Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe (love story books to read txt) 📕

I’d known, his body would be somewhere you would never find, rotting away in the sun.” His words sounded honest and cold, a statement of fact coming from a man whose family owned tens of thousands of acres of land.

“Oh, dear,” Carole said, quick to take a seat on an armchair. Her appearance of staunch composure was starting to crack. She seemed weak at the knees all of a sudden, feeling for the armrest and holding on to it with white knuckles.

Blanche tugged at her brother’s arm, pulling him away from Kay in a protective gesture. Her blue eyes searched Kay’s with terror in them. Her hands, gripping Bill’s arm tightly, trembled a little.

“I’m going to let that pass and write it off as the words of a grieving father,” Kay said. “But that doesn’t change a thing. We are taking you in. You’re being charged with other crimes, the rape of Shelley Harrelson among them.”

That phrase chilled the air instantly. Blanche let go of her brother’s arm and stepped back. She gazed at him not with disgust or disappointment, but with sadness and pity, with empathy. Bill lowered his eyes, ashamed, then raised them and looked at his sister apologetically.

Kay noticed the interactions in disbelief. The dynamic between the two siblings was completely off, adding to the list of things that raised questions about the Caldwell family. She realized the worst thing she could do was drag Bill out of there and interrogate him at the precinct, where he’d be calm and in control again, hiding behind his overpriced attorney. No… If she wanted to get to the bottom of whatever was happening in that family she needed to stay put, observe, and occasionally ask the right questions to keep stoking the fire to unravel the mysteries.

Blanche reached out for Bill’s arm again, as if she’d forgiven him, but her eyes searched Kay’s. “I can prove to you my brother had nothing to do with his daughter’s death.”

Kay frowned. “Prove? How?”

“Alyssa, well, the girl we all knew as Alyssa came to me, when she found the second photo in her locket.”

“There was a second photo in the damn thing?” Bill reacted. “Whose?”

“Shelley Harrelson’s,” Blanche replied, lowering her voice to barely a whisper, keeping her eyes fixed on her brother’s face.

“You knew?” Bill asked, turning his entire attention toward her as if the whole world around them had vanished.

Blanche paused for a beat, then wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I saw you that night, on the tarmac. I’d come to say goodbye, thinking you’d had enough of this charade, fearing you were going to leave us forever.” She shook her head slowly, lowering her gaze. “I didn’t know who the second girl was. I heard about the kidnapping later, but, um, I couldn’t say anything. Not to you, not to anyone.” She looked at Bill a certain way, like she’d done before, and his features settled, as if his sister’s gaze had washed away the turmoil inside him.

What was going on between those two? What kind of power did Blanche have over her brother? Everything was off about their interactions, and yet Kay couldn’t quite put her finger on it, like she couldn’t about what was off about the family portrait. And yet her gut kept prodding her to stare at that photo every chance she got.

Blanche broke eye contact regretfully, and turned to Kay again, shooting Elliot a glance in passing. “She came to me looking for answers, about the woman in the locket, about her past. I discouraged her curiosity as much as I could, but she was determined to find out.”

Bill’s frown reappeared, digging trenches at the root of his nose. “I don’t believe you. She never said anything to me. She was a happy child, no worries in this world.”

“She was a smart girl who had a mind of her own,” Blanche replied. “Last time she spoke to me, a couple of days before she died, she said she was going to speak with the detective who had investigated Rose’s disappearance.”

“How did she know about Rose’s disappearance?” Kay asked.

“She found out who Shelley was, starting from that photo in her locket. Someone on the staff must’ve told her. I think she showed the photo to everyone, asking them if they knew who the woman was. Then she looked her up on the internet and found the articles about Rose.”

Another wave of rage surged over Bill. “You’re lying, to protect your good-for-nothing bastard,” he shouted, then pushed her away. She faltered, but managed to regain her balance, although the physical violence seemed to have hurt her more than his words. Elliot approached with one quick step and flanked Bill on the other side, ready to intervene.

Bill’s eyes drilled into Dylan, who watched everything from a distance, his expression impenetrable. Was it because he was the new heir, and he didn’t care about the static, knowing he’d won the sickening game Carole had devised? Being called all sorts of names in front of everyone else had to have left its mark on the young man, and still, he didn’t seem to care. Maybe it had been like that throughout his entire existence. Maybe he’d gotten used to taking whatever Bill was dishing, the reason why the thirty-one-year-old hadn’t revolted against Bill’s abuse another mystery. He withstood his uncle’s fiery gaze with calm and a little contempt fluttering at the corners of his mouth.

Without any warning, Bill pulled out a gun and aimed at his nephew. The young man’s expression shifted from calm to stunned shock, his eyes rounded and his mouth agape, yet no words came out. Before Bill could squeeze the trigger, Elliot tackled him, but he still fired. The bullet hit Dylan’s neck as Blanche screamed. The young man fell to the ground, his hand pressing spasmodically on his bleeding neck, a look of bewilderment in his eyes.

“You shot me, you sick son of a bitch,” Dylan groaned.

Elliot had taken Bill’s weapon