“I never did that.” Stu’s tree-trunk legs wobbled until he thudded back on the couch. “I never done killed nobody in my life. Clint’s a friend of mine. I never done killed nobody.”

“Get your sorry ass up or I’ll haul you up. You’re coming to the station, and you’d better start telling the truth or I’ll see you do some real time behind bars. You’re up shit creek, Stu, and every lie takes you farther from shore.”

“I never done killed nobody! I swear on my life.” Tears began to leak. “Clint just came by yesterday—we never went camping, he just asked me to say so. He came by after he heard Traci took off and you was looking for him. I was just helping out a bud, that’s all it was, and anybody’d do the same.”

“You reckon anybody’d hide and lie for a man who beat his wife black-and-blue?”

“I don’t know nothing about that. Clint, he was here, that’s what I know. We had some beer and such, and I passed out, I guess. I don’t know nothing about the paint or nothing. Jesus, he’s dead? For real?”

A moron, Lee thought, a lazy, bullying bastard, but an unlikely killer.

“Get up. You’re coming in, telling it all. If you don’t want me to cuff you, get up. You got another pair of shoes?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well, change them. I’m not having your puke in my house. Get a shirt and pants, too. I’m taking what you’re wearing into evidence. They find any paint, any of Clint’s blood on you, you’re fucked good.”

“I was just covering for a bud, like anybody would. I didn’t do nothing. I never killed nobody.”

Lee believed him, right down the line. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t squeeze him first. If Stu knew anything, anything at all, he’d damn well squeeze it out drop by drop.

* * *

By the time the crew arrived with Brody in tow, Emily had the pasta salad in the fridge and a second pitcher of tea steeping. Darby went straight to Roy.

“I’m still wet,” he began, but she hugged him close. After a second’s hesitation, he clamped hard around her.

“Holy God, Miss Darby. Holy God. I’ve never seen—never gonna stop seeing. When I—when I got to him, grabbed on, he turned over. And his face…”

“Come on, sit down.”

“I—I got some dry clothes in the truck. Any place I can change outta these?”

“Sure.”

She waited while he got them, then led him in and to the lower level, past Zane’s home gym, the home theater and into a full bath.

“Take a hot shower, take your time,” Darby told him, then gripped his hand. “Roy, you’re a hero.”

“I didn’t do nothing.”

“You went in the lake, trying, hoping to save someone. And when you saw he was past saving, you still brought him in. You’re a hero.”

As his eyes went damp, he shook his head. “I never liked the son of a bitch, that’s God’s truth. Liked him less since it got out he was hitting on Traci. But…”

“That only makes you more of a hero. Take your time.”

She went up to find her crew huddled together at a table, united in shock. And Brody sitting so close to Gabe they made a twin pack.

“Is he all right?” Hallie twisted her hands together, released them, twisted. “He’s hardly said a word since … since he pulled Clint Draper out of the lake.”

“He just needs some time.”

“Can you tell us what’s going on?” Ralph demanded. “I’d sure as hell like to know what’s going on.”

“Me, too, but I’ll tell you what I know.”

She didn’t sit, couldn’t. “Somebody—we have to assume Clint Draper—shot out the terrace doors to the bedroom upstairs.”

“Son of a bitch.” Ralph pounded a fist on the table, made Hallie jump, and sent his own glasses skipping down his nose. “That son of a bitch. Not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but hell with that.”

“Where’s Zane?” Brody demanded. “Is he hurt?”

“No, no. He went to get Traci’s sister. They’re going into Asheville to tell her. Before Clint came here, he painted a bunch of crap on Zane’s office building, on my place.”

“The Drapers are no good,” Hallie muttered. “Never have been, never will be. We’re going to help you fix it up, Darby, don’t you worry about that.”

“I’m in on that,” Brody said. “We’ll make it right. But … how’d he get in the lake?”

Darby let out a breath. “They found—well, Zane and Zod found where he shot from, and … You can see over there where the police tape is. There’s blood, too. He had to be with somebody, and whoever he was with must’ve hit him with a rock, then dragged him off, dumped him in the lake.”

“Don’t make a lick of sense,” Ralph added.

“No, it really doesn’t.”

“It kinda does,” Brody put in. “Could be two things that kinda do.”

Intrigued, Darby pulled up a chair, looked into Brody’s Walker-green eyes. “What two things?”

“He was probably drunk—they’ll do a tox screening and find out. But everybody knows he gets meaner and more stupid when he’s drinking. Dad’s had to lock him up a couple times for drunk and disorderly.”

Emily poured more tea. “And how would you know?”

“I’ve got ears, Mom,” he said, adding a teenage eye roll. “Anyway, whoever was mean and stupid enough to be with him when he shoots at the house was likely drunk, too, right? Could be he wanted a turn with the gun, and they tussled over it, and bam. Probably didn’t mean to kill him, but did, then what’re you gonna do, right? Dump the body. Should’ve just left it lay and took off, but drunk, stupid, and mean.”

“Put it that way,” Gabe considered, “it makes some sense. What’s the other way, Sherlock?”

Brody grinned, then shrugged. “Okay, so he’s going around tagging Zane’s office, then Darby’s house. Somebody sees him. Maybe somebody as mean as Clint Draper was, and they follow him right on up to here.”

“Why kill him?” Darby asked.

“Sometimes mean doesn’t need a reason, just opportunity. I heard Dad say that once. Either way, Dad, Silas, and the rest of them will figure it out. It’s what they do.”

“That’s right.” Standing behind her son, Emily squeezed his shoulders. “It’s what they do.”

“If it’s the second…” Gabe hesitated, drew a finger down the condensation on his glass of tea. “They’re even meaner than the Drapers. I don’t know anybody like that. Except … is Dad sure Zane’s—I mean, Graham Bigelow is still locked up?”

“He checked first thing.” Now Emily shifted a hand to Gabe’s shoulder. “He’s locked up good and tight, don’t you worry.”

But wasn’t the real worry, Darby thought, the possibility that someone in Lakeview was meaner than the Drapers?

And a killer.

* * *