Dru had never tried to conceal her misgiving when it came to AJ. But her concerns weren’t personal; it wasn’t, as Shea insisted, that Dru disliked AJ so much, as it was a matter of intuiting he was the wrong choice for her. No matter how Dru tried to shake it, she had a bad feeling about him.
Shutting Shea from her view, Dru addressed Lily. “Now you get hold of Paul and have him call some of his high-toned politician friends, or whoever, and you tell them to leave my daughter—” She broke off, uncertain what had stopped her. Some sound of distress, whether from Shea or Lily, she didn’t know. But God knew none of them needed more distress.
Dru swept the countertop’s edge with her fingertips. She had a temper; it was true. She’d be the first to admit anger was her default, her go-to place when she was scared.
And, damn, she was scared—plenty.
“I’m sorry,” Lily said. “I don’t know what else I can say.” Her voice bumped and slid.
Dru felt her jaw loosen, her shoulders relax. It wasn’t as if Lily was responsible. She hadn’t killed Becca, nor had she sent AJ off to war. If what Shea had told Dru was right, that had been his father’s doing. Evidently Paul Isley had been looking for a way to make a man out of his son. Dru said, “I need to tell my daughter what’s going on, Lily.”
“AJ didn’t do it, Dru,” Lily said. “I promise you he did not. He doesn’t have it in him.”
Really? So he shot and killed no one while he was in Afghanistan, fighting for his country, not even while he was defending the buddy whose life he supposedly saved from certain death, for which he was awarded a medal? “I hope when the police find him that he can explain.” Dru didn’t know what else to say.
“I hope he’s at the ranch. He loves it there, you know? Ever since he was little,” Lily added, and her voice caught again.
Dru’s throat closed.
“Will you, or Shea, call me if you hear from him?” Lily asked.
Dru said she would, and Lily agreed when Dru asked that she do the same.
“Why did you say that to her? About Paul calling all his politician friends?” Shea spoke even as Dru bid Lily good-bye. “I can’t believe you talked to her like that, Mom.”
“I don’t want you involved, Shea.”
“But I already am. The police want to interview me.”
“They are probably going to question you about AJ—when you last saw him, spoke to him—”
“Why?”
“Because, honey, they found Becca’s body in his apartment.”
3
Lily didn’t leave the shoulder of I-35 right away after speaking to Dru. She felt light-headed and closed her eyes, waiting for the sensation to pass. Her BMW was rocked slightly by the wind of other passing cars. Looking out, she caught sight of a woman driver, one hand flung up as if in emphasis. Her passenger, a man, was laughing. It was only an instant, yet Lily felt the impact of their happiness, their pleasure in each other like a blow, and she bowed her head, willing herself not to cry. Her phone went off, and she jumped. AJ!
Instead, it was Paul. “Where are you?” he asked when Lily answered.
“North of Greeley. I just got off the phone with Dru. She and Shea haven’t seen AJ or spoken to him.” Lily allowed no sign of her offense at how Dru had spoken to her come through her voice. It would only rile Paul, who liked AJ’s future mother-in-law even less than Lily did. “The police want to talk to Shea, though. They probably think she knows where AJ is.”
“Does she? Did you ask her?”
“No,” Lily admitted. “But Dru would have told me.” Would she have? Dru’s whole focus was on protecting Shea, not her daughter’s fiancé. Lily understood that; she felt the same about AJ, but she doubted he’d look for it—her protection. The gulf between them had existed for so long that he assumed it was her choice and not her heartbreak.
“You need to ask Shea directly, Lily. Don’t rely on her mother. We need to keep ahead of this thing.”
“Now you get hold of Paul and have him call some of his high-toned politician friends . . .” Dru’s command drummed through Lily’s mind. Dru had such an inflated idea of the Isleys’ importance. If there were any such friends, Lily thought, Paul wouldn’t call them on Shea’s behalf.
“I don’t have long,” he said. “I’m at the police station, in the men’s room. I didn’t want to call from the interrogation room in case it’s bugged.”
Lily wondered how Paul could be so sure the restroom wasn’t.
“They asked me back at the apartment what AJ drove, if he had a computer, owned a gun. Did he have a phone.”
“He has all of that.”
“Yeah, and it’s all missing. They found his wallet. That was it.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would he leave his wallet?”
“How the hell do I know?”
Lily bit her teeth together, refusing to engage. Paul was afraid; they both were, and it made them hostile. They’d been hard on each other before, the last time they’d gone down this road with AJ. “There was a cop in a patrol car outside, watching the house when I left,” she said in an attempt to get them through the moment.
“Bastards,” Paul muttered. “Look, from now on, if anyone from law enforcement—I don’t care who it is—asks you anything, you tell them to get in touch with Jerry Dix. Do you understand?”
“You’ve spoken to him, then?”
“Yeah, he’s on his way here.”
“To the police station? Why?”
“Jesus, Lily. He’s an attorney, for Christ’s sake.”
Corporate, Lily thought. She wouldn’t say it. She wouldn’t bring up Edward, the possibility that they—that AJ would need his services as a criminal attorney again. Her mind shied away from the complications that could present, so much unfinished business.
“Jerry has connections; he knows his way around the DA’s office. He can get information we can’t.”
“Paul?” Lily was hesitant. “What if the person who killed Becca, what if they took AJ, abducted him, along with his truck, the gun, his laptop and phone? He could be a victim, too.”
“Bushnell claims they aren’t ruling that out. I should have told you,” Paul conceded. He was exhausted. Horrified. He had said to Lily earlier that every time he closed his eyes, he saw Becca—“pants down, stabbed, blood everywhere”—his words rattled across Lily’s brain. As a consequence, she saw it, too, but the reality would have been much worse, and coupled with the fact that their son’s apartment was a crime scene, and their son was implicated—
“Bushnell says they only want AJ for questioning so far, but I feel like he’s working me, Lily. Trying to be my buddy, you know? We can’t forget there’s history here.”
He was repeating himself, and Lily wasn’t going to listen to it. She switched on the ignition. “I need to go, Paul.”
“You’ll call when you get to the ranch?”
“I’m worried about Dad, how he’ll handle this. He’s so forgetful lately . . .” It was more than that. Winona had said he was sleeping late in the morning, something he’d never done. She’d said she’d had to remind him to change his shirt, eat a meal. “He’s just not himself, not right,” Win had said.