Chapter 4

Delphine Bellrose was waiting in the motel parking lot at 9:00 a.m., sitting in the passenger seat of a black sedan with the engine running and the air conditioning on.

She didn't get out. She rolled down the window and looked at Eli standing in the doorway of Room 114 with his jacket on and the envelope inside it.

"Get in," she said.

"I'd rather stand."

"Suit yourself." She took off her reading glasses and let them hang on the chain. "I know my granddaughter came here last night. I know what you showed her."

"Then you know why I'm not getting in your car."

Delphine's face didn't change. "Fifty thousand dollars. Cash. You leave Mississippi today, go back to Arkansas, and never contact Mari again. I'll make sure your parole file stays clean. You'll never see a courtroom for this."

Eli put his hand on the doorframe. "You offered me a deal like this eighteen years ago. I took it, and it cost me everything."

"This one pays better."

"This one is the same lie."

Delphine's jaw tightened. "You think Mari will thank you? You think she'll choose a convicted killer over her family, over her fiancé, over the estate? She's twenty-six years old. She has no idea what she's doing."

"She knows what a fuel fitting looks like," Eli said. "She's the one who found it."

For the first time, Delphine's voice wavered. "Where is it now?"

"Safe."

"If you go to the sheriff with this, I'll have your parole revoked by Tuesday. You'll be back inside before the month is out. You'll never see her again, and she'll marry Clay and forget you ever existed."

Eli leaned down so he could see her clearly through the window. "You've been telling yourself that for eighteen years, Mrs. Bellrose. It hasn't worked yet."

He walked back into his room and closed the door. Through the curtain he watched the sedan sit in the lot for a full minute before it pulled out and turned south toward the gin.

Eli called Mari. She answered on the first ring.

"She just left," he said. "She offered me fifty thousand dollars to disappear."

"What did you tell her?"

"No."

Mari was quiet for a moment. "She's going to try something else. She always has a second move."

"She threatened my parole."

"Then we need to move faster than she does." Mari's voice was steady, but he could hear the strain underneath. "I'm at the gin. Roy's doing maintenance on the generator this afternoon. I'm going to see if I can get him talking."

"Don't push him alone."

"I won't. But Eli-" She paused. "Come to supper tonight. Family supper. Seven o'clock. Delphine hosts it every Sunday in the gin hall."

"She'll throw me out."

"Let her try," Mari said. "I'm the one who invited you."