Part 4 (1/2)

Tess pressed her lips together. ”It would be a big help to me if you would stay here with Dawn till I get back. I think it would be a big help to her, too.”

”Why?” he asked.

Tess thought about her mother, having to relive her family's tragedy yet again. ”She's...thinking about my sister a lot today. It makes her sad. You can help keep her mind off it.”

Erny shrugged. ”Okay.”

Tess went over to him and kissed him on the top of the head. ”Thanks. It's just till I get back.”

When Tess entered the dining room, she saw Jake seated at a corner table with Dawn, shoveling down the last of his pancakes. He was dressed in work clothes, a buffalo-check s.h.i.+rt over a chamois s.h.i.+rt and jeans, but at least his clothes weren't spattered with paint. Tess sat down with them and Dawn asked Erny to go out to the kitchen to get Tess a plate.

”Did you sleep?” Dawn asked.

”Not bad. Considering,” said Tess. She noted the dark circles under her mother's eyes and didn't need to ask her the same question.

Jake wiped his mouth with the napkin and drained his coffee cup. ”I slept like a baby,” he declared.

”The first thing this morning, when I woke up, I saw some guy out in the field,” Tess said. ”It gave me a start.”

”Could have been a hunter,” said Dawn. ”Or just a guest. Out walking.”

Tess shook her head. ”No, he looked weird. I thought it might be a reporter.”

”Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,” said Jake.

Dawn sighed. ”It's public property back there.”

”I know,” said Tess. This place will always scare me, she thought.

Jake cleared his throat. ”I brought Kelli's car,” he said. ”I thought you could use it while you're here. Julie'll come pick me up when she's done at the hospital.”

”Oh Jake, that's really nice. Thanks,” said Tess.

”No problem. Kelli doesn't need it where she's at.”

”Have you heard from her lately?”

”She calls her mother like clockwork every Sunday,” he said. ”She's still at Fort Meade. No marching orders yet.”

”I wish she could just stay there,” said Tess.

Jake shook his head. ”She had to go into the army. Nothing else would do. She says she can go to college for free when she gets out.”

”Well, that's true,” said Tess. ”That's pretty responsible of her.”

”She's a good kid,” said Jake. ”Anyway, you can drive her car around for a few days. It'll do the engine good. I took it out to Julie's dad at his garage. Had the oil changed and all. She's good to go.”

Tess nodded as Erny returned and proudly placed a plate piled with pancakes in front of her. Dawn sat across from Tess, apprehension written on her face and in her sad, anxious eyes.

”Do you want me to call you from there when it's over?” Tess asked her mother.

”You don't need to,” said Dawn, shaking her head. ”We all know what the results will be. Just get back as soon as you can.”

”I will,” Tess promised.

”Ma, try 'em,” Erny insisted.

”They look great,” Tess a.s.sured him. Even though her stomach was in knots and she had no appet.i.te, she picked up her fork and knife and began to slice through the stack.

Neither Tess nor Jake spoke a lot on the drive from the inn to the Stone Hill Record's offices. Tess looked out the window at the quaint but severe-looking New Hamps.h.i.+re town with its well-kept Colonial-era houses and the brilliant foliage now past its peak and fading. They traveled past the shops on Main Street. The center of Stone Hill looked pretty much the same. The general store, which sold everything from paper lanterns and plastic gla.s.sware to pliers and bags of nails, still anch.o.r.ed the block. But a few trendy new shops had storefronts in the old, austere buildings. There was a gourmet deli and a video store and a s.h.i.+astu ma.s.sage studio called Stressless. Tess raised her eyebrows. ”s.h.i.+atsu ma.s.sage?” she said. ”How New Age.”

Jake chuckled snidely. ”Yeah, a ma.s.sage parlor. And guess who runs it? Charmaine Bosworth. The wife of the police chief. Former wife, I should say. I guess the chief wasn't man enough for her.”

Tess was just about to insist that s.h.i.+atsu was therapeutic, not licentious, when she was struck by what her brother had just said. ”Bosworth? What about Chief Fuller?”

”He's not the chief anymore, Tess.”

”He's not?”

Jake shook his head. ”He had some health problems. He had to retire.”

”Oh no,” said Tess. ”I was hoping he would be here. He was so...good to us.”

Jake shrugged. ”That was a long time ago.”

Tess nodded and lapsed into silence as they rode along. The newspaper offices were in a relatively new building several blocks past Main Street. The building had its own parking lot, which was now overflowing with television news vans and people with sound and video equipment milling around, their cables crisscrossing the lot. A crowd of curious onlookers had gathered outside of the plate-gla.s.s facade of the Record's offices.

”Don't talk to anybody,” Jake said as he pulled into a parking s.p.a.ce at the edge of the lot. ”Just keep your head down and hang on to me.”

Tess nodded. Together they picked their way through the milling crowd to the door. A few people called out questions to them, but Jake's jaw was set. ”'Scuse us,” he said, leading with his shoulder and pressing his way through the crowd. Tess did as he had told her and kept her head down. She wondered if they were going to be exiled at the back or even outside of the room, where the press conference was taking place, but as Jake managed to reach the door of the conference room, a murmur went through the crowd and immediately Tess heard a voice saying, ”Let these people through. Stand aside. Let them through.”

Tess kept her eyes down and clung to a corner of Jake's buffalo-check s.h.i.+rt as someone, whom she could not see, escorted them to a pair of seats toward the front. As they went past the rows of chairs filled with onlookers, she could see the head table where all the lights and microphones were set up. Seated at the table was Governor Putnam, looking official in a gray suit and a red tie. He was talking with the man she had met at the airport, the publisher, Channing Morris. Chan was wearing a white s.h.i.+rt and tie today and leaned against the table, his arms crossed over his chest.

At the other end of the table, on the governor's right, was Edith Abbott conferring with a man whom Tess a.s.sumed was her attorney. Edith was a tall, sinewy woman with frizzy, brown hair and gla.s.ses. She was wearing a purple polyester suit that swam on her bony frame and had an improbably large white corsage pinned to the lapel, as if today were Easter or Mother's Day. She appeared to be Lazarus Abbott's sole supporter. As promised, there was no sign of his stepfather, Nelson, in the room.

Edith's attorney, athletic-looking and dressed in pinstripes, had a square jaw and a handsome, unlined face, but his perfectly groomed hair was prematurely silver. He was listening intently as Edith spoke rapidly, unceasingly into his ear. For a moment, he looked in their direction and his impa.s.sive, porcelain-blue eyes met Tess's cool stare. Their gazes locked for an instant and Tess felt an unexpected jolt of s.e.xual electricity pa.s.s between them. Upset by her own response, Tess blushed. She felt as if she had, in that moment, consorted with the enemy. She quickly looked away.

She turned her gaze across the aisle to a ruddy-faced man with reddish hair cut into an old-fas.h.i.+oned crew cut and a brushy auburn mustache. He was wearing a navy blue police officer's uniform with a tie that was too tight for his fleshy neck. He sat stiffly, drumming his fingers impatiently on the taut crown of his hat, which he held in one hand.

”That's the new chief,” Jake said, indicating the police officer she was looking at across the aisle. ”Rusty Bosworth.”

”He looks kind of...impatient,” Tess observed.

”He's a bully,” said Jake. ”I never liked him. He's Lazarus Abbott's cousin, you know.”

”You're kidding,” said Tess, staring at the chief with renewed interest.