Closer Than Blood

run off with someone else.” Laura was crying now, but silently.

“How do you know?”

“I heard her. She was talking to him on the computer. I’ve been tricked. She made me do things that I shouldn’t have.”

“Parker, what things?” He tucked his head down on his mother’s chest, and she held him like a baby.

“Bad things, Mom.” Laura tried to remain calm. Her son was in serious trouble and on some level it felt like calmness was needed. Like the time he’d split his knee open after falling from the backyard swing when he was seven. The wound looked bad, but she acted as though it was nothing. She knew, like all moms do, that her fear would be reflected back at her boy.

“What kind of bad things?” she asked. Parker didn’t answer.

“You can tell me, Parker. Tell me.” He looked up at her.

“She wanted me to kill Dad, but I couldn’t. I was too weak. I didn’t do what a man would do that time, but later, Mom, I did. I really did.” Laura could feel her muscles tighten. She willed herself to stay calm, as though she really could.

“What did you do, Parker?”

“That minister. She made me kill him. She told me that he was going to hurt her. That he would send her to prison and we’d never be together. She said that our baby would be aborted by the state. I couldn’t let that happen. A baby needs a father. I needed a father.” Laura was crying, but she didn’t make a sound. Her tears rolled from the corners of her eyes and landed in the tangle of her son’s hair while she cradled him in her arms. She could only think of one thing. She needed to get her son out of harm’s way.

“We have to get you away from here. Get you out of here. Somewhere where the police can’t find you.”

“That’s just it, Mom. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want anyone else to die. I don’t want to hide.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

Bremerton, Washington

Mary Reed could no longer hold her secret. It took everything she had—and her reserves were substantial—to break her silence. She had made a promise. Her word meant something. It always had. But with all that was being said about Jason, Tori, Kendall, Lainie, and the whole Class of ’95 reunion, she knew that the time was right. It was as if God had called her and told her that it was time to shine a light on the past. It was her day off from her job at the courthouse. For some reason, maybe pride, she decided to dress up a little. She put on a pretty new pink top and dark trousers that made her look slim and stylish. It was as if she was going out for a lunch date with a girlfriend. She wanted to look her best when she said what she had to say.

“You look like a million bucks today,” Doug said as he sipped his coffee over a stack of brochures from Poulsbo RV. Retirement from the shipyard was beckoning, and Doug was sure that a recreational vehicle would be ideal for their new “footloose and fancy-free” lifestyle.

“We’re going to need a million bucks to afford one of those,” she said, heading out the door. So wrapped up in the brochure, Doug hadn’t noticed that his wife had been crying. I can do this, she told herself as she drove to the sheriff’s department. What I’m about to do is for good, not to hurt. Mary parked her car and went through the back door. She told the receptionist who she needed to see and waited in one of those uncomfortable visitor’s chairs.

“Mary?” Kendall said, emerging from the door by the front desk. She was exhausted and exhilarated from her trip, though she told no one that she’d just returned. She’d come to work directly from SeaTac Airport. She hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, but didn’t really feel the need to. She was sure that Tori had murdered her husband Zach and Ronnie in Hawaii. She was running on adrenaline, but the look on Mary’s face brought that all to a halt.

“Kendall, I have something to tell you,” she said, looking as if she was going to burst into tears. Kendall hurried toward Mary, her face full of concern. She wondered if the exhumation had been too much, brought back too many memories.

“What is it? Are you all right?”

“Not here,” Mary said.

“Is there some place we can go?”

“Some place” meant somewhere private—not an interview room or her office.

“Let’s take a walk,” Kendall said. It had warmed up considerably and it finally felt like spring. Kendall didn’t see a need for a jacket, so they started out along Division Street until they came upon a row of old maple trees banking one of the uglier courthouse complex’s parking lots. She hadn’t told Mary about the bloody message on the dollhouse and she wondered if she’d somehow heard about it. Penny? Adam? But it wasn’t that.

“Kendall, I really need to get something off my chest.”

“Mary, the investigation is moving along, slowly. But we’re making progress. I’m sorry that it has been taking so long.” Mary shook her head. That wasn’t it, either.

“I’ve done something to you. Something I shouldn’t have.” Mary stopped talking for a moment. It was as if her words were suddenly lodged in her throat. Kendall had no idea what she was talking about, but the pain was so evident that her own eyes began to pool with tears. Losing a child is something that can never really be over.

“It can’t be that bad,” Kendall finally said. Mary looked down.

“I sent those messages through the website.” Kendall was confused. The conversation wasn’t going in the direction that she’d imagined at all. It wasn’t about Jason’s investigation.

“I’m sorry. I don’t follow you,” she said.

“When the class reunion card came in the mail for Jason—I guess the class of ’95 forgot that Jason was dead—I just couldn’t stop myself. I dropped the note in your office, too.” Kendall’s heart raced.

“The ‘I know everything’ message?” Mary nodded.

“I also e-mailed the committee. I wrote a message about how the truth will set you free.”

“I still don’t understand,” Kendall said, though she had an idea.

“Kendall, I talked to your mother. I took a part-time job at the Landing last fall to make some extra money. When I cleaned your mother’s room, she told me the truth.” The truth. Kendall knew what was coming and she felt her knees weaken. She sat down on the curb and Mary joined her.

“What did she tell you?” There was still hope that her secret was safe, though a part of her wanted it to be out, over. Finished. Keeping silent all those years had made it the forefront of her thoughts, not forgotten.

“That you had a baby. Jason’s baby. My grandson.” Kendall tried to come up with the right words for a conversation she’d never intended on having.

“You must hate me, Mary,” she said. Mary put her arms around Kendall.

“You were so young,” Mary said.

“I’m sure it was the hardest time of your life.” Kendall hugged her back. Her words came in pieces.

“After we broke up . . . I found out I was pregnant, but it was too late. He’d started seeing Tori O’Neal. I’m so sorry.” Jason’s mother lifted Kendall’s head and looked into her eyes.

“Don’t be. I’m happy. Knowing that a part of Jason is alive is the greatest gift I could have.”

Maddie Crane looked out over Commencement Bay as she absentmindedly scrolled though e-mails while talking on speakerphone with Darius Fulton from the Pierce County Jail. She looked at the time and wondered what had delayed the bank transfer. She also wondered what had delayed her afternoon tea. Where was Chad? If anything, Maddie was the consummate multitasker. She felt a surge of power that she hadn’t experienced in some time. It had been a long, hard road since the DUI that nearly cost her everything. But it was behind her. It had faded from the news. She thanked God that she’d been given another chance, and she promised herself that the second time she was stopped for driving drunk would be the last time. While the deal she made compromised her ethics, it was all she could do. She was not going to be the sad woman who’d lost everything.

“I’m sorry, Darius, but you’re just going to have to be patient. Your threats to Ms. Connelly have done you in.”

“I did not threaten her.”

“She says you did. Phone records bear out her claims.”

“I never called her.” Maddie logged on to a secure server and doubled-checked the bank transfer she’d initiated for a client’s offshore account. She smiled at the confirmation that $2 million in life insurance benefits had