River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(50)

The detectives exchanged a look, shrugged.

“Give me an hour, and I’ll meet you downtown.” Her father walked back toward the house, pointing his finger in Becca’s direction. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said to her.

She was back on the detectives’ radar. Instead of getting into their car and driving away, they called her over.

“Do you play in these woods around here along the river?” Detective Smith motioned to the area around her house. Her house was the only one on the street, if you didn’t count the farm five miles up the road or Russell’s farmhouse a mile down the road in the other direction.

“Yes, sir.” The woods were her playground, along with the farmers’ cornfields. The river was her watering hole.

“You didn’t happen to see anyone in the woods in the last few days or by the river, did you? Maybe it was someone you knew, or someone who looked like they might be hunting when they shouldn’t be?” Detective Smith asked.

She looked Detective Smith in the eye. She was angry at the detectives for forcing her to go into the house to get her father, madder still at her father for all the ways he hurt her.

“No, sir,” she said. “I didn’t see anything like that.”

She lied.



Becca looked over her shoulder. She waited until the retired detective was gone before she spoke. “I know him,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Parker smelled of aftershave and a hint of the outdoors, the damp, earthy scent she recognized from the river.

“How do you know him?” Parker asked.

She looked around the bar, sizing up the men and the handful of women. Most of them looked like cops. They looked like her father and Toby and the retired detective. And Parker. They all had an air about them, their clipped, neat hair, their shoulders squared, their eyes attentive even in a relaxed setting of a bar. The job never left them. She wondered if that was one of the reasons why the divorce rate was so high. They didn’t know how to relate to their families once they were home, as though they were constantly on guard, talking to loved ones as though they were interrogating them. Or at least that had been Becca’s experience.

“I met him once a long time ago,” she said. “He came to the house looking for my dad.” She stopped, unsure how or if she should continue. The day the detective and his partner had pulled into her driveway had been the same day her father had chased her outside, the same day her father had brought a strange woman to their house, to their home, and twenty years later Becca still felt the sting of what he’d done.

“What did he want with your dad?” Parker asked.

She looked Parker in the eyes, searching for her friend, the one she’d trusted completely when she’d been a kid. He looked back at her, and for a second, she was lost in his stare, seeing the same old Parker and something more. Her heart beat a little faster. “I’m not sure,” she said. “My father had kicked me out of the house.” She looked at her hands in her lap.

Parker didn’t say anything. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he tossed money onto the bar to cover the tab and more. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Where should we go?” she asked.

“My place?”



Becca followed Parker in her Jeep, anticipation and nervousness knotting her stomach. She told herself repeatedly on the twenty-minute drive back to Portland, back to the river, she was being ridiculous, getting herself all worked up. But she hadn’t been alone with another man, in another man’s home, in the last five years. Fishing was one thing. This was something else. “Get a hold of yourself,” she whispered and gripped the steering wheel. “It’s just Parker.”

She pulled in behind him and cut the lights. It was darker than pitch, and she stumbled trying to find the path to his front door.

“Hang on,” he said, his voice coming from somewhere in front of her.

“I forgot how dark it gets underneath the trees around here.” The condo where she and Matt lived was always lit, motion detectors turning on the second you stepped outside. But here along the river at the edge of the woods, you could put your hand in front of your face and not see it. Only when you stood along the riverbank could you look up at the night sky and see the light of the moon and stars. She had forgotten this, forgotten the sights, smells, and sounds of the place she’d once loved.

Parker flipped a switch from somewhere inside, turning on small lanterns that lit the walkway to the porch. Each step she took on the lit path felt almost magical, as though she were walking on her very own yellow brick road.

“I’m just going to change out of these clothes,” he said, loosening the tie around his neck and what she thought of as his detective uniform. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll only be a second.”

She looked around his place, surprised to find the cabin open and spacious and what she considered rustic chic. The hardwood floors, the leather furniture, the wood fixtures, all various shades of brown, but intertwined were pops of cherry red, a throw pillow, a small area rug. She touched the blanket tossed on the back of the couch, a patchwork that looked to be handmade. A stack of magazines teetered on the floor next to what looked to be Parker’s favorite chair, the remote control resting on top of the armrest. She picked up a magazine, Field & Stream. She sifted through a couple more, Fly Fisherman, Bassin’. He was the boy she remembered from high school, and in a good way. She smiled, thinking about how much he enjoyed fishing. She put the magazines back the way she’d found them and wandered into the kitchen, running her hand over the wood-block table, pausing next to a large island with a granite countertop, taking in the stainless steel appliances.