Julie said nothing when they got back in the car. Nic didn’t have any better ideas, so he headed northwest toward Redding.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when I found out.”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t look at him, didn’t speak. How could he say he had been suspicious of her? That wasn’t exactly true, either. Mostly he’d just been scared spitless: of her reaction, of her tears maybe. He searched for an excuse that sounded reasonable.
“Did you tell me everything you know back there?”
“Yeah.” Nic paused. “Well, I do have your address and a few other details. But that was the meat of the message. There is a newspaper article.” Nic reached into his hip pocket and pulled out the fax papers, handing them to her.
“And how exactly did you get this information?”
“From my uncle.”
“From your uncle.” She snorted, shaking her head. “And who else did you tell?”
“One of my teammates.”
“Oh, well, of course. And your mom and dad, too?”
“My mom’s dead, and my dad doesn’t know what day it is.” Maybe that would shut her up.
“Both my mom and my dad are dead.” Julie turned her head away. “Apparently my sister, too.”
Score one for Julie. “I’m sorry” sounded so inadequate, but that was all he could think of to say.
“Why your uncle?”
“He’s a cop...”
The second it came out of his mouth, he knew what she’d think.
“Cops! Great, just great.”
“Julie, he’s a cop in Boston. We can trust him. Well, actually, my uncle is retired.”
“Whatever. And your teammate?”
“Cruz? Well, he used to be in Air Force Intelligence, and he’s a computer whiz.”
Like that explained it.
Julie’s face hardened. She didn’t speak again until they were a half hour outside of Tahoe. Nic stopped to gas up the car.
“You want something to eat?”
“I want to go to their house.”
“Your folks?”
“Yeah. We still have the keys to the car, don’t we?”
“Well, yes.”
Julie turned toward him, alive with new determination. “Then, we likely have house keys, too. I want to see the house.”
“You don’t just want to see the house, do you? You want to go in the house. Julie, we could get caught.”
“Yeah, well, I’m giving serious consideration to releasing you from service as soon as we get there.”
“Releasing me from service, huh?”
“Yes, you called the cops after assuring me you wouldn’t.”
“No, I called family.” Nic pulled the car from the pumps to the front of the store. He yanked the door handle, started to get out, then grabbed the keys and stalked into the store. When he came back, she was reading the article.
They ate in silence and turned the car north again, this time toward Susanville.
“Nic, if you won’t be completely honest with me, you might as well just drop me off at the house and go back to your vacation. We can’t work together on this.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Promise me that you won’t keep things from me. That you won’t lie to me.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m dropping you off and going back to my vacation.”
“But you won’t promise.” It was a statement.
It wasn’t that easy. “No.”
Fifteen minutes and twenty miles passed before he ventured to speak again. “It’ll be dark when we get there. There’s a flashlight in the trunk. We can drive to within a few blocks, then walk the rest of the way and try the keys. The house may still be considered a crime scene and the sheriff’s department may be watching it. We have to be careful.”
“I know.”
The house wasn’t hard to find.
“It’s in the next block.” Julie said. “Don’t slow down.”
Nic glanced over at her, wondering what, exactly, she was remembering. But she was right. There it was on the right, a light brick ranch-style home, surrounded by police crime tape. They circled the block, then drove down two blocks and parked on a cross street.
“I’ve never been on this side of the law before,” Nic said, attempting an it’s-no-big-deal tone. The truth was out there, though. Speeding tickets, yes. Breaking and entering, no. Neither Batman Nic nor Citizen Nic was on familiar ground.
“I have.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Besides, if my entire family is dead, then it’s my house. And, if we have the keys, then it’s not breaking and entering, is it?”
“Interesting logic.”
God, now she was reading his mind. No matter what she said, though, they were indeed breaking and entering. Would it make a difference to the Air Force if a felony was committed for a good cause?
Not likely.
Her voice brought him back to the task at hand. “You coming?”
“What?”
“Are you coming? You know, if you don’t want to do this, just give me the keys and I’ll go.”
Nic closed the car door, mumbling to himself. Damn fool woman. “Down the alley?”
“Nope, too suspicious. Dogs bark when folks walk down dark alleys. We’ll just walk down the street as if we belong here.”
She had done this before.
“And then we walk right up to the front door and try the keys?” Nic asked.
“No, we’ll find a dark house, ideally one without a dog in the yard, and go round back closer to my folks’ house.”
With Julie in the lead, they ended up at the back door of her parents’ house without alerting the neighborhood or the cops. So far. The first key she tried opened the door and they walked in.
“Well, it’s official,” Nic whispered. “I’m a criminal.”
The light from a nearby street lamp made the flashlight unnecessary at this point. They walked through the kitchen and into the living room. Julie stopped at the front door, looking at the remains of a broken vase. She took a deep breath and moved on to the fireplace. In the half-light, she peered at the family pictures on the mantle. Nic watched her closely. The one she was looking at showed two little blonde girls sitting on a man’s chest. All three were laughing. Her eyes flickered a moment before she spoke.
“Stop! You must not hop on pop.” It came out in a strangled whisper. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Julie bolted down the hallway, turning right at the first doorway. Nic found her there, in a bathroom, leaning over the sink.
She sank down to sit on the edge of the tub, pulling off her hat, letting her hair fall down around her shoulders. Nic lowered himself to the toilet seat, reaching out to take her hands in his. He waited, the sense of dread almost cutting off his breath. She sat for a long time, her hands trembling, her face still shielded from view.
“I was at my folks’ for the holidays. They picked me up from the airport. I remember going to bed, but after that, it’s still a blank.”
Nic expected tears, hysteria, but definitely not the clinical way she spoke. He reached out with his other hand, lifting her chin so he could see her face. In the dark she looked even younger, more innocent. The horror of returning memory wasn’t there, though.
“I don’t,” she seemed to struggle, trying to find words, “feel them.” Julie leaned forward, laying her head on his shoulder. “I know them, I remember them, but I don’t feel anything for them.”
Nic rubbed the back of her neck as they sat. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“No.” She pulled back, her smile wobbling, and stood up. “But I would like to get out of the bathroom.”
They stepped out into the hallway and Julie paused, looking down the hall.
“The bedrooms are down there.”
Nic put his hands on her shoulders, ready to stop her if she headed that direction. The news article said the bodies had been found in their beds. She turned back
toward the living room.
“Not ready to go down there yet.”
She wandered through the rest of the house, staying away from windows. Off the kitchen was a den. An entertainment center, two rocker recliners, a desk taking up one wall. Julie proceeded toward the desk, running her hands along the back of the couch. She swiveled around the desk chair and sat down, still deep into her own thoughts.
Finally she shook her head and looked up at Nic. “Dad didn’t kill them or himself. He was really sad when Jess died. But...”
“Jess was the hunting buddy they mentioned in the article?”
“More than that. They were like brothers.”
They were like brothers. Grief clenched in Nic’s belly. Still raw.
“We called him Uncle Jess.”
Julie launched out of the chair and paced. The curtains were drawn in this room. No danger of being seen from the outside, but with what little light came from the kitchen, Nic could barely see her. “They were in Nam together. Third Armored Cavalry... Blackhorse Squadron.” Julie pointed over to the corner of the room. “There’s a picture of the two of them over there.”
Julie moved past Nic, back to the kitchen, and headed through the living room. She stopped, looking down the hallway.
“Nic?”
He came up behind her, putting his arms around her from behind. “Yeah, baby?”
Her chin rested on his wrist. He could feel her heartbeat against his arm. “Can you go in those rooms? Tell me what you see?”
“If you want me to.”
There wasn’t much to see. Julie stayed in the hallway and Nic relayed what he was looking at. The master bedroom was the first he came to. The blood stains looked black in the dark, on the pillows and splattered on the wall above the headboard. There was a suitcase on the floor of Jennifer’s bedroom. The bed was mussed and bloody.
Nic walked back into the hallway.
“What now?”
“My bedroom. I can go in there.”
Julie’s bedroom was still decorated in little-girl frills. A corner shelf held a menagerie of stuffed animals and the bureau was home to a family of ceramic ducks. Julie softened when she walked in, running a hand lovingly across the footboard. The bed had a lacy canopy. It was unmade, like the others.
An open travel bag lay on the floor by the bed. Julie sat on the corner chair and pilfered her backpack.
“I don’t suppose I could take my own money and ID, could I?”
“No, I don’t guess so.”
“My car keys are here too. I wonder why I was driving their car.”
Julie stuffed her wallet back into the backpack and stood up. “I want to look on Dad’s computer. Didn’t the paper say a suicide note was found on the printer?” She carefully replaced the backpack where she’d found it and walked past Nic.
The computer had been wiped clean. How convenient. No recent emails, no sites saved in favorites, no documents, save one. Julie printed the suicide note, pulled the paper from the printer, folded it, and stuck it in her hip pocket.
“Okay, let’s get out of here.”
It was eleven fifteen when they got back to the car.
“What now?” Julie asked.
“We get out of this county and find a motel room. We have to hope they don’t know about me.”
“I’m sorry, Nic.”
“For what?”
“For getting you into this mess. You sure you don’t want to resign?”
Nic laughed. Like he could do that. As his Granny used to say in for a penny, in for a pound. “I’m sure.”
Chapter Seven