“I love you both,” Claire said.
Leanne gaped at the admission. “I knew you loved me. You’re supposed to love me. But him? Really?”
She was asking about David, but Claire didn’t want to address the subject, so she shrugged it off with a joke. “Shh, it’ll go to his head.”
“That happened fast.”
Claire smiled at the memory of the six months she and Isaac had spent together ten years ago. Their feelings for each other had been simmering a long time. “Not really.”
Leanne sobered. “I’m happy for you,” she said, and seemed to mean it.
“Thanks.” Realizing that this might be the best opportunity to ask her sister the hard questions she still had to ask, she motioned her into the back bedroom and closed the door. “I do have some questions about Mom and…and what happened…with Joe.”
Leanne shifted in her seat as though bracing for the worst. “I hope the fact that you brought me here means you haven’t told Isaac about that.”
“No.” And now Claire was glad because her sister could truly forget that mistake. “But…did Joe really…expose himself to you, Lee?”
They could hear Isaac still cleaning in the kitchen. Claire wondered what he thought about this private moment, but she doubted he’d mind.
Leanne’s cheeks went pink as she shook her head. “No. It was all me. I just… I was so mortified when he went to Mom that…I had to come up with some reason for what I did.”
Claire crouched at her side. “That lie could’ve ruined his life, Lee.”
Fresh tears hovered in her sister’s eyelashes. “Sometimes I’m afraid it did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t hurt Mom. But—” her chest rose as she drew a deep breath “—I’m afraid what I said got them into a fight. That he killed her and I’m to blame.”
No wonder she hadn’t wanted Claire searching for answers. No one would want that to come out. Her guilt explained why she’d been drinking, too, and some of her other self-destructive habits. “That’s a lot to carry around, Lee.”
Tears streamed down her face. “Too much. Sometimes I…I have to dull the pain.”
With sex and alcohol. Claire squeezed her arm. “It’s off your chest now. Let it go. Even if Joe killed Mom, you’re not to blame. What you did was bad, but you were only thirteen. Kids make mistakes. And causing a fight isn’t murder. If he made that choice, he’s responsible for it.”
Self-recrimination caused Leanne to wring her hands. “But I’ll always feel like she’d still be with us if only I hadn’t…done what I did.”
“Where on earth did you get the idea of creating that tape?” Claire asked.
“Katie’s older cousin was…sixteen. He introduced us to…certain things.”
“He didn’t molest you, did he?”
“He had sex with both of us. More than once. Katie thought she loved him. I thought I loved Joe.”
Claire felt her own eyes burn with tears. Her little sister had been so young. “Mom and Dad didn’t know?”
“Of course not! Neither did Katie’s parents.”
“Where’s this cousin now?”
“Who cares? I never want to see him again—or Katie, either.”
So that was why they’d lost touch. It all made sense now. “But what if Joe didn’t do it?” Claire asked. “He has to have done it. He and Mom were so upset that day.”
Claire thought of Don Salter burning everything in their mother’s case files. “Can you name one reason Don Salter might have any interest in our mother?”
Leanne blinked several times. “Did you say Don Salter? No. Except…he and Dad used to be close. Have you asked Dad about him?”
“Not yet.” But it was interesting that Don had a stronger tie to Tug than he did to Joe, at least back then. “Do you know if Joe and Don are or were ever friends?”
“They weren’t before, but…these days Joe and I pretty much avoid each other, so I have no idea who he might be friends with. Why?”
“I found a copy of our mother’s case files in the studio the night I was attacked. David had them. His handwriting was all over the interviews and stuff. I brought them here, but they went missing during the break-in. Don was seen burning them the day of the fire.”
Leanne’s jaw dropped. “So you think…Don Salter did this?” She waved at the door to indicate the wreckage beyond it.
“We don’t know. We only know that he burned the files.”
“I can’t tell you any more. Jeremy’s the only Salter I’m really familiar with, and that’s mainly because he has one heck of a crush on you. He’s been stalking you for so long I don’t even notice him anymore. But I bet, for five minutes of your time, he’d tell you anything you want. You should give him a call.”
Claire glanced at the clock. “Maybe in a little while. He’s not there, but he has to come home sometime, right?
The phone kept ringing. The doorbell, too. So far Detective Davis, Sheriff King, Deputy Clegg, Tug, Joe, Isaac and Claire had all come by. The noise and the threat of someone barging in and finding that he wasn’t really gone made Jeremy’s head swim. He couldn’t even come out of his father’s bedroom for fear someone would knock at the door. Or the phone would start up again.
Did the police know his father was dead?
They couldn’t. People who’d come had called out for Don as if he was alive. But why did they suddenly want to talk to him? Jeremy’s father hadn’t had this many people come to see him in years.
Covering his ears, Jeremy mumbled, “They can’t know. They can’t. How could they?” Maybe he wasn’t the smartest person in the world, but Mrs. Hattie was his closest neighbor, and she lived clear down by the highway. No way could she have heard the gunshot. Jeremy helped plant her garden every spring. At eighty-one, she couldn’t hear him talking even when he was standing right beside her.
So maybe it wasn’t that they thought his father was hurt or…or worse. Maybe they planned to ask about something else—like the fire. Was Detective Davis trying to reach him about that? Because Don couldn’t have set it. He was dead before it started. Jeremy got confused sometimes, but he was sure of that.
Unless he did it as a zombie…
No, Jeremy had to remember what was real and what wasn’t. Zombies weren’t real. His father had told him that. And something not real couldn’t set fires.
Which meant someone else did it. But who? The same man his father had hired to kill David?
Just thinking about the possibility that David’s murderer was back in Pineview made Jeremy curl up even tighter on his father’s bed. What his father had done was bad. Really bad. What made it worse was that he said he’d done it for Jeremy. Because that couldn’t be true.
“You’re a liar, Dad. Liar, liar, pants on fire.” He’d never wanted anyone to get hurt.
There was another knock at the door. Hugging a pillow to his chest, Jeremy squeezed his eyes closed. “Please go away,” he whispered.
“Don? Don, you there?” It was a man’s voice. “It’s Detective Davis. I’m here on official business.”
Again! Davis kept coming back!
“I’d like a word with you, please.” Bang, bang, bang. “Don? Come on now. I see your car’s in the garage.”
How’d he get into the garage? Had he opened the side door?
“If you’re in there, open up.”
Jeremy held his breath, waiting to see if Davis would bust in like he’d seen the cops do on TV. He knew he should probably answer and tell the detective that his father wasn’t home. But he couldn’t think of a good reason for him to be gone. He’d had one but he couldn’t think of it right now. He was too scared. And what if the detective didn’t believe him? Or…or what if Jeremy started to cry when they were talking?
He felt like crying already. He wasn’t himself. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t say what needed to be said. He’d never been so miserable, even after his mother left. “Go away,” he whispered again.