Heard it Through the Grapevine (21 page)

“Quit stalling.”

The lawyer chewed on his lower lip. “They want to buy Jerry’s land. All two thousand acres of it.”

“Jerry and Lainey’s land,” Colt corrected. “What were they planning to do with it?”

Charles Prescott was visibly uncomfortable with the questions, making Colt speculate about what the man wasn’t telling him. “The largest mall in the southwest, complete with office buildings, theme parks. The works.”

“And Jerry was okay with this?”

“Oh yeah. Jerry was only playing hard to get to run up the asking price.”

Colt seethed under a mounting rage. “More likely to screw Lainey
and Gracie out of a helluva lot of cash.” When Prescott didn’t respond, Colt glared. “And you really don’t see this as a conflict of interest?”

“I never saw it that way, no. Lainey would have had to sign on the dotted line right along with Jerry. There’s no way to hide the purchase price.”

“Come on, Charlie. I had you figured for a smart guy. Obviously,
the feeling isn’t mutual if you think you can spout this bullshit, and I’ll accept it like gospel.” Colt slammed his fist on the desk, then waved off his employees moving toward his office. “I should lock your sorry ass up on principle alone.”

Colt took a few deep breaths to calm down. He had to take his personal interests out of the equation and treat this like any other investigation. The fact that this jerk was in on a deal that more than likely would hurt both Lainey and Gracie couldn’t influence how he handled it.

“Did Tessa know?”

“Not really. She suspected someone local was trying to work a deal, but she had no idea who it might be.” He paused before adding, “At least to my knowledge, she didn’t know.”

“What was your cut gonna be?”

For the first time, Prescott looked embarrassed. “Around three mil,” he muttered under his breath.

“Three million?” Colt shouted. “Jesus, Charlie, how much money are we talking here?”

The lawyer met Colt’s incredulous stare. “Somewhere around a couple billion.”

There it was—the perfect motive for Tessa’s murder. If Tessa opposed selling the vineyard, which he was pretty sure she had, there were a lot of people with a good reason to want her dead.

Two billion dollars worth of damn good reasons!

“Any idea who the local contact might be?”

Prescott shook his head. “I only know DuPont mentioned whoever worked the deal first would collect the booty. I have no idea who my competition was.”

“Did you know Quinton Porter or a guy named Thornton?”

Again, Prescott shook his head. “I only know Jerry was pretend
ing to be interested in the Houston guy’s offer to make the other deal more lucrative.”

Colt stood. “As much as I’d like to see you spend a few nights in my jail, there really isn’t anything I can charge you with. Double dealing isn’t a crime nor is being a conniving jerk, but hear me out, Charlie. I’m gonna make damn sure anyone who asks my opinion will not come knocking on your door for legal advice. After I think on this a bit, I may even give the state bar a call.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Colt.” Prescott lifted his overweight body out of the chair and walked out the door, leaving Colt staring in anger.

The words of the CSI jingled in his brain.
What the hell was going on in Vineyard?

In the past few days, he’d dealt with murders, poisoned wine, blackmail attempts, and now this. He could only imagine what would happen to his town if a multi-billion dollar foreign entity bought the biggest piece of land in Vineyard and turned it into a goddamn recreational monstrosity.

He glanced down at his watch. He really needed to get home, although Gracie was spending another night at his mother’s. She’d persuaded him to let her take her granddaughter to the movies today, then to church in the morning. She loved showing her off to her cronies.

Colt gathered up the files and stacked them neatly in the corner. Monday was soon enough to get back to them, especially since Danny wouldn’t be able to get the phone records of all the employees until then without raising suspicions.

It still blew Colt’s mind to think one of his men might have had something to do with this whole mess.

He turned out the light and headed out the door after making sure he didn’t need to put out any fires before he left. On the drive home, he thought about Lainey again. He wondered how he’d feel if he discovered Dan whoever was spending the night in the same bed he’d slept in last night.

He’d called Maddy with some trivial work-related premise and casually asked who Dan was. The man was Lainey’s boss in Savannah, but Maddy suspected there was more to the relationship—that he was also her boyfriend for the past two years. It definitely wasn’t what Colt wanted to hear.

He scolded himself for allowing the green-eyed monster to surface. He and Lainey had nothing but a night of sex together, and she would be gone in a few days anyway. It was possible Dan had come here to talk her into going home now. Colt didn’t like the way that prospect made him feel, either.

As soon as he turned into his driveway, he noticed the lights were off in the guest house. Was she in there under the sheets with her boyfriend?

He shook his head to clear his mind. He didn’t want to imagine her doing the same things with this other guy that she’d done with him.

Three times!

Christ, he was acting like some teenager hopped up on testosterone.

He parked his car in the garage and walked into the kitchen. It was already dark, and he hadn’t fed the dogs. Quickly he made a pit stop then filled their bowls with Kibbles ’n Bits. Just as he walked out on the front porch, he saw her car pull into the driveway. Scrambling into the shadows, he felt a bit adolescent spying on her, but unable to resist watching.

An odd thought struck him as her car pulled up next to the guest house and parked.

Where were his dogs?

He did a 360, but there was no sign of them. He resisted the temptation to whistle, not willing to risk her seeing him. The embarrassment alone would kill him.

He guessed the animals were out chasing the cows into the pasture. The labs thought they were Blue Heelers sometimes, herding the cows when they thought they were not where they should be.

He sucked in a breath as Lainey exited her vehicle and stood by the car door, her head turning in all directions. A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he realized she was alone. When she turned and faced his porch, he leaned closer into the shadows. She probably wondered why Ginger and Fred weren’t there to greet her like always.

A flash of intuition rocked his entire body when Lainey ap-proache
d the porch steps, and he pitched forward, dropping the dog bowls and screaming her name.

As if in slow motion, he watched, horrified, as the house ex-ploded,
sending Lainey across the driveway in a ball of fire.

twenty-two

Colt vaulted over the
porch railing and rushed to where Lainey’s limp body had landed about fifty yards from the guest house. Even at this distance, the intense flames scorched his face.

He searched for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief when he felt one.

“Colt?”

He lifted her head slightly. “Don’t move, Lainey.” The terror in her eyes reflected his own fears.

In the distance he heard the wail of sirens approaching. He prayed whichever neighbor had called 911 after hearing the explosion had the good sense to ask for an ambulance.

He focused back on Lainey as she attempted to sit up. When she fell backwards and grabbed her left shoulder, he cautioned, “You probably only dislocated that shoulder, but until we know for sure, stay still.”

Impatiently, he glanced toward the end of the driveway. Where in the hell were they? The blaze, fueled by the March wind, flared toward them.

When he couldn’t stand it any longer, Colt positioned his arm under her good shoulder. “Stay flat,” he instructed. “This is gonna hurt like hell, but you can’t stay here. I have to get you away from the fire.”

She screamed as he pulled her back another fifty yards or so. Although he still felt the heat at this distance, at least she was out of range of the flying embers.

He took a few minutes to scan her body. Except for a few bruises and black smudges covering her face and arms, there were no obvious injuries. “I’m no doctor, but I think your shoulder is the only problem, Lainey. You must have landed on it.”

He shuddered thinking that had she been one or two steps closer to the door, she might have died. Or if he’d parked in front of his house instead of pulling into the garage, he might have smelled the gas in time to warn her.

The sirens grew louder, and both Colt and Lainey glanced up the driveway just as two fire trucks and an ambulance rounded the corner and raced toward them. Within minutes the trucks were parked and the firemen began pumping water on the guest house with hoses resembling huge serpents from where he knelt.

Colt stood as the two emergency technicians surrounded Lainey and began assessing her injuries.

“I’m okay, really,” she protested. “If you’ll help me stand up, I can get away from this heat.”

“Hold on, ma’am. Let us do our job and make sure there aren’t any fractures first.”

After a few minutes, the two men flanked Lainey on either side and hoisted her to her feet. Disregarding her insistence she could make it on her own, they led her to Colt’s porch and eased her down onto the swing. One of the EMTs ran back to the truck, returning with a sling he applied to her left arm.

Seeing that Lainey was out of danger, Colt scurried into the house for a blanket to throw over her knees. On the way out the door, he grabbed his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. He’d noticed her shivering and wasn’t sure if it was because of the cool night air or the realization she’d come so close to dying.

The fact that she only wore a thin silk blouse suggested the former. A voice in his head taunted that she must have left the house before the sun went down and the temperature dropped.

Had she spent the day in Dan’s hotel room?

Colt chastised himself for thinking about that now and concentrated on keeping her warm, but her shivering continued. He sat down and pulled her close, careful not to jar her injured shoulder. Together, they watched in silence as the firemen battled the raging fire.

Within minutes, the local news channels had satellite trucks lining the outer perimeter of Colt’s property. Two of his men, Flanagan and Rogers, who probably dragged themselves out of warm beds to get here, were keeping onlookers at bay.

“I’m sure I didn’t leave the stove on, Colt,” Lainey said, her voice
wavering.

He blew out a breath. He was pretty sure of that, too. “I know.” When he saw the fear reappear in her eyes as the implication sunk in, he added, “Maybe there was a malfunction in the gas line under the house.”

Even as he said it, he knew the chances of that were slim. As much as he hated the thought, a more likely scenario was someone had blown out the pilot light and turned on the gas stove, just as they suspected with Tessa’s murder.

The disturbing thought stopped him cold. If true, it meant a killer was stalking Vineyard, one bold enough to walk onto his property and commit a felony.

“Where are the dogs?” Lainey asked, as the firemen finally began making progress extinguishing the flames.

He couldn’t tell her what he suspected—that whoever had done this had dealt with Ginger and Fred beforehand. “Probably chasing a coyote somewhere,” he lied.

She turned sharply, wincing as her shoulder jerked. “They would have come running when they saw my car, no matter what they were doing.” Her voice dripped with sadness as if she’d read his mind.

He patted her good arm, unable to come up with any other way to reassure her. “I’m sure they’re fine. We can’t worry about them now.”

Colt swallowed hard, trying to mask his mounting rage. He’d discovered as far back as his rookie years that being level-headed in an investigation was the best way to gather facts.

But whoever did this had made it personal.

When he’d convinced Lainey to move to the ranch so he could protect her, he’d felt confident he could do that. For the first time he worried it might not be so easy.

What if Gracie had come home and run to the guest house to say hello to Lainey like she always did? Colt shuddered at the thought, vowing to stop at nothing to nail the bastard who had done this.

He stared vacantly toward the pasture, trying to formulate a plan to find out who was responsible for this. His gut told him, despite everything Charles Prescott had said, it all boiled down to DuPont and someone local.

The possibility one of his four police officers might be involved
squeezed his heart. Turning toward Flanagan and Rogers, who were
doing a damn good job holding off the press, he forced that thought from his head. Both men had been with him since he’d been elected sheriff. Phil Romano was as close to a right-hand man as you could get, and Danny Landers was still a work in progress.

The obnoxious voice in his head kept taunting him, as if he needed a reminder that sometimes money made people do desperate things.

And three million dollars was a helluva incentive.

“Sheriff?”

His eyes followed the voice to a spot under the big oak tree shading the porch. A fireman who looked like he was right out of high school had retreated there for a break.

The young firefighter pointed to the barn on the other side of the house. “There’s some kind of commotion going on over there. You might want to check it out.”

Colt glanced quickly at Lainey, seeing a glimmer of hope in her eyes, before he bounded off the swing and raced toward the barn. Halfway there, he smiled as he heard his two labs barking in unison and beating the hell out of the barn door. As he drew closer, he noticed a dark spot on the metal lock. Careful not to touch that area, he unlatched it and pushed the door open. Both Ginger and Fred lunged at him, knocking him over and slobbering all over his face.

“Ginger! Fred!” Lainey screamed from the porch.

Hearing her voice, the dogs deserted Colt like he was a picked-over chicken carcass and bolted toward the porch. Colt walked into the barn to check on his horses. Reassured they were safe, he headed back to the porch to watch the firemen battle the last of the flames. His heart ached, staring at the crumbling ruins, the only thing left of his guest house.

Someone’s going to pay for this!

_____

She glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she could fix a snack before the ten o’clock news. Surely, the TV stations would have had plenty of time to rush out and take pictures.

She giggled like a teenager anticipating the scene—the massive flames enveloping the entire house, the firefighters battling in vain to keep the fire from spreading to the main house. The one she especially couldn’t wait to see was the paramedic carrying out the dead body.

Who did Lainey Garcia think she was fucking with? She’d assumed
she could waltz into town after all these years and pick up where her bitch of a sister had left off.

No way that was gonna happen! Tessa found out the hard way, and as of a few hours ago, so had Lainey.

She checked her watch again. She didn’t want to miss the beginning, sure it would be the leading story on all the channels.

On the way out of the kitchen, she glanced down at the paper plate on the counter where she’d placed the four blue pills. They were nearly dry after she’d put a dropper full of cyanide on each one, and she slid them out of sight behind the coffee pot.

Good riddance to another asshole who shouldn’t have fucked with me!

In the living room, she plopped down on the sofa and reached for the remote. The first station was showing the massive fire, with BREAKING NEWS crawling across the picture bottom.

She smiled. The devastation verified the explosion had been huge. But so far, there was no mention of a death.

She switched channels as she grabbed another handful of potato chips. Nearly identical coverage of the blaze flashed across the screen.

Still no mention of a body.

She turned up the volume just as the camera cut away to a reporter
standing outside Colt’s property. He said the cause of the fire was unknown, but it was believed to have been the result of a gas leak.

Ya think?

Shock yielded to fury as she listened to the man report there had only been minor injuries. She jumped up and slammed the remote on the coffee table, spilling her drink.

There was no friggin’ body bag!

After a few minutes, she calmed down. Maybe that whore was alive tonight, but things could change in a hurry.

Tomorrow, she’d work on Plan B.

_____

“Oh my God! How did this happen?” Maddy screamed as she and Deena pushed their way past the nurse into the examining room.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, you can’t be back here. Ms. Garcia had a traumatic experience tonight, and the doctor hasn’t finished with his assessment.”

Screw the assessment. Are you okay, Lainey?

Lainey glanced quickly at Tessa who stood behind the other two, then back at the nurse. “I’m okay. They’re my sisters, and I want them here with me.”

The nurse held her ground. “Sorry. Hospital rules.”

Remind Nurse Ratched whose money keeps this place running.

“It’s okay, Sheila. I’ll take full responsibility for it,” Kate said, as she breezed into the room, nudging the others aside and grabbing Lainey’s chart.

The nurse didn’t budge.

Kate glared at her. “This is my sister. I said I’ll be responsible if you get called on the carpet over this.”

Finally, the nurse headed for the door. “I’ll let Dr. Singletary know you’re here, Dr. Garcia.” She huffed, then walked out.

“Dr. Garcia,” Lainey repeated. “That has a nice ring.”

“Yeah, well, it might not sound so great rolling off the Chief of Obstetrics’ lips as he reprimands me for pushing my weight around.” Kate flipped through the medical records. “Looks like you lucked out. The shoulder’s only bruised.”

“Does that mean I get to ditch this stupid sling?”

“A bruised shoulder is as painful as a dislocation, Lainey. You have to wear it for a week or two.” Kate turned to her older sisters. “If I get my ass chewed out for letting you two stay, there will be hell to pay.”

“Three,” Lainey said.

“Three what?” Maddy and Deena said in unison before Lainey’s meaning sunk in.

Deena’s eyes circled the room. “Tessa’s here?”

“Right beside you.”

Kate turned in that direction. “Do you know who did this to her?”

Tessa shook her head.

“She doesn’t,” Lainey told them.

“What the hell kind of ghost are you, just some kind of comedic relief?” Maddy pushed her hand through her hair. “I’m sorry, Tessa. It’s just—I can’t lose another sister.”

She moved closer to the bed. “As of this minute, the Garcia girls are out of the murder-solving business. As soon as you’re able, I want you on the next plane to Savannah, Lainey.”

“Can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Deena echoed. “Even if we have to knock you out cold and stow you in the baggage compartment.” She shook her finger. “It’s gotten way too dangerous.”

“It’s not like we’ve made any great discoveries, anyway,” Kate added, her voice harsh. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost you, Lainey.” Her voice caught.

“There’s nothing in Savannah to go back to,” Lainey explained, wincing as she reached across the bed for her water glass.

“Let me do that.” Kate held the glass while Lainey sipped. The other three sisters surrounded the bed.

Deena leaned in. “Did you take that job in Florida?”

Lainey shook her head. “My producer was in town today, and we agreed it would be difficult for me to continue working for him.”

“You broke up with Dan?” Kate asked.

“You had a thing with your producer?” Deena’s eyebrows hitched.

“The breakup was mutual,” Lainey said, ignoring her older sister’s question. “Somehow our relationship slipped from passionate to comfortable. We both deserve more than that.”

“Tell me about it,” Deena said. “I can’t remember the last time Mike and I had spontaneous sex in the kitchen like the old days.”

“Ew!” Kate scrunched her face. “Remind me never to eat at your house again.” She turned back to Lainey. “Are you okay with this?”

Lainey managed a smile. “Yeah. I spent the day showing him around Vineyard then dropped him off around seven-thirty at the airport. I knew as soon as I pulled away from the curb, I was losing a good friend.”

“Someone may have been spying on you and knew you weren’t home all day,” Maddy said. “Did you see any strange cars when you left?”

The sisters jumped when the door opened and Colt walked in, his hair in his face, black smudges on his cheeks. After greeting Lainey’s sisters, he moved to her side. “The doctor said I could take you home now. Your MRIs were all negative.”