Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
“Not till we heard the fire engines heading toward Burkehaven. Then he took off, and I’ve barely seen him since.”
“Did you tell anyone else he was here?” I ask.
“No one’s asked,” Blancy says, folding his arms over his slim chest. “Reid and I have had a thing since high school. Only when he’s here in the summer and not off with his fancy friends.
It isn’t serious. He knows to come by, and that my door’s usually open.
Remind him when you see him. It gets lonely in this apartment.
Besides, your brother’s sexy as hell. You can tell him I said that, too. ”
I’m halfway down the stairs before Blancy calls after me. “I thought you’d come about my text. I sent you one earlier tonight.”
“I lost my phone.”
“Ponytail and glasses was here earlier, lurking by the dumpster when I took out the trash. Scared the shit out of me. I told him you’ve been looking for him.”
“He didn’t come into the bar?” I ask.
Blancy shakes his head.
“Where was Mrs. Haviland?”
“Andrea?” Blancy asks. “Where do you think? She was in the kitchen, like she is every night. Ponytail told me to tell you he was visiting an old friend.”
I kill the lights on my father’s Volvo and park on the side of the road, then make my way through the dark, along the tree-lined driveway toward Burkehaven Farm. The house is pitch black. In the distance, a coyote howls.
I’m worried. Paul should have been at Idlewood earlier tonight as soon as we found Reid’s body, as soon as the cops descended on the island.
He should have run interference and made himself known.
He’d have heard the sirens, seen the lights, and followed them.
Unless something—or someone—kept him from coming.
Someone such as my father.
I test the door to the converted barn. It slides open without a sound.
Inside, as my eyes adjust to the dark, the contours of the kitchen come into shape, revealing signs of a struggle: barstools toppled over, dishes smashed.
I whisper Paul’s name and root in the kitchen drawers until I find a flashlight.
I aim the beam around the room and find a chef’s knife. The blade is smeared in blood.
What happened here? I take a poker from beside the fireplace and edge up the ancient staircase to the second floor, the treads creaking beneath my weight.
Paul’s bedroom is empty, the bed made. I check the guest rooms, all of which appear as if no one’s been in them in months.
Back downstairs, I ease open the bathroom door, flip on the lights, and splash water on my face.
Reid rehabbed this part of Burkehaven Farm five years ago.
As part of the rehab, he added this bathroom and decorated it in stainless steel and pure white.
I wipe my face dry.
Whether I trust Gilcrest or not, this investigation is for the police now.
As I flip off the light, my eye catches something on the floor.
I turn the light back on and get down on my hands and knees, where a tiny circle of blue stands out against the white tile.
It’s the blue of Freya’s nail polish. The polish used on her windshield this afternoon.
The polish smeared on the paper towels Maggie found in the woods.
I kill the lights. In the kitchen, I use the landline to call Seton. “Something’s going on at Burkehaven Farm,” I say, running through what I’ve found. “There’s a bloody knife. And I can’t find Paul anywhere.”
“Get in your car, lock the doors, and drive away,” Seton says. “I’m on the other side of town. It’ll take me twenty minutes to get there, and I’m calling for backup.”
I jog into the cool, damp night, gripping the fireplace poker.
Up in the foothills, the coyote continues to howl.
Before I’ve gone ten paces, I stop, drawn by a muffled sound emanating from somewhere in the dark.
I turn the flashlight beam toward the trees, following the sound until I come to the side of the sugarhouse, where I lift open the door.
Inside, alongside the boiler, Freya’s truck takes up the open space—the same truck that should be on its way to New York right now—and the sounds of someone struggling to escape the covered bed fill the night.
“Freya,” I whisper, “I’m here.”
I test the locked doors and then use the poker to smash the driver’s-side window.
I release the locks and tear open the door to the covered bed.
But it’s my father—not Freya—who lies in a pool of blood, his blue eyes clouding over.
Behind him, Freya’s gun rack is empty. “Charlie,” he says, his voice barely audible.
“Where is she?” I ask. “Where’s Freya?”
“Paul,” my father mumbles, his head falling to the side.
Blood seeps from a gash in his abdomen. I tear off my fleece and wad it into a ball, pressing the cloth to the wound and laying his hand over it to hold it in place. “Don’t move,” I say. “Help is on the way.”
I drop the poker and run to the driveway. My father’s lying in the bed of Freya’s truck, bleeding; Paul’s nowhere to be found; Gilcrest left the scene of Reid’s murder in a rage; and Freya should be on her way to New York. But she’s not.
Howls sound in the foothills, this time drawing me away from the farmhouse, up the road toward the trailhead. Because that’s not a coyote celebrating a kill. It’s a dog.
It’s Ginger.