Jed froze, his fingers digging into his biceps. People had been hurling accusations against him all his life, but this one, from this boy, cut like a straight edge across his throat. The cops had heard Sheldon’s voice ring out. The social worker heard it. Hannah had heard it, her wide eyes, glimmering in the dark, pinned on him.
Jed’s muscles twitched, the fight-or-flight instinct warring through his body. He clenched his teeth, preparing for one of the cops to make a move and throw him into the back of the patrol car to return to the station for more questioning.
Hannah turned slowly back to the boy and brushed a lock of hair from his eyes. She whispered something to him, and Sheldon shook his head.
The cops had their heads together, murmuring, as they shot him a few glances. He overheard the word alibi once, so they must’ve known he’d been cleared already—but that didn’t mean anything on this island. He’d been a fool to return and expect anything to change.
Hannah straightened to her full height and took Sheldon’s hand in hers. She led him toward the other woman standing with the cops. She cleared her throat. “Sheldon left a special toy at home, but he couldn’t get in the house. I told him we’d get it for him tomorrow. Is that okay, Sheldon?”
He nodded once, his gaze flicking to Jed, still propped up against his truck.
One of the cops jerked his thumb at Jed. “What did Sheldon mean?”
“Maybe you’d better ask him, yourself.” Hannah smiled at the boy. “Go ahead and tell them what you told me, and then maybe Miss Maggie will give you a cookie when you get back to her place.”
“Nothing wrong with a cookie before bedtime.” Maggie rubbed her hands together. “I could use one, myself.”
The younger cop kneeled in front of Sheldon. “Why is he a bad man, Sheldon?”
Sheldon rubbed his eye with his fist. “Mommy told me. Said she hated him.”
Feeling was mutual, kid. Jed’s muscles ached with the tension.
“Did he hurt your mommy, Sheldon? Was he here last night?”
Sheldon shook his head, and Jed released a slow breath. “No. I don’t know who hurt my mommy.”
“Okay, okay.” The cop patted Sheldon on the shoulder awkwardly. “Can you go with...uh...Miss Maggie now?”
Sheldon dropped his chin to his chest and left it there.
Maggie held out her hand. “Cookies?”
Sheldon shuffled his feet toward the social worker and glanced over his shoulder at Hannah before he climbed into the car.
Hannah lifted her hand in a wave.
When Maggie’s car pulled into the road, the cops sauntered toward Jed, and he finally pushed off the truck, keeping his arms folded, his hands bunched.
“What do you think that was all about?” The cop’s hand hovered near his belt, as if he expected Jed to make a move.
Jed lifted his shoulders. “She falsely accused me of rape. She must’ve hated me for some reason to do that. Then I was exonerated. That means she was a liar. Didn’t make her look so good. And she probably hated me even more. She most likely pointed me out on the street to her son and told him I was a bad man. Mother of the year.”
The cop flinched. “She’s dead.”
Narrowing his eyes, Jed said, “Doesn’t make her a good mother.”
The inquiring cop’s partner coughed. “We’re ready to roll. Are you okay, Hannah?”
“I’m good. I’m glad we found Sheldon. Thanks for coming out.”
The cops said their goodbyes...to Hannah, and peeled out in their squad car, kicking up gravel in their wake.
His gaze and hers locked for several seconds in the silence. She broke first, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I—I’m sorry you had to go through that. I think that’s exactly what happened—Zoey pointed you out to Sheldon, and he remembered what she said. He was already in a heightened state of anxiety when he saw you.”
“You don’t have to jump to my defense, Hannah.” He dug his keys from his front pocket. “I didn’t do anything wrong—then or now.”
“I know that, but why shouldn’t I come to your defense?” She cocked her head. “Especially as you blame my father for your conviction and incarceration.”
“Are you considering it a possibility?” He tossed the keys in the air and caught them in his fist.
Hannah moved away from him, scuffing through the twigs and leaves on the ground, and settled on a swing, the chains squeaking with her weight. “It’s absurd to think Sheriff Maddox would risk setting you up just to keep us apart. There were other methods he could’ve employed, ones that weren’t illegal, to end our relationship.”
Jed followed her to the rusty swing set and gave her a nudge. She lifted her feet and swung forward.
He said, “Who knows? Maybe that wasn’t his only motive.”
She wedged her feet on the ground again, digging into the dirt with the toe of her shoe. “Zoey’s body was found here.”
Jed took a step back. “By this swing set?”
Pointing to the rock across from them, she said, “Propped up against that boulder, almost posed.”
“Who puts a swing set near a rock like that?” He crouched beside the granite boulder and wrinkled his nose at the brown stain on its surface. Hannah hadn’t been kidding. Zoey’s blood spilled on this very rock. As he shuffled back on his haunches, a clump of sticky, brown leaves caught his attention.
He leaned over the rock for a closer look, avoiding the bloodstain, using the beam from his phone to illuminate the area. He swallowed when he realized he was staring at a dead bird, ants and maggots already burrowing into its flesh.
“Poor thing.”
“What is it?” Hannah had come up behind him and rested her hand on his shoulder as she leaned forward. She dug her fingers into him as she answered her own question. “A bird.”
“Looks like Zoey’s not the only one who died here.” Jed braced his hands on his knees and rose, pocketing his phone.
“That’s kind of—” Hannah glanced at the bird again before stepping back “—cold. Your ‘mother of the year’ comment didn’t go over to well with the cops, either. Maybe you should watch what you say about all this.”
“Why should I?” His voice came out like a growl, and he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “The woman tried to destroy my life, and according to her son, she was still bad-mouthing me instead of repenting. I’m not going to pretend she meant anything to me. I’m sorry the kid lost his mother, but I’m not going to lead the mourners.”
Hannah whispered, “Should we bury it?”
At the sound of her soft voice, Jed’s eyes flew open. “The bird? No. Looks like nature is taking care of returning it to the earth.”
Hannah turned her back on the bloodstained rock and the decaying bird and gripped the rusty chain on the swing. “Can you drive me home?”
“Of course.” He ran a hand through his messy hair. He’d been so busy stoking his own anger and feelings of injustice, he’d forgotten that Hannah had a little patient to take care of—a boy that was lost, confused and missing his mother. “You didn’t have to stay with me. I’m a big boy.”
“I just...” She stirred the dirt with the toe of her sneaker. “I just felt so bad when Sheldon pointed the finger at you. When are you ever going to get a break?”
The hitch at the end of her voice cut him, and he spread his arms wide. “Hey, I did get a break. The Law Project saw fit to take up my case and exonerated me. I’m a free man, baby. Can’t get a better break than that.”
A smile tugged at her lips, as if she didn’t know whether to take him seriously. “If you say so.”
“I do.” He snatched her hand on the way to his truck and almost immediately dropped it. The jolt of electricity that zinged through his body nearly lifted him off his feet.
He glanced at Hannah as she hurriedly folded her arms and stuffed her hands in her armpits. He hadn’t been the only one hit by that thunderbolt. He grabbed the handle of the car and yanked the door open before flinging it back. “Whoa. Don’t know my own strength.”
She hesitated, and he stepped aside so she wouldn’t have to squeeze past him. Suddenly, it felt as if they were tiptoeing around each other in a way that hadn’t happened at the barbecue. Maybe because he’d been keeping her at arm’s length with his surly attitude over dinner. He should go back to surly and save them both a lot of discomfort.
After she settled on the passenger side, he slammed the door harder than he meant to and she jumped in her seat. He couldn’t seem to strike the right note with Hannah, and they’d never experienced that in the past.
He took a deep breath before sliding behind the wheel. “How was the boy, anyway?”
Snapping her seat belt, she said, “He told me he’d left a toy behind, but I don’t believe that. Maggie got all his favorite toys out. I think he just wanted to check on his mother.”
He raised his eyebrows, as he started the engine. “He realizes she’s gone, right?”
“He does...on one level.” She folded her hands in her lap. “But there’s always that other level.”
“The one that doesn’t want to give up hope. Lucky for me, I always had that belief in prison.”
“So did I.” She slid a gaze in his direction. “And I wrote you that in those letters you never received.”
“I don’t know.” He gunned the engine, as if that could get him away from Zoey’s place faster. “Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t have a prison pen pal.”
Hannah shook her head, and her hair spilled over her shoulder. “I hate the thought that you believed I didn’t write, didn’t care...believed you were guilty.”
“I never thought that.” His hands tensed on the steering wheel. “I figured you knew me well enough to know I’d never hurt a woman like that—not after what my mom went through at the hands of my dad.”
“So, you must’ve thought I didn’t care—wanted to be rid of you.” She sniffed and pressed the back of her hand against her nose.
He didn’t want to wander into this dangerous territory with her. He couldn’t have her crying over him and his sob story.
“I thought your old man convinced you to move on.” He shrugged. “He always did have a lot of control over you.”
She stiffened beside him, and he could almost hear her teeth grinding.
“I moved on because you never answered my letters.”
He spread his fingers. “Look, we were sweet on each other. Never even slept together.”
Her head whipped around. “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t realize that was your criteria for a deep relationship.”
He set his face into his prison expression and lifted one shoulder. “It’s the truth. Don’t beat yourself up that your letters never reached me. I didn’t blame you. Never expected to hear from you again.”
Hannah huffed through her nose and folded her arms as she turned and stared out the window.
This was the Hannah he wanted, the one he could deal with right now. He couldn’t tell her he’d been crushed when she ignored him after his sentencing. He’d wanted her to move on, but it still hurt like hell.
“Okay. You know what?” She tapped on her window. “You can just drop me off at the beginning of the drive here.”
“It’s almost midnight. Anybody could get onto this property. This gate in the front doesn’t do anything about protecting the back and one side that run up against the forest.” He aimed the truck up the drive. “As much as the cops want me to be Zoey’s killer, I’m not. That means whoever offed her is still out there.”
“Knowing Zoey’s lifestyle, I’m pretty sure her murder was personal. It might even be that ex-boyfriend of hers. Chase. I’m not worried.” She flipped back her hair. “You’re just accustomed to your lowlife prison companions.”
Hannah strikes back.
He cut the engine and grinned. “Yeah, I did meet quite a few characters during my time behind bars. Not the kind of guys you’d wanna run into, strolling up the long drive to your mansion in the middle of the night.”
She stabbed the release on her seat belt and let it slide back into place with a snap. “This is not a mansion.”
Hannah’s father could’ve never afforded a property like this on a small-town sheriff’s salary, but he’d married into money. Hannah’s maternal grandfather had invested big-time in the fledgling Seattle tech industry and his investments had been reaping the rewards ever since. He’d heard that Sheriff Maddox had courted Lizzie Franklin with a single-minded tenacity. Then he played the big man in town, lording it over everyone else as if he’d earned it.
He said, “It’s the biggest house on Dead Falls Island. What would you call it? A forest cottage?”
Her nostrils flared, and she almost took the bait but her phone rang in her purse. She plunged her hand into the side pocket of her bag. “What now?”
Jed said, “I hope it’s not Sheldon, again.”
And he meant it. That kid didn’t need any more trauma in his life.
She looked up at him from her phone, her brow crinkled. “It might be. It’s one of the deputies from the sheriff’s department.”
“Take it now in case you need a ride somewhere.”
She tapped the phone. “This is Dr. Maddox.”
She covered her mouth with one hand and flashed him a wide-eyed glance as the tinny sound of a male voice came over the line.
His stomach flipped.
She nodded. “I understand.”
The call must’ve ended because he didn’t hear anything over the line and she’d stopped speaking, but she sat still with the phone pressed to her ear.
“What is it, Hannah? Is it Sheldon?”
She slowly lowered the phone to her lap, cupping it between her hands as if in prayer. “There’s been another murder.”