Paranoid(90)

“They both stood up for you, if I remember right.”

“Yeah,” Rachel said, staring into her mug.

“They were there.” He took a slow sip. “And now they’re dead.”

“Killed.” It was surreal and horrible and painful. She remembered Violet in the darkened cannery, how she’d refused to wear her glasses and how she’d flipped out in the chaos that seemed to be a war zone, how Rachel had tried to drag her out of the building, where kids were shooting, blasting away, and then Luke . . . falling. Her heart began to pound at the memory, her pulse was racing, and little beads of sweat were forming at her hairline.

“Last night—Annessa’s murder—it was too close to deadline to make the latest edition of the newspaper,” Rachel said. “But just wait. The murder’s already been all over the news. Even though Harper’s under eighteen, they’ll find her. Mercedes will.”

“You can bet on that.”

Groaning, she let her head drop to the table in frustration. “Will it ever end?”

“Never,” he said quietly, then cleared his throat. “How is Lila handling all this?”

“Lila?” she repeated. “I guess in her usual Lila, over-the-top, near hysterical wanting-to-take-control way. She’s already freaked out about the reunion, if you can believe that.”

“I can. You know, I never felt she got over what happened.”

“None of us really have,” she admitted. “But she’s got Luke’s son. Kind of a living memory, a blessing, yeah, of course, but a reminder.”

He nodded, staring out the window over the sink, eyes narrowing.

She followed his gaze, saw he was watching a hawk as it circled, dipping low, visible for an instant, then disappearing in the mist again. But she doubted he was concentrating on the bird. No, she understood, his thoughts were far from this day, to another place and time.

“Your brother and I, we had our share of problems. Butted heads a lot,” he admitted, then took a long swallow from his cup, and she noticed how his once-sandy hair had silvered. “Too often.”

She couldn’t help recalling the fights. The yelling. Often created by Luke’s insolent attitude and Ned’s mercurial temper, which, in those days, had sometimes been fueled by whiskey. Luke had been quick to raise his fists and Ned had never been known to back down from a fight.

“I was hard on him,” Ned said. Regret tinged his words. “Too hard, probably. The kid had it tough. Think about it. Me, his stepfather, the guy who raised him, was responsible for him not knowing his dad.” The back of his neck tightened. “Not that Bruce Hollander was any prize.” He nodded, agreeing with himself, and then his shoulders slumped a bit. “Still . . . I could’ve gone easier on the kid. I was the one who arrested his old man for beating on his wife and then ended up marrying her. At the time, Luke was a baby, didn’t know any different, but as the years went by and he grew up, figured it out, was teased about his old man being locked up, it was a different story.” Another absent swallow from his cup, then, “Ah, hell! Nothin’ to do about it now.”

“Water under the bridge.”

“Is it? I wonder.” He turned to face her, blue eyes holding hers steady. “Well, we just have to deal, right? Like we have been all along.” He scraped back a chair and sat across from her. “Did you hear he’s out of prison? Hollander?”

“Mom told me.”

She saw his jaw tighten at the mention of Melinda and wished to God they could just get along.

“You called her?”

“No, she mentioned it the last time I saw her.”

“All this”—he motioned to the newspaper in the bin—“it’s gotta be tough on her, too.” He caught Rachel’s gaze and held it. She got the unspoken message.

“I said I’d call her. I will. Promise.”

“Has he—Hollander—contacted your mother?”

“Not that I know of. And I think she would have said.”

“Good.” He took a sip of coffee. “Either way you cut it, Luke wasn’t born lucky when it came to the whole male role model thing.”

“What’re you talking about? You were a great dad.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

She looked at the clock again, then dragged her cell phone from her pocket. “I want you to see something. I got this text message the other day, and right away I thought of Luke.”

Her father’s eyebrows crashed together.

“I know, crazy, right? But . . . well, it kinda freaked me out.”

He frowned at her phone as she handed it to him and he read the message. “Did you call or text back?”

“No response. And the police are looking into it, but Cade thinks it’s probably from some kind of burner phone. Untraceable.”

“Could be a mistake?”

“Don’t think so. Because of the time. The first one came in around midnight twenty years to the very date that Luke died. The night that Violet was murdered. I thought the text message might be a mistake, a weird coincidence, but then I got another one.” She scrolled to the second text. “Got it this morning, just hours after Annessa was murdered.”

“Someone’s trying to get to you.”