“And you’ve been blaming yourself for it ever since.” Guilt was something Meredith understood. It had become her constant companion these last few years, so familiar it was almost like an old friend.
“Damn straight I blame myself. You heard Bill. I killed her.”
“That’s why you work with teenagers, isn’t it? Why you’ve taken so much heat for breaking up their drinking parties and not arresting them?”
“It happened at a drinking party.”
The instant the reporter had hurled those accusations, Meredith had deduced that. Knowing Heath as she did, that was the only explanation that made sense to her.
“I had come home from college,” he went on, “to attend her high school graduation party, an all-night kegger at the gravel pits. There were bonfires, booze. Everyone there got drunk, me included. Me, most of all, maybe. I was a cocky little shit back then.” He swiped his shirt sleeve under his nose. “Hated the courses I was taking in school, hated my dad for making me take them. It was the weekend before my finals week, and I’d been doing a slow burn for months. The resentment had come to a head. I don’t know what I was trying to prove by drinking myself stupid, but that’s what I did.”
He shrugged and gave a low, bitter laugh.
“I knew my father would be royally pissed. I guess at that point in my life, pissing him off was enough of a reason to do almost anything.”
Meredith thought of her own father, of how much she had loved him and still did to this day. “It doesn’t sound as if the two of you had a very good relationship.”
“A relationship with Ian Masters? He said, ‘Jump!’ and his kids were supposed to ask, ‘How high?’”
“And you were finished with that?”
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He wanted me to be a hotshot attorney, to follow in his footsteps. But I was raised here.” He waved a hand at the surrounding fields. “From the age of eleven, this was all I knew, and I wanted to be a rancher. If I went to college, and I wasn’t any too sure I needed to, I wanted to attend OSU, major in agriculture, take some backup courses in animal husbandry. He wouldn’t hear of it. No son of his was going to wade around in cow shit for a living.” He lifted his hands. “We argued. He compromised. He made me enroll at the U of O, hoping that I’d change my mind once I got a year of preliminary law under my belt. I didn’t.”
“So you got drunk.”
“I got drunk,” he said with a nod, gazing across the field behind her house. “It wasn’t the first time. I spent most of my freshman year at university either drinking or hung over. When I got into trouble with the law, my father greased palms, bailed my ass out, managed to sweep it under the rug. He didn’t want any marks on my record to prevent me from practicing law.” He fell silent for a moment. “God, he was a self-centered bastard. The heartbreak of it was that Laney yearned to become an attorney, to follow in the Masters’ tradition. Go to Harvard, graduate with honors, become as famous as our dad. She would have done it, too, if only he would have let her. But, oh, no. She was a girl. She had to become a teacher, like our mother. Every single time she broached the subject of law school with him, he shot her down.”
Meredith was getting a very bad picture of Heath’s father—self-centered, overbearing, chauvinistic. “Your dad doesn’t sound like a very nice man.”
“He’s a selfish man. Nice? Maybe. But you’d have to dig deep to find it. I don’t think he meant to be cruel. He just saw it his way, nothing could change that, and I was determined to try. Unfortunately, I chose all the wrong ways, and my little sister ended up dead.”
“How did it happen, Heath? Can you talk about it?”
“Well, now, Arkansas,” he said softly. “That’s a good question. I’ve never tried.”
Again, his meaning was clear. He was telling her things he’d never told anyone. Meredith averted her gaze.
“Maybe it’s time,” he went on. “They say talking about stuff like this can help. Personally, I always thought that was bullshit. But doing it my way hasn’t worked, and I’m—tired.”
Tired. She knew what he meant. Sick to death weary. Unable to handle it all on your own any longer. “Tired” was as good a word to describe it as any, she guessed.
“Some of it’s hazy. The stuff that happened beforehand. You know? It’s like that one moment erased everything else.”
Meredith drew a deep breath. Inside she was shaking, but she forced herself to appear calm. “Just start with what you can remember.”
He frowned slightly. “Someone challenged me to some four-wheel-drive competition. I don’t even remember who. Isn’t that nuts? The decision that led to my baby sister’s death, and I can’t remember how I made it.”
“Is it important?”
He made a sound low in his throat. “Yeah. I circle it, you know. Kind of like it’s a rattlesnake. Why did I do it? Why? And there’s no answer. Afterward, at the morgue, I stood there, looking down at her and—” His voice cracked and he swallowed. “And I couldn’t remember why I took the truck up there.”
“You couldn’t have gone back and changed it, Heath. And you’d been drinking. Maybe it’s a blessing you don’t remember all of that part clearly.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I decided to go four-wheeling. There are lots of roads up at the gravel pits that are used for that, steep spots with bad traction. I and my buddy made some stupid bet. I can’t remember how Laney ended up in my pickup with us. She sat in the middle, and I remember she was playing the tape deck. We were on the way up to the steeper slopes. She leaned forward, maybe to change the tape. I don’t know. She’d been drinking, too. She had her feet on the console with the floor shift between her knees. Somehow, her foot slipped and hit the accelerator.”
The leaves of the oak rustled above them, reminding Meredith of a thousand lost souls whispering.
“My pickup dove off an embankment and rolled. None of us had on seat belts. I didn’t get thrown out of the truck, maybe because I had the steering wheel to hold onto.”
“Were your friend and Laney both killed?”
“No. My buddy came through it with only a few scratches.” He swallowed, hard. “The pickup rolled on top of Laney. Her skull was crushed.”
Meredith balled her hands into tight fists. Little wonder this man was determined to curb teenage alcohol use. He had suffered its consequences in the most horrible way possible.
“I tried to lift it off of her,” he said, his voice vibrating. “I didn’t have the strength, of course. But I was drunk, and in shock, and I just kept trying, screaming all the while for someone to come help me. It was only her head. The rest of her body was clear. I thought if I could just—get her out from under there—you know? That I could fix things, that maybe she’d be all right, if I could just get it off of her.”
Meredith gaped at him, her brain freezing as the images crowded in. “Oh, Heath,” she whispered shakily. “Oh, dear, God…”
His back still pressed to the tree, he slid slowly down the trunk to sit at its base, his arms draped over his upraised knees. “A girl down at the bonfire started yelling that there’d been a wreck and somebody needed to call the cops. That was all it took, the word ‘cops.’ Kids piled into cars and trucks, onto motorcycles. Two high school boys on a three-wheeler collided head-on with a juniper. It’s a wonder they weren’t killed, too.”
“You mean they all just left you?”
“Panic took hold. They had no way of knowing how bad Laney was hurt, and kids react that way. They’re drunk, not thinking clearly. Running is instinctive. They don’t want to get caught drinking. The legal repercussions are stiff, and they’re scared to death of what their folks may do when they find out. Yeah, they left me.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. Meredith stared at the furring of dark hair that fanned over his wide wrist to his fingers, the strands shimmering in the fading light like threads of silk. She’d always seen him as being bigger than life, a towering powerhouse of invinc
ible masculinity. Now she realized that in his way, he was just as vulnerable to pain as she was.
“A deputy sheriff came. Peeled me away from the truck. I think I had gone into shock. When they pulled Laney clear and tried to take her to the ambulance, I went crazy.” His face tightened, the grooves at each side of his mouth deepening to slashes. “Our mom died when she was ten, I was eleven. From then on, I was always the one she came to for comforting. Scraped knees. Later, over boy trouble. I’d always fixed everything. You know? And I went crazy. They wouldn’t let me try, wouldn’t let me touch her. And I was convinced she’d get okay if I could just reach her. There were a few obstacles in my path, cops, paramedics. I went through them like they were a half-ass defensive line. The ones who tried to stop me—hell, I don’t know. They didn’t stay in my way for long. I was a pretty stout boy, and my adrenaline was high.”
Meredith closed her eyes, feeling sick.
“I tried everything—calling her name, giving her mouth-to-mouth. They couldn’t pull me off her. A bunch of them jumped me, pinned me down. Then somebody jabbed me with a needle. After that, I must have been a walking zombie. I can’t remember but bits and snatches, like the worst parts of a terrible nightmare.”
“And they didn’t charge you with any crime?” Meredith could almost picture Heath going berserk, knocking men out of his path. “Not assault or—anything?”
“My dad was an important man.” He grimaced and shook his head. “God, my dad. He’s in town right now. He’s going to shit when he sees the news tonight. I just pray it doesn’t go to a major network. He was a son of a bitch as a father, but he doesn’t deserve this. It could destroy his career.”
Just the thought of that camera footage being aired by a major network made Meredith’s blood run cold. She shoved away the panicky feeling, telling herself it was highly unlikely.
“You mean it’s true, then? Your father actually bribed the cops?”
Heath rubbed his thumb back and forth over his fingertips. “Money talks. The great Ian Masters has never lacked for the green stuff.”
“You speak of him as if he’s famous or something.”
Heath flashed a bitter smile. “That’s my dad, famous. You’ve never heard of Ian Masters, the legendary defense attorney?”
“Legendary?” Meredith’s heart stuttered. “No, I guess not.”
“Let me think.” He snapped his fingers. “That senator who killed his wife. You remember him? I can’t remember what state. He kept her in the freezer for over a week, then fed her to guests at a barbecue.”
“Oh, my stars!” Meredith clamped a hand to her waist. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, well…it happened, and my dad took his case. And that woman who moved all over the country, marrying old men and then murdering them for their money? He got her off on an insanity plea. Just about any famous case you’ve read about, and you can bet my father was asked to take it. Now that he’s older, he picks his battles, but he’s still one of the biggest names in the nation. He’s licensed to practice in twenty-three states. It would be big news if somebody could get the goods on him.”
What on earth had she stumbled into, here? Just moving in next door to a Podunk county sheriff had been bad enough. Now she discovered that this particular county sheriff was not only smack dab in the middle of a recall scandal, but the son of someone famous? Oh, God. Money talked, all right, loudly and autocratically. She needed to pull up stakes—get the hell out of here—but without money, she couldn’t.
Chapter 12
The minute Meredith reentered the house, she went to get her purse off the top of the refrigerator. Pulling out her checkbook, she sat at the table and stared at the last bank balance she had entered. It was barely enough. To make another move right now, she really needed to save more. Ideally, she should get the car fixed before she left, and there wasn’t money for that. She could, however, afford to make the trip if she had to, covering the cost of traveling fuel, food for Sammy along the way, utility deposits in the next town, and renting another house.
It would be tight. She didn’t kid herself. No eating in restaurants, and they’d have to sleep in the car. But she could swing it. If she purchased a new battery, the Ford would probably make it if she babied it along, driving slow and watching the oil level. She’d be taking a chance that it might break down, of course, but in life-and-death situations, you sometimes had to gamble.
Relieved that she could at least see her way clear to get out of here, she tossed the checkbook aside and buried her face in her hands. Now all she could do was wait to see the news. If the picture of Sammy was clear enough for someone to positively identify her, she’d pack during the night and come morning, they would leave.
The sound of Heath unloading lumber drifted in to her from outside. She wondered if he still intended to start working on the utility room floor tonight. Probably not. She hoped not, at least. The thought of having to keep up appearances while he was here, pretending her nerves weren’t raw, would be torture.
She breathed in and slowly exhaled, struggling for calm. She would deal with this, she told herself. If it looked as if they might be in danger staying here, at least it was possible for them to leave. If not, and she decided to stay, she needed to keep her head down from now on, and Sammy’s as well. When Heath was here, neither of them could be out in the yard with him, just in case another television crew showed up to interview him. Ian Masters, the legendary defense attorney. Talk about a mess. When a high-profile individual became involved in a scandal, news crews moved in like vultures. Hopefully, Ian would be the one they hounded the most, not Heath.
Everything hinged on that news footage of Sammy now. And all she could do was wait.
Slowly Meredith fought off her initial panic and began to feel better. It was easy to overreact when so much was at stake. And that was what she was doing, overreacting. There was a strong possibility that television viewers would be able to see Sammy in the background if that camera footage was aired. But how likely was it that the picture of Sammy would be clear? And, even if her features were distinguishable, how great were the odds that Glen Calendri would see the broadcast?
Shortly after seven that evening, the phone rang. Her hands covered with cookie dough, Meredith grabbed the receiver with only her thumb and index finger.
“Hello?” She tucked the phone under her chin and leaned sideways to grab a towel to clean her hands. “Kenyon residence.”
“Hi, there, Arkansas.”
Meredith smiled in bewilderment. “Heath? I figured you would have settled down to watch television by now and be sound asleep.”
“I kept one eye open to catch the six o’clock news.”
She tightened her grip on the phone. “And?”
“I was on there, in living color.”
“How bad was it?”
“Not as bad as I expected. A lot of speculation, no real proof to back it up. Their reliable source refused to make further comment.” He grew quiet for a moment. “I guess maybe the friendship between Bill and me isn’t totally gone, after all. His conscience must have eaten at him.”
“As well it should. When you arrested him, you were doing your job. What he did today was sheer meanness.”
“Yeah, well. He blew smoke but no fire. There were a lot of kids at that graduation party, all of them adults now. He could have claimed it was any one of them and driven the knife in deeper. Knowing what he knows, I can understand how my arresting him must stick in his craw.”
Meredith could as well. Heath ran a zero-tolerance county, and Bill, who had suffered so much because of it, undoubtedly remembered Laney’s death and saw Heath’s policies as being hypocritical.
“The insinuations won’t do my reputation a world of good,” he went on, “but I don’t think they’ll do me much harm, either.”
“That’s good.” Meredith was dying to ask about the background details and whether Sammy had shown up clearly on the footage.
“Remember
when I told them to leave me the hell alone? They blipped the ‘hell’ out, making it seem like I said something a lot worse. Can you believe it? As if I’d be that stupid when they had a camera on me. I never realized how much sheer trickery and illusion goes into the news.”
“That is pretty underhanded.”
He grew quiet for a moment. “Oh, well. That’s what I get I guess, running for public office and then bucking the establishment. I honestly didn’t call to complain. I just thought Sammy might enjoy seeing herself on television. They’ll probably run the footage again at eleven. Can she keep her eyes open until that late?”
Meredith’s stomach tightened. “Probably not. She generally nods off about nine, at the latest.”
“I’ll record it for her then.”
“Did they, um, get a closeup of her?”
“Nah, just a background shot. Pretty fuzzy. But she won’t care. She’ll know it’s her and get a kick out of it.”
Meredith sagged with relief and smiled. “Yeah, she probably will. It’d be neat if you could record it for her.” She leaned against the counter, wanting to hoot with joy. No trip in that rattletrap car, after all. “How did the wind blow for your dad? Any indication that they may pursue the bribery accusation?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them. As long as their source won’t talk, though, they can’t make anything stick.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “Dad already called me. The last time we talked was Christmas, and as always, I called him, if that gives you any idea how pissed off he is. Called me a screwup, among other things. Said all the big boys would pick up the story and that it would irreparably damage his sterling reputation. Christ! I’d almost forgotten what a jerk he is. Not one word about what it must have been like for me, having it all dredged up again. Bottom line is, he doesn’t care. You’d think, at thirty-eight, I would have figured that out by now.”