Page 41 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“I know!” He held up both his hands. “That’s what Detective Beauregard wanted. He suggested it, I think. Because my mother was shot in her right arm and she was left-handed, but I’m telling you I didn’t see it.”

“Did you see anyone else in the cabin?” Morrisette said.

He looked weary, as if he’d been battling demons for years. “I just don’t know. But the point is I cannot, in good conscience, allow my mother to spend one more night in jail because of what I said. All because I wanted to please a man who gave me Snickers bars.”

“She won’t get out today.”

“I know, but I’ve done my part.” His spine seemed to stiffen a bit as he slid a glance at his lawyer, then stared Reed straight in the eyes. “I’d like to make a signed statement. Immediately.”

If Nikki had expected a big breakthrough from Blythe, so far she’d been disappointed. Blythe’s information on her family wasn’t much more in-depth than what Nikki had already read. Though pressed, she swore she had no idea who the father of Amity’s baby was. She’d been too young to know.

“I only heard things after the fact,” Blythe said, one hand resting on the arm of her chair, the other stroking her cat. “And usually it was something I just happened to overhear when June and my dad didn’t think I was around. All I know is that they were death on some older guy she’d been seeing, but I don’t know who, and there were a couple of boys from high school whose names came up.” Her eyebrows drew together as she concentrated. “Steve Something-or-other, a baseball player, I think.”

“Steve Manning, but he didn’t play ball,” Nikki said. “Brad Holbrook was an All-State pitcher. They both dated Amity for a little while.”

“And Holt Beauregard,” Blythe said.

“Flint’s son?”

“I’m sure I heard his name.”

“His father—”

“I know. Was the lead detective on the case.”

“That never came out in court,” Nikki said, certain she would have remembered if Beauregard’s youngest son’s name had been connected with Amity O’Henry.

“I only heard about it years later, when my dad and June thought they were alone. Dad and June were in the kitchen in the farmhouse; she was cooking breakfast and Dad was at the table, drinking coffee after the morning chores. I was just coming down the stairs and they were discussing Amity and the boys she’d dated. They didn’t see me. The stove was on the far wall, and Dad was facing it, away from the hall and the stairs, so I ducked back into the hallway and listened. It was hard to hear over the frying bacon, and they were talking kind of low. But I know I heard four names. There could have been others. But the ones I definitely heard were Steve, Brad, Holt, and Elton.”

“My cousin Elton?”

“You know another one?”

Nikki felt as if she’d been sucker-punched. In the past few days she’d read and reread articles about the trial and she’d known Amity. “She never mentioned Holt or Elton.”

“Maybe it was the secret she was going to tell you if you’d shown up at the cabin that night.”

“The lead detective’s son and the defense attorney’s son? Both linked with Amity?”

“And Steve and Brad.”

Nikki had just shaken her head and moved on, asking her instead about the night Amity died, but Blythe could tell her little more than what she already knew. She’d heard screams and gunfire. She didn’t remember sliding through the railing, hitting the floor or anything about the ride to the hospital. The next thing she recalled was being released to her father’s care.

“And that was a nightmare too,” she admitted. “Believe me, living with Calvin and June and Leah and Cain was about all Niall and I could take. Leah, she’s older, and she was like our nurse or something, or June, at least, gave her that responsibility. Really? A twelve-year-old? But Niall liked that. I think he kinda had a crush on her.” She pulled a disgusted face. “He and Leah . . .” She shuddered. “I don’t care if there’s blood involved or not, a stepsister is a sister, a relative in my book.”

“Niall and Leah were, what? Lovers?”

“I didn’t mean that, exactly, but . . .” She gazed off into the distance, lifted a shoulder. “They were tight, and she got kind of silly around him. Not at first, of course, we were both just kids, but as time went on, when Niall was in high school, it was pretty obvious that they were interested in each other. June did not like that at all. As crazy as her religion is, and it’s . . . nutty, the whole incest thing is frowned upon. I would have left if I could, but I didn’t have a choice. Things didn’t get any better when Emma-Kate was born. She was a crabby, colicky baby.”

Before she could expound, the roar of a motorcycle’s engine reverberated through the apartment, only to stop suddenly. Blythe looked up sharply. “That’s A.J.” Her shoulders sagged for the first time since Nikki had arrived. “He might not be thrilled about this.”

“Is it his business?”

“He thinks so,” she admitted at about the same time that her boyfriend swaggered inside.

r /> “Hey, babe,” he said, bending down to kiss her cheek before he noticed Nikki getting to her feet.

“Hi, babe,” she replied. “This is Nikki Gillette. She was a friend of my sister’s and is a reporter for the Sentinel. She, uh, wants to write a story about my mother.”

---