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Right, Cath? You’re reading this, aren’t you? You know who I’m talking about. Is it still a secret? Have you managed to keep your mouth shut? Or have you pointed your finger at him, like you always point it at me?
Catherine clamped the book shut this time with a soft whump. She thought about Mary out on Echo Island and all the years her sister had lived there in obscurity. Mary hadn’t wanted to be taken. She’d gone there against her will. But once ensconced, she’d scarcely protested. In fact she’d changed from railing at Catherine whenever she brought supplies to showing her the herb garden she’d begun in the hardscrabble terraced backyard. She’d even asked for different seeds and plants to add to it. This had surprised Catherine greatly because up till then, Mary’s single-minded, obsessive nature had seemed to have to do only with men.
Men . . .
They’re all mine. From Parnell to Seamus to the devil who gave me D.
Catherine’s eyes traveled to the closed book, and her jaw grew hard. She’d known Parnell well, how his taste for women had grown ever younger. She hadn’t mourned his death one iota. And she’d known Seamus, who’d hung around Mary like a dog who smelled a bitch in heat, until he’d finally gotten his chance to mount her. He had been married, of course, and had gone back to his wife, who’d died of a heart attack not long after. Seamus himself had died a few years later, another one Catherine hadn’t mourned. He, like so many of Mary’s conquests, never knew he’d fathered one of her children. Maybe he’d suspected. Maybe they all had, but no one had stepped up and asked.
Bastards.
Catherine wasn’t completely certain just which man had sired which child, though Mary had known. That information might be inside Mary’s journal, and it might not. She suspected the key to whoever had killed her sister was related to one of them, however: the man from the bones. And she thought she could maybe narrow it down.
Still, the words her sister had written seemed to leap off the page. Powerful. Evoking memories of those long-ago days before Catherine exiled her sister and slammed shut the gates to Siren Song.
The devil who gave me D. She certainly knew who that was.
Swallowing, she stared into the dark corners of the room while her mind’s eye vividly recalled the devil Mary referred to: the only one of her sister’s lovers that Mary had been unable to control. The sick bastard who’d forced Catherine into a closet and pressed himself upon her, stripping off her clothes and holding her down while she screamed behind his hand. A man twice her age who’d turned his laser blue eyes on her. Catherine had felt something grip her, something sexual, which she’d mentally fought, even while she was physically frozen. He would have had her, but suddenly Mary was there, slamming the butt of the shotgun from the gun closet downstairs into his skull. He went down hard, his cranium dented, his eyes fixed, and the spell broken. Catherine had been shaking uncontrollably. She’d still been in a daze when Mary said, “Help me,” and she’d obeyed, joining her sister in carrying his body from the closet downstairs and out to the graveyard, where he still lay inside the grave now marked with Mary’s headstone.
“Who is he?” Catherine had asked her as that late summer’s wind blew around them, and they had both cast anxious glances back to the lodge, worried one of the children would see them.
“Richard Beeman,” Mary had answered after a long moment. “My husband.”
“He’s not your husband,” Catherine had whispered.
Her sister had smiled coldly. “And his name isn’t Richard Beeman.”
And then she slammed the sharp end of the blade into the dirt fiercely until it hit something . . . his body . . . and Catherine gasped and turned away.
“Die, devil,” Mary spat through her teeth. Then she yanked out the shovel, the tip of the blade dark with the blood, and added conversationally, “We’ll get a coffin made. Maybe we can ask Earl. . . .”
CHAPTER 14
Hale pressed a finger to the end call button on his cell and tried to tamp down his concern. Where the hell is she? He’d been half annoyed most of the day, but now, as night fell, he crossed the threshold into low-grade alarm. For all her flightiness, Kristina had never walked out for this many hours with no contact whatsoever. He didn’t know how many times he’d called her already, but he would be reaching serious “stalker” limits were he some stranger trying to make contact.
“Want another?” the bartender asked him, pointing at his empty beer glass. She was young, with long dark hair and a name tag that read MINNIE.
Hale was seated at the bar end of the Bridgeport Bistro in downtown Seaside. He’d left the office and thought about heading home, but he had a gut feeling Kristina wasn’t there waiting for him and he didn’t want his worries to escalate just yet. And if she did happen to be there, she could damn well wonder where the hell he was.
“No, thanks,” he said. Then, as she turned away, he said, “Maybe a Scotch on the rocks.”
“Any particular one?”
“Surprise me.”
“Dewar’s?”
He nodded. He was almost sorry he’d asked for another drink now that she was pouring it for him. He wanted to do something. This sitting at the bar and wondering was making him crazy. As Minnie slid him his drink, the door blew open, sending in a swirl of frigid air, which made everyone in the place look up and frown.
“Brrr,” the newcomer said. “Sorry about that.”
“Well, get on in here, Jimbo, and keep the cold out,” Minnie said to him, playfully snapping a towel at him.
Jimbo was a big man in a plaid shirt with a thick beard and a thicker neck. He grinned at Minnie, and Hale caught a spark of romance between them. It left a dark sorrow in his heart in a way that made him angry at himself. Damn it, Kristina. Where the hell are you?
Downing his Scotch, he rethought his plan to stay away from the house, deciding he was just being immature. As he climbed into the TrailBlazer, the skies suddenly opened and a deluge of cold rain mixed with snow shot down, sending icy fingers slipping beneath his collar. He shivered as he slammed the door shut, fired the ignition, and switched on the wipers.
His house was about ten minutes south of Seaside, depending on traffic and weather. Hale had just passed Cannon Beach on the way south when his cell phone began ringing through his car’s speakers as Bluetooth picked up.
