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“Whose?”
She turned her palms to the ceiling and wished her love was as blind as it had been a few seconds before. “I don’t know, really,” she said. “But you’ve had a fascination with that ranch for a long time.”
“Yeah. I liked old Isaac’s cars. That’s all. Come on, Mom, you don’t really think I had something to do with him up and leaving—or maybe even being killed?” Stephen asked, clearly astounded by her apparent lack of trust.
“Of course not. But I know you were there before.”
“For cryin’ out loud, Mom, I drove his old Chevy once. Yeah, I admit it, I did. But that’s all. It wasn’t like I was going to steal it or anything. I would never do anything like that.” His face was as pale as death. He swallowed so hard, his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I…mean, I didn’t—Oh, gosh, what’re you saying?”
“I know you didn’t hurt Mr. Wells, Stephen,” she said, instantly filled with remorse. “Oh, honey, I know you didn’t have anything to do with him disappearing, believe me.” She took hold of his arm, only to have it ripped from her overly protective fingers. “But...” He was staring at her with the eyes she’d loved from the minute he was born, and her heart hurt that she would have to broach such an awful topic. “Look, Stephen, I trust you and I love you, but I do want to know what you were doing there that day—the time you were caught by Mr. Wells. Then I want to know why you lied about it”
There. It was finally in the open.
Stormy eyes glowered from beneath dark brows. “I didn’t—”
“Uh-uh-uh,” she warned. “Come on, honey.”
His jaw worked, and he looked out the window, pretending in
terest in the white trail of a jet that was slicing across the sky. His broadening shoulders slumped as if from an invisible weight. “The day that I took the Chevy—it was just because I was bored. Well, and because I was dared, I guess.”
“Dared?”
“By Miles Dean, don’t you remember?”
How could she forget? Miles Dean, a couple of years older than Stephen, was a bad influence on her son. “I didn’t lie about it. Wells caught me, made me do some extra chores that he didn’t pay me for, and that was it. You know all this.”
“Go on.” Nerves strung tight, she walked to the stove and stirred the tangy sauce with a wooden spoon. Though it was warm in the kitchen, her fingers felt like ice. “What about the day that Isaac was last seen?” she asked and watched her son swallow hard, as if the lump in his throat was as big as a cantaloupe.
“Okay, okay. The next time, the last time I was there,” he said, nudging the edge of the carpet with his toe, “it was another dare, okay?”
“Oh, Stephen, no.”
“It’s true.” He shoved both fists into the front pockets of his baggy jeans. “Some of the kids knew I’d worked for the old guy and that I knew where he kept his keys to his vintage cars, since I’d spent a few days working for him, so…I…” He hesitated, as if he was afraid to say what was on his mind.
“So you what?” she prodded, surprised at his candor. This was a secret he’d managed to keep.
“Miles Dean, he dared me to swipe the keys.” Stephen bit his lower lip.
“Again? Why?”
“I—I don’t know.” He looked genuinely filled with regret. “Maybe he was gonna drive one of ‘em. He liked that old Buick, but anyway it was the day the old man split.”
Her throat was as dry as a desert wind, her pulse pounding out, no, no, no, in her ears. Don’t ask it, Tiffany. You don’t want to know. But she couldn’t stop the question from forming on her lips. “And did you?”
“Take the keys?” He shook his head vigorously. “Heck, no! I climbed the fence and was going to sneak into the barn, but I just had this…this weird feeling. I can’t really explain it. I looked over my shoulder at the house, and there was Mr. Wells, sittin’ in his rocker, a rifle on his lap, starin’ at me.” Stephen took in a deep breath. “It was weird, Mom. Really weird. So, so I—I took off.” He looked at the floor and blushed. “I was scared and I ran and Miles was really mad and…he threatened to beat the—er, tar out of me.”
“And that’s why you couldn’t admit that you were there?” she asked.
He nodded mutely, tears of mortification causing his eyes to glisten.
“Oh, honey—” She wanted to enfold him in her arms, but didn’t dare. The look he shot her warned her to keep her maternal instincts under wraps.
“And you never saw him again?”
Stephen shrugged. “I don’t think anybody did,” he whispered in a voice that was barely audible over the hum of the refrigerator, the bubble of the simmering sauce and the stutter of the woodpecker tapping at the oak tree outside the window.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
