Dead Right (Stillwater Trilogy #3)(48)
Author: Brenda Novak

“And you’d tell me if you did touch him?” she challenged.

“Just leave me the hell alone. Do you hear? I won’t go back to prison. I’ll kill myself first.” He lowered his voice. “And I’ll take you with me.”

“That’s enough.” Hunter stepped between them. “Get back in your truck and keep driving.”

Although Mike was about the same height as Hunter, his arms were so big they didn’t lie flat against his sides anymore, and his hands had curled into fists. But Hunter didn’t seem intimidated. He even took a step forward. “I suggest you go now.”

“Or what?” Mike asked, chuckling softly.

“Or you’ll be asking for trouble you don’t need.”

Madeline caught her breath. Mike was obviously bigger, and she didn’t trust him not to fight dirty. She could see him weighing his desire to lash out against his awareness of the possible consequences. Fortunately, another car drove by right then. When the driver, Minnie Hall, honked and waved at Madeline, Mike immediately backed off.

“Don’t you dare try to pin it on me,” he muttered and strode to his truck.

Madeline drew a deep, steadying breath as she watched him peel out, narrowly missing the left rear panel of her car. “See what I mean?” she said to Hunter.

His expression revealed little of his thoughts. “It’s not my case anymore,” he said, but she got the impression he wasn’t talking to her. He was trying to remind himself.

Madeline’s office was a small retail establishment that smelled like ink and had old-fashioned gold lettering on the wide front window. The Stillwater Independent. Established 1898.

Hunter walked around, trying to keep his mind busy while Madeline sat at the computer. He didn’t want to think about the malevolence he’d seen in Mike’s gaze when he looked at Madeline, or the things found in the car, or the oddity of two young girls and a woman, all of them closely connected to the reverend, dying within eighteen months of each other. There could be a good explanation for all of it. There were good explanations—a hit-and-run and two suicides, right? No one else seemed to question those incidents.

But that was because no one else had ever doubted Lee Barker, Hunter thought. Barker had been friend, uncle, brother, father to these people. He’d been their spiritual leader.

Hunter circled the gigantic printer that took up half the room. Accusing someone like Barker required an outsider, someone who was willing to examine all the possibilities. Someone like him. But if Barker had a dark side, especially one as dark as he was beginning to suspect, Hunter would rather not be the one to tell Madeline.

Better to leave while he had the chance. Better to leave before he could get caught up in anything that would threaten his carefully constructed post-Antoinette world. “Are there any flights out of Nashville?” he asked.

She sighed. “Not so far. But I’m still checking.”

Besides the giant printer, the room was mostly utilitarian. A school lunchroom type of floor, white walls, plain blinds. Except for the corkboard above Madeline’s desk, the office could belong to a man, Hunter decided.

He eyed the pictures she’d tacked up. There was one of her and Kirk, laughing at a dinner table; one of her and Kirk in a swimming pool with Madeline hugging him from behind and resting her chin on his shoulder; one of Kirk sitting on Madeline’s sofa, drinking a beer. Then there was Kirk standing in a doorway without a shirt.

Kirk, Kirk, Kirk.

Scowling, Hunter turned away, feeling a strong dislike for the man he’d met that morning. He tried to blame it on Kirk’s autocratic behavior, but he knew it stemmed from something far more primitive.

“How much did this cost?” he asked, using the old printer as a much-needed diversion.

She was still clicking her mouse. “A lot.”

“So you print your newspaper right here?”

“Um-hm.”

“Do other small papers do the same thing?” He’d never really considered how someone might run a business like Madeline’s.

“Not really.” She didn’t look up. She was avoiding making eye contact with him, and he was sort of grateful. If their eyes were to meet, he might see the same naked desire staring back at him that he felt himself. And if that happened, he knew they’d put a much more satisfying finish on what they’d begun out in that field.

“These days, most of them contract with printing houses,” she added.

“Why don’t you do that?”

“I might have to resort to it eventually, but there isn’t one nearby. And it’s tough to get a house to take on a paper like mine. They prefer bigger jobs.”

“Because of the money?”

“Money and logistics. I only print 2500 papers a week.”

“If you could find an outside company, wouldn’t it be cheaper?”

She glanced over her shoulder but her attention was fleeting and perfunctory. “I was fortunate. I found that printer at a government auction in Jackson.”

“How’d you know it worked?”

“I didn’t. But I knew Clay could fix just about anything.”

The depth of her admiration for her brother annoyed Hunter, too, although it made no sense. He’d never been particularly possessive.

What was the matter with him?

He wandered to the back corner of the office, where she had a counter with a sink, a microwave and a minifridge. “Can I have a drink?” he asked.

“There should be some bottled water.”

He opened the refrigerator and helped himself.

“It looks like your first available flight is tomorrow morning,” she called.

Was that disappointment in her voice? He twisted off the cap. “That’s fine. I’ll stay at the motel tonight.” He had to remove himself from her house…

“Okay,” she said. With him gone, she could go back to believing Clay wasn’t involved in her father’s disappearance, that there was no chance her father had owned the suitcase in the Cadillac. And maybe she could forget what had just occurred in the field.

No doubt she found all that denial very appealing. Hunter found it appealing, too, because he couldn’t bear the thought that she might feel guilty and miserable over what they’d done.

He came up behind her as she stood. “You’re going to be okay, right?”

She tensed, as if uneasy with his close proximity. “I don’t know.”

“It happened. It’s over. Please don’t worry about it.”