Last to Know Read online

  Two chimneys sat atop the Osborne house and in winter smoke plumed straight up. The builder had done a good job on those flues, as he had on everything else.

  There was a “mud room” to the left of the front door. It was called the “front” door because it faced onto the road, though no one ever used it, they always walked directly into the kitchen by the side door, now painted Rose’s turquoise blue. Fishing tackle and wellington boots, tennis rackets, dog leads and raincoats, a vacuum cleaner, buckets and a whiskery old broom were stored in there.

  Rose and Wally’s “boudoir” was above the living room, a spacious sprawl with a big old brass bed. Dylan’s song “Lay Lady Lay” (across my big brass bed) used to be Wally’s favorite song: they had played it endlessly on their old hi-fi in those early days, so of course Wally had finally had to buy his big brass bed. A long white chaise stood under the window where Rose would read; there was a pretty vanity against the wall where the light fell perfectly onto the mirror; and a smallish bathroom in pale marble with a tub deep enough for soaking, and big enough for two.

  Beyond that, down the hall, was the twins’ room, a girly pastel horror of dropped clothing, still-plugged-in curling irons, spilled powder and abandoned tubes of lipstick. The cat they had rescued from the side of the road as a minute kitten that had to be fed by an eyedropper slept on their beds. Now hefty, he was called Baby Noir because of his luxuriant black fur, and he scared the hell out of everybody who came near him, except, of course, Madison, whose beloved he was. There was also Peggy the Pug: beige, flat-black-nosed, soppy and snoring, and Frazer’s best friend.

  Roman rarely allowed anyone into his room, which he kept in almost total darkness. He had the whole top floor to himself, accessed by a stairway leading from the kitchen, as well as from an outside flight of, by now, rather rickety wooden stairs, something Rose had always had her doubts about, especially with a teenager. When he was younger she had locked that door and pocketed the key. Now Roman was eighteen and objected to “being locked in.” His father had come out on his side and the key had been handed over, though not without misgivings on Rose’s part.

  “What if he escapes at night, runs off in the dark, partying, drinking … doing lord knows what?” she’d asked Wally. But her husband had laughed her fears off with the same old same teenager get-out card.

  “Look at him,” he told Rose. “He’s a quiet, well-behaved, responsible young man. He works hard, gets good grades, he’s on course for a scholarship to a good college, let him have his fun.”

  It was Wally’s opinion that his son was far too quiet and could use a bit more “fun,” and should get out alone more. He stayed home too much, hung around the house, always on his phone or his tablet, always somewhere else in his head.

  “That’s teens for you,” Wally emphasized to Rose. But Rose wasn’t buying in to that cliché and she worried. She wished he was more like the twins, outgoing, lovable, touchable, hugs and kisses all round. As well as “teens” she guessed “boys would be boys.” In fact all the clichés seemed to suit her son. Right now, that is.

  A big house, then, though never grand. A true family house, filled with friends and people of all kinds. This was the Osborne house. Charming, calm, friendly. Until that night. When everything would change.

  3

  Somewhere in France

  Mallory Malone, now Harry’s ex-fiancée, had thrown it all in. She’d given up her successful career as “The TV Detective”; famous for pursuing forgotten murder cases, reenacting them on her show, jogging old memories, old resentments, old feuds, and often coming up with the truth—and sometimes the killer. Beautiful, blond, cooler than any cucumber on camera, she had been a toughie to be reckoned with. Not anymore.

  Now, she sat alone at a café table somewhere in France, sipping a too-expensive café crème, staring into the small cup as though the remnants of froth could foretell her future. Which of course, since she herself had no idea what her future held, was a ridiculous notion. When you simply threw away your entire life in one fell swoop—your job, your man, your heart—what was left? Paris, she had supposed.

  This time, though, Paris had let her down. On that first day, alone in a tiny room in a small inexpensive Left Bank hotel, she’d leaned out her window on the rue de l’ Université, listening to small children in the school across the street singing what sounded like nursery rhymes, though since they were in French, and her grasp of French was minimal, Mal could not be sure. It only added to her despair. She was not sure of anything anymore. No job. No fiancé. Certainly no children.

  After a couple of days, unable to bear being a woman alone in beautiful Paris any longer, she’d gathered up her stuff, pushed it into her single suitcase, paid her bill, collected her rental car—a dusty white Fiat Uno almost too small to fit both her and the suitcase inside, and which, naturally, since she had parked on the wrong side of the street, already had a ticket tucked under the windscreen wiper. The way things were going it was par for the course.

  She tore up the ticket and scattered the remnants in the Left Bank gutter. They gave her tickets, she gave them litter. About to open the car door, she stopped in her tracks and looked aghast at what she had just done. She, Mal Malone, upholder of all that was good, destroyer of all that was bad, really bad, like thieves and pedophiles and killers, had become a litter-lout. Her head drooped. Her whole body drooped. She crouched and picked up every scrap then searched for a trash can. Nothing. Where did Parisians put their trash anyway? In their handbags, she supposed, which is exactly what she did now.

  She got in the driver’s seat and checked how she looked in the rearview mirror, running a hand through her shoulder-length dark blond hair before tying it back with a scrunchie. She wore no makeup. You couldn’t hide crying eyes with shadow and mascara. It didn’t work. That was okay, nobody was looking at her anyhow, and she had been scrutinized so long on her TV show she felt anonymous without the war paint.

  She looked at the dashboard, checking where all the familiar things should be but in this French car were not. She pressed a button. The windscreen wipers swished noisily in front of her. Another button. Hot air swirled around her. Accidentally she touched the horn, jumping at its sudden loud bleep, waving apologetically at the man sitting in the car in front of her, who gave her a glare that she guessed said “dumb foreigner,” which, right at this moment, she was.

  Her heart sank. Right at this moment she also missed Harry Jordan more than he or any man had a right to be missed. He had left her alone one too many times, not called until it was too late; not shown for dinner. His work came first, though she had been the one to voluntarily give up hers so they could be together without clashing schedules. Hers and his. Now, though, there was only his and his was all-consuming. Mal had thought they had a future; it had suddenly become clear they had not. Not, at least, the kind of future she wanted: the cozy couple spending their time together, vacations, a house, normal stuff like every woman wanted. At least she guessed they did, and every woman she knew but her had gotten it.

  Mal wondered if it was her fault, after all she had a complicated past, a rough childhood with no money and a pot-smoking single mother constantly running from the law and unpaid rent, snatching Mary Mallory, as she was called then, out of schools where she had only just begun to try to fit in. “Fit in” was not meant to be in her and her mother’s future. Her mother was “complicated”: sweet and kind and loving one day, withdrawn and silent the next.

  Mal was away at college. Her mom was living in a trailer in Oregon, on a big wide beach where the waves rolled, in mounting glassy green fury, spurred on by thousands of miles of wind all the way from Japan. She had come “home” for Thanksgiving, only to see her mom standing on the shore, arms raised as though daring those lethal, energy-filled waves to come and take her. Mal had cried out to warn her. She ran down the slope of the cliff to get to her, stood horrified as her mother was lifted into that wave. She saw her curled aloft on it as it peaked, and th
en it slammed back onto the shore. Her mother’s body was never found, and a new Mary Mallory Malone had been forced to emerge.

  The experience strengthened her resolve to become somebody. She’d started at the bottom as a “minor” assistant at the local TV station, gradually moved on and slightly up, gaining an understanding of how it all worked sitting in the director’s booth, pressing all the right buttons, marveling at the poise and confidence of the people in front of the cameras.

  She spent every penny she earned, after rent and ramen noodles, on improving herself, learning how to use makeup by watching the women applying it to others and asking the right questions. She’d trained herself to stand up to her tall height without slouching, forced herself to leave her past and inferiorities behind.

  In classic fashion there had been an emergency at the studio; a presenter had not shown for an interview, and Mal was called in as the only one who looked camera ready. She’d done so well she was offered a tiny fifteen-minute segment of her own, talking about local matters. Things had gone on from there.

  Ten years later, she ended up in New York with her own important show, a luxurious penthouse apartment, and a life, apart from work and the social events that she was invited to, of complete loneliness which she refused to acknowledge. Until, under strange circumstances, she had met Harry Jordan. Nothing had been the same since.

  Harry had truly “saved” Mal. Of course she was already a success, but inside she was still that same scared Mary Mallory Malone waiting for the ax to fall and everything to go back to “normal,” meaning the way it was when she started out, alone at eighteen.

  Harry Jordan was so straight, so sane, such a regular guy under his macho cop persona it was impossible for her not to fall for him. Harry made love to her like she was the only woman in the world, he made her feel beautiful in a way no camera angle ever could; Harry made Mal feel loved. When he showed up, that is. And there was their problem.

  So, there it was. She had left him. Flown on impulse to Paris, found herself more alone than she had ever been on any of those long nights waiting for Homicide Detective Harry Jordan to show up and tell her how much he loved her, but he was sorry, something had come up and he had to leave immediately. A woman can take only so much of that sort of thing.

  And then Paris let her down. She found that hard to believe. The City of Light had never let anyone down before. Was it only she who felt alone, rejected by its busy citizens, its sightseers in groups, its lovers kissing over tiny sidewalk café tables, its patronizing waiters at the smart restaurant where she had ventured. “A woman alone” their eyes had said when they asked if she was expecting “monsieur.” There was no monsieur, her glare had told them back.

  Negotiating the surging traffic around the Arc de Triomphe almost undid her; she must have circulated half a dozen times before managing to exit onto something she hoped pointed south. Three hours later, she stopped at one of the immaculately clean roadway cafés, where, hands still shaking from the nerve-shattering drive, she downed two espressos and ate a bread roll without butter, because that was all they sold at that hour. The provincial French, Mal was soon to find out, ate between twelve and two and not one moment after. They reopened at six for “dinner” and closed early, like around eight. God help you if you found yourself starving, as she did, in the in-between times. A vending machine produced a snack of potato chips and a fizzy Fanta orange soda which she saved for later, “just in case.” She could, after all, end up somewhere for the night where nobody served dinner, let alone a drop of red wine to nourish a girl through the long lonely hours, in bed, alone. And very probably crying.

  Now, a couple of hours after she had left Paris, numb from being stuffed into a car seat too small and narrow for her long-legged five-ten frame, she had ended up here. In France. In the middle of nowhere.

  Despite her vow not to think of him, she wondered what Harry was doing. Catching killers, she supposed. Oh where was Harry Jordan? Why had he not come after her? “Oh fuck,” she said out loud, then remembered she was a lady. She should not even be thinking that word, except under special circumstances. Or about Harry Jordan.

  But she was. So she called him.

  4

  Evening Lake

  The 3 A.M. silence at the lake was broken by a muffled ringtone. Walking by the lake Harry shuffled in his pocket, found the phone, and stared stunned at the name of the caller. There was a joyous upward lilt to his voice as he said, “Mal, thank God, you’re back.” Then he saw the incoming call was from France. His phone was global but even so it was pretty good reception, somewhere in France to Evening Lake.

  “You’re not back,” he said, flatly.

  “I’m in France.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I ran away.”

  “Why did you do that, Mal?”

  The dog tugged at the lead, staring intently into the trees. In the distance a boat slid silently across the lake. Preoccupied as he was, Harry still had time to notice it was an odd hour for someone to be out and about. He thought it might be the boat belonging to the local oddball, Len Doutzer, though from where he was standing, on the sandy path just where it curved, he couldn’t be sure. It made sense though, because Len had lived here forever, and if anyone was out catching something at night, it would be him. Anyway, what did he care? He was on the phone with the love of his life.

  “I’m in France because I needed some good coffee,” Mal said. “And a bottle of good red.”

  Harry sighed into the phone. She sounded a million miles away, though in truth she was only hours by plane. He said, “You could catch a flight home first thing tomorrow.”

  “It’s already first thing tomorrow here. Remember there’s a time difference. So what are you doing up in the middle of the night anyway? Do you have a woman with you?”

  Harry’s sigh was exasperated now. “Mal, for God’s sake.”

  “Oh no, of course you don’t, how foolish of me even to think that, all you have time for is finding criminals, no time for love and kisses and forever and ever…”

  “Mal, I promise you, it is forever.”

  “Then come to France. I’m lonely here without you, Harry. We can be together. I miss you, I miss your body next to mine in bed, naked the way we like to sleep, my leg over yours, your arm under my neck … I want to smell you, kiss you, taste you … dammit I want to lick every bit of you, you detective you…”

  Harry no longer hesitated. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I came to Evening Lake to try to sort out my life and now you’ve just sorted it. I’m coming to France to get you. Where are you in France, anyway?”

  “I really don’t know,” Mal said, laughing, surprised at her ignorance.

  “Text me,” Harry said. “And trust me, I’ll be on a flight to Paris tomorrow.”

  “I trust you,” she said. “Let me know the flight information, I’ll meet you at the airport. Don’t bring much luggage, my car is pretty small. Oh … and please, for God’s sake, Harry, don’t bring the dog.”

  “Not this time, babe, I promise,” he said.

  She rang off and Harry and the dog stood for a minute sniffing the fresh clean air, savoring the silence, the aloneness. He slipped the chain round the dog’s neck because he wanted to keep tabs on him and then they were off, leaves crackling underfoot on the sandy path that led around the lake.

  Harry’s annoyance at being woken had disappeared. He was going to see Mal. He found he was enjoying this deepest, blackest part of the night, liking the rarity of being completely alone. At least he thought he was alone until he heard the squeak of oars on rowlocks; the faint splash of water.

  He stood listening, the dog alert in front of him. Perhaps this sound was what had disturbed the dog. He wondered who else besides Len could be out on the lake at this time of night. Teenagers, he decided, looking for trouble and hopefully not finding it. Drugs didn’t seem to be a problem here at the lake, but you never knew. What Harry did know, though, was that if you wante
d trouble enough you would find it.

  A small boat slid into view, being rowed from the opposite shore. The rower pulled up to the Osbornes’ wooden jetty. A man got out, quickly stowed the oars, then slid the craft into the boathouse. Moments later, keeping to the shadows, he walked silently toward the house. Harry recognized Wally Osborne. And then, emerging from the woods, came his son, Roman, also keeping out of sight of his father, who he followed back to the house. Harry gave a soft surprised whistle. He wondered what Wally had been up to. And young Roman, though he guessed the teenager had been partying.

  Suddenly, a pink glow spread across the night sky. Surprised, Harry glanced at the house across the lake and saw the young blond girl standing at the open door. Her face was distorted in a scream. Her hair was a ring of fire. And then she was running, plunging into the lake, just as the house behind her burst into an inferno. And Harry was thrown to the ground with the force of the ensuing explosion.

  5

  EVENING LAKE, 3 A.M., Rose Osborne

  Rose Osborne woke at the same time as Harry Jordan. Startled out of a bad dream, she reached nervously across the bed for her husband but Wally was not there. The covers were thrown back and Wally’s side of the bed was cold, which meant he’d been gone for some time. It wasn’t unusual these days. Her husband had not been sleeping well; Rose thought he’d probably gone down to the kitchen to get a cup of the chamomile tea she recommended, though she suspected it was more likely to be a shot or two of vodka.

  They had come to the family vacation house on the lake, as they had every summer since their first child was born eighteen years ago, when Rose was a mere girl of twenty-one. Married too young, as she realized ruefully later, but so hotly in love nothing else mattered but being with Wally who wanted her “forever.” So what else could she do but marry him.