by Lora Leigh
“Not a single one this year I’ll have you know.” She glared back at him. “And if their mothers had taught them how to behave, then I wouldn’t have to spank them, now would I?”
His lips almost twitched into a smile. She could see him holding back his amusement, but it was there. She would have been offended if she didn’t often find it funny herself.
He lifted his cup to his lips and sipped at the coffee; as he lowered it, the phone at his side rang imperatively. Rogue’s gaze jerked to his hip, then to his thighs as she felt her breath tighten. Damn, he really was aroused, and the pants of his uniform did nothing to hide it.
Frowning, Zeke pulled the cell phone from its hip holster, checked the number, then flipped it open with a terse, “Hello.”
Something was wrong. Rogue felt it the moment his expression went hard, emotionless. His gaze became flat, distant, and something dangerous flashed in his eyes as he listened to whatever was being said.
“Secure the scene, I’m on my way,” he ordered.
His frown deepened. “I don’t give a damn what you think, Gene,” he snapped. “Secure the fucking scene and try not to compromise it any more than you can help.”
Danger seemed to radiate from him. Somehow his body seemed harder now, almost more muscular, definitely ready for action.
Rogue watched as he flipped the phone closed, his gaze locking on hers as she felt her heart begin to race in her chest.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He moved to her, staring down at her with those hard, furious brown eyes.
“It’s Grandmother Walker, Rogue,” he said, his voice incredibly gentle as he reached out for her. “Lisa found her this morning. She’s dead.”
Grandmother Walker, it appeared, had known her granddaughter was gone from the house on an errand, freed herself from her oxygen tank, moved from the bed, and attempted to take a bath. It appeared she had slipped while getting into the tub, fallen, and hit her head before sinking into the water.
Zeke watched as the coroner loaded the body into the official vehicle and drove away. Forensics had dusted the house, but Zeke doubted they would find anything. There was nothing there to point to foul play, but still, the back of his neck was itching.
Rogue was with Lisa and Janey in Lisa’s small living room, attempting to comfort her. Lisa had taken her boys to their father again that morning. While she was gone, her grandmother had died.
He shook his head as he moved back into the house, silent, watchful as Gene talked to the forensics team as they packed up.
His deputy hadn’t agreed with the forensic team’s involvement, but this time, it had been Alex’s call. The Walker home was within the Somerset city limits and Grandmother Walker had been a friend of Janey Mackay as well as Chief Alex Jansen.
The detective Alex had sent was a good one. Robert Leeson was no one’s fool. With his dark hair and suspicious eyes, he was a damned fine detective. He’d already talked to Lisa, collected the information he needed, and promised to keep Zeke apprised of anything they found.
Rogue and Janey had taken Lisa to her home after the detective had questioned her. She had been in shock, grieving, and confused. Her grandmother didn’t even like baths, Lisa had stated. She showered. She couldn’t imagine how or why the old woman would have decided to try to take a bath. Grandmother Walker had been ill, weak, but she hadn’t been delusional or incapable of making a rational decision. The old woman had been stubborn as hell, but she wasn’t stupid. So why had she decided to disconnect her oxygen and attempt to take a bath before her granddaughter returned?
First the Walker twins and now their grandmother. The back of his neck was itching like hell.
Zeke moved back to the small bedroom, stared around it slowly with narrowed eyes, and tried to figure out the knife edge of warning prodding at his guts.
There was no evidence of foul play, nothing to suggest that murder had been committed, other than the fact that Zeke’s stomach was rioting and his neck was itching.
“Zeke, I’m heading out unless you need me to stay longer.”
Zeke turned to see Gene watching him somberly.
“Go ahead.” Zeke nodded. “I’ll catch up with you.”
“I’ll leave my report on your desk before I go off duty.” Gene nodded. “Too damned bad about old lady Walker. She was a good woman.”
“Yeah, she was.” Zeke sighed as he turned and stared around the room.
Hell. Just like Joe and Jaime, this didn’t look right; it didn’t feel right.
Behind him, Gene sighed heavily and asked, “Did you know Lisa had life insurance on her brothers and grandmother?”
Zeke turned around slowly. “Where did you hear that?”
“She took out the insurance here in town,” Gene answered him. “Aubry Riley’s agency. It’s not a huge amount, but there’ll still be cash left over from the burials.”
“When did you find this out?”
“Yesterday evening Aubry came in after you left the office. He was telling me about the policies on the brothers then, and mentioned the one on the grandmother. Joe and Jaime took out their policies. They had survivorship on theirs. In the event of both their deaths though, Lisa was beneficiary. She’s also the beneficiary on the policy her grandmother took out ’bout twenty years ago, after her husband’s death.”
Zeke rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’ll talk to Lisa and see if she’ll turn over the policies.”
Would Lisa have killed her brothers and grandmother for the insurance? Zeke had seen it happen before.
“I’ll head out then,” Gene told him. “See you later, Zeke.”
Zeke rubbed at his jaw as he turned back to the bedroom and focused his gaze on the oxygen tank, its lines hanging forlornly to the pillows of the bed.
Lisa didn’t kill her brothers. She didn’t kill her grandmother. Zeke could feel it, despite the evidence of the insurance policies and the attempts to make it look as though each death had an explanation. Someone had killed with such perfect precision that not even a trace of an intruder had been left behind.
As he stared around the room the cell phone at his belt beeped demandingly.
“Sheriff Mayes,” he answered.
“Sheriff?” Lisa Walker’s voice came through the line, timid, husky with tears. “I wanted to ask. Grandma mentioned calling you last night; she said she might have known who the girl was that Joe and Jaime were seeing. I wondered if you would tell me who it was?”
Click. He felt it now. Like a piece of the puzzle falling into place.
“She didn’t call me, Lisa,” he said calmly. “She didn’t tell you who the girl was?”
Lisa sighed. “She said she wanted to talk to you first, to be sure about something before she said anything more. You know how Grandma was about gossip.”
She had hated gossip. She didn’t gossip, and she didn’t hesitate to berate anyone who came to her with idle talk. This time, Zeke wished she had gone back on those principles.
“She didn’t mention anything?” he asked.
“She said Joe had come to see her a few days before he was killed. He was laughing, said he and Jaime had a date Saturday night. Grandma was giving him hell over it and Joe told her that sharing what they loved was better than fighting over it and neither of them having it. It was the first time he’d ever mentioned love in regard to a woman, she said. When she asked who it was, she said he wouldn’t give her name, but he said something that made her suspect who it might be. She wouldn’t tell me what he said.”
She hadn’t tried to call him, Zeke knew, but she might have called the office.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff.” She sighed. “I should have pushed her.”
“Don’t worry about it, Lisa,” he said. “If you can though, could you bring the insurance policies you had on your grandma and brothers into my office? I’ll need to go over this to make sure everything’s taken care of on my end.”
“I can bring them in tomorrow.” There was
no hesitation in her voice or her attitude. “I need to get that taken care of anyway for the funerals.” Her voice broke.
“Yes, you do, Lisa.” He sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow whenever you’re ready. Just give me a call and let me know when you’re coming in.”
“I will. Good-bye, Sheriff.” She disconnected and Zeke folded the phone before placing it back in its holster and moving for the front door.
Lisa didn’t kill her family for the insurance. Zeke had a feeling whoever had killed Joe and Jaime had done so because of a woman they were sharing, and now their grandmother was dead because she suspected who it was. Now Zeke had to figure out who it was before anyone else died.
THIRTEEN
Jonesy was back behind the long counter serving drinks when Rogue stepped into the bar that evening. A scowl was etched into his face as he glared at her, but his brown eyes weren’t filled with fury. She thanked God for that, because she didn’t have the nerves to deal with another of his snits. He had never become rough with her in all the years she had known him, but she admitted he had spooked her a little the night before.
She gave him a sharp nod but kept her gaze cool before moving around the dance floor and checking with the bouncers. She’d just spent the evening on the phone with her parents and grandparents to let them know about Grandmother Walker’s death.
Her father had been saddened, but Rogue knew he wouldn’t grieve for the woman he had once known. He worried more about her and the rash of Walker deaths now than he did anything else. He had begged, bribed, and ordered her to return to Boston. She had declined sweetly. At least as sweetly as possible as they screamed and yelled at each other over the phone.
It was how she got along with her father. Calvin Walker wasn’t the most diplomatic of men. Tact wasn’t a word in his vocabulary outside a courtroom. And Rogue admitted, she was too much like her father some days rather than her soft-spoken Bostonian mother.
It had put her in the perfect mood to make a meeting that a friend had called for after her discussion with her father though.
Timothy Cranston wasn’t really a friend, she corrected herself. More of a friendly adversary. He didn’t seem to really like anyone except Janey Mackay and Alex Jansen. He more often seemed to only tolerate others. The Homeland Security suspended agent was a thorn in everyone else’s side. But Rogue liked him. He was snarly and grouchy and rarely seemed to smile when it was appropriate. When he did smile, he tended to cause others to shudder in wariness.
Rogue didn’t shudder; privately, she was usually laughing at others’ reactions. Until now. Now she felt that little shiver of wariness herself.
She made her rounds of the bar, stopped, talked, and laughed with the customers. She bumped hips with the accountant from Virginia, shimmied around the mechanic that worked for Natches Mackay, and flashed a smile at Deputy Gene Maynard as he lifted his hand in hello from the bar.
Jonesy was still scowling, but he was serving beer as he was supposed to be and keeping his hands to himself. She contented herself with that for the moment, though she knew she was going to have to discuss the night before with him.
Breathing out tiredly at the thought, she caught sight of Agent Cranston at a back table, hidden in a corner just off to the side of the pool tables that were set up in the large open room back from the dance floor.
He was nursing a beer; he wasn’t really drinking it. His expression was composed, almost innocent. God, she wished she could perfect that expression herself. She had been trying for years and hadn’t quite managed it.
Maybe it had something to do with the ill-fitting wrinkled suit or the thin hair falling over his brow. She knew there was something both compassionate and dangerous that lurked in his eyes. Something that warned a person not to consider crossing him, and yet invited trust. He was an odd little man, that was for damned sure.
“Cranston, you’re going to make me nervous if you keep lurking in corners in my bar,” she told him as she moved into the other side of the booth and motioned one of the waitresses for a beer.
He smiled pleasantly. “I live to make people nervous. Keeps them from conspiring against me.”
“Ah, so that’s your secret.” She grinned back. “So what makes you believe you need to keep me from conspiring against you?”
He grunted at that. “I wouldn’t think that for a moment. You’re too honest to conspire, Ms. Walker. You’d just kick my balls into my throat and laugh at my anguish if you wanted to strike out at me.”
She smiled back at him approvingly. “I do so enjoy an intelligent man, Agent Cranston.”
His smile was smoother this time, more manipulating as he lifted his beer and sipped before asking. “So, is Sheriff Mayes as intelligent?”
What an interesting question.
Rogue leaned back in her seat as the waitress approached and set the chilled bottle of beer on the table in front of her. She continued to regard the agent as she sipped her own drink and wondered where the question had originated from.
“Sheriff Mayes is very intelligent,” she finally answered him. “From what I understand, he’s a master of making certain the family jewels are well protected.”
A wide smile creased Timothy’s lips. “Ah, how very elusive your answer is. Tell me.” He tilted his head to the side as he regarded her. “Is it true you’re sleeping with him?”
“Is it true that it’s none of your business?” She opened her eyes wide and appeared a bit surprised that she had let the words pass her lips. “Forgive me, Agent Cranston, I’m sure that was the bitch in me speaking. I try to contain her as often as possible.”
He tipped his beer toward her in acknowledgment of her not-too-subtle hint that he had crossed the line.
“You’re a strong woman,” he said as he leaned back in his seat and regarded her intently. “I’ve heard there are bets being placed that you’ll be the first woman the sheriff has publicly claimed since his wife’s death.”
“And that’s about as much your business as whether or not I’m sleeping with him,” she pointed out. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell you want, Agent Cranston, and let me get back to work.”
His lips quirked at her demand. “I’m just a curious man, Rogue,” he finally stated. “And one that worries about supposedly unconnected threads. Did you know your cousins supplied information to Homeland Security in the operation that busted Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay’s little homegrown terrorist group?”
Rogue stared back at him in surprise. “No,” she said faintly. “I didn’t know that.”
But it shouldn’t have surprised her. Lazy and a little shiftless the boys might have been, but all in all, they’d had a patriotic streak a mile wide. Jaime and Joe both had attempted to join the Army when they turned eighteen, but a lung defect that they had shared had kept them out of the service.
Cranston nodded as he leaned forward again and braced his arms on the table and asked, “Do you think Joe killed Jaime, then himself?”
“There’s no evidence to suggest otherwise as far as I know,” she stated.
“And within days of their deaths their grandmother slips and falls attempting to take a bath?” he questioned. “Is that coincidence?”
“Why do you care? Fine, you think Joe and Jaime were upstanding citizens for helping you once. That doesn’t explain why you’re going out of your way now, Agent Cranston, or what makes you think I have any information you could use. So why don’t you get to the point while I still have some patience left.”
“My point.” He sighed. “My point is that I’m worried now. Maybe we get didn’t everyone Dayle was working with last year. The organization we disbanded didn’t have lists of names to guide us to their members. We’ve been shooting in the dark in rounding them up. I want to make sure all the loose ends have been tied.”
That made more sense. Rogue had a feeling Agent Cranston wasn’t the benevolent sort; having it confirmed at least eased some of the suspicion rising inside her, though it didn’t
touch the tension knotting her shoulders.
“I’m the wrong person to ask then,” she told him. “The last I heard, Sheriff Mayes was investigating that case, not me.”
His gaze flickered as another smile threatened to curl his lips.
“So he is.” He nodded. “But men like to share things in the dark with their lovers. And you were related to the twins and their grandmother. I was hoping you could tell me more than he has.”
She leaned forward, eyes narrowed as her gaze locked with his.
“If you want information, Agent Cranston, then go to the source. I’ve never seen you as a man that likes to pussyfoot around anything; don’t start playing that game now. And while you’re at it, stop with the little innuendoes concerning your suspicions about my relationship with the sheriff. It’s not your business, nor is it anyone else’s. Now, if you have no further questions, I have a bar to run.”
She rose to her feet, turned, and stepped into a hard male chest that blocked her way.
Damn her temper. Her eyes shot up to stare into Zeke’s annoyed brown eyes as he stared over her head at the agent. If she had been paying more attention, she might have suspected he was there. She realized he must have been there for at least the latter part of the conversation because the agent’s eyes had continually flicked over her shoulder as Cranston fought a smile.
“What are you doing here?” Pushing back from him she tried to still her heart rate, tried to still her hopes.
As Cranston had said, Zeke had never publicly claimed a woman. Had he come here for her or for more information?
His gaze flicked to hers. “Why shouldn’t I be here?”
Great, he was in one of his uncommunicative moods. Answering a question with another question, his gaze flat and hard, his expression honed and savage. She had a feeling he wasn’t there to put his handcuffs to use again. At least, not in the way she would have preferred. Guess that answered the question of whether or not he was there to see her.
“I’ll just let the two of you have your little male-bonding time then.” She smiled back at him tightly. “If you wouldn’t mind though, before you leave, I’d like to know what you’ve learned about Grandmother Walker. If you can find the time for me, that is.”