The Liar (27 page)

“I can’t stop you from trailing me all the way home, then doubling back, but it’s silly.”

“Either way.” He tugged her back for a kiss, then walked to his truck while she walked to her van.

Silly, she thought again, but sweet, too. He was just racking up all sorts of points.

Lord, she hadn’t thought of the point system in years. She and Emma Kate had devised it in high school. Amusing herself, she began counting up Griff’s.

Good-looking, scale of one to ten. She’d definitely give him a ten, she decided, and didn’t think she was pushing the mark.

Conversation skills. Another ten there. He knew how to talk, how to listen.

Humor. Another winner. She made the turn onto the road, watched his headlights follow.

Considerate. Maybe even a little too much, such as wasting his time following her home on roads she’d traveled all her life.

Good kisser. Right off the scale. She rolled her window down, let the air cool the heat just thinking of it brought on. She could honestly say she’d never been kissed better.

What were the rest of the requirements for the perfect boyfriend? She must have them written down somewhere. They’d made them up before either one of them had had sex, so that hadn’t been on the list.

The adult Shelby list would include it, and he’d top that scale, too.

She took the back roads, automatically skirting the town, taking the winding path, with Griff’s headlights not far behind.

And all right, they made her smile. It wasn’t such a bad thing to let someone look after her, just a little. As long as she remembered she needed to be in charge of her own life, and Callie’s.

She pulled into the drive, noted her parents’ bedroom lights were still on. When she got out, she thought she’d wave Griff off, but he was already getting out of his truck.

“You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

“Sure I do. That’s how it’s done. And if I don’t walk you to the door, how am I going to kiss you good night?”

“I like the second part. The first time I was kissed at this front door, I was fifteen, and Silas Nash—a descendant of the infamous Nash clan—gave me one that had me floating through the door and dreaming of him half the night.”

“I can beat that,” Griff said after a moment. “I can beat some teenager named Silas.”

“He’s getting his law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law.”

“I can definitely beat a lawyer,” Griff claimed, and to Shelby’s mind, proved it.

“I guess I’m going to float upstairs and dream about you.”

“All night.” He gathered her hair into his fist, kissed her again until the world spun around her. “I’m not settling for half.”

“Good night, Griffin.”

“’Night.”

He waited until the door shut, walked back to the truck. He’d do some dreaming of his own tonight, he thought. The woman had him wrapped. Everything about her struck home for him.

He glanced up, imagined her going in to check on Callie. And thinking of him, she’d better be thinking of him, when she undressed for bed.

He’d sure as hell be thinking of her.

He pulled out, and as she had, took the back roads.

No hurry, a lot to think about. Plans to make.

He had a pizza date with a pretty little girl to think about, and a picnic with her and her mother to look forward to.

Maybe he’d pick up a bottle of champagne, give the picnic a classy, unexpected edge.

He glanced in the rearview at the headlights behind him, and since he’d been dawdling, picked up the speed a little.

Apparently not enough, he thought, as the headlights beamed closer. He waited for the truck—he could see it was a truck now—to pass since it was in such a damn hurry.

Instead it rammed him from behind hard enough to slap him against the steering wheel and back.

Instinctively he hit the gas. He thought of the phone he’d put, as always, in the cup holder, but didn’t want to risk taking a hand off the wheel.

And the truck rammed him again faster, harder, sending him into a skid that had his tires smoking over the rough shoulder. Griff fought his truck back, but the next hit, right at the curve, sent him careening off the road, skidding over the shoulder and into the oak tree green with spring.

He heard the crunch, had a moment to think, Shit! Shit! before the airbag deployed. Still the impact slammed his head against the side window. He saw stars, and the red eyes of the truck’s taillights as it stopped, idled, then punched it to round the curve.

“Not hurt,” he mumbled, but the stars, and they had jagged, pointy edges, circled his vision. “Not too bad, nothing broken.”

Except his truck.

He groped for the phone, watched his vision waver like he’d stuck his head underwater.

Don’t pass out, he ordered himself.

In the dash light he managed to find the name he wanted, and pressed Dial.

“Where’s my sister?” Forrest asked.

“Home. I’m not. I’ve got trouble. In case I pass out, I’m on Black Bear Road, about two miles from my place. You know that turn where the big oak stands?”

“Yeah.”

“My truck’s in that tree. Somebody ran me off the road. I could use a cop.”

“Sounds like you could use a tow truck. You hurt?”

“I don’t know.” Jagged, pointy stars circling. “Hit my head. Bleeding some.”

“Stay there. I’m on my way.”

“Truck’s in the tree. Where am I going?”

But Forrest had already hung up.

He sat for a moment, trying to get a fix in his mind on the truck that had run him off the road.

Chevy, yeah a Chevy, he thought. Half-ton pickup. Older model. Maybe four, five years. Something fixed on the front grille, like a . . . plow?

It hurt his head to think, so he stopped, fumbled off his seat belt, and discovered when he fought open the door and shifted, everything hurt a little.

The best he could do right now was sit on the side of the seat, breathe in the cool night air. He swiped at the wet on his face, saw blood smeared on his hand.

Fuck.

He’d have a bandanna in the glove box, but he wasn’t going to try to get to it, not right at the moment.

Nothing broken, he reminded himself. He’d broken his arm once when he was eight and the tree branch he’d been swinging on snapped. And his wrist at seventeen jumping out of Annie’s window.

So he knew what a broken bone felt like.

Just banged up, shook up and rattled around some.

But his truck—and goddamn he loved his truck—was a different matter.

He made himself stand to make sure he could. A little bit dizzy, but not bad. Bracing himself, he walked around to check out the damage.

“Shit! Fuck. Fucking shit!” Furious it was as bad as he feared, he shoved a hand through his hair. And saw stars again as he smacked against the wound.

The grille was toast, and the way the hood had accordioned, he thought the same there. And Christ knew what that meant for essentials under the damn hood.

He was no mechanic, but he was pretty sure he had a bent axle to top it off.

He’d hit hard, hard enough to spiderweb the windshield.

His feet crunched on broken glass as he circled around to get both the bandanna and a flashlight out of the cab. Flares, he thought. He should’ve pulled out the emergency flares straight off.

Before he could get anything, headlights cut through the dark.

Forrest pulled a police cruiser behind the wrecked truck. He got out, sized up Griff with one long look, then looked over to study the truck.

“Your head’s bleeding, son.”

“I know it. Son of a bitch.” He kicked the rear tire, which he regretted as the quick violence pinged something in the back of his neck.

He did
not
have whiplash. He would
not
have whiplash.

“You been drinking, Griff?”

“I had two glasses of wine all night, and the second one a good hour before this. I got run off the damn road, Forrest. Fucker came up behind me, rammed me, kept doing it until he caught me on this curve and sent me into the tree.”

“What fucker?”

“I don’t know what the hell fucker.” He pressed the heel of his hand—ouch!—to the throbbing wound because he was tired of blood running into his eye. “Half-ton Chevy, four, maybe five years old. Some sort of plow or farm tool—something hooked to the grille. Red, I think it was red. The truck. Plow was yellow, mostly. I think.”

“Okay, why don’t we sit you down a minute? I’ve got a first aid kit in the cruiser. Be best to stop that bleeding.”

“I’ll just lean here.” And he leaned back against the tipped back of his truck. “Ah, something else . . .” He dug for it as Forrest went back to the cruiser. “He slowed down after I crashed. Just for a couple seconds, like he wanted to make sure I hit good and proper. Saw his taillights, and . . . bumper sticker! Some kind of bumper sticker on the— What hand is this?”

He lifted his left, studied it for a moment before he could remember right from left.

“Left, the left side of the tailgate.”

Griff closed his eyes, found that eased a degree or two of the throbbing. “He wasn’t drunk. It was purposeful. I’m not sure when he pulled up behind me, but it wasn’t long after I left Shelby at your parents’ front door.”

“You followed her home?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t going to have her driving around after dark with what happened.”

“Um-hm.” Forrest set up flares; Griff closed his eyes again.

“I think the truck’s totaled, or nearly. I’ve only had it three years. I’ve put a lot of miles on it, sure, but it had plenty more in it.”

“We’ll have my granddaddy take a look once it’s towed in. You’re lucid,” Forrest added as he walked over with the first aid kit. “You haven’t puked yet.”

“I’m not going to puke.”

“If that changes, aim away from me. How’s the vision?”

“It wavered some at first. Steady now. Ow, fuck!”

“Don’t be a pussy,” Forrest said mildly, and continued to clean the laceration with an alcohol swab.

“You’d be a pussy, too, if I was being sadistic Nurse Sally.”

“I can’t see how bad it is until it’s cleaned up some. Nurse Emma Kate’s on her way.”

“What? No. Why?”

“Because if she says you’re going to the ER in Gatlinburg, that’s where you’re going. And since I have to deal with this mess you’re in, she and Matt can haul you there.”

“You called them.”

“I did. I’ll call for the tow after I have a look at what’s what myself. Anything else you can tell me about the truck?”

“Other than whoever was driving it was—is—a lunatic?”

“You didn’t see the lunatic, at all?”

“An impression—I’d say a guy—but I was pretty busy trying not to end up like I ended up. Or worse.” Griff said nothing for a moment, studied his friend as Forrest fixed a couple butterfly bandages along the gash. “You know who it is, from what I gave you already.”

“I’ve got an impression. That’s for me to deal with, Griff.”

“The hell it is. It’s my truck, my head.”

“My job. I expect that’s Matt and Emma Kate coming now. You piss anybody off lately?”

“You’re the closest I’ve come to pissing anyone off lately, since I’m sleeping with your sister.”

Forrest stopped what he was doing, eyes sharply narrowed. “Is that so?”

“I figure it’s a good time to let you know since you’re being all official and I’m already bleeding. I’m crazy about her. Flat-out.”

“It’s a fast leap from nice to meet you to crazy about.”

“She’s a lightning bolt.” Griff stabbed a thumb at his own heart. “Bam.”

Before Forrest could speak again, Emma Kate was running from the car, a medical bag in her hand. “What happened? Let me look at you.”

She pulled out a penlight, shined it. “Follow the light with your eyes.”

“I’m okay.”

“Shut up. Tell me your full name and today’s date.”

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt. December seven, 1941. A day that’ll live in infamy.”

“Smart-ass. How many fingers?”

“Eleven minus nine. I’m okay, Emma Kate.”

“I’ll tell you if you’re okay after I go over you in an exam room at the clinic.”

“I don’t need—”

“Shut up,” she said again, then hugged him. “Nothing against your triage, Forrest, but I’m going to take those bandages off at the clinic, get a look at that cut myself. It might need stitches.”

“Nuh-uh,” Griff said.

Matt stood, hands on hips, studying the truck. “Fucker trashed your ride, man. Forrest just said somebody ran you off the road. Who was it?”

“Ask Forrest. I think he knows from what I saw of the other truck.”

“I’ll be looking into it. For now, take him on into the clinic, look him over. I’ll have it towed to my granddaddy’s shop. You can come get what you need from it in the morning.”

“My tools—”

“Are still going to be there in the morning. I need to call this in, but I’ve got your statement clear enough, and I’ll call you if I need anything else. Nothing for you to do here, Griff, but be pissed off.”

He argued but, outnumbered, ended up dragged to Matt’s truck.

“He knows who did it and won’t say.” Bitterness coated Griff’s throat.

“Because he knows you might be an easy guy most of the time, in this case you’d go straight for the ass-kicking.” Matt shook his head. “Wouldn’t blame you. But you’re banged up already—disadvantage—and it’ll be almost as satisfying if whoever did this spends time in a cell.”

“He could spend time in a cell after I kick his ass.”

“It was deliberate?” Emma Kate asked. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, hell yeah.”

“What were you doing on that road?”

“Coming back from seeing Shelby got home.” Griff suddenly sat straight up. “Heading back from Shelby’s house, and the other truck pulled up behind me—not long after I started back home. Because he was either sitting on her house or mine. Either sitting on hers or followed us from mine, waited his chance.”

“You’re thinking they came after you because they couldn’t get to her?” Matt said.

“I’m thinking whoever did it isn’t just a lunatic. I’m thinking worse. A lot worse.”

S
helby started out the morning singing in the shower. She felt the spring to her step and didn’t care who saw it or guessed the reason why.

She got dressed, helped Callie dress.

“You get to go to Granny’s today.”

“To Granny’s house?”

“That’s right. It’s her day off, and she asked especially if you’d come over and stay with her. Won’t that be fun?”

“Granny has cookies, and Bear.”

Bear was the big yellow dog who’d race and play with a little girl all day—and sleep in the sun when nobody was around to play with.

“I know. And Grandpa’s going to be there for a while, too. Your Gamma’s going to take you over on her way to work. I’ve got some paperwork of my own to get to this morning. Then I’ll come get you when I’m finished work today.”

With Callie babbling about everything she had to take to Granny’s, everything she had to do at Granny’s, they walked into the kitchen.

Shelby’s parents broke off their conversation immediately, and the quick look they exchanged set off Shelby’s radar.

“Is something wrong?”

“What could be wrong?” Ada Mae said brightly. “Callie Rose, it’s such a pretty morning, I decided we’re going to have our breakfast on the back porch, like a picnic.”

“I like picnics. I’m taking Griff on a picnic date.”

“I heard about that. This can be like practice. I’ve got these pretty strawberries all cut up, and some cheesy eggs already scrambled. Let’s take this on outside.”

“Mama wants a picnic, too.”

“She’ll be right along.”

Shelby stood where she was while Ada Mae scooted Callie out onto the porch.

“Something’s wrong. Oh God, Daddy, did someone else get shot?”

“No. It’s nothing like that. And I want to tell you right off, he’s all right.”

“He— Griff? It’s Griffin.” As her heart took a hard bump, she grabbed her father’s hands. He’d stay steady, she knew, no matter what. “If it was Clay or Forrest, Mama’d be a mess. What happened to Griff?”

“He got a little banged up, is all. It’s nothing serious, Shelby, you know I’d tell you if it were. Somebody ran his truck off the road, and into the big oak on Black Bear Road last night.”

“Banged up how? Who did it? Why?”

“Sit down, take a breath.” Turning, Clayton opened the refrigerator, took out a Coke. “He’s got some abrasions from the seat belt, the air bag. And got a pretty good knock on the head. Emma Kate took him into the clinic last night, gave him a going-over, and I’m going to do the same myself later this morning. But if Emma Kate said he didn’t need a doctor or the hospital, we can trust that.”

“All right, I will, but I want to see for myself, too.”

“You can do that,” he continued in his calm way, “after you take that breath.”

“It must’ve happened when he was driving home from here. He wouldn’t have been on the road if he hadn’t insisted on following me back here, making sure I got home all right. I want to go over and see for myself, if you could keep Callie.”

“Don’t worry about Callie. He’s not out at the house. He stayed the night at Emma Kate’s as she wouldn’t have him stay on his own.”

“Good.” She did manage that breath now. “That’s good.”

“But I expect he’s on his way to the police station by now. Forrest and Nobby—you remember my second cousin Nobby—they went down the holler last night, and brought Arlo Kattery in.”

“Arlo? He ran Griff off the road?” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Drunk, I expect, and driving crazy.”

“I don’t know as that’s the way it was. You go on down. It’s best you hear it straight-out, than the bits and pieces I have. And you tell Griffin he’s got an exam at ten o’clock or he’s not clear to drive or so much as touch a power tool.”

“I will. Callie—”

“She’s just fine. Go on.”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

When she ran out, leaving the Coke unopened on the counter, Clayton knew his little girl was at least halfway in love. With a sigh, he picked up the can, opened it for himself. It was smarter than a shot of whiskey at seven-thirty in the morning.

•   •   •

G
RIFF STRODE INTO
the station house, eyes—including the left one, where angry bruising had come to the surface overnight—hot. He arrowed straight to Forrest.

“I want to talk to the son of a bitch.”

Forrest stopped tapping at his keyboard, pulled the phone from between his shoulder and ear. “I’ll get back to you,” he said, and clicked off.

“You’d best simmer down some first.”

“I’m not in a simmer-down mood. I don’t even know Arlo Kattery, never spoke a word to him in my life. I want to know why he deliberately ran me off the road.”

“Forrest?” The sheriff spoke up from his office doorway. “Why don’t you go ahead, let Griff go back and have his say,” he said when Forrest hesitated. “In his place, I’d want mine.”

“All right, thanks. Nobby, you think you could call back that fella at the lab, finish that conversation?”

“I sure can. That eye doesn’t look too bad there, Griff.” Nobby, a twenty-year vet, gave Griff’s face a considering look. “Seen a lot worse. You get some raw red meat on it, won’t be so bad.”

“I’ll do that.”

As Griff turned toward the back, Shelby came flying in.

“Oh, Griff!”

“Now, Shelby honey, I was just telling him it wasn’t that bad.”

“It’s not.” Griff picked up Nobby’s theme and ran with it. “I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt.” Ached like a son of a bitch, but didn’t hurt.

“Daddy said it was Arlo Kattery. I don’t know why the man has a license if he’s still driving drunk like he did when we were teenagers.”

“We don’t know as he was drunk when he ran Griff off the road.”

“He must’ve been. Why else would he do something like this?”

Forrest exchanged a look with the sheriff, nodded slightly.

“Why don’t we go back and ask him? He was half drunk when Nobby and I went and got him, and tried to say he’d been home all night. The plow was still on his truck. Arlo gets paid to plow some of the private roads outside of town,” he explained to Griff. “Hardly much reason for a snowplow on his truck in May. White paint on it, too. And yellow paint, like the plow, on the back of Griff’s truck. Nobby and I informed him of those facts, so he claimed somebody stole his truck, put the plow on it.”

“Bullshit.”

“Knee deep in it,” Forrest said with a nod to Griff. “Not too much use arguing with a man half drunk, and chasing his tequila with a joint, so we just hauled him in. And we left him last night to sleep on the fact we’d be charging him with attempted murder this morning.”

“Oh my God.” Shelby shut her eyes.

“That’s the reaction we want from him. Attempted murder’s a stretch,” Forrest commented, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “But he’ll surely go down for hit-and-run, reckless endangerment and so on.”

“We can tie quite a few and-so-ons onto the package,” Hardigan said.

“Yeah, I expect so. He’s going to do a few years however it slices out. We’ve just been letting it sink in. The sheriff here, if I’m reading him correctly, thinks what’s sunk in may come rising up if he’s faced with the pair of you.”

“That’s a fine read, Deputy.”

“All right, then. Let’s see what we see. Y’all don’t mention lawyer, all right? He hasn’t gotten there yet in his pea brain.”

Forrest led the way back through a steel door and the three cells.

In the center one, Arlo Kattery sprawled on a bunk.

She’d gotten a look at him that night at Bootlegger’s—him and his pale-eyed stare. What she saw now didn’t look much different than the last time she’d seen him in full light years before. Straw-colored hair shorn short, face grizzly with the pale blond scruff. Those small snake eyes—closed now—long neck with a tattoo of barbed wire circling it.

On the short side, and stocky, with scarred knuckles from countless fights—most of which he’d instigated.

Forrest let out a shrill whistle that made her jump, and had Arlo’s eyes popping open.

“Wake up, darling. You’ve got company.”

Eyes so pale blue they seemed almost colorless, skimmed over Griff, landed on her, slanted away again.

“Didn’t ask for no company. You best let me out of here, Pomeroy, or your ass is in the fire.”

“Looks to me like it’s your ass smoking, Arlo. All Griff wants to know—and it’s a reasonable request—is why you rammed his truck and forced him into that old oak tree.”

“Wasn’t me. Told you that already.”

“Half-ton Chevy pickup, dark red, yellow plow on the front, bumper sticker on the bottom left of the tailgate.” Griff stared at him while he spoke, saw Arlo’s jaw twitch.

“Plenty fit that bill around here.”

“Nope, not with the details. Funny bumper sticker, too. It’s got a target on it full of bullet holes, and it says: ‘If you can read this, you’re in range.’” Forrest shook his head. “That’s sure a knee-slapper, Arlo. Add that paint transfer, and it’s all wrapped up. Nobby’s out there right now talking to those forensic people over in the lab. Might take a little time, but they can match that yellow paint to your plow, that white paint to Griff’s truck.”

“That lab stuff is bullshit. More bullshit like all the rest of this.”

“Juries set store by it, especially in capital cases, like attempted murder.”

“I didn’t kill nobody.” Arlo surged up now. “He’s standing right there, isn’t he?”

“That’s where ‘attempted’ comes in, Arlo. Tried and failed.”

“I wasn’t trying to kill nobody.”

“Huh.” Forrest nodded as if considering that, then shook his head. “Nope. Don’t see a jury buying that one. See, we do what we call ‘accident reconstructions.’ And it’s going to show that you deliberately and repeatedly rammed Griff’s truck. Took some skill, so you won’t be able to try for diminished capacity, saying you were drunk. That wouldn’t buy you much time off anyway. I figure you’re going down for about twenty here.”

“No fucking way.”

“Every fucking way,” Griff disagreed. “Forrest, hum a tune and close your ears while I tell this asshole I’ll swear on a mountain of Bibles in front of God and country that I saw him behind the wheel. I’ll swear I counted the bullet holes in that idiotic bumper sticker and got his license plate.”

“That’s a fucking lie. I had the plates covered with burlap.”

“You truly are a moron, Arlo,” Forrest murmured.

“He’s a fucking liar.” Incensed, Arlo jabbed a finger between the bars. “He’s fucking lying.”

“You tried to kill me,” Griff reminded him.

“I didn’t try to kill nobody. It wasn’t even supposed to be you. Was supposed to be her.”

“You want to say that again, son?” Forrest’s voice was quiet as the hiss of a snake, but Griff had already shoved forward, reached through the bars to grab Arlo’s shirt, yanked him so his head smacked the bars.

“Now, Griff, I can’t let you do that.”

But Forrest made no move to stop him as Griff repeated the action.

“All right, that’ll do. For now.” Forrest gripped Griff’s shoulder. “We don’t want him getting off on some technicality, do we? Step back now.”

“Why?” Shelby hadn’t moved, not at the words, not at the vicious look Arlo had given her when he said them, not at the sudden violence. “Why would you want to hurt me? I’ve never done anything to you.”

“Always thought you were too good for me, looking down your nose and turning your back to me. Ran off with the first rich guy you could rope in, didn’t you? Heard that didn’t work out so well.”

“You’d’ve hurt me because I wouldn’t go out with you back in high school? I’ve got a child. I’ve got a little girl, and I’m her only parent now. You’d have risked making my baby an orphan because I wouldn’t go out with you?”

“Wasn’t going to make nobody no orphan. Just going to scare you, is all. I was only going to teach you a lesson, put a scare into you. Wasn’t my idea, anyway.”

“Whose idea was it, Arlo?”

For the first time a hint of canniness came into Arlo’s eyes. He shifted them from Forrest, back to Shelby, back to Forrest. “I got things I could say, but I want that immunization thing. I don’t do no twenty years for what wasn’t my idea.”

“You give me a name, I’ll consider that. You don’t, I’m going to push for twenty-five. That’s my sister, you idiot fuck. One thing you should know about right enough, is family. You tell me who started this ball rolling, or I’ll make sure you go down for all of it, and hard.”

“I gotta have some guarantee—”

“You get nothing.”

“He’ll get more than nothing,” Griff said. “I’ll find a way to get to you. I’ll find a way. And when I do, you’ll wish you’d had a chance to do twenty years.”

“I never touched her, did I? Never laid a goddamn hand on her. Just going to scare her some anyway. She gave me a thousand dollars, said she’d give me a thousand more after I gave you a good scare, taught you a good lesson. Just going to give you a nudge off the road, is all, but you passed me going the other way. By the time I got turned around and going, I seen you head down to the old Tripplehorn place.”

“You followed me.”

“I had to wait, figured, fine, I’d teach you that lesson you had coming when you drove out again. Better when it was dark, right? But then he drives out behind you and I couldn’t get to you. Didn’t see why I should’ve wasted my whole night for nothing. Figured pushing him off would give you a scare.