“There’s too much attention onthe Tanner issue—that was the phrase they used. Not the governor. No, she didn’t talk to me. She had her sidekick do it.” Lukas balanced his elbows against the breakfast bar.
“Lukas.”
“An impressive show of power on her part.” His voice reeked of sarcasm. “The ultimate bow to public opinion.”
The heaviness in my chest made it difficult to breathe. “She can’t give the judicial position to anyone else.”
“She can but, for now, she hasn’t. She’s put the appointment on a temporarypause.” Lukas drew out the word. “If the press gets wrapped up quickly and in a way the governor finds acceptable then, maybe, the appointment is still alive.”
Acceptable?That seemed like the one word that didn’t apply to this situation.
I had a thousand questions. A bit of practiced pleading for forgiveness. I jumped over all of that and landed on a more pressing question. “What’s her deadline?”
“Late next week.” Lukas let out a loud exhale. “I was told to push for a quick arrest. Make sure my name is in the mix, so I get a bit of credit for wrapping it all up neatly.”
A quick resolution to a case that had dragged on for a decade and a half. Sure. No problem. “She’s not asking for much.”
“She’s in charge. She makes the rules, not me.” He started to say something else, then stopped. An obvious verbal pivot. “There are a lot of qualified people on her list and any one of them could easily jump over me and get the nod.”
For the first time, I noticed how jittery Lukas was. He shifted around in his seat. Wiped his hands together. Scanned the room from end to end. This mess had his usual calm demeanor spiking.
“I’m sorry.” I could hear the thickness weaving through my words. I’d offered similar words over and over and it had never been good enough, so I’d stopped. Until now, when I dragged the apology out and threw it between us one more time in a desperate attempt at absolution.
This situation, your being involved in a demented family cover-up, could ruin me, Stella.
The words he used back then before he told me he was leaving me.
“I need to hit the weakest link. Track down this author. Gabe. Make him tell me what he knows.” Lukas shook his head. “Shift the focus to someone else.”
That last part... not good. “It’s possible Gabe doesn’t know any more than the rest of us.”
“Someone knows, Stella.” Lukas’s body stiffened again. “It’s my job to make them talk.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Hanna
I’d forgotten to eat. Made myself stop checking the café’s security app after midnight when my vision blurred and a pinching headache ran up the back of my neck. That was two hours ago. I’d set my cell down, hoping I’d drift off and did, but I was wide awake now.
A noise, fear—something—forced my eyes open. I bounced up, sitting on the couch, confused about where I was and how I got there.
It took a few seconds for the haze to clear. My house. Usually a place of solace. Since Xavier died, just one more location filled with draining memories and dread.
I spied my phone across the room, sitting on a charger. I could squeeze in one more check on the café and Jeremy if he activated the café alarm. It was off earlier. Yeah, he was old enough to get dinner and lock a door.Blah, blah, blah. Being a watchful mom was a hard habit to break.
First, I needed to move. I stood up, biting back a groan andignoring the odd crick in my knees. Digging in the soil, begging it to cough up its secrets, had left my lower back aching and my hands cramping.
Then the hours came rushing back. The smell of fall. Wood burning in the distance. The orange Halloween lights on the fence of the house across the street. The cool breeze smacking against my face.
Patrick. Victoria. Noah.
The names spun in my head. Whose bones? Whose body? Who put it there and where were the others?
Green tea wouldn’t answer the questions but might make the slow passage of fraught minutes more tolerable. Add a scone. My new priorities had me heading for the kitchen, passing the table and the stack of new mail likely filled with political crap and flyers from people who wanted to install solar or new windows or carpeting. As if I needed any of those or wanted anyone in or near my house right now.
I reached for the mug sitting in the sink and... I spun around to face the table again. New mail? Digging, uncovering the worst, had depleted my brainpower, short-circuiting any chance of logical thought. I’d shuffled through every minute since.
The visions of the day piled up and I didn’t have the energy to separate and assess them. But I knew one thing: I hadn’t grabbed the mail on the way in. Thanks to the dreaded white envelopes, the mail might as well be poison right now.
