Almost Forever (2 page)

“Do you ride a horse?”

“Yes, but not usually on the job.”

“I love horses.” She heaved a long sigh. “We used to have horses…but I was too young to remember.”

Justin wasn't sure what to say. He could stare down killers, but he had no idea how to talk to a kid. He cleared his throat nervously.

The girl studied him solemnly. “Are you here to arrest someone?”

“No, I'm just here to talk to your mother…” He hesitated when the girl frowned, still concerned about his surprise appearance.

“…and to go to the festival,” Justin hurried to add, hoping to take away her doubt. “It was very nice.”

It worked. The girl's frown relaxed, replaced by a sunny smile. “Yes, it was. I helped. My name is Mackenzie. What's yours?”

Justin held out his hand. “Justin Archer. Nice to meet you, Mackenzie.”

She shook his hand, then released it.

“We'll have dinner after everyone leaves,” Lori told her with a gentle shove toward the main building.

“Okay.” With a flip of her ponytail, Mackenzie galloped away.

“She thinks she's a horse,” Lori told him. “I went through that phase when I was a kid. But we lived in the city, so I had to get my horse fix at the rodeo every year.” She watched until her daughter disappeared inside before she turned back to Justin. “Follow me.” She led the way back to the winery building and through the arched double-wide oak doors.

Justin had to walk fast to keep up with her and then paused just inside the door as his eyes adjusted from the bright sunshine to the cool darkness. The fragrance of fresh grapes mixed with oak filled the air. All of the workers were outside cleaning up, so there was no one else in the building. Lori continued through the large processing room to a small area in the back that was furnished with several high-topped tables and comfortable barstools. Two upholstered couches were in one corner, creating a cozy seating area. The floor and walls were stone, and the ceiling was wooden with heavy oak beams.

“This is our private tasting room for special customers,” Lori explained and motioned for him to take a seat on one of the couches.

Justin waited for her to sit, then sat across from her. “Very nice,” he said, referring to artwork that had lined their path and decorated the walls.

“They've been in the family for years.” She picked up a decanter on the coffee table and poised it over a long-stemmed goblet. “Are you still going to pass on that glass of wine, Ranger Archer?”

“Unfortunately yes, Mrs. Roberts. Maybe another time.”

“You should stop by when you're off duty. We have live music every weekend and all sorts of events until the end of the summer.” She poured a glass for herself and lifted it to her lips. “And please, call me Lori.”

Justin smiled, then remembered that he wasn't there on a social call, and the smile quickly disappeared. He looked at her and struggled to keep from getting lost in her clear blue eyes. He wished they could talk about the vineyard, her daughter, where Lori liked to go on vacation, her favorite food…how she felt about dating lawmen…anything but what he really needed to discuss with her. In all his years of police work, he had never been so distracted by a person involved in a case.

“So, Ranger Archer, if you don't mind my cutting to the chase, what exactly can I do for you today?”

Justin forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand. Ignoring her request to use her first name, he said, “Mrs. Roberts, as you are probably aware, a survey team found a body behind your property two months ago.”

She sipped her wine and watched him over the rim of the glass. “I heard they've been given the all-clear to resume construction.”

“Yes, all the evidence has been gathered, and the results of the DNA tests are in.” He paused for effect, then continued solemnly. “I'm very sorry to inform you that the remains we recovered are your husband's.”

Justin waited for a reaction, but Lori sat calmly, absolutely no emotion in her eyes. She was either in shock…or cool as a cucumber.

She took another sip of wine, and he noticed that her hand was shaking. She swallowed, then tilted her head back and exhaled heavily. When she looked back down at him, he could see tears pooled in her eyes. “Wow…dead…after all these years.”

“Eight years,” he confirmed.

“And there's no doubt?” Her voice was still level.

“No doubt. It took six weeks for the DNA results to come in. But we're 99.9 percent sure it is Mark Roberts.”

Lori downed the remainder of the glass of wine and set it on the table. She lifted her gaze to Justin. “Can you tell how he died? I mean, did he suffer?”

“The ME will be issuing a formal cause of death. All I can tell you at this point, and this is preliminary, is that it appears he died of blunt-force trauma to the back of his skull.”

“An accident?”

There was a curious expression in her eyes that he couldn't quite identify. “Unlikely. It appears he was buried in a shallow grave.”

“All this time he was so close, and we never knew,” she murmured.

“Where did you think he was? Surely you noticed he hadn't come home.”

A flush rose to stain her cheeks a vivid red. Her head dipped forward, allowing her silky blond hair to fall forward as if she were trying to disappear from his scrutiny. Justin leaned forward, anxious to hear her answer and yet disturbed by her discomfort. He couldn't remember how many witnesses he had interviewed. He had even felt sorry for some of them. However, he couldn't remember ever wishing he could stop the questioning and change the subject.

Instead, he remained silent, allowing her time to compose her response. When she finally spoke, her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear.

“Mark and I had an argument. A big one. I took Kenzie—she was just a baby then—and drove to the Domain in Austin for a little retail therapy. Mark always told me that all I was good for was looking pretty and spending his money, so I decided to confirm his assessment of me. I stayed in town with a friend, and when I came home the next day around noon, Mark was gone.”

“Gone?”

She shrugged. “Gone. His car was here. But his suitcase and some of his clothes were missing. I assumed he had gone on a trip.”

“He'd done that before…gone off without telling you?” Justin asked.

She lifted her head and met his gaze. “All the time. If he wasn't home getting drunk in his office slash man cave, I had no idea where he was.”

“Did you try to contact him?”

“I left a half dozen messages on his phone and checked with all of our friends. But it was like he had dropped off the face of the earth.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

“After a week went by without any contact, I called the sheriff. But he just laughed it off, saying Mark would turn up.”

Justin frowned. “He just ignored it?”

“At first. Everyone figured he'd just run off with some bimbo.”

“Why would they think that?”

Lori sighed and gave him an ironic smile. “Because he'd done it before…with me.”

He personally thought she was selling herself short.
Bimbo
was definitely not the word he would use to describe her. But professionally, his opinion didn't matter. “So you assumed he was…uh…taking a break from your marriage?”

Again she flushed, but this time it appeared to be more from anger than from shame. “His last words to me before I left were that he wanted a divorce. I told him to go for it. I didn't care what he did. Our marriage had completely fallen apart by then. I just figured he ran away from all the responsibilities of the vineyard and the baby. And me.”

Justin leaned back against the plush cushions. Interesting story, but there were some glaring holes. “How could Mark just walk away from this winery? It's been in his family for years.”

“Mark hated this place. He never really embraced his mother's side of the family. He didn't like the whole rural life.”

“I heard it was about to go under.”

She nodded. “We were almost bankrupt. Mark took care of all the finances, so I had no idea until I looked at the books after he left. The bank account was almost empty.”

“How did you save it? And why?”

She glanced around the room affectionately. “The why is easy. I love the vineyard. Luckily, there wasn't a mortgage. That left me two options…sell the place or run it. Selling it was out of the question since Mark wasn't available to sign the papers, so I had to make it work.

“I knew nothing about how to make wine, so I took a few courses, which turned into a full-fledged degree in viticulture. I started offering wine-tasting events and opened the restaurant. Then I expanded into olive oils and planted what used to be the horse pasture in olive trees. And I turned the front pasture into lavender fields. You have no idea how many people come here for the lavender festival in June.”

“So you turned it around. But if Mark returned—and I assume you thought he might—he could have taken it back over and run it into the ground again.”

Her hands were clasped in her lap, and Justin noticed that she clenched them together even more tightly.

“I worried about that at first, but after about five years, I figured he'd found a better life somewhere else…with someone else.”

“Did he give you any reason to believe that he might…” Justin paused. There was never an easy way to ask that question, and he couldn't imagine why a guy would cheat on someone like Lori. But he had to get her response, so he continued, “…have a girlfriend?”

“I never knew for sure, but I suspected he'd had several over the course of our marriage.” She bit her lower lip as if trying not to cry. “I was pretty young and…not exactly innocent, but certainly naive. I thought our marriage was the way it was supposed to be until I got pregnant. Mark completely shut down. I think he had some sort of mother issue, because that was pretty much it for our sex life.” Her eyes closed for a few seconds as if she were pushing back bad memories. When she opened them again, there was so much pain and humiliation in them that Justin almost had to turn away.

“I assumed he was getting it somewhere else…but I was all wrapped up in being a new mom. I guess I just let it go and hoped that he would fall in love with our baby like I had.”

“But he didn't?”

“I don't think fatherhood was his thing. As far as I know, he never held her or even touched her. It hurt me so deeply that I focused on her more…which probably helped to drive him away.”

Justin tried to hide his disgust. The man had had it all…a gorgeous wife, a new daughter, an incredible piece of property. And yet he had abandoned them and made her feel like it was her fault. But none of this answered the question of why he'd ended up in a field with a big hole in his head.

“If the vineyard was near bankruptcy, how do you think Mark was supporting himself? Did he have a lot of credit cards?”

She shook her head. “Mark refused to carry a credit card. He preferred cash. He said cash made a man look wealthy.”

“So where do you think the money was coming from?”

“When we first got married, he told me he had a trust fund. He never mentioned it again, and I haven't found anything to confirm or deny that it existed.”

“Did you ever file an official missing-persons report?”

“I did, but I don't know if it ever made it past the sheriff's desk. He knew Mark wasn't happy at home. It's a small town. Everyone knows everyone else's business…except for me, apparently. He thought Mark would show up sooner or later.”

“Well, he has,” Justin commented wryly.

Lori refilled her glass, more generously this time, and took a drink.

Justin could see she was running everything through her mind, trying to process all the information he'd thrown at her. He figured it would be a good time to drop the final bomb. He stood so he could reach into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag, which he opened. After dumping the contents onto his open palm, Justin leaned forward and put the diamond ring on the coffee table in front of Lori.

“Recognize this?”

From her widened eyes and the sudden blanching of her skin, he had his answer even before she shook her head.

“It's not mine.” She reached out, then decided not to touch the elaborate, expensive engagement ring. “I've never seen it before.”

“You're sure? Could it have been a surprise for you?”

She held out her left hand to show that she was wearing a very nice wedding set with a large cushion-cut center stone and a row of smaller diamonds curling around the two bands like grapevines. “I can't imagine why he would give me another engagement ring when I already have this one.”

“You're still wearing it after all these years?” he couldn't resist asking. Had she been holding out hope that Mark would someday come home? Would she have welcomed him back in her life after all he had done? Somehow she didn't seem like a woman who would accept sloppy seconds.

Of course, there was also the option that she had known all along that he was dead, but she continued to wear the rings to throw off any suspicion. Maybe she was playing the wronged woman to the hilt. And now she could add grieving widow to her repertoire.

But if it wasn't her, then who?

She was clearly still distracted by the ring, so he knew it was a good time to get an honest response from her. “So, who do you think killed Mark?”

It was the first time he had stated the reality of Mark's death so bluntly, and he saw that she moved backward as if it had been a physical blow.

She tucked one side of her hair behind her ear, disheveling her otherwise perfect appearance. Justin saw it as a show of how rattled she was by that question.

“No one. Anyone.” She held up her hands in a show of frustration. “Everyone liked Mark…as long as he was buying the drinks. But he could have owed someone money. He liked to gamble. Or it could have been a jealous husband. Or even a robbery gone wrong. Maybe he stumbled on an intruder or…” The words had tumbled out but trailed off as if she had run out of possibilities. Suddenly, her gaze locked on his. “I didn't kill him, if that's what you're implying.”

They all said that. No matter how much blood was dripping off their hands, they always said they didn't do it. “I wasn't implying anything,” he assured her sincerely. “I always ask. It's good to know if the victim had any enemies we should consider as suspects.” He picked up the ring, dropped it back into the plastic bag, and sealed the top before standing and putting it back into his slacks pocket. He took a business card out of the top pocket of his shirt and held it out to her.

“I'm sure you'll want to break the news to your daughter and the staff. As our investigation progresses, you'll be called down to our offices to make an official statement. My personal cellphone number is on the card. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions of if you remember something important.”

Lori stood and took the card. She was holding it together well, and Justin couldn't read anything on her face. “I'll walk out with you,” she offered.

That left Justin no option but to follow her back through the winery. But instead of taking him into the tasting building, she led the way along a rose-lined path to a lattice archway covered in vines that were dripping with purple flowers. She stopped there and nodded toward the driveway, where his vehicle was the last one remaining. “Thank you for letting me know.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.” The words were automatic. Justin's own feelings were conflicted and confused. He now knew a lot more of the story…at least the parts she wanted him to know. But how much of it was true? Had she found out about the other woman and bashed him over the head with a bottle of wine? It was all very Hitchcockian, and Lori was the cool, blond beauty that the famous director had always cast in the role of murderer.

As Justin walked toward his SUV, he knew that Lori had had every reason in the world to get rid of the bum. But for some inexplicable reason, Justin desperately hoped she was innocent.

He must be getting soft. If she was a killer, she deserved whatever punishment she got. It wasn't likely there would be enough evidence for her to get the death penalty. But she would never survive in prison.

As soon as he climbed into his Explorer and turned on the engine, a blast of hot air hit him in the face, effectively bringing him to his senses.
You're a Texas Ranger.
His first and foremost responsibility was justice. He couldn't let his personal feelings affect his judgment. He glanced back at the big stone building, where a man on a ladder was taking down the festival sign.

Look out, Lori Roberts. Justin was going to find out the truth…no matter how painful. He shifted into gear as the air from the vents started to turn cool and headed back toward sanity.