Last Light (26 page)

“Good. We’re going to try the photos, see if Alan responds to any of them.”

Saylor’s expression was grim as he moved across the porch and squatted in front of his son while TK resumed her seat beside Alan.

“Hey, champ,” he started. “I need you to stop swinging for a moment and look at some pictures. Kind of like the flash cards Miss Reynolds uses at the center. Just point to anyone you know, okay? And if you don’t know them, no problem, you just don’t point and shake your head. Sound good?”

Alan nodded eagerly, holding his hand out.

“No, I’ll hold them. You just look,” Saylor told him. He turned over Michael Manning’s booking photo.

Alan squinted intently, then balled his hand up and shook his head.

“Okay. Good job. Let’s try another.” This time it was Ronnie Powell’s DMV photo. Again Alan shook his head. Saylor sank back on his heels, obviously reluctant to proceed. “Good, good. You okay to do a few more?” Alan nodded eagerly. “How about this man?”

This time Alan pointed and nodded his head. He tapped Roscoe Blackwell’s photo and smiled at Saylor as if expecting a reward for his efforts.

Saylor glanced at Lucy and TK. He seemed relieved. “Guess you’re wrong. It was Roscoe, not Caleb.”

Lucy approached Alan. He revealed no trace of fear or anxiety. “Alan, you’re doing real good.” She nodded to Saylor. “Your dad has just one more to show you, okay?”

Before Saylor could show Alan the final photo, his phone chimed. He slid it from his pocket and glanced at the screen. “Someone just turned into the lane.” He stood. “It’s Caleb Blackwell.” He turned to Lucy and TK. “How much does he know?”

“Nothing about our new research,” Lucy assured him.

“He told me he might stop by to see how Alan did with the interview,” TK put in.

Alan tugged on his father’s arm, craning his neck to look at the last two photos still gripped in Saylor’s hand. Suddenly, he bolted from the swing, leaving it careening, hitting TK in the back. A wild, keening noise filled the air as he pushed past Lucy, knocking over two of the canvas chairs, and ran into the house, hands covering his head.

“Alan!” Saylor called. “Stop!”

Lucy caught sight of the photos he’d showed Alan, scattered on the porch floor. One was Dicky Manning’s booking photo, the one Saylor had deemed too scary and had folded inside out to hide the image.

The one Alan had reacted to was pinned face up beneath the leg of one of the overturned canvas chairs. It was the first time Lucy had gotten a good look at it. The almost thirty-year-old image was of Carole Blackwell with her son, Caleb, beside her. Whose face had frightened Alan so much? The mother’s or the son’s?

Alan disappeared inside, the door banging in his wake. Saylor shook his head and started after him. The roar of Caleb Blackwell’s SUV stopped him. The truck was coming around the bend and soon would be at the gate.

“We’ll take care of Blackwell,” Lucy suggested. Whether Blackwell was here to protect his mother or himself, she wanted to keep him away from Alan.

Saylor hesitated, his gaze on the door his son had vanished through. He shook his head in frustration. “No. When he’s like this Alan won’t respond to me, only his mother. He’ll be in his closet, his safe place.”

“Like before,” TK whispered.

“Like before,” Saylor said, his voice haunted. “I found him the first time. You’d think he’d let me—” He shook his head once more, then straightened. “Could you keep an eye on him? Let me handle Caleb.”

“Just send him away,” Lucy said. “Then we’ll figure out what to do about all this. In the meantime, we’ll be right inside.”

TK frowned at her, but Lucy gestured for her to follow as Blackwell’s SUV pulled up at the gate. They entered the house, shutting the door behind them. Through the window, Lucy watched as Saylor kept his shotgun at the ready and slowly climbed down the porch steps and headed across the dry grass to meet the sheriff at the gate.

“Check the back,” she told TK. “Find another way out of here.”

TK’s frown turned puzzled. “Why? You can’t seriously think Caleb is guilty? If it wasn’t Roscoe, then it must have been Carole Blackwell Alan was reacting to. Maybe Caleb has been covering up her crimes all along.”

“Either way, doesn’t matter.” Lucy grabbed her cell phone. They had no proof Blackwell had come for anything except information. Did he know they suspected him? How?

She’d had three bars out on the porch but now, nothing. No service at all. She glanced toward the front windows. He’d come prepared.

“Must be using the jammer,” she muttered. Which meant Blackwell was ready for anything. Damn, damn, damn. Lucy scanned the room. She had her Beretta and a spare magazine, but surely Saylor had more weapons. Ahh...beside the china cabinet was a standing gun safe. She strode over to it. Locked. Digital keypad. Of course, with someone like Alan living here, they wouldn’t take chances. “Are you armed?”

“No. Lucy—”

She spun to TK. “I have one job and only one job for you right now.”

“What?” TK was watching out the window, her body tense.

“You take that boy and you get him to safety. Here, take my weapon.” She unclipped her holster and held out the Beretta. TK took it, eyes narrowed as her fingers closed on the pistol’s grip.

TK released the Beretta’s magazine, checking the chamber and rounds, then reloaded, all in the fluid motions of an expert. Between the former sheriff running interference out front and the former Marine taking point on Alan’s escape, they just might be able to save the boy. Lucy hoped.

DAVID DROVE AWAY
from Drew Saylor’s house intending to head straight to Abilene and his mother. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Caleb Blackwell’s mother, Carole. Could she have killed an entire family? Or covered her husband’s own crimes?

Growing up, the Blackwells had always seemed like distant, benevolent royalty. The mansion on the hill overlooking the river was their palace. When spotted in public they waved politely, but never seemed real—certainly never concerned with the hard-scrapped lives of people like David and his mother.

All his life, people like the Blackwells had looked down on David and his mother for their relationship with a pair of convicted killers. What if the real killer was closer to home?

He couldn’t resist. When he saw the turn for the Blackwell estate, he took it. He needed to meet Carole, the woman who might hold the key to his father’s freedom.

He’d been surprised Caleb had run for sheriff. Surely he had enough to keep him busy with all the various Blackwell enterprises? But Carole Blackwell was only in her early sixties, she probably still controlled the business. David remembered her as a woman always smiling with her mouth while always frowning with her eyes—and she didn’t miss a thing, had once caught him filching a brownie from a Founder’s Day bake sale and hauled him over to his mother, berating him right in the middle of practically the whole county.

Maybe being the top lawman in the county was Caleb’s way of finally standing up for himself, David wondered as he drove the winding road up to the manor, noticing that even the Blackwell’s manicured lawn suffered from the drought.

The house was bigger than he’d remembered, seeing it from the distance as a kid. What would it have been like, growing up here? Caleb had also lost his father not long after David’s dad was sent to prison, so, like David, it was just him and his mother.

Along with a bevvy of servants, he amended the thought as he rang the doorbell and a uniformed maid answered.

“The sheriff is out,” she said before he could introduce himself.

Caleb would have been only a boy at the time of the killings. Carole Blackwell would have more valuable insights about her husband’s possible involvement. Or, maybe even her own.

If she lied, he’d be able to see the truth in her body language. All he had to do was get her talking. “That’s all right. I’d like to speak with Mrs. Blackwell. Tell her it’s David Ruiz.”

He’d remembered to grab his electrolarynx and use it. The maid frowned at his strange voice and hesitated. A voice from behind her called out, “It’s okay, Maggie. Let him in.”

The maid gave a small curtsy and stepped back from the door. David crossed the threshold into the marble-floored foyer that was larger than the apartment he’d grown up in. A tall woman with salt-and-pepper hair wearing slacks and a blouse much too elegant to be called business attire approached, dismissing the maid with a wave of her hand.

“David Ruiz. Of course. I’ve followed your investigative reporting, although I have some doubts about your current crusade for justice for your father. But I am curious. What can I do for you?” As she spoke, she entwined her arm with his and led him through a formal living room the size of a basketball court to a more intimate sitting room.

He chose his words carefully. “I’d like to talk to you about the Martin case. Some new evidence has come to light that I hoped you could help with.”

“Of course, anything. Please, sit down.” She didn’t seem perturbed by his voice at all.

He took a seat on the couch. All the furniture was an elegant shade of blue with subtle patterns woven into the fabric. The main color in the room came from wallpaper that appeared to have been hand painted with watercolor washes. The setting sun beamed pink-tinged light in through the tall windows, bathing the room in a rosy glow.

“Let me get us some refreshments,” she said, leaving the room before he could protest.

While she was gone, he turned on the recording app on his phone and slipped it into his shirt pocket where it would catch every word. He wasn’t concerned with forgetting anything she told him, but rather was interested in what Lucy and TK would think since they’d be able to hear the emotional context in her speech he was deaf to.

It was amazing how many people lied during the course of a day—or how often. Made him wonder about many of the subjects he’d interviewed when he was a journalist. So far Carole Blackwell’s body language had been totally genuine. A baseline. It would be interesting to see how she reacted when they discussed the killings in more detail.

Carole returned, surprising him by carrying a covered tray and setting it on the coffee table in front of him. Behind her came a maid carrying another tray, this one with two glasses, a pitcher of martinis and a decanter of whiskey.

“Just set that on the sideboard. We’ll help ourselves,” Carole directed the maid. “Thank you. That will be all. You and the others can leave for the day.” She waited until the maid had vanished through a door leading into the rear of the house. “You look like a whiskey man,” she said in a hearty tone, pouring him a generous portion from the decanter.

David didn’t have the heart to tell her that he rarely drank anything stronger than beer—all the meds he’d been on after his injuries had weaned him free of any desire to allow himself to cede control. A little fuzzy around the edges like last night at the Sweetbriar with TK was the closest he came. He accepted the glass, rolled it between his palms as if getting it to just the right temperature. A sniff told him it was the good stuff—sure to be mellow, warming from the inside.

She poured herself a martini, garnished it, and perched on a dainty chair opposite him, legs crossed at the ankles and tucked below the chair, ladylike. “Now, tell me about this new evidence you’ve uncovered.”

“Well, ma’am, I’d love to first hear what you remember about that time. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” She leaned back, sipping her drink, her gaze distant. “You know Roscoe was never the same after? That he—died the following year?”

“Yes, ma’am. I heard. Sorry for your loss.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “That gadget you’re using to talk with, you don’t really need it, do you? What exactly happened?”

He lowered the electrolarynx and continued without any artifice. “Humvee I was in got hit by an IED. Lost the part of my brain that controls emotions when I talk. Funny thing is, if I laugh or sing, it comes out normal—but seeing as I never did have much of a singing voice, I figured it was easiest and less scary for folks to use this gadget. Put them at ease a bit.”

“Of course. I understand. I sometimes feel when I watch people who aren’t, shall we say, sincere, that there’s a disconnect between what they believe and what they say. Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Something like that, yes, ma’am. I hope it doesn’t bother you too much.”

“No, not at all. It’s rather refreshing in a way.”

“Anyway, you were telling me about the night of the killings.”

She leaned back, appraising him. “I loved my husband very much, but Roscoe was a man of enormous energy and appetites. He was never satisfied, always wanted more. Including, I’m afraid, the affections of younger women. Like Lily Martin.”

He nodded. “They had an affair?”

“Yes. One of Roscoe’s many.” Even her shrug was elegant and refined. “I learned to accept it—none of his women held any threat for me. Roscoe knew I controlled the wealth and property—it was the reason why our parents had arranged our marriage, to save the Blackwell fortune, bind it to the Lytle one. And he also knew I was devoted to him and our family, would never let anything come between us.”

“Did Lily Martin threaten to do that? Come between you?”

“We argued about her—not the affair, but the fact that she refused to let go of Roscoe. Even claimed her baby was his. Never proven, of course, but she threatened to go public if he didn’t run away with her.”

David leaned forward—she was giving herself almost as much of a motive as she was her husband. Although Roscoe Blackwell couldn’t defend himself from beyond the grave. “Do you know what happened? That night?”

A strange, wistful smile twisted her face, then was gone so fast he wasn’t sure if he imagined it or not.

“No. I don’t know the details. But this might be helpful.” With a flourish, she raised the lid from the covered tray that sat between them on the coffee table.