“I think so. It was either a woman or a very small man.” She nodded, staring at the empty brandy glass. She’d finished it after crying all her tears. I wasn’t going to pour her another.
“You opened the door? When you got to the car?”
“I did,” she confirmed. “I wanted to help, if I could. I wanted to keep him alive.”
I bit back a curse. If she opened the door, her prints would be on it.
“I thought I could save him. I thought, maybe if I put some pressure on the wound. But he was already dead.” Her voice cracked and she closed her eyes, her fingertips coming to her forehead. “What am I going to do?”
I wanted to ask her to leave with me. Now. Tonight. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. If she left, folks would assume it had something to do with her ex’s murder. And I didn’t think she was ready to leave her daughter or her son. Even asking her to consider it now would be selfish. I swallowed the urge. I needed to do what was best for her, what she wanted and needed.
But if I thought for a second she’d turn over her son, I would’ve urged her to do so to save herself. By the looks of things, Twilight had tried to frame her. She owed him no loyalty.
But Diane wouldn’t give him up to the police. She would never. That wasn’t who she was. There was no point asking.
Thus, while she’d been crying, I’d thought up a backstory. It wasn’t great, but given the facts of what actually happened and what we had to work with, it would have to do.
“I have a lawyer, a good one. I’ll call her,” I said, giving her a gentle squeeze. “I’ll take you back to the Lodge and drop you off at your office. You’ll grab your keys and—”
“My keys aren’t at my office. They’re in one of the cabins, where we changed and got ready for the party.”
“Okay, even better. I’ll drop you off there. I want you to get in the bed, roll around in it, make it messy. Then get your stuff, grab your keys, walk to your car, and drive home.”
“I’m driving home?”
“You won’t say anything to the police until your lawyer arrives, but your story is that you left the party with a terrible headache and rested in the cabin. Then, when you woke up, you drove home. That’s your story.”
Diane was quiet for a moment, like she was thinking this over. “But what about the text from Jenn?”
“Just say you didn’t see it. Say you texted them and when you didn’t hear back, you got fed up and left.”
“I—” She breathed out. “I don’t know. I—”
“Or you could tell them the truth.”
She snapped her mouth shut and shivered. After a long stretch of silence, she said, “No. No, you’re right. It isn’t great, but it’s a story. And I can’t think of a better one.”
“Genevieve will keep you safe. You can tell her the truth, tell her about me, tell her about us. She’ll help you.”
Diane shook her head. “I can’t tell her about Isaac. I can’t. I don’t want anyone to know. I can’t put him in danger like that. God!” Leaving her now empty glass on her lap, she covered her face. “God, Jason. I don’t want him to go to prison for this. His father he was—” She made a sound that was something between a choke and a sob “His father treated him very poorly. As far as I know, he didn’t hit him, but he did demean him and bully him. I tried to keep him safe, I did, but Kip was—I’m so pathetic. This is my fault. I should’ve left Kip years ago. If I had, none of this would’ve happened. This is my fault. I should have kept my babies safe.”
“Shh. No. No, this isn’t your fault.” My chest seized as I shushed her and stroked her hair. I couldn’t have her believing she was responsible for this. The terror and guilt in her voice, the anguish . . . She wrecked me all over again.
If only she hadn’t touched the car. If only she hadn’t tried to save her ex.
I needed her to calm down. We needed to get her to the Lodge. She needed to drive home and stick to the story, wait for Genevieve.
And then I needed to find Twilight.
Chapter Eighteen
*Jason*
“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers.”
Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns Fifty
Using the Mercedes registered to my alter ego, I dropped Diane as close to the Lodge as I dared, but plenty close for her to sneak in the back way and make it to her cabin. As she left, I successfully controlled the urge to catch her hand, pull her back in the car, and take off. We could leave Green Valley and all her troubles behind. Tonight.
It would be so easy for us to make a new start somewhere, wherever she wanted. We could simply disappear and never be found. In my almost fifty years, I hadn’t acquired a family or loved ones, but I’d acquired plenty of money and every kind of resource necessary to establish a new identity.
But I had to let her go. I knew this. If the events of the last several hours had proven anything, it was that I belonged to her completely, but she could never be mine in the same way. Her children would always own most of her. Strangely enough, I was mostly okay with that—except where Twilight was concerned.
If that little shit had framed his mother, what I did to him would likely make Diane hate me forever. A bridge to cross should the time come.
After the door shut and she disappeared, picking her way through the darkness alone, I couldn’t control the notion that I’d just made a mistake and I was angry, just for a minute. I didn’t have more than a minute.
Genevieve needed to be contacted. Twilight needed to be located and dealt with. Instead of wrestling my impulse to jump out of the Mercedes and carry her back, to take off into the night and never look back, I decided to start setting things in motion for us to disappear, together if that’s what she wanted, or separate if that was her preference.
A call came in from one of my contacts at the sheriff’s station not long after sunrise, telling me that they’d brought Diane in for questioning. I wasn’t surprised. Even so, the news hit me like a punch in the stomach. She had to be exhausted. She’d been through too much. I hoped she would stick to the story and wait until Genevieve arrived before making any statement.
That’s all I had. Hope.
I returned to the compound mid-morning after seeing to as many items on my task list as I could. When I arrived, I found Twilight missing. No one had seen the recruit yesterday or today, he wasn’t in his bunk, and he wasn’t answering his phone. I feared he’d skipped town now that he’d framed his mother for a murder he’d committed.
Accepting Burro’s offer of a whiskey before noon and sitting my tired ass in a stool, I wondered if this had been the kid’s plan all along. It would be an easy conclusion to leap to. I’d leapt to it earlier.
That was out of character for me. I’d never been the type to leap to hasty conclusions. But then, I’d never been gone over a woman like this either. Maybe where Diane Donner was concerned, I was all about hasty leaping.