by Deeanne Gist
The realization that she’d done to God, the creator of the universe, the very thing her parents had done to her made her sick to her stomach.
I’m sorry, Lord. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t anything you did . . .
She stilled. It wasn’t anything He did. He wasn’t unworthy. He wasn’t unlovable. She’d been the one to just . . . walk away.
The multitude of reassurances Nonie had given her over the years flooded back.
It wasn’t your fault, honey. . . . You didn’t do anything. . . . They loved you. . . . Adored you . . . You were the apple of their eye.
All the things Rylee was going to say to God just now. All of them true.
She slowly unfolded her body. Could it be? Could it be that it wasn’t her—any more than it had been God? That her parents had loved her, adored her, thought the world of her, but they became so inwardly focused they lost sight of what was most important?
Tears clogged her throat. She struggled to take a breath.
Is it true, Lord? Am I worthy of love?
And in the quiet of that dank, filthy cell, she experienced one of the most beautiful moments of her life. A sense of peace, love, and acceptance filled the room. Filled her.
She thought of Christ in that dark, dank, awful tomb, shrouded from head to toe in burial cloths. Ridiculed by His hometown.
Betrayed by His best friend. Crucified by those He held dear.
And she knew. If anyone had a right to feel abandoned, He did. Yet He rose. He rose from that grave and changed the world forever.
She dropped to her knees, tears coursing down her cheeks.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I want you back. Will you have me back?
But she didn’t need to ask. She already knew the answer. When a sheep returns to the fold, He’s happier about that one sheep than about the other ninety-nine who never wandered off in the first place.
The men who came for her must have been detectives, since they were wearing regular clothes. Leaving the jail cells behind, they took an elevator upward, emerging in a part of the station that looked more or less like an office building.
She grew self-conscious about her shackles, but no one they passed in the hallway gave them a second look. The men escorted her through a maze of cubicles, then through a door marked interview #2, outfitted with a table tucked into the corner, a couple of chairs, and a stack of yellow legal pads.
They left her to wait.
Instead of a two-way mirror like on television, the room had a video camera mounted in the corner opposite the table. She yanked on the hem of her cutoffs, wishing for the umpteenth time she’d worn something different this morning.
The red light underneath the camera flicked on. A second later, the door opened.
Detective Campbell walked inside, a thick manila folder under his arm. The door shut behind him with a click. “Hello, Rylee.”
The last time he’d used her first name, she’d grabbed his tape recorder to correct him, then practically slung it back in his face. Was he remembering that as well?
The back of her chair was to the wall, her elbow propped on the table. Campbell set his folder down, then scooted his own chair to the table’s edge. There was nothing between them.
She withdrew her elbow, shrinking back into her personal space. “I’m supposed to get a phone call.”
He reached for one of the legal pads, removed a silver pen from inside his jacket, then scribbled a notation, keeping the pad tilted on his lap so she couldn’t see. “Now then. We’ve spoken to the victims of this most recent break-in. We’ve taken fiber samples from the scene. Evidence is being analyzed this minute by a team of experts. I have to be honest with you.” He frowned with concern. “Things don’t look very good for you.”
The anger he once provoked didn’t rise this time. Her sense of calm stayed with her. But that didn’t mean she was unaware of her rights.
“I’m supposed to get a phone call.”
“Rylee—” Using her name yet again. “I don’t think you fully appreciate the gravity of your situation. This goes beyond simple theft. The Davidson home was maliciously ransacked. You won’t get a lot of sympathy in front of a South Carolina jury. If you want to have any chance at all, you’re going to have to cooperate fully.”
At the mention of the Davidsons, Rylee’s heart sank.
They pick up strays, she liked to say about them.
And she meant herself—the orphan dogwalker. Then there was Maria, the housecleaner, who bunked in a sober-living facility in North Charleston. The handyman, Ricks, tall and gaunt with a beard like Moses, had been living in his station wagon when Mr.
Davidson gave him the job. Now he had a truck with his name on the door and another guy working for him. And of course, George— the ex-con gardener. Even Toro was a rescue dog.
“Ordinarily,” Campbell continued, “I wouldn’t give someone in your position an opportunity like this. But taking into account your relationship with Logan Woods, who happens to be a friend of mine—”
She couldn’t hold back a derisive snort.
“—I’m going to make an exception. This is your chance to tell your side of the story. In fact, it might be the last chance you get.
So I want you to take a moment, collect your thoughts, and then tell me what happened this morning.”
She took a moment, collected her thoughts, then kept her mouth shut.
“Are you sure that’s how you want to play this?” He made another note on the pad. “I know what you’re thinking. Maybe the Davidsons won’t press charges. Maybe you can sweet-talk your way around a jury. Maybe you can bat those big eyes and make it all go away. But you can’t.”
The words didn’t reach her. “I have the right to an attorney.”
“Yes, you do.” He wobbled his hands like a scale, weighing the wisdom of her choice. “And if you choose to exercise that right, you won’t have a word to say until you’re in front of the judge. In fact, even then, you can keep your mouth shut and let your lawyer do the talking. But in the meantime, think about what’s going to happen. Everybody in this town, everybody you know, they’re all going to hear one side of the story, and draw their conclusions based on that.
By the time your case comes to trial, you won’t have a friend—or a client—left in all of Charleston.”
She gazed up at the camera, and the red light stared back at her, never blinking. In a nearby room, she knew someone was watching. Campbell’s fellow detectives, maybe his superiors. All the mind games were for their benefit. Surely he realized she would never trust him.
“Rylee.” His voice hardened. “What was the point of stealing these things? You had your pick, and you went for some relatively worthless items. Did they have some special value? Did they symbolize something to you? Were you trying to send a message?”
She almost felt friendly toward the light, a fellow observer, both of them keeping quiet under Campbell’s interrogation.
“I understand why you’re angry, Rylee. And why shouldn’t you be? After all, you should be the one living south of Broad. The one having your own dogs walked. Not the other way around. I imagine that’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow day after day.”
She looked at him sharply. A bitter pill to swallow? He knew about her mother’s death. Either he was wildly insensitive, or simply cruel. Either way, she wanted nothing to do with him.
“I want my lawyer, Detective. You can sit there and tell me all the lies you want, but I’m not going to say a word until Mr. Sebastian is here.”
“Are you certain about that?” He raised his eyebrows, a final entreaty, baffled that she would decline his generous offer of self-incrimination. Before she could answer, the door opened and an older man entered, one she recognized from the crime scene.
Campbell stood immediately, a deferential tension stiffening his limbs. “Sir—”
“You’re done here,” the older man said. “Time to wrap it up.
Sebastian’s outside waiting.�
�
Rylee could have cheered. The boss left the room without closing the door. Campbell deflated. Without a word to her, without so much as glancing her way, he ripped the top page off the legal pad, tucking it into the manila folder, then tossed the yellow pad back to the table.
She willed him to make eye contact, so he could see she wasn’t cowed, but he walked into the hallway without giving any sign he was aware of her steadfastness.
Karl slipped through the door as soon as he’d left.
She got to her feet. “Thank you so much for coming. I was wondering if—”
“You haven’t said anything, right?” He grazed her arm with his knuckles.
“Not a thing,” she said. “Listen, where is your dad now? Do you have a way to get in touch with him?”
He blinked. “My dad? He’s in New York waiting for his connecting flight to Charleston. Why?”
“Oh, Karl.” Moisture rushed to her eyes. “Are you saying he’s on his way home? Right now? Today?”
He gave a nod.
She squeezed his arm. “Would you do me a favor? Would you give him a call? Ask him if he’ll represent me?”
He took a step back, breaking the contact. “You want him to represent you?”
“Of course. If he doesn’t mind, that is. I mean, you know what people say, he can make the devil dance in a courtroom.”
“I hadn’t heard that, actually.” Smiling tightly, he glanced over his shoulder. “Listen, we can’t talk here, but I’ll do what I can.”
He looked her up and down. “We have an appointment in front of the judge, so you’ll be transferred over to the courthouse late today—unless, of course, you’d rather wait until my dad gets back, but that might mean an overnight stay.”
“No, no. Today would be wonderful.”
“Fine. We’ll talk before then. In the meantime, keep your mouth shut and don’t say anything to anyone.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Amid the wreckage of her front parlor, Ann Davidson stood tall and elegant, dressed in wide-cut cream flannel pants and a blouse of blue silk to match her eyes. Eyes that held evidence of recently shed tears.
According to Rylee, she was in her early fifties, but her prematurely frost-white hair made her seem much older, and at the same time ageless. Her manners echoed another era, too.
Logan had left his tape recorder in his pocket, opting for the notebook instead. Glancing down, he underlined his final question. “Last, I was wondering if you’d been able to determine if the intruder actually took anything?”
She looked around the devastated room—Nate had not exaggerated in comparing the damage to that of a hurricane—then gave an eloquent shrug. “The police wanted to know that same thing. I wish I could tell.”
The chairs had been set right, the sofa cushions put back in their place. But their feet still crunched on a fine rubble of glass, porcelain, the odd splinter of a gilt picture frame. Lampshades lay beside broken lamps, pieces of bulb still jagged in their sockets.
The dining room was much the same. The chairs pounded to pieces on the tabletop, leaving deep gashes in the waxed wood. Over the mantel, the round mirror was shattered. Though the grim-beaked Federal eagle perched atop the mirror had witnessed everything, he wasn’t talking.
Mitch Davidson, plump around the middle but with a granite jaw, had loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves, taking a dustpan to the kitchen. Shards of china and saber-toothed glass covered every surface, blinking in the midday sun filtering through the windows. The police, he’d said, had carried away a bucketful in the hope of retrieving fingerprints, and in the process they’d ground plenty more into the carpets.
“I can’t fathom all this,” he’d confessed to Logan. “Where did all this glass come from? I never would have imagined there was so much.”
Wash came through from the dining room, clearing his throat.
Mrs. Davidson turned. “Have you gotten what you need, Mr.
Tillman?”
“I have, ma’am.”
He’s ma’aming her, too, Logan thought. You can’t help doing it.
“There’s just one thing,” Wash said. “If I could take one of you and Mr. Davidson . . .”
Logan winced. “Waaash.”
But Ann Davidson nodded her consent. “I think that would be appropriate. A portrait. Though I prefer oil over photographs—no offense, Mr. Tillman.”
“I understand.”
She turned to Logan. “Do you know much about local painters, Mr. Woods?”
“No, ma’am, I’m afraid not.”
She looked confused. “You say you don’t? Well, you’ll have heard of Charles Fraser at any rate.”
He gave an apologetic shrug.
“No?” She stood with one hand on her hip, the other pressed permanently to her neckline in exasperation, fingering her pearls like a rosary. “And you say you grew up around here?”
“James Island, ma’am.”
“That’s the saddest thing.” She spoke in a whisper, shaking her head. “Well, Charles Fraser was famous for miniature portraits, among other things.”
She glided past Wash, summoning her husband. He emerged through the kitchen door with his tie flipped over the shoulder, holding the dustpan upright, American Gothic style.
“That’s . . . perfect,” Wash sighed.
He arranged them at the mantel, the shattered mirror at their backs. As the shutter clicked, the eagle gazed down, impassive.
Mr. Davidson started back toward the kitchen, but his wife reached out.
“Wait.” Something was on the tip of her tongue. Her hand fingered the pearls. The men waited quietly for her thought to form. “That must be it.”
“What?” her husband asked.
“Charles Fraser.” She went back into the parlor, leading him by the hand. Logan and Wash followed. “Help me look.”
The couple picked through the detritus, propping pictures against the wall, smoothing canvases on collapsed frames.
“It’s a little city scene,” she said. “Delicately painted crepe myrtles and live oaks. Whitewashed buildings rising out of the greenery. A reflection on the water—it’s very prettily done.”
Logan knelt behind the sofa, drawing a large, face-down picture from underneath. He turned it over and found one of those funny children’s portraits, where the kid looks like a miniature adult, done up in taffeta and lace.
“Oh no,” Mrs. Davidson told him. “The one I’m thinking of is quite small, no bigger than a paperback book.” She bracketed the air with her fingers to show him.
“Like this?”
They all turned. Wash held up a Charleston street scene in watercolor.
She smiled. “Like that, yes. But the one in your hands is nothing special, I’m afraid.”
“The Fraser is?” Logan asked.
“Oh yes,” she said, her eyes troubled. “And no, I don’t think it’s here.”
“So that’s it.” Mr. Davidson wiped his hands on his pant leg.
“I’ll give the police a call.”
He left the room with a sense of determination, a man never happy without a specific task to perform.
Logan watched him go with a twinge of admiration, then turned to his wife. “Could you tell me something more about the missing painting?”
“I can do better than that,” she said. “I’ll show you.”
Logan and Wash exchanged a baffled look. They went back into the dining room, then through an alcove into a large family room at the back of the house. Robin Hood hadn’t made it this far. The room seemed eerily pristine. Through the windows, Logan noticed a lap pool sparkling in the sun, hedged in with slate. Beyond that, a stone fountain—the source of the splashing he’d heard through the bushes earlier.
Mrs. Davidson retrieved an oversized book from the coffee table, handing it to Logan. “The page is marked.”
He opened the volume to the indicated section. To his eyes, the little landscape reproduced on the glossy page was no
big deal.
The same kind of thing graced the postcard rack of many a tourist trap. But he was no connoisseur of art. He nodded at the picture in what he hoped looked like critical appreciation.
“Could I borrow this?” he asked.
“Not that copy,” she replied, winging it lightly out of his grasp. “It’s inscribed. But you can get one at the Historic Foundation bookstore.” She returned the book to its place of honor. “Come to think of it, they have a number of titles that might prove beneficial. For your general information.”
His phone vibrated. It was a text from Lacey.
Bail hearing in thirty.
He handed Mrs. Davidson one of his cards. “Thank you so much for your time. And one last thing . . . Is Toro all right?”
She smiled. “He’s fine. He was in his crate when all this happened. Rylee must have put him in it last night when she walked him.”
He hesitated, surprised she spoke about Rylee with affection. Maybe she didn’t believe Rylee did this any more than he did.
He’d planned to feel her out at the end of the interview, but he didn’t want to be rushed. And right now, he needed to get to the bail hearing.
Later, though. He’d definitely follow up later.
After the long hours of isolation, the packed courtroom was at first a pleasant change. The hum of conversation, the quiet roar of the twittering crowd. It was a relief not to be alone.
Then she registered all the cameras and grew conscious again of her manacles, her cutoffs. Heat rushed to her cheeks. She kept her eyes on the ground.
She passed down the aisle, a bailiff guiding her by the arm. The photographers in attendance called her name. “Rylee, this way. . . .
Look over here, Rylee. . . . Give us a smile, Rylee. . . . Rylee, did you do it . . . ? How do you feel?”
She was pelted by words the way a bride is with rice, only she was heading to the seat of judgment, not to a happily ever after.
“Rylee.”
One voice among the many registered. She turned to her left, and there was Logan, half standing in a chair on the aisle, his hand extended. The bailiff moved between them, leading her toward the defense table. She couldn’t reach out to him except with her eyes.
