22
Conor didn’t return from the island until just before dark.
They had crossed Block Island Sound in one of Tom’s Coast Guard RIBs, speeding over the mirror-calm surface.
The Ocean House loomed in the distance, the sunset light striking the yellow tower.
He stared up at it, wondering if Kate was there waiting for him.
He had to make things right—even though he knew it would hurt her to hear the truth.
The three men walked up Plimpton Road. House lights were coming on, and the Ocean House glowed from within.
The murder house was twenty yards ahead, and Conor knew he had to get inside.
He had the boat and mansion fresh in his mind, and he had to compare what he had seen there with the murder scene.
He knew equally well that because Garrett’s suspicion had made him a suspect, he would be prohibited from entering.
Aside from protocol, he knew that it could be perceived that he was trying to remove, alter, or destroy evidence.
“That’s odd,” Joe said as they got closer.
“What?” Tom asked.
Joe gestured toward the murder house. “The crime scene tape’s been taken down, and I don’t see a patrol car.”
Depending on the police force, a crime scene could be blocked off and guarded for several days.
In this case, although the tape had been removed, Conor saw a notice attached to the front door, and he knew its basic message would be “off limits.” He felt torn, because he wanted to see Kate right away, but this felt urgent.
“Joe, I want to see the room again. Can we go in there right now?”
“No, you’re not going in,” Joe said. “You know that. I mean, how many more rules do you want me to break today?” He stopped and looked at Conor. “Why do you want to?”
“To compare what we found on the boat and in the mansion with what was left behind in that room.”
“A lot of blood,” Joe said. “That’s what was in that room.”
“With your footprints in it,” Tom said. “You’ve got to stay out of there, Conor. You could get hit with a tampering charge.”
Conor stared his brother hard in the eyes. “You could go in,” he said. “With Joe.”
“What’s my reason? How would I have jurisdiction?” Tom asked.
“The marina connection,” Conor said. “The dockage receipt with Suzanne’s name on it. A Coast Guard investigator would want to chase that down, wouldn’t he? Psyche is a crime scene too.”
“He’s right,” Joe said.
“Okay, say I go in with Joe,” Tom said. “What would I be looking for?”
“An imprint in the blood,” Conor said. He pulled out his phone and showed his brother the photo he had taken in the bedroom at the mansion, of the indentation left in the sticky substance beneath the bottle.
“What is it?” Tom asked, taking Conor’s phone and looking at the screen.
“A rose,” Conor said. “I took this at the mansion on Bellevigne Island. I saw the same mark in the blood here.”
“The murderer took the time to draw a flower?” Tom asked, looking skeptical.
“At first, I thought it looked drawn, but now I think it was made by a stamp or a seal—you know, like a notary embosser. Some kind of tool.”
Tom had been down at Psyche while Joe and Conor had gone through the mansion, so Conor let him scroll through the rest of the shots he had taken of the bedroom, including the one of the large black-and-white still from the Cocteau film.
Then Tom went back to the photo of the mark left under the bottle containing the drug.
“I think it’s an impression left by a signet ring,” Tom said. “A rose insignia, maybe.”
“Like a family crest?” Joe asked.
“I think it’s connected to the fairy tale,” Conor said. “And I think the killer used it to sign his kill.” Or kills, plural, he thought, picturing the blood on the handcuffs, on the sheets.
“The crime scene techs will have clear photos,” Joe said.
“I want to see the real thing,” Conor said.
Joe stared at him. “I told you, you can’t go in. I’ll get the key, and I’ll call Tom when I have it. I’ll go too.”
Conor was all for that. Dermot greeted them at the turnaround, and the three of them hurried up the wide stairs.
Tom and Joe went into the lobby. Conor stood on the verandah and stared down at the beach where the Fourth of July festivities were underway.
He thought of the wedding weekend schedule—how the whole party was supposed to be down at the Beach Ball for fireworks.
Something told him that Kate would be feeling about as in the mood for fireworks as he was, so he went into the lobby and took the elevator up to the Tower Suite. He knocked first, then used his key.
She met him at the door, as if she had been waiting all day. Her dark brown hair was uncombed and fell across her green eyes. Conor stepped forward to hug her, but he stopped himself. They weren’t that way anymore. She didn’t belong in his arms.
Except she did. She was the one to step toward him. She leaned into his body. His heart pounded. Everything felt right, the way it always had. They held each other. Her head was against his chest. He felt her kiss his shoulder. Then she tilted her head back. She looked into his eyes.
“You were waiting for me?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
His heart was racing. Would she ever wait for him again after what he had to tell her? He was about to ask her to sit down on the sofa with him, but she spoke first.
“I have stuff to tell you,” she said.
“How did you know when I’d be here?” he asked.
“I was standing on the widow’s walk,” she said. “Above the tower. I saw the Coast Guard boat come in, and I knew you were aboard.”
“How did you know that?” he asked. “It could have been a patrol boat. It could have been anything. How did you know?”
“I just knew,” she said. “I was watching for you.”
She reached up to hold him.
“Kate, wait,” he said.
But she shook her head, and then she kissed him.
It was the kind of kiss that changed both everything and nothing.
He felt it in his skin. Kate was his life, the way his bones and blood were his life.
This kiss brought him back to the beginning yet told him that nothing was the same.
They’d never be the way they were. He wanted to take her to bed.
He wanted to pick her up and carry her over the threshold, the way he should have after their wedding.
The wedding that never happened.
He couldn’t do that to her, but he couldn’t help himself from wanting to walk her into the bedroom. He stopped himself and took a deep breath.
“You said you have stuff to tell me,” Conor said. “But I have to go first.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for it,” she said.
“Please, Kate. It’s eating me up,” he said.
She gazed at him for a long time, and then she nodded. “I get that,” she said. “It’s the same for me.”
He took her hand and led her to the sofa in front of the fireplace. He sat down, about an arm’s length away from her. He didn’t want to be too close—he needed a little distance because he wanted to look right into her eyes, see her reaction.
“You kissed me just now,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to, after what I told you on the island.”
“I would block it out if I could,” she said. “I keep telling myself it doesn’t matter, whatever you did before you met me. But then I find myself wondering when it happened . . . you sleeping with Belinda . . . was it after you and I?”
“Kate, you and I weren’t together yet,” he said. “Not really.”
“But sort of?” she asked.
“Well, you and I had met, but we hadn’t started seeing each other,” he said. “It was between the two cases.” He meant the cases where he had helped solve Kate’s mother’s murder, and, later, her sister’s.
“You were dating Belinda then?” Kate asked.
“No, not at all. You know we knew each other when we were kids, when she lived next door. But I had forgotten all about her.” He gathered his thoughts, trying to remember the sequence.
“I began getting calls from an unknown number. I’d answer, hear someone breathing, and then they’d hang up.
There were emails from an unfamiliar address, sent to my work email.
They were unsigned. At first, they contained what I thought were poems—at least, that’s how they sounded.
It turned out that they were lines from a book. Can you guess which one?”
He watched Kate; after a moment, he saw the sharp look in her eyes.
“Beauty and the Beast?” she asked.
“Yes. Throughout this whole time, I had no idea who was sending the messages. I wrote back and asked who it was. That’s actually against the advice of our cyber investigators. The instruction is to delete and not reply. But I was so curious.”
“And she answered?”
“No. Instead, the calls and emails stopped. But a few weeks later, I got a call at my office from Belinda. Totally out of the blue. She said that she had read about me in the paper—ironically, in an article about how I’d worked on your mother’s case.
She said that she’d moved away and had come back to the area, and would I like to meet for lunch. ”
“So you did.”
“Yes,” he said. “And at first, it was good to see her. We had a lot to talk about—old times in New London. She remembered things I had totally forgotten, like how our first-grade teacher said that we were the two best readers in the class. Like when I fell out of a tree and broke my arm, and she signed my cast. She made the B in Belinda into a heart.”
Kate didn’t say anything.
“I gave her that stupid wire ring right after that,” Conor said.
Conor noticed Kate glancing over toward the dining table. He wondered what she was looking at, but she didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, after that lunch, we went on a few dates. I liked her—she was funny and smart, and she told me all about this interesting life she was leading—studying historic houses, traveling around New England to document them.” Conor stopped. “I don’t like telling you this,” he said.
“I want you to. I need to know.”