Page 78 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

Nineteen

“Okay, now wait a minute. Catch me up,” Caitlyn demanded once she’d reached Oak Hill. The family had gathered. Including Amanda. Aside from being paler than usual, Amanda seemed fine. She was pacing the length of the parlor, her husband Ian sitting on a tall stool near the cold grate of the fireplace.

Berneda, looking wan, lay on the chaise. Lucille was seated next to her, Doc Fellers in attendance. Positioned near the window and staring out the watery glass panes to the darkness beyond, Troy was as tense as a bow string, his eyes narrowed on the lane, as if he expected a gang of bad guys from an old Western to appear in a cloud of dust. Even Hannah had shown up and was slumped in one of the plush side chairs. Her skin was tanned, her expression bored, her eye makeup dark, her hair streaked blond. A neglected can of diet soda was sweating on the coffee table. “What happened?”

“Someone cut the brake line of my TR,” Amanda said as she plowed stiff fingers through her hair. She was worked up, walking from one end of the room to the other. “You know, the police didn’t take me seriously when I said someone tried to run me off the road a few months ago, but they’d better do it now.”

“You were run off the road?”Berneda struggled to sit up a little higher.

Lucille’s hand strayed to her shoulder. “Shh. You rest.”

“Yes!” Amanda said emphatically. “Run off the damned road. I could have been killed! And no one seemed to care. I brought it up again today when Detective Reed showed up.”

“He was there?” Caitlyn asked, starting to panic again. He was hovering so close to her family. Of course she wanted him to find Josh’s killer, yet the thought that he was ever present bothered her.

“He came to the hospital just as I was being released and I basically told him to get off his ass and find whoever it is that’s doing this.”

“Amanda thinks her accident and Josh’s death might be connected,” Ian said.

“I’d bet my life on it,” Amanda said.

“Connected? Why?”

“It’s just a little too coincidental that someone fiddles with my brakes a week after Josh was killed.”

“If he didn’t kill himself,” Ian said.

“Oh, come on! Only a moron would think that! We all knew Josh. Let’s not even go there, okay? Suicide my eye! I’m just lucky I wasn’t killed today!”

“You weren’t hurt,” her husband reminded Amanda. The tight corners of his mouth suggested that her histrionics were too much for him. Though over forty, Ian Drummond’s hair was jet black, his eyes nearly as dark. He had the physique of a twenty-five-year-old countered by the sullen, angry expression of a man who had lived unhappily too long.

“It doesn’t matter, Ian. Someone tried to kill me last winter—right before Christmas, remember? And they tried again today! Next time they might just get away with it!”

Berneda gave a little squeak of protest.

“Perhaps you should talk elsewhere,” Lucille said, her eyes flashing a warning that Amanda was in no mood to accept.

“I just thought it was best if everyone in the family found out from me. It’ll probably be in the news, on the television tonight or in the paper tomorrow morning. I thought you’d all want to hear it from me yourselves.”

“What did Detective Reed have to say?” Caitlyn asked.

“Not much more than the rest of those idiots. I’ve spoken to someone there three times since that damned black Explorer nearly pushed me into the swamp, once the day it happened, another time a week later and now again today, but you know what? I don’t think anyone there really gives a damn.”

“Except Detective Reed did show up today. You didn’t call him,” Ian reminded her.

“But I will. If he thinks that little interview today was enough, he obviously doesn’t know me.”

“Maybe the police have bigger fish to fry. You came out of it unhurt,” Troy offered, stuffing his hands into his pants pocket.

“Bigger fish as in the Josh Bandeaux murder?”

“I thought they were still trying to figure out if he committed suicide,” Berneda said.

“I told you I don’t think it was suicide.” Amanda couldn’t hide the exasperation in her voice.

“What do you think?” Hannah asked Caitlyn.

“I don’t know, but I agree with Amanda. I can’t imagine that he would kill himself. The police seem to think it was murder.”

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