Deadly Ties (14 page)

Nora had a point, Mark conceded. “Fair, I suppose, and erring on the side of caution.”

“Absolutely.” Nora nodded.

He glanced from person to person, surveying them all. Everyone agreed. Because they were struggling to be fair, he addressed his hunch. “What else is going on here?”

“I don’t know.” Ben answered first. “But something.” He swung his gaze to Kelly.

“No idea, but I feel it too.”

Nora faced Mark. “Karl Masson is still out there, and you can bet he ain’t forgetting a thing.”

Mark rubbed his neck. “Masson would come after Kelly, not Annie. He and Annie don’t connect.” This leap from Annie to NINA didn’t make sense.

“Maybe he don’t, my boy, but maybe he does,” Nora said. “I think you and your spy friends need to be finding out for sure.”

Surprise streaked up Mark’s back, lifted the hair on his neck. “My
what
?”

“Sorry, dearie.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I meant your old team of friends. I don’t know why I said that.”

They all knew Mark had been assigned to Special Operations. They didn’t know—couldn’t know—about his Shadow Watcher assignments. And yet none of them was meeting his eyes.

How had they found out? Mark couldn’t ask, and his glare at Peggy, who was most apt to have discovered the truth through unofficial channels, offered him nothing.

“Pity’s sake.” Flustered, Nora enlightened him. “Remember two years ago when you had the flu and that high, high fever?”

He nodded.

“The church ladies took care of you, if you’ll recall.”

They had for three full days. Well, the last two days Nora and Peggy had, but they were part of the church ladies auxiliary group. Again he nodded.

“When a man’s half out of his mind with the fever, he says things.”

The blood drained from Mark’s face, and he broke out in a cold sweat. “What did I say?”

“Nothing Peggy or I would dare repeat to anyone, including you.” Fire burned in Nora’s eyes. “Never have, never will.”

Treading on dangerous ground—anything said, he’d have to report—he turned the topic back to Annie and Dutch and Lisa. “We don’t know of any connection between NINA and Annie.”

Kelly frowned. “We didn’t know of any connection between Susan and me either until we found one. Just because we don’t know it doesn’t mean a connection isn’t there.”

“So everyone feels there’s more to what’s happening here than Dutch’s coming down on Annie for coming to Lisa’s party.”

“Oh yeah.” Ben loosened his tie.

Kelly nodded emphatically.

“You bet I do, dearie,” Nora said.

Clyde rubbed his neck and muttered, “I reckon so.”

“Definitely.” Peggy nodded to Harvey.

“Yes.” He glanced at Mel.

“Duh, yeah. It’s a no-brainer.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s a creep, but he keeps his dirty work hidden in the dark. You know, like a rat.”

Abusers did typically do that. And Mark knew instinctively it was true about Dutch. The warning inside stretched and yawned, pulsed stronger. What more would be revealed? He didn’t know.

But every honed instinct in his body cautioned that whatever it was, it would be really bad for Annie and Lisa.

10

D
utch sat parked on the street in front of Gregory Chessman’s Seagrove Village estate, confident Karl Masson believed he was nearly to the hotel in Georgia.

Dutch had to watch. He had to see Annie get exactly what she deserved for not doing what he’d told her to do. Oh, he’d heard all about Lisa’s party at Three Gables; everyone in the village was talking about it. And Miss Too-Good-For-Him Lisa hadn’t invited him or her mother to attend. Taking out a restraining order against him. Ignoring her mother like that. He had heard way too much. Then that busybody Peggy Crane had called and told Annie it would mean the world to Lisa for Annie to be there, but Lisa wouldn’t ask because she didn’t want to cause trouble between Annie and Dutch.

Ha! All Lisa Marie Harper had ever caused between Annie and him was trouble.

And that hoity-toity center director, Peggy, sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong all the time. She was just as bad as Lisa, if not worse.

He’d seen the battle going on inside Annie since Peggy called, and he knew she would crack. He’d warned her. Specifically told her not to leave the house. If she’d listened to him, she’d have been fine. But did she listen to him?
Noooo
.

That’d teach her to defy him. She got exactly what she deserved. If she lived, she lived. If she died, she died. And that snooty daughter of hers would still get what she had coming.

Dutch gripped the steering wheel and stared through the darkness up at the streetlight-silhouetted mansion.

Once Chessman had been the most respected philanthropist in all of Seagrove Village. He built a wing on the hospital, contributed to every charity within fifty miles, and he’d even stood in for the absent mayor at groundbreaking ceremonies. Then Chessman had gotten sloppy, and now he was in jail and soon to be convicted on more than thirty counts, including smuggling terrorists into the country. Even worse for him, a situation far more dangerous than treason had also been revealed: Gregory Chessman was a NINA frontman.

He and Dutch had a lot in common.

Until the truth came out, Dutch had envied Chessman. He had been respected, welcomed into all the best homes by all the best people. Dutch had been tolerated by some people in some of those homes but only after he married Annie. Before then, he hadn’t been welcome anywhere in the village.

Yet that was then and this was now. And now, Dutch wanted Chessman’s house.

The federal government had seized all of Chessman’s assets, but some flaky Florida homestead law had the house tied up. Dutch wasn’t sure exactly how all that worked, but word from his Realtor was Chessman intended to sell the place to raise money for attorney’s fees. The minute the house landed on the market, Dutch’s Realtor would put in an offer and let him know. Then he would own it.

And finally, after all these years, he could move out of the house that belonged to the good doctor and Annie and into the home where Dutch belonged. Oh, not the way the home was now with weeds peppering the lawn and encroaching on the cobbled sidewalk, the bushes all spiky and untrimmed, but manicured and as perfect as it had been when Chessman lived there.

If Annie survived and they lived in this house, maybe then she could respect him the way she did the good doctor. Crazy woman loved Charles Harper more dead than she did Dutch alive. Maybe if she saw him as rich and powerful and a do-gooder—Annie liked that—then she wouldn’t resent being married to him so much. Maybe he’d even go inactive with NINA, actually try being the kind of man everyone thought Chessman had been. Annie had respected Chessman, and she’d taken his fall from grace pretty hard.

Dutch stared longingly through the windshield to the estate. If he did all that, then maybe she could love him.

Someone rapped on his passenger window.

Startled, Dutch jumped.

A man in his midsixties backed up and lifted his hands. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to catch you unaware.”

Terrific. He’d been spotted. If Masson caught wind of this, he would have a cow. But the old man seemed harmless enough, wearing a baseball cap with the Seagrove Harbor emblem on it, jeans, and boat shoes. He was a local. Dutch could handle him. He tapped a button and the window slid down.

“You need help or something?” the man asked, his voice gruff.

“Heard the house is for sale. Just looking.”

“In the dark?”

It was after eleven o’clock at night. The man had a valid point and reason to be wary. “I’ve seen it in the daylight. Haven’t seen it in the dark.” No sense lying about it. The man didn’t come across as well-off enough to live here, but people dressed relaxed in Florida. You couldn’t tell a thing about them by their clothes. “I’ve always liked it.”

“Yeah, she’s a beauty—or she will be once I get her whipped back into shape.”

“Yours?”

“No sir. When the economy hit the skids, it took everything I had with it.” The man’s smile faded. “Name’s Tack Grady. I had a mom-and-pop diner down by the harbor.”

“Tack’s.” Dutch recalled the hole-in-the-wall place. A lot of local honchos met there for breakfast on weekdays.

His face brightened. “You remember it?”

“Sure. Used to come in pretty often. I wondered what happened to you.”

“Lost it all when the economy tanked. Now I’m a caretaker here for the new owner.” He shrugged. “It’s a living.”

“There’s a new owner?” Dutch’s heart sank. “Gregory Chessman sold the place?”

“Not exactly.” Grady’s disdain shone on his face. “He lost the tangle with the government. It got control about a week ago and sold it to a widow lady.”

“A widow lady?” Some widow bought Dutch’s dream house?

The man nodded. “She owns a lot of property around here.”

The only woman who owned a lot of property in the village was in jail. “Who is she?” He couldn’t be talking about—

“Darla Green. She used to be married to the mayor, before she got accused of killing him.” Tack Grady crossed himself. “May the good Lord spare his soul and he rest in peace.”

Darla Green
. Dutch couldn’t believe it. “I read about that in the paper.” Why would she buy Chessman’s house?
Accused
of killing Mayor Green? “I thought she was in jail for his murder?”

“She was.” Tack lifted his cap, then swiped his brow with his forearm. “Turns out she didn’t do anything wrong.”

That was crazy. She’d killed him; Dutch and Masson had talked about it. What was going on here? “I hadn’t heard.”

“It hit the papers today. I’ve known about it for a few days because I hired on.” He hooked a thumb toward the house.

“It’s hard to believe she got off. Thought they’d nailed her.” Dutch grunted. “You’re sure about this?”

“Sure as sundown. About two weeks ago, Paul Johnson—he used to work here for Gregory Chessman—confessed. Said she was innocent all the way around and she didn’t know anything. The mayor and he put the deal together, and then Johnson got rid of the mayor himself.”

“Now why did he admit that?” Surely no one was foolish enough to believe Johnson. Darla was up to her eyeballs in everything, including John Green’s murder. John was the innocent one. Poor slob didn’t have a clue anything was going on—which is exactly what happened when a man didn’t keep a tight rein on his wife.

“Johnson said prison was hard. Too much time to think. He needed to clear his conscience.”

Paul Johnson had no conscience. “This is all fact—her release and buying the house?”

“Far as I know. The Realtor hired me to spiffy up the place and maintain it. Johnson’s confession was on the news last night. Heard it myself.”

“So Darla’s been released?”

“Not yet.” Tack swatted at a mosquito buzzing his face. “Paperwork. The Realtor says her lawyer’s bringing her home in the morning, which is why I’m out here cleaning up the front yard tonight.” He checked to make sure no one else was around.

The street was empty.

Tack stepped closer to the car. “Megan over at Ruby’s Diner told me Hank’s having a fit.”

“Hank?”

“The coroner, Mayor Green’s brother. He comes into Ruby’s for coffee every morning.”

“What’s ticked him off? If she’s innocent, you’d think he’d be glad to know it.”

“They never did get along. He says there’s no way John did anything wrong; it had to be her. But what he’s upset about is John’s boy.”

Hank was right about his brother. What was John and Darla’s son’s name? That’s right. “Lance is in high school now, isn’t he?”

“Basketball player. A good one. He don’t want to go back to live with his mother, but she’s insisting. Everyone down at Ruby’s figures they’ll end up in court.”

At Lance’s age, a judge wouldn’t make him go with his mother if he didn’t want to—well, maybe he wouldn’t. Darla being deemed innocent might make the judge insist the boy give her a chance. Lance Green probably knew his mother killed his father, and she scared him out of his socks. “Sounds like he blames her for his dad’s death anyway.”

“I figure he must.” Tack nodded. “Can’t blame the boy. A grown man gets something like that in his mind and it’s hard to let go. He’s a kid, and I figure it’s settled in.”

Dutch chewed at his inner lip. “Yeah, word is Lance and John were tight.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well, I hope it works out for the boy. He’s been through a lot.” Dutch didn’t give a flying fig whether or not it worked out, but some social conventions were necessary evils. Wouldn’t do to let word get out at Ruby’s Diner that he didn’t care, should Tack at some point recognize him. Everyone in the village would know it by dark the same day.

So Darla Green was getting out of jail. There could only be one reason. NINA bought her out. Couldn’t happen any other way. Dutch bet it cost them a fortune, so the honchos surely had a specific reason for doing it. He smiled. Whatever they had paid, it would cost Darla double. Hers would be the forever-after kind of fortune. That was NINA’s way—and it served her right for buying Dutch’s house out from under him.

“Glad she’s been cleared,” Dutch told the man. “Awful, being accused of something you didn’t do.”

“Frankly, most folks at Ruby’s never thought she had the smarts to do what they said she’d done, so they were more surprised to hear she had than to learn now she hadn’t.”

She was good. Really good. Her trophy-wife persona had served her well. Even Chessman used to call her an airhead. At least, he had until he discovered she’d outwitted him. Dutch smiled. “Well, thanks for the info, Tack. Guess I can forget about the place now.”

“Sure.” Tack backed away. “You have a good night, er—”

Dutch thought fast. He’d be remembered if he just took off. “Mark. Mark Taylor.”

Might as well set up the jerk for a little grief. He’d brought Dutch plenty.

“Night, Mark. Enjoyed talking with you.”

“Same here.” With a nod, Dutch drove around the circle at the base of the cul-de-sac and then headed out of the neighborhood. It was past time for him to get to Georgia.

What exactly was NINA up to with Darla Green? Dutch braked for a red light, then took Highway 331 and headed north. Maybe when he talked to Masson, he’d ask him about it.

Odds were good he knew.

They were also good he would pretend he didn’t.

Either way, Dutch would find out. One way or another he was going to get that house.

If Annie was dead, he could marry Darla for it. Possible, but the woman was too independent and too crafty. He’d have to watch his back for her attacks the rest of his life.

Not interested in that, he sought another solution and found one. Maybe he’d just have her killed and buy the house off her estate. Far less messy, though he’d have to keep NINA in the dark about it. She owed them and now they owned her. She wasn’t any good to them dead.

Dutch braked at a stop sign, then hung a left. That wasn’t much of a problem. People taking on hits were a dime a dozen. Annie wouldn’t be happy about moving, but after getting the stuffing knocked out of her, she’d do as she was told.