B00NRQWAJI (8 page)

Well aware that Barrett was watching my every move, I crossed the lawn, turning a cold shoulder to the chilly evening breeze that blew in from the orchard. The wind didn’t seem to bother him, however, as he descended the stairs to meet me. Maybe the faded jean jacket he wore over his ratty flannel shirt was warmer than it looked—or maybe he was liquored up again and the booze had made him numb.

When I drew near, Barrett took a seat on one of the steps. He slid to one side of the tread, leaving plenty of room for me to sit beside him. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do that.

“You were gone a long time,” he said.

“I had things to do.”

He nodded.

Silence, as taut as a telegraph wire, stretched between us.

“What did Luke Rittenhaus have to say to you and Eric Wentz?” I asked.

“He cited Eric for discharging a firearm within town limits. He also swears he’ll arrest me if I go near Eric again. Not that that will stop me.”

“Barrett…” Frustration had me sinking onto the step beside him. But I was very careful not to touch him. “I know you came up here because Vance McCabe told you Eric was suicidal. But today, waving that shotgun around, he didn’t look suicidal to me.”

“He had it bad in Afghanistan. And he never got over what happened to Pamela. None of us have.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s in danger of killing himself.”

“The statistics aren’t in his favor. And Vance says—”

“Vance has a drug problem. And based on your recent behavior, I haven’t been so sure it hasn’t rubbed off on you.”

Barrett didn’t reply.

Irritated, I couldn’t look at him anymore. Because if I did, I’d yell at him. Or I’d cry. And neither kind of outburst would fix this situation. So I scowled at my shoes, beautiful handmade oxfords crafted by a grateful client from cocoa-colored patent leather and inset with peacock velvet vamps. But beside my right foot was Barrett’s left, clad in an old combat boot too run down to wear with his uniform any longer. And that was exactly how I felt: run down.

He said, “I didn’t want you to stay. I knew if you stayed, you’d hear bad news about me.”

“I’m a PI,” I mumbled, “and a security specialist. I hear lots of bad news. All the time. About everything and everybody.”

“Well, you heard about Pamela, so now you know. She’s dead because of me.”

I could barely breathe, barely ask, “What do you mean
because of you
?”

But Barrett shook his head. “Jamie, it’s complicated.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I can’t. Don’t you get that? I can’t talk to you about this!”

“Oh, I get it.” Anger flashed through me like heat lightning. It propelled me to my feet. “You can fuck me. But you can’t confide in me.”

And there it was. The real reason I was so upset. In words that were rude and raw.

Because in that instant I realized I’d inadvertently lied when I’d told everyone in Fallowfield that Barrett and I were only friends. I’d accidentally lied to myself, too. I wasn’t in New York merely because his grandmother had asked me to come. I wasn’t here because Barrett had had my back when I’d come under fire, either. No, I was here because last Tuesday night, with Barrett, in my guest bedroom, I’d been ready to be as close to another human being as I knew how. In short, I’d trusted him completely. Not just physically but emotionally, too. And it turned out, Barrett might be profoundly unworthy of my trust—and even if he wasn’t, he sure as hell didn’t trust me in return.

But right then, sitting with me behind his grandma’s house, Barrett looked me in the eye.

His voice was diamond hard as he said, “I wasn’t going to fuck you the other night, and I’m not going to fuck you now.”

Anything I might’ve said in reply got stuck in the back of my throat. There was no comeback to Barrett’s statement. Because I’d tipped my hand in a game I didn’t even know we were playing.

My face hot with embarrassment, I thundered down the remaining steps. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Go into the house, for a start.

But I didn’t get very far. Because Barrett followed me. He seized my wrist.

It was the wrist I’d broken earlier in the autumn when my father, the senator, had maneuvered me into working for him. I’d almost met my death thanks to him. But Barrett had refused to let me face that danger alone.

He said, “Pamela came to me in the barn one April night. She was a virgin, Jamie, and she didn’t want to be. She told me that in no uncertain terms.”

Past his shoulder, I could see the barn, all red and rough-hewn. I didn’t want to think of him there. Not with anyone—and especially not with a fourteen-year-old girl.

Barrett let go of my hand. “She told me she was in love with me. Not a crush. Not lust. Love, she said. She’d snuck out of her parents’ house and cut across the fields because she knew I’d be alone, doing my chores. She was barefoot. In her nightgown. It was some dark red, silky thing. It clung to her because of the dew. She slipped her fingers under the straps of it, dropped it to the ground. She wasn’t wearing a stitch under it.”

Anxiety formed a black hole in the pit of my stomach and drew every ounce of my strength into it.

“Did you, ah, take her up on her offer?”

“No. She was a girl, Jamie, younger than my kid sister. She should’ve been playing with Barbies. I was a couple weeks away from my eighteenth birthday. I had plans to go to college and become an army officer. I was a man and I knew it.”

“So what did you do?”

“I scooped up her nightgown and threw it at her. I told her to put it on. Then I got the hell out of there.”

“You left her. In the barn.”

“Yes.”

But Barrett hesitated.

“And no,” he said.

Fear, like a hot spike, pierced me. “No?”

“I was halfway out the door when she told me she understood. She said if we’d met at a different time in our lives, we might’ve had a chance. Right then, she seemed more grown-up than anyone I’d ever known. I thought, wow, the guy who falls for her someday will be one lucky fellow. I hoped she knew that. I wanted her to know it. So I…I kissed her. Just once. On the mouth. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Oh, Adam. I’m sorry.”

And I was. I was sorry he felt so bad for a girl who’d tried desperately to be a woman. I felt sorry for her, too.

At thirty-eight, I was a long way from fourteen. Still, I could remember the sensation of youth. The feeling of power, that my body was strong and svelte and maybe even sexy. The disgust in realizing some men looked at me as an object. And the frustration that some regarded me as a childlike nonentity no matter how I saw myself.

Pamela would’ve felt all these things and more.

“She…she took the kiss as encouragement,” Barrett admitted. “I set her straight and she got upset. I offered to drive her home, but she ran out of the barn crying.”

Barrett scrubbed a shaking hand along his scruffy jaw. “I should’ve gone after her, Jamie, but to tell you the truth, I was glad she left. I told myself it was a ten-minute walk through the old orchard and across her dad’s lower pasture to her place. She’d be fine. I mean, she wasn’t lost in a dark alley somewhere. I figured, what could happen in a meadow in ten minutes?”

I didn’t speak.

We both knew the answer to that one.

“Eric didn’t find her until dawn,” Barrett said. “Some sick son of a bitch had stripped her, left her out there in the cold….”

“And the sheriff ran you in for questioning.”

Barrett nodded.

He didn’t have to tell me the next part. I’d read about it in the newspaper. They’d found his DNA on her mouth, cultured from a bit of saliva left behind from that ill-advised kiss. It had been at the dawn of DNA testing and every police department had been keen to use the new technique—not that they’d always known what to do with the results. Some members of the community had interpreted them as proof of Barrett’s guilt, however. And some—namely Eric—apparently still did today.

But I didn’t believe Barrett had attacked Pamela.

Unless I missed my guess, Sheriff Bowker hadn’t believed Barrett was guilty, either. After all, he’d run in nearly every male student at Fallowfield High School. And he’d never brought charges against any of them.

“You weren’t arrested,” I reminded Barrett.

“Maybe I should’ve been. She killed herself because of what happened when I let her walk home alone. It destroyed her. It destroyed Eric, too. Vance says he’s hit bottom since he got home from Afghanistan.”

“Eric’s not your responsibility.”

Barrett didn’t reply to me.

Because he didn’t agree with me.

And that’s when I knew. To fulfill my obligation to Barrett’s grandmother, to settle the score Eric kept against Barrett, and to bring Barrett some measure of peace, I needed to do one thing. I needed to find out who had raped Pamela Wentz over twenty years ago.

So that was what I intended to do.

Chapter 8

The next day dawned much too early, but I was ready for it. I’d spent a restless night in a chair at the window of Elise’s girlhood bedroom, keeping watch over the door to Barrett’s little apartment. Maybe I would’ve slept in the bed had I been able to extract a promise from Barrett that he’d leave well enough alone. But any connection we’d forged while he’d told me about his final encounter with Eric’s sister evaporated when I tried to tell him what to do. In return, he’d insisted I leave Fallowfield, and that didn’t help. By the time I marched toward his grandmother’s house, we were both fed up with each other—and I was more determined than ever to learn exactly what had happened to Pamela Wentz.

After a quick morning shower and a quiet ransacking of my suitcase, I tiptoed down the stairs in my stocking feet, carrying my oxfords so as not to wake Barrett’s grandmother. The fourth step from the bottom creaked under the ball of my foot despite my best efforts. And popped like a shot fired from a kid’s cap gun.

“There’s coffee,” Mrs. Barrett called from the back of the house, “or I can make tea.”

I found her in her kitchen, bustling between the range and refrigerator as if she were a Norman Rockwell illustration come to life. The room was cozy with the scents of bacon and real butter, and before I could stop myself, I pictured Barrett bounding into the room as a teenager, eager for his breakfast. Every American youngster should begin his day in such a way, though few did, and if Barrett had, I was glad for it.

At Mrs. Barrett’s bidding, I slid into a Windsor chair at her round oak table and pulled a cloth napkin into my lap. The blue and white willowware dotting the tablecloth was completely charming. I poured a cup of coffee as she directed and took a sip of the juice in my glass. It was apple. And I supposed, given that the Barrett clan had made their living from the fruit for generations now, I shouldn’t have expected any other kind.

She plunked a platter of scrambled eggs in front of me. Beside it, she deposited a server bearing a stack of pancakes. There was no way the two of us would be able to eat all this, but any hope I had of Barrett joining us faded when his grandmother took her seat across from me.

“I’m afraid my grandson’s up and gone already.” She passed me a pitcher of real maple syrup. “Once that boy gets something in his head, it’s hard to get it out.”

“Forgive me for asking,” I said, trying not to speak with my mouth full, “but do you know what he’s got in his head?”

“Bad memories.”

“Of Pamela Wentz?”

“And the trouble that followed.” Mrs. Barrett pushed her plate away untouched. “This is a small town, Jamie. People here are slow to forget the past. Adam’s always been slower than most in that regard. But you might already know that.”

“Well, I know Eric Wentz has a memory as long as a country mile. And an imagination to match it. I found that out yesterday.”

“I take it you don’t believe Adam did that awful thing to that child.”

Something in her tone made my fork feel like it weighed four hundred pounds. I couldn’t lift it from my plate. I couldn’t lift my eyes to hers, either. Because after my little trip to the library—and our conversation behind the house—I trusted in Barrett’s innocence. But if his own grandmother had reason not to…

Carefully, I said, “Do
you
think he did it?”

“No. Some young men can get ahead of themselves. They make mistakes and those mistakes can be hurtful. Others are just plain mean. They want to bend others to their will. They like the thrill of force and of fear. Adam’s never been either kind.”

I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“Who, then, do you think attacked Pamela?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Barrett said, her voice trembling. “But I’ll tell you one thing. Whoever he is, he’s a coward, Jamie. A coward.”

Mrs. Barrett’s assessment stayed with me long after I helped her clear the table. It stuck with me as I headed for my car. Beyond the lady’s back door, the October air was as crisp as a fresh apple. And it was much colder than the air in D.C. Dew sparkled on the curves of my Jaguar instead of frost, though, so I counted my blessings.

I unlocked the car, glanced at the windows over the garage. The apartment behind them was dark. I wished that meant Barrett was sleeping deep under his bed’s Lone Star quilt instead of prowling the countryside to keep tabs on Eric Wentz, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

I stopped wishing and started driving. Though it was Sunday, someone would be holding down the fort at the Sheriff’s Office. And I intended to coax, cajole, or otherwise convince that someone to give me a glimpse of Pamela’s case file. I wasn’t sure I bought Miranda Barrett’s theory about cowardice, but I wanted to know what the former sheriff had known about Pamela’s attacker. Most of all, I wanted to know why he’d never made an arrest.

To my surprise, however, the current sheriff pulled into the parking lot immediately after I did. Luke Rittenhaus emerged from his cruiser, his familiar travel mug with the Apple Blossom Café’s logo in his hand. His face shuttered as I approached him.

I said, “I’d offer to buy you a donut to go with that coffee, but I hate to pander to stereotypes.”