by Rita Herron
Peyton shrugged. “It felt good to finally come clean.” She gave a sad smile. “I’m so sorry I left you to deal with the fallout after the bus crash.”
“I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t come to Dad or me,” Tawny-Lynn said.
Peyton shrugged. “Maybe one day we’ll stop saying I’m sorry.”
Tawny-Lynn lifted her glass of tea in a toast. “Let it be today. It’s time to move forward from the past.”
Peyton picked up her plate and carried it to the dishwasher. “Right. Now what can I do around here to help you get this place ready to sell?”
“The rain hasn’t set in yet, so let’s work outside,” Tawny-Lynn suggested.
“We should probably hire someone to paint the house,” Peyton said.
“Probably,” Tawny-Lynn agreed. “But I can’t afford that right now.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Peyton said. “I have some money saved.”
“All right. But you can take the expenses out of the ranch when we sell it.”
“Who knows,” Peyton said. “When you fix this place up, you might not want to leave.”
Tawny-Lynn’s heart squeezed. “I have to. I can’t stay here.”
“Why not?” Peyton said. “Is there someone special waiting in Austin?”
“No,” Tawny-Lynn said. “Just my business.”
“Maybe Camden Crossing needs a good landscaper. I saw several new developments going up on my way into town.”
Tawny-Lynn shrugged. “It’s just too difficult to be here, Peyton.”
“Because of what happened, or because of Chaz?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why would you ask about him?”
“I saw the way you two looked at each other,” Peyton said. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Tawny-Lynn hadn’t been close to anyone in so long that it felt strange to have her sister back, watching her, reading her so well. “He doesn’t feel the same way,” she said instead of denying the truth.
“Are you sure about that?” Peyton asked. “Because it looked to me like he was crazy about you.”
“His family hates me,” she said. “Mr. Camden crucified me after the crash, accused me of intentionally holding back information about you and Ruth.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”
“Oh, he meant it all right. You know Chaz’s father is rich and owns the town. He turned others against me. I would never be good enough for his son.”
Peyton caught her arm. “If Chaz loves you, it doesn’t matter what his father thinks.”
“That’s just it,” she said, her voice cracking. “He doesn’t love me.” She headed to the kitchen sink. “Now, enough about the Camdens. I thought we’d plant some rosebushes today.”
Peyton teared up again. “Let’s plant yellow roses in the place where Ruth was buried.”
Tawny-Lynn stacked her own plate in the dishwasher. Yellow roses for friendship seemed appropriate.
Tawny-Lynn’s cell phone buzzed. She glanced at the caller ID and saw it was Chaz, so she snatched it up. “Hello.”
“I wanted to let you and Peyton know that Cindy Miller Parker and Rudy Farnsworth came in my office after the press conference.”
She frowned. “Really? Were they shocked about the coach?”
Chaz made a low sound of disgust. “No. In fact, they both made statements that Coach Wake pressured them into having sex when they were in school, too.”
Tawny-Lynn paused. No wonder they’d been standoffish when she’d approached them. “So they’ll testify and back up Peyton’s story?”
“Yes, so tell Peyton she’s not alone in this.”
Thank God.
“I have to go. I’m going to push Wake for a confession now, so we can speed this process along.”
Tawny-Lynn ended the call, then turned and told Peyton.
“I’m sorry he did the same thing to them,” Peyton said.
“Me, too,” Tawny-Lynn murmured. “But with their testimonies, the charges should stick.”
Peyton nodded, that haunted look back. “Let’s go plant those roses for Ruth.”
* * *
FOR HOURS, CHAZ FENDED off calls from local citizens asking about Coach Wake’s arrest. Parents were freaking out, wanting to know details—if he’d only targeted girls or if he’d sexually abused boys. When? How many?
The questions went on and on.
He finally let the machine pick up, deciding he’d listen to the messages. If anyone had pertinent information, he’d return the call.
A knock sounded on his office door, and his deputy poked his head in. “Sheriff, there’s a couple of people here who insist on seeing you.”
Chaz stood. “All right. Check the messages and let me know if we need to follow up on any of them.”
When he stepped into the front, two sets of parents were waiting, along with two teenage girls.
“I’m Sheriff Camden,” Chaz said. “What can I do for you?”
One of the fathers spoke up. “My name is Joe Lansing. We want to press charges against Coach Wake.”
Chaz glanced back and forth between them. “Go on.”
The mother of the first girl wrapped her arm around her daughter, a petite blonde they introduced as Joan. “After we saw the news, Joan came to me. She told me the coach forced her to have sex with him this past year.”
Chaz narrowed his eyes at the girl. “Is that true?”
Joan lowered her head and nodded. “I was afraid to tell anyone. He said he’d cut me from the team.”
“He said he loved me,” the other girl said. “That if I wanted to play first string, I’d show him I loved him, too.”
Chaz hesitated. He’d read about cases where teenagers made up stories to get attention. But the more he talked to the girls, the more he was convinced they were telling the truth.
“I’ll need your statements written down,” he said. “And will you testify in court?”
They both agreed, and so did the parents. Then he watched as the girls wrote out details that sickened him and made him want to go after Coach Wake all over again.
By the time they’d left, his deputy joined him with three more complaints from girls whose parents had called in. He phoned them all back and explained they would need to make formal statements.
Apparently, after word leaked about the coach’s arrest, the team had met and the parents had encouraged their daughters to break the code of silence, that confessing what the coach had done didn’t reflect badly upon them.
He admired them for their courage.
He strode back to the jail cell with the other two complaints in his hand.
Coach Wake stood, his anger palpable. “When is my arraignment? I want out of this hellhole.”
Chaz folded his arms. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Coach. I have two more written statements here from girls you’ve coached confirming that you forced them to have sex with you. And I’m getting calls about more.”
“They’re lying,” Coach Wake said, although fear laced his voice.
“Really? You mean Peyton Boulder came all the way back here after seven years of silence to lie. So did Cindy Miller and Rudy Farnsworth. And those girls on your current team are lying, too.”
“They wanted to have sex,” he shouted bitterly. “They asked for it!”
“My sister didn’t ask for it,” Chaz said between clenched teeth. “In fact, she was going to tell my parents.”
“She just wanted to play hard to get,” Coach Wake muttered.
Chaz fisted his hands. He wanted to wrap them around the sicko’s neck. “No, Ruth wasn’t like that. You used your power and influence to rope the girls into your bed. And Peyton had the courage to stand up to you. Othe
rs have found it, too.”
Chaz swallowed back bile. “In fact, Ruth stood up against you. That’s why you killed her.”
“I didn’t kill her.” Coach Wake’s voice cracked. “I admit I had sex with Peyton and the other girls, and I was mad and chased after the bus, but I didn’t mean to run into it. My car hit a wet patch and I skidded. It was an accident.”
“An accident, but you stood and watched the bus explode and didn’t even try to help those girls inside.”
“It happened too fast. There was nothing I could do.”
Chaz wasn’t buying it—Wake was a lowdown coward. “You were angry and afraid your dirty secret would come out, so you found Ruth and killed her, then buried her out at White Forks to make the police think Peyton’s father killed her.”
Coach Wake gripped the bars. “I didn’t kill Ruth. I saw Peyton pull Tawny-Lynn from the bus, then she went back, and I figured she’d get Ruth out. Then I heard a car coming.”
“So instead of going down to try and rescue the other girls, you ran off and left them there in that burning bus.”
Resignation and sorrow, the man’s first hint at true emotions, lined the coach’s face as he sank onto the cot again. “I panicked—I just panicked—and then I was scared to come forward. I didn’t want to go to jail.”
“So you let those girls die, then stood by while the town crucified Tawny-Lynn. Then you went back to your same old ways, sexually assaulting the students who trusted you.”
“You don’t understand, the girls, they’re so young and flirty—”
“They are minors, teenagers, students who trusted you, and you took advantage of them.”
Coach Wake scraped a hand over his chin. “So I had sex with some of them, but I didn’t kill Ruth,” Coach Wake said firmly. “I swear I didn’t.”
Chaz studied the man with a sick feeling in his belly. Wake had just admitted to sexual assault and causing the accident. So if he’d killed Ruth, why not confess to that, too?
Unless he hadn’t murdered her...
But if he hadn’t, who had?
Wake’s wife’s face flashed in his mind. She’d defended her husband. What if she’d known he was cheating with those younger girls?
She could have followed the bus or even been following her husband, then killed Ruth.
* * *
TAWNY-LYNN COLLAPSED into bed exhausted from the day’s ordeal and the manual work she and Peyton had done outside. Not only had they planted flowers, but they’d cleaned out the barn, bought pine straw and spread wood chips around several trees in the yard nearest the house.
Knowing Coach Wake was in jail and Peyton was sleeping in the next room, she fell into a deep sleep. Surely the nightmares would leave her in peace now.
But some time later, a cold chill stirred her from sleep. The room was dark, the scent of a man’s cologne suffusing her. She gasped, the dark blank face that had haunted her for years was back.
She blinked, hoping she was dreaming, but when she opened her eyes, he was there. Coming toward her.
She tried to scream, but a hand clamped over her mouth, then she felt the cold barrel of a gun against her temple.
Chapter Twenty
Chaz stewed over his conversation with the coach long into the night when he should have been sleeping.
Wake would go down for multiple counts of manslaughter for the bus driver and three teens. Coupled with the sexual assault charges, he would spend years in prison.
So why not confess to Ruth’s murder?
His phone trilled, making the nerves in his neck tighten. Yesterday he’d thought he’d solved the cold case and maybe the town could heal. But now he wasn’t so sure.
Another peal of the phone and he saw the number for White Forks on the caller ID screen. He gripped the phone, knowing it could be Peyton or Tawny-Lynn. “Sheriff Camden.”
“Chaz, it’s Peyton. Someone took Tawny-Lynn.”
“What?” Cold sweat burst on his brow.
“I heard a scream and ran to her room, but she wasn’t inside,” Peyton cried. “Then I ran down the steps and saw someone in dark clothes dragging her outside.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know, I couldn’t see. I’m scared, Chaz.” A sob from Peyton echoed over the line. “You have to find her.”
His mind raced. Tawny-Lynn had been in danger since she’d pulled into town. After making the arrest, he assumed Coach Wake had been trying to scare her into leaving and keeping quiet.
But now?
“Chaz, I can’t lose her,” Peyton said. “Not when I just got her back.”
He couldn’t lose her, either. Not that she’d ever been his. But they had made love. And he’d thought she cared about him.
Then he’d blown it by hurling accusations at her.
“Tell me what else you saw. Was it a man or a woman?”
“I don’t know,” Peyton said. “It was so dark outside and whoever it was had on black clothes and a hood.”
“Did her abductor say anything?”
“No, but I thought I saw something shiny glint in the darkness. I...think it was a gun.”
His stomach knotted. “Lock the doors, Peyton. I’m going to send my deputy out there while I look for your sister.”
Peyton agreed in a shaky voice, and he ended the call, then phoned his deputy and explained. “I don’t want Peyton left alone for a minute. She may be in danger.”
“I’m on my way,” Deputy Lemone said.
Chaz hung up, grabbed his gun and holster and strapped it on. Several people in town, especially the parents of the girls in the crash, along with his own parents, had despised Tawny-Lynn for years. But after the arrest, there was no reason to go after her.
The only person he could think of with motive was the coach’s wife. She was pregnant and obviously distraught over the accusations against her husband. She wouldn’t want the father of her baby in prison when her child was born.
And maybe she thought that Tawny-Lynn had seen him—or her—at the crash site that day with Ruth.
He raced to his car and sped toward the Wake’s house, praying that she hadn’t hurt Tawny-Lynn.
* * *
TAWNY-LYNN STIRRED from unconsciousness. As soon as her abductor had gotten her to the car, he’d knocked her over the back of her head with the butt of his gun.
She blinked through the darkness, trying to see him and figure out where they were.
“Good, you’re awake. Now it’s time to write your suicide note.”
Fear seized her at the sound of the voice. A very familiar voice.
She blinked again, struggling to sit up, then realized her legs and wrists were bound. He gripped her arm and hauled her to a sitting position.
Moonlight illuminated the dark face. The one that had been blank all these years.
Now it slid into focus.
Chaz’s father.
Suddenly the past rushed back to her. She had roused from unconsciousness that day. And she’d seen him dragging Ruth away. Ruth was crying and shouting for him to let her go, but then Mr. Camden had struck her. Ruth fell against a rock, then the world had gone dark for her again.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her heart hammering. “Chaz arrested the coach. And I didn’t remember anything.”
“But you would have,” he growled. “It was only a matter of time. I saw the way you looked at me yesterday.” He shoved a notepad and pen into her hands. “You seduced my son, too. I can’t take the chance—”
“On Chaz learning that you killed Ruth,” Tawny-Lynn spat out. “You were at the crash site that day. You grabbed her and were arguing—”
Pain wrenched his face. “It was an accident,” he said, his voice warbling. “She told me about Coa
ch Wake and wanted me to go public.”
“But you didn’t want her to, did you?” Tawny-Lynn started struggling with her hands, but he pressed the gun to her chest and she froze.
“Of course not,” he snapped. “Everyone would have talked about it, talked about her, thought she was a slut. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“You could have stood up for her and stopped the coach,” Tawny-Lynn said. “Instead you cared more about your pride and appearances, and your daughter died for it.”
He gripped her arms and shook her. “Shut up. I told you it was an accident.”
“Then why did you hide it? And how could you put her in the ground instead of giving her a proper burial?”
Tears streamed down his face. “I wanted to bury her right,” he said. “But my wife wouldn’t have understood. And Chaz... He would have hated me.”
“So you turned the town against me?”
“Because if your sister hadn’t started the affair with Coach Wake, he never would have come after Ruth.”
“You’re delusional,” Tawny-Lynn said. “Chaz called me last night and said two other girls from our class came forward and made the same accusations. Who knows how many more girls will speak up now?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Camden said. “My wife and Chaz can’t find out what happened that day, they can’t.” He tapped the notepad. “Now take that pen and write what I tell you to.”
“Please, you don’t have to do this,” Tawny-Lynn whispered.
He jammed the pen between her fingers.
“No one will ever believe I killed myself,” Tawny-Lynn said.
“Oh, yes, they will,” Camden said in a sinister voice. “You’re going to confess that you were jealous of Ruth and your sister, jealous of Ruth and the coach, and that you pushed Ruth down and made her fall.”
* * *
CHAZ WAS SURPRISED to see a light on in Mrs. Wake’s house. He glanced through the front living room window, searching for movement.
Footsteps sounded inside, and he held his gun at the ready in case Mrs. Wake was armed. How else would she have been able to force Tawny-Lynn from the ranch house?