Chapter Fifteen
Thursday, April 13 twelve-thirty p.m.
The mapping app filled the small screen with the graphic image of the neighborhood around them. A blue dot pulsed along a road. “What is this?”
“Mrs. Hawthorne pulling out of her development.”
Peach looked up at Tom, impressed. “You put a bug on her car. I see I’m not the only one with tricks up my sleeve.” The dot moved away from them at a steady clip. “Aren’t you going to follow her?”
“Let’s give her a little space. We aren’t going to lose her, but we could spook her.” They watched the screen. “She’s heading north.”
“Toward Lake Erie.”
“The boat,” they said at the same time.
The public marina was ready for a plethora of small- to mid-sized boats that belonged to middle-class citizens with sailing in their blood. In mid-April, just a handful of the docks were in use.
Tom pulled off the road, parking on a grassy embankment a couple of hundred yards before the entrance. “Get the binoculars out of my bag.”
She reached into the black bag behind his seat and found the hard case of the powerful binoculars. She whistled. “Nice toy.”
“Jeb’s not the only one who knows how to pack.” He took the high-powered lenses out of the lined case and scanned the marina. “There she is.” He handed her the glasses. “Third pier from the left.”
She lifted the glasses to her eyes. The marina popped in vivid Technicolor. “She’s really moving. There’s only one boat left. Jackrabbit IV.” She handed the glasses back.
“Bingo. She’s not alone.”
“Jack Hawthorne?”
“It has got to be.”
She vibrated in the passenger seat. “If he’s alive, then maybe Rico is. Let’s go.”
“We will. We will, I promise. But we have to plan. Think this through. Why is he hiding? Innocent men don’t hide. Guilty ones do. We mess this up, he’ll pull the anchor and be out of here.”
Without the binoculars, she could only see a boat sitting lonely in the dock. She bit her short fingernail, making it shorter. Her knee bounced. The small cabin of her used car didn’t offer a lot of space for moving around, but she could bounce a knee. Her heart had swelled with hope and pounded in her chest like a drum line. Her uncle was there. He had to be. It was so simple—why she hadn’t found him in her searches. She could practically smell his aftershave mixed with his tobacco. She wanted to call Poppy. She itched to call Poppy.
“He’s in there,” Tom announced.
“Rico?!?”
“She’s kissing the man. Probably Hawthorne.”
That made sense. Sure. Didn’t mean Rico wasn’t on the boat.
“She’s leaving.” He tossed the binoculars at her and started the sedan in a hurry. He made a U-turn and raced up the hill, turning off at the first street.
The Hawthorne minivan raced passed minutes later.
Tom turned to Peach. “Here’s what we are going to do.”
Tom got back into the car, torn between bemused and befuddled. “This is really the way you want to do it?” He started the car and pulled out of the strip mall. “I’ll be honest, I was expecting something more…cloak and dagger, less Mario and Luigi.”
The large box printed with red and white checkered board rested across her lap. “It’s weird, having a pizza with no smell. I’ve never bought one you’re supposed to take home and bake yourself. Seriously? What’s the point?”
He shrugged as he pulled the car back into traffic. “Homemade pizza hot out of the oven.”
“If I wanted homemade pizza, I would make homemade pizza. If I pay someone to make me a pizza, I want them to do the whole shebang—including baking it. Who buys a raw pizza?”
Tom grinned at her. “Katie would. And it would be a kindness to the rest of us. Of course, Tony would lose his best customer and Katie would lose naming rights to the addition Tony put on the back the restaurant.”
She laughed. “She can’t be that bad.”
“She burned water once.”
“How do you do that?”
“She was going to make oatmeal, you know, the kind that comes in a paper pouch? She put water in a pan to boil it and walked away. For a long time.”
Peach winced. “Scorched the pan?”
“Burned the hell out of it. We had to throw it away. I kind of appreciated it. Gave me an excuse to replace the old set.”
“You replaced the whole set because she ruined one pot?”
Everyone in the house had ribbed him about it. Sarcasm still bounded up. Someone broke a dish and there was always a shot about replacing the whole lot of it. “I like things a certain way when I work.”
“You consider it work?”
“While I may consider it work, I’ll remind you I enjoy my work. You haven’t lived until you’ve had my beef wellington with homemade dumplings.”
She laughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Homemade? Not pre-made, just boil it yourself?”
“You already insulted me once today. Let’s not go there again.” He pulled the sedan into the marina and parked on the opposite side of the clubhouse. “Here we are.”
“The plan is simple. Just do what I said.” She dug through her bag and retrieved her gun. She carried it ready for use, hidden beneath the box.
Tom would have preferred a more direct approach and said as much, but this wasn’t his area of expertise. Hence, he followed her lead. It had been nearly twenty years since he knew Jack Hawthorne; a lot of living happened in that time. He didn’t know this man they were approaching. If he had signed off on those accounts, he wasn’t the man he remembered.
They walked down the dock like they owned it. Peach giggled. Just two lovers strolling along the empty docks, heading toward a snazzy little number tied up at the end. They stopped to study the boats, daydreaming about the one they were going to buy someday.
“This one is cute,” she said. “Jackrabbit IV. How many do you think it sleeps?” It was a great white animal, graceful despite the size.
“I don’t know. You can look it up online.”
The walkway that made it simple for Mrs. Hawthorne to board was lying on the deck. Peach stretched casually and leaped onto the boat.
“What are you doing?” Tom asked, looking around nervously while secretly grinning at her agility. “That’s trespassing.”
She cupped her hands and looked in the window. “Oh, they’re not going to mind. I just want to see how many bedrooms something like this has.” Down below the deck she saw the soft glow of artificial light. A television. She waved Tom to come forward without looking at him.
He leaped onto the boat, landing like an elephant next to her gazelle. He frowned as he stepped over the extension cord that ran across the deck. A small generator ran with all the stealth of a souped-up lawn mower. The extension cord had a connection to a white freezer on the main floor and then disappeared down the stairs.
“Get back, get back,” she whispered as she ducked down under a hip-high window. She tossed the pizza away from her and raised her gun into a ready position.
He flattened his back against the solid wall, grabbing for a weapon. He came up with a fire extinguisher. Her raised brows, questioning his choice, was answered with a shrug of his shoulders. There weren’t a lot of options. Rope. A long, rectangular buoy and a circular one. Really, the fire extinguisher was his best option. He raised the nozzle, ready for the fireworks.
The door on the back of the cabin whispered across the wood of the deck. A man stepped out far enough that the door closed behind him.
Peach rose slowly, the gun pointed between the blades of a crumpled white cotton shirt. “Jack Hawthorne. Do not move.”
The empty hands framed by unbuttoned cuffs slowly rose in the spring air and hung there. Tom rose, copying her movement, the extinguisher nozzle aim at head height.
She circled Hawthorne until they were face to face. “Everybody thinks you’re dead.”
Tom stepped wide, wanting to see Hawthorne. The face in front of them looked tired. His beard was five days old. The brown eyes were flat and dull, sagging at the corners. Under his eyes were half-moons in deep purple tones. The hands in the air had fingers curled listlessly to the palms.
“Disappointed?” His voice was a resigned whisper.
Her face was a mask. “Are you armed, Hawthorne?”
He exhaled heavily and shook his head.
“I’m going to pat you down. Understand?”
He nodded. “Who are you?”
“Ima Ballbuster,” Tom said before she could answer. He didn’t want Hawthorne knowing her name. He’d done enough to drag her into this. He wasn’t going to shove her in further.
Hawthorne saw him for the first time. He blinked, trying to place the face. “Do I know you?”
In an instant, he made a calculated decision. “You use to know me. Tom Riley.”
“Tom?” He shook his head as though to clear the fog. “You were just a kid. What are you doing here?”
“Twenty years ago, I was a kid. Now I’m a forensic engineer, hired to investigate the crane failure.”
“Cover our guy for me.” She tucked the gun into her shoulder holster and got to work. Hawthorne just stood there while she patted him down. “You boys keep talking. Don’t mind me.”
Hawthorne let the silence hang for a few minutes and then sighed. “What do you want?”
“The other men,” she said, refusing to meet Tom’s gaze. “Where are the other two that went into the lake?”
Hawthorne turned ash gray. His eyes swept across the boat deck, touching on the freezer, the dock, the water. He shook his head.
“Let’s go inside and talk.” Tom opened the door, holding it for his prisoner.
“My wife, my boys. They don’t know anything about this.” Resignation came off him in waves. Tom knew then the man hadn’t been changed so much by the years.
“Relax, Jack. I just want to talk.”
Jack led the way to the living quarters. Tom followed while Peach searched the boat. They reached the living room, where Jack turned the television off and stood with his fists buried in his pockets. “Does anyone else know where I am?”
“If they do, I didn’t tell them.” He set the fire extinguisher down and ran his hands through his hair. “Christ, Jack. What happened? Why are you hiding out? I have so many questions…there’s a traffic jam in my head.”
Jack laughed, taking years off his face. He collapsed onto the cushioned couch. “You haven’t changed.” He rubbed his temples.
He noticed now, in the artificial lighting, that Jack hadn’t escaped the accident unscathed. His face looked like pigeons had feasted—small, healing gouges covered his face. Something was wrong with his right side. It hung lower, caused pain.
“How did you survive?”
Jack’s laughed turned hysterical, the light in his eyes not quite sane. “I have no idea. None. One second Morales is ordering me to the floor…the next. Have you ever been in an accident? It’s like everything was in slow motion. I remember thinking that…and then I was in the water. I’ve tried to remember, but when I do, well, it scares the shit out of me.”
“Why hide? How did you hide?”
“Why? Because that crane was tampered with. I noticed something odd as I was climbing, nothing big, just something I wanted to tell Morales about. When it started to fall, I saw my killer, Joe Carter. He was in the man basket with a fucking smile on his face.”
“He’s among the missing. Carter, you, and Morales. The other men in the basket died.”
“I know. My wife told me. He killed them all.”
“What did you see? What did you want to tell Morales about?”
“When I was climbing up, I noticed the paint was melted on two of the supports. It struck me as odd, and I was going to ask him if that had always been that way.”
A primitive scream shredded the air, and both men were on their feet defensively. Peach flew down the stairs, barely touching any, and took Hawthorne down. “Bastard. You son of a bitch.” She tore into him, punching, slapping, and gouging the soft spots.
“Enough.” Tom lifted her by the waist off Hawthorne. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“He killed him! He fucking killed him!”
Hawthorne paled to a bleached white underneath the blossoming bruising. “You got it all wrong. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t.”
Peach dangled from Tom’s hands, flailing her arms and legs for some purchase.
Hawthorne crab-walked as far away from Peach as the small space would allow. “They were dead where I found them. I swear on my children. They were dead when I found them.”
“Where are they now?”
“In the freezer. I thought if all three of us were missing, they wouldn’t suspect I survived.” Hawthorne came to his knees. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
Peach twisted, escaping Tom’s grip. She bolted for the tiny bathroom and emptied her stomach. She finished, wiped her mouth, and staggered to the door.
“Who is she?” Hawthorne asked.
He watched her climb the stairs to the deck, wanting to be a step behind her. She was hurting, bleeding where no one could see. “She calls one of the popsicles you made family.”
“Oh God.”
Tom climbed the stairs, praying she was still on the boat. The thought hadn’t occurred to him that she would leave. It should have; she’d certainly proven herself to be unpredictable. He burst through the door and found her bent over the side of the boat. Heartbreaking sobs disrupted the afternoon calm. He turned her into his arms, wrapping her up. Her face buried in his chest, he not only heard those cries, he felt them. Each one tore at him. He pressed his lips to her head and then covered her with his chin. The harder she cried, the harder he held her, protecting her in the storm.
It took several minutes for her breathing to even, for the sobbing to subside to tears. They ran down his chest, soaking his shirt. He tightened his hold when embarrassment and regret inevitably reared.
“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. Her ragged breathing shook every word. “I don’t know why I’m jagging this way. It’s not like I didn’t know he was…”
Knowing it, saying it, and owning it were three different things. “You did it,” he whispered. “You did what the Coast Guard couldn’t do. You kept your promise to Poppy to find Rico, and we’ll bring him home. It’s nearly over, thanks to you.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.” She looked up at him, her face red and swollen. “Why doesn’t it feel that way?”
Thursday, April 13 six p.m.
The afternoon dragged on into an endless evening, full of action and yet still. She watched the happenings, a voyeur that saw without being seen. The police came. Not with siren’s blaring but in unmarked cars. The questions they asked or, perhaps more telling, the ones they didn’t ask, indicated an invisible hand was at work. Tom had placed a call to Jeb. That started it all. As the sun weakened, she knew Hawthorne’s family was no longer in the state. Soon, he would join them. The charges under consideration centered around the body of her uncle and Carter. At Tom’s suggestion, she had discouraged the charges, though she vaguely remembered doing so. She had Rico. Having him earlier wouldn’t change the end for her or Poppy, but even in this numb state, she understood that Hawthorne’s family—his wife, his kids—their ending wasn’t written yet. Theirs could be happier.
The pilot handed Tom two boxes as they loaded the plane. That last thing she’d eaten was a breakfast sandwich and coffee this morning. Probably didn’t count since she’d thrown up whatever was left over the side of the boat.
She sat in the center seat, not wanting to see out the window. Tom buckled her in, pressed a kiss to her cheek, and settled in next to her. Once airborne, he opened the boxed meals.
“Eat a little something.” He tried to entice her with crusty, fresh bread, layers of chilled turkey, and a small dish of fruit. It might as well have been made of plastic.
“I’m just…” Words sluggishly appeared in her head. Empty. Hollow. Sad. Tired. None came off her tongue.
He laced his fingers with hers, moved closer. “Rest. Sleep if you can.”
It was a unique experience to cry on a strong man’s shoulder. Usually, she relied on her own abundance of strength. When even that abandoned her, she fell into his arms and found a place of comfort and healing. No judgment. No ridicule. Just thoughtful caring.
“Peach, baby.” He called her back. The cabin was dark, and they were descending.
She wouldn’t have thought sleep to be possible, but she had missed the entire ride. Sitting tall, she inhaled deeply. The haze of the day thinned, and she felt more like herself. “That was a fast trip. Did I miss anything?”
“A beautiful sunset. I think it had every color in a box of sixty-four crayons.” His appraising eyes looked over her. “You look better. I didn’t like those shadows under your eyes.” He handed her a bottle of water.
She cracked the seal and took a healthy drink. The fresh, clean taste awakened her senses. “I’m sorry I missed that. How are we getting back to the farm?”
“Somebody will pick us up.”
“Who knows what?”
“Jeb knows everything, so I imagine it will trickle down to Carolina and Butch, then Katie. He swore no one would say anything to Poppy.”
“Good. That’s good.” She dropped her head against the seat rest. “I don’t want to say the words. I know that makes me a coward, but I just don’t want to say it. I don’t want him to think back on the day he learned his son died and think of me.” She looked at him. “I’m so selfish.”
“Nothing about you is selfish, Peach. Not one damn thing.” Though he swore and his voice was strong, it was soft, mild. “It’s been a long, hard, emotional day. That makes it easy to take too much on yourself. You have reasons to be hurting, but all of those reasons lay with the choices Joe Carter, Jack Hawthorne, and others made. Not. You.”
She didn’t believe in pushing responsibility off on others, but maybe, this one time, it would be okay.
The plane landed, and they disembarked. Jeb came out to meet them with Butch and Katie. She waddled across the pavement under the bright lights and hugged her cousin fiercely. The emotion of the moment caught her breath, no less dramatic for the way they both had to reach around her belly. Butch clapped him on the back, drawing him in close. They had worried for Tom.
Then Katie hugged Peach. Her mouth fell open as everything about it surprised her. It was the first time she’d felt a pregnant belly. It was hard and really round. Her softer stomach curled around it. Then something kicked her. Someone. Or it would be someone soon.
“We’re all so sorry,” Katie said. “You need anything, just tell us.”
“Just the hug,” she said, holding on to the life between them just a little longer. She let go then, wiping away a few tears. “You would think I’d be cried out by now. I need to see Poppy.” Surreptitious looks were exchanged, and Peach’s heart fell into her stomach. “What?”