A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery #2)(94)

Sara kept looking at the wall of photos while the others turned to the computers.

“I bet we could find out who Janet terrorized in Lachlan,” Kate said. “Maybe there’ll be some evidence that Kyle Nesbitt was innocent and he’ll be allowed to get his family back.”

“And Charlene will—” Jack stopped talking. Chet had paid the ultimate price for nosing around about the White Lily Kidnapping so there was no reason to add to it.

“What about her?” the sheriff asked.

“Nothing,” Jack said. “She’s upset about Tayla’s confession.”

“You’re not good at lying.” Sheriff Flynn was frowning. “You three want to tell me what you’ve been doing?”

Jack and Kate were silent.

“No.” Sara was still staring at the photos. “There’s no need to tell anything. Janet Beeson was a horrible person. She hurt a lot of people.”

“Tayla still shouldn’t have killed her.” The sheriff’s voice was sad. Tayla was his relative.

“Right.” Sara put her arms up, elbows out, as though smoothing the back of her hair. When she pivoted around, an elbow hit three photos and knocked them to the floor. Sara let out a yelp of surprise.

The noise in the closed-in room was startling. In a swift gesture, Sara used the tip of her shoe to kick something toward Jack. He put his foot over it.

“I’m so sorry,” Sara said. “Should I pick them up?” She was a study in innocence.

“Leave them,” the sheriff said. He was looking at them in suspicion, but could see nothing wrong. He held his arm out to the door. “I think we should leave.”

“Of course,” Kate said, then put her hand on the sheriff’s forearm. “How are you holding up under all this? There must be a lot of pressure on you.”

“Thanks for asking,” he said. “I’m okay, but my wife...” He kept talking as he led them out. He didn’t notice that when Jack checked his shoelace, he palmed the tiny flash drive that Sara had sent scurrying toward him.

When they were in the truck, Kate said, “Okay, what did you two do?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Jack said.

“Elbows hitting the pictures? Aunt Sara screams? Out with it!”

Smiling, Jack took the flash drive from his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

“Think it’s what Lisa was looking for?” Kate turned to her aunt.

Sara shrugged. “It’s in half the mysteries I’ve ever read. Picture frames are great hiding places, and considering Janet’s vanity, what wouldn’t she hurt?”

“The photo of her and Sylvia,” Kate said. “She might burn Lisa’s and Tom’s pictures but not her own.”

“Exactly what I thought,” Sara said. “I kept staring at that picture with its wide wooden frame and the lower left corner seemed to be smoother than the other ones.”

“Fingers touching it,” Jack said.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“So you sent it skidding, the flash drive fell out, and—”

“And I hid it,” Jack finished.

“Now what?” Kate asked.

“Now we go home and open it and I hope we see Sylvia’s book,” Sara said.

“But...” Jack trailed off. He didn’t need to say what he was thinking. Sylvia’s account of all the horror Janet had done wasn’t going to clear Tayla. As Sara had said, You can’t kill people no matter how horrible they are.

Kate clasped the flash drive in her hand. “Maybe this will satisfy Everett enough that he’ll forget about the White Lily Kidnapping.”

“Ha!” Sara said. “He’ll write about Janet, then about Charlene. He’ll make a trilogy of it. Base a career on it. He’ll—”

Kate put her head on her aunt’s shoulder. “We’ll do what we can.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “All that we can.”

When they got home, Kate and Jack sat on each side of Sara as she put the flash drive into the side slot of her computer and brought up the contents.

“A woman after my own heart,” Sara said. “Sylvia used WordPerfect.”

The title page read Evil at Home.

“Not pulling any punches, is she?” Kate said.

Sara flipped to the first page. Janet Beeson says she wasn’t born evil but I don’t believe that. She left too many tears in her wake. Too many dead bodies. What else is the definition of evil?

The three of them drew in their breaths.

Sara closed her computer lid.

“Can she do that? Use a person’s real name?” Kate asked.

“No,” Sara said. “Not while the person is alive. No wonder Sylvia was planning to leave the country. But then, maybe she was going to change the name in the book to something fictional.”

“Do you believe she was?” Jack asked.

“No. I think Sylvia Alden had come to the point where there was only one thing in the world she cared about: her daughter. If she could get Lisa out of danger, I think Sylvia planned to expose Janet.”

“To keep her from hurting others,” Kate said.

“That would be my guess.”

“Mind if we read more?” Jack asked.