Dead Giveaway (37 page)

Clay shook his head at what this man had been through. "You're right. There's always something worse."

"Glad I could make you feel better about
your
life," he said with a hoot of laughter.

They fell silent for several minutes, and Clay relaxed, hoping to doze off. It wasn't as if he was getting much sleep when he was constantly worrying about Allie and his family and what might be happening at the farm.

"What are you in for, anyway?"

Clay opened his eyes. The other inmate had wandered right up to the bars separating them.

"Me? Nothing. I'm falsely accused."

"Aren't we all."

Now that he'd been interrupted, Clay doubted he could drift off again, so he sat up. "Want to tell me how you accidentally shot someone?"

"The shooting wasn't the part that was accidental," he admitted.

"Oh?" Clay raised his eyebrows. "Then which part was?"

"The part where I let the dumbass see me," he said, laughing some more.

This man had tried to kill a witness. On purpose. Clay no longer found the situation funny.

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"Attempted murder?"

"That's what they claim," he replied with a wink.

"That's what they claim," Clay muttered to himself. Obviously, he was locked up with someone who, despite his apparent good nature, had no conscience.

Suddenly, Clay didn't feel like talking anymore. He couldn't relate to this man. They had nothing in common, and he hoped they never would.

Lying back, he threw an arm over his eyes to signal the end of the conversation. He'd be out of here soon, he told himself. Tuesday would have to come eventually. There was no reason to think about this inmate or the fact that he'd meet a lot more men who were an even greater danger to society if he went to prison. But as he let his mind wander, he realized something that hadn't occurred to him before. He'd assumed that whoever shot him at the cabin had acted out of anger or vengeance.

But what if the motivation behind the shooting was more random than that? The guy in the next cell had tried to kill a man just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The shooter at the cabin might have been doing the same. Which meant Clay must have seen something, or come close to seeing something, that could give the guy away.

Now if only he could remember the people and cars he'd spotted as he approached the cabin that night...

"Are you okay?" Madeline asked.

Allie tightened her grip on the cell phone. She'd gone to Clay's farm for privacy. Now that her mother was at her house, she craved some time alone, a few minutes to deal with her own emotions. Especially after seeing the pictures she'd found in the package that had been delievered to her earlier.

Taking them from her purse, she lined them up very carefully on Clay's kitchen counter.

She'd had them all day and yet it still made her teeth chatter and her body quake to look at them.

She forced herself to answer Madeline in a calm voice. "I'm fine."

"You must be heartbroken."

Allie hugged herself. Madeline had no idea. But Clay's stepsister wasn't referring to the pictures. It wasn't difficult to guess she didn't know about them. She was talking about the scandal involving Allie's father that had erupted last night. In typical Stillwater fashion, word was rolling through town like a tidal wave, and Allie was as humiliated and embarrassed as she'd expected to be. When she thought of her father in that room with Irene, she still felt a very poignant ache in her chest.

But these pictures...They were more heartbreaking than almost anything else could possibly be. They'd upset her so badly she couldn't even keep her appointment with Grace. She didn't know what to say to Clay's sister. Should she bring up the abuse Grace had suffered? Tell her about the pictures?

"It hasn't been easy," she said into the phone. "But...somehow my mother and I will get through it
." How had Grace survived? How did the family cope?

"I have to admit I suspected Mom was seeing someone. She's been a little secretive for...gee, months and months. But I never dreamed..." Madeline let her words fall away and tried again. "I mean, I feel guilty by association. Ashamed. I want to apologize."

Allie managed to keep her brain working well enough to answer, but it took a real effort.

Her mind had drifted to Barker's Bible and the supposed "love" he felt for his stepdaughter. It wasn't love. He'd been sexually obsessed.

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"There's no need for you to feel guilty, Maddy," she said. "I know you're not responsible for what your father, I mean--" she cleared her throat "--
stepmother
has done."

Maddy seemed a bit confused by Allie's mistake but didn't comment on it. "I didn't know, I swear."

"Did Clay?" Allie asked, gazing through his kitchen window toward the barn outside.

"I doubt it."

She turned to glance around the kitchen. She'd had to kick out the cardboard they'd used to cover the broken window downstairs in order to get in. But it had been worth it to find a place where she could be alone and was unlikely to be disturbed. Her mother was refusing to accept Dale's calls or speak of the affair. And she was ignoring Allie--as though Allie was to blame for the situation--and lavishing one hundred percent of her attention on Whitney. Evelyn was trying to buffer herself from the pain. But Allie knew she'd have to deal with it at some point and worried that this would only put off her recovery.

Then there was Joe. Allie was afraid that even though his chances of getting a search warrant had improved by a large margin, he'd be back late tonight to find what he could. Clay's absence was too good an opportunity to pass up.

"I'm sure Grace didn't know, either," Madeline was saying. "She would've told me."

Allie picked up a Polaroid of Grace at twelve or thirteen years old. She couldn't tell where it had been taken but Grace was naked and spread eagled, her wrists and ankles tied. Another showed Barker with his mouth between her legs, his head slightly distorted as if he'd held the camera out and taken the picture himself.

Of course Grace would tell Madeline if their mother was having an affair, Allie thought sarcastically. Clay and Grace told Madeline everything, right?

Swallowing a sigh, Allie shook her head. Madeline had no idea. The Montgomerys loved her and treated her well, but they kept their secrets to themselves.

And she could see why. There were pictures here that revealed such depravity she couldn't even bear to pick them up.

Swiping her arm across the counter, she sent them fluttering to the floor. She didn't try to hold back her tears. What she'd seen wounded her in a way she'd never been hurt before. How could any man, least of all a minister, do what Barker had done? Experience had taught Allie how evil some people could be. In Chicago, she'd gained quite an education in that department. But this was different. The perpetrator wasn't a stranger. He was a man who'd dressed up as Santa Claus and dangled her on his knee, a man who'd encouraged her to be chaste and good and to save herself for marriage--the worst kind of hypocrite.

And the victims! Although older than Allie, they were women she'd known. Rosy Lee Harper had overdosed on sleeping pills at sixteen. Allie still remembered getting out of school to attend her funeral. And Katie Swanson had run away at--Allie couldn't quite remember because she'd been so young at the time--fifteen? Almost everyone in town had gathered to help find her, even Barker. He'd led the search! They'd combed the entire area until they received word that she'd been found dead on the highway, the victim of a hit and run. Both girls came from very poor families who'd relied heavily on the support of their minister.

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 172

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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 173

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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.