Walter held up his hand as he strolled to stand next to Nate. “Let me handle this, Neville,” he soothed. “You go back inside.”
The man quickly turned to scurry back into his house, slamming the door behind him. Nate swallowed a curse. He was fairly sure he’d just lost his opportunity to get the answers he needed from Neville Morse. The elusive man would no doubt make sure he found a way to avoid Nate in the future.
Walter tilted back his cowboy hat, his expression unreadable. “Nate. Miss Guthrie,” he murmured. “I think it’s best you go.”
“We didn’t mean to upset Mr. Morse,” Ellie said.
Walter shrugged. “These are trying times. For a lot of us.”
Ellie nodded in sympathy. “Do they know what happened to Mandy?”
Walter’s features tightened. “The sheriff is saying there’s a bad batch of heroin in town.”
Nate snorted. “Sounds like a convenient explanation so he doesn’t have to worry about doing any investigating.”
“It’s possible,” Walter said, his expression hard and unreadable. “Curry wouldn’t be the first small town to be plagued with a rash of overdoses. It’s a national epidemic.”
Nate jerked, feeling a burst of disbelief. He expected Gary Clark to dismiss Mandy’s death. Just like he’d dismissed Daniel’s and Barb’s. The current sheriff didn’t have the skills necessary to investigate a runaway dog, let alone three potential murders.
But Walter . . .
“You know very well that Mandy didn’t do drugs,” Nate said. What the hell was going on? Facts didn’t change. The truth didn’t change. But everything around him kept shifting and ebbing like he was standing on quicksand. “Certainly she didn’t shoot heroin.”
Walter’s face flushed, his eyes flashing with anger. “My Daniel wasn’t the only one with vices in this town.”
Nate sliced his hand through the air, his patience level at zero. “Everyone has vices. Some more secret than others,” he growled. “But we’ve had three deaths within the span of forty-eight hours. Something’s going on in Curry, and I intend to find out what it is.”
Walter glanced toward the house, visibly struggling to regain command of his composure. Eventually he returned his attention to Nate, his expression once more wiped of all emotion.
“Let it go,” the man commanded.
Nate frowned. “The death of Mandy? Or your son?”
“All of it. Let it go.”
Nate took a long moment to accept that Walter truly meant what he was saying. How could he have gone from furious certainty that someone had deliberately harmed his son to dismissing Daniel’s death as if it meant nothing to him?
“Just twenty-four hours ago you were pleading with me to help discover who murdered Daniel,” he reminded the man.
Walter hunched his shoulders. “I was mad with grief. Now I can see that it was a tragic accident. Just like Mandy.”
Nate bit back his angry words. He didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t believe for one second that Walter was now convinced there was nothing more sinister in town than a bad batch of heroin.
“And Barb?” he asked.
Walter looked confused. “What about her?”
“Was she an accidental overdose as well?”
Walter licked his lips, his hands clenching and unclenching. He hadn’t been expecting the question.
“Perhaps. Or more likely she drank herself to death. I haven’t seen her sober for the past twenty years.”
“She was a friend of yours?”
Walter jerked, as if Nate had struck him. “Hell, no.”
“But you recognized her name, and knew that she was a drunk.”
“When I was sheriff I made an effort to know most people in town, but she certainly wasn’t a friend,” Walter growled. “I doubt I ever shared more than a dozen words with the woman.”
He was lying. Nate could read it in the way the older man’s gaze refused to meet his own. The question was why. Because he didn’t want anyone to know he was friends with the town lush? Or because the woman was somehow connected to his son?
“What about Neville?” he abruptly demanded.
“What about him?”
“Was he friends with Barb?”
A strange emotion flickered over Walter’s face before he was stepping back and nodding toward Nate’s truck.
“It’s time you were on your way.”
Nate’s lips parted to continue his questioning. He’d come there for answers and he wasn’t going to leave without them. Thankfully, he hadn’t forgotten all of his interrogation training.
If he pushed too hard, Walter would clam up completely. Plus, the one-time sheriff had enough influence in town to ensure that no one else would talk to them.
For now, he had to accept that he was going to have to find a new approach to getting the information he needed.
“Fine.” He reached to grab Ellie’s hand, sending her a warning glance as she made a sound of frustration. “If you and Neville are satisfied with the sheriff’s cause of death, then there isn’t anything more to discuss.”
Clenching Ellie’s fingers, he tugged her toward his truck.
He had a few favors to cash in.
Chapter Fifteen
Ellie quashed her burst of frustrated anger as she climbed into the truck and slammed shut the door. As much as she wanted Nate to beat the truth out of the men, she understood that it was hardly a legitimate choice.
She had several clients who were currently sitting in jail for making the poor decision to use violence to solve their problems.
Besides, he was a former FBI agent, and she was a lawyer. They had better ways of discovering what the men were hiding. Or at least she hoped they did.
They drove in silence until the large house was out of sight. Then Ellie made a sound of soul-deep irritation.
“They’re hiding something,” she muttered.
Nate gave an absent nod. “And they’re afraid.”
Afraid? Ellie tried to recall the exact expressions on the men’s faces. She’d noticed anger. And frustration. Two emotions that could be directly caused by fear.
But what were they afraid of?
“Do you think they know who’s responsible for killing Daniel and Mandy?” she demanded.
“Either that, or they received some sort of warning not to cooperate with an investigation of the murders,” Nate said.
Ellie heaved a sigh. “Every time we turn around we run into a brick wall.”
Nate glanced at the GPS he’d set on his dashboard before turning onto a narrow dirt road. They were taking a different route back to town.
“We did learn one thing,” he told her.
“We did?”
“Daniel and Mandy’s deaths are definitely connected.”
Ellie nodded. It’d been obvious that Walter had some sort of relationship with Neville Morse. And that they were putting on a united front to keep anyone from asking questions about the sudden deaths of their children.
“Not that I believe they were drug overdoses.”
“So what else did they have in common?”
She paused, sorting through her limited knowledge of Mandy and Daniel. “We already went through the list. They were both from Curry. Both about the same age. I assume they both graduated from Curry High School and shared a few friends.”
Nate made another turn. “And both were dumped in the same field.”
Suddenly Ellie realized where they were going. “That makes sense now that we know it belongs to Mandy’s father,” she slowly conceded.
“Let’s check it out.”
He took several more turns before he stopped at the edge of the road, and switched off the engine. Together they climbed out of the truck and headed toward the gate that sagged at a drunken angle.
The ground had been trampled by recent footsteps and there were stray ribbons of police tape that had been left behind, but they didn’t distract from the remote wildness of the field.
>
“Not much here,” Ellie said, pointing out the obvious.
Nate moved forward. “I’m going to have a look around.”
Ellie grimaced. She didn’t know what Nate was looking for. All she could see was grass and weeds and dirt. But she wasn’t going to just stand there.
Turning, she headed in the opposite direction, her gaze darting from side to side. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was acutely aware that Daniel and Mandy’s dead bodies had been lying somewhere in the field, but she fiercely refused to consider the fact that she might be walking over where they had been dumped. She was already going to have nightmares.
They wandered in aimless circles for twenty minutes before Ellie’s toe connected with something hard that was hidden in the tall prairie grass. She sucked in a pained breath, hopping on one foot. Had she kicked a rock? Leaning down, she parted the grass to discover that the hard object wasn’t a rock, but a long piece of cement.
“There’s something here,” she called out.
Nate crossed to stand at her side. The late afternoon breeze tugged at his hair and molded his Henley to his broad chest. He absently allowed his fingers to brush down her back and Ellie felt her heart skip a beat.
He was just so damned gorgeous. And he smelled yummy. Warm male skin and soap with the faintest hint of sandalwood.
Then he bent down to push aside the grass and she pressed her lips together in annoyance. What was wrong with her? They were searching for clues to a potential murder and she was breathless and fluttering like they were on a date.
Thankfully unaware of her embarrassing reaction, Nate straightened and wiped his hands on his jeans.
“An old foundation,” he said, his gaze focused on the ground as he began to walk along the crumbling line of cement.
Ellie walked a pace behind him, surprised to discover the foundation was far larger than she’d expected. This wasn’t the ruins of some old storage shed. Or even a barn. This was five times the size of her house.
A warehouse that had gone bust? A storehouse for farm equipment?
Impossible to know.
Without warning, Nate halted. He used the tip of his boot to nudge a jagged plank of wood stuck into the ground.
“Charred,” he said as the blackened edges flaked away at the touch of his boot. “Whatever was here must have burned down.”
Ellie’s attention was captured by the glint of something metal on the ground.
“What’s this?” Bending down, she pulled a silver object out of a clump of weeds. “A charm bracelet.”
As she straightened, Nate reached out to gently tug the jewelry from her hand. His brows drew together as he ran his fingers over the charms.
“I think I’ve seen this before,” he slowly said.
Ellie studied him with raised brows. “Mandy?”
He frowned, his fingers rubbing over the cheap metal that was starting to turn green.
“I can’t remember. But I will.” With a sharp shake of his head, he shoved the bracelet into the front pocket of his jeans. “I don’t think there’s anything else to see here.”
Ellie eagerly followed him back to the road. She wanted to be away from the field that was shrouded by a lingering darkness. As if the very air was tainted. And maybe it was.
Murder had to leave its mark. Didn’t it?
Once they were back in the truck, Nate switched on the engine and turned on the heat, as if he was capable of sensing the chill that was spreading through her body. Then he was pulling his phone from his pocket and tapping on the keyboard.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I want more information on Neville Morse,” he said, continuing to concentrate on his phone. “I still have a few contacts in the Bureau. I’m hoping one of them can help.”
She waited for him to tuck the phone back into his pocket before she revealed her own special method of obtaining information.
“If you want the history of anyone in Curry, I have a better way to get it.”
He arched his brows. “Nothing’s better than the FBI database.”
Her lips twitched. “You don’t know Doris.”
“Your secretary?”
“There isn’t anything that’s happened in Curry that she doesn’t know about,” she assured him.
“Okay.” He put his truck in gear. “Then let’s go talk to Doris.”
They bumped over the gravel roads in silence, both once again lost in their own dark thoughts. It was crazy. Just a week ago her greatest worry was making sure she could pay her monthly bills. Now she was mourning the loss of three acquaintances, and contemplating who might have murdered them.
Oh, and if the person responsible was also intending to kill her.
It wasn’t until Nate reached the edge of town that Ellie shook herself out of her inner musings to direct him toward the quickie-mart where she grabbed a glazed donut and one of the gossip magazines off the rack. Five minutes later they were stopping in front of her office and Ellie jumped out of the truck. It was nearly five o’clock and she wanted to catch Doris before she left for the day.
As Ellie entered, the secretary lifted her head from the stack of folders she was sorting through.
“Greg Stone truly outdid himself this time,” she said in dry tones. “I think he searched his trash can for crap to stuff into these discovery files. It’ll be another day at least before I have them all sorted.”
Ellie sent Doris a smile, setting the donut and magazine on top of the desk.
“No hurry. I brought you dessert.”
“And my favorite gossip rag.” The secretary glanced toward Nate, who’d just walked through the door, before returning her attention to Ellie. “What do you want?”
“To pick your brain,” Ellie admitted without hesitation.
“That sounds ominous,” Doris murmured, biting into her donut.
Ellie sensed Nate moving to lean against the wall. No doubt he realized that Doris loved to gossip. Once she got started it might be a while before she was done.
“What do you know about Neville Morse?” Ellie asked.
“He’s Mandy’s father, poor man.”
“You told me that he was a hermit.”
Doris nodded. “Ever since his wife died . . . oh, it must be ten or fifteen years ago.”
“And before then?”
Doris’s brow furrowed as she dug into the recesses of her memory. “Now that I think about it, he used to like rubbing elbows with the bigwigs.”
Ellie snorted. “There are bigwigs in Curry?”
Doris gave a lift of her shoulder. “The mayor. Old Doc Booker. And your father when he lived here. Kind of like the Rat Pack. You know that group that hung around with Frank Sinatra?”
Ellie didn’t have any trouble imagining her father being at the center of a group of men who considered themselves the grand pooh-bahs of Curry. He craved power and attention. She was far more interested in the fact that the men used to be friends.
Almost as if able to read her mind, Nate asked the question hovering on the tip of her tongue.
“What about Walter Perry?”
Doris considered. “You know, I think the sheriff was a part of the same group.” She took another sip of coffee. “Of course, that was all years ago. Curry isn’t the same place it was then.”
Hmm. Mandy’s father. Daniel’s father. Tia’s father. And her own. Was that the connection they were searching for?
“Do you know how Neville Morse made his money?” Nate continued his questioning.
Doris looked confused. “He was a rancher like most folks in this area.”
Nate shook his head. “Not like most folks. His home must be worth at least two million dollars.”
“I’d heard he built some monstrosity. He brought in some fancy architect from San Francisco and everything.” Doris grimaced. “I’ve never been out there.”
“Did he inherit money?” Ellie asked.
Doris gave a slow shake of her head. “I don�
��t think so . . . oh.” She sat straighter, as if struck by a sudden thought. “Wait.”
“What is it?” Ellie demanded.
Doris tapped her finger on the desk, her eyes growing distant as if she was traveling to the past.
“It’s vague, but I seem to remember that Morse had a business with Doc several years ago.”
Nate moved to stand directly behind Ellie, the heat of his body searing against her back.
“What sort of business?” he asked.
“A clinic for addicts,” Doris answered, her tone vague. “At first there was a big stink in town when Doc suggested he start the place, because it would mean bringing in a bunch of druggies who most folks thought should have been in jail, but then Neville stepped in and said he would be building the place well outside of Curry, and they promised the patients would be kept locked away.”
“It was a residential facility?” Nate asked.
Doris nodded. “I’m not sure how many people stayed there. I was like most folks in town and tried to avoid the place.”
“Was it in the same field where the bodies were found?” Nate pressed.
“It could be.” Doris waved her hand in an absent gesture. “I was doing some traveling back in those days and I really didn’t pay much attention.”
Ellie assumed most citizens of Curry had tried to ignore the facility. It was the sort of place that might be necessary, but no one wanted in their particular neighborhood.
“What happened to the clinic?” she asked.
Doris continued to tap her fingers on the desk. “It burned down one night. I don’t think it was arson, just a tragic accident.” Tap, tap, tap. “And there was something else.”
“What?” Nate demanded.
Doris gave a shake of her head. “I can’t remember. It seemed like something happened around the same time, but I’m not sure if it was connected to the clinic or not.”
Nate nodded, and Ellie suspected he was making a mental note to have his FBI contact investigate the clinic.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Neville?” she asked Doris.
The older woman shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Thanks.”
You Will Suffer Page 13