The Innocent

by Amanda Stevens

  “I don’t,” Sam said. “It’s all in the past. They’re both dead now, and there’s nothing we can do to help either one of them. What you and I have to concentrate on is your daughter.”

  Karen nodded, her expression grave. “She’s all I ever think about.”

  ABBY WAS WAITING for Sam by her car. Leaning against the fender, she watched the street, her gaze tracking a kid who rode by on a bicycle. It was such a normal activity. Such a normal scene. And yet Sam and Abby both knew there was nothing normal about this morning. About this neighborhood. About this family.

  “All right,” she said when he walked up to join her. “Let’s have it. Why didn’t you tell me Karen Brodie is your sister? Why did you deliberately lead Sheriff Mooney and me to believe you’d been sent down here from Washington? That you’d been assigned to this case? You’re not even a federal agent anymore. What am I suppose to call you? Mr. Burke?”

  “How about Sam?”

  She folded her arms. “I don’t know that I want to be on a first-name basis with a man I can’t trust.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t deliberately set out to deceive anyone. When I showed up at Fred Mooney’s office, he assumed I was the agent you guys had been waiting for.”

  “And you didn’t bother telling him the truth.”

  “If I’d told him I was Karen’s brother, let alone that I was no longer with the FBI, I wouldn’t have gotten a damn thing from him, and you know it. I seized an opportunity. You would have done the same thing.”

  Abby frowned, her gaze watching the slow rotation of the sprinkler next door. She seemed almost mesmerized by the action, but Sam knew that inside her head, the wheels were turning. His best bet was to tell her everything, throw himself on her mercy, but that went against his grain. Went against the code of silence he’d lived by since he was a kid.

  “The FBI is looking for you,” she finally said. “Special Agent Talbot Carter, to be precise. He was in the sheriff’s office this morning, asking questions about you. Wanting to know if I could help him locate you. He wasn’t too pleased to hear you’ve been passing yourself off as a federal agent. I believe that’s a felony, isn’t it, Sam?”

  He ignored her last comment. “What’d you tell him?”

  “The truth. I told him I didn’t know where you were at the moment, but I’d let him know if I saw you. Any reason why I shouldn’t give him a call right this very minute?” she challenged.

  “Just one. Because I’m asking you not to.”

  Her expression hardened. “Not good enough.”

  She started to turn away, but Sam caught her arm.

  “Abby—”

  The gesture was out of character for him, and he pulled back the moment his hand made contact with her arm. But they’d both felt the touch, light as it was, and he could see Abby’s response in the softening of her eyes, in the slight intake of her breath, in the prickle of chill bumps along her skin.

  And suddenly, all Sam could think about was touching her again. Moving his hands over her skin. It would be silky smooth—he just knew it—and warm from the sun. Hot, supple…

  Beneath her T-shirt, the slight rise and fall of her breasts drew his gaze in spite of his best effort to control the direction of his thoughts.

  “My reputation is at stake here,” she said angrily. “I could be risking my job if I don’t tell them what I know. Come to think of it…” She gazed up at him accusingly. “Why don’t they already know? About Karen, I mean? I thought the feds kept files on everyone, especially their own agents. Or in your case, former agent.”

  “They do. When you’re under consideration by the Bureau, they interview practically anyone that ever crossed paths with you. They talked to my family, but that was a long time ago. Karen was just a kid then and her name was still Burke. After she married and moved away, we lost touch. Until she called, I hadn’t seen her in years.”

  “Are you saying the Bureau doesn’t know about her?”

  “I’m saying they haven’t made the connection yet.” But they would, of course. It was only a matter of time, and now that Abby knew, it didn’t much matter. If she wasn’t willing to help him, Sam would be shut out of the investigation.

  “So you’ve never even met your own niece?”

  He could see the disbelief in Abby’s eyes, the mounting doubt about his character. In a small town, everyone knew everyone else. Turning your back on your family would be unthinkable. Leaving a kid to be raised by a man like Kenneth Burke would be unforgivable, and yet at the time, Sam hadn’t had a choice. At seventeen, he’d grown into a physical match for his father, but he hadn’t known how to control the rage. He’d had to leave…or risk doing something that could have ruined a lot of lives.

  “My family was complicated, to say the least,” he said. “But none of that’s important now. Saving Sara Beth is all that matters.”

  “That’s something we can agree on.” Abby glanced up at him. “Just one more question.”

  “What?”

  “Why did you resign from the FBI?”

  Sam thought about that for a moment, wondering how to explain. Wondering how much he should tell her. Abby was a cop, but she was young. She was just starting out, and his career was over. Would she be able to understand his loss of faith? His loss of hope for mankind?

  Would she understand that when you crawled around in a cesspool for years, some of the muck was bound to rub off on you?

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “You mean someplace where Agent Carter isn’t likely to see us?” Abby shrugged. “Sure. We can talk, but I don’t know what good it will do.”

  “Just hear me out. That’s all I ask.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” she said softly, suspiciously. “I wish I could believe that all you want from me is a conversation. But that’s not the case, is it, Sam?”

  Whether the use of his first name had been intentional or not, Sam had no idea. But it served to create a familiarity between them, an intimacy. It opened a door that Sam walked through with no small measure of trepidation.

  Chapter Seven

  Sam followed Abby to a little hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint in the area of town known as Mount Ida. The depressed neighborhood was a far cry from the one they’d just left, but Abby thought it unlikely they’d run into Special Agent Carter or anyone from the sheriff’s department there. Not many people outside of Mount Ida knew of Evie’s Sweet and Spicy Ribs, but the owner, Evie Mae Sweet—known to kinfolk and stranger alike as Mama Evie—had been a childhood friend of Abby’s grandmother. The two had been like sisters back when socializing between blacks and whites had sometimes produced dire consequences in Jefferson County.

  When she was little, Abby had sat enthralled at the feet of the two old women as they’d rocked on the front porch of Grandma Eulalia’s house, shelling peas and reminiscing about the hardships of growing up poor in rural Mississippi.

  Both Eulalia and Evie Mae had worked in the cotton fields for years, but with the advent of herbicides and the cotton-picker, the need for field hands had all but been eliminated. Eulalia had turned to dressmaking and Evie Mae had opened her rib joint, where people in the know could get the best pork barbecue in the county.

  In her seventies now, Evie Mae still opened and closed the place every day, but she’d finally allowed one of her grandsons to take over the cooking while a couple of her granddaughters waited tables. One of them, a pretty girl named Shani, seated Abby and Sam and placed plastic menus on the table before them.

  “Shani!” Evie Mae bellowed from behind the counter. Her dark skin, still amazingly unlined, gleamed like ebony in the heat. A woman of ample proportions, she wore a red bandanna tied around her gray hair and a spotless white apron tied around her neck. Waddling from behind the counter, she swatted her granddaughter’s backside with a dishtowel. “What you mean, givin’ Abigail a menu like she’s some kind of stranger comin’ in here? That girl knows what she w
ants. Always did.”

  As she lumbered toward the booth, Abby grinned and stood. “How are you, Mama Evie?”

  “Oh, fair to middlin’, I reckon. My rheumatism’s been acting up something terrible lately, and Doc Greene says I done got the arthritis in one of my legs.” She shifted her weight in the house slippers she always wore. “But I’m not complaining.”

  “Mama Evie, you’re always complaining about something,” Shani teased, then grinned and darted out of the way of her grandmother’s dishtowel.

  “I surely don’t know where that young’un gets that smart mouth from.” Evie Mae heaved a weary sigh, and Abby couldn’t help but smile. From the tales she’d heard on Grandma Eulalia’s front porch, Evie Mae Sweet had been a pistol in her day.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” she grumbled. “Get yourself over here and give me a hug.”

  Abby put her arms gently around the woman, who had seemed a bit frail lately, but Evie Mae would have none of that. She squeezed Abby as if she hadn’t seen her in years when, in fact, Abby had been in only last week.

  For a moment, Abby drank in the scent of line-dried cotton clothing tinged with the spices—the secret ingredients—Evie Mae put in her barbecue sauce. Underlying both was the flowery cologne she mixed and bottled herself. Chances were, she could probably have profited more from her potions and perfumes than from her barbecue, but Evie Mae swore her alchemy was just a sideline. She dabbled just enough to keep the old family recipes from becoming lost.

  After several long seconds, she pushed Abby away and held her at arms’ length. “Them dark circles under your eyes tell me you’re not getting enough sleep.” Her sly gaze stole to Sam, who had stood when she’d approached the table. “Don’t tell me you done got yourself a new man.”

  Abby felt herself blushing all the way to the roots of her hair, and she rarely blushed. Not after five years of the kind of bathroom humor that was rampant in the sheriff’s department. But she was blushing now. Furiously. “Mama Evie, I’d like you to meet Sam Burke. He’s consulting with me on a case.”

  “Consulting, huh?” She nodded toward his dark suit. “You a government man or an undertaker?” She left out the middle syllable in government, pronouncing it “govment.”

  “Actually, neither.”

  “Well, whatever you are, you gone smother in that suit less you’re careful.” Evie Mae put her hands on her hips and looked him up and down. “He looks a mite ragged around the edges, if you ask me, but nothing one of my potency potions won’t fix right up.” She winked at Abby, and then, seeing the look on Abby’s face, cackled with laughter.

  Abby didn’t think her face could get any hotter, but she felt as if flames must be dancing on her forehead. She wished the floor would open up and swallow her, but no such luck. When she glanced in Sam’s direction, he was smiling wryly, which only made things worse somehow.

  Finally, Evie Mae plodded off to see to their lunches and drinks, and Shani, grinning first at Abby and then at Sam, placed silverware and napkins before them. She leaned over and whispered to Abby, “Don’t pay Mama Evie any mind. All those potions have addled her brain, if you ask me.” She glanced over at Sam and giggled. “He looks like he’s got plenty of life left in him to me.” She was still giggling when she sauntered off.

  Abby propped her elbows on the table and put her face in her hands, trying to cool her heated cheeks. “Lord help me,” she muttered.

  “Friends of yours?” Sam asked.

  “More like family. Mama Evie has known me since I was born. She and my grandmother were best friends. I love her to death, but she does have a tendency toward…indiscretion.”

  “I think she’s great.”

  Abby couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. She glanced up, not wanting to find a smirk on his features. Not wanting to see the condescension in his eyes that she’d seen before in outsiders who’d spent some time in their town.

  “I mean it,” he said. “She’s quite a character.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  He leaned toward her suddenly, causing Abby’s breath to catch in her throat. “Tell me something, Abby.” The way he said her name…the way he stared at her so intently…

  Abby had to fight the urge to fan her face. Between Sam and Evie Mae, her blood pressure had risen to dangerous levels in the short time they’d been inside the restaurant.

  “Do you know everyone in town?” he asked.

  “Eden’s a small place. Everyone knows everyone. Plus, before I made detective, I used to be on patrol. You really get to know people that way.”

  “It’s more than that.” Sam studied her for a moment. “You have a rapport with these people.”

  “That’s because these people are my people,” she said a little defensively. “I’m one of them.”

  “Is that why you’ve never left Eden? I’ve seen you work. You’re a good investigator. You could go anywhere you wanted and get a job.”

  Even with the FBI? she wanted to ask him. “I’ve got a lot of reasons for staying in Eden. My family’s here, for one thing.”

  “Family’s important,” Sam conceded, but there was a flicker in his gray eyes Abby couldn’t quite discern.

  They chatted on for several minutes, until Shani brought out their plates—pork barbecue sandwiches with side orders of baked beans and potato salad. There was cole slaw as well, but instead of being served as a side, it was slathered on top of the pork as a condiment.

  After Shani had served the meals, Evie Mae brought over two frosty glasses of her special sun tea. Then she stood back and waited for them to eat.

  When Abby hesitated, she said, “Well, what you waiting for, girl? Eat up. You could use a little more meat on them skinny bones of yours.”

  Abby refrained from telling the older woman that she’d been trying for months to lose a few pounds, but it wouldn’t matter. Food was almost a religion to Evie Mae and waste a very grievous sin.

  Sam took a bite of his sandwich, paused, then took another bite. “Damn, that’s good.”

  Evie Mae beamed and gave him a wink. “I put a little something extra on there for you. You struck me right off as the kind of man who’d like it a little spicy.”

  Sam almost choked at the innuendo, and Abby wanted to sink under the table. Evie Mae always had a colorful way with words, but more so today than usual. For some reason, Sam brought out the devil in her.

  Abby eyed her plate for a moment, thought about all the miles she’d have to run to burn even a fraction of the calories, then shrugged. She’d never met a barbecue sandwich she didn’t like, and Evie Mae’s were particularly savory. Abby dug into the food with gusto.

  She and Sam ate in silence for several minutes, and then, appetite sated, Abby pushed back her plate and excused herself to go wash her hands. Evie Mae’s sandwiches were delectable, but messy. When she came back, she slid into her chair and folded her arms on the table.

  “Okay,” she said. “Where did we leave off earlier? Oh, yes. You were going to tell me why you resigned from the FBI.”

  Sam, finishing his sandwich, shrugged. “After twenty years, it was time for a change.”

  “Twenty years?” Abby hadn’t meant to sound so incredulous, but it just slipped out.

  Sam looked up and grimaced. “Yeah. I’m an old man, Abby. Past my prime.”

  He looks like he’s got plenty of life left in him to me.

  Abby secretly agreed with Shani’s assessment, although she had a feeling Sam still wasn’t telling her the truth. Not the whole of it anyway. Something other than the desire for a change had prompted him to leave the FBI.

  “And tell me again why I shouldn’t call Special Agent Carter and have him join us.”

  Sam pushed his plate aside and toyed with his glass. “It’s simple. I don’t want to be frozen out of this investigation. You, of all people, should understand that.”

  Abby did understand. She remembered all too well the frustration of being on the outside when Sad
ie had disappeared. Of knowing that she and Naomi were only getting the information the police wanted them to have. She understood, but she didn’t see how she could help him.

  “By letting Sheriff Mooney and me think you were the FBI agent assigned to this case, you gained access to information you weren’t entitled to,” she said in frustration. “You interfered with an ongoing investigation. That’s serious business, Sam.”

  “I know that, and I’m prepared to deal with the consequences. But right now, my only concern is finding Sara Beth. And Emily, too, if I can. Don’t shut me out of this, Abby.”

  She gave a helpless shrug. “It’s not up to me. And besides that, you’re already shut out. Why can’t you get that through your thick skull? You are no longer with the FBI. You’re retired, resigned, whatever. You can’t be privy to this investigation.” Abby pronounced the words slowly, succinctly, as if his problem was one of comprehension.

  His gaze on her darkened. “I could be, if you’d agree to help me.”

  “Help you, how?”

  He studied her for a moment, as if calculating his chances. “You could convince Sheriff Mooney to use me as a consultant on the case. Police departments use outside experts all the time.”

  She gave him a doubtful glance. “Not down here we don’t. We’re a small county with a very small budget. We don’t have funds for outside consultants.”

  “I’m volunteering my services.”

  Abby sighed. “You’re also too closely tied to this case. Karen Brodie is your sister.”