A Sounding Brass (25 page)

But she knew now that there were worse things than being Silenced. Being denounced as a thief and an embezzler was at the
top of the list. Hearing her mom’s frantic voice as she tried to get in but not being able to see her was another. And knowing
Luke Fisher had engineered it for reasons she couldn’t understand was worst of all.

That was what had kept her awake most of the night on the clean but spartan mattress in the Hamilton Falls PD lockup. The
jail was empty of criminals other than herself, so it wasn’t noise or light that kept her from sleep. It wasn’t the pervasive
smell of disinfectant and cold sweat. No, it was the knowledge that someone she’d worked with, laughed with, partnered with—and,
face it, had romantic dreams about—could turn on her in the space of a moment.

He’d called the police in at the tail end of her work day, making good and sure she’d made the deposit of the day’s donations
to the bank and generated yet another stack of thank-you letters. Then when the policeman had arrived, she’d ignored the two
of them while they talked in the CD library, out of her hearing, blissfully making mailing labels while he stuck the figurative
knife in her back.

“She’s in there, Officer,” he’d said, ushering the policeman in. “That’s Claire Montoya.”

She’d looked up, thinking it was an odd way to make an introduction, and had given the policeman a professional smile.

“Claire Montoya?” he asked.

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“I need to inform you you’re under arrest, ma’am.”

She gaped at him. The words made no sense. Was Luke playing a prank on her? “What?”

“The charges are criminal impersonation in the first degree, wrongfully obtaining funds by means of deception, larceny, and
embezzlement, ma’am,” he said politely. “We have a statement from Mr. Fisher, here, laying out the events since you’ve come
to work for the station. According to his information, you’ve embezzled more than one hundred thousand dollars from this station,
and by extension from the listeners of KGHM in several counties. Would you come with me, please?”

None of it had made any sense. Not the booking process, not the panicked call to her parents, not the fact that the soonest
they could get one of Derrick Wilkinson’s coworkers at the legal firm down here was ten o’clock in the morning.

This morning.

Claire cocked a bleary eye at the window, where the color of the sky told her it was just after dawn. Three more hours until
someone would come to help her. Three more hours of lying in yesterday’s clothes, the scent of her own fear heavy in her nostrils.

Three more hours to pray.

She’d done little else during the endless night—it was the best use she could make of her time. Not one person outside of
her parents had communicated with her in more than twelve hours. It wasn’t that she expected a mob of people to storm the
police station’s door, demanding her release. But surely more than two people in a town the size of Hamilton Falls would stand
up for her?

Look how they turned on Phinehas
, a voice whispered in her mind.

Phinehas really was a criminal. She was not. And as soon as Derrick’s lawyer friend turned up, she was going to tell them
so, at great length and in excruciating detail. Somebody had to believe her. Luke had made it all up. She had no idea what
she’d done to make him do this to her, but somehow it had to be made right.

If only Ray hadn’t left town. If only she hadn’t been so rigid and blind. If only she could have another chance to talk to
him. In fact, as soon as she got out of here, she was going to get his number from Julia and call him up and apologize. Grovel.
Beg. Do what it took to make him believe that she wanted to see if something could work between them, too.

O Lord, please help me. Help me not to panic. Help me to trust that You’re in control and will show people that I’m innocent.
Soften Ray’s heart toward me. Help me to—

“Claire!”

For a moment, she wondered if she’d heard his voice outside in the hall because of the strength of her prayer. In the next
second, she’d convinced herself it couldn’t be. This whole experience was a nightmare, a dream, and she’d teleported him into
it just because she wanted him so badly—

“Claire, are you all right? Sergeant, let her out, please.”

She rolled off the mattress and ran to the tiny window that separated her from the normal world where people walked around
free.

“Ray?” she croaked. There was water in the little sink, but she’d been too disgusted with what might have been in there before
her to drink out of the faucet. She was unshowered and dehydrated and hungry—and she’d never been so glad to see anyone in
her entire life.

The sergeant ran a card key through a slot on the wall and something inside the door chunked open. Before she could even grab
the handle, Ray had whipped it back and dragged her into his arms. She burst into tears against the rough wool of his jacket.
A fiery mix of joy and confusion and relief flooded her as she dragged the scent of clean fabric and his cologne into lungs
starved for a single breath that wasn’t tainted with fear.

“I can’t believe they’ve got you in here,” he said incredulously. “I came as soon as the lieutenant called. I put the bubble
on the roof and drove all night.”

She had no idea what the bubble was or what it was for, but if it got him here faster, then she was grateful.

“The emergency light is for police business only,” the sergeant said, her mouth pruned up as though someone had pulled strings
on either side of it.

Ray’s response to that was short and pithy. “If getting an innocent person out of jail isn’t police business, I don’t know
what is. Come on, Claire.”

“What—how—” She gave up on trying to speak. Just looking at him was manna to her soul as he practically dragged her up the
stairs to the offices of the police department.

“Bellville is letting you out on my recognizance for twenty-four hours,” he explained as they went. “In other words, I’m guaranteeing
to him you won’t skip town and make a run for Mexico.”

“I’ve never wanted to go to Mexico,” she said breathlessly, her hand clutched in his as he passed the various offices and
bull pens and no one jumped out to stop them and send her back to that eight-by-ten room.

He pulled her into an office where a laptop computer sat, fired up and ready to go, next to the beat-up leather backpack she’d
seen in the jump seat of his truck. “I need you to make a statement for me. Use the laptop.”

“Saying what?”

“I want you to tell me everything Luke Fisher has assigned to you, asked you to do, told you, or hinted at in any conversation
you’ve ever had with him.”

“That could take most of our twenty-four hours.” She’d much rather go somewhere quiet with a good lock on it and spend those
hours alone with Ray.

“That’s okay. Sit right here.” He pulled out a chair and planted her in it. “Take as much time as you need to give me as much
detail as you can.”

She sat, but she didn’t turn to the laptop. Not yet. “You believe me.”

His hazel gaze felt like the summer sun after a cold plunge in the lake. “Of course, I believe you. He set you up. He’s the
guy I’ve been doing surveillance on all this time. He’s Richard Brandon Myers.”

Claire stared at him. “The rip-off artist? Luke? What?”

“They’re one and the same. I knew he had to be up to something, but I didn’t expect he’d drag you into it. Now our job is
to prove he did all the things they’ve charged you with.”

Her mind reeled. “In twenty-four hours.”

“Right. Get to work.”

So, she did. It took forever. It took all the way through the breakfast muffin and massive mocha latte he brought her from
the coffee bar on Main Street. It took, in fact, the entire three hours before her counsel, Spencer Rodriguez, arrived and
was brought into the office for a strategy session. They printed out the statement—all eleven single-spaced pages of it—and
gave it to him to read. When he finished, he took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and gazed at the two of them. Light glinted
on a head as bald as a bowling ball. He was the guy who would help clear her. Claire thought he was beautiful.

“Fisher is slick, I’ll say that for him. Do you have his statement, too?”

Ray pulled it out of his backpack and handed it to him. “I made copies.”

Rodriguez glanced at the first few sheets and shook his head. “Point for point, he takes what he told Claire and twists it
tighter than a screw so that she looks like the culpable one. He’s had some practice at this, I can tell.”

“I have some background information you’ll find interesting, then.” Ray pulled a manila folder out and handed it to him. “That’s
a snapshot of his last three years, as complete as I can make it. Hamilton Falls PD already has this material. We just don’t
have any hard evidence to make it stick.”

“Without it, it’s her word against his.”

“We’ll get it.” Ray’s voice was grim, and Claire remembered again how intimidated he’d once made her feel. How she’d once
told Dinah Traynell she wouldn’t want him coming after her. Now that force of justice, that sense of confidence, was working
on her side.

For which she thanked God for about the tenth time this morning.

“We should reconvene at the end of the day and see what we’ve got,” Rodriguez said. “The terms of Claire’s release are that
she stays in Hamilton Falls in your presence at all times. That shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”

“No,” Ray said.

“If it turns out to be one, call me.” Rodriguez handed him a card. “That cell number is active 24/7.” Ray pocketed the card.
“What’s first on the agenda?” Rodriguez slipped the manila folder into his briefcase.

“The radio station. I have a few questions for Mr. Fisher.”

“I heard him on the air as I was driving over.”

“Good.” Ray offered Claire his hand and she slid hers into it as she rose. “Come on. We have work to do if we’re going to
get you cleared by tomorrow.”

H
ARPER’S LAW:
If you assume something, it’ll come back to bite you in the butt.

Both Ray and Claire assumed that it would be business as usual at the radio station, but the first thing they found when
they got to the building was that it was locked. Southern gospel music flowed happily from the exterior speakers, but the
booth drapes were pulled and no one answered the door.

“I have keys.” Claire fished them out of the purse they’d retrieved from the sergeant, who had been none too happy about giving
them up. They’d spent fifteen minutes at Claire’s place so she could shower and change, and now they were ready to take on
Luke Fisher. Ray would have preferred to have done it alone, but when Claire unlocked the door and led the way inside, it
was clear she wasn’t about to be left behind and probably had a few salient questions for Fisher herself.

She pushed open the door to the CD library and then stopped short at the glass window that looked into the DJ’s booth itself.

No one was there.

“He must be in the men’s room,” Ray said. “Back in a sec.”

But he wasn’t. Nor was he anywhere on the premises, and when they looked in the parking lot, neither the white van nor his
Camry were there. Just then they heard his voice come across the speakers: “That was Ricky Skaggs and an old favorite of mine.
Now, for a change of pace, coming up for Melanie and Tracy we have ZOEgirl. This is Luke Fisher, fisher of men, coming to
you live from 98.5 KGHM in Hamilton Falls!”

“He must have gone out to grab a cup of coffee.” They dashed inside, but when they went into the studio it was just as empty
as before.

“Now here’s a word from Hamilton Feed and Seed, where all the chicks I know do their shopping.” Luke’s voice sounded loudly
throughout the studio, and then the commercial began.

“Ray, he’s put a tape in,” Claire said, horrified. Pointing at the deck, where one light flashed green and the other red,
she went on, “He probably came in to relieve Toby this morning at eight, stuck tapes in both decks, and took off in the van.
And Ray—” She put a hand on his sleeve. “The van doesn’t have plates yet. It’s brand new.”

“So, tracing it is going to be more difficult. Like Rodriguez says, the guy is slick. The question of the hour is, where did
he go?”

“With the head start he got, he could be anywhere.”

“Maybe there’s something around here.” He began to go through everything sitting on the console. “A piece of paper. A letter.
A statement. Anything.”

“Maybe. The only paper he ever used is sticky notes.”

A search of the studio and the CD library turned up a whole lot of nothing—if you didn’t count the massive dust bunny under
the broadcasting console. That left the coffee room, which didn’t take long, and Claire’s office.

“It would be just like that guy to plant something in here that would incriminate you some more,” Ray said grimly, surveying
the room.

“Then it’s a good thing we got here first, and not that grumpy sergeant at the jail.” She pointed at a plastic bin sitting
on the floor. “Toby brought in the mail. I’ll go through it while you do my office,” she suggested. “It’s too familiar to
me. I’m liable to look right over something important just because I’ve seen it twenty times.”

Ray went through her desk and credenza, then glanced up at the row of cards on the window sill. They were just as innocuous
as they had been the first time. Just to be thorough, though, he read through them and the thank-you letter taped to the glass,
slowly, until he got to the signature.

Richard Myers.

Surely Fisher wouldn’t have been that stupid. Or that arrogant. “Claire, where did this letter come from?”

“One of the ministries we donated to.” She was halfway through the bin of mail, sorting it into piles. “It’s funny, isn’t
it? The pastor has the same name as—” She stopped in horror. “Oh, no.”

Ray looked more closely at the letter. A little graphic of a church at the top, the address in cutesy Old English script below
it. He ran his thumb over it. No engraving. It had come out of a laser printer. There was no reason for a casual observer
to think anything of it. Coincidences happened all the time.