Relentless (Fallon Sisters Trilogy: Book #1)

by P. J. O'Dwyer

  He flipped open her phone, the screen a blue glow reflecting off his wrinkled brow.

  She sidled up next to him. "For Tom's name to appear on my phone, the call had to be made from his phone."

  He gave her a sideways glance. "I know how it works," he snapped.

  She stiffened and placed her hands on her hips. "Then do something. I shouldn't have to resort to ads in the paper. You're the sheriff. Obviously, I got his attention. Not that I was expecting a phone call."

  Kevin scrubbed his face and pushed off his cruiser, handing back her phone. "Since when do you not get Wes's attention?" His brow rose and she got his meaning.

  She'd done a lot of things in recent months to screw with Wes. All could have gotten her fined or thrown in jail. Good thing her best bud came in the form of the county sheriff.

  "You never canceled Tom's cell?"

  Kevin's voice brought her around. "It's stupid." She shrugged. "I needed to hear his voice." Her own voice cracked then. Tom's voicemail was the only recording she had of him. Being able to call his phone, hear his voice made it seem as though he was still with her.

  Damn it!The bastard must have enjoyed her desperate attempt to keep from going quietly insane. She winced. "He knows I've been calling Tom's phone."

  Kevin's expression softened. "You tell anyone else about the call or the phone?"

  "No. But why would he keep it?" She pulled on her bottom lip. "There must have been something on Tom's phone he didn't want us to know."

  "We already checked his phone records. None of the numbers would raise an eyebrow. It was just the usual you would expect for a man who is a blacksmith and runs a rescue."

  Okay, so it wasn't the caller that stood out. "But what about messages? Did you check those?"

  "Bren, technology has come a long way. But there's nothing that would allow us to hear or read a message. We'd have to have the phone."

  "That's it. We need to find the phone."

  "That's the logical step. But let's keep this between you and me."

  "But—"

  "I mean it. If he had anything to do with Tom's death—and that's a big if—you'll tip him off, and we'll never find the phone."

  "Okay."

  He hesitated. "Can you think of anything else Tom might have been involved in before he died?"

  Huh? Maybe she'd missed something. She just assumed it was Wes's way of paying her back. But perhaps Tom had known something she didn't. "Remember that horse of Rex Boland's? The show horse, Cloud Dancer? They found him dead in his stall over at Wes's place."

  Kevin gave her a blank look.

  "Yes, you do. A few days before Tom died, the county got back the lab results. They said it was colic. Tom thought the cause of death was too convenient. Plus, Wes's stable is for looks. He never kept any horses in it until Cloud Dancer." She zeroed in on Kevin. "Think about it. Rex Boland and Wes are friends. Wasn't that horse heavily insured?"

  Kevin slumped against his cruiser, his hands in his pockets. He frowned. "I think the county knows more about toxicology reports than a blacksmith and his wife, even if they do run a horse rescue."

  "Come on. It's not the first horse death. There's been a string of them. Maybe not here in Maryland, but now I think it's the only thing that makes sense. With his job, he got around. If anyone might have overheard something, it would have been Tom."

  Kevin took a breath. "I think that's a huge leap. Let's stick to facts, Bren. The phone exists, I'll give you that. So let's revisit the night in question, and you tell me everything you remember."

  She paced, the snow swirling around her. "I told you. Tom went out around eleven thirty to get his truck ready for the next day. When I woke up close to two thirty, he wasn't in bed. He wasn't in the house." Her voice rose.

  Kevin pushed off his cruiser toward her. "Calm down."

  "Don't tell me to calm down." She stopped and narrowed in on him. "Tom's dead, damn it! And for almost a year you've wanted to believe it was an accident." Her fingers tensed on the flashlight. She took a deep breath and continued. "I checked the barn—the hayloft. I came around to here." She stepped toward the barn and centered herself under the pulley outside the hayloft door. "And that's when I heard it. A faint creak, like a floorboard squeaking. Then I felt it. A shadow above me." Her eyes glistened, and she blinked back tears. "All I could think about was Tom. Saving him. I should have done better." Bren sagged. "If I could have gotten him down faster... heard his cries for help... he'd be..."

  Kevin put his arm around her shoulder. "Bren, no one's blaming you. You couldn't have saved Tom."

  She pulled away and shined the flashlight up toward the pulley system. Only quiet snowflakes danced in the night sky. "You didn't find his phone?" she said, thinking out loud.

  "We combed every inch of the barn, the hayloft, and here, where you found him."

  "What about the hospital? Did you check his belongings?"

  "Yes." Kevin cocked his head. "You sure he had his phone?"

  "Positive." Bren flashed the light onto the ground. "When he left the house that night, I saw him snap it into his belt holder." She turned off the flashlight. "I heard it click. It wouldn't have fallen out, even if he was hanging upside down." She tapped her finger against her lips. "Unless it was taken off."

  "And you think Wes is your guy, obviously." He shook his head. "I think you're reaching."

  "You were there."

  Wes had been pissed that day. Waking up to find six good-sized, profitable horses missing instead of headed for the slaughterhouse in Mexico made for a contentious neighbor. Wes assumed she and Tom had something to do with it. They—Grace Equine Sanctuary—had bid against him at auction the night before and lost. He'd raised holy hell with the sheriff's office the next morning after the horses went missing. Kevin barely had his feet firmly on Grace's gravel drive before Wes flew up and intercepted him. Not liking the odds—Kevin, Tom, and Bren had been friends since childhood—Wes threatened his own kind of justice. He never elaborated on his method.

  The next night, Bren found Tom tangled in their pulley system, the ropes a jumble around his body and his neck. He'd been strangled, and it sure as hell didn't look like suicide or an accident. She knew Tom. He wasn't careless. And she didn't believe in coincidences, either.

  "Yeah, well, it doesn't mean he's guilty," Kevin said. "Wes is a blowhard. Always has been. Besides, he had an alibi. He and Lyle—"

  "Lyle and he are buddies. They'd both lie to save the other's ass."

  "Maybe, but it wasn't just the two of them. They were playing their weekly game of Texas Hold 'Em."

  She could tell by the way his voice faded he wanted to take back those last three words.

  Some lawman he is.

  She took a step closer, ready to rip into him.

  "Don't start. If I had to break up every card game that had cash riding on it—" He waved a dismissive hand. "The point is, he had five eyewitnesses. So he didn't do it." He scratched his head again. "We need to face facts. Like I said before, looks like Tom got tangled in the rope and lost his footing and somehow fell out the barn door."

  "If that were true—" She bore into him with quiet irritation, because as much as she wanted to scream it at him, she didn't want to wake the boys. "—he was very conscientious to close the barn door before he flew out the loft." Oh, yeah. She'd had plenty of time to speculate, and Wes, the dumbass, had been just a little too neat with his crime scene.

  Kevin took a labored breath. "I'll look into the phone."

  "I'm coming." She moved toward his cruiser.

  "Now hold up." He grabbed her arm. "I know you're hurting. Trust me, if there's something going on here, I'll find it. But there are procedures that need to be followed. I need probable cause to get a search warrant." He shook his head. "I don't have it."

  "That's bullshit." She pulled her arm free. "He's a kill buyer."

  "That doesn't make him a murderer."

  "Might as well be," she muttered before facing him. "Bu
ying horses out from under Grace that were healthy and could go to a good home is criminal."

  "Buying horses for slaughter isn't against the law. Besides, not all of them were healthy."

  "We're a rescue. There are more humane ways than sending them off to slaughter."

  Kevin regarded her with something that looked very much like amusement. "Since you're so adept at investigation, use your feminine wiles on his son. Maybe Robert Connelly knows something." Kevin's gaze landed on her work boots—untied, with her thin, pasty-white ankles shoved inside.

  "Go to hell."

  "Just a thought. I heard he paid you a visit. Also heard he's back for good as Wes's accountant."

  Bren shrugged. "He's not his father. He's been very supportive since Tom's death, which is more than I can say for you lately."

  "Whatever." He placed his hands on his hips. "The point is, I can't have you going off half-cocked. I'm warning you. Let me handle it. Stay away from Wes."

  That was impossible. The town of Clear Spring was no bigger than Mayberry. He was asking a lot because if she found herself within breathing space of Wes, she'd kill him.

  She spun around and headed back toward the house.

  "Hey, where you going?"

  "To bed. You find Tom's phone, you'll find his killer."

  And if he didn't, she would.

  Chapter Two

  Who picked out your sweater?" Bren asked, holding open the door for longtime friends Jeremy Breakstone and his wife Jo, also members on the board of directors of Grace.

  Jeremy looked down his nose, crossing his eyes. "I did." His chin rose and he grinned. "You don't like it?"

  He must have been an easy mark as a kid. Short-cropped, strawberry-blond hair, a hint of youthful freckles—he could pass for a teenager when he grinned, except he was highly educated, tall, and strong enough to compete with the size and power of the horses as the local equine vet.

  Bren reached out with her finger and rang the tiny brass bell sewn onto an embroidered applique of a reindeer. "It's festive."

  "I thought so." He handed her a cookie tin with last week's copy of Clear Spring's newspaper strategically opened to page three. His eyes practically danced with amusement. "Only thing missing is his photo."

  "Shh." Bren tried not to laugh hearing her words coming out of Jeremy's mouth as she tossed her head back. No one was in the hallway. She took the tin and handed him back the paper. "We're not talking about it around the boys."

  A pink flush rose in Jo's bronzed cheeks. "We shouldn't be talking about it at all." She shot her husband a censorious look. Leaning on her cane, she frowned at Bren. "How you holding up?" Jo's deep blue eyes held hers.

  Bren had struggled all morning to keep from crying. Call it Jo's best-friend-sixth-sense. No amount of smiling or humor directed toward Jeremy's sweater could hide Bren's pain from Jo.

  "I miss him." Bren's eyes watered.

  Jo motioned Jeremy through the door.

  His arm went around Jo's waist. "I'm already gone." Pulling her tight, he kissed the top of her dark head, her hair slipping from its tight bun, loose wisps now framing her face. "I don't do tears."Jeremy crossed over the threshold and squeezed Bren's shoulder. "Hang in there." He started down the hall.

  "Not so fast." Jo grabbed the paper out from under his arm. Without breaking stride, Jeremy disappeared through the kitchen.

  Jo shook her head. "He's like a big kid." She maneuvered with her cane and stepped inside, folding Bren into her arms. "Holidays make it hard, sweetie."

  Bren hugged her back. "I just miss him so much." She wiped a tear from her cheek and sniffed before pulling away. "I've made a mess of things with the boys, especially Aiden. He said he hates me."

  "He didn't mean it. He loves you." Jo took Bren's hand, giving it a good shake. "You need to let it go. Trust me. I was in law enforcement once. Wes's alibi is solid."

  It was on the edge of her tongue to tell Jo about the phone call from Tom's cell phone. Her expertise as a retired DEA agent had come in handy as Bren had tried to make sense of Tom's death. But she'd promised Kevin.

  "Come on." She tucked Jo's hand inside her arm and led her toward the dining room. "Dad's waiting on us. He's cooked the biggest bird you've ever seen."

  Since Bren's mother had passed away a few years earlier, her father had learned to cook for himself, offering his culinary skills every Wednesday at her house and insisting he do the major holidays as well. Damn good thing. Today her heart struggled to beat, her limbs moved mechanically but by no means were capable of preparing a sumptuous feast. She'd more than likely burn dinner, her mind preoccupied with who was missing.

  Bren was quiet at the table. She filled her plate, passing the food on, but toyed with her fork, unable to take a bite. She watched as the gold flecks running through the ivory tablecloth caught the light of the country chandelier above. The merriment of her family's and friends' voices and Sugarland's newest Christmas CD in the background grated on her nerves. She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears.

  Tom was everywhere—in her children's eyes, her father-in-law Paddy's expressions. Bren wanted so desperately to scream, pull her hair out. Have a tantrum. She missed him, his laughter, even his anger when she'd pushed him past the point of reason.

  The only thing she'd managed to do was wake the dead. The late night calls from Tom's phone hadn't stopped. The article had gotten Wes's attention. One point for her. But she needed more, and the phone—Tom's phone—was her objective. If Kevin didn't come up with his probable cause, she'd find a way to track down Tom's phone, and she wasn't above breaking and entering to get it.

  Daniel Fallon, Bren's father, directed his gaze across the table toward Jeremy. "What do you think about Sweet Prince?" His voice, every bit Irish—he'd never lost his accent since coming to America—was edged with dismay.

  Founder of Grace, he lived a brisk walk down the gravel road he shared with Bren and her family in a farmhouse where she and her sister Kate grew up. He'd never quite retired. Since Tom's death, it had been necessary for him to take a more active role. Sweet Prince had become a barb in his side that wouldn't shake lose. Not that he or the rescue had any claim to the horse. Sweet Prince's death, just like the other horse deaths over the last year or so, seemed too convenient.

  Kevin popped into Bren's mind. Mr. Know-It-All. Now here she had just pointed out there was something up with the number of colic cases and, boom, another drops to his death.

  Of course now Kevin was considering she might be on to something.

  Jeremy handed the potatoes to Jo. "Damn shame. I nursed him back from colic once."

  "Colic?" Bren's father's usual glittering blue eyes hardened through his bifocals. "You don't find that odd, then? Nine deaths now, all from one cause?"

  In his early seventies with a portly frame, and thin, downy-white hair, he could pass for a sweet old man, and he usually was, except she knew her father well. The color in his cheeks wasn't from the warm kitchen where he'd prepared their bountiful Christmas dinner. "I guess law enforcement knows better, perhaps?"

  Jeremy set down his fork. "I've wondered, myself. The only other horse death I attended was White Lace, a white Arabian. That was over two years ago in Frederick County. Same thing. Nothing showed up on the toxicology report."

  "Was the horse insured?" Paddy asked. He sat at the end of the table. Tom's only surviving parent. Pam had died giving birth to their firstborn—Tom.

  Having Paddy around worked to both soothe and upset Bren. It was like looking at her husband thirty years fast-forward. Other than the crew cut and the silver hair, Paddy's compressed lips and furrowed brow reminded her of Tom. Tom when he was mad. Or when he'd questioned her about her involvement in Wes's missing horses the same night she found him dead.

  "To the hilt," Jeremy said around a mouth of turkey. His voice, a hard jerk, brought Bren back to the conversation.

  Jeremy would have prepared documentation for the insurance claim. He must have gotten a glance a
t the payout. Bren and Tom had theorized over the deaths that stretched as far down as North Carolina and up to New York. Now that she looked back, to before Tom's death, he'd been a little preoccupied about the whole subject.

  "Honey, you all right?" Her dad cocked his head, his gray brows furrowing into one.

  "Fine." Bren gave a quick smile before her lips thinned. She took a sip of her water.

  "Paddy." Finn pulled on his grandfather's arm. "Show me how to do the coin trick."

  "You liked that?" Tall and still carrying a lean, muscular frame for sixty-nine, Paddy wrapped his arm around Finn and grinned.

  Nowhere could she register Paddy's loss for his son. Even with the holidays and the one-year anniversary approaching, he seemed content and accepting sitting there, his expressive brown eyes smiling through his reading glasses at Finn.

  "He'll never get it," Aiden complained across the table.

  "Will so," Finn challenged.

  "Give him a chance, Aiden," Jeremy said.

  "Are you watching, Mom?" Finn piped over the table.

  Bren nodded, her temples throbbing.

  Sleight-of-hand not being one of Finn's strong points, the coin slid from his sleeve and out onto the table where it spun like a globe before coming to rest flat on the tablecloth.

  "Fail!" Aiden yelled as he reached across the table for the coin.

  "The wine, me boy!" yelled her father.

  Out of the corner of Bren's eye, the glass of wine at her elbow fell over with such force the glass broke, and red wine, dark as blood, splashed her white turtleneck, the excess flooding the tablecloth before it spilled over the edge and sloshed onto Bren's lap. She sucked in air and slid her chair back, her hands pushing the broken glass away from the edge. A sharp sliver caught the meaty part of her palm. She whimpered.

  "Bren, you all right?" asked Jo, struggling to her feet.

  "You're bleeding." Jeremy stood, too.