Jeff Abbott - Distant Blood

“Um. Those damn birds sure are making a racket.”

Tears stung my eyes. “I'll make them be quiet, sugar.”

She licked at her lips and shrugged away from my touch. “Fucking birds'll wake up the baby.” A dark flush colored her skin and she bent to her side, retching. The heaves were dry and I held her until they subsided. She rolled back over on her back and grew still, her breathing a little more even.

“Candace?”

She sniffed once and didn't answer, slipping into sleep. I sat and watched her for five minutes, dabbing at the saliva that slicked her chin. When her sleep seemed even, I went back out into the hall. Gretchen was murmuring to Pop in a soft, reassuring voice.

“Gretchen? Would you mind sitting with Candace for a minute? She's resting a little more comfortably now.”

“Sure, hon.” She broke away from Pop and regarded me for a moment. Then she surprised me with a fierce hug. “It's going to be all right, Jordy. It will be.” Then she broke away from me and went into Candace's room, easing the door shut behind her.

Pop stared at me with bleary eyes.

“You tell me why. Why would anyone hurt Candace?” I asked.

“I don't know-” he began, and a hard fury seized me. I whirled and grabbed his shirt hard.

“Enough fucking secrets!” I hissed. “I found Paul's jewelry in the attic. I know you killed him.”

His jaw worked. “Wha-what?”

“I know Paul came here after he murdered Nora. He intended to kill you and Gretchen. You killed him in self-defense. And the whole family conspired to cover it up. Y'all forged his suicide note that Mutt found, or pretended to find. Y'all dumped his body somewhere, here on the island or out in the bay-but kept his jewelry. I found it.”

“Oh, God, oh, God,” Pop whimpered. He stumbled away from me, but I didn't release his shirt. I heard the rip of fabric. He stared at me with frenzied eyes.

“I can hazard a guess at what happened here tonight. Aubrey's writing a book on screwed-up families, and God knows he's got himself an unbelievable case study here. Maybe he found out the truth about Paul's death. Maybe someone decided Aubrey knew too much, and had to be gotten rid of, like he wasn't anything more than a fucking insect.” My voice cracked. “And Candace made the mistake of drinking cranberry juice out of the same pitcher. Goddamn it, you tell me who did this.”

Pop sobbed. I eased my hold on his shirt, my heart pounding. If he didn't tell me-

“I don't know,” he muttered.

“You were in Lolly's room this morning. You took something out of Sweetie's bed. Was it Paul's jewelry? Is that where she'd hid it?”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Jordy-”

“You listen to me. If you don't tell me, it's over between us. I will walk away from here, and you'll never see me again. You will be out of my heart and out of my mind.” Words, fueled by grief and anger, poured from me like foulness from a suppurating wound. “I'll even leave Mirabeau. Candace and I will go and you'll never see us again. You tell me what's happening here.”

His entire face trembled. “Oh, God, I never wanted you to know. My brother-my bruh-bruh-” He wept then. He wept like a man possessed by a demon and then shown the face of God. We sank to the floor together in our embrace, his head turned away so I couldn't see his tears. Gretchen opened the door and stared at us. I shook my head at her and she retreated back into Candace's room.

I let him cry, then wiped his face with the bottom of my T-shirt. After his sobs subsided, he stared at the colorful patterns of the Persian rug on the floor. I cradled Pop's heavy jaw in my hands and turned his face to mine.

“I will still love you, no matter what you did,” I whispered. “No matter what. But this isn't going to continue. I'm not going to let whoever's behind this misery get away.” He tried to pivot his face away and I wrenched it back, squeezing hard. “Where does it end? My child will never be now. Candace and Aubrey may die. Lolly's already dead. You tell me who this is.”

“I honestly don't know. Honestly, believe me.” He blinked. “How did you know what I did?”

“Gretchen told me. She's known ever since Paul died.”

His blue eyes, bloodshot, widened. “She knew?”

“Yes. All these years, she knew. And she still loved you.”

He made an unintelligible sound.

“What happened that night? Tell me.”

“I-we were all here. Mutt was beside himself at the thought of a killer in our family. He was deeply worried about Deborah and Brian, how this would affect them. We had buried Nora here 'cause she had no people of her own. I didn't want to believe Paul had killed her. He and I hadn't gotten along since Gretchen divorced him and married me. I'd tried, but he wouldn't. I couldn't help but feel as though Nora's death was somehow my fault-if I'd gotten sense into Paul, or if I'd just stayed away from Gretchen-Nora never would have come into our family, never would have died.” He dragged the back of his hand across his face. “Nora was a fine woman, a good person. She didn't deserve to die like she did.”

“And you went to her grave that night?” I prompted.

He nodded miserably. “I don't know-maybe I just wanted to be alone, apologize to her for the mess I'd created in our lives.”

“What Paul did wasn't your fault, Pop. You're not responsible for his actions.”

He shook his head. “I felt like her blood was on my hands. I couldn't help but blame myself.” A shiver ran through him. “He was there, hiding behind one of the tombs. God, Jordan, the look on his face. Haggard and crazy. He'd stolen a boat from Port Lavaca and come to the other side of Sangre. He had a gun-said he and I had unfinished business. My brother, my own brother.” His voice faded and his eyes went distant with remembered grief. “But it wasn't Paul, it was some stranger in his skin.”

He took a fortifying breath. I squeezed his shoulders in support. “I told him to put the gun down, he and I could settle our differences with fists, like gentlemen. He laughed, kind of crazy like, said he couldn't do that. Had three bullets, he said-one for me, one for Gretchen, the last for himself. So he meant to kill himself, too.” He paused. “Not that it makes what I did no better.

“He told me to stand on Nora's grave. Said it was fitting, my blood could soak the ground where she lay. Said he'd kill Gretchen there, too, if he could. I did what he said. I'm so ashamed. I'd pissed my pants and I stank. Paul laughed at me and he raised the gun. I knew then he truly meant to shoot me.” He touched my jaw. “You know that fear, son, I know you do. We've both been there.”

“Yes,” I managed. “I know what it means to see in another person's eyes that they mean to kill you.”

“He leveled the gun at me. I was begging him not to, that we were brothers. He cocked the gun and I quit thinking-I just threw myself at him. He fired and missed. I felt the bullet go through my hair. I tackled him and we fought for the gun, and I got my hands on it and it went off and oh God there was so much blood and this smell of burned flesh-” The memories weighed too hard on him and he bowed his head.

“Pop,” I said.

“He was dead in my arms. He didn't say a word before he died. I dropped him and I ran back to the house. I was out of my mind. Uncle Jake and Sass caught me out on the porch and I told them what happened. Sass got Lolly and Mutt and told them. Aunt Lolly was hysterical that I'd go to jail, the terrible shame the family was already suffering would just get worse. So Uncle Mutt-he said we'd make it look like suicide. I forged the note. Mutt, Jake, and Lolly did away with the body-I don't even know where it is. Mutt just told me they'd taken care of it. The police accepted the story. And we all thought that was the end.” He sagged against the wall, exhausted now that his tale was told. A vein of lightning blasted the sky and its elfin light played along our faces from the hall's window. “One of them must've taken Paul's jewelry off of him.”