by Brenda Novak
Allie pressed her lips tightly together to squelch a sob. God, what Barker had done, what he’d caused. Poor Grace. She was the lone survivor.
Was that because of Clay?
Allie’s conversation with Madeline had been filled with more silence than words. Madeline was being patient, but Allie shouldn’t have answered the phone. She’d just…wanted to reach out to someone. She’d irrationally hoped that Madeline would set the world right again, or at least explain why. But the only person who could do that had disappeared nineteen years ago.
“I’d better run,” Allie said at last. Madeline couldn’t save her from the confusion and pain. No one could—and she wasn’t even involved. She was just viewing the evidence.
“Allie…”
From the sympathetic way she said her name, Allie knew Madeline had heard the tears in her voice. “I’m okay,” she said.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. We can’t control what other people do.”
“I know, but…please call me if I can help.”
“I will,” she promised and disconnected. Then she collected all the pictures and shoved them back in her purse, because she couldn’t stand to look at them anymore. What was she going to do? If she turned them over to the police, they’d convince everyone that Barker had come to some violent end—and they’d give Clay a very compelling reason to have harmed him.
What happened the night the reverend went missing? Allie wondered for the millionth time. Had Clay discovered what Barker was doing to Grace and put a very decisive stop to it? Only yesterday, she would’ve bet her soul that Clay hadn’t been the one to kill his stepfather.
But today, after seeing the pictures, she believed that if anything could make Clay resort to murder, what Barker had done was it.
A bump jolted Allie out of a deep sleep. Blinking, she gazed around her, taking in the neat but sparsely furnished room, bathed in a dim, eerie glow. The light in the adjoining kitchen was the only one she’d left on, but after a moment she could tell that she was in Clay’s living room. She’d fallen asleep on the couch.
Sitting up, she tried to identify the noise that had disturbed her. The darkness felt heavy, oppressive. It was late. Too late for friendly visitors.
Had she heard a cat, jumping from the railing to the porch? Or was it…a car door?
It hadn’t been a big bump. It was more of a quiet—
Thump.
There it was again. Nerves prickling, Allie reached for her purse and hugged it close to her body. Joe’s goals in coming to the farm would have nothing to do with her purse. She doubted he’d glance twice at it. But she had to protect it, just in case. She couldn’t let those pictures fall into the wrong hands—
Swish…Click…
That was no cat. Someone was in the house.
Thrusting her purse under the couch where it wouldn’t be seen, she grabbed the closest lamp. Then she crept silently to the wall near the opening to the kitchen and pressed herself against it. The movements she heard seemed to be coming from the area around the back door.
Creak…creak…creak, creak, creak…Someone was crossing the kitchen floor.
Heart pumping, Allie leaned forward and peered around the door frame to see who it was. She held the lamp high, ready to bring it crashing down on the head of the intruder. But what she saw surprised her. It was Grace, carrying her new baby in an infant seat.
“Grace?” she said, immediately lowering the lamp.
“Hi.”
Allie put the lamp back on the end table and stepped into the light, feeling particularly rumpled and red-eyed. “How’d you get in?” Before they’d left last night, Kirk had hammered a few boards across the broken door. She could see that those boards were still intact and couldn’t picture Grace climbing through the window with her baby.
“I have a key to the mudroom.” She nodded toward the small room just off the kitchen.
“Is something wrong?” Allie asked.
Grace gazed at her steadily, then put her sleeping baby on the floor near her feet and sat at the kitchen table. “A lot is wrong, isn’t it?” she said with a weary smile. “But I’m not here with any more bad news. I sent Kennedy over to make sure the farm was secure, and he saw your car in the driveway.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you I’d be here. I didn’t mean to make you come out so late at night.”
“The baby was fussy, anyway. When she gets like this, I take her for a car ride.” She adjusted Elizabeth’s blanket. “Puts her right to sleep.”
Allie envied Grace’s sweet infant the bliss of being unaware. “I was afraid Joe might come back,” she explained.
“I know.”
Silence fell for several minutes. Then Grace cleared her throat. “How’s your mother?”
“She’s been better, of course.”
“And you?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
Allie wished everyone would quit asking her that. She was disappointed, hurt, upset and worried—about her mother, her father and Clay. But Grace had suffered a soul-deep kind of pain, and at such a tender age. It’d been worse than anything Allie could have imagined. Yet Grace had received no friendship or support. She’d been reviled and gossiped about and judged—even accused of having hurt Barker! “No, I’m not okay,” she said softly.
Grace nodded. “I’m sorry. If it had to happen, I wish it was someone else and not my mother who was involved.”
Natural defensiveness made it difficult not to blame Irene for more than was probably fair. Especially since Allie didn’t know her all that well. But in a situation like this, the fault couldn’t lie with only one person. And, after those pictures, the affair seemed less important than it otherwise would have. Allie couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to Grace and the other two girls in those photos.
“It’s not the affair that has me upset,” she blurted out.
Grace’s eyes widened.
“I mean, it’s heartbreaking, but…” Allie could no longer find the words to express what she was feeling. She didn’t want to make Grace acknowledge something that had to be excruciating for her. But Clay’s defense hinged on his lawyer sister. If they were going to work together to help him, they had to be honest with each other, didn’t they? Whoever had delivered those photographs had done it for a reason. Allie wasn’t the only one to have seen them.
“Grace…” She forced the name around the lump in her throat but broke down immediately after.
Concern brought a worried frown to Grace’s elegant face as she stood and came toward her. “What is it, Allie? Is it about Clay?”
Wishing she could gain control of her wayward emotions, Allie wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I know, Grace,” she said, forcing back the sobs. “I know what Barker did to you.”
Grace turned pale and teetered on her feet as if she might collapse. Allie started to reach out to her—but Grace stepped back, straightened and tilted her chin at such a defiant angle that she appeared absolutely regal, far above anything so degrading as the obscene images in those photographs.
“How?” she asked, her voice toneless.
Allie longed to embrace her, to comfort her if possible—and to reassure herself that they were both okay, despite everything. She needed some antidote to the anger pounding through her. She wanted to take on the world, to fight anyone who even looked at Grace wrong.
She could imagine those same emotions amplified in Clay, who loved Grace so much and had always tried to protect her. He must’ve felt like a failure when he realized; he must’ve sworn that nothing so vile would ever get past him again.
And then he must have—
Allie refused to think it. He wasn’t the only person who could’ve acted. But now she knew it had to be one of the Montgomerys. If Clay wasn’t the actual culprit, he was protecting whoever it was.
“Someone left a package in my m-mailbox. It contained—” Allie struggled with more tears “—p-pictures,” she choked o
ut.
“Portenski.” Grace swayed as if the mention of those pictures had been a physical blow. Again, Allie wanted to touch her, to reassure her, but she suspected Clay’s sister needed the space, and that physical contact, no matter how well intentioned, would be the wrong thing to do.
“Did you say Portenski?” she asked. “You think Portenski gave them to me?”
“It had to be him,” she whispered. “He must’ve found them at the church.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was the camera there, too?”
“No.” Grace stared at her for several long seconds, but Allie guessed she wasn’t really seeing her at all.
“Grace?” she said gently. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything, even though I know sorry isn’t nearly good enough.”
Grace’s throat worked as she swallowed, but there were no tears in her blue eyes. “You didn’t tell Madeline…”
“Of course not.”
“So what are you going to do with the pictures?”
“What do you think I should do?” Allie asked.
Grace hesitated. “If I say burn them, will you tell the police I asked you to destroy evidence?”
Allie shook her head. She wasn’t going to tell the police anything. They weren’t striving for justice, only to make the right people happy.
“Then burn them,” Grace whispered vehemently.
Allie curled her fingers around Grace’s ice-cold hand. Grace didn’t respond, but she didn’t withdraw, either. “What if Portenski has more?”
“If he wanted to turn them over to the police, he would’ve done it already. He wouldn’t have given them to you.”
Nodding, Allie let her breath go. That made sense. She didn’t understand why he’d entrusted her with them, but—
A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Are you sure they didn’t come from Jed?” The pictures, the note at the cabin…Maybe he knew the truth, too, and sympathized with Grace.
“I can’t see how,” Grace said. “But…maybe. Maybe he found—” her voice broke “—them while he was working in the barn.”
“Then maybe Barker did come back that night. Maybe an argument ensued, and—”
“Jed didn’t kill him.”
Allie felt a chill roll down her spine. From the way Grace had spoken, she knew who did. If Allie had ever doubted it, she didn’t anymore. “If it wasn’t Jed, who was it?” she asked.
A ghost of a smile touched Grace’s lips. “Not Clay,” she said. Then she picked up her baby and left. She didn’t ask to see the pictures, didn’t ask to witness Allie burning them. But Allie did exactly that, right there in Clay’s fireplace. She watched every disgusting photo twist and writhe in the heat, as she hoped Barker was twisting and writhing in hell, then go up in smoke.
Except for the photos of Barker with the other two girls. Allie decided to keep those safe. She knew they were a risk to Madeline’s happiness. That Clay and Grace would rather she destroyed them, too. But there could come a day when the truth won out. Then the Montgomerys would need the evidence for their side.
20
Clay stood at the periphery of the dance floor, drinking a beer. It felt so good to be out of jail, he didn’t care if he moved from that spot all night. Molly was in town to see the baby, but Grace and Lauren had gone to sleep early, so Clay had taken his youngest sister dancing.
Right now, coming to the pool hall felt like a pretty great idea. Molly seemed to be having fun dancing with a cowboy who’d just moved to Stillwater.
Clay smiled as he watched her. He enjoyed Molly’s laughter and animated conversation for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it had so little to do with the past, or what he was enduring in the present. Of everyone in his family, she seemed the least affected by what had happened the night Barker died. She’d been so young at the time, she hadn’t understood what their stepfather had done to Grace. She only knew there’d been an argument and a terrible accident, and that they’d had to cover it up because they couldn’t risk having their mother carted off to prison. Without Irene, they would’ve been split up and forced into foster care.
Leaning one shoulder against the wall, Clay took another long pull on his beer. As an adult, Molly probably knew more about the abuse that had occurred than she had as a child. But it was still largely in a cerebral sense. Grace refused to talk about Barker, so Clay guessed Molly had never heard the gruesome details. Neither had she seen the pictures he and his mother had found and destroyed that night in Barker’s office. Unlike Grace, who’d acted like an automaton during those long hours, running and fetching everything he and Irene asked for, even helping scrub up the blood because they were so desperate for time, Molly had covered her ears and run off to her bedroom, where she’d stayed until the following morning, when it was all over.
Less than two years ago, she’d told Clay that The Night was more like a bad dream for her than anything else.
Lucky girl…
He saw Molly staring at him over the shoulder of the cowboy she was dancing with, and tipped the top of his beer bottle her way.
She waved, indicating that she wanted him to join her on the dance floor. But he shook his head. He wasn’t interested in finding a partner. Maybe he was out of jail, which made him feel practically euphoric, but he was only out on bail. He faced a difficult trial in the not so distant future. And that wasn’t all he had to worry about. Since the discovery of her affair with Dale McCormick, Irene had closeted herself in her little duplex and wouldn’t come out. According to Madeline, she hadn’t even been to work.
Clay would’ve visited his mother and attempted to console her, but he was angry with her for going back to McCormick and making a bad situation even worse. For hurting Allie…
He grimaced. Somehow, every thought led him back to the police chief’s daughter. Although Grace said she was okay, he wanted to contact her to see for himself. But he couldn’t. How could he expect her to pick up her old life and move on as if he didn’t exist if he was still calling her?
“Hi, Clay. You’re looking good.”
Helaina, a woman he used to date, had sauntered up to him.
He nodded but barely acknowledged her beyond that. He didn’t want to encourage her to hang around.
Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to notice that his response lacked enthusiasm. “I’m surprised to see you out and about,” she said.
“Why?” He held up his bottle. “Might as well enjoy a beer while I can still order one, eh?”
She sidled closer, reminding him of a cat eager to rub up against him. “Do you really think they’re gonna put you away?”
“I think they’re gonna try.”
Her bottom lip came out. “It’ll be a real loss to womankind if they succeed.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her suggestive tone, and she responded with a sultry smile. “Having a beer is good. But there are other things you should do while you have the chance,” she murmured, moving so that her breasts brushed his arm.
The fact that he might soon be permanently denied the pleasure of a woman made Clay crave sex more than ever. But not with Helaina. Or any of the other women he’d known in the past. He wanted Allie—so badly he dreamed of her almost every night. “Thanks, but I’ve got my sister here with me,” he said.
“She’s not big enough to find her own way home?”
“It wouldn’t be very nice of me to leave her, would it? She just got into town this morning.”
Helaina’s heart-shaped face flushed with disappointment, but she shrugged. “You have my number.”
He started to give her a noncommittal response—but the words congealed in his throat. The door across the room had opened and Allie walked in. She was wearing an attractive skirt that hit her above the knees, along with a pair of cowboy boots and a tight-fitting brown sweater. And she was alone. He knew she hadn’t come to socialize when a frown of concentration wrinkled her forehead and she began to search the crowd.
Helaina followed his gaze. “What?” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re still seeing Miss Goody two-shoes.”
“I’m not seeing anyone.” For Allie’s sake, he wanted the rumors to die down. But she’d already spotted him and was coming straight toward him.
“Can we step outside?” she asked as soon as she reached him. “I’d like to talk to you for a moment.”
Clay could feel Helaina’s attention, knew she was listening to every word. “Not tonight,” he said.
Allie blinked in surprise. “Excuse me, but I’m not asking you to dance. This is important.”
He scowled. “It can’t be important. We don’t have any business together.”
“Oooh,” Helaina said, her voice lively with interest.
Allie’s eyes cut to her, then returned to him. “What, exactly, are you trying to prove? I’m doing my best to help you.”
“I don’t need you,” he replied, sounding as indifferent as he could. “For anything.”
Allie’s chest lifted, as though she had to gasp for breath, as if he’d just stabbed her or something. But the way his heart pounded and his stomach tensed, Clay knew he was probably feeling worse. He hated himself for saying what he’d said. It was the biggest lie he’d ever told, but he saw no alternative. As soon as he got out of jail, he’d left Allie a message telling her to find another job. She’d left him a message saying she wasn’t walking away from his case whether she had a job or not.
The only way to get her to give up on trying to save him was to convince her he wasn’t worth saving.
She glared at him for several seconds, during which he forced himself to act as careless as possible. He even saluted her before taking another drink of his beer. But it was Helaina, laughing behind her hand, that seemed to be the final straw.
Tears filled Allie’s eyes, but she raised her chin and spoke clearly. “Whatever you want,” she said and stalked off.
