by LENA DIAZ,
Oh, no. Please, please, no.
He tossed the cheese on one of the plates and sprinted to his office, catching himself against the door frame.
Peyton was sitting on the couch in front of the bookshelves, her hands resting on two closed folders in her lap. Her face was alarmingly pale. And when she finally looked up at him, her calm exterior was belied by the pain in her tortured gaze.
Colin swallowed against the tightness in his throat and knelt on the floor in front of her. “Peyton, sweetheart. I’m so sor—”
“When were you going to tell me that my mother might still be alive? And how long were you going to let me believe that you’d shot my father, when Brian’s the one who killed him?”
* * *
PEYTON SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the couch facing Colin with both of the folders in her lap. He sat sideways on the other end, his right arm resting along the back of the couch, one leg drawn up, the other stretched out in front of him.
She held up the folder with her father’s name on it. “Let’s get the easy one over with first. This is dated the day after I went to Memphis. Why didn’t you tell me that ballistics tests prove the bullet that killed my father came from the gun that I took from Brian at the high school?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but Peyton held up a hand to stop him. “And don’t you dare say you just wanted to protect me.”
He closed his mouth.
“Seriously?” she asked. “You were trying to protect me? Again?”
He held his hands out in a conciliatory gesture. “You love your brother. I didn’t want to add this to the burden you’re already bearing when it comes to him.”
“You’d rather I just go on believing that you shot him?”
“What’s the point in rehashing the event and making you relive that pain all over again?”
“That’s just another way of saying you were trying to protect me.”
His jaw tightened and he crossed his arms over his chest.
Peyton let out a long sigh. “Okay. Well. I know you did what you felt was right, even though I completely disagree with your decision. Knowing that my brother killed my father...” She ruthlessly tamped down her emotions before she could continue. “That’s a pretty important thing to know. If he could do something like that, and lie to my face about it when we spoke at the high school, he’s capable of anything. My eyes are wide open now when it comes to my brother.”
“You’re handling this a lot better than I probably would have in your position,” he admitted.
She scoffed. “I think what you meant to say is that you’re astonished that I’m not drowning in a puddle of tears right now.”
“That’s not what I—”
“It’s okay. I get it. I’ve been a nervous wreck ever since Brian showed up in my kitchen. And I’ve been crying so much I should invest in a tissue company. But I’m stronger than I look, and way stronger than I’ve been acting lately.” She held up the second folder. “And I’m going to do my level best to hold it together while you answer my questions about this. But it’s a lot to take in, so no promises.”
His gaze flicked to the second folder in her lap, his brows knitting with worry. But, to his credit, he didn’t try once again to convince her to let it go and ignore what she’d read.
“A lot of this is medical jargon over my head, so I’m not sure I got it all. You said there was an issue with the coroner, that he didn’t perform his due diligence when conducting the autopsy on my mother.” She held the folder out toward him. “Explain it to me. Please.”
His reluctance was obvious in his expression, but he leaned forward and took the folder from her. When he didn’t open it, she fisted her hands in frustration.
“Are you really going to make me go to Chief Landry or another marshal to ask them to explain this to me?”
“No.” He pitched the folder onto the couch between them. “But I don’t need to look at the reports to answer your questions. I called the coroner initially because it didn’t sit right that your mom’s car caught on fire in the accident. That’s rare. And as you’d already pointed out, fire seems to crop up a lot in relation to your mom, from the sorority house fire onward. What I discovered is that the coroner was overworked and had a backlog of cases. He made a judgment call that your mom’s case didn’t seem suspicious, that it was simply a tragic accident. He skipped steps. He didn’t pull dental records or try to test DNA because there was only one person in the car, the vehicle was registered to your mom and the victim was wearing jewelry that your father identified as belonging to her. Her purse was also in the car, half burned, with credit cards and her driver’s license inside.”
She held her hands out. “Makes sense to me. Honestly, I’d assume it was her too.”
“As the coroner, he can’t assume anything. In a case like this especially, where the body was, forgive me, burned beyond recognition, it’s his duty to perform medical tests to verify the victim’s identity. After I spoke to him, I strongly encouraged him to pull the X-rays that he took during the autopsy and get dental records to compare—”
“Strongly encouraged?” She couldn’t help smiling, if only a little. “I’ll bet you had his career and future pension flashing in front of his eyes.”
He returned her smile. “Possibly.” His smile faded. “Peyton, the woman in the car wasn’t your mother.”
She’d read that in the report, but hearing it out loud seemed to suck the oxygen from the room. She wrapped her arms around her middle, nausea coiling in her stomach. If her mom hadn’t been in the car, then another woman died in her place.
“Go on,” she whispered, her throat so tight, she could barely speak. “Just say it. All of it.”
His look of sympathy was almost her undoing. She clasped her hands in her lap and waited like a prisoner on death row watching the minutes tick away to midnight, hoping for the phone to ring but knowing that it won’t.
“The coroner was able to get dental records overnight and did the comparison that he should have done originally. That proved the woman in the car wasn’t your mother. But there aren’t any missing persons cases in Memphis or the surrounding counties that seem like good candidates to be the victim. As for whether the car was tampered with to cause the accident, the car was crushed at a junkyard, so it can’t be reexamined. However, the police did a thorough job of examining it the first time and I’m confident with their findings—that the car was in good working order before the crash. Based on that, and the lack of missing persons cases that I mentioned, I’m inclined to think the simplest scenario is the one that makes sense here. Someone robbed your mom and stole her car, then paid the ultimate price for their crimes.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, maybe to ask the next obvious question. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Just holding herself together was taking all her energy.
“As for your mom,” he continued, “that’s open for speculation. The memorial service was over three months ago. If she’s alive, one would expect that she’d have come forward, maybe to say she was carjacked or something. Since that hasn’t happened, there are two logical possibilities. Either she was...murdered...by the person who took her car, or—”
“She’s alive and wants people to think that she’s dead,” she managed to whisper.
“Yes.”
“Is there...” She cleared her throat. “Is there any chance that if my mom really is alive, and hiding somewhere, for whatever reason, that the woman in her car...that my mom...” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t wrap her mind around it. But she had to know. She gave him a helpless look, hoping he’d understand what she was asking.
“You want to know whether your mom murdered the woman who was found in the car?”
She pursed her lips and nodded.
“The answer to that is complicated. There are extensive sketches and photographs from the
police report that clearly indicate the car crashed into the tree and then caught on fire. And even though fire destroys evidence, the fire didn’t completely consume the car. It was put out quickly enough to preserve enough clues for the police to piece together a few things. For example, there’s no evidence that anyone besides the driver was in the car at the time of the accident. Also, the doors were jammed shut. And probably the most telling detail of all is that the driver had soot in her lungs at the time of the autopsy.”
She covered her mouth. “Oh no.”
He grimaced. “Yeah. I know. She was breathing when the car caught on fire. Hopefully she passed out and didn’t suffer. Taking everything I just said into account, we know that she wasn’t killed and placed in the car as part of some elaborate scheme. She was driving the car and wrecked it, and suffered horrible consequences as a result. Your mother probably had nothing to do with her death.”
“Probably. I hope you’re right. That would be one thing I could be thankful for. But that means either my mom was—” she twisted her hands together “—murdered, the victim of a carjacking. Or what? She decided when her car was taken that she’d take advantage of it? Use the opportunity to disappear? Why would she do that? She was dying of cancer. Given her prognosis, if she is alive and not undergoing treatment, she doesn’t have much longer to live. So why fake her death?”
“I haven’t been able to come up with any viable theories on that just yet. The only thing I can think of, and that’s really thin, is that she wanted to spare her family the ordeal of watching her waste away from her disease. Maybe she thought it was a kinder way to say goodbye. A clean break. But regardless of the reason for disappearing, she’d still need money to live on. She’d need food, somewhere to stay, pain pills to help make her more comfortable.”
“That wouldn’t be a problem. Mom had her own money, separate from Dad, for as long as I can remember. It’s just how they did things. Yes, she was helping pay Brian’s legal fees. But she’d never give up all of her savings for him, or anyone else. I can totally see her stashing extra money away over the years, like from the grocery budget or clothing allowance, and building up a good nest egg. Plus, Dad had his faults, but being stingy wasn’t one of them. Any time Mom asked for money, if he had it, he gave it to her.” She shifted on the couch and rested her arm across the back like he was doing. “What happens next from a law-enforcement perspective, as far as my mom is concerned?”
“Quite a bit. The coroner has to revoke your mom’s death certificate since the body in the car wasn’t hers. Memphis police have already opened a missing persons report on your mom.”
“Wow. Either you woke up a ton of people last night to get all of this rolling, or you were super busy this morning before I ever got out of bed.”
He smiled. “A little of both. Memphis PD is also reopening the investigation around the crash to include the timeline leading up to it. The goal is to search for witnesses and to track your mother’s movements to figure out where she was last seen. They’ve got a good team up there. I’m confident they’ll do everything they can to figure out what happened to her.”
“Thank you, Colin. I appreciate you explaining everything. I don’t guess any of this helps with the search for Brian and his fellow escapees though.”
His hand tensed against the back of the couch. If her hand hadn’t been close to his, she wouldn’t have even caught the movement.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” she asked. “Something you’re not telling me, about Brian? And the other fugitives?”
He scrubbed his jaw and straightened. “Our sandwiches. I left the lunch meat on the counter. I should put it away before it—”
“Colin. Please. No more surprises. Let’s level with each other here and now and not hold anything else back.”
He rested his forearms on his knees and turned his head To look at her. “Each other? There’s something about the case that you’re not telling me?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “It’s the reason I came in here to begin with. I needed a few minutes to look at something, to be absolutely sure before I told you. But let’s be clear. I was going to tell you.” She smiled. “Unlike someone else I know around here.” Her attempt at infusing a teasing tone into her gibe didn’t even coax a smile out of him.
He stood and crossed to the window that looked over the backyard and the acres of green grass and trees that seemed to go on forever. She’d admired that same view many times from the windows off the kitchen since coming to his home. The longer he stood there, the more nervous and full of dread she became. She smoothed her hands on her jeans and crossed to the window, stopping a few feet behind him.
“I’ve been badgering you all morning,” she said. “Time for me to woman up, I guess, and tell you what I’ve discovered.” She moved to the desk to grab the pictures she’d left on top of one of the albums.
“Peyton.”
His somber tone had her turning around. He had his hands in his pockets and was leaning against the windowsill, his long legs braced out in front of him. “We aren’t searching for the three fugitives anymore who escaped with your brother. We found their bodies the same day you spoke to Brian at the high school.”
“Bodies? You found their...bodies?”
“They were burned.”
She pressed her hand to her throat. “Oh my God. To keep the police from knowing it was them? How did they die? Were they shot? Oh, Colin. Please don’t tell me that Brian shot them right before meeting me, with the same gun that I took from him.” She shuddered at the thought of touching the gun that had been used to kill her father and possibly three other men.
He slowly shook his head. “They weren’t shot.”
“I don’t understand. You said the bodies were...” She read the truth in his eyes, and shuddered. “Oh, dear Lord above. Who would... Brian? You’re telling me he—”
“No. The timing wasn’t right. He couldn’t have set the fire. Someone else did, at the same time that he was being chased through the woods miles away by some marshals. We believe that Brian is working with someone else, and that second person is the one who killed the escapees. It could explain a lot. A partner could have arranged transportation, picked them up after they escaped the van, gave them money, had places picked out ahead of time where they could hide to evade the searchers. It can also explain where the gun came from that was used to shoot Jennings and your father.”
“Wait. The gun I took from Brian didn’t belong to Officer Jennings?”
“His gun was still in his holster when they found him. He never had a chance to draw.”
“One more lie to chalk up to Brian. I should have known. You think this...partner...is the one who killed the fugitives?”
“I don’t think one person could have kept them compliant to allow him to tie them up to a tree. Someone must have held a gun on them while someone else tied them up. Then the one with the gun left, and the partner...took care of loose ends.”
“Brian was the one with the gun,” she said, her voice hoarse.
“I believe so, yes.”
She turned back toward the desk and slowly lowered herself into the chair. She picked up the two pictures that she’d taken from McKenzie senior’s office and set them in front of her. “Who do you think his partner is?”
“I have a theory.”
She let out a ragged breath. “Me too.” She held the first photo up in the air. “If you take a fresh look at the smoking gun picture, you’ll see the window in the barn isn’t quite square. That’s because the lower-left corner has a small piece of fabric behind it, inside the barn. It looks almost exactly like the wood on the barn itself, so it’s nearly impossible to notice unless you’re looking for it.” She held up the second picture, the one of her mother wearing the forest-print dress. “That fabric exactly matches the pattern on the dress my mother was wearing the night of the
dance.” She smiled sadly. “I think we both know who started the barn fire now. And we have our answer about whether my mother is alive or dead.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Several times throughout the day, Colin headed to the stairs, determined to talk Peyton into coming down from her room. But each time he put his foot on the bottom step, he stopped. She hadn’t been angry at him when she’d left his office. She’d been sad, confused, overwhelmed. And she’d told him she needed some time to make sense of everything she’d learned, to figure out her next steps.
He wanted more than anything for her to figure out those next steps with him, to let him be there for her. But she wasn’t ready to lean on him, to lessen her burdens by sharing them, to work through their hopes and fears together, like they’d once done. The idea that she might never be ready terrified him. Because the one constant in his life, the one thing he’d realized since she’d come back, was that he’d been fooling himself thinking he’d gotten over her. He could never get over her. He loved her more now than ever before. And he didn’t know how he was going to survive if she walked out of his life again.
One thing was certain, he couldn’t keep pacing the floor all day. He had to get out of here, work off some of this nervous energy. Take his mind off Peyton. Take his mind off an investigation that kept opening up wounds from the past but never seemed to lead to a resolution.
He strode through the family room, through the kitchen and out the door. Ignoring the stairs, he leaped off the back deck and took off at a run, not stopping until he reached the workshop building.
He unlocked the door and flung it open, then propped it back with a piece of wood to get some airflow inside. Even with shorts on because of the heat, he was already sweating. The long sleeves didn’t help. And with Peyton upstairs and showing no sign of coming down, there was no reason to give himself heatstroke. He took off his shirt and flung it on a workbench. Then he headed straight to the broken tractor, determined to finally wrestle it into submission.