Sweeter Than Sin (30 page)

“You have a problem sure enough. But you’re just going to stay there.” He lifted his rifle, pointing it toward her. “Why don’t you give me that little phone you’re always showing off? I need to make a call.”

“No.” Diane smiled, a rather dazzling smile. “You know, it’s fascinating to me that you want to get involved in my life …
now
. Where were you
before
?”

The judge sighed. “Does any of that matter now, girl? Give me that phone. Don’t make me do this.”

She lifted her gun.

The judge moved.

*   *   *

“He moved really fast for an old guy,” Lana murmured. She rubbed her hand across the back of her mouth as that bit of memory, lost for so long, settled into place. “He spun the rifle around and just clubbed her with it. She went down, and she went down
hard
. Then he looks at us, tells me that he needs five minutes. I don’t know if David has five minutes and I told him that. So he came over, looked at David and made that little grumbly-grunt he makes and said,
He’s got five, easy. Just wait here.
Like I could
go
anywhere. He drags her into the house and then he’s back outside, moving around quicker than I probably could.”

“My dad told me that Judge Max was Special Forces when he was in the army. I don’t think you ever really lose that once you get in.” Adam brooded, staring out into the night as he turned everything she’d told him over. “Why didn’t the judge just take you to the hospital, call the cops?”

Lana swallowed and then, slowly, like her muscles couldn’t support her anymore, she sank to the floor.

“Because I begged him not to.” She drew her knees to her chest and hid her face against Adam. “You know about Cronus now. How many of them there are, how deep it goes. David had been being passed around for almost three years, and he still didn’t know how many there were. A lot of them went masked with him, because he’d gone to the cops once. It turns out the chief of police was actually involved, too.”

“The chief.” Adam stared at her. He dropped down onto the floor and stared at her, fury knotting his muscles while disgust churned in his gut. “You’re telling me that Chief Andrews, the good old boy who attended church Sunday morning, Sunday night and every fricking Wednesday, the one who ragged on my ass because I cussed like a heathen and I dated a few too many of the
wrong
girls and I drove too fast … that son of a bitch was involved with the Cronus bastards?”

“Yeah.” She rested her head against the cabinets at her back. “So was one pediatrician, an OB/GYN and one of the elders that Pete Sutter was all buddy-buddy with … Harlan Troyer. He was one of them.”

“I already know about Harlan.” Adam surged upright and started to pace, the rage pulsing inside him.

“I think your friend Rita suspected. Or she found something and put it together. She couldn’t take the guilt and she killed herself over it.”

Adam stopped in his tracks and glared at Lana. “Fuck. Yeah, Rita knew but there was something else going on besides that. There had to be. She didn’t do shit wrong, and once it really hit her, she called the cops. She would have found her mad soon enough. Her father wasn’t worth her life.”

“No. He wasn’t.” Lana wrapped her arms around herself, shivering, her gaze locked on the floor. “I begged Max, begged, pleaded … and David … well, he was all but screaming. The thought of going to the hospital turned him into an animal, and even though he could barely walk, he shoved the door to the car open …
while Max was driving
 … and tried to throw himself out. I guess that caught the judge’s attention and he asked me just what was going on. So I told him. It never occurred to me that
he
wouldn’t believe me.”

“I take it he didn’t?”

“Oh, no.” Lana rubbed her fingers against her mouth absently, staring off into the night. “The judge believed every word. And he started to think, to plan. He had to split us up, he said. Both of us needed medical care, but he couldn’t take us to the hospital, because he wasn’t going to trust the sheriff—not after what we’d told him. And if he couldn’t trust Andrews, he wasn’t trusting the city boys, either. The first thing they’d do if we were taken to any of the local places was call David’s family, and the son of bitch had a long reach.”

“Why not someplace in Kentucky?”

“No place close enough. Even Clark Memorial was almost an hour away, and he didn’t want to risk having anybody call the police. Not until
he
had made a few calls, he said.” She uncurled her legs and slowly climbed up, moving stiffly, like every muscle in her body hurt. “He knew officers with the state police—up in Indy, not people who were local. Judge Max knew plenty of people who weren’t going to be intimidated by Sutter, or involved with Cronus. He was trying to help.”

She moved to the coffeepot, reaching for the coffee beans Adam kept in the cabinet overhead. A few minutes later, the scent of coffee filled the air and she turned back to look at him. “Max has … well, a lot of unusual acquaintances. I don’t know what all happened that night—what I was told was a lie, I think. But Max took David to one of the Amish families, one who had medical training. I wasn’t hurt as bad. Max told me he’d actually helped fix me up—may had been trained as a medic.… I guess he has all sorts of secrets about his years in the army. Once he had David settled, he took me to a different family. I remember him walking into the little workshop he had in his garage. That’s where I was when the police were searching. I called you from there, I guess. I don’t remember that, but I remember him checking the wound, forcing me to drink some water, take some medicine. He told me he had to wait a few hours before he could take me anywhere. Things blur in and out.… The next thing I remember was waking up in this little house. No air-conditioning. I looked outside and I saw Max talking to this Amish guy. I thought I was in another world. He came in and talked to me, told me they’d take care of me, that he’d be in touch. He had to see to David.” She forced herself to smile, but it faltered, then faded. Turning back to the coffee, she said, “I wanted to go with him, check on David, but he said I needed to rest.”

She made a face. “I should have pushed. I never saw David again. I know he’s still alive. Max would have told me if he wasn’t. So at least I have that much. David got out. And that is the thing that matters the most. I’d fucked up so bad, but at least I didn’t get him killed.”

*   *   *

Taut seconds passed while Lana sipped from her coffee. She put the mug down, unable to take the silence. Turning to stare at Adam, she saw the hard, angry lines of his face.

Everything inside her went cold.

Here it was, then. Now he knew. Now he knew how terribly she’d failed. Her gut twisted as misery and shame settled deep inside her. Pain grabbed her heart and started to fester there. She’d hoped he would— The cynical voice in the back of her mind started to mock her before the thought even finished.
Hoped he’d what? Understand? Understand how you fucked everything up and ran away, while other kids were hurt?

She set her jaw, swallowing the misery inside. There was nothing to understand. She
had
fucked up. There were no excuses. She’d thought they’d stopped it when Peter died, cutting off the beast’s head.

But this wasn’t a beast. It was like that freaky dragon out of Greek myth. A hydra. They’d cut off one head and three more emerged. Smoothing out her expression, she braced herself for whatever Adam had to say. She’d take it. She’d deal with it.

He paced closer to her, lifted a hand.

Her heart banged against her ribs as he pushed his fingers into her hair, tangled the long strands around his fingers. “Not good enough,” he said, his voice low and rough.

“You think I don’t know that?” She stared at him, dry-eyed, while her heart turned to ashes in her chest.

He didn’t even seem to hear her. “You weren’t even seventeen, trying to fix a mess that would bring adults to their knees—hell, look at the town now. Nobody here has any idea what to think. But you tried to take it on, all on your own.”

“Ah—”

He cut her off. “And Max just
let
you try to handle it. You tried to take on the world, tried to fix it all on your own, and it bit you on the ass, but you didn’t fuck up. The judge fucked up. Old Max ought to be knocked on
his ass
for not doing better by you.”

Something jagged and sharp cut into her. She didn’t know what it was, but twenty years of poison tried to spill out. “He…” She stumbled over the words, licking her lips. “He tried. Things just got—”

“Bullshit. The man was a fucking
judge.
But he goes all vigilante—” Adam stopped, his eyes widening. “Vigilante. Son of a bitch. He’s the one targeting all the members of Cronus now.”

“No.” Curling her hands into fists, she pressed them to her temples and turned away from Adam. The thought of that cut into her mind, and try as she might, she couldn’t push it out.

And a memory rushed at her, just days ago—two? Maybe three?

I had the names, you know. David gave them to me. I took care of them, each one of them. On my own.
Max, sitting on his porch, staring out over the river.

You … You took care of them? There was a heart attack. A car crash.

Easy enough to make it appear that way. If you know how. I knew how.

“No.” She licked her lips and rubbed her eyes, trying to make the images in her head go away. They just wouldn’t. Harlan had been stabbed. She’d heard about another death—a man basically poisoned, by chocolate. Allergic to it. A bizarre sort of horrified appreciation rolled through her, despite herself. “Max can’t be behind that. He’s eighty years old.”

“Actually, he’s older than that.” Adam’s voice was grim, his face a stark mask. “It makes sense. He’s not taking on anybody young, and he’s not doing anything that involves a whole hell of a lot of risk. Troyer was drunk and had Benadryl slipped into his whiskey.” He slid her a look and shrugged. “That’s not common knowledge just yet. I know a girl who works at the police department. The autopsy came in a few days ago. Once he was out of it, seems like the killer slid a knife into his heart, directly in. Whoever did it knew exactly how to kill. And Max would
know
how to do that. Quimby was taken out just as easy—half the people in town knew the man had major allergy issues. Chocolate, peanuts, tree nuts and eggs. He’d bitch about everything on my menu when he came in, and half the time he tried to come into the kitchen to watch the food get prepared, even though he knows that’s not going to happen. They were assassinated, all there is to it.”

Easy enough to make it appear that way. If you know how. I knew how.

Easy enough.
She swallowed, hard, trying to get rid of the knot in her throat, the bile that kept trying to rise. Dazed, she sank down on the chair. He’d said he’d see it through this time. Why hadn’t she already put this together?

“Lana?”

She just shook her head. “I’m trying to picture that old man hunting down those monsters, putting them down like a couple of sick dogs.”

“That’s what they are.” Adam shrugged, looking unperturbed. He grabbed the chair next to hers and swung it out and around, straddling it as he sat down facing her. “Next thing up. What’s this shit about you killing Diane? You said
he
took her into the house. Did he kill her?”

Lana crossed her arms over her chest and shuddered. “I did.”

“Says who? You said you don’t remember. Did
he
say that?”

Swallowing, she looked at Adam. “No.” Her gut twisted, cramped. Rage started to pulse, pound, inside her as the enormity of what he was getting at hit her.

She’d never once questioned what she’d been told at that cabin. That soft, steady voice, those calm eyes. Relaying the words she’d thought had come from Judge Max, a man she trusted implicitly. She’d been sick, in shock, scared. Somehow, those words, planted on such fertile ground, had taken root and she had never thought to question. Not anything. With those words delivered in such a guileless tone, with such a matter-of-fact tone, with such a compassionate face, she’d had no reason to doubt.

Or so she’d thought.

She rose and once more started to pace as that slow-burning rage flared back to life. “He’d told me that he’d trusted a friend … and then he said he’d trusted the wrong person. They were lies, Adam. All of this time, everything I’ve believed in … it’s all been a lie.”

He came up and caught her when she would have turned away.

His hands felt scalding against her icy skin and she wanted to jerk away, take off running. Find Max. Find answers. Were they still there? Could she find them? Force them to give her the answers that she needed.

“Look at me.” Adam’s smoky, soft voice cut through the fog in her mind.

She dragged her eyes to meet his. He let go of her wrists, shifted his hands to her face. One thumb stroked across her lower lip. “You didn’t kill Diane,” he said, his gaze intense. “She was alive when she left, because I don’t see Max Shepherd shooting a woman who wasn’t a threat to him and Diane couldn’t be a threat to him on her best day. He would have made sure she stayed there—somehow—but he wouldn’t have killed her. Then he would have had plans to go back and figure out how to handle her. So something else happened to her.”

Something else …
Lana closed her eyes. “Somebody else went back and killed her. Somebody else knows about that night, Adam.”

*   *   *

Caine sat out on the porch, wrapped in the darkness of night, thinking.

Max Shepherd.

Caine didn’t have a lot of use for that old man.

But then again, Caine didn’t have much use for a lot of people.

Sybil. He did care about her, as much as he could.

And he liked the boy. He wasn’t her son by blood, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t hers. Caine did care about Drew.

Caine respected Noah.