Secret Sins (21 page)

“I remember a time when you wanted to be close to Crowe Callahan as well,” he stated
gently.

“I may not like the method, but I appreciate the effort you made to ensure I took
the time to consider the foolishness of that, too,” she stated, her gaze thoughtful,
regretful. “None of them are worth dying for. And the Slasher’s not just killing their
lovers now. It’s apparently anyone close to them if Katy’s death was anything to go
by.”

“Was Katy close to him?” He hadn’t been aware of that.

“Wouldn’t she have had to be?” Amelia closed her eyes again, relaxing against her
chair as she appeared to be fighting the need for a nap.

Jet lag was always hard on her.

“Archer and I haven’t figured out her connection to them yet.” He made certain his
tone echoed with regret. “That poor child. I’ve had nightmares over losing you in
such a way, Amelia.”

She gave a delicate little snort. “I’m not a kid anymore, Dad. And as I said, the
means sucked, but I appreciate it more than you know. Even if his lovers weren’t being
killed off with frightening frequency, he’s not exactly the type of man a woman wants
to build a future with.” She opened her eyes and stared back at him with rueful amusement.
“I know you like the Callahans, despite our fights over them when I was younger, but
I can see now what I should have seen then.”

“And that is?” he asked curiously.

“Crowe Callahan’s way too selfish for a woman who wants a family of her own.” She
smiled softly.

That smile.

It was almost a motherly smile. She’d once sworn to him he would never see grandchildren
from her.

“You want a family of your own, now?” he asked, fighting back the hope of a grandchild.

“Yeah, I do.” She nodded. “A good husband and a few kids would be nice, Dad. Really
nice.” She pushed herself slowly to her feet. “I think I’ll head home now. Maybe give
Anna a call later and see if I can’t make her see reason. If I can’t, then perhaps
it’s time to sever that friendship. Losing a friend to the Slasher is more than I
want to face.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, sweetie.” He crossed the room, gripped her shoulders, and
gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek.

She had stopped stiffening and moving away from him nearly a year before.

“Do you think I should wait?” she asked, clearly torn and asking his opinion. Sincerely
wanting his input?

His heart swelled. Could he have been wrong? Could she be worth allowing to live?

“Let’s discuss it a bit after you talk to her. Maybe she’ll see reason. You always
were able to talk to her when no one else could.”

Amelia shook her head. “She stopped listening to me when she went to college.” She
shrugged. “But I’ll talk to her. Shall I call you before I meet with her?”

He gave a slow nod. “That would be nice, dearest. You know how I worry.”

“And now I understand why.” Reaching up, she kissed his cheek before picking up her
bags. “I’m going home and going to bed now. Love you, Dad.”

“And I love you, baby.”

His voice almost thickened.

She was forgiving him.

It had been slow. It hadn’t been easy. And the truth was, many things he had done
were only to ensure an alibi and lack of suspicion where the Slasher’s victims were
concerned.

As she left the office, he blinked back his tears.

His precious, sweet little baby.

If only she had been Kimmy’s as well.

*   *   *

Anna answered the phone the second the caller ID revealed the name of the caller.

“Amelia Sorenson, it’s about time you called me,” Anna berated her friend with a laugh.
“I’ve missed the hell out of you.”

“As I hear it, you haven’t had time to miss anyone.” There was a snap to her friend’s
voice that Anna frowned over. “All shacked up with that sheriff, and playing personal
assistant to that cousin of yours.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if you had been here we could have discussed it first,” Anna snapped
back. “Get your ass over here and share a cup of coffee with me. You can yell at me
to my face then.”

“Would it do any good?” Amelia questioned her, her tone indicating her certainty that
it wouldn’t.

“You never know.” Anna shrugged, a grin touching her lips.

There was nothing the other girl could say to make Anna change her mind, but she was
always willing to let Amelia try.

“Hmm, we’ll see.” Amelia sighed. “You have the coffee on?”

“It will be,” Anna promised.

“Is Archer there? Because it would be damned uncomfortable to try to convince you
to leave his ass if he were there listening to me,” she stated ruefully.

“Archer won’t be home until later this evening,” Anna promised. “He and his deputy
were heading out to one of the farms on the other side of the County. Something about
shotgun weddings and the Middle Ages.” She laughed.

She knew better.

Archer had left with the deputy to chase down a lead on Elizabeth Haley and her abandoned
car. Archer had warned her to keep that information to herself, though, and give the
story of the shotgun wedding instead.

The mountains held a diverse set of men and women who didn’t always conform to society’s
rules, and forced weddings after a daughter became pregnant wasn’t unheard of. It
was actually fairly regular when those young girls forgot birth control.

They didn’t happen to just the younger generation, either. Anna knew for a fact such
a marriage had taken place several months before between a widow and her former brother-in-law.

“Get that coffee ready,” Amelia ordered. “I’ll be there by the time the first cup
is ready to pour.”

“See you then.” Anna disconnected the phone before nibbling at her thumbnail and moving
to the coffeepot.

She knew Amelia better than she knew anyone, and there had been a tone to her voice
that didn’t make sense.

The other woman lived in a small house beside her father, several streets north of
the city square. Richardson Street was on the more exclusive side of town. There the
larger, nicer homes had been built, but that was basically the only difference between
it and the rest of Sweetrock.

Most of the blocks were tree-lined with rows of flowers planted here and there. Maintenance
was taken care of by those citizens sentenced to community service for whatever legal
infraction they had committed.

Anna hadn’t imagined she could love living in town as much as she had loved living
on her grandfather’s ranch, but she was starting to wonder if she didn’t enjoy it
more.

For a small town, it wasn’t boring.

There was always something going on in the city square in the evenings. Alfredo’s,
the local gas and convenience store, was open all night, and the owner, Bill Alfredo,
or the family member working the night shift, rarely shut the grill or pizza oven
down.

It was quiet, but it wasn’t lonely.

A knock at the back door came just as the coffeemaker beeped its readiness. Crossing
the room, Anna opened the door, and the minute Amelia stepped inside she threw her
arms around her friend with a happy laugh.

“I have missed you so much.” Standing back, she gazed at her friend’s exhausted features.
“What in hell have you been doing to wear yourself out, Mel?”

“Chasing shadows,” Amelia said as she moved to the wide balcony doors that led out
to the shaded, hidden patio in the back. “You know, I’ve never been in Archer’s house.
I’d heard about the patio, but I’ve never seen it.”

Everyone had heard about his patio. The very fact that it was so completely private
made it newsworthy. Everyone wondered what he was doing out there, especially when
wood was burning in the small outdoor fireplace.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Anna tilted her head as she watched the dappled sunlight that
slipped past the overhead wisteria and ivy that grew across the huge pergola beams.
“It’s peaceful as hell out there, too. Just listening to the baby birds chirp is enough
to put you to sleep. There’re several nests in the far side beneath the wisteria and
ivy, and they do like to bitch when you’re out there.”

Amelia turned back to stare around the kitchen as Anna opened the balcony doors.

“I thought we could have our coffee out here.” Anna moved to the coffeepot and pulled
free one of the trays she’d placed on its side behind it. “Archer and I have our coffee
out there before going to work. I love it.”

She turned in time to catch the look that crossed Amelia’s face.

“Do you disagree with me living with him?” she asked, more curious than upset that
her friend disapproved.

“You’ve lived your life secluded from the world, Anna.” Amelia sighed as Anna placed
a thermal pot, coffee, cream, and sugar on the tray. “I don’t think you should have
moved in with anyone if you weren’t going to stay with your parents for a while.”

Anna tightened her jaw at the slight chastisement in Amelia’s tone.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a lot of choice there.” She shrugged. “And I’d prefer not
to discuss them, Amelia. They may have been the ones to disown me, but I’ll be damned
if I’ll cry over their decision.”

“I don’t expect you to cry over it forever,” Amelia stated as she followed her to
the patio. “But I expected you to be a little regretful.”

“Of what?” Anna snapped. “Have you considered the fact that I don’t even know who
they are anymore? They’re the family I visit twice a year, that’s it. And it’s their
fault, not mine.”

She wasn’t nine any longer. They could have trusted her with the truth. Regardless
of what they thought, she wouldn’t have betrayed their confidence, even with a friend
as close as Amelia.

Setting the tray on a small bistro table in the corner nearest the doors, Anna took
her seat on a padded chair and poured them both a cup of the steaming liquid as Amelia
took her seat across from her.

“Anna, you don’t really feel that way.” Amelia watched her with a heavy gaze as Anna
spooned creamer and sugar into her cup as she knew her friend liked it.

“Yes, I do, Mel.” She breathed out heavily before fixing her own and sipping at it.
“I’ve spent my life begging, crying, threatening—” She shook her head at the memories
of the many and varied ways she’d attempted to convince them to let her go home. “I
was sick of begging a long time ago.”

“Dad said you actually graduated college a year early?” Amelia obviously approved
of the coffee, as she held the cup while speaking and sipped from it again.

“Business courses aren’t rocket science,” she informed her, amused. “What else did
I have to do but study? Hell, Amelia, until moving here with Archer, I didn’t even
remember how to make friends.”

And that was the truth. She’d forgotten how to have friends.

“You didn’t make friends at college?” Amelia asked, surprised.

Anna shook her head. “I made acquaintances. There’s a difference.”

And there was. They weren’t friends that she would keep up with, visit on vacations,
or exchange Christmas cards with.

“But why, Anna?” Amelia shook her head, confused. “I know you had no intentions of
living anywhere but your family’s ranch, but that has nothing to do with friends.
Why not make friends?”

“Because I didn’t want to lose touch with someone else I cared about,” Anna admitted.
“I felt I had lost my family, and in some ways, you changed so much that I had lost
you as well. I didn’t want to lose anyone else.”

Amelia looked away for long moments. “I’ve been busy,” she finally said softly.

“I know that.” Anna nodded. “And I was so far away it wasn’t as though we could stop
for lunch once a month. It wasn’t either of our faults, but I just didn’t want to
make more friends that I might never see again. If you remember, they were trying
to ship me off to France, and I didn’t know if I was strong enough to stand up to
them.”

“You sure as hell stood up to them.” Amelia breathed in roughly. “It’s just terrifying
to me, the cost you could be paying, Anna. Women who associate themselves with Callahans
end up dead. And by God, I don’t want to have to attend your funeral. It’s well known
that Archer is their most dedicated friend. As his lover, you’ll be seen as associated
through Archer. That makes you as much a target as any lover. It’s time you leave.”

CHAPTER 12

She was tired of being told to leave the one place on earth she wanted to be. She
was starting to see exactly how her cousins felt now.

“Their lovers end up dead,” she reminded her friend. “I’m not a lover, I’m a cousin
and an employee. And Crowe doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that I’m a cousin.”

“Katy Winslow was not one of their lovers,” Amelia argued, leaning forward. Her expression
became fierce as the coffee cup clattered to the top of the table. “My God, Anna,
women die in this fucking County, and the thought of losing you to that bastard just
pisses me the fuck off more than it does that women have died here, period, over this
idiocy.”

“Katy was connected to them somehow. She had to have been,” Anna argued as she placed
her cup more carefully on the table.

“Which makes it even worse,” Amelia snapped, rubbing her hands over her face wearily.
Lowering her arms Amelia gripped the sides of the table with a white-knuckled hold.
“Crowe Callahan should have never hired you. Hell, he should have never come back
to this County, period. The minute he and his cousins crossed the County line the
bloodshed began again. And no, I don’t like it one damned bit.”

“Then they should have just thrown away everything their parents left them?” Anna
frowned back at her, confused. “Amelia, don’t you think that’s a rather harsh stance
to take?”

“It was money. Possessions,” Amelia argued. “It wasn’t worth the death that’s followed
them.”

“So they should just give up, forget about their homes, their roots, and what’s rightfully
theirs because someone doesn’t want them here and doesn’t want them to have what their
parents dreamed of giving them?”