Sins of the Father

by Winter Austin

  O’Hanlon drummed his fingers along his arm. “Was there anything else about the situation that gave you reason to believe Xavier Hartmann might have killed Clint Kruger?”

  “He couldn’t remember who Clint Kruger was. That’s about all I can tell you.”

  “Okay.” He stopped drumming and began rubbing a spot above his left eyebrow. “Deputy, I want the report as soon as you’ve written it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And with that, Jolie was dismissed. She hadn’t been asked about her major slip-up. Eyes closed, she rubbed her chest over her heart. Thank God! As she turned to leave and her gaze fell on Xavier, that relief leached from her system, leaving her wobbly. He hadn’t moved from the place where O’Hanlon had interviewed him. Xavier seemed to study her and, as if he’d found her lacking, looked away.

  How dare he? She wasn’t the one caught with a dead man under suspicious circumstances. But Jolie’s common sense kicked in as she took a step forward. Confronting him about what she saw in his actions was only going to raise more questions with the other police officers around her, because God knew she’d say the wrong thing and admit to her own moment of stupidity.

  Besides, it looked like he might have killed Clint, and Xavier hadn’t confessed or denied either way. The disturbing thing was that he didn’t know what happened. How did one forget something as traumatic as killing another person?

  Was Xavier lying about not knowing Clint? He’d seemed convincing enough. But then again, did anyone really know Xavier Hartmann?

  Chapter Three

  His mobile buzzed against his leg. Xavier tensed, which didn’t help the raging headache any, and peeked at Deputy Murdoch out of the corner of his eyes. She kept her eyes forward and focused on driving. If she’d heard the vibrating machine, she was doing a damned good job of ignoring it. O’Hanlon and the sheriff had allowed him to keep his mobile for now, with the understanding that he was to do nothing to remove any possible evidence. But Xavier was certain there had to be a flurry of text messages from one of his contacts who typically made a right big nuisance of herself, and no way in hell did he want anyone to see those messages.

  Cupping the back of his neck, he winced as his fingers brushed against the tender knot at the base of his skull. His stomach roiled at the wave of pain. Xavier closed his eyes and breathed through the nausea. Deputy Murdoch wouldn’t appreciate vomit in her pristine car. But the problem with closing his eyes—it caused the tiny flashing lights in the corners of his eyes to go crazy.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he grumbled, resting his head against the back of the seat. Oh, wrong move. Fire radiated from the spot on his skull. Frack! That hurt.

  “You don’t look all right. I didn’t ask, but did you hit your head?”

  Had he? It would explain the bump, but how’d it happen? If—and that was a huge if—he had killed Clint Kruger, there was no way in hell that man could have inflicted this on Xavier. It could explain the blackout. With that thought, the nausea intensified. How could he have killed a man without cause? This wasn’t war. And Clint Kruger hadn’t killed his men.

  “Xavier?” Deputy Murdoch’s warm, damp hand enveloped his arm.

  Jolting, he tossed her hand away and scrambled to the edge of the seat. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

  Her frown deepened into a scowl. Adjusting her grip on the steering wheel, her gaze darted forward, and she glared at the windshield. She’d been assigned to drive him to the sheriff’s department, and it looked like she was about to spit the dummy. Could he blame her? The poor woman had the misfortune of finding him in such a compromising position and had been saddled with his crippled ass, and then he bit her head off.

  Another buzz in his pants pocket made him grimace. He dug out his phone from his Levi’s and checked the screen. As suspected, Ariel. Crap.

  A glance to his left caught Deputy Murdoch’s perturbed look. “It’s kind of important.”

  “No monkey business.”

  As if he had the choice. He opened the first message.

  Where are you?

  Second:

  Don’t ignore me, X.

  Crap some more.

  If he did ignore her, she’d go on a tear looking for him, and then he’d have a lot of explaining to do. Why couldn’t she have just stayed home in Adelaide?

  He tapped out his reply:

  Just checking on stuff. Be home late. Don’t worry.

  To avoid her nagging, he turned the mobile to silent and tucked it under his bum leg. Damn stump was beginning to itch in the special sleeve that protected his skin from rubbing inside the prosthetic cup. Not to mention the pool of sweat building up, too.

  Oh, to take it off and have a nice long soak in a cool bath. His hand drifted to the juncture of flesh and bone to prosthetic; the desire to rub away the itch—because scratching it always led to overdoing it and left irritated skin—was enough to make him throw all caution out the window.

  “Who was that?”

  Murdoch’s sudden question shook him. His hand retreated to his bicep, where he kneaded the taut muscles.

  “Um ... ” How did he explain Ariel? As long as he’d lived here in McIntire County, he hadn’t once revealed who he truly was or whom he was connected to. Bringing up Ariel would create a sandstorm of trouble.

  “Don’t know anyone by the name of Um,” Murdoch quipped.

  His mouth twitched. The little redhead had a sense of humor. She had to be a real cutup compared to the two Rivers sisters. Nic Rivers-O’Hanlon and Cassy Rivers-Hunt weren’t your typical southeast Iowa women. Nic was a former Marine Scout sniper, and as tough and crude as they came. Cassy had been a cop most of her adult life and was married to an ex-FBI agent. Both were daughters of a retired high-ranking marine general.

  A pang in his chest gave Xavier pause. Would he ever have the balls to approach the Rivers’ patriarch?

  “It’s private,” he said, focusing on the dashboard panel. What he wouldn’t give to hear some Keith Urban in this stifling car.

  “Private went by the wayside when you became a suspect in a murder investigation.” There was a bitter edge to Murdoch’s voice.

  What had happened to the uncertain woman who was hell-bent on throwing her career under the bus by offering to let him run and to lie for him? Xavier couldn’t fathom why she’d considered it in the first place. If she was trying not to make a monumental mess of her career as a deputy, she sure as hell failed today. Despite the agony he was in, Xavier sympathized with her. Maybe in that moment Murdoch had been thinking about what had happened with her brother and just blurted whatever popped in her head. No sense in getting her in trouble with the sheriff over of slip of the tongue.

  But that was as far as he went. The shark biscuit deputy shone with newness, and an investigator she was not.

  “Deputy Murdoch, at this point, I believe that information shall be privy to Detective O’Hanlon and the sheriff only.”

  Her gaze narrowed, the green-brown eyes flashing ire. If he weren’t in such deep shit, he’d find it comical that a redhead had such an odd shade of eye color. There were so many inappropriate jokes pushing forward in his mind. But this was neither the time, nor was she the right person, for that kind of humor.

  “I know more about investigation procedures than you’d expect,” he told her.

  “Is that so?” She hit the brakes and directed the car to the side of the road. The squad car jerked to a stop on the gravel-lined shoulder in a flurry of dust.

  The sudden stop turned the bright flashes into a waterspout of fury in his eyeballs. Xavier blinked the chaos under control. The building was a mere one hundred meters up the road. Murdoch was almost to the sheriff’s department, and she had to stop here?

  Twisting in her seat, she glared at him. “How does a grifter from—oh, I’d say that’s Australia I hear in your accent—know so much about American police procedure?”

  Offended much? The corner of his mouth went up in a cocky grin
. “Sorry, Deputy, that there is classified.”

  “What the fudge?” Her features turned bright red, melding the smattering of freckles with her coloring.

  Damn! He hadn’t really paid attention to it until now, but she was sexy when she had her temper in full flare. Her eyes sparked with a fire she probably kept hidden from most of the world. His gaze drifted to her lips. How soft and pink they were when they parted and she expelled a shaky breath. Gulping, he felt stirrings in his body he’d thought long dead and gone after the blast took his leg and his mind.

  “What?”

  Murdoch’s exasperated exclamation startled him. Aware that his hand was hanging in midair between them, he snatched it back and bumped the car door. The flash of pain did wonders to douse the sudden embarrassment at catching himself trying to touch her. What a wanker!

  “Sorry. I just … I can’t talk about it.” He turned from her. “Would you be so kind as to finish our trek to the station?”

  Seconds ticked past in awkward silence, and then she put the car in gear and pulled back onto the pavement.

  Xavier sank further in his seat. Could this day get any worse?

  • • •

  He had to go and think it.

  After a degrading hour of numerous photos to document the evidence on his body, he was asked to turn over his clothing for evidence and left to wear a ratty pair of shorts, a too-small T-shirt, and a pair of floppy sandals. Then he had to remove his prosthetic so it could be photographed, swabbed, and inspected. Once it was returned to him, Xavier was left with a throbbing head, spotty vision, and he was ready to call it quits. A little voice in the back of his mind was beginning to make him wish he’d taken Murdoch’s offer to make good on an escape. Frack! The humiliation was never-ending.

  Now he was sitting in a cold room with only a pair of empty chairs and a scarred table to keep him company. Although, in the big scheme of things, this little room was better than a jail cell. It was unreal sitting on this side of the table. In his last few years as a marine, he’d been the one on the giving end of the interviews. Rubbing his now freshened face, he groaned. What in the hell happened out there with Clint Kruger?

  Xavier held his hands in front of him and stared at them. Once upon a time he’d been able to kill a man in battle. But in cold blood? At this point in his life? He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Yes, he was still capable of doing it. Along with his physical therapy, he’d kept up on his skills as a boxer. He was fit and able to defend himself if the need ever arose. Had it come up? Was that why he’d been covered in Kruger’s blood?

  Letting his hands flop onto the tabletop, Xavier closed his eyes and attempted to pull the memories forward. He tried to sort through the jumble that had become his constant companion. The TBI ensured that certain areas of his brain wouldn’t cooperate at crucial times. This was one of those times, and it was about to get real ugly.

  A light rap on the door was all the heads up he got as Detective O’Hanlon and Sheriff Hamilton entered. Xavier shifted to get more comfortable, as if it were possible to be comfortable in an interrogation. The men settled in the chairs opposite him. The curious expression on O’Hanlon’s features spoke volumes.

  Xavier braced for the question.

  “You served in the American Marine Corps?”

  How many times would he have to explain this one? Xavier cleared his throat, loosening the muscles that begged him to stay quiet. “Mighty fast of you to dig that up.”

  He was an enigma and wanted to stay that way. In his short time in McIntire County, he’d managed to keep a lid on his life, mostly because he hadn’t come up with a solution to what could potentially become the fallout of the decade in a few people’s lives.

  O’Hanlon and Hamilton looked at each other and then back at him. These two would be directly affected by the secrets he held back. The fact that both men had come into the room told him that they were indecisive as to what came next, because this should have been O’Hanlon’s show, not the sheriff’s.

  “Xavier, we’ve got a huge problem here, and I don’t know what to do about it,” Hamilton said. “We’ve got a dead man, with you standing over him covered in what we assume is his blood, but you don’t have a scratch on you and no idea what happened.”

  “Sheriff, as much as I want to fill in all the gaps, I can’t.” Xavier lightly tapped the side of his head. “An IED blast made sure of that.”

  “That how you lost your leg?” O’Hanlon asked.

  It had taken long hours and careful training to remove the awkward limp and hide his disability. Xavier hated the looks he got when anyone saw his prosthetic. Being an invalid gave people excuses to treat him differently, making him feel like half of a man. Now, in one fell swoop, the secrecy was gone.

  “Yes, that’s how I lost my leg,” he said. “The TBI messes with my memory, as you can tell.”

  “Can you remember how you got to the park?” O’Hanlon asked. He’d asked Xavier at the scene, and the answer was still the same.

  “No.”

  “Can you recall anything before that?”

  “The last thing I remember was watching the parade with Farran.”

  O’Hanlon frowned. “You didn’t mention you were with Farran earlier.” Farran was his sister and part owner of The Killdeer Pub, where Xavier worked.

  “You didn’t ask me what I was doing before, either.”

  Hamilton gave O’Hanlon an odd look, and the detective left. Probably to give his sister a call. Once the door closed in his wake, the sheriff leaned forward.

  “Xavier, what can you tell us? This looks bad, and you’re not giving us much to help you with.”

  Sighing, he placed his hands on the table once more. “Sheriff, this is what I can tell you: I’m capable of doing what happened to Clint Kruger. Why it happened, that is a mystery even to me. My TBI causes blackouts, and without fail it always occurs at the worst times. I don’t know what I do in these moments; no one has seen or documented it.”

  “Not even the doctors?”

  Xavier grunted. “We won’t go there,” he muttered.

  Hamilton’s eyes darkened with interest.

  Lately, the news had been littered with scandal after scandal when it came to the medical care for veterans. And, obviously, Hamilton had been paying attention.

  “Let’s go back to how your day started. Maybe that will jog your memory.”

  Maybe, though it was considerably doubtful. But Xavier was up for trying anything if it meant getting him out of a murder rap.

  • • •

  “We’ve got a dead man, the father no less, and a fourteen-year-old girl is still missing.”

  Jolie’s gaze slid to her desk partner. “Maybe the sheriff will learn something from Xavier.”

  Adam Jennings rotated his wheelchair to look at her. It was a bad day for his leg if he was sitting in the chair. Back in December, he’d taken a load of buckshot to the right knee while pursuing her brother and his demented lover through the woods.

  “If what you said is true, the sheriff ain’t gettin’ jack squat from him.”

  Technically, Jennings should’ve still been on medical leave until the doctors deemed him fit for duty, but they weren’t sure if the leg would ever heal to where it wouldn’t adversely affect Jennings, because the damage had been bad. They’d done their best, managing to save the limb and get him to walk, but the pain was unbearable for him some days. Sheriff Hamilton had assigned Jennings to dispatcher duty to keep him busy once Jolie was deputized, but it didn’t seem to be enough. From his dark moods to the need to hear everything in detail about duties, Jolie got the sense that Jennings wanted back out there, and it was killing him to be confined by the injury.

  Her gaze shifted to the hallway leading to the back of the department and the small interview room where Xavier was being questioned by the sheriff and Detective O’Hanlon. The image of Xavier, minus his prosthetic, his face red from embarrassment at being caught without it on, would stay with
her forever.

  Old worrywart that she was, she couldn’t stop dwelling on her flub and hoping to God Xavier wouldn’t breathe a word of it. They had danced around the fire pit, threatening each other with flaming sticks. Jolie wouldn’t put it past him to get payback by letting it slip that she’d given him a chance to escape.

  “Hey, Joles, you okay?”

  Heat spread though her body. Dang it! She’d bet anything her face was bright red, too. It really freaking sucked being a redhead.

  Shrugging, she turned to her computer. “Just don’t know what to think about what happened today.” Jiggling the mouse, she forced the computer out of sleep mode and her barely started report glared at her. She wanted to get this out of the way, but her mind wouldn’t settle into the technical writing it required. Her heart wanted to bleed all over the page.

  The front door buzzed, alerting them to a visitor. Jennings wheeled away, ready to intercept, when Farran O’Hanlon breezed into the bullpen.

  Jolie bolted to her feet. “Farran, what are you doing here?”

  “Con asked me to come in. Said he needed to talk to me.” The Irish beauty looked a lot like her older brother, with dark brown hair and flashing blue eyes. Along with their mother, Maura, and Con, Farran was a part owner of The Killdeer Pub, where she was the head cook.

  The Killdeer Pub was the very place Xavier worked as a bartender and sometimes waiter.

  “Uh, let me go see if … I’ll be right back.” Jolie skipped around her desk chair and hurried down the hall to the interview room.

  She paused to listen before knocking. The soft drone of the men’s voices was all she could pick up through the wood. She rapped quickly and stepped to the side. A chair scraped against the floor, and then the door opened.

  Con poked his head out. “Deputy?”

  “Your sister is here. Said you wanted to talk to her.”

  He nodded and withdrew his head inside. “Do you want to talk with Farran?” he asked the sheriff.