On Her Father's Grave (Rogue River Novella Book 1) (8 page)

“Yep.” She gave a big grin and batted yellow petals at Stevie. “Enjoy.”

Zane grabbed an oil funnel from one of the packed shelves in his office and handed it to Stevie before she went out on her broken window call.

“What’s this for?” she asked, turning the blue plastic funnel in her hands, looking confused. “Does one of the cars need their oil topped off?

“No. It’s for Mrs. Simmons.”

Puzzled brown eyes looked at him. He took the funnel and held the narrow end next to her ear.

“Can you hear me now?” he said quietly into the funnel.

She jerked her head away and gave a deep genuine laugh that echoed warmly in his brain. Delighted, she took the funnel and went on her call.

He’d used the funnel on previous visits with Mrs. Simmons.

At his office desk, Zane sorted through a box of reports from 2003 and set it aside. He’d found it shoved below the bottom shelf in the closet in his office. Why hadn’t anyone returned the box to the storage room where it belonged? The missing box should have raised a red flag in someone’s bookkeeping. He shook his head. The more he tried to get organized, the deeper the mess seemed to go. No doubt Bill Taylor, and only Bill Taylor, had known exactly where to find everything.

He went and glared at the mess in the closet. How could such a sleepy town have so much paperwork? Paperwork had simply been turned in to Bill, and Zane hadn’t paid attention to where it went after that. He’d always found any old files he needed in the storage room, but maybe he’d simply been lucky. He pulled another box from the crowded closet.

He knew exactly where Bill’s journals were. They were currently sitting in his bedroom. The morning after Hunter’s death, he’d found them on the center of his desk. He’d stared at the familiar notebooks, a small voice in his head telling him to spirit them out of the office until he could go through them. He’d acted on it and now he was glad. Finding James searching his office hadn’t sat well with his gut. Suddenly everyone wanted the journals.
Why?
Maybe tonight he’d have time to read them.

He’d been too distracted last night. Dinner with the Taylors had been as entertaining as usual, but last night had been different. When Stevie had closed her eyes and started to sing, it’d been like his heart had woken up from a decade-long sleep.

But he’d listened to “Landslide” several hundred times. Why was last night so different?

The singer.

Halfway through the song he’d realized he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. He’d looked around and blinked, seeing Patsy, Debra, Eric, and the children in the rapt audience with him. Had anyone noticed he’d been struck dumb? Stevie had finished and each sibling had taken a turn to sing, but he remembered no song other than Stevie’s.

He rifled through another box that needed to be returned to the storage room. He really should assign this task to Sheila. She’d probably do it ten times faster than he could. But he wanted to see what Bill had stored away during his decades as chief.

“Zane?”

Zane’s skin crawled.
Oh, Lord. Not now, please.

“Knock knock.” Katelyn O’Rourke rapped her knuckles on the door and stepped inside. She was wearing heels, a short skirt, and enough cloying perfume to scent a church full of grandmothers. Zane breathed through his mouth.

“What can I do for you, Katelyn? I haven’t seen Faye yet this morning.”

Katelyn was the youngest of Faye’s four kids and had made it her mission to get Zane to walk her down the aisle. Or into bed. Whichever came first.

According to every other single male in town, her mission changed its primary objective depending on which man was in front of her at the moment. Zane had managed to slip out of her clutches several times, but she’d neatly cornered him this morning.

Katelyn threw back her hair and laughed like he’d told the funniest joke she’d ever heard. “Mama’s council meeting doesn’t start for another hour. She wouldn’t be here yet.” She touched the badge on his chest with a manicured nail and looked up at him. “Are you busy?”

“I’m always busy,” stated Zane, staring at her lipstick. He didn’t know much about makeup, but surely eight a.m. was a bit early for fire-engine-red lips?

“I was just wondering what you’d found out about that poor teenager that died the other night.”

Zane’s senses went on high alert.
Why does Katelyn care?
“Did you know him?”

“I knew his mother at one point.”

We went to school together.

“We went to school together,” she added. “It’s soooo sad.” Her previously happy face turned pitiful.

Zane’s stomach twisted at her acting ability. “We don’t know much yet. I can tell you he wasn’t drunk.”

“Oh, well, that’s good, I guess. I’d hate to think that alcohol caused something like that.”

Zane looked at her expectantly. He was done handing out gossip.

Katelyn gave him a slow seductive smile. She was a pretty girl. It was too bad her personality and brain weren’t as pretty. “Are you going to the Memorial Day gathering today at the park?”

“I’ll be working it,” he answered, which wasn’t quite true. Technically he would be off duty by the time the gathering happened, after the parade. The event would have a live band, dancing, and food.

“Oh.” She pouted. “Well, I’ll look for you. Surely no one can complain if you take the time for a dance.”

“We’ll see.” He curved his mouth in an auto-reply smile.

“Well, maybe you could stop by the resort some time and see all the progress we’ve made. We’re hoping to be open for Christmas. I can’t wait to see the hotel decorated for the holidays. People are going to love it.”

Katelyn’s “job” was that of resort restoration manager. Zane wasn’t too sure how much work she actually did. He suspected Faye did most of the supervising of the work and the hiring of the contractors. Katelyn probably picked the colors.

“I’ve heard it’s looking great. Your father would be proud.”

A shadow crossed Katelyn’s face. Her father had died a decade ago, leaving the family grasping to take up the reins of his businesses and forced to sell most of the land. Two years ago Faye had announced her plan to build a resort on the remaining acres that would capitalize on the beauty of the surrounding forest and river. The family had never been in the hospitality business. Their reputation had been in logging and forest management, but that industry had slowed to a crawl. Zane hoped the new business would get rid of the worry lines on Faye’s face.

“Have you seen James this morning?” Katelyn’s focus seemed to waver, and she flipped off the seduction headlights beaming from her eyes.

Again, Zane was stunned at her ability to shift her emotions. Not emotions; they were simply actions she used to achieve her goals. He feared for James. Was he next in the spotlight? Usually Katelyn stuck to unmarried men, but not always.

“Um . . . I saw him earlier. I think he was going to run back home for something.”

“I’ll check his office.” She turned on a spiked heel and vanished.

Zane rubbed at the back of his neck. What had just happened? Had she gotten what she came for? Or had he successfully deflected her? He mentally reviewed their conversation, making certain he hadn’t made some sort of commitment to meeting up later.

He’d caught Stevie’s deflection of Eric last night. After the singing, Zane had been helping Patsy clean up in the kitchen when he’d nearly walked in on Eric and Stevie in her mother’s walk-in pantry. He’d heard Eric’s voice and halted before he crashed the quiet meeting. Eric was asking her to dinner. Stevie hadn’t jumped at the opportunity. She’d put him off, her voice too low for Zane to make out the words, but he could tell by Eric’s pressing questions that he wasn’t getting the answer he wanted. Zane had quietly walked backward into the kitchen and had been looking in a cupboard when they came out.

Body language had told him Eric hadn’t been successful.

So did that mean Stevie wasn’t interested in dating or wasn’t interested in Eric?

None of my business.

Then why did he feel a need to see how she would react to his own interest?

Dating Stevie was wrong in too many ways. He was her boss; they shouldn’t date.

No question.

His stomach churned. Doing the right thing wasn’t sitting well. And he had an overwhelming sense that he would be passing up a rare opportunity.

The only rules Big Bill had made about women referred to the public: Don’t hit on the women you’re helping or I’ll kick your ass. Don’t fall for the women attracted to the uniform or I’ll kick your ass.

There hadn’t been a woman officer in Solitude. Ever.

What would Bill think of Zane dating his daughter?

He let that thought tumble around in his brain for a while. Patsy liked him. She’d made that clear. Zane had no doubt she’d accept him dating her daughter.

Would Stevie turn him down like she had Eric?

Stevie backed her car out of Mrs. Simmons’s driveway, a huge grin on her face. No one had broken into the home. A giant rotted tree branch on the ground outside her window had answered the mystery of how the window had been broken. Mrs. Simmons had accepted the funnel and held it to her ear before Stevie had even said a word. When she’d commented that she needed to buy one of her own, Stevie told her to keep it. She’d pick up another at the hardware store. Make that several. She’d stick one in each car and stash a few extras in the office. Surely Mrs. Simmons wasn’t the only one around Solitude with poor hearing.

She slammed on her brakes and gasped as a shiny black truck laid on its horn, flying past her a split second before she backed into the street.

If I hadn’t been paying attention . . .

The truck hadn’t even slowed. She’d caught a glimpse of a familiar face as he swore at her out his open window.

It was the guy Kenny had brought in yesterday morning . . . Ted Warner. The one Kenny was afraid had been about to hit his kid. After Ted’s arrest, he probably didn’t have much patience with the Solitude police force.

She took a deep breath, checked both directions, and backed out. She could see the truck far ahead. Perversely she stepped on the gas, wanting to scare him a bit. Nothing hit the pit of your stomach like the sight of a cop car in your rearview mirror. He wasn’t speeding much. Perhaps five miles an hour over the forty-five speed limit. Not enough for her to pull him over. Sunlight bounced off his bumper and momentarily blinded her. She got close enough to see his plate and backed off.

Nice truck.

Small Town Rule #3: New car? Things must be going well.

She followed for another minute, hanging back until he pulled into a long dirt driveway. Stevie slowed down, eyed the mailbox number, and studied the tiny home set back from the road. It was a double-wide trailer. It’d probably been new and fresh at one point, but now it screamed neglect. In one long glance she saw it needed paint, new steps, new roof, and many hours of a gardener’s attention.

She continued another half mile down the road and pulled off to the side, punching his plate into her computer. The truck was the current model year and registered to Ted Warner at the address she’d just passed.

A lot of people bought new cars. But something had been said yesterday morning when they were all at the police station that had given Stevie the impression that Ted didn’t work. Perhaps Loretta brought home the bacon? Still, the sight of the new truck bothered her. She made a U-turn and drove past the home again. This time she spotted the big barn set back from the home, and the familiarity of the shape of the building kicked her in the chest like sharp heartburn.

It looks like . . .

She blocked it out of her mind and focused on the road. Sweat bloomed in her armpits. Coincidence. A lot of homes had outbuildings just like that. Especially here where most of the homes sat on isolated five-acre lots. There were probably fifty homes in a ten-mile radius that had the exact same setup as Ted Warner’s.

But there hadn’t been many in LA. Real estate was hard to come by. And the rich had snapped up the spacious lots, leaving few run-down, pathetic-looking homes sitting on smaller acreage in her patrol area.

She’d been the first to arrive at the LA address at the request of dispatch. According to dispatch, Officer Paul Verde wasn’t responding to radio calls since he’d called in his arrival at the address. Paul’s patrol car was parked to one side of the long driveway. Paul had been responding to a strange-odor complaint from a delivery service. Stevie had arrived, notified dispatch of her arrival, and waited for backup, but she hadn’t seen Paul.

It’d been a squat-looking house, desperately in need of some TLC, with a large barn set back and to one side, just visible from Stevie’s position.

Exactly like the setup of Ted Warner’s place.

She’d stepped out of her vehicle and hollered for Paul. The lot had been silent. No one came to the front of the home. She went up and knocked on the door, peeked in a few windows. She didn’t see any signs of life. She went back to her car and radioed dispatch.