Family Sins(26)

That sent the man into a rage. He began waving his arms as both women grabbed him again and held him back.

Bowie hadn’t accomplished anything, but he felt better for confronting the monsters, even in such a small way. Then he turned his back to the house with his arms still outspread while the wind tore through his hair. He stood there long enough for them to get the point, that while they’d shot his father in the back, he was making himself vulnerable to prove they didn’t scare him.

After a few moments he dropped his arms, got back in the truck and drove away.

*

Justin knew the moment he saw the man at the gate and that long hair blowing in the wind that he was one of Leigh’s sons. It pissed him off that he was there at all, and made him even angrier that his presence felt like a threat.

Justin shouted at him, and when the man didn’t even budge, he began shouting louder. When the man suddenly turned his back and stood there in an obvious reference to his father being shot in the back, Justin lost it. He was screaming curses, damning every Youngblood on the mountain and wishing them to hell, when the man left as abruptly as he’d appeared.

Nita and Fiona were vacillating between letting Justin make a fool of himself, and slapping some sense into him and dragging him inside. But they were saved the trouble of making the decision when Uncle Jack came storming out the front door in a rage. He grabbed Justin by the arm and yanked him around to face him.

Spittle was running from the corner of Justin’s mouth, and he was so out of control it was unsettling. There was a moment when Jack hesitated to confront him, but then he remembered that he was the one in charge.

“There’s a storm coming. Shut the f*ck up and get inside. Now!”

Justin pointed up the drive.

“You don’t f*cking tell me what to do. You didn’t see him! You didn’t see what he did!” he screamed.

Jack slapped him across the face.

The shock of the blow sent Justin staggering backward.

“Don’t ever raise your voice to me again,” Jack said softly, then pointed to the door. “Get inside.” Then he pointed at his nieces. “Whatever you’re doing, do it somewhere else,” he said, and followed Justin toward the house.

Nita and Fiona hurried inside before the rain began to fall, still pissed at being treated like children.

“Damn him,” Fiona huffed. “We didn’t do anything.”

Nita shrugged. “With this family, we’re always guilty by association.” She paused a moment and then added, “That was one of Leigh’s sons, wasn’t it?”

“Most likely,” Fiona said.

“What did you think when you saw him there?” Nita asked.

Fiona shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe that he was curious.”

Nita shook her head.

“No, that wasn’t curiosity. He was standing like he was ready to fight, and then he raised his arms like he was about to be nailed to a cross. Damn it, he gave me the creeps. He might not have said anything, but he called us out again just like Leigh did. Those people don’t mess around. If you piss one of them off, you get the whole nest in a stir.”

Fiona stared at her sister like she’d suddenly grown horns.

“Piss them off? That’s hardly the way I would describe murder.”

Nita flushed. “Well, it wasn’t me,” she muttered.

“So you keep saying,” Fiona said, and headed up the stairs to her suite.

Nita stood in the foyer, eyeing the oh-so-familiar elegance, and shuddered. She had a feeling in her gut that this was all going to come undone.





Seven

Bowie drove home on autopilot.

He’d gone from elation at seeing Talia to unadulterated rage. He felt sick and completely helpless. His father was on a slab in the morgue, and no one had made a move to interview a single member of the guilty family.

He needed to talk to the county constable before he got home. Maybe things weren’t as bad as they seemed. He pulled over long enough to Google the number, and as soon as his call was answered, he resumed driving.

“Constable’s office. How may I direct your call?”

“Constable Riordan, please. This is Bowie Youngblood.”

“One moment,” the operator said, and put him on hold.

While he was waiting for the constable to come on the line, the first raindrops hit the windshield, splattering on the dusty glass, then turning into a muddy trickle that reminded him of Talia’s tears. The wind picked up, whipping the tops of the trees and sending leaves flying into the air. He turned on the windshield wipers and tightened his grip on the wheel as Riordan’s voice came over the line.

“Bowie, I see you made it home.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What can I do for you?” Riordan asked.

Bowie wasn’t about to waste time on polite conversation.

“I guess what I need to know is, why hasn’t anyone interrogated the Wayne family?”

Riordan wasn’t going to tell him that Chief Clayton had called him, or that he’d already heard from the governor, warning him to tread lightly in the case. Even so, he had no intention of easing up on anything. He just had to be careful how he went about it.

“I wanted to gather every bit of information I could get from the autopsy and ballistic reports before I began, because we don’t really have a motive. And since there are obviously a number of possible suspects, I need to go in prepared. We had the coroner expedite the autopsy because of the delicacy of the situation.”