She thought about Frank and Annie arguing that awful day sixteen years ago—maybe it had been over Maurice?—and what could possibly have triggered a rage blinding enough for seemingly gentle Frank to take his wife’s life in such a savage way. That led to thoughts of her and David, the more passive uneasiness they’d endured since Milly’s death. She even briefly wondered if David had the same latent temper as his father, before shutting her eyes and hating herself for ever thinking such a thing.
That didn’t stop her from heading out toward Frank Randall’s place. David had accused her of being fixated on the past, and if he knew she was headed back to his father’s house, it would only cement that opinion of her, but still she kept driving.
Galveston was at its windswept best as she drove past the seawall, the waves up, the dark clouds hovering close to the gulf. The sensible thing would be to turn back toward the station, but she couldn’t fight the desire she had to see Frank Randall again, as if some sort of answer lay in his presence.
As she headed inland, it dawned on her that Frank didn’t know about Milly; about how close he’d come to being a grandfather. She wondered how he would take the news. If she hadn’t known about his past, she would have accepted Frank as the kind and thoughtful person she’d come to know these last few weeks. As it was, her cop instincts stopped her from fully accepting this side to him, knowing that it could all be an act. But even if it was, she was sure there was some compassion left in the man. David rarely talked about the past, but when he did he never had a bad word to say about his father—at least until that day that changed everything. People made mistakes, even terrible, violent ones, and she hoped it wasn’t all a performance for her sake; David would never be able to forgive his father, she understood that, but maybe Frank had learned from the terrible thing he did, and was the kind and generous father-in-law she’d thought he might be.
Laurie didn’t stop as she reached the turnoff to Frank’s house, continuing along the road toward Camino Real. Whatever she made of her father-in-law, seeking him out now made no sense, not with everything that needed to be done that day. Pulling to a stop, she realized she was less than half a mile away from where Annie Randall’s body had been discovered all those years ago.
Laurie didn’t believe in serendipity, but she was here now and had forgone her usual morning exercise. It would do her good to at least take a quick hike, would help prepare her mentally for the rest of the day.
She was deceiving herself, but she didn’t care. Pulling her raincoat from the back seat, dark clouds blacking out the midday sun, she locked up and began walking the narrow dirt path toward the grasslands. When she’d last been here, sixteen years ago, the place had been swarming with police officers and emergency vehicles. She’d walked this very same path with David, who’d been a stranger at the time. He’d insisted on accompanying her, Warren having already taken Frank earlier to identify what remained of Annie Randall’s body.
It was a different walk now. Laurie was aware of how isolated she was as she crossed over the damp land, despite her proximity to her car. Feeling for her firearm, she was relieved to find it in place, even as she wondered what was making her so nervous. She was used to assessing threat levels, and could detect none now beyond the rough terrain and short sightlines, but still her pulse quickened as she reached the opening to the beach.
Some distant part of her understood she was denying her true thoughts. This had always been her destination, from the moment she’d set off from the Harringtons’。 She would never call it a hunch, as she didn’t believe in such nonsense. Hunches came from good detection, and her detection skills had subconsciously told her to make her way here. It was probably nothing, but then, most of what she did was fruitless. Detection was a numbers game, and she was here simply to eliminate a natural suspicion.
Still, she didn’t call it in. She didn’t want Filmore or the others to use it as ammunition against her. She was operating on little beyond her imagination linking Annie Randall’s death and Grace’s disappearance. Each had been out for a run after a quarrel with a partner. She knew her colleagues would tell her she was reaching, so would keep it to herself for now.
It was impossible to find the exact spot. Nature and time had changed the area beyond recognition. The tall grass seemed more abundant than before, and the water level was lower. Annie Randall’s body had been found a good fifty yards above the maximum tide line. Most had seen this as an admission of guilt, that Frank Randall had wanted to get caught, otherwise he would have let her be carried out to the gulf. Laurie tried not to dwell on all that would have meant, beyond the fact it would have made it extremely unlikely that she would have ever met David. This thought sent a shudder of pain through her, as she guiltily thought that she would never have had to carry Milly for nine months; would never have had to experience the awful reality at the end of that period.
Her black thoughts were interrupted by a splash of color catching her eye in the reeds by the water. She darted across an inlet and, as she pulled aside the long grass, a vine whipping back and stinging the skin on her forearm, she discovered she’d made the right decision in coming here.
Chapter Thirteen
Randall felt more and more like a helpless child, as if his world was regressing. No sooner had he managed to get to sleep than he’d been woken by banging on the door. Such had been the intensity of the knocking, he’d expected the door to be taken off the hinges, and when he’d finally managed to struggle from his bed he’d been more than surprised to see his brother waiting for him.
“You left on bad terms,” Maurice had said. “Let me make that up to you.”
That had been hours ago. Now he was back at the rectory of Maurice’s church, dipping a heavy spoon into the chicken broth Maurice had prepared for him.
He’d argued but Maurice had a way about him that Randall struggled to resist. Maybe it was the older brother thing, or the hound-dog look in Maurice’s ancient eyes, but he’d eventually agreed to accompany him. It was only when they’d arrived back at the church, and Maurice had shown him to the bedroom once more, that he recalled the reservations he’d had last time he was here.
“What happened between you and Annie?” he said, before he lost his train of thought.
Maurice eased the spoon away from his mouth and placed it next to his bowl. “We’ve already discussed this, Frank,” he said, as if talking to a child.
Randall couldn’t recall any such conversation, though that in itself didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. “Well, we’re discussing it again.”
Maurice ran his hand over his mouth. “What exactly is it you want to know, Frank?”
“We came here once. When we were newly married. You remember that?”
“I remember.”
The thought of Annie as a bride sent a flutter through Randall’s chest. He’d never understood the meaning of having your breath taken away until he’d met Annie, but her beauty had done that to him over and over again. “Close your mouth, honey,” she’d have to say to him when he gawped at her. He pictured her now in a long, flowing summer dress, her red hair billowing behind her, and the memory was almost too much to bear.