“You think you’re going to catch him with evidence?” he asked.
“I just thought . . . if I could see how he acted when he didn’t know people were watching, I would know.” She looked down at her feet for a few seconds. “Last night, after I talked to you, and this morning, seeing him at the funeral home, I was sure it’s him. But I don’t want it to be. For Sam. No matter how I feel about him, Pete’s her dad.”
“Look, you have to let me do this,” Conor said. “He’s coming in for questioning later. There’s a whole process, so why don’t you—”
“Leave?” she asked. “No chance.”
Conor squinted at her, then looked up at the house. “How are we supposed to see him from here?”
Without answering, Kate led him behind a tall hedge into a boxwood labyrinth. Once they reached the innermost path, they came to a weathered wooden door. The hinges squeaked, and the door opened into a damp cellar.
“You’re allowed to do this, right?” Kate asked, glancing over her shoulder. “You won’t get in trouble for not having a warrant?”
“I’m with the owner,” he said, smiling at her. They took a few steps inside. There was a light switch at the far end of the house, but this part of the basement was pitch dark. She knew every step of this house, could have found her way blindfolded, but Conor swore as he stumbled into her. She grabbed his hand to steady him.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“A cellar Pete knows nothing about.”
“Why doesn’t he?”
“Well, there’s another, one we actually use. It has a wine cellar, a storage room, the furnace, all the water pipes—normal house things. But this was dug during the Revolutionary War, a staging point to fight the British. It was a hiding place, in case of attack.”
“Cool history,” Conor said as she pulled her hand away.
“We found cannonballs once.”
They walked through the darkness. A few times they heard claws scrabbling on the rock walls.
“Monsters,” she said.
“Field mice,” he said.
“You’re right. My grandmother always had a cat, and he brought us little furry gifts nearly every night.”
At the far end of the passageway, Kate flipped the light switch to illuminate a single bulb, swinging from a cord overhead. She carefully and quietly unlatched a door, wincing when it creaked open. They climbed the narrow spiral staircase.
As children, she and Beth had played here, pretending to be spies hiding from the redcoats. The stairs led up three flights to a tiny room, originally built for escape from enemy soldiers, accessible from the main house by a secret door that only Mathilda and the girls knew about. A peephole gave onto the library.
She and Conor looked down. There was Pete. He’d obviously just walked in and was puttering around, putting his wallet and car keys on the desk. He disappeared, and Kate heard him in the kitchen. It was just past noon. He returned with a sandwich on one of Mathilda’s blue-and-white Canton plates.
Now he sat in the chair, pointing the remote toward the TV, wolfing down his lunch. This had always been a room for Mathilda’s vast collection of books, including works of fiction, art, Connecticut history, and aviation. Pete gave every impression of being alone. There were no sounds coming from within the house. Not Nicola calling a greeting, not the baby laughing or crying.
That surprised Kate. Pete had claimed he and Beth had been working it out, but she had never really believed that. He had always been out for himself. He had moved Nicola and Tyler into this house and destroyed his marriage to Beth in the process. Kate had been dreading seeing them here today.
But it was just Pete, sitting in an ugly brown leather recliner that Mathilda would have thrown down the cliff before allowing in her house. He had obviously brought it here, moved it right in. Kate watched him flipping through television channels. The quiet made Kate all the more aware of Conor squeezed so close beside her, their arms pressed together.
“Where’s Nicola?” Conor whispered.
“And the baby?” Kate whispered back.
12
After leaving Cloudlands, Reid drove to the boatyard where Huntress had been taken for repairs after sustaining damage on the trip. Nick Waterston had been the friend in charge of the charter, and he was overseeing the work. He had agreed to meet there. Reid wanted to nail down some details of the voyage before he questioned Pete.
The harbor glittered under a cloudless blue sky. There was a good breeze, and sailboats rocked at their moorings. Reid drove around the large shed filled with boats needing work, past a pile of masts and tangled rigging, and parked facing the wharf. He spotted Waterston on the deck of a sleek sailboat tied to the dock. Reid recognized it as Huntress.
The afternoon was hot, but Reid pulled on his suit jacket and headed over. Nick unclipped a section of the lifeline encircling the boat’s deck, and Reid stepped aboard. The two men shook hands.
“It’s so terrible,” Nick said. “We cannot get it through our heads. It’s broken my wife’s heart. She’s devastated.”
“Your wife is Scotty?” Reid asked.
Nick nodded. “Yeah. Best friends with Kate and Beth, especially Beth—they were closer in age—since they were kids. Inseparable. I loved Beth too. She was practically family to us.”
“Was Pete also like family?” Reid asked.
“Right,” Nick said, barking out a laugh. “By the way, I told Scotty I was meeting you here, and she’s coming by. I know you want to talk to her as well, and we thought it would be easier.”
“That’s great,” Reid said. “Why did you laugh when I asked if Pete was family?”
“Because he’s a pompous ass, and no one can stand him.”
That got Reid’s attention. “But you went on a weeklong sailing trip with him.”
“Yeah, well, he’s a friend of Lee’s—Lee Ackerley—and he chipped in on the charter. Believe me, if it were up to me . . .”
“Okay,” Reid said. “Why don’t you tell me about the trip?”
“Great weather, incredible breeze. The first night, we cruised around Nantucket. Pete was distracted, though. He kept saying he was worried about Beth—her pregnancy hadn’t been easy. I told him Scotty was there, even though Kate and Lulu—their other friend—were away. My wife would do anything for Beth.”
“How did he act worried?”
“Calling her constantly. Making a big deal about the fact she wasn’t picking up. Totally distracted.”
“Distracted in what way?”
“Yeah. The reason the boat’s here now. Pete took a turn at the wheel, and when he rounded Sankaty Head, he was so busy checking his cell phone he missed the buoy and steered straight over the east end of Davis South Shoal—shallow and dangerous, and every sailor knows it. He dinged the keel, and it’s going to cost a few grand to get fixed.” Nick paused.
“How did the crew react?”
“Pissed off, but you couldn’t help be concerned. The guy was definitely off his game. From then on, it was all, ‘You okay, Pete? You doing all right?’ He loved the attention. It’s like he got what he wanted.”