Cole Dempsey's Back In Town
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“Those threats, they were empty words,” Cole replied. “He’d been unjustly fired and he went crazy. He got drunk. That doesn’t make him a murderer.”
“Are you going to tell me why you’re here, Cole?” She couldn’t take much more. Remembering that night…it always killed her a little more each time. “We had this conversation fifteen years ago, and I can’t see one good reason to have it again.”
Cole leaned forward, his forearms resting on the solid polished mahogany of the desk that had once belonged to her great-grandfather. His voice lowered, as if meant only for her even when the two of them were alone in the house anyway.
“My mother went to her death wanting to believe my father was innocent—but fearing somewhere inside herself that he was guilty.” His eyes bored hard into hers. Emotion lurked in those lithoid depths, but it was unreadable. “She was haunted by that question, Bryn.”
She didn’t know what to say. Her family had been haunted by that night, too. What was Cole getting at?
She knew he was getting at something.
“Before she died, she told me something she’d kept secret all my life. She was pregnant with another man’s child when she married Wade Dempsey. He married her and gave me a name, and that’s why she stayed with him all those years, even with his philandering. Wade was sterile, couldn’t have any children of his own, but he treated me like his flesh and blood and she loved him for that. But she wanted me to know that I wasn’t the flesh and blood of a killer. She was ashamed, Bryn, and she didn’t want me to be ashamed, too.”
“She must have been proud of your accomplishments,” she said carefully, shocked by his revelations. Sympathy she didn’t dare reveal tore at her heart. “You’ve made something of yourself. Why should you care what anyone thinks about anything in Azalea Bend now? It’s history, Cole. Let it go.”
When he continued, it was as if he hadn’t heard her. His voice remained oddly flat and expressionless. “I realized I’d let her down, and I’d let down the man who loved me enough to give me his name. The least I could do is try to clear his—not for my sake, but for my mother’s. I began to research Aimee’s case. Reading documents, police reports. The court transcripts of your father’s trial. I read everything I could get my hands on, and one question stood out in my mind.”
Bryn’s uneasiness increased. His sheer matter of factness continued to prickle alarm up her spine.
She waited.
“My father’s face was scratched as if he’d been in a life-or-death struggle that night,” Cole went on. “The forensic report was strangely silent on this fact. Scrapings from Aimee’s nails should have linked those scratches to my father. But no such evidence was ever presented in court.”
“Forensic science was not the same then as it is today,” Bryn countered. “This was fifteen years ago, in a small town. We don’t have murders in St. Salome Parish on a regular basis. This wasn’t a conspiracy, Cole. It was a small town grappling with a big-city crime. If scrapings weren’t taken from beneath Aimee’s nails—”
“But scrapings were taken.”
“You just said—”
“I said the evidence wasn’t presented in court. I didn’t say the evidence didn’t exist.”
Chapter 4
Bryn swallowed thickly. “What do you mean?” Her voice was a gracile cloak masking unnamable trepidation.
Cole looked at her, his gaze suddenly as frightening as a hot summer storm. “I mean the scrapings were taken. And the evidence was suppressed. The information was removed from the forensic report.”
Bryn’s stomach muscles clenched. “How can you know this?”
“Because I contacted the coroner who autopsied Aimee’s body. I asked him why no scrapings had been taken.”
All the blood seemed to run out of Bryn’s head. She felt light, sick. She had to hear what Cole had to say, though. There was no stopping now.
“Randol Ormond is nearly eighty years old,” Cole told her. “But he’s got all his wits about him. He left Azalea Bend several years ago and now lives in a senior-care center in Tampa. He wasn’t hard to track down. I flew there, spoke with him face to face. And he told me the truth. He removed the evidence from Aimee’s report—though he wouldn’t tell me why or on whose authority. But I can guess.”
“Maybe he’s lying.” Even she knew her words sounded desperate.
“He doesn’t have long to live, Bryn. He’s got cancer. He has no reason to lie. The truth does nothing but stain his reputation. He’s been carrying a load of guilt for fifteen years, and he was only too ready to let it go.”
“Maybe he said what you wanted to hear. People change their stories sometimes. People lie for all kinds of reasons.”
“I know that only too well.” Cole’s quiet voice was jeapordous now. “You know as well as I do that your father had more than one reason to shoot mine. And that only one of those reasons would get him out of a jail sentence—and that was pinning Aimee’s murder on Wade Dempsey. A jury let Maurice Louvel off for taking a father’s justice. But a husband’s justice…That would have been a little more difficult to win, even for a Louvel.”
Bryn had to force her next words from numb lips. “Did you expect me to tell the world that my mother had an affair with your father? Even you didn’t believe it was true.” But oh, he had wanted her to say it anyway. And she’d refused. And he’d never forgiven her.
A stiff beat passed. “It never mattered what I believed about that, Bryn. It only mattered what your father believed. And you and I both know what he thought that night. We know he didn’t fire my father because of negligence on the job. He fired him because he suspected he’d slept with his wife. And when he found my father with Aimee, he shot him dead. After that, there was no backing down. If Wade Dempsey wasn’t a murderer, then Maurice Louvel was, wasn’t he, Bryn? The town came to Maurice Louvel’s rescue. Any evidence that pointed to someone else being Aimee’s killer was shoved away because the jury might not have been so sympathetic to the man on trial for murder. Not just the fact that your father had more than one motive to shoot mine. Now there’s more. Now there’s the forensic report that was suppressed—and who do you think suppressed it, Bryn?”
She felt more ill by the second. She knew where he was headed. Drake’s father, the prosecutor responsible for the case against her father. “That’s a loaded charge, Cole. And all you have is a grudge and the word of an old, dying man to back you up.”
“I have more than Randol Ormond’s word.” Suddenly the emotion in his eyes was too clear. And it wasn’t bitterness or anger. It was pain, pure and scorching. “He still had the original report in his private files, Bryn. He got his daughter to track it down and give it to me.”
She could barely breathe. “What does it say?”
“It says that the DNA beneath Aimee’s nails didn’t match my father’s.”
Her head reeled, and she grappled for perspective. What if Wade really hadn’t murdered Aimee? What if everything she’d believed all these years was wrong?
But everything else she knew about that night warred with Cole’s new evidence.
“Mistakes happen,” she whispered. There had to be another explanation—
“And so do lies.” His face twisted. “It’s too late for my mother’s peace of mind. I can’t do anything for her now. She died while I was in Tampa talking to Randol Ormond. But I can still clear my father’s name. Randol Ormond can’t be the only one in Azalea Bend who knew the truth about what happened. Someone else fought with Aimee that night, and that someone else fought with my father. I believe my father interrupted the killer, perhaps even tried to save Aimee. I’m here to find out who that was, Bryn. I won’t leave till I find out. And I need your help.”
Bryn’s heart tore. What Cole was suggesting was almost too horrible to contemplate. If there had been evidence to clear Wade Dempsey, evidence that had been suppressed to justify her father’s fatal act that night…
Blood roared in her ears. She didn’t want to believe any of this. It couldn’t be true. “I can’t help you.”
“Oh yes, Bryn, you can.”
She jerked back from the desk. Her chair hit the cabinet and she stood, bracing her weight as much as possible on her uninjured foot.
“My mother has been hurt enough. I’m not going to tell the world that she had an affair with your father to clear a dead man’s name. My mother doesn’t deserve any more pain. Whatever my father did or didn’t think that night doesn’t prove anything—”
Cole stopped her as she came around the desk. He rose to his feet, took hold of her by both arms. “That’s not what I’m asking of you, Bryn.”
“Then what are you asking?” she demanded wildly.
“Nobody asked the right questions fifteen years ago. I’m here to ask them now. And I want answers.”
“So what do you need me for?” She shook off his hold. “I can’t stop you from asking questions in Azalea Bend. You want to play private detective, go for it. You don’t need me. You’ve even got this supposed forensic report. If there were scrapings taken, have them retested.”
Something flinched in his eyes at her obvious doubt. “The scrapings taken from Aimee’s fingernails are long gone.” He watched her steadily, letting go of her arms but not moving out of her way. “They disappeared when the original report was suppressed. Someone took them, Bryn. Probably the same someone who suppressed that report. But there was someone else in Azalea Bend who had scratches on their face that night, someone else who had a reason to kill Aimee—and I’m going to find out who it was. But I don’t have a prayer without you, Bryn. You’re a Louvel. That still means something in this town.”
“I can’t help you.” Her entire being wrenched. She’d spent years trying to put those horrible events behind her. To put Cole behind her. And now that she’d finally started building a new life, Cole was here, asking her to dredge it all up again. “I can’t relive the past.” And she couldn’t believe what he was saying. No one else could have killed Aimee that night. No one else had a reason.
But he wasn’t about to let her off the hook. “The original scrapings may be gone, but Aimee’s body hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s in St. Valerie’s Cemetery. It’s not too late to take new scrapings—”
Oh, God. “No!” Horror washed over her. He was sure she held the key to gaining the answers he wanted, and now she knew just what he’d do to force her to help him.
She could see the small muscle twitching in his jaw.
“I’m sorry, Bryn,” he said hoarsely. “I hate this as much as you do.” He lifted his hand, brushed his knuckle across her cheek. “I don’t want to see Aimee’s body exhumed. That’s not what I’m asking. There’s more than one way to find the truth. But people in this town aren’t going to answer my questions readily. They’d answer yours, though—if you help me. We can look for the truth together.”
Together. The words seemed to hum in the air between them.
She could so easily fall into those dark-rimmed, soulful eyes, eyes that looked no longer dead but very much alive and hurting, just as she was hurting. In spite of everything he’d just said, his agonized eyes drew her in, made her remember how much she’d loved him….
Bellefleur receded around them, leaving only Cole’s eyes, Cole’s touch, and the memory of one steamy night by the river’s edge…
Her legs wobbled beneath her.
“Bryn…” Her name came out throaty, husky, and he was so close.
Fifteen years vanished. She wanted him, just as she had in those halcyon summer gardens long ago. His lambent magic pulled her in, overwhelmed her, threatened to sweep away her reason. She should hate him right now for shattering her delicate peace, but instead she ached—had ached for him all this time….
A pounding from the front hall jerked through her clouded senses.
Bryn struggled for air, for rationality. She wasn’t sixteen. And he wasn’t that young boy. He was a man, indurate and cold, and he’d just threatened to have her sister’s body ripped from hallowed ground.
She pushed past him, hobbling as fast as possible to the front door and away from Cole, snatching a pair of sandals from a hall closet on the way.
Officer Martin Bouvier was a couple of years younger than Bryn, but she’d gone to high school with him. He came from a long line of cops, and he did his job methodically, without emotion. He recognized Cole right away.
He took their statements, sealed up the brick and the note in plastic bags, and didn’t offer much in the way of encouragement.
“Unless something else happens and we get more to go on, there’s probably not much we can do.” Martin watched Bryn from the torpid shadows of the portico. He nodded at Cole, standing behind Bryn in the doorway. “How long’s he staying?”
Cole stepped forward. He was invading her space again.
“Indefinitely,” Cole said.
She gave him a glare, then looked back at Martin. “He registered for two weeks.”
“You might want to consider cutting short your stay.” Martin’s voice was even, non-threatening, but she saw Cole’s eyes burn in response, the solar flares lighting within the caliginous green.
“I’m here on business,” Cole clipped out. “And I won’t be leaving till it’s finished.”
“Let me know if there’s any more trouble,” Martin said, directing his words to Bryn before heading down the steps.
The sound of the cruiser’s ignition filled the thick night, then faded away as the taillights disappeared up the long drive. Bryn turned back to face Cole.
She could still see the flash of bitter pain in his eyes from Martin’s advice. But she couldn’t afford to feel sorry for Cole. He’d chosen to come back to Azalea Bend.
He hadn’t given her any choice at all.
Bryn stalked past him, leaving him to shut the door. She stepped around the mess of broken glass. She was way too tired to clean it up tonight. All she wanted to do was go back to her bedroom and forget this day had ever happened.
Ha. As if that was going to happen. But she could try. At least till morning, when she’d have to face him all over again.
She used some plastic and tape to seal up the broken window, ignoring Cole. Finished, she headed for the stairs, put her hand on the balustrade.
“Bryn.”
She froze for a brief beat. Tension bristled behind her. She could almost feel his eyes on her back, pulling her, making her turn.
His grim visage made her wish she’d kept right on going up the stairs. Damn him for making her feel like the bad guy in this situation. She couldn’t stop him from looking for this truth of his, whether he was right about the past or not.
And how could he be right? Why would anyone else have killed Aimee? Nothing about his claims made sense. Wade Dempsey had been the one with the grudge against the Louvels. The one making threats. The one who’d charged back to Bellefleur drunk, looking for revenge. The one who’d been found with Aimee.
How dare Cole expect her to help him now? She wanted to charge right back down the stairs, shake him, strike him, do something, anything.
Then he did something. He closed the space between them in two heartbeats.
“We weren’t finished with our conversation,” he said quietly. The bright candescence of the chandelier played unforgivingly on his features. God, he was good-looking. Always had been. But now his face was etched with experience, and yet within those austere lines she could still see the boy she’d loved.
His tormented bayou eyes had her aching with a raw need. They’d both given in to that need once and had found something in each other that had seemed too strong to break. But the horror their families had faced had broken it. She’d stood by her family and he’d stood by his. Their youthful trust and love had been shattered irreparably. They’d tried to talk, but they’d both been too hurt and too immature to overcome what stood between them, and eventually it had turned into a bitter chasm. And she wasn’t feeling any more capable of overcoming it now. So why did she suddenly wish things could be different?
“Maybe you weren’t.” She forced her weak knees to move. “But I am.”
She left him at the foot of the stairs, but her room was no escape. The pull of him reached her even there. She clicked the lock on the inside of her doorknob and sank onto the night-gloam of her bed.
Sleep was a million miles away, but somehow she found her way into its dark, anguished arms. And the nightmares of Aimee’s murder pounded through the wispy night of ghosts and fears.
It was sometime after midnight when a shadow lunged through her bedroom window.
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