20
Claire was still trembling when she collapsed into a chair between Nick and Jace at the dining room table late that night. She glanced at her watch: nearly eleven. She hadn’t been to bed yet, but she felt as if she’d just had a narcoleptic nightmare. Even Nick’s presence, his holding her, had not helped. Horror clung to her like a cold, wet sheet.
Julia dead. Liz hysterical. Officer McCallum had to handcuff Hunter Logan to take him away, for now back to a friend’s house where Liz had managed to arrange for someone to stay with him. Mr. Logan had shouted at Sheriff Archer that he was not really “the law” and the posse was coming “to hang him high.”
When they had all finally got back to Widow’s Watch and told Jace, he’d been stunned and furious.
Though at first, Nick had wanted to make this a strategy meeting with just the three of them, he’d also asked Heck to sit in. Bronco was upstairs, back from the medical center, trying to sleep with a raging headache from his concussion. Nita kept running between tending the ice pack on his head and making sure that Lexi, whom they hadn’t told about Julia’s death yet, was asleep.
Gina, who was the one really overseeing Bronco’s concussion, came into the dining room with a pot of cocoa and four cups.
“Anything else I can do?” she asked. She didn’t go across the table to Heck but put her hands on Claire’s shoulders. “I know you’re still in shock, all of you, yes?” she asked, kneading Claire’s tense muscles.
“Yes, but you’ve been great,” Claire told her. “Sorry I was too upset to eat the quesadillas you fixed when we got back.”
“Even though I had to use ketchup for salsa, yes?”
“Meggie said she loved them, called them ‘Cuban grilled cheese sandwiches.’”
“You plan to tell her tomorrow? She knew everyone was upset about something.”
“She will be too, big-time. But I needed her at least to get a good night’s sleep before we try to explain it to her. I’m scared it’s going to set her back—set all of us back.”
“So,” Gina said, still hovering, “like I said, I brought you cocoa, but you just remember, it has some caffeine, so you should eat something too. You need to sleep.”
“Yes, Dr. Hermez,” Claire said, reaching back to clasp her hand. “But after today, I don’t think I could sleep anyway.”
“Any of us,” Nick put in with a sigh. Claire saw he’d been twisting his watch around his wrist, again and again.
Jace sat stoic and stone-faced but still seething. And fidgeting, as if something else was eating at him and he wanted to say something but was holding back—so unlike him.
When Gina went out, sliding the pocket door to the kitchen closed behind her, Nick said, “I know we’re all distraught and exhausted, but we need to decide how to handle this, since Julia was our contact and handler.”
“Damn FBI job of hers,” Jace muttered. “Who knows who she had to deal with before us. Like Claire said, maybe that Buxton character. What if someone held a grudge against her for how she dealt with things? Claire said Julia had navigated those stairs for years—the old ones, the new ones. Her job endangered her. Someone knew and hurt her so—”
Nick interrupted, “We can’t assume that it was an FBI connection, even if Wade Buxton is a WITSEC refugee and was upset Julia wanted him to steer clear of Liz. Most WITSECs, present company excepted, are criminals trading testimonies for protection.”
“My point exactly,” Jace put in.
Claire said, “Julia also had problems with Vern Kirkpatrick, but there were family tensions too. Her father was acting weird, which I guess is par for the course for him. He was angry she didn’t let him ride the range anymore. And then,” she added, her voice shakier than ever, “her ex was back in town and that could be—well—touchy.”
“Tell me about it,” Jace said. “And didn’t she have words with her daughter about her decamping for New York City?”
Nick hit his fist on the table. “Let’s not try a murder case right here, okay? Both of you, back off with all the theories. We don’t know what the offshore coroner will rule after the autopsy. What I want us to get clear right now is that—if there was foul play—other than statements any of us have to give Sheriff Archer, we stay out of an investigation, out of the limelight, to stay safe. We have to wait for Rob Patterson or another contact to reach out to us, tell us what’s happening next. Ordinarily, I’d be looking over my shoulder for Ames and his goons, thinking they’d hurt Julia, but I really think we’ve found a sanctuary here. I just hope this doesn’t somehow screw it up. And yes, I’m mourning her too.”
“I agree we should stay out of it,” Claire said, “but we know who could have wanted her hurt—dead—if there is an investigation.”
“You know what I hate too?” Jace blurted. “It’s the idea of that strong, beautiful woman being autopsied. After a nearly one-hundred-foot fall, she’s got to be really—really hurt,” he finished lamely with a loud sniff.
Claire covered her face with her hands so she wouldn’t burst into tears in front of the three men. She was so tired of being strong, of running, hiding, fearing. She took her hands away, swiping at her tears, then blew her nose. “Julia’s beyond our help but maybe we can help Liz or even Hunter Logan,” she said, her voice cracking. “That, and helping whoever does the investigation—if they think it might be murder—is one way to honor Julia.”
Nick said, “Claire, did you hear me? As my wife and my forensic psychologist, don’t go there!”
Jace swung around to face her. “You’ve always been a bleeding heart, but he’s right. I say steer clear too,” he insisted, pointing a thumb at his own chest.
“Boss, you got a way to contact Patterson?” Heck asked as if to break the tension.
“Did have. Julia. But he’ll surely hear about this and will contact us. Soon, I hope.”
“If he flies in while I’m at the airport,” Jace said, “I’ll brief him, get him here—as long as no one’s followed him in.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, still twisting his watch as if he’d rip it off his wrist. “Who knows that Ames and his lackeys don’t have a tail on Rob, even if he’s FBI.”
“Rob’s not stupid,” Jace insisted. “And Julia wasn’t either, so what the hell happened? Maybe, considering what Claire said about her father, they argued and he pushed her. The guy’s obviously delusional and dangerous to hit Bronco like that.”
“If he hit Bronco like that,” Nick said. “I repeat, we can’t make assumptions.”
“Got that, counselor,” Jace muttered. “So why does it seem you’re controlling a court scene and Claire’s testifying?”
“Come to think of it,” Claire put in, as a thought she’d buried hit her, “and this is a fact, not an assumption—there had to be someone else there at the house. If only Bronco could remember, even if he told the sheriff it was all a blank until the rescue squad came. I smelled smoke in the room where we found him. Nita can back me up on that.”
“A distant fire?” Nick asked, still in lawyer mode despite his denials. “Their fireplace downstairs?”
“More like a cigar. Upstairs.”
“Bingo,” Jace said, smacking his palm on the table. “I’m sure there’s more than one cigar smoker around here, but Kirkpatrick smokes stogies that must be real expensive. He puts them out if they’re partly smoked and saves them in a fancy-dancy tooled leather case that matches his Western boots.”
“Unless he keeps the butts because he doesn’t want his DNA around, but duly noted,” Nick said. “Still, I repeat, we can’t jump to conclusions, and we can’t get involved.”
“Easier said than done in this case,” Claire insisted. “Well, it’s not a case yet. I’ve got to go upstairs and take my meds and check on Lexi,” she said, standing and pushing her chair back. “Thank heavens, Sheriff Archer said he’s coming to take Nita’s and my statements first thing in the morning instead of tonight, because I hardly know what I’m saying.”
Fearing she’d break into tears again, she hurried from the room.
* * *
The bedside clock read 2:00 a.m. in bright red numerals, and Claire still couldn’t sleep. Nick had finally quit thrashing and sighing and slept the sleep of the dead—no, that was a terrible way to think of that.
Carefully, Claire slid out of bed and felt for her slippers on the cold floor. She grabbed her flannel robe, one perhaps Julia herself had picked out for her to face the coming cold winter here. She had to comfort herself by just peeking in to see that Lexi was all right. She’d be careful not to wake Nita and Gina, who slept in bunk beds across the room from Lexi’s bed.
The dim hall was lit only by night-lights from the two open bathroom doors down the way. She tiptoed across the short space from their room, but the floorboards of the old house creaked as if two people walked here. She was grateful there was not much wind for once so the shrieking from above was a mere moan—or was that sound coming from this room?
Carefully, she turned the doorknob, then pushed the door open. Her eyes were well adjusted to the dark. A dim night-light in the room illuminated Lexi’s little bed with its carved maple headboard.
Empty!
Claire gasped and her stomach went into free fall. Not again! First Ames took her, then the search for her in the Havana hotel when...
She got hold of herself. The child could have crawled in with Nita or even Gina up above since there was a bunk-bed ladder. But she usually came to Claire if she woke up. Holding her breath, she bent to look in Nita’s bed, where she slept alone, one arm flung out. On her tiptoes, Claire peered at Gina, curled into a ball alone.
Though tempted to wake them to help her search, she backed from the room and quietly closed their door. When she found Lexi, she was going to be much firmer with her. However disturbed she was—and rightly so with all that she’d been through—she had to stop just wandering off.
All right, Claire told herself, search the house, then wake up the others. Keep calm. Julia was dead, and they were refugees from their loved ones and all they knew, but she had to keep calm. Perhaps Lexi had even gone downstairs to the den, was watching TV or getting something to eat.
She froze partway down the hall. Low voices. Jace’s? Could Lexi have gone to him?
She hurried toward the front left bedroom. A sliver of light shone under Jace’s door, so at least he could help her search. But—yes, Lexi’s voice! Oh, thank God, she’d just gone to her father.
She knocked quietly on the door, and Jace called low, “It’s open.”
Claire pushed it inward. Jace sat in bed with Lexi in his lap, her face glazed with tears. He’d put one of his big sweatshirts over her nightgown, and she wore his huge socks on her little feet. He wore a T-shirt and plaid Jockey shorts with only his feet stuck under the ruffled sheet and quilt.
“Don’t scold her,” he said. “She knew something was wrong and wanted to know, so I told her there had been a bad and sad accident.”
“Mommy, Julia fell and got killed!”
Leaving the door ajar, Claire went in and sat on the side of the mussed bed where she could reach Lexi but avoid Jace’s long legs. She leaned closer to pat her shoulder, then hold her hand.
“Yes, sweetheart, and we are all so sorry because she was our friend. I was going to tell you in the morning because I wanted you to sleep first.”
“Looks like you haven’t,” Jace observed. “Did you take your precious midnight meds?”
She just narrowed her eyes at him. One reason their marriage had blown up was because she’d tried to keep her narcolepsy a secret, even hiding and sneaking doses when he was home. It hurt her too that Lexi had run to Jace instead of her.
“Mommy, what about Scout?”
“I don’t know, honey. I’ll bet we can visit him, but without Julia to be your riding teacher, I just don’t know. I do promise, though, we’ll get you riding lessons someday, somewhere.”
“But I want them now. If I can’t have Scout and Julia for new friends, you have to get Lily back from where you sent her.”
Claire’s wide-eyed stare slammed into Jace’s gaze. She opened her mouth, then shut it. She didn’t want to upset Lexi even more.
“No psych words of wisdom?” Jace asked. “Don’t get involved with all this, Claire, like Nick warned. Just take care of our girl.”
A voice made them all jump. “At least, I heard my name in here.”
Nick swung the door wider. Shadows silhouetted his big form. “Is she all right? Meggie, I mean. Bedside family reunion?”
Claire stood and turned to face him, still holding Lexi’s hand. She felt caught between the two men in her life. Nick looked distressed, and she could feel Jace’s stare boring into her back. “She woke and came here, and he told her about Julia,” she said.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Nick told Lexi, coming a few steps in and peering around Claire. “I know you liked Julia and her horses. We all liked her.”
“I’ll bet she didn’t fall,” the child said. “I’ll bet somebody bad hurt her like they try to hurt us!”
“A sad worldview,” Jace muttered, with a glare at Nick. “Here, better take her back with you so I don’t have to go in Nita and Gina’s room later.”
He kicked back the covers and stood, handing Lexi to Claire. Their foreheads, faces, lips almost met as he passed the child to her.
“Mommy, can I sleep with Daddy? I mean, with Uncle Seth?”
“Not tonight, sweetheart. Besides, remember how much he moves around and might bump you?”
“Oh, yeah. Did he use to bump you too?”
At that, Claire clung to Lexi, went past Nick and hurried out and down the hall. She heard nothing else between the two men but a closed door.
“We’ll all miss Julia,” Claire whispered to Lexi as Nick caught up to them. He was walking better than before. She saw he had no robe or slippers on and had left his cane behind, perhaps panicked at first when both she and Lexi were gone. And then, when he’d found them with Jace...
“I’ll miss Scout if I can’t see him lots,” Lexi said, with her arms clasped even tighter around Claire’s neck. “I know Julia’s daughter, Liz, will miss her too, ’cause I sure would miss you if you got dead.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Claire told her. “We’ll all be fine and we’ll take good care of you.”
Strange then, but as Nick opened their bedroom door for them, the shrill sound on the cupola overhead started in again, as if the widow’s ghost was mourning Julia too or warning of dangers yet to come.