A Blood Thing Read online

  “Your voice sounds funny. I hear echoes. Where are you?”

  “Inside one of the buildings in the Rutland Projects. Doing a quick tour.”

  After a brief pause, Henry said in a quiet voice, “I hate that place.”

  “I know.” Andrew understood. One of Henry’s friends, a former state police detective who had been something of a mentor to Henry—almost a father figure at times, before he’d retired with a full pension and become a private investigator—had been killed in one of these buildings years ago. Henry, who had been first on the scene, and—in Andrew’s opinion—had never fully recovered from the loss of his close friend, was among those who couldn’t wait for this place to be razed to the ground. “Tell me you were right about Rafferty, Henry. Tell me you’ve got him in cuffs.”

  “He’s not our guy.”

  Andrew exhaled sharply. The words were a gut punch. Rafferty was their best lead—possibly their only lead. “So how the hell—”

  He was interrupted by a vibration in his left pocket. The one in which he kept the mystery phone.

  “He’s calling again,” Andrew said.

  “The dickhead?”

  “Yeah. I’ll call you back, and we can fill each other in.” He ended the call with Henry and took a breath before answering the other phone. “Yes?”

  “That you, Governor Andy?” The same grating, monotone robotic voice from the first call.

  “What do you want?”

  “Have you found him yet?”

  “Found who?” Andrew asked, playing dumb. Belatedly, he realized that maybe he was dumb, because he should be recording this call, as Henry had done the first time the guy had called. He quickly found the voice recorder app on his own phone, began recording, and held it as close as he could to the earpiece of the burner phone.

  The caller, who had paused after Andrew’s question, said, “Either you’re being cagey, or you haven’t found him yet. Either way, I might as well move on. Have you made your decision?”

  Andrew took a steadying breath. “Yes. And I won’t do what you’re asking.”

  A brief pause on the line, then, “No? Not even if I could give you a video proving Tyler’s innocence?”

  A video exonerating Tyler? If they had that, this would all—

  He shook his head. “I can’t allow myself to be blackmailed. I can’t let myself be forced to release a convicted felon before he’s served his sentence.”

  “Prisoners are released early all the time.”

  “Because their cases make their way through the proper channels. Because their sentences have been reduced for good behavior, or when the parole board has carefully reviewed their specific situations and decided they should be granted early release. Not because someone murders an innocent woman and frames an innocent man for the crime, and tries to blackmail the state’s governor—who has sworn to faithfully serve the people of Vermont—to force him to abuse his authority.”

  “Well, when you put it like that . . .”

  “I take my oath seriously. I take the promises I made to the people of this state seriously. My answer is no. I will not release Gabriel Torrance for you. Or do anything else you want me to do. I urge you now to turn over to the authorities whatever evidence you have that you claim will exonerate my brother. I advise you to turn yourself in. But if you don’t, we’ll find you. And when we do, God help you for what you’ve done to my family.”

  Something scurried nearby in the blackness. Andrew whipped his flashlight around, and its beam caught a flash of dark movement disappearing through the open stairwell door near the elevators.

  “Is that a threat?” the caller asked. “How nongubernatorial of you.”

  “I think we’re done here.”

  “And that’s your final answer?”

  “It is. Don’t call me again.”

  “Well, Governor Andy, you may be done, but I’m not. Far from it. And believe me, you’re going to want me to call you again soon enough. You’re going to be dying for my call. So I’d advise you to still keep that phone handy. Until then, remember that what happens next could have been avoided. You could have prevented it.”

  Silence screamed down the phone line. The caller was gone. Andrew stopped the recording on his phone.

  He knew he should leave the building and join the others, but he had to call Henry back. He quickly filled his brother in, and Henry recounted his conversation with Rafferty.

  “So where does this leave us?” Henry asked.

  “In the dark.”

  Standing alone in that abandoned building, with things scurrying around him in the shadows, Andrew remembered the caller’s last words and wondered if he’d just made a huge mistake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The state police brought Tyler home the next day. Molly watched from a window as the cruiser waited for the small crowd standing on the sidewalk in front of the house to part so the vehicle could pull through the iron gate at the end of the driveway. Several of the people out there were reporters with their camera crews; others were merely curious onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of a high-profile murder suspect.

  When Tyler stepped out of the cruiser, he looked smaller and frail. His shoulders were hunched, as though he worried that one of the people who had gathered to watch his homecoming might throw something at him.

  Molly hated everyone in the tiny crowd.

  When the front door of the house opened, she greeted Tyler with a hug so fierce, he said, “Hey, you’re squishing me.” To their credit, the two troopers who had accompanied him home waited on the porch, giving them a moment. After several seconds, Molly released her hold on her twin brother and took a step back. As fragile as he seemed, it was clear he was trying to look brave and strong. It broke her heart.

  “Look,” he said as he tugged up the left leg of his jeans, exposing his bare ankle and the GPS bracelet encircling it—a bulky black device the size of a very small cell phone, held in place by a thick black band that they had attached before he left the jail. “It’s uncomfortable.”

  “I bet it is,” she said, the words catching slightly in her throat.

  “I have to shower with it.”

  “I know. You’ll get used to it, though. I promise.”

  One of the troopers cleared his throat, and Molly nodded and said, “Come on in.”

  The house was ready for Tyler. They needed a separate phone line in case there was ever an issue with the GPS signal and the monitoring company, WatchPro Solutions—to which the state outsourced monitoring functions—had to call. If they did, Tyler had better make it to the phone, or cops would be banging on the door within minutes. The line had to have a corded phone attached, with no added features like call waiting, voice mail, call forwarding, or the like. Fortunately, many years ago their father had installed a second line in his office for business use, and even though it had been unused for decades, no one had removed it. All Molly had to do was call the phone company to activate it again.

  All systems seemed to be a go. Molly had filled out numerous forms, paid various fees, and arranged for the automatic electronic payment of the fifteen-dollar daily monitoring fee. The necessary equipment had already been installed and calibrated—a base system that would receive GPS signals from the ankle monitor and wirelessly transmit the information to the monitoring company. The troopers stood by while one of the two WatchPro employees who had accompanied them showed Molly and Tyler how it all worked. Most important for Tyler to remember—other than the fact that he couldn’t leave the property—was that every day at 9:00 a.m. and again at 9:00 p.m., he was required to stand near the base so the monitoring equipment could register his presence and send that info to WatchPro. If the signal were ever lost, the phone would ring. If Tyler didn’t come to the phone, he would violate the conditions of his bond, and he’d be taken back into custody to spend the rest of his pretrial time behind bars. If the ankle device or the monitoring unit were tampered with, same thing; Tyler would go back to jail
. If he failed to check in at the designated times every day, back to jail. As the WatchPro rep explained all of this, the troopers stood nearby, nodding. Then they ran a test of the system, with a trooper and one of the WatchPro guys walking Tyler around the perimeter of the grounds while the other WatchPro employee stood inside, checking the monitoring base unit. The system worked perfectly.

  A few minutes later, not soon enough for Molly, the troopers and the WatchPro guys were gone, and she was alone with her brother. She wanted to hug him again but knew he wouldn’t want that. He surprised her, though, by putting his arms around her and leaning his head down until his forehead rested against hers. She closed her eyes and threatened her tears to stay the hell away. After a long moment, Tyler stepped back and announced that he was hungry, causing a small smile to creep onto her face.

  Half an hour later, Molly was sitting at the kitchen table across from her brother, who was eating a grilled cheese sandwich Molly had made for him.

  “You really do understand how important it is that you follow the rules, right?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said as he stuffed a huge bite of sandwich into his mouth.

  “You can’t leave our property, not even for a single second. They’ll know if you do.”

  “I know.”

  “If you do, they’ll send you back to jail.”

  “I know.”

  “And you can’t mess around with your ankle monitor.”

  “It’s uncomfortable.”

  “I’m sure it is. But you have to leave it alone. Try not to even touch it. You can get in trouble if you do.”

  “I know. Those guys told me.”

  “And you can’t—”

  “Molly, I get it. I swear. I don’t wanna go back to jail. I won’t mess with the monitor. And I’m not gonna run away or anything. I need to have my trial and show everyone I didn’t hurt that lady. So stop worrying about all this, and eat your sandwich.”

  “I don’t have a sandwich.”

  “Well, you should make yourself one. Oh, and can you make me another one, too?”

  He smiled. After a moment, she smiled back.

  They were halfway through their sandwiches—Tyler’s second, Molly’s first—when the back door opened, and Julie Davenport stepped into the room. Her University of Vermont T-shirt and yoga pants told Molly she was coming home from the gym. Julie’s eyes landed immediately on Tyler, and her face fell—a tiny slip—before she pasted on an uncomfortable smile. For a moment, it seemed as though she might head up to her au pair suite on the third floor without a word, but she said, “You’re back, Tyler.”

  “Hi, Julie,” he said around a mouthful of sandwich.

  “Molly told me you might not be here until tomorrow.”

  “I’m glad I’m home. It’s so much better than jail.”

  Julie’s plastic smile stretched a little wider but never reached her eyes. And that was where Molly saw it: she was afraid of Tyler.

  “Well,” Julie said, “guess I’ll head upstairs.”

  She left the room quickly and headed up the back stairs on her way to the third floor.

  Molly watched her brother chew for a moment, then said, “I’ll be right back.”

  She walked up two flights of steps and knocked on the door to Julie’s suite.

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Molly . . . just Molly.”

  She heard the clack of the deadbolt disengaging. Julie opened the door but didn’t invite her inside.

  “How’re you doing?” Molly asked.

  Julie shrugged. “Okay, I guess. You?”

  “I’m glad Tyler’s home. I hated him being in jail.”

  Julie merely nodded. Neither said anything for a long, awkward moment. Finally, Molly said, “He’s the same sweet guy you’ve known for two years, Julie.”

  Julie nodded and started to say something but stopped herself.

  “He didn’t do what they say he did,” Molly added.

  “Of course not,” Julie said unconvincingly.

  “You know him, Julie. You know how gentle he is. Have you ever even seen him angry?”

  Julie said nothing.

  “Ever seen him frustrated, even? Or impatient?”

  She shook her head but still said nothing.

  “He’s a lamb and always has been. You know that.”

  Finally, Julie spoke. “I know. He’s never . . . I mean, he’s always been . . .”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s just that . . .” She trailed off.

  And Molly knew. She just knew. “You can’t leave, Julie. Please don’t leave.”

  “I can’t . . .”

  “I need you. Tyler needs you.”

  “Molly . . .”

  “This is a hard time for the family, for all of us, and Tyler needs everything to be as normal as possible.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “He loves you, Julie. You know that. He really needs you. And so do I.”

  It was true. Tyler loved her. He sometimes referred to her as his “other sister.” And it was also true that he and Molly needed Julie in their lives. He didn’t always exercise the best judgment, and Molly and her older brothers weren’t comfortable with him being by himself for too long. He had burned himself twice, once using the stove and once using the microwave. One time he had started to run a bath, then got so wrapped up in a TV game show that he didn’t remember he’d left the water on. That had been a $12,000 mistake.

  And it was also true that as much as Tyler needed Julie, Molly did, too. They were friends. Moreover, they were both graduate students at the University of Vermont. If Molly were to have time to attend classes—or to have any semblance of a life outside the house—she needed someone to share the responsibility for keeping an eye on Tyler. He didn’t require constant supervision, but a light monitoring was definitely in order. And she couldn’t do it alone. She had tried during her first semester and found it too difficult. So she’d offered the au pair suite to a school friend, rent-free, in exchange for a second set of eyes to watch her brother a little. And for two years, it had worked out well. It couldn’t last forever, of course. One day Julie was going to graduate. And one day she would move out. But Molly desperately didn’t want that day to be today.

  “Please don’t go, Julie.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Talk to him. For five minutes. If he doesn’t seem like the same great guy you’ve always known, you can leave, no hard feelings.”

  After a long, long moment, Julie nodded.

  For the next twenty minutes, Tyler ate—he’d finished his sandwich and was working through a bag of potato chips—and Molly and Julie sat at the table with him. Molly watched Julie as they talked, and as the minutes passed, she relaxed more and more. Tyler told them about how the food in jail wasn’t nearly as good as the food at home. He showed Julie his ankle bracelet. He talked about the video games that Molly had bought him to replace a few that the police had taken. By the time Tyler had emptied the bag of chips, it looked to Molly as though Julie’s doubts had been erased.

  He stood, took his plate to the sink, and threw away the empty chip bag.

  “I’m gonna go play a video game,” he announced.

  He was almost out the door when Julie said, “I’m glad you’re home, Tyler.” It sounded sincere.

  He threw a grin over his shoulder and said, “Me, too.”

  Julie looked at Molly and, after a brief hesitation, nodded slightly. Molly gave her a small, grateful smile in return.

  “Family dinner tonight to welcome him home,” Molly said. “You’re invited, of course, as always.”

  “Thanks, but you’ve all been through a lot. You should be alone with each other. Besides, I’m meeting friends. Next time, okay?”

  There was going to be a next time, apparently.

  Thank God.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Henry sat at the table in the kitchen where he and his siblings h
ad watched their mother make thousands of meals. Molly sat across from him. They were watching Andrew and Rebecca prepare the evening’s dinner. They all knew that Henry was a takeout kind of guy, and Molly was a mac-and-cheese-or-tacos-from-the-box kind of gal, so on those occasions when the family gathered for a home-cooked meal, Andrew and Rebecca did the cooking. They plainly enjoyed it, and even after fourteen years of marriage, they seemed to enjoy doing it together. Henry followed their movements around the room and wondered if they had been choreographed. The couple worked in harmony, each seeming to anticipate the other’s moves, never bumping into the other, handing ingredients back and forth, taking away empty measuring cups and utensils. And they somehow kept their work area sparkling clean—counters wiped down, used prep tools in the dishwasher, pots and pans washed as soon as they had cooled enough—so that when dinner was ready, there was very little cleanup left to be done. Watching the finale of their cooking duet—when they carried the meal out of the kitchen—Henry knew he’d never have anything like that with anyone. He and Molly each grabbed two side dishes and followed the couple to the dining room.

  “Where’s Tyler?” Rebecca asked as she placed a basket of warm rosemary focaccia bread on the table, which was set for five. Staccato bursts of machine gun fire sounded from down the hall. “Oh,” she said.

  Molly headed for the doorway. “I’ll get him.”

  Down the hall, the battle raged for another half a minute while Andrew filled the water glasses. By the time Molly returned with Tyler, the others were seated.

  “Where’s Julie?” Tyler asked. “At class?”

  “She’s got other dinner plans tonight,” Molly said.

  “Okay. What are we having?”

  “Chicken,” Andrew said.

  “That’s my favorite.”

  “That’s why we made it.”

  “You guys are awesome. I had chicken in jail, but it was cold and tasted like rubber. And it didn’t smell like this. It smelled . . . like rubber, I guess.” His face brightened. “Hey, I used to have a rubber chicken. Remember? Henry gave it to me for Christmas one year. That’s what the food tasted like. That rubber chicken.” He chuckled, and everyone else smiled.