The Silence (Columbia River #2)(6)

Sympathy flowed for the young man who’d been caught up in the Jayne McLane cyclone.

“I suggest you go back to your family and forget my sister,” Ava said kindly.

Stricken eyes met hers. “I can’t. We’re soul mates.”

Holy shit.

On the phone, Zander swore under his breath. He’d heard.

“Her only soul mate is herself,” Ava said, knowing blunt speech was needed to open Brady’s eyes. “We’ll find her, but you need to prepare yourself for the worst.”

“That she’s dead?” He blanched.

“No. That she no longer cares about you.”





4

Mason and Ray stepped into the garage of Reuben’s home and went silent.

It wasn’t shocked silence; it was the silence of awe.

Is this what happens when you work at Home Depot for eight years?

And aren’t married?

Custom workbenches and cabinets lined the garage along with enough metal tool chests to run a large automotive repair shop. Perfectly lined-up tools hung on the wall. The floor was spotless, painted with that shiny texturized finish that almost transforms a garage into a normal room. Mason wondered if a vehicle had ever been parked inside. Ray nudged him and pointed at the gigantic TV on one wall. “Nice,” he said under his breath.

“Rubber mallet could have come from here,” Mason suggested.

“Possibly. But could we even tell if it was missing?” Ray asked, studying the hundreds of tools on pegboards.

Mason looked for an empty space on the boards but didn’t see one. Everything appeared in complete order. He opened the closest cabinet. Wood glues, stains, and paint. The cans were immaculate, not like his collection with dried paint dripping down the sides. He looked in a tall upright cabinet. Gardening tools. Hoes, rakes, shovels. No crusted dirt.

“Have they even been used?” Ray muttered.

Scratches on the metal indicated they had.

“The house isn’t this clean and organized,” Mason pointed out.

Ray shrugged. “Priorities.”

A uniformed officer appeared in the garage doorway. “We brought the neighbor back. She’s ready to talk to you.”

“She okay?” Mason asked.

“Pretty rattled. But she can talk. She’s on the bench out front.”

Mason took one last look around the immaculate garage. His awe was gone. Knowing that the creator would never again enjoy his man cave had soured it.

Outside, Gillian Wood held a cigarette between shaking fingers. She stood and gave the detectives a nauseated smile as she shook hands. Her face was heavily freckled, her eyes an intense green. She wore a T-shirt with PINK emblazoned across the front, and denim shorts. She seemed too thin to Mason. As if she smoked instead of eating.

Ray gestured for her to sit down and took the chair across from her on the wide front porch. Mason stepped back and leaned against a post, trying to blend into the wood. Women warmed to Ray better than Mason, and Ray automatically knew to start the interview.

Gillian shot a nervous glance at Mason and looked to Ray for reassurance.

Every time.

It’d bothered Mason at first. Ava claimed women were careful around him because he rarely smiled. He forced his lips into a wooden smile.

Gillian blinked at him and quickly looked away, taking a long draw on her cigarette.

I tried.

The neighbor said she was thirty-two and had lived next door for nearly a year. She rented the property.

“How well did you know Reuben?” Ray asked.

“Well enough to say hello . . . not much else. He kept to himself.” She blew smoke. “He helped me out one time when I had a leak under the kitchen sink. That was nice of him.”

“He has a lot of tools in the garage,” Ray added.

“I’ve seen it. Pretty crazy, huh? He works at Home Depot, so I guess the collection is understandable.” Her lips quivered on one side. “Probably spends his entire paycheck there. The curse of working retail. I worked at Macy’s for a year. I hardly brought home any money . . . always saw something I had to have.”

More smoke.

Mason studied her. Gillian was understandably nervous and upset. She’d seen the blood and knew her neighbor was dead. But her discomfiture seemed to mean more than that. He listened as Ray asked about visitors and vehicles that might have been at Reuben’s. She’d seen nothing. With every question, her gaze shot past Mason and lingered on the street.

More nerves.

Ray continued to ask about her past interactions with Reuben. She’d only been in his home that one time, when she’d followed him to get a wrench to work on her sink. She didn’t know if he had relatives close by. They rarely spoke.

“The officer told me he died,” she finally said. “I saw the blood, but he wouldn’t tell me if he was murdered.” She finally met Mason’s gaze. “Did someone kill him?”

“Yes.”

Gillian sucked in a deep breath. Her entire arm shook as she raised the now-stubby cigarette to her lips. “I knew it,” she mumbled.

Mason waited for her to ask if she was safe living next door to a murder site. She didn’t.

“Gillian,” Ray started, “you saw the broken glass outside and the blood on the floor.”

She nodded.