by Sharon Sala
“I’m sure you’re right about it being nothing,” Sarah said. “They’re just tracks. I have no reason to be concerned.”
Both men turned to her then, but it was Gallagher who answered.
“Oh, you should definitely be concerned, Miss Whitman. There’s an FBI agent in town who’s asking questions about the day of the robbery. People were already dividing loyalties and taking sides on the issue…and then you arrived. You’ve stirred up quite a little hornet’s nest by claiming that you’re looking for your father’s killer. And since I have no way of knowing who that is, or if he’s still in the area, you shouldn’t take your safety for granted.”
Sarah felt sick. This was a nightmare in a downward spiral, but she refused to back down. She’d been reviled by this town once before, but never again.
“I take nothing for granted. The people in Marmet taught me that.”
Her voice was shaking, but her gaze was steady. Tony reached for her, but she turned and walked away.
“She’s got a lot of anger,” Gallagher said. “It’s a damned shame what happened to her. Guess I can’t blame her.”
Tony nodded, his gaze on the stiff set of Sarah’s shoulders as she strode toward the house.
Gallagher glanced up at the sky and then down at his watch. “Well…we’d better get going. There’s less than three hours of good light left today.”
Tony watched until Sarah was in the house, then followed the sheriff into the woods.
The phone was ringing as Sarah entered the kitchen. Even as she was running to answer it, she thought about letting the answering machine pick up, because it wouldn’t be for her. She was wrong.
“Sarah Jane, you need to come home.”
“Aunt Lorett…is something wrong? Are you ill?”
“Yes, something is wrong. You are in the wrong place. You need to come back now.”
The hair rose on the back of Sarah’s arms. She’d heard that tone of voice too many times not to believe what Lorett was saying.
“I want to, Aunt Lorett. You have no idea how much, but if I leave now, it will be like before.”
In her heart, Lorett had known Sarah would refuse, but she couldn’t have lived with herself if she hadn’t made the call.
“There are people who don’t want you there,” she said.
“I already knew that.”
“They mean you harm.”
Sarah’s gut knotted. So the tracks weren’t nothing after all. She thought about going after Tony and the sheriff and telling them she was really in danger, and then decided against it. She didn’t want to have to explain that she was basing her information on a warning from a psychic, especially one with a background in voodoo.
“If I leave, it means they win again. Besides, they have yet to release my father’s remains, and he’s the reason I came back.”
“Please, child. I could not bear to bury both of you,” Lorett pleaded.
Sarah felt like crying. She could hear the fear in Lorett’s voice, and it echoed that in her own heart.
“I love you, Aunt Lorett, and I promise I’ll be careful.”
Lorett sighed, accepting Sarah’s decision as what must be.
“Then trust your man, Sarah Jane. He will take care of you.”
“He’s not my man, Aunt Lorett, and I can take care of myself.”
“Not this time,” Lorett said. “God be with you.”
“I love you,” Sarah said, but Lorett had already hung up.
Sarah replaced the receiver, then stood within the quiet of the house, absorbing what her aunt had said. So this wasn’t going to be an easy trip after all. So what? She hadn’t expected a vacation. Besides, forewarned was forearmed, and she had Aunt Lorett to thank for that.
Outside, Tony and Gallagher were coming to some serious conclusions of their own. The sheriff had found the place where someone had stood in the trees, obviously watching the house. From the set and depth of the prints, the watcher had been there during the rain and then the snow. They could tell because the tracks leading to the hiding place had been washed away, leaving them no way to tell where he’d come from. Only the tracks showing where he emerged from the woods and started toward the house were evident.
Tony had seen something on Gallagher’s face that gave him cause for concern, but Gallagher had yet to voice what he was thinking. Tony’s patience ended, as did the tracks on a bed of rocks and pine needles.
“It was deliberate, wasn’t it?” Tony asked.
Gallagher hitched at the holster around his waist and then nodded.
“Best I can tell, I’d say yes. Someone was obviously watching your house, but it doesn’t mean there was a threat, or that it was aimed at Miss Whitman.”
“What do you mean?” Tony asked.
“Your house. It’s quite a place for a vacation home. Got all the bells and whistles, too, you know? It could just as easily have been someone casing the location for a possible robbery, then realized the place was occupied, so he made a getaway before he was seen.”
Tony shoved his hands into his pockets. From where they were standing, the roof of his house was just visible through the trees. Behind him was the lake, made ominous by the absence of sound. He liked it better in the summer, when there were boating and swimming going on. Now, every time he looked at it, he thought of Franklin Whitman lying at the bottom for the past twenty years. Stifling a shudder, he glanced at the sheriff.
“Robbery?” Tony asked.
“It’s a possibility.”
“I suppose.
“But what does your gut tell you?” Tony asked.
Gallagher shrugged. “Well…we haven’t had a robbery around here in two or three years. If I was betting, I’d be leaning toward Miss Whitman’s presence being the trigger. However, it doesn’t have to mean someone meant her any harm. People are a curious lot, and the locals around here are no different. She was a little girl when she left. She’s come back as a woman on a mission.”
Tony glanced up at the sky. The North Star was already visible, although it had yet to get dark.
“I’m going to the house,” he said. “She’s been alone too long.”
“I’ll come with you. Pay my respects and then be on my way. If you have any other concerns, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Count on it,” Tony said, and led the way through the trees.
Sarah was quiet all through dinner, answering only when spoken to and picking at her food. As much as Tony relished her presence, he didn’t want her here like this. He would much rather have back the slightly belligerent woman she’d been. Finally he could stand it no longer. If he had to pick a fight with her to get a reaction, then so be it.
“Don’t like my cooking?” he asked.
Sarah looked up, then down at her plate.
“Guess I’m not hungry,” she said, and laid down her fork.
“Are you mad at me?” Tony asked.
“No! Of course not,” she said. “You’ve been nothing but kind.”
Kind? Tony sighed. He wanted her to think of him as more than that.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Aunt Lorett called.”
“Is everything okay back home?”
Sarah frowned, wondering what he was going to think, then blurted it out, not caring what he thought.
“She told me to leave. She said I wasn’t safe here.”
Tony’s stomach knotted. Last month he would have laughed at someone believing in psychics, but now he didn’t know what he believed. All he knew was that he wanted Sarah to be safe.
“What did you tell her?” Tony asked.
Sarah looked up. “What do you think I told her?”
“That you weren’t going anywhere.”
Sarah arched an eyebrow and almost smiled. “Well…I’m thinking you know me better than I thought.”
“But you’re scared, aren’t you, Sarah?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “A little. I know enough about Aunt Lorett not to doubt
her, but I also know I won’t tuck tail and run again. I can’t.” A muscle jerked in her jaw as she stared into Tony’s face. “Do you understand?”
As much as he hated to agree with her, he nodded.
“Yes, I think I do.”
Then Sarah grinned. “Besides, as long as I stick with you, I’ll be fine. Aunt Lorett said so.”
“Jesus,” Tony muttered, while trying to absorb the fact that a psychic had pronounced him some sort of protector. “So what happens if I fail?”
Sarah’s smile widened. “Oh…nothing much. She’s fond of hexes…and there are always her favorite curses. But they rarely last past a generation or two. You might be screwed, but your descendants should be fine.”
He glared. “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”
“For a smart man, you’re pretty gullible about this voodoo stuff.”
“Not really. My grandmother was Sicilian. There’s a story in our family about her putting a curse on a man who cheated her husband out of a lot of money.”
Sarah leaned forward, curious as to the climax of the story.
“So what happened to the man?”
“Well…the story goes that she cursed his manhood, saying he would never be able to, uh, how can I say this without offending propriety?”
“Just say it,” Sarah urged.
Tony grinned. “Yeah, okay. The curse was that he would never ‘get it up’ again, and that his name would die with him.”
“Wow! That’s cold. Did it work?”
“Don’t know. This was all before I was born. However, I do know that there were no people in the neighborhood with that last name when I was growing up.”
Sarah smirked. “They probably moved. If I was a man who’d just had his balls cursed, I would have lit out for parts unknown.”
Her bawdy answer surprised and then delighted him. God, but he liked her spirit. His grin widened.
“You’re probably right. However, you can see why I grew up with a healthy respect for curses.” Then he leaned across the table and covered her hand with his. “And I will take care of you, Sarah. Even if you don’t need it, I need to do it, okay?”
She stared at him intently, acknowledging the concern on his face and wondering why it wasn’t enough.
“Yes, sure, I understand. You’re paying my father back, and I appreciate it.”
His smile faded. “It’s not just about your father anymore, and you know it, or you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” he said shortly, then got up from the table and began carrying the dirty dishes to the sink, leaving Sarah with a whole lot more to think about than an anonymous trespasser.
“Twenty years and you couldn’t stay dead. Damn you, Frank Whitman, why couldn’t you stay dead?”
The killer scrubbed at the mud tracks on the kitchen floor while stewing about the latest turn of events. It was bad enough that Whitman’s body had been found, because that meant the case was reopened. But to have Whitman’s daughter mouthing off to the world that she wouldn’t rest until her father’s killer was brought to justice just made everything worse. If she weren’t here, the case would eventually fizzle from lack of evidence, but there was no telling what would happen now.
Finally the killer stood, giving the floor a judgmental glance, then pronounced it clean. It was a damn shame that Sarah Whitman wasn’t as easy to get rid of as the mud, but living the past twenty years in a private purgatory had a way of hardening the kindest of hearts. Sarah Whitman still had a chance to save herself, even though she didn’t know it. All she had to do was claim her father’s bones and get the hell out of Marmet, and she would be fine. Then the killer’s hands curled into fists.
But mess with me and you die.
Ron Gallagher turned his head sideways as he peered in the mirror, taking a last swipe at a streak of remaining lather from his morning shave, then washed and dried his face before splashing on aftershave. He was a particular man by nature, but this morning was different. Sarah Whitman would be coming into the office to view the articles they’d taken from her father’s body. He had little hope of her being able to tell him anything new, but it had to be done just the same.
He neatly parted, then combed his hair carefully before giving it a light spritz of hair spray. If the men in the department knew he was going to so much trouble with his appearance, he would never hear the end of it, but Sarah Whitman got under his skin. He knew she would never see him as anything but a short, middle-aged man who’d been part of the hell of her past, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted her approval almost as much as he needed her forgiveness. Maybe then he could forgive himself for standing by and doing nothing while the good people of Marmet had crucified her and her mother.
Giving his thinning hair one last pat, he buckled on his gun belt, holstered his service revolver and left the house, grabbing his hat and coat as he went. No need giving himself a case of hat head until after Sarah Whitman’s visit.
Sarah dressed carefully, choosing her clothes as if for a job interview instead of what was really going to happen. She had to be strong. Breaking down wasn’t even a consideration. Not in front of the good citizens of Marmet. But it was going to be difficult to see her father’s possessions—to touch that which had survived him and remember exactly what she’d lost.
She applied a thin coat of lipstick, then shook the hair away from her face and carefully eyed her appearance. Black slacks. Black turtleneck. Red-and-black plaid jacket. Neat but assertive. That was the look she was going for. She checked her shoes, then bent and rubbed at a scuff mark on one toe just as Tony knocked on her door.
“Coming,” she called, and grabbed her coat and purse from the bed.
Tony’s eyes widened appreciatively as Sarah opened the door.
“Nice,” he said softly, and offered her an elbow.
“Do I look like I might kick some butt?” she asked.
He grinned. “Oh yes…at the very least some butt kicking.”
“Maybe more?”
“Don’t press your luck,” he said. “Let’s go. We don’t want to keep the sheriff waiting.”
Eight
Sarah’s nerves were on edge as they drove into town. Her aunt’s warnings were never far from her thoughts. Was she putting herself at needless risk by staying in a place she wasn’t welcome? As they stopped at an intersection, waiting for the light to change, someone waved at them from a nearby yard.
“Who was that?” Sarah asked, eyeing the elderly woman, who had resumed her task of raking leaves.
“Mrs. Sheffield. She used to be the librarian, remember?”
Sarah stared, trying to put that face on the tall, stately redhead she remembered.
“But she’s so old.”
“Time did not stand still when you left,” Tony said. “Everyone and everything is twenty years older now. Mrs. Sheffield’s husband died several years back. One of her sisters came to live with her a couple of years ago because she was afraid to live alone.”
The light changed and Tony drove on past. Sarah leaned back in the seat. For several blocks more she said nothing. It wasn’t until they were pulling up to the sheriff’s department that she spoke.
“Tony?”
“Yes?”
“Am I tilting at windmills?”
Tony killed the engine and pocketed the keys as he turned to look at her. For the first time since her arrival, he saw defeat on her face.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe I should be satisfied with the fact that my father was found. Maybe I should just bury him beside my mother and go home.”
“And not dwell on who killed him? Is that what you mean?”
She shrugged. “I’ll always dwell on that,” she said softly. “But what was I thinking when I said I wouldn’t leave until his name was cleared? It’s been twenty years, for God’s sake. People have moved away. People have died. Whatever clues might have been left during the initial crime are certainly gone. Who’s to say the real criminal is even
still living?” She slumped against the door and momentarily closed her eyes. “No matter how sincere my intentions, I can’t fix this, can I?”
Tony reached across the seat and took her by the hand.
“Sarah.”
She couldn’t bear to see the sympathy in his eyes for fear that she would finally break down.
“Sarah…look at me.”
She sighed, then lifted her head.
“Why did you really come to Marmet?”
“To claim my father’s remains, of course.”
“And…?”
For several moments, Sarah was silent. Tony waited, knowing that eventually she would find her own truth.
Sarah stared out the window, at the businesses and the streets. Some of them were familiar, as were the faces of people. The longer she looked, the more she understood what Tony was trying to get her to say. Finally she turned to him.
“They were wrong, you know.”
“About what?” Tony asked.
“They shouldn’t have treated us so badly.”
Tony nodded. “You’re right, honey. They shouldn’t have done that.”
“They made me feel guilty, like I’d done something wrong, too, but I didn’t know how to make it right.” She took a deep breath, unaware that her voice was starting to shake. “No matter how successful I’ve become, there’s a part of me that still keeps trying to overcome the stigma of being Franklin Whitman’s daughter. Then I found out he wasn’t the thief everyone made him out to be, and I felt a new kind of guilt that I’d believed, like everyone else in Marmet, that he was guilty. I thought if I cleared his name it would make me okay.”
“You’re already okay,” Tony said.
“On one level, I’ve always known that, but I need these people to look me in the face and admit that they were wrong. I know it won’t bring my parents back, but it’s the only thing I can do for them now.”
“So you want revenge?”
“No. Retribution. I want retribution.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
For a moment all Sarah could do was stare at Tony’s face. The expression in his beautiful dark eyes was urging her to trust him. The muscle jerking at the side of his jaw gave an intensity to his words.