Out for Justice

by Susan Kearney

  “How do I know? Maybe you just want to depend on a man for your every need.”

  Debbie shook her head. “I’ve learned that to get a decent job, I need skills or an education. I have neither. And I’m broke, too.”

  “What about the money from the sale of the ranch?” Kelly asked.

  “Most goes to the bank, the rest we owe to the credit card companies. I need a friend to help me out. I couldn’t make it alone. That’s what I meant when I said I’m not like you. You’re strong. You can stand alone.”

  “Did you see my brother for anything more than a meal ticket?”

  Kelly headed toward the door.

  Clearly she didn’t want to listen to Debbie’s excuses, but Wade understood what Debbie was trying to say better than Kelly did. Kelly hadn’t had to clean the house; her folks had hired a maid. She hadn’t had to work two jobs to help put food on the table or arrive at school so exhausted she couldn’t keep her eyes open.

  Wade started to follow Kelly out the door but paused a moment to squeeze Debbie’s shoulder with compassion. He was about to try and think of something comforting to say when Kelly stopped, rooted her feet in the carpet so suddenly that he almost bumped into her. She opened her purse and dug through it.

  Kelly pulled out her checkbook and her pink pen, then signed a check that she thrust at Debbie. “Here. Use this however you like.”

  Debbie took one look at all the zeros and shook her head. “I can’t take that.”

  Kelly rolled her eyes. “Andrew would have wanted you to have a way to survive without turning to a man like Niles.”

  “I don’t know what to do with that kind of money. I’m not smart like you.”

  “My brother didn’t date dumb women.” When Debbie still didn’t take the check, Kelly folded it and stuffed the paper into Debbie’s pocket. “The first thing you have to do is believe in yourself or no one else will.”

  Tears brimmed in Debbie’s eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “You can thank me by going back to school with that money. Every woman should be able to support herself. And if you need help, you call me. I’ll be there for you.”

  Grateful tears of apparent disbelief and relief at her good fortune spilled down Debbie’s cheeks. “Thank you.”

  Kelly’s change of heart and her generosity kept surprising Wade. After being so angry with Debbie, he hadn’t known she could be so compassionate. Or so tough. But that toughness combined with a hefty check was exactly the kick in the butt Debbie might need to regain her self-respect and set her life on a new course.

  Debbie opened the door. “Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

  They headed down the hall to the elevators, but with other people riding down with them, they weren’t free to talk. Kelly and Wade exchanged glances, but Kelly indicated that she didn’t have a clue where Debbie was taking them, either. But no matter what Debbie showed them, Wade couldn’t have been prouder of Kelly. At first she’d been so angry at what she’d seen as Debbie’s betrayal of her brother that she couldn’t understand Debbie’s position, but once she had she’d offered a hefty check and more importantly her friendship.

  They exited into the parking garage, and Debbie headed toward locked double doors by the stairs. “Niles always runs up the ten flights of stairs. He says it keeps him in shape. And yet if he doesn’t get the closest parking space to the stairwell he complains like the dickens. However, he doesn’t usually park his car in the locked storage area.”

  “Why are we here?” Kelly asked.

  “Niles told me he drove to Fort Worth this afternoon for a business meeting about an oil lease, but then I got a phone call from his manager who claims he never showed up.”

  “I don’t understand,” Wade told her.

  Debbie shrugged. “Niles has lied to me before of course, but then I saw his car.”

  She pulled keys from her pocket, unlocked the doors and pushed them wide open. Once inside the dark area, she led them to a dark green BMW parked by the stairwell. The car appeared normal until they stepped around to the front. The bumper was dented, the paint scratched.

  “Looks like he was in an accident,” Debbie said, stating the obvious.

  Wade figured Kelly was wondering the same thing he was. Had Niles run Johnny off the road this morning? Or was Wade letting his imagination get the best of him?

  Debbie folded her arms over her chest. “Niles asked a body shop owner to pick up the car at five o’clock. Seems to me he’s eager to cover up his accident.”

  Wade called Deputy Warwick. Since Debbie had been so helpful, he allowed her to hear both sides of the conversation with Kelly over the speakerphone.

  “Hey, Mitch. Did you get hold of Johnny Dixon’s accident report?”

  “Yeah. Hold on. Okay. I’ve got it right here.”

  “Does it mention anything about paint from another vehicle?”

  “Dark green.”

  “I’m looking at a dark green BMW with a dent. The owner intends to send it to a body shop within the hour. If I give you the tag and location of the vehicle, can you have an officer impound the car?”

  “Not without a way to tie the car to the accident, I can’t,” Mitchell said. “Who does the car belong to?”

  “Niles Deagen.”

  “The Dallas oil man? We’ve got to be real careful. Everything by the book or his lawyers will tear us up in court. Right now you haven’t given me enough to warrant a search.”

  “Was there anyone mentioned in the report who saw Johnny’s accident?” Kelly reminded Wade that the cop on the scene hadn’t been forthcoming when they’d asked that question. He could have been holding back information that Mitch would give them.

  “There was an eyewitness,” Mitchell admitted.

  “Did the witness say anything about a green BMW?” Wade asked.

  Wade waited impatiently, and Debbie shifted uneasily from foot to foot. He hoped she wasn’t having second thoughts about helping them. About helping herself.

  “It’s right here. A dark green BMW. Okay. I’ll take care of it. Give me the location and I’ll ask the Dallas police officer to impound the car. Then we can compare the paint on Deagen’s car to Johnny Dixon’s and see if we get a match.”

  Wade moved on to his next question. “Did you get the bullet comparison done?”

  “The bullet that killed Andrew came from a different gun from the one that killed his client. The case detective thought the client’s ex-girlfriend committed the homicide. I heard she confessed about an hour ago. But don’t give up. If the car paint matches, we’ll bring in Deagen for questioning.”

  Debbie frowned. “Deagen didn’t even know Johnny. Why would he want to hurt him? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “We don’t have any idea,” Kelly admitted. “But without your help, we wouldn’t have gotten this far. Thank you.”

  “If there’s anything else I can do to help, let me know,” Debbie offered. She touched the pocket where the check resided. “I’m leaving town. You can get in touch with me through Lindsey Wellington.”

  “We appreciate it.” Kelly hugged her. “And you should leave right away. Niles may be involved in something nasty.”

  “What will you do next?” Debbie asked.

  Kelly shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea.”

  However, Wade suspected from the pursing of her lips and the glint in her eyes that Kelly had much more than an idea.

  What neither of them noticed as they left Niles’s office building was the van following them.

  Chapter Twelve

  Frustrated that they hadn’t yet solved Andrew’s murder, Kelly was at least pleased they were making progress. When they’d begun the investigation she hadn’t had any leads. Now they had too many. And with clues to follow and more people to question, she was hopeful that she and Wade might eventually get Andrew some justice.

  With their investigation going better, Kelly was looking forward to some serious alone t
ime with Wade that evening. When they returned to his house after eating dinner on the road, she poured them both a glass of wine, turned the CD player’s volume to low and curled up on the opposite end of the sofa from him, determined to change his mind.

  “We need to talk.”

  He set down the newspaper he’d been perusing and gave her his full attention. “About?”

  “Us.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” When he began to pick the paper back up, she moved closer to him, close enough to smell the shampoo from his shower and a hint of aftershave. She placed one hand on his shoulder and let her fingers play with the hair at his neck.

  “We haven’t really discussed our making love.”

  She planted a kiss at the base of his neck where his pulse fluttered erratically. Knowing that her touch affected him gave her the courage to pursue their discussion. Besides, she liked touching him, liked his response to her, liked the way she felt about herself when she was with him.

  His hand closed over hers. “You’re going to use every weapon in your arsenal to get what you want, aren’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.” Since he held her hand still, she kissed a spot behind his ear.

  “Okay. Fine.” He shifted around to face her, ending physical contact, but the heat in his eyes warned her to tread with care. “What exactly do you want from me?”

  His direct words confused her. First he didn’t want to talk about them, then he claimed there was nothing to talk about and now he was asking her a question that was difficult to answer.

  What did she want? She wanted him to admit he had feelings for her. She wanted him to tell her that he wanted to make love again. She wanted him to care about her as if she was his woman—not Andrew’s sister.

  Telling him her thoughts was out of the question, especially with him so guarded. She sipped her wine and eyed him over the brim of her glass, her heart skipping as if it knew exactly how important this discussion was to her future. He’d avoided talking about himself by asking a question first, one she didn’t know if she wanted to answer.

  She stalled. “Can you be more specific?”

  “Do you want a fling with Mustang Valley’s bad boy?” he challenged her. “Do you just need someone to console you while you grieve? Are you trying to use me to rebel out of your safe little world?”

  He flung the questions at her with a curt aloofness that told her her answer meant more to him than he wanted to admit. So despite the pain he’d inflicted, she kept the hurt pinned down. “You sound as though you think that I’m using you.”

  “Aren’t you?” His gray eyes darkened with fierce accusation. “You’ve known me all your life, but you’ve never exhibited any interest in me until now.”

  “Not true.”

  He arched an eyebrow in disbelief. “Yeah, right.”

  She held his gaze and kept her voice level. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was in the eighth grade and you were a senior in high school and took Cindy Jo Crocker to the prom. You wore that black suit and black shirt that knocked my socks off. I wanted to be Cindy so badly that night that I followed you and Andrew on my bike. You never even knew I was there, and when I lost sight of your car, I went home and cried my eyes out. And do you know why I cried?”

  “Because you weren’t old enough to buy a gown for the prom?”

  “Cute.” She shook her head. “I cried because I knew that good girls didn’t go out with exciting guys with questionable reputations. You represented everything I couldn’t have—excitement, rebellion, freedom. Or at least I couldn’t have those things and keep my parents’ approval, too.”

  “That was your choice.”

  “I know that now. Andrew was the brilliant older son, so I gave myself the role of being the polite Southern belle, of sticking to the rules, of making straight As and never, ever embarrassing the family.”

  “Exactly my point. You and I should never have happened. We don’t belong together.”

  “But we do. Because I’m not that anxious-to-please adolescent anymore. The approval of others is no longer as important to me as my own happiness.”

  “And now that little Miss Do-It-by-the-Book has come out of the closet, you need to prove you’ve broken out of your self-imposed box by making love to me? Well, we did it. You can now move on with your life.”

  She set down the wineglass with frustration. “Well, I’m trying to move on, but you keep resisting.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He hadn’t expected her to agree with him, and it had thrown him. She wondered if he was ready to hear the words she wanted to say. Wondered if she was going too fast. Wondered if she was about to scare him away. But she couldn’t hold back, and if he couldn’t deal with her thoughts, then he wasn’t the right man for her.

  “Do you think I could have made love to you if I wasn’t already halfway in love with you?”

  He snorted. “You think you’re in love with me?”

  “Yes.”

  He stared at her so long that she had no idea what he was thinking. “Just how long do you think your love will last?”

  “I don’t know.” If he kept up his attitude, she might not love him for more than another minute. “I’ve never been in love before.” She wouldn’t give him a guarantee. She wasn’t ready to commit her life to him. Not unless he met her halfway. And he appeared far from believing her, never mind admitting his own feelings—which she assumed he had for her—but she could be wrong. She might be making a total fool of herself by declaring her love, and he was trying to let her down easy.

  Well, she’d wanted this conversation, so now she had to be strong enough to listen to what he had to say. Only, he wasn’t saying anything. He just kept staring at her with those smoky gray eyes that made her want to forget about talking, grab the front of his shirt and pull his head down until their lips met.

  “You love me?” he asked, this time with less disbelief in his tone.

  “Yes. I love you.” She eyed him with hope and vexation. He just stared at her, his face stoic as if he’d had to endure some kind of silly prank. “Space to Wade. This is the time where you’re supposed to chime in and say that you love me, too.”

  “What about your parents?”

  She lifted her chin. “This is between you and me.”

  “What about Cara’s opinion?”

  “Ditto for her.”

  “And your law degree?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” For a man who’d just heard that she loved him, he certainly was throwing out a lot of objections for her to trip on. She might not have declared her love to any man before, but she was agile and vowed not to go down without a full-fledged battle.

  “If you go to law school, you’ll leave Mustang Valley.”

  And then she got it. She understood why he’d been holding back. Not because he didn’t have feelings for her, but because he was afraid of losing her.

  “My attending law school doesn’t mean I’ll leave you. Haven’t you ever heard of phone calls and airplanes and vacation time?”

  “You haven’t thought this through.”

  She fisted her hands on her hips. “No. You haven’t thought this through. You don’t have the courage to take a chance on me. You’re the one who’s been holding back. I never thought that a man who could toss a mean three-hundred-pound drunk out of his saloon without breaking a sweat, a man who took on a murder investigation to ensure justice for his best friend, a man who doesn’t give one whit what the townsfolk think about him would be afraid of me. But you’re an emotional coward, Wade.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not your background or your reputation or education that’s going to drive me away. It’s your fear of loving me. And that means you aren’t good enough for me.”

  She marched for the door, her heart heavy, her eyes brimming with anger and unshed tears. She’d laid her heart out for him to take. Instead he’d chosen to crush it. Well, she couldn’t make him love her or make hi
m say he loved her. And if he didn’t make the effort, it didn’t matter either way.

  Hoping he might still change his mind didn’t make the ache inside her hurt any less.

  Damn him.

  She brushed away an angry tear. She needed to find Cara. She wanted to talk with a friend she could count on to take her side.

  Too full of anger to watch her step, Kelly knocked into a chair. The carton filled with Andrew’s papers tumbled to the floor. Great. The last thing she wanted was to delay her departure. She didn’t want to spend another minute with Wade right now. Still, she kneeled and randomly stacked the papers that she’d already gone through twice in hopes of finding a clue as to why Andrew had been worried that something might happen to him.

  While she piled the papers, Wade squatted beside her. He straightened the tipped-over box. “I need some time, Kelly.”

  “Take the rest of your life,” she muttered as she thrust papers back into a folder.

  “I never thought you were serious about me, so it colored my thoughts and my judgment. I suppose I was protecting myself.”

  “From what?” She stopped fussing with the papers and clutched Andrew’s jacket.

  “From you,” he admitted. “I always considered you off-limits. And I didn’t want to be your boy toy.”

  “It was never like that. I’m not like that.” She didn’t like that he thought so little of her. Didn’t like that he thought she’d been using him. Didn’t like that he didn’t think she had genuine feelings.

  “I understand. Now,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. “But all of this is rather sudden. I could tell you what you want to hear but…”

  “But?”

  “It would be a lie.”

  “Great.” His words hurt but she couldn’t deny the honesty he conveyed.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” He spoke gently. “As soon as I figure out how I feel I’ll let you know.”

  “So damn nice of you.” Insulted and irritated, she straightened the pile of papers in her hands. “You’d better think fast because I don’t intend to wait very long.”

  He held out the box to her to dump the papers. She started to toss the entire stack and frowned at the yellow paper at the bottom of the carton. “What’s that?”