by Lauren Carr
“It was simple,” Brianne said. “Angie refused to put out. Cheryl did. She needed a research paper to pass history, and she needed a really good grade. So, she seduced Kyle into writing it for her. For laughs, she tape recorded it. Then, after she got her grade, she gave the tape to Angie, who broke up with Kyle.”
“Talk about a double whammy,” Cameron said. “Not only did Cheryl use him to pass history, but she betrayed him and broke up his relationship with Angie.”
Brianne laughed when she said, “Kyle hated Cheryl for that.”
“But then Angie took him back,” Cameron said.
Covering her mouth, Brianne giggled.
“Or didn’t she?”
“What are you asking for? Kyle’s fantasy or the reality?”
“Kyle claims they got engaged the same night she disappeared. Angie still had the engagement ring on her finger when her body was recovered.”
“Oh, yeah, so I heard that,” Brianne replied. “Kyle has been playing the King of Broken Hearts ever since that night. First, it started with they got engaged. Then, as time went on and he got a taste of pity, it was they got engaged and even set a date. After Angie’s body was found, their last night together had turned into a full-blown declaration of love in which she gave him her virginity.” She laughed. “That’s a bunch of bull. Angie was one of those old-fashioned girls. Plus, she was terrified of getting pregnant and ending up like her mother—hiding behind a lie. There was no way Angie was going to give it up before her wedding night. That whole story Kyle tells about them giving themselves to each other that night is nothing but a fantasy that he’s made up in his mind.” She shrugged. “What’s really sad is, I think he actually believes it.”
Cameron wished that there was some way the autopsy could reveal if Angie had had sexual relations shortly before her death. Unfortunately, after years in the water, her body was too badly decomposed to tell. Her mind whirled with visions of Kyle killing the love of his life after being rejected. “Would Angie have accepted the ring from Kyle?”
“That part I think is true.” Brianne nodded her head. “We knew Kyle was planning to pop the question that night. He had told someone, and word got around. Angie had no idea what she was going to say. She spent the good part of the evening avoiding him. But then, Cheryl and her friends started. Angie had about all that she could handle. After the rink closed, and we were out in the parking lot, I remember seeing Kyle coming out to join us, and I asked her what she was going to tell him. She was whipped. She did not feel like dealing with that at the moment. Ned and I tried to talk her into letting us go along with them so that they wouldn’t’ be alone for Kyle to pop the question, but he was so insistent.” She concluded, “I think Angie took the ring for the time being until she could find a way to break it off.”
“You think?”
Brianne shrugged her shoulders. “I always assumed that was how she ended up with it. I could see it happening that way.”
“Or maybe Kyle put the ring on Angie’s finger after killing her when she turned him down,” Cameron said.
“I could see it happening that way, too,” Brianne’s tone was matter-of-fact.
Chapter Fifteen
Cameron hated believing Brianne. As much as she hated it, her story was too unbelievable for her not to believe it. How many people go to work and find a Ferrari abandoned with the keys in the ignition in their parking space?
As anxious as she was to go to Joshua’s house and check on Donny, she needed to make a stop at Doris Sullivan’s farm first.
In the passenger seat of the cruiser, Irving was making it known that he was ready to go home for dinner or bed, or both, with his loud meows while peering out the window.
“This will only take a minute, Irving,” she told him, “and then we’ll be at Joshua’s in twenty minutes, and you can start glaring at him.”
Irving howled.
“You need to get over your jealousy of Joshua.” She shook her finger at the cat.
Irving lifted his face to her. “Rawl!” She heard “no.”
“Doesn’t matter anyway.” Her tone was filled with misery. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Joshua doesn’t shoot me when I come through his door—and I wouldn’t blame him.”
Doris Sullivan’s long, gravel driveway was blocked by fire trucks and county police vehicles. The flames spilled out of the ground floor of the farmhouse and snaked up the walls to the roof. After bringing her SUV to a halt at the end of the line of emergency crews, Cameron ordered Irving to stay put and jumped out of the car. She jogged up the road to the police who were trying to hold back spectators. They parted to let her through after she flashed her police shield.
“What happened?” she called to a uniformed officer she recognized.
“Can’t you smell the gasoline?” he replied. “Arson.”
“Did you get Doris Sullivan out?”
He pointed to where the EMTs were loading her on a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. “Found her alive but unconscious where she had jumped out the second floor window.”
A call came out among the fire fighters around the house. “You! Halt! Come back here!”
A naked man darted out from behind a lilac bush to sprint across the back yard to a pasture. He was running as fast as his legs could carry him. Caught in the beam of a police cruiser’s spotlight, he continued to run in all his glory while several police officers and Cameron chased after him. She managed to close-in behind him. At the pasture fence, the escapee attempted to scale it when she tackled him down to the ground.
When she realized she was pinning a naked man to the ground, Cameron pulled up. When the flashlight beams illuminated his face, she recognized the runner as Ralph Hildebrand, who was not only naked, but completely aroused. Caught off guard by the pressure of Ralph’s erect penis in her ribs, she not only pulled back, but jumped to her feet.
Freed, the elderly man tried to cover himself as best he could while the group, all men except for one, stared down at him. Those men who didn’t turn away in embarrassment laughed.
“Ralph! What are you doing here?” Cameron asked while looking straight ahead at the fence from which she had pulled the escapee down. “Give him your coat,” she ordered one of the officers.
Laughing, the officer shook his head. “You give him your coat, detective.”
Looking straight down at him, she repeated her question. “Ralph, Mildred told us you were on a business trip.”
The old man pleaded, “You’re not going to tell her, are you? You don’t know what that woman is capable of.”
Doris Sullivan didn’t fare the jump from the second story as well as her house guest. Instead of her fall being cushion by bushes, she suffered a concussion, broke her arm, and several ribs. She had to be carted away in the ambulance. Before going to the hospital to question her about the fire and the possibility of it being connected to Cheryl’s and Angie’s murders, Cameron tried to find out Ralph’s side of the story.
In the back of an ambulance, Ralph, wrapped in a blanket, apologized to her for the aroused state that refused to diminish. “It will be at least another hour before the medication will wear off,” he whispered.
She whispered back, “You take male enhancement drugs?”
A low chuckle escaped his lips. “It’s to be expected that as a man gets older . . .” He caught her eye. “I call them my best friends.”
“I’m sure you do.” An edge of sarcasm crept into her voice. The fact that Ralph not only cheated on his wife, but used drugs to help, further disgusted her. “The fire chief is already calling this arson. Someone tried to kill Doris, and maybe you. Can you think of who would want to do that?”
“No one knows I’m in town.”
“What about your friend?”
“Do you mean my pills?”
“Not your best friends,” Cameron clarified. “Your female friend.”
“Doris? Why would Doris set fire to her own house?”
“I mean your
other female friend. What’s her name?”
“Oh!” he shouted with a wave of the blanket that revealed his condition to her again. “You mean Peggy.”
“What happened to Peggy?”
“She became a pain in the butt,” Ralph said. “That’s the problem with most women. After a while, they assume I’m going to divorce Mildred and marry them. Why would they think such a thing?”
“Did it ever occur to you that after an extended period of drinking the milk for free that the farmer would assume the customer would like to buy the cow?” she asked.
“Why should I buy the cow when I can get the milk for free?” he challenged her.
Around the corner of the ambulance, Cameron could see Irving glaring at her from the rear window of her cruiser. As amusing as the debate with Ralph was, she had to get moving. She knew what Irving was capable of.
No one is as ruthless as Irving when it comes to missing dinner.
She sighed and turned away from Irving’s glare to keep focused on the case. “Tell me about what happened tonight.”
“You tell me,” he said. “Doris and I were enjoying each other’s company upstairs, and suddenly, she started yelling about how things were on fire. I thought she was talking about my performance. Next thing I know, she’s pushing me off her and throwing open the window and jumping out.”
“Do you think Mildred did this?” Cameron asked.
He scratched his head. “Mildred did tell me that if I didn’t cut it out that I was going to burn in hell. But I told her I was still out of town.” He snapped his fingers. “Peggy! She’s crazy! I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t one of those stalker-types.” He looked both ways as if searching for his ex-mistress. “I did have a feeling that I was being followed when I drove out here this afternoon.”
“What was Peggy’s reaction when you told her that you weren’t going to leave Mildred?” Cameron asked. “Was she upset?”
Ralph gestured at the burning house. “Take a look. What do you think?”
“Then, I’ll have a talk with Peggy.” She bent over him. Amusement crept into her voice when she asked, “How long has this been going on between you and Doris Sullivan?”
Ralph looked around before a cocky grin crossed his face. “Do you want to know the truth?”
“If you can manage that.”
Missing her sarcastic tone, he answered, “It never ended.”
“Do you mean . . .”
“Can you believe one man can get so lucky?” He chuckled. “I have the best of all worlds. Two women. Both in love with me. The one has a daddy who is just itching to marry off his daughter and set his son-in-law up in business. She really doesn’t care what I do as long as I bring home the bacon and keep up appearances. The other woman is a spit-fire between the sheets, and the last thing she wants is any man telling her what to do.” He giggled so hard he had to stop to catch his breath.
“So you never did have to choose between the two of them,” she said.
“Mildred likes to think I chose her.” Ralph leaned toward her.
Aware of his still aroused condition staring up at her from under the blanket, she backed up a step.
“Truth is,” he said, “I chose Doris, but she turned me down. Next thing I know, her folks sent her off to some boarding school someplace. Mildred was on my case. She was fast approaching eighteen, at which point she’d turn into an old maid, and her father was welcoming me into the family business—so I married her. A year later, Doris is back and hell—I won the lottery!”
Cameron cocked her head at him. “And what about Angie?”
“What about Angie?”
“Did you buy the story that Angie was Doris’s sister?”
The wicked grin fell from Ralph’s face. “I may be a bastard, but I’m not a stupid bastard. I knew. But Doris said I didn’t have to take any responsibility for her. She would raise her as her sister. But then her parents got killed in that car accident, and Doris really did have to be her mother. Still, she said she needed and wanted nothing from me. Then, Angie wanted to know who her father was.”
“Did Doris tell her about you?”
“She asked me about it.” Ralph wiped his nose with the blanket. “Yeah, I’m a real piece of work. I admit it. I begged her not to tell Angie about me. I wasn’t thinking about her. All I could think about was what Mildred would do if it got out that her husband had fathered another woman’s child. I told Doris to tell Angie that her father was dead. So she did.”
The lights inside the back of the ambulance lit up the tears that seeped into his eyes. “Never occurred to me that poor girl, my baby girl, would die thinking that her daddy was dead.” He sniffed. “Guess it’s better than knowing that he was a real-life bastard.”
Chapter Sixteen
Through the sun porch door, Cameron watched Joshua spooning vanilla ice cream into a bowl. She could see that his skin was still moist from a shower. Wet, his silver hair fell in loose, wavy locks down the back of his neck. In his bathrobe and lounging pants, he was ready for bed.
Rowlf! Smelling the sweet, frozen, creamy dessert, Irving struggled out of her arms and darted through the dog door to trot over to the kitchen counter and rub against Joshua’s leg.
“Oh, now we’re friends.” He gazed at her waiting on the other side of the kitchen door. “What are you waiting for? Suddenly, you’re going to start knocking and waiting for me to come open the door for you?”
Still tentative, she opened the door. “Am I allowed to come in?”
Joshua’s silver eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead. “Why wouldn’t you be?”
She crossed the kitchen to wrap her arms around his waist. “You had me so scared.” She rested her head against his warm bare chest. His clean musky scent excited her senses. She could feel his heart beat against her ear. “When you didn’t say anything to me—”
Hugging her, he rocked her in his arms. “I had to get Donny home. He was really upset, and he didn’t want to start bawling there in front of those troopers and Brianne. I had to get him out of there.”
She uttered a heavy sigh. “So it’s not over.”
His chuckle seemed to echo in her ear where it was pressed against his chest. “Of course not.” He pushed her away from him. Holding onto her shoulders, he peered into her eyes. “Do you have any idea how important you are to me?”
Her lips curled. “No. Tell me.”
“I love you . . . more than you will ever know.”
She cocked her head at him while he waited for her response. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
He grabbed her and kissed her so hard on the lips that their teeth crashed against each other. She could feel his passion for her flow through her body like a wave of emotion. When he let her up for air, she gasped out, “I love you, too, Joshua Thornton.” She threw her arms around him, and held onto him as tight as she could. “Come here.”
Joshua didn’t realize that he had fallen asleep until Irving began licking his cheek where a miniscule drop of ice cream had dried. Half-conscious, he swatted at what he thought was a fly before realizing that it was the skunk cat. “Get away from me.”
“Who are you talking to?” Cameron asked from where she was wrapped around his naked body.
They were wrapped around each other under a comforter taken from a linen closet in the downstairs family room.
Now awake, Joshua remembered the night before. After they were certain Donny had gone to bed, they had sneaked down to the family room. Giggling like a couple of guilty teenagers, they had built a fire in the fireplace and made love under an old comforter on the floor.
“Irving’s bothering me,” he told her while coming to his senses.
“Irving,” Cameron said, “leave him alone.”
Chastised, Irving went over to jump up onto the sofa and curl up on top of Admiral, who had spent the night stretched out on something more comfortable.
“What were you telling me last night?” Joshua struggled
to recall what little actual conversation they had the night before. He was too focused on staring into the depths of her eyes and kissing her lips to pay attention. “Doris has another freezer?”
“Now you want to talk about it.” Hugging him tighter, she nuzzled his neck. “She has a freezer in her barn.”
“Did you have a search warrant?”
“Someone tried to burn down her house with her and Ralph in it. I was looking for an arsonist.”
“Sure you were,” he laughed while hugging her.
“I found it right there in the feed room. It wasn’t plugged in, just like the freezer that was in Brianne Davenport’s garage. She uses it to store the horse feed in. That was where the freezer Cheryl Smith’s body was stashed incame from. Forensics had found traces of molasses and oats in it. This freezer had a container of molasses and bags of oats.”
Joshua said, “When I asked her about it, she pointed us in the direction of Mildred. She didn’t think we’d find out about her having a second freezer.”
Cameron put the scene together. “She killed Cheryl for revenge because she thought she had killed Angie, stuffed her in the old freezer, and hid it in Albert’s basement. Then she had to get rid of the Ferrari. So she left it on Brianne’s doorstep like an abandoned baby.”
“How did she know Cheryl was in town?” Joshua asked.
“Kyle told her,” she answered.
“I thought Kyle said he never saw Cheryl when she came back to town.”
“Brianne told me that he did,” she said. “She claims she never saw Cheryl either. But Kyle, who set up the computer system at the winery, was on the Davernport payroll in 1985. Brianne says he was the one who told her about Cheryl being in town and stopping by the winery to sell her the Ferrari.”
“He must have been the one who gave her Brianne’s business card with Ned’s phone number on the back,” he said. “Why would he lie?”
“Because he didn’t want to be a suspect,” she answered. “He knew she had been murdered. He also knew he had a strong motive. Not only did Cheryl destroy his relationship with Angie, but she was also the prime suspect in her murder. To admit that he saw her would be putting himself under the spotlight.”
