Sherlock said, “But he’s been so very worried about Lily, hasn’t he?”
Mrs. Scruggins nodded, and the small diamond studs in her ears glittered in the morning sunlight pouring through the window. Diamonds and muscles and rings, Sherlock thought, and wondered. Mrs. Scruggins said, “Poor man, always fretting about her, trying to make her smile, bringing her presents and flowers, but nothing really worked, leastwise in the long term. And now this.” Mrs. Scruggins shook her head. She wore her gray hair in a thick chignon. She had lots of hair and there were a lot of bobby pins worked into the roll.
It occurred to Sherlock to wonder if Mrs. Scruggins really cared for Lily, or if it was all an act. Could it be that she was really Lily’s companion, or maybe even her guard?
Now where had that thought come from? Hadn’t Mrs. Scruggins saved Lily’s life that first time Lily had taken the bottle of pills right after Beth’s funeral? She was getting paranoid here; she had to watch it.
“I have a little boy, Mrs. Scruggins,” Savich said. “I’ve only had him a bit more than seven months, and you can believe that I would be devastated if anything were to happen to him.”
“Well, that’s good. Some men are different, aren’t they? But my daddy, hard-nosed old bastard he was. Didn’t shed a tear when my little sister got hit by that tractor. Ah, well, I’m afraid I have things to do now. When is Mrs. Frasier coming home?”
“Perhaps as soon as tomorrow,” Sherlock said. “She’s had major surgery and won’t be feeling very well for several days.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Mrs. Scruggins said and popped her knuckles.
Sherlock shuddered, shot Savich a look, and thanked the older woman for all her help. She shook Mrs. Scruggins’s hand, feeling all those rings grind into her fingers.
Just before they left the kitchen, Mrs. Scruggins said, “I’m real glad you’re staying here. Being alone just isn’t good for Mrs. Frasier.”
Savich felt a deep shaft of guilt. He remembered he hadn’t said very much when Lily had insisted on returning here after recuperating with their mother. She’d seemed just fine, wanted to be with her husband again, and he’d thought, I would want to be with Sherlock, too, and he’d seen her off at Reagan Airport with the rest of the family. Tennyson Frasier seemed to adore her, and Lily, it seemed then to Savich, had adored him as well.
During the months she was home, she hadn’t ever called to complain, to ask for help. Her e-mails were invariably upbeat. And whenever he and Sherlock had called, she’d always sounded cheerful.
And now, all these months later, this happened. He should have done something then, shouldn’t have just kissed her and waved her onto the flight to take her three thousand miles away from her family. To take her back to where Beth had been killed.
He looked down to see Sherlock squeezing his hand. There was immense love in her eyes and she said only, “We will fix things, Dillon. This time we’ll fix things.”
He nodded and said, “I really want to see Lily’s in-laws again, don’t you, Sherlock? I have this feeling that perhaps we really don’t know them at all.”
“Agreed. We can check them out after we’ve seen Lily.”
At the Hemlock County Hospital, everything was quiet. When they reached Lily’s room, they heard the sound of voices and paused at the door for a moment.
It was Tennyson.
And Elcott Frasier, his father.
Elcott Frasier was saying, his voice all mournful, “Lily, we’re so relieved that you survived that crash. It was really dicey there for a while, but you managed to pull through. I can’t tell you how worried Charlotte has been, crying, wringing her hands, talking about her little Lily dying and how dreadful it would be, particularly such a short time after little Beth died. The Explorer, though, it’s totaled.”
That, Savich thought, was the strangest declaration of caring he’d ever heard.
“It’s very nice of all of you to be concerned,” Lily said, and Savich heard the pain in her voice, and something else. Was it fear? Dislike? He didn’t know. She said, “I’m very sorry that I wrecked the Explorer.”
“I don’t want you to worry about it, Lily,” Tennyson said and took her hand. It was limp, Savich saw, she wasn’t returning any pressure.
“I’ll buy you another one. A gift from me to you, my beautiful little daughter-in-law,” Elcott said.
“I don’t want another Explorer,” she said.
“No, of course not,” continued Elcott. “Another Explorer would remind you of the accident, wouldn’t it? We don’t want that. We want you to get well. Oh yes, we’ll do anything to get you well again, Lily. Just this morning, Charlotte was telling me how everyone in Hemlock Bay was talking about it, calling her, commiserating. She’s very upset by it all.”