River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(85)

“How many women were there, Matt?”

“I don’t know, Becca. They were just there, you know. They just threw themselves at me. I swear they meant nothing to me.”

“I want to know how many. I have a right to know.” She’d told him about Parker then, believing he also had a right to know about what she’d done. He’d been angry.

“There had to be a dozen women,” he’d bragged. “Maybe more,” he’d said. “Are you satisfied now?”

“Yes,” she’d said, shocked to learn there had been so many. In ways, she’d lost her father to other women. And she’d thought she’d lost Parker all those years ago. When she thought about it, which she did at length, the only reason she’d stayed with Matt was because she hadn’t wanted to lose him too. But it no longer mattered. Matt had never been right for her, and if she was honest, she’d never been right for him either.

She decided to stay at her father’s house until she figured out her next step. The clinic was a short fifteen-minute drive, and she could easily commute. She was eager to get back to work and to the animals she loved.

The upstairs toilet flushed. Her mother was getting ready for the small ceremony they’d planned. George had flown in with her. He stepped into the kitchen, fussing with his tie.

“Let me help you,” Becca said. George was a tall man, and she had to stand on her tiptoes to tie a knot around his neck.

“I’m not used to wearing these things,” he said about the tie, pulling at his collar. His skin was bronze, and his cheeks were permanently flushed, a trademark of working outdoors in his vineyard.

“You didn’t have to get dressed up,” Becca said.

Her mother walked into the kitchen wearing a long black skirt and sweater. “But he looks so handsome, doesn’t he?” She kissed him on the cheek. She hugged Becca.

“Thanks for coming,” Becca said. “Dad would be really glad you’re here.”

“I’m here for you,” her mother said.

They hugged again. And then George hugged them too.

“Shall we do this?” her mother asked.

Becca picked up the urn containing her father’s ashes. They walked outside to the backyard. A breeze stirred the trees, scattering yellow and orange leaves across the lawn. Weeds poked through patches of crabgrass. Romy was busy digging away at a groundhog’s hole. Her father’s yard was a disaster by his standards, but somehow Becca believed he wouldn’t mind. His family was here, and as imperfect as they were, they were together.

When the breeze picked up and she believed the wind was strong enough for the job, she opened the urn and let her father go.



Becca parked her Jeep alongside Parker’s cabin. She got out of the car and grabbed the carved pumpkin from the back seat. Romy circled Becca’s feet.

“This is not for you,” she said to the dog and set the pumpkin down on the porch next to the others. Parker was going to hate the big toothy grin on her jack-o’-lantern.

She’d learned of John’s death a few days after leaving Parker’s place with Rick Smith. She’d heard it from Parker and then later in the news. She’d been numb at first, not feeling anything at all. But as the days had passed, she’d found herself walking to his barn, searching for him, feeling like a stranger in the woods, by the river, without the weight of his stare resting on her shoulders. What she hadn’t told anyone, not her mother or Parker or the therapist she’d started seeing to help with her recent night terrors, a symptom of PTSD, was the emptiness she felt at his absence in her life, the ache for something lost. She’d lived with his presence for so long she didn’t know how to live without it. But she was learning.

“Come on,” she said to Romy and pulled her jacket collar tight around her neck, feeling the first signs of winter in the early-morning air. Romy followed her down the stairs to the dock, where Parker had finished casting a line. It was the first she’d seen him since she’d shown up at his door after the morning John had pointed his rifle at her. He’d been buried in paperwork, spending much of the last two weeks working. She’d been okay with the distance. She’d been using the time to come to terms with her past mistakes where men were concerned, taking the time to sort herself out.

Parker kept his back to her, concentrating on the river in front of him. He was wearing jeans and a heavy fleece pullover, a knit hat on his head. Romy stuck her nose into a bucket that was on the dock, sniffing the two fish Parker had already caught.

Becca sat in one of the chairs, noticed a thermos and two mugs.

“You were expecting me,” she said.

“I was hopeful.” He glanced over his shoulder at her.

She picked up the thermos and poured them coffee.

After a few minutes, he put his fishing pole down and sat next to her. Romy lay on the dock between them. “We found the bullet from the Ruger lodged into the trunk of a tree.”

“I never hit him?”

Parker shook his head. “He died from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The bullet was fired from John’s rifle.”

“Okay,” she said. She could live with that. She handed him a mug. They sat quietly for a while, listening to the water lap against the shore.

Parker was the first to break the silence. “About Matt.”