Dead Right (Stillwater Trilogy #3)(7)
Author: Brenda Novak

“What the hell,” he muttered and turned on a light so he could see the number Madeline Barker had called him from.

Madeline raised her head and blinked at the shrill ring. Could it be morning? Already?

Her body felt stiff and sore. Squinting at her watch, she realized why. It was only one o’clock. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than twenty minutes, and slumping over her desk had put a crick in her neck.

The phone rang again. She almost dropped the handset but eventually brought it to her ear.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded throaty and low.

“Ms. Barker?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Hunter Solozano.”

She jumped up, then teetered on her feet for a moment. “What do you want, Mr. Solozano?”

“What airport should I use?”

“For…You’re coming? Here?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes, but—” nerves made her scalp tingle “—we haven’t discussed any of the logistics.”

“I charge a thousand dollars a day, plus expenses.”

A thousand dollars a day! She clapped a hand over her mouth. But he didn’t pause.

“You said you had no worries about paying me. Is that still true?”

He cost a fortune. Even more than she’d expected. But she wasn’t about to admit she had any doubts. Not after what he’d said to her before. I think it’s the accent. Maybe she lived in the boondocks by his standards, but she was no uneducated, backward hick. “Sure. No problem,” she lied.

“Fine. I’ll need the first five thousand as a retainer.”

She bit her lip. That alone would wipe out her checking account and leave her short on next month’s bills. The paper was a labor of love but hardly a fabulous living. “How long do you think the…investigation will take?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “How committed are you to finding your father?”

She winced at the staggering financial implications. If Mr. Solozano stayed for a month, it’d cost her upward of $20,000. And that was taking weekends off.

But she’d tried everything else. This felt like her only hope. “More committed than I’ve ever been to anything.”

“Fine. I’ll be there on Thursday.”

She gulped. “So soon?”

“You’re in luck. I was planning a vacation that fell through.”

In luck? At one thousand dollars a day, plus expenses? “Um…just to clarify, your expenses would include what exactly? Airfare and hotel?”

“As well as a rental car, meals, any specialized tests we might need to run on the evidence I find, stuff like that.”

“I see.” The list could get long. And with his salary, the incidental expenses would be the least of her problems. But he sounded so confident when he mentioned evidence.

“Will you be making my hotel reservations or shall I?” he asked.

Transferring the phone from one hand to the other, Madeline wiped her palms, which had grown clammy, on her sweatpants. “I was thinking…I mean I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

She scowled at the impatience in his voice. “Is there any way we could cut corners a bit?”

“Cut corners?” he repeated suspiciously.

“I have a guesthouse. I thought maybe you could stay there. It’d be quiet,” she added. “I live alone.”

“And what will I drive?”

“My car.”

“And you’ll drive…”

“My stepbrother will let me borrow a truck from the farm. It might not look like much after hauling dirt and feed and who knows what else, but he’s always got an extra.”

Hunter didn’t seem to mind staying in her guesthouse and driving her car, because he agreed right away. “That’s fine. Does that mean you’re picking me up at the airport?”

If she played chauffeur, they’d be able to talk while she drove. Then he could start his investigation the moment he reached Stillwater. Saving whatever money she could seemed prudent, especially since she wasn’t sure hiring him would make any difference in the end. Would he find evidence everyone else had missed? Or would he be as ineffectual as the police?

Maybe she was bankrupting herself for nothing, for a hunger that could never be satisfied…

“Ms. Barker?”

She swallowed to ease a particularly dry mouth. “I’ll pick you up. Fly into Nashville, okay?”

“It’s closer than Jackson?”

“By two hours.”

“Okay. I’ll make my travel arrangements over the Internet and call you in the morning.”

“Fine.” She pretended to be as businesslike as he was. But when she hung up, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the phone.

“What have I done?” she breathed.

Chapter Three

“You’ve done what?” Grace asked.

Madeline held the phone to her shoulder as she rinsed her coffee cup and placed it in the dishwasher. Morning had come too soon. After a restless night, her eyes stung with fatigue. It didn’t help that the coffee she’d drunk to get her going churned sourly in her otherwise empty stomach. “I hired a private investigator.”

There was a momentary silence. “You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“From where?”

“California.”

“But…it’s been so many years since Dad went missing, Maddy.”

“I know. That’s why I did it.” Sophie followed her as she hurried to the bathroom. She needed to finish her hair and makeup and head over to the office. She couldn’t avoid work this morning. She would sit down and write the article she should’ve written yesterday—and she’d finish it before the paper had to go to press. Maybe her resolve had come a little late, but she was Stillwater’s only official reporter. She’d reveal the unbiased details of the Cadillac’s discovery, regardless of her personal connection.

“But Allie used to be a cold case detective,” Grace said. “If she couldn’t find anything, aren’t you afraid hiring someone else will be a waste of time and money?”

Madeline didn’t want to talk about Allie—not with Grace. Once Allie had begun to feel romantic interest in Clay, she’d no longer seemed fully committed to the investigation. Had she been afraid of what she might find if she really looked? Considering what everyone else believed, probably. Madeline doubted Allie was still worried about that now that she knew Clay as well as she did. But they both seemed determined to move forward and not dwell on the past.