In Seconds. Brenda Novak

didn’t feel comfortable with Jake being near the water today, either. She wasn’t as afraid of letting him grow attached to Vera as she was Myles. Vera seemed far safer in that regard. She needed Vera’s help too badly to avoid letting her have contact with the children, anyway. But she wasn’t sure their “nana” was completely reliable when it came to keeping Jake safe so close to the lake. Would she have the physical strength and agility to save him if he fell in?

      Or was she being overprotective? He’d be wearing a life jacket, he knew how to swim and no doubt he’d be fishing from the wharf, where so many young men liked to go.

      Because of everything that had happened—the release of her brother from prison, his and Rex’s attempt to leave The Crew and The Crew’s determination to stop them or make them pay—Vivian had a tendency to shield her children too much. That only made her son more determined to escape the strictures of her concern. She could sense him pulling away from her as he grew older, preferring to spend time with Myles and other men, to embrace life without fear or reservation.

      But there was so much Jake didn’t know, so much she wouldn’t tell him for fear he’d have to carry the same burden she did…?.

      “What about your sister?” she asked, stalling while she decided whether or not she’d go along with this.

      He selected a box of cereal from the pantry. “It’s not her half birthday, so she doesn’t get to go.”

      “Why not?” This came from Mia, who’d entered the kitchen behind him. Still in her nightgown, she looked as tired as Jake. But, in true Mia fashion, she wasn’t about to miss out on anything. She seemed to feel as if she should be able to trail after her brother 24/7.

      “Because it’s not your half birthday,” he said with sufficient exasperation to tell them both that he was tired of repeating it. “You’ll get your turn. I was born first, so I get to go first. You heard Nana.”

      Her bottom lip jutted out. “I want to catch a fish.”

      Vivian handed Jake a bowl and a spoon, which he carried, together with his cereal, to the table. “Then ask Nana to take you fishing when it’s your turn,” he said.

      “I’m calling her!” Mia started for the phone on the wall, but Vivian intercepted her by sweeping her into both arms for a hug. She was getting too big to carry, but Vivian couldn’t resist. Besides, this day meant a lot to Jake. Vivian felt she had to agree to it or risk driving an even bigger wedge between them.

      “We’ll let Jake have his half birthday and plan yours, okay?” she said.

      Mia opened her mouth to complain, but Vivian spoke before she could. “What are you going to do for yours?”

      The furrows on her forehead disappeared. “Make a cake,” she announced. “And have a party!”

      “That sounds like fun,” Vivian said. “Will I be invited?”

      Her daughter gave her an impish grin. “Will you bring a present?”

      Vivian laughed. “Of course.”

      “What kind of present?”

      “Aren’t presents supposed to be a surprise?”

      As Mia tried to weasel an answer out of her, Jake wolfed down his cereal, set his bowl in the sink and went up to brush his hair and teeth.

      Just as Vivian heard the faucet go off, a car horn sounded outside.

      “Nana’s here!” she called up to him.

      Rapid footsteps pounded the old wooden floor in the hallway above as he dashed for the stairs and jumped down them two at a time.

      “Have fun!” Vivian said, but she almost couldn’t leave it at that. Wanting to warn Vera about all the dangers of the lake—and to make sure she’d heard about Pat Stueben’s murder so that she’d be extra cautious—she nearly followed him out of the house. But that was precisely the sort of thing that upset Jake.

      Vera was careful with the kids. She’d take good care of him.

      “I can’t wait till it’s my turn.” Mia’s wistful comment broke the silence that had rolled over them like a fog in the wake of Jake’s rushed departure.

      Vivian smoothed her daughter’s hair off her forehead. “Your turn will come soon enough, sweetheart,” she promised. If they were able to stick around…

      Where would they go if they had to leave? And how would she manage another relocation? She’d been on a rent-to-own plan and had recently signed the contract to purchase her house. She no longer had the government’s help and, expecting the coming fall to be her best year yet, she’d invested what money she hadn’t put into the house in her business.

      Just when she’d stopped looking behind her…

      Eager to send her brother an email, to get some reassurance that he, Peyton and Rex were okay in upstate New York and to keep him apprised of what was happening in Montana, she quickly prepared Mia’s breakfast. Then, sitting at the desk in one corner of the living room, she went online—and that was when her throat closed as if someone had tightened a noose around it.

      It was Tuesday, not Sunday. This wasn’t the day she and Virgil usually communicated. But there was a message from him. And it was marked Urgent.

      4

      Myles went straight to the vacation rental where the murder had taken place. Now that the initial shock was over, and the forensic techs and the coroner were gone, he wanted to examine the scene by himself. He planned to look at it from all angles to see if he could get some impression of the events that’d led up to Pat’s death. He also wanted to see if he could figure out a possible motive.

      But, early though it was, he wasn’t the first person at the cabin. An old dented Porsche 911 sat parked off the narrow road on a thick layer of pine needles. Myles recognized it as belonging to Jared Davis, the investigator he’d put in charge of this case.

      “Who’d want Pat dead?” Jared called out as soon as Myles stepped over the yellow crime-scene tape. But he was nowhere to be seen. He must’ve heard the cruiser and glanced out the open door before Myles came up the walk.

      “No one I know,” Myles replied to the disembodied voice.

      “There’s his wife.”

      “Gertie? She wouldn’t have the upper-body strength.” He found Jared in the dining room, crouching not far from the blood on the kitchen tiles, notepad in hand. It was cool outside, about sixty degrees, but the temperature would soon climb to eighty. Why Jared would be wearing a trench coat and wing-tipped shoes, Myles had no idea, but the investigator reminded him of the character on the TV show Columbo, which his mother used to watch. He even acted like him—a little disheveled and disorganized, often absorbed and seemingly inattentive, although he rarely missed a thing.

      “She could’ve hired someone to do it.”

      Myles was just as skeptical of that, but Jared continued before he could respond.

      “She stands to collect half a million in life insurance. I checked.”

      Because most murders were committed by family or friends, Jared had classified her as a “person of interest.” That was standard procedure, to look close to heart and home. But Myles didn’t believe Pat’s killer could be Gertie. “You’ve got to eliminate every possibility, right?”

      Jared stood but at five foot eight he barely came to Myles’s shoulder. “You don’t think it’s her.”

      Myles had made that clear yesterday. “Not a chance. I saw her after she found her husband. She was destroyed. Grief like that can’t be faked. Besides, they were happy, always together.”

      “Maybe she’s a hell of an actress. Maybe, when I dig a little deeper, I’ll find out she’s been embezzling from her husband’s real-estate company and he was about to audit