LITMIR.BIZ

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“Where were you?”

      “I was right here at home, that’s where.”

      “How did you hear about it?” When she didn’t answer, Lukas said softly, “Look, I know this is hard for you. You’ve worked for the family for years. You helped raise those girls. It was a terrible thing that happened, and a dark cloud has been hanging over this town ever since. I’ve read all the police reports, been over them I can’t tell you how many times. But right now, I’d really like to hear about that night from you.”

      She pressed her lips together. “It won’t help you. Might even do more harm than good stirring up that mess. You ever think of that?”

      “What I think is that Rachel DeLaune deserves justice. I don’t care how long it’s been. You were there that night, Miss Esme. You may be the only person in town who can still help me piece together what happened. Will you do that?”

      She was silent for a moment. “I still say no good can come from digging up the past. Sometimes it’s best to leave a body resting in peace. But I reckon you’ll keep after me until I tell you what I know.”

      Lukas smiled. “I have been known to dig in my heels.”

      “Oh, I can see that stubbornness in your eyes. Your daddy had it, too.” She sighed wearily. “I’ll tell you what I can remember, but then I don’t want to talk about it no more.”

      Lukas nodded.

      Esme gazed out the window. “I was just fixin’ to turn in when Miss Anna called me. She said something bad had happened to Sarah.”

      “To Sarah?”

      “That’s what she said. A neighbor had found the child walking down the side of the road, covered in blood. They didn’t know if she was hurt bad or not because they couldn’t get her to talk. Wouldn’t say a word to nobody. Only thing they knew to do was bring her home. Mr. James finally got it out of her that something had happened at the old Duncan farmhouse. He grabbed his pistol and took off over there. Miss Anna called the doctor and then she called me.”

      “Was your grandson still living with you then? Where was he during all this?”

      An infinitesimal pause before she lifted her chin and said haughtily, “My boy was right here in his bed where he belonged. I didn’t see no need in waking him up. Nothing he could do.”

      “What happened when you got to the house?”

      “Miss Anna had Sarah in the bathtub washing the blood out of her hair.”

      “Why would she do that? Didn’t she realize she could have been destroying evidence of a crime perpetrated against her daughter?”

      “She wasn’t thinking about nothing like that. She just wanted to get her baby girl clean as fast as she can.”

      “What did she think had happened to Sarah?”

      Esme pursed her lips. “Wasn’t my place to ask questions. I just tried to help the best way I knew how.”

      “What did you do?”

      “I gathered up the dirty clothes and took them downstairs. That’s when I heard Mr. James come back. He’d found Rachel at the farmhouse and carried her all the way back home. Even if he cut through the orchard and came across the field, he still had to pack her close to a mile.”

      The blood on one daughter had been washed down the drain while the other daughter’s body had been removed from the crime scene. Evidence hadn’t just been tampered with in this case…it had been trampled on.

      “Judge DeLaune knows the law as well as anyone. Why would he remove his daughter’s body from the crime scene?”

      “The doctor was already on his way to the house to see about Sarah. Makes sense Mr. James would want to get Rachel home as fast as he can, don’t it? He was too late, though. I took one look at what they’d done to that poor baby and I knew she was dead. Nobody could live through that. Mr. James knew it, too. He took her into his study and laid her out on the divan. Told me to go call Sheriff Clay, tell him to come quick. As soon as he arrived, he went into the study with Mr. James and they stayed there for a long time. When they finally came out, I heard him say he was going over to arrest Derrick Fears.”

      “But Fears had an airtight alibi for that night,” Lukas said.

      Esme gave him a sidelong glance. “You think a mother won’t lie to keep her boy out of that kind of trouble?”

      “Is that what you think happened?”

      “That’s what your daddy thought.”

      “Maybe that was his problem,” Lukas said. “He was already dealing with a contaminated crime scene and a witness who couldn’t remember how she happened to be covered in blood. By focusing on Fears, he neglected to look for other suspects.”

      Esme studied him for a moment. “You would have done things different, I guess.”

      He smiled. “Put it this way. I’m not my father.”

      “Maybe not.” She plucked at a button on her sweater as she turned to stare at the back of the DeLaune house. “But I still say you got his eyes.”

      Eight

      Lukas didn’t really expect to find anything at the DeLaune house. Footprints left on the frozen ground would have been lost once the ice started to thaw. And, too, he had to wonder if Esme had imagined the whole thing. She lived alone and was getting on in years. Her eyesight probably wasn’t as good as it used to be, and the view from her cottage was obscured by all the trees. In the dark, the barren limbs whipping over the roof might have looked like someone running up the steep slope.

      But Lukas searched the grounds anyway, because in spite of her advanced years and failing eyesight, Esme Floyd didn’t strike him as the type prone to flights of fantasy. And if someone had been up on that roof in the middle of the night, he damn well wanted to know who it was.

      He glanced back at the cottage, saw Esme in the window and gave a quick wave. Then he walked around to the front of the house and used her key to let himself in.

      The house was cold and deathly still. Like a tomb, he thought. An apt description, since the place had seen its share of grief and tragedy. And now the owner, the last of the DeLaune family save for the youngest daughter, was in the hospital with only weeks, possibly days, to live.

      Lukas lingered in the foyer as he glanced around the silent rooms, taking in the shrouded furniture and the tightly closed drapes and shutters that blocked most of the sunlight. Esme had told him that she still came over every other day to clean and air out the rooms, but the house already had an abandoned smell even though Lukas suspected there wasn’t a speck of dust to be found in the entire place.

      The living room was to his left, the dining room and kitchen to his right. Straight ahead, an oak staircase with a polished banister led to a long, second-story gallery and the bedrooms.

      Lukas began in the living room and made sure all the windows were secure before he slid back a set of pocket doors that led into a study. As he stepped inside, he sniffed the air. The scent of leather and pipe tobacco still hung heavy in the room.

      The gloomy silence pecked at his nerves, so he opened the drapes. Sunlight flooded in and he turned, taking in the room in one sweep. Glass-fronted bookcases lined the wall behind a fine old mahogany desk, and a leather sofa and two armchairs were grouped around a brick fireplace.

      In spite of the handsome furnishings, the room was nondescript, like a picture clipped from a magazine. It was understated and dignified, and yet there was a hint of something unpleasant that Lukas didn’t understand until he remembered what Esme had said earlier. James DeLaune had carried his daughter’s body back from the farmhouse and placed her in his study.

      Lukas walked around the sofa, sliding his hand across the cracked leather as his gaze lifted to the carved oak mantel above the fireplace.

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