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He pushed off harder, picking up speed and hazarded a glance over his shoulder. No hood rack. Not a cop. In fact . . . the car looked like his aunt Tessa’s Mustang. He felt better. He liked Tessa. His mother’s older sister, Miranda, an assistant DA for crying out loud, struck him as a city bitch. She was way too serious and she worked for the damned cops, but the younger one with her bleached hair, navel ring, tattoo and guitar was cool. He started to slow down as Tessa rolled down her window. “Sean?”
Busted.
She’d seen him. No matter what happened, she was bound to tell his mom. Unless he talked her out of it. He slowed and turned. Tessa’s face, illuminated by one street lamp was drawn and white, fear showing in her eyes. “I think you should get in the car.”
“Nah—I—” Then he noticed the guy. Sitting in the passenger seat. The guy’s face was in shadow, hidden by the darkness and the fog, but the vibes Sean picked up weren’t good, not good at all and then there was the strain in his aunt’s face.
“Your Mom is worried.”
Too bad. “She’ll get over it.”
“Sean, please.” God, she sounded desperate, her voice tight.
“No.” He turned as if to take off when he saw the man move, get out of the car.
Adrenaline surged through Sean’s veins. Fear catapulted him onto his board, but the man was around the car in an instant. “You’d better get in the car now,” he said in a voice that scared the living piss out of Sean. He jumped on his board, but the man caught hold of his arm in a punishing grip. “Let’s go, Sean,” he said as his jacket opened to give Sean a glimpse of a gun tucked in a shoulder holster. “Now.”
Kane tapped his pencil on the table and glared at his notes. Included was the autopsy reports for Hunter Riley and Jack Songbird, two people who died mysteriously, along with Harlan Taggert sixteen years ago. Three men, who, from outward appearances, had little in common other than they all lived in Chinook and worked for Neal Taggert. Harlan, Claire’s lover, had been a spoiled rich kid not fit for his job, Jack, a Native American had been a rebel with a bad-ass attitude, and Hunter had been a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who was trying to better himself. He’d also been in love with Miranda Holland, had gotten her pregnant.
Two of the men had been involved with Holland women. Two of them were from the poorer part of town. All three were dead before their time.
Why?
Who would benefit from their deaths?
If Tessa had killed Harley, then had she killed the other two? To what end? She didn’t appear a psychotic and she’d killed Harley thinking he was Weston . . . Kane grimaced as he thought of the eldest son of Neal Taggert. Self-important. Manipulative. Just plain evil. The pistol that had been in the water was still unclaimed, but Kane had dug up some information that Mikki Taggert had purchased a small caliber handgun years before, at a gun show. The only reason he knew this is he’d interviewed a former maid who had worked in the Taggert home. She’d sworn she’d seen the gun in Mikki’s dresser drawer and though it looked like the pistol found in the bay near Harley’s body, she couldn’t swear to it. Besides, she’d confided, the gun had been stolen or misplaced months before Harley had died. The staff had been interrogated several times about missing items, the pistol being one.
But Harley wasn’t killed by a gun. No bullet wound. The gun that had been found by his body had been loaded, but every bullet had been tucked neatly in its chamber.
Tessa killed Harley.
Tessa couldn’t have killed Jack or Hunter.
Kane had mapped out where everyone had been when Jack was assaulted—assuming that he hadn’t just slipped off the cliff face, which, because of the other murders, Kane discounted. It was just too coincidental. Nah. Kane didn’t put too much stock in coincidence.
He turned to his laptop where an image of a map of Chinook and the surrounding area was glowing. He was missing something. He clicked to another screen, checking a list he’d made of all the primary players in the mystery—the Hollands, Taggerts, Songbirds, Rileys, and wondered at the connection.
There had been widespread rumors that both Neal Taggert and Dutch Holland were far from monogamous. Hell, his own mother had succumbed to the charms of good ol’ Benedict. Kane’s jaw tightened as he considered his own role in this drama—more like a soap opera when he considered his old man
’s accident, his mother’s betrayal, and Kane’s infatuation with Claire Holland. It seemed that everyone in Chinook was tangled with everyone else.
There had been talk of illegitimate children fathered by Neal Taggert. The old guy had been romantically linked with several local women.
Years ago DNA testing hadn’t been available, or so widespread, but now it was possible. Paternity could be proven. Where once there was only a rumor, or a blood test that might prove a man a father, now it was certain. So Kane had checked. The blood tests taken years before proved that Hunter Riley could have been Neal Taggert’s son. But Jack Songbird wasn’t, despite the rumors that had passed through the alleys, taverns, churches and coffee shops of Chinook.
Kane had tried time and time again to talk to Neal Taggert, but the old man had refused to see him. Tonight, on the night his old rival was going to announce his bid to run for governor, seemed a fitting time for Neal Taggert to come clean. What was the old saying, If Mohamed won’t come to the mountain, the mountain would come to him? Something like that. Well, the mountain was definitely going to Mohamed.
Leaving his notes on the table, Kane found his keys and walked out of the tired old cabin where he’d grown up.
Outside the fog was thick and damp, brushing against his collar and flattening his hair. Kane barely noticed as he slid behind the wheel of his Jeep, flipped on the ignition and put the rig into gear. Tonight, come hell or high water, he was going to get the truth.
Headlights cut through the night, two beams that refracted in the rolling fog as a car—no, some type of SUV pulled into the circular drive. As Paige peered through the blinds, she felt a premonition of bad things to come. No one visited her and her father at night. No, this wasn’t going to be good. She licked her lips nervously as she spied a man climb from behind the wheel. As he opened the door of the rig, the interior light switched on. Paige’s heart clutched as she recognized Kane Moran. His features were blurry in the gloom, but she recognized Kane Moran just the same. Damn, the guy was a pain in the rear, as sticky as gum on a shoe on a hot day.
She didn’t wait for him to ring the bell, but opened the door as he climbed the two steps to the deck that circled this house set on the cliffs, the same house she’d lived in all her life. “What are you doing here?” she asked and slipped onto the front porch so that her father wouldn’t hear the conversation.
“I need to see your father.”
“He’s resting,” she said quickly. “He’s an invalid. He goes to bed early.”
