Home Before Midnight (12 page)
Read Home Before Midnight Online
Authors: Virginia Kantra
Tags: #Contemporary Romance, #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #epub, #Fiction
“I could do that,” he allowed, finally. “If you’d wait in your car a minute . . .”
Bailey waited, palms sweating and heart racing, while Officer Lewis spoke into his cell phone. The street was quiet. No chugging lawnmowers, no barking dogs, no curtains twitching at the windows.
She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She didn’t even want to go into the house. She was simply doing her job.
Her skin felt clammy. Like Helen’s skin. Bailey shivered, cold despite the heat that lay like a wet wool blanket over everything.
That’s my girl . . . You’re amazing
.
.
The young officer approached the car and bent down to her window. “All right, ma’am. Chief said it would be okay to let you get Mr. Ellis’s pills. But I’ll have to accompany you into the house.”
“That’s fine. That’s great.” Maybe once they were inside she could persuade him to let her take Paul’s suit as well.
Unpeeling herself from the damp upholstery, she sidled from the car. “This will only take a minute,” she promised. “Five, tops.”
But it was closer to twenty minutes later when they left the house, Bailey’s vision half-obscured by the pile of absolutely essential items in her arms. With her purse on her shoulder and her keys in her teeth, she turned to lock the door behind them.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Her heart leaped into her throat.
SIX
M
ACON Reynolds III stepped outside the 1930s clap-board house that sheltered the law offices of Pierce and Reynolds, glancing up at the sky. The sun was shining, he had a nine o’clock tee time tomorrow, and all was right with his world.
ACON Reynolds III stepped outside the 1930s clap-board house that sheltered the law offices of Pierce and Reynolds, glancing up at the sky. The sun was shining, he had a nine o’clock tee time tomorrow, and all was right with his world.
He strolled the cracked sidewalk in the direction of the two-block center of town. An unusual number of cars crowded the parking lot of the Do Drop—was that a Channel 5 news van?—but for the most part, the streets were quiet. Flags hung limply from front porches. Orange ditch lilies bloomed by the side of the road. Cannonballs rusted in a pile by the courthouse steps. God, he loved this town.
Oh, he’d been wild enough to leave once, he remembered, bored with high school and hot to conquer the world beyond its borders. But he’d felt adrift in the unfamiliar waters of the big state campus, despite its ready access to college bars and fresh pussy. He’d done what was expected of him, of course, finished his four years at Carolina and then struggled through law school. Grades didn’t matter. His place in his father’s firm was settled before he was out of diapers. So he’d passed the bar and come home to this backwater town, where he’d always be one of the biggest fish around.
Macon rounded the corner to the diner. After he’d made partner and then councilman, his old man had been after him to run for the state senate, but Macon suspected mayor would suit him better. The mayor had real power in this town, more than any rookie legislator in Raleigh, more than any party politico, more than the chief of police, even.
Macon smiled at his reflection in the diner’s glass door: only thirty-six years old, trim and still handsome, with affable blue eyes and blond hair kept short by regular visits to Buddy’s Barber Shop.
Mayor Reynolds.
It was just a matter of time.
Mayor Reynolds.
It was just a matter of time.
“Hey, Macon.”
“Howdy, Mr. Reynolds.”
He nodded to the regulars in ball caps and Wrangler jeans chatting at the counter, accepting their greetings as his due as he slid into his booth by the cash register. The lunch buffet was closed, of course, but there was still time for a cup of coffee, plenty of time to see and be seen.
Charlene, wearing a hair net and a polyester dress that had been in style in his daddy’s day, brought him his coffee without being asked. “Slice of pie, Macon? Or we got a nice banana pudding left from lunch.”
He patted his flat stomach. “Just coffee today, honey. Can’t spoil my appetite, or Marylou will have my hide.”
Marylou wasn’t likely to give a damn. His wife didn’t cook. Hell, they barely spoke anymore. The two kids shuttled between piano lessons and soccer practice while Marylou put in her time with the Junior League, the PTA, the Ladies’ Guild and the tennis pro. For all he knew, she was putting out for her tennis instructor, too, between lessons, on her back behind the clubhouse locker room. But she’d be waiting when Macon got home. Marylou understood the importance of keeping up appearances. That’s why he’d married her.
Charlene dipped into her apron pocket for two creams. “Terrible thing about poor Helen Stokes.”
Macon nodded seriously, like he cared. It wouldn’t do to seem indifferent toward a client, and Helen, with her waxed snatch and catty tongue, had at least been entertaining. “She sure will be missed,” he said, which was a lie, but in Stokesville you didn’t speak ill of the dead. Particularly not when the dead were named Stokes.
Charlene set her coffeepot on the table. “I hear her own son isn’t coming to her funeral.”
Did the stricture against speaking ill of the dead apply to their children? Macon thought not. “That boy was always trouble.”
Drugs, he’d heard. Thank God his children weren’t inclined that way. There must be bad blood in the Stokes family somewhere.
“Did she . . . You know.” Charlene leaned over the table, smelling of breath mints and fried okra. “Disinherit him?”
“Oh, no.” Macon was genuinely shocked at the notion of leaving money outside the family. “Old Jackson made sure of that. His estate goes to the children. With conditions, of course.”
“What about that husband of hers? The writer.”
The Yankee.
Macon shrugged. “He’s provided for.”
And handsomely, too. As part of her prenup, Helen had taken out a four-million-dollar life insurance policy designed to keep Paul Ellis in comfort for the rest of his natural life . . . or until he remarried.
“Well, that’s good.” Charlene shifted her weight in her orthopedic shoes. “I just love his books.”
Macon grunted, losing interest.
“I think it’s so exciting he’s setting the next one here.” Charlene chattered on, oblivious. Macon raised his cup, hoping she’d take the hint and leave. “Wouldn’t it be something if the police really did make a mistake in the Dawler trial.”
Hot coffee scalded Macon’s tongue. He swallowed. “What are you talking about?”
Charlene looked surprised. “That’s what he does. In his books. He takes these real famous cases and he shows where the police went wrong.”
“Paul Ellis is writing a book about the Dawler murders,” Macon said carefully. Son of a
bitch
.
bitch
.
Charlene nodded.
“But Billy Ray confessed.”
“Well, I know he did. But it’s interesting, don’t you think? My cousin Clayton—he’s a deputy over in Guilford—told me Paul Ellis has been in three times to visit Billy Ray.”
Panic skittered in Macon’s chest like a mouse behind the baseboards. He willed himself to stay calm. It didn’t mean anything. Charlene was a silly bitch and Billy Ray Dawler was a moron.
“Sure you won’t have that pie?” Charlene asked.
“No, thank you, Charlene.” He gave her his good-old-boy smile. “Got to save room for dinner.”
Any appetite he’d had was gone.
STEVE’S head pounded as he watched Bailey back out the front door of Paul Ellis’s house: her pale, narrow feet in black flip-flops, her pale, narrow back exposed by black drawstring pants riding low on her hips. His blood pressure rose.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She didn’t scream. Too bad. She flinched once like a startled cat, and something—a man’s black dress shoe—tumbled and bounced on the porch.
Her shoulders squared. Turning, she smiled at him ruefully over an armload of clothes. “We have got to stop meeting like this.”
Steve stared stonily back. “You mean, at crime scenes?”
Bailey’s smile faded. “I meant you have a habit of sneaking up behind me.”
“I don’t sneak. But apparently you do.”
Her chin lifted a notch. “Oh, right, because anytime I plan on committing nefarious acts under a cloak of secrecy I call Chief Clegg and request a police escort. What are you doing here?”
Steve didn’t answer. He had no authority to stop her from going into the house. He knew it, and from her attitude she knew it, too.
Her gaze cut to Lewis, standing beside her on the porch. “You called him, didn’t you?”
Lewis bent to pick up the shoe. When he straightened, not only his ears but his whole face was red.
“Officer Lewis felt I should know about any attempts to remove evidence from a crime scene,” Steve said.
Bailey sighed. “You’re angry.”
“I am not angry.” He bit the words out.
He was deeply, coldly furious. With Walt, for failing to keep him in the loop. With Ellis, for forcing him to tip his hand. With Bailey, for going behind his back to contaminate the scene and incriminate herself.
And with himself, for caring. The vise tightened around his head.
“Look, I’m sorry I interrupted your date,” Bailey said.
He ignored her apology. His “date” was sitting in the front of his air-conditioned pickup nursing a large tub of popcorn and an even bigger attitude.
Compartmentalize. Depersonalize. Detach
.
.
He had hoped to keep the investigation neutral. As long as he treated Ellis as a victim, there was still a chance the writer would cooperate. But no way could he let Bailey leave the crime scene with an armload of Ellis’s clothes.
He was already too late to prevent the folds from rubbing together. But maybe whatever blood was on them had dried. Maybe there was no blood.
Steve’s jaw clenched. Yeah, and maybe there was a Santa Claus.
He nodded toward the bundle in Bailey’s arms. “What have you got there?”
“Medicine,” she answered promptly. “Paul forgot to pack his prescription last night, and I stopped by to pick it up.”
“Medicine.” Not a question. A challenge.
“In my purse.”
He ran his fingers lightly under the strap at her shoulder, observing the slight widening of her eyes. “This purse?”
She nodded, speechless.
“May I?” he murmured.
Without waiting for her reply, he slid the bag down, his fingers brushing the crook of her elbow, the inside of her wrist. He kept his touch impersonal as he maneuvered the strap under Paul’s clothes and over her arm. But he was close enough to hear the faint catch of her breath. To notice the baby-fine texture of her skin. To
smell
her.
smell
her.
Shit
. He took a step back.
. He took a step back.
“Do you mind?” His hand paused on the zipper.
She shrugged. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
He wished he could believe her.
He withdrew the brown prescription bottle with two fingers. “This it?”
She eyed him warily, as if she expected him to bust her for drug possession. But she said, “Yes.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In Paul’s medicine cabinet. Why?”
“Did Officer Lewis see you take it from the cabinet?”
She glanced uncertainly at Lewis, red and stoic beside them. “I guess so. He was standing right there.”
“Lewis? You confirm you observed Ms. Wells remove this bottle from Ellis’s medicine cabinet?”
“Yes, sir.”
Now things got dicey.
“Is it okay if I take these for analysis?” Steve asked. He watched her draw a breath, the objection forming on her lips and in her eyes, and added, “Just one.”
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