Confessions (25 page)

To someone ignorant of the company's origins, Southwest would have seemed like nothing more than an extremely successful construction company. They'd built a senior citizen condominium project in Tucson, a timeshare resort hotel in Sedona, and a federally funded low-income housing project in Phoenix.

Trace could find no record of any permits requested or issued for any project in Whiskey River. Or Mogollon County.

Wondering if he was wasting time on a wild-goose chase, he'd just filed away the papers when Cora Mae appeared in his doorway.

“You have a visitor, Sheriff.”

Trace glanced up at the wall clock. It was nearly midnight. “A little late for visitors,” he noted. Unbidden, the thought that Mariah might have driven down from the ranch popped into his mind.

Cora Mae's frown took up her entire fleshy face, from her three chins to her wide forehead. “Not this visitor,”
she harrumphed. “The only surprise is she didn't wait until the bars closed.”

His curiosity aroused, Trace said, “Send her in please, Cora Mae.”

She nodded brusquely, causing her pewter corkscrew curls to bob. “You're going to need coffee,” she informed him. “I'll make some.”

“Thank you,” Trace said, still as mystified as ever.

Cora Mae marched out, her spine, beneath the tan uniform she insisted on wearing, as stiff as the trunk of a ponderosa pine.

Trace heard two voices, both female. A moment later, a woman he didn't recognize appeared in his doorway.

“May I help you, Ms.—”

“Jones. Nadine Jones.” The woman, who Trace guessed to be about the same age as Maggie McKenna, looked every day of her fifty-some years. Her hair was a mass of bleached fuzz that reminded him of a yellow Brillo pad. Looking at it, Trace suddenly recalled where he'd heard the name before. Nadine Jones, he remembered, was the infamous hairdresser from hell.

“Won't you come in, Ms. Jones.” He stood up, went around his desk and held out a chair.

“Thank you.” She smelled of cigarette smoke, beer and cheap, sweet perfume. “I want you to know,” she informed him right off the bat, “that I've never been in any trouble with the law.” She lit a cigarette, drawing in the smoke with an ugly rattling of her lungs.

“Uh-huh.” Trace nodded.

She gave him a stern look. The whites of her eyes were lined with more red than a road atlas. “You can look it up in your files.” She waved the cigarette toward the beige metal cabinets. “You won't find me in there.”

“I'll take your word for that,” Trace said agreeably. “What can I do for you, Ms. Jones?”

“Call me Nadine, honey,” she drawled. He could smell
the beer on her breath from across the desk. “I've never been much for formality.”

“Are you here to file a complaint, Nadine?”

“Actually—” she drew in on the cigarette again “—I'm here to tell you who killed Laura Swann.” An acrid blue cloud billowed between them on the exhale.

 

Despite Nadine Jones's beery proclamation, the next day Trace was no closer to solving what he still considered a double homicide.

He did, however, find it mildly interesting to learn that Patti Greene had a habit of slashing tires. According to Nadine, the tires on her Camaro had been slashed after she'd threatened to tell the state cosmetology board that Patti was doing the occasional wash and blow-dry at her house. And off the books. Either act, if proved, could cost the hairdresser her license.

In addition, Nadine had professed, there was a little matter of selling shampoo and hair coloring to customers without a resale tax permit.

When he'd told Nadine he couldn't see how that led to murder, she'd gone on to say, with that slow, drawn out speech pattern peculiar to drunks, that Patti had bragged to her about slashing the tires on Laura Fletcher's Blazer after she found out the senator's wife had spent the night at Clint's ranch.

“Don'tcha see,” the former hairdresser from hell had said, “when that didn't stop Laura from seeing Clint, Patti shot her.”

It was a quantum leap from slashing tires to shooting a person in the head at close range. But Nadine wasn't finished. “She shot her husband.” Another wave at the files. “Look it up.”

Trace had, although it took him a while to find the paperwork, which had been misfiled. According to the re
port written by Ben Loftin, Patti Greene had peppered Jerry Greene's jean-clad behind with birdshot from her Ithaca shotgun after catching him making out in the parking lot of Denim and Diamonds with the girl singer. The singer subsequently left town and after having the doctor at the Payson emergency room pick the buckshot out of his ass, Jerry had spent the next two weeks sitting on a pillow and promising his trigger-happy wife that he'd behave himself. Which, of course, he hadn't.

Although he reminded himself that Nadine obviously had an ulterior motive for declaring Patti to be the killer—she had, after all, been fired by the salon owner—Trace was in no position to overlook any lead. No matter how small.

Which was why he was hanging around the outside of Shear Delight, waiting for Patti Greene to show up. “Home with my kids,” she said when he asked where she'd been the night of the murder. “I told you, I didn't kill Laura.”

“But you did slash her tires?”

She pushed the door open, setting the bell tinkling. “Who the hell told you that?” She slammed her purse onto the reception counter and began turning on lights. The salon smelled vaguely of ammonia. “It was Nadine, wasn't it? Lord, I'd love to wring that old bitch's neck.”

Although she didn't admit to the crime, her anger was confirmation enough. “How about Clint's and Fredericka's tires? Did you do them, too?”

She pulled some combs and brushes out of the sanitizing solution. “You going to take me in, Sheriff?” She held out her hands, dripping the liquid onto the pink-and-black tile floor. “Why don't you just put the cuffs on me and get it over with?”

Behind the anger flashing in those bright green eyes, Trace could see fear. And exhaustion. Remembering the
kids and the trailer with the leaky roof, and looking at this place so badly in need of a paint job, he decided nothing would be solved by taking the woman in for vandalism.

“I'll make you a deal.”

“What?” She eyed him suspiciously, giving him the feeling that most of the time when this woman made a deal with a man, she found herself on the losing end.

“You arrange to make restitution on the tires, and I won't write it up.”

She tossed her red curls and lifted her chin in a way that reminded him of Mariah. “I'm not a goddamn charity case. Not yet, anyway,” she tacked on under her breath.

“I didn't say you were.” He put his hat back on. “I figure Clint'll be understanding. If you have any trouble with Fredericka, let me know and I'll see what I can do.”

The defiance left her eyes, which filled up, threatening to brim over. “Why?”

Despite the fact that he still couldn't take this woman off his suspect list, Trace smiled. “Didn't anyone tell you? I'm one of the good guys.”

Satisfied with the way he'd settled that crime wave, he left the salon. As he pulled away from the curb, he saw her standing in the window, watching him, still, he suspected, not quite understanding his behavior.

“Who was that masked man?” Trace asked himself out loud, feeling for the moment, pretty damn pleased with himself.

 

Back at his office, Trace couldn't shake the feeling that Laura Fletcher's death had nothing to do with her infidelity, or Clint Garvey's expectations of their marriage, or even Alan Fletcher's desire to be free to marry his congressional aide.

For not the first time since he'd arrived at the Fletcher ranch—now Mariah's ranch—on the morning of the mur
der, his thoughts came back to the idea that Laura was killed not for sex, but for money. Which, in this case, translated into land.

Which, he told himself glumly, once again, pointed directly at the individual who had inherited all that land. Mariah. Even as he reminded himself that she already had more money than she could spend in several lifetimes, Trace knew from experience that some people never seemed to have enough.

He didn't want to think her capable of committing any crime, let alone cold-blooded murder for profit. His need that she be proved innocent, more than anything, scared the hell out of him. His years in Dallas had taught him not to be surprised by anything, not to trust anyone, and most importantly, never, never to get involved. That had been rule number one. A rule he'd always followed.

Until now. Until Mariah.

If it was just sexual attraction he was feeling, Trace figured he could deal with it. The same way Sam Spade had dealt with the larcenous, murderous Brigit O'Shaughnessy, he mused, thinking back on Mariah's earlier comparison of their situations.

But it was more than sex. More than attraction.

Irritated by the way his mind was always returning to her, Trace pushed away from his desk, poured a cup of coffee and stood at his office window, looking out the window at the grassy square across the street.

These days, at least, his view was no longer blocked by that teeming mass of television news vans. Once Garvey had been arrested, most of the media had declared the case closed and had returned to their home bases. Although he knew they'd be back for the trial, Trace was enjoying the ability to enter the building without having to run the gauntlet of irritating, stupid questions.

These days, only the random Arizona reporter showed
up requesting an interview and even most of them seemed willing to accept his noncommittal answers about no case being fully closed until someone was convicted in a court of law. The exception was Rudy Chavez, who continued to dig around in the case.

The last bit of information the reporter had managed to unearth was the fact that two short months before she'd died, Laura Fletcher had put a hefty mortgage on the ranch. Having discovered that same fact only hours before Rudy, Trace begrudgingly granted the reporter's investigative skills a new respect.

The bank in question was on the other side of the town square and as he stared out the window, Trace viewed Mariah, coming out the bank offices with a young man clad in jeans, a navy blazer, chambray shirt and a string tie. He watched as they hugged, then, irritated by the sight of Mariah in another man's arms, looked away.

Of course there'd be men, he told himself. A woman like Mariah Swann would always have males buzzing after her. Even in a town the size of Whiskey River.
Especially
in a town like Whiskey River, where the only other women who came close to exuding big-city glamour were Jessica Ingersoll—who usually stuck to attorneys and the occasional businessman from Phoenix or Flagstaff—and Fredericka Palmer, who was too falsely sophisticated for Trace's personal taste.

The embrace lasted only a few seconds. But it was too long. With effort, Trace reminded himself that they'd agreed
no promises.

Despite her having inherited the ranch, despite her having admitted that she'd been thinking of buying land, Trace didn't believe that Mariah would actually remain in the hometown she'd been so desperate to escape. Especially since her sister was no longer alive.

From what he'd seen of Matthew and Mariah's already-
rocky relationship, which had been made worse by her discovery of what her father had done to keep his daughters from their mother, Trace sincerely doubted he'd be invited to any family reunion barbecues at the Swann ranch anytime soon.

He figured Mariah would probably last out here in the sticks another month. Two at the most. Then, ultimately, her need for excitement, the lure of trendy Malibu restaurants, glitzy Hollywood premieres and shopping at exclusive, appointment-only Beverly Hills jewelry stores where she could sip champagne or designer water while picking out a new gem-studded bauble would become too strong to resist. They could have this time together. And then they'd go their separate ways. It was, he reminded himself, what they both wanted.

He watched Mariah watching the man walk away. Then she shoved her sunglasses on her face and ran her hand through her thick blond hair in that gesture of stress he'd come to recognize. Her shoulders, clad in a short-sleeved, red silk bolero jacket, rose and fell in a weary shrug.

She turned toward the Jeep, than reconsidering, walked across the newly mown grass to a green bench situated in front of a small fishpond.

The lure to be with her was stronger than ever. The lifelong rule of keeping his professional life separate from his personal one paled in comparison to the sight of her hair gleaming like gold in the summer sun and her long legs, tanned the color of honey and showcased by a short white skirt and white sandals with gilt straps.

He tossed back the coffee, rubbed his nose between his thumb and forefinger and told himself that a strong man could resist the need that arose full-blown whenever he looked at Mariah Swann. Whenever he thought of her.

A smart man would turn away, now. Before he found himself in dangerous waters, over his head.

Knowing he'd regret it, Trace put his empty mug on his desk and left the office.

M
ariah was watching the fish, enjoying the peaceful flash of orange and silver in the bright afternoon sun when she sensed Trace coming toward her. She didn't need to look up; it was as if she'd developed a personal radar that could alert her whenever he was anywhere in the vicinity.

Mariah hadn't thought he could hurt her. She'd thought, having survived the very public humiliation and private pain of a philandering husband, that she was immune to having her heart wounded by any man ever again. She'd been wrong.

“You've been digging into my business,” she accused, her gaze still directed toward the swimming carp.

“I've been investigating your sister's murder.” He sat down beside her and stretched his legs out. “Looking into her bank records comes with the territory.”

“That's what my attorney told me. I wanted to go up to your office and start throwing things, but he advised me against it.”

So that's who the guy in the blazer was. Trace wondered if he handled criminal cases. Hoped she wouldn't have to find out.

“Sounds like you've hired yourself a clever counsel.” A fly made the mistake of landing on the surface of the water. An orange tail swished. Seconds later, the hapless insect became an entrée.

“Brady came highly recommended. From Jessica.”

“I see.” Trace wondered what else the two women had talked about and hoped like hell they'd kept the conversation on a professional level.

“Don't worry, Sheriff,” Mariah said. “We didn't exchange any female secrets about your bedroom skills.”

“I wasn't worried.”

She turned toward him, her eyes unreadable through the dark lenses of the glasses. “Weren't you?”

“Maybe just a little,” he admitted.

“I've never been one to kiss and tell.” Mariah crossed her legs. A sandal dangled from one exquisitely arched foot, capturing his attention.

“I'm glad to hear that.” Relieved was a better word.

Without warning, she was on her feet, her hands balled into fists on her hips, glaring at him through the dark glasses.

“Don't worry, Callahan. When I write my X-rated memoirs, I doubt if you'll garner more than a line. Or a footnote. Somewhere, around Chapter Sixteen, I'd imagine. Between my blazing affair with some soap-opera stud and my ménage à trois.”

The words exploded out of her from between clenched teeth. Her cheeks were flushed the color of the Perfume Delight blooms gracing the Rose Society's nearby display garden. She was vibrating with barely restrained fury.

Closely, patiently, he examined her. “I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what you're so angry about now?”

“Me? Angry?” She arched a blond brow above the tortoiseshell frames. “Whatever makes you think I'm angry?”

“How about the fact that you look as if you've moved beyond throwing things and would like to take my .38 and shoot me?”

She tossed her head. “Don't tempt me.”

They were drawing attention. A family of picnickers at a nearby table had stopped talking and was watching them with undisguised interest and one of the elderly garden society members, who'd dropped by the park to snip off dead blossoms, was openly staring, her eyes wide and interested beneath the brim of her yellow straw hat.

“Do you think you could lower the volume just a bit?” he suggested.

“I hate it when you pull out that calm, sensible cop tone, Callahan.” As an act of rebellion, she raised her voice even higher, not giving a damn if the entire town was eavesdropping. Hell, perhaps, with luck, Rudy Chavez might put the exchange in the
Rim Rock Weekly Record,
Mariah thought furiously.

As frustrated as Mariah, and confused by her sudden flash of temper, he stood up as well, towering over her, fully aware that he was using his superior size to intimidate and refusing to apologize for the tactic.

“At least sit down.” He curled his fingers around her upper arm.

“If you don't let go of me, I'll have Brady slap you with a police brutality suit.”

He clenched his jaw and did his level best not to shake her. Fed up with not being able to see her eyes, with his free hand, he yanked the sunglasses off her face.

“Let the kid do his best. After he bails you out of jail.”

“Jail?” Her voice rose high enough to scatter a flock of birds in the tree overhead. “Are you threatening me, Sheriff?”

“It's no threat.” Trace was wondering how the hell he'd gotten himself into this situation. This is what hap
pens, he reminded himself grimly, when you forgot Rule Number One. “If you don't put that tight little ass back down on the bench and lower your voice, I'll haul you in for disturbing the peace.
My
peace.”

She tossed her head again, angled her chin and shot him a searing glare. “You wouldn't dare.”

“Try me.” His eyes met the fury in her eyes, then slowly, involuntarily, drifted down to her lips. “Sit down, Mariah. Please. And tell me what I did to upset you.”

She ran an agitated hand through her hair. “If you don't know—”

“Dammit, don't do this.” Forgetting their avid audience, he ran the back of his hand down her face. “I don't want to play games.”

She struggled to maintain her pique even as his stroking touch began to soothe her frayed temper. “Don't you?” Suddenly drained from her emotional outburst, she sank back down to the bench. “You treated me like some Hollywood slut you can take to bed for a one-night stand then forget.”

He'd worried about hurting her. Worried that they'd both end up hurt if he'd allowed their affair to continue.
Fucked up again, Callahan,
he thought grimly.

“It was more than one night.” He sat down beside her, close enough that their thighs were touching, close enough for their breathing to become synchronized. “And I certainly haven't forgotten you.”

“You didn't call.” Realizing how pitiful she sounded, Mariah turned away, staring unseeingly across the street toward the bank.

“I wanted to.” What he wanted to do right now was to take her into his arms, cover those trembling, pouting lips with his and show her exactly how much he'd missed her.

“I suppose you're going to tell me you were busy with the investigation.”

“No.” When she turned back toward him, surprise in her eyes, he said, “I have been busy. But I could have called. Should have called.”

“Why didn't you?”

“Because I was afraid.”

That came as a surprise. Mariah wouldn't have thought there was anything that could frighten this man. “Of me?”

“Of you,” he agreed roughly. “Of me. Of us.” He took both her hands and sandwiched them between his. “Of where we were going.”

“And where is that?” she asked carefully.

“That's the problem.” He managed a rough laugh, but his expression remained guarded. “I don't know.”

Mariah thought about that. “And you'd need to, wouldn't you?” she asked quietly.

“I'm not real fond of surprises.” The last one had almost gotten him killed.

Remembering the ugly scars on his chest, knowing what she did about the shooting that had taken his partner's life, Mariah could understand the reasoning behind Trace's grittily issued statement.

“I thought we'd agreed.” Her breath, which seemed trapped in her lungs, came out slowly. “No promises.”

“That's what we said. But it isn't working.” He laced their fingers together. “Is it?”

“No.” She looked down at their joined hands and felt the emotions rise and tangle. “It isn't.”

They both fell silent, watching the fish in the cool blue water, listening to the birds in the tree branches, feeling the warmth of the sun on their faces.

It was too nice a day for fighting, Mariah thought. Too lovely an afternoon for dwelling on all her problems—her
sister's still-unsolved murder, the new problems she'd discovered concerning the ranch, her confusing, disturbing feelings regarding Whiskey River's sexy, complex sheriff.

“Am I still a suspect?” she asked suddenly, wondering if that was the reason Trace had been keeping his distance.

“No.” Even as he said it, Trace knew it to be true. Mariah Swann was ambitious, stubborn, exasperating. She also had a temper, which, if provoked, could probably blow a lesser man off the face of the planet. But she was not a murderer. He'd stake his Suburban, his badge and his job on it.

Which was exactly what he was doing, Trace realized, if he was eventually proven wrong.

They fell silent again.

“So what kind of lawyer is this Brady?” he asked with studied casualness.

“He specializes in corporate and estate law.”

“Ah.”

He was doing it again. Knowing full well that the monosyllabic response was designed to encourage her to elaborate, Mariah decided that since she didn't have anything to hide, there wasn't any reason not to oblige him.

“I found out why Alan didn't fight me for the ranch. It turns out to be mortgaged down to the last little doggie.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

She shrugged. “It might have been for Laura. But it's not that big a deal for me. Freddi, of course, has already offered to take it off my hands. At a pretty good price, actually.”

“You thinking of selling?”

“Not to her. Although I was tempted when Clint suggested he'd be interested. Since I have a feeling that if Laura had known she was going to die when she did, she
would have gotten around to changing her will to leave it to him, anyway.”

“I wouldn't think he could afford it,” Trace offered, thinking of Garvey's recent losses in the futures market.

Another shrug. “I guess he figured I'd carry the paper. But it's a moot point. Since I've decided to keep the ranch. For now.

“I've already instructed my Malibu banker to wire enough to pay off both the first and second mortgages, so I won't have to worry about making payments.”

“Must be nice to be rich.”

She heard the quiet accusation in his tone and sighed. “That's the real problem between us, Callahan, isn't it? My money.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” It was the first lie he'd told her.

“Don't you?” She gave him a long, judicial look. “Let me ask a hypothetical question.” Before he could respond, she asked, “How would you feel about marrying a woman who had more money—a lot more money—than you?”

“Is that a proposal?” Trace inwardly cursed when his flippant attempt at humor fell decidedly flat.

“It's a hypothetical question,” she reminded him. She folded her arms over the front of the red, white and blue striped silk blouse she'd brought to Whiskey River for the Fourth of July rally and waited.

“Hypothetically speaking,” he said, stressing the all-important word, “although I know it's a politically incorrect feeling left over from the Dark Ages, I can't quite shake the belief that the man of the family should be the breadwinner.”

“I suspected as much,” Mariah said with a faint nod of her head. “So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you believe that the male of the species is supposed to go out and kill the woolly mammoth to feed his family, drag the
meat back to the cave, while fighting off any other lesser males who couldn't make their own kill who are trying to take his away.”

“That's an exaggeration. I said it was a feeling. In the real world, I know it doesn't always work that way.”

Giving him reluctant points for honesty, she sighed as she crossed her legs on a flash of tawny thigh that had him wanting to skip this conversation, drive her over to his place, and spend the evening rolling around in his bed. Or the shower. Or the floor. Hell, the ceiling, for that matter.

“Let's move this away from the hypothetical,” she suggested.

“Do we have to?” He was picturing her body racked in the throes of passion, was thinking about all the things they'd already done, all the things he wanted to do with Mariah Swann before she left town.

“Humor me.” She leaned back and focused a deep, somber gaze on his face. “Exactly how much money would I have to give away before you could accept me just for myself?”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Her smile was soft and sad. Frustrated at discovering such an outdated belief lurking inside an intelligent man like Trace and saddened that he might actually believe her to be so shallow as to judge a man by his bank account, Mariah shook her head. “I don't think so.”

He wanted to argue, but in good conscience, couldn't.

What was even worse was that on a deeper level, Trace secretly worried that he was just a new toy for the glamorous Hollywood writer and former soap-opera vixen. What would happen when she got bored with him—and Whiskey River—and returned to Tinseltown?

While his mind was struggling to come up with an answer that would neither insult nor hurt her, or worse yet,
make her angry again, his walkie talkie began to sputter.
Saved by the bell.

“Just a minute, Jill,” he barked sharply. Too sharply. Now he'd have to apologize when he returned to the office.

Frustrated and impatient, Trace turned to Mariah. “I'm sorry, but—”

She was on her feet again. “I know. Duty calls.” She shoved her sunglasses back on. “Don't worry, Sheriff. As it is, I have a lot to do myself this afternoon.”

He didn't want to leave this matter unresolved. “We need to talk,” he insisted. “Why don't I come out to the ranch tonight? I can pick up some chicken and ribs at The Branding Iron.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm. “But as it happens, I have plans for dinner.”

“With your lawyer?”

The dark jealousy that moved across his face gave Mariah a faint glimmer of hope. A jealous man was not an indifferent one.