When a Secret Kills (6 page)

Hunter shrugged. “A football field length? A little less?”

“Yeah.” She glanced up at the trees on either side of her.

“Let me get to work over here,” Rick said. He pulled out a flashlight and got to work on the playhouse.

Jillian focused her attention on the action surrounding Serena’s house. She caught sight of Serena making her way toward the cluster of officers in front of her house. Anger and frustration combined themselves with the anguish she already felt at her friend’s loss. Jillian took a step to go back to the house and beg Serena’s forgiveness, but stopped when she saw Alexia turn and throw her arms around Serena as she reached the group. The sight gave Jillian a measure of relief, knowing Serena had support right now. Jillian decided her begging could wait.

She turned back to listen to the detectives’ discussion. For the last twenty minutes, the only chatter had been about the possible evidence being collected. She glanced at her watch. 8:02. They were running out of daylight. In less than fifteen minutes, it would be dark. And still the sweat pooled under the weapon at her back and in between her shoulder blades. She glanced up into the tree to the right of the playhouse and a light flutter caught her eye.

Rick finally stood and said, “I think we’re good here. I don’t know what I was looking for, but if it was left here, I’ve got it now.”

“Did you find anything at all?”

“Maybe. I took prints from the playhouse, but I’m not holding out much hope. There’s nothing to indicate anyone was here, really.”

“Right. Thanks, Rick.” Colton said.

Jillian heard him, but her attention was on the tree. Walking over to it, she looked up again, but couldn’t see what had snagged the attention of her peripheral vision. Ignoring the law enforcement chatter going on behind her, her investigative reporter instincts kicked in. She climbed on top of the playhouse for a better look up in the tree, keeping her shirt pulled low over the back of her pants waistband. She wasn’t ready for anyone to know about the gun yet.

“What are you doing?”

Colton’s voice made her pause. She braced her hands on the limb that was now at chest height. “There’s something in the tree.” With
practiced ease, she hauled herself up on the limb before Colton could protest.

“Hey, it might be evidence.”

“Then give me some gloves.”

“Jillian, let Rick or me do that.”

“I’m already up here. Give me some gloves, please?” she insisted.

With a low growl and a mutter she was glad she couldn’t understand, he grabbed a pair of gloves, then made his way up to sit on the branch beside her.

She stared at him in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“Collecting whatever you said you saw. If we wind up in court, my evidence isn’t getting thrown out because someone other than law enforcement collected it.”

“Oh.”

“Right.” He looked around her. “Now, what did you see?”

She swallowed hard and motioned. “It’s some kind of material.”

He looked where she pointed. “How did you see that? It looks like a leaf.”

“I was looking in the tree, because I’m pretty sure this is where all the birds came from. I just saw it hanging there and thought it looked odd.”

Colton reached around her. As he did, she could feel the heat radiating from him and smell smoke mingled with the musky scent she remembered from high school. In spite of the heat, goose bumps pebbled her arms and she gulped.

Then noticed something else.

The limb in front of her made a nice resting place for her elbows. Leaning forward, she had an excellent view of what used to be Serena’s glassed-in porch.

Frank watched television news anchorwoman Kylie Wharton rise from the table. He stood too and she smiled as she gathered her purse. “It was a pleasure, Senator.”

“Always, Kylie. When will the story run?”

“Probably on the eleven o’clock news tonight and the morning news tomorrow. That was a nice donation you made to the boys’ home and our viewers eat that stuff up. Gives them a break from the crime that seems to surround us.”

“I’ll be watching.” They shook hands and the pretty brunette gathered her purse and walked toward the exit as Frank felt his pocket vibrate. Without taking his eyes from her pleasing form, he took his seat again and pressed the talk button on his iPhone. “Hello?”

“She got out.”

Frank sat straighter in his chair, the only outward sign of his distress. He gripped the edge of the table tightly to keep his emotions in check and forced a smile. “How?”

“I don’t know.” The tight words held frustration and fury. “She was looking out, watching. I could see her. Then she suddenly turned. I pulled the trigger and thought that would be it.”

“But she got out.”

“Yes.” He cursed. “I don’t know what made her decide at the last minute to leave the house, but she did.” A pause. “Colton was there.”

“What!” Frank’s voice came out in a hiss, drawing him a few stares from the sparsely populated restaurant. “Hold on a minute. I can’t talk about this here.” He got up and tossed his napkin and a twenty-dollar bill onto the table and strode outside. Even this late, humid heat blasted him and it took a minute for him to catch his breath. He closed his eyes, refusing to believe Jillian was still alive. “All right, go ahead.”

“Like I said, she’s still alive.”

“Unfortunately I got that part. Any witnesses? Anyone see you?” Frank’s heart beat harder. “Did Colton see you?”

“No. No one saw me.”

“What was Colton doing there?” Frank’s brain scrambled for a reason as to why his nephew would be at Serena Hopkins’s house with Jillian Carter.

A humorless laugh drifted through the phone. “I don’t know. I was already in place, watching the house when he drove up. I didn’t realize who he was until she screamed his name.”

“I don’t know what you were thinking, trying to get Jillian by yourself. This isn’t what you do. If you try to handle this yourself, you’re going to make a mistake. You don’t do this professionally.”

A slight sigh slipped through the line. “Not anymore anyway.” He paused. “Look, I have to do it. If I keep using my contacts, the cops are eventually going to put it together. It’s time to just take care of this myself.”

Frank wasn’t sure he liked that idea. “If you get caught, it’ll come straight back on me. We can’t afford that.”

“I’m well aware of that,” the killer snapped.

Frank’s jaw tightened. “Well, I know people too. I’ll see who else might be a good pick to help us out.” He pulled a handkerchief from
his back pocket and wiped the sweat dripping from his brow. “I’ve got to get out of this heat. Don’t do anything else. I’ve got an idea.”

“What kind of idea? You can’t do anything that’s going to get back to you. You have to keep your nose clean for this election. Both of our careers are on the line.”

“Like you, I’m well aware of that,” Frank snapped.

Silence on the other end. Then a low voice said, “No need to bite my head off. I’m on your side, remember?”

A sudden chill slid down his spine and Frank backpedaled. He needed this man. No need to make an enemy of him. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just stressed.” He slipped into politician mode. The apology sounded sincere even to him.

“I know,” the voice soothed. “I get that. I’m going to take care of it.”

So you’ve said for the past two months
, Frank thought to himself. Instead of saying what he wanted to, he simply sighed. “Fine. I’ll be working on something from this end. And don’t worry,” he hastened to reassure the man on the other end of the line, “I won’t do anything without running it by you first.”

“Good.”

“But for now, stick with my nephew. Find out why he’s with Jillian.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on him. In fact, I’m watching him and Jillian right now.”

Frank frowned at the man’s tone. “Don’t do anything stupid like kill him. That would just hurt the campaign.”

“I don’t know . . . a dead nephew, a grieving uncle. Might buy you some sympathy votes.”

Frank swore and walked toward his car. “Leave him alone. Keep him out of this.” He unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel.

“What if he won’t
be
kept out of it?”

Frank took a deep breath and waited for the pain to subside like it always did. He was way too stressed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it looks like he’s planning to take a little trip with the girl.”

Concern beat with a steady hum through Frank’s blood. “Follow him.”

“What if she’s already told him what she knows?”

“He won’t believe her.” Would he? Of course not. “I can handle Colton, you know that. I’m the father he always wished he had.”

“You’re not competing for Father of the Year, our goal is to win the election. You better keep that in mind.”

“I’m not likely to forget it anytime soon. Now you do your job and let me do mine.”

“Fishing? That’s your Plan B?” She had followed him out of his house and stood next to his truck, frowning. Colton thought about how cute she looked first thing in the morning, then reined in his thoughts and frowned right along with her, because he didn’t need to notice that. He’d picked her up at the hotel, and when he asked how she slept, she’d answered with a shrug. “Fitfully.” The Bible on her bed told him what she’d been doing when she wasn’t sleeping.

“Yeah, it’s a safe place for you to hide out for a bit while I check on some things.”

“Check on what?”

He gave a sharp whistle and Jillian jumped. He smiled. “Sorry.”

“What was that for?”

Colton nodded his head toward the woods. “I’m taking them with us.”

Jillian turned and he heard her give a gasp as his two matching German shepherds bolted from the trees. Tongues hanging, tails wagging, they raced for him. Colton gave a hand signal and both dogs skidded to a halt and sat in front of him. He looked around. “Best alarm system ever invented. No one’ll get close without these two setting up a howl. Or more likely a growl.” He motioned her over and she walked around the truck to stand next to him. “Jillian, I’d like you to meet Bert and Ernie.” She lifted a brow at him and
he shrugged. “I didn’t name them. They’re retired military working dogs. I adopted them about three years ago.” He paused. “I wanted Mr. Snuffleupagus too, but one of my buddies took him.”

“Sesame Street?” Jillian leaned over and gave each dog a scratch behind the ears. Instant love for Jillian had the dogs squirming for her attention.

He defended the names with a shrug. “Military guys have a weird sense of humor.”

“Huh. Kind of like cops.”

Colton’s lips quirked. “Exactly.”

Jillian shook her head. “People and their weird animal names. First Serena with her Star Wars fetish and now you and Sesame Street.”

He snapped his fingers and waved a hand toward the truck. The dogs responded without hesitation and hopped in the back.

Jillian looked at him. “Fishing, huh?”

“In a sense.” Colton threw a duffle bag in the back of his truck. “Just for tonight. Someone tried to kill you—and me.” He tossed in two sleeping bags and four pillows. “That tells me that my uncle isn’t behind this. He’d never do anything to hurt me.”

“Come on, Colton, he had no way of knowing you would be there last night.”

Colton had whisked her away from the scene as fast as he could. Their statements had been brief and to the point. One minute they’d been in the house, the next they’d been outside and the house had exploded. End of statement. They’d seen no one, hadn’t noticed anyone hanging around the area, and Jillian hadn’t recognized anyone in the crowd. And she hadn’t seen anyone who’d seemed suspicious.

But there’d been the birds.

Birds. Really?

Or had she set the whole thing up? He didn’t want to think it. Didn’t want to believe her capable of something like that. Any more than he wanted to believe that his uncle had anything to do
with killing the former governor. “But he knew you were going to be there. How?”

That stopped her. She stood, one hand on the handle of the truck, her eyes on him. “I don’t have any idea. Staying with Serena wasn’t planned.”

“Then someone followed you from the airport.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Then they’re good because I was watching.”

He barked a hard laugh. “And exactly how much experience do you have watching for tails?”

Jillian simply looked at him, drew in a deep breath, and said, “More than you might think, Colton.”

It was his turn to pause. And he realized he knew nothing about this woman standing before him. Physically, she’d changed little except for gaining a few curves in all the right places. But on the inside? She was a whole different person.

Colton hung his head for a moment, then lifted it to scan his home. He’d moved into this house a little over three years ago after tiring of apartment living. Peaceful, set back in the woods on twenty acres, he had room to roam. Room to raise the horses he and Jillian had dreamed about back in high school. For the first time since making the purchase, he allowed himself to admit that he’d bought the place with Jillian in mind.

He opened the truck door. “Get in.”

She slid in the passenger seat. “Where are we going again?”

“To a little place owned by Hunter’s grandfather. I have an open invitation. I also have a key and go there often to just get away and relax.” He could see the exhaustion on her features and promised, “A friend of mine, Jonah Gunter, does some moonlighting as a bodyguard. He’s going to meet us out there and watch out for you. You need to rest without worrying about when whoever’s after you is going to strike next. And I need to make some calls without worrying about
you
.”

“I never asked you to worry about me, Colton.” She grabbed the door, and slammed it shut.

Colton winced. He rounded the truck and slid behind the wheel. “I know. You never ask for anything, do you?”

Jillian hesitated and he wondered if she would answer him. Then she said, “No. I guess I don’t. Not willingly anyway.”

Colton cranked the truck and did a three-point turn. He accelerated down the drive, then turned left to head for the highway. “Which makes me wonder why?” He shot her a quick glance. “Who are you now, Jillian Carter?”

“Someone you wouldn’t recognize.” He almost didn’t catch the low whisper.

“Why’s that? What changed you so much?”

“I saw a murder ten years ago, Colton, and the murderer saw
me
. That changed me. I’ve been in hiding and now I’m on the run with the nephew of the man I saw shoot another man. I must be crazy.”

Colton tensed, insulted and angry that whatever she thought she saw that night, she really believed his uncle was guilty of murder. She had been a scared teenager who’d bolted after seeing two men argue. And the governor had been alive enough to drive toward home instead of to a hospital. How could she believe his uncle could be involved in something like this?

Instead of venting his anger, he swallowed it, kept his eyes alternating between the road and the mirrors, and said, “Then let’s work together to figure out what happened ten years ago.”

“I thought we already agreed to something along those lines.”

“We did. Only I want to talk to my uncle and see what he has to say about your accusations.”

“Talk to him?” Jillian jerked forward against the seatbelt and half turned her body toward him. “No way! No, no, no. You can’t do that. I don’t have any proof, and if he thinks you’re involved in some way . . .”

Colton glanced at her, then back to the road, then the mirror
behind them. “But don’t you see, Jillian? It’s the only way. I’m going to drop you off at the cabin and then go see Uncle Frank.”

“But you—”

“I want to know how Governor Martin died,” he interrupted.

Jillian felt her frown deepen as she let him change the subject. “I told you. He was shot.”

Colton shook his head. “I would remember that. I remember the man dying, but not much else. There was nothing sensational about his death—other than the fact that he died. I think it was a car wreck. He was driving alone at night on that curvy road our parents used to forbid us to drive on.”

“Culver Park Road,” Jillian said.

“Right. The paper said that’s how he died.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t stick around to read about it in the paper.” In fact, she’d done her best to forget all about that horrible night. Although, now that he said that, a little niggling of doubt tickled her mind. “I know it wasn’t a car wreck, though. Can I see your phone?”

“Where’s yours?”

“It just got blown up, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” He handed her the device. “We need to get you another one ASAP. I’ll get Jonah to bring you one—let me call him.” She passed him the phone and he made the call.

When he handed the phone back to her, she accessed the internet and did a Google search. He glanced at her and saw the tip of her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth just like it always did when she concentrated on something. A pang of longing hit him. Longing for the past, longing for that graduation night to be different. If only—

Colton shut those thoughts and feelings down. No sense in wanting something he couldn’t have. The only thing he could do now was work on the future.

“Okay, here it is.”

Her soft voice pulled at him. “What’d you find?”

She read, “‘Governor Harrison Martin apparently lost control of his car around three o’clock yesterday morning on Culver Park Road. He hit the guardrail and went over. The car caught on fire and the governor had extensive burns all over his body. The medical examiner reports that Martin died from a combination of the burns, smoke inhalation, and severe head injuries. He was declared dead at the scene.’” She finished reading and went still. Then she handed his phone back to him.

And just sat there. Quiet. Chewing on her bottom lip.

It made him nervous. “What is it?”

“It’s a lie.”

“How can it be a lie, Jillian? There would have been cops all over the place, an investigation, an autopsy . . .” He shot her a sidelong glance and turned beneath the arch of intertwined branches of two towering oak trees that signaled the entrance to the cabin on Lake Murray. “You’re saying the medical examiner lied.”

She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know how they did it, but they covered it up.”

“A conspiracy theory?”

“No. A cover-up.”

“Same thing. Basically.”

She snorted and glanced out the window. He could almost smell the smoke coming from her ears as her brain worked. The gravel drive ended and he heard her gasp. “This is Hunter’s grandfather’s ‘cottage’ on the lake?”

“Yep.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Colton studied the glass front. “Yeah, Hunter’s grandfather bought it ages ago. Now Mr. Graham lets us cops use it for free pretty much whenever we want to. It’s a great place to unwind.” He shot her a glance. “Or hide out.”

The yellow A-frame structure with the double oak doors looked
simple and elegant from the front. From memory, he knew the back walls were heavy glass overlooking the lake.

Instead of parking in the front, he pulled around to the back and shut the engine off. “The nearest neighbor is about a quarter of a mile in any direction. Hunter’s granddaddy wanted his privacy and plenty of room for his large family. There’s an alarm that beeps anytime someone turns into the drive. You’ll have plenty of advance warning should anyone be headed this way.” He opened the door for her, then walked around to let the tailgate down. He gave a short whistle and the dogs bolted from the back of the truck.

“And if they don’t use the drive?”

He closed the tailgate and said, “That’s what the dogs are for.” He gave her the once-over. “Seeing as how you’re pretty much without a wardrobe, I think you’ll find some clothes that will fit you in the master bedroom. Hunter said his cousin, Claire, has two wardrobes. She keeps one at home and leaves one here. Y’all are about the same size.”

He led her into the house and cut the alarm off. Then showed her how to arm it. She practiced it a couple of times until he was satisfied. “Keep it on at all times, all right?”

“I will.”

Three short beeps sounded and Colton smiled at her startled jerk. “That’s Jonah.”

Colton gave the man about sixty seconds to reach the end of the drive and park. He went to the door and opened it, welcoming his friend. “Thanks for coming.”

“No problem.” The man’s dark almond eyes and olive skin showed off his Asian heritage. Well-toned muscles rippled beneath his shirt, and Colton knew Jonah was well equipped to handle anything that came his way. He looked at Jillian. “Glad to meet you.”

“You too.” She shook his hand. “Thanks for doing this. Hopefully this will be an easy and uneventful job for you.”

“Just the way I like them.” He handed her a phone. “It’s
programmed and ready to go.” He looked at Colton. “I texted you the number so you have it.”

Colton checked his phone. “Got it. Thanks.”

“No problem. I’ll be checking the perimeter.” Then he was gone, leaving her alone with Colton. She shoved the phone into the back pocket of her shorts and wandered to the kitchen, then into the den, touching the furniture, familiarizing herself with the place.

He let her do that for a couple of minutes, then said, “Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”

She followed him, her quiet demeanor worrying him. He threw open the door to one of the bedrooms and felt his phone vibrate. He checked the number and frowned.

“What is it?”

“My aunt is texting me, wants to know if I’ve heard from my cousin Carmen.”

Wariness crossed her face. “I remember her. She’s Frank’s daughter. Are y’all that close?”

“Yes. And no. Carmen and I have an understanding.” He tapped the keyboard of the phone and answered that he hadn’t heard from Carmen. To Jillian he said, “She’s had a lot of problems. As a teen, she was very rebellious, very anti-authority. She even ran away from home when she was fourteen. My aunt and uncle sent her to a boarding school for kids with emotional problems.”

“Did it help?”

He shrugged. “Maybe some. She’s in college and hasn’t flunked out yet, so that’s an improvement.”

Jillian sighed and walked over to the closet. When she opened it, she just stood there.

He frowned. “Jillian?”

She turned to face him and his heart nearly broke in two at how lost she appeared. Lost and very, very scared. Old instincts, mixed with new, rose up. Colton hesitated for only a moment, then walked over to pull her into his arms, ignoring her soft gasp of surprise.