“Georgia, I don’t have the time or patience to argue with you. Stick to your own caseload.” He rarely pulled rank but didn’t hesitate now. “Stay out of my case.”
Eyes widened with shock and offense as if she hadn’t seen this answer coming from a mile away. “You aren’t being fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.”
“I’m baking that cake.”
“Bring it.”
A final glare and she turned and left. She didn’t scream as she’d done when they were kids, but he sensed the idea tempted. A turn of the heel and she vanished around a corner.
Deke returned to his office and stared at the stack of boxes. He sipped his coffee as he flipped off the lid of the top box, which he discovered was as crammed full of files as the first box he’d inspected. His father had never left a stone unturned and he liked to document. If Deke had been under the gun on a high-profile case he’d have saved every scrap of paper.
Deke hadn’t read any of his case files and could admit he was tempted. But there’d be no way Deke would have time to invest the one hundred and fifty man hours into a case reevaluation. He dialed his cell.
On the second ring he heard his brother Rick’s garbled, “What?”
“Don’t tell me you’re sleeping.”
“Sure why not? I was up late last night studying.”
“I always figured you’d be the one to keep a routine.”
“Not anymore.”
The second Morgan son, Rick, had changed in more ways than Deke could count since he’d been shot six months ago. He’d taken medical leave and gone back to school. “Near death experiences,” he’d said, “have a way of lining up all the stray ducks in your life.”
“Want some freelance work?”
“Depends.” He sighed into the phone.
“It’s the Annie Rivers Dawson case files.”
“DNA is back?” Interest sharpened the tone of his voice.
Deke slid his hand into his pocket and rattled the change. “Not yet. Any day now. But I’ve a gut feeling this case might go sideways. I want to be ready.”
“For what?”
“If the DNA proves Jeb Jones didn’t kill Annie Rivers Dawson. A shit storm.”
In the background Rick’s dog, Tracker, barked, his deep throaty voice still as menacing as it had been when he’d first been assigned to Rick seven years ago. Next came the sound of Rick moving through the house and opening the back door. “You think it will be that huge?”
“If Rachel Wainwright has a say. Yes.”
Rick chuckled. “The fair Ms. Rachel. I saw her on campus yesterday.”
Despite himself, his interest peaked. “Riding a broom?” He chuckled. “Visiting the math department. There’s a part-time teacher in that department who works as a private investigator from time to time. My guess is Wainwright paid her a visit.”
“Why would she need a PI?”
“She’s a defense attorney. They work with PIs all the time.” Tracker barked. A door opened again. Paws scrambled back inside. “When do you want me to get started?”
“Whenever you can get here. And the sooner, the better. Georgia came by my office and saw the files. And Georgia being Georgia won’t stay out of the boxes for long.”
“I’ll be by in an hour with my truck. Lend me a couple of uniforms and I’ll have the files out of your office in ten minutes.”
“Thanks. Oh and be warned, Georgia wants us to get together for Alex’s birthday at the Big House.”
A heavy silence crackled through the phone. “I’m not sure if I can make that one.”
His terse tone hinted at another fault in the Clan Morgan’s foundation. “You aren’t still pissed with Alex, are you?”
“Like you once said, I can carry a grudge for years.”
“Try and put this one aside. It’s important to Georgia that we all stay close. She’s baking a cake.”
He groaned. “If you are trying to convince me, that’s not doing the trick.”
“We can all eat dry cake and manage to be civil with one another for a half-hour.”
“As long as Alex keeps his comments to himself, I’ll try.”
“Great.”
More silence. “Maybe we could use the time to make some decisions about the house.”
Deke rubbed his hand over his short hair, missing the undercover days when he could hide behind long hair and grungy clothes. “The one time I suggested we sell and split the proceeds Georgia blew up.”
“This conversation won’t be fun for any of us. The house deserves to have someone living in it that wants to be there.”
Deke wanted to argue. He wanted to say that he still loved the house and would find a way to make it family central again. But he couldn’t promise that. He might sleep and eat quick meals at the house, but it wasn’t home anymore. In fact, he spent as little awake-time there as possible because it felt as if the house, a monument to the unstoppable Morgan family, stood in silent judgment of his failed marriages and unsettled life.
Rick was right. The house deserved better. A decision had to be made.
“I’ll let her sing “Happy Birthday” before I open the subject,” Deke said.
“Do it before she cuts the cake.”
“No way, bro. We eat her crappy cake and smile first. Then the house.”
A whispered oath escaped through the phone line. “Agreed.”
“See you in an hour.”
“Will do.”
Rachel slid the DVD into her computer and leaned back in her chair as the PC whirred and readied the disc. She sipped her morning coffee as the image of Jeb Jones appeared on the screen.
He had a long lean face, deeply lined but freshly shaven. An orange jumpsuit robbed what little color remained in his gaunt face and emphasized shoulder-length gray hair slicked back. A fading spiderweb tattoo clung to the side of his neck as a jagged scar meandered along his jawline. He’d gotten both in prison.
She’d made this tape six weeks ago when she’d driven three hours west toward Memphis to visit Jeb at the federal prison.
The camera shot over her right shoulder directly into Jeb’s face.“Jeb, I’m taping this so that I can show it in court if need be.”
Silver handcuffs rattled around his wrists as he threaded his fingers together. His hands trembled slightly, not from fear but Parkinson’s. “What do you mean if need be?”
“If the DNA proves you didn’t kill Annie.”
Jeb scratched his clean-shaven chin. “Unless the cops monkey with it, it will show I’m innocent.”
“Jeb, I need for you to tell me in your own words what happened the night Annie Dawson vanished.”
He looked at her and then at the floor before drawing in a deep breath. “I’ve told this
story so many times. Can’t you read my file?”
“I need to hear it from you in your own words. I need you to say it in the camera.”
He raised a manacled hand to his temple and scratched. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Start from the moment you woke up. It would have been October sixteenth. A Tuesday.”
“Oh, I know exactly what day it was. I’ve replayed it over the last thirty years and I don’t imagine there is a detail I’ve forgotten.”
“Tell me.”
He hesitated and then nodded. “Like you said it was a Tuesday. And it was warm that day. Really warm. I had to get up early to work at the garage. There was a transmission job that needed to be done by lunch. A ’71 Cutlass. Green. Anyway, I wasn’t feeling so good that morning. Hungover. I’d won money in cards the night before and spent it on extra rounds at the bar.” His gaze grew distant.
“What are you thinking?” she prompted.
“About my boy. He was nine at the time. I could have come home the night before and spent time with him, but I chose to go to the bar. At the time I thought I deserved a special night for myself. Thought I was owed a good time. So I left Kirk at home with his mom even though I’d been promising to spend time with him.”
Jeb’s poor parenting had been a painful regret that he’d expressed to her often. He’d said several times that he didn’t want to go to his grave branded a murderer in his boy’s eyes.
“What happened next?” she prompted.
“I grabbed a smoke and left the house about five. The transmission would take every bit of six hours and I didn’t need to lose this job.” He sniffed, shaking his head. “I spent the day at the garage working on the car. Took longer than I’d imagined and I didn’t knock off until six. I could have gone home but I took a detour.”
“Where did you go?”
His gaze dropped. “I drove by Annie’s house.”
“Why?” When he didn’t answer, she added, “Jeb, there’s no downside.”
“’Cause I wanted to see her,” he ground out. “I couldn’t get her off my mind.”