Leave No Stone Unturned (A Lexie Starr Mystery, Book 1) (26 page)

I reached into my purse and pulled out the stack of photos reprinted from the negatives
we'd stolen from Jake's house. "Are these your photos, Clay?"

He looked through them briefly and replied affirmatively.

"Is this elderly couple your grandparents? Your mother's parents?"

"No, my grandparents died before I was born. This is the couple that lives next door
to Jake—the Wilsons. Real nice folks," Clay said. "I took this photo of them."

"How about this golden retriever?"

"Yeah, that's Buddy, he was mine. He was a great dog, but he's gone now."

At least Wanda had gotten one thing right. It saddened me that with a disturbed mind
like hers, she could identify her son's old dog, but not recognize her own parents.

"Who took this photo of you with the moose at the hunting cabin? Jake? Obviously somebody
was with you," I said.

"No," Clay said. He sighed and looked down at his tightly clenched hands resting on
his lap. "Actually I took the photo myself. I used the self-timer and set the camera
on the hood of my car. The Mustang convertible was still mine at the time."

"You went moose hunting alone?"

"Yeah," he said. Clay sighed again and let his head drop almost to his chest as he
admitted having illegally killed the moose. "You don't take a crowd with you when
you are poaching a protected species. And you don't offer it up as an alibi either.
I lied to the investigators and told them I was studying at the library that day.
I realize now that both were stupid decisions on my part. Well, okay—really, really
stupid decisions."

Clay glanced over at Detective Glick in anticipation, as if expecting Ron to pull
over to the side of the road and slap the cuffs on him. The detective shook his head
in disgust, but did not speak. I fell silent myself as we headed up an incline at
the base of the mountains.

Soon we began our journey into the forest. Clay gave directions to Detective Glick
as we rode along. We'd just passed the sheer rock ledge Clay had mentioned on the
phone. The men had been discussing a plan of action, but now as we drew nearer our
destination, the air in the car seemed to fill with tension.

Silence prevailed, as we were each absorbed in our own thoughts.

"Over there is the footbridge," Clay said in a near whisper. We were traveling along
a narrow gravel road that was predominantly potholes filled with rainwater. Clay pointed
straight ahead. "At the next fork in the road we will need to bear to the right. There's
a place to pull off the road about a half mile past that. It would be a good place
to park the cars. We can walk through the woods from there and come up on the north
side of the cabin. That's where we'll be the least visible. And if I know Jake, he'll
come out shooting. He's an easily provoked, nervous, and excitable type of guy."

Chapter 27

"Ouch!" I whispered before stifling another scream. I could feel stinging nettles
on every square inch of my calves. They were pricking me right through my heavy denim
jeans.

I'd already stepped into some kind of gopher hole and twisted an ankle and been slapped
twice across the face with the backlash of tree limbs. However, the last thing I was
going to do was whine and complain about my little aches and pains after being so
insistent about not being left behind in the car. I looked up ahead and saw Harriet
leading the pack, unconcerned about anything but getting to the cabin as fast as possible.
Times a'wasting, I'm sure she was thinking. As I watched Harriet, she reached up,
and in one swift motion, severed a dangling limb in two with her knife. As the limb
fell to the ground in front of her she leapt over it like a world-class hurdler.

I glanced over at Stone as he slapped at something on his shoulder. It made me think
there must be some creepy-crawly thing on me too, so I gave myself a stinging smack
on the forearm where I'd recently felt an odd twinge. I suddenly remembered why I'd
never been interested in joining a Girl Scout troop. My idea of "roughing it" was
when room service was late. Of course, those green uniforms that made any trendy young
schoolgirl look like a geek might have figured into my decision too.

"Doing okay?" Stone asked quietly.

"Great. And you?"

"Fine. I can't keep up with Harriet, but then no one else can either. She's a pistol,
isn't she?" Stone grinned as he looked up ahead at the sprightly old lady, who was
charging through the woods like a rabbit being pursued by a fox. He held out his hand
to help me over a fallen tree trunk, ground out a glowing cigarette butt with the
heel of his hiking boot, and said, "We'll be fortunate if she doesn't start a forest
fire."

I was yanking a tick out from where it had embedded itself in my wrist when we came
upon the clearing and the hunting cabin. Stone pulled me over toward him and pointed
silently to Jake's white Mustang convertible, parked in front of the log dwelling.
Stone made a thumbs-up gesture. This was what we'd hoped to find when we arrived at
our destination.

Clay had led us to the clearing and then handed the reins of responsibility over to
Detective Glick. Ron was waving to us to follow him, and we were all walking as stealthily
as possible to avoid stepping on branches and snapping limbs with our boots. For a
moment I thought Ron might make us all drop and do the belly crawl like a platoon
of Navy Seals. I was willing to do whatever it took to stay safe and rescue my daughter.

We were less than fifteen feet from the rock wall running alongside the water well
when the front door of the cabin opened. Stone picked me up and threw me to the ground
behind the rock wall as the whir of a bullet whistled right above our heads.

"Who's out there?" I heard Jake's voice yell out.

Nobody responded. We were all scrambling for position behind the rock wall. A second
bullet ricocheted off the front of the old water well. Glick nodded to Clay, prodding
him to strike up a conversation with Jake as a distraction.

"Stop shooting, Jake," Clay shouted. "It's me, Clay."

"What are you doing here?" We could hear Jake's voice, but we couldn't see him. The
front door with the eagle etched into it was propped open with the toe of Jake's boot,
and he was yelling from inside the cabin.

"I'm your friend, remember? I came to see you, Jake. What's going on?"

"You're not my friend, Clay. If you were my friend you wouldn't have left and moved
away."

"I had to, Jake, you know that. I had to get away from my memories of Eliza. I remarried,
thinking I could block out memories of the past, but even that hasn't helped. You
surely understand it wasn't that I was trying to distance myself from you."

I shivered, despite the warmth of my sweatshirt. I had wondered why Clay had remarried
so soon after the vicious murder of his first wife. Now I understood he was trying
to escape the pain of losing her; much like Stone tried to escape the pain of losing
Diana by moving from the home they'd shared for many years. It might explain Clay's
reaction to Wendy's pregnancy too. He would have viewed it as a reminder of the child
he'd lost when Eliza was killed. I listened as Clay continued trying to calm Jake.

"But it doesn't mean you and I aren't still friends. You knew when you first met me
that I was straight."

"I didn't want you in that way, Clay," Jake said in an indignant tone. "I already
have a partner in Wade. I just wanted you as a friend. I wanted us to stay close—as
buddies."

"We are still close. We talk on the phone nearly every day, don't we? I care about
you, Jake. I really do."

"So how come the people I care about all end up leaving me? I'm tired of it. My mother
left me, and my father hated me. He put me down constantly until he finally left me.
Uncle Bill didn't mean to leave me, but he left me all the same. And then you became
my best friend and left me too."

"Is that why you abducted Wendy from the airport, Jake? Was it to spite me?"

I held my breath as I waited for Jake to respond. After a long silence, Clay spoke
again.

"I know you've got Wendy with you, Jake. Why don't you let her go, so you and I can
talk? She has nothing to do with this misunderstanding between you and me."

"We can talk just fine with her right here!" There was a loud shuffling noise, and
then Jake stepped out onto the front porch with Wendy in front of him. He was using
her as a human shield. Her feet were bound together with rope, and her hands were
tied behind her back. She looked terrified but unharmed. I breathed a huge sigh of
relief. I knew she'd be hurt by Clay's remarks implying that his marriage to her had
been a mistake, and I was positive an annulment was in Wendy's future, if she survived
this current ordeal. But I couldn't worry about the emotional aspect of this situation
now; only the physical aspect mattered at the moment. Getting her out of this unharmed
was my first priority. The future would work itself out one way or the other, and
I felt Wendy would be better off in the long run if the marriage was annulled. Clay
had too many ghosts he needed to exorcise before he settled down with another wife
and family.

"What are you planning on doing with her, Jake?" Clay asked.

"I don't know, yet."

"Were you planning to kill her like you killed Eliza?"

This last question Clay threw out convinced me I needed to take defensive action.
Jake was obviously deranged and unpredictable. I had noticed that while Jake was listening
to Clay and responding to his questions, he wasn't paying much attention to anything
else. I pulled away from Stone and did a quasi duck-waddle over to Harriet, crouched
down behind the wall. As if she instinctively knew my intentions, she handed me her
knife and said, "Watch yer back, sweetie."

Any Navy Seal would have been proud of the belly crawl I executed to move from the
rock wall to the north side of the cabin. I felt like an overgrown crab trying to
make its way back to water. Maybe my earlier claim that I was turning into a crab
had been prophetic.

As I had edged away from the wall I'd heard Stone start to call out to me and then
stop abruptly. I knew he'd been afraid of drawing attention to me. In his heart he
had to know the bond between a mother and daughter was too strong to allow me to listen
to reason. He seemed to realize his efforts would be better spent in trying to protect
me than in trying to dissuade me.

As I inched along the side of the building with my back flush up against the logs,
I heard Clay shout out. I could tell he was choking back tears as he spoke. "Why'd
you do it, Jake? You didn't even know me then. So, why did you have to kill Eliza?"

I was now peering around the edge of the building, trying to think of a way to distract
Jake. He was swinging the gun around wildly. Up closer now, I could tell he was definitely
under the influence of drugs. His eyes were red-rimmed and glassy. His movements were
jerky, and his reactions were slow and uncoordinated. I was afraid the gun would accidentally
discharge from his careless handling of it.

"I didn't kill Eliza!" he said, swinging the gun from side to side.

"Yes, you did! Admit it, Jake!"

"I didn't kill her, Clay. I swear I didn't! He did—" Jake said, pointing at the door
with his gun, as it swung open again and a stout, white-haired man walked out on the
porch and ducked behind Jake and Wendy. His complexion was so pale that he'd have
looked like an albino if not for his light green eyes. "I just brought Eliza to him
when he asked me to. It was Uncle Ho—"

"Dad!" Clay hollered in disbelief.

"—mer. Uncle Homer killed her, not me."

"Dad, what are you doing here?" Clay asked. His voice had risen several octaves in
his hysteria. "Jake, what are you doing with my father? What's going on here?"

"I met him outside a crack house in downtown Boston one night. Homer's been like a
father to me ever since. When I lost my uncle Bill, I felt like I was alone in the
world. But then I met Homer. I'd do anything for him now. He may have been your father
at one time, Clay, but now he's mine. He's kind of adopted me as a foster son. He
told me you disowned him as your father, and that you'd pay dearly for doing that.
He even told me I could call him 'Uncle Homer' and—"