Crybaby Falls. Пола Грейвс

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      There had been no witnesses. Nobody to say, one way or another, whether she’d been reckless or even careless. The hospital wouldn’t release the records of the tests they’d done on her, but he knew they’d have checked her blood-alcohol level and probably even done a tox screen, since she’d been found behind the wheel. If anything had turned up, she’d have been charged.

      Her husband, on the other hand, had gone through the windshield. He’d been dead before anyone arrived on the scene.

      Cain knew that for a fact. Because he’d been the one to find them.

      A few yards away, Sara stood and looked around, her shoulders hunched and her eyes narrowed as if she sensed his presence. He stood very still, knowing that motion, more than the color of his clothing, would betray his location. His drab clothing would blend in well enough with his woodsy surroundings, but a turn of the head or a flick of a hand would give away his position in a heartbeat.

      She had become a beautiful woman, a combination of age and tragedy carving away any vestige of baby softness from her features, leaving the fine bone structure in full view. A stirring sensation in his chest caught him by surprise, and he averted his gaze without moving a muscle.

      After a moment, she seemed to shake off her nervous tension, turned back to the road and started walking uphill toward the scenic overlook located a quarter mile up the mountain.

      He watched until she was out of sight around the next curve. Then he pulled out his cell phone and pressed the speed dial for his office.

      Alexander Quinn answered on the second ring. He didn’t bother with a salutation. “Did you find her?”

      “Yes.”

      “Any clue why she didn’t show for the memorial?”

      “Oh, she showed for a memorial. Just not the one at the cemetery.” That strange flutter he’d felt in his chest earlier recurred. He tried to ignore it.

      “I didn’t hire you to be cryptic.” Though Quinn’s voice barely changed tone, Cain knew his boss was annoyed. In fact, something about this case had been making the old spymaster cranky from the moment Joyce Lindsey had showed up at Quinn’s detective agency, The Gates, and hired him to look into the deaths of her two children.

      “Sorry.” Cain started walking along the narrow shoulder, keeping an eye out for cars coming around the blind curve. “I found her at the roadside memorial her mother-in-law maintains.”

      “Thought those weren’t legal in Tennessee.”

      “What’s legal and what’s tolerated can be two different things.” Cain paused as he reached the small white cross. “From what I hear, Joyce Lindsey sets up a new one almost as fast as the state can remove the old one.”

      “She’s lost a great deal.” Coming from almost anyone else, the comment might have been a statement of sympathy. But Quinn was anything but sentimental, and what Cain heard in his voice was unease.

      “You think you were wrong to take her case?”

      “Cases,” Quinn corrected. “She lost two children. But I don’t need to remind you of that, do I?”

      Cain tightened his grip on the cell phone. “No, you don’t.”

      “She wants justice. I don’t blame her for that.”

      “But?”

      “But she seems very sure she already knows the answers,” Quinn answered. “I wonder whether she’ll accept a truth that conflicts with what she already believes.”

      “Just a second.” Hearing the sound of a vehicle engine approaching around the curve, Cain edged away from the shoulder of the road, taking care not to get too close to the drop-off. A sturdy thicket of wild hydrangea offered a hiding spot; he crouched behind the thick leaves until the truck passed. He caught a glimpse of Sara Lindsey’s fine profile before sunlight bounced off the driver’s window with a blinding glare. The flutter in his chest migrated down to his lower belly, and he knew instantly what that feeling was.

      Desire. Raw, visceral and entirely unwelcome.

      “You think she wants us to confirm her beliefs rather than find the truth,” Cain continued after the truck was safely past, dragging his mind out of dangerous territory. “For instance, if we find that her daughter-in-law didn’t cause the accident—”

      “The police looked into the accident pretty thoroughly. They found nothing to prove the widow was at fault.”

      “So they say,” Cain murmured, remembering the flicker of guilt he’d seen on Sara Lindsey’s face as she looked back at the small white cross before heading up to the overlook.

      “You think they missed something?”

      Cain started up the mountain, where he’d left his own truck parked at the overlook. “Maybe. It would help a whole lot if Sara Lindsey could remember anything about that night.”

      “How sure are you that she doesn’t?”

      A three-year-old memory pricked Cain’s mind. Sara Lindsey, bloodied and panic-stricken as she lay strapped upside down in the crumpled truck cab. She had looked straight at Cain, but he could tell she wasn’t really seeing him. Her breathing had been fast and labored, but she’d managed to find air enough to scream her husband’s name in terror, over and over, until she’d gone quiet and still, falling unconscious.

      He shut the memory away, not wanting to let it taint his present investigation. “From all accounts, she and her husband had been happily in love since they were both in grade school. Even the people who think she must have caused the accident don’t reckon she did it on purpose.”

      “And the sister’s death?”

      “We know Renee’s death was murder,” Cain said grimly. “We just don’t know who did it.”

      “Joyce Lindsey still thinks you did it, doesn’t she?”

      Cain crossed the road to the wider shoulder on the other side while there was no traffic approaching from either direction. “You should have told her you were assigning me to the case. She’ll find out sooner or later. Nothing stays secret in a town this small unless you bury it.”

      “I didn’t want to give her the chance to say no.”

      “She’ll just fire you later rather than now.”

      “We’ll deal with that when it happens.”

      “What’s this case to you, Quinn? Why are you misleading a client in order to keep investigating?”

      “It’s not what the case is to me, Dennison. It’s what the case is to you.”

      Cain pressed his mouth to a thin line, torn between irritation and an unexpected flicker of gratitude. “I’ve lived this long without answers.”

      “Too СКАЧАТЬ