Page 15 of The Gallagher Place
“Was he talking about Nora?” Marlowe knew this was dangerous territory, but she had to ask. “Did he say something about her?”
Nate sighed. “Not everything is about Nora.”
“Remember how Brierley questioned us? Half of the county thought we were involved somehow. Is that what Harmon thought too?”
Nate clenched his jaw, and Marlowe knew she’d hit a nerve.
“We were questioned,” Henry said. “But we didn’t do it. Youknowthat, Marlowe; you were there. We were all there. This guy Harmon only invoked Nora to pick at old wounds, to scare us. But we had nothing to do with what happened.”
“I know.” Marlowe took another sip of scotch. “But someone did.”
“Someone did.” Nate’s eyes were dark pools. “I will never forget that.”
Nate stood up and hung his head. Nora had been Marlowe’s best friend, but they had all been a unit back then. A team. Nate was the oldest. The leader. Marlowe worried for a second he was going to cry. Henry’s tears were normal; his eyes welled up at almost every movie. But she hadn’t seen Nate cry in ages. He walked to the sink and dumped the rest of his drink.
“I’m going to sleep,” he announced.
Marlowe and Henry watched Nate stalk up the stairs and heard his heavy bedroom door close. Marlowe turned back to Henry, her fingers tightening around her glass.
“Why was he out there?” Marlowe asked. “And who would have followed him there to kill him?”
“We can’t guess,” Henry said. “We don’t know him at all.”
“Nate’s acting like he does.” Marlowe raised her brows at Henry, trying to awaken the old habit of the younger siblings muttering about the know-it-all eldest.
“Nate’s upset—you know how much he loves the Flats.” Henry stared down at the glimmering gold liquid. “He had that plan to build a house there.”
Nate’s daydream had slipped her mind amid the drama, but he had been scheming for a few years to craft a gravel driveway along the south edge of the cow field and into the Flats. The house wouldbe designed for him, Stephanie, Kat, and Dolly, built with his own money. Nate would have to pick a new spot. Harmon owned the Flats now. In death, he had accomplished a fragment of his ambition.
“It’s a cruel joke,” Marlowe murmured. “For him to die where he wanted to live, and so violently.”
“Well, it will all come out,” Henry said. “And I think we’ll see Harmon made choices that probably got him killed.”
“Henry, that’s insensitive.”
“We’re in the privacy of our own home.” Henry shrugged. “And I’ve seen enough crimes to know that they rarely happen to people who don’t go looking for trouble.”
Henry would never have said such a thing as a boy. He used to be the gentlest of them all. But then, he was entitled to his opinion. And what did Marlowe know of crime and punishment, cocooned in her soft life?
Henry shook his head, no longer in the mood to theorize. He stood up to wash his glass and then disappeared up the stairs after Nate. Once she was alone, Marlowe grabbed the bottle of scotch, unscrewed the cap in two quick twists, and refilled her glass.
She sat down in the silent kitchen and drank it as slowly as she could. Nora had not gone looking for trouble. She was an exception to Henry’s bitter rule. Marlowe thought of Stephanie receiving that email.You’ll pay for what you’ve done.Had she known it referenced Nora? Had Nate told her about the night a girl vanished into thin air? The days of questions and searching that followed? He wouldn’t talk about any of it with Marlowe, but a wife kept secrets a sister was never granted. The fire popped a few times before dimming for the night.
In her mind’s eye, she saw an image of Harmon’s broad shoulders hunched over a desk, writing out his threats. He would havebeen a toddler when Nora disappeared. A quiet rage began to simmer just underneath her skin. He had no right to bring Nora into this. It was maddening how casually he’d poked at Marlowe’s greatest agony, and all so he could grasp at land that wasn’t his, hadneverbeen his.
EIGHT
THE BEND
Saturday, July 1, 1995
“Let’s go back in,” Nora said. “I’m hot again.”
Marlowe opened her eyes and rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. They were in their swimsuits, lounging on towels spread atop a flat rock embedded in the bank of the Bean River. Marlowe smiled as Henry cannonballed off the rock on the far bank, sending a silver burst of water into the air.
Tom Gallagher had revealed the swimming hole to them the summer before, as a reward after they helped load hay into the barn. The narrow river took a sharp left turn here, and the current slowed just enough to create a wide pool, ideal for swimming—the Bend in the Bean, Tom called it. He told them it was where he and his brothers used to swim as kids after a long day of working on the farm.
Marlowe remembered that day in vivid detail. She’d torn off her sweaty outer layer and jumped in, her body cutting through the summer humidity and finding relief in the soft motion of the river. Nothing felt more delicious than cool water against tender skin, sunburned after hours of hoisting hay bales. A few days later, Tom hung a rope swing from a branch that arched over the river. That was all the invitation they needed to keep going back.
