Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,192

telling everybody it was all a terrible mistake, and how broken up he’d been to discover what had happened to his wife. How he was frantic to find the real killer. Harlan had no idea how many people had believed him.

He wouldn’t be selling any more tractors now, but his hair was still neat, and so were his clothes. He still looked the same.

His dad said, “I didn’t mean it to happen. None of it.”

Beside Harlan, Annabelle tensed. He took her hand under the table and said, “Where did you kill her?”

Not “where did it happen.” It hadn’t just happened. He’d killed her.

His father sighed. “At the lot. She came in right at closing time and said she needed to talk to me, and I took her back to the office. She was upset, but I thought it was just some hysterical thing, like usual.”

Harlan willed himself still, but he could feel the tension vibrating through his sisters like they were sheet metal. His dad went on, “She told me she wanted a divorce. Asked me to move out. Told me she couldn’t live with me anymore. I was just trying to … to convince her. To hold her.”

“By the neck,” Harlan said flatly.

“I was just shaking her!” his dad said. “Trying to get some sense into her! How could I know she’d die?”

Alison made a little noise of protest. Vanessa, on Annabelle’s other side, said, “You son of a bitch.” She was up, halfway across the table, reaching for their dad, who reared back.

Harlan jumped backward over the bench and grabbed Vanessa from behind, pinning her arms. “Whoa,” he said. “Whoa. We can’t.” The others had scrambled up, too, and come to stand with the two of them. Not wanting to be that close to their father.

Harlan was still holding Vanessa with one arm. With the other, he shoved Annabelle behind him. He could feel her shaking, and she needed a shield. He said, “You didn’t mean to kill her. And yet your first thought when she, what? Fell down? Wasn’t to get her help. Your first thought was to bury her.”

“No,” their dad said. “I checked her pulse. I tried to slap her, you know, to wake her up. I walked around the office for half an hour, hoping she’d wake up, not knowing what to do. The worst half-hour of my life. I loved her. You have to understand that. I loved her.” He was crying now.

This rage. This rage.

“You walked around instead of calling 911?” That was Alison.

“How could I?” their father said. “How could I have explained that it was an accident? How could I take care of you all from jail? How would it have been for you to know your mom was dead? I was just trying to protect you!”

Harlan had thought that he was here to protect his sisters. At this moment, he realized that his sisters were here to protect him, because they were the only reason he wasn’t lunging at their father and beating him half to death. Them, and Jennifer and the baby.

You can’t do it. You can’t. He held himself back with the effort of his life and asked the others, “Anything you want to say?”

Alison was trembling. Shaking. Annabelle was all the way behind him, holding onto his belt the same way she’d held onto the sleeve of their mom’s coat as a little girl.

Silence, and then Vanessa said, “When you die, I’ll spit on your grave.”

“Nessa,” their father said. “You have to understand. I did it for you. I did it for all of you, so you wouldn’t suffer. You were always my girl!”

“No,” she said. “No.” She was nearly blind with rage, and Harlan grabbed her hand again, just in case.

“I have one more thing to ask,” he said. “Was she pregnant?”

He didn’t want to know. It was the last thing he wanted to know. But he had to know.

Their father said, “No. Why would you think that?”

The relief nearly sent Harlan to his knees. He said, “I think we’re done. Are we done?’

“Yes.” It was Alison, her voice shaking.

“You don’t get it,” their father said. “You don’t understand what it’s like. The pressure. The kids. The bills. You don’t know what it does to a man.”

“You’re wrong,” Harlan said. “We all get it. Alison has kids. I’m going to have a son. We all have pressure. But we were raised by a woman who loved us. That’s why we know how to do it