Cole Dempsey’s Back in Town

by Suzanne McMinn

  In the long inky haunt of night, he lay awake. The house creaked and moaned its age in the growing wind of the portending storm.

  The ringing phone woke them.

  Bryn twisted to reach it, the sheet and Cole’s protecting arm falling away, sweeping morning chill across her skin. He watched her with his sexy, slumberous eyes as she answered the phone.

  “Bryn? This is Dana.”

  She blinked for a second, trying to wake up her brain and almost said Dana who? before she remembered. She hadn’t talked to many childhood friends since graduation.

  “Dana. Hi.” She looked back at Cole. His sleepy gaze focused.

  “I just got back into town and I had a message from Cole Dempsey.” Dana Kellman was silent for a beat. “He wanted me to call him back. He wanted to talk about Aimee. I wanted to call you first.”

  “We’ve gotten the investigation into Aimee’s death reopened,” Bryn explained. “So he’s probably not the last person who’ll be calling you. I’m sorry.”

  “Why is the case being reopened?”

  Bryn explained briefly about the forensic report and Randol Ormond. Then she told Dana about the accident. Dana gasped.

  “Oh, my God, Bryn. I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine, Dana. Really. I just wanted you to know how important this is—if there’s anything you know about what Aimee was doing that summer, we need to know.”

  “I’ll help you if I can,” Dana said. “But I don’t know how I could.”

  “Did you ever think there was anyone else who might have had a reason to kill her?” Bryn asked.

  “No,” Dana said immediately. “I mean, you know how sweet she was.”

  “I know.” Bryn swallowed thickly. “What about a boyfriend? Do you know if she was seeing anyone that summer?”

  “She didn’t have a boyfriend as far as I know.”

  “What about Tommy Navin?” Bryn probed softly.

  “What about him?” Dana sounded confused.

  “Was Aimee seeing Tommy Navin? Lizzie told me Aimee said she had a crush on him that summer. And Tommy’s father acted pretty strangely when we tried to talk to him about Tommy. He wouldn’t tell us where he is now, didn’t even like us asking questions about Tommy. And last night he came over here and made some threats.”

  Dana was silent.

  “Dana, if there’s anything you aren’t telling me, I need you to tell me now. Erica Saville said the day Aimee died, she went to Boudreaux’s with Aimee. She said Aimee was asking questions that made her think Aimee was pregnant. If she was pregnant with Tommy Navin’s baby—”

  “Aimee? Pregnant?” Dana made a disbelieving sound. “No way. And not with Tommy Navin’s baby, I can tell you that for sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tommy Navin is gay.”

  Bryn’s heart stumbled. “What?”

  “I ran into Tommy about five years ago, in a club in New Orleans. Some girlfriends and I went down to the Quarter. We were just being crazy and we went into this place called Coco Creole. Tommy was working there. I didn’t even recognize him at first, but he knew me. I swear, he was dressed in this sparkly sheath dress and a Marilyn Monroe wig. He was wearing makeup and a boa and high heels. He had this cross-dressing act. He sang—he was actually really good—and afterward, he came over and talked to me.”

  Bryn stared at Cole. “What did he say?”

  Cole sat up, leaned close to Bryn to listen in with her.

  “I told him I was living in New Orleans now,” Dana explained, “and he talked about how glad he was to get out of Azalea Bend and away from his dad. You know, he was always kind of weird in high school and in trouble a lot. He got in fights all the time, and he told me how screwed up he was. He was always trying to prove he was a man. His dad suspected he was gay, and he beat him up all the time at home. Anyway, I can tell you he didn’t have anything to do with Aimee’s murder. He really cared about Aimee.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Aimee helped him. She talked to him a lot that summer, and he confided in her that he was gay. She felt sorry for him—she knew about his dad and everything. She told me and Lizzie Cornelius that she had a crush on him. I thought it was just weird at the time, but now I know why. She was trying to take the heat off Tommy by talking about having a crush on him, and Tommy said she’d told him he could tell people they were involved.”

  He always talked about doing her. Bryn wondered if those had really been Tommy’s words or if Griff Bonner had elaborated, but either way, now at least it made some sense. Aimee had always looked out for those who needed help—even at her own expense. But at the same time, her head reeled. What did this mean? If Aimee hadn’t been involved with Tommy, if Aimee hadn’t been pregnant, then why had she been asking Erica Saville those questions?

  “I never knew,” Bryn whispered, her chest tight. “Aimee never said anything to me about Tommy.”

  “She wouldn’t have told you,” Dana said. “She promised Tommy she wouldn’t tell anyone. And she probably didn’t try to give you the line about having a crush on him because you would have known she was lying. Even Lizzie and I thought it was strange. But you would have known.”

  Bryn swallowed thickly. Would she? More than ever, she felt as if she’d let Aimee down. She’d been so self-absorbed that summer.

  She felt Cole’s arm slide around her, his strong touch giving comfort.

  “That was just like Aimee, you know,” Dana said. “She’d do stuff for people. And if Tommy’s dad was over there making threats, it’s because he never wanted anyone to know Tommy was gay and he’s probably still afraid it’s going to come out. He didn’t even come to Tommy’s funeral.”

  “What?” Bryn gasped. She still hadn’t had time to process everything Dana had already told her. “Tommy’s dead?”

  “He was killed in a car accident a couple of years ago. I stayed in touch with him after we ran into him at the Coco Creole and some of his friends contacted me when he died.”

  They couldn’t even talk to Tommy now. And Tommy hadn’t been in Azalea Bend this past week. Tommy hadn’t gotten Aimee pregnant or really even been involved with her.

  Bryn put down the phone a few minutes later after saying goodbye to Dana. She looked at Cole’s grim face.

  They’d thought they had a lead. They’d thought they might be close. But they were farther away from the truth than ever. The pieces still weren’t fitting, and her head hurt from trying to put them all together. The more she found out about Aimee’s last summer, the less the pieces made sense.

  And for the first time she wondered what would happen if they never did.

  The weight of the graying day pressed down on Bellefleur. The brewing storm that had been menacing the skies since yesterday had yet to break open. Meanwhile, the clouds built and the pressure tightened.

  Even the marsh grasses weren’t whispering today.

  Cole’s stomach felt like one big ball of stress that would never come loose. He’d troubleshot Bryn’s car after Detective Wardell had left, and figured out all she needed was a new battery. They’d gone into town for it—she’d insisted on paying for her new battery as if it was some badge of honor to pay for it herself when she was clearly flat broke.

  She hadn’t had much to say since the detective had left, and their trip into town had been tense. Wardell had been a burly bear of man who’d been sympathetic but not encouraging. Edward Navin had confessed to nailing the chicken bone to Bryn’s door, but he’d denied having anything to do with Cole’s brake lines being cut or the brick. It was clear Wardell wasn’t convinced, and they were still holding Navin.

  The only good news was that Frank Skelly, the chief of police at the time of Aimee’s murder, had agreed to meet with Chief Michel. Apparently Skelly wanted to see the forensic document for himself.

  And according to Wardell, Skelly was bringing an attorney with him.

  Cole’s own investigator had confirmed the information ab
out Tommy, at least in terms of the bare facts. He’d worked at the Coco Creole and been killed in a traffic accident two years ago.

  “I want you to come to Baton Rouge with me,” Cole told Bryn. They were standing in the kitchen at Bellefleur. She was chopping sandwich fixings as if she was about to feed an army. Her nerves were like elastic stretched way too far and he didn’t want to see her break. “At least for a few nights. You need to get away from all of this.”

  She looked at him, her face pale in the eerie storm-light that crept through the kitchen window. Outside, he could see Emile Brouchard rounding a shed, and further, the glow from Patsy Louvel’s cottage windows. Wind started to whip a fierce dance through the trees, and Mr. Brouchard put his head down against the blustering air.

  “I can’t do that,” she said. “My mother is here.”

  “We’ll take her with us.”

  “Maybe I should rephrase that. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want just to run away.”

  “I put you in this position, Bryn,” he said grimly. The heavy weight of that fact shuddered deep inside him. “I’m not leaving you alone here. Especially not now. The more the authorities ask questions, the more dangerous this could become. I have a responsibility to keep you safe. Whoever is out there has already proven they don’t like the questions we’re asking.”

  “I’m not your responsibility,” she responded heatedly. She put the knife down and looked at him. “And I might not even be in danger. Maybe Edward Navin did cut your brake lines. He’s a crazy drunk. He’s capable of anything.”

  There was a flicker of something sharp in her eyes, and he saw, just for that instant, what she was trying to hide from him. She was scared, but so was he.

  “As long as you’re in danger, I’m not leaving, Bryn. We’re stirring something up here. We just don’t know what yet. Skelly’s not bringing an attorney to Azalea Bend with him because he’s innocent.”

  “Maybe he’s just being cautious,” Bryn said. “They’re still holding Navin. He could be behind everything that’s happened. Either way, you can’t stay here forever. You can’t be my keeper. I’ve lived by myself at Bellefleur for years, you know.”

  “Do you think finding the truth about Aimee is the only reason I’m still here?” Cole asked roughly.

  She didn’t answer for a long beat.

  “You needed me—you needed me to give you names, information,” she said finally. “You needed my help to get Aimee’s body exhumed, the Louvel name to get people to open their doors and answer questions, to get the Chief to re-open the case. Would you have come back to Azalea Bend if not for Aimee’s murder?”

  He didn’t know how to convince her that what was happening between them was bigger than what had drawn then together. And the truth was, she was partly right. He’d come here to use her, and he wouldn’t deny it though he was ashamed of it at the same time.

  He’d thought his heart was dead to her. But it hadn’t been, and using her wasn’t why he’d stayed. It wasn’t enough for him to believe it, though. She had to believe it, too.

  “It doesn’t matter why I came back,” he said.

  “It matters to me.” She lifted cold, tormented eyes to him.

  She was pushing him away. He knew it, yet it yanked at old bitterness inside him.

  “We can’t get this—thing—between us confused with anything real,” she went on in a small voice. “We’re in a situation filled with high emotion and stress. And when it’s over, you’re going to go back to Baton Rouge.”

  The stress in his stomach balled tighter. He wanted to tell her that he wanted her to come to Baton Rouge with him, more than for a few nights, but how far out on this limb could he go alone? “I’m not confused, Bryn.” Pride lodged anything more in his throat.

  She stared at him in the pale gloam streaming through the window, and he saw what he’d known all along. She hadn’t given him her complete trust fifteen years ago, and she wasn’t ready to give it to him now. They’d always been from different worlds. And although his world now was on par with hers, she’d have to step off that track laid down from birth to see it.

  And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  The phone shrilled through the premature night from the direction of the office. Bryn raced through the house, and he followed her. Her face was drawn, tense, as she held the phone.

  “We’re both here,” she said. “Come now.”

  She put it down and he waited.

  “That was Drake,” she said. “He’s at his house in town. He’ll be here in a few minutes. He’s found something in his father’s papers he says we need to see.”

  Chapter 17

  The waiting was awful. Cole didn’t speak, only paced the portico outside. Their conversation in the kitchen clung to the very air between them and she couldn’t bear it.

  She went back into the office and pretended to go through some bills. She’d left the door open and when she heard Drake’s car, she went outside. Lightning cracked the darkening sky and the storm bore down. The chandelier in the foyer snapped.

  They’d lost electricity.

  “I need a drink,” Drake said.

  He looked as though he’d already had a few. His face was pale, and he was shaking. He wore a suit, but it looked like he’d slept in it. Bryn tried to take his arm, but he shook her off and Cole strode to her side. His eyes were forbidding and cold.

  “Bryn said you told her you found something,” Cole said. “What is it?”

  Rain began to pour and wind whipped around them. “Let’s go inside,” she insisted.

  They followed Drake into the parlor. He held a thin folder and when he sat down, he kept it clasped firmly in his hand.

  The air in the shadowed parlor was thick as she lit an amber oil lamp and several candles. A warm glow filled the darkened room. Cole sat with her on the rosewood Victorian settee across from Drake.

  “I went home last night,” Drake said. “To my house here in town. I went through my father’s things.” He looked at Cole for a second, then locked his roiling storm-gray gaze back on Bryn. “I wish you hadn’t done this, Bryn. I wish you hadn’t let Cole Dempsey come back here and bring all this up. You can’t help Aimee. It’s too late. It’s fifteen years too late.”

  “I have to know who killed her,” Bryn said. The house was warm, humid, but she felt shivery as she watched Drake.

  His fingers gripping the folder were white-knuckled in the flickering amber light.

  “I had to live with this all these years,” Drake said. Bryn leaned forward to hear him. His voice burned low and the storm outside raged. Wind shook the shutters. “I called Harlan Michel today. I can’t stop him. Goddammit, Bryn, I can’t stop him. He’s ordered Aimee’s exhumation, said you agreed and Dempsey’s got some private medical examiner who’s going to oversee the whole thing. Michel’s got it in his head he’s going to be a big star. He’s been in touch with Frank Skelly and Skelly’s going to talk.”

  “Your father and Ormond and Skelly did this together,” Cole said harshly. “They covered this up together. How long have you known?”

  His eyes were fixed on that folder in Drake’s hands.

  “I want to make a deal,” Drake said. “It doesn’t all have to come out, Bryn. The truth isn’t just going to hurt me. It’s going to hurt you, too.”

  Bryn’s heart stumbled. What was he saying? She didn’t want to believe her friend—her best friend—had had something to do with Aimee’s death, but every word that came out of Drake’s mouth was making it all too shockingly real that he knew, had known something, for a very long time. She could barely think.

  “Are you saying you know who killed Aimee? Are you saying you’ve known all this time?” she breathed tightly. “Did you always know?”

  Drake’s gaze seared her. “I was there for you after Aimee died. I was there for you for fifteen years. Where was Dempsey?”

  “Who killed Aimee?” Bryn demanded. She would have gotten out of her seat, t
aken him by the throat whether that was smart or not, but Cole pressed his hand down on her arm, clamping her in place. “Who killed Aimee?” she repeated.

  “The hell of it is, I don’t know.” Drake’s voice cut the harsh tension. “But I know what my bastard of a father thought. He thought I did it.”

  Bryn felt something sick fill her chest.

  “I went to see Aimee that night,” Drake continued in a hollow, dead voice. “I called her and she wouldn’t talk to me. When I got here, she was outside by the reflecting pond. She said she was waiting for you.”

  His awful gaze locked on Bryn.

  “She was upset, and she wouldn’t listen to me. I told her I was in love with her, had been in love with her since, hell, I couldn’t remember. I think I was always in love with her. She was different, like an angel. She was softer than you, Bryn. She was sweeter.”

  Bryn didn’t move. She had to know, and didn’t want to know at the same time. “What happened then?”

  “I poured my heart out to her and she told me I was just a friend.”

  The sick feeling crawled up Bryn’s throat. In all the years since, Drake had been her best friend, and he’d wanted to be more. And she’d told him he was just a friend. But it was Aimee he’d wanted. She’d been a replacement for Aimee.

  “She kept talking about Wade Dempsey, and Cole and Bryn, and how she needed to fix something. She told me to leave, that I was going to be in the way. I was angry. I tried to grab her. I just wanted her attention. I just wanted her to listen to me.”

  “Oh, God,” Bryn breathed.

  Cole’s hand on her arm didn’t move.

  “What then?” Cole’s voice grated low and fierce.

  “We struggled. She scratched my face and arms.” Drake’s gray eyes burned silver fire across the room. “She was alive when I left, I swear it. But my father saw me come in when I got home. I told him I’d been to the Louvels’. Then the call came in about Aimee. He thought I’d killed her. My own father. He thought I’d done it. He got together with Ormond and Skelly and they made sure no one knew I’d been at Bellefleur that night. They got rid of the DNA. They railroaded Wade Dempsey, and for all I knew, Wade Dempsey had done it.”