I'll Be Watching You Read online

  “We’re thinking that he lost a shipment and was trying to come up with the money to make up for it. We stayed up half the night trying to figure out what to do. We could tell the truth, and my dad would probably be acquitted. Donnie did have the rifles in his hand. Meanwhile, your family’s name would be dragged through the mud along with ours, and if he had any life insurance, they probably wouldn’t pay out. Kinsey looked at everything and decided the truth wasn’t worth it. It would hurt more people and wouldn’t help anyone. Your mother was the one who gave us the hunting story.”

  “My mother…” Kim’s eyes widened. “She knew about this?” She didn’t think her chest could hurt any more, but that sentence proved her wrong.

  “Of course,” Winnerow said. “We brought her to the house and told her everything. She agreed to our plan. She didn’t want you to suffer for what your father had done. She had nothing to gain by having the truth out.”

  Kitty, who had been so unhappy as Donnie’s wife. Kim remembered hearing an argument over Donnie’s fishing excursions. Had Kitty known about the drug running?

  “Did Elva know?”

  Zell nodded.

  Kim felt her legs weaken and locked her knees. “If I’d known the truth…” She looked at Tullie, who had warned her she wouldn’t like the truth.

  Charlotte stepped forward. “You wouldn’t have believed it. Even if you had believed, you still would have hated Daddy. Either way, it was a lose-lose situation.”

  Kim turned to Winnerow. “Whose idea was it to marry my mother?”

  “Mine. I felt I owed it to her. And to you. There wasn’t any insurance money, as it turned out. The bottom line was, I killed your father, even if it wasn’t intentional.” He stepped closer to Kim. “I liked Donnie. He was a friend, but he betrayed me. Not that he deserved to die for that, of course. You and your mother didn’t deserve to starve because of it either. So I did what I felt was right.”

  Kim’s head was spinning. Her father a thief? Winnerow a good guy? No, the world didn’t change like that. “I have to go.”

  Winnerow called after her. “Talk to Kinsey about it. I’ll tell him to tell you the truth.”

  She couldn’t respond, could only tighten her arms around her and keep walking to her truck. Was it a lie, a vicious lie they’d made up to cover their butts?

  She didn’t think so, not deep inside. Because even in Winnerow’s eyes, she’d seen pity.

  Zell watched Kim leave and felt a tug to follow her. Not only to comfort the shock in her eyes, but to get some answers. He had to let her go…for now.

  Shar whistled. “Well, that was something interesting. I suppose it’s best for her to find out. Sometimes it’s better for the truth to come out.”

  Winn rubbed his hand over his mouth, as though he could take back his blunder. “Sometimes it’s not.”

  Zell opened the French door. It had been a lie to protect family honor—Kim’s family. It was too late for wondering if it had been the right thing to do. The lies had been told, and the secrets had been kept. He wondered if Winn was thinking about other lies and secrets as he filled a glass of ice at the wet bar.

  “So, Shar, did you really invite Kim to lunch?” Zell asked as he opened the refrigerator and poured two iced teas. He intercepted his father pouring bourbon into the glass by handing him one of the teas. Winn grudgingly took the tea but eyed the bottle of bourbon. He’d be back for that. Zell was sure that Winn had never figured out he’d been watering down his drinks for years.

  Shar helped herself to the tea, too. “I did, but not for today. I told her we should have lunch together.”

  Winn scowled. “Why would you do that?”

  She gave them a coy smile. “To keep tabs on her, see what she’s up to.” She crushed a mint leaf into her glass. “Besides, she’s interesting. And she’s got balls, something I admire in a woman.”

  Winn was still scowling, whether it was the forced iced tea or Shar’s choice in friends, Zell didn’t know. Winn walked over and pressed the blinking light on the answering machine. Buck’s voice boomed out an urgency to talk to Winn and he walked into the living room.

  Owen said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea bringing that woman into our home and our lives.”

  She chucked him on the chin. “When did I ever give a hoot’n holler what you thought? I’ll be friends with whomever I like, regardless of what anyone thinks.” She shot Zell a look. “That principle doesn’t apply to you, big brother.”

  He leaned back against the counter. “Excuse me?”

  “You can’t be friends with her. It’s a double standard, ’cause she’s a woman. You become friends with her, she’ll fall in love with you, and you’ll be sleeping together. That’ll make things all kinds of complicated around here.” She swigged the rest of her tea and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “There’s no chance of me sleeping with her.”

  Tullie was taking all of this in as she usually did. The girl was so quiet it was easy to forget she was even there sometimes. She met his gaze, trouble darkening her expression.

  Winn came into the room after calling Buck. “It’s just like I thought: Kim coming back to town is nothing but trouble. She’s investigating that girl’s murder again. First her trip out to Ernest Jones, and now she’s questioning Grace, asking her who she thought killed Rhonda. Who she was seeing at the time of her death.” He looked at Owen. “It’s time to run her right back out of town.”

  Zell didn’t like the sound of that. “What are you going to do?”

  “You just never mind. Doesn’t concern you.” This time he filled his glass with bourbon and dared Zell to do something about it. That was a fight Zell wasn’t in the mood to take up.

  Winn said, “I’ll bet you a bottle of Kentucky’s best she was looking for something here. I want to know what it was.”

  Zell did, too. “I’ve got to go.” He was going to find out.

  Kinsey made Kim tell him what she knew of the story. He’d made her walk outside the station before he parted with anything so no one else could hear them.

  “Yep, that’s about how it happened,” he confirmed when she’d told him what she’d heard.

  Kim leaned against the outside of the building and swatted at mosquitoes. “Do you think he was running drugs?”

  “I’m pretty sure he was. I know he was your daddy and all, but he got in over his head sometimes. People aren’t always what you think they are.” Kinsey lit a thin cigar. “See what happens when you dig too much. You find out things you don’t want to know. That’s the least of your worries.”

  “What else should I be worried about?”

  “Now you’re scratching around Elva’s grave, a lot. With the way you point fingers, it’s making people nervous. All you’re doing is looking for trouble…and all you’re gonna do is find it.”

  “Someone murdered my grandmother, and I intend to find out who it was. Her rifle is missing.”

  “Didn’t know she had a rifle.”

  “It was Smitty’s; he lent it to her. She was afraid. Now the rifle is missing.”

  “Then Smitty ought to come in and file a report on it.”

  Kim let out a long breath. It was useless telling him anything. She left him standing there with a smug look on his face and a cigar dangling out of his mouth. She got into her truck and headed home, still having a hard time believing that awful story. Her father was a good man with bad judgment perhaps, but he wasn’t a drug runner and thief. It had to be a big misunderstanding.

  The ache in her chest that had started with Winnerow’s words was growing. She remembered a police car coming to the house once, one of the deputies questioning her father. Afterward, he’d ruffled her hair and told her not to worry about it. They had the wrong guy, he’d said. He said he’d always be there for her. She’d loved him with all of her heart, a heart she’d never given to anyone else. As fragile as she felt, safe men like Simon were sounding pretty good. At least she’d never get her heart broken again
.

  When she pulled up to her house, anxiety washed over her. Zell was leaning against his shiny black truck waiting for her. He looked casual, his arms loosely crossed in front of him, but there was nothing casual about his eyes. He reminded her of an alligator, sitting in the water looking like a harmless log but waiting to pull flesh apart at the first opportunity.

  She wanted to stay in her air-conditioned cab for a long time and listen to her Pink CD. That Pink was singing about getting the party started struck her as sadistically ironic.

  She pushed out of the truck and walked forward like a woman who wasn’t feeling all kinds of trepidation. “I’ve got to let Oscar out,” she said and stepped onto the porch. Oscar lurched out, down the steps, and headed off to attend to his pig business.

  Zell had strolled to the hothouse. The easy sway in his walk reminded her of Amy’s comment: Everglades cowboy. With his alligator boots and faded jeans, it fit.

  She realized she had stood there watching him walk away. Of course, he expected her to follow him. Out of principle, she should stay put, but she wanted to get this over with.

  While it was muggy outside, it was downright steamy in the hothouse. The smell of earth and bark overpowered the orchids. He was poking at the bark of a mounted orchid. “You’re letting them dry out.”

  He was going to drag this out. “I haven’t been a good mother to the orchids, I admit. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  “Elva had planned to install automatic misters in here when she started making some money.” He took his time inspecting the plants. She tried not to look bothered by his making her wait or the wilting orchids. Finally, he walked back to her and leaned against the nearby wood post. “You okay?” He studied her, and for a moment, she let herself think that’s why he was there, to make sure she could handle the news she’d just been given.

  “I talked to Kinsey.”

  He nodded, knowing Kinsey had confirmed the news and probably seeing by the defeat in her eyes that she was beginning to accept it. “Sorry you had to hear it that way. Or at all. Sometimes it’s better to leave the truth where it is.”

  “That seems to be the sentiment around here. I don’t buy it.”

  He lost that shade of sympathy and took the look he probably used when lobbying in Tallahassee. “What were you doing out at Heron’s Glen?”

  “I told you, I was looking for Charlotte.”

  “And you’re a liar.”

  “So are you.”

  He pushed away from the post, and she hated the way she flinched at his advance. He stood inches in front of her. “You tell me the truth, and I’ll tell you the truth.”

  “About what?”

  “Anything you want to know.”

  She wanted to kick him in the shin and she wanted to pull him close and kiss him. More sadistic irony.

  “I saw you coming out of the house. Now, if I’d told Winn about that, he’d have really gone off on you. I figured I’d find out and then decide if I’m going to go off on you. What were you doing there, Kim?”

  That hard, lean body wasn’t going to move until he got what he wanted. Dammit all, she was at a loss to come up with a viable lie. A trickle of sweat sliding between her breasts made her more aware of the drop sliding down Zell’s neck. With a sigh of defeat, she gave it to him. “I was looking for Elva’s rifle. It’s missing.”

  “You were searching our house for her rifle?” His face transformed as he processed that. “I thought this was about Rhonda.”

  “It is. It’s about her and Elva.” She didn’t want to tell him everything. He was the enemy, or at the least, an unknown factor, but she was already in too deep to back out now. “Elva was blackmailing Rhonda’s murderer.” She nodded toward the hothouse. “She was using the money to pay off your loan.” She left Ernest out of it.

  “Elva wasn’t murdered; she fell out of her skiff and hit her head.”

  “That’s what they want us to believe. Think about it: Elva poled through these waters all the time. She was an expert. She was in good health. The death certificate said blunt trauma to the head. Elva was only five-foot-three. How much blunt trauma could happen from falling out of a skiff?” She had his attention. “I found a piece of a rubber glove in the filing cabinet. Someone had been looking for whatever Elva was holding over the murderer’s head. He made a mess of the filing cabinet.”

  Zell idly reached out and touched one of the pink orchids. “If Elva was murdered, how do you know she was blackmailing Rhonda’s murderer?”

  “Trust me on that part.”

  “Trust you? You sound like a one-woman posse hell-bent to wreak havoc. I just caught you sneaking out of my family home. How am I supposed to trust you?”

  Maybe she did sound like a one-woman posse. Maybe she was hell-bent to wreak havoc. She needed Zell to believe her. It was important somehow, so she gave him the rest. “I found five entries on her ledger for five hundred dollars each. At first, I thought they were payments to you, but the amount wasn’t right. Then I discovered Elva was giving Ernie two hundred and fifty dollars every month for five months. She’d told him it was from the person who killed his mother. She was trying to make up for it in some small way. In Elva’s way.”

  He rubbed his hand over his mouth as he considered it. His gaze shifted back to her. “You still think my dad killed Rhonda? Now you think he killed Elva?”

  “I’m not sure it was Winnerow. It could be Owen.”

  He laughed. “Owen? You might as well accuse Dewey. And Shar. And me while you’re at it.” His eyes darkened. “Maybe you already have. Did you plan to check out my place, too?”

  The truth was, she couldn’t trust anyone. She hoped she could trust Zell. “No, I wasn’t planning on checking out your place.”

  “If I catch you in my house, you’d better be naked and lying on my bed.”

  He’d said it to shock her; at least she was pretty sure he had. He had that arrogant gleam in his eyes, the one that had always tickled straight to her stomach and farther on down. Even when they lived at Heron’s Glen, she realized. Even then. She tried not to look shocked by his statement; she’d heard a lot worse in her years of working at bars. Apparently, something had slipped through; his mouth quirked up in a satisfied smile.

  “Did you get a look to your satisfaction?” he asked.

  Her gaze darted down his yellow shirt with palm trees and his faded jeans, and then she realized he’d meant at Heron’s Glen. “Mostly. I didn’t get a chance to check out the upstairs storage room since everyone had the nerve to show up. I thought they were going to be gone all day.”

  “It’s darn irritating when people show up at their own house, isn’t it?”

  She allowed him a quirk of her mouth. “A bit, yes.”

  “There was an accident on US41 that had traffic backed up for miles. They rescheduled and turned back. Dewey called me when he saw your truck head to the house. We all got there at the same time.”

  “Did they believe my story about being there to see Charlotte?”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but Winn knows you’re digging again. Buck called him right after you left.”

  Buck knew. How?

  “Why can’t you let this go?” he asked, running his long fingers up and down the length of an erotically shaped white orchid petal. “Why do you have to keep pushing at this?”

  She had to pull her gaze off his fingers. “I don’t know.” It was Kitty’s words that came back to her, her exclamation about the closet, actually. Kitty had been determined to better herself. She’d been determined about a lot of things. Stubborn and hardheaded, some said. People had said the same thing about her. “It’s a family trait, like the way Macgregors hold grudges.”

  “Uh-huh. You’d been better off with early-graying hair or bad skin.”

  “Someone murdered Rhonda and Elva. I can’t walk away from that. I can’t walk away from a miscarriage of justice.”

  Sweat trickled down her back and made her shimmy a little. Zell looked a
s cool as a bottle of Bud recently plucked from the ice bin. He was draped against a post, watching her while absently stroking that petal.

  “All right,” she said, bringing her mind back to the conversation at hand. “I’ve answered your questions. Now you have to answer mine.”

  “Wait a minute. I’ve got one more.” He advanced on her with a raised hand. “What the hell did you do to your hair?” His hand slid over her cap of hair.

  “Grace. I used a haircut as an excuse to question her. I distracted her and wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing.” His fingers lingered against the back of her neck, twining in the short ends of her hair. She brushed her own hand through her hair, brushing him away in the process. She didn’t need his touch messing with her mind. “Does it look butchy?”

  He took her in. “Nothing butchy about you, angel. I liked it longer, though.”

  Angel. That’s what he’d called Tullie. Maybe what he called all the girls. So why did it curl right through her like a sensual wave of smoke curling up from a candle?

  Maybe it was the steamy air that was affecting her mind, or the earthy, flowery scents. Were orchids aphrodisiacs? She pulled her thoughts together, but they came sluggishly. Maybe it was because he was still standing in front of her, adding aftershave and his own scent to the mix.

  “My turn now,” she said. “You said you’d answer any question I asked.” She’d see about that; he was good at skirting questions. “Do you have any idea who killed Rhonda? Or Elva?”

  “None.” Tiny beads of sweat now dotted his upper lip. “Kim, let it go. It was a shame what happened to her, but she would go home with anybody. She picked the wrong guy one time.”

  “That guy is still walking around free.”

  “But he’s not still killing women, or at least not around here. He was probably a transient.”

  “Did she go home with you?” She hated herself for waiting on the edge those milliseconds before he answered. Hated his smile for seeing right through her.

  “No, she didn’t. I guess I was the odd one, because I didn’t want a girl who would open her legs for anybody. I liked the one who wouldn’t.”