Shameless (The Contemporary Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  All she had inside her now was a deathly fear for Reid, plus a strong need to slow what was happening until she decided what she would do next.

  “Why?” she said, bringing her other hand up to steady the pistol that was trembling in her grasp. “Why are you trying to kill me?”

  “Don't be stupid.”

  “It's simple,” Reid answered for him. “His wife is your closest relative. She is also your legal heir, according to the forced heirship laws of the state, since you canceled your portion of the mutual will you had with Keith. It makes no difference whether you hold title to the mill land plus a portion of the operation, or only Keith's share of Sayers-Hutton alone; either way, he stands to gain control of a sizable chunk since his wife is under his thumb. Though it wouldn't surprise me to learn your aunt Sara is scheduled for a nice little accident as soon as you're out of the way.”

  “But what about you?” she said. “Why try to kill me here, where you are, when it would have been so much easier somewhere else?”

  “Shall I tell her,” Reid said to Taggart in jibing tones.

  “Why not? You haven't done half bad so far.”

  Reid dipped his head in grim acknowledgment. “I think,” he said, not taking his eyes from the other man, “that I'm cast as the scapegoat. I imagine our bodies are supposed to be found in the classic murder-suicide position — everyone knowing how I killed Keith and was trapped in a sordid and hopeless affair with you. That the sale of the mill will proceed more smoothly with me out of the way is a plus.”

  “You killed—” she began, then stopped. “No. You couldn't have.”

  “No,” Reid agreed in soft satisfaction for her conclusion. “I think Keith's mistake was maybe trying to borrow money from your uncle here — as well as from a mob-controlled finance company. That and muscling in on the preacher's fun with the choir girl.”

  Cammie saw what Reid was doing. He was killing time, talking long enough — enough for what? To let her nerves settle? To give himself an opening? Or was he waiting for whoever would come in answer to his message? The least she could do was help him.

  “Choir girl?” she asked.

  “Evie, as if you didn't know,” her uncle answered in scathing tones. “My God, even Sayers heard the rumors. And don't forget I saw her at your house, the two of you with your heads together, whispering about me. Why you would listen to such a little tramp instead of your own uncle—”

  “You,” she whispered. “You're the one who hounded her when she walked out on you, the man who kept trying to get her back.”

  “She was the only exciting thing that ever happened to me. I did everything I could think of to have her, even trying to get you to give Keith another chance so he would drop her and I could step in. That smartass husband of yours figured it out at the reunion, had me meet him in the game reserve. He wanted a loan, and as collateral he could deliver Evie on a platter. Bastard. But he fixed himself by mouthing off about the wills, his and yours. It all came clear while he sat there sneering at me.”

  “Money and jealous rage,” Reid said softly, “a lethal combination.”

  “It was so simple. Kill Keith, Cammie inherits. Kill Cammie, and Sara gets the money.”

  “Kill Aunt Sara,” Cammie said in appalled comprehension, “and you have it all. In the meantime, Evie is alone and broke, and when everything is over—”

  “I'll be there to comfort her and take care of her, and there will be all that money from the mill sale to make her come around.”

  “How can you be sure she will? When you won't lift a finger to help her right now?”

  “It's too soon,” the reverend said with rough anger in his voice. “I can't afford to set the old cats squalling about me and her again like they did last year. I've got them going my way, smacking their gums over you and Sayers and all that old rot I fed them about Justin and Lavinia. They do love a sex scandal, the juicier the better.”

  “But wait,” she said in frowning thought. “It was you sneaking around the house at night; I know it was, because I saw you. And that was before Keith was killed.”

  “Me and Sayers. I could have laughed myself silly, watching him moon around. He thought he was the only one with any skill at stalking. He didn't know I was infiltrating enemy lines before he was dry behind the ears. Why, he never knew I was there.”

  “Wrong,” Reid said. “My mistake was in thinking you were a dirty old man. About the time I decided you needed a lesson in manners, you stopped.”

  The other man scowled. “I had to know whether that husband of hers was coming around at first, to see if they were getting it together. Later, it seemed a good idea to keep tabs on when she went to bed. And maybe who with.”

  “Which was about the time you picked me out as the fall guy,” Reid said in soft suggestion.

  “You had it coming. It was your fault the Baylor girl disappeared. She came to me all in a quiver, asking me as her pastor what was the right thing to do about what she found. I told her to sit tight, but you helped her run out on me, and that cut the amount Camilla might have inherited. You didn't want my niece having the whole show any more than Keith or Gordon Hutton, did you Sayers? You're just as dirty as the rest of us.”

  “That's true,” Reid said, his voice even.

  Cammie wanted to turn and force Reid to meet her gaze so she could judge for herself what he meant. She couldn't; she had to watch her uncle. The strain in her arms, and in her mind, was becoming unbearable. The fine trembling that shook her was almost a rigor. She had to do something. Soon.

  Her uncle laughed, his gaze on Reid. “I'm sure the Lord will forgive me for killing a sinner like you, then. Your soul is black, Hell is waiting for you, and I am only an instrument of His will. If He wants to save you, He can. Would you like to pray for a miracle before you go?”

  “Don't,” Cammie said, her voice taut with warning.

  “Camilla — Cammie, honey,” her uncle said, smiling at her. “I'm the man who used to hold you on my lap and feed you pecan pie off my plate. I'm the man who used to hide you behind me so your mother wouldn't spank you. I'm the one who stood by you when your mother and father died, and who let you cry on my shoulder. You know you're not going to shoot me.”

  “I will.” She cocked the pistol with her thumb to show him.

  “Put that toy away now, that's a good girl.”

  “It's Reid's life or yours, mine or yours. It isn't much of a choice,” she said with what had the sound of a plea even to her ears.

  “Cammie,” Reid said in words barely above a whisper. “If you back slowly this way, I'll take the gun.”

  Did he mean to push the issue? Or was it only an effort to relieve the strain she was under, to take responsibility himself? In fractions of a second the questions and options went through her mind. She could do as he suggested, but if he shot her uncle, who would believe it could not have been avoided? It was different for her. If she killed him, Bud would believe she had no choice. Was this the way it had been for Lavinia and her Justin?

  “I wouldn't try that,” the Reverend Taggart said. There was sudden finality in his voice. He brought the rifle up a fraction, centering it on Reid's chest. The muscles of his face and mouth tightened. They set.

  It was all the warning she had. There was no more time to talk, no more time to decide.

  Cammie felt a great calm settle over her. It stilled fear, soothed anger, dissolved doubt. She aimed for the full body and squeezed the trigger with care. She didn't close her eyes.

  The report was hard, loud. The pistol recoiled in her palm with a stinging blow, jerking her arm upward. Her uncle was thrown, sprawling in an ungainly huddle.

  But the rifle he held went off with a thunderous discharge. The flame reached out in the darkness toward Reid. He was flung backward, turning with the pale glow of lightning gleaming in his hair. His face was blank, his eyes wide with shock and acceptance. He fell full-length and lay still.

  And in the distance, beyond the sound o
f spattering rain, there came the steady beat of a helicopter's rotor blades cutting a path toward the Fort.

  22

  “NO. PLEASE, NO—”

  The words were no more than a whisper. Cammie dropped the pistol she held as suffocating horror welled inside her. She stumbled toward Reid, falling to her knees beside him. With shaking hands she searched his chest, his abdomen, for the wetness of a wound. She could find none, though his jacket was torn and charred.

  Leaning closer, she placed her fingers on either side of his face, molding the angles and planes with trembling, caressing fingers. She turned his features gently toward the faint light shining over her shoulder from the computer screen in the study. They were pale, lax. There was no sign of injury.

  His chest lifted in a harsh, difficult breath. His face contorted, lips parting as he gulped more air. His eyes opened with an almost audible snap. For long seconds he gazed into her face, which hovered so close, searching her tear-glazed eyes and the loving compassion and lingering terror mirrored there.

  With a sudden wrench of iron muscles, he pulled away from her, dragging himself to a seated position against the wall behind him. “Save your pity,” he said in striated tones. “I only had the — breath knocked — out of me. The jacket—”

  “Bullet-proof?” Cammie guessed as he stopped to breathe. She had felt the stiffness, the heaviness of it.

  He gave a nod. “Lucky thing I turned — as he got me. Might not have taken — direct hit.”

  There was not much luck in it, Cammie knew. She had seen the moment when Reid moved, knew he had tried to judge the shot. She knew, too, from the look on his face, that it had been a last-ditch effort, the most he could or would do to preserve his own life while hers was hanging in the balance.

  That knowledge gave her a sense of power. She prayed it was not misplaced.

  There was no time for further discussion. The sound of a siren, coming fast, was nearly drowned by the air-whipping chop of the helicopter. The screeching died away out on the drive. Immediately, there came deep-throated shouts. Through the open door she could see men in uniforms and raincoats approaching the house. They ran through silver arrows of rain and into the bright white spotlight of the hovering helicopter, waving it in.

  She got to her feet, pushing at her hair, which blew around her face. The glaring light outside sent a shaft of illumination down the hallway. In it she could see her uncle's limp form with the red stain spreading from a dark hole in his chest, see the opaque stare of his open eyes. She thought, in a dazed way, that she should see to him, be certain he no longer lived, but she dreaded going near him; she felt an unreasonable fear that he would suddenly revive and threaten them again.

  Reid, following her glance, pushed to his feet with slow care. He stepped to the fallen man and leaned over him. He pressed long fingers against the pulse point in his neck, then looked at Cammie with a shake of his head. Reaching down, he picked up the rifle that had fallen across the Reverend Jack Taggart's throat.

  “Hold it right there! Don't move a muscle!”

  The shout came from the doorway. An instant later the hall was filled with men. Reid was caught in the beam of a powerful flashlight, held under the cover of a half-dozen guns.

  He went still, holding his crouch. Not even an eyelash flickered.

  “Drop the rifle!”

  “No,” Cammie cried, moving toward the men.

  “It's all right, ma'am. Just stay back out of the way.” The man wore the uniform of the state police. He barely glanced at her as he spoke.

  “Never mind, Cammie,” Reid said. “I can handle it.”

  He meant to take what she had done on his own shoulders, to shield her from the consequences of having killed a man. It was barely possible, since he had sent the message that had brought the authorities, that he would get away with it. It would be, for him, only one more among many.

  But it wasn't fair, and it wasn't right.

  Pushing through the men in the hall came a burly form that Cammie recognized. She stepped toward him, catching his arm with urgent hands. “Bud,” she said, her voice steady and perfectly clear, “make them stop. I shot him. I killed my uncle.”

  Bud gave her a keen look. He stared at the man on the floor, and at Reid standing over him. Releasing himself from Cammie's hold, he strode toward Reid, taking a handkerchief from his pocket. Relieving Reid of the rifle with the protective cloth, he turned toward the others.

  “Relax, boys,” he said in bluff assurance, “there's more here than meets the eye. Let's get some light in here, then these two can tell us all about it.”

  The statements took some time; there was so much to tell, so many details to explain.

  A few things were left out, some by Cammie, some by Reid, and a few by both in silent and mutual agreement. If Bud noticed, and it was highly likely that he did, he said nothing. The questions he asked were shrewd, showing a good grasp of the situation and the preceding events. He was even able to add a little here and there due to his own official and semi-official inquiries.

  It had begun with the prospective sale of the mill. Reid's father, in going over the books to be sure everything was in order, had discovered the discrepancy in Keith's department. The stress had helped trigger the heart attack that killed him. Before his death he had placed the call to his son that had brought Reid home. However, he died before he could provide a full explanation of the problems at the mill.

  Keith had either been confronted with his theft by Reid's father or else realized an audit of the books made necessary by the sale agreement would disclose it. He had borrowed right and left to make up the shortfall, but it had not been enough. With the usual gambler's confidence, he tried to multiply the borrowed cash on the gaming tables. He'd wound up in deeper trouble.

  The results of the title search, which made it likely Cammie would prove to be a wealthy woman from the sale of the mill, had encouraged Keith to return to her. He was certain he could sweet-talk her into taking him back, then handing over the money to fix all his troubles.

  Cammie gave Keith more trouble than he'd expected. Gordon, misunderstanding his brother's motives, had encouraged Keith to rough measures to stop the divorce. Cammie's husband had been willing enough to use them. It took Reid's intervention to convince Keith to look for another way out.

  However, it had been a major error in judgment to tap Reverend Jack Taggart for a loan.

  As they reached that point in the inquiry, a small silence fell. Sheriff Bud Deerfield frowned in Reid's direction. “This deal with the Baylor girl — it was you seen hustling her out of town?”

  “Not one of my more successful operations,” Reid said with a grim indentation at the corner of his mouth. “It slipped my mind how many eyes and ears small towns can sprout. But it seemed too many people might be dangerously interested in what Janet had discovered. I had her meet me in Monroe, then drove her across the state line to Little Rock. From there, I gave her a plane ticket along with instructions for enough hub changes to wipe out the trail. She's been enjoying a beach condo in Florida, one managed by an army buddy, ever since.”

  Bud grunted. “You might have told me what you were up to and saved a lot of trouble.”

  “I had in mind to do that, until Keith died,” Reid answered, returning the other man's gaze with a steady look. “His killing — the clean shot, the stolen weapon — had all the earmarks of a professional job. There were three possibilities that I could see: organized crime, the military, or—”

  “Or the police? I see what you're getting at,” the other man said. “But what was my reason supposed to be?”

  “Keith was making noises about your family history that could be embarrassing in the next election. Plus, he was giving Cammie a hard time, and it seemed a warning about it might have gotten out of hand. If you add that it wouldn't be the first time somebody involved with gambling and embezzlement had a hammerlock on the police—”

  “One that needed breaking? Makes sense,
in a screwy kind of way. Not that there's anything to it, mind.”

  Reid gave a slow nod of agreement. The two men seemed to understand each other very well.

  “Right,” Bud said, gathering up the papers spread out over the kitchen table. “Looks like a cut-and-dried case of justifiable homicide to me, and I expect the D.A. will see it the same way. I think the boys are about ready to wind things up out in the hall. Must be about time we got out of here, let you two get on with your rat killing.”

  It was not the best euphemism for that moment, as natural as it had been. Bud seemed to realize it. He ducked his head, wincing, before he opened his mouth as if to mend matters. He was saved by the shrill ring of the cellular phone from Reid's office.

  “That'll be Charles,” Reid said. “I'll go let him know the cavalry came in time, if that's all right with you.”

  The sheriff lifted a hand in a dismissive wave. Reid strode from the kitchen. After a moment they heard the low murmur of his voice followed by the pauses of phone conversation.

  “Well, Cammie,” Bud said, tucking his notebook under his arm, “all I can say is that I'm mighty sorry about all this.”

  She tried for a smile that didn't quite come off. “There isn't anything you could have done, or anyone else for that matter.”

  “I suppose I'd better go break the news to your aunt. It's not a job I'm looking forward to, I can tell you.”

  “Aunt Sara is stronger than you might imagine,” Cammie said. “I'll come with you, though, in case she needs somebody to stay with her.”

  Bud pursed his mouth, looking at her from under his brows. “I don't think that would be such a good idea, now. I mean, do you? Considering the circumstances?”

  It was a moment before Cammie, in her concern for her mother's sister, realized what he meant. For all Aunt Sara's affection for her niece, she might not want to be comforted in her grief by the person who had killed her husband.

  “Oh. Yes. I suppose you're right.”