Echoes (29 page)

"You don't know that. Hell, he was out at my house this morning poking around."

"He was at your brother's house too. Grant left with him."

She'd blurted the words before she thought and immediately wished she could call them back. It felt as if she'd betrayed Grant by telling.

"I knew they were planning on bringing Grant in."

"You knew?" she said. Yet he hadn't bothered to give his own brother even a heads up, the cops are looking for you?

"Smith told me he was going to see Grant next when he got done with me."

"You were questioned? Were you asked about Tori?"

"No. Just Dad. About the accident. Ochoa sent some evidence to Piney River and when the report came back, they had some issues with it."

"Deputy Ochoa? Not Sheriff Smith?"

Craig shrugged. "One or the other. Smith probably told him to send it."

"So what was this evidence?"

"I'm not supposed to talk about it but...apparently the gas cap was blown off in the explosion. Smith found it a few feet from where Dad was." He pulled his hands out of his pockets and began fiddling with a bright colored casino chip. He rolled it between his fingers as he spoke. "I don't really understand why that was suspicious but it has something to do with the tractor running on diesel and the burn marks on the cap. Now the coroner is questioning the accident."

It took a moment for that one to sink in. "You mean..."

"I don't know." He shrugged angrily. "I don't know what the hell to make of it."

"You want to know the truth, don't you Craig?"

"Of course, but—think about it. If it wasn't an accident..." He stared over Tess's shoulder at the graves settled on the grassy knoll behind her. "God knows there's no love lost between me and my brother, but I don't want to think about what will come out next."

"Aren't you jumping to conclusions?"

He shook his head, his expression grim. "Maybe I am. I guess we'll all know the truth before long. Smith is being damned thorough. If something's not right, he'll find it."

"What else did they ask you?"

"They wanted to know where was I, who was I with, did I know anyone who disliked Dad or was mad at him. That kind of thing."

"Where were you?" she said, trying to sound casual.

His jaw tightened and the corners of his mouth turned down in a frown that appeared and vanished so quickly she wondered if she'd imagined it.

"I was at the coffee shop, having a late lunch with
Lydia."

"Where was Grant?" She went for the casual approach again, failing more dismally than the first time.

"Your guess is as good as mine." He was looking at her through narrowed eyes and it took all her concentration not to squirm. An errant gust of wind blew her hair into her face. Craig's hand beat her own to brush it back. His warm fingers lingered a moment on her cheek. Uncomfortable, she turned her face.

"Craig… There's something I have to ask you. I know this is an awful time to bring it up, but I need to know. Were you aware of the relationship between your father and Tori?"

"She worked for him."

"She was more to him than his employee. They were intimate."

He made a sound of disbelief. "Who told you that?"

"Does it matter?"

"If it was true, no. But my father was almost seventy, Tess. He had trouble making it to the bathroom. The only person he might have been intimate with was his proctologist."

"What was he doing on that tractor, then?"

He shook his head and raised his brows. Good question, his expression said. "Whoever told you my dad was
intimate
with Tori didn't know what he was talking about."

Her mouth went dry and a slick dampness coated her palms. She rubbed them against her jeans. Either Craig was lying to her now or Grant had lied to her earlier. "Maybe I misunderstood."

He looked at her, skeptical. "Maybe someone is telling you lies."

She couldn't argue with that. The question was, who?

"What about you, Craig? Were you involved with Tori?"

For a moment, he looked at her with angry disbelief, but then he quickly glanced away. "I don't know who you've been talking to, but I can guess."

"Actually, it wasn't Grant. It was Caitlin who'd mentioned she'd been to dinner with you and her mother."

His expression smoothed. "Oh, that." His laugh held relief. "We met over dinner to discuss the best way to integrate Caitlin into school. Her education has been peppered with moves, to say the least."

An awkward silence closed in after his explanation, amplified by the serenity of the absolute quiet. His answer was pat, but it didn't sit right. Dinner meetings and small town principals didn't mesh. Parent conferences happened in offices after school, not steak houses. Unless the parent was single and beautiful and the principal eligible and attractive....

He had a wounded expression on his face, as if she'd insulted his integrity. To an extent, she supposed she had. But why would he feel the need to hide his association with her sister? No one would condemn him for pursuing Tori if he'd had the inclination to do so. Single people were expected to seek one another out, weren't they? Unless Craig was the mystery man who'd put that ring on
Lydia's finger...

Tess forced a smile. "Parent conference," she repeated. "I guess I didn't think of that. Caitlin didn't give me all the details. By the way, congratulations.
Lydia told me about your engagement."

Craig blanched. His expression became stony, his body still. "What are you talking about?"

She'd plunged in before she could reconsider and now she didn't know where to go with it. "I noticed the ring on her finger and... Well she didn't say that she was engaged to you, exactly. I just put two and two together and..."

"I'm not engaged to
Lydia, Tess." He shook his head. "Never have been."

"Do you know who she's engaged to?"

"Lydia lives in a fantasy world. She has for a long time."

Tess waited for him to say more, but he just stood there, looking as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. His hair was mussed—probably from running his fingers through it—and dark smudges underlined the exhaustion in his eyes, but his sad smile held sincerity and warmth. Was it as real as it appeared?

"She seemed lucid enough to me."

"For the most part she functions. But...life hasn't been very good to her." He looked at the tree and memorial where she'd sat earlier. "She was in the church the day it burned down."

"Lydia was?" Tess exclaimed.

He nodded, still staring past her at something beyond her perception. "I saw it all," he said softly.

"You were here that day?"

"I came late. I was a teenager and, well, you know how teenagers are. I couldn't be bothered to go to church more than half the time. Mom was as devoted as they come and it broke her heart that we wouldn't go."

He'd said we. Was it his father or Grant that was included in that we?

"That morning she and my Dad got into it with Grant and they woke me up shouting. She was in tears by the time she left. I felt bad for her so I got dressed and followed."

He swallowed and took a deep breath. "I smelled the smoke first, before I even knew that the church was on fire. By the time I made it over the hill, it was an inferno. I nearly died trying to help get people out, but it was too late."

"
Lydia got out though? I mean, obviously she got out."

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "The fire started in the basement. They'd been refurbishing everything. Shellacking the pews, the altar, restoring the life-sized crucifix. Afterwards, they blamed the spark that started it on faulty wiring. Then the supplies and rags went up like a torch. The smoke rose through the vents to the steeple. The ones that made it out said they didn't even notice it until the flames were up the stairs."

"My God."

"I can't imagine what it was like in there. They couldn't get out. Things were moved around for cleaning and... By the time the fire department made it, the flames were everywhere. The trees all around us—everything was burning." He made a harsh sound. "Even the wooden crosses in the cemetery. All of them were on fire."

The image of grave markers lit like candles filled her head with horror. She stared at the pristine grounds, picturing it aflame.

"It looked like hell had erupted right here in Mountain Bend. I kept looking for my mother, but she didn't make it."

"I'm so sorry."

He nodded once, and then let his head hang forward, as if the weight of it was too much to bear. "
Lydia was pushed down and nearly trampled to death. Back then she was tiny—smaller than you. She didn't get big until later. Some of the pews had been knocked over in the panic and she wedged herself in a gap beneath them. She was low enough that she had a pocket of oxygen. The firefighters found her crammed in a ball, battered, bloody...and never quite balanced again."

Tess didn't know what to say. The solemn silence connecting them was weighted with tragedy. She placed a hand on his arm and gave a light squeeze. He covered her hand with his own.

"I didn't mean to get so morbid."

"It's understandable under the circumstances."

"What are you doing here, anyway?" he asked.

Caught off guard, she couldn't think of a reasonable excuse. Shrugging, she said, "I saw the church. I wanted to come." She looked at the white doves set in the dark blues and purples of the stained glass windows. "I haven't been to church in a long time."

"But you're a preacher's daughter."

She snapped her eyes to his face. "How do you know that?"

"Caitlin or her mother must have mentioned it."

It seemed unlikely that Caitlin, who had never even met her grandfather, would impart such obscure information. Stranger still that Tori would volunteer it. Tori usually told people she was an orphan and that she'd never known her parents. Sometimes she went so far as to paint an exotic, yet tragic role in the story for Tess.

Craig glanced at his watch and said, "I need to get going. I'm here to finalize things for the service. Grant was supposed to meet me, but like everything else, he must have blown it off."

He was probably still with the sheriff. The fierceness of the instinct to defend him took her by surprise.

"I have to decide on the music. Like it's going to matter what they play."

"Was your father a religious man?"

Craig shook his head. "He used to be, but that was a long time ago. After mom died, he never set foot in church again. I don't think he ever forgave God."

"I don't know that I could either. Did you?"

"Forgive God? As I recall, God never asked for my forgiveness." He took a deep breath and looked back at the church with a hard look in his light eyes. "I'll see you later, okay?" He took a step away and then turned back. "Hey, thanks for listening. I guess I needed to vent a little."

Tess gave his arm another squeeze before he walked away. She watched him until he stepped through the chapel doors. As she turned to leave, a cold wind lifted her hair.

"Mooolllly!"

The childish voice calling shattered the quiet and cut into her thoughts. Head raised, she stared at the stillness as the echo of it faded.

"Arlie?" she whispered.

The scream that followed was filled with both terror and pain. It reverberated around her, swelling and fading as if through a door that opened and closed. What was happening to him? She scanned the cemetery, as if the answer would be there. He cried out again and she followed the sound through the rows of graves, first slowly and then faster as the terror in his voice rose.

"Molly!"

It sounded like he was here, but she knew it wasn't possible. It wasn't. That didn't deter the overwhelming need to find him, though. To assure herself he was unharmed, to protect him.

Her labored breathing plumed the air and she shook with the cold. The cries crescendoed and melded until it was one continuous plea for her to come. The door opened and closed, his calls surged and shrank and then, as suddenly as they began, they stopped.

Deafening silence crowded in around her. The weight of the dead pressed closer still. Clenching her eyes, she tried to keep hold of sanity. But behind them black stars became
brilliant blue sky with buttery sunshine and wispy clouds. Like a sigh, time whished through her. Captured moments fluttered in the draft. Here, then gone.

There was Rosie, mixing something in a bowl. Adam, reaching for his rifle. The smell of sweat, of roasting meat, of dirt and filth.

She walked beside the wagon, passing landmarks she'd anticipated for miles. There was Fort Kearny and the road, knotted with emigrants, and then the descent to Ash Hollow where the water and grass were the best they'd had in weeks. Chimney Rock poked up next like a blackened finger in the desolate, hot plains. The breeze became a wind, blowing through weeks that went on unending. Tess let it take her, searching through it all for Arlie.