by Debra Webb
When she reached the looming mansion, Rossman had already gone inside. His Cadillac sat in the circle driveway in front of the grand steps leading to the front door.
She concentrated hard to visualize the layout of the house. She’d only been there a couple of times—the first on the day of Melinda’s wedding to Charles and then for a Christmas party celebrating the imminent birth of Melinda’s first child.
Moving around the side of the house, she went to the windows that, as best she recalled, were located in the senator’s study. The first set she chose was the wrong one.
She told herself to calm and think.
A rustle of brush somewhere behind her sent her heart knocking against her sternum. A rabbit hopped off into the darkness. Ten seconds passed before she could breathe easy again.
The next windows she chose were the right ones.
Rossman and the senator were in there all right.
She had to bend her knees and hunker down just a little to see through the partially open shutters. The two men were yelling. She could hear their muffled voices but couldn’t make out the words.
Rossman abruptly crossed his hands over each other in front of him in a scissoring motion and shouted something that sounded like, “This is finished.” But Lacy couldn’t be certain that was what he said.
The senator tried to stop him, but Rossman shrugged off his hand and stormed out.
Lacy hurried to the front corner of the house and watched Rossman get into his car and drive away.
What did she do now?
Her pulse started to trip again and the burn of adrenaline urged her to act.
She had to do this.
The senator was primed for this moment. Rossman had reacted to her call. Now she had to see what the senator had to say about his old friend.
Did he realize yet that his right-hand man, his best friend all these years, was likely the man who had killed his son?
Taking a steadying breath, she walked around to the senator’s front door and knocked. She firmed her resolve, squared her shoulders and prepared to state her case. He would surely listen to her despite her role in disposing of Charles’s body. She hadn’t killed his son. The senator had to want the whole truth.
When he opened the door, Lacy almost lost her nerve. “Hello…ah…I’m sorry to intrude, but I…”
Her train of through trailed off as the impact of his cold stare penetrated the buzz of adrenaline no doubt clouding her good sense. What the hell had she been thinking? What if Rossman told him about her call? She should have anticipated that. But then, wouldn’t that have risked exposing his own guilt?
“Senator,” she began again, but he cut her off.
“If you’re looking for Gloria, she’s over with Melinda and the children.” His tone was every bit as cold as his stare. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”
Lacy supposed she couldn’t blame him. No matter what a low-life bastard Charles had been, this was his father. He wasn’t going to forgive her, no matter her motivation for what she’d done. He wouldn’t forgive her any more than she would forgive him for looking the other way while his son abused his wife for five years.
“It’s you I need to speak with, Senator. Is it possible for us to speak privately for a moment?”
He looked confused, then suspicious. “I imagine you won’t leave until you’ve had your say.”
She shook her head. “It’s too important.”
He stepped back and opened the door wider. Lacy walked inside. She felt a chill rush over her skin as he closed the door solidly behind her. Summoning her courage, she followed him to the richly paneled study where just moments ago she’d watched Rossman and him arguing.
Massive wood furnishings. Leather chairs. Nothing but the best for an Ashland. Her stomach roiled.
“What do you want, Miss Oliver?” he asked when he had stationed himself behind his desk. He didn’t sit, he simply used the desk as a boundary. Perhaps it made him feel superior.
She took off, didn’t even slow to take a breath. “Senator, I believe you should go to the D.A. and insist he pursue another aspect of the investigation into your son’s death. The murderer could be someone close to you. Someone who benefits from your political career.” Like Wes Rossman, she didn’t say. “Someone you consider a friend.”
Lacy had spent most of her adult life despising the Ashlands. She couldn’t help seeing the irony in the fact that she stood in the senator’s study now warning him about a possible danger to his family. Maybe she had already gone mad and no one had noticed yet.
The senator simply stared at her with that same cold glare for several endless seconds. “Whatever you hope to gain by reopening those painful wounds, Miss Oliver, I can assure you I will not tolerate your telling tales. What you propose is nothing more that conjecture and is quite preposterous. My family has endured quite enough. Renae Rossman killed my son and you and your friends disposed of his body like so much trash. I’m certain we have nothing further to discuss.”
Lacy blinked at the harsh words. But she took them in stride. He was right. What she, Kira and Cassidy had done was wrong. She’d faced that after ten long years of torturing herself with that hidden secret. She deserved his scorn for that. But he had sins of his own to answer to, like allowing Melinda to be abused.
“You’re right. We were wrong. We had no right to do what we did.” She swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat. “Your son was a cruel, selfish man.” Before the senator could object, she added, “Still he didn’t deserve to be murdered. No one does.” Tears burned her eyes as she thought of her two dear friends.
“That’s why you must believe me when I say, Renae did not kill your son,” she went on. “She loved Charles. I am absolutely certain it wasn’t her.”
The senator’s face tightened with outrage. “I want this over, Miss Oliver. As you well know, my family is irrevocably fractured. I would prefer you never speak of this again.”
Ice slid through Lacy’s veins. We won’t speak of this again. The vow.
She would not do that again. No way.
Lacy shook her head slowly from side to side. “I’m sorry, Senator. I can’t do that. I’ll go to District Attorney Alton myself first thing in the morning. This won’t be over until the whole truth comes out.”
The senator thrust his hand into his desk drawer and snatched out a weapon. He leveled the business end on Lacy. “You should have left it alone.”
Confusion roared through her, stunned her. Had the discovery of his son’s remains and the subsequent murders pushed him over the edge?
“Senator, I wish you’d put that gun away. I know this has been difficult but—”
“You don’t know anything!” His face distorted with rage or something on that order. “You don’t know how it is to have only one son. To put all your hopes and dreams in him and then to watch him not only destroy his own life but also to try and destroy yours as well. I had no choice but to put an end to it. Especially after that trollop Pamela started blackmailing the both of us.”
“Pamela was pregnant,” Lacy said before she could stop herself. She felt…baffled by his words and the gun. Had he slipped over some edge? He had been under a lot of stress. She choked down a breath. The question was, did she run or keep him talking?
“I know,” he ground out. “She’d threatened to go to the press with all she knew about Charles, including his illegitimate child she carried, unless he gave her the money she wanted. After she’d taken his money, the whore came and tried to get more from me.”
Lacy felt herself go utterly still inside. This wasn’t possible…how could… “So you killed her?”
The question echoed in the room, the sound and implication of it surreal.
“What choice did I have? She wasn’t going to stop! She just wanted more and more!”
His nostrils flared with the oxygen intake required to fuel his escalating emotions. Lacy told herself to stop right there, to try and calm him,
but she couldn’t…she needed to hear it all.
“You took the money.” She filled in the blanks, her entire body shaking at this point. “The money Charles had given her…the hundred grand he withdrew.”
“It was my son’s, why wouldn’t I?”
The idea of what might have happened next sent denial surging through her. “You confronted Charles.” She held her breath.
“The fool couldn’t pull himself together. He’d put his wife in the hospital, had gotten another woman pregnant, and still he sought out more mistresses. He was sick. I couldn’t have my son behaving in such a way…I had a future to protect.”
Lacy didn’t dare say more…she just let him talk.
“After I took care of Pamela—” he squared his shoulders, lifted his chin challengingly “—I went to him, told him what would happen if he got himself into trouble again. He’d been drinking. His mousy wife had shot him in the shoulder.” He shook his head in distaste. “He’d managed to get up and get himself into the shower.” The senator looked disgusted. “And even then, he had the unmitigated gall to laugh in my face.” His expression took on a sudden, faraway look. “I didn’t mean to shoot…the weapon just went off.” He frowned. “It happened in an instant.”
The impact of his words rumbled through Lacy. “You killed him.”
“It was an accident,” he screamed, his face twisting with hatred or anger, maybe both. “I rushed out of the house. Got down the street and realized I might have left something incriminating. I couldn’t think. I had to go back and be sure. Only this time I parked away from his house. It was almost dark anyway. I did what I had to do, but before I could get out of the house the three of you came in. I did the only thing I could. I hid in the closet.”
His face fell slack again and he remained silent for so long that Lacy feared he’d lapsed into a coma.
Lacy moistened her lips. Did she dare try to leave now? Would he snap out of his intense reverie and shoot?
She decided to take the chance.
She eased back a step. Just one step toward the door. Toward escape.
The senator’s face turned crimson with rage. “This whole thing is Bent Thompson’s fault,” he snarled.
Lacy froze. She didn’t dare move a muscle or say a word. The senator didn’t actually appear to be talking to her. He spoke to the room at large.
Would he notice if she took one more step back? “That piece of trash tried to blackmail me simply because I asked him to purchase an untraceable weapon for me ten years ago. And then he kept it when I paid him to dispose of it. He was worthless.” He said the last with sheer loathing. “After all I’d done for him. I’d paid him far more than he was worth just to watch my son. I should have gotten rid of him ten years ago.”
“You killed him?” Lacy bit her lips together. She couldn’t believe she’d said the words.
“I had no choice.”
Enough. She needed to get out of here before he decided that she had left him no choice as well.
“Senator, you’ve been through a lot.” She struggled to steady her voice as she eased back one more step. “I should go and leave you to come to terms with all that’s happened.”
He fixed his aim more firmly on her, letting her know he had no intention of allowing her go. “I tried to end it.” He lifted his shoulders in a resigned shrug. “I used Nigel Canton for a scapegoat. He’d been abusing my son’s memory for years. He deserved exactly what he got. I thought the confession was ingenuous.” He exhaled a weary breath. “If I’d only known that Renae was executing her own revenge, I could have used her instead.” He made a tsking sound with his lips. “Too bad for Canton.”
“Senator, my parents are expecting me back home.”
His full attention leveled menacingly on her. “Then they will be sadly disappointed.”
An alarm blared deafeningly. It paused and a computerized voice announced, “The north perimeter has been breached.” The squeal of the alarm punctuated the announcement.
The senator rushed to the window to look outside.
Lacy didn’t waste any time. She ran like hell. She burst into the long hall that would lead her to the front door.
She was out the door and sprinting across the cobblestone driveway before she heard the drum of running footsteps on the steps behind her.
The sound of a gun exploding forced her to glance over her shoulder.
The senator dashed after her, then took aim to fire again.
Lacy cut first right, then left. Her heart hammered so hard she couldn’t breathe.
Vivid flashes of that night in the woods with Renae darted before her eyes. Not again.
God, she didn’t want to die.
Lacy dove into the shadows of the trees. Let her senses guide her. She’d come this way before…she could do it now.
She slammed headfirst into something hard and unyielding. Her injured arm throbbed.
“Get behind me.”
Rick.
Thank God.
Relief rushed through her. It was short-lived. Another blast of gunfire.
“Drop the weapon, Senator.” Rick stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight.
She didn’t know how he’d known she was here, but he was here and that was all that mattered.
“She’s trumped up all these wild allegations, Chief,” the senator said. “She has to die or she’ll never shut up.”
“Put the gun down,” Rick repeated, “and we’ll sort all this out.”
For one long moment, Lacy was certain the senator might just go along with Rick’s suggestion, then he shoved the gun against his temple and fired.
Lacy couldn’t move. Couldn’t blink away the image.
Rick checked to see if there was anything he could do. There wasn’t.
The senator was dead.
Lacy dropped to her knees on the ground, her entire body trembling with the receding adrenaline.
She told herself that it was really over now, but she was wrong.
It would never be over. The memories would always be right here, inside her. She squeezed her eyes shut. Two of her closest friends were dead…nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter 21
Lacy stored the last of her things into the back of her Explorer.
“You’re sure this is what you want to do?” her father asked. He and her mother stood on the sidewalk looking a little nervous and maybe a little shell-shocked.
“I’m sure.”
Lacy had made up her mind. Nothing anyone said was going to change it. Not that her parents had tried to change her mind. To the contrary, they had always respected her decisions.
“Well,” her mother ventured, “you know where we are if you need us.”
Lacy hugged her folks. That part was right for sure. They were there for her. This would always be home.
She climbed into her SUV and headed out to get on with her life.
The nightmare decade was over and she had survived. Thank God, Rick’s ongoing investigation had included surveillance of both Rossman and the senator. Otherwise she might not be getting this chance in life. A lot had changed, including her, and she was ready to get on with whatever the future held.
She waved as she drove away. Her parents waved back just as they had hundreds of times when she’d left home.
But this time was different.
Emotion thickened in her throat. She’d visited Kira’s and Cassidy’s graves yesterday, had said her goodbyes to Melinda.
Melinda was going to be okay. Her children were both back home with her now and she’d made peace with Gloria. The kids were all Gloria had left. Maybe that fact made Melinda more palatable to her.
Lacy shook her head. Some aspects of her hometown would never change.
She’d just turned onto Norman C. Ashland Boulevard, wiggled her nose at the smell of the old paper mill and started out of town when blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror.
Rick. It had to be him.
Su
re enough, his truck pulled up behind her when she eased onto the shoulder of the road.
He got out and strode up to her window. She’d already powered it down in anticipation of his doing just that. Her pulse quickened as she watched him move toward her. She did love looking at the man.
“I’m certain you didn’t intend to leave town without saying goodbye.”
She sighed, couldn’t help herself. Truth was she could look at him all day, but that didn’t change what she knew she had to do: get on with her life. She had to keep telling herself that or she’d let sentimentality hold her back.
She shrugged. “I guess you caught me red-handed, Chief. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Leaving town isn’t that unusual for me. I’ve done it lots of times.” She had intended to call him…eventually.
He braced his hands on the door and leaned in closer making her heart skip a traitorous beat. “I guess I was hoping this time would be different.”
There was something else that wasn’t fair—the deep, rich sound of his voice. As if looking at him weren’t enough. Oh well, Rick Summers was like the finest chocolate, too damned good to resist.
She reached into her purse with her right hand. The arm was still on the mend, but she could at least use it to some extent now. She drew out a business card and pen, jotted her home number on the back of the card and handed it to him. “Call me sometime when you’re in the big city. I’ll show you a good time.”
One corner of that sexy mouth hitched up into a smile. He tucked the card into his pocket. “I’ll do that.”
“Good. I was hoping you’d say that.”
She gave him a wink, powered up her window and drove away.
She did look back just once.
He stood there, watching her go, as he’d no doubt done before.
But this time was different. This time she would be seeing him again. Soon.
Everything you love about romance…and more!
