Echoes (33 page)

"Where were you when it happened?"

He hesitated, his face tightening with resentment. "Piney River. I went to see a man about a horse. When I got there, no one was home. I waited for a half hour or so and then came back."

As alibis went, his sucked. "You were alone?"

Grant nodded grimly. "He called me later to apologize for standing me up. He said his wife had been in a car accident. He can vouch for the fact that he was supposed to meet me and didn't show, but he can't swear that I was at his house waiting."

Which equaled no alibi at all, just a possibility of one. His face was in shadows, leaving only his voice, pitched low with emotion to guide her.

"I didn't even say goodbye to my dad before I left. Craig called right as I was walking out the door. It sounded like there was a fight brewing, so I got the hell out as fast as I could. When I came home he was dead."

"Why were they fighting?"

He shrugged, but there was tension in the gesture that defied nonchalance. After a long moment, he said, "They were always fighting, always in each other's faces. Both of them convinced that the other one was wrong. When I was a kid, Dad scared the shit out of me. I never knew what might set him off. I could never understand why Craig provoked him. Me, I just tried to be invisible."

His tone, the words he conveyed without speaking, told Tess his father had been abusive in his anger. Grant shifted in his seat, looking back into his dark history. As she watched him, she realized that she was seeing the exposed truth. He'd inadvertently left the door open, making her a witness to his past. She saw the reflection of the boy who'd tried to be invisible on the man who acted to hide who he really was.

"Everywhere else, I was Mr. Bigshot. Varsity football, debate team, prettiest girl in the school for a girlfriend. But at home I was so good at being small that I could walk through a room and no one would even notice I was there. Craig couldn't do that. He had to be seen. After he got big enough to fight back... things got ugly. The two of them would go at it like they wanted to kill each other. You couldn't make them stop, you couldn't break them up. He put Dad in the hospital once, banged him up so he could hardly walk. I don't know what would have happened after that, what Dad would have done when he came home." He looked at her and through the shadows she saw his smoky eyes darken. "The next morning the church burned down and everything changed."

"Oh, God," she breathed. "Your mother...." He frowned, no doubt wondering how she knew about his mother. "I saw the memorial. Craig told me he was there when it happened, that he tried to help the people escape, but it was no use. It must have been..." she trailed off, realizing any description would be inadequate.

Grant looked away, but not before she glimpsed the emotion playing across his face. She put a tentative hand on his arm. Surprised, he stared at it, unmoving. Pain glimmered in his silver eyes. Pain so deep, so raw that it reached out to her. He must feel as if the bottom of his world had somehow come open and he was falling out. He must feel like she did, as if she were hanging on by a line far too short and much too weak.

It didn't matter that he was just what he'd said—someone she didn't know. Someone with a less than stellar track record. Someone who had gone out of his way to alienate her when she'd started asking questions about her sister. Because beneath the anger and insolence, she saw a vulnerability that stroked her own feeling of fragility. They were lost, both of them, adrift in a world they couldn't seem to control.

Not a thing had changed, and yet in Tess, everything did. In that moment, in that instant the last barrier collapsed. Whether it was right, wrong, foolish or impossible, it didn't matter. She was in love with this man and denying it wasn't going to make a difference.

She lifted her hand to his cheek and rested it against the warmth of his skin in a connection that traveled to her core. He inhaled softly and then released a heavy breath that was filled at once with bewilderment and understanding. Slowly, as if in stages of acceptance, he leaned across the seat, closing the distance that separated them. And then his mouth was on hers, as warm and soft, as hard and demanding as everything else about him. Her arms wound up and around his neck, pulling him tight as she kissed him back. He tasted of sun and salt and seductive surrender. She didn't question the abandon of her response. She shut out every voice that dared to disagree with the heat that coated her skin like oil. He pulled, or perhaps she climbed, but somehow she was straddling his legs, pressed closer than skin yet needing more. The steering wheel was in the way and without pause, he reached beneath the seat and moved it back. Tess felt it slide on the rails as if from a distance. It felt like falling.

"This is crazy," he muttered against her mouth. His voice was lazy and deep. It felt like honey on her senses as it taunted and teased, coating her in a warm glaze even as it raised her awareness to the power that lay beneath it. His lips moved to her neck, to the hollow at the base of her throat, to the sensitive points beneath her collarbone.

Oh, yes. Crazy. Crazy like she couldn't breathe. Crazy like she couldn't think. Crazy like she didn't care if she ever did either again.

Her hands fumbled to pull his t-shirt free of his waistband while his spooned beneath hers and skimmed up her ribs to her breasts. Her insides went hot and creamy and the pulsing point where she pressed against the hardness in his jeans burned with a need that only immersion could assuage.

Overhead thunder exploded and rain pummeled the steamy windows in a streaming wash. Lightning lit up the inside of the truck, followed immediately by quaking thunder that startled them apart for an instant, an instant wrought with the reality of what she was doing. She was making out in a car like a sex-starved teenager with a man she didn't quite trust, no matter how much she wanted to. The same thought seemed to flash through him as well. She stared into his face, noting with a distant surprise that at some point he'd lost his hat. His hair gleamed dark in the muted light. He kept hold of her for a moment that was marked by the tension and tautness of his body pressing against hers. He didn't want to let her go.

She opened her mouth to tell him that she didn't want to let go either. To say that despite every reason telling her not to, she believed in him. But somehow her voice had failed her and the withdrawal in his expression hit her deep and low. Silently, she slid off his lap and back to her side of the seat. He looked straight ahead as he turned the key and started the engine. The wipers swished and clapped across the windshield.

Disappointment left a bitter taste in her mouth as she opened the door. Wordless, she dashed through the rain to her car. Grant's engine gunned as soon as hers turned over and he was gone. Her eyes burned with unshed tears and angrily she swiped at them. What had she expected?

Reaching for her seatbelt she noticed another set of lights come on. Her spirits sank lower as she recognized Craig's Lexus. When had he come out? Had he seen her leaving Grant's truck, windows so steamed they were opaque? His car reversed, then paused before moving forward. Was he waiting for something? For her?

She shifted into drive and slowly rolled to the exit. In her rearview, she saw him follow. Of course he followed, she scolded herself. There was only one way out. Yet it felt wrong. She turned right, holding her breath to see what he did. For a long moment, his car idled at the exit and then slowly he pulled forward and turned the other way.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Tori's house was quiet and still, more disconcerting than the cemetery had been. Tess stepped inside feeling as if she'd been gone for days, yet unbelievably, she still had two hours before picking up Caitlin from school. She was exhausted and longed to lose herself in the oblivion of sleep, but she knew she'd never manage to shut down her thoughts. Not now.

Over and over she played the conversations she'd had with Craig and Grant, comparing their accounts of the day the church had burned to the ground. According to Craig, Grant had been arguing with their mother and she'd gone to church crying over the bitter exchange. But in Grant's version it was Craig who'd caused turmoil in the family, putting their father in the hospital where he remained the day the church had gone up in flames. Whose version was the true one? And why would one of them feel the need to lie about it to Tess? What did it have to do with her?

Like all other answers, this one evaded her.

Filled with both resignation and determination, she went upstairs and tackled Tori's room. Although it looked bad, in reality Tori had few possessions and it didn't take long to go through them. She hadn't really expected to find anything of significance, anything that would tell her where Tori had gone, but she was disappointed all the same. Frustrated by the constant dead ends, she opened the last drawer and discovered a small address book tucked against the side. She sat on the bed and flipped through the pages.

There were few entries, most of them crossed out, but on the bottom of the "B" page, Tess found a phone number with the name Bran scrawled over it. Bran. Brandon Forsythe?

Tess dialed the number and waited for it to connect. She expected a secretary or a machine, but a man answered after a few rings. Wherever he was, it was noisy and she had to raise her voice to be heard.

"May I speak with Mr. Forsythe please?"

"Who is this? How did you get this number?"

"My name is Tess Carson. I'm Tori France's sister."

A long moment passed, filled with the loudness of a crowded gymnasium. "Hold on," he said finally. She heard the muffling of a hand over the receiver. Voices she couldn't understand spoke. A moment later the man came back. The background din was gone.

"What did you say your name was?"

"Tess. Tess Carson. This is Brandon Forsythe?"

"Yes."

"I'm calling because—have you heard from Tori?"

"Heard from her? No."

"Do you speak on a regular basis?" As she asked the question, she realized how much like the sheriff she sounded.

"Why are you asking?" he said.

"Tori is missing. Since two days ago."

"She's a free spirit. She's not exactly grounded anyplace."

"That's true, but she left her daughter behind."

Now she had his undivided attention. He obviously knew Tori very well to understand how that changed the playing field. Deciding that he would be more cooperative if he knew all the details, Tess filled him in on what had happened.

"That's bullshit. Tori would never have left that man to die. And she wasn't hurting for money, either."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

She was gun shy about her next question, but it had to be asked. "Mr. Forsythe, Tori is pregnant. Do you know who the father is?"

The phone went silent, so silent she thought the connection may have broken. When he did finally speak, his voice was low and hesitant.

"I'm a married man."

"I'm sorry?"

"I have four kids and a perfect wife."

Glad she was sitting, Tess gripped the phone tightly. "Whatever you tell me, I won't use it against you. I just want to find my sister."

He paused again. Did he believe her?

"Tori is like no one else in this world," he said at last. There was a waver in his voice. "I would have given my right arm to go with her. I mean that. But I couldn't. She understood."

"You are the father."

"All I could give her was money. God knows I've got enough. Short of setting it on fire, she shouldn't run out of it. She and the baby and Caitlin have enough to last them for the rest of their lives. She didn't want to take it."

"But she did?"

"To make me feel better. Money's never meant shit to her, but she knew it was all I had."

His words resonated with truth. He was the first person she'd spoken to that cared about her sister. The first person who understood that inside of Tori, there was more, there was a giving person who only wanted to be loved.

"Do you know anyone who might be...who might mean her harm?"

"Every woman who's ever met her, maybe." He gave a sad laugh. "My wife, if she knew."

"But she doesn't?"

"No. I'd swear to that. She has no idea."

"Did Tori talk about going away?"

"No. I hooked her up with Grant Weston. She was looking forward to a slower pace. She said she was hopeful about Mountain Bend."

* * *

Tess wandered downstairs after she hung up. She felt dazed, shocked to her core by Brandon's revelations. He'd answered more than her questions. He'd drawn another parallel. The married man. The sister who had an affair with him.

She paced the living room, feeling as if the eyes in the creepy Jesus picture followed her movements. She stopped in front of it, struck again by the weirdness of it in Tori's home. But for all she knew, Tori had found God again.

She shivered, suddenly realizing that it was cold. On the heels of that, if it was cold, then it was happening again. Anxiety crept in with the iciness, but she forced it away. She was afraid to go back, but more afraid not to. She needed to know what happened to Molly now. She needed to know what happened next.