Titus leaned forward in his seat. It was a small coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon and it wasn’t crowded, but he still didn’t want to be overheard. “What if it’s true?”
“Excuse me?”
“Just humor me for a second,” Titus said quickly.
“Humor you? Seriously? We’re talking werewolves here.” Lowell was shaking his head. “Don’t be silly. It’s not true and even if Hilary prints it, people will just look at her as though she’s the idiot. People are too skeptical these days to believe that sort of thing. Besides, anyone who did believe it would have believed it before, without the story. Like those Bigfoot people. Or the ones that believe in the Loch Ness Monster. It’s all just looking for the boogeyman.”
Titus sighed. He felt like he was at a distinct disadvantage here. He could not make Lowell understand just how serious it was for Hilary to make these allegations because they seemed outlandish. However, if she did make these allegations and brought forth a bunch of old news footage about his father, then there was no doubt in Titus’s mind the local community was going to stop seeing Titus as a person to trust.
“What exactly are you afraid of here?” Lowell had returned to finishing his muffin. “You’re acting like you honestly believe people will think you turn into a werewolf on the full moon or something.”
“My family had werewolf syndrome,” Titus said shortly. Maybe there was a way to say this without actually saying it.
Lowell frowned. “You’re shitting me. That’s a thing?”
“They call it that. It’s Hypertrichosis, a condition in which people get hair all over their bodies. It makes them look like a wolfman from one of those old black and whites.” Titus waited for Lowell to sort of catch up mentally. The guy seemed as though he was a bit ready to suggest that Titus get mental help.
“Wait a second,” Lowell said slowly. “You’re saying that you’ve got some disease that makes you sprout hair all over your body?”
If he only knew. But Titus shook his head. “No. I don’t have Hypertrichosis. It doesn’t affect everyone. But if I had kids, they could have it. That’s the reason I’m never having children. I wouldn’t take the risk. My father went nearly insane with the shame of it. We lived in a tiny town in Montana. It was… well, there were a lot of Holbrooks there. I’ll just put it like that.”
Lowell frowned. “Why do I get the feeling there was some kind of crime involved?”
“There was. And that’s what I’m afraid of. When I cleared out Caroline’s computer, there was a file of information Hilary had collected about me from back in Montana.” Titus figured it at least made sense—sort of, though he was only telling half the truth.
“And you’re afraid she’ll go public with this information and what? Try to say that you’re a furry murderer?” Lowell shook his head. “I’m not buying it.”
“The girl was torn apart like a beast had done it.”
Which was why they having all known Titus’s father hadn’t been the culprit. His condition left him unable to shift. The good health and the super-fast reflexes did not matter as he could not even turn into a wolf. It had driven him mad. He’d still had a shifter brain, but not the body and he had paid dearly for it. But then that’s what happened when siblings mated and had offspring nearly a dozen times in the family tree just to make sure the shifter line didn’t die out.
Lowell looked thoughtful. “That still doesn’t implicate you. Just take a step back for a second. I get why you’re worried. All right? But I think you’re too personally involved in this mess to see things clearly enough.”
“Fine. What is it you think I’m not seeing?” Titus said impatiently.
Lowell seemed to think for a moment or two. At least he was taking this seriously, which was more than Titus could say for most people. “You can’t be tried for your father’s crime. You can’t be tried for a crime that was committed in another state and another jurisdiction where you were never even charged. Even if you had been charged or you had been investigated, then you weren’t convicted. That means a jury didn’t think there was enough evidence to convict. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have your private investigation license because murder is a capital offense and you don’t get to investigate other crimes when you spent time in a federal prison.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” Titus said wearily. “And maybe you’re right. I just—I don’t want to stick around here if people are going to be staring at me and wondering if I’m really a murderer who walked free.”
Lowell remained silent. He looked thoughtful. And that’s when someone pulled up a chair and plopped down on it backwards. Titus had been totally unaware of Younger Adair’s presence in the coffee shop. But then he probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Younger’s girlfriend, Laurie Talcott, practically ran the Landing. She was in charge of security and customer safety. That meant Younger hung out there a lot.
“So, you’ll tell Lowell all about your reasons for wanting to leave Branson, but you won’t tell us?” Younger growled. “That’s kind of low, don’t you think, Titus?”
Lowell cleared his throat and gave Younger a droll stare. “Don’t be ridiculous, Younger. He was looking for an impartial sounding board. Is there anything about you or your coworkers that strikes you as impartial? Because I think you might need to go look up the definition of that word if you believe otherwise.”
Younger seemed to ignore Lowell. He pointed at Titus. “You’re going to let that two-bit, ginger-headed, newspaper whore dictate what you do, Titus? That’s not right and you know it.”
“If that woman really wants to make trouble with what she knows about my family’s past, do you think it will go well for the business?”
Younger made a face. “We can handle this, Titus. Give us some credit. So, you have a relative who had a medical condition that went a little wonky. It’s not a big deal!”
Titus pressed his lips into a tight line. He wondered how close he could really dance to the edge. Could he get just a bit closer and still not fall? “That relative and his medical condition were linked to a murder that was so brutal, it looked like the girl had been attacked by a wild animal! Not only that, but the townspeople lynched my father for the crime. There was no trial.”
Younger grabbed hold of the back of the chair with both hands and sat back hard. “You don’t say.”
Lowell gave a whistle. Then his expression turned introspective. “Does Hilary Allenwood know that part?”
“What part?”
“The part about your father getting lynched?”
“I doubt it.” Somehow Titus didn’t think Hilary actually cared about that part of the facts. She was just sure Titus was somehow connected. “You know, that’s actually an interesting question. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it.”
Lowell frowned. “Which part?”
“The part where Hilary doesn’t realize the reason that case went “unsolved” wasn’t because they didn’t have a suspect. It was because the town lynched their suspect and still believe that justice was done.” Titus felt a quickening of excitement in his gut as he thought about that.
Younger was already getting up. “I’m going to have a visit with our Hilary Allenwood.”
“Wait. What?” Titus scrambled to his feet. “Younger, don’t you dare go off half-cocked and start in on that woman. She will turn around and bite your face off!”
“Nah. It will be fine,” Younger told Titus. “I’ll take Ellie with me. I want to know what she actually knows. And then I want to have a visit with Caroline and find out what she knows as well. And I’ll get Ash and Mindy looking into that casefile in Montana to make sure there hasn’t been any other movement. And then when Duke gets back from the appointment Mindy set up for him, I’ll have him poke around down at the police station to see if he can find out who Hilary still talks to.”
“Sellers is actually the guy you want to talk to,” Lowell volunteered.
Titus made a face. “Sellers? Hone
stly?”
“He’s not the best detective, I’ll admit,” Lowell said ruefully, “but he’s going to want to be very honest and very clear about it right now. He got off lightly after that Caprico mess and he knows it. He’s not going to be leaning in any crooked direction for quite a while.”
“Hello?” Titus waved his hands in the air. “I’m right here and not asking for help, guys. Think you could both try to respect my privacy and my desire to keep it secluded?”
“Yeah, no.” Younger was already pushing to his feet. “Your desire to keep things private has already landed you in enough trouble, don’t you think? If you had just been honest about this from the start, we could have avoided a lot of the drama.”
Titus was stung by Younger’s words. He was not a naughty child needing to be reprimanded for telling a lie or something. This was bigger. “It was my private business! Excuse me if I want to keep it quiet that I have some skeletons in my closet. You don’t see me prying into your past, do you Younger?”
“Of course not. But if you’d have asked, I’d have told you anything you wanted to know. I’m not all that secretive. You would have to talk to Duke or Ellie or maybe Ash about that. Ash is kind of secretive. Sort of. But I think he’s just quiet.” Younger was still rambling on about that as he turned to stride out of the coffee shop.
“It’s kind of like pushing a boulder over the edge of a cliff, isn’t it?” Lowell observed with a shake of his head. “But the guy means well. They all do, Titus. Maybe the first thing you need to do is to stop running away from the people who want to help you.”
Titus figured this was a bit of a no-brainer. “I don’t want them getting dragged into it with me.”
“What? Like that Kylie Overton girl?”
“What about Kylie Overton?” Titus asked sharply. “She’s filing a suit against the paper for libel. She’ll win, too. But that’s all her.”
“You can tell yourself that,” Lowell drawled, “but you said Hilary and Caroline have been roaming your neighborhood looking for dirt. If you think they wouldn’t stoop to trying to hurt a woman just because you’re interested in her, then you’d better think again.”
“I’m not interested in her!”
Lowell snorted. “You’re not very convincing when you say that. But more importantly, I’ve heard you talk about her. You’re totally into her. And Hilary is probably hoping if she puts some pressure on poor Kylie, you’ll fold just to get it to stop.”
“Maybe.” But Titus was thinking about Caroline. How often had Caroline heard Titus talking about that neighborhood watch group and Kylie Overton? “Maybe the first thing to do is to go visit with Caroline and find out why she got sucked into this whole thing.”
“What a marvelous idea!” Lowell teased. “Have fun, but be careful, will you? I’m not conveniently placed to bail you out now. Am I?”
Chapter Fourteen
Hypertrichosis. Hypertrichosis. Part dog? No, not quite according to the medical book that Kylie found in the Branson Library. It was actually just a serious overgrowth of hair. In fact, those who suffered from it looked a lot like that big hairy Chewbacca guy from the Star Wars movies. Although, Kylie could see how people in early history would have thought that someone was a wolf man if they had this disease. It had been very horrible back there. Nowadays it was like people were proud of it. Maybe this was good.
Since Kylie was already in the library, she stopped by the computer lab and used her card to sign into one of the machines in the back corner. She started searching for some kind of crime—any crime—that might be linked to Titus Holbrook.
It took a good twenty minutes of poking around before Kylie found anything, but the crime was actually linked to the name Marlon Holbrook of Bitter Spring, Montana. From what Kylie could find, Bitter Spring was a tiny town, a hamlet really, and the closest city was Bozeman, but that wasn’t really saying much.
“I told you. I don’t care what happens to Kylie Overton. I want her smashed to the floor like a bug and I want it now!”
Kylie froze. It was absolutely surrealistic to hear your own name in a sentence that ended with smashed to the floor like a bug. She felt her heart rate quicken and the sound of the blood rushing through her veins created a roaring in her ears. She needed to calm down. Right now. She needed to make sure she could hear what else was said about her.
The big computer lab was in an airy room with plenty of ventilation, thanks to all the machines running and spitting out a whole lot of heat. There were windows overlooking the scenic and rocky hills above the lake. Kylie had chosen a machine that sat back in a corner. But in the opposite corner of the room, she could see two women hunched over another machine. There were a few other people in the room, but they had on headphones and were bent close to their computer screens as though they were super focused on what was going on right in front of them and totally not paying attention to anything else.
Kylie poked her head up above her computer screen. When she was reasonably sure that the people on the other side of the room had lowered their voices again and weren’t paying attention, Kylie got up. She grabbed her bag and cleared the search history on her machine. Then she signed out of her library account. The next trick would be to get close enough to the other women to see who they were and hear what they were saying.
Not that Kylie didn’t have a pretty good darn idea of who they were. It was almost certainly Hilary and Caroline. Who else would be sitting over there talking about smashing Kylie like a bug? It wasn’t like Kylie had a whole lot of enemies in town.
There was an alcove near the front of the room where they kept a lot of spare machines, extra monitors, wires, and such. There were additional chairs stacked there also. Kylie inched her way around the room, careful to keep her face averted just in case. But the two women seemed absolutely engrossed with what was happening on their screen and didn’t even seem to notice someone was moving towards them.
The closer she got, the more Kylie could hear their conversation. She tucked herself back into the storage alcove and half turned away from the duo. She wanted to make it look like she had stopped to get something out of her bag. But in reality, she ducked her head and listened for all she was worth.
“Hilary, you aren’t really being that reasonable.” Caroline sounded not only snippy, but tired. “I got myself fired for this stupid cause of yours and I haven’t seen a penny for my trouble. You told me there was going to be bucket loads of money involved! So, where is the money?”
“It’s not about the money,” Hilary snapped irritably. “And don’t say my name. People might recognize me.”
“Right, because there are tons of other people who weight eighty pounds soaking wet and have bright red hair.” Caroline’s tone turned almost nasty. “You’re such an unhappy bitch. I don’t understand what any of this has to do with you anyway.”
“That was my sister!” Hilary snarled. She turned and glared at Caroline with such intensity that she didn’t even spot Kylie standing just a few short yards away. “Don’t you get it? He killed my sister!”
Caroline gave an exasperated sigh. “You keep saying that but I worked for Titus for years and I honestly can’t see him killing anyone. He’s way too nice. And just because they let that other guy go and never convicted anyone for your sister’s murder doesn’t mean Titus did it.”
“They let that guy go because he wasn’t the one who did it!” Hilary’s voice was so strained it sounded as though it might snap. “It was Titus Holbrook! I know it. My sister told me she was going on with a guy named Holbrook. And Titus ran away right after that. He skipped town. There you go. Guilty conscience.”
“And total coincidence.” Caroline leaned back in her seat and actually looked bored. “Where does the money come in?”
“He’s going to pay me restitution for murdering my sister,” Hilary said tightly.
Caroline pushed forward in her seat again. “Wait just a damned second. You think that’s where the money is coming from?
You’ve been telling me you’re going to pay me big bucks for getting you information on Titus Holbrook, which I did. And even lots more cash for helping you with your stupid campaign against him and now I find out that it’s pretend money?”
“Oh don’t be so smug, you spoiled brat,” Hilary retorted. She gave Hilary a glacial glare that would have frozen Hell. “You know all about pretend money. That’s what you’ve been buying all of your clothes on for the last several years and now it’s gotten you into a lot of trouble since Daddy is refusing to pay off your debts.”
“Shut up.” Caroline’s face began to turn red. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. My father will eventually come around. I just wanted to make some quick cash. Now you’re telling me you don’t even have it! You think you’re going to take Titus to court and what? Get a wrongful death suit judgment against him? A civil suit? And then what? By then you’ll have to turn around and give whatever you get out of that deal to Kylie Overton for her defamation of character suit against you!”
Hilary snorted and shook her head. “That’s not going to hold water. Freedom of the press. Remember? It’s in the Constitution.”
“You lied,” Caroline said with an inelegant snort. “And how much is it worth to you for me to keep silent about the fact that I know that you know you lied? Huh? If Kylie Overton is willing to pay me better, I might just go and tell her a few details.”
“You wouldn’t!” Hilary spun around and for just a moment, Kylie believed Hilary was capable of murder right there in the public library. Her expression was just so angry, like crazy angry. “You wouldn’t dare! You know I would come down so hard on your ass that it would make one of your daddy’s lectures look like a pep rally in your favor. I will ruin you!”
“I think you already have,” Caroline retorted and then she stood up. She pushed away from the desk and turned toward the door. “And right now, I have better things to do than to sit here and listen to you whine and complain about something that happened all those years ago. If you want to go solve your sister’s murder, you need to be looking in Montana where it happened.”
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 105
