When I stepped back outside I could swear my nose hairs frosted up. The house loomed tall before me as I struggled against the force of the wind. The rain was relentless, painful on my exposed skin. I was dying for a hot coffee and desperately needed to pee, and I wasn’t sure how to go about resolving either issue. Being at the Sinclairs was like visiting a great-aunt’s house when you’re a kid. You tiptoe around without touching anything, and deep down you just want to go home.
My gaze returned to the second-floor windows. Flynn and Ned’s bedroom was on the other side of the house, and Camilla’s was upstairs. Norton’s sleeping quarters were on the main floor, so the rooms on either side of Jasper’s must belong to Bebe and Miles, and Jade. In one of the windows a curtain twitched and a pale flash caught my eye. I squinted up at it. What on earth? Jade was in her bedroom, and damned if she wasn’t smoking a cigarette. Behind the pane she took a drag, looked down at me, and smiled.
I watched the teenager, and she watched me. Jade hadn’t factored into my investigation yet, but this wine-guzzling, cigarette-smoking child would need to be vetted just like everyone else. After a minute she broke eye contact. She’d grown bored with me, I guess. Funny how she didn’t seem bothered by my presence on the island, let alone the fact that she woke up this morning to find her fun-loving uncle was gone.
Jade disappeared behind the curtain, but I stayed put. What was it Tim said earlier? Jade spent a lot of time brooding in her room.
And from that room, she had a perfect view of the shed.
THIRTEEN
I was the kind of wet that wraps you in gooseflesh and blast-freezes your bones. Dripping all over the mudroom floor, I did my best to clean off my boots and shivered out of my jacket. Then I crouched down on the tiles.
I’d noticed something about the Sinclairs. Aside from Abella, who was in stocking feet today, they all wore house shoes. Apparently, going shoeless in the house was gauche—and based on Camilla’s reaction to Abella’s dirty footprints in Abella’s story, so was wearing street shoes. It explained why Flynn was in summer shoes in October, and the disapproving looks Tim and I got when we sullied the family’s floors with our boots. Personally I’m a fan of thick socks indoors, but the Sinclairs’ custom was fine by me. It gave me a chance to examine the discarded shoes lined up along the mudroom wall.
One by one, I turned each shoe over to inspect the sole. I was looking for one thing in particular: dried mud. The rain started late afternoon on the previous day, and everyone in the family had arrived at the house by then. The shoes were a way to corroborate Abella’s story and find out who else was wandering around in the storm on the night Jasper disappeared.
It was easy enough to match the shoes to their owners. Jade’s sneakers were the smallest, while Flynn’s, an expensive designer brand, were huge. The wing tips had to belong to Miles the lawyer. Ned’s loafers were as long and lean as he was, and Camilla wore pretty boat shoes, sensibly flat. Bebe’s were Italian, also designer. The filthy rubber boots could only belong to Norton. That left Abella’s kitten-heel booties and the shoes that, somehow, Jasper left behind.
Between Norton’s walk down to the boathouse to greet us and his trips outside to restock the parlor basket with firewood, he had an excuse for the wet mud that caked the bottoms of his boots. The state of the other shoes was what concerned me. Aside from Camilla’s and Jade’s, all showed traces of mud and yellow, tender bits of leaves. Bebe’s and Ned’s included a dash of sawdust; they’d been in the shed, no question. Miles’s were especially messy, but that could be because he’d searched the grounds with Norton that morning. Strangely, Jasper’s shoes were also tainted with dried mud. That meant five of the guests, plus Jasper himself, spent time outside between the previous afternoon when it started to rain and our arrival that morning on Tern Island.
My pants felt like spandex against my legs as the wet fabric pulled tight over my thighs. Leaving the shoes the way I found them, I rose to standing and stepped into the kitchen. At the apartment, I always keep a pot of coffee on the counter. I can’t say it’s always fresh and hot, but that’s not the point. It’s strong, and ready when I needed it. There was no coffee in the Sinclairs’ kitchen, at least none that I could see. Norton probably hid the machine away in a custom cabinet, cleaned and prepped for morning. The kitchen was completely deserted. But something wasn’t right. I sensed movement. A whisper, slow and steady, source unknown.
The baby-fine hairs on my neck lifted as my eyes darted around the room. What was that sound? More important, why did every muscle in my body strain back toward the door from which I’d come?
The realization hit me all at once. Across the room, a burner on the gas range flickered blue. The flame licked the underside of a small pot. I ventured closer, images of boiled bunnies racing through my mind. Bracing myself, I looked inside. It was water, nothing more. Nearly all of it had evaporated and the cup or so that was left sizzled softly, trying to disappear.
“Um, can I help you?”
I’d already turned off the burner and was holding the hot pot by its handle when Jade swept into the room. I could have left the water where it was, but the disembodied quality it brought to the kitchen unsettled me. I wanted it gone. I was already jittery, and Jade’s voice made me jump. “Give it,” she said, and made a grab for the handle, upending the scalding water onto my hand.
I yelped and clutched my hand to my chest as the empty pot clattered across the floor. The pain was exquisite; every cell in my body shrieked. I ground my teeth so hard I thought I might crush the enamel into dust. A world away Jade was babbling excuses. I tuned them out and chanced a glance at my hand.
I was of sound mind when I entered that kitchen. Thinking about Bram in the shed hadn’t impaired my judgment. I’m not saying there haven’t been times when it did. A string of words spoken just the right way or the clang of old pipes can take me back. But in spite of what Carson thinks, the memories don’t rattle me. If anything, they make me more vigilant. They remind me people can turn on you faster than an eyeblink, and that the smart ones will make sure you never see them coming.
I was of sound mind, yes. But when I looked at my palm, pink as a boiled Easter ham, it wasn’t a burn I saw, but blood. Blood, slick and glossy, gluey and thick. Blood between my fingers and coating my nails. It was like those thirteen months and the distance they put between me and Bram never happened. The walls pressed in around my body, and I found myself thinking, Please don’t let this blood be his. Oh God, I’m too late.
Fear, dazzling in its intensity, coursed through me. The flashback was so convincing I wanted to cry. My chest exploded with pain and I realized I’d been holding my breath. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, the imagined blood on my hand was gone.
It was a second-degree burn, real bad. Soon it would puff up, then blister, then leak, a full-course dinner of pain. Studying the injury triggered a sinking feeling in my gut. It was my right hand. The hand I needed to fire my gun.