“And what about Tommy?”
“What about him?” Heath wasn’t going to volunteer anything without being asked directly.
“What was he doing that day?”
Heath sighed and tried to think back. “It’s been a long time, Sheriff, but if I had to guess, I’d figure he was doing a lot of nothing. That’s what he did most days. He tended to go out into the trees and mess around. I never saw him put in an honest afternoon’s work.”
“I heard he got into some fights with the other boys.”
Heath wasn’t going to let Duke zero in on his brothers as suspects. “That’s because he was lazy and violent. He had a quick temper and, on more than one occasion, took it out on one of us.”
Sheriff Duke’s dark gaze flicked over Heath’s face for a moment as he considered his answers. “I bet you didn’t care much for Tommy.”
“No one did. You know what kind of stuff he was into.”
“I can’t comment on that. You know his juvenile files are sealed.”
“I don’t need to see his files to know what he’d done. I lived with him. I’ve got a scar from where he shoved me into a bookcase and split my eyebrow open. I remember Wade’s black eye. I know about the stealing and the drugs and the fights at school. You can’t seal my memories, Sheriff.” Some days he wished he could.
Duke shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. “When was the last time you saw Tommy?”
“The last time I saw him...” Heath tried to remember back to that day. He spent most of his time trying not to think about it. The image of Tommy’s blank, dead stare and the pool of blood soaking into the dirt was the first thing to come to mind. He quickly put that thought away and backed up to before that moment. Before he heard the screams and found Tommy and Julianne together on the ground. “It was just after school. We all came home, Molly brought us some snacks to the bunkhouse and told us Ken was sick in bed. We finished up and each headed out to do our chores. I went into the eastern fields.”
“Did you see Tommy go into the woods that day?”
“No.” And he hadn’t. “Tommy was still sitting at the kitchen table when I left. But that’s where he should’ve been going.”
“Was he acting strangely that day?”
He had been. “He was a little quieter than usual. More withdrawn. I figured he’d had a bad day at school.” Tommy had also been silently eyeing Julianne with an interest he didn’t care for. But he wasn’t going to tell Duke that. No matter what happened between the two of them and their marriage, that wouldn’t change. He’d sworn to keep that secret, to protect her above all else, and he would. Even if he grew to despise her one day, he would keep his promise.
“Had he ever mentioned leaving?”
“Every day,” Heath said, and that was true. “He was always talking big about how he couldn’t wait to get away. He said we were like some stupid television sitcom family and he couldn’t stand any of us. He said that when he was eighteen, he was getting the hell out of this place. Tommy didn’t even care about finishing school. I suppose a diploma didn’t factor much into the lines of work he was drawn to. When he disappeared that day, I always figured he decided not to wait. His birthday was coming up.”
Duke had finally taken out a notepad and was writing a few things down. “What made you think he ran away?”
This was the point at which he had to very carefully dance around the truth. “Well, Wade found a note on his bed. And his stuff wasn’t in his room when we looked the next morning.” The note and the missing belongings were well-documented from the original missing-persons report. The fact that they never compared the handwriting to any of the other children on the farm wasn’t Heath’s fault. “It all added up for me. With Ken sick, it might have seemed like the right day to make his move.” Unfortunately, he’d made his move on Julianne when she was alone in the trees.
“Did he ever talk to you about anything? His friends or his plans?”
At that, a nervous bit of laughter escaped Heath’s lips. “I was a scrawny, thirteen-year-old twerp that did nothing but get in his way. Tommy didn’t confide in anyone, but especially not in me.”
“He didn’t talk to your brothers?”
Heath shrugged. “Tommy shared a room with Wade. Maybe he talked to him there. But he was never much for chatting with the rest of us. More than anything he talked at us, not to us. He said nothing but ugly things to Brody, so he avoided Tommy. Xander always liked to keep friendly with everyone, but even he kept his distance.”
“And what about Julianne?”
Heath swallowed hard. It was the first time her name had been spoken aloud in the conversation and he didn’t like it. “What about her?”
“Did she have much to do with Tommy?”
“No,” Heath said a touch too forcefully. Sheriff Duke looked up at him curiously. “I mean, there was no reason to. She lived in the big house and still went to junior high with me. If they spoke, it was only in passing or out of politeness on her part.”
Duke wrote down a few things. Heath wished what he’d said had been true. That Tommy hadn’t given the slightest notice to the tiny blonde. But as much as Julianne tried to avoid him, Tommy always found a way to intersect her path. She knew he was dangerous. They all did. They just didn’t know what to do about it.
“Were they ever alone together?”