Page 132 of Family Affair

“Yeah.” He sounded tired. “Old Virgil is senile, but he doesn’t circle too far from the Sheffields when asked. He saw someone, that’s a fact. And the man fits my description. As do all males in my godforsaken family.”

“Except for Ross,” she pointed out.

“Don’t exclude him yet,” he warned. “Ross likes to play pretend. Ross also knows Virgil from before, he used to sometimes hang out with him and Ward, back when Frank was alive. Playing a dress up trick on the Virgil would be child's play for Ross.”

Coco thought about what she knew of Ross. “Why would Ross want to kill the preacher?”

He gave a humorless chuckle. “That’s the question, isn’t it. Why would anybody?”

“Is it true that you killed Stevie Stark?”

As far as the out-of-the-blue questions went, this one topped the charts. She hadn’t meant to ask it, she truly hadn’t, and when it slipped out of her mouth, she was as horrified as she was shocked by her own lack of tact. No, forget tact, she lacked common sense.

The place to hold this conversation also sucked. She could feel the heat of his gaze from the side, and there was not much she could do while driving.

“God…” she whispered, breaking a serious sweat for the second time this day.

“Who planted this in your pretty head?” he asked quietly. Too quietly.

“I don’t know why I said that.”

“Ross?”

She panicked, “I never said anything about Ross!” Her hands shook so badly she could barely steer. To avoid an accident, she was forced to park at the first available parking next to a medical facility.

“You know, drop me off at Ross’s so I can stitch his big mouth closed. Or maybe I’ll rip his tongue out and shove it up his ass. He’s become a nuisance.”

She turned to look at him. “So it’s true.”

Instead of lashing out at her, he gave her a searching look and his face appeared haunted, defenseless. He jerked the door handle and got out.

She stayed in the car to catch her breath.I love him. Desperately.

Then she got out after him.

Cade was standing with his hands in pockets, looking at the passing cars with an absent expression of someone whose attention was directed inward. He didn’t look particularly vulnerable, but he was so alone.

“I’m sorry, Cade.” She didn’t know what, exactly, she was sorry for.

He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder.

“This story is one giant puzzle. I hold some pieces, as do Ross and Alex, maybe even Dan. My mother knows a lot, and so does my dad. Ward knew a whole bunch. Frank had known.” He turned all the way to face her. “But the kicker is, no one knows everything. And some things that we think we know make us act a certain way. Ross thinks I killed Stevie Stark. It explains a lot, actually. His actions toward me, they make sense now.”

Coco was completely at loss. “What actions?”

“Ross loved Frank. Knowing that Frank had been blamed for something I had done must have been eating him alive. His antagonism toward me, his hanging around you, feeding your distrust, dropping hints, sowing discord - it now makes sense. He probably thinks I killed Ward, too, based on his Stevie Stark assumption.”

Following her instincts, she hugged him, hiding her face on his chest. He didn’t move at first, but then his arms lifted and he hugged her back, loosely, giving her a chance to move away any time she wanted.

“Did you?” she couldn't look at him when she asked.

But he wouldn’t let her hide. He took her head into his hands and forced her to lift her face to look at him.

“Will you believe me if I deny it?”

“I want to. Desperately.”

“Here you go then,” he said low, his sherry eyes burning. “I didn’t kill Stevie, like I didn’t kill Ward. I’m a combat veteran with many lives on my hands. But I never took a life when not wearing a uniform. Not before my service, and not after.”