Shadow Notes by Laurel Peterson (cool books to read txt) 📗

who worked regularly out-of-doors, and his eyes were a nice shade of pale blue, like Paul Newman’s. I wondered if he wore a hat to protect his skin, or maybe he was always in the barn with the animals and so—Get a grip, Clara. I forced my brain back to the task at hand. “Ernie and Loretta told me Hetty was having an affair with someone close to the campaign. I’m hoping you can tell me who that person was.” Confirm who that person was.

Warren leaned back in his chair. “Why should I do that?”

I breathed out in satisfaction. “So you do know.”

“I’m about the only person on this planet the Winters family can’t touch. I know too much, and they know I know it, but I worked out my deal with the devil, and they leave me alone and I leave them alone. That was the price for keeping my daughter safe.”

“You won’t help me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I looked around at the environment he’d chosen, so different from the one Mary Ellen inhabited. These were working people who figured out how to divide up the paycheck to cover their needs, who felt lucky to have jobs, even if they complained about them, and who didn’t have time for the kind of games played by the Winters family. It seemed that Warren wanted to connect his daughter to this world—real people with real concerns. Andrew Winters pretended to understand it, made pretty campaign speeches reminiscent of trickle-down economics, but he didn’t have a clue.

I reminded Warren about Hugh’s murder and its connection to my mother. I told him I thought Hetty had alerted someone to my talk with Hugh, most likely the person she was having an affair with, and as a result, Hugh had been killed. I told him how Loretta had figured out that Hetty was having an affair with someone involved in the Andrew Winters campaign.

I sputtered to a stop. I didn’t want to tell him what I actually thought; I wanted to see if I was right first. If the intuition was working as well as I thought it was.

Warren’s eyes glittered as I spoke, as if I’d awakened some sleeping dragon in him. When I finished, he leaned in so close I had to force myself not to skitter back. “You have the answer, Clara. It’s just your basic assumption is wrong.”

He smiled evilly, the most disturbing version of any smile he’d given me so far. Something I’d said gave him a triumphant, vengeful pleasure. He said, “Who is the person closest to the campaign, aside from Winters himself?”

“Mary Ellen.”

He kept watching me.

It sank in. Not Pete. “Hetty was having an affair with Mary Ellen?” Shock nearly strangled my vocal chords.

“You’ll notice I didn’t tell you that.” He wrapped up the remains of his sandwich, picked up his magazine, and strode laughing from the deli.

I sat in the Land Rover, stunned by what I’d learned. Even though I had no evidence that Hetty called Mary Ellen the night of the party, the logical conclusion was that she did. I tried to assemble a reasonable scenario.

Hetty saw me leave with Hugh and called Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen freaked out, believing Hugh would spill the beans about Mother’s rape and the DNA report to me. She would assume—and she was right—that he wouldn’t tell me all he knew the first time he saw me; I’d been gone for years. Why would he trust me right away? I should have figured that out, too, but I’d been caught up in the dreams.

Mary Ellen would also assume that I wouldn’t hesitate to use information from Hugh to bring down the campaign. Was it Hugh’s timing that got him killed? Did Mary Ellen realize that, if she got rid of him quickly, she could keep her precious brother’s dream safe? And was she so impulsive or arrogant that she’d murdered Hugh herself? She’d already tried to get me to fall off a horse.

That’s when I got scared. Until now, I’d been scared for Mother: scared because of the dreams, scared of losing her. Okay, I’d been scared for myself, too, but only because the dreams could overwhelm me, and staying here could drown me in the old stuff I’d run from. But Mary Ellen’s willingness to engage in an affair with Hetty, someone she must have despised, merely to control her, told me she would do anything.

I pulled out the chief’s card and called his cell number.

After I’d explained, he said, “Hetty could have an affair with anyone she wanted. I don’t see how it’s pertinent.”

So I told him my theory about Hetty telling Mary Ellen about me and Hugh.

He didn’t sound convinced. “Confidentiality rules would keep him from sharing any of your mother’s personal history. Mary Ellen knows that.”

“Unless Mother gave him permission.”

“Did she?”

“I don’t know. Can’t you do something? Take Mary Ellen in for questioning?”

“Based on what? An affair? She can sleep with whomever she wants. There’s no evidence she committed or conspired to commit murder.”

I had to tell him everything. “Yesterday, Mary Ellen threatened to kill us. Mother was there when she said it, so there’s a witness, and—”

“Mary Ellen threatened to kill you?” It exploded from the phone. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I haven’t seen you!”

“You have no phone? You and that damn mother of yours, every time I turn around you hand me some piece of information I should have had weeks ago!” The phone went silent again.

I said softly, “I’m sorry, Kyle. It’s been a difficult decision. It hasn’t been easy to learn I was a child of rape, and that Andrew Winters is my biological father.”

“He what?”

“Mother didn’t tell you?”

“It gives her motive, Clara.”

“I just found out myself.”

“She never told you?” I said nothing. The sympathy and tenderness in his voice called up such sorrow and hurt in me. “Is there evidence?” he asked.

I told him about the DNA report, reassured him it was locked in Mother’s safe where