Devil Smoke (30 page)

“Exactly. Sarah got Charlotte to come pick her up down the road from the store, away from any cameras. Still not sure how, but Sarah definitely wasn’t on any of the store’s surveillance footage. Although Putnam was. He must have been watching in case anything went wrong.” Burroughs leaned forward. “Anyway, they took Charlotte up to Fiddler’s Knob. It’s where Putnam proposed to Sarah, so I guess in her own warped way, it meant something to her. He also rambled something about a witch’s trial. Not sure about that, something called burking?”

Tommy startled. “Burking? It was a test for witchcraft. You’d pin someone to the ground and place rocks on them, heavier and heavier until their chest caved in and they couldn’t breathe. If they lived, they were a witch, and if they died…” He looked away, wished there were real windows instead of being forced to face the strangers in the room beyond. “It’s a horrible way to die. Is that how…” He couldn’t finish the question.

“Yes and no. They did bury Charlotte in rocks—used the old iron furnace on the mountain. Putnam made it sound like some kind of ritual—again, who knows what’s real and what’s delusion. They thought Charlotte was dead and knew they had to ditch her car before you notified the police and anyone started looking for her. And that would take both him and Sarah to drive. But while they were hiking down the mountain, they heard Charlotte and realized she wasn’t dead and had gotten free. It was a foggy night and they couldn’t find her easily, so Putnam went to use her car to block the road while Sarah hunted her on the mountain and herded her down to the road.”

Tommy’s mouth went dry as he visualized what Charlotte had gone through. “She was alive? She escaped?”

Burroughs shook his head. “Not for long. Putnam found her on the road. She was hysterical, begging to go home, thought he was you, that she was saved. I guess that infuriated Sarah because she made Putnam drag her back up the mountain.” Burroughs paused. Tommy braced himself. “She collapsed near where they ended up burying her, but she was still alive, so Sarah finished her off with a rock.”

Tommy bit his lip, trying to hold back tears. “I saw her skull. It took time to do that.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” For the first time, real emotion colored Burroughs’ voice. “When they were done, they buried her, then drove her car to the overlook on the river. Sometime after that they used her keys to take your tire iron and plant the charm bracelet. Except for the broken charm that Sarah kept as a trophy. She had another breakdown after everything, but without a job or insurance, Putnam nursed her through it—hell, he was so wrapped up in her delusion, he believed that what they’d done was the right thing. Justice for their son. Said the only thing that snapped Sarah out of her depression was planning what they’d do to you next.”

“So everything—they planned it all?” Lucy asked. “The wedding dress? The bones in the photo?”

“If your team hadn’t spotted them, you can bet Sarah would have. They’d been watching Tommy for almost two years. They knew exactly how to manipulate him.”

“And we played right into their hands,” Oshiro said. “Have to say, I was totally blindsided.”

“We all were.” Burroughs closed his file. “Even though we’re trained to assume the worse and trust no one—”

“Who could resist a chance to play hero to Sarah’s damsel in distress?” Lucy finished for him.

Tommy said nothing. There was nothing left to say. He pushed back his chair and stood. “I’m going home.”

THREE WEEKS LATER…

“IT WAS A
nice wake,” Lucy told Tommy as he shoved the final covered casserole dish into his refrigerator. “Are you going to be okay?”

Tommy stifled his sigh. Everyone had asked him that, and no one believed his answer. But he knew what Charlotte would have wanted: for him to go on, not just sleepwalk through life, but to really live. For both of them. “Thanks for bringing Megan to watch Nellie for me. With Peter just out of the hospital, Gloria has her hands full.”

“No problem. She loved it.” Lucy closed the refrigerator door, leaning her weight against it to prevent it from popping back open. She waited a beat, holding his gaze as if deciding if he was ready for something. “So. Are you going to stay with us at Beacon Falls or go back to the ER? Not that I need an answer right away,” she hastened to add.

“I love the ER. And I miss it.” He shook his head. “But Nellie needs me. And I need to know I can be here for her.”

She smiled. “Our gain, then. We’ll have to find some good cases involving medical conundrums, keep you sharp.”

Megan and Nellie raced into the kitchen, hands joined, arms swinging, and plopped down at the table, propping their chins on their hands in mirror images of each other.

“I’m hungry,” Nellie proclaimed, even though she’d been eating all day. “Can we have breakfast for dinner? Special treat for being a good girl alllll day?”

“I don’t know. Were you a good girl?” Tommy asked even as he reached for the cereal bowls.

She flounced in her chair. “Megan, tell him.”

“Nellie was a very good girl.”

When Tommy glanced their way, they began to giggle as only girls can, heads together. He poured Sugar Loops into four bowls while Lucy opened the fridge once more and grabbed the milk.

“Nellie,” Megan said, giving Tommy and Lucy a wink as he slid the bowls in front of them, “why don’t you tell your dad how much you love his chicken salad.”

Nellie ladled a spoonful of neon cereal and milk into her mouth before answering. “I don’t like chicken salad. I never liked chicken salad.”

Tommy stared at her, his spoon halfway to his mouth, the milk turning a disquieting purple color. “You don’t have to say that to make me feel better, Nellie. I know you loved your mom’s chicken salad.”

Nellie shook her head, slurping some rainbow-colored milk from her bowl. “Nope. Yours is better than mom’s. At least you don’t put pickles on yours. But I still don’t like it.”

Megan sipped at her cereal from her spoon daintily, one pinky extended, a Cheshire grin on her face. Tommy frowned at her, wondering if she had coached Nellie into lying just to make him feel better. “You always asked for chicken salad last year.”

“Uh-huh,” Nellie said, nodding. “That’s because you and mom never packed cookies. Stephen’s mom always packed cookies. Lots of cookies.”

Tommy was getting whiplash trying to keep up. “Who’s Stephen?”

“The boy in my preschool who loved chicken salad sandwiches, Daddy,” she said in a tone that implied an eye roll. “But his mom always packed peanut butter and jelly.”

“Your favorite.” Comprehension dawned. “So you’d ask Mom for chicken salad, make the trade, and get extra cookies on top of the PB and J you wanted in the first place.”

“Too bad Stephen doesn’t go to my school this year.” Nellie sighed, upended her bowl, and slurped the last of the Sugar Loops. Her milk mustache was a blend of green and orange, and Tommy didn’t even want to think about the spike in her blood sugar. He stared at his daughter, as much an enigma as her mother, and felt lighter. As if he could dare to hope that he might actually be able to give Nellie everything she needed from both a mother and a father—even if it was only PB and J.

“Can I go watch cartoons now?” She jumped down from her stool.

Tommy watched in amazement as she grabbed her bowl and, without prompting, put it in the dishwasher. Wow. Catch ’em being good, he thought. And by the expectant look on Nellie’s face, she’d already figured that out. “Sure, half an hour, then it’s bed.”

Nellie skipped from the room, Megan in tow.

Tommy looked over at Lucy, who was concentrating on her Sugar Loops as if they held the key to the Rosetta Stone in their strange shapes. “You don’t have to eat those, you know.”

She looked up. “Actually, they’re not bad. Better than my usual dinner, and the box says they supply a complete and nutritious breakfast.” She dangled her spoon in front of the colorful cereal box. “I’ll bet you two things.”

“What?”

“One, that you’re going to start packing cookies in her lunch. And two, that Nellie’s going to grow up to be a lawyer.”

He groaned—on both counts. “Really? I’m thinking with her negotiation skills she could be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.”

“Why not President?”

He smiled. The first, genuine, deep down to his toes smile he’d had since Charlotte died. He could make it past this pain, he could start to enjoy life—starting with his daughter—again. “Why not? I have a feeling she’s destined for great things.”

“Her mother would be proud.”

He thought about that. “Yes. Yes, she would.”

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