Cold River (26 page)

H
annah sank to her knees in the snow. She was relieved, exhausted. She didn’t think she could take another step, but it was okay.

Bowie had to have seen her.

Thank God
.

She’d spotted him in the second-floor window and had waved to him from the trees.

He knew she hadn’t been killed in the blast. He knew she was trying to avoid Lowell.

She’d motioned for him to get out of there. He was next.

She’d done all she could to warn him.

Her entire body ached from the blast, from running through the snow, from the cold. She was gasping, choking with emotion and pain, aware she was still a little disoriented and in shock.

Snow melted through her pants and froze her knees. It had already filled her boots. Her feet were frozen. She was too weak to stand up, but she knew she had to summon the energy, the will to move—to hide. Lowell couldn’t find her. He couldn’t know she was still alive.

She heard something—someone moving by the shed.

Lowell?

She leaped up, her legs heavy, and pushed her way through the snow, toward the trees along the river. She’d get to the old cellar hole where she and Drew Cameron had found Bowie back in March. She could hide there. She’d be safe, at least somewhat protected from the elements.

“Hannah!”

She recognized Sean’s voice. Her feet went out from under her, but before she could fall face-first into the soft snow, he was there, his arms around her. “I’m here, baby. Elijah’s right behind me. We’re here for you. We saw your car….”

She stood back from him, his arms still around her as she saw the fear in his eyes, and she realized he’d thought he’d lost her. Her heart jumped. “Sean…” She touched his cheek, her bare hands red and frozen. She forced herself to focus. “It’s Lowell.”

“I know.”

“We have to find him. He doesn’t know I got out before my car exploded. I don’t care how he deludes himself, I was no more than a spider he had to clear out of the bathroom sink.”

Hannah saw Elijah now, behind Sean in the snow, standing next to a bare, gray-barked sapling. He had a gun in one hand, everything about him alert, serious, even as he winked at her. “It’s about time someone blew up that car of yours.”

Sean slipped an arm around her waist and lifted her off her feet and out of the snow. She already felt warmer. “I think he planted a second bomb,” Hannah said. “He’s going to kill Bowie and let him take the blame for everything. I warned Bowie, but we have to find Lowell before he—”

“Not we,” Elijah said. He looked back toward the shed and the farmhouse. “I’ll go. You two…The police and firefighters are on the way. Wait for them.”

Another explosion ripped through the quiet, echoing along the ice-bound river.

Hannah tensed, her heart pounding, but Sean continued to hold her close.

She could hear Lowell screaming, “Fire!” He appeared by the shed, frantically waving his hands. “Sean, Elijah. My wife! Help! The house is on fire!”

Elijah raised his weapon. Hannah eased herself back down into the snow. Sean kept one hand on her hip. “Stay close. Take cover if you have to.” His eyes were a dark navy, intense. “Elijah and I won’t let him near you.”

Lowell was panting as he pointed back toward the house. “Bowie—we opened up our home to him. We gave him a chance, but he hates us. All of us. You, even, Hannah. I had no idea.”

His wife staggered through the snow, coming up behind her husband. Her face was smeared with soot, her eyes red-rimmed. Her hair hung limply in her face. She seemed to be at least partially in shock. “I was on the stairs…Bowie was right behind me. He…he couldn’t…” She was shaking, her voice hollow. “He didn’t get out in time.”

Hannah forced herself not to react. Up ahead, smoke and flames were already visible in the upper-story windows of the farmhouse.

“Where did you last see him?” Sean asked.

“In the upstairs hall. He’d been at the guesthouse.” Vivian blinked back tears. “We were checking on a leak in the chimney.”

Lowell turned to Sean and Elijah. “Bowie must have seen Hannah arrive and put a bomb in her car, then triggered it somehow. I thought he was already up here checking on the chimney leak.”

Vivian shuddered. “He came here to kill us. I think he saw Hannah from the hall window. He knew she’d survived.
He decided not to wait for Lowell. He…” She started to sob. “He didn’t expect to die himself. He thought he’d get out alive. I saw it in his eyes.”

Hannah grabbed Sean’s hand into hers, but kept her gaze on Vivian Whittaker. “They’re both lying. Bowie’s in there. I’m going after him—”

Sean squeezed her hand, and Elijah stepped in close to her, both brothers obviously ready to stop her if she tried to make a break for the burning farmhouse. “Easy, Hannah,” Elijah said. “You’re hurt, and this is what Sean knows how to do.”

“You can put that gun away, Elijah,” Lowell said.

Elijah shook his head. “Nope. Can’t.”

Vivian sniffed at him. “You have your killer.”

“Yes, we do,” Elijah said stonily, then turned to Sean. “Do your firefighter thing, brother. Let’s hope these two failed and Bowie is still alive.”

Sean ran into the house through the back door, covering his head with his coat to protect himself as much as possible against the smoke and flames. Right now the fire was contained to the second floor, but it would spread quickly in the farmhouse, with its old, tinder-dry beams. Every firefighter he knew in Vermont hated old-house fires.

Doing his “firefighter thing” amounted to getting in and out of there fast.

Preferably with Bowie alive.

Staying low, Sean raced through the kitchen and down a short hall to the living room. He could hear the rush of the fire on the second floor.

He found Bowie sprawled facedown at the bottom of the stairs, semiconscious but alive. He was deadweight as Sean got hold of him. “You’re too damn big, O’Rourke. Up on your feet. Let’s get out of here.”

“I saved her life and the bitch left me here to die. The
blast knocked me off balance on the stairs.” He was disoriented, struggling to breathe. “I was carrying her—”

“She’s got Hannah and Elijah to deal with now. Come on. We don’t know how many bombs this bastard planted in here. He doesn’t need to call them in to trigger them. A spark—”

“Right,” Bowie said, more alert.

With Bowie leaning against him, Sean moved back to the hall and the kitchen. Firefighters in full gear entered the same door he had. Zack Harper, in the lead, got hold of Bowie. Sean warned him about the possibility of more bombs. Another firefighter reached for Sean, but he shot out the door, past more firefighters.

He sucked in the cold, clean air and put his coat back on.

A visibly shaken Beth Harper was there with the rest of her ambulance crew. “You and Elijah are idiots,” she said to Sean. “Wait until Jo gets back from D.C. In the meantime, let’s get some oxygen on you.”

“I don’t need oxygen.”

Beth started to argue with him, but Sean zeroed in on Hannah by the woodshed with Elijah. She was standing with her arms crossed in front of her, and all he could think of was the agony he’d felt when he’d seen her burning car, the relief when he and Elijah had spotted her prints in the snow.

Beth gave a resigned sigh behind him, but he didn’t need her permission. He was already running, focused only on getting to Hannah.

He scooped her into his arms. “Bowie’s safe,” he said, kissing her, “and I love you, Hannah. I love you.”

Elijah grunted. “Finally,” his brother said.

Hannah pressed her forehead onto Sean’s chest and he thought he heard her sniffle, but when she raised her eyes to him, she was smiling. She was so self-contained, so reserved, he thought. Half the damn town was arriving—
state and local cops, firefighters, the feds on the task force—but this time, she didn’t seem to care who might see her.

“I love you, too,” she whispered.

Sean winked at her. “More to come,” he said.

They turned to Lowell and Vivian Whittaker, standing side by side, not touching, under Elijah’s watchful eye. Hannah spoke first, addressing Lowell. “Bowie didn’t find Drew’s cabin and tell those killers,” she said. “It was you. You followed his trail up the mountain and found the cabin and told Kyle Rigby and Melanie Kendall.”

Lowell met her gaze dead on.

“And it was you at the crypt,” Hannah said, undeterred, “knocking the rock onto Bowie, calling my name.”

“You’re wrong,” Lowell said coldly. “You local people always stick together against the outsider. It was all Bowie. Those two killers hired him as their local contact. He helped them. He has his own scores to settle here. He knew Vivian and I were on the verge of figuring out he was involved with these killings.”

Hannah tightened her hands into fists. Sean remembered her at the bar fight back in March and thought she might jump Lowell, but she just glared at him. “You went to the crypt in daylight because it’d be easier to explain your presence. You could say you were up there indulging your passion for Vermont history and old tombstones.”

Lowell sniffed at her. “Your lower-class roots are strong, aren’t they, Hannah? You’ll never escape your past. I’m disappointed in you.”

“What did you do, sneak into the crypt to make the bomb that killed Melanie Kendall? Did you leave behind some of your materials? You wouldn’t risk going back there when the police were combing the area for clues. You waited.” Her voice was steady, the budding prosecutor at work. “You tried to get rid of Bowie. He was both a threat and a perfect fall guy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You people are so clannish. You can’t see through your ties to one another to the truth.”

Elijah looked at Sean. “Do you want to shoot him, or shall I?”

Lowell paled, clearly not knowing that Elijah wouldn’t shoot unless in self-defense.

Vivian was shivering uncontrollably. “Our beautiful house on the river is in flames, and you heartless people dare to accuse us….” She sobbed and brushed a tear out of the corner of her eye. “I’ll never come back here.”

Sean slipped his arm around Hannah and focused on Lowell Whittaker. “Who taught you how to build a bomb? Who told you what materials you’d need?”

Elijah kept his gun steady. “Did one of your hired killers give you instructions?”

Lowell didn’t answer. His wife was silent now, staring at the man she’d married as if seeing him for the first time. But it was an act, Sean thought. Whatever the police could prove or couldn’t prove, Vivian Whittaker had figured out her husband was a murderer. She’d done what she could to keep Bowie from getting out of the fire alive.

Elijah lowered his weapon, and Sean felt Hannah’s arm come around his waist and hold him as he and his brother watched Scott Thorne place the man who’d ordered their father’s death under arrest.

No one stopped Hannah as she made her way to Bowie, who sat on the side of a stretcher under Beth Harper’s watchful eye. She stepped back, giving them a moment. He pulled off his oxygen mask. “Sean’s been a damn fool.”

“You, too, Bowie.” Hannah shook her head and tried to smile. “As strong as you are from all your years hauling rock, and look at you now.”

He grinned at her. “Who just jumped from an exploding car?”

“I jumped
before
it exploded.”

But there was no humor in his dark eyes as he blinked up at her. “A good thing.”

“I’ve been a damn fool, too,” she whispered.

“This was a close one for both of us.” He nodded back to the farmhouse, firefighters working hard to put out the flames and save the structure. “Thanks for the warning. I’d never have gotten out of there if I hadn’t spotted you down here. You could have stayed hidden, not taken any chances—”

“No, I couldn’t have.”

“I knew…” He sighed heavily. “I knew that first bomb was meant for you.”

“I never suspected you, Bowie. Not even for a split second.”

“Poe?”

“He’s curled up in the blankets in the back of your van. We’ll make sure he stays warm.”

“I came up here to check on the chimney. It was all a setup.” He looked down at his callused hands holding the oxygen mask in his lap. “Vivian took advantage when I stumbled on the stairs while I was carrying her butt to safety.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

“Sean, Elijah and I all heard her lie about what happened.”

“She grabbed the rail and kicked me from behind. I was already off balance, and I fell down the stairs, hit my head. Next thing I know, Sean’s helping me up.” He winced, the fading bruises of his earlier encounter with Lowell Whittaker visible in his pale face. “She threw her lot in with her husband in the end. With me dead, she could tell her version of events.”

“I’m sorry, Bowie.”

“Not your fault.” He looked back toward the woods and
the river, the sky cloudless against the white landscape. “I’d like to build a place on that old cellar hole on the river and live as a hermit.”

“I don’t blame you. Right now just do as the paramedics say and take care of yourself. Then we’ll see.”

“I’d have helped Drew with his cabin if he’d asked.” Bowie stared down at the oxygen mask in his hands, his mind obviously drifting. “Vivian’s rough on Lowell. She belittled him about you and Sean. She was constantly comparing him to the Camerons.”

“She’s a controlling, abusive woman,” Hannah said.

“Why’d she take Lowell’s side in the end?”

“She couldn’t let anyone find out about his role in the killings. That by itself represented an existential threat to her.”

Bowie grinned through his pain. “Existential threat, Hannah?”

She smiled at him. “Put your oxygen back on.”

He didn’t. Instead, he said, “I think every time he arranges a killing, he thinks of her. He just doesn’t have the guts to stand up to her.”

“Does she know he hates her?”

“What do you think?”

“She knows.”

I
t was dusk by the time the police finished with them, but dusk came early to northern New England in January. Hannah had just finished reporting the events of the day to Devin and Toby when the Cameron brothers arrived at the café and gathered at the big table overlooking the river.

“Here, Hannah,” A.J. said. “Have a seat.”

She pulled out a chair between him and Sean. She ached all over, but she was warm. Jo, Grit and Myrtle were en route from Washington. They all planned to meet up the street at O’Rourke’s before it closed.

“Why did Lowell do it?” A.J. asked.

“It made him feel powerful,” Hannah said. “He was passive and cerebral in person, especially with his wife, but he was cold, calculating and bold in his work pairing his clients and his killers. He really was afraid Bowie was working against him.”

Elijah nodded. “He was in bed with some ruthless people.”

“The thought of Lowell hiding in the cellar with the money jar—fixated on me—gives me the creeps.” Hannah winced, surprised at how calm she was. “He must have grabbed it and run, then panicked and ditched the jar in the cellar.”

Sean leaned in closer to Hannah. “I’m guessing Kyle
Rigby and Melanie Kendall didn’t know Lowell was their middleman, the guy who paid them and gave them assignments. Lowell hired them on his own behalf to kill Pop and then Ambassador Bruni, because they were getting too close to him. Then he had them go after Nora and Devin. He killed Melanie himself. He’d have killed Kyle, too, if he’d had to.”

“It wasn’t another of his contract killers,” A.J. said. “Lowell made the mess he was in into a bigger mess. He was afraid of what Bowie and Hannah knew.”

“How many killers do you suppose he had on his payroll?” Hannah asked.

“Law enforcement has his computer,” Elijah said. “They’ll find out.”

Hannah saw Judge Robinson enter the warm café. He was pale and obviously shaken by the day’s events as he walked behind the glass case and helped himself to a mug of coffee. “Just when I think I’ve seen everything in my long career,” he said, shaking his head in dismay as he joined them at the table with his coffee, “along come Lowell Whittaker and his faithful wife, Vivian. Dear heavens. Lowell thought he could put killers together with people who wanted killing done and not engage in any violence himself, but he certainly took advantage of the opportunity once presented, didn’t he?”

A.J. sat back. “He won’t be back here playing the gentleman farmer again anytime soon.”

In the ensuing silence, Hannah decided what she had to do. No more dancing around the subject. No more waiting. She was who she was. Abruptly, without looking at the men seated at the table with her, she said, “For those of you who don’t know, my father spent five years on and off in state prison. It’s not a secret, but it’s not something I talk about. I don’t want to wonder who knows and who
doesn’t know, or tiptoe around the subject. I’m not proud of anything he did wrong, but I did love him. My brothers did as babies, too.” She paused, picturing her father with Devin in one arm and Toby in the other, all of them laughing on a rock above the river. She smiled at the memory and promised herself she’d share it with her brother. “I remember.”

No one spoke. She got up and headed out of the café and into the center hall, then back to the mudroom. She grabbed a coat and burst outside, through the snow to the riverbank.

She heard the back door creak open and thud shut and knew it was Sean.

He slipped an arm around her waist. “You miss your folks,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I miss mine, too.”

She didn’t respond, just leaned into him and stared down at the frozen river.

“I have a feeling,” Rose said, “that you won’t be doing any quilting by the fire this winter.”

After everyone had left the café, she and Hannah had dragged the old trunk up the stairs and stacked the swatches into piles: definite potential, maybe with some work, trash. Sean had gone up to the lodge with his brothers. Rose had stayed behind.

“Bowie wasn’t just protecting me in that bar fight,” Hannah said, “and he wasn’t completely out of control.”

“I know. Hannah…” Clearly pained, Rose didn’t continue.

“Those men were drunk. Derek Cutshaw, especially.”

Rose stared at the fabric sorted on the worktable. “I was in a bad place last winter and fell for the wrong man.”

“Derek?”

Rose hesitated, then nodded. “I haven’t wanted anyone
to know. I was so stupid. He’s manipulative and possessive. I dumped him in March, and he didn’t like it.”

“Bowie knew about the two of you?”

“Derek told him, bragged to him. Bowie tried to warn me that things could get ugly. I didn’t listen. He probably saved my brothers from getting arrested that night by taking matters into his own hands. I’ve been in a very dark place, Hannah.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Derek and me…the insults…the bar fight—he was also talking about me that night. Not just you.”

Hannah could feel her friend’s pain and embarrassment. “Rose, don’t judge yourself—”

“I pride myself on my good judgment, but I let Derek Cutshaw into my life. Then I didn’t tell you that his insults weren’t about you. I didn’t tell anyone else.”

“It doesn’t matter who they were about or if they were true or false. He was in the wrong.”

Rose looked pained. “What he said—it’s not something you live down in a small town. No one really ever believed you…”

Hannah smiled through her own discomfort. “Why, because I can’t make that kind of mistake?”

Rose managed a smile back. “No, because everyone knows everything about you. You live right in town and run the café, and people have been looking out for you for years. Hannah…” Tears shone in Rose’s eyes. “I’m not proud of myself. I’m sorry you had to go through this. It’s all because of me.”

“Derek is a jerk and a heel and I hope he never bothers either of us again.”

“I never thought I’d be in this position,” Rose said, her voice quiet now. “I was recovering from a series of tough missions. Derek is cocky, good-looking. A mean drunk,
though. And here we are. My brothers can’t know, Hannah. I couldn’t stand it if they did.”

“Do you think your father knew?”

“Whatever he knew, he kept to himself. It wouldn’t be that way with A.J., Elijah and Sean.” She gave a small laugh. “They need another forty years to mellow.”

Hannah grinned. “I wouldn’t have called your father ‘mellow’ even at seventy-seven.”

Pensive again, Rose ran her fingertips over her fabric. “I haven’t heard from Derek since the fight at O’Rourke’s in March.”

“Bowie kept him from saying your name that night. Maybe Derek got the message and decided to be smart and stay away from you.” Hannah deliberated a moment, but decided she had to say the rest. “Rose, do you need to report Derek to the police for what he did to you?”

“No. What he did to me wouldn’t put him in jail. My brothers were at O’Rourke’s that night. Derek was nasty and out of control, and it would have been easy for things to get seriously out of hand. Bowie shouldn’t have done what he did, but maybe it would have been even worse if he hadn’t.”

“What’s done is done. Nick Martini?”

“A sexier mistake.”

“One you’d make again?” Hannah asked.

“I’m not a good judge of men. You understand you can’t tell my brothers, don’t you?”

“Maybe you should give them a chance.”

“They’ve gone through enough. Promise me.”

“I think Sean’s guessed.”

“Yes, well—” But Rose broke off and smiled. “I noticed you didn’t argue when I said you wouldn’t be doing any quilting by the fire this winter.”