“That theory would make Mary the target of a staged accident.”
“Yes,” Lucy said. She swallowed hard. “Sara was collateral damage.”
“Lucy—”
“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
She rushed up the stairs.
“Damn it to hell,” Mason said again. But this time he said it to himself. Because he could see the writing on the wall.
Lucy was going to ask questions, and there was no way he could stop her. The only thing he could do was watch her back.
11
The following morning Lucy was sitting at a table in Becky’s Garden, the cheerful café next door to the Harvest Gold Inn, sipping a cup of freshly brewed organic green tea and munching a slice of toast that was also guaranteed to be organic and baked locally, when she heard her named called out.
“Lucy. Lucy Sheridan. I thought that was you I saw coming out of the hardware store yesterday.”
There was no mistaking a former cheerleader’s voice—bright, vivacious and downright perky. Lucy looked toward the door and watched Jillian Colfax sweep toward her through the crowded café. Jillian hadn’t changed much in thirteen years. Her blond hair was shorter now. She wore it in a stylish shoulder-length bob instead of a ponytail. Some of the natural radiance of youth had been replaced by an expensive spa glow, and she looked as if she had put on some weight. But she was still a remarkably lovely woman. She would look good at ninety. She had the bones.
She also wore clothes very well. Today Jillian was a model of what Lucy had concluded was the local look—an expensive, laid-back style that was meant to convey the mystique of wine country. The clothes were designed to indicate that the wearer was at home toiling in the vineyards.
The reality, of course, was that the real work in the vineyards was done by the same hardworking people who picked all the other crops on the West Coast—migrant laborers. Lucy suspected that very few of them wore designer jeans, silk shirts and Prada sandals into the fields. She was willing to bet that they left the diamond and emerald rings behind as well.
Jillian arrived at the table and sat down without waiting for an invitation.
“It’s wonderful to see you again,” she said. “Can you believe it’s been thirteen years?”
“No problem at all,” Lucy said. She put down the pen she had been using to make notes on a pad of yellow paper.
Jillian looked briefly baffled by the response, but she barely broke stride.
“Time goes by so quickly,” she said. “You look fabulous, by the way. You’ve really changed. I wasn’t even sure at first that it was you when I first saw you yesterday. Love the haircut. It really suits you.”
“I’m so glad you approve,” Lucy said in her most exquisitely polite tones. She picked up the pot and poured more tea into her cup.
Jillian regrouped and tried another approach.
“I’m so sorry about the circumstances that brought you back to Summer River,” she continued. “We were all shocked to hear about the car crash. Your aunt was a fixture of the community. Everyone liked her. I know you were close to her—at least you were when you were in your teens.”
“I loved her,” Lucy said. She set the pot down. “I was very fond of Mary, too.”
“I know. We will miss them both.”
“Will you?”
“Of course.” Jillian’s full lips tightened ever so slightly, and her eyes lost a few degrees of warmth and several carats of sparkle. “As I said, we were all shocked. But everyone knows that stretch of the old road to the coast is very dangerous. I don’t know why they took that route.”
“They always took Manzanita Road when they drove to the coast. They were very familiar with it. They liked to stop and eat a picnic lunch at the site of the old commune where they met. It was something of a weekly ritual for them.”
“Yes, well, I must admit the biggest stunner came this morning when Quinn and I heard that you and Mason Fletcher found Tristan Brinker’s body in the fireplace of Sara’s house. Absolutely unbelievable.”
“It was something of a surprise.”
“All these years everyone has wondered what happened to him.”
The attractive, middle-aged woman who had welcomed Jillian to the café a short time earlier cruised purposely through the crowd. She had introduced herself as Becky Springer, and it was clear that she was the proprietor. Becky was a robust, full-figured woman endowed with the unflappable personality and the kind of bubbly energy it took to run a small business. She came to a stop at the table where Lucy and Jillian were seated.
“Coffee, Jillian?” she said with a polite smile that did not quite reach her eyes.
Jillian glanced up impatiently. “Hi, Becky. Yes, coffee, please.”
“I’ll be right back,” Becky said.
Somehow she made it sound like a warning. Lucy hid a smile. Reading between the lines, she was quite sure that Becky was not a big fan of Jillian Colfax’s.
As soon as Becky was out of earshot, Jillian leaned in a little closer and lowered her voice.
“Do you have any idea why your aunt would have murdered Brinker?”
There was a thread of anxiety in her voice, and if you looked closely, you could see the evidence of strain around her eyes, Lucy thought.
“We don’t know for certain that she did,” Lucy said calmly. “For that matter, we don’t know yet that it’s Brinker’s body we found.”
“But they’re saying Brinker’s driver’s license was with the body, and also a newspaper with a headline about the Scorecard Rapist, who was terrorizing college campuses that summer.”
“I did see the driver’s license and the newspaper, but I’m sure the authorities will want to do a bit more investigating before they close the case.”
“It must be him,” Jillian said. “It has to be him. It explains why he suddenly vanished. I don’t think there will be an extensive investigation. Brinker’s only close relative was his father. Jeffrey Brinker died a few months after his son. There’s no one left who will push to reopen the case. After all, it looks very open-and-shut.”
“Does it?”
Tension tightened the corners of Jillian’s mouth and eyes. “Don’t tell me you want the police to start asking a lot of questions. It will make everything so much more complicated.”
It was half command, half plea.
“Define complicated,” Lucy said.