Chapter 28
The house was small and warm and smelled like cinnamon.
Noah was already seated when Wendy came back from the kitchen with two mugs.
She was in her early sixties, thin, with silver hair cut short and practical.
She wore a cotton apron over a flannel shirt as if she had been baking before he arrived.
Her face carried the kind of tiredness that didn't come from a bad night's sleep but from years of carrying something heavy and never setting it down.
"Here you go," she said, handing him the coffee.
Her husband was in a recliner near the window. He hadn't moved since Noah arrived. He sat with his hands in his lap, looking into the distance at something only he could see. His eyes were open but unfocused. A blanket was folded over his knees.
Wendy noticed Noah's gaze drifting between the two of them.
"It's his memory." She sat in the chair across from Noah and wrapped both hands around her mug. "Some days are better than others. Today's not one of the better ones."
"I know about that."
"You do?"
"My father is in the early stages."
Wendy studied him for a moment. The way people study each other when they discover a shared wound.
"Yeah, well. I'm planning to have him placed in a home.
It's going to break my heart but I just don't have the ability to care for him like I used to.
" She glanced at her husband. "He was a carpenter.
Built half the porches in Elizabethtown.
Now he can't remember where the bathroom is.
" She turned back to Noah. "Have you done that for your father? "
"Not yet," Noah said, taking a sip of his coffee.
A silence settled.
"So you mentioned you had questions about Liam," Wendy said.
"Yes." Noah set his coffee down on the side table. "Just a few things I was asked to follow up on."
"I thought the case was closed?"
"It is. This is more about victim support. A quick follow up.” He kept his voice even. Making the questions sound like they didn’t carry weight. "What can you tell me about Liam? After the murder of his mother. He was studying at the time, right?"
"That's right. He was away at college when it happened.
" Wendy's expression changed. Not closing down.
Opening into something older and more painful.
"It devastated him. Naturally. He left college and came to live with me and his uncle.
" She nodded toward the man in the recliner.
"He struggled, you know, for a few years.
Didn't know what to do with himself. Couldn't hold a job.
Couldn't sleep. Then he decided to do something with his life.
The military, I think, gave him structure.
Order. Something he could put his hand to. "
"Military?"
"Army." She got up and crossed to a shelf beside the television. She picked up a framed photograph and brought it back, handing it to Noah.
The photo showed a young man in his mid-twenties in dress uniform. Dark hair, cut close. Strong jaw. Eyes that looked directly into the camera with an expression that was calm and gave nothing away.
Noah looked at the details most people would miss.
Something in his chest tightened.
"How long did he serve?" Noah asked. His voice didn't change.
"Six, maybe seven years. They gave him responsibility early.
" She said it with a quiet pride that hadn't fully faded.
"They wanted to keep him but he started having problems. Mental health concerns and whatnot.
Flashbacks. Trouble sleeping. He got worse toward the end, so they discharged him.
" She took a sip of her drink. "I think the discipline helped him for a while.
But whatever was underneath, the grief, the anger, it was still there when he came out. The uniform just covered it."
Noah looked at the photo. He held the frame a moment longer than necessary, then set it down on the side table between them.
"Anyway, he returned and helped me in the shop for a time," Wendy continued.
"The shop?"
"Bookstore. I used to run Birchwood Books in town.
That's where Liam lives now. Above it. He took an apartment there.
" She smiled faintly. "It was my dream, that shop.
I ran it for fifteen years. But with Frank the way he is," she gestured toward her husband, "I couldn't keep it going.
Liam offered to take it over. I was relieved, honestly.
It gave him something to do. Somewhere to be. "
"How's he doing with it?"
The smile faded. "He runs the store. Though lately he's not had it open as frequently as he used to.
He's been struggling." She paused. "He sees a therapist but I just don't think he ever moved past his mother and brother's death.
" She looked into her lap and toyed with the hem of her apron.
"Then again, I haven't exactly done well with it.
I miss her. Rebecca. We were close growing up. We would tell each other everything."
Noah nodded. He let the silence breathe.
"Rebecca's husband passed away a few years before she did, right?"
"That's right. Tom. He was a long-distance truck driver.
He wasn't home much. A good man." She shook her head slowly.
"He died from colon cancer. I think it was the stress of the job.
The long hours he put in. Rebecca got lonely when he was away.
That's where some of the rumors came about her seeing other men. "
"Torres?"
"Yeah. And Carl Peterson."
"And Travis Rudd."
She nodded. Her expression didn't change. These were old names attached to old wounds that had long since scarred over.
"Were there any others she ever mentioned?"
"No."
“So the boys were Tom's?"
Wendy looked at Noah. Something sharpened behind her eyes. "Why would you ask that?"
"Just a question."
"Of course they were Tom's."
Noah looked down at the photo of Liam on the side table. The dress uniform. The jaw. The eyes. The resemblance was subtle, but it was there if you knew where to look.
Could anyone else see it? Probably not. Not without the Parabon report. Wendy certainly didn't see it. She saw her nephew. Rebecca's boy. Tom's son.
Noah wanted to push the questioning further. The words were right there. Did Rebecca ever mention a relationship with anyone in law enforcement? Did she ever mention the name Sutherland?
He held them back — not because of caution, but because of Wendy.
She was sitting across from him in a house that was slowly emptying, her husband disappearing into a fog she couldn't stop, her nephew struggling in a bookstore she had given him, and her sister dead.
She had offered him coffee and opened her door and answered his questions because she was the kind of person who did that.
He wasn't going to make it worse.
"Well, thank you for the coffee, Wendy." Noah stood. "I'll see myself out. You've been very helpful."
She stood with him. "Is Liam in some kind of trouble?"
The question was quiet. Careful. The question of a woman who had spent years watching her nephew struggle and had learned to listen for the sound of things getting worse.
"No," Noah said. "Just following up."
She nodded. She didn't believe him. But she let him go the way people let things go when they're too tired to hold on.
Noah walked to the front door. He paused with his hand on the knob and looked back at the living room. Wendy was already clearing the mugs. Her husband sat in the recliner, unchanged, looking at the same spot he had been looking at since Noah arrived.
The photo of Liam in his dress uniform sat where he had left it.
Noah stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
Birchwood Books.
That was where Liam had gone. Where he had stayed. Where he was now.