by Alice Sharpe
He nodded.
Liz rubbed her hands together. The old house tended to be cold anyway and having the door open for so long hadn’t helped matters, nor did the tension presently building in her chest. “How could that happen when they had your confession?”
His gaze met hers and slid away. “My lawyer was too good.”
“And that means?”
“I told him not to mount a defense, but he said he couldn’t do that because it would provide grounds for a mistrial. He offered up enough witnesses and enough doubt about the way my confession was obtained and the way the evidence was handled that it planted a seed of doubt in some of the jurors’ minds. The D.A. has warned me there’ll be a new trial. My being out is only temporary.”
As she tried to assimilate all this, she started to shake. Alex retrieved his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. He stared down at her, his face caught in shadows, holding her gaze with glittering intensity.
“Sheriff Kapp is foaming at the mouth,” he said. “He told me he’s coming after me. That’s why I’m here, Liz, to warn you. It’s imperative you and I have our stories straight. This time Kapp will build a tighter case. This time his pride is on the line and re-election is right around the corner.”
The jacket was still warm from Alex’s body heat, and she pulled it close, burying her hands in the heavily piled lining. “You want me to lie for you?”
His brow wrinkled as he sat back down.
She realized with a sinking heart that she’d been foolishly nurturing the hope that a miracle had occurred, that he truly was innocent and that someone on the jury had realized it. That hope now shriveled up and died as had all the other hopes before it. She said, “Nothing’s really changed.”
“Everything’s changed. I thought you were safe, but you’re not, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, that’s why I’m here.”
She pointed at the door and said, “I want you to leave. Right now. Go.”
He managed to look bewildered for a moment. “How can you ask me to leave?”
“You have no right to come back here and try to make me feel…”
“Feel what, Liz?”
“Anything,” she mumbled.
He got to his feet in one fluid motion. “I suppose that explains the divorce papers delivered to the jail?”
She narrowed her eyes as months of frustration and grief fueled her anger and words too long unspoken flowed from her mouth with a life force of their own. “When you killed my uncle, you killed us. You killed any feelings I had for you. You killed our future. And you did it for his money. Was his money the only reason you married me in the first place? Was Uncle Devon actually right about you?”
Alex stood over her, eyes blazing again, fists balled, and for the first time in her life, Liz felt afraid of him. She sat frozen in her chair as he dropped to his knees by her side.
“You know why I married you,” he said, his voice deep with emotion. “In your heart, you damn well know why and it had nothing to do with money.”
Every womanly part of her knew he was right. It was just that his abrupt arrival had jolted her. She’d spent months mourning, she’d made herself sick with grief. It had been a long and difficult journey to escape the yawning abyss that had threatened to swallow her and her baby. She wasn’t about to allow herself to stand so close to the edge ever again.
“I don’t understand this charade,” he added in a hushed whisper, sending new chills down her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. “We both know what really happened the night your uncle died. Okay, I signed on for the long haul. I was willing—I am willing—to protect you and our baby until my dying breath. Nothing’s changed when it comes to that.”
Liz shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
He pushed himself to his feet and glared down at her. “You know what I’m talking about.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. What do you mean you were willing to sign on for the long haul? What’s going on here, Alex? Stop talking in riddles.”
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and ominous, as though he sensed a thousand ears pressed against the windows, listening to their every word. Standing over her, his expression grim, he said, “Remember the night your uncle died? We went to his house to tell him about your pregnancy. There was a terrible fight.”
“We left the party and you were called to an emergency at the station,” she added. “The old church at Taylor’s Crossing was on fire.” She shuddered as she thought about that fire, mercifully without victims.
Alex stopped dead in his tracks and pinned her with a laser stare. “When I left you, you were still furious with Devon.”
Tears puddled in her eyes as old feelings of inadequacy welled up inside her. “Of course I was furious. For years I tried to please that man. I never could. That night was the last straw. The things he said—”
“He didn’t want you saddled to someone like me,” Alex said. “He wanted better for you than one of the Chase boys.”
One of the Chase boys. Sure, Alex had come from a disreputable family but he’d grown into a wonderful, trustworthy man. Her uncle had refused to see that. To him, Alex would always be the boy he’d forced Liz to break up with in high school—the boy with no future.
Did wonderful, trustworthy men commit murder? an inner voice demanded.
Alex a murderer. It didn’t sit right, it never had.
But he confessed.
It always came down to his confession.
“Later that night, you went back to his house,” Alex said softly.
“How do you know that?” She’d never admitted that bitter, pointless trip to anyone.
Alex said, “I saw you.”
Before he killed her uncle? Had she been that close to being able to stop him? A cry of anguish erupted and died in her throat. “I thought Uncle Devon might have had a…I don’t know, a change of heart,” she mumbled. “Except he didn’t have a heart and I should have known it. I guess I was still hoping he might come through.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Of course not. It was foolish of me to think he would. He was more sure than ever that I’d eventually do just as he wanted, like I always did. He said he was going to call his lawyer in the morning and set up the papers giving everything he had to a local nature conservatory. He didn’t care about the wetlands, it was just his way of showing me he had control. Because he judged everything by its monetary worth, he thought I did, too.”
Alex cleared his throat. “He never understood you.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
He stared at her so hard she felt the back of her skull throb. Finally, he said, “Don’t ever tell anyone else you went back there that night. Do you understand? Not a soul.”
“Why—”
“Not a soul,” he repeated. “Promise me.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“You didn’t tell Kapp, did you?”
“I was in shock when he came, but I kept thinking the less I said the better it would be for you. After he left, I called your lawyer. I told him I wanted to help you. I couldn’t believe you’d ever kill anyone. But he confirmed that you’d confessed. He said you didn’t want any help from me, you didn’t even want to see me or talk to me. Alex, do you have any idea how much that hurt?”
“I—”
“Because for all intents and purposes, I lost you that night. I thought I was going to lose our baby, too. I’d lost one before and the thought of losing another… The doctor put me in bed for a week.”
“I—”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re out on a technicality. You’re still a murderer. I won’t have you around me or my baby.”
To her astonishment, Alex laughed. He laughed until a single tear rolled down his cheek, then he sat abruptly in one of the wing back chairs that flanked the stone-cold fireplace and buried his face in his hands.
Liz watched him with growing alarm until sh
e found herself standing by his side. She shrugged off his coat and laid it aside. He apparently sensed her closeness for without looking up, he reached for her, caught the hem of her sweatshirt, pulled her onto his lap. He rested his cheek against her breasts, his chin on the curve of her belly.
While one tear did not a crying-jag make, she’d never seen Alex shed even that before. She’d always been the one to weep at the drop of a hat, not him. She wrapped her arms around him and smoothed his hair with an unsteady hand. She tried to dismiss how sitting in his lap made her feel. The way her body came alive. The way the world suddenly seemed to be okay again despite the fact that nothing was okay. It was like finally waking from a long, dreary sleep.
But where would this feeling of renewed life take her? Into heartbreak territory, that’s where. Into a new trial, the outcome of which didn’t matter because he was guilty and that was enough to destroy them. She concentrated on feeling pity. It was safer.
Eventually, he looked up. She fought the urge to touch his lips with her own. How else does a woman comfort a man she loves, even a man she knows she shouldn’t love?
His expression guarded, he said, “I found your long green scarf.”
She blinked a few times, totally at sea.
“The one I gave you for your birthday because it matched your eyes.”
“I know which scarf you mean,” she said. “But I don’t understand—”
“You left it behind. I only had a second before I heard the sirens so I did the only thing that came to me. I hid it.”
Blood pounded in her ears, making it hard to follow his words.
“Liz,” he said gently, “I passed you a few miles from your uncle’s estate. It’s a narrow road and it doesn’t go much of anywhere else. You were driving back into town.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“It was dark and my old black truck looks like half the other black trucks in the county. But you have that white sports car.”
“I don’t understand, Alex. What’s this got to do with my scarf?”
“I found your scarf in your uncle’s hands. For an eternity or two, I just stared at it, trying to make sense of it until I heard the sirens. Then I untwisted it somehow and hid it. By then, the sheriff was there. He took me into custody. I tried to call you. I tried for hours. You weren’t home.”
Liz had a hard time finding her voice. Her throat felt dry and raspy. She said, “After I talked to my uncle for the last time, I went to my office at the mall and started packing my things. I wrote a letter of resignation. I was going to give it to him the next day. I was going to quit.”
“When I couldn’t reach you, I thought it meant you were hiding,” Alex said. “The sheriff started talking about finding you. He started saying that everyone, even him, had heard you threaten your uncle. He said everyone knew you were just waiting for your uncle to die so you’d be rich. He said maybe you’d killed your uncle. I’ve had time to think about it since then. I think he was goading me. At the time I just wanted to strangle him.”
“Why would he do something like that? He was my uncle’s protégé, and while we weren’t exactly friends, he’s always been pleasant to me.”
“He wanted me to admit I killed your uncle.”
Liz found herself on her feet, trembling. “What are you saying, Alex?”
He took her hands and held them firmly. “I think your uncle came at you with that letter opener and you struggled with him. I think your fear gave you enough strength to protect yourself and our baby. I think that during the struggle, the letter opener got turned on him or he fell on it, I’m not sure which. I think it was an accident or self-defense.”
She pulled her hands away and backed up. “You think I killed my uncle?”
Brow furrowing, he nodded. “Yes. Of course I do.”
“And then allowed you to take the blame for me?”
“Well—”
She felt all the blood drain out of her face.
“Liz—”
“I didn’t kill him,” she cried, hurt beyond bearing that he could think she would betray him.
He looked as pale and stunned as she felt. He swore under his breath and stared at her.
“I didn’t kill him,” she repeated.
Chapter Two
Alex swallowed so hard she could see his throat work. His eyes narrowed dangerously. Their stares stretched on and on until Liz finally sat down on the ottoman. “I don’t understand. You confessed. Now you’re telling me you didn’t murder my uncle?”
“I didn’t murder your uncle.”
“But you thought I did?”
“Yes, I did,” he said, and closed his eyes. She could only imagine what he was thinking and feeling.
“I went to tell Devon he could give his blasted money to a flea circus for all I cared,” he added, opening his eyes and searching her face. “I wanted him to leave us alone. Don’t you think I know how hard it’s been for you to keep peace with him, to do things his way, how impossible it’s been? But telling you to divorce me, to ‘get rid’ of our baby if you ever wanted to see a dime of his money—when he said those things, he burned his bridges as far as I was concerned and I wanted him to know it.
“He was in the den, crumpled on the floor in front of his desk, your scarf tangled in his fingers. He was warm. My EMT training kicked in and I felt for a pulse, I thought maybe—but he was already dead.”
“Oh, Alex.”
“And then Sheriff Kapp showed up. He’d received a telephone tip that something was going down at Devon Hiller’s house. He asked me to come in with him, to answer questions. I still wasn’t saying much of anything, just that I’d found Devon like that but I had his blood on my sleeve and apparently I even touched the handle of the letter opener because they found my prints on it. The sheriff started insinuating things about you and all I could think about was the murder scene. I’d found the scarf but had I missed something else you left? I confessed there’d been a struggle and he’d fallen. The sheriff was anxious to wrap it all up in record time and he was absolutely sure he had his man.”
“You wouldn’t let me help you.”
“I wanted the investigation to begin and end with me. I thought you would understand what I was doing, why I had to do it. Your silence confirmed you did.”
“My silence?” Liz said, angry now. “What choice did you give me but silence?”
He shook his head again.
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“Explain what? How mad you were? How mad we both were? You and I were prime suspects. Everyone at the house that night heard you threaten your uncle, heard you tell him you’d had enough, that you weren’t going to take it anymore.”
“I meant I was going to quit my job and stop subjecting myself to his manipulations.”
“Dozens of bystanders only heard a threat. You were pregnant. You’d had a miscarriage a few months before and I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“So you told them you did it.”
“For once, my family history came in handy. Nobody ever really expected a Chase man to stay out of trouble for long. I don’t think it strained anyone’s imagination to picture me as a killer. Logic said it had to be one of us.”
“But, Alex, it wasn’t one of us.”
He stared at her. “No, it wasn’t.”
Liz felt her heart thump wildly. Alex reached out and took her hand, kissed her palm, and folded her hand in his. His fingers flicked over her bare finger, absent of her thick gold wedding band. “No,” he repeated, “it wasn’t.”
“You’re innocent.”
“So are you.” His relief was palpable and for the first time she understood the depth of the burden he’d been carrying. He’d thought she’d killed her uncle, he knew he hadn’t. He’d given up his freedom and his chance to know his child—all for her. He’d thought she’d been willing to repay this sacrifice by leaving him to suffer the consequences alone. And then she’d asked him for a divorc
e.
She felt herself lean toward him, she felt him leaning toward her. What came now, a kiss, reconciliation, everything back to the way it was? She pulled away.
His eyes demanded an explanation but she didn’t have one to offer. What he’d done was protect her and she felt humbled. But he hadn’t trusted her. She’d thought they were a team, but Alex hadn’t included her in a decision that would forever change the course of both of their lives—and that of their unborn child. Quite the opposite, he’d gone out of his way to exclude her.
His distrust of the sheriff was old news. It reminded her that Alex had learned, within the boundaries of his highly dysfunctional family, to go it alone. A stint in the army and the years at the fire station had tempered his fierce independent streak so that he’d become comfortable working as part of a team with men he respected. She’d assumed that quality would extend into their marriage, but he’d jumped to a terrible and wrong conclusion this time and he hadn’t trusted her when it counted.
That hurt.
More to the heart of the matter, he’d also implicated himself so thoroughly that it might never be made right because Alex was correct—the whole community had reacted to his arrest with a knowing shake of their collective head.
Another Chase man gone wrong.
Only this one hadn’t.
Alex stood, and extending a hand, helped Liz to her feet. “Are you okay now?” he asked softly. “Is the baby all right?”
“We’re both fine.”
“You must know I love you—”
This time she held up a hand to silence him. Her feelings were like tumbleweeds, roaming here and there and everywhere, rootless and brittle. “I can’t talk anymore tonight,” she mumbled.
“You’re exhausted,” he said, his voice filled with concern. Taking her hand, he looked at her with eyes so deep and midnight blue she yearned to get lost in them the way she had in the past, lost and found at the same time. He whispered, “You go to bed.”
“What about you?”
He glanced around the room then back at her. “I need to think.”