“I wouldn’t have wanted your help with the case even if you had,” snapped Steve. “In fact, I don’t want my son involved in it now. His mother is long buried, and at this point, it’s best to just leave it that way.”
“But, Dad…”
“Now, Lane, you’ve asked me things throughout the years, and I’ve tried to be as patient with you as possible, for your sake and for your mother’s, but you’re a man now, and things around here are settled. Why go drudging up the past?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Because I need to know the truth. I need to know how that fire got started. And I need the world to know that you would’ve never done anything to hurt Mom.”
“No matter what you could discover, Lane, the world is always going to think badly of me. They’ve got their opinions, and opinions don’t get changed just because someone tells you yours is wrong. You see? It ain’t gonna make a difference around here. Besides, I’m an old man now. No one cares about me anymore. The story’s settled.”
“Dad, I care about you. And the story isn’t settled. It might be forgotten by many, but it isn’t settled. And I’m ready to get down to the truth. For all of our sakes.”
“Lane, I just don’t want to talk about it…”
“Fine. I’m just gonna say it. Dad, Nana thinks this has something to do with your ex-girlfriend.”
Steve’s head snapped to the right as he looked Lane directly in the eye. “I’m sorry, your grandmother thinks what?”
23
“Nana thinks Mom’s death has something to do with an old girlfriend of yours,” repeated Lane. “Is it true?”
Steve looked appalled. “Of course that isn’t true. Why would she tell you a story like that?”
“You tell me, Dad.”
“There ain’t nothing to tell.”
“Bull, Dad. She wouldn’t have said anything if there wasn’t something to tell.”
“Your mother’s death had nothing to do with that woman. Now just let it be, son.”
“Dammit, Dad! Don’t you understand? I’m not going to just let it be,” Lane fired back. He stood up and paced around the room. “I can’t! Not anymore.”
Evanee felt slightly uncomfortable, caught between father and son. She wanted to disappear into a hole, but instead, she sat there quietly, trying to pretend she was simply a fly on the wall.
“Well, then, that’s on you,” snapped Steve.
“Dad, for thirty-five years, I’ve let it go. For thirty-five years! Today would’ve been Mom’s sixtieth birthday. Don’t you wonder what things would’ve been like with her around? Don’t you wonder if you would’ve had more kids? Or if the house would look different right now?” Lane pointed at the curtains on the windows. They looked dated and were badly faded. “If Mom were here, would these curtains still be here? Hell, Dad. If Mom was still alive, I might be married right now. You might be a grandfather. Don’t you understand? This has haunted both of our lives forever. You never remarried. I never got married. You and I have been the only people in each other’s lives since she passed. Dad, I can’t keep living like this. We can’t keep living with the ghost of the woman. She haunts me, you know. In the fall. Mom haunts me.”
Steve looked up at his son, his eyes glossy.
“She wants me to get justice for her death. She didn’t get to see me grow up. She didn’t get to raise me, Dad. And she doesn’t think that’s fair. I don’t think that’s fair either. Someone killed her. Someone killed your wife. Don’t you even care?”
“Of course I care!” barked Steve.
“Well, show it, for crying out loud! We need to find out who did it!”
“We don’t need to find anything out because I already know who did it,” shouted Steve.
Evanee saw traces of Lane then in Steve’s face. They looked the same when they were angry. The same tendons in their necks moved, and they had the same steely eyes that fought back tears.
“The police know too, but they haven’t done a damn thing about it.”
Evanee’s eyes widened. She swallowed hard and glanced up at Lane. He had stopped pacing and looked down at his father, frozen in place.
“What did you just say?”
“I know who did it. I just didn’t wanna tell you.”
“You’ve known all this time? Have the police known? Why haven’t they done anything about it for all these years?”
Steve leaned forward and let his head fall between his knees. He rubbed his calloused hands through his hair and sighed. “Not enough evidence,” he finally said when he straightened. “No proof. But I know in my heart that bastard did it.”
Lane shook his head. “Dad! I can’t believe you’re just now telling me. Who is it? What happened?”
Steve was quiet for several long seconds. Finally, he glanced over at Evanee. “I’m gonna need a cup of coffee for this,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.
Evanee stood up. She didn’t want anything coming between Steve and his confession. “I can handle the coffee. Just point me to the kitchen.”
Lane nodded and pointed towards the door on the other side of the living room. “Right through there.”
When she walked past Lane, he put a hand out to grab her by the elbow. “We won’t start without you. I wouldn’t be this far without you getting involved. Thank you.”
When Evanee returned with coffee, Steve was nowhere to be seen, and Lane was staring at a wall of pictures. She handed Lane a mug. “Where’s your dad?”
“In the bathroom.”
Evanee put Steve’s mug down next to his recliner and stood up to follow Lane’s eyes. He was staring at a picture of a beautiful young blonde woman with big eighties-style hair and just as big blue eyes. “Your mother was a beautiful woman.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I only wish I’d had the chance to get to know her.”
“Yeah,” she replied sorrowfully. “I know you do. But we’re on track to figuring this all out. Your dad might hold the answers we need.”
“I sure hope so.” Lane put a hand on Evanee’s shoulder and gave her a little squeeze. “I really appreciate you being here with me.”
Evanee gave him a tight smile. “Of course. This is a momentous occasion. I’m grateful you let me be a part of it.”
Feet shuffling in the hallway made them turn their heads.
“Alright, let’s get this show on the road,” said Steve gruffly as he reappeared from the hallway. “You two might as well have a seat. Looks like I’ve got a story to tell.”
Evanee and Lane took their seats on the sofa again.
“Well, I think to really understand this story, I think we have to back to high school,” Steve began. “You know your mother and I didn’t begin dating until after she’d already graduated high school, but that wasn’t of my choosing. The truth of the matter was, I had a crush on your mother since the first day of my senior year. Rachel was a sophomore. I’d seen her before that, lots of times. You know Stoney Brook is small. You pretty much know all the kids from kindergarten through the twelfth grade, so it’s not like I’d never seen her before. But that first day of school her sophomore year, she just looked… I don’t know, different. It was like she’d gone from being this little girl that I wouldn’t even bother looking at to being this woman that was so amazing to look at that I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her.”
With her chin resting in the palm of her hand, Evanee wanted to let out an awwww, but she knew better. Steve and Lane were rough-and-tumble farm boys. Hearing an awwww might very well cause Steve to clam up, and she certainly didn’t want that, so she was silent and let him continue.
“She’d changed her hair,” he explained. “Later I saw older pictures of her and realized her hair had been long, all the way down to her back, but the weekend before school started, she’d had her mother cut it. When she’d done that, her natural curls popped up and made it real curly. It was like she had this glowing aura of shiny blond curls around her that day.” He shook his head, a soft smile re
sting on his face, like he’d never gotten over that image of her.
“She was beautiful. And she had these bright eyes that were blue as the sky, and she was wearing this blue blouse that matched them.” He shook his head and continued to speak as if in a daze, happily remembering what it had been like to see Rachel through new eyes. “She’d worn glasses since the second grade, but that summer she’d gotten contacts. And you know, I didn’t realize any of those things at the moment. All I knew was that there was this new girl at school. This amazingly beautiful woman that I just had to get to know.”
Steve took a sip of his coffee before continuing. “Anyway, it was my senior year. I had one year left, and then my plan was to go into the military. So I knew I needed to work fast. The homecoming dance was the first major event, and it was my plan to invite Rachel to be my date.”
When Steve paused again, this time to take a deep, cleansing breath, Evanee glanced over at Lane. He was quietly listening, gratefully absorbing every little detail his father was sharing. She was keenly aware that this was the first time Lane had ever heard the story of his parents’ meeting, and maybe the first real great description he’d gotten of his mother. Her heart ached for him.
“So, I was feeling kind of nervous about asking Rachel out. I was a football player, and one night after practice, I was about to go over to Rachel’s and ask her to the dance, but I was struggling. I wasn’t exactly a ladies’ man. One of my buddies on the team noticed something was bothering me and asked what was up. His name was Calvin Lancaster.”
Evanee noticed the vein pop up in Steve’s temple when he said the name, and his jaw clenched slightly. She wondered if Lane noticed.
“So, I admitted to Calvin that I was working up the nerve to ask Rachel Church out to the homecoming dance, and he shocked me by telling me that he’d already asked her and they were going together! I couldn’t believe it. He said he’d done it earlier in the day. I’d missed my opportunity by just a few hours. I was so bummed out. Like completely devastated. I thought for sure she liked me too. You know? I could see it in her face when we spoke. So to hear that she’d accepted a date with Calvin Lancaster was kind of a blow. To my ego and to my heart.”
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, drawing in another breath so he could keep going. “I didn’t think I’d go to the dance then. I mean, the only reason I would’ve gone was to be with Rachel. But then out of nowhere, Heather Bell asked me to go with her. She was a nice girl. I kinda knew she liked me. She’d flirted with me off and on the year before. She was in the grade between Rachel and me. Honestly, I didn’t want to go with her because I was smitten with Rachel, but something in me told me to do it. You know, maybe it would make Rachel jealous or something. I don’t really know why teenage boys do the dumb things they do. Anyway, I accepted the date with Heather and we went to the dance, and you know what I found out? Calvin hadn’t asked Rachel after all. Well, he’d asked her, but he’d asked her after I’d told him I was going to ask her.”
“You’re kidding,” said Lane. “How’d you know that?”
“Heather told me. It was a small school and Heather was a cheerleader.” He shook his head. “Oh man, I was so mad at that guy. I wanted to punch his lights out. But then I thought, you know what, that was my fault for chickening out. I could’ve still asked her to the dance. She might’ve said no because she wasn’t interested or because she’d already accepted an invitation from someone else, or she might’ve just said yes. Then maybe none of this would have happened.”
“Dad, are you trying to tell me that you think all of this is a result of that night?” asked Lane, his eyes narrowed.
Steve shrugged. “Can’t be too sure. But maybe when you hear the whole story you’ll understand. Anyway, so because I didn’t ask her and Calvin did, Rachel started dating Calvin Lancaster. They were pretty much a couple all through my senior year. And then I kind of fell into dating Heather. I think Heather assumed we’d marry one day. It’s what a lot of high school sweethearts around here did. I think she thought I’d go off to the military, and when I came home I’d marry her. But the truth was that I never loved Heather. I loved your mother.”
Steve sighed. “And I admit, I continued to communicate with Heather on and off until I returned home from serving. Looking back, maybe I led her on, I don’t know. But when I finally did come home years later, I discovered that Rachel and Calvin weren’t a thing anymore. They’d broken up. And once I discovered that Rachel was single, I knew what I had to do. I let Heather down gently, and a week later, Rachel and I were seeing each other.”
“So why does Nana think that Heather had something to do with Mom’s death?” asked Lane, transfixed by his father’s story.
Steve shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. I know for a fact that it wasn’t her. We’d been broken up for a while when the fire happened. It was like a year and a half later. Heather was engaged. Rachel and I were married, and we had a new baby. I was in love with your mother. I had no feelings whatsoever for Heather.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely sure. None. And I know it wasn’t her that was responsible for the fire. No, it was your mother’s ex. Calvin Lancaster. He couldn’t accept the fact that he and Rachel were never going to get back together. You know, they’d dated the whole time I was gone. She’d stopped seeing him because his drinking had begun to get out of control, and when he would get drunk he’d get violent with her.”
Evanee raised a hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt here, but just because Calvin had been violent with Rachel and had started drinking doesn’t automatically mean that he started that fire.”
“No, not by itself,” agreed Steve. “But the cops picked him up hours after the fire. He was drunk off his rocker, and he had claw marks all up and down his face. I think he found her at the fire station, and I think he attacked her before he set that fire.”
“Well, why didn’t they test for DNA? Why didn’t they follow up on that lead?”
Steve let out a bitter chuckle. “First of all, DNA testing then wasn’t like what it is now. And second, you have to realize who we were dealing with. Our Podunk police department. They didn’t have the most brainiac of police officers. And there was the little fact that Calvin was actually on the police force back then.”
“Calvin Lancaster was on the police force?” asked Lane, stunned.
“Once upon a time,” said Steve, nodding. “Of course, after the fire, his drinking intensified and eventually he got fired for it. But that came way later. I’ve always assumed the fact that he became an alcoholic was proof of his guilt. He couldn’t live with the fact that he’d killed her.”
“Dad, I don’t understand. Why didn’t you push harder for them to arrest him? And why haven’t you told me any of this?”
Steve shook his head. “What good would it have done for you to know, son? I mean, look at you. I just told you, and you’re already fired up. I can see it all over your face. I don’t need you running over there to Calvin Lancaster’s place and hurting that man. It won’t bring your mother back. All it’ll do is put you where he should’ve been for all these years. And besides, karma’s come around on that man. He’s never amounted to a hill of beans. He lives in a junkyard. He never married. No kids. He’s an alcoholic. He’s a mess. I’m shocked he’s still alive, to be honest.”
“But if you think he attacked Mom, what if he hurt her? What if he—” Lane’s eyes shone with fear over what his mother might have gone through.
Steve sighed. “You can’t think like that. It’ll only make you angrier. I know. I’ve sat on those thoughts for the last thirty-five years. I can’t think about it. I like to think your mother was strong enough to fight him off.”
Lane looked devastated to hear the truth. He shook his head. “Dad, I can’t just let this go.”
Steve nodded and stood up. He walked over to his son and patted his back. “I know you can’t. That’s why I didn’t tell you then. But it was clear to me you we
ren’t going to let it go anyway. You needed the truth. Well, I gave it to you. You want your killer? Well, you just go have a chat with Calvin Lancaster. Of course, I don’t know how you’d ever prove it was him. The evidence of his sins is all but burned to ashes now.”
“I’ll figure out a way to nail him for what he did, Dad. Don’t you worry. I’ll figure out a way. It’s not right that he did this to our family and got away scot-free.”
“Sometimes people don’t get what’s right or what’s fair, son. You just remember that. Sometimes things don’t happen the way they’re supposed to.”
Lane shook his head and held his hand out to Evanee to pull her up off the sofa. He strode over to the door, and right before he got there, he stopped and turned around to face his father.
“Yeah, well, sometimes they do.”
24
“You went on a date with Lane Dawson?!” Gemma Greyson’s blue eyes widened as she spun around to face Evanee.
Evanee swiped both hands across each other in the air. “It was not a date, Gem. I swear. It was… umm…” Evanee rolled her eyes sky-high as she tried to think of a proper comparison. “It was comparable to a business meeting, I guess you could say.”
“A business meeting?” Gemma’s brow furrowed. “How in the world was dinner at Lane’s grandparents’ house a business meeting? The man sells you pumpkins and gourds, and he’s already delivered!” She waggled her eyebrows. “Unless he’s been making night deliveries that I’m unaware of?”
“Gemma!” gasped Evanee.
Unbeknownst to Gemma, Whitley Snow sat cross-legged on the hardwood counter behind her with Esmerelda sitting next to her. “Yeah, Ev. Not sure that was all business last night. You were gone for a really long time.”
Snow Way Out: A Mystic Snow Globe Romantic Mystery (The Mystic Snow Globe Mystery Series Book 2) Page 17