Guilty as Sin

by Jami Alden

  Please let him not be able to get a signal, she thought as she dialed the number for her father’s notoriously unreliable cell phone. Or better yet, please God send a lightning bolt to strike me down right now so I don’t have to tell my father what happened.

  Suck it up, she mentally scolded herself. Michael was missing, possibly in danger, and she had to face reality and take responsibility, no matter how much she wanted to avoid her father’s disapproval.

  Her father answered the phone on just the second ring. His response, when Kate told him what was going on, was exactly as she’d expected and feared.

  But nothing was worse than having to admit that she hadn’t been in the house when Michael went missing. And having to admit why.

  “I was out on the beach,” she said, forcing the words through lips that had gone numb with cold. “I was with Tommy Ibarra.”

  Her father was silent for several seconds, the heaviness of it settling over Kate’s shoulders like a lead blanket. “I will deal with you and your lack of morals and discipline after we find your brother,” he said in an icy tone he’d never used with her before, raising goose bumps over every inch of Kate’s skin.

  The senator and his wife had to wait a couple of hours before their private jet was able to fly them back from Boise. By the time they landed in Sandpoint’s tiny airport, the first pink of dawn was just peeking over the edge of the mountains.

  Since she’d hung up the phone, Kate and Tommy had spent hours going over every detail of the little they’d seen and heard in the moments before they’d discovered Michael’s absence.

  “How long were you away from the house?” asked the sheriff, who had arrived on the scene quickly.

  The kitchen and great room were teeming with people. In addition to the local law enforcement, the Burkharts had arrived shortly after Kate spoke with her father. Lauren, woken by the phone and worried when she heard Michael was missing, had come with them. They’d decided Hailey and John should stay back at their house, on the off chance Michael showed up there.

  A few of the neighbors on the street had come over to see what the police cars and commotion was about, and now a deputy made his way around the room to ask if anyone had seen anyone or anything suspicious.

  “I think it was about forty-five minutes, maybe an hour,” Kate said, sniffing back tears as the guilt and shame gnawed at her from the inside. “I didn’t—” She looked at Tommy, whose face was stark with worry and guilt that mirrored her own. “We didn’t think it would be a big deal, we didn’t go far.”

  Soft arms pulled her into a warm hug. “I’m sure everything will be okay.” Kate recognized Sylvia Ibarra’s voice as she blindly turned into the woman’s fragrant embrace. Tommy had called his parents as soon as Kate had gotten off the phone with her father. Kate had known them only by sight before tonight, but now she was infinitely grateful for their solid, steady presence, the way they offered her and Tommy support absent of the accusation she could feel seething from the pores of everyone around her.

  “Where’s Kate?” Her father’s voice cut like a razor through the room.

  Kate lingered for one more second, her face buried against Mrs. Ibarra’s ample bosom as if that could somehow give her the strength to face her father.

  Slowly, reluctantly she turned to face him, her stomach twisting when she saw the look on his face. Accusation, of course, burning with such white-hot intensity it was a wonder she didn’t turn to ash right there. But worse, disappointment, and beyond that disgust.

  The small crowd parted like the Red Sea as he charged like an angry bull. As he got closer, Kate could see his forearms flex as his hands clenched into fists. Across the top of his forehead a vein pulsed. “What the hell were you thinking, leaving your brother in the house alone?”

  She felt his booming voice like a blow and took an instinctive step back, afraid for the first time in her life that her father might actually hit her.

  Tommy, who was looking frantically from one to the other, stepped forward. “It was my fault, sir,” Tommy said. “I was the one who suggested we go outside for more privacy.”

  Her father wheeled on Tommy and grabbed him by the collar. Though Tommy was at least six inches taller and incredibly strong, he didn’t resist as the senator propelled him until his back hit the paneled wall. “More privacy so you could rape my daughter while my son is left unprotected?” he shouted as he slammed Tommy back against the wall.

  Tommy’s father wasn’t about to stand for that. He placed a firm hand on Senator Beckett’s shoulder. “My son would never do anything to a girl unless she wanted it.”

  “Your son would seduce a sixteen-year-old girl who doesn’t know any better than to leave her brother unattended in the middle of the night,” the senator said as he turned his angry gaze to Leo Ibarra.

  “Maybe you’re forgetting there were two people involved here,” Tommy’s father said tightly.

  “You implying my daughter’s a whore?”

  Tommy’s dad backed up and held his hands up, signaling for peace. “Your daughter seems like a very nice girl—”

  “No, you’re right,” her father said, turning a glare on her so filled with rage he looked nearly psychotic. “Even though I tried to raise her right, she’s nothing but—”

  Tommy surged forward before he could finish, his fist cocked back. Kate jumped in front of him and planted her palms against his chest. “Stop it!” she shouted.

  She looked around at the many stares focused warily on her. Then she looked at her mother and Lauren, huddled in a corner, their arms wrapped around each other, their eyes showing nothing but fear.

  “Stop. Just stop,” she said weakly, her hands dropping from Tommy’s chest. She turned to her father, straightening her spine with all the dignity she could muster. “You can rage at me all you want, but that’s not going to help us find Michael. Right now we have to focus on finding him before something awful happens to him.”

  Her father didn’t reply. The rage in his face melted away as quickly as it came, his expression as hard and flat as cement.

  “Kate.” Tommy reached out to take her arm, but she eluded his grasp.

  “You should go,” Kate said, forcing the words around the softball-size lump that settled in her throat. “I can’t really be around you right now.”

  The look of stunned hurt on his face barely penetrated the fog of fear and guilt surrounding her. After the Ibarras left, Sheriff Lyons tried to console them with the notion that the car accident in front of the house could easily be coincidental. “Kids Michael’s age like to start pushing the boundaries, see what it’s like to party with the big kids. He probably snuck out to one of the parties, got hold of some beer, and is at this very moment puking his guts out in the bushes somewhere or passed out on the beach.”

  “Or maybe he got drunk, wandered into the lake, and drowned, or got hit trying to cross the highway,” Lauren snapped. “Even if he left on his own, there are a lot of ways he could get hurt.” Her voice broke at the end, and that little sob was like a knife to Kate’s stomach.

  Though Kate clung to the faint hope that the sheriff was right, Sunday morning turned into Sunday afternoon, then Sunday night. Another night passed while Kate and her family kept a sleepless vigil.

  Monday morning an FBI agent flew up from the Boise field office to help with the investigation. Kate listened mutely as Agent Martins explained that if Michael was the victim of a kidnapping for ransom, they should expect to get a call within thirty-six hours. Kate stared at the phone, clinging to the faint hope that Michael had been taken by a sick jerk who just wanted money rather than that he was somewhere hurt or, God forbid, dead.

  While dozens of people canvassed every inch of town, Tommy, his father, and a handful of other ranchers rode out on horseback into the surrounding wilderness area to look for any signs of Michael.

  As Monday turned into Tuesday and there was no ransom call and no other sign of Michael, the cold blanket of dread that had settl
ed over the Beckett household grew so heavy and oppressive Kate felt it hard to breathe.

  Reporters circled like sharks, thrusting microphones into the faces of family members the second they dared step outside. Kate hadn’t left the house since her first devastating encounter with a reporter. The woman, with her dark hair styled into a helmet and her whiter-than-white teeth, had wheedled her way into the house for a sit-down interview with the family. Kate choked back tears as her parents expressed their grief and begged anyone who knew anything about Michael and his whereabouts to come forward with information.

  Lauren had made a similar, tearful plea. Then the reporter turned her attention to Kate. “You were the only one home besides Michael Saturday night, right?”

  Kate nodded mutely, staring at her knotted hands resting in her lap.

  “You didn’t hear anything?”

  Kate shook her head. “The TV was up too loud,” she said, marveling a little at how easily the lie slipped off her tongue. “I didn’t hear anything until the crash.” Her father had managed to convince the sheriff to keep the part about Kate meeting Tommy out of the official report.

  It was one thing for her family to know she was a slut. It was another for the world to know it.

  Even so, within a few short hours, the world would know her brother was missing because of her carelessness.

  Her father had ended the interview shortly afterward, and other than law enforcement, the only people allowed in the Becketts’ house were the Burkharts. Phillip, his wife, Andrea, John and Hailey had hunkered down to help field calls, fend off the press, and make sure there was food to eat, even though none of them had much of an appetite.

  “I know you feel terrible,” John said to Kate early Tuesday morning when she wandered, zombielike, into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of orange juice. She startled, splashing juice over her hand and onto the floor. She hadn’t even noticed him sitting at the kitchen table.

  “And based on what you think of Tommy, I guess you think I deserve to,” Kate said sharply as she grabbed a towel to blot up the mess.

  “I stand by my agreement with your father that he’s not good enough for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s your fault Michael’s gone,” he said gently.

  “Of course it is,” Kate said in a choked voice. “I was supposed to be here. I was in charge.”

  John rose from his chair and crossed to her. At first Kate resisted as he pulled her against him. But as she settled against his broad chest, felt his hand stroke her hair, it was impossible not to lean into him, absorbing the comfort. She realized, with a jolt, that this was the first time anyone had touched her in nearly three days. Since Saturday night, everyone had kept her at arm’s length, meeting her eyes only briefly before skittering away.

  Then there was her father, who hadn’t so much as spoken to her or looked at her directly, as though she didn’t exist.

  Hot tears squeezed out of her eyes, and as she broke into sobs against John’s chest, she felt a keen longing to be held by other arms, against another chest.

  Tommy.

  She hadn’t seen him face to face since Sunday morning, and now she wanted to so badly it was like a physical ache.

  Admitting that, even to herself, sent another blade of guilt stabbing through her core. Her need to see Tommy, to be with him, was what had caused this mess in the first place.

  John held her as she sobbed harder, her guilt and grief swirling together with the faint pleasure of having someone, anyone, reach out to her in kindness even if she didn’t deserve it.

  They didn’t get their first break until Tuesday evening. A local who’d gone camping Sunday morning and had been unaware of the crisis until he and his girlfriend got back to town on Tuesday afternoon said that he’d seen an older-model truck with a bad muffler turning onto Kootenai Drive around eleven thirty on Saturday night, which, once they pieced the timeline together, they figured to be about fifteen minutes before Kate and Tommy heard the sound of the engine approaching.

  Though slight, it was something to go on. “Emerson Flannery drives a bombed-out F150, doesn’t he?” the sheriff asked.

  The deputy nodded. “Just got his license back after his DUI.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Should have known, if there’s trouble around here the Flannerys would have to be involved.”

  “Public intoxication, drugs, theft, sure,” the deputy said. “But I never heard of them harming kids—not outside their family anyways.”

  The Flannerys were notorious in Sandpoint and the surrounding area, a family of drunks, addicts, and small-time criminals. But as far as Kate knew, none of them had ever been involved in anything like kidnapping. Still…

  “Last week Tommy and I ran into Emerson down by the lake, near our house. He started following us down the beach,” Kate offered.

  “Did he threaten you at all, or give you reason to think he’d hurt your family?” Lyons asked.

  Kate shook her head. “He was really drunk, calling us names, but I didn’t think he had any idea who I was.”

  The sheriff called in an APB on Flannery’s truck. “You come with me,” he said to his deputy. “Even if he’s not involved, I know better than to confront a Flannery without backup.”

  For several hours there was no word. Exhausted, Kate curled up into the overstuffed armchair in the great room and fell into a fitful sleep.

  She didn’t know what time it was when the phone jolted her awake, but it was pitch black outside and she could hear her parents’ muffled voices coming from the kitchen.

  Heart racing, Kate padded to the kitchen and hovered in the doorway. Her parents stood close, their heads angled to the receiver so they could both hear.

  Lauren joined her, slipping past Kate to go stand next to her parents. Kate strained but though she could make out the sheriff’s voice, his words were unclear.

  But Kate didn’t need to hear the words to know that her worst fears had come true. She could see it in the way her father’s face drained of color and his skin slackened, aging him a full decade in seconds.

  She could hear it in her mother’s frantic “No, no!” and the way she buried her face in her hands as she slid to the floor.

  Kate rushed forward. “What—what is it?” She knew the answer. But something inside her needed to hear the words spoken out loud.

  “Michael’s dead,” her father said in a voice that sounded ripped from his chest. “Flannery killed him, then killed himself.”

  Kate felt like a giant fist had closed around her lungs, robbing her of breath. No, no, the denial echoed in her head, but all she could do was sink to the floor and struggle to breathe. Her mind raced with a million simultaneous thoughts, wishes, prayers.

  Let me go back and do it over again and I’ll make sure nothing happens.

  Please, God, let this be a mistake.

  Take me instead. Let him come back and take me instead.

  She didn’t know how much time had passed before she heard a car approach and a knock on the door. Her mother sprang to her feet and raced to the door. Her father followed more slowly, as though he could delay facing reality.

  As the door swung open, Kate saw the broad shoulders of Sheriff Lyons. Photographers snapped frantically from behind, bathing him in a strobe of light. He stepped inside, his face pulled into a solemn mask of grief.

  Kate’s mom backed away until her knees hit the couch and she collapsed back onto its cushions. Her father sat beside her. Sheriff Lyons took a seat in the armchair and rested his elbows on his knees, his back bowed as though he bore the weight of the world on it.

  Kate and Lauren hovered anxiously in the doorway. Kate reached out blindly with her hand, her eyes filling with fresh tears when she felt her sister’s cold fingers twine with her own.

  “We found Flannery’s truck parked in front of his trailer about a hundred yards from where the fire road dead-ends into a hiking trail. About thirty yards in is a small cabin that the forest service and hunters still u
se. We found Flannery and Michael inside. Michael was tied to the woodstove.”

  “How—” Her mother’s question choked off on a sob. “How did he die?”

  The sheriff hesitated. “You sure you want to do this right now?”

  “I need to know everything,” her mother said, her voice rising. “He was my baby, and I need to know exactly what happened to him.”

  If her father felt the same, he didn’t show it. He sat statue still, his gaze locked on a point somewhere over the sheriff’s right shoulder.

  The sheriff’s gaze flicked to Kate and Lauren.

  “Go upstairs, girls,” her father said, barely audible.

  “No, I—” Kate started.

  “Get the hell upstairs!” her father roared, and sprang to his feet so quickly Kate jumped back a foot. “After everything you’ve done, the least you can do is listen to me!” The vein in his forehead was back, along with the rush of florid color in his cheeks.

  Kate and Lauren sprinted up the stairs to their room. But no sooner had they shut the door than Kate carefully pushed it open and slipped out into the hallway. Lauren joined her, and soon they were perched on the third step from the top, hidden from view but able to hear everything.

  “Michael was shot at point-blank range twice, once in the chest, once in the head,” the sheriff said, unable to keep the quiver out of his voice. “Flannery then turned the gun on himself. He left a note,” the sheriff continued, “apologizing for what he’d done, explaining that he was going to put himself down to keep himself from hurting anyone else.”

  Kate’s mother made a sound like a wounded animal that shook Kate to the bottom of her soul.

  Kate felt like she was being sucked into a black hole. She must have made a sound, because her father’s gaze snapped up to the gallery to where she and Lauren listened. The white-hot anger in his eyes was so fierce, Kate was sure there was going to be nothing left of her but a pile of ash.

  When he spoke, his voice, though quiet, seemed to echo through the room. “It should have been you.”