Stonebrook Cottage (20 page)

Kara put the groceries on her American Express card and grimaced at the bags of chips and boxes of cookies and snack bars, the huge box of microwave popcorn with real butter, that Henry and Lillian had dumped into the cart. At least Allyson had never said she trusted Kara to feed her kids properly. They pushed the cart across the parking lot to the car, Lillian taking the keys and opening up the trunk.

"Kara? Hey, there. I thought that was you." Billie Corrigan trotted across the parking lot with two plastic bags filled with what looked like Christmas lights. She grinned at Kara, then at Henry and Lillian. "How are you? Besides keeping Bluefield, Connecticut, in gossip."

Kara smiled. "Billie, it's good to see you. We just slipped out for a few groceries."

"And no reporters have descended on you?You've always been lucky like that, Kara." Billie laughed, her good cheer infectious. Kara didn't know her well, but they'd always gotten along. Billie lifted one bag onto her hip, let the other drop to the pavement. "I was over at the junk store seeing what I could find. If Madeleine Stock-well knew where I get half my decorations, she'd never hire me again. It's all in the presentation. I learned so much from my father, bless his drunken, no-account soul."

"You do great work," Kara said.

Billie squinted at her. "Think I'd make a go of it in Texas?"

Kara laughed. "We'd love you."

"'We.'You really are staying down there, aren't you? Well, I don't blame you. Must be nice to be near family. I know moving up here to be closer to my brother's one of the best things I've ever done, not that I see enough of him." She turned to Henry and Lillian, who were lifting the grocery sacks into the trunk. "What're you kids up to? If you were mine, you'd be chipping rock, running away like that."

They mumbled a polite greeting and scooted into the car, shutting the doors quickly behind them. Billie shook her head, her expression serious now. "It's been hell around here since Big Mike died. I don't blame them for acting weird. We've all wanted to run away, I imagine, at one time or another. Anything I can do?"

"I don't think so, but I'll let you know if something comes up. Thanks, Billie."

"Have you seen Hatch yet?"

Something came into her eyes, and Kara wondered if Billie Corrigan knew how her brother felt about his longtime friend from Texas. "Not yet."

"He misses you," Billie said.

"I miss everyone, too. Nice seeing you, Billie. I have to go."

Allyson led Sam along a wide lane through the woods, explaining that it had all been farmland at the turn of the twentieth century. She pointed out the old stone walls that used to mark the fields, the occasional fence post and length of rusted barbed wire, the relative youth of the forest itself. When she thought about the power of nature, she said, she didn't fret so much

about the gravel pit out over the hill.

Sam listened and said little.

They came to a stand of poplars, and she continued, unbothered, it seemed, by his lack of response. "Charlie and Pete Jericho will give nature a helping hand, but even if they didn't, it'd happen over time—just too long a time to satisfy my mother-in-law." She smiled at Sam, but he noticed her eyes remained difficult to read. "Madeleine insists the gravel pit's not much better than a strip mine, but that's not fair. There'll be fines and general hell to pay if it doesn't get restored. She'd like it a lot less if the Jerichos chopped up their property into estate lots and sold them for a fortune, I can tell you that."

"What about zoning?"

"It's very strict in some towns, less so here in Bluefield. Connecticut has a forever-farmland program, where the state buys the development rights of a property in exchange for it remaining farmland, but the Jerichos haven't applied. They just keep working the land in their own way."

Sam glanced around him, the shade shifting in the late-morning sun. "It's beautiful land out here."

She smiled. "Yes, it is."

They crossed a narrow, muddy stream. A swarm of mosquitoes found them and followed them out to drier ground. One fat mosquito stayed with Sam all the way out to the end of the lane, where they came to a rolling field of orange and yellow wildflowers and tall, straw-like grass that swayed in the breeze. Across the field, against the bright, clean sky, were the immaculate buildings of what he assumed was the Stockwell estate.

"Madeleine still calls it Stockwell Farm." Allyson lingered in the shade. "They've never raised stock or grown crops for sale, but they were almost self-sufficient for a while when my husband was growing up here." She laughed suddenly, almost embarrassed. "Do you have this effect on everyone? I'm just yammering on."

"Feel free," Sam said.

"The Stockwells have a great deal of money. I don't. I'm comfortable, but the bulk of my husband's estate is held in trust for our children. Don't get me wrong, as Connecticut goes, they're not super-wealthy. I mean, they're not Rockefeller rich—"

"They never owned land that was turned into a national park?"

She tilted her head back, eyeing him. "Do you have a problem with wealth, Sergeant Temple?"

"No, ma'am. Not me." He grinned at her. "I'm from Texas."

"My God. Have you smiled at Kara like that?"

"Has no effect on her."

"That's what you think, is it?"

He didn't, not really, but he wasn't discussing Kara with the governor of Connecticut, no matter how long she and Kara had known each other. Allyson walked out into the field, and Sam followed, the sun bright and hot, something not at all right with this woman. She'd let her brother-in-law know she was returning from the cottage accompanied, so Sam didn't have to worry about armed guards swooping down on him.

When her cell phone rang, she was so startled she nearly dropped to her knees. Sam caught her by the upper arm, steadying her, and he noticed she was shaking and had bit her lip, drawing blood.

"I forgot I had my phone with me," she said lamely, knowing, obviously, that she'd overreacted to a simple phone call. "It's my private line—I'm sure it's Hatch or one of the kids."

She retrieved her small, expensive cell phone from a pocket and pressed it to her ear, the muscles in her hand visibly stiffening, as if she was trying to keep it from shaking. She said her name and listened a moment. "I can't talk right now. I'll have to call you back." Her tone was cool, almost affected. She shut off the phone and closed her fingers around it. "I shouldn't have had it on in the first place. Sorry for the interruption."

"No problem."

But Sam was still watching her. She couldn't breathe. Her skin color went a pale gray, and purple splotches appeared on her cheeks. Sam was one second away from calling out the troops—he wasn't having a governor pass out on his watch.

She held up a hand, smiling wanly. "I'm okay. A bit of a panic attack. I think I'm allowed, don't you?" She took a shallow breath. "I haven't had one since my first year of law school. Kara was there, but it wouldn't have mattered. I'd have told her. Everyone tells Kara everything."

"Mike Parisi told her he couldn't swim," Sam said.

"He didn't tell me. I didn't know until he drowned.

He never confided in me that way." Her speech was too rapid, and Sam had trouble understanding her. She talked Yankee fast as it was. "Kara was like a daughter to him, but I think it was more than that."

"He was in love with her?"

"A little—maybe a lot. But their relationship was strictly platonic. Kara attracts men who love her from afar. They're afraid they'll ruin everything if they touch her." Her speech regulated, and some of the purple splotches faded as she got control of herself. A spark of humor flashed unexpectedly in her eyes. "But you don't have that problem, do you, Sergeant Temple?"

He smiled. "You're a bold woman, Governor Stockwell."

"I'm practicing."

"You want to tell me what that phone call was about?"

"Nothing that would interest you." She continued out across the field, the flowers up to her knees. "I imagine you don't like the idea of Big Mike drowning over an injured bluebird, but it happened. How could his death have been deliberate? It's just about the craziest way to assassinate a governor I can think of. You'd have to find a bluebird, capture it, break its leg, keep it alive long enough to toss it into the pool, get Big Mike out there in time to see it while he'd still have hope of rescuing it—it's just crazy."

"Logic would suggest it was an accident," Sam said.

"That's right."

"Do you believe it was?"

"Let's just walk," Governor Stockwell said.

He stopped, still within a few yards of the cover of the woods. "You go on from here. I should get back to Kara and your kids."

"You just don't want to explain that gun you're carrying to my security people. I
am
the governor of my state. I know its laws." She suddenly reminded Sam of her son in one of his know-it-all moods, but it didn't last. Her mood shifted, and she gave him a long look, one that told him she was, indeed, governor material and not a woman to underestimate, no matter her current emotional state. "Why are you here, Sam?"

"Kara's sister-in-law asked me to find her."

Allyson smiled. "Kara broke the rules, didn't she?"

"Many."

"Good for her."

"Governor Stockwell, I think your children are in danger. I think they know it, and I think you at least suspect it. You need to talk to your people here."

The ice mask came down, and Sam knew he'd overstepped his bounds—not that he cared. Allyson Stock-well tilted back her head at him, the bright light washing out all the color of her hair. She looked older than thirty-seven, and very tired. "Henry and Lillian have a certain flair for the dramatic. In her own way, underneath all her professionalism and courtroom cool, so does Kara. I'd maintain my objectivity if I were you."

"If you're withholding information from authorities—"

"Need I remind you that you have no jurisdiction in Connecticut?" He didn't answer, and she added crisply, "Thanks for walking me home. I hope you'll let me handle my children in my own way." She spun on her toes and marched three steps, then stopped abruptly, shifting back to him, all her haughtiness gone. Her eyes glistened with tears. "You and Kara—you'll look after Henry and Lillian, won't you?"

Sam took a step toward her. "Governor Stockwell— Allyson, tell me what's wrong. You're right, I don't have jurisdiction here, but if you're in trouble—"

But she'd turned her back to him again and was running now, not a woman of great accomplishment or a New England governor determined to hold her own— she ran as if she was a scared kid herself.

Sam returned to the shade and cover of the woods and decided not to go after her. For all he knew, the Stockwells had dogs. Underground alarms. Razor wire. Allyson Lourdes Stockwell had state troopers guarding her who would, indeed, ask to see a local permit for his weapon. In their place, Sam would, too.

And the governor of Connecticut wasn't telling him anything more today.

About a million mosquitoes followed him back through the woods. As soon as he got back to the cottage, he planned to tell Miss Lillian he'd take eight kinds of rattlesnakes over a swarm of damn Connecticut mosquitoes any day.

Thirteen

W
hen Kara pulled into the cottage driveway, Sam was sitting on the stone steps waiting for them. She'd assumed she'd beat him back, even with her detour to the diner for onion rings. He got up and walked slowly toward the car, his movements controlled but stiff with displeasure. She climbed out of the front seat and popped the trunk. A pissed-off Texas Ranger didn't scare her.

Before she could get back to the trunk, Sam was there, lifting out two grocery sacks and handing one each to Henry and Lillian. "Go on," he said. "Take them inside."

They obeyed without question.

There was one more sack and a gallon of milk. Kara reached for the milk, but Sam touched her elbow, his black eyes narrowed as he gave her his best Texas drawl. "You need to learn the difference between mine and thine, Miss Kara."

"If you hadn't parked behind my car, I wouldn't have had to take yours. I left you a note, so don't get all steely-eyed about me going to town."

"Time you and I got a few things straight." "Such as?" But he must have sensed something in her tone—ei-

ther that or he'd been sitting on the steps thinking dark thoughts for too long—because he took another step closer to her and laced his fingers into her hair, gently drawing her head back so that her eyes were locked with his. "Your brother would shoot me right now for what I'm thinking."

"I might shoot you myself—" "I don't think so." He spoke as if he knew what she wanted, and he low

ered his mouth to hers, pausing an instant as if to give her a chance to tell him he was wrong. She didn't, and he kissed her lightly, erotically, tracing his tongue along her bottom lip, not at all tentatively, a reminder of how intimate they'd already been.

"Sam…the kids…" "I think they've seen people kissing before." "Not
me.
" "Then maybe it's time." He slid his hands down to the small of her back, then