Change of Fortune

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “What’s the matter?” Ross asked her.

  She shook her head and looked back at her blood-stained slacks.

  “Do you know anything about that vase?” Jimmy Caldwell asked her, his gray eyes intent on her features.

  When Ross’s sister clamped her lips together, the police chief leaned in closer. “You have to tell me, Frannie.”

  She suddenly looked trapped, her gaze flitting between Jimmy Caldwell and her brother.

  “Fran?” Ross asked.

  “It’s mine. I bought it from Reynaldo Velasquez,” she finally whispered. “I wanted to put it in the upstairs hallway.”

  Ross muttered an expletive. “Don’t say anything else, Frannie. Not until I get you an attorney. Just keep your mouth shut, okay?”

  She blinked at her brother. “Why do I need an attorney? I didn’t do anything wrong. I just bought a vase.”

  “Just don’t say anything.”

  “In that case,” the police chief said, “I guess we’ll have to continue this conversation at the police station.”

  “You don’t have nearly enough to arrest her. You know you don’t.”

  “Not yet.” The police chief’s voice was grim.

  “Josh. You have to find Josh,” Frannie said suddenly. She clutched her brother’s arm. “Find him, Ross. Get him away from here.”

  He looked taken aback by her urgency. “I’ll look for him.”

  “Thank you, Ross. You’ve always taken care of everything.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, then clamped it shut again.

  “Let’s go, Frannie,” the police chief’s voice wasn’t unkind. “I’m sure it will be a relief to you to get away from this crowd.”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  The police chief slipped a huge navy windbreaker over her blood-stained clothing, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders. By all appearances, it looked as if he were consoling the grieving widow but Julie saw the implacable set to his muscles, as if he expected the slight woman to make a break for it any moment.

  Ross watched after them, his jaw tight. “This is a fricking nightmare,” he growled. “Unbelievable.”

  “Do you need help finding your nephew? I was coming to find you and suggest you look for him. It would be terrible for him to stumble onto this scene without knowing the…the victim was his father.”

  He muttered an expletive. “You’re right. I should have thought of that before. I should have gone to look for him right away.”

  “I’ll help you,” she said. “We can split up. You take the midway and I’ll head to the dance.”

  He blinked at the offer. “Why would you want to do that? You’ve already been dragged far enough into this.”

  He wouldn’t get any arguments from her on that score. She would much rather be home in her quiet, solitary house than wandering through a crowd looking for a boy whose world was about to change forever.

  She shrugged. “You need help.”

  He eyes widened with astonishment, and she wondered why he found a simple offer of assistance so very shocking.

  “Thanks, then,” he mumbled.

  “No problem. Do you have a picture of Josh?”

  “A picture?”

  “I can’t find him if I don’t know what he looks like,” she pointed out gently.

  “Oh right. Of course.”

  He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, and she was more charmed than she had any right to be when he opened an accordion fold in the wallet and slid out a photograph of a smiling young man with dark-blond hair, brown eyes and handsome features.

  “I’m almost certain I’ve seen him around at the Foundation but the picture will help immensely,” she said. “I’ll be careful with it.”

  “I have more,” Ross answered.

  “We should exchange cell phone numbers so we can contact each other if either of us finds him.”

  “Good idea,” he said. He rattled off a number, which she quickly entered into her phone, then she gave him hers in return.

  “Now that you mention cell phones, it occurs to me that I should have thought of that first,” Ross said. “Let me try to reach Josh on his phone. Maybe I can track him down and meet him somewhere away from here.”

  She waited while he dialed, impatient at even a few more moments of delay. The longer they waited, the more likely Josh would accidentally stumble onto his father’s body and the murder scene.

  After a moment, Ross made a face and left a message on the boy’s voice mail for him to call him as soon as possible.

  “He’s not answering. I guess we’re back to the original plan. I’ll cover the midway and you see if you can find him at the dance.”

  “Deal. I’ll call you if I find him.”

  “Right back at you. And Ms. Osterman? Thank you.”

  She flashed him a quick smile, though even that seemed inappropriate under the circumstances. “Julie, please.”

  He nodded and they each took off in separate directions. She quickly made her way to the dance, though she was forced to virtually ignore several acquaintances on her way, greeting them with only a wave instead of her usual conversation. She would have to explain later and hope they understood.

  She expected Ross’s call at any moment but to her dismay, her phone still hadn’t rung by the time she reached the dance.

  Country swing music throbbed from the speakers and the plank-covered dance floor was full. Finding Josh in this throng would be a challenge, especially when she knew him only from a photograph.

  She scanned the crowd, looking for familiar faces. Finally, she found two girls she had worked with at the Foundation standing with a larger group.

  “Hey, Ms. O.” They greeted her with a warmth she found gratifying.

  “Hey, Katie. Hi, Jo. I could use your help. I’m trying to find a boy.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Jo said with a roll of eyes heavily framed in mascara.

  Julie smiled. “A particular boy, actually. It’s kind of serious. Do either of you know Josh Fredericks?”

  “Sure,” Katie answered promptly. “He’s in my algebra class. He’s kind of cute, even if he is super smart.”

  “Have you seen him lately? Tonight?”

  “Yeah. It’s weird. Usually he doesn’t go two inches away from his girlfriend but I saw him by himself earlier, over by the refreshments. I think that was a while ago. Maybe an hour. He might have ditched the place by now.”

  “Thanks,” she answered and headed in the direction they pointed.

  She found Josh right where Katie had indicated, standing near the refreshment table as if he were waiting for someone. She recognized him instantly from the picture Ross had provided. He was wearing a western-cut shirt and a black Stetson, just like half the other men here, and she could see his dark-blond hair and brown eyes like his uncle’s.

  She didn’t know whether to feel relief or dismay at finding him. She did not want to have to explain to him why she was searching for him. She quickly texted Ross that she had located his nephew at the dance and waited close by, intending only to keep an eye on him until Ross arrived to handle things.

  He looked upset, she thought after a moment of observing him. His color was high and he kept looking toward the door as if waiting for someone to arrive.

  Did he already know about his father? No, she couldn’t imagine it. Why would he linger here at the dance if he knew his father had just been killed?

  After two or three minutes, Josh suddenly looked at his watch, then set down his cup on a nearby tray.

  Rats. She was going to have to talk to him, she realized, as he started heading for the door. She waited until he walked out into the much cooler night air before she caught up to him.

  “Are you Josh?”

  He blinked a little, obviously startled to find a strange older woman talking to him. “Yeah,” he said slowly, not bothering to conceal his wariness.

  “My name is Julie Osterman. I work at the Fortune Foundation wit
h your mother’s cousin Susan.”

  “Okay.” He took a sidestep away from her and she sighed.

  “Josh, this is going to sound crazy, I know,” she began, “but I need you to stay here for a minute.”

  “Why?”

  She couldn’t tell him his father was dead. That job should fall to someone closer to him, someone with whom he had a relationship. “Your uncle is looking for you,” she finally answered. “He really needs to talk to you. If you can hang around here for a minute, he should be along any time now.”

  She hoped.

  “What’s going on?” His gaze sharpened. “Is it my mom?”

  “Your mom isn’t hurt. Ross can explain everything when he gets here?”

  “No. Tell me now. Is it Lyndsey? She was supposed to meet me here but she never showed and she’s not answering her phone. Is she hurt? What’s going on?”

  “Josh—”

  “Tell me!”

  She was scrambling for words when a deep male voice spoke from behind her.

  “It’s your dad, Josh.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  She turned with vast relief to see Ross walking toward them, looking tall and solid and certainly strong enough to help his nephew through this.

  The boy’s features hardened. “Did he hurt Mom again? If he did, I’ll kill him this time, I swear. I warned him I would.”

  “You might not want to say that too loudly,” Ross said grimly. “Your father is dead, Josh.”

  For all his bravado just seconds before, the teenager’s color drained at the words.

  “Dead? That’s crazy.” Even as he spoke, Julie thought she saw something flicker in his brown eyes, something furtive, secretive.

  “It’s true,” Ross said. “I’m sorry, Josh.”

  The boy gazed at him blankly, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

  “What happened?”

  Ross cleared his throat. “We don’t know for sure yet.”

  “Did he have a heart attack or a stroke or something? Was he hit by a bus? What?”

  Ross sighed. His gaze met Julie’s for a moment and she saw indecision there as he must be weighing just how blunt he ought to be with his nephew.

  She would have told him to be as honest as possible. Josh would find out all the gory details soon enough. In a town like Red Rock, the rumors would fly faster than crows on carrion. Better for him to hear the news from his family than for them to all dissemble about the situation, which he would probably find condescending and demeaning.

  Ross must have reached the same conclusion. “It’s too early to say anything with a hundred percent certainty but it looks like he was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Josh blinked at both of them. “You’re kidding me, right? This is all some kind of a sick joke. People in Red Rock don’t get murdered!”

  “I’m afraid it’s no joke,” Julie said, her voice soft with compassion.

  “Who did it? Do they have any suspects?”

  Ross’s gaze met Julie’s again with a wordless plea for help and she thought how surreal it was that just an hour ago they were wrangling over her purse, and now he was turning to her to help him through this delicate family situation.

  It was hard enough telling Josh his father was dead. How were they supposed to tell Josh that his own mother was the prime suspect?

  “They’re still investigating,” Ross said after a moment.

  Josh pulled off his Stetson and raked a hand through his hair. “This is crazy. I can’t believe it,” he said again. “Where’s my mom? How is she taking this?”

  “Uh, that’s the other thing I needed to talk to you about,” Ross said.

  Fear leapt into his dark eyes and he turned to Julie with an accusation in his eyes. “You said my mom wasn’t hurt!”

  “She’s not,” Ross assured him. “It’s just…Frannie had to go to the police station to answer some questions.”

  Josh obviously wasn’t a stupid boy. He quickly put the pieces together. “Mom had to go for questioning? They think she killed him?”

  “Josh—”

  The color that had leached away at the news of his father’s death returned in a hot, angry flush. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! If she had it in her to kill him, she would have done it years ago.”

  If Julie hadn’t worked with troubled youth on a daily basis for the last five years, she might have found his bitterness shocking. Instead, she found it unutterably sad.

  “They’re only questioning her. She’s not under arrest,” Ross said. “I’m sure they’ll figure out soon enough that your mom is innocent.”

  “What about his girlfriend? Are they questioning her? Or his last girlfriend? Or the one before that? I could give them a whole damn list of suspects!”

  “I’m sure they’ll question as many people as they can,” Julie said. Unable to help herself, she laid a comforting hand on the boy’s arm. Though by all appearances he despised his father, her heart ached at the pain she knew still waited for him down the road. Losing a parent was traumatic for anyone, no matter what their relationship.

  Josh didn’t flinch away from her touch, but he remained focused on his mother and her predicament.

  “I should go to her,” he said after a moment. “She’s going to need me.”

  * * *

  Ross couldn’t seem to look away from that soft, comforting hand Julie placed on his nephew’s arm. There was no good reason he could figure out that the sight should put a funny little ache in his chest.

  He cleared his throat. “I promise, the police station is no place for you right now, Josh. You have to trust me on this.”

  He, however, needed to get his butt over there as soon as possible to find out what was happening with the investigation. He was torn between dueling obligations, one to his sister and one to his nephew during this difficult time.

  “I’ll be eighteen in two weeks, Uncle Ross. I’m not a child anymore.”

  “I know that. But I’ve spent most of my adult life in police stations and I can tell you the best place for you is at home. I’ll go check on your mother.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “She won’t be able to talk to you, son. Not if she’s being questioned.”

  “Well, I can at least tell them that I know she couldn’t have killed Lloyd,” Josh answered.

  His loyal defense of his mother struck a chord with Ross. It reminded him far too much of the way he used to stick up for Cindy, making excuses to the other kids when she would stay out all night drinking or would bring a new man around the house or, worse, would entirely forget about them all for a weekend binge.

  The difference there was that he had foolishly been trying to protect an illusion, while Josh’s efforts were on behalf of an innocent woman.

  “Everything’s going to be okay. Trust me. She’s only being questioned. I’m sure she’ll be home in a short time. Why don’t you head on home and get some rest? You’re going to have a lot to deal with in the coming days.”

  “I should be with her,” Josh said stubbornly.

  Julie again reached out to Josh and Ross saw that once more her quiet touch seemed to soothe him. “The absolute best way you can help your mother right now is to give her one less worry. You were the only thing she thought about as they were taking her in for questioning. She insisted that your uncle watch out for you and that’s just what he’s trying to do. As he said, you have to trust him right now to know what’s best, okay?”

  Her words seemed to resonate with Josh. He looked between the two of them and then sighed. “I guess.”

  Ross was astounded and more gratified than he wanted to admit that she would come to his defense like this, especially after their altercation earlier in the evening. That encounter and his own honest mistake over the purse had been a fortuitous meeting, he thought now. He didn’t know what he would have done this evening without her.

  The thought sparked an idea—a nervy one, sure, but one that woul
d certainly lift a little of the burden from his shoulders.

  “Josh, could you hang on here for a second while I talk to Ms. Osterman?”

  His nephew looked confused but he nodded and Ross stepped a few paces away where they could speak in relative privacy.

  “Look, I do need to get to the police station to see how things are going with Frannie, but I don’t want to send Josh to his empty house alone. This is a huge favor to ask when I’m virtually a stranger to you and you’ve already done so much, but do you think you could stay with him for a while, while I check on my sister?”

  As he might have expected, Julie’s soft blue eyes widened with astonishment at the request. “But wouldn’t you rather have someone in your family stay with him? Your cousin Susan, maybe?”

  Susan would come in a heartbeat, he knew, and like Julie, she specialized in troubled adolescents. But he hated to ask the Fortune side of the family for anything. It was an irrational reaction, he knew, but for most of his life his particular branch of the family had always been the needy ones.

  He didn’t know how many times the Fortunes had bailed Cindy out of one scrape or another, before they had virtually cut ties with her out of frustration that nothing ever seemed to change.

  Even though he loved and admired several members of his extended family, Ross preferred to handle things on his own when he could. And when he couldn’t, he much preferred asking somebody who wasn’t a Fortune for help.

  “They’re all going to be busy with the last few hours of the Spring Fling. Plus, now they’re going to have to deal with damage control after Lloyd’s murder.”

  It was bad public relations for the festival, especially since this was the second time a dead body had been found while the town celebrated. A few years earlier, an unidentified body turned up at the Spring Fling. The town had only just started to heal from that.

  Her forehead furrowed for a moment and then she nodded. “In that case, of course. I’ll be glad to stay with Josh as long as you need.”

  For one crazy moment, he longed to feel the soft comfort of her touch on his arm, though he knew that was ridiculous.