The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) (15 page)

Jeb stood at the window and watched Rachel running up the garden, her hair blowing in the wind. Her limp was a little more marked. She had to be tired. His chest hurt and it had little to do with damaged ribs.

He had not anticipated her owning the newspaper. He’d had no intention of involving her in this way. Now they were looking at her as an accessory to arson. She was being positioned with the enemy against her own hometown.

Remorse twisted through him, along with something darker, trickier. A crackling anticipation that sparked with unease.
Don’t lie to m
e . . .
Not even by omissio
n . . .

He hadn’t told her his suspicions about Sophia’s and Peter’s deaths. Nor his concerns over Amy’s suicide, the timing of it all. It would’ve been too much for her, on top of everything else today.

Promise you’ll be totally open with me about everything, even if you think I’ll find it hard to swallow.

He inhaled deeply, watching her disappear round the side of the house. The boathouse windows rattled in another blast of wind, and flying debris ticked against the panes.

Besides, they were only that, dark suspicions. Nothing proved. Yet. He was not hiding anything.

Lily LeFleur wasn’t cut out to be a cop’s wife. She worried. All the time. She knew what could go wrong, and it ran away with her imagination. She listened to the distant sirens as she paced her living room, tapping her wrist with her fingertips in an effort to stay calm. The night sky in the northwest glowed a dull orange. The west wind was strong, branches scratching against her windows, cones bombing on the roof. She had the radio on softly, set to the local station. The boys were asleep, or she hoped they were. They were safe on this south end of the valley. Adam must be tired. He’d been on shift since early this morning, hadn’t even come home for supper. This was unusual.

When Adam had worked undercover in Edmonton, he was gone for long stretches, weeks sometimes. When he came back, his mind was filled with rough stuff he couldn’t talk about. The other RCMP wives had said she needed to let him decompress, that she should stand back, allow him to watch mindless television, do whatever it was he needed until he came round to being in a good place again.

But Lily was not good at standing back.

She hated being alone, and when he returned after a job,
she
needed to talk, to be held, to physically comfort. It ate at her not to know what he was thinking, feeling. They used to fight about it. He’d get angry, say she was overly needy.

It was why they’d moved back to Snowy Creek. He’d quit the Mounties and taken a top job with the local force. A more administrative job. Lily liked that. This ski town was low on crime, or at least it was a different kind of crime; things were occasionally stolen out of cars left unlocked in the skiers’ day lot. There were drugs, kids getting into trouble, drunk driver
s . . .
but essentially a safe village in which to raise their sons. To keep her husband home. Alive.

Lily passed the cabinet. Then again. She checked her watch. Three a.m. Adam could be out all night helping with that fire. She went to get laundry, needing to busy her hands, fight the urge to go to the cabinet.

She sorted through his stuff, separating light and dark. Something made her do it, put his black T-shirt to her nose. Perfume. She could detect perfume. She went stone still. She sniffed again, burying her nose deep, a sick, dark feeling bleeding through her chest, pushing up into her throat. Carefully, she laid his shirt out flat on the washer, going over it inch by inch as if it might yield some forensic clue.

She picked out a lone, long hair, held it up to the laundry light. Coppery gold.

Lily didn’t recall leaving the laundry and opening the cabinet, didn’t even think about it until she was on her third glass of vodka and feeling sick with the taste of it yet unable to get enough to make the hurt and anger, the humiliation and rage, the desperation, fear, and loneliness go away.

When Adam came home she was in bed. She heard him come in. Her bedside clock glowed 4:12 a.m.

She lay dead quiet, room spinning softly, edges of her mind blurred. He showered in the bathroom as she lay there listening to the water. Which was worse? That he was in danger on the job or fucking some slut? Maybe he’d been sleeping with other women when he was allegedly working undercover in Edmonton, too. Maybe that was why he hadn’t ever warmed to her immediately when he came home. Tears burned in her eyes.

He came out of the bathroom in the dark. The bed shifted as he got in. Lily wondered if he’d been washing off fire smoke or the scent of the woman he was screwing.

He reached under the covers, touched her with his fingertips. “Lily?” he whispered.

She squeezed her eyes tight, didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t want him to smell the drink on her breath.

“Night,” he whispered. The bed moved as he turned away from her, rolling over onto his side.

Annie Pirello clicked open another article. They hadn’t called her to help with the fire, at least not yet. She’d already done a double shift today. But she couldn’t sleep either, so she was sitting at her kitchen table researching anything she could find on Jebbediah Cullen. Coming from Montreal, his story was new to her.

She sat back, sipped her tea, listening to the faint sound of choppers up valley, the sirens, the police chatter on her radio as she read the piece on her laptop screen. It detailed the crime nine years ago. Annie noted that it was Chief Constable Sheila Copeland LeFleur who had been the top cop in charge at the time. Adam LeFleur’s mother. Luke LeFleur, her younger son, had been one of the key witnesses, along with Rachel Salonen, Clint Rudiger, Levi Banrock, Trey Somerland, and Harvey Zink. She set her mug down and clicked open another story.

Luke LeFleur, according to this article, was killed in action during a peacekeeping deployment five years ago. It was noted in the article that Luke’s father, a Mountie working undercover in Alberta, had died a hero when he was shot by a member of the gang he’d infiltrated. Luke had been five years old at the time, Adam nine. Sheila had been left a single mother of two boys. They’d moved to Snowy Creek not long after the shooting when Sheila Copeland LeFleur accepted a job with the Snowy Creek PD. Annie rubbed her brow.

This town was like so many other small communities, close-knit, everything interlinked. While the resort community of Snowy Creek could see up to forty thousand visitors over a busy ski weekend, the full-time resident population was closer to ten thousand. Many were transient workers from other countries, and under the age of twenty-six, which left a smaller, more tightly knit core of true locals who probably closely guarded their own interests against a constant sea of seasonal change. Nine years ago, the population had been even smaller.

And now it looked as though Cullen was back.

Annie got up, went to the window, drew the blinds. She was also pretty sure there was still something between Cullen and Salonen, from what she’d seen through the trees tonight. She wondered what it was, because when Salonen had come into the station earlier tonight, she’d clearly been spooked by the idea of a dark-haired stranger.

Annie knew scared when she saw it.

What had changed between Salonen’s visit to the station and Cullen’s visit to her house?

CHAPTER 12

Beppie Rudiger was out before sunup. The grizzly had returned during the night and tried to get into her beehives. She was now rigging a higher voltage electrical wire around the grove where her hives were stacked. She’d promised the girls they’d have fireweed honey to sell at the farmer’s market this fall, and so far it wasn’t coming together.

The gray dawn sky was hazy from the distant wildfire, the air tinged with the scent of smoke. Clint would probably stay at the apartment in Snowy Creek until the worst of this was over. She spooled out the wire and came to a post. Reaching into her tool pouch, she muttered an oath. Her wire clippers were gone. She racked her brain, trying to think where she’d placed them. Or whether one of the girls had asked to borrow them. She glanced up toward the house on the far side of the field. Clint’s taxidermy shed was closer. He had cutters in there.

She stomped in her gum boots up to the shed, which had been built under a giant cottonwood that would have to go because roots were pushing into the foundations.

Beppie found the key under the rock, let herself in.

The smell of pelts was thick. Mounted animal heads peered at her from the wall next to his giant walk-in freezer. The fake eyes seemed to follow her as she made her way to his work counter.

No wonder the girls got spooked coming in here. She didn’t like it either, for reasons she couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t that she didn’t like hunting. She was a capable hunter herself. She could field dress an elk with the best of them. She found the clippers she needed in one of the drawers, then stilled as something near the back of the drawer caught her eye. A woman’s ring. Clint collected things, animal heads, antlers—hunt trophies. He also kept unusual trinkets he found in the woods.

Beppie picked it up. It was silver with a hexagonal turquoise stone. She turned it between her fingers, something tugging at her that she couldn’t place. Inside were the initials CL. Disquiet rustled deeper into her. She slipped the ring into her pocket and shut the drawer carefully so it wouldn’t look like she’d disturbed anything. Clint hated anyone coming in here.

But as she turned, she bumped over a glass jar of eyeballs. They scattered across the countertop, rolling to the edge and pinging to the floor.

Beppie dropped to her knees, quickly gathering up the eyes. One of the bigger ones rolled between two sloped floorboards and disappeared under the counter. She reached under, stretching her arm into the several inches of space between counter and floor. Her hand came in contact with what felt like a flat metal chest. She moved her fingers along the smooth surface until she found a handle. She dragged it out to see if the eyeball had rolled behind it. It was an old tool chest. Padlocked. About the size of a briefcase. Dust was thick under the counter, but the surface of this chest was devoid of it, as if it had been recently wiped clean, or used, or only recently shoved down under there.

Curiosity whispered through her. Somewhere outside, a helicopter thudded up high. She tried the padlock. Definitely locked. Getting up, she went to the board on the wall above the bench where her husband hung all his keys on hooks.

Not one of them fit the padlock.

Beppie heard a voice calling in the wind. She looked up, heard it again. Susie. Her eldest daughter, calling for her. Hurriedly Beppie shoved the chest back under, positioning it carefully, sweat beading. Clint really hated anyone coming in here; she shouldn’t have. She put everything back in position, including the keys, and went out with the cutters.

“Mooom!” came the voice from behind the row of trees leading up the house.

“Down here, Susie!” she called, dusting off her pants. “Almost done with the fencing. You got breakfast ready?”

Susie popped round the trees and grinned, her thick blonde curls tussling in the smoke-laden wind. “Yup,” she said, nodding her head brightly. “Oatmeal and the blueberries I picked near the river.” She was seven years old, her front teeth were only just missing, and her nose and cheeks were freckled. Beppie’s heart squeezed with affection.

“I’ll finish here and be right up.”

Jeb lay dead still.

There was someone inside the boathouse. He was being watched. He could feel it, and it raised the fine hairs on his body. The sense of presence must have woken him. He kept his eyes closed, waited, every muscle in his body primed, ready to roll, spring.

Seconds ticked past. He could hear that the wind had abated a little. He could sense the dull light of a Pacific Northwest dawn outside.

Slowly he opened an eye. Shock slammed through him. But he controlled himself, controlled his breath. Opening his eyes fully, he met her stare.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

Quinn’s features were grave as she regarded him. She didn’t move, didn’t say a word. Her hair was a wild, wind-blown mass of soot-black curls, her nose and cheeks pink from the outside cold.

It was warm in the boathouse, though, embers still glowing behind the glass in the old stove. The light outside the windows was flat, gray. Waves chuckled against the dock and slapped along the shore. He heard a train in the distance, a screeching rumble along rails on the far side of the lake. Like he remembered. He’d always loved that sound—the sense of a traveler passing through to some distant place in this great big land.

His heart beat softly.

Stay away from Quinn. That’s understood, righ
t . . .

“You got hurt,” she said finally, coming closer.

“Not badly.”

She reached out and tentatively touched the bandage on his brow.

“Was it the fire?”

His mind raced. He never wanted to lie to her. He had to protect her. These things were mutually exclusive right now. Jeb eased himself into a sitting position, sucking air in sharply as pain sparked across his torso. The beat of his blood hammered against the gash on his brow.

“Nah,” he said. “I got away from the fire. Just tripped and fell.”

Her eyes narrowed sharply and Jeb got a sense she didn’t believe him.

“That’s my granddad’s shirt,” she said.

Jeb glanced down at the lumberjack flannel and a smile pulled over his mouth. “Yeah, it is. How does it look on me?”

She pursed her lips. “Okay.” She glanced at his leather jacket draped over the back of the chair, then her eyes went back to the bandage on his head. “Rachel had blood on her pants. Was it yours? Did she save you?”

Jeb felt his smile deepen. The movement pulled at the edges of his wound, making his whole face hurt. His stomach hurt too, where he’d been kicked. He felt as though he’d been dragged through the bush behind a team of Clydesdales.

“Yeah, Rachel saved me. She’s my hero.”

Quinn studied him seriously, thinking about this. “I hit her with my backpack.”

“Oh, did you?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

She looked away, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

Jeb waited. Tense. Unsure.

Quinn glanced up suddenly. “What were you and Rachel fighting about last night?”

“We were just discussing something.”

“I heard you outside the door. It was a fight.”

He leveled a mock glare. “Then you would know what we said, if you heard, wouldn’t you?” Swinging his legs off the bed, he reached for his boots.

She watched him put them on. He could smell the fabric softener in her soft pink fleece sweater, fruit shampoo in her wild curls. His heart swelled so tight against the edges, he thought it would burst.

“Here’s the deal, Quinn,” he said, hands on his thighs. “Your aunt was worried I followed you at school. She was really mad about that. I came to tell her it was okay, that I don’t hurt children, or anybody.”

“Where do you come from?”

Shit. He was in a corner here.

“The city,” he said. “I have some things I need to do here.”

“The city? Lik
e . . .
Vancouver?”

“Yep.”

“That’s where I lived. That’s where my house was.”

“Really?” Tension wound tighter in Jeb. He shot a glance at the door. He needed Rachel. He needed to step away from Quinn before things started going sideways. He needed distance.

She inhaled deeply. “She sent you, didn’t she?”

His gaze shot back to Quinn. “What?”

“Rachel knows. I told her. She knows that my mom sent you.”

Confusion raced through Jeb. “She does?”

“Yup.” Quinn nodded her head of curls. “From heaven. Like an angel. To watch me. Because I’ve got nobody.”

Jeb stared at her, his heart cracking clean in two. Silence swelled.

Her eyes began to gleam. “That’s why Rachel went to save you from the fire. She knows that my mother would have wanted that.”

God.
Emotion punched into Jeb, thoughts of Sophia tumbling through his mind, his own grief over losing her suddenly acute. She was one of the only people who’d believed in him. A dear friend. She’d given him his life back, given him his daughter, fueled him with a will to live, to return to Snowy Creek and fight for what was his right. He’d loved Sophia and Peter in so many ways. He could only imagine the depths of Quinn’s young grief. This angel thing was a survival tool for her right now. A way to cope, to move forward.

Jeb knew what this was like. To imagine things. Good things, in order to block the bad. His whole childhood had been like that—one of self-delusion.

But he was unsure how to handle this. And then she saved him.

“You want breakfast?” she said.

Relief, warmth, rushed through his chest. He smiled. “Yeah, sure,” he said. And he knew by sidestepping this angel thing, he was only fueling it. But it was the lesser of many evils right now. They could work through this.

She reached out shyly, yet determinedly, for his hand. He took hers in his. Small, warm. Jeb felt a clutch in his chest so tight it stole his breath.

She tugged. “Come.”

“Where to?”

“The kitchen.”

“Oh, Quinn, wait, maybe that’s not such a good idea.”

Hurt flared through her features. “I thought you wanted breakfast.”

“I didn’t think you meant in the kitchen in the main house.”

“That’s where breakfast is.”

“Your aunt might not be ha—”

“She’s sleeping. My aunt doesn’t care about me!” Then in a flash, tears misted her eyes and her nose turned pink. “My daddy used to make me pancakes on every Sunday, and on holidays.”

Conflict warred softly, dangerously inside Jeb. “I know,” he whispered before he could stop the thought, the words. “Your favorite is pineapple pancakes. With marmalade.”

Her eyes flared to his, glittering and wide, her mouth forming a perfect
O
.

“How do you know?” she whispered. Then as something dawned in her features, a smile cracked her gorgeous, eccentric little face in two, showing the gap between her front teeth. “Of course you know!”

And with that she spun round and led him determinedly out the door of the boathouse. “Rachel has pineapple tins. I saw them,” she said as skipped up the garden alongside Jeb, her little hand clutching his. He felt wind against his face. The chill of dawn was tinged with the faint scent of wildfire smoke that lingered, bringing with it a sense of foreboding.

“We better be quiet, okay?” he whispered as they opened the front door.

Trixie wiggled at the sight of them, her tail thumping in her basket. It was warm inside, coals still pulsing softly in the fire. Jeb’s eyes ran quickly over the interior. Not much had changed since he’d last been inside here. The sense of homecoming, of traveling full circle, was suddenly surreal.

Quinn was looking up at him.

He smiled.

She grinned. “The tins are in that cupboard up there.” She pointed above the microwave. “I can’t reach.”

Jeb entered the kitchen, feeling invasive. Rachel would kill him, but it was Quinn he couldn’t let down now, his daughter. Rachel would have to understand. He opened the cupboard, perused the contents. Rachel’s things, her food, her shopping. It had been a long, long time since he’d simply looked inside a grocery cupboard. There were products and labels in here that were totally new to him.

“There.” Quinn leaned up on her toes, pointing. “The pineapple chunks.”

“Shhh,” he said, finger to his lips. He reached for a tin. “We don’t want to wake her, ’kay?”

She nodded, fast. And her grin made whatever wrong he was doing feel so damn right, and worth the delight on his daughter’s face.