by Paula Graves
“You’ve already told us that you don’t think the two men who tried to take Logan were the same men who broke into your house the night before, right?”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“And none of them was your cousin Blake.”
“Definitely not.”
“But tonight your neighbor mentioned Blake by name, right?’
“Yes.” She looked down at her feet again, as if studying those brightly painted toenails. “So either Blake was there or he sent more people in his stead. Maybe the same people as before. Maybe not.”
Dalton watched the play of emotions across her downcast face. “That’s at least five people involved, right? The four we know about for sure plus Blake. Maybe more.”
“That’s a lot of people.”
“They’re protecting something corporate. Not private.”
“But what?” She looked up at him suddenly, her gaze so intense it sent a little rattle skittering down his spine.
“Something they fear enough to take big chances,” he answered after a moment of thought. “Something that’s worth walking into the home of a cop and taking a look around.”
“Something worth trying to steal a child from the arms of that same cop. A cop they knew would be armed.” Her eyes narrowed. “Something they think I have or know how to get.”
“Any ideas?” he asked.
“Only theories,” she answered.
“Care to share?”
She moved suddenly, sliding back up the wall almost as quickly as she’d sat. He levered himself to his feet with much less grace, the twinges in his limbs an unmistakable reminder that he was on the downhill slide to forty these days. Almost a decade older than his nimble hallway companion.
With a slight nod of her head the only invitation to follow, she started down the stairs to the first floor.
He followed her into the kitchen, watching as she picked up one of the cups of hot chocolate, took a sip and grimaced.
“Cold,” she said. She put both mugs in the microwave, set the timer and turned to face him, leaning back against the counter. Her eyes followed his movements with an almost feral wariness, and he wondered if she was remembering their electric encounter in the hallway.
To ease her tension—and his own—he took a seat at the breakfast bar, putting a layer of granite countertop and polished oak between them. “You have theories?” he prompted.
“I’ve been thinking about what you’ve told me about your investigation. How you think Johnny fit in. And I keep going back to the Davenport Trucking connection. Has anyone ever established how a lumber-yard owner in Travisville, Virginia, even got interested in a Tennessee trucking company in the first place?”
“We’re pretty sure what caught Wayne Cortland’s attention was the fact that Davenport had contracts with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory,” Dalton said. “It’s guesswork at this point, now that Cortland’s dead, but we think he was planning to cause a scare at the nuclear research facility in hopes that it would stop or at least delay oil-shale exploration and production in the area.”
He could tell by the look on her face that this information was new to her. “He wanted to stop oil-shale production? Why?”
“He controlled a lot of people in a lot of areas that can be charitably called wilderness. He liked it that way—fewer eyes mean fewer chances to be caught doing something illegal. His network thrived on isolation and people who live on the fringes of society and like it that way.”
“And oil-shale production means less wilderness and more people.”
He nodded. “More eyes. Exactly.”
“He wanted to use a Davenport truck to deliver something to Oak Ridge that would pose a threat, then. Something that might cause a nuclear incident.”
“We don’t think he was planning to do anything horribly damaging.” The microwave dinged and Dalton retrieved the two cups of hot chocolate. He gave her the cup she’d sipped from, keeping the other for himself. “Careful. It’s pretty hot.”
She looked up at him, her expression curious. “Do you think they were planning to use Johnny to drive the truck that would get into Oak Ridge and cause the trouble?”
“I’m not sure. I just know Johnny seemed to be asking a lot of questions at Cortland. Questions that even that pretty little bookkeeper noticed. If she noticed, other people might have, as well.”
“You think that’s why he was killed.”
“I think it’s possible.”
She sipped her hot chocolate, her expression hard to read.
“Were you and Johnny happy?” he asked, regretting the words the second they spilled from his lips.
She looked up sharply. “Does it matter?”
He shook his head.
She set the cup of hot chocolate on the breakfast bar counter. “I told you, the same day he died, I started divorce proceedings.”
“I know.”
She cupped her hands around the mug. “I did love him. He was my first everything. You know? But he never grew up. The woman in Virginia—I know she wasn’t the first one. And I couldn’t keep myself and Logan in that kind of situation. So I started looking into my options.”
“And then he was murdered.”
She looked up at him. “I was lucky I had an alibi, huh?”
The urge to reach out and smooth those little frown lines from her face was so overwhelming he had to curl his hands around his hot-chocolate mug to control it. “Why don’t you try to catch up on a little sleep, since you have the night off?”
She shook her head, turning to pour out the remains of her hot chocolate into the sink. “I’m okay now. There’s no reason why I can’t go back to the station and put in some hours.”
“I thought they ordered you home.”
She shrugged. “I’m ordering myself back.” She started toward the stairs, then suddenly stopped, turning to look at him. “If Logan wakes up, he may want you to read him a story. Is that okay? His books are in a bag in the guest room closet.”
Dalton smiled. “I can do that.”
The faint smile she offered in return made his chest ache a little. She turned and continued upstairs.
As he was pouring the rest of his own hot chocolate down the drain, his cell phone rang. He dug it from his pocket and checked the display. With a sigh, he answered. “Hi, Mom.”
“You didn’t call me about lunch today.”
He closed his eyes, grimacing. “I’m sorry. Things have gotten real crazy around here all of a sudden. Rain check?”
“How about tomorrow? I can meet you at the Sequoyah House Tea Room around noon.”
He could tell from her tone that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Okay. Sequoyah House tomorrow, noon. How’re you doing, Mom? Everything okay?”
“I’m well,” she answered sparely. “I’ll see you at noon.”
He hung up and shoved his phone in his pocket, both wishing he could get out of lunch with his mother and hating himself for feeling that way.
His father and grandfather had hurt a lot of people with their lies and machinations.
Including the people they were supposed to be protecting.
Chapter Eight
The doorbell chime startled Briar from a light doze on the sofa. Curled up on the cushion beside her, Logan was still napping, but that wouldn’t last long if whoever was leaning on the doorbell didn’t give it a rest.
She put down the book she’d been reading and grabbed the Glock from her waistband holster, standing on tiptoe to reach the security lens set high into the solid oak of Dalton Hale’s front door. The fish-eye lens revealed Walker Nix’s face, to her relief. She holstered the Glock, twisted open the deadbolt and unlatched the security chain to let him in. “Aren’t you on duty?” she asked, keeping her vo
ice low.
“Good morning to you, too,” he whispered, stepping inside.
“Logan’s asleep.” She locked the door and led him into the kitchen.
He sat, looking around. “Nice digs. Never been here before.”
She grinned at him. “What, you’re not on the Sutherland/Hale society guest list? I thought you Nixes were one of the oldest families in the hills.”
“Oh, we are. That might be the problem.”
Chuckling, she perched next to him. “What are you doing here?”
“Just checking on you. Seeing how Hale’s treating y’all.”
“Very kindly, actually,” she answered with a smile.
“You sound like you actually like the guy.”
She shrugged, thinking about that brief tension-strung moment she and Dalton had shared in the upstairs hall the night before. She’d put it from her mind, filed it away under Things That Don’t Need to Be Repeated, but the memory seemed to have a rebellious streak. So she’d found the man more attractive than she’d expected. That didn’t mean she needed to act on it.
“He’s nice,” she said when it became clear that Nix was waiting for something more than a shrug. “Logan seems to really like him, too.”
Nix nudged her with his shoulder. “What makes you say that?”
She slanted a look at him. “Jealous? Afraid Logan may end up liking him more than he likes you?”
“He can afford better toys.”
“Logan adores you. But you’re never going to be his daddy.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she realized how they sounded. “Not that Dalton can— I mean—”
“Don’t get any ideas about him, Briar.” Nix’s smile faded.
“I haven’t.”
“He’d be damned lucky to have you, of course.”
“Of course.” She smiled, though beneath the humor was a little sting.
“I just think there’s a reason why he’s thirty-seven and still single.”
She blinked. “You think he’s gay?”
Nix shot her a look of amusement. “Should I?”
She thought about that moment in the hall again and shook her head. She hadn’t imagined the way his eyes had darkened when he touched her or the tremble in his fingers. “No, I don’t think so.”
“He was engaged once. A long time ago. Her name was Calinda Morgan.” Nix smiled a distant smile. “Prettiest girl at Ridge County High School. Everybody wanted her, but Dalton Hale was the one she wanted. Everybody thought they’d marry. Then his granddaddy sent him to Harvard Law, while Calinda stayed behind. A couple of years later, she met another guy, broke it off with Hale and got married.”
“Old Pete sent him to Harvard after college? Right about the time Tallie Cumberland and her husband came to town looking for him....”
“I hadn’t thought about it before, but yeah. It would have been right about that time.” Nix shook his head. “All I know is, when Calinda ended things with him, Dalton took it pretty hard.”
“And he’s never been serious with another woman since?”
“Not really. I mean, he dates all the time. He’s forever getting his picture in the paper, and there’s usually some pretty blonde on his arm.”
“Blondes, huh?” She said it lightly, to cover the disconcerting quiver in the pit of her stomach.
Nix tugged one of her dark curls. “Tough luck, Briar Rose. You’ll just have to find some other rich bachelor now.”
She was relieved when they moved on to the topic of Nix’s relationship with Dana Massey. “Things still going well with you two?” she asked.
“Gotta show you something.” He reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small, velvet ring box.
“Oh, my God,” Briar said, her heart rate jumping as she realized what it was. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You’re gettin’ hitched!”
“If she says yes.” He flipped open the box to reveal a square-cut diamond set in a simple white-gold band. “It’s small, I know—”
“It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. She’s going to love it!” Briar threw her arms around Nix and gave him a tight hug. “Look at you, steppin’ up!”
He laughed, the happiness transforming his dark face. She realized with quiet wonder that her old friend had become a brand-new man since he met and fell in love with Dana Massey. That’s how it’s supposed to be, she thought. That’s what love’s supposed to do to you.
After almost a decade of marriage, Johnny had still been the same overgrown teenager she’d married. And had she really changed, either?
Maybe their relationship had been doomed from the start.
* * *
“WHEN WAS THE last time you talked to your father?”
It had taken his mother almost twenty minutes of small talk to get around to her real point for meeting him for lunch, Dalton thought, laying his fork on the table by his plate. “I’m not sure. A few weeks.”
“Four weeks,” she corrected mildly. “He thought you wanted to help him.”
“I did.”
Nina Hale’s eyebrows lifted slightly at his use of the past tense. “I know he hurt you. He hurt me, too. And I can’t even think about what my father did without wanting to cry my eyes out.”
He reached across the restaurant table and touched his mother’s hand. Just a light touch, nothing too maudlin. Not in a public place like the Sequoyah House Tea Room. Sutherlands and Hales didn’t perform for an audience. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m not a defense attorney. I prosecute lawbreakers. I can’t defend them.”
“He’s your father.”
He almost snapped out a denial but stopped short, curling his fist around the napkin in his lap. “I secured a very good attorney out of Knoxville. He’s getting the best defense available to him.”
“He doesn’t need the best defense available. He needs his son.”
“Mom—”
“He doesn’t deserve to be cut off from you. He did what he did for you.”
Dalton shook his head. “He did it for himself. For you. Probably for Pete, as well. But he covered up the murder of two people who did nothing wrong. He tried to shoot my—” He stopped short, shocked by the word still lingering in his mind unspoken. “He tried to shoot a deputy U.S. marshal.”
“He didn’t get close to hitting her.”
Dalton stared at his mother. “You don’t fire a gun at a person unless you’re willing to risk hitting them. He may have been relieved she wasn’t hurt, in the end, but he was willing to take the risk that she might be. Don’t defend what he did.”
“He didn’t want to lose you.”
“Mother, I was twenty-one years old when he learned the truth. I was a college graduate, living on my own. How could he lose me at that point?”
“Apparently by making a wrong choice,” she murmured, her voice controlled but the expression in her eyes bleak.
Dalton sighed. “He hasn’t lost me. I will forgive him. I just need time to deal with the betrayal.”
“Betrayal?”
“I trusted him to tell the truth when it was important. And he didn’t.” A cavern-dark bubble of bleak emotion burned his throat. He’d fought so hard to keep from admitting, in front of Doyle or Dana, at least, that he gave any real credence to the story of his origins. All for show, of course. He’d known the first time he’d laid eyes on Dana Massey that his world was already changing. He’d seen the resemblance. Wondered what it meant.
Ultimately, his father’s confession had been a release. An answer to doubts that had played in his head over and over from the first time he looked into a stranger’s eyes and saw his own.
“Did you know I had another brother?” he asked aloud. “Three siblings. After growing up an only child. Lucky me.”
“I woul
d have given you brothers and sisters if I could,” Nina said.
“I know. But I had another brother.” One he’d never met and never would.
“I spoke to Doyle Massey,” Nina said.
Dalton looked at her. “Why?”
“I ran into him in town. He introduced himself.”
“I’ll tell him to leave you alone.”
“I don’t need you to protect me from him. He was polite. And kind.” Nina took a long slow sip of tea and replaced the china cup carefully on its saucer before she continued. “I liked him, actually. He smiles a lot.”
A tearing sensation rippled through his chest. He buried it deep, though he knew it could stay contained only so long. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I understand you’ve brought a woman to your house to live with you.”
Small-town gossip was more efficient than a CIA operation. “She’s a potential witness in a case I’m investigating.”
“She’s a police officer, they say. Is she pretty?”
“It’s business.”
“Is she pretty?” Nina repeated, emphasizing each word.
“Yes.”
“Does that pose a problem for you? Living in the same house?”
“I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do.” She took another sip of tea. “It could affect your campaign. Having her there.”
Ah. His campaign manager, Matt Merrick, had run an end around and spoken to his mother. “Did Merry give you any other helpful suggestions to pass along?”
To his surprise, his mother’s lips curved upward around the rim of her teacup. “No, just the one.”
“I’m not sleeping with her,” he said, trying to ignore the memory of Briar’s long toned legs, perfect round breasts and the smell of his bath gel on her warm skin. “She has a three-year-old son, staying there with us. I couldn’t ask for a more efficient chaperone.”
“Her husband died a few months ago. Murdered?”
“Mother.”
“I hate when you call me Mother. It means I’ve disappointed you.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “You told me gossip is an evil. Remember?”
