Three strikes, p.28
Three Strikes, page 28
“Any idea what brought it on?”
Jess looked worried and pale. She shook her head. “I was talking to him right before it happened.”
“Before or after he called me?”
Her sister frowned. “He called you?”
“I was heading over to Eastrock to pick up photos I got printed from some old negatives.” Audrey shook her head in regret. “I should have gone to Dad. He wanted to see me and I blew him off.”
“Photos of what?”
She shouldn’t have said anything. “Nothing. Just a film from when we were kids.”
David joined them. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Audrey slipped her arm around his waist. “We’re just trying to figure out if there was a trigger.”
“He was distracted all weekend.”
“He’s been acting weird for a couple of weeks,” Jess remarked. “Mom’s surgery took more out of him than we thought.”
Audrey agreed, but her father’s mood had changed right around the same time she met Mackenzie and started looking for the kid’s father.
Why had he called her just before it happened? Had something happened that was too much for him to handle? She couldn’t imagine what that might be, but she couldn’t help but assume some responsibility. It was her fault his heart had finally cracked under the strain. Her nosiness was why he was in that hospital bed. All that being thankful that she hadn’t killed someone and she’d almost been the death of him.
Audrey didn’t move far from the phone that night. Even though her mother kicked them out, she wanted to be able to get back to the hospital as quickly as possible if she was needed. She was tired, raw-nerved, and hypervigilant. So, when Neve’s car pulled into the driveway just before suppertime, her fingers instinctively curved into fists.
“I’ll get it,” Jake said when she knocked on the door. “Don’t want you getting arrested for assaulting an officer.”
“It would be worth it,” she argued, but she stayed in the kitchen as he went out to the entry. The porch light was on, and she could partially see Neve standing underneath it, hands in her coat pockets.
“Neve,” Jake greeted dryly. “What a pleasant surprise. What brings you out?”
“Yeah,” Audrey said, leaning against the kitchen door frame. “I really hope you’re here to make this day even shittier.”
“Can I come in?” the other woman asked. Jake stepped back to let her inside, and she stepped over the threshold. Outside, the ground was covered in a two-inch blanket of snow that the weather guy predicted would be gone the next day thanks to unseasonably warm temperatures. She wiped her boots on the mat, but her attention was on Audrey. “Actually, I wanted to see how your dad is doing.”
Audrey crossed her arms over her chest. “You could have called.”
“Thought it might mean more if I asked face-to-face.” Neve looked her in the eye. There wasn’t any accusation there, but Audrey thought she saw regret. She could only imagine what Neve saw in her gaze.
“Conscience bugging you?” Whatever else had caused it, she had to think that Neve’s asking if her father had a rifle like the one that killed Ratchett had to add to his stress.
“I’ve asked every hunter in this town about their guns, but yeah, a little. I hope your father didn’t think he was a suspect.”
“I don’t think it was himself he was worried about.” When Neve only nodded, she continued: “He’s doing as expected—charming the hospital staff and driving the rest of us nuts. He should be home in a couple of days if you want to pop by.”
“Maybe I will. Is David sticking around?”
“For a little while.” Then, she couldn’t help but add, “He doesn’t own any guns, in case you’re curious.”
“It’s just a guess, Neve,” Jake said, “but I think you’ve pissed her off.”
“You think?” the other woman asked with a rueful smile. “Look, I didn’t come here to make things worse. I wanted to apologize—to both of you.”
Audrey straightened. She hadn’t been expecting that. “Okay.”
Jake leaned against the banister that led upstairs. “Go for it.”
Neve shook her head. “Should have known you two wouldn’t make it easy for me. Look, I couldn’t believe Ryan Ratchett and his brother could have both died accidentally within hours of crossing paths with you, Jake.”
He tilted his head. “To be honest, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it also.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t like attention, Neve, especially the bad kind. You know that. I don’t go for spectacles, and shooting someone is a spectacle. Regardless, neither of those boys gave me any reason to kill them.”
She looked at the healing bruises on his face. “Oh yeah?”
Jake grinned. “I’ve had my ass kicked before and the victor lived to tell the tale.”
“Ryan Ratchett came after Lincoln.”
Apology her ass, Audrey thought. She was still digging. The woman didn’t know when to give up.
God, they were so much alike. It was probably why they made good friends—and adversaries.
“You seem to think I look at killing as an easy thing. Killing is no more an effective way of dealing with trouble than an abortion is an effective form of birth control. Why kill someone on my land when I could have just paid what Lincoln owed and be done with it?”
It was obvious Neve saw his logic. The big hole in hers was Ratchett being shot on Jake’s land. “I know you didn’t kill Ryan—it was too messy. But something weird happened here, Jake, and your family is in the middle of it.”
He nodded. “If you figure it out, let me know. I wouldn’t mind having a talk with the folks responsible.”
Whatever Neve saw in his eyes must have pleased her, because she gave a decisive nod. “Right.” Then she turned to Audrey. “Gideon found this the other day. I thought you might like to have it.” She held out a little plastic baggie.
Audrey took it. Inside was a charm bracelet she’d made for Maggie when she was eleven. There was a similar one in her jewelry box that Maggie had made for her. Of course Neve would put it together when she saw the “Best Friends” charm. As far as apologies went, it was a pretty good one. Her throat tightened as she shoved it in her pocket. “Thanks.”
“That’s some rock you’ve got on your finger. I’m sorry I had to hear about it through the town network rather than from you.”
She met her gaze. “Yeah. Me too.” But they both knew whose fault that was, and Audrey wasn’t about to apologize for it.
Neve obviously understood that she wasn’t about to forgive and forget, not yet. “Well, I’ll let the two of you get back to your evening. You don’t have to worry about any more questions or hassle concerning the Ratchett brothers.” Audrey wondered if that meant she’d also stop looking for answers.
Jake stepped around her to open the door. “Thanks for stopping by.”
The other woman smiled sheepishly. “I won’t let the door hit me in the ass on the way out.”
Once she was gone, Audrey went to Jake and put her arm around his waist. “Think that’s the end of that?”
“No. I think she’s going to be watching all of us pretty close for a while. I’m sorry for that. You two were becoming pretty good friends, though not that great if she thought you’d kill a guy just because he kicked my ass.”
Audrey looked up at him, her expression dead serious. “No, she’s right to have her suspicions. I’d go after anyone who tried to take you from me.”
His eyes darkened. His hand came up and cupped her face. “Take off your clothes.”
She didn’t protest, but her fingers trembled as they reached for the button on her jeans. She didn’t know what he had in mind, and she didn’t care. He pulled off his shirt and took her to her hands and knees on the stairs, covering her body with his own. Everything else ceased to exist when he eased inside her. There was nothing but the two of them.
The way it had always been, and always would be.
“Have you looked at the photos yet?”
They were at the breakfast table. Audrey had bruises and carpet burn on her knees, and Jake had somehow chafed a patch of skin off the top of his foot. After the stairs they’d taken a break and then moved upstairs. Each time had been a little less frantic than the first, but still fraught with emotion. They were completely twisted, she knew that, and she didn’t care.
The photos. After days upon days of waiting for them, she had forgotten all about them in light of her father’s heart attack. “No.”
“Maybe you should.”
He was right, but then again, he usually was. She got up from the table where she’d been jotting down names for the facility while scarfing down French toast, and went to the counter where the Fast Time Photo envelope sat. She brought it back to the table, using her thumb to open the flap.
There was another, smaller envelope inside. Audrey withdrew that and took the stack of pictures from it, leaving the negatives inside. Jake pulled up a chair next to hers.
Some of the photos were grainy—taken at night with bad lighting. Mostly they seemed to be party pictures. There were some of a bonfire at the camp back at Tripp’s Cove where they had parties in high school.
“Oh my God,” Audrey said on a laugh. “Look at us!” It was a photo of the two of them sitting around a fire. Audrey’s hair was really long, and Jake’s hung to his shoulders. “We look so young.” He might have been fourteen in the picture.
“We were. I was trying very hard to look cool.”
“You succeeded.”
“Only because I didn’t want anyone to know I loved you.”
She turned her head and kissed his cheek. “While everybody who looked at me knew how I felt about you.”
“That just made it all the harder for me. Sweet Jesus.”
Audrey had gone on to the next photo. It took her a second to realize what it was he was staring at. “That’s me.”
“In a bikini.”
She’d never been much for little swimsuits, but that summer all the girls had them. Hers had been black, of course. The photo wasn’t posed, but there was something overtly sexual about it. It was made all the more wrong by the fact that she only would have been thirteen.
“I forget that she sometimes felt more for me than I did for her.” It was strange and uncomfortable to see evidence of it now. She whipped the photograph to the back of the pile.
A few more of parties, then one that made her pause. It was of Maggie and Greg. He had his arm around her while he held up a beer bottle in the other hand. They had their heads together and were both smiling.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “He told me they hung out.”
“Probably nothing,” Jake agreed.
She flipped to the next photo.
“Or something,” he added.
Audrey could only stare. “That is him, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I see why Jess married him.”
It was a teenage Greg. A teenage naked Greg. Taken in what looked like the little shed back the Ridge. He was posing for the camera, and right beside his head was the heart Maggie had carved into the wall.
“So, I guess he lied when he said he hadn’t slept with her.” Jake looked at her. “You okay?”
“I’m not sure.” And then. “Son of a bitch.” He’d looked her right in the eye and fucking lied to her.
Jake frowned when she turned her head toward him. “These photos don’t mean anything except she caught him naked.”
Audrey nodded. “You’re right.”
Obviously he could see how pissed she was—how conflicted. He sighed. “Bottom line, Aud: What would this news do to your sister?”
“Jess would be hurt.”
“Is that worth calling him out?”
Was it? He would know she knew he’d lied. He’d have to acknowledge that. But sleeping with Maggie didn’t make him Mac’s father. How would Jess feel about all of this? She was pregnant and her father just had a heart attack—Audrey couldn’t add this to it. It had happened almost twenty years ago. And there was always the chance that Jess would be upset with her. If Greg decided to cut ties with Audrey, her sister might take his side. She couldn’t lose her sister again.
The back of her eyes burned as she gritted her teeth together. “No.”
“Then the choice is simple, isn’t it?”
Another nod. “You’re right. I’ve just got to let it go.” She tossed the photos aside. “I’ll forget I ever saw these.”
But they both knew she wouldn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
On Friday, Audrey went to pick her father up at the hospital while David stayed with their mother and made lunch. Of the three kids, he was the healthiest, and could be counted on to make something that wouldn’t accidentally send John back to the hospital in cardiac arrest.
Her father was ready to go when she arrived, sitting on his bed and chafing to get out of the “damn place” and home where he belonged.
“You look good,” Audrey told him. “Rested.”
He shrugged into his coat. “Nothing to do in this goddamn hole but rest. I’m bored out of my ever-loving mind, kid.”
“Well, let’s get you home, then. You know you have to take it easy for the next few weeks.” She drew a breath. “And Dad, no drinking.”
“I know.” He held up a stack of papers. “I have all the information right here.”
She took it from him so she and her siblings and their mother could read it. He would try to sneak something past them if they didn’t. “That means nothing but light activity, old man. I got you some puzzle and crossword books, and I made a Netflix queue for you. Deadwood, Longmire—bunch of stuff.”
He gave her a curious look. “You’re a good kid, you know that?”
She smiled. “I can be. Sometimes you’re even a good dad.”
“Christ, I wish someone had been here to witness that,” he quipped, but he grinned. “Take me home, darlin’.”
On the drive she decided to go ahead and ask what she wanted. It was just the two of them. “Dad, I don’t want to upset you, but I need to talk to you about something that I promise won’t go any further than this car.”
John sighed. “You’re going to ask me about Maggie, aren’t you?”
She shot him a startled glance. “Yeah.”
“It wasn’t me. There’s never been a time I was so drunk a child looked appealing.”
“I know that.” She was a little insulted that he thought her opinion of him might be so low. “But you know something, don’t you?”
He glanced out the window. “Yeah, I do. But I’m not sharing it, kid. I’ll take it with me to my grave.”
“You almost did.”
He turned to her, his eyes—so much like hers—tired and lined. “Yeah.”
“Okay. I think I know something too, but I won’t ask you again. ” To be honest, she was a little surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth, but it was true. She had planned to tell him about the pictures of Maggie and Greg. She had planned to question him about what he knew, but it wasn’t worth his health.
“Good.” He leaned back against the seat. “You happy, wearing Gracie Tripp’s ring?”
How could he even ask her that? “Yeah. I thought you liked Jake.”
“I do like Jake, but I love you, and the two of you have some kind of strange hold over each other. You always have. I remember that day he got you a new ice cream at the takeout because you dropped yours.”
“Lincoln knocked it out of my hand.”
“Whatever. That little fucker went inside and asked his granny for another cone for you and she gave him one. He came back out and gave you that thing like it was made of solid gold or something, and you looked at him like you agreed. Right then I knew there was something between the two of you that I’d never fully understand.”
“What about when I kicked Lincoln for making me drop my cone in the first place?”
“That’s when I knew you were my kid.”
“Mum’s word wasn’t enough proof? My eyes weren’t?”
“Oh, I knew you were partly me, of course, but when I saw that temper I knew you were more like me than Jessie. I had hopes for David, but he favors your mother too. Having that in you hasn’t made your life easy at times, and I’m sorry for that, but I do like knowing that no one will ever push you around.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Her voice was rough. And then, “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too, kid. I thought for a minute there that I was a goner. Tell ya what, it sure as hell gave me some perspective.”
“Yeah? On what?”
“Life in general. I’ve been given a lot of great things—my family, some friends, a fairly hardy liver. Up until now I’ve taken most of them for granted, and I’ve always put them second to the bottle, even if I tried to tell myself otherwise. I figure it’s time I stop doing that. This was God’s way of slapping me to my knees, I think.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “God? You haven’t believed in God in years.”
“Well, now, maybe He and I had a falling-out once upon a time, and maybe I’ve had a chip on my shoulder about it, but a man can’t have his entire life flash before his eyes, be given a chance to fix it, and not wonder if it was a message.”
“You know what? Whatever works for you is fine by me. I’m not going to argue with you.”
He grinned. “See, now, that’s a goddamn miracle unto itself.”
David and Anne made dinner and the rest of the family brought sides. Jake made dessert and Audrey a salad. They arrived at five thirty, as it was getting dark. Jess and Greg and the girls were already there. Greg gave Audrey the stink-eye when she came in.
“What’s his problem?” Jake asked.
She shook her head. “No idea.” She wasn’t in any hurry to ask either. It wasn’t that she was in a bad mood, just that her father was more important at that moment than whatever Greg had going on. If he couldn’t fake it for family’s sake, then he could just go ahead and be as snarly as he wanted. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it.
