Unlike your son, Dru thought, shifting her glance from Lily’s. She set her purse on the floor at her feet. It was heavy with the weight of a .38 Special revolver. It belonged to her; she was licensed to carry it. Her instructor in Houston had called her a natural, a crack shot. She’d never repeated his praise; she wasn’t proud of it. She wasn’t into guns, had never imagined owning one, but when the man who professed to love you, the one you snuggled up to in the night, the one who had made you laugh and made you feel safe for thirteen years, could suddenly and with little provocation back you out of your house at gunpoint, you have to rethink things. You can’t go on in the same way, trusting the world, or the people in it, who in the end will only break your heart and try to kill you.
Shea didn’t know she had the .38 with her, and she wouldn’t like it, but Shea was still young enough to have faith in people, especially those she loved. She believed her father when he said he’d dealt with his issues and was no longer subject to violence. She thought she knew people and what went on in their heads. Dru couldn’t afford to be so naive. Not when it might be her daughter’s life on the line. Unlike Shea and Jeb Axel, Dru didn’t believe AJ was close by. He wasn’t that dumb. He’d have left the area, even the state, by now. If Dru thought he was anywhere near here, she’d have found a way to keep Shea home.
The Jeep bounced over a cattle guard, and Dru put her hand on the dash, bracing herself. It surprised her that the Axels owned a vehicle that was so old. Circa 1980 was Dru’s guess. It was an even greater surprise to see Lily Isley at the wheel, much less dressed in worn jeans and faded brown western boots. Old Gringos, from the look of them. Her hair was caught in a messy ponytail. Her shirt was creased. She looked disheveled, half-panicked and exhausted, but even so, she was an attractive woman. Queenly was the word, Dru thought, along with regal and cold.
“Dad taught me to drive in this Jeep,” Lily said. “AJ, too.”
Dru propped her elbow on the window ledge.
“I know you don’t like my son, but you’re wrong if you think he had anything to do with Becca’s death.”
You don’t like my daughter. Dru thought of tossing that bit into the mix. She thought of saying how it made her feel, knowing Lily didn’t think Shea—who was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside, and who was filled with a zest for life and possessed of an uncommon faith in it—was good enough for AJ. But Dru sensed Lily was struggling to keep her composure, and it bothered her, enough that she kept still.
“There’s no motive.” Lily’s voice was firmer than before.
“I took a meal over to Becca’s family yesterday evening,” Dru said. “They’d just come back from the morgue in Dallas. They were called there by the police to identify Becca’s body.”
Lily glanced at Dru, shock and horror mingling in her expression, and Dru knew she hadn’t thought of it before, the terrible necessity for Becca’s parents to make a firm identification of their child’s body. “While they were there, the medical examiner—” Dru stopped to consider. Had Joy told her in confidence? But even if she had, the media wouldn’t respect the Westins’ privacy.
Dru felt the weight of Lily’s gaze.
“Becca was pregnant,” she said.
Silence. Quick impressions of Lily’s eyes pouring disbelief, the white of her knuckles as they gripped the Jeep’s steering wheel.
“It’s true,” Dru said. “The ME told Joy—Becca’s mom—she was five weeks along.”
“It isn’t—? You aren’t suggesting it was AJ’s?” Lily’s eyes darted to Dru’s, back to the road. “My God, you must know how much he loves Shea. He would never betray her.”
“But he did. Becca told Joy she and AJ were seeing each another again, starting back in March.”
“No,” Lily said.
“She was happy about it.” Dru went on. “I guess AJ was, too, until Becca told him she was pregnant.” Gene’s theory that a baby would have interfered with AJ having his cake and eating it, too, passed through Dru’s mind. She wouldn’t repeat it; she wouldn’t add to Lily’s anguish.
“It’s not possible.” Lily was tight-jawed, grim.
Denial, Dru thought. The last refuge. She thought of her own denial when Joy had insinuated Shea might have played a role in Becca’s murder. Dru had forced herself to consider the possibility, but it simply wasn’t logical. She had seen Shea go to bed around eleven on Tuesday night, and when Dru passed by Shea’s bedroom near seven on Wednesday morning, she’d been curled on her side, facing the open doorway, her hair a dark fan on her pillow. Dru had lingered for several moments, thinking how few mornings were left for her to have her daughter home, to watch her unaware as she slept. But sentimentality aside, if the cops had even the whiff of a suspicion Shea was involved in Becca’s death, wouldn’t they have questioned her personally? Wasn’t it likely they’d have brought her to Dallas and interviewed her there, rather than over the phone? Dru didn’t know. Maybe she only wanted to believe that was how law enforcement operated.
The Jeep slowed, making a right turn onto a narrow, winding lane. Morning sunlight glinted off the caliche surface, heated the air blowing through the car’s open windows. Coming around a broad curve, Dru saw the cabin in the distance. Made of cedar logs with a rusted tin cap for a roof, it slumped, incongruously, in the shadow of a magnificent and towering red oak.
Lily broke the silence. “If you’re so convinced AJ has done all these horrible things, if you think he’s a liar, a cheater, and a murderer, why are you here? Even more to the point, why is Shea? You must hate him. You must wish him dead.”
Moments passed in an awful, sinking silence. Shea didn’t know about AJ’s betrayal of her, or the baby that had been the result. It hadn’t been Dru’s intention to hide the truth, but arriving home last night with the pizza, she’d found Shea sitting with Erik and Kate in the great room, and the atmosphere had been so charged with tension and anxiety—Shea’s fear had been palpable—that Dru had lied when Shea questioned her about her visit with the Westins. They were coping, Dru had said. They hadn’t mentioned AJ or Shea, she had said.
Lily pulled up to the cabin, near what was left of the front stoop, and turned off the Jeep’s ignition.
“Shea doesn’t know about Becca’s pregnancy.” Dru didn’t look at Lily when she said it, but at the sad, broken face of the small house. The front door hung askew from a single hinge, and the glass was missing from the windows on either side. They seemed to stare like shattered eyes.
“No one really knows who built this place,” Lily said. “It was here when my great-grandfather bought the land. Dad has always thought it was the home the original settlers built. They were German people who came west. There’s a rock out back, part of the foundation for the original barn, we think, that’s got the year 1862 carved in it.”
Dru glanced at Lily, wondering what to make of her impromptu history lesson. Maybe it was a distraction, or a way to keep her emotions in check. Dru felt almost sick with her own stew of feelings.
“I’m going to look inside. You can wait out here if you want to.” Lily got out of the Jeep, tucking the keys into her jeans pocket.
“No, I’m coming, too.” Dru looked at her purse, thinking of the .38. But in the end she left it and followed Lily. Somehow toting the gun didn’t seem justified.
The air inside the cabin smelled musty. They had only crossed the threshold when something swooped by them, a black blur that shot through the open doorway. Dru didn’t know how she kept the frightened cry she felt scrape her throat from coming out.