Anything but Mine (12 page)

A new life seemed to open before him, another chance, new beginnings.

All because of Autry. Stanton smiled. He’d make this work with her. He had to. Tick had said he could live without anything but Falconetti and Stanton was finally understanding the most important thing.

Autry was the “anything but” woman of his life.

His smile died. She’d told him she was his, that he’d never lose her. Too bad he couldn’t make himself believe it. Yeah, he had a new chance.

What he didn’t have was a clue how not to screw it up.

He was still pondering that as he dodged county commissioners and the newspaper editor on the way to his truck. God, sometimes he hated the political side of the job. He wanted to run a decent department to the best of his ability, not make nice with politicians. Hell, now he knew why Tick had wanted the investigator’s position rather than the appointment to sheriff.

“Sheriff, one more question!” Ray Lewis puffed up to the Explorer’s hood. “Any truth to the rumor that Autry Holton is receiving death threats?”

A chill slithered down Stanton’s spine and pooled in his gut. “Where did you hear that?”

Ray smiled, looking satisfied. “So it is true?”

“I’m not going to comment on—”

“Is that why she’s staying at your house?”

Anger flashed through Stanton, dissipating the cold knot in his belly. He straightened. “Let’s get one thing straight. What I do in my personal life is not fodder for that rag you call a newspaper. My relationship with Ms. Holton is not open for discussion. Got that?”

“Some citizens would consider the sheriff seeing the public defender a conflict of interest.”

“Some citizens should mind their own business. My seeing her is not an issue.” He jerked the truck door open. “Excuse me.”

Settled in the driver’s seat, he pulled the door closed and jammed the key in the ignition. He reached for his sunglasses and flipped the visor down.

Photographs rained into his lap.

He stopped breathing, staring at the glossy prints of Autry…outside the courthouse, with her father in the hospital parking lot, with Stanton entering the Winn Dixie, on the front porch of Stanton’s house.

“God,” he whispered. Nerves kicked off in his gut, followed by a wave of pure rage. The son of a bitch was warning
him
. Telling him he could get to her, get to Stanton, any time he wanted.

Like hell. Stanton would see him dead before he’d let anything happen to Autry, to their daughter.

He gazed at the photos, anger still cramping his stomach. He couldn’t touch them, risk destroying any fingerprint evidence. No telling what he’d disturbed by getting in the truck.

His locked truck. Someone had managed to get inside, tuck the photos under the visor and leave it locked again.

Were the photos all they’d left? His gaze shot to the ignition. What had he set off by putting the key there? Or maybe there was a pressure-sensitive device under the seat, triggered by his weight, set to go off when he left the vehicle.

Jesus.

He eased his cell phone from its clip and punched in half of Tick’s number before he remembered. He couldn’t call Tick in, not now, even if he couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather have watching his back. Frustration stung his chest. He didn’t want this call going through dispatch, with every scanner in the county able to hear what was going on.

Mouth taut, he punched in a second number and waited.

“First available date?” Tom McMillian asked. He lounged in one of the chairs before Autry’s father’s desk, an ankle crossed over his knee. “You must be awful damn confident.”

Autry smiled, ignoring her flickering nerves. Confident, about this case? More like scared to death she’d actually win. “My client wants a speedy trial. He has that right.”

Her father reached for the calendar at the desk’s edge. “Well then, let’s see what we have.” He flipped. “November first.”

“That’s only ten days away.” Tom straightened and Autry looked his way, searching his face. His blue eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched. Interest flared in her—he
wasn’t
confident about his case.

Autry caught her father’s glance and nodded. “November first is perfect.”

“All right.” He scribbled on the calendar. “I’ll notify the clerk of court. Now, any other business?”

Tom shifted in his chair and pulled a folded document from his inner coat pocket. He separated two sheets and handed one to Virgil and one to Autry. “New evidence disclosure.”

Her stomach pitching, Autry glanced at the paper. DNA test results. Her attention sharpened. DNA results proving Jeffrey Schaefer had not fathered Amy Gillabeaux’s unborn child. She looked up to find Tom watching her, his expression guarded. She suppressed a smile. Well, no wonder he didn’t want a quick trial date. Part of his motive argument had just unraveled with those strands of DNA.

Clearing his throat, her father shuffled the report into the file on his desk. “Well, if that’s all, I have another hearing in ten minutes.”

Gathering her things, she smiled a goodbye at her father and stepped into the hall. In the quiet courthouse, her low heels clicked on the polished white marble.

Tom joined her, his loafers making only a hushed whisper against the floor. “Voluntary manslaughter with sentencing recommendations. My last offer.”

Autry glanced at him as they walked toward the stairs. “I’ll approach him, but he won’t take it. He wants a trial, Tom, vindication in the form of a jury acquittal.”

At the top of the stairs, he caught her arm in a gentle grasp. “You know he did this.”

She looked at his hand and shrugged away. Her paranoia was turning everyone into a possible suspect, making every gesture questionable. “What I think about him is irrelevant. I have to provide him an adequate defense. You know that. And if he doesn’t want to plead out, I can’t make him.”

“Advise him. Strongly. This is the best offer he’ll get.”

Irritated, she waved the disclosure document at him. “Do you really think he’ll consider it once he finds out about this? My God, Tom. He’s not stupid. He’ll know what this means. Hell, he’s probably known all along what these results would be.”

Tom’s mouth drew into a line. “Don’t tell him.”

She stared at him, not believing what she’d heard. “I can’t do that. It’s unethical. I could be disbarred.”

“No one ever has to know. We can make it disappear.”

She shook her head, backing down to the next step. “I don’t believe you. Make it disappear? It’s been entered into the court record! It exists. The GBI has a record, the sheriff’s department would have a record…”

Her voice trailed away, realization sinking in. The sheriff’s department. She glanced at the date on the report again. Yesterday. Stanton had known and never said a word. Her throat closed, aching. He’d been with her, made love to her, all the time knowing something that could make or break her case. Probably already had Tick looking for more evidence, something to counteract the damage this could do to the state’s argument.

And she couldn’t blame him for keeping quiet. His job demanded it. Hers would too. She sighed. Another secret. One more way in which they couldn’t be totally connected. If they forged a real relationship, but stayed in their current professions, there would always be this secrecy between them.

With a shaky breath, she straightened and fixed Tom with a look. “I won’t hide this from Schaefer. He’s entitled to a decent defense and he’ll get it.”

He straightened his already perfect tie. “If he walks, it’ll be because you helped him.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “No. If he walks, it’ll be because you charged him before you were sure of your case.”

Turning her back on him, she walked away.

“It’s clear.”

Stanton flinched as Cookie, his second investigator, slammed the hood closed. During the examination of the truck, his nerves had jangled with each noise. With the infinite methods available of wiring an explosive to a vehicle, he hadn’t known which of Cookie’s movements might set something off. Regardless, he hadn’t been willing to wait two hours for the bomb squad from Ft. Benning to show up.

Cookie appeared at the open driver’s door, evidence bag and a second set of gloves in his gloved hands. “I called Lawson Automotive. Thought you’d want them to go over everything before you drove it again.”

“Thanks.” Stanton reached for the gloves and snapped them on. He lifted the photographs from his lap and slid them into the plastic bag. Letting Cookie take the bag and seal it, he eased from the seat, part of him still expecting to be blown away by a huge fireball.

Nothing happened and he stiffened shaky knees. Damn, this was what Autry was dealing with on a daily basis. He’d known it, but hadn’t really gotten it, not until now. The rage flowed through him again. When they found this guy, when Stanton managed to get his hands on him…

The son of a bitch would pay for terrorizing Autry, for putting her and Stanton’s daughter at risk. Everything was as simple as that.

“You all right, boss?” Cookie folded the chain-of-custody seal over the top of the bag, watching him. “You’re a little pale.”

“I’m fine.” He gestured toward the Explorer. “Let’s get this dusted for prints before Lawson gets here.”

The painstaking process of lifting fingerprints from the vehicle took forever, even with both of them working. When Lawson’s tow truck rumbled into the dusty lot, they’d dusted maybe two-thirds of the vehicle. Another, more familiar, engine followed the tow truck’s big diesel and Stanton lifted his head, frowning. Tick’s pickup slid to a stop behind Lawson’s big yellow rig.

Stanton straightened and watched Tick emerge from the driver’s seat. He was dressed farmboy casual—jeans so worn they were almost white, faded Jimmy Buffet T-shirt, a John Deere gimme cap pulled low over his eyes. A dark shadow of stubble covered his jaw.

Stanton lifted a hand in a wave. “What are you doing here?”

Tick shrugged, his face tense under the cap bill. “Had to pick up a prescription for Cait. Saw Lawson pulling in, wondered why the hell you were dusting your truck for prints.”

Cookie grinned and dropped yet another evidence bag holding print tape into the banker’s box. “Does Falconetti know you’re out in public dressed like that? I thought she had rules.”

“She’s asleep.” Tick glanced at Stanton’s truck. “SOB come after you this time?”

“Photos of Autry.” Stanton clenched and unclenched his fists. “Wants me to know he’s everywhere she is.”

“And that he can get to you too,” Cookie said.

Tick nodded at Lawson’s tow truck. “Having it checked out, huh?”

“Autry drives it as well. I’m not taking any chances.” Stanton rubbed his nape, trying to relieve some of the awful strain sitting there. It didn’t go away.

“Good deal.” Tick jammed his hands in his pockets. “I’ll give you a ride back to the station.”

Stanton frowned. “I thought you wanted a couple days off.”

Tick’s gaze followed Cookie, ambling back to the Explorer. “Cait’s pissed as hell at me. Figure I’ll let her sleep it off.”

Stanton lifted his brows. So that explained the tension emanating from him. “Want to talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about.” Tick’s shoulders rolled in a tight movement that matched his expression. “Doctor told her we could try for another pregnancy in a month or so. She wants to, and I said no way.” He glanced sideways, and Stanton caught the flash of agony in his dark gaze. “Damn it, Stan, I’m not risking her again. All that blood and as much pain as she was in…not to mention the emotional toll she doesn’t want to admit to. It’s not worth it. We can adopt. Or live without having kids. But I won’t let her risk herself with another pregnancy.”

Somehow, Stanton didn’t see Falconetti giving in and accepting Tick’s dictate, and he was well acquainted with Tick’s own stubbornness. He shrugged off the epic battle of wills brewing on the horizon. “You know where I am if you ever do want to talk.”

Mike Lawson wandered over, his middle-aged pooch straining the buttons on his grease-stained work shirt. His teenaged son Keith followed, longish hair poking out from under a cap bearing the garage’s logo.

Mike nodded. “Afternoon, Sheriff, Tick. Want me to run it into the shop for you?”

Stanton nodded, anger trembling under his skin once more. “I need you to go over everything for me, Mike.”

“Will do.” Mike passed a hand over his shiny brow. “Got in it while it was locked, huh?”

“Yeah.” Stanton glanced at the Explorer, where Cookie was wrapping up the print work. “They didn’t jimmy the lock, though.”

“Not real difficult to get in one of those.” Mike hooked his thumbs on either side of his brass belt buckle. “All they need is your VIN number and thirty bucks to buy a remote for the locks. Maybe not even that. Beau Ingler’s wife has an Expedition and he was telling me the other day her remote unlocked an Explorer and an F-150 in the Wal-Mart parking lot.”

Stanton stiffened and exchanged a look with Tick. Interest flared in Tick’s gaze and a grin played about his mouth. Stanton knew that look—it was like the baying of a bloodhound once he was on the scent. Grief and marital strife aside, Tick was in the game. Stanton was glad of it too.