Betraying Innocence (30 page)

Rafe put the car into drive and backed out of the parking spot. “Let’s find out.”

It was nearly closing time when they pulled up in front of the market place. Rafe cut the engine and pocketed the keys as Ana climbed out. He joined her on the sidewalk.

“He might not be in there,” he said, checking h
is watch. “We might have to come back in the morning.”

Ana agreed, anxiety knotting inside her as they stepped through the glass doors into the barely occupied shop.
They made their way to the back and the law office tucked away next to the post office. She expelled loudly the breath she’d been holding at the sight of the neatly tailored man sitting behind the desk. He was on the phone. The light glistened along his sweaty face.

“I’m telling you we need to do something about this. He’s getting out of control. Of course I told him. He said he didn’t care! No, I’m tired of being the one to deal with him. You or—”

She marched straight up to him. “Excuse me?”

The man
visibly started. The phone clattered from his hand, hitting the table with a loud clunk. He scrambled for it and snatched it up. “I’m sorry. I’m closed for the evening.”

“We won’t keep you,” Ana said quickly. “We
just want to talk to you about a friend of yours. I saw you with him a while back. Tall, dirty hair … he was drinking—”

“I’ll call you back.” He snapped into the phone before shoving the receiver onto the base and glowering at her.
“I talk to a lot of people…”

“But you were arguing with him,” Ana said.

Rafe stepped up next to Ana. “We think he might know something about Johnny Baits.”

The man had lost most of his color by the time Ana finished describing the man, but when Rafe spoke, he went ashen. Even his lips were a weird shade of gray.

“W … what are you talking about?”

Ana narrowed her eyes. “
Johnny Baits didn’t run away. He was murdered by four boys in his basement. We think the man we’re looking for is one of those boys and from the look on your face, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

The chair shrieked as he leapt to his feet.
Papers and pens scattered as he reached beneath the desk and yanked out a briefcase. With visibly trembling fingers, he unsnapped the clips and yanked open the top.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, hurriedly stuffing his papers into the case. “What you’re suggesting is
ludicrous. I could have you charged for false accusation, not to mention defamation of character.” He snapped his briefcase closed and swept it off the desk to bump against his leg. “I suggest you go home and forget this nonsense before I have you both arrested. Johnny Baits ran away. End of story.”

“He’s lying,” Ana said as they drove home. “He knew exactly what I was talking about. He’s one of them.”

“I agree,” Rafe muttered, maneuvering the car in the dark.

“I can’t believe we found one
of them!” she said, excitement making her wiggle in her seat.

“Two,” he corrected. “I’m pretty sure the other guy is part of it as well.”

She nodded in agreement as he turned into her driveway.

Ana reached for her door handle. “I just need to grab my bag and quickly call my parents.”

He followed her inside the house, shutting the door behind them. Ana hurried down the corridor, switching on every light she passed. In the kitchen, she snapped up the phone off its base on the counter and dialed Mom’s number. She was standing at the sink, overlooking the backyard when Rafe came up behind her and slipped his arms around her middle. She leaned back into him as the phone rang in her ear. He peppered the length of her neck with warm, open mouth kisses as his fingers slipped beneath the hem of her t-shirt to graze the patch of skin underneath. She felt the touch all the way to her toes and had to bite her lip to keep from moaning when her mother picked up on the forth ring.

“Hey, Mom,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “Just calling to say goodnight.”

“All right,” her mother said. “Don’t forget to lock the doors and check the windows. I want you to keep the porch lights on and…” The rest of her instructions were drowned out by the low, whining groan of rusty hinges opening. For a moment, she thought it was coming from her mother’s side. Maybe she was opening a door. But Ana knew it wasn’t when Rafe’s arms stiffened around her.

T
hey turned towards the kitchen doorway and the hallway beyond it at the door creeping open between them and the front door.

S
ickly yellow light spilled into the dark corridor, casting an eerie glow where it had once been illuminated. Ana knew without a shred of doubt that she’d turned all the lights on, yet they were all now off except the basement light. Her bowels went cold. Her palms dampened around the forgotten phone. Her gaze shot up to Rafe, but he was staring at the open door.

“Ana?” Her mother’s voice was a tiny pinprick in the scheme of things. It barely registered. “Ana!”

She brought the receiver to her ear once more, her fingers trembling. “Mom…”

“Stay here,” Rafe mouthed to her.

But Ana shook her head, replying, “No! Together!”

“Ana, what’s going on?” her mother demanded.
“Talk to me!”

Together, they crept to the door and peered down into the chasm below. The light was on. It was swinging, splashing and leaching light off the walls and floors.
The phone was forgotten in her hand as they ascended to the bottom. The fingers on her free hand curled into the back of Rafe’s t-shirt once they hit the icy landing.

“Ana! I’m calling your father!”
It was the last thing she heard her mother say before the phone cluttered from her fingers and she screamed.

Rafe

For a small town like Chipawaha Creek, the authorities wasted no time rushing to the scene of a crime. In a matter of ten minutes, they had swarmed Ana’s house, taking quick control of the situation. They probably would have been there sooner had Rafe not stopped to cart Ana from the basement and out of the house before calling them. He now sat on the sofa with her curled up in his lap. One of the officers had given him an itchy blanket and he’d swaddled her in it, tucking her into his chest. But it wasn’t enough to taper the uncontrollable tremors that plagued her.

She hadn’t moved or made a sound since their gruesome discovery in the basement.
She sat staring blankly at the floor while tears leaked without end down her cheeks. Rafe couldn’t blame her. If he could, he’d shut down as well. The image of the twisted and bent body would burn in his memory for as long as he lived. He’d never seen anything like it outside of horror movies, which was probably more than Ana’s experiences on the matters, because she looked about two seconds away from having a complete breakdown as strangers stomped through her house trying to figure out what happened.

“Can you tell me again what
happened?” Deputy Christoff was the only female officer on the Chipawaha Creek police force. She was a small woman with dark hair that was stubbornly twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck, and kind brown eyes. Her soft skin reminded Rafe of caramel. She wore no jewelry, except a pair of tiny gold hoops in her ears. She sat on the edge of the coffee table, across from Ana and Rafe with a notepad open in one hand and a pen in the other.

“We went to the grocery store and came home,” Rafe repeated for the hundredth time.

“You went to the store, but didn’t buy anything?” Deputy Christoff said, cocking her head to the side.

“
We only went there to talk to Peter Carrick.”

“
About?”

“It was personal.” There was anger in his voice now. “He wasn’t down there when we left the house.”

“So how do you think he got there?”

“I don’t know
, but we didn’t do it.”

Deputy
Christoff sighed. She snapped her notepad closed. “I’m trying to help you guys,” she said. “I can’t if you don’t tell me everything.”

“We
are telling you everything,” Rafe replied tightly.

“Deputy.”
One of the officers waved her over.

She
gave them one last pitying look before getting to her feet and hurrying over.

“We found a wallet,” the officer murmured, probably assuming they couldn’t hear him
. “It’s not good.”

Deputy
Christoff shifted, hooking her fingers into her belt. “Who is it?”

The officer hesitated before answering, “Vincent Andrews
… Mayor Andrews’ son.”

In
Rafe’s arms, Ana stiffened. Her head came off his shoulder and whipped around to face the pair several feet away.

“What?” Her
voice rasped out hoarse and cracked. “What did you say?”

Deputy
Christoff left the officer to stalk back over to the couple on the sofa. “Why was the Mayor’s son in your basement?”

“Vinny?” Ana struggled to untangle herself from him, from the blanket around her. She threw both off as she scrambled to her feet. “That was Vinny? Oh God, no! You’re wrong. You’re wrong!” She shoved past
Christoff and would have bolted towards the basement had Rafe not leapt after her, catching her around the middle and yanking her back. “Let go of me!” she screamed, kicking and flailing.

Rafe tightened his hold on her. “There’s nothing you can do for him now,”
he tried to tell her over her wails.

“He came to see me!” she cried. “It’s my fault he was here.”

“What are you talking about?” Christoff jumped on the new bit of information like a dog thrown a bone. “Did you ask Vincent Andrews to come over? Do you know who did this?”

But the
coroner took that moment to roll up the basement steps with the stretcher carrying Vinny’s remains. Ana sagged against Rafe, her fingernails clawing into her wet cheeks.

“Oh God
… oh God…!” she sobbed.

Rafe turned her away from the sight
. He pulled her into his chest and held her there as her entire body shook. He stroked her hair and murmured quietly into her temple, not knowing what else to say or do to calm her.

“Talk to me, Ana!”
Christoff said, having to shout to be heard.

“Can we do this later?” Rafe growled.
“She’s in no condition to be answering anything. I’m taking her to my house until her parents return in the morning.”

Christoff
shook her head. “You stay right there until I tell you.”

Rafe bared his teeth, but she was al
ready turning away to talk to the officer still standing there.

“He was here because of me,” Ana croaked into the front of his t-shirt. “I asked him to come.
I got him killed.”

He crushed her tighter against him
, cutting her off before anyone could hear. “Quiet!” he hissed. “Don’t say anything else, do you hear me, Ana?” he whispered into her ear. “Not another word until your parents get here.”

She didn’t seem to be listening to him though. “You need to leave.” Her head came off his shoulder.
Her pupils were enormous, nearly covering all the green. Her face was void of color, making the eight jagged claw marks running down her cheeks a harsh contrast. “You have to go. Please. I’d die if anything happened to you.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere, not unless you’re coming with me.”

Her eyes were wild, darting around as though expecting some threat to come charging at them. “I can’t. He might go after my parents. He might do to them what he did to Vinny … I can’t leave them. I have to be here. I have to tell them.”

“You can’t tell them.” He stopped himself before he could shake her. “
They won’t believe you. They’ll lock you away.”

Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. The sight of them tore at him.
“I don’t know what to do, Rafe.”

He framed her face and gingerly wiped the moisture away with his thumbs. He kissed her lips lightly. “
Whatever needs to be done, we’ll do it together, okay? I won’t let anything hurt you.”

Sheriff
Waylon Drewer ambled into the room, looking pasty as he wiped his brow with a handkerchief. He tipped back the brim of his batted cowboy hat with the knuckle of his finger and surveyed the room. Shrewd eyes the color of icebergs took in and pinned Ana, then Rafe, and narrowed.

“
Would one of you like to explain to me how the mayor’s son wound up dead and carved up in the basement, because that is the first question Mr. Mayor is going to ask me and I’d like to be prepared.”

“We don’t know,” Rafe said when Ana turned her face away, burying it into his shoulder.
“We came home and he was there.”

Snake-hide boots shook the hardwood as Drewer stomped across the room to stand before him. “You expect me to believe that he just
magically appeared there?” He hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans, just under the enormous bulge of his belly. “Did he peel off his own skin, too? Or did the magical transporting fairies do that when they brought him here?”

In his arms, Ana convulsed.
She made a choking sound and her fingers tightened in the fabric of Rafe’s shirt.

“Do you have to say that in front of her?” Rafe growled. “You can see she’s already upset.”

Drewer raised a bushy eyebrow. “Son, I get you’re trying to win favors by acting like the hero, but now is really not the time to be thinking with your pecker. You’re both in a whole heap of trouble.”

“We didn’t do it.” Ana’s voice was muffled, but unmistakable even before she pulled back to glower at the sheriff
with wet, red rimmed eyes. “Vinny was my friend. He was one of the few people who were actually decent in this town. I would never hurt him.”

Drewer eyed her a moment, his fat mustache twitching as he chewed contemplatively on his Nicorette gum. When he spoke, his voice was just a few degrees shy of frigid. “
Maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe it was that demon everyone claims you said you saw not too long ago.”

Ana stiffened in
Rafe’s arms. “It wasn’t a demon. It was stress.”

Dr
ewer shrugged his wide, round shoulders. “Well, maybe you were stressed and thought he was the demon so you tried to defend yourself.”

“I would never do that!” Ana burst out. Rafe quickly grabbed her when she took a step towards the sheriff, hands fisted. “You’re sick to even think
… I had no reason to hurt Vinny. None.”

Dr
ewer shrugged again. “I believe you.”

Ana blinked, looking as surprised as Rafe felt. “You do?”

Drewer nodded. “Sure, after all, it’s like you said, you had no reason to hurt young Mr. Andrews.” His blue eyes went over Ana’s head to meet Rafe, and a cold fist seized around Rafe’s gut. “But what about you, son? Did you have reason? Maybe Vincent was getting a little too close to your girl here and you just couldn’t let that happen.”

“Rafe didn’t—”

Drewer put a meaty hand up, stilling Ana’s outrage. “Is that what happened? You came over, hoping to get cozy with Ms. French here what with her parents being gone the night. Instead you walk in to find her already in the arms of another man. You two argue. Tempers flare and you—”

“What?” Rafe challenged hotly. “
Dragged him downstairs and mysteriously developed the skills to skin a human?” He swore inwardly when Ana flinched, but he kept his attention fixed on the man watching him.

“Did you?”

“There was never anything between Ana and Vinny,” Rafe said. True, he had once thought that maybe there was, but Ana had picked him.

“Are you sure about that?” Drewer challenged almost mockingly. “Women are such
… crafty creatures and the men in your family have a tendency to take the law into their own hands.”

Rafe straightened, his muscles quivering.
“I had nothing against Vinny. We weren’t friends, but I never had a reason to hurt him.”

For several long moments, Drewer eyed them, seemingly
willing them to break under the hard scrutiny of his gaze. But Rafe had been at the end of that infamous glare one too many times to succumb. Instead, he returned the glower with one of his own, conveying his anger and outrage at being accused.

Drewer broke the showdown first. He turned away to mutter something to
Christoff. The Deputy quickly scribbled it down in her notepad, gave the sheriff a nod and hurried down the hall towards the basement stairs.

Drewer faced Rafe and Ana once more. “So what did you mean by the message?”

Ana spoke before Rafe could wrap his mind around the question. “What message?”

Dr
ewer chewed down hard on his gum, no doubt wishing for at least one more cigarette. “You mean to tell me you didn’t see the ten foot high message painted on the wall over the body in Vincent’s blood like some sick eulogy?”

He was doing it deliberately, Rafe thought with a surge of hot fury. He was going out of his way to beat Ana with the scene below, hoping to break her just
enough to get her to confess. But the only sign she gave that his cruel words had an effect on her was the slight tremor in her lip.

“
What did it say?” she asked, her voice tight.

“Why don’t you tell me,” Drewer countered, folding his arms.

Ana met his gaze with a hard anger in hers. “I was a little preoccupied with the mangled remains of my friend.”

There was a spark of something in
Drewer’s eyes … amusement maybe. He reached into his back pocket and flipped open the notepad he withdrew. He held the pad at arm’s length to read.

“
He’s with me now.” He raised those cold eyes to them. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ana lost what little color was remaining and sagged into the armrest of the sofa
. “I need to call my parents.”

“Nobody is calling anyone until I get some answers.”

Ana shot upright, her tiny hands ten points of rage curled at her sides. She stood ramrod straight as she glared venomously at the sheriff. “We have done nothing wrong,” she bit out through her teeth. “Now unless you’re going to charge us with something, I think we’re done.”

Drewer bristled. His belly seemed to expand behind his flannel top. “We’re done when I say we’re done, young lady!”

Ana’s lips curled back over her clenched teeth. “You’re questioning two minors without legal representation, or permission from a legal guardian. Now I don’t know much about the way things are run here in Chipawaha Creek, but I have a feeling the law doesn’t change much once you cross the border. So either you charge us or get out of my way so I can call my father.”