Chapter 24
Rory awakened to morning sunshine streaming through Liam’s bedroom window and the faint intermittent buzz of a number of texts showing up in her phone. She checked her cell and saw the messages were from Charlotte, clearly with Darlene’s help:
Good morning Mommy!!!! the first one read, along with a string of emojis.
The second was, I love YOU!!!!, more emojis.
And the third was simply: Come home soon
She checked the time and saw it was almost eight, then looked over at Liam, who was still sound asleep. No wonder. Tired as she was, they’d made love twice before she’d fallen asleep, and then once more right before dawn, where she’d initiated it by running her fingers along his jawline, reveling in the stubble, waking him up. In the glow of city lights through his window, his lazy smile had brought one to her lips as well. After that, they’d come together with kisses and touches and slow-building desire.
But now they had to go.
Duty and reality called.
“Wake up,” she whispered in his ear.
One of his eyes opened and then, as the second lid raised and he focused on her, he grinned. Over a yawn he asked, “What time is it?” and stretched, dragging the covers from her.
“Eight. Well, actually eight-oh-seven if you want to be precise.”
“Are you always this sassy in the morning?”
“Precise. I’m just precise.”
“Yeah, right.” Another yawn. “I turned my phone off.” He rubbed a hand over his face, waking. “Didn’t think I’d sleep this late.” He glanced at her again, as if finally realizing that they were together in his bed after a night of lovemaking. He grinned wickedly, then reached out and caught one of her curls, smoothing it between his finger and thumb. “Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning to you.” Then seeing a glint of desire in his eyes, she eased off the bed and headed to the shower. She really didn’t have time for anything . . . but she glanced over her shoulder, caught him watching her naked backside, and couldn’t help herself. She gave a quick lift of her brows and it was all the encouragement he needed. He bounded out of bed to join her.
* * *
Half an hour later, shaved, showered, and dressed, Liam joined her in the bedroom, where she was searching through her suitcase, pushing clothes aside. “I’m sure I packed my makeup. I wouldn’t have left it.”
“You don’t need it.”
“I think I should maybe try to cover the bruises.”
“You’re beautiful the way you are.”
“And you’re full of it. I could scare someone with the way I look. Aha! There you are.” She set the makeup kit aside and, rocking back on her heels, eyed his extra closet where’d he kept her clothes. “You got room? For . . . y’know, a few more of my things?”
Sitting on the end of the bed, tying on a shoe, he nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Do it.”
She grinned at him, walked to the closet, reached in and moved a couple of pairs of jeans to one side, then stopped to pull out the letter-size manila envelope she’d seen the first time she’d rifled through her own clothes. “What’s this? I noticed it the other day.”
Liam drew a sharp breath, finished tying his shoes and said, “Wedding pictures.”
“You mean, from the day—” She dropped them onto the floor as if they’d burned her.
“Yeah. The photographer captured the moments right before the shooting while we were all waiting for you . . . and a few afterward, I think, before he knew what was happening. I gave copies to the police, but those are mine. . . ours.”
Her eyes rounded. “Do they show . . . Aaron?”
“I haven’t looked at them in years, but yeah. Afraid so. I think there’s one or two of him. On the ground. Already hit. My father falling. The photographer quit taking pictures almost immediately, so they’re not . . . visually horrific. They’re just . . . knowing how it all turned out, they’re hard to look at.”
“Okay.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the envelope, now that she knew what was inside.
“Here,” he said, walking over to her. He picked up the envelope and slid the photos out onto the top of the dresser, glossy photographs catching that fateful moment in time. Rory stood rooted to the spot, forcing herself, though her body wanted to recoil. Carefully, she reached a hand out and moved aside the top picture: one of Liam, Derek, and the minister waiting at the end of the petal-strewn aisle. The photographer was at the opposite end of the aisle from the would-be altar, and the next photo encompassed all of the crowd. Vivian in her yellow dress and hat. His father moving down his row toward the aisle. Then Geoff in the aisle, talking to Liam. The next was of Aaron’s back, and another shot of him, but farther away as he’d traveled down the aisle.
Rory paused, her stomach tight. In the next photograph, Aaron had dropped to the petal-strewn ground and Geoff was standing with a surprised look on his face, his mouth an O. The next two pictures caught the father of the groom falling while the crowd looked around frantically, heads turned in different directions.
“My God,” Rory whispered. She took several steps backward and sank onto the end of the bed, collapsing as if her bones had melted.
“I know.”
Tears filled her eyes, but the images remained burned into her brain. She couldn’t speak for a second, but then felt some relief, that finally she’d been able to glimpse those frantic, mad moments that had changed the course of their lives forever. “I’m glad I saw them,” she said, as he quickly scooped them up and put them back in the envelope.
“Yeah?”
She nodded and swiped at her tears. “I needed to see. I just . . . I don’t get why it happened.”
“Pete DeGrere did it for money.”
“But whose money?”
Liam shook his head. “The police have been working on that for years. They checked all our bank accounts, but nothing. No big withdrawals.”
“They checked my mother’s, too.”
He swept up his phone from the nightstand. “So, unless someone took out smaller bills over a long time, it wasn’t anyone we’re related to.”
So there they were, back to the beginning again with all the same unanswered questions. “Who then? Cal? It just doesn’t—”
“Holy Mother of God,” Liam whispered, cutting her off as he stared at his phone’s screen.
“What?” Rory’s head snapped up. She was on her feet in an instant, trying to see what had caused the cords on the back of his neck to appear and his color to drain. “Liam?”
Scrolling through his texts, he let out his breath. As he turned on the ringer, his cell rang in his hand. Clicking on, he said in a shaking voice, “Derek? God, what the hell happened?”
Though Liam was holding his phone to his ear, she heard the rumbling, excited tone of his brother’s voice, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying. “Slow down,” Liam said, his voice a harsh whisper, his jaw set as he pressed “speaker” and then:
“. . . trying to get hold of you! Police are going to be at your door! Van Horne’s on the news, blaming you! Says you killed her!”
“What?” Rory whispered, clasping her hand over her chest. “Who?” Then she knew. “Bethany?”
Liam was struggling to process. “When—did this—”
“Middle of the night. Threw herself off her balcony. Just like our jumper!”
Liam was shaking his head in denial, staring at the phone as if he didn’t believe the words his brother was speaking. “But that Teri Mulvaney, her death was a homicide. You heard Mickelson. Forensics said—”
“Hell, Liam, who knows? They could be wrong! Or not. I don’t know. None of us even knew the woman at the construction site. But Beth is different. We all know—er, knew—her.”
“Amen to that,” Liam said.
“Look, you and I both know that Beth was distraught over Rory showing up again. And about you breaking up with her. Man, she thought she was going to marry you.”
Rory cringed at the words, the thought that Bethany had actually been so morose as to take her own life.
“She wasn’t suicidal.” Liam was pacing the length of the bedroom, the cell phone held in front of him.
“I don’t know that. You don’t know that. Maybe she did do it. Her father thinks so.”
“He thinks she committed suicide? I thought you said—”
“He blames you for breaking it off with her! Says that’s the reason she killed herself!”
“Oh, God. My God.” Rory’s knees would barely hold her. She sank onto the bed again and cursed herself for ever running from the wedding or returning. Whatever she did turned out badly and someone died. But Beth?
“She was angry when I last saw her. Not distraught . . . Beth’s not like that. She’s—”
Bang, bang, bang.
Rory jumped at the sound of a fist hitting the door of the penthouse. “The police,” she said aloud.
“That your door?” Derek asked.
“Yeah.” Liam was already out of the bedroom and Rory was on his heels. Derek said, “Get that. Whoever it is. Call me back. Jesus Christ . . .”
Liam clicked the off button and headed for the front door. He could scarcely think. He peered through the peephole, then said to Rory, “Brace yourself. Derek was right.” He opened the door and Detectives Grant and Susskind filled the outer hallway. Homicide detectives.
“I just heard about Beth,” he said. His voice sounded strange, even to his own ears. “Derek called. My brother said it was suicide.”
His phone rang in his hand again. He recognized Mick Mickelson’s number.
“We’d like to talk to you about Ms. Van Horne’s death. Can we come inside?” Grant asked. There was no trace of comraderie in his manner any longer.
Liam shook the cobwebs from his mind. “Sure, yes, but . . .” He looked back at Rory. “I need to run an errand. Take my wife back to relieve the babysitter and take care of our daughter. Can I meet you at the station in . . . about an hour?”
Grant nodded and Susskind said, “Since you already know that Ms. Van Horne is deceased, can you tell me where you were last night?”
“Here. First at my parents’ house with all of my family, and then Rory and I came back here.”
Susskind’s eyes slid to Rory. “We came right here after the meeting.”
“And what time was that?”
“I don’t know, but it was dark. After nine,” Liam said. “Look, just give me a little time and I’ll come to the department.”
“Fine,” Grant said. “An hour.” Liam wondered if the two men were going to tail him, if they seriously thought he would have had anything to do with Beth’s death.
Grabbing his keys off a nearby table, Liam couldn’t help but ask, “You’re with the homicide department. I thought it was . . . my brother said it was suicide.”
Susskind answered, “We’ll go over it all at the station.”
“Okay.”
Liam shut the door behind the detectives as they left, and stood in shock for a moment. Rory was holding herself up by one hand on the edge of the kitchen counter. “What’s going on?” she asked. She looked as if she might crumple. “Beth? Oh, God, why Beth?”
“I don’t know.” He crossed the area between the hallway and kitchen and wrapped his arms around her. “But we’ll get through this.”
“Are you sure? I mean suicide? Because of you and me? Or else she might have been murdered? You’re right. They were homicide detectives.”
“Shh. It’ll be okay,” he said, knowing he was lying. “Maybe this is all wrong. Maybe it was just a horrible, unfortunate accident.”
“You don’t believe that,” she said, her breath hot through his shirt.
She was right; he didn’t believe it for a second.
* * *
“Call him again,” Shanice said. They’d taken separate rooms at a local Holiday Inn and were sharing coffee and croissants at another food cart. Mick had been on the phone with Zach Pitman about Bethany Van Horne’s gruesome death, which was all over the news. He’d gotten as many details as his friend could supply. Now he was trying to reach Liam Bastian.
“He’s not picking up.” He finished his coffee and crumpled the cup in a fist. “Bet Homicide’s with him.”
“Zach said it was definitely a homicide.”
“Zach said nobody knew jack shit yet, but Van Horne’s father is a man possessed. He blames Liam Bastian, alternately wants the police to arrest him, and then wants to talk to him himself. He’s at St. Vincent’s. Heart palpitations.”
“Call Bastian again,” she repeated, tossing her empty coffee cup into a nearby receptacle.
Mick did as she suggested, and once again got Liam Bastian’s voice mail. “I’m not leaving another message.”
“What do you think about her death?” This was also a question Shanice had voiced several times.
“What I don’t think it is, is suicide. Pitman said Van Horne was upset about her breakup with Bastian, but he didn’t see any signs that she was going to do anything drastic. Neither did her mother, who is at the hospital with Mr. Van Horne, barely holding it together herself. Bethany was their only child.”
Shanice shook her head. “So, if it’s homicide, who did it?”
“Well, let’s figure that out. First, I want to go down to the station and make a pest of myself. Get Homicide to listen to me. You with me?”
“Mick, being a pain in the ass is what I live for.”
“We might get thrown out.”
She offered up a thin smile, showing a bit of even white teeth. “Gotta be more than that to scare me.”
* * *
At the Bastian estate, Charlotte rushed out to meet their car and her unbridled joy brought tears to Rory’s eyes again. She brushed them away and put on a bright smile—well, it was a weak smile but she gave it her all. Darlene, in flowing pants and an orange peasant blouse was right behind her granddaughter, making sure of her safety.
“Hey, bug,” Rory said, sweeping the little girl into her arms, squeezing her and laying a big kiss on her cheek.
Charlotte wriggled in her mom’s arms. “We have breckfuss. Come on!” She wanted down immediately, so Rory put her back on the ground and Liam walked up to her. “Hey, Char,” he said, half kneeling to look the little girl in her face.
“My name’s not Char!” She glared at him as if he’d grown horns.
“Not into shortening her name,” Rory explained.
“Charlotte it is,” Liam said, and the little girl narrowed her eyes at him, taking stock because he’d been with her mother.
“We have breckfuss!” she announced, then shot back toward the house, past an older car with a missing bumper. Candace’s, Rory surmised as Darlene hurried after the disappearing child.
“She’s precocious,” Rory explained.
“Don’t know where she gets that,” he said, trying to lighten the mood when they both were preoccupied with Beth’s death. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him on his cheek. “Hang in there.”
“You, too. I’ll see you later. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I’ll be in touch.”
“Looks like I’m getting breckfuss and you’re not.”
He managed a faint smile. “I’ll find something.”
He kissed her on the lips, a long one, then slid into the open door of his Tahoe, closed his door and took off. Trying not to dwell on Beth’s death or the pictures she’d seen of Aaron’s murder on the day of her wedding, Rory followed Charlotte and Darlene inside. At the kitchen door, Darlene suddenly hesitated.
“Grandma? Grandma!” Charlotte called.
“Be right there, honey,” Darlene yelled back.
She grabbed Rory by the arm and pulled her into an alcove near the dining room, but Rory said, “I know about Beth, Mom. Derek called Liam.”
“It’s been terrible. Stella and Vivian, and Geoff, too. We’re all stunned. Can’t believe it.”
Rory heard Candace’s voice from the kitchen and asked, “When did Candace get here?”
“Almost from the moment we heard. Vivian left in a panic to see Javier. She uses every opportunity to throw herself at him, apparently, though she can never take those children with her anywhere.” She heard herself and pressed a hand to her mouth. “That was mean. I think I must be channeling Stella. She’s in a state, too.”
“Where is she?”
“In her rooms. She’s actually going to see her doctor, who seems to have open office hours when it comes to the Bastians. But, oh, maybe that’s for the best,” she said, checking over her shoulder, peering through the open door to the kitchen but finding no prying eyes. In a lowered voice she said, “I think she needs some medication. Something to calm her down. She and Geoff, they just don’t seem to ever communicate or get along.”
This, from the wife of Harold Stemple, Rory thought ungraciously.
“And right now . . . Geoff’s in his den, at least I think he’s still there. He went into his study early and hasn’t come out.” She drew a shaky breath. “My Lord, the tragedies that surround this family! Rory, there’s an aura here that I haven’t felt before. And it’s not good. Not good.”
“It’s called grief, Mom.”
“No, it’s something more. Seriously, Rory, I’m worried. I think we should take Charlotte and leave as soon as possible.”
“Leave this house?”
“Yes!” Darlene looked over her shoulder again.
“Well, I’m with you there. I don’t really want to stay here. You were the one that wanted me to reconnect with Liam.”
“Was that a bad idea?” she challenged.
“No. It was a good idea, actually,” Rory said. “It’s just, I’d like to be out from under their . . .”
“Thumbs?”
“Watchful eyes.”
“Then let’s make plans. I really think we need to leave today. Soon. I’m just feeling . . . uncomfortable.”
“Liam’s heading to the police station now to go over Bethany’s death. I don’t think they suspect he’s involved, but he’s as eager to talk to them as they are to him. When he gets back, we’ll go. Maybe to his place, I don’t know . . .”
“Well, he’s not going to want me there.” Her face pulled into a puckering pout, but only for a second. “No, no, that’s fine. Fine. I’ll go back to my house in Salem. It will be better there. Away from all this—” She waved a hand to encompass the entire house. “But I really think you and Charlotte should come with me.”
“Grandma! Mommmiiiiieee!”
“Just a minute, bug!” Rory hollered. To Darlene, she whispered, “I’m with Liam again. He’s my husband and I think, I mean I hope, we can work things out.” Neither one of them had really broached the subject of getting back together, but they were working toward it, both of them. She looked into Darlene’s worried eyes. “It’s what you wanted. Me and Liam together. And so far, it’s wonderful. So, I’m not leaving him, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No, no! But. Maybe. Just temporarily. You need to get away from—” She hesitated, and then said, “Well, you know. Them.”
Meaning the Bastians. All of them. Except, of course, Liam.
“We are on the same page, Mom.”
“Mommmmmmmm . . . !”
“I gotta answer the call.” She bypassed Darlene and headed for the kitchen, glancing back once to see her mother frowning down at her phone. Probably a tarot card app, Rory thought, before her mind went to a mental picture of Beth’s body crashed and bloody upon a Portland city street.
Her stomach lurched and she forcefully pushed the image aside. She didn’t want to think about Beth, or the other woman who’d swan-dived to her death from one of the Bastian-Flavel Construction sites. No, not a dive. She was pushed. Homicide. Remember?
Rory shivered and turned back to the kitchen. Aura or no aura, her mother was right. It was time to leave.
* * *
Liam was a little surprised to find Mick Mickelson and Shanice Clayburgh waiting inside the station when he arrived. A dark-haired, fiftyish, uniformed officer was with them, and he introduced himself as Zach Pitman.
“Zach and I’ve known each other awhile,” Mick said.
“You’re meeting with Detectives Grant and Susskind about Ms. Van Horne’s death?” Shanice asked.
Liam nodded curtly. The thought of Beth’s tragic demise soured his stomach. “They want to go over it, and so do I.”
Mickelson said, “I don’t think they’d appreciate us in the meeting, but I’d like to talk to them, too. Zach’s letting them know, and if you have no objection . . . ?”
And then it hit him. The reason Mickelson was here. His personal great white whale: the person behind the carnage at his wedding. “So. Wait a sec. You think Bethany’s death is connected to what happened five years ago? In Seattle?” Liam asked him. He was just surfacing enough to start wondering himself. He didn’t believe Beth’s death was suicide, it wasn’t in her psyche, or so he thought, and apparently the police were on the same wavelength.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Mickelson was grim. “But it’s a lot of crimes and tragedies around your family. I left you a voice mail. I’d just like to compare notes.”
“Fine with me,” Liam said. He didn’t care whom he spoke with, just as long as there was some conclusion to the mystery surrounding the attack at his wedding, and if Bethany was really murdered, that sick son of a bitch brought to justice. He put his cards on the table. “Sure. Let’s talk. I just want answers. I want to know who hired Pete DeGrere, and who killed Teri Mulvaney and Bethany. That’s what I want.” His throat closed for a moment.
Zach said, “I’ve talked to Susskind. He’s usually more amenable to talking to retired cops. He said they want to speak to Mr. Bastian alone, first.”
“I understand,” Mickelson said.
But Shanice piped up as Liam was being led through a door to the inner offices by a uniformed cop. “If they start pushing you, call for us.”
Long-sufferingly, Mick said, “Shanice.” The old cop versus the young private investigator.
Here we go, Liam thought, walking into the same airless interrogation room he’d been in earlier.
Susskind and Grant were both seated at a table and Susskind asked Liam to take the remaining empty chair.
As soon as Liam was seated, Grant asked, “Can you tell us where you were between eleven p.m. and four a.m. last night?”
“We went over this before. At my house.”
Susskind’s smile was easy, affable. “Indulge us. This is for the record.” Meaning they were filming the interview, and others were watching from behind the mirror running along one side of the room. They sure as hell didn’t waste any time. And he was going to be nothing but cooperative. “I was sleeping at my place.”
“Alone?”
They’d seen Rory there, but he answered them for the record. “No. My wife spent the night with me.”
“Aurora Abernathy Bastian.”
“Correct.”
They ran him through the usual questions about the events of the evening before he’d gone to bed, what his relationship with the victim was, what had caused their breakup. Finally, it was Liam’s turn to ask a question.
“You think it’s homicide?”
Grant said, “The physical evidence suggests she invited someone in. One of her shoes was just inside the door, the other was near her foot after she fell. There may have been a struggle, some reason the shoe was removed.”
Susskind added, “A neighbor heard a scream that sounded like, ‘Stop.’”
Liam’s empty stomach felt like it flipped over.
“She’d been drinking wine,” Grant went on. “Alone. She was in the process of opening a new bottle, when she stopped. We think she may have heard whoever was at the door. It looks like she opened the door to whoever was on the other side.”
Liam had a sudden memory of going to her house at night. She’d called to him, saying his name, and when he’d answered, “Yes,” she’d opened the door. “Almost didn’t sound like you,” she’d said, laughing, because she’d already been into the wine.
“We understand from David Van Horne that you and she had both hired a private investigator to find your wife.”
“Yes.” Liam’s throat was dry.
“But that you were unaware that Ms. Van Horne had hired him as well.”
“That’s right.” He’d been furious at the time, but now . . . Jesus.
Susskind put in, “We’ve asked Mr. Jacoby to come in today as well. Your wife intimated that she felt someone was always following her while she was out of the country or in Point Roberts, Washington, and she identified this man as Mr. Brian Jacoby.”
“Yes. Though she thought it was someone else for a long time—her stepbrother, Everett Stemple.”
“You agree that Mr. Jacoby was following her, per your agreement with him?” Grant asked.
Liam nodded.
“You’ve given us a lot of background on your relationship with your wife, and you and your wife both believe that Mr. Pete DeGrere was the man who opened fire on your wedding ceremony five years ago,” Grant said.
“Isn’t that what you or the Seattle cops think?”
A pause.
The detectives eyed each other, then Susskind nodded. “We’re trying to get to the bottom of this by any means necessary. Mr. Mickelson and Ms. Clayburgh have asked if they could be part of this exchange of information,” Susskind said.
“I told them that would be fine with me,” Liam said. “Mickelson’s never let go of the wedding shooting.”
“Bring them in,” Grant told Susskind, who left the room and returned a few moments later with Mickelson and Shanice. Mickelson had a file tucked under his arm.
“What is that?” Grant asked him.
“My notes. On the wedding shooting. I’ve been in contact with the Seattle Police Department, where I was employed at the time of the shooting.”
“Personal copies?” Grant asked.
“I’ve cleared this with Seattle PD.” Mickelson didn’t back down.
“He did,” Grant said.
With a faint curving of his lips, as if it was almost possible for his mouth to fully engage in a smile, Susskind said, “You’ve never let this one go.”
“No, I haven’t,” Mickelson said honestly.
“All right, what have you got?” Grant asked. “And tell me how it ties into the death of two Portland women.”
“Anybody want coffee and doughnuts before we start?” Susskind wondered, looking around the table.
Liam nodded, checking his watch. He wanted to get this over with as fast as possible and get back to Rory and Charlotte.
* * *
Rory packed up Charlotte and her meager belongings, thinking everything they owned wouldn’t take up that much space at Liam’s place. Could they move in with him? Should they? Especially now, with Bethany’s death. Just thinking about it made goose bumps pop out on her flesh.
She headed out to the car with her bags, put them inside, then sat down behind the steering wheel, her mind splintered with thoughts of life and death, weddings and funerals, her life and how it had changed. Looking at the stately house, she felt cold inside and couldn’t wait to leave. Maybe Darlene had infected her, but she definitely had the heebie-jeebies. She suddenly wanted to be at the police station with Liam, hearing everything he was hearing, being beside him. Maybe she would tell Darlene to take Charlotte now and head to Salem.
Was that crazy paranoid? Yes.
Was it part of her own MO she couldn’t seem to shake? Also, yes.
Darlene suddenly opened the front door and stepped into the morning sunshine. “Where are you going?” she called as bees buzzed near a row of lavender near the front gates.
Rory rolled down her window to release some of the heat. Felt like it was going to be a scorcher today. “Nowhere yet. I’d like to meet Liam at the police station. I just feel I should be with him. I’ve got all our stuff in the car, so we leave later today.”
“Good.”
“Or, maybe now.”
As they were talking, Derek’s green truck rumbled into the drive. He pulled up and got out, looking grim and tired as he slammed the Ford F1’s door. He hadn’t bothered to shave and he was dressed in jeans and a work shirt, as if making a quick detour on his way to one of Bastian’s construction sites.
“You’re working today?” Rory asked him.
“Wasn’t going to. But with the news . . .” He shook his head and made a face. “Can’t just sit around and think about it.”
“I know. I feel exactly the same way. I’m heading out right now.” She looked over at her mother, silently asking if they were on the same page with that.
Darlene nodded, waved her away, and headed for the house. “I’ll get us both ready while you’re gone,” she called over her shoulder. “Don’t be long.”
“Ready for what?” Derek asked without much interest. He, too, was starting to saunter to the house.
“We’re leaving, Mom, Charlotte, and I.”
He stopped short. “Leaving? Does Liam know?”
“I think we’ve overstayed our welcome here. I’m on my way to the police station to tell Liam now. Darlene’s taking Charlotte to her home in Salem, and I don’t know until I talk to Liam exactly what my plans are.”
“I get it,” he said and raked a hand through his hair just as she switched on the ignition. The starter ground, then caught for a second, only to die. “Oh, no, not now,” she said, and tried again. A grinding sound, another attempt at ignition, but the little car choked and coughed. “Damn it.” Counting to ten, more for herself than the car, she gave it another go, but this time there was just a sickening ticking noise.
The little Honda wasn’t going anywhere.
She slapped the steering wheel, then decided she’d have to rely on Darlene. Oh, great. “For God’s sake,” she muttered.
Derek came back and stood outside her window. “Didn’t you get this thing fixed?”
“I thought so. But . . . maybe not.”
She tried again and swore inside her head. She felt hot, tired, and sick over what had happened to Beth.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride to the station.” He waved for her to get out of the car and follow him to his truck. “If I’d known, I woulda brought the Corvette.”
Rory wanted to bang her fist on the car’s hood. It always failed her at the worst times.
Stuffing her phone into her back pocket, she grabbed her purse, got out of the car, mentally cursing its undependability, then slid into the passenger seat of his truck, which was pushed so far forward that her knees nearly banged into the glove box.
“Sorry,” Derek said, putting an arm over the back of the vehicle, preparing to back up.
“I’ve got it.” She pushed the seat back and reached for the seat belt that was tangled beneath it. “Come on,” she said, jerking on the belt.
“Sorry. It’s a little jacked. But it should work.”
She yanked again and the seat belt snapped back as if whatever had wedged it had released. She started to strap in when she noticed a red plastic cap that rolled from beneath the seat. No wonder the belt was jacked. The pickup was a mess. Not only was the cap littering the floor, but she also found a crumpled coffee cup and an empty beer can.
“I didn’t drink it while I was driving,” Derek said.
“I didn’t say you did.”
They smiled at each other. Derek’s gaze touched on the left side of her face and she asked, “Are my bruises still bad? Geez. I tried to cover them up.”
“Nah, they’re fine.”
He pulled out onto the road and started heading down into the city. They drove for several minutes and Rory’s gaze landed on the red plastic cap. It looked like it belonged on a can of window cleaner, or a spray can of paint.
Derek saw her looking at it and, as if of their own volition, his eyes moved from the cap to the crumpled coffee cup. As if in a dream Rory bent down and picked up the paper cup, unfolding it.
Her heart nearly stopped as she read the label.
THE POINT BOB BUZZ stood out in its all too familiar script.
“Well, well,” Derek drawled. “Would you look at that.”