Murder in the Smokies (14 page)

He wasn’t a man who felt things deeply. He didn’t let himself, preferring a hard-shelled cocoon of distance and solitude to keep him from getting hurt again. His memories of childhood all shared a common thread of pain, from losing his mother young to learning, revelation by revelation, just what it was his father did to keep food on the table and clothes on his back. He’d watched in silent agony as his friends and their families suffered from his father’s sins, hated but understood the inevitable distance that grew between them and him.

Apple didn’t fall far from the tree, after all....

“I missed you, too,” he admitted, closing the gap between them until he touched her, a light brush of his fingertips against her cheek. “Not just today, either. I missed you when I left. All the time.”

She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch. “I figured you’d forgotten me once you had Bitterwood in your rearview mirror.”

“I tried. I guess eventually I sort of compartmentalized my life. You know, Bitterwood and everything that came after.” He cradled her face between his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me about Billy Turlow?”

Her eyes widened, and she pulled away from his grasp. “Who?”

“Seth told me about what Turlow did to you.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist, turning her profile to him. “Don’t you mean what I did to Billy?”

“Did he rape you?”

She shot him a hard look that made his blood chill. “I never gave him a chance.”

He nodded slowly. “Good.”

“She wouldn’t believe me when I tried to warn her.” Ivy’s tough expression faltered, and she sank onto the arm of the sofa, hunched forward. “She thought I was making it up to break them up. I told her I wouldn’t lie about something like that, but she said I was just jealous of her attention.”

“God.”

“She just wanted to be happy. She always thinks when she meets a new man that this is the one who’s going to make her happy. But she looks for men in all the wrong places.”

“What about after you stabbed him?”

“Oh, she believed me then.” Ivy shot him a bleak smile. “Kind of hard to wish away the sight of your boyfriend in his jockey shorts lyin’ on the floor of your daughter’s bedroom with a steak knife sticking out of his ribs.”

“How long was it?”

Her eyes narrowed with confusion. “The knife?”

“No. How long after I left town?”

“Oh.” She looked down at her feet. “About five months. It was a few days after my sixteenth birthday.”

He crossed in front of her, laying his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head. “What could you have done to stop it?”

“Maybe nothing.” He lifted her chin to make her look up at him. “But I’d have been there for you afterward, at least.”

“It doesn’t matter now. It’s done. I’m long past it.”

“Are you?” He ran his thumb along the curve of her jaw, noting with a combination of pleasure and fear how her eyelids fluttered shut in response. Pink color rose along her neck, flushed into her cheeks, and he knew she was as vulnerable to the combustive attraction between them as he was.

He could hurt her so easily if he made a mistake.

But could he give her the peace and happiness she deserved?

“I’m not my father, Ivy—”

Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “I never said you were.”

“I’m not my father,” he repeated. “But I still have some of him in me. I don’t always think about how my actions affect other people. I think more about my feelings. How things affect me.”

“Most people do.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. Ever.”

She held his gaze a moment, a thoughtful look in her dark eyes. Then she pulled away from him and moved to the window that looked out on the front yard. In profile, she looked more sad than conflicted.

“You said you didn’t go to the prom. That was your choice, wasn’t it?” he asked, suddenly understanding why she was fighting so hard to keep him at arm’s length. “You don’t do relationships, right?”

She didn’t turn her head. “Right. I date sometimes. I’m not a virgin. But I haven’t believed in fairy tales in a long time.”

“Because of Billy Turlow?”

She made a soft huff that might have been a laugh. “It didn’t take Billy Turlow to cure me of my romantic streak. People come. People go. That’s the way of things, more often than not.”

He crossed to her side, tucking behind her ear a tendril of hair that had sneaked out of her ponytail. “You’re not your mama.”

“Close enough. I have a bad habit of wanting things that aren’t good for me.”

“Do I fall into that category?” He couldn’t blame her for thinking so.

She looked up at him. “I don’t think you’re a grifter like Cleve, but you’re not going to stick around forever. Sooner or later, you’ll leave. You can be as honorable as they come and it doesn’t change anything. You already have one foot out of this town. And I’m planted here like a tree.”

He smiled at the description. “Somebody’s got to stay around to make sure your mama doesn’t get into too much trouble.”

“Bitterwood is her home. Hell, the town’s been trying to buy her land for a long time, but she won’t budge. She’s not going anywhere. And since I’m all she’s got—”

He slid his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, pressing his lips against her forehead. It was meant to be a chaste expression of the friendship they’d once shared, but the feel of her body melting into his proved a potent reminder that he and Ivy Hawkins couldn’t be just friends anymore. And apparently, they couldn’t afford to be lovers, either.

So where did that leave them?

She pulled away from him. “I’ve got to talk to a man about a truck.”

“Any new leads on that?”

She shook her head. “It’s early yet.”

He knew she wasn’t telling him everything she knew, but he didn’t fault her for it. She was walking a thin line between following Rayburn’s orders and her own instincts. He didn’t want to make things any harder for her.

He walked with her out to the car, catching her hand as she reached to open the door. “I’m going to spend tonight at the hospital with Cleve. The doctor said it was okay, since he’s going to need help getting in and out of bed and going to the bathroom.”

She squeezed his hand. “That’s going to be hard for you, isn’t it?”

“I can’t get used to seeing him so helpless. He was always the most vibrant, self-possessed person I ever knew.” That zest for life had been part of the con man’s appeal. He could convince a catfish to buy a raincoat.

“Maybe this will be good in the long run,” she suggested. “He’ll probably have to do some therapy on that broken arm, and didn’t you tell me it was the arm that’s mostly useless due to the stroke?”

“So maybe he’ll get it right this time instead of being a stubborn cuss?”

She squeezed his hand again before letting it go. “I’ve got to go.”

He caught her chin in his palm and lifted her face, brushing his mouth to hers. Her lips clung for a moment, as if she wanted to prolong the kiss as much as he did. But she pulled away, ducking her head as she opened the car door and slid behind the wheel.

“I guess I may not see you much after this.” She didn’t look at him, her gaze directed forward as if she had addressed the dashboard instead of him. There was a finality in her voice that he couldn’t pretend he didn’t hear.

“I had to go, Ivy. If I’d stayed here any longer, it would have killed me. One way or another.”

She nodded, still looking forward. “And I have to stay.”

“I know.” He let the silence linger a moment, then added, “Take care of yourself.” He had no other argument to make. She was right. He’d be leaving soon, and she’d be staying, and neither one of them could do a damned thing about it. Prolonging their goodbye would only prolong the pain.

“You take care of yourself, too,” she said, her profile frozen in place, as if any expression she might make would cause her to fall apart.

He stepped back, letting her close the car door, and watched her drive away with his heart in his throat. He hadn’t managed much of a nap before she came home, and any chance of one now was gone. All that was left to do now was pack up the rest of his things and move on. As usual.

Even if it felt like fifty kinds of wrong.

Chapter Fourteen

“Any luck?”

At the sound of the friendly male voice, Ivy looked up from her cell phone and saw Mark Bramlett standing in an open doorway, a nearly empty pot of coffee in one hand and a cup in the other.

“I’m going to have to verify their alibis, but both of your employees have accounted for the days and times of the murders.”

Bramlett smiled. “I could have told you that.” He nodded at the coffeepot in his hand. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Detective?”

Considering how much her energy was starting to flag for so early in the day, a cup of coffee sounded like a brilliant idea. “Sure. And is there a room I can borrow while I make a few phone calls?”

“You can do it right here in the break room. I’ve got to go load the truck for a delivery.” He led her into the break room and put a disposable cup in front of her. As he emptied the coffeepot into her cup, he added, “Are you planning to stick around to talk to Kel when he comes in after lunch?”

“I need to make a few calls, and I may end up having to leave for a while,” she said. “But if I do, I’ll definitely be back this afternoon.”

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Two creams, one sugar.”

He picked up her cup and crossed to the counter. She took another quick look at her list of messages, unsurprised but nevertheless disappointed that there was nothing from Sutton.

What had she expected, a message begging her to give their relationship a chance? With a wry smile, she set her phone down and turned to accept the coffee from Bramlett. “Thanks.”

“You let me know if you need anything.” With a small wave, he left the break room, closing the door behind him.

Waiting for the coffee to cool, she called Antoine to check on his progress. He sounded a little out of breath when he answered.

“I’ve never walked so many hills in my life,” he complained. “Next job I take, it’s going to be somewhere like Kansas. Nice and flat.”

“Anything suspicious about any of the trucks?”

“Well, half of ’em looked like they hadn’t been washed in years, so I don’t think they’re going to be our mystery trucks. I’m looking into the alibis on a couple that might fit the bill, but nothing about those truck operators struck me as particularly suspicious. Any luck at the nursery?”

“Not yet. I’m going to make some calls from here, maybe stick around and talk to the employee who’s coming in at one unless something comes up.”

“All right. I’ll let you know if I come across anything on my end. You do the same?”

“You bet.” Ivy hung up and pulled out her notepad to check her interview notes. Next call, Plott’s pastor, since Plott swore he’d been at church helping out on a mission project the night Amelia Sanderson was killed. But when she dialed the number he’d given her, she got a voice mail message informing her everyone was out to lunch. She left a message for the pastor to call her and picked up the cup of coffee, starting to take a sip.

She paused just before the coffee touched her lips.

Slowly, she lowered the cup back to the table and looked down at the milky-brown liquid. Two creams, one sugar, just as she’d requested. But had she actually watched Bramlett put the extras in her coffee?

She looked behind her at the counter. Two torn individual creamer packets and a sugar packet ripped in two lay on the counter. She crossed to the counter to examine them, feeling ridiculously paranoid. But if their theory was correct, the person who’d killed their four victims had also planted the belladonna at the cemetery. And a single belladonna leaf contained enough poison to kill an adult human.

How hard would it be to infuse a cup of coffee with crushed belladonna leaves? Or put a tasteless, colorless drug like Rohypnol in her drink while she had her back turned?

She started to leave the cup of coffee where it sat, then thought better of it and poured the liquid down the drain of the break room sink. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, picked up the empty cup and pulled off the glove, letting it turn inside out and envelop the cup. After tying the wrist opening into a knot, she placed the cup into her purse and dropped back into the chair in front of the table, feeling equal parts stupid and relieved.

A knock on the break room door made her jump. Mark Bramlett stood in the doorway, an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry to interrupt, but I just came across something kind of strange on the underside of the truck. Would you come take a look and tell me if I’m just imagining things?”

Curiosity eclipsed her paranoia, and she followed Bramlett out of the office. There was nobody else in the front office, she noted with surprise, not even the two men she’d just interviewed. Maybe they were all out in the greenhouses, she supposed, walking fast to keep up with Bramlett’s long-legged stride.

“I wouldn’t have even seen it at all if I hadn’t thought I heard something under the truck. Occasionally a possum or raccoon, or even a feral cat, will crawl up into the underside of vehicles to get warm. I didn’t want to start the truck and chop some poor critter into pieces. So I looked up under the truck and I spotted something under the back axle.”

He waved his hand toward the back wheels, as if giving her permission to take a look.

She crouched beside the wheel and bent lower, sticking her head under the truck to see what he was talking about.

Suddenly, she felt something grab her shoulder and jerk her upward, slamming her head into the underside of the truck. Pain exploded in the back of her head, stealing her breath. Her vision swam a moment, specks of light dancing in an undulating kaleidoscope of color and darkness.

She was being dragged backward, like a rag doll, and for a moment, she couldn’t understand what was happening. Why wasn’t she fighting? Shouldn’t she be fighting back?

Her vision cleared enough for her to see that she was moving around the bumper to the open doors at the back of the truck. The hands that were still holding her hauled her up into the truck box, shoving her face down onto the hard floor.

She tried to move, her hand flailing for her service pistol. It was ripped from her before she got a good grip, and she growled a profanity, trying to roll over onto her back. Bramlett’s face swam into view, his expression hard and businesslike.

She kicked out at him, but the effort earned her a hard smack to the jaw, knocking her back into the truck. He ran his hands over her suit jacket and trousers in a rough search. “Where is it?”

“What?”

He closed his hand around her neck, compressing her trachea until she couldn’t breathe without wheezing. “Your cell phone. Where is it?”

She clawed at his hands and he hit her again. There was something she should be doing. She’d learned things about protecting herself even from a bigger attacker, but the details slogged out of reach, somewhere in the muddy mists of her aching brain.

He let go of her and backed out of the truck. She found the strength to launch herself after him, but she ended up slamming face-first into the back doors of the truck. There was no handle on the inside, only a smooth, solid wall of nothing where the door should be.

Her legs felt like noodles, helpless to keep her on her feet. She slithered into a weak puddle in front of the locked door, banging her hand against the door more in frustration than any hope that someone might hear her and let her out.

The truck’s engine growled to life, and suddenly they were moving, the forward lurch knocking her into the door again. Flattening her hands against the floor, she steadied herself until she felt confident she wouldn’t fall over again anytime soon. Her fuzzy head was starting to clear, the pain from her knock in the head subsiding from a howl to a low roar.

But she was still locked in the back of a truck driven by a man she was becoming utterly certain must be the killer they were seeking.

And God only knew what would happen once the truck stopped.

* * *

H
E
SHOULDN
’
T
CALL
HER
. She’d made her decision clear enough that morning, in her stubborn refusal to meet his gaze as they said what had felt like a final goodbye.

But the phone felt heavy in his pocket as he pulled into a parking slot in front of Ledbetter’s Diner, a visceral reminder that he still had a choice. She’d made it clear she wasn’t going to leave Bitterwood as long as her mother was still there. And he’d vowed a long time ago that he’d never come back to this place again. Certainly not for good.

But he could change his mind. Or she could change hers. Anything seemed possible now that the only alternative was walking away from Ivy Hawkins forever.

She made him feel centered. Connected to something. He’d let himself forget that she’d always had that effect on him, even when they were little more than two scared, lonely kids looking for someone to trust. He’d let himself walk away all those years ago. He’d left her behind to fend for herself, cut that cord between them. He’d let himself forget how much that severed connection had bled during those first scary, lonely days on his own.

It would bleed again if he left her behind.

Damn it, he didn’t want to feel this much again. He’d gotten good at not feeling much at all, just the light buzz of camaraderie with his fellow soldiers, the respect and admiration he had for the people he now worked with at Cooper Security. It made life easier to deal with, less messy and constrained.

Less alive.

Well, now he was alive. And it ached like a son of a bitch. But he didn’t think he could trade it for numbness again.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed her number, waiting with his heart in his throat. After three rings with no answer, he realized she might just be ignoring his call.

Maybe he should take that as her answer.

Then someone picked up. A male voice. “Yeah?”

The unfamiliar voice gave him a start. “I—I must have the wrong number—”

“Maybe not,” the voice on the other end said. “I just found this cell phone on the ground. Maybe whoever you’re calling lost it?”

Sutton felt a flutter of unease. “Where are you?”

“Bramlett Nurseries in Bitterwood, Tennessee.”

Ivy had been going to see a man about a truck. Had Bramlett Nurseries been one of the names on her list? If it was, she might have found the place of particular interest because of the deadly nightshade plants. After all, where better to look for a plant than at a nursery? “I was calling Detective Ivy Hawkins with the Bitterwood Police Department.”

“Oh, yeah!” the man on the other end of the phone said. “Yeah, I seen her earlier, talking to the boss. Reckon maybe she just dropped it by accident. Want me to see if I can find her around here?”

“That would be great.”

There was the muffled sound of movement on the other end of the call, muted voices conferring just out of earshot. Finally the man said, “She was definitely here a few minutes ago, but nobody knows where she is now.”

“Okay, thanks.” He started to hang up, then added, “Hey, you still there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are you located?”

“Emerson Valley, just outside Bitterwood. If you’ve been ’round here long, there used to be a horse farm where we are now—Emerson Farm? Used to raise Tennessee walkers.”

“I know the place. Thanks.”

Emerson Valley was only about ten minutes away. He made it there in eight minutes and parked next to Ivy’s department car, which sat near the front entrance of the sprawling plant nursery.

There was a man at the front counter, finishing up with a customer. Sutton waited, looking around for Ivy inside the store, but she wasn’t in sight.

When he got the chance to talk to the clerk, he introduced himself, grimacing inwardly at the man’s wary shift in expression when he said the name “Calhoun.” “I called earlier, looking for Detective Hawkins.”

“Right. Yeah, we haven’t found her yet.”

Sutton frowned. “Her car’s still parked outside.”

“Oh.” The man looked surprised. “I just figured she left when the boss left.”

“The boss?”

“Mr. Bramlett. He took off in the truck about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Could Detective Hawkins have gone with him?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t think so. Mr. Bramlett was by himself when he drove off.”

Fingers of alarm crept up Sutton’s spine. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I saw him go. Just him in the driver’s seat. I didn’t see nobody else with him, which I thought was kind of weird ’cause he was hauling a big mulch order over to the park in Meadowbrook—you don’t want to try to handle that by yourself.”

“He didn’t take the mulch order.” A man passing by stopped and laid his hand on the counter. “Mulch order’s still out there on the loading dock.”

“Oh.” Once again the man behind the counter looked flummoxed. “Okay, then.”

“Can you call Mr. Bramlett?” Sutton asked.

“Sure thing.” The counterman pulled a phone receiver from beneath the counter and punched in a number. He waited a few seconds, then looked up at Sutton. “No answer. That’s odd.”

Very odd, Sutton thought, his gut starting to tighten. “Were you the one who found her cell phone?”

“No, that was Kel.” The counterman called over a man in grimy jeans and a faded denim shirt with the words
Bramlett Nurseries
embroidered on the left front pocket. “You found that phone, right?”

“That’s right,” Kel answered. He looked with curiosity at Sutton.

“Can you show me where you found it?” Sutton asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Kel led him outside, past the loading dock, where several pallets full of packaged mulch sat, and stopped in a grass-free area a few yards away. “It was layin’ right here.”

Sutton scanned the area for any sign of Ivy. He didn’t see her, but he spotted fresh-looking tire tracks in the soft ground. “Is this where you park the company truck?”

“Sometimes. It was parked there this morning, anyway.”

All the pieces were starting to fall into place, and the picture they formed had Sutton’s heart rattling hard against his sternum. “Thanks,” he told Kel, walking a few feet away and getting into his truck. He dug Ivy’s business card from his wallet. Her cell phone number was most prominent, but there was a Bitterwood Police Department direct-line number in smaller print under the address. He gave it a call and asked for Antoine Parsons.