Where Angels Rest (7 page)

She glanced around. Tequila and beer bottles scattered on the floor. “Well, you can certainly be proud of your effort.”

Nick almost smiled. A little chutzpah there. Except for Valeria and Hannah, he wasn’t accustomed to being challenged. He was the small-town kid turned big deal, then come home to roost. He wasn’t cocky, but like an Old West sheriff, he wasn’t often defied.

He exchanged the gun for the lantern and sauntered forward, letting his gaze fall to her feet and back. She was slim, about five-eight, with a mass of dark hair collected with limited success at the back of her head. She wore a denim jacket and jeans, and her arms were crossed over what Nick imagined was a reasonable pair of breasts. A ragged scab scraped down one side of her face.

“What happened?”

“I fell,” she said. “Are you sober enough to listen to me now?”

“No. I’m planning to be sober on Monday.”

She grabbed his arm, a death grip. “Please. This can’t wait.” Nick lifted the lantern and looked into her eyes. Mistake. They were green, like the antique bottles his
grandfather used to keep on a shelf. Clear and glassy and filled with something Nick had seen before—in the eyes of a woman watching her parents’ house burn, the eyes of a man looking at the wreckage of his wife’s car, the eyes of a mother watching police drag a river for her son.

In Allison’s eyes, on the night she died.

I’m scared, Nick.

Everything’s fine, Allison. I’ve got it covered.

“Sheriff!”

A new voice rang through the house.

“In here,” Nick called out. Chris Jensen appeared at the doorway, carrying folders and two cups from a gas station. He shook his head when he saw Sims.

“You’re not supposed to be here. You said you would go to your motel.”

“
You
said that,” she clarified, “not I.”He muttered something that, for Jensen, qualified as a curse, and Nick felt a twinge of pride in the young deputy. He’d made a good catch, thinking she’d run out of the station in a hurry and deciding to check up on her. Now, he set the folders on the table and held out a cup of coffee to Nick. It was gonna take more than an hour off the bottle and a cup of coffee to get his head cleared up, but it was a start.

He took a swig. Lukewarm. Jensen noticed his grimace and looked around. “Is there someplace I can heat it up?”

“Does it look like there’s someplace to heat it up?”

“Uh, no. It looks like no one’s been in this place for years. Gee, Sheriff, I thought—”

“Never mind.” Nick looked back at the Sims woman, who had dared to interrupt his weekend, upset his town, and allow Jensen a glimpse into the most private part of his life. He set down the cup and propped his butt against the table. “All right, spit it out,” he said.

Sims opened her mouth but Jensen spoke over her. “I got a call from Hilltop House about an intruder.” He tipped his head toward Sims. “Jack’s insisting that we press charges but I—”

“What charges?”

“Trespassing. Disturbing the peace. Slander.” He paused. “Violating a restraining order.”

Nick looked at her. He was impressed.

“It seems Dr. Sims has a history with Jack Calloway,” Jensen said. “She’s actually got a rap sheet, if you can believe that.”

“A doctor with a rap sheet.”

“Psychologist,” she said.

That stopped him. Jesus, a shrink. His opinion of her—which had just begun to tiptoe toward interesting—took a nosedive. Psychologists ranked one rung below reporters.

Jensen said, “Jack took out a restraining order against her in Raleigh after they moved there. Tonight, he held her at the tip of his shotgun and demanded that I take her in.”

Nick turned to Sims. The haze of two days of tequila had begun to burn into one hell of a headache. “Would you care to elaborate, Doctor?”

She held his eyes. “Jack Calloway is a murderer.”

“Then why isn’t he in prison?”

“Because police believed him when he blamed someone else.” Her eyes—glittering in the light of the lantern and fire—went glassy. “My brother.”

Nick winced. He turned to Jensen, who held up one of the folders.

“It’s true,” he said. “Her brother has been in the Florida State Prison for eleven years, on Death Row for a murder committed almost twelve years ago. His execution was scheduled for the night before last, but a Federal court
granted a last-minute stay. One week. The execution is re-scheduled for this Thursday, at midnight, pending investigation.”

“Investigation of what?”

“John Huggins,” Sims said. “You know him as Jack Calloway. He’s the man who seduced and murdered a girl named Lauren McAllister. She was the daughter of Senator McAllister of Florida.”

Nick’s brain stirred. He remembered it, vaguely. “And your brother was convicted.”

“Yes.”

“Yet, there’s a restraining order against
you
. I take it you’ve accused Huggins before?”

The muscles in her throat convulsed in a swallow. “Yes.”

“But weren’t able to prove him guilty.”

“But he did it. My brother didn’t kill anyone.”

“Aw, Christ.” Nick closed his eyes. A woman wounded and scorned, over something only she believes.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

He cocked a brow. “Oh?”

“You’re thinking I’m some crazy woman with an ax to grind over something I can’t prove.”

Okay, that was pretty close.

“Look at the case, then,” she said. “Prove that I’m wrong.”

“That’s not the way it works,” Nick reminded her, then thought of something. “If his real name is Huggins, how did you find him in Hopewell?”

“Private investigator. Last week, he found that they’d moved to Virginia after they left Raleigh, and from there, tracked him here.”

“And you jumped on a plane to Ohio to confront him.”

“No,” she said, as if insulted by the notion that she’d behaved on impulse. “I jumped in a car to my brother’s attorney, then to the Attorney General, then to the prison, then to the hospital,
then
to a plane to Oh—”

“The hospital?” The rest of the sequence made sense.

Jensen stepped in. “On Thursday night, after the execution didn’t happen, someone took a run at Dr. Sims in their car. The Starke County Sheriff’s Office is investigating, but the car was rented with fake IDs. They came up empty.”

Nick’s muscles went to steel.
I fell,
she’d said. He eyed the dark scrape down her cheek and caught a flicker of fear in her eyes. She tried to smother it but for one, dangerous heartbeat, she appeared more victim than troublemaker. An innocent woman who’d wound up in the path of a—

Stop it.

“Do you have any idea who was driving?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “The sheriff there chalked it up to some death penalty advocate who was upset my brother survived the night. He promised they would investigate.” Her tone dripped with doubt.

Nick took a deep breath. If the attack at the prison had been the work of some extremist protester, then she was out of danger now. Still, he didn’t like the idea that she’d been targeted. He’d rather be pissed at her than worried.

“What’s in the paper?” he asked Jensen.

Jensen tapped the folder. “Everything I could find on a Sunday night. And I sent a bunch of requests for reports that we should get tomorrow or Monday.” He scooted the collection of reports toward Nick on the table. “Dr. Sims fingered Jack—John Huggins—for the McAllister girl’s
murder back in Florida but no charges were ever filed against him. Instead, her brother was tried and convicted, and sentenced to death.”

Nick looked at her. “Let me guess. Your brother had never even met the McAllister girl. He was in Nova Scotia at the time of her death with a dozen witnesses and never shot a gun in his life.”

Her chin went up. “No. My brother had a crazy crush on her, his semen was found in a condom in her bathroom, and the gun that killed her was his.”

Whoa. Nick glanced at Jensen, who shrugged, then looked back at Dr. Sims. She hadn’t flinched. Had done this before, he decided. For about twelve years, no doubt.

He rubbed a hand over his face. This had to be bullshit.
Jack Calloway?
He was an upstanding man, a friend. Besides, there were no murderers in Hopewell.

The clay-covered body of Carrie Sitton rose to mind, the taste of bile right behind.

No. That wasn’t Hopewell. That case wasn’t his.

But this one—he looked at the stack of papers Jensen had brought—this one
was
his. Jack Calloway was his. For the moment, anyway, no matter how much he didn’t like the idea, Dr. Erin Sims was his.

“Jensen,” he said, picking up the files from the table. “Go back to Hopewell and finish compiling whatever’s left. Set up an appointment for me with Jack in the morning and see if Dorian Reinhardt is back—he’s been in Georgia visiting relatives with his family.”

“He got back today,” Jensen said. “Jack called him over to Hilltop when Sims showed up.”

“Okay. Then let him know I’m going to talk to Jack.” Dorian was Jack’s lawyer. He was a prick, but would have to be there. Nick paused, mentally counting out the days
until midnight, Thursday. “And call Judge Watkins. Tell him I may need him home.”

“Sure,” Jensen said, and slid a glance to Sims. “You want me to take her?”

Nick saw her frame tighten. There was plenty of reason to put her in a motel—or cell—for a few hours, not the least of which was to make sure she stayed put. There was no good reason to hear anymore ludicrous accusations about Jack Calloway or a murderer lurking in his town.

Except that she was the most interesting thing he’d come across in a long time, in more ways than one. His gaze dipped to her left hand, belatedly enough to know his senses weren’t up to speed yet. No wedding ring, just a small silver-and-pearl setting on her right hand.

She was alone in this.

“She can stay,” he said, and opened his palms to her. “If she wants to.”

“Will you let me tell you about Huggins?” she asked.

“I’ll read the files. Since I’m apparently being asked by Florida to look at the case, anyway.”

To his surprise, she seemed to take even that much as a triumph. “Then I’ll stay.”

R
EBECCA
E
NGEL CLIMBED
onto the sofa from her knees and spat into her bandanna, wiping her face with the back of her hand. She sniffed; that last snort of cocaine had made her nostrils burn.

“Get back here,” Ace said. He hauled her onto his lap and dug between her thighs with his fingers. “You like that, don’t you, baby?”

“No, it hurts,” she said, meaning it. “Stop it, Ace. I’m not in the mood.”
I can’t stop thinking about Carrie.

“You barely knew her,” Ace grumbled. “Get over it.”

Get over it.
Rebecca closed her eyes, trying to ignore the ache between her thighs. She couldn’t get over it. Carrie was dead. All because Rebecca had told her she could score some crack from Ace. She was murdered on the same road Rebecca always used to come to Ace’s house late at night.

Jesus. It could have been her.

Ace made a sound deep in his throat and his fingers dug in.

“Stop,” she said. “I have to work the breakfast crowd tomorrow, early. And if I’m late or my mom finds out I was here—”

“You gonna get the money from the cash register?” He twisted her nipple in the fingers of his free hand. Ace’s idea of romance. “How do you expect me to take you away from here without money?”

“I will, I will,” she said, and a spear of sensation shot from her nipple to her belly. It was more pain than pleasure but heady all the same. Ace was going to take her away; he’d promised. He was going to get her out of this two-bit, stuck-in-the-last-century town and go someplace where no one was breathing down their necks all the time. “I can’t go yet. The cops keep wanting to talk to me about Carrie.” She shivered. “God, I can’t believe she’s dead.”

Ace came forward. “Forget her,” he said, and his fingers pushed up between her legs. Rebecca moaned, not with pleasure, but resignation. Nothing short of a SWAT team would stop Ace Holmes when he wanted sex, and besides, sex was what Rebecca Engel was. It was what she had to offer the world: an oversized set of breasts, a soft belly with a gold hoop through her navel, and a pair of naturally bee-stung lips designed for certain tasks.

A girl’s gotta be good at something.

She went through the motions until she felt his hips jerk and heard a groan ripped from his chest. Finally, he fell back onto the couch. Used up, at least for now.

She got in her car and headed back to town, the sky pitch black and the road—where Carrie had died—seeming more stark and lonely than ever before. Rebecca steered past the spot where Carrie’s car had been pushed off the road, clenching her fingers and trying not to look. A mile or so later, she slowed, squinting at something in the road.

A truck. Her heart skipped a beat.

The truck sat at an angle, blocking the road. The shadow of someone trying to wave her down moved in the mist.

Rebecca slowed, chewing her lip. This was Hopewell. People helped one another here. Yet the memory of Carrie on this very road just a few miles north lifted her hackles. Is that what Carrie had done?

Rebecca locked her car doors—something she couldn’t remember ever doing before. Got close enough that she could see a figure opening the hood. Something was wrong.

Random attack.
That’s what they said about Carrie. Police were still looking, but the paper had said authorities thought it was some impulsive act by a stranger passing through. Not someone from Hopewell, stuck on the road with the hood up.

Still, she couldn’t seem to settle her heart to a normal beat, and even as her car drifted closer to the stalled truck, the fingers of one hand curled around her phone. For a split second, she had the insane impulse to call home and let her mother know where she was, but she shook it off. She was nineteen—a grown woman. Bad enough that she’d flunked out of college and had nowhere to go but Hopewell. But if her mom found out she’d been with Ace Holmes tonight—and tripping—she’d be a prisoner. She and Ace would never have the chance to get away.