by Sandra Brown
In high heels, she was as tall as he. Leaning forward, she kissed him lightly on the lips. He made a grunt of acquiescence and took her into his arms, drawing her close for a deep kiss. He became fully aroused almost immediately and stepped back self-consciously. “Want me to leave you alone for a while?”
“What for?”
Nervously, he rubbed his palms up and down his thighs. “So you can… Hell, I don’t know. Do what brides do, I guess. I figured you wanted some privacy.”
“Oh.” She was crestfallen and it showed in her expression. “I thought you might want to undress me yourself.”
“I do,” he said in a rush. “I mean, if you want me to.”
She seemed to think it over carefully before nodding.
He flexed his fingers like a safecracker about to attempt his personal best and reached for the buttons on her blouse—small pearl buttons very much like the ones that had engendered his first fantasies about her.
Their restraint diminished with each article that was removed. They undressed each other leisurely, allowing time to celebrate each discovery. Even though she’d grown up with two brothers in the house, she had a childlike curiosity about his body. Whispering in wonderment, she told him he was handsome, and he said he hadn’t realized her eyesight was so bad. When he told her she was beautiful, she believed it, because his caresses were strongly convincing. He made her feel like a goddess of beauty and romance.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Janellen,” he whispered as he poised above her.
“You won’t.”
He didn’t, even when he was deep inside her. She was awkward and perhaps too eager to please, so he told her to relax and let him do all the work. She did as he suggested, and to their mutual delight and surprise, her climax was as tumultuous as his.
Afterward, they drank the complimentary bottle of champagne that came with the room. She selected names for their first four children. He swore that by Valentine’s Day he’d have enough money saved to buy her a wedding ring like a proper groom, but she argued that she didn’t need anything tangible to symbolize his love. She felt it with every breath she drew.
Drowsy with love and champagne, he murmured, “Want to try out the whirlpool bath, or watch HBO, or something?”
“Or something.” She flashed him a gamine smile that would have amazed the matrons of Eden Pass who had considered her a hopeless old maid, then slid her hand beneath the sheet and boldly fondled him.
“Good Lord have mercy on us all,” he said, gasping. “Miss Janellen’s done turned into a regular sex fiend.”
Had Bowie and Janellen turned on the television set in their honeymoon suite, they would have seen the news bulletins on the catastrophic fire in Eden Pass that had already claimed ten lives. All the victims had been identified and the authorities were notifying next of kin.
It was hours before the firefighters from six counties finally brought the flames under control. By dawn, the preliminary investigation into the cause of the explosion was under way. Inspectors began sifting through the smoldering ruin.
Early speculation was that Tackett Oil’s well number seven might have been a contributing factor. Since Bowie couldn’t be located, his supervisor had capped off the oil and gas lines.
Following that precaution, there had been no other explosions, indicating that the well had indeed been feeding the flame.
Key, the only Tackett readily available, was being questioned by federal agents from the Department of Tobacco, Alcohol, and Firearms.
“Y’all ever have any problem with that well leaking oil or gas, Mr. Tackett?”
“Not to my knowledge, but I’m not involved in my family’s business.”
“Who is?”
“My sister. She’s out of town.”
“I understood that your mother was the ramrod of the outfit.”
“Not for the last several years.”
“I’d still like to talk to her.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s out of the question. She had a mild stroke a few weeks back and is virtually bedridden.”
Lara, who was standing by listening, said nothing to contradict him. Neither did anyone else.
“All I can tell you,” he said to the agents, “is that Tackett Oil has always been stringent about safety. Our record is unblemished.”
The agents huddled together for another conference.
Scores of curious bystanders milled about, eager to survey the damage now that the threat of danger had passed. They consoled Darcy and Fergus Winston over their enormous loss.
Darcy, who still looked spectacular while everyone else was covered with grime, continually scanned the gathering crowd for sight of Heather. She’d asked Lara several times if she had seen her. She wept softly and daintily and kept repeating to those who offered words of encouragement, “I just can’t believe that all our hard work went up in smoke. But of course we’ll rebuild.”
Fergus, however, seemed more nervous than disconsolate. Lara found his behavior puzzling. Perhaps he hadn’t kept up his insurance premiums.
“She ought to be here,” Lara overheard Darcy say to Fergus, her exasperation plain. Apparently she felt that Heather should be on the scene to round out the family image for the media.
Two shouts were uttered almost simultaneously.
Both came from the west side of the complex where the first explosion had occurred.
“Give me some help here!”
“Sir! Maybe you ought to look at this.”
Lara and Key were among those who broke into a run. They and several others clustered around the man who’d shouted first. “There’s a body underneath here.”
Key helped him lift an iron support beam off the charred remains of a human being.
Before anyone had time to absorb that shock, one of the other agents said, “Christ. Here’s another one.” He’d made another grisly discovery several yards away.
“Sir!” The second agent who had shouted ran up to his superior. He was winded from his twenty-yard sprint. “I found something.” He pointed toward an open field. “I think it’s a gas line, but it isn’t on the motel schematic. It’s coming up vertically. My guess is that it’s linked to an underground line that leads straight to that well.”
Key shouldered his way up to the agent. “What are you saying?”
The senior agent frowned. “Mr. Tackett, it looks to me like somebody’s been siphoning natural gas off your well.”
Just then a scream rent the morning air. It came from the crowd behind the sheriff’s cordon. Darcy was clutching a teenage girl by the shoulders and shaking her until her head wobbled back and forth.
“What are you saying? You’re a liar!” She slapped the girl hard. “Heather was at cheerleading practice. She told Fergus she was leaving early to go to cheerleading practice. I ought to kill you, you lying little shit!”
The girl blubbered, “I’m not lying, Mrs. Winston. Heather told me to cover for her if you called my house. We didn’t have cheerleading practice. She said…” She hiccupped; the words came out choppily. “Heather said Tanner was going to meet her here and they were going to spend the night in one of the motel rooms.” Misery contorted the girl’s tear-bloated face. “She said it was going to be so romantic because they were going to sneak into the honeymoon suite.”
Ollie Hoskins had worked tirelessly throughout the entire night doing whatever he could to help. He panicked upon hearing his son’s name. “Tanner? Tanner? Tanner was here? No. It can’t be. My boy, he… No!”
Darcy pushed aside Heather’s sobbing friend and watched the grim firemen as they carried two stretchers from the smoking debris of what had been the honeymoon suite. On each stretcher lay a sealed black plastic bag.
“No. No. Heather? NO!”
Then Fergus stunned everyone by dropping to his knees and folding his arms over his head. With an anguished cry, he fell face first onto the ground.
“I could use a cup of coffee.” Key approached her as she moved to
ward her car. “Besides, I don’t have a car here.” He had arrived with Darcy, and that hadn’t been coincidental. However, mentioning that now would have been petty, so neither did. “I’ll call for a ride at your place if that’s all right.”
He was as grimy as she, his clothes sweat-and soot-stained. She’d lost count of how many times he’d taken off in the helicopter only to return as quickly as possible to transport another casualty.
When all the injured had been taken to area hospitals, he began helping the volunteer firemen. Lara too stayed at the site to administer first aid for their minor cuts and burns. Subconsciously she had found herself listening for Key’s distinguishable voice. Even in the predawn gloom she could easily pick him out among the others.
She motioned with her head for him to get into her car. Once they were under way, she asked, “What do you think they’ll do to Fergus?” He’d been taken away in handcuffs.
“He’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars. Besides stealing from us, he’s got twelve deaths to account for.”
Lara shivered. “Including his own daughter.”
“He’d better hope they never let him out. Darcy threatened to kill him if she got the chance. She would, too.” After a moment, he said, “I only slept with her that once. The night she shot me.”
Apparently the look she gave him was inadvertently accusatory, because he added, “Last night, I’d just told her to take me back to my car, and we were arguing about it, when the explosion occurred.”
“I did her a disservice,” Lara admitted in a quiet voice. “I didn’t credit her with loving anyone except herself. She loved her daughter very much. I know how it feels to lose a child. I can also relate to her wanting to kill Fergus for the role he played in Heather’s death. It was accidental, but he was ultimately responsible.”
She pulled into the rear driveway of the clinic, reluctant to go in and face what she’d left. “Randall is in there.”
“One of my favorite people.” He expelled a deep breath as he opened the car door. Together they went inside. “Unlocked,” he remarked.
“I left in such a hurry, I didn’t bother.”
They moved through the silent, dim rooms. The ugly facts that had been revealed to her moments before the explosion came back now, enclosing her in rage.
“I don’t think he’s here,” Key said.
“He wouldn’t leave.”
“Hey, Porter, where are you?” he called. He approached the doorway to Lara’s private office. The door was only halfway open. He gave it a slight push.
Apprehension crawled up her spine. “Key, before—”
“Porter?” He stepped into the room. “Holy shit!”
His expletive galvanized her. She bolted into the room but drew up short on the threshold. “Oh my God!”
Key knelt beside Randall’s prone body. There was no question as to whether he was dead. A congealing pool of blood had formed beneath his head. His face was a frozen mask of surprise.
“I didn’t do it!” Lara gasped. “I didn’t. I didn’t pull the trigger.”
Key raised his head and looked at her. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course you didn’t do it.”
“I pulled a gun on him, but—”
“What?”
“The Magnum.” He followed her pointing finger to the revolver lying where she’d dropped it. “But I never pulled the trigger.” She covered her mouth with her hand, for once made sick at the sight of so much blood. “The concussion from the explosion knocked me against the wall…. But I didn’t shoot him. Did I?” Near panic, she stretched forth her hand. “Key! Did I?”
He stood and nudged the Magnum with the toe of his boot. His expression was incredulous and bleak.
“I didn’t,” she said, vigorously shaking her head. “I swear to God! I couldn’t. I only wanted to frighten him. I wanted him to experience some of the fear he’d inflicted on me at Emilio’s camp.”
“Lara, you’re not making sense.”
“Randall was responsible for Ashley’s death,” she cried, desperate for him to understand.
“How?”
“He was allied with Emilio from the beginning.” In disjointed sentences and broken phrases, she related to him what Randall had told her.
“I know it sounds inconceivable. But it’s the truth! I swear it. Oh no,” she cried, pressing the heels of her hands against her temples when she saw his skepticism. “Not again! I can’t go through this again. I can’t be blamed for something I didn’t do!”
“I believe you. Calm down.”
“Oh God, Key! I did not shoot him. I couldn’t. I didn’t!”
“No, I did.”
The husky confession came from behind the wedge of space between the partially open door and the paneled wall. Key reached past Lara and closed the door in order to see who was hiding behind it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Jody!”
Jody Tackett was sitting on the floor in the corner, her legs folded beneath her hip. A pistol, the obvious murder weapon, lay nearby. She was conscious, but had lost muscle control on the left side of her face. She had drooled on her blouse.
“She’s had a stroke.” Lara moved Key aside and knelt beside his mother. “Call 911.”
“Don’t bother. I’m dying. I want to. I can now.” Jody’s words were slurred, the consonants only partially formed, the sounds left open, like her lips. The vowels were guttural. But Jody was forcing herself to be understood. “Couldn’t let him.”
“Couldn’t let him what, Jody?” Key knelt beside her. “Couldn’t let him what?”
Lara called 911. For the second time in twelve hours she requested two ambulances—one for Jody, one for Randall. Then she returned to her place beside Jody and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm. “She must have come in right behind me,” she told Key. “He fell exactly where he was standing when I left.”
“Couldn’t let him tell about Clark.” Jody struggled with the words.
“Don’t talk, Mrs. Tackett,” Lara said gently. She released the cuff and firmly pressed her fingers into Jody’s wrist to take her pulse. “Help is on the way.”
“What about Clark?” Key supported the back of Jody’s head in his palm. “What did Randall Porter know about Clark that you didn’t want him to tell?”
“Key, this isn’t the time. She’s critically ill.”
“She blew your husband’s brains out!” he shouted at Lara. “Why, goddamnit? I want to know what drove my mother to murder. Do you know?”
“You’re upsetting my patient,” she replied tightly.
“Christ. You do know. What was it?”
She remained silent.
He looked down at Jody, realizing, as Lara did, that she was frantically trying to impart something before it was too late. “Jody, what was it? Did Porter know something about Clark’s drowning? Was it a political assassination staged to look like an accident? Did Clark know that Porter was still alive?”
“No.” Imploringly, Jody rolled her eyes toward Lara. “Tell him.”
Lara shook her head slowly, then emphatically. “No. No.”
“Lara, for God’s sake. He was my brother.” Key reached across Jody and took Lara’s chin, forcibly turning her face toward him. “What do you know that I don’t? What did Porter know that was such a threat to Clark, even dead? Whatever it is, it’s why Jody didn’t want you in Eden Pass, right? She was afraid you’d leak a secret.”
“Porter…” Jody wheezed. “Porter was…”
“No, Mrs. Tackett,” Lara pleaded. “Don’t tell him. It won’t solve anything and will only hurt him.” She looked at Key. “Don’t ask her. It crushed her. She committed murder over it. Leave it alone. I beg you, Key, leave it alone.”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears. He bent low over Jody, until his face was inches from hers. “Porter was what? Plotting something with Clark? Was Clark caught up in a political intrigue he couldn’t get out of? An illegal arms deal? Drugs maybe?�
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“No.”
“Tell me, Jody,” he urged her softly. “Try, please. Tell me. I’ve got to know.”
“Randall Porter was—”
“Yes, Jody? What?”
“No, Key. Please. Please.”
“Shut up, Lara. Randall Porter was what, Jody?”
“Clark’s lover.”
For several seconds Key remained motionless. Then his head snapped erect and his eyes drilled into Lara’s. “My brother and Porter…?”
Lara sank against the wall, defeated. The secret she had wanted desperately to reveal for five years, she now wished could have died with Jody Tackett, so that she wouldn’t have to watch the disillusionment spread over Key’s face like a dark ink spill.
“They were lovers?” His voice was as brittle and dry as ancient parchment. It crackled on each word.
She nodded forlornly.
“That morning in Virginia, my brother was in bed with Porter, not you. You caught them.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. She rubbed them off with her fist. “Yes.”
“Jesus,” he swore, bearing his teeth. “Ah, Jesus.” He propped his elbow on his raised knee and shoved his fingers through his hair, cupping his forehead in his palm. He held that anguished posture for ponderous moments.
Eventually he lowered his hand and looked down at his mother. “Clark confessed to you, didn’t he?”
“When he gave…”
“When he bought this place for Lara,” Key prompted. Jody nodded imperceptibly. Her eyes were swimming in tears. “You demanded to know why he’d do such a crazy thing for the woman who’d ruined his career. He broke down and told you the truth. You denounced him, probably disowned him. So he killed himself.”
A terrible sound issued from Jody’s chest.
“Key, don’t do this to her,” Lara whispered.
But it wasn’t his intention to torment her. He slipped his arms beneath Jody and lifted her against his chest. She looked small and helpless in his brawny embrace, this woman who, using brains instead of beauty, had bagged the notorious playboy of Eden Pass, had driven Fergus Winston to commit a criminal act to exact revenge, and had for decades instilled in her employees a fearful respect and in an entire town fierce loyalty.