Vows of Silence

by Debra Webb

  “Keep walking,” he growled. “I’m not convinced.”

  This was insane. So mad she could not speak, she faced forward and did as he ordered. She would file a complaint against him, by God. This was harassment pure and simple. He wouldn’t get away with it.

  “What were you doing at the Carter place?”

  “How dare you!” She spun around to face him, almost bumping into him in the process. “Where I go and who I talk to is none of your—”

  “Keep walking.”

  If he hadn’t looked so fierce she might have been able to ignore his crazy order this time. But he looked ready to rip off her head and spit down her throat, so she did as she was told.

  “Why did you visit Pamela Carter’s father?”

  For five seconds Lacy refused to answer. Who the hell did he think he was? It was a free country. She could visit anyone she wanted as long as they didn’t have a restraining order against her.

  “Because I wanted to know if he’d heard from her.”

  “I could have told you the answer to that,” he snapped.

  “I didn’t want to hear your version of the story. I wanted to hear it from her father.”

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, Lacy, but you’re getting yourself in deeper and deeper. Pretty soon I won’t even be able to bail you out.”

  She faced him again. This time she was finished playing his ridiculous game. “You don’t want to bail me out, remember? You want to find out who killed Charles Ashland, end of story. The only reason we’re having this conversation is because you think I know something.”

  “And do you?”

  She wanted so badly to hit him that it was a literal ache in her limbs. He didn’t care who got hurt. All he cared about was solving his damned case.

  “I know Charles Ashland had enough enemies that you could line them up around the courthouse square and have yourself a whole load of suspects. Why single out me and my friends?” Outrage rushed through her all over again. This wasn’t fair. Melinda had suffered enough. They all had.

  “Because you’re hiding something from me,” he said, putting his face right next to hers. “I can feel it, Lacy. You know something relevant to this case and you’ve been keeping it a secret for ten years.”

  Fear surged through her veins. Too close to home. “You see, that’s exactly the reason I decided to dig around in this case myself. You’ve obviously already decided who killed Charles and don’t intend to look any further.”

  The vein that bulged in his forehead gave away his level of fury even before his words did. “I don’t know who killed Ashland, but I do know who wanted him dead more than anyone else.”

  “Who? Melinda?”

  He moved his head side to side. “You.”

  She fell back a step. “This is harassment. You can’t do this, Summers. I could sue.”

  “So sue me.” He folded his arms over his chest. “You know we found two slugs with the remains. We’ve already run ballistics. All we need now is to find a match. I’ve already got someone running down the names of anyone in town who had a certain caliber handgun registered ten years ago.”

  A fresh flood of fear washed over her. He didn’t have to say what caliber—she knew. “And you would be telling me this because…?”

  “Fair warning, Lacy Jane. I will get to the bottom of what happened that day. Cooperation could make things a whole lot easier on anyone who was involved.”

  “Did you toss the same warning out to Nigel Canton this morning?” She’d seen him there. He’d seen her drive by. She was pretty sure he hadn’t dropped by Canton’s office to evaluate his strengths as a stockbroker.

  “You think I should have?”

  She held up her hands for him to just shut up. He had her far too close to the edge now. “I’m going to get back in my car and I’m going home. If you want to press some sort of charge against me, then I suggest you allow me to contact my attorney.”

  He stepped aside, giving her the go-ahead to pass. She exhaled a lungful of tension and started back toward her abandoned SUV, the engine still running. She couldn’t believe she’d let him badger her into walking this far. Thank God, no one had come along and witnessed the fiasco. Then again, maybe she would have been better equipped to pursue a lawsuit if someone had.

  “Did Mr. Carter tell you that Pamela was pregnant?”

  Lacy stopped dead in her tracks.

  “She’d been having an on-again off-again affair with Ashland for nearly two years. You suppose she thought she’d finally nailed him when she learned she was pregnant?”

  Lacy turned to face him, her heart racing once more. He’d known this and still he pushed her for information about what she knew.

  “You think,” he said, as he started slowly toward her, “that Charles withdrew that hundred grand to pay her off, maybe get her out of his life once and for all?”

  Lacy couldn’t respond…couldn’t move. She could only watch him come closer, his words filling her with equal measures dread and outrage.

  “Do you really believe that a country girl like Pamela could walk away from her family and never once look back?” He stopped right in front of her. “Or do you think maybe Charles killed her and dumped her body somewhere he figured nobody would look?”

  A chill went through Lacy, making her shiver.

  “That’s what I think,” he said coolly. “I think Pamela and that baby she was carrying are dead, and we just haven’t found the body yet.”

  “I didn’t know…” Lacy shook her head. “I swear I didn’t. Melinda doesn’t know about the pregnancy. She would have told me.”

  “Like she told you she left the hospital the day her husband disappeared?”

  Lacy blinked, stunned by his statement. “That’s a lie.”

  “Is it? I have a witness, one of the nurses on duty that day, who says Melinda was missing for a while. Are you telling me that your best friend didn’t share that secret with you?”

  “She had a concussion and a fractured rib,” Lacy argued vehemently. “She couldn’t have just walked out.”

  “Maybe she had help. Isn’t that what friends are for?”

  He was fishing again. Like Cassidy said. He didn’t have anything. That’s why he kept following Lacy around.

  “I’ve told you all I can.” Lacy turned her back on him and took the final few steps to her vehicle. She had to get out of here…away from him.

  He put his hand against the door when she would have opened it. “I will find out what you’re hiding, Lacy. Mark my words. One way or another, I will find out.”

  She’d had enough. She turned on him and didn’t even flinch when she realized just how close he was. “What’s the deal, Chief? Is your ego still bruised because I never called you after that night? Are you still mad that I wasn’t impressed enough to want more?”

  Strong fingers wrapped around her right arm and jerked her nearer when she’d felt certain they couldn’t be any closer.

  “This isn’t about that night.”

  The utter calm of his tone made her more uneasy than if he’d shouted the words.

  “This is about you and what you know.”

  She lifted her chin and glared directly into determined eyes. “I don’t know anything that will help you catch his killer.”

  “But you know something.”

  The way his eyes searched hers…the feel of his hand against her skin. Her pulse faltered, made her shake in spite of her determination not to. “I know a lot of things, Chief Summers.” She found herself holding her breath.

  “Keep in mind.” He was closer…somehow. She could feel his breath against her lips and a new kind of ache went through her, one of desire…of desperate need. “That whoever killed Charles Ashland doesn’t want me to find out who he or she is. If you know anything at all, that puts you directly in the line of fire. Think about it, Lace—any odd happenings in your life since you got back to town?”

  I know your secret.

  “I ha
ve to go.” She pulled her arm free of his hold. “Melinda’s waiting for me.”

  He backed off a couple of steps, let her climb into her SUV, before he warned, “All you have to do is tell me the truth, Lacy. I’ll take care of everything else. You need to trust me.”

  When she would have closed the door, he held it open a couple seconds longer and said, “You trusted me once.”

  Their gazes held for one long beat more before he closed the door and she drove away.

  He was right. She had trusted him that one time. She’d wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. It was the summer before her senior year and she was the only one in her group of friends who was still a virgin. Until that night, when she’d decided she wasn’t going to be one come daylight. And if she was going to give that precious gift away so freely, it had to be with someone who made her quiver with want. Rick Summers. Tall, dark and handsome. He was a walking, talking romance-novel cliché. The good guy from the poor side of town, all full of pride and honor and big dreams for the future.

  He’d done it right, she had to give him that. No matter what she’d said back there in the heat of anger. Rick Summers had made love to her as no one else ever had. Maybe that’s why she’d never been able to stick with any of her adult relationships. By age twelve her entire future had been mapped out. Graduate high school with honors. Go off to the best university. Get a high-powered position in her chosen field. Nowhere in that plan was hanging around her rinky-dink hometown with a guy from the wrong side of Houston Street. But that hadn’t stopped her heart. She’d fallen in love with the wrong guy fifteen years ago.

  Now he wanted her again…for totally different reasons.

  Lacy walked the floors of her childhood home until it was time to go to Melinda’s. She’d toyed with the idea of disposing of her father’s gun, but that wouldn’t change the fact that the weapon had been registered to him for at least twenty years. And it might very well make her look more guilty. She couldn’t be sure the gun had even been used. Rick’s people would find the registration listing and then he would know what she had to hide. Or, at least, part of it. Better to appear as if she had no reason to be worried than to look guilty.

  As she parked in front of Melinda’s house she considered whether to tell Cassidy what she’d learned about Pamela, but decided against it. Her unofficial investigation would only draw more suspicion her way. Cassidy would only tell her that she was screwing up, drawing the chief’s attention. She would tell her again that all they had to do was lay low and this would all blow over.

  But not for Lacy. It would never be over until she learned what had really happened.

  Which of her friends killed Charles?

  She felt sick to her stomach when she thought of what Rick had told her about Melinda having left the hospital. Why would Melinda keep that from her? Was he simply fishing? Had he made the whole thing up in an attempt to make her talk?

  She didn’t know, but one thing was certain—she couldn’t risk that he was using that line of bull to get her to trust him. No way would she ask Melinda.

  The moment she entered Melinda’s front door she knew something was wrong. Kira was there, too. She wasn’t supposed to take over until the next morning.

  “Where have you been, Lacy?”

  Lacy closed the door behind her and looked from Cassidy, who’d spoken, to Kira and back, her feelings of defensiveness automatically falling into place. “What’s going on?”

  “I tried to call you to meet me for lunch,” Kira said. “Your cell wasn’t on.”

  Lacy frowned, tried to think if she’d had her phone off at all today. “I must have been in a dead zone,” she said more to herself than the others. Along some of the county’s back roads cell service was sorely limited.

  “I saw you driving back into town,” Kira went on. “Chief Summers was right behind you.”

  Now she understood the problem and exactly where this was going. “Where’s Melinda?” She looked past her friends, but there was no one else in the entry hall.

  “She’s upstairs resting,” Cassidy explained. “She spoke to her son today and she was so upset afterward that she had to take a sedative.”

  “Oh, God.” Damn those Ashlands. “I’m going to see her.”

  Cassidy held up a hand for her to wait. “You need to tell us what’s going down between you and Chief Summers, Lace. We’re all becoming troubled by the way this looks.”

  Fury detonated inside Lacy. She’d had more than enough today. “Nothing is going down, Cassidy. You know what he’s doing. He’s putting the pressure on me, trying to get me to talk. I won’t.”

  Kira blinked, clearly uncertain of her stand now that she’d heard Lacy’s side of things. “Why is he singling you out?” she asked.

  The answer to that was none of their business, had no relevance on Charles’s death whatsoever. But she knew how it would look, especially since she’d kept it a secret for so long. “Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he thinks he can intimidate me. I don’t know. But it’s not going to work.”

  “A man like Summers doesn’t act without fore-thought and reason, Lacy,” Cassidy stated pointedly. “He has a reason for leaning on you. You need to think long and hard and see if you come up with anything that he might consider a weakness.”

  Lacy had to bite her tongue to keep from yelling It’s sex, okay? But she kept quiet. In this situation the truth wouldn’t help. She understood that with complete clarity.

  “I’ll go check on Melinda.” Kira rushed off as if she feared the worst was yet to come.

  “Something’s going on with you, Lacy, and I don’t understand why you’re keeping it from the rest of us.”

  Maybe Cassidy was right. Maybe keeping them in the dark was wrong.

  “I need to know what really happened, Cass. I can’t live with this another ten years, especially now. The whole world knows he’s dead. I can’t pretend it was just a nightmare anymore.”

  Cassidy searched her face for a long while before she spoke. “You know what happened, Lacy. You were there. Don’t pretend innocence. We’re all in this together. Equally guilty. The moment one starts believing they’re less liable than the others, that’s when things start falling apart. We took a vow. Are you going to renege on that solemn promise?”

  Lacy ran her fingers through her hair. God, she was so tired. She didn’t want to think anymore. “No, Cassidy, of course not. I just need to know for my own peace of mind.”

  Cassidy leaned closer, as if what she had to say next was top secret. “Then I suggest you look deep inside yourself. That’s where you’ll find the answers you seek.”

  Cassidy assured Lacy that she would talk to her tomorrow and then she left. Lacy watched her drive away, confusion leaving her too stunned to utter more than goodbye and the occasional acknowledging grunt.

  She’d been right.

  Cassidy did believe she was the one who had killed Charles.

  How was that possible?

  “Did Cassidy leave?”

  Lacy jumped at the sound of Kira’s voice. She’d been so focused on watching the street, even after Cassidy drove away, that she hadn’t realized anyone had come into the entry hall.

  “Yeah. She said she’d call tomorrow.”

  Kira shrugged. “I know she’s being hard on you, Lace, but she’s just worried. Anything we say could work against us. We have to be very careful right now and getting all tangled up with Rick is risky.”

  “It isn’t what you think, Kira. He followed me, I didn’t invite him or encourage him in any way.” Lacy left out the part about visiting Mr. Carter. She couldn’t be sure how relevant Pamela Carter’s disappearance was to Charles’s murder just yet. Considering the way Kira and Cassidy had looked at her with utter suspicion, the less she said the better…for all their sakes.

  “We’re all nervous as hell, especially Melinda. You should have seen her after she talked to Chuckie. It was heartbreaking. He refuses to come home or even
talk about what’s happened.”

  “Do you think the Ashlands are behind this?” Lacy wanted to shake both of them until they came to their senses and saw how lucky they were to have a daughter-in-law like Melinda.

  Kira sighed. “I don’t know. Melinda didn’t want to talk about it and I didn’t push. I was a little upset myself after having seen you with Summers right on your tail.”

  Lacy shoved a handful of hair behind her ear and let her irritation override her other emotions briefly. “You know if we’re all equally guilty, then why am I feeling like the guilty one here? You and Cassidy are acting like you’ve already decided I’m the one and I have to be honest, I don’t like that feeling.”

  Kira grabbed Lacy’s hands and held them tightly, her eyes shiny with emotion. “We’re not judging you, Lace. We’re just worried about you, that’s all. Your vulnerability has been showing since we got here. We just don’t want you to make a mistake.”

  Lacy couldn’t bear it any longer. She wrapped her arms around Kira and hugged her. She needed to feel the closeness, the unity. But what she felt was doubt, tension, and worse…restraint.

  “I’m okay, I promise,” Lacy said as she drew back. “You guys don’t have to worry about me.”

  But they were worried. Kira and Cassidy were convinced that Lacy had killed Charles.

  Did that mean that the two of them were innocent? Or was it simply a ploy by one or both to shift doubt, as she’d considered earlier?

  When Kira had gone, her cell phone ringing before she could even get out the door, Lacy tried to occupy herself for a while then went upstairs and checked on Melinda. She still slept soundly. Lacy suddenly felt damned tired herself. It wouldn’t hurt her to go to bed early tonight. Sitting around in Melinda’s house, allowing the memories to assault her was definitely not something she looked forward to. And nothing she’d found on the hundred or so television channels had distracted her.

  She would just lock up and make herself a bed on the chaise longue in Melinda’s room. That way if Melinda woke up she’d be there for her.