Standoff, page 11
The chief turned and questioned Clayton with his brows. “How about you? Did you hear anything?”
“I didn’t hang around long enough,” Clayton said. “I wanted to make sure we didn’t have an active shooter.”
“Looked like to me he was shot point-blank,” Luke said.
She thought of her intruder last night. “Maybe the shooter wore a mask.”
Pete held up his hand. “Start at the beginning, and tell me exactly what happened.”
She took a breath and went over the details of the shooting again.
Pete chewed the end of his pen. “Did he say anything that would point to his shooter?”
She shook her head and then glanced across the field to the crime scene. Someone had rigged up a couple of high-powered lights, and the medics were coming toward them with Kyle. If he’d seen who shot him, why hadn’t he given them a name? Brooke sighed. Kyle was one of the good guys and she hoped he didn’t die. When she turned back, Pete was frowning at Luke, but then he looked beyond him as the paramedics approached with the gurney.
“Coming through!”
Pete stopped the lead medic. “Is he going to make it?”
“It’s going to be touch and go,” the medic said and barely paused while the other two hurried toward the ambulance with the stretcher. “His blood pressure is almost nonexistent. I’m afraid he’s bleeding out.”
None of them spoke as he turned and rushed to catch up with the stretcher. Once Kyle was loaded into the ambulance, they slammed the door and pulled away, sirens blasting. Brooke thought of Kyle’s wife, remembering the pain of being told her dad was dead. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
26
Luke’s gaze followed the ambulance as it swung out of the side street and sped toward Highway 84. Another failure to notch into his heart. He shook off the memories. It did no good to revisit the case in Kentucky. Mandated sessions with a psychologist had helped him understand that he wasn’t a hostage negotiator, and he wasn’t responsible for the bad intel that said the drug dealer was alone at the campsite where the deal went down.
He’d learned to accept he’d done everything possible to save the drug dealer’s girlfriend when the man used her as a shield then shot her when she tried to escape. While Luke had come to terms with her death, the scent of burning wood could put him right back at that campsite. He wondered what the trigger for tonight’s memories would be. It seemed everything he touched turned to ashes.
The fading siren sent a shiver down his back. It didn’t look good, but Luke prayed Kyle wouldn’t die. He didn’t know a lot about him, only that he had a wife and sons and grandchildren. Regret pressed on Luke’s heart. Could he have kept this from happening?
His fingers itched to examine in more detail the paper Marlar had slipped him. Evidently Brooke hadn’t seen him press it into Luke’s hand since she hadn’t questioned him about it. He’d gotten a brief look—it appeared to be part of a photograph—like someone had ripped all but the corner from his hand.
What if the shooter had hung around and blended with the crowd? Luke eyed each of the men sitting at the picnic table. He hadn’t ruled out any of them as the shooter. Brooke nudged him and he looked up. Pete was staring expectantly at him.
“Sorry, I missed that,” he said.
Pete flipped through his notebook. “Mind telling me what you’re doing in Natchez?”
“You asked that question last night, and my answer is the same—visiting my grandmother.”
“Just making sure.” The chief wrote something in the notebook. “I heard you were an Army Ranger. Is that true?”
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything. It was years ago.” He frowned. “I hope you’re not thinking I killed Kyle. I don’t know when he was shot, but I had just arrived at Fort Rosalie when the woman screamed.”
“I never said I suspected you. How well did you know Kyle Marlar?”
“I knew his sons better.”
Luke held Pete’s gaze. His old schoolmate seemed anxious to throw suspicion Luke’s way. Why? Maybe because Pete was the guilty culprit? He’d like to know if Pete’s Sig Sauer had been fired tonight. And if he had a suppressor stashed in his patrol car. He glanced down at Pete’s cargo pants. Good place to hide something. Luke glanced toward Clayton and Dale. Both wore their service pistols. Clayton wore shorts with pockets big enough to conceal a silencer. Dale not so much, but his car was bound to be close by. At this point, Luke didn’t trust anyone except Brooke.
Pete tapped his pen against the notebook, then with a nod he snapped it shut. “Both of you come by in the morning and sign a statement. And if you remember anything else, write it down.” He took out his phone, dismissing them.
Brooke turned to Dale. “Are we taking statements from the witnesses?”
“My officers will take care of that,” Pete said, moving the phone away from his ear. “You can get a copy of their reports in the morning.”
“Since you know the woman who found him, why don’t you interview her before you take down the telescopes,” Dale said, shooting a disgruntled look at Pete.
Brooke stood, and Luke said, “I’ll help you.”
“Why?”
He searched for an answer she might buy. “I’m in no hurry to go home. Daisy’s house is so empty without her, I’d rather stay and help you.” And for once, he wasn’t lying.
“I know the feeling.”
Using the light on his phone, he illuminated their path as Brooke walked silently beside him. “Watch the rock,” he said as the light picked up a stone jutting out of the ground. “Did Kyle have any enemies?”
“Not that I know of. I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about Kyle.”
“Was he still working with boys at the community center?”
“He was up until his son died. That hit him hard.”
“Brandon.”
“How did you know about Brandon?”
He scrambled for an answer. “Daisy. She keeps me up-to-date on what’s going on in Natchez.”
“Oh. Speaking of Daisy—I know you didn’t come to Fort Rosalie because she encouraged it, so why were you here tonight?”
He slapped at a mosquito on his arm. Brooke was just as tenacious. “She did encourage me to come.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “And before I forget, I do not appreciate you trying to make Pete think we have some sort of relationship.”
“I didn’t tell Pete we were a couple. If he thinks that—”
“You may not have come right out and said it, but you heavily implied it. Why?”
Because he wanted anyone within hearing distance to know someone was looking out for her. “Would that be such a bad thing?”
“Has it not occurred to you that I might be in a relationship with someone?” she asked.
So she and Jeremy Steele were a couple. Oh man, he’d stepped into it this time. “I’m sorry. I had no right to do that.”
“Thank you.”
“Is it anyone I know?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light. “Like maybe Jeremy Steele?”
She was quiet, keeping her gaze on the ground. “Maybe.”
Brooke didn’t want to talk about it and that meant Jeremy was wasting no time. “Do you think it might turn into something serious?”
Brooke stopped dead still and turned to him. “When you left here without saying good-bye and then didn’t even so much as send a postcard for fourteen years, you lost the right to ask me that kind of question.”
“Touché,” he said, but right now it was important for her safety that he stay close to her. “Can we at least be friends again?”
She looked up at him. “I suppose, since I owe you one for being there for me last night.”
“Good.”
“Did you see Kyle get shot?”
“No. You heard me tell Pete I’d just gotten here when I heard the scream,” Luke said.
“Most people don’t run toward trouble.”
“You ought to know by now I’m not most people.”
She gave him a sour look. “Now how would I know that?”
“Ouch.” He’d hurt Brooke by not contacting her after he left, something he regretted now. But he’d done it for her own good, at least that’s what he kept telling himself. That summer, she had her plans for the future made. It wouldn’t have been fair for him to mess them up, not when he didn’t have a clue who he was or what he wanted from life. And what if it turned out he was like his father? Another ranger approached, saving him from saying more and making things worse.
“Hello, Luke,” she said.
She looked familiar. Shorter than Brooke, curly red hair.
“I see you don’t remember me. Emma Winters—from high school?”
An image popped in his mind. Cheerleader. Brainy. “Oh yeah. Of course. How are you?”
“Been better than tonight.” Emma tucked a strand of her red hair behind her ear and fanned herself with her hat. She turned to Brooke. “People are asking when they can leave. Their kids are getting cranky.”
“Pete Nelson is coming this way,” Luke said. “Maybe you could ask him if they could leave their name with one of the officers and then go by the police department tomorrow and give their statement.”
“Good idea,” Brooke said. “I’ll be right back.”
“You think Kyle will make it?” Emma asked as Brooke walked away.
“I hope so. I always liked him.”
“Me too,” she said. “How long will you be in town?”
Everyone was interested in how long he would be here. “Couple of weeks.”
“Don’t hurt Brooke again.”
The sharp edge to Emma’s voice drew his attention. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve watched you tonight, and you’re all protective, acting like you care.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “She could have a good thing with Jeremy Steele. Don’t mess it up.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“It doesn’t look that way to me,” she said. “You hurt her when you left town that summer without so much as a ‘so long, have a good life.’”
“I was young and didn’t think. And I’ve apologized.”
She placed her hand on her hip and shook her head. “And you think now that you’ve apologized everything will be fine? That you can pick up where you left off?”
“One kiss, that’s all we ever had.”
“Men,” she said and held her finger up. “I’m warning you, don’t get in the middle of Brooke and Jeremy.”
He’d had enough of her lecture. “If me being here interferes with their relationship, then maybe he isn’t the right person for her.”
“And you are?”
Before Luke came up with a snappy comeback, Pete and Brooke approached.
“Can I have your attention?” Pete asked, raising his voice. “I’m going to let you give your name and contact information to one of my officers, and then you can leave. Appreciate it if you’d drop by the office tomorrow and give your statement, but if not, we’ll be in contact.”
A collective sigh went through the crowd, and Brooke walked back to join them. “That was a good idea,” she said.
“Just made sense,” Luke said. From the questioning way she looked at him, he should have kept it to himself. “Let’s get the telescopes loaded.”
“Emma,” Brooke said, “would you help him while I interview the woman who found Kyle?”
“You want us to put everything in my truck?” Emma asked.
“If you don’t mind.”
They avoided further conversation about Brooke, and by the time he and Emma had the telescopes loaded in her little pickup, Brooke had finished questioning her witness and rejoined them.
Luke closed the hatch and dusted his hands. Even with low lighting, he couldn’t help but notice the dark circles shadowing Brooke’s eyes. “You’re tired,” he said. “Why don’t you let me drive you home? We can pick up my car tomorrow.”
“I can take her home,” Emma said with a sharp glance at him.
Brooke waved Emma off. “You live in the opposite direction. Besides, I’m going to the hospital to check on Kyle, and I can get there on my own.”
He wasn’t about to let her leave by herself. “Can I tag along with you?”
Brooke hesitated. “Tell me again why you’re so interested in Kyle.”
“It’s like we made a connection,” he said, which wasn’t a lie.
Her face softened. “I guess I can understand that. Sure, you can join me.”
“Let me grab another shirt,” he said and hurried to his Jeep. Once he slipped on another pullover, he rejoined them.
“You keep shirts in your car?” Brooke asked.
“Usually at least one.” He always kept a “go bag” in his car in case he had to leave a place in a hurry.
“Do you want me to come with you to the hospital?” Emma asked.
“No need in both of us losing sleep,” Brooke replied. “I’ll call you tomorrow about working out.”
“Would you like me to drive?” Luke asked.
“Not hardly.”
“You mean hardly.”
“No. Not hardly—double negative for emphasis, meaning I definitely do not want you to drive.”
“Aw, come on. You look exhausted,” Luke said, “and I’m a good driver.”
She rubbed the back of her neck and then pulled her keys out of her pocket and tossed them to him.
He caught the keys and at the same time didn’t miss the warning Emma shot him.
27
He’d played it all wrong. He should’ve known there were more photos. Showed you couldn’t trust an honest man. And how did Kyle Marlar make it to the edge of the clearing? He’d left him for dead a good hundred yards from where that woman found him.
How did it go so wrong? What if Marlar had told Brooke Danvers who shot him? No, he would already be in jail if that had happened. But he’d watched as she leaned over the man . . . Marlar told her something.
Maybe it was nothing.
He couldn’t take that chance. He had to get rid of her.
He released the death grip on the steering wheel and fished the suppressor from his console, almost dropping it. With shaky fingers, he screwed the suppressor to the barrel of the automatic and placed it on the passenger seat. Just follow her and—
No! Why was Luke Fereday getting in the car with her? He forced calm through his body. He couldn’t afford to panic. Just add Fereday to the casualty list. What was one more body now?
28
Brooke wasn’t accustomed to riding in the passenger seat. Luke driving her car was even stranger. It was as though the years just disappeared . . . except some of his actions raised questions. She did not buy that he’d been at Fort Rosalie because Daisy encouraged it or to see her. He hadn’t made the effort in fourteen years.
And by tomorrow, with Natchez being Natchez, Jeremy would hear that she’d left Fort Rosalie with Luke. She had to make sure he knew Luke was only a friend. Brooke swayed against the seat belt as Luke turned onto Highway 84. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not who you claim to be?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Luke’s voice was cautious.
“Nothing adds up. You just happen to knock on my door last night and then happen to be at Fort Rosalie when Kyle Marlar gets shot. Then your suggestion that everyone give their statement later . . . it doesn’t fit the image I have of a bartender.”
“Coincidence and common sense, and don’t forget I was an Army Ranger,” he said. “I’m surprised that you’re allowing me to drive. You’re such a control freak when it comes to your car.”
She pressed her lips together. He didn’t know anything about her, not after ignoring her all these years. “Who told you I was a control freak?”
“No one had to. I remember when you got your first car—you wouldn’t let anyone else drive it. I assume you haven’t changed.”
He remembered that? “There was a reason for that,” she said. “Insurance. My dad would have skinned me alive if he caught anyone else behind the wheel.”
Luke laughed. “You always were the one who followed the rules.”
“And you never did. Rules were for someone else,” she said.
“Did you learn anything from your friend who found Kyle?”
There he went again, sounding more like a cop than bartender. Was it because of his army background? “There wasn’t anything to learn. She had wandered to the river bluff and gotten turned around when she found Kyle.”
“Did she see anyone else?”
“No.” The memory of Kyle lying on the ground, blood staining his shirt, was one Brooke would never forget. Was there anything she had missed? Pete had secured the area and called off the search for clues until morning, and she planned to be there tomorrow when they returned to comb the area.
“I hear your wheels turning over there,” Luke said.
It was funny how some things never changed. He’d always sensed her moods, and she managed the ghost of a smile. “I was going over what happened tonight.”
“I’m a good listener if you need to bounce ideas off someone.”
Brooke hesitated. After the interview with Anna, she’d run an idea by Dale, but he hadn’t thought much of it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get shot down again. But Luke was an outsider. He might not think her idea was so crazy. “Do you think Kyle could have been trying to tell me something when he said he was sorry about my dad? He’d told me that already at the funeral home.”
Unlike Dale, Luke actually seemed to consider her question before he nodded.
“He knew his condition was critical, and that makes what he said important. What else did he say?”
She’d been puzzling over his comment about not trusting anyone. Did she really want to discuss it with Luke? She did trust him, and evidently her dad did as well to discuss things like her career moves with him. What else had they discussed? “Did you and Dad ever talk about his work?”
He flipped the turn signal on. “Sometimes. With my background in the army, your dad felt he could talk to me, and I occasionally helped him think a problem through. Why?”
“I didn’t hang around long enough,” Clayton said. “I wanted to make sure we didn’t have an active shooter.”
“Looked like to me he was shot point-blank,” Luke said.
She thought of her intruder last night. “Maybe the shooter wore a mask.”
Pete held up his hand. “Start at the beginning, and tell me exactly what happened.”
She took a breath and went over the details of the shooting again.
Pete chewed the end of his pen. “Did he say anything that would point to his shooter?”
She shook her head and then glanced across the field to the crime scene. Someone had rigged up a couple of high-powered lights, and the medics were coming toward them with Kyle. If he’d seen who shot him, why hadn’t he given them a name? Brooke sighed. Kyle was one of the good guys and she hoped he didn’t die. When she turned back, Pete was frowning at Luke, but then he looked beyond him as the paramedics approached with the gurney.
“Coming through!”
Pete stopped the lead medic. “Is he going to make it?”
“It’s going to be touch and go,” the medic said and barely paused while the other two hurried toward the ambulance with the stretcher. “His blood pressure is almost nonexistent. I’m afraid he’s bleeding out.”
None of them spoke as he turned and rushed to catch up with the stretcher. Once Kyle was loaded into the ambulance, they slammed the door and pulled away, sirens blasting. Brooke thought of Kyle’s wife, remembering the pain of being told her dad was dead. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
26
Luke’s gaze followed the ambulance as it swung out of the side street and sped toward Highway 84. Another failure to notch into his heart. He shook off the memories. It did no good to revisit the case in Kentucky. Mandated sessions with a psychologist had helped him understand that he wasn’t a hostage negotiator, and he wasn’t responsible for the bad intel that said the drug dealer was alone at the campsite where the deal went down.
He’d learned to accept he’d done everything possible to save the drug dealer’s girlfriend when the man used her as a shield then shot her when she tried to escape. While Luke had come to terms with her death, the scent of burning wood could put him right back at that campsite. He wondered what the trigger for tonight’s memories would be. It seemed everything he touched turned to ashes.
The fading siren sent a shiver down his back. It didn’t look good, but Luke prayed Kyle wouldn’t die. He didn’t know a lot about him, only that he had a wife and sons and grandchildren. Regret pressed on Luke’s heart. Could he have kept this from happening?
His fingers itched to examine in more detail the paper Marlar had slipped him. Evidently Brooke hadn’t seen him press it into Luke’s hand since she hadn’t questioned him about it. He’d gotten a brief look—it appeared to be part of a photograph—like someone had ripped all but the corner from his hand.
What if the shooter had hung around and blended with the crowd? Luke eyed each of the men sitting at the picnic table. He hadn’t ruled out any of them as the shooter. Brooke nudged him and he looked up. Pete was staring expectantly at him.
“Sorry, I missed that,” he said.
Pete flipped through his notebook. “Mind telling me what you’re doing in Natchez?”
“You asked that question last night, and my answer is the same—visiting my grandmother.”
“Just making sure.” The chief wrote something in the notebook. “I heard you were an Army Ranger. Is that true?”
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything. It was years ago.” He frowned. “I hope you’re not thinking I killed Kyle. I don’t know when he was shot, but I had just arrived at Fort Rosalie when the woman screamed.”
“I never said I suspected you. How well did you know Kyle Marlar?”
“I knew his sons better.”
Luke held Pete’s gaze. His old schoolmate seemed anxious to throw suspicion Luke’s way. Why? Maybe because Pete was the guilty culprit? He’d like to know if Pete’s Sig Sauer had been fired tonight. And if he had a suppressor stashed in his patrol car. He glanced down at Pete’s cargo pants. Good place to hide something. Luke glanced toward Clayton and Dale. Both wore their service pistols. Clayton wore shorts with pockets big enough to conceal a silencer. Dale not so much, but his car was bound to be close by. At this point, Luke didn’t trust anyone except Brooke.
Pete tapped his pen against the notebook, then with a nod he snapped it shut. “Both of you come by in the morning and sign a statement. And if you remember anything else, write it down.” He took out his phone, dismissing them.
Brooke turned to Dale. “Are we taking statements from the witnesses?”
“My officers will take care of that,” Pete said, moving the phone away from his ear. “You can get a copy of their reports in the morning.”
“Since you know the woman who found him, why don’t you interview her before you take down the telescopes,” Dale said, shooting a disgruntled look at Pete.
Brooke stood, and Luke said, “I’ll help you.”
“Why?”
He searched for an answer she might buy. “I’m in no hurry to go home. Daisy’s house is so empty without her, I’d rather stay and help you.” And for once, he wasn’t lying.
“I know the feeling.”
Using the light on his phone, he illuminated their path as Brooke walked silently beside him. “Watch the rock,” he said as the light picked up a stone jutting out of the ground. “Did Kyle have any enemies?”
“Not that I know of. I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about Kyle.”
“Was he still working with boys at the community center?”
“He was up until his son died. That hit him hard.”
“Brandon.”
“How did you know about Brandon?”
He scrambled for an answer. “Daisy. She keeps me up-to-date on what’s going on in Natchez.”
“Oh. Speaking of Daisy—I know you didn’t come to Fort Rosalie because she encouraged it, so why were you here tonight?”
He slapped at a mosquito on his arm. Brooke was just as tenacious. “She did encourage me to come.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “And before I forget, I do not appreciate you trying to make Pete think we have some sort of relationship.”
“I didn’t tell Pete we were a couple. If he thinks that—”
“You may not have come right out and said it, but you heavily implied it. Why?”
Because he wanted anyone within hearing distance to know someone was looking out for her. “Would that be such a bad thing?”
“Has it not occurred to you that I might be in a relationship with someone?” she asked.
So she and Jeremy Steele were a couple. Oh man, he’d stepped into it this time. “I’m sorry. I had no right to do that.”
“Thank you.”
“Is it anyone I know?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light. “Like maybe Jeremy Steele?”
She was quiet, keeping her gaze on the ground. “Maybe.”
Brooke didn’t want to talk about it and that meant Jeremy was wasting no time. “Do you think it might turn into something serious?”
Brooke stopped dead still and turned to him. “When you left here without saying good-bye and then didn’t even so much as send a postcard for fourteen years, you lost the right to ask me that kind of question.”
“Touché,” he said, but right now it was important for her safety that he stay close to her. “Can we at least be friends again?”
She looked up at him. “I suppose, since I owe you one for being there for me last night.”
“Good.”
“Did you see Kyle get shot?”
“No. You heard me tell Pete I’d just gotten here when I heard the scream,” Luke said.
“Most people don’t run toward trouble.”
“You ought to know by now I’m not most people.”
She gave him a sour look. “Now how would I know that?”
“Ouch.” He’d hurt Brooke by not contacting her after he left, something he regretted now. But he’d done it for her own good, at least that’s what he kept telling himself. That summer, she had her plans for the future made. It wouldn’t have been fair for him to mess them up, not when he didn’t have a clue who he was or what he wanted from life. And what if it turned out he was like his father? Another ranger approached, saving him from saying more and making things worse.
“Hello, Luke,” she said.
She looked familiar. Shorter than Brooke, curly red hair.
“I see you don’t remember me. Emma Winters—from high school?”
An image popped in his mind. Cheerleader. Brainy. “Oh yeah. Of course. How are you?”
“Been better than tonight.” Emma tucked a strand of her red hair behind her ear and fanned herself with her hat. She turned to Brooke. “People are asking when they can leave. Their kids are getting cranky.”
“Pete Nelson is coming this way,” Luke said. “Maybe you could ask him if they could leave their name with one of the officers and then go by the police department tomorrow and give their statement.”
“Good idea,” Brooke said. “I’ll be right back.”
“You think Kyle will make it?” Emma asked as Brooke walked away.
“I hope so. I always liked him.”
“Me too,” she said. “How long will you be in town?”
Everyone was interested in how long he would be here. “Couple of weeks.”
“Don’t hurt Brooke again.”
The sharp edge to Emma’s voice drew his attention. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve watched you tonight, and you’re all protective, acting like you care.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “She could have a good thing with Jeremy Steele. Don’t mess it up.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“It doesn’t look that way to me,” she said. “You hurt her when you left town that summer without so much as a ‘so long, have a good life.’”
“I was young and didn’t think. And I’ve apologized.”
She placed her hand on her hip and shook her head. “And you think now that you’ve apologized everything will be fine? That you can pick up where you left off?”
“One kiss, that’s all we ever had.”
“Men,” she said and held her finger up. “I’m warning you, don’t get in the middle of Brooke and Jeremy.”
He’d had enough of her lecture. “If me being here interferes with their relationship, then maybe he isn’t the right person for her.”
“And you are?”
Before Luke came up with a snappy comeback, Pete and Brooke approached.
“Can I have your attention?” Pete asked, raising his voice. “I’m going to let you give your name and contact information to one of my officers, and then you can leave. Appreciate it if you’d drop by the office tomorrow and give your statement, but if not, we’ll be in contact.”
A collective sigh went through the crowd, and Brooke walked back to join them. “That was a good idea,” she said.
“Just made sense,” Luke said. From the questioning way she looked at him, he should have kept it to himself. “Let’s get the telescopes loaded.”
“Emma,” Brooke said, “would you help him while I interview the woman who found Kyle?”
“You want us to put everything in my truck?” Emma asked.
“If you don’t mind.”
They avoided further conversation about Brooke, and by the time he and Emma had the telescopes loaded in her little pickup, Brooke had finished questioning her witness and rejoined them.
Luke closed the hatch and dusted his hands. Even with low lighting, he couldn’t help but notice the dark circles shadowing Brooke’s eyes. “You’re tired,” he said. “Why don’t you let me drive you home? We can pick up my car tomorrow.”
“I can take her home,” Emma said with a sharp glance at him.
Brooke waved Emma off. “You live in the opposite direction. Besides, I’m going to the hospital to check on Kyle, and I can get there on my own.”
He wasn’t about to let her leave by herself. “Can I tag along with you?”
Brooke hesitated. “Tell me again why you’re so interested in Kyle.”
“It’s like we made a connection,” he said, which wasn’t a lie.
Her face softened. “I guess I can understand that. Sure, you can join me.”
“Let me grab another shirt,” he said and hurried to his Jeep. Once he slipped on another pullover, he rejoined them.
“You keep shirts in your car?” Brooke asked.
“Usually at least one.” He always kept a “go bag” in his car in case he had to leave a place in a hurry.
“Do you want me to come with you to the hospital?” Emma asked.
“No need in both of us losing sleep,” Brooke replied. “I’ll call you tomorrow about working out.”
“Would you like me to drive?” Luke asked.
“Not hardly.”
“You mean hardly.”
“No. Not hardly—double negative for emphasis, meaning I definitely do not want you to drive.”
“Aw, come on. You look exhausted,” Luke said, “and I’m a good driver.”
She rubbed the back of her neck and then pulled her keys out of her pocket and tossed them to him.
He caught the keys and at the same time didn’t miss the warning Emma shot him.
27
He’d played it all wrong. He should’ve known there were more photos. Showed you couldn’t trust an honest man. And how did Kyle Marlar make it to the edge of the clearing? He’d left him for dead a good hundred yards from where that woman found him.
How did it go so wrong? What if Marlar had told Brooke Danvers who shot him? No, he would already be in jail if that had happened. But he’d watched as she leaned over the man . . . Marlar told her something.
Maybe it was nothing.
He couldn’t take that chance. He had to get rid of her.
He released the death grip on the steering wheel and fished the suppressor from his console, almost dropping it. With shaky fingers, he screwed the suppressor to the barrel of the automatic and placed it on the passenger seat. Just follow her and—
No! Why was Luke Fereday getting in the car with her? He forced calm through his body. He couldn’t afford to panic. Just add Fereday to the casualty list. What was one more body now?
28
Brooke wasn’t accustomed to riding in the passenger seat. Luke driving her car was even stranger. It was as though the years just disappeared . . . except some of his actions raised questions. She did not buy that he’d been at Fort Rosalie because Daisy encouraged it or to see her. He hadn’t made the effort in fourteen years.
And by tomorrow, with Natchez being Natchez, Jeremy would hear that she’d left Fort Rosalie with Luke. She had to make sure he knew Luke was only a friend. Brooke swayed against the seat belt as Luke turned onto Highway 84. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not who you claim to be?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Luke’s voice was cautious.
“Nothing adds up. You just happen to knock on my door last night and then happen to be at Fort Rosalie when Kyle Marlar gets shot. Then your suggestion that everyone give their statement later . . . it doesn’t fit the image I have of a bartender.”
“Coincidence and common sense, and don’t forget I was an Army Ranger,” he said. “I’m surprised that you’re allowing me to drive. You’re such a control freak when it comes to your car.”
She pressed her lips together. He didn’t know anything about her, not after ignoring her all these years. “Who told you I was a control freak?”
“No one had to. I remember when you got your first car—you wouldn’t let anyone else drive it. I assume you haven’t changed.”
He remembered that? “There was a reason for that,” she said. “Insurance. My dad would have skinned me alive if he caught anyone else behind the wheel.”
Luke laughed. “You always were the one who followed the rules.”
“And you never did. Rules were for someone else,” she said.
“Did you learn anything from your friend who found Kyle?”
There he went again, sounding more like a cop than bartender. Was it because of his army background? “There wasn’t anything to learn. She had wandered to the river bluff and gotten turned around when she found Kyle.”
“Did she see anyone else?”
“No.” The memory of Kyle lying on the ground, blood staining his shirt, was one Brooke would never forget. Was there anything she had missed? Pete had secured the area and called off the search for clues until morning, and she planned to be there tomorrow when they returned to comb the area.
“I hear your wheels turning over there,” Luke said.
It was funny how some things never changed. He’d always sensed her moods, and she managed the ghost of a smile. “I was going over what happened tonight.”
“I’m a good listener if you need to bounce ideas off someone.”
Brooke hesitated. After the interview with Anna, she’d run an idea by Dale, but he hadn’t thought much of it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get shot down again. But Luke was an outsider. He might not think her idea was so crazy. “Do you think Kyle could have been trying to tell me something when he said he was sorry about my dad? He’d told me that already at the funeral home.”
Unlike Dale, Luke actually seemed to consider her question before he nodded.
“He knew his condition was critical, and that makes what he said important. What else did he say?”
She’d been puzzling over his comment about not trusting anyone. Did she really want to discuss it with Luke? She did trust him, and evidently her dad did as well to discuss things like her career moves with him. What else had they discussed? “Did you and Dad ever talk about his work?”
He flipped the turn signal on. “Sometimes. With my background in the army, your dad felt he could talk to me, and I occasionally helped him think a problem through. Why?”
