AS CANDY PUT the accusation out there, Lydia flipped through the pages of the woman’s notebook. There were sections about the security system, mail, supply ordering, missed days—including, yup, those two days Lydia had been in Plattsburgh for the root canal. The entries were all in the same neat handwriting, but made with different colored pens and even pencil.

“So what do we do?” Candy asked.

“I don’t know.”

Where can I go with this, Lydia wondered. C.P. Phalen? Eastwind and the state police?

“Where’s your handyman, by the way?” Candy shook her head. “And no, I’m not asking for Susan. Or Bessie.”

Lydia controlled her expression. Or tried to. “He’s quit. And I know you gave his résumé to Eastwind.”

“I was worried about you.”

“Thank you for that.” She couldn’t bear to go into what Eastwind had found. “What can I say.”

“I’m sorry. You liked him.”

“I didn’t know him.” She cleared her throat. “He was a stranger. It’s just water under the bridge—and speaking of bridges, he did fix all three of them.”

“And our toilet.”

Lydia glanced at the notebook. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Maybe.” Candy narrowed her blue lids. “If I do whatever it is, I am off the hook for lying to you yesterday, okay. No guilt.”

“Well, I’m not sure I can be a party to that bargain. I’m not in charge of your conscience.”

The woman put up a stop-sign hand. “I’m just laying out the landscape. That’s where I’m at. Now, what do you need?”

“Take me to Paul’s so I can get my car?”

“You got it.” The nod was forceful. “Such a fair exchange.”

Lydia grabbed her bag, double-checked that the back door was dead-bolted, and then walked out with Candy. After she locked the front, they got in the SweeTarts-smelling car and were off.

As they got on the county road, Lydia watched the riverbed go by. “Why would Rick want to bomb the hotel if he was behind the poisonings? I don’t get it.”

“I think I do. I had four different phone calls from members of his family, making sure we knew where the funeral was and when. I couldn’t get the uncle off the phone.” Candy shrugged. “All of them were so proud of him, so deferential. If you knew you were checking out? Like, if you were going to do yourself in ’cuz you’d been working nasty shit at your job? It’s a better legacy to leave for the people who love you, isn’t it. A warrior against a corporation hurting the wildlife. As opposed to a common criminal motivated by a gambling problem.”

“I swear I never saw him do anything out of the norm in the clinic.”

“If you were doing something wrong, wouldn’t you work hard to hide it? It’s like brooming up a mess before your parents come home. You make sure everything is where it needs to be.”

They fell silent, and soon enough, the grungy layout of Paul’s Garage presented itself, the business not much more than a smudge of motor oil and a debris field of rusting car parts at the side of the road. Turning in, Candy nosed her grill right up to the filthy glass wall of the office.

Getting out, Lydia followed the sounds of a power tool to a three-bay setup of lifts.

“Paul?” she called out.

“Yeah,” came the response from a service pit underneath a Toyota that looked seven hundred years old.

“It’s Lydia—”

“I know,” he groused. “Your car’s on the row.”

“Yes, thank you.” The whirring sounds started up again so she raised her voice once more. “Um, how much do I owe you.”

“Nothing,” was the impatient response.

She glanced back at Candy, who shrugged. “Ah … nothing?”

The grizzled old man dropped something on the concrete floor and walked up the four steps from the pit. He was in a pair of overalls that were so stained, they could probably stand up on their own, and his cap was so smudged, the logo was unreadable. Finishing the look was a gray beard the same consistency as the long hair that grew out at his nape—to the point where it was hard to tell where one left off and the other started.

“No charge.” His watery pale eyes were bored. “Your friend killed hisself. That’s enough.”

Lydia felt the crazy need to hug the man. But she had a feeling he would spontaneously combust.

“Thank you,” she said roughly.

“Yeah.” Then he turned away to descend again. “Keys are in it.”

“Okay—”

“And that stuff he left you.”

Lydia did a double take. “What did you say?”

Paul looked up from the darkness. “The stuff he left for you. It’s inna trunk.”

The mechanic disappeared as if everything was explained—and therefore, off his plate.

As a sense of total disassociation came over her, Lydia scrambled out to where the cars were parked. Hers was the last in the lineup and her hands were shaking as she went to the trunk. Popping the latch, the top floated upward.

Inside, there was a black nylon duffel.

Candy peered in as well. “Okaaaaaaaaaay. At least there’s no bad smell so Peter Wynne’s not in it.”

Lydia shot the woman a stare. Then glanced around. “I can’t open it here. Where?”

“Let’s go back to the WSP. Scene of the crime. Where else.”

 

“You know, in an Agatha Christie novel,” Candy was saying, “this would be a grand manor house.”

As she closed the door to Lydia’s office, Lydia put the duffel on her desk—which was still swiped-clean from the night before. When she and Daniel had lost control on it. As if she needed the reminder of that? Ever.

Yet here she was with Candy … and whatever Rick had left her.

Please let it not be a bomb, she thought.

“I want to just say,” Candy announced, “that if this is a bunch of vacuum-packed freezer bags full of Peter Wynne, I’m quitting. No paycheck is worth seeing, like, a hand and foot. Maybe an eyeball or two. Part of a leg—”

“Okay, can you quit it with the descriptions? I’m already nauseous.”

Taking a deep breath, Lydia drew back the zipper and parted the nylon folds. Inside … a five-inch-thick binder. That was it. Opening the unmarked cover, she was confronted with a table of contents that detailed each of the twenty or so tabs. As well as two USB drives in a plastic pouch.

“Looks like I’m keeping my job,” Candy muttered. “Until this ship goes under. Now what the hell is all that paperwork.”

Lydia started to work her way through the pages. And when her back ached from leaning over—she was not thinking about the sex with Daniel again, no, really—she shifted around to her chair. When the scent of fresh coffee permeated the air, she had a thought she could use some—

Candy put a mug down in front of her. “Just the way you like it. I’m going to close this door on you, and you’re going to do—whatever the hell you’re doing in here—while I go out and pretend today is a nice, normal day. When you’re done, I expect a report and I deserve that shit. I’m in this with you whether we like it or not. Got it?”