Carla Neggers - The Cabin

Ellen pounced. “Exactly! Dad, nobody likes to be taken for granted.”

“What does that mean?”

She groaned, shaking her head as if her father was the thickest man on the planet. She was in shorts and a rugby shirt, the bruises on her legs finally faded. The San Antonio sun had brought freckles out on her nose and cheeks, lightened her chestnut hair. As far as Jack knew, neither she nor Maggie had any long-term boyfriends. Fine with him. He was in no hurry to see guys “wooing” his daughters.

Maggie folded a pair of old-man striped golf pants, circa 1975, one of her favorites. “Everyone wants to feel they’re special.”

“This isn’t about blame,” Ellen said. “It’s not about who did what wrong. It’s about how you can take the bull by the horns and...and...”

“Woo your mother back,” Jack supplied, deadpan.

Ellen frowned up at him. “Yes.”

Maggie sank back against the couch. “This isn’t a double standard. We’re not expecting you to take on the wooing because you’re a man, but because it’s so obviously what Mom wants, and it’s so—Dad, come on. It’s so simple.”

Nothing involving Susanna Dunning Galway had ever been simple. Jack shook his head. “What kind of classes have you two been taking up in Boston?”

Neither girl was backing down. Ellen said, “You were distracted in the weeks before we moved north. Remember? You had that police corruption case. You hate corruption cases, you didn’t want to talk about it, and I think it affected you more than you or Mom realized at the time.”

Jack couldn’t believe he was having a conversation with his daughters about the ramifications of his work on his relationship with his wife. “I liked you two better when I could stick you in a playpen. My work and my family life are separate. There’s a fire wall between them.”

“There! You said it!” Ellen pointed at him in victory. “You keep a part of yourself walled off from Mom. You don’t talk to her.”

Who was the one still pretending she wasn’t worth millions? He got to his feet. He should have ended this conversation the minute they’d said “woo.” It could go nowhere he wanted to go. He started for the kitchen. “Your mother knows the score with me and my work. I don’t need to tell her. She knows where she stands.”

“Yeah,” Maggie said half under her breath, “she sure does.”

His spine stiffened, but he decided to pretend he hadn’t heard that one, if only because he was putting his daughters on a plane in less than twenty-four hours. They’d be off on their own soon enough. They weren’t kids—they were young women. He couldn’t control their every word, thought and deed. Sometimes he wished he could. Like now.

At least their instinct was to defend their mother. Even if he were willing to fall on his sword over the problems in their marriage, take the blame for her move to Boston, say everything was his fault, it wouldn’t solve anything. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than lavender sachets and fresh roses to repair what they’d had.

He stormed out to the patio and kicked a chair. “A little goddamn honesty wouldn’t hurt.”

And he knew where it would begin—with his wife, not himself.

He could be stubborn, too.

Wooing Susanna. Taking her for granted. What did that mean? Susanna was about as unsentimental and unromantic as he was. What would she do if he started writing her poetry? He stared up at the clear south Texas sky and thought about Boston and its high today of eighteen degrees.

Maybe he didn’t get it.

He was still thinking about kicking more chairs when Maggie and Ellen headed out to the mall with a couple of their friends. Two minutes after they pulled out of the driveway, Alice Parker showed up at his front door. He’d forgotten how small she was. It was a wonder she’d made it through the police academy. She looked pale and tentative—the effects of her months in prison. Her blond hair was longer, pulled back in a prosaic ponytail, and she wore a white T-shirt, jeans and a lot of inexpensive gold jewelry.

“Afternoon, Miss Parker,” Jack said, his voice steady, formal. “If you have something to say to me, it can wait until I’m on duty. Not now. I don’t want you at my house.”

“I know—I know. I tried calling you, but they said you were off today.” Some of the tentativeness went out of her gray eyes. She was attractive—cute—but she looked tired, even drained. She met his eye. “I served my time, Lieutenant.”

“All right. What do you want?”

“To apologize.” She breathed in, her jaw set hard, as if the words were hard to get out. “I shouldn’t have asked you to look the other way. That was out of line.”

“Apology accepted.” He didn’t ask about the rest of it—the trampling of evidence, the witness tampering, the sense he had that she was still holding back on him. A murder remained unsolved at least partially because of her actions. “Get yourself a job, Miss Parker. Move on. Rebuild your life.”

“Beau McGarrity—he’s still a free man.”

Jack said nothing.

“I guess I’ll have to live with that. My police department—they’re not going to solve the case. You know that, sir. They don’t want it to be Beau, they don’t want to stir things up again. You know, people think I tried to frame him.”

“Miss Parker—”

“I’m thinking about moving to Australia.”

“Good luck.”

She smiled bitterly. “You don’t mean that. What do you hate worse, Lieutenant, that I paid a guy to lie about seeing Beau in the azaleas—or that I’m a royal fuck-up?”

“What I hate is seeing Rachel McGarrity’s murder go unsolved.” Jack narrowed his eyes on the younger woman. “There’s nothing else you want to tell me, Miss Parker?”

“Like what?”

“Why did the anonymous call to check out the McGarrity ranch come to you that night? And your relationship with Rachel McGarrity. I think you two were better friends than you’ve let on. Her murder isn’t my case, but you still haven’t told the whole story as far as I’m concerned.”

“Like you said, some things you just have to live with. See you around, Lieutenant.”

“Stay away from my house,” he said. “I don’t want you near my family.”

She shrugged. “Understood, sir.”

She left.

Jack decided it might be just as well that the girls were heading back to Boston in the morning. That Susanna was there. Alice Parker obviously hadn’t put Rachel McGarrity’s murder behind her. She’d had a year in prison to stew. Now she was free, and if she wanted to knock on his door on a warm January afternoon, she could do it. It didn’t break any laws.

Three

She couldn’t breathe.

Alice Parker had to pull over and concentrate on the breathing exercises she’d learned in prison to stop her panic attacks. She hated being cooped up. Even as a little kid, she couldn’t stand sleeping with the door to her room shut.

Ranger Jack scared the living shit out of her. He always had. She remembered the day he’d shown up to ask her a few questions. She’d known her goose was cooked. He was a hard man.

He’d never forgive her. She didn’t even want his forgiveness—she didn’t know what had possessed her to go out to his house. She just wanted money. A chance to start over in Australia and forget who she was, a little screw-up cop who’d made sure a murderer walked. Beau McGarrity had killed her friend and mentor, and he’d never be brought to justice for it.

Yeah, learn to live with it. Forget that. She planned to get some money off the murdering son of a bitch.

Feeling better, Alice drove to the small town where she’d spent all her life, except for her year in prison. She was driving a rusted little tank of a car that she’d bought from a fellow inmate’s mother for seven hundred dollars. She had to watch her finances. She’d been out of prison three days, and she’d already plowed through a good chunk of her savings. She had a job waiting tables downtown, but that was more for show than real income—it sure as hell wasn’t going to get her to Australia.