Written in Stone (21 page)

Millay yanked out the bandana and took the knife. A high keening arose from Judson’s
throat and Olivia could see why. Haviland had his mouth clamped around the man’s neck.
He hadn’t applied enough pressure to sever the skin and was looking to Olivia for
instructions.

“Good work, Captain,” she whispered gratefully as the black fog drifted in over her
vision. “Hold him. Wait for the chief.”

And with that, she passed out.

*   *   *

Olivia reasoned that she couldn’t have been unconscious for long because when the
harsh odor of smelling salts jarred her back to wakefulness, she was still on the
hotel room floor. One pleasant change was that a pair of strong arms was supporting
her torso and her head was pressed against a man’s sturdy chest. Rawlings’ chest.

Without speaking, she pushed away the inhalant he’d placed under her nose.

“Sorry,” he said, his lips hovering just above her hair. “A blast of ammonia is a
nasty way to be brought back, but concussion victims need to stay awake.”

Olivia buried her face in his shirt, hoping to escape the acrid smell of ammonia.
His scent of sandalwood and coffee helped steady her and she breathed it in greedily.
He’d come to her rescue, just as she’d hoped he would.

“I will always come for you,” he whispered as if she’d spoken the thought aloud.

“Haviland,” Olivia said, turning her head. She tried to take in the crowded room,
but there was too much commotion for her muddled brain to process.

Haviland, who’d been standing guard over her, moved forward and nuzzled her with his
nose. She kissed him, putting an arm around his neck and drawing him against her.
“My hero. You’ll be eating like a king for the foreseeable future.”

Sheriff Poole approached the trio and, after shooting Haviland a nervous glance, squatted
well out of the poodle’s reach. “Paramedics are here, Chief. It’s time for you to
get your head checked, ma’am.” He smiled at Olivia.

“Millay?” she asked.

“She’s fine,” Rawlings assured her. “She’s waiting in the sheriff’s car.”

Poole chuckled. “When the manager let me into this room, I thought I might have a
gun fight on my hands. Instead, your dog had Mr. Ware pinned to the ground, his teeth
hovering over the guy’s jugular. As if that weren’t enough, your friend had a knife
pressed against his groin. That man was afraid to breathe, let alone move. I’ve never
met anyone so eager to be cuffed and taken away.”

Olivia tried to sit up unaided, but Rawlings refused to let her go. With his hands
on her back, she was able to turn and look at him full in the face. His expression
surprised her. The fear and worry he’d felt for her was quickly giving way to anger.

“It was Judson,” she told him. “He killed Munin and Willis and tried to kill Talley.”

“Maybe so,” Rawlings said in dangerously quiet voice. “But unless he confesses, we’ll
have a helluva time proving it.”

Poole rubbed his expansive chin. “Now that he’s out of harm’s way, he’s full of threats.
He’s going to sue the hotel, the sheriff’s department, and especially you, Ms. Limoges.
Said he’ll make sure your dog is put down if it’s the last thing he does.”

“Everything that went on in this room happened because you and Millay committed a
B and E,” Rawlings said unhappily. “Judson could stand in front of a judge and claim
to have surprised a pair of thieves ransacking his room, after which he was attacked
by a dog belonging to one of the intruders. He knows the law, Olivia. You and Millay
might have compromised the whole case.”

Olivia began to shake her head, but the movement hurt too much. “He’s proud of what
he’s done. He’ll tell you everything.” She wasn’t completely certain that this was
the truth, but she needed to believe that it was.

“I hope you’re right,” Rawlings said and Olivia heard the fatigue in his voice. “But
we’ll talk about it later. Right now, you have a date with an ER doctor.”

“No way,” Olivia objected, recovering some of her pluck. “I am
not
climbing onto that thing.” She pointed at the stretcher parked in the hall. “And if
I go to the hospital, they’re going to insist on observing me for who knows how long.
I can’t leave Haviland.”

Rawlings gave her an indulgent smile. “I’ll take care of Haviland. As for you, you
get on that gurney or I’ll carry you to the ambulance. And I’m not young anymore,
Olivia. I’m not sure my back can take it.”

“Then I’ll walk. Just hold on to me.”

After telling the paramedics that he’d meet them by the front door, Rawlings slipped
an arm around Olivia’s waist. “You’re the most difficult, infuriating, and impetuous
woman I’ve ever known.”

Olivia leaned her head against his shoulder and they walked slowly down the hall to
the waiting elevator car, Haviland following on their heels. “I’m sorry, Sawyer. It
wasn’t my intention to screw this up. I could have tried to talk Millay out of her
plan, but I have to admit that I found it very attractive. I wanted to act. I wanted
this to be over.”

“Well, for both of you, it is over.”

The elevator doors slid closed and Olivia wrapped her arms tighter around the chief’s
waist. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, but the brief drop from
the second floor to the first made her feel dizzy.

“You should have gotten on the gurney, you stubborn woman,” Rawlings chided as he
half dragged her through the lobby.

“I love you too,” Olivia mumbled and then grudgingly allowed the paramedics to help
her into the ambulance. Suddenly, the idea of lying down was very appealing and she
settled on the stretcher, relaxing as an EMT strapped her in for the ride. Having
the sheet tucked around her feet made her feel like she was in a cocoon of clean,
white cotton, and she wanted nothing more than to fall into a deep sleep and wake
the next morning with the whole nightmarish event behind her.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Rawlings gave her shoulder a shake. “They’ll hit you up with the
smelling salts if you try to nod off.”

She opened her eyes and glared at him. “I thought you had a bad guy to work over.”

“I do. And don’t think that what you said earlier is going to keep you out of hot
water,” Rawlings said. “This is Poole’s neck of the woods and I don’t know how he’s
going to handle this mess.”

“What did I say?” Olivia frowned and then suddenly realized that Rawlings was referring
to the “I love you too” comment. “Oh, that.” She paused and then reached up and touched
his cheek with her hand. “I know you’re supposed to say that kind of thing over a
candlelit dinner or a walk on the beach, but it just tumbled out. Doesn’t make it
less true though.”

The EMT waiting by the rear doors coughed discreetly, signaling Rawlings that it was
time to get a move on.

Rawlings ignored the paramedic and lowered his face so that his lips brushed Olivia’s.
“Say it again,” he whispered.

“I love you,” she whispered back and the two of them lingered for a long second, clinging
to a moment that belonged to them alone, a tiny oasis of light and warmth in the dark
night.

When Rawlings tried to straighten, Olivia grabbed him by the arm. “Judson’s pain is
connected to the house. If he won’t talk, mention the house. The only time he had
a family, as screwed up as that family was, was in that house. When his mother sold
it to Calvin Locklear, it broke his world apart. He could never pick up the pieces.
Life wouldn’t let him.”

Kissing her hand, Rawlings nodded. He stepped out of the ambulance and she heard him
say, “Come on, Captain. We’ve got to get a signed confession before I can feed you
one of your fancy suppers,” before the paramedic closed the rear doors.

“So your dog is the hero of the hour, eh?” the fresh-faced EMT said.

Olivia smiled. “He is. He’s going to be impossible to live with over the next few
days.”

“And the police chief? Is he your boyfriend?” the EMT continued, fitting a blood pressure
cuff around Olivia’s upper arm.

Olivia laughed and then winced. Laughing hurt. “I’m too old to have a boyfriend. At
my age, women have lovers, not boyfriends.” Her head throbbed. “What the hell was
I hit with anyway?”

The paramedic was pleased to be able to answer her question. “It was a woodcarving.
Almost as long as my arm and pretty solid too. One of the deputies said that your
attacker must have bought it at the powwow.”

It had certainly felt solid. “A carving?”

“Yeah, an eagle perched on a log. Guess the guy was really patriotic or something.”
The paramedic placed stethoscope buds in his ears, inflated the cuff, and then wrote
a note on his chart.

“Not patriotic,” Olivia said. “Psychotic.”

This got the EMT’s attention. He was about to pop a thermometer under her tongue but
he paused, his hand in midair. “I heard that he killed people. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Man, I hope the sheriff and your chief will make sure he’s put away for a long time,”
he said.

“Me too,” she said and opened her mouth to receive the thermometer.

After taking her temperature, the paramedic jotted down a few more notes. He let her
close her eyes and they rode the rest of the way in silence.

My chief.
Olivia repeated the paramedic’s words to herself. She liked the sound of it.

As the road passed beneath the ambulance, Olivia pictured the man she loved, the man
with the salt-and-pepper hair, the strong hands, and the pond green eyes. She knew
that he was already back on the job, probably striding down a corridor at the sheriff’s
office, a cup of coffee in his hand, preparing to sit in on an interview with a murderer.
He would work tirelessly until justice was achieved for Judson’s victims. He would
work until he had what he needed to put the killer away.

And then he would come to her.

I will always come for you,
he had said.

Her chief. The only man who dared to claim her.

Olivia thought about time. She thought about how Judson had used it to exact his twisted
revenge. How she had wasted so much of it nursing the pain of her past, by barricading
herself behind a wall of loneliness. How it had taken half a lifetime for her to find
love.

Better late than never,
she thought as the ambulance pulled to a stop in front of the emergency room. The
EMT opened the rear doors and light flooded in, the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams
like millions of tiny stars.

Chapter 19

Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the
fountain.

—J
OHN
L
OCKE

C
ourtesy of the wooden eagle, Olivia received nine stitches and, much to her annoyance,
was forced to remain overnight for observation. To her surprise, she curled up in
her hospital bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep and awoke feeling refreshed
and remarkably clearheaded. By the time her nurse’s shift ended at seven the next
morning, Olivia was demanding her discharge paperwork.

As she filled out countless forms, her cell phone rang and she scooped it up with
unusual eagerness. She’d had no luck getting through to Rawlings last night and was
concerned about both the case and Haviland’s well-being.

“Are you on the beach?” Dixie demanded tersely. “I already tried calling your house.”

The breathless quality to Dixie’s voice was unsettling. “What’s going on?” Olivia
asked.

“The spittin’ image of Willie Wade is at my window booth, that’s what!” Dixie exclaimed.
“Ordered eggs and sausage calm as you please and is sittin’ there readin’ the paper
like he was king of the universe.”

“Keep him there, Dixie. I need to talk to him.”

Dixie spluttered, “But why? Who is he?”

“I think he’s my father’s twin brother. Will you tell him who I am and that I’d like
him to wait for me at the diner? I have to call a cab and it’ll take me at least thirty
minutes to get back to Oyster Bay.”

“Where in God’s green earth are you?”

Olivia sighed. She didn’t want to provide Dixie with a lengthy explanation right now.
“In the hospital. I had a concussion but I’m okay. I promise to tell you what I can
when I get there.”

“What you can?” Dixie scoffed. “That means I’ll get next to nothin’ out of you.” She
tried to sound disgruntled, but she was too excited to be convincing. “Ah well, I
suppose I’ll have to amuse myself by grillin’ the doppelganger wavin’ his coffee cup
in the air like it’s gonna be refilled by a troupe of flyin’ fairies.”

Olivia laughed and said good-bye. She’d just dropped the phone back into her purse
when she looked up to find Laurel and Harris standing in the doorway. Laurel was carrying
a beautiful arrangement of orange and yellow lilies in one hand and a glass vase in
the other.

“Why are you dressed?” she asked, nonplussed. “We brought you flowers.”

“They’re gorgeous,” Olivia said, smiling. “It’s so good to see you both. How’s Millay?
What’s going on with the investigation? Have you talked to Rawlings?”

Harris held up his hand. “Whoa, whoa. Slow down. First of all, are you cleared to
leave? Millay said you got whacked pretty hard.”

Olivia showed him her paperwork. “I’m legit. I was just about to call a taxi when
you showed up.”

“Mom’s taxi at your service.” Laurel performed a little curtsy. “You can even sit
up front. Harris doesn’t mind the cookie crumbs, apple juice spills, and cereal debris
in the backseat. We’ll fill you in on the case on the way to the parking lot.”

The three friends headed outside. Olivia felt unsettled to be walking without Haviland
at her side. It felt like part of her was missing. Why hadn’t Rawlings at least sent
her a text message?

“Have you seen the chief?” she asked Laurel. “Haviland stayed with him last night
and I’m worried about them both.”

“That must have been hard on you,” Laurel said. “But we only talked with Millay. After
giving her statement yesterday, she insisted on visiting Talley. The next thing we
knew, she was in the car and on her way to Maxton.”

Olivia paused next to the passenger door of Laurel’s minivan. “That’s a three-hour
drive!”

Harris nodded. “It sure was. I know because I went with her. She was hell-bent on
visiting Talley’s house. Apparently, Judson refused to confess and Millay swore she
had a plan to get him to tell the cops everything.”

Laurel unlocked the minivan and they all got in. Olivia breathed in a mixture of Cheerios,
juice, and coffee. “Why did she want to go to Talley’s house?”

Harris kicked aside a pile of empty juice boxes and buckled his seat belt. “First,
she wanted to photograph the walls in the root cellar. Second, she wanted to collect
photos of Talley and Willis in the house. Happy ones, you know? Christmases, birthdays,
Willis and Talley carving pumpkins, that kind of thing.”

“Brilliant,” Olivia said. “Did it work?”

“I have no clue,” Harris admitted. “Millay brought her camera and Talley’s photo albums
to the sheriff’s office, but neither Poole nor Rawlings invited her to enter the inner
sanctum, so she left the stuff with a deputy and went home and crashed. She’s still
out cold.”

Olivia studied the landscape for a moment. “I’m assuming that she told you what we
did.” She glanced at Laurel. “And you obviously realized we were in trouble.”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out!” Laurel exclaimed. “Millay shouted for me to call the
cops, that you two were in Judson’s hotel room, and that he was there too. I used
the landline in my kitchen to get ahold of the chief.” She put a hand over her heart.
“I’ve never been so glad to have someone answer on the first ring in all my life.”

Laurel put her hand back on the steering wheel and gripped it tightly. Olivia saw
her friend’s knuckles turn white. “It’s all right, Laurel. You did everything you
could and I’m sorry we scared you like that.”

“If only I’d typed up my powwow interview notes earlier . . .” Laurel left the rest
of the sentence unsaid.

“Hey, if anyone missed something important, it was me,” Olivia said. “Judson made
several comments about growing up poor and having had to deal with hardship. He even
mentioned the fact that he volunteered at an animal clinic. That’s where he got the
inhalants. It was like he was taunting us—dropping little bread crumbs for us to follow
and then laughing while they were eaten by hungry birds.”

Harris groaned. “This was the strangest weekend I’ve ever lived through. There were
so many riddles, so many things spinning out of control. It felt like time was moving
too fast for us to catch up. All I want to do now is chill out for a few days.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Olivia asked.

“I took a sick day.” Harris gave Olivia a demonstration of the coughing fit he’d produced
for the benefit of his boss.

Laurel laughed. “After I take you home, Olivia, I’m going to spend the rest of the
day at my cubicle. I might not be able to tell the complete story on Judson Ware and
the Locklears, but I’ve got enough to wet plenty of whistles.”

“Actually, could you drop me off at Grumpy’s?” Olivia asked. “I have something to
take care of there.”

This surprised Laurel. “But the chief had someone bring your car back to your house.
And what about Haviland?”

Olivia felt a twist of guilt in her belly. “I don’t even know where he is.”

“Haviland’s with the chief,” Harris assured her. “Rawlings called me at five thirty
this morning and asked me to check on you. He didn’t want to wake
you
up, but it was totally fine to wake
me
up.”

“That’s because you don’t have a head injury,” Laurel said. “And he called me too,
remember?”

Harris filled Olivia in on a few more details. Talley was being discharged from the
hospital and had accepted Annette Stevens’ invitation to live with her and her family
for a while. Fletcher Olsen, who was shocked and sickened to discover the monstrous
duplicity of his longtime employee, announced that he planned to put his clients’
affairs in order and then close his practice for good.

“He’s going to move to Hilton Head,” Harris continued. “And spend his days getting
a golfer’s tan.”

“Poor guy,” Laurel said. “I feel terrible about suspecting him and the Lumbee chief.
That woman has done nothing but fight for her tribe. She’s worked her whole life to
improve things for her people and we actually thought she might have killed one of
them.”

Olivia nodded. “I know how you feel, Laurel. But what we did was necessary, if not
exactly kind. A young woman’s life was at stake and time was running out.” She saw
a road sign for Oyster Bay up ahead and smiled. “In this case, I took the ask-for-forgiveness-instead-of-permission
mantra. I know Annette will understand. I just hope Rawlings will too. Eventually.”

The three friends rode in silence for a few minutes. As downtown Oyster Bay came into
view, Olivia thanked Laurel and Harris for coming to get her and suggested they all
meet for dinner at The Bayside Crab House later in the week.

“Do you want me to drop Harris off and come back for you?” Laurel asked as she double-parked
in front of the diner.

“No,” Olivia said. “Thanks again for the flowers.” She put the lilies to her nose
and hesitated for a second before getting out of the car. She hadn’t showered and
was wearing yesterday’s clothes. Her hair had been shaved around the area where she’d
received the stitches and she hadn’t bothered to dig out either the tube of lipstick
or the bottle of Shalimar perfume she kept in her purse. Is this how she wanted to
present herself to the man who was in all likelihood her biological father?

Actually, it is,
she thought. Clutching the flowers to her chest, she waved good-bye to her friends
and entered the diner.

Dixie dumped the plate of waffles she was carrying and skated forward to greet her.
“Lord have mercy! You look like you’ve been to hell and back!”

Olivia darted a quick look at the window booth. Her father’s twin was there and he
was staring at her. “I’ve had better nights,” she murmured, thrust the flowers into
Dixie’s hands, and walked over to the booth.

Zipping ahead of Olivia, Dixie performed the introductions. “Charles Wade, this is
Olivia. Olivia, meet Charles.” For once, Dixie’s eyes weren’t glittering over the
high potential for drama. In fact, her face was pinched with concern. “You want coffee,
hon?”

“Please,” Olivia said. “And grits with butter. I’m starving.”

Charles Wade had been gazing unblinkingly at Olivia from the moment she entered the
diner. After Dixie moved off, he clasped his hands together and exhaled very slowly.
“You look just like her. When I saw you in the boat yesterday, I thought you were
Camille. I knew it wasn’t possible, but my heart stopped.”

“I saw you at the powwow on Saturday,” Olivia said cautiously, studying the man. Up
close, it was even more obvious that he and Willie Wade were identical twins. Charles’s
grooming was meticulous and he wore expensive designer brands from his eyeglasses
to his watch to his Italian loafers, but the shape of his face and his tall, wiry
frame were the same as his brother’s. “I thought you were my father, but he died last
spring.” She waited for Charles Wade to react to this piece of news, but he didn’t.
This bothered Olivia. Had he already known or did he just not care?

“Why did you come to Oyster Bay?” she asked. “And how is it that I’ve never seen or
heard of you before now?”

“My company sponsored the Coastal Carolina Food Festival. We own the television network
that produces most of the food-related shows, including the one that filmed the feature
on The Boot Top Bistro.” There was nothing boastful in his manner, which was a relief
to Olivia. She wanted to like this man. “Dixie told me that The Boot Top is your restaurant.
I enjoyed an excellent meal there last night.”

Olivia acknowledged the compliment with a dip of her chin. “Do you usually attend
the festivals? They seem rather unsophisticated for a Fortune Five Hundred CEO type.”

He smiled. “You got me there. I only came to this one because it was so close to Oyster
Bay. To the last place Camille and I—” He halted and then began again. “I looked her
up about ten years ago only to discover that she was dead. Until then, I’d forced
myself to forget about her. I had a wife and children and a fulfilling career. I told
myself I’d never look back, but Camille was a difficult woman to forget.”

Suddenly, Olivia understood. “So you were already married when you had an affair with
my mother. Did she know about your wife?”

Charles gave her a dark look. He probably wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to so
bluntly. “Not at first,” he said, recovering his affable manner. “Camille and I met
at a museum fund-raiser in Raleigh, but even then I knew I wanted to move to New York.
My wife’s father had promised me a job at his network after I proved myself at the
local station. I worked my ass off. I didn’t have the advantageous upbringing that
my wife or your mother had, so I had to learn how to polish my rough edges and shed
all traces of where I’d come from.”

“Including your brother?” Olivia asked, feeling a rare pang of sympathy for Willie
Wade.

“He and I never got along. He never wanted to be more, to be better than our father
or all the Wade fishermen before him,” Charles said, his voice rising slightly. “And
he wasn’t better. He was
worse
. Flunked out of high school, got arrested for a dozen petty crimes, starting drinking
at fourteen. How Camille could stand it, I’ll never know.”

Olivia stared at him. “You got her pregnant, that’s how!” she snapped. “And my guess
is that you told my mother about your wife and your big career plans at about the
same time she discovered she was carrying your baby.”

All the color drained from Charles’s face. “What?
My
baby?”

Dixie arrived with Olivia’s coffee and grits. She shot Olivia a worried glance and
then glided away to check on the customers at the
Evita
booth. Olivia poured a splash of cream into her coffee and tried to calm down. “How
did my mother meet Willie?”

Charles searched his memory. “She wanted to be introduced to my family, and even though
I knew there was no point in it, she could be very convincing and so I brought her
to Oyster Bay. I figured once she saw the place, she’d be turned off and would drop
the subject of meeting my folks. But she loved it. She fell in love with every inch
of this dinky, little town. With
this
!” He made a sweeping gesture. “Unfortunately, we also ran into my brother that day.
He invited us out for drinks, probably because he wanted to see me squirm, and he
and Camille got along just fine. Still, I never imagined she’d marry him.”