She gasped as her gaze collided with Gus Hampton’s. He stood among the trees near the street, watching her. The big, ebony-colored man was smoking a cigarette, taking long, deep drags, then flicking the ashes to his side.
A chill ran through her, and she quickly looked away and moved closer to the water, and headed home. What had Gus seen? she wondered. Had he realized she was watching Rick Morrison? Or had he been following her for some other reason?
She hurried into her house, locked the door, and stood there for a moment, trying to catch her breath. Finally, she went to the closet that held her gun, got it out, and loaded it. From now on she would have it handy, she thought. From now on, she would be ready.
C H A P T E R
33
Blair finally gave in to sleep shortly after noon. Since Morgan had gone to visit Jonathan, Blair slept with the gun clutched in her hand.
The sound of knocking awoke her. From the stupor of deep sleep, she looked at the clock. It was nine in the evening. She hadn’t meant to sleep that long, but her body needed the rest after the events of the last few days. Darkness was invading the room, and Blair reached for the lamp.
When the knocking started again, she grabbed her gun, slipped it into her pocket, and stumbled to the front door. With groggy eyes, she looked to see who it was. She couldn’t make the visitor out in the darkness. She leaned against the door. “Who is it?”
“Rick,” the voice said from the other side. “Rick Morrison.”
Blair caught her breath and her hand closed over the gun again. What did he want? She knew better than to let him in here alone. She wondered if he realized she had taken the glass from his room and given it to Cade to dust for fingerprints, or if he’d come to ask her about why she was snooping in his room.
She took a moment to compose herself. “Just a minute,” she said through the door. She pulled the gun out and reassured herself that it was loaded. Her hands trembled. She was glad she had pockets. She had to act normal. If he hadn’t heard that they suspected him, then maybe they could keep him from bolting and running before Cade had enough evidence to arrest him.
She took a deep breath, put her hand on the knob. Slowly she opened the door. “What can I do for you, Rick?” she asked.
He made no attempt to walk in but seemed to linger back, as if he knew his presence might have caused her consternation.
“Sorry to bother you, Blair. I know things can’t be easy for you right now, but I wondered if we could talk. I have some things I need to tell you, things you need to know.”
Curiosity mushroomed inside her like a nuclear explosion, and she found herself anxious for the fallout. She stepped out into the night and pulled the door shut behind her. “Let’s talk out here,” she said.
“That’s fine, Blair. You don’t have any business letting some strange man into your house, anyway, when you’re alone.”
She swallowed and wondered how he knew she was alone. The fact that Morgan’s car was gone had probably clued him. She kept her hand on the gun in her pocket and went to a porch swing hanging from an arbor between her house and the library. She sat at the right end, leaving the other for him. Slowly, he sat down, his solid weight making the chains creak.
The sound of the surf combined with the calls of the insects chirping in the trees. Wind stirred her hair and rustled her wrinkled clothes. She wiped the sweaty palm of her free hand across her blue jeans and swallowed hard as she looked across the street toward the ocean rolling up onto the shore with foamy moonlit eagerness. She remembered just yesterday, looking out at the beach with him as he talked about grief.
She had felt such an affinity with him then, as he talked of his own grief. Had it been an act? Was he playing her?
“Your parents taught me more than I ever knew about God,” Rick said, setting his elbows on his knees and folding his hands between them. “Mostly, they taught me about his love. But I got to tell you, I’m having a hard time with why he had to take them.”
“I don’t believe in God,” Blair said.
“Then what do you believe in?”
If he had asked the pointed question a week ago, she would have proclaimed a belief in herself. She would have said that she believed there was a direct correlation between her effort and her results. She would have said that she believed in the basic goodness of man, and the determination of man’s spirit. She would have said that she believed in science and mathematics, with their facts and their certainty, and the tangible manifestation of all they represented.
But now she couldn’t say any of those things. Nothing was certain, least of all her own autonomy. The facts were hazy, at best, and the goodness of man was seriously in question.
The truth was that the murders had derailed her entire belief system, but she didn’t want to share that with him.
He waited. “You must believe in something, Blair. I didn’t believe when I first came to Cape Refuge. Your father told me that by not believing in anything, I was choosing to believe in something. He said that all people believe in a god—whether it’s the god of hopelessness or the god of circumstances or the god of ourselves or the god of some other person. It took me a long time to figure out what my god was. I finally realized that I was believing in the god of hatred, the one that seemed to feed the thoughts I had toward the drunk driver who killed my family. I couldn’t get that hatred or that desire to destroy him out of my mind. But it was only destroying me.”
He leaned back hard on the swing. “That hatred robbed me of my memories. It robbed me of my peace, because I couldn’t stop going through the if-only’s in my mind. If only Karen hadn’t been coming to meet me that day. If only I’d left work early and picked them up myself. If only I’d told her I loved her that morning. If only I’d had one last hug from Katie. If only . . . The two most hateful words in life.”
Those same two words had played like a mantra in her mind for the last few days, over and over and over, tormenting her.
“Your father showed me that if-only’s deny the power of the one true God. He said God was in control when that drunk driver ran over the median and head-on into their car. He was in control when I came so close to putting a gun to my head. He was in control when I heard about a place called Cape Refuge.”
He shifted on the swing, put his arm on the back and looked at her for a long time until she had no choice but to return his gaze. He didn’t have the look of a killer. He looked like a father and a husband. He looked like a grieving man with blue, bloodshot eyes and pink rims around them, and the way he always stared off into the ocean, as if there were some answers there . . . or maybe some joy coming up just over the horizon, if only he watched long enough. There was something about their common feelings and the way he stared at her now that made her wish he was genuine.
But she hadn’t forgotten that death certificate with his name on it. “You said you had something to tell me,” she said. “Was that it?”
He rubbed his eyes roughly with his fingers, then looked back across to the ocean again, and cleared his throat. “No,” he said. “It’s about my name.”
Her eyes flashed back to his. “Your name?”
“Yeah,” he said, “my real name.”
Blair’s hand clamped over that gun. “What do you mean?”
“I know that’s why you were going through my wallet this morning, Blair. You found out somehow that I’m not really Rick Morrison.”
She slowly got to her feet, and put some distance between them. Her hand was slick over the gun in her pocket.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re thinking that if I’m not who I say I am, then maybe I should be a suspect. Right?”
“Well, the thought had crossed my mind.”
“But it’s not like that,” he said. “Rick Morrison was a friend of mine who died. I borrowed his identity. I had this mountain of debts back in Atlanta, and when my wife and daughter died, I was such a basket case I couldn’t fulfill any of my responsibilitie
s. That mountain of debt just kept growing and growing. I tried to function, Blair. I really did. I got up every day and I went to work and I sat there and tried. But my head wasn’t in it. I was grieving. My whole life had changed and nothing mattered anymore.”
Blair stared down at him as the wind brushed her hair across the scar on her cheek. The story seemed real. The expressions on his face left no clues that he was feeding her a lie. It even made sense.
“And then my friend died,” he said. “His kids were grown and off on their own, and no one knew where his wife was, so no one really cared, and I started thinking about getting away from it all, from all the things that reminded me of my family. I just had to get away and I didn’t want to do it hounded by bill collectors. In my twisted thinking back then, I started to believe that, if I took his name, I could be someone else for a while.”
“And what’s your real name?” Blair asked.
“Richard Dugan,” he said. “I’ve always been called Rick. It’s only the last name that’s different. That’s why it was so easy.”
She kept her eyes on his face. “Did my parents know about this?”
“Yes, they did,” Rick said. “I told them at the very beginning. When a tenant comes to Cape Refuge, Thelma and Wayne have quite an orientation. They don’t want any lies and they don’t want any surprises. After I was here for a couple of weeks and had a job under that name, your father found some discrepancies in my story. He told me to either be straight with him or pack up and leave. So I told them the truth and gave them a copy of Rick Morrison’s death certificate. As far as I know, they checked out my story and decided to let me go ahead using Morrison, just so I wouldn’t wind up losing my job. I expected to have problems with the Social Security Administration soon, since I was using his social security number to get paid. It was getting really complicated and tangled, but they agreed to let me work it out. They had a lot of compassion, your folks did. They really wanted to help. I was at a place in my life where I felt so numb and paralyzed that I just wanted to escape everything, including me. If I could have stepped out of my own skin, I would have.”
The moon was rising, casting its own light over the trees and the ground and the swing where he sat. The light caught the edge of his eye, and she could see a tear glistening there. Yes, she did understand that desire to escape. She had felt that way many times.
“I miss Thelma and Wayne,” he said, and his voice broke. He touched his finger to his eyebrow and began to cry. Slowly she let go of the gun.
“I guess it was selfish,” he said. “I just needed to get it off my chest. I just wanted to explain. I thought maybe you’d understand.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I appreciate your coming and telling me this. I did need to know.”
Rick swallowed and raked his hands through his hair. “Jonathan Cleary did not kill Thelma and Wayne.”
Blair nodded. “Try telling that to Cade.”
“I can’t imagine anybody doing that to them,” he said.
She thought back to this morning, and the way Gus had watched her as she watched Rick. But before she could bring it up, she saw headlights coming up the street. Her sister’s car pulled onto the gravel driveway. Cade was right behind her in a squad car. Blair stiffened as Cade’s headlights illuminated her and Rick.
Morgan got out. Her face was pale as she looked at Blair, as if asking if she was in trouble.
Cade wasn’t so discreet. “What are you doing here?” he asked Rick.
“I was talking to Blair,” Rick said. He met Morgan’s eyes. “How’s Jonathan?”
Morgan looked too shaken to speak, but she managed to get out, “He’s fine.”
“He didn’t do it, Cade,” Rick said. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“So I’ve been told,” Cade said.
Rick looked at Blair again, then down at his feet. “I think I’ll go now.”
“Okay,” Blair said. “Thanks for explaining.”
He nodded as if it was no problem, then got back into his car. As he pulled away, Blair went into action. “Cade, why didn’t you call me back about those fingerprints?”
“Because I told Morgan. I thought she’d pass it on. Either Rick’s never been arrested or the prints just weren’t clear enough.”
“I think it’s the first,” she said. “He told me why he changed his name.” She related his story almost verbatim.
“And you believed him?” Morgan asked.
“You would have too,” Blair said, “if you’d heard his confession.”
“And why would he make it?” Cade asked. “What did he have to gain?”
“He figured out that we already knew,” Blair said.
“So you still believe the story about his family?” Morgan asked.
“I do. It rings true, Morgan. The look on his face, the tears in his eyes, the things he says, they all ring true.”
Cade started back to his car. “I’m going back to the station to run a check on Richard Dugan.”
“Let me know as soon as you come up with something,” Blair said.
He opened his car door and stood there before getting in, looking over the door at her. “You need to be more careful, Blair,” he said. “Things could have gone bad just then.”
“I didn’t let him in the house,” Blair said. “I went outside to talk to him.” She pulled the pistol out of her pocket. “I had this the whole time, Cade. I’m not stupid.”
“Well, I hope you’re not naive, either. All it takes is a nice genuine-sounding, tear-jerking story to get you to let your guard down. We don’t know enough about him, Blair.” He let his eyes roam the trees around her property. “Why didn’t he come to me with the story? If he knew he’d been caught, why wouldn’t he come straight to the police?”
Blair shrugged. “Maybe he wasn’t sure we’d told you. Why get himself into legal trouble if he didn’t have to?”
“Maybe he knew we’d have the capacity to check that story out, and he didn’t want to go that far with it,” Cade said. “And maybe even tonight, he had some other purpose up his sleeve. Maybe my showing up thwarted things a little.”
She couldn’t help being a little disturbed. “Cade, something kind of weird happened this morning. After I took the glass to you, Morgan and I came back here, and I went for a walk. I saw Rick leaving for work, and I followed him at a distance. When I turned back, I saw that Gus was following me, standing back in the trees and watching. It gave me the creeps.”
Cade stepped away from the car and slammed the door. “Blair, why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Because it wasn’t like anything happened. I wasn’t sure it meant anything.”
“Everything means something.”
“Well, I’ve told you now.”
Morgan, who had been nursing her own thoughts, couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Cade, if you’re so doggone sure that the killer is still out there, then why do you have Jonathan locked up?”
“Because there’s still more evidence against him than anybody else. But I’m not betting your lives on it, okay? I want Jonathan to be innocent. I want to find out somebody else did it. But if that’s what happened, then the killer is still roaming around. I need every bit of information you have, when you get it, so that I can do my job effectively. Got it?”
Blair nodded. “Got it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Cade. I was exhausted and upset and real focused on those fingerprints. And then I fell asleep and the day got by me.”
He softened a little, and she realized that he could use a few hours of sleep himself. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his face seemed to have aged in the last few days. He gazed down at her, emotions battling on his face. “Well, you needed the sleep,” he said. “You need to take care of yourself.”
Something about the worried look in his eyes and the gentle entreaty warmed her. She met his eyes and realized that his presence made her feel safe.
She was losing it, she thought. In the space of an ho
ur, she had allowed two different men to move her. She was too vulnerable, too unguarded. Even with a pistol in her pocket, she was exposed.
She hated that feeling.
Finally, he got into his car, started the engine, and rolled his window halfway down. “Let me see you go into that house and lock the door before I leave, Blair.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m a big girl, Cade. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”
“So did your parents,” he said. “Like I told you before, I don’t want any more crime scenes involving people I care about. Get in the house.”
She didn’t argue. She slipped the gun back into her pocket and followed her sister into the house. When the door was closed and locked, she heard his car pulling away.
C H A P T E R
34
Cade didn’t like the feeling in his gut as he pulled out onto the street between Blair’s house and the water. The sight of Rick in the dark with Blair had set alarms off in his head. He wished he could hang around a little longer, maybe go inside, check out the locks, test the windows, see to it that they knew what to do in an emergency. But Morgan was still nursing her anger at him and had been cool about his even following her home from the station tonight.
And Blair seemed disturbingly defensive about the man she had begged him to check out that morning.
The trees made a canopy across the road, blocking out the light of the moon. He drove slowly, his headlights illuminating his path.
A shadow crossed the road up ahead. He flipped on his brights and tried to follow it. Had it been a deer crossing the road? No, it was tall. The size of a man.
He pulled his car over and got his flashlight, shone it into the woods. He saw the back of a man retreating through the trees. “Stop! Police!” he yelled.