Through the Evil Days: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) (21 page)

Sean Flynn led them in a prayer that included blessing the food, the grandchildren, and all the souls of the faithfully departed. Hadley half-expected to see the men lunge for the heaping platters of roast chicken and lasagna, but either Elle or Sean had trained them up well, and the dishes passed around the table in an orderly fashion.

“This is amazing,” Hadley said to Flynn, who was seated to her left. “In my family, we didn’t have meals like this at Thanksgiving, let alone every day.”

Flynn shook his head. “We didn’t eat like this every day, believe me. Mom went back to work for the Small Business Administration full-time after Ian started kindergarten.” He nodded toward his youngest brother. “I was raised on microwave dinners and takeout from Amato’s Italian Diner.” He grinned. “Which is probably why we’re the only Irish American family that eats pasta alfredo on St. Paddy’s Day instead of corned beef.”

“What’s that you’re saying about the blessed saint?” Sean asked from the head of the table.

“I was explaining we didn’t have dinners like this seven nights a week when we were growing up.”

“God, no.” Sean took a sip of his wine. “We’d none of us be able to fit out the door. We were both of us working long hours when the boys were young,” he said to Hadley.

“Dad owns his own construction company,” Kevin explained. “Connor works with him.”

“But Elle had the brave idea that we should all sit down as a family once a week. So we started, and so we continue. Our table keeps getting bigger, with daughters and grandchildren and”—Sean raised his glass to Hadley—“the occasional charming guest. But we’ll keep the Sabbath together so long as we fit into this dining room.”

“That’s not going to stop him,” Connor said. “He’s already got plans to expand out through the back porch.” He grinned. “Once Kevin gets off his duff and starts contributing to ‘the grandchild shortage around here.’” He said the last words in a perfect imitation of his father’s accent.

Flynn threw a roll at his brother’s head.

“Boys!” Elle set her fork down and glared at them.

“They’re getting their Irish up now,” Sadie said.

Hadley could imagine what it would be like, coming here every Sunday, wrapped in the warm and easy affection of the Flynns. Watching the children grow up, watching the grandparents grow old, with Flynn always beside her, steady and rooted as the Adirondack mountains. She could be one of them. Part of the family. Right up until the moment when they found out about her unlovely past.

She laid her fork on her plate and took a stab at rejoining the conversation. “How about you, Elle? Are you Irish, too? Your name’s French, isn’t it?”

The table erupted in laughter.

“What?” Hadley turned toward Flynn. “What did I say?”

Elle folded her hands and smiled. “I am Irish, yes. Although my family came to America about a century before my husband finally made it.”

“Always save the best for last,” Sean said.

“I changed my name when I married Sean. To my initial. My Christian name was”—she sighed—“Lynn.”

Hadley paused for a moment. Then she got it. “Oh!” Up and down the table, Elle’s sons were snickering. “I changed my first name, too.” She didn’t normally advertise the fact, but she felt a kindred spirit with Flynn’s mother. “My parents called me Honey.”

“A little too sweet for an officer of the law, then.” Sean took another drink of wine. “Honey Knox.”

“No, Knox is from my former husband.” That and the children were the only good things he had ever given her. “My, um, birth name was Potts.”

There was a moment of silence at the table. Then the room rocked with laughter. Hadley couldn’t help it. She began to laugh as well—the first time she had been able to join in on the amusement engendered by that awful, awful name. Sean raised his glass. The rest of the table followed suit. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “a toast. To Honey Potts and Lynn Flynn. May their names be a blessing.”

*   *   *

Flynn drove them home. The wintry mix had turned to a remorseless icy rain that hit the roof of the Aztek like bird shot from a 20-gauge. The big plows were out on the Northway, in a futile battle to keep the interstate ice-free. Flynn kept his SUV at a steady thirty-five, and that felt just about right. “Do you think we’ll get called back out tonight?” Hadley asked.

“Not unless aliens invade. I think MacAuley would rather close up the streets with barricades than pay us triple time.”

She laughed softly. “Yeah.” She twisted around to check the kids. They were both sound asleep, Hudson leaning against Flynn’s rolled-up emergency blanket, Genny clutching a giant pillow buddy Elle and Sean had insisted she take. Hadley faced front again. “I like your family.”

Flynn smiled. “I like them, too.” Something passed over his face, outlined in the dim glow from his dashboard.

“What?”

“I have to—” He stopped.

“What?”

He let out a breath. “I’ve gotten a job offer. From the Syracuse Police Department.”

Hadley blinked. What did he mean? “A job offer, like another TDY for a few months?”

“No, a permanent position. As an officer on the force, full-time.”

“You mean, you might leave Millers Kill for good?” Hadley couldn’t help herself, her voice cracked on the last word. She couldn’t fit her head around the idea of the MKPD without Flynn.

“I don’t know. It’s a great opportunity. Get off of patrol, move into investigations. In a few more years, I could make detective.”

“You investigate here. We’re running a missing persons case right now.” She forced her voice into a less panicked tone. “They’re not going to let you do that in Syracuse.”

“We’re running one part of the case because there literally isn’t anyone else to do the work. That’s a long way from actually being a detective.” He shook his head. “There
are
no detectives on the MKPD. The town won’t authorize that pay grade.”

“You could be a sergeant. Like Eric.”

“I’m not going to make sergeant until MacAuley retires and Eric steps into his shoes.”

“But still. Do you really want to leave Millers Kill?” Cripes. Now she sounded like her grandfather. She didn’t know why she was arguing with Flynn. He was right. Syracuse would offer him more. More money, more opportunities—

Don’t go. Please don’t go.

She shifted in her seat.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been the kind of guy who had the big urge to go out and see the world. My family is all within an hour’s drive. My friends from high school.”

“Did you like working at the Syracuse department? When you were there on TDY?”

“Yeah, I did. It was … lively. It’s a big city, and there was always something going down. The guys I worked with were good cops.” He paused. “It was nice not being ‘the kid,’ you know? I mean, the chief and MacAuley are great, but they still look at me like I just got out of the academy. There were a lot of young guys in Syracuse, so I wasn’t the junior boy detective there.” A car pulled into the lane ahead of him, splattering ice and salt over the Aztek’s windshield. Flynn slowed down.

“I guess … Syracuse would be a good place for you. Careerwise, I mean.”

“Yeah. I just have to figure out if it’s what I want.”

He didn’t seem to want to say anything more about the job, so Hadley let him focus on his driving. Moving on would be a sensible choice for him to make. She leaned forward and adjusted the dash vent. So why did the idea make her so miserable? It wasn’t like she was going to have a personal relationship with him. Dylan’s arrival had just underlined why that would be impossible. Was it because they made a good team? She let her eyes half-shut. She had been glad when MacAuley assigned them to this case. It had gotten them past the awkwardness of rejected romance and back into the groove of working together. Flynn was pretty close to the perfect partner for her. Even though she was eight years his senior, they had similar tastes in food and music and movies. They
got
each other. He was smart and intuitive and hardworking. And he had this way of defusing situations, of calming people down that was a good balance to her more confrontational approach.

And he was amazing in bed.

Jesus H. Christ, what was wrong with her?

“What?” Flynn asked.

“What do you mean, what?”

“You just made a noise.”

She touched her heated throat, grateful he couldn’t see her flush in the dim light from the dashboard. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“About your ex?”

She grasped the conversational lifeline. “Yeah.”

“Let me know if he tries anything, okay?”

“Yeah, I will.”

He took one hand off the steering wheel and touched her arm just above her wrist. “I mean it. You’re not alone, Hadley. You can ask for help.” He dropped his hand. “And if you’re, you know, uncomfortable talking to me, go to one of the other guys. We’re family. We look out for one another.”

She swallowed. “Thank you.” He returned his attention to the road. She looked at his profile: high cheekbones, bumped nose—he had broken it in a high school basketball game—his forehead, where his regulation-short hair threatened to flop forward within a week after he visited the barber. Who he was shone out of his features, good and kind and honest. Flynn was a clear river running by; no darkness, no hidden snags or treacherous rapids. Compared to him, she felt like the Swamp Thing.

Granddad had left the porch and kitchen lights on, but his window was dark; he had already gone to bed. There was no sign of Dylan’s car. Hadley steered her sleepy son into the kitchen and straight upstairs. Flynn carried Genny. For once, Hadley gave a pass on toothbrushing, and she got the kids into their pajamas and bedded down within minutes.

Flynn was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks for taking Genny to her room.”

His smile was outlined in the half-light spilling from the kitchen. “I had no idea there were that many Hello Kitty posters in the world.”

“Yeah. When she gets into her Hello Kitty nightgown, I can’t spot her unless she moves.”

They both laughed a little. They were standing in the shadows near the door. Everyone else in the house was asleep behind closed doors. He looked down at her and she saw that clear river running, felt the whole-body shock of diving in.

She had made the move on him, that first summer she was on the force. Then again at the chief’s wedding. It had been good, why not do it again? It had frustrated her—no, she’d been pissed off—that he kept shoving emotions into what should have been a simple, mindless, physical release.

But looking into his eyes in the half-light, Hadley realized she couldn’t do it anymore, despite the hour and the darkness and her bed just a stair flight away. Not because he might say no again. Not because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings afterward. But because she was so close to falling for him that even sliding her arms around his neck and stretching up for a kiss might send her over the edge.

She broke her gaze and stared at her stockinged feet. “Good night, Flynn. Thanks for everything.”

She heard him breathe. “Good night, Hadley.” He paused at the door. “It was my pleasure.”

11.

Mikayla tossed fitfully in her narrow bed. She was so hot. She had kicked off the blankets earlier, but that hadn’t helped. Aspirin hadn’t helped—awful, grown-up aspirin that she had choked on until it turned to powder in her mouth because there wasn’t any of the chewable pills or bubblegum-flavored stuff her mom gave her.

She wanted to open the window even though the rain was still coming down, but she had been told to keep the window locked and the curtains closed. She wanted her mom. Or her Meme. Or even Helen, who made a game out of all the medicines Mikayla had to take. She wanted someone to change her sweaty sheets and bring her a fresh clean nightie and lay a cool washcloth on her head. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to go home, even if she wasn’t sure where home was.

Mikayla pressed her face into her pillow and began to cry.

MONDAY, JANUARY 12

1.

The wail of a siren woke Clare up. She had taken the first watch, after they had finally gotten to the cabin and dried off. It had been a nightmarish slog through the dark and the pelting rain, the flashlight angled down so that they could only just see where their boots would fall, the crack and boom of branches snapping under the steadily accumulating layers of ice. By the time they reached the cabin, Clare felt like one exposed nerve, numb with cold and scraped raw by the artillerylike barrage of exploding wood. She had been drop-jawed when she checked her watch and found their hike had lasted less than two hours.

Russ had toweled dry, wolfed down two bowls of the stew she had made that morning, and was asleep before she had finished hanging their wet clothing over an old drying rack she had found in the bathroom. Even the thud of small branches falling on the roof hadn’t awakened him. Clare had roamed from window to window, watching for the telltale gleam of headlights or flashlights, certain she would never be able to sleep in the face of the noise of the storm and her own sick dread of what might be out there in the darkness. But after she shook her husband awake and took his place under the covers—the bed already warm and smelling of Russ—she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Until the siren. She pushed herself into a sitting position, groggy and disoriented. The light through the windows was gray and watery. “Russ?” Her voice was dry. She scrubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

The stoves were stoked, but Russ and the dog were gone. As was the rifle. Clare struggled into her clothes and was just tying on her boots when the siren ceased. The sudden lack of noise enabled her to hear the spatter-ping of the falling ice. The storm was still going on.

She shrugged on her parka—the clothing from yesterday was board stiff and bone dry, hanging next to the woodstove—and went out the door. She couldn’t see the road from where she stood, but she thought she heard the thrum of an engine up there. The steep stairs they had used just yesterday were so coated with ice they could have served as a luge run. Next to the steps, however, she could see where Russ’s boots had stomped an irregular path through the ice-crusted snow. She followed in his footsteps. Despite the hill’s angle, her footing was sound; beneath the thick layer of ice, the snow was firm, catching and crunching beneath her boot treads. She popped over the lip of the hill, panting and hot, to find Russ and another cop sitting inside a state police cruiser.