Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Janice stared down the hallway, considering. “He hung around with other jocks, and he dated a lot of different girls. All the girls liked him. Most of the boys did, too. If he had enemies, it was the players on the rival team, or guys whose girlfriends he messed around with.”
“Any specific person you can think of?”
She shook her head. “It was thirty years ago.”
“Did he have a vehicle?”
“Yes, he did. He drove a blue Camaro with a racing stripe.”
Wade put away his notebook and gave her his card. “Let me know if you remember anything else.”
She accepted the card. “Do you have family in Lost Lake?”
“My mother.”
“What’s her name?”
“Wynona Hendricks. Used to be Nolan.”
Her eyes lit up with recognition. “Wynona Nolan? I remember her. She came every summer to stay with her grandparents.”
This was news to Wade. His great-grandparents were both dead. Wynona had taken him and Billy to visit the ranch a couple of summers when they were kids. He hadn’t realized Wynona had spent her summers here, as well.
“How old are you?” Janice asked.
“Thirty.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “You should talk to her.”
“About what?”
Janice made a vague gesture at him, from head to toe. Wade rose from the chair, stunned by her insinuation. She was saying that Cameron Pickett, football wizard and indiscriminate seducer of young women, might be his father.
“Thank you for your time,” he said, and walked away.
Wade couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered this possibility before. He didn’t look like anyone else in his family. What if his mother hated him because he reminded her of Cameron? What if his mother had been involved in Cameron’s death?
As he ducked into the elevator, a chill traveled along his spine.
He left the hospital in a rush and drove to Nolan Ranch.
Sickening visions plagued him. He didn’t bother to call dispatch, even though he was on the clock.
His career implosion seemed like a minor setback compared to the soul-wrecking epiphany about his parentage.
When he arrived, his mother was still in her room, still asleep, still wearing the silk mask. “Cameron Pickett,” he said.
She sat forward and pushed up the mask. “Who?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
Wynona’s expression revealed a combination of fatigue, distress, and sorrow. She looked like a woman who’d arrived at her own reckoning. She rose from the bed and opened a drawer in her vanity.
“No, you don’t,” he said, slamming it shut. “No pills.”
“At least let me get some coffee.”
“Fine.”
He waited while she brewed a fresh pot. He poured himself a cup, though he hardly needed caffeine. His senses were on high alert, his mind going in a thousand different directions. He needed answers, now.
“I have to start with your father,” she said, sipping coffee. “He’s part of the story.”
Wade nodded.
“Boyd was a police officer in San Angelo, where I grew up. My entire senior year, he begged me for a date. I finally broke down and went out with him.”
Wade’s father—or rather, the man he’d thought was his father—was six years older than Wynona. She’d been seventeen to his twenty-three. It was a significant disparity in age, power, and life experience.
“We dated a few times. One night, he got me drunk and took advantage. I didn’t say no, but I’m not sure it matters. I wasn’t sober enough to consent.”
Wade swore under his breath, hating Boyd Hendricks with a passion.
“He apologized afterward and asked me to marry him. I refused. Then I went to Lost Lake for the summer and met Cameron.” She lifted her eyes to his slowly. “I thought I was in love with him, which makes what happened even more horrific.”
“What happened?”
“Near the end of the summer, I found out I was pregnant. We went to the swimming hole one afternoon to talk.”
“Did you know who the father was?”
“No, but I told Cameron he was the only possibility. When I suggested getting married, he laughed in my face. He said I wasn’t even girlfriend material. I slapped his face, and he…” She broke off, swallowing hard. “He backhanded me.”
Wade waited for her to continue, his throat tight.
“I was scared but I wasn’t done fighting.
I grabbed a rock and threw it at him. He started yelling about how I was a crazy bitch and he was going to kill me, so I picked up a second rock.
When he came at me again, his fist was raised.
I hit him before he could land another blow.
” Her watery gaze met his. “He fell down and never got up.”
Wade curled his own hands into fists. “What did you do with the rock?”
“I threw it in the water.”
“How did you bury him?”
“I didn’t. I was afraid to touch him, and I didn’t think I could drag him anywhere. He was too heavy.”
“You got help,” he said.
“I called Boyd. For all his faults, he loved me.”
Wade cringed at the words he’d spoken last night, still horribly true.
“He agreed to come to Lost Lake and get rid of the body. I agreed to marry him and have the baby.”
“That is so fucked up,” Wade said.
She gave him a wobbly smile. “Yes.”
Wade couldn’t have imagined a worse origin story.
He wanted to tell his mother that she was brave, and that Pickett had gotten what he deserved, but those reassuring statements wouldn’t form on his lips.
He rose from the chair, his stomach roiling.
“Human remains were found by the lake after the tornado.”
“I know. Mary told me.”
He went to the sink and stared out the kitchen window. “The circumstances were suspicious enough to warrant an investigation. I opened it myself. I recommended a wrongful death determination.”
“Are you going to arrest me for murder?”
“Of course not.”
“And he hasn’t been identified?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
He turned to look at her. “The problem is that someone else might connect the dots, and I can’t stop them. I’m not in charge of the investigation anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was taken off the case this morning.”