Carla Neggers - The Widow

Ellis saw now. The pots had been moved. Someone had been back there.

Mattie.

“Is everything okay?” Ellis asked, hearing the note of panic in his voice.

Using one foot, Abigail shoved one of the old wooden pots aside. A wave of fresh air blew into the stuffy, enclosed space, and he realized that the plywood covering the chicken door had been removed.

Owen said quietly, “My grandmother kept chickens.”

Abigail bent down and peered through the two-foot opening. “Hell, an ostrich could get through here.”

“She wanted to have pigs. My grandfather balked.”

“Do you have any eccentric hobbies, other than fast-roping out of helicopters?” But she didn’t look around at him, her attention focused on her task as she squatted down and peered through the opening. “Looks as if he crawled through here and made good his escape.”

Ellis felt his heartbeat increase. “I haven’t seen him. I can’t recall hearing anything out of the ordinary.”

She stuck her head out the small door and looked around, then pulled it back in, standing up. “I’m not going out there. I don’t want to disturb any tracks. Ellis-I need to use your phone and get the police up here.”

“Of course.” His throat was constricted now; he hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack. “But Mattie’s in and out of here all the time…”

“Through the chicken door?”

“No. I imagine not.”

Owen pushed past him to the front door, but Ellis couldn’t move. He leaned on his walking stick, feeling deflated-embarrassed. Had Mattie been hiding in the shed all day? His brother and his niece and nephew would witness Abigail Browning calling the authorities from his phone.

She touched his arm. “Ellis?”

He gave himself a mental shake. “The potential consequences for Grace-”

“Because Mattie Young hid in your garden shed? People aren’t that shallow, Ellis, and we still don’t have Mattie’s side of the story.”

Despite her conciliatory words, Abigail’s expression told him she didn’t need Mattie’s side of the story. “Go ahead,” he said, motioning for her to move past him.

She shook her head. “You first.”

“What? Oh.” He inhaled through his nose, irritated now. “You want to be the last one out. You don’t want to risk that I might tamper with evidence.”

She didn’t answer.

Ellis walked out into the beautiful evening air and stood next to Owen. “Abigail won’t care who she catches in the cross fire,” he said, more to himself than to the man next to him. “She never has.”

“She cares. She just can’t let it stop her.”

“How can you be so calm?”

Never one to overreact, Owen gave him a wry smile. “I don’t know about you, Ellis, but I’m having a hard time thinking anyone who’d crawl out of a chicken door is all that dangerous.”

Ellis tried to return the smile and match his neighbor’s sense of humor, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have Owen’s knack for distancing himself from a difficult situation in order to maintain his composure. Owen had learned to thrive in a crisis. Ellis was different. He did what he had to do, but he didn’t look for adrenaline highs. He preferred a quiet life. He didn’t need to get out there like Grace and subject himself to the scrutiny of a background check, political gamesmanship, having his every decision examined and politicized. Nor did he need to put his life on the line the way Owen did.

And Abigail.

She was complicated, and yet, right now, her mission was simple and straightforward. Find Mattie. Figure out if he was Chris’s killer.

But as he used his walking stick to make his way back across the yard, all Ellis could think was that his own life was spinning out of control. It had been for a long time. He’d taken too long to see what was happening. Now he was beginning to realize that the only way to stop it-to bring his life back into balance-was to be bold.

He wasn’t like Abigail and Owen, he thought. Boldness and courage weren’t in his nature.

“You’re a behind the scenes type, Ellis,” Jason had told him a thousand times. “You get other people to do what needs to be done.”

He’d meant it as a compliment.

Ellis glanced back at the shed, the door swung wide open. Where are you, Mattie? What have you done?

Spinning, spinning.

Calming himself, Ellis placed a palm on his rapidly beating heart and took a deep breath. He hated being thrust in the limelight, but now he had no choice. The police would arrive in droves. They’d have search teams, dogs-who knew what.

Out of control.

It wasn’t his brother or his niece who needed his counsel this time.

This time, it was his turn to listen to his own good advice.

Evening fog rolled in over the island, unexpected, impenetrable, as if Mattie Young had conjured it up himself, willed it to cover his tracks and slow the search for him.

As he took his plate to the sink in his uncle’s perfect kitchen, Linc realized he was rooting for Mattie, and not just because of the blackmail and how terrified he was to have anyone find out about it.

He was rooting for Mattie because the guy was such a loser, and everyone was against him. Everyone was after him. Linc had seen cops go off through the gate, into the woods, with a German shepherd the size of a tiger.

The stupid bastard didn’t stand a chance.

Maybe he’d take the four grand and start fresh. Maybe he’d hit bottom this time, finally, and blackmailing Linc over something he’d done at thirteen would turn him around.

Attacking Abigail. Hiding in a garden shed. Crawling out of a chicken door.

He’d see what a creep he was and decide he wanted a different life for himself.

And, Linc realized, he was rooting for Mattie because of his father’s attitude.

The great Jason Cooper, who’d been born to privilege, who’d never had to fight alcoholism-who’d never lost a friend to murder.

Linc knew his father had never cared about Chris Browning. That his murder remained unsolved and Chris’s widow stayed on the case, relentless, not giving a damn who she pissed off, was just an annoyance to him.

“Linc?” A note of concern had crept into his father’s voice, but Linc had no illusions that it was about him. His father would only worry that his afterthought of a son would do something to attract police attention. “Son, why don’t you have a cup of tea with us. Then we’ll go home. Mattie will have an explanation for why he was in the shed.”

To pressure me with Abigail’s missing necklace. Linc rinsed off his plate. It was handmade pottery, as carefully chosen as everything else in his uncle’s kitchen-the cool tile floors, the muted colors, the custom cabinets. Dinner had been clay-pot chicken with rosemary from the garden, locally grown early peas, crusty bread from a Bar Harbor bakery. Linc had shoved his food around his plate, pretending to eat.

“I don’t want tea,” he said, turning from the sink.

Grace sighed, her reserves worn thin. “Oh, Linc. This day’s been difficult enough without you getting sullen.”

“I’m going to look for Mattie.”

“No!”

His sister jumped up, but their father shook his head, saying calmly, “Let him go. The mosquitoes will chase him inside soon enough.”

“But Mattie attacked someone today.”

“Abigail,” Jason said, as if that explained everything.

Grace spun around at him. “You make it sound as if she deserved what she got.”

“Not deserved.” He didn’t raise his voice. “She’s capable, Grace. She’s an experienced homicide detective. She can handle herself.”

“Mattie could have slit her throat today.”