She laughed. “I’ve discovered I have an incurable wanderlust. I always want to be where I’m not. With no family or other ties, I’m free to go where I choose.”
“So you’ll be leaving here soon?” He watched her intently, gauging her reaction.
A hint of uncertainty flickered across the delicate planes of her firelit face. “I don’t know. Casey’s Cove has a homey feel to it, but—”
She pushed to her feet, went into the kitchen and returned with the pan to fill his soup bowl. He accepted the refill with thanks and backed off his questions. She obviously wasn’t ready to divulge any confidences.
When she had settled beside him again, she turned the conversation back to him. “What’s the most memorable case you’ve ever worked?”
“It wasn’t really my case, but it’s one I can’t forget.” The emptiness yawned within him once again, threatening to suck him into its blackness. She must have noticed his change of mood, for her expression sobered.
“I’m sorry.” She placed her hand on his sleeve, and he felt her warmth through his sweater, contrasting with the coldness inside him. “Looks like I touched a nerve.”
He shook his head.
“If you’d rather not talk about it—”
He gathered his courage. “The department counselor says it’s good for me to talk about it, if I can.”
She nodded, her face veiled with compassion, and scooted so that her back rested against the front of the sofa. She didn’t prod him, and her sympathetic presence eased his reluctance.
He shifted back against the sofa so that their shoulders touched, and he could feel the warm length of her against his body, comforting, easing the icy core that remembrance had formed deep inside him.
“Johnny Whitaker was my best friend,” he began, forming his words carefully, fearful he would lose control and break down in front of her. He sucked in a deep steadying breath and continued. “We grew up here in the cove together. His family lived up the mountain from our farm. His daddy made moonshine whiskey, and his older brothers were bootleggers. Johnny’s mama was terrified of all of them. But not of Johnny.”
Jennifer reached for his hand and laced her fingers through his, but said nothing to interrupt his story. He was grateful. If he stopped, he might not be able to begin again.
“Johnny might have turned out rotten like the rest of them if it hadn’t been for Miss Bessie.” He smiled, recalling the old woman’s devotion. “When he was seven, Miss Bessie approached his mama and offered to send him to a boarding school in Asheville, but only on the condition that Johnny live with her on his holidays.”
“His mother agreed?” Jennifer asked in surprise.
“Mrs. Whitaker was a good woman, God-fearing, but she feared the Whitaker men more. She wanted what was best for her youngest child, and she wanted him away from the bad influence of his father and brothers. As long as Miss Bessie allowed Mrs. Whitaker to visit Johnny on his holidays, his mama agreed. His father was glad to be rid of the boy. He was too young to work and just another mouth to feed.”
A log burned through and crashed in the fireplace, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. The only other sound in the room was the antique grandfather clock, ticking loudly in the corner.
“Johnny liked his boarding school. It was safe—his father couldn’t beat him while he was there—and he had plenty to eat and a warm place to sleep. Not always the case at the Whitaker house. But his favorite time was school holidays.” Dylan smiled. The pleasurable memories eased the grip of the icy center in his stomach. “We spent all our time together, fishing, swimming, picking blackberries.”
“Sounds like an idyllic childhood,” Jennifer murmured.
“It was. And when high-school graduation came, Johnny and I went to junior college together, and then the police academy. We came back to Casey’s Cove and joined the department here. On our days off, we returned to the pursuits of our childhood. Things couldn’t have been more perfect.” Bitterness crept into his tone. “I should have realized at the time, things were too perfect.”
She snuggled closer to him and slid her arm through his, and he was grateful for her nearness.
“Three years ago, numerous bombings of government buildings and facilities occurred in the southeast. Nothing on the scale of Oklahoma City, but deadly nonetheless. Several people were killed and millions of dollars in property were damaged.”
“I remember. There was an explosion in Atlanta—” She broke off suddenly, as if sorry to have interrupted.
“They were terrible, but like so many things, the bombings didn’t seem real here in the cove, just something that we saw on the evening news that didn’t touch us.”
He shivered violently, an involuntary shudder. “We had no idea how close to home it all really was.
“For several weeks after the last bombings, news reports kept announcing that the FBI and ATF had no clues to the identities of the perpetrators. Then one October day two years ago, a group of FBI and AFT agents arrived in Casey’s Cove. A witness had spotted someone at the scene of the last bombing before the explosion occurred. The witness worked with an artist to produce a composite sketch, and the computer tentatively matched the sketch to Johnny Whitaker’s dad.”
“Oh, no.” She gripped his arm tighter against her.
“I confronted Johnny, asked him if he knew whether his dad or brothers were involved in the militant group that had committed the bombings. He swore he knew nothing about it, that there had to have been a mistake, that his dad and brothers were into illegal moonshining, but not bombings.” He drew a long rattling breath. “I made Johnny promise to tell me, to tell the FBI if he found out otherwise. He promised.”
She shifted uneasily beside him as if she’d picked up a glimmering of where his story was headed.
“The federal agents didn’t wait for word from Johnny. They decided to move on the Whitaker place immediately. I looked for Johnny at his place to warn him, but couldn’t find him. I was asked to accompany the feds as the local liaison officer, and we headed into the hills.
“The Whitaker men were waiting for us, and opened fire immediately. Suddenly Johnny appeared out of nowhere, screaming for them to stop shooting so he could rescue his mother. He was out of uniform, and the feds didn’t recognize him—except for his strong family resemblance to the other Whitaker men.”
His words died in his throat, and his pulse pounded in his ears. He could hear again the screams and the rattle of gunfire, smell the acrid stench of cordite, see the blood and Johnny’s sightless eyes staring at the cloudless blue of the Carolina sky while Dylan held his hand as he died.
He stopped, unable to go on. The ticks of the clock thundered in the silence. Jennifer didn’t move.
After several minutes, Dylan continued. “Mrs. Whitaker and Johnny were both killed in the cross fire. Whitaker and his older sons were captured, tried and convicted. They’re all serving life terms in federal prison.”
He shook his head, overwhelmed with a sadness he would never lose. “If Johnny hadn’t lied to me about his family’s involvement—if I’d known the truth, maybe I could have worked out a plan that would have saved Mrs. Whitaker and spared Johnny.”
“It wasn’t your fault—”
“I was there when it happened, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
“Johnny made his choice, for whatever reason. Maybe he thought he was protecting his mother. Maybe he had a plan of his own he didn’t have time to carry out.”
He hung his head and bit back tears. “But I’ll never know for sure. All I know is that my best friend lied to me, and now he’s dead.”