Page 75 of To Die For

“Why not?”

“I already asked. You clearly didn’t want to answer. If you want to tell me, you’ll tell me.”

“But you’ll keep trying to find out what happened to my mom and dad?”

“I will, but quite frankly I don’t have a lot to go on. And after tomorrow it might be moot.”

“What do you mean?” she said sharply.

“After the hearing tomorrow, your uncle may have custody of you.”

“Do you mean you’ll stop looking for their killer then?”

“It might be out of my hands, Betsy. I’m not my own boss. I go and do what I’m ordered to do.”

She pushed the Frappuccino and scone away and sat back looking thoroughly dejected.

Devine wanted to say something, but Saxby’s cautionary words came back to him and he remained quiet.

She sat there for a bit while Devine gazed around the small café component of the bookstore.

He turned back to Odom when she said, “My uncle told me that sometimes bad things happen for good reasons.”

“What was he talking about?”

“You’re right. I almost did give you the high sign when he said that. It made me mad. Like how could anything good come out of my parents dying?”

“So that was what he was talking about? Something good coming out of them dying?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you finish the high sign then?”

“Because… because then he told me that I looked just like my mom when she was my age. And that she was smart and funny, just like he knew I was. And that he would have given anything to have her back. But if he couldn’t, then he wanted to take care of me because that’s what my mom would have wanted. In fact, he told me that she made him promise that he would in case anything happened to her or my dad.”

“When did she tell him that?” asked Devine. All his senses were on high alert now because her answer could be significant.

“He said he had talked to her a while back. When… when my dad wasn’t doing too well.”

“Was this before or after he didn’t win the lottery?” asked Devine.

She smiled weakly. “It was before we moved to the trailer.”

“Do you think it’s possible that your mother asked her brother for help?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I knew we were having money problems. My dad had lost his job again and we were going to have to leave our apartment.”

“Did your mother like her brother?”

“I think she did like him, yeah.”

Devine recalled what Shore and Rose had told him about Dwayne not liking Glass, but that Alice had a different opinion of her brother.

“But was it something she told you that made you write what you did in your journal about your uncle?”

She remained quiet for a few seconds and he wasn’t sure she was even going to answer.

“Not my mother, no.”

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