Birthright by Nora Roberts
never change. Even after the divorce, when she’d been thousands of miles away from him in every possible way, she’d wanted him.
Just to roll over in the night and have her body bump against his. And the way he’d sometimes hooked his arm around her waist to keep her there.
She’d ached for that, for him.
She hoped he’d ached for her. She hoped he’d cursed her name the way she’d cursed his. And suffered.
If he’d loved her as much as she’d loved him, he’d never have walked away. He would never have been able to walk away no matter how hard she’d pushed.
If he’d ever told her what she’d needed to hear, she wouldn’t have had to push.
When she felt the old resentment and anger begin to brew she shut it down. That was over, she reminded herself. That was done.
Some things were better off left buried.
She ordered her mind to clear so she could concentrate on the data she was bringing up. Then she yawned as she noted the article on Henry Simpson.
“What the hell good is a stupid fluff piece on some charity golf tournament?”
She started to bypass it, then made herself stop. Just like sieving the spoil, she reminded herself. It might be grunt work, but it was a necessary step.
“How long does it take to make a damn pot of coffee?” she wondered and propped her chin on her elbow as she read the article.
She nearly missed it. Her eyes had moved on before her brain registered the information. Her finger jerked on the mouse, then slowly scrolled back.
“We’re out of milk,” Jake announced as he came back in with the coffeepot. “So no matter how bad it is, you drink it black.”
He lowered the pot as she turned her head and he saw her face.
“What did you find?”
“A connection. Barbara Simpson, née Halloway.”
“Halloway. Barbara Halloway. The maternity-ward nurse.”
“It’s not a coincidence. Funny she didn’t mention working at the hospital where Suzanne Cullen’s baby was born. Funny she didn’t mention living in the area when that baby was stolen.”
Jake set the pot down. “We’ll want to verify it.”
“Oh, we will. Poffenberger was rambling on about her. ‘Cool,’ she said. ‘Snooty redhead just out of nursing school.’ That bitch was part of it, Jake. Simpson connects to Carlyle, Halloway connects to Simpson, and so to Carlyle. Simpson and Carlyle to my parents. Halloway to Suzanne.”
“We’ll verify,” he repeated. “Find out where she went to school. Dig the next level.”
“We sat in their house. We sat in their house and they dripped shock and sympathy, and she served us goddamn lemonade.”
“We’ll make them pay.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, gently. “I promise you.”
“I need to go to Virginia, face them with this.”
“As soon as we get the rest of the data on her, we’ll go. We’ll go together.”
She lifted a hand, closed it over his. “He held my mother’s hand. He used my father’s grief. I’m going to hurt them.”
“Damn right. Let me take over there for a while.”
“No, I can do it. I need to do it,” she said, gripping his hand when she saw the shutter come down over his face. “I need to do it for my parents, for the Cullens. For myself. But I don’t know if I can if you step back.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
This time she took his face in her hands. “There are a lot of ways of stepping back from someone. I could never make you understand that. You close up, and I can’t find you.”
“If I don’t close up, you slice me in two.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never hurt you.”
“You broke my heart. For Christ’s sake, you broke my goddamn heart.”
Her hands fell limply to her lap. “I did not. No, I didn’t.”
“Don’t tell me.” More furious with himself than with her, he spun away, paced to the door. “It’s my heart. I ought to know.”
“You . . . you left me.”
“Bullshit.” He whirled back. “That’s bullshit, Callie. You’ve got a damn convenient memory. I’ll tell you exactly what happened—fuck!” He balled his hands into fists as the phone on his desk shrilled.
He snatched it up. “Graystone.” He’d lifted a hand to rake his fingers through his hair. They froze. And Callie got shakily to her feet as she saw his expression. “Name of God. How? All right. All right. Keep everybody calm. We’re on our way.”
“What happened?” she demanded. “Who’s hurt?”
“Bill McDowell. He’s not hurt, Callie. He’s dead.”
Eighteen
Callie sat on the ground at the edge of the fallow field just beyond the dig. The sky was fierce with stars, each one of them sharply clear, as if they’d been carved with a laser on black glass. And the half-moon was a white globe cleaved with a honed ax.
The air held the faintest chill when the breeze fluttered. Fall, it seemed, was already moving into the mountains.
She could hear the whine of insects in the grass, and the occasional throaty bark from the dog across the road as the nighttime activity disturbed his routine.
Mr. and Mrs. Farmer, as she thought of the dog’s owners, had come out to see what the ruckus was about. Though they’d gone back inside now, the old farmhouse blazed with lights.
She’d rushed out of the house with Jake minutes after the phone call, with Rosie and Leo right behind them. They’d beaten the police to the scene by ten minutes. But they’d still been too late for Bill McDowell.
Now she could only watch and wait.
Sonya sat beside her, weeping pitifully against her own knees.
Other members of the team sat or stood. The initial chatter born of shock and panic had passed into a kind of dullness that precluded words.
She could see the lights spearing through the trees where the police worked, and occasionally a voice would catch the air just right and carry over to the field. Every once in a while someone nearby would whisper.
What’s going to happen?
Not how could this happen, though that had been the first question. They’d moved beyond that already, into the what now?
She knew they looked to her for the answer. With Jake in the trailer with Digger, and Leo over by the woods with some of the police, she was the only one in authority.
But it was just one more answer she didn’t have.
“I don’t think I can take it. I don’t think I can stand it.” Sonya turned her head, her cheek resting on her updrawn knees. “I don’t see how he can just be dead. Just like that. We were sitting here talking a few hours ago about stuff I don’t even remember. I didn’t even see him go over to the pond.”
“I did.” Bob shifted his feet. “I didn’t think anything of it. He and Digger had a couple of words about something, then Bill went off toward the woods. Figured he had to, you know, take a leak. I didn’t think he was that drunk or anything. I just didn’t pay any attention.”
“Nobody did,” Dory put in. “God, I was half asleep and thinking about crawling into the tent. And I . . . I heard Digger say something like, ‘Don’t fall into the pond and drown.’ I laughed.” Her breath caught on a sob. “I just laughed.”
“We were always laughing at him. Goddamn, he was such a schmo.”
Dory swiped at her cheeks. “It’s not your fault,” she said to Bob. “We wouldn’t have found him so soon if you hadn’t wondered where he was, remembered he’d gone that way. He’d still be in the water if you . . .”
“I want to go home.” Sonya began to weep again. “I just want to go home. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“You go back to the house.” Callie put an arm around her shoulders. “As soon as the sheriff says it’s okay, you go back to the house for the night. See what you want to do in the morning.”
She glanced toward the trailer, then over at Dory. She pointed to the ground beside Sonya, t
Let them cry together, Callie thought. She just didn’t have any tears.
In the trailer Jake set another cup of coffee in front of Digger. “Drink it.”
“I don’t want any damn coffee. God, Jake, that boy’s dead.”
“You can’t help him. You can’t help yourself if you don’t sober up and start thinking.”
“What’s there to think about? I let him walk off, half shitfaced so he could fall in the fucking pond and fucking drown. I was in charge here. I should’ve gone with him.”
“You’re not a baby-sitter, and you’re not responsible for what happened to McDowell.”
“Aw, Christ, Jake, Christ.” He lifted his burnt-raisin face. “Most of them are just kids. They’re just kids.”
“I know it.” Jake pressed his forehead to the cabinet, fought to steady himself, then eased back and got out another cup.
How many times had he needled that kid? Deliberately baited him over Callie. Just for the hell of it.
“But he was old enough to be here, old enough to drink. You’re not here to run herd on them, Dig. You’re here to make sure nobody disturbs the site.”
“Pretty fucking disturbed when a kid’s floating facedown in the water. Where are my smokes?”
Jake picked up what was left of a crumpled pack on the counter, tossed them over. “Drink the goddamn coffee, suck down a cigarette, then tell me exactly what happened. You want to cry over it, cry later.”
“I see Mr. Sensitivity’s hard at work.” Callie shot Jake a disgusted glare as she came in.
“He’s just trying to straighten me up,” Digger replied. He yanked out his bandanna, blew his nose heroically.
“Yeah, and if he pushes your face in shit, you’d say it was to improve your complexion.” She stepped around the little pedestal table and did something she’d never done in her life, or expected to do.
She put her arms around Digger’s bony shoulders and stroked his long, tangled hair.
“I came in here to use the john, then to pull out the bed. Was going to put on some music in case I could talk Sonya into screwing around. I knew he was half drunk. Barely finished a second beer and he was half drunk. I watch out for them, I swear to God. Just to make sure they don’t get stupid. Seemed to me like everybody was settling down.”
He sighed a little, rubbed his cheek against Callie for comfort. “Matt was playing the guitar. Can’t play worth shit, but it’s always nice to have somebody playing something. Those two from West Virginia? Frannie and Chuck? They were making out. Bob was writing something. Had a damn flashlight wired around his hat like a freaking miner. Dory, she was half asleep already, and Sonya was singing. ‘Free Bird.’ She kept messing up the words, but I liked hearing her anyway.”
He closed his eyes. “It was a nice night. Clear, just cool enough. Lots of lightning bugs, and the cicadas were still carrying on. I saw that boy get up, swaying like he was on a ship in a storm. He was a little pissy with the drink. Usually he’s got that goofy grin on his face. Except with you,” he added with a half smile at Jake. “Didn’t like you one bit, figuring you were beating his time with Callie.”
Jake said nothing, just drank coffee and focused on Callie’s face.
“I said how if he needed to whiz, he could use the trailer, but he gave me a little push, told me he wanted to walk. Figured he wanted to tell me to fuck off, but even drunk he wasn’t up for that. So I said . . . Jesus, I told him not to fall into the pond and drown himself. But he did. That’s just what he did.”
Because they were watching each other, Callie saw the emotion run over Jake’s face. The shock, the horror, then the pity.
“How long before someone went to look for him?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know, exactly. I was in here for a while. Figured if I was going to get lucky, I’d better straighten the place up a little. Picked out some music, put it on the CD player there. Got out those candles. College girls like a little romance, right, Cal?”
“Yeah.” She hugged him tighter. “We lap it right up.”
“I cleaned up some. I guess I was in here about fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. I could still hear the guitar. Then I went out, started putting the moves on Sonya. Bob’s the one who asked after Bill. Somebody—can’t remember—said how they thought he’d gone on to bed, and somebody else said he’d gone to take a leak. Bob said how he had to take one himself, so he’d see if Bill had passed out in the woods. Couple minutes later, he was shouting, running back. We all went down there. All of us.
“It was like Dolan all over again. It was like Dolan.”
It was more than an hour later before Callie could manage a moment alone with Leo. “How much do you know?”
“They’re not saying much. They won’t issue cause of death until the autopsy. Once they finish taking statements, I think we should break camp here.”
“I’ve already asked Rosie to see that anyone who’s staying on goes back to the house for the night. We need someone to stay here, and Digger’s in no shape for it.”
“I’ll stay.”
“No, we should take shifts. Jake and I will stay till morning. You and Rosie are better at keeping the team calm. I don’t like the way Hewitt’s looking at Digger.”
“Neither do I, but the fact is he was here at two deaths.”
“There were a lot of people here for this one, and Digger was in the trailer. And as far as we know, Bill fell and drowned. It was an accident. Nobody had any cause to harm that kid.”
“I hope you’re right.” He took off his glasses, polished the lenses methodically on the tail of his shirt. “Rosie and I’ll gather up the team. We’ll be back in the morning.”
“To work?”
“Those who want to dig, will dig. We’re going to get media, Blondie. Can you handle it?”
“Yes. Go get some sleep, Leo. We’ll all do what we have to do.”
She went into the trailer as soon as she was able, tossed out the lousy coffee Jake had brewed, made a fresh pot. The scent of the fragrance Digger had used to clean mixed with the cinnamon scent of the candles he’d lit. Both hung in the air, little whiffs of simplicity and anticipation.
She could hear voices trailing off as people broke camp. And cars leaving. And she imagined most of the team who headed for the house would be up late into the night, going over and over what had happened.
She wanted quiet. Would have preferred to have had both quiet and solitude. But Leo would never have agreed to her staying on-site alone. Jake, she had to admit, was the only person whose company she could stand through this kind of night.
She poured the first cup of coffee, then hearing his footsteps approaching, poured a second.
“I tossed yours out,” she said. “It was bilge. This is fresh.” She turned, held out a cup.
“I’m not bunking outside just because you’re pissed off at me.”
“I don’t expect you to bunk outside, and I’m not pissed off at you. Particularly. I can’t pick up where we left off before the phone rang. I just can’t talk about that now.”
“Fine with me.”
She knew that tone, couldn’t count the times she’d bashed herself bloody against the cold wall of it. She wasn’t up for a battle, but she was never up for retreat.
“I didn’t like the way you were handling Digger. I know you were handling him, but I didn’t like your approach. And you’ll note, I got more out of him with a little comfort and sympathy than you would have with your macho bullshit.”
His head ached. His heart ached. “Why is it women automatically link macho with bullshit? Like they were a single word.”
“Because we’re astute.”
“You want me to say you’re right.” Weary, he dropped down on the thin cushions of the sofa. “You’re right. I didn’t have what you had to offer him. We’ll both agree comforting isn’t one of my finest skills.”
He looked exhausted, Callie noted. She’d seen him blitze