Dead Right (Stillwater Trilogy #3)(45)
Author: Brenda Novak

She stepped back, out of the path of the door. She was longing to close it; he could tell. “Why would he?” she asked.

“He seemed to care about her a great deal. And what was the other girl’s name? The one who killed herself?”

She half closed the door, so that only eight or so inches remained through which he could see her. “I wouldn’t know.”

“You don’t remember her, either?”

“It’s been too long,” she said, but in such a small community, she’d recall something that sensational. Rose Lee’s suicide had occurred six months after the hit-and-run and only a year before Madeline’s mother ended her life.

“How long have you lived here?” he asked.

“I don’t see why I should continue answering questions about people who weren’t even part of my life. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Hunter grabbed the door before she could shut it. All the people who might know something about the past didn’t want to talk, and he was damned curious about that. “Just one more thing.”

She hesitated, and he went on. “You and your brother were close—isn’t that right?”

Obviously taken off guard by the change in subject, she stared at him. “I—I guess you could say that.”

I guess? A lukewarm answer if Hunter had ever heard one. “So—” he kept one hand on the door and used the other to scratch his head in exaggerated puzzlement “—if there was anything strange going on in his life, he probably would’ve told you about it.”

“We both had families of our own when he went missing,” she said, resuming her customary authority. “We didn’t spend much time together. But thanks for coming by.”

He stopped the door again. “Did you attend his church?”

“Every Sunday.”

“So you were proud of him?”

“Who wouldn’t be proud of a preacher?” she said. “The whole town loved him.”

He hadn’t asked about the whole town. He’d been trying to establish how much she loved him. “Then that suitcase they found in the Cadillac. That couldn’t have belonged to him?”

Shoving his hand out of the way, she slammed the door.

“I can’t believe you asked her that!” Madeline said as soon as they were in the Corolla and she was angling away from the curb. “What are you trying to do?”

“What you’re paying me to do,” he said.

Her cheeks were flushed with anger. “You’re insulting someone who isn’t even here to defend himself. You’re insulting my father!”

“I’m searching for the truth, Maddy.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Why not?” he asked. “That’s what everyone else calls you.”

“You don’t know me. You don’t know my father. You don’t belong here. I—I’ve made a mistake.”

“Madeline…”

She wouldn’t look at him. He could see her grinding her teeth, wanting to say more, trying to hold the words back, along with her tears.

“Listen to me.” He reached out to touch her. “We have to figure out what happened before your father went missing. That’ll lead us to the person who might’ve killed him.”

“So you insult my father and accuse my brother?”

“I didn’t accuse your brother.”

“You said he’s hiding something. But he’s not! He didn’t kill my father.”

“Maybe he didn’t. But I’m not going to find out who did unless I press a few buttons, stir things up around here.”

“And hurt those who are closest to me?”

“You want me to pull a freakin’ rabbit out of my hat!” he shouted. “I can’t deliver the perfect villain. It’s going to be someone you know, and probably someone you love. You’re aware of that, even if you don’t want to admit it!”

She didn’t answer. They’d left the expensive, antebellum house of her aunt behind and were now surrounded by farmland.

“Pull over, so you can look at me,” he said. “I want to be sure I’m getting through to you.”

At first, he thought she was going to ignore the request. He opened his mouth to tell her they needed to talk, but before he could get the words out, she suddenly jerked the wheel to the right and nearly ran them into a ditch. Shoving the gearshift into park, she left the car running, got out and started to walk.

Where the hell did she think she was going?

“Maddy, get back here!” he called. Turning off the engine, he went after her. “You said you were committed to the investigation, remember? You knew the risks, but you said you wanted the truth.”

She didn’t even turn. “Take the car and go back.”

“Listen, this is an investigation,” he argued. “I have to run it objectively. You’re paying me a lot of money. I can’t handicap myself by questioning only the people you wouldn’t mind seeing in jail. If that’s what you expect, I’m wasting my time—just like your aunt said.”

She kept moving, her back straight and rigid as she marched away from him.

“I only know one way to do this and that’s to question everything and everyone,” he yelled after her.

Finally, she faced him. “So I should let you destroy my father’s reputation with questions that have nothing to do with how he went missing or who might’ve killed him? Don’t you understand that his good name is all I have left? That I’ve had to endure doubt about every single person I love, except him? And now you come here and try to make him out to be some sort of—” her words snagged on a sob “—some sort of pervert? Suggest he might’ve molested my own sister?”

He shoved a hand through his hair. What he’d read in her mother’s journal this morning had him worried. There was more going on with the reverend’s disappearance than a simple mugging gone awry or a wife hoping to claim some life insurance money.

“What about that dildo?” he asked. “It had to come from somewhere, didn’t it? It was found in the trunk of your father’s car. Along with your stepsister’s underwear. Do you know what that tells me?”

“I don’t want to hear,” she cried, the tears coming faster.

“It tells me it probably belonged to him. What are the chances that some unknown assailant molested your sister and planted the evidence in your father’s vehicle?”