Half Past Mourning (16 page)

Peter drew his chair closer, and Nina took refuge in his arm circling her. “You feel as if you’re losing him all over again, don’t you, sweetheart? Learning about the other side of Danny Wilson means letting go of the man you thought you married?”

Nina nodded. “I loved the boy I grew up with, not the man he became. I was living in a fantasy.”

Peter tucked her head against his shoulder, then turned to Paula. She wiped her eyes on the hem of the napkin she’d been twisting. “I know it took courage to bring this to Nina. You ran the risk of losing a good friend as well as giving Nina information that was bound to hurt her.”

“Nina, I was blinded by my own pain and envy, but that’s no excuse for what I did. I knew what Danny meant to you. I should have respected that and had more regard for myself, as well.”

Nina couldn’t answer, but she heard Peter respond. “Nina has so much heart, so much love in her, I think she’ll realize Danny fooled you as much as he did her. Give her a few days to deal with this, Paula. Let her come to terms with it.”

Paula nodded and started to leave the table. “If there’s anything I can do...?”

Peter shook his head, then paused. “Nina? Paula saw Danny the day before the wedding. They planned to leave together. What changed his mind?”

Nina’s throat closed, she flinched, and she couldn’t force air into her lungs. She shook her head, waving away the question. Peter didn’t press, and she finally managed to draw a shallow breath.

“Call me, Nina. If you can bring yourself to speak to me again, please call,” Paula entreated. When Nina forced a small nod, Paula seemed satisfied and, glancing at the man on the other side of the room, slipped away.

As the rustle of chiffon against starched tablecloths marked Paula’s departure, Peter turned to Nina. She saw the glint of steel in his grey eyes.

“What is it, Nina?” His hand tilted her face up so she had to look at him. “I know it was a shock to hear Paula’s story, but something else went through you like a sharp knife. You jumped as if you’d touched a bolt of lightning.”

“I...I can’t talk about it, Peter.” Her body shook like an aspen leaf in the wind. “I really can’t.”

He sat in silence, not pressing, not demanding answers, just waiting, as if he knew Nina was struggling within herself. His touch, soft as a whisper against her face, warmed her cheek and smoothed away the tremble. “Okay, sweetheart, tell me when you can. Or if it’s too painful, don’t. All of us have secrets we can’t bring out in the open.”

Nina drew a sharp breath. Peter’s generous, unintrusive touch steadied her. “I think, maybe, I can tell you, Peter. It doesn’t have anything to do with finding Danny, but I think it might, possibly, sort of explain why he didn’t go back to Paula. Maybe?”

“And you want to tell me?”

Nina pushed the question aside. “I don’t
want
to tell you, but I think I should.” She picked up her empty water glass, turned it, set it down, and pushed it away. “Danny and I, well, we always planned to get married. Like it was a script written out for us, we just knew that was the way the story would go.” Nina stopped a moment. She hunted the words to tell Peter what she’d realized. “We always knew, but we wanted it to be...special, the right thing...so we didn’t, we hadn’t...” She floundered for the words.

“You hadn’t what, sweetheart? You hadn’t gone to bed with Danny? You saved yourself for your wedding night and the man you were going to marry?” Peter’s words made a soft ripple against her hair.

Nina swallowed and glanced up at him. “Yes, at least I had until the night before the wedding. And then...then it seemed like it was right. We’d be married in less than eighteen hours. Danny knew there’d never been anyone else, never could be, and so we...did.”

Peter’s arms felt safe, comforting, reliable as he gathered her to him. Their chairs, side by side but turned so Peter faced her, made their sudden closeness physical as well as emotional.

“And you think, because the two of you shared that wonderful intimate moment the night before your wedding, that Danny decided to forget your friend Paula, who lacks the exquisite innocence of a certain brown-eyed tomboy we know, and stayed to marry his childhood girlfriend.”

“It sounds foolish, I know, but we...well, I did, anyway...felt we were truly married at that moment.”

Peter’s lips brushed her forehead. “Not foolish, darling, not foolish at all. You gave Danny the sweetest gift a man could receive, and just maybe you did touch the true Danny Wilson, the boy who did love you. That would explain why he went through with the wedding, why he was willing to give up the wilder plans he’d made. It might explain a lot of things that went on in his mind.”

Nina sat up, pushing herself away from Peter’s too-comforting embrace. “It may, or I may still be fooling myself. The one thing it still doesn’t explain is where he went after he walked away from the church and vanished, taking the car and his luggage but leaving my things behind. Nothing Paula said or anything that happened afterward can explain that.”

Chapter 10

With her mind still fogged from Paula’s distraught confession the night before and from her own declarations to Peter, Nina didn’t see any reason for the sheriff’s request that she come by his office, not on a miserable, rainy morning when the gloom outside matched the wretched state of her internal miasma. Still, she had come, because it wasn’t in her nature to refuse.

“Now, Nina, I’ve got a notion that we’re gonna get to the bottom of this mess pretty soon,” Al Hayes insisted. He stretched his boots out before him and picked up a pen from its longhorn holder, rolling it between his palms as he settled into his chair. “After I talked to Marigold last night, I looked over those telegrams she’s been hoarding all this time.” He pointed the pen at Nina in disgust. “You know what I found? Nothing! Nothing in them to say where Danny is. They were sent from all over, wherever there’s a racetrack or a big car event.” He snorted. “Useless! So I sent some inquiries along to the authorities in Florida, asked ’em to check driver’s license records for young Danny Wilson. No word from them yet, but it stands to reason that he’d get a license there to replace the one he left behind. If they get anything, I’ll have at least a fairly recent address, but I don’t think we’d better depend on them for fast action. They got problems of their own to sort out. Piddling little inquiry from Santa Rita, Texas, ain’t gonna start a stampede for information.”

“If the Florida authorities don’t give your request much priority, why do you say we might soon find out where Danny is?” All desire Nina had felt to find Danny Wilson was rapidly sinking under the weight of each new disclosure. Danny was a cheat, a liar, and his heart functioned only to pump blood. Why should she go on hoping to find him? Why would she care, after he’d betrayed everything she had believed they shared? Her first impulse on waking, this sodden, grey morning, was to pull the cover over her head and hide from the world. The sheriff’s call had changed that plan. Now the rain pouring down outside seemed a perfect backdrop for the dull ache in her heart. “And I don’t think it matters anymore where he is, Sheriff Hayes. He doesn’t want to be with me. That’s clear.” She made a halfhearted brush at damp spots on her periwinkle-striped shirtwaist dress. Thunder growled outside the window, and she wished her tears would flow as easily as the rain. They wouldn’t; she had cried all her tears. She had none left.

Boots hit the floor, and she looked up to find Sheriff Hayes looming over the desk, glaring down at her. “It matters, little lady, and don’t you think otherwise!” He stomped around the desk and settled his bony rump on the desktop. “This isn’t just about some doofus getting cold feet and ducking out on his bride, child. This is about a citizen of this county gone missing for some two years, and a boneheaded sheriff being too dang pompous to recognize it. It’s about me not doing the job I’m elected to do, Nina, and I’m not too proud to own up to that. I know you’ve been fighting for a real investigation all along, and you’ve been all by yourself. You can’t quit now that you’ve got some help and there’s a trail to follow. No, ma’am, you’re not going to give up now. I know better.”

Nina sank back in her chair, letting the sheriff’s insistence wash over her. “Do you really have something to work with? A place to go with the search?” She was going through the motions, letting the sheriff have his say, but she had no heart for the undertaking.

Al Hayes planted one boot on the floor for balance while he sat on the corner of his desk. “Well, I’ve got more than I had before. I’ve been hammering at Marigold, and she finally admitted she’s got no real idea where that boy of hers is, any more than we do. She can’t call him, send a letter, or even make a guess where he’s living. Been fooling herself with those telegrams, damn it, and impeding any real investigation. Got her head in the sand, denying she’s not actually heard from Danny since the day he left. And like I said, no information in the dang telegrams, not even a clue about where he’s living.”

Nina drew a sharp breath. “Marigold really doesn’t know, either?” She bit
down on her lip hard. “I mean, she seemed so assured, so unconcerned, that I thought they were...close.”

“Well, they’re not. He’s not called or written, except for those worthless telegrams, and it’s high time somebody made some sense out of this mess. Reckon it’s up to me to get things rolling.” The sheriff hitched his sharp-creased trousers up and settled his gunbelt. “What I did get from Marigold is the name of that law firm in Dallas that handles Danny’s affairs. I figure they’ve got to know where he is, even if nobody else does. They dole out the money, or see that it’s done. I don’t imagine Danny Wilson’s got himself a job to earn his way when there’s millions sitting there with his name on the pile. I plan on driving over to Dallas about midweek, visiting with those legal minds to see what’s what, and I sorta think you ought to go along, missy.”

“Me?” The thought of dealing with Danny’s lawyers dismayed her. She’d be nothing to them, just the girl Danny left behind, probably for some other woman. “What could I do? You’re the sheriff; they have to talk to you. But me?”

Al Hayes shook his head. “You’re acting like you don’t have a stake in this game, Nina Kirkland. You do. You’re Danny’s legal wife. You’ve got a marriage license duly executed and filed in this county, don’t you? You did marry that boy, as I recall. If nothing else, you go meet these lawyers so they know you’re real, you care about Danny, and as his wife you expect to know where he is.”

Nina stared out at the rain pounding the courthouse square outside. The sheriff was right. If anyone knew where Danny Wilson was, it would have to be the law firm that oversaw his inheritance. The reason he’d insisted they go to Dallas for their short wedding trip was to sign the papers that would transfer all that money to his own name. The lawyers would have been party to that plan.

Could she make a final effort? Nina wondered whether one more confrontation, one more set of questions would give her answers or just reveal more duplicity in Danny’s character. The sheriff had an implacable glint in his eyes, his mouth narrow with determination. He wouldn’t let her drop the search now. Resigned to his plan, she sighed. “All right, Sheriff Hayes, I’ll make the trip with you, make one more attempt at figuring out where Danny went. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I can see your point. When do you plan to go?”

His careworn hand came down on her shoulder. “Good girl.” He patted her head as if she were three. “I can get away Wednesday. And I’m thinking maybe that friend of yours, that Professor Shayne, might go along. He’s been involved one way and another, and I think he might tell those city lawyers how he came to find those things of Danny’s, reinforce the idea that there’s reason to be alarmed about the boy. You wouldn’t mind him tagging along, I take it?”

Mind if Peter comes along?
“No, no, I think that might be a good thing, Sheriff. He’s been a lot of help ever since I told him about Danny. He wants to be sure his ownership of the T-Bird isn’t in question. Do you think he’d mind coming?”

She saw the speculative gleam in the sheriff’s glance. “Reckon we’ll find out,” he answered. “He’ll be along in a bit and can tell us. I called him to come on over same time I called you.” Hayes frowned, staring out into the rain for a moment. “You got your marriage license where you can grab it?”

“Yes, I have it,” she answered, with a quick grimace at the memory of stuffing it into the back of her scrapbook, never looking at it.

“Then plan to carry it with you. We may need it—might help to convince the grey suits that a small-town sheriff and a fourth grade schoolteacher aren’t put off by city offices and high-powered law degrees. We come prepared to get answers.”

The door to the sheriff’s office creaked open. Russet hair damp with rain, Peter Shayne came in, shaking like a wet dog, his sodden hat in one hand.

“I hope you’re going to tell me something good, Sheriff, to make up for hauling me out in this flood,” he said, his shirt collar and sleeves ringed wet under his rain jacket.

Sheriff Hayes explained his plans for meeting with Danny Wilson’s lawyers and added his request that Peter come along to explain the discovery of Danny’s car and the license hidden in the trunk.

“I think mebbe when they hear how Danny flat disappeared from his own wedding, how you wound up with his car and found his license hid in the trunk lining, they’re gonna be real anxious to cooperate with helping us find him. Can’t be a big problem just to tell us where all that money gets deposited and how they get his income tax filed. They gotta have an address of some kind.” Al Hayes made it sound straightforward and easy, but Nina had doubts.

Peter Shayne voiced concern, as well. “It sounds easy enough, Sheriff, and I’ll be glad to go along if Nina agrees, but lawyers aren’t ever happy about sharing information about their clients.” He turned to Nina. “It’s going to be a hard day, sweetheart, driving two hundred miles to Dallas, putting in whatever time it takes to get through to the lawyers, and then driving back. Do you want to make it all in one day?”