Beguiled (23 page)

“It’s not as bad as all that.”

She tapped a pencil on her armrest. “My little bird also said you and the dogwalker are an item. Is that correct?”

“You’re a regular St. Francis. I wish the birds would talk to me.”

“I am not amused, Logan.” She leaned forward. “Look, all I want from you—all I’ve ever wanted—is for you to do the job. Simple as that. Instead, you’re losing all semblance of detachment. You’re working on this book of yours on my time, you’re dragging Wash Tillman down with you, and to make matters worse, you’re dating the prime suspect.”

“Lacey, I don’t think you’re being—”

She silenced him with a raised finger. “I’m not finished. Consider this your probation. I’m giving you a week. If I don’t see a change, then you’re going to pack up your desk and go. Do you understand me?”

He stared at her. Dumbstruck. He’d been with the
Post &Courier
for six years. He’d battled his way up the ranks with painstaking resolve. He’d given this paper way more hours than they’d ever compensated him for. He’d earned his position as a feature, front-page journalist with long hours, sleepless nights, and nonexistent vacations.

And she was going to put him on probation?
Probation?

“You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Anger surged through him, but his respect for Lacey kept him civil. “What kind of change is it, exactly, that you expect to see?”

She ticked her points off one by one. “No more chasing after the book. No more chasing after the girl. No more ‘borrowing’ Wash for hours at a time. And I want you covering the story, not interfering with it. Are we clear?”

“There’s nothing in my contract that says the paper can dictate my love life.”

“You’re inserting yourself into the story. That’s a breach—”

“She didn’t do it.”

“Give me a break, Logan.”

“I mean it. They’ve got the wrong person.”

“How do you know? Were you with her when the crime took place?”

He didn’t answer.

She slowly straightened. “Tell me you weren’t with her.”

“We went out last night. Fell asleep in my car at about three thirty in the morning. When I woke at seven, she was gone. But her car was right next to mine. There is no way she could have gotten into it, started it, gone and done the crime, come back, parked, and gone up to her apartment all without me hearing and waking up. No possible way.”

“You slept with her in your
car
?”

“Not the way you mean, but yes. And she didn’t do it. I’m not turning my back on her, Lacey. I mean it.”

“Then you’re off the story.”

He shot to his feet. “No.”

“Yes.”

“
No
.”

She lifted a brow.

“Think about it. This is the scoop of a lifetime.” He pointed in the general direction of police headquarters. “They have the wrong person. What if we find the real one and splash him on the front page?”

“Would you just listen to yourself?”

“I’m being serious. I
know
Rylee didn’t do it, Lacey. You’ve got to let me finish this.”

She swiveled her chair back and forth. “And the book? Wash?

Are we clear on those two points, at least?”

He nodded once.

“Say it out loud.”

“We’re clear on Wash and the book.”

She stared at him for a long moment. As stern as she could be, the two of them went way back. This couldn’t be easy for her.

“Don’t make me regret this, Woods.”

He slowly released his breath. “You won’t, Lacey. I give you my word.”

She shooed him with her hand. “Then get. Before I change my mind.”

Chapter Twenty

Her jail cell was full of surprises. For one thing, there were no bars. Instead, they locked her behind a door thick as an airplane hatch with a square window to look through, the heavy glass panes pan-caked around what looked like industrial-strength chicken wire. The view was gummed up by encrusted filth she wasn’t about to try wiping away.

The first hour or so, she perched gingerly on the edge of the bed, which was molded into the far wall, all the corners rounded off. A niche half screened from the window contained a metal toilet and sink, and above that a dented and scratched metal sheet served as a funhouse mirror.

Everything—the bed, the toilet, even the part where the floor joined the wall—had a molded, all-in-one quality, reminding her of a jetliner restroom. Every edge rounded, every surface gritty to the touch.

Whoever did the cleaning wasn’t too fastidious. She kept skin contact to an absolute minimum.

If only she could have insulated her mind so easily. As unexpected as the physical details of the lockup were, isolation was the killer. They’d taken no statements, put her through no hostile interrogations. From the moment the cuffs were on, she’d been treated like an inanimate object. Transported in the back of a police car, photographed, fingerprinted, searched, stripped of her belt and shoelaces, and finally stuffed away and forgotten.

The officers in charge of the process ignored her. No one asked for her side of the story. In fact, after Detective Campbell had read her Miranda rights, she’d hardly been spoken to at all.

The woman who’d rolled her fingertips on the input screen—no ink necessary, to Rylee’s surprise—kept up a running dialogue the whole time with the man behind the processing counter, discussing their plans for the weekend as if Rylee wasn’t there. It didn’t matter whether she was an axe murderer or an innocent, everybody was treated the same.

The injustice of the arrest stung her. She wanted to set the record straight. Every time she’d changed hands, passing from one set of officers to the next, she wanted to shake them. Tell them they had the wrong person. She’d been in the Davidsons’ house around one in the morning and everything had been fine. She put Toro in his crate, locked the door, and left. The real Robin Hood burglar had come after that.

She wanted to tell them that and more, but she’d never been given the opportunity. Meanwhile, Karl’s warning from the last time she’d been questioned rang loudly in her ears.

If any officer of the law wants to talk to you ever again, promise me you won’t say a word until you’ve spoken to me first. Even if he has a warrant.

“Don’t I get a phone call?” she’d asked the fingerprint woman, the one charged with escorting her to the cell door. Should she call Logan and see if he’d talked to Karl? Or should she call Karl directly?

It’s not Karl you want. Grant Sebastian can get the devil to dance in a courtroom.

She wondered where Mr. Sebastian was. What would he do if she tracked him down? Did she dare to ask him to interrupt his honeymoon on her behalf?

Then she realized she wouldn’t be calling any of them. Not without her cell phone. She didn’t know their numbers by heart. It would have to be Liz, then, since she’d memorized that one.

The woman gestured her across the threshold, then pulled the hatch until the lock thunked into place. A very permanent-sounding
thunk
.

“Sit tight here for just a minute,” she said, her voice muffled through the door.

The minute turned into an hour, and then several hours. Either they’d forgotten about her call, or they never had any intention of letting her make it. She curled on the bed, wrapping her arms around her legs.

She needed to tell Logan about the intruder in her apartment. Was her stalker and Robin Hood one-and-the-same? Had the guy known in advance she wasn’t going to be in her apartment the night before nor at the Davidsons’ early in the morning? It couldn’t all be a coincidence.

She shivered, longing to take a shower. Or better, a hot bath. To clean the filth of the cell from her body, to relax, and ultimately to forget. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not anytime soon at least.

Locked in long enough with her frustration, it finally turned on her. Instead of the overeager police and their poster boy Nate Campbell, instead of the anonymous burglar-turned-stalker who’d made sure she ended up here, she began to blame herself.

She could have been less antagonistic with Detective Campbell. She could have put a bolt on her door like Logan had suggested. She could’ve told someone about the person stalking her at night.

But, no. She was in this impersonal, unsanitary, completely dehumanizing cell. Alone, locked up, abandoned. The story of her life.

She didn’t usually dwell on her father’s disappearance. Instead, she stuffed it into a little box deep inside, put the lid on, and then sat on the lid.

But now, in desperate need of help, she was too exhausted to fight the rising waves of resentment. She thought about him, relaxing on a beach somewhere with a different name and a different life. A new family, perhaps. Completely oblivious to her existence.

Ignorant of what was happening to her.

She rested her head on her knees, a fleeting image of her parents flashing through her mind. A steamy day at dusk. The three of them holding down a blanket on a patch of green grass, sweating in their tank tops while a band on a temporary platform played songs for the setting sun. Mama getting up to dance, pulling little Rylee with her, the hem of her mother’s swishing skirt skimming her daughter’s bare arms.

Then, a stark, cold casket with a spray of blood-red carnations. Nonie trying to explain Mama was gone. Just like Daddy. Except he wasn’t dead. He’d simply left.

It wasn’t your fault, darling.
Nonie had told her that over and over. But even at five the reassurance rang hollow. If they’d loved her, truly loved her, her daddy would have stayed. And her mama wouldn’t have swallowed all those pills. If her own parents couldn’t love her enough to stay, how could anyone else?

She thought of Logan. The feelings he stirred within her. The feelings she’d been afraid to have, because she knew they wouldn’t, couldn’t be reciprocated.

Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.

You can’t make a promise like that.

His voice was firm.
I just did. And I meant it.

An impossible vow. A vow that no one could keep. Unless they were God.

God. She scoffed. Even He was gone. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt His presence. Not here. Not anywhere.

But as she sat in that desolate, barren room, she knew whose fault that was. She might go to church and read her Bible, but she was just going through the motions. On the inside, she’d quit. Quit spending time with Him. Quit telling Him her secrets. Quit saying her prayers.

Oh, she’d fling up a plea for help now and then. But she hadn’t talked—really talked—to Him in a long, long time.

She wondered why. Tried to remember some specific moment that she’d walked out on Him and couldn’t. It had been more a gradual thing. She had errands to run. Work to do. She was tired. Or hungry. Or not in the mood.

The realization that she’d done to God, the creator of the universe, the very thing her parents had done to her made her sick to her stomach.

I’m sorry, Lord. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t anything you did
. . .

She stilled. It wasn’t anything
He
did.
He
wasn’t unworthy.
He
wasn’t unlovable.
She’d
been the one to just . . . walk away.

The multitude of reassurances Nonie had given her over the years flooded back.

It wasn’t your fault, honey. . . . You didn’t do anything. . . . They loved you. . . . Adored you . . . You were the apple of their eye.

All the things Rylee was going to say to God just now. All of them true.

She slowly unfolded her body. Could it be? Could it be that it wasn’t her—any more than it had been God? That her parents had loved her, adored her, thought the world of her, but they became so inwardly focused they lost sight of what was most important?

Tears clogged her throat. She struggled to take a breath.

Is it true, Lord? Am I worthy of love?

And in the quiet of that dank, filthy cell, she experienced one of the most beautiful moments of her life. A sense of peace, love, and acceptance filled the room. Filled her.

She thought of Christ in that dark, dank, awful tomb, shrouded from head to toe in burial cloths. Ridiculed by His hometown.

Betrayed by His best friend. Crucified by those He held dear.

And she knew. If anyone had a right to feel abandoned, He did. Yet He rose. He rose from that grave and changed the world forever.

She dropped to her knees, tears coursing down her cheeks.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I want you back. Will you have me back?

But she didn’t need to ask. She already knew the answer. When a sheep returns to the fold, He’s happier about that one sheep than about the other ninety-nine who never wandered off in the first place.

The men who came for her must have been detectives, since they were wearing regular clothes. Leaving the jail cells behind, they took an elevator upward, emerging in a part of the station that looked more or less like an office building.

She grew self-conscious about her shackles, but no one they passed in the hallway gave them a second look. The men escorted her through a maze of cubicles, then through a door marked interview #2, outfitted with a table tucked into the corner, a couple of chairs, and a stack of yellow legal pads.

They left her to wait.

Instead of a two-way mirror like on television, the room had a video camera mounted in the corner opposite the table. She yanked on the hem of her cutoffs, wishing for the umpteenth time she’d worn something different this morning.

The red light underneath the camera flicked on. A second later, the door opened.

Detective Campbell walked inside, a thick manila folder under his arm. The door shut behind him with a
click
. “Hello, Rylee.”

The last time he’d used her first name, she’d grabbed his tape recorder to correct him, then practically slung it back in his face. Was he remembering that as well?