We learned a lot more about Ryder’s childhood and the lifestyle he’d had with Mom. It made me realize that maybe bouncing from foster home to foster home wasn’t all that bad. At least I’d always had a home, whereas Ryder had slept a lot of his nights in the backseat of Mom’s old car.
Ever since he was a baby, she’d driven him from state to state, following whatever boyfriend she’d been with at the time. Occasionally, they would move in with one and stay for a year or two. But Mom’s relationships never lasted. Just as Ryder would get settled, she’d yank him out of his home and they would be off to somewhere else.
From what Ryder could remember, the longest Mom had stayed in one spot was right after Ryder was born. They’d lived in West Virginia, next door to one of Mom’s cousins, until he turned six.
Then she’d gotten restless. Instead of leaving him behind like she had with me, he became her traveling companion.
It was no wonder he’d gotten so far behind in school.
“So eventually you ended up in Las Vegas, is that right?” Magee asked.
“Yeah.” Ryder nodded. “We lived there with Mom’s ex-boyfriend Christopher.”
“And what was he like?”
Ryder scoffed. “He was a dick.”
“Really?” Magee perked up. So far, Ryder hadn’t had anything negative to say about anyone in his past, even our mother. “Why do you say that?”
“He used to push her around a lot.” Ryder frowned at the recorder. “One time, I came home from school and I saw him yanking her around the living room by her arm. She was crying and had a red mark on her cheek. She made some bull excuses for him, but the guy was a loser. It wasn’t the first time he’d put his hands on her.”
“Do you know what caused that argument?”
Ryder shrugged. “Probably money. That’s what they normally fought about. Christopher always had stacks of cash lying around.”
Warning bells rang in the back of my mind and Willa had the same alarm on her face.
Magee, on the other hand, kept his expression neutral. “What did Christopher do for a living?”
“Some kind of banker, I think,” Ryder answered.
Warning bells turned to blaring sirens.
“Interesting.” Magee jotted something down on his notepad. “Do you happen to know Christopher’s last name?”
“Unger.”
“Good.” Magee kept taking notes. “I don’t suppose you know why they broke up?”
“Not really. They got in a big fight and the next day, Mom told me she was sick of his shit. While he was at work, she loaded up all our stuff and we left.”
“And where did you go?”
“Denver. Mom bought a new car and we camped out in hotels for a while.”
“No school?” Magee asked.
Ryder just shook his head. “No. Mom said we weren’t staying long so I could just hang out and watch TV.”
My hands fisted on my thighs, not for the first time today, in anger at Mom. Instead of doing something for her son, like enrolling him in school or getting a fucking job, she’d let him sit on a hotel bed and watch television for the month of September.
Beside Ryder, Willa’s fists matched my own.
“Then what happened?” Magee asked.
“We came up here to look for Jackson. Mom was running out of money and thought he’d have some.”
I scoffed, earning a shut the fuck up glare from Magee.
“Any idea how much money we’re talking about here?” the sheriff asked.
“Um . . .” Ryder hesitated, looking between the adults in the room before muttering, “About fifty thousand dollars.”
“What the fuck?” I exploded, earning another glare from Magee. But I was too pissed to keep quiet. “Mom spent fifty thousand dollars in a couple of months?”
Her car was nice, but not fifty-thousand-dollars nice. And months in a cheap hotel wouldn’t have used up the rest of her cash. So where the hell had she spent it? Why had she been so broke that she’d had to beg me for money?
Ryder’s shoulders curled in on themselves at my outburst. He looked over at me with guilty eyes.
Magee sat poised. He gave me a single nod to keep pushing.
“Ryder?” I warned.
He shook his head, clamping his mouth shut.
“What happened?”
He still didn’t speak.
“You need to tell me. Now,” I demanded. It was the sharpest tone I’d ever used with him. It was the same one Hazel had used on me countless times when I’d needed to get my act together. “I won’t ask you again. What happened to the money?”
His chin began to quiver and he dropped his eyes. “I . . . I took it.”
“You took it?” Willa asked. “Why?”
His teary eyes found his backpack at his feet.
The backpack he never went anywhere without.
“It was just a little bit at a time,” he confessed. “I’d sneak it from her purse when she wasn’t looking and hide it in my backpack. I wanted us to be out of money by the time we found Jackson. Because every time she ran out of money before, we’d stay somewhere for a while, with her friends or whatever. I thought maybe it would make her want to stay here.”
My anger deflated and I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. Do you still have the money?”
He nodded frantically. “It’s in my backpack. I didn’t spend any of it.” Ryder’s panicked eyes shot to the sheriff. “I swear. None of it. Not even a dollar. And I have some of her recorders too.”
“Recorders?” Magee leaned forward. “What recorders?”
“The ones she gave me to carry for her.”
The room went silent.
Mom had given Ryder recorders? Could they contain the link to her killer?
“Would you mind if I took a listen?” Magee asked me, not Ryder.
“No. Go for it.”
Ryder immediately began digging in his backpack.
From over his shoulder, I watched as he lifted a flap in the bottom, one I wouldn’t have noticed, and started laying stacks of cash on the table.
Willa’s eyes stared unblinking at the money as it just kept coming. How the hell had he been carrying all of that around and we hadn’t noticed?
Soon the cash stopped and out came three recorders. They weren’t as fancy as the one the sheriff had used in all of our interrogations. These were single use only, so once they were full, you either recorded over what you had or bought a new device.
“Mom didn’t notice you took all of this money?” I asked Ryder.
He shrugged. “She wasn’t so good with numbers.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Willa asked him.
Good fucking question. This information could have saved me from a week of being the number one suspect in a murder.
Ryder hung his head. “I thought I’d get in trouble for stealing and they’d send me away.”
And since he had nowhere else to go, he would have gone right into the system.
The same system I’d been telling him horror stories about since he’d arrived in Lark Cove.
I sighed, then looked at Magee. “Is he in trouble?”
The sheriff shook his head, then nodded to the cash and recorders. “As long as I can have that as evidence, I don’t see any reason to punish Ryder.” He stood from his chair. “I think we’re done for the day. We’ll need you to stay out of your house until my team is done dusting for prints. But I expect that to be done soon.”
“Take your time.” I stood and held out a hand for a shake. Then I nudged Ryder’s arm so he’d do the same.
With my hand on the back of his neck, I steered my brother out of the interrogation room with Willa trailing close behind.
“Thank you, Sheriff Magee,” she told him as he escorted us out.
“You’re welcome. I’ll be in touch.”
He left us alone in the lobby and we all shrugged on our coats. With mine on, I tossed the truck keys to Ryder. “Why don’t you head on out and turn the heat on for us.”
“Okay.” He nodded and hurried out the door.
When he was gone, I turned to Willa and let out a deep breath. “That was . . .”
“Intense? I can’t believe all of this.”
I pulled her into my arms. “Me neither, babe.”
“I have a feeling this Christopher guy is about to meet Sheriff Magee. Do you think that he’s the one who killed your mom? Could he be the one who broke into your house looking for those recordings?”