He grinned. “We have like minds. Remind me that when this is over I’m to tell you that I love you.”
Bailey didn’t pause as she started for the car, but her heart was pounding in her ears. “Okay, I’ll remind you.”
Twenty-eight
Matt’s cell phone rang at three A.M. He and Bailey were in a hotel in Sarasota, and booked on an early-morning flight to Atlanta. They couldn’t get seats together, and they’d had to pay a lot to book a flight just hours before it left, but they were going.
When the phone rang so early, Matt was sure it was bad news, and when he flipped the cover open and saw that it was his brother calling, he knew it was very bad. Quietly he got out of bed and took the phone into the bathroom. “What’s happened?” he said into the receiver as he shut the door. He had to resist an urge to say, Who has something bad happened to?
“Alex has been arrested,” Rick said. His voice was calm, but Matt knew his brother was very upset.
“What for?” Matt asked. “Speeding? DUI? Why the hell did you allow a kid that young out so late? You know he’s—”
“Murder,” Rick said. “Alex has been arrested for murder.”
Matt sat down on the side of the tub. “Tell me,” he whispered, as he imagined Alex in a barroom fight over a girl.
“Have you ever heard of a woman named Dolores Carruthers?” Rick asked.
Matt was sure his heart was going to stop. “Yes,” he managed to get out.
“She was murdered yesterday, and the police say Alex’s prints are all over her house. And she had skin under her nails, and Matt, the boy has deep scratches on his back. If the DNA matches—” Rick took a breath. “What the hell was he doing with her anyway? She’s forty-one, and Alex is seventeen.”
Matt ran his hand over his face. This was all his fault. If Alex was convicted—
“Are you there?” Rick said.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Who is this woman?”
“Bailey’s sister,” Matt said.
Rick didn’t say anything for a while. “This is bad, isn’t it? And you’re involved in it, aren’t you?”
“Up to my neck.”
“Is Bailey James Manville
’s widow?” Rick asked softly.
“Yes.”
“Oh, God, Matt, the police are looking for her too. I told them we’d never met the woman. They showed us a picture of her, and I—”
When he broke off, Matt said, “You what?”
“Now I understand. Patsy saw the photo, too, but she didn’t say anything. She let me tell the police that ‘we’ had never seen the woman before. But after the police left, after they took Alex away, Patsy said, ‘I have to go see Janice.’ You know she’s not said Janice’s name in umpteen years, and all I thought was, Good, maybe this mess will make them stop that stupid feud of theirs. But—”
“She saw that Lillian Manville was Bailey.”
“Yeah, I think so,” Rick said. “Where are you two?”
“In Sarasota. We—”
“Florida?!” Rick said. “But that’s where the woman who was murdered lives. Do you mean to say that you and Bailey were in the same state when she was killed? Does Bailey have a reason to kill her sister?”
“There was a lot of hatred and billions involved. Think that’s reason enough?”