5
Tom tried to get some sleep, but he and Jackie were too stirred up and worried about Kate.
Their room was on the second floor, with a terrace that had a view of the Watch Hill lighthouse.
They sat outside, watching the light flash every two seconds.
There was very little wind, making it possible to hear the clang of the bell buoy marking the south end of the reef at Watch Hill Passage.
The steady pattern of the light’s beam, and the toll of the bell, calmed Tom.
He and all Coast Guard personnel appreciated lighthouses, buoys, and other navigational aids that kept mariners safe; in spite of that, the USCG was evaluating which buoys to remove, considering that GPS had rendered some of them obsolete.
There was huge opposition from boaters. And Tom thought it was a terrible idea.
He wished there were navigational aids for his family.
They all looked after each other. That was the best they could do.
But Tom was at a loss right now. He would do anything to help his brother and Kate, but he had no idea what to do.
He thought of how he had always believed that Kate and Conor were going to keep each other safe throughout life, and he stared at the lighthouse beam and hoped that that was still true.
He texted Conor, then Kate, then Conor again.
Maybe they had found each other, he told himself. Maybe they had had a long talk, cleared the air, laughed at that nutjob Belinda, and had gone to bed up there in the Tower Suite. He hoped for that as much as anything he’d ever hoped for in his life.
Conor and Kate had been lost in different ways before they got together, and Tom thought about how they had met. When Kate had been only sixteen, she; her younger sister, Beth; and their mother had been tied up together and locked in the basement of the Woodward-Lathrop Gallery.
Conor had been a town cop back then—he’d joined the force straight out of college.
He had discovered and rescued the sisters, but it was too late for their mother.
She had died during the night, and it had been a horrific experience for Kate and Beth, unable to help her.
The psychological damage was long lasting.
Years later, Conor had been assigned to another case involving Kate—an even worse one: Beth’s murder.
He had solved it, but he couldn’t stop the sorrow that had rocked Kate for the months and years that followed.
There were threads that connected to Kate’s family and friends, and they had triggered memories of that terrible night in the basement.
Could one family be cursed? Sometimes it seemed that Kate’s was. Tom had watched how Conor had loved her through the violence and its aftermath, through the trauma of two brutal crimes. Kate had gone through a period of depression—who wouldn’t, after those experiences, those losses?
She had thrown herself into her work at the gallery, steady in the art world but at times unpredictable in her relationship with Conor.
She was half owner of the Cessna that she and her best friend, Tallulah Granville, kept at Westerly State Airport, and she occasionally took off—literally—by herself.
Conor saw that tendency as proof of her independence, and he was proud of her for it.
But Tom and Jackie sometimes wondered where she went without him. And why she had to.
Was this situation—Conor and Kate driven apart at their rehearsal dinner—due to bad luck? Or bad choices?
Tom still didn’t have the whole story about Belinda, but something was off base with Conor, and that made him feel uneasy.
He watched the sun rise. It was 7:00 a.m. when he saw Conor and Joe walking up from the beach. Conor looked unsteady and unshaven. When Conor came up onto the verandah, Tom saw his red-rimmed eyes. He felt jolted to see his brother’s pain. Joe waved and went into the lobby to get coffee.
“She’s gone,” Conor said.
“Come on. Don’t think that, Con. She’s probably with Hadley or Sam,” Tom said. “Sam’s her maid of honor, right? Part of that role is holding the bride’s hand when she needs it.”
“I don’t think Kate wants to be a bride anymore,” Conor said. “I think she’s left me.”
“Does she have reason to?” Tom asked sharply, trying to read his brother. But there was no reaction, just a numb look in his eyes. Tom hated seeing him like that. “Go to your suite and clean yourself up. She’s coming back, I am sure of it. You want her to see you like this? Let’s go.”
They were headed across the verandah, into the hotel, when Tom heard a phone buzz with an incoming text. It was Conor’s.
“Is it Kate?” Tom asked.
“No,” Conor said, staring at the screen. “Unknown number.”
“What do they want?”
“It says ‘help her.’”
“Her?” Tom asked.
Just then, they saw a marked Westerly police car speed up Bluff Avenue. It was a jarring sight, just past the white tent standing ready for a wedding that looked increasingly unlikely.
The patrol car stopped in front of a gray-shingled house with white shutters diagonally across the street.
Tom saw Conor snap out of his numbness; he walked, then began to run toward the officers.
Tom recognized them from the Maddie Morrison case—Officers Miles Cutler and George Bouchard waved when they saw him and Conor rushing over.
“Hey, Conor. Hey, Tom,” Miles said.
“What’s going on?” Conor asked.
“We got a call about blood in the house,” George said.
“Seeping under a bedroom door upstairs,” Miles said. “The caller didn’t want to open it.”
“We’ll go up with you,” Conor said.
“You don’t have to,” George said with a tight smile. “Word is, you’re getting married today. Isn’t that your tent?”
“Come on, let’s go,” Conor said, ignoring the question. “Someone texted me for help. It might be about Kate.”
Tom understood; this wasn’t Conor’s jurisdiction.
But his brother had worked with these officers before, and they trusted him.
Tom’s pulse was pounding as hard as he imagined it was for Conor.
A feeling of tragedy was already in the air, and Conor had gotten that text.
Tom silently repeated the words Don’t let it be Kate.
They walked around a navy-blue Ford pickup parked in the driveway—Tom was pretty sure it was the same one that had nearly hit them on the way up from the harbor yesterday.
Maeve, Kate’s gallery assistant, stood just inside the door. She steadied herself against the wall.
“Did you text me?” Conor asked. “‘Help her’? Who, Kate?”
“What? No, I didn’t text you,” she said, looking bewildered.
“But you’re the one who called 911?” George asked.
“Yes,” she said. Then, “Oh god, Conor. It’s bad.” She pointed toward the second floor, and Conor tore up the stairs.
While the Westerly officers rushed up behind Conor, Tom said to her, “Don’t leave. They’ll need to talk to you.”
Maeve nodded, and Tom saw tears glittering in her eyes. He then ran up after his brother and the two officers.
By the time he reached the landing, the others had already entered the room. The two Westerly cops stood back, to avoid stepping in the blood pooling on the parquet floor. But Conor had rushed straight toward the woman lying on her side, her white dress soaked with blood.
Tom let out a groan, even before Conor did. Tom recognized the dress. He had seen it when Kate had come to his and Jackie’s house right after her last fitting, when she had stopped by to pick up the veil.
“Kate,” Tom said, his voice breaking.
“No,” Conor said, turning toward him. And in that moment, Tom saw the woman’s lifeless eyes were wide open, and he saw that her throat had been slit.
And he saw that the victim wasn’t Kate at all.
It was that woman from last night, the one he and Conor had known as children, the one who had ruined the rehearsal dinner and started this family heartbreak.
It was Belinda.