Dead Giveaway

'Okay. I have to ask this next question, mostly so I can tell Sergeant Kline I left no stone unturned. Some of that money you pulled together? Did it come from Amanda Mason?'

Lawrence hung his head, his fists clenched in his lap. It seemed forever before he looked up and said, 'I never killed anyone.'

'And those unaccounted-for ninety minutes? You kept quiet because you were with Sara and wanted to protect her?'

He nodded, and I noticed Kelly was nodding right along with him.

'You're sure Sara never contacted her parents, told them about the pregnancy?'

'I don't think so. I mean, she knew they'd never accept our child. I'm black, if you haven't noticed.'

I felt embarrassed then, embarrassed for my own race. 'I know this is hard, but let's keep it flowing, okay? The pastor came to visit you when you went to jail. What did he say?'

'First time, he said what they'd been saying since Sara ran off, that she was on a mission trip. Then the last visit was to tell me she'd died. I remember him saying that since she and I had been friends in the youth group, he wanted me to hear the news from him. He was so torn up, and meanwhile I had to hide everything... keep it all stuffed down while he sat there across the glass crying for her.' Lawrence's lips tightened and he slowly shook his head from side to side.

Kelly gripped Lawrence's shoulder. 'Hey. You've worked hard on accepting she's gone, on living here where you don't belong.'

I was fighting my own emotions, knowing that my anger might eradicate logic. The pastor said he came to visit Lawrence to offer solace to a prisoner. Instead, he'd brought Lawrence unbelievable pain.

'Once you learned Sara was dead, did you ever consider telling people about your relationship? Tell them you were with her the night Amanda Mason was murdered?' I said.

'What good would that have done?' he asked. 'I'd already been tried and convicted when her father came and told me she was dead. She was my alibi and she was gone. Who would believe me if all of a sudden I said I was with Sara when Amanda Mason was being murdered? Besides, no one needed to know about us—especially not her parents. I'd lost Sara, my mother was dying and I didn't care about anything. I—'

The chaplain broke in. 'Lawrence went from being a happy, successful young man who'd found the love of his life to a convicted felon, all in less than a year's time. He wasn't thinking clearly, and to be honest, I'm not sure he got the best legal help, either. When Lawrence refused a plea bargain—'

'You see what I'm talking about? Even my lawyer thought I was guilty.' Lawrence's eyes flashed with anger.

'Okay, so who set you up? Because I think someone made sure you got arrested that night. Maybe someone who knew you were with Sara.'

Lawrence looked at me. 'I have no idea. It doesn't matter anyway. No one believed me then and they won't believe me now.'

'I believe you,' I said.

Kelly cleared his throat. 'Lawrence and I have discussed this more than once. It had to have been a friend, an acquaintance, someone who knew where he lived and could plant the evidence. Since he was pretty well-known for his athletic skills, it might have been a jealous kid on his ball team who thought he should have had that letter of intent to A&M. Or maybe someone who held a grudge Lawrence knew nothing about. He could have just been someone's scapegoat.'

I remembered Frank Simpson's notes. That's what he thought, too. 'You're saying you never told your lawyers about meeting with Sara that night?' I asked.

'No,' Lawrence said. 'Just the chaplain. And now you.'

'Were you punishing yourself? Or did you just not care about your own freedom after Sara was gone?'

'I promised her I wouldn't tell her parents about the baby,' said Lawrence quietly. 'If I gave her up to save myself—well, I couldn't do that to her.'

'But you were arrested in April, put in jail and stayed there until trial. She never came forward, Lawrence,' I said.

'That's because she was dead,' he said through tight lips. 'That's the only reason she wouldn't come back to help me. Besides, nothing mattered with her gone.'

'You assumed she was dead,' I said. 'But don't you understand? She lived long enough to give birth. She could have come forward and—'

Lawrence lifted his cuffed hands and pointed intertwined fingers at me. His voice had gone hard again when he said, 'If she was out there, she would have come back, she would have told the cops we were together when Amanda Mason was murdered.'

'That's why you needed to believe there was no baby, right? But there may be another explanation, Lawrence. There may—'

'I'm done here,' he said, his face and voice devoid of emotion. 'Take my father home. He doesn't belong here.'

23

I would have liked to take Thaddeus home, but the nurse in the prison clinic said he should go straight to a hospital because of his soaring blood sugar. Jeff and I tried to convince him the hospital in Huntsville would be best—it was close—but he insisted he wanted to see his own doctor at the Medical Center in Houston.

By the time we reached downtown, I could tell the insulin shots I'd helped Thaddeus give himself weren't doing much good. He was sleepy, thirsty and a little confused when I wheeled him into the emergency room.

Meanwhile, DeShay had called Jeff to tell him they'd drawn a case and he was waiting in their unmarked car at the hospital. At least I'd had time to tell Jeff what I'd learned from Lawrence before he left with his partner.

When I was allowed into the emergency room cubicle to see Thaddeus, he had an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Scary to watch. And did I feel guilty. The stress must have been too much. I asked him if I could call Joelle to help him out, and he said that would be good. Thaddeus wanted her to check on his house while he was hospitalized. During my cab ride home, I ordered the biggest bunch of yellow roses my florist could pull together and had them delivered to the room I'd been told he would be admitted to.

It was nearly eight p.m. when I arrived at my house, and Diva played pitiful this time, rubbing around my still sore ankles seeking attention. Bet she knew it hurt.

After stuffing down a cheese sandwich, I took a glass of wine into my office and sat behind my computer. Diva tried the keyboard trick—her I sit on this thing, you'll give me all your love approach. I lifted her off and onto my lap, then booted up.

After typing up notes of my interview with Lawrence, I sat back in my chair thinking about Sara Rankin's disappearance. Would she have come back to save Lawrence with an alibi if she could have? My gut said yes. She'd already committed to abandoning her life as a preacher's daughter, and that made me think she wanted to be with Lawrence more than anything.

What would make her not come back to save him, then? She had to have been hurt or sick.

If I put the events in chronological order, Sara first ran off in March, not long after finding out she was pregnant. But Lawrence and Sara didn't make up the mission trip story to explain her disappearance—the Rankins did. Then, come May, they spread the word she'd fallen from a cliff and her body wasn't found. They told one lie to begin with. Did they change to another in May? Or were they telling the truth after finding the daughter who'd been missing for several months, maybe found her suffering from a head injury and on life support?

Important questions. It all came back to the Rankins. What did they know that they weren't telling me? And who was following my every move, destroying any link that might exist between Verna Mae and the person who placed that baby in her care so many years ago?

Jeff always says the higher the stakes, the bigger the crime, and in this case the biggest crime had not been an abandoned child. It had been Verna Mae's death. What happened after Will and I left