The Overnight Guest(61)

“My grandson would never do that,” Matthew said, his voice choked with emotion. “It’s someone else. Now, I have to ask you to leave. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t be here.”

The raised voices carried, and the deputy and Caroline came hurrying from the house. “Ma’am,” the deputy said, “Step over here and we’ll talk.”

“I want to know where my daughter is,” Margo begged. “Please.” Her eyes searched Josie’s. “Please, they won’t tell us anything. Please, Josie, you’re Becky’s best friend, don’t you want to help her?”

Josie couldn’t answer. Caroline held her arms out as if trying to be a barrier between Josie and Margo. The deputy gently tried to lead Margo away.

Margo stepped around Caroline and gripped the wrist of her injured arm. Josie cried out in pain. “Your brother did this, didn’t he?” Margo said between clenched teeth. “Why? Why would he take my baby?”

The deputy stepped in then and pried Margo’s fingers from Josie’s wrist. “Stop. You’re hurting her,” he said in a low, firm voice.

“I just want to talk to Josie for a minute. Please,” Margo said. “I need her to tell me what happened.”

The deputy who was posted at the top of the lane came trotting toward them. “Ma’am, you can’t be here.” He stepped between Margo and Josie while the other deputy whisked Josie quickly away. The next thing she knew, she was sitting in the back of a deputy’s vehicle parked next to the tent.

“You’ll be fine in here,” the deputy said, turning on the car and cranking the air-conditioning so that lukewarm air puffed from the vents. “She doesn’t mean anything by it,” he said. “She just wants to find their daughter.”

Josie knew this was true. She wanted to find Becky and her brother too, despite the suspicions that kept creeping into her thoughts.

Josie watched as the deputies spoke with Margo and her grandmother, their voices growing louder, more frustrated.

Finally, Margo threw her hand up in the air and rushed toward the deputy’s car.

“Josie, where is Becky?” she called out as she tried unsuccessfully to wrench open the car door. She pressed her hands against the window. “Open the door, Josie,” she ordered.

“Where. Is. My. Daughter!” Margo pounded out each word and the glass quivered beneath her fist. Josie slid to the car floor and covered her head with her arms.

“Ma’am, come away from the car,” the deputy said. There was quiet for a moment, then a wounded shriek that sent a spasm of dread down Josie’s spine.

I want to die, Josie thought as Margo Allen’s cries grew fainter. But if she couldn’t die, this was where she belonged, on the floor of a deputy’s car, her face pressed to the floor mat, gritty with dirt from criminals and drunks and bad people.

Deputy Levi Robbins tapped his steering wheel impatiently. He was agitated. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Brock Cutter knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on.

It was looking more and more like Ethan Doyle killed his parents and took the Allen girl with him. Or maybe he killed her too, dumped her body, and took off. The evidence was mounting against him: the tension with his family, the alleged harassment of the ex-girlfriend, the shotgun found in the field. And now he learned that the Allen family was receiving phone calls from someone claiming to be Ethan Doyle.

And as the case against Ethan was growing, so was his suspicion of Cutter. He was with Ethan Doyle the day of the murders, was near the scene of the crime soon after, and was trying to cover his own ass by lying to law enforcement.

He didn’t have high hopes of finding him at home. Brock wouldn’t be eager to talk now that he’d been found to be lying about his whereabouts the night of the murders.

He was so tired. Dirt tired, as his grandpa used to say. If he was smart, he would go home and get a few hours of sleep, but with every second that passed, chances of finding Becky Allen alive were getting less likely.

On his drive to the Cutter house, he passed three roadblocks and what looked like a pair of search dogs and their handler. The state police were pulling out all the stops. Excitement bloomed in Levi’s belly. He was onto something with Brock Cutter; he knew it.

The Cutters lived a mile from the Doyle farm and Levi knew there was bad blood between the two families. He had even been called out to deal with a few of their disagreements over the years: a fertilizer spill, damaged crops, a few missing animals. Nothing ever came of the reports, just more resentment. This was one of the reasons that Levi was surprised that Brock and Ethan were supposedly friends. This wouldn’t have gone over well with the parents.

Levi drove down the Cutter lane and parked in front of the sprawling rust-colored brick ranch home surrounded by three hundred acres of corn and soybeans. Beef cattle grazed in a far-off field.

Before Levi even stepped from the car, Deb Cutter was at the front door. “Hello,” she called out. “Is everything okay?”

“All’s well, ma’am,” Levi said, keeping his voice light, conversational. “You heard about what happened over at the Doyle farm the other night?”

“Of course, everyone’s heard about that,” Deb answered, twisting a dishrag in her hands. “Another deputy was out here yesterday. I told them I thought I heard the shots.”