Page 46 of Tangled Past
Chapter Sixteen
He watched the harbor lights through the windshield, the wipers smearing freezing rain.
Hope Island didn’t look like a place where monsters lurked. That was the beauty of it.
He sat a block up from the docks, engine idling low, heater humming just enough to keep the windows from fogging. Down below, the water rocked a forest of masts and rigging, boats shifting gently against their moorings, stern lights blinking like tired eyes.
One light in particular burned brighter than the rest.The Harbor Rose.Troy Malbern’s boat.
Troy Malbern. Loud-mouthed, easily offended, always spoiling for a fight. A man driven by a collection of small, festering grievances: Property lost, respect denied, tickets written, warnings given. A man who’d spent years complaining about everything from tourist traffic to fishing quotas.
Back then, his white SUV had been impounded for illegally parking. A stroke of luck. Malbern didn’t have the money to get it out. It would have stayed there until it was sold if not forhim. No one had known he’d slipped into the police’s impound yard and taken the vehicle. After he’d parked near the Hardesty placefor a while at night, he took the SUV and hid it where it wouldn’t be found.
Now, he watched Malbern crossing the gangplank. A stocky shape in a worn parka, cigarette ember flaring red in the dark. Malbern paused at the dock box, cursed at something, kicked it for good measure, then stomped onto the deck of his boat. Same temper. Same sloppy awareness. Same sense of indestructibility.
He smiled faintly.
Malbern had always been useful. He’d been useful when the Hardesty property changed hands, ranting to anyone who’d listen about what he’d lost. Complaining about Raymond Dutton harassing him for being near the property in the past. He stomped into the bar, red-faced that night, ranting and raving, promising that one day he’d make people pay.
Very useful when people remembered him more clearly than they remembered certain other faces in the bar.
He noticed a police cruiser driving by the harbor. The cruiser seemed to slow as it passed by Malbern’s boat.
He leaned back against the headrest, letting the satisfaction roll through him. They were looking at Malbern for the murder of the former police chief. Good. Let them paw through Malbern’s past. Talk to grumbling fishermen about him and dig up stories about a man who couldn’t keep his mouth shut on a good day.
People like Malbern were magnets for suspicion. Loud. Visible. Angry in all the right places.
People like him learned early how not to attract light.
He thought of the girl—the woman, really—sitting in that briefing room at the station earlier today. He hadn’t seen her, but he could picture her. Shoulders tight. Eyes too big. Hands clenched around nothing. Maya Callahan. He hadn’t counted on her remembering more than he’d planned for.
Vanessa. He thought he’d erased her existence and everyone who could identify her that night when he’d threatened the adoption agency person into assisting him. Killing Vanessa had been his last hurdle, or so he believed.
Except for a four-year-old heart beating so loud in the shadows he could almost hear it over the rain.
He’d leaned down. Laid out the rule like a commandment.
Don’t say a word.
Not then. Not ever.
Killing a child would have brought a level of scrutiny even he couldn’t control. Fear was quieter. Fear lasted longer.
He hadn’t expected the girl to end up working in plain sight, serving coffee to half the town. He hadn’t expected Raymond’s son to come back to the island years later, wearing a badge and a promise. He hadn’t expected the cold cases on the mainland to start whispering to a new generation of detectives.
Mistakes. People like him didn’t often acknowledge them, but he acknowledged this much: They were closer than they’d ever been, although still not close enough.
Malbern shouted at someone on the dock, his voice carrying up through the damp air. He watched the man for a long moment, his eyes narrowing. There were two ways to survive when people started closing in. Disappear, or make sure someone else tripped all the alarms first.
He shifted his vehicle into gear and rolled slowly away from the harbor.
The current chief wanted to follow past threads. Fine. He would hand him a knot.
???
The conference room had emptied, but the call still lingered in Asa’s mind.
He sat alone for a moment at the end of the table, elbows on his thighs, hands loosely laced. The fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. The whiteboard still bore the names they’d written earlier: Vanessa Warren. Troy Malbern. Hardesty Farm. Fire set to cover up any evidence. White SUV. Unsub.
