Tough Customer (3 page)

"Sit down."

"Excuse me?"

The set of Derek's jaw was resolute. "You're not leaving this house until you tell us what the hell is going on."

"I told you. I got this notion to--"

"This isn't about vacation time. Sit down."

Dodge dropped back into his chair. But with attitude. After several moments of hostile glaring, he raised his shoulders.

"Do you remember when I told you about Julie and me?" Derek asked.

"About the flight from Paris?"

"Precisely. I admitted to you why I was compromised and couldn't represent Creighton Wheeler. I bared my soul to you because I knew I could trust you with my deepest, darkest secret. With my career. My life."

"Okay. So?"

"So that trustworthiness works both ways, Dodge. You have our confidence. What's going on?" Derek waited, and when Dodge didn't say anything, he added, "Must be something really important, or you wouldn't have put on such a dog-and-pony show about vacation time. You're here because you wanted to tell us something and didn't know how to go about it."

"You're a shrink now, too? Being Georgia's hottest trial lawyer isn't enough for you anymore?"

Derek didn't flinch.

"What's in Texas, Dodge?" Julie asked again.

Her softness of voice got to him as Derek's badgering never could have. His shoulders slumped in defeat. "Not what.

Who.
"

"Okay, who's in Texas?"

He avoided looking at both of them as he picked up his mug and walked it over to the sink, where he poured the contents down the drain. "My daughter." He felt their astonishment even before he turned around and saw their shocked expressions.

Derek said, "You don't have a daughter."

"Yeah, I do."

"Since when?"

"Since thirty years ago," Dodge said.

Derek shook his head to clear it. "You specifically told me that you didn't have a daughter."

"No I didn't."

"Dodge, I remember the conversation. You were checking into Creighton Wheeler's background. You told me that, based on what you'd learned about him, you wouldn't want your daughter dating him. And I said, 'You don't have a daughter.' And you said, 'If I did.'"

"See? You're the one who said I didn't, not me."

"But you
implied
it."

"Sue me."

"This quarreling isn't very constructive, is it?" Julie divided her reproach between the two of them, landing on Dodge. "We're just surprised, Dodge. You've mentioned a couple of ex-wives, but never children."

"Not children. Child. One."

He looked down at his shoes, wondered when they'd last been shined.

If
they'd ever been shined. He really should have them buffed at least. Maybe, if he had time at the airport...

Airport? Airport, hell. He wasn't going.

"When did you last see her?" Julie asked.

"On her birthday."

"Her last birthday?"

He shook his head. "Her actual one. The day she was born."

Their stunned silence teemed with questions he didn't want to answer. But Derek had the tenacity of a bulldog. "So why are you considering going to see her now?"

"I'm not."

"For the sake of argument, let's assume you are."

Dodge chewed on his inner cheek with annoyance and indecision, then heard himself telling them that his daughter had got herself into a jam. "I don't know the details, but it's a police matter. And her ... Somebody thought that maybe, with my background, I could help out. But I don't think so, and, anyway, why would I want to?"

Derek and Julie continued to look at him, their gazes admonishing and speaking volumes. Lowering his head, he dug into his eye sockets with his thumb and middle finger, then dropped his hand and sighed. "Shit, shit, and double shit."

FOR NEARLY HALF AN HOUR, BERRY AND CAROLINE HAD BEEN sitting on hard, unforgiving wood benches, like church pews, just inside the entrance of the Merritt County Court House. When Ski Nyland approached them, he looked like a man with a purpose for which he was running late.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting. I got a call."

Caroline asked, "Something positive?"

"I'm afraid not, Ms. King. Oren Starks is still at large, and I've only got a few minutes before I need to get back to the hunt." He touched the cell phone attached to his belt as though to guarantee that his line of communication hadn't been cut. His gray gaze slid to Berry, acknowledging her for the first time since he'd joined them. "Ready?"

"I've been ready."

After a beat, he said, "I guess marketing adheres to a stricter timetable than law enforcement does."

Touche, Deputy,
she thought. Her remark had been bitchy, and bitchiness was something she was striving to fix. However, given the stressful circumstances, she felt entitled to backslide.

Taking the edge off her tone, Berry said, "It's just that I thought you got everything you needed from me last night. I didn't expect to be summoned here again this morning."

"Sheriff Drummond asked for the meeting. Your lawyer is already up there."

"Then we should join them without further delay," Caroline said with a graciousness that Berry envied. She'd never mastered that special trait that seemed to come naturally to her mother.

Deputy Nyland gestured for them to precede him.

As they crossed the lobby, Berry wondered why he wasn't in uniform. He hadn't been wearing one last night, either, but she had figured he'd been off duty when her 911 had interrupted his Friday evening.

Today, except for his sport coat, he was dressed for a rodeo. Jeans and boots, crisp, white, western-cut shirt. He was also as laconic as any western-movie cowboy. She wondered if he envisioned himself as such. All he needed was a large white hat, a big tin star on his chest, and a six-shooter strapped to his thigh.

She assumed he was carrying a weapon somewhere. He might remove it when he was in the courthouse, but more than likely he kept it on, concealed from view, as were the emergency lights behind the grille of his tricked-out SUV, in which he'd driven her here last night to get her statement about what he'd referred to as "the shooting incident."

Now, as they waited for an elevator, Berry noticed how dwarfed her mother was by his height. Even Berry, who'd been taller than every boy in her class since seventh grade and had graduated high school with only a few of them having outgrown her, felt diminutive next to him.

They decided in favor of the stairs over waiting any longer for an elevator. As they walked up the one flight, Berry felt his stare like a physical pressure on the center of her spine.

The courthouse structure dated back to 1898, but it had been well maintained. The sheriff's office had original paneling and hand-carved molding around the plaster ceiling. The window glass was wavy but lent the room character. The wide desk was flanked by matching flagpoles. Between Old Glory and the Texas state flag hung a painting depicting Santa Anna's surrender to Sam Houston.

When they entered the office, the two men in it stood up. One was the lawyer her mother had summoned to the house last night. The other was Sheriff Tom Drummond.

He stepped from behind his desk and met them halfway to embrace Caroline, taking her shoulders between his hands and kissing her cheek. "Always a pleasure to see you, but I hate the circumstances of this meeting."

"So do I, Tom." She turned to indicate Berry. "I believe you met my daughter last year at the country club's Labor Day picnic."

"Of course. Ms. Malone."

"Berry, please."

He took her hand and patted it warmly. "I assure you, this case has the full attention of this office. Your mother's company has become important to this community by turning a stagnant real estate market active. Anything concerning her concerns me, especially your safety. We're going to catch this character. I give you my word."

"Thank you. I have every confidence in you."

The lawyer--his name was Carlisle Harris, Harris Carlisle, Berry couldn't remember which--was roughly the sheriff's age. He was a nice-looking, pleasant gentleman, but she felt sure her mother had chosen him more for the evident shrewdness behind his bright black eyes than for his cordiality.

He had shown up at the lake house last night as though Caroline had waved a magic wand to produce him. As soon as her mother had learned the nature of the emergency and Ski Nyland had begun posing questions about Berry's pistol, Caroline had politely asked him to hold off until she called her attorney. The deputy hadn't liked it, but he had complied, and Berry hadn't uttered another word until the lawyer got there.

He stepped forward now to shake hands with her and Caroline in turn.

The sheriff must have sensed Ski Nyland's impatience because he curtailed the pleasantries and suggested they all take seats. Berry and her mother sat side by side on a well-worn leather sofa. The men sat in armchairs that formed a semicircle facing them.

The sheriff began. "Ski has given me a rundown of what happened out at the lake house last night, and I have a copy of your official statement, Berry. Harry, you got a copy?"

"I did," said Harris Carlisle. "Thank you."

"Is there anything you'd care to add to it, Berry?" the sheriff asked. "Anything you've remembered between last night and now that could help us track this guy?"

She shook her head. "I was as comprehensive as I could be. To capsulize it, Oren Starks has been stalking me for months. Last night he came to the lake house, shot Ben, and threatened to kill me."

"You met Starks at your place of employment, is that correct?"

"Delray Marketing in Houston."

"I understand that he was fired from the company."

"Some months ago."

"Do you know why?"

"He wasn't a good fit," she replied. "At least that was the water- cooler speculation for why he was let go."

"Did
you
think he was a good fit?"

She turned to Deputy Nyland, who'd posed the question, and answered coolly. "It isn't in my job description to evaluate co-workers."

"Candidly, did you think Oren Starks was a good fit?"

"No, I didn't."

"Why not? Wasn't he any good at what he did?"

Berry gave a half smile. "Oren wasn't
good
at his job, he was
exceptional.
"

"I don't follow, Berry," the sheriff said. "Ski said you painted this guy as an oddball."

"His personality has no bearing on his skill," Berry said. "Marketing is about creativity, and strategy, and making dozens of components come together to form a harmonious whole. One wrong element throws the whole thing off. At Delray, Oren was our go-to guy when a campaign wasn't coming together the way it should. He had a knack for isolating the piece that didn't fit."

"Yet he was a misfit at the company," the sheriff said.

"Ironically, yes. He made people uncomfortable. Women in particular. I wasn't the first he focused his unwanted attention on."

"Were sexual harassment complaints filed against him?"

She shook her head. "None officially. Oren didn't do anything overt. No touching. No obscene e-mails or lewd texts. He's too intelligent, too sly to do something that could have trapped him.

"But he was very clever with innuendos implying an intimacy that didn't exist." As an afterthought, she added, "If you took issue with one of his remarks, he could make you feel as though you'd mistaken his meaning."

"Was this your experience?" the sheriff asked.

"Yes. At first. I began to think I was reading too much into the things he said and did. But after he was fired, he became more persistent and aggressive. To the point where I grew frightened of him. I thought that if I came here and stayed the summer in Mother's lake house--which she'd been trying to get me to do ever since she bought it--if I came here, essentially disappeared for a while, Oren would become discouraged or simply lose interest and leave me alone."

"When you say stalking..." The sheriff leaned forward, inviting her to elaborate.

"Calling several times a day. Constantly sending me text messages."

"Why didn't you change your phone number?" Deputy Nyland asked.

"Too many people have that number. Clients, co-workers, people who need to reach me for a quick solution to a time-sensitive problem. It would have been very inconvenient to change it."

"More inconvenient than being stalked?"

"You don't have to answer that, Berry," her lawyer said.

She didn't answer. Instead, she redirected her attention to the sheriff. "Oren would show up at my house uninvited. Sometimes he would be parked at the curb, or even sitting on the porch, waiting for me when I returned home. He would appear at restaurants where I was having dinner and would send flowers with enclosure cards that suggested a romantic relationship. I assure you there was none. He sent me small gifts that--"

"Like what?"

Flustered by the deputy's constant and skeptical interruptions, she had to think for a moment. "He once sent me a video game. A Dungeons & Dragons kind of game. Fantasy stuff with wizards, evil sorcerers, castles with mazes. You know the kind of thing."

"You're into that?"

"Not at all, Deputy Nyland. But Oren is. He loves puzzles of any kind, and he's good at them."

"Which made him good at working out solutions to marketing campaigns with problems," the deputy said.

"Exactly."

"What else? What other gifts?"

"A bestseller by an author he knows I like. He stood in line for hours--so he claimed--to have the book inscribed to me. He gave me a CD that he'd burned himself. The most personal gift was a silver charm bracelet. Thin chain. One charm. A heart."