Shoulders drooping, Summer shook her head. “The more important thing is that I not do anything to ruin our friendship. We were best friends long before this crazy attraction to him tangled things up. I can’t lose his trust or his friendship, Rae.” A wave of panic and anxiety washed through her, remembering Nolan’s withdrawal after the impromptu kisses. She swallowed hard. “And I may have already messed things up with him.”
Chapter 12
Nolan measured his pace to Forrest’s slower limp, and he rewound the conversation Summer had been having with his cousin moments earlier. “Before we got sidetracked to discussing this lawyer who works with Rae—”
A rumble of aggravation drifted to Nolan from his cousin. Nolan said nothing, but he could certainly understand Forrest’s displeasure that such a man worked in the firm with Rae.
“—we were talking about the buttons found with the murdered women’s bodies. Whether Horace Corgan denied killing Patrice or not, the buttons link her to the other women.”
Forrest nodded. “And you’re wondering if any other evidence was found that linked Patrice with the mummified women?”
Nolan flipped a hand. “Right.”
He opened the door for Forrest, whose hands were occupied with the sleeping baby. As they entered, they encountered Donovan and his new wife, Bellamy, headed out to the bonfire, their arms laden with steaming bowls of baked beans, twice-baked potato casserole and a large platter of sliced beef brisket. Alex, Donovan’s black Labrador retriever, trailed behind them, avidly sniffing the air.
Nolan stepped out of the way and held the door for his cousin.
“Hey, Nolan!” Donovan said brightly. “When did you arrive?”
Nolan stuck his hand out to shake Donovan’s, then realizing his cousin’s hands were occupied, he chuckled and opted to scratch the dog’s head instead. “A couple hours ago. Summer and I rode out to the creek for a while.”
He tried desperately to not let his thoughts stray to how they’d passed the time at the creek. Bad enough that Jonah had already guessed his true feelings for Summer.
Bellamy raised the dish she was carrying, revealing her pregnant belly. “Well, you two are headed the wrong direction. Soup’s on. Get it while it’s hot!”
Forrest nodded. “Be right back. Gotta put Connor to bed.”
Nolan spotted Summer’s purse on the family room couch and snagged it. He waited patiently in the front of the house for Forrest to return with a baby monitor with a video screen in his hand. “I bet even the FBI doesn’t have the level of monitoring equipment Rae bought for Connor’s room. This thing is so sensitive to noise, it will read your thoughts.”
Nolan glanced at the camera, remembering another camera in another room that had caught him unaware, and his gut clenched.
“So I guess if you’ve talked to Atticus Eccleston about what the police found at the burial spot, you know that Patrice’s hands were bound?”
Nolan nodded. “Summer mentioned that, but she said Patrice wasn’t mummified like the other women.”
“Correct. Nor did she have a scarf in her mouth.” Forrest hitched his head toward the door, and they headed back outside together. “My gut feeling is that somehow Patrice’s killer found out about the buttons buried with the other women, acquired some—that’d be easy enough to do, since they were standard Army uniform buttons—and planted them at the scene when he buried Patrice.”
Forrest slowed and faced Nolan before they reached the circle of chairs set up around the bonfire. The late evening sun cast harsh shadows on his cousin’s face. Nolan noted the tiny creases bracketing Forrest’s eyes and mouth, evidence of the stress he’d been under in recent months. Dallas had told Nolan on the night he arrived in Whisperwood that Forrest had been targeted by an assassin a couple months back in an attempt to scare him and Rae away from the investigation into the Mummy Killer. Death threats and assassination attempts were certainly enough to add a few stress lines to one’s face.
Although the Mummy Killer had been found and the source of the attempts on Forrest’s life captured, Nolan considered the fact that by investigating Patrice’s death, Summer could be putting a target on her back. The thought chilled him to the marrow.
“Of course,” Forrest was saying, “the fact that Patrice’s killer put her in a parking lot that was being repaved tells me he was hoping no one would find her for years to come. The buttons could simply have been a way of hedging his bets if she was found. Something to muddy the evidence against him and mislead investigators.”
Nolan nodded his agreement, then put a hand on Forrest’s arm when he turned to go. “Forrest, be honest. Do you believe this case puts Summer in harm’s way? Based on what the police have learned about Patrice’s killer, do you think Summer’s life is in jeopardy?”
Forrest’s expression grew even more serious than it had been. “Come on, Nolan. You’re FBI. You know criminal behavior. The perp has already killed once and has tried to cover his tracks. What do you think he’ll do to keep his secret from being discovered?”
The chill in his bones crystallized, and acid filled his gut. “Damn. That’s what I was afraid of.”
* * *
“Your father tried to kill Forrest?” Summer asked Rae, incredulous over what she was learning about events just two months prior when Forrest and Rae had gotten involved with the ongoing investigations in Whisperwood.
Rae bobbed her head, frowning. “Someone was apparently threatening my dad—and also me and Connor—in order to manipulate my dad. This someone apparently didn’t like Forrest looking into the Mummy Killer and Patrice’s death, and so, to protect his daughter and grandson, my dad tried to kill Forrest for this unknown person.” Rae swallowed hard. “We believe whoever it was threatening my dad is also responsible for killing him.”
Summer gaped at Rae. “Your father was killed because of the investigation into the Mummy Killer?”
“And Patrice’s death.” Rae’s expression reflected grief and a weariness that Summer now understood wasn’t entirely because of a fussy infant. “The first threats to us started arriving after Patrice’s body was found.”
Summer sank back in her lawn chair, her mind in turmoil as she tried to connect the dots of the case. “But, as I understand it, Horace Corgan admitted to killing the mummified women.”
“Mm-hmm,” Rae hummed and nodded.
“So couldn’t he be the one behind your father’s death? Even if he didn’t kill your father personally, couldn’t Horace have ordered the kill...and made the threats against you?”
“He said he wasn’t. And the fact that Horace was killed while we were there talking to him leads us to believe he could have known who was behind it all and was silenced.”
Summer bit her bottom lip in thought. “By his nurse? Jane Oliver?”
Rae pulled a face. “The nurse makes the most sense. She was the only other person there that we know of.”
“We talked to Jane Oliver’s coworkers earlier. They mentioned that Jane was bragging about coming into a load of money right before she disappeared.”
Rae leaned toward Summer. “Yeah?”
“Our hunch, one we can’t confirm yet, is that she was being paid off to be a pawn in some scheme, at least part of which includes being paid to kill Corgan or to let someone in Corgan’s room to kill him.”
Rae shrugged, then laid a hand on Summer’s arm. “That does sound like the most obvious answer. Especially since we suspect Jane could have also been one of the nurses helping dispense illegal prescription pills.”
“Avery mentioned rumors in town that some nurses were helping distribute illegal prescription pills. She tied everything back to the owner of the auto shop on Main. Um...” Summer snapped her fingers as she tried to come up with the name.
“Tom Kain.”
“That’s him.” Summer aimed a finger at Rae.
“I can’t tell you anything about the rumors regarding Kain, other than we’ve heard them. Forrest asked at the WPD about Kain. They’d love to catch him in the act if he is guilty, but so far nothing has turned up when they’ve raided the shop or his house based on credible tips.”
“So he’s as slick as your friend Kenneth.”
“And Kain has a number of friends in high places who vouch for him being an upstanding community leader and benefactor.” Rae shrugged. “So...”
Summer raised a finger to her mouth and chewed the nail as she processed the new information. “Patrice’s killer could have had Corgan’s nurse in his crosshairs, as well. We’ve been assuming she disappeared because she killed Corgan and used her payoff to skip town. But what if she ran because her life was in jeopardy? What if she thought Patrice’s killer would come after her next?”
Rae scrunched her face as she considered that scenario. “Yep. Definitely possible.”
Summer raked her hair back from her face. “So finding the nurse just got bumped up in priority on my to-do list. There are so many angles to this crazy case, and my gut says that, like some intricate spiderweb, it is all connected. The cast of characters Nolan and I need to interview keeps getting longer by the hour.”
“Did I hear my name? What did I do?” Nolan asked, appearing behind her and handing over her purse.
“Thank goodness,” Summer said, quickly digging a pen out of her purse. “I need to write all this down. We have a busy day tomorrow, Bullfrog. This case is growing by the minute.”
Chapter 13
The next morning, Summer woke to a gray cat begging for breakfast by hovering over her face and an insistent pounding on her office door. Smooching Yossi’s head then nudging him aside, she raked her hair back from her face with her fingers and stumbled groggily to the door. She opened it a crack and peered through the opening. Early-morning sunlight glinted off Nolan’s latte-brown hair and, ironically, lit his cloudy, frowning face with a warm glow.
“Jeez, Summer! You didn’t even ask who it was before you opened the door. Are you nuts?”
She cracked a smile and opened the door wider to let him and the tray from JoJo’s Java he held in. “And a cheery good morning to you, too.”
“I could have been anyone. You have to be more careful.” He held out the tray. “I brought coffee and sausage biscuits.”
“One, this is Whisperwood, not Chicago. I’m not even sure why I bother locking my door at night.” She closed said door and held her hands out for the food. “And two, those biscuits smell divine. I could kiss you.”
His gaze flicked to her lips, and color filled his cheeks as he passed the bag of breakfast to her. Her pulse spiked, realizing what she’d said. To hide her awkwardness, she led him to her kitchenette and turned her attention to the bag of biscuits and steaming coffee.
“The one with the X on top is fixed the way you like it.”
“How do you know how I like it?” she asked, then yawned so hard her jaw cracked.
“I paid attention the other day.”
Her already-pattering pulse skipped harder. She knew he had an eye for detail, but having him turn his skills of observation on her, that he’d taken note of her preferences, felt more than kind. The attention felt...intimate. Like something a lover would know about her.
Her hand trembled as she took a sip of her perfectly doctored coffee. “What time is it?”
“Seven thirty.”
She sputtered and choked on the sip of joe. “Good grief, Nolan. It’s Saturday. Sane people aren’t even out of bed yet! Why are you here?”
“Early bird gets the worm, right?” He reached down to pat Yossi, who was rubbing against his legs and meowing for breakfast. “Besides, I couldn’t sleep. Between this case and the matter back home, my brain wouldn’t shut off.”
She noted his reference to Chicago as home. And why wouldn’t he? It was his home base. Still, the reminder that he wasn’t in Whisperwood permanently, would be leaving...potentially within days, made her coffee sour in her stomach. Setting her cup on the small counter next to her hot plate, she grabbed a paper towel to wipe her mouth. “Who wants worms when you can have JoJo’s biscuits?”
She reached in the paper sack and pulled out one of the hot breakfast sandwiches. Glancing at him, she added, “Thank you, by the way. This is nice.”
His gaze was fixed on something at her chest level, and she glanced down, thinking she must have dribbled her coffee. “Wha—”
The question died on her lips when it dawned on her she’d answered the door in her pajamas—or what passed for pajamas for her. A thin T-shirt and short-short boxer-style bottoms. Without a bra on, her nipples were prominent, and his blatant notice of her dishabille only made them more erect. Heat rushed through her, chased by a tingling sensation that woke her up better than a double shot of espresso.
Nolan. You’re getting hot and bothered over Nolan Colton. Good gravy, Summer! Get a grip!
“Um... I’ll just go—” she aimed a thumb over her shoulder “—get dressed.” She took a couple backward steps and almost tripped over the cat. “Um, would you mind feeding Yossi before he hurts himself begging? The cans of his food are in that cabinet.” She pointed at the door below the counter, then fled the kitchenette.
In the bathroom, she studied herself in the tiny mirror. She’d intended to hit the gym and shower before doing anything else today. The desserts and dips at the barbecue, not to mention the indulgences at the Bluebell Diner, would start catching up with her if she weren’t careful. But since Nolan was already there, she did the best with her ablutions as she could—spraying dry shampoo in her hair and cleaning with scented body soap and a washcloth at the sink.
Once she’d dressed, Summer and Nolan set out for a full day of interviews and fact gathering. As Nolan drove, she Googled Tyler’s address then used her map app to get driving directions to his apartment.
Their knock was answered by an unshaven, tousle-haired young man, who squinted against the sunlight as if he’d just woken up. “If you’re selling somethin’, I don’t want it.”
“Tyler Whitmore?” Summer asked.
The bleary-eyed man scowled. “Who wants to know?”
They introduced themselves, saying only that they were helping Patrice’s family learn all they could about her death. Tyler didn’t look like the sort who was keen to spill his guts to anyone approaching law enforcement.
“So what do you want from me?”
Summer explained how, as the last person to see her before she disappeared, he could have important information about what had happened to Patrice. When he still seemed reluctant to speak to them, she added, “Don’t you want to help us catch the person responsible for Patrice’s murder?”
He raised his chin, and his expression darkened. “Catch him? I’d like to strangle him the way he strangled Patrice.” After another moment of scowling at them, Tyler scrubbed both hands over his face and stood back to allow them in.
As she passed him, entering the dimly lit apartment, Summer got a strong whiff of unwashed body tinged with the scent of alcohol. She took a seat on a futon across from the tattered recliner Tyler settled on.
The interview with Tyler went much the way it had with his friends at the vocational college. He confirmed having gone to Bailey’s for drinks with the others after class the day Patrice disappeared and that Patrice had left the bar early, unescorted.
“I shoulda at least seen that she got home safe. We—the guys and me—usually followed her home. But she left so fast that night, without saying anything to us.” He sighed, and a pained expression crumpled his face.
“Do you know what prompted her to leave early?” Nolan asked.
Tyler nodded, then hung his head. “I did.” He admitted to having had feelings for Patrice, having been rejected by her when he tried to kiss her the night she disappeared. “It�
�s my fault she’s dead.” He seemed on the verge of tears, and Summer cut a quick glance to Nolan to gauge his reaction to the young man’s guilt and grief. “If I hadn’t kissed her, if I’d followed her when she ran off, if I’d done anything different that night, she’d still be here.”
Nolan moved to squat in front of Tyler, putting a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “That kind of thinking is a dead end. Don’t let yourself be sucked into that trap. Patrice’s death is solely the fault of the person who killed her.”
Tyler scrunched his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Did you strangle Patrice, Tyler?”
Patrice’s classmate jerked his head up, his eyes red and wild. “No! I loved her!”
“Then let go of this guilt trip you’re on. The best thing you can do for Patrice now is honor her memory by living the best life you can. Would she want to see you shutting yourself up here and drinking yourself numb?”
Tyler shook his head.
“So go back to class. Finish your schooling. Cooperate with the police in finding her killer.”
Summer’s chest warmed as she watched Nolan console and advise the heartbroken, blame-ridden young man.
“Dedicate your life to being your best self. In her memory.”
Tyler glanced up at Nolan and nodded slowly.
Nolan squeezed Tyler’s shoulder and lifted a corner of his mouth. “And for God’s sake, take a shower, man.”
Summer curled her lips in and bit down hard to muffle the inappropriate giggle that rose inside her, then swallowed hard as a lump grew in her throat. Nolan’s compassion for Tyler burrowed deep inside her, and she lost another piece of her soul to her childhood friend.
Tyler and Nolan talked in hushed tones for another minute or two before Nolan rose to his feet and signaled to Summer it was time to leave. She pulled out a business card and cleared a spot on the cluttered coffee table where she could leave it. “Please get in touch if you think of anything that might help us with our investigation.”
Colton 911--Deadly Texas Reunion Page 15
