THE SECRET OF CHEROKEE COVE (13 page)

“Positive,” Albertson answered. His forehead was slick with sweat, and his one good eye was white-rimmed with fear, but he stood his ground.

“Okay.” Nix straightened up and stepped back. Albertson released a long breath and looked down at his lap. “If you’d like to change your story, you know where to find me.”

He made it as far as the door before Albertson spoke again. “When did Bolen get beat up?”

“Yesterday afternoon. A few hours after we talked.” Nix turned back to look at Albertson. “When did you fall?”

“About an hour after you left,” Albertson answered in a flat tone.

Nix realized it was as close to an admission as he was going to get. “Do you need a doctor?”

Albertson shook his head. “Ain’t bled to death internally yet, so I reckon I’m gonna live.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go on. Get out of here,” Albertson said. “You ain’t gonna find any answers here.”

Nix pressed his lips to a thin line to keep from arguing. He’d known Albertson long enough to know the man wouldn’t talk unless he was good and ready. Clearly, at the moment at least, he wasn’t.

On his way out of the house, Nix took a long look around, wondering if there might have been any neighbors home to see who had visited the chief the day before, but there were only two houses in easy view of Albertson’s house, and there were no cars or trucks parked in front of either of them. Still, Nix jotted down the addresses. He could pull the phone numbers and give the neighbors a call later this evening.

As he got into the department-issued Ford, he took one last look back at Albertson’s house. To his surprise, Albertson stood in the window, his battered face just visible between a part in the curtains. He looked back at Nix for a long moment, then stepped back, letting the curtains fall closed.

He looked terrified, Nix thought, and considering the beating he’d taken, who could blame him?

Until this moment, Nix had been convinced the attack on Doyle Massey was almost certainly the work of either Merritt Cortland or one of his lieutenants, seeking some old-fashioned hillbilly vengeance against the man who’d thwarted their plans for the Bitterwood P.D.

But now he thought Dana could very well be on the right track in pursuing the secrets of her mother’s history. Craig Bolen could have earned a beating in the state prison because of his on-the-record statements about Merritt Cortland’s criminal activities. Hell, he could even have been targeted for simply being an ex-cop—inmates liked to punish fellow prisoners who’d once worn a badge.

But whoever had beaten up Derek Albertson had done so for one reason only: to find out what answers he’d given Nix during their meeting the previous day. And Nix’s questions hadn’t been about Bolen or Cortland or the crimes they’d committed together. His questions had been about Cal and Tallie Massey’s car accident fifteen years ago.

Whatever secrets Tallie had been keeping, she’d taken to the grave with her, and someone was willing to kill to make sure those secrets stayed buried.

Chapter Thirteen

Every nerve in Dana’s body jangled as the two men at the corner table rose and moved toward them. The black-haired man gave Dana an unabashed once-over as they approached, but it was the taller man, the one with her brother David’s green eyes, who stole her breath.

Was she seeing what she wanted to see? Was she so determined to keep her mother’s memory intact that she was perceiving a family resemblance where one didn’t exist?

Surely Doyle had met Dalton Hale by now, right? Doyle was chief of police in the county. Hale worked in the prosecutor’s office. Wouldn’t they have had reason to meet? And if Doyle had seen the same resemblance she now saw, he’d have said something.

She looked down at her tightly clenched hands and tried to regain her composure before the two men reached the table.

“Dana, this is Seton Flannery and Dalton Hale. We all work together at the county prosecutor’s office. Guys, this is Dana Massey, my fiancé’s sister.”

Dana made herself look up and smile, though she felt as if her face would shatter into tiny pieces from the effort.

Dalton Hale stood right next to her seat, his hand extended. “Nice to finally meet a Massey.”

“You haven’t met Doyle yet?” Hoping he wouldn’t feel the tremble in her fingers, she shook his hand. He had a strong, firm grip. Clean, neat hands but not as soft as she might have expected for a man with a desk job.

“We’ve accused Laney of hiding him from us,” the other man, Seton, added with a grin, offering his hand, as well. “We were supposed to meet him at the engagement party, but he went and broke his leg.”

So Dalton Hale had been at the engagement party? Clearly she hadn’t met him before she left with Nix.

She’d have remembered.

“We were beginning to think he was a figment of Laney’s imagination,” Dalton added with a lopsided grin so like David’s that Dana had to blink back tears to keep them from spilling down her cheeks.

“I don’t want to run him off now that he’s popped the question!” Laney laughed and waved at the empty seats at their table. “Y’all want to join us?”

Please say no,
Dana thought.
I’m not ready for this.

“Sure!” Seton pulled out the seat closest to Dana and sat, turning to look at her. “So, if I’m remembering the scuttlebutt correctly, you’re a deputy U.S. marshal?”

“Right.” She forced a smile, trying to keep her gaze from wandering back to Dalton Hale’s face. If she looked at him, she might lose what was left of her composure. “Are you a prosecutor?”

“Well, right now I’m a clerk,” Seton admitted, some of his earlier confidence faltering a little. “But I’ll pass my bar exam soon, and then I can start trying cases.”

“A little cocky, there, aren’t you, Seton?” Laney asked with a grin. “You don’t even know who the D.A. is going to be after next year. We might all be out of a job.”

“Oh, come on. We all know it’s going to be our man Hale here.” Seton grinned across the table at Dalton, and Dana couldn’t keep her gaze from wandering across to the older man’s face.

She tried to study his features without being obvious about it, not wanting to draw his attention away from his colleagues. His bone structure wasn’t exactly like David’s, she realized. He was wider at the forehead, with a stronger chin and jawline. But the sharp cheekbones were almost identical to David’s. Her mother’s cheekbones had been similarly prominent, and Dana herself had inherited that feature.

Dalton also had the same, slightly ruddy complexion as her own, also a gift from her mother. Doyle’s skin was darker, like their father’s, but David’s had been slightly fairer, more prone to freckling like hers. Dalton’s slightly wavy hair was the color of dark rust, a tone darker than Dana’s and the same rich auburn-brown David had shared with their mother.

She had hoped taking a closer look at Dalton would drive out the thoughts racing through her head, but the more she studied him, the more of her mother she saw in his features.

Have I lost my mind?
she wondered.

Or had her mother been telling the truth all those years ago?

“How long are you planning to be in town?”

It took a moment for Seton’s question to pierce the confusion spreading like flak in Dana’s brain. “I’m sorry, what?”

“How long are you in town?”

“Oh. Um, at least to the end of the week.” Her vacation days wouldn’t run out for another week past that, but she’d planned to spend part of the time back in Atlanta, taking care of some things she needed to do around the apartment, things that always seemed to slide to the back of the to-do list when she was working.

But with everything that had happened in the past couple of days, she wasn’t sure she’d be ready to leave Bitterwood so soon.

“She’ll be back for the wedding next month, for sure.” Laney slanted a sly smile at Dana. Dana could see the matchmaking glint in the other woman’s eyes and tried to send back a warning look without being too obvious about it.

She was not in the market for a relationship, in either the short or long term. And if she were...

“Do you like your work with the Marshals Service?” Dalton Hale’s low voice, edged with a faint mountain twang, gave away his Smoky Mountain origins. Her mother’s accent had been like that, she remembered, the roughest edges worn away by time away from the mountains but still possessing the light reminder of where she’d come from.

“It’s never dull.” She took the opportunity to give him another quick once-over. It was odd, she thought, how she was almost seeing him as David now. Or, at least, how David might look if he’d lived past his early twenties.

It was hard not to stare, hard not to feel an affection for him that should have belonged to her little brother. Dalton Hale was older than she was, but she felt a sudden, hard rush of protectiveness toward him that burned like fire in her belly. She wanted to know what his life had been like. Had he been happy? Had he gotten along with the people who raised him? Had they loved him the way he deserved?

Did he wish he had other brothers and sisters?

“Are you a Ridge County native?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. She knew where he’d been born and when. But maybe the question would lead him to more personal revelations.

Laney gave Dana an odd look across the table, her blue eyes sliding from her face to Dalton’s and then back to hers. Suddenly, her gaze flicked back to Dalton’s face and her mouth trembled open.

She sees it,
Dana realized.
She can see that Dalton and I look remarkably alike.

Laney’s gaze slowly slid back to meet Dana’s. Understanding gleamed in those eyes and Dana felt the sudden, disconcerting urge to cry.

She wasn’t sure how she made it through lunch. By the time Dalton and Seton had to head back to the office, the strain of trying to act normal had given Dana a splitting headache.

Once the men had left the restaurant, she lowered her head and pressed her fingertips to her temples, completely at a loss as to how she should be feeling. Happy that she had another brother? Sad that she and the rest of the family had lost so many years with him? Enraged by what his family had taken away from her mother all those years ago when they’d stolen her baby from her and left their own dead child for her to mourn over?

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Laney said quietly. “Your mother’s baby.”

“He looks just like our brother David. And David always looked the most like Mom of the three of us.”

“You and Dalton look a lot alike, too. Your mother was telling the truth.” Though Laney’s gaze was soft with sympathy, Dana also saw a darker emotion roiling behind her blue eyes. A realization, she supposed, of just how complicated life in Bitterwood was about to become.

She found her voice. “We can’t know for sure without a DNA test.”

“Maybe not, but I know what I saw. You saw it, too.”

Dana reached across the table and closed her hand over Laney’s arm. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“I wouldn’t, but—what are you going to do about it?”

“I’m not sure,” Dana admitted. So many years had passed, so much that couldn’t be undone. Proving Dalton Hale was really Tallie Cumberland’s son might be one hell of an uphill battle, especially if Dalton refused to cooperate. Maybe it would be better, since her mother was no longer alive, to let things lie.

Except someone had tried to kill her brother. And given the missing accident report, it was even possible someone had murdered her parents fifteen years ago. Had their deaths been engineered to cover up this very lie?

And if so, could she let her parents’ murders go unpunished to prevent Dalton Hale from learning the truth?

Laney sat up a little straighter. “If any of this is true, and it comes out, what’s that going to do to Dalton’s bid for county prosecutor?”

It seemed a frivolous question to Dana, given all the other questions she’d just been pondering, but she supposed to Dalton Hale, the effect of a scandal on his ambitions would be a major consideration. Dana didn’t suppose it would help him gain any votes, although these days, it was sometimes impossible to predict how a scandal would shake out. Dalton, after all, was an innocent in the mess. Even if it could be proved that his parents had stolen him from Dana’s mother, no one could find him at fault.

Still, it would be easier to win an election as the son of a well-known and well-loved town scion than the son of the town pariah. People around here didn’t care much for the Cumberlands. She’d seen that truth firsthand.

“I can’t worry about what it does to his ambitions,” she said finally. “Right now I’m trying to figure out if what happened to my parents fifteen years ago was really an accident or if it was murder.”

Laney looked shocked. Dana supposed Doyle hadn’t told her about their suspicions yet. “You think someone deliberately caused your parents’ accident?”

Dana told her about the missing files. “It’s pretty suspicious, don’t you think, that those files are missing? And that Craig Bolen was the man in charge of the investigation?”

Laney scowled. “I’d believe Bolen capable of almost anything. But you’re not saying he was behind the accident?”

“I don’t know who actually made it happen,” Dana said quietly. “But if they were killed because they came to town asking difficult questions about the Hale family...”

Laney’s eyes widened. “You don’t think the Hales were behind it!”

“They’d have the most obvious motive, if they stole him from my mother all those years ago.”

“But they’re good people,” Laney protested. “They fund programs for the poor, give millions to charity—”

“And wealthy, charitable people never commit crimes?”

Laney sighed. “Of course they’re as capable of crimes as anyone, but I know the Hales. And old Pete Sutherland is a complete sweetheart.”

Dana thought about her own meeting with Pete Sutherland and couldn’t disagree. “I met him yesterday.”

“Pete?”

“Yeah. She told Laney about running into the man at the diner. “He’s a real charmer. Maybe he doesn’t know about Dalton’s real parentage.”

“Nobody knows about his parentage for sure.” Laney lowered her voice. “Look, I think you’re probably right. I mean, Dalton looks a lot like you, and you tell me he looks like David.”

“You’ve never seen a picture of David?” Dana asked.

“The only picture of David your brother ever showed me is a candid shot of the two of them fishing in the Gulf of Mexico with your dad. The focus isn’t the greatest. I couldn’t really make out much about him.”

Dana knew the picture. She’d taken it. The boat had been rocking like crazy on a windy day. She was lucky to have snapped a decent shot at all.

“I have a better one.” She opened her purse and pulled out her wallet. She had David’s senior photo from college. Sliding it from the photo sleeve, she handed it to Laney. “That’s David about two years before he died.”

After a quick look, Laney’s gaze snapped up to meet Dana’s. “I’ve seen college pictures of Dalton—he has some group shots on his wall at work. The resemblance is uncanny.”

“I need to talk to Doyle.”

Laney nodded. “Of course. He was still at home when I left for work this morning, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he conned one of his cops into giving him a ride into the office.”

Laney’s instincts were dead-on; Doyle had gone into the office not long after Laney left. Since Laney had taken the afternoon off to deal with wedding plans, she went with Dana to the Bitterwood police station, intending to round up her stubborn fiancé and convince him to go back home to rest as his doctor had prescribed.

But Doyle wasn’t alone in his office when they arrived. Walker Nix sat in one of the chairs across the desk from him. He stood as they entered, his gaze locking with Dana’s.

“I thought we agreed you would wait until Monday to come back to work,” Laney told Doyle, her tone more worried than scolding as she rounded the desk and bent to give him a kiss.

“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” Nix said. “I’ve come across a bit of a situation.”

“So have we,” Dana said bluntly, taking the chair next to Nix. “And it’s a doozy.”

“Bigger than the former chief of police having the hell beaten out of him in order to find out why Nix went to visit him yesterday?” Doyle looked about as angry as Dana had ever seen her usually easygoing brother.

Dana looked at Nix. “How badly is he injured?”

“He’ll live. But Craig Bolen may not.”

“What happened to Bolen?” Laney asked.

In a couple of terse sentences, Nix told them about his visit to the state prison. “He’s in a coma. His condition is critical.”

“That’s bad,” Laney agreed. “But Dana’s news is bigger.”

“So spill,” Doyle said impatiently.

Dana suddenly felt uncertain, now that she had to say the words out loud to her brother. “I think...” She paused, took a deep breath and started again. “I met Dalton Hale today. And I think he’s our brother.”

Both men stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.

Laney broke the ensuing silence. “I think she’s right.” She put her hands on Doyle’s shoulders, dropping a quick kiss on the top of his head. “Call up the Ridge County District Attorney’s office on the web.”