The bartender folded his arms and glared at Jake. “Didn’t you write any of this stuff down? What the hell kind of cop are you?”
“Just humor me, okay?” He removed the bottle from the twenty and Fred grabbed it.
“Like I said, she was blond, about so high.” He measured the air with his hand. “And stacked. I mean really built. But she didn’t look cheap like most of the chicks who come in here. She was, you know, classy looking. Like her.” His gaze strayed beyond Jake’s left shoulder.
Jake turned and then did a double take. Hope stood just inside the doorway, gazing around the shabby bar as if it were an alien spacecraft. A wolf whistle sounded from somewhere in the back, and for a moment, she looked as if she might turn and bolt. Then her gaze lit on Jake and surprise flashed across her features. She started toward him.
How had she found this place? Jake wondered. And what the hell was she doing here?
* * *
WHAT AM I DOING HERE? Hope thought desperately. Her face flushed as someone called, “Hey, baby. Buy you a drink?” and someone else made a loud kissing sound.
She would have turned and fled then and there if she hadn’t seen Jake at the bar. Relief washed over her, but she resisted the urge to throw herself into his arms. After last night, he might get the wrong idea, and who could blame him? She’d let him kiss her, after all. She’d let him kiss her, and then, like an idiot, she’d cried and she wasn’t even sure why. She never cried.
Liar, a little voice whispered inside her. Deep down, she knew exactly why Jake’s kiss had moved her so much. Even after ten years of self-denial, even after a decade of telling herself she and Jake might not have made it anyway, that one kiss had reminded Hope of how deep their feelings had once run. That one kiss had torn away her defenses, bared her soul, and shown her what she had lost ten years ago. What she had so carelessly thrown away.
Jake stood as she approached the bar and drew her down on the barstool beside him. “What are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same thing,” she replied, then glanced at the bartender. “A glass of white wine, please.”
The bartender nodded toward Jake. “That’s just what she asked for that night.”
Hope turned to Jake. “She, who?”
Jake’s gaze, usually so direct, faltered a bit. Then he shrugged. “The woman Andrew was with the night he died.”
“Oh.” Hope turned back to the bar as a napkin and a glass of wine were placed in front of her. She picked up the glass and took a sip, willing her hand to remain steady.
This was nothing new, she reminded herself. There had always been rumors of Andrew’s womanizing, but Hope had never believed them. He liked to flirt. She knew that. He also craved attention. But she’d also known that Andrew had loved her, in his own way. He had his vices—the fast cars, the gambling, living life on the edge. But in spite of everything, she’d never believed he’d been unfaithful to her—until this very moment.
She tried to decide how she felt about that. How she felt about Jake’s knowing. Did that make her seem less of a woman to him?
The bartender snapped his fingers. “Say, I do remember something else about the blonde, after all. Besides the white wine, I mean. Your friend here must have knocked something loose in my memory.”
“What?”
“Her name was Carol. I remember Kingsley saying something like, `Carol needs a drink.’ Yeah, Carol.” The bartender nodded in satisfaction. “I never told you that, did I?”
“No, you didn’t,” Jake said. “And you just remembered it out of the blue like that?”
Fred shrugged. “So sue me.”
“How long did they talk?” Hope asked. She could feel Jake’s eyes on her and wondered what he was thinking.
The bartender glanced at Jake, who shrugged, giving him the go-ahead to talk freely in front of Hope.
“Twenty minutes. Half an hour, maybe.”
“And you’d never seen them together before?” Hope asked.
“Like I said, I never saw her before that night. She wasn’t the type of woman who comes to a place like this. Neither are you, for that matter.” He gave Hope an approving once-over that made her distinctly uncomfortable. “You a cop, too?”
She glanced at Jake. A faint smile touched his lips. “Jake and I are collaborating on a case.”
“That so?”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “That’s so. Has my friend here jogged anything else loose in your memory?”
“Not a thing. I’ve told you everything I know.”
Hope opened her purse, but the bartender held up his hand. “It’s on the house,” he said, giving her a wink. “A babe like you adds a little class to the joint. Know what I mean?”
* * *
“WHY DID YOU COME HERE?” Jake asked her again as they left the bar together.
Hope shrugged. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. About Andrew. About the questions you asked after he died. The suspicions you had about him. I guess I came here to see if I could get some answers.”
“You didn’t want answers to those questions before,” he reminded her. “You didn’t believe my suspicions.”
She glanced up at him. A shadow flickered across her face. “I didn’t want to believe them. There’s a difference.”
“So what’s changed, Hope?” The kiss they’d shared last night? A part of Jake wanted to believe she’d been as profoundly affected as he, but another part of him—the realistic part—told him that Hope’s attitude probably had very little to do with him. Something was going on inside the Kingsley mansion. Inside Hope’s head. He wished to hell she would level with him.
She shrugged. “I’m not sure what’s changed. I just know I need some answers.” She hesitated, then added, “Why are you here, Jake? Why can’t you put Andrew’s death to rest?”
“I wish to hell I knew.” But maybe he did know, Jake thought. Maybe one of the reasons was standing right in front of him. “I guess I just don’t like loose ends. I like everything wrapped up and tied with a neat little bow.”
Hope gave him an ironic glance. “Life’s rarely that simple, is it?”
“No, but I keep hoping.”
She fell silent, as if thinking about what he’d said. Then, after a moment, she glanced up at him. “Show me where Andrew’s car was parked that night.”
Jake led her across the cracked pavement, to a space near the back of the lot.
She glanced around, then rested her hands on her hips. “How could the bartender see his car all the way over here? How could he be so positive the woman left with Andrew?”
She was still trying to find a more desirable explanation than the obvious, Jake realized. “The bartender doubles as a bouncer. He had to throw somebody out just as Andrew and the blonde were leaving. He saw them walk over to Andrew’s car, talk for a moment, then the woman climbed in behind the wheel, and they took off.”
“But the Shepherd police said Andrew was driving. He was alone in the car when it crashed. And besides,” Hope said, “Andrew would never have willingly let someone else drive his Porsche, no matter how attractive she was. He loved that car.”
“Maybe he wasn’t in any condition to drive,” Jake suggested.
“You mean because he’d had too much to drink?”
“The bartender said it looked to him as if the woman was having to help Andrew to the car.”
“That still doesn’t ring true,” Hope mused. “He would have called a cab or Iris’s driver to come pick him up if he’d had too much to drink. He’d done it before. It wasn’t like Andrew to trust his car to a stranger.”
Jake said nothing. What was there to say? No matter what she claimed to the contrary, Hope still didn’t want to know the truth about Andrew. She still remained loyal to the bitter end. Jake wondered if he admired that trait or despised it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “That I’m still defending Andrew as I did the night you came to question me after he died. But it�
��s not like that anymore.”
“You accused me of trying to darken his memory,” Jake reminded her. “Out of revenge.”
She glanced away, rubbing one temple with her fingertips. “I know. But it was easier to lash out at you than to face my own guilt.”
“What did you have to feel guilty about?”
Her hand dropped to her side, but she still didn’t look at him. For a long moment, she said nothing.
“Hope,” Jake prompted. “What were you talking about?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I asked Andrew for a divorce the night he died. We had a terrible fight before he left the house. If he had too much to drink that night, it was because of me, because of the terrible things I said to him. Because of what I wished…” Her voice, hollow and distant, trailed away.
A car pulling into the lot caught her in its headlights for a second, and Jake saw her wince, as if the light revealed too much. As if she wanted to remain hiding in the dark.
Jake’s own insides twisted in turmoil. Hope had wanted a divorce. The word seemed to echo in the darkness, but Jake’s first rush of elation fell as flat as uncorked champagne. In some ways a divorce would have been more final, he thought. Andrew’s death, with all its unanswered questions, with all its emotional baggage, would now always come between them.
“Andrew was a grown man,” he said. “You didn’t force him to drink too much that night. You didn’t force him to pick up a strange woman in a seedy bar. And you’re not responsible for what happened to him later.”
“I guess that’s why I’m here,” she said. “I guess I’m looking for a reprieve. Some sort of closure.” At last she turned to face him. “Tell me about that night, Jake. Tell me what you think happened.”
“I don’t know that much,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “There’ve been too many damned doors slammed in my face to find out much of anything. But I’m pretty sure the woman, or someone, was with Andrew when his car crashed because the passenger side of the windshield was cracked, like someone had been thrown up against it. The blonde either left the scene or was removed before the police ever arrived, and then Andrew’s body was placed near the driver’s side, to make it look as if he’d been alone in the car.”
“But why?”
Jake shrugged again. “The obvious reason would be to salvage his reputation.”
“Which means you think Iris was behind it.” Hope fingered the top button of her sweater. “But how could she have found out about the crash so quickly?”
“She couldn’t unless she was having someone follow Andrew. Or unless the Shepherd police called her before they reported the accident.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because I think she had them bought and paid for. At least some of them. I think she made sure she had the local authorities in her pocket the moment I started investigating Andrew’s connection to Simon Pratt.”
“Do you have any evidence of her involvement?” Hope asked.
“Not really,” Jake admitted. “But it seemed strange to me that an autopsy wasn’t performed on Andrew’s body to determine the exact cause of death.”
Hope stared at him in shock. “What do you mean, there wasn’t an autopsy? Of course there was.”
“I know for a fact there wasn’t,” Jake told her.
“But I was told…or maybe I just assumed…” In the filtered light from the streetlamps, Hope’s face took on a strange expression.
“Andrew was DOA at Shepherd Memorial Hospital. The local authorities determined there was no cause for an autopsy. Death was accidental. One of the residents had already drawn blood for the toxicology screen, but the results were never released.”
“I knew about that,” Hope said. “When Iris and I arrived at the hospital that night, I heard one of the doctors say blood samples had been taken and turned over to the police lab. I guess from that I just assumed there’d been an autopsy. I didn’t think much about it until later, when Michael Eldridge showed up. I remembered then that the police had a sample of Andrew’s blood that could be used for the DNA testing.”
“I’m surprised Iris didn’t have the samples destroyed,” Jake said. “Although I guess suppressing the report was all that was necessary.”
“Because he’d been drinking, you mean.”
“Exactly. If he didn’t leave the bar with that woman, then he was DUI. Either way, Iris would have wanted to clean up his mess. She’s always been obsessed with maintaining the Kingsley name.”
“Yes, I know,” Hope said. Another shadow flashed across her face. “I just hadn’t realized how far she might be willing to go.”
Jake looked at her in surprise. “I can’t believe you just said that. You’ve always defended Iris Kingsley.”
Hope glanced away. “Maybe I still should be defending her,” she said with a shrug. “We don’t have any proof that she did any of the things you think she did.”
“True,” Jake conceded. “But someone did tamper with the accident scene. Someone did buy off the Shepherd police so that no autopsy was performed. If Iris didn’t do it to protect Andrew’s reputation, then I can only conclude someone else with a more sinister purpose was behind it.”
“Someone like Simon Pratt?” Her quickness surprised him.
“That thought has crossed my mind,” he agreed.
“At the time of Andrew’s death, you alluded to some sort of connection between him and Pratt. What did you think you had on him, Jake?”
“Andrew owed Pratt a lot of money. One way or another, Pratt always collects.”
“So…you think he had something to do with the car crash?” Hope asked.
“I think it’s a possibility, yes,” Jake said grimly. “What I can’t figure out is where the woman comes in.”
“Maybe she doesn’t,” Hope said. “Maybe her leaving the bar with Andrew was just…coincidental.”
“Maybe,” Jake said. But he’d been a cop for too long to chalk anything up to chance.
“How far is the crash site from here?” Hope asked.
“Couple of miles.”
“Will you take me there?”
Jake stared down at her in the darkness. “Haven’t you been out there before?”
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t want to before, but now I need to see where it happened… It’s something I have to do.”
Jake shrugged. “All right. If that’s what you want.”
But as much as he wanted to buy her story about guilt and reprieves and looking for closure, he didn’t think that was her real reason for coming here tonight. The events surrounding Andrew’s death were shrouded in mystery, and now Hope’s behavior was yet another.
* * *
THE ROAD WAS DESERTED as they pulled onto the highway and headed east, toward Shepherd. A half mile or so from town, Jake pulled his Blazer to the side of the road and parked. Hope looked out her window. A steep embankment led down to a meadow of scrawny shrubs and brambles, and to a thick woods beyond. A light fog had settled knee-high over the countryside, giving the night a strange, surreal ambience. A shiver of fear crept up Hope’s spine. Did she really want to do this?
“You sure about this?” Jake asked.
She glanced at him and nodded.
They got out of the truck, and Jake came around to take her arm. He had a flashlight, but the beam scarcely penetrated the fog.
“The car went off the road about here,” he said. “In the daylight, you can still see the skid marks.”
Hope followed the flashlight beam with her eyes, trying to imagine what Andrew’s last few moments had been like. Had he been alone? Had he been afraid? Had he known what was about to happen to him?
Had he even been in that car?
Hope shivered again as Jake led her down the embankment. Mist curled like smoke around their legs as they walked through the tall grass toward the trees.
Jake played the flashlight beam along the trunk of a massive red oak. Even in the darkness and fog, Ho
pe could see the deep scars in the bark where Andrew’s Porsche had smashed into it, and a faint trail of red paint. Andrew had always been partial to red cars.
“I had a contact in the sheriff’s department in Shepherd who notified me as soon as they got the call about the wreck. I drove out here as fast as I could, but the ambulance had already left with Andrew,” Jake said.
“What made you think his body had been moved?” Hope asked, her gaze still on the scarred tree.
“Besides the cracked windshield, there were marks on the ground around the car, like something had been dragged from one side to the other. The Shepherd police had trampled all over the area, and on top of that, it had started to rain. I didn’t think much about it at first, but then I got to thinking. From the little I could learn at the hospital, Andrew had suffered a severe head trauma, which would be consistent with the cracked windshield. Also, the Shepherd police told me that the driver’s door was flung open and Andrew’s body was lying outside. If he’d been wearing his seat belt, he wouldn’t have been thrown out of the car like that.”
“Which is why, when you came to see me later, you asked me if Andrew always wore his seat belt,” Hope said.
“And you said, as far as you knew, he always did.”
“It was kind of a thing with him,” she explained. “He had a friend who was paralyzed in a car crash a few years ago because he wasn’t wearing his seat belt. The man’s wife and child were killed. It affected Andrew deeply. He loved to drive fast, but he didn’t take unnecessary risks. He wouldn’t have been driving without wearing his seat belt, and he wouldn’t have been driving while intoxicated.”
Jake watched her walk away from the tree and stand for a moment, gazing at the shrouded countryside. She had no way of knowing, of course, but she stood near the spot where Andrew’s body had been found. Jake wondered if she sensed it somehow, because even in the darkness he could see her shiver.
He walked over to her. “Like I said. There’re a lot of unanswered questions about Andrew’s death. Questions that may never be answered.”
“But you haven’t given up, have you?” Hope asked quietly. “That’s why you were at the bar tonight. That’s why you brought me out here.”
Kingsley Baby Trilogy: The Hero's SonThe Brother's WifeThe Long-Lost Heir Page 28