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“Will I?”
“I’ll rake up enough muck on your family to drown you in it. From what I’ve uncovered already, it looks like the Taggerts aren’t any purer than the Hollands. In fact, I’m not sure the reverse isn’t true.” His eyes narrowed, and his lips flattened in some kind of superior attitude. “You’re dirty, Taggert, and we both know it, so don’t double-cross me.”
“Is that a threat?” Weston couldn’t believe his ears. This lowlife thug was actually trying to scare him?
“I’m just advising you. Take it anyway you want.” He walked to the door and didn’t turn around. “I’ll expect cash. One hundred thousand. In three days.”
Weston watched him leave and tried to convince himself that the guy was all talk and no action. Another blowhard. But Styles did walk with authority, could stare down a jaguar, and had a few scars to prove that he’d spent some time on the streets. Weston wiped suddenly sweaty palms on his slacks. He only hoped that his gut instincts were right, and that he hadn’t just made the worst mistake of his life.
Twenty-nine
The gun bothered him. As Kane reread all the information concerning Harley Taggert’s death, he kept coming back to the gun—a small caliber pistol without a registration. At the time the detectives had dismissed the weapon, even though it had been found in the silt of the bay not twenty feet from where Harley Taggert’s body had been floating. It had prints on it, but none that matched anyone’s.
So why was it there? Could it have been used in another crime and just tossed into the bay, turning up coincidentally at the same time as Harley’s body? Or could someone have thrown it into the dark waters just to complicate the investigation and send the cops looking in the wrong direction? Was it a fluke or important evidence? Did it have anything to do with Claire? His heart jolted as he thought of her again, of making love to her. Visions of her naked body drenched in moonlight bombarded his brain, caught him off guard, and made him horny as hell. Remembering the touch and feel of her skin against his brought him to arousal and he found himself plotting ways to be with her, to touch her, kiss her, and feel her heartbeat as she trembled in his arms. He wanted nothing more than to get her alone, to make love to her over and over again, exploring every part of her body with his tongue and lips.
Hell, he was turning himself on just thinking of her, and he didn’t have time to fantasize. Not now. Not when he felt he was close to piecing together what had happened that night.
Of course the sisters had lied. They were either in it together or protecting each other, but he didn’t know which. He couldn’t picture Claire as being a cold-blooded killer, but maybe there had been an accident. Maybe after she told Harley she was breaking up with him, he’d gotten violent, yelled and screamed and told her he wouldn’t let her leave. Perhaps they’d struggled and in the ensuing fight, in self-defense, she’d hit him hard with a rock or other odd-shaped object, and he’d fallen overboard.
No. That couldn’t be right. If Harley was killed accidentally, why not call the police? Why run? Why come up with some cockamamie story about being at the drive-in and convince your sister to drive her car into the middle of Lake Arrowhead? No, it didn’t make sense. But nothing did.
As he stared at the picture of the small pistol, he doubted that he’d ever know the truth. And then Dutch Holland wouldn’t have to pay for all his sins. Kane walked to the front porch, where his father in the years before his death had sculpted so many stumps into bears and such. There had been no love lost between himself and Hampton Moran, and Kane had felt only mild sympathy for a man who had made the least of an unfortunate accident, continually blaming the owner of the company for his misery.
But Kane hadn’t known the whole truth way back then. He hadn’t realized that his mother had become Dutch’s mistress, that she’d moved to Portland, lived in a condominium and been supported by Benedict Holland, that the checks for three hundred dollars each month had really come from Dutch. Claire’s father.
“Bastard,” Kane muttered under his breath. His mother had died from heart failure just this past winter and Kane had learned the painful truth that Alice Moran had left her husband and only son to become Dutch Holland’s mistress.
Kane’s stomach turned over at the thought of his mother and Dutch and he remembered the nights he’d been alone in his room, waiting for her to return, fighting back tears, refusing to believe that she’d really abandoned him. He’d always held out hope that she’d return. Even his father’s harsh words, reminding him that she was just “a rich man’s whore,” or that “she didn’t care nothin’ for you or me boy. Nope. All she wanted was money and she finally found it by laying on her back and spreadin’ her legs. Remember that about women, son. They’ll do anything for a buck. Even your own mother.”
His jaw tightened and his fists clenched. Benedict Holland had single-handedly turned his mother away from her family. No wonder Hampton had taken a chain saw to Dutch’s precious lodge. The man deserved everything he got, and, if Kane had his way, Dutch Holland was going down in flames.
So what about Claire? What will happen to her? When you bring down her father and her sisters and perhaps implicate her in Harley Taggert’s death, what will happen to her and her kids?
He stared at the picture of the gun and told himself it wasn’t his problem, but he knew he was only lying to himself because, damn it all to hell, he was beginning to fall in love with Claire Holland St. John all over again. It seemed to be his personal curse.
“Denver Styles is a pain in the butt.” Tessa, dressed in a black bikini and white lace cover-up that slid suggestively over one shoulder, looked up from her guitar as Miranda entered the suite where Tessa had taken up residence. Her belly-button ring was visible beneath the lace and her tattoo bound her upper arm like a slave bracelet.
“He’s been bothering you?” Miranda didn’t want to think about Styles. He was too complicated, too dangerous. She felt as if he were breathing down her back, watching her every move and waiting for her to make some kind of mistake. Then, like a patient hunter, he’d pounce.
“Yeah, he’s been here a couple of times.”
“What’d you tell him?”
Tessa smiled, and her blond eyebrows elevated. “Specifically?” She strummed a single note. “I told him to fuck off.”
“Nice, Tessa.”
“The man’s bad news,” she said, setting her six-string on the carpet near a potted plant.
Miranda walked to the fireplace and sat on the raised hearth though no flames flickered in the grate. “I called Dad and told him that hiring Styles was a mistake, that dredging up the past wasn’t in his best interests, but it was the same as before. He didn’t listen.”
“Never does. Haven’t you learned that yet?” Tessa asked. “Hey, how about a drink? I’ve got wine coolers in the fridge.” She was on her feet in an instant, padding barefoot to the kitchen and the tiny refrigerator tucked around the corner.
“None for me.”
“Oh, Randa, lighten up!” Tessa returned with two opened bottles of some kind of peach and wine concoction. She handed Miranda one of the bottles. “Cheers.” Clinking the necks of the bottles together, she winked at her sister, then took a long swallow.
“Look, Tessa, I’m afraid Styles is going to find out the truth,” Miranda admitted, then took a swallow of the god-awful drink.
