You Don't Want To Know

Chapter 36


Reversing their usual roles, Snyder, having braved the cold, blustery day, had walked back to the station from a coffee kiosk a couple of blocks off the waterfront. Once in the surprisingly quiet office, he fumbled through security and made his way into Lyons’s cubicle, where he set a coffee drink on her desk. It was one of those frothy, sweet things he hated and that she seemed to consume without so much as a thought to the exorbitant cost or high calorie count. He’d even remembered the straw, which he found extraneous.

She was leaning forward, elbows on the neat surface of her desk, her eyebrows pulled together in concentration as she listened to whatever was coming through the headset covering her ears. An older-model tape recorder complete with cassettes sat on her desk. Nearby, wedged between her computer monitor and a small terrarium packed with succulent plants—those weird alien-looking things his grandmother cultivated—was a perfect stack of tiny cartridges.

“Wow.” She clicked off the recorder, ripped off the earphones, and picked up her drink. “Thanks.” After taking a sip, she made a grateful humming noise. “Eggnog?”

“ ’Tis the season.”

“Almost. Mmm.” Another sip. “So what got into you?”

“I’m just that guy,” he said, and she laughed, nearly choking on the latte. “And I figured you might need a break. You’ve been at this most of the day.”

“Any news on Cheryl Reynolds’s wig?”

He shook his head. “Still MIA. What’ve you got?”

“Interesting stuff,” she said, and tapped a finger on one of the short stacks of cassettes, all marked in Cheryl Reynolds’s distinctive hand. Leaning back in her chair, she waved him into the office and he, with his plain coffee, dropped into one of the side chairs. “I’m still missing the latest tapes from Ava Garrison, which bothers me.”

“Me too.”

“We’ll keep looking, but in the meantime, I’ve got these.”

“And they are of . . . ?”

“Jewel-Anne Church.”

“Did you know that when her father, Crispin, was the warden—I mean, administrator—of Sea Cliff that the family lived on the premises for a while?”

“Of the hospital?”

Lyons nodded, holding her cup and staring thoughtfully at the recorder. “It seems they’d lived up in the big house, but there was some kind of rift with his brother, who ended up dying not long after. Connell, the brother, is the father of Ava and Kelvin. Ava’s brother died in that boating accident a few years back. The rest of the tribe was fathered by Crispin, compliments of two wives, Regina, now deceased, and Piper, the younger one who’s the mother of his youngest two children, a boy named Jacob and then Jewel-Anne.”

“The cripple?”

“The PC term is handicapped.”

He lifted a shoulder.

“I got all this information from doing a little research, and Jewel-Anne confirmed it in these tapes.” Lyons picked one up. “From what I can piece together, the two brothers had a falling-out, and then Crispin gave all his pieces of Neptune’s Gate to his kids. Subsequently they all sold out to their cousin Ava. Except Jewel-Anne. She won’t budge.”

“And because of the sessions with Cheryl you know why?” he guessed.

“Maybe.” She was concentrating again, chewing on the straw protruding from her drink. “But here’s the deal. The family was living in two of the row houses at Sea Cliff right before Crispin Church was fired and Sea Cliff closed.”

“So?”

“So, it turns out Jewel-Anne had contact with some of the patients.”

“Inmates,” he said.

“Call them whatever. A lot of them weren’t dangerous, just had mental issues.”

“Off their collective rockers.”

She scowled at him. “The point is, one of the patients held a particular fascination for Jewel-Anne.”

He saw it coming then . . . and waited.

Lyons offered up a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile and played with her straw, moving it up and down in her drink. “It seems Daddy’s little girl fancied herself in love with the most notorious of all of Sea Cliff’s patients: our good buddy, the missing Lester Reece.”





“You’ve been spying on me!” Ava charged as she strode to the stable the next day and found Dern brushing Cayenne’s sorrel coat until it gleamed. Pale, wintry sunlight was filtering through the windows, and the tufts of red hair glinted as it caught in the light. The stable was warm, filled with the scents of horses, hay, and dust, though Ava, who’d spent most of the night installing her new spy equipment, barely noticed.

“Excuse me?” From Cayenne’s stall, Dern glanced her way but kept moving the currycomb over the mare’s broad back.

Several horses in nearby stalls lifted their heads, ears pricked forward as she passed their mangers, and Rover, lying near a feed bin, thumped his tail.

All in all, the interior of the long building was serene, until the firestorm that was Ava arrived.

“You’ve been spying on me, reporting back to Wyatt, telling him where I’ve been! I accused you once of being my bodyguard and you scoffed at the idea.”

“Because I’m not.” Staying within the confines of the box stall, he rubbed Cayenne gently with a towel. The mare switched her tail and snorted a bit, but put up with his grooming.

“Dern, I know. Wyatt admitted it.”

“Did he?”

“Yes!” God, the man was frustrating. In a whole different way than her husband.

“About time.” Then to the horse, “There ya go, girl, all gussied up.”

He exited the stall and latched the gate behind him.

“I don’t like you spying on me and running back and reporting to Wyatt,” Ava told him coldly.

“That’s what I’m doing?” He was singularly unconcerned.

“He claims so.”

“And you trust him?”

“He knew that I’d been up on the ridge, and the only other person who knew was you, Dern. You’re just another of his minions, aren’t you?”

“I told him about the ridge because I figured someone else might figure it out, and I wanted him to trust me.”

“What a crock of BS that is!”

One side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile that had no right being so coolly sexy. Damn the man with his beard-darkened square jaw and intense eyes. In the half-light of the stable, the blades of his face in shadow, he was too rugged and handsome for his own good. “Not a crock.”

“Then tell me why,” she demanded.

“Because I was told to.” Folding his arms over his chest, stretching the shoulder seams of his suede jacket, he suggested, “Why don’t you take a deep breath and start from the beginning.”

Wound up and running on very little sleep, Ava could feel her ire rising. “Last night, Wyatt and I got into another one of our fights. In the middle of it, Wyatt told me how he asked you to keep an eye on me. Like I’m five or something!”

“He did ask me.” Dern was nodding as if agreeing with himself in a silent argument. “I told you that.”

“And you didn’t think you should warn me that my husband had his spies out?” she demanded. Dern was the one person she thought she could trust on the island, the only damned one.

“Now, that would’ve defeated the purpose, wouldn’t it?”

“Purpose?”

Leveling his gaze at her, he said, “So that I could pick and choose whatever I wanted to tell him.”

“Wait a sec—”

He lifted a hand. “Hear me out. You’re right. I wasn’t going to tell you because I knew it would only get you all upset again, and the way I figure it, you need a friend right now.”

“And you’re it?” she said sarcastically.

“I’m on your side.”

“My side?” She hooked a thumb at her chest. “Not by ratting me out, you’re not.”

“Look, I didn’t volunteer for the job, and it wasn’t part of our original deal, but I agreed because I needed the work.”

“You could have told me. I can keep a secret.”

“Can you?” Everything in his expression conveyed doubt. “Well, so can I. For example, I haven’t ratted you out about your forays up to the widow’s walk in the middle of the night.”

She couldn’t believe it! He knew about that?

“You’ve been up there twice as far as I know.”

“No, I wasn’t anywhere near—”

“Like hell, Ava.” Quick as a snake striking, he reached out and grabbed her arm, his fingers strong and hard through her sweater and jacket. “I saw you, followed you, but decided if you were going to pull some crazy stunt like climbing on the damned fire escape, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I didn’t think it would hold both of our weight, and by the time I saw you and your flashlight, it would’ve been too late for me to do anything about it, so I just waited. What the hell’s wrong with you?” The fingers around her arm tightened. “You have some kind of death wish?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what were you doing?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

His lips curved down and he studied her face. Though he didn’t say a word, an unspoken threat hung between them.

“You’re going to tell Wyatt.”

“Not if you explain.”

“I knew it.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t trust you.”

“Sure you can.”

“You just said you’re working for my husband.”

“What I said was, I pick and choose what I tell him.” His eyes searched the contours of her face, and she felt light-headed, her heart trip-hammering.

Don’t trust him. You can’t! He’s playing you. Just like everyone else on this damned island!

He inched his face closer, and she knew in an instant that he intended to kiss her. No! Her heart was already clamoring, her breath catching in her throat. Oh, God! Closer still, the hand on her arm drew her near, and though her feet were planted solidly, her upper body came forward.

“This is a mistake,” he said, his breath warm against her face.

“I know. I can’t . . .” But as the words escaped, his mouth suddenly molded over hers. He yanked her close, strong arms surrounding her, lips hot, hard, and sensuous.

Don’t, Ava. Don’t do this. Getting involved with Austin Dern is insanity!

Turning off the voice in her head, she let go, winding her arms around his neck, pressing her anxious mouth to his, hearing him groan in his own protest. Her blood ran hot through her veins, racing to the beat of her erratic heart. Her head swam with denial and desire, and every part of her was electrified, wanting . . . needing . . . finding solace and joy in the touch of this man. He found the buttons on her coat, and she slid her hands beneath his jacket, feeling rock-hard muscles under his shirt.

Something deep inside of her broke, something hot and molten, and the arguments in her mind faded into the darkest corners of the stable. Her knees went weak and her mind filled with searing images of glistening, sinewy muscles, of hard, naked buttocks and firm pectoral muscles. She imagined him above her, parting her legs, thrusting into her as she clung to him and pressed her lips and teeth into the side of his neck. . . .

As if he saw the window into her fantasy, he lifted his head and swore under his breath, then released her and stepped away. Gazed at her through smoldering eyes from a fire that hadn’t quite been extinguished. “This is wrong.”

“I know.” Shame washed up the back of her neck. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He grabbed her hand and held it tight, so hard it was nearly painful. “My fault.” As if he realized he’d squeezed too hard, he let go. “It won’t happen again.”

“It takes two, Dern,” she said, her voice husky. “I was into it. You’re not the one who’s married.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“It has everything in the world to do with it.”

She turned and began walking toward the door when his voice stopped her. “I don’t know what the hell you were doing up on the roof, but stop it, will ya? You could get killed.”

Looking over her shoulder, she asked, “You won’t tell?”

“Not if you take me with you next time. If you’re gonna die, I may as well die with you.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Crazy’s normal around here,” he said, and she half laughed as she left, even though, deep in her heart, she knew that she would be a fool to trust him.

Fact was, she couldn’t trust anyone, and as she walked back to the house, she crossed her fingers that he would keep his mouth shut about what he’d seen last night, like Trent had promised. Hopefully no one else was aware what she’d been up to. She didn’t need anyone foiling the trap she planned to set tonight.





She waited until after two before heading to the attic again.

The installation of the camera and recorder were as easy as the salesman had insisted. After putting the wireless spy equipment together in her bathroom, Ava had watched the clock until the middle of the night. Sweating bullets in the fear that someone would see her, she’d first taken the risk of shutting down the main switch for all of the electricity to the house, as the computer salesman had suggested, so that whoever had set their recorder in the attic might have to reset it due to the electrical interruption. She’d waited a full five minutes, thinking someone would wake up to the too-quiet house without the rumble of the furnace or the hum of the refrigerator or one of the beeps from electronic equipment that had been suddenly disconnected.

Her heart had been pounding so loudly, she’d thought the whole world could hear it, but when no one came thundering up the back stairs, she’d let out her breath and quietly placed the camera in a darkened corner of the back staircase. Then, assured she still was the only person awake, she’d climbed up to the widow’s walk and down to the third floor again. In the old servants’ quarters, she’d installed two other tiny cameras, including one in the closet where she’d found the recording device that gave off recorded cries of Noah calling for her.

She’d been a nervous wreck setting up the spy cameras, and twice she’d thought she’d heard someone creeping around on the lower level. She’d frozen, waiting and sweating before determining that the noises were just the result of the old house creaking and groaning as it settled around her.

Fortunately, she hadn’t been caught while the power was down, and hopefully the interruption in the electricity and blinking digital clocks would be attributed to the weather. Now she prayed her new equipment would do its job. With the system’s motion detector, the camera would only video if there was activity on the staircase, and it would send the video and audio images to a small receiver Ava kept inside her purse. She could check the information as often as she wanted, replaying it on her computer. The worst part was hiding the packaging. She flattened the boxes and slid them between the mattress and box springs of a bed in an unused guest room and stashed the packing material in a box that held Christmas ornaments, again in the spare room. Hopefully no one would notice them before she’d collected the evidence she needed and finally had proof that she wasn’t going insane, that someone was really trying to gaslight her.

It had taken her nearly two hours to fall asleep after she’d returned to her bedroom to wait, but so far this morning, no one besides Dern had mentioned the fact that they’d heard someone up last night; nor had anyone commented on the fact that she looked tired as hell, which she hoped could be explained by the fight with Wyatt that Jewel-Anne had no doubt told everyone she’d witnessed.

Good enough for her cover.

For now.





Now it was after ten. Graciela was vacuuming in the hallway outside the bedroom door, and she barely looked up as Ava walked back inside, turned on her computer, and checked the cameras. They had shown no activity. Finally she accessed her bank accounts.

Both Tanya and Dern had suggested she look to the money to find out who would want to make her feel as if she were going out of her mind, and she had, but all her funds appeared to be intact. She couldn’t remember finite details, of course, but essentially there weren’t holes in the bank balances, and though the stock and real estate markets fluctuated, her assets were as she remembered them.

With her memory returning day by day, she was more likely to discover discrepancies, but so far there was nothing out of the norm. At least nothing she could see at first glance. She’d dig deeper, of course, and talk to her broker and banker, but first she wanted to make a call to a private investigator.

It was time to find out everything she could about Tracey Johnson and Charles Yates, and the search would include all of their remaining relatives. With all the things she was starting to remember, the names of Noah’s birth parents rang not one single bell. So, if she couldn’t make the search herself without raising suspicion, she would hire someone.

Tanya, never trusting her ex, had used a guy . . .

Ava didn’t waste time. She picked up her phone, called her friend, and got the name of a PI in Seattle. “He’s good,” Tanya told her, “but not cheap.”

“The truth never is,” Ava had replied. Within fifteen minutes, she’d worked her way through a mousy-voiced secretary to the man himself and secured the services of one A. B. “Abe” Crenshaw.

Now, maybe, she’d find out the truth.