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“Oh…How come nobody ever told me?”
“Well, it’s not something I like to talk about.”
“Why did the man kill her?”
“Nobody really knows. Until now…until now he said he didn’t kill her. I guess maybe he’ll explain.”
“You knew him?”
Julia had known Christian, yes. In all the ways one person could know another. “He was a friend of mine, too. And of Fidelity’s. It’s very, very hard to accept the fact that he murdered her.”
“Tiff said he was driftwood.”
“Driftwood?”
“Something like driftwood.” She paused. “Drifter.”
Julia was confused. “No, a drifter is somebody who moves around a lot. He lived at Claymore Park.”
Callie lowered her voice. For the first time, the severity of what had happened seemed to sink in. “Tiff said he killed a lot of people. I’m glad he didn’t kill you, Mommy.”
“He didn’t kill a lot of people, honey. I don’t know what Tiff heard, but that’s not true.”
“Tiff said they’re going to put him in a chair and kill him because he killed so many people in Florida.”
Julia had a sudden vision of chasing a fox and having it go to ground. One moment the fox was in sight, body tensed, the next it simply vanished. “Florida? Callie, what did—”
The telephone rang, and she and Callie sat in silence as Maisy answered it. Then Maisy came into the room, telephone in hand. “It’s Flo Sutherland, Julia. She needs to talk to you. It took her a while to track you here, but she says it’s important.”
Julia didn’t reach for the telephone. In the past weeks her life had changed immeasurably. She knew it was about to change again.
“Julia?”
“Take Callie in the kitchen, would you, Maisy? I think she’s ready for her pie.”
“Come on, Callie.”
Callie got up, and only then did Julia reach for the phone. She waited until Callie and her mother had gone before she brought it to her ear.
Maisy knew better than to ask Julia to listen to the next chapter of her novel that night. After Flo’s telephone call, Julia had held up well enough to put Callie to bed and get ready herself, but Maisy knew that the one thing her daughter needed most was solitude.
The house was dark, the dishes finished, and the windows closed and latched before she went to look for Jake.
She had expected to find him in their bedroom, but when she found he wasn’t, she went out the back door and made the trek to the barn. She heard him talking to Feather Foot before she even opened the door.
“What a good pony, a pretty pony.”
She stood in the doorway and watched them, the hulking, gentle man and the flirtatious little paint. “Did you bring her sugar cubes? After telling Callie not to give her too many?”
“Carrots. Left over from dinner.” Jake didn’t turn.
“Guess I can’t find fault, then.”
“She’s a pretty little thing. Feisty, but pretty. A lot like Callie.”
“And you spoil her the same way.”
He stroked the pony’s nose a moment before he faced his wife. “I like to spoil the women in my care.”
“It’s been a tough evening.”
“You want to talk about it, don’t you?”
“I suppose. Do you?”
His mouth twisted wryly, neither a smile nor a frown. “I wish I had something to say. Something wise and all-knowing about the universe and the way things always come right in the end.”
“They don’t.”
“That’s why I don’t have anything to say.” He brushed his hands together, then held out his arms. She crossed the floor and went into them.
“The phone call was a terrible shock for Julia.”
“Terrible?” He tightened his grip, hugging her closer. “To discover that a man she loved isn’t guilty of murder after all?”
“She’s always known that.”
Jake rested his cheek against Maisy’s hair. “You want to believe that because you like to keep your eyes closed to certain realities.”
“And what reality are we talking about this time?”
“That life is far more complex for your daughter than it is for you. That she has never developed your defenses.”
She was hurt, but she tried for humor. “She’s married to Bard Warwick. A defenseless woman couldn’t survive that.”
He kissed her hair. “No matter what you want to believe about her, Julia did doubt Christian’s innocence, at least momentarily. And now she’s going to have to face the fact that she didn’t stand beside him when he needed her most.”
“He wouldn’t let her.”
“Because she faltered on the witness stand.”
Maisy shivered. The evening was cool, but Jake’s arms were warm. She supposed the shiver had something to do with a chink in the defenses Jake had mentioned. “I’m so torn. If they find Fidelity’s jewelry tomorrow, Christian will surely go free. I’ve prayed for that since the day he was sentenced, but Julia has so much to deal with. Having Christian come back now will make things that much harder, won’t it?”
“It won’t make things easier.” He stepped back a little and rubbed his hands up and down the sleeves of her sweater, as if to warm her. “What makes you think he’ll return?”
“Because Peter’s been his champion. I’m sure he’ll offer Christian a job at Claymore Park.”
“Peter has contacts all over the horse world. He can help Christian find a job far away from the scene of the crime. Christian’s been gone nine years. Will this still seem like home? When nearly all of Ridge’s Race and beyond was sure he murdered Fidelity?”
“I think when you’ve lost everything and you’re given a chance to find some part of it again, that’s what you do.”
Jake seemed to consider that. “You’re a wise woman, Maisy.”
“Do you think so?”
“I think you let it slip out now and then, when you don’t think anyone’s listening.”
She frowned. “How do you put up with me?”
“Very easily.”
“Sometimes lately I’m not so sure.”
He didn’t ask what she meant. “Time moves on and people change. Their lives change with it. Christian’s life is changing again. Julia’s life is changing, and she’ll have to face it, whether she feels ready or not. Our lives are changing, too.”
“How are they changing, Jake?”
“We’re growing older. There’s less time to say the things we need to.”
“What things?”
“A lifetime of things that’ve gone unsaid.”
She was sure he was being purposely obtuse. “Do you have things you need to say?”
He smiled a little. “I’m working my way toward them, I suppose. How about you?”
She thought of a thousand things she’d wanted to tell him or Julia and never had. She, who chattered continuously.
Instead she asked a question. “Jake, do you still love me?”
“Yes, I do.”
She felt vulnerable, an unexpected and unwelcome sensation. “You’ve been critical lately.”
“Have I?”
“You seem impatient with me and with the things I say.”
“I guess it goes back to time moving too fast. I don’t think you’re saying the things you need to.”
“This isn’t making any sense.”
“I don’t know how to make sense of it. I feel like our life together’s been about peeling off layers. I wonder sometimes if we’ll ever succeed.”
“I feel like I know you.”
“As well as you let yourself know anyone.”
“That would be a good example of the word ‘critical’.”
He shook his head. “That would be a good example of the word ‘honesty’. Maybe there’s too little of it in our marriage. Maybe that’s what I’m feeling impatient about.”
She felt they’d covered ground and gotten nowhere. She missed the man she’d married, the man who had accepted her unequivocally.
He gripped her shoulders. “Don’t look at me that way. You haven’t lost me. I don’t love you any less. Maybe I’d just like more of you.”
“How much more of me could anyone stand?” She patted her round belly. “How much more could there be?”
“I think we’d better check on things inside. If Callie needs something, Julia’s in no shape to get it for her. Not tonight of all nights.”
She realized he was putting her off, but she was relieved. She’d had enough to face that day. “You know, Jake, if you want more of me, that could be arranged tonight.”
“Could it?”
“We’ve been slowing down a bit lately. Maybe we should pick up the pace?”
He put his arm around her and squeezed. But when they were finally in bed, holding each other tight, she still felt the distance between them.
11
Nine years had passed since Karl Zandoff buried Fidelity Sutherland’s jewelry between fenceposts, between properties, between Christian’s hope of exoneration and the reality of his imprisonment. At ten-thirty on Thursday morning, as autumn leaves began their annual spiral and one of the two digging crews stopped to raid a jug of steaming coffee, Pinky Stewart, shovel-wielding sheriff’s deputy, struck a metal tin that had once held Reducine ointment.
Six hours later, and only because Peter Claymore had the political influence he did, Christian Carver walked out of Ludwell State Prison.
Mel Powers’s forehead glistened, but not nearly as brightly as his eyes. He was an emotional man—an asset he played to the hilt in a courtroom—but never so emotional that he couldn’t calculate his way to the next appeal. Since arriving at Ludwell that morning, he had routinely alternated tears of victory with a shit-eating grin.
Christian hadn’t smiled or cried. He felt like a deer caught in headlights, unsure whether to stand or run, and unable to think quickly enough to make a decision. Years ago he had given up the dream of freedom, then reclaimed it with Zandoff’s confession. Now that the dream had come true, he could think no further ahead.
He hadn’t even had time to say goodbye to the men he had worked with, or to Landis or Timbo, who had depended on him for instruction and advice. One moment he was wearing his prison work shirt, the next he was in a suit bought for the occasion by Peter Claymore. He’d been handcuffed and transported in a prison van to the same courtroom where he had lost his freedom.
And he had found it again.
Standing at the top of the courthouse steps, he was dismayed at the sun beating down on his bare head. He’d been outside almost every day since his imprisonment, but the air and sun felt different here, as if he had entered an entirely new universe. For a moment he was filled with panic, afraid to breathe for fear his lungs would fill with poison, afraid to move for fear the sun, unadulterated by the shadows of prison walls and razor wire, might melt his skin.
He had refused to give a statement, but news crews were there anyway. The equipment aimed in his direction was an entirely new generation of technology than what he remembered. He felt a stronger stab of panic.
Peter edged Christian down the steps. “Son, you’re out for good. They aren’t going to find anything that will put you back behind bars. Now, let’s make a run for my car.”
Christian grimaced and wished he could strip off the tie. “Let’s get it over with.”
He was safely inside Peter’s Lincoln before anyone spoke again. He was aware of leather seats against his palms, the purr of a perfectly tuned engine. He realized he was exhausted, sick with it, as if some unseen hand had robbed him of everything that kept a man moving and breathing.
“Where are we going?” he said at last.
Peter put a hand on his knee. “Where do you want to go?”
He nearly said home. But there was no such place, and probably never had been.
