Lenora Worth - Lakeside Peril

“You don’t have to like me,” she retorted. “You just need to believe me when I say they are all involved.”

“Who are they?” Hunter asked, figuring that was a loaded question. “Who doesn’t believe you?”

“The sheriff in Conrad Corner, for starters.” She glanced out at the water, a dark sadness that Hunter recognized coloring her eyes. “And just about everyone else there, too. Possibly including my father.”

Conrad Corner, Oklahoma. Hunter didn’t want to think about that dingy little town thirty miles west of Oklahoma City. He’d been running from that place since he’d returned stateside.

But he did believe one thing Chloe Conrad had said.

The sheriff in Conrad Corner was corrupt, so if the sheriff had refused to help her, there had to be a reason. And not a good one. Her father owned as many people as he did acreage.

“Keep talking,” he said.

She had just become his client.

* * *

Chloe let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, tears of relief burning through her eyes. No one, not even her distraught family, wanted to delve into what might have happened on that deserted airstrip this past spring. But she’d found some details that made her believe finding Hunter Lawson was her only hope. Now she had to convince him to help without sharing all those details with him. Yet.

Knowing Hunter might actually believe her helped her to go on. “Over the last few months I’ve gone from mourning my sister’s plane crash and death to promising myself to find out who killed Laura. Because besides knowing that Laura was an expert pilot, I found something else that disturbed me.”

He drummed his fingers on the weathered table. “What?”

“Her apartment had been ransacked. Everything had been tossed around and knocked over. It happened a few days after her funeral.”

“Did you report it?”

“Yes, but...nothing of value was missing. I don’t think they found what they were looking for, since I’d already taken out a box of personal papers and files earlier in the week.”

“So what happened after that?”

“I went through the files and papers I found at her apartment when I went to clean it out a day or so after the crash. My mother asked me to do it.” She tugged at her jacket, took another breath. The anguish of going into that apartment tormented Chloe even now. “My sister was a social reporter. She did human interest stories for a humanitarian website and worked as a beat reporter at the Conrad Chronicle. She wasn’t into hard news. Laura had such a good heart she always looked for the best in people.”

“What did you find in the files?” Hunter asked, his tone quiet but his eyes cutting like gunmetal.

He wanted to be done with her. Discomfort and impatience radiated all around him like a mantle. Chloe decided now wasn’t the right time to give him all the details. She had to gain his trust bit by bit.

“Some reports and notes regarding several parcels of land near Conrad. Land that my family secretly owns.”

“Your family owns half of Oklahoma.”

“But this is land that my father somehow bought up in bits. I think he’s been quietly sitting on it for years. It looks as if someone bought it up under another name, even though the sales are public record. I couldn’t understand why Laura would be interested in that until I studied these reports.”

“What did the reports say?”

“From what I could gather, the land has been in a holding pattern with a company called Wind Drift Pass. Laura’s notes indicated it was some sort of shell company. No one knows that Conrad Oil is involved with the transactions. But I think Laura found out something regarding this land, something that caused her death. She’d made notes indicating that Conrad Oil owned the land. I believe she was gathering information to confront someone. Or expose someone.”

He sat back in his chair. “Big corporations use shell companies a lot to avoid paying taxes.”

“Yes, but why would Conrad Oil use one for land that hasn’t been developed yet? What are they trying to hide?”

“Why don’t you ask your father that question?”

She sat silent for only a second, but Hunter’s eyes turned a deep gray. So he answered the question for her. “Because you don’t trust him.”

Chloe hated to admit it, but it was the truth. And Hunter had asked for the truth. She gave him as much of it as she felt necessary for now. “I don’t trust anyone.”

He nodded. “Ah, so that explains it.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. Had he already figured it all out?

He leaned up in his chair, his gaze pinning her. “Why you came to me.”

THREE

Chloe slid around so she could face the water, sweat beading on her upper lip in spite of the cool air. This was a peaceful, secluded spot, but she felt anything but peaceful.

“I told you—”

“You know I hate your father, right?” Hunter asked, his hands gripping the wide arms of his chair. “So...you can’t trust him, but you think maybe I’d be the perfect person to help you bring him down? Maybe because you think I need to seek revenge or retribution against your family? So you’ll use me to handle the unpleasant tasks, the same way your father uses people? Is that it? Am I right so far?”

He made it sound so sordid she wanted to bolt right out of here. But where would she go?

“That’s not my reason for finding you,” she said, fatigue warring with hope, regret merging with resentment. “I thought maybe if we worked together on this and if I could find out who did this to Laura, you might finally forgive my stepbrother for what he did.”

Anger clouded his eyes. “I doubt that’s gonna work, since getting justice for you will not absolve anyone—not even me. Besides, I don’t have to forgive Tray Conrad. He’s dead now and I’m thinking he’s not in a better place.”

“But—”

“But hiring me is one thing. Trying to redeem Tray is another. We do this my way and that means we aren’t going to speak of that lousy piece of humanity again, understand? And it also means I’m not anybody’s whipping boy or killer-for-hire.”

He stared out at the water for a moment and then gave her a look full of defiance. “I’ll help you find the truth about your sister’s death, but this doesn’t have anything to do with my feelings toward your family. Nothing will ever make me change my mind on that. Understand?”

She nodded again and stared at her boots. “I’m sorry, Hunter. For what he did to your sister.”

Hunter’s brooding expression turned black with anger. “Save it and get on with things.”

She told him more about the files she’d found, but she was still afraid to divulge everything. “I separated the files and kept some on my laptop and then hid part of them in a safe spot.”

“Nowhere is safe if someone is after damaging information.”

“I also took pictures of the papers and contracts that show the land sale. My father’s signature is nowhere on those papers, but somehow Laura found out he’s behind those buyouts.”

“He probably had someone strong-arm the landowners. You know how he lets other people do his dirty work.”

Hunter’s disgusted tone was undeniable. He’d never forgive Wayne Conrad for trying to cover up what her stepbrother, Tray, had done. Why had she come here?

She stood, needing to be away from him. “This was a bad idea. If you’ll take me back to the Millbrook Inn, I’ll call a cab and get a flight home.”

Hunter stood, too, and blocked her way, his broad chest shadowing the last of the sunset’s show-off rays. “Not gonna happen.”

“You said you hate my father.”

“I do. But if I let you go back and something happens to you, I’ll have to live with that, too.”