Dead Even Part 32

"Okay." Julianne nodded and reached for the gla.s.s of orange juice Mara held out in trembling hands.

Julianne watched her with wary eyes.

"What would you like to do after breakfast?" Mara asked.

"I don't know. I can't go anyplace. I don't have any clothes." She took a sip of juice. "If you're going to make me stay here, you're going to have to get me some clothes to wear."

"I'll ask Annie when she gets back," Mara told her.

"Why do you have to ask her?" Julianne frowned. "Can't you take me?"

"I've been having problems with my car. She'd have to drive." Mara averted her eyes. She couldn't bring herself to tell her daughter that she was afraid to let her leave the house.

Maybe we can get Miranda to come along. She has a gun. Annie doesn't carry a gun. . . .

"Do you work?" Julianne asked.

"Yes."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a lawyer. I work with the courts. I'm what they call a child advocate. When there are custody disputes in families, I represent the child or children."

Julianne stared at her, then said, "So if my dad came for me and went to court with you, they'd give you custody because they know you. That won't be fair."

Mara bit her lip. She wasn't going to get into what could be an ugly discussion with Julianne. She wanted to tell her daughter that the courts would give her, Mara, custody because her father had broken the law, but she couldn't let her feelings for Jules surface to sour this time with Julianne. So she said nothing. She poured herself another cup of coffee and sank into a chair at the table.

"Does she work?" Julianne pointed out the window to where Anne Marie stood chatting with Aidan.

"Yes."

"What does she do?"

"She works for the FBI."

"Oh." Julianne watched Annie for a few minutes, then asked, "Who is that man?"

"His name is Aidan s.h.i.+elds. He's a friend of mine."

"Why is he here?"

"He works with Annie."

"He's an FBI man?"

"Yes."

"He's waiting for my father to come for me, isn't he? He's going to arrest my father, and they'll let you keep me because you work with those people." Julianne threw the gla.s.s of juice across the room. It hit the cabinet above the stove and shattered.

"Julianne . . ." Mara jumped out of her chair.

"I'll tell them I want to be with my father. I'll tell them how you had those people steal me away. How my father had to keep me away from you because you were a bad-"

"Stop it," Mara said softly. "You know that isn't true. I have never stopped loving you. I never stopped praying that you'd come home."

"Then why did it take you so long to find me? If you were looking so hard, why did it take you so long?" Julianne sobbed and rushed from the room.

Mara followed her daughter to her room and opened the door that had just been slammed in her face. She leaned against the doorjamb and watched as Julianne threw herself facedown onto her bed. Hesitating for just an instant, Mara went to her, sat down on the side of the bed, and gently rubbed her daughter's back, trying to think of the right thing to say.

h.e.l.l, how could anyone know the right thing to say?

When no words came, she lay down next to the sobbing girl and held her. Brus.h.i.+ng Julianne's blonde hair back from her face, Mara cried tears of her own.

"Why are you crying?" Julianne demanded.

"Because I don't know what else to do," a weary Mara told her, her emotions worn to the quick. "I don't know what to say to you, or what to do for you. I want to tell you that everything your father told you about me was a lie, but I know I'm not supposed to say that, because it would make you feel conflicted. But obviously he didn't tell you the truth about things. Look at me. Certainly I'm not dead. And I was a good mother-I was a very good mother-but if I start telling you all the ways in which I was a good mother, then I'll be wrong for showing your father up as a liar. I am d.a.m.ned if I do, and I'm d.a.m.ned if I don't."

Mara sat up and exhaled. "I'm sorry, Julianne. I shouldn't have said that. Not any of it."

She rubbed her temples, tried to rub away the throbbing pain that had settled in and kept announcing itself, over and over and over. Neither she nor Julianne seemed able to look at the other. The storm of emotions had been so swift and so strong.

"My room is the same," Julianne said after a few very long minutes. "I remember a lot of the dolls. And the stuffed animals there on the shelves."

She got up and went to the bookshelves and touched the spines of several books.

"I looked at a lot of these last night. I remember some of them. I remember you reading to me at night."

"We always read together at night."

"Mr. Willoughby's Christmas Tree." Julianne took one from the top shelf. "I liked this one. The rhymes. I liked the way the tree kept getting smaller and smaller." Julianne took one from the top shelf. "I liked this one. The rhymes. I liked the way the tree kept getting smaller and smaller."

She smiled as she flipped through the pages. "I liked how the mice had the tiniest tree at the end. . . ."

"You used to make me crazy, wanting me to read that over and over and over." Mara managed a smile.

"I remember." Julianne skimmed the last page of the book, then slid it back onto the shelf.

"Why didn't you get rid of my stuff?" she asked. "You didn't change anything."

"I wanted your things to be here for you when you came home."

"What if I was twenty when I came back? What if I was in college?"

"It would still all be here."

"What if I never came back?"

"It never occurred to me that you wouldn't come back someday. I wasn't sure how old you'd be, but I knew one day, I'd find you and you'd come home."

Julianne picked up a music box and brought it to the bed and sat down next to her mother. She opened the lid, and watched the tiny skaters whirl stiffly across the ice in time with "The Skater's Waltz."

"It still works." She closed the lid and the music stopped.

"I kept replacing the batteries."

"How many times?" Julianne looked up at her. "How many times did you have to do that?"

"Lots, I guess. I didn't keep count."

Julianne leaned back against her mother, her head resting on Mara's chest, and raised the lid again. She hummed along with the tinny music as the skaters resumed their dance. Mara put an arm around her child and closed her eyes tightly, giving silent thanks, no longer concerned about what came next. She allowed this first bit of closeness to fill her, every lonely corner, and knew that for now, it was enough.

"So what do you think, Cahill? Same places as last night?" Will asked as they left the house next door to Mara's and headed across the drive.

"Sure." She shrugged. "Makes no difference to me, either way."

"Maybe we'll have a bit of action tonight, what do you think?" Keeping to the shadows, he took her hand for just a minute.

"I don't know. What if we're wrong and this is all a waste of time? What if Jules decides it isn't worth it to him to take the risk to get Julianne back? I mean, he has to know that Mara isn't going to give her up without a fight."

"You're right. And I don't think he's the type to back off without fighting back. I think the thought of displeasing his boss will urge him on, even if his paternal instincts do not. He'll be here, maybe tonight. I doubt he's going to want Julianne to spend a minute longer with her mother than she has to."

"Afraid she'll find out just how much he's lied?"

"Afraid that mother-child bond will take over and she won't come willingly. It would be interesting to see how he's going to explain to his daughter that her mother has been alive all these years."

"Like that's going to be an issue. He's not going to get close enough to Julianne to have that conversation."

"How's that going, by the way? What did Annie say about how Mara and her daughter are getting along?"

"She said it goes back and forth. One minute Julianne seems happy to be home, talking to Mara about things she remembers. Then the next minute, she's angry at her mother for taking her from her father. She said it's like a seesaw that's totally out of control."

"It's probably going to be like that for a while," Will said. "Julianne has gone through a lot. I'm sure her loyalties are being severely tested right now."

"Annie said it was to be expected. But it sounded as if it's starting to wear on both of them."

"It's going to wear even more when Jules shows up and we have to take him in," Will reminded her. "That's not going to be a pretty scene."

"Well, maybe we'll get lucky and we'll be able to get our hands on him before Julianne even knows he's been here."

"That's the plan." They reached the backyard, and Will knocked softly on the door. He stepped back when Annie appeared and opened it.

"Sorry," she said softly, "but Julianne just went up to bed. It isn't so easy to talk a twelve-year-old into going to bed early, you know? I told them that I'd be right up, that I needed something from my car. We're going to watch a movie on the TV in Mara's room."

The three stepped into the back hall and Annie closed the door behind them, then locked the dead bolt.

"Got your walkie-talkie?" Will whispered.

"Got the walkie-talkie, got the gun." Miranda patted first one hip, then the other. "And got the all-important licorice."

"Guess you're all set, then. See you later." Will followed Annie down the hall.

"See you." Miranda leaned back against the wall. "Hey, keep in touch, okay? Feel free to call if anything exciting happens."

She slid down the wall, watching Will disappear into the darkness.

Her walkie-talkie buzzed softly against her hip ten minutes later.

"I just heard from John," Will told her.

"And . . . ?"

"And guess whose body was just found facedown in the mud with a couple of bullet holes?"

"I have no clue." Miranda sat up straight, intrigued.

"Maybe it would help if I told you where it was found."

"Go on."

"In a park down the road from Landry's farm."

She processed the information. "Down the road from . . . I don't know. Tell me . . . oh, no, please don't say Regan Landry-"

"No, no. Archer Lowell."

"Lowell? You're kidding, right?"

"Nope. No gun found, they're rus.h.i.+ng the testing on the bullets they recovered, see if they're a match to anything we already have. They're hoping that once the story breaks, someone will come forward, have a description of a car or an individual who might have been seen with him. Right now, they have nothing but the body and the bullets."

"Holy s.h.i.+t." She was still in shock. "Poor, stupid Archer . . ."

"Poor Archer was going to plant a bullet between those baby blues of yours. Save the sympathy."

"I can't help it. He was so . . . pathetic." Miranda shook her head.

"Pathetic enough to have killed two men and walked away unseen both times."

"Well, I guess that's good for me, though, right? At least I don't have to worry about him trying to cross me off his. .h.i.t list," she said. "But who would have wanted him dead?"

"Your mind does sort of wander back to that fourth-man theory now, doesn't it? Someone had to have pulled the trigger."

"But we know there were only three men in that room, Will. Evan confirmed through the deputy sheriff's office that there were only Channing, Giordano, and Lowell. When would they have added a fourth? And why? Doesn't it seem that the more people who knew what they were planning, the more likely it would be that, sooner or later, someone would slip up and tell someone else?"

"Unless one of the three arranged for a fourth to sort of oversee the game, make sure it was played out."

"But who could have done that? Channing had already played out his piece before Giordano was released from prison, and Archer was still behind bars when Vince was doing his thing," Miranda reminded him.