The woman before him now wasn’t the woman who’d faced him down fourteen years ago. Without makeup and with her hair brushed flat against her head, she looked broken and years older.
Pushing aside whatever resentments he had or didn’t have for Candy, he pulled off his hat. “Mrs. Granger, I am—” She sat up a little straighter. “I know who you are. You look exactly the same.”
Ellie rose. “You’re Brody Winchester. Jo’s ex.”
“That’s right.”
“What do you need, Mr. Winchester?” Candace asked.
He kept his gaze on her. “I’m looking for Jo.”
“She isn’t here. Hasn’t been all day. I thought maybe you’d pulled her into another case.”
His stomach knotted. “She hasn’t been with me, and she’s not been at work.”
Ellie flexed her fingers at her side. “It’s not like Jo to flake. She always calls. Kinda OCD that way. What’s going on?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” He shifted his gaze back to Candy. “I need to know what you know about Smith.”
The older woman lowered her gaze. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Brody cursed, knowing there was no time for gentle coaxing or hand-holding. “Smith had an apprentice. A kid named Robbie who we believe now goes under the name Tim Neumann.”
Candace’s lips flattened. “I don’t know the name.”
Brody advanced on the bed, looming over her. “I think Robbie has Jo.”
The old woman’s eyes widened and filled with tears. “Why would he care about her?”
“Because Smith believed she was his daughter.”
Ellie laid her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Time to stop hiding, Momma. Tell what you know.”
Candace’s pained gaze shifted to her daughter. Her fingers held a white-knuckle grip on the sheets. “You will hate me, Ellie.”
Ellie sat in the chair by the bed so she could be eye level with her mother. “I won’t hate you, Mom. But you must talk. Is it that Smith is Jo’s real daddy?”
Candy closed her eyes. “No. It’s not that.”
“What is it, Momma?”
“When I met Smith I was seventeen. I thought he was the best man in the world. He listened to me. Told me I was beautiful. We started sneaking around.”
“You were dating Daddy then?”
“Yes. I thought I loved Cody until I met Smith. Smith made me see your daddy as small town and simple.”
Ellie frowned but didn’t say anything.
“I got in Smith’s truck and thought I was headed to a great adventure.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t a great adventure but a horror show.”
“What happened?” Brody said.
“We drove for a half hour outside of Austin toward the hill country. Lots of twists and turns. He took me to a field of bluebonnets. Smith kept saying how much he loved bluebonnets.” Her chin trembled. “But to this day I can see the road signs as clear as day in my head. What he had to show me made me sick.”
“What was it?”
“A woman. He’d tied her up and had her lying in a hole in the ground. He told me he had always dreamed of burying a woman alive. He’d wanted to share that dream with me because he loved me.” She squeezed her eyes closed, as if trying to block the memory.
“What next?” Brody said.
Ellie squeezed her mother’s hand tighter. “Mom, please tell.”
“I was upset. I threw up right there. The girl was squirming and trying to scream. There was such terror in her eyes.” She shook her head. “Smith just laughed at her and me. He picked up a shovel and tossed dirt on her.”
“Did he bury her?” Brody asked.
Candy shook her head. “God help me, I don’t know. I ran to the truck and started the engine. I backed out of there. Smith was yelling and chasing after me. I drove as fast as I could. Ditched the car in town and ran to your daddy’s house. He could see that I was scared, and he took me in his arms right away. I’d been so hateful to him for weeks but he took me in his arms and told me everything would be all right. I was sorry for all the bad thoughts I’d had for him.”
“You married Granger soon after?”
She moistened her dried lips. “Days later.”
“You were pregnant with Jo when you married Daddy,” Ellie said.
“Yes.” Candy looked at Ellie. “I told your daddy the truth about the baby. I never lied to him. But he said he’d marry me anyway. I saw what a good man I had in him. I’d been such a fool. We swore we’d never speak to Jo about her real daddy.”
“What about the girl in the grave?” Brody said.
“Cody said we had to go back and see. He gathered some of his buddies from the football team and we all rode out there that night. We found the hole in the ground but no girl. I prayed she got away.” She closed her eyes. “I can still see her.”
Brody thought about the unidentified woman who’d been found with the others. She’d been buried thirty plus years. “Did you know the name of the woman in the ground?”
“Delores Jones. She lived in town. Worked in a bar.”
Delores. Mentioned in the letter. “And Smith?”
“I never saw him again. Until the pageant when Jo was twelve. When I saw him, I just about threw up. I ran from the room but when I came back, he was gone.”
“Where was the land Smith took you to all those years ago?”
She gave him the directions, not missing a beat. “I tried to forget where that terrible place was but I couldn’t forget.”
“Your memory might save Jo.”
Jo wasn’t sure how long she lay on the dry ground but she guessed it had to be hours. Her skin had grown cold and she’d begun to shiver. She’d tugged so much at her manacle, she’d rubbed the skin around her ankle raw to the point of bleeding.
In the distance she heard the rumble of a truck engine before the glow of headlights appeared. She scrambled to her feet, jerked at the chain, wincing as the metal rubbed the raw skin of her ankle.
The truck ambled down the road as if the driver had all the time in the world. When the vehicle came to a halt in front of her she flinched as her eyes adjusted to the bright lights, which fully lighted up the land around her.
With the engine still running, the driver got out of the truck. She couldn’t see his silhouetted face. She shielded her eye
s, trying to see past the light.
“Tim?” she said.
He stepped forward into the light. “Hello again, Jo.”
She straightened her shoulders, doing her best to look composed. Composed. She was chained to a tree. In the middle of Texas with a madman, and still she clung to control. “Tim, why are you doing this? Help me to understand.”
Tim tossed a set of keys at Jo. “Unlock the manacle.”
She eyed the keys lying in the dirt inches from her fingertips and then at the grave now lit up by the headlights. Her heart slammed against her ribs. “So you can drag me to the grave? No, Tim, I’m not going to help you.”
A half smile tugged at the edges of his mouth as if he were expecting—even welcoming—a fight. “We can do this easy or hard. But either way that manacle is going to be unlocked.”
She scooped up the keys from the dirt and hurled them into the dark woods. “Then it’s going to be hard. I won’t help you.”
He closed the gap between them, grabbing her throat with his hand and slamming her body against the hard ground. Air whooshed from her lungs and her head hit against a hard root. He squeezed so hard she could only blink as her hands came up to his fingers and tried to pry them loose. She coughed and sputtered to catch her breath, but could not break his grip.
He squeezed harder, laughing as her eyes bulged. “I used to tell Harvey that he was a fool to love you. I told him I was the best child he could ever have. But that never stopped him from talking all the time about his perfect little girl. Jo earned straight A’s. Jo was accepted into college. Jo is earning her master’s.”
Jo’s gaze dimmed and she could feel herself losing consciousness.
“I told him to go see you, but he was afraid. Kept saying he didn’t do well with women. Said it was a matter of time before he turned on you. But he wanted more than anything to be with you.”
She struggled to breathe.
“Well, now I have a chance to give Harvey what he always wanted. Eternity with his little Jo. And then he’ll finally know that I was the best child.”