He parked near the garage and studied the old farmhouse with its mossy roof and often-repaired gutters. The windows needed replacing, a family room and third bath added. He had plans drawn nearly a year earlier but hadn’t started the renovation. Now he’d give them to Becca, get her input, and adjust accordingly.
If she wants to move in with you.
She wasn’t a hundred percent on that, now, was she?
They’d skirted the subject, each stopping short of saying, “Let’s live together.” He figured when the time was right, they’d move in or marry, didn’t really matter which order it happened. They had more than a few emotional hurdles to leap over if they were ever going to find happiness, and a lot of those hurdles had to do with Jessie Brentwood and why she was killed.
With the weak sun warming his back he slid out of the Jeep, nearly whistled to Booker T., then stopped himself short. His dog was gone and he couldn’t really see Ringo riding with him in the truck, trotting out to the barn to feed the stock, but then you never knew.
He headed alone down the path past the old pump house and willow tree where he was certain his twin sister had spied him and Becca making love years before. He felt more than a little pang of grief and anger when he thought of Renee. He missed her.
No two ways about it.
Sorrow surged but he tamped it back down, deciding to look to the future, and as he did, one side of his mouth lifted. In a few years he’d be walking down this path, a young son or daughter at his side.
You should have told him about your first pregnancy at the hospital. You had the opportunity. Why didn’t you take it?
And why don’t you tell him about the vision? He won’t laugh at you. He’s worried about you. You need to tell him how you were rammed off the road like Renee, that you lost the first baby-his baby, too!-because of it.
Becca gave herself a swift mental kick as she e-mailed changes to the latest spate of documents for an ongoing land trust dispute back to the offices of Bennett, Bretherton, and Pfeiffer. The television in the living room flickered in the corner, the volume on low. She absently listened to the weather report as she worked, learning that a new storm was forming in the Pacific, blowing inland.
“Great,” she murmured, but as soon as the weather report was over she heard Scott Pascal’s name mentioned. She looked up sharply to see an image of Scott in handcuffs, his face turned from the camera as he was led past a surge of reporters and helped into a patrol car. It was hard to believe. Everything that had happened seemed so surreal. The news reporter, an earnest-looking woman with dark hair and eyes, suggested that Scott, who had confessed to two killings, might be linked to more deaths. In an instant pictures of Jessie and Renee took the place of Scott’s image: Jessie’s from high school, Renee’s head shot much more recent.
Becca located the remote, scooped it off the coffee table, and clicked off the television. The image of Hudson’s twin disappeared.
She sank onto the couch and let out her breath.
Would it ever end?
She found it hard to fathom that Scott had killed Glenn and Mitch, but she really couldn’t believe he’d murdered either Jessie or Renee.
Then who?
Touching her abdomen, she recalled her last vision, then thought about the baby and, of course, Hudson. Now was the time to be completely honest with him. She knew that. If they were ever going to have any relationship, they had to trust each other implicitly. No lies. No equivocations. No damned secrets.
“Come on,” she said to the dog, and snapped on his leash. It was getting dark, the watery March sunshine fading into twilight. She let Ringo sniff each twig and branch as the sound of rush-hour traffic on the Pacific Highway only blocks from her condo reached her ears.
She gazed back at the condo. Was it all too soon? She’d lived here with Ben, hoped to have a family with him, but then that relationship had been based on lies. She wouldn’t make the same mistake with Hudson. Maybe it was finally time to let go of the past and sell this condo. Time for a fresh start. With Hudson Walker.
He’d told her he loved her. Sure, it was in a moment of joy upon learning they would be new parents, but he’d meant it. And she’d certainly meant it when she’d told him back. And so he hadn’t said it again. He’d shown her in a lot of other ways. And if they could ever learn what really happened to Jessie, she felt the last issues between them would be resolved.
Picking up her mail from the box, a fistful of bills, credit card offers, and advertisements, Becca waited for Ringo to do his business, then headed inside. Not for the first time, she wondered why her visions of Jessie were backdropped by the ocean-a stormy, raging sea where she could hear the roar of the surf, feel the tide pound the shore, taste the brine on her tongue.
The answer was somewhere in the cliffs overlooking the angry ocean, and Jessie was adamant that she tell no one about it. In her recent visions, Jessie had been warning her, shushing her. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone of her visions, that much was clear. But she’d already confided in Hudson.
That had probably been a mistake. Not only might he think her a nutcase, but she might have inadvertently put his life in danger. There was a chance that Jessie was warning her to be quiet for Hudson’s safety.
Or her child’s.
Either way, she felt, the answers to everything wouldn’t be found in the soil, debris, or bones at St. Elizabeth’s maze. The answers would be found somewhere on the Oregon coast, most likely in the town of Deception Bay.
Becca stood for a moment in the fading light, struck by the thought. What had taken her so long to recognize that? That’s where Renee’s research on Jessie had taken place. That’s where the answers were.
Becca hurried Ringo along, back to the condo. Now that she’d made that decision, she wanted to go. It was early evening and it was a two-hour drive. She could be there by seven, or maybe eight, if it took her a while to pack.
“Ready for a ride?” she said to Ringo, who dogged her anxiously, sensing her new determination. She pulled her cell phone out of its charger and put a call in to Hudson.
As she waited for him to answer, she packed a few things into an overnight bag, then once her call was forwarded to his voicemail, left a quick message that she was heading out of town for the beach.
He called her back almost instantly. “I’m right on the way. Pick me up. I can be ready in twenty minutes.”
“You want to go?”
“I want answers, too, Becca. And you’re right, Renee was researching Jessie, following in her footsteps. Something happened, and I want to know what it was.”
“Well, okay,” she said. “I’m putting Ringo in the car and I’ll be at your place in about half an hour depending on traffic.”
“Lookin’ forward to it.”
I love you, she thought, but she didn’t say it.
“I’m a coward,” she told the dog as she settled him into his fuzzy car seat.
He looked at her and wagged his tail.
By the time Becca’s car slid into his driveway, Hudson had cared for the horses and few head of cattle, called Emile Rodriguez to come by and feed and water the stock the following day, made arrangements for a place to stay at the beach online, showered and changed. He was just stuffing a change of clothes into an overnight bag when he spied her headlights against the trunks of the oak and fir trees near the mailbox.
He hurried downstairs and locked the door behind him just as she pulled to a stop near the front porch. Ringo, true to form, was barking his fool head off and wasn’t all that happy to be relegated to the backseat as Hudson slid into the passenger seat.
“Sorry, bud,” he said as the dog gave one final bark and settled into a tiny bed Becca had brought for him.
Becca was on the phone and held up a finger when he settled into the seat. “Yeah…sure…I’ll call you if and when I know anything else, but you’re right. It’s a shock.” She looked at Hudson and mouthed, “Tamara.” Hudson nodded. He’d already been fielding calls from The Third and Jarrett about Scott. No one would have pegged him for a murderer. Everyone was shocked. Jarrett wanted to believe that Scott had killed Jessie and Renee as well. Christopher Delacroix III didn’t think so. Otherwise the cops would have booked him for all the murders already.