Whispers (6 page)
Authors: Lisa Jackson
Dutch's face lost all trace of humor. Lines of strain gouged the skin around his eyes as he settled back into his recliner. “So I don't want to be caught off guard, if you know what I mean. I've got to know what I'm up against here.”
Don't lose it, Claire. Not now. Not after all these years.
She swallowed hard. “Iâweâdon't know what you're talking about.” She forced her gaze to meet her father's steadily even though inside she was withering like a vine deprived of water. Silently she cursed herself for never having learned the art of lying, a characteristic that would have come in handy over the years.
She swallowed hard. “Iâweâdon't know what you're talking about.” She forced her gaze to meet her father's steadily even though inside she was withering like a vine deprived of water. Silently she cursed herself for never having learned the art of lying, a characteristic that would have come in handy over the years.
Dutch rubbed his chin. “I wish to God I could believe you, but I can't.”
Here it comes. Claire braced herself, met her father's condemning stare, and forced herself to breathe.
Dutch gazed at each of his daughters in turn, as if looking long and hard enough, he could crack through the veneer of their innocence and see the ugly truth. “I want to know what happened on the night the Taggert kid died.”
God help us. Sweet, trusting Harley.
“I think one of you girls was involved.”
Claire let out a whimper of protest. “Noâ”
Dutch loosened his tie, but his gaze was fixed steadily upon his middle daughter. “You were going to marry him, weren't you?”
“What's the point of this?” Miranda cut in.
“Shit.” Tessa drew on her cigarette. “I'm not going to sit here and listen to this crap.” Hauling herself to her feet, she grabbed her purse, flung the butt of her Virginia Slims into the fireplace, and started for the door.
“Sit down, Tessa. We're all in this together.” Dutch's jaw was rock-hard. “All I'm talking about now is damage control. I was hoping you girls would finally be straight with me, but I suspected you might not be, so I hired someone to help.”
“What?” Miranda froze and Claire saw the fear on her sister's face. Miranda had worked so hard to protect them all. She'd come up with the story, the lies. Claire swallowed hard. Surely her private father couldn't have, wouldn't have brought an outsider in on this . . . oh, God . . . all of her hard-fought plans, all of the desperate nights, all of the tightly wound lies. They would all be found out and then . . . Oh, God, she couldn't think what would happen if the truth, so dark and murky, would ever see the light of day.
“You did what?” Miranda, ashen faced, demanded of Dutch.
Claire's head began to thunder again, echoing with a dizzying rush of sound.
“Denver Styles.” He let the name sink in, though it held no meaning for Claire. But Miranda stopped short and for a second a shadow of fear passed behind her eyes. Quickly it disappeared as she seemed to get a grip on herself.
“Styles is a damned good private investigator. He'll find out what happened sixteen years ago and help me do whatever I have to do to keep it quiet, or at least tone it down.” He reached for his drink. “So you girls have a choice. Either you come clean with me now, or you let Styles dig it up on his own. The first way will be the most painless, believe me.” He swallowed the last of his scotch.
“You're out of your mind.” Miranda shot to her feet. “The sheriff's department concluded that Harley Taggert had a boating accidentâno foul play, no suicide.”
“'Course they did,” Dutch said, his face mottling in anger. “Didn't you ever wonder why?”
Claire's stomach dropped to the floor. She didn't want to hear this. Not now. Not ever. Harley was gone; nothing could bring him back.
“Suicide? No one would have bought that.” Dutch snorted at the absurdity. “The kid didn't leave a note and had no history of depression, so, you're right, the suicide idea didn't stick.” His lips thinned.
“Didn't stick?” Claire repeated, suddenly catching a glimmer of what her father was hinting.
“Wait a minute. Are you suggesting thatâwhat?” Miranda's eyes were wide and she slowly sat down again. “There was foul play and we”âshe made a sweeping gesture to include her sistersâ“were somehow involved?”
Dutch crossed to the bar and poured himself another drink. “The reason Taggert's death was ruled an accident was because I paid the sheriff's department offâa bribe not to investigate a possible homicide.”
“What?” Claire's voice came out in a rush.
“Don't start talking like this,” Miranda said.
“Worried?”
“You bet I am.” Miranda, visibly bristling, walked to the windows and balanced her hips on the sill. “Accusations like this could ruin the reputation of the local sheriff's department.”
“You're worried about Sheriff McBain losing his job? Hell, he retired, full pension, three years ago.”
“It's more personal than that, Dad, and you know it. A story like this, linking my name to a . . . what, murder? Is that what you're really saying? It could jeopardize my career.”
Ice clinked in his glass as he swirled his drink. “Possibly.”
“And what about you? If you're serious about running for office, this could kill it. If anyone got wind that you tried to fix the Taggert caseâ”
“I'll deny it.” Dutch's eyes blazed. “As for your precious career, it's already in jeopardy. Something about a botched prosecution of a known rapist?”
Some of the starch seeped out of Miranda. She felt her shoulders sag. Her father was rightâat least partially. Bruno Larkin should be behind bars instead of walking free because of testimony that hadn't held up in court. The woman who had been raped, Ellen Farmer, a shy thirty-year-old who still lived with her parents, never dated, attended church regularly, and believed that sex outside of matrimony was a sin, had committed suicide after the second day of court. Miranda should have seen it coming. Without Ellen's testimony, the case was dropped, a sweet woman was dead, and Bruno walked. “You've made your point.”
Dutch's gaze moved to include his other daughters. “Okay, now that we understand each other, let's get down to it. Which one of you was involved in the Taggert kid's death?”
“Oh for God's sake!” Tessa slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “As I said, I'm leaving.”
Just then, the sound of an engine rumbled like damning thunder through the night.
Claire, pale, looked about to keel over. She cast a furtive glance in Miranda's direction and wiped her palms against the faded fabric of her jeans.
“This Denver Styles,” Miranda said, still shaken. “Has he already been checking around? Has he stopped by my office asking questions?”
Dutch lifted a shoulder. “Don't know.”
“I don't appreciate my private life being turned inside out by you or anyone else,” she said, her stomach knotting so painfully she could barely breathe. “There was a time when you could tell us what to do, who to see, where to go, but that's over, Dadâ”
A loud rap interrupted her, and she turned toward the sound.
“Door's open,” Dutch yelled.
Miranda felt as if a vise were tightening over her lungs as footsteps rang through the hall and a man appeared: a tall, rangy man with wide shoulders, faded jeans, and a cocksure attitude that was evident in his walk. Beard stubble darkened his jaw and sharp cheekbones that hinted at some Native American ancestor slashed upward to eyes that were deep-set and eagle-sharp. In one swift glance, he had probably looked over the three women, sized them up, and pigeonholed each one.
“Denver!” Dutch rolled onto his feet, his hand outstretched.
The hint of a smile touched Styles's lips as he clasped Dutch's hand, but there was no warmth in his eyes. “'Bout time you showed up. I'd like you to meet my daughters.” He motioned to the sisters. “Miranda, Claire, Tessa, this is the man I told you about. He's going to ask you all some questions and you, girls, are going to tell him the truth.”
Four
Miranda sized the guy up. She'd seen more than her share of lowlifes in her years with the department, and could smell a con man within seconds. This guy, hard-edged and quietly condemning, didn't have the usual odor, but there was something about him that smacked of insincerity and something elseâsomething even more disturbing. She felt a touch of familiarity, as if she'd seen him before, but she couldn't place his face, and the feeling disappeared like morning fog touched by the warmth of the sun.
“I think Dad brought you into this on false pretenses,” she said, crossing her legs and clasping her hands on her knee. His eyes flickered for a second to her calf, but his expression didn't change a bit. So he wasn't completely impervious. Good. “The story isâ”
“I'm not interested in the story, Ms. Holland.” His smile was coldly patient as he leaned a shoulder against the dark timber of the mantel. “I just want the truth.”
Miranda matched his cool attitude with her own. “I'm sure you've already read the police reports and newspaper clippings or Dad wouldn't have hired you.”
His black eyebrows rose a fraction.
A dark, numbing fear settled deep in the pit of her stomach as she repeated the story she'd told over and over againâto the deputies of the sheriff's department, to the nosiest reporters, to her family and friends. It was forever branded in her memory even though it was a bald-faced lie. She glanced at her sisters; Tessa, blond and belligerent, insolently smoking another cigarette while Claire's expression was hard to read, her skin pale. “The three of us”âshe motioned to her sistersâ“were on our way home from the drive-in movie on the other side of Chinook. We'd gone together to see a trilogy of old Clint Eastwood movies. It was late, after midnight. The movies hadn't started until sunset, which was after nine o'clock, I think. We left before the last picture was over. I was driving and dead tired and . . . I guess I fell asleep at the wheel, I don't remember skidding off the road, but the next thing I knew, the car was in the lake.” She stared straight into Styles's disbelieving eyes. He wasn't buying thisânot for a second. Still, she plunged on, stepping deeper into the muck of half-truths and lies. “The impact woke me up and Tessa and Claire were screaming their heads off. Water was filling up the inside of the car and we all had to swim out in the pitch-black . . . it was . . .” She shuddered and her voice became a whisper. “We were lucky, I guess. My car went off the road in only six feet of water, so we were able to help each other out and swim to shore.”
Styles didn't say a word.
“It's not a mystery, Mr. Stylesâ”
“Denver. You'll be seeing a lot of me. No reason to keep tripping over names.” A half smile, a false grin meant to disarm and encourage her to keep talking tugged at his lips, but those gray eyes never warmed to her, never so much as flickered with a touch of understanding. “I suppose your sisters would repeat, nearly word for word, the same story.”
“It's not a story,” Tessa interjected with a toss of her head.
“No one saw you at the drive-in.” His dark eyebrows drew together, as if he were deep in thought. “Isn't that strange considering that you three are pretty high-profile, what with being from one of the wealthiest families in the area?”
“We didn't talk to anyone.”
“No? Not even in the snack bar?”
“There wasn't a lot of people there. It was right before the drive-in theater closed for good.”
“We took our own sodas,” Claire said, her voice thin.
He rubbed his chin. “And you didn't get out of the car for what? Three or four hours? Not even to use the ladies' room?”
“I don't think so,” Miranda replied before Claire could say anything else and get them all into bigger trouble.
“That's pretty unbelievable, don't you think?”
Her voice was calm, smooth as glass. “That's the way it was. Obviously there were a lot of other cars there, families and teenagers, but none around us that I recognized. As I told the sheriff's department a long time ago, there was a white station wagon with wood on the sideâI don't know the makeâwith a family of kids, parked next to us. The space on the other side of my car was empty. In front of us was a pickupâdark-colored with a bank of spotlights stretched across the cab, and other than that I don't remember any other vehicle.”
“And you were driving a black Camaro.”
“That's right. It was totaled later that night. Just because no one the police spoke with that night had seen us doesn't mean there wasn't someone there who had. They just didn't look hard enough.”
“The guy who sold tickets didn't remember your car.”
“He was probably stoned. His memory wasn't all that great. If you read his deposition you'll see that he hardly knew the names of the movies that were playing.” Her fists clenched and she had to force her fingers to straighten. If she'd learned anything in her years as a lawyer, it was how to hide emotion when necessary, how to bring it to the surface when needed. Right now the less knowledge Denver Styles scraped up about her and that hellish night, the better.
Dutch winced as he stood, then rubbed his knee. “The reason the police didn't find out much that night is because I bought 'em off.”
“Dad, don't,” she warned, incredulous even though he had already alluded to tampering with the investigation. To what lengths would her father go to get his way?
Claire let out a tiny, disbelieving gasp, and Tessa, always the cynic, rolled her eyes. “You never stop, do you?” Tessa demanded. “Jesus, Dad, you bribed the police?”
“I did what I had to do,” he snapped as he walked across the room, his pace evening out as he reached the French doors and opened them, letting in a warm breeze. “I figured this was probably the single most important moment of all our lives and I thoughtâhell, I hoped I was saving you girls, your mother, yes, and me, a pile of grief.”
“You didn't believe us.” Miranda felt empty inside. Drained. The truth was sure to come out, every last painful and ugly detail.
“I couldn't and I wasn't about to take the risk that one of you would be exposed as that Taggert boy's killer.”
Miranda's insides shook.
“His name was Harley,” Claire said, lifting her chin. “It's been sixteen years, Dad. You don't have to refer to him as âthat boy' anymore.” Standing proudly, she stared at her father, then her gaze moved past him, through the open door to the lake, and focused on whatever she saw in the distance, on the opposite shore.
“All I wanted to do was save your skins.”
“And your reputation,” Tessa said. “That's about the time Stone Illahee was opening the second phase, wasn't it? You couldn't risk that your new resort would be tainted with some sort of scandal. New golf course, indoor tennis courts, Olympic-size pool, gorgeous views, and major debt. What would happen if the word got out that Benedict Holland's, the owner's, daughters were involved inâ”
“In an accident,” Miranda said quickly. “You had so little faith that you bought off the investigation.”
“That's right.” Dutch was defensive, his bushy gray eyebrows pulling together. “Paid the sheriff's department to downplay the whole incident.”
“Not smart,” Styles observed.
“Hey, look, I wasn't planning on running for office then.”
“But now you are and you want to dredge all this up again.” Claire rubbed one temple with her fingers as she tried and failed to stave off a headache. “Why?”
“To beat Moran to the punch and divert him if I have to.” He walked to the bar and motioned to the full bottles. “How about a drink?”
“Another time.” Denver eyed Tessa. “You want to elaborate?”
“How?”
“See anyone you know at the movies?” His tone wasn't the least bit imperious, and yet Miranda felt an underlying challenge in his words.
“While you're pouring, Dad,” Tessa said, as if sensing trouble,
“I'll
have a drink. Vodka straight up.”
“I'll
have a drink. Vodka straight up.”
“I already told you,” Miranda said, standing and crossing the room so that she could meet Styles's gaze more evenly. “You don't have to try and trip us up by pitting one of us against the other.”
“Is that what I was doing?”
“You tell me.”
“I just thought I should hear your sisters' sides of the story even though you've already primed them.”
Claire, too, was on her feet. “Look, I don't really have time for this. I've got kids waiting for me. Miranda told you the truth, I don't have anything else to add.”
“Oh, hell, Claire,” Dutch growled. “Tell the man about Taggert. You ran around here mooning over the guy and had just announced that you were going to marry him. You've got a helluva lot more to say.” He handed a drink to Tessa, who, a stubborn set to her jaw, walked to the window and rested her head against the glass.
Claire's stomach clenched. “It's true. I had hoped to marry Harley, though . . . it . . . it wasn't working out.” She rubbed the back of one of her hands with the thumb of the other. “Everyone was against it because of a feud that existed between our families.”
“He knows about the damned feud.” Frowning darkly, Dutch fell into his chair again, raised the leg support, and took a sip from his glass.
Claire felt a chill even though it was still warm. Through the open door she noticed the sun was beginning to set, fiery pink-and-orange beams fractured against the underbelly of a few high clouds. She knew that Miranda had spoken first to remind her younger sisters of the lie they'd concocted, the altering of the facts to protect them all, but suddenly it seemed that their secret, woven tightly by each woman's determination to put that dark, ugly night behind them, was beginning to unravel and fray. “When I first met Harley, I mean, I'd known him all my life, but when I realized I was attracted to him, it was at the lake. He was going with another girl, Kendall Forsythe, at the time.”
“The bitch,” Tessa interjected, and received a harsh, warning glare from Miranda.
“Kendallâas in Weston Taggert's wife.”
“Yes.” Claire nodded. She wasn't going to let anyone, either her father or her older sister, dictate how she felt or what she said. Things had changed over the last decade and a half, and if she'd learned anything, it was that she had to speak up for herself and rely on her own judgment. For too many years she'd trusted other peopleâfirst her mother, then Harley, eventually Miranda, and finally Paul. “Dad might have told you that he thought the Taggerts had moved here with the express purpose of running him out of business, but that wasn't true.”
Her father snorted. “Neal should have stuck to shipping up in Seattle.”
“They moved down here in the fifties, I think,” Claire continued, glancing from Miranda to Styles.
“Nineteen fifty-six.” Dutch opened a glass humidor and fingered a cigar.
“Anyway, Dad took it as a personal insult that he'd have some competition.”
“I knew it, that Harley brainwashed you!”
“Jesus, Dad,” Tessa said, as Dutch bit off the end of his cigar and spit it into the fireplace. “You called us all up, insisted that we show up here and spill our guts, then when Claire tries, you start insulting her. I'm outta here.” She tossed back her drink, snagged her purse, and headed for the door.
“No, waitâ” Dutch shoved himself out of the recliner and wincing as he put weight on his bad knee, hurried after his youngest, bullheaded, daughter. But Tessa wasn't about to stay and be insulted. Within seconds an engine fired to life. Tessa's Mustang roared away.
“Go ahead,” Styles said to Claire. His hands were forced into the pockets of his beat-up jacket, and he seemed less stiff and unbending than he had when he'd first entered. “What about the Taggerts?”
“They're originally from Seattle. As Dad mentioned, the family had some kind of shipping operation up there started by his great-grandfather, I think.”
“Old Evan Taggert, Neal's grandfather,” Dutch said, puffing on his cigar as he strode into the room again. Agitation caused a tic to quiver near his temple. “Sorry about Tessa. Sometimes she's a hothead, but she's staying at the resortâa suite in the north wing. You can call her later.”
“I will,” Denver said, then nodded toward Claire, urging her to continue.
“Anyway, Harley's dad wanted to do something different.”
“Making millions shipping out of Puget Sound wasn't good enough, I guess,” Dutch grumbled. “So he started buying all the cheap land on the Oregon coast he could get his hands on. You can't buy much beach property in Washington, it's all owned by the Indiansâreservations, so Neal decided to horn in on my territory. The bastard envisioned himself as the premier developer of this stretch of land, settled himself and his family around Chinook.”
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