From the Shadows

by Rebecca York

  Not many people attended. Some of their friends from the old days came, and some other people from town. He wasn’t sure whether they were there for him or Billy or for Sara.

  One thing he was glad he didn’t have to worry about was security. Chief Hempstead had a contingent of men surrounding them, making sure that no stragglers from the People’s Militia crashed the service. He knew now, from the chief’s investigations, that at least fifteen of them were out there somewhere. But none of them had been seen around town.

  There were no hymns at the service. If they’d been in church, there would have been hymns, Alex thought with a little pang of regret. Billy had liked “Amazing Grace.” He could have sung that for his brother. It was one of the few pieces of church music he remembered.

  The minister was speaking, asking for a moment of silent prayer.

  Alex bowed his head, and he asked the Lord’s forgiveness—for his brother’s transgressions and for his own.

  As he watched the casket being lowered into the grave, he felt his vision blur. Lord, Billy had been so young. So unsure of himself. So shortchanged by life. And he had deserved a second chance—which he was never going to get. When he felt Sara’s fingers close around his, he grasped her tightly, holding on because he needed to hold tightly to someone.

  No, not someone. Sara. The realization sent a wave of terror through him.

  She felt him shiver and strengthened her grip.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. After Cindy, he had sworn that he was never going to let himself depend on anyone besides himself. Now he knew he wasn’t strong enough to keep that vow. He needed Sara. At least at this moment he could admit that he needed her, because he felt as if he might drift away from the earth if he wasn’t anchored to her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Finally, mercifully, the service was over. When the minister approached, Alex mumbled some words of thanks. As he turned away from the grave, he saw Margaret Weston looking at him. She’d been a friend of his mother’s, and when she came up and hugged him, he held her for a moment.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

  “Thanks.” He still wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to say, but he’d been repeating it often enough over the past few days.

  “I knew you couldn’t have murdered Emmett Bandy,” she said. “I’m glad they released you so fast.”

  “Yes. Thanks,” he said again.

  She squeezed his arm, then stepped aside so that others could greet him.

  Several old acquaintances made a point of coming up to him. He tried not to act as if he wanted to get away as he let them express their sympathy. Then he was finally alone again.

  Feeling as though he’d run a gauntlet, he sighed as he looked around for Sara.

  “Are you okay?” she asked as she moved to his side.

  “Yeah.”

  He’d taken several steps toward the road, when he saw a short, slender woman about fifteen feet away moving to intercept his path. He blinked. It was Dana Eustice, Lee Tillman’s girlfriend. He certainly hadn’t expected her to be here.

  Today she wore a taupe-colored leather coat with a fake leopard-skin collar. Her blond hair must have been anchored in place with hair spray, he thought, since not a strand moved in the wind. Her face was carefully made up, as though she were attending a party rather than a funeral.

  She flicked her eyes to Sara, and he saw a disdainful look cross her features. Before he could analyze it, she closed the distance between them and started speaking.

  “Alex, I was so sorry to hear about your brother,” she said in a low voice.

  “Thank you,” he answered with his stock phrase.

  “I’m sorry Lee couldn’t be here,” she added.

  He searched her face. “I’m sorry Lee seems to have disappeared.”

  Her response was instantaneous. “Well, that’s because of the Bandy murder.”

  “Oh?”

  “He was at Bandy’s office that morning. Now he’s afraid the police will try to pin it on him—like they tried to pin it on you.”

  “I thought you said he was on his way to Nova Scotia. He never arrived at his hotel. And I asked my office to check along his route. There are no credit card charges between here and there. In fact, there are no credit card charges at all.”

  “Initially he was going to Nova Scotia. Now he thinks it’s better to stay out of sight where he can’t be found. Which is why he’s paying cash.”

  Alex wanted to say that if Lee was innocent he had nothing to worry about. But the reassuring words struck in his throat, since he’d had a taste of what happened when it looked as if you were guilty of murder.

  “When did you speak to Lee?” he asked.

  “After the announcement of the funeral.”

  “You called him?”

  “No. He contacts me when he wants to talk.”

  “Well, tell him that he’s created some problems for me.”

  “He knows that.”

  “And I need his signature on some documents,” Sara broke in to the conversation.

  Dana’s eyes narrowed. “I guess that will have to wait until he feels like it’s safe to come out of hiding.”

  “How long will that be?” Alex asked.

  “Until they find out who murdered Bandy.”

  “Well, the police are working on it,” Alex answered.

  “And?” Lee’s girlfriend asked, an edge in her voice.

  “And they don’t keep me updated, seeing as how I started off as their chief suspect.”

  She nodded and started to turn away. Before she could make her escape, he asked, “Are you sure it was Lee?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Are you sure it was Lee calling you and not somebody imitating his voice?”

  She stopped and considered. “Well…”

  Alex waited.

  “I guess I can’t be absolutely sure,” she murmured.

  “If something’s happened to Lee, then you could be in danger,” he said. “Both Sara and I are being cautious.”

  He saw her considering that point, saw her gaze slide to Sara then back to him again.

  “You might want to get out of town for a while,” he said.

  “Thank you for the advice,” she answered stiffly.

  “You’re not concerned?”

  “Of course I’m concerned.”

  “If you decide to leave, I’d appreciate a number where I can get in touch with you,” he said, giving her his business card.

  “I’ll do that.” Stuffing the card in her purse, Dana wheeled around and marched away.

  Beside him, Sara said something under her breath that he probably wasn’t meant to catch. “What?”

  “It sounds like she came here for a business discussion, not to offer sympathy,” she murmured.

  “Yeah.”

  “So what was it she wanted us to know?”

  “That Lee’s in hiding because he’s worried?” he answered.

  “Do you believe her?”

  Alex shrugged, leading her toward the car. After slipping behind the wheel, he turned his head toward her. “I’ve been saying thank-you a lot. I should say it to you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  He captured her hand and held it. “I want to.”

  He saw her nod. Because he didn’t know what else to say at the moment, he focused on the narrow road ahead. Most of the cars had pulled away, but he could see Dana’s Cadillac gliding toward the cemetery gates. On a hunch, he fell into line behind her, letting several cars get between them.

  Sara gave him a questioning look. “Do you think she’s up to something?”

  “I just have a bad feeling about her.”

  The Cadillac, which was about a hundred yards ahead of them, turned off onto a side road.

  Alex let more space fill the gap between the two vehicles, wondering if Dana would realize she was being followed.

  When she turned into a restaurant parking lot, he slowed bu
t kept going down the road.

  Beside him he heard Sara gasp.

  He twisted toward her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “That’s him,” she croaked.

  “Lee?”

  “No. One of the men who was following me around. One of the militiamen,” she clarified.

  He stifled the impulse to slam on the brakes. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. And I know which one it was,” she said. “From the pictures Hempstead showed me.”

  After the massacre, the chief had asked her to look at a collection of mug shots, and she’d identified some of the men who had been following her. Some were among the dead, some among the missing.

  “Who is it?” Alex growled. Since the awful day he’d accompanied the police to the Fairmont Estate, he hadn’t given up hope of catching his brother’s murderer.

  “Tripp Kenney,” she answered.

  The militia leader, who was one of the men who’d escaped. But so far Hempstead hadn’t gotten a line on him. Apparently he’d come out of hiding. To meet Dana Eustice?

  Alex found a driveway, pulled in, then had to wait impatiently for several cars to pass before he could back up and swing toward the restaurant.

  Meanwhile, he started quizzing Sara. “He was in a car?”

  “Yes, a silver one.”

  “What make?”

  “Alex, I don’t know an awful lot about cars.”

  “And you didn’t get the license number?”

  She made a small, distressed sound. “We were going pretty fast. All I saw was him sitting there. It was just a flash of his face, but I recognized him.”

  “Okay.”

  He reached the restaurant and took the driveway to the parking area. There were fifteen cars in the lot, none of which was the Cadillac. And nobody was sitting in any of the others—silver or not.

  Alex drove around the building and tried the other entrance. But they still found no evidence of Kenney.

  “Maybe I was mistaken,” Sara muttered.

  “We can’t be sure,” he told her. “If Dana knew we were following her, she could have warned him.”

  “You think it wasn’t a coincidence. I mean, you think they were meeting each other here? And it has something to do with Lee’s disappearance?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex answered in frustration. “I should have pulled in right after her.”

  “Then she would have known for sure that we were on her tail.”

  “But we might have found something out.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” she soothed.

  His only answer was a grimace.

  “Maybe Ms. Eustice just ducked in here to lose us—which she did.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed, thinking that there were too many loose ends and not enough leads in this case—whatever the case was. Lee Tillman. The attacks on Sara. Emmett Bandy. Dana Eustice. The militia massacre. Tripp Kenney. Somehow he was sure they all fit together. He just didn’t know how. And he didn’t know if the trunkful of clothing in Lee’s attic was simply a side issue.

  “What are you thinking about so hard?” Sara asked. She wasn’t demanding an answer. She was simply asking, and he should have appreciated that.

  She hadn’t made any demands on him. She’d been giving him all the breathing space he needed, considering that they were moving around Talbot County together like Gypsies.

  He sighed. “I was thinking about my trip to Baltimore.”

  When she remained silent, he continued, “I’m trying to locate a woman named Callie Anderson.”

  Again she made no comment, and he decided that maybe it might be helpful to bounce his theory off her.

  “In the trunk in Lee’s attic I found the letters to her.”

  “And you’re just telling me about it now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I guess you have your reasons.”

  “I wanted more information before we talked about it. Does the name Callie Anderson mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “The letters were from her father asking her to come home because her mother was dying.”

  Sara was watching him closely.

  He had reached their current abode—a motel between St. Stephens and Easton. Pulling to a stop in front of their door, he told her all about how he’d searched and finally found the old man Simmons who’d remembered the family.

  Sara was focused on him with total attention as he related how Simmons thought the father had been abusive to his daughters and about their fates. Alex took a breath and went on. “Mr. Simmons had heard that the younger one, Callie, had gotten pregnant. I wonder if, after she left home, Callie took up with Lee Tillman. I was thinking, what if he got her pregnant then took the baby to St. Stephens, where he knew there was a lawyer arranging adoptions?”

  He saw her turning that information over in her mind. “Are you wondering if Lee Tillman is my father—and that’s why he was so nice to me?”

  “I was considering it. So I stopped in at Birth Data, Inc. I thought maybe Lee had brought the baby down there. But it turned out a woman, not a man, did it.”

  “So what if he abandoned her, then regretted it and went looking for the baby later?”

  “That’s possible.”

  “You said there was another sister. What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to find her and ask some questions.”

  “Why not ask Callie?”

  “Mr. Simmons heard she died, although that might not be true. But I’ve got my contacts in Baltimore working on locating either or both of them.”

  “She died…” Sara murmured. “Do you think that Lee killed her?” she asked suddenly.

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “I hope it’s not true.”

  “So do I. I don’t want to think the old bastard was capable of murder.”

  “Was?”

  “I’m having trouble believing he’s alive,” Alex allowed.

  “His girlfriend said she talked to him.”

  “Maybe she’s lying. Or maybe, like I said, somebody tricked her into thinking it was Lee.”

  “But she knows him pretty well, why would she believe it?” Sara persisted.

  “Because she wanted to. Because it gave her hope that he was coming back.”

  Sara was silent for several moments, digesting that, before she asked, “And do you think his disappearance has something to do with me?”

  He answered at once because he’d already given the question considerable thought. “No. I believe you’re a side issue.”

  She expelled a small breath. “Thanks for that, anyway.”

  Before he could respond, his cell phone rang.

  Snatching it out of his pocket, he snapped, “Shane.”

  “I have some important information about Lee Tillman. Information you don’t want to fall into police hands.”

  “Oh yeah? Who are you?”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  “You’re just a good citizen doing his duty?”

  “Sure.” There was a quaver in the voice. Then it grew firmer. “And I’ll meet you back at the cemetery. By your brother’s grave. Tonight at 9:00 p.m.”

  He was about to ask another question, when the phone went dead.

  “What?” Sara asked.

  His fingers clenched on the phone. “Somebody with information about Lee. He says that it’s something I don’t want the police to know.”

  “And?”

  “He’s set up a meeting tonight, by my brother’s grave.”

  Sara sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s crazy. Of course you’re not going.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “Alex, it sounds like an ambush.” She dragged in a breath and let it out in a rush. “It sounds like what happened when you went down to Emmett Bandy’s real estate office.”

  He was thinking the same thing. He was thinking that he was being set up. He was thinking he’d be taking a damn
foolish chance to meet with an anonymous phone caller. But at the same time, this case had become personal to him. Every avenue he’d pursued had led to a dead end, and maybe he had an opportunity to change that tonight.

  “Send Hempstead,” Sara said.

  “That won’t work. The guy sounded scared. If he thinks the police are involved, he’ll bail out.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “If you won’t call Hempstead, I will.”

  “No. The guy will run if you do. Let me set it up so it looks like I’m being a patsy again. Only this time I’ll be prepared. This time I’ll make it work out for me.”

  Her eyes turned fierce. “What are you trying to prove?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then you must have a death wish!”

  “No,” he answered automatically.

  “If you say so,” she muttered, then deliberately turned her head away.

  His features set in grim lines, he sat staring through the windshield. Somewhere in a small corner of his mind, he knew he wasn’t exactly operating rationally. Maybe he was being self-destructive. He’d lost the perspective to figure that out.

  ALEX SPENT the rest of the day getting ready—and trying to talk Sara out of going with him to the cemetery. But she wouldn’t listen. If he was going, so was she. When he objected, she repeated her threat to call Hempstead and threw in the state police for good measure. He thought about tying her up so she couldn’t follow him, but discarded the idea as impractical. Which was why she was in the back seat of the car, ducking low so she wouldn’t be seen, as he made his way up the narrow lane where he’d parked that morning.

  Only now it was almost pitch-black, the moon dancing in and out from behind wispy clouds.

  A cemetery wasn’t his favorite place during the day. At night it conjured up images of malevolent spirits rising up from behind marble monuments to wreak vengeance on the living.

  What about Billy’s spirit? he wondered. Had his brother found the peace in death that had eluded him in life? Or was he suffering the tortures of the damned? Alex had decided long ago that he didn’t believe in hell. Now he found himself hoping that his brother wasn’t there. Or maybe his offenses had only been bad enough to get him into purgatory. After all, he hadn’t killed anyone. Not that Alex knew about, anyway. At the militia compound, he hadn’t even drawn his weapon before he was shot.