Gage turned and walked out of the winery. He grabbed a few empty boxes as he passed the storage room, then ducked through the breezeway and went into the house.
Tell Jeremy the truth. About Bert? Or about himself?
He dragged the large canvas bag out from under the bed and unzipped it with a flourish. He started grabbing clothes and tossing them in—clean, dirty, it didn’t matter. All he wanted was get as far away from Bert as possible.
He raked rolls of antacids and change off the top of the dresser into his duffle bag, then glanced up and caught sight of himself in the mirror. The look on his face startled him. What was it? Liberation? Relief? More regret than he could handle? Did he even know who he was anymore? He’d been angry and empty for years. But when had he lost his soul?
Who was he to judge Bert? He was lying to everyone—Jeremy, Morgan, Tyson. Himself. He’d shaken hands with Tyson, a man he respected, and promised he would recover a stolen flag to help save the agency. Christ, did everything he came in contact with need saving? But the second he’d seen Morgan’s name in the file, reason and logic had ceased to exist. He didn’t care what consequences he might have to face or stopped to question if it would all be worth it. All he cared about was the fact that the gods, for whatever reason, had decided to lift the veil and show him a way back to her.
Taking Tyson’s money, no matter how much he needed it, was beginning to feel like the biggest mistake of his life. Bigger than trusting a functioning bipolar alcoholic with his little boy. Bigger than the day he had hung up the phone and resigned himself to the fact that Morgan Maguire was lost to him forever. He’d lost his edge. But he didn’t care. The moment he looked into Morgan’s eyes again, the deepest part of his heart knew that stolen or not, he could never go through with the recovery, and if he bailed, Tyson would take the job away from him and send in the B team.
If he could buy more time until he gained her trust, he might be able to tell her the truth. If he could wait until she got to know him again, the best part of him, the part that could make her believe his intentions were true and honorable. Then maybe, just maybe, that little speck of trust would be enough to sustain him when the apple butter hit the fan.
Chapter 6
Opal pursed her carefully lipsticked mouth and frowned. “You might as well stop wearing a hole in the floor and sit down, missy. Pacing back and forth like an alley cat in heat won't get you in that room any sooner.”
“I can't help it,” Morgan said. “We've been here over an hour.” She sat beside Opal on the wooden bench and pulled her denim jacket closer around her. Early morning light streamed through the glass door, shimmering across an arc of greasy handprints and dirt.
“Why can’t you be more patient? You’ve always been antsy, never patient like your brother. Why don’t you look at those pictures on the wanted posters? See if you know anybody.” She peered over the rims of the half-glasses she kept perched on her nose. “Or you could tell me what Bert Kirkland's nephew was doing at the farm last night. And why somebody shot out the windshield of his car.”
Morgan glanced at her sideways. “I think the Riverbirch grapevine has just broken its own record.”
“Still, I’d like to know.”
Every ounce of resentment Morgan forced herself to keep in check when she was around Opal rose in her throat. In Morgan’s opinion, Opal had lost the right to know what went on at the farm the day she pulled more than her fair share out of the estate and left her step-grandchildren scrambling to hang on to their heritage.
Sheriff Stallard opened the door.
Morgan jumped up. “What’s going on? Where's Sean? Can I see him?”
“Calm down,” the sheriff said. “We’ve finished questioning him, and we're transferring him to the police station in Cherokee Bluff. We're not equipped to handle a murder investigation here unless it’s somebody's hog getting creamed by a neighbor's tractor.”
Opal pushed herself off the bench and wagged a bent arthritic finger in the sheriff's face. “Are you charging him with Harlan's murder? Is that what you're doing?”
“Does he have a lawyer?” Morgan asked.
“Not yet,” the sheriff said. “He's waived his Miranda rights. They'll hold him at the jail until they charge him.”
“Hold him?” Opal cried. “Charge him? You've known that boy since he was in grade school. He didn't kill anyone. He’s as sweet as pie. You're making a big mistake, Teresa, and everyone in this town knows it.”
At seventy-seven, Opal Maguire could be a formidable woman if the spirit moved her. Her fine, closely cropped red curls had long since turned white. A swath of baby pink scalp cut its way across the side of her head like a crooked road. Her eyes, once a bright cornflower blue, had dulled beneath the cloudy film of cataracts. For some reason, she considered herself Riverbirch royalty, and had enjoyed spending her husband’s money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Now that he was dead, she was still spending it.
“I want to see Sean,” Morgan said.
“Honey, we're not supposed to—”
“For God’s sake, Teresa, he's her twin,” Opal said, as if that were all the explanation anyone could ever need.
“All right.” Sheriff Stallard sighed and nodded to the door across the hall. “Five minutes. Not a second more.”
Morgan pushed her way into the room. Sean sat at a long table, holding his head in his hands. He glanced up when she closed the door behind her.
“How'd you get in?” he asked.
“Opal played the twin card.”
“Works every time.”
“How's your hangover?”
“Oh, is that what this is? I thought somebody backed over me with a threshing machine.” His bloodshot eyes filled with tears. “Harlan’s dead, Morgan. I can't believe he’s gone. I keep thinking I should call him, and tell him what’s happened. But he isn’t there.”
“I know.”
“I’m gonna miss him so much—walking around the farm, whistling a tune wherever he went.” Sean smiled and shook his head. “The man liked to whistle.”
“Yes, he did.”
“I can’t believe somebody killed him. Who could’ve killed Harlan? They think I did it.”
She pulled out a chair and sat opposite him. “Sean, where were you yesterday? You said you were going to look for pickers, then last night you said you followed Harlan home.”
Sean clasped and unclasped his hands. He rubbed his knuckles against the fine brown stubble along his chin. “Harlan promised he'd have pickers at the orchard by yesterday morning.”
“But I thought Finch—”
“Not the regular ones. Harlan found some itinerants driving across Barkerstown Bridge on their way to Kentucky to look for work. They said they’d pick for us, but then they never showed up. I asked Harlan what happened, and he didn't know what I was talking about.”
“Harlan’s mind was slipping. He hadn't been himself lately. You know that.”
Sean rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then shot her a panicked look. “The Rome Beauties are going soft. We cleared most of the windfall apples off the ground Wednesday, but the trees are still full. If we don't get them down soon, we'll lose the first crop. And if we lose that, we'll lose everything.”
“According to Finch, we're going to lose everything anyway.”
Sean’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve talked to him?”
“Finch and some guy named Mendoza came to the house yesterday to see if we were ready to cave. They thought things might have changed now that Harlan is—”
“Dead?”
She reached across the table and touched his arm. “Sean, you've got to tell me what happened so I can help you.”
He leaned back in the aluminum chair and wrapped his arms around his waist. His bloodshot eyes glistened.
“Sean?” she prodded.
“I had forgotten my cell phone and come back for it, even though it never does much good around here. Harlan was getting ready to leave, bu
t he looked...I don’t know…weird. So I got worried and followed him home. He was all over the road. I thought he was gonna take out the Jenkins’ fence. When he got out of the car, his nose was gushing blood. I knew he was taking a blood thinner. He was always complaining about how tired it made him feel, how afraid he was of cutting himself. So, I went inside with him. While he was in the bathroom, I noticed the orchard account folder lying on the table beside the computer. I opened it, and two copies of the August spreadsheet fell out. I thought it was odd there were two, so I picked them up and compared them. The numbers didn't match.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were different. One spreadsheet showed the orchard making a profit. The other looked like we were completely in the red.”
A loud knock rattled the door.
“Two more minutes!” Morgan shouted. “What else? Hurry.”
“I asked him for an explanation, but he walked out the back door like he hadn’t heard me. I followed him down the path to the slaughterhouse, and he started acting strange.”
“Define strange.”
“He'd wobble back and forth, then stop and hold his stomach. He told me to leave, and when I said no, he turned on me. Said I was a terrible person and a big disappointment to him. He said I'd ruined Maguire Orchard.”
“You haven't ruined the orchard. It's not your fault the honeybees are trickling back. It's not your fault a creep like Lawrence Finch will do anything to get his hands on our land.”
Two more raps on the door.
“Just a minute!” Morgan yelled. “That woman is beginning to get on my nerves. Go on. What did you do then?”
“I left. I tried to call Ethan to tell him his dad was acting crazy, but I couldn’t get a signal. Then I got in the car and headed toward Cherokee Bluff, but before I got to the bridge, I met Finch and Mendoza driving toward me. They almost ran me off the road.”
“What about your knife? How did it get in the slaughterhouse?”
“I don't know.” He rubbed his temples with his fingers, hard, as if he were trying to push an explanation into his head. “I just...don’t...know.” The bewildered look in his eyes frightened her. She’d never seen him so lost and afraid. Not even the night their parents had left for a drive on their anniversary and never come back.
Sheriff Stallard opened the door. “Okay, that’s it. Time to go, Sean.”
Sean grabbed Morgan’s arm. “The man from In the Black is coming over today. You have to meet with him.”
“Sean, I don’t think—”
“Please, Morgan. Harlan and I both believe he may be the only person who can help us turn things around. You have to be there. You have to let him help us.” His gaze pleaded with her. “Promise me you’ll see him. Promise you’ll be nice to him.”
“Okay, little brother. I'll be nice to him.”
Sean managed a weak smile. “Only four minutes older, and you're still lording it over me.”
“Damn straight.”
He put his arms around her. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For never thinking for one second I might be guilty.”
Morgan hugged him tight. “Hang in there,” she whispered.
“I will. I’m the half-full twin, remember?”
“You’re going to need more on your side than luck.”
“Stop being so pessimistic. It’s like living with Eeyore.” He grinned, and just like that, he was the old Sean again, the Sean who saw a silver lining behind every dark cloud. “Don’t worry. If we have faith in the truth, everything will be fine. I believe that.”
“I know you do.” She hugged him again, then fought back tears as the sheriff escorted him out the back door to a waiting van. “I just wish I believed it, too.”
****
Opal stood beside the water fountain in full flirt mode talking to Gage Kirkland. In spite of everything, Morgan’s heart lurched at the sight of him. He'd swapped his formfitting jeans for a pair of pleated khakis and a blue long-sleeved shirt. The soft stubble on his chin had disappeared, replaced by smoother skin and two red shaving nicks. Damp tendrils of hair fringed over the back of his shirt collar. The crisp clean scent of his aftershave drifted toward her, a little pungent, as if he had spritzed himself only two minutes earlier in the car.
“How's your brother holding up?” he asked.
Morgan sighed. “Sean is such an irritating optimist. If the world went up in flames tomorrow, he’d admire the pretty colors, then list five reasons why it could be a good thing.”
“Looking on the bright side is a gift,” Opal said reprovingly. “It wouldn’t hurt you to try and stay positive, Miss Doom and Gloom.” She batted her wrinkled eyes at Gage. “I’ve told her that for years, but it hasn’t done a lick of good.”
“How are you doing?” Gage asked Morgan.
“Me?” Morgan shook her head and laughed. “I’m a freakin’ basket case.”
Opal took out an embroidered handkerchief and dabbed at her temples. “Is it hot in here? My heart’s going a mile a minute.”
Gage slid his hand beneath Opal’s elbow. “Let's get you ladies some coffee. The Wildflower Café next door looks good.”
“No, I’m fine now.” Opal fluttered her handkerchief in the air. “You two go on. I'm stopping by church to say a prayer for Sean. Something tells me my boy’s gonna need all the help he can get.”
“Her boy,” Morgan said after Opal left. “What a joke. Do you know how many times she tried to ship us off to boarding school? Believe me, this is all for show. Don’t let her fool you. She doesn’t give a happy damn about either of us.”
They walked to the Wildflower Café and sat at one of the round metal tables in the front courtyard.
“Your grandmother said her heart was racing. Will she be all right?”
“Step-grandmother. And yes, she’ll be fine. Opal’s always fine. She loves a good crisis as long as she isn’t expected to do anything. Oh, she’ll go to church, shed a few tears if anybody’s watching, visit the Main Street shops to tell her troubles to whoever will listen, then go home, fix herself a gin and tonic, and watch The Price is Right.”
“You sound bitter.”
“And it doesn’t become me, right?”
“Oh, you still look pretty good. But bitterness will give you frown lines and corrode your soul. Trust me on this.”
She glanced up. A few of the leaves on the birch trees surrounding the town square had turned pale yellow-gold. The September sun shone through their branches, throwing mottled shadows on the sidewalk, caressing the center of town with its warmth. But Morgan couldn’t feel it. Something cold and thick had seeped into her bones. Her troubles loomed in front of her like a wild horse bent on destruction, pawing the air with its hooves.
Gage signaled to the waitress for two coffees. He turned and gazed at Morgan with his dark, brown-green apologetic eyes, until she had to look away.
“I know you told me not to come,” he said. “But you need someone in your corner. And frankly, after last night, I was worried about your safety.”
“Don’t call me Frankly,” she murmured. She glanced his way but avoided eye contact. She wished he’d leave. The emotions he kept dredging up were keeping her in a constant state of exhaustion. She was running on fumes and two hours sleep, and she was scared. More scared than she’d ever been in her life. She needed some space to think. She couldn’t think around Gage, and it was getting too damned hard to keep pushing him away.
“I’ve been instructed to be nice to you,” she said. “But this thing with my brother and the farm is none of your business.”
“Maybe not. But when somebody pumps six bullets into the windshield of my car, in your driveway, that makes it my business. Do you know who might not want me visiting you?”
“Besides me?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Besides you.”
“No.”
The waitress set two steaming mugs of coffee in front of them. Gage stirred t
hree packets of sugar into his and said, “I asked Stallard’s secretary about the autopsy results.”
“So did I, but she wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“That’s because you didn’t tell her she smelled like sunshine.”
“No, I didn’t.” She looked at him. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Not sure, but it worked. They should have the results back in four or five days.”
“That long?”
“I know, but this is real life, not CSI. The county uses a contracted pathologist from Cherokee Bluff, and that takes time. She said it could be sooner, depending on their caseload.”
“I hate sitting here helpless while Sean is in jail. What can I do?”
“Nothing until something happens. He’ll either be charged or they’ll let him go.”
“I lied about Sean to Opal. If she knew how distraught he was, she would spread it all over town. Sean tried to put on a brave face, but I could tell he’s terrified. He’s grief-stricken over Harlan. It broke my heart.”
“I found out something else.”
“Because you told Deputy Nelson he smelled like rain?”
“No, did he?” Gage took a cautious sip of coffee. “Someone should tell the sheriff there’s a sound tunnel running through the hallway from her office to the water fountain. I heard her talking to the lab on the phone. The knife they found had no fingerprints on it, so it had probably been wiped clean. Which is fairly normal. Not many weapons have fingerprints on them. But my point is they can’t use that against him.”
Morgan stared at him. “And you know this because...”
“I worked as a private investigator for nine years. Grunt work mostly—following cheating husbands and wives, investigating insurance fraud, getting the goods on a few corporate crooks. But sometimes, if the moon was full, and I’d been a very good boy, I got to hop in my tricked-out Mustang and tear through the streets of Atlanta chasing the scum of the earth.”
“Define scum.”
“Drug dealers, car thieves, deadbeat dads. I even tracked down a kidnapper once. Two of us worked that case, and we saved a little girl from—well, we got to her in time.”
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