I Think I Love You (39 page)

DO know when to bury the hatchet.

Regina had never attended such a large funeral. Lawrence Gilbert had known everyone in the state and practically everyone in the tristate. Throw in the horde of reporters, the contingency of D.C. politicians, plus the curiosity seekers, and Williams's Funeral Home was bursting at the beams.

Against her doctor's wishes, she attended the service out of respect for her mother. Her glasses had been broken beyond repair during her fall. The bandaged gash on her head was hidden under a hat. She still had woozy moments from the concussion but in general was just darn glad to be alive.

From her seat in the front row, she caught Mitchell's eye across the room. He was standing against the wall with Deputy Pete, Sheriff Shadowen, and assorted other men who had given up their seats. Mitchell's eyebrows rose slightly, as if to ask if she was okay, and she nodded. Since he'd rescued her from Lawrence, they'd maintained an arm's length distance, fraught with tension and an awkward bond. She was grateful beyond belief but concerned that he might think she expected something long-term to materialize out of their frenetic few days together. But even with the concussion she was coherent enough to realize this connection she sensed was born of proximity, adrenaline, and indebtedness.

After all, the man had almost lost his dog because of her. She couldn't remember the details—only snatches of sounds and sensations—but apparently Sam had pawed through the screen and either attacked Lawrence or disoriented him to the point of causing him to fall on the pitchfork. The pitchfork hadn't killed him, but the angry baby copperheads had been less charitable, When Mitchell and Cissy arrived, Sam was guarding her still figure, weakened from his own venomous encounter.

Mitchell, too, had heard about the Kirby death on the radio. Another hunting "incident" seemed too coincidental to him, too. He'd asked Cissy if she remembered seeing anyone around the day the girls had been shot at in the woods. Cissy wasn't aware of the accident but recalled that Lawrence had visited that day. Mitchell's suspicions about Lawrence's involvement and Regina's impending danger grew when neither she nor Lawrence answered their cell phones.

Rather than waiting for an ambulance, Mitchell had bundled her and Sam into the van and torn a new path to the county hospital. She remembered some of the ride—or thought she did. Cissy had ridden in the back sobbing that everything was her fault.

Regina glanced sideways at her mother now, flanked by John and a pale but recovered Justine. Cissy was dry-eyed and rigid, devastated by her brother's betrayal. But at a time when she might have succumbed to depression, she had instead exhibited her old spunk and had been Regina's rock in the aftermath of the attack. Cissy declared she would attend Lawrence's funeral to honor the brother who had raised her, not the man who had committed such heinous acts. When Regina gave her statement to the sheriff, she reported that Lawrence had lost his grip on reality at the end. It was the only solace to her soul—that even he hadn't been able to rationally comprehend what he was about to do. She wished that she'd been able to ask him more questions, to fill in more blanks.

The organist began to play and everyone zoned in on the closed rosewood casket surrounded by a fortune in flowers. Uncle Lawrence was going out in style. The singing was lovely and mournful, and the service was conducted by a long-winded Baptist minister who seemed to realize he might never again have such a large captive audience and was determined to capitalize. He thumped and jumped until people began to shift in their seats. When the air-conditioning conked out, Tate Williams cued the singers for a farewell verse and everyone filed outside into the one hundred-plus temperature that had descended upon Monroeville.

Regina rode to the graveyard in the limousine with her sisters and Cissy and John. The caravan of vehicles behind them stretched for miles. She wondered if Mitchell was somewhere in the soup and if she should have ridden with him instead. On the other hand, there was no reason to implicate him even further into her family's misery—maybe he'd escaped to go fishing. Or to put a stick in his eye.

They all crept along at a respectable fifteen miles an hour—she supposed it couldn't appear as if they were in too big of a hurry to get Lawrence into the ground. At the graveside, the family and a few whoop-de-do politicians were seated in wobbly chairs on uneven ground covered with a turf tarp. She hovered somewhere just above awareness, anesthetized by her uncle's profound treachery.

Things don't always turn out the way you want, but things generally turn out for the best.

Only because Mitchell had interceded. Otherwise, Lawrence would have gotten away with yet another murder.

The preacher, perhaps threatened by Tate Williams, sent Uncle Lawrence on his way with a mercifully short prayer. In deference to his military service, a bugler played taps. As mourners dropped away and returned to their cars, Regina was gripped with a powerful sense of loneliness, despite the fact that her sisters and parents stood steps away. She turned and scanned the retreating crowd, telling herself she wasn't looking for Mitchell but conceding a rush of gladness when she spotted him leaning against a tree down the hill.

He lifted his hand.

Busted.
As he approached, she attributed her lightheadedness to her head wound and the temperature.

He gestured to the tent "I didn't want to intrude on your grief, but I thought I'd stick around and offer you a ride back to your parents' house."

Self-preservation kicked in. "I should stay with my family, but you're welcome to come by the house for platefuls of potato salad and inane small talk with strangers."

He smiled. "Do you mind if I pick up Sam? I left him sleeping at the hotel, but I'm sure he's bored by now."

"I'll be glad to see him up and around."

She watched Mitchell walk away, thinking she might as well get used to the image—she suspected his hours in Monroeville were numbered. They both had very different lives to get back to.

True to local custom, friends and acquaintances congregated at the Doll for tables of coleslaw and deviled eggs and spiral-sliced ham. There was no tragedy in the South that could not be survived with enormous quantities of food. Regina accepted a plate of potluck and remained standing to discourage pointed questions. When people did get nosy, she simply made a vague comment and moved away. One hour passed, then two, and the crowd thinned considerably. Her neck hurt from turning her head every time footsteps sounded, and still Mitchell hadn't arrived. She was starting to worry that Sam might have had a relapse and was headed inside to phone the hotel when Pete found her, armed with two glasses of lemonade. She smiled her appreciation and suggested they sit in the shade of an oak tree in the side yard.

"Regina, I'm really sorry for the way things turned out," he said when they settled into chairs. "My dad feels terrible, too. He's decided to retire."

She touched his arm. "Pete, I don't blame you or your father. No one imagined that Uncle Lawrence was capable of those things."

He seemed grateful for her words and drank from his glass. He looked around. "I thought Cooke would be here to keep you company."

She opened her mouth to refute his company-keeping perceptions, then Sam's bark sounded from around the corner. The black dog loped into view, followed by his long-legged master.

Her heart lifted absurdly. To cover, she patted Sam's head and made soothing noises in his ear. "My hero," she murmured. He licked her hand and the bandage on his front leg.

"Sorry we're late," Mitchell said, and lowered himself to the grass next to her chair. He nodded to Pete. Pete nodded back.

"There's still plenty of food," she said.

"Good." Mitchell leaned back on his hands. "I've been talking to my brother David. You'll both be glad to know that Elmore Bracken will be released from prison tomorrow."

Pete grunted, and she shook her head. Twenty years of the man's life were gone. How could one human being do that to another?

"Regina?"

She looked up to see Mica approaching.

"Mom wants to talk to all of us upstairs. She said you, too, Mitchell, if you were here. And Pete."

Regina frowned. "What about?"

"She wouldn't say, just that I should come and get you."

She exchanged a curious glance with Mitchell, then shrugged. She pushed to her feet slowly, but still experienced a head rush. Pete and Mitchell both reached for her arm. She leaned into one man, then the other, until she regained her balance.

"I'm fine," she said, and glanced back and forth until they both released her. She walked through the maze of concrete animals, up the front steps, and into the house. At the top of the landing, Cissy, John, Justine, Mica, and Sheriff Shadowen made up a confused-looking crowd. When she, Mitchell, and Pete arrived, her mother seemed satisfied, if anxious. Regina expected some kind of speech or toast or something.

Cissy wrung her hands and inhaled. "Our lives have been turned upside down these past few days, and the time has come for me to own up to my part in the events of twenty years ago."

Alarm seeped through Regina's chest. She reached for the stair railing to steady herself and found Mitchell's arm instead. It would have to do.

"Cissy—" John began.

But she held up her hand. "Don't, John. I need to do this."

Her mother walked to the base of the attic stairs and climbed them slowly. No one made a sound as her shoes scraped the old runners. With a determined push, she opened the swollen door and disappeared inside. She emerged a few seconds later with a small object bound in a cloth. She carried it downstairs and carefully unwrapped it.

The Russian gold-and-sterling letter opener.

Regina gasped, taking no pleasure in the confirmation of her suspicions that Cissy had been hiding something.

Sheriff Shadowen wiped his hand down his face. "What's the meaning of this, Cissy?"

Her mother stood ramrod-straight but made a remorseful noise. "Twenty years ago, I suspected that John and Lyla Gilbert were seeing each other."

"But we weren't," John insisted. His hands shook.

"I know you weren't," she said. "Now. But Lyla flirted with you so outrageously, and she was sleeping with half the county." She shrugged. "We weren't married, and I just thought that you had fallen under her spell. I'd heard that she frequented Lovers' Lane, and one day I saw her car go past our shop. She had a man with her, and I knew where she was going. You had left earlier that morning, and I got it into my head that you were with her. So I followed. She was dead when I found her, and when I saw the letter opener, I thought you had taken it from the store and... had done something terrible. I was afraid for you, and for me and the girls, so I took it."

"You thought I killed her?" John asked.

"I didn't want to, but you were drinking, and business wasn't so good—I panicked. I couldn't let you go to prison."

She gave the sheriff an apologetic look. "Then when Elmore Bracken was convicted, I was so relieved. I kept the letter opener, though, out of guilt, I suppose."

Regina stepped forward. "So
you
put it up for auction?"

Her mother nodded. "I heard that Bracken was trying to get a new trial—I was spooked. And we needed the money. I'd heard it was easy to sell things privately on-line." She gave Regina a watery smile. "I couldn't believe it when my own daughter e-mailed back asking for details." She handed the letter opener to the sheriff. "I'm sorry, Hank. If I had come forward all those years ago, Elmore Bracken might not have been convicted."

"Maybe," he admitted. "Maybe not."

"But Lawrence's fingerprints might have been on the weapon."

"Uncle Lawrence said he set up Bracken," Regina said. "He probably made sure Bracken's fingerprints were on it."

"Still," Cissy said with a sigh. "What I did was wrong, and I'm ready to face the consequences."

"No, Sheriff," John said. "Cissy did what she did to protect me—I should be the one to take the blame."

"Hold on, both of you," the sheriff said with a chopping motion. "Give me some time to sort all this out." Then he looked at Mitchell. "If Cissy agreed to take a polygraph, do you think the DA's office in Charlotte might ignore a tampering-with-evidence charge? In light of what this family has gone through and the fact that the Metcalfs' testimony was crucial to breaking the case?"

Mitchell hesitated, then nodded. "DAs have been known to make deals that are beneficial to everyone. I'll see if my brother can pull in a favor."

On the heels of Regina's relief was the knowledge that she owed Mitchell yet again. As her family talked among themselves, she quietly descended the stairs and escaped to the kitchen. To her chagrin, he followed her.

"I need to talk to you," he said to her back.

"Thank you for helping my mother." She looked down at the counter. "Seems like I'm always saying thank you."

"Don't mention it."

She turned. "I mean it, Mitchell. I'll never be able to repay you for everything you've done."

"Sure you will." He angled his head. "How about one of those smiles?"

It was involuntary, but it seemed to suffice.

He winked. "Consider yourself paid in full." Then he sobered. "Listen, Regina... I'm leaving tomorrow."

She blinked but fought to retain her smile. "Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, after I finish tagging everything in the shop in the morning, I'll be heading to a job in Orlando." He shrugged—no big deal.

And why shouldn't he leave? Hadn't he gone above and beyond the call of duty here? How else was it supposed to end? He probably couldn't wait to get away from her and all the noise in her life. Quite a style-cramper for a former bad-boy drifter.

"I'll help you finish up in the morning," she said.

"That's not necessary."

"I'll see you at eight."

"I'll bring doughnuts."

Chapter 36