Nora Roberts: Carnal Innocence

"You shouldn't let that FBI man worry you, Miss Caroline."

"He doesn't. I'm just concerned."

Cy tugged his ribbon around so he could read it again. "He's like Vernon."

Surprised, Caroline turned to study Cy. "Agent Burns is like your brother?"

"I don't mean he goes around starting fights or hitting women. But he thinks he's smarter and better than everyone else. Figures his way's the only way. And he likes having his foot on your throat."

Caroline rested her chin on her hand and considered. Burns would detest the comparison, but it was eerily apt. With Vernon it was Scripture-his interpretation. With Burns it was the law-his interpretation. In either case it was the using of something right and just for personal power.

"They're the ones who lose in the end." She thought of her mother as well, a great wielder of power, a master of carving out her own will. "Because no one who doesn't have to stays with them. That's sad. It's better if people care about you even if you aren't always smarter, even if you aren't always sure you're right." She stood. Tucker was strolling down the street, his shirt flung over his shoulder, his hair dripping, his jeans soaking wet. "Looks like we're going home."

She crossed the street to slip her arms around him. Laughing, he tried to nudge her back. "Honey, I'm not as clean as I might be."

"Doesn't matter." She turned her head to murmur in his ear. "I need to talk to you. Alone."

He would have liked to have interpreted the demand as romantic, but he heard the tension, felt the nerves in the line of her body.

"All right. Soon as we can." He kept one arm around her as they began to walk. "Let's get a move on, Cy. I heard Delia's cooked up a regular feast. Probably baked a few pies, too."

Cy grinned good-naturedly. "I ain't looking at another pie till next Fourth of July."

"Got to keep in practice, boy." Tucker flipped a finger down the boy's blue ribbon. "You know why I'm so good at latching on to those slippery critters?" He swung Caroline off her feet. " 'Cause I'm always grabbing some wriggly female."

Caroline relaxed enough to smile. "Are you comparing me with a sow?"

"Why, no, indeed, darlin'. I'm just saying if a man puts his mind to it, he can keep what he wants from slipping out of his hold."

Back at Sweetwater, there were blankets spread on the grass, and the calliope was piping its siren song from over in Eustis Field. Near the pond where death had so recently floated, music twanged out from a fiddle, a banjo, and a guitar.

Here and there exhausted children napped, many of them sprawled where they'd dropped. An impromptu Softball game was under way, and now and then the crack of the bat set up a cheer. Old men sat in folding chairs to root and gossip and wish for strong, young legs that could pump toward home. Young people drifted toward the carnival, where the rides were half price until six.

"Is it like this every year?" Caroline asked. She was close enough to the music to appreciate, far enough from the carnival not to dwell on how tawdry it looked in the daylight.

"Just about." Tucker lay on his back, debating if he had room for one more drumstick. "What do you usually do on the Fourth?"

"It depends. If I'm out of the country, the day goes by like any other. When I'm in the States, we usually tie the concert to a fireworks display." The fiddler took up "Little Brown Jug," and Caroline began playing it in her head. "Tucker, I have to ask you about something Matthew said to me earlier."

The agent's name had Tucker deciding against another drumstick. "I should have figured he'd find a way to ruin things."

"He said he was going to make an arrest tomorrow."

She closed her hand over his. "Tucker, are you in trouble?"

He shut his eyes briefly, then rolled, folding his legs under him to sit. "It's Dwayne, Caro."

"Dwayne?" Stunned, she shook her head. "He's going to arrest Dwayne?"

"I don't know that he can," Tucker said slowly. "The lawyer thinks Burns is blustering, that maybe he was trying to get Dwayne to say something he shouldn't. All he's got is speculation. No physical evidence."

"What kind of speculation?"

"He can put Dwayne in the same area as the killings, without any alibis so far. And he's using Dwayne's trouble with Sissy as a kind of motive."

"Divorce as a motive for killing other women?" Caroline arched her brows. "That gives about half the adult male population of the country a motive."

"Seems pretty thin, doesn't it?"

"Then why do you look so worried?"

"Because Burns may be a first-class asshole, but he's not stupid. He knows Dwayne drinks, he knows how he was embarrassed by Sissy. And he knows Dwayne had an acquaintance with the victims. The one up in Nashville's the kicker."

"Nashville?" Letting out a long breath, she nodded. "Tell me."

He'd hoped to keep it all from her for at least one day. But once he began, the words streamed out. Under them, she could sense the anger and a very real fear.

"What did your lawyer advise?"

"That we just go on as usual. Wait and see. Of course, if Dwayne could come up with an alibi for one of the nights, that would cool things off." He popped open a beer, frowned into it. "I got a call in to the governor. He's a little hard to reach today, but I expect he'll call me back tomorrow."

She tried a smile, hoping to coax one from Tucker. "He's a cousin, I suppose?"

"The governor?" He did smile, fleetingly. "No. But his wife is. Odds are Burns is going to need a lot more to put the cuffs on Dwayne."

"I can talk to my father if you like. He's corporate, but he knows some excellent criminal attorneys."

Tucker tilted back the beer. "Let's hope I don't have to take you up on it. The worst of it is, Caro, Dwayne's so scared he's doubting himself."

"What do you mean?"

"He's worried that maybe when he was drunk, when he wasn't thinking straight, he might have-"

Her heartbeat skipped. "My God, Tucker, you don't think-"

"No, I don't," he said with a barely restrained fury. "Jesus, Caroline, Dwayne's harmless as a puppy. He may flap around and scuffle when he's drunk, but he hurts only himself. And think," he added, because he had been, and he'd been thinking hard. "The way those women were killed. It was vicious, yeah. And sort of primal and wild, but it was also planned. Thought out clean and clever. A man's not clever with a head full of whiskey. He gets sloppy and stupid."

"You don't have to convince me, Tucker," she said quietly. But she wondered if he was trying to convince himself.

"He's my brother." For Tucker, that said it all. He could see Dwayne now, sitting with old Mr. O'Hara. Tucker figured the jug they were passing was of O'Hara's own brew. And it wasn't lemonade. "He'll be drunk as a skunk before nightfall. I haven't got the heart to cut him off."

"Sooner or later you'll have to, won't you?" She put a hand on his cheek. "Otherwise, you'll just be cutting him out. I've been thinking about what you said about families. Not just about taking a stand, but about making things right. I'm going to call my mother."

"I guess what you're telling me is, if my advice is good enough for you, it ought to be good enough for me."

She smiled. "Something like that."

With a nod, he looked back toward Dwayne. "There's a place up in Memphis. It has a good reputation for helping people shake themselves loose of the bottle.

I think if I work it right, I could talk him into giving it a try."

"Darling," she said, easing into a delta drawl, "with your talent you could talk a starving man out of his last crust of bread."

"That so?"

"That's so."

He leaned over to touch his lips to hers. "That being the case, maybe I could talk you into doing something for me. Something I've had a hankering for."