Rumors: The McCaffertys: The McCaffertys: ThorneThe McCaffertys: Matt

by Lisa Jackson

  Stella Gamble, the plump, nervous receptionist, had abandoned her post and was fidgeting at the door, her bright red fingernails catching light from the humming fluorescent tubing overhead. “I tried to stop him, really I did,” she said, shaking her head as her tight blond curls bounced around her flushed cheeks. “He wouldn’t listen.”

  “A family trait.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “It’s all right, Stella. Relax. I needed to talk to one of the McCafferty brothers, anyway,” Kelly assured her, though that was stretching the truth quite a bit. A conversation with Thorne, Slade or especially Matt wasn’t on her agenda right this minute, not when Nathaniel Biggs was calling every two hours, certain that someone had stolen his prize bull last night, Perry Carmichael had reported an odd aura suspended over the copse of oak trees behind his machine shed out on Old Dupont Road and Dora Haines was missing again, probably wandering around the foothills in nineteen-degree weather with a storm threatening to blast in from the Bitterroots by nightfall. Not that the McCafferty case wasn’t important—it just wasn’t the only one she was working on. “Don’t worry about it,” she said to Stella. “I’ll talk to Mr. McCafferty.”

  “No one should get by me,” the receptionist said, blinking rapidly.

  “You’re right, they shouldn’t,” Kelly agreed, and glared at the uninvited guest. “But, as I said, I need to talk to him, anyway, and I don’t think he’s dangerous.”

  “Don’t count on it,” McCafferty countered. Standing near the file cabinet, he looked as if he could spit nails.

  The phone rang loudly at Stella’s desk.

  “I’ll deal with this,” Kelly said as the receptionist hurried back to her desk and immediately donned her headset.

  Kelly closed the door behind her and snapped the blinds shut for privacy, as she didn’t want any of the deputies witnessing the dressing-down that was simmering in the air of her postage-stamp-size office.

  “Have a seat,” she offered, sweeping off the files that were stacked in the single chair on the visitor’s side of her metal desk.

  He didn’t move, but those eyes followed her as she plopped into her ancient desk chair. “I’m tired of getting the runaround,” he announced through lips that barely moved.

  “The runaround?”

  “Yep.” He planted his hands between her in-basket and the computer monitor glowing from one corner of the desk and leaned across the reports that were strewn in front of her. “I want answers, dammit. My sister’s been in a coma for over a month because of an accident that I believe is the result of someone running her Jeep off the road, and you people, you people, are doing nothing to find out what happened to her. For all we know someone tried to kill her that day and they won’t stop until they finish the job!”

  “That’s just speculation,” Kelly reminded him, the short fuse on her temper igniting. There was a chance that Randi McCafferty’s rig had been forced off the road up in Glacier Park. With no witnesses it was hard to say. But the sheriff’s department was checking into every possibility. “We’re trying to locate another vehicle if one is involved. So far, we haven’t found one.”

  “It’s been over a month, for crying out loud,” he said as she sat on the corner of her desk, watching a battery of emotions cross his face. Anger. Determination. Frustration. And more—a fleck of fear darkened his brown eyes. Fear wasn’t an emotion she considered when thinking of any of the roguish, tough-as-rawhide McCafferty men. The three brothers, like their father, had always appeared an intrepid, fearless lot. “And over two weeks have passed since Thorne’s plane went down. You think that was an accident, too?”

  “It’s possible. We’re looking into it.”

  “Well, you’d better look harder,” he suggested, his nostrils flaring.

  The guy was getting to her. Again. He had a way of nettling her—getting under her skin and irritating her. Kind of like a burr caught beneath a horse’s saddle. McCafferty straightened, swept his hat from his head and raked stiff fingers through his near-black, wavy hair. “Before someone actually dies.”

  “The feds are involved in the plane crash.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be helping a whole helluva lot.”

  “We’re doing everything in our power to—”

  “It’s not enough,” he cut in. Again fire flared in his eyes. “Are you in charge of this investigation, Detective?” he asked, casting a glance at the badge she wore so proudly. He was crushing the brim of his Stetson in fingers that blanched white at the knuckles.

  She held on to her patience, but just barely. “I think we’ve been over this before. Detective Espinoza has been assigned the case. I’m assisting him, as I was the first on the scene of your sister’s wreck.”

  “Then I’m wasting my time with you.”

  That stung. Kelly gritted her teeth and stood.

  “Tell Espinoza I want to talk to him.”

  “He’s not in right now.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “It might be a while.”

  Matt McCafferty looked as if he might explode. He dropped his hat on a nearby folding chair and leaned over her desk again, shoving some file folders out of the way as he pushed his face closer, so that the tip of his nose nearly touched hers. The air seemed to crackle. The smell of wet suede, horses and a faint hint of pine reached her nostrils. Snow had melted on the shoulders of his sheepskin jacket, and there were a few damp spots on his face. His fists opened and closed in frustration on the desktop. “You have to understand, Detective, this is my family we’re talking about,” he said in a low whisper that had more impact than if he’d raged. “My family. Now, the way I see it, my sister was nearly killed, and not only that but she was nine months pregnant at the time.”

  “I know—”

  “Do you? Can you imagine what she went through? She went into labor when her Jeep careered over that embankment and crashed. She was just lucky someone came along and called 911. Between the paramedics and the doctors over at St. James Hospital and a lot of help from the man upstairs, she pulled through.”

  “And the baby survived,” she pointed out, remembering all too clearly the condition of mother and son.

  Matt wasn’t about to be deterred. Like a runaway freight train gathering steam, he kept right on. “After a bout of meningitis.”

  Her fingers coiled over a pen on the desk. “I understand all this—”

  “Fortunately little J.R. is a McCafferty. He’s tough. He pulled through.”

  “So he’s fine,” she reminded him, trying to keep emotions out of the conversation, which, of course, was impossible.

  “Fine?” He snorted. “I guess you might say so, except that he needs his mom, who is still comatose and lying in a hospital room.” For a brief second Matt McCafferty actually seemed as if he cared about his nephew, and his brown eyes darkened in concern. That got to Kelly, though she refused to show it. Of course he was worried about the kid—McCaffertys always looked after their own. To the exclusion of all others. “And that’s not all, Detective,” he added.

  “I’m sure not,” she drawled, and he scowled at her patronizing tone.

  “It’s a miracle that Thorne survived the plane crash and ended up with only a few cuts and bruises and a broken leg.”

  Amen to that. Thorne was the eldest McCafferty brother, a millionaire oilman who hailed from Denver. He’d been flying the company jet back to Grand Hope, hit bad weather and gone down.

  “The way I see it, either the McCaffertys are having one helluva string of bad luck, or someone’s out to get us.”

  “Randi was driving and hit an icy patch. Your brother was flying alone in the middle of a snowstorm. Bad luck? Or bad judgment?”

  “Or, as I said, a potential murderer on the loose.”

  “Who?” she asked, meeting his glare, not backing down an inch though she was beginning to sweat, and the office, filled by his presence, seemed even smaller than usual.

  “That’s what I was hopin’ you
’d tell me.”

  God, he was close to her. Too close. The desk between them seemed a small barrier.

  “Believe me, Mr. McCafferty—”

  “Matt. Call me Matt. There’re too damned many McCaffertys to call us by our last name.”

  She wouldn’t argue that point.

  “And somehow I have the feelin’ that you and I, we’ll be workin’ real close together on this one. I intend to stick to you like glue until you find out who the hell is behind this, so we may as well cut the formalities.”

  The thought of working closely with anyone named McCafferty stuck in Kelly’s craw, and this one, this damnably sexy, cocksure cowboy, was the most irritating of the lot, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter. “All right, Matt. As I was saying, we’re trying our best here to find out the truth behind both accidents. Everyone in the department is busting their hump to figure this mess out.”

  “Not fast enough,” he growled.

  “And none of us, me especially—” she hooked a thumb at her chest “—needs anyone looking over her shoulder.” She stuffed the pen in the mug on her desk. “Didn’t you hire your own private detective?”

  His thin lips tightened a fraction.

  “A man by the name of Kurt Striker?” She folded her arms across her chest.

  He nodded. “We thought we needed more help.”

  “So what has he got to say?”

  “That he thinks there’s foul play,” McCafferty said, his eyes narrowing on Kelly as if he couldn’t quite figure her out. Tough. She was used to men distrusting her as a detective because she was a woman, and that’s what Matt McCafferty was saying; she could read it in his eyes. Well, that was just too damned bad. She wasn’t about to be bullied or intimidated. Not by anyone. Not even one of the high-and-mighty McCaffertys. Matt’s father, John Randall, had once been a rich, powerful and influential man in the county, and his descendants thought they could still throw their collective weights around. Well, not here.

  “Has Striker got any proof that someone’s behind the accidents?” she asked.

  Hesitation.

  “I didn’t think so.” She slipped from the desk. “That’s it. Now, listen, I have work to do, and I don’t need you barging in here and making demands and—”

  “Striker says there’s some paint on Randi’s rig. Maroon. Maybe from the other car when she was forced off the road.”

  “If she was forced off,” Kelly reminded him. “She could have scraped another vehicle in a parking lot at home in Seattle for all we know. And we already know about the paint, so don’t come in here and insinuate that the department is inefficient or incompetent or any of the above, because we’re just being thorough. Got it?”

  “Listen—”

  “No, you listen to me, okay?” Her temper was stretched to the breaking point as she stepped around the desk and went toe-to-toe with him. “This force is doing everything in its power to try and find out what happened to your sister and your brother. Everything! We don’t take either accident lightly, believe you me. But we’re not jumping off the deep end here, either. Your sister’s Jeep could have hit ice. It’s just possible she lost control of the vehicle, it slid off the road up in Glacier and she ended up in the hospital in a damned coma. As for your brother, he was taking a big chance with his life flying a small craft in one helluva snowstorm. The engines failed. We’ll determine why. We haven’t yet ruled out foul play. We’re just being careful. The department can’t afford to go off half-cocked and making blind assumptions or accusations.”

  “Meanwhile someone might be trying to kill off my family.”

  “Who?” she demanded as she rounded the desk again, plopped down in her worn chair and took up her pen. Yanking a yellow legal pad from the credenza behind her, she dropped it on the desk and sat ready, ballpoint pressed against the clean sheet of paper. “Give me a list of suspects, anyone you know who might hold a grudge against the McCafferty clan.”

  Matt’s eyes narrowed. “There are dozens.”

  “Names, McCafferty, I want names.” She hoped she sounded professional, because he was cutting a little too close to the bone with his damned insinuations.

  “You should know a few,” he said, and though she wanted to, she didn’t allow herself to rise to the bait.

  “Don’t beat around the bush.”

  “Okay, let’s start with your family,” he shot out.

  Kelly’s back went up. “No one in my family has any ax to grind with your brother or half sister.” She raised her eyes and met the simmering anger in his.

  “Just my dad.”

  “Lots of people had problems with him. But he’s gone. And my family aren’t potential murderers, okay? So let’s not even go there.” She bit out the words but wouldn’t give in to the white-hot anger that threatened to take hold of her tongue. The nerve of the man. “Now…” She clicked the pen again. “Who would want to harm your sister, Randi, and your brother Thorne?”

  Some of the anger seemed to drain from him. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m sure Thorne’s made his share of enemies. You don’t get to be a millionaire without someone being envious.”

  “Envious enough to try and kill him?” Kelly said.

  “Damn, I’d hope not, but…” He closed his eyes for a second. “I don’t know.”

  That, at least, sounded honest. “He’s based out of Denver, isn’t he?”

  “He was. The corporate headquarters are there.”

  “But he’s moving back here and getting married.” It wasn’t a question, but Matt nodded and Kelly noticed the way his dark hair shone under the humming fluorescent lamps. He unbuttoned his jacket, revealing a flannel shirt stretched over a broad chest. Black hairs sprang from the opening at the neck. She tore her eyes away, gave herself a swift mental kick for noticing any part of his male anatomy and scribbled down some notes about Thorne, the oldest of the brothers.

  “Yeah, he’s marrying Nicole Stevenson.” Matt managed a half smile that was incredibly and irritatingly sexy. “Lots of people are losing that particular bet.”

  Kelly understood. Thorne, like his brothers, had been a confirmed bachelor. He, along with Matt and the youngest brother, Slade, had raised holy hell in high school and cut a wide swath through the local girls. Rich, handsome and smart to the point of arrogance, they’d soon been regarded as the most eligible bachelors in the county and thereby broken more than their share of hearts. Matt, in particular, had earned the reputation of being a ladies’ man. Love ’Em and Leave ’Em McCafferty.

  But now it seemed that the first of the invincible and never-to-be-wed brothers was about to fall victim to matrimony. The bride was an emergency room doctor at the local hospital, a single mother with twin girls.

  “Okay, so what about your sister?” she asked, trying to keep her mind on business. “Any known enemies?”

  Annoyance pulled the smile off of Matt’s cocky jaw. This wasn’t new territory. Ever since the accident, the sheriff’s department had been looking into Randi’s life. “I don’t know,” Matt admitted. “I’m sure she had her share. Hell, she wrote a column for the Seattle Clarion.”

  “Advice to the lovelorn?” Kelly filled in.

  “More than that. It’s more like general, no-nonsense advice to single people. It’s called—”

  “‘Solo.’ I know. I’ve got copies on file,” she said, not admitting that she’d found his sister’s wry outlook on single life interesting and amusing. “But most of the advice she gave was about a single person’s love life.”

  “Ironic, wouldn’t you say?” Matt said, walking to the far side of the room and shaking his head. Turning, he leaned his shoulders against a bookcase. “She gave out all this advice—the column was syndicated, picked up by other papers as well—and yet she winds up pregnant and nearly dies behind the wheel and no one even knows who the father of her kid is.”

  “I’d call that more than ironic, I’d call it downright odd.” She clicked her pen several times, the
n motioned to the one empty chair on the far side of her desk. “You could have a seat.”

  He eyed the chair just as the phone in her office rang.

  “Excuse me.” Lifting the receiver, she said, “Dillinger.”

  “Sorry to bother you, but Bob is on the line,” Stella said, still sounding nervous from her failed attempt to keep Matt McCafferty in line.

  “I’ll talk with him.” She held up a hand toward Matt as Roberto Espinoza’s voice boomed over the wires. He was out at the Haines farm and was reporting that they’d found Dora, carrying her cat as she trudged through the snow in her housecoat and slippers, following a trail that cut through the woods to a steep slope where, she had explained to Detective Espinoza, her father had taken her sledding as a girl.

  “A sad case,” Bob said on a sigh, then added that Dora was now on her way to St. James Hospital by ambulance. The paramedics who had examined her were concerned about exposure, frostbite and senility, which could translate into something deeper. Her husband, Albert, was beside himself. “I’m heading over to St. James myself and I’ll see you when I’m finished there,” Bob added.

  “I’ll meet you,” Kelly said, and glanced at the McCafferty brother filling up a good portion of her office. “When you’ve got a minute you might want to speak to Matt McCafferty. He’s here now.” While Matt listened, his expression intense, Kelly explained the concerns of the McCafferty family to her boss.

  “Arrogant son of a bitch.” Espinoza let out a whistling breath. “As if we’re not doing everything humanly possible.” She heard the click of a lighter and then a deep sigh. “Tell him to cool his jets. I’ll see him as soon as I’m finished dictating a report on Dora.”

  “Will do.” Kelly hung up and relayed the message. “He’ll see you soon. In the meantime you’re supposed to stay cool.”

  “Like hell. I’ve been cool way too long and nothing’s being done.”

  She let that one slide. As far as Kelly was concerned the meeting was over. She stood and reached for her hat and coat, then flipped open the blinds. “I’ve got work to do, McCafferty. Detective Espinoza said he’d call you and he will.” She opened the door and stood, silently inviting him to leave. “Got it?”