Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(89)

“Too late.” Connor slapped butter down onto the counter.

Tam lifted her head. “It’s never too late,” she said darkly.

Liv sat in the center of a hive of activity while Sean briefed the others on their adventures. Ham sizzled on a griddle, panfuls of omelet cooked up, fluffy and tempting. Toast, bagels, butter and jam appeared. Orange juice was opened. Coffee made. Tam’s kitchen had never seen such disarray, judging by the delicate revulsion on the woman’s face.

Davy loaded a plate and slapped it down in front of Tam. “Eat.”

She gave him an are-you-kidding look, and blew out a lungful of smoke. “Not hungry,” she said, her voice sullen.

“I don’t care,” he said. “Eat anyway. You’ve lost fifteen pounds since we saw you last. You need food.”

Tam shoved the plate away from herself. “Don’t dictate to me.”

“Who will, if we don’t do it?” His voice could cut steel. “I look around this place, and I don’t see anybody else to tell you to eat.”

Tam tilted a brow. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“So it falls to us.” He nudged the plate towards her. “You wouldn’t let us near this place if you didn’t want us here. So deal with us.”

“I’m rethinking that rash decision,” she said sourly.

“Fine. Rethink it while you eat your f*cking breakfast.”

Tam picked up a triangle of toast, sighed, and nibbled the point.

They ate til they could eat no more, and then plates were cleared, fresh coffee poured, and everyone took a place at the table.

“So,” Sean said. “The only starting place I can think of is the notebook, so we need to get those sketches off your walls.”

“We’re ahead of you.” Connor pulled out a battered cardboard file. “We’ve been studying these all night. Knock yourself out, bro.”

Liv pulled the file towards herself, fingertips buzzing. The key to this torturous puzzle lay somewhere in that cryptic sheaf of papers.

It was a series of simple, graceful pen and ink sketches. Landscapes, animals. A lake, with wild geese flying over it, golden eagles, owls, gulls, ducks on a pond. Tucked in their midst was Kev’s coded note, the one he’d scrawled in front of her fifteen years before. The page was crumpled from when she’d stuffed it into her bra.

“Does anyone remember the order they were in?” she asked.

Sean spread them out over the table with a gentle circular sweep of his hand, and put them into sequence. He pushed the ordered pile towards her. “I’m sorry to make you repeat yourself, but please tell us, one last time, exactly what Kev said when you saw him that day.”

Liv let out a sigh as she stared down at the coded note. “I was coming out of the library. I heard him calling, from the rhododendron bushes,” she started, dutifully. “At first, I didn’t think anything of it. I ran into him all the time, but when I got closer, I saw that he—”

“Wait a sec.” Sean cut in. “Why did you see Kev all the time?”

“I was volunteering two hours every weekday afternoon in the library,” Liv said. “Don’t you remember?”

“Sure I remember, but Kev wasn’t working at the library.”

“I saw him on his way up to work,” she explained. “He always headed up there the same time. It coincided with my volunteer hours.”

The silence was so charged with tension, Liv stopped breathing. Her eyes darted around the table. “What? Was it something that I said?”

“Work?” Davy said softly. “What do you mean, work?”

“That…experimental thing,” she faltered. “You don’t remember?”

The brothers exchanged grim glances.

“Kev was doing research for his thesis that summer,” Sean said. “He didn’t have any other job that we knew about. Unless you’re talking about the summer school chemistry teaching.”

She shook her head. “No, it was something else. Experiments he was participating in,” she said. “He got paid for each session. He told me about it once. Brain function, human cognition, that kind of thing.”

“Where?” Con asked.

She swallowed nervously. “The Colfax Building. Above the public library.”

“I know the Colfax.” Connor said. “It houses the music department. Erin and I have been up there to see Cindy’s concerts.”

“Do you remember anything else?” Davy asked. “Anything at all?”

Liv squeezed her eyes shut and racked her brain. Reluctantly, she shook her head. “It never occurred to me that you all didn’t know that, or I would have said something sooner,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Sean said. “It’s more than we ever had before.”

Davy broke the long, reflective silence. “Maybe this is the door.”

Liv looked at him, puzzled. “What door?”

“We spent a year banging our heads against a wall. This is the door. It’s locked, and maybe there’s nothing behind it, but it’s a door.”

“So let’s dynamite that son of a bitch down,” Sean said.

“I recommend a more subtle approach,” Davy said dryly. “Miles is up in Endicott Falls already. We can have him ask around about—”