Uncovered: A Hearts of the South story

by Linda Winfree

  At the mention of his brother-in-law, Vince grimaced. “Why him?”

  “Because Madeline’s with him.” Ash waited through ring after ring. Damn it, Tick needed to answer the phone.

  “And?” Confusion darkened Rob’s eyes. Ash sighed. For a savvy businessman who handled millions daily, his little brother was slow. Hell if he was going to explain. Tick’s voice mail picked up, and Ash ground his teeth, immediately regretting the action. Damn, his jaw hurt. “Tick, it’s Ash and I need to talk to you or Madeline, ASAP.”

  He rattled off the hospital number and extension, and replaced the receiver. Now all he could do was wait. He closed his eyes.

  Shit.

  “Madeline Rachel Holton, how could you?”

  Her mother’s screech seared Madeline’s eardrums, and she cringed. Seated at the kitchen table, hands over her face, Mama was in one of her full-fledged snits, full of screams, sobs and sniffles. A full-fledged royal snit induced by a combination of vodka and having a daughter who was, no doubt, the biggest slut in the state.

  This was like high school all over again.

  “Mama, I didn’t do anything.” Madeline strove for a peaceful tone, one she had no hope would actually work. “Please calm down—”

  “Calm down?” Her mother lowered her hands, her face blotchy with tears and red with alcohol. “You have men calling here with that…that filth and you’re telling me to calm down? Thank the good Lord your daddy is dead and not here to see this—”

  “Miranda.” In the adjacent chair Lenora Calvert laid a gentle palm on her shoulder. “Getting all upset is not helping. I really doubt Madeline is responsible for this.”

  Nice to have someone with a little faith in her. They were few and far between. Madeline let her lashes fall, closing out the accusation on her mother’s face. She could just imagine what Tick was thinking, standing behind her with the kitchen phone in hand, silently jotting down numbers from the caller ID.

  Nine obscene phone calls. Madeline shuddered. Nine men calling her mother’s home, detailing in graphic Penthouse Letters detail what they wanted to do to her. What they wanted her to do to them. Her mother thought she’d encouraged this, instigated this.

  She seriously wanted to throw up.

  “Miranda, let’s go wash your face, and you can lie down for a while.” Chairs scraped on the tile. Madeline opened her eyes and caught Lenora’s gaze, about to remind her that anything that posed a threat had to be removed from the bedroom. Lenora smiled on a wink and wrapped an arm around Mama’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. I know what to do.”

  As they left and silence descended, Madeline folded her arms over her midriff, as tight as she could get them. The cold lump of emptiness was back in her gut. Behind her, Tick’s pen scratched on paper, grating against her raw nerves.

  “Madeline?” His quiet voice ground over those same exposed synapses. “You okay?”

  “I’m good.” Just peachy, actually, since he’d witnessed her mother’s drunken fit in all its glory, had taken the phone after Madeline had answered one of the calls and heard every gory detail as Bob from Nebraska described how he wanted to fist her. Hell, he was probably pissed off with her too, since his precious saintly mother had answered the phone and been exposed to everything earlier.

  At least Ash wasn’t here to witness this. The man who wanted her to believe she merited good things in her life.

  She closed her eyes. Good things. Right. She was never going to have those, never going to deserve those, not really. There would always be shit like this coming up, coming back to haunt her, and what decent guy wanted to deal with that?

  The sooner she went back to Jacksonville, went anywhere, the better.

  She sucked in a breath, sucked the pain down and locked it away. A couple more deep breaths and she was good. Back in control. Yes, this was better. Not caring, not feeling, complete and total focus on the job at hand.

  The only way Allison could win was if she cared. If she didn’t, then nothing the little bitch did mattered. She couldn’t ruin a life Madeline didn’t have.

  “Well, she’s resting.” Lenora set the water carafe and tumbler from Mama’s bedside table on the countertop, placed the little box that held her medication beside it. She crossed to stand by Madeline and rub a comforting hand over her shoulders. “This will be all right, Maddie. I promise.”

  A tight smile made her face hurt. “I’m fine. Really.”

  She didn’t miss the sharp look Tick directed at her. She met his gaze head on. Hell if she’d back down.

  “Autry’s coming to pick your mother up.” Lenora continued sweeping little circles over Madeline’s back, comforting caresses that made her want to scream. “Miranda’s going to stay with her and Stanton a couple of days.”

  A shudder passed down Madeline’s spine. Because when Tick had pulled up the website on his phone, her mama’s address had been there in full. Because who knew what man would show up at the door, thinking to fulfill the sick little fantasies posted with her name. God, her mama would never forgive her for this. Autry and Stanton’s lives disrupted by this… Yeah, that was good. Bet Stanton was thrilled to have hired her on now, even temporarily.

  Tick shot her another of those assessing glances. “We’ll go by and get your stuff from Ash’s on the way back to town.”

  She nodded. Even he saw it, that the best thing she could do was just…just…

  Damn it, she would not cry. She wouldn’t. Throwing her shoulders back, she pulled in a deep, cleansing breath.

  “Cait and I can take the guest room on the second floor, and you can have our room.” He snapped his notebook shut and tucked it in his inside pocket. “That way Lee won’t wake you. He’s not really sleeping through the night yet.”

  What was he talking about? “I’ll check in to the motel.”

  His brows dipped in a frown. “There’s no need, and I’d feel better if—”

  “Are we finished here?” She ducked out from under Lenora’s easy touch.

  His frown deepened. “Yeah, but—”

  “Let’s go. I need a cigarette, and Mama won’t let me smoke in here.”

  “Okay, just wait a second.” He leaned down, tugged up his pants leg and pulled a gleaming .22 semiautomatic from an ankle holster. As she watched from the door, he checked the slide and chambered a round before engaging the safety and handing it to his mother. “Lock up behind us.”

  Outside, she slid a crumpled pack of stale cigarettes from her pocket and lifted one to her lips. She patted her jacket. Damn it, no lighter. With the foulest curse she could think of, she tossed it into her mother’s neat flowerbed.

  One more transgression.

  She stalked to his truck and waited for him to unlock it. He glanced at her as she fastened her seatbelt. “Madeline—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But—”

  “Fuck, Calvert, do you not understand plain English? I do not want to talk about it.”

  With a rough sigh, he fired the engine. Once on the highway, she ignored the looks he kept darting her way. With a deliberate movement, she turned away, staring out at the passing fields without seeing anything.

  A buzzing filled the silence, and he tugged his cell free to lift it to his ear. “Calvert. What? I had it on silent. I haven’t checked it yet. I’m not…what?”

  The truck swerved, and Madeline braced a hand on the dash. Shit, he was going to get them killed. Although…

  She squashed the thought, but it tried to squirm free, taunting, tantalizing with the promise of escape. Was this how Jack had felt that last day as he’d headed up those stairs?

  “You’re not serious. Yeah, listen, we’re about five minutes away. We’re on our way.” He tossed his phone on the dash.

  Madeline released the dash now that her life was no longer in imminent danger. “Tell me that’s a lead on Kelly’s case.”

  “No.” Mouth a tight line, he looked sideways at her. “That was Ash. We’re goi
ng by the hospital.”

  “Drop me at the station.” She wasn’t going anywhere near the place. She focused on the scenery again. “I want to start looking at that rental list.”

  “Madeline, I think you should come with me.” He cleared his throat, and foreboding flooded her. Oh, shit damn fuck, why did she know what was coming? “Ash called home to check his voice mail this morning and—”

  “And I’m getting calls over there.”

  “Yeah. He’s hot about it and—”

  “I’m sure he is.” What man wanted to deal with that? God, Allison was clever. Madeline would give her that. Fast too.

  Tick’s gaze darted her way once more. “I’ll call over and start the process to get us a warrant for any computer Allison has access to, as well as for the website itself too. They can tell us which ISP posted to them.”

  “Sounds great.” As he slowed for the fork coming into town, she flicked a hand to the left, toward the sheriff’s department. “I mean it. Drop me by the station.”

  “Madeline. Come on.”

  “No. I have work to do.” Tension crept up her nape. She forced it back into its dark little hole with a couple of controlled breaths. “It’s not necessary for both of us to take Ash’s complaint. If we split up, we can make better progress.”

  He slammed the brake for a red light, muttering something that sounded like, “Just freakin’ like her.”

  A couple of minutes later, he pulled into a parking spot near the department entrance. “I can’t change your mind? He wants to see you.”

  God, here they went again. She gave him a doleful look. “No, you can’t. There’s no reason for me to go. Just…deal with it.”

  “Sure.” He stared across the parking lot, thumb beating the steering wheel in a maddening rhythm. She shrugged. His displeasure was no concern of hers. He was nothing.

  All of it was nothing.

  She slid from the truck and slammed the door behind her. She had a job to do. Some way or another, she would prove Allison’s involvement in Kelly’s death.

  This time, Allison would pay for what she’d done.

  “I need you to go by and talk to her. I already thought of that, precious. I can’t send Tori because she’ll just freeze her out. She knows you, and I think she’d be more open to you.” Tick’s voice preceded him from the hallway. “Yes. Please. I want you to be careful. I pissed her off this morning and who the hell knows what she’s capable of.”

  Ash’s eyes snapped open as the door swung inward. He fumbled for the remote to lift the head of the bed. Tick, his expression tense and harried, returned his cell to his belt and pushed the door shut behind him.

  He was alone. Ash frowned. “Where’s Madeline?”

  If anything, the line of Tick’s mouth tightened. “At the sheriff’s office.”

  “Why?” Even as he uttered the question, the answer rooted in his brain. Damn it, she was running again. Hiding, putting up those protective barriers. Except this time he wasn’t in any shape to go after her, force her to face anything. He rested his head against the pillow with a slow, deliberate motion and glared at the ceiling. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.” Tick rolled his shoulders in a strained shrug. “She’s shaken up and trying to play it off. I asked Cait to go talk to her.”

  The sweet way she’d smiled at him replayed in his head, and he swallowed a groan of frustration. This had undone every bit of progress he’d made with her. Hell, had probably set him back a few steps farther than where he’d begun. The level at which that scared him was frightening in itself.

  How the hell did a woman become indispensable, the center of everything, in less than a week?

  “Where’s Rob?” Tick’s quiet question pulled him back from the brink. Ash blinked at him.

  “He and Vince went to run an errand.” Ash rubbed a hand over his eyes. Shit, he had to figure out what to do next, where to start. Choking Allison Barnett with his bare hands was probably out of the question. His buddy, local law enforcement’s version of Captain America, would have issues with that plan.

  Tick nodded. “You might want to call the phone company, have your number changed.”

  “So are you doing anything about this?” Ash fixed him with a hard look. “You know who’s responsible.”

  A grimace twisted Tick’s face. “Knowing it and proving it are two different things. I’ve started the warrant process—”

  “You owe me three grand.” Vince’s smooth words cut across Tick’s drawl. He flicked a receipt onto Ash’s bed. “Who needs a warrant?”

  Tick’s eyebrows lifted. “Any cop worth his salt.”

  “Good thing I’m not a cop, isn’t it?” Vince’s eyes gleamed. “Took Tony less than an hour to find the ISP and the computer she used to access the ’net.”

  “Great for Tony. Doesn’t help me any.” Tick held both hands aloft as Vince opened his mouth. “Don’t tell me. You tell me and I can’t use any of it, even when I get a warrant.”

  None of this was helping Ash. He closed his eyes, trying to tune them out. Damn it, he needed to be out of this bed. Needed to be…

  Focusing on that wasn’t helping, either. He couldn’t change anything. At this point, all he could do was hope she’d come to him on her own. She’d done it before. Maybe he’d get lucky this time too.

  Fat fucking chance.

  He clenched his teeth before remembering that was a really bad idea.

  Tick’s cell phone rang with that stupid Gary Allan song he played over and over in the truck. The jangling guitar notes danced over Ash’s raw nerves.

  “Are you supposed to have that on in here?” Vince asked as Tick lifted it to his ear and ignored him.

  “Calvert…what? What do you mean, not there?” Tick’s dark gaze darted to Ash’s. “I just dropped her at the office”—he twisted his arm to look at his watch—“less than a half hour ago. She didn’t tell Lydia where she was going? Yeah, do that. Call me.”

  His expression troubled, he returned the phone to his belt. Ash eased up on the bed. “What?”

  “That was Cait. Madeline’s not at the department. Obviously, she walked out without telling anyone where she was going.”

  Well, of course not. People running from the hard stuff never did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Why was she here? Hunched against the cold, Madeline folded her arms and crunched up the gravel path. Good question. First had been the call from Autry, her sister’s voice shaking with concern while she asked if Madeline was all right. Then, when Madeline had finally gotten her off the phone, her cell had rung again. She’d answered it without thought, only to have yet another male voice fill her ear, taunting her with all the down-and-dirty things he wanted to do with her.

  She’d turned it off, tossed it in her drawer and walked out of the sheriff’s department, not even telling Lydia where she was going. It was her day off, technically—she didn’t have to answer to anyone.

  Somehow, she’d found herself at Ash’s and used the key he’d given her. Inside, his warm, clean scent seemed to permeate the air. She’d ignored it, ignored the memories, gathered her things, all of them.

  While she’d been shoving her T-shirts back in her bag, the phone had rung. The answering machine picked up. The owner of that male voice, John from wherever, wanted to fuck her up the ass. She’d closed the door on his words, leaving the key on the hall table.

  Now, she was here. Dead brown grass crinkled beneath her steps. She pulled a cigarette from the crumpled pack and lifted the lighter she’d rummaged from under her passenger seat. Resting her elbow on one folded arm, she took a long drag and blew out a stream of smoke.

  It curled and dissipated above her daddy’s tombstone.

  “Guess you were right all along, weren’t you, Daddy?” The loudness of her own voice in the silent cemetery startled her. She scuffed a toe along the marble slab covering his grave. “What was it you said…a disgrace? Not fit to carry the Holton name.”

  A rough laugh hu
rt her throat, and she sucked in another lungful of smoke to cover the sting. “Mama’s right. It’s a good thing you’re dead. If you were here for this one…it would definitely kill you.”

  The wind rustled the few dead leaves still clinging to the oak limbs above her.

  She glared at her father’s name cut into the sparkling gray marble. “Well, you won, you old bastard. You were right all along. You told me if I left, I couldn’t come back. I didn’t get it back then, but believe me, I do now. There’s no place for me here. Like there ever was.”

  Expelling another stream of smoke, she kicked at the slab once more and blinked hard. “Why, Daddy? What did you want from me? Why did it always have to be so hard? It never mattered what I did, if I tried or didn’t try, nothing pleased you. Why couldn’t you just love me for who I was?”

  Angry at herself for even caring anymore, she flicked the butt to her feet and ground it out. Shit damn fuck. She was talking to a dead man, like he was going to give her answers from beyond the grave.

  God, she hadn’t even made it through a week here, let alone six.

  Maybe she should just return to Jacksonville. Even if the PD didn’t want her, even if they never cleared her, there were other jobs. That’s all she needed anyway…something to pay the damn bills. She didn’t have to stay here. Kelly’s case would get solved. Calvert would see to that.

  Quiet footsteps sounded behind her on the gravel, a light and graceful gait. Madeline closed her eyes. Did she even have to look?

  “May I join you?” Caitlin stopped beside her.

  Madeline waved in a silent it’s-a-free-country gesture.

  The wind whipped up around them. With a shiver, Caitlin tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “What, no ‘how did you find me?’”

  “You’re a Fed.” Madeline shrugged. “Tracking people is your job.”

  Caitlin nodded toward the gravestone. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  Madeline slanted a glare in her direction. “No.”

  “Me either.”

  That was Madeline’s cue to ask what she was talking about, to play the “look how much we have in common” game. She was so tired of games it wasn’t even funny.