“I’m not afraid of you, Harlan Cate,” Shea said.
“Is that AJ’s toolbox?” Lily spoke so quietly Dru thought she was the only one who heard her. The gray metal box that had caught her attention was sitting on a concrete block next to the RV. She started toward it.
“Goddamn it,” Harlan muttered. “You women are out of your fucking minds.” Grabbing the box, he retreated into the RV, slamming the door behind him. But suddenly he was back, holding a shotgun, pointing it at them. Dru would never remember it, pulling out her .38, but there it was in plain view. She dropped her purse, assuming the stance she’d learned from her instructor, gun butt clenched in both hands. “Shea, Lily, go to the car. Now!” she shouted when neither one of them moved.
“It’s AJ’s toolbox,” Lily said. “I recognize it.”
“You’re crazy,” Harlan said. “Now, git!” He brandished the gun.
Dru cocked the revolver’s hammer. That move got Harlan’s attention.
He said, “You’re probably just lunatic enough to fire that damn thing, ain’t you?”
“Please go to the car,” Dru said, addressing Lily and Shea. Grabbing her purse in her free hand, she backed toward her SUV, feeling gratified when they did the same, moving slowly, keeping pace.
Harlan stepped down out of the RV.
Dru kept the gun aimed at him; she didn’t turn her back, none of them did, until they reached the car. It was as if by prearrangement that while Dru stood guard, Lily ran around to the driver’s seat, yanking open the door. Shea took Dru’s purse and found the car keys, passing them to Lily. Dru was barely inside before Lily gunned the SUV into a U-turn, flooring it up the hill. Spewing gravel, she turned right onto the main access road. Dru looked out the back window past the pale oval of Shea’s face, hunting in their wake for a sign of Harlan, chasing them on his motorcycle. But he didn’t appear. They reached the highway, and Lily made a second right turn, tires squealing, barely checking for oncoming traffic.
They were halfway to town before Dru asked, “Is everyone all right?” She turned to Shea.
“He’s such a jerk,” she said, and her voice was sharp, furious.
Dru was relieved.
Lily said, “I know that was AJ’s toolbox.”
“Are you sure?” Dru asked, glancing at her. “I have one like it. They sell them everywhere, Home Depot, Lowe’s. I think I got mine at Walmart.”
Lily didn’t answer for a moment, then she said softly, “Maybe I only wanted it to be AJ’s toolbox.”
She looked exhausted. Beaten, Dru thought. She would have wanted Harlan to be the guilty one. She might have prayed for it to be true. But in her heart she knew better. In her heart, she would, at some point, have to come to grips with the fact that her son wasn’t a hostage but a murderer. And Shea—Shea was going to have to face it, too, that AJ was not the man, the hero, she’d believed him to be, but a monster who, until recently, had been hiding in plain sight.
15
Back at the police station in Wyatt, Lily parked Dru’s SUV next to her BMW.
“I’m going to the sheriff in Greeley about Harlan,” Shea said to her when Dru got out to come around to the driver’s side. “Do you want to come with me?”
“There’s so much evidence now against AJ.” It made Lily sick, thinking about it.
“You don’t believe it?”
It was an accusation, or that was how Lily perceived Shea’s astonishment. “I don’t know what to believe.” Lily felt like a traitor. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to let you down.”
“It’s not me you’re letting down, Mrs. Isley. It’s AJ.”
The words, the way Shea was back to addressing her as Mrs. Isley, were like a slap across Lily’s face, one she probably deserved. She sounded as if she’d given up—on her own son.
Had she?
“That was some kind of driving you did,” Dru said when Lily got out.
“Thanks,” Lily said. “I was glad you had your gun. I don’t know that Harlan isn’t involved somehow. I don’t trust him.” She looked into the middle distance. “I used to know someone like him once. He was dangerous, the way a snake is, in ways you never see coming.” Lily didn’t know why she was bringing up Jesse, but the memory was there, clear in her mind. Jesse and Harlan were the same sort—men on the margins. Bikers, outlaws.
Dru got into her car. “If you hear anything . . .”
Lily nodded. “You, too.”
Her dad called as she was getting into her BMW.
“Where are you?” he asked. “Mackie said you left the WPD with the Gallaghers, Dru and her daughter. He said there was quite a scene.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, Dad. Did Clint tell you that Kate Kincaid was found dead at Cedar Ridge Canyon this morning?”
He’d heard, her dad said. He knew about the lotus-blossom charm and all the rest, too.
“There’s so much evidence now, Dad, and all of it points to AJ. The police are refusing to consider anyone else.”
“Yeah, but they’re dead wrong. Mackie’s saying as soon as I can bring him proof it’s someone different, he’ll consider them.”
“Shea gave him someone else, and he’s refusing to follow up.”
“Who?”
“Remember Harlan Cate?”
“The guy who worked for me? He’s got a mean streak, sure enough, but what’s his connection to the girls?”
“They both dated him.”
“He doesn’t seem like their type.”
Lily ran her fingertip along the arc of the steering wheel. Jesse hadn’t seemed like her type, either. “We went to see him—Dru, Shea, and I.”
“You went to see Harlan? Lily, for God’s sake, the guy’s a powder keg.”
“Yes, but that’s exactly it. He’s got the temperament, the reputation. He was abusive to Kate, and later, once she broke it off, he stalked her. He threatened you. He could have done this, Dad. He could have driven AJ’s truck to the lake after he killed Becca. He could have left the knife inside it and set it on fire. He could have pushed Kate off the ridge and left the lotus-blossom charm there. He’s framing AJ, making it look as if AJ is the murderer when it’s him.” Lily stared through the windshield. Was it true? Was it even plausible?
“Did you ask him?”
“He denied it.” Lily decided not to mention the guns, Dru’s .38, Harlan’s shotgun. “Maybe Shea’s right and we should go to the sheriff in Greeley since Clint won’t do anything.”
“All those guys work together, though. The blue wall. You know.” Her dad didn’t sound encouraging.
“I’m coming home now,” she said. “I’ll fix lunch. We can figure out what to do.”
Her dad agreed. The call ended, and Lily checked her messages.