Snowfall on Haven Point(101)

Instead of answering, she let out a low, keening sort of moan. “I can’t fix it. I can’t. I tried and I can’t.”

“Fix what?”

In answer, she burst into tears—noisy, ugly sobs that made Sadie whine and duck into Andie’s bedroom.

Marshall stood in the entry on his crutches, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do. He could handle hostage situations, vehicle chases, bank robberies.

So why did a woman’s tears send him straight into panic mode?

This was the second time that day he had faced them and he wasn’t any better prepared now than he had been with Louise Jacobs.

“Come in, out of the cold,” he ordered her again. “Don’t cry. Whatever is wrong, we’ll figure out how to make it right.”

“I can’t. I thought I could, but I can’t,” she cried.

She was heading for full-on hysteria in a minute. If that happened, he wouldn’t be able to get anything out of her.

“Let’s get you a glass of water, and then you can tell me what has you so upset.”

“Don’t be nice to me. I don’t deserve it.”

“Sure you do.”

He didn’t give her a chance to refuse; he simply swung around and made his way back down the hall, sensing maybe she needed someone to take the lead.

As he had hoped, she followed him after a beat.

“Sit down. I’ll get you something to drink.” He had been on plenty of calls involving someone in the midst of a mental health crisis. This was no different, except it was someone he knew.

“Is there somebody I can call? Your sister or a doctor or that counselor who helped you after your divorce?” he prompted.

“No. They can’t help me. Nobody can help me.”

Her emotional state bordered on despair, which worried him. He reached in his pocket for his cell phone, wondering how she might react if he called paramedics. Better to keep her talking for a moment to assess the situation, he decided.

“That’s not true,” he said gently. “I’m trying to help, but I can’t unless you tell me what’s going on. Why are you so upset? Did somebody hurt you?”

“No. It’s me.”

He frowned. “You hurt yourself?”

“I made terrible mistakes. So many terrible mistakes.” Jackie buried her head in her hands. “I was trying to do the right thing—to help my boy. That’s all I wanted. But I messed everything up and you got hurt and I’m sick about it now. I can’t fix it and I’m so sorry.”

She lifted her wild-eyed gaze to his, and for the first time, in the better light of the kitchen, he realized her pupils didn’t look normal. She was obviously on some kind of narcotic. What the hell? Jackie wasn’t a user, at least as far as he’d ever witnessed—though he’d never seen any sign of acute mental illness, either, other than a few bouts of depression as her divorce worked its way through the courts and her son struggled with substance abuse.

He had worked beside Jackie for years when he had been a deputy and she worked for his predecessor, and then very closely for the last year as the sheriff, but this frantic, distressed woman seemed like someone he didn’t even recognize.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I had to tell you I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Okay. Sorry for what? Let’s start there?”

She burst into more noisy tears and buried her head in her hands. For a long moment, she didn’t seem capable of answering him. This was above his pay grade. She was either high on something or having a mental breakdown. Either way, she needed medical help.

He pulled his phone out, but before he could dial 911, she lifted her head again.

“That,” she said, pointing at him. “I did that.”

He was completely baffled, until he realized she wasn’t pointing at him, she was pointing at the crutches holding him up.

He felt cold and hot at the same time. “What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I just needed you to stay away from work for a few weeks so I could make things right. I only wanted to make things right again, Marshall, I swear. I was going to fix everything. I just needed more time.”

He knew. Suddenly he knew.

He dredged up his memories of that secretive phone call from the confidential informant; the vehicle racing toward him through the snow; the dark shape in a ski mask, escaping between tents at the Lights on the Lake festival, right after he had seen Jackie there. It was a struggle to reconcile those bits of evidence, given this jarring paradigm shift, but yeah. Any of those suspects could have been a woman.

“You were driving the car. You tried to kill me.”