d spotted Carrie walking home from her best friend’s house, three blocks away, and had stopped and offered her a ride. Then he’d driven her to a park five miles out of town, raped her, strangled her and left her lying in a ditch, with her clothes and her purse tossed in beside her broken eighteen-year-old body. There was no question. His semen was inside her. Her hairs and fingerprints were all over his car. He had no alibi.
In the courtroom, the man standing there, waiting for the verdict to be read, was not the man Cassie knew. He was jittery, jerky, fidgety. Throughout the trial he’d alternated between sitting in a zoned-out stupor, and fidgeting as if he were going to jump out of his chair, while occasionally talking to himself in urgent whispers.
All an act designed to support his claim of insanity, because it was the only defense his lawyers could come up with. It made Cassie angry enough to claw out his eyes. And maybe that was good, because the anger took the edge off the grief.
A slip of paper was passed from the jury foreman to the bailiff, to the judge, who unfolded and read it, then handed it back to the bailiff, who carried it back to the juror. And finally, the foreman cleared his throat and read.
“In the case of New York State versus Jeffrey Allen Dunkirk, on the charge of murder in the first degree, we the jury find the defendant…”
Cassie’s mom squeezed her hand even tighter. Her father just sat there, as if he’d turned to stone.
“Not guilty by reason of mental defect or impairment.”
There was a collective gasp in the courtroom, followed by noisy murmurs, even as Cassie’s mother slumped in her chair. Cassie turned to her father, seeking his strength, his comfort, but he was on his feet, reaching into his suit jacket while the judge banged his gavel and shouted for silence. Cassie watched, paralyzed with shock, as her father’s hand emerged again, with a gun. The weapon bucked hard when it exploded in his hand, three times in quick succession, before men were hurling themselves at him. Cassie’s chair was knocked over in the rush, and she landed awkwardly on the floor, her eyes searching for her father beneath the pile of bodies on top of him.
She couldn’t see him, and her gaze was drawn to the crowd gathered across the aisle. In the midst of that crowd she could see Jeffrey Allen Dunkirk lying on the floor, a thick red puddle forming around him. Someone said, “He’s dead!”
Cassie got to her feet and stumbled to her mother, who was standing, sobbing, her entire body quaking. She put her arms around her mom as men hauled her father to his feet. An officer pulled the esteemed surgeon’s hands behind his back and snapped handcuffs around his wrists as he said, “Dr. Benjamin Jackson, I’m placing you under arrest.” Then he put a hand on her father’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry,” before continuing on, reciting the familiar Miranda rights.
1
Present Day…
River sat on the floor in the room’s deepest corner, his back to the wall, his arms wrapped around his waist. He couldn’t move them. The straitjacket held them too tightly for that. The room was white, its walls padded like the ones in the old Blackberry High School gymnasium. It didn’t smell like the gym, though. No mingling of hardwood floor polish and B.O. Here, the smell was a sickening combination of urine and bleach. Aside from that minor distraction, though, his mind was clouded in an almost pleasant fog, and yet turbulence kept surfacing from its depths. Specific analysis was impossible at this point. He only knew he was in trouble. Terrible trouble. And that he had to do something or he was going to die. So he sat there, rocking and struggling to capture coherence, because he couldn’t do anything unless he could remember what it was he had to do.
Sounds brought his head up; the locks on his door were turning. He strained his eyes as the door swung open, and slowly managed to bring the man who entered into focus. Ethan. Thank God.
Ethan crossed the room, a gentle smile on his face. He hunkered down in front of River, his white coat spotless and almost too bright, his name tag pinned neatly to a pocket. Dr. E. Melrose, M.D. Chief of Psychiatry. He put a hand on River’s shoulder.
“How you doing, pal? Better?”
River shook his head slowly. “Worse,” he said. “Getting worse, Ethan.”
Ethan frowned, studying River’s face, stared into his eyes. It made River think of when they were kids and they would stare at each other until one of them blinked. And then Ethan blinked and River laughed. “I win.”
“I’ll order more medication,” Ethan said.
“No!”
Ethan’s reaction—the way he jerked away from River—made its way through the fog in River’s mind enough to hurt. Enough to tell him that even his best friend was afraid of him. He licked his dry lips and tried again, though forming sentences was a challenge at best.
“No more drugs.”
“I know you don’t like taking the meds, Riv, but right now they’re the only thing keeping you—”
“You said…I’d get…better.” He knew his speech was slurred; he lisped his s’s and dulled his r’ s. He couldn’t help it. “I’m getting worse.”
“I know. I’m doing all I can for you.” Ethan moved to one side, reaching behind River to unfasten the straitjacket. When the sleeves came loose, River lowered his arms, sighing in relief at finally being able to change their position. Then he sat forward and let his friend pull the jacket off him. “Do you feel like talking?”
River nodded. “Try.”
“I know. I know it’s hard to talk. That’s due to the drugs, but…I’m sorry, Riv.”
River nodded. “Before Steph died…” His tongue felt thick and clumsy, and the words he formed in his mind didn’t make it all the way to his lips. He felt much like he had on prom night a hundred years ago when he and the jocks from the team had spiked the punch and he’d drunk way more than his share. Ethan had saved his ass that night. Practically carried him home, poured him into bed and then covered for him.
“Wasn’t this bad—jus’ the blackouts. And not rememememem…”
“Remembering,” Ethan finished. “I know.”
“Now…I can…barely…funchin…funchin…fun—”
“Function,” Ethan said.
Nodding, River lifted a hand to his lips, wiped and felt moisture. “Jesus. Ethan…I’m drooling.”
“I know. I know. I didn’t expect this, either.”
“It’s meds. Gotta be. Meds.”
Ethan nodded. “It’s possible. But River, you’ve got to stop getting violent with the staff here. It’s only making things worse. They’re here to help you. The way you’ve been acting the past few days, I’m afraid that without the medication, you might hurt someone.”
River narrowed his eyes on his friend. “Someone…tried…kill me.”
“What?”
“Pillow…on my face. Couldn’t see who. Came up sing—sing—”
“Swinging?”
“And…and they came in. I kep’ fighting. I din’t know…who—”
“All right, all right. Calm down. Don’t get agitated again.”
River took a few breaths, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Not a violent…man. Din’t…kill Steph. You know that.”
“I know,” Ethan said, lowering his eyes.
“S’posed to get better…here.”
Ethan sighed. “River, I’m going to review your meds, see where we can start lightening up the doses, and gradually bring you off them. Then we can get an idea where you are without chemical help. And I’ll speak to the staff, make sure you’re safe. I’ll have them keep your room locked while you sleep, have them keep a closer eye on you. All right?”
“Can’t jus’ stop…meds? Jus’ stop them?”
Ethan shook his head slowly. “Not all at once, no. You’d be a mess if we did that. I’ll start lowering the doses today. I promise.”
River sighed. “Okay. Okay.”
“Okay.” Ethan clasped his shoulders one last time, then got up and went through the door.
River struggled to his feet, though he had to press his palms to the wall to do it. Then he clung to that wall, pushing himself along it, around a corner and to the door. Exhausted, he leaned against it, his head resting on its smooth, cool surface, his ear pressed tight, because he thought someone might be out there waiting to come in when Ethan left. He had to be careful. Be aware.
“…must be so hard for you, seeing him like this,” a woman was saying. “He’s not the same man he was when he came here. But I suppose it’s eating away at him. He killed his pregnant wife, for heaven’s sake.”
“Doctor, he’s drooling a bit,” a second female voice said. “Did you notice it?”
“Yes. I’m afraid he’s getting worse,” Ethan said. “Showing signs of increased paranoia. Brand-new set of delusions. We’re going to need to increase his meds.”
“But, Doctor, he’s exhibiting extrapyramidal side effects,” the second voice said. “Doesn’t that indicate he should be taken off the Haldol altogether?”
“Excuse me, who are you exactly?” Ethan asked.
The first woman spoke. “She’s new here, Doctor. Forgive her. Nurse Jensen, Dr. Melrose is an excellent psychiatrist. He knows his job.”
“I know mine, too,” the nurse said, but softly.
River heard footsteps, then the first nurse again. “I apologize, Doctor. I’ll see to it she learns her place.”
“Oh, don’t be too hard on her. You know how overzealous new nurses can be. Uh, maybe it would be a good idea to keep her away from this particular patient, though. All right? I don’t want anything interfering with his treatment.”
“You’re a good friend. He’s lucky to have you,” she said. “I’ll see to it immediately.”
“Thanks, Judy.” River heard scraping sounds, knew Ethan was taking his chart from the plastic holder there, probably writing in it. “Meanwhile, let’s increase the Haldol. See if it doesn’t help.”
River groaned softly and gave up his hold on the door, letting himself sink to the floor. Ethan didn’t believe him. His best friend didn’t believe him. His head spun and he fought, fought hard to latch onto a thought. A single thought, anything, to save himself from the madness that was trying so hard to swallow him up.
He wasn’t insane. It was the meds. The meds were killing him. Good. Good. What then? What could help him? He struggled; fog closed in but he pushed it back.
Nurse Jensen…she knew. But no, she couldn’t help him. No one could help him. He was on his own. Okay. So he was on his own. And on his own, he had to get out of this place. There. That was it, that was the answer he’d been seeking through the fog. He had to get out of this place.
Cassandra Jackson—Jax to her friends—sat in the front seat of Chief Frankie Parker’s SUV as the countryside of Blackberry, Vermont, unwound before her. She’d been here before, but she would never get over the beauty of a Vermont winter. The entire place looked like a Christmas card—sugar-coated pine trees, leafless maples and poplars glittering with icicles, blankets of snow covering every gentle slope and level field. Frankie drove, smiling and talking nonstop about the benefits of being police chief of a small town. Jax’s parents, Ben and Mariah, rode in the back, agreeing with every word Frankie said.
“You were so right about this place, honey,” Mariah said. “When you told us a year ago that we’d love it here, I thought you were crazy, but it’s wonderful. Truly.”
Jax shrugged. “Perfect for you doesn’t necessarily mean perfect for me.” Which was a lie and she knew it. She’d hit a glass ceiling in the Syracuse Police Department. Maybe because she was a woman, but more likely because her father was a convicted murderer who’d only been out of prison for two years. Either way, she’d gone as far as she could go there.
So when Frankie Parker phoned her with the job offer, she’d been quick to take some vacation time and come up here to check things out. It made a nice excuse to visit her parents.
She’d fallen in love with the town of Blackberry when she’d been up here a year ago, helping a friend and hunting a killer. Her friends were still here—the killer long dead. And now her parents had settled in nearby to boot, adding to the little town’s attraction.
“It would be so nice to have you close by, right in the next town,” her father said, speaking slow and softly. “After all, we’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”
“That would be nice,” Jax agreed. God knew she hadn’t had enough time with her father—a lifetime wouldn’t be enough. He’d served twelve hard years in prison, and lost his brilliant medical career because of it. He would never be able to practice medicine again—at least not on human beings. But he hadn’t become despondent. He’d written every day, as had she. And he’d begun studying veterinary medicine while still in prison, and completed his work during the two years since his release. Only six months ago, the AVMA board had voted to grant him a license to practice. He had joined an aging veterinarian at the Blackberry-Pinedale Animal Hospital, and he seemed fulfilled and content.
He’d aged thirty years in prison. He was skinny as a rail, his hair pure white and thinning, and he was quiet—far more quiet than he’d ever been before. Almost as if he was always far too deep in thought to be bothered with conversation.
“It would be nice for me, too,” Frankie said. “I’ve been wanting to retire for months, but reluctant to leave the department in less than capable hands. When I thought of you, Jax, it was like a load off my shoulders. I’m convinced you’re the one for the job.”
“Yeah, yeah, flattery will probably work. Keep it coming,” Jax told her.
Frankie grinned at her, adding wrinkles to her wrinkles. Jax still wasn’t used to thinking of a sixty-plus-year-old with kinky silver curls as chief of police, but she knew from experience Frankie Parker was a good cop. Her looks just tended to lull you into thinking she was harmless. That probably worked to her advantage.
“The town board will approve you on my say-so,” she said. “No problem there. It’s really up to you.”
Again Jax nodded. “Why aren’t you promoting one of the officers from your department, Frankie?”
“Neither Matthews nor Campanelli are interested,” she said. “Too much paperwork, too much pressure. Though, compared to a big department like Syracuse has, you’ll find it a piece of cake,” she added quickly. “I’ve got one other, Kurt Parker, but frankly, he hasn’t got the temperament for it. Hell, he probably wouldn’t be working for me at all if he wasn’t my nephew.”
Jax nodded, mulling that over. She hadn’t met Officer Parker. He’d been away on vacation when she’d been here last. Then she thought of someone else who could fill the position. “What about Josh Kendall? He was DEA. Surely he could fill the spot.”
“Kendall?” Frankie shook her head. “I like that we think alike, Jax. Josh was on top of my list. Fact is, I offered him the job and he turned me down flat. I think he and Beth have had enough excitement to last them several lifetimes. They’re both content to make their way as the humble keepers of the Blackberry Inn. Can’t say as I blame them.” She slowed the car, glanced at Jax with a smile. “Here’s the house that comes with the job.”
Jax looked, then looked again. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope.”
She’d expected the house, a perk that came along with the job as police chief, to be a functional cracker box at the edge of the village. Instead, Frankie was pulling into the driveway of a flat-roofed, white Victorian that took her breath away. Tall narrow windows were flanked by forest-green shutters, with elaborate scrollwork trim in that same green, as well as mauve. The paint was new. The place looked perfect.
“Town claimed it for back taxes and other money owed a while back. They did some initial repairs, and kept it in tiptop shape since. Were thinking about selling it, but we had a budget surplus this year. I convinced them to offer it to the new police chief, make up for the pay being lower than you could make elsewhere. Told ’em we’d have to do something special to get someone good enough to fill my shoes.”
“Must be some damn big shoes,” Jax muttered. “What are you, a twelve extra-wide?”
“Ahh, it’s not so much. Used to be twice this size,” Frankie said. “But an entire wing had to be torn down. Wait till you see inside.” She shut the motor off and got out, making footprints in the snow. She tugged her furry collar up to her ears and trudged forward, taking a set of keys from her black, leatherlike cop-jacket’s pocket.
Jax got out, too, waiting for her parents to join her before hurrying toward the front door. She was nearly there when a large black-and-brown dog lunged out from underneath the front porch, barked twice with its pointy ears laid back, then turned and ran away. It vanished into the woods across the street. Jax just stood there, staring after it and swearing under her breath.
“That was a police dog, wasn’t it?” Mariah asked. “I think it’s a sign!”
Jax pursed her lips and refrained from correcting her mother. She’d always referred to German shepherds as “police dogs” and always would. “That was one sad-looking case,” Jax said. “Seemed as if it’s been living on tree bark and swamp water.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that dog.” Frankie shook her head so that her tight silver curls bounced. “He’s a menace. We’ve been trying to collar him for a year without any luck. He’s cagey enough to get by on his own.”
Jax tipped her head to one side. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”
“How so?” Frankie asked.
Jax shrugged. “He’s no mongrel, looked like a purebred. He must have belonged to someone once.”
“I didn’t know you were a dog lover, Jax,” Frankie said.
“I could care less about dogs.” It was a lie and she knew it, but she didn’t want to go blowing her anti-girlie image by painting herself as a bleeding-heart puppy cuddler. “You have a father who’s a vet, you pick up a few things, that’s all.”
“Well, that mutt may be a purebred, but I can tell you he’s one hundred percent pure pain in my backside now. Don’t worry, Jax, we won’t let him pester you. Come on, come see the house.”
Jax nodded and followed Chief Frankie inside, trying unsuccessfully to put the dog out of her mind. It wasn’t easy. His brown eyes had met hers for just a moment, and managed to beam right past her hard-shell exterior to the soft, mushy parts she didn’t let anyone see.
She didn’t like those parts, kept them concealed and confined. Mostly because she lived and worked in a man’s world and she’d learned to act the part. But she knew, too, it was partly because her sister had been soft. She’d been friendly, open and utterly trusting. Jax had learned at sixteen where those soft parts could get you. In her line of work, and in life in general, a woman just couldn’t afford to indulge them.
Still, the whole time Frankie showed her around the house, which was just as gorgeous on the inside, she kept thinking about the dog. And before the tour was finished, she’d decided to pick up a bag of dog food and leave some out for him. Of course, she wouldn’t tell anyone. But she’d always had a soft spot for strays.
“Now, the fireplace has been checked over thoroughly. It’s ready to use, but there’s also a new furnace in the basement that heats the place just fine,” Frankie said.
Jax nodded, and couldn’t help imagining the redbrick fireplace aglow with a big fire, even as she walked around the living room. When she got to the far wall, she hugged her arms. “Chilly on this side of the room.” When she spoke she could see her breath. “Whoa, real chilly.”
“Must be the side the wind’s blowing on,” Mariah said, smiling. Her mother, Jax realized, wasn’t going to find any fault with the house that might become her daughter’s new home. No matter what.
“It’s always chilly on the east side of the house. I suspect it could use another layer of insulation,” Frankie said. “Upstairs there are three bedrooms and a bathroom. One bathroom down here, as well.”
“More than one cop needs,” Jax said.
“Sure wouldn’t be as cramped as your apartment in Syracuse, would it, Cassie?” Mariah asked.
It wasn’t really a question.
“Come on, let me show you the kitchen,” Frankie said.
As they trooped through the place, Jax looked back to see her father standing on the far side of the living room, studying the clouds of steam his breath made, a frown etched on his brow.
“Dad?”
He glanced her way, softened his face so the frown vanished.
“You okay?” Jax asked.
He nodded and joined her in the dining room. Mariah and Frankie were already in the kitchen, chattering. Benjamin slipped an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “The place seems lonely,” he said. “Almost…sad. I think it needs you.”
“Yeah?”
“And it would make your mother awfully happy.”
“I know, Dad. I’m considering it, I really am.”
“That’s all we can ask.”
She could have told him she was thinking this whole thing a little too good to be true, and trying to figure out a way to find the catch in the entire offer without hurting Frankie’s feelings. Hell, they were just going to hand her a house? Something had to be off. If there wasn’t, she’d be an idiot not to take the job. Still, as she took the grand tour, liking the place more with every room she saw, she knew there had to be a downside.
Later, as they drove away from the house, Jax noticed a shape peering out from beneath the snow right beside the place. “Is that a foundation?” she asked.
Frankie glanced where she was looking and nodded. “That was the wing that had to be torn down. It was never part of the original structure, anyway. It was added on in the seventies—seventy-five, I think. Two-car garage and a game room on the ground floor, extra bedrooms up above.”
“So what happened to it? Why’d it have to go? Shoddy construction work?”
Frankie shook her head. “There was a fire couple of years back. Sad story, really. A woman was killed.” She narrowed her eyes on Jax’s face. “That’s not gonna spook you now, is it?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts, if that’s what you mean.” Right, so what was that little shiver up her spine just now? she wondered. And deep down in her brain an irritating voice said, “Hey, kid, maybe you just found your downside.”
Frankie brightened. “Good. Because I’d like you to spend your two-week vacation at the house,” she said. “You can shadow me on the job, get a real feeling for what it will be like to live and work here in Blackberry. After that, if you decide to take the job, the house is yours, rent free. If you stay five years, you get the deed, as well.”
“That’s an incredibly generous offer, Frankie. Almost too generous.” Jax faced the woman, reminded herself Frankie was something of a kindred spirit, and decided to stop pulling punches. “So what’s the catch?”
Frankie held her eyes, probably to make it clear she had nothing to hide. “No catch. It’s meant to be an offer that’s too good to turn down,” she said. “Of course, the pay isn’t the greatest, but it’s nothing to sneeze at, either. Best of all, Blackberry’s a safe place to be a cop. Nothing bad ever happens here.”
Jax crooked one brow. “Aren’t you forgetting your run-in with Mordecai Young last year? I was here for that, Frankie. Remember?”
Frankie’s smile died. “Not likely to forget. He murdered my best friend.” She sighed, shaking her head. “God rest your soul, Maudie Bickham.” Then she focused on Jax again. “That was a once in a lifetime event. Honestly, Jax, I mean it. Bad things don’t happen in Blackberry.”
Jax nodded, but she thought about the foundation, the fire that had burned a wing of the house. A woman had been killed, Frankie said. Surely that qualified as a “bad thing.” Jax wondered briefly if the pristine purity of Blackberry, Vermont was anything more than a convincing and beautiful illusion.
A nurse brought River back to his room, speaking softly to him all the way. He checked her name tag, but she was neither a “Judy” nor a “Jensen.” He wasn’t really sure why he was checking. When she got him to his room, he looked around—everything here was becoming familiar. The bed. The mesh-lined glass of the single window. The door to the tiny bathroom. He needed to remember what he had to do. That was all he struggled for. To remember what he had to do. Get away. Get out.
“There now, I’m so glad to see you’re feeling better this afternoon,” the nurse said, leading him to the easy chair, expecting him to sit down, he realized, when she paused there, just looking at him. So he did. Then she brought out the pills, as he had known she would. She poured water from a pitcher and handed him the tiny medicine cup that held the tablets.
Remember, he told himself. Remember what to do.
He took the pills, drank the water, swallowed them.
“Let’s see,” she chirped, as if she were speaking to a four-year-old.
River obediently opened his mouth, lifted his tongue, let her assure herself he’d swallowed the pills.
“Good, good for you, Michael.”
He could have told her to call him River. He’d started out correcting everyone here. No one had called him Michael since he was thirteen years old. Ethan’s dad had started it that summer after the rapids had gobbled up his canoe and spit him out onto the shore. But River didn’t care what anyone called him anymore. He wasn’t sure who the hell he was, anyway, so what difference did it make?
“Now if you put in a good night, you’ll get your privileges back tomorrow. You want to go to the community room, don’t you?”
He nodded, tried to force a smile, and just wished she would leave so he could try to make himself cough up the pills before he forgot.
“That’s good,” she said. “You just take it easy for tonight. You’ve had a hard day. Do you need anything before I go?”
“No.”
“All right then. Good night, Michael.”
“’Night.”
He waited until she had closed the door behind her. He heard the lock snap into place.
Focus. The meds—have to get rid of them.
He got to his feet and went into the bathroom, angry that hurrying wasn’t much of an option. He shuffled when he walked. Opening the toilet lid, he leaned over the bowl, stuck a finger down his throat, started to gag.
“Oh, now, Michael. That’s no way to behave yourself, is it?”
He straightened fast, but it made him dizzy, and when he spun around he fell, landing on the seat. Which turned out to be a lucky thing, because the orderly standing over him was swinging a knife at him. River’s clumsiness caused him to duck the blow that would have slit his throat.
He reacted with the instinct of a veteran cop, not a mental patient. It was almost as if he were standing aside, observing, silently amazed that his years of training hadn’t been entirely erased, even by the drugs. His body remembered. It didn’t need his mind’s coherent instructions to move; it just reacted. He drove his head into the man’s belly, shot to his feet as the guy doubled over, clasped his fists together and brought them down as one, hammering the back of the orderly’s head.
The man went down hard, his forehead cracking against the toilet seat on the way. And then he just lay there, not moving.
River stared down at him, shocked. His heart was pounding as hard as the drugs would allow.
The drugs! Dammit.
He grabbed up the knife the downed orderly had been wielding, long instinct refusing to let it lie there beside the man. Then he shoved the limp body out from in front of the toilet, and tried again to vomit. He managed to bring up a little. Enough, he hoped. Prayed. Let it be enough.
The orderly still hadn’t moved. The toilet seat was cracked, River realized, and so was the bowl underneath it. Water was seeping onto the floor.
River started to shake as he knelt beside the man, checking for a pulse. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to find it in his condition even if there had been one. So many drugs floating through his bloodstream—even if he had brought up the most recent batch. Still, he tried to find a pulse. But he didn’t think the man was alive.
He sank onto the floor, rocking back and forth, trying to organize his thoughts. He had to get out of here. He had to. But God, it was so hard to think. Maybe if he’d managed to avoid swallowing his meds for a few days. Maybe then he could have—
Not then. Now. You have to get out of here now.
Somehow, he latched onto a thought, a goal. And slowly, clumsily, he began to remove the fallen man’s clothes. All of them, even the lanyard around his neck with the magnetically stripped key card. The front of the card bore a photo of the orderly. His name had been Kyle. Kyle W. Maples.
It took forever, the better part of an hour, River thought, or maybe longer. But eventually, he was dressed in the orderly’s white uniform, with the hunting knife hidden in a deep pocket and the lanyard around his own neck. The orderly was wearing River’s own powder-blue patient pajamas. They were on him crookedly, the top inside out, but it didn’t matter. He’d done the best he could.
River lifted the dead man’s head by its hair, and grimacing, smashed his face on the toilet seat three times, hard enough to obliterate his features.
When he finished, he managed to empty the remaining contents of his stomach without any trouble at all.
Sighing, breathless, he turned to the sink, washed his face and rinsed his mouth. Then he wet his hands, smoothed down his hair as best he could, wiped the spittle from his chin.
Have to get out. But how? The door’s locked from the outside.
Get a nurse to open it. Get a nurse to come in.
Nodding, River hit the bathroom’s emergency call button.
After a moment, a nurse’s voice came on. “What is it, Mr. Corbett?”
He drew a breath, swallowed hard. He was forgetting something, more than likely. He wasn’t in any condition to plan an escape that would work. But he had to try. “I…I fell. I’m…hurt.”
He released the button and went back into the room, standing against the wall, beside the door. He could hear the nurse’s voice coming over the speaker, asking if he were all right, then telling him she would be there promptly. When the lock on the door clicked, he pressed his back to the wall, so that when the door swung open, it hid him.
The nurse paused in the doorway at the sight of the legs sticking out from the open bathroom door. Then she rushed into the bathroom, and he heard her whisper, “Oh, my God,” as he slipped out of his room and down the hall.
Within seconds, staff members were rushing toward his room, barely noticing one lone orderly in the corridor, moving in the opposite direction. He found the stair door, used the key card that hung from the orderly’s lanyard to unlock it, and took the stairs rather than the elevators. All the way down, all the way to the basement garage, where his footsteps echoed in the cool, exhaust-scented air.
God, it was getting harder and harder to walk. To focus. Maybe some of the meds had dissolved before he threw them up. Or maybe he was just tired. He didn’t know what to do next, and he groped in the orderly’s pockets as if for an answer. His hands closed around a set of keys, and he pulled them out and stared at them.
Car keys? They had a remote device on them. The kind with the button you could press to start your car from a distance, another to unlock the doors and yet another that had an emblem of a horn on it. Frowning, River pressed that button and heard, in the distance, two short beeps.
Blinking, trying to focus, he followed the sound, thanking his lucky stars. After a while, he hit the button again, and again the car’s horn sounded, guiding him in. It was a small Toyota. Yellow. He hit the unlock button and got behind the wheel. And he knew damn well he shouldn’t be driving, but he had no choice.
It was a strain to steer the vehicle. Had another car come along he would have surely hit it, or hit one of the parked cars trying to avoid it. But no other car came, and finally, he was at the gate, where a striped bar blocked his exit, and a little box with a blinking yellow light stood beside him.
He nearly panicked. There was a man inside the small booth, smiling at him and shaking his head, then he pointed at the box and held up a little card.
Right. Put the card in the slot in the box. That’s all. He took the lanyard off his neck, turned to thrust the key card into the box and banged his hand against the closed window. Swallowing his panic, he put the window down, tried again. He put the card into the slot. Pulled it back out. The gate rose. The man in the booth waved at him. River waved back, tried to smile, and struggled to steer the car out of the garage and onto the long strip of pavement that wound away from the Vermont State Mental Hospital.
He pressed the accelerator a little harder and left the place behind.
When he made it to the highway, he hesitated for one brief moment, wondering where on earth he was going to go where they wouldn’t find him. Because eventually, they were going to realize the dead man in his room was not Michael “River” Corbett. Hell, they’d probably call what he’d done back there murder.
That would be two on the list. Three, he reminded himself. He mustn’t forget—couldn’t forget—the baby. Three murders.
It didn’t matter if he was found, if he was caught, if he ended up dead—nothing mattered except learning the truth. He had to know what had happened the night of the fire. He couldn’t have murdered his wife and his child.
For a moment, as he sat there, turn signal blinking incessantly, he closed his eyes, and it came rushing back to him as if it were happening all over again.
He found himself lying on the lawn in the cool green grass, surrounded by searing heat and light and a stench that burned his lungs. Rex was there, licking his face, whining plaintively. And even as he slowly fought to grasp what was happening, he realized he’d had another damn blackout. Yet another episode when he lost minutes, sometimes hours of his life, only to return to himself with no idea of what he’d done during that time. He patted the dog’s head. “Okay, boy, okay. I’m back.”
But this time was different. He’d felt it even before he struggled to sit up, and then leaped to his feet at the sight of his beautiful home going up in flames.
He screamed his wife’s name, lunged forward, only to be clasped by a pair of strong hands that held him back. “Easy, Mr. Corbett. Easy. We’re doing all we can.”
He blinked up at the face of the firefighter, a young man, one he didn’t recognize, though he’d met most of the men in Blackberry by then. Rex was barking at the man, and he told the dog it was all right, to quiet down.
Rex sat obediently, but still whined every now and then.
“Thanks,” the firefighter said, and then the young man’s face changed. It turned ugly as he sniffed. Then he looked at the ground beside River’s feet and his eyes widened.
River looked, too. A gasoline can lay there, toppled onto its side, no cap in place. A high-heeled shoe lay beside it, bright orange in the flashing lights.
It might be Steph’s shoe. He didn’t recognize it, but God knew she had so many—maybe she got out already.
“Just why is it you’ve got gas on you, pal?” the firefighter asked.
River frowned, and then he smelled the gas, as well. Not just from the fumes that open can emitted. The smell of gas was coming from him. From his hands. From his clothes.
“I think you’d better come with me, Mr. Corbett,” the firefighter said. And then he took River by the arm and walked him toward the flashing lights of Frankie Parker’s police car, a black-and-white SUV.
A horn blew, jerking River from his muddled thoughts and gap-riddled memories. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw a car behind him, the driver waiting impatiently to get on the highway. Sighing, he flicked his own signal light off again, opting instead to take back roads. Less chance of killing someone. God knew he didn’t need any more blood on his hands. And he knew the way. He knew the back roads of Vermont so well he could find his way even from within the thick chemical clouds in his brain.
If he’d murdered Stephanie, he deserved whatever he got. But dammit, he had to know. He had to know the truth. And there was only one place where he would find it.
He had to go back home to Blackberry.
That was where all the secrets were buried.
2
“Stop!”
Dawn shouted the word and Bryan hit the brakes of her Jeep. It skidded a little on the road, then came to a stop right in front of the empty, beautifully painted Victorian house that sat alone a few yards away.
“What?” Bryan asked. “What’s wrong?”
He knew something was. Something had been wrong for months now, and she was running out of ways to deny it, or avoid it, or block it out.
She swallowed hard, tried not to notice the worry in his dark eyes, or the way his hair had fallen over his forehead, making her want to smooth it away. He hadn’t cut it since they’d started college. She liked it this way.
“Dawn?”
“There was something in the road….” She watched his face, knowing immediately there had been nothing there. Nothing he had been able to see, anyway. Certainly not a woman in a white nightgown, holding a baby in her arms. Certainly not that.
Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “Sorry, Bry. I—it was just a squirrel. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He sighed in relief, seemed to relax visibly. “You’re wound awfully tight lately, Dawn. I’m really glad you’re gonna spend Thanksgiving break at the inn with Beth and my dad.” He smiled. “And me.”
She shrugged and chose to ignore the final part of his comment. He knew she needed to cool things off between them. He didn’t know why—pretended to accept her decision and be fine with it. But he wasn’t fine. She’d hurt him and she knew that. If there were any other way—
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. I get a little torn. It’s tough, trying to find time to spend with both families—breaks from college are few and far between.”
He nodded. “At least your adoptive mom is cool with you spending time with your birth mom,” he put in. “That helps.”
It also helped that her birth mother, Beth, was married to Bryan’s dad, Joshua. Or it would have helped, if she weren’t trying so hard to put some distance between herself and Bry—for his sake, mostly.
“Let’s get going. Beth and Josh are waiting for us,” she said.
Bryan set the Jeep into motion. But as they drove away, Dawn couldn’t stop her gaze from straying back to that dark, lonely house. And as she did, she saw the woman again, a filmy, nearly transparent shape in the night. Not real, Dawn knew. She wasn’t real at all. None of them were.
It’s not going to work, you know, she thought. You’re never going to make it work, Father. Never.
The best restaurant in Blackberry, the Sugar Tree, was a two-story log cabin with picture windows that looked out on to a rolling, snow-covered lawn. In the summer, the hostess told Jax, there were glorious flowers and blossoming trees, a tiny pond with a fountain in the center, and outdoor tables. But this time of year, all the fun was indoors. The second floor was loft-style on all four sides, leaving the center of the place open clear to the rafters. It was a hell of a place.
The hostess seated them at a table near the huge stone fireplace with a window nearby, leaned closer and said, “Welcome back to Blackberry, Lieutenant Jackson. We sure hope you like it enough to stay.” She sent her a wink. “Your waitress will be right over to take your drink orders. Enjoy your dinner.”
Jax lifted her brows and sent a look at the three coconspirators who sat around the circular table. “So, does the whole town know what I’m doing here?”
“Honey,” Frankie said, “this is Blackberry. The whole town probably knows what time you arrived and what your mother made you for breakfast.”
“Small towns,” Jax said with a shake of her head.
“It’s not all bad,” her mom told her. “People may know a lot of your business, but not all of it. It’s nice that they care enough to want to know what you’re willing to share, but also enough to know when to leave it alone.”
Jax shot a look at her father.
“She means they don’t pry here,” her father interjected. “I’ve confided in Frankie about my past. But I’ve seen no sign that it’s gone any further.”
“It hasn’t,” Frankie assured him. “Nor will it.”
He nodded. “I don’t deserve your loyalty, Frankie, but I do appreciate it.”
“Of course you deserve it.” Frankie patted his hand across the table. “We’ve all done things we wish we could undo.”
“Few as much as I,” he said softly.
“Dad, you paid for what you did.”
He met Jax’s eyes, and for a moment they were so dark, so sullen, she didn’t even recognize them. But then he looked away. Her father was a haunted man. Sometimes she wondered if he knew the truth—but no. He couldn’t possibly. It would kill him if he knew.
Mariah said, “You’ve had all day to think it over, Cassie. Don’t keep us in suspense any longer than you have to. Have you made a decision yet?”
Jax tore her worried gaze from her father, sent her mother a nod and a smile, then focused on the chief of police. “I’ve decided to take you up on your offer to stay in the house and shadow you on the job for the next two weeks. And—hell, there’s not much point playing cutesy, is there? Unless something really troubling crops up, or you decide to withdraw the offer, I imagine I’ll be accepting the job when the two weeks are up.”
“Hot damn!” Frankie said with a smile. “Well, this calls for a celebration!” Even as she said it, a pretty young waitress arrived, dressed in black pants with a knife-sharp crease, spotless white blouse, red ribbon tied in a bow at her collar, and carrying an order pad in her hand.
“Champagne?” Frankie asked the others.
“I prefer a nice cold beer,” Jax said. “In the bottle.”
“Ahh, me, too,” Frankie said. “But make mine an N.A., in a frosted mug.”
“Mariah and I will have wine. A nice merlot. You choose,” Ben told the waitress.
The girl smiled brightly and trotted off to get the drinks. Jax said, “I’m kind of looking forward to spending the night at the house tonight.”
“Tonight?” her mother asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Well, the power’s not turned on. There’s no phone yet, no heat….”
“I can have the utilities turned on fast,” Frankie said. “But not that fast. By tomorrow, for sure.” She shrugged. “On the other hand, I’ve already got a bed set up in the master bedroom. Even took over some fresh sheets and blankets for you, got it all made up and ready. No other furniture in the place yet—I planned to do that tomorrow, as well.”
“You don’t need to furnish the house, Frankie. That’s asking too much,” Jax said.
“Oh, I won’t be. Not all by myself. Your parents have some things in storage, and several others around town have items they want to contribute. I mean, you’ll want your own things once you decide to make it your permanent home, but these will do for your two-week trial period,” Frankie said with a smile, as if she knew damn well Jax would be staying.
“You should stay with us tonight, hon,” Mariah said. “It’s not safe to be in that house all alone.”
Jax put a hand over her mother’s on the table. “It’ll be an adventure. Like camping out when we were kids.”
“Carrie always hated it,” Mariah said softly.
“Only because I always managed to find something slimy to put in her sleeping bag before sunup. Frogs, lizards—”
“You were such a brat.” Her mother turned her hand over, closing it around Jax’s.
“I’ll have the fireplace for heat. Dad, you can loan me a couple of your lanterns. It’ll be fun.”
Mariah looked to her husband as if for backup. But Benjamin was studying his daughter and nodding in reluctant approval. “She’s a grown woman, a police officer, Mariah. She’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded, smiling slightly.
The waitress arrived with their drinks and handed them around. Jax twisted the cap off her longneck bottle. Frankie lifted her mug. “Here’s to the newest resident of Blackberry,” she said. “Welcome home, Jax.”
“Welcome home,” her parents echoed.
They clanked their drinks together as the waitress hovered, ready to take their orders.
Driving the dead orderly’s car had become more and more difficult, and finally impossible. The third time River veered off the road, and went skidding through the slush on the shoulder, he’d taken out two mailboxes. At first, he thought he’d hit two human beings. It shook him too much to continue. He didn’t want to kill anyone else. He didn’t want to end up dead himself—not until he found the answers he needed to find, at least.
Besides, he was pretty sure he’d been seen. Another car had passed, heading in the opposite direction, just as he’d lost control that last time. The driver probably called the cops. Probably reported him as a drunk driver. Maybe not.
Didn’t matter. He couldn’t drive anymore.
He steered the car up a side road, where the only other tracks in the snow had been made by a logging truck, by the looks of them. And then he drove until the tires spun in the snow.
After that, he got out and took a look around. His mind kept wandering, but he managed to keep tugging it back on track. He knew where he was. In a tall pine forest outside Blackberry. Five miles to town, on foot, but less if he cut through the woods. It had been a while since he’d spent any time in the woods.
He used to, though. All the time. Him and Ethan. When they were kids. The trips with Ethan’s dad. Camping and hiking. As adults, they’d bought a hunting cabin together, the two of them. It wasn’t far from here—too far to walk, though. An hour by car. It had been their getaway. Stephanie called it their “He-Man Woman Haters Club.” God, they’d had some good times there.
River stopped walking, vaguely aware he’d let his mind wander again. He wasn’t sure which way he’d gone, had to check his tracks in the snow to tell which direction the road was. “Have to stay focused,” he muttered. He managed to get his bearings. The fire trail was off to his left. He headed for it, knowing it cut kitty-corner through the southeastern edge of Blackberry and ended at the pond across the street from his house.
He was weak, he realized as he set off again. Every step in the packed snow was an effort, and every steamy breath came harder. It was probably no wonder. He’d done nothing but sit in a hospital for a year. The meds had killed his appetite months ago, to the point where only the threat of a feeding tube forced him to down a few bites of the meals that were brought to him, and even that small amount made his stomach buck in rebellion. Four miles. Surely he could manage that much.
He did, but by the time he emerged from the woods across the street from his long-lost home, he was so cold he’d stopped shivering. No coat. He should have taken that into account. The orderly’s shoes were a size too small, and designed for padding softly through hospital corridors, not for trudging through snow. River’s feet had long since gone numb, so his stumbling gait had more than just a chemical cause.
It was night; he couldn’t guess how late, but it wasn’t dark. The full moon hung low, spilling its milky light over the snow, over his house. Or what remained of it. He noted the absence of the entire wing, but also noted that the place looked to be in excellent condition, given what had happened.
The square, main part of the house remained, pristine white with those green shutters and purplish trim, colors Steph had chosen. The big oak door. It had an arched, stained-glass panel above that matched the slender ones to either side. He looked up higher, at the tall, narrow bedroom windows on the second floor. One of those bedrooms had been his and Stephanie’s. Another was going to be the nursery. The wing had held a two-car garage and a huge family room, with guest rooms upstairs. One of those guest rooms was the room where Stephanie had died.
Gone now, except for bits of the foundation showing through the snow. Vanished, like his life. And any possible reason he might have had for living it.
He sank to his knees in the snow, braced his hands in its frigid depths to keep from falling facedown. God, he was cold. And dizzy. And so very tired. The walk had drained him. He hadn’t walked more than a few yards at a stretch during his time in the hospital. From his room to the community room. More often just within the confines of his room, where he’d preferred to stay alone. He never had to walk to the isolation room, the proverbial “rubber room,” where they took him when they decided he had become agitated or violent. He had found himself there a number of times, confined in a straitjacket. Ethan would tell him the things he’d done, but he wouldn’t remember them. It was sheer hell to finally realize he was capable of violence during his blackouts. He would never have believed it if Ethan hadn’t told him himself, witnessed it himself.
Maybe River had killed Stephanie.
His hands were going numb. The wind burned his face and ears. He sat up slowly, his fogged mind telling him he had to find shelter. A warm place to sleep. If he stayed where he was, he’d likely be dead by morning.
With what felt like superhuman effort, he got to his feet again and turned in a slow circle, studying the intact part of his house. Well, not his house. Not anymore.
It stood there, dark and silent. Not a light on in the place, no car in the driveway. The house exuded emptiness. As he moved closer he realized there were no curtains in the windows. So maybe his house was still empty. Hell, he didn’t wonder at that. Who would want to live in a place with so much horror in its past?
No one. Certainly not him. When it had gone to the town in lieu of taxes he hadn’t even cared. He never intended to set foot there again.
And now he was doing just that.
He walked up onto the porch and tried the door. It was locked, naturally. Sighing, he lowered his head and left the porch. He walked around the place, tracking through the snow, until he reached the back door. And by then he was barely holding his eyes open. There was no time for subtlety here. He wasn’t going to be able to stay on his feet much longer. He tapped a windowpane with his knuckles, then tapped it a little harder. The third time, he hit it hard enough to break the glass, then he reached through, scratching his arm on the way. He found the doorknob, the lock, flipped it free, opened the door, and stepped into the kitchen.
He stood, none too steadily for a moment, looking around the place. It felt so familiar he almost collapsed from the force of the memories rushing at him. And he could only be grateful it was too dark to see much, or it might have been even worse.
“Just get on with it, already.”
There was no kitchen table. No chairs. No place where he could sit to remove his shoes, so he sank onto the floor and wrestled the frozen, snow-coated things off his feet. He’d have killed for a pair of warm, dry socks. His feet were heavy stumps with hardly any feeling left in them, and he sat there for a moment, rubbing them until he felt the intense sensation of needles pricking them all over as the feeling slowly returned.
His feet burned when he managed to get back up on them, and the blood rushed into them. He found a light switch and snapped it on, but nothing happened. Frowning, he limped to the refrigerator, but found it empty, spotless and unplugged. Its door was propped slightly open by a foam block sitting in the bottom.
Clearly, no one had lived in the house for a while. Maybe not since the fire, though someone had made repairs. Maybe the Fates had finally decided to cut him a break. He stumbled through the kitchen, found the stairway and limped up it. It was even darker in the upstairs hallway, but moonlight flooded through the windows of the first bedroom he reached. It spilled onto a neatly made bed as if angels were pointing the way for him. He almost laughed at the absurdity of the notion, even as he moved forward, clasping the comforter in his eager hands, tugging it back, seeing the thick pillows awaiting his tired head.
He wanted to collapse into the bed right that instant, but managed to hold off long enough to struggle free of his wet, frozen clothes. Then, at last, he crawled into the bed, pulling the covers tight around him, tucking them in on all sides and around the bottoms of his feet. He lay on his side, wrapped in a soft cocoon, and he was still waiting for warmth to seep into his bones when he fell into a deep sleep.
Jax stopped off at her parents’ house to pick up the lanterns her father had promised to loan her, but she did so largely to soothe her mother’s constant worry. She couldn’t blame her mom for worrying about her. She’d lost one daughter, so it was natural she would become overprotective of the other. Even though Jax was on the fast track to thirty, and a decorated police officer, her mother hadn’t managed to make the leap. She still worried, still fussed.
Probably always would.
Carrie had been the one who’d needed fussing over—the one who’d thrived on it. She’d been very much a girlie-girl, while Cassie had been the tomboy. It chafed when her mother fussed, but not so much that she would ever complain.
Jax wasn’t worried in the least. She could handle herself. She’d kicked the asses of countless perps who thought they could outdo her on the streets. And probably an even greater number of male colleagues in the gym, when they underestimated her abilities. A few responded by developing a grudging respect. Most just got their boxers in a twist over having their ultrafragile male egos bruised, and became more hostile than ever.
Assholes.
It was a fine line she’d learned to walk. Frankly, it was a damn tightrope, and she resented having to walk it. Moreover, she was tired of it. Here, it would be different. Instead of an entire city PD full of men to whom she had to prove herself even while tiptoeing over their machismo, she would have three fellow officers. She could make this work. She knew she could. Without tiptoeing, bowing, scraping or leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
It was going to be great.
As she pulled her dependable red Ford Taurus into the driveway of the pitch-dark house, she didn’t feel a single hint of apprehension about going inside, spending the night there alone. She had her flashlight—always carried one in the car—and her personal handgun strapped to her side, not that she expected to need it. She had a spare gun in the glove compartment for emergencies. There wouldn’t be any, of course. After all, nothing bad ever happened in Blackberry.
Right.
The driveway was freshly plowed. Frankie must have made a phone call or her father had sent someone over. There wasn’t a lot of snow on the ground, not yet. Six inches of packy, rapidly melting white stuff, with hardly any base to it. Stones and dirt showed through where the plow blade had scraped. She pulled her car to a stop close to the porch, left the headlights on, hit the trunk release button, then got out and went around to the back.
She took the megasize dog dishes from their blue plastic Wal-Mart bag. She’d made a stop on the way back from her parents’ at a store they had assured her was almost always open. She’d purchased some bottled water, a giant bag of dog food, a windup alarm clock, the dog dishes and, most essential of all, a small coffeemaker with filters, a pound of ground roast and a travel mug. She was good to go. The humongous, thick, cushy dog bed had been an afterthought. Another chink in her armor.
She filled the dish with food and left the big bag of dog food there in the trunk for the night. No point bringing it inside and leaving it out where it would attract any curious mice or chipmunks that might have taken up residence in the vacant house.
She took the other purchases out, threading her arm through the plastic handles of the overloaded bag, wedging the dog bed between her inner arm and her body, and, dog dish in one hand, flashlight in the other, she closed the trunk. Then Cassie walked over the nicely plowed driveway toward the porch, seeing that whoever had scraped away the snow had taken a shovel to the sidewalk, too, and even cleaned off the front steps. Nice.
She set the items down, taking only her flashlight and the dog bed with her as she trudged through the snow to the spot where the dog had emerged from underneath the porch today. A couple of boards were missing, giving the shepherd a handy entrance. She shone the light inside, but there was no sign of the dog right now. Still, she shoved the dog bed through the opening, pushing it back as far as she could reach. The cover could be unzipped, removed and washed. The inner part was waterproof and cedar filled. You could empty it out and refill it with fresh stuffing if you wanted. Not that she would. Only a real sucker would go to that much trouble for a stray.
She backed out of the opening once she was satisfied the bed was back far enough to stay dry and be sheltered from the wind. Then she got the bowl of food and tucked it inside the opening, as well.
She decided against filling the water dish just now. It would only freeze overnight, and she had no idea if the dog would be back. He’d probably become accustomed to eating snow or drinking from an icy stream somewhere. Water could wait until tomorrow. She paused a moment, to turn and look around in the darkness, seeing plenty of tracks in the snow around the house, some made by her dad as he’d checked the place out from one end to the other earlier today. Others no doubt made by the big dog snooping around. He’d be back. She was sure of it.
She returned to the car for her duffel bag, in which she’d packed what she hoped were enough clothes for a two-week stay. Slinging it over her shoulder, she returned to the porch, picked up her shopping bag, got out the keys Frankie had given her, and let herself in through the front door.
Damn, but she liked this house. Bathed in moonlight, the cozy living room spread out before her like an old friend opening its arms. The walls were a deep forest-green, the woodwork trim and floorboards, knotty pine. She crossed the room and set her shopping bag on the stone hearth, then knelt to remove the screen. A fire lay ready; a handful of logs were stacked nearby. Another thoughtful surprise from Frankie, or more likely, one of her boys in blue.
She dropped her duffel and dug in her shopping bag for the long-snouted lighter she’d picked up, then flicked it and touched it to the waiting papers. They caught, curling and blazing up. She sat there and watched the fire take off, its flames feeding on the newspapers, then the kindling and then licking hungrily at the larger logs cleverly stacked in a teepee shape overtop. She replaced the screen and sat a while longer, holding out her hands to feel the warmth seeping into them, into her body. It felt good. As the room grew warmer she took off her coat and hung it from a doorknob.
When she could safely add more logs without risk of putting out the burgeoning flames, she added several all at once, hoping to create enough heat to warm her even in the upstairs bedroom, and ensure there would be warm, glowing coals when she woke up in the morning.
The far side of the living room was still just as cold, though. She walked along the wall, one hand out, feeling for a draft or some other source for the unnatural chill. But she couldn’t find one. That was the side of the house that used to extend farther, she recalled. The one that had burned.
Shivers danced up her spine as she paused near the window. Something caught her eye, and she held her breath, leaned closer to the glass and peered outside. For just an instant she’d glimpsed something—a shape, a vague sense of flowing white fabric. But of course, there was nothing there. Probably a trick of the firelight on the glass.
Sighing, she reached for her new alarm clock, set it by her watch, wound it tight and put the alarm on 6:00 a.m. She wanted to arrive at the Blackberry PD bright and early, and she had to leave time to stop by her parents’ place for a shower and one of her mother’s high-calorie breakfasts on the way.
Jax was smiling as she hoisted her duffel and flashlight, and walked up the stairs, into the first bedroom. The moon was high now, but a corner could still be seen from the very top of one of the bedroom windows, spilling a small amount of light into the room. It touched the bottom of a bed, and the blue-and-green-patterned comforter Frankie had contributed to the cause.
Jax set her flashlight on the floor and peeled her sweatshirt over her head. Cool air touched her skin—too cold to take off much more, she thought. She’d keep the T-shirt on, maybe her socks, too. But the shoulder holster and sidearm, jeans and suede Columbia boots had to go. She took off the holster first, setting it on the nearby dresser, then bent to untie the first boot. She paused there, because she heard a sound in the room.
A sound she should have noted when she’d first come in, but she supposed she’d been moving around, making noise of her own. In a break between motions, as she reached for her shoelace, she heard it.
Breathing.
A long, slow, relaxed exhale.
A broken, unsteady inhale.
An unnatural pause.
A long, slow exhale.
A soft moan.
Shit.
Jax’s hand snapped around the cool metallic grip of her Maglite flashlight. She yanked it up even as she straightened, and aimed its eye at the bed, where the breathing was coming from, training her own eyes that way as well, while reaching to the dresser with her free hand.
There was a man sound asleep in her bed. Her fingers closed on the gun, sliding it smoothly from its holster. Her heart pounding in her chest, she inched closer to the bed.
“Hey! Hey you, wake up!”
There was another low moan, and the man moved a little, then snuggled deeper into the covers with a sigh. He had a face carved of granite. Bones that were unnaturally prominent, but would be sharply delineated even under a normal layer of flesh.
She used her foot to nudge his shoulder, pushing him from his side onto his back, and she saw his collarbones and winced. He had to be a homeless person, though he would be the first one she’d encountered here in Blackberry. She had begun to think they didn’t have any.
“Wake up, dammit!”
Eyes flew open, stark and surprised, first confused and then intense in the glow of her flashlight. There was something riveting about them. Something familiar. And then she realized what it was. They held that same wary, mistrusting look she’d seen in the stray dog’s eyes. And they were just as brown.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?”
It seemed the eyes widened after an unnatural time, as if it took extra beats for her words to make their way through his mind. Then he leaped out of the bed, stark naked.
God, he was thin. Beautiful, and painfully thin. He’d been muscled once; she could still see the remnants, the lines sculpted in his flesh, just rapidly losing definition. Shrinking.
He glanced down at himself, then at his clothes on the floor near his feet.
“Go ahead, get dressed. But don’t try anything.”
He reached for the pants. They looked to be part of some sort of uniform—white pants, as if he worked in an ice cream parlor or a hospital or something. Not warm, that was for sure. He pulled them on, did them up. His feet were bare. He pulled on a T-shirt, then a white uniform shirt over it.
“I…umm…I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
His words were slurred, as if he’d been drinking, but she didn’t smell alcohol on his breath. His hair was messy. Dark, too long, as if it hadn’t been trimmed in a long time. And his face had the dark shadow of beard coming in, as if he hadn’t shaved today or maybe yesterday, either. She lowered the gun, tucked it into the back of her pants while he finished dressing, knowing she could handle him fine without it. He was in no shape to fight her and win.
He took a step toward the bedroom door.
“No, just a minute,” she said, shining her light on him. “You’re not going anywhere—not until you tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”
She saw the hint of panic in his eyes just before he lunged for the door. She stepped into his path, the heel of her hand slamming him square in the chest. The impact put him flat on his back and sent her flashlight crashing to the floor. It rolled to the fallen man, came to rest with its beam in his eyes.
“I’ll ask you again,” she said, standing over him. She was a little breathless, but it was from excitement, not exertion. She loved her work—especially this part of it: the rush of adrenaline, the certainty of a win. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”
He got to his feet, picking up her flashlight on the way. She took a step backward, and let him, even while reaching behind her to snug a hand around her handgun, just in case.
He lifted the light, held it high and shone it on her face, so that she had to shield her eyes. “This was a mistake,” he said, and it seemed to Jax he had to focus intently on each syllable. He was trying hard not to slur his speech. She thought he might be on something. “I’m going now. Y-you’ll n-n-never shee me again.”
Then he turned the flashlight off, flipped it over and handed it to her. She could see him in the moonlight, standing there, holding her light out to her. It trembled in his hand. He was shaking. She released her grip on the handgun, reached out to take the light, lowered her guard.
He moved closer, one step, and even as he shoved her chest with the flat of his hand, his foot hooked behind one of hers, ensuring she would go down, and she did. And dammit, she landed on the handgun and bruised her tailbone to hell and gone, which resulted in her barking a stream of cuss words as the man fled. His feet pounded down the stairs.
She surged to her feet, pulling the gun and rubbing her ass with her free hand. Then she grabbed the light and limped into the hall after him as she flicked it on.
The sounds of his retreat were clumsy. He didn’t go out the front door, but through the back, through the kitchen, where she thought he might have fallen down once. She raced through the house, but by the time she reached the kitchen, he was gone.
The back door stood wide open, and as she swung her light around the room, she noticed the broken pane of glass, its sharp fingers pointing inward, while other bits of glass lay on the floor. His point of entry. There were a pair of socks there, too, and puddles where shoes must have been standing.
He’d run out into the Vermont winter night with thin pants, no socks, and no coat that she knew of. And he’d held that flashlight on her in a very telling way. Overhead, above eye level. And in his left hand. He held that flashlight like a cop held a flashlight.
She still had her boots on, no coat, but she’d survive. She had to see where he had gone. So she stepped outside, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, and studied the footprints in the snow.
He’d headed around the house, and she followed the tracks. She had no intention of chasing this guy down, just wanted to see where he went, whether he had a vehicle or not, and if so, get the stats on it. Make, model, plates.
But she didn’t see a car. The tracks vanished at the neatly plowed driveway. She walked around a bit more, and when she heard a sound, she crossed the street and moved off the road a bit, trudging past trees to the large, flat, snow-covered meadow that lay just behind them.
She shone her light around that meadow, looking for footprints, but there were none. She was sure he had come this way. She took a few more steps, shining her light this way and that.
“Why are you running away?” she called. “What is it you have to hide?”
She took a few more steps, then stood still, just listening. The night wind blew softly, whispering and even whining now and then as it blew past the naked limbs of wintry trees. And then there was another sound, a sharp creaking, cracking, snapping sound that seemed to grow louder. She swung her head left and right, because the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
And then she felt the icy rush of water over her boots, and snapped her head down. The snowy meadow on which she stood wasn’t a meadow at all. It was a pond. A frozen pond. She’d wandered almost to its center, and the ice was giving way beneath her feet.
3
“Oh, hell,” she muttered, and then the ice gave way completely, and her body plunged into the freezing water. The shock of the cold engulfed her, made her go rigid, drove the breath from her lungs as the water closed over her head. And then she forced herself to move, to struggle for the surface. She kicked with her legs, reaching above her head with her arms, flailing in search of a handhold. Once, she felt the edges of the ice above her, and tried to grab on, but the ice broke away in her grip.
She tried again, her lungs nearly bursting with need. And this time, something gripped her. Someone gripped her, a slick hold on one wrist, then the other, and then she was being pulled steadily upward. Her head broke the surface and she sucked in greedy gulps of air even as she blinked her eyes.
The man lay on his belly on the ice beside the hole her body had made. His eyes met hers and held them, clearer than they had been before, but still…off somehow. “Try not to move. I’ll get you out.”
She nodded, the motion jerky. God, she was so cold her entire body was shaking with it. He crept backward on his belly, drawing her with him. Her upper body slid up onto the ice. But then the ice crumbled and she went into the water again. Still the man didn’t let go. He held on to her and kept moving backward, steadily, constantly, until he’d pulled her onto the ice again. This time, she made it farther, but when the ice gave yet again, it gave utterly, and she realized as she went under for the third time that he was in the water, too. Beside her in the hellish cold. God, they were both going to die.
He put his hands on her waist, thrusting them both up to the surface again. With a solid boost, he shoved her up and out of the water. From the waist up, she was on the surface of the ice. He gripped her backside and pushed her up higher, and she helped, pressing her palms to the ice to pull herself along. She drew her legs up beside her, shivering so hard she could hear her teeth chattering as she looked back at him. He was still in the water, hands on the ice, trying to pull himself up, but he was having no luck. He seemed exhausted.
She reached for him.
He shook his head. “C-c-crawl on your belly b-back to shore. Go on.”
“No!” She was panting, breathless. The cold burned through her. “N-not without you.” She moved closer, locking her frozen, nearly numb hands underneath his arms. “Come on.”
She pulled; he pushed as best he could. And finally, finally, they both lay on the ice, soaked, frozen. And even then she knew it wasn’t safe to linger. She struggled to her knees, shook his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
He lifted his head, nodded once, weakly, and began crawling. When they were nearly to shore, they got to their feet, arms around each other because it was the only way either of them could stand, and trudged off the pond and onto the land, through the line of trees to the road. There, he stopped walking, took his arm from around her shoulders, turned away and started off on his own.
Jax gripped his arm. “C-come inside. Just—to g-g-get warm.”
“Can’t.”
“Have to. You’ll d-die out here.”
He held her eyes for a moment, finally gave a single nod and walked with her to the house. She wanted to run the rest of the way, but could barely move at all, much less quickly. They mounted the steps and stumbled over the porch and through the door. She closed it, turned the lock and, gripping his arm, led him straight to the fireplace.
“Get the wet things off,” she told him, stammering, shivering. “I’ll—f-find something.”
He nodded, heeled off his shoes and started to undress. Jax struggled out of her boots and then went to work on her soaked, frozen jeans, her numb fingers barely managing the button. As she struggled out of them and felt his eyes on her, she turned to look at him, and saw him focusing on her legs, from her feet to the hem of her T-shirt. The gun that had been tucked in back clattered to the floor, and she stared down at it, then caught him doing the same.
“G-guess that’ll be no good to me until I’ve had a ch-chance to dry it out.” She picked the weapon up, kicked the jeans aside and stumbled upstairs to the bedroom, setting the gun in a drawer, removing the clip and tucking it underneath her mattress. Then she peeled off her T-shirt and bra, heading for the bathroom, where, thank goodness, she found a stack of towels. No hot water—not yet. She’d have killed for a hot bath. But towels would do. She wiped her skin dry, wrapped her body in one towel, her hair in another, then opened her duffel bag and shook out its contents. She dragged on a pair of sweat pants, a sweatshirt and thick socks. Then she located another pair of socks, big bulky ones, the most oversize pair of sweatpants she owned, a nightshirt big enough to serve as a T-shirt for him, and a big hooded sweatshirt with the Syracuse University logo in bright orange on the front. She yanked the blanket, pillows and comforter from the bed and still shivering, moved back down the stairs, trailing fabric behind her.
He sat on the floor, naked, knees drawn up, arms locked around them, head resting against them. He was close to the fire, apparently soaking up the heat. For a moment, she hesitated, just looking at him. Sitting there like that, in the firelight, he looked like a sculpture. Man in Hell, she thought. Who was this stranger who’d just saved her life? And how smart was she to let him into her house?
She sighed, left the bedding on the bottom step, then moved toward him, deciding it wasn’t smart at all, but it was necessary. She didn’t have a choice.
He lifted his head, and those eyes pinned her to the spot.
“Here,” she said, handing him a dry towel. “Wipe down and then put these on.”
He took the towel from her, seeming wary. She set the clothes on the mantel, then turned her back to him, removing the towel from her head and using it to wipe up the spots of water they’d left on the floor.
When the floor was dry, she took the comforter and spread it there, tossed the pillows on top and set the blanket nearby. Then she moved the fireplace screen aside and added more logs to the fire.
By the time she had replaced the screen, he was dressed. The sweatpants were comically short on his long legs, but the hooded sweatshirt was roomy enough. He’d pulled on the thick socks and rubbed his wet, dark hair with a towel so that it stuck up like the feathers of a wet hen, and he stood there, looking uncomfortable.
She picked up her wet jeans, hung them over the fireplace screen, then reached for his discarded clothes to do the same. But as she began hanging them, he took them from her rather hastily.
She stood there, blinking at him as he clutched the wet garments in his hands. “What are you afraid of?” she asked softly.
He averted his eyes, draping the items over the screen himself, with great care. “I’ll go as soon as they’re dry.”
“You’re on the run,” she said. “You’re in hiding.”
He said nothing, just bent to pick up the shoes, and placed them on the hearthstone, nearer the heat.
“Listen, you just saved my life, okay? Stay here until morning. If you don’t want me to ask any questions, I won’t. I owe you that much.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I…can’t…no one can know I’ve been here.”
“No? Why not?”
He lowered his head tiredly.
“I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t ask questions, didn’t I?”
He drew a breath, shivered a little.
Jax lay down on the comforter and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. “It’s up to you,” she said. “Stay or go.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Finally, he said, “If you tell anyone…I’m here…I’m as good as dead.”
She opened her eyes, met his. She thought he might be a cop. She knew he was in trouble, on the run, from what she didn’t know. But he had saved her life, risked his own to do so. And she wasn’t the least bit afraid of him. “I sure as hell won’t be telling anyone tonight,” she said. “No phones hooked up yet. Cell doesn’t get reception in this spot, either. You have to drive up the road a mile.”
He hesitated a moment longer, then he crawled into her makeshift nest on the floor, curling under the covers beside her.
“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, “you’ll feel more like talking. Maybe I can help you with…with whatever it is that’s wrong.”
“No one can help me,” he said. And his voice sounded utterly hopeless. It clutched at her heart. Then he went on. “Why do you carry a gun?”
Something told her not to tell him she was a cop. Hell, he’d find out soon enough if he was in this town long. Everyone here knew she was a cop. But she had a feeling if she told him tonight, he would bolt. Not that she was sure he was a criminal, exactly. But he was definitely running from something.
“Protection,” she told him. “A woman, living all alone.”
“You’re not afraid of living alone.”
She lifted her brows and rolled onto her side to face him. “And how do you know that?”
“You’re not afraid of me,” he told her.
“Should I be?”
He closed his eyes as if the question brought great pain. They didn’t open again.
“Should I be afraid of you?” she asked again.
“I don’t know.” His lashes were wet. Not from the water, but from tears squeezing out from his deep brown eyes. “Maybe. Probably.”
Her heart contracted in her chest. His words might be a warning, or a sign of the confusion she’d sensed in him when she’d found him sleeping in her bed. “Maybe I should sleep upstairs,” she whispered.
He said nothing, so she started to sit up. And then she gasped as the man’s arms came around her. His head lay against her chest, and she thought he might be crying. “Please stay,” he said.
Frowning hard, utterly confused and wishing the hell she’d kept her gun with her, she found herself touching his still-damp hair, gently moving her fingers through it. “All right,” she said. “All right.”
She relaxed against the pillows and held the troubled man, soothing his quaking shoulders, until he went still, and she knew he was deeply asleep.
And then, even though the warmth of the fire was seeping into her, chasing the chill from deep in her bones, soothing her muscles, making her feel sleepy, and even though she hadn’t had a hot-looking man—even a skinny one like this—in her arms in what seemed like an eternity, she eased herself away from him, out from under the covers, and got up to her feet. She stood there a moment, staring down at him as he slept.
A fellow cop, in deep trouble, either real or imagined, had just saved her life. She owed the man. Owed him enough to let him stay the night, let him get warm. Maybe even enough not to turn him in for breaking and entering, or mention his presence here until she had figured out who he was and what was going on with him. She did not, however, owe him so much that she needed to become a naive idiot in order to repay him. She went up to her bedroom and spent the next half hour patiently cleaning and drying her weapon. When she put it back together, she loaded it with a fresh, dry clip. She took the bullets out of the other clip, dried it thoroughly and set it aside. She’d toss the bullets. They might fire, but they might not, and she didn’t ever want to be in a predicament where she couldn’t be sure her gun would work. She’d buy some more ammo tomorrow.
She went back downstairs, took her pillow from the comforter and her coat from the hook by the door. She wrapped the coat around herself, rested the pillow against the wall and leaned against it, near the fire, in a spot where she could have a full view of her houseguest.
It wasn’t a very exciting show. He slept like the dead.
Ethan had turned off his pager after work at his wife’s request. They were having dinner with her parents that evening. It was important, she said, and that thing going off in the middle of a conversation was just rude.
He’d indulged her. He always indulged Victoria. And there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for her parents. They thought the world of him.
So he’d spent the evening at the Richardsons’ endless and elegant dining room table beneath a crystal chandelier. Their newest pretty maid, Lorraine, served them in her crisp black-and-white uniform. It was nice, the life Randall and Jennifer Richardson shared. A life into which they’d welcomed him with open arms.
They treated him far better than his own father ever had.
So the least he could do was turn off the damn pager.
Of course, it turned out to be the one night he shouldn’t have done so.
By the time he and Victoria returned home, the hospital had left six messages on his voice mail. He saw the light blinking even as he helped Victoria out of her coat, the fur soft against his palms. It was rabbit. She’d wanted mink. Maybe next year.
“Oh, honey, must you?” she asked, pursing her lips when she saw his eyes on the telephone. “It’s been such a beautiful evening. I was hoping we could end it together.”
He slid his hand around her nape, his fingers tickled by the touch of her short brown hair, and kissed her forehead. “There’s nothing I’d like more,” he told her. “But I’d better at least check, okay?”
Sighing, she nodded, hugged him close, then turned and hurried through the house, lifting her shapely calves in between steps to tug off her stiletto heels. “I’m going to run a bath, love.”
“I’ll be right up.” He watched her go toward the stairs as he punched the button for messages.
Their contents stunned him. He closed his eyes, lowered his head. “Oh, God,” he muttered.
Victoria paused halfway up the stairs. He heard her steps cease, heard her whisper, “Darling? I couldn’t hear. What is it?”
He lifted his head, met her eyes. “It’s River.”
Her hand flew to her lips.
“He’s…he’s dead, baby.”
“Oh, Ethan!” Victoria ran back down the stairs and flung herself into her husband’s arms, wrapping her own tight around his neck. He let the phone fall to the floor and held her, felt her body jerking softly with her sobs. “How? Why?”
“Looks like an accident. Apparently, he fell in the bathroom. Hit his skull.”
She shook her head where it rested against his shoulder. He felt her tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt. “Poor River. God, poor River.”
Ethan nodded. “At least…at least he’s not suffering anymore,” he told her.
She sniffled. “Maybe…maybe he and Steph can both rest in peace now. Maybe…maybe they’ll find each other again—somewhere.”
“God, I hope so,” he said.
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Do you have to go in?”
He shook his head. “In the morning. There will be an inquest, an autopsy. But in the morning.” He turned her to the side, put his arm around her shoulders and held her close beside him as he started up the stairs.
“I miss them,” she said. “The four of us, we used to be so close. We haven’t had friends like them since—since Stephanie…”
“I know. I miss them, too.”
She lowered her head to his shoulder. “Why do you suppose such terrible things happen to such wonderful people?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know, baby. I wish I did.”
Jax had no intention of closing her eyes, but at some point she must have, because when she opened them again, the sun was beaming in through the living room windows and the steady, if distant, call of the alarm clock was chirping away in the upstairs bedroom. The fire had died down, though the mound of glowing hot coals still threw off a lot of heat. The makeshift bed on the floor was empty, and the blanket that had been over the stranger was tucked snugly around her instead. The shoes he’d left on the hearthstone to dry were gone. So, she realized, were his clothes.
Her sweatpants, and the nightshirt she’d loaned him, were folded and stacked atop the bedding. He’d kept the socks and the hooded sweatshirt. She was glad of it. He’d freeze his ass off outside without so much as a jacket.
She searched the house, just for the hell of it, even though she knew the man was long gone. He hadn’t even told her his name.
Jax wanted to know who he was, and what he was running from. She really ought to report his presence to Frankie when she saw her this morning, she thought. But she hadn’t made up her mind to do so. Having her own private mystery to solve was invigorating, and something deep inside her was telling her to hold off, to learn a little more before blowing the stranger’s cover. The memory of the way he’d held her, of the sight of him nude by firelight, may have contributed to that notion, but not a lot. She wasn’t a guy, after all.
She gathered up the blankets and pillows, and the still-damp towels, and carried the pile upstairs, hanging the towels on the racks in the bathroom, and making up the bed. Then she grabbed some clean clothes, clothes suitable for work in a small-town police department, or at least clothes she hoped were suitable. She wasn’t on duty, so she couldn’t really show up in her uniform. So she picked out a pair of navy trousers with a neat crease, a white cotton button-down blouse and a navy blazer. She tucked the clothes into a bag, along with fresh undergarments, her shoulder holster and her .45, then was ready to head over to her parents’ place for breakfast and a shower.
As she stepped out onto the porch, a noise made her jump a little, but a quick look under the porch told her it was only the big dog, downing the entire bowl of dog food she’d left for him. “You’re a noisy eater,” she quipped, and glanced at his backside. “Figures. You’re a male.”
He stopped eating when she spoke, looking at her as warily as—as the stranger had last night, she thought.
“Hey there, fella,” Jax said softly. “You don’t have to be afraid. It’s all right.” She held out a hand, figuring it might be more appealing if there was a steak clutched in her grip, but tried anyway. “Come on. Come say hello.”
The dog stared at her, even took a single step forward. But then he lunged past her and loped away, out of sight.
Jax shrugged, put her things in the car and popped the trunk. Then she went back to get the dish—the dog had eaten every last crumb—and refilled it with fresh dog food.
“At least he’s getting fed,” she muttered, and thought briefly how malnourished her stranger from last night had looked, sitting naked in front of the fire. That “naked in front of the fire” image just wasn’t going to quit, was it? she wondered with a smile. What the hell. She was human and straight, and he…he was something. Even though she could see his ribs, his shoulder blades, he was something.
She pushed the thought from her mind and took the dog’s bowl back to the porch, only this time, instead of putting it underneath, she set it on the porch itself, hoping to lure the animal closer.
Then she took one last look around, unsure which stray she sought. Seeing no sign of either one of them, she got into her car and drove to her parents’ place.
River had awakened groggy, to find himself warm as toast in a bundle of blankets on the floor, in front of a dying fire. As he sat up, searching his memory for clues what he was doing there, his gaze fell on the woman in the corner. She leaned back against the wall, a pillow cushioning her, her head cocked at an angle that would probably result in her having a stiff neck all day. The red-orange rays of the rising sun painted her face in brushstrokes of light and shadow. Long blond hair framed her face. She had a small nose, round high cheekbones, and the neck of a swan. Deceptive, her fragile looks. She’d knocked him flat on his ass last night. As his gaze slid over her small form, it stopped on the place where her hand rested atop her folded legs, because it held a gun. A .45.
He closed his eyes slowly, and his memory of the night before returned. He examined that memory thoroughly, in search of gaps. He remembered taking refuge here, in his former home. He’d thought it was empty. He remembered waking to find her standing in the bedroom shining a flashlight in his face, demanding to know who he was. And he remembered, vividly, the way she’d taken him out when he’d tried to lunge past her.
He’d escaped into the cold, snowy night, only to hunch in the woods, wondering where the hell he was going to go. And then he’d seen her, creeping out of the house, looking for him, shining that damn light around.
He’d backed off, got out of her range and started to walk away. He still hadn’t known where he would go—he only knew he needed to put some distance between himself and the curious woman. But then he’d made the mistake of glancing back, just once more, and he’d seen her walking out across the frozen pond as if she didn’t even know what it was. And then he realized she probably didn’t.
When she went through the ice, every instinct he’d ever possessed kicked into high gear. He didn’t think, he simply reacted, the way any veteran cop would. By the time he stopped to think, he was already on his belly, arms plunging into the icy water in search of the woman.
God, when he thought about how close it had been…He got her out, only to go through himself. And she’d refused to leave him—pulled him out, her tiny body showing its hidden strength and power. Then she’d insisted he come into the house with her to get warm, even brought him dry clothes to put on.
He’d looked down at himself as he remembered, noting the too-small sweatpants he wore. Then he looked again at the woman, and another memory came. The rush of emotion that had swamped him in his drugged, overwrought state, probably aggravated by nearly freezing to death, and by exhaustion and by hunger, and by being there in that house again. He’d clung to the woman. He might even have wept.
He remembered her hesitation and then slow acceptance. The way her hands had moved through his hair and her voice, deep and comforting somehow, had told him it was okay.
It wasn’t, of course. It never would be. But it had been nice to be in a woman’s arms. Human contact, physical touch had vanished from his life. It had been limited to being manhandled by orderlies or injected by nurses. No one touched mental patients any more than was absolutely necessary. He hadn’t been aware how much he’d missed that, being touched, touching back.
Even now, something in him whispered that he could touch her again. That if he sat there beside her, and wrapped her in his arms, she might not turn away. Amazing, to think she wouldn’t—that she hadn’t. He was a stranger to her, and she wasn’t gullible or naive enough to trust a stranger just because he’d pulled her from the icy jaws of certain death. The gun she held was proof enough of that.
He slid slowly out of the bundle of blankets and took his own clothing from the fireplace screen. It was dry. The knife he’d taken from the orderly was still tucked deep in the pocket of the thin pants. She hadn’t found it. His brain was functioning at a better level than it had been last night, and it occurred to him that he ought to stash that blade somewhere, in case it still had the dead orderly’s prints on it. It would be the only proof, beyond his word, that he’d killed the man in self-defense. The longer he carried the blade around, the more likely the prints would get rubbed off.
He left it where it was, for the moment, in the pocket of the pants as he removed his borrowed ones and put them on. He took off the hooded sweatshirt and the nightshirt she’d loaned him. Put on his own T-shirt, then the uniform shirt over it, and after a moment’s hesitation, pulled the hood back on over them both. The shoes were dry, so he put them on, as well. He added two blocks of wood to the fire and set the screen in place. Then he took the blanket she’d left wrapped around him, walked across the room to where she lay, and bent low to spread it gently over her.
For a long moment he knelt there, looking at her. She’d given him something last night. A couple of things. A chance to call up the cop that still lived deep inside him—the man he’d believed was long dead. A chance to prove to himself that he was still a human being, and maybe not an entirely bad one.
And her touch. Her embrace. Her warmth and her soothing voice.
He wondered if she would ever know how much those things had meant.
Finally, he turned away from her and crept out of the house. He had work to do. A long-buried truth to uncover. And he was damned if he even knew where to begin, but he supposed the first thing was to find a hideaway. A place to live, to sleep, to heal. And food. Damn, he needed food. And clothes to wear. Those would be today’s missions, he thought. Today, he would work on covering his basic human needs while the drugs worked their way out of his system.
After that, he’d begin digging into the secrets of his past.
So he walked—walked for hours over back roads, in search of an empty barn or hovel he where he could hole up—but he didn’t find anything. Giving that up, he walked to the very edge of town, thought about lingering in the laundromat until someone left some clothes unattended, and maybe snatching a pair of jeans or an outing shirt that would fit him. But he didn’t dare get any closer to town than that. He didn’t know if they were looking for him yet. And there was nowhere he’d be able to go where people in this town wouldn’t recognize him. His story had been a big one almost two years ago. God, had it really been that long? Retired NYPD cop goes bad. Everyone in town must have been talking about it.
Hell, he didn’t have a dime to his name. Nowhere to go. If his bloodstream wasn’t so clogged up with a year’s worth of psychotropic drugs, he might be able to come up with a way to scam a meal, but as it was, it was useless.
It’s not useless, dammit. I can do this. Hell, I have to do this.
Swallowing his uncertainty, he pulled the hood up over his head and walked into the town of Blackberry. He would do what he needed to do, make it fast and get back out of town as quickly as possible.
Dawn rose early, and crept through the house while everyone was still asleep. There were no guests at the inn this week. She had the place to herself. Bryan was sound asleep in his room, Beth and Joshua asleep in theirs. She’d been given the guest room of her choice, and she’d deliberately chosen one at the far end of the hall, away from everyone else. Aside from a few raised eyebrows, no one had commented on her pick. She needed privacy. She never knew when they would show up.
Nothing so far today. That was good. A day without them was a good day. As good a day as she got anymore.
She padded downstairs, into the kitchen in her gorilla slippers and plush powder-blue robe, made a pot of coffee and sat at the table to watch it brew. The sun was shining. That couldn’t be a bad thing.
When she heard footsteps, she thought someone else was up, and hoped it wasn’t Bryan. The two of them alone in the kitchen of the sleepy inn would be too intimate. He didn’t understand her withdrawal. How could he?
She stiffened her resolve—it wasn’t easy—as she filled a cup with the heavenly smelling brew, and turned to see who was about to join her in the kitchen.
He stood in the doorway, staring at her, and though he didn’t look the same way he had the last time she’d seen him, as he’d drawn his last breaths, she knew him. She knew his eyes. He had the most piercing, deep brown eyes she’d ever seen. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. He lifted a hand, took a single step toward her, and the cup fell from her boneless hand. The sound of it shattering seemed to break the paralysis, and her scream broke free of its prison in her chest.
She turned her back, covered her eyes. “No, no, no. I won’t see you, I don’t want you. Go away, dammit, go away!”
A hand fell on her shoulder, and she lurched away from it so fast she tumbled over a chair, tipping it sideways and landing on the floor beside it.
“Dawn, it’s okay. It’s okay, babe.”
Blinking through her tears, she looked up. It was Bryan, bending over her, looking terrified and sleepy and disheveled. And behind him, Beth and Josh came running into the kitchen, and Josh appeared ready for battle.
“What happened?” Beth asked. “Dawnie, are you okay?”
She blinked, looking past them, her gaze darting from one end of the kitchen to the other. But he wasn’t there. Mordecai Young, her father, wasn’t there. He was dead. Gone.
“I…I think I was sleepwalking,” she managed to say.
She saw them, saw them all looking from the broken cup and spilled coffee on the floor to the nearly full pot on the counter, to the robe and slippers she had put on. They didn’t believe her.
She didn’t blame them.
4
Jax sipped her coffee and actively resisted the temptation to revisit the platter of sausage links on her mother’s perfectly set kitchen table.
“Have some more, hon. You’re too thin.”
She smiled. Her mother would say she was too thin no matter what her current weight was. Though, in Jax’s considered opinion, her mom could use a few pounds of padding. The woman had the body of a thirty-year-old. Only her face showed the signs of her age—or, more likely, the stresses of her past. You didn’t see it in her blond hair. She kept it colored, cut and styled to perfection.
“I couldn’t eat another bite, Mom. Besides, I have to get into town. Don’t want to be late my first day.”
“Oh.” Mariah frowned. “Oh, well, then, never mind.”
Jax slanted a look from her mother to her father, who shook his head. “Don’t bother Cassie today, hon. I told you, I can take that stuff over for her and drop the other things off, as well.”
Frowning, and curious, Jax said, “What stuff?”
“Your mother has an ice chest packed full of food for you, is all,” her father said. “Thinks you might starve to death in a house without groceries, and a whole mile from the nearest store.” He pointed to a cooler in the corner of the room. It sat right beside a box of clothing.
Jax smiled, because he’d nailed her mom so well. “I can take it for you.”
“No, I won’t hear of it,” Ben said. “I’ve got to go into town anyway, take that box of castoffs to the Goodwill.”
An idea crept into her brain as she followed his gaze to the huge cardboard box that sat in the corner near the cooler. Piles of folded clothes filled it. She tried to ignore the notion, and couldn’t. “What sorts of castoffs?”
“Clothes. Shoes. Your mother didn’t throw a thing of mine out the entire time I was…away. Kept everything. Most of those don’t even fit me anymore. Came across them in the attic, when we were going through it looking for things you could use for the house.”
Mariah shot him a look. “Ben, I asked you a dozen times to sort those things before we ever moved out here. Had you got around to it when you should have, we wouldn’t have ended up packing them and moving them with us.”
“I told you I didn’t need them.”
“There were perfectly good things in there!”
Jax held up a hand. Even though their bickering was good-natured, she didn’t like it. And she supposed it was silly, after all this time, for her to still be afraid they’d end up splitting like so many couples did after a tragedy. But silly or not, she did worry. Her mother seemed to have recovered, for the most part. But her father—God, there was still something dark and enormous that haunted her father.
Those two had lost a daughter. They’d survived her father’s lengthy prison sentence. And yet they’d stayed together. But they were not the same. Neither of them was.
Jax wasn’t, either. She’d been the youngest daughter, a tough little hellion, but still…She had become the oldest, abandoned by her big sister, and by her dad, whom she’d thought would always be there for her. She’d become a caregiver to her mother—and there had been no one left to be a caregiver to her. So she’d grown up and she’d done it fast. Hadn’t done her a bit of harm, either, she reminded herself, just in case a hint of self-pity tried to creep in. She didn’t believe in that kind of garbage.
Hell, it amazed her how solid her parents’ relationship must be to have weathered so much. And yet there was something lurking underneath. Something waiting, ready to pounce and ruin it all. And she thought they both sensed it, even if they didn’t know what it was.
“I’ll be glad to take those things for you,” she said, breaking free of the silence into which she’d fallen. “Really. It’s no trouble.”
Her father frowned. “Only if you’re sure.”
“Do you need me to phone Frankie for you, hon?” her mother asked. “I could explain you might be a few minutes late.”
Jax laughed. She couldn’t help it. She lowered her head and laughed.
“Well…what did I say that’s so funny?” Mariah demanded, sounding defensive.
Ben patted her hand. “Honey, our daughter is a grown-up woman. She doesn’t need you to write an excuse to her teacher.”
Mariah pressed her lips together.
“It’ll be fine, Mom. If I leave right now, I can still make it on time. That Taurus knows what to do when I stomp on the gas, and the roads are blessedly bare.”
“Don’t you even think about breaking any speed limits, Cassie,” her mother warned.
Jax got to her feet, gave her mom a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for breakfast. It was fabulous.”
“You barely touched it.”
One egg, two sausage links, a scoop of home fries and a pancake were apparently her mother’s idea of barely touching. “I’ll see you later, Mom.”
Her father grabbed the ice chest and carried it out to her car, sliding it into the back seat. Jax carried the box of clothes, and even as she loaded them in and closed the door, she knew she wasn’t going to take them to the Goodwill in town.
She was going to leave them on the porch of her home, right beside the cooler of food. It was stupid. The scrawny hunk was long gone, and she would probably never see him again. Then again, she couldn’t very well justify leaving a warm bed and food for a stray dog and not doing as much for a stray human being. Particularly one who’d saved her life.
Dr. Ethan Melrose stood over the slab in the hospital morgue and waited while the attendant pulled a sheet from the dead man’s face. They needed to do a postmortem. And since he was both River’s doctor and his best friend, he wanted to oversee it personally.
But as soon as he looked at the body, he knew something was wrong.
“How did he do that much damage to his face with a simple fall?”
The attendant flipped open a metal folder, reading from a chart. “Hit the toilet, facefirst.”
“No way in hell,” Ethan said. “Get this cleaned up. I can’t even see him, much less examine him.”
He paced the room while the attendant worked, but when he turned again and saw more of the corpse’s face, he thought his heart flipped over in his chest. It was pummeled, yes. The nose broken, maybe a cheekbone, too. But he was certain of one thing.
“That man is not Michael Corbett,” he said.
“What?”
Lunging forward, Ethan grabbed the dead man’s wrist, lifting it. “Jesus, where’s his wrist band? Didn’t anyone even bother to check his wrist band?”
“Oh, God,” the attendant muttered. “He…the patient’s room was locked. He was the only one inside. No one even thought to question—Doctor, if this isn’t Michael Corbett, then who the hell is it?”
“I don’t know. But I think we have a more pressing question to answer right now. If this isn’t Michael Corbett, then where the hell is he?”
“Jesus, he escaped.”
Ethan nodded. “Better call the state police. And find out the name of every male staff member who was on duty last night. See who’s not accounted for.”
He walked out of the room, but had to stop halfway down the hall, because his knees were shaking so badly he thought he might fall. He braced his arms against a wall, lowered his head between them. “Dammit, River. Where are you?”
“Welcome to the Blackberry Police Department,” Frankie said, beaming a smile at her as Jax walked through the door. The police department took up fully half of a neat brick building with a huge parking lot that rolled out in back of it. The other half held the town post office.
The first room was a reception area, more or less. It held a desk, where a pretty brunette with a nameplate that read Rosie Monroe jumped to her feet as soon as Jax entered the room.
“Hi, Lieutenant Jackson,” she said. “I don’t think we really met last time you were in town.”
“Well, there was a lot going on last time I was in town,” Jax said, extending a hand. “Chief Parker tells me you practically run this department.”
Rosie shrugged, shaking, her grip entirely too gentle, her hand cool. “I’ve been here ten years. It’s kind of second nature.”
Jax released her hand and looked around the room. Besides Rosie’s desk, this end held a small sofa and love seat in fake green leather. Between them was a stand with a coffeepot, creamer and sugar containers, and a large white box that she guessed, from the aroma, contained fresh doughnuts. It had Susy-Q’s Bakery stamped on the lid.
The other side of the room opened out wider, held three desks and was lined with file cabinets. Every desk had a typewriter, and there was one computer in the room, which the men apparently had to share.
The officers were coming over now, two of them smiling and vaguely familiar—she’d worked with both of them during the Mordecai Young incident last year. Good men. She held out a hand. “Campanelli, Matthews, good to see you again.”
Bill Campanelli shook her hand warmly, his smile genuine. All of five-six, and nearly as big around, Bill had a thin layer of carrot-red hair remaining on his rapidly balding head, and when he smiled, his whole face lit up. “Same here,” he said.
Mike “Icabod” Matthews took his turn, adding a pat to her shoulder. “If anyone can fill Frankie’s shoes, we figure it’ll be you.”
Cassie shook her head. “Either one of you could handle the job,” she said.
They exchanged looks and winked. “Neither one of us wants it,” Campanelli said. “Hell, I retire in five years. And Matthews, he’s got so many side projects going he wants to have himself cloned.”
“Town couldn’t take two of me,” the other man joked.
The third man stood off to one side, waiting his turn. His pale blue eyes were cold, his smile forced in his square-jawed face. He was built like a boxer—stocky and solid. Jax knew the type. Big chip on his shoulder and probably had issues working under a woman. It might have been different with Frankie, since she was the man’s aunt. But Jax was not only female, but a younger female at that. And stepping into the job he had coveted for himself. She read all of that with her first look at the guy, pegged him as an asshole, and didn’t doubt she’d be proved right, given time.
She extended a hand. “You must be Officer Parker,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” It was a lie, but what the hell.
“Lieutenant,” he said with a nod.
She almost told him to call her Jax, but decided against it. She’d need every edge she could get with this fellow, and establishing a pattern of respect would be a good start.
“I hear you stayed out at that old empty house last night. How do you like it?”
“Love it,” she said.
He lifted his brows, maybe a little surprised. “Really? I’d have thought being way out there like that might make a city girl a little uncomfortable.”
“I’m from Syracuse, Officer Parker, not Manhattan.”
He shrugged. “Still city, compared to here.”
“I like the country. It’s quiet.”
“Not a neighbor within a mile of you,” he said. “A lot of the locals claim to have seen things out there, since the fire.”
“What kinds of things?” she asked, looking him square in the eye.
“Just things. Things that spooked ’em.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I don’t spook easily. I didn’t have power or a phone last night. And even that didn’t spook me.”
“Those will be on by the time you get home,” Frankie told her, coming out of her office to join them. “Power company said by noon today, and the phone guy told me dinnertime at the latest.” She smiled. “So did you really like the place?”
“I’ve never spent a more interesting evening,” she said, and it was a perfectly honest answer.
“Well, now you’ve got me curious. Come on, you can tell me about it while I give you the grand tour.”
“Nothing to tell, Frankie. Honest, I love the house.”
Frankie led her through the station, showing her the files, the communal computer, the supply closet, which was packed full. Jax noted a holding cell in what looked like a new part of the station. “Just the one cell?” she asked.
“We didn’t have any until this past year,” Frankie told her. “It’s brand-new.”
“What did you do with the criminals before now?”
Overhearing her, Kurt Parker released a bark of laughter. “Hell, honey, this isn’t some city police department. We barely have any criminals.”
She shot him a look, but before she could say a thing, Frankie cut in. “I’m pretty sure I did introduce you, didn’t I, Kurt? The woman’s name is Lieutenant Jackson. Not ‘honey.’”
He looked as if he was about to say something belligerent, but by then the other two officers were chiming in. “You’d think some of us had been raised in a cave,” Matthews said.
“Hey, Parker, you want some more coffee? Honey?”
“Yeah, how about it, sweetie pie?”
Parker’s face reddened, and he turned to stomp off to his desk as if he had something pressing awaiting him there.
Rolling her eyes, Frankie led Jax into her office and closed the door. There was a smaller desk set up in the corner with a blotter, a cup full of pencils and pens, and a Blackberry Police Department coffee mug with a blue ribbon fastened to the handle.
“Aw, heck. Is that for me?”
“Sure is,” Frankie said. “That’s your desk. At least, until you move on over to this one.” She patted her own desk. “And to answer your earlier question, when we needed to make arrests, we’d call the county boys in. We’d get the paperwork, they’d get to hold the prisoners. It sounds complicated, but we had got it running like clockwork. Still, having a holding cell of our own is nice. And Kurt was right about one thing—we very rarely have to make any arrests.”
There was a tap on the door, then it opened and Rosie poked her head through. “Got a call, Chief.”
Frankie lifted her brows and waited, and Jax felt herself tense, just as she always did on the job when a call came her way.
“Purdy says someone just snatched some fruit from his produce section, and took off without paying.”
Jax blinked. Frankie nodded. “And what did this dangerous felon make off with?”
“An orange and a bunch of grapes, near as he could figure.”
Frankie nodded and smiled at Jax. “Welcome to high crime in Blackberry,” she said, her eyes twinkling. Then, to Rosie, “Description?”
“Male. Couldn’t see his face. He was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt with some kind of bright orange logo on the front.”
Jax felt her own smile freeze in place and slowly die. Damn, she hoped the stranger went back by her place, so he would find the offerings she’d left and not feel compelled to steal. Apparently, he wasn’t very good at it. An orange and some grapes? Freaking pathetic.
“Suggestions, Lieutenant Jackson?” Frankie asked.
“Maybe the store’s security camera got him on tape?” she said.
“Nope. No security cams around here, except at the bank and post office.” She nodded to Rosie. “Why don’t you send Kurt over to take a report? He needs something to get his mind off his hurt feelings.”
“Sure thing, Chief.” Rosie backed out of the office.
Frankie sighed. “May as well get comfortable,” she told Jax. “We’ll take a look at the notices from the state police, and the county, and then we’ll head on over to the coffee shop.”
“But there’s coffee here,” Jax said.
“Ah, but we don’t go for coffee. We go for gossip. Best way to keep your finger on the pulse of this town. The good old grapevine—Blackberry’s lifeblood flows through it.”
“I can see I’ve got to get used to a whole new way of working, huh?”
“You’ll pick it up in no time, Jax.” The telephone on her desk rang, and Frankie reached for it. Her smile faded about three seconds into the phone call. Her face seemed to pale, as she scribbled notes. When she hung up she was already on her feet.
“What have we got?” Jax asked, getting to her feet, as well.
“Trouble. Come with me.” She went out of her office. “Rosie, there will be a fax coming through any minute. I’m gonna want a dozen copies, pronto.”
“On it,” Rosie said, and even as she spoke, the fax machine beside her desk was ringing and churning to life.
Matthews and Campanelli came over from their desks. Kurt Parker had apparently already gone to check out the great produce heist.
“Michael Corbett escaped from the state hospital last night,” Frankie said. “Killed an orderly in the process.”
“Holy shit,” Matthews muttered. “They think he’ll head here?”
“He’d be stupid to come here,” Frankie said. “But we need to be ready, just in case.”
“Wait, someone needs to bring me up to speed,” Jax said. “Who is this Corbett? Is he dangerous?”
With a heavy sigh, Frankie turned to her. “Hell, I didn’t want to dump all this on you your first night in town and maybe scare you off. But…well, I already told you the house—your house—has a history.”
“You said a whole wing was destroyed in a fire, and a woman was killed.” A little shiver ran up her spine, but Jax shook it off. She was a cop. Those kinds of shivers had no place in her life. And yet she kept thinking about the odd white shape she’d glimpsed outside, and Kurt Parker’s words about the place spooking people. And the cold spot on one side of the house that never seemed to get warm.
“The house belonged to the Corbetts, and the fire was arson,” Frankie said. “Corbett was found on the lawn with a gas can at his feet. His wife died in the fire—was pregnant at the time, too. Corbett claimed he couldn’t remember a thing, and he had some history of blackouts to back it up and a top-notch shrink on his side. The D.A. accepted an insanity plea and shipped him off to the state hospital, where everyone expected him to spend the rest of his life.”
Jax lifted her brows. “I thought you said nothing bad ever happened here?”
“I may have exaggerated just a tad. Hell, I’ve only given you the digest version. Rosie, dig out those old files so Jax can get caught up. Got that fax yet?”
“Got it.” Rosie handed the faxed sheet to Frankie, who looked at it and shook her head sadly. “That’s our man. Shame, crying shame. He was a cop once. A damn good one, as I understand it.” She passed the sheet to Jax. “We’ll get some posters up around town, keep a keen eye out for him.”
Jax barely heard her. Instead, she stared down at the face of the man who had spent the night in her house. The man who had saved her life at the risk of his own, who had wept in her arms and then slipped away before she woke. The man who, even now, might be finding the food and clothing she had provided for him.
Clothing—that belonged to her father, who was an ex-con and couldn’t afford to be tied to an escaped killer. God, what the hell had she done?
Her first day on the job, and already she was guilty of aiding and abetting an escaped criminal. That wasn’t going to earn her any points. She wouldn’t be surprised if Frankie withdrew the job offer when she found out. Jax knew that in her place, that’s what she would do.
She couldn’t believe she’d done it. She’d helped a murderer—one who’d got off on an insanity plea—much like the man accused of murdering her own sister had nearly done twelve years ago.
And maybe that was why. Not that she believed in fate, or karma or any of that hokey new age garbage. But damn, at the very least, the universe had one sick sense of humor.
He wasn’t doing well.
His feet scuffed through the dusting of snow along the winding road’s shoulder. He knew he was leaving a distinct trail, but doubted anyone was following it. The cold seemed to knife straight through to his bones. He ached with it.
He’d expected to feel better by now. To be starting to feel strong again after a good night’s sleep, in a warm, dry place. But he wasn’t feeling strong. He was shaky. His head felt heavy and cotton filled, and he was having trouble convincing his feet to pick up off the pavement. His chest hurt, too, ached and burned. And every now and then a full body shiver racked him from head to toe.
Taking the grapes from his pocket, he ate them as he walked. When there was nothing left but the spiny stem, he tossed it, and took out the orange. But he couldn’t manage to get a start on peeling it. His fingers were thick and stiff. No dexterity, very little hand-eye coordination.
He closed his eyes, giving up on the orange and dropping it into the pocket of his borrowed hoodie. Then he looked up to gauge how far he’d come, and found himself standing in front of his house—or her house. The place where he’d spent the night.
River lowered his head, shaking it slowly even as the specter of that fireplace rose up to tempt him to come inside. “No,” he muttered. “I’m not dragging some stranger into my messed-up life.”
He took another step, intending to walk right by the place. But then he saw the ice chest on the porch and hesitated. What the hell?
He moved closer, wondering if the woman could have deliberately left it outside for him to discover, but he found that hard to believe. More likely it was bait of some kind. Surely, by now they’d figured out the dead man in his hospital room wasn’t him. Surely, they would have alerted the authorities in this small town, and the word was out. Maybe by now she’d heard about him, and gone to Chief Parker to tell her about the stranger who’d spent the night under her roof. The cooler, left on her porch, could easily be meant to lure him in. They might be waiting, even now. He had no desire to deal with those officers again. They were less than gentle, those hometown boys in the Blackberry PD. At least, the one he’d dealt with back then.
His stomach growled and churned. He needed food. His body was at war with his brain. Hell, if he didn’t get physically up and running again, this entire mission was no more than one big waste of time.
He crouched in the trees across the street, watched the place for a while. Eventually an electric company truck rolled up. Men went around to the back, messed with the box mounted to the side of the house. They left again. Her power had been turned on.
He waited longer, kept watching the place. No movement. No sign of anyone nearby. Swallowing hard, he came out of his cover, and started moving across the street. He was slow, clumsy and wary. He told himself to turn and run at the first sign of a trap, but doubted he’d be able to outrun anyone. And then he heard a low, deep growl, and froze in his tracks.
The woman had a dog? He didn’t remember a dog from last night.
The growling grew louder, and he saw the animal’s large head emerge from underneath the broken boards in the porch. It barked at him once, twice, three times. River went stiff, looking around for people to come running, cops with guns drawn, at the dog’s summons, but none came. Maybe it wasn’t a trap, after all.
The dog came the rest of the way out; the barking ceased. It looked at him, growling deep, stepping forward, hesitant, wary.
River frowned, eyeing the skinny animal, the way his stomach seemed concave, and the familiar markings on his face. “Rex?” he whispered. Then louder. “Rex, boy? Is it you?”
The dog went still, head tipping to one side. It whined once.
“Rex, it’s me. God, boy, you look as bad I must. Come here. Come here, Rex.”
Tail wagging slightly, the dog came closer, wary and pausing between steps. River knelt down, right there in the road, and held out a hand. The German shepherd moved nearer, sniffing at him. Then, suddenly, the dog burst into a loud chorus of barks and jumped on him, paws to his chest knocking him flat on his back, tongue licking his face and neck.
River smiled. It hurt, pulling at facial muscles that hadn’t been used in months. Burying his hands in Rex’s fur, he hugged the dog, and wondered why he was feeling so damn emotional. It was an animal.
But he knew. Rex was a piece of his old life. The life he’d had before everything had been taken from him. The life he’d thought had been entirely obliterated. Rex remained. And if he did, then there was hope.
River pushed the dog off him, and then used his old friend to help pull himself to his feet. Keeping one hand on the animal, he moved across the road and into the driveway, trying to walk in the nicely plowed spots, where he wouldn’t leave obvious footprints. He went up onto the porch, then turned, realizing Rex was no longer beside him. The dog sat at the bottom of the steps. Too wary, perhaps, to come closer.
“It’s okay, pal. I’m pretty sure there’s no one around. Come on.” He slapped his hand against his thigh. Rex came up the steps and onto the porch, where he proceeded to explore and sniff the length and breadth, with special attention to the corners and the empty dog food dish that still held a few telltale crumbs.
She’d fed his dog.
River moved to the cooler, lifting the lid up and peering inside. “And now she’s feeding me,” he muttered.
Tupperware dishes lined the thing. He found one full of homemade rolls, and couldn’t stop himself from taking one. He bit into it, then felt Rex’s eyes on him, and saw the dog watching intently as he chewed.
“Okay, one for you, too, boy,” he said, tossing the dog a roll.
Rex caught it and ate it eagerly, tail wagging, while River examined the other containers. One held a stew, thick with gravy, vegetables and meat. Impossible to eat that, really, without utensils. The next dish he opened held cold fried chicken.
“God, Rex, I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” He took out two pieces of the chicken and, forgetting his caution, sat right there on the porch to eat them. But before he got more than a bite off the second drumstick, his stomach was protesting. It had been too long. He just couldn’t hold food the way he would have liked to. Couldn’t do this meal justice.
There were other dishes in the cooler, and bottles of water, as well. He didn’t go through them, just peeled the remaining meat off the chicken bone for Rex, then put the bone itself back into the container, because he didn’t want the dog eating that, and set the container back in the cooler. He helped himself to a bottle of water, and only as he took his first sip did it occur to him that he hadn’t had a drop of water since before leaving the hospital—aside from the icy pond water he’d swallowed last night.
He drained the bottle, too thirsty, suddenly, to take it slow. And then his stomach convulsed and heaved. He ran off the porch, the dog at his heels, and only just made it into the thick brush across the road before he lost his lunch. The heaving left him weak and trembling, his stomach feeling far too queasy for him to even consider trying again to put food into it.
Rex nudged his thigh, whined a little.
He petted the dog’s neck and straightened. “It’s okay, boy. I’ll live. Maybe.” Lifting his head, he eyed the house. “You don’t suppose I could crawl under that porch with you, rest up for the day, do you?”
The dog barked once, and then the two of them made their way back across the street. River paused long enough to go through the box of clothing. Men’s clothing, all of it. There were jeans and flannel shirts, T-shirts and button-down shirts, ties, several pairs of shoes, and best of all, sweaters. Four of them, thick and heavy and warm. And a denim coat with a fleece lining, and even a knit cap.
“Heaven,” he said again. He took the jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, socks and the coat. He took only one pair of shoes, a pair of lined, waterproof boots that were more valuable to him right then than a million dollars would have been. He tried to arrange the remaining items—the dress shirts, ties, suit pants and jackets—in such a way that it wasn’t utterly obvious things were missing from the box. But it was pretty clear.
He bundled up his treasures, and went, with the dog, to the open spot under the porch, then knelt and crawled in.
And then he let his eyes adjust to the darkness. When they did, he realized that the woman who lived here was a pushover. There was a brand-new dog bed under the porch.
But there was something else even better. Something he had known about, once, but forgotten long ago. There was a hole in the cinder block foundation, made for a casement window. But there was no window in the hole.
He peeked through, into the house’s cellar. The furnace was running. The warmth of it touched his face.
He closed his eyes, told himself this woman was too nice to be treated this way. She didn’t deserve to have a confessed murderer, much less an escapee from a mental hospital, hiding out in her basement.
And yet he didn’t see that he had much of a choice in the matter.
He tossed the clothes into the basement, then went back to the porch to get the bottles of water, the chicken and the rolls from the cooler, and took those back with him. His list of earthly possessions was growing. He had clothes now. He had food and water, and he had shelter. He also had a knife with a six-inch, razor sharp blade and his assailant’s fingerprints, he hoped, preserved on the handle. He’d wrapped it in a rag he’d found along the roadside to keep the prints from being smudged. A plastic zipper bag would have been better.
This time, when he crawled underneath the porch, he kept on going, through the missing window, into the cellar.
Turning, he wondered if Rex would try to come in, too. If he did, and she came home, the dog would surely give him away. But Rex was happily curled up on his dog bed, already snoring.
Dawn came out of the laundry room with an overflowing basket of clothes. She tended to let her laundry pile up at the dorm, so she’d brought it all with her to wash during the holiday break. And this was the last of it.
Everyone had been watching her too closely today. It made her want to cut and run, but she kept reminding herself it was only because they cared about her. Still, the searching looks, the leading questions—it was wearing thin.
She walked through the living room with her basket of clothes, and felt the chill as soon as she entered the room. That chill—it wasn’t a normal one. It only came when one of them was close, and Dawn’s entire body tensed with anticipation.
Beth stood there, talking to a man as a woman stood nearby. The man was tall, slender, dignified looking and soft spoken. He had a worried look about him, and his shoulders nearly slumped from whatever weight they were carrying.
The woman…oh. Her again.
She was semisolid, her white nightgown stained with soot and black spots, as if it had been burned. So was her face, for that matter. One side of it was twisted and scarred. She held a baby in her arms, wrapped in a scorched, sooty blanket, and she stared. Not at Beth, or at the man, but at Dawn.
Dawn’s fear turned to anger. It was one thing for them to harass her, entirely another to get within a mile of her family. Screw this. She set the basket down on the floor and marched forward, making her stride aggressive and sending the dead woman a look meant to chase her off.
Beth turned, and Dawn plastered a more pleasant expression on her face, but not before Beth had seen her.
“You feeling all right, Dawn?”
“Fine,” she said. And she beamed a smile at the man who was looking her way.
“This is Dr. Melrose, Dawn,” Beth said. “He’s taking a room for a couple of days.”
“It seems silly, my living only an hour from here,” he said. “But then again, driving back and forth until my business in town is finished would be even sillier.”
“Dawn Jones,” she said, taking his hand, which was so icy it nearly made her pull hers away. “Welcome to the Blackberry Inn.”
“Thank you.”
“So you’re a doctor.”
“Psychiatrist, actually.”
Dawn shot Beth a look, wondering just for a moment if this was some kind of setup. Had she managed to convince her birth mother that she was losing her mind? Hell, why not? She was half convinced of it herself.
She glanced past the man. The dead woman was gone.
For now.
5
When Jax came home from work that afternoon, her father’s four-wheel-drive pickup sat in the driveway with the tailgate down. Her front door was unlocked, and when she went inside, she found her house brimming with…stuff. A brown velour sofa stood in her living room, with a glass-topped coffee table in front of it. A television set sat opposite. It wasn’t a floor model, so it looked odd there. There were a couple of mismatched, overstuffed chairs, too. A burnt orange one big enough for a linebacker, and a pale blue rocker-recliner. Underneath all of it, a big, braided, oval area rug covered the floor.
Her parents had been busy.
She moved through the dining room, which still held no furniture, and into the kitchen, where her mother was stacking plates in a cupboard and her father was carefully applying caulk to the windowpane in the back door.
“You guys are going to spoil me, aren’t you?” Jax asked, leaning in the doorway and folding her arms over her chest.
Her mother looked up, a kerchief over her hair, and beamed a bright smile at her. “Give the independent streak a rest, Cassie. I couldn’t have you living here without the barest essentials. Honestly, I don’t know how you got by last night—the place was Spartan.”
“I didn’t need to do anything but sleep, Mom.” Jax moved across the room to give her mother a hug, then looked past her into the cupboard, which was stocked with plates, bowls, saucers, coffee cups and glasses. She opened another door to find mixing bowls and measuring cups, and yet another where cookware and bakeware filled the shelves. There was a small kitchen table—metal legs, red Formica top—in the center of the room, with old-fashioned chairs around it—metal frames with padded red vinyl seats and backs. She opened the fridge, found it clean, fresh smelling and stocked with food. The red cooler sat empty on the floor. She wondered briefly if they’d noticed the box of castoffs on her porch as well, but got distracted when she realized the light in the fridge had come on when she’d opened the door.
“Power’s on?” she asked, needlessly.
“Phone lines, too,” her mother said, pointing to the brand-new cordless telephone resting in its base, which was mounted to the wall. They had to have bought it for her.
“What happened to the window?” her father asked. “You have trouble out here last night?”
Jax sent him a bright smile, one designed to hide the lie. “Trouble? Hell, no. Who in their right mind would give me any trouble? I was clumsy. I, uh, was carrying some wood in, from the pile out back, and I slipped. A log flew out of my hand and smashed right through the window.” She shook her head and then moved on to a new subject. “Dad, you didn’t see a dog outside when you arrived, did you?”
He shook his head slowly, wiping the caulking knife on a rag and dropping it into his tool belt. The windowpane was repaired and perfect. Her father was just as capable with a hammer and nails as he was with a scalpel and clamps. Just as comfortable in a pair of overalls as he had once been in an expensive suit or surgical scrubs.
“No, I didn’t see any. Did see the box of stuff we sent home with you…” He smiled. “I see you helped yourself to a few things. It was considerably lighter when I took it to the Goodwill. So are you expecting a dog?”
She nodded. “That stray we spotted here the first day. It’s been hiding out under the porch sometimes.” Her father frowned, and she rushed on. “He’s all alone, Dad. Doesn’t seem aggressive at all, just wary. I left some food for him and he ate it.”
Ben nodded. “I saw the empty bowl. You shouldn’t get too close until I’ve had a look at him. Make sure he’s all right.”
“I’ll be careful. Wait till you get a good look at him, Dad. He’s kind of scrawny, a little rough around the edges, but underneath all that, he’s gorgeous.” She found the fugitive’s face, not the dog’s, creeping into her mind. “You can tell he’s something special. Frankie says he’s been making a nuisance of himself for a while, but no one’s been able to corner him.”
Her dad’s lips pulled into a rare smile, not a full one, kind of sad, like all his smiles were. “You thinking of making a pet out of him?”
She was startled by the question, considering where her thoughts had taken her. “I don’t even know if I’m staying yet.”
“Of course you know,” her mother muttered. She picked up the dishpan full of soapy water and poured it down the sink, then wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Well, I know I’ll feel better knowing you’ve at least got the necessities.”
“How much did you two spend?”
“Nothing at all,” Mariah said. “The dishes have been in my cupboards for years. How many can two people use, after all? Ditto with the extra towels and linens and bedding. Oh, and I didn’t get a chance to hang them yet, but we brought you a pile of curtains and rods, too. Just stuff I had in the closets.”
“And the food?” Jax opened another cupboard door. “You’ve stocked the cupboards and the fridge. There’s enough here to feed me for six months—if I have half the town in for snacks every day, that is. And that telephone is new.” She looked upward. “You even put lightbulbs in all the fixtures.” She sent her mother a suspicious look. “Did you stock the bathroom, as well?”
“It makes your mother happy, being able to do things for you, Cassie. Don’t you hurt her feelings by trying to pay us for this stuff.” Ben shrugged. “Besides, we do fine at the clinic.”
Jax smiled and put a hand on her father’s cheek. “I want to spend a morning over there with you one of these days, Dad. I’d love to see you work.”
“I enjoy it,” he said, and she knew it was nothing short of the truth. There didn’t seem to be much in life that gave him pleasure anymore, so that was worth a lot. Jax mourned the loss of his former career—sometimes, she thought, more than he did. “Animals are great,” he went on. “They don’t argue. They don’t judge and they don’t hate.”
“And they almost never sue,” Mariah added, to lighten the weight of Ben’s words.
Jax pretended to laugh, but damn, her father’s mood worried her. “Do you guys want to stay for dinner? The least I can do is feed you after all this.”
“Perfect!” Mariah said, clapping her hands together. “That’ll just give me time to hang those curtains.”
Her mother, Jax thought, after her parents said good-night, was the Jackson family’s answer to Martha Stewart. Sunflower patterned curtains hung in the kitchen windows and there were matching towels and potholders dangling from every cupboard doorknob. The kitchen was fully functional. She’d set a toaster beside Jax’s coffeepot on the counter, mounted a paper towel holder to the wall and filled it, set a coffee mug tree on the table and hung clean cups from every branch, filled a sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers, too. Even left a pack of sponges and a scrubber near the sink. The place looked as if someone had been living there comfortably for years.
The other rooms were not as complete, but Mariah had made a good start. The dining room was still empty, and begging for furniture. But it had curtains now—Mariah had insisted on hanging them after dinner. The living room was furnished, aside from the lack of a TV stand, and felt cozy. Lacy doilies lay on the arms of the sofa and chairs, a runner on the coffee table, and a stack of coasters sat in the center, next to the TV remote. She’d even placed a framed family photo on the mantel—an old one, from a long time ago, that included the whole family, even Carrie.
Seeing that brought a lump to her throat, but Jax didn’t say anything. Her mother didn’t like to talk about the past. She remembered—but quietly. It was her way.
Mariah had even hit the bathrooms, filling them with stacks of towels and washcloths, new shower curtains and bath mats, curtains in the windows, toilet paper on the rollers. The woman was a wizard.
By the time her parents left, the house felt much more like a home, and as Jax settled down in the living room with a cup of hot coffee, and the bulging file folder full of photocopies she’d brought home from the Blackberry PD, she couldn’t help thinking about how the things from her old apartment back in Syracuse would look here. The wildlife prints on her walls, the entertainment center. Her own TV—wide-screen with surround sound. And her stereo system.
If she decided to stay.
She leaned back in the sofa with a contented sigh, listening to the quiet. Hell, who was she kidding? She was going to stay. She wanted this job.
And that thought brought another: the fact that she may have already blundered herself right out of this job, by giving refuge to a fugitive. Surely, the best thing she could have done this morning would have been to come clean, immediately. And yet…there was something wrong. Something off about this whole thing. She’d dealt with a lot of criminals, prided herself on her instinct. And that man last night hadn’t seemed like a criminal to her. Wounded, wary and probably under the influence of heavy chemicals. Now that she knew he had just escaped from a mental ward, she could understand that a little better. But criminals did not risk their lives to save the lives of strangers. Especially strangers who could turn around and blow the whistle on them the very next day. And he was a cop, on top of all that. A good one, Frankie had said.
If she’d learned nothing more in her life, Jax had learned to give the apparently guilty the benefit of the doubt.
God, how she’d learned that.
So she’d decided to give it one more night. Frankie had let her make copies of the files on the Corbett case, so she could take them home and read them. Get caught up on the facts of the case.
Frankie Parker, Jax discovered as she opened the bulging folder, was one thorough cop.
At the top of the pile were records of Michael Corbett’s service with the NYPD. Jax scanned page after page of them, noting several commendations, a nearly spotless record, until a shooting incident in which he had been injured, and which had been investigated by the Internal Affairs Division. Which meant nothing—anytime an officer fired his weapon in the line of duty, it had to be investigated.
She sipped her coffee, flipped a page and found one officer’s report on the shooting. She waded through the dry language of the account, knowing from experience she’d find no hint of emotion anywhere within its pages. “Just the facts, ma’am” was more than just a catchphrase. What it came down to was that Corbett and other officers had responded to numerous complaints about a crack house. Suspects in the house opened fire on the police officers almost as soon as they were out of their vehicles, and they returned it. One of the suspects’ bullets had hit Corbett in the head before the shooters fled the scene, evading officers who gave chase. Other officers remained with the wounded Corbett until paramedics arrived.
Jax scanned pages until she located the I.A.D.’s final report on the investigation, which cleared Corbett and his fellow officers of any wrongdoing. She frowned, wondering what any of this had to do with the investigation into the murder of Corbett’s wife. But then she found her answers. Corbett had been left with a bullet in his brain, and side effects that made it impossible for him to continue in his job. He’d been retired with a clean record and full pension.
Frankie had made her own notes, detailing Corbett’s health situation according to information she’d gleaned from interviews with his doctor. She wrote that he was prone to blackouts, periods during which he would lose time, and return to himself with no idea what had transpired. It was during one of those blackouts that his house had been torched, his wife killed.
Neither Frankie nor the state of Vermont were eager to prosecute him for murder, not with the testimony of his doctor likely to get him off on an insanity plea, anyway. The result would have been confinement in a mental hospital. And he’d been willing to take that sentence voluntarily, which saved the state the cost of a trial they might have lost. A hero cop, wounded in the line of duty, didn’t make for the easiest defendant.
Jax stared at the pages, but she wasn’t seeing the print. Instead, she was recalling the look in the man’s eyes last night. The desperate, haunted look about him. No wonder—if he’d killed his wife, and couldn’t even remember doing it—hell, that would be enough to haunt anyone. But why would he have risked prison by busting out of the state hospital?
By killing an orderly and then busting out, her inner voice reminded her.
There was more, reams more in the folder, and she turned to a new page and read, and read, until her eyes grew so weary that they drooped slowly closed, and her head fell to one side.
Then there was a sound—a soft sound, like weeping. A woman weeping—and then it changed, and became the gentle coo of a very young baby crying. That snuffly, congested newborn bleat. The smell of smoke touched her nostrils, and a strangled voice whispered….
Help me! Please!
She sat up fast, her eyes flying wide.
The living room was perfectly empty. There were no sounds. No whispers. No babies crying. No smell of smoke. She’d fallen asleep.
No such things as ghosts, she reminded herself, rubbing down the goose bumps that had risen on her arms. Hell, she was letting Kurt Parker’s spook stories get to her.
Jax stretched her arms, folded the file and got up from the sofa. She was letting her imagination take hold, and that was totally unlike her. Maybe she’d better call it a night. She turned for the stairs, but stopped in midmotion at a sound—a real one this time. It sounded like something dropping to the floor.
Frowning, she turned her head in the direction from which the sound had come, the kitchen. “Yeah. It’s probably a whole troop of ghosts,” she taunted herself. “Who you gonna call, Jax?” Sighing, she moved slowly. Because while she didn’t believe in spooks, despite her new colleague’s tales, she did believe in escaped mental patients. Her gun was hanging with her coat in the living room closet—not her choice of a permanent spot to keep it; just where she’d happened to hang it when she came home. Her mother hated seeing it on her. Jax supposed it was a reminder of how dangerous her job could be, and the thought of her only remaining daughter at risk was a little too much for her to handle.
Mariah was delicate. More so than she let on. There had been far more of her in Carrie than there had ever been in Jax.
Jax took the shoulder holster and pulled it on. She didn’t need to check the gun to know it was loaded with a full clip, but there was no bullet in the chamber and the safety was on. She knew her weapon as well as she knew her own body. She kept her hand on the butt as she moved through the house into the kitchen, where she flipped on the light and then stood still, watching, listening.
The room was spotless. The dishes done, leftovers put away, the white ceramic-tiled counters gleaming. The back door was closed and still locked, its new windowpane still in place. Nothing seemed unusual or alarming.
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Maggie Shayne
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: MICHAEL «RIVER» CORBETT–