Truth and Consequences (4 page)

Kathleen prowled her living room, picking up the remote, flipping through the channels, putting it down again. A magazine received a cursory glance. Finally, she pulled her notebook from her soft-sided briefcase and flipped it open to Jason Harding’s statement.

He knew something.

She just didn’t know how to get it out of him.

In the morning, she and Altee could drive over, interview him again.

Yeah. Sure.

The key would be catching him off-guard. On his own territory, where he was comfortable, but when he wasn’t expecting her. And one-on-one. Somehow, she knew he’d shut down if the conversation involved more than the two of them.

Not giving herself time to regret the decision, she grabbed her keys and notebook and jogged downstairs to her car. Using the interior light, she read his address, trying to remember where the hell Cotton Boll Road was in Haynes County. Wasn’t that out behind Dale Jenkins’s dairy farm? A quick check of her regional map proved her memory correct.

Trees overshadowed the back roads. Her headlights pierced the dark, bouncing eerily off mist rising from the ill-maintained pavement. Her practicality screamed she was making a mistake.
Wait and take Altee with you.

Her instinct told her something else entirely, whispering that Jason Harding could be the key to this case.

Her conscience told her she was making excuses, simply to get what she really wanted—and not as a cop, either.

Cotton Boll Road was a generous name for the narrow trail that led into the woods behind the dairy farm. Her SUV handled the rutted dirt road well. When the clay track opened up into a clearing, Kathleen hit the brakes and eyed Jason Harding’s home. The place was a tactical dream—for the occupant. The trail circled around the single-wide trailer, one way in and one way out. The isolation pressed in on all sides.

Okay, this had been a bad idea. A really bad idea. Right up there with letting her mother talk her into accepting an engagement ring from Tom. The divorce had taught her it was never too late to get out of a bad situation.

She threw the Wagoneer into reverse. Behind her, headlights swept the tree line. Damn. Too late this time. Resigned to brazening things out, she shifted to drive and pulled up to park in front of the trailer.

The white and green siding glowed under the security light. A crooked stoop had been tacked on to the front. Heavy painter’s plastic covered two windows, rippling in the breeze.

This
was all he could afford? Obviously, police corruption didn’t pay as well at the entry level.

Jason stared at the early model Grand Wagoneer in his driveway. He pulled to one side, steering with one hand while the other unsnapped his holster. No one had any business being on this isolated piece of dirt and this presence had alarm burning in his chest.

They knew who he was. It was all over.

Heck, if they knew who he was,
he
was all over.

Images burned in his brain—the two dead boys, the cold, lifeless expression in Jim Ed’s eyes, blood splattered on a cracked windshield.

Stiffening his spine, Jason pushed the truck door open. He’d never been a coward and he wouldn’t start now. Hand on his gun, he kept the cab of the truck between him and the Wagoneer, watching. The driver’s door opened, he tensed, and the interior light flashed over fiery hair. Fiery, just-tumbled-out-of-bed hair.

For a moment, he relaxed, the awful fear of discovery and retaliation subsiding under a wave of relief. A different fear flooded into the wake. He shot a glance at the trailer where he’d grown up, the only piece of dirt he could say he owned, and compared it to what Kathleen Palmer was accustomed to—her father’s acres of hunting land, the big white house she’d grown up in, with its Grecian columns, huge crystal pendant light on the porch and widow’s walk. The old inadequacies rushed in on him, waves on a shore.

He grabbed on to his old life preservers, the anger and resentment, and walked around the front of the truck to confront her. Her hair framed her face in a halo of wispy fire. The dim light made it difficult to tell if her eyes were brown or black, but he knew they were a warm brown dappled with gold. God, even her eyes were rich.

His gaze followed hers to the trailer and back to his truck. In those incredible eyes, he was nothing. The ache made him grit his teeth. Thumbs tucked in his gun belt, he slumped in a negligent posture he knew his high school teachers would remember. The poor kid who didn’t give a damn.

“Missed me, did you, Palmer?”

She fixed him with a disdainful look. “I have a few more questions. I’d like some straight answers this time.”

And he’d like her gone. “I’m busy.”

Her mouth tightened. “We can do this here, or I can drag you into Moultrie and make it last all night.”

Oh, my God.
The words punched into his gut, mental pictures exploding in his head. Here. Elsewhere. All night long. He watched her, remembering her high school reputation as somewhat of a prude, an innocent who blushed at off-color jokes and never allowed a hand to venture to the hallowed ground beneath her cheerleading skirt. He was willing to use any weapon he had, just to get her out of here. For her safety as well as his.

He eyed her, letting his gaze take a lazy exploration of her body. “Baby, I bet you could, too.”

Awareness dawned in her eyes and her mouth thinned to a nonexistent line. “Harding—”

“Call me Jason.” He poured all the bedroom innuendo he could into the words. Need speared through him. What would his name sound like on her lips?

Furious color played over her cheeks, visible even in the bluish vapor light. Her long indrawn breath was audible and she flipped open that damn notebook again. “You said that you arrived on scene the same time as Investigator Calvert from Chandler County.”

He ignored the question and stepped closer. He was going to make her hate him, and regret stabbed at him. What if he’d met her in another life? One where he wasn’t a dirt-poor, desperate cop, so desperate he’d cover for a murderer? A life where they were equals, where she could look at him with respect, maybe admiration.

Close enough that her scent of Ivory soap filled his nostrils, he reached out to finger one of those wild wisps. “If you make it last all night, do I get to call you Kathleen? Or is it always Agent Palmer?”

She closed the notebook and took a step back, colliding with the Wagoneer. “You don’t get to call me anything.”

“Don’t you know this county’s dangerous?” He leaned closer, his breath mingling with hers. Her eyes dilated and he felt her pull her stomach muscles inward. Avoiding contact with him. Afraid of contamination. Bitterness gnawed at him.

“I’m not afraid of you.” Her voice was soft, steady.

Jason rested both hands on the hood, trapping her between his body and her SUV. Her body heat seared him, but the sensation brought no pleasure—just a nauseating knowledge that she’d never let him touch her, not willingly. He forced a smile, using Jim Ed’s for a pattern. For a moment, he was afraid he really would throw up.

“Well, sugar, maybe you should be.” He held her prisoner a moment longer. Stepping away, he indicated her truck with a flourish worthy of an Arthurian knight. “Go home, Kathleen. Forget about those boys. Just let it go.”

She didn’t say anything else, but climbed into the Wagoneer and fired the engine. Jason didn’t wait to watch her leave. With the sound of her departure following him, he walked into the trailer that had once been his home.

Dragging himself into the shower, he tried to force his brain into logical patterns of thought. Fear, lingering from the night before, slithered through him. The paralyzing dread created by her SUV in his drive hammered home the most important point once more: he couldn’t afford to be sloppy.

And he couldn’t afford to let Kathleen get further involved. He didn’t for a second believe he’d scared her off for good. Her tenacity sparked his admiration, but it also scared the living hell out of him. What had she been thinking, showing up at his house, in the wilds and badlands of Haynes County, after dark? Alone. Hell, she’d come alone.

The idea that Jim Ed might have been with him intensified the pounding at his temples.

Didn’t she know there were worse things in life than unanswered questions? Was she that naïve, to think simply catching him unawares would push him to answer her? He wouldn’t tell her anything he didn’t plan for her to know.

The stream of water, which had hit his skin with stinging force, slowed to a trickle, thanks to the well’s uneven performance. Cursing, he rinsed the soap from his body the best he could and stepped out. With a thin, rough towel wrapped around his waist, he padded back to his bedroom. At the end of the hall, a closed door marked the room his mother had called her own, where she’d succumbed to the cancer that had ravaged her body with devastating speed.

Not being able to afford basic health care was a freaking bitch. Anger coiled in his gut again. His mother’s cancer was eighty-five percent curable if found early enough. She’d avoided regular checkups, using the money for food, electricity, clothing for him. Maybe if his father had bothered to stick around, she would still be alive. Maybe if he’d never been born.

He hurled the towel into a corner and jerked on a pair of underwear. The clock radio clicked on and the deejays at the local country station kept up a steady stream of repartee. “…it’s five-forty-five, fifteen until the top of the hour. Bonnie, what does our weather look like today?”

Sunny and too hot to wear the bulletproof vest all day. Jason pulled on an undershirt and the vest anyway. He could hear Jim Ed’s mocking voice now.
You scared someone’s gonna shoot you?

Well, yeah. Maybe one of the guys I work with. Maybe you.

He shrugged on the pressed uniform shirt and stepped into his pants. Bonnie’s too-cheerful voice chattered from the radio. “Kurt, we have a request this morning that has us digging in the archives. Here’s Johnny Cash’s ‘I Walk the Line’.”

With the song’s title, tension grabbed his nape and the headache, once subsided to a dull throbbing, returned full force. He shot a glance at the clock. Almost six and he had to sign on at seven. He needed to get moving.

Fog shrouded the pecan grove, hanging between the ancient trees like shimmering phantasms. The grass whispered under Jason’s steps and the damp mist lingered against his skin. Overhead, trees arched and created an artificial darkness that blotted out the early morning sun. Silence surrounded him, suffocating him in isolation.

A lighter flared, illuminating a face with sharp angles and intelligent dark eyes. An angry purple bruise surrounded one of those eyes. The end of a cigarette glowed red and smoke curled upward before the light went out.

Jason spoke first, keeping his voice quiet. No one should be around, but he couldn’t shake the feeling the grove held unseen listeners. “We’ve got a problem. Kathleen Palmer showed up at my place last night.”

“Damn it.” Tick Calvert shook his head. “I warned her. That woman wouldn’t listen if the Lord Almighty Himself tried to tell her something. Tell me she brought Price with her.”

“No. She was alone.” A shiver slid over Jason’s skin again. Too many things could have happened.

Tick sighed. “Figures. I swear, if I could, I’d—”

“Sounds like you know her pretty well.” The words emerged with more sharpness than Jason intended. He pushed down the irrational jealousy. Who knew Kathleen well didn’t have anything to do with him.

“Our fathers were close friends. We grew up in each other’s houses.” Tick darted a look at him and grinned. “Why? You have a crush on her?”

Yeah. One almost twenty years old.

Jason schooled his face into an expressionless mask. “I just don’t want to see her dragged into this mess. I wouldn’t want her to get hurt.”

Tick shrugged. “Kathleen’s pretty able to hold her own, but I’ll talk to her again. The only problem is that once she gets an idea in her head, she’s like an old hound dog with a bone. And she thinks you saw something yesterday.”

An unspoken question lingered in Tick’s words. Jason stiffened. “Just like I told her. I didn’t see anything.”

Except the look in Jim Ed’s eyes and he didn’t care to ever see that soulless expression again. He glanced around the grove. With the fog lifting, the light filtered through the trees and the dark shifted to gray. Time was running out.

“So did you call me out here to ask me that?” Jason rubbed a hand over his neck, the muscles tight and painful under his fingers.

“Thought you might be interested to know that Thatcher checked out your military record Friday. Seemed real interested in your general discharge. Wanted to know why it wasn’t honorable.” Tick dropped his cigarette butt and ground it beneath his heel.

Jason chuckled, a humorless sound. “Somehow I expect the Bureau made me seem like a corrupt son of a bitch.”

“Something about missing equipment and you flashing a lot of cash around.”

The idea of anyone, even Bill Thatcher, thinking him a thief left a metallic taste of disgust in his mouth. “I take it my Purple Heart and Meritorious Service Medals no longer exist?”

Tick laughed. “Not in the reality created for you by the FBI. Sorry, bud, but you’ve got a pretty unimpressive record right now. Actually, if you want the honest truth, Agent Harding, it sucks.”

Jason glanced at the other man, a fellow recipient of Quantico’s FBI award. Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity. Not words anyone would attach to his current persona. But if Thatcher was checking him out, going deeper than the cursory reference check the department had done six months ago, maybe they were making some headway. Maybe he was about to be invited into the inner circle, become one of Thatcher’s tarnished knights. The thought didn’t bring the satisfaction it should. He shook off an image of Laurel kissing Jim Ed’s cheek, of the family gathered around his cousin’s dining room table.

“What’s wrong?” Tick’s sharp voice cut through the remaining fog.

Great. Now Calvert suspected him of second thoughts, of wavering in his duty. He shook his head and glanced away.

“I know Jim Ed’s your cousin. I know he’s family, and I know what that means.” Low intensity colored Tick’s words. “But the man is a crook. Prostitution, drugs, gambling—you name it and Thatcher’s boys have their fingers in it somewhere.”

Jason glared. “He’s a good father.”

To Laurel, anyway. To Jamie? That was arguable. And hell, what did Jason know about what made a passable dad? His hadn’t hung around long enough to provide much of an example. Besides, Billy and Jim Ed had definitely been hell-raisers as teens. For all Jason knew, maybe there was more to it than cleaning a damn dog kennel. Maybe Jamie had deeper issues Jim Ed was trying to deal with.

The explanations felt weak, even to him.

“He might be a murderer.”

“I know.” Jason kicked a stray pecan into the side of a tree. “Damn it, I know.”

“Harding. You’re the only one who can do this. You’re the only one we’ve ever been able to get on the inside. This goes further than just the Haynes sheriff’s department. If we can get Thatcher, we can use him to get at a whole segment of the Dixie Mafia. This is the only way. And you’re it, man.”

“I haven’t said I wouldn’t do it. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You can’t screw this up, Jason. You mess up, you’re dead. Don’t think that Jim Ed will put loyalty to you over loyalty to Thatcher. You’ve got to keep your emotions out of this.” Calvert’s dark eyes glowed with intensity, even in the dimness. “And that includes any feelings you have for Kathleen Palmer.”

“I don’t have any feelings for her.” Not any he could act on anyway. Not any she would care about. “But she’s a problem.”

“Maybe not.” Tick stroked his thumb over his chin. “If she ties Jim Ed to the boys’ deaths, we could use that. He’d be facing the death penalty. Maybe he’d turn on Thatcher in exchange for a reduced sentence.”

“Maybe.”
But I doubt it.

“You’d be surprised what a man will do when he’s desperate.”

That’s what he was afraid of and if Kathleen pushed this investigation, Jim Ed could get real desperate, real quick.

“Can we get her pulled off the case? Have it reassigned?”

Tick shrugged. “We can try, but all it’ll do is piss her off and she’d be investigating on her own. Believe me. She’s so stubborn she makes me look wishy-washy. But you’re the real FBI guy. I’m just the ex-agent turned lead investigator for a piss-ant sheriff’s department. Do you want me to call the OCD?”

Yes. Jason wanted him to call the Bureau’s Organized Crime Division, have the FBI contact the GBI and
request
that Agent Palmer be removed from the case. He wanted her safe. But if Calvert was right, he’d be shoving her directly into danger. The only way to ensure her safety was to keep an eye on her.

“Harding? Do you want me to call them?”

“No. Just help me keep tabs on what she’s doing.” Jason glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get moving. My shift starts in ten minutes.”

“Yeah, mine, too.”

Jason was feet away when Calvert called his name. He turned to find the other man watching him with a somber expression. “Harding, you’re doing the right thing.”

“I know.” But betraying the only family he had left seemed far from right.