Dead Giveaway (Stillwater Trilogy #2)(76)
Author: Brenda Novak

"How’s the food?" he asked.

"Terrible," Clay said. "Is it supposed to be good?"

The man shrugged. "Sometimes it’s not bad. Beats foraging out of a garbage can."

Clay studied him in return. "Is that what you normally do?"

"Hell, no. It’s just a little trick I learned."

Clay pushed away from the bars and moved closer. "Trick?"

"There’s always something worse. If you think about what’s worse, what you have doesn’t seem so bad."

"You should go on the Positive Mental Attitude circuit," he said, flopping onto his bed.

"Except I don’t think your attitude is winning you any points with the police."

The man waved an indifferent hand. "Who cares about those ass**les? Anyway, I don’t want to do public speaking. I can make a lot more money robbing banks, and for that I don’t have to sell tickets."

Propping his head on his hands, Clay tried to make himself comfortable. "That’s what you’re in for? Robbery?"

"Armed robbery. And an accidental shooting they’re calling assault with a deadly weapon."

"Accidental," Clay repeated.

"That’s what I said."

Tired of the square pattern on the mattress above him, Clay sized up the newcomer again.

"Isn’t it hard to be a bank robber when you’re so tall? You don’t exactly blend into a crowd."

"Oh, maybe that’s what’s wrong," he said, smacking his forehead.

Clay couldn’t help laughing. "Well, if you decide to go straight, there’s always basketball."

"Not an option for me, amigo. I can’t handle a ball to save my life. And you can blame my mother for that."

"Your mother? "

"Well, you can’t blame my dad. No one knows who he is."

Clay thought of his own father. "Sometimes even that’s a blessing."

"Maybe."

"That doesn’t explain why you can’t play basketball."

"When my mother decided to turn her life around and became devout, my life did not improve. From that point forward, she wouldn’t allow me to own a ball."

Clay leaned up on one elbow. "Why not?"

"She didn’t believe in sports. They’re competitive," he said with another shrug. "Someone has to lose."

"It’s a cruel world," Clay said.

"Exactly."

"I suppose everyone wins in a bank robbery?"

"She doesn’t know about my career. She’s living in a cult in Oregon and refuses to acknowledge me."

Clay shook his head at what this man had been through. "You’re right. There’s always something worse."

"Glad I could make you feel better about your life," he said with a hoot of laughter.

They fell silent for several minutes, and Clay relaxed, hoping to doze off. It wasn’t as if he was getting much sleep when he was constantly worrying about Allie and his family and what might be happening at the farm.

"What are you in for, anyway?"

Clay opened his eyes. The other inmate had wandered right up to the bars separating them.

"Me? Nothing. I’m falsely accused."

"Aren’t we all."

Now that he’d been interrupted, Clay doubted he could drift off again, so he sat up. "Want to tell me how you accidentally shot someone?"

"The shooting wasn’t the part that was accidental," he admitted.

"Oh?" Clay raised his eyebrows. "Then which part was?"

"The part where I let the dumbass see me," he said, laughing some more.

This man had tried to kill a witness. On purpose. Clay no longer found the situation funny.

"Attempted murder?"

"That’s what they claim," he replied with a wink.

"That’s what they claim," Clay muttered to himself. Obviously, he was locked up with someone who, despite his apparent good nature, had no conscience.

Suddenly, Clay didn’t feel like talking anymore. He couldn’t relate to this man. They had nothing in common, and he hoped they never would.

Lying back, he threw an arm over his eyes to signal the end of the conversation. He’d be out of here soon, he told himself. Tuesday would have to come eventually. There was no reason to think about this inmate or the fact that he’d meet a lot more men who were an even greater danger to society if he went to prison. But as he let his mind wander, he realized something that hadn’t occurred to him before. He’d assumed that whoever shot him at the cabin had acted out of anger or vengeance.

But what if the motivation behind the shooting was more random than that? The guy in the next cell had tried to kill a man just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The shooter at the cabin might have been doing the same. Which meant Clay must have seen something, or come close to seeing something, that could give the guy away.

Now if only he could remember the people and cars he’d spotted as he approached the cabin that night…

"Are you okay?" Madeline asked.

Allie tightened her grip on the cell phone. She’d gone to Clay’s farm for privacy. Now that her mother was at her house, she craved some time alone, a few minutes to deal with her own emotions. Especially after seeing the pictures she’d found in the package that had been delievered to her earlier.

Taking them from her purse, she lined them up very carefully on Clay’s kitchen counter.

She’d had them all day and yet it still made her teeth chatter and her body quake to look at them.

She forced herself to answer Madeline in a calm voice. "I’m fine."

"You must be heartbroken."

Allie hugged herself. Madeline had no idea. But Clay’s stepsister wasn’t referring to the pictures. It wasn’t difficult to guess she didn’t know about them. She was talking about the scandal involving Allie’s father that had erupted last night. In typical Stillwater fashion, word was rolling through town like a tidal wave, and Allie was as humiliated and embarrassed as she’d expected to be. When she thought of her father in that room with Irene, she still felt a very poignant ache in her chest.

But these pictures…They were more heartbreaking than almost anything else could possibly be. They’d upset her so badly she couldn’t even keep her appointment with Grace. She didn’t know what to say to Clay’s sister. Should she bring up the abuse Grace had suffered? Tell her about the pictures?

"It hasn’t been easy," she said into the phone. "But…somehow my mother and I will get through it ." How had Grace survived? How did the family cope?

"I have to admit I suspected Mom was seeing someone. She’s been a little secretive for…gee, months and months. But I never dreamed…" Madeline let her words fall away and tried again. "I mean, I feel guilty by association. Ashamed. I want to apologize."