Denim Detective Read online

  Ten minutes to the second, she and Beau descended the stairs. He seemed as tense as she, as if he were ready to take on the world—should the need arise. The realization saddened her. Dinner in one’s own home shouldn’t be a battleground, but a comfortable place to enjoy the fruits of daily labor, the company of loved ones. Beau’s tension reinforced her conviction that she was pulling this family apart. In her experience, once that kind of fissure began nothing could heal it.

  But maybe she could slow it down a bit.

  The aroma of something spicy stole through the lower level, guiding them toward the dining room. Sean was already seated, napkin tucked into the collar of his crisp chambray shirt like a baby’s bib. Her baby’s bib. Pilar bustled into the room and set hot plates on trivets. She didn’t glance at Deedra. Obviously, she had also heard about Dupont’s.

  Deedra decided to defuse the situation, if possible. “It smells delicious, Pilar. I’m sorry we kept you both waiting.”

  Sean only grunted, but the apology took the housekeeper by surprise. She acknowledged it with a small smile and thanked Deedra. “Oh, my. You fix hair color. I like.”

  Even Sean gave his grudging approval.

  Deedra forced a smile and lifted her fork, but she had no appetite. She couldn’t sit in this room without seeing Callie in her high chair. Of course the high chair had been removed, but the memory couldn’t be carried out of her head and stored in the shed. Nor could what she’d done this afternoon, what she’d felt.

  For a few hours today she’d allowed Beau to pull her out of herself, to push away the day’s events. She hadn’t had to examine how easily she’d fallen into believing that Callie lived. But the reprieve had run out. She spent the next half hour moving her food around on her plate and mulling over the incident in Dupont’s. That she could so easily buy into Callie being alive and well, hidden somewhere in this small town…that she could so easily abandon her own sanity, terrified her. One way or another she had to accept her daughter’s death. Or she’d lose her mind.

  And Beau.

  After the meal Sean asked Beau to stay and join him for a glass of whiskey. Deedra didn’t like leaving Beau to explain her behavior to his uncle, but he insisted. In the kitchen she helped Pilar put away the leftovers and load the dishwasher. The task seemed exhausting, and she realized it wasn’t the kitchen chores that had zapped her energy, but the letting go, at long last, of the hope that Callie lived. The sense she’d had of feeling good earlier was gone. She wanted nothing more at the moment than to crawl into bed and let Beau hold her, comfort her, grieve with her.

  She bade Pilar good-night and shuffled into the hallway. Cigar smoke floated on the air. Catching her name coming from the dining room, she hesitated. Had one of the men called to her? She started to answer, then heard Sean say, “…Deedra let you think she might be dead, son. For two months. That ain’t right thinkin’.”

  “Someone was trying to kill her,” Beau said. “Is still trying to kill her.”

  “Why? What’s she done that someone wants her dead? Have you asked her that?”

  “It has nothing to do with Dee. But with me.”

  “You? Someone you put in jail or somethin’?”

  “It’s too much to go into right now.”

  “Hell’s bells, boy, she comes waltzin’ back in here, crookin’ her finger and leadin’ you around like a little puppy dog. Comes a time a man needs to think with his brains and not with what’s stirrin’ in his pants.”

  “That’s enough, Sean.” Beau’s chair scraped back on the hardwood floor.

  “You shoulda hooked up with Cassidy,” Sean said. “She’s as easy on the eyes as they come, and she’d give you some big, scrappin’ sons to carry on the Shanahan name.”

  As though he’d stuck a knife hilt-deep into her very soul, Deedra stumbled back, pain radiating the length of her. She fled to the stairs, her heart shriveling in her chest. She’d lost the only baby she could ever give Beau. There would be no “big, scrappin’ sons,” no Shanahan heirs as long as he stayed married to her. Beau would be the end of his line. The last of the Shanahan clan. For Beau that would be as big a tragedy as losing Callie had been.

  As if lightning had slashed before her eyes, shattering the warm illusions of the afternoon with Beau, she suffered a stunning realization. She swayed with the shock. Though she hadn’t consciously given her heart to Beau, he’d laid claim to it. All of it. Oh, God, help me. The pounding against her ribs felt as if the vital organ in question was trying to escape from her chest. She loved Beau. Loved him with every ounce of her being. Loved him so much she could not allow him to go through his life without being a father, without the family he deserved, without “scrappin’ sons” and more daughters.

  She loved him enough to give him up.

  She jammed her fists against the tears filling her eyes. No. She wouldn’t cry. Wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. Wouldn’t let Beau see or guess the depth of her distress. She hugged herself against the heartache. Her back began to throb.

  She was just swallowing two of her pills when Beau arrived.

  “There you are,” he said, grinning like a child delighted to see its favorite toy.

  Her pulse skipped faster at the sight of him, too. An unbidden smile sprang to her lips. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on, a visual pleasure to behold, but that was merely the shell. The inner man was the beautiful one, the one who had stolen her heart, branded her soul. He’d done it with such gentleness, such ingenuousness, he’d taken her unaware.

  “You feeling okay?” Concern narrowed his green eyes as he studied her. “You look kind of pale.”

  “It’s nothing.” I was just thinking about Callie. And you. She left the bathroom light on, but doused the bedroom lights and threw open the French doors to the balcony, welcoming the soft breeze of tepid evening air against her face. The night was dark, moonless, and she could barely make out the wrought-iron furniture on the deck. Aware that the light behind them made them perfect targets for the sniper, she hovered at the jamb, safe in the shadows of the bedroom.

  Beau came up behind her. “God, but I’ve missed you. I want to drag you back to bed and show you how much.”

  He smelled of whiskey, cigar and the special scent that was his alone and that always drew her to him even though she knew she should resist, especially now that she knew she’d soon be leaving for good. But her skin shivered where he kissed her neck and future heartache seemed light-years away.

  But she was wrong. As she leaned back into him, the bedside phone rang. Shrill and demanding, it startled Deedra, though she couldn’t say why.

  Chapter Eleven

  The day-care house in Butte looked like an exploded toy box. Stuffed animals, dolls, tricycles, rainbow-hued buckets and tiny trucks were strewn from one end of the yard to the other. But the favorite was the overturned wagon with the bunny sprawled beside it.

  Just the way Callie Shanahan’s bunny had sprawled beside the overturned Jeep.

  Too bad Deedra hadn’t died in that damned accident. She should have. She’d seemed to be slipping away. Her pulse all but impossible to find. If someone hadn’t come along so soon, time would have finished her off. Or one of the nocturnal predators drawn by the scent of her blood.

  Then Beau Shanahan’s misery would have been complete.

  Then his wife wouldn’t have run away to Washington and made it necessary to silence the loose end hiding inside this damned daycare. The way her son had been silenced. Waiting for darkness had fried nerves already seared with impatience. But once it began its descent, night came quick and black.

  The sniper pulled the pistol from the glovebox and added the silencer. No rifle for this kill. It would be up close and personal. Face-to-face. The old woman had to pay for the days wasted watching the house to determine whether she was there or not.

  But for all the old lady’s precautions—no lights, no smoke from the chimney, no taking out of the garbage, no trips to the grocers—she�
��d finally made a fatal mistake and peeked out from behind the curtain of an upper window. Finally shown her pinched and frightened face.

  Foolish crone thought hiding in the trilevel would keep her safe. The sniper smirked and patted a front pants pocket, fingers grazing the bump of metal there. Nell Carter’s spare house key. It had been easily located. Her phone easily monitored. “Thank you, God, for spy technology.”

  Amazingly the old gal hadn’t called the police about the woman who’d come looking for her son. But she would. Eventually. The sniper slammed the clip into the gun; the accompanying clink seemed loud inside the cab of the pickup. Louder than the shot would be.

  Five feet ahead a streetlight came on giving the sniper pause, even though precautions had been taken. The windows of the truck were blacked out, making seeing into the cab all but impossible. The license plates wore a coating of mud that obscured the numbers. Of course, there was always the unexpected—say, a neighbor noticing the truck didn’t belong to any of the residents on this street and calling the cops. It seemed a minor concern, though, given most of the neighborhood pushed seventy and retired before dark.

  The sniper groped for the Dupont’s shopping bag between the bucket seats. Its paper crackle was reassuring, and it roused the memory of Deedra falling apart today in the department store. The sniper laughed with glee.

  Couldn’t have orchestrated her descent into emotional hell better myself. Vengeance was proving to be sweeter than expected.

  The telephone-listening device beeped, breaking the jolly mood. Beau Shanahan’s home number appeared on the readout. So, the little mouse in the hole had finally found her nerve. “It’s showtime.”

  The door of the pickup slipped open. The sniper stepped out, gun in pants waistband. The Dupont’s sack held tight. Inside the shopping bag: a nasty surprise for Deedra.

  Chapter Twelve

  Deedra hurried to answer the phone. “Hello?”

  “Deedra? Is that you?”

  The woman spoke so quietly she didn’t recognize the voice.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s me, Nell Carter.”

  Oh, God, Nell. She’d forgotten to tell Beau about her urgent messages. He was staring at her now, wanting to know who it was.

  “I saw you at my house the other day,” Nell said. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer the door. I just couldn’t.”

  A wealth of guilt hit Deedra. She should have called Nell before this. Sent flowers. Gone back to visit her after hearing about Freddie’s murder. Should have made sure Beau called her back sometime today. She started to offer her condolences.

  Nell cut her off. “I need to speak with your husband. Right now.”

  Beau mouthed, Who is it?

  Deedra placed her hand over the receiver. “Freddie’s mom.”

  He nodded and signaled that he’d leave her alone to talk in private.

  She caught his arm. “No, Beau. Don’t go. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Me?” He arched an eyebrow, totally puzzled. He could not imagine any subject Freddie Carter’s mother would have to discuss with him. He’d never met her. “Why?”

  “She didn’t tell me.” Deedra shrugged. “But I know she left you two urgent messages today at the office.”

  “Huh?” He thought of the phone messages he’d shoved unread into his desk drawer. “I didn’t get to my messages…”

  “And…I forgot to tell you.” Deedra’s cheeks reddened. She handed him the receiver and sank wearily to the bed.

  He lifted the phone to his ear. “Mrs. Carter, Beau Shanahan. What can I do for you?”

  “That remains to be seen.” Her voice was as delicate as a bird’s cheep. “Without all the children here every day, making so much noise a body can’t hear her own thoughts, I’ve had nothing to do but think.”

  “About what?” Rubbing his leg, he eased onto the bed beside Deedra. She was listening, he noted, to his end of the conversation with rapt curiosity.

  “About my Freddie being run down by that van driver. And now I don’t think it was random.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “And you think you know why?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you presented your theory to the police officer on Freddie’s case?”

  “He isn’t interested, and I’m not going to beg anyone to hear me out. All those cops ever did was hassle my Freddie and his father before him.”

  “So, do you want to tell me?”

  She didn’t answer. There was a pause as if she were drawing in on a cigarette. “I started asking myself why, why Freddie?”

  Myriad reasons popped into Beau’s mind. Freddie Carter had spent his life conning the unsuspecting. Any of his dupes might have sought revenge. But listing motives to his grieving mother would be cruel. Beau kept silent. “Do you think you know why?”

  “You tell me.”

  His eyebrows and his interest stirred. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I figure it might have something to do with why Deedra went missing.”

  He glanced at his wife, his chest tightening at the reminder of that awful time, at the realization that she was about as unstable now as she’d been then. He rubbed his leg harder as if to ease the residual pain in his heart and the immediate ache in his calf. “Why would you think that?”

  “About a week before he was run down, a woman came here looking to find Freddie. He told me later that she’d paid him a nice bit of change for information on Deedra’s whereabouts.”

  Beau’s pulse stumbled, and he stopped stroking his leg. “So, Freddie did tell this woman where to find Deedra?”

  Beside him, Deedra sat straight up, her eyes rounding. He felt sure she had already accepted Freddie’s betrayal, but the confirmation had to wound her. He caught her hand and squeezed it.

  Nell said, “Yes, he did, and since Deedra is home now, I’m assuming the woman found her.”

  “Sort of.” Beau’s guts started to tighten.

  “You know, at the time, I figured you’d hired the woman.” There was another pause and then an exhale like smoke being blown out. “I remember thinking she must be a private investigator or maybe a bounty hunter, since she was driving a pickup truck with one of those gun racks in the window.”

  Beau’s pulse stumbled, his grip on Deedra’s hand tightening. “You saw her truck?”

  “Yes.” Nell took another puff. “I’m sorry that my Freddie helped Deedra disappear.”

  “What kind of truck was she driving?”

  “He was a good son, Mr. Shanahan. But he never got over Deedra marrying you. I think he loved her, but she didn’t love him the same way. He started hating her in the end. It was the drink. I never thought he’d end up a boozer like his father, but he did.”

  “Mrs. Carter. Did you get a good look at the truck? Could you describe it?”

  “Maybe. Though I don’t know one make or model from another. But I need to know a few more things before we go into that.” She drew on her cigarette. “Mr. Shanahan, if it’s not too personal, will you please tell me why Deedra found it necessary to go away and not tell anyone, except Freddie, where she’d be?”

  “Someone is trying to kill her.” Beau struggled to keep the urgency and frustration out of his voice, until it hit him that Nell needed a jolt of reality. She needed to know how dangerous the evidence she possessed might be. “Perhaps the same someone who killed your son.”

  “Then, I don’t suppose you sent this woman to Freddie, did you?”

  “No.”

  There was a chilling silence on her end.

  “The woman,” Beau said, struggling to his feet, excitement ripping through him as he balanced on his cane. “Did she give you a name?”

  Nell laughed, a sharp sarcastic chirp. “Not likely it’d be her real one if she’s a killer, right?”

  “Just the same, if you remember who she said she was, I need to know.” His pulse hammered against his temples.

  “Oh, I remembe
r the name she used. Who wouldn’t? It sounded made up at the time and then I realized why. It was the name of a former first lady. Nancy Davis Reagan. You know any woman with that name?”

  “No.” He was only mildly disappointed. He might not have a name, but he had an eyewitness. “Can you describe her?”

  “My eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I’m not blind.”

  Excitement poured through his limbs. He covered the receiver and told Deedra to dig the tablet and pen from the nightstand. As soon as she had the pen poised over a blank page, he said, “Okay, Mrs. Carter, go ahead.”

  “You don’t understand. You’ve confirmed my worst fears. I thought maybe I was being paranoid these past few days. Thought maybe that really wasn’t her truck I’ve seen cruising past the house. But now I know it is. I don’t want her to know I’m here. I haven’t dared go out. I’m running out of food. I can’t risk having anything delivered. I don’t dare turn on a lamp. Or the TV. Why do you think I’m speaking so low to you?”

  He’d thought her voice birdlike, but understood now that she was talking just above a whisper. He felt sudden fear for her. “Then describe her and the truck to me and—”

  “Oh, my God. There it is.”

  Alarm shot through Beau. “What color is the pickup, Mrs. Carter?”

  “It’s parked two houses down.”

  “We’re on our way. Keep the doors locked and stay out of sight.”

  But the line had gone dead.

  Beau hung up, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He told Deedra the gist of what he’d learned as he dialed Nora Lee’s cell phone and listened to it ring. She finally answered. He filled her in and told her what he wanted. “I know it’s late, but we need to do this tonight. ASAP.”

  “It’s okay, Sheriff. I’m at my Mom’s, just outside of Butte, but I’ve got my charcoals and sketch pad with me. Give me the address and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Be quick about it. I have a feeling we need to get there pronto.”