River’s End

Lou. He’d always bring me a peppermint stick. One of those thick, old-fashioned ones. I can’t imagine where he got them.
    “Lucas Manning came over a lot. It must’ve been around the time my—he left.” She couldn’t say “my father.” Simply couldn’t bring herself to form the words. “I just remember Lucas being there, in the house, out by the pool. He made my mother laugh. He was nice to me in an absent sort of way. Kids know that it’s just show. I wanted to like him, because he made Mama laugh, but I just kept wishing Lucas would stop coming over, because if he did maybe my ... maybe he’d come home.”
    She rested her head against the bars of the gate. “Then, of course, he came home. He came home and he killed her. And I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t.”
    “It’s all right.” Noah gathered her to him, holding her tight even though she stood stiffly with her fisted hands pressed to his chest to separate them. “You don’t have to. You don’t need to be here now, Olivia.”
    She made herself open her eyes again, stare over his shoulder at those flashes of white. “I’ve been running away from and running toward this all my life. It’s time I decided on a direction and stuck with it.”
    Part of him wanted to scoop her up, cuddle her as he carried her back to the car and took her away. But someone had taken her away for most of her life. “When you run away it comes after you, Liv. And it always catches up.”
    Afraid he was right, feeling the monster nipping at her heels, she turned and walked back to the car.

Twenty-two
    She had her color back by the time Noah swung up the drive toward the Melbourne mansion. It seemed to him she’d all but willed it back, just as she’d willed away that lost and grieving look from her eyes.
    “Wow.” Her smile seemed natural, effortless as the house came into view. “We have pictures of it, even videos, but they don’t come up to the in-your-face.”
    “One of those nice fixer-uppers priced for the young marrieds.”
    She laughed, then swiveled in her seat as the dogs raced over the yard. “There they are! Oh, I wish I could’ve brought Shirley.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    “I thought you might object to dog hair and slobber all over your pretty-boy car. And my grandfather would be lost without her.” She pushed out as soon as he’d stopped and all but dived into the dogs.
    The vulnerable woman with haunted eyes who’d stood outside the gate of her childhood home might not have existed. It certainly wasn’t the face she showed to her uncle as David Melbourne came out of the house.
    She let out a whoop of delight and bounded toward him, half leaping into his arms for a fierce hug.
    He’d aged well, Noah thought, comparing the man who held Olivia with the photos that dated back to the murder. He’d kept the weight off, and had either discovered the fountain of youth or had an excellent cosmetic surgeon.
    The lines on his face were dashing rather than aging, as were the streaks of silver in his hair. He was dressed casually in buff-colored trousers and a Henley shirt the color of kiwis.
    “Welcome, traveler.” He laughed, cupped her face. “Let’s look at you. Pretty as ever.”
    “Missed you.”
    “Goes double.” He kissed her, then hugging a protective arm around her shoulders, turned to Noah. The cooling of voice and eyes was subtle but unmistakable. “It was nice of you to deliver my girl.”
    “My pleasure.”
    “Uncle David, this is Noah Brady.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “I just need to get my things out of the trunk.”
    “I’ll get them.” Noah unlocked the trunk, took out the single suitcase.
    “That’s it?” David wanted to know.
    “I’m only going to be here a couple of days.”
    “How about giving Jamie some tips on packing light while you’re here?”
    “You pack as much as she does. Clotheshorse.”
    He winced, took the case from Noah. “Jamie got caught on the phone. She should be off by now. Why don’t you run in, Livvy? Rosa’s paced a rut in the foyer waiting for you to get here.”
    “Aren’t you coming?”
    “Be right there.”
    “All right. Thanks for the lift, Brady.”
    “No problem, MacBride,” he said in the same tone. “I’ll be in touch.”
    She said nothing to that, only jogged up the stairs and inside.
    “I hope you’ll forgive me for not asking you in,” David began. “This reunion’s a family affair.”
    “Understood. You can say what you have to say to