Presumed Guilty. Tess Gerritsen

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СКАЧАТЬ Mother?” she shot back over her shoulder. “You can entertain him perfectly well on your own.”

      “Cassie!”

      The girl turned and glared down at Evelyn. “What?”

      “You are embarrassing me.”

      “Well, that’s nothing new.”

      Evelyn, close to tears, turned to Chase. “You see how things are? I can’t even count on my own children. Chase, I can’t deal with this all alone. I just can’t.” Stifling a sob, she turned and walked into the parlor.

      The twins looked at each other.

      “You’ve done it again,” said Phillip. “It’s a lousy time to fight, Cassie. Can’t you feel sorry for her? Can’t you try and get along? Just for the next few days.”

      “It’s not as if I don’t try. But she drives me up a wall.”

      “Okay, then at least be civil.” He paused, then added, “You know it’s what Dad would want.”

      Cassie sighed. Then, resignedly, she came down the steps and headed into the parlor, after her mother. “I guess I owe him that much….”

      Shaking his head, Phillip looked at Chase. “Just another episode of the delightful Tremain family.”

      “Has it been like this for a while?”

      “Years, at least. You’re just seeing them at their worst. You’d think, after last night, after losing Dad, we could pull together. Instead it seems to be driving us all apart.”

      They went into the parlor and found mother and daughter sitting at opposite ends of the room. Both had regained their composure. Phillip took a seat between them, reinforcing his role as perpetual human buffer. Chase settled into a corner armchair—his idea of neutral territory.

      Sunshine washed in through the bay windows, onto the gleaming wood floor. The silence was filled by the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. It all looked the same, thought Chase. The same Hepplewhite tables, the same Queen Anne chairs. It was exactly the way he remembered it from childhood. Evelyn had not altered a single detail. For that he felt grateful.

      Chase launched a foray into that dangerous silence. “I drove by the newspaper building, coming through town,” he said. “Hasn’t changed a bit.”

      “Neither has the town,” said Phillip.

      “Just as thrilling as ever,” his sister deadpanned.

      “What’s the plan for the Herald?” asked Chase.

      “Phillip will be taking over,” said Evelyn. “It’s about time, anyway. I need him home, now that Richard…” She swallowed, looked down. “He’s ready for the job.”

      “I’m not sure I am, Mom,” said Phillip. “I’m only in my second year at college. And there are other things I’d like to—”

      “Your father was twenty when Grandpa Tremain made him an editor. Isn’t that right, Chase?”

      Chase nodded.

      “So there’s no reason you couldn’t slip right onto the masthead.”

      Phillip shrugged. “Jill Vickery’s managing things just fine.”

      “She’s just a hired hand, Phillip. The Herald needs a real captain.”

      Cassie leaned forward, her eyes suddenly sharp. “There are others who could do it,” she said. “Why does it have to be Phil?”

      “Your father wanted Phillip. And Richard always knew what was best for the Herald.”

      There was a silence, punctuated by the steady ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.

      Evelyn let out a shaky breath and dropped her head in her hands. “Oh, God, it all seems so cold-blooded. I can’t believe we’re talking about this. About who’s going to take his place….”

      “Sooner or later,” said Cassie, “we have to talk about it. About a lot of things.”

      Evelyn nodded and looked away.

      In another room, the phone was ringing.

      “I’ll get it,” said Phillip, and left to answer it.

      “I just can’t think,” said Evelyn, pressing her hands to her head. “If I could just get my mind working again….”

      “It was only last night,” said Chase gently. “It takes time to get over the shock.”

      “And there’s the funeral to think of. They won’t even tell me when they’ll release the—” She winced. “I don’t see why it takes so long. Why the state examiner has to go over and over it. I mean, can’t they see what happened? Isn’t it obvious?”

      “The obvious isn’t always the truth,” said Cassie.

      Evelyn looked at her daughter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      Phillip came back into the room. “Mom? That was Lorne Tibbetts on the phone.”

      “Oh, Lord.” Evelyn rose unsteadily to her feet. “I’m coming.”

      “He wants to see you in person.”

      She frowned. “Right this minute? Can’t it wait?”

      “You might as well get it over with, Mom. He’ll have to talk to you sooner or later.”

      Evelyn turned and looked at Chase. “I can’t do this alone. Come with me, won’t you?”

      Chase didn’t have the faintest idea where they were going or who Lorne Tibbetts was. At that moment what he really wanted was a hot shower and a bed to collapse onto. But that would have to wait.

      “Of course, Evelyn,” he said. Reluctantly he stood, shaking the stiffness from his legs, which felt permanently flexed by the long drive from Greenwich.

      Evelyn was already reaching for her purse. She pulled out the car keys and handed them to Chase. “I—I’m too upset to drive. Could you?”

      He took the keys. “Where are we going?”

      With shaking hands Evelyn slipped on her sunglasses. The swollen eyes vanished behind twin dark lenses. “The police,” she said.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE Shepherd’s Island police station was housed in a converted general store that had, over the years, been chopped up into a series of hobbit-size rooms and offices. In Chase’s memory, it had been a much more imposing structure, but it had been years since he’d been inside. He’d been only a boy then, and a rambunctious one at that, the sort of rascal to whom a police station represented a distinct threat. The day he’d been dragged in here for trampling Mrs. Gordimer’s rose bed—entirely СКАЧАТЬ