Not quite yet, Emma thought. Not until I figure out a few things.
So she waited out the storm at a truck stop off I-65 that must have been near Mammoth Cave because there were brochures and posters all around, trying to get her to go there. Right now, a cave sounded sort of appealing. After she crossed into Tennessee, it turned to all rain, which she was at least used to. After that, she made good time.
Hopefully, they’d think she was too smart to go to Memphis. With any luck, she could check out the clue her father had left for her and get out of town before anybody caught up to her.
Emma parked in the central library parking lot. It was a hike from Beale Street, but between the library, the McDonald’s, and the shopping center, she figured there was enough parking that she could sleep in the SUV if she had to without being noticed. Plus clean up in the library and use the computers there.
When she searched on the computers in the library, she found that Beasley was in middle-of-nowhere Tennessee. Almost in Mississippi. Was this a wild goose chase or what?
She took the bus down Poplar to Mickey’s so nobody would spot the truck on her old stomping ground. It was peculiar to be walking in a place that was so familiar and now so different through her eyes. So much had changed since that night she found her grandfather dying on the shop floor.
People were bundled up like it was freezing, but after a half year in Cleveland it didn’t feel so bad. Up north, the cold wrung all the life from the air, so it was harsh and tasteless. Here, the air was a thick brew, warm and rich with the scents that meant home.
It was mid-morning, before the lunchtime rush, but Emma knew that people were in and out of Mickey’s all day long. Chances were high she might run into somebody she knew.
So she walked around the back and into the alley that ran behind the bar. Upending an old pickle bucket, she sat. She knew it wouldn’t be long before Mickey came out here for a smoke. He always liked to get one in before he had to work lunch.
Maybe ten minutes later, the back door slammed open and Mickey shuffled out, already thumbing his lighter.
“Hey, Mickey,” Emma said.
Mickey jumped and spun around. The lighter clattered onto the bricks. “Emma!” He stared at her as if he’d seen a ghost. “My God, girl, where’d you come from?”
“I just got back to town,” Emma said.
“Why’d you disappear like that, and not tell anyone where you were going? I’ve been worried sick about you.”
“I went to stay with my father,” Emma said.
Mickey’s face went ashy. “Tyler? You were with Tyler?”
Emma didn’t know what to make of that look he was giving her. “I was. Why?”
“But...you shoulda said something, honey,” Mickey said. He looked up and down the alley. “Tell me. Does your daddy know you’re here?”
“Tyler’s dead,” Emma said, thinking, Mickey knew about Tyler. He knew about Tyler all along. Was that going to be her whole life—one secret, one betrayal after another?
Mickey wet his lips, his face sagging with sorry. “Oh, honey,” he said. “Let’s get you inside out of the cold.” Turning, he pawed at the door handle.
“Are you by yourself?” Emma asked quickly. “I don’t want anybody to see me.”
“Nobody’s in there but Riley, cleaning up before—” Mickey stiffened, turned. “Is somebody after you?”
“Well...” Emma didn’t know how to answer that question. “I know that the police suspect me in Sonny Lee’s murder.”
Mickey’s eyebrows shot up. “Murder? Who said he was murdered?”
“Well...I mean...he fell and hit his head. And I thought that maybe...maybe somebody knocked him down.” Emma felt like she’d fallen into a sinkhole, and now she was flailing around, getting herself in deeper.
“I guess he could’ve been...” Mickey said, slowly. “But I ain’t heard nothing about that. Old men fall down sometimes. I think the police couldn’t tell one way or the other. Unless you know something I don’t.”
Emma’s mind was racing, trying to keep up with what Mickey was saying. “So the police aren’t looking for me?”
“No, honey.” He scrunched his face, looking guilty. “I did report you missing when you disappeared. I think the police figured you’d run away, so I don’t know that they tried that hard to find you.”
Well, Emma thought, I’ve been stupid. Again. “Let’s go inside,” she said, straightening. “It’s cold out here.”
Mickey hauled open the door, ushering her inside. “We can stay back in the boardroom,” he said. The boardroom was a spare room Mickey had hoped to expand into one day. It was mostly used for storage and late-night poker games. “You want some breakfast? There might still be some bacon set aside for the—”
“Just coffee,” Emma said, helping herself to the backroom pot and loading it up with sugar and cream. Hanging her coat on the back of a chair, she sat down at the battered poker table, and Mickey sat down opposite her. She studied his hands, amazed at how old they looked to her now, the knuckles all gnarly with arthritis, the skin speckled with scars and sunspots.
“How’d you and Tyler find each other?” Mickey asked. “I didn’t—” He cleared his throat. “Did he get in touch with you?”
“Sonny Lee left me a note with Tyler’s phone number on it.”
Mickey’s shoulders slumped. “That Sonny Lee. He could never quite let go of the notion that Tyler had some good in him. That he’d turn himself around. Didn’t matter what he did.” He snorted in disgust. “Who was it killed him?”
Emma took a drawn-out sip of coffee to give herself time to think. “How do you know he didn’t die on his own?”
“Tyler Greenwood was not the kind of person who dies in bed,” Mickey said.
“Then you know something about him I don’t,” Emma said. She waited, that next question hanging in the air between them like the smoke in some after-hours club.
“What brings you back down here?” Mickey asked.
“Tyler left a message for me to read after he died. It just took a while for me to find it. He told me to come to Memphis. He told me to talk to you. That you—that you had the key.”
“He did?” Mickey’s eyes widened in surprise, which switched into horror. “He told you to come see me?” Now he fumbled in his pocket, pulled out his cigarettes and lighter, and tried to light one, but his hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t connect. “He knew,” he whispered. “He knew all along.”
“Knew what?”
“He knew that I was Sonny Lee’s backup.”
“Mickey, I don’t understand a word you’re saying.” Which made sense, because he seemed to be talking to himself.
Mickey’s eyes flicked away. He twisted a paper napkin between his fingers. “Look here, Memphis. It sounds to me like everybody’s dead that was involved in this thing. Nobody left to get hurt but you, and I don’t want that to happen. Maybe it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie and move on.”
“That’s just the thing,” Emma said. “Not everybody is dead, and people are still dying, and I think it’s going to keep right on unless I find out the truth.”
Mickey sighed, and it turned into an old man’s cough. “I knew you’d say that. Sonny Lee always said that you’d chew on something until you stripped it to the bone.” He looked into Emma’s eyes, which he almost never did, so she’d know he meant it. “He loved you more than anything, Emma Claire—that’s one truth you can believe in. But if there was somebody in second place, that would be Tyler.”
“Really?” Emma rubbed her tailbone, which was sore from sitting in the truck all night. “Tyler seemed to think Sonny Lee was mad at him.”
“He was, and he had good reasons,” Mickey said. “But sometimes we get the maddest at the people we love the most.”
Emma kept quiet, knowing that people will
keep talking on just to fill a silence.
And Mickey did. “Sonny Lee couldn’t forgive some of the things Tyler’d done, but I guess at the end of the day, he decided you were better off with your daddy than with the county. He never did trust them much.”
“Sonny Lee never had a good word to say about my mother either,” Emma said, hoping this shot in the dark might hit something.
Mickey snorted. “There was no love lost between Sonny Lee and Gwen, but she didn’t deserve having Tyler Greenwood for a husband.”
“Why? Because he was a musician?” Emma guessed. “Sonny Lee always told me not to fall in love with a musician—that it just led to cheating, hard times, and heartbreak.”
I didn’t take your advice, she thought.
Mickey just looked at her, like he wished he could get out of this corner and go anyplace else where Emma wasn’t looking back at him. “Listen here,” he said, finally, planting both hands on the table. “I should have done better by you after Sonny Lee died. I was scared, and I’m not used to being responsible for somebody else. Your granddaddy and I have been friends forever, and I owe him.” He waved a hand, taking in their surroundings. “This ain’t much, but I own this building, and I make a living. You can stay here as long as you want, and work part-time for me if you need spending money.”
“I’ve got money,” Emma said automatically.
“Well, you may want to spend it for college or trade school or something,” Mickey said. “If you’re at all interested in this place, we could make a deal. It could be a lot more than it is, but I just don’t have the energy to put into it.” He looked up at her, all hopeful. “What do you say?”
“That’s a real kind offer, Mickey,” Emma said. “I’ll think hard about it. Now—what do you know about Tyler that I don’t? What was the secret you and Sonny Lee were keeping from me?”
Now Mickey slammed his hands down on the table, rattling Emma’s cup and saucer. “Damn it all, Memphis, can’t you let go of that? You won’t be happier after you hear it, I guarantee that.”
“I’m not happy now, so what’s the difference?” Emma said. She reached into her backpack and pulled out Tyler’s notebook, flipped it open to the annotated section, turned it so it faced Mickey. “Tell me what this is all about. Why did he pick these songs in particular?”
Mickey’s eyes shifted back and forth, and his lips moved a little as he read. When he’d got through the first page, he swore softly, then flipped around, sampling different ones.
“Typical Tyler,” he muttered. “Wants to hand this thing off to you and get it off his own chest.”
“Well,” Emma said, “he is dead. I don’t guess he’s worrying about it much.”
Mickey put his chin down on his chest, shoulders shaking, and it took Emma a while to realize that he was laughing. “You’re right,” he said, wiping at his eyes.
“You were right, by the way,” Emma said. “Tyler was murdered, and I was the one to give him away to his enemies. Ten years he’s been in hiding, and then I come to live with him, and then suddenly he’s dead.”
“That’s exactly why you don’t want to mess with this,” Mickey growled. “Safest thing would be to forget all about it.”
“You think they won’t find me here?” Emma shook her head. “I got myself into a tangle up north. It won’t take them long to find me. The safest thing is for me to know who my enemies are and why.”
Mickey sat quiet. He was grinding his teeth—Emma could tell by the way his jaw worked. “I just don’t get why Tyler would send you to me, after all this time,” he said.
“I think maybe he got to know me well enough to realize that I’d want to know the truth, no matter how much it hurt,” Emma said. “Maybe he thought I deserved to know, but he just wasn’t man enough to tell me when he was alive. Or he thought I was safer not knowing.” She paused, recalling what he’d said in his note.
I used to think that I was tough, but now I know I’m the biggest coward that ever lived.
“I might be a fool, Mickey, but I do think he cared about me.” She pulled out the sheet of paper on which she’d written the words she’d ferreted out of Tyler’s notebook. “He gave me this address.” She handed it over. “I’m going, with or without you. Do you know how to get there?”
Mickey barely glanced at the paper, then nodded. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Mickey stood. “Get your coat back on. I’ll drive.”
Leesha Middleton pulled on her red Gucci python boots—the ones that always gave her confidence. Not to mention five extra inches of height.
Aunt Millie eyed her critically. “I worry about you, Alicia, in those boots. They are lovely, to be sure, but not exactly practical on icy sidewalks.”
Leesha lifted her foot, showing off the heels. “These are actually great on the ice. Like spikes.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to have Martin pull the car around?”
“Martin’s not here, Aunt Millie.”
“Another day off?” Millie frowned. “That man is never here.”
“That’s because he died three years ago.”
“Ah. That would explain it,” Aunt Millie said with a sigh. “I am getting terribly forgetful, aren’t I?”
“You are,” Leesha said. “The thing is, the older you get, the more you have to remember.” She kissed her aunt on her forehead, breathing in the scent of patchouli and sage.
“Where are you off to, dear?”
“Another meeting.” Leesha tried not to roll her eyes. Aunt Millie didn’t approve of eye rolling.
“You’ve been all wound up ever since Emma left,” Aunt Millie said. “She’s not coming back, is she?”
The thing about Aunt Millie was, she missed a lot, but you couldn’t count on her not noticing stuff.
Leesha shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She edged toward the door, hoping to make her escape without having to elaborate.
“It’s because of me, isn’t it, dear?” Aunt Millie said sadly. “I know I am hard to live with sometimes—this problem I’m having. I seem to have lost my knack for magic, but it’s very hard to give it up.”
“I wouldn’t want to give it up either, if I were you,” Leesha said. “You’ve always been so good at it. But Emma didn’t leave because of you. She’s very fond of you, Aunt Mill.”
There came a knock at the front door. “That’ll be Fitch,” Leesha said.
“I do like that young man,” Aunt Millie said. “He looks to be a bit of a ruffian, and Fitch is an odd sort of name, but he has a very warm smile. And he comes to the door. None of this horn-honking.”
“He does have a very warm smile,” Leesha said.
Aunt Millie cocked her head, studying her through narrowed eyes. “Are you blushing, Alicia?”
Exactly. That thing about Aunt Millie.
“Bye now. I might be a while.”
She pulled open the door to find Fitch smiling his warm smile, a navy watch cap pulled down over his ears. “You ready for this?”
“Sure, why not?” Leesha said. “Maybe I’ll be hit by a car on the way over.”
The church was already half full, with people gathered into the usual factions. Seph and Maddie and Jack and Ellen huddled together, talking.
Leesha spotted Rowan DeVries right away. He stood alone, or as alone as a person can be when he’s surrounded by bodyguards. He looked thinner than before, his bones more sharply defined.
He looked like a person on a mission.
As Leesha watched, Hackleford and Burroughs joined him. They nodded curtly to each other, like they were frenemies, forced together by circumstance. Hackleford, in particular, resembled a crow waiting to get at a fresh kill.
As soon as DeVries saw Leesha, he headed right for her, his bodyguard posse swarming after him.
Gripping her elbow, he tried to pull her aside, but Fitch came right along.
“Who are you?” DeVries demanded, looking Fitch up and down.
“He’s my bodyguard,” Leesha said. “Now, take your hands off me.”
“Who is guarding whom?” DeVries said, rolling his eyes. But he did let go of her.
“I’m glad to see that you are recovering,” Leesha said, trying to be gracious.
DeVries brushed that aside. “Have you seen Emma?”
“Emma?” Leesha shook her head. “Not lately. Why?”
“She was supposed to be here,” DeVries said. “She’s not answering her cell phone either. Isn’t she staying with you?”
“She is, but I haven’t seen her in several days. She said she was going to stay over in Cleveland.” She’s not answering my phone calls either, Leesha thought.
“Downtown!” DeVries seemed stunned. “At that—at the Anchorage?”
Leesha nodded. “She still has an apartment there, I guess.”
“Why would she do that?” He looked almost...distraught. Betrayed?
“Maybe she was afraid the roads would be bad and it would be too hard to drive back and forth,” Leesha said. She paused. “Not to be nosy, but why are you so concerned about Emma’s whereabouts? I didn’t realize that you two even knew each other.”
DeVries pressed his lips together, straightening his body. “Either I misjudged her,” he said, his voice clipped and cold, “or someone has made certain that she wouldn’t be here.”
“What are you talking about?” Leesha said. But just then the side door banged open, and Mercedes entered. “Let’s get this thing started, shall we?” she said, letting the door slam behind her.
The buzz of conversation ended, and people found their seats with amazing efficiency.
“Now, then,” Mercedes said, “I have called this meeting of the task force because Mr. DeVries tells me that he has new evidence to offer relating to the Weir murders, including those on Halloween. As usual, we will proceed in an informal manner unless we are compelled to impose more stringent rules.” She paused, her gaze flicking to each person in the room, allowing time for the threat to register. “Mr. DeVries, I’m sure I speak for many when I say that I am glad to see that rumors of your death were, at the very least, exaggerated.”