Justice Hunter

by Jennifer Morey

  Did she say her last name on purpose? She’d kept his last name, a sore point with him.

  “I’ve got to get going, Marcy.”

  “Don’t want to talk about it? I’m sorry. Too personal.” She made a Valley Girl face, impish smile and flashing eyes. “Are you making any progress on the investigation?”

  The abrupt question alerted him to motive. Why did she ask? “I can’t discuss the details.”

  “Do you think Rachel killed her? She could have, you know, in a jealous rage and all. I heard she claims to have found out he was married after Luella was killed. What if she’s lying?”

  Lucas kept walking to the exit in the lobby.

  “Why would Jared kill her?” Marcy asked.

  That’s what he intended to find out.

  “Rachel would have more of a reason than him,” Marcy pressed.

  Lucas began to think her interest in his sister’s murder went beyond hunger for gossip. He stopped and she nearly bumped into him.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked with a demanding tone.

  “Uh...” She stammered and struggled for a reply. “Because Jared has no motive. He makes a lot of money. Luella came from a well-off family, your family. Maybe he would have to free himself for Rachel, but why do that? Why risk it? Rachel must have been upset when she heard he was married.”

  “She ended the relationship.” Even as he said that he wondered why he felt inclined to defend her. She’d had so many bad breaks in her life, maybe he felt sorry for her. Or...maybe he felt something entirely different for her.

  “Still...”

  Marcy seemed eager to put the blame on Rachel. Why? Did she want her out of the way so she could pursue Jared? Or Lucas? She’d said she was glad to see him back in town.

  “Well, if Rachel killed Luella, I’ll find out and then you can celebrate.” With that, he turned and walked toward the exit, leaving her standing there with an open mouth, watching him go.

  Something bothered him about the way Marcy had approached him. She must have waited until he’d finished talking with Jared, and then rushed after him. What about Luella interested her so much?

  He decided to wait until she left work. Maybe he’d follow her, see what she did in her personal time. A gold digger like her might have more motive than a destitute woman like Rachel.

  He didn’t have to wait long. An hour later Marcy appeared through the doors of the company, and Jared held the door for her. The two of them went to a waiting sedan and got inside.

  Why had Jared left the meeting that had seemed so important to Eldon? Maybe it hadn’t been a long meeting. Maybe the more important question was: Why were Jared and Marcy leaving work early?

  The sedan moved through the parking lot and out to the street.

  Lucas carefully followed.

  A short time later he stopped near an upscale club with a chalkboard out front that advertised happy hour. At just after three, Jared and Marcy were right on time. Had Lucas been looking at the wrong people over the years since his sister’s murder?

  Lucas left the restaurant. Before he went to patch things up with Rachel, he’d stop at Marcy’s house and plant a listening device. Marcy may have made a mistake showing her cards by talking to him. She might just be his first big clue in this case.

  Chapter 7

  Rachel’s cell phone rang after she finished a long bath. It was after five, and Lucas hadn’t come by yet. She’d come here to get away from him. Maybe he’d leave her alone. Even for one night, she needed some space between them. Her cell rarely rang so she wondered if it was him.

  With a towel wrapped around her and another twisted on her head, she went to the kitchen counter where she’d left her phone. Seeing the unknown number, she debated over whether to answer or not. What if it was a creditor?

  Reprimanding herself for cowering, she answered. “Hello?”

  She heard the sound of a television in the background of the caller. That and steady breathing.

  Alarm chased through her with an all-too-familiar dread. “Hello?” she repeated.

  “We had an agreement.”

  The muffled voice, deep and deathly calm, hurled her back in time. The same voice had haunted her before.

  Rachel said nothing, too terrorized to think of anything other than the danger that had returned—just as she feared it would.

  “Who are you? Why are you calling me?”

  “You know why, Rachel.” The man’s muffled voice lilted with cynical wickedness, a complete lack of empathy. The sound sent chills through her. He must have put something over the phone to disguise his voice.

  “I think the only reason I didn’t kill you before is because I found you very attractive,” he said. “But now you’re with Lucas Curran. That changes things.”

  How did he know that? Rachel faced her window. Was he spying on her? That elevated this to a new level.

  “At first I thought he was just another one of your boyfriends.” The man further filled her with anxiety. He’d been watching her all this time. “But then I found out he’s a detective from Dark Alley Investigations. Luella’s brother joined a high-profile agency, didn’t he?”

  Rachel refrained from begging him to leave her alone.

  “Maybe I should have taken care of you four years ago,” he said.

  “I haven’t told anyone.” She hated the quiver in her voice. Moments ago she’d scolded herself for being a coward. This stranger had made her the grandest of cowards. Although he didn’t know, he preyed on insecurities developed after her parents died, through her struggles in foster care and juvenile court.

  “If you don’t st-stop calling me, I will go to the police,” she said, heart slamming in heightened apprehension.

  “St-st-st,” the man mocked. “Not the response I hoped to hear, Rachel. Mr. Curran is working his spell on you. I looked him up, you know. Quite a crusader, that one. I read an article about him when he was an LAPD cop. Saved a young boy from his stepfather kidnapper. Another time, he ran down a would-be rapist when he was off-duty. The man never stops.”

  “Maybe I won’t have to go to the police,” she said, feeling her strength returning. She’d thought of that several times since discovering Lucas’s true identity, like a fantasy. He’d solve his sister’s murder and rescue her in the process. All along she’d hoped the law would catch the killer.

  “No. All you need to do is stay away from him.”

  What if Lucas wouldn’t stay away from her? What if she didn’t want to stay away from Lucas? What if he was her only way out of this?

  “If you don’t,” the man continued, “I’ll kill you.”

  “I don’t know anything,” she said, having told him that before. And she truly didn’t. Nothing she could say about Luella would implicate anyone in her murder, or hint to any promising leads. This man thought she knew something when she didn’t. “You’re wasting your time calling me. If I did know something, do you really think I wouldn’t have gone to the police?”

  “You know enough, sweet Rachel.”

  He sensed her fear. Ever since her dealings with the law, she feared police. She feared being accused of something she didn’t do. She feared this man would succeed in doing that. He’d threatened it before.

  Stay quiet, sweet Rachel, or you may find yourself the guilty one...

  He’d referred to her affair with Jared. She could appear the jilted lover. With Jared’s wife out of the way, he’d be all hers. Never mind if that wasn’t true, if she’d been the one to leave him and never want anything more to do with him. Four years ago he’d alluded to things that had made her believe he could draw her into trouble.

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “This is the only warning you’ll get, Rachel. Stop seeing Lucas Curran. Go back to being
the quiet girl you were before he came to town.”

  Quiet girl...

  She had been a quiet girl—too quiet. She’d convinced herself that her isolation had been a result of her determination to better her life, but shame had done that.

  Hearing the line go dead, Rachel put her phone down with trembling fingers. She shouldn’t have allowed him to control her fear the way he had four years ago. She should have gone to the police. She knew that. She’d known it a few months after he’d stopped terrorizing her.

  Like the last time he’d threatened her, Rachel suspected she was talking to a killer, Luella’s killer, or the one who’d hired her killer. She’d tried to find out more about him but ended up with nothing but more threats. When she’d stopped searching, he’d stopped terrorizing and it had been too easy to slip into a shell.

  She had to do something. But what? The time for doing had long passed. Now she’d only look guiltier. Rachel wasn’t sure what was worse, cowering and not going to police, or being accused of Luella’s murder.

  Hearing her apartment door begin to open, she jumped and felt the lurch of her pulse. Pivoting, she saw Lucas enter and close the door. He stood there without saying anything.

  “How...” How had he unlocked the door?

  He held up a key. “I made a copy.”

  “You...sneak!” She moved forward and tried to take the key from him.

  He raised his hand, out of her reach. She gave up and stepped back, folding her arms.

  “Did you ever meet Marcy before you started working for my stepdad?” he asked.

  She drew her head back, bewildered. “No. Why?”

  “I ran into her at HealthFirst. She said she was seeing someone there. And then I saw her leave with Jared.”

  Rachel couldn’t even be shocked by that news. “Well, Jared does like to fool around. And Luella was your sister. Jared could have gone to Tieber Transport.”

  He blinked slowly with the logic that made. “Yes. And I was in LA while they were married.”

  He wouldn’t have known when Jared had gone to Tieber Transport, but he must have, and that’s how he’d met Marcy.

  “Now do you believe me when I say I’d never get involved with him again?” Rachel asked.

  He didn’t say anything, just looked at her while his thoughts went on. He probably debated whether to try and get her talking some more.

  “Enough of that for tonight,” he said. “We could both use a break.”

  “How do you propose we do that?” Rachel loved spontaneity.

  “When’s the last time you went to the museum?”

  She had to think on that a moment. “Gosh. With my parents. Years.” That suddenly seemed so sad. Yet another motivator to improve her life. If she had money, she could go do things like that. She could have a family and take her kids.

  “We’ll go tomorrow. Take a day off from all of this.”

  While that offered welcome reprieve, she had to question his motive. Sexy and big and full of masculine power, he had what it took to capture her heart. Was that where her thoughts of family had stemmed? She’d always assumed she’d someday have a husband and family, but she’d never put a time frame on it. When she could afford one. Or, when she met the right man.

  Now that she really thought about it, she’d like to have a family sooner rather than later. Would she ever get the chance? After she graduated, she’d have to work hard to build her new life. That would take time. Her biological clock would keep ticking on. Which did she consider more important? Career and a new, great life? Or a family? What if she could have both? Lots of people worked and had families. But Rachel preferred either one or the other. She’d rather raise a family and not have to work a demanding job. Her mother hadn’t worked. She’d spent time with Rachel growing up. That was how she’d gotten so close to her mother. That was also why losing her had been so devastating. Dad, too. Dad had worked, but he’d come home every night with love in his eyes and a kiss for her mother. She’d seen what true love is. She wanted that.

  * * *

  Inside the Bozeman Museum of Natural History late the next morning, Rachel and Lucas started with the dinosaur exhibit. Rachel stayed alert for any strangers who could be the man who’d called. She didn’t notice anything peculiar, but then, she was no detective.

  Feeling safer inside the building, she relaxed and let herself appreciate the artifacts. Preserved skeletons posed behind glass and on pedestals. Rachel stopped at one where several smaller dinosaurs had gotten stuck in mud and died, fossilized in their mortal doom.

  “Sometimes I feel stuck like that,” she said.

  “Don’t we all?” He chuckled.

  “You feel stuck?” She turned to him, eyeing him from his torso to his handsome, blond, stubbly face. “I wouldn’t think a man like you ever gets stuck.”

  “A man like me?” He faced her a little more, his interest sparked.

  She hadn’t intended to do that. Sparks lit at the most unusual times with them. He lit her that way, too.

  “SEAL, SWAT cop, private investigator. Take your pick. Men like you don’t get stuck. You fight your way through.”

  He looked at the exhibit again, lost in thought.

  She looked at the exhibit with him, waiting for him to move on.

  “I got stuck with a dishonest wife, and I’m stuck now with Luella’s murder case,” he said.

  Rachel hadn’t expected him to talk about this. “You got away from your wife.” For a price, but he’d gotten away. And now his wife had returned. Would she win her way back into his heart? She didn’t let herself fall into that negativity. “How do you feel stuck with Luella’s murder case? I mean, it hasn’t been solved yet. Is that what makes you feel stuck?”

  “No. I’ll solve her murder. I’ll just never be able to forgive myself for letting her die.”

  How in the world did he rationalize that being his fault? Before she could ask, he left the exhibit.

  Rachel followed and caught up to him, scanning the crowd for anyone suspicious.

  “She met Jared through me,” Lucas said. “He and I were friends in college.”

  “What happened?” She spotted a man looking at her. Average in height, dark, receding hair, he appeared normal except the way he’d zeroed in on her.

  “We were still friends after that, up until he showed me what kind of man he’d become. He studied finance.” Lucas followed her gaze.

  The man saw him and turned away.

  “Maybe I should have seen that coming.”

  Rachel glanced toward the man who’d looked at her.

  “I mean about Jared,” Lucas said.

  Rachel let out a breathy laugh, more self-conscious than anything. “Not everyone is an inside trader.”

  Finished with another exhibit, Lucas led her toward an exit. He held the exterior door open for her. This led to a large courtyard. In the distance she saw an old homestead in the wintery landscape.

  “In summer the flowers are spectacular,” he said as he walked the shoveled and icy path.

  Her foot slipped, and she had to correct her balance.

  Lucas offered his elbow, and she hooked her arm there, feeling instant warmth and not from his body heat—from her own.

  “I tried to talk her out of marrying him, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  She tipped her head up to see him. “Then how is that your fault? She made her own choice.”

  “I should have done more to stop her. She’d still be alive if not for me.”

  “Because she met Jared through you?” Anyone who lost a loved one went through stages of grief and the could-have and should-haves, but Lucas seemed to carry that to the extreme. “Are you that sure he killed her?”

  “Can you tell me anything that will convince me otherwise?”r />
  Rachel removed her arm from his as she stepped up to the homestead door. Would he try to get her to talk again?

  “I thought we were doing this to take a break from that,” she said.

  He opened the door for her. “We are.”

  With him manipulating her? She went inside, and the charming farmhouse took her into a world long past. Museum employees dressed in costumes played out what life would have been like, cooking over a wood-burning stove, spinning yarn, weaving a rug.

  After going through the house, they left through the back and took in more actors forging iron in a blacksmith’s shop and tending to horses in the barn. Every once in a while she caught Lucas watching her.

  For a moment she contemplated telling him. What a relief that would be to get it off her chest, to lean on someone for a change. Except, could she lean on Lucas? How would he react to what she had to say?

  In his pursuit of justice, he wouldn’t react kindly. He’d be furious that she’d kept information, no matter how minuscule, from him or the law.

  As they headed for the parking lot, he put his hand on her lower back. He’d been subtly attentive all afternoon. Manipulating.

  “How about dinner?”

  “Sure.” She had to eat. Pausing for a slow glance around, she didn’t see anyone watching her, nor did the man from inside appear.

  * * *

  Rachel glanced back once again and didn’t see anyone follow. When she faced forward, she saw Lucas had reached his SUV. She liked his understated sophistication. Even though he had more than one vehicle, his choices were functional.

  She walked there.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She got into the vehicle and feigned nonchalance as he moved around to the driver’s side.

  He sat behind the wheel and started the engine. “Why do you keep looking around?” he asked.

  “Am I?”

  He sent her a frustrated frown that said, you know you are.

  “The whole meeting with Jared spooked me.” While that didn’t cover the entire truth, it wasn’t a lie, either.

  “Why?” He began driving.