Dead Giveaway (Stillwater Trilogy #2)(41)
Author: Brenda Novak

"They’ve been married a long time."

"That’s no excuse."

Cursing to himself, Clay pivoted again. "What are you going to do about the lipstick?"

"Keep it until I can figure out what’s going on. I’m thinking about searching the cabin when we go there tomorrow night."

"We were just there," he said. "Wouldn’t you have noticed anything unusual?"

"I didn’t really look. But if my father’s having an affair, he has to be meeting the woman somewhere. Maybe it’s at the cabin."

Clay imagined combing through the place with Allie, shoving any proof he might find in his pocket, and decided he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want what his mother had done to hurt his sisters–or Allie–and would carry Irene’s secret to his grave. But he couldn’t pretend to be Allie’s friend, let her believe he was there for her when he was actually serving his own purposes. Maybe he wasn’t a saint, but he wasn’t going to abuse her trust like that, either.

"I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you," he said.

A couple of seconds ticked by before she responded. "You’re canceling?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah. I’ve got a conflict."

"No problem," she said, but he could tell she was only being polite.

"Why don’t you take a friend," he said. "You shouldn’t be going alone."

"No. This isn’t something I want to share with anyone else. I’ll do it myself."

He dropped his head in his hand and massaged his forehead. "I’m sorry," he said, even though an apology wouldn’t improve matters.

"Don’t worry about it. We were never meant to be together, anyway."

She wasn’t speaking in anger. It was an acknowledgment. And she was right. "I know."

"Is that the real reason you’re not coming tomorrow night?" she asked.

"Yes."

He heard her sigh and wanted to tell her how badly he wished it could be different. But what was the point?

"Can I say one thing?" she asked.

He braced for the worst. "What’s that?"

"I’ve never met anyone like you," she said and hung up.

Allie sat in her father’s chair, staring glumly at the teddy bear coffee mug that seemed so damn out of place on his desk. She’d taken that cup to the sink every night for the past week, thinking her father would use another one when he came in the following morning. But every time she returned to work, she found the cute "Life would be un-bear-able without you" cup sitting beside his calendar. Obviously, it was a cup he deemed his own and not one to be shared around the station. But where had it come from? And why did he like it so much?

Allie wished she knew. On second thought–she sank lower in her seat–maybe she didn’t.

She felt bad enough. She had to admit that she was better off accepting the fact that she and Clay had too many secrets between them, secrets that could have devastating effects on any relationship, let alone one involving a cop.

But since last Friday, she’d thought of little besides seeing him again. Not only was he breathtakingly handsome, he’d been through enough in life to make him interesting, layered, unique–not shallow and selfish, like her ex.

The door swung open, and Allie barely hid her grimace as Hendricks walked in. She’d sent him out on patrol an hour ago, and he was already back. Not that it surprised her.

Taking one look at her, he asked, "What’s wrong?"

The question caught Allie off guard. She hadn’t managed to hide her real feelings?

"Nothing, why?"

"Normally you’re in the storeroom, digging through the Barker files as if you plan to strike gold. Don’t tell me you’re getting discouraged."

Reluctant was a more accurate word. When she’d talked to Madeline earlier in the week, she’d gotten excited about the case all over again. Clay’s stepsister was so sure that he and his family weren’t involved. Allie had wanted to solve the mystery just to prove Clay was as innocent as she hoped. To finally dispel the doubt and suspicion, so there was nothing to fear.

But then she’d begun to read the reverend’s pocket Bible, which Madeline had dropped off at the station the day before. Judging by the notes in that Bible, the reverend seemed obsessed with sins of the flesh and, simultaneously, with his new stepdaughter. She wasn’t sure the two were related in Barker’s mind, but if so, what that Bible revealed made for some unsettling possibilities.

Madeline attributed her father’s words to his zeal for righteousness and his love of Grace. But whenever Allie began to puzzle out the most likely scenario, she immediately lost her enthusiasm for pursuing answers. She hoped Barker was living in Alaska, like Lucas Montgomery, or in some other remote place. Or that he’d been murdered by a stranger.

It was possible, she told herself. But in her more pragmatic moments, she had to admit the chances of that weren’t high. In her experience, random murders were rare, especially when theft wasn’t a motive. Homicide was almost always committed by someone who knew the victim, and it was generally the person who had the most to gain.

The Montgomerys had the most to gain in Barker’s disappearance….

"I’m giving it a rest tonight," she told Hendricks. She couldn’t think about the case right now. She was too disappointed about not seeing Clay tomorrow night, even though it was for the best. And she was too worried about her father. Was Dale having an affair? Betraying her mother?

Betraying the whole family? If so, with whom?

The door opened again and Joe Vincelli strode in. Beth Ann Cole was hanging on his arm, but Allie wasn’t surprised to see them together. Last night, around midnight, she’d stopped in at Let the Good Times Roll, just to make sure there weren’t any fights or folks needing a ride home, and found Beth Ann sucking on Joe’s tongue and grinding herself against him right there on the dance floor. It was such a flagrant display that Allie had nearly cited them for public indecency.

She wished she had….

"Hello, Joe," she said. "Beth Ann. What can I do for you?"

"We dropped by to see how you’re coming along with my uncle’s case," Joe said.

As Allie stood, she placed the teddy bear cup behind her father’s standing file folders. She knew moving it was probably unnecessary, but she instinctively wanted to hide it. "It’s slow going.

Cold cases generally take lots of time."

"Is my statement going to make a difference?" Beth Ann asked.

"It’s in the file," Allie said.

Hendricks’s shoes creaked under his weight as he made his way over to them. "It should be a big help."

"What does ‘in the file’ mean?" Joe demanded, ignoring him.