Hush (3 page)

Stretching, she reached up, holding on to the corpse, fumbled around with it doing something he couldn't quite make out, and came back down with—he squinted—Jeffy-boy's phone, in some kind of clear plastic pouch that seemed to have been clipped onto the waistband of his shorts. She said something—her murmur was too low to allow Finn to make out the words—presumably to the corpse. Then she touched Cowan again—a quick, caressing slide of pale fingers against the equally pale skin of his leg—and turned and headed for the door, head high, those sexy high heels click-clacking purposefully over the floor, moving way faster than she had when she'd come in.

The speed with which she left was the only sign of agitation she now showed.

Having taken Cowan's phone, she was walking away, leaving his dead body hanging just the way she'd found it.

Not
what he'd been expecting.

A cool customer. He hadn't pegged her as that.

Finn found himself wondering
why
she wasn't screaming the roof down, or phoning for help.

Along with what was on that phone.

Bottom line, she wasn't behaving the way a woman who'd just found her ex-husband dead ought to behave.

Intrigued, he followed her, careful to keep out of sight.

T
he funeral was a nightmare. Not that Riley had been expecting anything else.

“Rest eternal grant to him—”

The final words of the funeral service resonated through the still air, rising over the shuffling of feet, the rustling of the paper programs, the buzz of insects and twitter of birds, the distant drone of traffic. They couldn't have made less sense to Riley than if they were being spoken in Swahili.

Jeff killed himself
.

The thought looped endlessly through her mind, tearing her up inside. But her automatic reaction to the idea was even worse, because it was terrifying:
No way in hell
.

It was Thursday afternoon, just after 4 p.m. Blazingly hot. The endless, perfectly groomed green acres of exclusive Glenwood Cemetery seemed to shimmer beneath the cloudless blue sky. The leaves of the single tall oak mercifully shading those
closest to the grave from the sun hung motionless, dusty and limp from the prolonged drought that the area had been experiencing. The sickeningly sweet perfume of flowers permeated the air, overwhelming enough to make Riley sick to her stomach. The last time she'd smelled flowers in such profusion had been,
Don't think about it.

She thrust the unwelcome memory out of her mind before it even had a chance to fully form. But, like the heat, there was no escaping that perfume. And that would be because flowers were everywhere. Chrysanthemums. Lilies. Roses. Carnations. Gladiolas. Wreaths, vases, baskets, and sprays of them, massed in undulating drifts of brilliant color behind Father Snyder, the white-robed Episcopal priest who was officiating.

So many flowers. As if by sending them, lifelong friends could make up for the way they had abandoned the Cowans in droves in the nine months since George's arrest. George was the only one who had committed any crimes; but the rest of the family had paid the price, as well, becoming pariahs virtually overnight.

We're sorry now
? Is that what the flowers were supposed to say? If that was the message, it was, in Riley's opinion, too little, too late.

The fury that was the reverse side of her grief flamed like a blowtorch through her veins.

Today there were hundreds of people gathered around despite the fact that the funeral ostensibly was private. The shuffling, staring arc of them crowded in among the monuments, covering the sea of grass and spilling out onto the service road bordering this section of graves. Columns of them threaded between the parked cars lining the service road before solidifying into a mass again on the next section of grass on the other side of the road.

The suicide of George Cowan's only son was international news. The TV channels had been talking about it for days. The funeral was the latest chapter in the spectacular downfall of one of the state's most prominent families. Amazing how many people wanted to get an up-close-and-personal look at that.

Most of the onlookers were standing in the full sun. They had to be broiling alive. It was a small, petty consolation, but at the moment it was all she had.

Jeff didn't commit suicide.
Riley thrust the conviction out of her mind. She couldn't allow herself to think about that, not now, not until her grief-numbed brain was fully functional again. To know even as much as she thought she knew was scaring her to death. And if her suspicions were correct, it was dangerous, too.

Despite the heat she felt cold all over. Her fingers tightened convulsively around the cool, smooth stems of the bouquet of white carnations she held. Their spicy scent wafted up to her nostrils: not good. Her stomach gave a warning heave.

She'd shared her suspicions about Jeff's death with the cops, for all the good that did. Nobody took her seriously. Nobody wanted to know.

They killed him,
she wanted to scream at the assembled company. But she had no proof, nothing to back it up. Nothing except Jeff's own suspicions, which up until she'd found him dead she, too, had firmly dismissed.

Oh, God, why hadn't she paid more attention when he'd told her that he thought people close to his father were being murdered? This faceless
they
he'd kept talking on and on about—she had only the vaguest idea who he might have meant.

There were three new, weird photos on his phone. She'd seen
that much, before she'd had a panic-inducing epiphany and taken the phone apart. A couple of men, snapped in the dark, the images blurry, their features indistinct and impossible to identify in the quick look she'd taken before the possible ramifications of what she was seeing burst upon her. They were the last pictures on Jeff's phone: were they of his killers, captured as they'd closed in on him?

Even now, her blood ran cold at the thought.

Of course, they could have been of anybody. His drug dealers. Loan sharks he'd owed money to. Goons hired by the enraged husband or boyfriend of some woman he'd messed with to beat him up. With Jeff, she'd learned never to discount any possibility.

Which was why she hadn't said a word about the pictures to anyone.

Once she'd had a chance to go through everything that was on that phone—Jeff kept his life on it—she might share those pictures with the cops. Even though they'd made it abundantly clear that they didn't want to know.

Because Jeff was George Cowan's son, nobody in officialdom cared that he was dead. They weren't going to investigate. Suicide, case closed, good riddance.

A fresh burst of anger shot through her.

Jeff's father had ripped off friends, neighbors, business associates. Celebrities. Charitable organizations. Multinational companies. God knew who else. There were thousands of victims. Among the scammed were some pretty unsavory types.
That's
what she knew for sure.

If they thought I could identify them, they'd kill me.

A hard knot of fear settled in her chest as she recalled a conversation she and Jeff had had less than a week ago.

“I believe Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe Princess Diana's death was an accident.” Her flippant reply to Jeff when he'd asked her in exasperation if she was hearing what he was telling her haunted her now.

“Marcus Simms did not die in a hunting accident. Patty Hemming did not ‘accidentally' fall down her basement stairs. Diane Schneidermann did not jump from her hotel room balcony. Tom Goodin did not hook up a hose from his car's tailpipe to its front window and kill himself with carbon monoxide poisoning,” Jeff retorted. The people he named had worked closely with his father, Riley knew. Besides that, what they had in common was that they had all died from either accidents or suicide since George had been arrested.

Her response was impatient. “For God's sake, Jeff, accidents happen. And Diane and Tom—they were under federal investigation. Maybe they were depressed. Maybe they were
guilty
. Maybe they were afraid of going to jail for the rest of their lives like your father. You don't
know
what was going on with them.”

“They didn't kill themselves,” he insisted stubbornly. “And Marcus and Patty—those weren't accidents.”

Now Jeff was dead. A suicide? No. She would never believe it. Never. She knew Jeff. He would never, ever take his own life.

Standing beside Jeff's open grave, refusing to allow herself to look down at his coffin, which had just been lowered to rest at the bottom of the shaft of raw red earth, Riley could feel the eyes of the mourners—and the reporters, and the gawkers, and the federal agents who made up a sizable contingent of the crowd—
on her. The thought that
they
might be among them made her heart beat faster.

Jeff's murderer might be watching me right now
. The thought made her skin crawl. She cast a hunted look around.

Everyone seemed to be looking her way. But then again, Jeff's family was beside her. The priest was close. Where else were they going to look?

So much for sussing out the killer like that.

Thankful for the sunglasses that shielded her eyes from the multitude of avid gazes, she kept her spine straight and concentrated on ignoring everything except the progress of an intrepid ant that was making its way across the toe of Father Snyder's shiny black shoe.

On her right, Jeff's mother, Margaret, pressed close to her side, her thin frame shaking, her narrow, patrician face streaked with the tears that regularly trickled from beneath her sunglasses. On Margaret's other side, Emma, Jeff's seventeen-year-old sister, stood unmoving, her face a pale, expressionless mask. Devastated, the three of them in their funeral black dresses and pearls and pumps formed a small, isolated island of grief, united against what felt like the whole world.

Funny that those two should be her family now, but that was how things had worked out. Her marriage to Jeff hadn't lasted. Her ties to his mother and sister had grown as strong as if they were her blood kin. They'd bonded in their mutual heartbreak over Jeff's downward spiral of drinking and drug abuse, and Margaret and Emma had understood her reasons and supported her through the divorce, even as they had continued to love Jeff. In return, when their world had come crashing down, Riley had been there for them.

“Mrs. Cowan, would you like to drop your flowers on the casket now?” Father Snyder asked Margaret quietly.

Margaret shuddered. Her fingers closed almost painfully on Riley's arm, the beautifully kept nails digging into her skin. But Margaret kept her outward composure, nodding jerkily once and then stepping forward. Besides the wet tracks of her tears—something Riley knew Margaret would have hidden if she could have—the only outward sign of distress she showed was the trembling of the bunch of white carnations in her hands.

Riley tried not to think of the cameramen in the crowd, or the millions of people across the world who were undoubtedly watching those trembling flowers live on their TV screens at that very moment. Margaret was such a private person. She didn't deserve to have to grieve the death of her only son in such a shatteringly public way.

Damn you, George, for what you've done to Margaret and Emma—and Jeff
.
Oh, God, and Jeff.

Once again pain was almost a living thing inside her.

Another spurt of rage, this time at her arrogant bully of a father-­in-law, almost balanced out the pain. Then Riley looked at Margaret's bowed head and rigid back, and sorrow once again tightened its icy grip on her heart.

Father Snyder said something, and the crowd responded in the expected ritual reply as Margaret dropped the flowers into the open grave. Riley flinched—she hoped not outwardly—as they landed with a soft thud. At Father Snyder's signal Riley stepped forward and followed suit, watching her flowers hit the surface of the box that held Jeff's remains—
Jeff's remains!
—with a deepening sense of unreality that she actually welcomed,
because it kept the worst of her grief at bay. Emma, who looked so like Jeff with her delicate features and build and long, pale blond hair that just glancing in her direction made Riley's stomach tighten, was not as stoic.

Dropping her flowers in turn, Emma choked out, “ 'Bye, Jeff,” then broke into noisy, racking sobs as she stepped back from the edge of the grave.

Emma had adored her big brother.

Riley's heart ripped open and bled.

“Oh, baby.” Margaret wrapped her arms around her daughter, who turned into them and lowered her head to sob openly on her shoulder.

Riley heard the whirr of the cameras, felt the sudden heightening in the crowd's interest as they zeroed in on Emma's heartbreak. She stiffened. Her hands closed in impotent fists.

Vultures.

There was nothing she could do. No way to protect Emma. No way to protect Margaret. No way to protect herself.

Lips tightening, chin tilting up in defiance of the multitudes clearly feeding on this fresh infusion of drama, Riley faced the fact that her only option was to continue to stand beside Jeff's mother and sister and endure as Father Snyder intoned the closing words of the service.

“I can't believe he's dead,” Emma sobbed.
“Why?”

“We're going to be okay, Em,” Riley promised her sister-­in-law quietly, while Margaret held her daughter close and murmured what comforting words she could. Jeff hadn't told his mother or sister about his conviction that George's associates were being bumped off, because he hadn't wanted to worry
them, and Riley hadn't told them that she was actually the one who had found Jeff's body: after she'd gotten well away from the house, an anonymous call (from her, on her ID-blocked cell) had alerted the police, who had officially discovered it. Nevertheless, Margaret and Emma shared her certainty that Jeff had been murdered, because they knew him as well as she did—and because the thought that he had killed himself was just too dreadful for them to bear. If they knew what she knew they would never let the matter rest. She was afraid that delving too deeply into Jeff's death might make them targets.