Proof of Guilt

by Lisa Jackson

  Ivy didn’t gasp again, but she made a soft, strangling sound, groped around for the chair that was behind her and sank down onto it. “Where’s it been this whole time?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “The lab report doesn’t mention that. Of course, my theory was that Travis had hidden it somewhere. Or ditched it like he did the knife. And maybe he did.”

  Someone had found the knife, though, hidden it away and then tried to use it to kill Jodi. That’d happened only a month earlier. But the person who’d done that was dead and couldn’t have been the one to send the watch.

  “I’ll have it tested, of course,” Gabriel continued a moment later. “Not just for blood but also to verify the partial prints that this report says were on the watch band.”

  “Prints?” Ivy repeated. “Whose?”

  Theo figured it was Travis’s prints. Since Sherman’s blood had been found on Travis’s shirt, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for the prints to belong to his father, as well.

  Apparently they didn’t, though.

  “They’re Lacey’s,” Gabriel said.

  Oh, man. That explained why Gabriel had wanted Ivy’s stepdaughter brought in, but that was about all it explained.

  “Lacey was twenty when our parents were killed,” Ivy pointed out. “And she didn’t know them. She didn’t even live close to Blue River when the murders happened.”

  “That’s exactly why I want to talk to her,” Gabriel continued. “If those are really her prints, then she must have touched the watch at some point—either at the time of the murder or afterward.”

  “Afterward could mean someone is setting her up,” Theo pointed out. But then there was a problem with that. “Who had the watch to be able to do something like that, and why set up Lacey this way? If someone wanted to tie her to the attacks, there would have been an easier way to do that by just creating a fake money trail.”

  Obviously, neither Gabriel nor Ivy had answers for that, and if it was a setup, Lacey might not know it, either. But it could mean she’d come in contact with someone who’d been present at the murders. Could.

  Theo hoped Ivy didn’t take this the wrong way, but he had to ask. “Is it possible that your late husband knew your parents?”

  She shook her head. But then she paused. “I honestly never asked him. All of that was still so raw and painful when I met Chad, and he seemed to sense that I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  Theo looked at Gabriel, who was already taking out his phone. “I’ll see if Chad’s name came up at any point during the investigation or the check of the old police records.”

  That brought Ivy to her feet. “You can’t think Chad killed them.” She didn’t seem to have any doubts about that. “Because he was a gentle man. He definitely wasn’t a killer.”

  Theo took her hand and had her sit again. “I believe you, but it’s possible he had some connection to my father. He might have known him, might have sympathized with the feud that was going on between the Becketts and the Cantons. Yeah, it’s a long shot,” he quickly added, “but we’re working with nothing but long shots here.”

  And that meant Theo might have to talk to Travis after all. Not to have him meet Nathan. Not a chance. But rather to start ruling out any association he could have possibly had with Chad.

  “How’d you meet Chad?” Gabriel asked the moment he ended his call.

  She narrowed her eyes a little at her brother. Obviously, she wasn’t pleased that her late husband was coming into question. Probably because it was too hard to wrap her mind around the fact that she might have been living with the man who’d had some part in her parents’ death. And maybe he didn’t. Again, this was a long shot.

  “I met him at a livestock auction near Houston,” Ivy finally answered. “I’d just bought a small place and wanted to buy a horse. Chad sat next to me, and when Nathan started fussing, he started making funny faces at him and got him to stop.”

  For reasons Theo didn’t want to explore, hearing that caused him to scowl. He figured what he was feeling was some old-fashioned jealousy, but hell, it was hard to hear of any man having that kind of interaction with his son when he hadn’t had the chance to even see the baby.

  Hard to hear about Ivy being with another man, too.

  That kiss was responsible for him feeling that. And in this case, the jealousy didn’t make a lick of sense. He’d been with other women since Ivy, but then, he hadn’t married any of them. In fact, he hadn’t even gotten past the casual sex stage. Theo had always blamed that on his job, but after that kiss with Ivy, he knew that his feelings for her were still there, and they had probably been playing into it even after all these years.

  Ivy pushed her hair from her face, looked away. “After we met at the auction, Chad asked me out for coffee, and eventually I went…four months later.”

  So Ivy hadn’t exactly jumped at the chance to be with another man. Not that Theo believed she had. Nathan had been nearly a year old when she’d married Chad, and that meant by then Theo had been out of her life for almost two years. She’d moved on. But she’d moved on with a man who could have some connection to the Beckett murders.

  “If Chad had known my parents or had anything to do with that watch, why would he have asked me out?” Ivy questioned. “Why would he have married me? Because I can promise you that he never asked a question about my parents, and he certainly never tried to hurt me. So you’re wasting your time trying to link Chad to Lacey’s prints on that watch.”

  “You’re wasting your time to link me to it, too,” Lacey said.

  The woman came into the doorway. Cameron was right behind her, and judging from the deputy’s frustrated expression, he’d been trying to hold her back.

  Lacey aimed glares at all of them, including Cameron, and her glare was still in place when her attention landed on the watch. “That’s why you brought me in here?” she asked Gabriel.

  Gabriel gave her a glare of his own. “Your prints are on it. Why?”

  Theo carefully watched her expression, and if she was the least bit concerned about the accusations against her, she didn’t show it. Instead, she shrugged. “About a week or so ago, I was at the mall, and when I came out, that watch was lying on the hood of my car. I picked it up. I figured someone walking by had found it, thought it was mine and left it for me.”

  Theo didn’t glare, but he was certain he looked skeptical. Because he was. “How’d the watch get from you to here?” he demanded.

  “How should I know? I tossed it on the ground, got in my car and left. I didn’t want to leave it on the hood because I thought it might hit my windshield and chip the glass.”

  “And you didn’t think it was suspicious that someone would put a watch on your car?” Ivy asked. There was skepticism in her voice, too.

  Lacey hadn’t seemed to object too much to Theo’s question, but she clearly didn’t like Ivy’s. “No, because like I said, I thought someone believed it was mine. Obviously, it’s not my style, and it belongs to a man. I don’t even have a current boyfriend.”

  If Lacey was telling the truth, then someone indeed had set her up. But Theo wasn’t convinced that it’d been the truth that had come out of Lacey’s mouth.

  “Did you see anyone near your vehicle before you spotted the watch?” Gabriel pressed.

  “No. Now, what’s this about? Why is that watch so blasted important?”

  “It belonged to my father,” Ivy answered after everyone paused. “It went missing the night of his murder.”

  Now Lacey had a reaction. Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “Oh, no. You’re not going to try to pin that on me. It’s bad enough that I’m stuck in this cowpoke town because the sheriff here thinks I might be behind the attacks to kill the likes of you. I won’t have you accusing me of your parents’ murders.”

  “How about your father?” Theo asked, ignoring the insul
ts Lacey had peppered into her comments. “Could Chad have killed them?” He knew that wasn’t going to earn him a kind look from Ivy. It didn’t.

  Lacey howled out a protest, but she didn’t limit it to just Theo. She snapped toward Ivy, too. “You’re behind this, aren’t you? You think if you can get me out of the way, then I can’t get what’s rightfully mine.”

  Ivy blew out a long breath and stood, facing Lacey head-on. “I’m not behind this. If I’d found my father’s watch, I would have given it to the cops because it might have some kind of evidence on it. I darn sure wouldn’t have put it on your car, knowing that you could toss it.”

  That didn’t seem to soothe Lacey any. The veins in her neck were practically bulging, and her nostrils were flared. “Please. You’d do anything to stop me from getting my father’s money.”

  “Not anything,” Ivy argued. “But there is something I can do to make sure my son is safe, and I did it. I had a lawyer redo my will. Since I’m trustee of Nathan’s inheritance, I can make decisions about that, too. So if anything happens to Nathan and me, all of your father’s money will go to charity.”

  The color drained from Lacey’s face, and she looked at Theo for confirmation of that. He had no idea if it was true or not, but he nodded. “This way, you have no motive to come after our son.”

  “I never tried to kill him!” she shouted. Then she snapped back to Ivy. “You have no right to a single penny of my dad’s money.”

  “Neither do you.” Ivy huffed again, and Theo could see she was having to wrestle with her own temper. “Look, I would give you the money but your father asked me not to do that. It was his dying wish, something he told me many times over, and I’m going to do what he wanted.”

  Good call, because at this point just giving Lacey the money might not put an end to the danger. It seemed to Theo that Lacey wanted Ivy and Nathan completely out of the picture.

  “My father loved me,” the woman stated through clenched teeth.

  “And he knew you,” Ivy agreed. “He didn’t think you were responsible enough to handle another large sum of money. Plus, he knew you wouldn’t share it with me.”

  “Because it wasn’t your money to have! You brainwashed my father. You got him to fall for you because he’d always wanted a son. Well, your brat kid isn’t his son and never will be.”

  “No, because he’s my son.” Theo probably shouldn’t have blurted that out, but Ivy wasn’t the only one having to put a choke hold on her temper. He started to address the brat comment but decided against it. He’d already said too much.

  “Like I care whose kid he is,” Lacey grumbled. “This isn’t over,” she added to Ivy, and she turned as if to leave.

  “No, it’s not,” Gabriel agreed. “And you’re not going anywhere just yet.” He ignored her protest and went into the hall, motioning for Cameron to join them. “I need you to continue this interview with Miss Vogel, and if she refuses, lock her up. Based on what I have here, we won’t have any trouble getting a court order.”

  Lacey fired glances at all of them. “You’ll be sorry for this,” she spat out, and she slung off Cameron’s grip when he took hold of her arm.

  However, Lacey didn’t head out the front door, something Theo had thought she might try to do. She followed Cameron to his desk.

  Gabriel stepped back in his office and shut the door. “You think she’s lying?” he asked Theo and Ivy.

  “I don’t know,” Theo admitted when Ivy shook her head. “But I don’t trust her.”

  Both Gabriel and Ivy made sounds of agreement to that.

  “Who could have left that watch for her?” Ivy asked, but she didn’t wait for them to answer. “August, maybe? I know he wasn’t at our old house the night of the murders, but maybe Travis gave it to him?”

  No, August hadn’t been at either the Beckett or the Canton house. Instead, he’d been with a woman one town over, and she’d provided him with an alibi for the time of the murders. That didn’t mean, though, that August hadn’t run into Travis later, since Theo’s father hadn’t been found until the following morning. Those were a lot of hours when a transfer like that could have taken place, and there was no way August would have volunteered that Travis had had the watch because it would have added another nail to his conviction for the murders.

  “If Travis gave him the watch, August wouldn’t have turned it over to Gabriel,” Theo pointed out. But Theo had some trouble finishing that theory. “Why wouldn’t August have planted the watch on someone who’s a more plausible suspect, someone we would actually believe could have killed your parents if my father hadn’t done it? Or he could have just tossed it in the river, where it probably would have never been found.”

  Obviously, Theo wasn’t the only one having trouble coming up with a reason for August to do this.

  “Now, Wesley—yes,” Theo went on. “I can see an angle for him on this. If he’d somehow managed to get the watch, then he could have used it to frame Lacey so it would take suspicion off him.”

  “How would Wesley have gotten the watch, though?” Ivy asked.

  Theo had the answer for this one. “Wesley was around during the murder investigation. In fact, he was a San Antonio cop then, and a group of them came out to help comb the area when everyone was looking for Travis. He could have found the watch then.”

  That didn’t explain, though, why a cop would have kept something like that, but maybe Wesley had been dirty even back then. If so, he’d certainly kept his dirty deeds hidden away.

  “There’s a third theory, though,” Theo continued a moment later. One that he hated to even consider. “Someone could be playing a cat-and-mouse game with us. Maybe a person my father has somehow managed to hire.” He paused, not really wanting to consider this one as well, but they needed to look at all of the possibilities. However, it was Gabriel who finished that train of thought for him.

  “Or your father could be innocent, and the real killer is out there,” Gabriel said.

  None of them believed that. Or at least they didn’t want to believe it. Because if it was true, it would turn this investigation—and their lives—upside down. Again. It also meant Theo had no way of protecting Ivy from a nameless, faceless monster who could have already butchered at least two people and had plenty of others in his or her sight.

  Maybe even their son.

  If this was truly someone wanting to spill Beckett blood, then Nathan could be a target. Of course, a killer could also use the boy to draw out Ivy and Theo. And it could work, since both of them would lay down their lives for the boy.

  Theo hadn’t intended to do it, but he slid his hand over Ivy’s shoulder. Gabriel noticed, too. But then he was also the one who’d walked in on Ivy and him shortly after that kiss. Judging from Gabriel’s expression, he was about to dole out some big brother advice. Maybe even a big brother warning. However, his phone rang before he could do that.

  Theo kept his hand in place, and Ivy looked up at him. Their gazes connected for just a second before Gabriel interrupted them.

  “It’s the doctor who performed surgery on the injured woman.” Gabriel put the call on speaker.

  Theo braced himself for the doc to say the woman was dead. That would be tragic not only because she might be truly innocent in all of this, but also because they would lose their chance to question her.

  “She’s awake,” the doctor announced. “And she says her name is Belinda Travers.”

  So she was the woman who’d gone missing from McKenzie’s place. “Did she say anything else?” Theo asked at the same moment Gabriel said, “How soon can I talk to her?”

  “Give it another hour,” the doctor answered. “By then, she should be a little more alert. And as for the other question—yes, she told me something else. She said someone kidnapped her from a bar. She doesn’t know the person who did that, but the reason she was there was to meet August C
anton.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ivy wanted nothing more than to go back to the safe house so she could see Nathan. But there was no way her brother could spare the manpower right now. No way that Theo would let Ivy and him drive back there alone, either. Not after the other attack on the road and with the possibility of hired thugs still being in the area.

  So she paced the hall in front of Gabriel’s office. Waited.

  And worried.

  Gabriel had already questioned the courier and hadn’t uncovered anything new, but her brother was definitely hoping to learn something from the watch, which he’d already sent for processing. Also to learn something from August. Once the man came in, that is. August had some answering to do over Belinda’s accusations that she’d been at McKenzie’s bar to meet him.

  At least Lacey and Wesley wouldn’t be around. Or rather they shouldn’t be. It was unnerving enough having August return, and Ivy didn’t especially want to be under the same roof with all three of their suspects.

  The worries kept coming, too. Because the greatest danger might not be with August, Lacey or Wesley. Gabriel had mentioned the possibility of Travis being innocent, and if by some serious long shot he actually was, then God knew who’d killed her parents. But whoever it was could want her and the rest of her family dead.

  Not exactly a reassuring thought.

  That could explain why she and other members of her family had been getting those threatening letters over the years. There’d been details in some of those letters—such as her mother’s necklace being taken—and the police had purposely kept those out of the reports. It’d been a way of putting a lid on false confessions. So the person who’d written those threats had either managed to hack into those reports, or else he’d been there that night to take the necklace while he’d murdered her mother.

  Ivy had to close her eyes a moment to shut out the images. She’d been the one to discover her parents and had actually stepped in her mother’s blood when she ran to the bodies. There’d been nothing she could do, and she didn’t even remember making the frantic call to Gabriel. Good thing she had, too, because when he’d run to their parents’, he’d discovered Jodi on the path. She was within minutes of bleeding out, and he’d managed to save her.