by Debra Webb
Paul scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “She could know something that would help us.” His gaze leveled on Jill’s. “Then again, she could have more personal reasons.”
Jill nodded. “I considered that but I don’t think I can ignore the call. If she knows something, we need to hear her out.” She set her hands on her hips, felt torn. “I’d planned to suggest we start looking for the place in the photograph in hopes of finding Cody.” The safe place. “But she wants to meet with me in an hour. It’ll take every bit of that to get to Winchester.”
“You mean she wants to meet with us.”
“If she gets me, she gets you,” Jill agreed, her lips drawing down into a frown as she recalled something Paul had said to the chief. “I thought the mechanic said there was no conclusive evidence of foul play with the car.”
Paul shrugged. “He did. I just wanted the chief’s reaction. Besides, no conclusive evidence means no evidence either way, counselor.”
Jill felt some of the tension lighten. Somehow he always managed to make her feel a little better about things.
“How old is the sister?”
“Twenty-four maybe. Kelly was in middle school when Connie and I were in high school.” She realized where he was going with the question then. “She’s old enough to be a reliable source, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I say we meet with her and see how it plays out.”
“I’ll check on Mother and then we can go.”
Jill was anxious to hear what Kelly had to say... at least, she thought she was. Paul was right about Connie too. It was all too open and shut. Too perfect. Like everything else in this damned town. A polished veneer of perfection had been hiding a world of evil for more than three decades.
~*~
Winchester, Tennessee, was about the size of Paradise, and though lovely in its own right, it lacked Paradise’s picture perfect setting. The focal point of the town square was a well-restored late nineteenth century courthouse. The Oldham movie theater that graced the end of one block was the old fashioned kind rarely seen anymore, even in small southern towns. The streets were fairly busy, the lunch crowd, Paul surmised. He’d made a stop on Decherd Boulevard to get directions. Jill hadn’t been here since the new Walmart was built so she was as lost as he was.
That was one thing you could count on in small southern towns: everyone knew where the Walmart was located.
He parked the Land Rover near Rafael’s, a small Italian restaurant shoehorned between a jewelry store and a clothing boutique.
“Let me go in first,” he said. “I’ll get the lay of the land and then come back for you.”
“Let’s just go in. If she wanted revenge she could have gotten that in Paradise.”
Revenge or not, Kelly had an agenda and that worried him. Whoever was behind this puzzle was getting nervous... panicking. Anything could happen if Jill pursued the investigation from this point. The chief and his cohorts had given her an out, if she didn’t take it, they might just turn desperate enough to finish what they’d hoped to accomplish with those faulty brakes. Paul was certain it hadn’t been an accident.
“Point taken,” he relented. “But you stay behind me until I’ve assessed the situation.”
Jill gave him a two-fingered salute. “Yes, sir.”
At least she still had a sense of humor. And that was saying something under present circumstances.
The midday sun bore down relentlessly. It was impossible to cross the hot pavement without breaking a sweat. Inside, the cool air instantly chilled his skin. A small waiting area designated for arriving customers provided the opportunity for Paul to scan the crowded booths of the dining room. He spotted the brunette sitting alone.
“Is that her?” Paul jerked his head toward the brunette.
“That’s her.”
As they neared Kelly Neil’s head came up. She put on a smile, but it was strained. Her face was ravaged from crying and she looked ready to start all over again.
“Hey, Kelly.” Jill slid into the booth opposite her and reached across the table to cover her hand with her own.
Kelly glanced at Paul. “Who’s he?”
Jill gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “This is Paul Phillips. He’s a friend. You can trust him.”
Kelly looked ready to bolt. “I’m not sure about this.”
“I used to be with the FBI,” he explained, hoping to reassure her. “I know you didn’t ask Jill to meet you here to talk about the service for your sister. We want to help.”
“They killed her,” Kelly said quietly, agony shadowing her face.
“Can you tell us who they are?” Jill held her breath. They needed a name. A starting place.
She shook her head. “I just know that all that stuff they said about Karl Manning was nothing but lies.” She blinked back a new onslaught of tears and glanced around. “My sister hated the guy. She wouldn’t have had an affair with him if he’d been the last man on earth. Someone made her write that letter.”
Jill nodded. “I believe you. I remember Connie’s type back in high school, Karl Manning would never have survived the first cut.”
Kelly managed a wobbly smile. “She was scared, Jill. Like really, really scared.”
“Did she ever say what had her so scared?” Paul prodded gently.
How could a man who wanted to feel nothing, who’d shut the world out, sound so kind and caring? Because he was, Jill decided. The don’t-give-a-damn image was just to keep people at arm’s length.
Kelly swiped her eyes and leaned forward, speaking for their ears only. “About six months ago Connie was pulling some old reports for Mr. Manning. One caught her eye. It mentioned several test subjects by name, one was our mom. So Connie read through it. She wouldn’t tell me what all it said. She just kept saying it was bad. Real bad. Anyway, that got her to worrying about what else was going on at MedTech. So she started digging in places where she wasn’t supposed to, I guess.”
She sucked in a deep, emotion-filled breath and rushed on. “She said they were doing some really weird stuff. Experiments on” she glanced around “fetuses and, you know, actual humans.”
Jill knew exactly what she meant. “And they killed Connie to keep her quiet.”
Kelly nodded. “She got away with it for a long time, but a few days ago a couple of guys started following her.”
Paul’s tension moved to a new level. She’d glossed over something significant. He needed to know what that was. “She got away with what?”
Kelly looked at him, clamped down on her bottom lip for a second, then said, “On copying some of the files. She had to do it a little at a time on one of those flash drives.”
Paul and Jill exchanged a look, one fraught with hope and an underlying fear that both were too smart not to acknowledge. Damn, but they needed those files.
“Kelly,” Jill turned back to her “do you know where Connie kept the flash drive?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “She told me the day she died if anything happened to her I had to tell you where to find it... that you would know what to do. She kept it in a place no one would ever think to look—in a loaf of bread right there on her kitchen counter.” Kelly smiled faintly. “Who would ever look there?”
Pain nagged deep in Paul’s skull. The nudge familiar, determined. He had to know. Without warning, he reached across the table and took Kelly’s hand. Startled, her gaze bumped into his. Tell Jill where to look. No one else. Do you hear me, Kelly? No one else can know... not even Mom.
He held onto her hand when she would have pulled away and soaked up the sensations. “I know this is difficult, Kelly,” he said quietly, struggling to keep his voice even, “but I need to know the answer to one more question.”
She nodded, more tears seeping past her lashes.
“Who found her?”
She squeezed her eyes shut briefly as if to block the images. “I did,” she murmured, sobbing. “I found her last night after the movie. I went by to tell her that i
t sucked and not to bother going.”
That explained the sensations he experienced in her presence. She’d touched her sister.
“It was too late. She was already gone. I shook her, listened for breathing.” Kelly wagged her head in denial. “She wasn’t breathing. I started to do CPR... but she was so cold.” Her gaze turned distant as she relived the horror in her mind. “So cold. Her lips were already blue. I was too late.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Paul squeezed her hand. “You didn’t do this.”
She looked straight at him and answered the next question before he even asked. “The worst was her eyes. They were wide open...” Another sob tore through her. “She was dead, but I could still see it...”
“What did you see, Kelly?” The connection between them was humming... he could almost see through her eyes... could almost envision the devastating memories.
And then he saw it.
“Fear,” she said. “I saw fear.”
~*~
Jill felt cold as they drove away from the meeting with Kelly. No matter that it was ninety-five outside. She was freezing.
They—whoever the hell they were, thugs from MedTech—had killed Connie. It was no surprise, not really. On some level she had known even as the chief related the news. Jill closed her eyes and fought the flood of tears rising. How could she and Paul hope to fight this? Somehow it was all tangled up together. All of it. The deeper they dug... the more lies they discovered but no evidence. And the players and the game kept changing with another murder or another element that didn’t quite fit. Two plus two turned out to be five every time. And she was so damned tired of it. Where was her nephew? Was he really some place safe? The picture... A Safe Place... bobbed to the surface in the river of worries swirling in her brain.
Please let him be there. Just let there be one good thing in all this.
If those were his remains at the TBI lab in Nashville—she couldn’t even finish the thought. It hurt too much. She’d suffered all the hurt she could for one day. She almost laughed. For a lifetime, she amended.
Nausea roiled in her empty stomach.
Panic hit her head on.
“Stop at that gas station,” she blurted, uncertain if she could make it that far. She had to get out of this car... had to do something besides replay all those awful thoughts.
Paul cut sharply and bounced into the parking lot. He screeched to a halt in a slot at the side of the building.
“Ladies room,” she mumbled as she scrambled out.
Halfway to the entrance she heard his door slam. He would follow her. She didn’t care. She just had to splash some cold water on her face... move around a bit... something... anything.
She grabbed the key at the counter and rushed to the back of the store. She locked herself inside and sagged against the door.
The tears gushed, unstoppable. She cried hard for several long minutes uncertain if she would ever stop. Finally, when the last tear had trekked down her cheek she washed her face with cold water and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
What had happened to her life?
Everything she’d thought was good was a nightmare... something from a Dean Koontz novel. With all that she’d discovered in the past few days, there was nothing left of her past to consider a truly good memory. It would all be permanently underscored by evil.
A soft knock sounded at the door. “You okay?”
She moved to the door. Told herself to open it but she pressed her forehead against its cool surface instead. “No... but I guess I’ll live.”
“Let me in.”
The sound of his voice…the words…her heart burst with need. She flicked the lock and stood back for him to come inside.
He squeezed in, made the room feel impossibly small as he locked the door behind him.
She stared up into his dark eyes, wondered how in the world she would ever go on with her life without this man in it. She was falling apart and he was all that was holding her together.
“Believe it or not, it may get worse before it gets better.”
She gave her head a little shake. “I don’t see how outside finding out my nephew really is dead. I’m numb, Paul. Completely numb. I don’t know what to believe in anymore.” She trembled with the weight of that admission. “Don’t know who to trust or what to feel.”
He pulled her close. Pressed his lips to hers for an urgent kiss that was over far too soon. “You can trust me,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Make me forget the rest, Paul.” She curled her fingers in his shirt, wished she could touch his skin. That was what she wanted. More than anything. Right now. Right here. She wasn’t waiting another moment. “Please.”
He kissed her, so slowly at first that she thought she might cry and, still, she couldn’t resist. His hands moved down the length of her dress, hiked it to the tops of her thighs and lifted her so that she could wrap her bare legs around his waist.
She moaned as he slowly turned until he pressed her back against the door. His fingers slid along her panties. Teased her. Stole her breath. She arched into his touch. He fumbled with the fly of his jeans. She wanted to help but she couldn’t stop touching him, tracing each line and angle she already knew by heart. His chiseled face. The length of his neck and those broad shoulders that helped her carry the weight of so many horrible secrets.
He pushed into her. She gasped and pressed down to meet him, her body shuddering. He groaned, kissed her harder. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been with a man but she had never been with a man like him. He made her want things she had never wanted before…made her feel whole.
They came hard and fast, both panting for air.
She closed her eyes against the tears. Didn’t want to cry. Not now. But her world was crumbling, falling apart piece by piece.
He kissed her tears. “I won’t let them win,” he murmured.
No matter how foolish it seemed, she believed him.
Chapter 15
“End of discussion,” Paul snapped. He immediately regretted his words. She’d been through enough without him biting her head off. But she just wouldn’t listen to reason. They’d argued the better part of the trip back to Paradise.
He wasn’t going to argue with her any more on this point. He was taking her back to Ellington house and he was going to Connie Neil’s place to retrieve the hidden flash drive alone.
End of story.
His hands still shook with each time he thought of those too-short minutes of getting lost in each other. He shouldn’t have allowed that to happen. She deserved better than he’d given. She deserved better than him. But he’d been weak and needy.
“No,” she repeated, her arms crossed over her chest. “I won’t let you go without me.”
“Dammit, Jill,” he growled, “listen to reason.”
She was one damned stubborn lady. As much as he liked that about her, that stubborn streak was going to get her killed. Still, he had to respect it.
“What’s that?” She leaned forward and peered through the windshield.
Up ahead blue lights flashed. A tow truck was backed up to the edge of the highway’s shoulder. Several cars were stopped awaiting instructions from the officer flagging traffic. An ambulance, sirens silent, pulled away from the scene, headed into Paradise. It wasn’t more than another couple of miles.
“An accident,” she murmured, then looked away. She sat in the passenger seat, her arms still hugged protectively over her chest. Those long, toned legs crossed making him think of how they’d felt squeezed around his waist.
Bad timing, pal. Bad idea. Only a selfish prick would take a woman on the edge of breaking in a damned bathroom. You’re an asshole, Phillips.
“You’re not going with me,” he reminded her. “It’s too risky.”
“You can’t stop me.”
Their disagreement died a natural death in light of the somber business taking place in the road ahead. Trapped in traffic several vehicles bac
k from the accident, Paul could just make out a small blue sports car. Looked as if it had left the asphalt and hit a power pole.
The tow truck’s wench whined. Slowly, but surely the small blue sports car was dragged from the deep ditch by its rear end. The truck pulled forward, hauling the damaged vehicle behind it. Paul surveyed the crippled car. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. The damage to the front end of the vehicle was extensive. Not a full frontal collision, but one of the offset kind that killed more often than not. The condition of the vehicle combined with the silent ambulance spelled DOA.
Jill made a frantic sound in her throat... a painful mewling. He followed her gaze back to the car and then he saw it too. The vanity plate, remarkably still intact.
K-E-L-L-Y was scrawled in bold pink letters on a pale blue background.
Kelly Neil.
He didn’t have to ask one of the officers what happened as they were allowed to roll slowly by. Paul sensed the answer deep in his gut. He also understood there was just one outcome.
Kelly Neil was dead.
Just like Jill would be if she pursued this—whatever the hell it was—any further.
“That’s it,” he said, his tone hard, every muscle in his body rigid with fury. “I’m taking you, your mother, and your sister to safety.”
To his surprise, Jill turned to him and said, “I know just the place.”
~*~
It took less than half an hour to check her sister out of the psychiatric ward of Paradise General. One brief telephone call to the doctor on record and Kate was free to go with any member of the immediate family willing to sign for responsibility. The chief had no doubt paved the way already, hoping to facilitate Jill’s departure from his jurisdiction.
Too upset by the useless and tragic deaths of the Neil sisters, Jill hadn’t even thought of bringing clothes. The ones Kate had arrived in at the hospital had been seized as evidence. Paul picked up a Paradise tee and lounge pants at the hospital gift store for the trip home.
Jill intended to see that her mother and sister were safely tucked away before she and Paul did what had to be done. Whether he liked it or not, she was going with him to Connie’s townhouse. She would help end this and bring these bastards down or die trying.
