Nauti Deceptions

by Leigh, Lora

  Three Mackays glared back at him. “Your jail wouldn’t survive it, Zeke,” Rowdy stated. “Don’t threaten us. Joe and Jaime were friends and their families are close to us. Grandma Walker and their sister, Lisa, and her two boys are pretty much alone now. The twins took care of them. We need to know what happened.”

  He stared back at Rowdy. Normally, Zeke would have believed him, but several years back, Rowdy had pulled his own bullshit over on Zeke. He hadn’t forgotten it. There were times he wasn’t sure he had forgiven it. He used to believe he was friends with these men, until he learned how easily they would hide the threats to the county he was duly sworn to protect.

  They were here, and they didn’t know shit about what he was doing; only Cranston was aware of it, and only because the other man was well aware of who and what Zeke was looking for. While they were here, he may as well get what information he could.

  “I don’t know what happened yet. Not fully,” he lied as he leaned forward and stared back at the cousins. “Did those boys do hard drugs that you knew of?”

  They looked at each other in confusion before Rowdy shook his head firmly. “Joe and Jaime were hell-raisers, but they didn’t do the hard stuff.”

  Well, hell, that didn’t help him much where the coroner’s report was concerned.

  “Do you have the forensics’ or coroner’s report yet?” Special Agent Timothy Cranston leaned forward in his chair, the wrinkled material of his cheap gray suit jacket shifting loosely on his shoulders.

  “Cranston, what’s your business in this?” Zeke leaned back in his chair with a brooding look. “If this has anything to do with another operation in my county, then now’s the time to give me a heads-up. Otherwise, I’ll stop playing nice.”

  And that was Cranston’s only warning. The agent was hiding too much information from him and Zeke was losing patience with him.

  Timothy grunted. “You stopped playing nice when your buddies in the Justice Department kicked my ass last year. Now, I’m being nice.” His smile was all teeth. “Janey’s upset over this. Rogue’s her friend and mine. Those twins were her friends, and Janey asked me to see what I could find out. I’d prefer not to pull in my own favors in D.C. at the moment, Sheriff. Might need those favors to get my job back.” The lying bastard. “So why don’t we all just play nice, and see if we can help each other here.”

  Which pretty much meant Cranston was involved up to his beady little eyes in Zeke’s business. Playing along was easy enough, for the moment.

  “Well, hell,” he growled, lifted the file, and tossed it closer to the edge of the desk. “Initial report. Joe was pumped on heroin. The city’s investigative coroner still has the bodies, but this is the county coroner’s initial findings. Joe was pumped, walked in, shot Jaime, then himself.”

  Natches lifted the file from the desk, sat back, and opened it. Two cousins and one portly Homeland Security agent read over his shoulder.

  “Not possible,” Dawg murmured. “Joe didn’t do this shit, Zeke. And he wouldn’t kill Jaime.”

  “Dawg, I’m doing my best with what I have here.” Zeke sighed. “Forensics hasn’t come up with anything yet. No vehicle tracks were found outside the twins’ trailer, other than official vehicles that arrived that day. There was rumor of a fight over a girl, but no one knows who the girl was. There’s just nothing to stand on here but my gut and your suspicions. That’s not going to get me far.”

  Natches tossed the report back to the desk before breathing out heavily and raking his fingers through his shaggy black hair.

  “If we hear anything, we’ll let you know.” Dawg shook his head at that point. “But I know Joe or Jaime wasn’t doing heroin. That’s a promise. They weren’t exactly upstanding citizens, Zeke, but they didn’t do trash, either.”

  Zeke could only shrug in response. “I need proof, Dawg. You know how it works. I’ll wait until forensics and the coroner’s investigator finish their reports. But initial calls to each aren’t promising. Until then, I’m asking questions and trying to piece this together. If Joe and Jaime were murdered, then someone knew what the hell they were doing, because I can’t find so much as a whiff of suspicion. It’s that simple.” And it was a message to Cranston. Zeke knew who he was after; the agent could stay the hell out of his way if he didn’t intend to play fair with Zeke in this little game.

  “Damn.” Dawg rubbed at the back of his neck in a rough gesture.

  Zeke’s gut went haywire when he knew things weren’t as they seemed. Dawg’s and Rowdy’s neck itched. Natches just became a time bomb with an assassin rifle. Who the hell knew what Cranston did; Zeke sure as hell couldn’t figure him out.

  The Mackays weren’t happy, Zeke wasn’t happy, Cranston was smiling, and Zeke knew that this was a bad sign. Welcome to Lake Cumberland, he thought caustically. The last few years had been hell, for law enforcement as well as citizens. Pulaski County was a quiet little place, despite the tourism to the lake.

  The mountains, vibrant forests, fishing, and hometown atmosphere hadn’t made up for the realization that a dark underbelly had been existing for decades beneath their notice. The operations Homeland Security had conducted, using the Mackay cousins as agents, had revealed a festering evil that Zeke had been fighting far longer than the Mackays could ever guess. It had become his own personal battle, the only way to make up for his sins as a child.

  “What about the explosion last night?” Natches asked. “Their mobile home went up like fireworks. If it was murder-suicide rather than two homicides, then why would anyone bother to blow the place up?”

  Zeke lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I went over it with the state police and the arson investigator. We didn’t find jack. There was a call made here to the office that there were vandals at the place. It went up in flames as Gene pulled into the driveway with the state police. There was no sign of a body.” He lifted another file as he glanced at Cranston. “There was a gas stove in the mobile home that the arson investigator believes must have been faulty and caused the explosion.”

  Zeke didn’t believe that for a moment. It was too easy and it was too similar to how he knew the League’s exterminator worked. Zeke knew things the Mackays didn’t. He knew things Cranston didn’t. And he knew this was the work of someone from the homeland terrorist group that had escaped the net Cranston had used to pull the others in.

  “I have an idea.” Cranston smiled as he leaned forward in his chair. “Right now, whoever you’re looking for, if this was a murder, knows you’re looking for him. Let him think you’re distracted, otherwise occupied.”

  “Meaning?” Zeke gritted out. Cranston was a cunning bastard, but that didn’t mean Zeke liked the games he played.

  “I mean, let them think a woman has your attention. Concentrate on something pretty, pretend to be totally focused there, give your killer a chance to mess up rather than watching every move and every word because he’s on guard.” He shrugged his shoulders as he sat back in the chair. “It couldn’t hurt.”

  “Just use some poor woman as a tool to find a killer?” Zeke snorted. “How did you make special agent, Cranston? Did you cheat on the exam?”

  Cranston chuckled at that. “While you’re occupied, myself, Alex Jansen, and the Mackays can watch your back. We’ll see who’s interested, and who’s doing what. We can ask the questions needed much easier, and get more.”

  “Forget it,” Zeke gritted out as he saw the mockery in the agent’s eyes.

  They both knew exactly who he was suggesting Zeke use. And Zeke sure as hell didn’t like the excuse his lust was trying to grab with both hands.

  “Come on, Zeke,” Dawg chided him harshly. “Those were our friends. Let us help with this.”

  “I don’t need your help, Dawg, and I sure as hell don’t need to pretend to be focused on a woman to solve this case. But if I learn anything new, I can let you know,” Zeke told them with a complete lack of sincerity. “Unlike some agents and kamikaze rednecks, I don’t mind a bit of coopera
ting when the situation warrants it.” His smile was all teeth this time. A reminder, a careful warning. He could be a friend, or he could be an enemy. One more operation in his territory without his knowledge, and these men would find themselves on the enemy side. That wasn’t a good place to be.

  “You’re worried about kamikaze rednecks when, according to every gossip source in Somerset, you’re consorting with leather-wearing maniacal pixies?” Dawg snorted. “Hell, Zeke, even me and Natches were smart enough not to get mixed up with Rogue Walker.”

  “She turned you down,” Natches reminded him as Zeke tensed. “I was just smarter than to approach her.”

  All eyes turned to Natches.

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” The words slipped past Zeke’s lips without control as a core of possessiveness seemed to slam into his chest. He’d be damned if he’d allow her to be insulted by these men.

  Natches grinned. “Hell, Zeke, five years ago, you nearly lost your tongue when you met her at that town hall meeting when she arrived as a new schoolteacher. I have a rule, man. Don’t mess with a buddy’s woman.” He rose from his chair, chuckling as Zeke narrowed his eyes on him. “ ’Bout time you made a move. Personally, I think she should tell you to go to hell for waiting so long. But that’s just me. And Cranston’s idea has merit. Grab Rogue with both hands and hold on for dear life. We’ll watch your back and do what has to be done.”

  “No one asked your opinion.” Zeke ground the words past clenched teeth.

  “Yeah, Chaya reminds me of that often.” He laughed as he headed for the door, cousins and one special DHS agent following behind him. “Tell Rogue I said hi when you see her.”

  They left the office, and left Zeke with a raw, almost blinding sense of need where Rogue was concerned. Son of a bitch, he hadn’t had enough of her last night. He’d wanted it to be enough, convinced himself that he wouldn’t feel what he knew he was going to feel today.

  Lust had slammed into him. Even now, in the cold light of day, his balls were tight, his cock hard. The memory of her lips, like hot satin, the taste of her, equal parts liquor and female, the feel of her body, heated and molding to his, haunted him.

  Rubbing his hands over his face, he tried to contain it, to push it back where it belonged, where other things he knew were not in his best interests were locked. Unfortunately, Rogue refused to stay locked away.

  There were times he swore he could almost feel the silken warmth of her hair between his fingers as he caressed a fiery curl. He could almost feel her lips against his. He could almost imagine her taste. Almost. It was never enough, and the need to experience it again was making him crazy.

  Lucinda and Shane hadn’t helped his self-control the other night. Hell, Lucinda and Shane nothing. Damned nosy busybodies in town. Too many people had known he’d gone to her apartment the night before, in plainclothes, and stayed too long. And too many gossips had put two and two together the next morning when it came to that reddened mark beneath her jaw.

  Oh hell, he remembered leaving that mark. Remembered tasting her a little too deeply, too roughly. And she had loved it. Her head tilting back, her breath passing her lips in a hard sigh. She had done the same thing last night. Melted for him. Became slick and hot and ready for his touch.

  Sweat collected along his spine as he shifted in his chair, trying to find a more comfortable position to accommodate the erect length of his dick. At this rate, he was going to die of a hard-on. It had to be dangerous for a man of his age to stay this hard for so long.

  A sharp knock at his door had his attention turning from the need raging through him.

  “Yeah,” he called out.

  The door opened and Gene stepped in slowly.

  Well now, wasn’t this just what he needed?

  He stayed silent and waited as the deputy stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

  “Can I have a minute, Zeke?” Gene asked quietly.

  He was dressed in the black-and-gray uniform, his hat clenched in his fingers as he faced Zeke across the room.

  “A minute.” Zeke nodded.

  Gene cleared his throat. “I’m still on schedule. I thought maybe we could talk about the other day. I was out of line.”

  A frown clenched Gene’s weathered forehead as he raked back his dark hair and grimaced heavily. Zeke remained silent.

  “I don’t have a problem with you, Zeke,” he finally said. “I got family issues goin’ on, and I guess I was blowing off steam with the Walkers. I’d like to make up for it.”

  Zeke hadn’t filed the report against him, he hadn’t initiated a suspension, simply because he hadn’t had time. He and Gene had once been friends. Zeke had fought for the position as sheriff, and Gene had come on board as deputy for the same reasons Zeke had. Or so Zeke had once believed. To clean up the county, to find a way to eliminate Dayle Mackay’s stranglehold here, and make up for the wrongs their fathers had committed.

  He and Gene had promised themselves they would make up for those darker years. Gene was a good deputy, and once, Zeke had known him as a good friend. But Zeke suspected now that Gene’s loyalty might not run as deep as he’d once believed it had.

  “Everyone deserves justice, Gene.” He finally sighed as he watched the other man closely. “Walkers are no different from anyone else. Hell, they weren’t involved in that mess last year when some of our leading citizens were. I’d say they were a damned sight better than some around here.”

  “I agree, Zeke.” He nodded. “I went off when I shouldn’t have. It won’t happen again.”

  Something had changed in Gene over the years, Zeke thought. He wasn’t as compassionate, he wasn’t as patient as he had once been. But hell, had he really ever been as diligent as Zeke knew he had wanted Gene to be? He hadn’t been, and it was a fault Zeke had acknowledged a while back.

  It wasn’t as much Gene’s fault as it was his own. He should have known better than to put Gene against his own father and the past he had shared with Zeke’s father. Gene didn’t have the demons Zeke had; he hadn’t faced hell and turned his back on it.

  “We’ll let this one go, Gene,” he finally said. “We’ll both see if we can’t fix things in the future.”

  “Thanks, Zeke.” Gene inhaled in relief as he moved to grip the doorknob. “I’ll head out on patrol then.”

  “Gene.” He stopped the other man before he left the office.

  Gene turned back, his brown gaze curious.

  “You said the Walker boys were fighting over a girl at the bar last week. Any gossip as to who they were fighting over?” It was the one piece of information Zeke hadn’t been able to uncover.

  Gene lifted his hand and scratched thoughtfully at the side of his nose before shaking his head. “There was no name mentioned, now that I think about it. Just that Rogue had to throw them out because they were fighting, and the fight was over some girl both of them wanted.” He frowned slowly. “I didn’t hear who the girl was.”

  Zeke nodded. No one else had heard, either. Just that it was over a girl.

  “I’ll head out then.” Gene opened the door, slid from the room, and closed it behind him, leaving Zeke alone to stare at the coroner’s initial report that was lying on the desk.

  Joe pumped up on heroin didn’t make sense. Joe and Jaime fighting over a girl didn’t make sense. Nothing about their deaths added up or pointed him in the right direction to look for evidence. All Zeke had was the fact that it was identical to a method the exterminator used. He knew it was, because his father had told him about it repeatedly when he’d been a teenager. When he, too, had been a part of the Freedom League.

  He rubbed at his jaw, sat back in his chair, and visualized the murder scene again. The TV remote and the half a bottle of beer. But the television had been turned off.

  There had been no drugs in the house, though Joe and Jaime weren’t strangers to a little marijuana. There should have been some.

  Jaime hadn’t fought, he hadn’t even tried to come o
ut of his chair.

  Joe had put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger within moments of killing his brother.

  There were no signs of tears on his face or in his eyes. There were no defensive wounds to indicate he had been murdered. The gun was in his hand, his prints alone marking it.

  He closed his eyes and let the scene form in his head. There was something off there. Something more than the lack of evidence for anything illegal, something more than that damned television being turned off, the remote in the exact position it would have been if it had fallen from Jaime’s hand.

  There had been traces of marijuana in Jaime’s system, but heroin in Joe’s. The coroner’s report showed a single track mark in the arm. Nothing more. He’d shot up only once and killed his brother while under the drug’s influence.

  Zeke knew it hadn’t happened that way.

  His eyes opened, his lips compressing as he rose from the desk and jerked his hat from the desk where he’d tossed it.

  He wanted to see the scene again, remember the layout of the bodies, and figure this out. The mobile home may have been blown to hell, but the ashes were still there, and Zeke could remember how it had been when he’d found the bodies.

  Joe had shot up only once. Just that single time. And that was bullshit. Someone had managed to shoot him up and walk into that mobile home with him. Once there, the unsub had shot Jaime, then killed Joe.

  Zeke left the office and headed from the building, walking into the warm April sunshine and ignoring the sharp pang of longing he felt at the sound of a motorcycle purring past the sheriff’s department.

  He looked, but it wasn’t Rogue. Wild hellion curls weren’t flowing back from the rider’s face and a fun-loving, devil may-care smile wasn’t aimed his way.

  Hell, she was working, he knew. It was her afternoon at the restaurant, and if nothing else, Rogue was damned dependable in what she did.

  He was the inconsistent one. He’d lusted after her for years and fought against it. He’d kissed her, then pushed her away. He ordered her not to bring another man between them, but he made damned certain he stayed as far away from her as possible. And when that hadn’t worked he’d at least tried to give her pleasure and satisfaction before walking away again. Staying away from her was killing him.