think so.” Canton’s fist closed around the chain. “Tell you what. You run along and get me those letters while I have a chat with your dad here.”
Dani wanted nothing more than to flee to the safety of her room, but as she turned, she glimpsed her brother in the hallway. He’d been standing there listening to every word of the interrogation, and as his gaze met Dani’s, another chill went through her.
It was the first time she’d seen him smile since he returned home.
THE LETTERS WERE GONE. They were not in Dani’s top dresser drawer where she usually kept them, nor in any of the other drawers. They weren’t under the bed or in her purse or hidden inside her closet.
Dani knew she wouldn’t have misplaced them. Her room was too neatly organized for that. Her belongings were all carefully sorted and stored. Everything had its place, including the letters.
But, desperate and terrified, she tore the once-tidy room apart anyway. The letters were nowhere to be found. They’d simply vanished. Or been stolen.
But how could that be? No one else had even known about them. No one but Paul, and now he was dead.
Paul was dead, along with his parents, and the police blamed Dani. They thought she’d started that fire with gasoline she’d stolen from George Hendrix’s fuel tank.
They couldn’t seriously believe her capable of such a thing, could they? She’d lived in Allentown her whole life. Everyone knew her, knew that her behavior was always above reproach.
So why, why did Officer Canton seem to have it in for her? His suspicions were unfathomable—
Dani whirled as the hair lifted at the back of her neck. Nathan stood in the doorway again. Watching her.
Lazily, he scratched his arm. “Lose something?”
And it suddenly occurred to Dani just exactly what had happened to those letters. She flew across the room and grabbed the front of his shirt. “Did you take them? Did you?”
Her outburst clearly startled him. “What the hell are you talking about? Take what?”
“You know what I’m talking about! My letters from Paul.”
Nathan gave her a disgusted look. “Come on, Dani. Knock it off. No one’s buying that story.”
“What do you mean? I’m not making this up. He sent me letters. He wrote me poetry. He told me—”
“That he loved you?” Nathan’s gaze mocked her. “Get over yourself. Not everyone in this stupid town thinks you’re so wonderful. If you knew what that little weirdo was really up to—” Nathan broke off and glanced away.
Dani’s fingers dug into his shirt. “What did you mean by that?”
When Nathan merely smiled, something snapped inside Dani and she hit him. Smacked him right in the face and then hard across his chest. He wasn’t much taller than she, and almost as skinny. Her blows made him stumble back, and he threw up an arm to ward her off.
But Dani couldn’t seem to stop. It was as if someone else had taken control of her body. Someone who’d been suppressing her rage for years. Ever since her parents had brought home a son…
“Tell me! Tell me!”
Dani kept right on hitting him until she heard her mother cry out and her father say in a shocked voice, “Danielle! That’s enough!”
Canton stood at the bottom of the stairs taking it all in. He said nothing, but his dark gaze glittered with an emotion Dani couldn’t define.
The anger drained out of her so quickly she almost collapsed. She would have, if Nathan hadn’t grabbed her wrists to hold her up.
“I’ve been waiting years to see that look on Mother’s face,” he whispered, and then he released her and turned away.
CHAPTER THREE
FOUR WEEKS LATER, Greg Melcher sat at the back of the Allentown High School auditorium and watched Danielle Williams deliver the valedictory address at her graduation. She managed to hit just the right notes of melancholy and anticipation as she talked about leaving the past behind in order to embrace the future.
It was the usual inane garbage that would be delivered at countless graduation ceremonies in countless little burgs all over Texas on that hot Sunday afternoon.
But this speech was different because, in spite of Dani’s hesitant, emotional delivery, Melcher thought he could detect the barest hint of triumph in her tremulous voice. She was going to embrace the future, all right. She was going to embrace the hell out of it once she received the Belmont Award.
That little girl thinks she got away with murder. Now she’s going to take that scholarship money, get herself a fancy degree, and maybe even a rich husband if she plays her cards right.
God help that poor SOB, whoever he turns out to be, Melcher thought grimly.
But even as he sat there resenting Dani Williams’s future, he couldn’t help admiring her nerve. The girl was fearless. It wasn’t every seventeen-year-old who could execute a triple murder so flawlessly and leave nothing more than a whisper of suspicion behind. But those doubts were still lingering, if the subdued applause she received after her speech was any indication.
She returned to her seat on the stage, pressed her knees together and clasped her hands in her lap. There she sat, the very epitome of youth and hope and innocence. And she was good-looking to boot. Not drop-dead gorgeous the way Melcher preferred, but he had to admit there was something special about her. She had presence, with all that dark, glossy hair and those violet-colored eyes. And such poise!
Melcher didn’t know how she managed to keep her cool so well, but even when another classmate got up to deliver a moving tribute to Paul Ryann, she merely blinked away the tears instead of conspicuously dabbing at her eyes. The girl’s performance was nothing short of brilliant.
Yes, a part of Melcher couldn’t help admiring her even as he plotted her downfall. Because, after all, ambition was something he understood. He didn’t have a fancy degree from a school like Drury, but, by God, he was a damn good reporter with an uncanny instinct for looking under just the right rock. He might have started his career at a two-bit weekly in East Texas, but he sure as hell didn’t plan to end it that way.
Melcher had been waiting five years to catch some big-city editor’s eye. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio—those markets were respectable and a hell of a lot better than what he had now, but he ultimately had his eye on the big time. The show, as he liked to call it. More than anything in the world, he wanted to be an investigative reporter for the New York Times. Then, after he wrote a few books, won a Pulitzer or two, he’d make the move to television where the real money was.
But…he was getting a little ahead of himself.
It was hard not to dream, though. Hard not to imagine the headlines: Valedictorian Kills Rival.
A story like that could easily go national if Melcher worked it just right. Murdering cadets. Cheerleader moms hiring hit men. The public loved that kind of stuff. They couldn’t get enough of it, and this story had it all. Passion, jealousy, resentment.
