She started to nod yes, but instead she shook her head no. He put his arm around her, sat beside her on the wide leather sofa along the starboard bulkhead.
“Those passengers who just got off? The woman wants to make a documentary of my ‘sister’s case,’” Kate said. “Is that how you see her—as a ‘case’?”
“No, I see her as Beth.”
Kate took a deep breath, felt herself relax a little at that. Conor’s arm tightened around her shoulders.
“They come out of the woodwork at a time like this,” Conor said. “They all want to be first, get the exclusive.”
“Have they called you?”
“Yes. The answer is always ‘no comment.’”
“Thank you,” she said.
“They’re all important to me, every murder victim, but this one even more so.”
“Why?”
He paused and reddened. She sensed him trying to find the words. “Because it feels personal.”
She wanted him to say more. Personal because Beth reminded him of someone? His wife, his sister? As she stared into his eyes, the tiniest spider threads of memory began to spin and weave together. She felt the rope around her wrists, scraping the skin raw. Someone had untied her.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she asked in a low voice.
“Me?”
“Who found us in the basement. Who rescued me and Beth.”
He nodded.
She felt torn in half. She wanted to hold him, press her body against him as hard she could, and she also wanted to turn away, to stop seeing his eyes and remembering the way he had looked at her that day.
She cleared her throat. “There’s no way I can thank you ... ,” she began.
“Don’t, Kate. You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, I do,” she said.
“I just want you to be okay,” he said. “I know how hard this is, going through this kind of loss again. I don’t want to push you.”
“Push me?”
“I came here to ask if you’ll go with me to the gallery,” he said.
She shivered, closed her eyes, and opened them again. “Why?” she asked.
“Just looking for leads, anything that will help the investigation. I’d need your permission no matter what, but I’d rather have you with me. You can help me see if anything’s off, different than it should be. But if it’s too much ...”
Kate steadied herself. “Of course I’ll go with you,” she said. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Thanks, Kate,” he said.
They walked off the plane together and drove away in separate cars. She went straight to her loft to walk and feed Popcorn. After he ate, he looked at her with big expectant eyes. She knew he wasn’t hungry anymore; he was waiting for Beth to come back. She hugged him for a long minute. Then she changed out of her uniform; put on blue jeans, a crisp white T-shirt, and brown suede ankle boots; and headed into Black Hall.
The gallery was halfway down Main Street, between the firehouse and the white Christopher Wren–inspired church that had been the subject of so many Impressionist paintings. She directed Conor to park in the gallery’s driveway. The Victorian house had once belonged to Lydia Stewart Smith, the benefactor who had founded the town’s library, and had been impeccably restored with a bequest from Mathilda.
The house turned gallery had been an almost enchanted sanctuary during her mother’s lifetime, a place where Kate and Beth had spent rainy days and gotten lost in stories created by the paintings. Kate had loved the house as a child, but when she entered it now, it felt like a tomb. It reminded her of crime and unbearable loss.
