The Smoky Mountain Mist (11 page)

She swallowed with difficulty.

“You said you think it started nine weeks ago?” Antoine nudged.

Rachel realized Seth’s gaze was on her, green eyes blazing with awareness, as if he’d been reading her thoughts. She flushed.

“With the first murder. April Billings. Summer intern at Davenport Trucking. She’d just had her going-away party at the office the day she was killed. Remember?”

Rachel nodded, pain darting through her chest. “She was so excited to be going back to college. She had missed all her friends over the summer, and she had managed to get into a really popular class in her major that she was looking forward to attending.” She blinked hard, fighting tears at the memory. “She made me want to go back to college all over again.”

“You were close to her?” Antoine asked.

“Yeah. I guess she gravitated to me because I’m a librarian. I mean, I was. That was what she wanted to be, too. And she’d have been a good one.” Rachel dashed away a tear that had slipped free of her control. “I really wanted that for her.”

Seth’s gaze softened. “She was a nice girl. She should’ve had that life she wanted.”

“Who knew that you and April were friends?” Antoine asked Rachel.

“Anybody who worked there knew,” Seth answered for her. “Rachel is big news around the company. Even the guys in the garage were speculating what it meant that Mr. Davenport had clearly brought her on to be his successor.”

“You were?” Rachel hadn’t realized.

“Well, sure. You’ll be the boss. We aren’t sure if you plan to keep running the place the way your daddy did or if you’ll change things around.” There were secrets in his green eyes but also amusement. Rachel realized there were things he could tell her—wanted to tell her—but not until they were alone.

That realization—that shock of intimacy—made her feel warm all over.

“Was anyone hostile to the idea?” Antoine asked.

Seth gave a quick shake of his head. “Worried, maybe. Jobs can be hard to come by these days. People feel lucky to be employed, and anything that threatens to change things—”

“But surely they knew the company was doing well, even with my father’s illness,” Rachel protested. “He worked hard to make everyone feel comfortable and secure with what was happening.”

“It’s easy to feel secure when you’re not one paycheck away from ruin.”

Even though she knew Seth didn’t mean his words as a rebuke, they still stung a little. Because he was right. She’d never had to worry where her next meal would come from. Or whether or not she’d be able to make the next mortgage payment or pay the next utility bill.

“I still don’t see how those worries constitute a motive for murder,” she said more sharply than she’d intended.

“No,” Seth agreed. “What’s happening here is too personal.”

“You mean this is all about hurting Ms. Davenport?” Antoine sounded skeptical, to Rachel’s relief. Because the idea that someone hated her enough to kill people to torment her was utterly horrifying.

“Not that exactly,” Seth said with a quick shake of his head. “But I do think that whoever’s doing this knows enough about her life and her history to choose his actions to injure her in the worst possible way.”

He knows,
she realized, recognizing the hint of pity in Seth’s eyes.
He knows about the missing year.

But how? How could he know?
Almost nobody outside of the clinic in North Carolina knew how she’d spent the year following her mother’s death. Her father had told everyone that she’d gone to school abroad to get away from the aftermath of her mother’s suicide, and nobody had questioned it because nobody but her father had seen the state she was in that night. He’d taken quick steps to protect her.

How could any of this be about what had happened fifteen years ago? How was that even possible?

“But what’s the point?” Antoine asked. “What does hurting Ms. Davenport this way accomplish?”

“It could drive her out of the CEO position at Davenport Trucking,” Seth suggested.

Rachel shook her head. “We don’t pull in those kinds of profits. Sure, we do well. People get paid, and we make a comfortable profit. I’m not hurting for money. But no way are all these murders about taking over Davenport Trucking. There’s no upside.”

For the first time, Seth looked doubtful. “It’s the only thing so far that’s even close to answering all of the questions.”

“Why not just kill me, then? Why torment me instead?”

“If you’re killed now, what happens to the company?” Antoine asked. “Who gets your shares?”

“My mother’s brother. Rafe. He owns about twenty percent of the company already because he put up seed money when the company started. But Uncle Rafe doesn’t want to run the company. My father even offered the job to him before he brought me into the picture, and Uncle Rafe said no. He’s a musician and a promoter.”

“We need to find out what happens if you’re still alive but unable to run the company,” Seth said quietly. “It seems to be the point of trying to drive you crazy, and that appears to be what’s going on here.”

“I told you, I don’t know. I’ve never asked that question.” Maybe she should have, she realized, given her history.

“Who
would
know?” Antoine suddenly looked interested.

“My father’s personal lawyer, of course. Maybe my stepmother, Diane—but she’s out of town. It’s possible he’d have told Garrett McKenzie—

“Former mayor Garrett McKenzie?” Antoine whistled softly.

“Old family friend.” She had never felt self-conscious about her family connections before, but both Antoine and Seth were making her feel like a pampered princess with their reactions.

Was that fair? Was she supposed to feel ashamed of having a father who had worked hard and provided well for his family?

“Anybody else?” Seth asked.

“The lawyer for sure. I’m not positive about Diane or anyone else.” She risked another quick look at Seth, trying to read his expression. But he was suddenly closed off, impossible to read.

Just when she most needed to know what he was thinking.

Chapter Eleven

The house was midnight quiet, even with all the lights blazing. Rachel had wanted to return to her father’s house to spend the night rather than the cabin. There’d been a look of stubborn determination in her eyes when she’d told him her decision. They’d stopped to get their things at the cabin and arrived just as the grandfather clock in the den was chiming twelve.

Rachel watched him carry their bags inside with a look of apology in her weary eyes. “I know you think I’m crazy to come back here. But I won’t be run out of my house. Not by the son of a bitch who’s doing this.”

He admired her determination, even if he’d prefer to stash her somewhere safer. “Understood.”

“I must be taxing your patience.”

“Oh, not for a few days yet.”

The teasing reply earned him a tired smile. “You’re a trouper.”

“So are you.”

Her response was another quick smile and a shake of her head as she dropped her car keys on the entry table and kicked off her shoes.

“You need sleep,” he told her. “Go on up to bed. I’ll lock up.”

She caught his arm as he turned toward the door. “How do you know about the time I spent in Westminster?”

He considered pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about. But she deserved better than to be treated like a child. “Is that where you were? Is it a hospital?”

She took a small step back, her hand falling from his arm. “You don’t know?”

Great.
Now she thought he’d tricked her. “I didn’t know the details. I just guessed the situation.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I can see why you were so good at what you used to do. You’re really kind of spooky.”

“I guessed about Westminster because it was the only thing that would explain the elaborate ruse in the attic.”

Her brow lifted. “Restaging the moment of my big meltdown?”

“You were really shaken by what you saw. I could tell you were beginning to doubt yourself when we didn’t find the evidence you expected right away.”

She closed her eyes, as if she could blot out the memory of those moments. “I used to relive that night. Over and over again. Trying to stop it. Trying to reach her before she pulled the trigger. I went almost three months with no more than an hour or two of undisturbed sleep each night. I came really close to dying because of it. I couldn’t eat. I lost a lot of weight. Couldn’t think straight. All I could do was remember something I couldn’t change, no matter how hard I tried.”

He brushed his fingers against her face, unable to stop himself. She leaned into his touch, her face lifting even as she kept her eyes tightly shut. He brushed his lips against her furrowed brow. “I’m sorry.”

She rested her head against his chest. “She wanted me to die with her.”

His heart contracted. “She tried to kill you?”

She shook her head quickly. “Remember that window in the attic, the one by the trapdoor? When I got up to the attic, that window was open. The wind was blowing outside, whipping the curtains around. She told me she’d opened it for me. Because she knew how much I wanted to fly.”

Seth closed his eyes, remembering Rachel’s drug-induced words on the bridge.
She said I should fly.

“I was fifteen going on thirty. I wanted to be grown, to be my own woman. When she was lucid, that idea seemed to terrify her. But when she was drowning in madness, she told me to fly.”

He hugged her close. “I’m sorry.”

“For a long time I couldn’t remember much of it at all. I was terrified people were hiding things from me about her death, that I’d done something to hurt her.”

“My God.”

“Most of the memories came back on their own. And I knew what I didn’t want to remember.” She looked up at him with hard, shiny eyes. “There was a moment, right after she pulled the trigger and was lying there, bleeding all over that drop cloth, that the thought of flight seemed so sweet, so tempting. I remember, I walked past her body to the open window and stared down at the patio below. Those flagstones looked hard. Unforgiving. But it would be over in a flash, and then the pain would be gone.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead again, swallowing the horror swirling in his chest at her words.

“I’m terrified of heights now. Just climbing the ladder into the attic scared the hell out of me. I think it comes from the memory of standing at that window, staring down at my own death.”

He stroked her hair, hating her mother for doing such a thing to her. “How many people know about Westminster?”

She looked up at him. “Almost nobody. My father came up with an elaborate story about my going to live with a great-aunt in England and going to school there. All my old friends didn’t know what to say to a girl whose mother had killed herself, so it wasn’t much trouble to discourage them from trying to reach me.”

“I’ve never heard a word about it, and you know what a gossip mill this town can be.”

“I’ve wondered whether my father was protecting himself as much as he was protecting me. From the stigma of having a mentally ill daughter as well as a wife who committed suicide.” She looked shamed by the admission. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know he was protecting me. And he didn’t see me as mentally ill now or he wouldn’t have left the business to me.”

“And nobody else knew?”

“Well, my great-aunt in England knew, because she had to be the alibi. Uncle Rafe and Aunt Janeane—they live in Bryson City, near Winchester. My doctors and nurses at the clinic. My father, of course.” She crossed her arms over her body, rubbing her arms as if she was cold.

Seth pulled off his denim jacket and wrapped it around her. “Better?”

The smoldering gaze she lifted to meet his almost made his knees buckle. “Thank you.”

Get your mind on the stalker. Think about the kind of payback you want against him.

The ideas for revenge flooding his head helped cool his ardor, along with a slight step backward to take him out of the immediate impact of her delicate scent and sad-eyed vulnerability. “What about the trustees of your father’s business? Would any of them know?”

“I don’t think so. Well, maybe my stepmother. She’s always treated me as if I’m a little fragile.” Her brow creased again. “A lot of people do when they know my mother committed suicide.”

“It’s a trauma most people can’t imagine.”

“I hope they never have reason to know what it feels like.” She shivered. “You don’t suspect Diane, do you?”

Thanks to Mark Bramlett’s final words, they knew the person who’d hired him to commit the first four murders had been a man. But Diane Davenport could have hired someone to do all the dirty work for her, he supposed. Even the solicitation. “How much would she stand to gain if you were removed as CEO?”

“As far as I know, nothing more than she’d gain if I remained CEO. That’s something I need to ask my father’s lawyer in the morning.”

Seth wondered if he’d be able to turn off his mind tonight long enough to get some much-needed sleep. While logic told him it wasn’t likely the intruder from earlier that day would repeat an invasion so soon after the police had scoured the place for evidence, instinct told him he needed to stay on full alert.

“Maybe I should sleep down here on the sofa,” he suggested.

Her cheeks flushed pink as she smiled. “I’m way too tired to make any moves on you tonight. Your virtue is safe with me.”

He smiled at her attempt to lighten the mood. “I appreciate that, but I was actually thinking about the best way to keep you safe.”

Her smile faded. “From intruders?”

“I don’t think it’s likely anyone will try anything tonight, after all the police presence today, but my gut says better safe than sorry.”

“You listen to your gut a lot?” The question was serious.

“I do.”

She slowly walked toward him, closing the distance between them. He found himself unable to back away, frozen in place by the desire in her eyes. She laid her hand in the middle of his chest and let it slide slowly down to the flat of his stomach. “What does your gut tell you to do with me?”

He couldn’t stop a dry laugh from spilling from his throat. “I don’t think that’s my gut talkin’, sugar.”

Her eyes widened slightly, then she laughed, the sound belly deep. It was a glorious sound, he thought. Rich and deep and utterly sane. If he’d harbored a doubt about her mental stability, that laugh crushed it to powder.

“I like you, Seth Hammond. I hope like hell you decide to stick around once this is all over.” She rose to her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his, the kiss light and undemanding.

It nearly unraveled him anyway. His whole body trembled as he watched her walk away, up the stairs and out of sight.

* * *

S
ETH
DIDN
’
T
LOOK
as if he’d gotten much sleep when he greeted Rachel the next morning with a cup of hot coffee and a creditable omelet. “I think you should call the company lawyer as soon as his office opens. See if he can work us in this morning.”

She took the omelet and cup of coffee to the small table in the kitchen nook, “Got our agenda all worked out for today, have you?”

“The sooner we figure this out, the better,” he said firmly.

The sooner you get to leave, you mean,
she thought with a hint of morning-after bleakness. All her confidence of the night before had faded into doubts by the time she’d drifted to sleep. At least her subconscious had been certain of his ability to keep her safe. If she’d dreamed at all last night, she couldn’t remember it and it hadn’t disturbed her sleep.

She called the lawyer as soon as his office opened and he agreed to see her right away if she could get there before nine. His office was in Maryville, about twenty minutes away, but fortunately she’d showered and dressed before making the call, so they reached Maryville with time to spare.

“Am I going to be forced to fire you for ditching work?” she asked lightly as they passed the big Davenport Trucking sign on West Sperry Road.

“I took vacation days. Cleared it with your stepbrother before I went looking for Davis Rogers.”

“Very conscientious.”

“What about your stepbrother?” he asked with a sideways glance toward her. “If you were incapacitated, could he take over as the CEO?”

“I don’t think he wants to be CEO. His passion is hospitality. He used to work at a big resort on the Mississippi Gulf Coast before things went bad down that way and a lot of people were laid off. I think he’s still hoping to get back into that line of work someday. I think he’s only stayed at Davenport Trucking this long because his mother married my father. I won’t be surprised if he gives me his notice sooner rather than later.”

“Okay.” Seth fell silent until they reached Ed Blount’s office in the Maryville downtown area. The lawyer’s office was located in an old two-story white clapboard house converted to upstairs and downstairs offices. Blount’s suite was on the lower floor, and he greeted Rachel with an affectionate kiss on the cheek and a look of puzzlement.

“I didn’t expect to see you this soon,” Ed told her. “If you’re here about the will reading—”

“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “I do have a question about my father’s business, though.”

“Okay.” Ed spotted Seth, his sandy eyebrows lifting.

“Ed, this is Seth Hammond. Seth, Ed Blount.”

Seth’s face was a mask. “We’ve met.”

From the look on the lawyer’s face, it must not have been a pleasant acquaintance. “What is he doing here?”

“I can go,” Seth said.

“No.” She caught his wrist, holding him in place. She turned back to Ed. “Let’s just stipulate that Seth was no doubt a complete ass in the past, and you have every right to distrust him for whatever it was he did to you—”

“It wasn’t to him,” Seth said. “It was his daughter.”

She shot him a look. He met her gaze, unflinching for a moment. Then his eyes dropped, and he turned his head away.

“She thought you loved her,” Ed growled.

“I know.”

“That’s it? You know?”

Seth’s gaze lifted slowly. “I could tell you that I regret it, but you’re not going to believe me, and it won’t make her feel a damned bit better.”

“What about her college money? Can you give that back to her?”

Rachel’s heart sank painfully at the look of shame on Seth’s face. But he didn’t look away from Ed. “I tried.”

Ed stared at him. “When?”

“About a year ago. She shoved it back to me and told me she didn’t want my dirty money.”

“Where is it now?”

“I gave it to the soup kitchen in Knoxville. I know Lauren used to volunteer there.”

“That’s where she met you,” Ed snarled. “You played on her soft heart and convinced her you were just down on your luck and looking for someone to believe in you.”

Seth’s expression grew stony. His voice, when he spoke, was dry and uninflected. “I did.”

“You broke her heart.”

“I know.”

“I’m sick of hearing that!” he bellowed, charging toward Seth.

“Ed.” Rachel grabbed the lawyer’s arm and put herself between him and Seth, struggling to keep a sudden tremor in her knees from spreading to the rest of her limbs. “You had to work me in and I don’t want to run out of time because of this.”

“I’ll wait outside.” Seth exited abruptly, closing the door behind him, leaving Rachel alone with Ed.

The lawyer glared with loathing at the closed door, his breathing coming in short, harsh grunts. “What the hell are you doing with that man?”

“It’s a long story. And it’s not relevant to what I’m here to find out.”

Ed stared at her in consternation, visibly trying to collect himself. Finally, in a calmer tone of voice, he asked, “What are you here to find out?”

She nudged him toward his office door, shooting an apologetic smile toward the pretty red-haired receptionist who had watched the whole debacle with her mouth in an O of surprise. “I need to know what would happen to Davenport Trucking if I were no longer able to act as CEO.”

* * *

W
ELL
,
THAT
had gone well.