Paradise Valley Mystery 02-The Heart of Lies

by Debra Burroughs

  “I’m not worried for myself, you understand.” He seemed to struggle to look her in the eyes. “I’ll take what’s coming to me. I screwed up and I’m willing to take my lumps, but this will—” His voice broke and he coughed to clear his throat, staring down at the ground. “This will destroy my wife, not to mention Maggie.”

  “I’ll do what I can to find out where the money is, Sully, but I can’t guarantee you that finding it will get you the hundred thousand back.” She didn’t want to believe he was capable of murder, but she couldn’t deny the possibility his desperation may have driven him over the edge the night Lucas was killed.

  His phone shrilled in the holster on his belt and he pulled it out and looked at it. “It’s Carolyn. I have to take it.” He stepped away and cleared his throat again before answering.

  Emily looked toward the house and noticed Colin standing in the living room window watching them. She wondered what he had seen and if he could have overheard any part of their conversation. Certainly if he had seen her reach out for Sully’s arm and him whipping it back, he would have questions.

  The front door opened and Isabel came bounding down the few steps. “Hey, Em, do you have a minute?”

  Emily glanced over to Sully who was walking toward her, sticking his phone back in its holster.

  “I have to go. That was my wife and she’s extremely upset. Apparently our house was next on Ernie’s list of searches and she doesn’t understand why. I guess I have some explaining to do.” Sully backed away. “Tell Maggie I had to go,” he said as he turned and hurried down the walkway.

  “What was that about?” Isabel questioned.

  “Sully’s wife just called. Ernie is searching his house next for the murder weapon.”

  “Why are they searching Sully’s house? Ernie suspects Sully might have it?”

  “Not as much as he suspected Josh, but since he didn’t find it here, I think he wants to rule out Sully.”

  “If he doesn’t find it there, then who’s next?”

  “Fiona is my guess,” Emily speculated.

  “Why Fiona?”

  “Why not Fiona? Remember the daggers she was throwing Maggie’s way at the sales presentation where Lucas proposed?”

  “Daggers?”

  “Well, not real daggers, but if looks could kill…” Emily raised her eyebrows as she crossed her arms.

  “A woman’s scorn and all that?” Isabel said in a hushed voice, laying her hand on Emily’s forearm for a moment.

  “That and the money.” Emily rubbed the tips of her fingers together with her palm facing up. She glanced at the living room window again, but Colin had moved away.

  “Oh, yeah, the money,” Isabel agreed, nodding her head.

  “No one seems to know where it is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Fiona might know. Another good motive for murder.”

  “Maybe we should wring her scrawny little neck until she tells us where it is.” Isabel made realistic gestures with her hands and Emily could picture Fiona’s neck being twisted. “Alex and I want our hundred thousand dollars back.”

  “You and half the town.”

  “Half the town?”

  “Well maybe not half the town, but certainly a lot of people.”

  Isabel nodded her agreement.

  “Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?”

  Isabel glanced around and stepped closer to Emily, speaking in a soft voice. “I heard from Jethro today. He asked again if he could see the gun, have it run through ballistics to see if it was involved in any open cases.”

  “What did you tell him?” Emily asked, feeling her heart beat quicken its pace. She wasn’t ready to hand it over to anyone. She wanted to know more before she let it out of her control.

  “I still told him you were simply talking hypothetically, but I don’t think he bought it.”

  “I have a bad feeling about that, Isabel. I don’t want to give him the gun just yet. I don’t even want him to know for certain that I have it.”

  “Knowing him, he probably won’t let up now that he knows about it,” Isabel warned.

  Goosebumps rippled across Emily’s arms and she suddenly felt exposed standing out in the open in front of Maggie’s home. “I don’t know why, but something doesn’t feel right. We should go inside, now.”

  “Why?” Isabel asked as Emily grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the house.

  As they climbed the few steps to the front door, Emily shuddered and turned to look toward the street, then she shoved Isabel inside, hurrying in after her.

  “What are you doing, Em?” Isabel moaned, catching Colin’s attention.

  He had been sitting in the living room, talking to Alex, enjoying a glass of Camille’s sweet tea, but he shot out of his seat and rushed to Emily.

  “I got an eerie feeling outside. The sense someone was watching me,” she whispered to Colin.

  “What’s going on?” Isabel pressed.

  “We think someone has been following us,” Colin answered. “Black sedan, late model, not sure of the year and make and I haven’t seen a license plate yet.”

  “Black is a very common car color in this town, Emily” Isabel pointed out.

  “Maybe, but it’s giving me the creeps.” Emily felt a slight shiver run up her back.

  Colin put his arm around her and patted her shoulder. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I appreciate that,” she told him, shrugging away from his arm, “but it’s not like I’m some weak little woman.” Looking back at him, she instantly realized she had probably embarrassed him a little in front of Alex and Isabel.

  Fumbling with how to lighten the mood, she thought of something that might do the trick. “You’re the one who nicknamed me the pistol-packin’, smokin’ hot lady PI, remember? You wouldn’t want me doing anything to tarnish that title, now would you?” she teased, flashing him a toothy grin.

  He burst out in laughter, as did Isabel and Alex.

  ~*~

  Colin dropped Emily off at home to get ready for their dinner date and he headed to his apartment to shower and change. But first, at his insistence, he briefly went inside to help her search the house to make sure no one was there hiding, waiting to pounce.

  After that, she promised she’d call him if she felt in danger, assuring him that she had him on speed dial.

  He hadn’t wanted to leave her alone, not after being so certain they were being followed, but she didn’t want to be coddled. He thought back to when he had first met Emily. She had recently decided to leave her career as a real estate agent and had taken on her first case as a PI.

  Emily was so new to private investigation that Colin had given her a bad time about her lack of experience—or so she told him. They were at a barbecue at Alex and Isabel’s house, a set up by the girls. Seated next to her at the dining table, he’d felt the physical attraction was mutual. He had casually asked her what she did for a living.

  “Well, I was a real estate agent, but I am currently transitioning into being a private investigator,” she’d said.

  He nearly choked, coughing and sputtering. He grabbed his glass of iced tea and took a couple of gulps.

  “Did something go down the wrong way?” she’d asked.

  “You could say that,” Colin replied, coughing a few more times. “You said you’re transitioning into being a private investigator?”

  “Yes…why?”

  “Well, you can’t just be a real estate agent one day and decide to be an investigator the next.”

  The pleasant smile that had graced her face then twisted into a grimace, as she’d seemed to bristle at his comments. She’d picked up her plate and stomped to the kitchen. She told him later, after they’d begun dating, that on that first night he had offended her so deeply that she didn’t care how handsome he was—his words were so condescending she’d had to get away from him before she’d told him what she really thought of him.

  Thinking back now, Colin wo
ndered how he’d ever convinced her to give him a chance.

  Since those early days, Emily had developed into a skilled investigator and had learned to adeptly handle a gun. She was a bulldog for details and confident in her abilities. He hoped that confidence wouldn’t be her undoing.

  She was lovely and kind-hearted and she looked for the best in people. Yet at times she was stubborn to a fault. Altogether, these were the qualities that made her so endearing and attractive to him—in her line of work those qualities could also get her killed.

  He had already been down that road once, losing a woman he loved, and he had been reluctant to go down it again, but he was so in love with Emily he couldn’t help himself. He had almost told her several times that he loved her, but each time something stopped him, something got in the way. He wondered if maybe he wasn’t supposed to say it, wasn’t supposed to lay his heart out bare to her.

  She had been the only woman in the last two years to break through the wall he had built around his heart after Miranda’s death. He’d had no intention of falling for her like that, but Emily had systematically dismantled that wall with her sweetness and her charm, her vulnerability and her strength. But now that his heart was exposed and ready to love again, he was beginning to feel the need to start rebuilding the wall again.

  The other night when Sully came over to her house, Emily had glossed over the truth when Colin had asked her what they were quarreling about. And earlier at Maggie’s, he had seen Emily talking to Sully out front, it looked like they were arguing about something, but she wouldn’t tell him what. She was hiding something from him—he knew it—but what?

  How could he trust her if she was holding something back from him?

  He looked in the rearview mirror as he drove. The pair of headlights in the mirror could have been anyone’s, but now he was keenly aware of impending danger and was taking no chances. He abruptly pulled the car to the curb and watched as the next few cars passed him. No black sedans.

  Collin rejoined the flow of traffic and headed to his apartment, just a few more blocks ahead.

  Was he the object of the pursuer, or was she? Did it have to do with the murder case Emily was working, or something else?

  He knew she was still following leads in her late husband’s murder, even talking to a former FBI agent to see if he could be any help in uncovering Evan’s true past. He had friends in the CIA as well as the FBI, Emily had told him, and the man had assured her he would try to find out something. Did the mysterious tail have anything to do with that?

  CHAPTER 23

  Colin returned to Emily’s bungalow, showing up with a big bouquet of daisies and freesia.

  “Right on time,” Emily greeted, still wearing her white silk robe and bare feet. Her hair was twisted into a pile of loose curls on her head.

  “These are for you.” Colin held the flowers out to her.

  “They’re lovely. I love daisies!” she squealed, taking them from him.

  “I know.”

  She pushed up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Thank you. Just let me put them in a vase and I’ll be ready in a second. I just need to slip into my dress. Why don’t you have a seat in the living room and I’ll be right out.”

  He wandered over to the sofa as she hurried back to the kitchen for the vase. In a few minutes she emerged from her bedroom in a little black dress, sticking diamond studs into her ears.

  He rose when she entered the room, an old habit his mother had drilled into him as a boy, he’d told her.

  She glided over to him and spun around. “Will you zip me up?”

  He bent his head down and kissed the nape of her neck which sent heat radiating down her spine. He slowly pulled her zipper up and kissed her neck again, just below her ear, sending a shudder of pleasure through her.

  She turned to face him and met his lips with hers. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, looking into his sultry eyes.

  “We should go,” he said. “We have reservations.”

  There was coolness in his voice and his expression that puzzled her. She wondered what he was thinking. He was the one who kissed her first, but then it felt like he pulled back.

  Once they got to the restaurant, he relaxed a bit and she seemed to have the old Colin back, warm and funny. After dinner, he led her onto the dance floor and held her close as the small jazz band played a slow song.

  Emily laid her head against his cheek, closing her eyes to shut out the whole world around her. She remembered their first date at DaVinci’s, when their bodies had swayed in unison, as they did now, and their attraction to each other had moved to another level.

  In her thoughts, as they danced, she imagined their hands and arms curling around each other, embracing, as if they couldn’t get close enough. She had forgotten how deeply and thoroughly kissed Colin could make her feel, sending her senses to places she had only gone with her husband. She willed her mind to other thoughts before she groaned out loud.

  As she thought of Colin’s return to Paradise Valley for good, she desired to find that soul-felt intimacy with him again. By the time he was back, she hoped to have Evan’s murder solved and that disturbing chapter of her life closed. As long as suspicions and questions went unanswered, she wondered how she could ever be free to give herself fully to another man.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” he murmured in her ear.

  “Thinking of you, enjoying the music,” she responded truthfully, her eyes still shut. “I was thinking how wonderful it’ll be when you come back here for good. What about you?”

  “I’m remembering how good you feel in my arms, and thinking how sad it is that people wait for a tragedy to visit the ones they care about.” He kissed her temple gently and held her hand close to his heart as they continued to slow dance.

  The song ended but she didn’t want to open her eyes and be sucked back into reality. She didn’t want to let go of him. She relished the warmth of his body against hers and she felt safe in his strong, protective arms. Fighting reality was a useless endeavor, she conceded, and she forced her eyes open.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” Colin asked, still holding her hand.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked eagerly.

  “Let’s get our dessert to go and head back to your house,” he suggested. “I think we need to talk.”

  “About what?” Her head tilted slightly.

  “Not here. I just think there’s some things we need to talk about.” He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed the top of it lightly, gazing deeply into her eyes. “Nothing to worry about,” he promised.

  “Forget the dessert, let’s just go home,” she replied flatly, letting him lead her out. Even though he assured her there was nothing to worry about, clearly it wasn’t the romantic evening she had hoped for.

  ~*~

  Emily walked into the living room carrying a bottle of white wine and a couple of crystal goblets. Colin was seated on the sofa, waiting for her return, leaning back and resting an arm across the top of it. After Emily poured the wine and they each had a glass in their hands, she snuggled into the curve of his arm.

  “Thank you for dinner, Colin. I especially enjoyed the dancing.”

  “It was nice.”

  “How’s the wine?” she asked.

  “Good.”

  She wasn’t sure what else to say, as she waited for him to bring up whatever he had on his mind. She set her glass down and laid her head on his chest, running her hand across his abdomen.

  His arm slid down off the back of the sofa and hugged her gently. “I love being with you, Emily. I love everything about you—even the annoying things,” he said.

  Here it comes! He’s going to tell me he loves me.

  “I hope you feel the same way.”

  “I do,” she agreed.

  “But I think you’re hiding something from me.”

  What?

  She pulled away and sat up with start.

  “What’s going on wit
h you and Sully?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” she asked innocently, looking away, knowing full well what he meant.

  “There’s something going on between the two of you, and I don’t mean romantically. Something you’re hiding from me and I want to know what it is. How can I trust you if you keep things from me?”

  She wasn’t sure how to reply. She had promised Sully to keep his secret as long as she could, but if she shared his secret with Colin, he would feel obligated to turn him in. The ruination of the Sullivan family would not be on her head, she decided. What could she say to appease Colin?

  “You’re not going to answer me?”

  She shifted her body to face him. “Sully told me something in confidence and made me swear not to tell anyone.”

  “Not even me?”

  Especially not you. “No one.”

  “You’d never agree to that if he’d confessed to murdering Lucas, so I know it can’t be that.”

  “You’re right. He is still a suspect, though, at least in my book. He had motive and maybe opportunity. Ernie headed over to his house to search for the murder weapon after he left Maggie’s. I wonder what he found.”

  “Don’t change the subject. What is the secret then?” he insisted, his eyes narrowing and his brows knitting together.

  “I told you, I can’t say.” She stood and collected the wine and the glasses. “Don’t be mad,” she said as she walked out of the room.

  Colin followed close behind her to the kitchen. “Does it have anything to do with the person that’s following us?”

  “No,” she replied flatly.

  “What am I supposed to think?”

  “If someone told you something in confidence,” she set the wine and goblets on the counter, “I wouldn’t expect you to tell me, unless it directly affected me.”

  He planted his hands at his waist and stared at her. “You’re saying it’s none of my business and I should stay out of it?”

  She rested her hips against the cabinet and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m saying Sully told me something in confidence and it doesn’t concern you. I agreed to keep his secret for Maggie’s sake, nothing more.”