Читать книгу Out For Justice - Susan Kearney - Страница 12

Six Weeks Later

“Andrew’s dead.” Though Cara spoke to Kelly in her brash, no-nonsense reporter’s voice, there was a catch in it. “And whatever you do isn’t ever going to bring him back.”

“I know.” Kelly hugged her friend. If not for Cara’s support, she didn’t know how she would have made it through the past forty-two days. “Just hear me out.”

“Okay.” Cara plunked herself down on Kelly’s bed, ran her fingers through her short red curls and stared at her through hazel eyes filled with concern and sorrow. A few years ago, Cara had been engaged to Andrew, but they’d mutually ended their relationship and remained friends.

Kelly tried to shove down her own grief over Andrew’s death long enough to put her thoughts in order, thoughts that hadn’t left her since the morning Andrew’s body was found. “According to Sheriff Ben Wilson’s report, an eyewitness saw Andrew chase the cat from his car, turn off his alarm and return to his office. But there was no witness to the fire that started in the annex of Lambert & Church sometime during the night.”

“Word is it was an electrical short, though the fire department is still investigating. Any reason you’re suspicious it was something else?”

“Nothing concrete.” But Kelly just couldn’t let go. Not when the facts didn’t add up. Kelly might have grown up the pampered princess of well-to-do parents, she might not have the bold brashness of Cara, but she had her own kind of genteel determination that had seen her through college and had left her with her pick of law schools.

She liked to believe that her toughness came to her from her grandmother’s grandmother on her mother’s side. Shotgun Sally had been a legend around this part of Texas for well over a century. Dozens of stories about her abounded, and one of Kelly’s favorites was how the aristocratic-born widow lady had come out west at age twenty to start over and make a new life for herself and her sons. Now Kelly had suffered the loss of a dear family member—just like her famous ancestor. Somehow she would survive because surely a smidgen of Shotgun Sally’s toughness ran in Kelly’s blood.

Thoughtful, Kelly twisted a finger around a blond lock. “There was no witness to Andrew’s death.” A death probably from smoke inhalation since his badly burned body had been found still sitting in his chair. That he’d died in his sleep was little consolation to Kelly and her devastated parents.

Andrew might have been a rebel, but he’d been well loved. The entire town of Mustang Valley had turned out for his funeral and to pay their respects, including Debbie West, who’d arrived with her eyes red and swollen from crying. And Kelly had never seen Andrew’s best friend, saloon owner Wade Lansing, so somber as when he acted as one of the pall-bearers. Dressed in an immaculate black suit, shirt and tie that she wouldn’t have suspected he owned, Wade had looked forbidding and dangerous, but had done Andrew proud, standing tall and strong beside her daddy, Sheriff Wilson, Mayor Daniels, and Donald Church and Paul Lambert, senior partners of the law firm where Andrew had worked.

Her father had tried and failed to remain stoic during the funeral, and he’d aged ten years in the past six weeks, his white hair thinning, the circles under his eyes darkening. Beneath her Vera Wang veil, her mother had wept copiously and Kelly should have been crying, too. But she couldn’t. She was too angry at Andrew for dying. Too upset with the sheriff who couldn’t give her any explanations why her brother hadn’t even tried to get out of the first floor of a burning building.

Her world no longer made sense and she needed to put it in order before she could go on with her life. Finding answers for Andrew and herself might not be her specialty, but she was a fast learner and she fully intended to search for the truth.

“If someone else had been around, they would have gotten Andrew up and out of there.” Cara’s special brand of reporter logic made her good at figuring things out.

Kelly picked up a brush and ran it through her hair, not because her shoulder-length hair needed brushing but because she found the action soothing. “That night when I spoke to Andrew he was awake and excited. I have difficulty believing that he fell asleep so soundly that the smoke didn’t wake him.”

“The fire broke out at two in the morning. He must have been exhausted.” Cara stood, took the brush from Kelly and tossed it on the marble and gold cosmetic table.

Kelly frowned at her. “Andrew was always the lightest of sleepers. Remember how picky he was about his sheets?”

“Huh?”

“Surely you haven’t forgotten our sleep-over back in middle school when you put your puppy in Andrew’s bed and she left a little sand behind.”

Cara nodded with a chuckle. “Who would have thought a few grains of sand would keep Andrew tossing and turning all night? Or that he’d retaliate with an ice cold glass of water at 7 a.m.”

“My brother required six pillows to sleep, propping up his knees and back. And now the sheriff expects me to believe that Andrew fell asleep in an uncomfortable office chair? It’s just not possible.”

Cara’s eyes glimmered with interest. “You questioned Sheriff Wilson?”

Kelly shrugged. “Yeah. And he gave me a patronizing hug and told me he would look into my suspicions. Then I asked Paul Lambert what Andrew had been working on, and he just patted me on the head and told me the work was confidential. I don’t know how you investigate your stories. People don’t take me seriously.”

“That’s because you’re…”

Kelly raised a perfectly arched brow. “What?”

“Polite.”

“There’s nothing wrong with good manners.”

Except that six weeks after Andrew’s death, Kelly had no more answers than she’d had the morning she’d been told he’d died. But she was determined to find out exactly what had happened that night. She just wasn’t sure how to go about investigating.

However, Cara did know, and Kelly would eventually learn from her friend how to obtain the information she desired. Kelly might be polite but she knew how to get around Cara. “So you studied investigative journalism. Where should I start? What should I do? How should I act? What should I wear?”

Cara rubbed her forehead. “What if there’s nothing to find? Can you live with that?”

Kelly stood, appreciating her height that allowed her to look down on her shorter friend. Andrew might have called Kelly short-stuff because she was a good eight inches shorter than his six-foot-two, but now she looked down her nose and used her most charming grin on Cara. “I just want to find out the truth. You of all people should understand.”

“Of course I do, but… Look, Kelly. It’s like this. While I was working for the high school newspaper on that exposé of the football coach and the school secretary, you were the head cheerleader. And in college—”

“Hey, I studied damn hard.”

“I know you did, sweetie. Maybe you could investigate the society page or the travel section or—”

“Give advice to the rich and famous?”

“Exactly.”

Kelly fisted her hands on her hips, careful not to wrinkle her silk blouse. “So you think all I can investigate is fluff?”

“If the hat fits…”

“…I’d wear it only if it were in style. But so what if I like fashion and gossip. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love my brother enough to find out what happened to him. Are you going to help me or not?”

Cara nodded. “I just don’t want to see you hurt even more, but the last time I saw you this determined was the day you took your LSAT’s.” Cara looked her up and down, frowning at Kelly’s elegant blouse and frilly, ladylike skirt that ended at midcalf. “I’d say a trip to the mall is our first stop.”

“IF ANYTHING HAPPENS to me, look after short-stuff.” Andrew’s words reverberated in Wade Lansing’s mind as he walked down Main Street and spied Kelly McGovern.

Kelly looked different from the out-of-his-class woman that she always presented to the world. Instead of the feminine silk blouses and lacy skirts or designer dresses she favored, she was wearing jeans, boots and a tucked in blouse with a blazer. She’d done something to her standard shoulder-length blond hair, pulling it back softly with a clip that showed off her blue eyes and model cheekbones.

Wade wished he’d questioned Andrew more fully during the short phone conversation the night of his friend’s death, but the bar had been packed and he’d been shy two waitresses. Still, he’d taken the time to ask Andrew why he thought anything might happen to him, but Andrew had told him it was probably nothing.

Nothing, my ass.

Andrew wasn’t prone to panic or exaggeration. He’d stumbled onto something he shouldn’t have and it had gotten him killed. And as much as Wade had liked and respected Andrew, his friend had grown up protected from the harsher side of life. Andrew trusted people, whereas Wade did not. Andrew always gave people the benefit of the doubt. Wade expected the worst, so he didn’t need evidence to listen to his gut, which told him Andrew had been murdered. He’d been around trouble too many times not to trust his instincts.

As a kid, those instincts warned him to hide on Saturday nights so that his drunk father couldn’t find him until he sobered up. The few times he’d forgotten to hide had taught Wade to never let down his guard. He had few friends, but Andrew had been a good one, and Wade owed him more than one favor.

Besides, watching Kelly’s back and cute little bottom was certainly no hardship. With her long slender legs, she should wear jeans more often. She’d always been attractive in that don’t-touch-me-I’m-off-limits-to-the-likes-of-you kind of way, which he’d accepted out of respect for Andrew. But today she actually looked approachable—if he could discount her five-hundred-dollar boots and the designer bag she’d slung over her saucy shoulder.

The sight of Kelly’s new look not only reminded Wade of his promise to his friend but had his instincts screaming. He and Kelly didn’t patronize the same kinds of establishments or reside in the same part of town. Kelly probably hung out in Dallas’s or Fort Worth’s fanciest malls or perhaps at Mustang Valley’s finest steak house, but he’d rarely seen her on grounds he considered his turf. And why was she walking instead of driving her spiffy new Jag? What the hell was she up to?

His curiosity aroused, he followed her down Main Street past the post office and the pharmacy, keeping his distance and a few shoppers between them, considering possible destinations. Kelly didn’t date guys from this side of town. She picked proper and preppie college boys with impeccable credentials and a family history as tony as her own. She’d only visited his saloon once to pull Andrew home during a family emergency. He recalled how out-of-place she’d looked in her lacy skirt and soft, sophisticated blouse, and yet she hadn’t hesitated to enter his rowdy bar alone, shoulder past several inebriated cowboys to demand that her brother accompany her to the hospital. Her granddaddy had had a stroke. She’d looked sassy and sad then, letting neither Andrew’s drunken state nor his lost cause of the moment, who’d been clinging to her brother’s arm, deter Kelly from her task.

On the sidewalk in front of Wade, Kelly suddenly spun around and made a bee-line straight at him with that same determined pout of her lips that he so vividly remembered from years ago.

He braced for a confrontation. “Hey, short-stuff. What’s up?”

“Don’t call me that, please.”

Kelly was always ultrapolite, but with him she usually sounded so irritated that she couldn’t quite hide that annoyance. In return, he couldn’t help feeling gratified that he was getting under that Cosmo girl skin. Maybe it was a remnant from his teenage years, but he loved bringing out the spark that she kept so carefully controlled. Watching her suppress all those simmering passions, he cocked one hand on his hip and pulled off her sunglasses.

She maintained a cool, superior tone, but vexation and perhaps a gleam of fury shined in her vivid baby-blues. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve missed your gorgeous green eyes,” he teased.

“They’re blue.” She snatched back her sunglasses, her pretty polished pink nails shimmering in the sunlight. “Are you trying to distract me from the fact that you’re following me?”

Ah, she might look like a fairy princess, even in those hip-hugging jeans, but she had a brain almost as sharp as Andrew’s. Wade reminded himself not to get so caught up in the glisten of her lip gloss that he underestimated her. “You caught me in the act.”

She chuckled, her lips absolutely adorable and way-too-appealingly kissable. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

If she was trying to embarrass him with the memory of her walking up to the car her brother had lent him and her getting an eyeful of him and Mary Jo Lacy in the back seat, she wouldn’t succeed. Of the three of them, she’d been the embarrassed one. Funny, he could barely recall Mary Jo’s expression, but Kelly’s had been a sight to behold. Her blush had started at her shapely chest, risen up her delicate neck, flowered over her cheeks and forehead. Her teenage-innocent eyes had widened in surprise before her lips had parted into a big round O.

“So what are you up to?” He eyed her from the tips of her new boots to the designer sunglasses she’d grabbed and thrust up high on her forehead.

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, right. When I see Miss Kelly McGovern sashaying down Main Street on this side of town in blue jeans, I know something’s up. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you had an assignation at the Lone Star Lodge.”

“I don’t sashay. I don’t frequent that establishment. And I have better things to do than stand here and—”

“Better things to do? That doesn’t sound like ‘nothing’ to me.”

“My business is no concern of yours.” She turned around to dismiss him.

He fell into step beside her. “Aren’t you even a little curious why I was following you?”

“Not particularly.” She yanked down the sunglasses.

“Okay.” He matched her, step for step, and didn’t say another word. He tipped his hat to a few of the townsfolk and waited. Wade hadn’t always been this patient. In his younger days he’d been known for his hot blood and his blazing temper. But he’d mellowed during his midtwenties. And he had the advantage here. She wanted to be rid of him, so she would either have to speak to him again or accept his company. He looked forward to either decision.

Her floral scent floating between them, the sunlight shimmering off her blond hair, she stopped on the sidewalk and peered over her sunglasses at him. “What do you want, Wade?”

Her respect? Her trust? Damned if he knew. “It’s not what I want but what Andrew wanted.”

“Don’t play word games with me about my brother.” She almost snapped at him, and he realized that the unhealed wound in her heart was responsible for the rawness in her voice. She’d adored her brother, tagging after Andrew into her midteens, shooting hoops with them in the park and getting underfoot. Andrew hadn’t minded, and Wade had enjoyed teasing the prickly princess. But they hadn’t run into one another that often. Andrew hadn’t brought his friends home much, and as Kelly’s popularity increased into her late teens, she’d found her own group of friends. Wade and Kelly might not ever have even spoken if not for Andrew—and now he was gone.

“I’m sorry. I miss him, too.” Wade ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s start over.”

“From ten minutes ago? Or eighteen years ago?”

She was referring to the first time they’d met. At ten years old, Wade had been the terror of the schoolyard and a class-A bully, copying his father, his only role model up to that point in his life. Wade had caught a stray ball from a group of kindergarteners playing kick ball. No one dared ask him for the ball—except five-year-old Kelly. She’d skipped over in her immaculate yellow ruffled dress, smiled at him like an angel and had plucked the ball right out of his hands, murmuring a sweet thank-you. He’d been so stunned at her audacity that he’d just stood there and let her get away with it.

Wade didn’t answer her rhetorical question. “I spoke to your brother the night he died.”

“And?” she prodded.

“He said that if anything happened to him that I should look after you.”

Her tone turned all businesslike. “What do you mean—if anything happened to him? Are you saying my brother expected trouble?”

“I’m not sure. He sounded more excited than concerned. I didn’t question him thoroughly.”

“Why not?” Her voice turned sharp enough to slice and dice, and he refrained from wincing, especially since he’d asked himself that same question a hundred times.

“The saloon was packed. I was shorthanded and I expected him to be over within the hour.”

She stood still for a moment, clearly thinking. “Have you mentioned your conversation to Sheriff Wilson?”

He shook his head. “I’ve spoken to Mitch, Deputy Warwick. He’s looking into it for me on the QT.”

“Why on the QT?”

He squared his shoulders and it only helped a little to know that she wasn’t prying into his personal life but trying to understand the situation with her brother. “Sheriff Wilson isn’t exactly a fan of the Lansing family. Deputies don’t like answering domestic squabbles.” And his folks had habitually fought every Friday and Saturday night. Deputies had stopped at his house as often as the local coffee shop.

He refrained from mentioning that he’d never liked Sheriff Wilson, but Mitch was an all-right deputy. The man had compassion, probably learned the hard way since growing up half Native American wasn’t easy in these parts.

To give her credit, Kelly didn’t fault Wade—at least out loud. “If you hear anything from Deputy Warwick, you’ll let me know?”

“Sure.” He wished he could see her eyes that she’d hidden behind those sunglasses.

“You needn’t worry about looking after me. I’m fine.”

Once again Kelly dismissed him, her booted feet taking the steps, two at a time, up Doc Swenson’s front porch. Wade almost left her to her business. But when Doc opened the front door and stepped onto the porch, Wade decided this meeting had nothing to do with a personal medical problem.

At eighty years of age and Mustang Valley’s only doctor, Swenson conducted his business inside where he’d converted two downstairs bedrooms into patient consultation rooms, or in the former dining room where he now performed autopsies for the sheriff’s department.

The town desperately needed a younger doctor but like most small towns, Mustang Valley didn’t have the population to support one of the medical facilities to induce a physician to move here. Doc had delivered most of the townsfolk around these parts, including Kelly and Andrew. When Wade’s folks couldn’t pay the bill, Doc had treated the thirteen-year-old Wade’s broken leg for free. These days, for more serious problems, folks usually made the one-hour drive to Dallas or Fort Worth.

Kelly shook Dr. Swenson’s hand. “Hi, Doc. Thanks for agreeing to talk to me. I know you’re busy.” When Wade stepped up on the porch beside her, she stiffened. “Excuse me, but I don’t remember inviting you to join us.”

Doc put his hand on Kelly’s shoulder. “It’s better if Wade’s here. Just two hours ago, we had a couple of kids throw a rock through the front window. Probably just a prank.” He jerked a thumb at a broken pane temporarily fixed with duct tape. “But I’d feel better if Wade walked you back.”

Wade nodded. “Yes, sir.” But he thought it odd that Doc believed she needed protection against a couple of juvenile delinquents and wondered if he had an ulterior motive.

Kelly looked up at the porch roof as if seeking heavenly patience, then back at Doc and ignored Wade. “Fine. Doc, I wanted to ask you about Andrew’s death.”

Doc gestured to a swing on his front porch. “Please, sit. I need to rest these old bones every chance I get—which isn’t often enough these days.”

Kelly settled on the swing, careful to leave Wade plenty of room so they wouldn’t be touching. Normally he might have deliberately crowded her—just to irritate her some more. But he couldn’t do that with her looking so distressed about Andrew, and behaved himself, sitting on the opposite end of the swing.

“Doc, the sheriff said my brother died of smoke inhalation.”

Doc sat in a rocker and lit his pipe. “I assure you, he didn’t suffer any pain.”

“You could tell that from the autopsy?” Wade asked.

“Yes.”

Kelly twisted her hands in her lap, noticed what she was doing and then grasped one hand firmly in the other. “I don’t see how Andrew could have fallen asleep at his desk. When I spoke to him at midnight, he was wide awake and excited and told me he was working on something interesting.”

“Did he say what?” Wade asked.

“No.” She focused on he doctor. “What else did the autopsy reveal?”

Doc puffed on his pipe and blew out a ring of smoke. “Nasty habit. Don’t ever start. Smoking causes cancer, you know.”

He took his pipe from his mouth and pursed his lips, eyeing her with a scowl. “I didn’t want to mention this at the funeral, and I’m not supposed to tell you this now, but Andrew didn’t die from the fire.”

“He didn’t?”

“He died from a bullet to his head.”

“Oh…my…God.” Kelly turned white. “Andrew was murdered?”