"Is that light coming from Nancy Carver's office?" he asked.
Andrea noticed the light in the hallway for the first time. "Looks like it."
Stride's eyes narrowed. "This sounds odd, Andrea, but just wait here, all right? I want to check something out."
"If you say so."
Andrea leaned against the wall, waiting. Stride took soft steps down the hallway, approaching the point where the office light shone into the corridor. As he got closer, he confirmed what he had suspected, that the door to Nancy Carver's office was ajar. He waited, listening, but heard no sounds from inside.
Stride coughed deliberately.
He expected to hear whoever was inside react. But the same silence pervaded the hallway.
He edged toward the doorway, close enough to peer inside and see part of the closet that served as her office. All he could see was a corner of her desk, enough to see a woman's shoulder and arm. She seemed to be sitting in her chair, not moving.
"Hello?" he called out.
He watched, but the woman didn't move. Stride gave the door a push. It swung open with a loud creak and thudded against the wall. He moved closer, filling the doorway.
Nancy Carver was inside, sitting motionless at her desk. As he entered, she looked up at him with hollow eyes, rimmed in red. The angry passion he had seen in her brown eyes was gone. Her cheeks were drawn. Her red hair was matted. She looked through him as if he didn't exist.
Stride was so taken aback by her appearance that he didn't notice for several seconds that she had a handgun lying in front of her on her desk, inches from her fingers.
"What the hell is that?" he said and leaped for the gun. He expected her to reach for it before he could get there, and point it either at herself or at him, but Nancy Carver didn't move. She just stared at him as he scooped it up in his hand and spilled the bullets on the floor, where they rolled crazily.
Stride leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. The gun dangled in his hand.
"Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?" he asked.
He didn't add, Do you want to tell me why two women in Rachel's life are trying to kill themselves? Because he had no doubt that was what Nancy Carver was planning to do.
Carver shook her head vacantly. "I could have stopped him," she whispered.
Stride bent over the desk. "Stopped who?"
She looked up and met his eyes. "I thought she ran away," she said.
Stride said nothing.
Tears began creeping down her cheeks. "But instead, she's dead. And I could have stopped him. I knew all about it."
"I have to go," Stride told Andrea.
They were seated in his Bronco in back of the school, near her car. The radio was turned down low, playing a song by Patty Loveless.
"Will you get any sleep tonight?"
"Probably not."
"Why don't you spend the night at my house tomorrow? It doesn't matter what time you come. It felt so good sleeping beside you on Friday. I felt better just having you near me."
"It could be late. I don't know when I'll be done, and I probably won't be much company."
She smiled. "I'll leave a light on."
Andrea opened the truck door. As she got out, snow shook off the roof and dusted her blonde hair with flakes of white. She blew him a kiss, slammed the door shut, and ran to her own car. He watched her climb inside, then saw a match flare as she lit a cigarette. Her car started up on the first try. She waved as she pulled away.
Stride drove home, navigating the empty, slippery streets with less care than they demanded. Twice he lingered at a stoplight, motionless while it turned green, his eyes vacantly staring out of the streaked windows. The windshield wipers squeaked in a determined rhythm that hypnotized him.
I knew all about it.
He thought again about Nancy Carver and tried to quell his anger. She could have confirmed their suspicions weeks ago. Maybe there would have been something more they could have done. They would have been so much closer.
What if Emily Stoner had died, not knowing? Then again, he wondered if Emily had suspected all along.
There were times when it felt like a game, a puzzle they had to solve. And there were times when he hated knowing everything he did about the dark side of the human heart.
Stride crossed the bridge leading onto the Point. He drove two blocks to his home and pulled into the driveway. Maggie's car was parked on the street. He saw a light inside the house and guessed she was waiting for him. It saved him a phone call. He was going to need her tonight, and they had a long evening ahead of them at city hall.
He let himself into the house.
Maggie was in his kitchen, her feet propped up on a chair. She was eating a grilled cheese sandwich and reading the newspaper.
"You didn't answer your goddamn phone," she told him pleasantly.
"The battery's dead. Sorry about that."
"I've been waiting here for over an hour."
"Lucky for you I came home alone," he said. He wondered how he was going to break it to Maggie that she would need to be a little more cautious about using his house as a second home. He didn't think Andrea would understand their relationship.
He looked at her skirt, which was bunched up almost to her waist. "You look hot."
"I'm freezing," she said. "And it's your fault."
"Well, it was worth it if you got anything out of the boys."
Maggie smiled. "Nothing from the boys. But it turns out we were heading in the right direction all along. Family first."
Stride sat down opposite Maggie. "Graeme?"
She nodded. "Sally gave him up. Turns out Graeme took her on a little field trip to the barn last summer."
"Was she raped?"
"No, they were interrupted. But she thought that's where things were going."
"There's more," Stride told her. "How's this? Rachel told Nancy Carver she was sleeping with Graeme. She said it happened a few times, and then she cut it off, but Graeme wanted more."
Maggie's eyebrows shot skyward. "No shit? Do you think Emily suspects?"
"I'll bet she does, but she won't admit it to herself."
"Graeme's a cool customer," Maggie said. "Everything about him came up clean, right down to the polygraph. He's going to be hard to nail."
"Yeah, but him and Emily? No way. I think he was after Rachel from the beginning. And Rachel probably thought that fucking Graeme would be the perfect punishment for her mother. These two were made for each other."
"Except how do we prove it?" Maggie asked.
"We've got Carver's story. That's a start."
"It's hearsay," Maggie said. "We'll never get it in."
Stride nodded. "I know. But it'll get us a warrant."
17
Stride swore his team to silence as they prepared for the search, but it didn't help. As a battery of police cars pulled up outside the Stoner house, Bird Finch took to the airwaves, painting Graeme Stoner as a Jekyll-and-Hyde who had seduced his teenage stepdaughter and then killed her. Stride heard it on the radio and turned off the news in disgust.
Maggie, seated next to him, shook her head. "How the hell did he do that? No one knows about this."
Stride shrugged. "Let's go," he told her.
They headed up the long walkway to the front door of the Stoner house with a swarm of uniformed officers. Stride gestured to one of the cops, pulling him closer.
"The word is out," he said. "You can expect the press to begin descending on this place in droves. I don't want them anywhere near here, okay? Tape it off, and keep them away. No curious neighbors, either."
The officer nodded and retreated to one of the squad cars, motioning for three other policemen to join him.
Stride whispered to Maggie. "Let's keep a close eye on the search, okay, Mags? I want everything by the book and witnessed. No screwups. If we end up charging this guy, he's already got Archie Gale in his corner, and you can bet everything we do is going to be second-guessed."