Dead Giveaway (18 page)

"Prim and proper?" she echoed. "What makes you think I've ever been prim and proper?"

"Maybe it's the badge."

"Not everyone who wears a badge could be called prim and proper. Why would you describe me like that?"

"I guess it started with the long skirts you wore in high school. And the way you hugged your books to your chest and walked to class with such purpose."

"You remember that?" she said with a laugh. She hadn't thought Clay had ever really noticed her.

"Along with the speech you delivered as valedictorian. What was it--'Building on the Foundation of the Past'?"

"You just nailed the topic," she said, astonished.

"They printed it in the paper. It was a damn good speech. If you had a past worth building on."

"My parents made sure I had what I needed," she said. But she knew he hadn't been nearly as lucky. Once his stepfather went missing, his mother had been forced to take whatever job she could, and it was a standing joke in town that she'd work for slave wages. She'd had to. No one in Stillwater had wanted to give the person they held responsible for the reverend's disappearance any breaks.

81

Brenda Novak

Clay wore the same clothes to school for several days in a row and never ate lunch. He didn't have the money. Like his mother, he worked at the farm and took whatever odd jobs he could find. Some days he showed up at school so ragged around the edges he could scarcely stay awake in class. But he always looked after his sisters, even his stepsister, Madeline. And he would've died before admitting that he was going without because he had to. He made it seem very cool and rebellious, as if he liked what he wore and wasn't in need of anything at all.

Most of the kids actually bought in to the tough image he'd projected but, as an adult, Allie could see it for what it was--a young man's sacrifice and pride.

"They care about you," he said. "You should listen to them."

"And stay away from you? Is that what you're getting at?" she asked bluntly.

His eyes settled on the small amount of cleavage showing above her shirt. "For starters."

"Yeah, well, thanks for trying to protect me, but I'll tell you what I told them. I'm a big girl.

I'll think for myself."

"A
big
girl?" he scoffed. "Hardly."

"I'm big enough."

"For what?"

"To do whatever I want to."

His grin slanted to one side, as if he found what she'd said rather endearing, like a puppy barking at a much larger dog.

"Stop with the patronizing bullshit," she said irritably.

"Hey, I think you're tough." He lifted his hands in a show of sincerity, but his grin had turned into a full-fledged smile. The kind you didn't get very often from Clay Montgomery. As if he was enjoying himself. As if he liked her. "You carry a gun, don't you?"

She cocked her head to the side. "Don't make me shoot you."

He laughed softly. "Are all lady cops out to prove something? Or just the ones who weigh less than a hundred pounds?"

"I weigh a hundred and
five
pounds," she said. "Anyway, haven't you ever heard that good things come in small packages?"

"I'm growing more convinced of that by the moment," he said, staring at her mouth.

Allie's heart was now beating in her throat. She wanted to fill the silence but wasn't sure she could speak. She felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked from the room.

Finally, he broke the tense silence. "What happened to your marriage?"

She scowled. "I thought I was the one who got to ask the uncomfortable questions."

"You know the saying--all's fair in love and war."

"Which is this?" she asked.

His gaze returned to her lips. "You tell me."

She swallowed hard. It sure as hell wasn't war.... "He struggled with mood swings, had very little patience and different priorities," she said.

Clay seemed to have lost the thread of the conversation.

"My ex," she clarified.

"What were his priorities?"

"Affluence. Freedom."

"And yours?"

"Children."

"The other day you told me he didn't want children."

"Right. He couldn't stand to have anything slow us down and resented the financial 82

Brenda Novak

obligations and responsibilities. But mostly he hated sharing me with anyone else."

"Did he tell you no children before you were married?"

"No. He mentioned it before I got pregnant, though. We argued about it all the time and decided to compromise at one."

"And then?"

"And then he'd hardly look at Whitney and got jealous whenever she interrupted us or required my attention."

"Where did you meet this guy?" he asked.

Allie liked that response. It told her that Clay found Sam as unbelievable as she did. "At college. He's a bright guy, ambitious, social--and intensely possessive and selfish. I eventually realized that I couldn't tolerate having a husband who wouldn't even babysit our child if I needed it.

I began to feel more and more torn between the two of them. Then, one day I came home to find that Sam had picked up Whitney before I got off work because the babysitter had a family emergency. He'd tried to call me, but I was working an important case and couldn't be reached. So he brought her home, locked her in her room and let her cry for hours."

"That's the point where I'd make him very sorry."

She laughed. "I was the one who was sorry--sorry I'd ever married him. To my mind, there was no excuse for such neglect."

"Sounds like he didn't deserve either of you."

"Yeah, well, he's with someone else now, and it's for the best."

"Are you happier on your own?"

"I'd never go back to him, if that's what you're asking." She rubbed her free hand over the goose bumps on one arm. Now that it was later, the air was growing cold despite the fire.

Leaning over, Clay unfolded the quilt at the foot of the bed and pulled it over her.

"Thanks," she said.

He grinned. "Don't say I never did anything for you."

"Okay, I won't." She drained her glass and set it on the bookcase. "Now can I ask
you
a few questions?"

"Am I going to need more wine to survive the interrogation?"

"Possibly."

"Where are you going to start?"

She frowned apologetically. "With your father."

He grimaced. "Great."

"Should I get you another glass of wine?" she asked, sitting up.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to talk about him even if I was falling-down drunk. So you might as well go ahead."

Switching positions on the bed, she sat beside him with her back against the wall, and covered them both with the blanket. "When did he come back here?"

"Where's here?" he asked.

"Stillwater."

He blinked at her. "He didn't, as far as I know."

"He's never contacted you?"

"No."

She hated having to press him about this particular subject. She knew that what his father had done still hurt, although Clay liked to pretend otherwise. "What about your mother?"

He stared into his wineglass. "He didn't contact her, either."

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Brenda Novak

"Would she tell you if he did?"

"I think so. For a while, I was all she had."

For a long while,
Allie added silently. "You've always been close."

"She told me most everything."

Allie suspected Irene had shared far more about her very adult problems than was good for a teenage boy. But, as Clay had just said, he was all she'd had. And somehow, at sixteen, he'd taken on the responsibilities of a man. He'd run the farm and picked up various part-time jobs. The way he'd supported her and his sisters was admirable, but no one in town ever talked about that.

Allie wondered why he never seemed to get any credit for the good things he'd done. He'd graduated from high school while doing the work of two men and acting as his family's patriarch.

And then he'd put himself through college, completing a four-year degree in only two and a half.

"Your mother's lucky to have a son like you," Allie said.

He finished his wine. "Someone about twenty years older would've been a greater help."

"You did your best. What more could she ask?"

He grew quiet, pensive.

She craned her neck to look at him. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I'm just tired."

He tilted his head back against the wall and Allie scooted a little closer, seeking the warmth of his body. He responded by putting his arm around her, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She sensed that his first inclination was to shelter, to protect.

Did that mean he was protecting someone else--his mother, for instance--in the reverend's disappearance? Allie was about to ask him about that night, when she realized Clay was asleep.

Reluctant to disturb him, she rested her cheek against his chest and counted the steady beats of his heart. Clay wasn't what she'd expected. He was far more sensitive, far deeper. She was willing to bet a lot of people, including her father, would be surprised to learn that. Allie thought she'd never met anyone more misunderstood.

We've got to leave, she told herself. But she was exhausted, too. She decided they could afford to rest for another ten minutes....

The next thing she knew, birds were chirping in the trees. It was morning.

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Brenda Novak

10

A
llie's first thought was that she'd just spent the night with Clay Montgomery. Her second was that he hadn't even tried to kiss her. She wasn't sure whether she was relieved or disappointed.

She had to admit his lack of action was a blow to her self-esteem. She'd never expected Clay to pursue her. She knew she wasn't his type. But she'd slept in his arms for hours and he'd acted as if he wasn't even tempted....

"We have to get back," she mumbled, pulling away from the comfort his body had provided. "I need to be at home when Whitney wakes up."

He'd opened his eyes the moment she began to stir and was looking at her as if, unlike other mortals, he didn't need to go through the various groggy stages of rising to full consciousness.

Allie yawned, guessing that instant alertness came from a lifetime of standing vigil over the farm. Couldn't Clay ever truly relax?

"What's wrong?" she asked when he didn't respond.

"Nothing."

Immediately standing up, he started gathering the leftovers of their picnic while Allie tried to stretch the kinks from her muscles. "Do you always wake up going a hundred miles an hour?"

"What?" he said.

"Never mind." With a final stretch, she stood, too, and began to help.

"So, did you learn any deep dark secrets last night?" he asked as he carried the basket out to his truck.

She followed with the tablecloth. "Are you kidding? You know I didn't. You got off pretty light."

"How'd I manage that?" he said with a boyish grin.

She liked the way his hair stuck up on one side, the dark shadow of beard growth covering his prominent jaw. He looked rumpled--and sexy. "You went to sleep. What was I supposed to do, wake you?"

They both knew she could've done exactly that. But Allie was no longer so anxious to badger Clay for details about that long-ago night. She was beginning to hope,
really
hope, that he'd had no part in whatever had happened. And it was easier to avoid the answers to certain questions if she didn't ask them in the first place.

"What makes you think Lucas has been back to Stillwater?" he asked.

After loading the picnic supplies in the back, they'd both gone to the driver's side. Clay opened the door and waved Allie in, then got in after her.

Allie slid over a few feet so he could drive, but not all the way. She had the oddest desire to sit close to him. Probably because she wasn't quite ready to return to regular life.

"He acted kind of suspicious when I talked to him on the phone," she said.

Clay's face was unreadable. "In what way?"

"He claimed he didn't know anything about Barker. Yet, a few seconds later, he accidentally revealed that he knew it'd been nineteen years since Barker went missing."

Clay said nothing.

"That's strange, don't you think?" she prompted.

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"Anything's possible with my dad."

"I guess he could've heard about the investigation through the media," she went on, "but it wasn't that widely publicized. And he's been living in Alaska for two decades."

"He has some distant relatives here in Mississippi."

"Do you think he stays in touch with them?"

Clay shrugged. "He could."

His dad might have maintained contact. But that didn't explain why Lucas had jumped to the conclusion that Barker was dead, when only the guilty party, and anyone the guilty party might have told, really knew for sure. And it didn't explain why Lucas hadn't simply told her that he'd heard about Barker from family or friends.

"Do you know much about Eliza?" Allie asked, gazing out the window as they turned onto the highway and began to travel at a greater speed.

"Eliza?"

She glanced over at him. "Barker's first wife."

"Not really. Besides what Madeline's said."

"Barker never talked about her?"

"No. I found some old pictures in his office, but I gave those to Maddy when I finally dismantled the place."

"When was that?"

"Last summer."

"Why haven't you used the office for something else?" she asked.

He had one arm slung across the back of the seat, his hand so close he could've touched her hair, but Allie could tell he wasn't as relaxed as he appeared. "I don't need the space."

What Clay had done to the office was extreme, considering the fact that he had no real reason for gutting it. But Allie didn't want to ask about that, for fear of getting too close to details she'd rather not know.

"Can you tell me why Jed Fowler might have hated your stepfather?" she asked, changing the subject.

Clay took a little longer than he should have to answer, as though he was warring with himself over whether or not to be truthful. "No," he said at last.