“What do you think of Isaac Sylvester?” I posed the question before I could give myself an opportunity to think better of it because, dammit, I needed input.
Jenn needed—deserved—to know about my suspicions. But I needed to break them to her in such a way that wouldn’t leave her broken if they turned out to be true.
Jethro wouldn’t go to the police, he’d done shady shit in his past, he knew the Wraiths, the hold they had on their members. Furthermore, he’d abandoned his mother and siblings once upon a time. Who better to consult than Jethro?
“Isaac Sylvester?” he asked, looking confused by my apparent subject change.
“That’s right. Jenn’s brother.”
“I don’t know that I ever think of Isaac Sylvester.”
“But remember when you and I met with him and Repo, while Jenn was in custody? What did you think about him then? What was your impression?”
Jethro scratched his jaw. “Well, he—uh—I guess he seemed reserved. Careful.”
“Reserved and careful? Expand on that.”
“He said very little, even when he did speak. Almost like he’d originally planned to just listen and let Repo do all the talking. And he hesitated each time he had to talk, like when you asked if he thought Jennifer had killed Kip. It took him forever to answer. And when he did, it wasn’t really an answer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you asked him, point blank, something like, ‘Do you think Jenn killed Kip?’ And what did he say? Some double-talk, right?”
“He said yes, didn’t he?” I searched my memory, trying to recall Isaac’s exact words. I thought for sure he’d said yes.
“No. He said something like, ‘It is a possibility I’d considered,’ or ‘I’d considered it because it seemed likely’ or something like that. He never just out and said, ‘Yes.’ He kinda skirted the question. You would ask questions and he would answer a different one.”
Now I was back to frowning, staring at nothing, and realizing—belatedly—that Jethro was absolutely correct. And, dammit all to hell, I’d been so distracted by Jenn being in custody, agitated and desperate, I hadn’t been thinking clearly during the meeting.
Furthermore, the worst part was, Isaac hadn’t lied. Everything he’d said was the truth.
Jenn isn’t in danger.
They were always going to arrest Jenn right after the reading of the will, using her surprise inheritance as motive.
Those devices in your house, listening, watching, those are mine. I needed to know what y’all were up to.
I needed to know what you and Jenn were saying. I wanted to know before anybody else.
“Fuck,” I said on a breath, my fingers pushing into my hair as my suspicions matured into an undeniable fact. “Fucking fuck fuck.”
Burro had told me Isaac had been there, at the lodge, at the slope north of the woods, but I’d dismissed it as irrelevant, a son driving to the scene of his father’s demise. But no. Isaac had been there the whole time.
And then Burro arranged the meeting with Isaac, Repo, me, and Jethro. Isaac wanted to know what I knew because he’d shot Kip.
Isaac was the shooter.
“Cletus?”
I waved away Jethro, still thinking, still arranging the puzzle pieces I’d had all along.
If I’d been paying attention during the meeting with Isaac and Repo, I would’ve seen it then instead of a month later when Diane told her side of the story. If I’d been able to focus, take my time, if I hadn’t been frantic, maybe Diane wouldn’t have had to leave Green Valley. Maybe Jenn would still have her mother.
But Isaac had taken advantage of my disheveled mind. He’d taken what he wanted. And I’d played right into his hands.
He’d even admitted it. He’d told me, he’d told us! He’d said the words and I wasn’t listening,
Because I’d kill him.
I had to get out. If I hadn’t, I would’ve killed him years ago.
“How could I be so stupid?”
“What?” I heard Jethro’s shoes shuffling on the linoleum floor, moving him a little closer, real alarm in his voice. “What’s wrong?”
“I am what’s wrong.” I shook my head, laughing bitterly.
I didn’t think it was possible for me to despise Isaac any more than I already did. I’d been wrong. The details of precisely how were still fuzzy, but Isaac’s motives were all so clear now.
Aren’t you worried? Leaving the Wraiths without a money man?
I have an apprentice.
Who?
Someone you think is smart.
At that point in the conversation I’d just called Isaac smart, hadn’t I? I’d just praised him for suggesting his mother not leave her house so as to thwart the police taking her prints.
Isaac was the smart apprentice.
He’d killed his father, set up his mother, threatened his sister, all to get Repo out of the way.
And now there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
“Cletus.”
“Not now, Jet.” I waved my brother off again, gritting my teeth. Repo couldn’t ever come back, and of course Diane would never let her son take the fall—
“Your phone is ringing,” Jethro said, reaching into my side pocket, withdrawing it, and smacking it against my chest. “Looks like it’s the bakery.”
I swallowed though my mouth was dry and accepted the call, my mind not actually engaged with the action. “Hello?”
“Cletus? It’s Blythe. Hey, so, listen. We called the police, but—”
“What’s wrong?” Unsurprisingly, the words called and the and police shoved me out of my epic brain implosion. “Where’s Jenn?”
“That’s the thing . . .” Her voice wavered. “Cletus, someone took her.”
Chapter Twenty-One
*Jenn*
“When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never any strength to throw away.
Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
It was my fault. I had no one to blame but myself for getting in Cletus’s Geo.
I should’ve known better. I should’ve known!
Cletus rarely picked me up in the Geo. It was too small, he’d always said, and he liked the bench seat in the Buick. He liked me cuddled up next to him. He liked holding my hand. He liked placing kisses on my head or on my mouth when we stopped at a light or stop sign.
Maybe if I’d been feeling less sorry for myself, or maybe if I’d been feeling less frustrated and cheated by life, or maybe if the banana cake I’d baked for Mrs. Lavery’s tea luncheon tomorrow hadn’t fallen like a skydiver with no parachute, I would’ve taken notice. The illegally dark tint to the windows meant, no matter what, I wouldn’t have observed the lack of a person in the driver’s seat as I approached.
But, if I’d been thinking, I would’ve paused upon opening the door. I would’ve glanced inside before getting in.
Instead, I’d opened the passenger side door, slid in, closed the door, and had been promptly chloroformed from behind. Granted, I couldn’t be sure the big towel they’d smashed against my nose and mouth contained chloroform specifically, but the end result had been the same. I’d lost consciousness.