Praise for BRENDA NOVAK’SStillwater stories

“In the first of a compelling new series set in the small town of Stillwater, Mississippi, Novak expertly mixes her usual superior characterisation with a chilling sense of evil as she pairs up a complicated heroine with a dark past with a caring, honourable man who gives her hope for the future.”

—Booklist on Dead Silence

“I was held spellbound by Ms Novak’s second book in her outstanding Stillwater trilogy. This series gets better with every book. [Her] characters are extraordinary in depth and feeling. I really fell in love with Clay Montgomery. This book is a page-turner bar none!”

—Reader to Reader Reviews on Dead Giveaway

“Novak’s ability to make this mystery cunning and deceptive is amazing, considering readers already know the outcome…Dead Giveaway is a turbulent and brilliant romantic suspense story that is sure to bring on a case of the chills. I cannot wait to see what is revealed in the final story of this trilogy.”

—Romance Junkies.com

“Brenda Novak has an uncanny ability to give life to her characters, even minor ones. And her work is singularly devoid of clichés…Novak also creates dynamic characters with strong emotional ties, but the threads that hold families together are sometimes tried to the breaking point. If anyone comes close to perfection, it’s Clay, who stands like a wall around those he loves. This series is a must read; just be prepared for an emotional ride.”

—Romance Reviews Today on Dead Giveaway

“Novak has a keen gift for combining suspense and romance, as well as for creating real, sympathetic heroines and darkly mysterious heroes…Dead Giveaway…is a very compelling read.”

—Armchair Interviews

Dead Right
Brenda Novak

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Also by Brenda Novak

DEAD GIVEAWAY

DEAD SILENCE

For Joy, who left this life far too soon.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you—

and miss you.

“The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second something to reverence.”

—George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans,

English novelist, 1819-1880)

Dear Reader,

If you’ve read Dead Silence and/or Dead Giveaway, you’ve already met Madeline Montgomery. You know she loves the man who was her father, the man who went missing twenty years ago, and that she’s absolutely determined to discover what happened to him. You also know that if she manages to find out, it’ll make for a very unpleasant surprise (maybe a few surprises for you, too!). Her own family’s keeping the truth from her. They have good reason, of course. Their dark secret is something she’s better off not knowing. But she can’t settle for that. She wants to know, and love and denial can blind her for only so long. Especially when private investigator Hunter Solozano comes to town…

As the last book in the Dead trilogy, Dead Right was a difficult story to write. Mostly because “the end” means I have to say goodbye to characters I’ve been working with for over a year—some of my favourite characters, in fact. But the sadness won’t last.

Visit my website at www.brendanovak.com to view video trailers for my various novels, read excerpts and reviews, see what’s coming next, enter my contests, monthly draws, etc. Also, while you’re there, check out my Online Auction to Benefit Diabetes Research (my son suffers from this disease). I’d love to have you get involved, so just send me an e-mail to let me know how you’d like to participate (Brenda@brendanovak. com). Together we’ll do all we can.

I love to hear from readers. If you don’t have internet service, please feel free to write me at PO Box 3781, Citrus Heights, CA 95611, USA.

Here’s hoping you enjoy Dead Right!

Brenda Novak

Chapter One

Was his body inside?

Hunched against the freezing January rain, Madeline Barker felt her fingernails cut into her palms. Standing with her stepbrother, stepsister and stepmother, she watched the police and several volunteers attempt to pull her father’s car out of the abandoned water-filled quarry. Her head pounded from lack of sleep, and her chest was so tight she almost couldn’t breathe, yet she stood perfectly still…waiting. After almost twenty years, she might finally have some answers about her father’s disappearance.

Toby Pontiff, Stillwater, Mississippi’s, police chief, knelt at the lip of the yawning hole. “Careful, careful there, Rex,” he called over the high-pitched whine of the winch attached to a massive tow truck.

Joe Vincelli and his brother, Roger, Madeline’s first cousins, hovered on the other side of the quarry, their faces betraying their anticipation. They spoke animatedly to each other, but Madeline couldn’t hear them above the noise. She was fairly sure she didn’t want to. What they had to say would only upset her. They’d long blamed her father’s disappearance on certain members of her stepfamily—Irene, Clay and Grace—who were gathered around her now. Unfortunately, the fact that the Cadillac had been found in the quarry five miles outside of town would only convince them they’d been right all along. It’d certainly prove that her father hadn’t driven off into the sunset.

The black seal-like heads of two divers who’d gone down a few minutes earlier popped up and, with a gasp, Madeline realized she could see the front grille of her dad’s car through the murky water. With a sudden rush of tears, she instinctively moved closer to Clay, who remained as dark and silent as the surrounding rocks.

The car didn’t break the surface. Rex hit a button that stopped the clamoring winch, halting its progress, and the silence made Madeline’s ears ring.

Her stepmother, a short buxom woman with hair like Loretta Lynn’s, whimpered at the sight of the barely visible car. Grace shifted to try and comfort her, but Clay didn’t move. Madeline looked up at him, wondering what was going on behind his intense blue eyes.

As usual, it was difficult to tell. His expression mirrored the gray, overcast sky. Maybe he wasn’t thinking. Maybe, like her, he was simply surviving the cataclysm of emotions.

It’ll be over soon. No matter what happens, knowing is better than not knowing. She hoped…

“This is making me nervous,” Rex complained. Short and wiry with the tattoo of a woman partly visible at his neck, he frowned as he joined Chief Pontiff. “What if we clip the rocks? The car could get hung up.”

“It’s not gonna get hung up,” a police officer by the name of Radcliffe said.

The tow-truck driver ignored the unsolicited input, keeping his focus on the man in charge. “I don’t think this is gonna work,” he insisted. “I say we bring a crane in here, Toby, before someone gets hurt or we ruin my truck.”

Toby, a slight blond man with a neatly trimmed mustache, had become Chief Pontiff six months earlier and was a friend of Madeline’s. They’d grown up together; she’d been close to his future wife all through high school. He shot Madeline a sympathetic glance then, lowering his voice, he turned away from her.

Still, she could make out his words. “That’ll take another few days. Look at that group over there. See the woman in the middle? The one who’s white as a ghost? Her mother killed herself when she was ten years old. Her father went missing when she was sixteen. And she’s been standing here since dawn, getting soaked. I’m not going to send her home until I get her father’s car out of this damn quarry. We need to see if his remains are inside. It’s already taken me a week to arrange it.”

“If she’s waited that long, what’s another two or three days?” Rex asked.

“It’s another two or three days!” Toby nearly shouted. “And she’s not the only one with an interest in what’s happening here, as you can tell.”

Obviously, he was talking about the Vincellis, who’d been impatient with police for being unable to solve the disappearance of their beloved uncle. No doubt Pontiff didn’t want them going over his head to the mayor again, as they’d done with the previous chief.

“My most prominent citizens are sitting on pins and needles,” Toby said, his voice growing calmer. “I’m going to catch more grief than you can imagine if I don’t put an end to it. Soon.”

The man called Rex scowled and shoved his hands in the pockets of his heavy coat. Madeline had never met him before. A distant relation of Toby’s, he’d been called in from a neighboring town when their local tow truck owner said his truck wasn’t capable of getting the job done. “I’m sorry,” Rex said. “But with all this water and silt, combined with the weight of the car, I don’t wanna risk burning out the engine of my—”

“If we wanted to wait, we would’ve waited,” Toby interrupted. “We wouldn’t be standing out here in the cold, freezing our asses off. But we called you, and you said you could do it. So can we please get this damn thing out of the water? Your truck’s powerful enough to tow a semi, for cryin’ out loud!”

Madeline flinched, her nerves too raw to cope with the anxiety and frustration swirling around her. It had been an emotional seven days. A week ago, a group of teenagers had come here to party; a girl had fallen in the water and been too drunk to climb out. She’d slipped under the surface before anyone could reach her and the resulting search for her body, which police located as darkness set in almost twenty-four hours later, had turned up the Cadillac missing since Lee Barker disappeared.

As the owner, editor and primary writer of The Stillwater Independent, Madeline had followed the tragedy of the girl’s death since the first frantic call. But she’d never dreamed it would lead to this. Had her father’s car been here, so close, all this time? Since she was sixteen? That was the question she’d been asking herself for seven interminable days, while the town dealt with the immediate tragedy of losing Rachel Simmons.

Rex spat on the ground. “Toby, the divers don’t know what the hell they’re doin’. With the color of this water, they can hardly see down there, even with a light. I can’t be sure we won’t break a tow cable and send that car crashing right back to the bottom.”

Clay spoke up for the first time. “The divers said they found the windows down, right?”

Toby and Rex turned to face him. “What does that have to do with anything?” Rex asked.

“If the windows were down, they were able to get the cables through. You’ll be fine. Just pull it out.”

Clay was respected for his physical power and mental acuity, but he’d also endured enough suspicion where her father was concerned to give him a pretty big stake in all of this. Madeline knew the chief of police had to be thinking of that as he considered the stubborn set of Clay’s jaw. She could almost read Toby’s thoughts: Are you trying to help because you don’t know what’s in that car? Or are you trying to cover the fact that you do?

Madeline wanted to scream, for the millionth time, that her stepbrother didn’t have anything to do with whatever had happened to her father.

“Let me handle this, Clay,” Toby said, but there was no real edge to his voice, and his hazel eyes returned to the water-filled quarry before his words could be taken as any sort of challenge. Even the chief of police was careful around Clay. At six feet four inches tall and two hundred and forty pounds of lean muscle, Clay looked formidable. But it was his manner that made folks uneasy. He was so self-contained, so emotionally aloof, some people had convinced themselves he was capable of murder.

“Rex,” Chief Pontiff prodded. “Let’s get this done.” Rex indulged in a particularly colorful string of expletives but stalked to his truck, and the winch started again, slowly pulling the car from the water.

Madeline caught her breath. God, this is it.

“Watch those divers,” Rex called.

Chief Pontiff had already motioned them away. “Let the winch do the work, boys,” he shouted. “Stay back.”

The scrape of metal against rock made Madeline shudder. It was an awful sound—almost as awful as watching the dark, dirty water seep out of the car that had belonged to her parents when she was a child. Why was the Cadillac in the quarry? Who had driven it there? And—the question that had plagued her for twenty years—what had happened to her father? Would she finally know?

As the tow truck driver had predicted, the car got caught on a large rock. “I told you!” he yelled, cursing again. But before he could shut down the winch, the rusty rear axle broke and the Cadillac continued to emerge, groaning as it climbed out of its watery grave.

Madeline’s nails cut more deeply into her palms. The familiarity of that vehicle threw her back to her childhood—as if someone had yanked her up by the shoulders and deposited her in the front seat. At age five or six, she used to sit beside her mother while Eliza drove around town, visiting members of her father’s congregation, bringing food and consolation to the sick and needy.

Madeline had believed, back then, that her mother was an angel.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to stave off the memories. She rarely allowed herself to think about Eliza. Her mother had been a gentle soul; she’d represented everything good to Madeline. But, as Madeline’s father had pointed out so often after Eliza’s suicide, she was also weak and fragile. He’d had little that was positive to say about his first wife, but Madeline had never blamed him. She hadn’t been able to forgive Eliza, either.

Clay’s arm went around her shoulders, and she turned into his coat. She wasn’t sure she could watch what was coming next.

“It’s okay, Maddy,” he murmured.

She took what comfort she could from his warm strength. He was capable of surviving anything. Secretly, she wished she was as tough. She also wished Kirk was here with her. They’d dated for nearly five years, but she’d broken off the relationship a few weeks ago.

“That’s it.” Pontiff waved the divers out of the water as Rex towed the Cadillac onto stable ground.

This time when he stopped the winch, Rex shut off the truck’s engine, too. Madeline felt Clay tense, so she forced herself to look and saw her cousins hurrying to the car.

Chief Pontiff sent her an anxious glance, adjusted the hat keeping the rain out of his face and intercepted them. “Give us some room,” he said, barring them from getting too close.

Madeline was glad that Irene, Clay and Grace stayed put, or she would’ve been standing there alone. She didn’t want to move any closer to that car. She had no idea what she might see and feared it would only fuel her nightmares. Every few weeks, she dreamed that her father was knocking on her front door in the middle of the night. He was always wearing a heavy coat that parted to reveal a skeleton.

Grace, a more refined, elegant version of Clay, took her hand and Irene edged closer. Clay stepped in front, but he seemed even more reserved than usual. No doubt he was thinking of his new wife and stepdaughter and how this might affect them. Since marrying Allie, he was happy at last. But for how long? The police were quick to point a finger at him. Last summer they’d nearly put him on trial for her father’s murder—without a body, without an eyewitness, without any forensic evidence at all. Unless there was something in the car that proved Clay wasn’t involved, this could put him at risk again.

“Door’s rusted shut,” Pontiff said. “Get a crowbar.”

Radcliffe, who was in his early twenties, returned to one of the police cars and produced the crowbar, which he carried to his chief.

As Pontiff began to pry open the door, the car complained loudly, ratcheting up the tension that made Madeline’s muscles ache. Then her heart lurched as the metal gave way and water from inside came pouring out over everyone’s shoes.

Pontiff didn’t seem to notice. No one did. They were all busy staring at the gush of water as if they expected parts of her father to come floating out with it.

How could this be happening? she wondered. How could she have lost her mother and her father—in two separate incidents?

She didn’t see anything that could be connected to a human being, so she inched closer, straining her eyes for the smallest bit of clothing or—she grimaced—bone. At least, if her father’s remains were in the car, she’d know he hadn’t meant to leave her. She’d never been able to accept that he’d walked out on her. As the town’s beloved pastor, he was a God-fearing man, always ready to help out in an emergency, always a leader. He would never abandon his flock, his farm, his family.

Which meant someone must’ve killed him. But who?

As the water seeped over the ground to the lip of the quarry, mixing with the runoff from the rain, Madeline clenched her jaw. Nothing macabre. Yet.

They were opening the trunk. The Cadillac’s keys had been left dangling in the ignition, but the locks were corroded so they were using the crowbar again.

Bile rose in Madeline’s throat as the minutes stretched on. She tried to keep her mind busy. But what did one think about at a time like this? The teenage girl they’d buried on Wednesday? The miserable weather? The years she’d lived without her father?

Pontiff lifted something with one hand. “You recognize this?”

Belatedly, Madeline realized he was speaking to her and nodded. It was the Polaroid camera she’d seen her father use on various occasions. A chill crawled down her spine. Seeing his camera made him seem so close, but it didn’t tell her anything.

“Is that all?” she asked around the lump in her throat.

The police chief pulled out some jumper cables, a couple of quarts of oil, a sopping blanket. Familiar items that could be found in any trunk.

There’ll be something that’ll finally reveal the truth. Madeline was praying so hard she almost couldn’t believe it when she heard him say, “That’s it.”

“What?” she cried. “There’s nothing that tells us where he went?”

Pontiff shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m afraid not.”

She didn’t move—felt absolutely rooted to the spot—as Clay wiped her tears with his thumb. “I’m sorry, Maddy.”

Sorry didn’t have any meaning. She’d been expecting so much more. It couldn’t be over. If so, she was right back where she’d been before they discovered the car. Where she’d been all along—faced with this nagging mystery and the prospect that she might never know.

“There…” Her teeth chattered from the cold. “There h-has to be…something else here,” she said. “You’ll…look, won’t you? You’ll…let the car dry out and…and go over it inch by inch?”

Chief Pontiff nodded, but she could tell he wasn’t optimistic.

“Will you let Allie help?” Her sister-in-law had been a cold case detective in Chicago. Surely, she’d uncover some kind of clue.

With a grudging glance at Joe and Roger, Pontiff scowled. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Don’t let the…the Vincellis dictate how you handle this,” Madeline said. “She’s the most qualified…p-person around here.”

“She’s also married to the man who did it!” Joe shouted.

The cleft in Joe’s chin was a little too deep to be attractive. Or maybe it was his close-set eyes that gave him a shifty air. He stood six feet tall and was almost as muscular as Clay, but Madeline had never found him good-looking. “Stop it,” she murmured, but he talked right over her.

“Give me a break! Will you listen to yourself? Maddy, if you want to know what happened to your father, ask that man right there!”

He pointed at Clay, but wilted when Clay pinned him with a steely gaze. Not many men could stand up to Clay, and Joe was no exception. He shuffled back, muttering, “Tell ‘em, Roger.”

Joe’s brother was even less handsome. His teeth were straighter, but he was thinner, a full three inches shorter, and had a severely receding hairline. Although he was the older brother, he tended to stay in Joe’s shadow. “It’s true,” he said, but weakly, as if he didn’t really want to incite Clay.

Chief Pontiff ignored them both. Madeline knew he was well aware of the suspicion and accusations of the past. He’d been on the force when Clay’s future wife had returned to town and begun following up on the Barker case. He’d been around when Allie’s father, the former chief of police, charged Clay with murder and put him in jail last summer. He’d also been around when they let Clay go because there wasn’t, and never had been, any real evidence linking him to the crime.

“This car has been submerged for more than half our lives,” Pontiff said, his attention on Madeline. “Look at it. Even the metal’s begun to corrode. Much as I hate to say it, the Caddy might not tell us what we want to know. You need to prepare yourself, just in case.”

“No!” She hugged herself to stop the shaking. “There could be a…a tooth, or a comb stuck way down between the seats. Some evidence, some lead.” She watched those forensics shows on TV religiously, recorded them if she wasn’t going to be home. She’d seen dozens of cases solved with the tiniest scrap of evidence.

“We’ll check, like I said, but…” His words dwindled away.

“Oh, Maddy,” Grace said softly.

Madeline didn’t respond to her stepsister. She wanted to calm down, for her family’s sake. They didn’t need the added stress of her breaking down. They’d been through a lot, too. At least no one had blamed her for her father’s disappearance. But she couldn’t seem to restrain herself. Not this time. “Don’t prepare an excuse before you even try,” she said. “Find s-something. I want to know what happened. I need to know what happened.” She grabbed Chief Pontiff’s arm. “Do your job!”

Pontiff blinked in surprise, and Clay quickly pulled her into his arms. “Maddy, stop,” he murmured against her hair.

If anyone else had asked her, she wouldn’t have—couldn’t have—gained control of her wayward emotions. But regardless of the turmoil inside her, she had too much respect for Clay to ignore his wishes or embarrass him further. Burying her face in his chest, she started to cry as she hadn’t cried since she was a child, with big wracking sobs that shook her whole body.

He hugged her close. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay.”

“You’re hugging the man who killed him,” Joe whispered.

“Shut up, Joe,” she snapped. Clay had been the one to keep their family safe through the dark years after her father was gone. At times, he’d been the only thing standing between them and destitution.

“I’m sorry,” she told Clay. She didn’t want to draw attention to him. She knew he simply wanted to go on with his life and forget. She wished she could forget. But it was impossible. She’d tried.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said.

With a sniff, she pulled away and dashed a hand across her cheeks. “I’m going home.”

“I’ll call you if we find anything,” Pontiff said.

Joe and his brother were still there, but one look from Clay kept them shuffling around the perimeter of the group like jackals attracted to a carcass. They obviously wanted to come closer, to say more, but were afraid to risk the consequences.

Madeline turned to her car. The police always said they’d keep digging, keep asking questions, go back through the files, whatever. But they never found anything solid. They didn’t really care about the truth. They just wanted to pin it on the Montgomerys to satisfy the Vincellis, who held political power in this town. Maybe Pontiff was a friend of sorts, but he was subject to the same political pressures as his predecessors and would probably follow in their footsteps. Nothing would change.

But Madeline couldn’t accept “nothing” any longer. She had to take more aggressive action, do something that would finally provide answers.

She was pretty sure what that something had to be. But her stepfamily wouldn’t like it. And there was no guarantee it’d work.

Chapter Two

Madeline longed to call Kirk. She hadn’t talked to him since they’d broken up. But allowing herself to do what was comfortable and convenient would only land her in the same old rut. She and Kirk had no real hope of long-term happiness together. She wanted children; he was adamantly opposed to them. He wanted to leave Stillwater, travel the world; she wanted to stay close to her family and maintain her home and business. It was better to let go and move on, better for both of them.

Maybe she was doing the right thing. But life was damn lonely in the meantime. Especially since she hadn’t gone to her office today. Although she had no staff, just three people who earned a little extra money delivering papers for her once a week, the small office she leased for The Stillwater Independent was located on Main Street and a lot of people dropped in on her. She usually enjoyed the company—a journalist had to stay connected to the community. Today, however, she hadn’t wanted to face the questions, the sympathy, the reaction that recovering the Cadillac would evoke.

Feeling guilty for hiding out, she scooped up her cat and rubbed her chin on Sophie’s fur. If it hadn’t been her own father who’d gone missing, she would already have produced an article on the incident at the quarry, slapped it on the front page and given it a huge headline: Reverend’s Car Found. But she was too close to the story, and after the flurry of activity following the drowning of Rachel Simmons—the search, the funeral, the outpouring of sympathy for the family—she was emotionally exhausted.

She couldn’t write about what she’d been through this morning. Not yet. She hadn’t done much of anything today except scour the Internet for someone who might be able to help her, and pace.

Putting Sophie down, she took her mother’s old quilt from the couch where she’d been curled up a few minutes earlier, wrapped it around her shoulders and crossed to the window. It was getting late. And it was still raining.

God, she was tired of the constant drizzle, tired of the cold. The steady drumming against the roof made her feel hollow. And everything looked soggy and beaten down and smelled of mold.

She glanced at her car keys, lying on the antique secretary by the door. Maybe she should go out, visit her family. But the soft chime of the clock in the hall told her it was far too late. She didn’t want to go to the farm where Clay and Allie lived, anyway. She’d grown up there and wouldn’t be able to return without thinking of her father.

Images of her parents’ Cadillac, rusty and encrusted with dirt, once again flitted through Madeline’s mind.

She pressed her palms to her eyes, but she could still see Pontiff holding up her father’s camera. She also heard the squeak of the metal, the splash of the water that had poured out of the open door and the echo of Chief Pontiff’s voice when he’d said, “That’s it.”

Heading to the small desk in her old-fashioned kitchen, she picked up the listing of private investigators she’d printed off from the Internet. She’d called several of them earlier but had been disappointed by their responses. They were too busy. They wouldn’t be able to come to Stillwater to do the necessary research. They specialized in lost children or cheating husbands.

However, a few had recommended a man named Hunter Solozano. They said he could find anyone or anything and often accepted unusual jobs for the challenge. But when she’d called the number they’d given her, his voice mail had indicated there was no room for new messages.

Swallowing a sigh, she picked up the handset and tried Mr. Solozano again. It was past midnight, but she didn’t care. Surely it was an office phone, which meant it wouldn’t matter. Maybe she’d finally be able to leave a message so she could feel as if there was some hope.

She’d expected at least three rings—so she jerked upright when a deep voice answered almost immediately.

“Damn it, Antoinette, you’ve already got your pound of flesh!”

Madeline stiffened in surprise. “And if this isn’t Antoinette?” she ventured.

There was a moment of startled silence. “That depends,” he drawled, smoothly recovering. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“That also depends,” she replied. “Are you Hunter Solozano?”

“Yes.”

“And are you as good as they say?” she asked eagerly.

He chuckled. “Better. Particularly if you’re talking about sex.”

Thanks to her preoccupation, she’d walked right into that one. Embarrassed and annoyed, she cleared her throat. “I’m talking about your professional skills.”

“So this is a business call.”

“Yes.”

“At ten-thirty at night.”

His time. She’d wondered about the area code. Fortunately, he lived to the west of her and not the east or he’d have a lot more reason to complain. “You sound like you’re awake to me,” she said hesitantly, tapping a pencil on the desk.

“Thanks to you and my ex-wife.” His voice dropped meaningfully. “In case you haven’t guessed, that doesn’t put you in very good company.”

A touch of defensiveness made Madeline rub her furrowed brow. “I assumed I was calling an office number.”

“That means you weren’t expecting a response. Great. This can wait until morning, then.”

“No!” she cried before he could disconnect.

The fact that she didn’t hear a click encouraged her. “You weren’t picking up earlier. And your voice mail was full.”

He didn’t make any excuses. Neither did he promise her she’d be able to reach him later. So she kept talking, trying to keep him on the line until she had a better chance of enlisting his help. “How was I supposed to know I’d been given your home number?”

“It’s not my home number. It’s my cell. If you want to talk to me, that’s the only number. I like things simple.”

“You don’t have an office?”

“I have a small office, but you’ll rarely catch me there.”

Purring, Sophie brushed against her legs, but Madeline was too preoccupied to pay attention. “I take it you’re not interested in developing new business.”

“I have more business than I can handle.”

That response wasn’t encouraging…“That’s fortunate for you, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Plumbing the depths of human frailty has its downside.”

“So why don’t you do something else?”

“Some people are good at building houses. I’m not one of them.”

He wasn’t particularly good with people, either, but she’d heard too many testimonials about him to give up now that she had him on the phone. “I have a challenge for you.”

“I’m tired and I want to go bed,” he said. “But thanks for the call.”

“Can I leave you my number at least? Will you get back to me in the morning?”

There was a long silence.

“Hello?” she prompted.

“Why don’t I refer you to a young associate of mine?”

Maybe this other person would be easier to deal with. “Is this ‘young associate’ any good?”

“He worked at my office for a short while doing database searches and just got his own license. He doesn’t have a lot of experience, but he’s hungry and he’s learning.”

Learning? “No! I need someone who really knows what he’s doing.”

“I don’t know what to say, Mrs.—”

“Barker. But I’ve never been married. Call me Madeline.”

“Ms. Barker. If I haven’t made myself clear, I’m not interested. Judging by your accent, you live several states from me, anyway.”

“I’m in Stillwater, Mississippi. Where’re you?”

“L.A.”

“It’s crowded in Los Angeles,” she said, hoping to point out one of the city’s less appealing aspects.

“That’s true, but if you’ve ever been here, you’d know why.”

“I’ll pay you. Well.” She frowned at the check register lying open at her elbow. That was hardly the card she’d wanted to play. She was barely keeping herself and the paper afloat. How would she manage?

“I suggest you contact someone in your own area,” he said.

Panic caused Madeline to tighten her grip on the phone. “But I haven’t even told you what I want.”

“Let me guess. You want me to slay the dragon that’s keeping you up at night.”

She glared, bleary-eyed, at the clock on the wall to her right. She was tired, and too frayed around the edges to hide it. Evidently, that wasn’t working in her favor. “Isn’t that the case with most of your clients?”

“These days, I typically work with people who want me to find out whether their estranged mates are hiding assets or having affairs so they can get a better divorce settlement. Or they’re trying to collect on a debt. Their dragon is usually greed.” There was a slight pause. “Do you fit into either of these categories, Ms. Barker?”

“No, but…” She struggled to reel in her temper at his all-too-easy dismissal. “So you’ve gotten lazy? You only take on the easy stuff?”

“I take on the convenient stuff, the close stuff. Besides, I doubt you could afford me.”

She finally bent down to scratch her persistent cat. “What makes you think that?”

“Maybe it’s the accent.”

Her jaw dropped before she could rally her response. “That’s…discriminatory,” she sputtered.

“You called me. Feel free to hang up anytime.”

Nudging Sophie away, she stood and nearly told him to go to hell. But she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to find anyone else. According to what she’d been told, she’d certainly find no one better. “I need you,” she said, resorting to simple honesty. “I need your help.”

He cursed but didn’t hang up, so she took a bolstering breath. “You’re still with me?”

“What is it you’re looking for?” he asked with enough resignation to give her hope.

“A person.”

“Who?”

“My father.” She didn’t add that he’d been missing since she was sixteen. Better to reveal the potential difficulty of the task in stages.

“Where do you think he went?”

Despite all the years that had passed, she’d clung to the dream of a reunion—until they’d found the Cadillac. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

“Because…”

She caught her breath, letting it out a little with each word. “He hasn’t been seen in…a long, long time.”

“How long?”

“Nineteen years.”

“Almost two decades? Aren’t you a bit late in following up, Ms. Barker?”

The accusation in his tone made her throat clog with emotion. “I’ve done what I could,” she managed to say. She’d even crossed the line a few times—breaking into Jed Fowler’s auto shop, hiring Officer Hendricks to scare Allie into believing someone out there was still dangerous.

“And you’ve learned what?”

Very little. The mystery was beyond her own sleuthing ability, as well as that of the entire Stillwater Police Department. Mr. Solozano was right, she should’ve looked for an outside investigator long ago. “Not enough.”

“Who stood to gain the most from his death?”

“It’s not that straightforward. My stepmother inherited the farm, but she’d never hurt a soul.”

“Who else is there?”

“Jed Fowler, an older man who was working on our tractor in the barn the night my father went missing. He can seem…strange. And a younger guy, Mike Metzger, who’s in prison on drug-related charges. But I don’t know if either one of them is responsible. That’s what I want you to find out.”

“Sounds like a murder investigation to me. You should contact the police.”

She bristled at his lack of compassion. He had to know, in twenty years, she would already have tried the police. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to get involved. Maybe Hunter Solozano was a good investigator but he was the most insensitive jerk she’d ever met.

“Forget it. I’m sorry I bothered you. Just—” her voice cracked “—just go back to fighting with your ex-wife. I hope she wins, by the way,” she said and slammed down the phone.

Antoinette had already won. Hunter tossed his cell phone onto the side table. He deserved Madeline Barker’s anger. Hell, he’d asked for it. He’d provoked her at every turn. After speaking with his ex-wife, and then his daughter—God, what she’d said to him—he’d been angling for a fight he could win.

But he didn’t feel any better. If anything, he felt worse.

The flicker of his muted television served as the only light in the room. The darkness generally soothed him, but not tonight. Raking his fingers through his hair, he stood up, then sat down again.

Forget Maria. She didn’t know what she was saying. Her mother put her up to it, as usual.

But he couldn’t forget. The pain was too physical. It felt like he had an open wound in his chest, as if his daughter had reached into that wound, wrapped her little hand around his heart and squeezed with complete abandon.

Considering the Barker woman’s terrible timing, it was a wonder the desperation in her voice had penetrated at all.

“Ms. Barker is not my problem,” he said aloud. His daughter was his problem. Or, more specifically, the fact that his ex-wife had turned his daughter against him. Although he paid exorbitant amounts of child support—he’d sent Antoinette an extra two thousand dollars just this month—it was never enough to make his ex happy. He doubted his daughter was even receiving the benefits of the money he sent. The last time he’d seen Antoinette, she’d had a new nose and breast enhancements that were so large she looked like a damn porn queen. The way she was spending money and hitting the L.A. party scene, trying to keep up with the rich and famous, was humiliating even though he wasn’t married to her anymore. Her behavior had to be doubly embarrassing for their daughter. How many PTA moms had tits the size of watermelons?

But Antoinette hadn’t become quite so obsessive about plastic surgery, designer clothes and who was who in L.A. until after the divorce.

The guilt that fueled his self-loathing settled deeper in his gut. How had he managed to screw up so completely? If only he could go back…

But it was too late. The damage was done. And now Antoinette was using their child to extort more and more money out of him while painting him as the devil himself, the cause of all Maria’s problems.

Automatically, his eyes cut to a picture of his twelve-year-old daughter. Her photograph rested on one of the empty shelves above the television, and was about the only decoration left in the beach house. Antoinette had stripped the place bare when she moved out more than a year ago.

Maria stared back at him, wearing a somber expression. He imagined the school photographer coaxing her, “Say ‘cheese!’” But she seemed to be thinking, “Get real. What do I have to smile about?”

The desire for a drink slammed into him like one of the waves he could hear churning down the beach. He felt helpless, pinned beneath his craving for the smooth burn of alcohol and the resulting disconnect. He wasn’t asking for a lot. Just one night of escape. Then he’d get back on the wagon. It had never been so bad before. His daughter had never said what she’d said tonight.

Please, leave us alone. You make everything worse…I don’t want to be with you, okay? It’s all your fault!

Wincing as the memory lashed a part of him that was already raw, he reached for his keys and his wallet, both sitting next to his phone. He’d go down to the bar on the corner. If he planned to drink, he had to go somewhere. Sober for six months, he had no alcohol in the house.

But he stopped at the door. Maria’s eyes seemed to be following him, accusing him. You’re just what she says you are. A drunk.

Clenching his jaw, he bowed his head, battling the weakness that threatened to overtake him. He’d beat the craving for booze—if only to prove Antoinette wrong.

Eventually, he forced himself to return to the couch and pick up his guitar. It was all so damned ironic, he thought, trying to gain some perspective on the phone call that had hurt so badly. Alcohol was the only thing that had made it possible to cope with the irritation and dislike he faced on a daily basis in his marriage. And alcohol had caused him to make the one mistake he’d promised himself he’d never make, the mistake that had landed him in their neighbor’s bed and destroyed his marriage.

He strummed through several Nickelback songs, hoping to get lost in the music. His guitar helped him relax. But tonight nothing could release the pent-up frustration. Antoinette had promised he could take Maria to Hawaii next weekend for seven days. He’d been planning on it for two months. And then Maria had called to say she wouldn’t go…

He played a few more chords, but his heart wasn’t in it. His throat and eyes burned, his muscles ached with the effort of subduing his reaction.

Grasping for something, anything, to fill his mind besides the echoing rejection of his daughter, he turned his thoughts to the Southern woman who’d called. What are you looking for…? A person…Who…? My father.

Hunter sighed. Maria didn’t want her father. They lived less than ten miles apart, but she refused to see him. Which pleased Antoinette inordinately, of course. His ex hated him—because he’d never really loved her.

Stop! Think of something else!

Madeline Barker’s voice came to him again. That’s discriminatory.

Setting his guitar aside, he frowned. Mississippi wasn’t exactly high on his list of places to see. But he knew what need was. And he had nothing here, did he? He was stuck in an empty house with only his guitar for company, working night and day so he wouldn’t break down and start drinking again.

His life had become too pathetic for words. He loved California, had lived in Newport Beach nearly all his life, but the steady pounding of the waves twenty yards from his house seemed to whisper, “Maria…Maria…Maria.”

He’d been an idiot to lose her. And he’d been even more of an idiot to place the rope that had hanged him right inside Antoinette’s beautifully manicured fingers. Now she was laughing while she watched him swing…

Maybe it was time to stop the show. He wouldn’t force his daughter to see him; he couldn’t bear the thought of making her any unhappier than she already was. She’d told him she’d be better off if he gave up, walked away. Maybe, for a while, he should. Lord knew he wasn’t doing anyone any good sitting here going out of his mind. And he wasn’t about to vacation in Hawaii by himself. He didn’t need that much time on his hands. If he went, he probably wouldn’t last a day before seeking out the closest pub.

“What the hell,” he muttered and turned on a light so he could see the number Madeline Barker had called him from.

Madeline raised her head and blinked at the shrill ring. Could it be morning? Already?

Her body felt stiff and sore. Squinting at her watch, she realized why. It was only one o’clock. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than twenty minutes, and slumping over her desk had put a crick in her neck.

The phone rang again. She almost dropped the handset but eventually brought it to her ear.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded throaty and low.

“Ms. Barker?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Hunter Solozano.”

She jumped up, then teetered on her feet for a moment. “What do you want, Mr. Solozano?”

“What airport should I use?”

“For…You’re coming? Here?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes, but—” nerves made her scalp tingle “—we haven’t discussed any of the logistics.”

“I charge a thousand dollars a day, plus expenses.”

A thousand dollars a day! She clapped a hand over her mouth. But he didn’t pause.

“You said you had no worries about paying me. Is that still true?”

He cost a fortune. Even more than she’d expected. But she wasn’t about to admit she had any doubts. Not after what he’d said to her before. I think it’s the accent. Maybe she lived in the boondocks by his standards, but she was no uneducated, backward hick. “Sure. No problem,” she lied.

“Fine. I’ll need the first five thousand as a retainer.”

She bit her lip. That alone would wipe out her checking account and leave her short on next month’s bills. The paper was a labor of love but hardly a fabulous living. “How long do you think the…investigation will take?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “How committed are you to finding your father?”

She winced at the staggering financial implications. If Mr. Solozano stayed for a month, it’d cost her upward of $20,000. And that was taking weekends off.

But she’d tried everything else. This felt like her only hope. “More committed than I’ve ever been to anything.”

“Fine. I’ll be there on Thursday.”

She gulped. “So soon?”

“You’re in luck. I was planning a vacation that fell through.”

In luck? At one thousand dollars a day, plus expenses? “Um…just to clarify, your expenses would include what exactly? Airfare and hotel?”

“As well as a rental car, meals, any specialized tests we might need to run on the evidence I find, stuff like that.”

“I see.” The list could get long. And with his salary, the incidental expenses would be the least of her problems. But he sounded so confident when he mentioned evidence.

“Will you be making my hotel reservations or shall I?” he asked.

Transferring the phone from one hand to the other, Madeline wiped her palms, which had grown clammy, on her sweatpants. “I was thinking…I mean I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

She scowled at the impatience in his voice. “Is there any way we could cut corners a bit?”

“Cut corners?” he repeated suspiciously.

“I have a guesthouse. I thought maybe you could stay there. It’d be quiet,” she added. “I live alone.”

“And what will I drive?”

“My car.”

“And you’ll drive…”

“My stepbrother will let me borrow a truck from the farm. It might not look like much after hauling dirt and feed and who knows what else, but he’s always got an extra.”

Hunter didn’t seem to mind staying in her guesthouse and driving her car, because he agreed right away. “That’s fine. Does that mean you’re picking me up at the airport?”

If she played chauffeur, they’d be able to talk while she drove. Then he could start his investigation the moment he reached Stillwater. Saving whatever money she could seemed prudent, especially since she wasn’t sure hiring him would make any difference in the end. Would he find evidence everyone else had missed? Or would he be as ineffectual as the police?

Maybe she was bankrupting herself for nothing, for a hunger that could never be satisfied…

“Ms. Barker?”

She swallowed to ease a particularly dry mouth. “I’ll pick you up. Fly into Nashville, okay?”

“It’s closer than Jackson?”

“By two hours.”

“Okay. I’ll make my travel arrangements over the Internet and call you in the morning.”

“Fine.” She pretended to be as businesslike as he was. But when she hung up, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the phone.

“What have I done?” she breathed.

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