back east—one of those captains-of-the-universe types who think they own everyone. He was sexually abusing his daughter-in-law, so she fled out here with her lover to see if her brother would take her in.”
“Did he?” Josh asked, apparently captured by the story.
Tucker smiled, remembering Sophie and Bridget and how happy they’d been. “Yes. He was going to take the girls in. He didn’t care that she wanted a divorce, in fact. He’d been missing his family, and his wife was lonely when he was gone working. He was….” Tucker shrugged, trying not to wish for the perfect ending. “He was a good guy.”
“Girls?” Tilda apparently forgot this was boring and gazed at him like he was the TV.
Tucker winked. “Yeah. Girls. Bridget was Sophie’s ladies’ maid. They… they were special. They were nice, nice ladies. And they came out here because they wanted to get far away from her father-in-law.”
“But he followed?”
“Yeah.” Tucker thought about it—thought about the terrifying glimpses he’d had into Thomas Conklin Senior’s life. “He thought he owned them. He was furious that they would try to escape. He was an addict and entitled and….” He shuddered. “His heart was as black and as evil as they come.”
He had them. The whole Greenaway family was staring at him openmouthed, and he found he didn’t want to stop. The fairy-tale words fell from his lips, framing the story in mystery and beauty and terror and ugliness and joy, because that was the way of all the best stories.
“So the girls arrived at Daisy Place, and for a while, it was paradise. They stayed in the gardens and their rooms, mostly, but some days they walked through town and along Church Street, seeing the steep drop of canyon beyond the cemetery and talking about flying under the sun. Sophie sent word to her brother a few weeks after they arrived—”
“Why so late?” Murphy wanted to know, as entranced as his sister.
“It was a honeymoon to them,” Tucker said, guessing. He’d known they’d fled in the spring and James had arrived in the fall. He would fill in the gaps as he may. “But also they were afraid, and they wanted to get their courage up. Sophie had traveled across the country uninvited, and she was leaving her husband. She was afraid her brother might not want the disgrace she brought upon her family name.”
Coral socked her brother in the arm. “He’d better take her,” she said, glaring at Murphy as if he’d rejected her.
“Hey!”
“Wait—you said he did!” Tilda burst in excitedly. Then, to her mother, “See. I was listening.”
“You were indeed.” Tucker inclined his head. “Very good. So her brother was coming, and the girls were so excited and nervous. And just as they read the letter, they heard another voice calling from downstairs.”
“Oh no!” Josh was leaning his chin on his fists like a girl in a ’50s movie. “Conklin?”
“Oh yes,” Tucker said. “It was Sophie’s father-in-law, and he was furious. He was maddened beyond reason. He burst into the hotel room and stormed forward to attack Sophie. Bridget stepped in, and he backhanded her across the room. She fell, hitting her head, and struggled to get back up. Conklin, enraged, continued his assault, and poor Sophie.” Tucker swallowed. He hadn’t seen inside Sophie’s heart for this rape, but he’d been there for the first one, and he would carry her helplessness, her degradation and pain, for the rest of his life.
“She was in pain,” he said softly. “And being abused terribly. And just then, in the middle of all that chaos, her brother walked in.”
“I’d kill somebody who’d touch my sister!” Murphy growled.
Tucker regarded him sadly. “Of course you would. You’re a good brother. And so was James. He seized a glass paperweight, one with a solid base of bronze, and he crashed it down on the back of Conklin’s head.”
Everybody in the room put their hands to their mouth in horror. Including Angel.
“Oh, he was dead all right,” Tucker told them. “But Sophie and Bridget, they were strong and quick-thinking. They knew James could get charged and convicted of murder—Conklin was very powerful, and James was a railroad man, no more, no less. So they rolled the body in a sheet and used Sophie’s ripped clothing to sop up the blood and clean the room. Bridget and James took the body into the graveyard in the dark of night, by the light of a waning moon, and buried it. They thought it was on consecrated ground,