Silk and Stone (73 page)

“Ain’t seen him or Sammie,” Clara told the deputy. “Joe drove me over so I could feed ol’ Bo. I reckon Sammie and Jake are keepin’ company with Sammie’s sister. Her boyfriend got banged up in a accident. He’s at the hospital.”

The deputy scowled at Bo, who lay in the yard, looking toward the woods and whining. “What’s wrong with him?”

“There’s a yellow-jacket nest in a log over yonder,” Joe said quickly. “They been after him.”

“Well, I have orders to wait here until Jake shows up,” the deputy said, frowning harder. “Sheriff wants to find out where Jake was when Senator Vanderveer took the short way down from Razorback.”

Joe grunted with disgust. “Jake’s got no reason to throw his cousin off a ledge. They went separate ways before either of ’em was grown. Probably haven’t even crossed paths since Jake got out of prison.”

“The governor keels over with a stroke and his state-senator stepson goes sky diving without a parachute. Maybe it’s just a damn bad run of luck, but it’s got every honcho in the state government running around like chickens
with their heads cut off, looking for explanations.”

“I say Tim Vanderveer did himself in,” Joe said. “He always was a moody soul. Probably grieving over his stepfather. I heard the doctors aren’t giving the governor good odds.”

The deputy threw up his hands. “Look, we’re just rounding up anybody who might’ve seen the senator last night. Anybody who has a clue about his state of mind.
Somebody
found his body and reported it. We want to find out who that was.”

“You got the call on tape, don’t you? The sheriff knows Jake’s voice. Did he think it sounded like Jake?”

“Aw, hell, the dispatcher was half asleep and havin’ trouble with the system. It didn’t record. For all we know, she could’ve been talking to Barney the purple dinosaur.”

Clara fixed something akin to the evil eye on the deputy. “Jake’ll come in and talk to you folks. He’s got nothing to hide. We’ll send him along when he gets here. You go on back to town. Jake don’t deserve to be carted off in a patrol car.”

“Probably not, but I’ve got my orders.” He settled on the porch steps and stared at Bo suspiciously, then turned the same intense glare on Joe and Clara. “So I’ll wait. Y’all have a seat and wait with me.”

Watching from the cover of the woods, Jake broke into a cold sweat. He was alone, trapped, with only the unforgiving stone as a guide. It would not help him. He turned away from the house and began the long trek across the beautiful, merciless terrain, thinking, planning, praying.

His mind was filled with the soft, deadly whisper of a ravenmocker’s wings.

“Mrs. Lomax? Is there anyone you want me to call?”

When Alexandra didn’t answer, Barbara slid closer to her on the couch. Alexandra was vaguely aware of the
low hum of voices outside the waiting room’s closed door and the silent scream of loss and disbelief inside her own mind. Tim was dead. And less than an hour ago, she had held Orrin’s limp hand and watched the doctors turn off machines that could no longer keep him alive.

Her secretary was crying for her; Alexandra was too numb to shed tears.

Barbara repeated the question. Alexandra shivered. “Who is left for you to call?” She stared blindly into space. “Who is left for me?”

Barbara gave a tearful cry. “There are reporters downstairs. Our people want your permission to issue a statement. Everyone from the governor’s staff is waiting in the hall.”

“They should tell the media that my husband died an hour ago and my son died last night. Nothing else is important.”

“What do you want them to say about Tim?”

“My son loved his stepfather. He was in shock over his stepfather’s illness. He had an accident.”

Lies. All lies
. Jake had destroyed her family. Jake and Samantha. Only Jake had a reason, but he had turned Samantha against her. Somehow he had pried open the doors to the past and taken revenge—ruining Alexandra’s future through her loved ones just as she had ruined his.

It was not a fair trade
.

She would make him pay his debt.

“I’m going home now,” Alexandra announced. “I’m going back to Pandora. I need to take care of the arrangements. Have someone bring my car. I want to go to the airport. I’ll fly the Cessna home.”

“Mrs. Lomax, you can’t do that. You’re in shock. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Alexandra looked at her with measured, unblinking strength. “I have never been more aware of what I have to do.”

The breeze across the airport runways smelled of oil and heat. Slate-gray summer clouds pressed the muggy
air down on her, and the noise of the big jets in a distant sector of the airport was a low, unending drone in Sam’s ears. She walked slowly through the wide arena of concrete and sky, an actress moving with intense concentration toward the stage.

Official-looking men and women were crowded around Alexandra’s small airplane, and Sam could see them sweating in their business suits. The plane was a puddle jumper, one of those propeller-driven crafts that resembled an oversize toy. Sam glimpsed her aunt at the group’s center, stately in her grief, an elegant murderer.

The woman who had manipulated everyone in her path. Who had sent a con man to plunder her own sister’s savings and fragile independence. Who had spared no mercy for Sarah, Hugh, and Ellie. Who had let Jake go to prison for tracking down the truth.

Sam recognized Barbara in the group. At the same moment, her aunt’s longtime secretary glanced Sam’s way, gaped at her, then hurried over, hands outstretched. Barbara seemed relieved to see her. Sam halted rigidly as Barbara grasped her shoulders. “You couldn’t have shown up at a better time,” she told Sam. “I should have known you wouldn’t let old misunderstandings keep you away. She’s your
family.
”

That word had the power to twist Sam’s stomach. Yes, Alexandra was her family. A hopelessly entrenched poison, impossible to wash out. The reason Jake had kept secrets from her. The reason he couldn’t bring himself to say he still loved her. “Blood’s thicker than water,” she answered.

“How did you find us?”

“Went to the hospital first. They told me she was here.”

“She’s determined to fly herself to Pandora. We’ve been trying to talk her out of it, but she won’t listen. She keeps saying it will only take about an hour, and that she needs the time to think. She’s in shock, Samantha. She won’t talk about Orrin or Tim. She won’t let go and cry.”

Sam stared past Barbara. “I’ll go with her. She’ll talk
to me. I’m a very good listener.” She walked on, the hair rising on the nape of her neck while a dark feeling of serenity grew inside her.

Her aunt’s attention rested on her. Alexandra stiffened. Her head came up, and the look on her face gave away nothing—not surprise, or wariness, or pleasure. The crowd parted. Sam was dimly conscious of the stares. She steeled herself, put an arm around Alexandra’s shoulders, and hugged her tightly. “I’m glad I caught up with you,” she told her aunt.
I caught you
, Sam amended silently. I
caught you in your lies
. “I’ll keep you company on the trip home.”

Alexandra draped her arms around Sam. “See?” she said to the others. “My niece knows me better than all of you do. She doesn’t expect me to fall apart.” She looked at Sam—hollow-eyed but sharp. “We’re very much alike. Strong. We’ll get through this together.”

Sam nodded.

Jake climbed a steep bank, pushed his way through a thicket of brambles, and halted, breathing heavily, along an empty road on the outskirts of town. The ribbon of pavement snaked along a man-made terrace carved out of the mountain’s flanks decades earlier, shadowed by overhanging trees until it disappeared around a switch-back curve ahead.

He would follow the quiet back road, hoping to catch a ride on one of the lumber trucks or tankers that sometimes used the road as a bypass around town. It might take hours to get a ride; even the toughest rig drivers would think twice about stopping for a dangerous-looking stranger in the middle of nowhere.

Jake began walking. He refused to think too much about his haphazard journey. Panic churned under his frustration, and he couldn’t let it distract him.

The day was slipping inside gray clouds and mist; it was the kind of weather that would blanket the high places in dense white fog by night.

He had to get out of the mountains before then.

He sensed a car coming long before he heard it. Cars meant trouble—a deputy, the state patrol, a forest ranger—people who might be hunting for him. Locals who might tell someone they’d seen him. He cursed the lost chance and eased back into the concealing thickets.

A late-model pickup truck crept around the curve. Jake was instantly wary. It moved too slowly, even for the tricky road. Could be someone hoping to take potshots at the deer that grazed the road’s grassy shoulder. Could be someone looking for him.

The truck rolled closer, inching along. The driver’s window was open. A burly black arm in a short-sleeved shirt was crooked on the sill.

Hoke Doop, his dark, jowly face compressed in serious lines, scanned the thicket.

Jake bolted forward. Hoke jerked the truck to a stop. “I’ll be damned,” the detective called. “I heard the local boys were lookin’ for you, and I figured you might need some help. I went prowling for you. My hunches are workin’ like a Swiss clock today.”

Jake swung the passenger door open and leapt inside.