If what Jeremy said was true, Tug had to be behind her mother’s death.
She wanted to ask for details, proof, but she couldn’t even talk.
“You believe me, don’t you?” he asked.
He sounded childlike again. Harmless. And that made her angriest of all. He’d taken everyone in—everyone but his own father, perhaps. She now realized that the whole town had probably misjudged Don, at least when it came to his son. It was a miracle that he’d cared for Jeremy all those years. They’d all been so afraid Jeremy would end up in a sanatorium, but she was pretty sure that was exactly where he belonged.
He slowed to a stop, but she got the impression that they hadn’t yet reached their destination. “You can grunt if you believe me.”
She did nothing. She was beginning to hate him. If he’d known where her mother was all these years, why hadn’t he told someone? Maybe he wasn’t the smartest person in town, but he’d been fully aware of how long she’d been searching for the truth and how much it would mean to her to finally know. He’d mentioned the situation quite often.
I hope you find her, Claire…?. He used to say that all the time. If he loved her like he claimed, why hadn’t he taken pity on her and told her the truth years ago?
“You’re not being very nice,” he said when she maintained her silence.
That statement alone proved he was unbalanced. She wasn’t being nice?
He started driving again, but slowly. He was obviously more interested in talking to her. “I hope you’re not mad. You’ll be fine. I don’t want you to worry. I’m going to take care of you. Just like David did.”
He didn’t have the ability to take care of anyone, even himself. But that wasn’t what she focused on. She was thinking about David. She had so many questions. If Don had killed her mother, was he also the one who’d hired Les Weaver to shoot David? Or had Tug handled that?
Fresh tears slipped from Claire’s eyes. Dad, could you really have done this to me? Taken away two of the most important people in my life?
Her heart said no. But everything else said yes. It had to be him or Roni. Jeremy had told her they’d been seeing each other well before her mother went missing, just as April had said. He’d been watching her for so long, he knew almost as much about her family as he did about her. Isaac believed her stepfather was behind it; she could tell by the way he’d approached their talk about forgiveness.
Dad, how could you? Those words went through her mind again and again, but she supposed that anyone who’d had a loved one do something like this felt the same. As horrible and unfair and unthinkable as it was, it happened. There was no way of understanding it. There was only the bitter taste of betrayal—by Tug, the man she’d accepted as her father, and by Jeremy, the boy she’d stood up for all her life.
Soon the jostling took its toll. Her body ached from being unable to change positions. Her head pounded from lack of sleep, a surfeit of emotion and the gag cutting into her jaw. Yet Jeremy drove on.
Did he even know where he was going? Did he have any kind of plan?
He’d said his father had killed himself. Was that true, or had Jeremy shot him? He had a gun…?.
Either way, Jeremy had nothing to go back to. No family, no friends. After this he wouldn’t even have his job at Hank’s.
So what could he have in mind? They couldn’t survive out here, not for any length of time. She doubted they had enough food or water for twenty-four hours. They hadn’t stopped anywhere; nothing was open this late. And she wasn’t sure Jeremy had come prepared.
Maybe survival wasn’t what he had in mind. Maybe he only wanted to escape the consequences of what he’d done long enough to spend some time with her, after which he might let her go.
Or he might kill himself and take her with him.
“Isaac?”
Isaac released his breath and stuck his gun back in his waistband. He’d been sure it was Les Weaver, coming to finish what he’d failed to do when he started the fire. But this was a much more familiar voice. It didn’t belong to someone he particularly liked, but running into a man he didn’t like was better than running into a contract killer. “In here.”
Rusty Clegg came around the corner and eyed him from head to foot.
Isaac didn’t appreciate his condescending expression. “Did you have something you wanted to say to me?”
“I thought that was your truck parked off in the trees.” He clicked his tongue as he shook his head. “You just don’t know how to stay out of trouble, do ya?”
“Excuse me?”
He hooked his thumbs in his utility belt and puffed out his chest—to show off the badge on his uniform or make himself seem bigger and tougher, or both. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Probably the same thing you are. I’m looking for Don.”
“By going through his stuff?”
“I’m hoping to find something that can tell me why he hasn’t been seen for two days. And whether or not he’s had contact with someone in Idaho.”
“That’s not your place! You’re not a deputy!”
Isaac raised his eyebrows. “Maybe if you were doing your job I wouldn’t have to be doing it for you.”
His eyes glittered. “You could be arrested for interfering with a police investigation.”
“Last I heard, this wasn’t an official investigation.”
“But if Don’s missing—”
Isaac broke in. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Don’s not just missing, Deputy Clegg. He’s dead.”
This took him aback, wiped the contempt from his face. “How do you know?”
“Let’s call it an educated guess. First of all, Jeremy’s freaking out because he hasn’t seen his father for two days. Don’s never taken off like this before, especially when his car is in the garage. There’s a bullet hole in the wall out there—” he gestured toward the living room “—and a big wet spot on the carpet, where someone used a hell of a lot of bleach.”
“That’s not like finding a body,” he argued.
Isaac propped his hands on his hips. “It’s enough that someone should start looking for one.”
What was left of Rusty’s bravado disappeared and his shoulders slumped. “But…who would want to kill Don?”
“Someone convinced he knows too much. Someone who saw him as a weak link.”