Shit, shit, shit.
Del watched Blake’s car until it turned the corner and disappeared from her line of sight and then she spun away from the open garage door. She touched her lips again and realized her hand was shaking.
It wasn’t a big surprise—she felt about as solid and steady as a bowl of Jell-O.
I’m not walking anywhere.
The words had slipped out of her mouth before she really had time to think about them, but it was too late to take them back. With those words hovering between them, Del knew Blake would be back. He wasn’t going to ask for anything she wasn’t ready to give and she knew he’d be good as his word and wait.
Her fear was that she might not be ready. Not now. Not ever. Not soon enough for something to work out between her and Blake. Even without her history, it was a touch and go situation. She lived four hours away, she had a life, she had a job, an apartment—bills.
Okay, so she had more bills than she could afford to pay, a really shitty apartment and a job that she wasn't always sure she wanted. It wasn't exactly home but it was her life.
Prescott was what she thought of when she thought of home, but a long time had passed since she’d left. This was the home of her past, but she didn’t know if she could live here again. She had made herself a life in Cincinnati.
Was she ready to change any of that? Could she change it?
He wasn’t going to kill him. Blake told himself that as he made the drive out to the country club. He was even fairly certain he meant it. He wasn’t going to commit murder, as much as he wanted to.
The Pike County Country Club probably wouldn’t add up to much in a more urban area, but around here, it was considered about as refined as it got. It wasn’t exactly the good ole boys’ club, but it wasn’t too far off.
Blake didn’t go there much. Once or twice a year, he might join his brother for a round of golf but that was about it. He had better things to do than sit around some smoke filled-room and talk about how the interstate that bisected the county had just ruined everything. Better things to do than make “business” contacts, which struck him as ridiculous since he knew everybody in the damned county anyway.
But right now he wasn’t there to play golf, or join the men for whiskey and cigars. He was heading for the golf course, but that was because it was Friday afternoon and every Friday afternoon, if the sun was shining and the temperature was above fifty degrees, William Sanders was on the golf course.
If Blake could have had his way, this would have been Sanders’s last golf game, unless they played the game in hell. But the badge he wore was something he took seriously, something he had a hell of a lot of pride in. It was a bitch, too. Legally, there was nothing anybody could do to William Sanders at this point.
The statute of limitations had come and gone twice over. The rape had been committed twelve years ago, and disgusting and awful as it was, Del wouldn’t ever see justice over it.
But there was no way that Blake was going to let it go, not without putting the fear of God and himself into the sick bastard. And maybe, just maybe, William’s temper and arrogance would get the better of him and the old bastard would take a swing at Blake. Wasn’t an abuse of power if he was defending himself.
The sun shone down hot on his shoulders as he walked the course. He’d been offered a cart but he couldn’t force himself into one. He had to move and he had to keep moving, because anytime he slowed down to think, that murderous rage threatened to take him over again.
Sanders was on the eleventh tee with Cyrus Dougherty and Hank Teller. The three men saw Blake coming and Cyrus grinned. “Look, boys. Somebody called the sheriff on us. I told you we should have let them play through.”
Blake had seen the teenagers who were waiting not so patiently for the older men to move along. Under normal circumstances, he might have played along. He’d always liked Cyrus. Cyrus owned the bank and the older man had given Blake the benefit of the doubt when he’d applied for the job in the sheriff’s department.
But he wasn’t in the mood for anything but blood. Not being able to get it wasn’t helping matters, either. “Need a word with you, Sanders,” he said, keeping his voice level.
Sanders glanced up from his putt with a smile. “I’m pretty sure I paid Louisa’s parking tickets.”
Sanders showed no sign of hurrying so when Blake responded, he let a little bit of his rage enter his voice. “Nothing to do with parking tickets. Now, if you don’t mind.”
From the corner of his eye, Blake saw the other two eyeing him curiously, but he never took his gaze from Sanders as the older man straightened up. He held the putter out to the caddy and headed towards Blake. “You want to tell me what this is all about?” William said. His voice was low and even but Blake saw the flash of irritation in his hazel eyes.
Blake smiled cynically and gestured. “You might want to take a walk with me, Sanders.”
“I’m in the middle of a game. You can say whatever in the hell it is you need to say here,” William replied.
Arrogant prick. Blake shrugged. “I figured you’d want a bit of privacy but if you don’t mind your golf buddies knowing about how you raped—”
Those smug hazel eyes no longer looked so condescending and Blake grinned as William’s face paled. He took off walking with a stiff gait and obliging, Blake fell in step behind him. He was nowhere near done with the audience yet, but he could let Sanders think whatever he wanted for the time being.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing, accusing me of raping somebody?” William demanded. The brief walk had given him a minute to compose himself and when he looked back at Blake, he was as calm and collected as could be.
Blake knew better, though. He believed Dee, without a shadow of a doubt, but if he hadn’t? Well, the guilty knowledge in William’s eyes a few minutes ago would have erased any and all doubt. He smiled slowly. “Oh, I’m not accusing you of anything. I was just stating that you might like some privacy, unless you wanted your friends to know you raped your step-daughter. You did want privacy, didn’t you?”
William hung his head and sighed, a forlorn, sad sound that might have fooled a lot of people. Blake wasn’t fooled, but he remained quiet as William looked at him and asked sadly, “Now what kind of tales has that girl of mine been telling you, Blake? She’s has some trouble lately and she just can’t admit her troubles are her own doing.”
“I imagine she has had some troubles, considering what you did to her before she ran away.”
William opened his mouth and Blake shook his head. “Don’t. I ain’t going to believe a damn word you say, so don’t waste your breath.” He moved closer, close enough that he could see Sanders’s eyes widen, the pupils flare. The telltale nervous reaction satisfied some gut-deep, primitive need inside Blake. William Sanders was afraid. “And if you lie to me, Sanders, you’re going to piss me off. You don’t want me pissed off.”
He watched as William swallowed nervously. It wasn’t as good as beating him bloody and then using a rusty knife to cut the bastard’s dick off, but fear was good. “You’re going to stay away from Delilah, you understand me, Sanders?”
“She’s my daughter—”
“No. She’s nothing to you. She’s not family, she’s not a friend. She’s not even a stranger you pass on the street,” Blake said, keeping his voice soft and low. Then he reached out, grabbed a fistful of William’s pale green polo shirt and jerked him close. “You don’t talk to her, you hear me? You don’t try to see her. Louisa decides she wants some sort of party, you talk her out of it. Not that Dee has any desire to see either of you, but even if she goes to the manor, you don’t talk to her. You see her, you turn and go the other way.”
He slowly loosened his grip. William stood there, frozen, almost as if he was afraid to move. Blake reached up and patted the old man’s cheek once, twice—the third time he did it hard enough to sting and he heard the smack of flesh on flesh. A red imprint of his hand appeared William’s cheek an
d the rest of his face darkened to match as a dull, ruddy flush crept up from his neck.
“I can’t control what other people do, Blake.”
“It’s Deputy, Sanders. You best remember that. And you will control this, old man, because if you don’t…” He leaned forward once more, put his mouth on level with William’s ear. “If you don’t, you’re going to wake up one morning and find me standing over you. And it will be the last thing you see, because I’ll kill you. Slow.”
When he drew back, he saw that William’s face had gone pale and his eyes were glassy. Satisfied he’d made his point, he turned and walked away.
Chapter Six
Two a.m. calls were never good.
Even for a deputy sheriff. Maybe even especially for a deputy sheriff. It was his weekend on call and he knew from experience any time that damn cell phone went off at this time of night it wasn’t ever anything good.
He flipped open the phone and answered, “Mitchell,” as he climbed from bed and grabbed the first pair of pants he saw. They happened to be the jeans he’d thrown on last night when he got home from work and they were wrinkled from laying in a heap on the ground, but at two a.m., people couldn’t be picky about his attire.
Well, they could. He would just ignore them.
The voice on the other end of the line was that of Billy Darnell and although the deputy was decent in his job, he tended to be a little—dramatic. “Slow down and say that again,” Blake interrupted and hoped that Billy’s tendencies to exaggerate were playing into this.
Billy repeated himself and Blake figured that for once, the younger guy was actually sticking to the facts, which was bad, bad news. “I’m on my way.”
He ended up behind the ambulance and judging by the way J.T. Amherst was driving, Billy had been right on the money about how serious the accident was. Lights from all of the vehicles shone on the wreckage, highlighting it all too well. Beaumont Junior drove a late model, sturdy SUV. A few months ago, he’d traded in a green Jaguar for the SUV. If he’d been driving the Jaguar, the paramedics wouldn’t have to be so damned careful in their work because there wouldn’t be anybody left to save.
As it was, Blake wasn’t sure if all their valiant efforts were going to be worth much in the long run. The black oversized SUV had gone head-on with a big oak, but judging by the smashed up back end, Junior had some help going off the road.
He glanced at his watch and pressed a thumb and forefinger against his eyes. The call had gone into 911 less than fifteen minutes earlier when a nurse from County, Lizette Radcliff, drove past the wreckage on her way home from work. There weren’t going to be any witnesses.
The medics started his way and Blake caught their attention. “He going to make it?”
J.T. glanced at him, his normally laughing eyes grim. “Don’t know, Blake. He’s lost a lot of blood. Took a bad blow to his head. Know more once we get him to the hospital.”
Blake stood aside so they could do their job and as the ambulance went screaming off into the night, he turned back to the wreck and settled down to his.
Three hours later, Blake had a massive headache and he was madder than hell. There was no question that somebody had run Junior off the road but that only left more questions and he didn’t know if he’d find answers.
Who had done it?
Why had they left the scene?
There were other questions that Blake didn’t want to think about but that was his job and he couldn’t figure out which question was harder.
Was Junior going to make it through surgery?
Was this an accident—or intentional?
Blake couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this hadn’t been an accident. Logically, it could have been—kids out joyriding and not paying attention to the other vehicle until it was too late, a drunk driver. There were other plausible explanations. But even though there was no evidence yet to indicate otherwise, nothing but a sick feeling in the pit of his gut, Blake’s gut insisted this wasn’t an accident. So if Junior died on the table, Blake and the rest of the sheriff’s office were looking at a murder investigation. It wouldn’t be the first murder in Prescott, or the last, but they weren’t exactly commonplace. The last murder had been nearly ten years ago when Dawson Davis had come home early and found his bride of six months in bed with the next door neighbor.
Dawson’s pretty bride got a divorce, the neighbor was six feet under and Dawson was doing hard time. Blake had been dealing with school and chemo but even he remembered that particular scandal. It had been the topic of conversation in Prescott for a good long while.
Dead tired, Blake closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. The waiting room of Pike County General was quiet this time of night. Junior’s wife Marta was weeping softly in the corner, her sister holding her hand and staring at the doors with dazed eyes. In the other corner, their son sat with his head in his hands.
Samuel Wyatt Beaumont, III didn’t look like either of his parents—he was big and rough looking next to his delicate, petite mother. Junior’s hair had been gray as long as Blake had known him and every year, his hair receded just a little more. Sam, on the other hand, had thick hair that was as black as midnight and badly in need of a trim. He wore it long and usually tied back but not tonight. The thick stubble on his face was normal, as were the dark clothes and beat up leather jacket.
He looked like a Hell’s Angel. Maybe less scruffy, more clean shaven, and a lot younger, but he sure as hell didn’t look like a lawyer. Very few would guess that the grim looking guy had attended an Ivy League college and graduated top of his class. Even harder to believe that he’d aced the bar exam and three years ago, he’d been a hotshot assistant district attorney down in Nashville. Something had changed, but Sam wouldn’t talk about it with anybody, not even guys he used to call friends.
Now he drifted in and out of town, working odd jobs, disappearing at the drop of a hat without even picking up a paycheck. The past few weeks he’d been swinging a hammer, helping out with one of the rehabs going on in the older buildings down on the square.
Blake wasn’t particularly looking forward to talking to Sam or his mother. Especially Sam. The man may look like a drifter but Blake knew the mind that lay behind those unreadable, brown eyes and if Sam suspected this hadn’t been an accident, Blake was going to have even more trouble on his hands.
The doors opened and the four of them turned to watch as the doctor came inside. He had a weary smile on his face and the knots in Blake’s gut eased.
“Looks like he’s going to pull through. Those Beaumonts are stubborn.”
“Is he awake?”
Dr. Joe Benson shook his head. “No. And when he does wake up, I’m not sure if he’s going to be much help. He’s got a pretty big knot on his head. He may not remember anything right away.” Then Joe smiled ruefully. “Or ever.”
Blake wasn’t surprised, although he was frustrated, as he sat with Junior five hours later. The three of them weren’t supposed to all be in the room at once. Junior had stabilized but he still didn’t need the exhaustion of a lot of visitors. Blake had promised the doctor he’d keep it short and he figured the doctor knew better than to try and keep Sam and Marta away.
Blake glanced at his watch and told himself in two more minutes, he was going to leave. The last thing he wanted to do was add to Junior’s exhaustion. “Okay, let’s do this again, Junior. What’s the last thing you remember?”
From across the room, Sam spoke up. “Why do you keep asking the same questions, Blake? Do you really think his answer is going to change from the last five times you asked?”
Marta had spent the past hour staring at Junior’s face with a rapt gaze, as though she feared he might disappear in front of her. But when her son spoke, she glanced away from her husband. “Sam, darling, Blake is only doing his job. As long as he doesn’t tire your father, Blake can ask the same question a thousand times. Whatever it takes to find who did this.”
Junior laughed weakly. “
I don’t think a thousand times would make much difference, sweetheart.” He lifted his wife’s hand to his lips and kissed it before looking at Blake. Stooped shoulders lifted and fell as he sighed. “I can go over it again, but my answers won’t change, Blake. I don’t remember anything after I left the office. Not until I woke up here. I’m afraid I can’t help you much.”
Blake forced himself to smile. “That’s understandable, Junior. What about before? Anything unusual happen in the office?”
“My word.”
The four of them glanced to the door and Blake didn’t quite manage to suppress his scowl as Louisa Sanders came sailing through the door. Behind her was the irritated face of the nurse taking care of Junior. She’d grudgingly let Blake in to see Junior, but she didn’t look at all happy to have Louisa there.
“Mrs. Sanders, he needs to rest,” Lena Ross said and judging by the irate tone of her voice, she’d said it several times.
“Oh come now, sweetie. I’m not going to keep him from resting. I just wanted to see how he was,” Louisa said, waving a dismissive hand towards the nurse. She paused at the foot of the bed and touched a manicured hand to her throat. “Oh, dear Junior. I heard you were in an accident…”
“Mrs. Sanders, if you don’t leave now I’m afraid I’ll have to call security,” the nurse warned.
Louisa’s eyes flickered just a bit and she turned, giving the nurse a cool smile. “You’ll do no such thing.”
Lena’s eyes widened. Temper flared there, but Blake had to give her credit. She kept her voice low and level as she said, “Mrs. Prescott, donating money to the pediatric wing doesn’t make you exempt from hospital policy.”
“Lena,” Blake interrupted, drawing her attention to him. He doubted that Louisa could do much more than make petty threats but he didn’t want to see her causing the nurse grief just for doing her job. “You don’t need to call security. I’ll handle this.”
Lena paused and then she nodded. She left but at the door, he saw her glance back and give Louisa an irritated stare. As the door closed behind her, Blake stood up and said, “Why don’t you let me walk you to the car?”
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