Текст книги "Stranger on the Shore "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Griff had to wait for the elevator. When the door finally slid open, Marcus stood before him. The harsh light was not kind. His face was puffy and he looked drawn with weariness. His expression, as he recognized Griff, was not pleased.

“What are you doing here?”

“Your father asked to see me.” Griff waited for Marcus to exit the elevator, but Marcus made no move to step out.

“Why would he? About what?”

“I’m supposed to leave today. He just wanted a final word.”

“Leave?”

Griff nodded. “Were you getting out?” he suggested.

“I’ll ride down with you.”

Griff stepped into the elevator and the doors closed. Griff pressed the ground floor button. He remembered that he had not yet interviewed Marcus. He had fully intended to. He had intended to speak to all the Arlingtons. But the week had flown past and somehow there was always someone more important, more in the forefront of his investigation to interview.

“Did the police give you permission to leave?” Marcus asked.

Griff said, “I’ll check back with Detective Patrick before I go, but there would be no grounds for keeping me here. I made my statement last night, and I can always answer follow-up questions by phone.”

Marcus’s hollow gaze seemed fixed on Griff’s face. “Do you think you have enough information to write your book?”

“I don’t know if there will be a book now. Your father asked me not to write it.”

“Because of Brian. That doesn’t matter now. Brian’s out of your way.”

Unease crawled down Griff’s spine. “Maybe the book isn’t as important as I thought it was.”

Marcus asked strangely, “What is important?”

Griff didn’t know how to answer. He wished he hadn’t got into this elevator. It was too easy to forget about Marcus, to dismiss him. The fact was, he knew Marcus the least well of any of the Arlingtons. And what he did know was not reassuring. Marcus was an alcoholic. Marcus had been in love with his brother’s wife. Marcus was on the outside of his own family. And at one point Marcus had believed he was entitled to the complete Arlington estate.

“You’re not answering the question,” Marcus said. “What is important?”

Griff told himself he was not afraid. He was a lot younger, stronger, fitter than Marcus, and he was on his guard. If all else he could hit the emergency button. His hand still casually rested on the panel, right next to the red button. But last night someone, most likely one of the Arlingtons, had boldly committed cold-blooded murder, and that person was still on the loose. Marcus was an unknown quantity and there was no question he was behaving oddly.

“Maybe I just needed to prove something to myself,” Griff replied. “Maybe just coming here was the test.”

Marcus’s mouth curved into a smile that was somehow more frightening than his strained and somber expression had been. “Do you think you know who kidnapped Brian?”

Griff remembered Pierce telling him to keep his mouth shut. But he could tell that Marcus knew he did think he had the answer. He said carefully, “I know that a deranged person took Brian that night. I know that the intent was not to harm him or kill him. I don’t know anything more than that. I don’t know if there is anything more to know.”

“A deranged person,” Marcus said thoughtfully.

The elevator reached the bottom floor. The door opened.

“I don’t think it was about money.” Griff stepped out of the elevator with a feeling of relief.

He glanced back at Marcus, but Marcus stood unmoving.

“No,” Marcus said. “Not that time.”

The elevator door closed.

* * *

He tried twice to get Pierce and then, checking his messages, realized he had probably been calling Pierce while Pierce was trying to get through to him.

His phone rang on the drive to Winden House, and Pierce’s number flashed up. Griff answered with, “Do you have access to the Arlingtons’ financial records?”

“Of course.”

“Everybody’s?”

“Well, essentially...yes. It depends on what you’re looking for. I don’t have instant access to every single account and trust fund. Obviously that’s information I can get, and information that the police have already requested. In fact, I’m going through Michaela’s financials now.”

“Who runs Arlington Amalgamated since Jarrett retired?”

“Howard Sand was groomed and trained by Jarrett to take his place as CEO after Matthew’s death.”

“Not Marcus?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Pierce said patiently, “Because Marcus wasn’t interested. Marcus built and ran his own company until it went under nine years ago.”

“What company?”

“Whitewater Yachts. Marcus lost everything when the company went bankrupt.” Pierce’s tone changed. “Griff, never mind that for now. I have to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve been instrumental in initiating DNA testing on Brian.”

That shocked him. “Without the permission of the family?”

“I convinced Detective Patrick that Brian’s paternity could be crucial to the investigation into his homicide.” Pierce hesitated. “That’s not the difficult part of what I need to tell you.”

“The difficult part?”

“Yes.”

Griff’s heart dropped. He yanked the wheel and skidded to the side of the road, parking on the shoulder. He found his voice at last. “You better not be about to tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.”

“I apologize,” Pierce said equally quietly. “I did it before we were involved. I told myself I was acting to protect my clients, but the fact is, I was acting to protect myself.”

Funny how he had believed he loved Levi and yet nothing Levi had done, including walking out on him, hurt even a fraction as much as hearing this from Pierce.

“I don’t understand you,” Griff said. “Is that why you invited me back to your house that first night? To get a sample of my DNA?”

“Of course not. I invited you back because I wanted to be with you. But the idea did occur to me and I did act on it.”

Griff remembered Pierce’s perfunctory attentions that night and laughed. At least the sound was intended as a laugh.

“Griff.” Pierce sounded like he was in pain.

“I can’t believe it. I came here to research a book. That was all. That was all I ever intended. What the fuck did you think you would discover?”

“Have you ever looked at your birth certificate? I mean really examined it.”

“Of course.” Not. Because who ever really examined those documents? You took them for granted. And the people in the town you grew up in took them for granted too. Because you’d been living there for twenty years and everyone knew you and knew your mother...

“I never had any intention of hurting you. I swear to God. It’s just...the more I learned about you, the more curious I became. Your birthday. Your middle name. The night terrors and anxiety attacks. The fact that you were home schooled until college, that your mother was afraid to take you to a doctor.”

“We’re done,” Griff said. “Don’t call me again.” He clicked off. Then he stared at the black screen, breathing as hard as if he’d had to fight tooth and nail to sever that connection. It was one thing to suspect a thing yourself. It was something else entirely to have someone grab you by the collar and force you to look into the mirror.

His phone rang. Pierce’s number flashed up.

He pressed Talk but before he could say anything, Pierce said, “I don’t know the results of the test. I’m calling you before I know anything for sure. Before I have any proof. I don’t care about the results. I’m calling you because I realize that I’ve violated your trust, and I don’t want to jeopardize what’s happening between us.”

“You should have thought of that before, Pierce.”

“Griff, I’m trying to help you. Whatever my original motive, I care for you. I care for you.”

Griff barely heard the words. “You had no right.”

“Maybe not. But I thought I was doing the right thing. The more the coincidences added up, the more I believed I was maybe even doing you a favor.”

“I don’t need...” Griff stopped. The fact was he didn’t know what he needed. Everything he’d thought he knew for a fact was sliding out from under his feet. He changed it to, “I don’t need this right now.” He disconnected.

Once again Pierce called back, but this time Griff let it go to message. He put the Karmann Ghia in gear and continued to Winden House.

Police stopped him at the gates, but he showed his ID and told them he was staying on the estate and needed to get his belongings from the guest house. He was waved through and he continued to the house. He parked in the star-shaped court and got out.

He walked through the twin griffins guarding the front entrance, stopped by the fountain, and walked back. He stared at the griffins for a moment, then continued up the steps. He walked around the side of the house and went in through the mud porch.

No one was in the kitchen. It smelled cold and stale as though it was a long time since anything nourishing or wholesome had been cooked there.

He left the kitchen and headed for the elegant entryway with the diamond parquet floor and low ceiling he had studied for so long in photographs.

The whole house felt empty, abandoned.

“Hello?” he called.

There was no answer. He didn’t expect one really.

Slowly, feeling almost as though he were sleep-walking, he climbed the curving marble staircase and walked down the hall to the nursery.

He hesitated outside the nursery door, and then he turned the sea glass knob and went inside.

Above his head the armada of tiny galleons flashed and glinted as they sailed through the dazzling spring sunlight, weathering the dust motes that drifted down around them. He stared at the treasure chest toy box at the foot of the child-sized bed, stared at the rocker before the fireplace, the sailboat leaning against the window seat. If it was all true, then he should be feeling something, shouldn’t he? He should remember something more than a broken clock and a ragged teddy bear.

He sat down on Brian’s bed and stared up at the sea mural. A rainbow of fish and smiling dolphins dived and danced on the turquoise waves, frozen forever in play. The sea monster, smiling urbanely and showing all his sharp, white teeth, seemed to wink at him.

I know a secret.

Griff pulled out his phone. Pierce’s message waited unopened. He ignored it, moving to photos and examining the copies he had made of pictures in the Arlington albums. One by one, he slid them past, stopping only when he came to the image of Matthew lying in a hammock, reading.

Griff flicked the screen, zooming on the photo until he could make out Matthew’s hand, and then larger again until he could view the book he held. An unmistakable indigo cover.

The Great Gatsby. There was no error. The cover was one of the most famous and reproduced in the world. He stared at the tiny reproduction of Cugat’s gouache painting. The world-weary eyes, the single luminous green tear, the dazzling carnival of lights twinkling in the night.

He felt as though he was looking at his entire life through a fun house mirror. Everything he had ever known, trusted, relied on was...wrong. A lie.

He closed the photo. Pierce’s message was still waiting. He scowled at it and pressed play.

Pierce sounded urgent, as though they were still speaking in real time. “And the other thing is, if I’m right, if we’re both right about what that test is going to show, you need to stay away from Winden House. Don’t go back there today. You said it yourself. Alvin wasn’t killed by Brian’s kidnapper. He was killed because someone can’t afford for Brian to come home. Do not go back there.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Molly the cook was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. She looked up and smiled at Griff.

“Mrs. Truscott?” he asked.

Molly made a sympathetic face. “The poor thing. She’s got a terrible migraine. She’s in her rooms.”

“Can I—?”

“Oh. I don’t know.” Molly was still hesitating over that as Griff turned and went down the hall that led to the mostly deserted servants’ quarters.

The door to Mrs. Truscott’s room was ajar. A terrible, terrible memory flashed through Griff’s mind. He made himself push the door open and to his relief saw her sitting at a small desk writing what looked to be a letter.

Griff tapped on the door frame and Mrs. Truscott jumped and then turned in her chair. She didn’t look any less alarmed when she saw who her visitor was.

“I need to talk to you,” Griff said.

“I don’t think...” She didn’t finish it. Unconsciously her dark gaze slid to the framed photo on the window ledge above the desk.

Even from that distance Griff recognized the photo. Or at least half the photo. The other half, the half with a much younger and happier-looking Mrs. Truscott, had been cut out of the photograph Griff knew. What remained was the only picture he had of his mother.

Here was the last piece of the puzzle. Literally the last piece.

Griff stepped forward, eyes on the framed image. Mrs. Truscott watched him almost fearfully.

“My mother,” he said.

“No.”

He stared at her. She looked stricken, but she shook her head. “No.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t...”

“I’m sorry.”

Sorry?

“But why? Why didn’t you...” He wasn’t even sure what he was asking. Where did he start? He felt winded, as though he didn’t have breath for all the questions it would take to make sense of this.

“I was afraid the minute I saw you,” she said. “All these years I tried to convince myself. But the minute I saw you, I knew in my heart it was true.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to believe it. I told myself it couldn’t be true. You didn’t seem to know, so how could it be true?”

Was that supposed to be an explanation? Because every word she spoke confused him more.

“Your sister. The one who supposedly died in a state institution. She didn’t die, did she? Not in any institution.”

Mrs. Truscott’s face softened, her tone took on an almost pleading note. “Her little boy passed when she was in the hospital the last time. She had trouble—she didn’t always—”

“No. You can’t stop. You have to tell me,” Griff said when she lurched to that painful halt.

“I know. I’m trying.” Mrs. Truscott put her face in her hands, and in that moment she looked so much like his mother, he almost put his arms around her.

But she wasn’t his mother. Even his mother had not really been his mother. And in a minute he was going to have another anxiety attack. At least this time it was understandable.

Mrs. Truscott said from behind her hands, “She could be fine for months, even years. She would come and go, I wouldn’t hear from her and then I would. And she’d be perfectly fine. But other times she wasn’t herself. She’d have to go away. She was better after she had her boy. Gareth, she called him. But then she had one of her breakdowns and she had to go into the hospital again. And while she was there, Gareth...died. He was living with our mother at the time, and he died of appendicitis.”

Griff’s chest still felt tight, he couldn’t get enough air to speak, but that was okay because he didn’t need to speak. He needed to be quiet and calm and listen. None of this could hurt him. It was all over now. It was all in the past.

Mrs. Truscott raised her head to meet his eyes. “When she got out, she blamed our mother. It wasn’t our mother’s fault. It wasn’t. But they had never been close. So it wasn’t such a surprise when she didn’t get in touch.”

He said harshly, “That’s not the part I care about.”

“No.” Mrs. Truscott looked down at her work-roughened hands. “She used to come here sometimes and help out. When she was well, I mean.”

“And she was helping out that night? The night of the party?”

“No. No, but I always wondered, because the Mather children thought they saw me in the nursery when I couldn’t have been there. She knew her way around the house. And...”

“And what?”

Mrs. Truscott seemed to struggle with herself. “She tried it once before.”

“What?”

“Not here! I’m not saying that. But once before, a long time before, I was with her when she started to walk off with a baby carriage. The baby wasn’t in it, and at the time I didn’t think anything of it. But later...later I wondered.”

“But then you must have made the connection after Brian—” Griff stopped. He felt like his head was going to explode. He was still referring to Brian—himself—as though he were another person. He was still thinking of Brian in the third person.

Mrs. Truscott was running on. She sounded almost eager now, rushing to convince him, to make him believe. “When I tried to contact Amy, my mother said she had left a few days earlier, that she’d got a job and was moving out to New Mexico. She used to do that. She used to take off without any notice. I believed it.”

“You believed it? You were right here in the middle of a kidnapping and you never made any connection?”

“You’re forgetting that the ransom note came the next day. I knew that wasn’t Amy. Never. Never in a million years. Everyone believed Odell took Brian. I believed it too.”

“You didn’t believe it. When I asked you, you said you weren’t sure about Johnson’s guilt.”

“But I didn’t believe it was Amy.”

“You didn’t want to believe it was Amy.” It was so weird to say his mother’s name in this context. So weird to think this was his life, his past.

“Of course I didn’t want to believe it! But...” she stopped again.

“Why me? Why this family?”

“I don’t know. You were a friendly little thing. You liked her. You liked everyone. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just the opportunity presented itself.” She met his eyes, her own miserable with guilt and grief. “I’m sorry.”

Her face. So like his mother’s. How had he not instantly recognized the truth the moment she opened the door to him?

“Sorry. Wow. I don’t know what to say to that. For twenty years...” His voice gave out and he realized how close he was to breaking down. To breaking apart.

Why? He was all right. His mother—no, Amy Truscott—had loved him, taken care of him the best she could. He was whole and healthy and all that was in the past now anyway.

And if he didn’t get out of this room, this house, he was going to be sobbing like the lost little kid he had once been.

“Is she dead?” Mrs. Truscott asked.

He nodded. She began to cry, and he felt for the door, stepped through the blur into the hall.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, and the fear was back in her voice.

He couldn’t answer. He had no idea what the answer was. He kept walking.

She called something after him, but he didn’t hear it.

* * *

He had to talk to someone, needed desperately to talk to someone. Strangely, the only person he could think of was Pierce. And that really was strange given how furious he had been with Pierce. But that was a million years ago.

He walked through the kitchen, out the back door, and started down the path to the guest cottage. Clouds were gathering overhead. It was going to rain again. He could see Nels Newland in one of the distant sunken garden rooms, digging a hole for a new rose bush. Was there something he was supposed to ask Newland?

He turned off and took the steps down to the cool green and flowering rooms because he wanted to be alone, and because in a strange way it felt like this garden was where the story had begun on a long ago night of fairy lights flickering through the trees, and old jazz songs drifting up to the stars.

He dropped down on one of the marble benches, abruptly more tired than he had ever been in his life. A thousand miles from Wisconsin to Long Island couldn’t touch the distance he had traveled that morning. Numbly he watched the yellow butterflies flitting from flower to flower.

He didn’t remember dialing Pierce’s number, but suddenly Pierce spoke against his ear.

“Mather.” Pierce sounded brisk and distant and yet at the same time immediate and familiar. As though they’d known each other all their lives. But then he had known Pierce all his life. Or at least at the beginning of his life.

His eyes blurred. He opened his mouth but the words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t seem to pry them out, squeeze them past the blockage in his throat.

“Griff?” Pierce’s tone changed.

He got out a shaky breath. Poor Pierce probably wondered if he was getting an obscene phone call. No such luck.

“Are you okay, Griff?” Pierce’s voice was so uncharacteristically gentle, the tears dazzling Griff’s eyes spilled over.

He let out another of those shuddering sighs and said, “I think I was named for the stone statues in the front courtyard.”

“Where are you?”

“At the house. In the sunken garden.”

Pierce sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, listen to me. You need to leave. Now. Don’t go down to the cottage, don’t go inside the house. Just turn around and leave. Go to my house. Or go to my office. Just go. Get out of there.”

“There are cops all over the place.”

That wasn’t true though. There had been cops at the gate but he hadn’t noticed a police presence in the house, and he wasn’t seeing any uniforms patrolling the grounds either. The cops had the murder weapon, the library was sealed off, and the raincoat apparently worn by the killer had been hanging in a closet in the main hall. Maybe they thought there was nothing else to look for.

“Griff, there was a house full of people last night. We’re talking about someone who was desperate enough to take that chance. And having gone that far, there’s no way he’s going to stand by and let you waltz in and scoop up all the marbles.”

That got through. Griff sat up straight. “No one knows about me.”

“You’re not hearing me. There is a real and immediate threat, and it is specific to you. To you. Michaela was here when I told Jarrett that you are Brian.”

“You did what?”

“Griff, we don’t have time for this. Leave the premises immediately.”

“You told Jarrett before I had a chance to even figure out things for myself?”

He could hear the effort Pierce was making. “I had to tell him. It was either me or Nassau P.D., and I thought it would be less of a shock coming from me.”

“What is it with you, Pierce? I’ve never met anyone more highhanded and—”

“I’m hanging up now and calling the cops.” Pierce clicked off.

Griff stared in disbelief at his phone. Anger had replaced his numbness. He rose and crossed the lawn, starting back up the moss-stained stairs. Overriding everything else was the need to get to Pierce Mather as soon as humanly possible and tell him to his face what a complete and total asshole he was.

He was halfway up the steps when a shadow fell across him. Someone was coming swiftly down the staircase. Griff looked up in time to see the incoming sole of a boot aimed directly at his face. Instinctively, he grabbed for the boot, locking arms around the attached jean-clad leg, and yanked sideways.

Momentum carried them both off the narrow staircase. It was only a six-foot drop, but it still knocked the wind out of Griff as he landed spread-eagled beneath his assailant. The other man’s boots bounced onto his chest. His fist landed in a vulnerable part of Griff’s anatomy.

Griff had been in the occasional scuffle, but no one had ever tried to kick him in the face before—let alone grab him by the nuts—and his reactions were not as fast as they should have been. He tried to slither away, hauling long, desperate drags of oxygen into his lungs. His bruised chest hurt like hell, but then suddenly he could breathe again. He attempted to block with his arms as the other man took another kick at his head. The blow that landed on his forearm felt like it fractured the bone. He tried to roll out of range.

“Why the fuck couldn’t you stay dead?” Ring panted. His next kick landed between Griff’s shoulder blades.

It was like being hit by an anvil. Griff yelled his pain and scrambled up, trying to get away. That was his entire focus. Get away—because there was no way he was a match for Ring Shelton in this kind of brawl. It was like fighting a grizzly bear.

“It’s all over,” he cried. “The cops are on their way. They know everything by now.”

But maybe it wasn’t about that anymore. Maybe it wasn’t about anything more than discharging that raw, physical rage on the only available target.

Ring launched himself forward, his arms clamping around Griff’s waist, throwing him backward. Ring landed on top, his meaty hands closing around Griff’s throat. Massive hands crushing his windpipe. Griff slammed his fists against Ring’s head. He wriggled, kicked, tried to throw Ring off, but it felt like a boulder had landed on his chest.

He couldn’t breathe. Could not breathe.

Griff’s hands slapped down on Ring’s, he desperately felt for little fingers, trying to drag Ring’s hands away from his throat. He could hear Ring talking to him but it was like listening from underwater. Stars shot behind his eyelids. His vision began to blacken at the edges.

He wrapped his fingers around a digit that felt like a sausage and yanked with all his might. Someone roared in the distance, Griff gulped in air, and then a blow like a hammer smashed into his head.

He fought. He was fighting with every last breath, but his arms were getting heavier and heavier. The sunlight faded out to night.