“Yes. No way to keep a juicy tidbit like that quiet.”
“She was riding. Caught a low-hanging branch in the temple.” When she frowned slightly, he added, “Doesn’t sound right, does it?”
“It doesn’t sound like Bailey. She’s cautious.”
“As I understand it, she doesn’t ride. She’s terrified of horses.”
He sounded smug. Of course he would, he prided himself on knowing everything about the man he hated most in all the world. “Yes, she does. Sorry to disappoint you, but she’s actually a competent rider. Just rusty.” She smiled slightly at his surprise. “And no, she’s not terrified of them. Not anymore.”
“You’re lying.”
She flushed. “That’s not something I do.”
“Did Logan know?”
He always brought it back around to Logan. “No. She wanted to surprise him for his birthday. It’s one of the things we talked about that Friday.”
She saw his consternation. Obviously this news had forced him to rewrite whatever nefarious plot he’d composed in his head.
“Bailey has no memory of what happened. You don’t find that odd?”
“Give it a rest.”
“There’s more about her accident, you want to hear it?”
She did, but not from him. “I’ll call Logan. I’m a family friend, I don’t have to rely on gossip.”
“It’s not gossip. It’s right from the police report.”
“One you wrote up yourself, no doubt. I’ll take my chances.”
“It has to do with your uncle.”
She stopped on that. “Uncle Henry?”
“When they found Bailey, she had a lot of blood on her. It wasn’t all hers.”
Stephanie felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “Oh, my God.”
“A week ago, besides her riding, what did you talk about?”
“We’re friends, Billy Ray. We just talked.”
“That’s what girlfriends do, isn’t it? Talk about everything. Their husbands, trouble they may be having in their marriage, their concerns—”
“You’re so full of shit.”
She turned to go inside; before she could, he was up the porch steps, hand on her arm. “Did she? Talk about Logan? Was she worried about anything?”
“No, she was happy. Ecstatic even. Now, take your hand off me.”
He tightened his grip instead. “You’re lying.”
“And you’re obsessed!” She jerked her arm free. “She’s not True. She doesn’t need you to ‘save’ her.”
“How good a rider had she become?”
“I told you, she’s competent.”
“Confident enough to be galloping through the woods?”
She couldn’t imagine it. “I’m not in her head.”
“But I need you to be.”
“For God’s sake, Billy Ray—”
“I need you to talk to her, Steph. Get the truth. She claims to have amnesia. But what if it’s a ruse? Because she’s scared. You can talk to her. She trusts you—”
“That’s right, she does trust me. That’s why I won’t do it, Billy Ray.”
“Henry’s blood was all over her, Steph. What do you think that means?”
He was manipulating her. The way he always had. Pulling her strings. Pressing her buttons.
If he had something real, he wouldn’t be here.
“It’s time for you to go.”
“If you’d just listen.”
She opened her screen door, stepped through it, then looked back at him. “I’ve done all the listening to you that I’m ever going to do.”
She shut the door, twisted the lock. Billy Ray hesitated on the porch a moment, then walked off. When she heard the crunching of his wheels on the gravel drive, she sank to the floor.
And fell apart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Monday, April 21
8:30 A.M.
Billy Ray had officially started his day five minutes before the hour of eight. Unofficially, he had been at it most of the night. In his war room, reviewing every report, every piece of evidence from Wholesome’s three most notorious mysteries. The way he did anytime he couldn’t sleep.
Last night he had added two new photos to his timeline: Dixie Jenkins’s and Henry Rodriquez’s.
As tragic as both cases were, he was grateful for them. Fresh blood meant new evidence and witnesses. It offered a real opportunity to move his agenda forward.
But as much as it pained him to admit it, he needed help. The sheriff’s office had both the resources and clout to make things happen. Abbott wouldn’t dare pull his high-and-mighty act with them. All he had to do was get them onboard.
Located in Slidell, forty miles south and east of Wholesome, the sheriff’s complex was state-of-the-art, down to the new on-site crime lab due to open later this year.
Billy Ray had to fight the envy that surged up in him every time he entered the building. The feeling that maybe he’d sold himself short by sticking with the Wholesome P.D. But he’d had his reasons and made his choices; the way he figured, it was way too late to go back now.
He caught Rumsfeld and Carlson, the two detectives working Rodriquez, in the lobby. He called their names, stopping them from stepping into the elevator.
“Glad I caught you,” Billy Ray said when he reached them.
They looked tired. And anything but happy to see him. “What can we do for you, Williams?”
“I was hoping we could chat a minute.”
Rumsfeld looked at his watch. “A minute.”
The attitude pissed Billy Ray off, but he held it back. “Rodriquez autopsy was yesterday. It turn up anything?”
“No surprises. Confirmed what we suspected.”
“That a hunter mistook Rodriquez for a deer or hog and killed him?”
“It all fits. The location of the body. The bullet’s trajectory. One shot. Shooter used a rifle, the Remington 700. Bullet made a small entrance and a huge exit, consistent with the .308.”
Billy Ray pursed his lips in thought. A .308 entered the target, then mushroomed, causing massive destruction upon exit. “The 700’s also known as a sniper rifle, correct?”
Rumsfeld’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you suggesting someone took a hit out on simple, old Henry Rodriguez?”
“Just thinking out loud.”
“We’re releasing the body to the family this morning. And now, Williams, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a half-dozen other cases with our names on them.”
“Rodriquez is still a homicide.”