by Debra Webb
“A few. A former president and vice president impressed me the most.”
“Wow.” She pursed her lips. “I may have to get you a special T-shirt for work.”
“Does that mean I have the job?”
She held his gaze for a bit. He didn’t miss the hesitation in her eyes. “I don’t usually trust people right off the bat. I take a while, most of the time. But for some reason I do trust you, Hayden.”
That should have made him relax. It sure would make his assignment a hell of a lot easier. But it also meant that she would eventually learn that he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. Knowing that she had decided to trust him made that part a whole lot harder.
“I’m flattered,” he confessed. A woman like her didn’t trust easily.
“Just make sure you don’t make me regret it. And when you’re ready to go back to your real life, I expect a two-week notice.”
The tension held a moment. “You have my word.”
Another second or two of that thick silence elapsed.
“I guess you have the job, then. Barring any unflattering information from your references.”
“Fair enough.” He narrowed his gaze at her. “Now I have a question for you.”
Her expression turned skeptical. “Be aware, I reserve the right not to answer.”
“Agreed.”
“So ask.”
“Why’re you lonely?”
She looked confused.
Before she could put two and two together, he went on with the question that had nothing to do with his assignment. “A woman as young, smart and hot as you should never be lonely.”
Surprise flashed in her eyes but quickly reverted to wariness. “I was trying to be funny, Hayden. I don’t have time to be lonely.”
He’d hit a nerve there. He glanced at the array of hanging pots and pans. “You must be a heck of a chef.”
“I can hold my own.” She set her cup aside, visibly relaxed. “The only time I’ve ever known a man to be interested in kitchen utensils was if he was a chef himself or if he was hungry.”
Joel grinned. “I’m afraid my culinary skills leave something to be desired.”
Laney folded her arms across her chest. “I’ll make a deal with you, Hayden. You cut the grass and I’ll make you a breakfast you’ll tell your grandkids about.”
“Deal.”
Joel was only too glad to help.
One step closer to where he needed to be.
Chapter Four
Colby Agency, Houston, 9:00 a.m.
Victoria Colby-Camp reviewed the records they had amassed on the Barker case. What was she missing?
Each step taken by the investigating detectives after the arrest of the Barkers was spot-on. There was every reason to believe that the Barker girls had died that final morning before their parents’ arrests. The blood at the house and in the family car had suggested foul play. The blood type was consistent with that of the little girls. The bodies were not recovered and no trace of the girls had been discovered in all these years.
Until now.
If Janet Tolliver, Rafe Barker’s friend who had helped with whisking away the children, had lived, perhaps she would have been willing to cooperate with the agency’s investigation and solved at least part of this mystery.
But she had been murdered and the killer was still out there. Had she been killed by another of Rafe’s confidants? That wasn’t logical and no other resource he might have used had been discovered.
And why would he kill the woman who had kept his secret all these years? To cover his tracks? Had Janet Tolliver known incriminating information beyond the location of the three Barker daughters?
If Rafe hadn’t orchestrated her murder, had Clare? Not likely. Lucas, Victoria’s husband, had been keeping watch on Clare until she vanished with Tony Weeden, the one-armed man. There simply had been no real opportunity for Clare to have gotten to Janet. Unless Weeden had committed the act for her or for Rafe.
Weeden was the only variable. It had to be him. For one thing, he was left-handed, out of necessity, but a leftie nonetheless. The police in Copperas Cove had determined that the blow that ultimately killed Janet Tolliver had likely been wielded by a person who was left-handed. The murder weapon was thought to have been a heavy marble angel statue from Janet’s home. The killer had obviously taken the time to clean it thoroughly as well as anything else he or she may have touched in the home. But trace amounts of Janet’s blood had been found on the statue. Since the statue hadn’t been lying near her body, the blood hadn’t simply splattered there.
But if Rafe hadn’t ordered Janet’s murder, which his doing so would have made no sense, why had Weeden turned on Rafe and murdered the woman who had ensured the safety of Rafe’s daughters? That scenario made no sense, either. But someone had murdered her and that murderer had a motive. Had Weeden been waiting for just the right opportunity to take vengeance on Rafe or Janet?
For what reason?
Was Weeden somehow connected to Clare beyond the role of accomplice? If so, why had they not found a connection in his history? Weeden was raised by foster parents but his birth record was ambiguous to say the least. Simon Ruhl, the head of the Colby West offices, was convinced the record was a forgery.
So many questions and hardly any answers.
Victoria heaved a weary sigh. The day had scarcely begun and already she felt emotionally drained.
Time was short and all at the Houston Colby office were working overtime to solve this complex puzzle, including Victoria and Lucas.
The idea of an innocent man being put to death twisted her insides. But was there time enough to prove who was innocent and who was guilty?
Victoria thought of the way Rafe had looked at her when she revealed that Weeden had deceived him. The devastation had been clear in his eyes but it was the other emotion—something like rage—that disturbed her immensely. Forced her to rethink his motives and his story.
Was she working with the devil himself?
A rap at the door drew Victoria from the troubling thoughts. Simon and Lucas entered the small conference room where, together with Victoria, they had created a timeline of events along a whiteboard that extended across the better part of one wall. Photos, newspaper clippings, it was all there.
“We have a new development that may prove our first real break in the case,” Simon announced as he and Lucas joined Victoria at the conference table.
“We could certainly use one.” Though they had uncovered small details over the course of the past few days, not one had propelled the investigation forward.
“As you know,” Lucas began, his expression cautiously optimistic, “I’ve spent the past forty-eight hours attempting to track down anyone who knew either Clare or Rafe in college, before their marriage.”
Anticipation trickled in Victoria’s veins. Lucas had that look in his eyes. He’d found something. “And?”
“A Francine Parks was a close friend of Clare’s for the first year they attended the same university. She claims Clare was raped by one of their professors but she refused to report the incident for fear that the scandal would somehow cause the loss of her scholarship. This woman believes a pregnancy resulted from the rape.”
“This would have been thirty-one or thirty-two years ago?” Clare was about the same age as Victoria.
“Thirty-two,” Lucas confirmed.
Simon picked up where Lucas had left off. “Ms. Parks is certain Clare gave birth to a child conceived in the assault. But she has no proof. She is basing her assumption on excessive weight gain and repeated bouts of something like morning sickness those final few weeks of the spring semester. The following fall, Clare returned looking and behaving as if nothing had happened. According to Parks she refused to discuss the incident at any time.”
“But this Francine Parks can’t be sure,” Victoria guessed.
“She cannot,” Simon confirmed.
It was definitely a possible lead, though not a p
articularly reliable one. Hearsay was just that, hearsay.
“According to Parks,” Lucas noted, “the incident occurred in late November which would suggest a July or August delivery date. The timing could imply that perhaps Tony Weeden is Clare’s son and, frankly, I’m inclined to believe the Parks woman. She has no horse in this race.”
“The age would be right.” Victoria resisted jumping to the immediate conclusion. “Did Ms. Parks have any other reason to believe that a child resulted from the attack? An overheard conversation? Rumors around the campus?”
“None,” Simon answered. “Clare requested a different roommate that fall and apparently kept to herself since we haven’t been able to find anyone she was close to until she met Rafe.” Simon sat back in his chair and seemed to consider the possibilities. “Clare was young, only twenty-one. Her parents, the Sneads, were murdered when she was a kid. At eighteen, she left her foster parents without looking back. But,” he countered, “she did have a sister, Janet Tolliver. Might she have turned to her? That would provide the connection between the three.”
“You’re assuming,” Victoria suggested, “that Clare knew where her biological sister ended up.”
“We’ve learned the Tollivers, the people who raised Janet, and the Sneads, Clare’s parents, were friends,” Simon reminded her. “Our thinking when we first discovered that Janet and Clare were biological sisters was that the Sneads gave Janet up due to financial reasons but that may not have been the case. The one source we found who knew the Tolliver family at the time Janet came to live with them suggested the Sneads had been afraid of Janet. There was talk that she tried repeatedly to harm her younger sister, Clare, and that was the reason for the Sneads sending Janet away.”
“Is this source that reliable?” Victoria was sure both Lucas and Simon understood that accuracy was key not only for finding the truth but also for moving forward in the proper direction. “We have little time, gentlemen, for running theories that prove groundless. We need something solid. And we need it now.”
Lucas joined the conversation. “The woman who lived next door to the Tolliver family is old, and her memory is sketchy on some aspects of how Janet came to be a part of the Tolliver family, but she was absolutely certain of that point. The Tollivers had no other children at home. They were all grown, so they never saw any trouble out of Janet. She gave the appearance of a nice young girl but the neighbor was not comfortable around her.”
“We’re checking with old schoolmates and any living teachers,” Simon explained, “to determine if Janet had any problems at school.”
“We learned nothing else from Janet’s neighbor in Copperas Cove who held the photo albums of Rafe’s daughters for her?”
Simon shook his head. “The neighbor knew the aunt who left the house to Janet. She and Janet saw each other occasionally as children but their friendship was more recent and, I suspect, relatively superficial.”
Were they wasting their time digging up information on a dead woman? Maybe, but they simply had no other leads. There was nowhere else to go in light of Rafe Barker’s abrupt silence.
“Would Clare turn to a sister who had tried to harm her as a child?” Seemed a more than reasonable question to Victoria. Victoria had a younger sister of her own who had proven that blood was not always thicker than water.
What exactly had happened to tear apart Clare’s family and to set her on a course to connect with Rafe Barker? Had he turned her evil or had she changed him?
“Clare may not have known about the incident or perhaps didn’t comprehend the magnitude of what actually happened.” Simon had children of his own and would certainly understand the capacity of young ones for forgiveness. “She was three when Janet was sent away. Her parents may have chosen not to tell her or she may have simply blocked the incidents from her memory.”
“Then again, Janet may have sought out Clare.” Victoria understood the need to find long-lost loved ones. “She was certainly old enough to remember a sister even if she chose not to remember certain events.” Then again, the prison logs listed no visitor named Janet Tolliver for Clare or for Rafe.
“Janet may have done more than that,” Lucas interjected. “After Clare’s parents were murdered, a couple of neighbors stated they saw a teenage girl outside the home. The lead proved a dead end. But what if it was Janet? What if she came back—she would have been fourteen at the time—and killed the parents who deserted her? Perhaps she even hoped it would be blamed on Clare as punishment for being the daughter they kept.”
“Then why would Clare see Janet again? Even after being raped and feeling utterly alone?” That part didn’t feel right to Victoria. The police reports from the time Clare’s parents were murdered indicated that she had come home and found the tragedy. Yet she had been covered in blood. From her attempts to save them, she had claimed.
So much death and devastation. Would this tragic cycle end with the surviving Barker daughters? Victoria intended to ensure the nightmare ended with this investigation.
“Clare may have blocked the horror of that evening from her mind, as well,” Lucas offered. “It’s far easier to fall back into a pattern that worked once than to stand up and face such a terrible truth.”
Her husband had a very good point. Victoria had long thought that the tragedy of her own son’s abduction and the twenty years they had lost was the worst a woman and mother could suffer. This frightening family saga had her rethinking the definition of “worst-case scenario.”
“If the two were in contact again,” Simon proposed, “Janet may have taken care of the child born to Clare just as she did her three daughters years later.”
But Janet Tolliver had taken the three girls for Rafe, not for Clare.
“That possibility, however, gives Clare less of a motive for murdering Janet,” Victoria suggested. “Why kill the person who helped her with such a tremendous burden at a critical time in her life?”
“Because she discovered that Janet had hidden her daughters from her…and then refused to tell her once she was released where they are,” Simon offered.
“Janet had even gone so far as to hide the photo albums she had saved,” Lucas pointed out. “With the woman next door. Seems to me she wanted to make sure Clare didn’t get her hands on them.”
The photo albums. All three were well-documented biographies of the girls’ lives, from their original birth certificates to current photos. All apparently recorded by Janet Tolliver.
“Assuming Weeden is, in fact, Clare’s son, he may have killed Janet in an effort to help his mother,” Simon summed up. “The flip side of that is that possibly Weeden is only pretending to help his mother. He may have an entirely different motive and agenda.”
“Revenge,” Lucas agreed. “He was the child his mother abandoned. Subsequently marrying and having three little girls.”
More theories and scenarios and no answers, Victoria thought. She banished the mounting worries. “Where are we on Laney and Olivia?”
“Hayden called in this morning,” Simon reported. “He’s making good progress. St. James is still watching Olivia from a distance.”
“Both are very good at what they do,” Lucas tacked on. “Laney and Olivia are in good hands, even from a distance.”
Victoria prayed they could keep these women safe.
And she hoped solving this puzzle would not be too late to stop an innocent man from being executed.
If he was indeed innocent.
Chapter Five
Beaumont, 9:16 a.m.
Laney leaned in the open doorway to watch what she typically considered a boring task. But with Hayden pushing that lawn mower, his shirt long ago tossed aside, she had to confess there was absolutely nothing boring about the view. Broad shoulders, lean waist with those ripped abs… Very nice.
That little voice that always reminded her of how often she’d been an idiot tried to intrude but she ignored it. Hayden had no idea she was watching and she deserved a little stolen pleasur
e here and there.
Lonely. Yes, she was lonely. No use lying to herself. But she had no time to quench that particular thirst.
Couldn’t hurt to look. It was the touching that led to trouble.
In the living room behind her, Buddy watched his one hour of television. The restriction wasn’t one she had enforced; it was his own. He had two thirty-minute programs he considered his must-watch TV then he was done. On to one of his games or to his Lego corner to design and build something new. Having such a bright kid was intimidating at times. No matter the cost to her personally, she wanted him to have every opportunity in life.
As for Laney, she could be happy just to daydream. Her attention wandered back to the man finishing up the nice job in her yard. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done a menial chore for her. In part because she was so independent she rarely allowed anyone to know she needed help. But mostly because she’d always picked the wrong kind of guys. The ones not at all interested in helping with anything other than separating her from her panties.
At twenty-six it was darned well past time she’d recognized her destructive pattern and changed course. Her gaze tracked Hayden a moment longer. Falling back into bad habits was a bad idea. The next man she allowed herself to get involved with would earn the right to be with her.
A good-looking cowboy on break from his life wasn’t the right starting place.
The smell of biscuits browning in the oven tickled her nose and reminded her that the only promise she’d made to her new sexy security guy was breakfast.
After a quick check on Buddy, she headed back to the kitchen. Eggs and bacon were staying warm in the covered cast-iron skillet. She grabbed an oven mitt and peeked in on the biscuits.
“Perfect.” And homemade. That was another thing her grandmother had taught her. How to make super-fluffy biscuits. One of these days she intended to start opening the saloon for breakfast. Experimenting with coffee was a fun hobby that had her hankering to take it to the next level. The interstate passed right by the saloon. She was far enough out of Beaumont proper to make going for breakfast from that end of the city limits a pain. Why not capitalize on the convenient location?