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“Next time, you’ll be talking to a prosecutor. And Hal Brennan, when he hears what we’ve got on you, is gonna have to beg for you not to get life.” Quin rose from the table.
McCrae added, “Your troubles are just starting. You shouldn’t have messed with Ellie O’Brien today, either.”
“Couldn’t help myself... that red hair,” he said, wiggling his tongue suggestively.
“You knew she’d turn you in. You’re too smart to let that happen without a reason, and from what I know of you, you’d throw your whole family under the bus to save your own skin, so why?”
“I think you have a real sorry opinion of me, and it is inaccurate.”
“Why?” he pressed.
He spread his hands. “The devil made me do it,” he said with a cold chuckle as the guard came to the door to escort Crassley back to his cell.
Once outside the county courthouse, Quin asked, “What do you think?”
“One of the Crassleys did it,” he said with certainty.
“But?” Quin asked, hearing something more unspoken than said.
“Holding sex with a minor over Penske isn’t what they had on him. They don’t consider that all that bad, nor do they pay a lot of attention to Nia. It’s something else.”
Quin looked at him. “What?” he asked.
“ ‘The devil made me do it’? Delta just mentioned that’s what Tanner said as an excuse for bad behavior.”
“A lot of people do.”
McCrae nodded. He didn’t know quite why the phrase nudged at him so much. He felt like it was just outside his grasp, lingering in some forgotten whorl of his brain. Something to do with high school? The Crassleys? Tanner?
“I’m talking to the union about Hurston,” Quin said suddenly. “Sick of him in my face.”
“Does that mean I can come in to work tomorrow?”
“Already told Mayor Kathy to butt out, nicely. She’s under the mistaken impression that Hurston solved my daughter’s case and should be allowed to look at Tanner’s. She wants Stahd Senior to stop threatening to sue everyone and anyone. She thinks the stall on the case makes her look bad.”
“Stall? It hasn’t been a week yet,” McCrae declared.
“She watches too much television,” he snapped as they headed to their vehicles.
* * *
When Delta finally sneaked away from her parents’ house and beeped her remote to open her car doors, it was close to 8:00. She drove away, glancing in her rearview. She’d thought she’d seen the black SUV again but wasn’t sure. Now she headed west toward the Forsythe property. It was still light. Wouldn’t get dark till nearly 9:00 at this time of year.
She was going to drive over the bridge that spanned the tapering end of Grimm’s Pond, right past where Zora and Brian’s car had gone over. As she approached that area, she slowed, looking to her left to see the crime-scene tape, the sheared bark of trees, trampled grasses, and disturbed gravel. To her shock, the black vehicle was suddenly in her rearview. The driver stomped on the brakes as Delta hit the gas, her Audi jumping forward as if eager to race. She tore down the road, zooming past the drive to Amanda’s and heading farther west twenty miles into the Coast Range before she caught the turnoff that would take her back to Highway 26 to circle back to West Knoll. Hands shaking, she dug through her purse for her phone. Of course, it wasn’t at hand. Of course, it wasn’t.
Finally, her hand closed over it. She pulled it out and called McCrae but got his voice mail. “I saw the black SUV! It was following me. I just drove—”
Beep-beep-beep. And the phone went dead. Dropped signal.
“Aargh!” she yelled. And then she laughed a bit hysterically. She was safe, at least for the moment. No black SUV in sight.
* * *
Ellie stood on her brakes at the same time the menacing SUV did. She nearly ran into the back of it, while it nearly ran into the back of Delta’s Audi. But then Delta sped away from it so fast Ellie wondered if she knew who was driving it. Was this some game of cat and mouse?
The Tahoe didn’t follow. Ahead of her, it made a three-point turn and started heading back the way it had come. Ellie stayed frozen in her car. Should she dash off too? Save her skin? Call the police or, more accurately, McCrae?
She stayed where she was, her eyes following the big vehicle as it came her way. The driver looked over as they came even.
