River Road (12 page)

M
ason drove back into town, aware that in spite of extreme sexual frustration, he was feeling good—better than he had felt in ages. Years, maybe. He walked Lucy into the lobby of the inn and watched her climb the stairs. When she disappeared, he went back outside, got into the car and drove to the cabin.

The lights were still on. Joe was stretched out on the front porch. He got to his feet to greet Mason.

“Hey, there, Joe.”

Mason gave Joe a greeting rub behind the ears and opened the front door. Joe followed him inside and padded into the darkened kitchen.

Deke was still awake, lounging on the sofa. He was watching a movie on television. Mason heard Bogart speak the familiar last line of the film:
“Louis, I think this
is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Mason headed for the kitchen. “
Casablanca
again?”

“Best movie ever made.” Deke pushed himself up off the couch. “About time you got home.”

“It’s a little late to tell me I’ve got a curfew,” Mason said. He went into the kitchen, flipped on the overhead light, opened the cupboard and took down the bottle of whiskey that was always there. “Probably should have done that fifteen years ago.”

Deke made his way into the kitchen. “You never got into any trouble you couldn’t handle, so why bother giving you a curfew?” He sat down at the table. “How did things go tonight?”

“Beats me.” Mason took two glasses out of the cupboard and splashed a little whiskey into each. He put both glasses on the table and sat down across from Deke. “Lucy and I both think that there is some real instability inside the Colfax empire. Got a hunch Warner’s second wife is sleeping with the CEO, Cecil Dillon, and it looks like Quinn is drinking—maybe a lot. As for Jillian, you saw her yesterday. She looks desperate.”

“Maybe scared.”

Mason thought about that. “Maybe. One thing’s for sure: Everyone with a vested interest in the merger wants it to go through—except Warner. He owns the largest block of shares, but if the others combine their shares, they can outvote him.”

“Unless Lucy sides with him.”

“Unless.”

Mason drank some of the whiskey.

“Lucy is going to take a lot of heat from both sides,” Deke said. “She ought to sell those shares back to the family and get out of Dodge while the getting is good.”

“She won’t—not until she’s got some answers.”

Deke drank some whiskey and exhaled heavily. “Figured as much. Sounds like she turned out a lot like you. Stubborn as hell.”

“Yeah.” Mason smiled. “Yeah, she’s a little on the stubborn side.”

Deke cocked a brow. “You really think that car accident that took Sara and Mary might have been murder?”

“I don’t know.” Mason leaned back in his chair and drank a little more whiskey. “I pulled up the accident report this morning. There was nothing in it to indicate that it was anything other than an accident.”

“Manzanita Road hasn’t been well maintained in years. It’s used mostly by motorcyclists and bicyclists who are into off-road riding. But Mary and Sara both knew it well. They drove it countless times. Everyone knows they liked to stop off at the old commune and have a snack.”

“The accident occurred early in the afternoon. There was no fog. No indication that either of them had been drinking.”

Deke sipped some whiskey. “Accidents happen.”

“Sure. But there’s something else I don’t like about this one.”

“What?”

“The timing. Lot of money in play because of the Colfax merger. Lot of tension in the family.”

“There’s always been tension in that family. Warner is a tough SOB. Got to hand it to him, he built himself a real empire. But he paid a price.”

“And now all he wants to do, apparently, is make wine.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Deke said. “The company still means a hell of a lot to him.”

Mason raised his brows. “You don’t think he’d murder his own sister to try to get his hands on those shares, do you?”

“Mary wasn’t his sister—not by blood, at any rate. She was his stepsister. Her mother was a widow with a little girl when she married Warner’s father.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“A lot of people don’t know that,” Deke said. “Or they’ve forgotten about it.”

“How did you find out? You didn’t grow up here. We didn’t move here until Aaron and I were in our teens.”

“Got the info from Becky. She was born in Summer River.”

Mason nodded. “Did Becky tell you anything else?”

“She did, and it’s something you might find interesting. She told me how Mary got those shares and why they are wild cards. When Mary turned twenty-five she came into an inheritance from her mother’s side. That’s where she got the money to invest in Warner’s company. Mary believed in the company because she knew that Warner had a talent for making money. But she and Warner were never close. For Mary, it was a business investment. Warner was desperate for the cash infusion, so he gave her the shares on her terms.”

“Okay, that changes things up a bit. Any idea why the partnership between Colfax and Brinker broke up?”

“I heard the same story everyone else heard. After his son disappeared, Jeffrey Brinker lost interest in Colfax and Brinker. He became obsessed with trying to discover what had happened to Tristan.” Deke wrapped both hands around the whiskey glass and looked straight at Mason. “Only natural. I’d have done the same if you or Aaron had gone missing.”

Mason felt a little whisper of warmth, the kind that didn’t come from the whiskey.

“I know,” he said. “If you suddenly vanished without an explanation, Aaron and I would never stop looking for you.”

“That’s how it is with family. At any rate, the story goes that Colfax took advantage of Brinker’s depression and more or less pushed Brinker into selling out.” Deke paused. “There were some who hinted that Colfax didn’t give Brinker a fair price, that he knew at the time that Brinker wasn’t really thinking straight. Whatever the case, the deal was made. A few months later, Brinker was dead of a heart attack.”

Mason wrapped one hand around his glass of whiskey and lounged back in his chair. “Even if Colfax took advantage of Brinker, the buyout still would have been a big deal. Lot of money involved.”

Deke looked intrigued. “Sure. Those two were both multimillionaires by the time they arrived in Summer River. Warner’s worth a lot more now. Where are you going with this?”

“Not sure yet. You wouldn’t happen to know who Brinker’s heirs were, would you?”

“No. I wasn’t paying that much attention. The only thing I can tell you is that whoever they were, they didn’t live here in Summer River. Word would have gotten around real quick if that had been the case.”

“I’ll ask Lucy to follow the money from Brinker’s estate,” Mason said. “That’s her area of expertise.”

“What do you think the information will tell you?”

“I have no idea.”

“Huh.” Deke pondered that. “Is this how you usually work one of your old cold cases?”

Mason swallowed some whiskey and lowered the glass. “Pretty much. I keep asking questions—turning over rocks—until I get some answers.”

“You must have some sense of direction.”

“In my experience, you usually can’t go wrong if you follow the money. Thirteen years ago a lot of cash changed hands. It would be interesting to know who got it. And who didn’t.”

Deke studied him with a piercing look. “You could be opening a real can of worms here.”

“Or not. Thing is, it’s become clear that Lucy is going to open that can one way or the other. I don’t want her doing it alone.”

“That would not be a good idea,” Deke said.

They drank a little more whiskey in a companionable silence.

“I found something interesting in the old files on the Scorecard Rapist,” Mason said after a while. “At least one of the investigators believed that there was a second person involved in the assaults, possibly the photographer.”

“Son of a bitch. If that’s true, he’s still out there.”

“Or she,” Mason said.

“Hard to imagine a woman helping some bastard do something that vicious to another woman.”

“You and I both know that both sexes are capable of cruelty and violence.”

“Yeah.” Deke ran his fingers through his buzz-cut hair. His eyes darkened with memories. “I know. But even after some of the stuff I saw over there, it still amazes me when a woman does something downright evil and unforgiveable.”

“You were raised in different times,” Mason said.

“Maybe. Think that if there was a second person involved in the rapes he or she might still be here in town?”

“It’s a possibility. And that’s what has me really worried. If the second perp is still here, he or she will be running scared now that Brinker’s body has been found along with some proof that he was the Scorecard Rapist. Hell, even if the other perp doesn’t live here now, odds are he or she will hear about the discovery of the body soon and start sweating.”

Deke raised his brows. “Because there’s a chance that the case will be reopened?”

“Right, although I don’t think that’s very likely. Whitaker isn’t interested in doing that. The real problem is Lucy. If there is someone else out there and if Lucy starts asking too many questions in the wrong places—” Mason stopped talking.

“Got it,” Deke said. “What do you want me to do?”

“You meet a lot of folks at the store. Sooner or later, Becky sees everyone in town come through the front door at her café. Between the two of you, you’ve got the town covered. People talk. I want you to listen closely to anyone who brings up the subject of Brinker’s body.”

“Hell, that will be everyone in Summer River. But Brinker was only nineteen when he ended up in Sara’s fireplace. Seems to me that if there’s any useful intel to be had on him, it would come from people who were closer to his age at the time. You, for instance.”

“Lucy and I will cover that angle. But I’d like to know if any of the locals who were adults back then take an interest in the news of the discovery of Brinker’s body that goes beyond the normal curiosity factor.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Deke said.

He knocked back the last of his whiskey.

“Thanks.” Mason stood and collected the glasses. “I need some sleep. Got to put a plan together in the morning before Lucy starts opening too many closets. No telling what might fall out.”

“Summer River is like any other small town,” Deke said. “Lot of secrets. Lot of closets.”

Mason headed for the stairs.

J
oe lumbered to his feet and crossed the room to rest his head on Deke’s knee. He watched Deke with his wolflike eyes. Deke put his hand on the dog. They communed together in silence as they often did at night. Just a couple of aging warriors, home from the wars, Deke thought. He and the dog understood each other as no one else except another warrior could.

He contemplated the conversation he’d just had with Mason. One thing was clear: Mason was looking a lot better than he had a couple weeks ago when he had shown up on the front porch, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His eyes had had the same look as the eyes of the thirteen-year-old kid who had been waiting for him in the offices of the child protective services agency all those years ago—like he’d witnessed the end of the world and nothing the future held would surprise or astonish him.

That thirteen-year-old kid had looked like he’d never laugh again or trust anyone again except his younger brother. But raw determination had burned in the kid. His dying father had given him a mission to complete. That mission had a single objective—to protect Aaron. One look at Mason and Deke had known that the kid would carry out that mission or go down trying.

According to the child protective services people, Mason had anger-management issues. They claimed that he had acted out in the three foster homes he and Aaron had been placed in over a period of three months. There were reports of fights with other boys in the homes and one incident in which Mason was accused of attacking an adult male relative of one of the foster parents. The well-intentioned child services folks strongly suggested counseling.

But Deke had been pretty sure that regardless of what had occurred in the foster homes, Mason had just been doing his job, taking care of his younger brother. He could tell by the relief in the caseworker’s eyes that she knew that, too. That’s why she had pushed through the paperwork so damned fast it had made everyone’s heads spin.

Within an hour Deke had stowed Mason and Aaron and their few belongings in the SUV and hit the road.

Life had changed for all three of them that day.

When Mason grew up he had not gone off to a war zone on the other side of the world. Instead, he had become a soldier in another kind of war, the never-ending battle against the bad guys at home. He had taken on a new mission. When Deke had found him at the front door two weeks ago, it was obvious that Mason hadn’t come back to Summer River because he needed a break, as he claimed. He needed some healing.

Deke had recognized the shadows in Mason’s eyes because, in spite of the counseling and the meds, he saw similar shadows when he looked in the mirror.

Mason had returned to Summer River carrying the heavy weight that only a man who believes that he has failed to complete the mission could know.