Trust Me Once

by Jan Coffey

  She hesitated, gauged where the main road was, and then pointed in the direction that she remembered seeing the lights from a house. “Yes. In fact, it was from right here...I could see lights coming through the trees as the wind blew them. A house, I remember thinking. I didn’t know whether I should go toward it, or stay clear of it. I just couldn’t think straight.”

  “Warner’s house.”

  His words brought her head around. She was surprised by the sudden seriousness in his voice. He reached for her hand and pulled her toward a gap in the brush.

  “There are two separate roads that go up onto their property. The one you took may have been the old logging road that circles up around the house. Andrew hasn’t done anything to keep it up.”

  She freed her hand and moved ahead of him. “You said that the house is Warner’s. Is this Warner as in Andrew Warner, the president of Rosecliff College?”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Somewhat.” She looked ahead through the woods for something recognizable. “I believe he is a friend of the Van Horn family. I remember meeting Warner’s wife at Avery’s funeral. Mrs. Warner is...hmm, a hard woman to figure out.”

  “You don’t have to mince words on my account.”

  “I didn’t.” As she turned to glance at him, she tripped over a log protruding from the leaves and undergrowth. Just beyond, the ground dropped off into a gully slick with mud. Before she plunged into the muck, he grabbed her wrist. He reeled her in and she slipped against him.

  His scent was intoxicating. Soap and spice. She was appalled at the reaction that the contact wrought in her body.

  “Okay?”

  She nodded and tried to push back onto her own feet, but he had one arm around her and appeared to have no interest in letting her go. She glanced up and saw the look. The tabloid look. The eyes that spoke of desire. Of sex. His eyes were focused on her mouth. She swallowed hard.

  A sudden breeze in the tree tops brought a shower of last night’s rain down on them, breaking the moment.

  “This is a very slippery slope,” she murmured.

  The rustle of undergrowth behind Owen jerked them apart. Turning, he held her behind him. Sarah fought back the sudden rise of bile in her throat. She’d been so foolish to think that she would be safe. How quickly she’d forgotten how close she’d come to death just a few hours before.

  “Stay here,” he whispered.

  He picked up a good-sized stick off the ground and walked along the gully. Sarah was not about to let him walk into some danger alone, and she followed, glancing about for another stick. Abruptly, a cock pheasant erupted from the forest floor in front of them, disappearing in an instant into the treetops in a flurry of feathers and falling leaves.

  Owen gave her a half-grin.

  Sarah’s eyes were caught by something beyond him. There, the sun that was beginning to filter through the trees was reflecting off the hood of her sports car.

  There was no one around it, and there was no sign Sarah could see that anyone had been near it since last night. As Owen busied himself checking the damage to the hood and the windows, Sarah pushed past the pine branches, took her keys out of the ignition, and popped open the trunk. She pulled out her two suitcases and her laptop.

  “Are you going to leave the car here?”

  “I don’t have much option, do I?”

  “I wonder if it’ll start.” He reached out for the keys.

  The ignition clicked, but the engine was not about to turn over. She watched him as he studied the bullet-shattered windows from the inside. “There is certainly enough proof of an attack here. No casual run through the woods would have produced this kind of damage to your windshield.”

  She closed the trunk and stood with her arms full, watching him. Despite the hell she’d gone through, it was a relief to know that someone else could see that none of this was the product of her imagination. As she watched him through the broken rear window, he leaned over and picked up something off the passenger floor.

  She knew what it was.

  Tori’s wallet.

  A pang of grief stabbed at her chest. After today, after she’d gotten her own mess straightened out, she’d have to call California. Someone had to break the sad news to Tori’s mother, and she knew she would have to be the one to do it.

  Mrs. Douglas...Tori is dead.

  Mrs. Douglas...your daughter was murdered...instead of me.

  There was that choking feeling in her throat again. Dead. An innocent woman, who had her whole life in front of her, was dead because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The rustling of leaves accompanied the sound of footfalls not far from where they were. The muffled rumble of a man’s voice came through the trees.

  Sarah dropped her things and pushed to Owen’s side.

  “That way.” she whispered. “Someone’s coming.”

  As agile as a cat, he was out of the car and motioning for her to get down. Without protest, she moved back, keeping the vehicle between her and the approaching intruders.

  The two hunting dogs burst into sight, their noses to the ground as they wove around the trees toward the car.

  “Slow down, boys. Slow down.” It was the voice of an elderly man, from the sound of him, and quite out of breath.

  One of the dogs caught sight of Owen and barked threateningly. He dropped to one knee. “Chip! Skip! Come on, good boys.”

  The animals bounced toward him.

  “Owen, is that you?”

  “Yeah, Andrew,” he called out. “Over here. Watch out for the gully.”

  Relief flooded through Sarah, and she stood up, stretching palms out toward the excited, friendly beasts. Having greeted her, the two turned their attention back to Owen, racing back and jumping at him with muddy paws and quick licks at his hands and face.

  In a moment Sarah saw a white-haired man appear through the woods. As he gave an enthused wave to Owen, the man she immediately recognized as Andrew Warner was seized by coughing that would not quit. He reached out for a tree trunk, gasping for air.

  Owen went to him. “Where’s your inhaler?”

  Continuing to cough, the older man couldn’t catch his breath long enough to answer.

  “You do have it, don’t you?”

  Andrew Warner gasped for breath, his face turning an ugly shade of purple. He patted the leather pouch at his waist. Owen’s hands were quick, unclipping the pouch and pulling out an inhaler.

  It was a few moments and a couple of puffs on the medicine before Warner’s coughing subsided enough so that he could lean his head back against the tree.

  Sarah’s eyes turned on Owen’s face and what she saw in his expression surprised her. He was clearly worried about the elderly man. And it was not just worry that one would see in the face of someone helping a casual acquaintance. This was deeper.

  She knew the look. It was the visual reflection of the helplessness that you feel when you’re losing someone you really care about. She’d seen it in her own mirror while her mother had been slowly wasting away. This was close to the same grief she’d seen in the judge’s face while Avery had fought so valiantly against death.

  “Owen, I was hoping you’d come.” There was more coughing, but not nearly so violent as the medicine took effect.

  “Didn’t your doctors discourage you from going out in this kind of dampness?” His voice was irritated, snappish.

  “The hell with doctors. I had to get out of the house.”

  “Christ, Andrew! These attacks could kill you.”

  “I’ve had it with that house, Owen. And with her.”

  “Don’t do this. You asked me to come. I’m here. We made a bargain. I’ve met my end. Now it’s your turn, dammit! You’ve got to hold up your end of the deal.”

  Apparently forgotten by Owen, Sarah felt like a trespasser. She knew she was listening to a private conversation—one that she had no right to know anything about.

  “I made another appointment with
my doctor for next Friday.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “I want you to come with me.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “Why? Because of Tracy?”

  “She is your wife, Andrew. It’s her place to go with you.”

  “The hell with Tracy!” The old man’s face turned red again as he started wheezing. “The hell with her selfishness. The hell with her blaming you for everything that I did.”

  Owen’s impatience was too apparent as he jammed the inhaler inside the bag again. “Andrew, if you think this is helping anything...”

  “And stop defending her. She has never in her life said a single kind word about you. Even knowing my feelings for you, in all these years she’s barely been able to muster a shred of civility toward you. So stop taking her side.”

  “I don’t take her side.” He shoved the bag at him. “But you’ve been married to her for fifty years, for chrissake. She’s put up with all your screwing up for a long time, and if you ask me, she has every right to be bitter. And if she wants to hate me along with you, then let her. I am not a ten-year-old anymore. What do I care if she slams a door or two in my face? Christ, Andrew, you said yourself that she’s treated you better than you ever deserved. That’s all that matters now. You’ve got to keep on getting what you need.”

  One of the dogs barked, and the college president’s blue eyes fell for the first time on Sarah. There was a momentary pause, but his gaze narrowed with immediate recognition, in spite of her baseball cap and baggy clothes.

  “I’ll be damned.” Andrew’s eyes took in the abandoned car. Gray eyebrows arched as he surveyed the shattered glass and the scrub pines hedging in the vehicle.

  “What the hell is this all about?”

  Owen was standing next to her before Sarah could find her voice. “Who said real life is not as exciting as the movies? Andrew, I want you to meet Sarah Rand.”

  “You know her?”

  Sarah extended a hand toward the elderly man. He clasped it in his own. “Actually, we...we only met last night.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be...dead or something?”

  “News of her death has been exaggerated. Sarah only returned from Ireland last night.”

  “I was away for the past two weeks.”

  “Well, that’ll make at least a few people we know quite happy,” Andrew remarked.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Judge Arnold is innocent.”

  “May be innocent. A little early to tell, if you ask me,” Owen continued. “At any rate, Sarah flew into Providence last night, totally unaware of the circus going on here, and immediately ran into some trouble.” He nodded toward the car. “Some people, it appears, tried to finish what they’d thought was a done deal before.”

  Andrew threw a questioning look from one to the other before turning his attention to the car. He looked back at her. “Shouldn’t you be going to the police, young woman?”

  “She is.”

  “I am.”

  “I’m glad you at least agree on that.”

  “But she needs a day, Andrew. A day to try to figure out what’s going on. Why the frame-up of the judge. If it was a frame. And maybe figure out how a couple of guys who were posing as cops knew she was coming back. They were waiting for her.”

  “As it stands, I can’t trust the local or state police, Dr. Warner.” She motioned toward her car. “That’s what they did to me last night. They were ready to kill me.”

  “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Let’s start from the beginning.”

  “Let’s not.” To Sarah’s surprise, Owen put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to his side. She didn’t understand what he was doing, but decided to go along for the moment. “Considering everything that’s happening, the less you know, the better.”

  “But—”

  “She’ll be contacting the authorities by the end of the day. All will be made clear to everybody, then. With any luck you can see it on the news tomorrow night.”

  “Owen, if her life is in danger, then so is yours, now.”

  His arm released her. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve been able to take care of myself for a long time, as you know better than anyone.”

  “Owen—”

  “Do this for me, Andrew. Keep a lid on it for today. For a couple of days, at most.”

  The older man fell silent. “You be careful.”

  “We will.”

  Sarah felt Andrew’s eyes on her back as they walked back to the car for her laptop and luggage. As she reached for one of the bags, Owen picked up Tori’s wallet, open on the ground where he’d dropped it, and handed it to her, taking the luggage himself.

  Andrew Warner and his dogs were still watching them as they moved into the woods toward the Range Rover. Glancing at Owen’s face as they pushed through the underbrush, Sarah saw a different man than the one she’d walked into these woods with such a short while earlier. The man who walked with her now had a past. He had feelings. He displayed emotions. Instead of a movie star, Sarah now saw a man.

  “So I’ve got a couple of days, you say?”

  ~~~~

  Gray must have been the color of choice when the visiting room of the prison had been redone ten years earlier. Light gray for the top half of the wall, dark gray below, and a medium gray furniture and tables to complete the look. The flooring was white—with gray flecks, naturally.

  By the gray steel door, a guard wearing charcoal slacks and a white shirt with epaulets watched the only occupants of the huge visiting room—two men conversing by way of telephones through the glass divider at one of the rows of tables.

  Wearily putting a check on the list he’d compiled, Judge Arnold looked at the legal pad on the table in front of him, scribbled a few more notes, and then glanced up at the man on the other side of the divider. “Anything else?”

  Evan Steele, the head of Steele Security, flipped through a few pages of his own small notebook. “We are still unable to find anyone who can pinpoint the getaway car on the day of her murder. There were a couple dozen cars—tourists and year-rounders—lining the dead-end street. We’re continuing to check, but nobody is coming in with any useful information.”

  “How about the police? Do they have anything on it?”

  “No hard evidence. I think they’ve decided that Sarah’s own car was used to move the body, since the vehicle is still missing.” Steele, an unsmiling, studious-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair, flipped through his book a few seconds more and then closed it, tucking it into his inside jacket pocket. “Senator Rutherford’s office called again. They want you to know that the senator himself is planning to call Judge Wilson next week to request another bail hearing.”

  “Right. Well, fat chance of him getting anywhere with that bitch before the preliminary hearing.” A small muscle started to twitch in the older man’s neck. “What’s my stepson up to these days?”

  “The papers are still hounding him at work and at home. But Hal is laying low.”

  “All right, Evan. That’s the official report. Now why don’t you give me the report I’m paying you for.”

  “He took off sailing on Monday for Block Island.”

  “So, the bastard is already flaunting the control of his inheritance at me.”

  “Actually, it was your lawyer’s suggestion. Scott thought that Hal’s image of all work and no play could prove detrimental to your case,” Steele explained. “Also, by convincing Hal to go away, he thinks we might manage to take some heat off of you. The media loves him, and as long as he is around, and suffering from all his recent loss…”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Well, sir, with him gone I had a better chance of digging into his books as you wanted me to.”

  “Now you are getting someplace.” The judge rubbed the jumping muscle in his neck. “What did you find?”

  “He made a large withdrawal from his trust account this month.”

  “How
large?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  Judge Arnold sat forward. “That could be something, Evan. That money could be a payoff for any kind of job...even murder. Did you tell Scott about it?”

  “Yes, sir. But he already had an idea what the money was for.”

  “What?” the judge snapped.

  “Your son was planning—”

  “Stepson!”

  “Stepson,” Steele repeated with a frown. “Hal hinted to Scott that he was planning an elaborate marriage proposal. It’s possible some of the money was used on a ring we know he picked out for Sarah.”

  “She wouldn’t take him four years ago. She certainly wouldn’t have a damn thing to do with him now.” The tic in the judge’s neck appeared to be worsening, but he gave up rubbing it. “And I don’t believe any of this bullshit. There was no way Sarah would have kept it from me if she was getting involved with him again. No way in hell she would do such a thing to me.”

  Steele sat back, his gaze intent on the judge’s face.

  “Keep a close watch on him, Evan. He can pull all the wool he wants over everyone else’s eyes, but I know what he is all about.” Judge Arnold lowered his voice. “I want to know every step he takes. Everyone he speaks to. I am not going to let that son of a bitch take me down. No way in hell is he going to come out on top on this. Do you hear me?”

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  ~~~~

  Archer reached for the single-page report Bob McHugh dropped on the desk.

  “There were three outgoing calls made from that mausoleum last night.” He sat heavily on the metal chair. “Number one went to Henry Van Horn’s home number, who by the way is still out of town. The second one was the 911 call. And the third phone call was made to our new celebrity in town, Owen Dean.”

  Archer shuffled through a stack of pink messages on his desk and dragged up the one he was looking for. He stared at it, comparing the phone numbers.

  McHugh peered at the message, reading it upside down. “Hey, check out the times.”

  The detective nodded. “He leaves me a message at 1:07a.m., and then gets a call from the Van Horn Mansion at 1:22. Now, who would be calling him at that time of the night?”