Crybaby Falls

by Paula Graves

  And neither her parents nor Donnie’s had known they were in town, though Joyce and Gary had told her later, in the hospital, that Donnie had called the night before to tell them he’d be in town for the anniversary of Renee’s death.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said aloud. “I guess because it was three years ago today. And tomorrow, it’ll have been eighteen years since Renee’s death.”

  Cain looked down at the falls thundering beneath the bridge under their feet, his expression grim.

  “Sometimes, I can barely remember what she looked like,” Sara continued when he didn’t speak. “Isn’t that strange? She was Donnie’s sister, and I saw her all the time, but when I try to remember things about her, it’s all fuzzy and distant, like I’m looking at the past through a frosty windshield. I wish I could blame the head injury from the crash, but the truth is, I don’t think I really knew her at all. She was just Donnie’s sister, the one who didn’t want us to bother her or mess with her things.”

  “I remember her.” The words seemed to spill over his tongue before he could stop them. His gray eyes slanted her way, narrowing as if he’d said something he regretted.

  “Do you know who fathered the baby she was carrying?” she asked.

  His gaze snapped up to hers again. “No.”

  She knew it hadn’t been Cain’s baby. DNA tests had established that much. But short of court-ordering every male who’d ever had contact with Renee to take a DNA test, the question of her baby’s paternity had remained as open a question as the identity of her killer.

  “She wouldn’t say,” he added so softly that for a moment, she wasn’t sure she’d actually heard him speak. But when he turned to look at her again, he added, “She made it clear she didn’t want anyone else to know.”

  She stepped closer, lifting her face toward him. The rain had almost stopped, but the wind had picked up, blowing damp strands of her dark hair across her face. One strand snagged on her lips, and Cain’s gaze dropped to her mouth. For a moment, his eyes darkened, and something crackled between them like electricity.

  Then he looked away again, his gaze drawn back to the waterfall.

  “Did you love her?” She hadn’t realized she was going to ask the question until it tumbled from her lips.

  He turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowing as they met her gaze. “I wanted her. I don’t reckon that’s the same thing, though.” His shoulders slumped after a moment and he turned to put his hands on the bridge railing. “I wanted her to be happy. And she wasn’t.”

  No, she wasn’t, Sara thought. She might not have a strong memory of Donnie’s sister, but what she did recall was that Renee had been full of life and laughter, even when she was being the imperious older sister—except for those last few weeks of her life.

  Sara supposed learning she was pregnant must have been terrifying for a girl like Renee, whose parents had put her on a pedestal and made big plans for her life. College, marriage, a career if she wanted it—the Lindseys had been determined to give their children a charmed life, especially their smart, beautiful firstborn.

  Renee would have felt the heavy weight of those expectations and dreaded having to tell her parents the truth.

  “She wasn’t dating anyone as far as her parents and Donnie knew.” Sara wondered if Cain Dennison was willing to be any more forthcoming now, all these years later, than he’d been right after Renee’s death. Sara couldn’t bring Donnie back, but maybe she could finish what he’d started before his death. Maybe she could find out the truth about what had happened to Renee.

  She’d been a good detective once, before the accident. And she had a lot of time on her hands now, while she tried to figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

  “I knew she was seeing someone,” Cain said. “I just never knew who.”

  Sara couldn’t hide her surprise. “You never told the cops that.”

  He slanted a look at her. “They didn’t ask me that.”

  “And you didn’t volunteer the information?”

  “The cops thought she was dating me. Secretly, of course.” He laughed, though the sound held little in the way of mirth. “Because Renee Lindsey wouldn’t dare date a Dennison in the open.”

  “But the two of you spent a lot of time together.”

  “We were friends.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that was enough for you?”

  He shot her a narrow-eyed look. “Did your daddy send you to interrogate me, Detective Lindsey?”

  “My daddy doesn’t tell me what to do. And, by the way, it’s just plain Mrs. Lindsey now.”

  One dark eyebrow arched over a pale gray eye. “Since when?”

  “I turned in my badge last week.”

  “Your decision?”

  The decision had nominally been hers, but she knew it had been a matter of time before her bosses let her go. She hadn’t been able to throw herself into her work the way she’d needed to. Donnie had haunted every inch of the town they’d once called their home, until he was almost all she could think about. Donnie, her questions about his death and her own guilty fear that whatever had happened had been her fault.

  “Close enough,” she answered.

  He cocked his head, his gaze sliding over her slowly, as if to adjust his assessment of her now that he had this new piece of information. “What are you going to do now?”

  She shrugged. “I have some savings that didn’t get eaten by the medical bills. Donnie had some life insurance. I’ve got a little time and space to decide.”

  “And you came back here to do your thinkin’?”

  She smiled at the first hint of his mountain accent coming into play. He’d been gone from the mountains awhile, just as she had, but highlanders like the two of them could never completely escape their roots.

  “My granddaddy died last winter. He left me his cabin. My dad says there’s a lot of work to be done on it, and I should probably just sell it. But I don’t have to decide right away.” She wasn’t sure why she was telling Cain even this much about her plans. He might as well be a stranger to her, and what little she did know about him and his past didn’t exactly paint him as a trustworthy confidante.

  “And you figure it’s as good a place to do your thinkin’ as any?”

  “Something like that.”

  He nodded slowly. “Looks like we’re both back for a while, then.”

  “So this isn’t a short visit for you?” She felt a flicker of unease. Purgatory, Tennessee, was a place with a long memory, and there were a whole lot of people in this town who still believed Cain Dennison had gotten away with murder.

  Her father included.

  Carl Dunkirk had never been happy about the sheriff’s decision not to pursue Cain as a suspect in Renee’s murder. He’d seen Renee’s pregnancy by another man to be a damned good motive for murder rather than exculpatory evidence.

  If Cain planned to stay here long, he might come to regret it.

  “I have a job,” he said after a moment, not looking at her.

  “Doing what?”

  He glanced at her. “This and that.”

  “Are ‘this and that’ legal?”

  His mouth curved, the first hint of a smile since she’d confronted him. The twitch of his lips carved a dimple in his cheek, sending an odd flutter through the center of her chest. “You think I’d tell you if they weren’t?”

  She tried a different tack. “I heard you joined the Army when you left town.”

  “You heard that, did you?”

  “It’s not true?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Did you like the service?”

  “Liked isn’t exactly the word I’d use,” he said after a pause. “I guess you could say I found satisfaction in serving my country.”

  “How long were you in?”

  He made a show of looking at his watch. “Fifteen years, two months and three days.”

  Now she was really surprised. The Cain Dennison she k
new—through rumors and stories, anyway—couldn’t have lasted a week in the Army. “That’s a career.”

  “I thought it would be, yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  He blew out a long breath. “I guess you could say I didn’t see eye to eye with the brass, and I knew it was a battle I couldn’t win.”

  Now that sounded more like the Cain Dennison she remembered.

  He lifted his face to the wind, narrowing his eyes. “Looks like the rain’s about to pick up again.”

  She knew a dismissal when she heard one. Cain was done with the conversation.

  As she started back up the incline to where she’d parked her truck, she thought over what he’d let slip during their brief encounter. He hadn’t exactly been forthcoming, but at least he’d given her a place to start looking.

  Renee had been seeing someone secretly, and Cain had known about it, even if he didn’t know who. Which meant it was possible someone else knew something about Renee’s clandestine affair as well, right?

  But who?

  Buckling herself in behind the steering wheel, she watched the woods, wondering if Cain would follow. Or did he plan to brave the rain that was already pelting her windshield with increasing fury in order to pay his respects to Renee?

  When he didn’t appear after a few minutes, she cranked the truck. But before she could change gears, her cell phone rang. Glancing at the display, she saw her mother’s number.

  She could imagine what her mother would have to say. She’d probably attended the memorial for Donnie, hoping to see Sara there, as well.

  Bracing herself, she answered. “Hi, Mom.”

  Ann Dunkirk’s voice held a hint of anxiety when she spoke. “Did you get caught in traffic? You didn’t have an accident, did you?”

  She closed her eyes, feeling guilty about giving her mother more to worry about. “No. No accident. I just decided to visit the memorial on Black Creek Road instead of going to the cemetery.”

  “Oh.” Ann’s pause extended so long that Sara almost began to squirm. “I wish you’d called Joyce Lindsey to let her know.”

  “I should’ve.” Sara knew her mother was right. She didn’t regret missing the memorial, but she shouldn’t have been a coward about it. She should have let Joyce know her plans.

  She just hadn’t been up to dealing with the guilt she felt whenever she talked to Donnie’s mother.

  “You’re still planning to come to dinner tonight? I’m making chicken chili.”

  Her stomach growled at the thought. “I’ll be there.”

  “Be careful driving in the rain. And don’t try to drive while talking on your cell phone.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  As she ended the call and put her phone back in the pocket of her jacket, she saw Cain Dennison exiting the woods about twenty yards away from where she’d come out herself. His head lowered against the now-driving rain, he walked quickly toward a dark blue Ford F-150 parked along the shoulder a quarter mile down the road.

  She watched until he’d climbed into the cab of the truck, curiosity keeping her still. There was something about the truck that seemed familiar, she realized. But what? What was tugging at her memory?

  He pulled past her as he drove away. If he noticed her parked there off the road, he didn’t give any sign. As she started to look away, a flash of red caught her attention. It was a bumper sticker attached to the back of the truck that read, “Never follow the advice on a bumper sticker.”

  Even as her lips started to curve in a smile, she remembered where she’d seen the truck before—parked at the scenic overlook above the spot where she and Donnie had missed the tight curve and gone down the gorge.

  Her smile faded.

  So, Cain Dennison had been at the same overlook where she’d parked her car. And now he turned up at Crybaby Falls at the same time she had.

  Coincidence?

  Not bloody likely.

  Chapter Three

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  “I think her memory loss is genuine.” Cain waved off Alexander Quinn’s offer of a drink and took a seat in front of the big mahogany desk that occupied most of the back half of Quinn’s office. Outside, rain and falling night obscured what would normally be a stunning view of the Smoky Mountains from the window where Quinn now stood, holding a tumbler with two fingers of bourbon in one hand as he gazed out at the gloom.

  “Or perhaps she’s a talented liar.”

  “Do you honestly think she’d have risked her own life in that accident in order to kill her husband? I was there at the scene before the paramedics arrived. I know how close she came to dying.”

  Quinn took a sip of the whiskey and grimaced. “I didn’t say she tried to kill him. But she might be covering up what she remembers because she was culpable.”

  “I think not remembering makes her afraid she’s at fault.” Cain had spent most of the afternoon going back over his encounters with Sara Lindsey, from his first glimpse of her at the roadside memorial to their wary conversation at Crybaby Falls.

  She was grieving, but she didn’t like to show it. She was private and self-contained, but in her dark eyes he’d seen the ragged edges of her lingering pain. She missed her husband, grieved for him, but there had also been a hint of frustration in her tone when she’d spoken about his family, about Renee’s death.

  He knew from his preliminary investigation that Donnie Lindsey had become increasingly intent upon finding out who killed Renee. The passage of years had only intensified his determination, it seemed.

  What kind of havoc could his focus on the past have created in his marriage to Sara? She had been a cop, just like Donnie, so she’d have known the odds were against finding the killer after so long. Had she tried to temper his thirst for closure?

  Had it created problems between them?

  “Is it possible the accident wasn’t an accident?” Quinn asked after a few moments. “Whether or not the widow was involved?”

  “If the sheriff’s department thought it was anything but an accident, they’d have investigated.” Cain hadn’t been able to make any contacts inside the sheriff’s department—a predictable outcome, given his dicey past relationship with Ridge County law enforcement. But everybody in Purgatory knew former Sheriff Will Toomey and Gary Lindsey had been friends since their own days at Purgatory High. If Toomey had even an inkling that the crash that had taken Donnie Lindsey’s life was anything but a tragic accident, he’d have continued the investigation instead of accepting the official verdict of accidental death.

  “So maybe it’s time to set aside your investigation of the widow and start looking into the sister’s death instead.”

  “You know my past with these people. I was a suspect in the murder for a while there, and I know there are folks around here who still aren’t convinced I’m innocent.”

  Quinn shot him a narrow-eyed look. “Are you innocent?”

  The question surprised him. “Why would you have ever hired me if you didn’t already know the answer to that question?”

  Quinn’s expression didn’t change. “Why would you deflect my question?”

  “I didn’t kill Renee Lindsey.” Cain pushed to his feet and started for the door. “And I don’t work for people who play mind games with me.”

  Behind him, Quinn clapped his hands, slowly and deliberately. Heat rose into Cain’s neck, making his ears burn with a toxic combination of humiliation and fury.

  He turned slowly, battling both emotions, and made himself look at Quinn. “Is that your way of telling me to pack up my things and get out?”

  Quinn picked up his glass of whiskey from where he’d set it on the windowsill. He took a long sip before he spoke. “If I had fired you, there would be no question of my intentions.”

  “You still want me on this case?” Cain tried to keep the desperation out of his voice, not wanting to reveal to Quinn just how badly he still wanted answers about Renee Lindsey’s death. But he could tell from Q
uinn’s expression that he hadn’t succeeded. His boss at The Gates was a former CIA man with a long and colorful past in some of the world’s most dangerous hot spots. Very little got past him.

  “You have the capacity to be a good investigator,” Quinn said in a tone that oozed reason and calm. “But you have to scrape that boulder-size chip off your shoulder. You tell me you’re innocent, and I want to believe you, but you give off an air of guilt.”

  “I may not be a murderer, but I’m no Boy Scout.”

  “Your record in the Army was impressive. Your commanders spoke highly of your courage and skill.”

  “I’m not in the Army anymore.”

  “So you’re only trustworthy in uniform? But once you step foot in Purgatory, you’re nothing but trouble again?”

  Cain frowned. “You know what I mean.”

  “And you know what I mean.” Quinn finished off the whiskey and set the glass on his desk with a muted thud. “Did you know Seth Hammond spent over a decade as a con artist? Or that Sutton Calhoun used to steal food from the greengrocer over in Bitterwood when he was growing up? Hell, Sinclair Solano joined a terrorist group and spent five years on the FBI’s most wanted list.”

  Quinn was speaking of men he’d hired at The Gates, Cain knew, men who were now vital members of his investigative team. Cain released a long, defeated sigh.

  “What have you done to rival any of those things?” Quinn asked pointedly.

  “I killed my mama and my twin brother just by bein’ born,” he answered bitterly. “Nobody in Purgatory’s going to give me the time of day. They think they see too much of my daddy in me. And, hell, maybe there’s something to that.”

  “You had no agency in what happened to your mother or your brother at the time of your birth,” Quinn said bluntly, “no matter what your bastard of a father might have told you. And you have control over whether or not you behave as your father did. You’re not a child. Stop thinking like one.”

  He never should have come back to Purgatory, Cain thought. He’d had a life in Atlanta, working construction. Making decent money doing honest work. Nobody there knew about his past, about his father or his own failings.