Abby reached out to me. “It’s okay, Tom.”
“I used to imagine her screaming. Calling my name in the park. I should have been there. I should have stopped it.”
“It’s not your fault, Tom.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger. “I thought you thought it was.”
“It’s not anybody’s fault.” She took my hand and squeezed it in hers. “She’s home, Tom. She’s here. And they know who did this, and they’re going to arrest him. We can move on. What matters is where we are now.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” My hand slipped out of hers. “I’m going to see what Liann wants.”
“And we need to get her back into normal life soon. School, church, friends. It’s time.”
“Once Colter’s taken care of,” I said and continued on down the steps.
Liann sat at the dining room table, a cell phone to her ear. When I came in the room, she folded the phone shut and slid it into her purse.
“You look like shit,” she said.
“Thanks.”
I wanted coffee, so I went to the kitchen and poured a cup. When I sat down, Liann cleared her throat.
“The atmosphere seems a little charged in this household.”
“You haven’t heard?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been distracted by other things.”
I told her about Buster and his connection to Colter. Liann listened, her face cool and dispassionate. When I was finished, I asked her what she thought of it all.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said.
“He’s my brother . . .” I didn’t know what else to say.
“They’ve been looking at him hard from the very beginning,” she said. “I can assure you of that. They always look hard at the family. And as you and I both know . . .”
“Family members are likely to be involved.”
“Amen,” she said. “It’s the gospel truth ninety-eight percent of the time.”
“But this time? Buster? He loves Caitlin. He’s crazy about her. Always has been. I’ve had my doubts about it, their closeness. But I think he just loves her.”
“Love’s got nothing to do with it. If he’s mixed up with the wrong crowd, it’s his butt that’s on the line. If he tells the wrong guy the wrong thing.”
The coffee tasted burnt and bitter. It needed cream and sugar. I almost pushed the mug away.
“Have you talked to him?” Liann asked.
I looked toward the stairs. No sign nor sound of Abby. “You’re my lawyer, right?” I asked.
“Sure.”
I spoke in a low voice. “I saw him last night. In the cemetery across the street.”
Liann’s body stiffened. Her shoulders went up, then settled back down. “What was he doing there?”
“He was coming to talk to me, I guess. At the house. It was the middle of the night . . .” I couldn’t tell her about the girl, Jasmine. Not yet.
“And you’re not telling the police about this?”
I shook my head. “I can’t turn him in.”
“After what he did?”
“Allegedly. You always say not to trust the police. And you don’t understand, Liann—my relationship with him is complicated. This goes all the way back to our childhoods.”
“They could nail you for obstruction,” she said. “You know something, and you’re not sharing it with the police.”
“It’s my fault. He wanted to borrow money from us. I didn’t give him the full amount, so he owed these guys something. This could have been stopped . . .”
She leaned in close to me and placed her hand on top of my forearm. “What are you planning on doing, Tom? What’s going on?”
I worked my arm loose and choked down more coffee. “Nothing. I just want to see the guilty party behind bars.”
She placed her hand on my arm again, forcefully enough that the coffee mug shook and liquid sloshed over onto the table.
“Hey.”
“I can’t protect you from everything, Tom,” she said, her teeth gritted. “I know what your motivations are.”
“You do?”
“You want to know what happened out there, during those four years she was gone. You’re less concerned with justice.”
“I’m not as noble as you, I guess.”
“You think you want to know these things. But do you? Really? Do you want to stick your nose in all that darkness? Will it make you feel better to know that whatever you imagined isn’t as bad as what really happened? Because I don’t think you can—even on your worst day—imagine what really went on in that house.”
I didn’t look at her. I traced my finger through the spilled coffee, smearing it around on the tabletop. She stood up.
“Are you even going to ask me why I came here today?” she asked.
Once we’d started talking, I’d forgotten. “Why are you here?” I asked.
“They found a body floating in a pond over in Mayfair County. No ID on it yet, but they think it might be Tracy Fairlawn.”
She didn’t say anything else. She let the news sink in. I felt sick. Hollowed out. A bitter taste filled my mouth, but not from the coffee.