CHAPTER 32

Bloodied and beaten, Ellis still had gone after one of Doyle Alden’s officers with a rock, snatching his gun, and Lou Beeler had shot him.

It was a clean shot. Ellis had died instantly.

“Suicide by cop,” Lou said.

Abigail, wrapped in a fleece blanket in front of Owen’s woodstove, shook her head. “He still thought he could make it work. He didn’t give up.”

She edged closer to the fire. Thunderstorms were raging outside, and everyone else was in shorts and looked hot, but she thought she’d never get warm again. Mattie was in the hospital but would recover. He’d talked some to police before the paramedics took him away. Linc was fine, back with his family.

They’d survived.

“Ellis’s gun. It fell in the water when I tackled him.”

“We’ve got it.”

“It’ll be the weapon he used to kill Chris,” Abigail said. “That’s how his mind worked. He’d like the poetic justice of it. And he’d be too arrogant to get rid of it.” She tightened the blanket around her. “It’s like keeping Doe’s swing in the backyard for everyone to see.”

“I never had a clue,” Lou said.

“Me, neither. Thank God he didn’t kill anyone else.”

“He was all about hate, not love. You know that, don’t you?” Lou’s look took in Owen, too. “Both of you?”

Owen nodded. “I had that clear in my head the second I kicked in the door to Doe’s old room.”

“He resented Jason for his money and power over him,” Abigail said. “He felt like a second-class Cooper. His secret obsession with Doe allowed him to feel more power, more control.”

Owen stared at the fire. “Doe never said a word. She kept what he did to her to herself.”

“I know it doesn’t make it any easier, but that’s not uncommon,” Lou said.

Abigail agreed. “Chris figured out Ellis was obsessed with Dorothy Garrison. That’s why Ellis killed him. They both knew Linc was burglarizing homes, that Mattie was angry with Chris for dumping him as an informant. Ellis used and manipulated them-and Grace. Only his obsession mattered.”

“Mattie never expected you to be at your house that afternoon,” Owen said.

Lou nodded. “He’s told us that already. Ellis said you weren’t home. When you surprised Mattie, he panicked. He hit you and grabbed the necklace, knowing the burglar would be blamed. He didn’t want to get caught with the necklace and dropped it in the wall.”

“And Ellis seized the moment.” Abigail felt a surge of respect for the man she’d married. “Chris did what he could to keep anyone else from getting hurt. Ellis knew he would-he counted on it.”

“Your husband was a good man,” Lou said. “I wish I’d had a chance to know him.”

Abigail bit back tears. “What about Grace? Have you talked to her?”

“She lied to us after the fact. She didn’t knowingly help her uncle kill your husband. She wouldn’t have-” Lou stopped himself, getting to his feet. “The Coopers have a lot to sort out. I don’t envy them.”

If the Maine detective felt any lingering effects from having killed Ellis Cooper, he didn’t show it in his stride as he headed out.

He stopped at the door. “By the way, about hypothermia-you know one of the best ways to get warm?” He grinned. “Shared body heat.”

Abigail groaned. “Good night, Lou.”

After her fellow detective left, Owen sat next to her by the fire. “He’s right, you know.”

“Tonight’s a good night to be close to you.”

He gathered up more blankets and pillows, laying them on the floor in front of the woodstove. He stretched out next to her. “We’ll stay right here by the fire.”

Linc drifted off on the couch in the library and awoke with a start, overwhelmed by a feeling of sheer terror. His heart beat wildly.

“It’s okay, son,” his father said, taking his hand in the near-darkness. “I’m here.”

“Dad?”

“I’m not going anywhere. Don’t worry.”

Grace came into the room. “I thought you two were asleep. I’ve got chamomile tea made if either of you wants it.” Her voice sounded curiously calm-shock, maybe, Linc thought. “Just let me know.”

Their father sat on the floor next to Linc. “Ellis was a malevolent force in all our lives. He had secrets none of us could ever have hoped to penetrate. He was lost in them. He couldn’t see his way out.” Jason’s voice faltered. “I didn’t know how far he’d gone.”

“Oh, Dad. I’m so sorry.” Linc was too exhausted to cry. “He was your brother.”

“He hated us.”

“None of us knew,” Grace said quietly. “We all loved him.”

“We loved the man he wanted us to believe he was.”

Grace said quietly, “Chris was the happiest man I’ve ever seen in those last days with Abigail. If I could ever dare to be so happy…”

“Dare it, Grace. Dare everything to be that happy.”

Linc could see the shock on his sister’s face at their father’s words.

When Linc drifted off again, he was aware of his father stretched out on the floor next to him, and his sister sitting across the room with her little pot of chamomile tea.

Mattie didn’t expect to see Doyle standing over his hospital bed when he woke up in a haze of painkillers and God knew what else the doctors had pumped into him. He was still on an IV. He tried to sit up. “Abigail? Linc? Are they all right?”

“They’re okay,” Doyle said, gruff as ever. “You got banged up the most. A couple broken ribs. About eight million bruises. You didn’t puncture a lung, though. No internal injuries.”

“I deserved to die.”

“Well, you didn’t. Now you have to figure out what comes next.”

“I can’t drink.”

Doyle nodded. “But you know it’s really about not drinking.” He seemed awkward. “I talked to Katie this morning. We’ll have to see what the prosecutors decide to do with you, but if you’re not in jail, you can have the spare bedroom until you’re back on your feet. One drop of alcohol, and you’re out. And you’re never to be there alone with the boys.”

“Doyle, I don’t deserve-”

“It’s not about what you deserve, Mattie. Katie and I can and want to do this for you. We’re not trying to save you. We know we can’t. Only you can save yourself.”

“When I was in the water,” he whispered. “BeforeAbigail. Chris was there. He kept me going. I had to stay alive to tell people about Ellis. I could hear his voice. I swear, Doyle. He was there, telling me…I had this one last chance…”

If Doyle believed him, he’d never say. “You’ve got a long road ahead of you, Mattie Young. Katie and I can walk some of it with you, but if you stumble-if you screw up-you’re on your own.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

Sean and Ian Alden squatted in front of a tide pool down on the rocks by Owen’s house. He sat on the deck with Doyle, watching the boys hold periwinkles up to their ears.

“You ever hear a periwinkle sing?” Doyle asked. “Because I never have. Katie says she hears them all the time.”

Owen lifted his feet onto the deck rail. “I can’t say I’ve spent a lot of time listening to periwinkles.”

“You would if you lived out here on this rock year-round.” Doyle grinned, and it was good to see. Forty-eight hours after Ellis Cooper’s death, nothing was back to normal. “Something to be said for it, don’t you think?” His grin broadened. “You’d go out of your damn mind.”

“I’ll be up here regularly once the field academy starts.”

“Rappelling off cliffs. Hauling trainees up and down mountains. Diving off boats. You won’t be listening to periwinkles sing.”

“Sometimes, maybe.”

“Katie’s excited about being director. You should hear her.” Doyle leaned back in his deck chair. “It’s good. I’m happy for her. For us.”

Owen shifted his gaze from the boys up the headland toward Abigail’s house on the rocks. The media had descended in a whir, keeping Doyle’s officers busy. Special Agents Capozza and Steele had kept vigil on Abigail’s house during the worst of it. John March called his daughter from Washington. He’d wait and see her when the frenzy had died down. By last night, most of the media had departed.