Echoes (43 page)

Craig gave her a meaningful look that left her in little doubt what kind of changes the boy had undergone.

"There was no way Grant was going to let anyone change him that way."

"You're saying..."

"He started the fire. He burned it down."

Tess shook her head. He was lying. But then she saw the article on the table, the scrawled words on the notebook paper. Church fire.

"How you do know it was Grant?"

For a long moment, Craig stood, his hands bracketing words he couldn't speak. When his voice finally came, it was low and broken. "I never said a word about it. I knew, and I never said a word. Not a word. He murdered our mother, destroyed our father, and I never said a word."

Chapter Forty-Seven

Smith hadn't found anything of significance in Grant's house. Grant wasn't surprised—he didn't have anything to hide. But he didn't trust Smith. He wouldn't put it past the man to plant something. After Craig's command performance earlier, Grant was doubly cautious. There'd been a look exchanged between his brother and the sheriff that had raised the hair at the back of Grant's neck. It was a look of alliance. A handoff in a relay only the two of them understood.

When Ochoa's radio crackled and a voice came through letting them know that back up had arrived, Smith told his deputy to go outside and meet them. Ochoa looked like he wanted to argue, but the sheriff pulled rank with little more than a warning look.

After he left, Grant watched Smith's every move. The sheriff's determination to find something struck Grant as personal. But the thing he couldn't figure out was what he'd done to arouse that kind of reaction in Smith.

His thoughts circled in his head as the sheriff concluded his search. He was so caught up in them, that he didn't look up as he followed Smith out the door until he was on the porch. Only then did he realize how far from
over
the sheriff's search really was. The sight of the official vehicles, scattered in front of his house like Tonka toys in a little boy's bedroom stopped him and froze him in place. His insides felt like they'd suddenly been squeezed in a clamp that just kept tightening. He was hot, cold. Scared.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded.

"Looks to me like it's a helluva mess, Grant," Sheriff Smith said, placing one black cowboy boot on the bottom step of the porch and looking up at him. The soles on the boots were rubber and Grant was willing to bet they'd never waded through shit. The same could not be said for their owner, however. The heels were too high and Smith probably imagined they compensated for his vertically challenged physique. In reality, they only accented it. The leather had a gloss that spoke of imitation, just like the consoling smile on Smith's wide face. "I'll bet your balls are drawn up as tight as acorns about now," he said.

He'd got that right, but Grant wasn't about to show it.

"The women in your life don't seem to have much of a chance, do they Grant? From your mother right down the line to the temporary help, you're bad news. Bad news."

Somehow Grant managed to keep his expression impassive, but Smith's words, his tone, his meaning, detonated a hidden mine buried deep in Grant's subconscious. He felt the reverberations of the explosion rock him on his feet until he had to reach out for the back of one of the iron porch chairs and steady himself.

No, the women in his life didn't stand a chance. He'd carried the burden of guilt for his mother's death each day since she'd been gone. She was always there, in his thoughts. His father couldn't bear the mention of her name and Grant felt sometimes that he had systematically wiped her from his memory. He'd learned over the years to dull the pain with booze, with drugs. As he stood there he wished he could do that now. But he was clean, sober and remembering....

Behind Smith the detectives went to and fro, holding impromptu discussions next to an unmarked van, pointing out items of note to one another. But what Grant saw was another day, another time when officers had swarmed the Weston Ranch.

Smith said something else, but Grant wasn't listening. Instead he was hearing his Dad reply to the devastating words old Sheriff Turner uttered. He was seeing his father's face as he took in just what Turner was trying to tell him.

The church...the fire...Ellen dead...a boy seen running away....

Like a woken beast, the latent memory raised its head and growled.

"Christ," Grant breathed, unaware he'd spoken until Smith turned back to him with a gleam of satisfaction.

"You almost killed your ex-wife is how I hear it. Drinking and driving don't mix. Big movie star like you should know that. We've been watching Tori France's house since she turned up missing. I hear you paid her sister a visit. A couple of them. I wonder if she knows what you're all about, movie star."

Grant heaved his thoughts from the past, knowing that if he didn't keep it together he would be lost. But the memory was as powerful as the actual event. It all came back to him, slicing him with the steely edge of reality, breaking through to the pain he'd managed to numb for over twenty years.

"I'd say your cover is blown."

Grant answered, "You don't have a damn thing on me. Not one damn thing."

Smith's pleasant grin sent a whole new wave of horror washing over Grant. Before he could even begin to react, a shout came from the somewhere in the vicinity of the broken down shed.

"Sheriff, they've got a DB," Hector said as he jogged to stop at the foot of the porch. He took his hat off and swiped his brow with his sleeve. The green tinge of his skin and the tremble in his hand left Grant in no doubt as to what a DB was.

"Tori France?"

Hector gulped a couple of breaths before he managed, "In a trash bag with the refuse by the shed. Looks like she was going to the incinerator with the rest of the debris."

"That's—this is crazy," Grant snarled. "I was just cleaning out the deadwood yesterday. There weren't any trash bags over there. God damn it, this is a set up."

Smith shook his head, glancing sideways at Grant. "You are one sick fuck, movie star. One sick fuck." He hiked his pants up over his sagging beer belly and patted his gun. "I guess they'll be raking this place with a toothbrush before they're through. Hector, why don't you take our movie star down and book him. I'm going to swing over to let Ms. Carson know we found her sister."

"Sheriff," Hector said, stopping Smith. "There's more. She doesn't look like she's been dead that long." Hector swallowed and took another green breath. "There's no decomposition. Just lividity."

Smith cast Grant an assessing glance. "I hope for your sake we don't find evidence that you've kept her alive somewhere on the property."

"You'll only find it if you brought it with you."

Ochoa stood on the bottom step looking from Grant to the sheriff. "It's more like she was preserved, Sheriff. Like in a refrigerator. Like
Lydia."

The sheriff looked stunned, but all he said was, "Take him in, Hector." To Grant, "I'll pass on my condolences to your girlfriend."

Grant's eyes narrowed in on Smith's face. The notion that this was all personal, that the sheriff had something on Grant came back like a tidal wave. Why? Why was he going to see her? "Stay away from Tess," Grant said.

"I think it's you that better stay away from her," Smith replied coldly.

Grant watched the sheriff get into his car with a feeling as close to panic as anything he'd ever known. He didn't know what the hell was going on. He didn't know why anyone would murder Tori France and then leave her body on his property. He inhaled, mentally backing away from the land mine he stumbled on. His property. That's what it was now that dad was dead. His property.

"Why is
he
going to tell her?" Grant said quietly. "Doesn't he usually send you to do the dirty jobs like informing the family?"

Hector glanced at him and back at the sheriff. His brows pulled together over his eyes, but he didn't answer. Still, Grant knew that Hector was asking himself the same question.

"We've never had a case this big," Hector answered. "He wants to make sure things are done right."

"Sure. He's a by-the-book kind of guy, isn't he?"

"That's right."

Hector pulled his handcuffs from his belt and faced Grant to read him his rights. Time was running out and the sight of those shiny silver bands made Grant feel desperate in a way he hadn't felt since checking himself into rehab. A fine sheen of sweat broke out on his face. It was wrong, all wrong that Smith was going to deliver the sad news to Tess Carson. It wasn't natural. Smith could care less about Tess and her grief. He was going there for another reason. Grant saw again the look exchanged between Craig and Smith earlier. It had been brief, but weighted with meaning.

"Carl," Hector called to one of the deputies milling around. "I need you to drive me and Weston to the station."

"It didn't feel right to you either, did it?" Grant interrupted. "Craig, playing the injured party and Smith pretending to restrain him. There's something going on, Hector. I know you feel it too. Smith wouldn't go to see Tess out of the goodness of his heart. Why is he going, then? Why?"

Carl had joined them now. He held the passenger door of his cruiser open, looking back and forth between Ochoa and Weston with a puzzled expression.

Grant pressed his point. "You're asking yourself why he isn't here, gloating over the arrest, aren't you? Isn't that what you'd expect? And funny how Tori France appeared from nowhere. Isn't it? You've been all over this place, Hector. You didn't miss a body."

Hector looked up and stared into Grant's eyes. Feeling as if he'd been falling and had just caught hold of something, Grant changed tactics. "If I killed her, why would I keep her around to find? Where's the reason of it? Why would I want to kill Tori France?"

"She saw what you did to your Daddy," Carl offered helpfully.

"Bullshit. I was in Piney River."

"Seeing a man about a horse," Hector said. "Yeah, we got that."

Grant made a sound deep in his throat. "Dammit, Hector, this isn't right. I didn't kill her. I didn't kill anyone. You've got the wrong man."

"I'll let a judge tell me that," Hector said. "If it's true."

Moving behind him, Hector pulled Grant's resisting left arm back and locked it inside the cuff, but as he reached for the right hand a sound in the distance caught his attention. The noise was faint, barely discernable above the voices and bustle of the investigators, but Grant heard it and so did Hector. He turned and locked eyes with Hector as the echo of it reverberated through their thoughts.

"That was a gun," Hector said, as if against his will.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Tess felt as if she'd finally, irretrievably lost her mind. Somewhere, sometime Molly was trapped in the midst of a savage riot, Arlie was on the other side of camp, Adam smack in the middle. And Tess was here, trying to digest the reality that the man she'd fallen in love with was a monster capable of killing his own mother. Did that mean he murdered
Lydia as well? Her throat constricted as she thought of her missing sister...of Grant in her arms. Could he be that cold, that inhuman that he could abduct Tori and then passionately make love to her sister?

"Did you hear that?" Craig asked. "Someone is at the door."

Tess had been so ensnared in her spiraling thoughts, she hadn't heard anything. Craig stood and opened the front door. Sheriff Smith waited on the doorstep. She wanted to shout at Craig not to let him in. It seemed that Craig heard her, but the sheriff had already entered.

The small house seemed to shrink as he took off his hat and stepped through to the kitchen. It stilled with his pause and darkened with his frown. Tess looked at Craig with wide eyes. Smith intercepted the silent exchange. His stare sliced between Tess and Craig.

Stifling the overwhelming desire to step back, Tess said, "Why are you here, Sheriff?"

His expression remained suspicious and somehow predatory, but he spoke gently. "I'm afraid I have some bad news, Tess."

Instinctively Tess looked past him to Caitlin, still sitting on the couch. The young girl stared at the sheriff's back as if willing him away. But the sheriff was oblivious to her, oblivious to the fact that she seemed to already know what he was going to say.

"We've found your sister's body. We're going to charge Grant Weston with her murder."

Spoken, the words became real, the fear justified, the world unhinged. The words
found
and
body
became horrifying images that clung in her mind. Dark and swirling, the visions sucked at her feet and tried to pull her down.

The sheriff shifted his weight, fiddled with his hat, looking everywhere but at Tess. Craig was speaking, but she couldn't make out what he said.

"I know it's a shock, but at least you have closure. It would be worse to never know," Smith was saying.

He tossed his hat onto the table. It landed with a soft
whoosh
on top of Jesus's face. Craig moved closer, blocking her view of Smith, trying to turn her into his arms, but she pushed him away. The air became thick and grainy and the sheriff, Craig, the background TV all faded to dull, washed out colors. There was a ringing in her ears and her skin felt hot as she watched everything slow down.