Page 79 of Whiskey Chase
“Think they’ll apologize?” Jonah asked.
My lips quirked. “In their own stupid, ineffective way. And maybe Scarlett will finally lay into them like they deserve. And then maybe things will change at least a little bit.” My thoughts shifted to my own family. Had I ever really stood up for myself, or had I let myself be pushed down a path I didn’t want? Did I even know what I wanted?
“What’s all this?” Jonah asked, looking in the tote I’d carried in from the car.
“Scarlett wanted you to see some family history. I think she wanted to look through them with you. But she was pretty worn out and told me to show you.”
I saw his hesitation. But Jonah didn’t seem like the kind of guy who backed away from discomfort. He pulled the first album out of the bag and settled back in the deck chair. “Is this Scarlett?” he asked, a smile tugging at his lips.
I pulled up the chair next to him and looked. The little girl in pigtails and a pink dress sat astride her father’s shoulders, grinning for all she was worth.
For the next half hour, we sat in silence and paged through another family’s history.
31
Scarlett
I’d talked myself down from hysteria twice so far and was working my way back up once more as I paced my living room rug. I tried coming at it from every conceivable angle and could not come up with a single reason why my father would have had the sweater Callie Kendall disappeared wearing. Unless he had something to do with that disappearance.
I’d begged off of lunch with Devlin and made up an excuse about being tired. I was so wired with adrenaline I thought I might actually launch into orbit on the ride home. But Devlin didn’t ask any questions. Instead, he held my hand the whole way home and then deposited me on my doorstep, promising to take me back to my dad’s to get my truck whenever I was ready.
I might never be ready.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Daddy was many things, lots of them bad. But he wasn’t a kidnapper, a killer. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it.
I shot an apprehensive glance at the sweater, folded neatly on my kitchen counter. By itself, it was harmless. It was just cotton and buttons. But the bigger picture was much darker. This could be the first clue in a twelve-year-old cold case, and it pointed squarely at my father.
Maybe he’d found it somewhere? Alongside the road or in a ditch. There was no crime in that. But then why would it have been tucked away, hidden like a family memento... or a trophy?
I shook the thought out of my head. I couldn’t go there.
My father was no murderer.
And how many others would believe like I did, I thought. I couldn’t even count on my own brothers to know that Daddy wouldn’t have done this. Gibson wouldn’t even be surprised. He’d take it as a vindication that our father was as bad as he’d claimed him to be for all these years.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself. “And things were going so good, too.”
The knock at my door shoved my heart into my throat. I raced the four steps into the kitchen and grabbed the sweater that I’d shoved in a sealable freezer bag. It was evidence
“Scar? Open up.” It was Bowie.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I ran around in a circle like a teenage boy about to get busted in his girlfriend’s bedroom. Finally, I stuffed the sweater under the couch cushion and tried to look natural when I opened the door.
“What’s wrong?” Bowie asked.
Damn him and his stupid sensitive nature.
“Nothing. What do you want?” I asked woodenly.
Jameson stared at me. “We’re sorry,” he announced.
“Great. I accept. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy.” I tried to shut the door on them, but they muscled their way inside.
“Now, Scarlett,” Bowie drawled. It’s how he always talked me down with his annoying logic and his shiny good nature.
“Don’t ‘now Scarlett’ me. I just don’t feel like talking right now.”
“And we’re here to talk about why you don’t feel like talking.”
