Fear No Truth

by LynDee Walker

  “The kind of old friend who might work for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, and might be investigating the death of one Tenley Andre, fallen teenage track star?”

  Dammit. I kept my face unsurprised and pleasant as I twisted my lips to one side. “I think Graham is handling that case, yes, sir.”

  Who snitched? Not that I could ask. Hazard of working in a room full of cops: secrets mostly don’t stay secret for long.

  “Any idea why Skye Morrow was just on the TV saying the Rangers’ newest hotshot, former governor McClellan’s only daughter, is assisting him?”

  My cheeks burned. Damn Skye Morrow and her ratings-grabbing bullshit to hell and back. “I’m not aware of any assignment to that case, sir.” I kept my voice flat and my face smooth.

  “Me either. And it sure as shit better stay that way.” He pushed the door open and waved me through ahead of him. “I understand this is a rough time of year for your family. You have a nice vacation.” He hit the word hard. “Monday morning, we’ll have a talk about your future with this organization.”

  I nodded at the not-so-subtle threat to my job and took long, quick strides toward my truck. Boone could take his threats and stick them right up his ass—I couldn’t bail on Tenley now. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to losing my job, but if it did, so be it. Good cops aren’t exactly in oversupply. I’d find something else. And if Simpson turned out to be Archie’s guy in the DuGray case, all my hard work to make it as a Ranger wouldn’t be a total loss.

  I tapped out a text to Jim, asking about pregnancy or recent abortion, and got back an almost-immediate Not there yet. I’ll let you know.

  Starting the truck, I dialed Graham. He picked up on the first ring. “Tell me you got that warrant,” I said.

  “In my hot little hands as we speak. You get anything else?”

  “A couple things, and I’m not sure where they’ll go.” I clicked the turn signal down and made a left onto Fifteenth. “I know why her car was still at home yesterday morning—she called an Uber in the wee hours.”

  “You don’t say. Want me to call them and ask who drove her?”

  “I’ve used their service a couple times. She should have emails in her inbox with information about the vehicle. If we can get into her phone, we’ll get to the driver faster than messing with corporate red tape.”

  “Have I ever told you how smart you are? Damn, I’ve missed you.”

  I couldn’t tell if he meant to push so much emotion behind that, but it was nice to think about. “Back at you,” I half whispered.

  Graham cleared his throat. “You headed this way?”

  “Being seen there could be detrimental to my career, since Skye went on the air with the fact that she saw us this morning and my boss wasn’t excited about it. Meet me at the hotel?”

  “On my way. What was the other thing you found?”

  “That’s why I’m curious about the checking account. I think Tenley was blackmailing her folks,” I said. “She needed money for something she didn’t want to just ask them for, when they gave her everything.”

  “Christ, these people have more skeletons than the fucking catacombs. I don’t suppose we have any idea what she was trying to pay for?”

  “Not yet. Hoping Jim might move that along for us in the next little while, though.” I turned into the hotel parking lot. “I’m here. Come on up when you get here.”

  “See you in a few.”

  I grabbed my notebook and loped to the doors, taking the stairs two at a time with the chaos that was the last months of Tenley Andre’s life whirling through my thoughts. Secrets and lies, everywhere this girl turned. The notes she left for her nearest and dearest were about outing them, clearing the air.

  I shoved my key card into my door a couple minutes later and barreled into my room muttering, “Everything comes back to who didn’t want to be discovered. Who had the most to lose, then?” The question died on my lips when I stepped past the closet.

  “Do not talk to yourself, Faith. It’s common, and no matter how determined you are to prove me wrong, you are not a common woman.” Not a single drop of emotion behind the words.

  It worked for her. Matched the face.

  “Mother.” I shoved my hands into my pockets. “What are you doing here?”

  26

  I didn’t bother asking who let her in.

  Ruth McClellan wasn’t the sort of woman who requested things. She gave orders. And something about her made people—most people—follow them. Like Mussolini with better skin and designer heels.

  I walked to the window, staring at the federal building across from the hotel and trying not to wonder if my mother’s black pantsuit was a nod to my sister’s memory or a testament to how little color Mother kept in her massive wardrobe. Could be either, and really, it didn’t matter much.

  “What do you want?” I dragged the heavy blue drapes back and forth a quarter inch, my attention on the scritch-scratch the plastic made in the metal track.

  Anything to distract from the disappointment radiating from the other side of the room.

  “Nice to see you too, dear,” she said.

  “No, it’s not.” I didn’t shout. Didn’t even move. “You wouldn’t be here unless you needed something. We both know it. Why pretend? Better for you to say it and let us both get back to our days. I’m sure you have a million things on your schedule, and I’m . . . tied up with something.”

  “You’re poking around in Tenley Andre’s death, according to the TV.”

  The emails in Erica’s phone. Shit.

  “I thought you didn’t watch Skye Morrow?” I sidestepped the question like only a politician’s daughter could.

  “I don’t. I happened to hear an ad for her piece during my program.”

  Her program? No way. Did Ruth McClellan really still turn on The Price Is Right while she sprinted to nowhere on her treadmill every morning? Memories of loitering in the sunroom doorway with Charity, calling out guesses for the showcases and giggling when Mother told us we needed better shopping skills and reeled off amounts that were often within a few dollars of the actual total, tugged the corners of my lips up. For a second.

  “So? Why do you suddenly care what I’m doing?” I didn’t turn to her, counting the windows in the front of the federal building across the street to keep any sneaky emotions at bay. There were seventy-eight.

  “Erica Andre has done work for me for several years.” Ruth’s voice sounded softer that I had heard it in . . . maybe ever. That got the best of my curiosity. I turned from the window and studied my mother. “She’s a good decorator. Better than good. Gifted. And her daughter is—was—a lovely girl. What’s going on, Faith?”

  Holy shit. Did her lip just quiver?

  Ruth McClellan. Former first lady of Texas. Always the iciest heart in any room.

  Was sad.

  Or worried. Or something else that made her blue eyes shine a little more than she would normally deem appropriate.

  Tenley Andre had gone and done what nothing and nobody had ever managed: she broke through Ruth’s shell.

  But how? And why?

  “Mother?” I couldn’t keep the question mark out of my voice. I didn’t remember her looking that upset when Charity died.

  Ruth waited a beat. “Yes?”

  “Why do you—” I paused. Not the time for ghosts or guilt. I wanted Ruth long gone before Graham arrived. “I’m trying to understand your question. You’ve never taken an interest in anything like this before.”

  Ruth stood, pacing the little strip of navy-and-forest carpet between the bed and the wall. “I know your father and I weren’t exactly supportive of your decision to enter this profession,” she said. “Criminals and junkies and all manner of lowlife people you’ve surrounded yourself with. On purpose.”

  I felt my eyes start to roll. She made it sound like I was working a street corner in South Austin, not managing to successfully navigate an almost entirely male world and make my own mark in it
. Well. I would someday. If I didn’t get fired trying to figure this mess out.

  “Which tiara I’d win next and which overinflated ego to marry hardly seemed like a life’s pursuit after Charity . . .” I let the sentence trail, my hands floating up. “I never have understood how you didn’t get it.”

  Ruth sighed, her blue eyes flashing. “And I’ve never understood why you didn’t see that the best response to your sister’s death wasn’t for you to dive headlong into a life that puts you in mortal danger every single day.”

  I snorted. “Yeah. Playing errand girl Friday is super dangerous.”

  Oops. I snapped my teeth down over my lips, sealing them tight. I didn’t mean to spill that. I groped for another subject. Any subject.

  Mother’s eyes went to the carpet and stayed there. She looked . . . guilty.

  Surely not.

  “You’re kidding.” I let the words fall heavy.

  “It wasn’t me,” Ruth said to her shoes. “But I didn’t stop him.”

  Words bubbled up my throat, rolling off my tongue before I could swallow them. “Are you goddamn serious? More than half my life I’ve chased this job, and they’re treating me like a fucking secretary because Daddy said so?”

  “Language, dear.” Ruth still wouldn’t look at me. “What did you expect, going to work at a place where he had political pull he could use? Really, I’d have thought you were smart enough to know that.” She shook her head. “You’ve always been a little too smart for your own good. Your father . . . When you got shot on that traffic stop at the DPS two summers ago, I thought he’d lose his mind. He wanted you in a place where he felt like he could keep you safe.”

  What?

  I plunked onto the corner of the bed.

  “Wanted me in a place?”

  Of course. I’d been so thrilled the day the call came.

  The call came from Archie’s boss. The governor’s personal bodyguard, once upon a time.

  “They only hired me because he said to.” It wasn’t a question.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  I’d spent months feeling like I wasn’t good enough. Obsessing over every conversation, every action, anything that might have given Boone the impression I couldn’t be an asset to his team. When there wasn’t much to analyze, I’d decided he was a sexist troll and set my sights on proving him wrong.

  And it turned out it was neither? That my father had been meddling behind the scenes the entire time?

  “I should’ve known he was in this up to his perfectly waxed eyebrows,” I said. “He always is.”

  “He was only trying to keep you safe.” There was the Ruth McClellan I knew. Sharp. Cold.

  “I do all right at that myself.” I stood. “If there’s nothing else, I’d like to get back to this case I’m not supposed to be investigating.”

  Mother followed me to the door, her chilly fingers closing around my arm as I moved to open it. “Nothing ever fills the hole that’s left when a mother has to bury her child.” She cleared her throat. “But not knowing . . . that’s a special kind of hell. Find Erica an answer. I don’t want her to wonder forever what happened to her daughter.”

  The flat arctic tundra behind her stare made me pretty sure I didn’t want to ask if that was personal experience talking, or something she’d heard from her shrink. “Done. It’d be helpful to that end if you could tell the governor to back off. I’m using up my vacation time to work on this case and I still might get fired.”

  “You’re familiar with his stubborn streak.”

  Quite. I also knew that was as close to a promise as I would get from her. Better than nothing.

  “Thank you.” I pulled the door open, and Graham’s knuckles landed on my right temple.

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry! Are you okay?” Graham reached for me, moving to cradle my chin in his long fingers. I stepped away and his brow furrowed, his eyes going to my mother and narrowing for a moment before they popped wide with recognition.

  “Deputy Hardin.” Ruth McClellan put out a hand. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  I watched as Graham took my mother’s hand, the wheels turning in his head practically visible as he tried to decide what to do with it.

  Mother flashed a quick smile and shook his hand before she pulled hers back. “Nice to see you, dear,” she said to me, stepping around Graham and turning for the elevator.

  I yanked Graham into the room before drooping against the closed door, breathing like Freddy Krueger lurked in the hallway.

  “That was . . . ,” Graham sputtered.

  I nodded.

  “How did . . . ?”

  I shrugged. “She’s Ruth McClellan. People do what she tells them to.”

  “Wow.” Graham dropped onto the foot of the bed. “So. You okay?”

  I walked to the desk, plopping into the rolling chair. “She came because she knows the Andres. Asked me to get them an answer.”

  “Like you weren’t dug in enough already.” Graham shook his head. “So what’s next?” He held up an evidence bag. Inside was a glitter-encased iPhone.

  “My hero.” I clasped my hands under my chin and batted my lashes before I snatched the bag from him. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  I grabbed gloves from my bag and popped them onto my hands, then pulled the device out carefully and touched the home button. Nearly dead. I grabbed my charger and plugged it into the base of the thing, then set to work cracking the code. Tenley’s correct birthday.

  Strike one.

  Erica and Brent’s wedding anniversary.

  Swing and a miss.

  I tapped one finger on the desk. Flipped open my laptop.

  “Did you get it already?” Graham asked.

  I shook my head, opening LexisNexis and typing in Nicholas Richardson’s name.

  Date of birth, May 14, 2000.

  I moved back to the phone. Tapped out all six digits.

  Locked out. Try again in one minute.

  I sat back in the chair and sighed.

  “I thought I had it. Now I’m out of ideas.”

  “Mind if I take a shot?” Graham winked when I laughed.

  “Sergeant Rule Book? Am I a bad influence on you?”

  “I have a shot of pragmatic in amongst my rule loving. I’d say the good we can do with the information is more important than how we got it.”

  “Welcome to my world.” I pushed the phone across the desk, offering him my gloves.

  “I have some, thanks. Yours are what, kiddie sized?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”

  Graham pulled a little black pouch from his pocket and set it on the desk. From inside he fetched a tiny brush, a plastic tub of magnesium powder, and a roll of tape and lined them up next to the phone.

  “You think the killer touched her phone?” I tried to hide my skepticism. Didn’t manage to.

  “Don’t know, but I’m pretty sure Tenley touched it plenty,” Graham murmured as he swept the powder down the side of the case, watching for the dull silver whorls to show up under the desk lamp.

  I leaned over, careful not to block the light. “The case is the same color as the powder. I can’t see a damned thing.”

  “Nothing about this has been easy yet,” he said, flipping the phone over and trailing the brush slowly over the screen.

  I held my breath for five beats.

  A shiny swirled circle appeared, nearly totally intact. Graham opened another jar, this one a different kind of silvery powder, and brushed it over the top of the print, gently blowing away the excess.

  “What’s that?”

  “Shaved steel,” he said, pulling off a piece of tape and lifting the print from the screen. “It conducts heat and electricity just enough to . . .”

  He pressed the print down carefully over the shiny circle surrounding the home button, holding his thumb there for a moment. A yelp escaped my throat when the screen lit up and flashed past the passcode entry.

  “How did you figure that o
ut?” I took the phone back when he offered it, touching the emails first.

  “I saw it on the Discovery Channel. First time I’ve had a chance to try it out.” He winked. “Leave the tape there in case we need to open it again.”

  I nodded while the emails loaded, then clicked up the one from Uber and copied the vehicle description. “Received at 3:27. Got it.”

  “You don’t think the driver is our guy?” Graham sounded skeptical and I shook my head.

  “Too cliché. Besides, we have his information right here. If you were going to murder someone, wouldn’t you want it to be harder than opening an email for the cops to find you?” I winked. “I just want to know what this guy saw. And what else this little magic box can tell us about Tenley.”

  Scrolling down a bit didn’t get me anywhere. Apple, Nordstrom, Tory Burch. Marketing people love email addresses.

  I clicked back out and brought up the texts. Nicky.

  Five sent back and forth Sunday and Monday, about a Spurs game that was on and a history test.

  Until early Tuesday.

  Really early.

  Graham moved behind me, looking over my shoulder. “‘I’m sorry’? At three in the morning?” His fingers landed on my shoulder. “Who is Nicky with a teddy bear emoji?”

  “Her BFF. Darren Richardson’s kid.”

  “Why was she apologizing to him?”

  “I don’t know.” I stared at the screen like it could magically reveal more than was already there. “Wasn’t there a gift for Nicky in her bag?” I backed out to the main text screen, looking for the other people on Tenley’s spring Santa list. Did they all get a weird text in the middle of the night?

  Mom? No. Dad? No. Simpson? No.

  “So it wasn’t anything to do with why she was at the dam, or the gifts she had with her.” Graham stood up. “Which means maybe we need to have a little chat with Mr. Nicky?”

  I nodded, turning back to my laptop. “Let’s find this driver first, see if she said why she was going, or if the driver saw anyone else. Then with any luck, we can find the kid without his asshole father and maybe get him to tell us something useful.”

  Graham nodded. “There’s a Wells Fargo on the corner. I’m going to deliver this warrant and I’ll meet you at the car.”