Shattered (41 page)

"The crash?" Scott came out of the open galley kitchen where he'd been feeding the remains of their take-out dinner down the garbage disposal. They had both showered (separately, because sex, even phenomenal sex with Scott, was the last thing on Lisa's mind these days, and he seemed to appreciate how she felt, and thus had made no moves even though she slept in his arms every night) and changed clothes since arriving back from the funeral home. He was wearing ratty gray sweatpants and a white tee that hugged his broad shoulders and clung to the muscles of his wide chest, while she had on a thin cotton summer nightgown covered up by his big blue terry-cloth robe, which she had borrowed and wore belted snugly around her waist. Her hair was loose; her legs and feet were bare. "It's possible. But I checked, and your father was at a fund-raiser that night. A hundred people saw him there."

His answer told her that he'd been suspicious, too, and acknowledged the fact that if the accident wasn't in fact an accident, if the death of her mother was the result of a deliberate act, then the most likely reason would be because of Lisa's connection to the Garcia case, which would make the most likely perpetrator their prime suspect, her father.

The thought tore at Lisa's soul.

She could feel her heart start to thump with agitation. "I wouldn't expect him to do something like that himself."

"No, probably not."

"If he was involved--he killed my mother." Her voice shook. "If he did it--if he had someone do it--I want to go after him. For the Garcias and everything. I don't care if he is my damned father."

"If he did anything that led to Miss Martha's death, all bets are off," he agreed, stopping beside the couch to look down at her. "I'm already having that angle checked out, okay? You trust me to do that, don't you?"

She nodded. The truth was, she would trust him with anything.

"Then stop worrying about it. I'll let you know what comes up." Scott dropped down on the couch beside her and took the remote out of her hand. "You want to watch a movie?"

She looked at him. One arm draped casually behind her, his legs sprawled out in front of him, and he was clicking through the On Demand listings. His hair was tousled, his jaw was unshaven, and he looked really tired.
No wonder,
she thought. He had a couple of big trials under way, plus the usual stuff that came through the DA's office on a regular basis, and over the last week he'd been staying up half the night with her because without the sedatives, which she was no longer taking, she couldn't sleep. When she did, she woke up screaming as the accident replayed itself in her mind.

Watching movies together late at night had become something they did.

Shifting positions, she curled against his side and rested her head on the now familiar pillow of his shoulder. Glancing down at her, he slid his arm around her and then smiled at her as their eyes met.

"You are so good to me," she told him. "Thank you."

"No thanks required." His voice was a little dry. He looked back at the TV. "How about
Independence Day
?"

"Sounds good." She'd already learned that he had a penchant for action movies. Settling in comfortably, she prepared to pass the next two and a half hours in a state of near-mindless numbness that was preferable to the alternative.

By the time the final credits rolled, they were both stretched out at full length on the couch, and Lisa had fallen asleep.

She only became aware of it when she felt herself being picked up. Her eyes snapped open, she saw nothing but a whole lot of dark, and she stiffened in sudden panic.

"It's okay. The movie's over, you fell asleep, and I'm taking you to bed." Scott's voice provided instant reassurance. He was carrying her. She could see him as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and she relaxed against him, curling her arms around his neck. No harm could come to her if Scott was there: That was the thought that flitted through her mind as a week's worth of exhaustion finally overcame her and she fell asleep again before he had even put her down on the bed.

Only to dream, terribly, of her mother's white-faced body floating in the black depths of the river.

She woke up and sat bolt upright, shaking and gasping for air.

"Lisa?" Scott sounded sleepy. She glanced around at him. There was enough light coming through the windows to allow her to see, she discovered, although the bedside clock said it was three twenty-two a.m. and the room was dark. She had been sleeping in his arms, and he had rolled onto his back when she sat up. Now he lay there, his head on his pillow, the covers twisted around his waist--he slept in his boxers, so his chest was bare--blinking at her. Hands clenching, she fought to keep the hysteria that clutched at her out of her voice. There was no need for them both to pass sleepless nights.

"I'm fine. Go back to sleep." She was proud of how steady her voice was.

He made a sound that was part snort, part unamused laugh, and caught her arm, tugging her down beside him. Craving the comfort he offered, she didn't resist, letting him pull her against him, wrapping her own arm around his waist as his arms came around her. He felt warm and solid and wonderfully safe against her, and she gave up the fight to suffer alone and snuggled close.

"Bad dream?" he asked.

She nodded. Then she took a deep breath.

"I miss her." She couldn't help it. Her voice was wobbly. "All my life--she was there. She was the only real family I have."

"Nah," Scott said. "You've got me."

Lisa closed her eyes. "She loved you."

"She asked me to take care of you, you know. In her hospital room, one night when you were busy talking to Loverboy out there in the hall. I promised her I would." He paused, and she felt him tense a little. "She knew I was in love with you almost before I figured it out myself, I think."

Lisa's eyes opened. For a moment she forgot to breathe. She stared at him, wishing there was more light so that she could see something of his expression instead of just the shadowy outline of his face and the gleam of his eyes.

"What did you just say?" she asked faintly.

"You heard me: I'm in love with you."

"You're in love with me." Her tone made it a statement rather than a question. She was surprised--and yet she wasn't. The connection between them that had always been there, the chemistry, even the friction and baiting and occasional bouts of intense dislike: What else could it add up to? "Oh my God, Scott."

His body still felt tense against hers. "'Oh my God, Scott'? What the hell does that mean?"

Lisa sucked in air.

"It means I'm in love with you, too," she said, the words very clear, very sure. Then she slid an arm around his neck and slithered up his body and kissed him.

"I love you." This time he said it against her mouth, in a husky murmur as she pressed her lips to his, and when she replied in kind, he kissed her back and his arms came hard around her and he rolled with her. Then they went up in flames, the two of them, their bodies coming together in a kind of spontaneous combustion that burned away everything else with its heat.

Afterward, for the first time since her mother's death, Lisa slept dreamlessly, wrapped in his arms.

The funeral was every bit as bad as she had imagined it would be. The only thing that kept her from breaking down completely was Scott's stalwart presence at her side. The church was filled to overflowing, and local media was out in force. At the grave site, the police had to set up a barricade to keep the television crews at bay. Then, later, they went to the country club for the expected after-burial reception that was traditionally held at the home of the deceased, which unfortunately everyone understood was not possible in this case. Lisa was standing there in the main dining room in her sleeveless black funeral sheath and black pumps, red-eyed and pink-nosed but tearless now, as she was all cried out. She was trying to make polite conversation with one of her mother's many friends while hardly knowing what she was saying when Scott came up to her.

"Excuse us a minute, would you please?" he said to the old lady, who gave him an admiring smile. Which didn't surprise Lisa, because in his black suit and tie he was looking very hot. He took her arm and steered her out to a back hallway, where, except for a few of the wait-staff, they were alone.

"What is it?" It had taken her a moment to notice how grim he was looking, but now that she did she felt a stirring of alarm.

"Detective Watson just called. He wants us to head out to Grayson Springs as soon as we can." He hesitated, his hand sliding restlessly up and down her bare arm. "They've found a baby's skeleton buried in the garden."

32

By the time
they reached Grayson Springs, a crowd had gathered. Lisa was almost glad of it, because being surprised at the sheer number of people she could see behind the house and the variety of vehicles parked in the driveway and on the lawn served to lessen the ache that seeing the house caused her. The house was such a potent reminder of her mother that she felt a wave of grief just looking at it.

Suck it up,
she ordered herself fiercely as she felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of strangers--or TV cameras.

Besides a number of police cars, of course, and an ambulance and the Woodford County coroner's van and another official van that she thought belonged to the forensics unit, trucks from three different TV stations were present. There were other work truck-type vehicles she suspected must belong to the construction workers who were still on the scene, although their work almost certainly had been stopped by the grisly discovery. A large number of other random cars apparently belonged to the small crowd of neighbors and curiosity seekers that was bunched not far beyond the porte cochere, craning their necks in the direction of the walled gardens.

Scott pulled into the grass and drove around the massed vehicles to the side of the house, getting as close to the scene as he could before parking the Jeep. Then they walked the rest of the way to where maybe a dozen official-looking types bustled in and around the back garden. Obviously having been barred from coming any closer, camera crews were filming from the periphery, and one TV reporter recognized Lisa and called to her, inviting her over for an interview. Lisa shook her head and kept walking. Crime scene tape cordoned off the gardens, but Scott lifted it for Lisa to duck under and followed suit himself. Near the back porch, a knot of construction workers, hard hats in hand, stood talking to a uniformed police officer who was taking notes. The foreman, Bill Bruin, whom Lisa had talked to several times, waved at her, and she waved back. A yellow bulldozer had been abandoned near the Baby's Garden, and as they drew closer, Lisa saw that part of the brick wall surrounding it had been knocked down and the fountain itself had toppled over. A woman in the blue jumpsuit of the Woodford County forensics unit was taking pictures of the area where the fountain had stood, and two men in blue jumpsuits knelt beside the hole that had been left when the fountain had fallen over. The surrounding roses were in full, colorful bloom, but their scent was even stronger than it should have been, which, Lisa discovered as she and Scott reached the entrance to the garden and started walking down the brick path toward the fountain, was because a number of the bushes had been crushed.

Detective Watson had been staring down at the hole where the fountain had been. He glanced up as they neared him, then headed toward them. The three of them met just a few feet from where the forensics team now worked with such care.

"Miss Grant. Buchanan." He nodded at her and shook Scott's hand, his expression grave. "First, let me say how sorry I am for the loss of your mother, Miss Grant."

"Thank you."

"What've you got?" Scott asked, his tone brusque.

"Like I told you on the phone: the skeleton of a baby. It was found buried back here under the fountain. Dozer driver lost control; the dozer backed over the brick wall and knocked into the fountain. When he moved his machine, he saw the skeleton." His eyes moved back to Lisa. "You ever heard of any baby being buried in your garden, Miss Grant?"

Lisa shook her head as a terrible coldness began to steal through her veins. If there was a baby buried in the garden, the question that had to be asked was: Whose baby? The property had belonged to her mother's family for generations.

"No."

Scott's hand curled around her arm. She could feel the steely strength in his fingers.

"How long has it been there?" He was talking to Detective Watson.

"Forensics will have to tell us that. Miss Grant, the question I want to ask you is, how long has that fountain been there?"

She couldn't ever remember the backyard without the Baby's Garden and its tinkling fountain.

"As long as I can remember." She took a deep breath. It had been a long, difficult day, and she was so tired she was beginning to feel light-headed. "You should ask Robin. Or Andy. Mrs. Baker and Mr. Frye."

"I will. They live back there in the manager's house, don't they? Nobody seems to be home right now. I tried giving each of them a call on their cell phones, but they didn't answer."

Lisa had lost her phone along with her purse and other belongings in the accident. Without it, she had no way to check the time, but she knew it had to be around nine. Robin and Andy could be anywhere, of course, but in the days before the house had burned, they'd almost always been home at that time. Andy especially tended to go to bed early.

"They were at the funeral earlier." She was proud to be able to say that without so much as a tremor. "They must have stopped somewhere on the way home."

"When you say
baby,
what age child are we talking about?" Scott asked.

Detective Watson looked at him. "It was an infant, and my people say it was born alive. It wasn't a stillbirth or a late-term miscarriage. Other than that, we're going to have to wait until they can do some testing at the lab."

"How did"--Lisa couldn't bring herself to follow Scott's and Detective Watson's example and say "it"--"the baby die?"