by Laura Wright
“I’m afraid there’s no good time for this,” Lucas said, his blue eyes uneasy and focused on Grant. “Can you come up to the house?”
Grant stiffened. “Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“All right.”
Without thought, Anna stepped slightly in front of him, and asked Lucas, “Why does he need to come up to the house?”
Caroline met Grant’s gaze and frowned. “The police are waiting. They want to speak with you.”
Eight
“I’m going with you.”
Forgetting for a moment that Caroline and Lucas still remained waiting at the front door, Grant shook his head at Anna. “No.”
Her hands went to her hips. “What do you mean, no?”
“If this is going to happen all over again, I don’t want you there with me.”
An angry blush stained her cheeks, and the sight frustrated the hell out of Grant. Just hours ago, he’d caused a pretty pink glow to surface on her pale skin, but for an entirely different reason.
He turned to Caroline and Lucas. “Could you excuse us for a second?”
“Of course,” they said in unison.
Grant hardly waited for the response. He had Anna’s hand and was tugging her into the bedroom. Sunshine poured through the window and almost blinded him as he walked through the door. With a sigh, he sat her down on the rumpled bed, then started to pace. “Look, I know where your mind is going with this, and it’s not some kind of rejection—”
“Sounds like it to me.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“Then what is it?” she demanded, her gaze following him as he walked, as his jaw worked.
“What is it, Grant?” she repeated. “More protection? Like the last time? Because Jack and I don’t need it anymore.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Spencer is gone, and I’ve had no threats, no reporters.”
“If the threat is gone then why are you still in Napa?” Grant asked darkly.
Her face went slightly pale, and she chewed the inside of her lip. “Until the murder is solved I thought it would be best—”
“See,” Grant interrupted, “you think there’s still something to be concerned about.”
“I should be there with you, dammit.”
“No.”
“Stop moving for a minute.” When he did, she shook her head helplessly. “I don’t understand you.”
The stirring of emotions in his gut had him feeling queasy. He’d lived a casual, calm life. He wasn’t prepared for this soap opera type of existence, this up and down, unsure, one revelation after the other feeling. He walked over to her and sank to his knees at her feet. “All right.” With his eyes locked on hers, he placed his hands on either side of the bed, imprisoning her. “You know, I’ll always protect you and Jack—” he looked at the ceiling, released a heavy breath “—but that’s not what my objection to your coming with me is all about.”
Her large brown eyes implored him. “What is it then?”
His voice dropped, sounded hoarse. “I’m ashamed, Anna. Ashamed of my suspect status, of my out of control life. I’m ashamed of having you see me as less of a…” He shook his head.
Her hands cupped his face. “C’mon, Grant. I know the truth here. I know where you were that night. There’s nothing for you to feel—”
“I’ve got to go.” He pushed to his feet.
“Wait—”
“That bastard Ryland’s waiting for me, Anna, and he’ll think I’m hiding something if I take too long.”
She stayed where she was, on the bed with its messy sheets and the imprints of their heads on the pillows.
“I’ll be back,” he said gently, silently asking her to let him go.
Her jaw looked tight, her eyes unsure, but she finally nodded. “All right.”
He was almost out the door when he turned, stalked back to her and pulled her into his arms. His gaze searched hers. “Dammit, Anna. You know how much I need you.”
Tilting his head, he kissed her hard on the mouth. When he came up for air, he saw what he needed to see.
Her eyes were bright and supportive, and though her smile was a little tremulous, it was there. “Go,” she said.
It wasn’t easy on all accounts, but he did.
When Grant entered the library with Lucas and Caroline he wasn’t surprised to find Detective Ryland standing with his back to the window, his dark brown hair slicked back, his eyes narrowed as if he half expected a crime to be taking place right then and there. Grant had always felt as though Ryland had a personal vendetta against him, or maybe he just truly believed Grant had murdered his own father in cold blood and desperately wanted to put him away for life.
Grant’s gaze shifted to the man sitting on the couch with a pensive look. Edgar Kent, the criminal lawyer Caroline had hired for his defense, stood up when he saw his former client and offered him a weak smile. “Hello there, Grant.”
A ball of stress rolled good and hard through Grant’s gut. Was he actually going to need his lawyer again? Had Caroline called Kent? Did she know more about this meeting than she’d let on during the walk over here?
Well, whatever way this mess went, Grant wasn’t about to fold, to cave under the pressure. It wasn’t in his nature to give in. On sturdy legs, he walked over to Kent and shook his hand, but after what Ryland had put him through over the past several months, Grant had no pleasantries for the man and only acknowledged him with a raise of the chin.
Ryland didn’t seem to care. His muddy gaze remained fixed on Grant and he looked agitated, one hand in his pocket, and by the sound of the jingling, fiddling with the keys to his sedan.
“No Detective Holbrook today?” Grant asked, speaking about the strongly built, blue-eyed female detective who was usually attached to Ryland’s hip.
Ryland shook his head. “My partner is following a very interesting lead in this case. Didn’t want to tear her away. Besides,” he said with a tight grin, “I can handle this myself.”
“Can I get you something to drink, Grant?” Caroline asked him quickly, her eyes warm, but her voice a little too anxious.
“No, thanks, Caroline.” He eyeballed Ryland. “I’d just like to know why I’m here.”
Ryland made a move to speak, but Edgar Kent held up a hand. “Grant, there’s been some new information that’s come to light—”
“New information?” Grant repeated. “Like what? More on the blackmailer? Do you know who it is? What about the sketch?”
His own agitation, his desperation to get to the bottom of the mystery, to solve this crime and return to his normal life, jarred him.
Edgar motioned to the chair beside him. “Have a seat, Grant.”
“I’d rather stand.”
Ryland snorted, and as usual cut through the preliminaries and got to business. It was actually the one trait Grant respected in the man. “Enough of this. Look, Ashton, I want to know something—and I want the truth.”
“Whether you believe it or not, that’s all I’ve ever given you,” Grant muttered through gritted teeth.
Ryland snorted again. “Does the name Sally Simple mean anything to you?”
The question took a moment to register in Grant’s brain. All he heard for a moment was buzzing, a deafening buzz that made him want to shove his hands over his ears. But then, the words formed again and made sense. Shock slammed into him, and he asked the detective hoarsely, “What did you say?”
“Sally Simple,” Ryland repeated, looking as though his patience was wearing thin. “I asked if the name meant anything to you, but by the look on your face—” he moved closer “—I can see that it does.”
Years rolled back like a cosmic carpet, and Grant saw his mother’s face, kind and loving. He saw his hometown, the lawn he used to play on at school and train tracks he and his friends used to sit beside to talk about girls and cars and an unsure future. He saw his grandparents and their strict, though gentle spirits. These were the people a
nd places that he’d attached himself to, and their presence and their memory had carried him through many a tough time.
And they would again, it seemed.
“Grant,” Edgar began, sitting forward in his seat. “Maybe we should talk privately?”
Grant knifed a hand through his hair. “I don’t understand.”
Edgar looked at Lucas, then Caroline. “Is there somewhere we could go?”
“Of course,” Caroline said.
“Caroline’s garden is plenty private,” Lucas said, his arm curling around his wife’s waist as if to protect her from any more shock and pain that might be coming from this new development.
His hand still in his pocket, those damn keys jingling almost merrily, Ryland said, “More to hide, Ashton?”
But Grant wasn’t listening to any of them. His chest was tight and his mind reeled with confusion. “Why do you want to know about Sally Simple?” he asked Ryland.
“Oh, no, no.” Ryland shook his head slowly. “That’s not the way this is going to go. You tell us and we tell you. In that order.”
Grant’s lips thinned.
Ryland shrugged. “While Mr. Ashton speaks with his attorney, maybe I should head down to your cottage,” Ryland said to Caroline. “Ask Miss Sheridan a few questions?”
“You’re an ass, Ryland,” Grant muttered.
The detective’s brows shot up. “Better watch yourself, Ashton, or you’ll find yourself back in that cell before nightfall, shackled and eating that gray stew you seemed to like so much.”
“On what charge?” Grant snarled. “Telling the truth to an officer?”
“I said, watch it.”
Grant had never been so angry in his life, and he didn’t give a damn who he insulted. “You don’t go near her. She has nothing to do with this, and you know it!”
Ryland walked over to Grant and stood directly in front of him. He was a good four inches shorter than Grant, but the thick muscles of his character made up for it. The two men stared at each other.
“Understand this, Mr. Ashton,” Ryland said slowly, deliberately. “I will get to the truth of this matter one way or another.”
“No matter who gets in the way, right?” Grant spat out.
With a quick laugh, Ryland said, “Now, you’re making me sound like…well, like Spencer Ashton.”
“All right, that’s enough,” Edgar Kent said testily, springing out of his seat.
“Sit back down, Edgar,” Grant said, having about enough of this conversation and attempts at intimidation. “Ryland, you, too. Anna has no idea who Sally Simple is.”
Perhaps noting that Grant was about to spill the beans, Ryland backed off. “But you do?” he said, sitting on the arm of a leather chair.
Protecting a woman who had always been there for him from the day they’d met, protecting his two grown kids and a little boy he’d just begun to love with all his heart, protecting a family who was generous and kind, and God help him, protecting himself and a possible future?
Or protecting a woman who had rejected every kindness he and his family had offered her, a woman who had run out on her babies when they’d needed her most.
It should’ve been an easy choice, but it wasn’t.
Nausea hit him full-on, but he gritted his teeth. “Sally Simple is a doll.”
It was as if a bomb of silence had been tossed into the room. Caroline looked at Lucas, and Lucas back at her. Edgar stared off into space, a tight, pinched expression on his face. And Ryland? Ryland looked straight at him.
Grant scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw and continued, “After my mother died and my grandparents took responsibility for us, things really changed. Where I accepted my situation, embraced my grandparents and my new life, Grace—my sister—became detached, angry, even violent at times. My grandmother really tried to get through to her, spent a lot of time cooking, gardening, shopping with her—gave her anything she wanted. She even made her a doll for Christmas that year. Ten times more beautiful than any store-bought doll, and Grace took to her immediately. She named her Sally. Sally for our mother and Simple for the life she thought she’d always lead in Nebraska.” As Grant spoke, the anger and resentment he had toward his sister for rejecting the only family he’d had, for making it tougher at home, making it so much harder for him to let go of his mother’s memory, came back full force. “And though she kept close to that doll, she grew even further away from all of us. Later on, that doll moved aside for man after man after man. Until eventually she left us all together for what I can only assume was the biggest loser in the bunch.”
A strange cloud of misery hovered in Grant’s chest. He hadn’t dealt with his feelings for his sister and all that she’d done to him and to her children. No, he hadn’t had the time to deal with it. Whenever the memories of those days had assaulted him, he’d pushed them back, pushed them aside, looked at his kids and forced himself to move forward for them and for his own sanity.
Not surprisingly, it was Ryland who broke the thick silence in the room. “When was the last time you saw your sister, Mr. Ashton?”
The sudden thread of respect in the detective’s voice pulled Grant back to reality. “The day before she ran off with some guy, some traveling salesman, and left her two children.”
“Which you raised, is that right?”
Grant eyed the man who’d been the knife in his wound for months now. “That’s right.”
“And you haven’t heard from her since?”
“No. I hardly wanted to after all she’d done, and I thought it would be worse for the kids as time went on.”
“Why’s that?” Ryland asked.
“She was more of Spencer’s twin than mine, and that, as you know, wouldn’t have made her a very good mother.”
“And you never met this man she ran off with? This salesman?”
“No. Grace always sneaked around. You never knew who she was…with—” Grant exhaled heavily “—at any given time. Never met any salesman.”
Nodding thoughtfully, Ryland finally looked away, looked down to his notepad and began to scribble.
“Now, it’s my turn, Detective,” Grant said tightly. “Why exactly are you asking about that doll? And how’d you get the name?”
Ryland glanced up from his notes. He looked unsure, as though he were contemplating going back on his word and not letting Grant in on the information he had about Sally Simple. Then he gave a quick sniff, reached into his pocket and handed Grant a piece of paper.
Grant studied the slip of paper. It seemed to be a bank statement. On closer inspection, he saw the name on the account. His pulse stirred and an icy fear crept through him. He looked up.
Ryland didn’t need a query to give an answer. “We believe that Grace and her husband have been the ones blackmailing Spencer for the past ten years.”
Behind Grant, Edgar cursed, and Caroline sucked in a breath. “You really think that Grant’s sister is the blackmailer?”
Lucas practically barked, “What?”
Grant just shook his head, fear and anger knotting inside him at the idea that his own blood would stoop so low. Then again, he realized, Grace had Spencer’s blood running through her veins, too. “But why would she? How would she? She didn’t even know Spencer.”
“She knew him,” Ryland assured Grant. “And obviously wasn’t too happy about him running out on you and your mother when you were kids. She needed the money and he needed her to stay silent.”
“Silent?”
“That’s right. If the word got out that he’d never divorced your mother, things would’ve gotten tricky for him.”
“But the word did get out,” Grant said.
“Yes. And a short time later Spencer was murdered.”
“But why?” Caroline asked.
Ryland stood up. “We believe, when Spencer found out that Grant was in Napa, he stopped paying Grace—that’s when the money stopped rolling in to the Sally Simple account. No doubt Spencer realized that everyone woul
d know the truth soon enough.”
A slow, sickening feeling moved through Grant. “You think Grace killed Spencer?”
“We think her husband was the one who actually pulled the trigger, but she was definitely an accessory.”
“Oh, Grant,” Caroline whispered, placing her hand on his shoulder.
Grant moved away. He felt numb and sick, and he just couldn’t have anyone touching him. He felt strangely dirty. First Spencer, now Grace—totally and completely corrupt.
Where the hell had he come from?
His eyes narrowed as he looked at the detective. “Why all this, Ryland? Calling me up here, with my lawyer, making me believe—”
“Listen, Ashton,” Ryland began, his tone lacking in argument for once. “I wasn’t a hundred percent convinced you had nothing to do with this. I had to see if you would give me the information on Sally Simple or hide it. I had to see your reaction to know for sure.”
“And now?” asked Edgar Kent.
“Yeah. And now?” Grant asked tightly.
Ryland lifted a hand in the air. “Now you’re free to head back to Nebraska if that’s what you’d like.”
“Just like that?” Grant said.
“Just like that.”
As Grant stood there half empty inside, half sickened by what he’d just heard, and by the horrifying news that he was going to have to give to Ford and a very pregnant Abigail, Ryland shook Lucas’s hand, then Caroline’s and finally walked over to Grant.
The man was not one for apologies, even if one was warranted, but he did offer his hand. It wasn’t easy for Grant to take the detective’s bit of peace. After all, the man had treated him like a cold, hard criminal. But Grant wasn’t going to return home feeling any more pissed off than he did, any more jaded than he already did. He’d make peace with this part of his journey and move on with it.
After he shook Ryland’s hand, the detective gave them all a wave and headed for the door. But Grant called him back tiredly, “Detective?”
Ryland turned. “Yes?”
“Do you know where Grace is?”
“We do.”