The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,134

beams and scurrying rodents was getting to him. “It’s not like I held her head down in the water.”

“Isn’t it?”

He remembered Nell flailing in the river, struggling to keep her head up, her wet hair floating on the water’s surface as she gasped. No one noticed but Tyson and he’d decided in a split instant of understanding about the rest of his life, and what it meant to be an only child, a single heir, what it would mean if he just let her lose her battle. “Like you care. It was a million years ago.”

“Right.” Ashley stared at the lantern as if it were a crystal ball, capable of predicting the future, while the lodge settled, ancient timbers creaking, the wind whistling through a partially open window. Somewhere far away he heard the hooting of a lonely owl. It all gave him a case of the creeps. How had he and Ashley, the only woman he’d ever loved, fallen so far from each other? And why didn’t she understand they were in it together and it was good, was for the best.

When she finally spoke, it was with less venom. “Maybe I didn’t care then. About Nell.” She swallowed hard. “And maybe I didn’t want to believe it. It was easier not to think about it. But that was a long time ago, before I had children of my own.”

“Oh, Jesus. Don’t go all Mother Teresa on me, babe. It’s too late now.”

But she was on a roll. “And then . . . then it was different with Holly and Poppy. You didn’t just let them die, didn’t let nature take its course like Nell and the river. Nuh-uh. You killed them, Tyson. You strangled those two little girls and hid them in the basement, like a dungeon, that’s what the press is saying. When I didn’t know . . . didn’t want to know the details, I could pretend that it was all just a bad dream, that it hadn’t really happened, but now . . .” Her voice cracked.

“It had to be done.”

“They were just kids!”

“They knew, babe. Remember? I told you. Holly found out about the old man and Margaret. She was a snoop and she came here, following her mother to this very place.” He gestured broadly to include this huge building with its warren of bedrooms surrounding this wide common area and stale, horrid memories. “This is where Dad and Margaret would sneak off to. They probably did it in every damned room and Holly knew. And if she knew, you can bet your sweet ass Poppy did, too. I’m just lucky I caught Holly up here that day, that I found out she’d seen them.” He remembered that hot summer day. “It was like a fuckin’ circus. That woman who rides the horses and gives lessons? Chandra Whatever?”

“Johnson. Maxie’s mom.”

“Yeah, right, right. She was here, too. Rode right on by like she was in a damned Fourth of July parade.” Tyson felt the old anger and worry about being discovered that he had on that sweltering day. “I don’t think Chandra saw anything. Well, except maybe Holly. But that was the problem, Holly was peering through the window and she watched her mother going at it with my dad and she, like, burst into tears.” Tyson should have taken care of Holly right then and there, he thought, before she put two and two together and figured out why her youngest sister didn’t look like Poppy or herself, but he hadn’t been able to take a chance. As it was, he’d ducked quickly behind a jagged stump, hiding in the brush and stirring up a hornets’ nest. He’d been stung twice and bitten his lip to keep from crying out before the damned horsewoman had ridden into the woods.

“You’re a monster,” Ashley whispered.

“And you?”

“I didn’t plan anything like this, you know it.”

“What I know is that if you hadn’t tipped Owen off somehow, if he hadn’t come back for Rose and taken her away, if he’d left her in the goddamned theater or let her go home, I might have had a chance to—”

“To kill her, too,” she finished for him. “But I didn’t—”

“You did! You knew, damn it. And you were a good girl, keeping your mouth shut, not even confiding in your husband.”

“Don’t bring Ryan into this,” she warned.

“Oh, come on, babe. As if you care.” He walked over to her, bent down and sat on his haunches so he could