THE SECRET OF CHEROKEE COVE (12 page)

She tugged at his hands, trying to pull them free from her face. “What home? After my parents died, everything fell apart. I don’t have a home anymore. There’s an apartment I go to every night, but there’s no home there. There’s no home anywhere.” She blinked hard, trying not to let her tears fall. “Maybe—maybe if David had lived, it would have been different. But he didn’t come home. He found his way back in a box.”

“That’s not your fault!” He covered her mouth with his as she tried to protest, dragging her closer until she felt as if she would combust from the heat that filled the narrowing space between their bodies.

Her resistance fluttered feebly against the rising tide of desire until it sank beneath the flood and died away. Nix’s mouth softened over hers, coaxed instead of demanded, and she stopped fighting.

Maybe this was wrong. Maybe she’d regret it later.

That was nothing new, was it?

Nix’s mouth slid away from hers, kissing a tingling path across her jaw until his lips tickled her ear. “You’re analyzing, aren’t you?”

She curled her fingers through the crisp hair at the base of his skull, liking the rough texture against her skin. “Actually, I was trying not to think at all.”

“Good.”

Except now that he’d brought the subject up, she could no longer turn off her mind, she realized with an inward groan.

She sighed, pulling away from him a few inches. “
Is
it good?”

“Thinking keeps us from doing things like this.” He let one hand play lightly over the bare skin peeking over the first button of her blouse, popping the top button open to reveal the lacy top of her bra. “Or this.” He opened another button and brushed his fingertip over the swell of her breast.

She couldn’t stop her back from arching into his touch. “Nix, as good as that feels—and it feels really, really good—we did agree not to do this.”

“Agreements can be amended.” He kissed the side of her neck, sending sparks dancing through her nervous system.

“On the fly?”

“Excellent idea,” he murmured, catching her hand and lowering it to his lap, where she quickly discovered just how far gone the situation had gotten. She closed her eyes, fighting the urge to let her fingers stoke the fire between them even hotter. What could it really hurt? In a few more days, she’d be back home in Atlanta, Bitterwood nothing more than a memory, an interlude out of time she could remember without regret.

But it was that reckless thought, that tempting lie, that made the decision for her.

She pulled free of his grasp and stood with her back to him as she rebuttoned her blouse and scraped her hair away from her flushed face.

If she gave in, if she let Nix take her to his bed and finish what they’d recklessly started, would she be able to look back on this time in Bitterwood as a happy memory? Could she walk away from Nix with no regrets?

She was afraid she couldn’t. Maybe she was already in too deep, feeling too much to make it easy to go back to her old life without wondering if she’d left something irreplaceable behind.

But she had a hell of a lot better chance of escaping this place unscathed if she didn’t surrender herself completely, didn’t she?

“I need to go home,” she said, ridiculously pleased that her voice managed to emerge without a tremor. “Doyle’s probably there by now. I should help Laney make sure he’s settled in.”

“I’m not sure the lovebirds really need you for that,” Nix drawled.

She turned to face him. Whatever he saw in her eyes erased the slight smirk from his face. He stared back at her, taking a long, deep breath.

“Okay,” he said. “You win. The agreement stands.” He waved at the door, sinking back to the sofa.

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “You’re probably right. Our first choice was probably the smart one.”

“You’ll let me know what you learn from Craig Bolen?”

He nodded, still not looking up at her. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

“I thought I’d see if I can talk to the Hales.”

His gaze snapped up. “I thought you decided that angle was a wild-goose chase.”

“I don’t think Pete Sutherland had anything to do with what happened to my parents,” she corrected. “But that doesn’t mean the Hales didn’t.”

He looked skeptical. “Good luck trying to track them down. I’m not sure they’re going to be as willing to talk to you as Pete.”

Maybe not, she thought as she grabbed her jacket from the coat tree and shrugged it on. But one way or the other, she was going to find out the whole truth about what had happened at Maryville Mercy Hospital three decades ago.

Chapter Twelve

“What do you mean, he’s not available?” Nix stared across the desk at the state-prison warden, who gazed back with slightly narrowed eyes. “You were supposed to inform us of any changes in incarceration because of Bolen’s possible connection to ongoing cases our department is investigating.”

“He hasn’t been transferred to another facility.” The warden, a hard-voiced man named Joe Larrimore, spoke in clipped tones that reminded Nix of one of his old drill sergeants back at Parris Island. “He’s in the hospital in Johnson City,” he explained, referring to a larger town a few miles west of the state-prison facility.

Nix sat back, surprised. “Did he fall ill?”

The corner of Larrimore’s mouth twitched slightly, but there was no humor in his gray eyes. “He fell, all right. Several times, apparently. Somebody beat the hell out of him in the showers yesterday.”

An alarm went off in the back of Nix’s brain. “Yesterday?”

“He was fine when he went into the showers. He didn’t come back out. A guard found him a few minutes later.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“We have our suspicions, but nobody’s talking.”

“What hospital?” Nix asked, rising to his feet.

“The big medical center, but you’re not going to be able to talk to him.”

“Why not?” Nix asked, turning back toward the desk.

“He’s in a coma. Got a brain bleed. Doctors can’t say whether or not he’s going to come out of it.”

The warning bell clanging in his brain went to full five-alarm status. “Has he had any visitors in the past couple of days?”

“No. We checked.”

“What about your prime suspects? Have any of them had any visitors?”

Larrimore looked taken aback, as if the question hadn’t occurred to him. “We haven’t checked. We didn’t figure Bolen got beat up on command. He’s an ex-cop and he doesn’t play well with the other prisoners. That’s usually reason enough.”

It was possibly reason enough now, Nix had to admit, but the timing of the attack on Bolen was curious. The morning before, he’d gone to old Chief Albertson and extracted the fact that Craig Bolen had investigated the car accident that killed Tallie Cumberland and her husband, and within a few hours, Bolen was brutally assaulted and nearly killed in prison?

“How long do you think it would take to check the visitors’ log from yesterday?”

“Not long. We should probably check incoming and outgoing phone logs, too,” Larrimore suggested. “Do you want to wait for it or should I give you a call later when I know more?”

“Give me a call,” Nix decided, heading for the door. “I need to check on things from another angle.”

On his way out to the parking lot, he dialed the phone number of the former chief of police. The phone rang six times with no answer.

He considered calling in a welfare check on Albertson, but if he guessed wrong, he might piss off the man so much that he’d refuse to help with any other inquiries Nix might have into the old cases he was trying to unravel.

He could be back in Bitterwood in three hours if he stepped on it. He’d keep calling Albertson on the way, and if he still hadn’t gotten him, he’d stop by to check.

He thought about calling Dana to see what angle of the investigation she was planning to tackle that morning, but the way they’d ended their evening the night before seemed to shackle him from making any overtures in her direction, even with a good, work-related excuse for calling. She’d been pretty clear about putting herself off-limits to him on any personal level. And if he thought it was only because she didn’t find him attractive, he might have been less frustrated by the thought of putting on the brakes.

But she wasn’t immune to him. She felt the fire between them just as much as he did. He’d seen it in those smoldering green eyes, felt it in her trembling fingers and quickened breath.

She simply had no intention of seeing where that attraction could take them, and he had to respect her decision, whether he liked it or not.

Hell, she was probably the smart one between them. She wasn’t going to be in Bitterwood forever. Her vacation days would run out, sooner or later, and she’d be hauling her pretty little self back to Atlanta again.

And where would that leave him?

Stuck in Bitterwood, wanting something he couldn’t have.

* * *

T
HE
SMALL
J
APANESE
restaurant in Barrowville came as a surprise to Dana, who hadn’t expected to see a real sushi bar and hibachi in Ridge County’s small county seat. Laney was waiting at a table near the back, waving her over as soon as she spotted her.

“Sorry I’m late!” Dana sank into the chair across from Laney with a sigh. “I’ve spent the morning trying to track down two of Bitterwood’s best-known citizens, which you’d think wouldn’t be that big a challenge. But the Hales are apparently not answering phones or voice mails, and their secretaries are downright snippy.”

“You mean Paul and Nina Hale?” Laney asked.

“Yeah.” Dana hadn’t yet told her brother the latest about her investigation, so Laney probably didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “I’ve come across some information about my mother’s life here in Bitterwood thirty years ago.”

“Yeah, Doyle said he was having trouble getting a straight story when he started asking around. He hasn’t been at it long, though. He’s had a lot to deal with these past few months at the police station.”

“I’ve gotten a lot more information since Doyle and I last talked about it. I haven’t caught him up. He may think he’s ready to hit the ground running now that he’s out of the hospital, but you and I both know it won’t be that easy. Broken legs have their own timetable.”

“Tell me about it! He wanted to work last night and probably would have if I hadn’t insisted he go to bed.” Laney had stayed at Doyle’s place the night before after bringing him home from the hospital. They’d assured Dana she was welcome to keep staying there, too, but she’d packed her things and gotten another motel room in Purgatory last night.

Dana grinned. “I hope you have better luck dealing with Doyle than I’ve had with the Hales.”

“Why do you want to talk to them?”

“How much do you know about my mother’s history here in Bitterwood?” Dana asked.

Laney shrugged. “Not a lot. I keep meaning to ask my mom what she knows about her, but I’ve been going crazy trying to get all the wedding arrangements finalized. I know we’re keeping it simple, but Doyle won’t even consider waiting past June, and while I’d have been happy just eloping to Gatlinburg, my mother nearly started crying when I suggested I didn’t really want a formal wedding ceremony.” She sighed. “I had to compromise, but it’s about to drive me crazy!”

“I wish I were going to be sticking around here a little longer so I could help with the wedding,” Dana said with regret. “Not that I have any experience with them.”

“You will be back in June, though, right?”

“Of course!”

Laney looked relieved. “I’m not going to make you wear some horrible dress for the wedding, so you can relax about that. I’ll give you a selection of dress styles I’ve chosen—the bridesmaids get to pick the style they find most flattering, and all they have to do is match the color. You can even get your fitting in Atlanta. And I’m paying for the dresses. My mother apparently put away a chunk of change toward my wedding fund I didn’t even know about, and she’s insisting I use it.”

Dana thought about her own mother and felt a hard, fast rush of lingering grief. “Do whatever your mother wants, as long as it’s not too crazy.”

Laney’s frazzled expression melted into sympathy. She reached across the table and squeezed Dana’s hand. “I will. I know I’m lucky to still have her around. I just wish Dad were still here to see me walk down the aisle.”

“Who’s going to give you away?”

“Dave Adderly, believe it or not.”

It took Dana a second to place the name. She looked at Laney, surprised. “He’s the man whose daughter was murdered a few months ago, right? And you and Doyle rescued the other daughter—”

“Right. Doyle and I have become friends with the Adderlys since the murder and the kidnapping. It was Doyle’s idea to ask him. Dave was really touched. I hope I can make it down the aisle without crying. He and Margo have been so amazing through this whole thing. They’ve had to deal with their grief over Missy’s death, and now they’re still dealing with Joy’s lingering issues from the kidnapping. And you know they must feel so betrayed that Craig Bolen was part of the whole ordeal.”

“Bolen was a family friend, right?”

Laney nodded. “I still can’t believe he was involved with the kidnapping. You think you know someone...”

Dana thought about her own mother, about her own perceptions of who Tallie Massey had been. Could she reconcile the strong, loving, centered woman she’d known all her life with the scared, grieving girl who’d recklessly stolen another family’s child?

“I was trying to talk to the Hales,” she told Laney, “because I found out that when our mother was a teenager, she had a baby. The baby died in his bassinet in the hospital. And apparently, crazy with grief at the loss of her child, my mother tried to steal another couple’s newborn right there in the hospital. That couple was Nina and Paul Hale.”

Laney’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God. Your mother tried to take Dalton?”

“Dalton?”

“Their son. They have only the one child, Dalton. He works with me at the prosecutor’s office. In fact—” Laney turned in her chair and started looking around the restaurant. “There he is. I thought I spotted him when we entered.” She nodded toward the corner, where a couple of men were ordering lunch. “Want to meet him?”

Dana couldn’t see much of the man who had his back to them, but the other one, the one she assumed was Dalton Hale, looked pleasant enough. Short black hair, tanned skin, the glow of health and prosperity. He was a little on the plump side, with a ready smile he flashed at something his lunch companion was saying.

“He looks nice,” Dana commented.

Laney arched an eyebrow. “You can tell that from his back?”

“Oh, I thought—”

Just then, the plump man spotted Laney looking at their table and smiled, giving a wave. The other man—Dalton—turned to see who’d drawn his tablemate’s attention. He flashed Laney a quick smile and nodded in greeting before turning around again.

But that one brief glimpse of Dalton Hale was enough to send a shiver rattling down Dana’s spine. Because the man who’d just turned around to face them looked like an older version of her brother David.

And David had looked just like their mother.

* * *

N
IX
PARKED
THE
department-issued Ford Taurus in Derek Albertson’s driveway, noting the chief’s car hadn’t moved from its haphazardly angled position in the carport. There was no sign of trouble visible from the outside, but something wasn’t right. Nix felt it like a prickle on the back of his neck.

He reached under his jacket for his Colt 1911. Quietly ascending the porch steps, he paused for a moment to listen.

No sound came from inside the house. No television, no radio, no voices raised in anger or hushed in secrecy.

Maybe Albertson had gone somewhere with a friend. It would explain why he wasn’t answering his phone. Most people used cell phones more than home phones these days, but Nix didn’t have the former chief’s cell number.

Still, he couldn’t get past the timing of Craig Bolen’s beating. Just a few short hours after Nix had gotten Bolen’s name out of Derek Albertson, Bolen had ended up in a Johnson City hospital in a coma.

What were the odds those events weren’t connected?

Edging to one side, so that he wasn’t standing directly in front of the door, he gave a couple of sharp raps on the wood.

He heard no movement from inside.

“Albertson? It’s Walker Nix.”

He waited through another long silence and was about to head back to his car when he heard a soft shuffling sound from within.

“Chief?” Nix called again.

He heard a faint but distinct profanity from the other side of the door. With a scraping slide of the dead bolt and a rattle of the doorknob, the front door opened a few inches and Derek Albertson’s face appeared in the narrow opening.

Nix sucked in a quick breath at the bruises and scrapes that marred the older man’s face. One eye was swollen nearly shut and his lip was split in two places. “Who the hell did that to you?”

Albertson’s answer was to step aside and let Nix in. He locked the door behind him and limped back to his recliner, easing himself down with an audible groan.

“Did you report this?” Nix asked when it became clear Albertson didn’t plan to say anything.

Albertson shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was thick and hard to hear, as if he were speaking around a mouthful of pebbles. “I fell down. Clumsy me.”

Nix looked at Albertson through narrowed eyes. “That’s bull and you know it.”

Albertson shrugged, wincing at the movement. “Maybe I should get me one of those alarm things you wear around your neck on a chain. You know, when you’ve fallen and can’t get yourself up.”

“Who did this to you, Chief?”

“Stop callin’ me that,” Albertson growled. “I ain’t the chief anymore. Ain’t ever gonna be again.”

Nix swallowed a growl of frustration. “Did they threaten to come back if you talked?”

“You want something to drink? I could probably rustle up a beer. Oh, wait, you’re on the clock. I might have some Coke in the fridge.” Albertson made a show of trying to get up, but he dropped heavily into his chair before he’d managed to lever himself up even a few inches. “Help yourself.”

“Craig Bolen is in a coma.”

Albertson slanted a pained look at Nix but didn’t speak.

“Doctors aren’t sure he’s going to ever come out of it.”

Albertson looked away.

“Someone got to him in the showers at the prison.” Nix crossed to stand directly in front of Albertson’s chair. He leaned forward, putting his hands on the arms of the recliner so that his face was only a few inches from Albertson’s battered mug. “Are you sure you just slipped and fell?”