“Shit.”Darby began pacing. “Freakingshit.”His steps were quick, erratically changing positions. I narrowed my eyes and watched him. I wasn’t the only man on the edge.
A breeze swept past, clearing the dust and sending a flurry of sable fur shooting out of the Jeep like a cannon, sharp, quick barks.
Familiar barks.
Darby froze, eyes rounded in terror as the dog barreled toward him, stopping inches from his untied shoe. Max bounced, pawed, his nose in the air, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing. Exactly as he had done earlier while Sunny was training him to sniff out the third person from the night of her attack. The frantic sniffing was nothing like when he’d met Darby at Sunny’s house the night of the vandalism. This was different.
This was the turning point.
For a moment, I stood stock still in shock. Max had been trained to sniff out the mystery third person involved in Sunny’s attack.
Darby?
Darby’s scream in fear of the dog shook me out of it.
“Max,settle!”
The dog stopped instantly, recoiled, and joined me at my heels.
Darby gaped at me.
My pulse roared in my ears. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
“What did you do after photographing the Voodoo Treein the woods?” I pulled the gun from my belt, kept it low, but it kept it loud.
The flush drained from the kid’s cheeks.
“The evening of Seagrave’s funeral,” I repeated, seething. “The night of Sunny Harper’s attack in the park. The night some mystery person ran out of the woods and shot a hole through Julian Griggs’ face. Answer me, Darby, what did you do after meeting me at the shrine?”
“I…” his gaze drifted to my gun.
“Where.Did you.Go?”
I inched closer. Max growled at my hip.
“I did it!” His scream exploded out of a pale face, bulging eyes, wild with adrenaline. “Okay? I did it! I killed Julian Griggs. Pastor Griggs’ son. I’m the third person. Ifreakingdid it.”
The confession poured from his lips like an inmate on death row.
I fisted his uniform collar and pulled him off the ground.
“Did you hurt Sunny?” With my other hand, I lifted the gun to his face. “Did you fucking hurt Sunny?”
“No.” His answer was barely audible. “No… I promise… no… I pushed her to the ground to get her away from Julian. I saved her life. No… Jagg… please…”
My body shook with rage. “I’m going to ask you again and I swear to God I will put a bullet in your head if you don’t tell me the truth. Did you hurt Sunny?”
He tried to shake his head against my choke hold. His feet kicked back and forth, dangling above my own.
I released my hand and watched him crumble to the ground gasping for breath.
And began sobbing. Blubbering, heaving sobs.
I holstered the gun for the second time, took a few steps back and gave him a second to catch the breath I’d stolenfrom him. Finally, he shifted onto his butt, pulled his knees to his chest and looked up at me.
He was absolutely terrified.
“Did you also vandalize her home, Darby?”
