“Why?” The word slipped from Juniper’s lips unbidden, the first of many that queued up and jostled for attention amid the growing din inside her head. “Did you know? Did you suspect? I don’t understand…”
Reb tore the bag from Juniper’s hands, spilling the foul pellets all over the linoleum floor. “I shouldn’t have shown you,” she muttered, dropping to her knees to try and sweep them into a pile. It was no use. They had scattered far and wide, tiny spheres of what Juniper now knew to be a natural adhesive made from animal by-products. Such a distinct smell. Unforgettable.
Juniper crouched in front of her mother and took her by the shoulders. Forced Reb to face her, though the older woman was scowling through her tears and refused to make eye contact. “Why?” she asked again, and when Reb didn’t answer: “Mom, I was there.” At this, Reb’s eyes locked with Juniper’s for just a second, but she didn’t say anything, so Juniper went on. “I was at the Murphys’ farm the night they were killed. Do you understand what I’m telling you? There was a witness. Me. And I think Lawrence killed Cal and Beth.”
“No,” Reb whispered, but there was no conviction in her tone. Suddenly, she tipped sideways, off her knees and onto her hip. Juniper knew she would have kept going, but the cupboard was in the way, and her mother slumped against it, all the fight seeping out of her.
“It’s okay,” Juniper soothed, changing tactics. Whether her mother knew what happened that night was secondary right now. She had to get to Law, and quickly. So many things were locking into place at once that Juniper could hardly keep up. Had Law seen her crouching in the barn? Had he recognized her? Is that why he spared her life but convinced Reb to exile her only daughter? And did Jonathan know? The hospital marker board flashed in her mind’s eye: Dad. Had Jonathan been trying to warn her?
“It’s going to be okay,” Juniper said again, easing her hand from beneath where it was pinched between her mother’s arm and the cupboard door. “We’re going to be just fine.”
Her mother seemed to be in shock, or at least completely numb to the world around her. Sleepless nights, long days in the ICU, and now her entire life imploding before her eyes. What was going through her mind? Juniper had so many questions, but they would have to wait.
She grabbed her phone from her back pocket and unlocked it, then paused with her finger over the nine. Calling the police made the most sense, but what if Everett responded? Juniper couldn’t trust him. She also refused to call Cora, and didn’t know India or Barry well enough to drag them into this nightmare. Jonathan was in the hospital. She and Ashley were estranged. There was no one in Jericho that Juniper could call. A lightning bolt of longing made her heart sigh Sullivan, but she shoved the thought away before it could reduce her to tears.
Juniper was on her own.
The wind had started to howl, and Juniper instantly regretted her decision to forgo her coat and slip out the back door. But the barn wasn’t far, and Law was somewhere inside. Juniper ducked her head and ran, her feet sure from a lifetime of walking the path.
The Bakers’ barn was larger than the Murphys’, and much more modern. Cement floors, large doors for machines, rows of fluorescent lights so that Lawrence could work on engines and honey-do projects after sunset. When Juniper laid her hand on the pedestrian door, it was unlatched and the barn was bathed in darkness. Still, she was freezing, so instead of being careful, she yanked it open and stepped inside.
Juniper should have been grateful to get out of the incessant wind, but the second she crossed the threshold she was aware of only one thing: the scent of gasoline. It was so strong, she pulled her sweater up over her nose and mouth while she waited for her eyes to adjust to the silty dark. Even breathing through the thick fabric, she almost had to back out.
“I wondered if you’d come.”
The voice was much closer than Juniper anticipated. She couldn’t stop the yelp that escaped her lips. Law’s workbench was just beyond the door, and the scrape of his feet on sawdust-covered concrete betrayed his position.
“I guess it’s kind of dark, isn’t it?” Almost before the question was out of his mouth, Law had flicked on the lights over his workbench. The line of bare bulbs wasn’t nearly as bright as the full fluorescents that lit up the barn like daylight, but Juniper had to throw up her hand to shield her eyes anyway.
“What have you done?” Juniper asked. She meant the stench of gasoline, the wide, wet lines of it that she could see crisscrossing the floor like modern art. But Law didn’t take it that way.
“You don’t waste any time, do you?” He coughed out a harsh laugh. “Not even a hello for your old man?”
Juniper swallowed. “Hi, Dad.”
“I’m not your dad.”
She had nursed hurt about her biological father for years, but wasn’t Lawrence the only father she had ever known? “You were all I had,” she said.
Law’s face was lined from years of farm work and disappointment, the wrinkles deep as the rows he would disc every spring. It was a hard face, but one she had known since the day she was born, and when it crumpled, she took a step to comfort him. It surprised her as much as it did him.
He stopped her with a raised hand. “Neither of you kids were ever mine.”
“That’s not true—”
“Calvin Murphy was Jonathan’s father.”
The final bolt slid home, and suddenly Juniper knew. She knew everything as if her whole world had finally snapped into Technicolor focus. Juniper knew that over thirty-four years ago Rebecca Connor had married for convenience. That she had found solace in the arms a neighbor—someone handsome, someone closer to her age—for a time. Maybe it was just sex. Maybe it was more. Did it matter? Juniper understood that unhappy years had gone by, until Rebecca’s daughter was finally leaving home, and the possibility of leaving herself was suddenly a hope she dared to hold in the palm of her hand.
And Juniper knew that over three decades ago, Lawrence Baker had married for love. That he had no idea about his wife’s indiscretion, and that his life with her was so much more than he ever dreamed for himself. It was home and family and forever. Juniper could only imagine how devastating it must have been for Law to hear that his wife was leaving. That his son was not his son. That none of it was real.
“Dad,” Juniper’s whisper was anguished, but Law cut her off before she could say another word.
“Don’t call me that.”
“But—”
“When she told me she was leaving, when she told me why, I didn’t know what else to do.”
Juniper didn’t want to hear any more. She could picture every moment, from the confession and the broken cello to the hot sizzle of bone glue oozing across the kitchen floor like a festering wound. How did he walk to the Murphys’ on a broken foot? The pain would have been unimaginable. But nothing compared to the searing agony of his wife’s betrayal. Juniper could never forgive him for pulling the trigger, but for just a moment she understood.
The perfect murder was a crime of passion. Lawrence did what he believed he had to do. Then he walked home, Reb drove him to the hospital, and the world kept spinning.
“Dad.” She insisted on calling him it, perverse as it sounded in the echoing barn. “Let’s talk about this, okay? I know we can work this out if—”