Sinclair Connection - Hot On His Trail Part 17

Norman, she noticed, did not leave.

"Is your lawyer playing hooky or does he sometimes work at home?"

"He has an office there. He usually works at home a couple mornings a week, if he can. Says he gets more done there than at the office."

She nodded, alternately watching Mrs. Ca.s.son work in her garden and checking the Burgess house for activity. All was quiet there.

"I'm going to go talk to him," Nick said, rising slowly to his feet.

Shea snapped her head around, noticing that Nick was limping still. "It's too dangerous."

He laughed without turning to look at her. "I'll circle around, so if he by chance sees me coming it won't be from this direction. And when I leave I'll walk back to the grocery store and move the car. If it sits too long someone will call the police to have it towed. They'll trace it to Maude and that will be all she wrote."

"In broad daylight?" Shea shot to her feet.

"I'll be careful, kemo sabe." Again he didn't turn to look at her. As if he didn't want to see her face, as if he was afraid to look at her.

She followed him down the stairs, wincing at the way he limped. What he really needed was a week in bed. He needed to get the weight off that leg, not to be walking three miles to move his car, and then walking who knows how far back.

"Let me move the car," she said.

"Won't the Sinclair wild bunch be out looking for you?" he asked sarcastically.

"Well, yes, but..."

"Then you'd better stay put."

He stopped in the foyer, just before entering the kitchen. "You don't have to be here when I get back."

Shea caught up with him and laid her hand on his back. "Yes, I do."

"You already have enough for a major story." The back beneath her hand went rigid as his muscles tensed. His hands flexed into fists. "Weathergirl kidnapped by convicted killer and held hostage for seven days should be good for a lot of airtime."

"Probably."

Nick had no intention of turning to look at her, so she slipped around him and glanced up, into his face. Her heart skipped a beat. Last night she'd told him she liked him. She was afraid of how he'd react if she confessed that what she felt for him was much, much more.

"Until we know who killed Winkler, I'm not going anywhere," she said, softly but insistently.

"All right," he agreed in a lifeless voice.

"I'm a part of this, to the end."

"That was never my intention."

"Well, it looks like you're stuck with me."

Something glittered in his eyes. A memory, a spark of hope. Whatever it was, what she saw there gave her hope.

"A kiss for luck," she said, rising up on her toes as he willingly listed down toward her. Their mouths met, briefly, securely, and with a comfort that comes only from practice.

* * * He went the long way around, sticking to the wooded area of his backyard and Norman's, and out of Lillian Ca.s.son's range of sight, until he slipped from the woods and crept up the stairs to the multi-tiered deck. Norman usually had coffee here in the morning, so with any luck ... yep, the door was unlocked.

The deck had been built off a large kitchen. Norman's house was bigger than Nick's, grander, with larger rooms and the amenities Nick had not cared about. A fireplace, vaulted ceilings, a fourth bedroom upstairs.

And an office on the ground floor. That was where Norman holed up, most mornings when he could work at home. Nick slipped quietly down the hall, his back to the wall, his heart pounding too fast. What if Shea was right? His lawyer and his ex-girlfriend. Shea suspected Lauren, but what if Lauren and Norman had been in this together? Maybe Norman had discovered his fiancee's crime and covered it by allowing Nick to be convicted. There was only one way to find out.

Before he stepped into Norman's office, his heartbeat slowed, his panic disappeared. He gritted his teeth and prepared himself for anything.

Norman had his head down as he thumbed through a sheaf of papers. He didn't hear Nick come into the room to stand behind him, he was so engrossed in his work.

"h.e.l.lo, Norman," Nick said in a low voice.

Norman dropped his papers and spun in his swivel chair, coming to his feet in a burst of energy and leaving the chair twirling.

"Nick," he said, his eyes raking up and down and a small smile coming to his face. "Good G.o.d, I can't believe it." He laid his hands on Nick's shoulders and the smile grew. "How are you? How's your leg? Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"

Given his suspicions, it was not the reception Nick had expected. "One question at a time, and I get to start."

Norman's smile faded, and he lowered his hands. "Sure."

He took his chair, leaned back and gestured to the single visitor's chair in the room, a fat, padded armchair just a few feet away. Nick sat.

"When did Lauren move in?"

Norman's face turned to stone. "I should've told you, but you had enough on your-"

"When?" Nick whispered.

"Two and a half months ago."

"When's the wedding?"

"October."

Nick leaned back in his chair, trying for a casual pose. "How very nice for you both."

"I wanted to tell you, and so did Lauren, but Nick..." Norman leaned forward in his chair. "You have more important problems at the present time."

The truth was, Nick didn't care about Lauren. Not anymore. He thought of telling Norman, here and now, how he'd found Lauren and Winkler that night. He decided against it. Norman would discover, soon enough, what kind of woman she was.

He did care that his lawyer and friend had lied to him, that if Norman would hide this fact, he would hide others.

"My turn," Norman said. "How's your leg?"

"Better. I was lucky. It was just a scratch."

"Where have you..." Norman lifted a hand and silenced himself. "Never mind. I don't want to know where you've been or where you're staying now. If I know I'll have to tell the police. But Nick, you have to turn yourself in. If you keep running they will find you, and next time they might do a lot worse than scratch you."

"I'm not turning myself in until I find out who killed Gary Winkler."

The expression that flitted across Norman's face was one of surprise, but it faded quickly and was replaced by the look Nick had come to recognize. His professional face, the one that gave nothing away.

"You think I did it, don't you?" Nick asked, the pieces coming together easily. No wonder there had been no thorough investigation by his lawyer. No wonder Norman hadn't pushed the police to look into other suspects.

"Now, Nick..."

"Save the condescending voice, Norman," Nick snapped. "All this time, while you defended me, you thought I was guilty."

Amazingly, Norman blushed. "Lauren told me about ... about what happened that night."

Now it was Nick's turn to look surprised. So much for Shea's theory. "She did?"

Norman nodded and dropped his head down to stare into his lap. "That night was a turning point for her."

"I can imagine," Nick muttered.

When Norman lifted his head, he no longer wore his cold, unreadable lawyer's face. He looked vulnerable. Older. "She quit drinking after that night and joined AA."

"Lauren's not an alcoholic."

"Yes, she is," Norman insisted. "You never saw it because ... because she didn't want you to know and because you have a bad habit of only seeing what you want to see."

Nick didn't appreciate being a.n.a.lyzed by his lawyer at a time like this, but, dammit, it made sense, in retrospect. The erratic behavior he'd thought was a part of Lauren's eccentrically charming personality, the sharp mood swings he'd believed to be a normal part of womanhood, the way she flitted from one undemanding job to another...

"That night, when she realized what she'd almost done, she decided to quit. And she did."

"I notice she didn't offer to testify," Nick said bitterly. "Telling all in court would've damaged her reputation, such as it is."

Norman's face hardened. "And it would've given the jury another piece of evidence against you. She was thinking of you when she kept her mouth shut, Nick. She deliberately stayed away from the courtroom, and when the police interviewed her she said she had been drinking too much to remember clearly what happened that night. It wasn't like they needed another witness against you."

Nick didn't want to feel grateful, he wanted to hate Lauren. And Norman. And Shea. It was easier that way.

But he couldn't do this alone. "I've been convicted. I'll probably get caught long before I can prove that someone else killed Winkler. I have nothing to lose." He leaned forward in his chair, catching and holding Norman's eye. "I have nothing to lose by telling you the truth."

Norman sat stone still, hands in his lap, waiting for Nick's confession.

"I didn't do it. Someone else killed Winkler and planted the evidence against me. Someone who was there that night set me up."

"Oh my G.o.d," Norman whispered. "You're telling the truth."

"One of your neighbors is a murderer."

Chapter 15.

S hea wanted to observe before she questioned. The more she knew about the suspects, the more prepared she'd be. Her eyes shifted again and again to Norman Burgess's house, but she saw no sign of Nick or the lawyer. All seemed to be quiet, perfectly normal, there.

Appearances aside, nothing in this neighborhood was perfectly normal.

The Ables and the Blackstones had small children who played on their lawns and in the circle, enjoying the last days of summer. Tricycles, inline skates and basketb.a.l.l.s were popular, she noticed. Mrs. Ca.s.son worked in her garden until the children were out in force, then with a puckering of her mouth she gathered up her gardening tools and retreated into her own cool house.

At the Realtor's insistence, the electricity in Nick's home was still on and running. Thank goodness. This house wasn't built for a summer day with no air-conditioning, like the house in Marion.

Eventually Burgess left, his car pulling slowly and carefully out of the garage. The kids in the cul-de-sac moved out of his way, and he smiled and waved at them ... as if nothing unusual had happened this morning.

Her imagination got the best of her, as it often did. Nick had lied to her. He hadn't gone to talk to Norman, he'd dumped her again. He'd walked away and by now he was in Maude's car driving away from Huntsville, laughing at her for being so trusting, so naive.

A worse possibility occurred to her. What if Norman was the murderer, or he was covering for Lauren, and he'd killed Nick? Right now Nick could be lying in that man's house, dead or bleeding, or stuffed into the trunk of that fancy car that had driven so cautiously down the street. Her imagination ran wild, until she could see the horrific possibilities in her mind. The what-ifs plagued her, until she was certain something had gone terribly wrong.

There was only one way to be sure.

She gathered up her duffel bag and Nick's, in case the Realtor should come by, and left by the back door. She circled around, keeping to the cover of the trees at the back of the lot, and with her heart pounding fiercely in her chest, she crept onto the deck. With credit card in hand, she easily slipped the lock on Burgess's door.

All was quiet, cool and clean and well ordered. Here she could see the woman's touch that had been missing in Nick's house. The lace curtains in the kitchen, the yellow-and-white-checked dish towels, the fresh flowers.

There was no sign of foul play. Yet.

Confident that neither Norman nor Lauren would return anytime soon, she dropped her bag and Nick's onto the living room sofa and continued her search. Up until now she'd been careful not to do anything too blatantly illegal, but this was definitely against the rules. This was breaking and entering. Dean would be furious, if he ever found out.

But her crime was justified, she reasoned. What if Nick was hurt?

"Nick?" she whispered as she walked down the hallway. "Are you here?" She poked her head into a small office, searching for a clue. Nothing. No blood, no signs of a struggle.

After searching the ground floor, she climbed the stairway to the second floor. Unlike Nick, Burgess had furnished all his bedrooms. Four bedrooms, each with a bed and a dresser. Three of them looked like impersonal guest rooms. Winter clothes were stored in one closet, but the others were almost empty. A roll of wrapping paper, a box of Christmas decorations. Nothing sinister.

And no Nick.

There was only one room left to check, and that was the bathroom at the end of the hall. She stepped inside, pulled back the shower curtain and stared into an empty, gleaming white bathtub.

And next door she heard a car door slam.

Peering through the narrow window, she had a clear view of the street. A long gray sedan had parked at the curb, and five people walked toward Nick's front door.

In the lead was a stout woman in a navy blue power suit, and even from here Shea could see she was not happy. She carried a ring of keys in her hand.

Luther Malone, his handsome face set in a mask of pure annoyance, followed her. He seemed to be grumbling to himself as they approached the porch.

And behind Luther, Dean, Boone and Clint stalked, side by side and looking for blood. Hers this time, she imagined.

* * * Luther sat in the living room while the poor Realtor, the harried Ms. Tilton, tried to keep up with all three Sinclair brothers as they searched the house. Luther leaned back on the soft leather couch and tried to relax.

The brothers hadn't listened when he'd told them Shea would not be stupid enough to come to Nick Taggert's house. She'd have to know they would search for her here. Taggert sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't take the chance of returning to the scene of the crime.