Chapter 83
“If not up here, then where?” Melissa asked.
“Let’s just get it done.” The doc glanced back at Caroline, still not moving in the seat.
Was that a little guilt? A chink in the armor?
He hadn’t killed Lila or Bonnie. Until now he hadn’t been involved in any actual murders.
And despite his vague belief in Melissa’s crazy shit, that was a flicker of hope for Anna.
He might help her if this dragged on longer.
“The basement,” the sheriff said. He crouched by Anna’s bag and took out the police file. “I’m going to need your phone too. Delete those pictures of Bonnie’s cards.”
“Whatever.” Anna refused to let him see her fear as Melissa hauled her to her feet, and he held her phone up to her face to open it. She still had one card hidden upstairs. A card up her sleeve. Maybe that would undo him even if she died tonight.
“I didn’t want this to happen.” The sheriff sighed. “I told you to let it alone. Told you to stop. But you wouldn’t listen. You brought us to this.”
“Oh yeah, it was all about me. Not about you protecting your own sorry ass. Such a creep.” Anna looked at him in disgust. “Old man like you with a girl that age. She loved you and you murdered her for it. You murdered her and your unborn child.”
“It wasn’t like that.” His jaw clenched. “It was an accident.”
“Yeah, like Lila was an accident.” She was proud that she managed to let out a small, derisory laugh. “Did Bonnie accidentally hit herself on the back of her head with one of those awards in the dental clinic?” He flinched. So she was right. That was how it happened.
“Where’s your grandmother?” he asked her. That made Anna’s heart trip. It was bad enough she and Callie were in this. Grandma had done enough already.
“Asleep. She doesn’t need to be part of this.”
“Leave Evelyn be.” The doc kept his gun on Anna. “Less harm done, the better.”
Yes, Anna thought, watching the grim set of his face. This was leaving a bad taste in his mouth. He hadn’t been present for the other two murders. Maybe he wouldn’t have the stomach for this one.
“Come on, then.” Melissa’s foot tapped, impatient, as Sheriff Adams took stock of Caroline in the chair and then scooped her unconscious body up in his arms with a grunt.
“Don’t touch her,” Anna pleaded. “She’s out cold. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Unless she wakes up.” He couldn’t meet her gaze and Anna’s heart leaped to her mouth. Surely they couldn’t see Caroline as a threat. “Now move,” the sheriff continued, nodding Anna forward.
The doc led the way toward the basement and Anna followed, Melissa in her mad mask behind her and the sheriff with Caroline at the back.
“Why are you helping them?” she asked Dr. Burdett.
“What do they have over you?” Melissa said he’d helped with the Lila case, which was way before Bonnie and the sheriff’s affair.
So he hadn’t helped thinking he was only hiding a pregnancy.
If he’d been involved with Lila’s cover-up, then he must have known the sheriff killed Bonnie when he helped with that too.
“Everyone in a small town has secrets,” Melissa said. “Even the good doctor. You think he hasn’t got blood on his hands? Think again.”
“Emily Ardale,” the doctor said quietly, opening the basement door.
“The wife of the man with MS? You killed her?” A flash of brightness outside as the storm grew closer.
“No. I loved her. With all my heart. Gene shot her and the boy just before I got there. I killed him for it. It was justice. The sheriff understood that. He saw my grief. My remorse. Love in this town runs deep.”
“Well,” Melissa added, prodding Anna forward as more thunder shook the house. “Justice and the fact that Gene finally found out you’d been banging his wife and that kid of his was yours. Wouldn’t have been great for you if the town heard about that at his trial.”
The light was already on in the basement and Anna frowned as she followed Dr. Burdett down, leaning against the banister for support, one foot throbbing and her hand on fire with pain. Below them, a soft voice was singing, humming a tune. Oh no. Grandma.
She was sitting in her nightdress, on a packing crate against the wall, hugging a book to her chest, probably her Bible, rocking, half singing, half humming to herself.
Anna didn’t need to wonder at the song. It was the same one Grandma had been singing for a while.
Grandma didn’t look up until they’d all made it down into the basement, the thunder muffled under the ground.
She reached the end of the tune as they gathered around her, her lost eyes resting on Melissa. “Send in the clowns,” she said softly.