Richards shook his head vigorously. “No, I never knew about a baby. She never told me. The night she was killed, we were supposed to meet but she didn’t show.”
“Oh my God.” Sharon collapsed against Lily, almost knocking the small woman over. “Did you kill Beth?”
Richards looked from one of the women to the other, his face ashen. “No, I didn’t kill Beth. Yes, we were sleeping together. But as God is my witness, I would never have killed her. I loved her. I didn’t care who knew it, either. She was all I ever wanted. There were no other girls. I don’t know what you’re doing, but there was no one but Beth.”
Sharon let out a wail. “Love? You loved her? You pervert. She was a child.”
“I was twenty-two,” Richards said. “Later on in life, a five-year age gap wouldn’t have made any difference. I know it’s no excuse, but I fell for her. I didn’t want to. Sharon, truly, I didn’t mean for it to happen. There was simply something about us together that defied all logic. I couldn’t stay away from her. She couldn’t stay away from me. I’m sorry. I am.” He turned to Carlie. “But I would never have hurt her. If she’d come to me, I would’ve taken her away somewhere new so we could start fresh. When she turned eighteen, we could have married and had the child even without your parents’ permission. Eventually, your parents would have had to accept it.”
“What about me?” Sharon’s voice was cold and eerily quiet as she separated from Lily to move closer to her husband. “How were you going to explain this ill-fated love affair to your young wife who was trying desperately to have a child?”
“I didn’t have a plan,” Richards said. “I didn’t know what to do. I was stuck.”
“Stuck with me?” Sharon asked.
“Yes,” Richards whispered. “Stuck in a marriage that I never wanted in the first place. You know it was my mother who arranged it all and forced me into marrying you or be cut off.”
“How dare you,” Sharon said. “After everything I’ve done for you.”
“What about all the other girls?” Carlie asked. “Did you love them too?”
“What? No, there were no others,” Richards said. “Just Beth. I don’t know who these women are, but they’re lying. I swear on my father’s grave.”
“Beth saw you and Thea together.” Carlie’s voice shook as she pulled the papers from the journal and shook them in the air. “August 26, 1989. She saw Thea’s bike in your backyard. You had her in there with you.”
“It wasn’t me,” Richards said. “There’s no way it was me. I wasn’t even in town that day. I had to leave town unexpectedly that morning because my father had a heart attack. I didn’t have a chance to tell Beth I was leaving town, so she didn’t know. My dad died just after I got there. The hospital records would show that I’m the one who signed his death certificate. We buried him a few days later. There were a hundred witnesses. All members of his church. You can check the obituary in the Boise paper along with the date of the funeral. Sharon, tell them.”
“You expect my help now?” Mrs. Richards asked. “I don’t think so.”
Lily had gone rigid, her gaze fixed on Ford. “I remember that weekend. Sharon and Thom asked us to stay at their house and look after their new puppy. We spent four days there while they were in Boise taking care of funeral arrangements and all that. It was a Saturday. The afternoon of my sister’s bridal shower. I was at my mother’s house all day helping her with the preparations. You were at the house alone taking care of the puppy. It was you with Thea.” She covered her face with her hands. “How could you? A man of the law?”
My limbs tingled. Ford was at the Richards house that weekend? He’d been sleeping with Thea? Moonstone had said it was a prominent member in town but hadn’t gotten Richards’s name directly. What she’d really gotten was Ford. They were scared to come forward because they were sleeping with a sheriff’s deputy. Now, a sheriff.
“It was you?” Carlie asked. “You with all those girls?”
Ford hung his head. “Yes, it was me. Thea and a few others. It was nothing but a young man making bad decisions. Logan Bend was a really small town back then, and the deputy was appealing to the ladies. Lily, they meant nothing to me.”
My stomach churned. How could it be? The man was unrecognizable to me now. How had we thought of him as good and righteous? He’d been lying to us the entire time.
“Nothing to you? How many? How long?” Lily was now clinging to Mrs. Richards. They both looked as if buckets of water had just been thrown in their face.
“It was all a long time ago,” Ford said.
“But we were married,” Lily said. “And you were sleeping with high school girls. Children.”
“They threw themselves at me,” Ford said.
“Did you kill Beth?” Richards lunged at Ford and grabbed him by the collar.
“God, that’s rich.” Ford wrapped his hands around Richards’s shoulders in an attempt to get away. “Trying to pin it on me when everyone and God knows it was you.”
Richards tightened his grip and thrust Ford against the wall. “Why? Why would you do it? She was just an innocent girl.”
“Jesus, Thom, we all knew you did it.” Ford shoved into his chest, knocking Richards backward. “This is just like you to try to make the whole thing seem like my fault. Isn’t that how we always did it?
