When she’d questioned him about Belinda’s claim that evening, he’d adamantly denied it, calling Belinda a liar. Kit had wanted to believe him. But the next day, when she’d seen Belinda at the doctor’s office with a black eye and a cut lip, she’d known the cause before Belinda even confirmed her suspicions. Derrick had done it because of what Belinda had told her.
“Why did you go to the job site without me?” Sanders asked again.
“I wanted to talk to Derrick about Belinda,” she said.
“Belinda? What lies is she spreading now? She’d do anything to hurt Derrick. I’m sure if you’d seen him on the job that day, he’d have straightened this whole thing out.”
“I did see him.”
Sanders frowned. “Derrick said he hadn’t seen you since that morning at the house.”
It came back in a flash of memory. Walking through the skeletal frame of the partially built block building, ducking beneath scaffolding, at first calling for Derrick, then moving forward silently as she followed the sound of raised voices. Deeper and deeper into the empty interior, she went, until she stood above the two men, looked down on them arguing below her.
And later, stumbling as she tried to flee, knocking over the stack of lumber. Her husband looking up at her. Had he really not seen her? “I saw him. I saw them both.”
Sanders looked confused. “Them? It was after quitting time. Was one of the crew still there?”
She nodded. “A young man. I heard Derrick call him Jason.”
Sanders closed his eyes and shook his head as if understanding had finally dawned. “Oh, Kit, you must have overheard the argument Derrick had with some college kid he’d fired.”
“It was more than an argument.”
“Come on, Derrick said the kid took a swing at him. But it couldn’t have been much of a fight, because it was over by the time I got there, and I couldn’t have been far behind you.”
“How did Derrick seem when you arrived?”
Sanders shrugged. “He was upset. He’d left the keys in his pickup and when he saw it was gone, he thought Jason had stolen it.”
“That was all he was upset about?”
“Well…” Sanders paused, then continued with a shrug, “You know how he feels about that truck. He was afraid the kid would wreck it. But then he realized you must have taken it.”
“What made him think that if he didn’t see me there?”
Sanders raised a brow. “The kid’s motorcycle was gone. And so were you. I’d told him you’d left the clinic before I’d arrived. Who else would dare to take Derrick’s new pickup?”
“You didn’t see anything at the job?” she asked hopefully.
He frowned. “Like what?”
Tears filled her eyes. She shook her head slowly. Derrick had told Sanders just enough to cover for himself. “I know what I saw.”
“What did you see, Kit?”
She blurted it out, desperate to say the words aloud, to finally tell someone. “I saw Derrick kill that man.”
“What?” Sanders stared at her. “Why would Derrick kill one of his employees?”
“I don’t know why,” she cried. “But I saw Derrick hit him with something.” She started to describe the tool.
“A crowbar,” Sanders interrupted, frowning.
“After Derrick hit him, the man fell to the ground.” Her body began to tremble, her breath came hard and fast, her mind filled with the horror of the memory. “Then Derrick lifted him and dropped him in a tank filled with water.” Tears coursed silently down her face. “The man struggled, but Derrick held him under. I saw the whole thing.”
Sanders said nothing for a few minutes. “Kit, Derrick told me the same story but with just a little different ending. He said he tossed the kid into the tank to cool him off, letting him up as soon as he quit fighting. Then Derrick ordered him off the job site, and the kid left. And he told me about the fight before he knew you had taken off.”
“He’s lying. Don’t you see—he made up that story after he saw me. I stumbled into some lumber. He looked up. He knows I saw what he did.”
“Kit, I’m telling you, he didn’t see you. And he certainly didn’t—”
“Is everything all right, Kit?” asked a male voice from the house.
Kit turned to find her boss, Tim Anderson, in the doorway. “Fine, Tim,” she said, unable to hide her relief that he’d come home early. “But would you mind taking the babies inside? I’ll join you in just a minute.”
“You didn’t tell him, did you?” Sanders said after Tim had closed the door.
She shook her head. “I haven’t told anyone. Just you.” She glanced toward the grove of trees, unable to shake the feeling that they were being watched.
“I understand now why you ran, Kit.” He sounded sympathetic, but also sad. “I just can’t believe you’d think Derrick could kill someone. Let alone that he’d somehow gotten away with it.”
“Everyone knows how powerful the Killhorns are in Big Sky—in the whole county.”
“Do you really think my family has that much power?”
“Yes,” she admitted, knowing that had been part of the reason she hadn’t gone to the authorities once she reached Texas. “Your father’s a judge, your uncle’s the sheriff.”
“You can’t think they’re in on it?”
It did sound ludicrous. It made her doubt herself. Hadn’t Derrick always said she was foolish, young, incredibly naive? She replayed the memory of the last time she’d seen her husband. She studied each detail, looking for something, anything that proved Derrick’s story, anything that proved her own vision somehow faulty. Sanders had explained it so well. Just a foolish misunderstanding by a pregnant woman. And yet…
“Who was the man, the one Derrick fought with? Jason what?”
“St. John,” Sanders said. “Jason St. John.”
“Has anyone seen him since?”
“Derrick has. He caught Jason sabotaging the job less than a week ago, but Jason got away.”
Why didn’t she believe that? Because she’d seen Derrick kill Jason seven months ago.
He must have seen the doubt in her expression. “Kit, I wouldn’t be here trying to get you to come back if I thought Derrick was a killer. I think you know me better than that.”
She felt in her heart that was true. She even started to concede, started to bend to his will the way she’d bent her whole life. But then she looked toward the house, thinking of her young son, and felt that jolt of motherness, that iron-strong will of protectiveness. “I believe you, Sanders. But I need you to find Jason St. John.”
She knew he’d never locate him. Not alive, anyway.
“Find Jason St. John?” he repeated. “That’s no small order. There’s an APB out on him for sabotaging the job site, so I would imagine he’s hiding.”
Kit held her ground. “I need you to prove to me that Derrick isn’t a murderer. Or help me to prove that he is.”
Sanders looked at the toes of his shoes for a moment. “Kit, there’s something I have to