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Deadly Lies

Page 16

by Mary Stone


  He continued to eye her closely but nodded after a moment.

  She didn’t give him time to question her further. “Anyway.” She tapped on her list of questions to get him to refocus. “When was the last time you saw your grandmother?”

  “Honestly?” He started to pace. “It’s been months.”

  “Really? And why is that? You live so close, after all.”

  He stopped. Stared at her. She looked into his eyes, and he quickly looked away. Interesting. The body language was definitely of a man who had something to hide. And Greg had said she was good at getting people to open up. So, it would be her mission, she decided, to get him to.

  He shook his head. “Well, to be honest, she’s going a little insane. Acting really crazy. Accusing people of all sorts of things and acting paranoid. I think she has dementia or something.”

  Was he denying the stool incident?

  Kylie bristled at the description of the sweet elderly woman. “Did she accuse you of anything you didn’t do?”

  He lifted a shoulder in jerky little movements. “I don’t want to talk about personal matters. It has nothing to do with so-called missing paintings.”

  That was true. Would a lowly assistant be digging into personal matters? Kylie jumped at the segue he’d given her. “Okay, let’s discuss those paintings then. Your grandmother brought that to your attention then?” He nodded and Kylie scanned her list. “The butler, Sloane, told us that you called and had them taken away to be reframed?”

  He looked genuinely surprised. “Paintings reframed? No.” He finally…finally…sank down into the chair. “Jesus. Sloane said that? I can’t say that old man’s much better.” He swirled a finger around his ear, indicating that the elderly butler was also a bit demented. “I didn’t touch any of her paintings. I swear, I haven’t been there in months.”

  “You didn’t call and have a service come out?”

  He shook his head. “Definitely not. I could give a shit about any of those paintings.”

  She wrote that down and scanned the apartment, her eyes landing on a scene over the mantle of a large stone fireplace. It looked like Arnold Jennings’s style, with the creepy vibe and the googly eyes of a blonde woman, semi-nude, looking out over a stone balcony. And come to think of it, it used similar colors to the painting hanging in the Coulters’ dining room.

  “My grandmother gave me that,” he snapped, following her line of vision. “A long time ago. It was a gift. If she’s missing paintings from her gallery, that’s not one of them.”

  Kylie stared at it. She wasn’t sure she’d want her grandmother giving her anything with nude people in it, but okay.

  Wait! Was that young Emma Jennings in the buff?

  She stared at the grandson, her skin starting to crawl. The way he was staring back at her was unnerving. Her spidey-senses were doing backflips in her head.

  “Who are you again?” he asked, pushing back to his feet, eyeing her as he once again began to pace.

  “Your grandmother’s assistant,” Kylie said and looked back at her notepad. “And I’m here to help her track down missing inventory. Would—”

  “No one’s cheating her,” he barked, “if that’s what she’s thinking. She was always really worried about that. But most of the people who handle those things for her have been doing it for years. She’s probably being paranoid.”

  “There are at least three missing paintings. She’s not being paranoid about that. Do you have any idea of—”

  “Look.” Annoyance crept into his voice. “I don’t know what kind of stuff you’re trying to uncover as my grandmother’s assistant, but like I said, I can’t help you very much. I haven’t been in her life in months.”

  “Okay.” She kept her voice calm. “But aren’t you the least bit concerned about these missing paintings?”

  He barked out a laugh. “Three? Out of a thousand? No. She probably just moved them for dusting or something and forgot where she put them.” He sat down, grabbed a cigarette out of the pocket of his shirt, and lit it. “You mind?”

  She did, but she shook her head.

  “Look. You don’t sound much like an assistant. You sound like an investigator.”

  Kylie blinked. Was it that obvious? A part of her was proud, but she needed to dial that part down. “Why would you say that?”

  Nate snorted. “I’d never put it past that paranoid old lady to sic a PI on her own flesh and blood.”

  Kylie bristled at his description of his grandmother but stayed in her seat, wondering where this rant would lead.

  He threw up his hand. “And I don’t know what stuff you dug up on me, but like I said, I’ve changed. Yeah. I still have a lot of debt. And yes, when I was in college I did some dumb things. Who didn’t? But I’m working through the debt the old-fashioned way. With an actual job. I didn’t take those paintings, and if Grandma thinks I did, she’s wrong. Tell her I don’t know anything about it.”

  On the last word, he sucked on his cigarette until almost half the thing was in ash. Much more slowly, he blew out the smoke.

  Kylie forced herself not to cough while she studied him, unsure of what to believe. Wanting to keep him talking, though, she tried a different direction. “Can you think of anyone who might be trying to swindle her?”

  His shoulders slumped a little bit, and she could tell he was relieved to have the focus off him. “Jesus. Who knows? She has people going in and out of that house all day. Probably half the service people in the city have been there to fix something or other. The house is old. If you ask me, those paintings are gone for good.”

  “What about Denise Summers?”

  The man jerked at the name, then took another deep drag from the cancer stick. “What about her?”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  He turned to face her, eyeing her suspiciously. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Then could you please give me the name of your former college roommate?”

  Ash fell to the floor. Nate Jennings’s face turned a purply kind of red.

  “Get out.”

  Kylie’s eyes widened at the vehemence in his tone. “I—”

  “I said to get out.”

  Very slowly, Kylie rose to her feet, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. “Thank you for your time.”

  He said nothing, just opened the door and closed it with a loud click once she’d passed the threshold. Almost feeling his gaze bore into the back of her head through the peephole, she moved away, heading to the fresh air outdoors.

  She shivered. The look in Nate’s eyes had been…murderous.

  As she walked outside, she thought through his reaction. Was Nate a closet bi-sexual? Was that why he’d reacted so violently to the question about his ex-roommate?

  It made sense.

  Just because he tossed her out of his apartment didn’t mean he was a thief. He was still high on her list of suspects, but from her criminal justice classes, she knew she couldn’t get tunnel vision when working a case.

  She scanned the list of names. If Nate didn’t take those paintings, then…she had to face the very real but very awful possibility that Jonathan Coulter might have something to do with it.

  The thought made her head hurt.

  Of course, as Kylie shoved aside thoughts of the father, they were quickly replaced by thoughts of the son. Vader, delirious to see her reappear, jumped and barked from where she’d tied him under a shady tree.

  At least someone was happy to see her. Vader and her mother. She guessed it could be worse.

  After letting the big dog do clean up duty, hoovering down the fallen fries and crumbs from her lunch, she finally got him settled in the back seat. The very fact that the dog obeyed her made her think of the sexy trainer.

  Gah. She needed to get him out of her head.

  It felt like forever since she’d last seen him, and after what Jacob said, she was worried. Sure, Linc might need his space, but how much space was th
at? A week? A year? She needed to know.

  Kylie looked down at her purse. She’d just gotten paid the day before, and Link had been floating her on her obedience lessons for Vader. That would be a good excuse for going up to the farm, right? Just settling their tab?

  She was already heading toward his mountain, even as she argued with herself on the wisdom of going. At a traffic light, she even checked her makeup and smoothed her hair.

  She was primping.

  “Stop it,” she berated herself when she slicked a layer of gloss over her lips.

  Business. She was only going there for business.

  Yeah, right. The last time she’d done that, she’d ended up naked on the hay in his barn.

  “Not this time,” she told her reflection. This time, she wasn’t going to let Mr. Hard Body with the sweet cocoa eyes charm his way into her pants. She would keep them firmly where they belonged.

  Although, the way Linc had looked at her the last time she saw him, when he’d left her apartment? She’d practically offered herself up to him on a silver platter, and he’d turned her down, flat.

  So maybe he just wasn’t into her anymore. Maybe the Kylie ship had sailed.

  The thought made her sadder than she thought was possible.

  “You’ll be okay,” she pep talked herself. It wasn’t like she didn’t have lots of experience watching men walk away.

  Well, she’d been too young to understand why her father was leaving her, but she’d felt his loss off and on her entire life. That pissed her off. And concerned her.

  If she missed a man she didn’t remember, how badly would she miss the man she couldn’t forget? The man who seemed to understand and tolerate her more than anyone ever had?

  Was that it? Had his tolerance for her and her personality come to an end, and he used the nightmares as a convenient excuse to make her go?

  After all, underneath his gruff exterior, Lincoln Coulter had a heart of gold. He wouldn’t want to hurt her unnecessarily. At least she didn’t think so.

  Plus…it had been Kylie who’d been putting the brakes on their relationship, trying to slow down and just enjoy each other sexually.

  Gah. Just thinking of it made her head hurt.

  “Which was exactly why I’m not supposed to be thinking about it,” she grouched to herself. “Pay for the obedience lessons. That’s the focus. The only focus.”

  Mind made up, Kylie drove as quickly as she could on the horribly curvy road, and pulled into his long drive, not quite knowing what she’d find when her car came to a stop. Would he welcome her? Send her away?

  Pull her into the barn for round two?

  “Stop it,” she muttered to herself.

  When she got closer to the house, though, she didn’t see his truck in its regular spot or anywhere else. Instead, there was a sporty red Kia SUV she’d never seen before. Pulling up behind it, she wondered if he’d gone through a mid-life crisis so terrible he’d decided to give up his badass truck and become a soccer mom.

  Kylie blinked when a girl with long, blonde hair stepped out of the front door, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. She eyed Kylie as closely as Kylie was eyeing her.

  Jealousy spiked inside Kylie, and the junk food she ate earlier made her feel bloated and fat.

  She reminded herself to chill. There could’ve been any one of a million completely innocent explanations for this attractive woman standing on his front porch. To have access to his home.

  As rattled as she was by this beautiful, nature loving looking woman, Kylie took a deep breath and stepped out of her car. “Hi,” she said in a businesslike fashion. “Is Linc not here right now?”

  The blonde shook her head. She had a deep southern accent, which just added to her nature loving appeal. “No. He probably won’t be back for a while.”

  Cute as a button.

  Kylie hated her.

  Still, Kylie did a good job of keeping the smile plastered on her face. “Oh. Well. I just came to drop off payment for the obedience lessons he’s been giving my dog,” she said, picking through her purse and pulling out a hundred dollars. “Will you be able to make sure he gets it?”

  “Well, I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” the blonde said, eyeing the money. “I might not see him. I’m just here to give his dogs a workout and make sure they’re fed. I’m from the vet.”

  “Oh?” Oh! She was from the veterinary clinic? Kylie instantly relaxed, even though she didn’t remember seeing her there before. “Did Linc go somewhere?”

  “Yes. You probably heard about it, since it’s all over the news. They needed someone with his experience on the scene of the parking garage collapse in Spartanburg.”

  Kylie’s eyes widened. “He’s there? With Storm?”

  The blonde nodded. “Of course! He’s the first name people in the area think about when they need a SAR guy. Left in the middle of the night to get down there. I don’t think he’ll be back for a couple days.” She looked at the money in Kylie’s hand and wrinkled her cute-as-a-button nose. “So maybe you’d better hold on to that and drop it off when he’s home. I’d hate for it to get lost.”

  “Okay,” Kylie said, tucking it away. Of course they’d call Linc. They’d want the best. But that sounded like dangerous work.

  The last she’d heard, several people were still missing and buried under the rubble of a total collapse, most of them college students. Two people had already been found dead. Officials said that it was one of the worst building disasters in the nation’s history, and that search and recovery work was very detailed, intricate, and dangerous.

  He’d be gone for days. And he hadn’t felt the need to call her?

  Her heart was getting a stomachache.

  Kylie didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but she knew she shouldn’t be surprised to not hear from him. Of course, he was in the middle of a very serious situation. He had other things on his mind.

  She only wished that somewhere, even way in the back of that gorgeous head of his, there was still a little place for her too.

  21

  Linc had been on scene of the Spartanburg collapse since four o’clock that morning.

  The place was a zoo, just another thing to put him on edge. As if he hadn’t already been teetering there to begin with.

  The entire block had been swarming with reporters, distraught family, emergency personnel, and curious onlookers since long before the sun rose, revealing the extent of the damages.

  It turned out that the garage had been deemed structurally unsound and was under repair, but some moron thought it’d be safe enough to continue to use, when the collapse occurred. One bright spot was that it occurred late at night. Otherwise, it would’ve been packed with hundreds of students on their way to class. As it was, when the accident happened, the garage was being used by a small number of young men and women attending a party at a bar nearby.

  The sun hadn’t risen yet when Storm and Linc hit the rubble, which had flattened cars into layers that reached several stories high. It could take months to go through the mess, but they all knew that after a few days, rescue would change to retrieval. Several SAR dogs were already on-site, but none had the experience Storm possessed. There were hundreds of rescue personnel standing around, waiting for survivors to be pulled out. So far, there’d only been three.

  The problem was, they had no idea who they were looking for, or even how many people were trapped.

  Linc’d been in building collapses since returning from Syria, though never anything this massive. Once, part of a warehouse roof in Asheville had caved in, trapping some workers inside. Another time, an apartment building under construction had given out. Both times, they knew exactly what they were up against, and he’d never felt the least bit worried. Now, he had to ball his hands into fists at his sides to keep them from shaking.

  It had taken most of the day for construction vehicles to move away some of the concrete and structural specialists to give them the all-clear to rescue.
During that time, Linc and Storm had circled the collapse, Storm’s nose on high alert as they attempted to better understand what they were facing.

  It wasn’t until well into the afternoon before they’d determined the safest way in, although the word “safe” was an operative word under these conditions.

  Making sure Storm’s harness was secure and her bell was attached, Linc carried her into the claw of a yellow backhoe. Storm’s flanks quivered in anticipation as the machine lifted the pair to the top floor.

  The top floor itself was in near perfect condition, easily traversable on a good section of it, but about halfway through he saw the entry point, a crack in the asphalt where the rescuers had gone. According to the police, this area was closest to the little college bar and where most of the survivors likely were located.

  His head hurt as he reached the opening, where a couple of men were working with axes and chainsaws to break through the debris. After pushing his hard hat down on his head and affixing his safety mask and glasses, he ensured Storm’s safety gear was secured as well.

  With a “Let’s get to work,” he and the Shepherd climbed down into the hole.

  The man with the chainsaw stopped his work so they could pass. He gave a double take. “Hey. You’re Linc Coulter, right?”

  Linc looked at the guy. He was a Spartanburg firefighter but didn’t appear familiar to him. “Yeah.”

  He shook Linc’s hand. “Seth Gruver. I was at that conference where you were the speaker. It’s an honor to be working beside you.”

  “Honor’s all mine. Nice to meet you.”

  Storm, eager as ever, attacked the challenge with her usual excitement. Her willingness to embrace this task spurred Linc on. If after all the shit she’d been through, she could do it, then so could he. He went forward with her, over the piles, letting her guide him. It was a cloudless day, making sighting easier, and temperatures rose as they carefully navigated deeper into the hole.

  And Storm continued to search.

  Sweat coursed into Linc’s eyes and trickled down his torso. That wasn’t like him. Usually, he was calm during these things. He’d been through enough stressful situations, that was for sure.

 

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