Sidetracked-Kobo (26 page)

Another pause.

“So, listen.” Andy’s tone lightened. “You ready to be picked up in an hour?”

I winced. “I’m still in bed.”

“Well, get up. I’m taking you out of here. We’ll pick a Kentucky back road and see where it goes. Stop at some little dive in a tiny town for lunch. We’ll talk about you and me. Set a date for our wedding.”

Our wedding
. I couldn’t think of it. How would I ever walk down the aisle, weighted as I was with all my lies?

“I’m not taking no for an answer, Del. You need to get out of town.”

Andy was right. What would I do here if I didn’t go? Hide when another reporter came to the door? Jump every time my cell rang? “Okay. I think I need more than an hour, though.”

“Ninety minutes then. I’ll see you at 9:45.”

Somehow I managed to pull myself from bed. Dread hung over me, ran through
me. My insides were on a constant low tremble. This could not continue. I would break apart.

In the shower I let hot water run over me, trying to clear my head. I told myself—unconvincingly—I would get through this. Some way. I’d lived through so much to get where I was today. Had fought long and hard. I couldn’t give up now. People needed me. Andy. Billy. My “family” here.

I’d never seen justice done for my mother’s death. How could I live with myself if I did not see it for Clara? And if I didn’t pursue it, who would?

I pulled on jeans and a pair of blue flats. A blue top.

Colleen was in the kitchen, Nicole apparently still in bed. Pete was in his room as well. As I passed his room I could hear the drone of his voice recounting some story for his memoirs. Colleen and I had little to say to each other, deep in our thoughts. I forced down an egg and piece of toast. A mug of strong coffee pushed a little more resolve into me. I
had
to survive this, what other choice did I have?

Andy came to the door, dressed in jeans and a red Polo shirt. He looked wonderful. We walked outside to a beautiful, sunny day. It did not chase my sense of dread away. Andy opened my car door for me. I threw him a smile. “Where are we going?”

“Don’t know yet. When we feel the urge to follow a road, we’ll do it.”

Andy pulled away from the curb and took side streets out of Redbud, clearly avoiding downtown. Had he seen reporters there on his way over?

I didn’t want to know the answer to that.

And then my dread became reality.

Andy asked me something, and to this day I can’t remember what it was. Some casual question. One of those moments that should have been ordinary—were it not for the fact that it immediately preceded the rest of my very changed life.

From my purse my cell phone chimed
.
I picked it up to read the text, thinking it was Pete. Still, an inner voice said,
“Don’t look at it now
.” I hesitated, my finger hovering over the message icon. Then tapped it.

I did not recognize the number. But the message froze my limbs.

Look who I found. Laura Denton. --Tina.

My eyes glued to the words of the text. Inside me the shaking grew stronger. On some other plane I watched my finger turn off my phone. I placed the cell in my purse and eased back in my seat. A blizzard rammed my brain, my thoughts white and thick.

“Everything all right?” Andy glanced at me.

“Yes.”

Was that my mouth moving?

My memory of the following hours is woven in haze.

Andy and I drove southeast on back roads, through Harrodsburg and Danville. Then east toward Richmond. We stopped in an old diner in Lancaster. The soup I ordered tasted like paste. I talked. I answered Andy’s questions and even started conversations of my own. Somehow I held it together. But I felt outside my own body, as though I hovered at the ceiling and watched myself go through the motions.

At lunch I almost blurted out the truth. I simply could not exist like this any longer. Maybe Andy could help. Maybe he wouldn’t hate me. But as always I held back. Andy was so honest. Had thought highly of me since the day we met. He would be devastated at my lies. Should I ruin his life just to ease my own mind? I’d lived under the burden of seeing no justice for my mother’s death. Now it was slipping away for Clara. So much pain all around. I could not cause more. Not to the man who loved me so much.

We drove a wide circle, going north and through Lexington. There we stopped at a coffee shop for an afternoon latte. My mind was beyond numb. The cell phone weighted my purse like a time bomb. Had Tina sent more texts? What was she saying? What did she plan to do?

Lattes steaming, Andy and I perched at a high round table. He placed his hand over mine. “We should get married this summer. I don’t want to wait too long. June maybe? July?”

So soon. The mere idea overwhelmed me. “I watched Clara and her mother plan her wedding. It takes months.” And no doubt Andy’s mother would want a huge, perfect ceremony. I cringed at the thought.

Andy rubbed my hand. “Yeah. And Redbud’s not up for a big wedding this summer. Doesn’t seem right. Maybe we should just go to Hawaii. Built-in honeymoon.” He grinned.

The gesture couldn’t cover his unspoken words. I knew he was worried about what townspeople would think. People who’d aligned against me because of my support for Billy would not forget what I had done. What if our wedding became a battleground for the much bigger issue of Billy’s guilt—those who believed my cries of his innocence and so would attend the ceremony versus those who didn’t?

I nodded. “Hawaii sounds like a great idea.”

Maybe we could move there. Flee Redbud and never look back.

Until Tina found me again.

“Great!” Andy looked so happy. “Then there’s little planning to do. So let’s set it in June.”

I winced. That would have been Clara’s wedding month.

Andy gave me a sad smile. “I know. Not on that day. The following weekend, on the twenty-first.”

And so, as terror encircled me, I set the date I’d dreamed of for years. The date that would begin my forever family.

Not until later would I realize June twenty-first is the longest day of the year.

Late Saturday afternoon I arrived home, exhausted and nerves humming. My cell was about to burn a hole through my purse. I headed straight for my room. Pete tried to ask me about my day, but I waved him off. “So sorry, I have a horrible headache. Need to go lie down.”

I closed my door, threw my purse on the bed and yanked out the phone. For an eternal moment I held it in my sweaty hand. Part of me wanted to throw it off a cliff, never see what devastation lay inside.

With a wildly beating heart, I turned it on.

Five messages awaited me.

Been wondering where you went all these years, Laura. Then boom you’re on TV. Major fail. Delanie Miller--real name Laura Denton, convicted in San Mateo, CA in 1995 of killing your mother.

Thirty minutes later:
Did you think I wouldn’t find you? Delanie Miller--real name Laura Denton, convicted in San Mateo, CA in 1995 of killing your mother. Now the fun begins.

One hour later:
You can’t seem to stay away from murder, can you? Delanie Miller--real name Laura Denton, convicted in San Mateo, CA in 1995 of killing your mother.

Next hour:
Don’t think you can ignore me. Delanie Miller--real name Laura Denton, convicted in San Mateo, CA in 1995 of killing your mother. BTW, so sorry about Clara.

And the next:
Your life as you know it is about to end. Delanie Miller--real name Laura Denton, convicted in San Mateo, CA in 1995 of killing your mother. Who’s to blame for the death of Clara Crenshaw? YOU.

Strangled noises bubbled up my throat. I stared at the last text.
I
was to blame for Clara’s death? Did Tina really think I’d murdered Clara, just like I’d “killed” my own mother?

The cell phone slipped from my fingers. This was it. How Tina would destroy me and end up with all my mother’s money. The fates, destiny, whatever you wanted to call it, had rammed together in her favor. She would call Police Chief Melcher, one cop to another, and tell him of my past. My conviction. How I was no doubt Clara’s real killer.

Her accusation would sound so plausible. No matter that I had no motive to murder Clara. That I’d loved her and would never want to hurt her. Those truths hadn’t helped me last time. Once again I’d “found” the body. Called 911. I’d made up the story about seeing a man in the Graysons’ front yard. Just like I’d concocted the story about looking at dress catalogues for ten minutes on my front porch in California. My only point of conscience this time had been in trying to save innocent Billy. Who just happened to be in the neighborhood.

I fell on the bed and curled up on my side, trembling. My thoughts grayed and jumbled. For some time I couldn’t focus on anything. Could only feel the jarring of my heart. Slowly, then, my brain began to grasp one pulsing question. What to do but sit and wait for Tina’s inevitable move? I had no offense. I couldn’t show anyone her texts, even if they turned threatening. Tina had been too clever to embed the truth of my past in every message.

From the floor, my cell phone chimed. The sound sent shock waves through me.

I curled in deeper, an arm over my face. My mind raced back to that first night in juvey eighteen years ago, just after my arrest. In one day the world had caved in around me. A black hole consumed my life for the next nine years.

Now the world was caving again.

This time, God, just kill me.

My phone lay silent. The rug around it seemed to crackle, pulling my torso over the edge of the bed, my fingers to the floor to pick it up.

I rolled onto my back, holding the cell in both hands. My lungs stopped moving.

Breathe, Laura, just breathe.

I hit the icon to read the message.

You’d better respond, Delanie Miller, aka Laura Denton, convicted in San Mateo, CA in 1995 of killing your mother.

The words blurred. I stared at the phone screen, wrenched by Tina’s grip on me from three thousand miles away. Respond? What did she expect me to say?

I slammed the phone down on my bed. Stared at the ceiling. Picked up the phone again. Before I knew it my finger was tapping over the keys.

What do you want?

Within thirty seconds the cell rang. Tina’s number. I stared at the digits, my veins freezing over.

After the third ring I answered. “What.” My voice sounded defeated. Resigned. I hated that.

“Well, there’s my girl.”

Slowly, I sat up. “What do you want?”

“We need to talk in person.”

“You expect me to come to
California
?”

“No need, dear Laura. I’ve made it easy for you. I’m in Redbud.”

The walls of my bedroom closed in.

“Now here’s what I want you to do.”

Tina was here.
In my town
.

“You listening, Laura?”

“I … yes.”

“On the west end of town there’s a little out-of-the way place called Redbud Park. No one seems to use it. You know where I’m talking about?”

She could leave her work—just like that? And how did she get here so fast?

“
Laura
.”

“Yes. I know it.”

“Good. There’s a bench toward the back. Be there in one hour. We’ll still have enough daylight. Come alone. Bring a laptop computer and your bank account statements and passwords.”

I gripped the phone, my heart tumbling. She was going to drain me of all my money. I should have known.

“You got all that, Laura?”

“And what if I don’t come?”

Tina laughed. “Then I make a phone call to your chief of police. Tell him who you really are. You wouldn’t want that, now would you?”

I licked my lips. “You’re telling me if I do everything you want, you’ll leave me alone?”

“Of course.” Such a sugar-coated answer. “Why would I want to make your life miserable?”

She was lying.

Or was she?

If Tina turned me in to Melcher after bribing me out of my money, I’d have no reason not to show him her texts. I could also show him my bank account activity as proof of what she’d done. She’d end up losing the money she’d just stolen from me.

Wouldn’t she?

What was I not seeing?

“Laura.” Tina’s voice hardened. “I’m warning you—you’d better show up.”

“I hear you.”

“Good. Look forward to seeing you.”

The line went dead.

This was the last hour of the life I’d built.

After Tina’s call, I slumped immobilized on my bed, mind fixed on that reality. I was the mouse, Tina the cat. Now I lay helpless in a trap—and there was absolutely nothing I could do.

Why had God allowed me the last few years of relative happiness, only to snatch everything away? Had I not been through enough?

It wasn’t just the money. It was the fact that it came from my mother. The only thing I had left of her. Tina had already stripped away her jewelry. Far worse, I hadn’t managed to see justice done for my mom’s murder. Now I was going to allow her a second injustice. Everything her parents and grandparents had worked for would be taken from the family.

And I was to blame. I and my stupid, stupid choices.

Why had I ever thought I needed to assume a new identity? So what if Tina had hounded me wherever I moved? Maybe I would have had no friends, but at least the courts had awarded me my inheritance. She couldn’t have taken that from me. Now I’d given her the perfect opportunity to take it all. No doubt she
would
turn me in to the police as soon as she got what she wanted, just for spite. She was a detective. She’d surely thought of many angles I couldn’t see. Somehow she’d get away with my money.

Worse, I was going to lose Andy. My house. Pete, Colleen, and Nicole. And I’d probably go to jail. Not just for my illegal identity. Maybe even for Clara’s murder.

My head dropped into my hands.
God, I know I don’t deserve it. But please help.

Thoughts in my mind jumbled and rolled. I struggled to logic through details of Tina’s call but could only dwell on the enormity of what was about to happen. The fallout of my own terrible decisions.