Devils Among Us (Devin Dushane Series Book 1) (25 page)

The report on Michael Leary’s interview had just stated that
the Gibson family had verified his whereabouts at the high school. Devin had to
dig through pages of file notes to discover that it was actually the Gibson’s’
niece, Eloise Faulkner, who had claimed to see Michael’s car all night. Eloise,
who had been Michael’s teammate on the Science Bowl team.

Devin’s brain was working faster than her hands as she
flipped the pages of the photo album, looking for the best shots of the parking
lot. It took the use of a magnifying glass, but she found what she was looking
for. Parked in plain view as if screaming, ‘Here I am!’ Wanting to be as
confident as possible, Devin took the few digits from the license plate she
could read and plugged them into her laptop with the make model to compare
registrations for 1964. When the list of possible matches came back, Devin’s
adrenaline rush spiked.

“Gotcha.”

Hitting print, she gathered the file containing the alibi
information, the photo album, and the freshly printed list. She just needed to
inform the team. Flipping open her phone, Devin dialed the number to the
sheriff’s office, which she now knew by heart. Her favorite confidante answered
on the first ring.

“Hey, it’s Devin. You are not going to believe what I have
stumbled into this morning. Michael Leary’s alibi was faked.” She paused for
only a half second for the reaction. “Yes, I’m sure, and that’s not all I’m on
to.”

It took less than two minutes to run down what she had found
and devise their course of action.

“All right give me directions out to the Gibson farm. I only
know vaguely how to get there, and I want to go make sure I’m absolutely
correct about the view.” She scribbled the directions down in her terrible
scrawl, hoping she would be able to read it later. “I’ll go there first, so
I’ll be in the office in about an hour.”

Slipping the phone in her front pocket, Devin scooped the
evidence and headed for the hall, where she paused to holster her Glock against
her back. She glanced twice at the second clip in the drawer and then picked it
up and slid it into her back pocket. Greg had always wanted her to carry an
extra clip. She told him she wouldn’t need a second clip if she got the perp
with her first shot, but she brought it to honor Greg’s wishes.

Once in the car Devin read over her directions and realized
she couldn’t read them all that clearly. She pulled up to Henry’s carport and
killed the engine. He was still resting in his lawn chair, just where she had
left him.

“Henry, on the way to the Gibson farm, do I take a left
before or after the old Hampton Country Store?” Directions around Fenton were
never given in blocks or street numbers, but by landmarks or property owners.

“You take the left after the store. The road will fork, and
the left one goes straight up the hill to the ridge.” Henry leaned up in his
chair. “Why on earth are you headed up there? That place has been deserted for
twenty years.”

“I know. I just want to check out the view of the school so
I can confirm something.” The engine rumbled back to life, and she had to shout
over it. “Thanks for clarifying my directions!”

With a salute, Devin backed down the driveway. Henry tried
to yell after her, but she either couldn’t hear or pretended not to.

Driving on gravel roads was not particularly Devin’s
favorite thing. For one thing, it required a completely different style of driving,
and it was easy to get loose and lose control if you didn’t know what you were
doing. More importantly, it got the car very dirty. If she had not been on the
brink of breaking this whole case wide open, she would have been in a very foul
mood. Her phone rang.

“Talk fast I only have one bar.”

“Where are you?”

“On my way to the Gibson farm.” She started explaining the
whats and whys of her field trip, but he interrupted.

“You’re breaking up. Listen to me…need…back here…found…Leary.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Now
you’re
breaking up,
but I think you said you found Michael Leary. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“No.
Now
. The Family changed…name…not who you...”

Devin glanced at the screen of her phone she had no signal.
She would take a quick peek from the top of the hill and then fly back down
into service range. Curiosity was eating at her to find out more about Leary. Why
had he changed his name and essentially gone into hiding?

The buzzing sensation of her intuition was so pronounced
when Devin stepped out of the car that she felt as if someone would be cracked
with the jolt of a taser if they tried to touch her. As she stepped around the dilapidated
house to face the school, she barely needed her eyes to see. The current of
electricity wove the images together in her mind as she pieced together the
last of the puzzle. A water tower had been built at the base of the hill,
completely blocking any view of the school or parking lot. It had not been
there in 1964 of course, but he had known this morning when he gave her
directions that her trip up here would be in vain.

Instinctively Devin pulled her gun, but what next? Playing
cat and mouse on his turf was hardly optimal and there were only seconds to
decide. Working her thumb frantically over the buttons of her phone, she sent
up a small prayer that it would work if she could do it fast enough.

A cold, dead voice from her left cut her short. “You won’t
get any service up here.”

Lifting her eyes to the grass in front of her, Devin’s jaw
tightened, but she didn’t turn to look at him. “Hello, Adam.”

“Just in case, why don’t you go ahead and toss that phone
out here?” He walked in a wide arc until he was standing ten feet in front of
her, with his back to the water tower a .45 revolver aimed steadily at her head.
Devin debated her options for a second and then tossed the phone at his feet.

“Your gun, too, Devin.”

Her right hand twitched, feeling the comfortable weight of
her Glock, every fiber of her being was saying
don’t give up the gun.
The reckless part of her cop brain wanted to take the shot. The sensible side
won out. Glancing down and sighing, Devin slowly raised her gun to the side and
equally slowly slid the clip out, throwing it to her left about twenty feet
away. Keeping her movements methodical, she slid the action back on the top of
the gun, ejecting the bullet from the chamber, and threw the now empty gun five
feet to her right.

“That’s an interesting gun choice, a little old school don’t
you think?” she asked.

His tone remained blank, but his expression twisted into
smug satisfaction. “Do you like it? I got it from Henry’s when I set his house
on fire. I thought it would be a nice touch if I ended up having to shoot you.
Then I could always shoot Henry, too, and set it up as a murder/suicide. That would
cement it in everyone’s minds that he killed Laney, too—wrap up everything
nicely.” Adam shrugged, thinking about what could have been. “It could have
been that simple, but you had to keep pushing, and now everything has
unraveled. All the secrets I’ve worked so hard to keep protected from a cruel
world are going to be laid bare because of you.”

Devin lifted her face into the sunshine. “Because of me? I
don’t think so. I’m not the reason for the secrets in the first place.” The
breeze picked up, and she shifted her weight onto her right foot, shimmying an
inch in that direction. “Of course you were raised on secrets, weren’t you?
When did your father change his name? As soon as he left Fenton? Or did that
come later?”

Adam didn’t answer, but his mouth was drawn into a tight
white line.

If he was going to stonewall, she would keep talking until
he gave some sort of response. “
Leary
to
Lentz
really isn’t all
that creative. I mean, two L names that are five letters long? I’m curious—did
he change it to hide from your mother?” Devin shifted another two inches to the
right. “Really, I should say the woman who raised you, I can’t imagine Eloise
Faulkner was really your birth mother.”

The bullet sailed past her ear and shattered the wall of the
house behind her in an explosion of splinters.

Hello, Mommy complex.

“Shut your mouth, Devin! Mother took care of things.” Adam
was red and shaking as he struggled between control and rage. “I’m not supposed
to kill you yet, but it won’t bother me if have to.”

“I’m guessing it would bother Mommy, though, wouldn’t it?
She really wants me for herself.”

It was surprising how well the sound of the pistol cocking
carried on the breeze. “Mother would get over it. I got her a spare.”

Ice wrapped around Devin’s heart. Her confidence waivered
for a moment. Everything about him suggested he was telling the truth. Her
voice was rough with emotion when she finally spoke.

“Who?”

His grin sent the ice into her stomach. “Your favorite
little milkshake maker, Casey Bittner. That sweet little thing was so trusting
that she came right along with me.” His eyes were hard. “She’s also the
insurance to make sure you do what I ask. Your cooperation makes it easier on
Casey. Just remember that.”

Devin had to dig her toes into the ground to keep from
launching herself across the dusty yard at him right then. “How did you get
Casey and get here right behind me? I left just minutes after I called you for
directions.” Maybe he was bluffing, it was possible they didn’t have Casey yet.

“Most people don’t spend enough time in cemeteries to
discover all their secrets. For some reason, they trust the living more than
the dead. I just sent you the long way around.”

The cemetery had been Eloise’s sanctuary from the tortures
of high school. She would know all of its secrets.

“You know, the cemetery is actually how I put your
dysfunctional little family tree together,” Devin said. “When we first met, you
told me you originally came to Fenton doing a genealogy project in college, and
Eloise used to do tracings of tombstones, that’s used in family history work.”
She paused to take a breath and listened for any approaching cars, but heard no
cavalry approaching. “Putting the last piece together was a little tougher. I
suspected Eloise when I read the notes and found that she was actually the one who
verified Michael’s alibi. There was no way she could see where he’d parked in
the back of the school. Everything came together this morning when I saw the
picture of the car in the Summit parking lot. Turns out I just needed the right
set of pictures.”

Adam’s sneer distorted his normally serene face. He spat on
the ground in frustration. “You’re not brilliant, you know, just lucky and bull-headedly
persistent.”

Devin shifted her weight to the right again. Was that a
truck in the distance, or wishful thinking? “Why the big contradiction?” Devin
asked. “You do all this work with abused kids, getting them to open up to you
over frozen yogurt, when you’re murdering innocent girls that are no more then
children. How did you get that messed up?”

His mirthless laugh sounded like a bark on the empty
hillside. Adam jerked the pistol towards her right hand. “I guess we’re all
looking for own kind of
redemption,
aren’t we, Devin?”

Anger writhed through her like a live thing. Every muscle in
her body clenched to keep it contained, but her voice was a seething hiss.
“Don’t compare us—it isn’t even close to the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? That little girl was destroyed, and you extracted
a bloody vengeance that the legal system let you slide for. You’ve spent your
whole career in law enforcement trying to make amends.”

Devin lunged forward, but was met abruptly with his .45. “I
make amends for
her
! Because I couldn’t save her. I have no regrets for
those degenerates.”

“Tsk, tsk such a temper. You stay right where you are.” His
smile turned her stomach. “You see how I feel. My father was so distraught over
Laney Bennett.” He spat out the acidic burn of her name on his tongue. “Knowing
she was playing him for a fool, he went to the Summit that night and saw her
cavorting with all those men like the tramp she was, and he ended her the way a
piece of trash deserves. He wasn’t the kind of man that could live with blood
on his hands, though. He was so remorseful about what he’d done that he sank
into a depressed paranoia. Moving around and changing his name didn’t make a
difference. He could never escape what he’d done, so he took his own life to be
with his precious Laney.” Adam’s hand was trembling, and his icy eyes had
glazed over with tears. Devin was sure he couldn’t hear the approaching truck.
She needed to keep him emotional, but not volatile enough to get her shot in
the next few minutes.

Devin spoke up. “So Eloise figures since he off’d himself, she’d
get back at the world by killing random teenager girls? Makes tons of sense to
me.”

Adam’s face turned purple, jabbing the pistol in the air as
if he wished to stab her rather than shoot her with it. “
Shut up!
You
don’t know anything! He was a brilliant man and would have had a great life if
not for what that Bennett girl did to him. Mother had to protect him and his
memory. We couldn’t let everyone know what he had done.” He paused to wipe the
dripping sweat off his face on the sleeve of his shirt. It was a stark contrast
to the crisply pressed Adam she’d known. “The plan was perfect. It had fail
safes to cover every possible discovery. I was here to keep an eye on things. The
evidence had been purged. Those girls were an unfortunate consequence, but I
highly doubt they were innocent.” He shook his head in disgust. “You women
rarely are.”

The truck was just a mile out, Devin guessed, but her heart
sank. It wasn’t a diesel engine. It had a distinct classic sound. Henry’s
cherry red Chevrolet came to mind. She pressed her right arm against her side
and used her thumb to start working the spare clip out of her pocket. Just keep
him amped up.