Buried in Secrets

by Denise Grover Swank

  Finding out your fiancé wanted to have you murdered tended to do that to a woman, and I’d followed up that disaster by dating Wyatt, whose secrets had nearly gotten me killed. After all of that, I’d resigned myself to possibly entering a nunnery.

  So Marco and I both pretended we were just friends. Still, after our last conversation, it was clear our pretending wasn’t going to work much longer.

  I suspected he was already tired of our dance.

  A soft mewl caught my attention, and I smiled as my nearly four-month-old gray kitten pawed at my hair.

  “Hey, Letty. Good morning to you too.” Maybe it was strange to name a cat after a person, but my kitten Violet was feisty and fearless and liked to do things on her own terms, just like my friend who had lost her life to cancer.

  Scooping her into my arms, I snuggled her for a moment before she decided she’d had enough and jumped out of the bed, pawing at the bedroom door.

  I followed her, heading into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. I was much too reliant on the stuff to keep me going. It was borderline unhealthy, but it was necessary since I got so little sleep. Maybe it was time to consider finding another job.

  I nearly snort-laughed at the thought. I’d been lucky to get my job at the tavern. A good portion of the people in and around Drum were unemployed. I made decent money, and if I were being honest, I had nothing going on in my life other than work, hanging out with Hank and our two kittens, and the time I spent with Marco. And of course my tutoring club, but I couldn’t run it if I didn’t work at the tavern.

  I took my coffee and opened the front door. Letty shot outside, running straight for Hank’s bird feeder. Birds squawked and flew into the air in protest.

  Hank, who was sitting in his chair on the porch, shot me a scowl. His crutch was leaning against the house and his kitten, Smoky, was curled up on his lap while he stroked the back of her head. Although we’d taken the cats in as a pair, Smoky had claimed him, and Letty had claimed me.

  “Sorry.” I set my full mug down on the table between the chairs. “Want some fresh coffee?”

  He held out his nearly empty mug, and I went back into the kitchen and refilled his cup before returning to the porch. I handed his mug off to him, watching as Letty slunk around the bird feeder, probably hoping the birds would come back.

  “I think we got the wrong cats,” I said with a grin as I sat in the empty chair.

  “You think I should’ve gotten the murderous cat?” he asked with a dark look.

  I gave him a sideways look before I took a sip of my coffee. “I was thinking she stirs up trouble, but if that’s your takeaway…”

  Any sixty-seven-year-old man had a past, but Hank’s was more colorful than most. Over the course of the past seven months, I’d discovered that Hank used to run the largest marijuana distribution outfit in eastern Tennessee, as well as some other illegal drugs. I still hadn’t pinned down when he’d “retired” but my best guess was around a decade ago. Hank didn’t like to talk about his past, and I usually didn’t press him on it. I’d seen him kill a man without hesitation, then calmly tell me how to go about destroying the evidence. He’d shot the man to save my life, but the way he went about it told me it wasn’t the first time he’d killed someone, and he’d pretty much told me that he suspected it wouldn’t be the last. Drum, Tennessee wasn’t exactly a sweet and cozy town, but it wasn’t the town activities that had elicited the statement. He’d told me if my father or any of his men came looking for me, he’d kill them on the spot.

  I believed him.

  He laughed. “Girlie, you think you don’t do your fair share of stirrin’ the pot?”

  I grinned. “Gotta keep things from getting dull.”

  Releasing a contented sigh, he leaned back in his seat and sipped his coffee. “You thinkin’ about changin’ your hair color?”

  I reached for the ends of my shoulder-length hair. I was a natural blonde, but I’d been dying it auburn since I’d changed my name last November. “What makes you ask that?”

  “The box of hair dye in the bathroom.”

  I gave him a puzzled look, then it dawned on me what he was talking about. “Ginger wants me to go strawberry blonde. She must have left it when she cleaned the house yesterday afternoon.”

  “That’s too close to your natural color, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. It felt like a lifetime ago that I was blonde. “And no, I’m not going that light, although I’m kind of tired of being red.” Poor Hank. Since my dye job was so much darker than my normal color, I was constantly touching up my roots. It seemed like the house was always full of dye fumes.

  “It’d be easier to get a wig,” he said.

  I laughed. “You ever wear a wig, Hank?” I asked, then took a sip of my coffee. “They’re itchy and hot.” Then I added with a smirk, “And no. I’m not shaving my head.”

  “You can’t spend the rest of your life dyin’ your hair to stay hidden.”

  “Why not? Plenty of women dye their hair so often they don’t even remember their natural color.”

  “That part’s easy enough to figure out,” he said with a snort. “They only have to look at their bush.”

  “Hank!” I protested with a laugh. “Gross. And most women wax down there now.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “They what?” Then his eyes narrowed. “Do…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Let me just say that the women in Drum seem to have other concerns, and I live in Drum.”

  He shuddered and grimaced.

  We were silent for a moment, and I figured his thoughts had moved past the pubic hair (or possible lack thereof) of the women in Drum, but what he said still surprised me.

  “I think we’re goin’ about this all wrong.” He cast a glance in my direction. “Instead of keepin’ you hidden for the rest of your life, we need to figure out how to bring the bastard down.”

  The bastard meaning my father.

  My jaw dropped and I stared at him like he’d announced he was thinking about running through town naked. While I fully intended to do something about my father—after I got Bart out of the way—Hank had always been after me not to borrow trouble. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “You’re tellin’ me that you intend to spend the rest of your life in Drum? That would be an absolute waste.”

  “And you’re telling me you’d leave Drum?” I asked. “Because we’re family now, Hank, and I’m not leaving without you.”

  “I was born on this mountain, and I’ll die here. I ain’t goin’ nowhere. You, on the other hand, dropped in outta nowhere, and you can leave just as easily. But not until I know you’re safe. I’ve been given’ some thought on how to deal with your father.”

  I shook my head, staring at him in horror. “Hank, you need to stay far away from my father. He’s no one to mess around with.”

  “You see a one-legged old man in this chair,” he said with a look of defiance. “But I assure you, I was once a man to be feared.”

  “I know you were.” My mind was working overtime, trying to figure out how to defuse this situation. “But one bad guy at a time, okay?”

  “Why are you so damn set on bringin’ down Bart Drummond?” he asked in contempt. “His history has nothing to do with you.”

  Because he threatened to release information to have you arrested. But I couldn’t tell him that because he’d likely go confess rather than let that asshole think he was controlling me.

  “You know I blame him for Seth’s murder. I vowed to hold the people responsible for his death accountable.”

  “And you did,” he said. “You killed Carson Purdy. And Carson and Bingham took care of the rest.”

  My first night in town, I’d seen three men drag Hank’s seventeen-year-old grandson out of a motel room several doors down from mine. They’d killed him in cold blood. Carson Purdy, Bart Drummond’s ranch overseer, had been behind it. It wasn’t much of a stretch to think Bart might have been involved
too. Even if the authorities had claimed otherwise.

  “We don’t talk about your past much,” I said. “But I need to know more. I need to know how bad it was.”

  “The past is the past,” he said with a sigh, then his voice took on a hard edge. “I ain’t that man anymore, but I can drag him out of the closet if need be.”

  “You can’t take on my father, Hank,” I said. “He’s bigger and badder than Bart Drummond.”

  “Don’t underestimate me, girlie,” he said, stroking the back of the kitten’s head. “I’m capable of more than you think.”

  That was exactly what I was afraid of.

  Chapter Three

  Molly’s car was in the parking lot when I pulled in at five minutes before noon. I usually showed up earlier when I worked the lunch shift, but I had purposely arrived as late as possible, hoping to avoid the fallout of Molly being fired. I could hide out in my car and wait for her to leave, or I could go in and go over the lunch specials with the cook, Tiny.

  I was done hiding from my problems, so I got out of the car.

  Tiny was in the kitchen with his newest cook, Pickle, the fourth assistant cook since I’d started. The first had been murdered and the other two fired. So far, Pickle (the nickname Tiny had given him; Max had told me his real name was Fred) was working out better than the last two.

  Tiny cast me a dark look when I stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “Don’t you think about crossing that line.”

  Tiny didn’t have many rules, but he wouldn’t stand for anyone setting foot in his kitchen.

  “Is Max talking to Molly?” I asked.

  He cast a glance out through the server window, then grimaced. “Yeah, and it don’t look pretty.”

  “Then I’m a refugee seeking asylum.”

  He laughed at that, then motioned me in. “I like you, kid.”

  I walked in and peered through the window myself. Max and Molly were standing next to the bar, and even though they weren’t raising their voices, their body language made it obvious their talk wasn’t going well.

  I perched on a stool in the corner, out of sight from the front. “How long has that been going on?”

  “Five minutes or so. Ginger walked in and heard ’em, then walked right back out.”

  “To be fair,” Pickle said, “they were a lot louder when she walked in. Max started talkin’ to her, which only pissed Molly off more.”

  I nodded. I suspected Ginger had headed over to Wyatt’s garage to hang out with her husband until the coast was clear. “What’s the lunch special?”

  “Tuna melt,” Tiny said with a look that dared me to protest. He knew I hated tuna melts.

  “Good thing I had time to prep the dining room last night,” I said. “We’re gonna be lucky to open on time as it is.” I leaned forward and got another glance at the two of them. Molly was pointing her finger at Max, jabbing it like she was trying to make a point. Thankfully, Max didn’t look like he was about to cave.

  Then Molly turned abruptly, and her gaze landed on me through the window.

  I froze, wide-eyed, then sat back on the stool. “Shit.”

  A few seconds later, Molly showed up in the doorway to the kitchen. “Happy now, bitch?”

  Tiny took a step forward and pointed to the back door. “You need to be leavin’. Now.”

  Molly shot him a feral glare, released a frustrated growl, and threw the back door open so hard it bounced off the outer brick wall. She stomped out, then banged it shut behind her.

  “That’s the most excitement I’ve seen since I got here,” Pickle said, his eyes shining.

  “Stick around long enough and you’ll see plenty more,” Tiny said, then he looked at me with raised eyebrows, but his tone gentled. “The coast is clear now. You scoot.”

  I walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek. “Love you too, Tiny.”

  “Awww…” Pickle said with a grin.

  Tiny’s face reddened, the first time I’d ever seen him blush. I pulled my dinner out of my purse and put it in Tiny’s refrigerator.

  “My cookin’ not good enough for you?” he asked as I shut the door.

  “On the contrary,” I said with a laugh. “It’s too good. My jeans were getting tight.” I stuck my thumb under the waist of my jeans to demonstrate.

  He rolled his eyes, and I shot him a grin as I walked off to stow my purse in my locker in the backroom. Max was behind the bar when I walked into the dining room, his hands on the counter, his head hanging between his arms.

  “You okay?” I asked softly as I approached him.

  He stood up and released a sigh. “I fuckin’ hate that part.”

  “I know,” I said. “But if it makes you feel any better, everyone thinks you did the right thing. Even Tiny.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t look any happier. “Someone needs to call Ginger and tell her it’s safe to come back.”

  He seemed like the logical person to do it, but I guess he felt he’d done enough for the day. I sucked it up and called Drummond Garage, cringing when Wyatt answered and not Junior.

  “Drummond Garage.”

  “Tell Ginger it’s safe to come back,” I said without introduction.

  “Carly?” he asked in surprise.

  “Yeah. Just tell Ginger that Molly’s gone.”

  He was silent for a moment, then said, “Everything okay over there?”

  “Yeah. Peachy.” I hung up, feeling guilty although I had no idea why. I sure didn’t regret getting Molly fired, and I had no idea why I’d feel guilty over Wyatt. He might still think we belonged together, but that didn’t make it so. He’d made his bed of distrust and deceit, and now he could lie in it. I didn’t owe him a damn thing.

  I went and unlocked the front door. It was several minutes after noon, and I found myself facing down some angry customers. Not that I blamed them. They were construction workers who only got an hour for lunch, and at least twenty minutes was spent on the drive from the construction site and back. We’d just stolen part of their time.

  I apologized as I let them in, telling them their drinks would be on the house, and shot a dark look at the bar, daring Max to contradict me.

  I started taking orders and Ginger showed up about five minutes later. She looked worried, but it was too busy for me to fill her in about Molly. We’d just gotten things under control when two middle-aged women walked in. Even though I’d mostly worked nights and weekends the past few months, I’d done enough lunch shifts to know the regulars, and Diane and Martha were part of a small group of women who always showed up on Fridays for lunch. Today was Tuesday.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” I said good-naturedly when they took a seat in my section. “What a surprise seeing you today.”

  Diane gave me a pointed look. “Emergency meeting. Sandy will be joining us.” Which meant they were one short of their usual number. The fourth member of their cohort was a woman named Pam. But if it was an emergency meeting, it stood to reason at least one of them would be a no-show.

  “Okay,” I said, surprised by her serious tone. One of the reasons I loved them was because they liked to order frozen margaritas with their lunch—an unusual request at Max’s—and they always seemed to have fun.

  “You haven’t been here for about a month or so,” Martha said, looking me up and down. “Did you take a vacation?”

  “One of our lunch shift waitresses isn’t with us anymore, so I’m covering her shift.” Then I smirked. “Does anyone around here go on vacation?”

  “We used to go to Dollywood,” Martha said. “When the kids were little.”

  Diane snorted. “That’s not a vacation. A vacation is gettin’ away somewhere far enough away that you can’t come home for a potty break.”

  “Not all of us can hold it forever,” Martha said in disgust. “Some of us had bladders that were wrecked in childbirth. All three times.”

  That was my cue to take my leave, but first I needed to get their order. “You want your usual frozen marga
rita pitcher? And an extra glass for when Sandy joins you?”

  “Yes,” Martha said a little too exuberantly.

  “Most definitely not,” Diane said with a stern look. “We need all our wits about us today.” I’d figured out months ago that Diane was the unofficial leader of the group. Sandy, the woman they were waiting on, gave her trouble from time to time, but Martha and Pam usually went with the flow.

  Against my better judgment, I said, “This sounds serious.”

  Martha’s mouth pinched. “Pam was arrested last night.”

  My eyebrows shot up. While the group of four friends could be a little on the rowdy side, they weren’t criminals by any stretch of the imagination. Pam must have been arrested for unpaid parking tickets or something of the sort, although no one got parking tickets around here. Most people were arrested for drug possession or DUIs.

  “Martha!” Diane admonished.

  “What?” Martha shot back, getting irritated. “It’s not like I’m saying anything she couldn’t find out from the Ewing Gazette.”

  “Does she look like the kind of woman who reads the Ewing Gazette?” Diane asked.

  I gasped in surprise. I wasn’t a subscriber, but I read the Ewing Gazette religiously at the library.

  Diane must have realized I was offended, because she rolled her eyes. “Sorry, Carly. I completely forgot you’re not from around here.”

  “Or that she’s the one who started the kids’ tutorin’ club and literacy initiative,” Martha grumbled, her arms crossed over her chest.

  I waved off her words. I wasn’t looking for accolades, and flying under the radar had its merits. “Don’t worry about it. And Martha’s right. If it’s in the paper, I’ll find out eventually. Save me some time and tell me what she was arrested for.”

  “Murder,” Martha whispered.

  My eyes shot wide. Pam was meek and mousy and the last person I’d suspect of murder. “Oh, my word. There has to be some kind of mistake.”