Jeff Abbott - Distant Blood

This jewelry might be confirmation of everything Gretchen told me. I imagined a dimly lit sculptor's studio in Corpus Christi, Nora Goertz's dead body sprawled across the putty-speckled floor, her face a wet red mess, the smell of gunfire crisping the air. So what then? Paul Goertz turns from the carnage and calmly slips off his watch, his wedding ring, and his college ring before he goes to stalk Gretchen and meet his own death? It made no sense.

The picture seemed all wrong. Maybe not-if he was going on the run, and the jewelry could be used to identify him. Had Paul's mind worked that way? And perhaps he'd removed his broken watch, if Nora had smashed it while fighting for her life. Perhaps.

Or perhaps the family, complicit in their burial of Paul's body to shield Bob Don, stripped the corpse of its jewelry before disposing of it forever.

That made no sense. Did they plan on presenting the watch and rings to Brian one day- here, my boy, these belonged to your disappeared, presumed dead daddy. Wear them in health. No.

Why would the Goertzes save this? It could be found one day, and implicate them all. A slim chance, yes, but why even take the risk?

I thought for a minute. No easy answer reared its head.

I emptied the rest of the trunk and found nothing else that piqued my interest. I ran my fingers along the trunk's lining, but no mysterious catches or bumps to indicate hidey-holes presented themselves. I leaned back on my heels and sighed. An armor of falsehoods covered this damn family, an unyielding barrier I'd have to blast my way through to get to the protected core of truth.

I stood and hurried down the length of the attic, looking for other entrances. I found one. Over Candace's room, at the other end of the house. Damn. She was probably out and whoever came up here took advantage of her absence. I walked slowly back toward the trapdoor leading to my room, feeling an odd coolness descend on the attic, as though the outside rain robbed the air of its July heat. I knelt again by Brian's forlorn trunk.

What happened here? A strange heat kindled in my heart, as though I could reach past time and death to touch my cousin's hand. My father killed your father. I'm so sorry.

My fingers brushed the trunk's surface, and as if in answer, a chill blasted through the attic, freezing me to the spot. Iciness prickled my skin through my T-shirt and walking shorts. I kept my head bowed, stunned by the sensation, not daring to look up.

Because I was certain that if I did, I would see a young boy standing there, shimmering in the light, insubstantial as air, with silvered, blank eyes.

No, I chided myself. You and your stupid imagination.

So I raised my head. And there he stood, not six feet away from me, the boy in the photographs, wavery in the dust motes. He wore bright summer clothes. A dark elongated bruise marred his pale throat, like a long purplish smudge. He reached a hand toward me, palm up. A strand of seaweed clung to his thumb. I saw bitterness and hate well in his angel's face. Then he disappeared.

I trembled. The cold deepened for a few long moments, then vanished as though a window had been opened and warmth readmitted to my world.

I wiped a shaky hand across my eyes. I hurried about my business with thoughtless precision. I quickly-very quickly-repacked the trunk, with the exception of the jewelry box, which I stuck in my pocket. Then I sealed the trunk and stood and retrieved my still-lit candle. I warmed my hands over the bright, hot flicker. They shook above the little flame.

I retreated back down to the relative safety of my room, rapidly folding up the access door to the attic, wondering if anyone would comment if I nailed it shut.

I walked back into my room, closed the closet door behind me, and set the candle down, extinguishing its flame with a hard breath. Rain lashed against the windows, the storm's second wind fiercer than its first. Thunder cracked the sky and the firmament of the floor quivered a little with its force.

My hands still shook and I turned the hot-water tap on full blast, running the water over my fingers. I felt numb. A litany to reassure myself of my sanity began to chant its way through my mind: You do not believe in ghosts. You have never believed in ghosts. Your imagination has kicked into overdrive. It was a spooky-looking room, so you imbued it with the qualities you expect in a movie with a web-shrouded attic. The past couple of days have been hell on you mentally, so you just manufactured this little fantasy of a ghost boy for a distraction. You saw nothing. You saw only what your imagination produced for you. You must get a grip on yourself, Jordan. For God's sake.

I washed my face and used the toilet, then soaped my hands and face again. I bit my lip hard to feel the sharp reality of pain. The water felt like life against my face. I dried with a towel and stared at myself in the mirror. In the calm fluorescent light of the bathroom, my hand resting on the cool of the sink, the attic seemed far away. And seeing the daily trappings of grooming-the basin speckled with flecks of whiskers from my morning shave, my toothpaste tube dented in its middle, a bottle of aspirin with its cap not set quite straight-all this ebbed my fear and the first fingers of doubt massaged my beating heart. The cold, the vision of the boy-I'd no doubt manufactured it all in my shock.

It was nothing more. Time to deal with the pressing issues at hand. I pulled the jewelry box from my pocket and decided to hide it among my own clothes, until I decided on a course of action.

I stuck it under a Rice sweatshirt I'd brought for the cool nights that breezed across the coast, even in summer. And heard the crinkle of plastic in one sleeve as I shoved the box underneath the shirt.

I hadn't been the only one sneaking around the house. Nestled in my sweatshirt was a bag full of green pills. The delicate letters on the capsules identified them as Digoxin.

“These aren't mine.” I tossed the bag on the table in front of Victor Mendez. “And I don't know who planted them in my room. How about dusting them for prints?” I don't usually bark out suggestions to law-enforcement officers on how to do their job, but fingerprints equaled reality-something I desperately wanted to deal with instead of long-buried family secrets and imaginary children lurking in attics.

If Mendez noticed the tremor in my voice, he gave no sign. Instead he stared at the medicine. “You're saying someone purposefully hid these in your room?”

I resisted my natural urge toward sarcasm. My friendship with Mirabeau's own police chief had taught me that investigators often repeated what a witness told them, to be sure they had the story right. I nodded. “Yes, sir. I found them just now, hidden in one of my sweatshirt sleeves.”

From a corner chair Philip Bedrich glowered at me. “Well, Mr. Mendez. Finally something you can't accuse me of.”

“That's not true,” I answered mildly. “I don't know when the pills were stashed in my room. You had as much opportunity as anyone else.” I marveled at how controlled my voice sounded, considering the events of the past hour.

Philip shook his head. “This whole comedy of errors is bullshit. Why would I stick pills in your room?”

“I don't know, Philip. I don't know why you do half the things you do.”

“You don't understand,” he muttered. Mendez ended our cousinly concord with a wave of his hand. He slid the bag of pills into a second container, an evidence bag. “You”-he pointed at me-”outside. You stay here, Mr. Bedrich.”

“Like I've got places to go? With the rest of my family thinking I'm a murderer?” Philip mumbled. He ran a hand across his thinning hair and a look of sick worry crossed his features. I suspected the iron facade was starting to buckle; he didn't seem to have the moral fiber to endure a solitary siege. I couldn't imagine what it was like to face a police investigation without my family's support.