“He was covering for Becky then. She killed them, and the son of a bitch loved her so much he covered for her. And gave her their money.”
“Did Becky smoke?”
“What?”
“Did she smoke?”
Mitch looked up, remembering. “No, she didn’t smoke.”
“Mitch, we have to call the sheriff. It wasn’t Paul and it wasn’t Becky. It was Alan.”
“What?”
“I saw the lighter. The silver and turquoise lighter he was using at the house. Becky found it when she was making it look like a burglary. She was surprised to see it, and she quickly hid it. Paul had seen it, but he was too much in shock to register it.”
“So Becky wasn’t covering for Paul, and Paul wasn’t covering for Becky. She was covering for her father.”
“I think so.” Her heart felt lighter than it ever had, as though she could feel Paul’s relief in finally discovering the truth.
“You can still feel Paul, can’t you?”
“I can. He’s happy. Relieved.”
Mitch nodded, eyes wide. “He didn’t kill our parents. He didn’t kill them.” For a moment his body relaxed, as though hundreds of pounds had been lifted from his shoulders. Then his muscles tensed again. “But why did Alan kill them? My dad had snubbed him so long ago.”
“Only Alan can tell us. That’s the final piece of the puzzle. That and why Paul was giving Becky money.”
Mitch pulled her from the wall, gave her a quick kiss, and led her from the room. “We need to talk to Alan. I’ll get the —” He glanced at Jenna. “I’ll get him to confess. And since he used his daughter to cover up for him, I’m going to use her to uncover the truth.”
“I know you had your hopes of pinning my butt for my parents’ murders,” Mitch said, “but at least you can finally close the case.”
Sheriff Kruger, naturally, had his doubts after hearing the story that evening. He’d handled the murder investigation, and Mitch was sure the man still harbored doubts as to Mitch’s innocence. The arrogant son of the richest man in town was a good suspect, and the sheriff had clearly been disappointed in not making the case stick.
“You know I can’t arrest the man because the lady here had some kind of vision about his lighter. I got nothing, not even enough to question him about it.”
Mitch stood, jamming his hands in his jean pockets. “That’s why I’m going to get him to confess, and you’re going to hear it.”
“Wait a minute. You can’t go in there accusing him. For one thing, it’s not your job.”
“I’m not going to accuse him. I’m going to accuse his daughter.”
Kruger rubbed his forehead, looking at Jenna for help. When she didn’t comply, he said, “I thought you said Alan probably killed them.”
Mitch smiled. “I think he did. But his daughter covered for him, and probably died because of him. If he thinks she’s going to be pinned for the murders, he might either slip up or come forward.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He will. The question is, do you want to be there when he does? Because I’m going to do it anyway.”
Kruger obviously hated being pushed, but he finally acquiesced. “All right, I’ll let you give it a try. But if he doesn’t give us anything, I want you to back off.”
“Wire me up.” Mitch lifted his arms.
Kruger narrowed his eyes. “What do you think we have here, some kind of New York City crime unit? The biggest crime I got to contend with is when Booger Jones hauls off and smacks his wife when he’s had too much to drink. And then she kicks him in the nuts, and I come over and haul the both of them in for the night.”
Mitch leaned forward, hands spread on the desk. “Do you want to solve this case, or let it keep hanging over your head? The biggest crime in the county, still unsolved after ten years. The failure of the sheriff’s department, the blotch on your clean reputation —”
“Of course I want to solve it!” He closed his mouth, getting control over his anger.
Mitch smiled, crossing his arms over his chest. “See, I can get Alan to blow just like I got you to. Getting him to spill is the only way we’re going to nail him. I want the first chance to get him to blow. We already unsettled him on our first visit. I’m not a cop. I can bluff him, and I don’t have to play by the rules. You owe me the chance to do this, Kruger.”
Kruger’s face went red for a moment, then he slammed his hand down on the desk. “You’re still as arrogant as your father! Think just because you got money you can go around the law, do what you want.”
“This has nothing to do with my money. This has to do with the truth, the long-overdue truth. I’ll do whatever it takes to get it.” He glanced over at Jenna, who knew that too well. “I’ll push whoever I need to.” But he’d never push Jenna again. She’d taught him that, to watch where he tread with his heavy boots. But Kruger, he was a different story.
“All right. Let me call an old friend who’s on the force in Fort Worth. He’ll know how to get us what we need.”
By mid-morning Tuesday, Mitch was wired in more ways than one. Jenna watched him try to be still as Detective Ryan attached the wires to Mitch’s chest.
“You know, you’re taking your life in your own hands by doing this,” Ryan said. He’d come down from Fort Worth as an unofficial consultant to help Kruger out. “You told him, didn’t you, Bud?”
Kruger nodded, looking grim. “Yeah, I told him a hundred times. But he’s right; we don’t have anything on Alan, and bullying him isn’t going to do any good.”
“Okay, you can button up. Move around a bit, make sure nothing comes loose.” Ryan assessed Mitch as he raised his arms, twisted and bent down.
“Snug as a bug on a body,” Mitch said.
He hadn’t gotten much sleep, but he looked sharp, alert. Too sharp, Jenna thought. There was a gleam in his eyes, the same gleam he’d had when he’d come to New Hampshire to bargain — a baby for the truth.
She and Mitch had gone over the facts and the suppositions until late in the night, both falling asleep on the couch. When she’d woken, long before Betzi was up, Mitch was gone. She’d found a note on the kitchen table beneath her bottles of pills telling her he’d gone out to the gym. He was doing leg presses when she’d walked in. She’d taken one look at that glistening, muscled body and realized he was putting it at risk. Alan could go off. The man was definitely on edge.
Damn Mitch. She’d put aside her anger, and it had opened up the past for her. The past had set her free in one respect: she no longer believed she’d been married to a murderer.
It had also released a part of her that needed Mitch. Deep inside she needed him, wanted him. The thought that she could lose him, too … she pressed her hand to her heart at the pain that engulfed her.
“You all right?” Mitch asked, bringing her back to the present.
“I want to go with you.”
“We’ve already gone over that. No way. You’ll be with Kruger and Ryan.” He tenderly brushed the tips of his fingers over the bruise on her cheek. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“I don’t want you hurt either,” she said on a whisper. It was like that last morning her parents had been alive, when the warnings of unrest abounded, and they’d left anyway to help a woman in need.
He looked at her for a long minute, then he turned and asked the sheriff for scissors. When Kruger handed him a pair, Mitch took one last look at her and disappeared into the restroom. Jenna watched that door while the other men went over their plan. Her hand went back to her heart. She hadn’t told Mitch, but since she’d seen the murder scene, Paul’s presence was stronger. It was like the months after her transplant, when she’d sworn he was physically there.
When Mitch emerged a few minutes later, Jenna’s mouth dropped open. He’d cut his hair short … like Paul’s.
“All right. I’m ready,” he said to the men, not looking her way.
“What’d you cut your hair for?” Kruger
asked.
Mitch rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “Just wanted to be more comfortable.” They, of course, didn’t know that Paul had worn his hair short over the last several years of his life.
“Mitch, what are you doing?” she whispered as they walked out. “This wasn’t the plan.”
“I have a better plan.” He nodded for her to go with the two men. “I’ll see you at the other end.”
And then he got on his motorcycle. She slowly walked to the patrol car and got inside. The two men caught up on their wives and kids, and Jenna sat in silence and felt like a prisoner in the back of the cruiser as they followed Mitch.
Kruger waved to the deputy who had been keeping an eye on the White place in case Alan decided to head out. They parked just before the bend in the driveway, hidden from the house by some scrub pines and underbrush. Kruger and Ryan both put on headphones, and Jenna realized she wouldn’t be able to hear what was going on. There were only two pairs.
“Jenna!” Kruger called as she alighted from the car and ran toward the house. She wasn’t about to give Mitch a choice. Once Alan saw her, Mitch would have to play along that she’d come with him. Certainly he couldn’t tell her to get back to the cruiser.
Mitch was standing at the front door when she saw him. From a distance, he did look like Paul, if she didn’t consider the broad shoulders. When he turned and saw her coming up, his body went rigid and eyes went hard.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed.
“We are in this together. So … Paul, do what you have to do, but don’t you dare tell me to leave.”
His mouth started to open, but before he could say anything Alan surprised them both by walking around the front of the semi, a wrench in his black-smudged hands. He stopped short when he saw them, eyes narrowing.
“What are you doing back? Get off my property.”
Mitch shot her a warning look to stay behind as he approached Alan, but Jenna walked over with him. “Remember me, Alan?” Mitch had stripped away his accent and the depth of his voice, sounding a lot like Paul.
“Sure, why wouldn’t I? You were here Saturday.”
“Nope. Haven’t been here in a long, long time. And I haven’t seen you in a long time, not since that morning ten years ago.”
Alan’s face went from confused to pale. “What the hell are you trying to pull?”
“I’m trying to put the past behind me. You see, me and my wife, Jenna, we need to get on with our lives.” He put his arm around her, pulling her possessively against his body. “And for me to do that, I need the one thing Becky wouldn’t give me: the knife.”
Alan took a step back, but he still held that wrench in his beefy hands. “Mitch said you died in a car accident.”
“I told him to tell you that. I just wanted to feel out the situation before I came to visit myself. I wanted you to feel … safe. If I was gone, then your secret wouldn’t be out.”
“I don’t have any secrets,” Alan said, squaring his shoulders. “Get out of here, both of you.”
“Not until we settle this. I admit I was drunk that night, and at the time, I was confused about everything.” His voice dropped to a sinister low. “After all, I thought I’d killed my own parents. But I didn’t kill them. Now I remember what’s been bothering me all these years, all the time I was away from my home thinking I was a murderer. Your lighter was in my parents’ bedroom. Becky slipped it into her pocket, but I saw it.”
Alan’s face went even paler, but he said, “You can’t prove that.”
“No proof but my memory,” Mitch acknowledged with a nod.
“I never set foot in that fancy house of theirs.”
“The only thing I can’t understand is why.” Mitch continued. “Because my father snubbed you, left you behind? You were best friends once, but he made some money and left you behind like you were the trash.”
Alan’s face now went to a fine shade of red. “I didn’t give a crap about your father. He wasn’t a friend of mine.”
“Then maybe it was the way he treated your daughter. How many times did she come home crying because my father had called her a worthless whore?”
Alan advanced on them, and Mitch set Jenna behind him. But he didn’t back down, even though she wished he would turn and run.
Alan lifted the wrench. “You were the worthless one! You didn’t stick up for my baby. You just let that son of a bitch destroy her! You were a wimp! You broke her heart for your daddy, and she loved you.” Alan’s voice broke. “She loved you, and you broke her heart.”
“How did you know I’d broken up with her? You told the police that we had been at your trailer all night. If I’d broken up with her, why was I still sleeping with her? What kind of father would you have been to allow that?”
Alan shoved Mitch, sending Jenna back a few steps. “I was a good father. I was the best father!”
So far he’d given nothing away, nothing of great importance anyway. But the man’s temper was running very thin. Jenna’s heart was hammering in her throat.
“You loved your daughter,” Mitch said in a calmer voice, trying to nudge Jenna farther away from him and Alan.
“She was my life.”
“Did you love her enough to kill my parents?”
“No!” he bellowed. “I loved her enough to lie for you, to give you an alibi. You killed them. She asked me to lie for you.”
“How do you know I killed them?”
“Becky said she woke up and saw the knife in your hands, the knife covered in blood.”
Mitch took a step closer to Alan, and Jenna wanted to pull him back by one of his belt loops. But she held herself calm and still as he said, “You know what I think? I think Becky killed my parents, and put the knife in my hand while I was passed out. Then she made me think I’d killed my own parents, thinking I’d marry her out of gratitude for covering my butt.”
“She wouldn’t kill anyone! She was a good girl!”
“Would she lie for her daddy?” Mitch was dancing fast, hoping to trip Alan up.
Alan crossed his arms over his chest. “There was nothing for her to lie about.”
“Would she blackmail me for her daddy?”
His arms dropped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Alan. I handed her the money. One hundred thousand, and then another, then two hundred thousand. I kept moving, but somehow she kept finding me, kept demanding money.” He glanced over at Jenna, and for a moment she saw Paul. She felt Paul. Mitch turned back to Alan. “But the last time, she wanted four hundred thousand dollars from me. I told her it was the last time. I said I wanted the knife. But she double-crossed me. She only brought my father’s wedding ring.”
“You killed her!” Alan lunged forward with the wrench. Mitch deflected it, sending the heavy tool flying several feet away. Alan had his hands around Mitch’s throat. “You killed my baby! I couldn’t go to the police and accuse you because I’d have to tell them everything.”
The men fell to the ground. Jenna yelled for help. Alan kept talking as he tried to subdue Mitch. “I wanted to kill you, but I didn’t want to let Becky down again. So I sat here and hated myself for what I’d done to her. It’s all your fault! If you’d only loved Becky the way she deserved, none of this would have happened.”
Jenna tried to pull the big man off Mitch. Mitch could hardly talk now, with Alan pushing down on his throat.
“What happened, Alan? Do you want Becky to pay for your sins again? You want her to be named my parents’ murderer? Sheriff Kruger’s willing to reopen the case based on my memory of the lighter — your lighter.”
Jenna pulled Alan back and off-balance just enough for Mitch to roll over and gain control. Jenna heard the footsteps of Kruger and Ryan, but she couldn’t take her eyes from Mitch. The men hadn’t seen the officers yet. Alan was too busy struggling to gain the upper hand again.
“You killed your daughter,” Mitch said. “You knew she was blackm
ailing me. That’s why you couldn’t go to the police and accuse me of her murder. You let her keep coming, keep demanding money. You know what happens to blackmailers, Alan? They die. They always die. Don’t you watch the movies?”
Alan’s face went bright red. Between breaths he said, “I should’a killed you, too! I should’a killed the whole damned, worthless lot of you!”
Mitch looked up and saw the men with their guns at the ready. He let up on Alan’s throat, then pulled himself off the man. With a gasp, Alan got to his feet and prepared to go after Mitch again.
“Hold it, White,” Kruger said, coming up behind the man with cuffs. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Tom and Lila Elliot.” He read him the rest of his rights.
Alan blinked in shock. “I didn’t admit to nothing! He doesn’t have any proof! He can’t prove the lighter was there! It was Paul! He murdered them, and he murdered my baby. Didn’t you hear him? Why are you arresting me?”
Kruger shot Mitch a dirty look, probably for changing the plan, but focused back on Alan. “That’s not Paul, that’s Mitch. Paul died in an accident nine months ago.”
Alan simply stared at Mitch. “But how did you know about the lighter?” Then he closed his eyes when he realized what he’d just said. His body sagged, and he tipped forward before the officers could grab him.
Mitch ran his fingers through his shorn hair. “Paul told us. The rest I bluffed.”
Alan drooped down to his knees, eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Becky. Your daddy failed you again. You were too good for them, honey.”
“Paul didn’t kill Becky,” Jenna said, getting Alan’s attention. “She did double-cross him, and he did get mad and reach for her, but she lost her footing and fell off the cliff without his assistance.” She turned to Mitch. “I knew Paul wouldn’t have killed anyone. There were times I doubted, but deep inside, I knew he wasn’t a murderer.”
Alan’s eyes had gone glassy, and he stared off into nothing. “Becky was crazy in love with Paul.” He laughed softly. “I was even jealous at how much she loved him. When he broke things off with her, I knew his parents — Tom — had forced Paul to. He wasn’t strong enough to stand up to his father. It was bad enough that Tom treated me like trash, but he treated my little girl even worse.
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