Robert popped his beer and said, “We only met a few times.”
“But you killed Ryan,” she whispered, “and let me take the blame.”
“No.” Robert shook his head vehemently. “It wasn’t like that.”
“We all met that night in the forest,” Shea said, his tone steady, cutting Robert off. “We decide
d that Ryan would die. And he did.”
“You killed him,” she repeated, appalled.
“Neville killed him,” Shea said softly. “And then found out that he couldn’t stick around, that his guilt was driving him out of his mind.”
“You know where he is?”
Shea shook his head and her other brothers showed great interest in their beer cans.
“Neville killed Ryan,” she said, “and you all knew about it. Knew the truth, even condoned it, approved it. Like you guys are God, or…or judge and jury, determining who lives and who dies.” She got up from her chair so fast that her unopened beer fell on its side and rolled across the glass tabletop. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered, then a bit of understanding hit her. “Oliver couldn’t stand it, could he? It sent him over the edge and into a mental hospital.”
“Oliver was always weak,” Shea said.
“Being sensitive isn’t the same as being weak!” Shannon couldn’t believe these killers were her brothers. “And you let me go to trial! I was arrested. And all the while you, my own overprotective brothers, set me up.”
“You would never have gone to jail,” Shea insisted. “The case was weak. You should never have been prosecuted.”
Aaron said, “We had an agreement, if the verdict went against you, we’d come forward.”
“With this cock-and-bull story that Neville did it and he’s missing?”
“Shannon—” Robert tried, but she wasn’t listening.
“This is vile and illegal and downright evil,” she hissed. “And…So…What? You started up again?”
“No!” Robert said emphatically.
“So, who’s doing it now? Who’s setting the damned fires?” she demanded. Fury snapped through her veins. “Who’s playing judge and jury and God now, killing the people closest to us? Who has my daughter? Who killed Oliver and Mary Beth and Blanche Johnson?”
Her brothers remained silent.
“Who?” she demanded again, and Shea held up a hand.
“We don’t know, Shannon. I’ve told you everything I know, now I think I’d better talk to Detective Paterno.”
“Wait a minute, Shea. Let’s discuss what you want to say, what kind of agreement you’ll need,” Pete said.
Shannon stalked from the patio. She’d heard enough. Her head was thundering again and she couldn’t take one more second of her brothers’ sick pact or their lawyer’s desperate scramble to keep them from admitting their own guilt.
She climbed in the rental car, pulled a quick U-turn in front of Aaron’s house, then headed out of town, past well-tended lawns and homes where people were just sitting down to dinner or watching TV or having reasonable discussions, where life was carrying on as it was normally supposed to.
Normal.
She doubted she’d ever feel normal again.
Sitting at his desk at home, ice cubes melting in his drink, Paterno stared down at the autopsy report of Ryan Carlyle. He’d intended to compare what the ME had found on Carlyle to the reports on Blanche Johnson, Mary Beth Flannery and Oliver Flannery. He’d pulled some strings and the ME had performed Oliver’s autopsy ahead of schedule. A lot of the toxicology reports weren’t back yet, but the preliminary autopsy report was almost complete.
“Good enough for government work,” he joked as the remains of his dinner—a man-sized TV dinner of chicken and French fries—sat on the counter, untouched. The dishes were piled in the sink, but he didn’t care. Not when his mind was somewhere else, and tonight, it was definitely far away.
He laid copies of the reports on his desk and compared them. Two women and two men. Killed in very different manners.