by Kylie Brant
She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. "Don't make me beg, Tremaine. Maybe you and I could reach an agreement. A … a … trade of some kind."
The suggestion summoned more than a casual flicker of interest. Not that he really thought she meant the offer in the way his mind was automatically interpreting it. But her words did elicit all types of fascinating scenarios. Fascinating, because she was as far from his type as it was possible to be. And he was intrigued in spite of it. Or perhaps because of it. "What did you have in mind?"
With excruciating timing Stoner arrived at the booth, carrying two precariously filled bowls. "Almost forgot the gumbo," he mumbled, setting the bowls down in front of them with a definite lack of grace.
Tori sat back, wisely, as it turned out, and narrowly avoided being scalded by the soup that slopped over the side of the bowl. James waited until the man had moved away before observing, "That guy missed his calling. With his light touch he ought to be a surgeon." His words elicited a smile, but the spell had been broken. The fragile link of intimacy between them was gone.
She spooned in some soup, tasted it cautiously. After swallowing, she drew a deep breath. "Oh, my. Hope you don't have ulcers."
He followed suit, took a taste and immediately found his eyes watering. "I didn't before now. That's … an interesting gumbo recipe."
"Yeah, I think they also use it to strip paint. As a matter of fact, I heard a rumor…" Something in the back corner of the bar seemed to distract her, and she stopped talking, laid down her spoon. "Juicy's come out of his lair. Looks like he's ready for us."
With little regret, James slid out of the booth and withdrew his money clip, leaving a bill on the table. Then with a drum roll of anticipation tightening his gut, he followed in Tori's wake, for once failing to give his full attention to the decided sway of her hips. He had no idea what, if anything, to expect from this meeting. But there was no denying that whatever the outcome, there'd be answers of some sort. And answers were something he was increasingly eager to discover.
"What have you got?" Tori didn't bother with introductions, and James was fairly certain it was by design. It suited him well enough. Closing the door behind him, he slipped the tips of his fingers into his jeans pockets and scanned the room she'd led them to. Surprisingly sophisticated computer equipment and peripherals lined the walls. Above the computers the walls were covered with cork board. Displayed there was a series of close-ups of a wrecked automobile. His gut took a quick, vicious twist. The car was instantly recognizable. It made frequent appearances in his nightmares.
He forced his gaze away from the photos to the man Tori was addressing. Juicy's name was the only colorful thing about him. Tall and gaunt, rather than merely thin, his manner of speech was as spare as his frame. The man wore his long, dark hair caught back into a queue that hit him midshoulder blade. From the pallor of his skin, James guessed he spent most of his free time hunched over one of his machines.
"Took me a while." Juicy walked over to a computer terminal and sat down. "You brought me a lot of data. Didn't have a chance to get through it all."
"I know how you like to be thorough." Tori took up a stance behind the man, and James moved to do the same.
"Thought I recognized most of the work." Juicy swiveled his head around to send her a quick look, which she returned calmly.
"I'm sure you did."
Somehow James was left with the feeling that a great deal more had been exchanged in the terse sentences than mere words. The photographer—what had Tori said his name was? Corday—was obviously known to this character.
With a grunt Juicy turned back to the computer. The man pointed the mouse at various spots on the screen and clicked, unfolding several pictures. "Here are the sheriff's pictures of the vehicle and the road. They reported that the car came around this curve—" he traced it with his finger on the screen "—too fast. Driver lost control, tried to compensate by braking." His finger stabbed at the picture of the skid marks on the road. "Car fishtailed, swinging around so the rear end hit the guardrail. The force of that spun the car 180 degrees, and this time it was the front smashing through the rail. Momentum carried it over the edge of the road, down to the riverbed beneath."
"We read the report," Tori said impatiently. "The question is, do you agree with it?"
"I can see how they came to that conclusion, yeah."
James released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Was that relief he was feeling? He wasn't sure. There were too many emotions churning and bumping inside him to individually identify any one. Certainly it would put to rest a bit of the guilt that had haunted him since the notes started. Guilt that he hadn't done enough. Tried hard enough.
Guilt that wouldn't be assuaged easily.
"What about the other pictures?" he asked tersely. "The ones that weren't part of the report?"
"Like I said, I haven't gotten through everything yet. But I've seen enough to have a few questions."
"What kind of questions?" Tori crowded closer to Juicy, only to be elbowed away.
"Back off and I'll show you." With a few deft strokes he brought up a different set of pictures to the screen, clicking on one to enlarge it. "Here's the front left bumper of the car. Sheriff thought the damage to it came from smashing through the railing. And maybe it did. Might even have hit something fairly solid on the way down to the riverbed." He flexed his fingers on the keyboard. "But it also could have meant the car hit something else before it went off the road."
James stilled. "The report said the road was clear."
Never taking his eyes from the computer screen, Juicy nodded. "There's nothing in the pictures, anyway, but there was a mess load of machinery over on the west side. Why wouldn't the driver head that way? Better to hit a bulldozer than the guardrail."
"Driver error, the sheriff said," Tori murmured.
"Mebbe." Juicy clicked rapidly until he came to the photo he was looking for. He dragged one of the corners, enlarging it on the screen. "I blew this one up a couple times. This boulder sat at the edge of the road."
"Still does." James never traveled that stretch of blacktop without a part of him wondering about that night twenty years ago. Recreating the scene over and over in his mind. Wishing for a different outcome.
"The ex-sheriff mentioned something about it, too. The parish engineers were working on that stretch of road, widening it. There was interest in turning it into a four-lane, but public outcry killed it. People didn't want the two-hundred-year-old oaks destroyed."
"Whatever." It was clear Juicy had no use for the history. "Looks like the engineers were just widening it up to within a couple feet of that tree there." He tapped a spot on the screen. "But beside it was this rock that probably had sat there since caveman days." With a shrug of his narrow shoulders, he indicated his lack of appreciation of that fact. "See how the dirt around it is disturbed? It had been moved recently."
"The road crew moved it." Tori's voice was flat. She looked at James. "It's in the engineer's report. It was moved back to sit even with the tree to make way for the work, but they left it there to pacify the public upset with the progress."
"You think the car hit the boulder?"
"You wouldn't think so." Juicy stood as he answered James's question and released some pictures that had been tacked to the cork board. "Can't figure a way for the car to swing that far around and still hit it with enough force to cause that kind of damage." His pause was full of meaning. "If that's where the boulder was sitting that night."
"Well of course it was." A bit of James's earlier impatience sounded in Tori's voice. "We have the pictures to show the scene."
But James was rounding the man to peer at the pictures in his hand. Reaching out, he took them from him, flipping through the stack until he came to one that stopped him.
His gaze raised to meet Juicy's, who was bobbing his head. "Wouldn't have thought anything of it if I hadn't seen that picture. It made me stop and look at things a bit d
ifferently."
The pictures were close-ups of the boulder. The rock's position to the road. The flawless face it presented from that direction. But another shot taken from a different angle, intended, James guessed, to shoot the road from a different position, showed the back of the huge boulder. And the fresh scar marring it.
"Suppose that mark could have been made by the dozer that moved it," Juicy mused, going back to flipping through pictures he'd loaded on to his computer. "Not saying that it couldn't have been."
No, James mused grimly, he wasn't "saying" anything. But he'd already planted a seed of suspicion in their minds. "Are you suggesting the damage to the left bumper is consistent with it having hit the boulder?"
The man pursed his lips, skated a glance toward Tori. "Wasn't gonna say it that fancy, but yeah, it's a possibility. I'd need to run some tests to be sure. Only thing is there's no way in hell that it could have happened if the rock was sitting the way it is in this picture. Look at this." He scrolled down the screen, clicked on close-ups of the guardrail. "A car going at a pretty good clip hitting that railing isn't going to be stopped. It's gonna snap through it and go on down the embankment." He brought up another picture, shot through a night lens, and marked the path the car would have taken. "The damage done to the car's bumper looks more like it hit something solid." He brought one fist to hit his open hand in a loud whack. "Something with no give to it."
"Could it have hit something else as it went down the embankment?" Tori asked. "Another rock, or a tree, maybe?"
Juicy shrugged. "You didn't give me any pictures that showed something big enough in that area, but that don't mean there wasn't something."
"There wasn't." James's tone was final. He'd walked that scene in the days afterward, when thoughts of foul play had haunted him and overwhelming grief had whipped up fury. It had been easier to feel fury and suspicion than it had been to cope with sorrow. Simpler to want to blame a faceless nameless person, than to blame fate. He and his siblings had been orphaned. Another child left motherless. Until that moment he hadn't remembered how desperately he'd wanted to discover a human face to put on that evil.
He still didn't have a face. He didn't have facts. What he had was a possibility.
Realizing that Tori was looking at him quizzically, he tucked away the frustration that threatened to swamp him. "I checked the scene myself. There were no sizable trees, only brush. And the path was rocky, but nothing large enough to cause that kind of damage to the bumper."
"Unless impact from the car sent the rock rolling down the hill into the river below."
With an inclination of his head, he acknowledged the idea and addressed Juicy. "What could you do with this if we gave you more time?"
The man all but rubbed his hands together. "I want to go over the rest of the file you brought. Do some photogrammetic calculations. Examine the tire marks. Got the latest here in digital software and laser equipment. Give me a few days and I can run you a 3D reenactment of the accident itself."
"Do it."
Juicy slid a sideways glance to Tori. "The cost…"
"Will be covered. There's a bonus in it for you if you can get it to me sooner."
For the first time, a wide grin spread across the man's taciturn features. "I'll give it top priority."
"Call me the minute it's finished," Tori said, then turned to follow James out the door. He didn't shorten his strides; he couldn't. He had a sudden need for oxygen, to clear his head and fill his lungs.
A need to shake the insidious visions that were already forming, dark and sinister, in his mind.
He only half noted the occupants of the tavern, who eyed him sullenly but gave him wide berth as he made his way through the place. When he got outside, he headed to his car, not at all surprised that it was still there and seemingly in one piece, despite the neighborhood. Walking all the way around it, he did a quick, thorough scan, then nodded at the young hood sitting on the curb beside it. "Any problems?"
The other man shook his head, reaching out for the half of a hundred-dollar bill James offered. Fitting it together with the half in his hand, he stared at it for a moment, then gave a huge grin. "Anytime, mister. Anytime." He turned and headed down the street, a bounce to his step.
"Couldn't find anything more conspicuous?"
At Tori's droll comment, he looked over his shoulder at her. "My tank's in the shop."
She gave a rather inelegant snort, and circled the Dodge Viper. "I always wondered what inadequacy men were making up for with expensive … whoa." Tori stopped, narrowed her eyes. "Is this a V-10?"
"Yeah … 505 cubic-inch engine," he affirmed. "And it makes up for my personal inadequacy of being unable to go from zero to sixty in fifteen seconds while on foot."
Further smart-ass comments apparently stifled, she ran an admiring hand over a front fender. "What's the torque in this baby? You don't mind popping the hood, do you?"
A jacked-up late eighties sedan rolled slowly by. Its windows were cranked down, with rap music and gangster wannabes spilling from them.
Noting their interest, James said, "Some other time, maybe. I don't think this is the right place for show and tell."
At his words, her attention followed his and she nodded. "Sorry. I know a little about cars, but I've never gotten under the hood of one of these. I used to pit crew for a friend, though. I know my way around an engine."
And it sounded very much like she was itching to get her hands on this one. Despite the darker thoughts summoned by their conversation with Juicy, his interest was piqued. Most women of his acquaintance could identify the car's ignition and little else. He had a sneaking suspicion that her expertise with car engines far surpassed his own, since his was limited to little more than pointing in its general direction.
He felt a flicker of amusement. No, Tori Corbett wasn't at all like the women he generally spent time with. And it was too damn bad for him that he found that so appealing. "So now I have two things you envy—Hornets tickets and this car. Good to know."
Her expression sobering, she came around the hood to stand next to him. Oddly hesitant, she said, "I didn't exactly envy what you must have been going through in there a while ago."
His lighthearted feeling fled, to be replaced with the edge of anger that had been simmering since he'd seen the pictures. Heard the possibilities.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew his car keys. "Don't worry about me. I just wish he'd come up with something a little more substantial." Something that would have provided some answers, for once, instead of triggering even more questions. Something that would put to rest, once and for all, this nagging sense of failure that refused to die.
An image flashed through his mind, of the freshly scarred boulder, followed by another conjured up from his imagination. How easy would it have been, he wondered, to use one of those big Cats to move that rock one more time … into the middle of the dark night road? How quickly could it have been accomplished? In time to take the oncoming driver unaware? To cause an instantaneous decision … between a head-on crash and an unforgiving embankment?
His muscles tensed, and it took conscious effort to keep his fingers from curling into fists. Control had been his mantra for twenty long years, when he'd had to step, much too young, into his father's shoes. He wasn't a man given to rashness. With sheer force of will he pushed back the images that tormented. But he knew they'd return, unbeckoned, when sleep refused to come. Doubts always picked the midnight hours to creep in, when defenses were lowered and darkness dimmed logic.
Skirting the path his thoughts were heading, he used the automatic ignition to start the car. "Have you spoken to Sanderson's Towing and Recovery yet?"
Tori was still watching him with eyes that saw too much. "No, although I plan to. I doubt they'll be able to tell us any more than is contained in the report, but I want to be thorough."
"The original owner is still there." He'd checked out that much, at least, before he'd hired her. The company had
been the one to tow the car after the bodies had been extracted, bagging the belongings and doing the necessary cleanup so the vehicle could be sold for parts. "I want to go with you when you talk to him."
"Maybe you should rethink that." Someone came staggering out of Juicy's, threw them a look, then hurried in the opposite direction. The distraction had her glancing away, even as she continued, her voice lowered. "You have a business to run. I'm sure there are things there that require your attention, and I don't expect the visit to come to much, at any rate."
He arched one eyebrow. "Why do I have the feeling I'm getting the brush-off?"
She raised her chin and crossed her arms over her chest. A warrior readying for battle. Gaze direct, she said, "I'm not trying to brush you off, I just don't see the need for you to put yourself through anything else … like you did tonight."
James went still. It was one thing to have the constant battle between reason and emotion waging war within him. It was quite another for her to sense it. To comment on it. Emotion equaled vulnerability, and he'd spent his life making sure he and his were never vulnerable. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to protect me."
She uncrossed her arms and let them hang at her sides, as if she was uncertain what to do next. Then one rose, as if of its own volition, to hover between them before resting, ever so lightly, on his chest. "It can't be easy, listening to people talk about that night. Why go through it when you don't have to?"
One of his hands came up to grasp hers, his fingers tightening when she attempted to pull away. He had the feeling that if he let her, she'd try to soothe away his imagined hurts, the way a mother did with a child. But her touch had just the opposite affect. It threatened to unleash the emotions crashing and churning inside him. "I don't need protecting, and I don't require stroking, Tori. At least not that kind."
He watched the storm gather in her eyes, and the sight called to something primitive inside him. He had two decades' worth of experience keeping that core carefully controlled. A man led by his emotions would be ruined by them. But right now, in this moment, temptation was beckoning and he couldn't summon up a single reason to avoid it.
