Despite the chill, the back door had been left ajar, and Harper stepped tentatively into the grand hallway.
“Hello?” Her voice echoed off the walls as if the house were abandoned. For a moment, she thought nobody would answer. That they’d all gone. Then a voice came from down the hallway.
“We’re in here.” It was Hunter.
She followed the sound to the living room. With each step, she breathed in the scent that pervaded the place and that, for her, most defined it: the smoky, exotic mixture of patchouli, sandalwood, and tobacco. It was so distinctive she’d have known where she was blindfolded.
When she stepped into the living room, they were all there. Hunter in the same chair he’d sat in the first time she came here. Long, skinny legs sprawled in front of him. On the sofa, Cara, the ice queen, who kept her angry eyes on Hunter. Allegra sat across from her, her face red and blotchy, as if she’d been weeping.
The air sizzled with the tension of an unfinished argument. It felt like walking into the aftermath of a fire.
Harper noticed no charcoal smudges of fingerprint dust on the doors or windows. No missing boards or pieces of furniture. That was puzzling. Surely the forensics team had torn this place apart? And yet it all looked perfect.
“How have you been holding up?” she asked, to break the silence.
“We’re getting through it.” Hunter’s voice was as tight as a wire. Nobody else spoke.
“I understand the police were here for hours last night,” she tried again. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
“It was fucking terrible.” Cara fixed Harper with a blue stare of absolute fury. “It was like having our skin ripped off and salt rubbed into the raw wounds by a bunch of knuckle-dragging hicks.” She thrust a finger at the spiral binding of the notebook peeking out of Harper’s jacket pocket. “Write that down,” she ordered. “Go on. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To watch us and then go write it all up for your stupid little paper.”
“Cara,” Allegra said, sharply. “Stop it. She’s trying to help us.”
Cara’s brittle laugh shattered in the air. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. She doesn’t want to help us. She wants to use us. Write about us. Make money off us.”
“Did I write something that upset you?” Harper asked.
Cara gave her a withering look. “God, I’m so sick of fake Southern politeness. Everyone’s so nice and then they rifle through your underwear drawer with their sweaty fingers, looking for anything they can use…” Her voice broke, and she turned away.
Hunter picked up the pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, and threw the pack down savagely on the table.
“Why don’t you go back to LA if you hate it here so much.”
She stared at him, blue eyes shocked.
“Look,” Harper interrupted, trying to calm things down. “I know exactly what the cops would have done here yesterday. But they had to do it.” Cara flashed her an angry look but she continued, steadily. “I’m so sorry you had to go through it. I know it’s awful.”
“They went through all of our rooms,” Allegra told her. “Every single drawer. They turned over every mattress. Stuart kept threatening to sue them.” She drew a breath. “They handcuffed him.”
Mindful that the manager would not like this conversation, Harper asked casually, “Where’s Stuart now?”
“He went to meet with the record company’s lawyers in Atlanta,” Hunter said. “Personally, I think he just wanted to get out of here.” He drew on the cigarette, his final words coming out in a cloud of smoke. “I wish I could.”
“They wouldn’t tell us anything,” Allegra said. “They treated us like criminals. We don’t know what’s happening. Or why they did that. We hoped you could help. Do you know what they were looking for?”
“A gun or blood,” Harper said, bluntly. “If Xavier was killed here and dragged down to the beach there would be blood evidence left behind. Short of that, bloody clothes. Or the murder weapon.”
“That’s sickening,” Cara said. “How could they suspect us? We loved him. Why would they ever—”
“Harper just told us why,” Hunter spoke over her, impatiently.
“Don’t talk to me like that.” Cara’s voice rose.
“Will you please stop fighting.” Allegra stood abruptly, hands curled in fists. “You’re making everything worse.”
The other two exchanged a look.
“We’re not fighting,” Cara said. “We’re just upset.”
“All you do is fight.” Allegra’s voice shook. “Ever since Xavier left you’ve been like that.”
Harper noticed she didn’t say “died.”
“Allegra, come on—” Hunter didn’t get to finish. The younger woman stormed from the room.
“Allegra, wait!” Cara followed her out.
Slumping back in his chair, Hunter stubbed his cigarette out. “I’m sorry about that,” he said, after a second. “We’re exhausted. Do you want something to drink? Tea?”
Harper didn’t want anything, but she said, “Sure.” He needed to do something and she needed to let him.
Getting up, she followed him down the hall. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was spotless, the tall cabinets neatly closed. Everything was scrubbed clean and in its place. The air smelled faintly of bleach.
Hunter poured water into an electric kettle and switched it on.
“How bad was it?” she asked.
His shoulders hunching, he said, “They trashed the place. When they were done, it looked like we’d been robbed. We’ve been cleaning all day. Putting everything back.”
Now Harper understood why there was no evidence of the search. They’d done their best to make everything perfect again. She glanced unconsciously at the sparkling white sink, a memory of something Luke said last night surfacing. “Traces of blood in the kitchen sink.”
“It just feels like they think we’re guilty,” Hunter said. Stirring himself to action, he pulled a box of tea from the cabinet. “The questions they asked—they were the kind of questions they ask suspects.”
“Everyone’s a suspect,” she said. “Until they get the killer.”
“Even you?” Cara had walked in without Harper noticing. She stood in the doorway, her chin tilted up, her eyes damp and the tip of her nose red and raw. “Or is it just us?”
“Not me,” Harper admitted. “I have no motive.”
“What’s my motive?” Cara demanded. “Why would I want to kill the man I loved?”
Harper turned to look at her directly. “Well, if there were problems in your relationship, that could cause tension,” she said, meaningfully.
Cara stared at her, her lips parted as if she’d meant to speak but had forgotten the words.
“You argued that last night, didn’t you?” Harper said. “About moving to Los Angeles.”
Hunter stepped between them, a mug in his hands. “They fought like couples fight. Nothing more than that.”
Harper didn’t look at him. “Let Cara answer.”
Cara held her gaze, those blue eyes wide and stunned.
“I didn’t kill Xavier.” She drew in a sudden breath. “My God. I can’t believe I even have to say that. I loved him.”
She was so convincing. But she was also an actress.
Harper said, “Have you spoken to a lawyer?”
The mug slipped from Hunter’s fingers and crashed to the floor.
“Shit,” he said, looking at the pieces as if he didn’t know what they were.
“What was that?” Allegra’s voice came from the top of the stairs.
Cara cleared her throat before shouting. “Nothing, Legs. Just a cup.”
When no one else moved, Harper stepped carefully back from the sharp shards of porcelain. “Have you got a broom?”
Wordlessly, Hunter pointed at a slim cupboard near the oven. Harper found a broom and dustpan, and quickly swept the broken pieces into a pile. She could sense Cara and Hunter having a silent conversatio
n behind her back.
Cara spoke first. “How did you know Xavier and I argued the night he died?”
Harper dumped the shards into the kitchen bin before answering. “Your neighbor told the police.”
A shudder passed through Cara’s body.
“So, they were breaking up,” Hunter said. “That’s all. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“They were breaking up on the night he died,” Harper said. “That’s motive.”
She kept her focus on Cara, who didn’t seem to be breathing.
“I wish we hadn’t fought.” The woman’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I would take every word of it back if I could. I wish I’d never said anything. But I would never ever hurt him.”
They were both so fragile. So desperate to be believed. They wanted to talk. To be understood. To tell their side.
She had them right where she wanted them.
Harper pulled the notebook from her jacket pocket and set it down on the kitchen island. The granite top felt cold beneath her fingers as she glanced up at them.
“You better tell me everything.”
15
Harper was nearly to Savannah when Miles called. “Just heard from the press flacks at the cop shop. There’s a press conference at five. I’ve got two tickets.”
“I’m on my way into town.” She spoke loudly to be heard above her scanner, which crackled in the dashboard holder. “Any idea what it’s about?”
“No one’s talking. Maybe they’ve arrested someone. Maybe they’ve got the autopsy results and he died of a heart attack.”
She could hear his engine racing in the background.
“Where are you now?” she asked.
“Been shooting a wedding in the suburbs,” he said. “Stuffed myself on canapés. I’m on my way back in.”
Miles worked freelance. Weddings were a lucrative sideline.
“I hope you saved me a crab puff.” Harper stopped at a red light, studying the traffic behind her. A dark BMW had been back there for a while. She was keeping an eye on it. Maybe things were heating up with the Xavier Rayne case, but she couldn’t lose sight of Martin Dowell. Somehow she had to juggle both cases. “Look, I’m going to stop by the paper first. See you at the police station?”
“I’ll be the one with bells on,” he said.
The newsroom was Saturday quiet when she walked in. The lifestyle-section writers had already finished and gone. She could hear the sports guys down the hall yelling at some basketball game. No other reporters would be expected in. The Sunday paper was mostly written on Friday, except for crime.
Baxter was sitting at her old desk underneath the three wall-mounted televisions. All the screens were blank, and she was staring at her computer, a silver pen held absently in one hand.
“Did Miles call you?” she asked.
“Press conference at five.” Harper perched on top of a nearby desk, feet dangling. Baxter looked up inquiringly.
“I talked to the next-door neighbor,” Harper said. “She told me Xavier and Cara ‘fought like cats.’ And that’s a quote.”
Baxter’s nose wrinkled. “If we use that I’ll have the chief of police on my doorstep on Sunday morning screaming at me.”
“Yeah, but then I talked to Hunter and Cara.” Harper prepared to drop the bombshell. “They verified that Xavier and Cara broke up the night he died. Cara said she broke up with him because he cheated on her. She was going to fly back to LA in the morning and never come back to Savannah again. Except someone murdered him before she got that chance.”
Baxter looked astounded. “They told you this on the record?”
“Oh yes.”
“My God. Haven’t they got any sense at all?” The editor threw the pen down. “You need to talk to your detectives. Tell them what the girlfriend told you. Get a comment. Then we can go with, ‘Police are looking into reports of a domestic disturbance at Rayne’s house the night he was killed.’”
“You got it,” Harper said. “I’ll grab someone after the press conference.”
The phone in her pocket began to ring. She answered it without getting off the desk.
“McClain.”
“Ah, Harper,” a male voice drawled. “I’ve missed the dulcet tone of your gracious hellos.”
She knew that sardonic, amused tone, but for a second she couldn’t place it.
“That’s sweet but I’m busy,” she said. “Get to the point.”
He chuckled. “There was a time, Harper, when you were more deferential to me.”
The second he laughed she knew who she was talking to. “Hang on,” she said into the phone. Jumping down, she hurried down the hallway, beyond the break room with its smell of scorched coffee, and out onto the back staircase. Only when the door closed behind her did she speak again.
“Dells?” Her voice echoed off the scuffed white walls. “Is that you?”
“The very same. I’ve got to say it’s nice to hear your voice again, even when you’re snarling at me.”
Paul Dells had been managing editor until six months ago, when he was fired for refusing to lay off staff. Rumor had it he’d left town—gone up to Charlotte to run a business magazine. Harper had assumed he was out of her life forever.
“Yours too.” She found herself smiling. “Are you in town?”
“I am—that’s why I’m calling. I have something I’d like to talk with you about. But not on the phone. I have a … proposition to make.”
His choice of words sent heat to Harper’s face. On the night Dells was fired, after a long drinking session, they’d kissed. It hadn’t gone any further but that was bad enough.
It was the last time she ever saw him.
“How about we meet for lunch on Monday?” he suggested, before she could think of anything to say. “Do you know The Public?”
“Yes,” she said. “I know it.”
“Great. Let’s meet there at, say, one thirty. I’ll explain everything when I see you.” He paused before adding, “It’s good to talk to you, McClain. It’s been too long.”
The phone went dead. Harper stayed where she was, thinking.
The two of them had worked well together—too well, some might say. He was driven: a talented editor with an eye for detail. On the last story they’d done together—a complicated murder involving the district attorney’s son—they’d taken a lot of chances. He’d pushed her hard, and she’d responded in kind.
It had been a good partnership, and she’d been sorry to see him go.
The kiss had been a fluke—she was certain of that. Ever since, she’d nurtured the faint hope that maybe he’d been too drunk that night to remember it.
I wonder if he’s still single. The thought came to her, unbidden. As quickly as it arrived, she batted it away. She wouldn’t have even thought it, she told herself, if she hadn’t seen Luke the previous night. And if he didn’t have a girlfriend.
Besides, it didn’t matter whether Dells was single. She wasn’t his type. The women he’d brought to the office Christmas parties were always tall, thin, and rich. She didn’t match that description.
Turning her wrist, she glanced at her watch and swore under her breath. It was twenty to five. She’d have to run if she was going to make the press conference.
* * *
Harper counted nine TV vans in the overflow parking lot as she got out of the Camaro and sprinted through the door of the police headquarters.
From the front desk, Dwayne Josephs gave her an amused look. “I was wondering when you’d get here,” he said. “Got half the reporters in Atlanta here today. Got to have Harper McClain, too.”
“Has it started?” she asked, breathless.
“No, they’re running late as usual. Should be any second now, though.” He pointed to the security door, reaching for the button that would release the lock as she ran across the linoleum floor. “Meeting Room Four,” he called after her.
She raced down the hallway, only slowing when she heard the rumble of
the crowd and saw a technician struggling to get a tripod through a door. She followed him into the crowded room. She stood at the edge looking for familiar faces. Josh Leonard and Natalie Swanson were in the front row. Miles stood a few feet away, his Canon in one hand.
She waved to get his attention, and he sidestepped over. “Right on time,” he teased.
“Any rumors about what’s happening?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No one’s talking.”
Someone waved and she turned to see Jon Graff sitting across the room, watching her with an oily smile. Her lip curled.
A door across the room opened. Blazer walked in first, followed by the deputy chief, then Julie Daltrey and Luke. The lieutenant strode to the microphones. The others arrayed themselves around him. Harper pulled her notepad from her pocket and flipped to a clean page.
“Thank you all for coming today for an update on the investigation into the death of Xavier Rayne.” Blazer looked across the room with cold blue eyes. “As most of you know, the body was recovered yesterday evening by a fishing boat, a few miles offshore. It was taken directly to the Chatham County coroner’s office. An autopsy is now complete and the initial findings have been made available to us.”
Miles crouched in front of him, getting a shot.
Blazer kept his eyes on the back of the room, showing off his sharp jawline at its best angle. “The coroner’s investigation found no water in the victim’s lungs, indicating that Mr. Rayne died from gunshots or loss of blood before being placed in the ocean.”
The crowd murmured.
“The coroner’s early estimates are that Mr. Rayne died at some point between midnight and five A.M. on the night he disappeared.” He looked straight into the camera for Channel 5 News, which was the closest to him. “At this time, we’re appealing to the residents of Tybee Island. If you saw or heard anything on the night in question, please contact the Savannah police or the Tybee Island police immediately. We know there were reports of gunshots that night. Anything you saw or heard could be helpful in catching the killers and bringing them to justice.” He shifted his gaze to the audience. “I’ll take your questions now.”
Revolver Road Page 12
