Page 3 of The Gallagher Place
Marlowe didn’t let him lead her away. She reached out and nudged the flap lower.
“Don’t touch anything.” Nate’s grip on her arm tightened.
Henry pulled out his phone and held it up in the air. “There’s never any service out here—I can’t get a signal.”
“We need to get back to the house.” Nate took off in ground-eating strides, and Henry followed, matching the pace.
Marlowe tasted bile on the back of her tongue. She swallowed hard and ran after her brothers.
TWO
Nate made the call.
Seated in the armchair by the fire, Marlowe watched her brother pace back and forth across the red-patterned rug in the living room.
“A male, hard to say the age,” Nate said. “Yes, on our property, just off Bean River Road … We didn’t get too close … Yes, that’s right. Fisher.”
Nate’s wife, Stephanie, sat on the bottom step of the old staircase, elbows propped on her long legs, her rich blond hair pulled back in a ponytail with a pink hair tie. She glanced at Marlowe.
“Who opened the tent?” she asked.
“Henry did,” Marlowe said.
A barely audible hum slid through Stephanie’s lips, which Marlowe clocked as mild dissension. Stephanie had an easy elegance and never neglected a chance to pass judgment. She appeared to relish this even more in the company of Marlowe, who was still bundled in her shabby barn coat. Stephanie adjusted her chic oversized cashmere turtleneck over her leggings. Despite childbirth and the long years since her college athletic career, she still maintained her figure.
“And what did you say the guy looked like?”
“I don’t know. He was wearing a hunting jacket,” Marlowe said. “But he was a mess. I mean, it was hard to really tell anything about him.”
“So you didn’t recognize him?”
“No,” said Marlowe, turning back to the fire to politely signal that she was done with the exchange.
Stephanie stood up. “I think I’ll put on some tea,” she said, betraying the age-old instinct: Tragedy strikes; a wife fills the kettle. Marlowe watched her cross the room and pass through the arched entryway to the kitchen. Huddled around the kitchen island, Henry was whispering the story to his wife, Constance, who held the baby, Frankie, against her shoulder as she listened. She drew in a long, uneven breath as the weight of Henry’s words settled unhappily on her face. Nate’s daughters, Kat and Dolly, were fighting over a blueberry scone, blissfully ignorant of the discovery that had left the rest of the family somber and mired in their own quiet suspicions.
Marlowe held her hands to the flame and then pulled the heat into her chest. Every time she blinked, she saw the man’s bloodied head contrasted with the stark whites of his eyes, the scruff along his jaw matted with crimson.
Nate cleared his throat and pushed the phone closer to his ear. He was listening intently.
“It did look violent,” he said at last. “Yes, it did.”
Nate hung up and declared that the police were on their way. Marlowe lifted her head to meet his gaze.
“He couldn’t have been dead long,” Marlowe whispered.
Nate stared blankly, as if he hadn’t heard her. The crunch of car wheels on gravel jolted him out of the trance, and then Nate was bolting for the side door that opened onto the driveway. Frank and Glory were back. Marlowe followed closely behind but onlywatched from the window as Nate murmured something to their father. Frank had shrunk in recent years, his shoulders dipping forward in a hunch, and his skin was dry and deeply wrinkled. Where Nate’s dark hair was thick and healthy, gleaming beneath the cold sun, Frank’s white tufts of thin hair added to his appearance of frailty.
Marlowe watched as her father’s eyes widened and he reached a pale hand toward Glory’s arm. A moment later, Nate and Frank took off at a slow, steady pace in the direction of the barn.
The kitchen door swung open, and Glory entered, decked out in a spotless beige barn jacket and a plaid scarf. Her white-streaked hair was piled atop her head and secured with a black clip. “Nate took Frank out to see it,” she said, her mouth set in a thin line.
Marlowe nodded. “We called the police. They’re on their way.”
Glory paused, looking Marlowe over in her disheveled state. “You’ve had a shock. Maybe you should go lie down.”
Laughter, inappropriate as it was, bubbled in Marlowe’s throat.
“I’m not tired,” Marlowe said. “I want to be here when the police arrive.”
