That made sense. However, it was also stupid.
“Okay, so. He takes her to the bakery, she washes her hands—that’s when you see them from the pantry—Jackson bangs on the back door. They run out the front, into the woods from the north, down the slope to his bike. Then he . . . Wait, what happens next?”
“He took her to a safe house for a few minutes. I guess she told him that she didn’t kill Kip, and he realized his mistake.”
“Quite a mistake,” I grumbled, feeling salty. Why hadn’t he just called the police instead of jumping to conclusions?
“They came up with a plan, a cover story. He then took her back to the lodge and she picked up her belongings. She drove home, changed, and the police came by in the early morning to bring her in.”
I nodded, irritated with Mr. Repo for sure, but also relieved to finally have a version of events from my mother’s perspective. I’d known in my heart that she didn’t kill my father. Except—
“So I really don’t understand this next part. According to Mr. Repo, Mr. Miller then started sending her blackmail notes, wanting his cows in return for not turning over the murder weapon with her prints?”
Cletus sighed and then explained that no one—not Repo, not Isaac, not Diane—had any idea what Miller was thinking. Did Miller have the gun used in the shooting? No idea. If he had the gun, how’d he get it? No idea. If he had the gun, did he actually have my momma’s fingerprints on it? Possible, but no idea.
“So why didn’t Isaac spy on Miller? Why’d Isaac decide to spy on us?” I asked, aggravated with my brother for many reasons.
“I do not know why Isaac didn’t put Miller under surveillance when it became clear that the man was attempting to blackmail Diane. That’s a question I didn’t ask, and it’s a good one. But, as I said, Twilight—Isaac—claimed he thought perhaps you’d killed your father.”
I snorted, rolling onto my back as I rolled my eyes. “That’s preposterous. I don’t believe that. I do not believe Isaac thought I was the murderer for a single second. That’s a lie.” Not unless everything I thought I knew about my brother, and our past, and our relationship had been a lie.
Cletus turned on his side, propping his head in his hand and his elbow on the mattress. I met his eyes when I felt them inspect my profile. “Then what’s your theory? Why would Isaac record us?”
I shrugged, moving my attention to the ceiling. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t because he thought I did it, unless I really don’t know him at all.”
Cletus seemed to weigh my words. “Interesting . . .”
“Anyway,” I said on a huff. “Someone—we’re assuming Miller, and I do think it’s him—claims they have the gun with my mother’s prints, and he wants the Guernsey cows in exchange for the evidence. But we don’t know if it’s a bluff or what.”
“Correct. But your momma left a partial bloody print. Wait, back up. Why do you think Miller is the one blackmailing your mother, other than the obvious Give me the cows or else nature of the blackmail notes?”
“You remember at the will reading? Before I was arrested?”
“Yes. I remember you being arrested.” His tone sounded carefully detached, like watching me be arrested wasn’t a memory he’d like to keep.
I gave him a small smile, scratching my nails through his beard. “Cletus, it honestly wasn’t that bad. Everyone was real nice. Evans played cards with me, and Boone—”
“Let’s talk about your incarceration later, if you don’t mind.” He didn’t meet my eyes, and his had grown distant. Clearly, my being arrested had been more traumatic for him than it had been for me.
“Fine. But you should know, it felt more like a vacation than anything else. Anyway—” I stretched, enjoying the friction of our naked bodies sliding against each other as I did so “—before the will reading, Miller was one of the people blocking the elevator. You remember?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if you picked up on this, but when Elena looked at the back row of folks gathered—Roger, Kenneth Miller, and Old Man Blount—she seemed terrified by one of them. I couldn’t be sure at the time which one, but now I do think it was Miller.”
“She looked terrified?” He stroked his beard. “Interesting.”
“There’s also what you said—or started to say—when Leeward brought up the Miller farm.”
“Ah, yes. We haven’t discussed this yet. It appears Elena initiated the process of signing Miller’s land back over to him, before she knew you’d inherited everything.”
“Why would she do that?” I asked, but the pooling of dread in my stomach told me the pressing suspicion I hadn’t fully acknowledged—that Miller and Elena were in cahoots—was also shared by Cletus. For better or worse, I still held out hope Mr. Miller wasn’t the villain in any of this.
“I suspect Elena and Miller were, perhaps are, working together.”
Damn. “I guess I do too, since she was going to give him back his land, and it looks like he’s the one blackmailing my mother. Only why did she look afraid of him before the will reading? If they’re working together, why did he show up at Leeward’s office with the others?”
“Unknown. But all good questions.”
“I’m just so disappointed in Farmer Miller if this is the case. Sending my momma blackmail notes, working with Elena Wilkinson. I expected better of him.”
Something flickered behind Cletus’s eyes, telling me he had his own thoughts on the matter, but instead of sharing them he cleared his throat and wiped his expression clean. “Back to Isaac and Repo and the plan. Do you have any other questions?”
I lifted my fingers to my forehead and rubbed, thinking back to Cletus’s retelling of his meeting. “So my momma left the handprints on the car, and that’s why she won’t leave the house. Mr. Repo told her not to, just in case the police can lift her prints while she’s out.”
“Correct, except Isaac told her not to. He’s the one who cautioned her against leaving the house.”
“And now y’all have come up with a plan to help my mother evade the FBI’s watchful eye, sneak her out using my brother as a decoy, while setting up some sort of sound system in her house to make it seem like she’s still there after she leaves.”
“Also correct. That’s where I was earlier today instead of picking you up. Sorry about that.” He snagged my hand rubbing my forehead and kissed the back of it, his gaze apologetic. “The task was time-sensitive.”
“But the wedding shower isn’t for a few weeks.”
“Yes. However, we need three or four solid days of recording we can use for playback after your mother leaves. Not every day will be usable. Alex sent me the equipment yesterday. He told me a month’s worth of recording would be best.”
A giant weight had settled on my chest, growing heavier and heavier the longer we discussed my father’s murder, Mr. Repo, the blackmail and Miller and Elena, Isaac and his weird decision to record Cletus and me, and my mother going on the run. I just realized I’d been twisting the sheet next to me into a tight spiral with my fingers, so I flattened my hand on the mattress.