She went back toward the stovetop and reached for a slice of bacon as Adam set them onto a folded piece of paper towel to mop off the grease.
“Be careful, it’s hot,” he said, stating the obvious as she juggled a piece, blowing on it before she took a bite. “Oh, yeah, and it’s turkey. Healthier, you know.”
“Not for the turkey,” she joked. It wasn’t bad-tasting stuff, though she didn’t want to admit it. He was trying heroically to wean her from her diet of junk food and soda, and she wasn’t protesting. Much. “At least it’s not tofu. You slipped that in the pad Thai last week.”
“You ate it.”
“I’ll eat anything I don’t have to cook,” she said, taking plates to the table as Adam turned off the stove and fetched the orange juice from the fridge to pour two glasses.
“If you had to see as many dead guys’ arteries as I have, you’d be jumping all over tofu.” He set her drink on her place mat, then gave her shoulder a squeeze before he sat down. “I just want to help you live forever.”
“Thank you,” she said, because no one had done that before. Maybe it was sappy, but she didn’t care. How could she help but love him?
He started to eat, and she watched him, admiring the scruff on his face and sweet lines at the corners of his eyes. She thought of how they’d started their relationship: “In the middle,” as she liked to tell him. His middle, not hers, because he was married, though she hadn’t known it at first. Adam insisted it was more like he’d met her “at the end,” saying his marriage hadn’t been working since long before they’d ever hooked up. He’d never worn a ring that she remembered, at least not on the job, and that was where they’d connected—at her first autopsy, in fact, when she’d been a rookie cop. She had left Dallas when she’d come to her senses, starting anew in Plainfield, separating herself from Adam so he could make the choice about the future without her muddling his present.
When he’d come to her this past spring, when he’d told her his wife had left for LA and they were divorcing, Jo had felt her heart begin to beat again. She had confided in him all her worst fears—all the ugliness of her past—and he hadn’t flinched. He certainly didn’t pity her for it. Telling him the truth had only strengthened what they had, who they were. Jo was grateful for that.
For a girl who had never had faith in others, particularly men, it felt good to trust, good and terrifying at once.
“You hungry?” he asked, cocking his head.
“Starving.”
They said little as they ate. Jo enjoyed the quiet, the time to really taste her food and relish every bite.
Once done, they switched off the lamps and settled on the couch. They leaned into each other as the light from the television flickered over them.
“How’re you doing?” he asked, his hand slowly moving up and down her back. “I’m sorry about the girl who died. Kelly, right? Your captain called my boss, wanting to fast-track her post. It’ll be done sometime tomorrow. I don’t know if it’ll be me, though.”
“It’s okay,” she said, “if it’s not you, I mean. I just need it to be done.”
“You think she jumped?”
“I do.” Jo nodded, feeling all sorts of things bubbling up inside her. That was all it took, and she unloaded on him, describing how she’d felt seeing Kelly Amster lying broken in the field and knowing that, even if no one else had been up in the tower with her, making her leap to her death, something had pushed her to that edge. Something so real and damaging and painful that she hadn’t told anyone.
Not her best friend. Not her mother.
But someone knew.
Someone always knew.
They were in bed when she heard the phone vibrate.
She’d dozed off with Adam’s arm across her belly. Ernie’s ten pounds pinned down her legs, so she couldn’t easily move until Adam rolled over, startling the cat off the bed as he reached for his phone in the dark. But the vibrations continued.
Jo sat up. “Is it yours?”
“No,” he murmured, setting the buzzing object into her lap before he dropped his head back onto the pillow.
Her screen lit up in the pitch-black, and she saw the Blocked Caller notification before she answered.
“Hello?” she said, rubbing her eyes.
She heard Adam’s rhythmic snoring resume.
“Detective Larsen?” a male voice whispered, and she imagined a child, sounding very small and scared.
“That’s right.”
“It’s Trey Eldon.” Not such a little boy, after all. “I need to see you. The sooner, the better.”
She squinted at the tiny clock on her phone. It was half past eleven.
“Now?” she asked in a whisper, puzzled by his urgency to meet and wondering if it was in response to the message she’d left his father about the encrypted e-mails and the list of party guests. Was Trey feeling the pressure? Or did he just need to unload without his daddy in the room? “Can it wait until morning? You could come to the station, or I could go—”
“No.” She heard his sharp intake of breath before he replied with an angry, “Do you want to talk or not?”
“Yes,” she said. “Very much.”
“All right, then. Listen up.”
She waited through his instructions and agreed to meet him, despite the hour. She knew that if she didn’t go, she’d miss her shot. He sounded desperate to get something off his chest, and Jo needed to capitalize on his guilt. If she waited until the bright light of morning, he’d probably decide to clam up.
“If you’re not there in fifteen, I’m gone,” he told her before he hung up.
Well, hell.
Despite her misgivings and her madly pounding heart, Jo got out of bed, careful not to wake Adam. She dressed quietly in the dark, adding her holster and sidearm beneath a loose jacket. She stood by the bed, tempted to lean over and wake her man, to whisper where she was going. But she didn’t. She would be back soon enough.
She tiptoed out of the bedroom, halfway up the hall before Ernie appeared out of nowhere, tripping her. She cursed under her breath, catching herself and scolding him softly. “Go back to bed,” she hissed, patting his soft head before she slipped out the door.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jo met Trey at a park a few miles away from the old water tower.
Was there some hidden meaning behind the location? Did he need the tower to be evident, looming nearby in the dark, a visible reminder of how his actions—or maybe his inaction—had consequences?
Or, more likely, she was reading too much into things, and he’d picked the spot because it was far away enough from home that his daddy couldn’t eavesdrop.
Once she’d turned into the entry lane, she spotted the black Silverado with Stang12 on the vanity plates tucked into the graveled lot. She pulled in beside it. As far as she could tell, no one else was around, though it was hard to see. The widely spaced streetlamps didn’t cast much light on the grounds, not at nearly midnight, when the park was officially closed.
Jo sat in the car for a moment, her phone in hand. She’d dialed Hank’s number and was waiting for him to pick up.
“Where are you?” she asked the second he answered. She’d called him once before already, telling him about the meet, and he’d agreed to back her up, albeit hiding in the shadows so as not to spook Trey. “Are you near?”
“I’m still home,” he grumbled. “I was about out the door when Cora started throwing up.”
That was his four-year-old, Jo knew.
“Trish said she’d handle it, but then Grace started puking.”
His six-year-old.
“Can you put the Third off?” he suggested.
Jo sighed. “No.”
“I don’t like this one bit . . .”
“Hey, I’m a big girl,” she said. “I can do this by myself. Just keep me on speaker, okay, in case I need you.”
Hank grumbled something about Trey needing a kick in the ass, which she took as an affirmative.
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“I’m putting you in my pocket,” she said.
“You must have a damn big pocket,” he joked.
“It’s bottomless, like a clown car,” she told him, garnering a quick laugh. “I’m heading into the park, so expect a bit of radio silence until I can fish you out again.”
“Roger that. And, Larsen—”
“Yeah?”
“Watch your back.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
There was a gentle pop as Jo pushed the door open. She slid out and let her eyes adjust to the night before she took a step away from her car. Then she began to walk toward the shadowy figure sitting atop a picnic table just across the grass.
He was hunched over, his feet on the bench below, arms resting on his bent knees, though he straightened up when he realized she was there.
“Hey,” he called softly.
“Hey,” she said, surveying the area as she approached. She felt sure that he’d come alone, but that didn’t stop her from being apprehensive. It had been bred into her bones through the years.
“Have a seat.” Despite his muscular frame, he moved agilely, slipping off the table and scooting onto the opposite bench.
Jo sat down, removing the phone from her pocket. She set it on the bench beside her, out of Trey’s eyeshot.
The branches of nearby trees rustled as a vague breeze blew, scudding clouds across the night, obscuring stars. The hum of cicadas surrounded them like noisy chatter in the background. Usually, she found the sound reassuring, but not now.
She was on high alert.
Casually, she unzipped her jacket and slipped her hand underneath to unsnap the holster on her sidearm.
She waited for him to speak first. This was his show. He’d set it up. He must have a load to get off his chest if he wanted to see her badly enough to sneak out of the house beneath his father’s nose.
“So here’s the thing,” he said after a drawn-out sigh. “Kelly knew stuff about me, about my family . . . stuff my dad wouldn’t want anyone to know. You can’t understand how hard it’s been. No one can.”
Jo sat stock-still, afraid that if she twitched, he’d turn tail and run.
“Kelly knew my dad cheated on my mom when she was sick. She knew my brother jacked Mom’s pain meds. She knew I drank too much. Watching my mom—” He paused and swallowed. “Watching her die . . . We were all, you know, doing things to numb ourselves. We lived in a fog.”
“I’m sorry,” Jo said, because she was and because he hesitated, seeming to expect something more from her. “My mom’s sick now,” she went on. “It’s painful to see.”
She wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted, but she guessed it was close enough, because he continued.
“I’d pushed it away to somewhere in the back of my head. We had to move on, you know, keep going. I hadn’t even thought about it lately, not until Kelly got in touch toward the end of summer break. She wanted me to help her, give her things, and if I did, she said she wouldn’t talk.” He hung his head, wiping at his eyes. “I didn’t realize how much she saw back then, how much she remembered. It scared me, you know, imagining her blowing up our world.”
Jo was still skeptical. “Why? What did she want from you?”
He laughed, rubbing his hands together before he clasped them atop the table. “What didn’t she want?”
Jo wasn’t sure what he meant.
“Did she ask for money?” It was the first thing that came to mind. But then she remembered what Barbara Amster had said about Kelly wearing outfits she hadn’t bought her. “Did you take her shopping?”
“I paid for a few things, yeah,” he said, “but she wanted more.”
She shook her head. “More, how?”
He smiled weakly. “She wanted to be popular, you know, part of my squad. She said she was tired of being invisible. She acted like I could snap my fingers, and she’d be a cheerleader or have any friends she wanted.” He shrugged. “It’s not like I could refuse.”
“You felt blackmailed by her?” Jo asked, surprised that Kelly Amster had had it in her. Not that she approved of the girl’s tactics, but it must have taken guts.
“I guess I did. Kelly and her mom had dirt on my family. I wasn’t going to risk it.” He steepled his fingers together. “I’d gone through it once, you know, and I didn’t need any reminders of how much it sucked . . . how lost I was when my mom was dying. If I gave Kelly what she asked for, you know, I could breathe easy. I thought it’d be simple, except it got complicated really fast.”
Now it was all starting to make sense. “She asked for an invitation to your party?”
“Two, actually. She wanted to bring that girl with her, the one with bad hair and braces who’s always tagging along.”
“Cassie Marks.”
“Yeah. I told her no way could that woofer come,” Trey admitted. “That was a deal breaker.”
So the pretty girl got a pass, but not her unattractive friend. How unenlightened of him. Jo doubted that Cassie had known the facts behind her lack of invitation. She seemed to blame it all on Kelly wanting to go it alone.
Too bad Cassie hadn’t tagged along. Maybe things would have been different.
Jo leaned in, bumping her rib cage against the table. “What happened that night, Trey? What did Kelly get herself into?”
He stared into the dark, toward the black silhouette of the water tower. “I didn’t think she’d actually show, you know, but she did. She even rang the frickin’ doorbell.” He laughed. “Nobody does that. My bros just walk in like they own the place, even when my dad’s home.” The smile died. “I said hey and got her a beer. I had a few myself. After that, you know, I barely saw her. She wasn’t really on my radar.”
“I’m surprised to hear that,” Jo said. “She was lovely.”
“Yeah, I guess she was. But I don’t tend to go for girls like that.”
Girls like what?
Did he mean too young or too poor?
After having seen the ostentatious glass house and meeting Robert Eldon, Jo had a feeling it was the latter. But that hardly mattered now. It had nothing to do with the truth she was after.
“Was Kelly drinking?” she asked.
“Everyone was.”
“So you were drinking. She was drinking. Maybe you weren’t thinking so much about her not being your type,” Jo suggested. “Did you push things too far and give her yet another nasty secret to hold over your head?”
“Hell, no. Lady, you’re not even close,” Trey said, and his voice rose defensively. “We drank too much, yeah, but I wasn’t pushing anything, not with her. She was outside, hanging with a couple of my bros by the pool. Like, an hour in, they said she was puking on the patio. All I did was stash her upstairs in a guest room to keep her from trashing the place.”
“Did you figure someone with a conscience might call 911, thinking she had alcohol poisoning?”
“Um, no.” He gave her a look.
“Kids can die from it, you know.”
“But she didn’t die from it, did she?”
Jo didn’t quit. “So you left her unconscious in a house full of wolves?”
The sneer turned into a nervous grin. “There were chicks there, too, a few of the cheerleaders Kelly fangirled over.”
“Great. I’d like their names, along with your buddies’ . . .”
The smile died. “You’re not listening to me! She started this. She brought this on herself.” He shook his head and started to move, slinging a leg so he straddled the bench, like he was going to leave.
No, no, no.
Jo couldn’t afford to lose him, not yet.
“I’m listening,” she told him. “Really,” she added, unable to keep the urgency from her voice. He seemed to be her best shot at piecing together Kelly’s last few weeks on the planet. Jo didn’t want this to go sour. “Please, tell me what happened next. After you left her in the guest room.”
What did he see or do? What exactly did he know?
; Trey sighed. “Can’t we just let it go? Can’t we let her rest in peace?”
Wow.
That was precisely what Kelly’s best friend had suggested as well, and it made Jo mad as hell. Why did everyone around Kelly seem intent on keeping the curtains drawn over the final act of her life? What had everyone so afraid?
“C’mon, Trey,” she cajoled, “you have enough balls to stand out on a field every week and get pummeled by bigger guys than you, but you’re afraid to tell me who was at your party? Because nothing you’ve said so far has convinced me that something ugly didn’t happen there.” She had a hard time keeping the frustration from her voice. “When Kelly blacked out, did someone go in the room with her? Did one of your bros rape her and then dump her in her front yard so you wouldn’t be held responsible?”
Trey’s jaw clenched. “For the hundredth time, I did not hurt Kelly that night. My bros did not hurt her. I swear it on my mother’s life.”
“Your mother’s dead, Trey.”
“You know what I meant!”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
He crossed his arms. “I don’t have any more to say.”
Yes, she thought. Yes, he did. He had a lot to say, except he wouldn’t.
“Did you take pictures or make a video of the assault? Did you threaten her with them to get her off your back?”
He balked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Had she struck a nerve?
“Did you send encrypted e-mails to Kelly warning her that if she went to the police, the taped assault would go viral? Was that why she killed herself? And don’t deny you sent her coded messages, because we’ve got her laptop and the e-mails from you. Stang12, right? Just like your vanity plates.”
Jo was breathing hard by the time she finished, so worked up she could have exploded. Trey seemed pent up, too, from the curl of his fists on the table to the visible shake of his shoulders.
And then his dam burst.
“I didn’t make a rape tape, because I didn’t rape her!” He stood, banging fists on the table, shaking it. “Where’d you hear something like that? From that loser she hangs with? Because it’s a lie.”
Walk a Crooked Line Page 12
