by C. B. Clark
“Did you see Declan?”
She nodded. “He was in his truck. I honked my horn, hoping he’d hear me and stop, but he didn’t. I followed him, but he drove too fast and I lost him.”
“Did you see anyone else? Any other cars? Anything?”
She shook her head.
“You do realize your testimony is one of the main reasons Declan’s the prime suspect in this case?”
Tears burned her eyes. “Don’t you think I know what I did?”
“But you told the sheriff you saw Declan alone at the farm, and in the process you had your revenge on the boy who dumped you.”
She jumped to her feet, anger, hot and heady, overwhelming her. She was tired of the guilt, tired of taking the blame. “We’re done here.”
He stood, towering over her. “Prove me wrong. Help him. Help Declan prove his innocence. Help us find the murderer.”
“Don’t you get it? I’m trying to help. It’s the reason I’m talking to you now.”
“Did Declan tell you he found a piece of the scarf Skye wore the night she disappeared?” he asked.
“He accused me of hiding it.”
“Did you?”
“Of course not.”
He narrowed his eyes.
She kept her gaze on his, refusing to look away.
“Okay.” He nodded. “I’ve tried to talk to people in town, but they clam up as soon as they find out I’m working for Declan. You grew up here, you know these people. They trust you. As far as they’re concerned, you’re another one of his victims. They’ll talk to you.”
Ever since she’d arrived back in town, she’d avoided her old friends, but maybe Jessup was right. They might know something they hadn’t told the sheriff, something they didn’t realize was important. She’d be risking a lot. If anyone found out about Bonnie, she didn’t know what she’d do. But she’d deserted Declan once. She wouldn’t let him down again. “Okay, I’ll try.”
“Good girl.” For the first time since she’d met him, he smiled. The smile transformed his face, and for a minute, he looked almost approachable. He turned and strode out of the living room.
She hurried after him. “I’m not the only one who thinks he didn’t kill her.”
He halted, his hand on the door handle, his gaze locked on hers.
“My aunt believes he’s innocent.”
“The more the merrier.” He opened the door and stepped onto the porch. “I’ll be in touch.” He walked down the brick path to his car.
Her mind whirled. They had to find who murdered Skye and clear Declan once and for all. She picked up her coat and purse from the hall closet. She’d called the rental car company first thing that morning and convinced them to fax her copies of the insurance papers. The shocked expression on the sheriff’s deputy’s pudgy face when she’d showed him the papers was comical. He’d had no recourse but to tear up the citation he’d written the previous day and return her driver’s license.
But he’d gotten in one last jab as he’d reminded her of the money she owed the county for her speeding ticket. She’d paid the exorbitant fine, trying to ignore his all-too-obvious gloating.
Jessup had asked her to meet with some of the old gang and see if one of them remembered anything new about the after-party on prom night. But first, she had something to do.
Chapter 14
She knocked on the scuffed motel room door. Flakes of peeling paint showered onto the worn hall runner. Declan’s truck was in the parking lot. He had to be here. Maybe he was in the shower. His naked body, warm water cascading over firm muscles, the soap—She cut off the thought and knocked again.
“He ain’t here.”
She turned.
A short, stocky woman watched her from the open doorway of a room two doors down. Graying, frizzy, shoulder-length hair puffed around a heavily lined face. A cigarette hung from her thin lips. Thick glasses did nothing to hide the inquisitive gleam in her brown eyes. A cleaning cart stood beside her filled with towels, toilet paper rolls, and sample soaps.
“Pardon me?” Carrie Ann asked.
“I said, he ain’t here. You missed him.” The other woman sucked in smoke and blew a perfect smoke ring, then another.
“Do you know where he is?”
The cleaning woman puffed on her cigarette. Smoke swirled in a cloud around her. Ash fell unnoticed at her feet. “Do I look like his mother?”
“Any idea when he’ll be back?”
The woman shoved aside the cleaning cart and shuffled toward her, squinting against the smoke blowing in her face. “What business is it of yers?”
“He’s a friend of mine.” Carrie Ann mentally crossed her fingers at the falsehood. She was pretty certain Declan wouldn’t consider her a friend. Not anymore.
“He doesn’t have any friends in this town from what I hear.” The other woman’s gaze traveled over Carrie Ann, beginning with her feet, moving up over her legs and on to her chest, finally resting on her face. “Yer a pretty one, ain’t ya?” She shuffled closer, smelling of smoke and stale sweat. “Yer the gal I heard about, ain’t ya, the one who broke his heart? The whole town’s talkin’ about you comin’ back after all these years. You two gettin’ back together like they say?”
Carrie Ann’s head throbbed. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered and turned and walked along the walkway and down the stairs to her car.
“Where ya goin’?” The housekeeper’s round face peered over the railing as she hollered down at Carrie Ann.
“You don’t know where Mr. McAllister is, so—”
“I never said that.”
Carrie Ann ground her teeth. “Well, which is it?”
“He took the path over yonder.” She pointed a flabby arm toward the far side of the motel parking lot. “He was carryin’ a fishing rod, so I guess he was headin’ for the river. Good fishin’ there, I hear tell.”
The cleaning woman’s eyes burned a hole in Carrie Ann’s back as she walked across the motel parking lot to the dirt path leading into the trees. The news she was looking for Declan would be all over town in a matter of minutes. More fuel for the fire.
The air was cool under the trees, and she was glad she’d worn a warm coat. The overgrown trail led through a dense growth of old oaks and tall grasses. The traffic noise of the busy road running by the motel faded, replaced by the sound of birds singing in the tall trees. The path climbed a knoll and opened into a small clearing overlooking the river. She stopped to catch her breath and surveyed the scene below.
A frisson of awareness rippled along her spine, and she grabbed the trunk of a tree, holding on as an onslaught of memories threatened to knock her to her knees. The trees were taller, the bush thicker and overgrown, but the familiar scents of fresh water, damp earth, fir resin, and fish told the tale.
This was their spot. The place she and Declan had sought refuge when life with her aunt, or his parents, became unbearable. Countless times they’d sat under the shade of these trees by the rushing water and talked for hours. She closed her eyes as memory after memory assaulted her—first kisses, falling in love, loving him, loving each other, and then, the harsh words and accusations of their final argument, the bitter void remaining.
Opening her eyes, she saw him, and her fingers dug into the rough bark.
Declan sat on a large, gray boulder on the bank of the river, fishing rod in one hand, the line dangling in the clear, rushing water. His dark hair gleamed like a raven’s wing under the late morning sun. His back was hunched, his shoulders bowed, an aura of loneliness surrounding him.
A lump thickened in her throat. He’d paid a high price for what had happened so long ago. She’d been hurt too, but she’d come out the winner. She had Bonnie.
He didn’t turn around when she scrambled down the bank, though he must have heard her even over the play of water on rocks. He still didn’t look up when she sat on a flat boulder beside him. The only indication he was aware of her presence was a tightening of a muscle in his jaw.
She stared at the rush of water, frothing white against the jumble of rocks. For the most part, the Jordan River was shallow and fast-flowing, filled with sharp rocks and sweepers, but if you knew where to look, hungry trout lurked in hidden, deep pools.
“How’d you find me?” His gaze was fixed on the line extending from his rod into the clear pool. A pulse beat a rapid tattoo in his rigid jaw.
“The housekeeper at the motel told me you were here.”
Water splashed over the rocks. A crow cawed from somewhere deep within the forest. Sun filtered through the overhanging branches of a tall cottonwood. The steady drone of insects filled the strained silence.
“Do you remember the first time we came here?” He still didn’t look at her, but his face softened, and a small smile played about his mouth.
“I fell in.” A smile of her own started breaking through. “I thought I was going to drown.”
“Until you stood up and found the water was only up to your knees.”
“How was I to know?”
For the first time since she’d clambered down the bank, he looked at her. “Isn’t it time you told the truth?”
Her heart skipped a beat. He knows! He knows about Bonnie! “What do you mean?” She bit her tongue to stop the flow of excuses and apologies.
His eyes met hers. “You did it on purpose.”
“Did what?” Vivian was right. She should have told him he had a daughter before this. She braced for his outrage.
“You deliberately fell in the river so I’d have to save you.”
Relief washed over her, and a nervous giggle burst out. “Okay, I fess up. I was trying to get your attention. How was I to know you’d sit there and do nothing?”
“I was laughing too hard to do anything else.” He chuckled. “You looked like a drowned cat.”
“I guess almost drowning wasn’t the most subtle way to get you to notice me, but in my defense, I was fourteen.”
“You didn’t have to do anything to catch my eye, and you know it.” He smiled, lines radiating from the corners of his eyes, eyes warmed to a chocolate brown.
Her breath caught in her throat. She’d been in her sophomore year when she saw him standing on the school steps. Her knees had weakened at the sight. A year ahead of her in school, he was tall and leanly muscled, with long, curling, black hair and piercing brown eyes, impossibly good-looking. She’d spent the next three months trying to get him to notice her.
One day, after her last class, she was at her locker, and there he was, leaning against the adjacent locker, grinning, white teeth gleaming, eyes filled with promise. He’d asked her if she wanted to go for a walk, and he’d brought her here, to this spot. They’d been inseparable ever since, until—Her smile vanished.
Silence settled over them, heavy with bittersweet memories. She brushed away a fly, shifted her bottom on the hard rock, and counted the number of cottonwoods in the secluded clearing. Twelve.
His face was closed, his mouth tight. The knuckles on the hand holding the fishing rod were white.
The silence grew, each second piling one more brick on the impenetrable wall between them. She swatted another fly and once again adjusted her bottom on the uncomfortable rock. “Any bites?” she blurted, unable to stand the silence a second more.
He shook his head. “I don’t have any bait on the hook.” He picked up a flat pebble and tossed it in the water, watching as the rock skipped across the small pool. “Do you ever regret it?” His voice was a husky croak.
“Regret what?”
“The fight we had…” His voice grew faint, the rest of what he said lost in the rush of water. He stared into her eyes. “Do you remember what we fought about?”
“Skye,” she said at once. “We always argued about her.”
“You were wrong, you know. She…” His brows drew together. “She was so alone. Her family was like mine, maybe worse. We understood each other. She needed someone on her side, someone who’d stand up for her. I was her friend, her only friend. I wanted to help her.” He coughed, blinking his eyes. “Nothing happened between us, not what you thought anyway.”
“You spent the night with her.”
“What?” His gaze shot to her.
“After we broke up, I went over to your house. I wanted to talk to you. Your mother said you and Skye had spent the night together in your room.” Her stomach twisted, the pain of the shocking revelation as fresh today as twelve years ago.
“You came to my house? Mom never told me.”
“She wasn’t in very good shape. I doubt she remembered I was ever there.”
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing. It’s not important anymore.” She cringed, waiting for a bolt of lightning to strike her at her blatant lie.
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure?”
Her heart in her throat, she nodded. Tell him. Tell him now, before it’s too late. Too late? It was already too late. Neither Bonnie nor Declan would forgive her if they found out the truth now. “I’m sure.”
He flipped another rock into the river. “That night, the night Skye spent in my bedroom, her older brother had been arrested for dealing drugs, and her old man took his anger out on her. She came to me, her face bruised, one eye black and swollen. She was scared and didn’t know where else to go.”
“Declan, what did you do?” Her heart thudded. She knew him, knew he wouldn’t have stood by and let Skye’s father beat her.
“I did what needed to be done, what I should have done months earlier.” His mouth narrowed to a thin line.
“You went over to her house, didn’t you?”
“The old man was drunk, passed out on the couch, but I didn’t care. I dragged his sorry ass off the couch and pounded the shit out of him.” He sucked in a shaky breath. “By the time I was done, he promised he’d never touch Skye again.” Picking up a pebble, he tossed the small round stone from one hand to the other. “I always wondered if he was the one who killed her.”
“Didn’t the sheriff question him?”
“He had an airtight alibi. He was playing cards at Mickey’s Roadhouse. A dozen people saw him. He couldn’t have done it.”
She sagged, suddenly exhausted as another layer of guilt was added to her already overwhelming burden. She’d gone to Declan’s house to tell him of her pregnancy, but hadn’t because she’d thought he and Skye were together in his bedroom having sex. Instead, he was out doing what he always did—protecting a friend. Because she hadn’t trusted him, he’d never learned he had a daughter. “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I thought…” She couldn’t finish. She’d thought he’d betrayed her, and she’d punished him by not telling him about her pregnancy. She was still punishing him.
“It’s sad, isn’t it?”
The rumble of his voice broke through her self-flagellation. She sniffed back tears.
“Neither of us was willing to get past our anger and stubbornness. Because of our hurt pride and damaged egos, we let us end.”
Her eyes watered. “I’m sorry about your parents. Losing them both so close together must have been awful.”
He stared at the river, his throat working. “Ever since I was a little kid, I knew my mother wasn’t like other mothers. She was always tired, always sad, always locked away in her bedroom.” He shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t surprised when she finally killed herself. I knew she’d do it one day.”
Carrie Ann blinked back tears, wanting to comfort him, but uncertain whether he’d welcome her touch.
“My dad’s death shocked the hell out of me. I figured the old fucker was too ornery to die.” His eyes reflected his pain and anger. “Who would have thought he’d kill himself because Mom was gone. I didn’t even know he liked her. They sure as hell never showed they cared for one another. Unless yelling and beating someone black and blue is a sign of affection.”
“I thought your father died in a car accident.”
His harsh laugh sent chills ri
ppling along her spine. “I saw him, you know. That night. He was so drunk he couldn’t stand upright, but as usual, he was itching for a fight. I was home, so I was the lucky one. He blamed me for what happened to my mother. He said she couldn’t stand to live with the shame of having a murderer for a son.” He ran his hand over his face as if trying to scrub away the painful memory. “I hit him, punched the bastard’s face as hard as I could.
“For once, he didn’t strike back. He glared at me, his nose bleeding all over his shirt, his eyes wild, accusing me of killing Skye.” He turned red-rimmed eyes on Carrie Ann. “I wanted to hit him again to shut him up.” He shook his head. “Instead, I did what I always did. I ran out of the house and took off in my truck.”
She blinked back tears, never taking her gaze off him. His face was pale, his eyes unfocused. He was lost in his private hell, and she wasn’t even sure he remembered she was here.
“Usually he passed out on the couch and slept it off, but somehow he managed to stagger out to his truck.” His voice was flat, emotionless. “The next thing I knew, the cops were at the house telling me he’d had an accident.” He snorted. “Accident, my ass. He knew exactly what he was doing. He took the coward’s way out. He wanted to die, and he wanted me to know I was the reason he’d killed himself. He wanted me to pay for what he thought I’d done.”
Her heart ached. He’d been through so much. No wonder he was so bitter.
He sighed and straightened his shoulders. “I can’t change what my parents did, what choices they made, but I sure as hell can try and change what happens to me. I didn’t kill Skye, and I fully intend to prove I’m innocent, and in the process, find out who did kill her.”
“I’m sorry I told the police I saw you at the farm on prom night.”
He reeled in some of the fishing line, his hands steady on the rod. “I told them the truth when they questioned me. I hadn’t done anything wrong. At first, I didn’t know Skye was missing, let alone dead.”
“I never thought you killed her.”
He stopped reeling and faced her. “You had a funny way of showing it. You left town right after the first time the police took me in for questioning. I know. I tried to call you.”