“Truth be told,” I say, “the place I worked for two years ago fired me. So I don’t know if I’m technically still a journalist.”
“Well, that’s your college degree, isn’t it? That means you’re always a journalist. Just like I’m always a policeman, even when I’m not in uniform.”
Is it just me or was that a not-so-thinly-veiled threat?
“I don’t know. It’s recently come to my attention that I’m terrible at it. So now I’m considering a career change.”
“What an undertaking.” He pulls up the second kitchen chair and sits down leisurely. What’s he playing at now? “And what might the new career path be? Thinking of getting into the farming game? It’s not something you can do by yourself, let me warn you. Besides, city life must have softened you. But apart from that, there’s not much to do in this town.”
“Your family seems to be trucking along just fine,” I point out. “Always has. Pierre has that fortune squirreled away. Where did that come from, anyhow? Sorry if it’s a rude question.”
His smile is crooked. I see that his patience is wearing thin.
“He sold the ancestral land decades ago,” Frank concedes. Even so, I can tell he’s gritting his teeth. I take it he’d have preferred to inherit the land rather than some dwindling savings account gouged by inflation.
“Nobody to leave it to, I guess,” I say with a shrug. “Tony being the way he is, and you who decided to focus on law enforcement.”
“I did,” he says, nodding. “And I never once regretted it, you know.”
I play along. “This town needs a firm hand.” He can tell I’m mocking him, but I haven’t yet pushed him over the edge. The mask still clings on.
“It sure does,” he says. “You might not think so, but I wonder where this place would be without me. Other small towns are flooded with drugs, junkies taking cars apart in driveways while the owners sleep. Where else can you leave your front door unlocked and fear nothing?”
“And should there be any threat to the order of things,” I say, “you’ll gladly take care of it.”
“Exactly.”
“Is that what happened with Laura?”
A silence lingers.
“I’d like to see my mom. If she’s just sleeping it off in the back, then there should be no problem. So let me go see her right now.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Because she isn’t there, is she? What did you do to her?”
“Stephanie,” he says at last, “I’m warning you.”
“And what about Michelle? Did a nine-year-old girl threaten the order of things too?”
His face changes. The shift is hard to pinpoint at first but impossible to miss. There it is. I got to him.
“I see Laura has already begun telling her inane stories,” Frank says. “Starting with you, of course, our gullible future Pulitzer winner.”
“When Laura has had a few,” I say, “she gets talkative. Everybody knows that.”
He gives me an odd look that I can’t immediately decipher.
“Where’s my mom, Frank?”
His face twitches.
“Where is she? I already recorded everything she told me. And backed it up. If you don’t tell me where she is, I’ll make sure it ends up all over the internet.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” he says with a rictus-like smile. In this moment, he reminds me of his brother. The resemblance is striking, and it’s strange that I never noticed before. He’s just as unhinged as Tony, in his own way. Which might be even worse than Tony, and infinitely more dangerous. Could it be simply that Tony no longer has the capacity to wear a mask? “Laura doesn’t talk when she’s drunk. Laura can keep a secret unless Laura decides she doesn’t want to.”
“Well, I think she made her decision.”
“But she hasn’t had time to tell you a thing. You don’t know anything.”
“I know you were involved in Michelle’s death—”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. “And anyway, I thought Michelle wasn’t dead—I thought she was still lurking in the woods, luring in small children from neighboring towns.” He gives a loud, ugly laugh. “Now do you hear how utterly stupid you sound? And you wonder why they didn’t take you seriously at the SQ. Who the hell would?”
I clench my fists.
“Stephanie, here’s what’s going to happen. I don’t want any unnecessary violence. I’m going to drive you down to the inn—they reopened this morning, by the way, and they could use some business—where you’ll get yourself a nice, comfortable room and stay there. And I’ll deal with Laura. Hopefully, Laura will see reason. But if she decides to get aggressive with an officer of the law—”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m afraid that’s not up to you.”
There’s something in the waistband of his jeans. He has a gun. Of course he has a gun.
“Everyone’s going to see you marching me out of here with a gun to my head.”
“No. Nobody is. The house on the right is empty, sitting abandoned for the last year. And in the house on the left, they know to keep their mouth shut because a certain DWI arrest would have been strike three.”
