Confessions Read online

  Mariah was momentarily sidetracked by the introduction. "J.D?" Pushing the sunglasses to the top of her head, she gave the younger man a longer, second look. "Is that really you?"

  Trace watched in amazement as his deputy blushed scarlet. "It's me," he mumbled.

  "Why, you're all grown up."

  Unlike so many of her Hollywood peers, Mariah had never paid any heed to birthdays. Especially these days, since she had given up acting and turned to writing. Now her livelihood depended not on her look but on her talent to craft a gripping television drama.

  But seeing this boy she'd baby-sat all those years ago, dressed in the uniform of a deputy sheriff made her realize exactly how much time had gone by since she'd left Whiskey River in Laura's powder blue Mustang convertible.

  "I just graduated from U. of A.," J.D. said, sounding as if he'd stuck a handful of marbles into his mouth. "In criminal justice."

  "Criminal justice." Mariah mulled that one over, amazed that this was the same bratty little kid who, at age five, had seemed destined to grow up to be a world-class juvenile delinquent. "Your parents must be proud."

  J.D. mumbled something inarticulate that could have been agreement.

  Christ, Trace thought, next J.D. would be rubbing the toe of his boot in the dirt like some tongue-tied sixth grader. Mariah folded her arms over her scarlet shirt. "So, which of you officers is going to tell me what the hell is going on here?"

  "I'm afraid there's been a shooting," Trace said.

  "A shooting?" It was as if he'd suddenly switched to Greek. Or Swahili. Mariah couldn't comprehend his words. She turned and stared at the house as if hoping to find the explanation written on the double front doors. "Not a burglary?"

  "It's Laura," J.D. blurted out.

  "Laura?" Mariah blinked and looked at Trace. "My sister shot someone?"

  The idea was incomprehensible. Laura was the gentlest person Mariah had ever known. Why, she'd never been willing to so much as step on a spider.

  "I'm afraid your sister's the one who was shot." Trace kept his voice low and steady and watched her carefully.

  This was a dream, Mariah decided. In a minute she'd wake up, find herself in the tacky motel, with its amateur seascape on the wall and the portable television bolted to the dresser.

  She blinked again. Then she shook her head. Wake up, dammit, a frightened voice in her mind shouted.

  Trace saw the confusion in her slanted turquoise eyes give way to fear. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Swann." This time he took off his hat. "But your sister's dead."

  "Dead," she repeated blankly.

  Trace didn't think she'd grasped his meaning yet. He knew shock had a way of numbing such staggering blows. She glanced back at her Jeep, then beyond, down the serpentine road she'd just driven. Trace could practically see the wheels turning inside her head and knew she was thinking of the gray van she'd obviously passed on the way to the ranch.

  "Oh, my God." A ragged, involuntary keening sound escaped her lips. Then she swayed.

  Catching her by the upper arms, Trace lowered her to one of the flat-topped red boulders lining the driveway. He squatted in front of her.

  "Get rid of Chavez," he instructed a stricken J.D. when he saw the reporter, who'd stayed to watch the drama, headed their way. "Then go back in the house and help the lab guys."

  "Yessir." J.D. gave Mariah one last worried look, squared his shoulders and headed toward Rudy Chavez with a swagger that would have done John Wayne proud.

  "Put your head between your knees," Trace advised Mariah gruffly. He pressed his palm against the top of her head, urging it down. "That should help."

  She shook off his touch. "Help?" Her laugh was short and bitter. Her eyes were dull with the sheen of shock. "Help who? Laura?"

  The question didn't demand a response, but Trace answered her anyway. "I'm afraid it's too late for your sister."

  "Too late." She squeezed her hands together until her knuckles turned white and pressed them against her eyes. "It was the damn river."

  "The river?"

  "It was flooding. Someone had put up a stupid barricade and I was afraid to try crossing it in the dark." Her hands limply dropped to her sides. She lowered her forehead to her knees, not to keep from fainting, but because the pain shooting through her was so intense. "I spent the rest of the night in Camp Verde."

  A slow breath shuddered through her. She lifted her head again. "When was she killed?"

  Trace knew where she was headed. He also knew second-guessing fate was asking for trouble. "We don't know exactly," he hedged. "Not yet."

  "Surely you have a ballpark estimate."

  "The coroner's currently putting the time of death between two and three."

  "This morning."

  "Yes."

  "Dammit." Trace recognized the expression in her bleak gaze. It was one he was personally familiar with. Guilt. "If I'd only gotten here on time, she'd still be alive."

  Something made him want to take both her soft hands in his and hold on tight until he could convince her that such thoughts were self-destructive. That they could eat away at your insides like battery acid. Cursing softly, he sat down beside her.

  "You can't know that," he said, attempting to soothe the accusations running rampant in her head. He knew, all too well, exactly what those voices sounded like.

  "I told her I'd be here by midnight. If I had—"

  "The intruders might have killed you, too."

  "Intruders?" She looked at him in surprise.

  "Right now it appears your sister woke up during a robbery."

  "A robbery." She bit her lip, taking it in. "Then Alan wasn't the one who killed her?"

  "Why would you think the senator shot your sister?" he asked with a studied lack of inflection. Just the facts ma'am.

  "Because Alan Fletcher is a son of a bitch who only married my sister for her money and her political connections."

  Her color had returned. Her eyes cleared. Scarlet flags waved in her cheeks. Trace watched her spine stiffen and knew she wasn't going to faint.

  "If that's true, you'd think he'd want to keep her alive."

  "Not really," Mariah argued. As she reached into her bag for her cigarettes, the mists began lifting from her mind. She was beginning to be able to think again.

  On some distant level she knew there would still be pain to deal with. A horrendous amount of pain and remorse and regret. But at the moment, she found it easier to concentrate on the crime as if it were a new script she was writing.

  "Since I doubt if Laura asked Alan to sign a prenuptial, he'd be first in line to inherit her money, not to mention a sizable trust fund. And this ranch."

  "As for political support, our father handpicked the ambitious bastard to be his son-in-law." She shook out a cigarette and went digging for the art test matches in the depths of the bag. "The only thing that would make the mighty Matthew Swann retract his political support would be if he discovered a Communist Party membership card lurking in Alan's wallet."

  "Of course, now that the Evil Empire is no longer a threat, he might even turn a blind eye to that." She jammed the cigarette between her lips and was appalled to discover that her hands were trembling too badly to light it.

  Her scorn, Trace noted, appeared to be evenly divided between her brother-in-law and her father. She was angry and bitter and didn't bother to hide it.

  As he took the matches and lit the cigarette, Trace also realized she hadn't yet asked about the senator.

  "Your brother-in-law was shot, too," he told her.

  "Is he dead?"

  "No. He's in surgery, but the doctor says he's not in any danger."

  "Too bad." She drew in the smoke and shook her head. "Hell. This will probably earn him another fifty thousand votes come election time."

  "Has anyone notified my father?" Now that she thought about it, Mariah was surprised that he wasn't here trying to control this scene and everyone in it.

  "My dispatcher has be
en trying to reach him. Apparently he's in New Mexico. No one seems to know how to get hold of your mother."

  "That's probably because she left town when I was five."

  "I'm sorry."

  Mariah shrugged and exhaled a thin blue cloud. Her throat was raw from a night of cigarettes. She really was going to have to stop one of these days. "There's no need to apologize."

  She looked back at the house, her gaze drifting to the upstairs window as if hoping to see her sister standing there.

  Trace remembered how, when he'd finally gotten sprung from the hospital, he'd taken a cab to the police garage and sat in the driver's seat of the unmarked cruiser, imagining Danny riding shotgun beside him.

  At the time, he'd felt foolish and hoped like hell none of the other detectives would discover him there. They hadn't, and oddly, for that brief time, he'd actually felt a little better. Not good. But better.

  "My mother lives in Bel Air. I see her quite often." Since it was obvious he didn't know, Mariah decided she may as well be the one to tell him. "She's Margaret McKenna."

  Mariah gave him credit for keeping the surprise from showing. Instead, his eyes narrowed and moved slowly over her face in a judicious appraisal.

  Margaret McKenna had been an old-style, Hollywood bombshell. Her haughty, Ice Queen performances had radiated with the type of carnality often imitated but rarely equaled. Kathleen Turner had come close in Body Heat, Trace decided. Madonna? Sharon Stone? Forget it.

  Her voice had been the kind of sultry, whiskey baritone that could make all of a man's nerves stand on end. And when those huge one-of-a-kind emerald eyes bore down on you from the oversize movie screen, it was as if she were aiming down the barrel of a gun. As a bonus, she'd been a helluva good actress, too.

  "Now that you mention it, I can see the resemblance," Trace decided finally. It was in the unflinching directness of the eyes, the remarkable cheekbones, the pointed, argumentative chin. But mostly it was attitude.

  "Actually, Laura looks more like our mother."

  He didn't miss her use of the present tense. Death took getting used to. Murder took even longer.

  Belatedly realizing what she'd said, Mariah sighed and stabbed the cigarette out on the rock. "This sucks."

  "Yes. It does." He stopped being a concerned listener and went back to being a cop. "Look, I don't know when we're going to be able to track down your father and with the senator in surgery—"

  "You need someone to identify my sister's body," Mariah guessed flatly.

  "The sooner we get an ID, the sooner we can compile more evidence to help us apprehend her killer."

  Mariah realized that he was talking about an autopsy. Her lips pulled into a tight line. Her gaze drifted, once again, to the bedroom window.

  He stood up and put the Stetson back on, adjusting the black felt brim so that a shadow fell over his face. "I'll drive you into town."

  Mariah was not fond of men who issued orders. But at the moment, she didn't feel up to driving back down that steep winding road, either.

  "Let's go." She stood up and although he wouldn't have thought it possible, given how tight those jeans were, managed to jam her hands into her back pockets. The gesture pulled the crimson shirt tight against her high, firm breasts.

  They walked side by side to the Suburban. He opened the door and with a palm to her elbow, helped her up into the passenger seat.

  "I'll be right back. I want to tell J.D. where he can reach me and arrange to have your Jeep driven into town."

  "The keys are in the ignition."

  Mariah watched him enter the house that had smelled like gingerbread cookies, lemon oil and Pine Sol back in the days when it had belonged to her grandmother.

  Experience had taught Mariah to trust her intuition about people, and that sixth sense was telling her that Trace Callahan was both intelligent and competent. Her sister was in good hands.

  Laura.

  Mariah felt the tears stinging at the back of her lids and resolutely blinked them away. There would be time for tears later. Right now she had work to do.

  She lit another cigarette and began to compile a mental list.

  First she had to identify Laura's body. Then she had to call her mother and inform the woman she'd always known as Maggie—never Mama, or heaven forbid, Mom—that her firstborn daughter was dead.

  She'd have to face her father's unrelenting disapproval for the first time in more than a decade. She had to try to offer condolences to her wounded son-of-a-bitch brother-in-law without gagging.

  And then, somehow, she was going to have to dig down deep enough to find the inner strength to get through the funeral.

  In addition to all that, although he didn't know it yet, Mariah had every intention of helping Whiskey River's new sheriff apprehend her sister's murderer.

  Then, and only then, when the heartless monsters who'd shot Laura dead, cruelly cutting short a very special life, were behind bars, would she allow herself to cry.

  Chapter Four

  The medical examiner's office was in the basement of the town's eighty-year-old redbrick courthouse. Since the ancient elevator tended to be iffy, Trace decided to skip it.

  As Mariah accompanied him down first the narrow flight of stairs and then the long, poorly lit hallway, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that none of it was real, that she was plotting out a script.

  Beautiful wife of charismatic senator is killed in an isolated ranch house during a thunderstorm, she set up the scenario. With the help of the murdered woman's sister, an award-winning television writer, the crime is solved, the politician husband is arrested and justice wins in the end.

  No, Mariah considered. That plot left the wife still dead. She erased the mental slate in her mind and began again.

  Beautiful wife of charismatic senator is shot and wounded during a thunderstorm. While she lies in a coma, dogged small-town sheriff and glamorous television writer, estranged from her family for years, set out to prove the husband guilty.

  The smoking gun is found. The senator gets a pair of silver bracelets and a ride in the back of a patrol car to jail, where he breaks down and confesses.

  His wife wakes up in the hospital, seemingly no worse for her harrowing experience and requests a cup of herbal tea and a divorce.

  The sisters embrace. The music swells.

  "Whatever would I have done without you?" the older sister asks tearfully.

  The younger one shrugs. She is not only glamorous and famous, but modest as well. "Hey," she says, "that's what sisters are for."

  So, in sixty minutes, minus commercials and a network newsbreak, justice is served, a family is reunited, and the story ends on a happy, upbeat note.

  It was a nice scenario, Mariah considered with an inward sigh. Too bad things didn't work that way in real life.

  Unfortunately, there was one thing that was exactly like it appeared on television. And that was the morgue.

  Trace flipped the switch beside the door. The rows of fluorescent tubes flickered to life, casting a bright, but complexion-draining light over the scene. Cool air was blowing from the vent above the loading dock door of the windowless room. "The doc's probably out getting breakfast."

  "I'm amazed he could eat."

  Trace's only response was a shrug. Taking a new cop out for a Denny's Grand Slam after he'd watched his first autopsy had long been viewed as a rite of passage.

  A metal table stood in the center of the linoleum floor. Beside the table was a scale, like that used in supermarkets to weigh apples and oranges. Although a camera was fixed to the ceiling overhead, allowing photographs of record to be taken, the room lacked the overhead microphone that would allow the forensic pathologist to record his findings for later transcription. Instead, metal clipboards hung from hooks on the bilious green wall.

  Between the clipboards and the old-fashioned black wall phone was a cork bulletin board covered with official memorandum, some of which, Mariah noted absently, were years old. Against th
e opposite wall, rather than the tidy steel compartments she routinely wrote into her scripts, was a walk-in freezer.

  Trace gave her a judicious look. "Are you sure you're up to this?"

  "I'm sure."

  Watching her wrap her arms around herself, Trace suspected that it was not the cold she'd find inside the freezer Mariah Swann was trying to ward off, but the iciness that had taken hold of her heart.

  She took a deep breath. "Let's get it over with."

  Mariah had witnessed death before. She had even, on one memorable occasion, in the name of research, sat in on an autopsy. She had to leave the room to throw up when the pathologist popped the top of the skull with a tool that resembled a crowbar, but so had the detective assigned to the case.

  This time, however, she had a personal connection to the sheet-draped body stretched out on the wheeled gurney. This was no anonymous skid row slashing victim; this was her sister.

  Trace drew back the cloth covering Laura Fletcher's face. He watched the myriad emotions flicker across Mariah's face: first shock, then startled recognition, followed an instant later by pain. Then, ultimately, love.

  When she reached out to smooth away a few strands of auburn hair from her sister's cheek, he made a move to stop her from contaminating the evidence, then decided, what the hell.

  "That's where she was shot?" she asked, observing the smudged wound at the left temple. Though she was almost as pale as her sister and her trembling hands betrayed her tumultuous emotions, Mariah's voice remained steady.

  "There and in the chest."

  "I want to see."

  "I'm not sure—"

  She raised her chin. "I said, I want to see what was done to my sister, Sheriff."

  Their stares locked and held. Fuck it, Trace decided. He didn't feel up to arguing the point.

  Hoping she wasn't going to faint on him again, he yanked back the sheet.

  At the sight of Laura's nude body, Mariah flinched and unconsciously put a hand to her own breast as if she suddenly felt the impact of the gunshot herself.

  Trace watched her thoughtful gaze move back and forth, from one wound to the other. The lady, he decided, was no cream puff.