Page 73 of In the Bones
And if they had, where were they now?
“Tim,” Mac called as she jogged back to where he stood in the parking lot, her dread a meaty plug in her throat. “Blair’s missing. If Terry didn’t do this, and Angelica’s killer’s still at large …”
“We’ll find her,” said Tim. “I’ll drive.”
SIXTY
Tim
Blair Durham was at Tibbetts Point Lighthouse, just a few doors down from Mikko Helle’s house. Nicole had located her on the family’s tracking app, relaying the information to Mac. If Tim had been in Nicole’s place, and it was his daughter out there, he would have sloughed off Mac’s request to stay home and floored it to Cape Vincent, but he was grateful that she was better at following orders than he was. Nicole had already been assaulted once, and there was a strong possibility that Woody was being framed for Angelica’s murder. The Durhams needed isolating. To be kept well away from whatever happened next.
“What in God’s name is Blair doing there?” Mac asked as they sped down the highway toward the peninsula. “And why isn’t she answering my calls?”
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation,” Tim assured her, though he couldn’t divine what it was. In truth, his thoughts were largely occupied by Molly, who was currently at the hospital fighting for her life, and Terry Martino—whose alibi Valerie had, just moments before, confirmed was legitimate.
“Martino’s still a suspect for the attack on Molly at the Rivermouth,” Tim said. “If he wasn’t at the party last year, he couldn’t have killed Angelica. But I get the sense his involvement in this goes deeper than his partnership with Mikko.”
Tim filled Mac in on Eva Ki’s appearance at his front door the previous night, explaining that she’d seen Mikko with Terry Martino at the resort and knew that Mikko was planning another party. “He told her he has lots of local friends he could invite. His boys, he called them. It got me thinking maybe that’s the reason Molly was hiding out in Helle’s place.”
Tim knew that Molly didn’t suspect Mikko was the murderer.If she did, Tim had to think she would have told him when first apprehended, but she hadn’t pointed the finger at Helle during her interview, not once. That conversation was still raw, the irritation of the woman’s evasive answers seared onto his hippocampus.
You’ve got this all wrong.
What he did is so much worse.
You have to talk to him. Please, just make him talk.
When Tim had abandoned all attempts at nuance and asked Molly outright whether Mikko was responsible for the bones, her reply had been equally nebulous.It’s his house.
“It’s his house,” he said aloud now. “It was his party. She and Angelica were strangers to Helle, but it wouldn’t have been a stretch for Molly to assume that Mikko knew his other guests. That includes the killer, this mystery man Molly’s been hunting.”
Something else crossed Tim’s mind then, about a stray fact that had been as maddening as a pebble in his shoe. “Did Nicole tell you what she saw on her first day at Helle’s?” he asked the sheriff. “That message in the dust?”
“What message?” asked Mac. “All she told me about was the noises.”
“It said,I’m watching. She found it scrawled on a dusty countertop. It wasn’t there when she got to the house, and then suddenly it was. She thought maybe Helle had snuck back in and written it as a joke, but she also thought it could have been the phrogger.”
“I’m watching,” Mac repeated. “If Molly thinks Helle knows who killed Angelica, that message could have been left for him. Like a warning that she was working out the identity of the last guy she saw with Angelica.”
“I’m not convinced Helle knew her body was in his basement all this time,” said Tim, “but it’s very possible that Molly believes he’s been covering for whoever put it there.”
They’d reached the village of Cape Vincent and slowed to a crawl on the main road as families and couples crossed from one busy sidewalk to the other. The trees that lined the street were leafy and a vivid shade of green, planters on every cornerbursting with spring flowers. Past the gift shops, art galleries, and French-themed markets they drove, Tim’s fingers tapping anxiously on the wheel.
“Blair said Molly thinks the guy she saw that night was wearing a shirt with a construction company logo, right?” Tim asked. “I’d love to know if any of Martino’s workers were at the party.”
“I had the same thought,” Mac told him. “Terry could have introduced Mikko to some of his crew.”
“I’ve been hounding Stacy for a list of guests, but she keeps giving me the runaround.”
They’d cleared the downtown core, the storefronts replaced with residential homes. Another six or seven minutes and they’d be at the lighthouse.
Then, Tim said, “Pull up Helle’s number on my phone, would you? With any luck, we can coax out a few answers before we find Blair.”
SIXTY-ONE
Nicole
The sight of the hotel lobby brought Nicole straight back to her housekeeping days. She’d known every inch of it on an intimate level: the walls, the floor tiles, the live edge wood tables in the conversation areas by the windows. Next to the large stone fireplace, fanned-out copies of theThousand Islands Sunreminded guests of the upcoming Memorial Day parade, the bold lettering like a dare.
