Die Before I Wake (13 page)

“You, too.”

Agitation warring with relief, I watched him walk out of sight. When he was gone, I ran for my car. I’d had enough of this place. I checked the backseat for intruders, got into the Toyota, and locked all the doors. For a few minutes, I sat there with the driver’s window rolled partway down, trying to dispel the
eau de
Roger that still assaulted my olfactory nerves.

Good God, when was the last time the man had bathed? Or changed his clothes? Did he lack running water? Soap? Had he been filthy for so long, he could no longer smell himself?

Dusk had begun to settle over the river. It was time to get out of here. I had no idea which direction would lead me home, but at this point I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away from the bridge, away from Roger, away from this dark place where the sun barely broke through. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower. A long, hot one.

I put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine cranked, and then…nothing.

I turned the key a second time. Again, the Toyota failed to start. I thumped the steering wheel in frustration. I couldn’t believe this. My beautiful new car, the car I’d bought less than a week ago, the car Tom had picked because it would be safe and reliable, was dead. For all it was worth, it might as well have been a plastic toy. I didn’t know what had gone wrong, but one thing was obvious: the Toyota wasn’t going to start.

And I wasn’t going anywhere.

I called Tom at his office, but he’d just left for the hospital. Hoping to catch him en route, I tried his cell phone, but it bounced directly to voice mail. I’d be getting no help from that quarter. It looked as though, for the third time this week, he’d be spending the evening in the delivery room. There was a mini baby boom going on, his expectant mommies popping all at once. I checked my watch. It was nearly six o’clock. I really, really hated having to do this. Jeannette wouldn’t take too kindly to my interrupting whatever earth-shattering plans she had for the evening. As a matter of fact, she’d probably tell me to call a cab and then hang up on me. But I didn’t know what else to do. If worse came to worst, she could at least provide me with the number of the local cab company.

So I called the house. To my relief, Jeannette wasn’t home yet. Monica, our part-time after-school babysitter, answered the phone instead. “I’m in a bind,” I told her. “My car broke down and I need a ride. Is there anyone around who can pick me up?”

“Jeez, Mrs. Larkin, that really bites. I’d come get you myself if I had my license.”

Monica was fifteen, and her mother had promised that as long as she stayed out of trouble—she hadn’t specified to me what kind of trouble her mother was referring to—once she turned sixteen, she could take driver ed. In the meantime, Monica hoofed it.

“That’s all right,” I said. “Is Jeannette around?”

“Not yet, but she’s due any minute. She’s running a little late today. Maybe she had an uncooperative client. Sometimes, they bite, you know. The dogs, not the owners.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Riley around?”

“Actually, I think he just got home a few minutes ago. Want me to check the carriage house and see if he’s there?”

I felt a little foolish; he’d already bailed me out with the driving thing, and I hated to ask for another favor so soon. But this was an emergency. Right now, I had no other choice. “Go check,” I said.

Three or four minutes later, minutes that seemed more like hours, I heard a rustling sound and then Riley’s voice, strong and male and reassuring, said,

“Julie? What’s wrong?”

“My car won’t start, I’m somewhere in the boonies, and it’s getting dark. I don’t suppose you could come rescue me?”

“Where are you?”

I took a breath. “Swift River Road,” I said. “Parked in a turnout just before the bridge.” There was a moment of silence at the other end of the phone before he said, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

I wasn’t sure whether to feel relief or guilt. He hadn’t asked the expected question:
What in bloody
hell are you doing out there?
It wouldn’t have been an unreasonable question for him to ask; it’s just that in retrospect, the truth seemed silly and childish, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit to my newly minted hunger for the details of my predecessor’s demise.

In the deepening twilight, I huddled in the Toyota, not even daring to run the radio for fear of draining the battery. Who knew what was wrong with the damn thing? I didn’t want to make it worse. This dark place, already at the bottom of my list of favorite locations, got even creepier once the sun went down. It was not the kind of spot where a girl would choose to break down, if she were lucky enough to choose. I nibbled at my thumbnail as headlights came around the bend and approached my car. They pulled up behind me and went dark, and I recognized the shadowy hulk of Riley’s Ford pickup. Embarrassed by the depth of my relief, I got out of the Toyota and greeted him.

“What seems to be the problem?” he said.

“I stopped to look at the river—” he shot me a long, hard glance, as if he knew I was lying, and in the semidarkness I felt my cheeks go hot “—and I turned the car off. When I came back, it wouldn’t start.”

While I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my jacket for warmth, Riley lifted the hood. With a penlight, he looked around, fiddled with whatever it is men fiddle with under the hood of a car. I suspected that as the owner of a Y chromosome, he had some idea of what he was looking at, but it was all Greek to me. “I’m not a mechanic,” he said. “But it seems to me that this belt—or what used to be a belt—just might be your problem.”

I moved closer, leaned over the engine, my gaze following the beam of his flashlight. A piece of thick, black rubber hung at an awkward angle, unattached to anything. “Golly gee,” I said. “Look at that.”

“You just bought this thing. If I were you, I’d call up the dealer and give him what-for. You have roadside assistance?”

“I, um—maybe. I don’t know. Tom did all the talking.”

I sounded like an idiot. What kind of woman didn’t keep track of important details like that? Had marriage turned my brain to mush? It was obvious that Riley was thinking the same thing. The words
ditzy female
were undoubtedly flashing through his brain like neon lights. “Get your owner’s manual,” he said. “Leave the keys. It’ll have to be towed back to the dealership. I doubt anybody around here will have the part.”

Back in the pickup, he called the towing service, told them where to locate the dead vehicle, and then he pulled a hard U-turn and headed back in the direction he’d come from. We drove in silence, a silence that grew heavier with each mile we traveled. “I drove Taylor to her friend Jessie’s house,” I explained. “Somewhere in West Newmarket. I got lost coming back, took a wrong turn somewhere, and ended up at the bridge. I just thought I’d get out and take a look at the river, and—”

“You know.” The words were hard and flat, not spoken as an accusation, but as simple truth.

“Know what?”

“You know that’s where Beth died.” Oh, hell. At my sides, my hands balled into fists. I considered lying, but what was the point in continuing the charade? He already knew the truth. “Yes,” I said.

When he didn’t respond, I continued, “But I really did take a wrong turn. And once I saw the sign for Swift River Road, I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I had to see where Beth died.”

I was digging my own grave, going deeper with every word. Riley gave me another of his long, hard looks, and said, “Why?”

“Because it doesn’t feel right to me. Beth’s suicide. I realize I didn’t know her, but from what I do know about her, she seems like the last person on earth who’d kill herself. I just—” I studied his silent profile, his callused hands gripping the steering wheel. “It bothers me,” I said.

He said nothing. In the silence, I fidgeted. “Could we not tell Tom?” I asked. “Please?”

“Stay out of it,” he said. “Let it be. Stop trying to turn over rocks to see what’s underneath. You could end up hurt. I don’t want to see that.”

“I don’t understand. Why would I get hurt?” He squared his jaw and said, “What’s it to you, anyway? You should be glad she’s dead. You got Tom out of the deal. Be grateful for small favors.” It was like being kicked in the diaphragm. For an instant, all the oxygen left my lungs. And then the anger rushed in to take its place. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”

“You’re right. It is.”

I waited for him to apologize. It didn’t look as though he intended to. In the fading light, I studied his profile. “What is it you know?” I said.

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on, Riley. You obviously know something I don’t. What is it you’re afraid I’ll find out?

Tell the truth. Don’t you think you can trust me?” He laughed, a short, cynical bark. “You want to know what I think? I think you’ve watched one too many episodes of
Murder, She Wrote.
Take my advice.

Be a good little wife, stay home, and bake cookies.” It was an interesting response. Especially considering I hadn’t said anything about murder. “That’s pretty sexist,” I said.

“I’m a sexist pig. So sue me. If baking cookies doesn’t float your boat, get a job. Something to keep you occupied, so you’ll forget about playing amateur sleuth. Stop poking into other people’s business.

You’ll only stir up things that are better left un-touched.”

Aghast, I stared at him. I’d been fishing, casting my net into the unknown, throwing paint at the wall, just in case something stuck. I hadn’t expected a bite.

But damned if it didn’t look as though my new brother-in-law actually knew something he wasn’t telling me.

For the first time, I realized the man sitting beside me was a stranger. What did I really know about Riley Larkin? I knew he was handy with a chain saw and comfortable handling a stick shift. I knew he was something of a loner who’d grown up in his brother’s shadow, playing antihero to Tom’s golden-boy persona. I knew he was attractive, but it wasn’t the same kind of stop-dead-in-your-tracks-to-take-a-second-look handsomeness that Tom possessed.

Riley’s looks were quieter, the kind that grew on you gradually. You had to know him for a while before you noticed how good-looking he was.

But that was the extent of what I knew about my brother-in-law. He could be an axe murderer for all I knew. The idea wasn’t comforting, especially considering that we were alone in a car together in the middle of nowhere.

“Julie? Are you listening to me?”

I dragged my attention away from my vision of Riley as serial killer. “Yes,” I said. “I hear you.”

“Just drop the whole thing, okay? It’s better for everyone involved.”

He was probably right. I still didn’t understand why I found it so important to know the truth, except that I felt a kinship with Beth Larkin. In some inexplicable way, we were sisters. But I wasn’t about to admit that to Riley. “Truce?” I said.

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. Then sighed. “Truce.”

If he thought that meant I was going to stop search-ing for the truth, I’d allow him to continue thinking it.

After all, what Riley didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

I wasn’t quite so sure it wouldn’t hurt me.

“Did they consider homicide?” I said, blowing past her, moving down the corridor and into the bright, sunny kitchen. It was decorated in Southwestern colors, brick-red and sage-green with highlights here and there of bright yellow and teal. And in the window, basking merrily in the sunlight, sat the aforementioned cannabis plant. “Nice kitchen.”

“Homicide? Over one little plant? Isn’t that what you’d call overkill? No pun intended.”

“Not the plant,” I said impatiently. “
Beth.
Did the police rule out homicide? Did they even consider it?

Or did they automatically focus the investigation on the obvious?”

“Oh,” she said.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you said. I went out and looked at the bridge, and—”

“Why in God’s name did you do that?”

“I was in the neighborhood. I saw the road sign.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Calmly, she said, “Tea?”

“Yes, thank you. My car died on me—my new car—so Riley came to pick me up, and I swear to God, Claudia, that man knows something. There’s something really shady about Beth’s so-called suicide, and Riley knows it. Which is why—” I let out a rush of accumulated breath. “Which is why I want to know if the police looked into the possibility of homicide.”

Claudia moved smoothly to the sink and filled the teakettle, set it on the stove, and turned on the burner.

“Amazingly enough, they didn’t share the details of their investigation with me. Imagine that. But the newspaper report said they found no evidence of foul play.” She cocked her head to one side, looking for all the world like a pixie come out to play. “Don’t take too seriously anything I say when I’ve been drinking. A couple of daiquiris and my imagination goes into overdrive.”

“Don’t you dare recant your story now! This was your idea.” If I caught Claudia backpedaling away from her original position, I’d be livid.

“And I’d been drinking since noon.”

“I can’t believe this. First Riley, and now you.

What is
wrong
with you people?”

“All I’m saying, hon, is that I don’t really know what happened. Nobody does, except Beth, and she’s not about to tell us.”

“Beth, and whoever killed her.”

Claudia shrugged. “
If
she was killed. So far, we have no evidence that she was.”

“Damn it, Riley’s hiding something.” The kettle whistled, and Claudia removed it from the burner. “So what are you saying? That you think Riley killed Beth?”