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  “Forget it. I’m sorry I bothered you. Just—” her voice cracked “—just go back to fighting with your ex-wife. I hope she wins, by the way,” she said and slammed down the phone.

  Antoinette had already won. Hunter tossed his cell phone onto the side table. He deserved Madeline Barker’s anger. Hell, he’d asked for it. He’d provoked her at every turn. After speaking with his ex-wife, and then his daughter—God, what she’d said to him—he’d been angling for a fight he could win.

  But he didn’t feel any better. If anything, he felt worse.

  The flicker of his muted television served as the only light in the room. The darkness generally soothed him, but not tonight. Raking his fingers through his hair, he stood up, then sat down again.

  Forget Maria. She didn’t know what she was saying. Her mother put her up to it, as usual.

  But he couldn’t forget. The pain was too physical. It felt like he had an open wound in his chest, as if his daughter had reached into that wound, wrapped her little hand around his heart and squeezed with complete abandon.

  Considering the Barker woman’s terrible timing, it was a wonder the desperation in her voice had penetrated at all.

  “Ms. Barker is not my problem,” he said aloud. His daughter was his problem. Or, more specifically, the fact that his ex-wife had turned his daughter against him. Although he paid exorbitant amounts of child support—he’d sent Antoinette an extra two thousand dollars just this month—it was never enough to make his ex happy. He doubted his daughter was even receiving the benefits of the money he sent. The last time he’d seen Antoinette, she’d had a new nose and breast enhancements that were so large she looked like a damn porn queen. The way she was spending money and hitting the L.A. party scene, trying to keep up with the rich and famous, was humiliating even though he wasn’t married to her anymore. Her behavior had to be doubly embarrassing for their daughter. How many PTA moms had tits the size of watermelons?

  But Antoinette hadn’t become quite so obsessive about plastic surgery, designer clothes and who was who in L.A. until after the divorce.

  The guilt that fueled his self-loathing settled deeper in his gut. How had he managed to screw up so completely? If only he could go back…

  But it was too late. The damage was done. And now Antoinette was using their child to extort more and more money out of him while painting him as the devil himself, the cause of all Maria’s problems.

  Automatically, his eyes cut to a picture of his twelve-year-old daughter. Her photograph rested on one of the empty shelves above the television, and was about the only decoration left in the beach house. Antoinette had stripped the place bare when she moved out more than a year ago.

  Maria stared back at him, wearing a somber expression. He imagined the school photographer coaxing her, “Say ‘cheese!’” But she seemed to be thinking, “Get real. What do I have to smile about?”

  The desire for a drink slammed into him like one of the waves he could hear churning down the beach. He felt helpless, pinned beneath his craving for the smooth burn of alcohol and the resulting disconnect. He wasn’t asking for a lot. Just one night of escape. Then he’d get back on the wagon. It had never been so bad before. His daughter had never said what she’d said tonight.

  Please, leave us alone. You make everything worse…I don’t want to be with you, okay? It’s all your fault!

  Wincing as the memory lashed a part of him that was already raw, he reached for his keys and his wallet, both sitting next to his phone. He’d go down to the bar on the corner. If he planned to drink, he had to go somewhere. Sober for six months, he had no alcohol in the house.

  But he stopped at the door. Maria’s eyes seemed to be following him, accusing him. You’re just what she says you are. A drunk.

  Clenching his jaw, he bowed his head, battling the weakness that threatened to overtake him. He’d beat the craving for booze—if only to prove Antoinette wrong.

  Eventually, he forced himself to return to the couch and pick up his guitar. It was all so damned ironic, he thought, trying to gain some perspective on the phone call that had hurt so badly. Alcohol was the only thing that had made it possible to cope with the irritation and dislike he faced on a daily basis in his marriage. And alcohol had caused him to make the one mistake he’d promised himself he’d never make, the mistake that had landed him in their neighbor’s bed and destroyed his marriage.

  He strummed through several Nickelback songs, hoping to get lost in the music. His guitar helped him relax. But tonight nothing could release the pent-up frustration. Antoinette had promised he could take Maria to Hawaii next weekend for seven days. He’d been planning on it for two months. And then Maria had called to say she wouldn’t go…

  He played a few more chords, but his heart wasn’t in it. His throat and eyes burned, his muscles ached with the effort of subduing his reaction.

  Grasping for something, anything, to fill his mind besides the echoing rejection of his daughter, he turned his thoughts to the Southern woman who’d called. What are you looking for…? A person…Who…? My father.

  Hunter sighed. Maria didn’t want her father. They lived less than ten miles apart, but she refused to see him. Which pleased Antoinette inordinately, of course. His ex hated him—because he’d never really loved her.

  Stop! Think of something else!

  Madeline Barker’s voice came to him again. That’s discriminatory.

  Setting his guitar aside, he frowned. Mississippi wasn’t exactly high on his list of places to see. But he knew what need was. And he had nothing here, did he? He was stuck in an empty house with only his guitar for company, working night and day so he wouldn’t break down and start drinking again.

  His life had become too pathetic for words. He loved California, had lived in Newport Beach nearly all his life, but the steady pounding of the waves twenty yards from his house seemed to whisper, “Maria…Maria…Maria.”

  He’d been an idiot to lose her. And he’d been even more of an idiot to place the rope that had hanged him right inside Antoinette’s beautifully manicured fingers. Now she was laughing while she watched him swing…

  Maybe it was time to stop the show. He wouldn’t force his daughter to see him; he couldn’t bear the thought of making her any unhappier than she already was. She’d told him she’d be better off if he gave up, walked away. Maybe, for a while, he should. Lord knew he wasn’t doing anyone any good sitting here going out of his mind. And he wasn’t about to vacation in Hawaii by himself. He didn’t need that much time on his hands. If he went, he probably wouldn’t last a day before seeking out the closest pub.

  “What the hell,” he muttered and turned on a light so he could see the number Madeline Barker had called him from.

  Madeline raised her head and blinked at the shrill ring. Could it be morning? Already?

  Her body felt stiff and sore. Squinting at her watch, she realized why. It was only one o’clock. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than twenty minutes, and slumping over her desk had put a crick in her neck.

  The phone rang again. She almost dropped the handset but eventually brought it to her ear.

  “Hello?” Her voice sounded throaty and low.

  “Ms. Barker?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Hunter Solozano.”

  She jumped up, then teetered on her feet for a moment. “What do you want, Mr. Solozano?”

  “What airport should I use?”

  “For…You’re coming? Here?”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Yes, but—” nerves made her scalp tingle “—we haven’t discussed any of the logistics.”

  “I charge a thousand dollars a day, plus expenses.”

  A thousand dollars a day! She clapped a hand over her mouth. But he didn’t pause.

  “You said you had no worries about paying me. Is that still true?”

  He cost a fortune. Even more than she’d expected. But she wasn’t about to admit she had any doubts. Not after what he’d said to her before. I think it’s the accent. Maybe she lived in the boondocks by his standards, but she was no uneducated, backward hick. “Sure. No problem,” she lied.

  “Fine. I’ll need the first five thousand as a retainer.”

  She bit her lip. That alone would wipe out her checking account and leave her short on next month’s bills. The paper was a labor of love but hardly a fabulous living. “How long do you think the…investigation will take?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. “How committed are you to finding your father?”

  She winced at the staggering financial implications. If Mr. Solozano stayed for a month, it’d cost her upward of $20,000. And that was taking weekends off.

  But she’d tried everything else. This felt like her only hope. “More committed than I’ve ever been to anything.”

  “Fine. I’ll be there on Thursday.”

  She gulped. “So soon?”

  “You’re in luck. I was planning a vacation that fell through.”

  In luck? At one thousand dollars a day, plus expenses? “Um…just to clarify, your expenses would include what exactly? Airfare and hotel?”

  “As well as a rental car, meals, any specialized tests we might need to run on the evidence I find, stuff like that.”

  “I see.” The list could get long. And with his salary, the incidental expenses would be the least of her problems. But he sounded so confident when he mentioned evidence.

  “Will you be making my hotel reservations or shall I?” he asked.

  Transferring the phone from one hand to the other, Madeline wiped her palms, which had grown clammy, on her sweatpants. “I was thinking…I mean I was wondering…”

  “Yes?”

  She scowled at the impatience
in his voice. “Is there any way we could cut corners a bit?”

  “Cut corners?” he repeated suspiciously.

  “I have a guesthouse. I thought maybe you could stay there. It’d be quiet,” she added. “I live alone.”

  “And what will I drive?”

  “My car.”

  “And you’ll drive…”

  “My stepbrother will let me borrow a truck from the farm. It might not look like much after hauling dirt and feed and who knows what else, but he’s always got an extra.”

  Hunter didn’t seem to mind staying in her guesthouse and driving her car, because he agreed right away. “That’s fine. Does that mean you’re picking me up at the airport?”

  If she played chauffeur, they’d be able to talk while she drove. Then he could start his investigation the moment he reached Stillwater. Saving whatever money she could seemed prudent, especially since she wasn’t sure hiring him would make any difference in the end. Would he find evidence everyone else had missed? Or would he be as ineffectual as the police?

  Maybe she was bankrupting herself for nothing, for a hunger that could never be satisfied…

  “Ms. Barker?”

  She swallowed to ease a particularly dry mouth. “I’ll pick you up. Fly into Nashville, okay?”

  “It’s closer than Jackson?”

  “By two hours.”

  “Okay. I’ll make my travel arrangements over the Internet and call you in the morning.”

  “Fine.” She pretended to be as businesslike as he was. But when she hung up, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the phone.

  “What have I done?” she breathed.

  Chapter Three

  “You’ve done what?” Grace asked.

  Madeline held the phone to her shoulder as she rinsed her coffee cup and placed it in the dishwasher. Morning had come too soon. After a restless night, her eyes stung with fatigue. It didn’t help that the coffee she’d drunk to get her going churned sourly in her otherwise empty stomach. “I hired a private investigator.”

  There was a momentary silence. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “From where?”

  “California.”

  “But…it’s been so many years since Dad went missing, Maddy.”

  “I know. That’s why I did it.” Sophie followed her as she hurried to the bathroom. She needed to finish her hair and makeup and head over to the office. She couldn’t avoid work this morning. She would sit down and write the article she should’ve written yesterday—and she’d finish it before the paper had to go to press. Maybe her resolve had come a little late, but she was Stillwater’s only official reporter. She’d reveal the unbiased details of the Cadillac’s discovery, regardless of her personal connection.

  “But Allie used to be a cold case detective,” Grace said. “If she couldn’t find anything, aren’t you afraid hiring someone else will be a waste of time and money?”

  Madeline didn’t want to talk about Allie—not with Grace. Once Allie had begun to feel romantic interest in Clay, she’d no longer seemed fully committed to the investigation. Had she been afraid of what she might find if she really looked? Considering what everyone else believed, probably. Madeline doubted Allie was still worried about that now that she knew Clay as well as she did. But they both seemed determined to move forward and not dwell on the past.

  They could move forward, Madeline thought. They didn’t feel the same responsibility to Lee Barker that she did. Allie’s father had had his own problems before he moved away, problems that had included an affair with Irene. But Chief McCormick was still part of Allie’s life. How could Allie understand what it would be like not to know where he was or even whether he was alive? And Clay had only lived with Lee for three years.

  “Before she could dig too deep, her father fired her for taking Clay’s side,” Madeline said, trying to smooth over the issue. If she started pointing fingers at others for not doing enough, she knew Grace would feel guilty by association. And Grace had always had her own demons to deal with. It wasn’t until she came home eighteen months ago that she’d had much of a relationship with her family. Before that, she’d been emotionally remote and completely immersed in her work as an assistant district attorney in Jackson.

  The past had been difficult for them all.

  “She would’ve continued to dig,” Grace said. “She just didn’t find anything that gave her any indication of where Dad might’ve gone.”

  “Or who might’ve harmed him,” Madeline added.

  “Or who might’ve harmed him,” she conceded.

  Madeline pulled her hair back so she could apply concealer to the dark circles that came from a week’s worth of restless nights. “It’s something I’ve got to do.”

  “This might not solve anything,” Grace said again.

  “I know, but seeing the Cadillac lifted out of the quarry made me sick.” She paused, her hand on the blush she was going to apply next. “I felt as if I’ve let my father down by not doing more. I’ve let myself down, too. Even you and Clay, Grace. They almost prosecuted Clay last summer, for murder.”

  “I don’t think they’ll go after him again,” Grace argued. “Last year, it was political pressure that caused all the trouble. The Vincellis have backed off since then.”

  “My aunt and uncle, maybe. Not my cousins. You saw them at the quarry.”

  “Joe and Roger are vultures. We’re safe as long as we’re still moving.”

  “They have a lot of powerful friends.”

  “But there’s no solid evidence. There never has been. Clay’s innocent.”

  Finished with the blush, Madeline smeared some brown eye shadow on her eyelids. “The car’s going to stir it all up again,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s better to get to the bottom of what happened?”

  The silence stretched, and a few seconds became half a minute.

  “Is something wrong?” Madeline finally asked.

  “No, of course not,” Grace said. “Believe me, I’d like to know what happened, too. But not at any cost.”

  “We’re talking about dollars. What are dollars compared to peace of mind?” Dropping the eye shadow into her makeup bag, Madeline dug around for her mascara.

  “Can you really afford him?” There was concern in Grace’s voice.

  “I’ll keep him on as long as I can.” Madeline heard a clock ticking somewhere in her subconscious, and it made her frantic. She only hoped Hunter found her some answers before she had a nervous breakdown or was living out on the street.

  “Do you need help with his bill?”

  It was a generous offer. But Madeline didn’t expect her stepsister to finance an investigation she couldn’t welcome. Mr. Solozano would, in all likelihood, focus on Grace and the mother and brother she loved so dearly—at least in the beginning, before he got beyond the circumstantial evidence that led everyone else to blame the Montgomerys.

  “No. But thanks.” She glanced at her watch. It was nearly nine. “I’d better go.”

  “Maybe you should discuss this with Clay,” Grace said.

  “I’m sure Mr. Solozano has already purchased his plane ticket.”

  “Where will he be staying?”

  “Here, in the guest house.”

  “You don’t even know him! Is that a good idea?”

  “It’ll be fine,” Madeline said.

  “What’s wrong with having him stay at the Blue Ribbon Motel?”

  “He’s from L.A.”

  “So?”

  Madeline wasn’t about to stick Hunter Solozano in the aging motel located next to a trailer park of ramshackle mobile homes. Besides giving him something else to look down his nose at, it’d cost her more money, and Madeline sort of liked the idea of having her P.I. so close. Then she could be sure he was working and not watching pay-per-view at her expense. “He comes highly recommended.”

  “Maddy—”

  “After I meet him, if I think there’s any threat, I’ll make some adjustments,” she interrupted.

  “O-kay,” Grace said, but her reluctance was evident in the way she drew out the word. “And you really think this guy will make a difference?”

  “I’m sure of it. Talk to you later.” As Madeline disconnected, she realized that she was putting an inordinate amount of trust in Hunter. She could be setting herself up for a big disappointment. But every investigator who’d recommended him had done so in the most glowing terms. And she needed to believe he would bring her resolution at last.