Uncovered: A Hearts of the South story

by Linda Winfree

  “Have you eaten today?”

  God. Madeline blew out a long breath. “No.”

  “It’s cold out here.” Caitlin rubbed at her arms. “Come on and let’s go get some tea—”

  “We’re not friends.” Madeline turned on her, tension buzzing up her neck, her face burning. “I’m not going to have tea with you and confide all my problems to you so you can find a way to make it all better. Got that? So just go away, back to your perfect little life and leave me the fuck alone.”

  “That’s good.” Caitlin arched one eyebrow. “Works every time, doesn’t it?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Is that it? Are you just going to let him win?”

  Him? Madeline glanced at her and scowled. “Don’t you mean ‘her’?”

  “No.” Caitlin shivered, rubbing her arms again. The wind played with the edges of her hair, brushing her face with a few stray strands. “Allison is the type to do herself in. Plus Tick’s pissed off, so she doesn’t really stand a chance. He’s a bloodhound when he gets like this.” Caitlin jerked her chin toward the headstone. “I mean him. Are you going to let him win?”

  Cold fury washed through her, a slide and fall of ice that froze everything. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You know nothing about my relationship with my father.”

  “True.” Caitlin stamped her feet, an obvious attempt at keeping warm. “But don’t you think it’s telling that you’re here of all places?”

  Madeline closed her eyes. If she ignored the Fed, maybe she’d go away.

  “My father screwed up my head so badly, it’s a wonder I ever had any type of relationship with a man,” Caitlin said, her tone so conversational she might have been commenting on the antique wrought iron surrounding the Holton family plot. “My mother died when I was six, and he promptly sent me to boarding school. Whenever I came home, the story was always different. One time he’d love me and be glad to see me, the next he barely spoke to me. I was perfect, then I was nothing. Over and over and over again, until I spent more time trying to figure out how to make him love me than I did on anything else. It didn’t stop when he died, either. By then, I’d just expanded my repertoire, trying to be what everyone wanted me to be, their idea of perfect, because that’s what made people love you.”

  “Looks like everything turned out okay.” Madeline flipped her hair over one shoulder.

  “Oh, yes. After I threw away everything that mattered because I couldn’t believe in it, couldn’t believe it might be real.” Her soft laugh bubbled between them, a note of sadness in it. “Thank God Tick’s as stubborn as he is.”

  “Is there a point to this?”

  “Why are you out here?”

  “I don’t know.” Madeline made a dismissive gesture. “Because there was…because…”

  “Because you think there’s nowhere else to go.” Caitlin’s gaze remained steady on hers. “Except maybe Jacksonville, right? As soon as you can hit the road.”

  Shaking her head, Madeline looked away.

  “You can only hide so long, Madeline.” Caitlin’s voice gentled. “Sooner or later, you have to let go and let yourself believe.”

  Madeline lifted both hands and let them fall to smack her thighs. “Believe what, Caitlin? Tell me that. What the fuck am I supposed to let myself believe?”

  “That someone can accept you as you are. That he can love you and it won’t matter what happens because it’s not about how perfect or imperfect you are. Because it’s about you and him and what lies between you.” She smiled, although her eyes remained serious. “That the whole world could fall down and he’d still be there. Because he’s not your father and you don’t have to prove anything to him.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Know what I’m talking about.” She sighed. “Yes, I know. I’m wasting my breath because you can’t see what’s right in front of you. You’re going to walk away, no, run away. You’re going right back to the person you were the last time you ran because it’s safe and it’s easy and you don’t have to risk yourself. In the process, you’ll hurt yourself. And Ash. But you’ll tell yourself he’s better off and that he’ll forget. Except he won’t and neither will you. But that’s what you’re going to do, so why I’m even trying is beyond me.”

  “You’re so wrong.” Madeline shoved her hands in her pockets, to warm them, not to hide the trembling. Bad enough her voice was shaking. “If I leave, it’s because…because…”

  “Yes?”

  “God, I hate you.”

  “Yes, well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that.” Caitlin caught her gaze and held it. “We both know what you’re throwing away if you go. What have you got to lose if you stay?”

  With a hard swallow, Madeline stared at her.

  “Madeline. If you leave, it’s done. It’s over. You’ve lost. Now answer me. What have you got to lose if you stay?”

  “Everything.” The whisper hurt. “Damn you, if I stay, I could lose everything.”

  “But isn’t it worth fighting for? You’re not even trying, though. You’re just tossing it away, like it’s nothing. Like he’s nothing.”

  “I’ve known him six days. You talk about this like it’s a done deal, forever and always and a fucking wedding ring.”

  Caitlin’s lashes fell and she shook her head on a soft laugh that grated on Madeline’s last nerve.

  “What is so damn funny?”

  “Six days, huh? I’d known Tick three. We were at Quantico. I’d shown him up twice during training, and he’d been so easygoing about it. On the third night, we were all studying for some horrifically important test. He was explaining something to me and looked up with that grin, and I just knew. God, he scared the hell out of me. The more I got to know him, the worse the fear was. Because I wanted to believe in him and I just couldn’t.” Something wistful colored her voice. “I fought it. That worked for about, oh, nine years. We wasted a lot of time, and I hurt him terribly before it was all over.”

  “That’s all fine and dandy, but—”

  “You can drop the world-weary persona.” That knowing little smile, the one Madeline despised, curved Caitlin’s lips again. “It really doesn’t work with me.”

  In her pockets, Madeline curled her fingers inward, until they bit at her palms. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I like you and adore Ash, and anyone with minimal insight can see the potential between the two of you.” She flicked a glance at the headstone. “Maybe because you got the same raw deal I got when it came to father-daughter relationships. Maybe because at this point, you’re even more unhappy than I was without Tick, and no one should have to go through that. I at least had my friends, my grandfather and even Vince to turn to. The way I see it right now, you have no one. Is that what you want for the rest of your life? I’m not saying you have to open up to Ash and make something out of what you two have been building. But you’ve got to open up to someone. You can only do this by yourself for so long.”

  Yeah, and “so long” seemed rapidly to be running out. God, she was tired. Tired of running, tired of holding herself away.

  Madeline shot a hard look at her. “What did you mean, you hadn’t found what you were looking for, either? Looks like you have everything you ever wanted.”

  “I never got the answers I wanted from my father. The whys of it all. I figured out later, thanks to a doctoral degree in psychology and well, being with Tick, that the whys really didn’t have anything to do with me. They were all about him, and there wasn’t anything I could have done to change him, to make him want me or love me the way I needed him to.” This time her smile was more genuine. She dared to nudge Madeline’s ribs with her elbow. “How do you think I knew where to look for you? Now how about that hot tea? I am freezing my ass off out here.”

  “No thanks. Maybe another time.” What she was about to say made her want to throw up, the fear rising to choke her. “I need to go have a conversation with a man who can actually hear
me.”

  The room lay quiet around him. If only his mind could be still as well. Everyone was gone—Tick off running down leads, Rob and Vince on their way to Texas. The silence and his immobility offered too much time to think, to wonder if she’d go for good.

  He’d bet money on it.

  Because anyone knew an injured animal ran for cover. He was aware of no other sanctuary Chandler County held for her, other than him. If she hadn’t come to him, then he’d bet his next share of Henry’s quarterly profits she’d go.

  He closed his eyes and let the drugged half-sleep take him. As the day wore on, weariness and anxiety had lessened his ability to deal with the waves of pain radiating out from his knee, and finally he’d succumbed to the need to simply make it stop.

  For long minutes he floated in and out on swells of slumber. Footsteps pulled him from the restless sleep. He lifted heavy lids to find Madeline gazing down at him with a hesitant expression. Was she real? Or a longed-for figment of his drugged imagination? Painkillers fuzzed his brain, and he tried to formulate words.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, fingers wrapped tight around the bed rail. “That you had to deal with this, to hear everything.”

  He laid his hand over hers and found warm skin under his fingers. She was real, thank God. “Did you ask her to put your name and information out there?”

  “No.” Her expression horrified, she shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “All right then.” He blinked rapidly, to clear the drowsiness still pulling at him. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Try telling my mother that.” The wry mutter most likely wasn’t meant for his ears. Her fingers fluttered beneath his. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this. No man—”

  “Mad, it’s the same as your being with me after I got hurt. You help one another through the tough stuff.”

  “I’m not…I don’t know how to believe in that, Ash.”

  Fighting off a wave of drowsiness, he let his gaze linger on her face. Awful tension dragged at her features and dulled hazel eyes. She looked like if she didn’t rest soon, she’d fall out.

  He tightened his hold on her fingers. “Know what I need?”

  “What?”

  “To hold you a little while.”

  “Really. You need to be resting.” One corner of her mouth hitched in a half-hearted smile. Her gaze dropped to his knee. “Besides you’re not supposed to be moving.”

  He patted the other side of the bed. “I’m not moving the knee, there’s plenty of room and I need to be close to you. You look like you might need that too.”

  She was quiet a moment, then slid her hand from beneath his. As he watched, she came around to the other side of the bed and lowered the rail. He lifted his arm, giving her room to lie beside him. With ginger movements designed not to jostle him, she settled next to him and he wrapped his arm about her shoulders. She rested on his chest, one hand beneath her cheek.

  “Hmm, feels good.” He brushed a kiss over her hair. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I just saw you this morning,” she murmured.

  His lids fell, a combination of medication and weariness pulling at him. “It’s been a long day.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  He smoothed his hand up and down her arm in a slow, soothing sweep. Warmth from her body seeped into him. Slowly, the tension drained from her, and he sensed her slide into relaxation.

  “Why don’t you take a nap?” he whispered.

  “I don’t want to waste this time with you.”

  The lost note in her voice tore at him. She thought their time was limited, and why not? Obviously, everyone else’s love came with limitations and expectations. Had she never had anyone care for her completely, without reserve?

  And wait a minute…he wasn’t really think in terms of love. Friendship, desire, caring…sure. But love? He wasn’t thinking that.

  Except he was. He opened his eyes, to find hers closed, lashes casting half-moon shadows on her cheek. He watched her, letting the realization make its way through him.

  He could love her. Falling the rest of the way would be so easy.

  Winning her mistrustful heart in return? That would be hard as hell.

  He brushed another kiss over her hair. She relaxed further against him, lips parting, even breaths puffing warmth against his skin through the thin hospital gown. He tightened his arm, bringing her closer to him. She murmured once and stilled.

  He closed his eyes, sleep pulling at him. For now, he was content to live in this moment.

  Tick flipped to the next page of his printouts. In the kitchen behind him, Caitlin hummed a soft song, some Irish ditty she’d picked up long ago from her grandmother. Resting against his stomach, Lee gurgled around his pacifier and jiggled a foot, just brushing the papers Tick held. The warm, slight weight of his son tempered the frustration of not finding a single, freakin’ lead anywhere.

  Half the people on the rental list didn’t even live in the state anymore, hadn’t come from Chandler County to start with. If there was a link between Allison and this house, he didn’t see it.

  No. He narrowed his eyes at the list of background information on tenant number four. There was a link, he simply hadn’t found it yet.

  With a muffled coo, Lee kicked harder, rustling the papers. Tick folded his hand over the baby’s middle. “What are you doing, boy?”

  “Aggravating you, obviously.” Caitlin closed the dishwasher and set it running. “Want me to take him?”

  “He’s fine.” He moved the page out of reach of the wriggling little foot. Caitlin perched on the chair arm, rubbing her fingers down his nape. He gave an appreciative groan at the relaxing rhythm. With a quiet laugh, she nudged him forward to a straighter position offering her greater access to his shoulders. He shifted Lee on his lap and let his lids slide shut for a moment.

  “Lord, you have the best hands.” He rotated his head, working the muscles beneath her massaging fingers. “I think I’ll keep you.”

  “Did you know no autopsy was performed on Allison’s first husband?”

  He made a negative sound in his throat.

  “Don’t you think that’s odd? A healthy twenty-one-year-old dies of a sudden heart attack and there’s no autopsy?”

  “Was it a holiday weekend?”

  “Yes.” Her lips rested against his nape, sending shivers over him. “Labor Day.”

  “Figures.” He opened his eyes. The background checks stared back with inexorable frustration. What if they couldn’t make this case? The thought of Kelly Coker dying alone, being left to rot beneath that house, and never receiving justice for what had been done to her didn’t sit well.

  His reason insisted that there might be other explanations, that Allison might not be involved at all.

  His instinct said otherwise.

  The woman had keyed his truck over a minor slight. And what she’d done to Madeline, because she blamed her? Hell, if she possessed a molecule of human decency, he sure didn’t see it.

  “Nobody questioned the lack of an autopsy?” he asked, scanning the next renter’s background information. Young marine, honorably discharged, who’d lived in the house for all of three months. He’d moved out before they thought Kelly returned to Georgia.

  “Not that I could tell. Everything looked like it was an open-shut case. It was a small hospital, an even smaller town with a two-man police department.”

  “What town?”

  “Cressley.”

  “Oh hell.” He grimaced. “They’ve had the same chief for almost thirty years. He can’t find his ass with both hands.”

  “I’d bet you it was antifreeze.” Caitlin murmured the words against his hair. Lee’s jiggling slowed, his little body relaxing under Tick’s hand. “That would present as a heart attack and unless they ran the right tox screen, which they didn’t…”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure you could get the Cressley PD to open an investigation into a death that was declared due to
natural causes almost twenty years ago.”

  “Hmm.” She rubbed her cheek on his hair. “I’m sure the insurance company that paid out on his policy would be interested.”

  “You have an evil mind, Agent Falconetti.”

  “Oh, and you love it, Investigator Calvert.” She moved, easing up to bend over them. “He’s asleep.”

  He lifted his palm so she could slide her hands under the baby and pick him up. She cradled their sleeping son under her chin, whispering her lips across his dark hair as she carried him upstairs to bed. Thankfulness slammed into Tick once more. He had everything, despite how close he’d come to losing it all, more than once, it seemed.

  Hell, if he’d ended up married to Allison, he might be dead now. The certainty that she’d had something to do with Kelly’s death coursed through his thoughts again.

  The memory of Madeline’s lost, defeated withdrawal rose, swirling with the questions and frustrations. She deserved justice as much as Kelly. He owed her that, for the part he’d played in stunting her life. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees, eyes closed on a prayer. He needed guidance. Needed a way to forgive himself for what he couldn’t change.

  Soft footsteps sounded on the stairs. On a long inhale, he opened his eyes and reached for his papers. There was an answer here. He just had to find it.

  Barefoot, Caitlin padded across the room to pick up Lee’s floor-time toys and drop them into their basket. “Finding anything?”

  “No.” He flipped to the next background check. “Just a bunch of really normal people.”

  “There’s no such thing.” A hint of laughter colored her voice.

  “Well, these people are as close as it gets.” He turned past the brief traffic record of the kindergarten teacher who’d lived in the house for two months after the marine moved out.

  The phone rang, and he jumped. Caitlin reached for the cordless, lying on the coffee table.

  “No.” He leaned forward to snag the phone, the memory of Madeline’s calls rising in his mind. He’d pissed Allison off as well, and at this point, he wouldn’t put anything past her. “Let me answer it.”