Richardson’s mouth curled up on one side. “About time you people recognized greatness when you see it. Especially after everything I’ve done for this place. Is he in his office?”
I swallowed a laugh. Sarah Bauer might be good at dealing with wayward teenagers, but her smoke-screen skills needed some work. Even Richardson had to know he was being played—he was just too damned self-centered to pass up the ego-stroking.
Mrs. Bauer rose, patting my shoulder on her way around the desk. “Right in here, sir.” I could hear the tension in the older woman’s voice on that last word. God bless her. Every ounce of irritation in me followed the two of them smack out the door.
I took the other chair and turned to Nicky. “Better?” The word floated in empathy, bringing his eyebrows up as he sat back to look at me.
“Spoken like a woman who understands.”
“My dad is . . . well.” A harsh laugh escaped my throat. “My dad is Chuck McClellan.”
It had to roll around for a minute for a kid Nicky’s age, but his eyes popped wide when he got it. “Governor Chuck McClellan?”
“Former governor.”
“Didn’t your sister—” Nicky cut the question off halfway out of his mouth, shaking his head. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“No worries.” I patted the back of his hand. “I’m not here to talk about my dysfunctional family. Just wanted you to know I get it. I really, really get it. What was going on with Tenley? I want to help, but you have to tell me the truth. Even if it’s ugly. Drugs don’t fit because she wouldn’t have been able to keep up with school and sports.”
He shook his head, hard. “Tenner would never. She didn’t even drink. Her mom taught her better. She didn’t do chemical enhancement.” He sighed. “Didn’t. Past tense. What the fuck?” His head fell back and he sniffled, his right foot knocking his backpack over as he raised it to cross over his left knee. His phone, an Altoids tin, and a fancy-looking pen tumbled under his chair. He didn’t move to pick them up.
I pulled out a notebook and a regular ballpoint. “So she wasn’t drinking at the party, either?”
“I just saw her. We talked. She was fine, chattering about a test today and being young and rich and free.” His head sank to his knees, the next words muffled, aimed at the floor. “She was warm and soft and she smelled so damned good. God, I can’t . . .” He sat up, fingers sliding into his thick curls, his face sinking hollow with pain. “I can’t get my head around this. I loved her so much. I wanted . . . I tried to love her the way she deserved. Do you think she knew that?”
No idea, but he didn’t need honesty right then. “Of course she did.” I chased the platitude with a soft smile before I turned back to business. “She didn’t mention anything lately about being sad, or seem anxious?” My words came faster, eyes darting between Nicky, the door, and the clock. The press conference had to be going strong. Hell, Jameson could show up here with cameras any minute. Richardson I wasn’t worried about anymore. He could probably give my father a run for his money in the let’s-talk-about-me department. “No new people in her life?”
“She had a guy.”
Bingo. “Who?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.” Nicky pursed his lips, the sour look twisting his gorgeous features. “It hurt, too. Tenley and I told each other everything. By the time I got my head out of my ass and quit pouting long enough to realize if she wouldn’t tell me, there had to be a reason, she was different. Distant. Like she’d figured out she didn’t need me as much as I needed her. I’ve spent my whole life being afraid she’d see that someday. Then last night I saw a scuffle on the deck and walked out to find her getting pawed by Davenport.” His face scrunched up, disgust coating the other boy’s name.
“Is that the secret boyfriend?” I jotted the name down.
Nicky shook his head. “No reason to hide that. The guy is a douche, but he’s a rich, popular douche. Quarterback. Lives across the street from her. I’m sure she just caught a ride to the party with him.”
“Why didn’t she drive herself? Especially if she didn’t drink?”
His fingers drummed against his knee. “She didn’t like to drive at night. Not since her accident at the end of sophomore year.”
“Accident?” I hadn’t had time to run records on anyone.
“She was driving her dad’s truck, singing with the radio. She missed a stop sign. Caught the driver’s front corner of a Camry.”
Jesus. I held my breath until he spoke again. “The woman driving it was paralyzed from the waist down. T’s been to visit her every week since.”
“What is this woman’s name?” I asked, the plastic of the pen biting into my fingers from my grip.
“Stella Connolly. She lives in Tarrytown. Runs a gymnastics school. Nice enough lady.”
I made notes, raising serious eyes to Nicky. “Truth: Do you believe in your heart that Tenley could have killed herself? Was her behavior lately really that odd?”
“No?” He slumped back into the chair, tapping fingers moving to his rock-solid thigh. “I don’t know. I mean, if she didn’t, then what? Who would want to hurt Tenley? Everybody loved her.”
I stood as the door opened to reveal a petite woman with a blonde bob and a purple pantsuit. “People who are well loved are often the most afraid of secrets getting out.” I handed Nicky a card. “Call me if you need anything, or remember anything—no matter how small you think it is. My cell is on the back.”
He nodded, not looking at me, his fingers still keeping a frenetic beat against his leg.
I turned to the doorway. “Can I help you?”
The woman’s mouth popped into an O, her eyes darting from my badge to the back of Nicky’s head on a loop.
She blinked and coughed out a laugh that sounded forced. “I was looking for Mrs. Bauer.”
“She’s not here.” I kept a smile locked in place, shoving my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t gesture to the nearly empty room.
“Of course. I’ll just come back later.” The woman backpedaled until she nearly fell when her heel caught a plastic power cord cover running across the floor. She gasped, then spun and strode away.
Nicky didn’t move, didn’t seem to even notice anyone had come or gone. I studied him from the side, noting the drying track where the tear had rolled down his chiseled-from-perfection face. His fingers moved to a beat only he could hear, one Nike-outfitted heel picking up a bounce.
I turned for the door without another word. I liked the kid. Any idiot could see he loved Tenley Andre. And his single tear and fidgety manner could very well be as emotional as he was capable of getting, given his douchebag dad—everyone grieves in their own way.
My gut said Nicky knew more than he was saying, which didn’t surprise me given his dad’s temper tantrum. I didn’t have time for secrets, though, and now I had another question for my list: Was Nicky protecting Tenley’s memory, or someone else’s reputation?
9
A stocky man outfitted in khaki from hat to hiking boots studied half of a pair of Japanese falsecypresses flanking the foot of the Davenport family’s wide polished-stone drive, snipping new shoots with the pointy tip of his shears like he was trimming a bonsai.
“Pardon me,” I said, stopping to his right with a smile. “Can you tell me if Zayne is home?” The kid’s name was easy to find, thanks to the unofficial-religion status high school football enjoys in Texas.
The man didn’t look up from his work, the dark eyes peering from under his broad-brimmed safari hat fixed on the branches. “No hablo inglés,” he said, so careful and quiet I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or the plant.
“No hay problema.” I switched to Spanish and repeated my question. Practically raised by nannies in central Texas, Charity and I spoke Spanish before we spoke English. We spent elementary school forever in trouble with the grammar teachers for switching nouns and verbs in our writing.
The shears paused, his eyes sliding to me. Stopping on the badge.
“Lo siento. No se.” I’m sorry. I don’t know.
I scanned the yard. Grass freshly cut. Piles of bitty clippings around the foot of the hedge. He’d been out here all day. So either Zayne had been home a while, or the gardener wasn’t getting between the kid and the cops. Probably the latter, but there were easier ways to my goal than trying to coax him into the middle of this mess.
“Gracias.” I waved to him and strode up the drive, a massive house hiding behind lush trees and hedges that seemed immune to the city’s drought-emergency water restrictions.
Chimes rang Beethoven on the other side of the ten-foot embossed cherry double doors. I turned away from the camera in the right corner of the porch, keeping my badge out of sight.
Almost a full minute passed before I heard footsteps. They paused behind the door, then a lock clicked free and the left side cracked open.
“Can I help you?” The petite woman’s green eyes were almost as big as her blonde hair, her linen shorts and silk top straight off a Dallas runway.
“Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m looking for Zayne Davenport.” The cocktail-party smile stretched my face too wide.
The green eyes narrowed to a quarter of their width, locking on my badge. “I’m Zayne’s mother, Bethany. Why don’t you tell me what you want with my son, Officer . . . ?”
“McClellan.” I nodded when the green eyes widened again as the name hovered in the air. When Bethany opened the door a little wider and leaned on the edge of it, I gestured to the house across the street, catching a glimpse of the gardener out of the corner of my eye when I turned. He’d moved on to trimming the azaleas in the bed off the porch. I wrinkled my nose at a waft of sharp chemical, refocusing on Zayne’s mother. “I’m afraid one of Zayne’s friends has passed away, ma’am. Tenley Andre?”
One polish-free hand flew to Bethany’s throat. “No!” She leaned forward, her voice dropping to just above a whisper. “Another accident? I always wondered if she wasn’t drinking the first time, you know. Her mother and all.”
One raised eyebrow was the only reaction I gave her words, but I didn’t miss the bit about Erica. Worth checking out. “No automobiles were involved. Is Zayne here?” I peeked into the cavernous house over her shoulder. Miles of polished wood, a museum’s worth of antiques, and a set of top-dollar golf clubs—but no teenage quarterback.
Bethany stepped onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind her and keeping one hand on the knob. “He’s not, I’m sorry. But he was home all night last night.”
I kept my face neutral, studying hers. Liars always have a tell. It’s reading it that’s tricky sometimes. The Richardson kid was easy: When he told the truth, he looked me in the face. When he lied, he averted his eyes and fidgeted. The bigger the lie, the more he wiggled. Like he’d walked straight out of a psych textbook.
I knew Bethany was lying now because Nicky was looking dead in my eyes when he told the story about finding Tenley with Zayne at the party the night before.
“You didn’t see him leave the house?” I asked.
“If I had, I wouldn’t have said he was home all night,” Bethany snapped. Her nostrils flared.
There. That was it.
“And he didn’t say anything about Tenley?”
Bethany shook her head, the nostrils going out again.
Better than a polygraph.
“What about this morning? Do you know what time Zayne left for school?”
Bethany settled one shoulder against the door. “Usually around six. They make them go so early.”
I pulled a card from my back pocket, the chemical singeing my nose hairs again. “I understand Zayne is a popular kid. If he hears anything, could you ask him to call me?”
Bethany took one corner of the card with two fingers, her nostrils going wide as she flashed a Splenda-coated smile and said, “Of course, Officer.”
She disappeared inside before I could get the “Thank you” past my lips, heels receding across the marble behind the door. Probably headed for the phone to call her husband. Google said Quentin Davenport was a partner at the biggest law firm in central Texas. Which meant if I wanted a shot at talking to Zayne, I needed to find him right quick.
Where do teenagers with too much money and no responsibilities hang out? The mall?
Probably not anymore. Not that I could find one kid in the Galleria anyway.
I jogged down the steps, taking a zigzagging path back to the street and scanning the polished stones for anything that resembled blood.
The gardener caught up to me as I crossed to the truck.
“Señora?” he said in a harsh whisper. “Lo siento . . . I just . . . Señorita Tenley? She’s really . . .” His dark eyes filled as I nodded. So he did speak English. Not that I could fault him for the lie.
“You knew her?” I asked.
“She would run here along the street in the mornings. Always stopped to say hello to me on her way home. Ask about my babies. My little girl, she’s a runner, too.” His chest puffed up with pride as he pressed his fist to his lips, his Adam’s apple bobbing with a hard swallow. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure yet. I was hoping talking to Zayne could help me figure it out.”
The gardener bit his lip. Looked over his shoulder. “He had on his gym clothes when he left.”
Hot damn.
“Do you know where he works out?”
He shook his head, shuffling his feet. “Lo siento.”
“No apologies. That’s very helpful.” I pulled out another card and pressed it into his hand. “I’m Faith. If you see or remember anything, will you please call me?”
His brow furrowed. “The police around here, they don’t like us much.” His tone was cautious, his dark eyes hooded as he looked up at me. He wouldn’t give me his name, and I knew better than to scare him by pressing. Hell, I couldn’t even say he had no reason to be afraid—not all cops are assholes, but we have our share just like any other group.
I smiled, laying a hand on his arm. “I like you just fine, and I appreciate you coming to talk to me.” I took the card back and jotted my cell number on the blank side. “All I care about right now is getting Tenley’s family an answer. That’s my cell number. You use it anytime.”
He nodded. “Gracias.”
I watched as he turned back toward the Davenports’ drive. So Tenley Andre was the kind of girl who stopped to speak to people most of her peers didn’t even see. Gardeners and maids were as much a part of the landscape in this part of town as the expensive bush this guy was babying with teeny snips of his shears. Tenley was the kind of girl who cared about their feelings and families. The kind of girl Charity and I would’ve liked.
I climbed in the truck, putting the window down as I started the engine. Across the way, the gardener’s head and shoulders slumped, his ribs expanding slowly as one hand went to his face. Letting my foot off the gas, I stopped the truck behind him for one last question. “Sir? Would you leave your daughter alone with Zayne?”
The broad shoulders stiffened, his head beginning to shake as he turned. “Dios mío, no. I replanted the bed in the backyard last month and found pieces of . . .” He paused, glancing over his shoulder again. “Pieces of several animals. Buried all through there. The high pH in the soil is what killed her roses.”
“What kind of animals?”
He grimaced. “They’d all been cut up. Skinned. At least one was a cat.”
Jesus.
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Adiós, señora. Con cuidado.” Be careful. He turned back to the bush. I grabbed my phone and searched for nearby gyms.
West Hills Country Club, just up the road. Golf clubs in the Davenports’ foyer.
My foot dropped hard on the gas pedal, all the things I loved most about my job thrumming through every nerve ending: the witness who’s invisible to everyone around them, the rush of a quick rapport, the way a case can go from the-North-Pole-in-January cold to El-Paso-in-August hot in
one chance conversation. For the first time in months, I had an honest-to-God potential suspect in Zayne Davenport.
10
Makeup lost its mystique long about fifth grade, thanks to the upper-crust pageant circuit that required my ten-year-old wannabe-tomboy body to sit still in a salon chair for hours on end. A little tinted moisturizer and some eyeliner and I was good to go these days, but that didn’t stop my face from coming in handy occasionally. Like when I flashed my brightest the-judges-are-watching smile at the mountain range of muscle behind the club’s front desk and asked if the Davenport kid was on the premises.
“In the weight room, ma’am.” Biceps grinned. And flexed. “I can show you back if you’d like.”
I waved one arm. “After you.”
A pounding drumbeat rattled the mirrors lining the gray-and-black room, the tops of the walls proclaiming your gain, their pain in two-foot-tall all-capital letters.
Biceps turned a knob on the sound system and the music stopped, the pack of teenage boys draped over various machines turning with a collective groan. “What gives, G?” The tallest one, with perfectly coiffed black hair nearly hiding a Band-Aid over his temple, ducked out of a shoulder press. I recognized the smirk from the Instagram photos Tenley looked so miserable in. Jackpot.
“Zayne, this lady wants to speak with you,” Biceps said.
He turned, his mother’s green eyes staring from perfectly symmetrical sockets. They raked me from head to toe, moving slower on the return trip. A grin spread across his face. “And just what can I do for you?” He licked his lips.
Dream on, kid. I ignored the innuendo he layered clumsily into the words, turning to Biceps. “Is there a place we could speak privately?”
“The trainer’s office is empty.” He pointed to the back corner of the studio, and I glanced at Zayne.
“Nice big desk in there, Z,” one of the other boys called, inciting a couple of whoops and a cackle. I kept my head high and walked on. Didn’t even kick anyone as I passed them.
Fear No Truth Page 6
