Dead Silence (Stillwater Trilogy #1)(57)
Author: Brenda Novak

While he worked, a door clapped shut at the Port-a-Potties not far away. Then a child cried and was quickly silenced in a nearby tent. Over all, however, the woods remained peaceful and still, allowing him to concentrate—until he heard Joe call his name.

“Kennedy?”

“Shit,” he muttered, and turned off his flashlight as he hurried to finish.

“You out here, man?”

The hole he’d dug so far would have to be deep enough. Placing the Bible inside, Kennedy quickly covered it. He’d barely tamped down the dirt when he heard rustling in the trees.

“Kennedy?”

Kicking aside the rock he’d used, Kennedy stomped a few final times on the Bible’s grave, then grabbed his flashlight and stood as Joe emerged into the clearing.

“Right here,” Kennedy said.

“What the hell are you doing in the woods?”

Kennedy led Joe away from the disturbed earth. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Raelynn,” he replied and prayed she’d forgive him for the lie.

“You’re still not over her, are you,” Joe said, his words more of a statement than a question.

Kennedy wasn’t sure he’d ever be over Raelynn. She was part of him. She always would be. But he doubted Joe understood that, or the way things were beginning to change for him. Now that the acute pain of his wife’s death had diminished to this terrible emptiness, Kennedy was beginning to crave new companionship. Love. Sex. Laughter. Commitment. Everything he’d enjoyed with Raelynn. “She was incredible,” he said and meant it.

Joe nodded. “I agree. It won’t be easy to settle for someone else after living with her.” He chuckled. “Someone like Grace can’t even compare.”

Kennedy thought most of the people in Stillwater were judging Grace by the wrong standard. They were counting the number of times she’d fallen down—not the number of times she’d gotten up. “Certain events shape us into who we are,” he said.

Joe shot him a confused look. “So what’s your point?”

Kennedy wasn’t completely clear on his own emotions. But he could tell Grace was different from the other women he’d known. “Would you be surprised if a flower bloomed if it was planted in a perfect spot of ground, where it received just the right amount of water and light?”

“You’re asking me about flowers?” Joe replied dryly.

“It’s an analogy, okay?”

“No, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said with a shrug that let Kennedy know he was only playing along.

“Would you be surprised if a rare, delicate flower bloomed in a very hostile place, with little sunlight and even less water?”

“I don’t see what—”

“Just answer the question.”

Joe hesitated as though he might balk but finally relented. “Of course I’d be surprised.”

“You’d want to protect that flower, right? You’d see it as a bit of a miracle.”

“You’re saying Grace is a miracle, Kennedy? She’s slept with almost every friend you have. What’s to admire about that?”

Joe didn’t get it. Kennedy should have expected that. He considered pointing out all the less than admirable things Joe had done in his lifetime but decided there was no use. Slapping his friend on the back in an attempt to minimize some of the hard feelings they both had, he led him toward camp. “Forget it.”

“We grew up together,” Joe replied. “I thought I knew you. But you’re starting to worry me.”

Kennedy had begun to realize that Joe didn’t know him at all. Funny thing was, they were probably better off for it. Facing their differences would, in all likelihood, destroy their friendship. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Nothing’s going to change.”

“You’re sure?” Joe sounded skeptical.

“I’m sure,” Kennedy said. After all, Grace would be gone in a matter of weeks or months. Then he’d have to forget her.

Joe waited for Kennedy to fall asleep before creeping out of the tent. He could scarcely believe what he’d heard Kennedy say—all that bullshit about rare flowers blooming in hostile places and miracles. Joe certainly didn’t see Grace as a rare flower. He couldn’t deny that she was attractive, but she and her family had gotten away with murder—and they’d been laughing behind their hands ever since.

It was the greatest of ironies that Grace had become a district attorney, although it was no wonder that she’d never lost a case. She probably knew exactly what to look for in a homicide. From watching her mother, or possibly Clay.

And now she had the nerve to think she could move back to town and thumb her nose at everyone she once knew.

Joe wasn’t about to let her do that. Grabbing the flashlight Kennedy had left on the picnic table, he strode off toward the restrooms. He had to figure out what Kennedy and Grace had been doing an hour or so earlier. Surely they’d been together. It was too much to believe they just happened to leave their tents and wander through the woods at the same time.

The obvious answer was that they’d been fooling around. But Joe didn’t think so. There was too much tension. They’d each seemed taut as a bowstring, which sure didn’t lead Joe to believe they’d just had sex.

So what, then? Why had they met in the woods?

Veering off the path toward the place he’d found Kennedy earlier, Joe turned on the light and began searching for any kind of evidence that Kennedy and Grace had been there together. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for—a condom wrapper? a blanket?—but Kennedy must’ve had some reason for being in the woods. Joe had gone camping with him dozens of times since Raelynn’s death, and he’d never slipped off in the middle of the night before. Not many people plunged into the forest to “think” at three in the morning.

The scent of pine needles and wet vegetation rose to his nostrils as he poked through the woods. He spotted something shiny, which turned out to be a crushed beer can. There was a cigarette butt and a soggy paper towel. But it was all garbage he guessed had been left behind by someone else.

It was too dark, he decided. Planning to search again in the morning, he trudged back to the tent.

Birds twittering loudly in the trees overhead woke Joe just after daybreak. Heath and Teddy were already stirring in the next tent. They all emerged at the same time, but when Joe didn’t stop at the picnic table, they chimed in to ask where he was going. Mumbling that he had to use the restroom, he slipped off into the woods for another quick search.