Nothing in Lissa’s trailer tracked with Sharon’s crisp, detailed report. According to the information she’d gathered, Melissa Marie James, aka Missy Marie, had amassed millions during her meteoric rise from gospel prodigy to country superstar. In the process, she’d acquired a taste for the good life. Her credit reports showed a history of spending that would have drained the gold reserves at Fort Knox. It had certainly far outstripped her eight-figure yearly income.
A good portion of the money, Sharon reported, had gone to worthy causes. A children’s home in Oklahoma had received a two-million-dollar infusion of cash and new furnishings. Just about any church that applied to the singer for donations had come away with far more than they asked for. She’d also contributed the funds for a new wing at the Dallas Children’s Hospital.
The bubble eventually burst when federal investigators started looking into a series of scams to milk even more money from her legions of fans. Her manager had been named as a codefendant in the resulting indictment, but skipped the country before the case came to trial. Melissa Marie James took the heat alone.
After her trial, the horse farm outside Nashville, the Jaguar and Mercedes SUV, the gaudy, diamond-heeled cowboy boots and jeweled hatbands had all been sold to pay off creditors and those taken in by the scam. The forced sales hadn’t generated nearly enough to recoup all the victims’ losses. They’d been repaid gradually over the past three years, Sharon reported. A few more each month. The list maintained by the Nashville D.A.’s office had now dwindled to only a handful of names.
That correlated to Lissa’s angry assertion last night that she’d paid back almost every penny. Looking around the tiny trailer, Evan wondered how. She claimed she didn’t know where her absent manager had disappeared to, along with the bulk of the stolen funds. To repay the debts piled up in her name, she had to have generated considerable income herself these past three years.
If so, she certainly didn’t spend it on herself. That pickup she tooled around in should have been junked years ago. And this place…
The furniture must have come with the trailer. The coffee table and lumpy, square-backed sofa had a definite sixties look. The cheap pecan laminate on the wall paneling had peeled away in some spots, darkened to almost black in others. From what Evan could see of the kitchen, it had been equipped well before the advent of dishwashers or trash compactors.
Yet surprisingly, the place didn’t feel tired or depressed. Maybe because of the cheerful yellow scarves draped like swags over the windows. Or the profusion of wild daisies sprouting from the blue teapot sitting next to the keyboard.
Evan’s gaze snagged on the stack of sheet music anchored by the teapot. The vehemence of Lissa’s denial when he’d asked if she’d composed the song he’d heard her singing last night had been all out of proportion to the question.
He threw a thoughtful glance at the sliding door. From behind the thin panel came the sound of splashing water. Casually Evan ambled over to the table. To his disappointment, the sheets lay facedown.
Curiosity dug at him like a roweled spur. He reached out a hand, then slowly pulled it back. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself invade Lissa’s privacy.
He was waiting in the trailer’s only armchair when she emerged a few moments later, scrubbed, combed and, regrettably, wearing another long, filmy skirt. Evan had developed a decided fondness for those ragged cutoffs.
Not that there was anything wrong with her swirly lavender-and-green flowered skirt and demure little purple sleeveless top. She’d pulled her hair back in a loose twist and clamped it to her head with one of those plastic thingies, but enough tendrils escaped to frame her cheeks with the same silky softness her feathery bangs framed her eyes.
She looked, he decided with a hitch in his pulse, like a spring morning in a high mountain meadow. Fresh and clean and so unlike the mascaraed and spangled superstar sex kitten that Evan stopped kicking himself for not having made the connection.
“I’ll pop what’s left of the casserole in the oven to warm it up,” she said stiffly. “Would you like some fresh coffee?”
“I’d love some. I’ll make it if you’ll tell me where the fixings are.”
“Thanks, but there’s only room for one person to maneuver in this kitchen. I’ll do it.”
She ducked down to put a match to the pilot light on the ancient gas stove. After a long series of snapping clicks, the burner caught with a whoosh. That done, she filled a glass carafe and tipped water from it into a coffeemaker. Her movements were smooth and economical, her face a study in concentration and a watchful wariness that told Evan she wasn’t at all comfortable with his presence.
He stretched out, enjoying the unusual pleasure of watching a woman at work in the kitchen. His mother had insisted that her big, noisy brood know to cook as well as clean up after themselves. His brothers had all married women who expected their mates to spend as much or more time at the stove as they did. Evan himself could whip up a mean Caesar salad and marinated steak when the urge moved him. Given his long hours and grinding schedule, it didn’t move him very often.
His reluctant hostess picked at her eggs after she put two plates on the table. Evan downed his with the same gusto Wolf had, then moved on to the spice cake. He was on his second piece when Lissa stopped pushing the crumbs around her plate and met his gaze.
“Why did you come up here this morning? I told you last night I don’t want or need your help.”
“The not wanting part came through loud and clear. The not needing part kept me awake for a long time after I left you.”
That wasn’t all that had kept him awake, but she didn’t need to know that now.
“I have a lot of resources at my disposal. If you’ll tell me what got you so spooked in LaGrange, maybe I can nose around, run some checks. Some careful checks,” he added to forestall the protest he saw forming in her eyes.
“There’s nothing to check. It was just a weird, itchy feeling. Nothing I could pinpoint.”
He might have believed her if her fork hadn’t tapped a nervous beat against her plate.
“And?”
The fork pinged a few more times.
“And I spotted a car parked outside Paradise a couple of times,” she said slowly, reluctantly. “Early in the morning, when I run. I wasn’t close enough to get its make or see if anyone was inside, and it was gone when I made the return trip.”
Evan sensed she was holding back, not yet ready or willing to trust him. Wrapping his hands around his coffee mug, he prompted again.
“And?”
The fork stilled. Lissa lifted her head, met his steady gaze.
“And I think someone opened my mail.”
His federal prosecutor’s antenna shot straight up. “What makes you think that?”
“I have all my correspondence sent to Mrs. McNabb…a friend of mine back in Oklahoma. She bundles it up and forwards it to me here in Paradise.”
So that’s how she’d managed to preserve her privacy for so long. Simple, but effective.
“One of the envelopes she forwarded a month or so ago had been opened. Mrs. McNabb put a note on it, saying she’d found it in her mailbox like that.”
“Tampering with the mail is a federal offense. Did you report it?”
Her mouth twisted. “What do you think?”
He brushed aside her obvious reluctance to land herself in the middle of another mail fraud investigation, even as a potential victim.
“What was in the envelope?”
Lissa chewed on her lower lip. For a long moment, the only sound in the trailer was the faint rattle of the butane-fed swamp cooler that pushed damp air through the vents.
They’d reached a critical point, Evan realized. For him to help her, she had to take a step she obviously didn’t want to make. He leaned forward, wondering why the heck he was so determined to forge a bond of trust between them. He’d be out of here in a few hours, on his way back to San Diego by midafternoon at the lates
t.
“If I was going to breach your confidence, I could have done so yesterday when the reporter came nosing around,” he reminded her quietly. “You can tell me what was in the envelope.”
Blowing out a long breath, she laid aside the fork. “A contract from a music publisher. I write and sell gospel songs under a pseudonym.”
“Like ‘One-Way Ticket to Paradise’?”
“Yes.” A flush crept up her neck. “I didn’t actually lie last night when you asked if I’d composed that hymn. It’s, uh, still in the works.”
He let that bit of truth-stretching slide. “I didn’t catch the words, but what I heard of the melody was beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you writing both the music and the lyrics? For some reason, I thought those were two different specialties.”
“Most of the time they are. I’ve always done both.”
Her face softened, giving it a sweetness that made his breath hitch.
“The McNabbs bought me an accordion when I was a kid. I spent some of the happiest years of my life pumping out tunes and singing silly verses to go with them.” Kinder memories than those she’d stored up in the past few years filled her eyes. “Eventually I graduated to a guitar, then a keyboard, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for that old squeeze box.”
The urge to keep her talking pulled at Evan. Without the sharp edge of wariness, her voice flowed over him like warm wine.
“You mentioned the McNabbs a couple of times. They sound like good people.”
“They are. They raised me from the time I was four.”
“What happened to your folks?”
“My mother died in a car accident. My father…” One shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. “He disappeared a year later.”
Pity tugged at Evan, but Lissa’s soft, private smile as she described the couple who raised her showed she wasn’t looking for either pity or sympathy.
“The McNabbs gave me all the love any child could need. They taught me to rejoice in the Lord and in my music. I stayed with them until I was sixteen.”
Until Jonah “Doc” Dawes appeared on the scene.
Sharon’s report on the agent who’d taken charge of Missy Marie’s career had been brief and to the point. The promoter had struck gold in the naive, trusting young singer and mined it for all it was worth. All during his stint as her manager, Dawes had cut himself in for an incredible fifty percent of his client’s gross income as his commission. He’d also dressed her in enough spangles to outfit a Broadway chorus line and, according to Hollywood’s inveterate gossip columnists, eventually became far more than her business partner.
Evan’s gut twisted at the thought. No wonder Lissa carried her wariness like a barbed shield. First, her father abandoned her. Then a sleazy Svengali had breezed into her life and seduced her.
Now…
Now, a slick assistant district attorney had landed in Paradise and was trying to do the same damned thing.
Abruptly Evan pushed away from the table. “I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a little time before Charlie finishes my bike. I’ll borrow his truck and drive back to LaGrange. Nose around a bit. See if I can find a clue to what spooked you yesterday.”
Lissa scrambled up. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Don’t you need to get home?” she asked stiffly.
With a careless grin, Evan dismissed the combined demands for his immediate return by his boss, his assistant, and an increasingly impatient Carrie Northcutt.
“I’ll head out for San Diego later this afternoon.”
Chapter 7
Lissa almost let him make the drive into LaGrange by himself. She hadn’t asked him to chase down whatever had given her that uneasy feeling. Hadn’t asked for his help at all.
Scowling, she watched him stride halfway down the hill before common sense kicked in. The last thing she needed was an assistant D.A. asking questions about her and stirring curiosity in town. Flinging open the trailer door, she rushed after him.
“Evan! Wait!”
His mirrored sunglasses caught the glare and threw it back at her. A moment later, Lissa caught up with him.
“You’re a stranger around these parts. You’ll get more questions than answers in LaGrange.”
The corners of his mouth kicked up. “I’ve had some experience at drawing information out of folks without being too obvious.”
“If you say so.” Her doubting tone pulled a full grin from Evan. “Look, I appreciate that you’re only trying to help, but…”
“Come with me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Drive into LaGrange with me. That way you can show me the town and I can watch people’s reactions to you while we ask our questions.”
The idea of spending any more time with him again didn’t appear to appeal to her. She shook her head, backpedaling fast.
“Let’s just drop the whole idea. You’ve got better things to do than wander around a hot, dusty town on a Saturday morning.”
“None that I can think of,” he said with cheerful untruth. “We might as well take your pickup. Get your keys and some sunglasses and we’ll hit the road.”
How did he do it? Lissa wondered two hours later. How the heck did he walk up to perfect strangers and charm them into long conversations?
His first target had been the minister at the Christian Evangelical Church where they’d stopped on the pretext of inquiring whether Lissa was needed to fill in as organist at tomorrow’s services. Then the pimple-faced kid leaning against his car fender outside on the street. Now the waitress at the Dairy Freeze where they’d dropped in for something cold.
Lissa recognized Jill Jefferson from church and from her infrequent visits into town, but the waitress had never acted quite this friendly before. Or this flirty. Propping a hip against the edge of their circular booth, the bubbly brunette took advantage of a lull between customers to ask how their root beer freezes were going down.
“Like snow sliding off a polar bear’s back,” Evan replied with a twinkle in his eyes.
Jill’s smile could have melted the ice cap. “We aim to please, cowboy. I haven’t seen you around here before, have I?”
“I doubt it,” he answered easily if somewhat evasively. “I’m from up around Flagstaff. I don’t travel this way often.”
“Too bad.” Her curious glance flicked between the two occupants of the booth. “So are you and Lissa old friends or what?”
“More like new friends.”
Ignoring the loud gurgle when Lissa’s straw sucked air from the bottom of her mug, Evan stretched an arm across the back of the booth and kept the waitress talking.
“She’s been showing me around LaGrange. Nice town you’ve got here.”
“Yeah,” Jill snorted. “What there is of it.”
The buckshot-peppered sign on the outskirts had pegged LaGrange’s population at four hundred and forty-nine. Not exactly a thriving metropolis, although it was definitely uptown compared to Paradise.
Laid out in a flat grid with scraggly trees shading its center and cactus sprouting just about everywhere else, the town boasted an elementary school, a post office, a bank, two churches, three beer joints and a video rental/convenience store around the corner from the Dairy Freeze. For more esoteric delights like Wal-Marts or McDonald’s, the residents traveled to Buckeye, an hour to the north, or to Yuma, an hour and a half to the south.
“What do folks do for fun around here on a Saturday?” Evan asked casually.
Just as casually, his finger stroked the bare skin of Lissa’s shoulder. Her nerves flickered like fireflies at the light touch. With considerable restraint, she managed not to jerk away.
She sat silent while Evan skillfully extracted more information from the chatty waitress. Within moments, he’d learned that Jasper’s Pool Hall constituted LaGrange’s social center, the latest titles in the vid
eo store next door, the occupation and approximate income of the town’s wealthiest citizens, and the name of the county sheriff whose nine thousand-square-mile jurisdiction included LaGrange township.
“His office is up to the county seat,” Jill volunteered, “but one of Sheriff Lester’s deputies lives right here in town.”
The sheriff’s name must have meant something to Evan, as his hand stilled for a second or two before resuming its maddening stroke.
“That must have been the deputy’s squad car I saw parked outside the pool hall,” he commented idly.
“Probably. Art swears he learns just about everything he needs to know about the doings of the town by listening to those boys at the Jasper’s.”
The entrance of a couple of kids drew the waitress’s attention. Thankfully she moved off before the rough feathering of Evan’s fingertips had Lissa crawling out of her skin. Edging away, she fired him an irate look.
“Did you have to rub my shoulder like that?”
His grin slipped back into place. “No.”
“Then what was the purpose of that charade?”
“Just adding a little local color.”
As if he needed any color, local or otherwise, she thought in annoyance. He’d left his San Diego Padres ball cap in the pickup, rolled up the sleeves of his blue cotton shirt and tucked his aviator sunglasses into his pocket. With his tanned skin, snug jeans and scuffed boots comfortably crossed at the ankle, he looked right at home in this dusty little town.
“We’ve still got a few streets to stroll down, but I haven’t noticed anyone watching you oddly. Any recurrence of that prickly sensation you described?”
Other than the shivers he’d roused all along her spine, Lissa hadn’t felt anything but the suffocating heat.
“No. Do you know this sheriff Jill mentioned?” she asked, curious about the way his fingers had stilled at the mention of the man’s name.
“Bill Lester? I know of him. He used to be with the DEA. My brother Marsh worked a few undercover operations with him before he quit federal service to run for sheriff. Since then, he’s made quite a name for himself in law enforcement circles.”
The Harder They Fall (Intimate Moments) Page 7