Whispering Rock (23 page)

“By now she might be right outside.” He opened the door and saw her standing near the back door of the bar, bouncing David in her arms to keep him happy, giving them whatever time and space they needed. He gestured for her to come ahead. But Brie got up from the table and went to greet her. She opened her arms to Mel and the baby and they embraced as sisters would.

Mel slipped David onto the seat beside her at the small kitchen table while Brie got them each a soda. “How does it feel to be in my kitchen?” Brie asked Mel.

Mel smiled. “Took you long enough.”

“I had to think it through….”

“You look beautiful,” Mel said. “There is no doubt in your eyes.”

“Do you think they talk? The men?”

“Not the way we do. Mike won’t talk to Jack about you, I’m sure of that. Jack has been a real idiot about you and Mike.”

“He’s over that now,” Brie said. “Someone brought us breakfast and left it outside, and I suspect it was Jack.”

“Well, good. It’s time he came around. I’d apologize for your brother’s stubbornness, but you’ve known him longer than I have.” She laughed. “Someone should have warned me he can be such an interfering pest. And bossy? Lord.” She tilted her head. “One look at you makes it clear this is the right thing for you. For both of you. Mike is wearing some kind of halo.”

“He should. He’s an angel. I’ve never been treated with such kindness and tenderness. Never. He spent months talking me through the dark days without a hint that he expected more from me. How many men do you know who are willing to invest themselves like that, when there might not be anything in it for them?”

“Mike’s a good man,” Mel said. “He wouldn’t put a woman he cared about in a difficult position.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to respond to a man again, Mel. You can’t imagine how nervous I was.”

Mel simply waited quietly; if Brie wanted to be more specific she could. When a moment passed and Brie hadn’t said any more, Mel said, “I’m just so grateful you finally worked it out, and that it brought you back to us.”

Brie looked upward for a second, shaking her head, still in wonder. It was at times like this that she would miss her sisters most, but with Mel here she had the female connec
tion she needed. That secret talk that women shared. “I had a lot to think about, to consider, but in the end, I’m here because of something that came up in Sacramento.”

Mel lifted her brows. “Anything you can talk about?”

“I haven’t had a chance to tell Jack yet—but Mike knows everything. The reason I came suddenly and without calling ahead is because Brad came to see me. Jerome Powell was found in Florida and the ADA is working on extradition to bring him back for trial.”

Mel reached out and covered her hand. “God, Brie,” she said in a breath. “How are you doing?”

“I’m going to testify against him. Of course. But I’m staying right here until that happens.”

“Oh, baby. You know we’ll all be there for you.”

“It was bizarre—that I should get this news from Brad. He came to the house to tell me. But before he told me about Powell, he asked for another chance, to see if we could rekindle some of what we had. He’s no longer with Christine.”

“Whew,” Mel said, sitting back in shock. “How do you feel about that?”

A slow smile spread on Brie’s lips. “I showed him the door and then packed immediately. I’m done with that part of my life.” Then the smile vanished as she said, “The other part, the trial, that’s going to take a little longer. Be a little harder. Who am I kidding? A lot harder.”

The very first occasion Mike had to present his business card officially came at Valley High School in the guidance counselor’s office. Mrs. Bradford was a cautious and serious woman and, while cordial, she wasn’t about to turn any of her students over to this man without being sure. He invited her to have him checked out with the sheriff’s office if she
questioned his authenticity. And he told her a little bit about how he came to be the new town constable, showing her the badge Hope had given him. He’d been to the high school before, talking to the principal and some of the teachers, but just on a get-to-know-you basis, never as part of an investigation. He explained that, in his capacity, he wouldn’t be making arrests of any kind, but that his interviews might help solve a problem.

He assured Mrs. Bradford that the students he wanted to speak with were in absolutely no trouble, but without even realizing it, might have information that could help him. “Think of it as something like a witness to an accident—someone might have information that can help resolve an issue, without even being aware of it.”

Mrs. Bradford disappeared for about twenty minutes, and when she came back she was ready to have a few students called to her office to speak with Mike. He assumed she had called the sheriff.

Mike talked to a couple of girls who provided him with the names of teens they had seen at parties. Within an hour, Brenda Carpenter was delivered to the counselor’s office and they were left alone together. He knew Brenda’s parents, but in the months he’d been in Virgin River, he hadn’t met her. He showed his badge again.

“What’s this about?” she asked.

“You’re not in any trouble,” he assured her. “You’re under no obligation to talk to me, but I hope you will. I want to ask you about a gathering of kids, a party you might have attended. Maybe recently, maybe quite a while ago.”

“I don’t go to parties,” she said.

“Your name appeared on a list I have of kids who attended one or more parties I’m checking out. It could have been as
long ago as last year. What I’m trying to learn about is a party in which there could have been drugs present.”

“I don’t do drugs.”

“I’m not talking about pot. You might not have known if there were drugs present. Being used.”

“Then how could I help you?”

“This is worth checking. And what you have to say, if anything, goes no further. I know your parents through Jack and, I promise you—I won’t be discussing this with them or anyone else. I’m looking for information about a party at which people passed out or lost consciousness.”

Her pupils shrank at once and her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“Have you ever found yourself at a party where that happened? Where people—maybe they were drinking—passed out or lost consciousness? Because that information could help me.”

Brenda just about leaped out of her chair. “Who told you about that? No one was ever supposed to tell about that.”

He made sure his arms were open, that he appeared accessible to her, even if it was only on a subconscious level. “A student I interviewed claimed to have been at a party where this happened to her. I can’t tell you who—it’s confidential. I don’t know whether you were present or not, which is why I’m asking.”

“You’re sure? It wasn’t an adult who told you?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It was definitely not an adult. Have anything for me, Brenda? It’s very important.”

“Why? Why is it so important?”

“Because that sort of thing has happened, and I really have to make it stop before somebody gets… Well,” he said, shaking his head solemnly. “Let’s be honest for a second—
the situation could be deadly. If I knew something, I wouldn’t want that on my head.”

“Deadly? How? From getting drunk and passing out?”

“If some kind of drug was used to cause a person to lose consciousness, yes.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you want me to say?”

“Let’s back up. Have you ever been to a party where that’s happened?”

“I went to a party, once, a long time ago, where people drank too much. I don’t think that’s what you mean.”

He shrugged. “That could be all it looked like, if something was slipped in a beer.”

She took a breath. “Like I said, a long time ago.”

“Do you remember who was there?”

“Why?”

“Because your name came up once, although there were several parties where that happened,” he said. “Now, I’m just a simple guy, but I have an idea that maybe you went once and decided you don’t like those parties too much. I’m not guessing why,” he said, holding up his hands. “All I want to do is get some names from you—confidential—just so I can see if any of the same names turn up at these parties. Regularly.”

A startled look came over her face, then there was a slow transformation—to anger. She was catching on. She knew now. She wasn’t the only one. A guy or guys were going after the girls.

Mike turned a tablet with a pen on top toward her. “And anything specific would help, like whether a certain person was just there for a little while, a long while, was the host of the party, brought the beer, that sort of thing. That would be important. Thank you.”

When Mike sat in his car forty minutes later looking through these lists, he knew Brenda was probably the patient who had become pregnant at a party with no idea how. Then something jumped out at him that spelled opportunity and relief at once. There was one name he recognized. It appeared on Sophie’s list—that party had taken place about a month ago. A young man she remembered being there for a short time. The name popped up once more—at a kegger at the rest stop, again for a short time. But the name did not appear on Brenda’s list, the party she had attended last spring, or on any others. Tom Booth. Tom would know the boys present at the party where Sophie passed out.

Mike could have gone back into the school and asked Mrs. Bradford to call Tom Booth to her office for an interview, but before he had much time to consider that the last bell rang, and he watched students pour out of the building and migrate to cars and buses in the parking lot. Paul had mentioned Tom was helping out at Jack’s homesite after school, and he wondered if he might run into him there.

And he’d also run into Jack out at the job site. In thinking about it, he might be able to take care of two delicate situations at the same time. Brie had spent the night in his bed, in his arms—it had been a lot more intimate than a trip to the coast, or a dance at a festival. If Jack was going to have an issue with that, he’d rather they get beyond it without Brie being present. He was aware that she’d seen her brother that morning and had said the reunion was uneventful; Jack hadn’t seemed to have had any bone to pick. However, that didn’t cover the territory between two men who loved Brie—a protective brother and a lover.

Tom’s little red truck wasn’t there when Mike arrived at the building site, but the place was alive with activity, a lot
of noise coming from inside the structure. Jack’s truck was parked near the house.

Inside, Mike found a lot of men at work and Jack in the kitchen on his knees, working baseboards into place around newly installed cabinets. He watched him work for a moment and then said, “Looking real good out here, Jack.”

Jack leaned back, sitting on his heels, and looked up at Mike. He pulled a rag out of his back pocket and mopped the sweat and sawdust off his face. Then he stood. Jack had a lot of expressions—there was the good buddy, the comrade, the steely-eyed killer, and there was one that he seemed to reserve for his role as commander and leader. It was not unlike the expression a father would bestow on the beau of a daughter—not quite deadly, not quite docile, but something in between. Purposely unreadable, giving away no emotion. “Thanks,” he said simply, responding to the compliment.

“I thought if you had anything you wanted to say to me, I’d give you a chance to do that while Brie’s occupied with other things.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “Yeah, I have something to say. We’ve been over this, but just let me say this once more, so you know where I’m coming from. She’s real special to me and I’ve seen her hurt. Jesus, worse than hurt. You know what I’m talking about.”

Mike gave a nod. “I know.”

“This thing that’s going on with you and my sister, I fought it. It really scared me, got under my skin….”

“I know,” Mike said again. “I under—”

“Because I’m a fool,” Jack said, cutting him off. He shook his head in frustration. “Christ almighty, Valenzuela—you’ve had my back how many times? You’d fight beside me in a heartbeat, put yourself in harm’s way to protect me or any
member of our squad. I don’t know why I got my back up like I did. When a woman in your family gets hurt like that—you just want to put her in a padded box with a lock on it so no one can ever get to her and hurt her again, even if that’s the worst thing you could do.” He shook his head again and now his expression was readable. He was open. “I apologize, man. I thought of you as my brother before you even glanced at Brie. I know she’s safe with you.”

Mike found himself chuckling. “Man,” he said. “Mel must have held you down and beat you over the head.”

Now the expression got surly. “I’d just like to know why Mel always gets the fucking credit when I start to make sense. What makes you think I didn’t just think it through and—”

“Never mind,” Mike said, sticking out a hand. “I appreciate it.” Jack took the hand and Mike’s smile vanished. The look on his face became earnest. “Jack, I give you my word. I plan to do everything in my power to make your sister happy. I’ll protect her with my life.”

“You’d better,” Jack said sternly. “Or so help me—”

Mike couldn’t help but smile. “And we were doing so good there for a minute.”

“Yeah, well…”

“You won’t be disappointed in me,” Mike said.

Jack was quiet a moment, then said, “Thanks. I knew that. It just took me a while. Guys like us…”

“Yeah.” Mike laughed. “Guys like us. Who’d ever have thought?”

Jack rubbed a hand across the back of his sweaty neck and said, “Yeah, well, look out. You bite the dust like I did and all of a sudden you’re breeding up a ball team.”

“I’ll be on the lookout for that,” Mike said. “Show me the house, Jack. Looks like it’s coming along real well.”

“Yeah, we’ll find Paul to give us a tour. I was going to make it good—he’s going to make it a masterpiece.”

After about thirty minutes of looking at every detail of Paul’s work, Mike saw Tom Booth’s truck pull up. Tom parked, got out and dug into his job of cleaning up and hauling trash. Mike timed his approach; he shot the breeze with Jack and Paul as the sun was sinking. Jack finally left to get a quick shower so he could help serve dinner at the bar, and Paul went back into the house to check on the crew as they were finishing up.