Say You're Sorry

“But you don’t know what started the altercation?” Morgan asked.

“No.” Robby shook his head, purposefully avoiding eye contact. “I wasn’t close enough to hear.”

Liar.

Robby’s pants should have burst into flames.

“Did you see Nick and Tessa after the fight?” Morgan asked.

Dwayne’s fingers moved, ever so slightly, but Lance didn’t miss the boy’s very small flinch.

“No.” Robby’s jaw tightened. Tears moistened his eyes.

Morgan tried a few more questions, but Robby refused to admit knowing anything else, like who had left the party at what time, or who had been the last person to see Tessa alive.

“I can’t tell you anything else.” The boy’s gaze lifted. For a few seconds, his stare burned with anger.

“Thank you, Robby. I really appreciate that you tried.” Morgan gave the boy an understanding smile.

Robby’s head bobbed once in acknowledgment.

The slap of wood on wood sounded as loud as a gunshot. Everyone turned toward the house. Two slim redheaded girls carried baskets of laundry toward a clothesline. They wore the same type of below-the-knee, shapeless cotton dress that their mother had worn when Lance had first come to the house.

“Get back inside,” Dwayne barked at them.

They paused for a split second, their eyes opening wide, and then turned and bolted for the house. A few items of wet clothing fell from the smaller girl’s basket.

Morgan shot Dwayne a frown, then quickly lifted the corners of her mouth into a forced and tight smile. “Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr. Barone.”

Dwayne nodded, his eyes hard.

Lance felt Dwayne’s eyes on his back all the way back to the Jeep.

He slid behind the wheel, closed the vehicle door, and started the engine. “How old were those girls?”

“About twelve and fourteen.” Morgan fastened her seatbelt. “And they’re terrified of Dwayne.”

“I think everyone that lives in that house is terrified of him.” Lance steered the Jeep onto the main road and drove away from the farm, his fingers tight on the wheel. Robby wasn’t a Boy Scout, but he didn’t deserve his father’s treatment.

“Why was it such a big deal for the girls to be outside while we were there?” Morgan asked.

“I don’t know, but I think we should find out.”

“There’s no love lost between father and son.” Morgan turned her head to glance at the farmhouse through the rear window. “The kids we’ve seen take after their mother, very small and slim . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“While Dwayne looks like a retired WWE star.” Lance finished her thought. “Dwayne has to be disappointed in his son. His only boy is a ninety-eight-pound weakling.”

“Dwayne’s a bully,” Morgan said.

“How old is he again?” Lance asked.

“Fifty.”

“And Ivy is thirty-six?”

“Yes.”

“How old was she when they married?”

“Oh. She must have been young.” Morgan scrolled on her phone. “She was seventeen when they married, and Dwayne was thirty-one.” Morgan looked up.

“What did you think of thirty-one-year-old men when you were seventeen?” Lance asked.

“At seventeen, anyone over the age of twenty-five was gross,” Morgan said.

Lance made a right at a stop sign. “Not only did Ivy marry very young, she had her first baby within a year.”

“I don’t know what to think about that.” Morgan tapped a finger on her lower lip. “Or how it might be relevant to Tessa’s death. I’d like to know if Tessa knew Dwayne.”

“When I spoke with Mrs. Barone, she said that Tessa had been the same age as her oldest daughter.”

“I wonder if Tessa ever paid a visit to the farm.”

Lance said, “I can’t see Dwayne approving playdates, and I definitely think Dwayne has to approve everything that happens on that farm.”

“Yes.” Morgan frowned. “Those two girls were clearly scared. I don’t like it, but I still can’t figure out how that might connect to Tessa’s murder.”

“Me either. I’ll get my mom to do some deeper digging into the Barone family. What did you think of the way Robby practically spat out Jacob’s name?”

“He doesn’t love Jacob, that’s for sure,” Morgan said.

Lance scrubbed a frustrated hand down his face. “You know this whole investigation would be easier if everyone wasn’t lying.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

As Lance drove away from the Barone farm, Morgan set down her phone. It was four p.m. Where had the day gone? They’d made so little progress. She needed to regroup, to go back to the beginning and look at the crime anew.

“Let’s visit the crime scene before it gets dark,” she said. “Do you have a camera?”

“In the console.” Lance lifted his arm.

Morgan retrieved the camera. Though the police had already photographed the scene, they were viewing the case from an entirely different angle. When she’d worked on homicide cases for the Albany County DA, she’d always visited the crime scenes to make sure she had an in-person perspective. Photos and diagrams weren’t enough to visualize how the crime played out. She’d caught more than one criminal in a lie because he’d gotten slight details wrong.

Lance pulled onto the road and made the next left.

Morgan reviewed her notes on the crime scene during the drive out to the lake. Lance turned down the same dirt lane they’d used the night they’d found Tessa’s body. He parked short of the clearing.

As she climbed out of the car, Morgan’s stomach curled. Every sense—the crunch of dead leaves underfoot, the scents of pine and lake water, the sound of the breeze ruffling the branches overhead—brought back the memory of finding Tessa’s body.

In person, she’d seen the girl at night, with the darkness concealing many of the details. But the police and autopsy photos had highlighted every bloodstain, every smudge of dirt, every deep wound and small scratch on Tessa’s body. Now, Morgan’s mind superimposed those new details onto her memory.

A hard shiver rattled her bones, and Morgan could feel eyes on the center of her back. Was it her imagination? She scanned the surrounding forest. The trees were dense, and even in the broad daylight of late afternoon, the woods provided plenty of shadows.

“Are you all right?” Lance stepped up to her side.

“Yes.” Morgan shook off her fear. “Hold on.” She opened her tote and took out her pair of emergency flats. After changing her shoes, she left her heels in the Jeep.

“Is there anything you don’t keep in that bag?” Lance pressed the button on the fob. With a beep, the vehicle’s doors locked.

“I like to be prepared.” Morgan fell into step beside him.

The overwhelming sense of being watched closed over her again. The hairs lifted on the back of her neck, her instincts practically screaming for her attention. She stopped to survey the woods.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Lance asked.

She lowered her voice. “I feel like we’re not alone.”

“This place is giving me the creeps too.” His gaze followed hers.

“It’s probably just knowing what happened here that’s making us nervous.” She forged ahead. “I could be paranoid. When I was ten, we took a family camping trip to the Catskills. I spotted a couple of deer and wandered away from camp. Before I knew it, I was lost. They didn’t find me until morning.”