The Homecoming (37 page)

But he opened the door anyway.

Everything was cleaned up and Kate was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of wine and a mind full of white noise, listening to Nick talk on the phone in his office—it sounded like he was talking to Lemon—when she realized that Rainey had not come down after his shower.

She walked to the foot of the stairs and listened, but the rushing sound that the shower in Rainey’s bathroom always made was absent.

Thinking that he might have fallen asleep on his bed, she came up the stairs quietly, barefoot on the soft cream-colored carpeting, making no sound.

She reached the second floor and looked down the main hall. The door to Rainey’s room was open and although his clothes lay scattered on the floor the bed was untouched. His bathroom was still foggy from the shower but Rainey wasn’t there either.

Some faint ripple of concern kept her from calling out his name as she passed by their own bedroom, glancing in to see if Rainey had gone in there. But she could feel the emptiness of the bedroom and the bathroom door was open, the lights off, the suite of rooms dim and silent and empty, their big four-poster a shadow in the light from the streetlamp.

The mirror
.

Kate came down to the turn into the second hall and saw Rainey at once, a bent figure hunched over on the floor of the linen closet, his back to the hall, his head lowered, as if he had something in his lap and was staring down at it.

Kate saw the glint of gold frame at his sides and knew at once what Rainey had done.

She came softly down the hall, not wishing to frighten him, her chest cold and her throat tight, hardly breathing. Rainey was motionless on the floor of the closet, although the whisper of Kate’s bare feet must have been loud enough for him to hear. If Rainey could still hear.

She reached him, hesitated, knelt down behind him, and touched his shoulder. His head came up and he began to turn around, bringing the mirror with him. Kate pulled back when she saw his face, because the expression in it was nothing she had ever seen there before—shock, fear—anger?

“I found it,” he said, a hoarse croak.

“Yes. You did,” said Kate gently, glancing down at the surface of the mirror, seeing only the dull glimmer of the ornate gilt frame and the stained silvery reflection in the ancient glass. The ceiling light over their heads. The shelves of linen. Part of Rainey’s body where he was leaning over it. And, by his shoulder, her own pale, tight face staring back at her.

Her chest relaxed slightly.

It was only a mirror, at least for now.

“I looked into it,” Rainey said.

Kate reached out and lifted it out of his hands, turning it to the wall and leaning it there. The card was still attached to the ancient wooden backing—

“And what was there, Rainey?”

His angry look shifted into something else.

Loss?

Confusion?

“Nothing. It’s black.”

Kate looked at him.

“Black?”

“Yes,” he said, in an abrupt accusatory tone, packed with indignation and resentment. “You’ve painted it over, haven’t you? So I couldn’t look into it again. You painted it black, didn’t you?”

“Rainey, sweetheart, we haven’t touched the mirror.”

“No?” he said, reaching out and jerking it backwards, holding it out to her.

“What do you see?”

Kate saw her own face, pale and drawn and her anger rising up, two small round pink spots on her cheekbones. “I see my face.”

Rainey jerked it back, turned it to face him, staring into it. Kate leaned forward and saw his reflection in it, his hair hanging down over his eyes, his face bright red, his mouth slack.

“I see you, Rainey. What do you see?”

Rainey looked up at her, his skin going from red to pale white.

“It’s black. Why is it black?”

She leaned back against the wall and spoke as softly as she could, although all she could think was
neurological damage visual hallucinations brain damage dear God please no
.

“Is that what you see when you look into it, honey? Do you see black?”

He looked back into it, and yes, that’s what he really did see, but now that he really studied it, it wasn’t a black like it had been painted, but a black like a cloud or a scarf—a clingy black scarf—had been pulled over it.

This frightened him and made him angry and he wanted to yell at her but
Cain
spoke up and said
these people want to put you in the crazy farm for the rest of your life you can’t act crazy you can’t let them know that you know what they are planning
and her buzzy electrical voice calmed him down.

He put the mirror down, and leaned back, and closed his eyes, and Kate’s heart went out to him, he looked so sad and confused.

She took the mirror away, gently, and wrapped it up in the blue blanket, and put it away. Then she helped Rainey to his feet and walked him back down the hallway to his room.

He was so tired he was staggering by the time she got him into his bed.

“Why couldn’t I see into it?” he said, as she sat by him and looked down at him.

“Well, sometimes when a person is very tired, they don’t see things properly. But after a good night’s sleep, everything is better. You’re just exhausted, and you’ve had a terrible time recently. Too much is going on. Everything will look better in the morning.”

make nice now make nice

“Should I say good night to Nick?”

“If you want. Or I can say good night for you.”

“Maybe that would be okay.”

ask about the others

“Axel … is he okay? I didn’t get a chance to ask him.”

“He’s fine. He’s trying to cope with a lot.”

“Yes. They killed his daddy too, didn’t they?”

not good not good get off that

Kate’s skin changed and her eyes grew darker.

“Well, he lost his daddy too, but Rainey, honey, nobody killed your dad.”

he had it coming

“That lawyer guy, Warren Smoles, I watched him on the television and he said that Nick and Sergeant Coker executed Axel’s dad, that they didn’t even give him a chance.”

shut up go to sleep shut up

Kate was shaking her head.

“Mr. Warren Smoles is a bad lawyer who takes money to tell big fat lies and make up things so bad people don’t have to pay for what they did. That’s what he does. It’s how he makes his living.”

smoles​smoles​warren​warren​smoles​warren

“Now Axel is an orphan too, isn’t he?”

don’t talk get rid of her

“You’re not an orphan, Rainey. You have us now. We’re your family.”

get rid of her get rid of her or we will

He closed his eyes and said he was sleepy.

Kate flicked off his light, walked softly away, and closed his bedroom door.

Cain
had a lot more to say and she was still saying it when Rainey finally drifted away.

But when he woke up on Friday morning, he knew what he had to do and exactly how to do it.

The divers from the U.S. Coast Guard Air Sea Rescue base at Sandhaven Shoals came in to Patton’s Hard on an MH-60 Jayhawk just after dawn on Friday, rattling windows all over Niceville and sending the willows along the riverbank into a swirling riot of whipping branches as it settled down onto a cleared section of hardpan lit up by the headlights of four squad cars.

Tig Sutter and Nick, and Lemon Featherlight, were waiting for it, had been waiting for an hour, nursing their coffees.

No one was talking about Rainey or Axel or Beau Norlett because they’d already talked it out—Beau was in the ICU and many more operations were ahead of him, and the Rainey and Axel thing was a subject they couldn’t discuss at all right now.

Lemon wasn’t asking questions, mainly because he didn’t want to attract too much attention. He was here at Nick’s invitation because Lemon and Kate had found the car in the first place. It was a compliment and Lemon valued it, and right now was honoring it by being silent.

So they were all quietly watching the light change as the sun came up behind Tallulah’s Wall and the city slowly emerged from its long shadow. The rising sun first lit up a ruffle of lacy branches as it touched the tops of the taller oaks and pines. Against the pink sky they could see the tiny black swirling flecks of the crows as they flew up into the morning light.

They swarmed into flocks that looked like smoke clouds and the sunlight bounced off their shiny wing feathers so that shimmers of gold rippled through the flocks like flames. They were too far away to hear and anyway the thrumming beat of the approaching chopper as it thundered in was too loud for anything else, even for clear thought.

The Jayhawk set itself massively down onto its struts, sinking into the hardpan. The gate popped and several fit-looking men and women in
Coast Guard flight suits emerged, bending low to deal with the prop rush even though the rotors were several feet over their heads.

Lemon held back while Tig and Nick came forward to meet them, as their obvious leader, a wiry young woman with the blue and silver bars of a CWO-4 on her shoulders and a tag on her chest with the name
FARRIER
engraved in black on a gold plate came up to them.

She had a broad smile and careful eyes and the muscles in her neck stood out like wires.

Tig, looming over her, wearing a tan suit and a blue shirt, held out his huge hand and she bravely put hers into it, still showing that smile.

“Lieutenant Tyree Sutter?”

“I am. Call me Tig. This is Detective Nick Kavanaugh.”

“I’m Chief Warrant Officer Farrier.”

She turned around and introduced the uniforms gathered behind her, six people, all petty officers in different grades, four men and two women. They were all lean and mean-looking and, as far as Tig was concerned, much too young to be flying around in a Jayhawk without notes from their mothers.

In the way of all military people, they were cool and friendly and politely distant and had nothing much to say after they had all said “Good morning, sir.”

Chief Warrant Officer Farrier gave a few soft-voiced orders and the crew walked back to the chopper to off-load their gear. She turned around to face Tig and Nick again.

“So we’re thinking a Toyota?”

Nick answered that.

“Yes, Chief—”

Farrier held up her hand.

“Please. I’m Karen. You’re the Special Forces captain, am I right? Fifth SOG out of Fort Campbell. You’re the one who—”

Nick deflected this as gently as he could, with a wry smile.

“These days I’m just plain Nick, Karen. If that’s okay?”

She seemed to pick up at once that Nick didn’t do war stories and she let it go, although her whole crew had talked about him all the way in from Sandhaven. She sized him up in a friendly way and nodded.

“Nick? Okay. Works fine for me. Have we got a crane or a tow truck, if we can get a cable onto this car?”

“Yes,” said Nick. “Niceville PD has a heavy lifter on the way. It’s a
stabilized crane with extendable pads and has a good reach. It was strong enough to pull a Humvee out of the Tulip down by the Cap City Bridge.”

“That’ll do it,” said Farrier. “Can we go look at the site?”

“We can,” said Tig, motioning for Lemon to come up. He introduced him as the person who had located the car in the first place. She gave him a once-over and said, “Marines?”

Lemon smiled, a rarity with him lately. Nick watched with a flicker of amusement as Farrier reacted to that pirate’s smile.

“Ex. Is it that obvious?”

“We get kidded a lot about being the Knee-Deep Navy. Usually by Squids. The Navy left its mark on you, but you didn’t give me any attitude. So, you’re probably a marine. A lot of Seminoles in the Corps. So I made a leap.”

“Mayaimi, not Seminole,” said Lemon, taking her in and liking it. “Other than that, a perfect score.”

Farrier smiled back at him, held it for a moment longer than she needed to, and then broke off, all business now.

They walked down the wet grass to the head of the narrow path that led under the arch of willows. It was colder inside the tunnel of trees and the mud squelched under their shoes. The air smelled of mold and wet leaves. The trails that Lemon and Kate had followed in were still partially visible, although they had been heavily overlaid by the larger wheelbases of Crown Vic squad cars.

The ground was pretty chewed up along the track, but once they got to the bower entrance the narrow ruts the Toyota had carved out were pretty clear.

Two uniformed Niceville cops, a man and a woman, were waiting for them by the edge of the willow fall. They were both new to Nick, but Tig seemed to know them. He spoke with them briefly, introducing Chief Warrant Officer Farrier, Lemon, and Nick.

They had been on duty at the site since midnight and they both looked happy to be handing the place over.

The female officer, a Middle Eastern–looking woman with almond-shaped brown eyes and round cheeks, held up the curtain of willow branches for them to step under, saying, as she did so, “It’s pretty weird inside there, ma’am. Like a big green tent and the trees are talking all the time.”