When Secrets Kill

by Zoe Carter

  “You, me and everyone,” Trevor said. “We’ve got a lot to sort through, and have to figure out where to go from here. Come back to the ranch? You can meet CJ and tell me what your gut says.”

  She nodded. “I could definitely use an hour or two among nature and bulls and horses. I completely get why you bought that place.”

  He slung an arm around her shoulder—for the second time that day—as they headed out to her car, and the warm, comforting weight of it felt so damned good she never wanted him to take it away.

  * * *

  Lauren stood at the fence, watching Klondike the bull graze on grass and hay. A light breeze whipped through her hair, and she lifted her face to the sun, the air fresh and redolent with the scent of freshly mowed grass.

  When she and Trevor had arrived, she’d spotted CJ Spinner parking a riding lawn mower. Trevor had introduced them, and she’d taken an immediate liking to the guy. She’d watched him bring Klondike over to the grooming pen, and the pure enthusiasm on his face as he’d moved the soapy brush over the bull’s flanks told her he loved his job here at The Double G Ranch. He talked to the bull, petted him and slipped him the final slice of apple in his pocket. Lauren could see why Trevor trusted CJ.

  And unfortunately, CJ couldn’t recall seeing a particular well-dressed “older” man come on to Tammy; according to CJ, the waitresses at Catch of the Day always got hit on, especially in the late spring and summer during tourist season.

  Now, as she listened to Trevor explain to CJ about how to select a bull—something about pedigree and frame size and the bull’s female line for disposition and udders—she found herself oddly interested. She knew nothing about livestock and she wasn’t entirely sure what a heifer was, but at least she knew what a calf was. All of a sudden she realized she was staring at Trevor and had lost track of the conversation. The sun shone on his dark hair, revealing chestnut highlights, and she couldn’t keep her eyes off his tall, muscular body. The man was seriously hot.

  Because she was staring he turned her way and smiled, and her knees went rubbery for a second. Oh hell no. All signs were pointing to a lethal combination of pure lust and real affection, which meant...she was starting to fall for him in a way she couldn’t afford. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t resort to her old reckless ways of judging a potential boyfriend by how much she wanted to have sex with him. But suddenly she wished she could be thinking solely about sex when it came to Trevor. Because when she thought about him, every single cell and nerve ending was involved. Her heart was involved.

  “See ya later, Lauren,” she heard CJ call as he turned to head toward the barn. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” she called back. She watched him saddle up a brown horse with a white tail and ride off.

  Trevor walked over, and with every step, she thought she might melt into a puddle on the ground. What the hell was wrong with her? So the guy was sexy. So she liked him. Her life right now was about the Townsend Report and Victor Townsend’s legacy and her future as a journalist. It was about seeking justice for those who were ignored.

  It was not about falling in love. Being off balance. Staring dreamily off into space and imagining those strong, calloused hands all over her body, those soft yet hard lips devouring hers and inching their way down her neck and lower and lower still. If she let herself go, let herself give in to her feelings, she’d be lost within days. She always kissed without thinking, said yes without thinking, fell in love without thinking. She couldn’t do that now. Not with everything riding on this investigation. Her future depended on it. She depended on it.

  Still, by the time Trevor was closing the gate to the pasture and standing beside her, she could barely drag her gaze off him.

  “CJ’s going to ride fence and take pictures of anything that needs mending,” Trevor said. “Then I’ll ride out with him and teach him what to do.”

  “He’s lucky to have you.” The man had a good heart. She knew that, but it showed in the kind way he interacted with CJ, his tone of voice, the respect with which he treated CJ.

  “I think I’m the lucky one. I needed a hand—literally—on the ranch, and it feels good helping out a kid who needs it, especially one who cared about Tammy.”

  “Well, you’re both lucky then.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go inside. I’ll show you the place. Don’t expect much.”

  She smiled. “Is there a sofa and a kitchen table?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s pretty much all I expect.”

  She should have expected more. Hadn’t spending time with Trevor Gallagher taught her that already? When he opened the front door and she stepped through, she was surprised at how homey he’d made the place in just a couple of days. There was a plush chocolate-brown sofa with some big throw pillows, a big soft-looking oriental rug and an interesting painting of a saturated trio of rowboats along a rocky shore. By the sliding glass doors to a deck leading to the backyard was a blue dog bed with a curled-up Charlie snoozing away.

  “Not much of a guard dog,” Trevor said, smiling at the black-and-white dog whose tail was twitching in his sleep. “He rarely barks too.”

  “Comfortable living room, sleeping dog,” Lauren said. “I’m amazed at how homey it is.”

  “A neighbor a few miles out had an estate sale and I bought half the stuff,” he said. He took her hand and led her down a pale yellow hallway into the kitchen. There was a round white pedestal table and four white captain’s chairs. Coffeemaker, blender, toaster oven. Roll of paper towels. There were even a few magnets on the fridge with clippings about county-wide rancher association meetings.

  She looked around, taking in the row of blue mugs with different dog breeds on them visible through the glass cabinets above the counter. She suddenly had a hankering to go mug shopping. To buy things for her own place. Which she didn’t have and might not ever have.

  “Do you think it’s weird that I live at home with my dad and sisters?”

  “I think it’s nice,” he said, filling up the coffeemaker with water. He added grounds that she could smell from where she stood and then pressed a button. “Like I said, you’re lucky you’re close with your family, Lauren. I’m...alone.”

  “Is your mother coming for the funeral tomorrow?”

  His expression turned grim. “She said she’d mourn privately. The woman has two children and one of them is gone. And she’d rather stay with her new boyfriend in California than come back and pay her final respects. I’ll never understand her.”

  Jesus, he was alone. Trevor could use someone by his side at that funeral, and the one person he should be able to count on to be there for Tammy—for him—wasn’t coming.

  “I don’t understand that either,” she said. “When my mother died, my dad kind of disappeared into himself for a while, but every night he’d tap on my door and come in to kiss me good night and tell me he loved me and that everything was gonna be all right. ‘I’ll always be here for you,’ he’d say, and then sit down in the rocking chair until I fell asleep. Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning and he’d still be there, snoring.”

  Trevor smiled. “Sounds like a great dad.”

  “He was in a lot of ways. My sister Nova was the one who raised me, though. My dad was there on the fringes—saying good night, pecking me on the cheek in the morning at breakfast, but Nova did all the heavy lifting. Combing the tangles out of my hair, staying up with me when I was sick, attending my parent-teacher conferences, making me do my homework and helping me study for tests. If I tried to sneak out of the house in a crop top or makeup in middle school, she’d yank me back in and make me change and wash my face with all kinds of horrible threats about no TV time.”

  Trevor took two mugs from the cabinet—a beagle and a pug—and poured the coffee. “Wow, she really did raise you.” He opened the fridge for cream and s
et it down beside the sugar bowl on the table. “What about Jennifer?”

  Lauren sat down and added a teaspoon of sugar and poured in some cream, noting that Trevor took his coffee black. “The Blakes basically ran her out of town. They blamed her for Abby disappearing, thought she had something to do it. Jennifer left and didn’t come back until a few weeks ago, when I was charged with murder.”

  “Well, that shows you how much Jennifer cared about you too, even though she wasn’t around most of your life.”

  Lauren nodded. “I know that now, but at the time, those twenty years... It hurt like hell. And now that she’s back and living at home, I feel like I can finally get close to her. Even if she’s the cagiest person I’ve ever met. But between that and my sister Nova having given up so much to take care of me, it just doesn’t feel right to move out and get my own place. I’m not even sure I want to.”

  “I’ve always liked the idea of a family homestead. I wanted my sister and me to live here together. I always thought when she married, I could build her and her husband a home on the property and I’d have my little nieces and nephews running around. Little cowboys and cowgirls.”

  She smiled, picturing a toddler in a Stetson and chaps. “And your own kids?”

  His smile faded. “I don’t know. I like the idea of kids but I don’t know what kind of father I’d be. I never had one of my own.”

  “From the way you cared about your sister—care about her—and how you treat CJ, I’d say you’ve got all the paternal instincts down pat.”

  “I’ve always been a lone wolf,” he said. “Yeah, I cared about Tammy and I’m looking out for CJ. But I’m on my own. That’s the way it’s always been.”

  She’d been the opposite her entire life. From her first crush in elementary school, she’d been throwing herself at boys. By high school she’d thought sex was the only way she could get herself a boyfriend or a prom date. And when she became an adult, that was fixed in her head as the way it was. “Good time” Lauren. “Do anything” Lauren. “Drink you under the table” Lauren. “I supposedly don’t care about anything even though I cry at night” Lauren.

  If she ever wanted to really change, know her worth, Lauren Riley needed to be a lone wolf herself.

  Trevor stood up with his coffee mug and faced the window. “I keep thinking that there’ll only be a handful of people at Tammy’s funeral. Me. CJ. Maybe Sarah from Catch of the Day and Sophie the high school friend. That’s it.”

  “And me,” Lauren said.

  He turned to face her and held her gaze for a moment, and then turned back to the window. He looked so alone.

  Before she could stop herself, she got up and stood behind him and rested her head against his back. She felt him stiffen, but then he turned around and looked at her before tilting her chin up with his hand. He kissed her, softly at first, almost like he was just saying, “Thank you for that, Lauren. You’re not just a grubby reporter who wants the story at all costs. You do care.”

  But then he deepened the kiss and slid an arm around her, pulling her closer to him.

  Oh hell. All thoughts went out of her head and she felt herself go practically limp against him, which made her wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him back. Hard. He responded, backing her up against the counter until they were pressed so tightly together that they might as well have been naked. She felt every hard plane of his body. His hands snaked through her hair as his lips moved across her neck, then back to her mouth.

  It had been so long since she’d felt a man’s hands on her. Three months since her self-imposed retreat from flirting with strange men and hot, fast sex that left her alone and empty the next morning, making the walk of shame through town to her house. Trevor wasn’t a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of guy; she knew that in her bones. But hadn’t she made a promise to herself, to her family, to Victor, to Tammy, to all the missing girls that there was a new Lauren at the helm of the Townsend Report, one who focused and cared and persevered instead of falling into bed with a hot man and a bottle of vodka?

  Pull away. Step back.

  The sound of horse hooves could be heard outside, and they both glanced out the window.

  “Shit,” Trevor said, rushing out the door.

  “What’s wrong?” Lauren asked, chasing after him.

  CJ Spinner sat atop Sundappled, slumped over, barely holding on to the reins. He had a reddish bruise under his eye. Trevor helped him down and laid him gently on the grass.

  “Two guys jumped me when I was taking photos of the fence,” CJ said. “They smashed my phone. And said this was for you.” He pointed to the pocket of his flannel shirt.

  Trevor reached in and pulled out a folded-up white piece of paper. A warning was typed in all capital letters.

  “ONE BY ONE UNTIL YOU BOTH MIND YOUR OWN DAMNED BUSINESS.”

  Chapter Nine

  While Lauren called her father to report what had happened to CJ, Trevor called his neighbor, a doctor who made house calls. Dr. Jane Catwaller rushed over, briefly examined CJ and declared him stable enough to be carried inside. Trevor picked him up and brought him in the house, laying him down in the bed in the guest room on the first floor.

  As the doctor did a more thorough examination to determine if a hospital visit and X-rays would be necessary, Trevor stood by CJ’s bed, calling himself every name he could think of. What the hell had he been thinking, making out with a woman in his kitchen when everything in his life was wrong? He was supposed to be searching for his sister’s killer. And hell, Lauren had already received a warning; he should have anticipated that his ranch would come under threat. And now CJ had been badly hurt.

  “No broken bones,” Dr. Catwaller said. “That eye is going to swell and turn purple, but that’s the worst of his injuries.”

  Lauren sat down in a chair beside the bed and gently brushed back CJ’s floppy bangs. The kid looked miserable and scared.

  He should never have let CJ roam the vast property on his own. Dammit. This was Trevor’s fault.

  A car was coming down the dirt drive. A Thornwood Heights police cruiser. Oh great, the asshole on steroids and the complete know-nothing—Lewton and Paretti—were exiting the car in front of the house.

  Lewton slid his aviator-style sunglasses atop his head, his ice-blue eyes their usual level of cold fish. “Officer Paretti will investigate the area where Mr. Spinner said he was attacked. Where was that, exactly?”

  Trevor pointed in the direction CJ had said he’d been jumped, describing it based on the landmark tree. It was a mile up and over to the left, where a weeping willow between the fence line and the road a quarter mile away would shield a merciless beating. Paretti nodded, got back in his car and drove toward it.

  “I’d like to question the victim,” Lewton added, with a strange emphasis on the word victim.

  As Trevor and Lewton came in the guest room, Lauren stood up. “If the police were taking the Tammy Gallagher case seriously, CJ never would have been hurt.”

  Lewton ignored her. “CJ, can you describe the two men you allege beat you up and left the note in your pocket?”

  “Allege?” Trevor repeated. “What the hell, Lewton?”

  The dead blue eyes turned to Trevor. “That’s Deputy Chief Lewton,” he snarled, jabbing a pointer finger toward Trevor. Asshole. “Seems coincidental that a potential suspect in the murder of your sister would be attacked for no reason I can think of, Mr. Gallagher. Maybe CJ conked himself in the eye, bashed his face against the fence post, whatever. Maybe he typed out that note before he headed out.”

  Trevor clenched his hands into fists at his sides. Take a breath. Control yourself. The most he could do without getting arrested was stare down the creep. Who let this mouth-breather become deputy chief?

  “Why would he do that?” Lauren asked, anger radiating from her.


  Lewton rolled his eyes as though that was the dumbest question he’d ever heard. “He’s a potential suspect, Ms. Riley. According to Officer Paretti, he had quite a little crush on Tammy Gallagher. An unrequited crush. Last time she was seen, she left a party because CJ showed up. Maybe he didn’t like that. Maybe he followed her and demanded she go out with him. Maybe he didn’t like being rejected and strangled her, then dumped her body in the woods.”

  “I didn’t!” CJ shouted, trying to sit up, his expression tortured. “I loved Tammy.” Tears streamed down his face.

  “There’s your motive right there,” Lewton said, tipping his blockhead chin at CJ. “He loved her. And he snapped and killed her.”

  “No!” CJ shouted.

  “And here he is, working for you,” Lewton said to Trevor. “How strange. The Thornwood Heights Police Department will be watching both of you,” he added, closing his little notebook and sliding it into the pocket of his uniform.

  Interesting. The THPD hadn’t given two shits about CJ Spinner as a “potential suspect” before. But suddenly, they had to do their jobs by investigating the attack on CJ, and now the guy was a “potential suspect.” As was Trevor. Unbelievable.

  “Trevor and CJ are not suspects,” Lauren said through gritted teeth, her brown eyes flashing. “This is crazy! CJ was attacked by two goons who were likely hired by Tammy’s killer to try to scare us into stopping our investigation. The note says so, Lewton.”

  “That’s Deputy Chief Lewton,” the cop said again, leveling a glare at Lauren. “We’re the investigators here. If I were you, I’d do like the note says before someone gets killed. Leave the police investigation to us.”

  “You all but said that CJ and I are your suspects,” Trevor pointed out.

  “I said I’m going to keep an eye out,” Lewton said. “Read into that what you want.”

  “So you’re not going to look into who hurt CJ and wrote this note?” Lauren asked.

  Lewton didn’t even look at Lauren. “Do I answer to you? No, I don’t.”