In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(103)

“Can anyone help her?” Connor asked.

“They’ll try,” Berkshire said. “But some mental illnesses can’t be helped. At the moment, your mother is a danger to you.”

“Did your mother tell you to confess?” Tracy asked.

“She told me what to say. She said they couldn’t convict both of us of the same crime.” He looked at Berkshire. “She said you would get us both off. She said we had nothing to worry about, that we could get all the money, and she’d have control and we could stay in our house. She said all I had to do was exactly what she said, and everything would be fine. She said if I didn’t, we’d both go to prison.” Connor Collins began to sob again. “I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. I didn’t know she was going to shoot him.”

Atticus Berkshire turned his grandson away from the window. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay. But now you have to tell the truth. You have to tell the truth about what happened.”

“Will you do that, Connor?” Tracy asked.

“What will happen to her?” Connor said.

“She’ll go to trial for killing your father, Connor, but not because of you. None of this is your fault.”

Connor looked again through the window, to the woman sitting in the chair. Tracy sensed that although he saw his mother and heard her voice, Connor was anything but certain he knew the person in that room. Then, as if stricken, he looked to Tracy. Gone was the look of sadness, replaced by a more sobering emotion. Fear.

“Will she go to prison?”

“Yes,” Tracy said. “She will.”

“Will she ever get out?” he asked.

“No, Connor,” Tracy said. “She never will.”




After Angela Collins had been booked and processed at the King County Jail, Tracy and Kins returned to the A Team’s cubicle. It was late, and they were both emotionally spent. Del and Faz had gone home, and Tracy was about to do the same. Dan was flying back from Los Angeles, and this time they were going to spend a few days in Cedar Grove.

“I’m going to head home,” she said. “It’s been a long week.”

Kins rotated his chair. “How did you know it would work?”

She thought of Eric Reynolds. “It’s a terrible thing when a child is stripped of his perception that his parents are perfect. Kids want to believe their parents will always be there to take care of them. One of the hardest things about getting older is losing that na?veté that allows us all to believe in myths and fantasies, having it replaced by harsh reality. We don’t want to believe our parents aren’t perfect, some far from it.”

Kins sat rocking in his chair. “Something else I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.

“Amanda Santos?”

Kins shut his eyes and blew out a breath. “Nothing happened, Tracy. It was just a couple of lunches.”

“Thanks for telling me,” she said, glad that Kins had come clean.

“Things haven’t been great at home for a while. You know that. When I met Amanda on the Cowboy investigation, I felt something I haven’t felt for a long time.”

“Everybody wants to feel like that, Kins.”

“I know. I never thought I’d act on it, but I found an excuse to call her and talk. Then I found another excuse to ask her to lunch.”

“She’s a beautiful woman.”

Kins nodded. “But I realize now this isn’t just about Shannah and me, is it?”

“I don’t have kids,” Tracy said. “I’m not about to preach on a subject I don’t know much about.”

He smiled. “I’m betting you know a lot more than you’re admitting.”

“Maybe from those years teaching high school, seeing what divorce did to kids.”

“I’m not perfect,” Kins said. “Far from it. But I’m not ready for them to know that.”

“None of us is perfect, Kins.”

“No, but you’re right—I’m as close to perfect in their eyes as I’m ever going to be, and I’m not going to throw that away without giving my marriage a better effort.”

“I hope it works.”

“I do too. Total honesty, right?”

Tracy smiled. “That was the deal.”





CHAPTER 38


A week later, Tracy took the exit just after the water tower and drove past the murals decorating the buildings in downtown Toppenish. She turned onto Chestnut Street and drove past a series of modest but well-maintained homes. She pulled up to the curb of the last home on the right. The older-model Chevy truck and the Toyota remained in the carport. Parked in the street was Tommy Moore’s white commercial landscaping truck.

This time Tracy didn’t hesitate at the gate, though she did notice that the yard looked to have been freshly mowed and tidied. The ramp for the wheelchair to the porch had been disassembled, and someone had fixed and replaced the screen door. She pulled it open and knocked. No dog barked.

élan Kanasket opened the door with a look of satisfied resignation. He gave her a sheepish smile. “I guess you proved me wrong,” he said.

“Actually, élan, I proved you right.”