Dead Right (4 page)

“Fine. I’l need the first five thousand as a retainer.”

She bit her lip. That alone would wipe out her checking account and leave her short on next month’s bil s. The paper was a labor of love but hardly a fabulous living. “How long do you think the…investigation wil take?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “How committed are you to finding your father?”

She winced at the staggering financial implications. If Mr. Solozano stayed for a month, it’d cost her upward of $20,000. And that was taking weekends off.

But she’d tried everything else. This felt like her only hope. “More committed than I’ve ever been to anything.”

“Fine. I’l be there on Thursday.”

She gulped. “So soon?”

“You’re in luck. I was planning a vacation that fel through.”

In luck?
At one thousand dol ars a day, plus expenses?

“Um…just to clarify, your expenses would include what exactly? Airfare and hotel?”

“As wel as a rental car, meals, any specialized tests we might need to run on the evidence I find, stuff like that.”

“I see.” The list could get long. And with his salary, the incidental expenses would be the least of her problems. But he sounded so confident when he mentioned evidence.

“Wil you be making my hotel reservations or shal I?” he asked.

Transferring the phone from one hand to the other, Madeline wiped her palms, which had grown clammy, on her sweatpants. “I was thinking…I mean I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

She scowled at the impatience in his voice. “Is there any way we could cut corners a bit?”

“Cut corners?” he repeated suspiciously.

“I have a guesthouse. I thought maybe you could stay there. It’d be quiet,” she added. “I live alone.”

“And what wil I drive?”

“My car.”

“And you’l drive…”

“My stepbrother wil let me borrow a truck from the farm.

It might not look like much after hauling dirt and feed and who knows what else, but he’s always got an extra.”

Hunter didn’t seem to mind staying in her guesthouse and driving her car, because he agreed right away. “That’s fine. Does that mean you’re picking me up at the airport?”

If she played chauffeur, they’d be able to talk while she drove. Then he could start his investigation the moment he reached Stil water. Saving whatever money she could seemed prudent, especial y since she wasn’t sure hiring him would make any difference in the end. Would he find evidence everyone else had missed? Or would he be as ineffectual as the police?

Maybe she was bankrupting herself for nothing, for a hunger that could never be satisfied….

“Ms. Barker?”

She swal owed to ease a particularly dry mouth. “I’l pick you up. Fly into Nashvil e, okay?”

“It’s closer than Jackson?”

“By two hours.”

“Okay. I’l make my travel arrangements over the Internet and cal you in the morning.”

“Fine.” She pretended to be as businesslike as he was.

But when she hung up, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the phone.

“What have I done?” she breathed.

3

“Y
ou’ve done
what?
” Grace asked.

Madeline held the phone to her shoulder as she rinsed her coffee cup and placed it in the dishwasher. Morning had come too soon. After a restless night, her eyes stung with fatigue. It didn’t help that the coffee she’d drunk to get her going churned sourly in her otherwise empty stomach. “I hired a private investigator.”

There was a momentary silence. “You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“From where?”

“California.”

“But…it’s been so many years since Dad went missing, Maddy.”

“I know. That’s why I did it.” Sophie fol owed her as she hurried to the bathroom. She needed to finish her hair and makeup and head over to the office. She couldn’t avoid work this morning. She would sit down and write the article she should’ve written yesterday—and she’d finish it before the paper had to go to press. Maybe her resolve had come a little late, but she was Stil water’s only official reporter.

She’d reveal the unbiased details of the Cadil ac’s discovery, regardless of her personal connection.

“But Al ie used to be a cold case detective,” Grace said.

“If she couldn’t find anything, aren’t you afraid hiring someone else wil be a waste of time and money?”

Madeline didn’t want to talk about Al ie—not with Grace.

Once Al ie had begun to feel romantic interest in Clay, she’d no longer seemed ful y committed to the investigation. Had she been afraid of what she might find if she real y looked? Considering what everyone else believed, probably. Madeline doubted Al ie was stil worried about that now that she knew Clay as wel as she did. But they both seemed determined to move forward and not dwel on the past.

They
could
move forward, Madeline thought. They didn’t feel the same responsibility to Lee Barker that she did.

Al ie’s father had had his own problems before he moved away, problems that had included an affair with Irene. But Chief McCormick was stil part of Al ie’s life. How could Al ie understand what it would be like not to know where he was or even whether he was alive? And Clay had only lived with Lee for three years.

“Before she could dig too deep, her father fired her for taking Clay’s side,” Madeline said, trying to smooth over the issue. If she started pointing fingers at others for not doing enough, she knew Grace would feel guilty by association. And Grace had always had her own demons to deal with. It wasn’t until she came home eighteen months ago that she’d had much of a relationship with her family.

Before that, she’d been emotional y remote and completely immersed in her work as an assistant district attorney in Jackson.

The past had been difficult for them al .

“She would’ve continued to dig,” Grace said. “She just didn’t find anything that gave her any indication of where Dad might’ve gone.”

“Or who might’ve harmed him,” Madeline added.

“Or who might’ve harmed him,” she conceded.

Madeline pul ed her hair back so she could apply concealer to the dark circles that came from a week’s worth of restless nights. “It’s something I’ve got to do.”

“This might not solve anything,” Grace said again.

“I know, but seeing the Cadil ac lifted out of the quarry made me sick.” She paused, her hand on the blush she was going to apply next. “I felt as if I’ve let my father down by not doing more. I’ve let myself down, too. Even you and Clay, Grace. They almost prosecuted Clay last summer, for
murder.
”

“I don’t think they’l go after him again,” Grace argued.

“Last year, it was political pressure that caused al the trouble. The Vincel is have backed off since then.”

“My aunt and uncle, maybe. Not my cousins. You saw them at the quarry.”

“Joe and Roger are vultures. We’re safe as long as we’re stil moving.”

“They have a lot of powerful friends.”

“But there’s no solid evidence. There never has been.

Clay’s innocent.”

Finished with the blush, Madeline smeared some brown eye shadow on her eyelids. “The car’s going to stir it al up again,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s better to get to the bottom of what happened?”

The silence stretched, and a few seconds became half a minute.

“Is something wrong?” Madeline final y asked.

“No, of course not,” Grace said. “Believe me, I’d like to know what happened, too. But not at any cost.”

“We’re talking about dol ars. What are dol ars compared to peace of mind?” Dropping the eye shadow into her makeup bag, Madeline dug around for her mascara.

“Can you real y afford him?” There was concern in Grace’s voice.

“I’l keep him on as long as I can.” Madeline heard a clock ticking somewhere in her subconscious, and it made her frantic. She only hoped Hunter found her some answers before she had a nervous breakdown or was living out on the street.

“Do you need help with his bil ?”

It was a generous offer. But Madeline didn’t expect her stepsister to finance an investigation she couldn’t welcome.

Mr. Solozano would, in al likelihood, focus on Grace and the mother and brother she loved so dearly—at least in the beginning, before he got beyond the circumstantial evidence that led everyone else to blame the Montgomerys.

“No. But thanks.” She glanced at her watch. It was nearly nine. “I’d better go.”

“Maybe you should discuss this with Clay,” Grace said.

“I’m sure Mr. Solozano has already purchased his plane ticket.”

“Where wil he be staying?”

“Here, in the guest house.”

“You don’t even know him! Is that a good idea?”

“It’l be fine,” Madeline said.

“What’s wrong with having him stay at the Blue Ribbon Motel?”

“He’s from L.A.”

“So?”

Madeline wasn’t about to stick Hunter Solozano in the aging motel located next to a trailer park of ramshackle mobile homes. Besides giving him something else to look down his nose at, it’d cost her more money, and Madeline sort of liked the idea of having her P.I. so close. Then she could be sure he was working and not watching pay-per-view at her expense. “He comes highly recommended.”

“Maddy—”

“After I meet him, if I think there’s any threat, I’l make some adjustments,” she interrupted.

“O-kay,” Grace said, but her reluctance was evident in the way she drew out the word. “And you real y think this guy wil make a difference?”

“I’m sure of it. Talk to you later.” As Madeline disconnected, she realized that she was putting an inordinate amount of trust in Hunter. She could be setting herself up for a big disappointment. But every investigator who’d recommended him had done so in the most glowing terms. And she needed to believe he would bring her resolution at last.

It was odd, though. Even thoughts of ultimate success made Madeline nervous. She supposed, deep down, she was more terrified of the truth than she’d ever wanted to admit. Even to herself. She knew almost everyone in town, so chances were good she’d also know her father’s murderer.

Clay stared out his kitchen window at the barn where it had al started. The sun peeked from behind the clouds, giving the hulking structure a long, ominous shadow that stretched across the yard, reaching almost to the chicken coop.

Unfortunately, the shadow of the man they’d buried behind it stretched even farther. Clay had been only sixteen the night everything went wrong. Yet those events continued to haunt him.

Twenty damn years…And he knew that what had happened would stil bother him after
sixty
years.

Shaking his head, he let his eyes shift to the front of the barn. After his sisters had left for col ege and his mother had moved to town, he’d converted the stables that had once housed the reverend’s mean horse and a couple of boarder horses into a large open area where he could restore antique cars. But the section that had once been Lee Barker’s office sat dark and empty. Clay had no plans to use that space; he never even went in there. It evoked too many memories of the man he hated more than he’d ever hated anyone.

Clay clenched his jaw as he imagined his stepfather standing at the window of that office, watching careful y to be sure the farm chores were done to his specifications.

Once Irene had married the reverend, Clay had become little more than a slave. But what Barker had done to Grace was far worse….

“You’re never inside this time of day. What’s wrong?”

Turning, Clay saw his wife come into the room. He’d been expecting her. She helped out at their daughter’s school every Tuesday but was usual y back by noon.

“Grace cal ed,” he said, his gaze lingering on her as it always did. Just looking at Al ie’s wide brown eyes, smooth complexion and ready smile soothed him.

Only she wasn’t smiling now. He could tel by the way she put her purse on the counter and tucked her dark hair behind her ears that she was bracing for the worst. Ever since they’d heard that the Cadil ac had been found, they’d been expecting bad news. “What’s happening?” she asked. “Did the police turn up some piece of evidence or

—”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

Her eyebrows knitted, creasing her forehead. “Then what?”

He wished he didn’t have to burden her with the worries he faced. He was used to shouldering them on his own. In some ways, he preferred it. She wasn’t part of the incident that had defined so much of his life. But when he’d married her, he’d promised he wouldn’t shut her out. From anything, even this. “Madeline’s hired a private investigator.”

She urged him into a kitchen chair where she began to massage his shoulders. “That might not be such a big deal,” she said. “This case is getting so old it’d be tough for anyone to crack. And there aren’t a lot of competent P.I.s out there.”

Clay frowned. “This guy has quite a reputation.”

“How do you know?”

“Grace did some checking. One of the attorneys she used to work with is from California and has used him in the past.”

Her hands stil ed. “So he has a background in criminal investigation?”

“According to what Grace learned, he was original y a cop. He moved into the private sector when he realized he could find just about anything, and that there were folks who’d pay for his skil s.”

“Great,” she said sarcastical y. “So what’s his specialty?

Next you’re going to say men who’ve been missing from smal towns in Mississippi for twenty years.”

Clay rol ed his neck. “Actual y, I think he’s traced more assets than people.”

“So why would he come here?”

“He seems to take on anything that interests him.”

She started to massage again. “We’l get through it,” she murmured.

She said that about every chal enge; her attitude made life easier. “I’m glad I found you,” he said, kissing her hand.

The past didn’t intrude quite so much when Al ie was around. But he knew it’d never go away entirely. That was one of the reasons he’d been so reluctant to get involved with her. It wasn’t fair to bring such a dark secret into a marriage, to burden a spouse with the fear of its discovery or the task of keeping it safe.