In the Waning Light (16 page)

Meg stalled, and reread the sentence:
Meg needs a mother.
Shit. She sat back. Quietly she said into her mic, “Who
were
you, Mom? I wish you’d spoken to me. I might have been only fourteen, but if I’d known you were fighting, if I’d known . . . I could have perhaps helped, even if just being there for support—it could have made all the difference. It could have given
me
purpose. I’ve hated you for so long for giving up. For just abandoning me. But I didn’t know you at all. These words in this journal are those of a strong, valiant, intelligent, caring, determined woman, and not a grief-soaked, helpless soul who could no longer face the world. I wish I knew what made you change your mind that day, and take your own life like that . . . it just doesn’t make sense.”

In her laptop she typed:

Question for Tommy and Emma: Did you know Sherry was pregnant? Did you know if she was seeing anyone else?

Meg returned her attention to her mother’s journal.

When I got to the Kovacs’, Ike told me that the autopsy results, the pregnancy lab tests in particular, came in after Tyson Mack had already been shot dead by Jack. It had all happened so fast. Tyson Mack was their prime suspect—they were convinced of his guilt—but the DA advised they’d need more evidence in order to secure a solid conviction, so the police were holding off formally charging him at that point while they continued their investigation.

But if Jack had known about the pregnancy, or the existence of the other condom with Sherry’s blood trace on it, as inconclusive as it was, he might not have been so quick to the trigger. Because to my mind, Sherry’s pregnancy and the other DNA put the possibility of another suspect, or more than one, into the picture. And the baby gave possible motive—perhaps the father was a violent man.

Ike explained to me that the other DNA was worthless because of the high probability of cross contamination along with the heavy use of the grove as a make-out spot. The storm, he said, had created challenges in the collection of evidence. In his opinion it was unrelated to Sherry’s assault, anyway. Ty Mack was his man. He said he was simply trying to soften things for us. He felt the news of the pregnancy coming right after Ty Mack’s murder would have been too much for me and Jack to bear on top of it all. And bringing it to everyone’s attention before Jack’s trial could hurt him in sentencing. It was better, he said, that a jury believed one hundred percent that Jack had killed an evil man, that there be no doubt as to Tyson Mack’s guilt. Ike said the pregnancy did not change his conviction that Ty Mack raped, sodomized, and strangled Sherry, and he felt that when I was ready, if I wanted, I’d get the report myself, and be able to better deal with the information contained therein.

Ike was wrong.

And now, my dear Jack, I wonder not only who tipped you off and might have used you as a loaded gun, but I wonder also if Ty Mack really was the one. Or if a man who made my baby girl pregnant could have killed her. And whether he still walks free out there. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I
will
find out. And I
will
get Sherry’s case reopened . . .

A soft
whump
sounded outside. Meg’s head jerked up. She braced for the start of another tremor, an aftershock maybe. Or perhaps the first was just a foreshock, a harbinger of some big tectonic subduction to come. Nothing moved. She glanced over her shoulder at the window. Wind? She listened, heart quickening slightly. She could make out a soft scratching sound, like branches rubbing against the outside wall of the house. Must be a breeze moving the trees. She made a mental note to call a garden service to trim back all the vegetation. It would be a fire hazard come summer anyway. She returned her attention to the journal. A thump. Her head shot up. It was followed by a strange scraping sound, then a metal clang. Fear struck a hatchet into her heart.

She stood up and reached to click the lamp off so she could see outside. But as she moved, a red laser dot danced over the wall. Her heart kicked. Slowly she turned. The dot moved onto her arm, and along her body, settling for a moment on her chest, then moving up to her face. She threw herself to the floor just as a sharp crack shattered the living room picture window. Glass clattered to the floor. The cold draft was instant. Another whizzing sounded as something thudded into the wall next to the safe.
Gunfire.

Someone was shooting at her with a laser scope.

Meg scrabbled on all fours into the next room. It was in darkness. Carefully she peered up over the windowsill. Another crack exploded the glass over her head. She gasped, ducked, as shards rained down over her. Another bullet smashed the mirror on the far wall. Shit. Meg pressed her back against the wall. She fumbled in her sweater pocket for her cell phone. Glass tinkled upstairs. Hands shaking, she dialed 911.

“Chillmook County 911 dispatch, where is your emergency?”

“My house—58 Forest Lane, Forest End, Shelter Bay.”

“What’s the emergency, ma’am?”

“Someone is shooting at my house . . . someone’s trying to kill me. Please. . . .” She gasped and dived as a bullet blasted the sill above her head. Her phone skittered across the room into the middle of the floor.

CHAPTER 13

Meg crawled into the small adjacent bathroom. High above the toilet was a tiny window. She stood on tiptoes and cautiously peeped out. Through the mist, under the soft lamp halo, she saw a shadowed figure running through trees. A car door slammed. Tires squealed. She saw the flare of red taillights at the end of the street.

Her heart hammered.

Her hands were shaking.

Sirens wailed down the twisting highway. She sank slowly down against the bathroom wall, huddling on the tile floor next to the toilet.

You should think about security, Meg . . . it’s only a matter of time before one of the monsters you write about is going to come after you . . .

Tears filled her eyes. She ached, right at this moment, to feel Jonah’s arms around her, have him stroke her hair, comfort her, and she detested herself for it. The sirens grew louder. She could hear them coming down her street. She crawled slowly out of the bathroom door, not wanting to get up into the line of fire again. Red and blue light strobed into her living room. Papers fluttered to the floor in the breeze from the gaping maw in the wall. Car doors slammed. Curt voices barked orders. She heard the words “all clear.”

Booted feet sounded up her driveway. Then a pounding on her door. “Anyone inside? Hello? Police, open up!”

Meg got to her feet. Legs wobbly, she made her way to the door, opened it, and blinked into a flashlight. One deputy and an officer from the tiny Shelter Bay police force stood on her porch. Two cruisers were parked in the street, light bars on top pulsing. A third cruiser screeched to a stop on the far side of the street.

Then the tall, unmistakable form of Chief Deputy Dave Kovacs alighted from the third cruiser. He slammed his door and marched across her lawn, the throbbing lights casting him into huge, flickering, and garish relief.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” The Shelter Bay officer was talking to her. She couldn’t seem to hear, to concentrate. She was fixated on Dave’s strident approach, a part of her brain wondering what in the hell he was doing working a graveyard shift—didn’t they use minions for that?

Another deputy came around the side of the house. “I think it’s blood, sir,” she said to Kovacs as he reached the porch.

“Blood?” Meg stepped out in her socked feet to see what she was talking about. “What’s blood?” Then she saw—her freshly power-washed and painted walls had been defiled with hideous red paint that was dripping down the siding into the weeds.
Go Home Bitch. Fuck off, Bitch
.
Killer’s daughter!! White trash. Gonna kill you, Bitch.
She stared. Her eyes burned. Giant shudders seized hold of her body. She wrapped her arms tightly over her stomach.

“Get some crime scene techs in here,” Kovacs barked. The deputy went to make the call.

Meg went closer to see. Blood? How could it be blood?

“Please, step back—” An arm barred her. “Please, step inside, ma’am.”

But she was fixated on the dripping letters. Someone had been right here, violating her house, her space, while she sat vulnerable and exposed in the big lighted picture window. They’d stalked her, toyed with her by dancing a laser sight over her face, her body.

They had me in their sights. They could have shot me, but didn’t. This was designed to scare the shit out of me, and it has. But you don’t know me, you bastards. No way in hell am I backing down now, game on, you A-holes—

“Meg. Meg!”

She jerked back as Kovacs touched her elbow gently. “Meg, you okay, want to come inside and tell me what happened?”

Papers—she needed to protect the files. She started back inside.

“Megan.” Kovacs grabbed her arm in the hall. “Wait. Have you got shoes? The place is covered in glass.”

She looked down at her socked feet. She’d left blood smears on the white floor tiles.

“You’re cut,” he said.

“I’m fine. Fine.” She couldn’t feel a thing. She rammed her feet into a pair of her dad’s oversize slippers that her mother had kept by the door as if awaiting his return, and she hurried into the living room, started gathering up papers that had been scattered to the floor by wind from the open window. She stuffed them back into their folders, the folders into the boxes. Her movements were feverish, the cortisol slamming through her system giving her the shakes.

Dave’s boots crunched over glass as he entered behind her. “What’s all this in here?” He took in her papers, the file boxes. His eyes shot to the open wall safe between the bookshelves. “What papers are these?” He picked up her mother’s journal from the table. She dropped her file box and lunged for it. “Leave that alone.” She grabbed it from him. His eyes locked on hers.

“It’s . . . it’s personal. I’m sorry. I’m . . . a little worked up.”

He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, then said, his voice low, “Want to tell me what’s going on here? What happened tonight?”

“I was sitting here, in this chair, working at the table. No blinds.” She stuffed her mother’s journal into her tote hanging on the back of a chair. She followed it with her laptop, voice recorder, and notebooks, and she slung the tote protectively across her body. Dave watched her every movement, eyes narrowing.

“I’d heard some noises earlier,” she said. “But I thought it was another tremor, or wind. Then I saw a laser dot, like a laser from a hunting rifle scope. On the wall there.”

He looked where she pointed: a small bullet hole marred the white drywall. “I turned sideways. The laser beam settled on my face. That’s when I dived. Shots came through the window, and I scrambled into the other room, where I called 911. From the bathroom window I saw one figure, all in black, running toward an SUV parked down the road. A door slammed. Tires squealed, and it was gone just as I heard your sirens coming.” She wiped the top of her lip with the back of her shaking hand. “I didn’t get any plates.”

“Color of the SUV?”

“I . . . didn’t notice. Maybe silver—I can’t be sure. It was dark down the street.”

The female deputy appeared in the open-plan archway. “CSI guys are here, sir. Would you like me to take a statement from Ms. Brogan?”

“Give us a minute, Hoberman, I’ll handle this.” The woman hesitated.

“Yes, sir.” She left.

Meg felt instantly threatened. This was not protocol, she’d swear on it. Kovacs wanted something from her, and he didn’t want his team to know what.

“They could have killed me if they wanted to,” she said. “They shot wide, into the wall up there.” He glanced again at the wall, then looked toward the window, as if calculating trajectory.

“People are not happy with you doing that book,” he said quietly.

Her jaw dropped. “And that gives them the right to shoot up my house, vandalize my walls, terrorize me?”

“I didn’t say anything about rights. Just a fact.”

A coal of anger ignited deep in her belly and began to burn hot. “And have you considered, Deputy,
why
someone might be going to such extremes to spook me into stopping? Have you considered that maybe someone has something to hide? That maybe, just maybe,
your
father screwed up the investigation, or covered something up, or provoked
my
father to kill Tyson Mack, because his case didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of securing a conviction!”

A muscle twitched along his jaw. “What are you saying?”

She swiped perspiration off her brow with her sleeve. “I’m saying I’m going to interview your dad, like it or not. Because something is off here.”

His gaze shot to the file boxes. “What’s in there? Something to do with the case?”

“Nothing you can’t access yourself.”

“Sir.” It was Hoberman again. “Found .22 shells out on the street. Crime scene tech wants to talk to you. It is blood. Not sure what kind. We’ll need to get samples to the lab.”

“I’ll be right out,” he said. Meg hefted one of her boxes off the table. Kovacs hesitated. “Where you going with those?”

“My truck. A hotel. Until you guys are done with this place. Then I’m going to fix it right back up and move right back in.” She made a move toward the door with one box, but suddenly didn’t want to leave the second box unattended.

“Sir?” The female deputy prompted Kovacs.

“Tell the tech I’ll be right there, Hoberman,” he snapped, then he turned to Meg, lowering his voice. “If there’s something in there that pertains to the case, if you’re obstructing justice in any—”

Yelling, arguing, sounded outside. “You can’t go in there!” came a voice. “This is a crime scene!”

The front door burst open. And in blew Blake. Amped. Breathing hard. Hands fisted at his side. Meg’s heart kicked.

“Jesus, Meg, what in the hell happened?” He came forward, took her shoulders in his big hands. “Are you okay?”

“Thank God you’re here,” she whispered. “Please, can you take these two boxes out to my truck? Keys are on the hook by the door. I . . . I need to get a bag of things, my toothbrush from upstairs.”

Blake hesitated. His eyes shot to Kovacs. The chief deputy tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment, his mouth tight with irritation.

“Where are you going with your truck?” Blake said to Meg.

“Hotel. I . . . don’t know. The Whakami Beach place. Until things are sorted here.”

He held her gaze a moment, then scooped up one box, and balanced the other on top. “I’ll be outside.”

Meg turned to make for the stairs.

“Wait,” Kovacs said.

“I’m just getting some personal effects.”

“I need a statement.”

“I gave you one. If you need anything more, here is my cell number.” She yanked the notebook from her tote, scribbled down her number, ripped off the page, and thrust it at him. “Now, can I go upstairs?”

His gaze bored hot into hers. “I’m sending a female officer with you. Hoberman!”

Hoberman appeared.

“Go with Ms. Brogan. She’s getting some personal belongings.”

Meg gathered up her phone and stomped up the stairs, the female deputy in tow. What did Kovacs think she was going to do upstairs? Take some evidence? What the hell? This was her house. Her stuff. His words from earlier curled through her mind, and in this new context, they took on more sinister meaning.

If those vandals come back, a woman out here on her own . . .

Blake stood on the porch waiting for Meg. A damp cold sank into his bones. The police lights throbbed eerily in the dense mist, a breeze beginning to stir. Kovacs was talking to a CSI taking samples of blood from the wall. He came over when he was done.

“What brings you out here at four a.m.?” Kovacs said. “Just driving around and saw police?”

“Geoff told me there was a shooting in Meg’s street.”

“Your
brother
? He’s back?”

Blake regarded the cop, trying to get a read on him. He sensed hostility. Kovacs was a friend, but not a close one. He had a good several years on both Blake and Geoff and had moved in different circles, but he was one of the guys, one of Shelter Bay’s old-timers. This animosity was unusual; then again, he’d never seen Kovacs working a case. This could be his cop face, a mask he wore for his underlings.

“Geoff arrived yesterday,” Blake said cautiously, regretting his slip. “He’s staying with me at the marina.”

“Why’s he back?”

“Why does anyone come home? Been a long while since his last visit. He wanted to catch up.”

“After all these years?”

Blake shrugged.

“How did he know there was a shooting?”

“Radio.”

“He was up, listening to the radio?”

Blake tensed. Telling Kovacs that Geoff had heard the report on his car radio as he’d pulled into the marina was just going to raise more questions about where his brother had been until the early hours of the morning. “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

Kovacs turned and looked out over the lawn toward the street. The lights flickered eerily over the hard planes of his face. The brim of his Stetson hid his eyes. “It’s a pretty quiet and isolated neighborhood up here. Not a thoroughfare.”

A cool wariness unfurled through the tension already twisting Blake’s stomach over his brother, and the timing of his arrival, and his concern over his secret, and Meg’s digging into the past. Geoff had come home drunk, banged on his door, waking him to say there’d been shooting at Meg’s house—apparently he’d heard on the radio the cops were there. He’d clearly been driving over the limit. Blake turned to face Kovacs.

“And you? Working the graveyard?”

“Short staffed. Flu’s knocked half the department out.”

Blake measured him. It made sense. It was an election year. Showing himself as one of the guys willing to do the grunt work as part of a team would be an astute political move.

Meg appeared with her bags. She was waxy-pale, her eyes huge, like dark holes in her head. Compassion, a fierce sense of protectiveness, chased into his blood, like an old neural memory, firing down and reawakening disused synapses. He’d always tried to protect Meg, whether she’d wanted it or not. And he knew this asshole gladiator drive in him was fueled by a deeper, baser, more primal need—he loved her. Be damned if he could kick the habit. And here it was, full flame again—a ferocious instinct when it came to this woman.