“Generally not.” Especially when he felt tremendous pressure to secure his research. If something happened to him, he wanted his work in the hands of someone who would use it to help Charley.
“Can you use a little help with the scanning? I’d like to talk to you.”
“Sure, if you don’t mind hanging out at the Tepee.”
Her smile was sweet. “I’ve never actually been there. I’ll follow you.”
They were at the motel in less than five minutes, where that afternoon’s watch dog eyed Therese with an extra dose of suspicion. Jake made room on the desk for the scanner, plugged it into the laptop, then began organizing files in order of importance.
“Why are you scanning all these?” she asked, gesturing to the piles spread across the bed.
He gave her the short version—run off the road, shot at, threatened by the police chief—then faced her. “There’s something you should know, Therese—should have known the first time we talked. I’m—”
“Charley Baker’s son. Derek told me.”
His gaze narrowed on her face—sweet, guileless. “It doesn’t bother you?”
She picked up a folder marked Photos, studied the label, then set it down again without opening it. “You let me ride your horse once. Do you remember that?” Her grimace was self-mocking. “I hardly remember it. He seemed so huge, and I sat there by myself, so high above the ground, and you walked him around the pasture.”
Jake hardly remembered it himself. He’d put her on the pony without permission, but when Jillian had come out of the house, instead of chastising him she’d watched and laughed delightedly.
Therese picked up another folder, this one marked Leonard Scott—Alibi. “Why would it bother me? You aren’t responsible for my parents’ deaths.” She read Mr. Scott’s statement, then murmured, “Apparently neither was your father.”
They set up a system—Jake sorted items by priority while Therese fed them into the scanner. Occasionally she paused to read something or to ask a question, but for the most part she worked quietly, efficiently.
They’d barely made a dent in the piles when a knock came at the door. Kylie was the last person he expected to find on his doorstep, but there she stood, a large envelope in hand. Without greeting, she offered it to him.
“What is this?”
“Proof that the senator paid four thousand dollars a month first to Jillian Franklin, then to her parents, for 20 years and nine months.”
Jake took the envelope, slid out a thick stack of papers and glanced at a few, then put them back. He wanted to ask why she’d brought them to him, but the question would hurt her and he’d done enough of that already. Besides, he knew why.
She was an honorable person.
The lines of her face were taut with stress, and her eyes were shadowed. Goddess under fire. He’d cost her a lot, as had her father. She deserved better than either of them. But if she ever gave him a chance to make it up to her…
“Why would your father pay nearly a million dollars to my mother and my grandparents?” Therese asked, moving from the desk into Kylie’s line of sight.
Kylie paled, then forced a smile. “Therese. I was going to stop by your house on the way home. I wanted to tell you…to ask you…” She glanced at Jake, then at the cop out front, and came into the room, closing the door behind her. She was far too elegant, too beautiful, for the Tepee Motor Court, but she didn’t notice. “How much have you told her about the money?”
He shook his head.
She cleared a space at the head of the bed, sat down, then gestured for Therese to join her. Great. Now Kylie would not only haunt his waking moments but his sleep, too, with her scent on his bed.
“Apparently your mother had a few affairs,” she began quietly after Therese took a seat. “We believe the money in her private account came from payments made by the men she slept with to ensure her silence. We also believe that at least one of these men thought he might be your father.”
“The senator?” Therese asked numbly. “You think the senator is my father?”
Kylie’s features were expressionless, her lips compressed. “I think it’s possible. Why else would he pay that kind of money?”
A million dollars over twenty-one years wasn’t a tremendous amount to someone who had full access to the Colby fortune, Jake acknowledged, but she was right. Why pay even a dime unless it was possible he was Therese’s father? And admitting that meant admitting he’d slept with Jillian, which would have damaged his career and his marriage.
“Then it’s possible that you and I—” Therese took a loud, shaky breath “—are s-s-sisters.”
Kylie nodded. “I wanted to ask you if you would go to Tulsa with me tomorrow, to give samples of our DNA so we can know for sure.”
Therese nodded, too.
What would it mean to them if the results were positive—two women who had no families to speak of, discovering that they were half sisters?
At least Jake wouldn’t have destroyed everything in Kylie’s life.
“What happened to make you do this?” she asked with a wave toward the scanner.
“I had a little run-in with Chief Roberts and the black SUV.” He would bet she’d give a lot to hide the fact that his news worried her, but it was there on her face. It made him feel marginally better.
“This will take forever. If you bring your computer and scanner to the office, we can also use ours and cut the time in half.”
Use the senator’s office equipment to document his illegal activities. The idea appealed to Jake. So did spending time with Kylie, along with the fact that she would even offer.
He packed up everything, and they caravanned downtown—him, Kylie, Therese and the cop. There they set up in her office, his machines on a worktable, hers on her desk.
After a time, he circled the desk, wanting more than anything to touch her. Instead his fingers knotted on the folder he held. “Why don’t you take a break and let me scan these?”
Anger flared in her eyes, along with bitterness. “Something you don’t trust me to see?”
With a glance at Therese, concentrating on her task, he lowered his voice. “It’s crime-scene photos. The sheriff at the time kept copies of them when he retired. When I started the book, his widow gave them to me.”
Kylie’s gaze shifted to the folder, and understanding dawned. He’d seen the pictures—could describe the vacant look in Jillian’s eyes, the awkward angle of Bert’s body, the blood pools, the rage that had created the scene. Hell, he’d seen it for real. He would never forget.
Neither Kylie nor Therese should ever have the need to forget.
She rose from the chair, her fragrance enveloping him as she slipped past. He sat down, feeling her heat on the leather, absorbing her scent. With a watchful eye on Therese, he began scanning the photos, labeling each one in a computer folder. While he did so, Kylie left the office, then returned a few moments later with an empty box. As the machine whirred, she took her degree from the wall, along with a couple of framed pictures. She deposited those in the box, then began gathering items from the bookcases.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Packing.”
“Why?”
“Because technically I’m no longer employed here. I left my resignation on the senator’s desk this morning.”
Jake stared at her and was vaguely aware of Therese doing the same. “You quit your job?” he asked stupidly.
“That’s generally what a resignation means.”
“Why?” he repeated.
She scooped up an armload of books, then turned to face him. “Because I can’t work for him anymore, not knowing what I know.”
He wished he could feel truly bad that she’d quit her job, but truth was, after surprise, his primary emotion was relief. In his opinion, away from Riordan was the best place for her to be. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
I do. She could go to New Mexico wi
th him. If she wanted to work, there were plenty of opportunities for a woman with her qualifications. If she’d rather stay home, he happened to have a home she could stay in. It needed her. He needed her.
Maybe something of what he was thinking showed on his face, because suddenly her cheeks turned pink and she abruptly turned away, dumping the books into the box. Her movements were jerky as she took a few items from the credenza, a few more from the desk drawers.
She didn’t touch the photos of her with the senator and other dignitaries. In fact, after she’d finished, it was hard to tell she’d effectively moved out of the space. Twelve years she’d worked for her father, five in this position, and everything fit into one small box.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said awkwardly.
Kylie set the box next to the door, then combed her hair back. “You should be,” she murmured.
Grimly he went back to work, scanning the last of the crime-scene photos, password-protecting the folder before giving the computer back to her. As soon as she slipped past him, he opened the next file on the stack—the autopsy—and started to hand the pages to her. In midtransfer he stopped, his gaze caught on a line in the report.
“What is it?” she asked.
He read the line again, then backed up and read the entire paragraph before looking at her. “According to the autopsy, the man who killed the Franklins was lefthanded. Charley isn’t. The senator isn’t.”
Remembering his conversation with Roberts earlier-the holster on the left side and the left-handed gesture before Roberts had walked away—he finished grimly. “But Chief Roberts is.”
Kylie had no problem believing that Coy Roberts could have murdered two people and framed an innocent man. She’d never liked him—had thought he was an obnoxious, petty little man who reveled in the power of the badge and the gun he wore.
She did have a problem believing her father would risk his career for the likes of Roberts. But if Roberts had been involved with Jillian, he could have known about the senator’s affair, as well. Jillian might not have been the only person blackmailing the senator.
Even now, a wave of disbelief washed through her. She’d had such idealistic notions about the man, when she’d never really known him at all. She’d thought he was good, had thought they were a team. Sure, his ambition had been the leading force in his life, and he’d always been a bit of a snob, had always had a sense of entitlement. But overall he was an honorable man and he loved her. So she’d thought. But the honor was a sham and the love was conditional.
Everyone’s love was conditional, she thought with a grim glance at Jake. Including her own.
It was nearly seven o’clock. when she scanned the last of the documents. After burning a CD, she waited for Jake to verify on his laptop that everything had copied, then deleted the files. Before she left for the night—for the last time—she intended to call Lissa and make sure the files couldn’t be retrieved.
And then she was done. With the Baker case. With the senator.
But, please, not with Jake.
“Now what?” Therese asked from the sofa, where she’d curled up a few minutes earlier.
Good question. What would Kylie do now that her life was in shambles?
“I need to use the phone line,” Jake replied.
Wordlessly she unplugged the line from her computer and offered it to him. He hooked up, signed online and began attaching files to an e-mail. Who was he sending the information to? Obviously someone he trusted more than her.
Can we try again? he’d asked. When everything was over, when his father was safe from her father, could they pick up where they’d left off? She’d meant it when she said, I don’t know. After hours of thinking about it, she still didn’t know.
She did know that trust had to be earned, not blindly given. That not trusting her was the logical, smart, practical thing for a man in his position to do. That keeping her distance from him was the logical, smart, practical thing for a woman in her position.
But logical, smart and practical had little to do with love, and she did love him. Silly as it seemed, given their brief acquaintance, she wanted to be with him. To spend the rest of her life with him. To have kids with him.
Which meant she had to get over her hurt. This was a unique situation. How many murders could the senator have been involved in covering up? She and Jake could spend the next fifty years together and never run into such a conflict again.
But forgiving was hard when the hurt was still fresh. When every look stabbed a little deeper, when she needed but couldn’t allow herself the comfort of his embrace, when she desperately needed but couldn’t ask for the soft little words he’d given her outside the Pancake Palace. It’s okay, darlin’. You’re all right. Even though her world was going to hell, there in his arms she had been all right, and she wanted that again. When she could forgive. When she could swallow her pride.
With a sound that was half sigh, half sob, she stood up and found Jake watching her curiously. Before he could ask, she said, “My shoulders are stiff from sitting so long.”
He nodded but continued to look at her. She turned away as if the items remaining on the bookcase were of interest. They weren’t. Everything she cared about in this room was packed in that single box. Everything except Jake and Therese.
Across the room Therese’s stomach growled, and Kylie smiled for the first time in forever. “The pizza should be here soon.”
“Good. I’m going to wash up.” Rising from the couch, Therese went down the hall to the bathroom, leaving Kylie to pretend she wasn’t uncomfortably alone in the room with Jake. Though he stared at the computer, watching the progress of the e-mail, she knew he was aware of it, too.
When footsteps came down the hall, she gratefully looked up, expecting Therese. It wasn’t her.
The senator wore a tuxedo better than any man she knew, but tonight he looked disheveled. His tie was askew and his hair was ruffled. Clenched in one hand was a tight roll of manila folders, a handful of the twenty-one files she’d emptied, then stacked neatly on his desk underneath her resignation.
He settled his gaze on Jake. “Isn’t this cozy? The murderer’s son and my traitor of a daughter, working together in my own damn office to destroy me.”
Jake moved, putting himself between the laptop and the door, but he didn’t speak.
Kylie rested her hands on the desk to control the tremors rocketing through her, and her fingers brushed something cool, metallic. A tape recorder small enough to hide in her palm, powerful enough to pick up every word of every interview either she or the senator had given in this office. Impulsively she pressed the record button, closed her fingers around it, then circled her desk and leaned against the edge. “I take it you found my resignation.”
The senator spared her a glance. “Such a great loss. Replacing you doesn’t even register on my list of priorities. However—” he pointed at her with the folders “—you have twelve hours to return my financial records, the originals and all copies thereof, before I have you arrested for trespassing and theft.”
A snort came from Jake. “You can’t have her arrested. That house belongs to her. She has legal access to every part of it.”
“This is Riverview,” the senator replied. “I can do whatever I damn well please.” He came farther into the room, giving the box with her belongings a scornful look, picking up the file with Charley’s alibi from the chair where it topped a stack of folders and treating the page inside to the same scorn. Tossing it down again, not caring when it slid to the floor, he turned to face Jake. “I have an offer for you.”
“You don’t have anything I want.”
The senator’s broad smile was smug. “Don’t speak too hastily. I talked to your father on my way back from Oklahoma City this evening. I made the offer to him, and he accepted.”
The tension radiating from Jake was palpable as he met Kylie’s glance. He hated the idea of the senator even speaking to Charley. She didn’t blame him. “What kind
of offer?”
“You know, there’s a case from early in my career as a prosecutor that has always troubled me,” the senator said in his best cameras-are-rolling voice. “I have decided it is my duty as a lawmaker and a former district attorney to reopen that case and see that justice is served to all involved.”
And he could do it. All it would take was a little pressure on the current district attorney, who planned to run for the senator’s seat once he became governor, and on the presiding district court judge, Harold Markham Jr. As he’d said, this was Riverview, where he could do whatever he damn well pleased.
“Justice,” Jake repeated. “And how do you define that?”
“Charley Baker is acquitted in the new trial. He walks away a free man.”
“But the real murderer isn’t charged.” She knotted her fists to keep her anger under control. “The people who conspired to send Charley to prison in the first place aren’t punished. Those twenty-two years you stole from him are gone.”
The senator gave her a dismissive look. There was no affection, no hint of respect. In the past few days she had become nothing more than a nuisance, a reminder of a lapse in judgment. “Of course he’ll be compensated for those years lost. We agreed that five million dollars seemed a reasonable amount.”
“You’re just free as can be using my mother’s money to pay for your mistakes, aren’t you?” Kylie asked snidely. “No wonder she left the bulk of the family fortune to me. You gave her such good reasons not to trust you with it.”
“That was her way of getting back at me. Oh, she forgave me. She accepted my groveling and said we would pretend it never happened, but she never forgot. If I spoke to another woman, if I even looked at another woman, she made my life hell. Every month those statements came, showing that payment, and every month she made me suffer. Leaving everything to you, making me dependent on the whims of a child, was her final insult.”
The senator pushed back his sleeve to check the time. “Come on, Norris. I’m a busy man. Are you going to accept or not? Keep in mind before you decide that the deal is all or nothing. You don’t drop this book, Charley doesn’t get his freedom or his money.”
More Than a Hero Page 20
