Murder in the Smokies

by Paula Graves

  Antoine grimaced. “What evidence?”

  “My point exactly,” Ivy said flatly.

  “Rayburn won’t like it,” Parsons warned.

  Rayburn. Sutton searched his memory until he came up with a face to go with the name. Glen Rayburn had nabbed Sutton’s father, Cleve, at least once. Been a real bastard about it, as Sutton recalled. Not that the old man hadn’t deserved to be busted, but Rayburn had more or less told Sutton he’d be coming for him, too.

  All Calhouns ended up in the cages sooner or later, he’d said.

  Sutton had been smart enough to get out before he fell into his con man father’s undertow. He hadn’t had money for college, so he’d signed up with the U.S. Army and spent the next few years climbing the ladder through hard work and sheer cussedness.

  That’s how he’d ended up at Cooper Security, working for Jesse Cooper and his trouble-magnet family. The head of Cooper Security had been looking to add people with Special Forces training to his staff. Sutton had fit the bill.

  Parsons moved away from Ivy, pulling out his cell phone. She turned back to Sutton, cocking her head as she saw him watching her. She closed the distance between them with deliberate steps. “I thought you swore you’d never let the dust of Bitterwood touch your feet again.”

  “That’s a little melodramatic.”

  She shrugged. “You said it, not me.”

  True, he had said it. And meant it. And if Stephen Billings hadn’t walked into Cooper Security two weeks ago looking for help investigating his sister’s murder, he probably would’ve kept that vow without another thought.

  He’d told himself there was nothing back in Bitterwood to tempt him to return. He’d let himself forget Ivy and her loyal, uncomplicated friendship.

  Too late now. Whatever connection they’d shared fourteen years ago was clearly dead and gone, if her cool gaze meant anything.

  “I’m here on a job.” He kept it vague.

  “What kind of job?”

  Should have known vague wouldn’t work with a little bulldog like Ivy Hawkins. She’d never been one to take no for an answer. “An investigation.”

  Her look of disbelief stung a little. “Someone hired you to investigate something here in little bitty Bitterwood?”

  It did sound stupid, he had to admit. What ever happened in Bitterwood that interested anyone outside the city limits?

  Maybe the truth was his best option. After all, she was technically an old friend, even if they were no longer close. And he might need all the help he could get to figure out who’d killed April Billings.

  “I’m here to look into a murder that happened in Bitterwood a little over a month ago.”

  “April Billings,” she said immediately.

  He nodded. “Were you on that case?”

  She shook her head. “She was the first.”

  Something about her tone tweaked his curiosity. “The first?”

  “Murder,” she said faintly. “First stranger murder in Bitterwood in twenty years.”

  “And you’re sure it was a stranger murder?”

  Her eyes met his, sharp and cautious. “All the signs were there.”

  “I thought you didn’t investigate it.”

  “I didn’t investigate it at the time it happened.”

  “But you’ve looked into her death since?”

  She cocked her head slightly. “Who sent you to investigate this case? Are you with the TBI?”

  He almost laughed at that thought. His father had had enough run-ins with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation that both their faces were probably plastered to the Knoxville field office’s front wall, right there with all the other most wanted. “No. Private investigation.”

  “You’re a P.I.?” Her eyebrows arched over skeptical eyes.

  “Sort of.”

  Antoine Parsons returned, saving him from having to go into any more detail. “TBI’s sending their Violent Crime Response Team as soon as they can gear up and get on the road.”

  “Good.” Ivy’s gaze didn’t leave Sutton’s face.

  She was making him feel like a suspect. He didn’t like it one bit.

  “Hawk, why don’t you go on home now?” Parsons suggested. “I’ll wait here for the TBI team and make sure our guys don’t make a mess. Get some sleep and we’ll hit the streets in the morning, see if we can find out why someone would kill Marjorie Kenner in her own home.”

  In her own home, Sutton thought. Just like April Billings.

  Had there been a connection between April and Marjorie? He supposed they’d been acquainted, at least in passing. At twenty, April wasn’t far out of high school, and her brother had told Sutton that his sister had been a Bitterwood High School graduate, though she and her parents hadn’t moved to Bitterwood until she was a freshman in high school.

  Her parents had gone to Maryville with two other couples for dinner and a movie. They’d returned shortly after midnight to find their daughter dead in her bedroom upstairs. Multiple stab wounds washed clean and free of blood. The cotton pajamas in which her killer had dressed her had barely had a drop of blood on them.

  “We have potential witnesses to interview.” Ivy’s chin came up, even though she looked bone tired. Sutton wondered if she’d been awake when the call came in about Marjorie Kenner. Pulling an all-nighter with her case files?

  He’d been pulling an all-nighter himself, which was why he’d been awake to hear the dispatcher send out a call for units to respond to a 187—a homicide.

  “I’ll make myself scarce,” Sutton told Parsons. “Leave you two to your interviews.”

  Ivy’s hand closed over his arm as he started to walk away, her grip strong. He looked down at her hand where it circled his arm, surprised by a sudden spark of sexual awareness. Her hand was warm and dry, her touch firm, but running through his head like a motion picture were images of her hands on his body, exploring with the same sure, firm touch.

  Where the hell had that reaction come from? He and Ivy had never shared that kind of connection back in the day.

  Of course, back then, she’d been a skinny fifteen-year-old with sad eyes and a whole lot of pain on her plate, and he’d been a restless eighteen-year-old with one foot already out of town.

  “Where are you staying, in case I need to get in touch?” Despite the casual tone she used, Sutton knew he’d be hearing from her sooner or later.

  He tried not to let his suddenly fevered brain continue down the sexually charged path onto which it had already wandered. “The motel on Route 4. Stay and Save.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “I see. Does Cleve know you’re in town?”

  “No. And I’d just as soon keep it that way.” He didn’t know if he could get away with being in town without running into the old man, but he sure as hell intended to try.

  “You have a cell phone?”

  She wasn’t going to let it go, was she? He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “Nice to see you again, Ivy Hawkins.”

  Her eyes darkening, she took the card and stuck it in the pocket of her jeans. “Same here.” He didn’t think she meant it.

  She held his gaze a moment longer, reigniting the flood of titillating mental images running through his brain. Then she turned and walked away without a further goodbye.

  He took several deep breaths as he walked back to his Ford Ranger, trying to drag his mind back to the questions raised by the latest murder. He’d come to Bitterwood thinking he’d know pretty quickly whether or not he could help solve the Billings girl’s murder.

  He hadn’t expected to hear about similar murders. But research had led him to two other murders in Bitterwood over the past couple of months. Three, counting Marjorie Kenner’s. So, maybe not a crime of passion, as he’d suspected of April Billings’s murd
er.

  Back in the truck, he checked his email, though it was too early for anyone from the office to have come through with the information he’d requested. But apparently one of his fellow Cooper Security agents was an early riser; he had an email from Delilah Hammond waiting in his in-box.

  “Call me,” it said.

  Uh-oh.

  He dialed her number, unsurprised when she answered on the first ring. Nor was he surprised that she didn’t even bother with a greeting.

  “Have you lost your damned mind?”

  “Hello to you, too,” he said, stifling a grin.

  “You had the good sense to get out of Bitterwood years ago, and you take the first job out of that godforsaken hollow that comes slithering through the office?”

  Delilah Hammond had lived in Bitterwood for seventeen years before she got out on a college scholarship. She’d seen her brother Seth sucked in by Cleve Calhoun’s unique brand of larcenous charm and live to pay for it. Sutton didn’t blame her for her reaction. But he knew what he was doing.

  “It’s only for a few days,” he said, keeping his voice calm and soothing.

  “You are not using your reasonable tone with me, Sutton Calhoun. Tell me you’re not.”

  “I’m not,” he lied.

  “Yes, you are.” Her annoyance came across the phone line, clear as glass. “I’m not trying to be bossy here.”

  “You live to be bossy, Dee. Has anything come through from your contacts on our cold-case search request?”

  “Possible hit in the Bowling Green, Kentucky, area.” She sighed. “Promise me you won’t let Cleve suck you into something dangerous.”

  “I don’t plan to see Cleve.”

  “He’ll find you. He always does.”

  “Just because your brother was an idiot doesn’t mean I’m going to be.” He wondered where Seth was now. Sutton hadn’t seen him in years, not since leaving to join the army. “You never talk about Seth.”

  “I’m not going to now.” Her voice went instantly hard.

  “Heard from him lately?”

  There was a long pause on her end before she spoke, her tone resigned. “Not since I left the FBI.”

  She’d left the FBI eight years ago. “That long?”

  “I guess I ceased being any use to him when I no longer had the pull to keep him out of trouble.” Delilah’s tone was sharp, but Sutton had known his old friend’s sister long enough to see through her shields. Seth’s abandonment hurt her, even though her life had to be a hell of a lot more trouble-free with him gone.

  “He’s a fool.”

  “Yeah. Well, nothing I can do about that. But I’ll keep on these cold-case requests and see if I can’t come up with more for you.”

  “Scan the Kentucky case information and email it to me?”

  “Will do.” She hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

  He snapped his phone shut and leaned his head back against the seat, feeling the effects of his sleepless night. Back when he was a kid, he could stay up all night, getting into one scrape after another, and barely even feel it.

  But it had been a long time since he’d been a kid. At thirty-two, he was starting to feel his age and the inevitable effects of time. Inescapable, no matter how hard he worked to stay fit and active.

  He had just started the truck when a loud rap on his window jerked his nervous system into red alert. He snapped his gaze toward the window, his hand already closing over the butt of his Glock 17. He relaxed his grip as he recognized Ivy Hawkins’s dark eyes gazing back at him through the window. He hit the button and the window whirred down.

  “You’re still here,” she said.

  “Had to make a phone call.”

  She gave a brief nod, her gaze speculative. “I could use a cup of coffee. You?”

  He could, but he had a feeling Ivy wanted more than just a cup of joe. “Ledbetter’s?” he asked, speaking of the only decent diner in town.

  Her lips quirked. “Where else?”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  She put her hand on the door frame, her fingers brushing his shoulder. A zing of attraction tugged at his gut. “Why don’t you give me a ride? You can drop me back here when we’re done.”

  “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t a simple cup of coffee between old friends?” he asked as she settled in the passenger seat.

  Her dark-eyed gaze sharpened. “Because it ain’t.”

  Chapter Two

  Bitterwood sat at the edge of farm country, which meant Ledbetter’s Diner opened well before dawn to accommodate the early rising farmers and their work crews. It had also become a favorite place of anyone who worked a night shift, as the coffee was always hot and strong and the prices reasonable.

  Ivy and Sutton bought coffee at the counter and took the drinks to an empty booth near the back of the diner. Sutton’s lips curved slightly as he sat across from her, reminding her just why she’d fallen so hard for him back when she was just a kid. When he smiled, he could take a girl’s breath away.

  “When we were kids, this place was the place to eat, remember? Everybody with two dimes to rub together came here to get Maisey Ledbetter’s peach cobbler.” He took a sip of coffee and made a soft sound of contentment that traveled all the way down Ivy’s nervous system to make her toes tingle.

  She noted her reaction with a combination of dismay and resignation. What had she expected? There’d never been a time she could remember when she hadn’t been completely susceptible to Sutton Calhoun’s charms.

  “With homemade vanilla ice cream,” she added with a reluctant smile. “The redneck equivalent of lunch at Spago.”

  Sutton’s laugh was tinged with surprise. “What do you know about Spago?”

  “You think just because I stuck around this hick little town I can’t use the internet? Or maybe even travel now and then?” She’d planned her words to come out light and teasing, but she just sounded defensive. Exactly the opposite of what she’d intended.

  “Of course not.”

  She pasted on a smile. “I’ll admit I’ve only been to L.A. once. And I didn’t get anywhere near Spago.”

  “Same here.” He shot her a disarming grin that made her feel as if she was about to melt into a puddle on the booth bench.

  She had to get a grip. She wasn’t ready to forgive Sutton Calhoun for abandoning her when she’d needed him most. And she sure as hell couldn’t afford to trust him again.

  “But you didn’t invite me here to talk about travel or even peach cobbler, did you?” He took another long drink of coffee, meeting her gaze over the rim of the cup.

  “Why did you really come back here?”

  “I told you. I was hired to look into an unsolved murder.”

  She took a sip of coffee and swallowed, letting the pause linger before she casually asked, “Since when does Cooper Security do private investigations?”

  His dark eyebrows arched. “What do you know about Cooper Security, Ivy Hawkins?”

  “Top-notch risk management firm. Stellar reputation for doing the tough, scary jobs that a lot of firms would never take on. Specializes in corporate risk training and dangerous security jobs.” She hid a smile at the hint of admiration in his expression. “But I’ve never heard of them doing any private investigation before.”

  “We’re branching out.”

  “Sounds more like a step down from all that excitement.”

  “Depends on the case. We only take cases where we think we can make a real difference.” He set his cup of coffee down, running his finger over the rim. “It was our chopper pilot’s idea, actually.”

  “Your chopper pilot?”

  “One of the company owner’s cousins. His wife was murdered a long time ago. It took him over a decade to finally f
ind her killer. Last year, he mentioned in passing that he wished he’d had the Cooper Security resources to work with back when the case hadn’t been quite so cold.”

  “And your boss decided to open an investigations division from that one offhand remark?” She didn’t hide her skepticism. It seemed like a pretty random way to make a huge corporate decision.

  “I imagine Jesse had already been considering the possibility.” This time, Sutton was the one who sounded defensive. She could tell that he respected his boss and the company. “J.D.’s remark probably just crystallized the whole idea for him.”

  “So you’re here as a P.I., then. You know, it might have been nice to give the local law a heads-up.”

  “Might have been,” he conceded with an unrepentant smile.

  “But you didn’t. Why not?”

  He took another long sip of coffee and didn’t answer right away.

  Impatience clawed at her belly as she waited, until she couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “You don’t trust the local cops?”

  His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “That’s an interesting question. What made you ask it?”

  “Your clear reluctance to make yourself known to the local authorities, for one thing. Maybe you think we can’t be trusted.”

  “I didn’t hide from y’all at the crime scene.”

  “You didn’t exactly announce yourself, either.”

  “And that’s your only reason for wondering if I don’t trust the local LEOs?” He was the one who looked skeptical now.

  She didn’t miss his use of the acronym LEO, short for Law Enforcement Officer. He could talk the talk, it seemed. But could he walk the walk, as well? “You’re the one who brought it up.”

  “No, all I did was agree that I probably should have made a courtesy call to the local police. You’re the one who ran with the idea of that the cops can’t be trusted.” He leaned toward her. “Do you think it’s possible a cop could be involved, Detective Hawkins?”

  She didn’t answer.