Justice for Sara (6 page)
Authors: Erica Spindler
Tags: #Contemporary Women, #General, #Romance, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #Fiction
Tuesday, June 4
1:00
P.M.
Kat wanted to talk to Ryan before Luke did, so she headed directly there from the police department. R&B Imports wasn’t the small-scale operation she had expected, but a big, impressively slick one, from the contemporary leather seating in the waiting room to the complimentary beverage center, complete with an espresso machine.
She greeted the blond receptionist. Young, very. Looked bored. Kat smiled. “I was hoping Ryan was in?”
“He is.”
That was it. No smile or offer of help, borderline rude. Kat wondered if Ryan encouraged the attitude as a way of discouraging unwanted visitors or if she was just that clueless.
“Is he available?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Tell him Kat McCall’s here to see him.”
Her expression changed subtly, sharpening with interest. “If this is about your car, one of the mechanics—”
“It’s personal. I think he’ll want to talk to me.”
For a split second, the girl looked as if she might refuse, then she picked up the phone.
Moments later, Ryan met her at the door to his office. He didn’t look happy to see her. Kat acknowledged a perverse pleasure at the thought she might be totally screwing up his day.
He closed the door behind them and faced her. For a long moment, they simply gazed at each other.
She had wondered what he’d look like after all this time. If he’d be as handsome or if he’d have gone soft and begun to lose his hair. She had wondered if she would still respond so forcefully to being near him.
The answer to the first was yes, he was still handsome. Lean and muscular with a full head of dark hair, though he had changed dramatically in other ways. Before, he’d been a young rebel, the quintessential town bad boy. Now his demeanor shouted success, confidence and … caution. The new Ryan Benton cared what people thought.
And the answer to the latter was no—the sexual tug she had felt for him back then was gone. All that remained was a smoldering anger.
“Ballsy move coming here,” he said.
“I grew a pair in the last ten years.”
He released a bark of laughter. “Wild-Kat McCall, all grown up.”
Wild-Kat.
He used to call her that sometimes. She’d liked it. The name had made her feel adult. Like her own person. What a joke.
She swept her gaze contemptuously over him. “Rebellious Ryan Benton, tamed.”
He didn’t like that. “Why’re you here, Kat?”
“Wow. Really? After ten years, that’s it?”
“I don’t know what else you could expect after all this time.”
“I was madly in love with you. I gave you my virginity. Maybe an ‘It’s great to see you’ or a ‘You look great’?”
“You do look great,” he said softly. “But I’m not going to pretend to be happy to see you. You shouldn’t have come here and you shouldn’t have come back to Liberty.”
“And why’s that?”
“Let’s not play games. People haven’t forgotten. And they won’t forgive. Not here.”
“And what about you? Why don’t you want me here?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m a businessman, Kat. This”—he motioned around them—“is how I make a living. People in small towns talk. They judge. I can’t let you damage my reputation.”
Her? Damage his reputation?
That burned. She was the one who had thrown everything away for him. “You sound like a man who has something to hide. Or one who’s a coward. Are you a coward, Ryan? Funny, back then, I thought you were a hero.”
“You were very young.”
She moved farther into the room, crossing to a series of framed certificates on the wall. Several ‘Best of the Northshore’ awards, association memberships, diplomas from the Mercedes training program, a photo of him with a race car driver she didn’t recognize.
She turned back to him. “You’re still in Liberty, still working on cars. I’m surprised. I remember you telling me that was the last thing you wanted to do.” She couldn’t resist the dig, though it brought nothing to the table.
“Overseeing work on cars,” he corrected tightly. “What do you want, Kat?”
“I didn’t kill Sara. But I intend to find out who did.”
“Good luck with that.” He motioned the door. “If you don’t mind, I need to get back to work.”
She didn’t move. “I kept our secret, Ryan. But maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“Big secret. We had a fling. Kids do that.”
He’d taken advantage of her youth. Her vulnerability and need for love. She’d been a piece of ass to him.
She’d finally realized that after she’d been cleared of all charges—and he still hadn’t come for her.
“I sat in jail, day after day, wondering where you were. Why, if you loved me the way you said you did, you didn’t come to see me.”
He averted his gaze. Yes, she decided, a coward. And weak. What had she ever seen in him?
“I thought you’d save me, Ryan.”
She cleared her throat, surprised by the lump of emotion that settled there. She didn’t care anymore. Not about him or how he had hurt her. So why did the memory of that desperate and heartbroken girl still have power over her?
“I worried something had happened to you,” she went on. “Or that you’d found someone else. Did you even think of me and what I was going through?”
His silence was her answer and sudden fury rose up in her. “I’d lost my sister, my only family. Then I was charged, arrested and thrown in jail. Where were you? I had no one. I told myself I had to keep us a secret, to protect you. What were you doing to protect me?”
“I was young, Kat. I—”
“I don’t want to hear about how
you
felt!” She curled her hands into fists, wanting to hit him. “I found her body. That morning I got up and—”
The horror of the memory momentarily choked her. She fought it off. “After a while, I started thinking of the last time we were together. Remember? Two nights before she died. What you said.”
He remembered. She saw it in his eyes. But she wasn’t surprised when he played dumb. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Kat. I am. I was a selfish prick.”
His words rang as true as a tin bell. But an apology, heartfelt or not, wasn’t what she was after. “Not good enough. Tell me you remember that last night we were together.”
“Sorry, none of those days or nights stand out to me. They were all the same.”
“Lucky you, Ryan. Some are burned on my memory.”
“What do you want from me, Kat!” The words exploded from him. “I said I’m sorry. If you hadn’t been so young, you would have recognized me for what I was.”
But was he a murderer? Would she have seen that?
“You’re right. I was an idiot teenage girl. Such an idiot, I was completely loyal to you. You told me if anyone knew about us, we couldn’t be together. So I told no one. Not even my lawyer. My story kept changing because I had to take such a big piece out of it—you.”
His expression tightened. “This trip down Memory Lane’s been real, Kat, but it’s time for you to go.”
She wasn’t going anywhere, not yet. “You know what was really idiotic, Ryan? I was so madly in love, it never even occurred to me that you might have done it. What we talked about. That last time we were together.” She paused. “You suggested we kill her.”
Something dangerous crept into his eyes. He leaned toward her. “You’re mistaken.”
He spoke through clenched teeth, his tone low, menacing. That move might have worked back then, but no more. She held her ground, meeting his gaze evenly. “I thought you were joking, remember? I suggested we push her in front of a bus.”
“You were stoned. So was I.”
“You said you had a plan for us to be together. That I should trust you. What was that plan, Ryan?”
“I had no plan. I just said that so I could keep banging you and keep you from shooting your mouth off. Jail wasn’t an option.” He walked to the door. “Time for you to go.”
She didn’t move. “You talked about killing her. And then she was dead.”
For a split second, as his smoldering gaze landed on hers, she was reminded of the boy he had been all those years ago. And of the dangerous hold he’d had over her.
“Did you kill her, Ryan?”
He didn’t look shocked, or even surprised. But she sensed his panic, the way one animal did another’s. Only this time he was the one in a corner.
And a cornered animal would fight for its survival.
He took a step toward her. “Do not fuck with me, Katherine. You understand? I have a lot to lose and you won’t like what happens.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Hell no, Kat. I didn’t kill her.”
“Luke Tanner’s reopening the case. Expect a visit from him.”
She started for the door, he blocked her exit. “Why would I kill her? Yes, we talked about it that night. We were stupid kids. It was just stupid talk.”
“And then she ended up dead. That’s a crazy coincidence, don’t you think?”
“If this gets out, it’ll incriminate you, too.”
“Double jeopardy, babe. Law says I can’t be tried for the same crime twice.”
This time he didn’t try to stop her exit. Kat stepped out of his office. The receptionist glanced her way.
The petite dark-haired woman she was talking with followed her gaze. “Katherine McCall?” she said. “Oh, my gosh, it is true! You
are
back!”
Kat stopped. “Bitsy?”
Her old friend closed the distance between them to give her a big hug. “I’m so glad to see you! It’s been too, too long.”
Kat smiled and hugged her back. “Other than Jeremy, you’re the first person to say that to me.”
“Well, maybe I just better say it again, then. It’s good to see you.”
The elfin girl had turned into an exotic-looking woman. Short black hair styled into a mass of soft, fat curls; large gray eyes, dramatically outlined in kohl; a mouth that was too big for her face. Funny how those same features on a child could be awkward to the point of homely.
“I hear you’re an interior designer. Famous, even. You got to use your artistic talent, after all.”
“And you’re a successful entrepreneur.”
Kat laughed and shook her head. “A baker,” she corrected. “That’s the way I think of myself.”
Bitsy’s smile faded. “I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch.”
“I didn’t expect you to.” Kat became aware of the way they had drawn attention, including from Ryan, who had appeared at his office door. “I should go.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
Bitsy linked their arms. “It’s like the old days.”
Kat laughed again. “Well, not just like— Oh my gosh, is that Merlin?”
Her father’s 1960 Mercedes 220SE Cabriolet. They’d named it Merlin the Magic Car because seeing it always put Bitsy’s dad in a good mood.
“It is. They passed, you know.”
“I didn’t. When?”
“Dad five years ago. Just as I was starting my business. Mom last year.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It was difficult, but that’s life.” She shook off her melancholy. “We have to get together. Catch up.”
“I’d like that.”
“Lunch?”
“Anytime.”
“How about tomorrow? Noon at Cafe Toile?”
Kat hesitated. Cafe Toile. They’d toasted Sara’s closing on the cottage there. It’d been the last time they’d celebrated as a family. Not long after, her parents had been dead.
Another memory to be faced.
Kat agreed, and as she drove away she saw that Ryan had joined Bitsy beside Merlin. They stood beside each other, watching her drive off. The image of them struck her as wrong. Both intimate and wary.
It occurred to Kat that she hadn’t asked Bitsy why she had been there. She’d simply assumed she had brought Merlin in for servicing.
Could Bitsy and Ryan be friends now? No, never. The Bitsy she’d known had hated Ryan Benton’s guts.
Tuesday, June 4
2:45
P.M.
“Luke, Ryan Benton’s here to see you.”
“Thanks, Trix. Send him back.” Luke hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair.
Ryan Benton.
It was the second time today he had heard that name. The first had been from Kat McCall’s lips when he asked who she’d been dating all those years ago.
And now he was here to see him. Interesting.
The man tapped on the door; Luke stood to greet him. “Ryan, man. Good to see you.”
He crossed the room. “Hey, Luke, good to see you, too.”
They shook hands. Luke gestured to one of the chairs in front of the desk, then sat. “How’ve you been? I don’t think our paths have crossed since Mardi Gras.”
“Doin’ good. The shop’s been busy. You?”
“Hangin’ in there. What can I do for you?”
He didn’t answer, instead moved his gaze over the office. “Weird déjà vu thing going on for me. I spent a good bit of time in this office.”
Luke laughed. He and Ryan had been in the same graduating class at Tammany West High School. He had been a star athlete, Ryan an ace hell-raiser. Although they hadn’t traveled in the same circles, they’d had an odd, mutual respect for each other.
Ryan steepled his fingers. “The sheriff’s kid and the kid the sheriff was always cuffing. And here we are.”
“But that’s not what brought you here today.”
“No.” He paused. “Katherine McCall was in to see me at the shop. She was saying some pretty crazy things, so I figured I better come in. I don’t want any trouble. I’m not that dude anymore.”
A surprise move by McCall. And Benton.
Luke took a notebook, laid it on the desk. “For the record, you and she were seeing each other at the time of her sister’s murder.”
“Yes.”
“And what kind of crazy things was she saying today?”
“That I had something to do with her sister’s death.”
“Something to do with?”
Ryan let out a long breath. “That I killed her.”
“Did you?”
“Hell, no. I didn’t even know the woman.”
“Did she tell you I’m reopening the case?”
He looked annoyed. “She did. That’s why I’m here. I figured I’d better come in and set the record straight.”
A strategy. He figured it’d look better if he came in. It did in some ways. In others, not so much. “I appreciate that, Ryan.” Luke glanced down at the notebook, then back up at the other man. “So what do you want to tell me?”
“Man, I hate being in this position. Shit.” He shook his head. “I was messing around with a seventeen-year-old girl. I shouldn’t have been.” He lifted a shoulder. “I was a punk.”
“You were never interviewed by the cops or the defense lawyers? How come?”
“Nobody knew about us.”
“Nobody? That seems hard to believe.”
“She was underage.”
“Surely you told your friends or she told hers. Underage doesn’t mean jack to them.”
“It did to me.”
“Was your relationship sexual?”
“Yes.”
“Did you supply her with alcohol?”
“Yes.”
“Drugs?”
“Weed.” He spread his fingers. “Like I said, I was a stupid, punk kid. I don’t do that shit anymore.”
“Go on.”
“If we’d been found out I would have been charged with contributing, at the very least. So I convinced her to keep her mouth shut.”
Luke drummed his fingers silently against the desktop. Teenage girls didn’t keep secrets. They gossiped, confided, wrote in their journals. She had to have told somebody.
“Even after she was arrested,” Luke said.
“I never saw her after that. Never spoke to her.”
“Why’s that?”
He looked surprised. “Are you kidding? I didn’t want anything to do with that. Plus, I figured she did it.”
It was Luke’s turn to be surprised. “You thought she was guilty?”
“She hated her sister. Wished she was dead. I thought maybe they got in a huge fight and she … did it.”
“Because that’s just one small step. Between talking and doing?”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
It wasn’t. It was a huge step, one most people would never make.
“But she wasn’t guilty.”
“According to the jury.”
“But you think they got it wrong?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. Yeah, I do.”
Luke tapped the pen against his thumb, thoughts racing. “If that’s true, why did she come back? And why accuse you of doing it?”
“I don’t know.”
Luke kept his gaze trained intently on the other man’s even as he maintained an almost casual tone. “Let’s say she is innocent. Why would she think you had something to do with murdering her sister?”
“Again, I don’t know. Maybe she’s playing a game with me. Punishing me for dumping her. Maybe she thought I did it for her.”
“Why would you?”
“What?”
“Do it for her?”
“Why, exactly. It makes no sense.”
He leaned forward. Luke decided schoolboy earnestness didn’t play well on Ryan Benton. Came off smarmy.
“Here’s the deal with me and Kat. I figured she was my ticket out. She was going to be rich. At eighteen she’d get a chunk of cash, then the rest of it at twenty-one. She was pretty, fun and a good lay. I was in for the long haul.”
“Then what happened?”
“She was arrested for beating her sister to death with a baseball bat. I didn’t want any part of that.”
“Even after she was acquitted?”
“Like I told you, I thought she was guilty. Would you want to live with a chick who could do that?”
“Lots of teenagers hate their folks, wish they were dead. But they don’t kill them. Seems you two had a pretty good thing going, sneaking around. Why would she kill her?”
He shook his head. “Her sister had found us out. They fought about it and she forbade Kat to see me again. Next thing I hear, Sara McCall’s dead.”
“Earlier you said no one knew about you two.”
“That’s right.”
“But Sara knew.”
“She’d just found out.”
“Maybe someone told her?”
“I don’t think so. Kat thought she may have seen us. Or maybe found something in her room. A note, her diary or something.”
He was lying. And not well, at that.
“Nothing like that ended up as evidence.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, man.”
“But you did see her again?”
“Pardon?”
“After her sister forbade her to see you.”
“Yes, once.”
“And she told you about the fight?”
“Yes.”
“How did you respond?”
“Why does that matter?”
Luke smiled easily. “Just filling in the blanks.”
“I told her to be cool, everything would be okay.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“And she believed you? Just calmed right down?”
“I thought so at the time. Until I heard her sister was dead.”
“Let me just throw this out there, Ryan. Maybe you two talked about it, made a plan. She let you in the house and you beat Sara McCall to death. So the two of you could be together. You said it, she was your ticket out.”
He flinched slightly. His tone changed. “No way, man. See, I didn’t care that much. I wasn’t about to put my neck on the line for a piece of ass.”
“Or her bank account? You could have had the money right away. She inherited it all. The entire pot of gold.”
“But I could have also been charged with murder and ended up rotting in jail. It makes no sense. All I had to do was wait a few months and get what I wanted without any heat.”
“Ten months.”
He shrugged. “To me, a year was no time to wait. For her, a week was too long.”
“Her sister had found you out. She would have broken you up.”
“She couldn’t have. Kat was too far gone on me. She might have kept us apart awhile, but the minute that girl turned eighteen, she’d be back.”
Arrogant jerk.
“Did you contact her when she was in jail?”
“I told you before, never.”
“And never after?”
“That’s right.”
Luke shook his head. “I still don’t get that. She’d been acquitted. And she had all the money. That’s what you wanted.”
“Again, would you want to sleep with a woman you thought capable of beating you to death? I didn’t want anything to do with her.”
“I’d like to provide another scenario, if I may?”
Ryan glanced at his watch, then nodded. “The floor’s yours, dude.”
“You’re here today for damage control. Katherine’s back, she knows something we don’t—or didn’t ten years ago—and you’re covering your ass.”
“That would make me smart. Not a killer.”
“Let’s say you did do it. You’re under our radar, all these years. Now you’re threatened.”
“But I didn’t kill her.”
“How do I know that?”
He leaned toward him. “What would be the friggin’ point? Kill her, then not collect?”
He had a point.
“Besides, I’m not that guy.”
“That guy?”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter. A baseball bat?” He shook his head. “Who does that? Intense, man. It’s not normal.”
“As if murder ever is.”
“Of course.” He laced his fingers together. “We about done here?”
“You came to see me, right?”
He laughed. “You’ve got me there. Are we good?”
“For now.” He stood. “Thanks for coming in.”
Ryan followed him to his feet. They shook hands and Luke walked him out. When they reached the sidewalk, Luke stopped him.
“Did you know Officer Wally Clark?”
Ryan looked surprised by the question. “Who?
“Officer Wally Clark. He was killed the same night Sara McCall was.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that.” Ryan narrowed his eyes as if in thought. “Somebody shot him, right?”
“Right.”
“But the two murders didn’t have anything to do with each other.”
“We didn’t think so at the time.”
Ryan waited for an explanation, but Luke let it hang out there. “But you knew Officer Clark?”
“Sure.” For the first time he looked truly uncomfortable. “I knew all the Liberty officers. That was just the way I rolled.”
Luke laughed. “True that, man.”
Ryan drew his eyebrows together. “Weird, but I hardly remember Wally getting killed. What happened with that? You guys ever figure out who did it?”
“The sheriff’s department investigated that one. But no, they never got the guy.” He held out his hand. “Again, glad you came in.”
They shook hands again. “No problem.”
Luke watched as he strolled to his car, a sleek Audi sedan. “Tell Bitsy I said hello,” he called.
Ryan looked back, expression strange. “I will.”
He smiled. “And I’ll tell my dad you said hello.”
Ryan laughed, slid into the sedan and a moment later drove off.
Funny, Luke thought, watching him. Benton had gotten his rich girl, it just hadn’t been the one he’d started out with.
Chief Stephen Tanner
2003
The morning after the murder
Tanner pulled his cruiser to a stop in front of the McCall place. Officer Guidry parked directly behind him. His hands shook; his heart raced. Most cops dealt with violent death on a daily basis. Shootings, stabbings and suicides, overdoses and gang wars. But not Tanner. In his twenty-five years on the force, he’d investigated five.
Until now. Two murders in one night. That didn’t happen. Not in Liberty.
Wally had been shot dead. Two bullets, one to the chest, the other to his face. He had dropped where he stood. The image of Wally at the side of the road, lying in a pool of thickening blood, filled Tanner’s head.
An ambush, the deputies thought. Wally hadn’t had a chance.
Tanner blinked, forcing the image to the back of his head, focusing on the one before him. Little Kat McCall sat on the top porch step. Not so little anymore. Not the wide-eyed waif he remembered from her parents’ funeral. She was dressed for school. Her backpack rested on the step beside her.
She was just sitting. Staring blankly at him. He had expected hysteria. Tears. Her sister was dead. She had nobody now.
He climbed out of his cruiser. His boots landed on the pavement with a thud, one that seemed to resound in his head. Not a nightmare. Real. This was happening.
He met Guidry at his vehicle. “Stay a few steps behind me. I don’t know what to expect. Miss Kat’s most likely in shock and I don’t want us to upset her.”
Guidry nodded, his adam’s apple bobbing along with his head. He looked more upset than McCall. Like he was torn between bolting and puking.
Tanner started cautiously up the brick pathway. McCall followed him with her eyes but didn’t acknowledge him in any other way. He found it weird. Unsettling and just plain strange.
He stopped in front of her. “Miss Kat? It’s Chief Tanner, you know me.”
She blinked up at him. “I didn’t do it.”
Of all the things she could have said, he hadn’t expected that. He squatted in front of her and took her hands. They were cold and had what looked like bloodstains on them.
Why would that be?
“Do you know who did do it?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“I found her.”
“And called 911.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about that.”
“When I got up for school. There she was. I’m late now. I’ll be in trouble.”
Still, no emotion in her voice. Nothing. Gave him the creeps. “Don’t you worry about school, Miss Kat. I’ll take care of that.”
“Thank you, Chief Tanner.”
“Did you touch her?”
“Who?”
“Your sister.”
She shook her head again. “No.”
“You have bloodstains on your hands, Kat. How did that happen?”
She held up her hands. Looked at them. “I don’t know.”
The paramedics arrived. “They can’t help her,” she said.
“You’re sure?”
“She’s dead.” She made this sound then, like a strangled laugh. Or twisted giggle. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Tanner stepped aside so the paramedics could get by them. They weren’t in the house three minutes. Tanner looked up at them as they exited. Their expressions said it all.
