Page 29 of The Murder Inn
“But you said this was only day three.”
“Uh…” April set down her glass slowly. “Yes. It is. Day three.”
“And you got here yesterday? From Omaha? That must havebeen one hell of a drive,” Clay said. “It’s got to be—what? Fifteen hundred miles? Not much of a trundle. Sounds like you were hauling ass day and night.”
April’s mouth turned into a thin line. Her eyes traced the wood grain in the tabletop before her. “I must be confused,” she said quietly.
“That, or you’re lying,” Clay said. April froze. Clay saw the muscles in the back of her hands tighten on the tabletop. He reached over and put a hand carefully on her forearm. It was warm and taut beneath his palm.
“Listen,” Clay said. “I think I know what’s going on.”
“It’s that obvious, is it?”
“Maybe not to everyone,” Clay said. “But to me, yeah. I deal with this stuff all the time at work. A beautiful woman and her son, traveling alone for an indeterminate amount of time, during the school term, without enough baggage to last them a week. No mention of his father. Mom’s got her eyes on the exits in every room, warning anyone who bothers to talk to her that the kid’s untrustworthy and shouldn’t be listened to. And this vague tale about a vacation to nowhere in particular. None of it makes any sense.”
April’s heartbeat was ticking through the muscle under Clay’s hand.
“Unless, of course, someone’s after you,” Clay said.
April exhaled. She wouldn’t look at him.
“Joe’s dad, right?” Clay pressed. “You’ve fled. You’re in hiding. Joe said something yesterday about being worried about being followed.”
“I can’t talk about it,” April said, shrinking away from Clay’s touch. “I’m… I’m… I can’t get into it.”
“You don’t have to.” Clay put his hands up. “I don’t need to know the details. But you need to know something.”
“What?” April chanced a look at him.
“You’re safe here,” Clay said. “I’m not going to tell any of the others what’s going on. But you can’t keep running. You’ve got no plan, and no direction. And that’s going to lead you down the wrong road. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after. I’ve seen this before, women running off from their abusive husbands and ending up someplace bad, where that phone call—the one you make to him, saying sorry, begging for forgiveness, asking him to come pick you up—is the only option you have left.”
April chewed her lips.
“You’re safe here,” he said again. Then he took a chance. “With me.”
April looked at him and he tried to get a read on those eyes. She was calculating. Weighing. Clay hadn’t felt the desperation to measure up so acutely in years. Joe banged on the glass doors beside them, startling them both. He was holding a hermit crab in his palm.
“Look!” he bellowed. “It’s alive! See?”
They nodded and grinned until the kid went back to his exploring.
“Why don’t you let me help you?” Clay asked April. He braced himself, expecting her to pull away again. But instead, she slid her hand up into his.
“OK,” she said. “I think I will.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SHAUNA STOPPED IN the middle of the sidewalk, stunned, it seemed, by an invisible force. Her feet simply slowed, and then were stationary, and her gaze locked on the muddled horizon of stores closing, restaurants opening, Manchester-by-the-Sea rolling gently toward night. All that had happened in the past twenty-four hours swept over her. The murder. The cleanup. The first close call at her home with the men who had come to her garage, and the second close call at Bill Robinson’s house. She had been going through tasks mindlessly, in an exhausted haze. Dropping Robinson’s car at the Manchester beach house. Going out to get supplies—food, painkillers. Now suddenly the path ahead seemed empty. There had been a plan, and now there was none, and she found herself staring at her own reflection in the window of a thrift shop. She looked impossibly worn, hard-edged and hollow. But there was something else there, too. Something new in her eyes. The last Shauna shehad imagined had been a woman full of life and joy, sailing the coast, taking tourists along the glittering edges of the horizon. Before that, there’d been another Shauna in production: the nursing home version, boring long-suffering attendants with stories. Now she was looking at a Shauna completely unfamiliar to her. A wounded being, filled with fury. A killer. A liar. A criminal. The hopes and desires of those other Shaunas had been so clear. But this new one? There was no telling what she would do next.
Shauna lifted her eyes to the mannequin dominating the front of the thrift shop. It was a young woman’s figure, ridiculously slim, like the woman Shauna had murdered. The mannequin was dressed in jeans that were torn at the knees, a T-shirt from some band Shauna had never heard of, and a dusty leather jacket.
Shauna stared at that jacket.
When the shop attendant got it down for her, Shauna ran her fingers over the battered but strong stitching in the shoulders, the scratched zipper and purple satin lining. A faint smell of cigarette smoke lingered on the garment. The jacket was heavy, protective, loaded with a history Shauna could somehow sense was violent and dark. She pulled it on.
The shop attendant was hovering nearby, loading freshly washed clothes onto racks.
“For your granddaughter, is it?” she asked, glancing over.