Chapter 83
quinn
Quinn hates funerals. She’s had to go to way too many in recent years.
She eyes the pair of traditional oak caskets resting on their catafalques at the front of the church.
She’s got no idea if their occupants were religious or traditional, but either way, an old stone chapel is better than one of those modern, Kafkaesque, carpeted funeral parlours, and recyclable coffins were never going to be an option.
Helen Gray is nothing if not a traditionalist.
Quinn gazes at the old woman, standing upright and dry-eyed in the front pew next to the only one of her three grandchildren still alive. Helen’s a cold-hearted fucking bitch, but she knows how to take a punch.
Rose is a different matter. The girl is rail-thin in her new black dress, her pallor accentuated by her blaze of red hair, pulled back into an uncharacteristically subdued plait. She’s only seventeen, but she’s already endured more loss in her young life than most people double her age.
Quinn watches Phil edge discreetly along the aisle, his camera on his shoulder, as the priest delivers his short eulogy. Helen wanted to ban them from the service, of course, but Mac intervened. He says he wants everything out in the open from now on; he’s had enough of secrets.
The discovery that the body in the mountains was Nicky Gray has catapulted the Stowebury disaster back to the top of every news bulletin.
The medical examiner hasn’t been able to determine either time or cause of death conclusively, although his best guess is that Nicky suffered from the bends after ascending to the surface too quickly, and that he probably died within twenty-four hours of the accident; but that hasn’t stopped grotesque speculation in some of the more lurid corners of the internet.
No one knows why Nicky was in the mountains, so far from the lake. That his skeleton was discovered in the same place as the “missing mountain man” has only fuelled the conspiracy theories.
The drama of the last few weeks has intensified public fascination with everyone connected to the tragedy.
Quinn’s used her platform with INN to try to set some of the more outlandish rumours to rest, but in a country where millions believe the moon landings were faked and Princess Diana is alive and well and living in Montecito, it was always going to be an uphill battle.
Rose has already been offered a seven-figure sum to sell the rights to her story to Lifetime.
Quinn has advised her to take it, with an executive producer rider; at least that way she can control the narrative.
The service is unsentimental and mercifully brief. Mac puts his arm around his niece as the pallbearers pick up the coffins, and leads her out of the church. The absence of the girl’s mother is achingly vivid.
Quinn can only imagine how hard this is for both of them, especially as they’ll be back here tomorrow for the most harrowing funeral: Nicky’s. Mac didn’t want a joint service. He wants to say his final goodbye to his boy in his own way.
Quinn waits with him outside the church for the hearses to come round, their breath forming plumes in the crisp October air.
‘That can’t have been easy,’ she says.
‘No,’ Mac says shortly.
His gaze rests on Rose, who’s talking to Kate Walker. Quinn’s a little surprised to see the woman here, given the bad blood between her and the Gray family, but perhaps this town has seen enough death even for her.
‘How’s Rose doing?’ Quinn asks.
‘As you’d expect,’ Mac says. ‘Jesse was her father. No matter what he’s done, she still misses him.’
‘Have the police spoken to you about Luke Connelly?’
‘Only to say they’re not pursuing charges.’
Quinn steps aside as a cluster of mourners passes them. ‘I saw his father, Bret, yesterday,’ she says. ‘Luke’s getting the treatment he needs, though he’s never going to be able to live independently again. Bret’s taking him home to live with him once he’s well enough.’
‘He deserved better from this town,’ Mac says.
Quinn can’t argue with that.
If it hadn’t been for Luke, Jesse might have got away with murder.
Luke had been sleeping rough at the marina after the police presence drove him from the mountains.
He saw Jesse drag Amy and Colt onto his Chris-Craft and take it out into the bay, and then come back ashore in a small dinghy, alone.
He’d known something was wrong, and he’d stopped Jesse chasing after Iris when she’d gone out to rescue her sister, before running into town and raising the alarm with Quinn.
Amy and Iris owe him their lives.
Mac’s eyes rest on Colt’s coffin as it’s loaded into the hearse, his expression stony.
Quinn knows Mac has already put his father’s farmhouse and the rest of the vast property up for sale.
The proceeds will go to the newly formed Gray Foundation at Stowebury High School.
Profits from the brewery will be used to clean up the lake, after which its employees will take ownership as a collective.
It’ll be Colt Smith’s first and last gift to the town.
‘When are you leaving Stowebury?’ Quinn asks Mac.
‘Tomorrow,’ Mac says. ‘Straight after Nicky’s funeral. They’re all coming back to West Virginia with me.’
‘Rose and Iris too?’
‘There’s not much of our family left. We need to stick together.’
Jesse’s coffin is loaded into the second hearse, and the two vehicles move slowly out of the gravelled parking lot, heading towards a closed ceremony at the crematorium. Rose plans to scatter her father’s ashes on the lake. Quinn’s not sure if it’s ironic or oddly fitting.
She hears footsteps behind them.
‘Hey there,’ Mac says, turning to greet his wife.
‘It’s over, then?’ Amy says.
Mac pulls her against him. ‘It’s over.’
Quinn watches them for a moment, her singular brilliant blue eye missing nothing. According to Iris, Mac hasn’t let Amy out of sight for the last ten days.
It’s early days, of course. Amy has already pulled away from her ex-husband to talk to her sister. But Quinn – unsentimental, cynical Quinn – has a hunch that these two are going to work it out; as Iris put it, McAmy forever.
Amy looks tired and sad, but there’s a peace in her eyes Quinn hasn’t seen before; a relief, almost a lightness. After fifteen months of not knowing, she can finally lay her son to rest.
The police allowed Amy to speak to Luke in the hospital. She knows Nicky wasn’t alone when he died.
She knows her son’s last words were that he loved her.
It’s not much; but it’s everything.
It turns out Quinn’s fabled spidey senses aren’t quite infallible after all: Nicky had nothing to do with Colt’s murder and the attempt on Amy’s life.
That was Jesse.
Quinn isn’t particularly surprised Jesse killed Colt; the man coerced Jesse into abandoning the Lady to its fate after the accident, leaving dozens of teenagers to drown, including Jesse’s own son. Frankly, she’s only surprised it took him fifteen months to get round to murdering him.
Iris thinks it was finding out Amy had left Finn to drown behind that locked door that tipped Jesse over the edge, and that certainly makes sense.
It must have been the last straw for a man already driven half out of his mind by guilt and grief.
So much easier to blame Colt and Amy than to reckon with his own failings.
And yet something about it doesn’t sit right with Quinn.
Jesse wasn’t a planner. He was impulsive, disorganised; capable of killing someone, yes, but only in the heat of the moment.
He’s easily led, and weak, but he’s not a violent man.
She just can’t see him coolly luring Amy to Colt’s house with a fake text from Iris; at least, not without help or direction. It doesn’t fit.
She watches Mac and Amy leave – in the same car, Quinn notes – and crosses the churchyard to join Iris, who’s waiting for her daughter by the gates.
Iris chose to skip her husband’s funeral, and frankly, Quinn doesn’t blame her. If Luke hadn’t intervened, Jesse might well have killed her along with her sister.
‘I hear you’re leaving town tomorrow,’ Quinn says to Iris.
‘It’s Rose’s decision,’ Iris says.
‘There can’t be very many happy memories left for her here.’
They both watch Rose as she talks to Kate. Whatever they’re discussing, it looks important; the two women are so close, their heads are almost touching.
Quinn’s gaze sharpens.
Ten days ago, she and Phil had been with Mac as he’d criss-crossed the lake in his neighbour’s Boston Whaler, desperately searching for his wife and Iris.
It was nothing short of a miracle they’d found them in the dark, clinging to each other on the upturned hull of Jesse’s Chris-Craft, exhausted and chilled to the bone, but alive.
There’d been no sign of anyone else out there: no lights, no other boats.
But Quinn could swear she’d heard an engine.
Amy and Iris insisted no one else had been there. Quinn didn’t blame them for wanting the nightmare to end with Jesse. And maybe she had been hearing things.
But she’s watched Phil’s footage several times now, and she’s convinced she can hear a second craft out there on the lake that night.
She’ll never prove it, but she’s certain Jesse wasn’t working alone.
Rose and Kate say goodbye to each other, and then Rose helps her grandmother into the back of Iris’s Audi. The girl looks up and gives Quinn an awkward smile, before sliding into the back seat beside Helen.
‘No offence,’ Iris says to Quinn as she walks around to the driver’s seat, ‘but I hope I only ever see you again on screen.’
‘None taken,’ Quinn says.
Her gaze remains on the Audi as Iris drives away. Tomorrow, Iris will head to West Virginia with Helen and Rose to join Amy and Mac and start a new life together. This could be the fresh start the Gray family needs.
But if she were Amy, she’d sleep with one eye open.