Murder in the Smokies

by Paula Graves

  He tasted like Corona and sex, his tongue sliding over hers, demanding a response. She gave it to him, moving her hands under the hem of his T-shirt until her fingertips dug into the heated velvet of his back. She traced the valleys and ridges of his muscles, thrilling at the sound of his low groan in response. She wasn’t sure when or how they moved, but suddenly her back flattened against the rough clapboard wall next to the front door and Sutton grabbed her hips, lifting her until she was pinned against the front of her house, her thighs cradling his narrow hips.

  The ridge of his erection pressed into her through the layers of cotton and denim that stood between them, teasing her sex until a long, fierce shudder rocked through her.

  “I want you,” he breathed against her throat just before he nipped at the tendon, making her moan.

  She wanted him, too. More than she’d thought was possible. Far more than was wise. She put her hands between their bodies and stroked him boldly through his jeans, satisfaction swamping her as he released a helpless groan. “You like that?”

  He caught her hand and twined his fingers with hers, guiding her hand away from his erection. “Slow down. Let’s just slow this down.”

  She didn’t want slow. She wanted fast and fierce, so she didn’t have time to think. “Don’t give me a chance—”

  He drew his head back so he could look into her eyes. His hands, well on their way to a thorough examination of the curves of her breast, went still, leaving her restless with need. “Don’t give you a chance to what?”

  She shook her head, reaching for his belt. “Doesn’t matter.”

  He caught her hands, stopping her. “A chance to say no?”

  She felt the change in him, the sudden return of control. Steel in his backbone, determination glittering in his eyes—he was no longer an animal caught up in the thrall of lust but a man with complete mastery of even his most primal desires.

  Damn it.

  She pulled her hands away from him and slid away, finding her unsteady feet. “I don’t want to say no.”

  “But you should?”

  She leaned against the frame of the front door, pressing her forehead to the cool wood. “Sex complicates everything.”

  He didn’t argue. “I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”

  She shook her head. “No.” At his pained look, she added, “At least, not until I talk to you about something.”

  * * *

  ONE OF THE MOST USEFUL things his time in the Army Special Forces had taught Sutton was how to control himself in any situation. Granted, his steely mastery of his body usually translated to remaining utterly still in the most uncomfortable of positions and locations in order to get the advantage over an enemy. But he’d also learned how to discipline his other, more primal urges.

  Unfortunately, not even a decade in the Special Forces had equipped him to control the hunger to finish what he and Ivy had started on her front porch.

  Once inside, she’d kept a careful distance from him, puttering around the kitchen while he waited at the breakfast nook table for her to finish putting together sandwiches for their dinner. He’d offered to help but she’d warned him off with a desperate look and a wave of her hands, so he’d settled at the table and kept his hands to himself.

  As she passed the phone on the counter, she put down the plates and checked her messages. Sutton heard her mother’s voice on the recorder. “Birdy, give me a call. I need to talk to you about something.” Ivy erased the message and picked up the plates again.

  He smiled at her mother’s use of the nickname “Birdy.” “She still calls you Birdy?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled, though there was a hint of a grimace in it. “And Antoine calls me Hawk, did you notice that? I’m apparently destined for bird-related nicknames.”

  He supposed “Birdy” had fit her when she was a small, brown, quiet little thing, but he agreed with Antoine on this one. She was more raptor than wren these days.

  “Don’t you need to call her back?” he asked as she set his sandwich in front of him, making no move toward the phone.

  “I’ll call her later.” She sat down across from him.

  “So, what did you want to tell me?”

  She pushed her sandwich around the paper plate. “When I was at Davenport today, I saw something interesting.” She told him about the truck in the self-cleaning bay and how she thought it might connect to the murders.

  Even a discussion of mobile abattoirs couldn’t cool his lust completely, but at least it gave his one-track mind a detour to work through. “You think the killer’s using a rented truck as his own personal butcher’s shop?”

  Ivy looked at him briefly, little more than a glancing blow of her gaze before she looked away. “We’re hoping we’ll get a warrant in the morning and then we can start questioning people.”

  “I have some news for you, too.” He paused, he realized with a hint of guilt, because he knew it would force her to look at him again. He missed having that brown-eyed gaze lock with his, all serious intensity and singular focus. He was beginning to kick himself for being noble instead of selfish. If he’d kept his mouth shut, he’d probably be buried inside her right now, having the best sex of his whole damned life.

  It would have been amazing. He could tell that from the fireworks going off inside him with the slightest brush of her fingers on his skin. And they had history, too, a connection that even fourteen years apart hadn’t been able to completely sever.

  She turned her gaze toward him, a slow, wary sidelong glance that lingered when he remained silent. She finally broke the quiet standoff with an impatient “What?”

  “Somebody tried to hire Seth Hammond for a contract murder.”

  Her mouth formed a silent O.

  “Yeah, that was about my reaction, too.”

  “Who?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. He says the guy was a middleman, tried to subcontract him to do the killing and split the money with him. Seth says he’s positive the other guy chickened out and he doesn’t want to sic the cops on him for making a dumb mistake.”

  “Seth’s sympathy for the criminal element is touching.” Her tone was flat and dry.

  “I asked if the guy knew who’d tried to hire him. Apparently the contact was all done by phone, and the guy who tried to subcontract never got a name. And he didn’t recognize the voice.”

  “Odd.” She looked away and asked, “What makes you think any of this is connected to the murders?”

  “The timing, for one. Seth said the man approached him about three weeks before the first murder.”

  “But how does that track with the style of these murders? These don’t look like contract killings.”

  “Seth was told he should make them look like accidents or something else, anything but a hit.”

  She stopped with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “Really.”

  “I was thinking, making them look like serial murders might be a way to throw the cops off what was really going on.”

  She finished taking a bite of sandwich, chewing slowly, a thoughtful look on her face.

  He was officially in serious trouble, he thought, watching her eat and feeling the slow, steady burn of desire roiling just under the fragile surface of his control. If he couldn’t get his mind off sex while watching her chew a turkey sandwich and talk about serial murders—

  “Let’s say this theory is right.” She set her half-eaten sandwich on her plate and looked at him with such intensity he felt the lid on his libido rattling from the pressure. “If these four victims were hired murders, who wanted them dead? And why?”

  He took a drink of beer to wash down a bite of sandwich. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since Seth told me what he knew. Finding that answer isn’t really that much different than figuring out who a serial kille
r might be, is it? It’s all about the victim.”

  “And two of the four worked at Davenport Trucking.”

  “Actually, three,” Sutton corrected. “April Billings worked there part-time shortly before she was murdered.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what Seth Hammond said.”

  “Hmm. Mr. Davenport didn’t mention that. Of course, I didn’t ask. I got sidetracked by seeing the truck being cleaned out in the washing bay.”

  “So three of the four are connected to the trucking company.”

  “Marjorie Kenner’s body was released by the medical examiner this afternoon. The funeral is tomorrow afternoon.” Ivy’s brow creased in thought. “The day of the murder, Antoine and I canvassed the whole area looking for any potential witnesses, but her house is so far from any of her neighbors, we had no luck. And all of them swear there’s nobody in the world who’d want her dead.”

  “But if it was a contract killing, maybe the motive isn’t obvious.”

  “Right. Maybe we’ve been asking all the wrong questions.”

  * * *

  SUTTON AND HIS SIX-PACK of Corona had left soon after dinner. Ivy knew she should have been glad to see him go, along with the reckless temptation he posed, but the house felt empty with him gone. Which was stupid, since she’d lived happily alone since she was twenty-two years old, with absolutely no desire to have her peaceful existence invaded by another human being.

  But she’d never considered the possibility that Sutton Calhoun might come back to Bitterwood. He’d always been a game changer for her.

  He couldn’t tell her where he planned to stay, and she wasn’t sure he hadn’t just parked off the side of the road and spent the night in his truck, but when she arrived at Padgett Memorial Gardens for Marjorie Kenner’s funeral the next morning, Sutton was there already, looking freshly showered and shaved and wearing an appropriately conservative charcoal suit and black tie.

  He caught her eye as she entered the cemetery chapel, and she slid onto the pew beside him. “Where’d you find to stay?”

  “Maisey Ledbetter took pity on me and gave me a room over the diner.” He smiled slightly. “Free biscuits and gravy for breakfast.”

  “And they say your daddy is the con man,” she murmured, slanting a look at him.

  “Any word on the warrant yet?”

  Ugh. She’d almost forgotten. “Apparently the judge didn’t think our conjecture constituted probable cause.” Antoine had called her early that morning with the bad news. “He’s willing to reconsider if we can bring him something new.”

  “So we’ll just have to find something new.” He fell silent, leaving Ivy searching for something to say in response. But it was taking all her willpower, especially with his body so close, so warm and solid beside her, not to think about the night before, the way his hands had moved over her flesh, sure and possessive, as if marking her with his brand.

  Apparently, his mind was traveling similar territory, for his next words came out low and seductive. “I didn’t want to leave last night.”

  She closed her eyes against the assault on her senses. “I know.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t think it would be so hard. Being here in Bitterwood, I mean.”

  “Maybe you left more unfinished business than you realized.”

  He didn’t answer, and the opportunity for further conversation was lost as the minister of the local Methodist church entered the chapel, signaling the beginning of the funeral service.

  The crowd was larger than Ivy had anticipated, although she supposed it made sense. A combination of nostalgia—Marjorie Kenner had been a four-year fixture in the lives of any person who’d attended the local high school during her twenty-year tenure as librarian there—and morbid curiosity had probably brought most of them here.

  Most of the faces were familiar, though she didn’t recognize some of the mourners who sat in the pews set aside for family and close friends. She made a mental note to make contact after the graveside service and introduce herself.

  Unfortunately, Captain Rayburn beat her to it. He made his way to the inner circle of mourners as soon as the graveside service was over, shooting Ivy a disapproving look as he spotted Sutton standing beside her.

  “Your captain seems unhappy,” Sutton murmured.

  “He told me to stay away from you.”

  “I thought he just told you not to share investigation secrets with me.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not doing so hot with that, either.” She let her gaze drift across the rest of the mourners now dispersing from the cemetery. One woman in particular caught Ivy’s attention, primarily because she had moved away from the rest of the crowd and now stood in front of another grave, one Ivy recognized from a previous funeral vigil only two weeks earlier.

  She started moving toward the woman, her curiosity fully piqued.

  Sutton fell in step with her. “What is it?”

  She nodded toward the woman, who was tall and slim and dressed in a conservative blue suit. “I don’t know who that is, but she just left Marjorie Kenner’s funeral to visit Coral Vines’s grave.”

  The woman looked up as they approached, her brow furrowed. Sadness darkened her red-rimmed blue eyes. “Can I help you?”

  Ivy flashed her shield. “I’m Detective Hawkins with the Bitterwood Police Department. Were you a friend of Marjorie Kenner?”

  “She was my neighbor when I was a little girl.” Her lips curved slightly. “We bonded over a love of books and stayed in touch ever since. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  Ivy nodded at the simple gravestone in front of the woman. “You knew Coral Vines, too?”

  “Yes.” The word came out in a gusty breath. “She worked for my father for a while. We became friends until—”

  “Your father?” Sutton asked. “Who’s your father?”

  She gave him a wary look, as if she suddenly realized this was more than just a friendly conversation. “George Davenport. Coral worked at our trucking company in Maryville.”

  Chapter Ten

  “It’s been so surreal. I knew all four of the victims really well. How often does that happen?”

  Her name was Rachel Davenport. Sutton supposed that, in less grief-stricken days, she’d be considered a pretty girl. She had cool blue eyes, fair skin dusted with freckles and long, straight hair the color of honey in sunlight. She was tall, towering over Ivy, but there was a fragility to her that made Sutton want to find her a chair before she collapsed.

  “Not often,” Ivy answered, her tone gentle, as if she, too, realized Rachel Davenport was someone with whom she had to tread lightly. “Did you know the other women through their work at your father’s company?”

  She nodded, her gaze lengthening, as if to take in the rest of the cemetery. “They’re all here. I guess that’s to be expected in a town this small, huh?”

  She really did look as if she was going to fall down any moment, Sutton thought with alarm. He exchanged a look with Ivy, and she stepped forward, laying her hand on Rachel’s arm. “Do you have a ride home?”

  Rachel looked at Ivy as if she’d asked a strange question. “I have my car here.”

  Ivy glanced at Sutton again.

  “I’m not going to break,” Rachel said, fire in her voice. Color rose in her cheeks, driving out the paleness. “I’m fine.”

  Her irritation seemed to have strengthened the steel in her spine, for she looked stronger already. Ivy took her hand away from the woman’s arm and gave Sutton a shrugging look.

  “I could use a cup of coffee before I get back to my normal day,” he said. “Would you ladies like to join me?”

  Rachel and Ivy both gave him similarly disbelieving looks, as if to ask, Is that the best you can do?

  “Loo
k, if you want to interrogate me or something,” Rachel said, directing her words to Ivy, “just say so. I’ll happily cooperate, though I’m not sure what I can add.”

  “I really could use a cup of coffee,” Sutton said. “How about we grab a cup at Ledbetter’s and you can tell us all about your friends?”

  A murmured request from Ivy to Maisey Ledbetter got them a corner booth at the diner, well away from the other afternoon patrons. Ivy slid onto the booth bench next to Sutton, the heat of her body against his generating a pleasant but bearable buzz of sexual awareness. Rachel Davenport sat opposite them, her slim hands worrying the small plastic container of sugar and sweetener packets.

  “I feel like a jinx,” she murmured, her gaze focused on the movement of her fingers. “Everyone around me dies.”

  “Your father’s sick, isn’t he?” Ivy asked.

  Sutton looked at her. She slanted a glance his way as if to ask him to back her up with whatever she said. He settled back, letting her take the lead.

  “Liver cancer. Inoperable. They’re hoping the chemo might give him more time, but I think he’s given up hope.” Rachel’s lower lip trembled, but she brought it under control. Sutton realized he’d underestimated her. She looked fragile, and clearly she was struggling with a hellish amount of personal stress and grief, but she was stronger than she looked.

  “What about your mother?”

  “She died when I was fifteen.”

  Damn, Sutton thought. No wonder she felt like a jinx.

  “I bet Marjorie Kenner stepped in for you then. A maternal figure in your life.”

  Rachel’s gaze flicked upward, meeting Ivy’s. “I’d never really thought of it that way, but, yeah. I guess she did.”

  “Amelia and Coral were around your age,” Ivy said. “Did you socialize with them?”

  “Amelia was my best friend from college. We bonded over our love of old movies,” Rachel said with a faint smile. “We used to go to that revival theater in Knoxville on weekends when they were showing the old romantic comedies. Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunn, Myrna Loy—” She looked back at her hands. “We were supposed to go the weekend she died.”