An hour later, Bud and I drove away from the hospital.
“Nice guy,” Bud said.
I nodded. “Not a lot of help for my case, though.”
Bud slowed down behind a logging truck. “Maybe your client is guilty. Did you ask him straight out?”
I couldn’t discuss the case with Bud, but Bernie had said he hadn’t killed anybody. I did believe him. But what if he’d known about Sharon? It hadn’t taken Thelma and Georgiana very long to find the woman, and Bernie had the same contacts, probably. If he’d looked for her, he would’ve found her. But he’d said he hadn’t thought about her again.
“Where to?” Bud asked.
It was Friday, but I didn’t have court this week. “Just to the office. Maybe I can wrap everything else up.” I angled my head to see the clouds rolling in. Good. It’d be a snowy Christmas next week if the clouds kept coming. “I need to stop by Duke’s first.”
“Sure.” This time, Bud parked at the curb in front of the buildings, and we both jumped out.
I paused on the sidewalk. “Do you mind if I talk to Duke alone?”
Bud stilled and ducked his head to see inside the jewelry store. “Go ahead.” He angled his body by the door.
“Thanks.” I edged inside, seeing Duke at the cash register to the right. He was in his sixties and as wide as he was tall. His bald head gleamed under the soft lights, and silver spectacles perched on his wide nose. “Hi, Duke.”
“Hi.” He set a notebook to the side. “I’m finished. You want to pay in full today?”
I gulped, hoping I had enough credit left on my card. “Sure.” Digging it out of my purse, I walked across the soft gray carpet to hand over. “I had a nice talk with Earl Jacobsen about how you all seeded your companies.”
Duke calmly swiped my credit card. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. It’s too late to be charged because too many years have gone by,” I said, accepting the card when he handed it back.
He shrugged his wide shoulders, making his big belly jiggle. “Nope. Sorry.”
I sighed. “Fine. Don’t admit anything, but at least talk to me. You’ve known everybody in my case for a long time. Do you think Bernie could’ve killed Lawrence?” It figured they all went way back.
“Maybe,” Duke said. “I was at the CASA poker party the night Bernie supposedly cheated on Florence—at the other table and not with the Kringles.” He shrugged. “Heard the rumor within a week that Bernie had cheated. Florence was in here a couple of days ago saying that it might’ve been a setup.” He pointed to the screen for me to sign.
Good. My credit card had gone through. I signed my name. “What do you think?”
“If that’s true, Lawrence deserved a knife in the back,” Duke said, printing out my receipt. “All of these guys were so much in love with Florence when we were young, and I guess that never went away. I mean, I liked her and all, but she didn’t hold a candle to my Jennie. Still doesn’t.”
That was sweet. Jennie was a friend of my Nana O’Shea’s, and I’d always liked her.
He shook his head and pointed to a box of what looked liked pictures. “Florence asked me to get her copies of the pictures of our younger days. I think she wants to make some sort of video for Bernie. Guess they might be getting back together.” He handed over a bag with Aiden’s present in it. Probably. I mean, if I gave it to him.
I accepted the bag. “So you think Bernie could’ve done it?”
Duke looked at me, his eyes blazing behind the glasses. “I would have if somebody did that to me. Bernie really loved her, and it almost killed him when they split.”
I wouldn’t be calling Duke as a character witness for Bernie. My gaze caught on the box of pictures. Maybe I could get a feeling about all of these people and how they fit together by looking backward even further than the night Lawrence had set up Bernie. “How about I deliver those for you?”
Chapter 35
I was halfway through a bottle of wine, sitting on my washing machine, staring at the case board I’d created on the mounted board. A picture of Lawrence was in the middle surrounded by Bernie, Florence, Hoyt and the rest of the past and current Kringle Club members. The box of pictures sat next to me on the clothes dryer, and I picked through them, noting that Florence really was stunning in her youth. Bernie was kind of cute as well.
Aiden worked at my table in the other room, his case files scattered and his notebooks full. Saber worked with him, and they bounced ideas off each other fairly well. The rest of their team had taken the night off.
I glanced at my phone, noting it was nearly midnight. We’d met up to eat spaghetti and then had each retreated to work. It felt like Aiden was just as motivated as I was to get things settled with our work so we could concentrate on Jareth Davey or my stalker. My gut told me it was Davey because who else could it be?
I sipped my wine and looked at the board again.
What if? Jumping off the washing machine, I slid Lawrence’s picture to the side and put Florence’s smack dab in the middle. All of this might be about her. She was Bernie’s motivation for murder, and quite possibly Hoyt’s as well if he’d known his father was going to leave her so much in his will. Left without anything else to do, I took out older black and white photographs to tape beneath the current ones of everyone.
Duke Wells had a head of hair in his twenties, and Earl had long golden curls. Seriously. His hair had been gorgeous. Bernie looked the same, Lawrence’s nose was much smaller, Jocko stood like a tough-guy, and Doc Springfield looked like a young Santa. He’d always had that round face, although his beard had been brown. He must’ve been in medical school while the others were miners.
All of the men were fairly muscled, which made sense considering they’d been hard rock miners to start.
There were many pictures of them camping, partying, or just hanging out at many of the bars that still thrived in Silverville. I wasn’t surprised to find photographs of my grandparents in several of the places.
A picture of Bernie, Lawrence, and Florence caught my eye. She was between them, arms around their waists, smiling. They were both staring at her, puppy love on their faces, and she was looking at the camera. There was a crowded campground behind them, and I could almost hear the hum of people. I taped the picture on the board because, at this point, it said everything.
I sipped my wine, missing something. I didn’t know what it was. All of the pictures were in front of me, and I’d even drawn one of Sharon Smith so she’d be represented. It was a stick figure, but I didn’t care much because she had an alibi for the murder. I even had a picture of Lucy Gardiner on the board that I’d gotten off her Facebook page. She’d seemed nice, but she was still seeing Hoyt, and he stood to inherit quite a bit. They hadn’t known that Florence would be left so much in the will.
Lucy didn’t feel like a murderer to me.
Of course, nobody involved did. I had a square box on the board for the unknown suspect, but I certainly hadn’t seen any evidence in that direction. Bernie’s life was fairly simple.
I hopped back on the washing machine, pulled my legs up, and just stared at the pictures again. Oh, I could take a break and wrap Christmas presents, but I was tired, and none of this was making sense.
The front door closed and soon Aiden poked his head into the room. “Solve your case?”
“No. You?”
He shrugged. “We’ve tracked Jareth Davey from here down to Portland and then Portland to Seattle, but then we lost him.”
Seattle was only a five-hour drive from where we lived. “He’s here, isn’t he?” I asked, already knowing the answer. There was nobody else who would’ve left a dead body on my lawn. Probably.
“Yeah. I think he’s here,” Aiden said, his voice calm. “Which is good because now I can handle him.” He looked over his shoulder. “I’m glad the dog is staying with you. Do you think Knox would let you keep him for a while? The alarm system is working now, but there�
�s nothing better than a dog.”
“Sure,” I said. “Especially if I get my cases wrapped up and can hang here with Fabio for a while.” I could use a vacation, actually. “What’s your plan?” I kept my voice light.
“We’ve passed off four of our cases and are close to finishing three more,” Aiden said. “My entire team is due a vacation, so if we get everything wrapped up, I’ll give the gang a week off, although at the moment, they’re full on trying to help us track down Jareth Davey. They don’t like that he burned us any more than I do, and we’re hitting it hard tomorrow even though it’s Saturday.”
I cocked my head, noting his eyes looked tired. Aiden never looked tired. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m clearing my schedule so I can hunt him,” Aiden said evenly. “If I’d have known he was stalking you all these years, I would’ve done so before.”
Yeah, I had often wished Aiden would’ve kept in touch after leaving town, but my moron shrink at the time had told him to leave me alone, and he’d had to move away anyway. “How do we hunt him?” I asked, never having hunted a human before.
His lips twitched. “We don’t.”
I pushed off the appliances, landing on my feet to face him. The thing is, I understand Aiden. He hadn’t had much in his life, not many people he trusted, and when he found somebody, he was all in while he was in. I’d seen it with his team, and I’d experienced it first-hand. That didn’t mean he saw orange blossoms and a priest in our future, but it did mean he’d take whatever control he could and fight any threat. It’s who he was and what he did.
I also knew myself. Pretty much. Jareth Davey had tried to hunt me most of my life, and so far, I hadn’t found a way to turn the tables. Through the years the local authorities had tried to find him, my family had tried to find him, and nobody had succeeded. Also, we couldn’t prove he was the one sending the cards to me, so even if we’d found him, there wasn’t much we could have done.
Within the law, anyway.
Now I had a chance to find the bastard with Aiden. Aiden was the best at what he did, and if anybody could hunt down Jareth, it was Aiden Devlin.
Finally.
“I’m going to help,” I said.
“No,” he said, not unexpectedly.
Aiden was an old-fashioned guy who was also used to jumping into the line of fire before anybody else. It’s why he led a specialty ATF team that would follow him into the bowels of hell. He cared about me, and he’d try to protect me, even to the point of infuriating me and leaving me out.
I walked toward him, noting the darkening of his eyes.
Yeah, I could argue with him. I could threaten, beg, or plead to be part of the hunt. Instead, I placed both my hands on his chest, looked up at those unreal blue eyes, and gave him the truth. “I need to be a part of this.”
He blinked. Just once, but it was enough. “My team is treating this as an op, and you’re terrible at obeying orders.” He wasn’t wrong. I opened my mouth and he shook his head. “We are not using you as bait.”
Yeah, that was what I had been planning to say. “Okay. You’re in charge of the op.” Although, I was bait, whether or not he liked that fact. Jareth Davey was invested in me for some reason, and that hadn’t changed in fourteen years. But I didn’t need to put a label on it. “I feel like he’s been in charge for so much of my life as I waited for those stupid cards twice a year, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t find him and fight him,” I said in a rush. “I don’t like feeling helpless.” If I could help take the control away from Jareth Davey, I needed to do so.
Aiden breathed out. “Okay. That’s fair.” He slid his arms around my waist. “Since my team is clearing all other cases to concentrate on the new campaign starting Monday morning, you can be a member of the team.”
The new campaign was finally stopping Jareth Davey. If he’d committed that murder, we’d prove it and put him away forever.
Yeah, I adored Aiden. Putting me on his team went against every instinct in his body, but he was doing it because I needed to be there. Oh, he’d still jump in front of any bullets, but I was pretty quick there, too. I didn’t mind being able to cover his back while he hunted.
I wasn’t going to lose Aiden to Jareth Davey. “He’s after you, too,” I said softly.
“No. He’s after me only as a way to get to you,” Aiden said. “Don’t forget that.”
I stepped in and snuggled into his broad chest. Christmas was coming, our talk was coming, and right now, I just wanted to feel him. It seemed like our lives were on hold until we locked down Jareth, and I was tired of it. Finally, there was a path to ending his reign of harassing me from afar. Or maybe closer if he’d been the one to kill Crackle. “Considering Jareth followed and burned you in Portland, he’s making his move,” I murmured.
Aiden stiffened. “Definitely.”
Okay. We were on the same page.
I leaned back to look into his face, keeping my hands on his warm body. “I haven’t seen your new office yet.”
“We can’t move in until late next week.” His hands flexed across my lower back. “We’ll work either out of my cabin or here this weekend. I assume you’ll be here?”
“I’m going to the mall early tomorrow afternoon where all the Kringles will be,” I said, running through my case in my mind. “Bud is working and will be on my six, so I’ll be safe. I just want to see them all interact and maybe question them with each other around. I’m missing something but can’t figure out what it is.”
Aiden’s eyebrow rose. “Bud’s working on a Saturday?”
“Yeah, but he’s off Sunday, so I’ll be here all day and can help your team if you need anything.” Not that I was involved with their cases or even knew what their cases were about, but I was a heck of an organizer when it came to file folders. I also made a mean cup of coffee. “We also have the family barbecue that night, and it’d be nice to see how Violet is fitting in with Aunt Yara.”
Aiden’s cheek creased. “Apparently I was included in the family lottery and drew Lacey O’Shea’s name. Is she even coming home for Christmas?”
My cousin was a big time cop in Detroit, and she needed to come home for good. “Right now, we don’t know yet. But even if she doesn’t, you can send her a present.” Yeah, my mom had put in Aiden’s name. She really was hoping for him to stick around. “Is it okay you’re in the lottery?” Our family was so big that we drew names for everyone except immediate family.
“Sure,” he said, frowning. “But I have no clue what to get her.”
I brightened. “I have the perfect thing. I bought her a necklace at the Irish shop in Spokane and also splurged on matching earrings. You can give her the earrings.” Lacey was my best friend, and we always exchanged gifts, even though we were both also in the family lottery.
“I’ll pay you for them,” he said, looking relieved.
It was a little scary how easily he fit in with my family, considering I wasn’t sure he was going to stay. But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. I had enough concerns. I smiled. “You look tired. Let’s get some sleep.”
“Don’t want to sleep.” His hands moved to my hips and he lifted me against him.
I wrapped both arms around his neck and clamped my thighs to his hips. “I was hoping you would say that.”
Then I kissed him, forgetting all about the world.
For now.
Chapter 36
The smell of sugar donuts and pine trees wafted through the mall as frantic shoppers scurried from store to store, emerging with bags and wrapped presents. I jumped out of the way of a middle-aged woman with a deranged gleam in her eye as she darted into the closest toy store.
Bud sighed next to me, wearing his uniform and looking nicely polished. “I should get hazard pay for covering you.”
Probably true. I rolled my eyes and stood in line for donuts, buying us both a bag. He took his, looking at the cinnamon and sugar. “We could share one of these bags.”
I would’ve answered, but my mouth was full of a miniature donut. A choir from a local elementary school belted out Jingle Bells from a stage near the JC Penney’s and out of the main drag.
Chewing, I led him beyond a couple of elves, several decorated shops, and shoppers weighed down with bags to the fountain of a large lotus flower surrounded by a green pool of water in the center. Santas spread out in every direction, handing out candy canes and thanking people for slipping cash into their charity buckets. A raised platform showed one Santa listening to wishes. I squinted, trying to make him out.
“They all look alike.” Bud wiped cinnamon on a napkin, feeling like a solid presence at my side.
I frowned. We did work together, and I had gotten him shot earlier that summer. Did that mean I should buy him a present? He was on the outs with his wife, whoever that was, so maybe he needed a friend and an invite to my family’s party. “Do you have plans for Christmas?” I sat on a wooden bench, the paper of my donut bag crackling.
“Yeah.” He sat next to me, his gaze sweeping the festive atmosphere. “Thanks, though.”
I ate another donut, feeling my blood sugar happily spike. “There’s Bernie,” I said, recognizing him finally by his new coat over by Macy’s. He posed for a picture with several giggling teenaged girls, his chest proudly puffed out.
Bags rustled, and Florence came up on my right, her eyes bright and her cheeks rosy. “Aren’t they adorable?”
I scooted closer to Bud so she could sit on my other side. “They look like they’re having fun.” I tilted the donut bag her way.
She dropped her packages and took a treat. “They are. It’s so cute. The mall does pay them, but they each have a bucket for their charity of choice. Bernie is giving to the Humane Society this year. We might get a puppy from them after the holidays.”
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