Truth on the brink, p.24
Truth on the Brink, page 24
Kyle puffed his chest out, all bravado. “Who knows? Who cares? You know how he gets sometimes, like a pit bull on a T-bone. He may not come home tonight. Or he may be home in five minutes. But I gotta do what I gotta do.”
Kellen pointed to the door without hesitation. “I’m in.”
They exited through the kitchen door into the backyard. It was a longer path through the yard to get to the driveway, but it avoided the sound of the garage door opening. Kyle led the way, tiptoeing through the dew-moistened grass for a few steps before realizing his steps were quiet either way. He expected Kellen to gibe him and was glad when she didn’t offer commentary.
He pivoted around the drooping branches of a Japanese maple at the corner of the house and was through the gate of their chain-link fence in a flash. He would get to the driveway, wait a few minutes, then fake the call. The blowing snort of a whitetail deer in the distance caught his attention, and he stopped to point it out to Kellen at the same moment she clutched his shoulder from behind.
“Look. I don’t think that’s Gabe.”
Kyle froze and instantly did not like what he saw.
A truck was parked to their left, off the end of the driveway, on a patch of bare dirt where Dad had unhitched his trailer too many times for grass to survive. It wasn’t unusual to see a vehicle in that particular spot when they had company over. But they didn’t have company over, and this truck was backed in, like its occupant was watching the house.
Or prepared for a quick getaway.
They stood motionless for a time, afraid to move or talk. Finally, Kellen tugged at Kyle’s shirt, and he followed her lead, retracing his footsteps backward, eyeing the truck with every step. Maybe the driver hadn’t seen him. But who was it? The truck was a midsize, maybe foreign, but it was too dark to tell much else.
Before Kyle and Kellen could back through the gate, the driver’s door opened, and a head popped up above the roof. “Hey, what y’all doing?” a male voice called from his perch standing on the nerf bar.
Kyle’s first instinct was to run, and he stepped back hard, landing squarely on Kellen’s foot.
Kellen pushed back even harder. “What are you doing, bro?” She stepped around Kyle and moved toward the truck. “Devlin? That you?”
The person hopped down and rounded the front of the truck. “It is, it is. Where you two kids heading? Ain’t it past your bedtime?”
Kellen grunted. “We’re almost fifteen. And don’t you wish you knew.” Kyle had heard that sharp edge in her voice many times and was glad it was directed at someone else.
Devlin James laughed. “I guess that depends on whether knowing might get me into more trouble or not.”
Kyle felt foolish for wanting to run. He should have recognized the Tacoma crew cab as belonging to Devlin. Even if not recognizing it as a friend he should have stood his ground given the fact it was a strange vehicle on his property. With Dad not home, he was expected to be the protector. On the other hand, a kid not much older than him had been murdered only four days prior. And maybe he was a bit gun shy after running straight into that Carter kid’s right hook at the party two nights earlier. He stepped forward to join Kellen. “Nothing to know. Kellen and I just coming out to talk for a minute.”
Kellen’s head swiveled. She was frowning, but this time it was at him. “If you thought of something, don’t you think Devlin, of all people, should know? Not to mention, here’s the ride we needed. Doesn’t look like your friend is coming.”
This is turning into a disaster. If there had been a chance Kellen would soon back off and not force Kyle to reveal his lie, it was likely gone now. If Devlin thought Kyle had an idea that would help exonerate him, he would surely push to see it through. What would he say if and when he realized it was an utter waste of time?
Devlin pounded a fist into the palm of his other hand. “Really? You thought of something? I came to get an update from Coach. I know he and Jack have been working hard, but I haven’t heard from them. Jack said he’d give me an update tomorrow, but I can’t wait. They’re not answering their phones.”
“Why not just wait on Jack to get home?” Kyle asked.
Devlin looked toward the ground. “Mom might be there. We ain’t on the best of terms right now.”
Understandable. From what Kyle had gathered from overheard conversations between his parents, Tammy James had thought all along that she was actually Ronny James’s murderer. Whether she would have been willing to let Devlin take the ultimate fall for her or truly had confidence that Jack and others would quickly prove his innocence without discovering her role in it might never be known. Either way, the wounds it caused would not heal any time soon, if ever.
“Everybody thinks you’re innocent, Devlin. That’s what matters.”
Devlin looked up and stared at Kyle long enough for Kyle to notice his own misty breaths puffing in the silence held by their gaze. Devlin stepped forward until the two boys were chest to chest. He wasn’t much taller than Kyle, but his shoulders and chest showed the bulk of much more testosterone and hundreds of weight room presses. Devlin poked a finger in Kyle’s chest, not hard enough to hurt but enough for Kyle to know he’d best listen to what came next. “Let’s get something straight. What matters is once upon a time me and Ronny were friends. And he’s dead. And I could still get arrested again. And even if that don’t happen, unless somebody else is convicted of it, my name will forever be whispered when his story is told.”
Kellen grabbed Devlin’s hand and pushed it away. “Easy, Dev. He wasn’t saying it doesn’t matter. Besides, you should be nice to Kyle. He has an idea about how to help you.”
Devlin pulled his hand away and stepped back. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just on edge. Three days in jail, among other things, has a way of doing that.” He patted Kyle on the shoulder. “So you can help me? I’ll owe you.”
Kyle gulped. Here we go again. Think. Think! What to do now? Unless he fessed up, he would have half the people he knew mad at him before the sun rose again. Proffit, for not checking on their operation at the Dunbar house. Devlin and Kellen, for leading them on a wild goose chase. Mom and Dad, for being out too late and interfering with the investigation. Jack too. But what if he could come through? There was that one thought he had. Just a passing mirage of an idea when it hit him, not worth pursuing, or at least best left to others more officially in charge. It was farfetched. Wasn’t it?
“Hey, Kyle.”
The voice was coming from the truck, and Kyle recognized it instantly. His pulse quickened.
“Emma, I told you and Lena to shush and let me handle this.” Devlin said.
“Well, you’re taking forever.” Lena Cole’s voice this time. “And we can’t tell that you’re handling anything.”
Devlin sighed.
Kellen shifted her weight and folded her arms.
Kyle strained his eyes to see if Emma Harlow was looking at him.
—————
“Carter Strevel will get what’s coming to him,” Devlin said over his shoulder as he punched the accelerator. “I’ll see to it after all this is done.”
Emma shined her phone light onto the left side of Kyle’s face and giggled. “Ooh. That may hit every color in the rainbow before it’s gone.”
Kyle touched the sore spot where he had been slugged two nights before. “At least I’m not eating through a straw.”
Kellen elbowed Kyle from her seat by the door to his right. “You gonna tell us your plan or not?”
Kyle liked the “or not” option, except it couldn’t be an option much longer. They were on their way to Logan’s Bluff, with Devlin driving like they were in the NASCAR Truck Series.
Despite her initial enthusiasm, Kellen had first required Devlin to explain why he had two girls in the truck with him if he was so serious about finding out the truth. His explanation had been far short of eloquent, but the gist of Lena, the passionate girlfriend seeking vindication for her “true love,” and Emma, the remorseful former stepsister seeking restitution for sharing the video that had implicated Devlin, had been convincing enough for Kellen to relent.
Part of Kyle had wanted Kellen to buck it and back away and save him from embarrassment. The other part of him wanted to be in that truck so bad he could hardly stand it, whatever the cost. He had doubts about Lena’s true loyalty and motives, given what he’d heard about the love triangle with Ronny, but he needed no convincing about anything from Emma.
Kellen elbowed him again. “Well?”
Kyle’s mind raced. Even if they found nothing, which he fully expected, the logic behind their crusade had to sound reasonable. He could sense that his dad knew they were missing something in the message from that Perry vagabond guy he had heard about all his life, but what? Kyle had wanted to show his parents and Jack how to get from Logan’s Bluff down to Miller’s Creek, where it seemed like Perry was suggesting the killer came in, but no one was interested. Maybe that was the play now. But what sense would it make to try to accomplish that in the dark? The odds of finding anything were nil in those conditions, and he knew what the girls would say if he led them down a hill a quarter mile through the woods in the black of night.
He had read the poetic message so many times he had it memorized. He had been the one to come up with an idea about the meaning of the last verse. But what about the first two? No one had any answers. They had stopped to think atop the boulder brink just like it said, but nothing happened.
And maybe his dad and Jack had found out something from the newspaper reporter Alethia about internuncios, whatever that meant, but for some reason Kyle doubted it. Something was eating at him about that name, Alethia. It sounded a lot like that goddess Athena he had learned about in the Greek mythology section in eighth grade, but he knew they weren’t the same. Why did that keep popping in his head?
Kyle took out his phone and began a Google search.
“What are you doing?” Kellen asked. “Please tell me you have an actual idea and aren’t scrambling to find one now.”
Kyle nudged his sister hard with his shoulder and angled the phone so she couldn’t see what he was typing. He felt Emma’s chin on his shoulder, looking. He didn’t even have to scroll down before he had his answer. “Holy cow, that’s it.” He handed his phone to Kellen to peruse the screen.
“What?” Emma asked in his ear.
“The truth. Believe it or not, Perry pointed us straight to it.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
“PLEASE explain,” Devlin said. “Something tells me it can’t be that easy.”
Kellen gave the phone back to Kyle and elbowed him again. “Brother, that’s good work. Now we just have to find it.”
Lena clapped her hands like a kindergarten teacher getting her students’ attention. “Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?”
Kellen recited Perry’s riddle and gave a brief overview of their progress deciphering it. “But Alethia isn’t the newspaper woman. It’s a synonym for truth. So the message basically says, ‘the wise stop and think atop the boulder brink, for truth resides where messengers hide.’”
Kyle was impressed. She had evidently memorized the riddle too.
Lena huffed. “Still makes no sense.”
Devlin rolled the steering wheel to the left and angled his Tacoma up the access road to Logan’s Buff. “We’re almost there. Hope somebody has a plan.”
Kyle leaned forward, both to better see how Devlin was navigating the ascent along the dark two-track road and to make sure he was heard. “Basically, we already established where the boulder brink is, but we weren’t sure what to do with the information. Now we know. There’s another message of some sort hidden there. A message with the truth. I assume Perry left it for us. Now we just have to find it.”
—————
“I don’t like the dark.” Lena hooked her arm in Devlin’s and pulled herself to him as she eyed the trees looming before them at the edge of the clearing. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“You’re the one insisted on coming,” Devlin said. “I told you I didn’t know where I’d wind up.”
“You said you were going to talk to your coach. You didn’t say nothing about going back to where Ronny was killed.”
Devlin ignored her and began picking his way down the hillside ahead of the others, using his phone light to find his steps and identify low-hanging limbs that needed brushing aside.
The dew had begun to freeze, exacerbating the crunch of the dry leaves beneath their feet. Kyle couldn’t decide if the noise of the crunching in silence or of their voices when talking was more disconcerting. He would have much preferred more stealth, like when he was tracking a young doe just to see how close he could get before she detected him. Once he had been quiet enough, with the benefit of a breeze in his face strong enough to wiggle the foliage around them, to get within three feet, almost close enough to reach out and touch her. Tonight they sounded like sumo wrestlers wearing snowshoes in the woods. How did they know the killer wasn’t watching their every move? Lena wasn’t wrong about it being spooky.
Devlin marched on, and his cohort followed diligently. Kyle shined his light back and forth into the shadows but saw nothing. Finally, Devlin stopped and turned his light back toward them. “Be careful. I’m right here at the edge. Go over it, and God help us all.”
Emma slid her hand under Kyle’s arm and squeezed. His heart skipped. Was she cold, or nervous, or did that mean something else?
Kellen moved up to stand beside Devlin, craning her neck to see what lay before them without getting any closer. The rock outcropping shone like a gray ghost rising from a long serpentine ribbon of depthless black. “So that’s the boulder brink. I must say, it’s impressive in the dark.”
Kyle took a deep breath and unhooked his arm from Emma’s. He moved past Devlin and Kellen and stepped onto the boulder.
“Get back!” Lena cried out. “This is crazy!”
“The wise stop and think atop the boulder brink,” Kellen said.
“And if I’m standing on top of something,” Kyle said, “thinking about where to hide something else, where’s the first place that comes to mind?”
“Underneath it!” Emma chimed in excitedly. “Look underneath it!”
Devlin was on his knees before she had finished repeating the words. “Lena, grab my belt from behind in case I slip.”
“I’m not moving.” Lena’s feet might as well have been buried in cement, five feet back from the edge.
Kyle hopped off the rock and grabbed Devlin’s belt, leaning back to brace himself. “Got you.”
Devlin shined his phone light along the edge of the rock. “It’s straight down right here. I can’t see underneath it, can’t reach it, and can’t get any closer. Maybe that’s not it.”
“Over here,” Kellen said. “There are two sides, you know.”
“Careful!” Kyle hissed. He let go of Devlin, who was pushing back from the edge, and slid over to get behind Kellen. She didn’t have a belt, so he took a fistful of her shirt instead.
“Thanks.” Kellen shifted to get in a more upright position. “Guess what? There’s a foothold right here at the base of the rock.” She reached back for Kyle to grab her hand instead of her shirt and moved her right foot down the edge of the embankment while keeping one knee on the edge.
“Got you.” He grasped her forearm while she reciprocated on his. He wished he had a belt to hold but vowed to go over with her before he let her slip away.
Lena gasped. “I can’t take this.”
“You better be hanging on to her tight, bro,” Devlin said. “On second thought, Kellen, let me down there. I’m bigger, stronger, older. Plus, if you get hurt, Coach will kill me. Jack too.”
Kellen ignored him and tossed her phone back up on the ledge to free up her right hand. “I can’t lean out far enough to see anything. Got to assume Perry was by himself, so it can’t require too many acrobatics to get to it. Let me just feel around.”
The earth around the boulder brink and the crevasse it guarded fell silent while Kellen probed, and her spectators held their breaths. Suddenly her movement changed from slow and deliberate to short lunges. Kyle thought she might be slipping and squeezed tighter.
“I think I feel something!” Her labored breaths became rapid and shallow. She lunged again, and Kyle felt a slip of her hand along his arm.
“It’s not worth it, Kel. We’ll come back in the light.”
“Just don’t let go. There’s a hole here. I can feel something at my fingertips at the back.”
“Probably a rattlesnake,” Lena said from her cemented location.
“Lena, don’t say another word, or I’m gonna choke you out,” Emma said.
Kyle smiled to himself, but it quickly evaporated when Kellen lunged again, and he felt another tiny slip of their grip. “Come on up here and let’s rethink this. Let me do it. Or Devlin, like he said. His arms are longer.” Kyle had never seen Perry, but if the description of him in his dad’s first book was accurate, he was taller than Kellen. Which meant he had a longer reach. She was physically mature and tall for her age, but not enough, apparently. Unfortunately, he knew his sister’s mindset. She wouldn’t give up, especially not to be replaced by a boy.
“Like Emma said,” Kellen hissed, “just be quiet and hold on.”
Kyle considered talking a lot more in hopes Kellen would abandon her current position and try to choke him out, but he feared that would distract her. Instead, he said, “I got you. Just get it.”
She leaned in again, her fingers clutching Kyle’s arm. He couldn’t see her very well from his sideways angle, but it seemed like she had her entire shoulder buried into the face of the ledge. Suddenly, she out a whoop. “Ha! Got it! You’re not going to believe this!”
