The sudden rattle of the front door made Carly jump. Her head swung around, her gaze colliding with McMann's as he unhooked the screen door.
"There's no one here. I got in through a back window. Guess I'll have to add breaking and entering to my list of crimes."
She couldn't speak through her tightly-closed throat. He caught her silence, his eyes narrowing as he weighed it and her rigid stance. His shoulders shifted, squared.
Ryan needed only one look at Carly's face to guess why limbs that had shaken like Jell-O only moments ago were now stiff as boards. She'd had time to think during his short absence, to remember the accusations Burns had screamed, to regret the fact that she'd pulled a murderer out of the river. Now she was alone with the killer she'd saved.
Weariness and a sense of defeat ate into his soul. He wouldn't defend himself to anyone, including Carly.
Especially Carly.
"The electricity's out," he told her, holding her eyes with his. "I checked. So is the phone."
The look on her face nearly destroyed him. He didn't blame her. He couldn't. Yet his heart felt weighted with lead as he pushed the screen door wider and held it open for her.
She didn't move, except to wrap her arms around her waist. Ryan swallowed the bitter dregs of pride and offered her the only assurance he could.
"I don't know how you managed it, but you got that tree branch out of my jacket collar and dragged us both out of the river. I owe you, Major, and I always pay my debts. You're safe here."
"Am I?"
"As long as the river doesn't rise any higher," he answered quietly.
Under her wrapped arms, Carly's fists clenched. He knew what she was thinking. He had to know. Yet he didn't even attempt to deny Burns's accusations.
How like him, she thought on a whip of anger. He convicted himself of one crime and refused to file an appeal that any first-year law student could see would result in a reversal. Now he refused to defend himself against charges of another, far more heinous crime.
Well, she wasn't a first-year law student. Nor, she decided with a tight set to her jaw, was she going to gain anything by huddling out here on the porch. Whatever was going to happen between her and McMann might just as well play out inside the house.
She pulled a long breath in through nostrils still clogged with river silt and slowly, carefully, unclenched her fists. Pushing herself away from the porch support, she ordered her wobbly legs to carry her past McMann and into the house.
Stale, unused air greeted her, along with the odor of mildew from the rains that had plagued the area all spring. Beneath those scents, though, she picked up a hint of furniture polish and carpet cleaner and old cooking... all the hidden layers that turned a house into a home.
The farmhouse was laid out like so many others in the fertile lowlands fed by the Alabama. A hall papered in faded pink roses bisected the downstairs rooms and ended in the eat-in kitchen. Narrow, functional stairs led to the upstairs bedrooms. Carly gave the front rooms only a cursory glance as she passed. The one on the left was what her grandmother always referred to as the parlor, stiff with formal furnishings and used only on Sundays when the preacher came to call.
The room on the right was obviously where the family gathered. A green and yellow plaid couch sagged against one wall. Two recliners sat side by side, facing a large-screened TV. Magazines overflowed the cherrywood rack between the recliners... National Geographies and Readers' Digests and old issues of People. Bookshelves crowded with family clutter flanked the brick fireplace.
Add a scarred, rolltop desk, another wall of bookshelves, and bound copies of the Alabama statutes, and Carly might have thought she was a little girl again, waiting with childish impatience for the sound of the Judge's heavy tread on the porch and the outrageous stories he would tell her of his days on the circuit.
Those weren't the Judge's footfalls behind her, however. They belonged to a man who not long ago had stood on the opposite side of the bench, at the defendant's table. A man who might stand there yet again.
Her chin angled, Carly strode past him into the kitchen. Having lived with the ever-present threat of hurricanes blowing up from the Gulf for most of her life, she didn't even blink at the dozen or so plastic milk jugs filled with water that crowded the counter-tops and white-painted pine table. The owners had prepared for the worst, including the loss of electricity and water. Then the worst got worse and forced their evacuation. Still, there was always a chance their water pump operated on a small, self-contained generator, like the one the Judge had installed after Hurricane Hugo had taken down power lines out at the farm for more than a week.
Heading straight for the double-basined sink set under the window looking toward the half-submerged barn, Carly twisted the tap. Water gushed out. Clear, unmuddied water.
"Thank God! The river hasn't contaminated the well yet."
With greedy hands, she splashed her face, her throat, her straggling hair. Red silt ran like rust into the sink. Blindly, she groped for the paper towels hanging just below the window. She felt almost human again when she turned and leaned her hips against the counter.
McMann watched her from across the round pine table, his eyes still rimmed with red, his manner still closed and careful. In the weak light slanting through the kitchen windows, he looked even worse than he had before she scrubbed the mud from her eyes. His shirt hung in tatters. His hair had dried in matted clumps. A long tear in his jeans bared his right leg from thigh to calf.
She didn't have to glance down at her uniform shirt and slacks to know she didn't look much better. They both wore the trappings of a creature who'd crawled out of a swamp. At the moment, however, her appearance constituted the least of her concerns. The quiet thundered between her and McMann for long seconds before he broke it.
"What do we do now?"
She gripped the counter behind her. "I'm thinking."
"One?" he asked softly. "One?"
"You always think in threes. What's number one on your list of possibilities?"
A flush warmed her just-washed face. How had he come to know her so well?
"One, I'm going upstairs to clean off. If the sink works, the shower should, too."
"Two?"
"I'm going to raid the owner's closet."
"And three?"
"Three, I intend to wait right here while you complete steps one and two." She dug her ragged nails into the counter and went with the gut-deep instincts that were rapidly cementing into certainty. "Then I'm going to listen while you tell me why Billy Hopewell shot Elaine Dawson-Smith."
Chapter Fifteen
Carly left McMann rooted in silent shock. She half expected him to put out an arm to bar her way and demand an explanation before her still wobbly legs carried her through the kitchen door. Thankfully, he did neither.
She couldn't have given him an explanation at that moment, couldn't have summoned either the strength or the coherency to explain what was basically a matter of instinct. McMann didn't kill Billy Hopewell. She believed that with every fiber of her being. Nor was there any evidence to indicate he'd killed Elaine Dawson-Smith. But he knew who did, or maybe he just suspected.
In any case, he'd protected someone with his silence, and it didn't take an F. Lee Bailey to deduce that someone wasn't Gator Burns. The hate flaming between the two men had torched the air around them. No, McMann wouldn't keep silent to protect Gator. Nor would he have any reason to shield Michael Smith. He didn't even know the officer accused of killing his wife.
Which left the troubled youth McMann had tutored... and subsequently buried. By a process of elimination, Carly could only conclude he'd been protecting Billy Hopewell. Whether McMann would
confirm or deny that, though, was a matter she intended to take up after she sluiced away the rest of the river mud.
The wooden stairs groaned under her weight, as though they'd borne a few too many climbers in their years of use. Grayish light slanted through the windows at the west end of th
e upstairs hall. With a start, Carly realized it was still just the middle of the afternoon. She felt as though she'd been in the river for half a lifetime.
Aching with weariness, she limped one-shoed down the hall, glancing through the open doors as she passed. The three bedrooms and small, functional bath all showed signs of recent occupation and hasty departure. Closets stood open. There were empty spots on dressers where precious pictures and possessions had been snatched up.
Two rooms obviously belonged to kids. Michael Jordan posters and a whole shelf of basketball trophies decorated one; the second was crowded with a frilly-skirted dressing table, teddy bears, and young girl's clothing scattered in colorful heaps on every horizontal surface.
The third was the master bedroom. Carly didn't waste time looking around, but headed straight for the closet. If the river continued to rise, it could contaminate the well at any minute or flood the pump's backup generator. With silent apologies to the owners for invading their privacy, she grabbed a man's work shirt and a pair of woman's shorts. The shorts could have circled her twice around, but the drawstring waist would keep them from sliding off her hips. Feeling like a thief, she rifled through the dresser drawers for equally large but clean underwear.
A few scrubs with a wash rag, one smear of shampoo worked into her scalp, a quick rinse, and she was done. Grimacing at the multitude of scrapes and bruises that mottled her arms and legs, she toweled off and let the blue work shirt swallow her whole.
Like the shirt, the undies and shorts were far too big for her, but the clean, soft cotton felt wonderful against her skin, letting the shirt tails dangle over the shorts, she rinsed out her dirty clothes, then searched the medicine cabinet above the sink for antiseptic cream. She'd doctor herself downstairs, she decided, while McMann took his turn in the bathroom.
When she returned to the kitchen, she saw that he'd recovered enough from her parting bombshell to do some salvaging while she bathed. A flashlight and several boxes of candles had joined the milk jugs on the table. The cupboard doors stood open, as if for a visual inventory. The array of canned goods that stocked the shelves told Carly they certainly wouldn't starve.
"The bathroom's yours," she said with a briskness that barely skimmed the surface of her exhaustion. "Make it quick, then you'd better fill the tub with water, too, in case the pump goes down."
She brushed past him to dump her wet clothes in the sink. She'd hang them outside later. When she had the energy to lift her arms.
She might have known McMann would ignore her brisk instruction. A small sigh escaped her as he closed the distance between them. She could have used a little more time to regroup before he confronted her.
To Carly's surprise, he shoved a glass at her. "Here, drink this."
She took a cautious sniff of the syrupy-sweet odor. "Peach brandy?"
"I couldn't find anything stronger."
"You're in the heart of the Bible belt, remember?" She tried to hand him back the glass. "I'll pass. I can't take this stuff on an empty stomach, or any other time for that matter."
"You're white as a sheet without your layers of mud. Drink it."
"McMann..."
"One, you drink. Two, I clean up. Three, we talk."
Her eyes narrowed. Was he mocking her? Did she really count off like that?
"I don't like peach brandy," she said with a snap to her voice that wasn't there before.
"Drink it, Carly, or we don't talk. That's the deal."
She gave in to the quiet ultimatum with a distinct lack of grace. "It's too late for deals, but I'll drink the damned stuff if it makes you feel better."
After the first, eye-watering punch, the potent concoction licked at her belly with a heat that spread with astonishing speed to assorted portions of her anatomy.
Carly sipped cautiously while McMann showered. She was beginning to feel the brandy's effect when he came back downstairs a short time later. Warmth suffused her limbs and added to the mugginess that came with the lack of electricity and any means of stirring the air inside the house. Carly had opened the downstairs windows in hopes of catching a breeze while she spread antiseptic ointment on her various scratches.
When McMann appeared in the doorway, cream squirted through her fingers and squiggled down her leg. Amazing what a little unmuddied water and a comb could do. He looked almost human again, with his black hair slicked back and his face scrubbed clean. She wished he'd put on the shirt he carried in one hand, though, and lessen the impact of that muscled chest, wide and hard-ridged and Lightly dusted with dark hair that tapered to a V just above the waistband of his appropriated jeans. Like Carly's borrowed shorts, the jeans skimmed dangerously low on his hips.
Annoyed, she realized she was staring at the flat belly revealed by that sagging waistband. She scooped the squiggle of antiseptic onto a fingertip and offered a cool suggestion.
"You had better spread some of this on your scratches."
"I will, when they stop oozing." At her quick frown, he shrugged. "The shower opened up some of the cuts on my back."
"Let me see."
He tossed the shirt on the table and reached for the chair opposite hers. "They'll heal."
"Let me see." Cream in hand, Carly rounded the table. "Lean forward, McMann, and I'll... Good Lord!"
Horrified, she stared at the raw, vicious welt that traced diagonally from the right side of his neck across his spine and lost itself in his left ribs. A sluggish liquid too thin for pus and too clear for blood weeped from the wound in several spots. Swallowing, she probed the worst spot with a cautious fingertip.
"This looks like it might need stitching."
"Just put some antiseptic on it."
"It's going to leave a scar."
"One more isn't going to matter."
"No," she murmured," I guess not."
Her gaze moved from the angry welt to the older, more faded battle marks imprinted on his tanned flesh. A jagged white line showed just above one rib. A longer, neater one followed the curve of his right scapula. The same tracery showed just above one elbow. He'd been cut and stitched more times than a quilt.
"Did you collect all these scars playing hockey?"
"Most of them. You get slammed into the boards often enough, you break a few bones."
"Wonderful sport," she muttered.
"Yeah."
The clipped response shut the door of that subject in Carly's face, but not before she'd caught a glimpse of the emptiness behind it.
He missed the brutal game. Just as he missed the cold, the ice that coated the lake behind his house, the bursts of fall color he'd described to her that night at her place. Hockey was his life, or it had been before he confessed to the crime that brought him to Alabama... where he might stand accused of yet another crime if he couldn't refute Gator Burns's allegations. Carefully, she daubed ointment along the raw welt.
"Tell me about Billy Hopewell and Elaine Dawson-Smith."
She felt him flinch under her fingertips.
"Burns said you killed them. Both the assistant warden and I heard his allegations, as I assume we were intended to. You'll have to answer her when we get back. You might as well answer me now."
Back stiff, face away from her, he didn't answer. Her fingers glided over his skin, soothing, insisting.
"Tell me about the Afternoon Club. Tell me how Billy got in, and why he had to kill to get out."
Still he didn't answer. Dammit, didn't he realize how much was at stake here?
"Were you part of it? " she probed insistently. "Did you...?"
He moved then, jerking away from her hand, surging to his feet. He turned, his blue eyes glacial.
"Did I screw those women for money? Or just for the hell of it? Is that what you want to know? "
"I want to know everything, McMann."
He hissed, moving forward just enough to crowd her against the table.
"Every twisted detail, Carly? Every mewl, every grunt? How many times I made them come? How much
they paid for each orgasm? Is that what you want?"
She lifted her chin. "If those details will explain Elaine Dawson-Smith's death, yes."
"And what if I tell you that I never provided any of those women stud service?"
"Did you?"
The answer dragged out of him, low, rough, ripped from the core he kept so private, so shielded. "No."
The woman in her wanted to sag in boneless relief. The lawyer remained cool and relentless.
"Then we're back to the same question I asked a few moments ago. How did Billy get in so deep with you watching out for him the way you did, and why did he have to kill to get out?"
The anger, the scorn in his face died, drowned by an agonizing guilt.
"I didn't watch out for him."
He turned away from her, reached for the shirt he'd tossed on the table. His moves were jerky, lacking his usual coordinated grace. Shoving his arms into the faded blue denim, he moved away. The window over the sink drew him, or maybe it was the bleak watery landscape outside. Bracing his hands wide on the Formica counter, he stared through the curtained panes.
"I knew the kid was in trouble. He wanted to tell me, tried to tell me, but I didn't have the skill to draw it out of him. Every time I got close, every time I thought he'd open up, he'd get to thinking about what his momma would have said and retreat into misery. That was before I started hearing rumors. About inmates and some local women."
She thought of a dozen questions. Why didn't he try to get professional help for Billy? Why didn't he take his worries over the kid to someone in authority? Why did he keep these rumors to himself?
The answer stared her in the face. McMann didn't trust the system that had imprisoned both him and Billy to help either of them.
"I shrugged off the rumors at first," he said slowly. "The whole time I was in, someone was always whispering in his bunk about the hot piece of snatch they'd spotted somewhere on base that day, fantasizing about ways to get into her pants. Even after I got out, I'd hear about them when I came back twice a week. The honey-pot wives playing golf in tiny little skirts or riding their horses in skintight jeans; the secretaries out sneaking a cigarette break and flashing some thigh as they crossed their legs; the female officers jogging along River Road in skimpy little shorts and sweat-slicked T-shirts."
River Rising Page 17