In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(68)

Carrol shrugged. “Seemed fine. I mean, same as always. We didn’t really talk all that much. Why?”

“Did you notice he’d cleaned the front room and the kitchen?”

Carrol sipped his beer. Then he said, “Didn’t you tell him to do it?”

“Yeah, I told him, but I’ve told him about a million times before. When’s the last time he actually remembered to do it? Shit, he can’t remember to take the garbage out when he’s holding the bag in his hand.”

“That’s true.” Carrol sipped more beer. “What did he say when you asked him?”

“He said he did it ’cause I told him to.”

“Well, there you go.”

“There I go where?”

“There’s your answer.”

Franklin drank from his beer. “If that was my answer would I be here?”

Carrol didn’t respond. He figured the question was rhetorical, but just in case, he kept quiet and ate a couple of the French fries.

“He was squirrely,” Franklin said.

“He’s always squirrely around you, Franklin. He’s afraid of you.”

“Maybe. He seemed like he was hiding something he didn’t want me to find out.”

“What?”

“If I knew that, he wouldn’t be hiding it, would he?”

“Did you ask him?”

“Course I asked him. He danced around it, avoided eye contact. I thought maybe he said something to you.”

Carrol shook his head. They sat in silence for a moment, each sipping from their beers. “What do you think it is?” Carrol asked.

“I don’t know. But I want you to talk to him when you get home, see if you can pry it out of him. Sober. Not drunk.”

“Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

“This whole thing is going sideways,” Franklin said.

“What whole thing?”

Franklin lowered his voice. “What do you mean, what whole thing? What the hell do you think I’m talking about? The girls. Ever since he grabbed that young runner . . . The police have been all around the park, asking everybody questions, whether they have video. I spoke to the Maxwells, and they said the police asked for their surveillance footage for Wednesday, and guess who was on it?”

“Bibby.”

Franklin shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Evan. He went for a walk past the house last Wednesday just before that girl went into the park.”

Carrol set down the French fries. He’d lost his appetite. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah. Oh shit.”

Carrol took another sip of his beer. He wished he had a shot of whiskey, but Franklin might crack him over the head with his bottle if Carrol ordered it. “You . . . you . . . you think the police got something else?”

“Yeah, they got something else. Bibby saw that girl in the park. That’s why they were down there looking for evidence in the first place. Now they got Evan out walking at the same time she went missing. They’re just putting the pieces of the puzzle together.”

“Did . . . did . . . did you throw out Evan’s shoes and clothes?”

Franklin nodded. “What about prints? Could they have found your prints on the car?”

Carrol felt heat radiating through his body. “I . . . I don’t think so. I . . . I . . . I wore the gloves the whole time, and the hat, just like you said. An . . . an . . . and I wiped down the car with the wipes you gave me. Inside and out. I did just what you told me to do.”

Franklin finished his beer and set the bottle on the table. “I’m thinking we need to pull the plug before this gets out of hand.”

“Pull the plug?” Carrol said.

“Get rid of the women.”

“Let them go?”

Franklin spoke like he hadn’t heard a word Carrol had said. “Evan and I are going to take a trip up to the cabin tomorrow.”

“What about me?”

“You’ll stay here.”

“Why?”

“’Cause you can’t keep calling into work sick, that’s why. It starts to look suspicious. And we don’t need any more suspicion.”

“What are you going to do up there?”

“I don’t know.” He turned and looked to the door, then reengaged Carrol. “Anybody comes around, like those detectives, you tell them I took Evan over to Eastern Washington. Tell them we’re going to visit Uncle Henry, do a little bird hunting, check up on him. I’ll get ahold of Henry and let him know, just in case anyone is interested enough to find out. He’s got the dementia, so he won’t remember much anyway.”

“Okay.” Carrol took another swig of beer and looked longingly to the bar, then to his brother. “What are you going to do up there, Franklin?”

“I told you. I don’t know.”

Carrol felt short of breath. The bar had become uncomfortably warm. “We ain’t killers, Franklin.”

Franklin shook his head. “How the hell did you think this was going to end, you dumbshit?” He raised his eyebrows in question. “Did you think we were just going to release those two women and they’d go on their merry way, not say a word to no one about nothing?”

“I . . . I . . . I . . . That’s what you told me.”