Jake stiffened, then consciously eased the muscles in his jaw, his neck, his hands. “Charley and C.J. were very close. He swears on his life he never would have done that to him.”
“And you believe him.”
“Can you imagine the nightmares the kid had? Still has? What kind of father would purposely subject his own son to that?” He’d heard the answer to the question before: the kind of man who would kill his lover because she wouldn’t run away with him. Who would kill her husband because he’d walked in on the murder. Who would leave a three-year-old girl alone in the house with her parents’ lifeless bodies for at least ten or twelve hours.
A cold-blooded killer.
But that wasn’t Charley. Jake believed that with everything in him.
God help him if he proved himself wrong.
They stopped where the path made a left turn to end at the broad porch steps. There was a sturdy padlock on the door, and the downstairs windows were covered with plywood to protect them from vandals. The second-floor windows had been broken, no doubt by kids tossing rocks, leaving those rooms exposed to the wind and the rain. The place looked abandoned. Bereft.
“C.J. went inside, careful not to step in the blood, not to touch anything. He wasn’t thinking about preserving evidence. He was only ten. But he didn’t want the blood on him. Didn’t want the evil on him. He saw Bert sprawled in the middle of the kitchen floor and he grabbed Therese, held her tight and ran out screaming for his father.”
“Did Charley go inside?” Kylie asked, climbing the steps one at a time.
“Yes.”
“He checked the bodies?”
Jake nodded. He hadn’t actually seen it. He’d thrown up in the driveway, then huddled inside their beat-up old truck, clutching Therese as if she might try to run away. She hadn’t. Though she’d hardly known him, she’d clung to him, her little hands gripping his shirt, leaving bloody prints there.
“And he didn’t touch anything either,” Kylie mused. When he raised one brow, she shrugged. “You said earlier his fingerprints weren’t found anywhere in the house.”
He watched her walk the length of the railless porch, then return to the steps. Twenty-two years ago, there had been wicker chairs, a swing at one end and a glider at the other, and big clay pots of flowers had stood along the edge. Now there was no sign of the furniture, likely carried away by thieves, and only shards of the pots remained on the ground where they’d fallen or been thrown by the same vandals who’d broken the windows.
“How well did Charley know the Franklins?” she asked as she came down the steps again, then started around the house.
Jake would have preferred to wait for her at the truck, but that would have defeated his purpose in the drive out there. He followed her, albeit reluctantly. “Not well. The Franklins were friends of your parents. Charley worked at the glass plant, his wife at the truck stop.” They’d lived in different worlds that happened to have collided all those years ago.
With a little help from the senator and his pals.
At the rear of the house a low stone wall separated the parking court from a patio where the Franklins had entertained on warm summer evenings. The crumbling remains of a brick barbecue stood in one corner; a fountain occupied the opposite corner, with a statue of some kind of woodland sprite in the middle of the pool. Only its legs remained intact; the torso, head and wings lay shattered below.
Kylie paused in front of the fountain, her brow wrinkled. “I’ve been here before. It was hot—summertime, I guess—and Therese and I were wading in this pool and my mother was fussing and Therese’s mother said…” She closed her eyes as if that might help her better recall the memory, then opened them again with a regretful shake of her head. “I was only five when they died. I don’t remember…”
Abruptly she shivered, then turned to survey the area. “Where is the Baker house?”
“On the other side of that pasture. Through those trees.”
“Can we walk over there?”
When he nodded, she started through the knee-high weeds that had taken over the drive without seeming to notice them. What did it say for her upbringing that one of her earlier memories was of her mother fussing at her? And what would Phyllis Riordan say if she saw her daughter now, tramping through the weeds with a man her father had told her to stay away from, on her way to the former home of a convicted murderer?
When they reached the road, she kept her gaze on the rutted ground. “Why do you believe Charley’s innocent?”
This would be a good time to tell her, Because he’s my father. Because I know him. He’s not capable of this. Because he wouldn’t have wished these nightmares on me. Because he’s a good man.
But he didn’t offer any of that. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Gut instinct.”
“But you said yourself—people lie. People accused of horrific crimes, in particular, lie.”
Not Charley. At least Jake didn’t think so.
“Since the book where the guy got a new trial, I’ve been contacted by a lot of people in prison. They told me their stories. They proclaimed their innocence. They wanted my help.” He kicked a clod of dirt that rolled a few feet before breaking into smaller clumps. “I didn’t believe most of them. But my gut says Charley’s telling the truth.”
“Is your gut ever wrong?” She stopped walking and turned to face him, hands on her slim hips. The breeze rustled through her hair, blowing a few loose strands across her face that she patiently swiped away.
When the next wind whipped them again, this time he reached out, brushing them back, tucking them behind her ear. His fingers lingered on the dangling turquoise earring, then slipped down to her jaw. “On occasion. It didn’t warn me that Regina Lyn Broward was going to break my heart.”
“What does it tell you about us?” She looked solemn, as if it mattered what his instincts said.
“That I’d be a fool to get involved with you.” He saw a flicker of emotion in her brown eyes, something that looked—felt—like disappointment. It faded into a hazy, smoky gaze when he went on. “That I’d be a bigger fool to walk away from you.”
It wasn’t wise. It wasn’t ethical. It wasn’t logical or reasonable. But what did emotion have to do with all those things? The heart wants what it wants. He’d read that somewhere, probably on a sappy greeting card, and it was true. Of all the women in the world for him to fall for, the worst one under the circumstances was Jim Riordan’s daughter. But he was falling anyway.
“Funny,” she murmured as she took a step toward him. “That’s what my gut says, too. And the senator says I should always trust my gut.”
He got a faint whiff of her scent as she touched her mouth to his, then he forgot to breathe. She rested her slim, delicate hands on his chest, leaned against him for support and kissed him sweetly, needfully. Her teeth nipped at his lip, then her tongue dipped inside his mouth, and his body grew hotter and harder than he could ever recall being.
He raised his hands to her face, cupping his palms to her cheek, and tilted his head to deepen the kiss. Heat surged through him, and lust, hunger and, practically lost in the intensity, a small faint warning. Did he want to be a fool with his heart intact or a bigger fool, wiser but sadder for the experience?
His body’s answer was clear: he just wanted. Now.
He would worry about the future when it came.
She was the first to pull away. She studied him a long time, the yearning slowly fading from her eyes before a slight smile curved her lips and she set off again. After a few steps she extended her hand, and after a few more steps he caught up with her and took it.
For her, he was willing to risk being the biggest fool in the world.
The road to the Baker house climbed a gentle slope that left Kylie winded by the time they reached the top…or was that the fault of the kiss? Considering that she ran most mornings, the answer seemed apparent, but she chose to ignore it.
While most of the surrounding land had
been cleared into pasture, trees grew thick around the house, screening it on all sides. They were mostly scrub oaks, gnarled, their leaves turned brown. They would cling to those leaves well into winter, until the last one fell to join the years’ worth blanketing the ground.
Doubtlessly the Franklins had considered themselves lucky the trees existed to block their view of the neighboring house. It was small, its wood siding ill-fitting, its dark brown paint drab. Instead of a porch there was merely steps leading directly to the front door. The windows were narrow, the screens torn and rusty. It wasn’t what came to mind when she thought “home, sweet home,” either. Looking at it just made her feel sorry for people she’d never known.
“Welcome to the Baker mansion,” Jake said flippantly, leading the way through the weeds to the steps. He fished his keys out of his pocket and inserted one in the lock.
“Where did you get the key?”
“From the owner. He lives about fifty miles from here in Buffalo Plains. After the Bakers moved out, he never could rent it again. He blamed Charley.”
“He must have rented it to the Bakers sight unseen,” she murmured as the door creaked open.
Jake stepped back so she could enter first. “Charley never made much money and he never cared where he lived as long as his wife and son were with him.”
Nice for Charley. Maybe not so nice for the wife and son.
Kylie took a cautious step inside and found herself in a hall. On the left a doorway opened into a small, square living room, with the kitchen visible through its other doorway. On the right was a bedroom. Remnants of furniture remained—a ratty couch, a coffee table splintered into pieces, a rusted iron bed frame.
Halfway down the hall another door opened into the bathroom. Rust stained the fixtures, and the mirror that had hung above the sink lay in pieces on the floor, their surface too heavily coated with dirt and age to reflect anything. Next to it was a second bedroom—C.J.’s, judging from the single bed and the poster for the Dallas Cowboys that curled on the wall.
The Franklin house had given her a feeling of sadness—because Bert’s and Jillian’s lives had ended so violently, Therese had been robbed of her parents and C.J. had been robbed of his innocence. But this small, dark house carried sadness as well as a sense of despair. Even in its best days the house had been shabby. The Bakers hadn’t had much; they’d worked and struggled and they’d lost everything while they lived here—had wrongfully lost it, Jake believed.
She left the bedroom that was little more than a closet and turned into the kitchen. The appliances were gone, wires and lines hanging from the wall to show where they’d once been. The sink sagged at an awkward angle, the cabinets in poor shape to support its weight. It would fall before too long, wrenching free of its pipes. The entire house would probably fall before too long, and no one would care or even know.
“It wasn’t the worst place they ever lived, but it was hardest for Angela,” Jake said, his voice taking on that aloof quality she’d heard too much of at the Franklin house. The tone was flat, as if the only way he could tell the stories was without emotion. How hard was it for him spending months wrapped up in the sorrows of other people’s lives?
“She wanted something different. A kitchen where the cabinet doors stayed shut once you shut them.” He demonstrated by closing one of the upper cabinet doors. The instant he withdrew his hand, the panel slowly swung open again. “A sink with a garbage disposal. A tub with a shower. A place for a washer and dryer so she wouldn’t have to lug the dirty clothes to the Laundromat every week. The deputy and the assistant D.A.—”
Coy Roberts and her father.
“—claimed her unhappiness was why Charley turned to Jillian Franklin.”
Kylie started to lean against the counter behind her, thought better of it and went through the connecting doorway to the living room instead. A mouse skittered out from under the couch, setting the fabric asway, and disappeared through a hole in the corner. “And why did Jillian turn to him?” Bert Franklin had had money, influence and power. To a lot of women in their social circle those topped their list of important qualities.
Jake grinned. “Because he was good-looking?” Then the grin faded. “Some women like to slum. Your mother chose to marry a man who had no money, no family name to speak of.”
“My mother loved my father,” Kylie pointed out. “Did Jillian love Charley?”
He crossed to the window and stared out, hands in his hip pockets. “I can’t find any evidence that Jillian even knew Charley. Yeah, they were neighbors, but they were separated by pasture and woods and the entire social spectrum. Charley says he only spoke to her a time or two. Angela says Jillian was rude every time she tried to strike up a conversation with her. Can you imagine your parents being friendly with a common laborer and a truck-stop waitress?”
“Only if the senator was stumping for votes,” she murmured. As for socializing or being neighborly…it never would have happened. Colbys and Riordans did not make meaningful connections outside their small circle of equals.
Jake tested the window frame, then turned and leaned against it, arms folded over his chest. “How did Phyllis Colby of the Colbys wind up married to a nobody?”
It was a fair question but one that made Kylie uncomfortable nonetheless. She wasn’t even sure why. Because of the implied criticism? Because her mother and father hadn’t seemed a likely match? Because she didn’t want to include them in a conversation about slumming and nobodies?
“The senator was just out of law school when they met,” she said at last. “He was already active in politics, working on campaigns, making a name for himself within the party. My grandfather introduced them—Grandfather was a senator himself, you know. He liked my father’s ambition. My mother liked his blue eyes and his smile.”
“So she became a snob after the marriage?”
A sudden chill passed through Kylie, and with the surge of its energy she started for the door. Jake followed. “She was always a snob, actually,” she admitted as she carefully descended the steps. “She’d lived a privileged life. I think she made an exception for the senator. She expected great things of him and wanted to be a part of them.”
She had loved him. Kylie was sure of it.
Wasn’t she?
Back out in the afternoon sun, the chill faded. She breathed deeply, clearing the mustiness and sadness from her lungs, then gestured out back to a sagging corral. “Did the Bakers have any animals?”
“Just a dog and a horse. C.J. refused to leave them behind, so Angela reluctantly trailered them out west when they left.”
She walked in that direction, but when she saw a pond in the near distance she bypassed the corral and continued across the field. It was a beautiful afternoon—the sky pale blue, everything else golden and scarlet. Oklahoma in winter wasn’t a pretty sight, but in autumn it could be gorgeous. At that moment, with the house behind her and Jake beside her, it felt gorgeous.
The pond was large, maybe a hundred yards across at its widest point, and the surface was marred with tiny ripples created by the wind. Piers from a long-gone dock marched fifteen feet into the water, some crooked, all of them rotted. Trees on the back side sheltered the pond from the north winds; the gently undulating land hid the houses and Jake’s truck from view.
A low sandstone boulder stood near the water’s edge, so perfectly positioned that it might have been placed there with sun-worshipping in mind. She sat down, gazed across the water and listened to the breeze, the birds, the quiet lap of miniature waves against the shore.
“So…” Jake sat beside her, his shoulder bumping hers. “Is it Colby or Riordan tradition for the father to choose his daughter’s suitors? Or both?”
She wanted to say no, of course not. She was a grown woman, fully capable of making such personal decisions for herself. But hadn’t the senator chosen the man she’d almost married? Wasn’t he even now trying to win her over to David Vaughan’s side? And hadn’t he endorsed both men f
or reasons that had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with her?
He’d always been quick to approve or disapprove of her boyfriends, she realized, all the way back to her junior prom date. And when he’d disapproved, she had soon ended the relationship.
How intensely would he disapprove of Jake Norris?
“The senator would like to make it a tradition,” she said at last, uncomfortable with how close she’d come to allowing him just that.
“But maybe there’s a bit of rebellion in his daughter after all.” Jake’s voice was quiet, his tone teasing as he bumped against her again.
“Maybe a very small bit,” she conceded. After all, as Jake had pointed out, she was with him, wasn’t she?
Drawing her feet onto the rock, she rested her arms on her knees, her chin on her arms, and tilted her head to the side for a better look at him. His hair was too short to be ruffled by the wind, and his gaze was fixed on some distant point. “Are looks enough?”
Slowly he turned his head to look at her. Funny that they both had brown eyes but his were so much more brown. They were shades deeper than her own and hinted at a complexity so much deeper than her own. “What do you mean?”
“When I asked what drew Jillian to Charley, you said he was good-looking. Is that enough?” After all, Jake was extremely good-looking. She imagined women had been coming on to him since he was old enough to shave—even before then, if she counted Regina Lyn Broward. She wanted to come on to him…but not because he was handsome. Because there was some indefinable something between them. Because he attracted her in a way no man ever had.
Trying to ignore the heat that flushed her face, she cleared her throat. “After the initial attraction, the initial lust, there must be something else. Shared interests, mutual goals, affection, the promise of a future.”
Jake’s smile came slowly and raised her body heat several more degrees. “Haven’t had many meaningless affairs, have you? The initial lust is all that matters in an affair, Kylie. We’re not talking about marriage or a long-term relationship. It’s just sex.”
More Than a Hero Page 9
