Сандра Браун - Thick as Thieves

Arden drew her focus from near space to the investigation reports. “Lisa, in your heart of hearts, do you believe Dad committed those crimes? Don’t answer as my guardian. We’re beyond that. You’ve done me no favors by shielding me from knowing the more appalling aspects of all this.

“I’ve reached this low point in my life because I’ve been spared the worst. Please, from now on, be brutally honest with me like you were yesterday. Tell me true. Did he do it?”

Lisa took a long time before answering. “If the father that I knew was guilty, I think that rather than put us—all three of us—through the humiliation of a criminal investigation, a trial, and probable conviction, he would have chosen to make a clean break.”

“So,” Arden said quietly, “his running away could be construed as an admission of guilt.”

Lisa hesitated, then asked, “What else would have compelled him to abandon his children?”

This answer was the most difficult for Arden to accept. “The money.” She whispered the two condemning words.

“Yes,” Lisa said. “Compared to Wallace’s net worth, five hundred thousand would be a negligible amount. But to Dad, given his situation, his destitution, it would have represented a ticket out.”

Or as Ledge had succinctly put it: Flight .

Chapter 25

That night in 2000—Joe

Joe had gotten through the entire day without taking so much as a nip. He’d tinkered in the detached garage, organizing tools that he never used anymore. He’d weeded the beds of his late wife’s rosebushes, which hadn’t bloomed since her death because only she knew the proper nutrients to feed them. He’d oiled every door hinge in the house, even those that didn’t squeak.

He did anything he could think of to keep his mind occupied and hands too busy to pour a drink.

When Lisa had called him to supper, the first thing he’d noticed was the basket of Easter eggs on the dining table. The centerpiece had so reminded him of Marjorie, it had almost been his undoing. Somehow, though, he’d gotten through the meal without revealing his desperate craving for the anesthetizing effects of Jim Beam.

He’d even coaxed a few giggles out of Arden. Once a bouncy, chatty, and cheerful girl, she had become much more subdued after losing her mother. Her personality change was his fault, just as Lisa’s increasing brittleness was. He was failing them as a provider and as a parent.

Lisa was competent beyond her years. She’d been unfairly burdened with new responsibilities, but was managing well enough juggling them and her studies. He had no doubt she would make her own future.

It was Arden he most worried about. She was still young and, to her great misfortune, dependent on him. With all his heart, he wanted to see that her future turned out to be much brighter than it portended.

After helping with the kitchen cleanup, he’d told the girls he was going out to the cemetery to tend Marjorie’s grave. “I would like all of us to go tomorrow. I want to spruce it up before you girls visit.”

Looking at him with scorn and suspicion, Lisa said, “What can you do out there? It’s already getting dark.”

“There’s lighting at the cemetery. Enough for me to see by.”

“It looks like rain.”

“I’m not going to melt.”

Lisa let it drop.

Whining, Arden asked if she could go with him. He reminded her that she had a new Disney film to watch. They’d picked it up in town that afternoon. “You don’t want to miss that.”

She’d looked dejected and rejected when he’d squeezed her shoulder and told her good night. He’d wanted to reassure her then that things would get better, but he lacked the courage to make that, or any, promise.

When he’d returned home hours later, only nightlights were on inside the house. He’d climbed the stairs and made it to his bedroom without being intercepted by either Lisa or Arden.

Once in his room, he’d opened the new bottle of whiskey and had begun steadily pouring drink after drink. Even so, he was still sober when his phone had buzzed and he’d seen Brian Foster’s name in LED.

Why the hell would Foster be calling him now ? With a sense of foreboding, he’d answered.

Then for several minutes, he’d listened to Foster blubber the reason for the call and explain why it was imperative. Joe didn’t know the young man well, but Foster was an easy read. He was a nitpicker. He dealt with numbers. He thought in terms of exactitude, not fiction. He lacked the imagination to devise this story about Rusty Dyle’s treachery, as well as the audacity to spread it.

Joe had no difficulty believing everything Foster told him.

At this point in his shaky narrative, Foster paused to take a deep breath. “In addition to insisting that he and I hide the money tonight, he also says that we should have a scapegoat in place. And, uh, Mr. Maxwell, he means it to be you.”

Joe reached for his whiskey and took a slug directly from the bottle. “Let me get this straight. He plans to lay the burglary on me? He can’t do that.”

“He can. He will. He’s certain that Burnet will blow the whistle, and the rest of us will be screwed.”

“Burnet can’t blow the whistle without screwing himself.” Joe’s hand shook as he raised the bottle to his mouth again. “He won’t do that.”

“I don’t think he’ll betray us, either, because of the pact we made.”

Jesus, this guy was naïve. “Do you think that silly pact will carry any weight among a group of thieves, with half a million dollars at stake?”

Foster didn’t say anything, but Joe could tell that the young man saw how ludicrous it was to hang his hopes on the honor of his accomplices. Joe almost felt pity for the guy and hated being the one to disillusion him.

“Look, Foster, I don’t think Burnet will talk, either. Not because of a pact, but because he’s too smart. The kid’s been around. He’ll realize that being charged for possession of marijuana is Mickey Mouse compared to being charged with stealing half a million. He’d get more than a few months in juvie for that. So he’s not going to confess to the burglary. I just don’t think he will.”

Foster whimpered. “Well, it really doesn’t matter what you think. Or what I think. Rusty is convinced that Burnet will turn, and he’s taking precautions.”

“By setting me up as the fall guy.”

“Who better than the town drunk? I didn’t say that, Mr. Maxwell. Rusty did.”

Who better indeed? Rusty Dyle was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. “Did he say how he planned to go about it?”

“No. But it’s almost time for me to meet him. What should I do?” The accountant’s voice went shrill with near hysteria.

Joe rubbed his forehead. The whiskey had hit him hard, and it was probably the booze talking when he said, “You could call the cops yourself.” He couldn’t believe the words had left his mouth, but there they were, humming through their two cell phones.

“I thought of it,” Foster said. “Before I called you, I seriously thought about it.”

“Why didn’t you? The pact?”

“No. I’m clinging to the hope that we’ll actually get away with it, without…without somebody getting hurt.”

Joe didn’t think there was a chance in hell of that happening, but he didn’t share that pessimistic outlook with Foster, who had continued to talk around sucking in gulps of air.

“But the real reason I didn’t turn myself in,” he said, “is because, if I did, I wouldn’t live long. Rusty would kill me.”

“He wouldn’t—”

“He’d have it done. Even if I was locked up for my own safety. Deputies run the jail, you know, and they’re all under Mervin Dyle’s thumb. They’d probably stage my ‘suicide.’”