The senator chuckled. “How’d you know it was me? It could have been Vaughan.”
She rolled her eyes at the mention of the Speaker of the House, one of a half dozen friends who’d accompanied her father to the Keys. David Vaughan was handsome, charming and ambitious—a younger version of her father, except that while her father aspired only to the governor’s mansion, David’s eye was on the U.S. Senate and beyond. Neither of them made a secret of the fact that they thought she’d make a damn fine senator’s wife or even First Lady.
Not in this lifetime.
“Listen, honey, I wanted to tell you there’s this writer who’s supposed to come to town—”
“Jake Norris.”
Silence for a moment, then her father’s grim voice. “So he’s there. Have you met him?”
“He came by yesterday to see you. He has an appointment for a week from Thursday.”
“Damn. Maybe he’ll give up before then.”
She closed her eyes and an image of Norris appeared, dark and handsome, that whiskey-smooth voice of his saying, I’m not conceited. I’m confident. There’s a difference. He wasn’t going to give up and go away just because everyone wanted him to.
“He’s writing a book about Charley Baker,” she said, refocusing on the orange to get the image out of her mind. “Do you remember the case?”
“It was a double homicide—a death-penalty case. Of course I remember it.”
“Was there any doubt as to Baker’s guilt?”
“None.” The word was bitten off, the tone certain.
“Then why not go over the facts of the case with Norris and be done with it?”
The senator snorted. “The facts are the last thing he’s interested in. Have you read any of his books? He’s an opportunist. He takes things out of context, twists facts, sensationalizes everything. Hell, who’d pay good money to read about an open-and-shut case like Baker’s? There aren’t any unanswered questions. There isn’t any doubt about his guilt. The only one who says Charley Baker is innocent is Charley Baker. His own wife believed he did it. She didn’t even stick around for the trial. She took the kid and disappeared.”
Norris had mentioned a son at the restaurant the night before. Kylie wondered how old he’d been, if she’d seen him around town, spoken to him or played with him. Probably not. She’d been only five at the time of the murders, and her world had pretty much been limited to the few blocks surrounding her house. She hadn’t socialized with kids from the wrong part of town—defined by her mother as any part outside their small neighborhood.
“But, sir, if you talk to Norris, at least you’ll know you’ve given him the truth. What he does with it after that is on him.”
He exhaled loudly, a habit to show impatience with her. “We don’t need all this dragged out again, Kylie. It was an ugly time in our town’s history. It just casts Riverview in a bad light. And think of that poor Franklin girl…Pete died just a few months ago, and Miriam’s got to go into the nursing home. Therese is going to be all on her own. She lost her parents once. It’s not fair to make her go through it again just so Jake Norris can make some money.”
His first arguments didn’t carry much weight. Every town had its crime; no one was going to hold a twenty-year-old murder against Riverview. But Therese Franklin…she was such a fragile creature. Horrified by what had happened to her parents, her grandparents had cosseted and protected her to the point of suffocation. She’d had few friends, little freedom and not much of a life. With the current upheavals, how difficult would it be for her to have that old tragedy opened up again?
“She pleaded with me, Kylie,” her father went on. “She begged me to not let Norris do this, and I told her I would do my best to dissuade him. You know I’m a man of my word.”
“What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Stay away from Norris. Don’t talk to him. Discourage anyone else from talking to him.”
She could do that, could put out the word that her father didn’t want anyone cooperating with Norris, and most people in town would close the door in his face. The fact bothered her more than a little. The man wanted information about a case that was public knowledge—a case that was, according to the senator, open-and-shut. No questions, no doubt, no mystery. So why dissuade him from gathering information?
The town’s reputation and Therese’s state of mind aside, her father’s biggest motivation, she suspected, was his planned run for the governor’s mansion. He’d laid out a timetable for himself twenty-odd years ago, and the only deviation had been her mother’s unexpected death. It was his time to be governor, and no one was going to interfere, least of all a convicted murderer and the writer who thought he was innocent.
How much damage could they do? If her father was accurate in describing Norris’s style, a lot, especially when the Senator would face a popular incumbent. Even an unsubstantiated rumor of wrongdoing could upset a sure-to-be-close race.
“Listen, honey, I’ve got to go,” the senator said. “Just promise me you’ll do as I instructed. I’ll call you again later.”
He didn’t wait for her promise before he hung up. He just assumed, as he always did, that of course she would do as he instructed. After all, she always had, hadn’t she?
Slowly she replaced the receiver in its cradle, ate a segment of orange, then went online and ordered one copy of each of Norris’s books. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her father; she did implicitly. She just wanted to see for herself how Norris approached his stories.
That done, she forced her attention to work and succeeded for a time, until she raised her gaze to the window to give them a break from the dull text she was studying. A dusty red pickup had just pulled into the parking space directly in front of the window and Jake Norris climbed out.
His jeans weren’t so faded, his T-shirt was still tight and his boots were beyond scuffed. Dark glasses hid his eyes, though her interest was lower, on the muscles bunching as he swung an apparently heavy backpack over one shoulder. He slammed the door and locked it, then started across the street without so much as a glance in the direction of the office.
Had she wanted him to look? Wanted him to wonder about her? If she was working, if she was watching him, if she was thinking about him?
She would like to say of course not, but honesty wouldn’t let her. He was the sexiest guy she’d run across in ages, as well as the most annoying. Under different circumstances, she would certainly be interested in a discreet short-term fling with him. Under the current circumstances, that wasn’t an option, but even so, it would be nice to know that the interest wasn’t one-sided.
As Norris stepped onto the far curb, Derek West got out of his patrol car and, after waiting for a car to pass, trotted across the street. He went into the courthouse about twenty feet behind Norris. Coincidence? Or was this part of the dissuasion her father had promised Therese? Since he was out of town, he would have called one of his close friends—probably Coy Roberts—to make sure Norris kept his distance from Therese. A little police harassment seemed right up Roberts’s alley.
She sat there a moment, tapping one nail against her desk, before abruptly rising. “Lissa, I’m going to the courthouse,” she called as she passed through the reception area. The girl popped her head out of the file room in time to watch her leave.
She crossed the street and entered through the same side door Norris had gone through. There were any number of offices he could have gone to…but she wasn’t looking for him. She just wanted to see if Derek West was.
The officer was leaning against the wall outside the court clerk’s open door, a broad grin stretching across his face. Voices filtered through the door—Norris’s lower rumble, Martha Gordon’s nasal tones. He sounded angry. She sounded bored. She always did.
Giving Derek a stern look, Kylie entered the office, then closed the door behind her. Norris, leaning on the counter, glanced over his shoulder. For just a moment something flashed in his gaze. Appreciation? Pleasure?
Then he turned back to Martha. “You didn’t even check.”
Martha quivered from the top of her gray bun all the way down to the sensible support shoes she always wore. “I don’t need to check.”
“Is there a problem?” Kylie asked, moving to stand a few feet down the counter from Norris.
“This—” Martha’s gaze traveled over what she could see of Norris, and her entire face tightened “—this person wants to see the trial transcript from the Charley Baker murder case. I told him it’s been checked out, but he doesn’t believe me.”
“I asked for the file, and she said it’s not here without even checking,” Norris said, his jaw clenched.
Martha’s face tightened more. If she got any sourer, she would look like a prune. “Why would I waste my time checking when there’s no need? How many requests do you think I get in this office for twenty-some-year-old cases? I can tell you—two. In all the years I’ve been working here.”
“Who checked it out?” Kylie asked.
Martha’s shoulders went back. “That’s private information.”
“Martha,” Kylie chided gently.
Her mouth pursed, Martha went to the card file on her desk, then returned with an index card, handing it to Kylie. Written there in the woman’s imperious hand was Judge Markham’s name, the date he took the file and the date it was due back—several days past. What was his sudden interest in the file?
“Have you called to remind him that it’s past due?” Kylie asked as she returned the card to the clerk.
Martha sniffed haughtily. “I will now that there’s been another request for it.”
“When you have an answer, will you please let me know?” With a polite smile, Kylie caught Norris’s arm and started toward the door.
He dug in his feet, pulling her to a stop. “These files are a matter of public record. You people can’t hide them just because you don’t want anyone else to see them.”
Instead of tugging harder, she squeezed his arm tighter, all too aware of the muscle beneath her fingers that didn’t yield to pressure. “She can’t give you what she doesn’t have,” she said quietly, warningly. “It’s best if you leave now.”
Throwing a dark look at Martha, who returned it balefully, he let Kylie lead him into the corridor. The instant she pushed the door open, Derek West jumped back a few feet, then tried for a show of nonchalance.
Norris let her pull him a few feet before jerking his arm free. She missed the contact immediately and at the same time was grateful for its cessation. She didn’t need to be thinking about the silky-coarse texture of his hair-roughened skin or how he radiated heat or how long it had been since she’d experienced the pure tactile pleasure of touching a man even in so casual a way. If she wanted to touch a man, she could find plenty of volunteers—men who didn’t care who her father was, who didn’t have an agenda, who weren’t her adversary. Who weren’t so complicated. So handsome. So sexy.
“Who has the damn file?” he demanded.
She glanced at Derek, pretending disinterest. “We’ll talk outside.”
He glanced that way, too, then grudgingly nodded. They’d reached the door before Derek pushed away from the wall, and had gone down the half dozen steps before he opened the door. Kylie turned to face him. “Don’t follow me.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Don’t follow him while he’s with me.”
“But—” Derek’s gaze shifted from her to Norris, then back again. Comprehension dawned, though he tried to hide it. “Oh. Okay. Not a problem.” With a nod, he returned inside the building.
Kylie exhaled as she glanced around. They could go to her office or take a seat on a bench in the square. Instead she gestured toward the street. “Let’s walk.”
They’d made it to the corner before Norris asked, “Are you going to report back to Chief Roberts on everything I say?”
“Apparently Derek thinks so.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
They crossed the street and started down the next block. “I don’t report to Chief Roberts.”
“No, you report to the senator, who shares information with the chief, the judge and the lawyer.”
She kept her gaze on the storefronts they passed, each smaller and shabbier the farther they got from the square. “I don’t tell the senator everything,” she said at last.
“But you told him about me.”
“He called this morning to warn me that you were in town. I told him we’d met.”
“And he told you…to stay away from me? Or to stay close enough to be able to track my activities?”
She tilted her head to one side to look up at him, and Jake forgot his question. She was so damn pretty—delicate in a strong sort of way. Her brown eyes were flecked with bits of gold, and she smelled of spices with just a hint of sweetness. If he’d met her at any other time in any other place…
She would still be Senator Riordan’s daughter. He would still be the enemy.
Sunlight glinted off the diamond studs in her lobes as she returned her gaze to the sidewalk ahead. She wore heels again today, but there was nothing low or sensible about them. They brought the top of her head close to his, close enough that if they stopped walking and he turned her to face him, it would take only an inch or two for his mouth to reach hers.
Prove it, one part of him challenged.
Don’t be a fool, another advised.
“The trial transcript was checked out by Judge Markham,” she said.
Jake knew it must have been one of the four. “He’s retired. Why is he still allowed to check out files?” He would have been allowed to look at it there in the court clerk’s office or to have a copy made, but he wouldn’t have been able to take it from the room. Lawyers could take them out, Martha had explained to him before she’d known which file in particular he wanted, but only for a few days.
“As long as his law license is active, he still has that privilege. As the senator’s assistant, I occasionally check out records for him. We can take them for forty-eight hours.”
“And Judge Markham’s had this file for…?”
She sighed. “It was due back last Friday.”
Jake’s smile was thin. He’d tried to set up an interview with the judge the previous Wednesday. The old goat had turned him down, then gotten possession of the transcript. And it was the only copy the court had. Martha had told him that, too.
“Maybe he wanted to refresh his memory before he talked to you. Surely you want to interview him as well as the senator.”
“Maybe. Except that he turned me down when I called him last week. Said he had nothing to say on the matter and hung up on me.”
“So that’s why you just showed up at the senator’s office,” Kylie murmured.
Jake kicked an acorn and sent it tumbling into the yellowing grass alongside the sidewalk. “Do you ever call him Dad?”
Kylie blinked.
“Most people call their fathers Dad or Pop or Father or even by their first names. What do you call yours besides ‘the senator’?”
“Sir,” she answered.
He would have laughed if she hadn’t been serious. That was some kind of warm, loving relationship they shared. What inspired her loyalty to him? It had to be more than just a paycheck.
“So…if I want to see the transcript, I’ve got to get it from Markham.”
She cleared her throat delicately. “It might be best if you let me get it.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s a matter of public record. He doesn’t have the right to—to hide it.” She swallowed hard, obviously aware that she was implying wrongdoing on the judge’s behalf and not liking it.
And what if Markham was hiding the transcript on her father’s say-so? Riordan might be out of town, but he was obviously in touch. Someone was keeping him informed…and, possibly, taking orders from him.
“I’ll stop by Judge Markham’s house later today,” she went on.
“I’ll—I’ll let you know if I get it.”
They came to a stop at an intersection. They’d left the businesses behind and were in a neighborhood of moderately priced houses. Most of them were old, a few with their original wood siding, the rest updated to aluminum. The yards were roomy, the trees mature, their leaves turning shades of yellow, red and purple. The best friend he’d had in his months there had lived in the middle of the block. Back then, Jake had envied his house, his bike, his roots…but now he couldn’t even remember his name.
“Does it bother you that everyone says this is an open-and-shut case,” he began conversationally, “and yet no one wants to talk about it?”
“A lot people believe the past belongs in the past.” Kylie started across the street to their left, and he followed. On the other side, she turned back in the direction they’d just come.
“Especially people running for governor.”
She gave him a sharp look but didn’t comment. “Just because you’re interested in what happened to Charley Baker doesn’t mean anyone else is.”
“My agent is. My editor. My publisher. I’m already under contract. I’m going to write the book regardless of what your father and his cronies want.”
“What about Therese Franklin? Doesn’t what she wants count?”
He called to mind Therese’s image as she’d been that September—three years old, a girlie girl, looking like an angel with silky brown curls, huge blue eyes, a Cupid’s-bow mouth. She’d been left alone with her parents’ lifeless bodies for at least twelve hours. When they were discovered the next morning, she was sitting next to her mother, blood staining her white nightgown, eyes red from crying.
Did she remember anything from that night? Probably not. Three was mercifully young. But it had changed her life forever. He knew her grandfather had died, knew the grandmother—the last family she had left in the world—had Alzheimer’s and was also dying. This wasn’t the best time to bring her parents’ murders back into the limelight…but there was no best time to relive something like that.
“I haven’t spoken to Therese yet,” he replied. “I don’t know what she wants.”
More Than a Hero Page 3
