Murder in the Smokies (3 page)

“Do you ever see Seth Hammond?” Sutton sounded curious.

“Now and then. He moves around a lot. Last I heard, he was living in Maryville. Or maybe it was Knoxville.” She grimaced. “He’s already shafted just about everyone here in Bitterwood. I guess he had to find somewhere new to run his cons.”

“So he’s still doing that, then.” Sutton sounded disappointed. He’d been friends with Seth as a kid, she remembered suddenly. She hadn’t thought of them together in a long time. As they’d both grown older, Seth Hammond’s fascination with Sutton’s father’s lifestyle, and Sutton’s growing disgust with it, had pushed the two friends far apart.

And pushed Sutton closer to her. For a while, at least.

“I guess he still is. I don’t know if he knows how to do anything else,” she said. “He didn’t exactly have the best role models growing up.”

Sutton grimaced. “That’s no excuse. His sister Delilah turned out just fine, and she came from the same family.”

“You turned out pretty well, too, considering.”

He slanted a thoughtful look at her. “Maybe. I suppose none of us really got out of here unscathed.”

She certainly hadn’t, she thought bleakly. Life with her undependable, often foolish mother had taken a heavy toll on her chances at a normal life. By the age of sixteen, she’d no longer had any illusions about romance, love or sex. She’d seen too much, suffered too much to think of romantic love as anything pure or uplifting.

She’d had boyfriends. She’d had sex. But she’d never had that elusive thing called love that her mother seemed desperate to find, and she had no intentions of ever looking for it.

Back at Marjorie Kenner’s house, most of the onlookers had dispersed, leaving only police cars and a vehicle marked with the TBI’s insignia. “That was fast,” she said, nodding toward the new arrival.

Sutton pulled up next to Antoine Parsons’s Ford Focus and looked toward the front door. “Your boss is here.”

She followed Sutton’s gaze and spotted her supervisor, Captain Rayburn, standing in the doorway talking to Parsons.

Well, hell.

* * *

I
NCOMPETENCE
WAS
BAD
enough, Sutton thought as he and Ivy headed up the front walk, but in Glen Rayburn’s case, he’d never been sure whether the captain was merely inept at his job or actively corrupt.

He’d made it to captain the way a lot of cops in a lot of small towns did—by making friends with the mayor and city council. He did favors for anyone in the department above him, often at his own expense, and got away with being a careless, corner-cutting cop as a result.

Rayburn’s eyes narrowed to slits as he recognized Sutton. He didn’t bother with politeness. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I have family in town,” Sutton answered airily.

“You ain’t got no family here at my crime scene.”

Your crime scene?
Sutton forced himself not to look at Ivy for her reaction, aware that it might turn Rayburn’s displeasure toward the detective instead of Sutton himself.

But Rayburn apparently had plenty of displeasure to go around, for he turned his baleful gaze on Ivy and asked, “You brought him here, Hawkins?”

“I came here on my own,” Sutton answered before Ivy could speak. “Matter of fact, Detective Hawkins just gave me the third degree—why was I here, what do I want, how long am I going to be in town—”

“And?”

“He’s been hired by one of the victims’ brothers,” Ivy answered. “To look into her murder.”

Rayburn turned his attention back to Sutton. “Somebody hired you?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I ask who?”

Stephen Billings hadn’t asked him to keep his identity a secret, and Sutton had already told Ivy who his client was. Still, he gave Rayburn’s question a moment of thought before he answered, wondering if there was any way Rayburn could use Billings’s identity against him. “April Billings’s brother,” he answered finally.

“April Billings’s murder has nothing to do with this crime scene,” Rayburn said firmly. He sounded as if he believed it.

Was he really that self-delusional? Or was he desperate to believe there were no connected murders in Bitterwood because the alternative might bring state and federal investigators swooping down on the small mountain town, putting all the police department’s secrets under a bright light of scrutiny?

“Maybe not,” he said aloud, trying to keep his tone friendly. “I just wanted to talk to the detectives on the case, see what territory’s already been covered so I’ll know where to start.”

“That’s not going to happen again.” His face darkening with anger, Rayburn shot Ivy a warning look. “Understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Her voice was tight with annoyance, but if Rayburn noticed, he didn’t comment.

Instead, he turned back to Sutton. “Leave my detectives out of your investigation. That’s not what we pay them to do.”

Swallowing a smart-mouthed retort, Sutton nodded and turned away, walking slowly to his truck.

He spared a glance back at the crime scene as he cranked the truck and put it into gear. Rayburn had already moved on, talking to the TBI agents milling near the state agency’s van. But Ivy Hawkins’s gaze was still turned his way, the look on her face thoughtful.

He felt a flare of regret at the realization that she was now officially off-limits to him, regret that had nothing to do with what she could offer him as a detective in charge of the case he’d been hired to investigate.

Instead, it had everything to do with the way his libido had gone on high alert the second she’d walked out of Marjorie Kenner’s front door—and his memories of her friendship came roaring back as well, reminding him that she’d once been his lifeline.

He passed his father’s ramshackle old house on the way back to the motel, and for a moment, he considered stopping in to see how the old man was faring. He hadn’t seen him since he’d left town, hadn’t talked to him in nearly as many years, and the handful of Bitterwood natives he’d run into over the years had been in no hurry to bring up the unpleasant topic of his father, to his relief.

He drove on without slowing down. Some parts of his past he had no intention of revisiting.

The clerk who ran the Stay and Save Motel’s front office called his name as he walked past, drawing him inside the small sandstone building. “Somebody left a message for you,” he said, holding out a half-crumpled piece of paper. He gave Sutton an expectant look as he handed over the message.

“Thanks.” Sutton pulled a couple of dollars from his wallet and handed it to the clerk. He unfolded the message as he walked down the covered walkway to his room.

The message was short and sweet. “Clingmans Dome observation tower, 7 p.m. Come alone.”

Chapter Three

Clearly, sleep deprivation had taken a toll on her normal good sense, because there was no logical explanation why she had bypassed the turnoff to her house on Vesper Road and continued down the two-lane highway to the Stay and Save Motel on Route 4. After fifteen straight hours on the job, she’d finally taken Antoine’s advice and clocked out just after five-thirty so she could head home to catch up on some sleep.

Instead, she was at the far end of the Stay and Save parking lot, scanning for any sign of Sutton Calhoun’s truck and kicking herself for being such a reckless idiot.

Rayburn had told her not to contact Sutton. Yet here she was, the second she slipped the captain’s line of sight, defying his order. And for what? Sutton Calhoun might be sexy as hell and still chock-full of masculine mystery, but she hadn’t gotten any sense, during their conversation early that morning, that he knew anything more about the murders than she knew herself. And that should be the only thing about Sutton Calhoun that held any interest for her now.

She didn’t see Sutton’s truck parked in the guest lot. At this time of the evening, he was probably out to dinner somewhere. Maybe catching up with old friends who still lived in the area. His old girlfriend Carla was still in Bitterwood, recently divorced and nearly as pretty as she’d been years earlier, when she’d been the homecoming queen who’d defied her parents to date a mysterious bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Her cell phone rang, giving her tired nervous system a jolt. She checked the display and sighed, thumbing the answer button. “Hi, Mom.”

“I guess you’re not coming for dinner?”

Damn. “I picked up a new case. I’m sorry. Rain check?”

“Of course.” Her mother, Arlene, had perfected the art of passive-aggressive accommodation. “I can freeze the pot roast for next time.”

Ivy laid her head back against the headrest, feeling a vein throbbing hard in her temple. “You know you should always call me before you go to the trouble of cooking anything, Mom. My schedule is crazy.”

“I know, Birdy.” Ivy stifled a smile at the old nickname her mother still used for her. “I just need to talk to you soon.”

“Absolutely. I’ll call you as soon as things slow down.” Although, she reminded herself with no small measure of guilt, there wasn’t any reason she shouldn’t head over to her mother’s now instead of sitting here stalking Sutton Calhoun.

Ivy pressed her fingers against her gritty eyes.
Go to your mother’s house, Hawkins. Just put your car in gear and go before you embarrass yourself any further.

“Mom, listen.” She had already reached for the ignition key when she saw a dark gray Ford Ranger sweep by the parking lot entrance, heading east. The truck looked a lot like Sutton’s Ford, though in the waning evening light, she couldn’t get a good look at the driver through the tinted windows. As it moved past, she spotted the Alabama tag on the rear bumper.

Before she thought better of it, she started her Jeep and pulled out onto the road behind him. “Mom, I’ve got to go. Something’s just come up. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can reschedule, okay?”

She hung up her phone and followed the Ranger east.

* * *

W
HOEVER
WAS
DRIVING
the black Jeep Wrangler behind Sutton was pretty good at tailing. If he weren’t already on high alert and well trained, Sutton might not have spotted the vehicle keeping track of him. He’d noticed the Jeep as he entered the Smoky Mountains National Park. It stayed a couple of vehicles behind him, never getting too close. But the Jeep never let him get too far ahead, either.

Hell, maybe he ought to just pull off at the next scenic overlook and see what happened.

A glance at the truck’s dashboard clock killed that idea. He was already cutting it close. Clingmans Dome was over an hour’s drive from Bitterwood, and if the gathering clouds lowering over the mountains were anything to go by, a storm was brewing. Rain would slow him down. And even if he arrived with time to spare, there was the climb to the observation deck, possibly in the pouring rain.

The fifty-four-foot-tall concrete tower ending in a saucer-shaped deck stood at the summit of Tennessee’s highest elevation. To get there, a visitor generally made a steep half-mile trek up a paved road. Sutton had hiked that road more than once during his boyhood, usually as part of a class trip or as the guest of another boy whose father, unlike Cleve Calhoun, wasn’t allergic to a little exertion.

He hadn’t been there in years, but he found the twisting mountain roads leading to the Clingmans Dome Trail familiar. The mountain straddled the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina, right in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. Some of the roads seemed to fold in on themselves as they tunneled through the mountains and curved around rocky outcroppings, making for a hair-raising drive.

Why Clingmans Dome? he wondered yet again as he kept one eye on the winding road and the other on the Jeep behind him. Why tonight at seven, with the setting sun being quickly swallowed by dark rain clouds and temperatures dropping to twenty degrees colder than in the valleys below?

He’d known, as a native of these hills, to bring warm, weather-resistant clothes, for even in the summer, evenings in the Smoky Mountains could be uncomfortably cool and wet. Up on Clingmans Dome, over a mile above sea level, the temperature could dip near freezing on an early September night, and the whole area was a coniferous rain forest, which meant getting wet was always a strong possibility.

It was an odd spot for a mysterious rendezvous, and his decision to comply with the note hadn’t been made lightly. Following protocol, he’d called Jesse Cooper to tell him about the mysterious message. Cooper had wanted to send backup, but Sutton had talked his boss out of the idea. The note had said to come alone, and if his combination of Special Forces training and Cooper Security refreshers had prepared him for anything, it was to face dangers on his own if necessary.

Of course, if the Jeep trailing doggedly behind him kept up the tail, he wouldn’t be going alone after all.

He knew it was possible, perhaps even likely, that he was driving toward an ambush. He’d prepared for that possibility, from wearing a GPS tracker that Jesse Cooper was even now monitoring from his office in Maybridge, Alabama, to strapping on an extra pistol—a SIG Sauer P238 in an ankle holster on his right leg in addition to his Glock, currently nestled snugly in a holster under his leather jacket.

And there were other ways to hike to the top of Clingmans Dome besides the tourist trail.

* * *

S
OMEWHERE
SOUTHEAST
OF
Gatlinburg, heading east on Highway 441, Ivy made a rookie mistake. She let an 18-wheeler pass her on a downhill straightaway and ended up stuck behind the behemoth as it groaned its way up a steep grade, putting her farther and farther behind Sutton’s Ford Ranger. By the time they came across another safe area to pass and she whipped the Jeep around the lumbering truck, she’d lost sight of Sutton’s vehicle completely.

“Damn it!” she growled, banging her hand on the steering wheel in frustration. Her decision to follow Sutton this far out of Bitterwood was already looking like complete idiocy, and now she’d botched even that. She was almost an hour away from home, with gritty eyes wanting to slam shut, and she was the worst cop in the world at tailing a vehicle. And piling on the bad news, there wasn’t a decent turnoff for the next few miles, which meant she would have even that much farther to go before she could crawl beneath her covers for a few hours of humiliated sleep.

Around a tight curve, a side road finally came into view. Ivy flashed her right-turn indicator and eased the Jeep onto the side road. The surface of the smaller road was pocked and pitted, the ride immediately rougher. Ivy tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she slowed to pull a U-turn.

Suddenly, a pair of bright lights filled her windshield, blinding her for a moment. Startled, she jammed on her brakes, even though the lights were still some distance away. Her tires squealed in protest, the back end of the Jeep fishtailing just long enough to set her heart racing.

The lights went out again, leaving her blinded for a moment, even with the Jeep’s headlights cutting through the deepening darkness. She saw a brief flash of movement, shadowy and quick. It was gone before she blinked. Swallowing hard, she turned the steering wheel hard to finish the U-turn.

And there in her headlights, impossibly close, stood Sutton Calhoun, aiming the barrel of a large black Glock right at her.

He moved toward the Jeep carefully, the barrel of the pistol staying fixed on her. She cautiously lowered the driver’s side window. “Sutton, it’s me. Ivy Hawkins.”

He didn’t lower the pistol. “Why are you following me?”

She decided the truth was the least humiliating answer. “To see where you were going.”

He stopped beside her car door, gazing at her through the open window. Though his expression was stern, the corner of his mouth twitched. Her own lips curved in response. He lowered the Glock and slid it into a holster beneath his black leather jacket.

“So,” she prodded when he remained silent, “where
are
you going? And why did you just pull your weapon on me?”

He released a long, slow breath and reached into the front pocket of his jeans, withdrawing a crumpled slip of paper. He handed it to her through the window and took a step back, folding his arms across his chest.

A chilling wind, damp with the promise of rain, swirled through the open window, fluttering the piece of notepaper as she clicked on the dome light to see what was written there.

“Clingmans Dome observation tower, 7 p.m. Come alone.”

She read it twice, then flipped it over for any sign of a signature. There was nothing.

She turned off the dome light and looked up at Sutton. He was little more than a silhouette against a stormy, darkening sky. “Who sent this?”

“I don’t know.” His voice rumbled like thunder in the dark.

“You don’t know?” A shiver skated down her spine. “Are you crazy, coming out here alone to meet someone who sent you an anonymous note? Haven’t you ever heard of an ambush?”

She could see just enough of his face to make out a wry grin curving Sutton’s lips. “You’re one to talk, Ivy Hawkins, following a heavily armed man deep into the heart of the Smoky Mountains.”

A flush spread over the back of her neck. “Fair enough. And you’re not the only one heavily armed, by the way.”

Silence fell between them, brief but tense. Sutton was the one to break it. “How’d you come to follow me, anyway?”

“I dropped by the Stay and Save to talk to you, but you weren’t there. Then I saw you drive past and—”

“You decided to traipse along behind me?”

She shot him a glare. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never traipsed in my life.”

His lips twitched again. “Didn’t your boss tell you to keep clear of me?”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I sent him my itinerary.”

He lifted his hand to his face. She heard the soft rasp of his palm against his beard stubble as he fell silent for a long beat. Then, just as she was searching for something else to say to break the taut silence, he dropped his hand to his side. His shoulders squared and he bent toward her, his face filling her window. He was so close, she felt his soft exhalation on her cheek, and her heart rate skittered a notch higher.

“I’m going to Clingmans Dome tonight,” he said quietly. “I need to know who sent me that note and why. And I won’t think any less of you if you turn around right now and head back home.”

“But?”

“But I’d rather have backup as not. And since you’re already here and, as you were quick to tell me, heavily armed—”

“I’ll do it,” she blurted, before her weariness and her native caution had time to make her think better of the idea.

He nodded, as if he had expected nothing else. “You always did have my back, didn’t you?”

His words, so soft and intimate, made her shiver with a combination of pleasure and pain. Most of her memories of Sutton Calhoun seemed to be wrapped up in those two emotions.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asked.

He smiled, his teeth gleaming in the dark. “How long has it been since you did a little hiking in the woods?”

* * *

B
Y
THE
TIME
THEY
PARKED
both vehicles in the visitor lot where Clingmans Dome Road ended and the paved hiking trail to the observation deck began, a steady light rain had begun falling. Bypassing the road, they crossed into the gloomy woods, Sutton taking the lead. He slowed his pace slightly to accommodate Ivy’s shorter legs, but to her credit, she kept pace without complaining, even though he could tell from the purple shadows lingering like bruises beneath her eyes that she was running on fumes.

At least she was dressed for the weather, in a weatherproof jacket and sturdy water-resistant boots. She’d lived in the mountains her whole life, too.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he murmured when they took a brief water break halfway to the observation deck. “You look dead on your feet.”

She swallowed a swig of water. “Thanks.”

“Did you get any sleep at all last night before you were called to the crime scene?”

“Some.”

“What, an hour?”

She handed the water bottle back to him. “What do you expect to find at the observation deck?”

“I don’t rightly know,” he admitted. “An ambush, maybe.”

“And yet you came alone?”

“Not my brightest idea,” he conceded.

“But you couldn’t let the mystery lie unsolved?” She sounded as if she understood. Hell, she probably did. She’d become a cop for some reason, after all, and it sure as hell couldn’t be for the good pay, easy hours or accommodating bosses.

“These murders are connected,” he said flatly.

“I know.” Her serious expression was oddly endearing. She was so small, so young, so earnest. Had he ever been that earnest in his life?