by Nancy Bush
Connor managed to hustle Jimmy outside. He paid him for his time, hoping he’d head back to Seattle, but Jimmy was having none of it. He was determined to hang around like a bad smell and stink up everything.
Hayley shivered and pulled the parka closer. So now she was at the scene of the crime and Connor, apparently, was waiting for miracles.
“How’re you doing?” he asked as he tramped across the dead stubble toward her.
“Okay.”
“Let’s go back to the motel.”
She nodded. They walked across the field side by side. Hayley’s eyes had a will of their own. They glanced at the spot—the spot—where it had happened. She knew exactly where it was.
Instantly, she felt the familiar increase of her heartbeat, the flood of warmth and then its quick disappearance, like the turn of the tide. Anxiety attack. She hadn’t had them in years. Had buried them under layers of forced sanity. She was not like Denise.
His gloved hand suddenly encircled her arm. She stumbled anyway, gazing in horror at a circle of ground behind the house, just outside the yard, in a thicket of overgrown blackberry vines and jack pines.
“What is it?” Connor asked from far away.
A woman shrieking and screaming. An arm swinging downward, bludgeoning an inert body. The body bouncing and twitching with each blow. Blood, blood . . . so much blood. Denise, rocking to and fro, her hands covering her face, her clothes splattered red. A piece of granite sticky with blood and hair.
“Hayley?” he asked, grabbing her shoulders, shaking her, his breath white gusts against the gray sky.
“He deserved to die,” she said.
Connor gazed at her, feeling her anguish as his own. Her brittle shell had broken so completely and left the unformed woman. Knowing she would resist, he reacted to his feelings anyway, dragging her to his chest, cradling her close.
He didn’t expect anything more. Not now. Not today. It was all unraveling anyway. She would tell him in time because he’d ripped the scab off this wound and she was writhing with pain. He felt for her, but, like Denise, Hayley had to come to grips with the past if she ever expected to be whole.
So he was surprised when she swept in a shaking breath and spoke again, and her words turned his veins to ice. “It was me,” she said quietly. “Because he kept trying to . . . because he followed me and Denise, and came into our rooms . . . and he . . . and he . . .” A shudder ran through her small frame. “And he touched me. And hurt me.” He felt her swallow. “I killed him. I had to.”
Connor closed his eyes, resting his chin on the top of her crown. Daniels did deserve to die. He did. With a wrench of his heart he heard the echo of his sister’s admonitions. You’re going to put one of those girls in jail . . . you’re going to ruin her life for the sake of avenging Thomas Daniels . . .
He just hadn’t expected it to be Hayley.
It was later. Much later. He’d taken Hayley back to the Wheel Treat You Right Motel, Wagon Wheel’s only decent lodgings, regardless of the silly name, and now Connor was driving in his sister’s Ford Edge, footloose and bothered. His feelings were all tangled up. He was close to the truth; like a bloodhound he could scent it. But it hurt.
The Edge bounced up the rain-slogged ruts to a gray-shingled house with a trim lawn and a carport where an older-model wagon looked as if it had just wheezed to a stop.
Connor cut the engine, pocketed the keys, and made his way around the mud puddles to the front door. The sky was slate gray and close and when the door opened, letting out the aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg, Connor breathed deeply, an ache building inside him he couldn’t control.
“Yes?” a woman with tightly curled gray hair asked.
“Mrs. Saunderson? I have an appointment with your husband.”
“Oh, yes . . .” She held the door open wide and Connor stepped inside.
Saunderson sat by a tidy fire, glasses slipping down his nose, working his way through the paper’s daily crossword puzzle. He glanced up at Connor and waited while the younger man took a seat. Then he said simply, “I can’t tell you anything more than what I said on the phone. Hayley Scott was in my history class and she came in with bruises now and again. Her sister always said it was just accidents, but I didn’t believe it. Called the county, and went to her house, too. That last time she was concussed, but Daniels wasn’t around to question. He was already gone.”
Already dead, Connor guessed, his gut tightening.
Saunderson sighed heavily. “There was talk of sending Hayley to a foster home, since no one but the twins were around, but nothing happened, and then they all left.”
“When you went to the house, what were your impressions?”
Reflectively, he pulled his glasses off his nose. “That something terrible had happened and they were all desperately trying to cover it up.”
Denise sprayed perfume liberally on her throat and wrists, inhaling deeply. The scent penetrated so deeply, it amazed her. She was awake. No perpetual sleepwalking. No fuzziness and lost hours and delusions. She was awake.
Confession must be good for the soul, she decided wryly, gazing around her bedroom. Odd. It felt like a stranger’s room. Everything, in fact, gave her a creepy feeling that she was living out someone else’s life. She was entirely disconnected from her room, the house, the lifestyle, even John...
She had to remind herself almost hourly that yes, this was Denise Scott’s life, and that yes, she was Denise Scott.
New thoughts. Eerie feelings. Stone was chipping away at her, and for reasons she didn’t entirely understand, she was letting him. Maybe it was because her bipolar-crapola problem was under control. Or maybe it was no drugs. Or maybe she’d just reached that age when she could face what happened to her, dredge up the buried memories.
Or maybe it was Stoner himself.
Whatever the case, she was better. She could feel it inside. Like great ice floes breaking apart and floating away.
Denise closed her eyes and held out her fist, slowly opening her hand until her fingers splayed and stretched, mentally pushing—until all the baddies suddenly spurted from her fingers and shot away.
Opening one eye, she glanced at her straining hand. Silent laughter caught in her throat. The exercise that had saved the remnants of her sanity didn’t work anymore. She was better.
She’d worked today and the production crew had been warm and relaxed and so easy to be with that she could hardly believe it. With her history, she would expect them to hate her, or at the very least, distrust her. But they didn’t walk on eggshells around her, and they didn’t treat her with extra deference. No, they were all there to get the job done, and the job had got done remarkably quickly. John’s assistant director was a guy who knew how to make everyone feel comfortable, though she wished John would return from his sudden trip to parts unknown. She still worked best with him.
So now she was waiting for Stoner. She’d begged a dinner out of him, the Freudian cheapskate, and though he’d been loathe to agree, he’d finally caved in.
He hadn’t taken his belief that Dinah was Thomas’s killer to the police. Though unspoken between them, he clearly knew Denise would lie, cheat, and steal to protect her twin. And if Dinah truly bashed the bastard over the head—Denise was still unclear on the details, there—it was in self-defense. No question.
Except there would be questions. She’d always known there would be questions. She’d just spent a year of her life answering questions, and no self-respecting lawman could keep from asking more of the same.
Which was why Hayley’s involvement with Connor Jackley was such a problem. He had COP stamped all over him, regardless of how sexy he was, and that was bad news any way you read it.
She was in the kitchen, mixing pesto with sundried tomatoes when the feeling stole over her, standing the hair on her arms on end. She stared at her forearms, watching the gooseflesh raise before her eyes, hearing a rushing in her ears.
Dinah.
The message came in a
block. She understood it as she calmly walked toward the closet and reached for her coat. A message. It wasn’t often she got one. She was usually too self-absorbed, too undone, to tune in. Maybe she was wrong, but she wasn’t about to stop.
But this one was powerful and she was clear tonight. Clear and alert.
The doorbell chimed at the exact moment she pulled the front door open. Standing on the flagstone steps, Stone was surprised enough for her to scare a smile out of him.
“Well, hi. Perfect timing.”
“Can you drive me to the airport?” she asked, shrugging into her coat.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Wagon Wheel. Dinah’s there, and she’s in trouble.”
He’d insisted on coming even though she didn’t want him. She truly didn’t want him here. Things were much too complicated as it was.
“Go back to L.A.” Dinah ordered for the billionth time, but Callahan dogged her heels from the rental car to the front door of the Deschutes County Sheriff Department.
Bursting through the front door, Dinah didn’t expect the impact she made. Mouths dropped and someone punched an intercom button and stuttered out, “G-G-Gus, you’d better g-get out here.”
A rather homely-looking man appeared. As soon as he caught a look at her, and then John who’d followed right on her heels, a friendly smile split his face. “Well, hullo,” he greeted them both, pumping Dinah’s hand, then John’s. “So you came up here with Jackley, too, huh?”
“Have you talked to my sister?” Dinah bit out.
“She’s been talking to Connor.”
“Has she?” Dinah didn’t crack a smile.
“Could you help us locate them?” John suggested, belatedly introducing himself and Dinah, which the sheriff waved away until he heard—really heard—Dinah’s name.
“Ah’m sorry,” he declared. “I thought you must be Denise, since you’re here with Mr. Callahan. Well, Connor’s probably at his sister, Mary’s. I’ll give you the address.”
He scribbled down the information, so helpful and courteous that Dinah immediately distrusted him. She didn’t like the small-town goodwill. She remembered how it was when they were the poor girls living with Thomas Daniels. The looks. The pity. The avid interest.
Nope, she didn’t trust Sheriff Gus Dempsey at all.
“I don’t want you coming with me,” Dinah declared when they were outside and climbing into the rental car. John, however, just slid his lean form in the passenger seat, content to let her lead.
It was a lie anyway, Dinah thought, gritting her teeth. She did want him with her. Although she was scared shitless that he would learn more than he’d bargained for.
Hayley sat in an antique rocker in the corner of the kitchen, chilled to the bone. Rocking gently, she distanced herself from the chatter going on around the dinner table. Connor’s sister, Mary, was sweet, and her husband, Kurt, didn’t say much but his silence was companionable. The kids were great, especially Matt, who wanted so badly to be part of this miserable affair. His older sister, Heather, just stared and smiled because, Hayley had finally realized, she was in the room with a bonafide actress.
Wait’ll she gets a look at Denise.
It was silly, a real cosmic joke, in fact, that Hayley, now that she’d won a major film role, didn’t feel like an actor at all. The goal she’d fought for like a bulldog had no substance. There was nothing there. And she’d ended up back here in Wagon Wheel anyway—the hellhole of her nightmares, had she let herself remember.
Connor came over to her, dropping a palm lightly on her shoulder. “You didn’t eat anything.”
“I’m not hungry.”
For an answer he walked back to the kitchen, snagged a couple of dinner rolls, came back over, and offered her his free hand.
Reluctantly, she accepted and they strolled onto the back porch of the rustic cabin. Kurt was a builder and he’d put the house together bit by bit, weekend by weekend, until it was nearly complete, fashioned entirely out of wood. Wood floors, wood ceilings, wood walls, and wood beams. It was bare and beautiful, and nothing like the threadbare carpets and scarred linoleum of the house she’d shared with Thomas Daniels.
But Wagon Wheel was the same. She’d forgotten the way it smelled, its rural vastness, its complete dislocation from the noise and traffic and accelerated beat of the city.
He propped himself against the porch rail as Hayley sank onto the dusty cushions of a creaking swing. The air was so cold, it hurt your lungs. Hayley huddled inside herself. “Have you called the sheriff?” she asked dully, knowing he would, praying he wouldn’t.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t do it until you make me believe you killed your stepfather.”
“I told you I did.”
He shrugged, as if he could just brush the whole thing away. “I’ve got to have more.”
“More than a confession?” she demanded with a trace of her old fire.
“Tell me about the night it happened.”
“I’ll tell the sheriff. I don’t want to go through it twice.”
He tore one of the rolls in half and handed part to her. “Eat,” he commanded.
“What’s with you?”
Connor looked at her in that way that got under her skin and sent her stomach somersaulting. “I can’t decide whether you really believe you did it, or if you’re protecting one of your sisters.”
“I’m not protecting my sisters.”
“I talked to your history teacher this afternoon. Mr. Saunderson.”
Hayley recoiled. “And?”
“He remembers you were concussed right around the time Daniels disappeared.”
“Well, there you have it. He hit me and I killed him.”
“You don’t even remember, do you? Something’s come back to you, but you really don’t remember.” He leaned closer. “What is it that’s come back?”
Hayley hesitated. The urge to tell him was growing stronger.
“Connor?” Mary called from inside the house. One hand fiddled with her neckline and she glanced nervously over her shoulder.
“What?” he asked a bit sharply, annoyed at being interrupted.
She lifted her palms and without waiting to be announced, a tall, incredibly fat woman worked her way through the back door and joined them on the porch. She wore a denim smock and a pair of moccasins, and she breathed heavily, as if the mere effort of breathing was near fatally taxing—which it was, Hayley supposed.
Hayley glanced at Connor who was clearly surprised by his visitor. “Hello, Candy,” he said. “This is Hayley Scott. I’m not sure you ever met.”
Candy gazed at Hayley, waiting. Hayley shook her head and Candy said, “No.”
“Candy is Thomas Daniels’s daughter,” he explained for Hayley’s benefit, though he’d already mentioned her during one of their long talks on the subject. Hayley nodded, feeling uncomfortable.
“The whole town’s talkin’ about Daniels’s murder,” Candy stated flatly. She glanced around for somewhere to sit, but apart from the railing like Connor, there was only the swing. Hayley got to her feet but Candy waved her back down. “I figured I had as much right as anybody to know what’s goin’ on.” She threw a sideways glance at Hayley. “He was a bastard.”
“Yes, he was,” Hayley agreed.
“And I’m glad somebody killed him.”
Hayley smiled, but a shiver started somewhere inside and her lips began to tremble.
Candy turned her glimmering eyes on Connor. “You tell Gus he should give up on this thing. It’s old, and it don’t matter anyways. Sheriff Urganis—the sheriff before Gus,” she related to Hayley, “looked into the whole damn thing and there was nothin’ there. Didn’t Gus tell you that?” she demanded of Connor.
“Urganis didn’t know Daniels had been murdered,” he pointed out. “Gus has to follow through.”
“Oh, sure,” she muttered, disgusted.
“There’s something I
didn’t ask you before,” Connor said reflectively. “Your last name is Whorton.”
“Oh, I was married once.” Her lips flattened. “Cheated on me with a waitress from Redmond. I didn’t like him much anyway.”
There was something about Candy that reminded Hayley of Daniels. The bright blue of her eyes, or maybe the shape of her chin. It was eerie.
“He spoke of you once or twice,” Hayley told her. “I never really thought about it, though.”
“I saw all of you,” Candy revealed. “All the time. You were all so pretty, and I wondered why your mama let him in.”
“She wasn’t the best judge of character,” Hayley admitted, recalling Daniels’s rough, manly ways. The shiver escalated to a shudder.
“I got married real young,” Candy mused. “I had a crush on Jimmy Fargo, too, but he was with Denise.”
Hayley cocked her head, surprised by how much Candy knew about her family. “That’s when Jimmy Fargo was cool.”
They both laughed softly.
Connor sat in half shadow, listening quietly. It was a trick of his to melt into the scenery. Keep the customer talking. And Candy and Hayley were bonding in a way he would never have suspected.
It unnerved him.
“Did he . . .” Candy hesitated. “Did he try anything with you?”
Her voice was small, pathetic. Connor closed his eyes and knew without a shadow of a doubt that Thomas Daniels had made a pass at his biological daughter as well.
Hayley knew it, too. “I can’t think about it, too much. My mind just . . . hurts.”
Candy nodded. “Write this down in your book, cop,” she sneered, patting her enormous belly. “All this blubber’s for a reason. That’s what the shrinks on TV say. Protection. My old man made it with me and so I just started eatin’ and eatin’ to make myself so ugly that he’d leave me alone. You believe that?”
Connor didn’t respond.
“I think it’s true.” She turned to Hayley. “I was glad when he left. Real glad. But I kinda worried about you guys.”