Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

  A response was finally coaxed out of Mick’s mouth, his first since they’d arrived.

  “Sure I can,” he mumbled, still looking out the window.

  Gypsy knew he’d been egged on to the limits of his endurance to have broken his silence, and, not for the first time, wondered just what had happened between grandfather and grandson. Whatever it was, Monty seemed to want to forget about it. He kept insisting that Mick come into his grandfather’s business and prepare to take it over. Mick not only appeared uninterested in the prospect, but disgusted by it.

  She’d seen family feuds before, but this was another level entirely. There was no reconciliation possible here. None.

  Her mind churned with questions. She had to wonder if Mick had been physically hurt during those years he’d had to live with his father’s father. He’d always been pretty cheerful as a kid—at least, as cheerful as a boy whose parents had died in a fire could be. Now, she still saw that same smiling guy…with an edge of steel behind the grin. She’d noted flashes of it, knew he had a temper underneath that easygoing exterior. If Monty couldn’t see it, woe be to him, because there might as well be steam coming out of Mick’s ears.

  You don’t want to push this man. She didn’t say the words aloud, but she tried to communicate them to Monty with a stern look.

  “Can we please get back to the point of this meeting?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Bell,” –that was the third time Fremantle had called her Miss instead of Chief—“but I’m afraid I don’t understand why you think Mr. Tanner might have any information that could help you solve these murders.”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “We’re exploring all possibilities,” she said, giving Mick a look that said to please keep his cool for just a few more minutes. She’d finally gotten the floor and intended to use it. “We know the opening of the carnival caused some…upheaval here in Ocean Whispers. There was opposition to it.”

  Monty blew out a disgusted breath. “A place for con-men and thieves to prey on the unwary. It brought property values down overnight and could destroy this economy.”

  She didn’t argue about how the economy had improved, with hotels and restaurants especially happy with an influx of visitors into town.

  Fremantle cleared his throat and cast his client a quelling look. “Disagreeing with the arrival of a carnival on the outskirts of a quaint beach town like Ocean Whispers is one thing. Two murders are completely separate. I’m sure everyone in town is thinking the same thing.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Well, when you invite riff-raff into your community, you’re bound to invite crime as well. Those types are bound to turn on each other.”

  “There is no proof that whoever committed these crimes is actually a member of the carnival community.” She narrowed her eyes. “In fact, it could be quite the opposite. Perhaps someone local, who disapproves of the Winter Carnival’s presence, is trying to create enough controversy to drive it out.”

  The lawyer’s eyes widened as he finally grasped the real purpose of her visit here. His client, however, obviously did not.

  “I’d like to give anybody who manages that trick a medal!” He sneered at Mick. “Whoever can get my grandson out of this hundred-year lease quagmire he created is all right in my book.”

  Gypsy swung on her chair to face the white-haired man, whose gnarled hands were wrapped around the crystal handle of a long, black cane. “Do you mean you approve of brutal murder as a way of controlling land rights?”

  “Don’t answer that.”

  Smart lawyer.

  “Of course he does,” Mick interjected, his golden-brown eyes narrowed and stormy.

  She’d never seen him like this, so absent the warmth that was an innate part of him. He looked and sounded like a completely different person. One she wouldn’t want to cross. His grandfather was a fool not to see it.

  “Everyone knows the ends justify the means,” Mick spat, as if repeating something that had been drilled into his head. “That certain people are simply superior to others, and if there is something you don’t understand, you must either destroy it or gain control over it.”

  “You’re goddamned right,” the old man said. “And here I thought you weren’t paying attention to your lessons.”

  Mick rose to his feet, his body so tense it looked like it would crack in half. His hands flexed, the fingers opening and then closing, as if he had to straighten them to work out a kink or a pain. “I learned the lesson, old man. You taught it very well.”

  Gypsy suddenly understood. A vision of what had happened to destroy this family flashed through her mind. While she could not be certain she was right, it made so much sense, she suspected she had the answer.

  Monty Tanner was a spoiled, privileged asshole who liked his own standing and stature, and always got his way. The idea of having a grandson with special, paranormal abilities would not sit well with him. Not at all.

  The scars.

  When Mick had come out of the crime scene trailer without his gloves on yesterday, she’d seen what looked like old, faded burn scars on his palms, as well as delicate lines from ancient slices, thin and crisscrossed, and probably once very deep. She remembered he’d had some of the burn marks as a kid, but definitely not as many as there were now. Nor did she recall those scars from old cuts, or the smoothness of his fingertips.

  Now she understood.

  Monty Tanner had abused his grandson. Tortured him. She’d stake her reputation on it.

  That would explain not only the marks, but also the estrangement, not to mention Mick’s fury at his grandfather. Judging by the elderly man’s demeanor, not only had he never tried to apologize, he’d almost certainly never even acknowledged what he’d done.

  She knew Mick would probably feel better if he forgave and forgot. But how can you forgive someone who didn’t appear to even want it, or recognize that they’d ever done anything that required it?

  Suddenly, Mick wasn’t the only one who was full of rage. White-flames of righteous anger pulsed through her, as did anguish at what had happened to the little boy she’d once liked to torment with childish games. God, no wonder Shane had kept fighting for his nephew, and no wonder Mick didn’t want anything to do with his only grandparent.

  Monty Tanner was not just a spoiled, selfish prick.

  He was a monster.

  “I think we’re finished here.” She felt like getting up and slapping the selfish smirk right off that man’s face. She couldn’t, of course. But there was nothing that said she had to make this investigation easy for him. “Mr. Tanner, I’m going to have to insist you answer more questions in a formal interview down at the station. Your attorney is, of course, welcome to come with you.”

  Tanner sputtered. Mick’s mouth creased into the tiniest smile.

  Fremantle immediately objected. “That is not at all necessary, Chief Bell.”

  Ahh. At last he remembered her title.

  “I’m sure we’re all very concerned about this crime spree in Ocean Whispers, and Mr. Tanner has expressed to me his sincere sadness over those deaths.” His expression was pious. “He, of course, has tender feelings toward the people who helped raise his grandson.”

  Mick’s bark of laughter rang throughout the office. “Tender feelings? He’d shed tears if the Dow tumbled more than a hundred points in a day. For human beings—or those he considers less than human? Not a chance.”

  “You can’t talk about me like that, boy. You…you freak of nature!”

  Mick had obviously had enough. Shaking with anger, his gloved hands fisted so tightly the leather looked about to split, he spun toward the door. “This farce is over. The next time you want to talk to me, do it through my lawyer—my father, Shane Wyler.”

  Monty’s milky blue eyes widened and his body quivered in rage. “That—that circus animal is not your father! My son is your father, and if he were alive, he would rue the day you were ever born. But he’s no
t alive, is he? And it’s all your…”

  Slam.

  Mick was gone. She didn’t blame him one bit.

  Gypsy’s pulse raced as she watched Richard Fremantle gawk at his client, and Monty Tanner pound his walking stick on the floor, enraged that Mick had left mid-tirade. He might not have finished his sentence, but she knew which word would have come next. Fault. He was about to accuse Mick of being responsible for his parents’ deaths.

  Jesus. Mick had been a little boy—four or five at the most, she recalled—when his parents had died. Had this wicked man been tormenting him, not only physically, but emotionally, for all these years? Had he tried to convince a child that he had killed his own parents, who had died in a tragic, accidental fire?

  It was diabolical.

  She knew Mick. She knew he could deal with the physical pain. But that kind of mental abuse had to have left the kind of scars that could never be covered by gloves, or healed by time.

  If she could, she would arrest Monty Tanner right this minute, put him in cuffs and drag him out of the building and down to the station, just for being a fucking asshole. But she couldn’t. She had nothing on him, not one single thing. She still wondered if he could be trying to drive the carnival out of town, but had more doubts now, after Jersey’s death. One murder sounded possible. Two, especially so brutal, was overkill. Literally. The bird shoved into Jersey’s throat had felt so personal. Not a random act of violence intended to drive the carnival out of town, although the murders were already having that effect.

  But no, she didn’t really believe Montgomery Tanner was responsible for what was happening at the Winter Carnival. Her threat to bring him down to the station for questioning had been a bluff, and his lawyer was good enough to call it.

  “You can be sure, Chief Bell, that Mr. Tanner will not be saying another word, and he will not be accompanying you to the police station.” He gave his client a quelling look when it appeared Tanner was about to speak. “He has been cooperative, has answered your questions, and done his civic duty. You have absolutely no reason to consider him a suspect, and I will not allow him to be treated as one.”

  She gritted her teeth, knowing the battle was lost. “I’ll be in touch if I have any further questions.”

  “Any further questions can be directed straight to me,” Fremantle said. “Mr. Tanner will not be present at any more of these inquisitions.”

  In the end, all she could do was rise from her chair, offer a curt nod to the lawyer, and then turn to Mick’s grandfather.

  “Just so you know, Mr. Tanner, I’m going to look at every single thing you’ve done since you arrived in this town. If I find anything—a single whiff of impropriety, a strong-arm email, a hint of cash going awry to anybody in the city planning or zoning departments—I’m going to go right to the state Attorney General and have him nail your ass to the wall.”

  He sputtered. “You can’t…you…”

  “Yes, I can. And I will. Actually, I’m looking forward to it.” She strode to the door and put her hand on the knob. Then, because she just couldn’t leave it alone, she looked over her shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I knew your grandson when he was just a little boy, right after his parents had died. I’d never seen anyone in such pain before. He used to have nightmares about the fire, and scream for his Daddy in the middle of the night. He screamed so loudly everyone in their trailers would hear him and weep on his behalf. Even us kids.” She shook her head slowly. “You have ruined what was probably the last good relationship you might ever have had in your life. Still…you didn’t ruin him.”

  Monty’s mouth opened, and closed. She’d like to think she saw a flicker of emotion cross his face.

  But she doubted it.

  Although he’d gone up to Savannah the night before to grab some spare clothes, and had planned to stay at Uncle Shane’s all week, Mick instead headed back to his condo after the meeting in the attorney’s office. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy staying with his family, or that he technically needed anything else from home. Today, though, after he’d sat in the same room with his grandfather for the first time in years and seen the same old monster he’d always known, he needed to be in his own place. He had to be surrounded by his own things—things almost entirely untouched by any hands except his—where he could rip off his gloves and feel comfortable and not on the verge of mental intrusion at every moment.

  He’d eaten off his own silent dishes, checked email on the laptop nobody else had touched since its manufacture. He spent a long time in the shower he’d tiled himself, washing off the weight of that meeting.

  Mick had left Ocean Whispers feeling unclean, with the words Your Fault echoing over and over, and had felt the need to scrub it all away. He really hadn’t believed the old man could still do or say anything that would affect him. But there was that one vulnerability that had never been entirely erased. Hitting Mick in the memory banks where there were always lingering questions about the night of the fire—Could I have done something? Changed something?—was the perfect weapon. A steaming hot shower was the only way he could wash off the stench of the exchange, as well as the disgust he felt at being related to someone so horrible.

  Fortunately, he consoled himself with the fact that he was related to the very good and kind Shane Wyler, and his loving parents. If there were drops of blood he’d inherited from Montgomery Tanner, he’d spilled them during his childhood and had the scars to prove it.

  “Not good enough,” he mumbled as he toweled off after his shower. Pulling on his oldest pair of jeans—worn, and relatively clean of any memories except his own—he headed into the living room to do what came next. For normalcy to return, he also needed high-quality, precision headphones, and blaring music. Wall-banging, raucous, mindless heavy metal with a strong bass beat, crazy drums, and a vocal line that couldn’t even be understood were just right for calming him down.

  He closed his eyes and let the music drive everything else away. The cacophony burnt out the dark thoughts from his brain, as well as all the memories he didn’t own. Like the ones of Barry’s final moments, which had lingered since his trip through the man’s memories of his death.

  It was only when one track ended and another was about to begin that he realized someone was pounding on his front door. Pulling off the headphones, he glanced at his phone and realized it was nine-thirty. Figuring a coworker was stopping by to see what was going on, he padded to the door, still barefoot, and yanked it open.

  It wasn’t somebody from work. In fact, he’d just surprised Gypsy Bell mid-knock. She almost pounded the back of her fist into his face.

  He jerked his head back just in time. “Whoa!”

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “Thanks for not punching me.”

  “Thanks for finally answering,” she said, dropping her hand.

  She also dropped her gaze, undoubtedly noticing he wore jeans and nothing else. It would also be hard to miss that his hair was damp, and his body slick. Judging by the way her lips parted as she drew in a tiny, audible breath, she hadn’t missed a damn thing.

  Just like he wasn’t missing anything about her.

  She wasn’t wearing her uniform—it was the first time he’d seen her out of it since she’d shown up in his office last week. Her lightweight sweater—ruby red—did amazing things for the curves he’d visualized under that rigid uniform. Her jeans hugged full hips, and long, lean legs, and her dusty cowboy boots only added to the sexiness. She wasn’t the type to ever wear something spike-heeled, and impractical…so she went for sexy and kick-ass instead.

  Her thick, black hair was loose and down, falling over her shoulders in a lush curtain that his hands tingled to touch. He loved women’s hair. Since so much of his world was felt through a thin layer of leather, he got a sensory thrill out of indulging in the feel of soft skin and silky hair against his bare skin. Hers was longer than he’d pictured; he wondered how she managed to tuck it all up in that prim little bun she wore under her hat.
It made her look younger, freer, the wild Gypsy he’d known as a kid, all grown up into a wickedly womanly package.

  She was so fucking hot he felt like going up in flames.

  “This might not be a good idea,” he finally said.

  “Because you’re half-naked?”

  “I’m decent. More like because you’re not in uniform.”

  “Would you feel better if you go put a shirt on?”

  “Gypsy…”

  “I can resist you, hotshot.”

  But can I resist you?

  “Come on.” She lifted her other hand, in which she held a twelve-pack of beer in a cardboard case. “After the past couple of days, I think we deserve to get drunk and toast to old, lost friends.”

  Okay. Toasting to old friends who’d died awful deaths. It wasn’t exactly a set-up for romance. Or sex, which he’d been thinking about since the second he’d seen that hair loose over her shoulders, waterfalling over breasts that pressed against that red, v-necked sweater. Cool it.

  “Fine.” He stood aside and gestured her in, wondering how she’d gotten his home address. Of course, she was a cop.

  A few minutes ago, he had been convinced he didn’t want company. Now, though, that a gorgeous, fiery, smart brunette bearing beer had arrived, he’d had a change of heart. He’d like to think it wasn’t connected to the change in the way his jeans were fitting right now, but he wasn’t a damned liar. At least not to himself.

  Hell. He really needed to get some clothes on and get his mind back into friends-having-a-beer-and-commiserating mode, which was the only reason she’d come here. She might have cast an interested eye over his bare chest and shoulders, but the woman was more in-control than anyone he’d ever met. Nothing was going to happen between them tonight. Not. One. Thing.

  “Make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”

  He went into his bedroom and found a shirt, which he quickly pulled on. He pulled on some self-control, too. Grabbing the nearest pair of gloves, he went back out to find her standing in his kitchen. “Did you find the glasses?”