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For the Right Reasons
Kara Lennox
Secrets…murder…redemption Dr. Bree Johnson won't let an innocent man rot in jail. Why won't Project Justice's handsome attorney Eric Riggs listen to her when she knows her ex Kelly Ralston did not commit the crime he's been arrested for? Little does she know that Kelly has threatened Eric's daughter and that the secrets in this case go beyond them all.But who is controlling Kelly? Bree and Eric will have to trust one another in order to bring the real criminal to justice. Bree might have met the love of her life, but if she and Eric don't stay ahead of the killer, her life might not be a long one….


Secrets…murder…redemption
Dr. Bree Johnson won’t let an innocent man rot in jail. Why won’t Project Justice’s handsome attorney Eric Riggs listen to her when she knows her ex Kelly Ralston did not commit the crime he’s been arrested for? Little does she know that Kelly has threatened Eric’s daughter and that the secrets in this case go beyond them all.
But who is controlling Kelly? Bree and Eric will have to trust one another in order to bring the real criminal to justice. Bree might have met the love of her life, but if she and Eric don’t stay ahead of the killer, her life might not be a long one….
“Very good work, MacKenzie. I think I might have something here.…”
Bree dug into her purse. “I do. Would you like a glitter heart or a gold star?”
“Heart, heart, heart, heart!”
Eric was touched. Had Bree put those stickers in her purse just for MacKenzie? Or… “You must have kids.”
A stark sadness flashed across Bree’s face before she masked it. “No, no kids. But I keep a few things on hand for children who come through the emergency room.”
“So emergency medicine is your specialty?”
“Yes. I work at the county hospital.”
He wondered how many men faked serious illness in the hopes that lovely Bree would minister to them. Images flashed through his mind of Bree’s soft, pale hands touching him—in the most innocent, doctorly ways, of course.
God, what was he doing? He clenched his eyes shut until the images dissipated. He couldn’t afford to think of her like that. He needed to get her and her misguided agenda out of his life.
Dear Reader,
Ask any parent what they would be willing to do to save their child’s life, and most will answer without hesitation, “Whatever it takes.” The bond between parent and child is said to be the strongest of any human attachments. Otherwise timid, gentle people will turn into superheroes when their offspring are threatened.
That’s the situation Eric Riggs faces in this story. (If you read In This Together,—Mills & Boon Superromance, October 2013—the previous book in this series, you might remember Eric as the brother Travis Riggs risks everything to free from prison.) Eric will do what it takes to keep his fragile little girl safe, even if it puts his newfound love for Bree in jeopardy—even if it means he might go back to prison.
It’s been a long time since I wrote a book in which a child was a major character, but I became so attached to Eric’s daughter, MacKenzie, that she threatened to take over the book! I hope you enjoy watching Eric and Bree pick their way through a minefield of choices and challenges as they try to forge those all-important familial bonds, but I especially hope you enjoy MacKenzie’s role. Maybe someday I’ll give her her own book, when she’s grown up.
All my best,
Kara Lennox
For the Right Reasons
Kara Lennox


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KARA LENNOX has earned her living at various times as an art director, typesetter, textbook editor and reporter. She’s worked in a boutique, a health club and an ad agency. She’s been an antiques dealer, an artist and even a blackjack dealer. But no work has ever made her happier than writing romance novels. To date, she has written more than sixty books. Kara is a recent transplant to Southern California. When not writing, she indulges in an ever-changing array of hobbies. Her latest passions are bird-watching, long-distance bicycling, vintage jewelry and, by necessity, do-it-yourself home renovation. She loves to hear from readers. You can find her at www.karalennox.com (http://www.karalennox.com).
For my husband, Rob Preece, without whom I never would have made it to the end of this book! Thank you for keeping me sane and refilling my coffee cup.
Contents
Chapter One (#u0864b765-f905-5279-b594-7b9fbddf409d)
Chapter Two (#u057c67c2-710e-5370-b87f-3e4669005464)
Chapter Three (#ua50d6bb5-c3ca-5a90-bdcd-21f04a850698)
Chapter Four (#u325a2361-a8cf-5d8d-9d35-7747d781e8a6)
Chapter Five (#u5a826b53-3184-5e0e-8be4-39b1547880b4)
Chapter Six (#u728ef8eb-511b-54a1-af79-c6502b90483c)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
“I THINK MOST of you know Eric Riggs.” Daniel Logan, the billionaire CEO and founder of Project Justice, spoke from an enormous video screen positioned at the head of a gleaming mahogany table, making it appear as if he were actually in the conference room, presiding over the staff meeting.
Eric nodded in acknowledgment and tried not to look as nervous as he felt. This conference room was not so different from countless others he’d visited as an attorney. But it had been three years since he’d worn a suit. Three years since he’d focused on anything except proving his innocence and getting out of prison.
He’d accomplished that goal, with the help of his brother and this very organization.
Eric had always thought that once he was free, he would simply start living again—albeit without his wife, the woman he’d thought was his true love. But nothing about his life was simple. Prison had changed him.
His old firm hadn’t wanted him back. They were a stodgy lot, and they wanted nothing to do with what they referred to as Eric’s “unsavory notoriety.” But Daniel Logan had generously offered him a temporary job here, just until Eric got his bearings. His specialty was real estate, not criminal law, but Daniel had assured him he wouldn’t be required to do that much—maybe file a few pleadings, oversee contracts with clients and act as a consultant.
He was still nervous as a kid facing a dentist with a drill. He surreptitiously wiped his palms on his pants.
Today’s gathering was a routine weekly staff meeting. Lead investigators gave updates on cases they were working, and everyone brainstormed through any roadblocks and used each other as a sounding board. The creativity and passion gathered in this one room was mind-boggling. But his new colleagues went out of their way to make Eric feel at home. He even made a couple of contributions, discovering that he could recall his criminal-law classes. No one laughed or rolled their eyes. Maybe he’d do okay here.
He had to do more than survive. He had to keep this job until he found something else. MacKenzie needed him—not just his emotional support but his financial sustenance. She was seeing the best child psychologist in Houston on a weekly basis, and the therapy didn’t come cheap. Then there was the private school, the karate lessons. None of these would make up for the fact that she’d witnessed her mother’s bloody murder. But he was determined to give her the best of everything.
The last few minutes of the meeting were devoted to going over new cases, which Daniel assigned to his senior people based on interest, expertise and availability.
“The last case I want to talk about is an interesting one,” Daniel said. “This man was convicted seven years ago of rape and attempted murder. The crime was believed to be connected to a string of murders. The victim, Philomene Switzer, was the only one to survive.
“The man was convicted based solely on the victim’s testimony. There was no DNA, no fingerprints, just one very credible and sympathetic witness. However, that witness recently recanted.”
“Sounds like a slam dunk,” said Ford Hyatt, a former cop who had been with Project Justice since the beginning.
“Not so fast,” Daniel replied. “The victim confided in a friend, but she refuses to go on the record. So whoever takes this case has some work ahead of them. Who among you is feeling persuasive? Oh, here’s our man, by the way. His name is Kelly Ralston.”
Eric’s head snapped up. My God. A prison ID photo of a man scowled at them from the video screen. It was him. Ralston. Eric brought a reflexive hand to his chest and rubbed it over his dress shirt.
“You think that man’s innocent?” Eric blurted out.
Everyone in the room turned their heads in unison to stare at him.
“Everyone looks bad in their prison ID photo,” said Jillian Baxter-Blake, the foundation’s newest investigator, a young, stylish blonde with a deceptively innocent look and a sharp intellect. “I’m sure yours didn’t make you look like a movie star.”
“Jillian!” Daniel glared at her.
“No, it’s okay,” Eric said quickly. “No offense taken. I didn’t mean to imply Ralston must be guilty because he looks like a bad guy. The truth is, I know him. We were housed in the same cellblock at Huntsville. And there’s no way that guy should be let loose on an unsuspecting public. He’s...he’s a monster.”
“A monster?” Daniel sounded dubious.
Eric realized this group of seasoned professionals, obviously very good at what they did, weren’t simply going to take his word for it. He was the outsider here. They didn’t know him and had no reason to trust him. They were going to take some convincing.
“He tried to kill me. He cut me.”
Silence. Then Daniel broke the quiet. “Eric, as I’m sure you know, prison doesn’t bring out the best in anyone. People do things when they’re locked up that they would never do as free citizens. Here at Project Justice, we concern ourselves solely with the crime for which the client was convicted.”
“That’s just it. Ralston isn’t innocent.” Though the room was cool, Eric’s forehead broke out in a sweat. “He raped that woman and tried to kill her. He killed other women, too. He used to brag about his crimes in the most bloodcurdling detail. He cut them up, right? Lots of stab wounds? That was the part that turned him on.” He paused, forcing himself to slow his breathing and lower the timbre of his voice, then looking at first one, then another of his coworkers. “Do you want me to go on?”
“Obviously this changes things,” Daniel said. “If you’re sure he’s guilty—”
“I’m positive.” Except that he wasn’t. In truth, he’d never heard Kelly Ralston say word one about the crimes he’d committed. Eric had just told the biggest lie of his life.
“Then I guess we’ll deep-six this one. Unfortunately, I told our applicant that we were taking on her case. Someone has to tell her we’re not going to help get her boyfriend out of prison.”
Kelly Ralston had a girlfriend? That was hard to picture.
“I think the best man for that job is you, Eric.”
“Me?” He’d thought his job was all about filing papers with the court. No one said anything about meeting with the deluded girlfriends of scumbag serial rapist-murderers. He was still reeling from just the sight of Ralston’s face on a screen. How was he supposed to now greet that man’s girlfriend with any sort of professionalism?
“Frankly, I don’t think this woman would believe me if I repeated your words,” Daniel said. “I think she needs to hear it from you. And she’ll be in the lobby in about ten minutes.”
Eric was stunned to numbness. He couldn’t believe what he’d just done. He’d lied, straight-faced, to the man partly responsible for giving him his life back. Kelly Ralston was going to stay buried in Huntsville, and Eric was responsible for that, too.
Prison is where Ralston belongs. The man was a dangerous psychopath. Kelly Ralston had said that if he ever got free, he would find Eric and slit his throat. Even worse, he’d threatened MacKenzie, a six-year-old girl who was the picture of innocence.
MacKenzie had been the victim of enough crime in her young life. She might never recover from the trauma of losing her mother in such a violent manner; she still had nightmares about blood. Eric would do whatever it took to protect her.
Even lying.
After reminding everyone that the building would be fumigated on Thursday and everyone should plan to take the day off, Daniel disconnected.
Eric dragged his feet on the way down to the lobby, opting for the stairs because he didn’t want to talk to anyone about his outburst. Helluva way to start the second day of a new job.
The marble-floored reception area was deserted except for Celeste Boggs, the foundation’s office manager, receptionist and self-proclaimed head of security. As far as Eric knew, her actual job responsibilities had nothing to do with security, other than keeping undesirable visitors from gaining access to the rest of the building from the lobby.
But she was pretty scary. In her seventies, she was the antithesis of a sweet little old lady.
“Mr. Riggs,” she greeted him without the hint of a smile on her blood-red lips. “Leaving so soon? You haven’t even had time to warm up your office chair or fill out forms for the personnel office.”
“Actually, I’m looking for someone. A woman named Brianna Johnson has an appointment—”
“At ten, yes, I know. She’s not here yet. I can call you when she arrives.”
“Okay. I’ll just...be in my office.” He could start setting up a filing system or...count paper clips or maybe prepare a resignation letter. So far breaking the bad news to Ralston’s girlfriend was the only thing anyone had asked him to do.
He turned and had almost made it through the frosted-glass wall that separated the lobby from the rest of the building when he heard the front door open. He turned—and froze. The woman who walked through that door was mind-bogglingly beautiful. She had creamy white skin, black hair and deep blue eyes—he could see the color even from a distance. She reminded him of a young Elizabeth Taylor, except in a more petite package.
She dressed like a River Oaks debutante—a brown suede jacket over a creamy silk blouse and black wool trousers, along with black leather high-heeled boots. And she walked with the grace of a ballet dancer. This couldn’t possibly be the girlfriend of a rough character like Kelly Ralston. No possible way.
The woman smiled uncertainly at Celeste, who didn’t return the favor. “Hi, I’m Brianna Johnson. I have an appointment with—”
“Sign here. And I need some ID.” Celeste thrust a clipboard at her.
As the woman signed her name in three quick strokes and accepted a clip-on visitor badge from Celeste, Eric continued to study her. She had pretty hands, but the blunt, unpolished nails didn’t really match up with the rest of her.
Celeste glanced over at Eric, waiting for him to say something.
“Ms. Johnson?” He closed the distance between them and extended his hand. “I’m Eric Riggs.”
“Oh, hello. You can call me Bree.” She shook his hand firmly, decisively. This was a woman of confidence and power. She had either money or a prestigious job. Or both. Again he had to wonder why someone like that would associate with a vicious, violent man like Kelly Ralston.
Bree treated him to a steady, measuring gaze but without a hint of recognition. A month ago Eric had achieved minor celebrity status when the governor had pardoned him, and his conviction for murder had been overturned. Eric’s brother, with Project Justice’s help, had found the real killer, who had damn near taken another victim before being subdued. But a few splashy headlines later, it appeared Eric’s fifteen minutes of fame had run its course. Or maybe Brianna didn’t watch the news or read the papers.
“So are you going to handle Kelly’s case?” Bree asked.
Oh, boy. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Why don’t we...” He started to say they should go to his office. But it was still a mess. No diplomas on the walls, boxes sitting around unpacked, and there was only one guest chair. He’d rather go somewhere more comfortable.
“Yes?” She looked at him with bright, inquisitive eyes.
“Why don’t we go to the break room. I need a coffee.” Or a shot of bourbon.
“Okay.”
He led her down a long hallway toward the kitchen, which was always stocked with all kinds of healthy snacks as well as the ubiquitous office vending machines and a huge bowl of candy. Daniel insisted his people eat well and take care of themselves. The foundation had a workout room, too.
“You can’t imagine how excited I was when I got the news that Project Justice was taking up Kelly’s cause. For seven years I’ve been trying to get someone to listen to me, to believe that he couldn’t have committed a violent crime. Finally, someone is willing not only to listen but to do something.”
This was getting worse by the minute.
“Coffee?”
“Okay, sure. Black, please.”
The sitting area adjacent to the kitchen was deserted. It was furnished with a couple of comfy sofas, coffee tables and a selection of recent magazines. Occasionally it was used as a waiting area for guests, since the lobby was intentionally without any chairs.
Bree settled with her coffee in a wingback chair—the highest chair in the room. The power seat. He sat on the sofa opposite her, his stomach feeling as though a nest of vipers had taken up residence.
Without delay she placed her briefcase on the coffee table and opened it.
“Daniel said to bring all of the materials I have relating to Kelly’s arrest, conviction, appeals—”
“Bree, wait.” He couldn’t let this go on any longer. It was awful to have to be the one to crush her hope, but better now than later. He would hate to make her cry. “I know Daniel told you we were taking on your, um, boyfriend’s case, but circumstances have changed and, unfortunately, it’s not going to be possible.”
Bree stared at him, her mouth open for a few brief seconds before she clamped it closed.
“I’m sorry—”
“What circumstances? I only talked to Mr. Logan yesterday.”
“Sometimes priorities can change rapidly, and our first responsibility is always to the cases we’re already working—”
“That’s a load of crap! Something happened. Someone got to you. Was it Needles?”
“Who?”
“Sam Needles, the Becker County prosecutor who tried Kelly’s case. That bastard would stoop to just about anything to prevent this conviction from getting overturned. Frankly, I can’t imagine Daniel Logan bowing to pressure, and I don’t even know how Needles would have found out—”
“It’s nothing like that. No one applied any pressure.”
“Then what happened? Specifically? Mr. Logan said he would assign the case to an investigator this morning. Was that person you? Are you refusing the case for some reason?”
“Actually, I’m an attorney for—”
“Oh, I get it. You’re the cover-your-legal-ass guy. You want to make sure I can’t sue Project Justice for breach of contract or something.”
“That’s not it at all.” This wasn’t going as smoothly as he’d envisioned. And Bree Johnson had lost any resemblance to an angel. But was Eric a sick puppy for feeling even more attracted to her now that she was angry?
Those blue eyes of hers practically shot sparks, and her cheeks were pink with passion.
“Then what is it? You owe me an honest answer.”
Eric had hoped to duck out of taking personal responsibility for causing Daniel to make this unpopular decision, but apparently Bree wasn’t going to let him off the hook.
“We’re not taking on Ralston’s case because he’s guilty.”
“What? Wait a minute. Yesterday Mr. Logan said my evidence was compelling. Why this sudden change of heart? You can’t possibly know he’s guilty, because he isn’t. As I’ve told anyone who would listen for the past seven years, Kelly is not a violent man.”
“I happen to know he is.”
For a few moments they locked gazes. He’d seldom seen a woman look so furious.
“Look, Bree, it’s often hard for an inmate’s loved one to see the person as they really are. There’s a blind spot. No woman wants to believe she fell in love with a bad person.” Lord knew it had taken Eric a very long time to believe his beloved Tammy had cheated on him. “Criminals often compartmentalize different parts of their lives. You see it all the time. The devoted wife and father turns out to be a child molester. The quiet neighbor is suddenly arrested as a serial killer. I’m sure Kelly has a good side. He may truly love you. But your boyfriend—”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Oh. I thought he was.”
“Did you even read my application?”
“Well, no. I only learned about your case this morning. But Daniel did.”
“Then he didn’t read it closely enough. Kelly and I dated in high school. It didn’t work out....” A fleeting sadness crossed her features, but she quickly masked it. “But we’ve remained friends. We’ve known each other since preschool. I’ve become his champion because there’s no one else and because he deserves to have a voice. He’s not violent.”
Eric was going to have to tell her all of it. Otherwise, she wasn’t going to give up and go away. A woman like her—intelligent, well-spoken—could cause trouble for Project Justice just by telling some reporter that Daniel had gone back on his word. He owed it to the foundation to make sure she didn’t do that.
And he owed it to her. He couldn’t let her go on deluding herself, wasting her time, energy and money on someone who wasn’t worth it.
“I know more of Kelly Ralston than you think. I know him personally, in fact.”
“Wait. What?” She searched his face as if trying to find something familiar about him. “You aren’t on his defense team. I know all of those lawyers.”
“I know him in a different capacity. Actually...I served time with him.”
She looked horrified. “You’re an ex-con?”
“My conviction was overturned. But that’s immaterial. What matters is that I know Kelly Ralston. Rather well. And I can vouch for the fact that he is, indeed, violent.”
“What, because he got into fights in the prison yard? As I understand it, that’s pretty much a given. If you don’t defend yourself, you— Well, I’m sure you know what happens to the guys at the bottom of the food chain.”
She was right about that, and unfortunately, he did know. Prisoners went for the weak ones, like lions picking out the weak impala in a herd. He’d had to toughen up fast.
“Do you know what a shiv is, Bree?”
“Yes, of course. It’s a homemade knife.”
“I witnessed Kelly Ralston attack someone with a shiv.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He hadn’t wanted to go this far, but she’d forced his hand. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and loosened his tie.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was laced with suspicion.
“Just bear with me.” He pulled the tie off, then began unbuttoning his shirt.
Her eyes widened in alarm. “Stop it.”
“Don’t worry, Bree, your virtue is safe. But I need to show you something, because clearly the only way you’re going to believe me is if you see the evidence with your own eyes.”
Her whole body tensed as he yanked off his shirt, then pulled his undershirt over his head.
“Oh.” All the wind went out of her sails as she stared at the ugly scar that ran nearly fifteen inches in a diagonal path from his left shoulder to the right side of his abdomen.
“Yeah, oh.” He hadn’t shown the scar to anyone other than the doctor who’d treated him in prison. “Kelly Ralston did that to me. And no, before you ask, it wasn’t in self-defense. I was stupid enough to try to prevent a fight, and this is what happened to me. I got a staph infection from it, too. I almost died. So when I say Ralston almost killed me, I’m not exaggerating.”
CHAPTER TWO
BREE COULDN’T SEEM to do anything but stare at Eric Riggs’s bare chest. The first coherent thought that came into her mind was, Damn, this guy has one hot bod, quickly followed by the realization that her observation was inappropriate.
Then she saw the scar. “You’re saying Kelly Ralston—my Kelly Ralston—did that to you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Someone chose that moment to walk into the small lounge, a woman about Bree’s age dressed in an off-the-shoulder sweater, hot-pink jeans and platform shoes. Her blond hair was in one of those chic bobs that moved with her, then fell right back into place.
The woman skidded to a stop, took in Eric’s state of undress and backed out of the room with her eyes closed. “Don’t mind me. I was never here.”
“Great,” Eric muttered as he quickly pulled his undershirt back on and shoved his arms into the sleeves of his shirt. “Wonder how long it’ll take Jillian to spread this all over the office grapevine.”
“Well, don’t blame me,” Bree groused. “You’re the one who chose to perform a striptease.”
“Only because you refused to believe me without proof.”
“Who says I believe you? You could have gotten that scar some other way.”
“Why would I make up something like this?”
“I don’t know.” That was the problem. She didn’t know. If Project Justice didn’t want to take on Kelly’s case, they could have just rejected her application. They could pick and choose which cases they wanted to devote their energies to. Sadly, there was no shortage of innocent people behind bars.
Eric finished dressing, knotting his shimmery blue tie just so. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Okay, fine. For the sake of argument, let’s assume Kelly really did attack you in prison, unprovoked. That doesn’t mean he committed the crime he was convicted for.”
“He did, though.” Eric took a deep breath, almost as if trying to draw strength. “He confessed to his crime, to anyone who would listen, in excruciating detail. And he bragged of the murders he’d committed for which he was never arrested. Multiple women. Brutal attacks.”
That stopped Bree. She couldn’t immediately come up with a handy reason why Kelly would do such a thing. He had always adamantly professed his innocence. “You’re lying.”
Eric shrugged. “Believe what you will.”
Bree quickly returned to safer territory—the argument she had rehearsed. “If you would just review the facts—if you would just talk to Philomene—you would have no choice but to believe Kelly is innocent.”
“Lay it out for me,” he said with obvious reluctance.
“They picked up Kelly because he was walking in Philomene’s neighborhood with no obvious destination in mind right after she called 911. He never admitted guilt—”
“Not to you.”
“He never admitted to knowing Philomene. They put him in a lineup, and Philomene identified him. There was no physical evidence linking Kelly to the case. And, in fact, his DNA does not match the sample collected from one of the other murders thought to be part of the serial killer’s pattern. But when that result came in, the police decided to separate that one case out from the others and claimed it must be unrelated, even though the M.O. was exactly the same.
“They took Kelly to court, and Philomene again identified him as her attacker and even added a couple of details she claimed to have remembered, like his tattoo. It was an easy victory for the prosecution.”
“Sounds like it. A credible witness is very hard to overlook. She had no motive for lying about it, especially since she didn’t even know him.”
“So flash forward to a couple of months ago,” Bree continued. “I’m working in the emergency room at the county hospital when Philomene comes in—”
“Working at the E.R. in what capacity?”
“Physician.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize...”
“Yes, you’ve already demonstrated that you’re remarkably badly briefed on this case. Anyway, this woman comes in having an acute asthma attack. I treated her, and then I recognized her, though it was several years since I’d seen her. She remembered me, too. I was a character witness for Kelly during his sentencing. I couldn’t resist bringing it up, even though I know it’s cruel to remind a woman of the most traumatic time in her life. But she seemed to want to talk about it. She jumped at the chance. She said she needed to get something off her chest. And that was when she told me that she didn’t really recognize Kelly in the lineup. The prosecutor was with her in the room, she was nervous, he was putting all kinds of pressure on her to identify her attacker.
“She said they gave her hints about which man she was supposed to pick out, and she did it. And the more times she said it, the more sure she became in her head that he was the one. But later, after all the pressure was off, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake, that she’d sent an innocent man to prison. But she was afraid to change her statement. She was afraid she’d get into trouble—her record isn’t exactly sterling and she has reason to be afraid of the police.”
“What makes you think she’s telling the truth now?”
“She wasn’t lying. She had no reason to.”
“Maybe she’s starting to feel guilty about sending a man to prison for life, even if he is guilty. Maybe she’s downplayed the severity of his crime in her mind over the years. Maybe a friend or relative went to prison for sexual assault, and now she sees the crime from a different point of view. Hell, for all you know, Kelly has been writing letters to her from prison, and they’ve fallen in love. Weirder things have happened.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you met her. She was telling the truth. I know it.”
“Bree. Kelly Ralston is where he belongs.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew him the way I know him. He’s kind. And gentle.” She rushed ahead before he could bring up his scar again. “If he cut you, he had a reason. But he wasn’t really trying to kill you.”
Eric looked away, only for a moment, but long enough that she knew she’d hit home.
“It’s not even my decision to make,” Eric tried again. “Daniel has the last say.”
“He changed his mind because you convinced him to. And you can unconvince him. Just talk to Philomene. She promised she would speak with someone from Project Justice so long as her statement didn’t go on the record. She’s committed to finding the real culprit, who’s out there somewhere, and she’s willing to undergo hypnosis or answer any questions. She just doesn’t want to talk to the police. Please, talk to her. Ten minutes. If you aren’t convinced after that, I’ll drop it.”
“And if I don’t agree to meet with her?”
She smiled, letting him see her teeth. “I won’t give up. I’ll be your worst nightmare.”
Eric sighed. “All right, I’ll meet with her.”
Bree grabbed a pad and pen from her purse and scribbled down an address. “This is the local diner, called the Home Cookin’ Café. Best meat loaf in the world. Might as well have dinner while you’re there.” She ripped off the page and handed it to him.
“Tonight? You want to do this tonight?”
“Sooner the better.”
“You’ll be there, too, right?”
“Of course. Philomene is very fragile. I wouldn’t send her to meet a strange man alone.”
“Then I’ll see you...” He looked at the paper again. “Tuckerville?” He’d heard of it but had no idea where it was.
“Only a couple of hours away.”
“A couple of hours? I have a little girl at home. Evenings are the only time we have together.”
Bree found herself smiling. “Really? How old?”
“Six.”
“I love that age. I’ll keep her entertained while you and Philomene chat. Heck, bring your wife, too. Make it a family outing. Tuckerville is a charming little town.”
His features hardened. “I don’t have a wife. Look, I’ll be there. I said I would. But don’t get your hopes up.”
“Fair enough.” She stood and gathered her things. She’d sold jewelry to help pay her living expenses in college, and she knew that when she’d made the sale, it was time to leave—before she ruined it. She was frankly surprised that Eric had agreed to meet Philomene at all. “I’ll see myself out.”
“I’ll walk you to the door. If I don’t, Celeste will eat me for lunch.”
“Let me guess. The lady at the front desk?”
“That would be the one. The first thing they told me when I walked through the door yesterday morning was to do what she says, or else.”
They retraced their steps to the lobby. Now that she was less on edge, Bree was able to take in her surroundings more. The hallway was floored in a beautiful parquet pattern, and original oil paintings lined the walls. The light fixtures were real chandeliers.
They parted ways at the front desk. Bree shook Eric’s hand again. “See you tonight.”
Just as she hit the door, she heard Celeste say in a loud stage whisper, “You work fast.”
Then came Eric’s rapid denial. “It’s not a date.”
Of course it wasn’t a date, Bree thought as she tried to remember where she’d left her car. She didn’t spend much time in the city and wasn’t used to having to park blocks away from her destination. But her heart felt lighter knowing she’d once again pulled Kelly’s case out of the ashes of destruction and blown the embers to life. And maybe because tonight she’d be seeing a certain dashing single-dad lawyer again and would find out why he was making up lies about Kelly.
Then she was going to make sure he knew the meaning of the word justice.
* * *
“DADDY!” THE MOMENT Eric hit the front door of his brother’s house in Timbergrove, MacKenzie launched herself at him like a cat on a very large mouse. He scooped her up into his arms and reveled in the sweet little-girl smell of strawberry shampoo and crayons. She clung to him like a burr.
“Hello, angel-cakes. How’s my big girl?”
“I’m good now that you’re home.”
Judging from the chatter going on in the kitchen, and the smell of garlic and tomatoes, his brother, Travis, was already home from work and making dinner with his wife, Elena. Between the two of them, Travis was the better cook, but Elena could whip up a few Cuban dishes from her homeland.
He hoped they weren’t going to too much trouble, given that he was going to miss dinner.
“Uncle Trav is making spaghetti,” MacKenzie said as Eric slid her down to the floor. She didn’t seem to want to let go of him. Once upon a time, MacKenzie had been a bright, inquisitive, fearless child. But ever since a lowlife named John Stover taught her that there were things to fear in the world, MacKenzie had been a different person—shy, timid, withdrawn. During those few times she’d been allowed to visit Eric in prison, she’d barely said a word.
She was starting to come out of her shell now that she had her father back, but she had a long way to go. For one thing, she was excessively clingy and wanted to know where Eric was every minute. He’d warned her that he wouldn’t be home until after five o’clock, that he’d started a new job, but she’d still had a meltdown when she’d arrived home from school and found him gone. Elena, who was watching MacKenzie after school, had called Eric, and he’d been the only one who could calm her down and reassure her that he wasn’t back in prison and that he would be home soon.
It almost killed him that he had to leave again—and all because he’d been suckered by a pair of eyes as deep as the ocean. Philomene Switzer could say whatever she wanted, but Eric wasn’t going to change his mind.
He told himself he’d agreed to Bree’s proposition because it was the only way to get her out of his hair. She’d promised to back off if he did this one thing, and he was going to do it. He couldn’t afford for Daniel to devote any more time, attention and effort to the Ralston case. Because if he looked into it very deep, he’d find out Eric was lying. Daniel’s investigator could talk to other prisoners, cell mates, friends and relatives on the outside, and he’d discover that Kelly had never confessed his crimes to anyone. In fact, tough and mean as he was, he’d always vehemently proclaimed his innocence.
Eric still believed he’d done the right thing. And the proof was this little girl, clutching his hand with complete trust. Ralston had said he could get to her even from prison—that if Eric ratted him out, he could count on never seeing his daughter again, one way or another.
Eric hadn’t said a word to the warden. He hadn’t even sought medical treatment for the cut, not until the infection got so bad that a guard found him unconscious in his cell. Still, when questioned, he’d refused to name Kelly Ralston.
Somehow, though, the warden had found out, and Ralston had gone into solitary for a week, pretty much guaranteeing that his upcoming parole hearing wouldn’t go well.
So far Ralston hadn’t made good on his threat. But if he were free, taking his revenge against Eric and his family would be child’s play.
MacKenzie dragged Eric into the kitchen. “Daddy’s home,” she said proudly, as if she had personally caused him to appear. In a way, she had. If not for her, he probably would have just headed for Tuckerville right after work.
Travis grinned. “Hey, how was your first staff meeting? Did Daniel kick your— Um, did he give you any trouble?”
Travis and Daniel Logan had a rocky past, but they’d come to terms.
“I only saw him on a video screen. How much damage could he do?”
“Plenty,” Elena answered. She had been Daniel’s personal assistant until recently. “I’ve seen him reduce a grown man to tears over video conferencing. But he wouldn’t have any reason to be on your case.”
Oh, wouldn’t he? How about if he knew Eric had told a big fat lie?
“Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes,” Travis said. “You want a beer?”
“Maybe later. Unfortunately, I have to leave again.”
“What?” MacKenzie shrieked.
“I have to go out. It’s important, or I wouldn’t.”
“But you just got home! I haven’t showed you the picture I colored or my homework papers I got an A on.” MacKenzie was in a near panic.
“You can show me later, okay?”
“When?”
“I should be home about nine-thirty.”
“I have to go to bed at eight-thirty. No, Daddy, don’t leave.” She was about to have a full-blown tantrum. Already little tears were squeezing out of her eyes, and she was holding on to him with the grip of a lumberjack on his ax.
“Where are you going?” Travis asked. “I mean, not that it’s my business—”
“It’s work-related,” Eric said.
“Daniel’s making you work late your second day?” Elena was incensed. Then she whispered, “He knows MacKenzie needs you.”
“You can go out later,” MacKenzie wheedled, “after I go to bed. Don’t leave, Daddy.”
When she looked up at him with those big blue eyes, it was impossible to deny her. But he’d given his word to Bree that he would meet Philomene. She’d said he could bring MacKenzie with him....
“MacKenzie, how would you like to go for a drive with me?”
“What?” Travis and Elena said at the same time.
But MacKenzie clapped her hands together gleefully. “Are we going to get ice cream?”
“You can have ice cream if you want when we get there.” He couldn’t imagine any diner that didn’t serve ice cream. “But it’s a long drive. About two hours. We’ll have to take a snack with us.”
“Where are you going?” Travis asked again.
“To talk to a reluctant witness.”
“You think it’s okay to bring a child to—”
“I have a babysitter lined up.”
Travis looked as if he wanted to say more, but he resisted.
“I’ll make her a peanut-butter sandwich,” Elena said.
“Great. I’ll go change clothes.”
Ten minutes later Eric was in the car with MacKenzie snug in her car seat with a sandwich and his iPhone, where she was watching cartoons. She was quiet for a long time, leaving Eric far too alone with his thoughts.
He couldn’t stomach even the thought of anyone hurting his little girl. Though Ralston’s threat had been issued years ago, when Eric was a green convict, Eric recalled every word as if it were an hour ago.
You better not rat me out, Riggs, or your life won’t be worth the ink on your fancy law degree. You may leave here. You may think you’re safe. But vengeance will come when you least expect it.
At that point everything about prison had scared Eric. He still didn’t know where he’d come up with the courage to try to stop a fight. But when Ralston and the other man had squared off, each of them brandishing a homemade weapon, Eric had been naive enough to try to calm them down.
Stepping between them just as the second man struck hadn’t been his sharpest move. Ralston’s vicious countermove had cut Eric stem to stern.
Reflexively, he rubbed his chest again. The scar still throbbed when he was nervous.
I don’t care what happens to me. That was what Eric had retorted, because at the time, he’d thought death might be preferable to the hell of prison.
No? What about that cute little girl of yours? What’s her name? MacKenzie? When I get done with her, there won’t be enough left to identify at the morgue.
Eric’s gut twisted as he recalled Ralston’s threat. He’d wanted to tell Ralston to back off, that if he touched one hair on his daughter’s head, Eric would kill him. Painfully.
But the words hadn’t come. It had been all he could do not to puke.
Ruthlessly, Eric shoved the memory aside and focused on the upcoming meeting. This shouldn’t be a big deal. He would listen to Philomene’s story, then politely tell Bree that he was sorry, but his decision stood. Then he’d buy MacKenzie an ice cream and come back home. MacKenzie would probably go to sleep during the drive home. She loved riding in the car.
“Daddy, when are we gonna get there?”
“We’re more than halfway there. Are you tired of your cartoons?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You can look out the window. We’re going to a new place you’ve never been before. Tuckerville.” What a name. He could only imagine what kind of backwater wasteland Tuckerville was. Why a woman of Bree’s obvious intelligence and sophistication chose to live there was a mystery. He couldn’t imagine wanting to live so far from any big city, so far from shopping and fine restaurants and...good haircuts. That was one thing he’d really missed in prison—getting a decent haircut. Sometimes it was the small things.
“It’s dark out there,” MacKenzie said. “I can’t see anything.”
“Look off to the right. There’s a radio tower. See those red lights?” They were driving through farm and ranch land. Not much to see at night. “When we listen to the radio, that’s where the sound comes from.”
“Oh.”
At least MacKenzie was talking again. When he’d first gotten out of prison, he could barely get two words out of her. But more than two months later, she was starting to open up a little. The foster home she’d lived in during his incarceration had been a pretty bad place, though no one knew how bad until Travis had realized the foster parents were selling MacKenzie’s clothes and toys on eBay.
“Now look up at the sky.”
He heard MacKenzie give a little gasp of surprise, and he smiled. It was a clear winter night, and they were far enough away from the city now that the sky was blanketed with stars. When Eric was a kid, he’d loved the stars, even though he hadn’t been able to see all that many in the city. He’d checked out book after book on astronomy and had even thought he might make that his life’s work. He remembered dragging Travis up onto the roof of their apartment building and pointing out the constellations—the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, Cassiopeia’s Chair.
“There’s so many stars,” MacKenzie said softly, almost to herself, a tinge of awe in her voice.
“Some weekend we’ll go camping, and we’ll get a telescope and look at the stars and the moon and the planets. Would you like that?”
“Uh-huh,” she said almost absently, her head leaning against the window as she took in the blanket of diamonds overhead. She remained quiet for the next thirty minutes, just looking at the night sky. It warmed his heart to think maybe she’d inherited his love for studying the heavens.
“Are we almost there?”
“Almost. Suzy says ten more minutes.” Suzy was the name they’d given the female voice on his car’s GPS.
MacKenzie sighed.
“What flavor ice cream do you want?”
“Pineapple,” she said decisively.
“They might not have pineapple ice cream. We’ll just have to see. Did you finish your sandwich?”
She held up what was left of the half sandwich Elena had made for her. She’d eaten a few bites, at least. At her foster home, MacKenzie had developed the unfortunate habit of hoarding food. She seldom ate very much, choosing instead to save her food for later. No matter how many times Eric reassured her that she could eat as much as she wanted, she obviously was still fearful about going hungry.
“I’m going to have dinner at the diner before my ice cream,” he said. “How about you?”
“Do they have grilled cheese?”
“I imagine so. Maybe soup, too.” She loved soup, and it wasn’t something she could hoard.
The momentous decision of what to choose for dinner occupied her until they crossed the city limits of the great metropolis of Tuckerville.
It was a little bigger than he’d expected, with a quaint main street boasting old-fashioned streetlights, a theater showing last year’s movies, an antiques mall and a quilt shop. Most everything except the theater was closed, the sidewalks deserted. Then he spotted the Home Cookin’ Café, right where Bree had said it would be, at the corner of Main and Maple.
The café was like something out of an old movie, all chrome and rounded corners and an Art Deco neon sign advertising Shakes, Malts and Sodas. He wondered if it was the real thing or someone’s retro fantasy.
He pulled into the small parking lot, which was nearly full. Clearly the place was doing a brisk business.
MacKenzie was more than ready to be released from the confines of her child seat.
“What is this place?” MacKenzie asked.
“It’s a diner. Or a café. Have you ever been to one?”
“Is it like McDonald’s?”
“Sort of. But they serve the food on real dishes and they bring it to your table.”
“Oh, like Little Italy?” Little Italy was a neighborhood restaurant that Travis and Elena had introduced them to. It hadn’t been open when Eric had lived in the neighborhood, before Tammy’s death. Funny, that was how he thought of his life now, in three distinct segments: Before Tammy’s Murder, Prison and After Prison.
“You’ll see what it’s like.”
She grabbed on to Eric’s hand. New situations and new people made her nervous. No, more than nervous. Really stressed.
“Will there be people there?”
“Yes. We’re going to meet a nice lady named Bree. You’ll like her.”
“No, I won’t,” she said decisively.
Eric didn’t challenge her. He couldn’t make her like people and she certainly knew that not all adults were worthy of her esteem. Eric himself wasn’t sure he liked Bree—although he was looking forward to seeing her again. She wasn’t exactly all sweetness and light, and clearly she had a sharp tongue when she had a mind to use it. But he admired her passion. Passion was attractive, even if it was for a cause he didn’t agree with.
Eric and MacKenzie entered the diner and stood next to a please-wait-to-be-seated sign. The place was busy, but there were still a few tables and booths available.
A hostess with a mile-high beehive greeted them, fitting right in with the retro theme. “Two for dinner?” she asked brightly.
“Actually, I’m meeting someone here. Her name is Bree. About so high, black hair, blue eyes you can’t miss—”
The hostess was nodding. “That’s Dr. Bree.”
“And a friend of hers, too. They’re not here yet, are they?” He scanned the whole seating area and didn’t see Bree, and she wasn’t the sort of woman easily overlooked.
“No, haven’t seen her, but I’ll keep an eye out. Come right this way.”
Eric started to follow the hostess, whose name tag identified her as Molly, but MacKenzie suddenly dug in her heels and wouldn’t move.
“No, Daddy, let’s go home.”
“What? We just got here.”
“I don’t want to meet the lady! I want to go home!”
CHAPTER THREE
ERIC PRAYED MACKENZIE wasn’t about to throw one of her fits. “Why don’t you want to stay here?”
“I just don’t.”
“Well, we came a long way, and I’m hungry, and we’re not leaving until I get some dinner. Don’t you want your grilled cheese? And ice cream?” He knew bribing a child with food wasn’t the recommended way to get her to cooperate, but he didn’t want to risk a tantrum, not now.
“I’m not hungry. I want to go home.”
“I’m sorry, MacKenzie, we can’t go home right now. Daddy promised to be here, and I have to keep my word.”
“You want a coloring book, precious?” Molly asked. “I have Goofy and Cinderella.”
MacKenzie pressed her lips together in a mutinous frown.
“Go with Cinderella,” Eric said to the hostess. Then he scooped up MacKenzie and carried her to their designated booth. He would lie down and die any day of the week for this child. But the psychologist had emphasized that he had to be firm, too, and not let her walk all over him. Just because she was troubled didn’t mean she couldn’t also learn to be manipulative.
Once they were seated, he tried to get MacKenzie interested in the menu. She was a good enough reader that she could make out a lot of the words by herself.
“It says this diner has been here for more than sixty years,” Eric read, pointing to the words. That answered his question about whether it was authentic.
MacKenzie didn’t seem interested. She kept looking over her shoulder, as if she expected the bogeyman to be after her.
“MacKenzie, what’s wrong? What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t want a shot!” she said, bursting into tears.
“A shot? What makes you think... Oh.” Dr. Bree. “She’s not going to give you a shot. She’s just a nice lady.” A nice lady who was late. If he’d driven all this way for nothing, he was going to be more than irritated.
“No shots?”
“No. Just dinner. It says here they have a soup-and-sandwich special. How about a grilled cheese and tomato soup?”
After thinking about it, MacKenzie nodded.
A couple of minutes later Bree bustled through the door, looking a bit harried. Molly smiled at her and pointed toward their booth, and Bree hurried their way, waving as she caught Eric’s eye.
The sight of her had a stronger effect than he’d anticipated. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail now, and several unruly strands had escaped to frame her face. She’d changed clothes since this morning, opting for a simple white blouse and gray pants. Again, he could tell at a glance that the clothes were high quality. Could a woman even buy clothes like that in Tuckerville?
Didn’t matter. The sight of her made his mouth go dry. He couldn’t recall reacting that strongly to a woman since...well, since Tammy. Tammy, the supposed love of his life, who’d turned out to be aggressively unfaithful.
You can’t trust a sweet smile. Bree had already proved she had a sharp side. During their very first meeting, no less.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said as she slid into the booth opposite them. “I got held up at work. I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”
“Just a couple of minutes.”
Then Bree’s attention focused on MacKenzie, and her face was transformed with a look of such sweet maternal softness that Eric found himself struggling to breathe.
“And who have we here?” Bree asked.
MacKenzie ignored her.
“This is my daughter, MacKenzie,” Eric said. “MacKenzie, this is Dr. Johnson.”
“Hi, MacKenzie. You can call me Bree.” Her voice was soft, nonprovoking. “Nice to meet you.”
MacKenzie kept her eyes on her coloring book, where she was filling in Cinderella’s dress with a brown crayon.
“Is that Cinderella?” Bree asked.
“Mmm-hmm,” MacKenzie replied.
“You’re good at coloring. You really know how to stay inside the lines. Me, when I color, I’m really messy. I bet you get gold stars in your art class.”
“I get all As,” MacKenzie said matter-of-factly.
“Where’s Philomene?” Eric asked. “I’d like to move this along so I don’t keep MacKenzie out too late.”
“Of course.” Bree looked around. “I’ll go ask if she’s here. If the waitress comes, order me a meat loaf special and a coffee.”
“Caffeine doesn’t bother you this late at night?”
“Unfortunately, no. If it did, maybe I wouldn’t drink so much of the stuff.” She slid out of the booth and headed for Molly. Eric studied her retreating form at leisure, especially those gently swaying hips.
MacKenzie was staring, too.
“See, she’s not so scary,” Eric said.
MacKenzie shrugged and turned her attention to the menu. “I don’t see ice cream on here.”
Eric flipped the pages until he found desserts. “Right here. Chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.”
She put her finger on the menu where Eric had pointed and attempted to sound out the words. The waitress stopped back, and Eric dutifully ordered Bree’s meat loaf special. “I’ll have the same thing,” he added. “And a grilled cheese and tomato soup for the little one.”
“You want a soda with that?” the perky waitress asked.
MacKenzie nodded, but Eric shook his head. “Milk.” Bree might not be bothered by caffeine, but it made MacKenzie spin like a top.
As soon as the waitress left, Bree returned, a worried frown on her face. “Philomene’s not here. She should have gotten off work at six.”
“Maybe she got held up.”
“Maybe. But wouldn’t she call?”
“You’re asking me? I’ve never met this woman.”
“She should have called,” Bree said decisively.
Eric stifled a groan. He should have known this was a fool’s errand. “Sounds like maybe she had a change of heart.”
“When I talked to her yesterday, she sounded really eager to unburden herself. The guilt has been eating her alive.”
“You said she was nervous about changing her story. She probably just got cold feet.”
“I hope that’s all it is.” Bree already had her phone in her hand. “I’ll call her and see what’s what.”
The waitress brought MacKenzie’s milk and Bree’s coffee. Bree took a healthy gulp of the stuff, black, while waiting for Philomene to pick up.
“Hi, Philomene, it’s me, Bree,” she said after a few moments. “I’m at the diner with Eric Riggs from Project Justice. Please call me when you get a chance.” She was still frowning as she hung up.
“Look, Daddy, I finished.” MacKenzie displayed her coloring work. Although the colors were a little drab, she’d kept within the lines in her usual meticulous fashion.
“Very nice, sweetheart.”
Cautiously, she turned the page around and slid it toward Bree.
Bree smiled, and again her face was transformed.
She ought to smile more often, Eric thought.
“Very good work, MacKenzie. I think I might have something here...” She dug into her purse. “I do. Would you like a glitter heart or a gold star?”
“Heart, heart heart heart!”
Eric was touched. Had Bree put those stickers in her purse just for MacKenzie? Or... “You must have kids.”
A stark sadness flashed across Bree’s face before she masked it. “No, no kids. But I keep a few things on hand for children who come through the E.R.”
“So emergency medicine is your specialty?” She’d said earlier today that she’d met Philomene in the E.R., but he wanted to keep her talking about herself.
“Yes. I work at the county hospital.”
He wondered how many men faked serious illness in the hopes that lovely Bree would minister to them. Images flashed through his mind of Bree’s soft, pale hands touching him—in the most innocent, doctorly ways, of course.
God, what was he doing? He clenched his eyes shut until the images dissipated. He couldn’t afford to think of her like that. He needed to get her and her misguided agenda out of his life.
“Oh, no,” Bree said under her breath, her gaze fixed on the door.
Eric turned to look. A big, beefy guy with dark close-cropped hair in a well-tailored dress shirt and pants had just entered, accompanied by a shorter, more slender man with thinning curly hair and thick glasses. The shorter one’s clothes were rumpled, and as Molly showed them to a table, he walked with a slightly lurching gait, as if he had an issue with his hip or knee.
“Darn it, they’re headed this way.” Bree lowered her head and took another sip of coffee, playing with a strand of her hair to shield her face.
“Well, if it isn’t the crusading lady doctor.” The larger of the two men, clearly the alpha in this pack of two, had paused by their booth, proving Bree’s attempt to be inconspicuous hadn’t worked.
“Hello, Mr. Needles,” she said wearily, offering him a tight, almost hostile smile.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Eric, this is District Attorney Sam Needles, the man who put Kelly in prison. Sam, this is Eric Riggs. He’s an attorney with Project Justice,” she said meaningfully.
Sam Needles didn’t take the hand Eric extended. Instead, he laughed. “Surely you’re kidding. You actually think Project Justice can get your no-good boyfriend out of prison? You ought to know that dog won’t hunt.”
Eric withdrew his hand, which had clenched into a fist. He didn’t know Bree very well, and he even agreed with Needles’s assessment of Ralston. But Needles had no call to be out-and-out rude.
“Sam,” the other man said to his friend, “leave her be.”
“Eric, this is Ted Gentry,” Bree said in a friendlier tone of voice. “He’s our county coroner. Normally a perfectly nice man, though he could keep better company.”
Gentry grinned. “Sam’s okay if you catch him on a good day. And he said he’d pay for dinner.”
“Least I could do, after you let me keep all the fish we caught,” Needles said with a hearty laugh.
“We did some fishing last night out at Willowbrook,” Gentry explained. “Sheriff’s got a place there. I like to catch ’em, not eat ’em.”
Sam Needles sobered. “Don’t drag me back to court, Bree. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.” He sauntered off.
Gentry shrugged apologetically. “You know how it is. If he says a man’s guilty, he doesn’t like being proved wrong.”
“A common trait among prosecutors,” Eric said amiably, though he was far less accepting of Sam Needles’s behavior than he let on. The fact was, the prosecutor’s attitude got Eric’s back up. He felt this tremendous urge to say, “Hell, yeah, Project Justice is taking on this case and you’re gonna eat your words.”
Even if Eric did agree with the guy.
But he kept still. He didn’t want any arguing, particularly not in front of MacKenzie, although she seemed engrossed in her coloring book and looked as if she’d tuned out the adult conversation.
“If you need anything from me, just let me know,” Gentry said. “I don’t like being proved wrong, either. But as I recall, I wasn’t able to contribute a whole heck of a lot to that case.”
“Thanks, Ted.” Bree gave his hand a quick squeeze.
A jolt of some uncomfortable emotion shocked Eric’s system; it took a moment before he realized he was jealous.
The coroner left to join his friend at a table thankfully far away from theirs. Bree watched them for a few moments. “Of course. They’re sitting down with Sheriff DeVille. Birds of a feather,” she grumbled, then turned to look at Eric. “See what I’m up against? Good-ol’-boy network can’t stand the thought that they might be proved wrong, by a woman, no less. ‘Crusading lady doctor,’ my foot.”
“It’s an attitude I’m familiar with. The coroner seemed a nice enough guy, at least.”
“He’s okay. We go way back, actually. We were in med school together. He’s kind of weird, but you’d have to be kind of weird to, um, do what he does all day.”
The waitress arrived with their food, and for a few minutes they made small talk. Under any other circumstances, Eric would have found Bree delightful. If this had been a first date, he would have wanted a second.
But he didn’t date. Even if he had been ready to trust another woman with his heart—and he wasn’t—there was no way he would make MacKenzie negotiate the minefield of Daddy’s girlfriends. She’d had to endure so many changes so quickly, not the least of which was discovering the foster father who’d cared for her the past three years had killed her mother. That was after losing her mother to murder, then having everyone tell her her own father had done it.
While MacKenzie was working on her scoop of vanilla ice cream, Bree tried to call Philomene again but still got no answer.
“I’m worried about her.”
“Philomene sounds like a woman who can take care of herself. I read up on the case, you know.” He hadn’t exactly had a ton of work to do so far at the foundation. “She came across as gutsy, standing up to her attacker, testifying in court against him—”
“Against the wrong guy. If you met her, you’d know she’s not very tough at all.”
* * *
BREE SEEMED INDECISIVE as she pulled out a credit card to pay for their meal.
“Wait, you don’t have to pay for dinner.” Eric was already reaching for his own wallet.
“Of course I do. You drove all this way, for nothing, as it turns out. I’m so sorry she didn’t show.”
“Crime victims don’t always behave rationally. If I’d been through what she has, I’d be scared, too.” Come to think of it, he was scared.
“But this was our one chance to get someone at Project Justice to listen. She understood that!”
Eric wished he knew what to say to make Bree feel better.
“I’m going to swing by her apartment and see if she’s home,” Bree said. “I don’t suppose you want to come with me—in case she’s there? Maybe I can still get her to talk to you.”
Eric was torn. He wanted to be done with this matter. At the same time, he didn’t want to say goodbye to Bree forever. She was a bright and interesting aspect of his life all of a sudden, even if she did bring trouble. He honestly hadn’t thought he would ever be interested in another woman after Tammy. But this one—she caused something to stir inside him, something he’d thought dead and buried right along with his duplicitous wife.
“If it’ll save me another trip out here...” He tried to make it seem as if he were merely being practical.
She quickly paid the bill, deftly refusing Eric’s attempt to do so himself, and soon they were all headed out to the parking lot, though not without a brief tussle with MacKenzie, who wanted to take her ice cream with her.
“Do you want to ride with me?” Eric asked Bree. “It’s not far, is it?” How far could one drive in Tuckerville and not go beyond the city limits? “I’ll drop you off here when we’re done.”
“Okay, if you don’t mind.”
By the time he got MacKenzie settled in her car seat, Bree was already ensconced in the front of his Nissan, looking right at home. She brought with her not only a healthy dose of femininity but a light, clean scent that reminded him of an alpine meadow—like Colorado in the spring. He was on the verge of asking her what the perfume was, then realized that would sound much too flirtatious for this situation. But the feminine scent produced a ridiculous surge of pleasure.
As he fastened his seat belt and started the car, Bree took a small bottle out of her purse and squirted something into her hand. It was an antibacterial gel, he realized. The alpine scent grew stronger, and he felt like an idiot. No chance she’d gussied up for him.
“Habit,” she said as she tossed the bottle back into her purse. “Hospitals have so many germs that I put this stuff on every five minutes.”
“When MacKenzie was a baby, we were so paranoid about germs we went through a bottle of Lysol about every day. Our hands were always chapped from washing.”
“She must be your first, then.”
“First and only. I don’t see how people do it, the ones who have half a dozen, I mean. I worry about her all the time.”
“I guess you figure it out as you go along.” She sounded wistful.
He knew it was harder for women, doing the whole husband-and-kids thing when you had a high-pressure career. He’d heard enough of his female attorney colleagues say so, anyway. Tammy’d had a career as a bookkeeper before MacKenzie. After the baby came, she’d insisted there was no way she could work and be a proper wife and mother, and Eric had never pushed her to. They’d done okay on his income. If he’d known she was putting MacKenzie in day care so she could carry on with the guy from her coupon club—
No, he couldn’t think about that.
“Turn left at this next stop sign,” Bree said. “It’s the second house on the right. She lives in the apartment over the garage.”
It seemed a cheerful enough neighborhood, with lots of pecan trees and picket fences. Eric pulled his car to the curb and stopped.
“Where are we going, Daddy?” MacKenzie asked. He’d thought maybe after her dinner and ice cream, she’d go right to sleep.
“Just a quick stop. Then we’ll head home.”
“Who lives here?” she asked as Eric helped her out of the car seat.
“A friend of Bree’s.”
The three of them walked up a set of wooden stairs lined with clay pots overflowing with pansies. A light was on inside, but that didn’t necessarily mean Philomene was home. People often left their lights on to foil burglars.
Bree knocked sharply on the door. “Philomene? It’s Bree. I’m just checking to see if you’re okay. Did you forget our meeting?”
No one answered. But Eric heard someone moving inside.
“Did you hear that?” Bree asked in a low voice.
“Clearly she doesn’t want visitors.”
Of course, Bree was too persistent to just give up. She tried the latch, which wasn’t locked. She opened the door a crack. “Philomene? I’m coming in, okay? I just want to make sure you’re all right.” She turned to Eric and whispered, “I mean, what if she’s sick or hurt or something?”
Unlikely, unless cold feet could be considered an injury.
Bree knocked one more time. “I don’t think she would normally leave her door unlocked at night. I’m going in.” She pushed her way inside.
It was a tiny apartment—just a combined living/dining room and a galley kitchen separated by a half wall. A single door probably led to the bedroom.
“This looks a lot like the place I lived in college,” Eric said. “With two other guys.”
Bree wasn’t up for chitchat. “I know I heard someone in here.” She crossed the living room toward the kitchen and peeked behind the half wall. Eric was right behind her, gripping MacKenzie’s hand. He suddenly had a bad feeling they shouldn’t be here. Just because the door was unlocked didn’t mean they had the right to barge in.
“We should leave,” he said just as someone burst out of the bedroom and streaked past them, straight out the front door.
“Hey!” Eric yelled, a purely reflexive outburst. The last thing he really wanted was for the guy to stop, not when Eric had his six-year-old daughter with him.
MacKenzie squeaked in surprise and Bree whirled around. “Who was that? Was it Philomene?”
“Definitely not, unless Philomene resembles a large male wearing overalls.”
Bree shook her head and walked to the door to look out. The guy’s footsteps had long since faded; he’d beat it out of there pretty damn fast.
“Does Philomene have a roommate or boyfriend?” Eric asked.
“No roommate. I don’t know about boyfriends. But whoever that guy was, he wouldn’t have run like that if he was supposed to be here.”
Bree walked over to the bedroom door and stuck her head in, then checked the bathroom. “She’s not here. Eric, did you get a good look at the intruder?”
“No. Just his general size and coloring, but he rushed past so fast. Look, Bree, I must have been insane to come here with my little girl. We have to go—now.”
“But Philomene might be in trouble.”
“That sounds like a matter for the police.” Eric was already heading for the door. He needed to get MacKenzie home, tucked in safe and far, far away from anything that smacked of “trouble.”
“The police. That’s a joke,” Bree muttered as she followed Eric out. “Tuckerville doesn’t even have its own police force. We rely on the Becker County Sheriff’s Department. They wouldn’t stir themselves to look for a missing woman.”
“Most law enforcement won’t search for a missing adult unless there’s clear evidence of foul play. Because ninety-nine percent of missing adults are missing because they want to be.”
“What about that one percent?”
“I’m sure she’ll turn up.” Was he? They’d interrupted a possible crime, and Eric’s bad feeling hadn’t gone away. But his job wasn’t to investigate missing persons.
They rode in silence back to the café’s parking lot. Finally, when Eric stopped to let Bree out, she spoke. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”
“Not nothing. That was awfully good meat loaf.”
“I don’t suppose you’d come back if I set up another meeting.... No, I can see it in your eyes. You’ve already been more than reasonable, and... Never mind. It’s not your problem. Have a safe drive home. MacKenzie?” Bree’s demeanor changed dramatically when she addressed his daughter. “I enjoyed meeting you.”
MacKenzie actually smiled. Then she said in a tiny voice, “I hope you find your friend.”
“Me, too, kiddo.”
Eric was touched. He’d thought MacKenzie would tune them out the way kids did when they weren’t interested in adult conversation, which they usually weren’t. But apparently she’d been paying attention, and she’d overcome her initial shyness to express compassion for someone else. She was an amazing kid.
With more empathy than her father, apparently. He felt guilty for not showing more concern for Philomene. He felt a sudden urge to reverse himself and tell Bree he would do whatever it took to locate Philomene and make sure she was safe, that he would listen, that he would look into Kelly Ralston’s case and see that justice was being served.
But Bree was already gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
BREE HAD NEVER thought of herself as a stalker. But she’d tried calling Eric Riggs three times and hadn’t been able to get through. She was not going to give up easily, however. Not when a woman’s life was at stake. So here she was, lurking outside the Project Justice offices, waiting for someone to exit.
She had known better than to actually go inside and face the Dragon Lady, Celeste. Celeste was the one who had repeatedly foiled Bree’s efforts to speak with Eric.
When someone finally did exit the building, it was the young blonde woman she’d seen on her first visit, the one who had interrupted what she must have thought was some kind of romantic tryst.
“Excuse me, Jillian?”
The woman whirled around. “Yes?” Then she smiled with recognition. “Oh, you’re Eric’s girlfriend.”
Bree let Jillian believe what she wanted. “I’ve been trying to reach him. But there seems to be some trouble with the phone, and he’s not answering his cell.”
“He’s probably in the courtroom,” Jillian said. “You get in big trouble with the judge if your cell phone goes off during some proceeding.” Jillian looked slightly guilty, as if she might know this from experience. “He was supposed to appear this morning for some reason or other. You can probably still catch him down there if you hurry. You know where it is?”
“Oh, sure,” Bree said breezily. “Thanks.”
“No problem. I’m just glad to see Eric has someone in his life. I don’t know him very well, but he seems like a really nice guy, and he deserves someone nice.”
As she hurried back to her car, Bree felt slightly guilty for having perpetrated the white lie on unsuspecting Jillian. But extreme circumstances called for extreme measures.
Ten minutes later she was lurking on the courthouse steps like a lovesick teenager or an ambitious paparazzo, ready to pounce if she saw any sign of her target. It wasn’t as if he would be hard to spot, with those wide shoulders and the glint of gold in his hair. Although he’d cut it ruthlessly short, she bet it would turn beach-boy blond if he let it grow and spent a little time in the sun. Might get rid of that prison pallor, too.
Yeah, she’d done some research on him. It wasn’t hard—he’d been convicted of stabbing his pretty socialite wife to death, and his trial had been reported and analyzed ad nauseam in dozens of newspapers across the state. It had even been on TruTV. He had indeed been pardoned and then his conviction overturned when the real killer had tried to kidnap Eric’s future sister-in-law.
Bree hadn’t known anything about the original crime, because she’d been in her medical residency then, oblivious to anything but her patients and the few hours of sleep she could grab. Plus, crime news had never been something that interested her. She’d had her fill of it during Kelly’s arrest and trial.
It was a wonder she’d survived that period of her life, fighting for Kelly’s freedom and getting through med school.
“Bree?”
She whirled around, nearly tripping and falling down the stairs. Eric grabbed her elbow to steady her, then quickly released it, as if touching her had burned him.
“How did you get past me?” She tamped down the ridiculous pleasure she felt at seeing him again. Something about him was so reassuring. Maybe that was a glamour he’d developed to deal with skittish clients. “I’ve been watching that door for the past twenty minutes.”
“I came out a side door. I just happened to glance this way on the way to my car.... Bree, what are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you.”
“A phone call wouldn’t have worked? Not that I’m not happy to see you,” he quickly added. “A man would have to be crazy to... Never mind.”
He was flirting with her, though she was pretty sure he hadn’t meant to. And why did she care? She’d come here for a reason, and it wasn’t to set her hormones all aflutter. “I tried calling, but your overzealous watchdog refused to put me through.”
“Overzealous... Celeste?”
“She said once an application had been rejected, there was nothing I could do to change Daniel’s mind, and policy was to not put calls through from people like me.”
“That’s Celeste. She doesn’t bend the rules for anyone. How did you know to find me here?”
“I saw that woman, Jillian, coming out the front door and she steered me here. I’m sorry, I know I’m acting like a stalker, but I really needed to talk to you.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Philomene. She really is missing. When I didn’t hear from her by the next day, I called her at work. Her boss said she hadn’t shown up for work in two days.”
Eric’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it really doesn’t.”
“Did you call the police?”
“For all the good it did me.” Bree’s legs were suddenly tired. She sank back down to sit on one of the steps. “They said I had to wait seventy-two hours. And even then, unless there’s some evidence of foul play, they won’t look for her.”
“As I said before—”
“I know. It’s a common-sense policy employed by most law enforcement agencies—I get that. But they were so... They just dismissed me! They already think I’m a kook, I’m afraid. I didn’t exactly make a lot of friends at the sheriff’s office when Kelly was arrested. Now they think I’m overreacting. But I’m not. Something doesn’t feel right. I think Philomene’s in trouble. We have to find her before it’s too late!”
“We?”
“I don’t know who else to turn to.”
“I’m not a cop. I’m not an investigator of any kind. I’m just a lawyer—a real-estate lawyer, if truth be told. This job with Project Justice is a temporary deal, filling in for an attorney on maternity leave.”
She slumped and rested her elbows on her knees. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” Oh, God. She hoped she wouldn’t humiliate herself further by crying.
Bree fully expected Eric to walk away. But instead he sat down beside her, heedless of getting his expensive suit dirty. “Bree. What is it you think I can do? I’d like to find your friend. How is it you think I can help?”
“I figured you knew people. Given your job....”
“This is my first week. I’ve met some of the people who work at Project Justice, but truthfully, I don’t know any of them very well. But I could try to help. Maybe if I talked to the sheriff.”
“You’d do that?”
“I have tomorrow off. They’re fumigating the building. Sometimes just seeing a new face could shake someone out of complacence. And the fact that I’m a lawyer won’t hurt. People are afraid of lawsuits.”
“I’d be really appreciative. I’ll pay you—”
“That’s not necessary. But have you considered hiring a private detective?”
“I thought I would talk to you first. Do you know any good private detectives?”
“No. But I could find you one. Project Justice uses them from time to time for surveillance and such. But let me check a few things first.” He took his phone out of his jacket pocket and opened the notepad. “Do you know Philomene’s full name?”
“Philomene Switzer, that’s all I know.”
“What’s her approximate age?”
“Late twenties, I’d say.”
“With that and her address, our data analyst can probably find out a lot. But it’s not exactly kosher to ask him to work on something that’s not foundation business.”
“It would be foundation business if you’d taken on Kelly’s case.” Her muscles tensed as she remembered the casual way Eric had dismissed her. The way he was so sure Kelly was guilty, when he couldn’t be.
“But we didn’t. And the foundation isn’t in the business of randomly looking for people.”
“Philomene’s disappearance is connected, though. Think about it. On the very day she’s about to unburden herself to someone who might be able to get Kelly out of jail and prove the real criminal is still at large, she inexplicably goes missing. I feel the wrongness of that in my bones, Eric.”
“Then why don’t you come with me to talk to Mitch. Maybe he’ll work on the problem on his own time.”
“Of course I’ll come. Can we do it now?”
Eric stood and offered his hand. “Let’s go.”
His hand felt incredibly warm and reassuring. Bree had been alone for so long, the solitary crusader on Kelly’s behalf. No one had stood by her—not Kelly’s family, certainly not her family. They’d hated Kelly since he and Bree were teenagers, and his arrest and conviction had delighted them because they could say “I told you so.”
And now, after all these years, Bree had Eric.
Granted, his support was grudging. And could be withdrawn at any point. But even though he had his own reasons for disliking Kelly, Eric saw something in what Bree had told him. She’d gotten through his bias, or she’d at least opened a small crack. Now she was going to stick her foot in that crack and make sure he couldn’t close it back up. For Kelly, she told herself. All this is for Kelly.
She waited until they were in Eric’s car and on the road before she made a confession. “You should probably know—I sort of gave Jillian the idea that I’m your, um, girlfriend.”
Eric slammed on the brakes. “What?”
“Sorry, it was just the most expedient way to... You’re getting honked at.” He’d stopped in the middle of a busy road.
Eric pulled over to the curb. “I can’t believe you did that. Do you know how long and hard I worked to convince Jillian that you and I weren’t...” He seesawed his hands back and forth. “The whole office thought we were having sex in the break room. On my second day of employment.”
“Well, I’m not the one who ripped my shirt off.” She wasn’t going to take all the blame.
“Now everyone is going to think I’m a liar as well as a sexual deviant. Why did you do that?”
“She assumed, and I thought it would take too long to explain, and I needed to find you.” He seemed far more distressed at the thought of her being his girlfriend than he ought to be. “I’ll explain it to her. I didn’t mean to cause you so much grief, really.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” he muttered, putting the car in gear and slowly easing into traffic.
“If it makes you feel any better, Jillian didn’t seem at all judgmental. She thinks you’re really nice and that you deserve to be with someone. Nice.” Not that she qualified. Other than buying Eric a meat loaf dinner, she’d done nothing but cause a giant pain in his butt since the moment they met.
“Whatever.”
Now Bree felt bad. She really hadn’t meant to diminish Eric in his coworkers’ eyes. But she wouldn’t like it if her coworkers thought she was boffing her boyfriend in an empty exam room. Her professional reputation mattered to her, and it appeared Eric’s did to him. She’d do what she could to fix things.
By the time they’d parked Eric’s car in the Project Justice garage, Eric seemed to have shaken off his pique. She caught him smiling when she stopped to pet a small dog on a leash held by someone exiting the building.
“They let people bring their pets to work here?” Bree asked as Eric used his security card and a PIN number to gain entrance to the building. She was glad they were coming through the back rather than having to face the grim Celeste.
“You can pretty much do anything you want here so long as you get your work done and you don’t impede anybody else’s ability to work. I actually never met that woman with the dog, so I’m not sure she works here. She might be a client or someone’s personal trainer. You just never know.”
“Wow. I can’t imagine working under such...friendly conditions. I’m used to being abused at my job—long hours, dinner breaks too short to do anything but grab a candy bar from the vending machine, not even a comfortable chair to be found.”
“Yeah, but you get compensated well, I’m sure.”
“At County? Not as well as you might think. And I have student loans to pay off.”
“What would you do if you were out of debt?” he asked.
She thought about it for a moment. “Probably keep doing what I’m doing,” she confessed. “I hate the bureaucracy of the place, hate my boss, but I love my work. I can’t think of any other job where you can have such an immediate and dramatic impact on someone’s life. They come in dying or thinking they’re dying or wishing they would die, and by the time I’m done with them, they’re better. I ease the pain, I sew up the cuts, set the bones, reassure them. It’s...gratifying.”
“What about when they die?”
“Well, there is that. I try not to dwell on those losses. They’re inevitable in most branches of medicine. Except maybe dermatology.”
He smiled again, though he tried not to let her see it.
The first place they went was a large room at the end of a hallway that housed a number of desks and file cabinets arranged in a rather haphazard fashion. The place was buzzing with activity. Men and women, mostly in their twenties and thirties, talked on the phone, tapped away on computers or spoke with each other in voices that were subdued but full of energy. Their clothing ranged from formal business attire to jeans and T-shirts.
“This is the bull pen,” Eric explained.
“Like at a police department?”
“A lot of the people who work here are former police officers. This arrangement seems to make them feel comfortable. Though the dress code here is pretty lax.”
“Apparently so.”
Eric led her to a far corner, where a man with longish curly blond hair and big black-framed glasses sat at an impressive array of computers. Three monitors, two laptops, a tower and a couple of cell phones sat on his desk. Around it were various peripheral gadgets she couldn’t come close to recognizing.
“Mitch,” Eric said. “Do you have a minute?”
The man named Mitch quickly blanked his screen and swiveled his chair, simultaneously whipping off his glasses, revealing a pair of hazel eyes. He was quite good-looking in a wild and lawless way. She wasn’t too surprised to see a crash helmet tucked under his desk.
“Sure,” he said. “What’s up?” He eyed Bree up and down, not in a sexual way but with idle curiosity, before inviting them to pull up chairs.
“This is Bree,” Eric said.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Bree blurted out. “I told Jillian I was, but it’s not true. We barely know each other.”
As Eric stared at her as if willing her to shut her mouth, Mitch quirked one eyebrow at her. “Ooookay.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” Bree went on, wanting Mitch to understand, “but he only took off his shirt to show me a...”
Eric was shaking his head, looking alarmed.
“Well, never mind,” Bree finished lamely.
“Hey, makes me no never mind whatchall been up to,” Mitch said in a lazy drawl that could only have come from Cajun country. “What can I do you for?”
“A friend of Bree’s is missing,” Eric said. “The police won’t look into it because... Well, you know how the police are about missing persons.”
“I take it you think something bad happened to your friend?”
Bree explained as briefly as she could, without mentioning specifics, that Philomene was connected to a crime, and that she was in a position to identify a possible serial murderer, and that they’d come across some kind of intruder in her apartment. She gave Mitch everything she knew about Philomene, which admittedly wasn’t much.
“Her name can’t be that common,” Mitch said. “I’ll find her. Give me a few minutes, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Eric looked at Bree. “You want lunch?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said automatically. She ought to pay more attention to her diet and stop living on coffee and jelly beans, but she couldn’t imagine putting food into her knotted stomach right now. “I’ll just sit here and wait.”
“Oh, Bree, I see you found him!” Jillian entered the bull pen with a flourish. Bree suspected it was hard for the woman to appear inconspicuous.
“Yeah, about that...” Bree began guiltily, but Eric jumped in.
“Jillian, do you have a few minutes? We just want to pick your brain. It’s not official foundation business,” he added.
“Of course.” She perched on the edge of an empty desk and crossed her legs, revealing an impressive length of thigh and mile-high shiny black platform boots.
“I’m not really his girlfriend,” Bree blurted out. “I lied. But I was in a hurry and I just wanted to find him. So I let you believe what you wanted.”
“Oh.” Jillian seemed disappointed.
“I’m sorry. I’m usually a very honest person. I shouldn’t have lied. I put Eric in an awkward position, and I didn’t mean to.”
“So if you’re not his girlfriend, why was he stripping off his clothes?”
“It wasn’t sexual,” Eric said. “I don’t want people thinking I had a liaison at the office my second day of work.”
Jillian shrugged. “Okay. But honestly, no one cares. If you had any idea the amount of sex that’s gone on in this office between people who should know better, you’d understand. So what do you guys want with me?”
Eric held a chair out for Bree, then rolled another over for himself. “Bree needs some help finding someone.”
“I just want to know that she’s okay,” Bree added. “But I’m worried something happened to her.”
“Oh, that’s easy. Talk to Mitch.”
“We did that,” Eric said.
“Then he’ll find out soon enough whether she’s used her phone, bought gas, bought an airline ticket, left the country...”
“Really?” Bree was astonished. “He can do all that? Is that legal?”
Jillian and Eric shared deer-in-headlights looks.
“Ah,” Jillian said. “Since you’re not a client, you haven’t signed a nondisclosure agreement. So we can’t say any more about how we do things.”
“She’s right,” Eric said.
“I’m not going to tattle,” Bree said. “If you want me to sign something, I will. But you don’t have to tell me any more. All I want to do is find Philomene.”
“Okay.” Jillian got down to business. “In all likelihood, Mitch will tell you where and when she’s used her phone and credit cards and provide a list of people she knows—family, friends, coworkers, neighbors. Your job will be to chase down those people and see if any of them can tell you where she is or if they’ve seen or heard from her. I assume you’ve tried calling her?”
“She doesn’t answer,” Bree said. “She doesn’t call back. It’s possible she just doesn’t want to hear from me.”
“Call her from a number she won’t recognize. Have someone whose voice she doesn’t know leave a message like they want to send her a check, a gas company deposit from years ago, something like that. People always respond if they think you are going to pay them.”
Jillian outlined some other offbeat ways she’d heard of for finding missing persons. She seemed to enjoy sharing her expertise.
“People can try to hide,” she said, “but their personalities are the same. So your friend might seek out the same kind of job. If you can pinpoint a city, you can check businesses similar to where she worked. If she gets her hair done professionally, she’ll seek that out. If she wears acrylic nails, same thing. Sometimes Mitch can get hold of gas station security video near where you think she lives. That’s tedious, going over days and days of video. But people have to buy gas.”
Bree was truly impressed. No wonder Project Justice was so good at solving crimes the police had bungled.
“Well, I didn’t think up any of this stuff,” Jillian said modestly. “I’ve been taught by some of the best investigators on the planet. So let’s see, what else? You can—”
“Hey, got something,” Mitch said. “Philomene bought gas in San Antonio. She also used her cell phone there. She called another mobile number in the same area, but that one is a throwaway. We’ll never find who it belongs to.”
“Someone could have stolen her phone along with her credit card,” Bree pointed out.
“Okay, here’s one more call,” Mitch said. “Ah, we’re in luck. To a landline this time. Registered to a Mildred W. Hayes. Also in San Antonio.”
“Do you think Philomene might have had friends or family in San Antone?” Eric asked Bree.
Bree shrugged. “I didn’t really know her all that well. But we can call this Mildred Hayes, right? Ask her if she knows Philomene?”
“It would be better to go there in person,” Mitch said. “If Philomene is hiding, her friends might lie for her. It’s harder to lie face-to-face. You could also see if Philomene’s car is parked near Mildred’s place.”
“Can you get any info on this Mildred Hayes?”
“Workin’ on it.” Mitch tapped for what seemed like an eternity, but probably it was less than a minute. “Okay, here we go. Mildred is sixty-two years old. African-American.” He tapped some more. “On SNAP and disability. Doesn’t own a car. And...doesn’t live in the greatest neighborhood.”
“Can you give me her address and phone?” Bree asked. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“Not alone, you won’t.” Eric peered at the Google Earth image on Mitch’s monitor. “That does not look like the kind of place a woman should wander by herself.”
“Yeah, well, it’s unlikely I’ll get a police escort.”
“I’ll go with you. I told you I’d help you out tomorrow. Now how about lunch? You might not be hungry, but I am.”
“I’ll keep working on this while you eat.” Mitch pulled a sandwich and an apple out of his desk. “I usually work through lunch any— Okay, that’s weird.”
“What?” Bree stepped closer to peer over Mitch’s shoulder. But the lines and lines of type on the monitor swam before her eyes.
“Another purchase on the credit card just popped up. From the Gap. She just bought...a leather jacket.”
“That does not sound like Philomene,” Bree said. “Eric, you saw her place. She lives modestly. She drives a ten-year-old Toyota.”
“Maybe she forgot to bring a coat. A front is supposed to be moving through tonight.”
“That doesn’t make sense. There’s something wrong here. Because if Philomene met with foul play, it means I was right. Someone wanted to keep her quiet. Someone doesn’t want the truth to come out. Which means someone besides Kelly raped Philomene and killed all those girls. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Eric was about to retort when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and walked a few steps away, but spoke only briefly before returning.
“Sorry, Bree, but I have to get back to work.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll meet you tomorrow morning at the Home Cookin’ Café. Nine o’clock. We’ll find Philomene. Ernie?” He addressed a young man at a nearby desk. “Please show Dr. Johnson out. She’s parked in the garage.” Eric did an abrupt about-face and left the room—as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her.
CHAPTER FIVE
AS HE STIRRED half-and-half into his coffee, Eric could have slapped his own face for putting himself in this position. Having Philomene disappear was a stroke of good luck. Without Philomene, Bree had no case. No case, no chance Kelly Ralston would ever see daylight.
Finding Philomene was the last thing he wanted. Yet he was helpless to walk away. What if she really had met with foul play? He couldn’t just ignore the fact that a woman was missing, and no one gave a damn. No one but one passionate, determined doctor who made his knees go wobbly.
He didn’t think Philomene was in any real trouble. She probably just had cold feet about recanting her story, as he’d thought all along. Perjury was a serious crime. She’d unburdened herself to Bree on impulse, and Bree had grabbed on to the possibility of helping Kelly and refused to let go. Now Philomene had second thoughts. She probably had friends or relatives in San Antonio, where she could hang for a while and hope that Bree would forget about her.
Bree wouldn’t forget. Unfortunately. And Eric was caught in the middle.
If he didn’t help Bree, he reasoned, she would find someone else to help. She would find Philomene on her own. At least if he remained involved, he could keep a close eye on things and try to turn the circumstances his way. Because if Kelly Ralston got out of prison, Eric would be the one disappearing. He would take MacKenzie and go to Canada. Or maybe South America, where people could get good and truly lost.
Vengeance will come when you least expect it.
“Sorry I’m late.” Bree slid into the booth across from Eric. He’d been so engrossed in his dismal thoughts he hadn’t seen her arrive. “I worked the graveyard last night so I could have today off, and I had to shower and change before I came here. A patient threw up on me last night.”
“Oh, God.”
“I should know by now to jump out of the way faster. People are always barfing in the E.R. Whether they’re drunk or have a head injury or severe stomach virus, or they’re just terrified.”
Was it him, or did she seem entirely too cheerful given the subject matter?
“You really love your job,” he observed.
“Yeah, I do. I think most young girls want to grow up and get a job that ‘helps people,’ but few are lucky enough to find a vocation where you can provide such immediate aid. I go home at the end of a shift knowing I’ve made a difference. Maybe a small difference—stitching up a cut or just telling someone their injury isn’t serious and they aren’t going to die still has an impact. Have you had breakfast? I thought maybe we could get coffee and something to go—in the interest of time.”
“Sure, sounds good.” They flagged down a waitress and ordered a couple of breakfast burritos. The paper cups of coffee arrived first, and Bree gulped down half the cup without taking a breath.
“Need caffeine much?” Not that Eric didn’t drink an impressive amount of coffee himself, but she’d drunk it scalding hot.
“I was too busy to drink any at home. I need the caffeine, trust me.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, being a doctor and all, having an addiction, even if it’s only coffee?”
“It was a necessity in med school and during residency. Now that my schedule is a little less hectic, I could wean myself off. But then I have a day like today. I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours and it’s not likely I will for another twelve.”
“I guess there are worse vices.”
“Sorry if I’m a little hyper,” she said in a voice that sounded deliberately slower and softer. “I delivered a baby this morning.”
“Really? In the E.R.?”
“By the time they wheeled her in from the ambulance, the baby was crowning. It happened so fast. Basically all I did was catch the kid as he came out. But still... It certainly doesn’t get old.”
“Did you ever think about becoming an obstetrician?”
“Oh, sure. Most med students do. I mean, babies and all those excited parents, seeing the start of a new life. But the other side of the coin...I don’t think I could handle that.”
“You mean when things go wrong.”
“Yeah.” She grew still, and for a moment she was very far away.
He stirred his coffee and took a sip. He had no idea what to say.
She snapped out of her reverie, smiling brightly. “Did you watch MacKenzie being born?”
Eric really didn’t feel like sharing anything about those days. He’d lived in a different world back then—perfect job, perfect wife, perfect kid. He’d known poverty and loss, and he’d convinced himself that those days were over. He didn’t like being reminded of how fragile life was, how everything could change in one heartbeat. One minute he was driving home, looking forward to a nice dinner with his family. The next, he was staring at his wife’s brutalized body on the kitchen floor and trying to calm his screaming daughter while dialing the police.
“I’m sorry,” Bree said when he didn’t answer. “I’m babbling like a crazy person, prying into things that are none of my business. Blame it on sleep deprivation.”
“It’s okay. Bree, you’ve never asked me why I went to prison.”
“You said your conviction was overturned.”
“They thought I murdered my wife. Turned out her lover did it. So you can understand why I don’t really want to talk about the tender moments with her.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ll pay for breakfast—no arguments.” His macho pride still stung a little from letting her buy him dinner Tuesday night. The waitress motioned for them to pick up their breakfasts at the counter.
Eric drove to San Antonio while Bree fidgeted in the front seat. He sipped his coffee and ate his burrito while Suzy the GPS led them unerringly to the run-down home of Mildred Hayes. It didn’t take as long as he’d feared, only about ninety minutes from Tuckerville.
Eric was glad he drove a modest car. Back when he was a hotshot real-estate lawyer, he’d driven a BMW. Those chrome rims wouldn’t have lasted long in this neighborhood.
He found a parking spot along the edge of the curbless street, having strong reservations about bringing Bree to a place like this. But before he could voice his doubts, she was out of the car and charging toward the apartment building where Mildred Hayes lived. He grabbed a folder from the backseat and hurried to catch up to her.
The interview with Ms. Hayes was a waste of time. The friendly silver-haired woman could tell them only that the call had come from her hoodlum grandson, Jerome Taylor Hayes, who had probably called her from a “borrowed” phone. She didn’t know how to locate him, as he’d never given her a permanent address. She thought he was in a gang, and probably a drug dealer.
“So some hood has Philomene’s phone? This isn’t good. Not at all.”
“I agree. So maybe the sheriff’s department will listen now.”
“I doubt it. They’ll just say this Jerome person must be a friend of hers.”
“If the sheriff’s department won’t do anything, maybe the San Antonio police will.”
“Or maybe it’s up to us. How can we find this Jerome character?”
“Whoa. Bree, we aren’t cops. We can’t go around interrogating people like we are. Jerome’s not the kind of person we want to tangle with.”
“If you won’t help me, then I’ll just do it myself.”
“Get in the car, okay?” Great. Now Bree knew just how to push his buttons. She knew he was just protective enough of her that he wouldn’t want her poking and prodding at lowlife drug dealers by herself. “I’ll go with you to talk to the sheriff. And if he doesn’t take it seriously, I’ll drop Daniel’s name. Sometimes that’s all it takes to light a fire under someone.”
For the next few minutes, Eric focused on getting them out of the hood. He breathed easier once they’d found the freeway.
“You know Daniel Logan pretty well?” Bree asked.
“Some. He’s hard to get to know. My brother doesn’t get along with him—Daniel threatened to kill Travis at one time. But despite that, Daniel offered me a job when I got out of prison. He knew I’d be a mess, and he gave me a safe place to land. That was pretty generous of him.” If Eric did drop Daniel’s name, he’d have to be careful not to come out and say his interest in Philomene was official Project Justice business. The work he and Mitch were doing was completely unofficial, and Daniel would blow a gasket if he thought Eric was invoking his foundation’s name where it wasn’t legitimate.
But no harm in letting the sheriff—and maybe that obnoxious D.A.—know that Eric knew Daniel Logan.
“He seemed really nice when I talked to him. I thought if anyone even read the application I sent in, it would be some intern or something. I was shocked when the head guy himself called me.”
“Most of the time Daniel doesn’t get personally involved in cases. But occasionally he sees something that intrigues him.”
“I really thought he was going to help me.”
Eric felt that twinge of guilt, which was becoming way too familiar. “You were right—it was my fault the case got dropped. But I felt like I didn’t have any choice.”
“You did, though,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t have let a personal vendetta get in the way of justice.”
Oh, hell, he shouldn’t have brought this up. They were just going to end up yelling at each other again.
But Bree didn’t yell. “Maybe you could talk to him.”
“Talk to who?”
“Kelly. Maybe if you guys talked about what happened—”
“Are you insane? There is no way I would ever go face-to-face with that guy again. Not ever.” Eric fervently hoped that Kelly had forgotten about him. What a horrible mistake it would be to jog the convict’s memory. “It was a long, hard battle getting myself out of that hellhole. No way would I ever set foot in Huntsville again.”
Bree was silent for a while, then said, “Now imagine if you didn’t have people on the outside who loved you and wanted you to be free. Imagine if you’d been stuck in that disgusting place the rest of your life. I am the only one standing between Kelly and that fate. He doesn’t deserve what he got. He doesn’t deserve what you got.”
Ah, hell, she was crying. Before, she’d shown him only anger. That he could deal with. But the tears?
“I’m sorry, Bree. I know it has to be hell for you. But I did what I believe is the right thing.” Except, perhaps, for telling Daniel that huge lie. Daniel was not a man to be lightly crossed. If he ever found out, the results wouldn’t be pretty. But Eric would face the consequences if he really believed Kelly was harmless. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case.
Bree said nothing, just dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. Eric couldn’t think of one thing to say that might comfort her. For a guy known for his facility with words—one of the reasons he’d joined the legal profession—he was remarkably unskilled at saying the right thing when he was with Bree.
* * *
“NOT THIS AGAIN.” Becker County sheriff Bobby DeVille was a caricature of a bumbling but corrupt local cop. In fact, he had more than a passing resemblance to Jackie Gleason as he’d appeared in Smokey and the Bandit. So far he’d been barely civil to Bree, and he’d shaken Eric’s hand only with obvious reluctance. “How many times am I going to have to listen to this story?”
“I have new information,” Bree said in a calm, neutral voice. Eric admired her control. “Philomene’s phone was stolen. It turned up in the possession of a drug dealer.”
“And how did you come across this information?” the sheriff asked.
“The drug dealer’s mother found the phone and started calling the recently called numbers to find out whose it was.” This was the story Bree and Eric had agreed on, rather than implicating Mitch in what had obviously been some kind of illegal access to phone records. “It’s sounding more like Philomene met with foul play, right?”
“Do you know how many cell phones get stolen in a day?”
“Sheriff DeVille,” Eric began, “I know you don’t have the resources to chase down every person who leaves town without telling someone where they’re going. But a number of factors grouped together like this—”
“Save me your big-word lawyer speech,” the sheriff said tiredly. “Find me some blood. Or find her car abandoned someplace. Then I might think about suspecting foul play. But Philomene Switzer isn’t some innocent kid. She has a checkered past—been arrested a time or two.”
“Not for a long time,” Bree objected. “She’s worked so hard to straighten out her life. She had a good job, an apartment—”
“And a boyfriend who’d run up her credit cards.” The sheriff raised one eyebrow. “I see I’ve surprised you. I’m not as ill-informed as you seem to think. It’s entirely possible she disappeared to avoid paying her debts.”
“You’re right,” Bree said, sounding just short of defeated. “I didn’t know that.”
“What does this boyfriend look like?” Eric asked. “Maybe he’s the one we saw at her apartment Wednesday night.”
“I got a picture of him. He’s not exactly a stranger here.” The sheriff disappeared but returned shortly with an old-fashioned mug book. God, was the sheriff’s department not even computerized? How could any modern law enforcement agency survive without access to the NCIC database? Or AFIS, to run fingerprints through?
DeVille flipped a couple of pages in the book until he found what he wanted. “There. Jerrod Crowley.”
Bree and Eric both bent their heads over the book. They were so close that Eric felt her hair brush against his ear as it fell across her cheek. He could smell her. A certain part of his anatomy stirred and he jumped. The sensation was both familiar and alien—alien because it had been so long since he’d let a woman do this to him.
Why her? Why now?
“Is that the guy?” Bree asked.
Eric forced himself to concentrate on the mug shot of Jerrod Crowley. Large build, straggly medium-length brown hair, fair skin. “It could be him. I’m not a hundred percent sure—he ran by really fast.”
“Was he wearing overalls?” the sheriff asked.
“Yeah. How did you know that?”
“’Cause that’s all Jerrod Crowley ever wears. Musta been him, then. Came over for a booty call, found the place deserted and decided to see what he could steal.”
“Or he did something to her.” Bree’s hard-fought-for calm had deserted her. “Aren’t you even going to question him?”
“Please. Crowley doesn’t have the brains or the drive to commit a murder and then conceal it. He tried to steal a car once.” The sheriff burst out laughing. “What an effing joke that was.”
“But he might know something,” Bree insisted. “He might have seen something.”
“If I run across him, I’ll have a chat,” the sheriff said mildly. “Anything else?”
Bree and Eric exchanged a look. She wanted him to play the Daniel card, but he honestly couldn’t figure out a way to work it into the conversation.
“Well, maybe Daniel Logan will talk to him,” Bree said. “Eric works for him, you know. Mr. Logan is very interested in the Kelly Ralston case and everything associated with it, including Philomene.”
Eric took a sharp breath. What was Bree doing?
“Am I supposed to know who this Logan fella is?” the sheriff asked.
“Daniel Logan. The oil billionaire, runs Logan Energy?”
The sheriff shrugged one of his massive shoulders. “Means nothing to me.”
“He’s a very powerful man,” Bree said. “He’s personal friends with the governor.”
“Well, if he comes here throwing his weight around, I’ll tell him the same thing I told you. No sign of foul play, no investigation. He’s welcome to look into it all he wants.”
“Sheriff DeVille—Philomene wanted to recant her testimony about Kelly. She said she felt pressured to identify him in the lineup. What if the real murderer—”
“I don’t want to hear this crap!” the sheriff exploded.
“Now, wait a minute,” Eric objected. “You can’t talk to your constituents that way.”
“Oh, really? In my office, I can talk any way I damn well please. Now get out, both of you. Before I find something to charge you with.”
“Fine,” Bree said tightly. “But when she turns up dead, it’ll be on you.”
Eric held his tongue until they were outside. “Bree! I thought we agreed we weren’t going to lie about Daniel’s involvement.”
“I didn’t. Well, not exactly. Daniel was very interested in Kelly’s case. Until you ruined that.”
“I’ll only warn you once more. Daniel will not take kindly to anyone using his name without permission. He’ll come after you.”
“So you never intended to play the Daniel card at all?”
“If I had, I’d do it without crossing the line. Which you left far behind in your rearview mirror.”
She challenged him with her blue-eyed laser stare, but he didn’t back down. He was right about this, and she needed to understand about Daniel, for her own good.
Finally she looked away. “Okay. Maybe I got a little carried away. Didn’t matter anyway. DeVille was completely immune to the threat of Daniel’s involvement.”
“A possible sign that despite his rudeness, he’s not corrupt. Or derelict in his duties, at least not to his mind. He didn’t show a lick of fear.”
“No, he didn’t. So what now?”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider giving up? No,” he said quickly when she shot him a venomous look.
“We’re gonna talk to Jerrod Crowley.”
“I was afraid of that.”
CHAPTER SIX
BREE KNEW SHE wasn’t playing fair. She’d found Eric’s Achilles’ heel—he had a chivalrous streak a mile wide—and she was exploiting it. She wasn’t normally a manipulative person. But too much was at stake for her to play nice. First Kelly’s freedom and now Philomene’s life. No matter how the evidence stacked up, Bree was convinced the woman had not left Tuckerville of her own free will.
“You’re sure you want to talk to this guy?” Eric asked. They’d found Crowley’s address easily enough. All they’d had to do was stop at the gas station on Main Street, where a bunch of guys had been hanging out, smoking and drinking not very well-disguised beer. They’d looked like the kind of lowlifes who would associate with someone like Crowley, and sure enough, they were. Turned out he’d lived with his brother and sister-in-law in a spare bedroom since his parents had kicked him out. The gas station lowlifes hadn’t even hesitated to bad-mouth their supposed friend.
“How did Philomene hook up with a jerk like Jerrod?” Eric asked as they let his GPS lead them to Crowley’s address.
“A lot of people said the same thing about me when Kelly and I were dating,” Bree said a bit huffily. “‘What’s the mayor’s daughter doing with a guy whose father is a drunk and whose mother works at the counter of a doughnut shop?’”
“I’ve wondered that myself,” Eric said. “Though I didn’t know you were the mayor’s daughter.”
“Kelly was a sweet guy. Yeah, he’d been in a few scrapes, but nothing serious. Shoplifting. Probably because he was hungry, or he wanted something for his mom. I remember once, on Mother’s Day, he didn’t have enough money to buy her a present, so he stole a potted daylily off someone’s front porch.” She laughed.
“I’m sure his mother was proud,” Eric said, tongue firmly in cheek.
“She was thrilled. And she didn’t ask how he got the money, though she probably knew he hadn’t bought the plant at the local nursery. Anyway, Jerrod Crowley must have some redeeming qualities. Maybe Philomene saw something about him that no one else did. Maybe he was just nice to her, and that was all it took. Philomene is...” Bree shrugged.
“Damaged from the rape? Low self-esteem?”
“Yeah. She didn’t grow up with a good home situation. I don’t remember her when she was younger, but I’m guessing she was the kind who always tried a little too hard, wore too much makeup and let any boy have his way if she thought he had feelings for her. Girls like that are so easy to victimize. And I don’t think that rape was the first time she was a victim, either. I mean, I don’t know her that well. Not well at all. But I can read between the lines.”
“That’s sad. I really hope I can raise MacKenzie to think more of herself than that. I mean, she’s already a victim, indirectly. In all likelihood she witnessed her mother’s murder. It’s certainly had an effect on her.”
“Oh, God. I didn’t know that.”
“We don’t know for sure, because she doesn’t remember that day. Or at least, she won’t talk about it if she does. But she hasn’t been the same since it happened.”
“She seems bright. And sweet.”
“She is. I just hope she’s not too sweet.”
“Arriving at destination,” Suzy the GPS said, “on right.”
“The brown brick house,” Bree said.
They were in a 1950s subdivision of cookie-cutter houses.
“Nice trees,” Bree remarked. The houses might be cheap and a little shabby, but mature live oak trees elevated the neighborhood’s appeal.
A pleasant-looking woman in her thirties with a toddler on her hip answered the door wearing a look of caution. “Yes?”
“Does Jerrod Crowley live here?” Bree asked. Eric was content to let her do the talking; she was less intimidating and people were more likely to drop their guards.
If anything, the woman at the door looked even more wary. “Jesus. What’s he done this time?”
“Nothing that we know of,” Bree said. “We’re trying to find his girlfriend.”
“Oh. Well, Jerrod’s not here. He’s supposedly out looking for a job now that he’s got a car. That’ll be the day.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“God only knows. He comes home when he runs out of money to buy beer.” The woman’s sturdy body blocked the door. There was zero chance she’d invite them in to wait.
“So he has money now?” Eric asked.
“He comes up with a little cash every once in a while—mows a lawn or details someone’s car. That’s what he used to do when he had a job. What’s up with Phil? Is she in trouble? I don’t know her that well, but she seems like one of the nicer girls he’s gone with.”
“We can’t find her, that’s all,” Bree said. “Has Jerrod said anything about her disappearing?”
The woman frowned. “No. God, I hope...”
“You hope what?” Eric prodded.
“Nothing. Oh, hey, you’re in luck. That’s him now.”
A blue Toyota Corolla was coming down the street way too fast. It whipped into the driveway with a screech of brakes.
“Oh, my God,” Bree said under her breath.
Exactly what Eric had been about to say. Jerrod was driving Philomene’s car.
* * *
RATHER THAN WAITING for Jerrod to exit the car, Eric was across the postage-stamp lawn in three long strides. He wasn’t going to give this jerk a chance to flee as he had the other night. The second the driver’s door opened, Eric had the man by his elbow and was dragging him out of the car.
“Hey!” Jerrod screamed as Eric shoved him up against the car. “What the—”
“Jerrod Crowley. Want to tell me what you’re doing with that car?”
“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re thinking. Get the hell away from me before I break your nose!”
Eric wasn’t worried. This guy was soft and doughy, and the fear in his eyes gave him away. He was the type to run rather than fight. Eric could take him any day of the week.
“How did you get this car?”
“It’s my girlfriend’s.”
“And where is Philomene?”
“Look, I don’t know. She vanished couple of days ago, no warning. Then she texted me, said she was leaving town for a while. Check my phone. The text is still there.”
Eric loosened his grip on Jerrod, just enough that the man could reach in his back pocket and pull out his phone.
Jerrod scrolled through his texts for a few seconds, then handed the phone to Eric. “Right there. See?”
The text was dated Tuesday, the same day Philomene had stood them up at the Home Cookin’ Café. The message had originated from Philomene’s phone—Eric recognized the number by now.

HAD TO LEAVE FOR A WHILE. PICK UP MY CAR AT CURRY ROAD & 238. KEYS UNDER MAT. LOVE YOU.

“He could have texted that message to himself,” Bree said.
Eric jumped. He hadn’t realized she’d come up behind him. “So he could explain why he has her car.”
“Are you guys cops?” Jerrod asked dubiously.
It was tempting to say yes. The second Jerrod knew they were civilians with no authority over him, he would cease to cooperate. But impersonating a cop came with some pretty severe penalties. Eric wasn’t above allowing someone to believe something that wasn’t true, but he wasn’t going to lie about it. He’d done enough lying this week to last him awhile.
“We’re not cops,” Eric said.
“Then get your friggin’ hands off me.” Jerrod shook off Eric’s grip.
“We’re worried about Philomene,” Bree said. “And if you care anything about her, you should be worried, too.”
“She took off. What’s the big deal? People do it all the time.”
“Then why did she abandon her car at some intersection in the middle of nowhere?” Bree countered.
“I figured she met some guy there. Phil wasn’t too happy with me lately—it was only a matter of time before she moved on. I was kinda surprised she left her car with me. She never loaned it to me, not after I put a big scratch in the side. But then I thought maybe that was her way of saying sorry. You know. For dumping me.”
Jerrod’s story was plausible...barely. At any rate, Eric wasn’t willing to threaten the guy with any more violence. Already Eric could be charged with assault. He took a step back, giving the other man some breathing room.
“Sorry, dude,” he said. “I’m just worried about Philomene. I went a little crazy there.”
“Why do you care about her?” Jerrod asked suspiciously. “She sleeping with you, too?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“We’re her friends, that’s all.” Bree placed her hand on Eric’s arm. “Come on, this is getting us nowhere. Let’s go look somewhere else.”
Eric would have preferred to stay here and pound some more answers out of Jerrod. If they really were cops, they would ask the same questions over and over in different ways, trying to get Jerrod to change his story. But Bree was uncomfortable.
“If you find her,” Jerrod said, “tell her to call me. She’s still got some DVDs of mine, and if we’re through, I want ’em back.”
“You don’t sound that broken up about getting dumped,” Eric observed.
Jerrod shrugged. “Like I said, it didn’t come as a big surprise.”
Bree said nothing until they were back in the car. “Wow. Here I thought you were some mild-mannered lawyer, and you go all Rambo on that poor guy.”
“‘That poor guy’ is our best suspect. Why would Philomene abandon her car if she was leaving town? And why would she give it to a guy like that?”
“Yeah, but someone texted Jerrod. If he did it himself, why didn’t he cook up a better story?”

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