by Janet Dailey
“But if you’re innocent-“
“If.” He paused and expelled a fragment of a humorless laugh. “See? Even you don’t believe me. My own daughter, and you think I killed that guy.”
Kelly wanted to believe him, but that meant trusting him, something that had never brought her anything but pain and heartache.
She released a long tired breath and said, “Then answer some questions for me.”
“What kind of questions?” There wasn’t any trust in the look he gave her either.
“You said that night you went to Rutledge Estate to get in the cellars and ruin the wine.” Kelly curled her fingers over the cup, the steam rising to heat her palm as she idly turned the cup by degrees. “If you wanted to get into the cellars, what were you doing by the corner of the winery building?”
“I heard voices, people talking. I knew there was a party going on up at the house. I got worried that maybe it was shifting down there, that she was planning to take them through the cellars and show off her wines. I thought I’d better check it out. Wait until later if I had to.”
That made sense, Kelly conceded, a little reluctantly. “When you went to check, what did you see?”
“Nothing. At least not until I saw that guy stagger into view and crumple to the ground.”
“You never told me that before.” The rain had picked up again, becoming a steady patter on the roof. “You said the body was already lying there.”
“It was lying there when I got to it,” he insisted with a touch of indignation.
Semantics, Kelly thought. Only politicians and bureaucrats were supposed to twist such fine points to their benefit. “Okay.” She pulled in another breath and pushed on. “What did you see before that?”
“Nothing. I told you that. All I heard were voices, some people talking, arguing.”
“About what?”
He blew on his coffee and took another drink of it. “I don’t know. I couldn’t make out what they were saying.” He frowned, becoming irritated by her questions. “I probably wouldn’t remember anyway. I’d been drinking. And it was the first time in more than two weeks. You don’t have to believe me. Just look at the cupboards,” he challenged. “You won’t find any bottles stashed away.”
“The voices you heard, how many were there? Two, three, four? More than that?”
“For chrissake, how do you expect me to remember?” He got up in a huff and stalked over to the counter to refill his cup and add more sugar.
“Try.”
He was a long time answering. “Two. Maybe three. I’m not sure.”
“The voices, were they male? Female? Or both.”
“One was definitely a man’s, wasn’t it?” He snickered a little that he’d been clever enough to remember the victim had been male.
“What about the other one? Or ones?”
“I don’t know.” He poked his head in the refrigerator, looking for something else to eat, then raided a can of peaches from the cupboard. “The one talking loud, like he was mad or upset, it was definitely a man’s voice.” He rattled through a utensil drawer and came up with a can opener. “I think I figured they were men, but...I’m not sure now. It’s all fuzzy. One, of them could have been a woman, I guess.”
Which could be the truth, or a convenient way to try to convince her someone else had been there. Kelly rubbed her fingers across her forehead. She had no idea how long this headache had been building, but it was a steady, pounding pressure now.
“When you reached the body, did you see anyone else around?
With a fork from the silverware drawer, her father walked back to the table and began spearing out peach slices. “Just the great Katherine Rutledge herself, looking at me like I was some kind of vermin.” He washed down a mouthful of peach with hot, sweet coffee. “Who’s to say she isn’t the one that knocked the guy off?”
The suggestion was ludicrous. Katherine was a formidable woman, even at ninety, but she had neither the size nor strength to hit a man, nearly a foot taller than she was, over the head with enough power in the blow to kill him.
“And you didn’t see, or hear anything before that?”
“Not that I remember.” He jabbed the fork into another slick peach slice.
“No footsteps?” Kelly persisted. “No sound of someone running, or anything like that?”
“How many times do I have to tell you it isn’t clear to me?” he said, half in anger and half in frustration. “Maybe you want me to lie and say I did hear something? Don’t you think I want to? Don’t you think I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out some way to make somebody believe me? Hell, I’m smart enough to know that if I get caught in one lie, one lie, nobody will believe anything else I say about that night.”
The rain lashed at the windowpanes while the silence between them thickened. Kelly had run out of questions and she was still trying to decide whether she believed any of his answers. She watched him drink down the juice in the can. His coffee cup was already empty.
He got up, saying, “I have to get some food together.” He took a plastic garbage bag from the box under the sink, stuffed a couple of extras into it, then began emptying the cupboard shelves of their canned goods. “Bring me a couple pairs of pants and shirts to take with me.”
“Where will you go?” The police were searching everywhere. There was no safe place that he could hide. Not for long. “Where will you be?”
“Why? So you can sic the law on me?” he jeered, like the father she remembered rather than the stranger who’d sat at the table with her. She opened her mouth to deny his accusation, then closed it, realizing that of course she would report it. He must have read it in her face. “I knew those Rutledges would turn you against me.”
“Will you stop going on about the Rutledges!” Angrily Kelly pushed out of her chair, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “You always try to find someone to blame for your problems. But no one got you into this mess but yourself. And if I don’t believe what you tell me, it’s because you have lied to me too many times in the past, and broken too many promises. You. Not the Rutledges.”
He dropped his gaze and looked away, mumbling, “I’ll get my own clothes.”
A low rumble made itself heard above the sound of the rain. Kelly thought it was thunder, but the pitch of it stayed steady, only the volume of it increased. With a start, Kelly realized it wasn’t thunder; it was an engine.
“I think someone’s coming,” She breathed the warning to her father and dashed into the living room in time to see a pair of headlight beams slash a path through the falling rain.
She crossed to the front door she had left standing open. A vehicle was easing to a stop next to her rental car. For an instant, she was blinded by the headlights. The back door slammed with a bang as the headlights went off. There was silence except for the sound of falling rain.
Kelly waited for a car door to open, an interior light to come on and show whether the driver wore a uniform.
The darkness revealed the vehicle’s black, square shape. It was a Jeep. Sam’s Jeep. Some of the tension flowed out of her, then came right back. Bareheaded, he ran through the rain and the puddling water to the front steps. Kelly backed away from the door to let him in.
He stopped just inside the living room and shook the excess water off his hands and arms, his glance slicing over her with more than a touch of impatience and irritation. “You could have told someone where you were going.”
“It didn’t occur to me,” Kelly admitted, then wondered, “How did you know I’d be here?”
“I didn’t. It was just the first place I could think of to look.” His hands shifted to his hips as his chest lifted in a deep breath that was released in a weary sound. “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing back here?”
“Cleaning up.” She should tell him about her father, that he�
�d been there, that she had talked to him, yet the words wouldn’t come. It was as if they were choked off by some crazy, misplaced sense of loyalty. “One of the stations did a segment on the house in their, newscast tonight. They had a camera crew out here. They came inside.... The place looked like a pigsty.” She glanced at the living room. It was shabby still, but an improvement over what it had been. “I didn’t want some other crew coming out here and seeing it like that.”
“They won’t. I’ll post a guard here to make certain it doesn’t happen again. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it before,” he said, a gentleness back in his voice. “So? Are you ready to go?”
“I still need to dust and mop.”
“I’ll send someone over tomorrow to clean the place for you.” His hand moved onto her shoulder, turning her into the room while he waved his other hand at the chair. “Go on. Get your raincoat. I’ll turn off the lights in the kitchen.”
Almost too late, Kelly remembered the coffee cups and cereal box on the table. “No, I’ll do it.” Guilt over her previous silence regarding her father had her breaking into a quick, running step toward the kitchen.
Sam trailed after her. Kelly reached the kitchen first, but not in time to bide the evidence that someone had been there with her. With a puzzled look, he glanced at the cups she shoved into the sink.
“Who was here?” Then his eyes narrowed in sharp suspicion. “Your father?”
She breathed in, then nodded. “Yes.”
“When? How long ago?”
“He went out the back door when you drove in.”
Sam broke off a muffled curse and charged to the door, yanking it open. But her father was long gone. He closed the door with a rough push of his hand and wheeled around to glare at Kelly. “Why the hell didn’t you keep him here?” he muttered, shoving chairs out of his way as he cut across the kitchen back to the living room.
“What was I supposed to do?” she shot back and jerked the cord to the coffeepot, unplugging it from the wall socket. “Tackle him and hold him down until you came in? I didn’t even know it was you. I didn’t know who drove up.”
Kelly followed him into the living room and watched as he picked up the black telephone on the table next to her father’s chair. It was an old, rotary-dial phone. Kelly knew it didn’t work, but she let Sam find it out for himself. When he didn’t get a dial tone, he dropped the receiver back in its cradle and turned to her.
“This has to be, reported, Kelly.”
She had never seen so much hardness in his face, his eyes, his jaw, his whole body. “I know.”
Moving with a swift economy of motion, he grabbed her raincoat off the chair back and shoved it into her hands, then took her arm in a viselike grip and steered her to the front door. She bundled the coat against her, not putting it on when they walked outside. The fast falling rain was cool on her hot face and his fingers were tight on her arm.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was there?” The question sounded like it had been forced from him as he continued to look straight ahead, not at her.
“I didn’t know how.” Her voice was small, like she felt. But she wasn’t a child anymore; she was an adult.
“You didn’t know how? When you saw it was me, all you had to do was call out that he’d run out the back door. I might have been able to catch him.” He released her and opened the driver’s-side door to her car, holding it for her, his gaze fastening on her again. “I thought you wanted him caught. I thought you wanted this to be over.”
“I do.” She faced him, the rain failing in sheets between them, running down his face and hers.
“Then why didn’t you say something? Did you think you could keep it a secret?”
“Of course not!”
“Where was he going?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Did you see which way he went?”
“No. I went to see who drove in. Then I heard the back door shut.”
“What did he tell you, Kelly? The police will want to know.”
Her chin started to quiver. Kelly tipped her head down to conceal it, conscious of the rain dripping off the end of her nose. “He told me he hadn’t been much of a father. He told me he didn’t do it, that he didn’t kill Baron Fougere, that somebody else was there.”
“And you believed that?” The cynicism, the mockery in his voice, spun her away. “Have you forgotten what he did to you? What he cost you?”
“No, I haven’t. And I never will.”
She slid behind the wheel and jerked the car door out of his grasp. The engine growled to life at her first hurried turn of the ignition key. She had a glimpse of Sam as he climbed into his Jeep. Then her headlights cut a bright track through the falling rain, showing her the narrow rutted lane.
Tears mingled with the leftover rain on her cheeks. She wiped at the wetness and drove faster than she should. She wasn’t even sure what she was running from this time: the past or the present.
Chapter Twenty
Soaked to the skin, Kelly ran into the house straight to the stairs. She was halfway up them when the front door opened. She glanced back as Sam walked in, a cellular phone in his hand.
“Kelly, wait.” But the sharpness in his voice just quickened her steps.
Sam went after her, taking the steps two at a time. He reached her room just as the door was about to swing shut. His hand shot out and caught it, then shoved it inward. Kelly backed away from the door when Sam walked in. He took one more step toward her, then saw the flicker of fear in her eyes. It brought him up short. He was angry. More like furious. Sam tossed the phone on a chair cushion and clamped down on his temper.
“We need to talk, Kelly,” he said, making his voice as level as he could. There was a good five feet between them, but he made no move to shorten the distance.
“Not now. I’m wet and cold. I need to change into dry clothes. So do you.” Her arms were crossed in front of her, her hands gripping her shoulders, but the gesture seemed more protective than warming.
“Yes, now,” Sam stated. “I left you alone last night. I’m not going to do it again.”
“What is it you want? An apology? Okay, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you he was there. I don’t know why I didn’t. I was confused, all right? I can’t explain.” She half turned away, plainly agitated. “I can’t even explain it to myself.”
“Then he didn’t hurt you, or threaten you.”
“No.” Kelly shook her head, then threw it back to stare at the ceiling, pressing her lips tightly together for an instant. “We talked. Argued, really. I tried to convince him to surrender to the police, but it was a waste of breath.” She brought her head down and sighed heavily. “He kept swearing he was innocent, that he wasn’t going to prison for something he didn’t do.” She stopped, swinging her face toward him and shooting him an angry look. “And don’t ask whether I believe him or not. I know better than you all the lies he’s told. It’s just...a part of me keeps thinking, What if he’s like the little boy who cried wolf? What if this time he’s really telling the truth?”
“Kelly.” He took a step toward her.
Immediately, she swung away. “My God, why am I telling you all this? It has nothing to do with you. Nothing at all.”
“I think it does.”
She whirled around, moisture shining in her eyes, making them overly bright. “Will you stop it? Will you just stop it, Sam? I don’t need your pity. I don’t need you or anyone else feeling sorry for me.”
Her anger touched a spark to his own temper. “For your information, I don’t feel sorry for you. Dammit, Kelly, I care!”
“Why should you?” she demanded, unconvinced.
Sam studied her grimly. “Did it ever occur to you that it was possible I’ve fallen in love with you?” A look of shock flashed in her eyes. She retreated a step, the color draining from her face. �
��I can see the possibility just thrills the hell out of you,” he muttered.
“You can’t possibly know what you feel. We haven’t known each other long enough.”
“How long does it take to fall in love with someone?” Sam challenged. “A day? A week? A month? Two? What’s the time frame supposed to be?”
“I don’t know. I just think -”
She was turning away from him and Sam wasn’t about to let her get away with it again. In two strides, he closed the space between them and grabbed her wrist, spinning her back to face him.
“Don’t tell me what you think. Tell me what you feel.”
There was a clash of eyes, and of wills. “You want to know what I feel, do you?” She hurled the words at him, her body rigid in resistance. “That I don’t want to care about you. That it was a mistake to get involved with you in any way. Whatever it is that’s between us, it won’t last.”
“Is that right? Then maybe we should make the most of it while it does.” Sam hauled her against him and wound his fingers through the wetness of her hair, pulling her head back as his mouth came down to capture hers.
Kelly strained against him, hands pushing in protest, fingers clutching in need. She resisted the power of his arms and sought the hunger of his lips. She wanted to fight him, but it meant battling herself. Losing a fight had never been easier or more satisfying.
Driven by anger and frustration, Sam crushed his mouth to hers again and again. If only for tonight, he would prove to her that what they had together was something special, something unique, something right. She would think of nothing, remember no one, just him.
When her response came, it was total and complete. Her lips softened without yielding, parted without surrendering. He caught the soft, helpless sound that purred from her throat. Thunder rumbled and lightning flickered beyond the bedroom windows, but the storm was all within, sweeping both of them into its vortex.
