B00NRQWAJI (6 page)

I righted the thick stoneware mug sitting in front of me on a paper placemat and freed my flatware from its tightly rolled napkin. A woman with plenty of coppery curls spilling from the clip on the back of her head and a crisp, clean barbeque apron that hinted at curves cuter than mine materialized across from me. She poured me a steaming cup of coffee, scooted a tiny pitcher within my reach. The cream inside looked like the real deal, but it had been too long since I’d seen the good stuff. I added a drop of it to my mug anyway and tasted it.

It was heavenly.

“What can I get you?” the woman asked.

“A slice of that chocolate cake,” I said, though my waistline wouldn’t thank me for it. “And a little information.”

In some small towns, this request could be the kiss of death. The citizenry of tight-knit communities might gabble about one another—but they’d clam up the moment a stranger tried to join the conversation. And in this diner, without a hat on my head advertising farm equipment or a baby in tow, I definitely stood out as a stranger.

My waitress’s scowl confirmed this. “Well, you can have the cake, at any rate.”

She moved down the counter, cut me a thick wedge. Her hands were fast and efficient and I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of the long knife she wielded.

When she slid the slice in front of me, I said, “My name’s Jamie. I’m in Fallowfield because a friend of mine is pretty worried about Eric Wentz.”

“Does this friend of yours have a name, too?”

“Yep.” But I’d offered all the information I intended to hand out for free. “Do you?”

“I’m Charlotte Mead,” she replied. “I own the Apple Blossom Café.”

We shook hands over the Formica.

And then she said, “This friend of yours wouldn’t be Adam Barrett, would it?”

Caution flared within me. “Do you know him?”

Charlotte laughed. Her good humor crinkled around her olivine eyes, set something in them alight. And I suspected I’d made a friend.

She said, “Everybody knows Adam. Half the girls at our high school were crazy about him.”

This should’ve come as no surprise. From the moment we’d met, I’d seen the way women reacted to Lieutenant Colonel Adam Barrett. A New Jersey waitress had hurried to touch up her lipstick when Barrett had joined my table unexpectedly. And in a down-and-out town called Webster’s Trench, an overblown gas station cashier had actually drawn him a map to her place while I’d stood at his side. Barrett hadn’t paid these attentions any mind, but at the time, they sure stuck in my craw—and were my first hint I had feelings for him myself.

“So,” Charlotte said, “you’re the one who finally caught him, huh?”

My face flamed. “I wouldn’t say that. I’m just here to help him out.”

Charlotte laughed again, harder this time, and irritation prickled me.

“Adam and Vance McCabe are pretty worried about Eric Wentz,” I persisted. “You probably know Vance and Eric. I understand they went to high school here, too.”

“Yeah.” Charlotte sobered. “Vance has always been something of a space cadet and I’m sorry to say Eric’s been a mess since our senior year. After that horrible night when…Well, I’m sure Adam told you about that. Eric’s worked hard to keep himself together, but going to Afghanistan with the National Guard didn’t help him any.”

But I wouldn’t know.

Because Barrett hadn’t told me a thing about his old school chums or anybody else.

I said, “I’d like to meet Eric. Where can I find him?”

“That’s him. Over there.”

I turned in the direction Charlotte pointed, frowned when all I saw were the young mothers in their banquette. But just beyond them was a blast-from-the-past telephone booth, the likes of which had probably been built in the 1930s. A placard bearing local advertisements complete with telephone numbers was mounted on its door. Large squares promoted a unisex hair salon called the Cut Above, a local lawyer who promised a free initial consultation, and Wentz Realty. A father-son duo with hollow cheeks, blue blazers, and matching maroon neckties offered frozen grins from the posterboard.

I thanked Charlotte for the info, dropped a few bills onto my placemat to cover my coffee and cake, and headed out. According to the advertisement, the Wentz office was near the corner of Madison and Second. And that, I figured, was only a short stroll away.

I set off up the street, the sun warm on my shoulders despite the chilly air stinging my cheeks. It felt good to stretch my legs after driving all night. And it felt better yet to know I was about to see the supposedly suicidal Eric Wentz for myself.

I found Wentz Realty in a towering Queen Anne that had been converted from a family home to an office building long ago. It wasn’t the only house on this block that had been repurposed, and three doors down, in front of a dentist’s office occupying an American Tudor, I spotted a familiar pickup with a patchy paint job the color of squash parked at the curb. Vance McCabe hunkered behind its wheel. Barrett slouched in the passenger seat beside him. The two of them eyeballed Eric’s office like their surveillance was a matter of life or death. I frowned when I saw them, but I wasn’t about to let their presence dissuade me.

A picturesque front porch stretched across the front of the Queen Anne. Lined up beneath the banister, an assortment of pumpkins and gooseneck gourds greeted me as I started up the steps. I’d made it halfway up the flight when someone took hold of my arm.

That someone was Barrett.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Me? I’m going to see a man about a horse. What are you doing here?”

“I want you to leave, Jamie. I’m not kidding, now.”

“Good.” I pried his fingers from my arm. “Because up to this point, I haven’t found your comedy act funny at all.”

I turned my back on him, crossed the porch. To my chagrin, Barrett trailed me like a hound trails a fox. We went inside.

Some contractor had sealed up the original arches that had undoubtedly led to matching parlors and, in their place, had added spiffed-up drywall set with hardwood doors. Brass plaques beside the doors proclaimed the name of the businesses behind them. On my right, the sign promised I could see a certified public accountant.

The one on the left announced Wentz Realty.

I chose door number two.

Behind it, a secretary sat at a reproduction Louis XV desk. The desk’s legs were long and curvy. I wondered if Eric Wentz had noticed the secretary’s legs weren’t bad, either.

She grinned at me and Barrett as if we were a newly married couple coming to buy our first home together. “Good afternoon. How can I help you?”

Before Barrett could open his mouth, I said, “I’d like to see Eric Wentz—if he’s up to seeing me.”

“Of course,” the secretary chirped. “One moment.”

When her manicured hand reached for the phone, Barrett growled in my ear.

“Jamie, you don’t know what you’re walking into—”

I dug my elbow into his ribs as the secretary rose from her seat.

“Follow me, please.”

Gladly, I did. After all, in my experience, suicidal men didn’t usually come to work in their converted Queen Annes. They didn’t usually let smiling secretaries shuttle potential clients into their offices, either. Of course, I wasn’t an expert, but the fact that Eric Wentz had told the receptionist he’d meet with me said something about his frame of mind. And that something, to my way of thinking, had to be positive.

When we reached a solid oak door that bore Eric Wentz’s name, the secretary turned us loose with one more sparkling smile and a wave of her hand.

“Just go right in,” she said.

So we did.

For most intents and purposes, the man who rose from his puffy leather desk chair to greet us resembled the Eric Wentz pictured in the advertisement at the Apple Blossom Café. Except in reality, this guy was as tall and thin as a telephone pole. And his skin was so translucent, when he extended a hand to shake mine, I could’ve sworn I could see right through it.

Not that that affected his attitude.

“Hello, hello,” he burbled, stepping from behind his desk. “I bet you saw that Cape Cod on Jackson Street. It’s a new listing and—”

Eric froze when he saw Barrett looming behind me in the doorway.

But in an instant, he came to life again.

“Get out,” he snarled.

“Wait,” Barrett said. “I know you’ve been having a hard time since you got home from Afghanistan. I thought—”

“You thought what? Since I slammed my door in your face last night that you’d just drop by my work and we’d swap war stories?”

“No, I—”

“Afghanistan was a walk in the park compared to what you put me through when we were kids.”

“I know, but—”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Eric spat. “Not now, not ever. So get the hell out of my office!”

Barrett blinked at Eric like a dog that’d been kicked with a steel-toed boot.

I laid a hand on his sleeve. “Come on, Barrett. I’ll drive you home.”

But he didn’t move.

Eric stormed to his desk, grabbed up his phone, and pounded a button or two.

“Mindy, call the sheriff!”

In a flash, Barrett crossed the room to him. He snatched the receiver from Eric’s skinny fingers, dropped it into its cradle. “Eric, I want you to listen to me—”

Eric turned for the bookcase flanking his workstation. He reached behind it. And pulled out a twenty-gauge shotgun.

He brought the gun to his shoulder.

And aimed it—point-blank—at Barrett.

“Whoa!” I yelled.

Eric’s eyes cut to me.

He didn’t lower his weapon, however.

“Jamie, get out of here,” Barrett growled.

I ignored him. “Please, Mr. Wentz, put the gun down.”

Hidden under my suede jacket, my own firearm weighed heavily on my hip. But it wouldn’t do me any good. Not if Eric lost his patience. Not if he blasted Barrett. That was a Smith & Wesson Elite Gold in his grip. The side-by-side barrels were so blue, they were almost black. And if the gun was fully loaded, those barrels each carried a round that could punch hot holes right through Barrett’s heart.

“Lady,” Eric said, “I don’t know who you are, but Adam Barrett isn’t worth your worry.”

“That may be,” I agreed, “but I don’t want to see you do anything you’re going to regret.”

“Regret?” Eric snorted like an angry bull. “What about you, Adam? You got any
regrets
?”

“I do,” Barrett admitted. “Plenty—”

“Well, you’ve got plenty of balls coming here like this.”

Barrett nodded. “I know. But believe me. I’d bring her back, Eric. If I could, I’d bring her back.”

“What else?” Eric shouted. “What else would you do to her, you son of a bitch?”

Without warning, he swung the shotgun—and he fired.

Crack!

The blast’s shock wave hit me full in the chest. And a spray of lead shot hit a small clock on Eric’s desk. It exploded in a shower of brass and glass. But Barrett was still standing. And, though my heart thudded in my throat, so was I.

Eric said, “Don’t you
ever
mention my sister again.”

He dropped the shotgun on the desktop with a thunk. Still, a sick feeling scaled my insides. I didn’t know why.

“Barrett? What’s he talking about? What happened to this man’s sister?”

Barrett wouldn’t answer me. Or he couldn’t. All I know is Eric Wentz did.

“Don’t you know?” he sneered. “Our senior year of high school, Adam raped my sister. She was only fourteen years old.”

Chapter 6

Eric’s announcement struck me with all the force of a ground-to-air missile. Stinging shafts of fear and doubt blew through me to search out my soul. In the blink of an eye, they found it—and tore into it with hot precision.

Without a word, I walked away from Eric Wentz and his shotgun. I walked away from Barrett, too. He didn’t try to stop me as I walked past him and out into the hall.

Mindy, the secretary with the perky smile and attractive legs, was in the corridor. All eyes and ears now, she cowered against the wall, her well-manicured hands clasped beneath her chin.

She spoke to me.

I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

I walked outside. A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. At the curb, two patrol cars pitched to a halt. Luke Rittenhaus burst from one of them. He and three deputies ran past me and into the building.

Vance McCabe jumped from his truck, stumbled up to me. He tried to take hold of my shoulders. I shook him off, kept walking up the street. I couldn’t remember the name of it, but that didn’t matter to me. I didn’t care where I was going—I only knew I couldn’t stay where I’d been.

Eventually, when I’d put some distance between myself and the hustle and bustle at the old Queen Anne, I took a seat on an obliging park bench. I tried to catch my breath. I tried to wrap my head around what Eric had told me, too.

I couldn’t believe the Adam Barrett I’d known for the past seven months would ever sexually assault anyone, let alone a fourteen-year-old girl. I
wouldn’t
believe it. But I knew, by not being open to belief, I could be closing my eyes to the truth—and my integrity wouldn’t allow me to do that.

No, I needed to face reality.

Whatever that reality might be.

So I extracted my iPhone from the inner pocket of my tailored suede jacket and opened the map app. I performed a quick search. And fifteen minutes later, I was climbing the steps of the Fallowfield Public Library.

This local landmark had probably gotten its start as a Carnegie library—if Fallowfield had been one of those small-town beneficiaries of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie’s grant to build repositories of knowledge for the American people at the turn of the twentieth century. The place certainly had the air of the Belle Époque about it. Six carved granite columns spanned the front of the building, supporting stone dentils along a classical roofline. But as interesting as its outside may’ve been, I was chomping at the bit to get to what lay inside.

Pushing my way through the heavy bronze doors, I was instantly comforted by a dignified hush and the rarefied air of dusty books. Here was a font of information. And I desperately needed information.