by Debby Giusti
“Which you already mentioned.”
“It bears repeating, Kelly. Anyone who happened by could have crawled inside this car and been lying in wait when you slid behind the wheel. Luckily, tonight it happened to be me instead of someone who wanted to do you harm.”
She sighed, knowing Phil was right. “I wasn’t using my head.”
“Exactly my point. But I’ll cut you a little slack. After all, you were probably hungry.”
“What?”
He reached into the backseat and pulled up a brown paper bag. “I brought Chinese.”
“Which I thought I smelled.” She jabbed his arm. “I told you not to buy me dinner.”
“At the time, we were talking about pizza. I decided lo mein and sweet-and-sour pork might be a nice change of pace.”
“Actually, I am hungry.” Kelly smiled as he handed her a container. The sweet mix of ginger and brown sugar made her mouth water.
They ate in relative silence, both of them enjoying the rich Asian cuisine. Once their empty containers had been shoved back in the bag, Kelly realized the temperature had dropped even more. She pulled her navy jacket around her waist.
“If you’re getting cold, I could turn on the heater.” She reached for the key in the ignition.
Phil grabbed her hand and pointed to the farmhouse.
Kelly followed his gaze and saw Lola standing on her back steps. Arms wrapped around her chest, she stared into the wooded area where the Toyota Corolla was parked.
“Do you think she sees us?” Kelly leaned closer to Phil.
“I don’t know how she could. From her angle, we’re hidden by the undergrowth.”
“Looks like she’s searching for something or someone.”
“With the temperature dropping, she’s not out there just for fresh air.”
Kelly shivered, and Phil’s arms wrapped around her. “You’ve been in the cold too long.” He pulled her closer. “And that jacket isn’t heavy enough.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
Lola stepped back inside, but Kelly didn’t move. She was enjoying the warmth of Phil’s arms and the sense of security they provided.
“Are you still convinced Lola is involved with something suspect?” His breath fanned Kelly’s cheek as he spoke.
“She isn’t acting like a grieving widow. In fact, she reminds me of a conniving gold digger or a small-time crook, with her raised eyebrows and attempts to keep her mother-in-law holed up in the back bedroom.”
Kelly told him about Catfish Ryan and his relationship to Mildred Taylor. “It’s a tie-in, Phil, which is what I’ve been looking for.”
“Are you sure you’re not transposing your grief for your mom onto Mildred?”
“Maybe,” Kelly admitted. “But if the geriatric clinic and Millie’s physician are being investigated by the Labor Department for Medicare fraud, the doctor might not be attentive to Mildred’s real medical needs. Oxycodone sells on the street for a good price.”
“And that plays into Corporal Taylor’s death?”
“Crime fosters crime. Make a bad decision concerning a little thing and it becomes easier to fudge on something bigger. If Catfish was involved in cockfights and Lola has four roosters in her backyard, we’ve got a connection.”
He rubbed his hand over her arm and let out a deep breath as he stared into the night. Finally, he said, “My father took money from the company he worked for to buy big-ticket items he never could have afforded otherwise. For a long time, I blamed myself.”
“You thought you were the reason he embezzled from his company?”
Phil nodded. “I thought I had asked for too much as a kid. Actually, my dad planted ideas in my mind for the things he planned to buy. When he came home with a television or new sound system—one time it was a sports car—I thought I had been the one who first asked for the items.”
“What about your mom?”
Phil’s fingers caressed Kelly’s cheek. “My aunt mentioned money had been tight and credit cards had been over-charged repeatedly. All issues that must have bothered my business-minded mother. Maybe she tired of my father’s life-of-the-party ideas.”
Gazing down at Kelly, Phil added, “He was big on letting the good times roll, the typical Cajun you talk about your father being, only, my dad lived that to the max.”
“How did he get caught?”
“By taking money that was earmarked for some new safety equipment. His company did office cleaning, which included external window washing. New scaffolding was needed, but my father said the old equipment had been upgraded. He got away with it until a crew was out on a particularly windy day.” Phil shook his head. “They were fifteen stories up. The scaffold broke and two men died in the fall.”
“Oh, Phil, I’m so sorry.”
“Everything came out. My dad had siphoned off funds from the company for years. Looking back, they found a number of safety issues that hadn’t been fixed, yet he had signed off on them. On paper the company looked compliant with all the new safety regulations, which wasn’t the case.”
“And your dad went to prison?”
Phil nodded. “My mother left him right after the accident. At that point, he was still claiming that every precaution had been in place.”
“She probably suspected the truth.”
“Or was just fed up with his lies. She transferred jobs to another state.”
“And left you with her sister?”
“My father’s sister.”
Kelly looked up into his eyes and saw the pain of his past and the guilt he had carried for his father’s actions.
“I always wanted a father who loved me,” she whispered. “A man I could look up to and admire. A guy who tried to do the right thing, even when times got tough.”
He nodded in agreement. “Yeah, me, too.”
“You’re that kind of guy, Phil.”
His eyes opened a bit wider, and she felt him stir. Then his lips quirked into a smile. “You think of me as a father?”
She laughed until the levity left his face, replaced with something so intense it took her breath. The defenses she had put in place long ago dropped, and all the warmth and love she wanted to be able to give to someone special welled up within her until she was overcome with a need to draw closer to Phil.
She wrapped her arm around his neck.
Her heart pounded in sync with his as he lowered his lips. The gentleness of his touch absorbed the last of her caution. All she could think of was how perfect it felt to be wrapped in Phil’s arms and to give herself totally to him.
Phil pulled Kelly closer, losing himself in the exquisite warmth of her embrace. Despite the warning that tried to surface, he took her lips again, feeling a sense of completeness as she molded into his arms.
He kissed her cheek, her neck and the edge of her ear and wove his fingers through her hair, which smelled like flowers and sunshine.
Phil opened his eyes to take in her beauty and saw movement on the floor below. His stomach lurched and his muscles went rigid.
Kelly pulled back ever so slightly. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t move,” he whispered through tight lips.
She started to shift, but his hold on her tightened. “I said don’t move.”
“Phil—” Turning her head slightly to follow his gaze, she gasped.
Something slithered out from under the driver’s seat. Even in the darkness, he recognized the red and yellow bands of the Eastern coral snake.
Kelly’s feet were dangerously close to the snake’s head, which would strike if provoked. With his right hand, Phil reached for the passenger door handle and eased it open.
“Don’t make any sudden movements. I’ll lift you as you edge your feet away from the floorboard.”
Kelly nodded almost imperceptibly.
She was tense in his arms. One wrong move and the snake would strike. Slowly, she pulled up her feet.
“Good job,” he whispered. Phil lifted her up and o
ver him until she was on the ground outside the car.
The snake curled the tip of its tail, a technique to confuse its prey.
Kelly tugged on Phil’s sleeve. “It’s ready to attack.”
Phil lunged out the door. He expected to feel the painful bite, but the snake struck the leather seat instead. Kelly gasped.
Phil pushed her away from the door. “Stand back.” As they watched, the snake slithered out the door and disappeared under a pile of fallen leaves.
“How did it get into my car?”
“Your door was ajar,” Phil reminded her. “Although I don’t think the snake crawled in on its own. Someone put it there, Kelly. Probably while you were watching the farmhouse.”
Her eyes opened a bit wider. Then she glanced into the darkness. “Kyle Foglio?”
“Or someone else who wants you out of the way.”
She turned toward the Taylor home. In the excitement over the snake, they had both failed to notice Lola standing on her back porch.
“I have a feeling she knows we’re out here,” Phil said. “She may know about the snake as well, if she talked Kyle Foglio into putting it in your car.”
“But why?”
Phil watched Kelly’s expression change as she realized the answer to her own question. “Lola Taylor wants me dead.”
SEVENTEEN
“I don’t think you should stay here alone,” Phil said once they were back at Kelly’s house.
She shook her head. “I’m not going to be scared off my own property.”
“Then call the police, Kelly.”
She raised her hands. “And what would I tell them? That I was snooping around where I shouldn’t have been, and a snake slithered into my car? I don’t have evidence that Lola Taylor or Kyle Foglio had anything to do with the snake.”
“Yet you thought they were both involved when you saw Lola on her back steps.”
Kelly nodded. “It’s hard to believe she didn’t know we were out there.”
“And if she’s somehow tied in with Kyle Foglio—”
“Okay.” Kelly shrugged. “She could be paying him to do her dirty work.”
“Which makes sense. She wants to scare you off so she has Kyle leave the cut piece of rope and the possum.”
“But the garage door opened that first night before she would have ever suspected I could cause problems.”
“The kid saw you follow him. He wanted to scare you. Once Lola found out you were snooping around, she might have encouraged Kyle to push you a little harder. He may have been the one firing the rifle, as well.”
Kelly raked her hand through her hair and shook her head. “We don’t have evidence to substantiate any of this, Phil. It’s pure conjecture, which wouldn’t hold up with the local cops, or in a court of law.”
“So we need to keep an eye on Lola to see if she tips her hand. Monday’s the funeral. Surely, she won’t be going anyplace until after that’s over.”
“The post Hail and Farewell is tomorrow night. Wilson wants to tell the general that I’ll have my investigation completed on Saturday.”
“Have you come to a conclusion yet about the incident?”
“Not yet.”
“What about Stanley?”
She didn’t want to be pushed, especially after what had happened in the car. She was still reeling from Phil’s kisses. Kelly needed space to clear her mind and allow her emotions to get back on an even keel.
“I don’t think we should even be talking about the decision at this point, Phil.”
He raised his brow. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning I don’t want you to influence my decision.”
He bristled. “Is that what you think I was doing in the car?”
“You mean when you were kissing me?”
He nodded.
“I…” She couldn’t let him know how much she had wanted him to kiss her. Now she realized her mistake. Phil was the type of guy who played with women’s hearts. He turned on the Cajun charm when he needed something, and right now, Phil needed a good decision on the investigation. He had almost said as much.
No wonder he had come on to Kelly in the car. His actions had nothing to do with the way he felt. He’d seen her need and played into it, kissing her repeatedly until she couldn’t think straight and was ready to give him her heart.
Just as her mother had done with her dad. Just as Kelly had tried to do each time her father had come back into her life as a child.
Her father hadn’t wanted her love. That had become blatantly clear the night he had broken into their house high on drugs. She had blocked out so much about what had happened, but she could never forget the vicious names he’d called her mother, and her as well, which proved he was a crazed lunatic who had to be stopped.
No, Kelly wouldn’t let her attraction to Captain Jean Philippe Thibodeaux cause her to make another mistake.
“Go home, Phil. You’ve done enough tonight.”
“What?”
“I don’t need you to protect me. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but—”
“No buts. It’s late and we both have a full day of work tomorrow.”
Pain sliced across his face, and she realized her words had been too caustic, but she couldn’t take them back. If she did, she might throw herself into his arms again and never stop kissing him.
People often said she was her mother’s daughter because of the similarity of their looks, but the resemblance ended on the surface. Kelly had learned long ago to steel her heart, which is exactly what she had to do with Phil. Better to close him out of her life now than to let him break her heart later.
Without another word, he turned on his heels and stormed out of her house. The door slammed behind him. She pulled back the edge of the living room curtain, seeing the one working taillight disappear into the distance, leaving her totally alone with only the memory of his kisses, a memory she’d never be able to forget no matter how much she tried to cut him out of her life.
Phil pressed down on the accelerator and went from zero to sixty in the amount of time it took to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming.
He should have known Kelly wasn’t any different than his mother. Both women were focused on their jobs. The military came first. Hadn’t Kelly implied that very thing the other night? Only he’d been too smitten to realize what it meant for him.
Tonight, there had been no skirting the issue. She didn’t want anything to do with him. Yet she’d seemed interested when they’d been together in her car. Truth be told, he had been more than interested.
The moment their lips had met, he’d felt a sense of completeness sweep over him, as if all the pain in his past had been wiped away. Something inside him had soared, and for the first time, he felt free to be the man he wanted to be. The fear of failure that always hovered over him had disappeared with Kelly in his arms. He felt ten feet tall and strong enough to slay a fire-eating dragon if need be, to prove his love for Kelly.
Then the snake had changed that emotionally charged moment. Ironic that a snake had tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden. They had followed the deceiver and disobeyed the Lord, which meant they had to leave the Garden.
Phil had cut the Lord out of his life long ago. Instead of turning to God for answers, Phil had believed the Almighty had allowed his father to fail. Living with Aunt Eleanor had softened his heart, but he had never been able to accept the Lord’s forgiveness and redemption.
Now his eyes were open to the truth, and he saw his dad as a flawed sinner who had made terrible mistakes. Phil was young at the time. He wasn’t to blame for his dad’s actions no matter how many things he had begged for as a kid. His father was the adult and should have made good decisions on his son’s behalf.
And Phil’s mother? Maybe she got tired of her husband never being satisfied with what he had. Eleanor said his mom had left with a mountain of debt piled high on her shoulders from his dad’s overspending ways. She ha
d probably known she couldn’t care for her child financially. Yes, she had made a mistake leaving Phil, but now he saw her as a woman who needed help instead of a woman he had tried to hate for so long.
“Forgive her, Father,” he prayed.
Kelly’s face floated through his mind, and he saw with clarity the barriers she had placed around her heart. She had been hurt so much by her Cajun dad that she was overly cautious when it came to men. He shook his head and lowered his speed, feeling his frustration start to ebb along with a new realization of why she had lashed out at him tonight.
If actions meant anything, she did have feelings for him. The way she had kissed him proved it. He wouldn’t allow words spoken in haste, no matter how cutting, to change his feelings for her.
Tomorrow, he would try to convince Kelly that she needed to work through whatever had happened with her father.
Please, Lord, let me be able to convince her that she needs to be free of her past in order to live more fully in the moment. Only then will she be able to embrace the future.
More than anything, Phil hoped Kelly’s future would include him.
Kelly was tied up most of the next day with meetings at CID headquarters that had nothing to do with the live-fire investigation. In a spare moment, she called Officer Simpson to see if he or the other officers had found anyone near the trailer the day before.
“Not a soul, but hunters wander back there all the time.”
Kelly didn’t believe a hunter had fired the shots. “Do you have any more information about Catfish Ryan?”
“I was just fixin’ to call you about that.”
“Oh?”
“Talking about Catfish and that property of his got me wondering. I stopped by the county land bureau and had a little chat with a clerk I know.”
“What did you find out?”
“Catfish doesn’t own the land.”
“So who does?”
“Turns out the clerk’s aunt went to high school with Catfish. According to her, he was a shiftless kid who got into trouble. His parents weren’t particularly interested in leaving their farm to him.”
