White Hot

by Sandra Brown

  Chris wheezed wetly. “You told me to take care of it.” His words were barely audible now, mere filaments of sound, but they conveyed his confusion and incredulity over Huff’s disapproval.

  Huff bent his head down and placed his lips against Chris’s temple. On Huff’s face, Chris’s blood mingled with the tears. “I loved you best. You know that. But Danny was my son, too.” He moaned in anguish. “He was my flesh and blood. He was my daddy’s flesh and blood. And you killed him. Why, Chris? Why?”

  Beck looked up at Sayre, who had made the emergency call and was standing by helplessly just as he was. When their eyes met, he saw his own thoughts mirrored in hers. Chris had only done what he had learned to do by Huff’s example.

  Huff continued that heartrending lament for what seemed to Beck like hours while Chris’s blood drained from his body to form a lake around them. Huff held his favored son against his chest and rocked him like an infant. He stroked his hair and kissed his cheeks, unmindful of smearing blood and tears and mucus over Chris’s still face. He told him again and again that he loved him more than life and repeated a thousand times that chastising refrain, “But, Son, how could you kill your own brother?”

  Eventually an ambulance arrived. When the EMTs tried to separate Huff from Chris, he fought them like a madman. Covered with Chris’s gore and the sweat of his own torment, he screamed until he was hoarse that no one would take away his firstborn . . . who was long past hearing.

  epilogue

  “You look exhausted.”

  “Then looks aren’t deceiving,” Beck replied as he came up the steps of his gallery, where Sayre and Frito had been waiting on him. “It was a grueling six hours.”

  That was how long it had been since Chris had been pronounced DOA at the parish hospital and Huff had been taken into custody. He was being held for manslaughter, since his firing the pistol at Chris had caused the accident.

  Huff was incapable of making a decision, so Beck, acting on his behalf, immediately called the reputable defense attorney previously retained by Chris. He’d agreed to represent Huff instead and had arrived in Destiny as soon as his jazzed-up Lexus could get him there.

  An assistant prosecutor from the DA’s office had been summoned by Wayne Scott to question Sayre and Beck. They had told their stories several times. Beck’s was by far the most revealing. He’d omitted nothing, explaining in detail how their overheard conversation had led to Chris’s demise.

  “I’ve no doubt Huff was coming to shoot me for my deception,” he’d told the ADA. “I knew that in order to beat them, I had to think like them, act like them. I had to become one of them.”

  Sayre had listened with mounting dismay. Out of love for his father and his sense of duty toward him, Beck had become the reviled advocate for the Hoyles.

  “But when he heard Chris admit to conspiring to have Danny killed, I guess he just lost it. He fired the pistol out of rage. His shot missed. But as Chris recoiled from disbelief, his arms windmilled. He hit the unguarded start switch on the conveyor. The faulty drive belt flew apart. It scattered pieces of metal like shrapnel. One of them found Chris.”

  Eventually Sayre had been excused from the proceedings, but Beck was asked to stay and give his account one more time. He was reminded that he was violating attorney-client privilege and what that would mean to his legal career. He talked anyway.

  Once excused, Sayre wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Unwilling to return to the house, which was no longer her home, or to the dreary motel, she had followed her instinct and come here to wait for Beck’s return.

  Now he sat down in the spare rocking glider and scratched a happy Frito behind both ears. “We should all have his life,” Beck remarked. “Each day is a new day. Whatever happened yesterday is forgotten, and he doesn’t worry about tomorrow.”

  “What will happen tomorrow?”

  “Huff will be arraigned. You and I will probably be deposed. We’ll be witnesses for the prosecution at his trial.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “Unless he pleads guilty.”

  “Do you think he will?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. He told them where they could find Iverson’s remains. Red Harper admitted his complicity. He’s got a lot to answer for, too. If he lives long enough.”

  Beck leaned forward and planted his elbows on his knees, tiredly massaging his eye sockets with his fingers. “Huff’s a broken man, Sayre. Before I left, I went back to the jail cell to check on him.”

  “How did he react to seeing you?”

  “He didn’t. He was lying on the cot in the fetal position, crying his heart out. Huff Hoyle, reduced to that.” He spoke softly and sadly. “I think he would have forgiven Chris anything except killing one of his own. If Chris had shot the president, Huff would have covered for him, protected him with his last breath. But to kill his own brother? Huff couldn’t allow that. It was incomprehensible to him. It violated his intense sense of family.”

  “I wonder where that came from,” Sayre said. “It’s not like he grew up surrounded by a slew of kinfolk. He never mentioned his parents other than to say that both had died when he was young.”

  Beck reflected on it for several moments, then said, “Late one night, Chris was out, Huff and I were alone, and he’d consumed a lot of bourbon. He was rambling drunkenly, but he said something about when his daddy died. And he didn’t call him Father, he called him Daddy. He said, ‘The bastards got his name wrong.’ ”

  “Who was he talking about?”

  “He didn’t elaborate. That’s all he said. It could have been a random, meaningless statement. Or very profound.”

  She gazed out across the lawn and sighed. “When I think what it cost him to pull that trigger. . . . He was trying to destroy what he loved most.”

  “Chris was also his last hope of a grandchild to carry on his name. He destroyed all chance of that, too. But I don’t pity him, Sayre. He made Chris into what he was. He cultivated him.”

  “And he killed my baby. I guess he didn’t think of it as one of his own.”

  Beck reached for her hand and squeezed it tightly.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  They went inside. She had picked up an order of fried chicken on her way there. Together they began to put food and place settings on the table, dodging Frito, who tracked their footsteps as though afraid they soon would leave him alone again.

  “I spoke to Luce Daly,” she said. “Clark will be released from the hospital tomorrow or the next day. His coworkers have asked him to represent them to the OSHA inspectors. He won’t be able to do much until he makes a full recovery, but this vote of confidence should speed that. His spirits are also raised by knowing that the men who attacked him are in jail. Luce thanks you for keeping your word to her about that.”

  “Reporting them to Wayne Scott was the least I could do.”

  “I also called Jessica DeBlance and told her what had happened today. I beat the newscasts by only a half hour, and she thanked me for letting her know before she learned about it through the media. She’s very kind, Beck. When I owned up to Danny’s telephone calls to me, she urged me not to dwell on it. She said Danny wouldn’t want me to bear any guilt over that. She also said her prayers were with all of us, including Chris. I’m glad Danny knew that kind of forgiving love, even for a little while.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I think you would enjoy meeting Jessica.”

  “She may not enjoy meeting me,” he said. “I’m still the enemy to most of the people around here.”

  “You could identify yourself as Charles Nielson.”

  “No, he needs to fade back into the woodwork from which he came. Public attention is fleeting. In a few months, no one will remember him.”

  “What about the men and women who picketed? And the Pauliks.”

  “Nielson will refer them to another labor lawyer. A better one.”

  “What will you do?”

  “What’s in my
future, you mean? That’s up to you, Sayre. For all practical purposes, Hoyle Enterprises is yours now. I work for you. What do you want me to do?”

  “Can you grant me power of attorney?”

  “With Huff in the condition he’s in, that won’t be a problem.”

  “Once that’s done and I’m making all the decisions, I want you to put Hoyle Enterprises on the market. I don’t want it, but I can’t just shut it down and leave this town without an economy. Once OSHA’s demands are met, sell it to a responsible company. Top-notch in terms of safety and labor relations, or it’s no sale.”

  “I understand and agree. I have some excellent prospects. Companies that have approached me. I always told them Huff would never sell. They’ll be glad to know otherwise.”

  “For as long as the plant is closed for the OSHA inspection, I want the employees to receive full pay.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll stay on until everything’s resolved.”

  “And then?”

  “Consulting, maybe. I could be a knowledgeable liaison between labor and management for large operations like Hoyle. God knows I’ve had the experience, and I’m well acquainted with both sides of the coin.”

  They had believed they were hungry, but when they began to eat, they discovered they had little appetite. Sayre picked at a buttered biscuit. “You told me your mother was alive. Is she?”

  “Very much so.”

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  “You did. In Charles Nielson’s office.”

  “Brenda?” she exclaimed.

  “When I walked in and saw you there, it threw me completely, but Mom didn’t miss a beat.”

  “No, she didn’t. I never would have guessed.”

  “She thought you were gorgeous. Chic. Smart. Let’s see . . . I can’t remember all the adjectives, but she gave you a glowing review. Remember when you came out of the building and I was supposedly trying to track down Nielson in Dayton?”

  “Cincinnati.”

  “Well, I was actually talking to her. She was giving me an earful about how rude I’d been to you.”

  “She must have been frantic yesterday after you were beaten. No wonder she called here to inquire about you on Mr. Nielson’s behalf.”

  “I talked to her while I was driving home just now. Told her what had happened today. We’ve been preoccupied with toppling the Hoyles for more than two decades. She’s very relieved that it’s finally over. Even more relieved that I survived. She always feared that Chris or Huff was going to discover who I was and that I’d disappear like Gene Iverson or get accidentally killed like my father.”

  “What about Mr. Merchant?”

  “He died several years ago. He was a decent man. A widower with no children. He was crazy about my mother and raised me like his own son. I was fortunate to have two good fathers.”

  She stood up and began to clear the table. “Yes, you were. I didn’t have one.” She set what she was carrying on the counter and returned to the table to get more.

  Beck clasped her around the waist and pulled her between his legs. “When I’m done here, after I’ve tendered my resignation, I’ll be looking for a place to relocate, set up my consulting firm.”

  “Any ideas about where?”

  “I was hoping you might have a suggestion.” He searched her eyes meaningfully.

  “I do know a lovely city,” she said. “Great parks. Good food. The weather can be dicey, but Frito wouldn’t mind a little fog, would he?”

  “I think he’d love it. I know I would. As long as I could come back here every so often and have a bowl or two of gumbo.”

  “Want to know a secret? I have it shipped to me frozen.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.” She ran her fingers through his hair, but her affectionate smile faltered. “We’ve only known each other for two weeks, Beck. And it’s been a rather tumultuous two weeks.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Yes. So isn’t it too early for us to be making permanent plans along these lines?”

  “Possibly,” he said. “To be fair to ourselves, maybe we should give it more time, see how things go, before making any kind of commitment.”

  “I think so.”

  “How much time do you need?”

  She glanced at the clock. “Till half past?”

  He smiled, then laughed softly. “I don’t need nearly that long.” He encircled her waist, buried his face between her breasts, and sighed heavily. “Destroying the Hoyles has been my driving force to the exclusion of everything else. Since my dad was killed, I didn’t make a single decision that didn’t relate to bringing this day about. But now that it’s done . . . I’m just so tired of it all, Sayre.”

  “I’ve grown tired of being angry, too. I don’t even feel much satisfaction over Huff’s being broken. I mean, I’m glad he’s finally having to account for his crimes, but he’s a tragic figure. There’s no joy over it, is there?”

  “No. Not joy. Peace perhaps.”

  “Perhaps.”

  He splayed his hand over her abdomen and rubbed it gently. “Of all the things he did, I hate most what he did to you.”

  She laid her hand over his, stilling it. “I’m a Hoyle, Beck. We’re not always truthful, and we can be cruelly manipulative.”

  He raised his head and looked up at her.

  “I lied to Huff. It was a cheap shot, admittedly, but I was irate and wanted to pierce him to his soul.” Lowering her voice almost to a whisper, she said, “Dr. Caroe didn’t do any permanent damage.”

  His eyes dropped to her middle, then snapped back to hers. “You can have a child?”

  “There’s no physical reason I can’t. And I’m thinking that maybe . . . maybe I’ll tell Huff.”

  He came to his feet slowly and pulled her to him. “That’s what separated you from them, Sayre. They had no mercy. You do. I saw that, and loved you for it.”

  “No, Beck,” she said, laying her cheek against his chest. “That’s what I saw in you.”

  SIMON & SCHUSTER PROUDLY PRESENTS

  CHILL FACTOR

  SANDRA BROWN

  Available in hardcover from Simon & Schuster

  Turn the page for a preview of CHILL FACTOR. . . .

  CHAPTER 1

  The grave was substandard.

  The storm was forecast to be a record breaker.

  Little more than a shallow bowl gouged out of unyielding earth, the grave had been dug for Millicent Gunn—age eighteen, short brown hair, delicate build, five feet four inches tall, reported missing a week ago. The grave was long enough to accommodate her height. Its depth, or lack thereof, could be remedied in the spring, when the ground began to thaw. If scavengers didn’t dispose of the body before then.

  Ben Tierney shifted his gaze from the new grave to the others nearby. Four of them. Forest debris and vegetative decay provided natural camouflage, yet each lent subtle variations to the rugged topography if one knew what to look for. A dead tree had fallen across one, concealing it entirely except to someone with a discerning eye.

  Like Tierney.

  He took one last look into the empty, shallow grave, then picked up the shovel at his feet and backed away. As he did, he noticed the dark imprints left by his boots in the white carpet of sleet. They didn’t concern him overmuch. If the meteorologists were calling it right, the footprints would soon be covered by several inches of frozen precipitation. When the ground thawed, the prints would be absorbed into the mud.

  In any case, he didn’t stop to worry about them. He had to get off the mountain. Now.

  He’d left his car on the road a couple hundred yards from the summit and the makeshift graveyard. Although he was now moving downhill, there was no path to follow through the dense woods. Thick ground cover gave him limited traction, but the terrain was uneven and hazardous, made even more so by the blowing precipitation that hampered his vision. Though he was in a hurry, he was forced to pick his way carefully to avoid a misstep.<
br />
  Weathermen had been predicting this storm for days. A confluence of several systems had the potential of creating one of the worst winter storms in recent memory. People in its projected path were being advised to take precautions, stock provisions, and rethink travel plans. Only a fool would have ventured onto the mountain today. Or someone with pressing business to take care of.

  Like Tierney.

  The cold drizzle that had been falling since early afternoon had turned into freezing rain mixed with sleet. Pellets of it stung his face like pinpricks as he thrashed through the forest. He hunched his shoulders, bringing his collar up to his ears, which were already numb from cold.

  The wind velocity had increased noticeably. Trees were taking a beating, their naked branches clacking together like rhythm sticks in the fierce wind. It stripped needles off the evergreens and whipped them about. One struck his cheek like a blow dart.

  Twenty-five miles an hour, out of the northwest, he thought with the part of his brain that automatically registered the current status of his surroundings. He knew these things—wind velocity, time, temperature, direction—instinctually, as though he had a built-in weather vane, clock, thermometer, and GPS constantly feeding pertinent information to his subconscious.

  It was an innate talent that he had developed into a skill, which had been finely tuned by spending much of his adult life outdoors. He didn’t have to think consciously about this ever-changing environmental data but frequently relied on his ability to grasp it immediately whenever it was needed.

  He was relying on it now, because it wouldn’t do to be caught on the summit of Cleary Peak—the second highest in North Carolina, after Mount Mitchell—carrying a shovel and running away from four old graves and one freshly dug.

  The local police weren’t exactly reputed for their dogged investigations and crime-solving success. In fact, the department was a local joke. The chief was a has-been, big-city detective who’d been ousted from the big-city department in which he’d served.