Tom ran for the kit while Butch held a clean cloth to the cut.
Butch cupped her face with his free hand, stroking her cheek. He lifted her chin. “Look at me.” Butch looked into her eyes as they became glossy and spilled silent tears. He dropped his head and caught them on his lips, kissing her cheeks.
“I wished for you,” Kate said, her voice rough and thick.
Butch pulled her into his arms, locking her against his chest. “I’m home, honey.” Wild strawberries filled his head, this time triggering something protective in him. He wanted to sweep her away from all of this, hide her in his cabin in the Californian hills so nothing could hurt her. Then he would spend days loving that vacant look off of her face. “We’re home.”
Butch stayed by Kate’s side. She existed in a nearly catatonic state, eating what she was fed, walking where she was led. She said only that she needed to think. Butch had made love to Kate, sweetly, gently, telling her everything he found so wonderful about her, showing her how he loved her. She had accepted him, she had moved with him and then curled around him, but she was still lost somewhere inside of her mind that he couldn’t quite get to.
Tuesday, Kate sat curled on the couch while Butch pounded on the piano. A small recording device took in the heavy, angry bellows that raged from the instrument and resounded through the too empty room. Tom stalked in, dusty from a morning on the job site, his brows pressed low as though he felt the frustration and impotence that seethed from the abused keys.
Tom crossed the room to Kate and brushed her hair from her face. “What do we do?” he asked Butch.
Butch dropped heavy hands onto the piano, sending up a boom of dissonance. “I’m out of ideas. Should we call someone?” He expected Doc Johnson had to know a shrink or two.
Tom’s eyes flashed. He pulled his cell phone out and waited until a deep, gruff voice answered. “It’s Tom. I have Butch McCormick with me. The country music star? Yeah, that’s him. He’s sleeping with Kate.” With that courteous introduction, Tom shoved the phone into Butch’s hand.
Butch held the phone to his ear out of habit. “Hello?” He jerked the phone away as two minutes of some of the most creative swearing he had ever heard roared out of the phone. He had a growing understanding of why Kate kept their relationship a secret. Butch looked at Tom who stood there with his arms crossed and mouth clenched in determination.
Ed Riley roared. “Let me talk to my daughter, you son of a bitch.”
At Tom’s nod of encouragement, Butch carried the phone to Kate. “Your father wants to talk to you.”
Kate looked like a porcelain doll with eyes too wide. Butch pulled the phone back, instinctively protecting her, but Tom took it from his hand and pressed the speaker button.
“She’s here, Uncle Ed.” Tom held the phone near Kate’s chin.
When she spoke, it was the voice of a little girl. “Daddy?”
“Is that the way I raised you?” The old man bellowed so loud Butch easily heard every word he said.
Kate closed her eyes, her heavy head resting wearily on a battered pillow. “I don’t understand.”
“Who was the son of a bitch? Who was I just talking to?”
Kate pressed her hand to the phone, holding it herself as she spoke in a slow, quiet voice. “Butch, Daddy. His name is Butch McCormick.”
“You’re sleeping with him?”
Kate frowned, her voice hardening. “I’m not answering that.”
“You don’t have to. Tom told me. I didn’t raise you to be some asshole’s whore.”
Kate sat up, defiance strengthening her body. “Butch isn’t an asshole. Sleeping with a man doesn’t make me a whore.”
“Well it’s not going to find you a husband. Men like easy women in their beds, not in their houses.”
Kate sprang to her feet in a burst of energy that made Tom jump back. “What makes you think I want a goddamned husband? God himself knows I don’t need another man in my life. And if I want a house, I’ll buy one myself!”
“Don’t raise your voice to me, young lady. Marriage is a sacred institution.”
“Ha! Tell that to that woman you married. Fucking Butch may not be a sacred institution, but the man knows the way to Heaven.”
Butch cringed at Kate’s graphic description of him to her father. Her father. He cut his gaze to Tom who was doubled over in silent laughter.
“Butch?” the old man continued. “What kind of fucking name is Butch? He isn’t good enough for you. I know those musician types. Woman in every town, kid in every other.”
Kate circled the couch with powerful strides. “You don’t know Butch, Dad. You don’t know a thing about him. He loves me.”
Ed Riley laughed like a hyena. “Son of a bitch, you’re gullible. For a smart woman, Kate, you’re stupid as hell. He’s not going to buy the cow when you’re giving him the milk for free.”
Kate growled into the phone. “Thirty-seven. Dad. That’s how many guys I’ve been with. Thirty-seven. And you know what? I’m not on the giving end—I’m on the getting end.”
“I’m going to come down there and break that man’s neck—”
She stopped pacing and held the phone at face level as though he were in the room. “No, you’re not. You’re not going to touch him. He’s mine. From now on, I’m the only one who can break his neck. You don’t touch him. You don’t talk to him. You don’t think about him.”
“The hell I will—”
“Enough,” Kate screamed. “I love him. End of story. I’m going. I have things to do.” Kate whipped the phone at her cousin.
Tom reached for the phone, grimacing when he caught it.
“Couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you? Idiot.” Kate stormed out of the house.
“She’s back.” Tom grinned up at Butch. “Nobody gets her going like her father.”
Kate opened the screen door and leaned in. “Are you two coming?”
“Gimme your keys,” Kate snapped, not caring whose keys she got. “I’m not taking my Mustang out to the site. With my luck, a piece of rebar will pierce my gas tank and cause an inferno.”
Tom tossed his keys. “Wait. I’ll drive.”
Kate snatched them out of mid-air. “Get in. Are you coming, Butch?”
“I’ll follow you.”
Kate slammed the door of Tom’s work truck and peeled out. She barreled down the road with a full head of steam, blowing a stop sign and scaring the hell out of a field of horses. Tom hung on to the Jesus bar and screamed a prayer at the top of his lungs.
“I want that wall taken apart. Whoever killed that woman left something behind, and I want it.”
“What do you want me to do?” Tom asked. “Jeb took everything that was buried with her.”
“Jeb took everything he could see. I want that wall reduced to beach sand. If someone spit in that concrete I want it. And we are going over everything, from scratch. Waters will do it. The old goat doesn’t miss a trick.” Kate took the entrance to the site on two wheels and parked the truck outside the trailer in her usual spot.
“We can’t do it alone, Kate. If the police aren’t here, they’ll just accuse us of planting the evidence.”
“Then get them here. I don’t care how.”
Kate found Waters and pulled him from his work to comb the scene. “And don’t just look in that area they taped off. None of those cops had ever set foot on a job site. They didn’t know what they were looking at. You do. Nobody knows this shit like you do. The killer left something behind.”
Waters’s sharp eyes were game. “How do you know?”
“Because nobody’s perfect. Find me proof someone else was here. I want to talk to the man who claims to have seen me.”
“Thompson. I’ll send him over. Be nice, Kate.”
Kate rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “You know what they say about nice guys.” Kate tapped her foot as she watched Waters walk across the yard.
A voice behind her cleared his throat.
&n
bsp; Kate turned her ice blue eyes on him. “You have something to say?”
Butch smiled wickedly and pulled her against him so their hips crashed. “It’s nice to have you back.” He bent his head and caught her snarling mouth.
She gave a hard push at his chest. “This is a construction site. No kissing. Period. And move your hands.”
Butch tempted fate by moving his hands south and cupping her butt.
A throat cleared. “You wanted to see me?”
Kate spun to face Joel Thompson. The full face, ten years older than his age, hung slack. This man didn’t want trouble with the boss.
“You told the sheriff you saw me last Tuesday.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Thompson held his hands up in surrender. “Look. I was laid off for a year. You run a good site, and I’m glad for the work. I just told the sheriff what I saw.”
Kate rethought her approach. It took nerve to come to work after fingering the boss for murder. That told her a lot. “It wasn’t me. I was in Kentucky. But someone went through a lot of effort to make it look like it was me. I want to know what you saw.”
Thompson buried his hands in his jeans and studied the rocks. “It was just like I told the sheriff. Waters needed a few men to put in extra hours to be ready for the next day. I volunteered. I could use the money. I went to my car to call my wife. I just hung up when you pulled into the site in your company truck. You waved to me, and you drove off to the left.”
Kate began to pace. “Did you see my face?”
“No. It was dark. The light over the parking area reflected off the windshield but I could tell there was someone in the truck with you.”
“With me? Who?” When Thompson shrugged, she pressed on with her questions. “Did you see my hair?”
Thompson shook his head. “Your arm. You were driving with the windows down and your arm out.”
“Did I have on a short sleeved shirt?”
Thompson shook his head. “The kind that ends around your elbow. It was a really bright pink. The fingernails matched.”
Kate stopped pacing. “What do you mean the fingernails matched?”
“There were pink and long. Shiny.”
“Thompson, sit.” Kate whirled on Butch. “Call your dumbass brother. When he gets here, teach him how to interview a witness.”
Butch placed the call. “Jeb, I need you at Kate’s project.”
“What’s happened? Is Kate with you?”
Butch looked to where Tom, Waters, and Kate stood twenty feet away. Kate gestured wildly as she spoke. “Yeah, she woke up, so to speak. We’re at the site.”
A second call came in. Hyde. Butch let it go to voicemail.
“Fuck me to hell and back. What is she doing?”
“She wants Waters and Tom to take another look at things—”
“Stop them. Right this minute. Anything they find is useless. I’m on my way.”
“Katie!” Butch shoved his phone in his pocket, yelling across the lot. “Kate. Waters. Wait for Jeb.”
Butch paced on sentry duty, keeping the three accounted for until Jeb could get there. The party huddled around the hood of Tom’s truck, looking at the plans. Butch listened as they speculated how the killer had gotten the body into the wall form. The snap of gravel pulled Butch’s attention away from the group. He met his brother when he parked away from the others. “You don’t show up that fast for anything but dinner, Clyde. What gives?”
Jeb spoke to Butch but looked at the three conspirators. “I was taking another look where the rental car was found. What’s going on?”
“Your witness seemed to remember something new. Kate wants Waters to take a look at the crime scene. She thinks he’ll be able to tell if there is something out of place.”
Jeb snorted as they crossed the parking area. “She thinks she knows more than crime scene investigators?”
Caught between your brother and your lover, there were no good options. “How many construction sites have they worked?”
“Shit. That woman of yours is something else. Glad to see she’s snapped out of it. Thought we might have to bring in electroshock.”
“That’s what Tom did, in some respects.”
“All right, Kate. I’m here. What do you have?”
Jeb listened and then called his crime scene team back out. Butch didn’t know if Jeb did that because he thought something had been missed or as a favor. Either way, all involved took the job seriously. Jeb watched closely as Waters searched. A deputy used cones and bright yellow tape to rope off areas Waters indicated.
Butch waited out of the way with Kate. Per Jeb, Kate’s job was to let the others work. Butch’s was to make sure Kate did hers. Tom and a laborer worked from ladders in the pit on the set wall. They used a magnifying glass to inspect the white dust while a deputy photographed the grains of sand that had been the wall.
“Here, Sheriff.” Waters waved Jeb to the edge of cleared land. He pointed to a cone sitting on short scrubby grass. “That plumber’s wrench isn’t ours. It’s an old one. Could be one of the local crew brought their own, but there was no need.”
Kate did a quick dance and pointed her index finger up at Jeb. “I told you there was more. There had to be. See what Tom’s found.”
Jeb crossed his arms, a gesture Butch knew meant he wasn’t moving. “I have a man with him. I’m going to talk to Thompson. You, go sit in your truck.”
“I can’t. You confiscated it. I guess you’re stuck with me.”
Jeb looked over Kate’s head at Butch. “If you want to help, do something with her.”
“Hyde called. His message sounded like nothing but heavy breathing. Let’s run into town and see what he wants.”
“He probably just butt dialed you, and he’s thirty minutes away. If something happens, I want to be here.”
“If you stay here, something will happen. Not in a good way.” Butch took her by the elbow and steered toward the parking area. “Jeb will call. Tom’s here. He’d call, too. Pissing Jeb off is only going to cause more problems.”
“Fine. Gimme your keys.”
“Not a chance.” When Kate’s stubborn chin came up, Butch couldn’t resist pinching it between his fingers and kissing it.
“No. Kissing,” Kate growled.
Butch laced his fingers with hers and pulled her behind him as he walked to his truck.
“And no holding hands. Sheesh. Are you trying to ruin my reputation?”
Butch looked over her head at the busy construction site. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. Judging by how high everyone’s jumped, I’d say your reputation is intact.”
Kate climbed into the truck and buckled her seat belt. “It better be.”
Butch drove out of the site and down the road a few miles, glancing at Kate as he drove. Back to her old self, her head swung left to right taking everything in. “So, my sweet Katie, have you really had thirty-seven lovers?”
“Thirty-seven?” Kate snorted a laugh. “Where did you get that from?”
“You said it to your father. By the way, I can’t believe you said that to your father.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t listen to half the stuff I tell my father. You shouldn’t either.”
“How many?” While no virgin, Butch thought Kate to be the kind of woman that was selective of her lovers.
She angled herself against the door, her bright eyes on him. “I may have exaggerated a little.”
“What’s exaggerating a little? Thirty? Twenty-five?”
“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?” Kate’s crooked smile dared him. “How many women have you had?”
While married, Butch had been devoutly faithful. But in between, there were no rules. Butch used the flat, commanding voice Jeb always used when he’d been trapped. “Enough to know it’s time to change the subject.”
Kate laughed happily, her hair flying around in the wind. “You were a man slut, weren’t you?”
“I was not
.” His hot denial only fed her entertainment.
“Trophy man slut. A big time musician. I bet women across the country lost their panties to you. Should I check? Hashtag RocktheButch? You blushing?”
The hell he was. “Don’t matter what was. Only what is.” No truer words, he thought.
Butch parked in a customer space outside the old three-bay garage that proudly read HYDE’S SHOP. The tow truck Butch loaned him the money to buy sat at the ready next to the shop. Two bay doors stood open, welcoming friends and customers.
“Hyde. It’s Butch and Little Red.” Butch walked between the lifts, calling out again. The only sounds came from the street behind them.
“I don’t think anyone’s here.”
Butch walked around the small garage but found no sign of Hyde. “This isn’t right. When Hyde goes out, he closes the door and puts out his sign.”
Kate walked around the lift that held a white sedan at chest height. “I’m surprised he locks up. I figured around here, he would leave everything open in case someone dropped by and needed to borrow something.”
Butch heard the teasing and tossed it back. “I didn’t say he locked the door. Just that he closed it. Tsk. Tsk. City folk.”
Kate knelt to tie her shoe.
“Oh my God. Butch. Call an ambulance.”
Chapter Seventeen
Kate found the controls and raised the rack on the empty bay. Butch jumped down as he dialed 9-1-1. “This is Butch McCormick. We need an ambulance at Hyde’s Shop.”
Butch had known Silvy Jones, the 9-1-1 operator, since he was a tot, just like everyone else in town. Butch heard her expert fingers flying over the keyboard as she began to question him in that cool and collected voice of hers.
“What’s the problem, Butch?”
“Hyde’s hurt. He’s lying unconscious in one of his pits.”
Hyde lay like a pile of rotten trash in the corner of the pit. His head lay against the concrete at an awkward angle, his arms and legs tangled. Kate had followed Butch down, racing around him to Hyde’s side.
“I feel a pulse. I don’t know how you can breathe like that, but I’m afraid to move you, big man.” Kate held up her bloodied hand. “He’s bleeding, Butch. From his head.”
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