Chapter 42
Savannah’s breath labored in her chest, and she wished she wasn’t wearing heels, but she’d wanted to look nice for date night
with Hez. He was several strides ahead of her, and it was impossible to keep up. The salty breeze from Bon Secour Bay tugged
strands of hair from her updo and blew them across her face. She swiped them away impatiently.
Michael and Jimbo were in custody, so who could be breaking in? It made no sense when the evidence to convict them was ironclad
without the phone. Her mind whirled with possibilities, but she found nothing logical to explain them.
The streetlights cast enough of a glow to keep Hez in sight until he reached the corner of the police building and dashed
toward the back. Since running was impossible anyway, she slowed her pace before she broke an ankle in these stupid shoes.
The police might already be on-scene too.
The door to the front of the police building opened, and a masked man dressed in black darted through.
His shoulder plowed into her before she could step out of the way, and she instinctively clutched him to try to stop their trajectory to the ground.
They crashed down together, and the pavement scraped her left elbow and leg.
His heavy weight was on top of her, but she rolled and managed to get on top of him.
He struggled to toss her off, but she held on. “Hez!” she screamed, holding on with all her might. She couldn’t let him get
away.
The man succeeded in rolling her over so his heavy weight pinned her down. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs
around his. She smelled pipe tobacco on his clothing, the same cherry scent her father used. And the man’s breath smelled
of lemon drops. “Hez, help me!”
Seconds later Hez arrived and got the man in a headlock. “Let go, I’ve got him.”
Savannah released her grip as Hez hauled the guy off her. She got up and reached out to yank off the black ski mask—but she
couldn’t do it. Familiar brown eyes pleaded with her from the holes in the mask. Her hand shook. Pipe tobacco and lemon drops?
It couldn’t be.
Hez pulled off the mask and her father’s pale face stared back at her. He struggled to escape Hez’s grip. “Let go of me. This
is a misunderstanding.”
A dawning realization widened Hez’s blue eyes, and his lips flattened. He gave Dad a shake. “What’s the misunderstanding,
Pierre? What were you doing in there?”
Dad licked his lips. “I—I thought I saw a burglar, so I was checking it out.”
“And you just happened to have a ski mask in your pocket?”
“I, uh . . . It must have been there from a ski trip.”
Hez’s voice was tight with fury. “And you didn’t call 911?”
“I didn’t have a phone.”
Hez roughly patted Dad down with his free hand. He yanked out a phone and tossed it on the ground. It was the dirty old burner phone from Bruno’s trap.
Dad’s lips worked, but no sound came out.
“You had to get that phone, didn’t you?” Hez’s grip tightened, and Dad struggled for breath. “You were behind Ella’s death.”
Her dad thrashed in Hez’s grip. “No!”
Hez went on, building the damning case against her father. “Her file was the one thing that made no sense for Michael to have
in his possession. Why would he want it if he was involved? He would have known everything that went down. He had just as
much dirty evidence on you as you had on him, didn’t he?”
Something in her father seemed to break. He slumped and twisted his hands together. “No, no, you don’t understand. Ella would
have been perfectly safe if Deke hadn’t screwed up. And I made sure the ransom money wouldn’t have come from you—I had a softhearted,
rich widow ready to pony up the price. It would have been a few hours, and Ella would have been back home safe and sound.
It was Deke’s fault, not mine.”
He cared so little for his own granddaughter that he would be willing to traumatize them all? Dozens of memories slammed into
her brain: Ella running to climb into her grandfather’s arms, the way she called him “Pops,” her dimpled smile when he stopped
over. His apparent love had been nothing but a sham.
Bile burned the back of Savannah’s throat, and she rushed to the grass to vomit up the oysters and bread she’d eaten a few
minutes ago.
Her father’s voice penetrated her fog of horrified revelation. “Savannah, I never meant for anything to happen to her. It was an accident.”
She straightened and turned to stare at him with new understanding. Loathing toward him had stripped away any illusions still
clinging from her childhood. Was he even capable of love? What kind of man would do this?
“You were already skimming money from TGU. Why would you risk Ella’s life for more? She loved you.”
Her father’s eyes watered. “I—I got into a spot of trouble with a gambling debt. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
A rush of movement came from the back of the building, and Augusta burst into view with two uniformed officers. She clapped
cuffs on Dad and glanced at Hez with a question in her eyes.
“He confessed to orchestrating the kidnapping attempt that killed our daughter,” he said in a bereft tone. His hands fell
away as one of the officers led her father, still protesting, away.
The strength ebbed from Savannah’s legs, and she sank onto the grass with tears surging to her eyes. Hez settled on the grass
beside her and pulled her into his arms. She wept against his chest. “How could he?” she whispered. “How could he?”
Michael leaned against the wall of the exercise yard at the Bay Minette jail, watching a basketball game. The hot June sun
and thick humidity slowed the players to a jog and took the spring out of their jumps. Michael wasn’t interested in basketball,
but he didn’t have anything better to do.
A big, heavily tattooed man walked up and nodded to Michael before taking a spot along the wall, bringing the now-familiar scent of unwashed male body with him.
Patrick Jefferson was one of several of Michael’s employees who had been rounded up during the smuggling raids and were still at Bay Minette awaiting trial or serving short sentences.
“Morning, Mr. Michael. How’d the arraignment go? Is your lawyer workin’ on a plea deal?”
“Pled not guilty, of course. As for a plea deal . . .” Michael shrugged one shoulder. “My attorney is meeting with the DA
today, but it doesn’t matter much. I’ll be in prison for the rest of my life.”
They watched the game in silence for several minutes. Then Patrick nudged Michael and nodded toward the far end of the yard.
“That him?”
Michael looked in the direction Patrick indicated. Under the watchful eye of a guard, Pierre Legare wandered along a weedy
strip of grass, shuffling like a zombie. His normally perfect silver-streaked brown hair was matted on one side, and his face
was unshaven and slack. Michael doubted Pierre had slept much since his arrest two days ago. “Yeah, that’s Pierre Legare.”
“Heard about him on the news last night. The TV in the recreation area had him on every channel.” Patrick made a face like
his septic tank had just backed up. “Killed his own granddaughter and pinned it on ol’ Deke. Those Legares are a bad bunch.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
“Trash. Total trash.”
“Yep.”
Patrick lowered his voice and leaned toward Michael. “Wanna take out the trash? I’ll bet we can get to him, even in protective custody.”
Pierre’s gaze wandered across the yard and found Michael. Recognition and surprise flickered in his bloodshot eyes for a moment,
but his face went blank again after a few seconds and he went back to meandering.
“Not worth it.” Michael turned to Patrick. “Man’s already dead.”
Patrick shrugged meaty shoulders. “If you say so.” He turned back to the basketball game, leaving Michael to his thoughts.
Already dead. Pierre had lost everything he cared about—his money, his reputation, his pampered lifestyle. His facade had
been ripped away, exposing the decayed soul underneath for all to see. He loved to lord it over everyone he met, and now even
the common criminals in the yard looked down on him—and rightly so. Pierre now lived in what Walt Whitman called “hell under
the skull-bones,” and Michael had no intention of freeing him through physical death.
Michael had suspected Pierre’s role in Ella Webster’s death from the moment Deke told him about the mystery phone calls in
the aftermath of the drowning. Michael knew he hadn’t called Deke, of course, and Pierre’s ongoing snooping easily could have
discovered that Michael used burner phones and voice-altering software. The thought of a man kidnapping his own grandchild
for money was stomach-churning but perfectly in character for Pierre Legare.
Michael had scoured the files he had on Pierre for evidence proving his suspicions.
He even had Tammy grab the file on Ella’s death in hopes that it might contain a puzzle piece or two.
He’d come up dry, but Deke’s confession had set the Websters on the trail, just as Michael had hoped it would.
His nephew wasn’t the sharpest of the Willards, but he had unintentionally set a Legare to catch a Legare.
Beautiful. And to make the situation even sweeter, the news stories about Pierre were sprinkled with tidbits Michael knew came from his file.
Michael had won. His victory had come at a steep price, but it was complete. And yet . . .
They said vengeance was a dish best served cold, but Michael felt like he was holding an empty icy plate. Everything he’d
done, everything he’d sacrificed, led him to this point. He had come to the end of the mission he set himself—really the end
of his life—and he finally gripped the prize in his hands. But somehow he held only ashes.