by Robin Caroll
“And here’s the information on our online banking, just like you asked about.” He passed me more papers.
I smirked back at Mr. Big Smile and took the folder, nodding as if I were paying attention. I wasn’t anymore. I’d already taken note of his body language when he’d returned from pulling whatever check the bank ran. No sign of nervousness. Nothing indicated he’d seen something amiss and called the authorities.
I was so in the clear.
Oh, this bank wasn’t in my final destination. It was about four towns over. But it was a national chain, and where I was going had a branch. I needed to establish my credentials before I arrived. Someone showing up with a large amount of money in a Podunk town would raise questions.
Small-town residents talked, which was why witness security tried to move people to large cities. Easier to stay under the radar.
But I didn’t have a choice. And besides, doing what I shouldn’t was what this game was all about.
Except it wasn’t a game—I was gambling with my life.
“Where did you say you were from?” Mr. Teeth asked.
I plastered on a wide, plastic smile. “California.”
“And you have no family here?”
“Nope. This is my adventure.” California was such a smorgasbord of people that my accent wasn’t uncommon. And most people in the South assumed all Californians were kind of bohemian-odd. I dressed the part today with my flowing skirt of odd design and oversized blouse that billowed around my waist. It made me look about ten pounds heavier than I was, but that suited my purpose.
He just smiled wider.
“Daddy gave me this inheritance and let me go on my year abroad before I settled down to find a husband.” I winked.
Maybe he’d been trapped in an early marriage. Maybe he’d always wanted to travel like a free bird. Either way, a glimmer of jealousy blinked in his eyes. “Well, I hope to see you around town.”
I stood and shook his hand, picked up the folder, then made my exit without any further conversation. I headed to the little guesthouse I’d rented.
The afternoon sun filled the southern sky. Big, puffy clouds dominated the air, but held no menace. The drive across town took less than five minutes.
Mrs. Cox, my landlady, was sweeping off the porch when I pulled the truck into my designated parking place. She glanced over at me. “Hi, there. You gettin’ settled in okay?”
She wore a housedress with a worn wool coat and completed her fashion statement with large rubber boots. The woman might be losing her vision and hearing, but her eccentricities made me smile.
“Yes, ma’am. Just fine. Brought my knickknacks from storage.” I yanked out the first box I’d filled from the local flea market. Stale dust almost choked me.
“Good. Do you need any help?”
“No, ma’am. Like I told you, I don’t have much. The fire got most of what I had.” Man, my stomach flipped to lie to the kind if odd lady, but I’d needed a story.
“Honey, I’m so sorry. So young to be a widow.” She shook her head. “I understand you requiring a change. You just holler if you need anything.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” I balanced the box on my hip as I unlocked the door.
My chest ached as the lies piled up, the trail of deception grating against the moral code I’d lived by all my life. I’d been raised to honor and cherish the truth . . . respect it. Now, I had to reject it.
Trample it to death just so I could survive.
“You aren’t eating much.” His mother peered at him over her glass. “Is something wrong with the catfish?”
Hayden took a sip of his iced tea and cut his gaze to Bella sitting beside him. Thank goodness she was present for the conversation about to take place. He shifted his attention back to his mother. “No, it’s great, as usual.” That was true. The light beer batter with just the right amount of cayenne and spices was melt-in-your-mouth good.
“Then what’s wrong?”
The street’s security light filtered in through the great window in the open floor plan of the home he’d shared with his parents and sister. A hint of burning leaves drifted on the air stirred by the ceiling fan set on low.
He set down his glass. “Mom, have you heard from Emily today?”
“No, why?”
If only he didn’t have to explain. But Ardy Simpson was inquisitive as well as downright nosy. “MaryBeth Keller’s car was vandalized. Keyed, windows and lights smashed, and slit tires.”
“And you think Emily might know something about this . . . why?” Mom’s eyes narrowed, and she gave a little tilt of her head.
The same quizzical look she’d displayed many a-time when he’d come in late for curfew as a teen.
Hayden groaned inside. “Come on. You know about Emily and Boyd.” Everybody in Hopewell had heard about Boyd chasing a skirt almost ten years his junior. And the police commissioner’s little sister . . . a home wrecker.
His mother flicked her hand through the air in a dismissive fashion. “Just a passing fling is all.”
“Mom, she’s seeing a married man. Everybody in town knows and is talking about it.” He wadded his paper napkin and tossed it on his plate. “A fling isn’t something to be dismissed. It’s seedy.”
“She’s just going through a stage. She’s just twenty-two. All young girls that age go through stages.” Mom glanced at Bella. “Right?”
“Um.” Bella shoved another french fry in her mouth and chewed with precision and intent.
Chicken.
He spared her a glare, then struggled to keep his voice void of emotion. “It’s not some silly stage, Mom. She honest-to-goodness believes Boyd is going to leave MaryBeth and marry her.”
Why couldn’t his mother see his sister’s faults? Sure, she was the baby of the family, but it was hard to ignore the facts when they were slammed in your face, day after day.
“Perhaps she’s right and Boyd is going to leave MaryBeth.”
He snorted. “That’s not even the point. What matters is she’s involved with a married man. It’s indecent, immoral, and against God’s will.”
Mom traced the lip of her glass. “You can’t know the matters of someone else’s heart, Hayden. And you’re going to sit there and tell me that you know the will of God? Really?”
He looked at Bella, imploring her to chime in and help his mother see how serious the situation was.
She obliged after wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. “Well, I won’t claim to have all the answers, but if Boyd really did love Emily, then he would’ve left MaryBeth by now.” Bella reached for her glass. “And MaryBeth’s been telling everyone who’ll listen that she and Boyd are house hunting.”
“Right.” Thank you, Bella. “I told Emily that the other day. Of course, she refused to listen. And now MaryBeth’s car has been vandalized.”
His mother’s eyes widened and she dropped her hands into her lap. “You think Emily was involved in such an act?”
“The officer who took the call reports Emily was the one person MaryBeth said she could think of who would do such a thing.” And deep inside, Hayden knew his sister was just stupid and vindictive enough to act on her warped sense of justice.
“And you believe this woman over your own sister?”
“I can’t find her to get her side of the story, which was why I asked you if you’d spoken to her.”
“I haven’t spoken with her since last night, but she isn’t responsible. She wouldn’t do something like that.”
Hayden sighed. “Look at the facts, Mom.”
“I can’t believe you’d even think such a thing for one second.”
Bella cleared her throat. “Is Emily still taking her medication, Ardy? I mean, I’ve heard that sometimes if people just stop taking their bipolar medicatio
n, they can do some strange things.”
“Emily knows to take her medication.” His mother shot from her seat and snatched her dishes. The fork clattered against the plate. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to you smear your sister’s good name.” She turned and marched into the kitchen.
He stared at her retreating back. Was his mother as delusional as his sister?
Dishes rattled. Pots and pans clanged. Cabinets slammed.
“Hey, she’ll get over it. You know she never stays angry for long.” Bella’s words were soft.
Hayden shook his head, every knot in his stomach tightening. “Why does she defend Em over and over?”
“Because she’s her mother, that’s why. One of the things I love about Ardy—right, wrong, or indifferent, she’s behind you and Emily 100 percent.”
Meeting Bella’s stare, he shrugged. “She thinks Emily has a good name? She can believe that? She has to hear the rumors. All the talk.” Which oftentimes made him blush. But what could he do? He couldn’t fight every guy who repeated lewd things about his sister. Especially not when they were true.
“It’s a mother’s job to believe the best in her children.”
True. “But how can Emily be so . . . for lack of a better word, stupid?”
“C’mon, Hay. She’s a kid. Yes, she’s making some obvious bad choices, but she’ll learn. She’ll grow up. And remember she does have an illness.” Bella reached over and scraped the remains of her supper onto his plate.
“Which the medication takes care of.”
Bella sighed. “Didn’t you ever do anything stupid in your youth?”
“Never got involved with someone married.” He handed her his fork, which she piled on top of the stacked plates. “Never beat up somebody’s car.”
Bella smiled, loosening his irritation. “But something you aren’t quite proud of now, looking back?” She rested her chin in her hands, probing him with those odd aqua-colored eyes of hers.
“I guess.” Visions of broken knuckles and black eyes stormed into his mind. He met Bella’s gaze. “Okay, okay. I got into some fights because I hadn’t learned to walk away. One or two.”
“See, you weren’t perfect.” Bella straightened and waggled her brows. “I would’ve liked to have seen that. Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected punching somebody.”
He couldn’t stop the grin. “Hey, I admitted it was something I wasn’t proud of.”
“People grow up and learn their lessons. Some just take longer than others. Emily will come around. She always does.”
“That’s the point—she isn’t learning from her mistakes. She keeps creating bigger and worse ones.” And he hadn’t a clue what to do. Her antics had put him in a precarious position on more than one occasion. Now, with his contract about to come up . . .
“It could be the disorder.”
“Others who have it don’t act like she does.”
Bella sighed again. “So, what helped you?”
“What?”
“What helped you see the error of your ways and put you on the right path?”
Grief swirled. Four years hadn’t diminished the ache of loss. “Dad. He wouldn’t put up with any crap.”
Bella smiled a half smile and put her hand over his. “I’m sorry. I know it still hurts.”
And she wasn’t just giving him lip service. Her parents had died in a car accident the year before his father. He couldn’t imagine the pain she suffered, losing both parents at the same time. No wonder she’d packed up and moved. Sometimes he wished he could’ve done the same. Started over someplace new.
But he was the head of his family now, responsible for watching over his mother and sister.
Lord help him, it was up to him to figure out a way to reach Emily. Before it was too late.
If looks could turn someone to stone, Rafe would be a statue.
Alphonse Jackson didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Rafe couldn’t even be sure the SAC was still focused on the here-and-now.
Rafe held his breath, waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t known his boss long enough to read the man.
After forever, Jackson let out a long sigh. He leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers and resting them on his chest. “Let me get this straight, you want me to authorize a little field trip to Louisiana based upon a piece of trash?”
“An investigation follow-up to an unsolved case.”
“And you can’t do that from here?”
Rafe swallowed. “I could, but I believe the interview would be better suited to the case in person.”
“Why not bring him here to be questioned?”
“I believe the element of surprise will garner more information for the case.” Rafe sat as straight and still as the statue his boss’s stare could turn him into. “The body language and response to the questions is often more telling than the answers the person gives.”
“I know basic interrogation, Agent Baxter.” Jackson glanced at his computer screen.
“Yes, sir.”
“With budget cuts on the horizon, I just don’t know if this is worth the expense. And we don’t have a spare vehicle for you yet.”
“I’ll drive, sir. My own vehicle.” He swallowed.
Jackson peered at him from over his reading glasses and spiked a brow. “You think this is that important of a person of interest?”
Rafe paused. “Yes, sir. I think this is the only clue the original agents didn’t follow up on. It’s our one opportunity to possibly get a real lead in the case.”
“And you think you should be the agent going and doing the questioning? Might I remind you that you’ve only been here a week?”
So Jackson would just hand his clue over to someone else? Someone who’d missed it all this time? “I do, sir. I realize the reason new-to-the-office agents are given cold cases, per se, is because they often have a fresh perspective. I think my perspective makes me uniquely the one to go and conduct the interview.”
“Fine. But I expect you back in the office ASAP, with a full report. And keep in constant contact with both me and Hartlock. E-mail and call in updates. If you need information, Hartlock will help work this end of the case. Keep us abreast of the situation. I want daily updates from you.”
Rafe struggled to stand. “Thank you, sir.” He moved to leave before Jackson changed his mind.
“And Baxter?”
Rafe turned back to face his boss. “Yes, sir?”
“You better get a solid lead from this.”
“Of course, sir.” Rafe scrambled from the office and headed back to his cubicle.
After pulling up MapQuest on the Internet, he printed driving directions to the small town. If he left right away, he could drive to Louisiana tonight, stay at some roadside motel, then finish the drive and arrive in Hopewell before lunch tomorrow.
And maybe, just maybe, he’d score a definite lead before nightfall tomorrow.
Chapter Six
“Never give in. Never. Never. Never. Never.”
SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL
Day 72
My nerves were tangled to the point my stomach turned. I was determined to meet the man in Daniel’s documents today.
Oh-my-stars. Could I do this?
I’d scoured all the papers from the safe. If what I believed to be the truth actually was, I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do. It would prove I never knew my godfather at all. That he kept such an important secret from me . . . for so long . . . well, I just didn’t know how I felt about everything. But I first had to meet this man and determine if my suspicions were true or not.
I had to be wrong. Please, let me be wrong.
Sitting before my computer, I accessed the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s online edition. Nothing about the murder. Again. It
was as if no one cared that a federal judge had been shot in the chest in his home. A little more than two months had passed, and not even a mention on the back page.
The FBI was still looking for me. They would keep the case open indefinitely. But they weren’t tracking me anymore. Of this, I could be sure. The attempted assassination of the state’s governor had to have them all occupied.
Which was good news for me. Bad news for poor Daniel.
My mouth went arid. All the tips I’d given the locals . . . for nothing. The one thing that could solve the case was me. If I went back.
No one would believe me. I had no proof. It’d be their word against mine, which wouldn’t be so bad. But the involvement of higher-ups put the favor on their side. I’d either be shut down . . .
Or shut up for good. Forever-kind-of-good.
I closed my laptop and stood, staring out the window. The wind blew the curtains of Spanish moss clinging to the overhanging cypress trees. The little house I’d bought was built and used as a hunting cabin. Tucked into the boundary of the woods on one side, edging the bayou on the other. Two bedrooms, one bath, a cozy kitchen and dining combo area, and a good-sized living space. Perfect for me.
I already loved this little bayou town. Quiet. Serene. Here, everyone knew everyone. Except they didn’t know me. But they would—the new me. The invented me.
First, I needed answers. I needed the truth about Daniel and this man.
And then I’d decide my course of action.
“She hasn’t called Mom in days. Even for Emily, that’s odd.” Hayden fingered the coffee cup in front of him.
Bella shifted across the table from him. She stared out the window of her kitchen toward the bayou. “If I had to guess, I’d say she was just off pouting.”
“I’m used to that. But her not calling Mom for several days . . .” His mind wandered to every possible horrible situation, causing his gut to tighten.
The sun shone through the window, warming the room.
“I hate to mention this, but have you checked with Boyd?”
