Downtown Solitude consisted of a Dairy Queen, Nell’s small grocery, and the usual local businesses. A visit to a major retailer required a forty-five-minute drive to the county seat of Hannon. With limited resources, the tiny town had been ill-equipped to deal with the influx of paparazzi and Chase Ryan fans. With every motel and B&B within fifty miles full, the crowds had spilled over into campsites. He’d even seen people sleeping in their cars. The town council had been forced to rent porta-potties.
Twenty minutes after leaving the scene, Seth turned onto Main Street. Cars lined the road, but he saw fewer vehicles than he had over the past few days.
Looked like some of the out-of-towners were leaving.
Good riddance. Seth would be glad to have his town back.
He drove to the church. The parking lot was full, and cars were parked on both sides of the street as well. Sunday services were in full swing.
Seth scanned the lot as he steered through the rows of cars. Chase’s entourage had been driving a black Hummer, which shouldn’t be hard to find in a sea of Chevies and Fords. Seth spotted the Hummer in the front of the lot.
He and Phil parked and got out of their cars.
“The two men we’re looking for are Josh Black and Spider Ryan,” Seth said. “Josh is Toby’s brother and was Chase’s manager. Spider was Chase’s brother and driver. The four grew up together near Portland. When Chase moved to Hollywood, he brought his buddies with him.”
“Best buds,” Phil said as they walked across the asphalt.
“Yeah, until Toby killed Chase.”
Approaching the Hummer, Seth touched the hood. The metal was warm. Was the sun strong enough to heat the hood, or had the engine been running?
Seth and Phil slipped into the side door of the church. Organ music and hymns floated down the hall as they descended the steps to the basement, which hosted everything from bingo to Boy Scout meetings. Today the main room was set up for the coffee hour between church services.
Phil and Seth crossed the linoleum to a side room the church used for small meetings. The door was cracked open. Josh and Spider glanced up as Seth knocked on the door frame. An old conference table had been pushed against the wall to make room for two cots. A door in the back led directly outside.
Seth and Phil walked in. Josh had lost his Hollywood air. His blond hair was beyond disheveled, and he looked as if he’d been sleeping in his clothes for days. Though Spider and Chase had shared DNA, brown hair, and blue eyes, Chase had had star quality his brother obviously didn’t possess. Spider didn’t look much better than Josh. His wrinkled T-shirt bagged on his tall, thin frame, and he sported a brown stain on his belly.
Spider’s eyes were red rimmed as he sipped what appeared to be coffee from a Styrofoam cup.
“What the fuck do you want with us?” Josh jumped to his feet and swayed, his eyes darting to Phil’s uniform. His lack of balance and bloodshot eyes told Seth the man had been drinking.
Seth checked his watch. Just after ten a.m.
“Hey,” Phil reprimanded. “This is a church. Watch the language.”
Josh dropped back to the cot and propped his elbows on his knees. His head fell into his hands.
Seth spotted a bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the cot. “I take it from your outburst that you remember me.”
Josh didn’t respond, but Spider gave Seth a grunt that sounded like agreement.
“Officially I’m Detective Harding from the Rogue County Sheriff’s Office.” Seth nodded toward Phil. “This is Deputy Harrison. We need to ask you where you were this morning.”
“Right here.” Spider’s gaze went to the ceiling. “We were going to leave early today, but we overslept. By the time we woke up, church was happening.”
“I would have thought you two would have left town by now,” Seth said.
“We haven’t been in any condition to travel.” Josh buried both hands in his dirty hair.
“Kind of early.” Seth nodded toward the bottle of JD.
“And in a church?” Pure disgust saturated Phil’s voice.
Josh burped. “That’s from last night.”
Last night into early morning, Seth guessed.
“Honestly, we’ve been drinking since Chase died,” Josh said.
Spider pointed at his friend. “You’ve been drunk since Barbara told you she was pregnant.”
“Don’t remind me,” Josh whined.
“So you were both here all morning?” Seth interrupted.
“We just said that,” Josh mumbled. His skin turned a sickly gray color. Covering his mouth, he bolted for the restroom.
“Can anyone vouch for you?” Seth asked.
Spider nodded toward the hall. “A bunch of ladies were here early. Setting up coffee and stuff in the kitchen. They made a lot of noise, but they let me have some coffee.”
Seth leaned on the wall. “Your buddy is in bad shape.”
“Having his little brother confess to murdering our friend sent him over the edge last night.” Spider gave Seth a raised brow. “You look pretty rough yourself.”
Seth said, “I pulled a man from a burning car this morning. Do you know anything about that?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Spider blinked away. He stooped, picked up the whiskey bottle, and deposited it and his cup in the trash can.
“You seem awfully calm,” Seth said to Spider. Shouldn’t the man be angry or upset that his friend had killed his brother? The guy’s too-cool demeanor set off Seth’s radar.
“I don’t know what I am.” Spider rubbed his eye with a knuckle. “Frankly, Detective, I don’t think I’ve processed my brother’s death yet. I still can’t believe Toby did it. The whole situation feels surreal. And I’m worried about Brandon.”
“You’re close to the boy?” Seth was also concerned for Chase’s ten-year-old son.
Pressing a hand to the center of his chest, Spider let out a resounding belch. “I did a lot of the running between Chase and Brandon.”
“Why did you pretend to be Brandon’s father?”
Chase and his ex had kept the boy’s paternity a secret. After Chase’s death, the kid had been outed.
Spider stared at the floor. “Jenny didn’t want any part of the Hollywood scene for Brandon. She wanted him to grow up in a normal house. If anyone had known Chase was his dad, the kid wouldn’t have been able to ride his bike around the block or go to public school.” Spider paced the room. “It might not seem like it, but Chase loved his boy.”
Seth disagreed, but he kept his mouth shut. Chase had spent exactly one week per year with his son. He hadn’t been able to stay away from booze and women for a single week as a parent. He’d never have pulled off the job full time.
Seth bet Chase hadn’t wanted to be inconvenienced by parenthood. A child would have gotten in the way of his Hollywood lifestyle. A dad can’t invite girls back to his mansion for a threesome if he’s busy helping his kid learn multiplication tables.
And Spider acted as if he was holding something back. There was more to the story than Chase protecting his son from the media. But what?
Josh returned, flopping onto his cot and closing his eyes.
Seth eyed Josh’s pricey athletic shoes. Thinking about money gave him another idea about Toby’s disappearance. “Who has access to Chase’s accounts?”
Josh cracked an eye. “Just me and Chase.”
“No one else can get at any significant amount of money?” Seth asked.
“Not really,” Josh said. “Chase paid us each a salary, and there was a smaller account for household expenses. We all used that, but there isn’t that much money in it.”
Seth wondered if someone thought Toby had access to more money than he did. Zane had requested financial records from Chase’s banks, but Toby had confessed before the statements came through.
“Don’t leave town without calling me.” Seth handed Spider a business card and followed Phil out of the room.
Seth heard somet
hing clatter. He crossed the main room and went into the attached kitchen. Nell, who owned the local deli and made the best fried chicken within a hundred miles, was filling a tray with doughnuts. Another woman was putting cupcakes on a tray.
“Excuse me, Nell.” Seth said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course you can, Seth.” Nell opened another box of pastries.
“Did you see either of those men this morning?” Seth pointed toward the room where Josh and Spider had been sleeping.
“I saw the tall, skinny man about five minutes ago. He wanted coffee.” Nell pursed her lips. “I gave him some. Thought it might get them moving. He smelled like whiskey.” Her eyes narrowed in disapproval.
“But you didn’t see them earlier?”
“No.” Nell crossed the kitchen, opened the large refrigerator, and removed two pitchers of orange juice. “Their door was closed.”
Seth checked his watch. Two hours had passed since he’d been run off the road. It seemed like a big stretch to suppose Josh and Spider had gotten ahold of a semi, used it to break Toby out of custody, then returned to the church. A stretch, but not impossible. But why?
“I’ve had about enough of all these out-of-towners,” Nell said. “They need to go back to Hollywood.”
“From your lips, Nell,” Seth agreed. He left the kitchen and followed Phil out of the church. They crossed the blacktop and walked to their vehicles.
“How are you going to make them stay in town?” Phil asked.
“I can’t, but I’m hoping they don’t know that,” Seth said over the roof of his car. Frankly, Chase’s pals didn’t seem all that smart.
Phil said, “Where to next?”
“Solitude PD. I need Zane’s case file. Then I need to stop at home. My wife will have information on that arsonist fan.”
“How about I pick up the case file while you talk to Carly?” Phil asked. “Time’s a-wasting.”
“Deal.” Seth handed Phil the keys to the Solitude Police Station, then got into his car. On the way home, he checked in with the sheriff. So far there was no sign of the tractor trailer or Toby. No semis had been reported stolen either, but, on the bright side, Cyndee Sykes had been sighted two hours away from Solitude. If she was running, Seth would have expected her to have gone farther by now, but maybe the need to steal a vehicle had slowed her escape.
“Do they know what she was driving?” Seth asked.
“Some kind of sedan,” the sheriff said. “We’re trying to clean up the surveillance footage. The license plate was smeared with something, but it definitely wasn’t the pickup truck she was driving when she was here.”
“She must have stolen a vehicle.”
Seth asked for a copy of the image and ended the call. A minute later his phone beeped. He opened the message to see Cyndee’s face in a grainy picture taken at a gas station in Innis. The time stamp was 8:15 p.m. Another image, from a convenience store in Dunphey, was time-stamped at 9:30 p.m. The pattern suggested Cyndee was traveling up the coast.
Seth would have preferred to catch her, but the next best thing was having her far away from his family.
With Cyndee traveling away from Solitude, Seth could concentrate on tracking down a killer.
CHAPTER FOUR
Carly shielded her eyes and watched her husband park his car. A sigh of relief shuddered through her bones.
“Daddy!”
With Prince Eric the goat on her heels, Brianna ran across the barnyard toward him. Carly was tempted to do the same. She’d spoken to Seth after his accident, but he tended to minimize any threat or injury to himself. Until she saw him with her own eyes, she could never be sure he wasn’t hurt.
She and Seth and been separated for months the previous year. It had been the most awful time in her life and had made her realize how much he meant to her.
He’d brushed off what had happened to him this morning, but she knew he could have been killed. In the ninety minutes between his phone call and his arrival at the farm, Carly had fielded three calls about the accident from well-meaning folks who didn’t want her to worry but in fact made her worry more.
Seth got out of his car and grabbed his suit jacket. Brianna sprang from the ground and hit him like an orangutan on a sugar high. He dropped his suit jacket to catch her.
“You aren’t wearing your regular shirt?” She wrapped her skinny arms and legs around him monkey style.
“My white shirt got dirty.” He hugged her.
She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’m so glad you’re home. I have a surprise. A big one.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?” Seth carried her toward the cabin.
“Of course I am, sillyhead.”
The goat protested the loss of his playmate by butting Seth’s legs. Seth leaned down and grabbed a horn with one hand. “I think we’d better put Prince Eric away.”
As if sensing his impending restriction, the goat tried to escape his grip, twisting his head and body and stomping all over Seth’s jacket in the process. Seth sighed and shook his head.
Warmth spread through Carly as she watched Seth with their daughter. He was affectionate and kind, loyal and strong. And the power that he held over Carly still amazed her. Tomorrow they’d celebrate their ninth wedding anniversary, and no other man had turned her head since the day they met on the campus of Oregon State. Their marriage troubles hadn’t been about love.
Stressful jobs, parenthood, and stubbornness on both their parts had almost derailed their marriage. When they had disagreed in the past, Carly used to close herself off, and Seth had gone straight to anger. But separation had made them both miserable. Since their reconciliation, they’d learned to communicate at the first sign of conflict. They made the time to talk to each other every day, and she felt closer to him than ever.
Seth turned his head. Their gazes locked, and his eyes heated.
Desire had never been an issue either.
Sensing the distraction, the goat pulled away and bucked in a circle on the grass.
Seth went to his wife, then leaned down to kiss her on the lips. “Hi.”
“Hi back.”
She glanced over him, checking for scrapes or bruises. His shirt was missing, his slacks were torn, and the side of his face was red, as if he’d gotten sunburned, but he seemed all right. That was all that really mattered.
She put a hand on his arm, wanting to say things she couldn’t with Brianna listening.
He smiled down at her, emotions swimming in his eyes. “Come into the cabin while I change and I’ll tell you about it. I only have a few minutes.”
“Daddy! I was telling you about my secret.” Brianna nudged a heel into Seth’s back as if he were a pony. The goat butted him in the backs of the knees.
“I’ve got Prince Eric.” Carly grabbed hold of the ornery goat. “Meet you inside in a minute.”
“Grab my jacket.” Seth dipped Brianna to one side, and she scooped it from the grass. “What’s your secret?”
Carly wrestled Prince Eric into his pen and latched the gate. When she reached the cabin, Seth and Brianna were on the porch.
“Grandma is getting me a pony,” Brianna said.
“A pony?” Seth didn’t sound surprised at all. But then, everyone in the county knew Patsy Taylor would take in any animal in need. The pony could have been a giraffe, and it wouldn’t have mattered.
Carly jogged up the steps and joined them. “Either we took it in or it was headed to the auction.”
Carly said “auction” in a way that Seth would understand to mean “kill buyer.” Her mother had temporarily housed a few horses over the years to make sure they didn’t end up on a stock trailer headed for an over-the-border slaughterhouse.
Seth opened the door and they went inside.
“I can’t wait,” Seth said. “Ponies are awesome. Maybe I should get a horse.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d made the suggestion.
Brianna clapped her hands. “Mama too
! Do you want a horse, Mama?”
Actually, Carly would very much like to have a horse. She hadn’t had one since childhood, but she said, “Daddy and I will have to talk about that. Why don’t you run and see if Grandma has an update on when the pony is coming?” Carly wanted a few minutes to talk to Seth without the finely tuned ears of their daughter listening.
“Yes, Mama.” Brianna turned.
“Wait!” Seth called. “Give me a kiss. I have to go right back out again.” Seth crouched down to her level. He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry I have to work today.”
Brianna tilted her head and said in a very grown-up voice, “It’s all right, as long as it’s just this one time.”
Seth was working hard to keep a straight face. “How about I take a day off later in the week and we go fishing?”
Brianna’s face lit up. “Just you and me?”
“Sure.”
Brianna planted a big one on his face. “I love you, Daddy.”
“Love you more.”
Brianna skipped out of the cabin.
Carly watched her cross the flowering meadow, run up the deck steps of the farmhouse, and disappear inside. Some colored streamers and a few Mylar balloons waved in the breeze on the back deck of the main house, leftovers from yesterday’s wedding.
“I don’t want to let her out of my sight,” she said.
Seth sighed. “Me either.”
But they’d agreed it would be best if Brianna never knew how much danger she’d been in.
Seth filled Carly in on what had happened that morning as he stripped off his T-shirt.
She put a hand on the back of his shoulder, right above a long abrasion embedded with dirt. “This needs to be cleaned.”
Seth twisted around to see. He scoffed at it. “That’s just a scratch. I had to slide on the road to get the deputy out of his car.”
“Scratch or not, it needs to be cleaned.” Carly went into the bathroom and started the shower for him. Then she folded her arms and enjoyed the sight of Seth’s ripped torso. All the Chase Ryan fans running around town could have their pretend cop. Her man was the real deal.
Seth handed her his pants and jacket. She inspected the rips and tossed them into the trash can. What the accident hadn’t destroyed, the goat had. A piece of paper fluttered to the ground.
Burned by Her Devotion (Rogue Vows Book 2) Page 3