A Thousand Yesteryears (28 page)

Ryan frowned. “That still doesn’t prove he killed Amos.”

“But we know he killed our sister.” Caden tapped the photo in Ryan’s hand.

“Yeah.” Ryan paced a few feet away. “Don’t be surprised if some slick defense attorney doesn’t try to twist this.”

Eve was appalled. “How?”

“Lack of a body at the time it happened. No witnesses. Roger could say he was trying to help her, and she was swept away in the current.”

“No sane person will buy that.” Caden stalked to his brother’s side. “Did you
look
at that flipping picture? The man is strangling her, trying to shove her under the water. Look at his face for God’s sake. That is not the face of a man trying to rescue someone.”

Exhaling, Ryan nodded. “You know how the system works, Caden. I’m just trying to cover all bases so he doesn’t walk.”

“Right now I’m more worried he’ll rabbit. If Amos was trying to blackmail him—”

“But how could he?” Eve interrupted. “He didn’t have the negative.”

“Maybe Roger is the one who trashed the house,” Ryan said.

Caden shook his head. “He wouldn’t risk getting caught. Not with a high profile career at the bank.” He looked from Ryan to Eve and back again. “But he might have hired someone. Someone who botched the job and didn’t deliver the goods.”

Eve caught on immediately. “Amos.”

“So how did Roger know about the negative in the first place?” Ryan asked.

Clenching his fists, Caden smiled tightly. “I vote we ask him.”

* * * *

He didn’t find Roger and perhaps that was for the best at the moment—Caden’s emotions still seesawed between anger and restraint—but Lillian served almost as well.

“Where is he?” he demanded, his gaze narrowed on the thin woman standing inside Eve’s office at the Parrish Hotel. Having quickly realized Roger wasn’t in the ballroom, nor was he anywhere else in the building, they’d found Lillian among her party guests. Taking charge of the moment, Eve had asked Lillian if she would accompany her, Ryan, and Caden to her office where they wished to discuss something with her in private. Caden had to admire the way Eve handled the request, asking him and his brother to remain outside the ballroom so as not to cause a scene.

He’d fidgeted, every bit as agitated as Ryan who’d stood scowling beside him, but bided his time until he saw Lillian nod and head in their direction. Once they’d reached Eve’s office, Caden wasted no time in demanding to know where Roger had gone.

“I told you already.” Lillian’s mouth was a thin, white line as she faced the two brothers within the confines of the small office. “I didn’t even realize he’d left until a short while ago.”

“Kind of unusual for a guy to skip out on his own party, isn’t it?” Ryan had taken a position in front of Eve’s desk, arms crossed over his chest in a hardline stance. His gaze was as coolly unforgiving as the edge in his voice. Only Eve kept up a slim measure of cordialness, inviting Lillian to sit in one of the chairs.

The older woman shook her head, then turned her attention back to Ryan. “Roger does what he wants, when he wants.” She paused briefly, her mouth compressing further. Her gaze tracked back to Ryan, then shifted to Caden. “This is about the photograph Rosalind took the night the Silver Bridge collapsed, isn’t it? You must have found the negative.”

Cadent felt like the floor had buckled beneath him. “You know about it?”

She gave a clipped nod. “I only found out after Rosalind died. She mailed me a copy of the photo with a letter.”

Shifting, Caden fisted and unfisted his hands in an effort to leash his anger. How many freaking people had known about his sister’s murder and done nothing? If Roger had been standing in front of him, he would have smashed the guy in the face, but Lillian required different handling. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“Why should I?” Lillian’s gaze snapped with the same sudden fire as her voice. “Rosalind kept what happened that night a secret for fifteen years. Then to ease her own conscience, she shifted the burden to me. I pitied her at first. I even put flowers on her grave a few times thinking how horrible the knowledge must have been. But then I realized she wanted me to destroy the man she’d been too cowardly to betray. Not only him, but my family as well. All over a girl who died fifteen years ago.”

“That girl was my sister.” Ryan took a threatening step forward. “You’re lucky Caden and I don’t take Roger apart, rather than hauling his ass to jail.”

Lillian lifted her chin like a stern-faced schoolteacher staring down an unruly student. “I don’t care what happens to Roger, but you’re not going to drag my family down in the process—or the business my grandfather and father built. That’s Jeremy’s inheritance. He’s the only one I care about.”

“Maybe we should back up a bit.” Playing peacemaker, Eve moved between Ryan and Lillian, gingerly touching the woman on the forearm. “Please, Lillian. This is difficult for all of us. Won’t you have a seat?” She motioned to one of the chairs in front of her desk.

Lillian’s gaze remained icy, but she complied. Swearing under his breath, Caden paced a short distance away and braced a hand against the wall. Where the hell would Roger go? He almost believed Lillian. She was a doting mother, but her marriage to Roger had always seemed an unlikely match. Turning, he rested his shoulders against the wall, tamping down the urge to act like a cop in an interrogation room. “Start at the beginning, Lillian. You said Rosalind sent you a letter.”

“Yes. It was mailed without a return address and arrived a few days after her death. I’m assuming she had someone send it for her.”

“Probably Adam Barnett.” Eve slid into the chair opposite Lillian, speaking neutrally as if to ease the tension in the room. “He took care of settling her estate.”

“That may well be. When the letter arrived, I thought it was odd.” Lillian paused for a moment, looking down at her hands. “When I read it…” For the first time, she faltered, the hesitation in her voice a clear sign of her inner struggle. “No one wants to believe something so heinous of the man they married. Roger and I have never had an ideal union, but I didn’t think him capable of murder.” Clearing her throat, she sat straighter and faced them.

“I still have the letter somewhere, tucked away. I should have destroyed it, but I hid it instead, the same way Rosalind hid the negative to the photo. She called herself a coward for not being able to report Roger to the police. She said she loved him too much to betray him.” Lillian made a soft scoffing sound. “I don’t know how he inspired such devotion from her, but maybe he was different in those days. Not as ruthless.”

“He was a killer,” Caden reminded her flatly.

Lillian cast him a glance, then continued without commenting. “In her letter, Rosalind said she’d been walking along the river that night with her camera, just as she often did. She got caught up in the chaos when the bridge fell and tried to help. When others took over, she snapped several photos. Some made it into the
Point Pleasant Herald
but there was one shot she didn’t realize she’d captured.”

“Roger and Maggie,” Eve said softly.

Lillian nodded. “She refused to believe it when she developed the shot. She even enlarged that part of the image, examining the details under a magnifying glass, but couldn’t deny what she saw. Afterward, she broke off her engagement with Roger, but kept telling herself Roger was innocent. That maybe he’d been trying to
help
Maggie.”

“What kind of shit-logic is that?” Caden pushed away from the wall with a snarl. Clenching his jaw, he stalked across the room and loomed over her chair. “My sister was on the Silver Bridge that night because of
me
.” He jabbed a thumb against his chest, overcome by a crushing wave of guilt. “I couldn’t save her. The least Rosie could have done—the least you can do now—is bring her killer to justice.”

Lillian blinked up at him. “Caden Flynn, you’re talking about my husband.”

“Somehow I don’t think you love him.”

“Who are you to judge?”

“You just said the only one you care about is Jeremy.”

“Yes!” She surged to her feet, a tiny combatant when measured against his height. “Rosalind blocked the incident from her mind. That’s what she said in her letter. That she put the photo and negative away and made herself believe they didn’t exist. It was only when she was diagnosed with cancer and started going through old papers to get her estate in order that she found them. Even then she didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. She sent a copy of the photo to me and a copy to Roger, urging us do the right thing—what she couldn’t.”

Caden felt the blood drain from his face. He exchanged a sharp glance with Ryan before looking back to Lillian. “She sent Roger a copy?”

“Yes.” Lillian sagged into her chair. “He doesn’t know I have a letter, too. Rosalind hoped Roger would turn himself in, but if he didn’t, she wanted me to follow through and do what she couldn’t.”

“So all this time he’s known the negative is hidden somewhere in Rosie’s house?” Caden ground his teeth. “He must be the one who left notes on Eve’s car, trying to scare her away.”

“No, that was me.” Drawing a deep breath, Lillian shifted her attention to Eve. “I couldn’t risk you might find the negative. I thought if I could frighten you enough to make you leave Point Pleasant, life would go back to normal. Roger wouldn’t have to worry about the past hanging over his head, and I could forget about Rosalind’s letter.”

Eve’s lips parted as if in shock. “Did you kill the crow in my yard, too?”

“Crow? What—no.” Lillian shook her head. “I don’t know anything about a crow. You have to understand what a scandal like this would do to my family. Roger is vice president at my father’s bank. The town would never trust us again, and Jeremy’s inheritance would be forfeit in disgrace. I’ve known all along Roger was only after money and position when he married me, but I will not allow him to rob my son of a future because of some sordid atrocity in his past.”

“At least you acknowledge the atrocity,” Ryan said bitterly. “Unfortunately for you, Caden and I are going to take this as far as we can and see that your husband spends the rest of his life in jail. If you don’t want to end up as an accomplice, I suggest you tell us where he went before I think about booking you as well.”

“But I told you!” Lillian looked truly frightened now. Desperate, she glanced between Ryan and Caden. “I don’t know. He was talking to Stan Brogan at the bar and then just took off. That was a few hours ago.”

“Who’s Stan Brogan?” Caden asked.

“Someone from the bank.”

“What were they talking about?”

“The usual stuff, I guess.” Lillian looked flustered. “Work, the bank…rumors around town. Stan said the last thing he mentioned was scuttlebutt about bones being found in some woods at the end of town. After that, Roger excused himself and left.”

Caden cast Ryan a glance. “Eve’s idea about Maggie seeing Roger in the woods is starting to sound more plausible.”

Lillian’s brows knitted into a crease. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Caden replied.

“Well, if it doesn’t concern me, I’d like to return to my party and my guests.”

“Fine.” Ryan made the decision for all of them. Stepping forward, he adopted his sternest “lawman look,” eyes narrowed and direct, mouth flattened into a stiff line. “But I caution you to keep this discussion to yourself. Do not share any of it with Roger or anyone else. And should your husband return, call the sheriff’s department immediately. I’m going to have a warrant issued for his arrest.”

“Arrest?” Lillian blanched. “Because of a photo?”

“Yes. And because of Rosie’s letter.”

Lillian stiffened like a rope. “That’s hearsay without my confirmation. A wife can’t be made to testify against her husband.”

“But I can get a search warrant for your house. Don’t make this difficult, Lillian.” Ryan’s gaze remained resolute. “If you care about Jeremy the way you say you do and want to save what’s left of his legacy, do the right thing. The town could well see you as a victimized wife who had no idea what her husband was really like. You can still walk out of this with your head held high and garner sympathy for yourself and Jeremy if you play your cards right. “

The corner of her mouth curled slightly, the hint of a sneer. “Why should I?”

“Because.” Caden spoke firmly with a controlled effort to keep anger from his voice. If there was any way to reach Lillian, it was through what mattered most to her—her son. “Someday it could be Jeremy who dies at the hands of a murderer. Wouldn’t you want his killer brought to justice?”

Her demeanor changed instantly, her body seeming to cave in on itself as the reality of the situation struck her. Her husband had killed a
child
. If that didn’t strike a nerve with her, Caden didn’t know what would.

Nodding, Lillian sank back into her chair. “You’ve made your point. I’ll give you Rosalind’s letter, and I won’t say anything to Roger.”

* * * *

His wife had betrayed him!

Roger drove, heading away from town. He needed time to think. After talking to Stan Brogan he’d made a hasty trip to the woods where he’d buried the body fifteen years ago. As Brogan had hinted, the earth was disturbed and roped off with police tape. He’d been close to panicking then, but knew it would take weeks, possibly months, before officials had a positive ID. They had no idea who was buried in the grave, so he was safe temporarily.

He’d decided to return to the party and put on a game face until he formulated a plan. The sight of a police cruiser parked outside the Parrish Hotel acted like a double punch to his gut. But there was no way anyone could have put two-and-two together. He’d convinced himself the cruiser had nothing to do with him and boldly walked into the lobby.

That’s when he heard his wife’s voice coming from the office behind the reception desk, followed by the deeper voice of Ryan Flynn. Luck favored him for a brief while—someone had left the door ajar, and no one was in the lobby—but the streak died quickly as he registered the gist of the conversation. Lillian admitted to having a copy of the photograph and a letter from Rosie. Worse, she planned to give both to the cops.