If You Ever Tell (22 page)

Then Teri looked down at the loyal but tired and bewildered brown dog with her big, pointy ears and decided that in less than forty-eight hours, she had let this thing with Roscoe Byrnes turn her into a wreck. She could have ignored what he’d said. Carmen was right—Byrnes was probably only trying to get attention during the last days of his life. That and maybe, if he was smart enough, to cast doubt about who really murdered Wendy and Hugh Farr, to turn the original suspect’s life into hell.

Well, if so, Byrnes had certainly gotten his wish, Teresa thought, all because she had let him. She, not Byrnes, had lost control and already damaged feelings because she was shocked and frightened. What she had to do now, Teri told herself, was try to repair some of that damage.

She grabbed her beige tote bag, fished inside for her keys—swearing tomorrow she would clean out the deplorable amount of junk she’d stashed inside—and rushed for the door. She stopped when she noticed Sierra following, assuming her most plaintive look when the lack of a leash meant she wasn’t going to be accompanying her mistress. “I’m sorry, but I can’t take you tonight,” Teri said. “But I promise to bring back some treats.”

The moon shone silvery against a slate gray sky. Earlier, she’d heard that a thunderstorm was predicted for around ten o’clock, but she couldn’t feel it in the air. She had no doubt the horses could sense it, though. They were extremely sensitive to weather changes.

Teresa drove straight to Club Rendezvous. The parking lot was a third full, quite good for this early hour on a weeknight when there was no band, indicating the club’s popularity.

As Teri emerged from her car, she wished she’d taken time to change from the jeans and turquoise blouse she’d worn all day, but when she entered the club, she saw that at least half of its patrons also wore jeans. The mood was clearly more casual on a weeknight than the weekend, she thought as recorded sounds of John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change” washed over her. She went to the bar and asked for Mac.

“He’s in his office,” the young bartender told her. “Want me to call him and ask him to come out?”

“No, I’m Teresa Farr, a friend of his. I’ll just go to his office.”

“Mr. MacKenzie doesn’t like for customers to come to his office—” Teresa turned and scanned the club, spotted the hallway near the door, and began walking toward it. “Miss Farr,” the bartender called. “You can’t just go back there. Miss Farr—”

The bartender’s protests followed her past the dance floor. Either he’d stopped talking or he was on the phone to Mac as she nearly ran to the back of the hall where long ago she and Mac had planned to place his office. And there it was. For some reason Teri couldn’t identify, she was absurdly pleased to find that Mac hadn’t changed their original layout of the club. Even if his office door did bear a brass plate engraved with the word private beneath his name, she tapped twice and flung it open. Obviously surprised in spite of the phone in his hand—no doubt with the bartender on the other end warning him that a frantic woman was headed for his office—Mac stood up as Teri burst out with, “I’m sorry.”

From behind his large mahogany desk, Mac stared at her for a moment. No smile of welcome warmed his strong features. He simply stood motionless, dressed casually in jeans and a green shirt with the long sleeves rolled halfway up his strong, tanned forearms. In an instant, she took in his dark hair gleaming beneath an overhead light, his greenish-brown eyes flecked with gold narrowing slightly, his jaw tightening. Finally, he muttered, “It’s okay,” into the phone and put it down on the handset. He continued to stand behind the desk and stare at her.

Teri closed the door behind her and began talking quickly, almost breathlessly. “I’ve been miserable all day. Well, I was last night, too, after you left. What I said to you was awful. Your mother did call me the day she was fired and begged me not to tell you about Dad hitting me or his threatening to go to the police about you, and she did say she was afraid of what you might do, but yesterday I implied she thought you were capable of violence—”

“You didn’t imply it; you said it,” Mac interrupted icily.

“Yes, I
said
it. But I know that’s not what she meant. She was afraid there would be a physical fight, that’s all—a fight that might end up with you being arrested for assault on Dad.”

“And she was right. If I’d known what he’d done to you, I would have knocked the dickens out of him. He deserved it. But I didn’t deserve what you dished out to me yesterday—implying my own mother thought I could be a murderer. That was below the belt, Teri, and I can’t figure out the reason why, unless you were still paying me back for kissing another woman when we were engaged.”

“I wasn’t!” A mental sensor seemed to click in Teresa’s mind, forcing her to tell the truth. “I mean, I was in a way, but not the way you think.”

“Oh?” Mac raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you tell me what
I
think?”

“Mac, please don’t make this so difficult.” Teresa felt beads of perspiration popping out along her hairline, and she stepped closer to his desk, spreading her hands almost in supplication. “I can’t explain exactly what was going on in my mind, but—”

“You mean you
won’t
explain exactly what was going on in your mind.”

“All right, dammit, I don’t want to explain it right now. That’s not what I came here to do. I came to apologize and to tell you I know now just as I knew eight years ago that your mother didn’t think you’d kill anyone. My God, if I’d thought your own mother believed you capable of murder, would I have become engaged to you a year later?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mac said slowly, then leaned across his desk, his face and voice sardonic. “After all, I would have been killing two people you hated.”

A short, flaming silence burned for a moment between them before Teri bent forward across the desk and slapped Mac’s face. Given the angle at which it was delivered, the slap couldn’t have done more than sting, but Mac’s hazel eyes flew wide in surprise and his hand moved upward toward his cheek. Teresa turned and whipped out of his office. As she ran down the hall, she heard him calling, “Teri! Wait!” But she didn’t stop.

In what felt like seconds she was in her car, careening out of the parking lot. Although she tried to keep her gaze straight ahead, it wavered for just a moment—a moment in which she saw Mac standing outside the doors of Club Rendezvous, his hand still at his cheek, his expression shocked and contrite.

Teresa drove blindly and furiously out of the parking lot and not until she was halfway through town did she realize that she was covered with a sheen of cold perspiration. She was also going fifteen miles over the speed limit. She abruptly slowed down, took a couple of deep breaths, and felt a tear run down her right cheek. She brushed it away with the back of her hand—a gesture that reminded her of a pathetic Daniel being led sobbing from her home and from the barn—while another tear slid down her left cheek.

She had slapped Mac. Slapped him across the face! She’d never done such a thing in her life and she was horrified. She had been furious and appalled when her father had struck her eight years ago and now she was behaving just like him! Was she no better than Hugh Farr? Was this inclination to strike and hurt hereditary?

“Oh, God,” she moaned aloud, feeling shattered by what she had just done. She had gone to see Mac to apologize. “Some apology,” she muttered again. “First you tell him his mother doesn’t trust him; then you slap him. He’s lucky you broke off the engagement before he suffered serious bodily harm.”

Teresa turned on the radio in time to hear the weather forecast telling her of increasing wind speed because of the approaching thunderstorm. She jammed in a CD, then decided she needed quiet. She couldn’t even concentrate on music, which usually calmed her nerves and diverted her mind from problems. As she drove along in silence, she gradually became aware that she’d driven most of the way home. On her left were a drugstore and a bank, and finally on the right was a cemetery. Across from the cemetery glared the lights of a convenience store. Glancing down at her gasoline gauge, she saw that she was dangerously low on fuel. Besides, she had promised to bring home a treat for Sierra.

Teri turned into the store’s lot and pulled up to a pump. Her hands trembled as she removed her gas cap and inserted the gasoline pump nozzle. Across from her, two teenage girls in a beat-up sedan gestured flamboyantly while alternately grimacing and throwing back their heads in abandoned laughter. Finally, two teenage boys swaggered to the sedan, and, judging by the squeals produced when they immediately passed around cans of Coke, Teresa guessed someone had brought along liquor. A man at least thirty years older than Teri with a potbelly and sparse hair sauntered past her and drawled, “Lookin’ good tonight, babe.” “Thanks, sugar pie,” she replied sweetly. “How’re your wife and grandkids?” An aged SUV pulled up, driven by a harried-looking woman yelling at the five children squabbling in the car.

A stiff breeze suddenly blew Teresa’s hair across her face, and she remembered the radio announcer’s prediction of increasing wind speed. She tucked her hair behind her ears, feeling so tired, frayed, and upset she was tempted not to bother filling the car’s gas tank. Then, as if someone above had read her thoughts, the pump finally automatically shut off. The tank was full at last.

Sighing in gratitude, she entered the store, picked up two cans of Sierra’s favorite food along with a package of beef jerky, the dog’s favorite treat, grabbed a container of fresh cream for her morning coffee, then took her place in an unusually long line. Tonight it seemed as if everyone in Point Pleasant who wasn’t at Club Rendezvous had decided to stop at the Speedway convenience store. By the time she’d reached the register, she added a package of M&M’s and a tabloid newspaper to her haul.

And now what? Teresa thought as she got back into her car. An evening of television? Reading? Listening to music and drinking wine? A rowdy game of fetch with Sierra?

As Teri turned onto the narrow road that led to her house, the wind picked up, sending the leafy limbs of sycamore trees swaying and a fat white cat skittering across the road in front of her. She braked for the cat, then looked up at the sky—black with a bank of billowy gray clouds moving in from the west.

Teresa knew the rustling of grass and leaves would make the horses restless. Gus and Josh were miracle workers when it came to calming her equine crew. Creeping ahead, she was peering at the cottage where Gus and Josh lived, looking for lights and their rugged SUV, when something dashed into the road.

Teresa slammed on the brake. The headlights seemed to have frozen a figure wearing a long, hooded black raincoat. The loose-fitting raincoat whirled as the figure turned and looked right at her. Teri caught a glimpse of a pale face and wide, startled eyes—blue eyes surrounded by heavy shadows—before long black hair blew across the ghostly features like a veil. Instantly, the figure ran for the mass of trees on the left side of the road and disappeared.

For an instant, Teresa sat mesmerized in her car. No, it couldn’t be, she thought. It was the prowler. It was a teenager rushing for shelter before the storm hit. It wasn’t; it couldn’t be—

Teri nearly tore her seat belt loose and jumped out of the car. “Hey, who are you?” she yelled in a shaky voice. As the tree limbs thrashed and she heard the first grumble of distant thunder, her gut feelings washed over her like a huge, cold wave and she called with desperate abandon, “Mom! Mommy, come back!”

T
ERESA STOOD IN THE
road, gazing at the mass of trees where the person had vanished, both desiring to and afraid of pursuing the figure she believed could be her mother. Teri’s thoughts whirled. What if her mother had been alive all of this time? What could her reason be for returning after eight years? Had she heard about Roscoe Lee Byrnes’s statement that he hadn’t murdered Hugh and Wendy Farr and knew suspicion would once again fall on Teresa? If Marielle had committed the murders, had she gotten well enough, strong enough, to protect her daughter this time? Had she come home to confess?

No, Teresa thought vehemently. Her mother was dead. She
had
to be dead. She wouldn’t have simply vanished off the face of the earth for eight years. It wasn’t possible. Or was it? Just how hard would it be to assume another person’s identity? As far as anyone knew, Marielle had no money or credit cards with her when she disappeared. She couldn’t have used credit cards without being traced anyway. Could someone have given her enough cash to go far away from Point Pleasant? And what about identification? Eventually Marielle would have needed a birth certificate, a driver’s license, a Social Security number. Given the state she was in when the murders occurred, she certainly couldn’t have managed to acquire the documents by herself. Someone would have had to help her. But who? Obviously someone who cared deeply for her.

As the wind grew even stronger, whipping Teresa’s hair into a tangled mess, raising chill bumps on her arms beneath the thin, cotton blouse, she realized she’d been standing outside her vehicle for at least five minutes. Her car headlights pierced the darkness straight ahead, throwing the road into sharp relief against the walls of trees on either side of the road. Even if the person who’d run into their shelter to hide was making the sound of a person running, Teri couldn’t have heard it above the noise of leaves slapping together and the creaking of some slender branches. Cold, stinging raindrops finally began spattering her. With a mixture of reluctance and relief, Teresa climbed somewhat dazedly back into her car and headed for home.

She pulled her Buick into the garage and pressed the automatic-door remote control. The heavy garage door behind her car rolled down and shut with a reassuring thud. Still shuddering, Teresa opened the door leading from the garage into a small entrance hall beside the kitchen. Sierra had heard the garage door grinding down and waited for Teri, tail flying as she emitted the high squeaks that always signaled joy. Immediately sensing her mistress’s mood, though, the dog backed off. “Good,” Teresa praised. “I can’t play right now, but I remembered your treats.” She pulled the beef jerky out of the store bag, ripped open the package, and tossed a couple of strips onto the floor.