Home Before Midnight (21 page)

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Authors: Virginia Kantra

Tags: #Contemporary Romance, #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #epub, #Fiction

BOOK: Home Before Midnight
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She had thought working for Paul would be better. She had hoped her schedule as his assistant wouldn’t drain her time and creative energy the way the stacks of unread, un-proofed manuscripts had done. She had imagined indulging a crush on her married boss was less damaging than endless, joyless dates with hopeless men.
 
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
 
Three strikes, and you’re out.
 
She took a deep breath. “Okay, maybe I was attracted, a little. But I never did anything about it.”
 
Even in her own ears, that sounded lame.
 
“Why not?”
 
Because she had morals. Standards. Didn’t she? But with all her self-deceptions and self-justifications scraped bare, she wasn’t prepared to argue the point.
 
“He’s married. Was married,” she corrected. “And he’s my boss.”
 
“So? It wouldn’t be the first time an employer took advantage of an employee.”
 
“Paul wouldn’t do that.”
 
Steve raised his eyebrows without looking away from the road. “Seems to me he does it all the time.”
 
Bailey winced. She wanted to protest she didn’t know what he was talking about. But she did. Steve already thought she was a doormat and a slut. No point in convincing him she was an idiot and a liar, too.
 
“That’s different,” she mumbled. “Anyway, Paul was devoted to Helen.”
 
“Helen’s dead.”
 
She hugged her arms. “I didn’t kill her.”
 
“I’m not saying you did.”
 
“But you’re thinking it.”
 
The truck turned a corner. Almost there. Her hands tightened on her purse. The buckle dug into her palm.
 
“I’m keeping an open mind,” he said.
 
She stuck out her chin so it wouldn’t tremble. “Yeah? Is that why you’re questioning me about my relationship with Paul?”
 
“Maybe I’m trying to warn you.”
 
Her heart thumped. “Warn me about what?”
 
“Keeping bad company.”
 
“That sounds like something my mother would say,” she said, forcing herself to speak lightly.
 
He shrugged. “I thought it sounded better.”
 
“Better than what?”
 
He looked at her with flat, dark eyes. Cop’s eyes. Her breath clogged in her throat. “Accessory after the fact.”
 
TEN
 
“W
HO invited Officer Grumpy?”
 
Regan’s loud voice attracted glances, scandalized and indulgent, from the funeral crowd surrounding the buffet table. Paul wondered how many of Stokesville’s senior citizens were there for the free food and how many had come for the gossip.
 
Bailey stood beside him, tray in hand, doing her best to keep the food flowing.
 
And Regan, it seemed, was doing her best to add to the gossip.
 
“He’s staring at me,” she continued petulantly.
 
His stepdaughter liked to imagine everything revolved around her. Just like Helen.
 
It was true Burke kept looking in this direction.
 
It was even possible he was attracted by Regan’s big breasts, blond hair, and overstated makeup.
Slut Barbie
.
 
But Paul suspected the detective’s true target was Bailey.
 
Or Paul himself.
 
Paul brooded and drank. They’d arrived together—Bailey and Burke. She had told him, of course, she’d found another ride. She hadn’t told him with whom.
 
What else hadn’t she told him?
 
And what had she and Burke talked about on the fifteen-minute drive home?
 
“It is an open house,” Bailey said, balancing her overloaded tray. “Anyone who showed up at the funeral could come.”
 
“Beautiful service,” Macon contributed heartily, helping himself to a deviled egg.
 
Regan tossed her head. “I’m so glad you liked it.”
 
Bailey, of course, said nothing about her own part in the arrangements. She never claimed credit for her work. Paul found that very useful.
 
He allowed himself a small, sad smile. “I think Helen would have been pleased.”
 
“Nice turnout, too,” Macon said.
 
Regan swallowed the contents of her wineglass. “I think they all came to see if Paul would be arrested.”
 
Vicious little bitch. Paul felt the rage surge inside him, the blood drain from his face.
 
Macon laughed uncomfortably.
 
“Does anyone want coffee?” Bailey asked.
 
It would take more than coffee to shut up his stepdaughter. More than Bailey’s pitiful attempts at distraction to counteract Regan’s poison, allay Burke’s suspicion and get public opinion to Paul’s side.
 
“It’s the police’s fault,” Paul said. “But I suppose I can’t expect them to be impartial. They’re just looking for ways to discredit me.”
 
Regan rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”
 
“It’s true,” Paul insisted. “This fuss over Helen’s accident is all some absurd payback because I wouldn’t drop my investigation of the Dawler case.”
 
Macon put up his eyebrows. “Seems to me there’s not much to investigate. That boy confessed.”
 
“Which is all the police based their case on,” Paul said.
 
“Are you saying he didn’t do it?”
 
“Let’s just say the case was far more complicated than Chief Clegg wants people to believe. Or bothered to find out at the time.”
 
Macon’s face creased. “Now, I don’t know. Family like that . . . Bound to be trouble. Billy Ray didn’t have an easy time of it. Whore for a mother. Tramp for a sister. Folks around here figured he just finally had enough.”
 
“She wasn’t a tramp,” Bailey said.
 
“Excuse me?”
 
“Tanya Dawler. She was only fifteen.”
 
“Old enough to get into trouble,” Macon said.
 
“Literally,” Paul said. “She was three months pregnant when she died.”
 
“Did you know her?” Bailey asked Macon.
 
He smiled down at her. “I was in school with her brother. Same as everybody else. But I hadn’t heard she got herself knocked up.”
 
“It was in the autopsy report,” Paul said.
 
“Nobody gets pregnant all by herself,” Bailey said. “Somebody had to be the father.”
 
Macon shrugged. “Sure. But in that family, it could have been anyone. Including her own brother.”
 
“
Eww
. Didn’t the cops do, like, a paternity test or something?” Regan asked.
 
Her question caught Paul by surprise. He hadn’t expected his stepdaughter to be paying attention. Or to ask an almost intelligent question.
 
“This was nineteen years ago,” Bailey explained. “DNA testing was just being introduced.”
 
“So I guess we’ll never know,” Macon said.
 
Paul allowed himself a smile. “Investigative journalism isn’t like an episode of
CSI
. It isn’t all about the science. It’s about people. And people talk.”
 
Regan emptied her wineglass. “Well, this girl—Tanya, is that her name?—can’t tell you anything. She’s dead.”
 
“Her brother isn’t,” Paul said.
 
Macon’s face relapsed into that smooth, grave expression most people assume at funerals. Quite appropriate, under the circumstances. “You didn’t hear?”
 
“Hear what?” Bailey asked.
 
“It’s all over the sheriff’s department. Billy Ray was murdered in prison.”
 
Paul froze, genuinely shocked. His heart seized. Billy Ray couldn’t be dead. Paul needed him.
 
Macon was wrong, that was all. He must be wrong.
 
“You’re mistaken,” he said stiffly, his heart galloping again. “Someone would have called me.”
 
He’d certainly spent enough in charm and in bribes over the past few weeks to warrant a goddamn phone call.
 
“No mistake. My firm represented him, you know. Well, my father’s firm. We got the call this morning.”
 
“But I spoke with him last week. He was fine.”
 
Better than fine. The inarticulate Billy Ray was finally beginning to trust him. It happened with every book, when writer and subject forged a symbiotic bond. The killer relied on Paul to give him a voice. And Paul depended on Billy Ray to give him a story.
 
Everything was finally falling into place. One more interview, one more twist, and he would have the sensational revelation that would take his book beyond the common criminal-done-wrong story and launch it onto the best-seller lists.
 
To get it, he had dangled the promise of understanding in front of Billy Ray like the prospect of salvation, skillfully playing on his subject’s need for approval. Twenty years ago, that need had driven Billy Ray first to murder and then to confession. Now it would drive him to tell Paul the whole story. The true story.
 
All he needed was one more interview.
 
“Well, he’s not fine now. Killed in the shower.” Macon lowered his voice. “Sheriff said it was likely some sexual thing.” He drew the word out.
Sex-you-all
. “I don’t know the details and I don’t want to know. You spoke with him, you said?”
 
Paul drew a shaking hand over his face. “Frequently.”
 
What a waste. What a loss. Not a loss to society, of course, or even to him personally. Billy Ray had been an undereducated, overreligious boob. But . . . what would happen to his story now?
 
“Does this mean you have to give the money back?” Regan needled Paul. “If you can’t, like, finish the book?”
 
Oh, God, the money
. He couldn’t possibly pay it back. Not until Helen’s insurance paid out. How was he going to salvage this?
 
“I’ll finish,” he said. He had no choice but to finish. Somehow.
 
He watched the doubt dawning in Bailey’s eyes and swore silently. He needed her loyalty. What had she and Burke talked about on the ride here? Goddamn it, did he have to worry about everything at once?
 
“What all did that boy tell you?” Macon asked. “Exactly.”
 
“I can’t tell you. Exactly,” Paul said. “It will all be in the book.”
 
Macon hesitated. “You know, I wouldn’t put too much faith in everything Billy Ray said. He never was quite right.”
 
“The police put enough faith in his confession,” Paul said. “I’m just going to set the record straight.”
 
“Who cares?” Regan asked, slurring her words slightly. “He’s dead, isn’t he? Everybody’s dead.”
 
Macon patted her arm. “Let me get you another glass of wine.”
 
Across the room, Burke’s dark gaze fixed on their little group.
 
Let him watch, Paul thought. Let him wonder. The police got everything wrong anyway. They had in the Dawler case. Clegg’s fault, that time, for rushing to bring charges in the notorious deaths of the town prostitutes.
 
Paul sipped his drink thoughtfully. Of course, Clegg might have had his reasons for wanting the case wrapped up so quickly. Pressure from the mayor, maybe, or the media, or other, personal reasons of his own . . .
 
It was worth thinking about. Paul was not above blackmail.
 
But with any luck, the police chief would be just as eager to resolve Helen’s case, and Paul would be out of the woods. His wife’s death was tragic, an unfortunate necessity. And if that damn detective, Burke, pushed the matter, well . . .

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