The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) (7 page)

Seven

The storm lashed the house, the thunder like fireworks exploding overhead, the lightning appropriately dazzling.

              By contrast, the kitchen was tomb-like, its sterile stainless appliances watching her with blank faces, the drone of the fluorescent tubes drowning out the shuffling voices down the hall in the study. There were so many people: police, fire rescue, the EMT crew. And none of them could do anything for poor Davis.

              Emmie had been standing, frozen, still clutching her cellphone when the fire rescue team came barreling in through the open back door. One of them had draped a blanket across her shoulders and told her to go wait in another room. “Most likely a heart attack,” he’d told her with a sympathetic frown.

              That’s what happened to old people, right?

              She had no idea why she’d come into this cold, heartless room. It was industrial and uncomfortable, but her innate Southern roots had drawn her to the kitchen. That’s where you went in a crisis: the kitchen. And you made coffee and you looked for cookies in the pantry, and you soldiered on through the pain.

              She was sitting at the butcher block table, an untouched mug of French roast and plate of Oreos in front of her. Waiting.

              She knew Amy arrived when she heard the ragged, gasping breath coming down the hall, the sharp rap of boot heels. “God!” she exclaimed when she burst into the kitchen, arms already outstretched as she plowed toward Emmie. “Oh God, Em!” Her face was wet with tears, streaked with mascara.

              Emmie stood and caught her oncoming hug, getting squeezed tight and squeezing back in return.

              Amy dissolved into wrenching sobs, her face buried in Emmie’s shoulder.

              “I’m sorry,” Emmie said, voice too-calm. None of this felt real. How could it possibly be happening? “I’m so sorry.”

~*~

“I just…” Becca said, sniffling into a crumpled tissue, and summed up everyone’s thoughts on the matter.

             
Just…

              Because none of them could come to grips with what had happened.

              Emmie reached over and patted the girl on the shoulder, earning a grateful, tear-stained smile in return. She herself was in shock. Physically cold, shivering, and detached in her mind. She’d been like this before, the day her mother announced she was leaving Karl and marrying someone else. The day she’d buried her first horse beneath a sweet gum tree out in the pasture beyond the window. She was no stranger to shock.

              Fred stood leaning against the barn office fridge, arms folded, head bowed. He was stoic in the extreme, but his face had been grave when she told him.

              Gruff and stern though he’d been, Davis had also been a fair, kind-hearted boss. This was the loss of a friend. For Emmie, it was like the loss of a grandparent.

              “But he was so healthy!” Becca said.

              “He
looked
healthy,” Fred said sadly. “But he was old,
chica
. It happens.”

              “But…” She jerked upright, grasping on an idea that popped her eyes wide. “The door! Em, you said the back door was open. What if…okay, hear me out. But can’t like, you murder someone and make it look like a heart attack? I saw that on TV, I think. Someone left that door open. Someone
murdered
him.” She glanced around wildly, searching for the killer as if he might be hiding behind the desk.

              Emmie shook her head, but inwardly, she clung to that open door, terrified of what it might mean.

              Fred said, “He was sick. He went in, and his chest was hurting, and he forgot the door. It wasn’t murder.” He looked sorry to have to say that.

              Becca curled in on herself. “Oh. Yeah, maybe.”

              A heavy silence descended again. They had chores to do, horses to exercise, stalls to muck – and they’d been in here ever since they’d finished turning out, wanting to be near one another. Shocked into total stillness.

              A sudden knock against the open door startled all of them.

              Becca gasped.

              Emmie whacked her shin against the desk and she bit down hard on her lip to keep from cursing.

              Walsh stood in the threshold, in his cut, jeans, a green and white plaid shirt. Sunlight coming in from the open barn doors struck highlights in his wheat-colored hair. His expression was unreadable, his eyes white-blue and bright.

              His gaze moved between the three of them, lingering on Emmie, and she crossed her arms, feeling like she ought to cover herself for some reason.

              “You heard?” she asked.

              He nodded. “Saw it on the news.”

              Another trowel full of sadness got heaped on her grief pile as she realized what Davis’s death meant. “Then you’ll know the developers are going to get the farm for sure. His family’s going to fight and wind up carving this place into bits; they won’t have any option but to all sell to Gannon.”

              Stone-faced, Walsh said, “Hate to break it to all of them, but the paperwork’s already signed, and we closed yesterday afternoon. The farm’s mine.”

~*~

Dolly had nosed him awake for her usual six a.m. trip outside, and he’d turned on the TV like always, and there had been Davis Richards’ photo up on the screen. Local millionaire found dead in home. Suspected heart attack. An autopsy would be performed. Everyone’s thoughts and prayers were with the family.

              Walsh’s first thought had been
Thank God
. Because the accelerated closing, the quick transfer of property into his hands had ensured that Briar Hall was his, and couldn’t be contested by any of the family.

              His second thought had been
Emmie
. Because his little barn manager with the T&A was going to be devastated by the loss.

              He was pleasantly surprised to find her dry-eyed, consoling her coworkers. She was in shock, he saw, as she stared at him. It hadn’t penetrated yet that Richards was dead, and she was coping.

              He was impressed again. Women like Maggie Teague, like Ava Lécuyer, hell, even Michael’s Holly – they coped, shoving the grief down in the heat of the moment and handling what needed to be handled. Like he’d told Rottie and RJ – the old ladies.

              He wouldn’t have blamed Emmie Johansen for sobbing like the teenage Becca beside her, but he was glad she wasn’t.

              He opened his mouth to ask her if she’d step outside with him a moment, but she was on her feet before he could form the question.

              “Let’s go out to the tables,” she said as she walked toward and then past him, her stride brisk, boot heels clicking over the concrete.

              Walsh followed her out the front doors and around to the pavilion. Emmie sat not on the bench of a picnic table, but the tabletop itself, small hands gripping the edge hard. Her face was grave, her eyes tired, but she didn’t have that red, puffy look of a woman who’d been crying.

              With all professionalism stripped away, she stared at him with obvious suspicion. “How the hell did you manage this?”

              “The process started before I ever showed up. Richards said over the phone he wanted to sell to anybody besides those developer wankers. Even,” he said with a wry half-smile, “an outlaw biker.”

              She looked like she’d been punched. “
What
?”

              “We closed yesterday afternoon.”

              “How?”

              Walsh wasn’t the international Money Man for every chapter of the Dogs because he was slow on the uptake. Before he’d ever talked to Ghost, he’d initiated contact with Richards, set the closing process in motion, set everything up with Ethan as if the sale would be green-lighted. He’d figured it better to back out than drag his feet, and he’d been right.

              He wanted to smile at her again. “You do know how real estate works, right?”

              She waved a hand, like she wanted to swat at him. “I don’t understand. Amy said Brett had talked everyone into selling to Gannon.”

              “He was trying to do that. Richards didn’t want this place to get bulldozed. Turns out, he was as sentimental about it as you are. When I agreed to keep all his staff on, that was the final push – he sold to me without contest. I didn’t even have the house inspected. Wham–bam, and all that.”

              “I…” She rubbed at her eyes, wincing as if they hurt. If she’d found the body last night, then she hadn’t slept. She was too tired to make sense of this.

              “You own it?” she asked, voice strained. “You really, legally, honest to God own Briar Hall?”

              “I do.”

              “Shit,” she said, dazed. “Shit…” And then in a flurry, she burst up from the table, leapt down, and flung her arms around his neck. She trembled all over, the shiver passing into him as her breasts pressed into his chest. “Thank God,” she whispered, and he felt her breath against his neck, warm and gasping. “Thank you, thank you.”

              His imagination conjured an alternative scenario, one in which her arms were wrapped around him, and she was gasping against his neck for a very different reason.

              “Thought you couldn’t work for a big scary biker.”

              She pulled back, and then seemed to realize what she’d done and withdrew her hands, pressing them together in a nervous gesture. She smiled though – one of those breathless relieved smiles that had little to do with joy. “Finding a loved one dead tends to change your perspective,” she said. “And…” Her brows went up. “Biker, maybe, but you’re not very big.”

              “I could resent that, you know.”

              She snorted.

              “I’m big where it counts.”

              “Ew,” she said without inflection. Her smile dropped away, eyes widening in sudden dread. “Oh, man. The family. Amy and her brothers and sisters.”

              “What about ‘em?”

              “They’re going to be
pissed
. Shit.” She rubbed at her forehead like she had a stress headache and paced away from him. “They wanted to sell to the developer. They thought Gannon would give them more money.” She glanced over. “How much did you give him, by the way?”

              “Full asking price.”

              She whistled. “Not that it’s my business.”

              “It’s not.”

              “But that’ll help. It’s all about the money with them, so that’ll definitely help.” She dropped onto the picnic table bench with a deep sigh. “Okay, so…”

              “Emmie?”

              “Yeah?”

              “Who gives a shit if the guy’s bastard kids are pissed off?”

              She stared at him. Blinked.

              “They can’t do anything. This isn’t their farm.”

              “It’s…” She sucked in a breath. “It’s not, is it?” Her smile was exhausted and wobbly. “It’s not.”

              “Leave the kids to me. You don’t have to worry about any of that anymore.”

              She shivered hard, a full body chill moving through her.

              “You alright?”

              She kept smiling, shaking her head. “Fine.”

~*~

Emmie felt relieved. A big, overwhelming, muscle-relaxing relief that she couldn’t blame on the hot shower she was taking. It bothered her – she should be sobbing like Becca – but there was nothing to do about it. All the dread that had lay coiled in her belly like a snake for the past weeks was gone. Briar Hall was staying Briar Hall. She was keeping her job. Nothing was changing…

              Well, she assumed nothing was changing. She hadn’t asked Walsh about her salary, or talked much about barn policy, or inquired as to any changes he might want to make.

              Assuming he wanted to make any. Assuming this was a legitimate venture for him, and not some strategic MC move –

              Shit. She’d seen that on TV. Clubs like the Lean Dogs owned all kinds of business that served as fronts. Hell – the Dogs had all those shops down on Industrial, that big Dartmoor complex.

              What if Walsh was going to run drugs out of Briar Hall? What if…

             
Stop
, she told herself. Be glad for the moment, and worry about the rest later.

              Becca and Fred had told her to go up and grab a nap, that they’d take care of all the afternoon chores, but Emmie knew that would be impossible. She was always too tense to sleep during the day, and she felt guilty taking any time off from work. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone on vacation.