by Sharon Sala
She took a deep breath, telling herself to be calm. Yes, she was coming to reclaim what was left of the man she’d called Father, but she owed him more than a Christian burial. He deserved to rest in peace with his good name restored. It was the least she could do.
Sarah didn’t think she’d remembered all that much about the first ten years of her life, but then she hit the city limits of Marmet. The neat Cape Cod houses and tree-lined streets were eerily familiar. She stared intently at each house she passed and at the people she saw on the streets, wondering if they would recognize her, wondering if they cared that they’d been so wrong about her father, wondering if they carried the guilt of her mother’s death upon their souls. She blamed them. She blamed them all, just as she’d blamed her father. But she’d been wrong about him and was willing to admit it. It remained to be seen if they would be as generous.
A few minutes later she pulled up in front of the Sheriff’s Department. For three long minutes she sat without moving, her fingers gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline. A police car pulled up and parked beside her. She watched the officer get out and wondered if he was someone she’d known before. Twenty years was a long time. People changed, but did they ever forget?
A few moments later the officer came back out, giving her a curious stare as he moved toward his car. Sarah looked away, unwilling to meet his gaze, and began gathering up her purse and keys. She got out as he drove away. When she walked into the station, the dispatcher behind the glass looked up.
“Can I help you, miss?” he asked.
“I need to talk to Sheriff Gallagher. He’s expecting me.”
“He’s not in.”
Sarah frowned. This wasn’t going exactly as planned.
“When will he be back?”
“I can’t say for sure. Leave your name and a number where you can be reached, and he can call you.”
“I don’t have a place to stay yet. Is there a hotel here?”
“No, miss, just a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of town, but Miss Hattie, who runs it, is in the hospital having her appendix out.”
“Oh great,” Sarah muttered, and looked around for a chair. “Maybe I’ll just wait here until the sheriff comes back.”
The dispatcher frowned. “No telling when that will be. He’s still out at the lake.”
Sarah turned abruptly. “Flagstaff Lake?”
The dispatcher nodded.
“Where they found Franklin Whitman’s body?”
Suddenly the dispatcher realized he might be saying too much.
“Who are you? Are you with the press? If you are, you’re wasting your time.”
“My name is Sarah Whitman. Franklin Whitman was my father.”
The frown deepened on the dispatcher’s face. “I can’t help you.”
Sarah accepted the rejection. It was nothing she hadn’t prepared herself for.
“I didn’t expect help from anyone in this town,” she said shortly, and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” the dispatcher asked.
“None of your business,” she muttered, letting the door slam behind her as she went.
By the time she got to the car, she was shaking with anger. She had vague memories of the lake but no idea how to get there. However, she hadn’t come this far to be put off by a recalcitrant dispatcher. Making herself calm down, she unfolded the map of the state of Maine, then found the lake and the nearest highway. She was going to assume that once she was on the right road, there would be signs telling her where to go next.
Sheriff Ron Gallagher was just getting out of the motorboat when he saw an unfamiliar car drive up. He glanced at the bank of film crews a short distance away and figured one of the reporters had gotten impatient.
“If that’s another journalist, get rid of him,” he snapped.
“It’s a woman,” his deputy said.
“I don’t care who it is, Red. If she’s a reporter, I want her on the other side of the yellow tape with the rest of them.”
“Yes, sir,” the deputy said, and headed for the woman who was approaching with purpose in her step.
“I’m sorry, miss, but this is a crime scene. You’re going to have to leave.”
Sarah stood her ground. “I need to talk to Sheriff Gallagher.”
“The sheriff has already given a statement regarding the case. He has nothing more to say to the media.”
“I’m not with the media,” Sarah said. “I’m Sarah Whitman.”
Red Miller knew he was gawking, but he couldn’t stop. “I remember you,” he said softly.
“I don’t remember you,” Sarah said, and lifted her chin, as if bracing herself for a verbal blow.
“My name is Steven Miller, but everyone calls me Red. I was four grades ahead of you in school.”
Sarah looked for the child in the short, balding man, without success. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you.”
Red ducked his head. “That’s all right. It’s been a long time.” Then he looked up at her and added, “I’m real sorry about your father.”
“Really?”
Red flushed. He’d been old enough to remember the treatment Sarah Whitman and her mother had received. He also remembered that her mother had committed suicide and that Sarah had been the one to find her. He couldn’t imagine what that must have done to her and could hardly blame her for holding a grudge. Aware that there was little he could say that would make up for the past twenty years, he pointed at the sheriff.
“If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll tell Sheriff Gallagher you’re here.”
Sarah sighed, more than a little disgusted with herself as she watched him hurrying away. She’d been rude. It wasn’t like her to behave this way. If she was going to find out what had really happened to her father, she was going to need some help from the authorities, and alienating the first person who’d been friendly wasn’t going to help.
Then her gaze moved past the deputy to the massive body of water beyond. Despite the picturesque beauty of the autumnal offering from the trees surrounding the lake, she shivered. The water was motionless—a black mirror with a smooth surface that was deceptive, showing none of the horror that had been hidden beneath. She moved closer, pulled to the truth of what her father had endured, trying to envision what he’d gone through. Suddenly the pain of it made her breath catch. Her vision blurred as an onset of tears burned the back of her throat.
God. Oh, Daddy…who did this to you?
“Miss Whitman?”
Sarah shuddered as her concentration was broken. She turned, unaware that tears were rolling down her face.
“Sheriff Gallagher?”
It wasn’t the first time in Ron Gallagher’s life that he’d wished to be tall, dark and handsome, but right now he might have bartered away his soul for a chance to win this woman’s heart. She was stunning, and it bothered him to see the weary, fragile look on her face. He wanted to slay dragons and find killers and make the tears go away. Instead, he offered her his hand.
“Miss Whitman. I’m very sorry to have had to give you this news.”
Sarah shook his hand briefly, because it would have been rude to do otherwise, but truthfully, she was finding it more and more difficult to be cordial. There was a rage growing inside her that was beginning to hurt. Her family had been destroyed because of a murder and a lie, and someone needed to pay.
“Thank you,” she said, and then clutched her hands against her stomach to keep them from shaking. “I’ve come for my father.”
Ron sighed. Well, hell. The one thing she’d asked that he couldn’t give.
“I’m sorry, Miss Whitman, but I can’t release him…at least not just yet.”
“What can you tell me that I want to hear?”
“At this point, not much…but it’s early stages in the investigation, and you’ve got to understand that I’m working on a twenty-year-old case, with the crime scene under about eighty feet of water.”
Sarah’s fingers curle
d into fists as she looked past the sheriff at the surface of the lake. She swallowed twice before the words would come past her lips.
“I need to ask you something,” she whispered.
She looked so hurt and so lost that Ron wanted to put his arms around her and pull her head onto his shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Do they know if—” She shuddered, then took a deep breath, making herself focus on what she wanted to say instead of screaming aloud at the thought. “My daddy…do they know if he was alive when…”
She couldn’t say the words, but Ron knew what she was trying to ask.
“I can’t really comment on that.”
“Oh God,” Sarah muttered. Fresh tears spilled and rolled down her face.
Ron stifled a groan. What he was going to say was against everything he’d been taught about law enforcement, but seeing her misery was too painful.
“Look…don’t quote me on this, and if you say I said this, I’ll deny every bit of it. However…if I was a betting man, I’d say your father was probably already dead before he was put in the trunk.”
“Why do you say that?” Sarah asked.
“When we opened the trunk, the first thing I noticed was the crack in his skull. Whether he was still alive or not, I doubt he ever regained consciousness before he was dumped in the lake.”
Sarah exhaled, then nodded slowly. “Thank you for that.”
Gallagher shrugged. “Yes, ma’am…Well, as I said—”
Before he could finish what he’d been going to say, a van pulled up beside them and three people jumped out.
“Sarah Whitman? Sarah Whitman? What do you have to say about your father’s body being found in Flagstaff Lake?”
Sarah recoiled as if she’d been slapped. It was a nightmare straight out of her past: watching as her mother had been confronted in just such a manner, standing helplessly by as the people she loved were dragged through disgrace.
Gallagher reacted with an angry curse.
“Get out now or I’ll have you all arrested,” he yelled, but it was to no avail. The reporter saw his chance and was too persistent to let the threat of an arrest stop what would be his big scoop.
“Tell us, Miss Whitman…do you believe your father was killed by his accomplices?”
Sarah spun and tried to make a break for her car, but they followed her, getting between her and her chance for escape.
“Leave me alone,” she said, and tried to push through them, but the reporter shoved a microphone in her face while the other two had cameras turned on her, capturing her every reaction.
“Do you have any hard feelings toward the people of Marmet?” the reporter asked. “Is there anyone you blame for—”
Suddenly the sound of a powerful engine drowned out the rest of the reporter’s question. She turned just as a black sports car came to a sliding halt beside her. She stared, too surprised to comment, when the passenger door opened. Someone inside yelled at her to get in. She reacted before she thought, and was in the seat and slamming the door shut just as the car began to move.
“Buckle up,” the driver said.
Sarah reached for the seat belt without question. It was only after she’d buckled up and they were flying out of the area, leaving a tornado of autumn leaves flying in their wake, that she looked at her driver. For a moment she stared, trying to figure out why the profile was so familiar, and then he turned to her for a brief moment and smiled. At that point her heart skipped a beat. It had been twenty years since she’d seen that smile, but a girl never forgets her first crush.
“Silk?”
Tony grinned. “I go by Tony most of the time now, but…yes, Sarah Whitman, it’s me.”
Three
In the short space of time that Sarah had been in Tony DeMarco’s car, she had come to the conclusion that it was as sleek and seductive as the man behind the wheel. While trying not to stare, she’d still noticed the expensive cut of his clothes, the Rolex watch on his left wrist, the diamond ring on his right hand and the go-to-hell glitter in his eyes. She was grateful that he’d come along when he had and rescued her from the reporters, but she couldn’t wrap her mind around the reason he’d given for being here. He’d come all the way from Chicago for her? As much as she would have liked to believe him, it didn’t ring true.
“Silk…I mean, Tony…may I ask you a personal question?”
He stifled a sigh as he steered the car around a sharp bend in the road. She didn’t trust him. He’d seen it in her eyes. He understood it, but he was still surprised that it hurt his feelings.
“Yes, of course.”
“Judging by your appearance, you’ve become a very successful man. What do you do for a living?”
He arched an eyebrow. “It’s legal, I assure you.”
Sarah blushed. “That’s not what I—”
Tony laughed. “Ease up…I was just teasing. I own a nightclub in Chicago…actually two, although the second one is about a month away from the grand opening. The first one is called Silk.”
Sarah looked at him fully then, judging the very cosmopolitan man against the boy she’d known. She knew firsthand that it cost a lot of money to start a business, especially one like that. She was still paying off the loan she’d taken for the renovations on her own restaurant. Silk’s family had been poor—from time to time almost homeless. She thought of the million dollars her father had been accused of stealing and then looked at Silk De Marco anew. Could he have done something like that? Possibly. But the more pertinent question was, would he?
“How old were you when my father disappeared?”
“Sixteen,” Tony said. “I’d just finished my junior year in high school.”
“Too young,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. She couldn’t see a kid pulling off a million-dollar bank heist, then being smart enough to pick a scapegoat and make him disappear in order to point suspicion in another direction.
“Too young for what?” Tony asked.
Sarah blushed. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken.
“Nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking aloud.”
Tony frowned as he turned off the main road and took a narrow one-lane road that led to his lakefront home. What could she possibly be…?
Then it hit him, and the shaft of anger that came with that understanding was quick and hard. He slammed on the brakes and then turned to her. Startled by his behavior, Sarah’s first instinct was to reach for the door, but Tony grabbed her by the shoulder before she could bolt.
“My uncle Salvatore loaned me more than half my start-up money, then co-signed my first loan. I paid him back within two years of Silk’s opening. I didn’t steal the million dollars, and I didn’t kill your father.”
The anger in his voice made her flinch, but she wouldn’t apologize for what she’d thought. Until she knew the truth about what had happened to her father, she trusted no one.
“I was ten years old when my world fell apart. Within three months of my father’s disappearance, I’d become an orphan. If it hadn’t been for Aunt Lorett, I would have become a ward of the state, and there wasn’t one person in the entire town of Marmet who would have been sorry it happened. I’m not going to apologize for what I asked you. You were the first one I questioned, but you won’t be the last. I didn’t come here just to claim my father’s bones. I’m not leaving until I find the person who killed him.”
The determination on her face was matched by the fury in her eyes. Sarah Whitman had grown up, all right. She was no longer the helpless, innocent kid he’d last seen crying at her mother’s grave. But what she was proposing was not only foolish, it was dangerous.
“You can’t be serious,” he said.
“Just watch me,” she muttered.
“What do you do for a living?”
“What’s that have to do with anything?”
“Just answer me,” he said.
“I own and run my own restaurant.”
He sighed.
“What makes you think you can do something the police haven’t been able to do?”
“For one thing, I’d be pursuing the evidence, which is something they never did.”
Tony frowned. “You have no qualifications to solve a murder. Besides that, whatever evidence there might have been was underwater for the past twenty years.”
“If I don’t care, no one else will,” she said shortly, then looked away, unwilling for him to see her tears.
Tony stared at her profile. Not only had she grown into a very beautiful woman, but she’d become tough. He guessed he could understand why. It was easier not to be hurt when you didn’t let anyone get too close.
“It isn’t that,” Tony said gently and cupped the back of her head, forcing her to face him. “What if the killer is still here? What you’re proposing could be dangerous.”
She shrugged. “If you’re afraid, all you have to do is take me back to my car.”
He looked at her for a moment and then grinned. “Maybe I should have waited just a little bit longer before I came speeding to your rescue.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m thinking that, despite your fragile appearance, you could have taken all three of them apart with one hand.”
Sarah watched his face, seeing laughter and forgiveness in the quick grin he gave her.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Tony asked.
“For thinking you were no angel.”
This time his grin turned absolutely wicked. “Oh, lady…don’t apologize for that one because you were absolutely right. I’m no angel. Never have been. Never will be.” Then he gave her hair a gentle tug. “But I’m also not a crook. So can we call a truce?”
His hand slid from the back of her head to beneath her chin, and Sarah found herself shaking from the heat of his gaze.
“Yes,” she said quickly, anxious that he get back to driving. At least then he had both hands on the wheel.
“Good,” he said. “Then it’s a deal.”
He grabbed the steering wheel and pressed down on the accelerator again, taking them deeper into the maze of trees.
“Exactly where are we going?” Sarah asked.
