Second Time's the Charm

Too late, she realized what Greg had just told her?Jon had denied owning the cups. He’d lied to the sheriff.

Sweating at the back of her neck, beneath hair that suddenly felt heavy, Lillie shut up.

Things weren’t always how they appeared. Bray, the second he’d come out, had looked like a perfectly normal newborn. Until he’d turned blue.

Kirk had seemed like the perfect husband.

“We’ve already searched his truck,” Greg said. “There weren’t any suction cups in it.”

“But, surely, the fact that he owns suction cups doesn’t make him guilty of anything. It’s ludicrous, Greg. I know this guy. He’s adamant about paying for everything himself. He wouldn’t steal anything from anybody.”

Greg’s foreboding silence made her stomach hurt.

“We’ll need to question you, too, Lil.” The sheriff’s tone was soft. Apologetic.

She felt sick. “You think I had something to do with this?”

“Absolutely not.” His tone left no doubt of his sincerity. “But you spent a lot of time with him. You might inadvertently know something.”

“I know he didn’t do it. And I can tell you for certain that I haven’t noticed anything at all unusual about him or his behavior. Jon’s a great guy.”

She sounded like a lovesick fool. Blindly standing behind Jon before she heard the evidence.

“There are mitigating factors. And sometimes there are things that don’t look suspicious until combined with other facts.”

“You said you needed access to his duplex. What do you need?” Did Jon want her to let them in?

If he didn’t, he looked guilty. And if he was guilty, she was not going to protect him.

“I have a warrant to search the place.”

“Now? I just put Abraham to bed.”

“We’ll be quiet.”

And if Abraham woke up, Lillie would take him to her place. Just until the sheriff was finished.

It shouldn’t take long.

Greg Richards and his deputy weren’t going to find anything.

* * *

“I HAVE FULLY cooperated with you, Sheriff,” Jon kept his tone neutral. Doing otherwise served no purpose.

“You lied about owning a pair of suction cups. I just got off the phone with Lillie. She told me where you kept them. Funny, when we searched your truck they weren’t there.”

“You can’t keep me based on a missing set of suction cups.” They obviously didn’t have much else on him—besides the fact that he was a convicted felon. Which was enough to make everybody believe he was guilty, but not enough to hold him on.

One of the few good things that came out of his time spent in juvenile detention was a thorough understanding of how the law worked.

Being a ward of the state had taught him not to rely on anyone else to help him. And Jon had had a lot of time to read during his years of incarceration. He knew his rights.

“You admit to having knowledge of how to use suction cups,” the sheriff repeated again. He had to hand it to the guy, he seemed to be made of patience. Jon was unfamiliar with the approach

.

But maybe that was the difference between being a punk kid the cops knew they could scare and an adult who could hold his own.