“It was nothing, okay?” Frowning, he flipped his hair out of his eyes. He rubbed his elbow with the hand of his other arm. “I told you that Miles Dean had dared me to take ’em.”

“Right, but you said that you didn’t. That you saw Mr. Wells on the porch and changed your mind.”

Stephen worried his lower lip with his teeth. “I did see Mr. Wells. On the porch, just like I said. But that was after I’d swiped the keys. He didn’t say nothin’ to me, just stared me down, and I took off.”

Her insides twisted. “You have to tell the police the truth.”

“I know.” He stared out the passenger window and his shoulders slumped in resignation.

“Why didn’t you before?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “Because . . . because Miles told me if I so much as breathed a word of it, he’d kill us.”

“You gave him the keys?”

“No.” He was emphatic as he shook his head. “I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel right about it, so I hid ’em in a box in my room. Then I thought I’d sneak ’em out to the ranch and put ’em back, but . . . I never got around to it. There was all that yellow tape around the house, sayin’ it was a crime scene and . . .” He shrugged. “I thought I’d wipe ’em clean of any fingerprints and toss ’em into the creek. I was gonna do it when I ran into Miles at the Mini Mart.”

Calm down, Tiffany, she told herself as her fingers held on to the steering wheel in a death grip and she felt sweat dampen her spine. Don’t judge, don’t yell just listen. “Okay. What did Miles want with the keys?”

“Don’t know.” Stephen was as pale as death, but he appeared to be telling the truth.

“Is he planning on stealing one of Mr. Wells’s cars?”

“Who knows? It doesn’t matter. I never gave him the keys.”

“Thank God.” She braked at the hardware store where she had planned to pick up some supplies, but thought better of it. “Let’s go down to the police station. You can tell Sergeant Pearson what you just told me.”

“No way.”

“Yes, way.” She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Slowing at the intersection, she waited for the red light to change, then took a right. The police station was in the older part of town, not far from the park.

Stephen squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “Mom, please, don’t make me do this.”

“You don’t have a choice, Stephen.”

“But Miles will kill me.”

“I doubt it,” she said, though she knew the older boy’s reputation for violence. Miles was a tough kid who was angry at the world. “I’ll handle Miles.”