“I heard about Earl.”
“It was a real tragedy.”
“I wish he had talked to me. I would have helped him, considering what he did for me.”
“What do you mean, did for you?” asked Devine curiously.
“You remember I told you about my husband’s boat going down in an accident a number of years back?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, Earl worked on that boat. Had for decades. As good a stern man as there ever was. Earl tried to save Wilbur, but he drowned. Rocked the whole town, I can tell you that. They recovered his body, and we had the funeral and all. And they held a ceremony out at sea for Wilbur, to honor him. I cried my eyes out for six months, it seemed like. And so did Earl. Poor thing. He was hanging on to some debris for hours in that cold water. Almost died. Hurt his neck and back. He couldn’t work after that. Now, I didn’t think I could get by without my Wilbur. But I used his life insurance proceeds to buy this place and fix it up. I mean, you have to go on living, right?”
“Yes, you do,” said Devine. “And I’m sure Wilbur would have wanted that.”
“Well, Earl and I really became close after that. I even gave him some of the insurance money, though he fought me tooth and nail over that. Now, Bertie and I had been friends for decades. We’d sit and clean barnacles off the cages before the new season started, put the new tags on, check the runners, repaint the buoys, and repair the hog rings. But after that I was friends with Earl, too. He was a real hero for what he tried to do, but he never talked about it. Just said he was lucky to be alive and that it should have been Wilbur who’d made it, not him.”
“I understand that,” said Devine, thinking about how the same philosophy worked in the military.
She said, “You’d think a man like that would be able to find some peace, that the Lord would grant him some solace. But instead he loses his son and daughter-in-law, and then his wife. And now this.”
“Life rarely works out the way we expect it to.”
“Though I was raised Catholic, I’m not a churchgoer. But I’m heading there today to say a prayer for his soul. See, taking your own life is a mortal sin. You’re not supposed to get into heaven with that hanging over your head. Or be buried in consecrated ground, or at least it used to be that way. My thinking is God should cut Earl some slack.” She gave Devine a raised eyebrow as she said, “I mean, we’re only human after all.”
“Yes, we are,” replied Devine.
Chapter 50
“What are you doing here?” asked Alex as she opened the door to her studio. There were paint smudges on her hands and a broad charcoal stroke on her nose.
Devine looked down at her. “Thought I’d check up on my favorite local artist.”
She grinned and then looked skeptical. “Why don’t I believe that?”
“Can I come in? Pretty cold out here.”
“You’ll have to watch me work. I’ve got a tight deadline.”
“My pleasure.”
He looked at the easel with a four-by-four-foot canvas on it.
“Coffee’s fresh,” she said, pointing to the pot on an electric plate and some cups next to it.
He poured himself a cup and leaned against a table to watch as she went back to work.
“Seems pretty sedate for you,” he noted as he looked over the painting of a lake’s surface with colorful water lilies floating on top. “No male genitalia or anything.”
She laughed. “The client loves Monet but can’t afford that sort of artwork, not that you can just go buy an original Monet these days. They’re either in museums or owned by billionaires. But I’m a good chameleon. I can imitate lots of styles.”
“But you prefer your own style?”
“Every artist does, but you have to pay the bills, too.”
“Did you mention to anyone that I slept here that night?”
She shot him a glance. “No, why?”
“Harper knew about it. He arrested me for breaking and entering — at least that was one of the charges.”
She lowered her palette and brush. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“I wish I were. He let me out but he could pick me up anytime.”
“I’ll talk to him and tell him it was fine that you were here.”
“But, like I said, those weren’t the only charges.”
“What else? Urinating in public? From what I’ve seen you could get half the male population up here on that one,” she said jokingly.
He debated whether to say. “It actually involved a piece of evidence from... your case.”
She looked startled. “My case?”
“He accused me of stealing it.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I wouldn’t. And didn’t. But the evidence is missing. Someone took it.”
She set her palette and brush down and came over to him. “What was it?”
He glanced at her before answering. She seemed equal parts angry and... frightened? “It was your rape kit.”
Alex looked down, her facial features tight, her body rigid where it had been relaxed and loose while painting. “Why would anyone take that?” she asked, her gaze still averted from him.
“I don’t know. But it would make it impossible to compare anyone’s DNA to it, so there is that.” He waited for her to say something but when she didn’t, he added, “Your sister came up here because I think she had figured out who had attacked you.”
“How... how could she possibly have done that? And after all this time?”
“She used some of her resources at CIA to work the case.”
“What?!”
“She told your mother that she came up here for unfinished business. And she asked you about the attack.”
Alex started to crumple. “But... but she never told me that... that she... knew who—”
Seeing how she was being affected by this revelation he said quickly, “I’m not saying she knew for certain. But I think Jenny might have suspected.”
She looked up at him in a way that made his skin tingle. She seemed wobbly and dazed, and Devine felt like an insensitive idiot for having brought all of this up.
“I just meant that if she really knew who it was and had proof of that, she would have just contacted the authorities. I don’t know what the statute of limitations up here is, but I doubt it goes back fifteen years for what happened to you.”
Alex did not appear to be listening. Then, while Devine was preparing what he would say next, she slumped to the floor.
“Alex!” he cried out, kneeling down next to her. Her eyelids were fluttering and her breathing was erratic. It was like when he had unwittingly brought her to the place where she’d been attacked, only this time was worse.
Devine gripped her hand. “Breathe in and out, nice and slow, in and out. Come on, you can do it.”
Instead, the woman went completely rigid and her eyelids stopped fluttering and closed.
“Get off me,” she screamed.
He let go of her and sprang back, stunned. “Alex, I’m just trying to—”
“Stop it, stop it! Let me go. Let me go. You’re hurting me. I... I don’t want to do this! Stop!” she shrieked.
She started writhing on the ground, punching with her arms and kicking with her legs.
“Alex, I’m not touching you. I’m over—”
“I will kill you. Let me go... stop it, don’t, don’t! Stop... Please!” She screamed again. And then fell silent, her body now still. And then she started to weep, softly, agonizingly, her whole body shuddering with the effort.
“Alex, I’m...” Devine stopped and looked helplessly down at her.
She grew still and the cries stopped. She opened her eyes and looked around in a daze.
When she saw him she said quietly, “What happened?” She looked around and noticed that she was on the floor. She slowly got to her feet, putting a hand on a table to help lever herself up on shaky legs while Devine just stood there, stunned. “Why was I on the floor? I remember talking to you and then... nothing.”