Shattered Secrets (Cold Creek #1)(64)

Vic broke the tense silence. “I managed to read the note without touching it.”

“What did it say?” Gabe asked, looking up at Vic.

“I got it exactly.” Vic flipped back a page in his notepad. “Sorry this is late. I know you won’t forget, but can you forgive? Dane. The bottom of the note’s trimmed off as if there was something else. Now, who could he be apologizing to?” Vic asked. “Was he hoping someone would forgive him, someone who came here to meet him?”

Tess saw Gabe stiffen at that suggestion, but she wasn’t waiting for him to stand up for her. “Not me!” she insisted. “I was angry with Gabe for not telling me about our parents’ affair. I decided to come over here on my own, only to see if looking at this cemetery reminded me that I was kept here. Not to settle anything with Dane. I’d overheard Gabe say he wasn’t here, so that’s why I came.”

“If he surprised you and you struggled with him and his gun, it would be self-defense,” Vic said.

“Damn it, Vic!” Gabe exploded. “Don’t try to put words in her mouth!”

“Sure, fine, but you both need someone who isn’t emotionally caught up in this—and each other.”

Tess jolted at that. Was it so obvious?

“And,” Vic plunged on, “Tess took off from her meeting with me—and evidently you too, Gabe—angry and upset.”

“At you two, not at Dane!” Tess countered.

Gabe stood, then helped Tess up, keeping his hand on her elbow. “Mike’s got a lot of work to do here. But if he says Tess’s hands are clean, we have her statement and she can go home.”

“For now,” Vic agreed. “I gotta admit, ‘Kidnapper Kills Self in Remorse’ sounds like a good headline for the papers. But the placement of that head wound tells me someone else shot that gun.”

Tess cleared her throat. “Write this down, both of you. If someone shot him, it wasn’t me. He did yell ‘No!’ and probably not at himself.”

Vic finally nodded, instead of frowning at her. “I didn’t see any sign of his phone,” he said, his voice not so strident. “Unless it’s under the body or in his pocket. Tess, you mind if we take a look at what’s in your backpack?”

“Be my guest,” she said. She turned so she could shrug out of it without touching it. Vic looked through it, shook his head but didn’t give it back.

“Maybe he called to say goodbye to his sister,” Gabe said. “She tried to talk him out of it, he yelled ‘No!’ and bang. But you’re right about the bullet placement. Male suicides often ‘eat’ the gun, and if not, shoot the side of their head, not their forehead and at an upward angle. I saw some suicides when I was in Iraq.”

Despite the fact that Tess was still angry, her heart went out to him again. “If there’s no phone and no sign of the satchel I swear I saw, maybe the meeting with the person on the phone was at the edge of the cornfield. When that person killed Dane, he or she took both items and ran into the field,” she said, almost whispering.

“We’ll have it searched as well as this graveyard,” Gabe said. “So, who has the motive to point a pistol point-blank at a man’s forehead, stare him right in the eye and blow his skull apart? I say, not Tess Lockwood.”

“Is his sister shorter than him?” Vic asked. “Tess was here—and if she suddenly remembered he was the kidnapper—she has motive.”

“I said I didn’t and I don’t!” she shouted. “There are other suspects, and I wouldn’t do something to keep us from finding the other girls if he’s the one who had them stashed somewhere!”

“Maybe Mike will get prints off the gun,” Gabe said. “But things like wine bottles and doorknobs have been wiped clean so far. As soon as we get this scene turned over to others, we’ll hit the house. We’ll have to ask Marva if he was talking to her and if she’s seen that antique pistol before.”

“Okay,” Vic agreed. “After Mike checks Tess’s hands, let’s get her out of here until we get a formal deposition. The forensics posse will be here soon. I don’t figure you for a flight risk, Tess, but we need your word you won’t leave the area. Gabe and I have a lot to do, and I don’t want to be fighting him on insisting we hold you for further questioning right now.”

Tess looked Vic straight in the eye. “As scared as I’ve been ever since I’ve been back here, I’m not leaving the area. I’m in this to find out what happened to me twenty years ago, who is trying to scare me away now and more important, to help find those girls.”

“I admire your courage, Tess. I just always check every angle.” Vic turned toward Gabe. “After Mike dusts the weapon, I’m gonna take it and run it down—type, provenance.”

Tess was amazed to realize that, despite Dane’s bloody body and the grilling she just experienced, she was feeling stronger.

Vic tilted his head and craned his neck. “Two vehicles just drove in. Mike and your deputy. No, three. A silver car right behind them.”

“That’s probably Marva,” Gabe said. “You brief Mike so he can check Tess’s hands, and I’ll talk to Marva, tell her she can’t go in now because of the warrant. It’s best she not see Dane.”