The Truth Seeker (13 page)

“Because I need to see where Rita died. And I need you to show me.”

Nine

The former Grant Danford estate was forty acres in Lake Forest, backing up into the Lake Bluff Forest Preserve and the Skokie River. Lisa was grateful she was finally able to handle a car ride without having to brace for every turn. Quinn was a safe driver, but his attention was elsewhere and he was ignoring the speed limit to instead flow with traffic. The fact he said nothing during the hour-long drive was also a good indication he had other things on his mind.

She understood the intensity that demanded a case be solved.

She’d been there. She understood now what had made him the way he was: patient, steady, but tenacious. What had happened to his father was always there in the background, lingering as an unanswered question, eating at him because it remained unsolved. It had to have contributed to why he had never settled down; he’d been focused on the past, not his own future.

He had gone to church with Kate, Dave, and Marcus, then had come over to pick her up afterward. As graciously as she could she had declined his invitation last night to join them. He hadn’t pushed the subject, but he’d been studying her as he asked the question, noting her reaction. And what he had seen must have bothered him for he started to ask something, then caught himself and changed the subject.

It would hurt to push them away and hurt if she let them in. She

The last thing she needed was Quinn deciding to probe that subject too.

Lisa knew she’d made a tactical mistake. Kate was the heart and soul of the O’Malley family, and when she keyed in that there was something wrong, she didn’t leave it. Their conversation four days ago had triggered a red flag, and Lisa knew it hadn’t helped that she’d cut off a similar conversation with Jennifer; a fact that might have gotten back to Kate.

At times she hated the family dynamics. If she read them wrong, couldn’t finesse a situation, more often than not it triggered an issue into a state of prominence rather than getting it buried as she hoped.

All the O’Malleys had pasts that were complex and areas of their lives before Trevor House they rarely talked about. But those zones of privacy were around things they didn’t talk about easily, not around things that were hidden. And she was hiding. That had Kate worried, and it was only a matter of time before Marcus came by. He wasn’t a casual guardian of the O’Malley family. He cared enormously, would want to do whatever he could to fix what was wrong.

just wanted the past to stay the past. It couldn’t be fixed, she knew that, but they’d try anyway because they were O’Malleys. Because they loved her.

She’d been the focus of the family since the injury, now this

. She had to figure out a way to get their attention focused on someone else.

The power of the group could be overwhelming.

What she needed was an excuse to be so busy she could honestly say she didn’t have time. It had worked before; it would work again.

She’d just have to figure out how to stay ahead of them for a while.

She looked at Quinn, considering the unthinkable. If she said yes to a few invitations, she wouldn’t be using him exactly. It wasn’t like he ever saw someone for more than a few months, and that would be enough time to get out of this family scrutiny. And if she did say yes to

a couple church visits—at least it would deflect their concern and give her some space.

It was the coward’s way out of the problem.

It was depressing to realize she was seriously considering it.

“Who owns the estate now?” she asked as Quinn turned into the long, winding private drive that led back to the house, grateful for the time being that she could focus on work.

“Richard and Ashley Yates. They’re in Europe for a month. They weren’t thrilled with the news the old murder case was being looked into again, but Lincoln convinced them that it would be best to let him do it rather than risk someone else eventually investigating who would not be as cautious about keeping it out of the press.”

Quinn parked in the estate’s driveway turnabout. “We’re going to be meeting with the manager of the stables. When the Yates bought the estate, they also bought Grant’s horses and they kept him on.”

“Samuel Barber? Berry? Something like that

”

“Barberry. Good memory.”

“I’m surprised he’s still working. He had to have been in his seventies when I met him.”

“I spoke with him briefly—Scottish?”

“Yes. He was the one who found Rita’s body. They were rebuilding the stone terrace behind the stables; the land slopes to the river, and it was terraced to make room for a level exercise ring. They were replacing and leveling stones when they found her remains.”

“I’ve read Lincoln’s notes, scanned the full file early this morning.”

He shut off the car and removed his keys. “You excavated her grave?”

She nodded; some of the realities of her job were best left unstated.

She’d been here the good part of three days, the age of the crime scene having her working with archaeologist’s tools to brush away the layers of dirt from the bones.

“Good. I won’t have to wonder about evidence having been missed.”

The estate grounds had lost some of their elegance; they gave the

Even as she absorbed that compliment, he nodded toward the briefcase in back. “Bring the file? I’ll go locate Mr. Barberry.”

The stables were located near the back of the estate grounds, providing easy access to riding trails that disappeared into the heavily wooded forest preserve. There was also a swimming pool, adjoining pool house, and a tennis court on the estate grounds. Lisa remembered the house as being traditional English inside—heavy fabrics, polished wood. There had been a full suit of armor guarding the hall, rather hard to miss with its invisible man holding a jousting spear and four-foot sword. Grant Danford had been a man who liked to make a statement with his surroundings.

sense of being subtly neglected. It wasn’t obvious—the sculptured flowerbeds, evergreens, and white birch trees were still beautiful—but nothing had been added, everything had simply grown and it had thrown off the balance.

She carried the briefcase and delayed joining Quinn, in no hurry to step back into this case. It had been a hot summer afternoon, not unlike today, when she was called out to the scene. The police had cordoned off the area, and while they tried to maintain need-to-know on details during the early investigation, the press had already staked out the roads to the estate when she arrived. Grant Danford was a man with financial and political power and had the enemies that went with it.

This case had created a firestorm of interest in the press.

For three days she had labored here at the scene, painstakingly recovering the remains. The subspecialty of forensic anthropology took years to learn all its nuances, to read everything bones could say, but her years hunting fossils and going on archaeological digs had helped hone her skills. She knew how to recover remains and read a burial site, and those were the most critical steps in the process. Burial sites were the most fragile of recovery sites for evidence even though they looked the most sturdy.

An expert from the Museum of Natural History had joined her to help with the three-dimensional grid work, the careful record of the dig. How long Rita had been dead before being buried, how and even where she had been killed—the potential evidence in the gravesite was enormous and this one had yielded all of those markers.

She had worked in focused concentration with a scribe, a photographer, and an evidence technician to document and preserve each clue uncovered. By the time the remains were lifted to the black vinyl body bag, Lisa knew Rita Beck better than most people had when she was alivhere

She’d been proud of the work she had done.

And now Lincoln thought the man convicted of Rita’s murder might be innocent.

She wasn’t supposed to feel it was a personal slap.

It was her job to speak for the evidence. She was legally required to be impartial, to state the facts contained in the evidence, to remain silent when the evidence was silent, to be persuasive in explaining when the evidence spoke. It was not her job to speak to guilt or innocence of the person accused. Sometimes her testimony helped the prosecution, sometimes the defense.

In this case, with the media swarming around it, she had been true to that impartial mandate down to the very choice of adjectives she used. When she had given her expert opinion at trial, she had limited it carefully to what Rita’s body and grave had revealed. But the defense lawyers had tried their best to shred not only her statements but her reputation. She could feel the anger building just remembering those grueling days in court.

She rubbed her forehead. She did not want to be back in this case.

If Grant had been wrongly convicted, her testimony had been part of that injustice. What she had said played a large part in the conviction; the body of the victim always did. It wasn’t much help to know that it had only been part of the case the jury had heard. The jury had heard

“We’d like to simply look around if that’s okay with you,” Quinn said.

“Take your time. I’ll just be puttering around here.”

Quinn nodded his thanks.

They left Mr. Barberry and turned to the stone walkway that She forced herself to smile. “The main reason this case is unpleasa total case and rationale for the crime and convicted Grant Danford on that record. But had she missed anything? Anything that would have been exculpatory?

“Lisa.”

She moved to join Quinn and Mr. Barberry; they were talking at the door to the stable. She shook hands with Mr. Barberry, not surprised that he remembered her.

curved between the barn and the large exercise ring. The open pastureland was to the west.

Quinn paused her with a hand on her forearm. “You don’t have to do this if you would prefer not to.”

She wiped her expression of emotion, annoyed that she had let her disquiet with the situation show. “It’s no problem.”

His eyes could pierce someone’s soul. “Lisa—” he hesitated, obviously choosing his words with care—“you worked this case. It was gruesome. You don’t need to be involved again. I can follow Lincoln’s notes on my own, ask questions if something is unclear.”

“You need to understand Rita’s life and death if you’re going to get a handle on her friendship with Amy. Did they stay in touch after that summer camp? Did they have other common friends? Did Amy ever talk about coming back to Chicago? Is it anything more than a coincidence that two friends both disappeared years apart and one of them turned up murdered? No, Quinn. I’m staying.”

ant is the memory of the publicity that surrounded it. As a crime

Quinn, working a scene this old is one of the easiest cases I can have. Time consuming, but not that hard. Bones don’t have skin that feels cold and empty eyes that look back at you.”

“To watch you work, it isn’t obvious the victims bother you like that.”

Did he think she didn’t remember the faces and the crimes? They lived with her, gray, terrified ghosts, trapped in the moment of death.

“The children are the worst.” She shifted the briefcase to her other hand, needing to change the subject. “It’s my job, Quinn. Let me do it.”

She couldn’t interpret his expression, but she was very aware it had changed. She wanted to squirm under that intensity. She could feel herself being summed up, prior assumptions rethought. If this was what suspects felt

It was hard to remain quiet and not start babbling.

“You see the victims, don’t you? See the struggle to stay alive through their eyes and relive with them their deaths. That’s why you’re so good at figuring out what happened.”

“Something like that.” She looked away. He was hitting too close to the truth for comfort.

She started when his hand closed over hers on the briefcase.

“Who’d you see die?”

She jolted and tried to jerk away at the soft question, but he had hold of her hand and wasn’t letting her move away. His expression was grim and she instinctively tensed.

“Lisa.”

She wasn’t going to say anything. She didn’t lie

and she didn’t talk about it.

“Have you told anyone? Kate, Marcus? Any of the O’Malleys?” His voice was steady, calm, but she heard beneath that the intensity and the disbelief with the realization she hadn’t.

He was pushing into turf that was off limits, and she mentally recoiled, her expression turning stony and cold. She lived with that ghost and victim because she had to, but she wasn’t sharing the secret

especially not with Quinn.

His hand over hers tightened and his free hand turned her face back toward him. He held her gaze with his and rubbed his thumb

“Let me go,” she insisted, hating him.

“When you need to talk, I’ll listen.”

“I won’t.”

He pushed back the hair blowing across her face. “You don’t need

against her chin. There was compassion in that gaze, so deep she could drown in it if she let herself. “I’m sorry for that memory.”

to defend yourself against me. I won’t use the truth against you.”

“So you think.”

The hot emotion in his gaze frightened her. “Don’t fight me, Lisa.

You’ll lose.”

“You want too much.”

“Yes, I do. I want your trust.” He released her chin and her hand, stepped back and paced away, then turned back, looking incredibly frustrated. “But you’re too stubborn to realize what you need.”

He was into her past, was verbally hitting her with an intensity she had always known was part of his personality. He had his bone to worry now, just like the O’Malleys had theirs, and he’d be at it ruthlessly until he had answers. He’d crush her if he invaded that concealed truth. She couldn’t afford his interest but didn’t know how to deflect it.

“Quit looking like that.”

“How?”

“Like I stepped on some favorite pet of yours,” he muttered.

“Quinn—”

“Forget it.” He rejoined her and took the briefcase from her hand.