Share No Secrets (21 page)

She ran out of words and breath at the same time. Miles’s fingers still touched her bandage. His intense eyes still probed hers. He leaned closer and for a wild moment she thought he was going to kiss her. A surprisingly strong swell of panic surged through her, but she stood frozen, her heart thumping like a small, trapped animal’s.

“Sorry to interrupt, but you know how pushy we newspeople are.”

Miles’s hand dropped away from her forehead. As he stepped aside and turned, Adrienne saw Drew Delaney. He almost lounged against the doorframe, but his face was taut, his dark eyes slightly narrowed. “I’d like to get a quote from each of you on the upcoming gala.”

Adrienne fought an impulse to run to Drew and let him fold her in loving arms as he’d done when they were teenagers. But that had been a long time ago. He probably hadn’t loved her then, and he certainly didn’t now. Still, she was overjoyed to see him. Her knees felt weak from her apprehension of Miles and she walked to his side.

“Sometimes I like being a reporter better than an editor.” Drew took the damp hand she’d thrust at him, shaking it as if they were meeting for the first time. It was an unnatural gesture after their long acquaintance, and Adrienne knew Drew recognized it as her way of masking uneasiness.

Miles seemed to vibrate with hostility. “I would think our little gala would be beneath your interest, considering the murders.”

“Murders?” Drew repeated innocently. “I thought Julianna Brent was the only murder victim.”

Miles flushed. “I meant Claude Duncan. Someone told me he’d probably been murdered. I don’t remember who.”

“I wish you did. I’d like to quote this source who seems to know more than the cops do.”

Adrienne knew the police suspected Claude’s death was not an accident, but Lucas had not stated so publicly. Did Miles really have a source? Or, worse, did he know firsthand that Claude had been murdered?

“Unfortunately, I don’t know any more about the death of Julianna than anyone else,” Miles said as he crossed the room and passed by Drew, heading for the floating stairs. “I’d sure as hell like to get my hands on the son of a bitch who killed my ex-wife, though. I’d kill him slowly and painfully, just like he deserves.”

Miles’s words were vicious, but his tone lacked depth. Adrienne knew that he’d once loved Julianna passionately, but none of that love resonated in his voice or his face.

“Well, sensational murders certainly boost circulation, but we don’t want the
Register
to became known as a tabloid,” Drew said blandly. “That’s why we want to give plenty of space to the Art Colony Gala. Lend the newspaper a little class, you know?”

“Even though the Art Colony is in Ohio, not West Virginia?” Miles asked tartly.

Drew ignored the sarcasm. “We cover more than West Virginia news.”

“But working on the
Register
must still seem disappointing compared to your days on the
New York Times,”
Miles said innocently.

“I like the slower pace.”

“Slow is right.” Miles wasn’t going to back off. “I suppose even though you left under a cloud, you still have a few connections at the
Times.
If you’d wanted to do her a favor, they could have gotten Julianna’s name into the gossip columns, sparked a little interest in her, maybe gotten her back into modeling.”

Drew’s jaw tightened. “I’m not sure where that idea came from, Miles. I also don’t know what makes you think Julianna would have wanted to return to modeling.”

“Julianna was Julianna. She loved attention but she hadn’t gotten much for a few years. I’m sure she was missing the hoopla that used to surround her.” Miles shrugged. “And she
never
turned down help from men when she could get it.”

“If I had the influence you seem to think I have, Miles, I’d get a gig for myself and you’d see me on the cover of
Vanity Fair,”
Drew said lightly. “Maybe your spy network needs tuning up. Try keeping surveillance on Gavin Kirkwood. He might prove more interesting.”

By now, Miss Snow had arrived at the third-floor landing with Skye in tow. Skye’s eyes were wide, Miss Snow’s narrow lips pressed nearly into invisibility although brilliant pink flared along the tops of her cheekbones. “I didn’t realize everyone was gathering up here,” she snapped. “I thought interviews would be conducted downstairs in the drawing room where we could have tea. Better yet, in the kitchen, so we won’t get anything dirty.”

“Will people at the gala get to drink tea in the drawing room?” Skye asked with feigned innocence. “Or do they have to stand in the kitchen?”

“Formal guests may eat wherever they like,” Miss Snow announced.

Drew grinned. “I sure hope you serve pigs in a blanket. I just
love
pigs in a blanket.”

“And sardines!” Skye jumped in. “With horseradish sauce and beer!”

Miss Snow looked appalled. “You don’t drink beer at your age, do you?”

“No more than two or three bottles a day,” Skye returned blamelessly. “Mom says it gets your creative genes perking.”

Even Miles couldn’t hide a smile although Drew had long since given up trying. Adrienne was half aghast, half admiring of her daughter’s audacity, but Miss Snow’s reaction was unmitigated insult. She glared at Skye, then turned on Drew. “I thought you had an interview to do, Mr. Delaney.”

“I really just needed a few short quotes from participants.”

“That leaves me out,” Miles said. “I’m not offering a picture for competition this year, but Adrienne is. You should get a quote from her.”

“
I
am on the board of directors,” Miss Snow reminded Drew. “I can tell you anything you want to know about the collection.”

“I know, Miss Snow,” Drew said smoothly. “I’ll be back for your comments. Right now I’d like to walk Adrienne and Skye to their car.”

“I don’t think Ms. Reynolds is ready to leave,” Miles stated, clearly more upset by Drew’s domination of the action than by the thought of Adrienne leaving.

“Yes I am,” Adrienne intervened. “I have a busy day.”

As they strolled down the brick walkway leading from the French Art Colony, Adrienne drew a deep breath. Drew threw her a sideways glance and asked, “Mind telling me what was going on back there with you and Miles Shaw?”

“I’m not sure, but he was weird. I wouldn’t say Miles and I were ever friends, but certainly not enemies. Today he was giving me the creeps, though.”

“He always gives me the creeps,” Drew said. “I wouldn’t be surprised at anything he did.”

Adrienne looked at him. His dark eyes were as intense as Miles’s, but without the threat and innuendo. Sunlight emphasized his deep laugh lines and the tiny, humorous quirk at the edge of his mouth. Suddenly, warmth for him flooded over Adrienne. Embarrassment at her reaction didn’t stop her from reaching out to take his arm as they strode down the brick walk away from the French Art Colony. Then she spotted an automobile parked at the curb.

“What kind of car is that?” she asked sharply.

Drew looked surprised at her tone. “It’s a Camaro.”

Adrienne scrutinized the dark blue, two-door car with its long hood, short hatch, and spoiler. It looked just like the car she’d seen cruising stealthily past her house several times last night.

“Do you like it?” Drew asked. “It’s mine.”

Lucas Flynn wanted a cigarette. He’d given them up six weeks ago and had been making do with the nicotine patches, but today they weren’t working. He felt jittery and irritable as hell, and he decided he couldn’t stand the craving anymore. As soon as he finished reading the autopsy reports that had just come in, he’d break down, sneak outside, and have a Marlboro. Maybe two. Probably three.

One of the tasks Lucas liked least about his job was wading through autopsy reports. Cold, scientific analyses of gaping wounds, blood loaded with toxins, and corpses nearly decapitated by strangulation with wires turned human beings into soulless pieces of meat, little more than hapless frogs dissected by bored high school biology students. But the reports were essential and Lucas knew the faster he read them, the quicker he could reenter the world of the living and of simple pleasures like smoking. And having a good lunch. He decided to treat himself to a midday meal at the Iron Gate Grill.

He pulled a sheaf of papers toward him, put on the reading glasses that last month the optometrist had deemed necessary and that Lucas hated passionately, and began to read about Julianna Brent, age thirty-six. She had never borne a child and appeared to have been in excellent health, except for a blow to the skull caused by a blunt object and a deep puncture wound to the carotid artery on the left side of her neck.

Lucas knew the blow to her head had come from the heavy ceramic lamp base whose pieces he’d found lying beside the hotel bed. Bruising on Julianna’s scalp had been scant both because the skin tightly stretched across bone bruised less easily than loose skin, and because death had occurred shortly after the blow. The puncture wound was not so easily analyzed. Something sharp had been thrust into the neck with tremendous force, but the edges of the wound bore no tearing, indicating the weapon had been round with a sharp point. No weapon capable of inflicting such a wound had been found at the crime scene, but judging by the depth of penetration, it must have been approximately three inches long. Possibly it could have been a bit shorter, the force behind the weapon driving it deeper into the soft tissue of the neck and leaving a longer cavity.

The massive blood loss indicated that Julianna had still been alive when the carotid was punctured. The fact that she lacked defensive wounds suggested that she’d been knocked unconscious by the lamp base, then attacked with a sharp object and allowed to bleed to death.

Lucas stopped reading and looked at the tan wall lined with file cabinets across from him. Only he didn’t see the cabinets. He saw Julianna lying on that bed, her beautiful face peaceful if almost supernaturally white, her hair spread over the deep and bloody wound in her neck, the butterfly clip sparkling with pink and blue Austrian crystals against her right temple. Someone had brutally murdered her and then posed her, even pulling the sheet and blanket over her naked body.

According to forensic psychologists, covering the body after a murder indicated the killer felt conflicted, and while his desire for someone’s death drove him to personally slaughter the person, he then felt compelled to bestow a bit of dignity by covering his victim.

But Julianna’s murderer had not felt conflicted. Lucas somehow felt sure of it. He just hoped no one else did. The fact that she’d been carefully covered to her neck with a satin sheet, and her hair had been combed, had not been released to the press. But Rachel Hamilton was a reporter. She was also related to the people who had found Julianna and could describe the loving state in which she’d been left. He trusted Adrienne to keep her mouth shut about those details. He was afraid a girl of Skye’s age would not be able to keep such knowledge from her cousin Rachel, whom she idolized.

Lucas realized he’d been staring at his file cabinets, lost in thought, for nearly five minutes. Mentally groaning, he picked up the autopsy report on Claude Duncan.

He stared at the typed page for a moment, not seeing the print, only the puffy, bleary-eyed face of Claude as he’d looked the morning he stood outside the room at la Belle Rivière, holding his ax in a ridiculous attempt to guard the room where Julianna lay dead.
Ridiculous.
That was a word most people would have applied to Claude. Ridiculous. Absurd. Dumb. Pitiful. A waste. And they would have been right, Lucas thought. In the great scheme of things, Claude Duncan hadn’t counted for much. But Claude was also the kind of person no one disliked enough to bother murdering. Unless he knew something. With Claude’s luck, he’d merely been in the right place at the wrong time.

The first part of the report told Lucas little that he hadn’t already guessed from viewing the remains. Over fifty percent of Claude’s body had been covered by third-degree burns, which destroy the skin and leave underlying structures exposed. Second-degree burns took care of another thirty percent. The high temperature of the fire had caused the tissues to rupture, resulting in the splitting of skin all over Claude’s body.

His skull had been fractured, but the medical examiner did not believe Claude had received a blow to the head, which would have caused the bone fragments to be localized and shoved
into
the skull. Instead, intracranial pressure had produced brain lesions, and the bone fragments from the skull were displaced
outward.
Both injuries were common phenomena resulting from intense heat and did not necessarily point to Claude being killed before the fire was set. It looked more as if the fire, not a physical assault to the head, had caused Claude’s death. Supporting this conclusion was the fact that he had a carbon monoxide level in his blood of around five percent and carbon particles had been found in his air passages, indicating that Claude had still been breathing while the fire raged.

The puzzling thing was that in most deaths by fire, the carbon monoxide blood concentration exceeded ten percent, and more carbon particles were located in the air passages than had been found in Claude’s. Therefore, it appeared that while he had been alive during the fire, he had not been breathing normally.

Lucas frowned in thought. He was certain Claude had been drunk at the time of the fire, but drunkenness doesn’t usually cut down on air intake. So, Claude’s condition had to have another explanation.

Results of the toxicology tests provided it. Aside from a high alcohol content, Claude’s blood had contained a large amount of oxymorphone hydrochloride, a semisynthetic opioid substitute for morphine.

Lucas already knew the principal effects of opioids, such as respiratory depression. They also repressed the cough reflex, which would explain why Claude had a much lower carbon monoxide blood concentration and fewer carbon particles in the air passages than would be expected. He wasn’t breathing normally and he’d had little capacity to cough up the small amount of carbon he
had
been able to inhale.