Men Made in America Mega-Bundle
Page 188
“What!”
“And then I fired him, told him to leave immediately.”
“He’s going now? Biggs might want to talk to him.”
“And I’ll be informing Sheriff Mason about our conversation, though I doubt Ned knows anything of value. But Mason will be wanting to pick up Brady for certain.”
“You don’t think…last night…”
“That Brady tried to kill you? Why not?”
“Because Susan swore Tim wasn’t there.”
“Are you certain she wasn’t trying to protect him?”
“Oh, Lord, I hope not.” Though the morning air was comfortable, Jane rubbed her arms as if she was chilled. “I guess I just can’t trust my own judgment ever.”
Curran saw his opening to change the subject to one more personal when he heard a car engine. He glanced out the narrow window at the side of the door.
“That’s Belle now.”
“What is she doing here?” Jane didn’t wait for her grandmother to come in. Instead, she threw open the front door and moved to the car, her limp barely noticeable this morning. “Nani? How is Susan?”
“Your sister is fine.” Belle looked over her granddaughter and gave her a big hug. “Her temperature is normal and her heart rate stabilized.” She glanced at Curran when she said, “I’m just here to pack a few things for us, then I’ll go back to the hospital to get Susan. Mitzi Driver said she will be happy to have us for a few days.”
Jane sighed. “I’m so glad you thought of asking one of your friends. I was worried about bringing Susan back home.”
“That invitation includes you, Jane.”
Belle started for the house, Jane following, protesting, “Me? I can’t go.”
“Udell and Jimi can take care of the horses for a few days until Biggs gets his man.”
“And in the meantime, you want me to bring trouble to Mitzi’s?” Jane shook her head. “I have to stay here, Nani, and see this through.”
“She has a valid point.” Following them back inside the foyer, Curran flicked a glance at Jane, who seemed to be avoiding looking at him more than she had to. “And I shall be here to protect her.”
Though perhaps not as closely as he might like to.
“I’m going to ask Biggs to post one of his men here, as well,” Belle insisted.
“If that will ease your mind,” Curran said, after which he told Belle all about Ned and Timothy Brady.
“Oh, dear, Susan is going to be very upset.”
“I know.” Jane sighed. “She believes he’s innocent. At least she said he wasn’t the one who locked us in the curing barn. No description. Not very helpful, I’m afraid.”
“Ned. Tim. A mystery man, if Susan was truthful with you,” Belle muttered. “Do you think she was being honest?”
“I just don’t know. Maybe she believes it was someone else.”
“That would mean we have a conspiracy,” Belle said. “To what end?”
“Finn mac Cumhail.” Curran couldn’t quite piece it together. “It must go back to the stallion.”
All three fell silent and thoughtful.
Curran flicked his gaze to Jane, who was acting as if last night had never happened. She stood closer to Belle than to him, and she had turned her shoulder in a don’t approach posture. She reminded him of Finn after he’d won a victory over the stallion. Finn would always regress a bit as if to assert his independence. Is that what Jane was doing?
Suddenly she asked him, “What do you know about Mukhtar Saladin and Holt Easterling?”
“Easterling and I have a serious difference in training methods,” he said. “He has a cruel streak that I can’t tolerate. I’ve seen him use force on his horses.”
“What about on people?”
“He isn’t what you would call a pleasant man. Other than that?” He shrugged. “As for Saladin—at the party, he warned me away from Finn for my own good, said working with him could be dangerous. As a matter of fact, when I ran into him, Easterling warned me, as well, said he would do whatever he must to see that Stonehenge won the Classic.”
“That sounds pretty damning,” Belle said. “Either man could have been the one with murderous intent last night.”
“I vote for Saladin myself,” Jane offered. “He seems so solicitous of Phyllis, but she’s afraid of him.”
“Phyllis Singleton-Volmer is no victim,” Belle stated firmly. “She’s always been a sly one, from the time she was a girl. At the party, she spoke as if she were great friends with your mother in school, but she was very competitive with Lydia. Actually, they were rivals.”
“Over what?”
Just then, the telephone rang.
Jane’s eyes went wide. “Who could be calling at this hour? The hospital?”
“Don’t panic.” Belle reached for the telephone. “I told you, Susan is just fine.” She put the receiver to her ear. “Hello.” She listened a moment, then her eyebrows shot up. “Yes, Biggs, they’re both standing right here. Hold on.” She looked from Curran to Jane. “Biggs is with his officers at the Potters’ curing barns. He asked if the two of you could meet him there as soon as possible.”
Wondering why the sheriff wanted them to return to the scene of the crime, Curran said, “Tell him we’re on our way.”
JANE SAT STIFFLY in the passenger seat, uncomfortable despite the perfect morning. She didn’t ever want to step foot on the Potters’ farm again and here she was speeding back toward it. Rather, Curran was the one speeding. And silent.
A chill shot through her.
What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she say something to break the ice? Her own insecurities were driving a wedge between them.
This wasn’t the way two people were supposed to act after they made love for the first time.
“Here we are,” he said, slowing to make the turn.
Her fault, Jane thought. She shouldn’t have left without waking him. Blasted with insecurity, she had made her escape. But perhaps she had been right in doing so, she thought, giving his hard profile a sideways glance.
She wished for the Curran she knew—charming, wheedling, gentling her?
In his place was a cold, hard stranger.
The twin barns loomed closer and she saw Sheriff Biggs Mason standing outside his vehicle, talking to a uniformed officer. The place was crawling with deputies.
Curran stopped the car, and as they climbed out, Biggs came over to greet them. He was a bit younger than Nani, just this side of retirement, as evidenced by a shock of white hair and skin as tough and wrinkled as leather left out in the sun too long. He was also whipcord thin, in better condition than most men twenty years his junior.
“Got here mighty fast,” he said, raising white eyebrows. “A lawman might think you were speeding.”
“We’re the guys in the white hats,” Curran countered, “come to give the authorities aid.”
Biggs winked at Jane. “Got a smooth-tongued one there, huh?”
“Very smooth,” she agreed.
She felt Curran’s gaze on her. If he thought he was going to force a connection, he had another think coming. She focused on Biggs and what he had to say.
“I had my boys go over this place with a fine-tooth comb. Found your cars over there in that brush,” he said, pointing to a spot farther along the road.
And from the brush, a red light was flashing.
“What’s going on down there?” Jane asked, her trepidation building.
“We found something else, as well,” Biggs added. “I gotta warn you, it ain’t pretty.”
“What isn’t?”
“A body. Murder victim.”
“Murder…” Her heart began to thump wildly. “Who?”
“That’s what I hoped one of you might tell us. It’s likely he had something to do with what happened to you last night. No identification on the body. And if he’s local, my boys don’t know him.”
Jane finally looked to Curran, but he, too, was unreadable. His expression
was deliberately neutral.
“How did he die?” he asked.
“Blunt instrument to the head. Tire iron. Told you it wasn’t pretty.”
Biggs had them climb into his vehicle, then drove them to the scene of the crime. By the time they arrived a few minutes later, Jane’s stomach was tied in knots. The flashing lights belonged to an ambulance and the driver and paramedic stood around waiting with a stretcher.
The sheriff led the way past two of his men and a woman taking photographs. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. People moving aside. Her moving toward the body…looking down…blinking in horror.
“So can you do it?” Biggs asked. “Can you identify the victim?”
Jane nodded and once again in unison with Curran said, “Timothy Brady.”
BIGGS FOLLOWED THEM back to Grantham Acres. As they entered the house, Nani was just bringing two overnight bags down the stairs. She set them next to the staircase.
“I guess Susan can wait a while longer. So what did you find?”
“Timothy Brady,” Curran told her. “Dead.”
Her hand fluttered to her heart. “Dear Lord.”
“So Susan was undoubtedly telling the truth about Tim not being the one to lock us in the curing barn,” Jane said. “Whoever killed him must have.”
“Let’s go sit,” Nani said.
Her grandmother ushered them into the parlor. Jane chose her usual chair and Curran sat across the room from her. Even so, she could feel him staring. Her nerve endings tingling, she met his gaze.
For a moment, it was there—the connection. Warmth flowed through her and she wanted to say something to narrow the breach, but of course she couldn’t, not with other people around. She turned away and forced her attention on Biggs.
“But Brady was also obviously involved,” he was saying, “or he wouldn’t have been at the Potter farm to begin with.”
Jane shook her head. That she hadn’t been able to believe it was yet more proof of her poor judgment.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Tim was so helpful. He took care of everything after Finn and I were almost killed.”
“About that,” Biggs said. “I heard back from the Hudson Valley sheriff’s office. Gavin Shaw’s death was never reported.”
“What?” Jane whispered, stunned.
“What about the other law enforcement agencies?” Curran asked.
“The man who spoke to me—Sheriff Lathrop—was thorough. Nothing.”
“No wonder they never found the body.” Jane’s guilt returned, twofold. She’d thought she’d done the right thing, but again, she’d been fooled. “No one looked. Those detectives were fakes. But why would Tim have set me up like that?”
“We may never know.”
“We will if I have anything to say about it,” Jane said.
Biggs took down the description of the supposed detective who had questioned her about Shaw’s death. “You haven’t ever run into him away from Hudson Valley?”
“No, never. Why didn’t I see it?” she asked. “Tim’s taking care of everything was just too smooth, especially the part about bringing the Hudson Valley authorities to the emergency room.”
Visualizing the scene, she saw again the detective pacing the corridor. And then it struck her. He’d had bushy red eyebrows.
“Ned!” she said with a gasp. “Now I know why he looked so familiar. I thought I had seen him at a racetrack, but it was the hospital. He was one of the supposed detectives. I remember seeing him in the corridor.”
Curran had already filled Biggs in on Ned’s spying on them and his connection to Tim. And the sheriff had hurriedly sent one of his officers to detain Ned, but the assistant trainer had already disappeared.
Now it seemed that he had done more for money than just spy on them.
Did that include murder?
Biggs went over everything again, from Gavin’s attack on her to their theory that Saladin or Easterling might have locked them in the curing barn.
“Owners and trainers have been known to cheat to win,” Biggs said. “But murder is a bit drastic, especially since you have nothing that could be used against them.”
“But they don’t know that,” Jane said.
“I think they would,” Biggs countered. “Rather, whoever is behind the whole thing would. No doubt, that’s why you were set up in the E.R. with fake police. To find out what you knew. They had to be satisfied with your answers. If they intended to kill you, they would have done so before you left Hudson Valley.”
Whoever they were, Jane thought, her head whirling with the complexity of it all. Under the instructions of someone else, Tim had set her up to make sure she didn’t know something. What? And then that person had killed Tim. Why? And it all went back to Finn mac Cumhail.
By the time Biggs left, Jane was drained of emotion except for a growing anger at all she’d had to endure these past months. She couldn’t just sit around and wait for answers. She would find some herself.
A plan growing in her mind, she refused to think it through in Curran’s presence lest he latch on to her thoughts and try to stop her.
“Nani, I won’t have a car for the moment, it’s being held for evidence in Tim’s murder. Fingerprints and the like. What if I drive you and Susan to Mitzi’s and then use your car.”
“Excellent idea, sweetheart. Mitzi will get us anywhere we need to go.”
“I can come along,” Curran said.
Jane snapped, “That won’t be necessary. You need to work with Finn, remember?”
And she needed to be free of him for a while so that she could continue to think straight.
Anger flared through Curran’s features before he masked it and said, “Belle, would you give us a few minutes alone. We need to talk strategy.”
Obviously he wasn’t okay with her plan.
Nani looked from him to her and raised her eyebrows. “Certainly. I’ll be out in the car.” She picked up the overnight bags.
“I’ll get those,” Curran offered.
“No need. I’m not infirm yet.”
The moment her grandmother was out the front door, Curran turned on Jane.
“Tell me,” he asked coolly, “what happened to you at dawn? Did you turn into another person?”
Immediately put off, she snapped, “I am who I am, Curran.”
He stared at her and she wished for all the world that he would take her in his arms and tell her that he really did love her. That he hadn’t said the words just to get her into bed. To trick her somehow.
“What makes you so afraid?”
“You do!”
She’d never felt so vulnerable. Part of her knew she and Curran belonged together, but another part was certain she’d made another mistake.
“I do,” Curran repeated. “Is that because I’ve been so cruel to you…or because you’re afraid of what people will say?”
“W-what?”
“I told you before that you’re a snob. I guess I was right.”
“How dare you judge me!”
“How dare you treat me like I’m invisible. I’ve had enough of that!”
“I don’t—”
“Maggie Butler hid our relationship from her society friends, from racing people, even from her own family. And I let her do it because I was crazy about her. I mistakenly believed that once she realized that I was more than a bed partner to her, things would change. Only they never did. She fired me and threw me out rather than embarrass herself in front of her peers.”
“I’m not—”
Riding over her protest, he said, “I’m not that man anymore. I won’t take that kind of treatment, not from anyone, not even from the woman I love!”
With that, Curran whipped around and strode to the front door.
“Wait a minute!” Jane protested, realizing that he’d said it again—that he loved her. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“Who are you willing to tell about us, Jane? Your grandmother? Your sister?” When
she didn’t answer fast enough, he muttered, “That’s what I thought,” and left, slamming the door closed behind him.
A stunned Jane stared at the door, mind whirling.
In his own way, Curran McKenna was as insecure as she was. Only he didn’t know why she was so reluctant to be open and free with him. It had nothing to do with who he was or what he did for a living.
That he thought her a snob hurt.
That he hadn’t given her the chance to explain how she felt was even worse.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time they’d had a chat with Susan and told her about Tim—she was understandably upset, if not devastated—Jane had formulated a plan. She waited until she rolled up to Mitzi Driver’s house and stopped the car, then turned to talk to her sister.
“Susan, do you by any chance know where Tim was staying? Biggs needs that information.”
A dark expression crossed Susan’s young face. “Rolling Meadows, along with his bosses.”
Staying at Phyllis’s farm and Phyllis didn’t know who he was? Or had she just been evasive when they’d asked her about him at Churchill Downs the day before. Why?
“Was Tim staying at the house?”
“No. He had a room, part of the rear barn.”
With that, Susan opened her door and escaped any further conversation. Not so their grandmother.
“Jane, dear, tell me you’re not going to do anything foolish.”
“I’ve been foolish enough as it is, Nani. It’s time I smartened up.”
Especially about men, she thought, her argument with Curran still stinging.
“Jane—”
“Don’t concern yourself about me, please. Just take good care of Susan until Biggs has this thing wrapped up.”
Her grandmother sank back into a silence of disapproval. Jane hated it when they argued. She hated the silent treatment even more.
“Come on, Nani, let me help you get the bags inside.”
This time the older woman didn’t quibble.
A few minutes later, Jane was on the road again. Nani knew her too well. Rather than driving home, she headed straight for Rolling Meadows Farm.