"Do you really?" Betsy continued toward Luke's yacht, feeling steadier on her feet now. "I suppose having your father out of Goose Harbor will make it easier for you to continue your work on your documentary. He won't hinder your access to the Wests." She paused, realized the air didn't feel as cold anymore as she looked at this young man she'd known since he was a baby. "That's why you're seeing Christina, isn't it? Because she's Olivia's niece?"
"No, of course not."
"She's a good girl, Kyle. She's got simple desires. Don't use her to fulfill your own ambitions. Think about her and what she wants."
"I am. Don't worry, Betsy." He flashed her a smile, handsome and rakish even with his split lip and black eye. "You're a good soul, aren't you? Worrying I'm the rich bastard who's swept the naive small-town girl off her feet."
Betsy couldn't help herself and smiled at him. "You're awfully full of yourself, Kyle Castellane, and you always have been. You used to stand out on the dock and pee in the harbor when your mum was trying to potty-train you. We all should have known then."
He grinned at her. "That's where I have to give my old man credit. He didn't beat me for anything, not even peeing in the harbor."
Everyone in Goose Harbor knew Luke'd had terrible parents, and yet he acted as if he'd had a loving and privileged childhood, pretended the abuse he'd endured wasn't just his private hell but something that had never happened at all.
However good his intentions, Betsy doubted Kyle's relationship with Christina would last after he finished his documentary. She was part of that obsession now. In time he'd move on to a new one and forget what it was that had attracted him to her in the first place. It wasn't that he wasn't sincere-Betsy didn't doubt he loved Christina. But after his documentary, he'd move on to a new obsession, a new love, as impossible as that would seem to him now if she mentioned it.
He didn't join her on his father's boat but retreated back toward the café and his apartment.
Luke was out on the afterdeck, a surprise given the damp weather. "Mind if I come aboard?" Betsy asked softly.
"You still have to get your things."
She pushed back the hurt and joined him. He got up suddenly. "Come with me."
He took her below to the smallest of the staterooms, where he had his gun cabinet. He unlocked it silently, punching in the code to the alarm. He'd shown Betsy his modest but very expensive firearms collection once before, but she didn't care anything about guns. Luke could have guns or not have guns. It didn't matter to her. She'd never owned one, had never touched one. Since he was so meticulous about everything else, she assumed he had the proper permits. She'd never known him to shoot any of his weapons, on a firing range or in self-defense.
"The police haven't released any information they have-or don't have-on the weapon that killed Patrick West." He spoke calmly, swinging the glass-and-wood door open. "I don't know what ballistics evidence they have. The bullet could have hit bone and shattered, or it could have been dug out of him relatively intact, in which case it could tell them a great deal."
Betsy could feel her pulse throbbing in her temple. "The police would want to keep that kind of information under close wraps, wouldn't they? They wouldn't want the killer to know what they had on him. That's the way it's done, isn't it?"
Luke nodded. "To be honest, I don't know that much about ballistics or investigative procedures." He spoke calmly, clinically, but she had no idea why he was telling her these things, why he'd taken her down here. "I assume if they can get hold of the actual murder weapon, they can match it to the bullet. If they have one, of course. Short of that-well, I don't know."
"Luke. What's going on?"
He gestured at his collection. "I own two hunting rifles and six handguns, including two antiques. I sold a handgun to Teddy Shelton last September, not one of my six."
"That's legal, isn't it?"
"In this case, no. Teddy's a convicted felon. I didn't know at the time. Stick Monroe mentioned it. He doesn't know about the sale. There were other prob-lems-paperwork-"
"Is Teddy-" Betsy's lips were so dry. "Is Teddy blackmailing you?"
"No. He's a true gun nut, the kind who gives responsible gun owners-well, I don't know if I can say I'm responsible anymore. Look at what I've done. But Teddy's only interested in the weapons themselves." Luke sighed, his color off. "That's not why I brought you here. Count the handguns, Betsy."
"Luke-"
His eyes leveled on her. "Count them. Please. I want you to understand."
She did as he asked. "Five, Luke." She could hear her own breathlessness. "There are only five handguns here. You said you had six."
"I'm a health nut. I exercise and watch what I eat. I'm a control freak in a thousand different ways. I know that about myself." His tone was quiet and intense, but still unruffled, as if he were discussing a weather report. "What I am not is paranoid about other people, especially my friends and family. I don't know why-I probably should be, given my upbringing. But I have faith in them. I believe in them."
He'd never once, in their months together, referred to his childhood negatively, or to other people so positively. Betsy found she couldn't speak. Who was this man? She knew now she didn't have a clue.
Luke swallowed, looking vulnerable, ashen. "After Patrick's death last year, I discovered the missing gun. It's a Colt Python.357 revolver. It's a fine weapon."
"How long after Chief West was killed?"
"The next day. After I heard Olivia had died. I don't even remember why I checked."
"Did you report it?"
He shook his head. "No."
Betsy was silent. Her stomach ached.
"Now it's too late," he said.
She nodded. "I-I understand."
"No, you don't. You think I'm covering up for my son. I'm not. Betsy, I don't believe Kyle killed Patrick West. I never believed it."
"But you were worried the police would."
"I was worried Zoe would find out and kill him."
"Luke!"
He closed up the cabinet and locked it. "She wouldn't have. I see that now, but at the time, I was as caught up in the drama as everyone else."
She thought of the payments to Stick Monroe. "What about Stick?"
"He knows about the stolen gun. He knows I didn't report the theft to police. I should have, especially when I knew it could have been the weapon used in Patrick's murder. I paid Stick for his silence. Cash. He wouldn't take it-he says he's retired and has no intention of ratting out a friend. But I insisted. I don't know what he does with it. Tosses it in the ocean for all I know."
"He's not-you don't consider that blackmail, do you?"
Luke shook his head sadly, his disappointment palpable, as if he'd hoped she'd have figured it out by now, understood him after all. "No, Betsy. I consider it an act of friendship."
To pay a man for his silence? Betsy didn't get that. But she supposed that was Luke's whole point. That she didn't get it, didn't get him.
"Once I realized the Python was gone," Luke went on, "I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. I was terrified that a gun I owned, legally, for the most innocuous of reasons, would end up being the murder weapon, not only in Patrick's death-"
"But someone else's," Betsy said. "You hired Teddy because you were afraid the murderer was getting ready to strike again."
Luke shut the gun cabinet and reset the alarm. "I still am."
Twenty-Seven
Zoe slipped up to the attic and sat on her thick chenille rug among her pillows and scribblings. She picked up one of her yellow pads and sighed at how awful her writing was. She didn't have Olivia's zest for adventure, her accessible style, her insight into Jen Periwinkle.
At least it didn't seem so at that moment.
Last year, sitting up here with her feet propped up on pillows and the window cracked so that she could feel the breeze and smell the ocean, she'd thought she was brilliant. The words flowed, the scenes developed one after another in her head, and she couldn't stop writing.