“So you called. To give me an out.”
“Seemed like the easiest way to get out of a sticky situation.” She shot him a glance as he slowed for a stop sign and a big truck spewing gravel onto the recently plowed cross street rumbled through the intersection. Johnson added, “Look. I don’t know what went on between you two, and trust me, I don’t want to. None of my business. But I gotta say, that woman, Sheila Keegan? She’s a piece of work.”
That and so much more, Thomas thought, as he nosed the SUV toward the station, that and so much more.
*
Tate wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life. He stared across the shadowy room to his bed, where Kara McIntyre was sleeping, her brown curls splayed upon his pillow, her dog curled next to her. Together they’d knocked off a bottle of wine and probably would have opened another if he’d had it. She’d even offered to go down to the market and buy another, but cooler heads had prevailed—his head—and they stopped at one. He hated to admit it, even to himself as he watched her breathing slowly, her hair splayed over his pillow, her eyelashes brushing her cheek, but he’d considered cracking open a bottle of Crown Royal that he’d gotten from his sister for his birthday, but, seeing that Kara was exhausted and still healing, he’d resisted.
Who knew what would have happened? Would she have opened up even more, told him secrets she’d locked away for twenty years, let him in? And he, would he have given in to temptation and kissed her. He’d thought about it. And there had been a couple of times when he’d caught her looking at him in a way he’d found incredibly sexy, but he’d been sober enough not to make that mistake.
At least not yet.
So he’d convinced her to sleep in his bed while he settled down in his favorite chair, but sleep, for him, had been elusive, and he’d give up all pretense of slumber around four thirty, long before dawn. In the ensuing hours, he’d downloaded the jump drives he’d taken from Merritt Margrove’s office.
He’d hoped to find something new and game-changing in the information, but so far, hadn’t. He’d made notes, though, and wanted to interview everyone associated with the McIntyre Massacre.
Whoever had killed Margrove had killed him for a reason.
Because he’d finally gotten Jonas McIntyre released from prison?
He leaned back in his chair and glanced at the woman sleeping in his bed. What did he know about her other than what he’d read? Already she was changing his opinion of her. After the massacre, Kara had been placed in her aunt’s care even though Faiza and her younger sister, Zelda, had never been particularly close. Nor did she have children of her own, but Faiza had been determined to claim custody of her young niece, and Tate wondered if all of her sudden concern as an aunt had more to do with the fortune attached to her young charge than the girl herself. And though Kara spent most of her time with Merritt and his wife, that marriage had never been rock-steady and Faiza had put an end to any furthering of the relationship at least until Kara came of age. Throughout it all, Faiza and her live-in boyfriend Roger Sweeney had taken residence in the McIntyre home on two acres in the West Hills of Portland and as far as Tate could tell, Faiza had control of Kara’s inheritance.
But that was about to change. Kara was about to come of age to inherit, according to the copy of her parents’ will that Tate had found in Margrove’s files. Well, make that Kara and Jonas, as they were the only surviving children of Samuel McIntyre.
He rubbed his chin and thought. Was it possible that the homicide of Merritt Margrove didn’t have so much to do with Jonas McIntyre’s release from prison as it did with Kara McIntyre coming of age to claim her inheritance?
Was this why Margrove was killed?
Or was he grasping at all-too-thin straws?
Kara stirred, turning over and cracking open an eye. “What time is it?” she asked around a yawn.
“Five.”
“Oooh. Too early.” And she rolled over, the dog shifting and protesting with a quiet growl before settling down again just as Tate’s cell phone vibrated on the desk and Connell’s name appeared on the screen. With a glance at Kara burrowed beneath the coverlet, he snagged the phone and hurried downstairs and through the door to the vestibule, where he hoped he wouldn’t disturb her.
“Hey,” he answered. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to give you a heads-up. I did a series of background checks on people associated with the McIntyre Massacre. A deeper dive.”