Confessions (23 page)

“Everyone but your father.”

“My father has his own agenda where both Clint and Alan are concerned.” Suddenly the reason for this conversation sank in. Mariah turned toward Trace. “You're not planning to arrest Clint, are you? Because of that letter?”

Trace took a long drink of coffee, willing his own temper to cool. “There's more.”

The would-be starlet returned with Mariah's order. Conversation was suspended as she placed the plate with the oversize roll on the table, along with a handful of paper napkins. The cinnamon roll had been heated; white frosting melted down the sides, a fragrance wafting from it under normal conditions would have been enough to make Mariah's mouth water.

Unfortunately, nothing had been normal about her life
since her return to Whiskey River and she suddenly found she'd lost her appetite.

“It seems,” Trace continued after Jennifer returned to her place behind the counter, “that there was a dispute over title to a section of land.”

“A dispute?” Needing a cigarette, Mariah began digging around in her bag, belatedly remembering that she'd smoked her last one sometime before dawn.

“Want me to buy a pack from the machine?” Trace asked, watching her futile search and knowing it revealed exactly how much strain she was feeling.

“No, thanks.” She dragged her hands through her hair in another nervous gesture he'd come to recognize. “I'm okay.”

She didn't look okay. “You sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I was planning on quitting. This is as good a time as any.” Her voice rose, surprising and embarrassing her.

Trace studied her for another long moment. Then shrugged inwardly. “A surveyor Garvey hired says Laura had encroached on his property.”

“So?”

“So,” Jessica interjected, “although I personally don't believe it's all that crucial, your father believes it provides Clint Garvey with a motive.”

Frustrated, Mariah turned toward Trace. “I thought you said motive wasn't important.”

“It's not necessarily all that important when figuring out who committed a crime,” he agreed. “But going to court without a strong motive is dangerous.”

“Juries feel the need for motive,” Jessica explained. “They want to know
why
people do things, which I suppose is only natural curiosity, but I've never tried a case that I haven't gotten the impression the jury is secretly
waiting until the last day of the trial, when the guilty suspect breaks down on the witness stand and confesses.

“Personally,” she mused, “I've always thought it comes from watching too many Perry Mason episodes.”

“Ouch,” Mariah complained. “Once again television gets blamed for society's ills. But if you're looking for a motive, how about Alan wanting to get out of his marriage so he could marry his lover?”

She shot a look at Trace. “You're from Texas. Surely you've heard of the fine old western tradition of a Smith & Wesson divorce?”

“Divorced politicians are becoming a dime a dozen,” Trace retorted. “Look at Reagan, Rockefeller, McCain, Kennedy, Warner—”

“Warner doesn't count,” Mariah said testily. “He was married to Elizabeth Taylor, which made divorce a given.”

“The problem is,” Jessica said, returning the conversation to its original track, “I received a call from the governor late last night.”

“Pressuring you to arrest Clint,” Mariah said flatly.

“I wouldn't exactly use the word
pressure,
” Jessica said. “But he did suggest that I take the evidence against Clint Garvey to a grand jury.”

“Hell. This has my father's fingerprints all over it.”

Jessica paused, carefully choosing her next words. “I received the impression that the governor and your father are friends.” Her upward inflection turned it into a question.

“They went to college together. The governor was Laura's godfather,” Mariah answered flatly. She could also see how, as a political officer of the court being pressured by the state's chief executive and party leader, Jessica Ingersoll was finding herself caught in one very sticky career dilemma.

“Ah.” Jessica nodded. Then sighed, looking into her mug as if searching for answers in the light brown depths.

“So, are you going to indict him?” Mariah asked.

“Grand jury proceedings are conducted in secret,” Jessica reminded her.

“I'm well aware of that. And you didn't answer my question.”

Jessica's silence was all the answer Mariah needed.

“This is ridiculous! You don't have any proof that Clint is guilty.”

“The burden of proof is different for a grand jury,” Jessica reminded Mariah. “I don't need to prove the State's case beyond a reasonable doubt. I just need to show probable cause that a crime was committed.”

“Probable cause being based solely on police testimony,” Mariah muttered. She knew that prosecuting attorneys could successfully indict anyone at any time of anything before any grand jury. Indeed, she'd heard more than one lawyer allege that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.

“The physical evidence at the scene—footprints, tire tracks, along with a DNA match on the semen—point to Clint Garvey. The man has motive, opportunity and if a grand jury does subsequently indict him, it's my job to prosecute.”

“Wouldn't want to risk your job.”

Trace inwardly cringed at Mariah's unflattering accusation. Knowing Jessica as he did, he was not surprised when she temporarily abandoned her cool professionalism and displayed a passion usually reserved for behind closed doors.

“Do you think we indict people for the hell of it?” she snapped. “Do you think I prosecute innocent citizens because I like to see my name in the paper?”

She tossed a few bills on the table, then stood up.
“Trace told me how you feel about Clint, Mariah. I'm truly sorry about this. But I have no choice.” She turned her attention to Trace. “Keep in touch. I may need you to go out and pick him up.”

That said, she left the café.

Mariah didn't want to believe this could happen. But knowing her father as she did, she wasn't all that surprised. “What about Alan?”

Trace polished off the rest of his coffee. “We keep digging.”

Mariah wanted to believe him. But her father's control was nothing to scoff at. If he wanted Clint convicted for his daughter's murder, how much freedom would Whiskey River's sheriff have to keep investigating other suspects?

None, she thought flatly. None at all.

“Hey,” Trace said.

Unwilling to look at him when she knew he could so easily read her unflattering thoughts, she pretended sudden interest in a poster advertising Whiskey River's upcoming Frontier Days.

“Look at me, dammit,” he insisted in a quiet, deep voice. He took her chin in his hand, his fingers strong and stubborn as they turned her face toward his. “I told you, I'm going to bring in Laura's killer. And no one—not even your father—is going to stop me. Is that clear?”

She wanted to believe him. Was desperate to believe him. She curled her fingers around the handle of her mug as if it could anchor her. “You could lose your job.”

He shrugged. “Jobs are easy to come by. A good night's sleep is a lot more important.”

A good man, she told herself—and her sister—yet again. Her gaze moved over his rugged face, taking in the deep indigo shadows beneath his steely eyes, the dark growth of beard that appeared even rougher than it had been last night.

“Speaking of sleeping, when was the last time you actually got a good night's sleep?”

“I'm still working on that. Things keep coming up.” An intimate smile creased his face. “Not that I'm complaining, you understand.”

His eyes darkened to slate with shared memories. The outside world began to narrow, the kitchen sounds of cutlery crashing, the hiss of bacon on a grill, the pop of the toaster, the murmur of conversation from the other café customers, all receded until Mariah was only aware of Trace.

“I waited for you to come back.” The words were out of her mouth before she could censor them.

He'd worried about that. Worried first that she had and worse yet, worried that she might not care enough to wait.

“I tried. But the kids had a busy night. Not only did they slash some tires, they were letting loose with those damn firecrackers again.”

He frowned as he thought about the possible reasons Freddi Palmer might have had for visiting the Garvey place. Unlike his behavior in the office, last night Garvey had looked guiltier than hell, leaving Trace to consider that relationships in Whiskey River were a helluva lot stickier and complex than they appeared at first glance.

“Anyway, by the time I rounded up those hellions and took them into the station, then tracked down their parents to come and retrieve them, it was already morning. I was on my way back to the inn when Jess paged me and—”

The ache came. She pushed it down. “You don't have to explain.”

“It feels like I do.” Strange, but he didn't feel nearly as foolish saying it as he had thinking it.

“Really, Trace, it was no big deal.”

He felt his emotions heat up, then tangle, as they always
seemed to do with her. She was fascinating, stubborn, tempestuous and infinitely desirable. But she wasn't safe.

He'd known the danger even before he'd touched her. And having once touched, he knew that he'd be driven to touching her again and again.

“If it isn't important, then would you like to explain why I'm suddenly feeling as if I'm back in high school?”

His expression was so grave, so inordinately serious, she found herself smiling in response. “I think we're a little old to go steady.”

“Just as well. I never got around to getting a class ring.” He decided not to mention that he'd spent his senior year of high school behind bars and had managed to earn his degree by studying evenings after a backbreaking day of hammering away at rocks. “I don't suppose you'd be interested in wearing my badge?”

The mood lightened, as he'd intended. “Only if I can use it to arrest a certain murderous senator.”

“Ah.” He loved her terrierlike tenacity even as it was driving him crazy. “We're back to that.”

“Always. Until it's ended.”

“Until it's ended,” he agreed, wondering if they were still talking about his investigation. Or something else.

K
nowing Clint and Laura's history, no one in Whiskey River, Clint included, was surprised when the Grand Jury indicted him for murder.

“I've been expecting you,” the rancher drawled when Trace showed up to arrest him. If he was a murderer, he was the least concerned one Trace had ever seen.

“I don't suppose you feel like confessing,” Trace suggested as he handcuffed his prisoner.

“The only thing I'm guilty of is loving another man's wife. As for rumors of the land dispute, the boundary question was uncovered during a routine road survey done by the county. Laura and I were both surprised to learn she'd inadvertently encroached on my property.”

“You didn't argue over it?”

“Hell, no. We laughed about it. Then, since we were going to be married, neither of us gave it another thought.”

Although there was no proof to back up Garvey's assertion, Trace believed him. Unsurprisingly, Matthew Swann did not.

“You did a bang-up job, Sheriff,” he told Trace after the hearing where Clint was denied bail. “The town can rest easy, knowing that killer's behind bars.”

“Garvey hasn't been convicted of anything yet,” Trace reminded the rancher. “Which technically makes him innocent until proven guilty.”

Having spent his entire adult life trying to put the bad guys behind bars, Trace was uncomfortable defending a suspect. On the other hand, he knew he'd feel a helluva lot worse if an innocent man was convicted, allowing a killer to escape.

“Technicality is for the courts to wrestle over.” Matthew's satisfied manner suggested he was confident that the legal system would uphold his own ideas of guilt and innocence. “Everyone knows Garvey killed my Laura. And now he's going to pay.”

“Not everyone,” Maggie interjected.

She'd arrived at the courthouse, clad in another of her seemingly endless supply of silk designer suits, dripping in diamonds, looking every inch the glamorous movie star she'd once been. The TV crews had crawled all over themselves to get a shot of the former actress and Trace had no doubt that pictures of Maggie McKenna, emerging from that white stretch limo, would appear on nightly news broadcasts all over the country.

She'd paused for a moment, as if surprised by the throng of fans lining the sidewalk. She managed a sad, brave smile—the same one, Trace noted with a detective's eye for detail, she'd used for her Oscar-nominated role of Jackie Kennedy—and waved. The fans, naturally, cheered. When she blew them a kiss, they went wild.

Strobes flashed, cameras whirred, people crowded forward, straining against the blue police sawhorses Trace had instructed J.D. and Ben Loftin to put up that morning.

Once again he was reminded that Hollywood was a land
of images and illusion. The Maggie McKenna who was going to top the evening newscasts appeared to be a glamorous, grieving superstar. What viewers would not see was the unnaturally bright sheen in those emerald eyes hidden behind the dark lenses of her Ferrari sunglasses. Nor would they know that underlying the scent of Chanel No. 5 was the unmistakable aroma of juniper berries or notice her stumble on the top step of the courthouse, when only the steady hand of her chauffeur kept her from falling.

Now, alone in Trace's office, Maggie whipped off the dark glasses and gave her former husband a hard look. “I like Clint. And it's obvious that he truly loved Laura. If she'd been allowed to stay married to the man, instead of being married off to this self-serving, egocentric politician—” she tossed her bright head in Alan's direction “—like some sultan's daughter being traded for a herd of camels, her life would have been far different.”

Alan did not bother to rise to the bait and defend himself. Instead, he turned away, walked over to the window and looked down on the courtyard square.

Anger moved across Matthew's sun-weathered face in dark, dangerous waves. “You don't have any right criticizing my parenting,” he roared. “Not after abandoning your family. Maybe if you'd been a decent mother, Laura would still be alive today.”

“That's not fair,” Mariah insisted. Like Alan, she too, knew the futility of entering into one of her parents' battles. Unlike her former brother-in-law, she could not permit her mother to go undefended. “If you hadn't been such a harsh, unbending man, Maggie wouldn't have had to leave in the first place.”

“Thank you, dear,” Maggie said on a wet, wobbly smile that had Trace fearing they were on the verge of a crying jag.

Matthew straightened to his full height and glared down
at Mariah. “For your information, young lady,” he said, his deep booming voice reverberating around the office, loud enough for Jill to hear on the other side of the door, “your mother, whom you've always been so damn quick to defend, left Whiskey River to avoid prosecution on a drunk driving charge.”

“Matthew—” Maggie's face had gone as white as a wraith. She held out a hand in a silent, trembling plea.

But her former husband was not to be silenced. “Ask her about the man she was with that day.” His dark eyes shot fatal daggers at his wife. “Ask her how it feels to be responsible for another person's death.”

Although Maggie had begun to weep, there was not an ounce of sympathy on Matthew's stony face. “Of course she can empathize with Clint Garvey,” Matthew ground out. “Because they're both murderers.”

“Damn you, Matthew Swann!” Maggie was sobbing openly now, tears streaming down her face, melting her carefully applied makeup. “You promised when I signed that paper—”

“You should never have come back to Whiskey River, Margaret.” With that he turned on his heel and left the office, slamming the door behind him so hard the frosted glass rattled.

As if realizing his presence would be unwelcome, Alan followed.

A thick hush settled over the room. Trace was the first to break it. “I'll tell Jill to have the chauffeur bring the car around to the back entrance.”

“Thank you.” Mariah could feel herself trembling. “Come on, Mama.” Mariah was too distressed to notice that for the first time in her life, she hadn't called her mother by her given name. “Let's go home.”

“He promised,” Maggie repeated, her eyes glazed, her once exquisite face slack. “So many years.”

Trace watched them go. Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Then he cursed.

Then, having no time to indulge in personal feelings, he turned his attention back to the one thing he could do to help Mariah. Solving her sister's murder.

 

The monsoon air was thick with humidity. Pink-and-gray thunderheads, usual for this time of year, were gathering overhead. Lightning flashed on the horizon, the thunder still too far away to be heard.

As he worked alone in the office in his rented home, poring over the expanding files on Laura Swann Fletcher's and Heather Martin's deaths, Trace found himself hoping that the building storm would hit with a vengeance soon. With any luck, a heavy rain might short out the remaining satellite rigs still parked outside the courthouse.

He read the reports again and again, frustrated when he found his mind drifting back to the lodge. To Mariah. He needed a clear head to solve these murders; unfortunately, his head hadn't been clear since he'd met the lissome Hollywood writer.

The room grew dark. Trace turned on the lights and decided to heat up the remains of some take-out Chinese for dinner. He'd tried calling Mariah, to see how she was doing and to ask if she was in the mood for company, but each time the operator had rung her room, there'd been no answer. Nor had anyone answered when he'd had the operator try Maggie's room.

Outside, the storm that had been threatening all day arrived with a fury. A thunderhead stalled overhead, spitting out chains of bright lightning across the darkened sky. Rain streamed down the windowpane.

Trace had just put the white cartons onto the tile counter when the doorbell rang.

Mariah Swann was standing on his front porch. “I really hate to bother you at home,” she said, in a small frail voice that was almost lost in a clap of thunder. “But you told me once, that if I needed a booster…”

Her voice quavered. A mutinous sheen appeared in her eyes. She pressed her fist tight against her mouth, as if trying to hold back a sob. “Ah, shit, Callahan…”

Compassion stirred as he looked down at her. Her hair was wet from the rain, clinging in damp strands to her forehead, cheeks and neck. Having neglected to put on a raincoat, her jeans and cotton sweater had gotten soaked on her dash from her red Cherokee parked on the street, to his front door. She looked small and frail and distressingly vulnerable.

Trace opened the door wider, inviting her into his house. And his heart.

“What's wrong?” he asked as he closed the door behind her.
And you call yourself a detective, Callahan,
he blasted himself, remembering how she'd looked the last time he'd seen her. “Hell, I'm sorry, that was a stupid question.”

“Try asking what's right,” she suggested grimly. “The answer will be shorter.”

“But there's no emergency?” His first thought, considering how she'd looked when leaving his office, was that something had happened to Maggie. His second, and more unpalatable thought was of Mariah taking justice into her own hands.

“No.” She cursed and shook her head. “Things just piled up on me tonight.” She drew in a deep shuddering breath. “I just wanted to shoot someone.”

“Which you didn't do.”

Her eyes cleared and she gave him a wry look. “No, Sheriff. I did not put a .44 caliber bullet through my brother-in-law's cheating heart.”

Trace hadn't realized how worried he'd been about just that until he felt the cooling relief flood over him. “I'm glad to hear that. The jailhouse roof leaks and you're already wet enough.”

When, on cue, she began shivering from the cold, he said, “We'd better get you out of those wet clothes.”

“Nice line, Callahan.” He watched the defensive parapets going up again and realized Mariah was at her most flippant whenever she felt the most vulnerable. “You wouldn't stand a chance with it at any singles bar in L.A., but I guess women are easier out here in the boondocks.”

“I wouldn't know,” he said mildly. “Actually, I was merely trying to keep you from coming down with pneumonia.”

“Ah, yes. To protect and to serve, right?”

“Got it on the first try.”

She'd been right to come here, Mariah thought as his slow, easy smile managed to warm her all the way to the bone. Things had been rough for Trace Callahan. Even if she hadn't had access to his departmental jacket, she would have not been able to miss the ghostly shadows in his dark eyes.

But somehow he'd found the strength to keep on living. Mariah wondered if he could pass his secret on to her.

“It takes time,” he said, surprising her once again with the uncanny ability to read her mind. His tone and his gaze were gentle and reassuring.

She knew he wasn't talking about the investigation. “How long?”

He shrugged, deciding for discretion's sake, not to tell her that until her sister's murder had given him a reason to get up in the morning, he'd been brooding, feeling sorry for himself.

Neither did he reveal that he'd been getting sick and tired of all the self-pity that had kept him in the grips of
what he'd come to think of as his own personal depression monster.

“I suspect it's an individual thing. But I do know you can't rush things. And that it does get better. Day by day.”

She gave him a long considering look. “I guess I'll have to take your word for that.”

“Do that.” His gaze skimmed over her again. “Now we'd better get you out of those clothes.”

“If you want me to take off my clothes, Sheriff, all you have to do is ask.”

“That's reassuring,” he managed to say in a dry tone. “But the fact is that you're dripping all over the oak floor and if it ends up with water stains, Fredericka Palmer won't give me back my security deposit.”

“I wouldn't worry about that, Sheriff. Since I have a feeling that Freddi would probably give you just about anything you wanted. Of course you'd have to move pretty fast afterward.”

“Oh?”

“She's always reminded me of a black widow. And you know what they do to their mates.”

Trace decided Mariah had the Realtor pegged pretty closely. He also decided that there wasn't exactly any love lost between the two women. “I'll keep that in mind.”

She nodded. “You do that.” She shivered again. “Did you say something about dry clothes?”

“I've got a sweat suit you can put on,” he said, heading toward the stairs. “Feel free to take a hot shower, if you'd like to warm up.”

Mariah followed. “A shower sounds heavenly.”

“Fine.” He moved aside, allowing her to go in front of him. As they climbed to the bedrooms on the second floor, Trace couldn't help noticing, once again, that Mariah Swann had a very nice ass.

“The bath is right through there,” he said, gesturing
toward the master bedroom. “I'll leave the sweat suit on the bed. When you're done, bring your wet clothes downstairs and we'll stick them in the dryer. I was planning to heat up some Chinese leftovers for dinner, if that's okay with you.”

“I love Chinese.”

“Good.” His eyes met hers again and held. “Then we can talk.”

Mariah had never been one to share her thoughts or emotions. All those private feelings she saved for her writing, exorcising ancient demons by bringing them to life in her scripts. But for some reason she would think about later, when her head didn't feel surrounded by cotton batting and her heart wasn't breaking, she found herself drawn to share confidences with this man.

Trace heard the sound of water running in the ancient pipes and envisioned Mariah standing beneath the shower, her nude body slippery with soap. Remembering the soft sweet taste of her mouth and the way she had clung so invitingly against him, remembering how her eyes had widened when he took her over the edge, his mutinous mind spun up a picture of himself stepping into the glassed-in stall, taking that green bar from her hands and running it over her body, across her shoulders, down the crests of her breasts, her stomach, spreading a billowy cloud of lather that would be washed away by the hot water streaming over them.