Heartsong Cottage (13 page)

“We'll find him, Gail. It's okay. It's not your fault.”

It's her fault. Her fault. Why didn't she watch him?

It's not her fault. Forgive me. “Forgive me.”

“Detective Garrett, we've found a body.”

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater. Had a boy and couldn't keep him.

“Daddy, Daddy. Look at that one. It's as big as Cinderella's carriage. I love the pumpkin patch.”

Tonight on
News at Five.
The body of a four-year-old Natick boy who went missing from the Framingham mall last week has been found in a pumpkin patch.

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater.

Reichs's big hairy hand grabs the report. “Don't read it, Daniel. Don't do that to yourself. You can't put that genie back in the bottle.”

“Aladdin, Daddy. Aladdin!” Blood beads from the paper cut. Pain, slicing deep. It hurts. God, it hurts so much.

Fever dreams.

Hellfire. The fires of hell. Consuming me.

“Lift your head up. C'mon, now. Swallow.”

Water. Blessedly cold.

Cold as the grave. Gail's grave. Justin's grave.
“I saved a stranger and lost our son.”

“Shush, Daniel. Shush.”
A cool cloth against his brow. Big brown eyes. Sad eyes.

“I know you. You're Patsy Cline.” He crooned, “I'm crazy.”

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater. Sexual assault. Broken tibia. Broken teeth. Broken baby teeth.

“Look, Daniel. It's a little cloth tooth bag. It's for visits from the Tooth Fairy.”

“Already? He's too young to be losing his teeth.”

Broken baby. My broken baby.

Fever dreams.

“One more.” Feminine hands lifted his head. “Swallow this, Daniel.”

“One? Damn her.” He swallowed the pill. “She swallowed them all. A whole bottle. She didn't leave me any. She left me. She left me to deal with it alone. Alone. So alone.”

“I'm so sorry, Daniel. Here, sip the water.”

Cool. Wet. She's so hot. So alive.

Fever dreams.

He blinked. “Not Patsy. Shannon. Pretty, pretty Shannon. She's alive, and I'm dead. I'm sick of dealing with dead kids, Shannon. Done with gaping throats and lacerated livers and glassy blank eyes that accuse me. Always accusing. Why are you always too late?”

“You're not always too late. You found Holly.”

He waved his arm expansively. “One in a million. They break my heart, pretty Shannon.”

“Drink some more water, Daniel.”

Cool. Refreshing. Wet. She'd been wet. He remembered her naked breasts. Plump and pretty. He'd had sex. The first in forever.

“I'm no bodyguard,” he said, his voice solemn.

“You're a detective.”

“I'm no damned bodyguard. The cops can't find him. He's not going to find them. Justin didn't whine that way.”

Peter, Peter pumpkin eater. Left in the field to rot.

Detective Garrett? We found a body.

Halloween is over. There shouldn't be skeletons.

Hot, so hot. Beads of sweat trickling across his skin. Overflowing his eyes. He sang, “I'm falling. I'm in pieces.”

“Where's your wife?”

“Dead. Gail is dead. Took all the pills and cut her wrists.”
Gail? Gail! Moses has been in the master bathroom. With my staff I will strike the water of the Nile and it will be changed into blood.

“Detective Garrett. Coroner is here. I need you to step away.”

Fever dreams.

*   *   *

Shannon glanced over her shoulder wondering where the heck Daniel's wife had gotten off to. Precious little Benny was still upstairs crying, and apparently his mother couldn't drag herself away from her little snowflake long enough to offer Daniel the pain reliever she'd hiked over the mountain to get. Shannon understood the brain fog that pregnancy could cause—of late she'd been plagued by it herself. But seriously, what kind of wife went to such effort then totally dropped the ball five yards from the goal line?

Shannon flattened her lips into a grim line. She wanted nothing more than to walk out the door and climb into her truck and kick up dust as she floored it getting away from this man. Only, with the way it was raining, she'd kick up mud instead of dust and probably get stuck.

She felt stuck. She couldn't leave without speaking to Linda. She needed to tell her that she'd gotten two pills down the raving man so that his wife didn't accidentally overdose him.

“Gail took all the pills and then cut her wrists.”

Wow. Wonder if he'd been talking out of his mind that way the whole time he'd been feverish. If so, she should cut Linda a little slack. It would be difficult for a wife to listen to her husband's emotional pain and anguish. It wasn't pleasant for one-night-stand Shannon to hear it.

It made her feel sympathetic toward him—just when she had every reason to fire a great big ball of anger his way.

Shannon scowled at Daniel. He'd kicked all the covers off his bed, and at the moment, he lay still as death, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and nothing else. He looked like he'd lost ten pounds since she'd last seen him without his shirt. What if this wasn't some weird genetic thing? Daniel was burning up. Maybe he was seriously ill. “If you throw up, I'm out of here.”

Maybe that's why Linda had disappeared upstairs.
She's pregnant. She doesn't want to expose her baby to anything dire.

I'm pregnant. I don't want to expose my baby to anything dire.

“Well, too late now,” she muttered.
What's done is done.
And when it came right down to it, she believed Linda about this being a genetic thing. Hyperimmunoglobulin C, D, or E wasn't a term a person pulled out of thin air.

“Where is your wife?” she muttered as she pulled the sheet up over his shoulders. Linda should be here wiping his skin with a damp washcloth.

She glanced around the room looking for a paper and pen, thinking she'd leave a note about giving him the pills before she beat a retreat. That's when she realized just how … male … the room appeared to be. A man's wallet, watch, and what looked like a college ring sat atop the dresser. A man's robe lay draped over the back of the overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace. A paperback thriller served as a coaster for a brown stoneware coffee mug on one bedside nightstand. The other nightstand was bare but for a lamp.

Linda must be the neatest woman of Shannon's acquaintance. The master bedroom showed no sign of her presence at all.

Daniel wrenched his head from side to side and began mumbling once again. This time Shannon picked up two words: “Justin” and “soup.”

Soup? “Are you hungry, Daniel?”

He sat up abruptly and the white sheet slid to his lap. He turned feverish eyes her way and asked, “Has Soupy been out?”

“What?”

“Soupy!

“Gotta find her,” Daniel said. “She gave her away.” He shifted his feet off the bed and stood—and swayed. Teetered.

“Oh, no you don't,” Shannon said, rushing toward him. No way could she pick him up herself if he fell. The man was two-hundred-plus pounds of solid muscle. She put her hands around his waist and tried to guide him back onto the mattress. Daniel's arms wrapped around her and his knees began to buckle. Shannon had no choice but to shove him backward. Tangled together, they fell onto the bed.

“You smell good,” Daniel said, nuzzling her neck. “I remember how you smell.”

“You need a shower.”

“Let's shower together.”

“Oh, for goodness' sake.” He was dead weight atop her and she pushed against his chest. She couldn't budge him.

“You're in my head. Pretty and bright. Bright. Shannon. Earthy angel.” He cupped her breast with his big hand and flicked his thumb across her nipple. “So pretty.”

“Daniel!” Shannon was horrified.

“I'm so tired of darkness. Have sex with me again.”

Shocked and embarrassed and panicked by his words and actions considering that his wife was in the house, Shannon shoved and squirmed and wriggled and finally freed herself.

“Don't go.”

“Would you be quiet!” she demanded as she found her feet. “You can't say those things.”

He rose up on his elbows and gazed at her with troubled, feverish eyes. “I'm lonely.”

“Oh, Daniel.” Shannon sighed as pity found a foothold among the anger and contempt she felt toward this man.

Behind her, a feminine voice drawled. “Well, this has certainly been interesting.”

Shannon's stomach dropped to her knees and she closed her eyes. Linda.

She wanted to melt like the wicked witch in a rainstorm. She heard the lyrics of a song from the musical
Wicked
blasting repeatedly through her mind. “
No One Mourns the Wicked” could have been written about you!

Wait a minute. I'm not the only one he duped. Remember who the real villain is here.

And honestly, a part of Shannon was glad to have light shined on the situation. She had enough lies and secrets in her life as it was. She didn't need more.

Bracing herself, she turned around. Shannon was shocked to see an amused smile on Linda's face. Where was the betrayed wife?

“I think under the circumstances, it's time we get this out of the way,” Linda said. “I knew there was more to his decision to bring us to Colorado than he let on. He won't like it that I spilled the beans, but you've been kind to me. I'm going to trust that you won't give us away. Shannon, we're not married.”

“Excuse me?”

“Daniel and I. We're not married. He's not my husband. Daniel is our bodyguard. Benny and I are in hiding. You won't tell anyone we are here, will you?”

 

Chapter Six

Three days after recovering from his fever, Daniel skulked in the shadows of a moonless autumn night, spying on Shannon as she removed a stack of envelopes and circulars from her mailbox beside the front door of her dollhouse of a home. The warm glow of her porch light spilled over her, highlighting the fiery strands of red shot through the burnished strands of her hair. She wore tight jeans tucked into riding boots, a short wool coat the same brown as her eyes, and fluffy muffs on her ears.

Despite his good sense and best intentions, Daniel watched her and yearned. Need for this woman pulsed through him like a song.

He'd followed her home from the pub tonight. Home to Heartsong Cottage.

The
FOR SALE
sign that had hung from the white picket fence in August was gone, and he knew a real sense of regret. The house must have sold. He'd snooped the real estate listings on the Internet after his return to Boston and found it listed for sale at what he judged to be a fair price. The desire to make an offer on the place had been strong, stupid, and had caught him by surprise. He'd come close to making that call, but better sense had prevailed. Never mind that he found the cottage as appealing as the woman. He had enough trouble sleeping as it was. No way would he rest easy surrounded by memories of Shannon O'Toole.

He watched her disappear inside the house and wondered where she planned to move after she left Heartsong Cottage. Did she have another project lined up to begin after she finished the tile work he'd learned she was doing out at the cabins near his rental?

And what business is it of yours if she does? Enough with this skulking and speculation, Garrett. You're procrastinating. Grow a pair. Go knock on her front door and get this conversation behind you.

He'd come to apologize and to beg her cooperation. Chances were slim, but the possibility did exist that Mason Tate would use some of his gobs of money not just to hide, but to hire a competent investigator to find Linda and Benny. Daniel had been extraordinarily careful since agreeing to help them, and he felt confident they wouldn't be found stashed out in the valley. Shannon O'Toole was a vulnerable spot in his wall of defenses.

In more ways than one.

He muttered a curse and stepped away from the gnarled tree trunk against which he'd leaned and crossed the street to Heartsong Cottage. Pushing open the front gate, he strode decisively up the walkway and onto the front porch.

Music floated on the air from inside. Big band. Glenn Miller. Tommy Dorsey. He made a fist and rapped on the painted red door.

“Just a minute,” he heard her call.

Daniel shoved his hands into his pants pockets and rocked back on his heels. Softly, nervously, he hummed along to the tune.

Shannon started talking before the door swung fully open. “Celeste, I'm running late. I need three minutes to—oh. You.”

“Hello, Shannon.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“May I come inside?”

“No, thank you.” She slammed the door shut in his face.

Despite her less-than-welcoming reception, Daniel's spirits lifted. This house, this woman, had a way of doing that for him. His nervousness had disappeared and he realized he felt almost … light.

Weird.

He hadn't heard the lock click, so he opened the door and walked in.

She folded her arms and scowled at him. “Go away. I have plans tonight.”

“I just need five minutes of your time.” The more agitated she appeared, the more relaxed he felt.

“I don't have five minutes. I'm already late. Celeste will be here any minute. You don't need to worry. I haven't told anyone that you're here.”

“Five minutes. Celeste isn't here yet. If you're headed to the chamber of commerce meeting, it's been rescheduled to next Wednesday.”