Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

“Only lately.”

“Where is their house?”

“You drove right past it.”

“The log house? I guess I was expecting something fancier. Well, I can find my way back. A pleasure, Mr. Brooker.”

She didn’t bother making it sound like she meant it. She started for her car, but winced, her road rash killing her. She had no reserves. She might have even moaned.

“You going to pass out?” Brooker asked. “Because if you are, give me your car keys. I’ll drive you and your car down to the house. Easier than having to haul you on my shoulder. Looks like you carry some muscle.”

Had he just called her fat? “I’ve never passed out in my life.”

“Who hit you?”

She automatically touched her swollen lip-she’d given up too soon on icing it. “Long story. Let’s just say it wasn’t a guy wearing overalls.” She pulled on a low branch of the oak. “Nice beech tree. Beautiful area to work.”

“Yes, ma’am, it’s a real pretty place to work.”

He’d amped up the down-home accent and manner, but he was no damn gardener. Then he leaned toward her. “Don’t get excited, Deputy. It’s an oak tree. You’ll have to do better than that to trip me up.”

She ignored him. “Is this the house where President Poe was raised?”

“It is.”

“I guess you don’t keep up this place, do you?”

“No, ma’am.”

She rolled her eyes and climbed back into her car, giving a shudder of pain when the wheel brushed against her bruised rib. Brooker frowned at her through her open window, a spark of concern in his brown eyes. “You look like shit, Deputy. Want me to drive you to the Dunnemores’?”

“That good ol’ boy act comes and goes, doesn’t it?”

He grinned at her. “Two minutes, you’ll be talking to Deputy Winter.”

“He’s not going to tell me a posse’s out looking for you, is he?”

“No, ma’am.”

She thought he winked. She started the engine and pulled farther into the driveway to turn around. Brooker walked alongside her, toward the river. He was a buff gardener, that was for damn sure. A danger-courting type, never mind the overalls.

He got close to her car and tapped the roof. “Hold on, Deputy.” His voice was quiet, serious. “We’ve got a problem.”

She’d seen it at the same moment he had. Two bodies were sprawled on the edge of the bluff above the river.

Juliet stopped the car and drew her weapon. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Brooker didn’t argue.

Ignoring her pain, she got out of the car and had him lead the way through the tall grass to the bodies.

Both were men. Obviously dead. White.

One blond, one dark haired.

Christ.

They were the two men who’d snatched her on the Upper West Side that morning. The blond one was facedown in the grass, one foot hanging over the edge of the bluff, at least forty feet above the river. The dark-haired man-the one who’d stuck the gun in Juliet’s gut and hit her when she didn’t answer his questions right-was on his back, his chest covered in blood.

They must have dumped their car at LaGuardia, caught a flight just ahead of hers and arrived in Tennessee in time to get shot dead.

“You hear any shots fired?” she asked Brooker.

“No.”

Neither had Nate and Rob in Central Park. “These two guys attacked me this morning in New York.” Damn. “I’m going to pat you down.”

“I’ve got a thirty-eight in an ankle holster. Right ankle.”

“How convenient.” She confiscated the weapon and finished patting him down. Hard body, lots of muscles. He must have worked his butt off as a gardener. “We’re going to the Dunnemore house. We’ll call the police on the way. I’d better not find anymore dead people there.” Nate. Sarah.

“I didn’t kill these men.”

She heard something stir in the brush behind her and started to swing around. The cool barrel of a gun touched her right ear. She could see it out of the corner of her eye and went still. “Drop your weapon now.”

It was another southern male voice. A county sheriff who’d answered a local’s call about the bodies?

“Look, I’m the good guy-”

“You’re Deputy U.S. Marshal Juliet Longstreet. I knew you’d come.”

She got it now. He wasn’t a local sheriff.

“One more time,” he said. “Drop your weapon-away from our Mr. Brooker, if you please.”

She tossed it lightly to her right.

“Brooker’s weapon,” the man with the gun said.

She pulled out the thirty-eight and tossed it, too. She felt adrenaline surge through her, obliterating the pain from her injuries.

Brooker stood very still, again with that steely look that said he was thinking five steps ahead of what was going on. Juliet didn’t know what to make of him.

“Don’t be a hero, Deputy,” the man behind her said. “You’re in no condition to take me on and risk Brooker’s life, not after what those idiots did to you this morning. Brooker, I’ll kill her if you flinch.”

Brooker hadn’t so much as let an eye flicker. “Did you kill my wife?”

“No. The men I just killed did.”

“Janssen’s men?” he asked stonily.

“Indeed. They killed your wife on his orders.” The man behind Juliet seemed almost charming, as if they were gossiping about a couple of locals. “He sent them down here to kill all of us. Clean things up.”

“Your real name isn’t Conroy Fontaine,” Brooker said.

“It’s Poe. John Wesley Poe.” He spoke proudly, the gun moving a few millimeters just below Juliet’s ear. His tone suggested he was just waiting for anyone to contradict him. “My mother gave me the same name as the women who stole my older brother gave him.”

President Poe? This son of a bitch had just killed two men in the backyard of the house where the president was raised, and now he was saying they were related?

Ah, hell.

Juliet felt a wave of dizziness. She couldn’t breathe. She started to topple forward, tried to stop herself, then thought-why not? She went all the way, pretending to faint from her injuries, and fell against Brooker’s knees. Fontaine. John Wesley Poe. Whoever he was, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her off Brooker, throwing her aside. She landed hard on the gravel driveway, right on her road rash, and screamed out in pain, tried to yell to Brooker to duck.

But he’d gone over the edge of the bluff.

Who the hell is this guy?

Her mind was all over the place. Her body was reeling from the fresh waves of pain. Her ribs, her head. The damn road rash.

Fontaine jerked her to her feet. He looked awful. Her stomach lurched and she threw up on him, noticing that he had on green camouflage pants and jacket as she heaved. She was dizzy, reeling from pain.

He sneered in disgust. “I can kill you with my bare hands.” There was no lilt to the accent now, no charm, however incongruous, to his tone. “Do you understand? I don’t need a fucking gun.”

Juliet nodded, then felt another wave of nausea and knew she really was passing out.

Sarah loaded up a big wooden tray with glasses, a bowl of ice, a sugar pot, spoons and a pitcher of tea-regular tea, not tea punch-and carried it out to the porch. She abandoned the casserole. She wasn’t hungry. Whenever she was stressed out, she’d tackle one of her grandmother’s recipes. It wasn’t just the comfort food, it was the inevitable images that came with it of her grandmother chopping onions, rolling out biscuit dough, cutting ripe peaches-losing herself, perhaps, in the ordinariness, the simple necessity, of putting a meal on the table.

But Sarah couldn’t have concentrated on another recipe. Not now.

Joe Collins had called from New York. Again, her parents hadn’t made their flight. He’d sounded faintly annoyed, as if the Dunnemores might be sucking him into some kind of drama unrelated to his investigation. Clearly, he didn’t see what role a rich tax evader, even if he was a fugitive, could possibly have played in the shooting in Central Park.