The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (53 page)

A shot exploded through the open window.

"Don't move, Mayor Kimball." The voice was familiar, soft-spoken but firm.
Sounded like Sunny Donovan. Nah, that was impossible.

"This bitch tried to break my knee," Kimball snarled.

The front door flew open. "I'll break more than that if you move one muscle." Herbert stood in the open doorway, a shotgun leveled at Kimball. Irene appeared from behind him, pushing through the door and coming toward her.

"Stand down! Everybody drop your guns! Police!"

She
was definitely
hallucinating from oxygen deprivation. Detective Daggett and two uniformed cops could not be coming through the doorway.

Another figure came in behind them. "That's my daughter! Get out of the way!"

"Daddy?" Amanda tried to push to her feet. Her father's arms surrounded her, holding her up.

"Are you okay?"

"I guess. What are you doing here?"

"On your feet," Daggett ordered, standing over Kimball, his gun aimed at the man's head.

"I can't. That damn bitch broke my knee."

"Then you better figure out how to crawl.

"We were so scared," Irene said, wrapping an arm around her on the side her father wasn't holding.

"I was afraid we'd lost you when you set off through the woods," Herbert said, holding his shotgun now pointed toward the ground.

"You followed me?"

Herbert shrugged and grinned shyly. "Yeah. It was hard to keep up when you all were going round and round the town, and then I had to track you through the woods. That
part
was easier. Been hunting these woods all my life. Reckon those skills came in handy
tonight
."

Two uniformed cops from the Silver Creek force dragged Kimball through the door, and Daggett came over to her.

"Are you okay? You probably ought to go to the hospital to get checked out."

Amanda shook her head. "No." The word barely
hurt as it came up
her sore throat. She coughed twice and tried again. "No. I'm okay. What are you doing here? You didn't believe me. You wouldn't take my calls."

Daggett raised his eyebrows. "I never said I didn't believe you. If I'd taken all your calls, I wouldn't have had time to do an
y work and track down this scum
."

"You did believe me?"

Daggett shrugged. "Your story was a little strange, but I've heard stranger. My gut told me you didn't kill your husband, and that meant somebody else did it. After all you told me, I had to check into this guy's background."

"You did?
" Anger sent adrenalin surging through Amanda, masking her pain and giving her energy.
"
You could have made my life a lot easier if you'd bothered to share that with me!"

"I never discuss an ongoing case."

Amanda glare
d
at him. "But I guess you're going to want me to discuss your ongoing case when you take that
monster
to trial."

Daggett grinned crookedly. "I figured you'd be downright eager."

"You got that right. I was trying to record his confession since there's no evidence, but he smashed my cell phone."

"No problem. Your lawyer friend got it all." He nodded toward the window.

Amanda looked in that direction. The moon had risen, and she could see Sunny Donovan quite clearly, standing outside looking in, clutching a Glock. With her other hand she lifted a small metallic device and smiled. Good grief. The whole town of Silver Creek was here, not to mention part of Dallas.

"Sunny? What are you doing here?"

Sunny shrugged and looked sheepish. "Keeping track of you, but after you spotted Frank
following you
—"

"Frank? The man Kimball hired to spy on me?" Had Sunny and Kimball been working together after all?

"Kimball didn't hire Frank. Frank followed you as a favor to me. But
he's not very good at it. After you caught him,
I had to figure out something else. Remember when I rode your bike? I palmed a couple of tracking devices from my desk drawer and put one on your bike and another in the lining of your jacket."

Amanda recalled the day in Sunny's office when she'd fumbled in her desk drawer for a long time before finally producing a card and writing her cell phone number on it.

"Why?" she asked. "Why were you tracking me?"

"I knew you were headed for trouble."

"Good thing she did," Daggett said. "I almost didn't find you with that legal description you left for me. That's about five miles from here, cross-country."

"We found him wandering around, lost as a goose in a snowstorm," Irene said. "Hadn't been for Herbert being able to track so good he can follow a squirrel through the treetops, he wouldn't have found you."

"She's right," Daggett admitted. "Those shots got us in the right vicinity, but Mr. Randolph took us the rest of the way. You are one lucky lady to have so many people looking out for you."

"And me," Charley added. "I'm looking out for you." Amanda's attention snapped to him. "Yeah, I'm still here. Guess our business isn't finished yet." She could tell from the guilty look on his face that he knew exactly what other business remained. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Seeing Charley reminded her of his strange announcement that her mother was there with a gun.

"Where's Mother?" Amanda asked.

"Waiting in the car," her father answered. "You don't think she was going to walk through the wilderness in her best heels?"

"No, of course not." Maybe she hadn't heard Charley right. She had been under a lot of stress, emotional as well as physical. Not every day a girl almost got killed.

"She'll be pretty upset by now, worrying about you. Can we go, Detective Daggett?"

"Sure. Bring her in tomorrow so we can take her statement. She probably ought to go to the hospital, but, good luck with that." He turned and left the cabin.

"I'll fix her something for that throat," Irene offered.

"Hot chocolate would be good."

Irene laughed. "We can have some of that, too."

"Dad, how did you know where to find me?" Amanda asked as they started toward the door.

"Dawson called me. He told me what you were planning to do, and about the cabin where he thought it would happen."

"Geez! You can't trust anybody."

Her father looked at her strangely, then looked away. "Fortunately Sunny planted those tracking devices on you and your motorcycle since that wasn't the cabin you ended up at. Your mother and I came in with Sunny."

Amanda looked toward the window and saw Sunny still standing there, watching. Amanda thought she saw tears in the woman's eyes, but it was probably just the flickering lantern light.

"Come with us, Sunny," her father said quietly, and Sunny nodded.
"There's something we need to talk about."

"I'll ride Amanda's bike,"
Sunny
said. "You and Beverly can take her to the Randolphs' house in my car."

Beverly?
Oh, yeah. Sunny had interned for her father's law firm. Apparently she'd been a friend of the family.

***

Amanda sat at Irene's kitchen table, sipping hot chocolate, surrounded by her family, one friend and one ex-husband. Her throat was still sore, but Irene had concocted some kind of vile brew and insisted Amanda drink it before she could have a cup of hot chocolate. She was beginning to feel like a normal human being again. Well, maybe not exactly a normal human being…make that an extremely happy human being.

After all the stress and worry of the last few weeks, it was hard to believe it was finally all over. She wasn't going to prison. Kimball wasn't going to kill her. Kimball wasn't going to become the governor of Texas. Charley was still around, but she was so deliriously happy right now, even his presence didn't upset her.

Her mother and Irene fussed over her, each trying to outdo the other in pampering…offering her more hot chocolate, hot broth, a warm scarf for her throat. Under ordinary circumstances, she'd have run from the room screaming, but right now, she was thoroughly enjoying the pampering.

Her father and Herbert drank coffee and discussed Kimball's sins and how much time he was likely to spend in prison.

Charley and Sunny sat quietly watching.

That was the only dark spot in this otherwise glorious evening. What secret were Charley and Sunny going to confess
, and how did her father figure into it
?
He'd told Sunny to come with them, that there was something they needed to talk about.

During her second
cup of hot chocolate, Judge Caulfield
cleared his throat. As if he'd slammed his gavel, everyone stopped talking and turned their attention to him. "Herbert, Irene, could we have a few minutes alone with our daughter?"

Herbert and Irene exchanged confused glances, but Irene said, "Sure."

Amanda expected Sunny to leave the room, too, but she remained. She'd been right. Whatever secret Sunny and Charley shared involved her father. And her mother
, apparently
. She squirmed in her chair and looked at Charley. He refused to meet her gaze.

"Mandy, your husband was not a good man," her father said.

"Yeah, there's a reason I was divorcing him. Several of them, in fact."

Charley continued to look at the floor, not rising to the bait.

The Judge drew in a deep breath and sat upright in his chair as if steeling himself for a blow. "I have not been totally honorable, either."

Amanda slid back her chair and started to rise. "I don't think I want to hear this."

"No, you don't want to, but you need to."

Charley refused to look at her.

Amanda returned
to
her chair and wrapped both hands around the ebbing warmth of her cup.

"You know about Charley blackmailing Kimball. Well, he was also blackmailing me."

Amanda took a big swig of the cooling chocolate, savoring the feel as it went down her sore throat. The pain in her throat didn't compare to the pain piercing her heart. Her fear about her father was confirmed. He wasn't the paragon of virtue she'd always believed him to be. She sat quietly, waiting for but not encouraging this confession.

"He asked for money, but I refused to give it to him. I would not do anything illegal. I did, however, bail him out of jail every time he got caught and see that he had legal representation. You asked why I didn't tell you about Charley's family. That's why. We didn't want you to come to Silver Creek to meet them."