Dead Giveaway (28 page)

"She's always been a good girl," Evelyn went on. "Dale's pushed her too far, that's all."

"How does Dale feel about the situation?"

"He admits saying some things he's not proud of."

"I see."

"If only he'd waited until later, when we could've spoken calmly with her, the situation might've turned out differently. I mean, she would've had to listen to reason. We all know what Clay's done."

Portenski didn't respond to that comment. "Women seem to like Clay."

"Well, he's a handsome man, but considering his past..."

"Has he broken off his relationship with Beth Ann?" Portenski asked.

"That's what I'm hearing."

"And now he has his eye on Allie."

"Apparently."

"Chances are, the affair will be brief," he said, hoping to convince himself of that, as well.

He didn't like holding the missing piece of the puzzle, didn't like the responsibility it placed on his shoulders. He was damned if he revealed the pictures, and damned if he didn't.

"But a lot can happen, even in a brief relationship," Evelyn argued. "It'll destroy what's left of her reputation, make her an enemy to most of our friends." She lowered her voice. "And what if she were to get pregnant?"

Portenski shuddered at the thought. He'd always been partial to young Allie. "Allie's very levelheaded. Surely she understands the dangers."

"Normally, I'd agree with you. But her divorce was hard. She's on the rebound and...vulnerable in a way she's never been vulnerable before."

"I see."

"Do you think I should send Dale over to her house again?" Evelyn asked.

"Will he go? Is there any chance the two of them could work this out on their own?"

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She twisted the tissue he'd given her. "I'd have more confidence in that if they weren't so darn alike. Now that they're at a standoff, this could go on forever."

"Why not talk to Allie yourself?"

"I've tried, Reverend. I've asked her to move home, for Whitney's sake, for my sake, for her sake. Danny's called her, too. And I'm worried about Whitney--she's had a terrible cold all week.

But Allie won't hear of it."

"How's Allie getting by financially?"

"Her savings, I guess. I helped furnish the house, but she won't even let me buy groceries for her."

"Will she let you see Whitney?"

"Yes, and I'll babysit once Allie finds work, of course, but I had to insist on that much."

"Where does she plan to work?"

"She's trying to get on with the Iuka police force."

"Will she be able to? Without a recommendation from Dale?"

"I'm sure she'll use her track record at her old department in Chicago."

Portenski rubbed his chin, trying to decide the best way to proceed. "Are you sure she's still seeing Clay?"

"It was less than a week ago that Dale found them at the cabin together. And it's true, you know, the rumors that they were...intimate." Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Maybe her falling out with the two of you has opened her eyes."

Evelyn chuckled bitterly as she dabbed at her face. "No. If anything, it's made her more determined to go her own way. Dale has all but thrown her into that Montgomery boy's arms."

Portenski got out of his chair and rounded his desk, pausing at the corner. "Evelyn..."

"Yes?"

"Will you let me know if the relationship continues?"

She hesitated. "What are you going to do?"

He'd given away too much. Averting his gaze, he fixed a peaceful smile on his face. "I'm going to pray for her."
For all of us.

Evelyn nodded and stood up to leave. "Right. Of course. Thank you, Reverend."

Portenski patted her shoulder as they said goodbye at the door, then slowly returned to his desk. He couldn't stand by and allow any member of his flock to get hurt by what had happened in the past--not while he had the power to stop it. Could he?

Sinking into his chair, he pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes. He knew what those Polaroids would do, to Grace, to Clay, to Irene, to Madeline and, especially, to his beloved church.

Barker's deception and perversions would try the faith of the whole congregation.

But Allie was the daughter of a good friend, a good woman.

Maybe this was God's way of finally making his will known.

Allie parked and got out of her car. This was her fifth trip to her father's fishing hideaway in as many days, but the sight of that cabin still evoked memories of Clay and the time they'd spent there. Not that she needed much of a trigger to recall those hours. She'd hardly been able to think of anything else. Especially when the house grew quiet at night...But she hadn't heard from him since.

"It's for the best," she told herself and tried to focus on what she'd come up here to do--finish her search of the crime scene. But, just in case, she paused long enough to check the messages on her new cell phone. Although she'd had the window of her car fixed, her purse, phone and keys hadn't turned up yet. Unfortunately, neither had her gun.

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Brenda Novak

She had three messages. The first was from her mother.

Allie, please. I don't know why you're being so stubborn. You should at least move into the
guesthouse. Think of how much easier it'd be for--

She cut Evelyn off in midsentence. She wasn't moving home under any circumstances.

Feeling a nervous flutter in her stomach, she went on to the second message, hoping, in spite of herself, that it was from Clay. As far as she knew, he didn't have her new number, but he could get it from one of his sisters easily enough.

It wasn't from Clay. It was from Madeline. She'd been adding various pieces of furniture to Allie's motley collection. But this wasn't about furniture. Although her brother was okay, she was still very upset about the shooting.
Do you know who did it yet, Allie?

The last message wasn't from Clay, either. Hendricks was responding to a call she'd made to him earlier. Allie found it a bit ironic that Hendricks, a man she'd never admired and didn't really like, was now nicer to her than any of the other men with whom she'd worked. He seemed more intrigued than offended by the fact that she'd turned traitor to those who ran Stillwater.

No one's brought in your purse. Sorry about that,
he said.
I hope you canceled your credit
cards and changed your locks. And, according to what I hear, the sheriff doesn't have any leads on
whoever shot your
good buddy.

The emphasis he placed on
good buddy
made Allie cringe. If she'd had any illusions that they were actually friends, his words would have shown her the reality. He wasn't on her side. No one was. Now that she'd aligned herself with Clay, she could scarcely walk down the street without receiving a dirty look from someone. She'd expected it, of course--and yet it stung.

"Welcome to life as the Montgomerys know it," she muttered to herself.

Your father wouldn't want me to share this with you, of course,
Hendricks continued.
But
since you asked, I've been up at the cabin with a deputy from the sheriff's department a coupla
times. The casing and slug they found came from a .9mm Glock, so it was probably your gun. No
big shock there. But that shooter must've known what he was doing 'cause he didn't leave us a
scrap of evidence that would tell us anything we don't already know.

Allie wasn't surprised. She hadn't found any prints on the note, either. Whoever had pulled it from whatever printer it'd come from had worn gloves.

Let me know if there's anything else you need. It's not the same here without you.

She frowned at his deceptively friendly tone. He wasn't sincere, but it really wasn't the same for Allie, either. She loved police work and hadn't received a response to the resume she'd submitted in Iuka. But it was too late to go back to her old job. Besides, she still couldn't tolerate the politics behind what was happening at the station in Stillwater.

Double-checking to make sure those were the only messages she had, she hung up. Was she just another idiot in a long string of idiots to lose her heart to the darkly mysterious Clay Montgomery?

Not wanting to face the probable answer to that question, she dropped her phone inside her purse, then set her camera bag on the ground and retrieved her most expensive lens. Over the past four days, she'd spent the hours Whitney was in school examining the crime scene, going over it inch by painstaking inch. But, like the sheriff's department, she'd come up empty-handed. There was no blood where the perp had broken her car window, no recognizable tire tracks in the woods, no sign of her gun, no fibers caught on a tree branch, no footprints, nothing.

Hiking both bags onto her shoulder, she scoured the clearing once again. Then she climbed up the hill behind the cabin to look down on the scene as a whole. Some areas along the river were so overgrown she couldn't pass through them. But if the perpetrator had thrown some object into 130

Brenda Novak

the river--like her gun--it might've snagged on a rock or a root on its way downstream.

If she could find a place from which to take a few pictures, a perch with enough visibility, she could use her powerful telephoto lens to capture parts of the river that were up to a quarter of a mile away. Then she could load the photos onto her computer and study them up close.

There was only a slight chance, she decided as she struggled to find the right view. But she wasn't about to give up. Whoever had stolen her gun and attempted to kill Clay had no respect for her training and background.

She planned to change that. For the sake of her wounded pride. But mostly because of what had been done to Clay. As much as she told herself she was stupid to care about him, the memory of hearing that gunshot made her blood run cold.

"I'll get the bastard who did it," she promised and hunkered down on an outcropping of rock. It wasn't the perfect angle but--she peered through the lens of her camera--it wasn't bad. She took a few shots, then clambered farther up the hill, swatting at the mosquitoes that were so prevalent in early summer.

She was just climbing onto a particularly large rock to get some more pictures when a spot of red caught her eye. At first she discounted it as unrelated to the case. It was highly unlikely the perpetrator had come this far from the road and the cabin.

But then, as she stared at it, she realized what it was.

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Brenda Novak

15

"F
inally! My God, Clay, are you all right?"

At the sound of his youngest sister's voice, Clay shifted the phone to his other ear, shoved a kitchen chair out from the table with his foot, and slouched into it. He'd been lifting weights again, concentrating on building up the strength in his legs while giving his arm a chance to heal. Lately he always seemed to be prowling around the house, looking for something rigorous enough to occupy his mind and his body, and lifting seemed to be his most effective diversion. Especially during the past five days, while he'd been trying so hard to keep his promise to Chief McCormick.

He didn't see any point in phoning Allie to say they couldn't see each other again. It was better to leave the situation exactly as it was. Hearing her voice would only weaken his resolve.

"I'm fine," he told Molly, balling up the T-shirt he'd removed just before she called and using it to mop his forehead.

"I heard someone shot you!"

Clay had taken off the bandages he'd worn the first two days, and could see that the wound had already scabbed over. "It's only a scratch."

"That's not what Grace told me."

"Are you going to take Henny-penny's word for it, or mine?" he asked with a lazy smile.

"Henny-penny's, I guess, because Mom's been just as worried as Grace."

In the middle of her suffering over the loss of her married boyfriend, maybe. Clay didn't know who was feeling more deprived these days--he or his mother.

"And Madeline's been more upset than both of them," Molly added.

"I'm fine. You'll see for yourself when you get here. You're still coming, right?"

"I fly in next week. Has the sheriff's department figured out who shot at you?"

"No. They're relying on our local department for help, and I don't get the impression the Stillwater P.D. is too interested in solving the case."

"Why not?"

"This may come as a surprise, but I'm not as popular as our beloved stepfather was."

"Shows you what they know. There's no comparison between the kind of man you are and the monster Barker was."

"Yeah, well, that's the best-kept secret in town, remember?"

"I remember. What's the latest word on Grace's baby? Any labor pains?"

His chair squeaked against the hardwood floor as he shifted. "Not yet. But she's only two days overdue."

"
Only?
Doesn't that mean she's done?"

"Jeez, you know less about having babies than I do," he said with a laugh. "What, there are no newborns in the Big Apple?"

"All my friends are single. Besides, I make it a point not to worry about that sort of thing.

There'll be plenty of time for that later."

For her, maybe. He propped his legs on the opposite chair. "Don't want those maternal instincts kicking in just yet, eh?"

"Not until I find the right man."

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"From what I hear, you're not looking very hard."

"You're older than I am," she said.

Exactly. But when he saw where the conversation was going, he made an effort to guide it back to safer ground. "The doctor said he'll let Grace go for two weeks before he induces."

"Induces? Wow, I think you're the first man I've ever heard use that term--about having a baby, I mean."

He chuckled. "You know me. I'm up on all things feminine, thanks to my softer side."

"You mean the one most people don't know about?"

"Crying isn't good for my image."

"I don't think anything could harm your image," she said wryly.