by LENA DIAZ,
He scrolled through the screen on his tablet, checking his notes. “Let’s see. You said when Brian began his prison sentence, you visited him once a week. But about a year ago, the visits stopped. Why did you stop visiting him?”
“We argued. He didn’t want to see me anymore.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s private. It has nothing to do with the escape. I promise. We never discussed him getting out except through legal means—appeals mainly, since parole isn’t an option at a federal prison. That’s it.” She held her hands out. “How did he escape anyway? I don’t understand. Shouldn’t it be nearly impossible to do that?”
“It should be. But the government sometimes hires out prisoner transportation to private firms to save money. The employees can be overworked, overtired and undertrained. And the vans aren’t always maintained as well as they should be. The investigation is ongoing, but it appears that all of those factors contributed to the prisoners being able to pry open a faulty lock and sneak out the back of the van at a fuel stop.”
“Wow. That’s crazy—scary too. Please tell me that’s rare, that people don’t escape prison transports every day.”
“They don’t. But it does happen. This isn’t a one-off. Luckily there was no one else around, so no one was hurt at the gas station. They took off on foot, later stole a car that someone had left unlocked with the keys inside.”
“Is that how the police officer, Jennings, got involved? He saw them in a stolen car and tried to arrest them?”
“Yes, he...” Colin sighed. “How did we turn the tables here? You’re supposed to be answering my questions, not the other way around.”
“No one has told me anything. It’s really frustrating.”
“It’s frustrating for all of us. There are a lot of things we still don’t know. Like how the prisoners got the gun they used to shoot Officer Jennings.”
“I don’t have any guns. I can probably shoot better than most people I know because you taught me back when we were dating. But I don’t own one, never have. And before you ask, no, I did not somehow provide Brian with a gun.”
“Then we’re back to the argument you had with him. Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn’t. But I’d like to be the judge of that. What did you argue about?”
“You’re not going to drop this, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
She shoved her hair back from her face. “You, okay? We argued about you.”
He stared at her. “Me?”
“Brian thinks you’re the devil, that everything that’s happened to him is your fault.”
He looked down at the white lines on his hands, his mouth tightening. “What do you think?”
“I think that you’re the most honorable person I know. Do I wish that you hadn’t testified against him? Yes. But I don’t hold it against you. You promised to tell the truth. And I have no doubt that you told the truth as you see it. I don’t blame you for anything, Colin.”
His gaze flicked to hers. “I appreciate that.”
“It’s true.” She clasped her hands tightly together. “Anyway, I couldn’t take Brian’s drama anymore. I’ve tried for years to get him to continue his education behind bars so he’d have a skill when he got out. I’d had a tough week, was struggling to find a new job after getting laid off at my previous one. I guess I kind of exploded. It shocked him. He must have felt betrayed, like he’d lost his biggest ally.”
She shrugged. “Maybe our argument did play a role in the escape. Maybe he felt he had nothing left to lose and no one else to trust. I do know that prison was exceptionally hard on him. I mean, he’d have these mental breakdowns, end up in psychiatric treatment for months. You mentioned he had only five more years to serve. To Brian, five more years was an eternity. He was miserable. The whole time. He never adjusted in any way.”
“You were his biggest ally? What about your parents?”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “In the beginning, they saw him weekly, along with me. But something happened a couple of years ago. Dad and Mom had a fight, not that fighting was new for them. They’ve seen a marriage counselor for as long as I can remember. But this was worse, really bad. Things...changed. Between my parents, and between them and Brian. Dad went to see him one more time, by himself, and never went back. Mom started visiting him on her own, without me. I never understood why. She never told me.”
“This blowup happened, your dad stopped seeing his son, your mom started seeing him alone, but no one ever explained what it was all about?”
“It was about Brian. That’s a given. Mom always took up for him. Dad was always putting him down, since he was a little boy. Brian’s shenanigans while growing up were an embarrassment to him. To my dad, reputation was everything. That’s why he fought so hard for Brian, trying to keep him from going to prison. He wanted his son proven innocent so he could salvage the family name. All I can figure is that whatever their recent argument was about, it had to be about something that would embarrass my father even more if it got out.”
“Like maybe Brian admitted he really had set the fire?”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “I can’t imagine that happening. But, yes, if that was the case, my father would be ashamed and forced to admit he’d been wrong all this time. He can hold his head up now and insist the Sterlings are good, solid people and our family has suffered a tragic injustice. If he was proven wrong, he’d be devasted, bitter, ashamed.” She shook her head. “Whatever it was, it tore my parents apart. Mom wouldn’t go to marriage counseling anymore unless my dad would visit Brian. He refused. They were at an impasse.”
The questions continued. Like any good son of a judge and a prosecutor, he covered the same ground again and again until she wanted to beg for mercy. After answering yet another question that she’d answered many times before, she dropped her head back against the cushy leather couch and closed her eyes. “Couldn’t you just waterboard me or something? That would be less torture than this.”
“What do you mean?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
She lifted her head. “You’re kidding, right?”
He arched a brow.
“You’re not kidding. Wow. Okay, we’ve been going around and around for hours. You keep asking me the same questions. I keep giving you the same answers. How is this getting us anywhere?”
He glanced at the darkened windows outside, checked his watch. “You’re right. I may have overdone it.”
“You think?”
“How about one more question?”
“Does the one you just asked count?”
He smiled. “No.”
“Fine. One more. Then I turn into a pumpkin. A nontalking pumpkin.”
“Some of them talk?”
“Obviously, you go to the wrong pumpkin patches.”
“I’ll have to remember that. Okay. Final question.”
“Final answer. Drumroll, folks.” She tapped her hands on her thighs, mimicking a drummer.
“You explained why you stopped visiting Brian. But then, three months ago, you went to see him one more time. Why?”
She closed her eyes. “Last question? Promise?”
“Promise. Unless I have a follow-up related to the original question, of course.”
“Of course.” She sighed. “It was because of my mom.” She gave him a watery smile. “The subject I’ve been avoiding ever since the police station. I had to tell Brian about Mom. She...there was an accident, a car accident. It was raining. She lost control on a curve and slammed into a tree. The coroner said she died instantly. Thank God. She never felt the flames.” She sucked in a breath and glanced at his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry about your mom, Peyton. I really am.”
She blinked furiously, then nodded.
�
�What about your dad?” he asked, his voice gentle. “Was he hurt in the accident?”
She blew out a deep breath, still feeling awful for bringing up the fire—even though it was in response to his questions. She just wished she’d measured her words more carefully.
“Dad wasn’t with her. He’s fine. As well as he can be.”
“He lives in Memphis? Alone?”
“He does now.”
“What do you mean, now? Was someone else living with him until recently?”
“I’m guessing this is one of those follow-up questions?”
He smiled again. “If you don’t mind.”
“I do mind. But I’ll answer anyway. I’d moved out of my dad’s place years ago, but...circumstances changed and I moved back. Then, after Mom died, he said he needed some time to figure things out. He needed his space.”
“He kicked you out?”
Her stomach churned. She didn’t have to ask what he was thinking. She’d practically grown up with the McKenzie family. The idea that their mother or father would turn away one of their four sons was ludicrous. Even amid all the stunts their youngest son, Ian, had pulled, they showed nothing but patience and love for him.
She lifted her chin. “I gave my father the space he needed in order to get over a terrible tragedy.”
“You suffered the same tragedy.”
“Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t judge my father, or my family.”
“I can’t pretend to understand your father’s actions. But I am sorry for your loss. I know you and your mom were close. She was...different. We didn’t exactly click. But I respected her, because she loved you.”
Was that what he thought? That her mother loved her? Peyton wasn’t so sure. She’d always loved her mom and desperately tried to make her mom love her in return. But Peyton was never quite sure whether there was enough room in her mother’s heart for anyone besides her beloved son. She forced a smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Since you’re being so nice, I’ll give you a bonus answer without you having to ask another follow-up question. When Dad...asked me to leave, it’s not like I didn’t have resources. He knew I’d be okay. I have a small inheritance, an investment fund that my parents set up years ago in case anything ever happened to either of them. Plus a small life insurance payout. The house here in Gatlinburg is paid off. It’s pretty much the only asset Dad hasn’t sold. He’s keeping it for after he retires. The point is, I can live here rent free, which helped me allocate my funds towards starting my own business. I figured it would be nice to be my own boss for a change instead of being at the mercy of corporations and budget cuts.”
“Corporations? Where did you work?”
“Here and there. Whatever I could do to make ends meet.”
“You wanted to work in the criminal justice field the last I knew. What happened to that dream?”
“When everyone in the family is working to pay a lawyer, that kind of nixes any plans to pay for college. Not that I’m complaining. It was my choice to start working right out of high school to help with Brian’s legal bills.”
He stared at her. “You were eighteen. Too young to throw away your dreams.”
She shrugged. “You do what you have to do. Besides, I didn’t throw away my dreams. I made new ones. That’s why I started my shop. Although I’d give anything to have my mom back, the money she left me was a gift. That’s what allowed me a fresh start. It’s a struggle, but if I can make the café profitable, I’ll have some stability in my life again, something long term. And we both know I love to bake.”
“Do you? Are you sure about that?”
“Excuse me?”
“All your life, you’ve sacrificed for others. You were Brian’s protector, his second mom, for as long as I can remember. You didn’t go to college because you wanted to help your parents with the legal bills. Now you’ve started a small business that allows you to employ a couple of women who were unemployable by everyone else.”
She fisted her hands in her lap. “You make it sound like helping others is a bad thing.”
“It is when you’re sacrificing yourself along the way. You talk about money being tight. But according to the investigation Landry has been leading, your shop is extremely successful. You should be in the black, not losing money. After seeing the enormous amount of bread you baked and gave to Joan, I can see why. That wasn’t all for the café was it? I’ll bet if I call the homeless shelter, I’ll find that Peyton’s Place is making huge donations of food every single day.”
She gritted her teeth. “The soup kitchen,” she admitted. “Not the homeless shelter.”
“Soup kitchen. So they can feed the homeless and poor. Like I said. That’s wonderful, Peyton. It truly is. The rest of us could learn a thing or two from all the good that you do. But what I want to know is—why?”
“Why do I want to help people?”
“Not just why do you want to help people. Why do you help them to the exclusion of yourself? You aren’t living your life, Peyton. You’re in servitude to others. I bet you’re working more now than you did when you worked for corporate America. Why are you killing yourself for everyone else?”
She stared at his hands, at the white lines, before forcing herself to meet his probing gaze. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I want to. Explain it to me.”
She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “Someone else starts a fire and you, Colin McKenzie, run into that burning building and save lives. Do you know how rare that is? For someone to be that selfless?”
“Peyton, I’m not—”
“Selfless? Yes. You are. You’re so good, Colin. You’re why I wanted to go into the criminal justice field all those years ago, you and your amazing family. Every one of you has made a career out of helping others. And then—” she shook her head “—then there’s my family. I grew up watching my father pay people off to clean up Brian’s messes.” She grimaced. “Fights, graffiti, things like that. From what Chief Landry said at the station, it appears Brian did a lot more than I’d ever realized as a child. My mom, God love her, she wasn’t just eccentric. She was a space cadet. And she played favorites with her children. It’s one of the reasons that she and Dad fought so much. He loved me. She loved Brian. With no in between.” A tear slid down her cheek. She furiously wiped it away.
“Everything for her was about Brian. There was never any time for me. That’s why I started baking. Not because I wanted to, but because Mom loved to bake. That was the only time she seemed proud of me, happy with me. It was the only time she loved me.”
“Peyton, stop. You don’t have to—”
She held up her hands. “No. Let me finish. I’m not trying to play a blame game here and paint my parents in a bad light. We all made mistakes, huge mistakes. I was probably the worst offender, always protecting my brother when I should have been making him stand on his own two feet. He’s always been different, eccentric, I guess, like you said about my mom. They were so alike. But I was an enabler, just as much as my dad every time he used money to make one of Brian’s problems go away. You’re like your father, William, The Mighty McKenzie, fighting for truth and justice. That’s your legacy. What’s mine? I’m a Sterling, with a dysfunctional family and an escaped convict for a brother. And, and...”
Colin moved to the couch beside her, taking one of her hands in his. She clutched it, unable to refuse the lifeline he offered.
She wiped at her tears again. “The more you ask me questions, the more I’m learning about this case, the more I’m scared to death that Brian may have started that damn fire after all.” She clutched his hand harder. “You ask me why I’m using every penny I can to employ two women who wouldn’t have jobs otherwise. Or why I make up repair work so I can feed a homeless man without him feeling like it’s charity.” She pressed her fist a
gainst her heart. “Because I’m scared to death that I’m like my father, my mother, my brother. I’m a Sterling by name. But not here.” She pounded her chest. “Not in my heart. I don’t want their legacy to be my legacy. I want to be a good person, Colin.” She tapped her fist against her heart with each word she said. “I need to be a good person.”
He gently brushed her hair back from her face. “Peyton. You are a good person. You always have been.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m not. I should have been there for you, after the fire. No matter what my dad told me. Even if he did lock my door, take away my stupid phone. I should have been there.”
His eyes widened.
“I should have found a way,” she continued, the words feeling as if they were being ripped from her soul. “Duncan said you needed me, but I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there.” She collapsed against him, sobbing so hard she could barely draw a breath.
He swore and scooped her up, cradling her against his chest. He carried her upstairs and tucked her into the guest bed, whispering soothing words the whole time. The day’s emotional toll had her so exhausted she struggled to open her eyes.
“Shh,” he whispered. “It’s okay, Peyton. Don’t worry about anything. It’s all going to be okay.”
She fell asleep to the gentle pressure of his kiss against her forehead.
Chapter Ten
Drowning in guilt and self-loathing, Colin fisted his hands and paced back and forth in his bedroom downstairs. He couldn’t shake the image of Peyton’s beautiful, pixie-like face wet with tears. Her sweet, gentle voice choked with raw, gut-wrenching pain.
I don’t want their legacy to be my legacy. I want to be a good person.
A good person? She was the epitome of good. The entire time he’d known her, she’d done things for other people, always putting them first. It was one of the reasons he’d fallen in love with her. She was the kindest, most caring person he’d ever met. And it had never occurred to him, until tonight, that her gentle, selfless nature hid a sea of pain.
I should have been there for you, after the fire.