Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (58 page)

Putting the wig into
his ear one-handed, he shot Jeb a pleased look.  “Good job, Hightower.”

“Thanks, boss,” Jeb
murmured.  “Sheriff, I don’t wanna overstep my boundaries, sir, but are you
sure you don’t want me in there with you.  I know this is a little… personal
for you,” he elaborated uncomfortably.

“I’m sure,” Zeke
replied.  “I appreciate the concern, son, but I’ve got this.  I’d rather have
you in here watching over Honor for me.”  There was no way in hell he was going
to allow anyone in that room to interfere with how he went about getting
answers no matter how well-intentioned the suggestion was.

“Understood,
Sheriff,” Deputy Hightower confirmed with a nod.

“You both know that I
AM a grown woman that can competently mind herself, don’t you?” she complained
grouchily, glaring between the two men.

Zeke grinned at Jeb. 
“She’s become a mouthy little thing since I put a ring on her finger, hasn’t
she?”

Jeb wisely remained
silent but his lips did quirk at the corners as he directed his gaze to the
woman still anxiously pacing behind the glass.

“You can just hush up
that nonsense, Sheriff.  Don’t you have some criminals to ferret out for me? 
I’d like to see my tax dollars work for me, please,” she requested tartly,
flapping a hand toward the other room.

Knowing she was using
scorn and derision as a protective shield, Zeke let her smart mouth have that
play.  Bending, he brushed his lips to hers.  “I can hear everything you say
through the mic in my ear.  If you have a question or need me to know
something, do not hesitate to interrupt.”

Swallowing hard,
Honor stared into his eyes with a slightly panicked gaze.  “This could be it,
Zeke.”

“Maybe,” he
confirmed.  “For now, let’s just take it one question at a time.”

Honor nodded.  “One
question at a time,” she repeated.

Stealing another
quick kiss, Zeke straightened and shot a meaningful look at Jeb as he took the
file the other man held out to him.  “Take care of my girl,” he ordered, his
fingers tightening around the folder in his hand.

“Yes, sir,” Jeb
replied as Zeke turned toward the door.  His hand was on the doorknob when he
heard Honor call his name.  Turning, he met her set face.

“Make her regret
this, Zeke.  Make her sorry.”

Offering her one
jerky nod, Zeke quickly left the room and stepped into the hallway.  Taking a
deep breath to center himself as he closed the door to the viewing room behind
him, he took the two necessary steps to bring him to the entry to his
interrogation room.  Cracking his neck before reaching for the door handle, he
felt the familiar rage he’d been carrying around for eight years churning in
his gut and let it fuel him.  The woman inside the room ahead of him had
callously chosen to abandon a young girl to a pack of hyenas eight years ago
because of petty jealousy.   Shaking his head as the rage sank deeper into his
bones, he let that feeling energize him. 

And as he shoved open
the door to the room where Sherry waited and stepped inside, slamming the door
loudly behind him, he knew it was long past time for a reckoning.

“Zeke!” Sherry
yelped, jumping slightly as the door banged closed.  “You scared me to death,”
she accused, obviously startled by his sudden appearance.

“Sit down, Ms.
Anderson,” Zeke demanded tersely, pointing at the plain wood chair tucked under
the long conference table.  “We have a lot to go over this morning.”

“Ms. Anderson?”
Sherry repeated in surprise.  “You’re being
awfully
formal, Zeke.  I
know you have a fiancé now, but I think you can call a woman that you used to
sleep with regularly by her first name.  How is Honor anyway?  I haven’t gone
by the café in forever.  Since Dan got his promotion to Vice-president of
Operations over at the bank and joined the country club, we’ve been eating
there when we eat out,” she shared with a slightly condescending smile.

Zeke merely stared at
her, his mouth pressed in a straight line.

“Zeke?” Sherry called
huffily, dropping her hands to her hips as she tapped her heel impatiently
against the tiled floor, “What in the world is going on?  Why are you looking
at me like I’m some kind of bug under a microscope?”

Zeke ignored the
question, wanting to keep the woman as off balance and unsure as possible. 
“Ms. Anderson, I’ve asked you once to sit down,” Zeke noted blandly, keeping
his voice low and steady as he moved purposefully to the opposite side of the
table and sat down.  “Now, I’m requesting you sit for a second time.  Please
sit
down
.  If I need to repeat myself for a third time, I’ll consider you a
hostile interviewee, bring a deputy in with us during this interview, and ask
him to cuff and secure you to the table while we have this discussion.  Is that
how you want to play this?” Zeke asked, looking up at her with an unreadable
expression.

Sherry’s jaw dropped
at Zeke’s threat, but she moved quickly to the chair he indicated across from
him and sat down.   “Zeke, why in the world are you being so formal with me?”
she asked as she settled herself in her chair, clasping her hands on top of the
table.

“Because, this is a
formal interview with local law enforcement, Ms. Anderson,” Zeke returned
succinctly, offering her a cool impersonal smile as he flipped open the file
Jeb had handed him on the way out the door.  It contained a transcript of the
DVD Honor had received.  He’d read it more than once, and every time he had,
he’d grown angrier at the woman now sitting in front of him. 

“Zeke, you’re makin’
me nervous,” Sherry said with a nervous laugh.  “Maybe you should tell me why
Jeb Hightower hauled me in here this morning.  I had a lot of stuff to do and
don’t appreciate having my entire day disrupted like this.  I only have a few
hours before my boy, Toby, gets out of school and I still need to shop for
groceries, stop by the pharmacy, and pick up Dan’s dry cleaning.  I don’t have
time for whatever game you’ve got going here.  Then, to add insult to injury,
to be kept waiting in this room like a common criminal….well, let’s just say
that if my husband hears about this, he’ll be making a phone call to the
Mayor.  You know with him being on the board at the bank, they’ve gotten to be
quite good friends.  They play golf together every other Saturday, Zeke,” she
blustered at him petulantly, shifting uncomfortably in her seat as she looked
around the sparse room.  “Honestly, whatever you wanted to talk about could
have been said in your office, and you could have just called me to come in for
a visit.  It certainly wasn’t necessary to send one of your deputies out to
bring me here.”

“You done yet?” Zeke
asked in a bored voice. “Because I really could care less about your laundry
list of errands, Ms. Anderson.”

“Ezekiel, my name is
Sherry, damn it!  Use it,” she cursed angrily.

“I’m aware of your
name,” Zeke returned calmly before he leaned forward to brace his elbows on the
table and clasp his hands together.  “To answer your first question, I had
Deputy Hightower detain you this morning because I didn’t want to risk you
avoiding a summons from my office to come in and speak with me.  You see, you
and I have some important matters to discuss.” 

“What matters?”
Sherry snapped.  “Since we haven’t spoken in ages, I don’t see what we could
have that needs to be discussed.”

“How about the past,
Ms. Anderson.  Are you amenable to taking a walk down memory lane?”

“You wanna chat about
the past?” she questioned incredulously, her brown eyes widening as she tossed
her rich brown hair over her shoulder.  “I thought that deputy said you wanted
to ask me some questions about a cold case you were working on,” Sherry
replied, shooting Zeke a suspicious look.

 “In this case, it’s
one and the same.  The case has been cold until recently, and it’s a case that
I’ve recently learned we
both
know quite a bit about.”

“I’d appreciate if
you’d quit being so cryptic and just spit it out, Zeke.  You might have nothing
better to do, but
I’m
raising a family.”

Schooling his face
into an impersonal mask, Zeke simply stared at her for a moment while he
wondered how someone as conceited and condescending as her could have appealed
to him.  Sure, she wasn’t unattractive.  Even now she’d still maintained a
pretty enough face and a trim figure, but when he looked into her whiskey
colored eyes he saw pure
ugly
reflected there.  Had she been that good
an actress eight years ago that she’d managed to fool him into believing she
was a decent and kind person?  Or had he just been that fuckin’ desperate to
get his dick wet?

Thank God for Honor. 
She’d shown him what genuine beauty looked like. 

“Stop talking and
believe me when I say this,
Sherry
,” Zeke declared roughly, sneering her
Christian name.  “I don’t give a single shit about you
or
your family. 
I do, however, care about a crime that was committed eight years ago… a crime
that you conspired and colluded to commit.  A crime you concealed from law
enforcement for
years
.  A crime that I have you on video committing.”  Watching
as her tanned face blanched, Zeke smiled cruelly.  “I think we’re on the same
page now, aren’t we,
Sherry
?”

Balling her hands
into fists against the table, Sherry lifted her chin almost defiantly.  “I have
no idea what you’re talking about?” she replied, her voice higher than before
as she darted her eyes toward the door.

“Oh, I think you do,”
Zeke disputed as he picked up the remote control from the center of the table
and directed it toward the television mounted on the wall.  “But, I can refresh
your memory if you like,” he stated harshly as he hit a button on the remote as
Angela Hastings’ face filled the screen while Honor's screams and pleas were
heard in the background.  Hearing Honor’s low moan in his earpiece, he hated
Sherry even more for not only what she’d done, but what she was doing right now
to the woman he loved. 

“Sherry, make sure
you get a real good shot of this and hold the camera steady.  Make sure you get
that little bitch’s face, too.  It’ll be the perfect weapon to use against
Tanner if he steps out of line.  I’ll email him a picture from it when I get
home tonight as a little reminder not to cross me.”

“Angie, I’m not
sure if this is a good idea,” Sherry replied doubtfully as the picture on the
screen grew clearer.

“Don’t go soft on
me now, bestie.  That little girl ruined your night with Paradise’s delicious
Deputy Monroe.   And since I know from personal experience how good Zeke can
give it when he’s feeling generous, I also know how pissed you’ve got to be at
that little hick for pulling his attention from you.”

Pushing the power
button on the remote, Zeke watched as the screen went dark before shifting his
attention to a trembling Sherry.  “Seen enough?  The video goes on for a while,
but then, you’d know that better than anybody, wouldn’t you, Sherry?”

“Oh, God,” Sherry
gasped, pressing a hand to her chest as she looked from the blackened
television screen to Zeke’s angry face.  “Zeke, that isn’t…it’s not what it
looked like?”

“Really?  Because it
looked
like you were witnessing a crime in progress and doing
NOTHING
to
help the sixteen year old victim,” he roared.  “It LOOKS like you passively
participated in the kidnapping, assault, gang rape and attempted murder of a
MINOR!  Let me know when I get something wrong, Ms. Anderson!”

Zeke could hear Honor
breathing harshly through his earpiece, but as of yet, he hadn’t heard her
cry.  He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he heard her whimper at all while he was
sitting in front of one of the people responsible for her pain.  He wanted to
believe he could keep it together and do his job, but honestly, he wasn’t so
sure anymore.

Across the table,
tears fell freely down Sherry’s face as she rocked back and forth in her chair
and stared into space.

“Give me one good
reason that I shouldn’t throw every charge I can find at you, Sherry.  Give me
one logical reason that could explain why you would turn your back on a
kid
. 
Were you really so insecure and jealous of my attention that you would walk
away from a crime this heinous without a backward glance.”

“You don’t
understand,” she whispered.  “You don’t understand, Zeke,” she repeated. 

“Make me then,” he
demanded sharply.  “Make me understand all this.  Paint me a goddamned picture
that explains how in the hell you could be a part of something like this,” he
snarled, jabbing a finger at the screen.  “And I advise that you do a
real
good job because, right now, you’re not giving me any reason not to lock your
ass up for a REAL long time.  And we both know I could.  With that video,” he
said, pointing toward the television screen, “a jury of your peers will fucking
crucify you and we both know it - especially here in Paradise County where
Honor McKinnon is considered a town treasure.”

Sherry’s eyes closed
as she struggled to pull a deep breath into her lungs.  “I think I might need a
lawyer,” she wheezed, biting her lip as she lifted a shaking hand to wipe her
wet cheeks.