by Nancy Bush
She broke down in sobs. Yanking her hand away, she backed up and blubbered, “I loved him so much. None of you care. He was everything to me.”
“Everything but the father of your child,” Carter said in disgust.
Andi ached for Mimi. She should be furious with her, but she just felt sorry for her. “Mimi,” she began.
“I was pregnant,” Mimi cried. “I wanted that baby so much. But I lost it.” Mimi had started hiccupping then, nearly hyperventilating.
“See what you’ve done!” Scott raged, his face beet red. He turned to his sister. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart. We’ll take these bastards to court. They’ll have to take care of you.”
“But . . . but I just want Greg.”
“You’ve lost, Quade,” Carter said with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Now, take your pregnant sister out of here. We have business to do.”
“You Wrens are going to make things right,” Scott declared. “I know things about you people.” His eyes glittered as he took in the lot of them. “All of you. You’re no saints. This is no goddamned ivory tower. And Greg, that lying bastard. He was as bad as the rest of you.”
“Get out,” Carter said through his teeth, but Scott didn’t back down. “You know he didn’t just drive off a cliff, don’t you? That was no accident up there on the ridge.”
Andi stared at him. First Emma, now Scott.
Carter walked around the edge of the table. “We’ve already heard the theories.”
Beside Andi, Lucas rose to his feet.
“You all have blood on your hands.” Scott grabbed a blubbering Mimi by the arm and marched her toward the door. As he passed out of the room, he snarled, “You goddamned Wrens. Always thinking you own the world. I haven’t forgotten, you know!”
A few minutes later they heard the elevator bell ding once more, and then Mimi’s sobs grew more distant.
“What was that all about?” Andi asked.
“Extortion.” Carter straightened his tie and looked at Luke. “Thank you for finding out she was faking it.”
“She miscarried,” Luke corrected him.
Carter threw him a dark look. “Then she faked it.”
“She did love Greg,” Andi said.
“Yeah, let’s all feel bad for poor Mimi,” Carter snapped. “Where the fuck are the Carreras?”
Carter’s words were still floating in the air when the elevator bell sounded again. Andi stiffened her spine, and two minutes later Blake Carrera strode through the door. Carter, already on his feet, strode the distance between them and stuck out his hand, a welcoming smile on his face.
“Sorry I’m late,” Blake said without any emotion.
“And your brother?”
“Ran into car trouble. Can’t make it. No problem. I can handle everything.” His eyes skimmed across the table to Andi and Luke, then back to Carter. “Where’s your sister?”
“She had to leave. Something came up.”
One dark eyebrow cocked and Blake’s scar became more visible. “What?”
“Personal stuff. Come on in, sit down.” Carter was pulling out a chair for him.
“Don’t bother,” Andi said. Despite her innate fear of the man, she screwed up her courage. “Nothing’s changed. Emma and I aren’t going to sign any papers today or any other day. We’ve decided it would be in Wren’s best interests to forge ahead on our own.”
Carrera regarded her silently as Carter started to bluster, but Andi went on, “No amount of coercing or bribing or threatening is going to change our minds. You can’t intimidate me or Emma. She told us you called her and tried to strong-arm her some way.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked, his eyes cold.
“We’re not doing business with you,” Andi assured him with a lot more confidence than she felt.
“Andi,” Carter warned, “we should listen to what Mr. Carrera has to say.”
“He’ll be wasting his breath. And my time.” Despite the fact that her heart was pounding with trepidation and her hands were clammy, she rained a cool smile on the big man. “Maybe you should go help your brother.”
Blake turned back to Carter. “I thought you said you’d take care of this. Of her.”
“I will.”
“Gentlemen, I think we’re done here. You heard Mrs. Wren,” Luke said.
Carter looked at him. “Who’s running this meeting, Denton?”
Luke didn’t respond, didn’t need to. He and Carrera had locked eyes and the air in the room crackled with words unsaid. Andi threw Luke a worried look, but he held Carrera’s gaze.
Blake said, “I heard you were hooking up with Greg Wren’s widow. And I thought Nah, not Denton, not the guy who was all on the side of might and right when it came to his ex-partner, Bolchoy. But look at you now, huh? You’ve finally figured out who the winning team is. Comforting a rich widow is a smart move. I admire that.” He smirked, and Luke’s fists curled into fists.
“You know where the door is,” Luke said, his lips barely moving.
“Wait a minute now.” Carter stepped between the two men.
Panicked that an actual fight might break out, Andi jumped to her feet and took hold of Luke’s hand. “Let’s go.”
“Stop!” Carter ordered. “You can’t just walk out of here.” He turned to Blake. “I’ll talk to Emma. I said I would, didn’t I? She’ll come around.”
“He’s lying to you,” Andi told Blake as she tugged Luke after her and headed for the door. “My sister-in-law and I are in total agreement. No deal. We’ve told Carter. Said it over and over.”
Luke reluctantly followed her into the hall.
Blake called after them, “We’re busy, y’know. Me and Brian. And we can’t keep wasting time over this with you Wrens. If you want a battle, okay, you’ve got one. Meanwhile, I’ve got other things to do. You’re not the only fish in the sea,” he added loudly as Andi stabbed the button for the elevator. “Or should I say little birds?”
Her head whipped around at that one, but Luke stayed calm.
“Did you hear what he said?” she whispered as the elevator doors closed behind them.
“Every word.”
“Should we have asked him about the card? About Trini?”
He slid her a glance as they exited the elevator, crossed the building foyer, and headed outside into a brisk wind that was whipping leaves in a furious eddy in the center of the parking lot.
At her Tucson he said, “I want to wait on that.”
She climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. “Do you think the Carerras are behind Trini’s murder? Why would they kill her? Because she’s a bird?”
“That just doesn’t hang together,” he admitted. “There’s always a financial purpose to what they do. Their aim is money, first, last, and always.”
“Well, then, what’s all the little bird stuff?” She could hear her voice rising and her hands were clenched on the wheel. She had to force herself to relax.
“I don’t know.”
“I made the mistake of calling myself a little bird to them before so . . . maybe they’re just trying to make fun of me, turn my words around, find a new way to psych me out.”
“Maybe I should have driven,” he said as Andi’s wheels touched gravel.
“Sorry. I’m fine.”
She drove with concentration the rest of the way back, but once they were in the cabin, she accused him, “You don’t think the Carreras are behind the notes.”
“Do you?” He’d crossed the room to switch on the television. The midday news was just starting.
It took her a while to answer, but then she said, “No. But I don’t know what that means. Who else has a grudge against me?”
“Quade’s certainly got it in for the Wrens.”
Andi shook her head, but then she remembered the threat he’d hurled on his way out. That he knew something about the Wrens. Emma had referred to him as a lake rat, someone who hung around with the wealthy lake crowd, feed
ing off the crumbs left to him.
Luke stripped off his jacket and tossed it onto the couch next to his bed roll.
Andi tried to calm down, to get a grip on herself. She was home. Safe. With Luke. She flopped onto the couch and inhaled the aroma of this morning’s coffee, which still lingered in the air. It mingled with the faint smell of smoke from a fire built days before and should have provided her comfort. But not today, not after the bedlam that had been the meeting at the office. Running her fingers through her hair, she tried to sort it all out. Of course that was impossible.
Luke pulled the latest plastic-encased note from his pocket and eyed it.
On the television, Pauline Kirby’s face appeared. The local reporter was outside, standing near a huge river, the sky as leaden as the gray depths of the water.
Luke said, “I want to talk to the police. Detective Rafferty, not Thompkins. I’ve dealt with his type a lot of times. They don’t like being pushed and they become intractable. Until it’s his idea that Trini’s death was a homicide, he’ll drag his feet. And I don’t know if he’ll get there in time. We need some momentum on this case. If the bird messages involve Trini, we gotta move. Find out who’s doing this before something else happens.”
“Something to me, you mean.”
“Just because I don’t think the Carreras are behind the notes doesn’t mean I’m forgetting about them. Blake scared Emma. He thought he could get her to do what he wanted, but she ran from him. I want to know why she’s so damned sure the Carerras were behind your husband’s death. Is that just fear talking, or did Blake say or do something that convinced her the Carreras are killers?”
“Do you think Scott’s behind the notes?”
“Or Mimi, because they’re directed at you.”
Andi shook her head slowly. “I don’t think she’s faking how undone she is. It’s too calculating.”
He nodded but said, “I just don’t want to be blindsided.”
Andi flicked a glance at the television, where Pauline stood near the water’s edge . . . some lake?
“It’s the timing of everything that bothers me. At the time of Greg’s accident, Wren Development had been okayed on the lodge, and that pissed off the Carreras. We already know they wanted the land. So maybe they decided to retaliate.”
On the television Pauline was droning on, her hair caught by a strong wind. “What do you mean? By killing Greg?”
“Greg’s death threw you all into chaos. Everyone involved was upset. If Carter hadn’t kept pushing, the project might have failed because Emma has own problems and you were lost in grief.”
“I was a walking zombie,” she admitted.
“That’s the kind of thing the Carreras do,” Luke said grimly.
“So what happened to Trini? I’ll never believe she just didn’t read the label on that energy bar.”
Luke’s attention was on the TV, where a body bag was being loaded into an ambulance. Pauline was staring directly into the camera’s eye, saying, “. . . Police refuse to ID the woman until next of kin is notified, but we’ve learned that a woman from the Gresham area is missing. Christine Tern Brandewaite. She goes by the name Christine Tern. She worked late last night but didn’t show up this morning.”
“We need to find the boyfriend,” Luke said, his eyes glued to the screen. She realized he wasn’t really listening to Andi anymore.
“What is it?” Andi asked, but Luke didn’t answer, so she tuned into the program to see what had riveted his attention.
A bird wheeled over Pauline Kirby’s ravaged hair, crying out. “This is a possible homicide because we have confirmed the victim was tased several times,” Pauline was saying. “She may have been unconscious or unable to save herself when she went into the water. If anyone has any information on Christine Tern, please call the police or our station.”
“Tern . . .” Luke said, shaking his head as if to remove dust.
“You know her?” Andi said, her heart somersaulting uncomfortably.
“I don’t know how she spells it, but a tern is a seabird.”
“Oh God.” Andi stared at the television.
“It makes no sense,” Luke said. Then he was in motion.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m calling Detective Rafferty.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Where’ve you been?” Gretchen asked September as soon as she returned to the squad room.
“I was in Hood River, following up on the Pattens. The renters whose son had the addiction problem.”
“I know who they are, but what about the body in the quarry?” Gretchen demanded. “George said you were working on that one.”
September shot a look at George. He was riding his chair, still engrossed in whatever he saw on his computer screen. “It’s the Sheriff’s Department’s case. I just followed up for them at Sirocco Realty.”
“Where you and I went last weekend,” she pointed out. “The body at the bottom of the quarry is their receptionist.”
“We were working an entirely different case.”
“Were we?”
“Yes. And I tried calling you yesterday,” September said, knowing where this was going. “I was just helping out the Sheriff’s Department.” She brought Gretchen up to speed, telling her about Tracy’s hidden box of what they believed to be keys, and how Realtor Edie Tindel believed Tracy had been using the keys to gain access to clients’ houses. She finished with, “But that one’s out of our hands. You want to talk new cases, George is the man to talk to.”
“I told you you could have that case,” George reminded her coolly over his shoulder.
“Yeah, and I’m making traction on the Aurora Lane case,” September snapped back.
Gretchen ignored September and turned to George. “What’s your case?” she asked him, which really pissed September off.
“You want to tell her, Nine? Be my guest.” George wouldn’t look away from his screen.
September tamped down the smart response that sprang to her lips with an effort. The cutbacks and threatened job security had ruined all their attitudes. Instead she succinctly told Gretchen about the death of Trinidad Finch, which appeared to be from anaphylactic shock from eating an energy bar made out of cricket flour.
“Cricket flour?” The disgusted look on Gretchen’s face was comical.
September added, “Crickets are part of the shellfish family and she was apparently highly allergic to shellfish.”
“Evidence isn’t conclusive that it was a homicide,” George put in.
“Well, what do you think?” Gretchen asked September.
It was rare that her bullheaded partner took the time to really pick her brain, so September considered her answer carefully. “Do you know Luke Denton? Detective Ray Bolchoy’s ex-partner?”
“I’ve heard the name. Saw him interviewed by Pauline Kirby once.”
“Nine’s our media darling,” George said. “A few times on television and now Kirby asks for her. They’re BFFs.”
“You got a problem, George, just spit it the hell out,” September said.
He jerked as if surprised and finally dragged his eyes away from the computer. “Somebody’s damn touchy today,” he muttered
Gretchen groaned. “Somebody just tell me what’s going on.”
“When the ME says the Finch case is a homicide, it’s a homicide,” George declared, drawing his line in the sand.
September turned her shoulder to George and said to Gretchen, “Denton was on scene at the victim’s apartment: Trinidad Finch. He’s the one who reported her death to nine-one-one. He’s working for the Wrens of Wren Development . . . have I got that right, George?”
“So far.”
“Anyway, one of the Wrens was a friend of the victim.”
“Andrea Wren,” George put in helpfully.
“She tried to reach Finch and failed,” September continued, “so she went to her apartment and found her. George can tell you more.”
; “There isn’t any more until forensics come back,” George said.
“What are you doing now?” Gretchen asked September, who’d started writing on her computer’s word-processing program.
“Transcribing notes.” She glanced down at her open notebook. “I’m working up a time line for Lance Patten. He disappeared right after his senior year of high school.”
“The druggie?” she clarified.
“I asked his parents about his drug use and they didn’t want to classify him as an addict, but they’re his parents, so they may be putting a positive spin on it. He used marijuana and occasionally harder drugs. He was friends with Tommy Burkey, who called him Laser. Still don’t know why exactly, but I’m pretty sure Laser and Lance are the same person. Maury Patten said Lance hung with a group of friends who may have used that nickname. Lance sometimes rode their horse over to Schultz Lake and had friends over there. I also asked about Davinia Singleton, but both parents played deaf, dumb, and blind.” September shrugged. “They don’t want to hear anything bad about their son.”
“You should have taken me with you,” Gretchen said.
September nodded rather than argue that Gretchen would have tried to talk her out of the trip because the case didn’t interest her. “There’s something else,” September added.
“What?”
“The family that left in the RV were the Kirkendalls. They rented Mamet’s house directly before the Pattens. They had a daughter, Wendy, who was strangled and dumped in Schultz Lake. That crime’s never been solved.”
Gretchen frowned. “Something familiar about that.”
“I thought so, too, so I looked it up. Wendy Kirkendall was strangled with a willow branch.”
“That’s right! That’s what it was.” Gretchen narrowed her sharp blue eyes. “Is there some connection between Lance and Wendy?”
“I don’t think they knew each other. She was gone before the Pattens moved in. But I do think the bones are Lance’s, and if that’s the case, then there are two crimes connected to Aurora Lane within a short period of time. And that’s not counting Nathan Singleton’s accident, which is on the books as a murder/suicide.”
“Lance must’ve been the one screwing Davinia Singleton. The parents just don’t want to say so.”