looking for the easy way out. She’d fall short of her goals and say it was good enough. Why be a Texas Ranger when she could be a small-town cop? Rachel McGarrity used to tell her to recognize that tendency and fight it. If she wanted to be a small-town cop, great—mission accomplished. If not, then go after what she wanted.
Alice hadn’t touched her soup. The pat of butter had already melted. She tore open her packet of oyster crackers. She had the most awful feeling of foreboding. She tried smiling at Davey Ahearn, but he wasn’t looking at her.
“I didn’t want to believe it.”
Alice recognized Susanna Galway’s voice and felt a little like she did that day Lieutenant Galway had pulled her aside to ask her a few questions about the Rachel McGarrity investigation. A Texas Ranger, on her case. She knew it’d only be a matter of time before she was charged with official misconduct, or worse.
But this time, Alice didn’t bother trying to hide what she’d done. “Mrs. Galway, please, I know this looks bad.” Alice kept her voice respectful, but wondered if her cheeks were red or pale, revealing anything about how frightened and awful she felt. “I don’t mean you or your family any harm.”
Susanna tilted her head, her long black hair hanging down her back, her green eyes half-closed, but Alice could see she was rattled, scared. “You used a false name.”
“I’m in the process of legally changing my name to Audrey Melbourne. I want a fresh start.”
“Here? You didn’t just happen to show up in the same neighborhood as the family of the Texas Ranger who put you in prison—”
“Lieutenant Galway didn’t put me in prison,” Alice said. “I put myself there through my own actions.”
Jack Galway’s wife inhaled sharply. She was so tall and limber—Alice felt tiny next to her. She’d always wanted to be more of an über-girl. She almost didn’t make it as a police officer because of her size. People liked to tell her she was cute. She didn’t have Susanna Galway’s dramatic good looks.
“If you wanted a fresh start,” Susanna went on tightly, “you wouldn’t be here in Boston, in my neighborhood. That just doesn’t wash, Miss Parker.”
“I know.” She spoke quietly, respectfully, aware of Jim Haviland and Davey Ahearn watching her, listening, ready to act if she did anything stupid. She had rehearsed this moment a thousand times in the past few weeks. “I came up here because I wanted to make up for any damage I’d done. I heard you’d left your husband after I got arrested—”
“That had nothing to do with you,” Susanna said stonily.
Alice wasn’t so sure about that, but she nodded anyway. “I can see that now. I probably knew it even before I got here.”
“But you stayed.”
“Where else was I supposed to go? I’m saving for Australia. Did Iris tell you that? I like her a lot, Mrs. Galway. I’d never do anything to hurt her. I mean, if I were up here to get revenge, I’ve had weeks.”
Susanna went slightly pale at Alice’s last words.
“Please believe me,” Alice said quietly, earnestly.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe or don’t believe.” Susanna stuffed her hands into her coat pockets, everything about her rigid, serious, determined. And scared, Alice thought. Susanna Galway wasn’t one who liked admitting she was scared. “I don’t want you anywhere near my grandmother or my daughters.”
Alice nodded. “All right. I understand.”
But her tone didn’t come out quite right, and she could see that Susanna had read her words the way Alice had really meant them—defiant and in-your-face defensive. She didn’t have to stay away from anybody. She was a free woman. She hadn’t threatened Iris or Maggie and Ellen Galway. She hadn’t stalked them. She hadn’t broken the law. Her presence in Susanna’s neighborhood was provocative, yes. But it wasn’t illegal.
“Stay away from my family,” Susanna said.
Alice didn’t argue, although she couldn’t imagine not seeing Iris again—at least to explain who she was, why she’d lied to her. She didn’t want Iris to think badly of her. She didn’t know why, but the old woman’s opinion mattered to her.
Susanna swept out of the bar, and Alice looked up at Jim Haviland, feeling her eyes fill with tears. “I suppose you think I’m pretty awful.”
“I think you’re scaring the shit out of Susanna Galway and used an innocent old woman—”
“I’d never hurt Iris. Never. I consider her a friend.”
But she could see she wasn’t getting anywhere with him, and down the bar, Davey Ahearn looked ready to take her out and shove her face into a snowbank. She jumped off her stool and tossed money on the bar, next to her barely touched bowl of chowder. She mostly choked down the clams, anyway. She couldn’t understand why New Englanders had clam chowder contests. It wasn’t even in the same universe as a good bowl of chili.
She sniffled, knowing she wasn’t eliciting an ounce of sympathy from either man. “I’m a free woman,” she said. “I can come and go as I please.”
“Then go,” Davey Ahearn said with an edge of sarcasm. “Please.”
She did, grabbing her parka but not bothering to put it on. One of them would call Jack Galway. Jim, Davey, Susanna. Jack wouldn’t stand by while a woman he’d put in prison, a corrupt fellow officer of the law, slipped into the neighborhood where his wife and daughters were living. It didn’t matter what was going on between him and Susanna. He’d be on the next plane out of San Antonio the minute he found out.
Alice pushed out the door into the cold night. There was a time when she’d wanted to stick it to Jack Galway for what he’d done to her, when she’d have been happy to think he was worried sick about his family because of her.
That wasn’t what this was about, she told herself. Revenge was pointless. This was about money for Australia and her new beginning.
Not that it’d make any difference to Jack Galway, Texas Ranger, but it did to her. She had a higher purpose in mind.
If he was about to find out she was up here with his wife and daughters, Alice couldn’t fool herself. There were no two ways about it. The squeeze was on, and she was running out of time.
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