The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) Read online

  “I want to know from you who he is,” I snap. “Is he . . . known to police? Dangerous?” My gaze flicks to Adam, who is watching me strangely.

  “We don’t know who he is, ma’am,” says Pirello. “He might have simply been a Good Samaritan who stepped in when he saw a schoolyard brawl.”

  “Then why didn’t he stay when the teachers came out?”

  “We don’t know yet, Rachel,” Adam interjects. “We’ve canvassed the neighborhood and spoken to the store clerk at the Alpine Market. All we’ve gleaned at this point is that he’s about six two, black hair on the long side. Darkish complexion. And he was wearing a leather jacket and riding a bike.”

  A bike.

  Pirello asks again, “Did Quinn MacLean mention anything else?”

  A strange sort of defensiveness swells in me at the sound of my niece’s surname on the cop’s lips, my sister’s married name. With it comes a sharp stab of fear that this Constable Pirello is going to go digging and find that Quinn is the birth child of a dangerous felon.

  I don’t want the cops—or anyone in town—to draw any kind of link between Jeb and Quinn. Suddenly I feel trapped. This is all happening too fast and I haven’t had time to think it through. I reach for the edge of the desk, feeling dizzy, exhausted.

  Adam touches my arm. “Rachel, are sure you’re all right? Can I get you anything?”

  I raise my palm. “I’m fine. And no, Quinn won’t tell me anything. She’s been through a lot lately with the death of her parents, and we’re trying to work through it all. I . . . I was just worried. About potential charges and all. And who that man is. I should go. Quinn is waiting in the truck for me.”

  Pirello and Adam exchange a quick glance.

  “If she does mention anything—” Pirello starts saying.

  “I’ll call. Thanks.” I head for the door, completely unsure about what I’m doing, but gut instinct shuts me up. If Quinn finds out through someone in town that her father is some murderer and rapist, it will utterly crush her right now.

  Adam catches up to me. He cups my elbow and leans across me to open the door leading out of the reception area.

  “Don’t worry,” he says quietly, near my ear. “We’ll keep an eye out for this guy. I’ll put a police presence at the school after the Thanksgiving break.” He hesitates, then meets my eyes. His face is close. “You’re certain there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”

  Oh, now you want to talk, out of earshot of Pirello.

  I hold his gaze. “No.”

  Something silent surges between us—the mutual knowledge that Jeb is out of prison. We’re both thinking about it.

  “I just got spooked today, Adam, that’s all. I should’ve been there for Quinn when the school first called.” I give a soft snort. “I’m still learning how to be a mother to an eight-year-old girl who doesn’t want me in her life.”

  “You should both come round for dinner. I’ll speak to Lily and have her call you. She’s so great with kids. We’d love to see you and Quinn again.”

  “Yeah.” I force a smile. “You and Lily have done well—two gorgeous boys. A real family. She’s a lucky woman.” I’m unable to keep the slight bitterness out of my voice. It’s not that I resent what Adam has. It’s that I wasn’t able to manage this dream with Trey.

  Something shimmers through his eyes. I start to leave, but he says suddenly, “You’re worried it’s him, aren’t you? That’s why you came.”

  I glance over his shoulder. Annie Pirello is watching us. Shrewd, probing eyes. Intense woman.

  I look away, to the glass doors leading out of the police station, toward my truck in the lot. Quinn’s little shadow is still there behind fogged glass.

  “What if he does come back?” I say softly. “Can we stop him from being here?”

  “Cullen’s conviction was overturned. He’s as free as the next guy, to go wherever he pleases. Law enforcement has no control over his movements. But there is also no reason for him to come back here.”

  “What about that land his mother left him, on the Wolf River?”

  “It’s derelict. There’s nothing there for him. He’d be insane to even try to make something work here. He’s not welcome in Snowy Creek, Rachel, and he knows it. What he did to those girls—people here will crucify him if he returns. There’s still so much residual anger—hell knows what might happen if he sets foot in this town. I’m not sure I could control it.”

  “What if it’s revenge he wants? For us testifying? You know, like that felon who comes after his lawyer in Cape Fear?”

  Adam hesitates. “You’re thinking he might go after your niece to get at you, is that what this is about? You think he’ll come after our children, just to mess with our heads?”

  I bite my lip. Deep down, even now, in spite of what I’ve been led to believe about Jeb, in spite of all the evidence presented in court, in spite of my own fears, in spite of today, I can’t fully accept he’s capable. When it comes to Jeb, I can’t think clearly. Trey said there was something wrong with me, that I was sick in my head when it came to him. Maybe he’s right.

  Adam’s features darken. “Look, if Cullen dares set one fucking foot in this town, we’ll be on him like flies on shit. One slip—and he will make one, mark my word—we nail him. He goes back into Kent, for good this time. I’m not letting my mother’s efforts go down the toilet here. She had a good arrest. This was not her team’s mistake.”

  I hold his eyes and feel a sense of mistrust, a suspicion blossoming in Adam. He’s not sure how to read me right now and it’s making him edgy.

  “Thanks, Adam.” I go through the reception door and push open the glass doors to outside. Cold wind smacks into me.

  “If you do see him, tell me,” he calls after me.

  “You think I wouldn’t?”

  He meets my gaze. Again, I feel his mistrust. I exit the building, doors swinging shut behind me. As I run down the stairs and hurry back toward the truck, I sense Adam watching me through the doors. I feel he’s itching for it to have been Jeb, for me to have brought him something solid. He’s dying to nail him, put him back, burning at the injustice of a felon his own mother put away being released on technicalities. If Jeb is indeed back in town, I can trust Adam will hunt him down. They don’t need me. Or Quinn.

  Whatever unfolds now, my job is to protect Quinn by keeping her apart from it all. I’ll look up flights, book us on a trip tomorrow, get out of town. I have air miles. I can call my friend Emily about her place on Maui. Hopefully by the end of the Thanksgiving break it will all have blown over.

  I reach for my keys and am about to chirp the lock when a male voice yells out of the darkness.

  “Rachel!”

  I stall, heart jackhammering.

  A tall figure emerges from a silver SUV parked outside the Rescue One base. I recognize his stride instantly. Trey. I curse to myself.

  It’s Wednesday; practice night. After training, the Rescue One group and some of the firefighters and cops usually repair to the Shady Lady Saloon for beers. There was a time I’d join them. Volunteering for Rescue One used to consume my spare hours. Until Quinn. Until I could no longer bear seeing Trey in a social environment after our breakup.

  The rest of the Rescue One guys are coming out of the base behind his SUV. Laughter and friendly jeers carry into the night as they make for the village on foot.

  Trey reaches me, his breath crystallizing in the cold. “I heard about Quinn and what happened at school.”

  My gaze goes to his silver SUV. The inside light has come on. There’s a woman inside Trey’s vehicle, a kid in the back. With a start, I recognize the unmistakable fall of the woman’s white-blonde hair. Stacey Sedgefield. A single mom. Missy’s mother.

  It was Melissa “Missy” Sedgefield who Quinn had punched in the nose today. It’s Stacey’s phone number on a piece of pape
r in my pocket.

  Trey sees where I am looking. He clears his throat. “Stacey told me what happened. Are you doing okay? If there’s anything we—”

  “We?”

  His eyes glitter in the reflected light.

  “You and Stacey?”

  “Look, it’s—”

  “Jesus, Trey . . . it’s been what, four months?” My hurt is sudden and profound and irrational. We were going to marry, spend a lifetime together, and already he’s found someone else. “You can stomach her kid, but not my niece?”

  “That’s not fair. It’s not like that. It’s—”

  I raise my palms. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk now.” I turn my back on him, chirp the truck lock.

  “Rachel, I need to talk to you,” he calls after me.

  But I ignore him. I climb into my truck, slam the door, shaking from cold.

  “What’s happening?” Quinn says, wide-eyed. She’s tucked under my jacket and this gives me an indescribable spurt of relief.

  “What did the police say? What does Trey want?”

  I put the key in the ignition and quickly start the engine. In my peripheral vision I see Trey approaching my door. I ram the truck into gear and hit the gas, leaving him standing in a red glow as my brake lights flare briefly before I turn into the road. I glance up into my rearview mirror. He stands on the curb, watching me go.

  I force out a huge lungful of air. “I didn’t tell the cops anything about that man. I just asked what happened, and if there’d be charges.” I cast another glance up into my mirror. The street behind is empty. “That was Missy Sedgefield and her mother Stacey in Trey’s SUV. It appears you punched the daughter of Trey’s new girlfriend.” I probably shouldn’t mention this to Quinn, but I just need a bond right now. I need her to know we’re a team against the world, that we can confide in each other.

  Quinn studies me for several long beats. “Trey is going out with Missy’s mother?”

  I pull a wry mouth. Inside I hurt. I tighten my hands on the wheel.

  “Missy Sedgefield is a cow,” she says.

  I smile in spite of myself. “Yeah, well, I never got on with her mother, either.”

  “You knew Stacey Sedgefield from school?”

  I shoot her a glance. “Yep. And I confess, I also wanted to punch her a few times back then.”

  Quinn stares at me in silence, and I can feel the whisperings of a bond. Spider thread and gossamer thin. But it’s there. I want to ask again what Missy said to her, but I’m nervous about breaking this new connection. I want to build on it a bit first.

  I crank up the heat and turn north on the highway. Quinn settles back into her seat, a strange and uneasy truce between us now. It’s been a rough day. I shoot another glance into the rearview mirror, but see nothing strange. I allow myself to breathe.

  Jeb watched Rachel go. Adam LeFleur was also watching her from his office window. And Jeb had seen Trey Somerland approach her truck.

  He swore softly to himself. He wanted to know what she’d told the cops. He needed to ensure that she kept the secret of Quinn’s paternity until he was cleared. He was worried it might already be out of the bag now.

  Engine a low growl, he pulled slowly back into the street. But he didn’t follow Rachel. He knew where she lived, thanks to Quinn. He’d go round later, when all was quiet and Quinn was asleep.

  He’d forced his own damn hand by going to that school today. How Rachel was now going to react at the sight of him on her doorstep was anyone’s guess.

  Nerves, anticipation, remorse, things he couldn’t define skittered through him.

  CHAPTER 7

  As we enter the more isolated northern reaches of Snowy Creek where there are no streetlights, the forest pushes in thick and dark on all sides. Aurora borealis undulates over the sky, giving the glaciers a ghostly glow. I steal yet another glance up into my rearview mirror, making sure the road is clear.

  No one in sight.

  I turn off the highway onto the densely treed peninsula that juts out into the lake where we live. There are only three properties on this peninsula. Mine and the houses of two absentee neighbors who are here only during the winter months. A familiar depression sinks over me as I take my old truck down my rutted driveway. Twigs scrape against the doors, reminding me of the pruning I haven’t done, of all the other things I still need to fix. Jobs that Trey and I had planned to tackle as a team. Rebuild. Landscape. Renovate the boathouse on the water so we could rent it out for extra income. As we approach the house, I notice the bulb in the porch light has blown. The place is in blackness.

  I curse softly as my headlights illuminate the wooden gate to the small courtyard off my kitchen where I store recycling. The gate hangs on its hinges, banging in the wind. A mess of scattered tins roll on the concrete in front of the kitchen door.

  I’d thoroughly washed those tins before putting them into my recycling container outside. But the bears are growing desperate as they scavenge for anything they can to help them reach hibernation weight. I need to clear this mess up. My first priority, however, is getting some warm food into Quinn before running her a bath. Keeping her routine as best as I can. Finding a way to talk further about what happened today.

  I reach into my glove compartment for my headlamp.

  “Wait here a second while I check that the bear’s gone,” I say as I get out of the vehicle. But Quinn doesn’t listen. She clambers out of the truck, slams the door, and stomps over to the front entrance, clutching both my jacket and her backpack. I take hope from the fact she’s still holding on to something of mine. She punches in the key code and lets herself in, banging the door closed behind her.

  I stand in the dark, alone. Inhaling deeply, I scan the yard with my flashlight. At the same time I kick cans and make as much noise as I can to ensure the bear stays away. When I’m certain it’s gone, I gather up the tins and bag them. But hair prickles softly up the back of my neck as I detect a sound under the rush of wind. I freeze. Listening intently. But I don’t hear it again. Yet, once again, I sense something watching me from the darkness. Fear, visceral, curls into me.

  Quickly, I grab the last tin and go inside with the garbage bag, locking the door behind me. I lean my back against the door for a moment, closing my eyes, gathering myself. My heart is racing.

  It was probably the bear. I’m just being paranoid. But as I remove my dust-caked boots and pad on stockinged feet into the kitchen, that sense of unease, foreboding, lingers.

  Trixie thumps her tail when she sees me, but the old girl doesn’t get up from her basket the way she used to. She’s comfy where she is. She trusts the food will come. There’s no sign of Quinn in the kitchen. Nor in the open-plan living area on the other side of the counter.

  “Quinn?” I flick on more lights and turn up the heat. As light floods the downstairs area, Quinn is nowhere in sight.

  “Quinnie?” I call as I climb the stairs. I try her bedroom door. Locked. My heart sinks. I rap softly on the door. “Quinn, are you coming for some supper?”

  “Not hungry,” comes the muffled voice from inside. She’s been crying.

  “You need to eat something—”

  “I said I’m not hungry. Go away.”

  I close my eyes. “Quinn, we should talk.”

  Silence.

  I stand there, lost. This is exactly the kind of dilemma I would have called my sister with. We might not have spent much time together these past few years, but whenever I needed help, Sophia was there for me at the other end of the phone, and then some. The punch of loss is so acute it takes my breath away. My mother died when I was eight, Quinn’s age. So I understand, perhaps, a tiny bit of Quinn’s pain. Sophia, eleven years older than me, stepped into a mothering role. I wish Quinn would allow me to do the same for her. I fight back tears. I’m tired, that’s all. I’ll feel stronger about it all in the morni
ng. I’ll have a better plan. We’ll go on that trip.

  I take a scalding hot shower and wash the dirt and the day from my hair, but I still can’t seem to shake the chill in my bones. I apply disinfectant cream and a plaster to the small cut on my brow, and dry my hair. Dressed in soft sweats and a down vest, I head downstairs in my socks. Once Trixie has been fed, I make for the fireplace.

  Getting down onto my knees, I ball up old newspaper and stack kindling, then logs. I light the fire, and as I watch the flames crackle and whisper to life, I think of the logs that Trey and I chopped and stacked in the spring before going to Bali. I wonder how it all went so wrong so fast. Quinn’s arrival was a catalyst, for sure, but there were deeper issues at play. His words sift into my mind.

  You know, I always thought you might actually still have a thing for him, that you couldn’t let him go . . .

  I get up and pace the living room, wishing I’d bought blinds for the floor-to-ceiling windows that look down over the dark garden to the boathouse and lake beyond. The moon is rising. Whitecaps on the black surface are ghostly in the lunar light. Tonight the leaves from my birch are all gone, branches poking up into to the sky like the gnarled fingers of an old man.

  I rub my arms and I think of soup. But I’m not hungry, either. Instead I pour whiskey from a bottle of oak-aged scotch that Trey left behind. I take my drink and my laptop to my grandfather’s old armchair by fire.

  As I sip the scotch, I search Google for newspaper articles and commentaries on Jeb’s trial and recent release. Clicking on a Vancouver Sun feature from three days ago, I read again an overview of the original court case and the Innocence Project’s fight to overturn his conviction. According to the article, the UBC Innocence Project lawyers argued that Jeb’s own defense counsel in the initial trial had been aware of, but not presented, evidence that there was DNA from another male on the bloodied hoodie found in the back of Jeb’s car. The hoodie that contained the empty date-rape drug pack. The hoodie had also been logged into evidence later than the rest of the contents found in Jeb’s car. Police claimed this was technical error, and that the presence of other DNA did not clear Jeb. But based on this the judge threw out Jeb’s conviction, saying that had this evidence been presented by the defense counsel in the initial trial, it would have raised reasonable doubt.