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Until Connor’s involvement.
Connor Reed was a very successful true-crime writer. The Alouette library had a couple of his books, including his blockbuster bestseller, Blood Kin. Even though she hadn’t read any of them—being partial to cozy mysteries over the stark and often bloody reality of nonfiction—she was surprised she hadn’t immediately recognized his name. Maybe making up her own stories about him had distracted her. Little had she known that by comparison with the truth, her imaginings were harmless.
About a year and a half ago, at the peak of the original trial, Connor had signed a ballyhooed, big-bucks contract with Scepter Publishing to write a book about Roderick Strange. According to the news reports, during the months after the man’s guilty verdict Connor had uncovered vital evidence and given it over to the courts, which ultimately led to Strange’s conviction being overturned. People had been in an uproar. There were protests, public debates, hate mail and death threats. Connor was roasted over the coals by many, defended by only a spare few.
Though he’d been invited to all the talk shows, he’d spurned the attention and made little public comment. Even that had been turned against him by those who said he was only looking to cash in by saving the inside story for his impending book.
So far, there was no book. Tess had perused the Scepter Publishing Web site, but found no firm publishing date for a work by Connor Reed. Which didn’t mean he hadn’t already written the manuscript….
She wrinkled her nose, slowing at the intersection where the country road crossed with the highway. The idea of such a book was distasteful. In good conscience, she couldn’t argue too strenuously against Connor’s turning over the evidence he’d found, as terrible as the result had been. She had more trouble with the idea of him profiting from the tragedy.
Perhaps he did, too?
The light turned green. She tapped on the gas and drove through the intersection. Then what about his other books? Those cases had also involved ugly crime, real people and grieving families.
On the other hand, who was she to be judgmental?
Tess skirted the town, finding Three Pines easily enough, as she’d visited before, delivering books to a longtime library patron who’d been in residence the previous winter. The nursing home was a horizontal structure, formed from a central hub with four wings that spoked out in a crooked H formation. She spotted Connor in the parking lot outside of Wing D, leaning against the bumper of a dusty Jeep.
Her heart gave a little jump as she pulled in beside him.
It was early evening yet, but the sun had lowered far enough to send slanting rays through the tall Norway pines that surrounded the facility. Sharp-edged shadows stretched across the paved lot, casting his brooding face in an appropriately murky light.
Tess got out of her car. “Hi!”
Connor nodded. “Thanks for coming.”
“Beautiful evening,” she said, compelled to combat her doubt with chirpiness. “You’re looking well.”
“I slept for a couple of hours.”
“And shaved.”
He touched his chin. “Just for you.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” She maintained a cheery smile while attempting an unobtrusive evaluation. He’d changed, too, into a fresh white T-shirt and belted khakis. But he still looked sad and withdrawn.
Her heart went out to him, even though her head kept asking questions. Was Connor Reed heartless? Greedy? Or merely an average guy stuck in a bad situation?
“So you found the place okay,” he said.
“Yesiree. I’ve been here before.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “You’re Mary Sunshine.”
“Is that wrong?”
“Just weird.”
She cocked her head. “How so?”
He shrugged. “I guess it’s the Midwestern in you.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“No, not bad. Not bad at all. Just makes me think I’ve been hanging out with the wrong people.” He reached to take her arm. “Come on, let’s go inside.”
Without thinking, she withdrew, crossing her arms over her front.
Connor stopped. Looked at her for a long minute, his face darkening. Finally he shook his head.
“Suit yourself,” he said shortly, and walked toward the paths that bordered the different wings in wide gray outlines. He took the one that led to Wing D, not even looking back to see if she’d followed as he made a sharp turn and was swallowed by the shadows beneath the wide eaves of the entrance.
Tess hesitated for another moment before hurrying after him. “Look,” she said, trotting to catch up to his long strides. “I’m not—I didn’t—”
He’d stopped at the door next to an outdoor aluminum ashtray overflowing with butts. “You know who I am,” he said without looking at her.
She let out a soft sigh. “Yes.”
“You can leave right now if you don’t want to be associated with me. I understand.”
“I wouldn’t do that!”
He threw a glance over his shoulder. “How come? I’m generally acknowledged to be a pretty despicable guy.”
She moved a little closer. “Maybe general knowledge isn’t what it’s cracked up to be?”
“Are you asking me a question?”
“I might be.”
“Well, now’s not the time.” He opened the door and stood aside to allow her through. “Your choice.”
She marched inside. She’d made a promise, after all.
They entered into a small reception area. An attempt had been made to improve on the sterile concrete-block look of the facility, with hunter-green paint, a couch, buffalo-plaid curtains and accessories that included duck decoys and wildlife prints. A predictable decor, but better than austerity.
A long hallway ran down the middle of the wing, with residents’ rooms on either side. There was an unstaffed reception desk near the lounge, and an empty wheelchair and a gurney parked outside one of the rooms. The place seemed deserted, except for a uniformed attendant turning a corner at the other end of the hall.
“This way,” Connor said. “Sonny’s three doors down on the left.”
An old woman with a walker poked her head into the hallway as they passed, looking both curious and eager for visitors. Tess would have stopped to chit-chat, but Connor was already disappearing into his grandfather’s room. She smiled at the woman and said hello before hurrying to catch up again.
She arrived in time to see Connor giving his grandfather a careful hug. “So you came back, eh?” the old man said.
“Told you I would. And I brought a visitor.”
A gnarled hand waved dismissal. “Bah. Visitors.”
“You might like this one.”
Tess stepped forward. “No, please, sit,” she said, when Connor’s grandfather saw her and started to rise from his chair by the window.
He didn’t listen, and straightened slowly with one hand clenched on the head of a cane. His forehead pleated with a deep scowl.
Connor steadied his grandfather’s stance. “Grandpa, this is Tess Bucek, from Alouette. Tess, my grandfather, Addison Mitchell.”
“Mr. Mitchell.” Tess offered her hand, hoping the lighthouse keeper wouldn’t bite it off.
The old man clasped it briefly, but with a strong pressure. He peered at her with eyes that were sharply blue beneath eyebrows like fuzzy caterpillars. “Bucek? Don’t recall any Buceks in Alouette.”
“Right now, I’m the only one left. My parents were Tony and Annabel Bucek. I doubt you’d remember either of them, sir.”
“Good people?”
She blinked. “Acceptable, sir.”
“Sir?” He snorted. “I s’pose you can call me Sonny. Take a seat if it suits you, there.” He lowered himself to the padded chair, letting out a rusty chuckle as Tess sat and crossed her legs. “Still a ladies’ man, eh, Connor?”
“Tess is—” Connor shrugged, looking to her for help.
“Just a visitor,” she said, smoothing her skirt. No need to embarrass the old man by baldly pointing out the reason for her visit. “I met Connor today in the library. I work there.”
Sonny grunted.
Connor excused himself and went out to the hall to find another chair. His grandfather stared out the window, ignoring Tess. She looked around the room. Besides a hospital bed, there was a TV bolted near the ceiling and a small desk with a few framed pictures on it and nothing else. No reading material.
She cleared her throat.
Sonny’s eyes swiveled to her.
“Connor asked me for help,” she confided, leaning toward the old man. He was probably the prideful type who’d need reassurance that she could be discreet. “Just between us.”
Sonny’s speckled bald head wavered with a nod. “Fine by me. The boy’s been on the rocks.”
“Oh. Actually, I didn’t mean his, um, dilemma.”
“Dilemma?” Connor said, coming back in the room carrying another chair. He set it down beside his grandfather’s.
“Nothing,” Tess said brightly.
Connor glowered.
“You look just like your grandfather,” she said, teasing him a bit. In his heyday as cantankerous Old Man Mitchell, she silently added, continuing to smile sweetly as Connor got settled.
“Thanks.” He slumped back in his chair and his knee touched hers.
She sat up even straighter, edging away slightly. And got another black glower. There was no decent way to explain that she wasn’t disgusted by him—she was magnetized. Disturbed, too, in every sense.
Sonny’s lips had folded inward into a secretive sort of smile. For being nearly ninety and on death’s door, he appeared to be in fairly good shape. A silvery fringe of white hair ran from ear to ear, his eyes were clear and active, and his posture was only slightly hunched even though he moved with the deliberation of old age and arthritis. He had a lean physique like his grandson, gone to scrawniness and skin and bone. Thin, age-spotted skin stretched taut over the knobs of his knuckles where he continued to grip the cane propped beside his chair.
Either he kept up with current events on his own via the television news or he’d been told about Connor’s troubles. Tess thought it was cute how the old man had presumed she was “comforting” his grandson.
Wrong, but cute.
Although, if ever a man had looked in need of comforting…
She shifted around in her chair. Connor gave her a glance, but he kept talking with his grandfather, telling him about the trip back to Alouette and checking in to Bay House.
Sonny shook his head over the idea that the once grand house had become a bed-and-breakfast inn. “Shame. The Whitakers still there?”
“Yes, they are,” Tess said. “Emmie and Toivo. Sister and brother,” she explained to Connor, in case he didn’t realize. She’d been halfway positive he’d back out of the decision to stay at Bay House once he’d been introduced to its homey comforts and familiar hosts. He didn’t seem like a homey and familiar guy.
“Bossy and goofy, them two,” said Sonny with a scowl that was mostly for show.
Tess smiled. “You make them sound like the eighth and ninth dwarfs.” She’d have called them energetic and endearing. But then she’d only had long-distance grandparents, so that was a soft spot for her. Soft, sore…same thing.
“What about the lighthouse?” Sonny asked.
Connor made an apologetic sound. “It’s not looking so good, Grandpa. Really run-down.”
Sonny huffed. “That’s the government for you. I’da stayed if they’d have let me. Instead, I’m wasting away, good for goddamn nothing.” He deliberately turned his head to stare out the window, exuding a deep dissatisfaction.
Tess was uneasy, even more so when suddenly the old man glared at her. “I ever run you off Gull Rock?” he accused.
She gritted her teeth. When she was a child, it had been a prank among the older kids to dare each other to sneak onto the lighthouse grounds. They would make bets of how far they’d get before the lighthouse keeper caught sight of them. One boy had been famous for getting swatted in the behind by the old man’s broom.
“No, sir,” she said.
Sonny squinted skeptically.
“When you were still the light keeper, I was only—” she calculated “—about six or seven.” And frightened silly by the other kids’ stories of the legendary lighthouse hermit. No one had ever mentioned that Old Man Mitchell’s grandson had been visiting only several years back. It was probably more fun to scare each other.
“Buncha brats,” Sonny said. “Always screaming like a pack of gulls.”
“They were just being kids, Grandpa,” Connor said. “I made friends with a few of them, my summers up here.”
“Hooligans, the lot of you,” the old man groused. “Came to no good, I betcha.”
Conner smiled, though his expression remained somber. “Yeah.” He sighed. “You could be right about that.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“HE LIKED YOU,” Connor said, glancing at Tess over the top of his menu.
“The whitefish is good—” She stopped and wrinkled her nose, giving a little laugh at Connor’s faulty assessment. “Sonny liked me? How could you tell?”
They’d spent less than a half hour in the elderly man’s room, with the conversation progressing in fits and starts. Sonny Mitchell had seemed bent on being disagreeable, although Tess had detected signs of grudging approval whenever she refused to be bullied by his gruff treatment.
