She Can Hide (She Can #4)(51)

“Step two is complete.” In a hallway filled with childish grins and art projects, Kenneth’s chilly voice felt like a stain, dirty and permanent, as if the very nature of the call—and Ryland’s mistakes—leaked from the phone and dripped onto the waxed linoleum like blood from a wound.

“And step three?”

“I’m heading west in the morning,” Kenneth said. “I’ll be in Pennsylvania before lunch.”

“Excellent.” Ryland ended the call. He reentered the auditorium just as his grandson left the stage. He’d missed the performance. He eased into the metal folding chair. Marlene’s dark eyes flashed with disapproval. A fiercely protective mother bear in her own children’s lives, she’d transferred her maternal instincts to her grandchildren. She’d be angry with him for days.

As if he wasn’t angry with himself. He’d missed much of his children’s early years. Now his grandchildren seemed to be growing up even faster, as if the frenetic pace of life was contagious. As if the shortage of years left in his lifespan made each existing one seem more fleeting.

Disappointment rose in his chest. His business intruded upon his personal life at every opportunity. He straightened, more determined than ever to make sure the sins of his past weren’t inherited by his children.




Ethan pressed an ice pack to his jaw. “He was tall and thin, in damned good shape, shoes were black but soft-soled. I never got close enough to get a specific height, but he had to be taller than me. He was wearing a black hoodie and jeans.” Standing on the back patio of Roy Abrams’s house, Ethan filled Detective Marshall of the Greenland Police Department in on the story from the beginning, starting with the attempt on Abby’s life, through Faulkner’s murder, to this morning’s discovery of Roy Abrams. It took a while.

Marshall frowned. “That’s not much of a description to go on.”

“No. It isn’t,” Ethan agreed. If only he could’ve caught the guy…

“Could you pick him out of a lineup?”

“No. I never got a look at his face. Bandana.”

“Fuck me.” Marshall took copious, angry notes. Decades of stress lines and a double chin aged the detective. He could have been seventy but was likely closer to fifty-five, just old enough to live in this retirement community. “I have a dead retired police detective whose death is probably tied to the murder of a recently released kidnapper and his three-year-old crime in Harris, plus your attempted murder in PA. And a cop eyewitness who didn’t get a good look at the killer.”

“It does suck,” Ethan commiserated. “I’ve been chasing this case for a week. I’m as frustrated as you are.”

“It’s a jurisdictional nightmare.” Marshall stabbed his notebook. “I retire in three fucking months. I don’t need this shit.”

“Neither did she.”

Marshall’s gaze flickered to Abby, who had already given her statement and was sitting on a tree stump next to the boat. His face softened, and he sighed from the pit of a belly that could have been gestating twins. “I guess not.”

Abby was pale, and Ethan wished she hadn’t gotten a look at Abrams. Strangulation made for an ugly corpse, not that dead bodies were ever pretty, but the whole protruding purple tongue deal was just nasty.

Marshall looked past Abby at the boat that towered over her. “Awfully expensive boat for a retired cop.”

“The Cadillac in the drive looks new too,” Ethan said.

“Fuck me.” Marshall tapped his forehead with the notebook. “I guess we have to add a possible dirty cop to this cluster.”

“Looks like.” Ethan felt like he was stuck in the bottom of a giant hole that kept getting deeper and deeper. Eventually, there’d be no way in hell he’d ever climb out.

“Course, just because he might have been dirty and somebody killed him doesn’t necessarily mean both of those factors are related to each other or to her.”

Ethan looked at him.

“You’re right. Fuck me.” Marshall stuffed his notebook into his chest pocket. “I’ll call you when I have preliminary autopsy findings or if anything else interesting turns up.”

“Appreciate that,” Ethan said. “I’ll do the same.”

Ethan’s boots crunched across the dry lawn. He’d offered to put Abby in his truck with the heat on, but she hadn’t wanted to be in the front of the property, in full sight of the neighborhood gawkers. In a fifty-five-and-over development, the residents had an abundance of free time.

Her face was bloodless, her eyes still horrified.

Here in the backyard, she also didn’t have to watch the medical examiner’s staff wheel out the black-bagged body.

He crouched in front of Abby and took her gloved hands in his. “We can go.”

“OK.” She sniffed and stood, steadier than he expected. But then, she was tougher than her slim body and delicate features suggested.

They walked around front. Onlookers, bundled into their heaviest gear, gathered in driveways. Ethan shielded Abby with his body as they walked to his truck. He pulled away from the curb. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She picked up a bottle of water in the console cup holder and sipped. “So I guess it wasn’t Faulkner.”