Page 67 of Death in the Family
“Oh my God,” Jade managed through her sobs. “Oh my God, is hedead?”
“Shoot him!” Miles roared, pointing at Flynn. “That man is an animal!”
I dropped to my knees next to Ned and saw that his eyes had rolled back in his head. I found his pulse with two fingers on his neck, thought,Thank you, Jesus, and took a closer look at his wound. “Bebe. Grab those napkins and put pressure on this.Hurry.” I didn’t like how much the cut was bleeding or the slack, gray look of Ned’s skin.
In her too-tight skirt, Bebe knelt awkwardly beside me and pressed the cloth against Ned’s wound. Tim fastened his cuffs around Flynn’s thick wrists and ground his knee into the man’s back. All the while I was acutely aware of the location of every person in that room. It didn’t surprise me when I glanced up and saw Miles’s expression change. I turned my head just in time to see Norton run for the door.
It was what I was counting on.
What I didn’t expect was that he’d take Jade with him.
THIRTY-ONE
The terrain on the west side of the island was rough and steep, but I heard their feet crushing wet twigs down below, so I knew I was on the right course. They were both in their house shoes, while my boots at least had a suggestion of grip. If they made it to the river without fracturing a bone, I thought, they’d be lucky.
I hadn’t considered Norton’s familiarity with the island. While I took the cliff at an angle, picking my way down with only my flashlight to keep me from wrenching an ankle, his movements were nimble and unfaltering, and the path he forged helped Jade to keep pace. They circumvented deadly outcroppings and evaded near-invisible hollows with ease. Twenty years of caring for Tern gave Philip Norton an edge. Camilla may have owned the island, but nobody understood it like he did. Every patch of moss and goose nest, where to find the best views of the river... Nortonknew it all. This place was his home, and by the time I was halfway down the bluff, I couldn’t hear them at all.
People kill out of jealousy, fear, and hate. They kill because they want what someone else has. More than anything, though, what drove Norton’s actions was love. His love for Tern Island.
I can’t say exactly when I realized he was covering up Jasper’s murder. There were many moments when I thought,I wonder. As keeper of the house Norton had access to everything and excuses for anything—including hiring Billy Bloom and using him as a stooge. If forensics found Norton’s DNA on Jasper’s sheets, he could remind them he made the beds. He could argue his fingerprints were on Jasper’s bedside table because it was he who did the dusting. Nobody would bat an eye if Norton slipped away to get more wood for the fire, or to snatch a thick, rough rope from the shed.
To his friends and grandmother Jasper was a sweetheart, but he had no love for Norton. According to Abella, Jasper was inexplicably rude to Norton on the dock. In her bedroom Camilla suggested her grandchildren should cut Norton some slack, but it was Jasper she’d been talking about. He alone was concerned with Norton’s behavior. Either he didn’t like how close Norton and his grandmother had become, or he sensed Norton was acting strange and got wary.
Even though she never got the chance to tell me, I think Abella sensed it, too. I’d concluded she and Jasper had argued because of the way Jasper was treating Norton. The photos Jade took of them in the hall, both with and without the caretaker, confirmed it. In spite of Abella’s desire to stay on her new boyfriend’s good side, she’d called him out on his discourteous behavior. It wasn’t until later on, when she witnessed firsthand the level of control Nortonhad over Camilla, that she understood Jasper’s paranoia about his Nana’s trusted companion was warranted.
I knew Norton would run when he saw an opening, for the simple reason that he didn’t belong in this world. It was instinct driving him now, the pure, animal need to flee—not just from Tim and me, but all the Sinclairs. I knew what that felt like. I’d run, too. But Norton was desperate, and he had Jade. She didn’t hesitate to go with him. Leave her father and take off. No, Jade wasn’t a hostage.
That didn’t make her safe.
I reached the river’s edge and wiped water from my eyes. The gun’s grip felt like it was bathed in oil. I squeezed it harder. There was no tracking their footprints. The ground was the same mix of rock and wild grass as the yard up by the house, every blade pounded flat by the rain. The island was large and wooded, and looping to the right would take me nowhere. Only the boathouse lay to the left, and there was nothing there for Norton now, but it seemed the better choice. I hugged the shoreline, pushing through a cluster of trees that thrashed wildly in the high wind. The branches slashed my cheek as I passed and I felt the piercing bite of torn flesh. At the sensation, my memory flickered. I remembered a long, rusty nail gripped tight by a hand as familiar to me as my own, and gagged when I recalled how it punctured my skin and made a breakneck journey across my face. But that pain was old, and I couldn’t dwell on it now. I ran on.
As I reached the outer limits of the island, I thought again about how much damage Bram and Carson had done. Norton was right in front of me all day, but I didn’t trust myself enough to connect the dots. I couldn’t tell good from bad until the truth waspresented on a fucking platter. I can’t even see a man for what he is when I look into his eyes and accept a ring.
The boathouse loomed ahead of me and I spotted Norton a few feet from the river’s edge. He was pushing a battered old canoe into the water near the dock. The green tarp he’d used to camouflage it lay abandoned behind him in the brush. The boat tipped and swayed in the water, no match for the ferocious waves. Gripping a paddle, her free arm braced against the canoe’s edge, Jade was already huddled inside.
“Stop right there!”
Both Jade and Norton startled and whipped their heads around. Jade wasn’t wearing a lifejacket, and the canoe didn’t look seaworthy in the best of weather. I trained my flashlight at Norton’s face and leveled my gun at his chest. “You can’t run,” I hollered. “Look at the river. She’ll die. You both will.”
Norton squinted into the light, and his small eyes sank into his doughy face. Rain flowed in rivulets over his bald head. “I have to,” he said, wading into the water. “I’ve got to take her home.”
“I thought Tern was your home.” I willed my hands to stop shaking. He appeared unarmed, but there was no way I could get off a clean shot if Norton made a move. With the rain, visibility was poor, and the harder I squeezed the more the gun’s grip felt like sandpaper grating at my palm. I took three slow steps toward him. “Where’s Jasper, Philip?”
He was still holding on to the canoe, trying to drag it deeper, but my question loosened his resolve and he stopped moving. Norton locked eyes with Jade. Jacketless and soaked through, she looked miserable and afraid. “I didn’t think,” he told her. “I didn’t know...”
“Where is he?” I shouted.
“He’s dead!” Norton’s sobs were nearly drowned out by the sound of the waves, but I saw the horror in his eyes. “He’s gone. In... in the river. I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”
Jade’s perfect lips formed the shape of an O. As I looked on she transformed, fragile now in the knowledge that she’d crossed from childhood to the inhumanity of adult life.
Norton let out a moan. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and dropped his chin to his chest.
“Out of the boat,” I told Jade as I closed the distance between us.
She looked up at Norton with confusion, but did as she was told. Jade scrambled out of the canoe, sinking her coltish legs into the water.
Fumbling the flashlight, unwilling to lower the gun, I reached into my back pocket and handed Jade her phone. “Get in the boathouse. Call 911. Tell them we’ve got suspects out here we’re charging with domestic assault and first-degree murder.Go,” I yelled when the girl didn’t move. She hurried to the boathouse and closed the door behind her.
