by Ellen Parker
Kenosha. Beel. Names fell into place like the final pieces of a puzzle for Laura. Brad’s college friend, Beel, pushed the right rock to expose Scott’s killer as well as the case in her family. Still, the picture remained blurred, as if she looked though a wrong pair of glasses. “Why?”
“Greed,” Daryl replied.
“Fear of exposure.” Sheriff Bergstrom underlined a word on her pad. “Mr. Wilcox requested a lawyer after surgery. The good news is that he spoke volumes in the ambulance and my deputy got it all on tape. According to his own words, Scott Tanner wasn’t his first murder for hire. I don’t think he trusted his ability to keep his secret while living in such a small community with you.”
“Is it over?” Laura managed to get Wilson to look at her directly.
“Prosecutors in three different jurisdictions have it now. We’re talking multiple arraignments and hearings for certain. It may or may not go to trial.”
“Will my husband get justice?” The heat and moisture of determination bathed Laura’s back. She collected nods as she scanned the other faces until she reached the final one. “Uncle Daryl?”
He sighed enough to overwhelm the silence. “How are you defining it today?”
“It’s a good system, Mrs. Tanner.” Wilson pushed a mint in her direction. “Good. Not perfect.”
She swallowed back an objection at anything less. Confession. Trial. No matter how long it took or what the final outcome in the justice system it wouldn’t bring Scott back. Her hand moved to her chest, found the lump of rings, and stayed as if to protect Scott’s memory.
“You may stay as long as you wish.” The sheriff pushed back her chair, collected Laura’s statement, and nodded to the detectives. “We have official calls to make.”
“Of course.” Laura counted them as they departed. One didn’t leave. A quick glance to her right and she found Brad sitting with his head propped on his hand staring at her profile.
I will not cry. I will not make a scene.
She gazed at the second hand on the plain wall clock during one complete revolution and a portion of another before she reached behind her, fumbled the chain out, and released the clasp. The rings and chain glinted in her hand, a jumble of precious memories and metal.
“Where’s the happy? I thought I’d be joyful when they made an arrest.”
“How do you feel?” Brad teased his hook into the chain and began to spread the necklace out for display on the table.
“Empty. Hollow.” She separated out the larger ring and set it over her index finger. With each millimeter it slid down she felt her heart accept what her brain learned that New Year’s Eve in Scott’s office. Her marriage was over. It ended with her husband’s final breath.
She rotated the ring once. Thank you for our yesterdays together. She tipped her hand, returned the wedding band to its companion and chain. “Are you going to play psychologist now?”
“Friend. Listening post. Big Ears Brad didn’t go away completely.” He wiggled his ears and grinned.
She couldn’t help it. Tension released in a giggle before growing into a genuine laugh.
“You have a beautiful smile, Goldilocks.”
“Not so bad yourself, Mr. Park Ranger.”
Chapter Twenty
“Where are we going?” Laura asked the same question for the sixth time while putting on her boots and parka. She took another glance into the kitchen where Aunt Sharon dried the last of the breakfast dishes.
“Go on, Laura. I can handle things here. Enjoy a nice ride with Brad on a sunny winter day.”
She pulled on her gloves. Their long conversation after leaving the sheriff’s office yesterday had been therapeutic. She’d managed to relieve some stress and lose track of time during a walk around Wagoner’s business district, followed by coffee and dessert with him. She’d needed both the fresh air and his friendship. He impressed her then, even more than in previous conversations, as living a blend of ambition and spontaneity. His friendship would be a good counterbalance to her endless lists and planning. “I assumed Daryl would have you doing paperwork today.”
“Already put in three hours at the office.” He gestured her through the door. “I’ve got enough remnants of dairy farmer and soldier left in me that I wake up early.”
She shook away an image of Brad moving around in a dim room while she lazed under a quilt. Fantasies belonged to young girls. As a grown woman she needed to find comfort in memories and her actions of the future.
Taffy and Cocoa broke away from supervising Roger cleaning steer pens. They circled close, whining for attention.
“No, I’ve not forgotten you. You’re a good, brave girl.” Laura squatted down to give Cocoa a brisk rub. “And I’ll be coming back. This one’s the good guy. Remember?”
“Enough already,” Brad opened the passenger side of his truck.
“Are you going to tell me you don’t talk to pets?” Warmth from his hand under her elbow as she climbed into the cab tempted her to open her coat, no matter that the thermometer registered single digits.
“Oh, I talk to them. Call them all sorts of things from sweetness and light to words my drill instructors wouldn’t dare yell. It’s a situational thing.”
She laughed and waited while he settled behind the wheel. “Where are we going?”
“You’re turning out to be a difficult woman to surprise. Do you always repeat the same question every thirty seconds?”
“Not usually.”
“Sleep well last night?” He steered the truck through a three-point turn and headed out the driveway.
Compared to what? “We sat up late talking. Roger and Sharon asked lots of questions about these last few days.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t see ‘shrink’ on any of your hats.” She rubbed her hands and watched the Asher buildings disappear from view. A sigh escaped. The valley road seemed like the right choice this morning, it avoided going past the house Myles had rented.
At the base of the hill Brad turned away from town, where the road stayed between the steep slope and Crystal Creek twisting across this wide part of the valley. “I’m waiting.”
“I noticed. Better. No dancing on the deck. No blood either.” She looked at slumbering corn and soybean fields as they passed. Corn mazes — she’d been in a maze last night. Hedges, maybe holly or another of the sharp-leaved shrubs too tall for her to peek over and with a narrow path that varied from short grass to raw crushed limestone. At the exit Scott’s grave marker gleamed in moonlight. Name. Dates. Beloved Son and Husband.
“No blood sounds like a good sign. Here we are.” He pulled into a cleared driveway that led to a single story house, garage with one extra-large and two regular doors, and another shed behind. “Milk hauler built the garage. In case you wonder about the doors.”
“I wonder why we’re here.”
“Three acre small farm came on the market early last month. This is three point eight miles of good road from your shop. Easy drive to town. Barn looks small on the outside but would be big enough for a horse. Or we could keep a few sheep.”
“Are you practicing a real estate pitch?” We? She followed his cue and released her seat belt but he made no further move. “I’ll be living on the farm until Daryl’s tenant leaves in June. Then I’m moving into his upstairs apartment.”
“It won’t hurt to look.”
Moments later she walked close to him toward the back of the house. His left arm snugged around her waist and she fought a smile at the sight of his sparkling hook. This was a comfortable place, next to his steady optimism.
She walked through a utility room with coat hooks and room for a freezer and paused in the kitchen. One glance out the window drew her gaze to a bright cardinal diving into a stately spruce.
“La
ura.” He captured her hands and held them between his hand and hook. “Do you realize I love you?”
She moved her gaze from their stack of hands and metal to his eyes. Not a trace of mischief this time. His face was all seriousness and sincerity. And he made her insides churn like a washing machine gone wild. “I loved Scott.”
“Will you give me a chance? I’d like to be beside you during all those legal proceedings.” He finally blinked. “I’d like other things too. But I want you to be sure of yourself.”
She moved her gaze away from the earnest eyes but it stalled on his lips. They tempted her with memories of that pair of kisses. She swallowed, pulled a little courage from hiding. “I want something too.”
Laura leaned forward and a heartbeat later she melted into his kiss. Her arms found a way under his coat and roamed across his broad back. She hesitated when her fingertips encountered the edge of the harness for his prosthesis. She wanted to learn this man, his scars as well as his practical optimism. And he let her feel safe. More secure than she’d imagined in wild, youthful dreams.
“Will you share your tomorrows with me, Laura?”
She skimmed her palm across his cheek. “I won’t be easy to live with. I’m stubborn and set in my ways.”
“I’m not asking for easy. I’ll never be a poster boy for charm myself.” He eased away half a step and pulled a small square box from his coat pocket. “This belonged to my grandmother. I think it suits you.”
Laura gasped at an emerald cut diamond winking from a smooth gold band. She reached out, hesitated with her fingers light on deep blue velvet. “We should start our tomorrows now.”
About the Author
Ellen Parker, a daughter of Wisconsin, currently lives in St. Louis and writes sweet, romantic suspense. When she’s not guiding characters toward “happily ever after” you can find her tending her postage stamp size garden or walking in the neighborhood. Visit her at www.ellenparkerwrites.wordpress.com or https://www.facebook.com/ellenparkerwrites?fref=ts
A Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance
(From Counterpoint by Shay Lacy)
Bryce Gannon should have been lying on a slab in the morgue. Instead, a ventilator kept the comatose defense attorney breathing, the thump and whoosh of the mechanical bellows and the monitoring equipment’s rhythmic beep the only sounds in his suburban Detroit ICU room. He resembled a corpse except for the forced rise and fall of his bare chest and the bluish cast to his skin that marked his respiratory system’s distress.
On the other side of the ICU glass, Ciara Alafita felt like a ghoulish voyeur. From what she’d heard of the impassive Gannon, she thought he’d hate this exposure and vulnerability. Well, as low as his blood pressure was, he might not yet survive whoever had tried to kill him so he could be embarrassed by his current condition.
She asked the man beside her, “Have the police found out who sent Gannon the letter bomb yet?”
Michigan State Attorney General Lawrence Baisden shook his head, his eyes detailing the scene inside the room. “I expect a report shortly.” He was in his early fifties, tall, with a commanding presence.
“Ricin is a bio-terrorist poison. Why would a terrorist choose Gannon as his target? He defends criminals like them.” Ciara had wondered why they’d driven an hour and a half from the state capital in Lansing to see Gannon in the hospital. She’d also wondered why the top man at the Attorney General’s office had pulled her out of her department to accompany him.
“I don’t think it was a terrorist attack,” Baisden said. “I wonder if it’s fallout from that mess with his friends last month.” He nodded to the black-haired man who sat in a chair beside Gannon’s bed.
Ciara recognized Paul Ziko, one of those friends, from the news. “But the real criminal confessed. Why would anybody target Gannon instead of him? Gannon defended the innocent party.”
“Were the rest of Gannon’s friends innocent? You must have seen the news, Ciara. Didn’t you wonder why more people weren’t arrested? I did. Maybe the victims’ families did too.”
Startled, Ciara turned away from the view of the man in the bed. “Are you suggesting a cover-up? One that Gannon engineered?”
Baisden’s brown eyes pierced her. “I’m suggesting Gannon’s so good at getting people out of legal jams that mobster Adam Steele hired him. I question Gannon’s associations and I don’t like the conclusions I’m drawing.”
Ciara sucked in her breath in surprise and lowered her voice. “This is about Gannon being asked to run for judge, isn’t it?”
Baisden nodded. “If he has poor judgment, or worse, I want to know about it now. I don’t want someone corrupt on my team.”
That’s why the Attorney General had chosen her. Her department dealt with local elections and public offices. But it still didn’t explain why he’d picked a junior lawyer in that department.
A nurse in brightly patterned scrubs hung another IV bag, attracting Ciara’s attention again into the room.
“You may not have to worry about that.”
“Gannon’s a fighter. I think he’s going to make it, but he’ll need time to recover. Ricin poison is nasty stuff.” His cell phone chimed quietly and he quickly grabbed it off his belt. “Excuse me.” He turned aside to answer the call. “Baisden.”
Ciara watched the nurse write vital information on Gannon’s chart. Nobody deserved murder, not even cold-hearted reptiles like Gannon who defended murderers. And he had defended one innocent man recently, although it had probably been a fluke.
Cover-up or not, Paul Ziko’s loyalty amazed her. She had no close friends who’d sit beside her bedside if she was ill or injured. Her family would, despite their differences. Which made her wonder why Gannon didn’t have family by his side.
Baisden turned back to her. “That was the forensics report. There were no prints on the envelope. Whoever sent the letter bomb didn’t want to get caught.”
Ciara looked at the still figure violated with tubes and wires. “What about a jealous husband?” If Gannon had no scruples about whom he defended, maybe he lacked other scruples as well.
“No. Gannon recently broke up with Monique Dennison, the former Miss Michigan. She was runner-up for Miss USA. He dated her for the past year. She’s single.”
Ciara attached the name to a face — a stunning, statuesque blonde. Pageant queens could be cutthroat. “Maybe she’s the bomber, a woman scorned and all that.”
“The newspapers said she ended it.”
“So the bomber could be anybody. And you think something Gannon is or was involved in made someone decide to kill him?”
“Definitely. I want you to find out what he’s mixed up with.”
“Me? How?” She was a paper pusher, not an investigator.
“He’ll need help while he recovers.”
“I’m not a nurse or a therapist.”
“Legal help. You’ve got your law degree. So work for him. Find out how compromised he is and report back to me. If I’m right, I’ll nip his aspirations in the bud. I won’t have a fool or someone corrupt on the bench.”
“So he won’t know I’m with the Attorney General’s office?”
“No. You can tell him you’re moving home to be closer to your sick father.”
Ciara gave Baisden a sharp glance. Her heart skipped a beat. Did he know she was estranged from her father? She wouldn’t put it past him. The AG had his ear to all kinds of grapevines.
“How long do you think it will take?” she asked carefully. The thought of moving back to her hometown for an extended period disturbed her. Her fingers curled against the cool surface of the ICU window.
“If you’re lucky, a week,” Baisden replied. “If not, you have until Steele’s trial starts in two weeks.”
Ciara faced him. “Why me? I don’t report directly to you. You’ve got mor
e experienced people who do.”
“You’ve got brains and beauty, Ciara, a combination that could take you far. I’ve discussed your future with your supervisor several times. He said you’ve got great potential … except for that big chip on your shoulder about men. Your first two suggestions about suspects showed you didn’t think much of men. My office is political, Ciara. We can’t afford to offend half the people who vote us there.”
Ciara reined in her hurt, although she trembled with the injustice of it. Baisden didn’t think much of Gannon himself. “So you think proving Bryce Gannon is a fool or corrupt will knock that chip off my shoulder?”
“Not all men are bad, Ciara. You’re painting us all with the same brush. Maybe you had a bad experience with a man or a string of bad experiences. I don’t know and I don’t care. I do care that it makes you less of an asset to my office. Take this time to figure out which is which, and give me an unbiased report on Gannon.”
He glanced into the ICU room again. His lips tightened, he shook his head and walked away.
Ciara looked one last time. The respirator still whooshed and thumped with every mechanical breath. The monitors still beeped every slow heartbeat. Bryce Gannon continued to lie immobile as the doctors fought the ricin damage.
She had no illusions she could lie well to Gannon or that she could win him over with her looks. Baisden had said she had brains and beauty, but in her experience men didn’t want brains — they wanted big boobs. That wasn’t her. Her intelligence intimidated men and had since high school. And men wanted blondes, while she was Latina. Gannon had just spent a year with a gorgeous, buxom blonde. How could Ciara get him to believe her story when she was the antithesis of the beauty queen?
Ciara’s hands curled into fists. She entertained no fantasies about her feminine charms either. Her parents had reproached her often enough about her unfeminine choices — playing basketball and practicing law. She’d come out on the losing end when they compared her to her more traditional sister who was a housewife and mother.
