Chapter Seventeen #2
“Rory.”
Her eyes flew open, and she peered up at the voice. Anthony Harris stood over her. For a moment, she felt so disoriented she couldn’t speak.
Where had he come from? What was he doing here? Why was he talking to her? The man had turned his back on her just as his wife had…just as nearly everyone else had.
“I just heard about Shane.”
She blinked. The idea that she was not hallucinating finally sank in. She moistened her lips, found her voice. “He was murdered.” A sharp intake of air made her realize she’d stopped breathing the moment he said her name. “Stabbed…like Pete.”
“We need to talk.” Anthony glanced around the nearly deserted lobby. “Can you spare a few minutes?”
Somehow she levered herself to her feet. “Of course. What would you like to talk about?” Dumb question but a necessary one.
“Let’s step outside.” He looked around again, his gaze hesitating on the officer at the desk and a couple of other uniforms nearby.
“All right.”
She moved into step next to him as they crossed the lobby. He held the door for her to go outside ahead of him. Once they were clear of the entrance, he gestured to his vehicle.
“We can sit in my SUV.”
It was the same big, black SUV he’d owned when she and Pete met. One of the most expensive models.
Once they were inside the vehicle, it was as if the world had gone silent. The luxurious SUV was nearly soundproof.
Anthony sat facing forward, his hands braced on the steering wheel. Rory waited for him to speak. She had no clue what he wanted to say, but she wasn’t about to shatter the moment by speaking. One wrong word from her could suddenly stop his abrupt about-face.
She wondered if Eudora knew he was here.
She stared forward as well. Wished Chance would appear in the lobby. She should send him a text to let him know what she was doing. She started to reach for her phone, and the man spoke.
“I believe Shane had something to do with Pete’s murder.”
For a moment she felt sure she had heard him wrong. “What?”
He nodded. “I’m almost certain it was him.” His head swiveled so that he faced in her direction. “I thought he acted funny at the funeral. Then he disappeared for training. It just all seemed so coincidental.”
She held back the anticipation, too afraid to get her hopes up yet. “Do you have any kind of proof?”
He looked her squarely in the eye then. “I do. Yes. I wasn’t sure until your conviction was overturned and we learned there would have to be a new trial. That made me take a long hard look at everything. I started to think about all the little things that didn’t add up.”
Despite her throat being nearly closed, she managed to swallow. “What little things?”
“Like I said, how he behaved at the funeral. Then he withdrew from our lives. I can’t even tell you the last time I saw him until yesterday.”
“You saw him yesterday?” He’d met with Shane yesterday, and now he was here with her. That had to mean something. Had Anthony confronted him? Was he going to share whatever he believed with her now?
He looked at her again. “There’s something you need to see.”
“Okay.”
He started the SUV and backed out of the parking slot. About half a dozen emotions turned on inside her. Hope…fear…uncertainty. But determination won the battle. Rather than demand to know where he was taking her, she sat back, buckled her seat belt and let him drive.
They rode across town in silence. All the shops were closed. Only a restaurant here and there remained open. The idea that she was hungry flitted through her mind. But all that mattered right now was that maybe she was about to learn the truth.
He turned on the blinker and took the right onto Old Larkinsville Road.
“Are we going to Shane’s house?”
Anthony didn’t answer. Just stared straight ahead and kept driving.
The fear took top billing then. “I should let Chance know. He’s probably looking for me by now.” She pulled out her cell phone.
Anthony snatched it from her hand.
She tried to reach for it. “What’re you doing?”
His window rolled down, and he tossed her phone out.
Oh hell. “Stop this car and let me out now.” She reached for the door handle then.
The gun was in her face before she could blink.
Pete’s father had a gun?
The realization startled her. Pete insisted his family hated guns. He hated guns.
Even in the dim glow from the dash lights, she could see that this was no little gun either. It was bigger…like the ones the thugs in the movies carried.
Her heart started that crazy wild pounding again.
She glanced around the vehicle. The console.
The dash. Where was Anthony’s cell phone?
Probably in his pocket. She stared at the jacket he wore.
He and Pete had been alike in the way they dressed.
Always neat and professional. Even in the summer they wore lightweight sports jackets.
God, she missed him.
She had to think…had to find a way to pull this situation back.
“You’re right,” she said in hopes of shifting his attention from the gun he held in one hand while he navigated the SUV with the other. “I think Shane was involved in Pete’s murder.”
Anthony said nothing.
“Rick Hill, the man who worked with him on those other robberies, told us that we would never be able to pin anything on Shane because he was untouchable.”
Anthony still said nothing, but his jaw visibly tightened.
She was making headway. “Shane himself told me he knew I was innocent.” That was a stretch, but Anthony didn’t know.
His foot seemed to press harder on the accelerator with every word she said. The way he took the curves had her stomach pitching. But she couldn’t stop. She had to make him see that whatever he was thinking, he was wrong about her.
“I would never have hurt Pete,” she said, struggling to sound calm and reasonable. “I loved him, and he loved me. How do you think he would feel, knowing his family had treated me this way?”
“You—” he glared at her, taking his eyes from the road “—don’t bring my son into this.”
The wheels bounced off the edge of the pavement, and he whipped the steering wheel left to get back fully on the road. Regaining control of the vehicle required both hands. At least the gun wasn’t aimed at her anymore.
Rory’s seat belt tightened on her shoulder. Her pulse skittered into panic mode. He was going to get them both killed. “Please slow down.”
The speed lessened a fraction.
“I know you think I did this awful thing,” she said, defeat weighing on her. “I get it. But you’re wrong. I truly believe it was Shane and that…awful Rick Hill.”
“Just shut up,” he snarled.
“Mr. Harris,” she urged, “whatever you think of me, consider your wife for a moment. Eudora needs you. If you do this…whatever it is you have in mind…she’s going to be devastated.”
“Everything I have ever done,” he spewed, “was for her.”
The headlights flashed over the trailer in the distance. Shane’s house. The police were gone now, but yellow crime scene tape was draped around the place. Hanging ominously from the trees around his yard.
Anthony turned into the driveway. Shane’s truck was gone. She imagined the police had taken it to a lab for inspection.
The man behind the wheel got out. Her fingers closed around the door handle, but if she tried to run, he would just shoot her. She couldn’t outrun a bullet. Especially since she had no idea what sort of marksman he was.
Anthony came around to her door. He jerked it open. “Get out.”
Since the gun was aimed at her once more, she did as he said.
“Go inside,” he ordered.
She walked the few feet to the porch steps and climbed them slowly. She stood at the door, but it was sealed shut. The mobile home was a crime scene. The police tape on the door left no doubt.
“Open it.”
She started to argue but didn’t see the point. Instead, she twisted the knob and pulled with all her might. Didn’t budge.
“It’s locked.”
He shoved her to the side, then used his whole body to force the door open. Again, Rory glanced around and wondered what her odds were of getting out of his line of sight before he could shoot.
Just then he grabbed her by the arm and forced her inside. He flipped on a light.
The stench of blood hung in the air. Rory figured it had been too fresh when she and Chance had arrived, or maybe it was worse now just because she knew what had happened.
“Why are we here, Anthony?” She looked to the man who held the gun.
In his face were glimpses of Pete. He’d looked far more like his father than his mother.
He’d barely inherited anything from her, in Rory’s opinion.
He’d been kind and slow to anger like his father.
She stared at the gun in Anthony’s hand.
Had his son’s murder driven him to this?
“You did all this,” he said.
She wanted to argue with him, but it didn’t seem prudent. He had a gun, after all. Surely Chance was out of his interview by now. Would one of the officers in the lobby recall who she’d left with? Were there cameras that would show her leaving?
“It was your fault.” He squeezed his eyes shut as if the need to cry had suddenly overwhelmed him.
“I would never have hurt Pete,” she said softly. “It wasn’t me.”
His eyes flew open once more. “Yes. It was you. If you hadn’t come into his life, my son would still be alive.”
Hurt twisted inside her. Maybe he was right. Maybe this was her fault.
“I’m sorry.”
He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the kitchen. Heart pounding, she stumbled past where Shane had been stabbed to death.
She understood now. He was going to kill her. Tears welled in her eyes.
He forced her into a narrow hall, past a bathroom and a bedroom, to a room where the hall ended.
He shoved her into the room and turned on the light.
“Look!” he ordered, gesturing to the floor with the weapon.
She stared downward where old, worn carpet—probably original to the decades-old trailer—covered the floor.
Shag carpet. The colors were faded, but there was no denying what they were…
blue and green. Understanding settled in.
These were the green and blue fibers found in the bed where she was assaulted and on Pete’s shirt.
This was the evidence that had been suppressed…the single piece of evidence that proved someone besides Rory and Pete had been in the cottage that night.
She looked to Anthony. “Then you know.”
He nodded. “I’ve known from the beginning.”