Justice Delayed (Memphis Cold Case #1)(21)

She wished she didn’t. “Mom and I had gone to tell Stephanie that the doctor had agreed to waive his fee for my surgery.”

Her sister had been so worried that without insurance, Andi might not get the heart operation she needed. She turned and stared out the window at the newly leafed trees whizzing by. A warm March had given them an early start on spring. The dogwoods and wild plum trees were in full bloom against a backdrop of every shade of green from chartreuse to deep green. She chewed on her bottom lip. A freeze was predicted for tonight. Tomorrow all the blooms would be dirty brown.



JD flipped through the small black notebook once more and placed it on the padded yellow envelope he’d taken it from. He’d coaxed Lacey into telling him that she’d found the journal after Stephanie died. She was packing up her stuff to move out of the house, found the journal, and kept it. But there were at least five pages of Stephanie’s journal missing. Where could Lacey have hidden them? What if she’d mailed them to someone?

He’d found the letter addressed to Andi Hollister and burned it.

“Alfie” played from the music station on his TV, and with his feet on the desk and his eyes closed, he released his mind to search for the answer that didn’t come. The music soothed his anxiety, and he hummed along to the melody.

At dinner the other night, Lacey had been close to losing it, but he never dreamed she’d spill her guts to Andi in letters he’d found crumpled in the wastebasket. How Lacey had written Jimmy, but he hadn’t responded, and before she left the country, she wanted to tell Andi that Jimmy hadn’t killed her sister. At least she hadn’t said who had.

Her last words wouldn’t make sense to anyone but him. You have diamonds in your possession. Lacey hadn’t finished the sentence, and in his mind, he could see her scribbling lines through the words and crumpling the letter into a ball. He figured she’d decided to tell Andi in person.

He’d wasted valuable time searching for the missing journal pages. Lacey claimed she didn’t know their whereabouts, but he didn’t believe her. They hadn’t been anywhere in the house.

He should have killed her earlier this year when she got religion.

A cell phone in his desk rang, and he opened the drawer and took out the burner phone, recognizing the number. “Hello.”

“You told me if Jimmy Shelton ever got any unusual mail to call you.”

“Yes?” Over the past seventeen years, he’d paid different guards a hundred dollars a month to keep tabs on Shelton, and this was the fifth time he’d heard from one of them. The other four times had been inconsequential. With four days to go, he hoped that was the case now.

“Shelton received a letter from a Lacey Wilson, and she told him he didn’t kill somebody named Stephanie.”

The bottom dropped out of his stomach. He gripped the phone. “Where is the letter now?”

“I’m looking at it.”

His hand relaxed. “I want it.”

“I figured you would.” The caller cleared his throat. “It’s going to cost a little more than a hundred dollars, though.”

“I see.” He swiveled in his chair to turn down the music. “How much?”

“I figure twenty grand ought to cover it.”

“That sounds fair.” He smiled as silence filled the airwaves. The guard was probably kicking himself for not asking for more. “Can you bring it to Memphis?”

“Sure. I’ll fake a stomach problem and get off work. Take me probably three hours to get there.”

“No need to take off work—I can’t meet you right now. Bring it after your shift ends. I’ll meet you part of the way—there’s a truck stop at exit 126 that will only take you two hours to reach. What will you be driving?”

“A white Silverado.”

“Until nine, then.”

He disconnected and tapped the phone as the music from Alfie segued into the theme from The Godfather.





8


“LOOKS LIKE ROAD CONSTRUCTION AHEAD,” Andi said as they passed a billboard proclaiming sizzling bacon and hearty biscuits, reminding her she hadn’t eaten breakfast.

“I’ve never driven I-40 when there wasn’t work going on,” Will said. “Tell me something.”

“Depends on what it is.”

He laughed. “How did you get into news journalism?”

She sat back in the seat, memories of Stephanie warming her.

“In one of our last ‘sister’ talks, I told Steph I wanted to be a flight attendant like her, and she flipped out.” Andi smiled at the memory. “Said she’d wring my neck if I didn’t go to college and get my degree in broadcast journalism.” She glanced toward Will. “She’s the reason I’m a television reporter.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. This movie came out about an ambitious reporter about a year before she . . .” Andi bit her lip. It was so hard to say that she died. “Anyway, Steph said if she could go back a few years, that’s what she’d go to college for.”

Will frowned. “It wasn’t too late then.”

“She thought it was—said by the time she graduated, she’d be too old to break into the business. Steph would have wanted to go all the way to the top, and since she couldn’t . . .”