Last Kiss Goodbye (17 page)

His face looked tired as he entered, his thinning hair worn, his scalp red where he’d run his hand over his bald spot. “You sounded upset, Eileen,” he said as he stepped toward her.

He smelled like coffee and rain as he knelt to press a kiss to her cheek.

“I can’t believe this nightmare,” she cried, her voice so shrill it didn’t even sound like hers.

“I know, I heard they found Jerry’s body.” His expression was grave as he slumped onto the sofa beside her chair. Splaying his beefy legs, he leaned forward. “But it’ll be all right, Eileen. You didn’t want that boy bothering you. Now A.J. will lock him up, and you won’t have to worry about him again. You can put him out of your mind just like you have for the past few years, and you’ll be safe.”

Tears pushed against her eyelids. “That’s just it, Larry. I can’t let them lock Matt up for killing Jerry.”

Larry steepled his hands and rested his chin on them. “Yes, you can, Eileen. That boy inherited a violent streak from his daddy. We both know it.” He paused and wheezed a breath. “And when his father run off, I was glad to see it. I always thought your Matthew killed him, but I let it go and didn’t look too hard for him because I was glad he was dead.” His voice turned gravelly. “I thought once he was gone, that you…that I…might have a chance.”

The tears broke free and rained down Eileen’s face. “Oh, my word, Larry, what have we done?”

He grabbed her hands and pressed them to his chest. “Don’t cry, Eileen, it’s all right. Why do you think I tried so hard to make sure Matt was convicted of the Stanton slayings? I knew the violence had to stop. I was afraid he’d hurt you one day.”

“No…oh, God.” Her voice broke. “You did that because you thought he’d killed Jerry?”

“Hell, yes. I was afraid he might hurt you next, so I had to stop him some way.”

“But he didn’t kill his daddy,” Eileen sobbed. “And if that was the reason you arrested Matt, then maybe you were wrong. Maybe he didn’t kill the Stantons, either.”

“What are you saying, Eileen? That you don’t think he was guilty?”

“Remember what I told you back then—”

“I thought you were trying to protect him,” Larry argued.

She shook her head. That Stanton girl had been so convincing. She believed Matt was innocent of her parents’ murders. And Eileen knew the truth about her husband. “All I know for sure is that Matt didn’t kill his daddy.”

Larry sucked in a sharp breath. “Don’t…Eileen, don’t try to defend that boy now because you’re his mother.”

“It’s not that,” she argued. “I’m speaking the truth.” For the first time in fifteen years, Eileen believed in her son again. But he would never forgive her for being too late.

“Eileen?”

She stood, her arthritic knees popping and cracking as she forced strength into her voice. She was going to need it. “I have to help my son now, Larry. I have to tell the truth.”

Larry gripped her arms. “Tell the truth about what?”

“That Matt didn’t kill Jerry.” Her legs wobbled but she pushed forward and grabbed her raincoat. “I know he didn’t, because I killed him myself.”

IVY HAD MADE MRS. MAHONEY face some harsh truths, and only prayed she’d persuaded her that Matt was innocent. Now, Ivy had to face some harsh truths herself.

Finding out what had happened fifteen years ago was the only way to really save Matt. Maybe if she could convince A.J. of Matt’s innocence, the sheriff would be more apt to believe him about his father.

The familiar stirring of a panic attack seized her chest as she neared her childhood home. Her breathing grew erratic, her heart pumped, her face felt flushed and her hands trembled. She fought her way through the attack with deep breathing, refusing to run back to the safe patterns and routines that had trapped her all these years.

Rain drizzled onto the already saturated ground, turning the blanket of brown leaves into a murky, ankle-deep marsh. She waded through it, kicking the worst of it from her boots as she climbed the three rickety steps to the trailer. The windows had been boarded up, and she jiggled the door and found it locked. She had to get inside.

Suddenly the years fell away, and she was eight years old. Voices echoed from the crack in the door, the sound of her mother’s cry like a siren warning.

Ivy fumbled inside her purse until she found the tiny nail file on her key ring, then used it to jimmy the lock. The knob was so old and fragile, the door popped open in seconds. Cobwebs hung like Halloween decorations above the doorway, and fifteen years of dust and mold nearly caused her to gag. Exhaling sharply and battling the urge to run, she forced her protesting feet to carry her forward.

A cockroach skittered across the floor, and somewhere mice scratched in the cabinets, searching for food. The faded, brown plaid sofa she’d grown up with hugged the moldy wall: a recliner in another dark shade faced the battered TV, which probably hadn’t worked in a decade. A shattered lamp still lay on the floor, a testament to the fact that no one had been inside the trailer since her parents had been murdered.

Outside, the wind howled, and light clawed through the thin cracks in the plywood boarding up the windows. She paused, picturing her mother sitting at the kitchen table, cutting out paper doll clothes. Her throat burned. They had sewn little clothes for her Skipper doll, made a snow castle out of sugar cubes and stenciled teddy bears on T-shirts. The memory of the chocolate chip cookies they’d baked scented the air as if it had been yesterday, and she suddenly saw the scrawny Christmas tree she and her mother had cut down on a hike into the mountains. The pine had smelled fresh, the limbs slightly sticky with sap, but they had laughed and strung popcorn and hung it on the tree along with homemade ornaments and red and silver balls they’d bought at Wal-Mart. Then her mother had brought out the Santas—big ones, little ones, cloth, ceramic, plastic…she had loved them all.

“What are you doing, wasting money on all those goddamn Santa Clauses?” her father had bellowed.

“I like them,” her mother had said. “They remind me of childhood, when anything was possible.”

Ivy’s heart swelled, aching for her mother.

Dragging her feet through the trailer, Ivy paused to glance into her room. A faded comforter that she remembered being yellow lay haphazardly across a single oak bed. A Raggedy Ann doll and an old chalkboard were the only toys in sight, leaning against a battered dresser.

Knowing the answers she needed were in her parents’ room, she pivoted and crossed the hall. A floral bedspread covered a double maple bed, a dark brown stain streaking the fabric.

Blood. The stain had once been red.

But then Ivy had stopped seeing red.

She’d watched in horror as it had spilled from her mother’s body that day, thick, pungent. So much blood.

Who had stabbed her?

Ivy closed her eyes, willing back the memories. She’d been in her room, just like in the nightmare. She’d heard a man’s voice. Not her father’s. She’d been curious, so she’d tiptoed to the hall and listened. The man and her mother had been laughing. Then arguing. When Ivy looked inside, the man had been naked, climbing on top of her mommy. Ivy had screamed at him not to hurt her, and he’d turned….

She clutched her stomach, shaking as the memory bombarded her.

Run, Ivy. Run like the wind or the monster will get you.

No, she couldn’t run. She had to go back. Save her mommy. See the man’s face.

She turned, screeched to a halt. Hid under the table in the kitchen. Her mother screamed and ran into the room. She knelt to pull at Ivy.

“Shh, honey, it’s not what you think, Mommy’s okay. Mommy was just…playing with the man.”

Ivy frowned and hugged her mother tight. “Playing? But, Mommy, he was…”

“You’ll understand when you get older, Ivy. Now, come on, go back to bed. The man won’t hurt us.”

Ivy buried her head in her mother’s arms. She had to trust her. Tears trickled down her cheeks as her mommy tucked her back in bed, and Ivy closed her eyes, shutting out the memory. But still the man’s presence haunted her. There was something familiar about him….

Ivy jerked herself back to the present and covered her hand with her mouth. Her mother had had a lover. But who was it? She couldn’t see his face….

Had he killed her mother after Ivy had fallen asleep?

Or had she gotten up and witnessed the murder? And when had her father come in?

A creaking sound startled her, and she spun around, but something hard slammed into the back of her head. Ivy staggered and hit the wall, clutched her head and felt blood spurting. Blinking through the haze, she grabbed for something to steady herself, but dizziness overcame her and she slumped to the floor, the room spinning. Two rough hands jerked her sideways and threw her facedown, then another whack on her head, and pain exploded in her skull. She fought for consciousness, struggled to scream, but the room went black.

Just before she passed out, the scent of her father’s cigarette smoke filled her nostrils.

HE HAD TO DO IT. GET RID of Ivy.

His heart pounded, the need to finish her off warring with his instinctive desire to take her and make her his lover first. Just as he had her mother.

But he couldn’t take the chance of getting caught.

Ivy being here was dangerous enough. She was going to remember; he knew it without a doubt. And then his life would be ruined. Over.

He stuffed her into the closet, closed the door and melted into the darkness outside the old trailer. His mind spinning, he crouched on the muddy ground and contemplated just how to end it.

Mahoney was back in jail.

The others…they were just as frantic as him, afraid the truth would come out.

Killing Ivy was the only answer.

He reached inside his pocket, removed the matches, then rose. Lily Stanton’s screams echoed in his ears as he grabbed the gasoline can, went back inside and doused the inside of the trailer.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LADY BELLA RUE FOLDED her hands and prayed over Terri Lynn McClinton’s body as the sheriff approached. The work of Satan had killed her boy years ago and continued taking the people in Kudzu Hollow. Her black magic and mojos didn’t seem strong enough to ward it off. Determined to keep up her efforts, she spread incense around Terri Lynn’s body, sprinkled holy water on her head and chanted a spell to ease the woman’s transition to the other side.

Sheriff Boles zoomed to a stop, spewing gravel and mud from the squad car tires, and the chickens Bella kept in the pen went crazy, clucking and flapping wildly. Blood and death hung heavy in the air, the stench stronger than the odors she’d grown accustomed to from the chickens.

She waved the sheriff toward her, and tugged her shawl around her shoulders, warding off another chill. Folks thought death didn’t bother her, but she was only a footstep away from her own grave, her time nearing. She’d made peace with herself and her maker long ago and would welcome the trip into glory. Then she could be with her little boy and hold him in her arms once again. And maybe from heaven she could look down on this town and help people find the good within.

“Good G-God almighty,” Sheriff Boles stammered as he removed his hat and swiped his arm across his forehead. “When did you find her?”

“About an hour ago,” Lady Bella Rue said. “I thought I heard a noise out here, and looked outside, then came to the door and there she was on the porch, all bloody and…dead.”

“The medical examiner is on his way. Looks like she hasn’t been dead long.” He jammed his hat back on his head, bending under the stoop to escape the rain and examine the body. “Did you see who left her?”

“No. Heard a car, but it was a ways off. They must have parked in the woods and carried her up here.”

The sheriff sniffed. “I smell dope on her clothing.”

Lady Bella Rue clacked her teeth. “The opiates they burn by the river. The evil comes from the earth.”

He touched Terri Lynn’s torn gown, examining the jagged knife marks in her torso, pushed at her eyelids to check her pupils, then shook his head. “Whoever did this was angry. They wanted to hurt her.”

“They are possessed and had no mercy,” Lady Bella Rue said.

“I’ll have the M.E. check for drugs in her system. This black paint…it looks like the same stuff Ivy described those kids wearing at the river.”

“Whoever killed her was doing drugs,” Lady Bella Rue said with conviction. “That’s part of their sickness, part of what gives them the strength to carry through on their twisted desires.”

The sheriff cut his eyes toward her. “More of your insights, Lady Bella Rue?”

She nodded solemnly. “It is related to the cult you found near my house. To the land, the river, the ground beneath us, the air we breathe. The evil is all around us.”

“It’s the teenagers,” Sheriff Boles said. “First Dora Leigh Werth, now Terri Lynn. Their boys are friends.” He stood and glanced down toward the river. The sound of water rushing over rocks filled the momentary silence. “As soon as the medical examiner arrives, I’ll pay those boys a visit.”

“Bring them to the body,” Lady Bella Rue said, falling back on the old hoodoo beliefs. “If you make them touch the corpse, it will respond to the murderer’s hand. Even if the body is cold and rigor mortis has set in, blood will spurt from her mouth or her heart in response to the guilty party.”

MATT LOWERED HIS HEAD INTO his hands as he sat on the hard prison cot, emotions twisting his lungs with such a viselike grip that the breath could no longer flow through his throat. He felt himself falling into an endless pit of darkness. The painful memories sucked him into the vortex of despair like quicksand pulling at his feet. Deeper, deeper he sank, the thick hands of ugliness yanking at him, the shadows in the corners trapping his mind. He clawed for a limb, a hand, anything to keep him from slipping beneath the murky surface, but his fingers became mired in the thick mud, sliding downward until they touched the cold bars of the prison cell. If he didn’t escape now, he would suffocate, drown, die. And never again see the light.

Or Ivy.

Ivy—God, he had to drag himself up through the abyss to find Ivy. She was waiting somewhere beyond the murk, where light shone and flowers grew and sunshine breathed warmth into his body. Where for a fleeting second, when he’d held her in his arms, hope had splintered through the darkness and sprung to life. Where he’d started to dream…

He latched onto that memory and replayed it in his mind. The feel of her in his arms. The sight of her naked body wet from his kisses and trembling from his touch.

Forcing renewed strength into his flailing spirit, he stood and walked to the edge of the cell and stared at the clock. The seconds ticked by as slowly as sand slipping through an hourglass, signaling the end of that dream. But Ivy was alone and she might be in trouble. He had to get out of here.

When the hell would A.J. get back? And how could Matt make him listen?

Cold steel met his fingers as he wrapped his hands around the bars. Finally, after an eternity, it seemed, the front door of the jail opened. Boots pounded on the hard flooring, and the scent of sweat permeated the room. The deputy’s face appeared.

“The sheriff’s on his way.”

Matt nodded. He hoped to hell Abram Willis was, too.

Seconds later, the door opened again, and another man’s voice echoed from the outer room. The former sheriff, Lumbar. What the hell was he doing here?

“I don’t think you should do this, Eileen.”

Matt froze. Eileen? Had his mother come to see him? Christ, he didn’t want her to see him behind bars again.

Or had she shown up to make sure he was locked up so he couldn’t hurt her? Maybe to gloat?

“I have to do this,” her voice trilled. “Where is the sheriff?”

“I’m right here, ma’am.”

Matt peered through the bars, wishing like hell he was in the front room. Although the door between the jail cells and the front office was ajar, he couldn’t see what was going on.

“What do you need to talk to me about?” A.J. asked.

“My boy,” Matt’s mother said. “I want you to let him out of that cell right now.”

Shock hit Matt square in the gut.

“Why should I do that?” A.J. asked.

“Because he didn’t kill his father.”

His mother’s voice sounded strong and firm, more assured than he’d ever heard her.

“I appreciate you coming in, Mrs. Mahoney, and I can understand you wanting to take up for your son—”

“You’re damn right I do. I don’t intend for him to go to prison for something I did.”

Matt’s fingers tightened around the bars. What the hell was she doing?

“Mrs. Mahoney,” A.J. said in a steely voice. “You don’t need to confess to a crime you didn’t commit just to protect your son—”

“I’m not,” she said. “I killed my husband.”

“It was self-defense.” Larry Lumbar’s voice sounded urgent, panicked. “A.J., you remember what kind of man Jerry was. He used to beat Eileen, and her boys, and one night he threatened to kill her, so she killed him instead.”

“That’s not entirely true,” his mother said. “Actually, I wasn’t afraid of him for me, but he told me Matt and the other boys were trouble, that he was going to get rid of them.”

“Get rid of them?” A.J. asked. “How?”

“He…” Her voice broke. “He planned to tie ’em up that night, lock ’em in the car and drive it into the river.” A strangled cry escaped her. “Lord forgive me, but I can’t believe I was married to a man who’d threaten to kill his own kids like some heathen. I…knew then, Sheriff, that I had to do something. I had to stop him, and I did.”

Matt swallowed hard, his head reeling. Was it possible that his mother’s confession was true? If so, had she really killed his father to protect him?

And all this time, he thought she hadn’t loved him….

WELL, WASN’T THIS JUST the picture of the perfect little family, A.J. thought sourly. How the hell was he supposed to lock up a seventy-year-old woman who’d been fighting for her kids’ lives when he knew good and well what a bastard Jerry Mahoney had been? He had no doubt in his mind that she spoke the truth, at least about the fact that the old man would have killed his boys. He’d witnessed the evidence of Jerry Mahoney’s wrath himself, and he’d been scared shitless when the man was around.

But letting Matt go meant freeing him to continue probing into the past. Opening doors that had been glued shut long ago.

What else could he do, though?

He grabbed the cell keys with a vicious yank, stalked to the back and stared at Matt. Shock rode all over Mahoney’s face. “You didn’t know?” A.J. asked.

“No.”

“Hell, I figured if she had done it, you would have covered for her.”

“You can’t put her in jail, A.J. She’s too old. It was self-defense.”

A.J. stared at him, sweat pouring down his back. “I know.”

Relief whooshed through Matt’s chest, and A.J. gestured for Matt to precede him to the front office.

“Mother?”

Mrs. Mahoney’s wrinkled, aged face quivered with tears as she looked up at her son. For a minute, A.J. felt choked up. He couldn’t remember when his own mother had been alive.

“I’m sorry, Matt,” she said in a shaky voice. “I…should have had more faith.”

Matt cleared his throat, his shoulders still rigid from years of anguish and hurt. “You didn’t have to come here today.”

“Yes, I did,” she said with earnest. “I should have stood up for you a long time ago.”

Another hesitation, and A.J. watched Matt warring with his own need for absolution.

“Then you believe that I didn’t kill the Stantons now?”

She nodded and pressed a gnarled hand to her trembling lips. “That girl of yours, Ivy, she can be very persuasive.”

“Ivy visited you?” Matt asked.

“Yes. She told me about you saving her that night.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “My son was a hero, not a killer,” she whispered. “And all along no one knew it, not even me.”

“It doesn’t matter, Mother,” Matt said.

“Yes, it does. I’m s…so sorry, Matt.” She reached out her arms and Matt went into them.

A.J. frowned, moved in spite of himself. Matt’s family had been dysfunctional, but so had his own. And so had Ivy’s.

Then all their lives and families had intersected, gotten tangled together.

But in the end, blood had been thicker than water, alliances had had to be made, and the friendships had had to end. There was no turning back time and changing things now.

If Ivy remembered that Matt had saved her, A.J. had to find out what else she remembered. Then he still had to arrest those teenage boys….

MATT WASN’T SURE IF THE moisture trickling down his cheek belonged to his mother or him. Finally, after all these years, she had accepted him back into her life. And she had faith in him.

He couldn’t believe it. But dawn was cracking the sky on a new day, and maybe the sun would finally shine.

All thanks to Ivy. Dear God, Ivy. Where was she?

He pulled back from his mother’s embrace. “Mother, where is Ivy now?”

She searched his face, then smiled. “I think she went to her old trailer. I saw her car parked there when Larry and I drove by.”

A.J.’s phone bleeped, and he yanked it up with a frown. “Sheriff Boles here.” A pause. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” He slammed down the phone and reached for his jacket. “That was my deputy. There’s a fire out at the trailer park. I gotta go.”

Matt grabbed his arm. “Which trailer?”

A.J.’s sudden silence answered his question.

“It’s Ivy’s, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” A.J. headed toward the door.

“Let me go with you, A.J.,” Matt said.

“No, Matt—”

Larry Lumber cleared his throat. “We’ll give you a ride, Matt. That’s the least I can do to make up for the past.”

Matt nodded, trying to ignore the possessive hand the former sheriff pressed to his mother’s back as they hurried outside to his car.

TALULAH COULDN’T BELIEVE Arthur Boles had come to her again. He looked almost desperate and smelled of sweat and nerves and…gasoline.

He told her he’d spilled some on his hands at the gas station when he was filling up that pricey Mercedes, but his eyes had twitched the way they always did when he lied.

Her mind took a blast back to the past to another night he’d visited her with that same desperate look in his eyes. Another night he’d smelled like trouble.

The night the Stantons had died.

She still wondered….

“Talulah, honey, you gonna get in this tub with me?”

She smiled and poured two glasses of champagne, curled her fingers along the stem of the goblets and sashayed back into the bathroom. The bubbles oozed near the edge of the tub, threatening to spill over, and Arthur, big man that he was, looked ridiculous submerged to his neck in the froth. But he tolerated the bubble baths for her.

And she always made the indulgence to his male pride worthwhile later.

The bubble baths were her little gift to herself. Sometimes Talulah wanted to lie back and pretend that the man in her bed was her husband, a devoted man who loved her, a man who brought her wine and roses and chocolates. A man who enjoyed pleasuring her, one who would promise her forever.

At least Arthur kept choosing her, even after all these years. He didn’t seem to mind that she’d aged or that her body had gone softer.

“Talulah, you are a sight for sore eyes tonight, you know that.” He reached up and tweaked her nipple, twisting the tight bud until she threw her head back and laughed.

“Arthur, you haven’t lost your touch.”

His eyes looked glassy as he sipped his drink. “I like being with you, Talulah. I…always have.”

She slid the sheer teddy down her body and kicked it onto the padded makeup chair. “Lordy, you get sexier and sexier. I…can’t imagine why you returned tonight, but I’m sure glad you did.”

His eyes, full of lust and male appreciation, skated over her, and Talulah’s heart fluttered like a schoolgirl’s. “Maybe the first time wasn’t enough.”

She batted her lashes, enjoying the flirtatious foreplay. So many of her customers in the past didn’t bother with the hunt, they just cut straight to the chase. So boring. They hadn’t learned the manners of the older generation. “You’re pretty potent for a man your age, too,” she said, placing her glass beside the tub.