River's End (9 page)

She glanced down, noticed that Olivia was watching her steadily. It gave her a little chill to see that measuring look in a child’s eyes. “What is it?”

“I have to ask you for a favor. You won’t want to do it, but I thought about it a lot, and it’s important. I need you to get me an address.” Olivia pressed her lips together, then blew out a breath. “It’s for the policeman, the one who took me to your house that night. His name is Frank. I remember him, but not very well. I want to write to him.”

“Livvy, why? There’s nothing he can tell you that I can’t. It can’t be good for you to worry so much about this.”

“It has to be better to know things than to wonder. He was nice to me. Even if I can only write and tell him I remember he was nice to me, I’d feel better. And . . . he was there that night, Aunt Jamie. You weren’t there. It was just me until he came and found me. I want to talk to him.”

She turned her head to stare out at the lakes. “I’ll tell him my grandparents don’t know I’m writing. I won’t tell lies. But I need to try. I only remember his name was Frank.”

Jamie closed her eyes, felt her heart sink a little. “Brady. His name is Frank Brady.”

Frank Brady turned the pale-blue envelope over in his hands. His name and the address of the precinct had been handwritten, neat and precise and unmistakably childlike, as had the return address in the corner.

Olivia MacBride.

Little Livvy Tanner, he mused, a young ghost out of the past.

Eight years. He’d never really put that night, those people, that case aside. He’d tried. He’d done his job, justice had followed through as best it could, and the little girl had been whisked away by family who loved her.

Closed, finished, over. Despite the stories on Julie MacBride that cropped up from time to time, the gossip, the rumors, the movies that ran on late-night television, it was done. Julie MacBride would be forever thirty-two and beautiful, and the man who’d killed her wouldn’t see the outside of a cage for another decade or more.

Why the hell would the kid write to him after all this time? he wondered. And why the hell didn’t he just open the letter and find out?

Still, he hesitated, frowning at the envelope while phones shrilled around him and cops moved in and out of the bull pen. He found himself wishing his own phone would ring so he could set the letter aside, pick up a new case. Then with a quiet oath, he tore the envelope open, spread out the single sheet of matching stationery and read:

Dear Detective Brady,

I hope you remember me. My mother was Julie MacBride, and when she was killed you took me to my aunt’s house. You came to see me there, too. I didn’t really understand then about murder or that you were
investigating. You made me feel safe, and you told me how the stars were there even in the daytime. You helped me then. I hope you can help me now.

I’ve been living with my grandparents in Washington State. It’s beautiful here and I love them very much. Aunt Jamie came to visit this week, and I asked her if she could give me your address so I could write to you. I didn’t tell my grandparents because it makes them sad. We never talk about my mother, or what my father did.

I have questions that nobody can answer but you. It’s awfully important to me to know the truth, but I don’t want to hurt my grandmother. I’m twelve years old now, but she doesn’t understand that when I think about that night and try to remember it gets mixed up and that makes it worse. Will you talk to me?

I thought maybe if you wanted to take a vacation you could even come here. I remember you had a son. You said he ate bugs and had bad dreams sometimes about alien invaders, but he’s older now so I guess he doesn’t anymore.

Christ, Frank thought with a stunned laugh. The kid had a memory like an elephant.

There’s lots to do up here. Our lodge and campground are really nice, and I could even send you our brochures. You can go fishing or hiking or boating. The lodge has a swimming pool and nightly entertainment. We’re also close to some of the most beautiful beaches in the Northwest.

Even as Frank felt his lips twitch at her sales pitch, he scanned the rest.

Please come. I have no one else to talk to.

Yours truly,

Olivia

“Jesus.” He folded the letter, slipped it back in its envelope and into his jacket pocket. But he wasn’t able to tuck Olivia out of his mind so easily.

He carried both the letter and the memory of the girl with him all day. He decided he’d write her a gentle response, keep it light—sympathetic but noncommittal. He could tell her how Noah was starting college in the fall, and how he’d been named Most Valuable Player in his basketball tournament. Chatty, easy. He’d use his work and his family commitments as an excuse not to go up to see her.

What good would it do to go to Washington and talk to her? It would only upset everyone involved. He couldn’t possibly take on a responsibility like that. Her grandparents were good people.

He’d done a background check on them when they’d filed for custody. Just tying up loose ends, he told himself now as he’d told himself then. And maybe in the first couple of years he’d done a few more checks—just to make sure the kid was settling in all right.

Then he’d closed the book. He meant it to stay closed.

He was a cop, he reminded himself as he turned down the street toward home. He wasn’t a psychologist, a social worker, and his only connection to Olivia was murder.

It couldn’t possibly help her to talk to him.

He pulled into the drive behind a bright blue Honda Civic. It had replaced his wife’s VW four years before. Both bumpers were crowded with stickers. His wife might have given up her beloved Bug, but she hadn’t given up her causes.

Noah’s bike had been upgraded to a secondhand Buick the boy pampered like a lover. He’d be loading it up and driving it off to college in a matter of weeks. The thought of that struck Frank as it always did—like an arrow to the heart.

The flowers that danced around the door thrived, due to Noah’s attention. God knew where he’d gotten the green thumb, Frank thought as he climbed out of the car. Once the boy was away at school, both he and Celia would kill the blooms within a month.

He stepped in the front door to the sound of Fleetwood Mac. His heart sank. Celia liked to cook to Fleetwood Mac, and if she’d decided to cook it meant that Frank would be sneaking into the kitchen in the middle of the night, searching out his well-hidden stashes of junk food.

The living room was tidy—another bad sign. The fact that there were no newspapers or shoes scattered around meant Celia had gotten off early from her job at the women’s shelter and was feeling domestic.

He and Noah suffered when Celia shifted into a domestic mode. There would be a home-cooked meal that had much more to do with nutrition than taste, a tidy house where he’d never be able to find anything and very likely freshly folded laundry. Which meant half his socks would be missing.

Things ran much more smoothly in the Brady household when Celia left the domestic chores to her men.

When Frank stepped into the kitchen, his worst fears were confirmed. Celia stood happily stirring something at the stove. There was a fresh loaf of some kind of tree-bark bread on the counter beside an enormous yellow squash.

But she looked so damn pretty, he thought, with her bright hair pulled back in a smooth ponytail, her narrow, teenage-boy hips bumping to the beat and her long, slim feet bare.

She carried a look of competent innocence that he’d always thought disguised a boundless determination. There was nothing Celia Brady wanted to accomplish that she didn’t manage to do.

Just, he thought, as she’d managed him one way or another since she’d been a twenty-year-old coed and he the twenty-three-year-old rookie who’d arrested her during a protest against animal testing.

The first two weeks of their relationship they’d spent arguing. The second two weeks they’d spent in bed. She’d refused to marry him, so they’d fought about that. But he had his own share of determination. During the year they’d lived together, he’d worn her down.

Unexpectedly he came up behind her and hugged her tight. “I love you, Celia.”

She turned in his arms and gave him a quick kiss. “You’re still eating the black beans and squash. It’s good for you.”

He figured he’d live through it—and he had mini-pizzas buried in the depths of the freezer. “I’ll eat it, and I’ll still love you. I’m a tough guy. Where’s Noah?”

“Out shooting hoops with Mike. He’s got a date with Sarah later.”

“Again?”

Celia had to smile. “She’s a very nice girl, Frank. And with him going off to college in a few weeks, they want to spend as much time together as they can.”

“I just wish he wasn’t so hung up on this one girl. He’s only eighteen.”

“Frank, after a half term in college, Sarah won’t be more than a vague memory. Now, what’s really wrong?”

He didn’t bother to sigh, but took the beer she held out to him. “Do you remember the MacBride case?”

“Julie MacBride?” Celia’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course. It was the biggest high-profile case of your career, and you still get sad if one of her movies comes on TV. But what about the MacBride case? You closed it years ago. Sam Tanner’s in prison.”

“The little girl.”

“Yes, I remember. She broke your heart.” Celia rubbed his arm. “Softie.”

“Her grandparents got custody, took her up to Washington State. They own a place up there, lodge, campground on the Olympic Peninsula. Attached to the national forest.”

“The Olympic National Forest?” Celia’s eyes went bright. “Oh, that’s beautiful country. I hiked up that way the summer I graduated from high school. They’ve really kept the greedy bloodsuckers at bay.”

To Celia greedy bloodsuckers were anyone who wanted to chop down a tree, demolish an old building, hunt rabbits or pour concrete over farmland.

“Tree hugger.”

“Ha ha. If you had any idea how much damage can be done by loggers who don’t have the foresight to—”

“Don’t start, Cee, I’m already eating beans and squash.”

She pouted a moment, then shrugged a shoulder and started to rise. Since putting her back up hadn’t been part of his strategy, he reached in his pocket for the letter. “Just read this, and tell me what you think.”

“So now you’re interested in what I think.” But after reading the first couple lines, she sat again, and the light of battle in her eyes melted into compassion. “Poor little thing,” she murmured. “She’s so sad. And so brave.”

She smoothed her fingers over the letter, then handed it back to Frank before she went back to stir her pot. “You know, Frank, a family vacation before Noah heads off to college would be good for all of us. And we haven’t been camping since he was three and you took an oath never to spend another night sleeping on the ground.”

Half the weight the letter had put on his shoulders slid off. “I really do love you, Celia.”

Olivia did her best to behave normally, to tuck the nerves and excitement away so her grandparents wouldn’t notice. Inside, she was breathless and jittery, and her head ached a little, but she did her morning chores and managed to eat a little lunch so no one would comment on her lack of appetite.

The Bradys would be there soon.

She’d been relieved when her grandfather had been called to the campground right after lunch to handle some little snag. It hadn’t been hard to make excuses to stay behind instead of going with him, though she’d felt guilty about being less than honest.

The guilt had her working twice as hard as she might have on cleaning the terrace outside the lodge dining room and weeding the gardens that bordered it.

It was also the perfect spot from which to watch arrivals and departures.

Olivia weeded the nasturtiums that tumbled over the low stone wall in cheery yellows and oranges, deadheaded the bright white Shasta daisies behind them and kept one eye on the turn toward Reception.

Her hands sweated inside her garden gloves, which she’d worn only because she wanted to be adult and shake hands with the Brady family without having grime on her fingers and under her fingernails. She wanted Frank to see that she was grown-up enough to understand about her mother, about her father.

She didn’t want him to see a scared little girl who needed to be protected from monsters.

She was going to learn to chase the monsters away herself, Olivia thought. Then, despite her plans, she absently swiped a hand over her cheek and smeared it with soil.

She’d brushed her hair and smoothed it into a neat ponytail that she’d slipped through the opening in the back of her red cap. She wore jeans and a River’s End T-shirt. Both had been clean that morning, and though she’d tried to keep them that way, the knees of her jeans were soiled now.

That would only prove that she’d been working, she told herself. That she was responsible.

They should be here by now, she thought. They had to be here soon, they just had to. Otherwise her grandfather might come back. He might recognize Frank Brady. He probably would. Grandfather remembered everyone and everything. Then he’d find ways to keep her from talking to Frank, to keep her from asking questions. All the planning, the care, the hopes she had would be for nothing if they didn’t get there soon.

A couple strolled out onto the terrace, sat at one of the little iron tables. One of the staff would come out to serve them drinks or snacks, Olivia knew. Then she’d lose the solitude.

Olivia worked her way along the border, half listening as the woman read about the trails in her guidebook. Planning tomorrow’s hike, debating whether to take one of the long ones and order one of the picnic lunches the lodge provided.

Ordinarily Olivia might have stopped working long enough to recommend just that plan, to give her own description of the
trail the woman seemed to favor. The guests enjoyed the personal touch, and her grandparents encouraged her to share her knowledge of the area with them. But she had too much on her mind for chitchat and continued to work steadily down the edge of the terrace until she was nearly out of sight.

She saw the big old car bumping up the drive, but noted immediately that the man driving it was too young to be Frank Brady. He had a pretty face—what she could see of it, as he wore a cap and sunglasses. His hair spilled out of the cap, wavy and sun-streaked brown.

The woman in the passenger seat was pretty, too. His mother, Olivia guessed, though she didn’t look very old either. Maybe she was his aunt, or his big sister.

She ran through the reservations in her head, trying to remember if they had a couple coming in that day, then she spotted another figure sprawled in the backseat.

Her heart began to thud in her chest, the answering echo a dull beat in her head. Slowly she got to her feet as the car coasted around the last turn and parked.

She knew him right away. Olivia didn’t consider it at all strange that her bleary memory of his face shot into sharp focus the minute Frank stepped out of the car. She remembered perfectly now, the color of his eyes, the sound of his voice, the way his hand had felt, big and gentle on her cheek.