by Brenda Novak
“You’ve been enough of an embarrassment to your parents,” Roger chimed in.
“Get out of my way,” she said. “Both of you.”
Joe challenged her with a haughty smirk. “What if we don’t want to?”
“Then you’re going to wind up getting yourselves arrested.”
“Not by you, babe.”
“Last I heard, you no longer had a badge,” Roger added.
Joe leaned closer, close enough that Allie could smell the beer on his breath. “You must’ve wanted Clay pretty bad, huh? Tell me, was it as good as you hoped?”
Allie forced a cocky grin. “As good as it gets.”
Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I hope that’ll be enough to tide you over, then, because there won’t be any more where that came from. Clay’s going to prison. For life.”
“Says who?”
“You know it’s true.”
“Maybe you’ll join him there,” she snapped.
The smile disappeared from Joe’s face. “Why do you say that?”
“Attempted murder is a serious crime.”
“It wasn’t my cap you found in the woods,” he taunted.
Allie’s heart skipped a beat. No one knew about the cap except Hendricks. He must’ve called Joe the moment she hung up.
Or maybe that cap was a plant. An attempt to get rid of Clay and the one man who’d tried to protect him for the past nineteen years.
“If you’re behind that shooting, you’d better watch out,” she said.
“Because…”
“Because I’m going to nail your ass to the wall.”
“Is that a threat?” He glanced at his brother. “I think that was a threat, don’t you?”
Allie longed to wipe the smug expressions from their faces. “It’s the truth.”
“You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.” Joe pounded the roof of her car.
Keeping her foot firmly on the brake, Allie punched the gas at the same time. The sudden revving of her engine and the powerful lurch of her car frightened Joe enough that he stepped back and Roger dived to the side.
Laughing for the Vincellis’ benefit, Allie drove away.
“Who were those men, Mommy?” Whitney asked, sounding frightened as their tires squealed around the corner.
Allie rolled up her window. “They’re bad guys, honey.”
“Are they going to hurt us?”
“No. If I have my way, they’re going to jail.”
“Oh.”
Allie checked her rearview mirror to see Whitney snuggling deeper into the blanket.
“Can we go home now?” she asked with a yawn.
“In a few minutes,” she replied.
She drove to Clay’s house, but when she arrived, she found all the lights out and his truck gone. Where was he? She drove by his mother’s duplex, Grace and Kennedy’s historic mansion, Madeline’s quaint cottage, even the small retail space Madeline leased for the newspaper—all with no luck.
At that point, Allie couldn’t think of anywhere else to look. She sat, letting her car idle in the church parking lot, until she realized there was one more place. The thought of finding Clay there made her ill. But it would certainly explain why she hadn’t heard from him.
“Clay? It’s really you?” Beth Ann squinted against the porch light she’d turned on. “What are you doing here?”
“Just…dropping by,” he finished lamely. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d come, except that he needed to talk to someone, to share the news about the baby and what it’d been like at the hospital. Grace and Kennedy had been glowing with happiness. His mother had forgotten her misery long enough to marvel over her first grandchild. And Madeline had barely been able to choke back the tears as she held her little niece. Molly was the only one who’d been missing, and she was coming next week. For once, being with his family had felt…healthy, normal. Like any other family. It made him believe there was hope, made him yearn for a family of his own….
“Are you okay?” Beth Ann asked tentatively.
“I’m fine.”
“Come in.”
The moment he stepped inside, she slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. “It’s good to see you,” she murmured.
Clay tolerated the hug but immediately felt cornered. Coming here wasn’t what he’d thought it would be. Too much had changed over the past few weeks. He didn’t even feel like the same man.
But now that he was here, he forced himself to sit and accept a glass of wine.
“Are you tired?” she asked when he’d drained it and set it aside. “Do you want to go to bed?” She grinned enticingly. “I’ll give you a blow job.”
She was assuming they’d pick up where they’d left off. He tried to talk himself into doing just that, into taking Beth Ann into the bedroom and using everything but the kind of sex that created a baby to obliterate what he was thinking and feeling. But he couldn’t. He didn’t want Beth Ann. He wanted Allie.
God, what had he done to himself, going to that cabin?
“What’s wrong?” she said when he didn’t answer.
“Nothing.” He made an effort to wipe the scowl from his face. “Did I tell you Grace had her baby tonight?”
“No. What is it?”
“A little girl.”
“Really?”
He nodded, but he could tell Beth Ann didn’t particularly care about Grace or the baby. Neither did she make an effort to understand how important the whole experience had been to him. She was trying to figure out why he was telling her this so she could use it to get what she wanted.
“That’s good.”
“Kennedy said Grace did great.”
She nodded, but seemed preoccupied.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Are you and Allie…over for good?”
“We’re not going to talk about Allie,” he said.
She offered him a quick, placating smile. “Okay, we won’t, but I just want to tell you that…I know what happened between you two at the cabin.”
He watched her, wondering where she was going with this.
“And I won’t lie,” she went on. “It bothers me. A lot. But—” she smiled “—at least you’re back where you belong.”
The moment she said it, Clay knew she was wrong. He wasn’t back. He felt nothing, not even sexual desire. “No, Beth Ann. I—you said you wanted to be friends. I just came to tell you about the baby.”
Her jaw hardened. “Does that mean you’re still seeing her? Is that why she rented that house? So you can stay over anytime you want, and she won’t have to answer to her father?”
Clay sat forward. “What are you talking about? Allie lives with her parents.”
“Not anymore.” She sniffed, apparently feeling vindicated that he hadn’t known. “I guess you should’ve left her alone, huh?”
“What happened?” He’d purposely kept to himself the past week, hoping the rumors would die down and allow life to return to normal for Allie. But he’d talked to his sisters, seen Madeline at the hospital tonight. Did they know? If so, why hadn’t anyone told him?
They’d probably been too preoccupied with the baby. Or they had avoided the subject because they knew he’d feel responsible.
“She and her father aren’t speaking.”
“She’s not back on the force?” McCormick had agreed…
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Her mother told Polly Zufelt’s mother who told Polly.”
Polly worked at the Piggly Wiggly with Beth Ann. “So how’s Allie managing?”
“Beats the heck out of me. Polly told me she won’t even accept groceries from her parents.”
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.
Beth Ann looked even less pleased. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What about her little girl?”
She wrapped her short, sheer robe more tightly around herself. “That’s what she has that I d
on’t, isn’t it? A child? What is it all of a sudden, with you and children?”
He stood and headed for the door. “I’ve got to go.”
She followed him. “I’ll give you a baby, Clay. I’ve already told you that. I’ll give you anything you want.”
He didn’t even pause. “No one can give me what I want,” he said and walked out.
Allie pulled up in front of Beth Ann’s mobile home just as Clay was coming out the door. She’d tried to prepare herself for how she might feel if she actually found him here. But the sight of his truck in the drive had been enough to make her sick. Seeing him in the flesh, with Beth Ann at the door wearing some sort of lingerie, nearly knocked the wind out of her.
“What an idiot,” she muttered, leaning her forehead against the steering wheel.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Whitney asked from the back seat.
“Nothing,” she said. Clay hadn’t made her any promises. She shouldn’t have expected anything else. It was just that—after what they’d experienced—she couldn’t imagine letting another man touch her.
He started toward her car, looking surprised and confused. Allie told herself to roll down her window and say what she’d come to say. Get it over with and forget him. But she couldn’t. The lump in her throat made it impossible to speak with any clarity, and she didn’t want him to know how badly he’d hurt her.
Swallowing the tears that threatened, she drove off and left him standing at the curb.
16
Clay called Allie a dozen times before she finally picked up.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” he said.
“I know.”
Of course she did. Or she would’ve answered a long time ago. It was nearly three in the morning. “I want to see you. Can I come over?”
“No.”
He said nothing. He knew she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion when she’d seen him at Beth Ann’s house. But he didn’t attempt to justify his actions. He’d gone there to mess around with Beth Ann. He just hadn’t been able to do it. Besides, what difference would it make? If thinking the worst helped Allie stay away from him, she was better off.
“How did you know I was at Beth Ann’s tonight?” he asked.
“I didn’t.” She hesitated. “I was searching for you. Everywhere. It was…the last place I could think of to look.”
He ran a finger slowly over one eyebrow. “Why did you want to find me?”
During the ensuing silence, he could sense her reluctance to continue. But finally, she said, “They’re coming after you tomorrow.”
“They?”
“My father and probably a couple of other officers.”
“They have another search warrant?”
“An arrest warrant.”
Clay had always known it could come to this. But now? As far as he knew, the police didn’t have any more evidence than they’d had all along.
“What’s changed?” he asked.
He heard her sigh. “The political climate. If this was happening anywhere else, they wouldn’t have a prayer of getting a conviction.”
“But here?”
“Where are you going to get an unbiased jury? Everyone already believes you’re guilty.”
Clay glanced around the kitchen, where almost everything had occurred that fateful night, and heard once again his stepfather’s angry voice and outright lies, his mother’s screams. He saw Grace in the corner, her face chalk-white as the tears she was silently crying dripped from her chin. Molly had huddled beside her. Then there were the powerful blows of his stepfather when he’d tried to step in to defend his mother, and his desperation to conquer or be conquered. Clay had known in those few minutes that he couldn’t let his stepfather win. Maybe he was only a kid, but he alone stood between his mother and sisters and the man who was a danger to them.
And the violence wasn’t the worst of it. What followed topped even that—the panic that came with realization, the permanence of what had happened, the blood splattered everywhere, the heavy lifeless body Clay had had to drag from the house.
Clay’s muscles still ached when he thought of all the digging he’d done that night. He’d been physically and emotionally exhausted, had wanted to lie in bed for a week—then wake up and learn it’d been a terrible nightmare.
But it had been real. All of it. He’d had to get up the next morning and the next and soldier on as if nothing had happened. There was no one else to take the lead, to provide the support his family needed.
Closing his eyes, he drew a calming breath. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“That’s it?” she responded.
“There’s nothing more I can say, Allie.”
“Then why not use the time you’ve got left to get out of town? Go to Alaska, like your father did, or somewhere else, and don’t come back.”
Clay pinched his neck, hoping to ease the tension in his muscles. “You’re telling me to run?”
“I’m scared for you. Go now. Before they can arrest you.”
“That’s interesting, coming from a law-and-order type.”
“As far as I’m concerned, they’re not playing by the rules. Why should we?”
We. He jammed a hand through his hair. He didn’t want her in this with him. After what she thought she’d seen at Beth Ann’s, she should hate him, hope for the worst. “There’s no ‘we,’ Allie. I’m in this alone. Do you hear?”
Silence. He cursed, wishing he could offer her…something. But telling her how he felt would only make this harder on both of them. “I can’t go anywhere,” he added.
She sniffed, which made him wonder if she was crying. “Why not?”
Because the police would get another search warrant and find what was in his cellar. Then there’d be no question about what had happened. He’d have a much better chance going up against the flimsy evidence they already possessed. “The time’s come to put an end to this, don’t you think? The reverend went missing, and the town wants someone to pay. If I stand trial, chances are they’ll leave my mother and sisters alone.”
“But you didn’t kill him.”
Her words caused a terrible longing. “How do you know?”
“I know. And I hate that what happened between us last weekend is probably what’s angered everyone enough to do this. We shouldn’t have…”
She let her words dwindle away, but he finished for her. “Made love?”
“Yes.”
He smiled in spite of what tomorrow would bring. “Are you kidding? When I close my eyes, I can still taste you, feel you—”
“Clay, don’t,” she said, her voice breathless.
“Whatever comes next, I don’t regret it,” he said and hung up.
The following morning, Allie was awakened by a call from Grace Archer.
“Your father just arrested my brother,” she said.
Allie scrubbed the fatigue from her face. The hour or so she’d been sleeping since getting Whitney off to school wasn’t nearly enough, not when such a bad day loomed before her. She’d spent the entire night worrying about what would happen to Clay and wishing she could do something to stop it. But she didn’t have any answers. “How’d you get my new number?” she asked distantly, stalling, trying to head off the poignant emotions that were already descending on her like a heavy burden she’d barely put down and had to take up again.
“Madeline.”
With a sigh, she relaxed into her pillow. “I’m sorry, Grace…for Clay.”
There was a long pause. “How sorry?” she asked at last.
The question took Allie aback. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“At Evonne’s, you said you were on my side.”
She pushed herself up on one elbow. “I am.”
“Do you care about my brother?”
Allie didn’t really want to face that question. But if answering it honestly meant she might be able to enlist Grace’s help and support…“I’m in love with him,” she said.
There was another significant pause. Then Grace spoke again. “Can you come to my house tonight?”
“What for?”
“Madeline says you’re out of work.”
“And…”
“I have a job offer for you.”
“Doing what?”
“Clay’s going to need a good investigator, isn’t he?”
Allie threw off the covers and sat up. “Will you be handling his defense?”
“Of course.”
“But you’re just about to have a baby.”
“I had her last night. Her name is Lauren Elizabeth, and she’s beautiful. Perfect.”
Had Allie not been so exhausted, she would’ve smiled at the pride in Grace’s voice. “Congratulations. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Except for this.”
“So you’re out of the hospital?”
“Kennedy will be taking me home in a few hours.”
She was calling Allie from her hospital bed? “Are you sure you shouldn’t rest for a week or two, enjoy your new baby and let someone else handle—”
“Nothing’s going to stand in the way of helping my brother,” she stated flatly. “I’m not letting two whole weeks slip by without taking advantage of them.”
Suddenly Allie felt more alert. “What’s his bail amount?”
“They haven’t set it yet,” she said. “The bastards—excuse me—the police arrested him on Friday, knowing he won’t be arraigned until Tuesday.”
“Which means he has to spend four days in jail.”
“Exactly. But regardless of the bail amount, I’m getting him out. I’ll raise the money, even if I have to sell my own house.”
Allie bit her lip as she considered the odds. It’d be her, the Montgomerys, Grace’s husband Kennedy—and possibly Jed Fowler, except that finding his cap at the cabin suggested she might be a fool to trust him—against the whole town, including Allie’s own father.
Shit. She fell back into bed and covered her eyes with one arm. “What time do you want me at your place?”
“Seven.”
“Okay,” she said, resolute. “The D.A.’s going to be sorry he ever pursued this case, right?”
“If we’re lucky,” Grace said, but she sounded more determined than optimistic.
