The Cabin (27 page)

Alice resisted rolling her eyes. She no longer felt so

smart for having hooked up with Destin Wright, ex-mil-

lionaire. But there was more bounce in his step when

he left, checking up and down the hall before he darted

out into the hall, like the Nazis were still after him.

She flopped on her bed and stared up at the ceiling,

the bright morning light doing nothing for her mood. She

didn’t know if her plan made any real sense—after all,

how well had she done when she’d found Rachel dead?

She thought she’d done some good thinking then, too.

She had come to at least one conclusion. Beau Mc-

Garrity was a bigger problem for her than Jack Galway.

Jack would toss her back in prison if she crossed the

line. Beau would kill her.

She sighed at the ceiling. “I am no good at this shit.”

Then she jumped up off the bed and grabbed some

clothes. Damn northern winters. She was freezing.

��

Fourteen

Susanna waited with Gran in a small, cozy sitting room

off the wide hall where Paul and Sarah Johnson, the

young couple who owned Blackwater Inn, had set up

their reception desk. They’d decorated the room in

warm tones of deep green and honey, and it had a bay

window that looked onto the lake. Gran stared out at the

snow-covered landscape. “This is the room where my

mother died,” she said quietly.

“Gran, if you want to leave—”

“No, let’s wait for Audrey…Alice.”

Susanna sat on an elegant upholstered chair. She and

Gran had decided to stop at the inn first, before going

to the cemetery. The Johnsons had greeted Gran as if she

were a living legend. In a way, she was. She was Iris

Dunning, the daughter of renowned Adirondack guide

John Dunning, a famous guide in her own right. The

Johnsons proudly showed off the wall of old pictures

they’d collected and framed of the inn’s early days.

Gran couldn’t bring herself even to look at them.

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225

Embarrassed by their enthusiasm, Sarah Johnson had

pulled Susanna aside and apologized. “It’s easy for us

to forget your grandmother experienced terrible tragedy

here. Sixty years seems like such a long time to us, but

for her—it must be like the blink of an eye.”

“She’s never said much about her past here,” Su-

sanna said simply. It was an understatement. Gran
never

talked about her life on Blackwater Lake.

Paul Johnson added, “Nobody around here thinks of

the scandal anymore.”

“No,” his wife said, “absolutely not.”

He nodded. “We all think of Iris Dunning as a truly

remarkable woman in the history of this region.”

Gran had made a noise, turning to the young couple.

“That sounds like an epitaph. You’d think I’ve been

dead all these years instead of living a few hours away

in Boston.”

That was when Susanna had decided to ask about

Destin Wright. Jack would no doubt consider this tread-

ing on his turf, but at this point she didn’t care—she’d

needed a change in subject. Eager to make amends, the

Johnsons told her that Destin had checked into the inn

with Audrey Melbourne the day before. They were both

in. Did Susanna want to see them?

They’d called up and Audrey—Alice—was on her

way down now. They hadn’t been able to reach Destin

and assumed he must have gone out.

Susanna glanced at her grandmother after the John-

sons excused themselves. What tragedy? What scandal?

She knew only the bare outlines of her grandmother’s

life before she’d moved to Boston. Susanna admitted

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Carla Neggers

she was madly curious, but Gran’s reaction to the inn-

keepers’ innocent missteps encouraged caution. She

didn’t want to push for details her grandmother might

be reluctant to share with her—or thought were none of

her damn business. This was Gran’s
life
they were talk-

ing about.

“I told Alice about this place,” Gran said. “That viper.

She made herself so easy to talk to, pretending to be in-

terested in my life—”

“Maybe she was interested, Gran. People are com-

plicated.”

She waved a hand, impatient. “I was indulging my-

self. I thought she wanted to know what I’d been

through to help her sort out her own life.”

“Don’t beat up yourself—”

“I’m not. I’m merely stating the facts.” She shook her

head, her eyes never leaving the beautiful view of the

lake. “Jimmy Haviland will never let me hear the end

of this one. He was suspicious of her from the start.”

“Not so suspicious that he told me about her right

away,” Susanna said. “He waited several weeks before

he said anything.”

Alice Parker entered the room with a snap to her step

and no indication she’d done anything wrong by turn-

ing up on Blackwater Lake. She wasn’t taking any pains

to pretend she was here for the winter outdoor sports.

She wore tight jeans, a close-fitting rib-knit teal sweater,

western boots and lots of gold jewelry. “Hello, ma’am,”

she said politely to Iris, then nodded at Susanna. “Mrs.

Galway.”

Iris spoke first. “You lied to me, Miss Parker.”

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227

“About some things, ma’am, yes, I did.” Her tone was

apologetic if not contrite. “But I didn’t lie about every-

thing. Not most things.”

“Your name. Why you were in Boston. You never

mentioned that my granddaughter’s husband investi-

gated you.”

Alice fiddled with one of her rings. “I am truly sorry,

Ms. Dunning. I never meant to upset you. This inn—

this country up here—” she paused, but went on again

in that same sincere but steady tone “—it’s all as pretty

as you said.”

“I never lied to you,” Iris said.

“No, ma’am, you didn’t.”

Gran eased onto the window seat, sitting sideways on

the honey-and-green brocade cushion, her back to Su-

sanna and Alice, as if they’d both offended her. With a

pang of regret, Susanna wondered if buying her cabin

on Blackwater Lake was more of an intrusion into her

grandmother’s life than she’d realized. In hindsight, she

should have consulted Gran first, instead of acting on

impulse. But it was as if she’d been moved along by a

force greater than herself. Once she saw the lake, the

cabin, the snow-covered mountains, she wasn’t sure

she’d had any choice at all.

“You came here with Destin Wright,” Susanna said.

Alice nodded. “Yes, we struck up a friendship at

Jim’s Place.”

“Did he tell you he’s after me for money?”

“Well, we talked about the new company he’s work-

ing on.” She shrugged her slender shoulders, tossing

back her red curls. “I don’t know much about business,

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Carla Neggers

I’m afraid. He said he needs—what does he call it?

Some kind of money.”

“Angel money,” Susanna supplied, her tone neutral.

“That’s right. I’m not involved in any of that. I just

wanted to see the Adirondacks and get out of town, fig-

ure out what to do now that I was persona non grata in

your neighborhood.” She smiled matter-of-factly. “I

have to tell you, after being in prison all those months,

I don’t even mind the cold up here.”

Susanna refused to let herself get distracted, either

by Alice shifting the subject or trying to charm her. It

couldn’t have been easy for Jack to investigate her. “Did

Destin tell you that Jack is here?”

“Your husband. Yes, Destin told me. I guess Lieuten-

ant Galway would think it a provocation, me showing

up right down the street from you.”

“That’s what we all think, Alice,” Susanna said

calmly. She supposed Jack would want her to stop here,

leave and tell him that Alice was at the inn—not let her

irritation and concern get the better of her. “He ran into

someone at Gran’s house the other night and got hit on

the head.”

“Lieutenant Galway?” Alice looked surprised—or

did a good job of it. “Do I look as if I could get the jump

on him? I’ll bet you I’m not even half his size.”

“You’re an experienced police officer.”

“And he’s a Texas Ranger. I’m sorry he got hit, and I

can see how you all might think I had something to do with

it. Well, I didn’t. So, you either prove I did, or you leave

me alone. I’ve served my time. I’m not on parole. I can

come and go as I please, provided I don’t break the law.”

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229

She was right, and Susanna sighed reluctantly and

nodded. “Fair enough. Do you know where Destin is?

I’d like to talk to him.”

“He wanted to try bobsledding. I think he might

have hitched a ride with someone. I don’t really know.”

Alice shrugged, losing interest. “We’re just here for a

good time.”

“It was his idea?”

“I don’t know, we just got to talking about you all

coming up here, and how I was curious about it, after

what Miss Iris had told me—” She stopped, frowning.

“How many more questions do you have for me, Mrs.

Galway?”

Susanna didn’t answer. Gran turned from the lake

and got slowly to her feet. “Alice, I think you should talk

to Jack, before you get in over your head and do some-

thing you regret.”

Alice’s mouth snapped shut. She seemed insulted.

“How stupid do you think I am?”

“How did you land up in prison?” Gran went on, her

eyes vivid and alive now, relentless. “You got in over

your head, and you did something you regretted. No

doubt it all seemed to make sense at the time, but in ret-

rospect, I suspect not. We tend to repeat our mistakes,

you know, until we learn from them.”

Alice was breathing rapidly, a flush spreading from

her face down her neck. She seemed taken aback at

Iris’s straightforward words—her insight. But she said

nothing, and Susanna remembered her brief conversa-

tion with Jack before they’d left for Blackwater Inn.

Sam Temple was on his way to Boston.

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Carla Neggers

“Beau McGarrity,” Susanna said, before she could

stop herself. “Do you know where he is?”

“No, but he worries me.”

“If you still have the tape I gave to you, I’d like you

to give it to Jack and let him listen to it. I’ve assumed

all this time it’s irrelevant, but—I’m not making any

more assumptions.”

Alice stood in front of Susanna and touched her

shoulder, her fingers ice-cold even through Susanna’s

heavy sweater. Her gray eyes were intense, and she said

in a low voice, “There’s nothing on that tape anyone can

use against Beau. I’d have given it to your husband if

I’d thought it would have made a difference.”

“But you still have it?”

She shrugged, evasive. “Mrs. Galway, Ms. Dun-

ning—you don’t have to believe me, but I just did what

I thought was right, no matter how it turned out.”

The sunlight caught the wrinkles in Gran’s face, but

they didn’t make her look drawn and ancient—they

made her look very alive, a woman who’d lived a full

life. She didn’t know anything about the tape, but

wouldn’t ask Susanna about it in front of a friend who’d

betrayed her. “If you hadn’t lied to us, Alice, we might

give you more credit now.”

“There’s so much you all don’t know.” Alice flopped

onto a second love seat, looking petulant and stubborn

and very young, not at all like a small-town Texas po-

lice officer or an ex-convict. “Rachel McGarrity—she

and I were friends. That’s why Beau called me that

night to find her body. I know it was him. I can’t
prove

it, but I know. And you, Miss Susanna. You think he

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231

started following you after he killed his wife. Well,

that’s not true.”

Susanna jumped to her feet and stared at her, aware

she was giving Alice the shocked reaction she wanted.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Mr. Beau looked you up
before
Rachel was

killed.”

“When?” Her voice was choked, and she only just

managed to stay on her feet. “I never saw him before

Jack started investigating you. How do you know?”

“Rachel was interested in you and your folks in Aus-

tin. She wanted me to do some investigative work for her

on the side, but I never got much of it done—she never

clued me in to the big picture. Beau must have got wind

of what she was up to and followed you. After Rachel

died, we—the police didn’t find anything that linked

back up to you. I don’t know, maybe there was nothing,

or maybe Beau got rid of it before he killed her.”

Susanna couldn’t speak.

Alice raised her eyes, and they were cool now, with

a slight gleam of victory. “I followed Beau right to

your door.”

“When?”

“A week or so before Rachel’s murder. Your daugh-

ters were still at school. You were out front working in

the garden. He parked across the street, got out of his