Cletus’s hand connected with my knee and he squeezed. “Don’t make a sound.” The words barely audible as the unmistakable sound of footsteps—multiple people’s footsteps—marched from the front bakery to the back kitchen. Déjà vu.
Someone flipped on a light. “Cletus, it’s us. Come out.”
I heaved out a breath at the sound of Jackson’s voice, relief flooding through me.
But Cletus pressed me further back and against the shelves. “Who is us? ’Cause I only see you.”
“Me and Boone.” Jackson’s voice was still some distance away, like he stood by the doorframe from the bakery shop leading into the kitchen.
I felt Cletus hesitate, I felt it in the tensing, relaxing, and tensing of his muscles. “I told the sheriff just him.”
“Yes, we know. But on the way here we stumbled across Elena Wilkinson’s body, and he’s dealing with . . . that.”
“Elena?” I squeaked and was speaking before I could catch the question, “Is she okay? Was she shot?”
“We can’t say.” This statement came from Boone and was firm. “Now y’all need to come out and keep your hands where we can see them.”
“Oh good Lord,” Cletus mumbled, and from the way he said the words I knew he’d paired them with an eye roll. “Fine. I’m coming out. But until y’all put those guns away, Jenn is staying inside the pantry.”
“No, you’re both coming out,” Boone ordered.
“No. I’m coming out.” Cletus pushed the pantry door open and lifted up his arms, and for some reason I felt like someone was both strangling me and sitting on my chest.
Clearly, Boone didn’t trust us. Boone! If Boone didn’t trust us, then could we trust him? What the hell was going on?
“Wait—” I whispered, trying to catch Cletus’s shirt before he left. Just like earlier in the barn, it was too late.
I watched with a strange mounting terror as he stepped further into the room and out of my sight. “Now y’all want to tell me what—other than some crazy person shooting into the bakery—has you on edge?” Cletus demanded, sounding like he was near a fit.
“How long have y’all been in here?” Jackson asked, his tone appearing to be much calmer than Boone’s, and I resisted the urge to peek out the door so I could see if they’d lowered their weapons.
“After the sheriff escorted Kip, Elena, and Diane out of the barn, Jenn and I took a moment.”
“A moment? You’ve been gone for over an hour.” Boone’s statement was accusatory. “What were y’all doing?”
I covered my face, bracing myself for Cletus’s answer, and he certainly seemed to be debating it.
“Well?” Boone demanded.
More silence from Cletus.
I heard the distinct sound of clicking metal. “Cletus, if you don’t answer the question, I’m going to have to arrest you.”
“We were having sex!” I shouted, coming out of the pantry with my hands up and finding both officers with their guns pointed at Cletus. A pair of handcuffs swung from Boone’s other hand.
They gaped at me and, as absurd as it was, I felt my cheeks heat with embarrassment. But it was too late for modesty now.
“Okay? We were having sex. Right there, on the counter. If you need evidence, Cletus left the condom in the bathroom,” I said tartly, letting my hands drop and gestured to the kitchen island. “We came in here, I cleaned up the scratches on Cletus’s face, we talked, we had sex, we talked some more, and we were on our way back to the party when we heard the first set of shots. Cletus pushed me to the ground. Are you happy now?”
Both Jackson and Boone had lowered their guns as I spoke, and when I finished, Jackson’s stare shifted to Cletus as he mumbled something like, “Not as happy as y’all, clearly.”
Cletus had lowered his hands and now held one of mine. While I related events, he simply stood silent. I snuck a quick look at him and found his eyes apologetic, his jaw in a dour line.
Rolling my eyes—at myself, because I was still blushing—I squeezed Cletus’s hand to communicate that I was okay and addressed Boone and Jackson. “Now it’s your turn. Why would y’all come in here with your guns drawn? What the heck is going on, Boone? We were hiding in that pantry, scared out of our wits after someone shot the windows out, and you’re treating us like criminals.”
Boone frowned, clearly remorseful, but there was still something about the set of his mouth and how he hadn’t stopped inspecting us since I emerged from the pantry, like he was looking for a lie.
“Jenn, you may want to—uh—sit down.” Jackson holstered his weapon, his tone bracing and gentle.
I stepped closer to Cletus. “What? Why?” I searched their faces. “What happened? Is—is my momma okay? What happened to Elena? Was that—”
“It’s your father.” Boone re-hooked his handcuffs to someplace hidden, but he didn’t put away his gun.
“What? Did he hurt someone? Was he the shooter?”
Boone seemed to be readying himself for something, watching me with a scrutinizing intensity, and said, “He’s dead.”
Chapter Five
*Cletus*
“Police work wouldn't be possible without coffee," Wallander said.
"No work would be possible without coffee."
They pondered the importance of coffee in silence.
Henning Mankell, One Step Behind
I hadn’t thought about killing Kip Sylvester as often as I thought about murdering my own father. However, over the past year, the man had taken Razor Denning’s place as a close second on my To Murder list. Discovering that someone else had beat me to the deed filled me with a strange, chaotic assortment of feelings.
Also inspiring chaos? The lie I’d told Jenn back in the pantry. The person I saw in the kitchen had not been Roger Gangersworth.
After the debacle in the bakery with Boone and Jackson, I’d carried Jenn out of the building, and she’d carried her shoes. She didn’t say much. Her eyes had gone cloudy, distant. Jenn was in shock, and I was not surprised. I mired and marinated in a fair bit of shock myself. Everyone present in the fancy faux-barn for the evening’s events seemed to suffer from various levels of shock as well. Except, unlike everyone else, Jenn had just lost her father and her mother was nowhere in sight.
Presently, we were in the fancy faux-barn, but before we’d left the kitchen, I’d snuck a peek at the sink. Traces of red liquid pooled around the drain.
Hmm. . . That wasn’t good.
Boone and Jackson had asked for our consent to swab our hands and the front of our clothes—I assumed for gunpowder residue—and “requested” we return to the barn on the sheriff’s orders. Everyone was to stay on site at the lodge—specifically here, in the barn—until questioned and whereabouts during the murder were accounted for. Meaning, they wanted everyone’s alibi.
Jenn and I had been swarmed upon our return. Shelly, Beau, Billy, Sienna, Jethro, Drew, and Roscoe encircled us, creating a barrier between Jenn and the rest of the guests. They’d obviously heard about Kip’s death. To my family’s credit, they didn’t ask her a single question.