Ignoring Blake, Wade continued to look narrowly at Lucas. “You told me you didn’t push Roger Jennings off that bluff.”
“I didn’t. I wasn’t here the night Roger died.”
“You were with the Carpenter girl.” Wade repeated the accepted fact with a rather skeptical expression.
“I wasn’t here,” Lucas repeated. “I had nothing to do with Roger’s death. I can only assume it was an accident. He was either looking for evidence or hoping to catch me with Rachel, and he somehow stumbled off the path.”
“Where was Rachel?”
Lucas scowled at Wade. “Don’t start that again...”
“It’s a legitimate question, Lucas. You said Roger was trying to break the two of you up. She could have been as determined as you were to prevent that. She wouldn’t have known, of course, that you were seeing another girl at the same time. The one you spent the night with when her brother died.”
“Rachel,” Lucas said between his teeth, “was out of town that night. She’d gone to Atlanta with her mother and her grandmother to do some shopping. They returned to the news that Roger’s body had been found at the bottom of the bluff by a couple of hikers.”
Wade nodded. “Just wondering.”
“The only reason I’ve told you all of this is because one detail still concerns me, and I thought you should be aware of it.”
“The attack on Emily,” Wade murmured.
Lucas nodded grimly. “It just seems odd that the bracelet disappeared violently again. When I heard about the other break-ins, I convinced myself that it was only coincidence. But I talked to Kevin O’Brien this morning.”
“How the hell...?”
“I managed,” Lucas interrupted. “He swore to me, just as he did to you, that he did not break in to Emily’s house. And, Wade, I believe him.”
Wade grimaced. “He had reason to deny it, of course. There was an attack involved in that break-in, unlike the others. Which makes the charges all the more serious.”
“I know he had reason to lie. And I’m sure he’s damned good at it. But I know the kind of punk he is. Hell, I was that kind of punk, except that I never got bored enough to break in to houses. He didn’t take Emily’s bracelet.”
“And that worries you. You think she was targeted strictly because of the bracelet.”
“Even if someone was specifically after the bracelet—for whatever reason—Emily should be safe now. I just think you should be aware of what I’ve learned today. You should know that there’s another thief around here somewhere. It wasn’t Kevin O’Brien.”
Blake tossed the pinecones high above his head, juggling them skillfully. “Looks to me like you still need to find AI and Nadine.”
Lucas turned to him. “Why?”
“Because it’s the only way you’ll ever know for certain that Roger’s theory wasn’t true.”
“I still can’t believe my father killed anyone.”
“Motive and probability.”
Becoming reluctantly mesmerized by the dancing pinecones and Blake’s cryptic words, Lucas asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”
Blake let the cones fall and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Not
long after Roger Jennings decided that someone whacked his father, Roger took a mysterious fatal dive, right?”
And Rachel had accused Lucas of having no tact! Lucas stared at Blake through narrowed eyes. “Something like that.”
“Okay, we know you had a motive to kill Roger. So did Rachel.”
Lucas almost growled in frustration. “We did not...”
Blake held up a hand. “I didn’t say you did it, I’m just saying you had a possible motive. Just as your father could have had reason to want to kill his cheating wife and her lover.”