Stonebrook Cottage (28 page)

They retreated to the bathroom, where Kara combed Lillian's long blond hair and did her best to fashion it into a single braid down her back. "Did your mother fix your hair?" Lillian asked.

"When I was a little girl, yes," Kara said. "She liked to put it into French braids."

"She died, didn't she?"

"We were in a car accident when I was nine and my brother was fifteen."

"Do you still miss her?"

"Yes."

"Does it make you sad that she died?"

"It did. I accept it now." Kara knew they weren't talking about her mother, but about Big Mike. "She's still a part of my life."

"I talk to Big Mike sometimes," Lillian said.

Kara smiled and kissed the top of her head. "He'd like that, don't you think?"

"Henry says Pete fell from up at our tree house. He says we'll really get into trouble if people find out about it now."

"Lillian, that's not true. You didn't commit a crime—"

"We were
trespassing.
The tree house isn't on our land."

"But you and Henry didn't push Pete."

The girl shook her head solemnly. "We were swimming at Grandma's."

"Then it'll be okay. Trust me. It's unrealistic to think people aren't going to find out about the tree house and figure out what you saw. They'll climb up there and realize you could see Mike's swimming pool—"

But Lillian was done. "I don't think I want any toast with my bacon."

Her braid was lopsided, but she didn't seem to mind and skipped back to the kitchen, instructing Sam and Henry on how she liked her bacon crisp not soppy. They all sat at the table, Sam with a fresh mug of coffee, and Henry asked Kara about the bodyguard Hatch had hired. "Lillian and I don't want a bodyguard," he said. "We're fine on our own."

"Hatch and your mother will feel better—"

"Uncle Hatch will. Mom doesn't care. She just wants us to be quiet and perfect and not get in her way."

"Is that why you haven't told her everything you told me?" Kara asked quietly.

Henry refused to answer. Lillian said, "He's mad at Mom because she wouldn't let us go to the hospital and see Pete. She made us stay with Grandma and Uncle Hatch and that state trooper."

"Kara and I were at the gravel pit yesterday." Sam sipped more of his coffee, his shirt still unbuttoned. Deceptively laid-back, he spoke calmly, without drama. "You know we're the ones who found Pete, right? Kara stayed with him, and I walked up to the top of the hill to see if I could figure out how he fell. I ran across your tree house."

"Pete's going to be fine," Henry said and jumped up. "Come on, Lillian, let's go upstairs."

She wrapped two pieces of bacon in a napkin and followed her brother out of the kitchen. Kara leaned back in her chair. "That went well."

"I see what you're up against—they're just hearing what they want to hear." But Sam's mind was clearly elsewhere, and he set down his mug and placed one foot up on the opposite knee, his chair pushed back from the table. "Why two weeks before they took off from the ranch? Why not bolt the first week if it was because they were upset over seeing Parisi drown?"

Kara went to the counter for more coffee.

"There must have been a trigger that second week." He studied her, then took another swallow of coffee. "There was, wasn't there, Kara?"

"Sam, I can't—"

"You are not those kids' attorney. You're their godmother."

"I know what I am."

"I'm still going to the authorities."

She nodded.

They heard cars out on the dirt road, and Kara looked out the kitchen window and saw first Billie Corrigan pull up in her old station wagon, then Hatch in a sedan with a gray-haired man at the wheel. At first she didn't recognize him, but when he got out of the car, she winced. Of all the people he could have hired as Henry and Lillian's private bodyguard, Hatch had chosen Walter Harrison? Why? Wally was the off-duty Bluefield cop who'd wreaked such havoc on Pete Jericho's life.

He was retired now, paunchy, obviously available for the job.

Sam joined Kara at the window. "This looks encouraging."

"Wally Harrison. He would
not
be my first choice." Kara sighed. "Well, it's out of my hands."

They went out through the front door, and Hatch made the introductions while Billie popped her trunk, rolling her eyes privately at Kara, as if she knew Wally Harrison was the wrong choice.

"Obviously Wally can't stay awake twenty-four hours a day," Hatch said, "but I think he'll provide Henry and Lillian with the extra level of protection we feel they need right now, without overdoing it."

"Wally, it's good to see you." Kara smiled, trying to be polite. "We've all just been hanging out here at the cottage this morning."

Wally had the look of a man who spent a lot of time down at O'Reilly's Pub. His face was ruddy, and he was out of shape, his Hawaiian shirt barely covering his paunch. "It's been a while, Kara. You're keeping the criminals on the streets down in Texas, I hear."

Kara bristled, but said nothing.

"Wally will be as unobtrusive as possible," Hatch said quietly. "He won't interfere with your time with the kids."

She could sense that Sam didn't like this development, but he left her to Hatch and Wally and helped Billie unload several small boxes from her trunk and set them in the shade. "I'm driving Hatch back up to his mom's," Billie said, "so Wally can stay here with his car. I had some fun stuff kicking around I thought the kids might like while they're here."

"That's great, Billie," Kara said. "Thanks. I'm sure they'll appreciate it."

Billie lifted out the last box, the largest, and held it on her hip. "I see Charlie's fixed the front steps. I almost broke my damn neck on them the last time I was here. I love it that they call this place a cottage." She grinned. "It's bigger than my house."

Hatch grimaced at his sister's words. "Where are Henry and Lillian? I want to introduce them to Wally. He hasn't seen them since they were toddlers."

His imperiousness was getting to Kara. She snatched up a small box from the shade and headed for the front door. Billie was already on the way with her big box. They set the boxes on the living-room floor. Kara noticed cheap feather boas and Mardi Gras beads, drawing pads, a shoe box of crayons, glitter glue, gel pens. She smiled at Billie. "The kids'll love this," she said. "I'll give them a yell and get them down here."

She called them from the bottom of the stairs. "Henry and Lillian—come on down. Hatch is here with someone he wants you to meet, and Billie's brought you some goodies."

They didn't answer, and there was no sound of footsteps.

Kara sighed. "They must have on their Walkmans."

"I can go up and look," Billie said.

"It's okay—I'll do it. Thanks."

Sam came in through the front door with the last box. He set it on the floor, then placed a foot on the bottom step and watched Kara, his intensity unsettling. She continued up the stairs and checked Henry's room first, then Lillian's.

They weren't there.

"Kids? Where are you?"

Maybe they'd gone sullen and uncooperative on her and were hiding. She looked under the beds and in the closets, then peered out Lillian's window and checked the backyard. No sign of them.

She stood on the landing and, stemming any sense of panic, shouted down the stairs. "They're not up here!"

But Sam had already disappeared. Kara ran down the stairs two at a time, almost barreling into Sam as he returned from the kitchen. He shook his head. "They're not back there. I checked the bedroom and the bathroom as well."

"I'll tell Hatch," Billie said, white-faced, and ran out the front door.

Kara charged past Sam and raced through the kitchen and out the back door, sweat already trickling between her breasts from fear and exertion. She could feel the humidity in the air, the dew point higher than yesterday. There was a light bluish-gray haze on the horizon. She cut across the backyard into the woods, but Sam eased in behind her as she ducked down to the brook. But the places where Henry and Lillian had dunked their feet and looked for frogs were undisturbed, humming with mosquitoes on the hot summer morning.

"They didn't like the idea of a bodyguard," Kara said, "but I never thought they'd run off on me. Maybe they were more upset than I realized when you told them you'd found their tree house. I don't know…damn it!"

Sam touched her elbow. "Let's go on back before Corrigan overreacts. Henry and Lillian know this area. No one came in and snatched them." He didn't smile. "I'd have known it."

She thought of the man the kids insisted had followed them in Texas, and blood pounded behind her eyes, her throat tightening. But Sam had a point. If someone had tried to take the kids right out from under his nose, he'd have known it. Kara pushed a hand through her hair and started back up to the dirt road. "We need to find them."

They returned to the cottage and found Hatch pacing on the driveway, kicking at the dirt and cursing his niece and nephew. Billie winced as she watched her brother losing control. "Come on, Hatch—"

"Those damn kids! Where the hell are they?" He gritted his teeth. "I've had just about enough of their nonsense. We have important work to do, but they keep insisting we focus all our attention on them.
Christ!
"

Wally Harrison had drawn his weapon, a Smith & Wesson .38. Sam nodded at it. "There's no reason for that, Mr. Harrison."

"And who the fuck are you—"

"Holster the damn gun, Wally," Hatch said. "We don't need a goddamn shoot-out right now. Let's just find Henry and Lillian."

Kara regarded Hatch with fresh insight, noting the spittle on the corners of his mouth and his flared nostrils, the redness in his face. He was losing it. Hatch Corrigan, the cool behind-the-scenes operator. But she didn't have time for shock or contemplation and decided simply to say what had to be said. "Hatch, you and Walter can find Allyson and ask her what she wants to do. Sam and I can look around here. They can't have gone far—"

"You'll take Wally with you," Hatch said.

"No," Sam intervened, speaking with finality. "Mr. Harrison will only slow us down."

Wally snorted. "Just who the hell—"

"We're from out of town," Sam said, nothing about him softening. "We can't give Governor Stockwell the kind of advice you two can. Henry and Lillian didn't run off until you got here. Maybe we can calm them down."

Hatch backed off, and Kara saw what Sam had done. Not only had he pointed out Wally's inadequacies and Henry and Lillian's volatility, but he'd played on Hatch's desire to control events. Better to keep the Texans out in the woods than influencing Allyson's deci-sion-making. And if anything went wrong and things got out of hand with Henry and Lillian, the Texans could also take the fall.

Billie tugged on her brother's arm. "What do you want me to do? I'd just get lost if I tried to find them—"

"Stay here in case they come back." But Hatch didn't even look at his sister, his unpleasant, nervous gaze on Kara. "We'll stay in touch by cell phone. Wally," he said, not taking his eyes off her, "you're with me."

Wally spat in the grass. "You're the boss."

After they left, Billie exhaled in a whoosh and shook her head. "Go on, you two. I'll call Hatch if they turn up here. He can let you know. Wouldn't want to step on his toes." She smiled feebly. "Those poor kids are major-spooked, aren't they?" But she didn't wait for Kara to answer. "Good luck," she said and headed inside.

Sam was all business. "The tree house?"

Kara nodded. "That's what I'm thinking."

Eighteen

"W
e're not coming down!" Henry was on his feet, shouting down from the tree house. "Go away!"

Lillian lay flat on her stomach on the platform, her chin just over the plywood edge. Kara had a strange sense of vertigo as she looked up at them, with the gravel pit descending sharply to her right, the woods off to her left and the clouds and haze shifting, making it seem as if the oak were moving and they'd all fall at any moment.

"He's the man from Texas," Lillian said, spitting out her words as if Kara should have known. "That man with Uncle Hatch. He keeps following us."

Sam cast Kara a quick, hard look but said nothing.

"He's not here now." She could hear the tension in her voice, her breathing still labored from the fast pace she and Sam had set to get here. "I'll talk to Hatch and your mother, and we'll get this straightened out, once and for all."

"No!" Henry was having none of it. "They'll all lie to you. They'll say it wasn't him. They'll say we made it up."

"We don't want him for our bodyguard," Lillian shrieked.

Kara swallowed, her neck aching. "All right. Consider him fired."

Sam placed a palm on her back and looked up at Henry and Lillian. "Here's what we're going to do. Kara will call and make sure any search parties are called off. We know where you are. People don't need to be worrying about you. Then she'll walk back to your grandmother's house and find out what she can about this Walter Harrison character. She won't break any promises to you." He paused, but the kids didn't interrupt him. "I'll stay here with you."