Copper Lake Confidential

chapter 14



The second dealer, an elderly man by the name of Bartlett, was so pleased with everything Macy had shown him that she’d half expected him to want to carry it all away with him. He pronounced every piece excellent, exquisite or extraordinary and told her he could sell every one of the paintings that very day to customers who kept him on the lookout for those artists. He’d even known of a small museum that would pay handsomely for the wedding portrait.

That one, she’d said drily, wasn’t for sale. She still intended to destroy it.

Mr. Bartlett had left the house shortly before noon. They’d taken a break for lunch in town, where they’d run into Anamaria and her sister-in-law, Jessica, who had promptly invited Clary to join their kids for a play-day at the library. Macy had agreed because the child needed a break and time with kids her own age. Besides, this afternoon the primary thing on the schedule was getting Mark’s office and the nurseries packed up.

“Where is Stephen?” Brent asked when they returned to the house.

“He had things to do.” What things, she’d wondered all morning, and did they involve her? Conceit to think that his entire life revolved around her now when a week ago he hadn’t known she existed. But she couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling that she was the reason for his absence.

As she set her purse on the counter, Brent wrapped his arm around her. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you. You’re a grown woman. You don’t have to sneak out in the middle of the night to visit your boyfriend.”

Her face turned deep red, making both him and Anne laugh. “You’re such a good girl,” Anne said, pinching her cheek on the way past.

“You know, he could have just spent the night here.”

Macy didn’t mention that the point had been for her to get out of the house. She didn’t need to, since Anne scrunched up her face. “New lover in worthless husband’s bed? Eww.”

Her cheeks burned hotter, and she felt the need to pull her shirt from her throat to ease the constriction. Problem was, the scoop-neck tank was nowhere near her throat.

Anne laughed again and hugged both of them. “No more teasing about cute little nerd vet. Let’s get to work. Where do you want me?”

Three rooms on the agenda, and Macy couldn’t bring herself to set foot in two of them. Something must have shown in her expression because Anne’s own expression turned serious, her voice gentle. “I’ll take care of the baby’s room, okay?”

All she could manage was a grateful—and guilty—nod. Stephen was wrong for even considering bad things of Brent or Anne. They were good people who loved her and showed it every day. She would accept it was Mark’s ghost haunting her before she’d believe it could be either of them.

When she walked into Clary’s room five minutes later with an armful of packing material, she realized how tense she’d been by the sudden ease that flowed through her. Her shoulders and neck relaxed, her gut unknotted and the taut lines across her forehead went away. The room smelled of her daughter, powdery, sweet, innocent, and she swore if she closed her eyes, giggles and soft snores would echo off the walls.

She was sorting baby clothes when a distant ring sounded. Her hand automatically went to her pocket, where her cell phone sat silent. A moment later Brent called up the stairs, “You just got a hang-up, Anne.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” Anne passed the open doorway on her way to the stairs. “Can you toss it up to me?”

“What if it breaks?”

“Are you doubting my ability to catch? Or yours to throw accurately?”

Macy smiled as she started folding a pile of spit-up-free clothing and stacked them in a box, then immediately her mouth slipped into a frown. What if Stephen wasn’t wrong? What if it was her brother or her sister-in-law, or both of them working together? What if they’d decided she wasn’t fit to have Clary on her own? If they’d decided they would rather have her daughter and their money than have Macy in their lives?

Could Brent sell her out for money? Could Anne?

If either of them were guilty, she would be devastated. But devastation healed. She’d been there before with Mark, with the baby, and she’d made it back. Well, almost back. She would recover, but she would be, oh, so much sadder for it.

The cell phone rang again, this time just down and across the hall. Anne answered quickly, sounding as breezy and carefree as ever. That was one of the things Macy admired about her. No matter how grim life was, she always sounded as if it were good. If you could pretend it, you could be it.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Anne was saying. “I left my cell at the house when we went to lunch. What do you need?”

Where was Stephen? Macy hadn’t thought to ask him how long his business would take. It was amazing how much she missed him. The very last thing she’d expected when she’d driven up from Charleston last week was to fall in love. She wasn’t sure she would ever do that again in this lifetime. But here she was. And she was hopeful in ways she hadn’t known possible when she’d fallen in love with Mark.

Anne passed the room, blowing out a harsh breath, then headed downstairs. The sound of her voice, tight and controlled, floated back up, but her words were indistinguishable. Macy hoped she wasn’t getting bad news about her sister.

If she existed. If anyone outside the Irelands existed in Anne’s life.

Damn it, she hated this! She wasn’t a suspicious person. She gave her trust and didn’t take it back until it was proved a dozen times over that it wasn’t deserved. She wouldn’t let doubt taint two of the closest relationships in her life.

“Macy?” Anne called from below. “Could you come down here a minute?”

Her muscles knotted, her heart fluttered and sweat broke out across her forehead. She tried to tell herself she was overreacting; it was just the near-constant stress, all the reminders of Mark and the true evil she’d lived with. There was no reason to panic.

But that was the hell of panic attacks. There was no reason.

She forced her fists to unclench from the tiny pink silk dress she held, laid it aside and rose from the rocker. Because she was shaky, she held the railing all the way down the stairs, then walked to the back of the house. Finding the kitchen empty, she pivoted toward the office door, stopping at the threshold as she heard the low rumble of the garage door opening.

“Where’s Anne?” she asked of Brent, who was loading a batch of files into a carton.

“She’ll be here in a second. How’s it going upstairs?”

“Okay. Here?”

He gestured toward the sealed cartons stacked in the middle of the room. “Did you know this desk has three hidden compartments?”

“I’m not surprised. A lot of old furniture does.”

“Nothing hidden in any of them.”

“Because Mark’s greatest secret was hidden in his soul.”

“If he had one,” Brent agreed.

Macy’s gaze was drawn to the credenza, and she shifted uncomfortably. Brent had gathered all the photographs in the room there, two dozen or so, mostly portraits though also a few snapshots. One in particular stood out to her, a picture of Mark when he was a teenager, standing beside his grandfather, both of them grinning ear to ear as if they had known something no one else in the world knew.

And they had. He was fourteen the first time he’d killed. Probably half the bodies unearthed at Fair Winds had been his work.

Queasiness swept through her. A handsome kid, a strong impressive man, the majesty of Fair Winds rising behind them. Monsters and the place that spawned them.

Something rippled across the surface of the photo. Just a reflection, she told herself. A dust mote caught by the sun. But the rippling continued, chilling her blood, drawing her across the threshold, first one step, then two, more. Her hand shook as she reached for the frame. The wood was hot, the glass shimmering, the picture changing, transforming.

“Macy?”

Brent’s voice sounded distant, but she couldn’t answer. Her jaws were locked tight, her teeth clamped together, goose bumps giving birth to goose bumps all up her spine. Monsters. But not two. Three. Superimposed right next to Mark was Anne with her ready smile, her compassionate eyes. An unholy trinity of evil.

“Oh, dear God,” she whispered just as Anne’s voice came from the dining room.

“In here. Now.”

Footsteps shuffled, a shoving sound, a muffled curse. Macy looked at the photograph again and saw nothing but what had always been: Mark and his grandfather, grinning at the camera. The glass was normal glass, the wood just wood. She turned slowly, seeing Brent still behind the desk but on his feet, a stunned and bewildered look on his face, and she turned more and saw Stephen, dazed, disheveled, barely able to sit upright in the chair nearest the desk. A man stood a few feet behind him, his white shirt rumpled and stained, his face vaguely familiar, and Anne was in the doorway.

Anne, her sister-in-law, her friend, her daughter’s second mother, holding a gun on them all.

* * *

“Anne...what the hell—?”

She smiled tightly at Brent’s shocked words. “Yeah, that was my first thought, too, when this idiot called and said he’d kidnapped our cute little nerd vet. What the hell.”

“He was asking questions about you!” the man protested.

“Any fool can ask questions. It’s putting the answers together in the right way that matters, and this fool couldn’t have done that.” Disgust crossed her face. “We had a plan, Duncan. All you had to do was stick to it. You didn’t have to drag Stephen into it. You didn’t have to drag yourself any further into it than you already were. But you panicked.”

Macy looked from Duncan to Stephen. His eyes were glazed, and his rumpled hair showed blood crusted and drying at the crown of his head. He shook his head several times as if trying to clear it without success.

From somewhere upstairs came Scooter’s barking, and she realized she hadn’t seen the dog since they’d returned from lunch. He’d probably gone to snooze on her bed while they were gone, and Anne had closed the door, shutting him in. At least he’d be safe up there.

“What’s going on, Anne?” Brent demanded. “Who is this guy?”

“He works at Claremont,” Macy said. “In administration, I think.”

The man shot Anne a look as if her recognition justified his kidnapping Stephen.

Claremont, Anne, a kidnapping, a gun... Oh, God, Stephen had been right. Anne had wanted everyone to think Macy was insane. She wanted possibly her daughter and definitely their money, and she was willing to do anything to get it. Marry Brent. Befriend Macy. Mother Clary. Lie and deceive and torment.

Murder. Just like Mark.

Brent’s shoulders slumped, and a look of such anguish crossed his face that Macy’s heart broke for him. “You want the money? You married me so you could get access to my sister? To her money?”

“You think I’d go to this much trouble for Macy’s inheritance? Invest more than a year of my life for her piddling little fortune?” Anne shook her head with mock disappointment. “I want Clary’s money. And Clary.”

Anger surged through the numbness that had fallen over Macy. “You can’t have my daughter.”

“Oh, sweetie, I can.” Anne’s voice was so normal, her sympathetic look so familiar. She could even convince Macy—had almost convinced her—that she was losing her mind. “You made Brent her guardian in the event that something happened to you, and Brent made me her guardian in the event that something happened to him. So if you die, and he dies... Your mom and dad have already said they can’t raise her, and they know how much I love her, and Mark’s mother doesn’t really give a damn. Who’s going to fight me for her?”

Stephen stirred, grimacing as if the movement nauseated him. “My sister. I called her before I left the house this morning.” The words were slow, slurred. Had Duncan been satisfied with cracking him over the head with something, or had he also drugged him?

“What could you have told your sister?” Duncan scoffed. “You didn’t know anything.”

“I knew that Anne had substituted blood pressure medicine for Macy’s antianxiety drug. I knew enough to be suspicious of her.” Stephen lifted his head and swayed unsteadily, swallowing hard but maintaining eye contact with Duncan. “I knew enough to go straight to you, didn’t I?”

Such a huge sense of relief washed over Macy. Her pills hadn’t stopped working because she was losing control again! Anyone with anxiety disorder would be likely to start having problems again if they stopped their medication.

She bared her teeth at Anne’s partner in a semblance of a smile. “How’s your blood pressure, Duncan? Just about high enough right now to make your brain explode, I’d imagine.”

He bared his teeth back. “It’s fine. I told one of the doctors at work I lost mine, so he refilled it for me, no questions asked.” Turning back to Stephen, he said, “So you told your sister. Big deal. What can she do?”

The answer seemed beyond Stephen at the moment, so Macy responded for him. “She works for the local police department. She’ll prove my medicine was tampered with.”

Alarm stiffened his body, turning his cheeks and throat deep red. “Damn it, Anne!”

Irritation crossed Anne’s face, an expression Macy had never seen there before. What an incredible actress she was. If she’d set her sights on Hollywood instead of the Howard inheritance, she could have made a fortune of her own. “Shut up, Duncan. It’s part of the plan.”

As Anne’s irritation deepened, Macy thought he might be on the hit list, too, but didn’t realize it. He’d provided Anne with information on Macy when she was committed and with the medication to make the switch, but once she’d reached her goal and no longer needed his help, he was a liability.

Slowly Stephen got to his feet, wavering so far left, then right, Macy didn’t know how he kept from falling. He awkwardly placed one hand on the desk, then followed it around the corner toward Brent. Carefully he planted one foot in front of the other, ignoring Duncan’s mutter about staying where he was. When he rounded the next corner, he gave Brent a goofy smile. “Do you mind if I trade chairs with you? That one’s not very comfortable.”

Brent moved toward him as if to help, but a sharp word from Anne and a jerk of her head made him back off. He joined Macy, leaning against the credenza for support, rage and sorrow radiating from him. “I’m so sorry, Macy,” he whispered. “So damn sorry.”

“Me, too,” she murmured.

Stephen had almost reached the plush leather chair when his knees buckled, his face drained white and he sank to the floor out of sight. “Stephen!” Macy took a step in his direction, but Brent caught her arm, kept her by his side.

“Oh, for God’s sake, what did you give him?” Anne asked.

Duncan shrugged. “I don’t know. Something to keep him knocked out for the drive here. It’ll clear out of his system. It always does.”

In the small space under the desk, Macy saw Stephen’s huge tennis shoe moving. Hastily she pulled her attention back to Anne and one of her earlier comments. “It can’t be part of the plan for Stephen’s sister to find out someone switched my medication.”

“She won’t find that out. I kept your pills, of course, when I switched them with Duncan’s. Once we’re done here, I’ll switch them back, and all anyone’s going to notice is that a) your pill bottle is almost full and b) there’s no evidence in your system that you’ve been taking them. They’ll think you took yourself off your medication. Mental patients often do that, you know, and then they’re right back in whatever pit they crawled out of. I, of course, will be here to tell the police how you’d been sinking back into that horrible depression that had resulted in your committal the first time, how I had warned Brent, how you both were in denial. How I came home from picking up Clary after her playdate and found such a tragic scene awaiting me. Stephen, Brent, you, all dead at your own hand.”

“I don’t own a gun,” Macy said flatly.

“But you found one. Really, you did. This was your husband’s. It was hidden in the guesthouse. Duncan found it while he kept watch on you until Brent and I got here.”

So she really had seen someone out there. And of course, Anne had given him the code and the key so he could sneak in and rearrange things. “Clary in the pool?”

Anne smiled. “Actually, that was me. I’d brought a doll dressed in her clothes. When I went to get my purse from the guesthouse, I tossed it in. When you screamed, I dragged it out, hid it under some bushes and dashed into the house to pretend I’d been searching for her.”

Stephen’s foot clunked against the desk and Anne scowled at Duncan. “Get him off the floor and into the chair.”

Grumbling about not being hired muscle, Duncan hauled Stephen’s shoulders out from under the desk, then half lifted, half dragged him into the chair. His hair looking tamer than she’d ever seen it, Stephen met her gaze, fear in his eyes, but something more. Hope. Satisfaction.

Oh, God, the panic button! Just last night she’d told him there was one under Mark’s desk. He must have pressed it, which meant the hidden cameras had been activated and the police had been notified. Leave it to him, drugged and probably concussed, to remember the small detail that might save their lives.

If Anne didn’t get too impatient.

Taking advantage of the cover provided by her and Brent’s bodies, Macy felt behind her, searching for the heaviest picture frame there. “Anne, I loved you like a sister. I was so happy when you and Brent got married. I would have given you just about anything if you’d only asked.”

Anne tilted her head to one side. “Would you have given me your daughter?” After a moment, she said, “I didn’t think so. Don’t worry. She doesn’t remember what happened to her father, and I’ll make sure she completely forgets about her mother. She’ll be the best-loved little girl in the world, and I’ll teach her to be strong and independent. She won’t grow up weak-minded and weak-willed like you.”

Weak-minded? Weak-willed? Her fingers brushed a frame and heat warmed them. It was the photo of Mark and his grandfather, she knew from the strange sensations in her hand. She hefted it, unusually heavy for its size, and clenched hot wood and shimmering glass, and without a word, without further thought, she flung it across the room at Anne.

Startled, Anne jerked the gun up and pulled the trigger as the frame sailed end over end. The bullet struck it with a heavy clunk, but the frame’s course didn’t alter. It followed its arc, connecting solidly with her face, glass shattering. The impact made her shriek and stumble backward, falling against the door frame, small cuts bleeding all over her face, dripping into her eyes.

The next voice was the sweetest Macy had ever heard—after Clary’s, of course, and Stephen’s.

“Damn. Nice throw, Macy,” Lieutenant Tommy Maricci of the Copper Lake Police Department said from the doorway. “Mrs. Ireland, we’d better get you and your friend out of here before she does some real damage.”

* * *

Stephen freed himself from the paramedics as quickly as he could. His head wound was cleaned, and whatever sedative he’d been given had worn off for the most part. They advised him to go to the hospital, but he refused. He’d get checked out later, but there were things he had to do first.

Anne and Duncan West had both been taken away in handcuffs, him under his own power, her strapped helpless to a gurney. Tommy Maricci and A. J. Decker were in the living room with Brent, the crime scene people were gathering evidence in the office and from the trunk of West’s car, and Macy was standing at the French doors, staring out into the yard.

She responded when he approached, but not with fear. Without looking, without him speaking, she knew it was him, and she leaned back into him as he put his arms around her. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“For what?”

“Remembering the panic button. Suspecting Anne. Going to Claremont.”

“Getting my head cracked open didn’t do much to help.”

“It forced her to move up her schedule.” She rested her head against his shoulder, and he let his chin sink into the silky mass of her hair. “You saved our lives.”

“That picture frame throw helped. I didn’t know you had an arm like that.”

Finally she tilted her head enough to meet his gaze. “Would you think I was crazy if I said I had help?”

He considered it. Ghosts didn’t exactly fit into his view of the world. But he didn’t know everything. “It makes sense. Despite what he was, Mark loved you and Clary.”

She nodded, hair tickling his jaw. “I may have to stop hating him and just...let go.”

He nodded, too. Hating took so much energy, and there were so many better things she could do with that energy. Like loving him and starting all over again, just her and Clary and him. “Mace— Hey.” He scowled as his right arm was jerked away from her body and found Marnie holding him by the wrist.

She barely glanced at him. “We need a sample of your blood to see what medication you were given.”

Before he could react, the tech had the tourniquet on and was approaching with a needle. Tensing, Stephen turned his head the other way and squeezed his eyes shut, at least until a soft giggle made him open them. Macy was smiling at him. “You don’t faint, do you?”

“He has before,” Marnie answered. “Usually if you distract him and you’re fast enough, he’s okay.”

“Huh. Just like Clary.”

Since he was feeling about three years old, Stephen stuck his tongue out at her.

She laughed again. “Want me to kiss you when it’s over and make it better?”

Now there was a suggestion he could get behind. He couldn’t answer, though, not with the tech withdrawing the needle and Marnie slapping a bandage on his arm, then bending his elbow tightly.

“Hold that for a minute,” she said brusquely, then turned her attention to Macy. “I’m Marnie, his older sister, and you, obviously, are Macy. While I regret the drama you underwent today, I do wish you had beaten your sister-in-law to death with that picture. He’s the only brother I have.” She nodded once for emphasis then walked away.

“Wow. That counts as overwhelming emotion for Marnie,” he murmured.

“She loves you.” Macy slowly turned in his arms to face him. “So do I.” Stretching onto her toes, she kissed him, then brushed her fingers through his hair. “I feel bad.”

“For loving me?”

She made a face at him. “Poor Brent got his heart broken, and I got mine healed. I know you haven’t asked me to stay or anything, but I do love you, Stephen, and I’m not going anywhere. Well, away from this house because it totally freaks me out, but not away from this town. Not away from you. Unless...” She swallowed hard. “Unless you’d rather have someone a little less prone to drama—”

He stopped her words with a kiss that heated too hot too fast and made him a little unsteady on his feet. Holding on to her for balance, he rested his forehead against hers. “I have a suggestion. Let’s get me checked out at the hospital, get your brother checked into a hotel, get Clary and Scooter settled at home, and I’ll leave absolutely no doubt in your mind how much I want you in my life. Sound like a deal?”

Her smile came slowly and sent heat straight through his body, making him rethink the order of his suggestions. “Sounds like the best deal ever.” She took his hand, draped his arm over her shoulder and looped her free arm around his waist, encouraging him to lean on her as they started toward the door. “Tell me, Stephen. Do your stories have happy endings?”

His fingers tightened fractionally on her shoulder. “This one does, Mace.”

* * * * *