The Truth We Bury: A Novel

“How do you suppose it makes AJ feel, knowing you think he’s guilty?”

“I can’t be concerned about his feelings, Lily. I want to keep him out of prison. Don’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

He punched the elevator button again. “I guess I’ll come to the ranch,” he said.

“Fine,” Lily said. “I’ll pick up something for dinner.”





20


Dru was sitting at the table in the breakfast nook early on Saturday morning, an untouched mug of coffee at her elbow, when Shea peeked in at her from the back door, looking worn-out, happy, contrite.

“Are you mad?” she asked.

“I was never mad, Shea,” Dru answered. “Worried and scared, but not mad.”

“There was a policeman outside AJ’s door the whole night.”

“Who brought you home?”

“Vanessa. I called her and Leigh last night to tell them about Erik so they’d know to be on the lookout for him.”

“You haven’t heard anything else?”

“No. I’m going to take a quick shower and go back to the hospital—that is, if I can borrow your car?”

“The service department is bringing over a loaner for you later this morning, if you can wait.”

Shea’s face fell.

“Fine,” Dru said. “I’ll drive the loaner.”

“AJ wants to go ahead with the wedding.” Shea sat down. “They had him up on crutches this morning. They’ll probably discharge him on Monday.”

Dru was nonplussed. “But the funerals—Becca’s and Kate’s funerals—will be next week, if not sooner. No one will want to come to a wedding after that.”

Shea looked away, blinking, clearing her throat. “Is there coffee? Do you want a refill?” Picking up Dru’s mug, she went into the kitchen.

“Maybe rather than cancel, we could postpone the wedding for a month or so.” Dru waited, and when Shea didn’t respond, she said, “I don’t see how we can have a wedding when Erik is still out there. It’s not safe.”

“I don’t think he’s the one who ran us off the road yesterday, Mom. I think he probably left town on Thursday after he did his little acting job at the ranch.” Shea brought the coffee to the table and sat down again. “The detectives from Dallas came to question AJ last night, and they said every law enforcement agency in Texas is looking for Erik. If he was around here, they’d have found him by now.”

“Well, maybe he’s just that good at hiding. I hope you won’t let your guard down.”

Shea stirred cream into her coffee. “I don’t think even the Dallas detectives suspect AJ anymore, but you do, don’t you?” She looked up. “You still think he’s involved.”

“Honey, you need to look rationally, and without emotion, at the evidence—”

“You need to stop looking at AJ through the warped lens of your experience with Daddy. That was, what, fifteen years ago?”

“It was twelve,” Dru said. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“In your mind, every man is a gun waiting to go off. You’ve never moved forward, never forgiven Dad.”

“So what should I have done, Shea?” Dru was tired, out of patience and angry now. “Should I have stayed, trusted your dad wouldn’t threaten me with a gun again? Maybe I was wrong, leaving him, but I had a little girl to protect, and I made the only decision that I felt would ensure her safety as well as mine. Just wait until you have a child of your own.” Dru stood up, pushed her chair under the table, balancing her hands on the top rail.

“I know it was scary, Mom. You did the right thing getting us out of there. If you hadn’t, Dad might never have gotten help.”

Dru bit her teeth together. She wasn’t the only one fighting tears.

“He was scared, too, Mom, you know?” Shea said softly.

Dru didn’t answer.

“He hasn’t threatened anyone since then.”

“He’s never been in a relationship since.”

“Because he loves you, Mom, only you.”

Dru considered it, Rob’s love, and she knew it was real, that what Shea said was true. But she couldn’t give that to Shea.

At the sound of the doorbell, she and Shea looked at each. No one came to the front door—except the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the police. Ken Carter and his partner had rung Dru’s doorbell the night before last, when she had called 911 after Leigh found the cryptic note on her car. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m in trouble and I don’t think I can stop. Kate had still been alive when Leigh found the note, and now she wasn’t. “I’ll get it,” Dru said to Shea. “You go take your shower.”

But Shea didn’t do as instructed. She was still in the breakfast nook when Dru brought Ken Carter into the kitchen. Shea and Ken greeted each other.

“You said you had news,” Dru prompted.

“We’ve been looking at Kate’s computer, going through her e-mail, that sort of thing. She’s got a Word file she labeled ‘Journal.’ It’s like a diary of her day-to-day activity. Did you know she kept a record like that?” Ken was asking Shea.

“No, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Shea said. “She was always writing something.”

“Well, the most recent entries indicate she wanted to break off her relationship with Erik Ayala.”

“Really? Why?” Shea asked.

“We don’t have a full answer on that yet, but in her last entry, Thursday night, she wrote that she was going to confront him, possibly on Friday, on their hike. I was hoping you might know what that was about.”

“I don’t,” Shea said. “We told each other pretty much everything, or I thought we did.”

“Except for the text messages between her and Becca. She didn’t tell you about those.”

“No,” Shea said.

“Did you know Erik took Becca out one night back in March? According to Kate’s journal, she and Erik fought over his wanting to spend money on a four-wheeler.”

“Kate told me about the fight and that he got together with Becca, but there wasn’t anything to it. He apologized, practically crawled on his knees to Kate. He spent the four-wheeler money on a bracelet for her. She made him take it back. She was practical that way.”

“Did she tell you she saw Erik and Becca arguing in the parking lot of the Starbucks near the culinary school in Dallas around three weeks ago, before the semester ended?”

“No.” Shea looked at Dru, but she could only shrug. “Did Kate say what the argument was about?”

“Money. Evidently Becca had borrowed a few hundred dollars from him. When Kate asked him why he hadn’t told her about the loan, he claimed it was because he didn’t want her to be mad at Becca. But Kate suspected it was something else. She thought Erik was cheating on her with Becca, that they’d gone out more than the one time Kate knew about. Kate used the word intimate when she described the argument in her journal. She said they looked too wrapped up in each other for it to have been about money.”

“Why didn’t Katie tell me any of this?” Shea was distraught.

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