Lethal Lifestyles (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery Book 6) Page 11

  “I owe it to my grandfather to try to keep some of what he loved about this place alive. He was a great man,” he said softly. “But Mr. Sammons isn’t my uncle. He’s my father.”

  “I. Um. Huh?” Anyone who’s known me for ten minutes could testify that it’s damned hard to render me speechless—yet that little revelation managed it. I pulled in a deep breath and tried again. “But you said—your name…” Not much better, but I got part of my point across, anyway.

  He chuckled. “Dale Sammons is a first-rate prick who walked out on my momma when she was four months along. I wouldn’t take his name if it were plated in platinum.” Another head shake. “I suppose it kind of is, at that. Not worth it.”

  I blinked, roughly thirty thousand questions vying to tumble through my lips first. “Wow. Okay,” was all I managed.

  “My grandparents were friends. My mom was in her senior year of college when Sammons set his cap for her, and she fell hard. Hard enough that they made a mistake. Pretty good size one.” He waved toward his massive chest.

  Ah. “Sounds familiar.”

  “You have a kid?” His eyebrows lifted with interest.

  “My mom was seventeen when I was born.”

  He nodded. “They get married?”

  “Nope. But because she didn’t want to.” And that was all I had to say about that. Talking about the tangled mess that was my family was hard enough with people I’d known my whole life or had blood ties to.

  He cocked his head and drummed his fingers against his thigh. “My mother made the mistake of believing that Sammons was in love with her. Until she told him she was pregnant and he pitched a screaming fit that included the words ‘get rid of it’ and ‘I’m not the marrying type.’”

  My nose wrinkled. The guy really was an ass. But just a regular old ass, or something more sinister?

  “Harsh,” I said.

  “My mom’s dad called Dale’s father, and the two of them agreed that my parents would be married.” He waved a hand. “Here, as a matter of fact. They put it all together for a quiet wedding as soon as they could pull it off.”

  I waited, figuring I knew what was coming, but not really wanting to believe it.

  “He disappeared. Not even a note. I didn’t meet him until I was twenty-two: the summer my grandfather died and he showed up to claim his inheritance. I know it hurt my granddad that I never took his name, but I couldn’t do that to my mom.”

  His mom. Boy, did I ever want to talk to her.

  “Does she live nearby?”

  “She passed away two years ago. Breast cancer.”

  Shit. I put a hand on his arm when his voice thickened. “My mom is a survivor.”

  He cleared his throat, managing a half-smile. “We seem to be two peas in a pod, don’t we?”

  Indeed. I’d never met anyone with a story so similar to mine, but I didn’t have time to consider much of anything past I really didn’t want this dude to be wrapped up in Burke’s death. He was nice. And it certainly seemed he’d had a rough go of it.

  The more I heard, the more I wanted it to be Sammons, just because he sounded like such a miserable excuse for a human being. But wanting it to be him didn’t mean it was. Franklin here had shed some light on Sammons’s character, but clearly had a T-rex-size bone to pick, so it wasn’t like his opinion of whether his father was a murderer would be worth anything.

  I studied his profile as he downed the rest of the bourbon, his glassy eyes crossing slightly.

  “You’re not driving anywhere?” When you’ve seen as many accidents as I have, you don’t play around with the possibility of a DUI.

  “I’ll crash on the couch in the tack room. His highness will want my help with the horses tomorrow.” His tone made me sad. He nodded, the gaze trailing to the barns. “That’s about the only thing he’s done with this place that Granddad would approve of—those horses still get treated better than most people. Dale Sammons will have only the best of everything, but for my granddad the horses were always that way. All organic feed, designer drugs—top of the line across the board for his babies.”

  Something tickled the back of my brain.

  “Speaking of the horses, I heard a few people talking about the Governor’s Cup. Does Sammons race them?” I asked.

  He tipped his head to one side, his brow furrowing. “That’s not a—well, okay. No, he doesn’t race them. They’re pets, really—though he hosts a polo match for his buddies every Sunday.”

  “Polo? Like ‘sport of kings’ polo? In Virginia?”

  He chuckled. “It’s the royalty reference that he likes. Ego the size of Gibraltar. But also, the Governor’s Cup isn’t a horse race. It’s the contest in the wine industry Mr. Sammons mentioned earlier. Vineyards from across the Commonwealth compete in the Governor’s Cup for the right to bottle and label the Governor’s Reserve wine for that year. Competition is fierce. People bet on who’ll win for months.”

  Aha. I raised my glass. “Lots of people betting on y’all this year?”

  He smiled. “It’s a big deal. Gambling isn’t my idea of fun, but the cup is always a hot ticket. Even Mr. Jinkerson has money on Calais this year.”

  “So he likes your odds?”

  “I do too.” He nodded to my glass. “I was checking another barrel of it last night when I…well. You know. Burke.”

  The green pallor I’d seen on him and the sheriff’s comment about hoping he was okay skated through my thoughts.

  “How do you check a wine? I mean, it’s bad for it to be exposed to the air, right?”

  He nodded, holding his glass up and turning it so the light glinted off the heavy crystal in dancing rainbows. “Right. We use a wine thief. It’s a small siphon you tap into the bottom of the barrel to see if the wine is aging properly.”

  “By…” I let the word trail, my eyes going wide.

  “Tasting it.” He nodded slowly.

  Sweet cartwheeling Jesus. “Oh, tell me you didn’t.”

  “How I wish I could. I mean, I spit it out, it was rancid. So I opened the barrel to see why. Not that I don’t still feel sick. I even went to the hospital to get checked out—Mr. Jinkerson insisted.”

  Ugh. I’d have demanded a stomach pump, spitting be damned.

  As much as I shuddered at the ick factor, I was glad to hear the story—I liked him. Surely he hadn’t known Burke was in there and then taste-tested the barrel. And his camo-green pallor the night before provided decent evidence he wasn’t lying.

  I shook my head and rested a hand on his arm. “I might have to give up wine for good in your shoes.”

  “My shoes would swallow your feet twice.” He winked. “And I like whiskey better anyway. I’m just gifted at picking out notes in a wine. Though I may have Celia try her tastebuds at that.”

  Celia. Wine.

  Oh, yeah.

  Popping to my feet and scanning the crowd, I smiled. “Thank you for a lovely talk. I should go check on the bride and groom.”

  He nodded. “My pleasure, ma’am. I think I’ll head on to bed.”

  I crossed the deck, my eyes hunting long auburn hair or a straw cowboy hat. Parker and Mel and a half-dozen other folks swayed to “Time of My Life” under the stars. Skipping my eyes over the dancers, I spotted Tony, Ashton, and both sets of parents. No Celia. And no Bubba.

  Tapping a foot, I stared into the distance, so lost in wondering I didn’t hear Shelby come up behind me. “You looked cozy with the big guy over there,” she said. “He’s cute. Too much of a mountain for me to climb, but cute.” She giggled. “I bet you could handle him.”

  I shrugged, not about to take that bait. “You haven’t seen the little redhead who works in the gift shop, have you? I need to confirm a couple of things for tomorrow.”

  Shelby waved to the encroaching darkness. “She went that way with one of Parker’s relatives and a bottle of wine about a half-hour ago.”

  Damn. I couldn’t corner her in the ladies’ room out there.

  So
be it. No time for being choosy. “Thanks, Shelby.”

  Surveying the horizon, my gaze settled on the barns. Where better to be alone on a pretty spring evening? I charged off, ready to dig a few answers out of Sammons’s niece.

  Metal squealed across metal when I slid the half-ton door to one side. Slipping through the opening, I was too distracted to shut it behind me.

  Wow.

  The ceiling was easily thirty feet up, the floor covered with sawdust and hay. Spaced around aisles wide enough for two people to walk were wood and metal racks filled with barrel after barrel. Floor to ceiling, I counted seven barrels in one stack. Times…I looked around. Times a lot. I bet there were almost a thousand barrels in the building.

  At the far end of the center aisle that stretched in front of me, I spotted a door and hurried to it, ogling barrels as I walked.

  Holy Manolos, that was a lot of wine. And a lot of money.

  Almost nine years into my stint at the crime desk that was supposed to be a stepping stone to politics, I could testify that the Charles Mansons and Ted Bundys of the world were a pretty rare breed. Most murders could be traced back to one of two things. Money was the first.

  And it sounded like the second was going on in that room.

  I tiptoed three steps closer, my eyes on a little plastic rectangle proclaiming “Employees Only” fastened to the door at eye level.

  I listened.

  Yup.

  That was a zipper.

  Followed by a soft moan.

  I guess everyone grieves in their own way.

  Bright side: I was sure they didn’t any more hear the squalling door than the man in the moon. Downside: I wasn’t interviewing Celia tonight.

  Shaking my head, I scurried back out into the frost-touched evening air, wondering if I’d packed a sweater that went with my dress as I decided against shutting the barn door. No sense calling attention to myself twice.

  I pulled my phone out of my cream satin wristlet. Almost eight thirty already. I quickened my pace, out of breath before I reached the steps of my little cabin.

  Fumbling the key out of my bag with shaking fingers, I wondered whether that was from cold or fatigue. Anyone’s guess, really.

  Before I could get it into the lock, a long shadow stretched across the porch, the floorboards squeaking their protest to footsteps. I jumped, a small scream escaping my throat as the key fell to the woven blue and white doormat with a soft jingle.

  15.

  Revelations

  “It’s just me, kiddo.” Bob’s familiar scratchy baritone froze my hands and feet halfway into their punching stance.

  I sagged against the door. “Jesus, chief. There seems to be a murderer running around out here, you know. Lurking in the shadows might not be the wisest way to spend your Saturday night.”

  “I saw you take off for the barn and figured you were chasing a lead,” he said. “Wanted to talk to you, so I waited until you came back. You still pissed at me?”

  I sighed. “I’m not mad. But you are wrong, Bob. I tried to come find you earlier to explain why, and got sidetracked by about seven thousand things. I’m sorry I yelled. You hurt my feelings—on Parker’s behalf, I suppose—and disappointed me.” My voice fell soft on the last words.

  He plopped into one of the rockers on the porch and gestured for me to take the other. When I shivered as the cold wood touched my bare back, Bob shrugged his dinner jacket off and tossed it to me.

  “Thanks.” I pulled it on. “I was going inside to get a sweater.”

  He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “You know how much I love you, right?”

  The backs of my eyeballs pricked at the sincerity in the simple words.

  “Right back at you, chief.”

  “You very rarely actually say the words, you know.”

  “What words?”

  “I love you.”

  “I say them all the time!”

  “To whom?”

  I paused, considering. “My mother.”

  “And?”

  While I’d have liked to say “my boyfriend,” it would’ve been a lie. “My best friends.”

  “But not your mystery man.”

  I blanched. “My what?”

  “I’m not stupid, kiddo. I have competing theories for why you’re keeping the guy a secret, and I have to admit, I’m rooting for the fairly benign Nichelle’s-too-driven or she’s-just-guarded.”

  “Did you come here to lecture me about my commitment issues? Because my friend Emily does that enough for everyone, I promise.”

  “Nah. That’s just a fun bonus. Big picture, more important topics.”

  “Like?”

  “I love Grant almost as much as I love you, Nicey. However much it hurt you to hear me this morning, it hurt me more to say those words out loud. You can bet on it.”

  “Then why the hell did you?”

  He leaned forward, pulling a folded packet of papers out of his back pocket and flattening them. I reached for the stack, but he held them just out of my grasp.

  “What are those?” I asked.

  “What I was trying to tell you about this morning, before you told me off and kicked me out. Emails. I started getting them about the time the wire syndicated Parker’s column. Just one nasty one every few months. Ryan and our other computer geeks traced them pretty easily.”

  Oh, shit.

  “Burke,” I whispered.

  Bob nodded. “Day before yesterday, when their wedding announcement ran in Lifestyles, I got four in the space of a couple hours. Same return IP address as always.” He handed me the stack.

  I scanned the pages, my stomach freefalling to my shoes. I stammered, a minute or so passing before I remembered how to make my lips work. “How could someone even think up doing things like this to another human being? Someone who’s not Jeffrey Dahmer, anyway?” Burke’s vivid words conjured blood-soaked images that rolled through my head on replay no matter how hard I tried to shut it off. I handed the papers back to Bob. “Jesus, Bob. Did you call the PD?”

  “I had a long talk with Aaron White yesterday morning. He sent a detective named Landers by the office.”

  “And did Landers say Burke was psychotic?”

  Bob nodded. “I never thought he was terribly stable, really. That’s why this shook me up the way it did. But shook up is not the term I’d use to describe Grant.”

  I caught a shallow breath and held it for four beats, my eyes falling shut. “You showed them to Parker.”

  “I had to. He’s in the best position to keep her safe.”

  I dropped my head into my hands. “You showed them to Parker, and there’s a police report about it in Richmond. Oh, shit, Bob. What are we going to do?”

  Even seeing the revolting slasher-movie things Burke threatened to do to Melanie, I couldn’t believe Parker killed the guy. I knew now why he’d been on Mel like a Kardashian on a sequined-bikini sale, but I couldn’t believe he’d actually hurt anyone.

  The chances that I could convince anyone who wasn’t blood related to my friend I was right?

  I didn’t like my odds.

  “I waited this morning, wanting to see if Grant would bring them up. He didn’t.”

  See? I couldn’t even convince Bob.

  “I have to figure out who did this,” I mumbled into my fingers, rocking the chair. “Getting to the bottom of it is the only way to fix it. Once the sheriff gets ahold of these, he’ll think he’s got it all wrapped up and stop looking.”

  “I wish that were our only problem,” Bob said.

  “Huh?” I sat up and stared.

  “This is tricky, Nichelle. We’ve got a member of our own staff who will certainly be a person of interest in a murder investigation—and that’s if he’s not the prime suspect. As a bonus, the victim has ties to two of the most influential men in Richmond. It’s a huge story, and the only reason we’re not already behind a day is because the body was found in a media dead zone. As soon as Burke’s obi
t hits the internet, it’ll be open season. You have to be ready.”

  Be ready. Because I had to cover it. Like things weren’t already screwed up enough? It was one thing to chase a headline about Sammons being up to his neck in a murder investigation. But Parker?

  There went my stomach again. “How can I write about this?”

  Bob nodded. “I know it’s a lot to ask. You’ve never been this close a story, and you have to be absolutely impartial. If Charlie gets even a hint that you’re spinning the story in Parker’s favor, she’ll flay you alive on the eleven o’clock.”

  I nodded. Charlie Lewis at Channel Four was my biggest rival for queen of the Richmond crime news scene, and months of losing to me on every big story in town had her unusually hot to make me look bad. One more land mine for this field.

  “Andrews would just love that,” I said. The publisher’s crusade to force Bob into early retirement was the reason I’d been killing myself to stay ahead of Charlie.

  “Exactly. One misstep will send him running to the board, and we’ll both be out on our asses.” Bob leveled a hard look at me. “Can you do it? Tell me now if you can’t, and I’ll go talk to Shelby.”

  Over. My. Cold. Corpse.

  Except…could I? Being balanced was one of the things I prided myself on. But a thousand percent honest, way down in the dark places in my heart? I wasn’t sure I could this time. Dammit.

  “Andrews loves the money Parker’s column generates. He doesn’t want him in jail any more than we do.”

  “He doesn’t love Parker as much as he hates me.” Bob barked out a laugh. “Trust me.”

  There was something sad about how automatically my head bobbed at those words.

  My eyes fell on the emails in Bob’s hand again. “Parker didn’t do this, Bob. I can’t even tell you how I know, because I don’t have words for it, but I just know. Like, down in my bones certain. He’s flat-ass not capable of it.”

  Bob held my gaze for a long minute before he sighed, running his fingers through his always messy white hair. “I want to believe you, Nichelle. Hand to God I do. But…”

  I waited, the doubt on his face hitting me square in the heart.

  “I’ve never seen anyone as in love with a woman as I was with my Gracie. Not until Parker fell for Mel. And in his shoes, seeing this?” He waved the printouts. “I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t have killed someone.”