Ropes and Revenge (15 page)

“I don’t want to talk about this here,” John finally said. “Why don’t I go in and meet with Wayne while you wait in the truck? Then, when I’m done, I’ll call Mom and ask if the kids can sleep at her place tonight. We can talk things through in private after the meeting with Cutter. Take as long as we need.”

The fact that he expected their talk to last longer than the few minutes it would take to say goodbye offered some comfort. And thankfully, the panic she’d felt as they’d started up the steps had passed.

She stood up straighter, squaring her shoulders as she nodded. “All right, but I’m not waiting in the truck. I’m coming with you. I don’t like to back down from things that scare me unless I absolutely have to.”

John’s lips curved. “That’s one of the first impressions I had of you.”

“What’s that?” Percy asked.

“That you’re tougher than you look,” he said, threading his fingers through hers, sending a flush of pleasure across her skin.

She tightened her grip on his hand as they started back up the steps, knowing he was right but secretly hoping she wouldn’t have to be tough this time around. She didn’t want to be tough, she wanted to let her heart continue to soften with love for the only man who had ever made her care as much about the living as she did the dead.

CHAPTER TWELVE

John

Fifteen minutes after checking in with the receiving desk and making their way through the metal detector leading into the visitation lounge, John and Percy were seated at a table in the corner of the brightly lit room, waiting in tense silence for their prisoner to arrive.

John had expected to talk to Wayne on a phone through a pane of bulletproof glass, not across a table like this was a parent-teacher conference at the boys’ school. He was on edge from the moment he sat down, hating how vulnerable he felt. He didn’t care about his own safety—he could handle Wayne in the unlikely event the man decided to start something under the eyes of the guard who would be supervising the visitation—but he didn’t like exposing Percy this way. He should have insisted she wait in the truck.

If he hadn’t been so thrown by her announcement that she might have to leave, he would have.

He didn’t want her to go, but he didn’t know if he had it in him to make her stay. He had no idea what Percy would think when he told her the truth about what he was feeling. She might be repulsed or hurt. Or she might show him to the door right then and not give a damn if it hit him in the ass on his way out.

Percy had an emotional intelligence he’d only witnessed in a few people, but surely even she had a breaking point.

The thought made him glance her way.

He was still studying her profile, wondering if the tension in her features was his fault or the result of waiting for a convicted criminal to join them, when the door to the otherwise empty room opened and Wayne Wheeler was escorted inside by an armed guard.

Wayne was wearing a khaki jumpsuit and his hair was cropped closer to his head than the times John had seen him around town, but otherwise it didn’t look like prison was disagreeing with him. If anything, he looked healthier. The dark circles under his eyes had vanished and his skin was lightly browned from time in the sun. After his handcuffs had been removed, he seemed to grow an inch or two taller, his broad shoulders relaxing as he crossed the room to claim the chair on the other side of the table.

“John,” he said by way of greeting before shifting his gaze to Percy. “And I assume you’re the friend, Persephone?”

“I am,” she said. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with us.”

“Well, it’s not like I get a lot of visitors,” Wayne said. “Or variation in the routine. Though I admit, I’ve got no clue what you want to talk about. I’ve been racking my brain all week, but I’ve come up empty.”

“Is that right?” John asked, surprised to find he wasn’t as angry as he’d expected to be. This was the man who had tried to kill his brother and future sister-in-law, but looking at Wayne now, all he felt was tired. Tired of worrying about the people he loved, tired of the monsters in the world tainting every sweet moment with sadness, and tired of feeling like he would never get out of the dark shadow people like Wayne had cast over his life.

“So you’re standing by your testimony?” he continued, his voice tight. “You’re still sure you had nothing to do with what happened to Lily?”

“I had nothing to do with your wife’s death.” Wayne laced his fingers together on top of the table. “But I am sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is to lose the woman you love.”

“You didn’t lose Layla,” John said flatly. “You tried to kill her and failed.”

Wayne’s jaw tightened. “If you came here to light into me, we can end this now. I said I was sorry on the stand, and I’m in here doing time for what I did. There isn’t anything else I can do. I can’t change the past, no matter how much I want to.”

“We haven’t come to fight,” Percy smoothly cut in, defusing the situation with her calm, soothing voice. “We were just wondering why you inferred that you had something to do with Lily’s death. You said it was so you could manipulate Layla into coming back to you, is that right?”

Wayne studied John through narrowed eyes for another beat before nodding tersely. “That’s right. I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. I was just saying whatever I had to say to get her to come meet me in Houston.”

“And when she did, you were planning to rob your parents’ safe and leave the country,” Percy said, pushing on when Wayne nodded again. “And why did you feel you needed to leave the country?”

He shrugged. “I wanted a fresh start.” His eyes cut to the left, where a line of brightly colored vending machines sat humming against the wall. “I wanted to get away from my family and all their bullshit. To have the chance to live my own life without having to worry about being a goddamned Wheeler all the time.”

Percy made a sympathetic noise. “Family relationships can be so complicated. Were you fighting with your parents or your brothers in March? Around the time you were hoping to leave the country with Layla?”

“We fought every day,” he said with a sharp bark of laughter. “Better question would be when
weren’t
we fighting.”

“So when weren’t you fighting?” Percy asked pleasantly. “Maybe at some point right after Lily’s body was discovered? Did one of your brothers confide in you that day, tell you something that would make you think Lily’s death hadn’t been an accident?”

His gaze slid back to Percy, surprise flashing in his eyes before his expression grew guarded. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m just looking at this from an outsider’s perspective.” Percy laid her palms flat on the table, spreading her fingers wide and tilting her head down to study her hands, as if she expected to read the answer to her questions in the delicate wrinkles dimpling her fingers. “And I don’t see why you assumed Lily had been murdered, when everyone else in town, including the police, thought her death was accidental. It seems to me, maybe you had inside information that everyone else didn’t.”

Wayne’s eyes emptied, going as flat as the black button eyes of the dolls Laura Mae made to send to local foster kids at Christmas.

John hadn’t questioned Percy’s feeling that the Wheeler brothers had something to do with this, but if he had, the dead look in Wayne’s eyes would have banished any doubt. The man was definitely keeping a secret, one that might lead them straight to Lily’s killer.

John’s pulse leapt, but he fought to control his expression and hold his tongue, knowing Percy was a thousand times better at getting people to talk than he would ever be.

“We’re not with the authorities,” she pushed on when Wayne remained silent, folding her hands on top of each other and peeking up at him from beneath her long lashes. “And any information you share will remain between the three of us. We’re not here to cause problems. We’re just curious people looking for answers.”

“You’re just crazy, is what you are.” Wayne shoved away from the table. “And we’re finished. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Nothing you’re brave enough to say,” John said, heart pounding faster as Wayne stood and motioned to the guard who had escorted him into the room.

He couldn’t leave, not when they were so close to getting somewhere!

“None of this would be on the record,” Percy pressed. “Nothing you say to us would stand up in court. You don’t have to be—”

“I don’t care,” Wayne said as the guard crossed the room. “I’m getting out of this hell hole someday, and when I do, I’ll need a place to call home. The family ranch is the only place an ex-con can get a job these days.”

The guard came to a stop behind him and Wayne automatically put his hands back to be cuffed.

“Please,” Percy said. “Just tell us—”

“Don’t come here again,” Wayne cut her off. “And if you’re smart, you’ll stop asking questions before you get yourself in trouble.”

“That’s enough. You said you’re ready to go, so let’s go, inmate.” The guard spun Wayne around, guiding him from the room with a firm hand between his shoulder blades.

John watched them go, only turning back to Percy when the door to the visitation room closed and they were once again alone in the humming silence. “That was telling,” he said, his pulse still slamming through his veins.

“It was,” she agreed, teeth worrying her bottom lip. “I just wish we’d gotten something more concrete! There was a spike in his energy when I mentioned his brothers, but nothing else came through. He’s not an easy man to read.”

“It’s okay.” John rose and reached down to pull out Percy’s chair. “This wasn’t a wasted trip. We know that Wayne’s hiding something. Now we just need to figure out where to go from here.”

“We need to know more about the brothers.”

He held out his hand, grateful when Percy took it. The meeting with Wayne seemed to have banished some of the tension between them. At least for now.

“I did some searching the other night,” he said as they started toward the exit. “But Dirk and Preston don’t have any online presence. No social media or work history and the only mentions I could find of the Wheelers were posts about the trial and old newspaper articles about Wayne from high school.”

“But it’s a small town,” Percy said. “There has to be someone who knows the dirt on the older brothers.”

John nodded. “Probably, but I’d have to ask around to find out who. I think Wayne was a surprise baby for the Wheelers. Dirk and Preston are a lot older. They graduated several years before I did, so I don’t know much about them except that they keep to themselves and had a reputation for getting in trouble in high school.”

“But there aren’t any police reports?” Percy asked.

He reached for the door, holding it open for her. “No. If they were ever arrested, it must have been while they were still underage.”

She sighed. “Well, hopefully, the meeting with Mr. Cutter will be more illuminating.”

“Maybe,” John said, but as he and Percy left the prison and got on the road, his gut told him nothing good was going to come of questioning Chad Cutter. He expected the other man to be defensive at best, aggressive at worst, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that Cutter was a dead end.

After the meeting with Wayne, it seemed like the older Wheelers were the prime suspects, and he couldn’t imagine any reason Chad Cutter, the son of the richest man in Lonesome Point, would be involved with the Wheelers. Sure, the families were both well off—the Cutters from their oil empire and the Wheelers from their meat packaging business—but the Cutters had high-society aspirations, while the Wheelers rarely left their ranch or spoke to anyone but each other. He wasn’t even sure Lily had ever met Dirk or Preston.

“So what was their motive?” John asked aloud, breaking the silence that had fallen in the cabin of the truck. Neither he nor Percy had spoken a word since they’d left the prison, but it was almost as if she’d been eavesdropping on his thoughts.

“I was thinking about that, too,” she said, chewing on the pad of her thumb. “Why would the Wheelers want to kill Lily? It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, did they even—”

“Unless it wasn’t Lily they were after,” John interrupted, a light bulb flickering on inside his head. “Shit. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

“What?” Percy asked.

“It wasn’t Lily they were after. It was Layla.”

Percy turned to face him. “I bet you’re right. They were about the same size, weren’t they?”

“They were almost exactly the same size,” John said. “And Lily was wearing her jacket with the hood that day. She was always colder than everyone else. She might have had the hood up, even though it was a warm day for March.”

“And if she had the hood up,” Percy continued, picking up where he’d left off, “the Wheelers might not have realized they had the wrong woman until it was too late.”

They both fell silent, but John’s thoughts were anything but quiet. They were racing, trying to figure out what this meant, not only for the investigation, but for the rest of his family.

“I should call Cole,” John said, glancing at the clock on the console. “He should be breaking for lunch soon. I’ll pull off at the next exit and see if I can reach him. He needs to know Layla might have been the original target.”