The boy looked almost gray as he shuffled ahead and sat. He didn’t meet Ethan’s eyes. Chester looked as if he’d aged another ten years since Ethan saw him just days ago. He shut the door.
“What’s going on?”
“Show him,” Chester demanded.
Johnny flinched at the harsh tone. Slowly, he pulled his hand out of his hoodie pocket and laid a box on the table. Celebrex. One of the drugs that had turned up missing from Miranda’s clinic.
Shit. Maybe it wasn’t what he thought. “What’s that?”
“Arthritis drugs,” Johnny mumbled.
“Why?”
“I thought Mr. Harkin could use them.”
So Ethan hadn’t been the only one to notice Chester’s debilitating arthritis. “Where did you get them?” He knew there was no good answer to that question.
Johnny’s shoulders rounded, and he muttered something.
“Speak up, boy,” Chester ordered.
“From Doc Campbell’s clinic.” The kid’s tone was edged with tears.
Ethan shut his eyes for just a moment, wrestling with his own disappointment. He’d gone above and beyond to give this kid a chance. Now this. This is what he got for believing people could change. For going against his training, his experience. Accepting what he’d have to do, he sat. “You’re the one who broke in and trashed the place.”
The dark head bobbed once.
“Your friend who provided your alibi. Owen. Was he with you?”
“No. I just used his truck.” If possible, Johnny’s voice got even smaller.
“Tell him why, son.” Chester prodded.
“Harley threatened me and my mother.” Tears spilled over as the boy looked up. “I didn’t want to do anything. I swear. But when he got out of jail, he came out to Monarch House. Snuck in and cornered me. He said I had to do what he told me. That I’d tried to kill him and he could press charges any time he wanted. He said that, on top of shooting Officer Raines, meant I’d be put away, and as soon as I was gone, he’d come after my mother. Show her what happened to women who leave their husbands. He’d already made it past the security system out there. What was to stop him?”
The prowler Lily Mae had reported. It must’ve been Harley.
Ethan struggled for patience. “Me, Johnny. That’s the entire point of my job. Why the hell didn’t you come to me with this?”
“Because you said you’d put him away, and he just got out again. Like he always does.”
It was a failure of the system. Ethan knew that. But he couldn’t quite shake the sense of personal failure. He’d made a promise to this boy, to his mother, that he’d protect them. “Let’s let that go for now. Tell me exactly what he wanted you to do.”
Johnny sniffed and scrubbed the tears from his face. “The first time it was setting a fire. He wanted it to look like what Delaney Newell did to her ex.”
“He said that?”
“Yeah. He gave really specific instructions. ”
“Why would Harley want to frame Delaney Newell? Do they know each other? Have any kind of history?”
“I don’t know. I think its just ’cause everybody knew what she did. He thought it would take suspicion off of him.”
And it had. If not for Miranda’s staunch refusal to believe it, Ethan probably would’ve charged Delaney.
“What about the dead raccoon?”
“What dead raccoon?”
“Somebody left one all carved up on Dr. Campbell’s front porch.”
The boy’s face went impossibly paler. “I didn’t have anything to do with that either. I didn’t do anything before the fire, and I haven’t done anything since the clinic.”
“Okay let’s talk about the clinic. What exactly did he say?”
“He demanded I break into the clinic and trash the place. I tried not to do too much damage. Just to make it messy. She’s a nice lady. I didn’t want to do anything against her. You have to believe me. I didn’t want to do anything. But he threatened my mother.”
So Harley had blackmailed Johnny into acting on his behalf so that he had a couple of very public, very convenient alibis. Tried to throw suspicion elsewhere by framing Delaney. That was a helluva lot of planning for a guy who was allegedly just pissed off and acting out. What was he leading up to? What was Ethan missing?
“Did Harley say why he wanted any of this done?”
“He was pissed she finally convinced Mama to leave. He blames both of you. You especially.”
“Why?”
“He found your card in her purse when he was looking for money. It’s what set him off that last time I took her to the ER. He said—” The kid hiccuped. “He said how you’d taken his woman and he was going to make you pay. Show you what it feels like.”
Ethan’s instincts began to jangle. Escalation. This whole thing had been an escalation, exactly as he’d thought. “When? When did he say that?”
“After I called to tell him I’d finished with the clinic.”
“Has he asked for anything else?”
Johnny shook his head. “I told him I wouldn’t do any more and to leave us the hell alone.”
Ethan yanked out his own phone and hit Miranda’s number. He had to warn her. He’d had Darius sitting on the clinic since he left this afternoon, but that wouldn’t be enough. She wasn’t going anywhere without a police escort until Harley was brought in for good.
Chapter 21
At 6:35, Miranda shut the front door of the clinic behind her last patient and locked it. Thank God. Her feet ached, she hadn’t had anything resembling lunch, and all she really wanted to do was fall face first into bed and check out for the next ten hours. Everything was almost back to normal. Cam had sent over new plants for the lobby this morning, bless him. The whole day had been accompanied by a soundtrack of Shelby’s muttered threats and curses against whoever had tossed the clinic, as she’d laboriously put files back together and back in order. That process would take another day or so, but at least they’d been able to open the doors to patients just after noon. Probably they’d all have been able to go home earlier had there not been a steady stream of Lookie Lous wanting to hear all about the break-in.
Keisha slipped out of the last of the patient rooms, already having prepped for tomorrow. “Are they gone?”
“They’re gone,” Miranda confirmed.
Delaney popped out of the lab. “Truly? We’re done?”
They all looked as exhausted as she felt. “We are done. Thank you all for sticking it out past closing time. Let’s go home.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Shelby was already shutting down the computer that had been moved from one of the patient rooms and pushing her chair under the desk.
The four of them went out the back together, using the buddy system as Miranda locked up. Darius waved from the driver’s seat of the police cruiser parked across the street. Ethan had said he’d be keeping an officer posted on-site once he left, but she’d been so covered up with patients, she hadn’t noticed. Relaxing into the front seat of her Jeep, she pulled out of the lot, relieved not have to think for the rest of the day.