Half Past Dead

by Meryl Sawyer

  Maybe the Kincaids should have dumped her when Kat had gotten into trouble again. Atlanta was sounding better and better. Not Washington, but a fresh start in a lively city.

  What about Clay?

  Good question. She gazed at the heirloom ring gracing her left hand. If she married him, Tori knew she would be committing to a life of utterly boring political campaigns. From what she’d learned, the judge saw this senate seat as a stepping stone to the presidency.

  Granted, the White House had its allure, but at what price? Rob Everett was always ordering them around. Where to go. What to say. What to wear. If the judge ultimately became president, Tori would lose her freedom. The Secret Service would be all over them like ants at a picnic.

  And what about Clay?

  She couldn’t imagine breaking the engagement—even if their marriage had been the judge’s idea. She’d loved Clay forever. She’d always envisioned herself as Mrs. Clayton Kincaid. Her mother would be devastated beyond belief if Tori broke the engagement.

  But what about Clay?

  How did he really feel? He’d contributed little during the strategy sessions, but then, even the judge had found it difficult to get Everett to shut up long enough to express his own opinions. Clay had spent last night with her. He’d rolled over, his back to her, and had fallen asleep immediately. He’d left early this morning for a deposition.

  Gabby Anne trundled toward Tori, a pot of coffee in one hand and a plate with a decadent cinnamon bun in the other. There but for the grace of God, Tori thought. Gabby Anne had been in Tori’s class, but she’d had to get married a week after graduation. The first of five—or was it six?—kids appeared that fall. Her no-good husband bounced from job to job. That meant Gabby Anne had to support the family by waiting tables. She lived off tips and Tori always left her double what a waitress would expect.

  Gabby Anne looked closer to forty than thirty, yet she always had a smile for every customer. Tori detected a wellspring of regret beneath Gabby Anne’s relentless smile, but frowns didn’t earn tips. Just seeing the woman made Tori realize how lucky she was. Other than Cloris Howard at the bank, Tori earned more money than any woman in town.

  No doubt, Gabby Anne would love to trade places, to wear fab clothes, to have a handsome, rich fiancé—and go on the campaign trail. So why was Tori giving in to self-pity and belly-aching?

  Another unpleasant thought assailed Tori. The judge expected her to produce a grandson—immediately. She needed several years of marriage before embracing motherhood. Children were okay…but she couldn’t imagine being pregnant. One look at Gabby Anne made Tori shudder. Having children ruined your figure. Imagine the stretch marks under the woman’s rumpled uniform!

  Gabby Anne grinned and placed the cinnamon roll in front of Tori. The sweet scent of melted sugar and cinnamon wafted through the air. Tori’s stomach rumbled in anticipation, and she rallied a bit, already savoring the long-denied treat.

  “Your poor, poor sister,” Gabby said in hushed tones.

  Tori almost snapped that Kat was only her half sister, then the words Rob Everett had drummed into all of them surfaced. Take the high ground. Show sympathy, but distance yourself.

  “I know.” Tori tested the softness of the warm roll with her fork and sectioned off a piece. “Terrible, isn’t it?”

  Gabby Anne tsked and replied, “Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice?”

  Tori halted, fork just an inch from her mouth. “Twice?”

  “You didn’t hear about what went on out at Justin Radner’s place in the middle of the night?”

  Tori silently listened while the talkative waitress launched into an amazing tale of how Kat had narrowly missed being killed by a paroled convict who was gunning for Justin. Her sister was like a noose around her neck, choking her more and more as each day passed. It was as if some malevolent power was using Kat to torture Tori.

  Gabby Anne lumbered off to wait on a customer, and Tori stared down at the roll. She tried to eat it, but the treat now tasted like a lead biscuit. She took out her cell phone and called Clay to see what he would make of this latest event. His secretary told Tori that Clay hadn’t come in yet.

  Tori clicked off, puzzled and upset. How could that be? He told her he had a deposition. The light dawned. The deposition must be elsewhere—possibly even Jackson. She tried his cell, got his voice mail, and left a message.

  KAT STUDIED the dummy of the Trib’s next edition on her computer screen. There was a news hole on the front page above the fold for the story of Lucas Albright’s attack. Connie Proctor had informed her the second she’d arrived that David was still at home interviewing someone over the telephone. When he returned, David would write the article, insisted the copy editor. No, Kat couldn’t do it. She was personally involved, which meant a conflict of interest.

  Connie had been almost sweet—nicer than she’d ever been—but firm. The Trib must feature David’s article. Still, Kat hadn’t been able to resist typing in a few of her more vivid memories of the incident in the background section for David to review before he wrote the story.

  When Kat had finished, she pulled up the issue about her car accident and her rescue by the Hill family. She skimmed it quickly, puzzled.

  “Here’s some herbal tea to soothe your nerves.” Connie placed a steaming crockery mug on her desk.

  “Thanks,” Kat replied and made an effort to return the woman’s sympathetic smile. She wished Connie would go back to copy editing. Lord knew the woman had plenty of headlines to create. There was no way Kat was going to drink or eat anything she hadn’t personally prepared. Well, if David or Justin gave her something, she wouldn’t refuse.

  She thought Connie was looking at her oddly. She didn’t suspect the older woman but Kat intended to be vigilant every moment. She didn’t want to hurt Connie’s feelings, so she tried to divert her attention from the herbal tea.

  “I notice there’s no mention of belladonna in David’s article about my accident.”

  Connie frowned, deepening the lines between her eyes and on her forehead. Her eyebrows were a dark contrast to her overbleached blond hair. Kat couldn’t help thinking that Lola Rae could do wonders with the copy editor’s hair, but didn’t say a word. Kat couldn’t help feeling that Connie disapproved of her and resented the time it took for David to train Kat.

  “You know how David is,” Connie said with a smile that made Kat wonder if the woman had a thing for her boss. Probably not, she decided. David was the type of man who earned his employees’ respect. Small-town papers very rarely had editors from publications as prestigious as the Globe. He could teach them things they would never have learned at a small paper. “Mavis Hill was only speculating. The Trib deals in facts.”

  “Of course.” Kat reached for the mug and warmed her hands on it, hoping Connie would assume she was going to drink the tea. Connie muttered something about getting to the heads and walked over to her cubicle. Kat put down the mug.

  She struggled to keep her focus on the rewrites about the upcoming fair, the Boy Scouts’ Jamboree, and other local events. David was right, she realized, and not for the first time. Rewriting reports phoned in from the field was a total bore. There was nothing like original material.

  She glanced up and almost jumped out of her chair. She hadn’t heard a footstep, but Dwayne Hill was standing in front of her space in the cube farm. He grinned, the off-beat smile that chilled her somehow.

  “Dwayne. It’s good to see you.” She stood up slowly, every muscle still aching from the ordeal with Lucas Albright. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you how grateful I am to you and—”

  “No need. You thanked Ma. Thass good enough.”

  “I need to thank all of you.” She switched the weight of her sore body from one foot to the other, a little uneasy. “Is there something I could get your mother? What do you think she’d like?”

  He stared at her and chawed on a wad of tobacco, as if the concept of a gift was alien to him. “Don’t yo
u be gettin’ her nuthin’. I’ll buy whatever she needs.”

  Something in his tone curtailed any further discussion. He flipped the keys to her Toyota over the Lucite divider. She lunged and managed to catch them with both hands.

  “Car’s all fixed. Billy Dean and me straightened out the bumper. Yer good to go.”

  “Thank you so much! It’s hard to be without wheels.”

  Dwayne looked at her with eerie intensity and chuckled, a silent laugh that spooked Kat. She forced a smile and a little wave as he turned and left. She was too nervous to ask if there was anything she could do for him.

  “What was that all about?” Connie asked in a voice loud enough to carry across the cubicles from where she was working to Kat’s station.

  “He was just returning my car. That’s all.”

  Connie rolled her eyes and sat down again to work on the heads. Kat knew what she was thinking. The Hills were a bit strange, was the consensus of the locals. But Kat knew from experience that you could count on the Hills for help, unlike most of the other people in this town.

  Half an hour later, David sailed through the door, Max at his side. He beamed when he spotted Kat at her desk. Connie popped up from her cube and waved to him. “Check these heads.”

  “Later,” he called and motioned Kat to come with him.

  She jumped up, relieved to get away from the rewrites and wondering if he’d discovered anything that would shed light on her predicament. He bear-hugged her. “You’re looking so much better today.”

  Kat hoped she wasn’t blushing. A night in Justin’s arms and several rounds of sex had energized her. She felt a special sense of truly belonging to a person, of finally experiencing both physically and emotionally, the meaning of love. Not that Justin had uttered the L word, but that’s how she felt—in love.

  His arm still around her shoulder, they walked into David’s office. Max trotted on ahead of them and scooted under the desk. “I spoke to a source in the FDIC,” he told her in a low voice. “I wanted to know about the inspection set for the bank just before you were arrested. The FDIC randomly audits banks. Their visit is announced less than a week before they appear. They don’t want to give the bank time to cook the books.”

  “The best way to rob a bank is to own a bank.” Kat didn’t recall where or when she’d heard this but the saying came out. Just before she’d been accused of robbery, Kat hadn’t paid much attention to the auditors. Cloris and Elmer had been sprucing up the place for days, anticipating the visit. Their activities hadn’t seemed unusual considering it had been nearly twenty years since the last FDIC inspection.

  “The robbery caused a postponement of the FDIC audit,” David added, his tone unusually solemn.

  Kat had read every scrap of information about her case. All of it was related to her arrest and subsequent trial. Nothing about the audit had appeared in those reports. They wouldn’t have, she realized. It would have been documented in federal records. Could this have something to do with the reason her record was sealed and the federal authorities were involved in sending her here to work undercover for them?

  She realized her thoughts had caused a lull in the conversation, and David was regarding her with solemn speculation. “Did they ever complete the audit?”

  “Not until six weeks after you were sentenced. When the bank became a crime scene, it was closed for a week while the investigation was conducted. The auditors were forced to reshuffle their schedule.”

  Now Kat got the picture. “They didn’t want the auditors in the bank. That’s why I was framed. They needed the time to hide something.”

  David collapsed into his chair, suddenly looking much older and world-weary. “Very possibly, but it’ll be hard to prove, especially now with Elmer Bitner dead.”

  “They think I’m a threat,” she said, unexpectedly relieved to finally put together the motive behind the scheme that had sent her to prison. “But why would they want to kill me now?”

  “This is more complicated than it appears.” He ran his hand through his silver hair. “Before the final report could be submitted by the team of examiners, one of them was killed in an automobile crash.”

  Kat picked up on an odd tone in his voice and looked at him more sharply. “Was there something suspicious about the accident?”

  David shrugged, but she detected a glint of doubt in his expressive eyes. “Not really. I spoke with the husband. He’s remarried and wants to put the past behind him. He claims he didn’t know what his wife was working on at the time of her death.”

  “You suspect he’s not telling the truth?”

  “When he was talking, I kept thinking he knew more than he was willing to tell me.” He loosened his tie with a shrug. “Call it reporter’s intuition. They have a grown daughter who’s attending Duke. I’m going to drive up there and talk to her.”

  “What could she possibly tell you that the father wouldn’t reveal?”

  “Who knows? She would have been in her teens. She must have been close to her mother. Maybe they discussed the case.”

  Kat was about to mention that not all mother-daughter relationships were close. David surprised her by telling her to write the front page article about Lucas Albright to save him time.

  “Just be sure to use my name on the byline,” he concluded. “I don’t want anyone—even Connie—to know. It’s really not kosher to have you involved since you’re part of the story, but I believe you can do a superior job.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  KAT CONCENTRATED on the words on her computer screen, doing the final rewrite on Lucas Albright’s attack on her and his botched attempt at killing Justin. It sounded like David, she concluded after rereading the piece. It was a tersely worded, professional article. Nobody would think the person who wrote the story had almost been killed by that madman.

  “Someone’s here to see you,” Connie announced in a tone that made it clear this was a personal visit, another unnecessary interruption during working hours.

  Kat quickly closed her screen so Connie wouldn’t see what she’d been writing. David was supposed to have written this article, but Kat knew he had been busy downloading as much information as he could on FDIC investigations and the death of the inspector. She turned her attention to the Trib’s reception lounge where Lola Rae was huddled in one of the hardback chairs. Why wasn’t she at the shop?

  “Hey, how are you?” Lola Rae asked in a soft voice that didn’t carry beyond the reception area.

  It was apparent that the hair stylist had been crying. Kat wasn’t certain what to say. Lola Ray had coffee and pastries available in her shop each morning. Could Kat have consumed the nearly lethal dose of belladonna there? Or had Lola Rae hidden it in the Mexican food Maria had prepared for Kat?

  She smothered the ache of discomfort that came with each step and forced herself to focus on Lola Rae—not idle suspicions. Anyone could have slipped her the poison.

  “What’s wrong?” Kat sank into the chair beside Lola Rae, careful to keep her voice low and not disturb Connie and the others. There were only a handful of people working in the cube farm, but they were all rushing to meet the two-o’clock deadline to put the Trib to bed for the day.

  “It’s Gary Don,” confessed Lola Rae and a fresh stream of tears dribbled down her cheeks. “He has another woman on the side. Know what I mean?”

  It wouldn’t surprise Kat, but she didn’t voice her opinion. She really didn’t know the man at all, but in her opinion he seemed cocky and reckless. There was something else about him that bothered Kat, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  “Why do you think there’s another woman in the picture?”

  Lola Rae pulled a scrap of tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “The other night, Gary Don claimed he was working, but I drove out to Moonin ’N Coonin. He wasn’t there. I went around behind the building to where he keeps his trailer. He didn’t see me, but I spotted him getting into this old Chevy with Te
resa Evans.” Lola Rae paused for a moment, sucking in air to keep from crying out loud. “Everyone knows she’s nothin’ more than a ho.”

  Whore. The word reverberated through Kat’s brain. She wondered what people had called her. Kat knew Teresa from school. She’d served a short sentence in Jackson for possession of marijuana. As far as Kat knew, she’d never been accused of prostitution. But folks around here were quick to judge. Once you’d been in jail…you never lived it down.

  “Last night I followed him,” Lola Rae continued, oblivious to Kat’s silence. “I was smart. I didn’t use my car. I borrowed one of my brother’s motorcycles. I put on a helmet and a leather jacket. No way could Gary Don see it was me dogging him.”

  Sensing something was coming, Kat’s pulse kicked up a beat. “You followed him out to the bar or when he was leaving it?”

  “As he left. He sleeps most afternoons and gets up in time to work or party, depending on his schedule. Last night, he took off from the bar and drove out to one of the levee roads. It’s just a dirt path leading through the cane breaks in fields that haven’t been planted for years. I hung back and turned off my lights to keep him from spotting me. In the middle of nowhere, he stopped. I was too far away to tell what he was doing exactly, but I saw a huge old tree had fallen down and blocked the ruts that pass for a road. I thought he’d taken something out of the old hollowed-out part of the tree.”

  As casually as she could manage, Kat asked, “Did you see what he took?”

  Lola Rae hunched forward in her chair and studied the rhinestone-studded jeans she was wearing. “I was wrong. He didn’t take a blasted thing. He left a bag of money for that two-bit tramp.”

  Kat nearly gasped at her friend’s convoluted logic. Why leave the woman money out in the middle of nowhere? He could easily have handed it to her in private somewhere. The money couldn’t be for this woman. It had to have been left in secret for someone else.