by LENA DIAZ,
Chapter Nineteen
Peyton couldn’t help feeling intimidated sitting across the desk from Colin’s distinguished-looking father, while Colin stood in front of the wall of bookshelves behind his dad, watching her with that intense gaze of his. Whether they realized it or not, the two of them presented a powerful united front that had her feeling defensive even though she knew they both only wanted to help. Maybe it was her usual Sterling family guilt that was making her feel that way.
She forced her attention back to the pictures she was flipping through, one of many stacks that had been taken from the dozens of folders spread out on the desk. The mass of information that McKenzie senior had accumulated on Brian’s case made the official police file seem like an abridged summary.
There was a picture of her mom, wearing that awful forest-print dress Peyton had hated. She’d joked that her mother would blend in with the wood-paneled walls and no one would even see her. Her mom’s feelings had been hurt—it was a brand-new dress and she’d loved it. Peyton had had to do a quick one-eighty and pretend she’d been kidding in order to appease her mom and make her smile again.
The dress really was hideous.
Another picture was one that she knew well. It had been the smoking gun at the trial, an out-of-focus snapshot of a figure fleeing into the woods, with the beginnings of flames barely visible in the lower window of the barn to his left. The figure’s back was to the camera, but it was definitely a male. He had short dark hair, jeans and a tucked-in shirt—which described most of the boys at the dance. But this figure was holding a gas can.
The prosecution had argued that it proved Brian had set the fire. The defense argued that it proved someone else had set the fire. Peyton had stared at that shadowy figure for hours and still couldn’t swear that it was, or wasn’t, her brother. Of course, if it was, his argument to her at the high school was that he’d been taking that can out to prevent a fire. When she’d shared that information with Colin during the phone call on her drive to Memphis, he’d flat-out said he didn’t believe it. She had to agree with him that it sounded weak, a desperate attempt to explain the unexplainable.
She flipped to the next picture, then the next and the next. She and Colin were in quite a few of them, her in a minidress that hugged every curve. Him looking sexier than humanly possible in jeans that hugged his lean hips and tight rear end, his collared shirt half tucked in as he swung her around the dance floor. She curled her fingers against the urge to trace the lines of his arms. That had been the last time she saw him in short sleeves.
She set the first stack of pictures aside and stared at the many more stacks she had yet to go through.
“Everything okay?” Colin asked.
She shrugged. “Real life cases sure aren’t like TV, are they? All that CSI stuff, fingerprints, DNA. Brian’s case has none of that. There’s no black and white, only gray, and so many ways to look at what little evidence there is. I wouldn’t have all the questions I have today if there was hard evidence to rely on. But his case is almost entirely circumstantial. It’s just so frustrating.”
His father waved toward the other side of the room, where a row of cherrywood filing cabinets fit end to end beneath the wall of windows overlooking the mountains.
“Those cabinets hold my entire life’s work, my personal notes on thousands of cases. Probably eighty percent are based almost exclusively on circumstantial evidence. Real life doesn’t always come with videos, pictures, DNA and fingerprints. That’s why we rely so heavily on old-fashioned police work—investigations, interviews and eyewitnesses.”
“But eyewitnesses aren’t reliable,” she argued. “I’m no expert but even I’ve seen documentaries showing how two people can see the same thing from different vantage points and have completely different accountings of what happened.”
Colin straightened away from the bookshelf behind him. “Which is exactly why law enforcement insists on having corroborating witnesses. In your brother’s case, there were five people who agreed they saw Brian with that gas can near the barn. Including me. I knew your brother for years. Do you really think I’d swear under oath that I saw him if there was any doubt in my mind?”
She slowly shook her head. “No. I don’t. But it was dark—”
“Not right by the barn where I saw him. Party lights were strung throughout the property, lighting up the paths and buildings. Remember? Brian ran out, and the barn went up in flames right after.”
All three of them went silent, no doubt thinking about Colin running into that inferno to make sure no one was inside. He’d found two people already knocked unconscious by a burning, fallen timber. He hadn’t hesitated to help them, regardless of the danger to himself.
Peyton cleared her throat and tried to get the conversation back on track. “I know that Brian claimed at the school over a week ago that he was indeed the one carrying that gas can—supposedly to prevent the fire. But since we’re playing devil’s advocate and trying to prove the truth, I’ll argue that you can’t swear it was him since you only saw him from the back. You saw a young man from behind, running away from you. It could have been anyone.”
“I could see you from any angle, Peyton, and I’d know it was you.”
Her face heated. She refused to look at his father. “I thought we were here to determine my mother’s whereabouts during the dance, not rehash where Brian was.”
Colin waved toward the other pictures and folders. “We are. But Dad and I both thought you might want to look at all of the evidence first, everything he has, to form a complete picture of what happened that night. If you go into a case with preconceived notions, you’re likely to miss an important clue that could end up solving the entire puzzle. And as you just pointed out, Brian’s recent version of events is the polar opposite of what he’s claimed all these years. I don’t think we can trust him.”
“No arguments here.” She rubbed her hands across her jeans.
His father pushed himself to standing. “How about I leave you two alone to go through all this without a federal judge looking over your shoulders?”
“You don’t have to leave,” Peyton said. “You’re not making me feel uncomfortable.”
He smiled. “I appreciate that. But I’m hankering for another one of those delicious croissants that Margaret picked up at your store yesterday. I’ll check back later.”
He left the room and closed the door.
Peyton chewed her bottom lip. “I suppose now isn’t the time to tell him that Joan buys those croissants from another bakery across town and repackages them.”
Colin grinned. “Probably not.” He opened the top desk drawer and pulled out a small magnifying glass. “For the pictures, just in case. Sometimes little details escape the naked eye and might be important.” He sat down across from her. “How do you want to do this? I get the impression that you’re not interested in reviewing all the folders.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“It is a lot to sort through. We can focus entirely on the pictures for now, build a timeline off that and then determine our next steps. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds perfect. How do we start?”
He opened the drawer again, this time pulling out some legal pads and pens and setting them in the middle of the desk. “Divide and conquer. I suggest we separate any pictures of your mom to one stack, and pictures of Brian to another. Any pictures of the scene itself—the barn before it burned down, and the immediate area surrounding it—go in a third stack.”
She nodded, then picked up the infamous smoking gun picture. “Where would this one go? It’s by the barn, but supposedly this is a picture of Brian.”
“Fourth stack. Undecided. Once we have only the pictures we’re most interested in, we use the time stamps on the back of each one to put them in order.”
“Timeline, right?”
He smiled. “Timeline.
”
They each took a stack of pictures and started sorting.
Even with the two of them culling through the pictures, it took over two hours to finish.
Peyton stood and crossed to the window, stretching her aching back from being stooped over for so long. “Sorry I wasted your time. I should have known better than to expect school kids to take enough pictures with the chaperones in them to do any good.”
He joined her by the window and rested his hip against one of the filing cabinets. “It wasn’t a waste of time. You have to go down a lot of roads in an investigation to determine whether they’re worth going down. It had to be done.”
“What else is there? How else can we fill the gaps in the timeline?”
He scrubbed his jaw. “I hate to say it. But we’re probably back to looking through Dad’s entire file to find another thread to pull.”
She groaned. “I don’t think I’m up for that. It’ll take a week to go through everything.”
“Probably.”
“How are you even working on this with me at this point? I’m not going to get you fired for missing work am I?”
He hesitated. “I’m not working this on my own time anymore. I’m officially assigned to Brian’s case, have been since the day you went back to Memphis.” He waved toward the desk. “This, reviewing the old case files, is all part of that.”
“Oh. Well, then, that’s good. I guess. But I thought there was a conflict of interest, that you couldn’t work on this because...”
“Because of our past?”
She nodded.
“My boss finally had to accept that there was no way to keep me from looking into everything, whether I was on my own or not. He decided to make it official. Besides, since your encounter at the school, things have...heated up. Catching Brian has become job number one. Pretty much everyone in law enforcement around here is helping, one way or another.”
“You said catching Brian. You meant catching Brian and the three other escapees, right?”
He hesitated. “Right.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He straightened. “There are always things in investigations that can’t be shared with civilians.”
“Civilians? I’m a part of this, not just a civilian.”
“There’s no difference in the eyes of law enforcement.” He waved toward his father’s desk, at the folders spread across the top. “You’ve already been given far more access to information than most people ever would. I’m walking a thin line here. I can’t do more than I already have.”
She crossed her arms. “Do you always have to be so logical and make perfect sense? You make it impossible for me to be mad at you.”
He grinned. “And here I was expecting a big fight. You surprise me.”
“I’ll save the big fight for later. I’m sure you’re bound to really tick me off at some point.”
“No doubt.” He chuckled. “I guess we’re done here then. Do you want to stay and visit awhile or—”
“If I have a choice, I’d rather go back to your house. I’m just not ready to be social, you know? With everything going on. That is, if it won’t upset your parents.”
“They’ll understand. Just give me a few minutes. I haven’t seen them in a while and I’m sure they’ll have a few more questions for me before we go.” He strode out the door and disappeared down the hall.
She looked back at the desk, the messy piles of folders and pictures scattered everywhere. They looked so out of place in the otherwise pristine office. She headed to the desk and started straightening everything into logical piles. But since she wasn’t sure which folders to put the various pictures in, she arranged all of them in neat stacks in front of the folders. The smoking gun picture ended up on top of one group. A picture of her mom in that awful forest-print dress sat on top of the grouping beside it.
She couldn’t resist picking up the controversial picture one more time and staring at the fleeing figure with the gas can.
Is that you, Brian? Are you carrying that gas can because you started the fire, or were trying to prevent one? Have I been defending you all these years even though you’re guilty? Is Colin right?
She glanced at the picture of her mom, then picked it up.
Or have you been the culprit all along, Mom? Are you responsible for hurting Colin? Did you let your son go to prison for your crime?
As usual, no answers came to her. Would she ever really know what had happened? She set the picture down, glancing from one to the other, her mom in the ugly dress to the figure with the gas can. She frowned and looked back at her mom again. Something wasn’t quite right. Something was...off. She looked at the other picture, then back again, several times. She sucked in a breath, then grabbed both pictures and ran to the window. Tilting them up to the sunlight, she overlapped them a few inches.
Then she saw it.
The little detail she’d missed all these years, that everyone had missed, because the picture was so dark and blurry. There was no reason to think anything of it, and she probably never would have, if she hadn’t seen it next to the other picture.
Laughter sounded from down the hall, followed by the clink of dishes. She could hear Colin’s deep voice as he said something to his parents. His mom laughed again, probably at some joke he’d made or a funny memory he’d shared. Such a happy family, so normal. And she’d brought such turmoil into their lives. She’d been right before, when she’d said her whole life was a lie.
She studied the pictures again. It was such a tiny detail. Could she be wrong? She needed to be absolutely sure before telling Colin what she’d found. Because it changed everything. She crossed to the desk and had just picked up the small magnifying glass that Colin’s father had set out when she heard footsteps coming down the hall toward the room. She whirled around, looking for her purse, then remembered she hadn’t brought it. She turned her back to the door and shoved the small magnifying glass and two pictures down her cleavage into her bra.
The footsteps stopped. “Peyton? Ready to go?”
She fastened another button on her blouse, then forced a smile and turned around. “Ready.”
Chapter Twenty
Peyton headed into the house with Colin, but paused in the back hallway instead of going into the main room.
She motioned toward his office door. “Do you mind if I borrow your office for a few minutes? I want to take another look at my albums while the pictures from your dad’s files are still fresh in my mind.” She crossed her fingers behind her back. Not that she was really lying. She did want to look at the albums again. But that wasn’t the main reason she wanted a few minutes to herself.
“Sure, take all the time you need. But I’m hungry. How does a ham and cheese sandwich with lemonade sound?”
“It’s only eleven. A bit early for lunch, isn’t it?”
He rubbed his stomach. “Second breakfast.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Second breakfast? Like the tiny hobbits have in The Lord of the Rings? I don’t suppose that’s another unsubtle attempt to tease me about my vertical stature?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” He winked and strode past the stairs toward the kitchen.
“I like mustard and mayo on mine,” she called out.
“You got it.”
She smiled and pulled the pictures and magnifying glass out of her bra as she hurried into his office. After clicking on his desk lamp, she bent over and held both the pictures close to the light, studying them. It didn’t take long to confirm that she hadn’t been mistaken. She put the pictures down on top of a folder and slumped into the desk chair.
What next? What else was lurking in her family’s deep dark closets? And how many more times would she have to stand in the firing line and take another cannon to her he
art? She was vaguely surprised she wasn’t crying her eyes out again. But the urge to cry just wasn’t there. She’d gone numb at this point. Thank God for small favors.
She had to tell Colin. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid and get it over with. She picked up the pictures, then noticed the neat printing on the folder label beneath them: Autopsy Results—Corrected: Molly Sterling. Why would Colin have an autopsy report on her mother? Setting her two pictures aside, she was about to flip open the folder when the label on the one beneath it had her drawing a sharp breath: Autopsy Results and Ballistics: Benjamin Sterling. Her father’s autopsy report. She’d never seen a copy before, had never even thought to ask for one. Why did Colin have it? How in the world were both of her parents’ autopsies relevant to the research on Brian? To the search for him and his fellow escapees?
Her hands shook as she took both of the folders and headed to the office couch to read them.
* * *
COLIN HUMMED “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” as he inventoried everything he’d set out on the kitchen island. Bread, check. Although nothing as fresh and delicious as he knew Peyton could bake. Ham, check. Provolone cheese, check. He remembered she liked that. Mayo, check. Mustard, check. He didn’t remember her mustard preference so he’d gone with spicy brown since that’s what he liked. They’d always had a lot of the same likes and dislikes.
He’d promised lemonade, but the pitcher in the refrigerator was almost empty. He checked the pantry. There were fresh green apples, navel oranges, baking potatoes. No lemons. A twelve-pack of lemon-lime soda caught his eye. A poor substitute for fresh-squeezed lemonade, but at least it was in the same flavor category. He grabbed a couple of cans and set them on the island before filling some glasses with ice.
Now, all he had to do was slap the sandwiches together and—
He straightened, a piece of cheese dangling between his fingers. Peyton was in his office. To look at her albums. The last time he’d been in the office was early this morning making folders and printing out copies of—