He climbed onto a stool at the bar, placed his order, then promptly settled his full regard on their table. She looked away too quickly. She cursed herself for letting the whole world see how guilty she felt. Why hadn’t she smiled at him? She remembered him from high school. Football. Handsome, popular with the girls. But now he was a cop and that made him a potential enemy. It also made her as nervous as hell.
She hated this! She studied her half-empty cup and wrestled with the need to squirm in her seat. She might as well warn the others. “Brad Brewer just walked in. He’s wearing a deputy’s uniform and looking directly at us.” This whole thing was insane. How could they just keep pretending that all was as it should be?
Kira’s sharp intake of breath punctuated Lacy’s announcement, giving her something else to be confused about. Then again, maybe Kira was feeling just as uneasy as Lacy.
“Ignore him,” Cassidy ordered. “You have to stop letting these guys get to you. I’m telling you they’re on a fishing expedition and you’re giving them far too much bait. They don’t have anything on us. They won’t have anything unless one of us stupidly gives it to them.”
Cassidy was right. Lacy closed her eyes a second and fought to regain her composure. She had to get a grip here. The cops had nothing on them. They had nothing period. The only way anyone would know what happened was if they broke their silence.
“No one knows anything,” Cassidy added firmly, echoing Lacy’s thoughts. “All we have to do is keep it that way until this case is closed.”
As awful as all of this made her feel, it was the single tear that streaked down Melinda’s face that stabbed the deepest into Lacy’s heart. She wished she could take back the words. Her friend had been hanging on so rigidly to her composure until now. She shouldn’t have even told them about Rick’s visit.
“We’ll stick with the plan we’ve all agreed to,” Cassidy reiterated. “We all took the same vow. We’re not going to change our course now regardless of any one person’s personal demons.”
Lacy looked at Cassidy as another memory from ten years ago broadsided Lacy. Kira and Cassidy staring at her with suspicion in their eyes when she’d come back downstairs after checking to insure they hadn’t overlooked anything in the bedroom where they’d found Charles. They wanted to believe Lacy had killed him. She could feel it then, and she could feel it now.
“Was that comment directed at me?” She hadn’t consciously made the decision to ask the question, but there it was. She wasn’t going to let it go this time. She’d done so ten years ago…not this time.
“Lace, this isn’t about you,” Cassidy returned coolly. “This is about all of us. Keeping everyone in emotional turmoil isn’t going to help.”
“Why don’t we just put our cards out on the table this second,” Lacy challenged, any chance of staying calm gone now. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “Let’s all tell where we were that day. No more dancing around the facts.” She leaned into the table, stared each one straight in the eye in turn, fury overriding her better judgment. “Let’s just get it over with once and for all. Clear the air. We all need to know what really happened.”
Melinda’s hand went to her chest and her ragged sigh was all that followed Lacy’s bitter words. The silence echoed deafeningly, obliterating the sounds around them, narrowing the scope of their world down to the suddenly too tiny table.
Regret for causing Melinda more discomfort crashed into Lacy, but even that stinging emotion wasn’t enough to fully quell her flash of anger. She was sick to death of the suspicions directed at her. She hadn’t killed Charles, even though she would have liked to on too many occasions to count.
Cassidy took Melinda’s hand and then reached across the table for Lacy’s. Kira immediately did the same, taking Lacy’s then Melinda’s to complete the circle. A circle they’d clung to as kids…to protect one another no matter the circumstances. Lacy closed her eyes and struggled for calm. She had to get a hold of herself. These were her friends. She had no right to lash out like that. The suspicions she felt were probably just her imagination, her own guilt coming back to haunt her.
“We’re all in this together,” Cassidy said with uncharacteristic softness. “It doesn’t matter who killed him. He’s dead and that’s the only thing that matters. We all wanted him dead, and we all participated in covering up what happened. We are all equally guilty. No one is more or less to blame. And each of us will do whatever it takes to protect one another. Shall we reiterate our vow?”
“I swear.” Kira was the first to speak up, her eyes glittering with fear.
Melinda nodded solemnly. “I swear.”
Lacy wanted to believe they were doing the right thing. She wanted desperately to trust Cassidy’s judgment, just like they always had, but part of her couldn’t pretend away the truth any longer. One of them had killed a man. All of them had covered up the murder, making sure the evidence would never be found. What they’d done was wrong….
But it was too late to back out now.
It was done, end of story.
“I swear,” she said with a reluctance she could no more hide than she could stop breathing.
Kira offered up a big, however shaky, smile and a subject change. “Melinda, I’ll be keeping you company today. Anything special you’d like to do.”
She sounded upbeat and as calm as the proverbial cucumber, but Lacy didn’t miss the little quiver in her voice or the way she kept glancing over at Deputy Brad Brewer. Cassidy had to have noticed it, too—she never missed anything—but she didn’t say a word. Instead she picked at her doughnut.
Enough. Lacy had to stop looking for conspiracies among her friends. She had to pull it together.
“Lacy, you’ll relieve Kira at about seven?” Cassidy inquired.
“Sure.” Yes, she definitely intended to do her part. She’d caused enough trouble this morning. It was time to suck it up and do what had to be done.
Melinda shook her head, the move so weary no one would have noticed had she not groaned at the same time. “Really, I feel like such a burden to you guys. I’ll be okay by myself. You don’t have to stay with me night and day.”
Cassidy turned to Melinda, her expression unexpectedly gentle for a woman so stern in nature. “Melinda, you’re not a burden to any of us. We want to protect you. You’re vulnerable right now. Let’s not keep going over and over the issue. We have to be careful. We don’t want you alone if the chief shows up at your door like he did Lacy’s.”
Melinda nodded, surrendering. “You’re right. I know.” She tried to smile, but the effort failed miserably. “I just don’t want to put anyone out.”
“We love you, Mel.” Lacy felt a genuine smile spread across her lips. This was the one good thing in all the insanity, a friendship that had endured through the years. She had to stop selfishly obsessing about her own feelings. “You couldn’t possibly put us out.”
Just as some of the tension lifted, Cassidy had to toss out another directive. “You steer clear of Summers,” she ordered Lacy. “I don’t know why he’s singled you out, but he’ll have his reasons. I don’t want you inadvertently giving him any additional fuel to fire his suspicions. He can’t possibly have anything more than a
