Die Job(84)

“We are not stuck ‘together,’ ” I said, picking up my pace so I was half a step ahead of him. “You are here in an official capacity. I am here with my mom and Althea. Separate. Apart.” I pushed open the parlor door before he could reply. It didn’t look like anyone had moved or said anything in the few minutes I’d been gone. Mark and his stepfather sat side by side on the sofa, not looking at each other. Lindsay stared at Mark as if willing him to look at her. Her telepathic powers weren’t working because he kept his eyes fixed on the floor as if memorizing the rug’s pattern. Agent Dillon sat on his tufted chair, flipping through the pages of the notebook he had propped on one knee.

Hank explained the situation, concluding with, “No one’ll be able to leave until the eye passes over in another hour or so.”

Dillon nodded, accepting the inevitable. “All right. Find a room for Mr. Crenshaw and his son. They want to call a lawyer. Stay with them.”

Hank nodded and made for the sofa as if to pull Mark to his feet. Eric Crenshaw forestalled him, standing and helping Mark rise with a hand beneath his elbow. It wasn’t until they were halfway out the door that Lindsay cried, “Mark!”

He started to turn around, but his stepdad nudged him forward and Hank closed the door.

“I don’t have to say anything,” Lindsay said belligerently, crossing her arms over her chest.

“No, you don’t,” Dillon agreed. He turned back to his notebook and crinkled his brow as if puzzling over something on its pages.

I drifted to the window and watched the rain slanting down, a solid silver sheet in the light from the windows. The wind ripped at the live oak tree closest to the window, flailing its branches and making it genuflect to the great god hurricane. Water puddled on the lawn, turning it into a shallow lake, and I wondered uneasily exactly how far Rothmere was from the river. The house stood on a rise, but the storm surge could push the water up the hill in a scarily short time.

“Look, all I did was talk to Braden.” Lindsay’s exasperated voice broke the silence.

She leaned forward and I noticed the upholstery around her was damp from her wet clothes and hair. She must be freezing. Dillon flipped a page in his notebook, not even looking up.

“You’re not listening!” Lindsay’s fist pounded the cushion beside her. “I was really going to the bathroom, but then I saw Rachel go in and I knew Braden was on his own. I thought it would be a good time to talk to him about what he was doing to Mark. He was going to tell the Naval Academy stuff he had no right to tell them. He was going to ruin Mark’s life!”

Or save it, I thought.

“So I slipped on the sheet, thinking I could give him a scare, even if there was no one else around, and I glided onto the landing, making this sort of moaning sound.” She demonstrated. It was a low, pain-filled sound, not at all like the yowling Lonnie and Tyler had used. “Braden came up the stairs and then, I don’t know how, he tripped and fell.”

“Really?” Dillon raised his brows in pretend puzzlement. “I thought you said you talked to him?”

“Well,” she hesitated, looping a strand of hair around her forefinger and pulling on it. “I guess I might’ve said something about how he was wrecking Mark’s life and he should just mind his own effing business.”

“And then he just fell,” Dillon said, nodding as if it were plausible.

Lindsay’s eyes shifted from side to side, like she knew her story was weak, but she said strongly, “Right.”

Anger at her callousness fizzed in me like a carbonated beverage shaken too long. “Then why didn’t you get help?” I blurted.

Dillon shot me a “shut up” glare, but Lindsay answered. “I could see he was dead and I was scared. I didn’t know what I was doing, so I just ran down the back way and out to where they were doing the fireworks.”

“But he wasn’t dead,” Dillon said softly.

“I thought he was,” she said. A self-satisfied smirk crept across her arrogant young face. “That’s how it happened. I admit I lied to you at first, okay, because I was scared about how it would look. But it was an accident and you’ve got no one to say it wasn’t.”

Dillon looked her dead in the eyes. “Except Braden McCullers.”





Chapter Twenty-two





“YOU’RE LYING!” LINDSAY’s EYES WIDENED, AND ONE trembling hand pulled her hair again, squeezing drops of water from it.

Feeling like I’d been punched in the stomach, I looked at Dillon. His eyes were on me, not Lindsay, and he mouthed, “Sorry,” before turning back to the girl.