Cruel Grace: Cowboy Justice Association (Serials and Stalkers Book 5)

by Olivia Jaymes

  “I did, but if I have to take a wild guess, I’d guess that Kendra’s daddy paid him off not to tell anyone or pursue it.”

  And that explained why the Taylors thought Charlie knew more than she was letting on. They thought she’d been involved in all the same things as Kendra.

  Now he had to tell Charlie.

  When Charlie returned from the ladies’ room, she couldn’t help but notice that the tension between Eli and Thom had been ratcheted up about a million notches. She had no idea what had gone on while she was away from the table but clearly something had gone down.

  And it wasn’t pleasant.

  Both men tried to act happy, but the smiles were forced as hell. As actors, they sucked and then some. She didn’t know why they were putting on a huge act but she was going to find out. After hugging Thom goodbye and promising to stay in touch, she and Eli left the restaurant and climb into their rental vehicle.

  “Don’t ever take up poker, Eli. You’d lose your life savings.”

  He didn’t appear shocked by her statement, instead chuckling as he started the engine.

  “You’re right. I don’t have a great poker face.”

  “Neither does Thom. What happened while I was gone? And don’t tell me nothing because that would make you a liar.”

  “I’m definitely not a liar, and I always intended to tell you.”

  “Why not while we were at lunch?”

  “Because Thom promised not to tell you, and he’s kept that promise for over a decade.”

  “Who did he promise?”

  Charlie already had a decent idea, though.

  “Kendra.” He pulled out into traffic, heading back towards where they were staying. “Let’s go back to the house for awhile so we can talk in private. I don’t want anyone overhearing this conversation.”

  “You’re making me worry.”

  “I’m not trying to,” he said, reaching over to pat her hand. His fingers were strong and warm and she found herself holding on tight. She’d felt an overwhelming need to anchor herself to a solid object. Eli was as solid as they came. “We have to go see your former neighbor Julian later, but we have some time until then.”

  They didn’t speak the rest of the journey while Charlie’s imagination had a field day thinking of all the things that Kendra might have wanted Thom to keep a secret. Frankly, she couldn’t think of anything that would have shocked her unless she found out that her best friend was a murderer herself.

  When they reached the house, Eli unlocked the door and then grabbed a couple of sodas from the fridge.

  “Why don’t we relax and I’ll tell you what Thom told me.”

  They settled on the sofa, just like last night. Charlie folded her legs underneath her, clutching that same pillow again against her chest. She had a feeling she might need to hold onto something, and she didn’t think she should be grabbing Eli at this point in their relationship. If they even had a relationship. Right now, it wasn’t a priority.

  But holding his hand during the drive had felt incredibly comforting. She wouldn’t mind doing it again.

  “Thom couldn’t tell me because Kendra made him promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s what you both talked about while I was gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have to admit that I don’t like the idea of them having secrets from me. At first when you told me I was scared, but now I’m sort of getting pissed off. What on earth could be so bad that Kendra felt she had to keep me in the dark about it?”

  She could see that Eli wasn’t having an easy time of telling her. His fingers were rubbing at his temples and his face was pulled back in a grimace.

  “I’m not even sure where to start. Okay, let’s start with Kendra and Thom were sleeping together.”

  Eli paused, apparently waiting for Charlie to react. She’d heard his words. She could hear them over and over in her head as well.

  How is he expecting me to react?

  “I think,” Charlie replied slowly, measuring her words carefully. “I think that I wouldn’t be all that surprised. I always thought that there was something between them. I just didn’t think that they’d acted on it.”

  There had been little glances and sly smiles, a giggle here and there that had let Charlie know that there was chemistry between her two friends. Yet in front of her, they’d never done anything more.

  “They definitely acted on it,” Eli said. “You also need to know that Kendra had a few kinks. We all do but I guess one of hers was swinging. She changed partners a lot. From what Thom said, there were plenty of men in and out of her life, some of them she didn’t know at all. He said she’d go home with a stranger quite often. He wasn’t surprised when she went missing and was murdered. He said she’d been doing risky things for a long time. He mentioned that she was an adrenaline junkie, jumping out of airplanes and shit like that.”

  “I knew about the skydiving.”

  “And the bungee jumping? And the racecar driving?”

  “I knew about the bungee jumping because she tried to get me to do it, too.”

  “Did you?”

  Sputtering with laughter, Charlie shook her head. “Oh hell no, I’m terrified of heights. I told her to have fun and video it so I could watch it later. Which I did, by the way. I was proud of her for doing it. She always said that she wanted to push her boundaries. She was afraid of heights too, as a matter of fact, but she said that she didn’t want to live in fear. She wanted to conquer it. I admired her for that.”

  “I noticed you haven’t remarked on the other part of what I said.”

  She hadn’t. She was still rolling it around in her head.

  “This is what she didn’t want me to know? That she’s a freak in bed?”

  “Apparently. There could be more but if there is Thom isn’t talking about it.”

  “To be honest, I’m one of those people who really don’t want to know about other’s sex lives. I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination but I don’t want to know if Dana likes hanging from the chandelier and if Thom likes it rough. You know what I mean? I don’t need to know those things about my friends.”

  “Thom said Kendra thought you would judge her.”

  Now that hurt. Deep down.

  “I never would have done that,” Charlie vowed, that anger simmering again. Her best friend in the whole world hadn’t trusted her in the least. “No way in hell would I have done that. It pisses me off that she thought that way. I shared my life with her, was honest with her about my fears and struggles and goals, and it’s looking like she wasn’t the same with me.”

  “From what Thom said she showed different faces to different people. That she would be what she thought they wanted. If it makes you feel any better, she didn’t single you out.”

  Charlie’s grip on the pillow tightened. “It doesn’t. I thought we were closer than that. I guess I was wrong and that fucking hurts. I thought I was her best friend.”

  “I think that you were. She probably showed more to you than she did anyone else.”

  “You’re just saying that to make me feel better. You don’t know if it’s true.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m going by what you tell me. You two sounded like you were close.”

  “I thought we were. Now I wonder.”

  It wasn’t easy suddenly having to question everything she thought was true. It was an…unsettling feeling as if up was down, and left was right.

  “I have to wonder what made her that way. Was it her upbringing? Something else? Did she ever talk about her childhood?”

  “She said that she had a great childhood. She was very close to her parents and they spent a lot of time together traveling and such. She was an only child so she always said that she was spoiled by her mom and dad. They gave her whatever she wanted. She seemed to love them very much. They were huge fans of her career and seemed really proud of her.” She sat up, letting the pillow fall off the couch. “You look like you�
��re miles away.”

  Eli smiled and stretched out his legs with a sigh. “I’m right here, just thinking. Honestly, you don’t seem shocked by any of this.”

  “I’m not…shocked,” she confessed. “I’ve always known that Kendra was impulsive, spontaneous. I also knew that she had several men in her life besides Cagney. I just didn’t know that she was going after that lifestyle with such…what word am I looking for? Gusto, I think. And I wouldn’t have judged her, although I might have warned her that she could get hurt.”

  Eli scraped his fingers through his hair. “There is one more thing. There were drugs apparently, although I don’t know to what extent.”

  Charlie couldn’t sit still any longer. She needed to get up and move. Do…something. Hopping up from the couch, she walked over to the front window staring out at the quiet street.

  “Listen, Kendra and I ran with people in New York City that had more money than they knew what to do with. It was a glamorous lifestyle from the outside. Partying and drugs were always around. I kept the partying to a moderate amount because I was never one of those people that could jump out of bed the next morning looking fabulous for a photo shoot. But I did know people like that. Kendra was one of them. So yes, there were drugs, but I wasn’t one to partake. I had a friend in high school who overdosed so I’ve always stayed away from it personally.”

  “Maybe that’s why she didn’t want you to know.”

  “I knew about that. I knew she did it. I just never said anything.”

  “You pretended she wasn’t.”

  “Right. I wasn’t her mother, after all. She didn’t need me nagging her about her decisions. That’s not the kind of relationship that we had.”

  Charlie was, however, rethinking everything she’d ever thought about the friendship between Kendra and herself. What had been real? What had been make believe?

  I don’t know anymore.

  “There are no secrets in a murder investigation,” Eli reminded her. “This might be all of it, or it might be the tip of the iceberg. If you can’t take it, there’s no shame, Charlie. We can put you on a flight back to Seattle as soon as possible.”

  Absolutely not. I can take it.

  “No way in hell am I going anywhere. If anything, this makes me more determined than ever to find out the truth. Kendra was wrong. I don’t think less of her. I don’t now and I don’t think I would have then either. My regret is that she never showed me who she really was. I loved her like a sister, and I would have loved her no matter what.”

  “You’re angry.”

  Charlie couldn’t deny it.

  “I am. I just don’t understand why she didn’t trust me. I’m rethinking everything about my behavior back then. Did I act too judgmental? Was I not open to what Kendra wanted to share with me? How could I have done things differently?”

  His eyes narrowed, his head shaking before she had even finished speaking.

  “Honey, you’re grasping at straws wondering if you had done anything differently if she might have lived. Think about it this way instead. Her behavior probably didn’t have a damn thing to do with you, your actions or reactions. It probably had everything to do with herself and her upbringing. I know it’s hard not to take this personally, but I don’t think this is about you. This is about her.”

  He’d said it as gently as possible, his expression kind, but the message was powerful all the same.

  “It isn’t about me,” she repeated. “I need to stop making it about me. I guess I do sound kind of self-centered.”

  “You’re not self-centered. Your reaction is normal. Your brain is trying to make sense out of a mystery, and it’s not easy. You can only control yourself so obviously you’re wondering what you could have done differently.”

  Something clicked in Charlie’s head.

  “You sound like you know this from experience.”

  Eli stood and came to stand beside her in front of the window. “I do, actually. After Debra died, I couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened if we had done things differently, if we had made different decisions. Should I have taken her to different doctors or a new hospital? What if we had pressed for experimental treatments? What if we had gone holistic? I guess what I’m saying is that you can drive yourself crazy thinking like that, because one thing is for sure.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can’t change the past. Like you with Kendra, I did the best I could with the information I had at the time. Would I do things differently now? Maybe, but even if I did, it doesn’t mean that anything would be different. You know why? Because Debra got to make decisions too, and her decisions for herself were a hell of a lot more important than mine. And Kendra made decisions too, and her decisions might not have been any different just because you changed. As human beings, we like to think that we have all this power to help people change, but the fact is we don’t have squat. They have to decide things for themselves. We’re largely superfluous to that process. Of course, no one tells us that. I’m not sure our egos could take it.”

  Charlie had a feeling that Eli’s words were true. In a way it made her feel better, but in another it made her feel almost helpless. Was there really nothing she could have done that would have changed the outcome? Was she…superfluous to Kendra’s decision-making? Looking back on the past, she’d rarely ever convinced Kendra to change her mind, although to be fair, she’d rarely tried.

  Because I knew I would fail.

  “So where does that leave us?” she finally asked. “Where do we go from here?”

  “We keep digging, we keep learning. If Kendra had a secret life that she kept from you, we need to find out about it. It just might be the key to finding out who killed her.”

  And that was the goal.

  The truth - even if it was ugly.

  Chapter Nine

  Charlie’s mood had improved by the time she and Eli had arrived at her old friend Julian Walker’s law firm. When he’d lived in the same apartment building all of those years ago, he’d just graduated from law school and passed the bar, working for the DA’s office. Now he was a big-time attorney with his own law firm.

  He’d certainly come a long way from the torn blue jean clad student who never got enough sleep. Now he looked every inch the prosperous, serious attorney in an expensive blue pin-striped suit and polished shoes. His hair was far shorter than it had been but his green eyes still sparkled with mischief. Julian had always been a good friend, ready to listen when things weren’t good, and happy to celebrate when they were.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said when they hugged after being apart for so long. “So very proud of you. You did it. You said you would, and you did.”

  Julian and Eli shook hands and they all sat down, Julian behind his huge mahogany desk, and Charlie and Eli on comfortable leather chairs opposite. The office was large with a serious feel to it with all the wood and leather. Julian had his law school degree on the wall along with several photos, one of all of them at a New Year’s Eve party thirteen years ago. Charlie, Julian, Barbara, Barbara’s teenage daughter Sofie, and Dana. Kendra had been out of the country with Cagney then, and of course, Thom had to work that night. Barbara and Sofie had lived across the hall from Charlie and had joined them for a few hours that night before retiring early. They’d all been so close back then. Different people, but friends despite it all.

  Julian’s gaze followed hers to the picture. “I’d like to tell you that I have great memories of that night but I was so plastered I barely remember it. I do remember that you danced with a champagne bottle in your hand.”

  Charlie felt the heat suffuse her cheeks. That had been one wild night. They’d all been pretty subdued the next day, nursing their hangovers. Except for Barbara and Sofie, of course. They hadn’t drank at all.

  “I don’t party like that anymore. Thank heavens. I couldn’t recover as fast now as I did then.”

  “I agree,” Julian laughed. “Back then I could party al
l night and take an exam the next day. Now? If I stay up past midnight, I’m feeling it all week. Growing older isn’t for wimps. Now I’m excited to see you, Char, but what brings you to my neck of the woods? A trip down memory lane?”

  Before Charlie had a chance to answer, the office door swung open and a young woman strode into the room carrying a stack of file folders.

  “Julian, I brought these—“ The young woman broke off when she realized that Julian wasn’t alone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in a meeting.”

  Julian smiled and waved away the girl’s concern. “It’s fine. I did ask for those as soon as possible. Charlie, this is Heather Darnell. She’s part of our high school intern program. The firm has an excellent relationship with the local school, and we now have a dozen students working here after school a few days a week, finding out if they have an interest in law. We’ve sponsored more than thirty budding lawyers over the last eight years for law school.”

  Heather’s cheeks had turned pink but Julian was beaming with pride. Charlie had a memory of Julian many years ago saying that he wanted to help young people go to college.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Charlie said. “I hope you’re enjoying your internship.”

  Heather nodded and placed the stack of files on Julian’s desk. “I do. Very much. Julian is a terrific mentor to me.”

  “She’s extremely bright and is going to do amazing things in this world,” Julian bragged. “I’m just glad to be a part of it.”

  A red-faced Heather hurried out of the office, leaving the three of them alone.

  “Sorry about that,” Julian apologized. “Now where were we? Right, I was wondering what brought you to town. A little vacation?”

  Charlie and Eli exchanged a quick glance. They’d discussed this in the car on the way here as to how they were going to handle this. She stepped back and let Eli answer.

  “We’re here because Charlie and Dana have hired my private investigation firm to reopen Kendra Taylor’s unsolved murder case. I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.”

  Clearly, they’d surprised Julian. His brows shot up and he straightened in his chair, leaning toward them.