In Silence

“In case you haven’t noticed, Cypress Springs isn’t exactly the place to have a career in journalism.”

He took a step toward her. “You’re a fine one to scold me about how I treat my mother. Look at how you treated yours. How many times did you visit her after you moved away?”

“I called. I visited when I could. I couldn’t just take off whenever the mood struck.”

“How long did you stay after her funeral, Avery? Twenty-four hours? Or was it thirty-six?”

She swung toward the door; he followed her, grabbing her arm when she reached it. “And where were you, Avery, when your dad was so depressed he set himself on fire?”

A cry spilled past her lips. She tugged against his hand. He tightened his grip. “Your dad needed you. And you weren’t here.”

“What do you know about my father! About how he felt or what he needed!”

“I know more than you could imagine.” He released her and she stumbled backward. “I bet you didn’t know that your dad and mine weren’t even on speaking terms. That it had gotten so bad between them that if one saw the other coming on the street, he would cross to the other side to avoid making eye contact. I bet neither Matt nor Buddy told you that.”

“Stop it, Hunter.” She backed toward the door.

“I bet they didn’t tell you that my parents haven’t shared a bed in over a decade. Or that Mom’s addicted to painkillers and booze.” He laughed bitterly. “Dad’s played the part of the jovial, small-town cop so long, he wouldn’t recognize an authentic thought or feeling if it shouted his name. Matt’s trying his damnedest to follow in the old man’s footsteps and is so deeply in denial it’s frightening. And Cherry, poor girl, has sacrificed her life to holding the dysfunctional lot together.

“Great family,” he finished. “As American as apple pie and Prozac.”

She stared at him, shaking with the force of her anger. “You’re right. I wasn’t here. And I hate myself for it. I would do anything, give anything, to change that. To bring them back. But I can’t. I’ve lost them.”

She grasped the door handle, fighting not to cry. Determined not to let him know he had won. “I didn’t believe what Cherry told me. That you’d come back just to punish them. I believe it now.”

He held out a hand. “Avery, I—”

“When did you become so cruel, Hunter?” she asked, cutting him off. “What happened to make you so hateful and small?”

Without waiting for an answer, she let herself out and walked away.

CHAPTER 10

Gwen Lancaster stood at the window of her rented room and peered through the blinds at the gathering darkness. Lights in the buildings around the square began popping on. Gwen kept her own lights off; she preferred the dark. Preferred to watch in anonymity.

Did they know she was here? she wondered. Did they know who she was? That Tom had been her brother?

Had they realized yet that she would stop at nothing to find his killer?

As always, thoughts of her brother brought a lump to her throat. She swung away from the window, crossed to the desk and the Cypress Springs Gazette she had been reading. It lay open to the upcoming calendar of events. She had marked off those she planned to attend. First on the list was tonight’s wake.

She shifted her gaze to the paper and the black-and-white image of a kindly-looking older man. The caption identified him as Dr. Phillip Chauvin. Survived by his only child, a daughter, Avery Chauvin.

The entire town would be in attendance tonight. She had heard people talking about it. Had learned that the man had committed suicide. And that he had been one of Cypress Springs’s most beloved brothers.

Suicide. Her lips twisted. Cypress Springs, it seemed, was just that kind of town.

Fury rose up in her. They would most probably be there. The bastards who had taken her brother from her.

Tom had been working toward his doctorate in social psychology from Tulane University. He’d been writing his dissertation on vigilantism in small-town America. A story he’d uncovered in the course of his research had brought him to Cypress Springs.

A story about a group called The Seven. A group that had operated from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, systematically denying the civil rights of their fellow citizens in the name of law and order.

After only a matter of weeks in Cypress Springs, Tom had disappeared without a trace.

Gwen swallowed hard. That wasn’t quite true. His body had disappeared. His car had been found on the side of a deserted stretch of highway in the next parish. It had been in running order. There’d been no sign of a struggle or an accident. The keys had been gone.

Both the Cypress Springs police and sheriff’s department had investigated. They’d combed her brother’s car and the surrounding area for evidence. They’d searched his rented room, interviewed his fellow boarders, worked to reconstruct the last days of his life. Neither suspect nor motive had emerged.

They told her they believed he had been the victim of a random act of violence—that Tom had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had promised not to close the case until they uncovered what happened to him.

Gwen had a different theory about his disappearance. She believed his research into The Seven had gotten him killed. That he had gotten too close to someone or something. She had talked to him only days before he disappeared. He’d found so much more than he’d expected, he had told her. He believed that The Seven was not a thing of the past, but operating still. He had made an important contact; they were meeting the following night.

Gwen had begged him to be careful.

That had been the last time she’d heard his voice. The last time, she feared, she would ever hear his voice.

Although his research notes revealed nothing sinister, she hadn’t a doubt his contact had either set him up or killed him.

Gwen brought the heels of her hands to her eyes. What if she was wrong? What if she simply needed someone—or something—she could point to and say they did it, that her brother was gone because of them. The therapist she had been seeing thought so. Hers was a common reaction, he’d said. The need to make sense out of a senseless act of violence. To create order out of chaos.

She dropped her hands, weary from her own thoughts. Chaos. That’s what her life had become after Tom’s disappearance.

She crossed back to the window. For several days city workers had been stringing lights in the trees. Tonight, it seemed, was the payoff. The thousands of twinkling lights snapped on, turning the town square into a fairyland.

It was so beautiful. Charming. A postcard-perfect community populated by the nicest people she had ever encountered.

It was a lie. An illusion. This place was not the idyllic paradise it seemed. People here were not the paragons they seemed.

And she would prove it. No matter what it cost her.

CHAPTER 11

Gallagher’s funeral home was housed in a big old Victorian on Prospect Street. The Gallagher family had been in the funeral game for as long as Avery could remember. She and Danny had gone to school together, and she remembered a report he had given in the seventh grade on embalming. The girls had been horrified, the boys fascinated.

Being the biggest tomboy in Cypress Springs, she had fallen in line with the boys.

Danny Gallagher met her at the front door of the funeral home. He’d been a lady-killer in school and although time had somewhat softened his chin and middle, he was still incredibly handsome.

He caught her hands and kissed her cheeks. “Are you all right?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess.”

He looked past her, a frown wrinkling his forehead. “You drove yourself?”

She had. Truth was, half a dozen people had offered to drive her tonight, including Buddy and Matt. She had refused them, even when they had begged her to reconsider. She had wanted to be alone.

“I’m a city girl,” she murmured. “I’m used to taking care of myself.”