The Last Lie Told (Finley O’Sullivan, #1)(91)

Another step backward. “You’re as crazy as she is. We should call the police. You’re scaring me.”

“No,” Finley said, certainty rooting deep inside her. “I’m wrong. You brought the weapon with you, didn’t you? Did Charlie give it to you to protect yourself? You don’t really seem the type to carry a switchblade.”

No one moved. They all stared at each other as if they’d reached some sort of impasse. Finley’s last words seemed to ring on and on in the thick air. Anger and frustration, triumph and determination—it all burst inside her. The answer had been right in front of them all along.

“It was her,” Cecelia repeated softly. “I know it was her.”

Cherry remained frozen . . . seemingly unable to speak or to run.

“I’ll bet Charlie will confirm it for us,” Finley said. “He’s not happy with you right now, is he, Cherry? That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You stopped visiting him, and he decided to show you just what he could do from that prison cell.” Finley’s anger turned to outrage. “He even gave you a scapegoat—Cecelia. All you had to do was fall back in line.”

Another beat of tense silence.

“He just wanted me to be happy.” Cherry looked around as if hoping to find some miracle that would rescue her. She shrugged. “He said I was his sister and he wanted to take care of me. He killed our father for me. The bastard intended to kill me and Charlie after he killed our mother, but Charlie stopped him.”

The image of a little boy picking up a shotgun and shooting his father to save his baby sister seared through Finley’s mind. Horror quaked through her.

“How did he find you?” Finley asked, her voice hollow. She would bet money Penelope Keaton hadn’t told him where his sister was.

Cherry leaned one shoulder against the wall as if the weight of her story were too heavy to continue carrying without support. “He found out a long time ago. He said he tracked down the cop who investigated his parents’ case and got the truth out of him. He had been watching me since.” She touched the shape on her cheek. The one Finley had noticed the last time they’d talked. “He said my mother had this same birthmark.”

Finley wanted to hate Cherry for what she had done to the Legard family. But she was a victim the same as the twins. The outrage whooshed out of Finley and left her feeling empty and exhausted. “When did the two of you meet?”

“Five years ago. He saw me at the Paradise.” Cherry hugged herself again. “We became very close. It was surreal. Like an angel God had sent to save me from my mistake. I told him about Lance, and he told me I should protect myself.” She shook her head. “But I never expected to . . . I was just so angry. I’d only meant to scare Lance off, but things got out of control.”

“You called your brother, and he came to your rescue,” Finley guessed.

“He came over and cleaned up everything. He told me not to worry, that he would take care of it. He knew how.” She exhaled a big breath, traced a crack in the wall with her forefinger. “I thought when he went to prison it would be over, but it had just begun. He wouldn’t go away. He sent his followers to check up on me, and when I stopped visiting and decided to go on with my life, he started this new nightmare. He wanted me to see there was no escape. I knew he could change his story at any moment, but I was willing to take the risk. To call his bluff.” She stared directly at Finley then. “I had to. It was the only way to protect my son. No one could know what really happened.”

Except everyone had to know the truth. This was the moment in a case when Finley usually felt jubilant, satisfied that she had accomplished her goal. Those feelings were oddly missing in this instance.

“Come on, Cherry,” Finley said as she extended her hand toward the other woman. “Let’s go. Your son will wonder where you are.”

Cherry pushed away from the wall and walked toward Finley. Next to her, Cecelia stiffened. Finley slid an arm around her and whispered, “It’s okay now.”

Finley wasn’t sure she would ever fully understand how she managed to usher the two women out of there without one attacking the other, but somehow she did. When they reached the outside, the sounds of sirens filled the air, and lights flashed from the tops of police cruisers and at least one ambulance.

Finley couldn’t recall when she’d been so glad to see the cops.

Matt came rushing toward them. Jack was right behind him.

Finley blinked back the moisture collecting in her eyes. Not tears. Just something in her eyes.

The case hadn’t ended the way she had expected, but that was life. You rarely got to choose the ending.





33


Saturday, July 16

9:30 a.m.


The Murder House

Shelby Avenue

Nashville

Finley sat in the rickety glider on her porch. It, too, had come with the house. The yellow paint was flaking and there was some rust, but she didn’t care. She was content just sitting there with the biggest mug she owned filled with freshly brewed coffee.

Been a hell of a week.

An understatement for sure. A big one. Cecelia Legard was being evaluated at Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital. She had been the one to thrust the knife into her mother’s chest. The effort was to somehow tie her death to their father’s, since she believed Olivia had killed them both. Cecelia had been treated for borderline personality disorder since she was twelve. After murdering her twin sister, she appeared to have developed dissociative identity disorder.