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CHAPTER FOUR

T he two women were seated at the table when Jacob walked in. The younger in a chair while the older lady had her wheelchair pushed up to the table. Even a cursory glance gave him the impression that these two were related to Mr. Harris, though neither shared his last name.

“Is that them?”

Jacob glanced over his shoulder and spotted the familiar face of his old friend, now police detective Hank Maxwell, in the doorway behind him. A fraction taller, which Hank had never let him forget. The guy had a scar on the underside of his jaw, was freshly shaven with his hair cut, wearing jeans and a button-down shirt—police badge on his belt. Brown Carhartt jacket. He was the only cop in Benson who dressed like he did construction instead of protect and serve.

Jacob looked back at the two women. “They seem like they’ll be nice enough.”

“Yeah, well. I’m planning on sticking around to find out either way.”

“That’s not why I told you this.”

Jacob figured that was just Hank being Hank. Overprotective, and good at his job. Jacob had called last night to chew over everything. Apparently, Hank wanted to take the baton.

The two of them had been in high school together. Best friends at one point. Same classes. Same football team, though Jacob had been quarterback. Hank was what amounted to bestie for Jacob these days. That only meant he was one of the few people Jacob actually spoke to on a regular basis.

Not most people’s idea of close. It worked for Jacob to connect with a familiar face and didn’t have to face questions he had no intention of answering. Hank worked long and odd hours, so he’d answer when he could.

Jacob glanced back at Hank again. “Don’t you have people to harass?”

Hank knew exactly what Jacob had been through because he’d been there that night. Even though Jacob purposely didn’t think about any of that. Or the source of the scar on Hank’s face. They could still be friends even if Jacob didn’t want to think the word victim for the rest of his life.

That wasn’t what he was. And his intention was that he never would be again.

Hank grinned. “Seems they frown upon that these days.” He glanced at his watch. “I do have to go soon. There’s some big shot fed set to show up in a couple of days, and the chief’s freaking out.”

“Huh.” Jacob didn’t exactly watch TV. He read the newspaper occasionally, but that was all local drama for the most part. So long as they didn’t dredge up the past like the national news when things got slow.

“Just don’t expect me to pay the bill for your breakfast.” Jacob headed for the table where the two women sat drinking from full mugs of coffee. There was also orange juice and water on the table. “Good morning. I am?—”

The younger woman looked up. Elaine Perkins. “I’ve lived in this town half my life. I know who you are.”

Outside the diner window two fire trucks and an ambulance sped down the street with their lights and sirens going.

Elaine was slightly older than him, maybe by few years. She might have even been living here during the time it all went down. Where for three years in a row, each homecoming dance, a couple from the senior class were abducted at the end of the night.

Three years that a dangerous killer had gripped this town by its throat. Until finally he was caught, the night he had taken four teens instead of two. Maybe that mistake, that deviation, was why Jacob and his friends were recovered.

No one had told him how they’d been found.

Jacob turned to the older woman and held out his hand. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Perkins. I appreciate you giving me your time.”

Jennie Perkins put her crepey-skinned hand in his.

Before she could say anything, the younger woman butted in again. There was no other way to describe it. Especially given the almost belligerent expression on her face. Jacob wondered why she had even bothered to drive the older woman here.

“Not sure there’s too much to say about Carl Harris.” Elaine took a sip from her mug and said nothing else.

Jacob pulled out a chair and sat even though they hadn’t invited him to. He was the one who had asked them to meet him here.

Hank had settled at the counter on a barstool, chatting up the new waitress. So new, she had no idea what she was getting into with the detective. Hank had left a trail of broken hearts across the whole county for the last fifteen years. Never settling down. Some of his conquests had even left town.

“You want to ask me about my brother?” Jennie Perkins had distant eyes and false teeth.

“I’d imagine I might not be the first person to do so.”

“I’m surprised your friend with the badge didn’t join you.” She made no motion toward Hank. Elaine jerked around in her chair as though she hadn’t even noticed the uniformed man who’d come in with him.

Jacob gave the waitress his order and poured his coffee from the thermos pot on the table. “I’m putting together kind of a coffee table book. Photographs that I take myself, along with stories that delve into people’s lives.”

“And you got more than you bargained for with my brother?”

“Depends how much of what he shared with me was the truth.” Some people enjoyed embellishing the past, though usually that involved posting online. Not telling a sordid tale that amounted to a confession of murder.

Elaine leaned forward. “Is your friend over there going to arrest an old man in a retirement home?”

“Even if it’s true, how are the police going to find evidence?” Unless these women knew something he didn’t.

The old lady watched him. Jennie Perkins had struck out on her own and married fairly early after she left her parents’ house—before she even turned eighteen. She’d distanced herself from the family and maybe never completely reconnected. Though, she had remained local.

Jacob studied her. “Do you have any insight you can share into your brother?”

The waitress brought their food. Jacob waited through those first few bites, unwilling to rush Jennie if she wanted time to think it over.

Eventually, she said, “Carl was always bad news. There was just something…wrong with him. I never could put my finger on it. Figured it wasn’t worth sticking around, not after Timmy left us.” She shook her head, the skin of her neck waving with the motion. “Things happened back then. My memory has become cloudy.”

Jacob wasn’t entirely sure that was true. She was more the kind of person who adjusted the truth to suit her needs. Meanwhile, her brother admitted to delivering a killing blow to his mother.

After all, Carl had told Jacob that Jennie was the one who pushed Timmy out of the tree. It could be that whatever stained one had affected them all.

Either way, Jacob was going to drop Mr. Harris from the book. There was nothing in him that desired to uncover a decades-old mystery. To reveal possible murder—maybe more than one.

He wasn’t going to tell a story and be revealed as a liar, whether he added the disclaimer that the words were not his but what he had been told. He wasn’t a reporter. People could say whatever they wanted to about their own lives. Everyone embellished a little. Or they told outright fabrications.

The alternative was to withdraw entirely and never tell anyone anything.

He wondered what Addie told people about what happened to them. Or what Hank said about his experiences in the cabin where he’d been trapped with his girlfriend at the time. Hank’s girlfriend had been killed, but that didn’t stop the guy from trying to save other people. Something he respected about his friend.

Jacob chose to give a voice to those whose stories had never been told. Maybe so people would quit trying to hear his tale. The one he had no intention of telling.

No one wanted to be trapped by the past, but maybe it was unavoidable. Clearly whatever had happened to Jennie Perkins, she held onto some part of it even now.

Elaine Perkins glanced at her grandmother. “You get that we know you’re lying, right? You’ve been sharp as a tack since my first memory of you, and that has not diminished even a fraction.”

Jennie glanced aside at the younger woman.

Jacob waited, but she said nothing. He volunteered something that might serve to tug her from her malaise. “Was there a tree in your backyard? One that you played in as children?”

“Until Carl pushed Timmy off a branch. After that we weren’t allowed to climb it.” Jennie Perkins pushed a sausage around her plate. “Timmy was never the same after that. He just seemed to fade out, and dad had enough. The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with him. Dad made Timmy sleep in the shed so we didn’t all have to hear him crying all night about the phantom pain.”

Elaine winced.

He was inclined to agree with the sentiment behind that.

Jacob saw something in the older woman’s expression. “He died out there, didn’t he?”

“Because Carl helped him along.” Jennie frowned, the wrinkles on her face scrunched. “I was looking out my window when I saw him go into the shed with a pillow. I thought maybe he felt bad about what he did so he was going to stay with Timmy.”

“You think he smothered him with a pillow or something?” Elaine gaped. “That’s insane! People don’t do that.”

Jacob shrugged one shoulder. “You’d be surprised what people do.”

After all, he’d lived it for two days before the FBI busted in, and they were rescued. A dangerous killer was sent to prison for the rest of his life. The boot on the town’s throat was lifted, and people began to live their lives again.

Jennie lifted her gaze and met his.

For a moment they were connected, siblings almost. If only in some existential way. Linked by a time when they had been birthed into a world neither of them expected. Instead of living in some place where things always ended well and people were good, they had stepped irrevocably into a place where terror was real, and evil things happened.

Yes, Jacob wanted nothing to do with this family. He didn’t need shadows to add to the dark places already inside his head.

Elaine shifted, about to speak.

He shook his head. “Excuse me.”

Jacob pushed his chair back and paid for all three meals at the counter while Hank sped up the rate at which he shoveled food into his mouth.

He strode outside to the cool February air and watched traffic stream past in both directions.

Hank called for him, but Jacob just strode to the parking lot and Grandpa’s truck. It wasn’t a deficiency in him that meant he wanted nothing to do with these people. There were plenty of stories to be told in the world. He didn’t need to get tangled up in their back-and-forth, the accusations and blaming one another for terrible deeds.

It didn’t mean there was anything wrong with him that he didn’t want to spend more time with Mr. Harris. Jacob just knew what he could handle and what he couldn’t. All the talking he’d done the last couple of days was enough to last him the rest of the month. He was ready to rush home and spend some quality time by himself. If he wanted to get online and chat with his counselor, or his pastor, that was no one else’s business.

Jacob parked the truck in the basement garage and took the elevator to the top floor, using his key to access the floor where he lived.

He dumped his wallet in the dish on his entryway table and toed off his shoes. Strode through the living room, all the way to the wall of windows.

Jacob stared out at downtown while the rain fell in streams down the glass.