Silver Falls - Anne Stuart [94]
The Old Goat looked anything but lecherous and smarmy. He looked broken, sad and empty. “I never said my son didn’t kill these women.”
She froze, as everything clicked into place. “You knew?” she said, her voice filled with horror. “All this time, you knew that David was…”
“I never knew for certain. He’s my son,” Stephen Henry said with the merest trace of dignity.
“He’s a monster. And you’re one, too, for covering for him, for letting him get away with it, for letting Caleb take the blame and doing nothing.”
“Go away,” he mumbled. “You’re too young to understand.”
“God, I hope I never get as old as you then,” she said bitterly. “I have to go warn my mother.”
“Sophie!” His voice followed her, still with those rich tones that made her want to hurl, but she was already out the door.
She started running, taking the shortcuts through backyards, ignoring the barking dogs, the pelting rain. She reached for her cell phone—even if she couldn’t reach her mother she could call Kristen’s, but her battery power died just as she began to dial, and with a sob she threw it, running again, desperate to get to her mother, to warn her…
Her mother’s car wasn’t in the driveway, and for a moment she panicked, until she remembered about the car accident. She didn’t for one moment believe that Caleb would have tried to hurt her. Like most stupid-ass adults, he wasn’t going to admit such a thing, but he had a wicked case of the hots for her mother, and if her mother weren’t so blinded by her idiotic adoration for her creepazoid husband she would have felt the same way. Caleb was old, but then so was her mother, in their thirties at least. Old enough to know better.
There was no sign of anyone—the lights were off in the house, a sure sign that either her mother wasn’t there or that David was. When her mother was alone in the house she turned on every single light. She said the darkness was eating her soul.
She moved closer, keeping to the edge of the overhanging trees, trying to look in the windows. She’d get a better view from the back, but she’d have to go through the garage to do so. The Range Rover was gone, only the BMW was still there, and she knew David would never have let her mother drive the Rover. Even the kind, sane David wouldn’t let her near it. The crazy monster beneath the surface would…
She couldn’t think about that. The door to the garage was open, and she slipped inside, skirting the big black car that still smelled faintly of dead animal, moving around the front to the back door. She could just sneak out there, peer in the windows and if she saw her mother she could warn her.
The backyard was dark and shadowy. There was a light from David’s study, and she froze, peering through the shadows. There was something on the terrace, something large and bulky, too big to be a person. She took a few steps closer, leaving the safety of the hedge, and recognized a chair lying sideways, with the smashed window behind it.
She had to get help. Run to the nearest house, use their telephone and call the police. She turned, and froze.
“Hello, Sophie dear,” David said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
19
Caleb was stretched out on the bunk in Silver Falls’s one jail cell. It wasn’t the first cell he’d been in. Hell, it wasn’t the first time he’d been in this particular jail.
Sometimes he’d deserved it. Joyriding in old Professor Morton’s beloved sports car, underage drinking, fighting. There was no doubt he’d been a hellion. But there were other times, bad times, when David’s shit had been laid at his door. Malicious stuff, meant to hurt.
He could hear a commotion outside the small cell area, and a moment later Maggie Bannister showed up, keys in her hand.
“You’re being released on your own recognizance,” she said.
“Oh, yeah? I don’t have the best reputation in this town. Why did the judge decide to trust me?”
“I vouched for you,” Maggie said in her flat voice.
“I’m charmed by your faith in me,” he said, not bothering to hide his