Her Last Goodbye

Despite Morgan’s exhaustion, her step was light as she left the room. Grandpa wasn’t getting any younger, but he was still with her. She was going to enjoy every day he was in her life and try not to worry about the future.

She returned to the ER. A nurse directed her to Lance’s ER bed, where a young doctor was finishing stitching his cut. When the wound was closed and bandaged, Lance checked out.

“It’s too late to pick up the kids,” she said.

“Stay with me the rest of the night?”

“Yes.” She wanted to spend the night with him without any major trauma.

Ignoring his complaints that he was perfectly fine, she drove back to his house. A short while later, she stripped off her clothes and climbed into his big bed.

Lance lay down next to her. He opened his arms. “Come here.”

She was too exhausted for sex, but his body was warm beside her, and she curled up against him.

“I know I didn’t love your plan,” he said. “But we did good tonight.”

“We’re a great team.” She nestled into his shoulder.

“We are.”

No matter what happened, it was easier to handle with him at her side.

Chapter Forty-Five

Monday morning dawned brightly—too brightly for someone who’d slept only a few hours. Morgan squinted through her sunglasses and clutched her extralarge coffee like a security blanket as Lance escorted her across the parking lot of the sheriff’s station.

“I owe Mac’s brother a favor or ten,” Morgan said. Grant Barrett had volunteered to drive the girls to school and drop Gianna at dialysis that morning. “I’m not sure how I’ll ever repay them.”

“I doubt he’s looking for repayment. Mac said they just wanted your kids to be safe.”

“Well, I’m eternally grateful.”

Everyone in the sheriff’s department looked ragged. The deep bags under Sheriff King’s eyes said he’d been up all night, but he’d shaved and his clothes were fresh.

She probably didn’t look much better.

“Come this way.” Sheriff King waved Morgan and Lance into a conference room. “Elliot Pagano was here most of the night. He gave a full confession. Do you want to watch his interview?”

“Yes.” Morgan concealed her surprise at the offer.

A monitor had been set up on the table. The sheriff sat down in front of it and typed on the keyboard. He gestured to the chairs opposite him, and Morgan and Lance sat.

The sheriff turned the monitor to face them. A picture on the screen appeared to be the same room. Sitting at the table, Elliot Pagano looked like he’d aged ten years in a few days. He waived his right to an attorney. His eyes looked lost. Beaten.

Almost dead.

On the video, the sheriff sat across from Elliot. Another officer sat to his left. The fourth man, who sat next to Elliot, had “lawyer” written all over him from his Hermès tie to his David Yurman cuff links.

“We know your brother kidnapped Chelsea Clark and that he killed your wife,” the sheriff said.

Elliot folded his hands on the table. “He did it for me.”

“Why?” the sheriff asked.

Elliot lifted a shoulder in the careless gesture of a man who doesn’t have anything else to lose. “She was leaving me. I wanted her to go into treatment for her drug addiction. We fought. She wanted a divorce. I made the mistake of telling Derek. She contributed a portion of the start-up capital. If she divorced me, she might have been entitled to half of Speed Net.”

“Derek couldn’t let that happen,” the sheriff said.

“He didn’t intend to kill her.” Without meeting the sheriff’s gaze, Elliot shook his head. “It was an accident.”

“Was it?”

“Yes!” Elliot’s eyes snapped to the sheriff’s for a moment. “She fell and hit her head.”

“So Derek put her in her car and sent it over a cliff. Did you help him?”

“She was already dead; it hardly mattered. Why should he go to prison over an accident?”

“If it was an accident, why cover it up?”

Elliot stared down at his hands in silence.

The sheriff leaned closer. “Are you sure she was dead when he put her in that car?”

“Derek wouldn’t lie to me.” Elliot’s voice was flat, lifeless. “We’re family.”

“He killed your wife.”

“No!” But Elliot’s voice broke, as if the night had shaken his trust in his brother, and he couldn’t bear it. “Derek wanted to help Candace. She was self-destructing. He thought he could break her addiction, but she wouldn’t cooperate. They fought. She fell and hit her head. That’s what happened.” His eyes drifted. He wasn’t talking to the sheriff anymore, but to himself. As if trying to convince himself that his brother’s story was true.

The sheriff changed tack. “Did you know he took Chelsea?”

“Not at first. He confessed to me the next morning.” Elliot looked away. “I encouraged him to let her go, but he couldn’t. He loved her.”

A muscle in the sheriff’s jaw twitched. “He kidnapped and beat her.”

Elliot let out a breath. “He wanted a woman who would never leave him. He hadn’t had any luck finding one, so he decided to make his own.”

“Did you help him?” the sheriff asked. “He needed to drop a car at the train station. He got to Chelsea’s house somehow.”

Elliot shook his head. “Derek used his bike to get to Chelsea’s house. He hid it in the woods and retrieved it later. He took the bike with him to Grey’s Hollow. He left his car there and rode his bike back. Twenty miles is nothing for him. Some of his road races are over a hundred.”

“How did he know Chelsea would be going out that night?”

“Early Friday morning, I asked Tim if he could work late. He said no, that his wife had plans. Derek overheard.” Elliot’s absence of emotion lifted goose bumps on Morgan’s arms.

“He’s so . . . flat,” she said.

The sheriff reached forward and turned off the monitor. “No trace of remorse.”

“No trace of humanity,” Lance said.

Morgan rubbed her biceps. “The only thing he seems to care about is believing what his brother told him.”

“Maybe he needs to believe that Derek didn’t murder Candace,” Lance added.

“I hope they don’t try for an insanity defense. Derek’s body is covered with scars, including a brand on his leg that matches Chelsea’s and cuts on his arms and legs that look self-inflicted.” The sheriff rubbed the back of his neck. “Their parents seem pretty normal. They refuse to even consider the idea their sons committed any crimes, but they did verify that the two men have always been extremely close. Derek wasn’t a good student. Elliot got him through school. On the other hand, Elliot was scraggly as a kid and got beat up a lot. Derek always came to his defense. Mr. Pagano told a story about Derek beating up a neighborhood bully who tormented Elliot. Mr. Pagano tried to make light of the incident, but apparently, Derek pushed the kid off an overpass. He broke both his legs. There’s no official record, but I’ll bet if we dig in to their childhood enough, we’ll find some teachers who remember more disturbing incidents involving the Pagano brothers.”

“They both likely suffer from some kind of psychopathy,” Morgan said. “But to be criminally insane, they have to be unable to determine right from wrong. Elliot and Derek are too cold and calculating. They took steps to prevent Derek from being caught. They clearly knew what he was doing was wrong. They just didn’t care about anyone but themselves.”