Blood Red (27 page)

The reporter goes on talking about Julia, showing a montage of photographs: baby photo, little girl missing her two front teeth, in a cap and gown, on stage with a microphone. There's an interview with some guy carrying bags of groceries and standing on the stoop of her building, a neighbor who has frustratingly little to say about both victim and crime.

The lack of recognition is starting to get to Casey. Too bad the NYPD cops are too ignorant to realize that Julia Sexton has plenty of company. Maybe it's time to send them a note or make a phone call, something like that. Just so that they'll make no mistake about who has the upper hand here. It can't hurt. Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac did it, and they were never caught.

Casey watches with interest as the boring man-­on-­the-­street interview is replaced by earlier footage of a middle-­aged ­couple the reporter describes in voice-­over as Julia's parents. Heads bowed, arm in arm, they're being escorted from the morgue by a ­couple of uniformed cops and flanked by a pair of detectives: a tall African-­American male and a female with—­can it be?—­long red hair.

It's pulled back in a clip, but Casey can just imagine what it would look like falling down her back; what it would feel like . . .

Now there's a close-­up of the woman—­identified as Detective Sullivan Leary—­being questioned by the reporter.

“All I'm authorized to tell you at this point is that we're working on a number of leads, and we're asking anyone with information to call our tip hotline.”

A phone number flashes on the screen.

Casey grins. Just what the doctor ordered.

A
s Rowan watches Jake's car pull into the driveway from the window of her study, her stomach turns.

He thinks he's coming home to chicken Marsala, a happy wife . . . normalcy.

“I think you should just tell him the truth, Ro,” her sister advised earlier, when she called back. “Then you won't have anything to worry about anymore.”

Her sister is delusional. Telling Jake she had a near-­miss with an affair fourteen years ago would open the door to a whole slew of things to worry about.

When she said that to Noreen, the response was “Are you sure you'd be worse off than you are now? Because all you're doing is worrying. I can assure you that marriages have withstood much bigger issues than this.”

She didn't say
This is nothing
, but she might as well have.

Rowan wished she hadn't called her, but she had to call someone. She has plenty of friends who are closer—­much closer—­than her sister is these days. But she can't bear the thought of admitting her secret to anyone else, regardless of whether they'd be less inclined to pass judgment than the almighty Noreen.

At least this isn't news to her. She's always known that Rowan is capable of terrible things.

The ­people in her life now—­Jake included—­only know the best side of her: the charade. She's carried it off for years now, aside from that momentary blip on a snowy afternoon fourteen years ago, when she reverted to her true character and got away with it.

No wonder someone wants to see her get what she deserves.

Someone?

Rick. It had to be Rick.

Unless Noreen was lying, or unless Kevin . . .

She's been thinking a lot about her brother-­in-­law today. About how he, like her sister, seems too good to be true.

“Ro?”

It's Jake, calling from the kitchen.

“In here.”

She silences the ringer on her cell phone as her husband's footsteps cross the hardwood floors of their dream house. If Rick calls back now, she won't be able to pick up.

She hears the slight jingling of dog tags as Jake stops in the hall to pet Doofus. Then he's framed in the doorway, unknotting the tie she'd watched him tie this morning.

“I thought you were making dinner tonight. Chicken Marsala?”

“I didn't have time. I got home late.”

“That's okay.”

But it isn't. She let him down.

“I'm sorry. It's just been . . . a crazy day. And my field trip is tomorrow morning, so . . .” She trails off, implying that an impending field trip is sufficient reason not to follow through on a promised dinner.

“Which field trip?”

“To the historical society. You remember.”

He nods. Of course he remembers. He grew up here. He'd know all about fourth grade and Ora Abrams and the hot cocoa even if he weren't married to Rowan and a parent whose three kids had gone through the local school.

That's the thing about Jake, Rowan thinks. The thing that Rick Walker could never have, or be, or share.

Mundy's Landing is Jake's home just as it is hers. More so, because he's a Mundy. Their shared roots are just one more bond that can never be broken. They belong here. Together. This—­this village, this house, this man, this
life
—­isn't just her past, or her present. It's her future. He's her future, and no one is going to take that away from her.

“It's just us for dinner, right? Mick is working?” Jake asks.

“Yes. Maybe I can throw something together.”

“We can order takeout, or I can have leftover meatloaf.”

Stop it!
She wants to scream.
Stop being so nice to me, because you're only making things worse!

I don't deserve you!

I deserve . . .

She takes a deep breath. It's not about what she deserves. It's about what Jake deserves.

The truth.

W
hen Kurt Walker's phone rings, he's already in bed. It's not particularly late, but it's been a long day and all he wants to do is watch some television and get some sleep.

But when he sees the Florida area code accompanied by the name Robert Belinke in the caller ID panel, he quickly snatches up the phone. Bob is his stepfather's lifelong best friend, and the one person in the world Kurt would expect to hear from if something happened to Rick.

“Bob? What's wrong?”

Like Rick, Bob is a pull-­no-­punches Midwesterner. He wastes no time on small talk, or trying to convince Kurt that everything is fine, because clearly, it isn't.

“Have you talked to your stepfather lately?”

“No, but I've been trying to get ahold of him for a few days. He left me a message on Sunday night.”

“Really? What did he say?”

“Just that he needed to talk to me. But he left it on my home phone and I spent the weekend at my girlfriend's apartment, so I didn't get it until last night.”

“I've been trying to reach him, too,” Bob says, “and I'm a little worried. I was supposed to meet him for dinner last night—­I was in New York for the past ­couple of days—­but at the last minute, he couldn't make it.”

“Why not?”

“Subway trouble, he said.”

“There
was
subway trouble last night during rush hour,” Kurt assures him, just in case Bob is doubting Rick's explanation. “Definitely.” He chooses not to mention what he read in this morning's newspaper: that someone jumped in front of a train. Suicide.

“I know,” Bob says, “but I offered to meet him after that, and he didn't want to.”

“So you heard from him later last night?”

“Yes, but not since then.”

“That's good, though.” That was just twenty-­four hours ago. Bob is jumping the gun on being alarmed. “How did he sound?”

“It was just a text. The thing is, he hasn't called me back today. I just want to make sure he's okay. I know you don't live right around the corner, but—­”

“I'll try him again, but I'm sure he's fine. Sometimes he just sort of . . . drops out for a while. Especially since my mom . . . you know.”

“I'm so sorry about your mom. I really am.”

“Thanks. It's been a year, but it's still hard.”

“I'm sure it is. On everyone. Including Rick.”

Kurt's pulse quickens. “They were divorced.”

“I'm aware, and I've been through it myself, so I know that kids take sides after something like that. But I hope you kids understand that what happened to your mother wasn't Rick's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault.”

“Do you know how my mother died, Bob?” Kurt is up out of bed, striding across the small room. “Because it's not like it was from natural causes, or an accident. She didn't get hit by a bus or have a heart attack. She climbed into the bathtub and she
slit
her
freaking
wrists.”

“I know that. I'm sorry.”

“It didn't have to happen.”

“Your father feels the same way. I talked to him about it over the weekend. He told me she'd started taking prescription antidepressants that came with a suicide risk, and he's blaming himself for that even though she'd been dealing with depression on and off for years. I just want to make sure you kids aren't blaming him as well.”

Kurt stares at the framed photo on his cluttered dresser top. It shows his mother, young and pretty as a china doll, holding him on her lap. He was just a toddler. Both their faces are cast in shadow; it belongs to the photographer, his biological father, whose long silhouette falls over the photo.

Sure, she was depressed from time to time. Look what she went through. But . . .

“I can't speak for my brother or my half brother and half sister,” he tells Bob after a long moment. “I promise you that I'm not blaming Rick for what happened to my mother, though. He's the only father I ever knew.”

“I'm glad to hear that. I know he thought of you and your brother as his own sons, and your mom . . . well, it started out a really good thing, and it just didn't work out in the end. It happens. But—­”

Exhausted, Kurt stops him there. “I know all that. It's okay.”

God, it's been a long day. A long year. One year, one week, and one day since his mother died.

“Look, if I don't get ahold of him tonight, and if the others haven't heard from him, either, then I'll go over and check on him first thing in the morning,” Kurt promises Bob. “Okay?”

“Okay. And when you reach him, tell him to call me right away. I'm going to talk him into coming down to Florida to visit me over Christmas. You can all come if you want. I've got plenty of room.”

“We might just do that. Thanks. I'll call you tomorrow.”

W
hen Rowan told Jake to sit down—­on the only uncluttered seat in her office, the antique fainting couch—­she'd fully intended to start from the beginning and tell him the whole truth.

The problem: the beginning—­the real beginning—­was so long ago and far away that she kept getting sidetracked.

“Why are you telling me this?” Jake asks edgily, as she recounts the first time she ever cut class in high school.

“I just feel like . . . you know, I've done some not great things in my past, and—­”

“We all have.”

“You?” She shakes her head. “Please. The only bad thing you ever did was senior prank.”

Jake and a ­couple of his friends were, in fact, elevated to folk hero status following the legendary “missing piglet” incident at the high school shortly before graduation.

“Anyway,” she adds, “that was genius, and they didn't even press charges, so it doesn't count as getting into trouble.”

“Not true.”

“That it was genius?”

“No, that it's the only bad thing I ever did. It's the only one I've told you about.”

“What else did you do? Chew gum in class?”

“Does this have something to do with Mick?”

“Mick? Why?”

“Because I've been thinking about him all day and I'm guessing you have too.”

She flashes back to the conversation in the car when she drove her son to work.

“We both know he didn't really have to take a test first thing this morning, Ro.”

“If we both know it, then why am I the only one who acknowledged it?”

“Because you're the mom, I guess.” Seeing the look on her face, he adds, “Bad answer? Only one I've got. Sorry. I guess I've been preoccupied with work and I'm a little slow figuring things out.”

“I talked to him this afternoon. He said he had an argument with one of his friends.”

“And . . . ?”

“And that's why he's been upset.”

He shrugs. “Maybe that's true, but it's not all that's going on with him. And even if it were—­which it's not—­it's no excuse for lying.”

“You're right. There's no excuse for lying,” she says quietly.

“He lied about coming home on time on Saturday night, too. I'll admit I was dozing on the couch, but I woke up a few times after midnight, and I know he wasn't here when he should have been.”

“Katie missed curfew a few times, too.”

“She never lied about it.”

No. She wouldn't lie.

“Are you hungry?” Jake asks, looking at his watch. “I've had Italian food on the brain all day.”

“I meant to make dinner. I just—­”

“No, it's no big deal. Why don't we go over to Marrana's? We can drive Mick home when he's done with his shift. Maybe he'll talk to us.”

“So you think he's in some kind of trouble?”

“Serious trouble? No. But he lied to us and his grades stink. I think we'd better sit him down and deal with it.” He starts to get up off the fainting couch.

“Jake. Wait.”

“What?”

“I didn't finish telling you what I was telling you.”

“Oh. Right.” He looks at his watch again. “Can we finish talking about it over dinner? It's getting late.”

He has absolutely no clue that for perhaps the first time in their marriage, she's trying to tell him something so grave that it can't possibly be discussed in public over Cavatelli a la Mama.