The Last of the Moon Girls(99)

“Nice.”

“Not really, no. But it’s a coping thing. Anyway, when they went back for the note, it had disappeared.”

“How does a note disappear?”

“With help. By the time they got back to the house, Dennis was there and Helen had developed a severe case of amnesia. Claimed she never saw the note. When they pressed her, Dennis stepped in. Said Helen had been through enough, and he’d be handling things going forward. There was no suspicion of foul play, so they let it go. People are funny about suicide, squeamish. But the disappearing note rubbed Gaffney wrong. There were a few lines that stuck with him, about how some people deserve what happens to them, while others just get caught in someone else’s nightmare, and how he was going to hell for what he’d done.”

“Well, it fits, doesn’t it? He must have seen some awful things in Afghanistan—maybe even did some awful things—and it obviously haunted him. Maybe Dennis knew too, and didn’t want anyone poking around and finding out.”

“That’s how it reads if you don’t know the whole story. But Gaffney couldn’t let it go. He knows a guy Hollis was stationed with, and the way he tells it, Hollis Hanley never fired his weapon. First mission out, their unit got into a mess. They were pinned down in some shelled-out building, taking heavy fire. Hollis shouldered his weapon, and then . . . nothing. He froze. A couple of guys managed to drag him down before he got himself killed. They found him a noncombat role, but it was no good. Something in him was broken. He wound up getting separated. Sorry, it means discharged.”

Lizzy digested Roger’s words, laying the pieces end to end. “If Hollis didn’t kill anyone in Afghanistan, why did he think he was going to hell?”

“Now you see where I’m going.”

The gears turned slowly, eventually clicking into place. “You think he committed suicide because of Heather and Darcy—because he killed them. And Dennis knew.”

“It was years after the murders. Not likely anyone would have connected the dots back to Heather and Darcy. But now I think it bears looking at. It would explain Dennis getting rid of the note. He was always Hollis’s protector. Maybe that didn’t end when Hollis died. Maybe he wanted to make sure no one would ever ask the kinds of questions we’re asking now. Then you show up and start digging.”

Lizzy sat with that last part. The note. The fire. The silhouette in the kitchen. “Helen was trying to warn me. She knew Dennis was behind everything that was going on.”

“It’s just a theory, but it fits.”

“So what do we do?”

“We don’t do anything,” Roger told her pointedly. “If we’re right, and there’s a good chance we are, Dennis Hanley is a dangerous man. Summers can’t bury it this time. Where’s Andrew?”

“In Boston. On a job.”

“You might want to give him a call. Let him know what’s happening. I’ve got a few calls of my own to make. Stay near your phone.”

Lizzy put down her cell and splayed both hands on the workbench. Andrew had enough on his plate in Boston. She’d call him tonight, after she heard back from Roger. In the meantime, she’d get some work done, and try to wrap her head around the possibility that Heather and Darcy Gilman’s killer might actually be brought to light, if not to justice, that at long last Althea’s name might be cleared.

Things were beginning to tie up, the pieces of what she’d come here to do all nearly in place. The loan had come through. Once she lined up the repair work, and signed with Rhanna’s real estate friend, there’d be nothing keeping her here. Rhanna and Evvie could stay until the farm sold, and see to the contents of the house when the time came. It was time to call Luc and commit to a return date. And finish the Earth Song for Rhanna. She’d make it a going-away present.

The thought brought an unexpected heaviness as she reached for a glass beaker and began filling it with alcohol. She had one eye on her phone, the other on the pad she’d used to jot down her calculations, when she suddenly stopped pouring. There’d been no sound, no movement caught out of the corner of her eye, just a subtle shift in the air around her, alerting her that she was no longer alone.





THIRTY-NINE

She recognized Dennis’s silhouette the instant she turned.

He stood motionless in the doorway, arms hanging slack at his sides. Her heart thudded against her ribs as she waited for him to speak, but he just stood there, eyes flat, and yet strangely riveted. Finally, he pulled the door closed and began moving toward her, his steps slow but deliberate.

Lizzy’s mind whirred as she calculated the odds of escape. There was zero chance that she’d get past him this time, and consequently no hope of reaching the door.

“You’ve got no business here,” she said, fighting to keep the panic from her voice as she edged toward the end of the workbench and her cell phone. “Leave. Now.”

Dennis continued to advance. She could see his face now, ruddy and sweating, his lower jaw shot forward like a bulldog’s. He had swapped the blood-smeared coat for a bulky camouflage jacket that seemed all wrong for a sticky August afternoon.

She caught a whiff of him, the now-familiar mud-and-blood stench, mingled with alcohol. He’d been drinking since she’d last seen him, heavily if she was any judge, though she wasn’t sure whether that worked in her favor or against it. The alcohol might have slowed him by a step. Or it might have just stoked his temper. Her money was on the latter.