Copper Lake Confidential

chapter 13



Her grip tightened around the cup, and she took a third drink, larger than the first sips. Her mouth thinned and shadows darkened her eyes. Stephen shrugged. “I suppose it could happen. I can’t remember him ever doing it before, but that doesn’t mean he can’t. It’s just his routine is to go out before bed, then sleep like a log until morning. Unless...”

“Something wakes him,” she said flatly. “You think whoever lit those candles was in the house when he got me up?”

He hesitated to answer. She’d had enough scares already. But that was the point, wasn’t it? She’d had plenty of scares by someone, ghost or human, who had access to her house. If one more fright put her on edge enough to keep her and Clary safe, it would be worth it.

As long as it didn’t push her over the edge.

“More likely the guy woke him as he was leaving. Scooter would have let you know if someone was actually in the house when he was awake. Maybe his point for going out was to make sure the guy was gone.”

“But the alarm was set. I had to disarm it to let him out. I had to reset it when he came back in.”

He summoned his calmest doctor voice. “Honey, if someone’s been moving things, they’ve been in the house before. They have the code and the key.”

“But—but who? I haven’t just given out codes and keys to random people. There’s no reason.”

Random people. That was the problem. Whoever was doing this wasn’t some acquaintance.

When she reached for the cup, he took her hand instead and pulled her over onto his lap. Her slender body was trembling again, nowhere near as badly as when she’d dragged him from a deep sleep, but enough to make him hurt for her. Enough to make him want to hurt whoever was doing this to her. “Who has access?”

She dragged her fingers through her hair before settling her head on his shoulder. “Me. Brent and Anne. Robbie Calloway. The alarm company. Possibly the cleaning service Robbie hired when I told him I was coming back.” A defensive tone entered her voice. “Who has access to your house?”

“Me, Marnie and my landlady.” He trusted Marnie with his life, the same way Macy trusted Brent.

But Stephen didn’t really know Brent, and he hadn’t talked as much to Anne as he had to Brent. His gut instinct was to trust them, but with Macy’s sanity on the line, if not her life, he couldn’t rule out anyone automatically.

“Okay. Robbie. Could he have a motive to hurt you, scare you, make you think you’re crazy?”

“No. No one does.” She lunged to her feet to pace, and he missed the warmth and weight of her body immediately. “I’m just an average woman, Stephen. I’ve got a daughter, and we’ve both got some money. There may be people who don’t like me, but no one who cares enough to qualify as an enemy. No one feels that intensely about me.”

“That’s not true. I feel intensely about you.”

Slowly she smiled, though the stress didn’t leave her face. “But in a good way. No one dislikes me enough to want to hurt me.”

She wanted to believe that. So did he. But the events of the past few days suggested otherwise.

Okay, so he knew Robbie and figured he could dismiss him. The Calloway family had multiple fortunes of its own, one with Robbie’s name on it. He would have been careful about the access granted to the cleaning service, and as for the alarm company, Macy was just one more customer. There was nothing personal between them and her.

And this was very personal.

“What about Mark’s mother and grandmother?”

She had stopped in the doorway to the living room and was watching Clary sleep. Her own shoulders were rounded, and when she faced him, exhaustion was etched into her face. “They both had keys. Lorna probably still does. But Robbie changed the code after Mark died.”

Granted, Lorna could buy the code from a cash-strapped employee at the alarm company or even hire someone who could bypass it. But Lorna hadn’t had contact with her daughter-in-law in a long time. Why harass her now?

Which led back to Brent and Anne. Brent knew how fragile his sister was. He knew how much money she and Clary had. He was next in line for custody of his niece and control of both fortunes.

But he loved his sister—loved her in the never-ending do-anything-for-her way Stephen loved Marnie. If Brent needed money, hell, if he just wanted it, all he had to do was ask, and Macy would give it to him.

Anne loved her, too, and Clary. She was like a second mother to Clary. Macy credited both Brent and Anne with getting her through the ordeal of losing her baby and her husband with her sanity more or less intact.

Could Anne love Clary too much to let her go? Now that Macy was ready to settle elsewhere, was Anne afraid of losing her little girl?

It didn’t feel right. None of it felt right.

Across the room, Macy was standing with her arms across her chest again. Earlier the posture had made her look vulnerable, as if she were trying to protect herself. Now she looked on the offensive, as if she knew the things he was thinking and didn’t like them one bit. “No one I know would do this.”

Someone she knew was doing it. Or Mark’s ghost was hanging around. Or she was terrorizing herself.

Grimly he left the table and went to stand beside her, close enough to feel the chill emanating from her, to smell the faint fragrance of her perfume, the fainter scent of her fear. Together they stood and watched Clary for a moment, then he bumped his arm against hers. “You need sleep. Let me move Clary into the bedroom.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “She’s fine where she is.”

He stilled, gazing down at her delicate fingers, the nails pale pink with white tips. Pretty, pampered hands, but strong enough to pick up her daughter and carry her where she needed. Strong enough to fight for her daughter. For herself.

She sweetened his next breath as well—less fear, more woman. He shifted his gaze to her face, also delicate, pretty. “Tell me you’re not planning to sleep in that chair.”

She shook her head.

“Tell me you’re not planning for me to sleep in that chair.” He managed something of a grin. “Though I will if you want.”

Amazingly, slowly, she shook her head again.

Wow. He combed his fingers through his hair. He’d thought...wanted...wondered... But now... Wow.

A hint of a smile touched her lips. “I feel very intensely about you, too, Stephen. I want to sleep with you, but I also want to sleep with you. I want to be close.”

He didn’t have a clue exactly which meant have sex—sleep or sleep. He didn’t care. If all she wanted tonight was to share space and warmth and know she wasn’t alone, he was okay with that.

But when he followed her into the bedroom and turned from adjusting the door so they could hear any sound from Clary, Macy was stripping off her clothes. He stared long and hard. In a minute, he’d have to take his glasses off, and he wanted to remember her like this—naked, pale, sleekly curved, so damn beautiful and smiling at him with shy innocence, uncertainty, need.

You’re getting lucky tonight, a voice crowed in his head. The cheerleader/homecoming queen/prom queen had chosen the nerd. He felt just like that nerd again as he removed his glasses and everything went fuzzy, as his knees went weak and his erection swelled hard. If he tried to speak, he was pretty sure his voice would wobble and squeak, so he didn’t say anything. He just walked to her, cupped her face and kissed her.

He was devouring her, easing her closer to the bed, when she began tugging at his boxers. She got distracted, though, her delicate, strong fingers wrapping around him and wringing a guttural groan from him. Evading her hands while still feasting on her mouth, he shucked the boxers, managed to find the night table behind him and located a condom inside before they tumbled onto the bed together.

* * *

He didn’t know how much time had passed. Two condoms’ worth, the first too fast, of course, the second long enough to make a nerd proud if he weren’t too tired to think about it. Then Stephen grinned. A true nerd was never too tired to take credit for and pride in his accomplishments. He’d made the Warrior Princess cry out, made her cling to him as if he were the only important thing in her world. Damn right he was proud.

Beside him she slept, her head on his shoulder, her arm over his middle. Her breathing was even and slow, her sleep so deep that when he brushed her hair from her face, she didn’t even twitch. He wouldn’t be surprised if she could sleep twenty-four hours. Sexual release was good for more than just sexual frustration.

But just as release had made her melt and go limp, he was now wide-awake, and his thoughts returned to her brother and sister-in-law. Macy had known Brent all her life; presumably it would be harder for him to harbor any great secrets without tipping her off.

Anne was another matter. She and Brent hadn’t been married a year yet. How long had they dated? Where had they met? Was it good fortune that she seemed to love his family as much as he did?

There wasn’t a correlation between length of time known and depth of love. Stephen had met Macy a week ago, and he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, be father to Clary, have more babies. He wanted to make Macy laugh and smile, to wake up with her every morning, to be exactly who he was and to let her be exactly who she was. He felt right with her. He belonged with her.

Anne could have had that instant strong connection, too. If her family was warm and loving, she would have been predisposed to want that kind of relationship with her in-laws. If her family was distant and dysfunctional, she could have been predisposed to want a normal relationship with her in-laws, to embrace a healthy family life with enthusiasm.

Unable to sleep and needing to do something, he carefully slid out from beneath Macy. She didn’t murmur or cling; her breathing didn’t change. She adjusted her head on the pillow and kept right on sleeping. He put on his glasses and boxers, then the thought of Clary made him add shorts and a T-shirt.

When he left the bedroom, Clary was still asleep, too. Scooter, curled up by her legs, lifted his head to watch Stephen, then laid it down again.

In the kitchen, Stephen picked up the mugs from the table, rinsed and left them in the sink, then he picked up the pill bottle. It was a popular medication, used to treat both depression and anxiety. It was a pill short; at some point, she’d felt the need to double the dose. Only six remained. And they weren’t working, she’d said.

Wrapping his fingers tightly around the bottle, he went into the office and logged online, looking up the medication. He scanned the information on the manufacturer’s website, the side effects—hallucinations, hauntings and amnesia weren’t among them—and looked at the enlarged photo of the tablet. It was round, white, with letters and a number on one side, the other blank.

With nothing else demanding his attention, Stephen opened the bottle and shook one tablet into his palm. Round, white, letters on one side.

But they didn’t match the letters shown on the screen. When he turned the pill over, it wasn’t smooth like the one on the screen. It had numbers. Maybe it was a generic, though the bottle indicated it was the brand name.

Next he searched for a description of the pill, and a result popped up an instant later. It was a medication for hypertension. No wonder it hadn’t helped her anxiety. In fact, considering that the pharmaceutical company was adamant that patients should be weaned from the anxiety medication, she was damn lucky she hadn’t had more than a few hallucinations.

Had it been an honest mistake? A pharmacy tech in a hurry sticking Macy’s label on someone else’s meds, the pharmacist not catching the error before the prescriptions were picked up?

Considering everything else that had happened, he didn’t think so. Someone had deliberately replaced her anxiety meds with blood pressure medication.

And who had access? Brent and Anne.

God, it would break Macy’s heart if her brother was trying to make her think she was crazy. Mark’s betrayal had been bad enough. Could she survive being betrayed by Brent?

It must be Anne. It had to be, for Macy’s sake. It would still hurt, but that was a recoverable hurt.

Grimly he returned the pill to the bottle, then did what he’d been putting off: he did a Google search for Macy and Mark. By morning he intended to know everything the internet had to say about either of them.

* * *

Waking up was a slow, easy transition from sleep to awareness. The sun shone through the window at the head of the bed, casting light and creating shadows. The bedroom door was closed, but Macy could hear two voices—Clary’s cheerful little-girl and Stephen’s deeper all-man rumble. A sweet, satisfied, broad smile stretched across her face. Cute little nerd vet, Anne and Brent had called him. A bumper sticker she’d seen somewhere said Nerds Try Harder. Stephen didn’t need to try. He was perfect.

She rolled onto her side, facing his room. Unlike his office, it was sparsely decorated: one full bed made for snuggling, a dresser, a nightstand. White sheets and pillowcases, tan blanket, navy bedspread. It was a room where he slept, nothing more.

Except last night.

She didn’t know what time it was, only that it was daylight and she could easily sleep another ten or twelve hours if she didn’t have an appointment with the second dealer at nine. Besides, the aroma of coffee was faintly on the air, its fragrance rich and dark enough to start her heart pumping. It drew her from the bed and into her pajamas, folded neatly on the dresser—definitely not where she’d discarded them. With a finger-comb for her hair, she opened the door and her senses were assaulted with the scents of coffee and something savory-sweet.

Stephen and Clary sat at the kitchen table, identical mugs and empty plates in front of them. She was gesturing wildly, her favored way of talking, and he listened as if he really cared about flying dragons and knights of the realm. Considering his fantasy-book career, maybe he did.

He saw Macy first, and his serious gaze settled on her. She couldn’t tell by looking at him that anything earthshaking had happened last night, and for just one instant she wondered if the night had been out of character for her but far more the norm for him. Then he smiled, not even a full smile, but one with such—such possession in it—that her legs got wobbly and she had no choice but to sit with them at the table if she didn’t want to fall flat on her face.

“Hey, Mama. Look, I’m drinking milk from a coffee cup. And we had pumpkin pie for breakfast. For breakfast. Dr. Stephen didn’t have any cereal or eggs or sausage, and he says oatmeal is for aliens. Even Scooter won’t eat it. And I told him, me, neither.”

Her daughter’s rambling settled over her like a familiar old blanket. This was exactly what she needed before she faced the house again.

Stephen brought her a mug of coffee, sweetened and creamed, and a saucer with a piece of pumpkin pie. Before she could speak, he did. “It’s got eggs in it, and a vegetable, and the crust is kind of like bread. And it’s all I had in the freezer that appealed to Clary.”

“I love pumpkin pie for breakfast.”

He smiled again, brushing her shoulder as he pulled away, as if he needed a touch, no matter how small. After refreshing his coffee, he said, “Clary, want to watch TV with Scooter?”

She slurped the last of her milk, swiped her face with a paper towel doubling as napkin and grinned. “You bet.”

As they trotted off, Stephen called after her, “Watch out, though. Animal Planet is his favorite channel.”

The TV came on a moment later. It always amazed Macy how the use of remote control devices seemed to be part of a kid’s genetic code these days.

Stephen sat down to her right, and she automatically turned her chair in that direction. “I’ve got some things to do this morning, but first I need to ask you some questions, okay?”

Discomfort took the shiny edge off the morning, but she nodded. They’d avoided discussing who among the people close to her would have a motive strong enough to want her recommitted to the psychiatric hospital. She’d seen the guilt and trouble in his eyes while he considered whether it was her brother or her sister-in-law, but he hadn’t pushed her and she had chosen instead to push something else.

Now, thin-lipped, fingers gripping the coffee mug too tightly, she nodded.

His voice automatically lowered to make certain Clary couldn’t hear him. “Does Brent have any financial problems?”

“No. His business is very successful.”

“Do he and Anne spend a lot of money?”

“No.”

“But they both love Clary.”

She nodded emphatically.

“How long have you known Anne?”

“About a year.”

“And Brent’s known her a few months longer?” He waited for her nod. “Where did they meet?”

Even thinking Brent or Anne could be the one haunting her made Macy’s stomach roil. Talking about them, sharing personal things, made her face sweat. “At the hospital. Anne’s sister was also a patient there. They’d bump into each other in the lobby, the restaurant, share their woes, and they fell in love.” Yes, the hospital had had a full-service restaurant rather than a cafeteria.

“Do you know her maiden name?”

“Jones. Anne Jones.”

For an instant, his eyes almost rolled. Macy knew what he was thinking: such a common name. Easy to hide behind, easy to remember if it wasn’t really yours, far too hard to easily follow up on.

Then he schooled his expression, giving no hint what he thought of that. “What hospital?”

“Claremont House. It’s in Columbia. The five-star resort of mental institutions.”

“So Anne comes from money, too.”

Feeling the hated fluttering in her chest, Macy took her cup and stood up to pace the small room. It was a nervous behavior that made other people look at her suspiciously, but activity helped her with control. “I don’t know. Either that or really good insurance.”

“How is her sister? When did she get out?”

“I—” Macy swallowed. “I don’t know. Anne never talks about her to me.” In fact, she’d never heard Anne mention family at all. It was as if once she’d married Brent, his family became hers and hers no longer existed. “I need to take my medication.”

Silently Stephen rose and got the bottle off the top of the refrigerator, well out of Clary’s and Scooter’s reach, handing it to her.

She swallowed one pill with coffee, then shoved the bottle into her shorts pocket. “You can’t really suspect...Anne’s like a sister to me, a mother to Clary. She would never do anything to hurt me. And Brent—it’s just not in his character. He could no more terrorize me than you could.”

He blocked her way, took the coffee, then put his arms around her. “I’m just trying to figure this out. Last night, when I opened the door and found you standing there, so scared and shaken... It’s got to stop, Mace. Whoever’s doing this has to stop.”

She wondered which would be worse: being scared all the time, or finding out it was Brent or Anne manipulating her fear. She’d had her heart broken twice before. She didn’t want to go through it again. She just wanted to be like everyone else in the world.

“You and Clary are welcome to stay here as long as you want, but I’ve got to get going.”

He offered her the house key on his key ring, but she numbly shook her head. “We’ll go home. Brent and Anne will worry—” She broke off, and her mouth tightened. “We’ll go home,” she repeated.

* * *

Stephen kissed them both goodbye on the porch, watched Macy load Clary and Scooter into the van, then walked to his car parked next to the house. After following them to their house, he drove out of the neighborhood and headed for the interstate that would take him to Augusta, then Columbia.

He’d spent most of the night on the internet and found countless sites that covered Mark Howard’s death, his public life and his not-so-public activities, plenty of mentions of Macy, a fair number of Brent and virtually nothing about Anne. Of course, not knowing her maiden name hadn’t made the search easier—wouldn’t have made it easier now that he knew. The most he’d located about her was a blog belonging to a friend of Brent’s who’d held a party to celebrate his and Anne’s marriage. His lovely new wife from Columbia was the extent of her mention.

He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d also checked Macy’s cell phone. She’d left it lying on the night table when they went to bed. He hadn’t looked at her phone book or call records. He’d simply scrolled through the pictures, hundreds of them, and forwarded two good shots of Brent and Anne to his own cell. With no more of a name to go on than Anne, he would need the photographs.

Once he merged onto Interstate 20, he kicked up the speed to ten above the limit and set the cruise control. Should he have told Macy why her anxiety meds weren’t working? That he was going to the hospital to see if he could learn anything about Anne? He wasn’t hopeful. If hospitals were prickly about patient confidentiality, psychiatric hospitals must be doubly so. But he wasn’t looking for information on a patient. Just a woman who’d spent a lot of time there.

He decided for the dozenth time that not telling Macy was right. One more dose of blood pressure medicine wouldn’t hurt her. Besides, she had to be at the house with Brent and Anne while he was gone, and there was no way she could hide his suspicions—her guilt—that long, if at all. She would surely say something to someone, and whichever one was responsible for switching the pills—maybe both of them—might take more direct action. It was best that she remain in the dark awhile longer.

And if he didn’t learn anything on this trip?

Then it was time to call the police. Ellie Maricci’s husband, Tommy, was chief of detectives now that A. J. Decker had been promoted to fill the retiring chief of police’s spot. Tommy was a good cop and had subtlety down to an art. Marnie had worked with all of the detectives at one time or another, and she respected Tommy a lot.

The drive to Columbia and to Claremont House took nearly three hours. The place was gorgeous. Built of stone and surrounded by terraced gardens, it looked like an Italian villa lifted from Tuscany and placed on this spot of wooded land. The roof was rust-colored tiles, huge windows lined four floors and marble steps led up from a rose garden and down to the pool, up to patios and down to lush expanses of grass.

Access to the main portion of the building was easy: he simply walked in the door. A receptionist sat at a desk centered on a large patterned rug in the middle of a vast marble floor. A bouquet of pink roses stood at each end of the desk, their shade a perfect match to the pinks in the contemporary paintings on the walls.

A broad corridor bisected the lobby running north-south, and two smaller ones ran east-west from each end of the lobby. Discreet signs indicated gift shop, restaurant and snack bar down one hall, administrative offices down another. A grand staircase led to the second floor, guarded by a suit full of muscles at the bottom.

Stephen wondered how luxurious the patient rooms were—not that it mattered. It was still a hospital room, its occupant still in a place she or he didn’t want to be. Macy must have hated every moment in her gilded prison.

A very expensive prison. She’d commented that Anne’s family either had money or very good insurance, but from what Stephen understood, insurance rarely paid as well for psychiatric treatment as for medical care, and this place must have cost a fortune. Was Anne’s sister still here? Was that another reason, in addition to Clary, Anne wanted Macy out of the way? Because with Brent’s renewed access to the Howard fortunes, she could pay for her sister’s care?

Or did her sister even exist?

He approached the woman at the receptionist’s desk. She was about his mother’s age, with narrow glasses and a well-fitted suit, and she gave him a warm smile. “Can I help you?”

He pulled out his phone and located the photo of Anne. “I’m picking up my friend here. She was visiting her sister, and her car wouldn’t start. Her name is Anne Jones. Have you seen her?”

He watched the woman study the photo closely before shaking her head. Not so much as a faint hint of recognition. “I haven’t, but I only came on an hour ago.”

“I’m surprised you don’t recognize her. She practically lived here last time her sister was in.”

She shook her head again. “I can have her paged if you like.”

“Um, no, thanks. I’ll just wait around here like she told me to.” He smiled awkwardly, shoved his cell and his hands into his shorts pockets and walked off to look at a monster-sized painting on the far wall. After a furtive glance at the reception desk, he turned down the hall and went into the gift shop.

The woman working there was a clone of the first: older, well-dressed, friendly smile. He smiled back, then spent a moment or two wandering the aisles on his way to the checkout counter. She looked up and smiled again. “Can I help you find something?”

“Maybe someone.” He showed the photo again. “My friend Anne. She brought her sister by today, and I guess they’re running late since we were supposed to meet half an hour ago.”

“Oh, honey, you should know by now that the entire world’s running late. No one seems able to keep to a schedule.” She pulled a pair of narrow red glasses dotted with yellow flowers from a pocket and slid them on, then took the phone. “Ah, that Anne. I haven’t seen her...oh, in a good long while. You say she brought her sister today?”

Swallowing hard, Stephen willed his hand not to tremble. “Yeah, for a—a follow-up visit.”

“Oh, poor thing. And here I thought you meant we were getting another dedicated volunteer. I didn’t even know Anne had a sister, and certainly not one who needed...ah, Claremont care.” Her face pinked, and she gave over the cell and began backing away to a stack of boxes behind her. “I’d better get back to work. You tell Anne that Betty in the gift shop says hello.”

Stephen didn’t move, his brain trying to process the new information and all the questions he wanted to ask, but Betty was studiously ignoring him while she unpacked the top carton. The arrival of two customers made the decision to leave for him. He walked out, a dozen feet down the hall and into the snack bar.

It was small and offered mostly prepackaged items, a limited menu of hamburgers and hot dogs, plus fountain pop. A half dozen staff members sat at the tables, having a late breakfast or an early lunch, but the clerk, in her early twenties, was unoccupied, leaning against the counter and inspecting the bright pops of color that covered her fingernails.

“Hi,” he greeted her, inhaling deeply the scent of fatty meat and steamed buns. “Coke and a hot dog, please.” As she pulled on plastic gloves, he added, “Slow morning, huh?”

She gave him a look. Good job of stating the obvious, Noble.

“Have you worked here long?”

Another look. Apparently small talk wasn’t part of the job. But after plopping a wiener on a moist bun, she said, “Couple years.”

“A, uh, friend of mine used to volunteer here. I—I was thinking about maybe doing the same if there are, uh, any positions open. Anne Jones. You know her?”

He wasn’t sure if she was thinking about it or simply ignoring him so he showed her the digital photo. She grunted. “Not really. Seen her around.” She set his hot dog and Coke on a small red tray, took his money, then glanced around the dining room. “If you’re interested in volunteering, you should talk to that guy. Duncan West. He’s in charge of volunteers.”

Stephen followed the line of her pointing finger out glass doors to a patio shared by both the snack shop and the restaurant next door. Duncan West sat alone at a table for four. He wore a white dress shirt with pale gray trousers and was reading on an iPad while he ate.

“Uh, thanks. I will.” He carried the tray to the condiment station and squirted mustard onto the hot dog. So Anne had volunteered at Claremont House instead of simply visiting her sister there, and she hadn’t talked about her sister with the people she worked with. Information, but nothing to justify accusing her of anything but having a giving spirit and guarding her sister’s privacy.

But damned if Stephen didn’t still believe she was guilty.

Drawing a deep breath, he went out the door and walked over to the lone occupied table. “Duncan West? I’m Stephen—” a slight hesitation, then he offered his middle name instead of his last “—Keith. I understand you’re in charge of volunteers around here. I’d like to talk to you about that.”