Down the Darkest Road

by Kylie Brant

  He probably had a hangover, Dylan figured. But when Tina had one, she sure didn’t chow down as much as T did. She didn’t eat at all. He finished scrubbing the pans and put them away. T returned a few minutes later, dressed, as he was wiping off the table, stove, and counters.

  “Gotta get cat food too. And beer.”

  The refrigerator had been full of beer when his mom had left, Dylan recalled. Sacks of empties sat next to the trash can.

  “You want anything?”

  “Naw. Thanks,” he added hastily.

  “When you was little, you always wanted a treat from the store, I remember.” T grinned at him. “You want me to bring you a treat, kid?”

  Dylan sort of remembered that. “I’m okay.”

  “Suit yourself.” The man went for his coat and then headed to the side door. “Lock up after me.”

  As if he needed the reminder. Dylan secured the door after T left and took out the cell again. Checked for new texts. There weren’t any.

  Because Grace was leaving it up to him. Nothing more to say unless he figured out a way to get . . .

  A crash in the next room had him jumping a foot. What the . . . ? Dylan rounded the corner into the living room in time to see the cat tearing out of his bedroom like its tail was on fire. He went in to check it out and groaned aloud.

  The piggy bank he’d often talked himself out of smashing was lying in pieces on the floor. The cat must have knocked it off the dresser. Dylan went to the kitchen and dug a couple of plastic bags out of the trash and went back to clean up the mess, cussing the animal the whole way.

  He put the pieces in one sack and the change in the other. He’d have to vacuum the smallest bits. Dylan tried to scoop up fistfuls of the coins, but there were tiny pieces of plaster among them, and soon his hands were nicked and bleeding. He wiped them on his jeans and then stopped when he spied something. Reaching out with one finger, he stirred through the mound of change. There was a half of a metal file. He’d broken a nail file off in the opening once when he was trying to pry out enough coins to buy ice cream when he went to town with Trev and his mom.

  There was something else there, mixed with the coins. He fished out a gold key.

  What the heck . . . ? A greasy tangle of fear knotted in his stomach. Dylan dropped it into the money bag as if it had burned his fingers. He didn’t remember what it might have gone to. But something flickered in his memory, there and gone too quickly for him to grasp it.

  Suddenly in a hurry, he picked up the rest of the coins and tied the top of the bag in a knot. He looked around for a place to stuff it where his mom wouldn’t notice when she cleaned. Finally, he stuck it in a corner on the top shelf of the closet, hoping she wouldn’t see it. If she learned the bank was broken, he already knew she’d blame him.

  Before he vacuumed, he went to the bathroom and opened the cabinet to look for some Band-Aids. When he didn’t find any, his gaze was drawn to the half-empty prescription bottles inside it. An antibiotic for his last sinus infection. An even older one with Colton’s name on it. Dylan took out a third bottle. Tina Bandy. He didn’t recognize the name of the medication, but the only time his mom had been sick that he remembered was when she strained her back at work a couple of years ago and had muscle spasms. She’d been off two weeks.

  Muscle relaxants. A thrum of excitement lit Dylan’s veins. That’s what she’d taken then. They’d knocked her out. She’d slept most of the day.

  Mind racing, Dylan wondered how many pills it would take to put T to sleep.

  Chapter 55

  “Cady!” Hannah Maddix looked up from her breakfast with a smile. “What a nice surprise.”

  “I can’t stay.” She squeezed her mom’s hand. “I just wanted to come by and tell you myself.”

  Alma didn’t share Hannah’s delight at the early visit. She’d said nothing after answering the door, just turned and stalked back to the kitchen. She could hold a mammoth-size grudge. Cady had to figure that she’d put Bo up to the call. And that he’d reported back when Cady hadn’t shown up to see him in jail.

  She did a quick visual survey. Hannah looked lovely in a pale-blue blouse that they’d bought a few weeks ago on one of their shopping trips.

  “Work again?” Hannah’s brows drew together. “You’re too dedicated, Cady. I hope you get compensated for that.”

  “It’s fine, Mom. And I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” Hannah walked her to the door. “If I’m free tomorrow, I’ll stop by again.” Cady ignored the glare her aunt threw her as they went by her chair. “Take you out to Della’s or something.”

  Hannah smiled. “I do like ice cream, no matter the temperatures outside.”

  One hand on the doorknob, Cady kissed her cheek. “I’m well aware.”

  The sound of her mom’s laughter lightened a weight she’d been carrying since last weekend. Hearing it was a bittersweet reminder to treasure the good times still ahead, rather than dwell on signs that those times were limited.

  She opened the door, and her mom walked out on the porch with her. Then she frowned. “Where’s your vehicle?”

  “I’m riding with a friend today.”

  Hannah descended the steps slowly, staring hard at Ryder’s county SUV. “Why is there a sheriff’s car here?”

  Foreboding curled in Cady’s gut. “Mom, let’s go back into the house.”

  But she shook off the hand Cady placed on her arm and went farther down the drive, still staring at the vehicle. “What’s he doing here? Why are you with him?” Her voice was filled with confusion. And a rising edge of hysteria.

  Ryder opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle at their approach. Then stilled when Cady waved him back.

  “Get out of here!” shouted Hannah shrilly, running toward him. “Stay away from my daughter. Haven’t you hurt her enough?”

  Cady caught up and positioned herself between the two of them, trying to distract her mom. “You have your socks on outside. Look at your feet. You’re going to get cold. What’s Alma going to say?”

  But Hannah ducked around her and made a beeline for Ryder. Reaching him, she slugged him in the chest. Once. And again. “I never should have listened to you! Never! Why should a little girl do what you and all the other cops couldn’t? I’ll never forgive you for that. Not ever!”

  She rained blows upon him until Ryder’s hands came up to cover hers, holding them firm but still. “My name is Ryder, Hannah. Look at me. You don’t know me. Look at me.”

  “You said it was just a precaution.” Hannah was weeping now, the fight streaming out of her like steam from a teakettle. She leaned heavily against Ryder. “I never should have agreed. She was just a little girl. And we turned her into a killer.”

  We turned her into a killer. We turned her into a killer.

  Hannah’s words pounded a constant tattoo in Cady’s head, each etching a brand there. They’d lingered the entire time she’d calmed her mom, helped her back into the house. During the tongue-lashing she’d gotten from Alma for causing another upset, Cady had accepted the responsibility silently. Had walked back outside and gotten into Ryder’s vehicle and they’d pulled out of the drive. Drove several miles without exchanging a word.

  Her chest ached from the tangle of emotion lodged there. Sometimes the truth didn’t set one free at all. Sometimes it was an anvil drawing one inexorably into an abyss of despair.

  “I need to tell you something,” Ryder said quietly.

  Cady didn’t react. Just continued to stare out the passenger window.

  “I tracked down my dad’s former chief investigative deputy. The one before Jerry Garza. He said something similar to what your mom just did. It sounded an awful lot like he was intimating that my dad had something to do with setting the scene for that night.”

  That night. So many details were missing from her memory. And she’d never been certain if her recollections were gleaned from what she’d been told or if they were her own. She could see herself standing in the kitchen
. Her father leaning against the back door, laughing at Hannah on the floor. Blood dripped down her mom’s face, staining her pretty nightgown. She couldn’t recall what the weapon on the table looked like, but Cady had a vivid recollection of the weight of it in her hand. The sound it made when she’d fired it.

  “He was always one step ahead of the marshals.” Her voice was thready. The two-page USMS report in the sheriff investigative file verified her statement. How different things might have been if Lonny Maddix had been captured earlier.

  Her thoughts were ping-ponging inside her. It took every ounce of strength she had to corral them so logic could take over. “Even if that final scene was orchestrated, it sounded very much like my mom went along with it.”

  “The power dynamic wasn’t equal between the sheriff’s office and her. She was likely pressured. Coerced.” The tightness in Ryder’s voice pierced Cady’s misery. This revelation was as debilitating for him as it was for her.

  She shook her head, self-recrimination filling her. “I should have known that seeing your vehicle could set her off. I knew she had a history with your dad.” Hearing her own words shook her from her inner turmoil for a moment. A hot flood of remorse filled her as she faced him. “I’m sorry. I never meant to tell you that.” His expression had frozen. His grip on the steering wheel looked unnaturally tight.

  “You only confirmed what I’ve been thinking for a while now. My dad was a serial cheater. I’ve known that since I was a teen.”

  But she’d substantiated it. Regret gnawed at her.

  “You recognized that picture of him,” he continued, slowing to take an exit. “The first time you came to my office, when it was still hanging on the wall, and then last time, when we were searching for the files in the basement. I could tell from your reaction.”

  She’d fully planned to keep those details from him out of an unfamiliar sense of protectiveness, even knowing he wouldn’t thank her for it. “I was six, maybe. I’d gotten up hours after my bedtime. Gone looking for my mom. I found her and your dad in the kitchen.”

  “In a compromising situation.”

  His tone was still flat. His face expressionless. And she knew he was keeping the pent-up emotion walled away, much as she was. “Yes.”

  “I was seventeen the first time I realized my dad was cheating on my mom.” His tone was too even. Too expressionless. “I was coming home from a pep rally at school. It was maybe seven o’clock or so. I dropped off the last of my friends and headed to my house. But I saw my dad’s personal car ahead of me in this residential neighborhood. I recognized the license plate. I was just getting ready to call him when he turned into a driveway. The garage door opened, and he drove inside it. Then it closed. When I got home, my mom said he was working late again. And I knew then what was going on. It wasn’t the only time, either. I’m starting to think he had a relationship with all the women in the files I found. Maybe something had gotten out about his behavior, and he hid them away so no one could dig them up as ammunition during a campaign. I just need to check the addresses again. I’m guessing one of them will be the house I saw him at when I was a teenager.”

  How did both of us become ensnarled in the same web of deceit? Cady wondered dully. It defied description.

  “Your aunt didn’t seem particularly reasonable.”

  She gave a short laugh. The understatement of the century. “She’s not, but this time she was right. The last two times I’ve seen my mom, she’s had an episode. I’m the common factor here.”

  “Cady.” The sympathy in his voice had her eyes burning. “The mitigating factor is her disease. The deterioration of her memory. The past is more vivid than the present for her. You said she’d calmed down once you got her indoors.”

  And that lightning switch between fury and the slightly befuddled state had been even more heartbreaking. “If she continues to have issues today, there’s a sedative Alma can give her.” But Cady hated to think of her mom spending her remaining time drugged. Dazed.

  He changed lanes. Belatedly, she saw the flashing strobe bar of a trooper who’d pulled a car over. “When I talked to Dr. Baker on Monday, he said negative emotional memories have more lasting power. If there was something traumatic in her past, it’d make sense that she’d relive it over and over, especially with something to spark an association.” Something like a new nightdress. A sheriff’s car. Or the presence of her daughter? Her fingers curled into her palm, the nails pressing deep.

  “We can’t change the past.” Ryder slid her a glance. “We both have to face the possibility that our parents may have colluded all those years ago. And my father was likely the one who gave your mom the idea of what to do the next time Lonny Maddix showed up at her door.”

  He said nothing else, but he didn’t have to. Cady’s mind had already gone there, picking at the fresh wound like a crow on carrion. Whether Butch Talbot had wielded unprofessional influence or not, her mom had gone along with the plan. And neither of them had considered the lasting effects on the child after using Cady to rid them of their Lonny Maddix problem.

  Chapter 56

  Eric opened his eyes and looked around the bedroom. Then rose, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He’d been in a cold sweat the entire drive back to their rental. The nerves hammering in his pulse had made him so flustered, he’d gotten turned around on the gravel roads. It’d taken twice as long to get home as it should have. He’d pulled into the garage with a rush of relief that had had him sagging against the steering wheel.

  Jesus, he’d gotten himself into a state. He snagged a pair of jeans from the floor and pulled them on before going out to the kitchen. Finding it empty, he continued on to the garage entry and stuck his head out the door. Bruce hadn’t come home. Shutting the door again, he leaned against it.

  He’d almost—almost—called Forrester last night and told him his fears. Embarrassment mingled with relief, because he’d talked himself out of it. Bruce would have told him he was being a dumb-ass, and it was bad enough that it was true, without the other man knowing it too.

  He set about making some breakfast. With a sideways look at Bruce’s closed bedroom door, Eric set a couple of pieces of dry toast on a paper plate and walked to the door. Unlocked it.

  The woman hadn’t changed positions since he was in here last night. Her eyes were wide and staring. For a moment, Eric was afraid she was dead. And he’d have to deal with that mess too. But as he approached, he saw her blink. Setting the plate on the bed next to her, he ordered, “Eat.” Then he retraced his steps and relocked the door.

  Crossing to the table, he sat down, his stomach reminding him he hadn’t eaten last night. He scooped up some eggs and shoved them into his mouth. Bruce hadn’t planned to even feed the woman until he came back. Sometimes, Eric thought as he chugged out of the orange juice carton, he was convinced the man was little more than an animal.

  Chapter 57

  Cady got out of the Jeep and waited with Ryder, Miguel, and SBI agent Rebedeau while Officer Colin Turner walked toward the drive with the sleek Belgian Malinois at his side. Through the overgrown brush partially shrouding the property from view, she could see slivers of the house. Denuded trees crowded the structure, branches nearly sweeping the roof of the building. While many of the homes they’d cleared on the search were ostentatious displays of wealth, with banks of gleaming windows and decks to take in the view, this one was smaller. Unkempt. Heavy wooden shutters blocked the windows. Maybe it belonged to a long-absent owner or, more likely, a landlord more interested in collecting the rent than maintenance.

  “How many owners have recognized the pictures of Loomer and Forrester?” Ryder asked, pulling a pair of gloves out of his coat pocket. Although Waynesville was supposed to be a balmy fifty degrees today, temperatures at this altitude were midthirties. Cady had forgotten to warn him about that, but apparently he’d come prepared.

  “A couple yesterday and just the one today.” All had indicated sightings of the men in Blowing
Rock or Boone, which made Cady even more certain they had to be close to the fugitives’ hideout, despite their lack of success finding it so far. And Cady didn’t kid herself—if the men were up here, they wouldn’t surrender quietly.

  She turned and squinted up the mountainside. Another team was working the houses on the road above them. Surely the homes didn’t ascend much higher. They’d already cleared houses along two more roads so far today and revisited those that had been empty last night.

  Miguel unfolded a map. Studied it. “The higher we go, the more isolated the homes get. This one is two miles from our last stop. The next one is about that far too. Like you said, they’d want that seclusion.” When he was finished with the map, he refolded it, tucked it inside his coat.

  Her radio crackled then. “Green Fork Road, clear. Heading to Broadstone Lane.” Cady had the radio in hand, ready to answer, when she caught sight of Turner waving at them. The dog was sitting. It’d alerted to explosives on the property.

  Chapter 58

  “Everyone and their sister musta been grocery shopping today. Help me with the beer, will you?”

  Dylan took the twelve-packs T handed him and carried them to the refrigerator. He hadn’t heard the car come up the drive. When Teeter had pounded on the kitchen door, Dylan had jumped a foot. Maybe from a guilty conscience. In the man’s absence, he’d ground four muscle-relaxant pills into tiny particles. It’d been more difficult that he’d thought. He’d finally used a hammer. Then he’d emptied one of the containers of antibiotics and carefully poured the powder into the bottle. After hiding it under the bed in his mom’s room, he’d played video games, nerves frayed, waiting for T to return.

  “Here.” The man handed him a sack, then took off his shoes and relocked the door. “Gotcha something anyway. You used to like them when you was a kid. They’re the ones with the double frosting.”