Secret Sins (5 page)

“And don’t fool yourself into thinking I’m not well aware of what you were up to with
that damned sheriff in town when you slipped off to the social weekend before last,
either,” her grandfather informed her then, his tone brutal. “The reason you want
to be back here so bad has nothing to do with your family and everything to do with
whoring around with that son of a bitch. Stay the hell away from him.”

Shaking in fury, outrage, and the shattering of her heart, Anna didn’t bother to fight
back her tears.

“Go to hell!” she cried out. “I’ll whore with whoever the hell I please. It would
be a far sight better than trying to be perfect enough to be a part of this family.
It’s pretty damned evident that no matter how anyone tries to love you, or hold onto
you, the only thing you know how to do is turn on them.”

“I turn on enemies,” he told her with a cold smile as he finally rose from his seat.
“Now make up your mind, little girl. Take your ass to France or get out.”

“Ah, least you’re allowing me a choice,” she sneered. “It’s more than you allowed
Crowe, isn’t it?”

“At least I’m prepared to give you a choice,” he snarled back at her from the table,
his arms crossing over his chest imperiously. “I don’t recall giving him one.”

The callous disregard in his tone was at odds with the look in his eyes, the turmoil
and pain she could have sworn glowed within them.

She turned to her father again.

He was at the table, his palms flat against the top of it as he stared down at the
circular glass top rather than at her or his father.

He wouldn’t look at her, refused to acknowledge her.

“Why, Daddy?” she asked. “Why are you letting him do this?”

Slowly, his head lifted. His gray eyes looked tortured, his face drawn and years older
than it had been minutes before.

“It’s the only way I know how to protect you.” He turned and left the room.

“Make your choice, Anna,” her grandfather demanded.

She didn’t see anger in his gaze, though; rather, she saw a resigned misery, as though
he had known this day would come, and still, he hadn’t been prepared for it.

Tears were soaking her face, she realized, running from her cheeks and dripping onto
the silk cami she wore with her jeans and sneakers.

“I’ve made my choice.” She could barely force the words past her lips as she turned
and walked from the kitchen.

Surely her father would stop her.

Her mother?

She had to force herself to walk across the wide, dark wood floor of the foyer to
the front door.

With no luggage, no money, and no ID, she left the only place she had ever called
home and stepped into the cool morning air as daylight filtered over the mountains.

A sob tore from her chest then.

Then another.

Moving down the steps, taking one step at a time, her heart broke into fragments.
The knowledge that no one was going to stop her, that no one cared enough to stop
her, destroyed her.

And, she realized, she didn’t feel any more alone now than she ever had.

But that didn’t mean she had to obey his whim.

Sniffing back the tears, though nothing could hold back the pain, she paused, trying
to think, to plan.

Her purse, ID, and what little cash she had, along with the key to her safe deposit
box, were in her room.

She had some jewelry she could sell, though only as a last resort.

With what she had, perhaps there was enough to get an apartment and pay the down payment
and rent until she began working.

Making the decision quickly, she turned around the side of the house and ran to the
heavy wood trellis that ran up to her bedroom window.

She didn’t have to obey anyone implicitly any longer. And she would be damned if she
would just walk away with nothing that belonged to her.

Climbing swiftly up the trellis she slid the window open, thankful she’d forgotten
to lock it the night before when she’d had it open, and slipped into the room.

Quietly, quickly, she rushed to the closet and found the stylish leather backpack
she kept there.

It wasn’t big enough to carry much, but the essentials should fit. A couple of handfuls
of silken lingerie, two sets of the vintage silk nightgowns and robes she so loved.
Several changes of clothes suitable for the job she’d been hired to do, and a pair
of flat-heeled business-type shoes. Several pairs of socks and stockings, the small
box of jewelry.

There was a little room left if she really stuffed it so she threw in some jeans and
T-shirts.

When she finished, the buckles were bulging and she was still leaving behind so much.

As she packed, holding back the tears was impossible.

It was killing her. Inside her chest she could feel her heart breaking, feel the hope
she’d had when she’d first faced her father and grandfather drain away. The tears
were impossible to hold back now.

She was stealing her own clothes, her own jewelry. She was being forced to walk out
of the house that hadn’t been a home since she was nine years old.

And she couldn’t imagine anything that could hurt more.

As she pushed the window open again, the sound of her mother’s voice in the hall outside
her door made her pause.

“How could you let him do this?” her mother cried out, her voice rough, almost unrecognizable.

She’d never seen or heard her mother cry, though. “You know what this could cause,
Genoa. You have to do something. Please—”

Her mother’s voice broke as she began sobbing, the sound of her pain causing Anna
to cover her lips to hide the sound of her own agony.

“Lisa, you know he had no choice. Neither of them did,” her grandmother protested.

“No, there’s always a choice,” Lisa Corbin cried out desperately. “This was the wrong
one. Oh God, it was the wrong choice.”

Seconds later, her parents’ bedroom door slammed, cutting off the sound of her mother’s
tears. But it didn’t stop Anna’s. Leaning against the window frame, her face buried
against the sheer curtains, she couldn’t hold them back. The silent sobs shook her
body, and the pain causing them ripped at her heart until she wondered if she were
going to be able to leave. Or if she would beg, plead with her grandfather to change
his mind and to let her do as he wanted. But leaving again would be like cutting her
heart from her chest.

Hell, she’d prefer to cut her heart from her chest.

She had never had a home, she had no family. So she would make her own home, her own
family, or, she swore, she would die trying.

*   *   *

Archer Tobias stared at the map on the wall in his study for long minutes before inserting
the yellow, round-headed push pin he held into its proper position.

The pin represented the Slasher’s latest victim, Katy Winslow.

His grandfather had started this map fifty years ago, during his election campaign
when he ran for sheriff of Corbin County.

Each pin represented a suspicious death, murder, or suicide in the County.

Katy’s pin was bunched in with more than a dozen others.

“A favorite killing ground,” he remembered his father saying as he stared at the map.

The red push pins represented a Callahan who had died, and each blue push pin represented
the death of someone connected to the Callahans. The white-headed pins represented
deaths that couldn’t be connected, but those bodies had been found on or near Callahan
property.

For instance, Logan, Rafer, and Crowe’s parents and Crowe’s infant sister’s pins were
all there. They had gone over a cliff during a winter snowstorm while on the way back
from Denver. The boys had only been eleven and thirteen at the time. They had been
with Rafe’s mother’s uncle, Clyde Ramsey, while the parents had made the trip.

There were other colored pins on the map of Corbin County as well.

Green pins represented areas where marijuana had been found growing, pale blue marked
burglaries, purple marked assaults.

Brown represented suicides. Black represented murders of those not connected to the
Callahans.

The deaths of those connected to the Callahans threatened to outnumber them.

Bad luck, being a Callahan. Or knowing one.

Other than the Slasher, Corbin County wasn’t a place that drew much crime.

His eyes returned to Katy’s pin.

Why Katy? he wondered again.

Shaking his head, Archer turned and left the study, locking the patio doors as securely
as he had the inner doors that led to the rest of the house, then setting the security
system Crowe had helped him install in the spring.

Moving to the SUV he drove, the trip to the sheriff’s office was made in less than
five minutes. His home only sat two blocks from his office, one of the older buildings
behind the main street courthouse.

Pulling into his designated parking slot, he restrained a sigh at the sight of the
County attorney, Wayne Sorenson, as the other man walked down the back courthouse
steps and turned to head to the sheriff’s office.

The text the attorney had sent earlier that morning had sounded dire.

Must see you at nine.
Imperative.

Shaking his head, Archer reached for the Stetson he’d laid on the passenger seat before
exiting the vehicle. Settling the hat on his head, he adjusted it automatically while
hitting the door lock to the SUV.

The warmth of the morning sun beat down on Sweetrock like a lover’s caress, stroking
across the town with the promise of more heat to come. There were clouds building
over the mountains above that promised rain in the valley though and a possible blizzard
higher up.

The season might be summer, but the mountains paid little heed to the calendar.

It was the middle of August, but already the chill of an early winter was invading
the temperatures at night, and the old-timers swore there was a hint of snow in the
air.

They hadn’t had snow in Corbin County before October in nearly twenty-five years.
The last time it had snowed that early, JR and Eileen Callahan had died on that mountain
road.

He made a mental note to warn the Callahans to stay off fucking mountain roads this
week.

Waving at the two old men sharing a bench across the street, Archer strode quickly
to the white stone sheriff’s office and connecting jail.

Unlike many counties, Corbin County didn’t have a separate detention center. The six
cells that had been built housed any overnight, and some monthly, prisoners. If more
secure accomodations were needed, then there was the detention center in Montrose
that they transferred the prisoners to.

Judge Pascal was firm, but he didn’t sentence a lot of jail time unless the crime
really warranted it. Violent criminals he sent to Montrose, anyway, because Archer
wasn’t comfortable keeping them in the lower security cells.

Stepping into the outer office he nodded to his model-turned-secretary.

“Mornin’, Madge,” he greeted her.

“Mornin’, Sheriff,” she drawled, a sure indication she wasn’t happy. “Attorney Sorenson
is awaiting your arrival in your office.” She rolled her eyes in disgust. “He didn’t
seem to want to sit out here and entertain me until you arrived.”

In other words, the other man had entered the office without informing Madge he would
be doing so.

Archer’s lips quirked. That was Wayne; he didn’t stand on ceremony for any man—or
woman.

Striding to the closed door, Archer pulled it open and stepped inside the overly scented
room.

He didn’t know what scent Wayne was wearing, and though it was only slightly stronger
than the scent he used to wear, still the stuff reeked.

“Archer, good to see you.” Rising to his feet from the chair that sat facing Archer’s
desk, Wayne extended his hand as he smiled at him.

“Counselor.” Archer nodded as he drew his hand back. “How can I help you?”

Moving behind the desk, Archer removed his hat and laid it on the side of the desk
before taking his seat and watching Wayne expectantly.

“Well, Archer, I had a call from the governor and Sweetrock’s mayor first thing this
morning. Governor Ferguson was in Boulder and couldn’t find time, I guess, to actually
travel to Sweetrock and grace us with his presence.” He snorted rudely.

Archer let a mocking smile pull at his own lips. Governor Ferguson was damned busy,
he knew. Just as he had been damned busy from the moment he’d been voted in as governor.
Chief among the jobs he’d set for himself was finding and identifying his only child’s
killer, the Sweetrock Slasher. County attorney Sorenson had managed to make it onto
the list of suspects. Not that Archer had informed him of that fact.

“I assume he wasn’t calling to invite us to dinner, then?” Archer wasn’t going to
tell him either.

Wayne’s snort was heavy with sarcasm. “Nope, I reckon he wasn’t.” He chuckled then.
“Though from what I hear about that man’s personal chef, I wouldn’t have minded.”

Archer let a chuckle rasp his throat, but it was a cursory one, intended only to observe
the rules of courtesy.

“No, it wasn’t for dinner,” Wayne repeated as he sighed heavily. “It was more of a
threat.” His gray eyes met Archer’s brown ones.

“A threat?” That didn’t sound like Carson Ferguson. “What kind of threat?”

“He’s threatening to send us ‘help’ if we don’t step up our efforts to identify and
apprehend the ‘Slasher.’”

Archer grimaced at the news, though he’d known it was coming, still he maintained
an air of surprise.

“Fuck, we don’t need this,” Archer murmured as he rose quickly from his chair and
stomped to the door of his office. Jerking it open he found Madge. “I’m going to need
coffee.” He sighed. “And fix it strong.”

“Try decaf,” she advised as she rose from her chair and moved around her desk. “It’s
healthier for you.”

“Slip that crap in on me, Madge, and I swear I’ll fire you for real,” he growled.

“Instead of for fake?” Madge only chuckled. “I’ll have it in there in a sec, boss,”
she promised.