The Investigator (15 page)

Shit.
If there was one thing he couldn’t deal with, it was tears. They sucked him in every time. He couldn’t afford to lose his edge. She, of all people, should know how things worked. He drew in a deep breath and prayed for patience—and for her understanding.

“You know it’s not possible,” he said. “If I had even one scrap of evidence there had been a crime, I’d be the first person to make an arrest.”

Her expression remained angry, mutinous. Frustration arced through him.

“Look at it from my point of view. On one hand, I have Darryl Watson’s estranged stepdaughter claiming he’s committed some dastardly act upon her mother. Everyone in town knows the girl left on bad terms with him and there are others who remember her as a troublemaker.

“On the other hand, I have one of Watervale’s most upstanding citizens telling me his wife has gone away on a holiday. I’ve seen glossy tour brochures strewn over his coffee table. The travel agency confirms the booking.”

He ignored the voice in his head that reminded him there was no record that she boarded the ship and forged on.

“I’ve spoken to the lawyer who confirms the woman changed her will, leaving everything to her daughter.”

His eyes drilled into hers for long, hard seconds. “No crime in that. People do it all the time, especially if they’re planning to travel for an extended period of time.
You’re
the only one who insists she wasn’t going away.”

And the housekeeper.
He thrust aside the stab of guilt the unwelcome thought caused.

Kate’s gaze remained defiant. “You think you’re so clever. What about this scenario, hotshot? Mom had nothing to leave. Her estate was worthless. Nothing more than a small collection of jewelry and a few items that had sentimental value only. She owned nothing of any real value. Certainly nothing worth murdering her over. She changed her will as an act of defiance, to shove it up Darryl’s ass, if you like. Things hadn’t been so good between them. It was one way she could thumb her nose at him.”

Riley drilled her with his eyes. “She told you this?”

“Yes. She emailed me about it not long before she made the appointment. She told me what she intended to do.”

Anger narrowed his eyes. “And you’re only
now
sharing this with me? Why didn’t you say anything earlier, when I first asked you about the will?”

She shrugged and looked away. “You seemed hell-bent and determined to pin my mother’s disappearance on me. When you asked me about the will, I didn’t know you’d already seen it. I knew what conclusion you’d draw when you discovered I was the sole beneficiary.” She glared at him. “And you did.”

Riley tugged at the short whorls of his hair and gritted his teeth. He drew in a breath and did his best to remain calm.

“Okay, so now we know the terms of the will had nothing to do with it. Whether Darryl was included or not and whether he knew about it before your mother’s disappearance are moot. A worthless estate is a worthless estate, no matter how you look at it. No wonder he barely reacted when I read it.”

Kate’s lips twisted into a sneer. “He probably left it there on purpose, to throw you off track. It proved the will gave him zero financial motivation to get rid of her.”

Riley nodded. Kate’s observation made sense and it also explained Darryl’s reaction, or lack thereof, to Riley’s discovery.

His shoulders slumped on a sigh. He was going around in circles. Round and round and round and getting nowhere.

Lifting his beer, he took a sip and then set the glass back down on the table. “Okay, let’s concentrate on what we do know: Rosemary wrote Darryl out of her will; their relationship had deteriorated to the point she didn’t want to leave him anything; and we know that what she had didn’t amount to much. At this stage, we don’t know the reasons for the marriage breakdown.” He cocked an eyebrow. “At least, I don’t think we do?”

Kate shook head. “Mom never gave me any specifics—just that things between her and Darryl were tense. They’d had their ups and downs over the years. It was only when she told me she was leaving Darryl out of her will that I realized things had gotten a little more serious.”

Riley nodded. “Their housekeeper told me much the same thing.”

Kate’s face softened. “You spoke to Mrs Fitzgerald?”

“Not about the will, but she did say your mother felt indebted to Darryl—for marrying her with the disability, for taking care of her, paying her medical bills. I can see how it could happen.”

“I bet he took every opportunity to remind her, too,” Kate shot back, anger re-igniting in her eyes.

Riley shrugged. “Maybe he did. Maybe your mother got tired of being made to feel like such a burden. Maybe they argued once too often and she decided to write him out of her will. Who knows? It doesn’t turn him into a murderer.”

Kate opened her mouth, her eyes shooting fire. He silenced her with a look.

“I’m not condoning his actions, but marriage breakdown is not a crime and divorce is a hell of a lot safer way to get out of a marriage than murder. I just don’t buy your theory.

“Besides, under your mother’s new will, Darryl wasn’t set to inherit anything and even if he didn’t know she’d changed it, a criminal can’t benefit from their own crime. If, as you insist, Darryl has murdered your mother and he was convicted of her murder, he’d get nothing, regardless of the contents of her will. Your stepfather was a police officer for more than thirty years. There’s no way he wouldn’t know that.” He held her angry stare. “Another reason why your arguments won’t hold up. No motive.”

Kate’s chin jutted out at an obstinate angle.

“You’re assuming he thought he was going to get caught,” she fired back. “As you’ve so rightly pointed out, he’s a long-serving police officer. He knows better than anyone how to get away with it. That’s probably the reason why he came up with such a ridiculous story. He knew everyone would think he was way too smart to say she was off sailing around the world when she hated water, unless it was true. And you’ve fallen for it, Detective. Hook, line and sinker.”

Riley ground his teeth until his jaw ached.

“Kate, you’re not
listening
to me. Where’s his motive? He had nothing to gain from her death. In fact, the only one with something to gain was
you
.”

“You’re wrong.”

She spoke so quietly, he thought he’d imagined it.

“I’m sorry?”

Her chest expanded on a long breath of air. She lifted her head and the pain in her gaze branded itself on his heart.

“I said, you’re wrong.”

CHAPTER 12

Kate thumped the lumpy motel pillow and turned over in the bed for the hundredth time. The illuminated numbers on the clock told her it was after two. About six minutes since she’d last looked.

She’d left Riley at The Bullet demanding an explanation she was unwilling to give. She shouldn’t have said anything. It was stupid and had only created more questions. If she hadn’t gotten the hell out of there when she did, she’d eventually have given him the answers. And boy, would that have been a mistake.

Riley
.

Though she knew there was no fairy-tale happiness in her future, there was something about him she found beyond attractive. Just the thought of him made her yearn that things were different. She ached to unload on him as he’d invited her to. And every time she was with him she longed to lean into the muscular warmth of his chest and let him ease the burden she’d carried for so long…to rely on his strength, his calmness, his logic.

But it was his logic that was the problem. His contrary arguments against her insistence Darryl was at the heart of her mother’s disappearance made sense if he didn’t know the truth, like she did. It wasn’t his fault there were things he didn’t know. Would never know—if she had any say.

She sighed and thumped the pillow again, her body prickly with restlessness. Fatigue lashed at her eyelids, but the turmoil of her thoughts refused to give her peace.

She looked awful. She hadn’t slept properly since she’d arrived and even before then, her slumber had been anything but restful. The dark circles under her eyes looked almost comical and even makeup hadn’t been able to completely conceal the paleness of her cheeks.

She didn’t blame Riley for his interest in Sonia. The fresh-faced country girl was the epitome of health and her more than generous double-D cup size only increased her desirability.

Kate cupped her breasts, loose and unfettered beneath her silk nightgown. They barely filled her hands. Unless she counted the TV dinners, she hadn’t eaten a proper meal since her arrival. She hadn’t wanted to venture into any of Watervale’s restaurants. There weren’t too many to choose from and she couldn’t bear the thought of fielding glances, or worse—questions—from curious locals. There was also the chance she could run into Darryl. He’d always been fond of eating out—at least, he had a decade ago, and she was disinclined to take her chances on discovering whether this was still the case.

So, she’d relied upon the kind of store-bought food she could obtain quickly and with the minimum of fuss. The only drawback was her forays into the supermarket had been limited to what she could prepare in her motel room. Even now, her stomach growled in noisy yearning at the thought of real food.

Tonight, she’d gone to The Bullet for dinner, counting on the fact that, in the past, Darryl had much preferred to drink at the up-market golf club rather than The Bullet. She’d also conceded she needed to force herself out of her room and into the bar in an effort to mingle with society again before she completely forgot how.

Then Riley had appeared and that had been the end of it. Even though a part of her had been eager to accept his dinner invitation, the sensible part of her brain had been grateful when his behavior had provided her with an excuse to leave—empty stomach, and all.

She’d fled back to the motel and after spending an hour pacing back and forth across the worn carpet, arguing for and against the reasons for coming clean with him, she’d sunk, exhausted, onto the tattered armchair, where her gaze had landed on her unappetizing microwave meal.

After a few desultory attempts to eat, she’d showered and changed for bed, but sleep had eluded her.

Her mother. Her stepfather. Riley. They’d swirled in a mishmash of images, one superimposed upon the other until her head spun like she’d just climbed off a ride at the local fair.

She’d crawled off the sagging bed and dug in her handbag for some aspirin, swallowing three straight from the packet. Then she’d sprawled back upon the bed, clutching one of the spongy pillows to her chest.

The illuminated face of the clock taunted her as another minute crawled past. The night was still and quiet. Her room faced onto the main highway that ran through the town, but even that appeared to be deserted.

Flopping onto her belly, she tried to banish every thought from her mind with a deep-breathing exercise. It was a technique she’d perfected years ago, when she’d had even more reasons to block out every scrap of feeling she had.

For a while, it took her mind off things, but all too soon, her thoughts returned to the present. The pervasive feeling of dread expanded in the darkness. She had to do something. She had to find her mother’s body and bring her killer to justice.

And there it was.

At last, in the dead of night, she’d found the courage to confront the truth: Her mother was likely dead.

With the memory of Rosmary’s last email imprinted on her brain, the truth couldn’t be ignored. The tone of that last email had been one of desperation, the words of a woman who had run out of options. So desperate, Kate could have believed her mother had run away—would have believed it, if Darryl hadn’t been the one who’d insisted that was exactly what had happened.

Kate ached with guilt and sadness. For ten years, she’d stayed away. For ten years, her relationship with her mother had been maintained from a distance via emails and telephone calls. She hadn’t been there for her mother’s birthdays, for the times when she’d been sick, the times when she’d been lonely.

Kate didn’t kid herself. She’d been under no illusion her mother’s life had been perfect. Rosemary may not have realized the full extent of her husband’s evil, but from her shared confidences via email, it was clear he’d shown the nasty side of himself to her on more than one occasion and those occasions had become more and more frequent. Kate could only guess that his escalating maliciousness had been the reason for her mother’s increasingly negative outlook in the weeks before she’d disappeared without a trace.

* * *

Chase strode into the squad room on Monday morning, shaking his head from side to side. “Munro, Munro, Munro.”

Riley glanced up from his desk. “What did I do now?”

“
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
What the hell’s gotten into you, mate? I took buxom Belinda home on Saturday night and all she went on about was how upset Sonia was that you dumped her.” He rounded on Riley and waggled a finger in his face. “You cost me a night of passion, Munro, and for that, I’ll never forgive you.”

“What the hell are you talking about? How could I have dumped Sonia? We weren’t even going out, as I recall.”

“That might be so, but this is Watervale, city boy. You shared at least a couple of drinks and some pretty in-depth conversation, according to Belinda. That, my friend, almost constitutes a marriage proposal in these parts.”

Riley groaned and shook his head. “Is she really that upset? ’Cause I talked to her at The Bullet on Saturday night. I thought I’d straightened things out and, you know, explained how my interest lay elsewhere.”

Chase’s eyebrows disappeared into the thick curls that dangled across his forehead.

“Really? And who is this fair maiden? Do tell. No, let me guess. Your sudden change of heart wouldn’t have anything to do with the appearance of Kate Watson, would it?”

Heat seared Riley’s neck and Chase grinned.

“Don’t try to deny it, mate. The answer’s written all over your face.”

Riley looked down at the paperwork spread out before him. “Yeah, well not that it’ll do me any good,” he muttered.