Silent Night Pursuit
Wade reached behind him for the gun in his waist holster as he peered up and around looking for the enemy. The snowcapped trees brought him back to reality.
No desert.
No sniper.
Instead, it was Jeff Phillips’s sister who’d come to hunt him down.
He could only think that it was the woman who’d taken the shot at him. She was the only one around, and he had just told her he killed her brother. It made sense she’d take him out now.
Another report wrenched through the air. Immediately, the sound of a car speeding away followed. Both sources came from below at the road and not around him—or at him.
Phillips’s kid sister wasn’t shooting at him after all, he surmised. But if he wasn’t wearing the bull’s-eye, then who was?
She was.
Wade jumped to his feet and shot off back down the driveway. Promise raced along beside him. He would have liked to tell Promise to get to the girl’s side, but his dog was trained to assist him, not anyone else.
Snow flew up in a cloud around them. Down the road around the bend, the woman’s car lights still beamed. Her driver’s door stood wide and the car was where she’d left it. But she was nowhere in sight.
A quick survey bounced his vision from tree to tree, ditch to ditch, rock to rock. And there he located her, crouched low behind a boulder.
Wade rushed to the rock and dropped to his knees. He reholstered his gun behind him as he studied the way she held the shoulder of her jean coat in severe silence. No screams. No agony of pain. Just startled shock before cognition filtered in.
She’d been shot.
He removed her stiff, sticky hand from where a dark blotch of blood blossomed. At the same time he scanned the area behind the rock. Had the gunman been in the car that drove away? Or was there a second one waiting in the trees to get another shot off when the woman emerged from her hiding place? With the darkness, Wade couldn’t be sure. But he also couldn’t leave her here to bleed to death. The thin jean coat’s fabric was shredded on the arm, but still he couldn’t tell if the shot had been taken in her arm or upper chest. He wouldn’t know until he got her to the house.
The trip called for a calculated plan of action. The driver’s-side window of her car was blown out, but the car should still move. Wade judged the distance to the Beat and made the decision that he could drive her up to the house a lot faster than run her up. Plus, he didn’t need to give the shooter more target practice if he was still in the area.
With his plan set, Wade untied Promise’s bandanna and stuffed it into the woman’s coat. “Hold this there while I lift you.”
“Get away from me,” she said, pushing at him with barely enough strength to shoo a fly.
“All in due time, Ms. Phillips.” He lifted her and made the run for the waiting vehicle.
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you! You killed my brother!”
He ignored her protests and carried out his self-imposed orders. “Promise, to the house,” he commanded the dog. Wade ducked his upper body over the woman’s and charged for the car. He placed her quickly but gently through to the passenger seat from the driver’s side. No more bullets sprayed them, and Wade took that to mean the shooter had been a drive-by and not in the woods. But his plan of action never lost momentum. Mere seconds went by before he had the car in gear and speeding up the inclined drive through the woods that led to the main house.
“I said I don’t want to go anywhere with you. I hate you!” Her head dropped back and he could see her jaw clench. She’d yet to even whimper in pain.
“Hate me all you want. I’m fine with that. It tells me you still have some fight left in you.”
“You’re right, and I’m going to make you pay for what you did.”
They reached the house, and Wade took the circle around the empty fountain, shut down for the season. He pulled up to the front entrance and had barely put the car in Park before he jumped out and ran around to the passenger side. The fool girl already had the door open, trying to exit the car. He scooped her up again, ignoring her struggles up the steps.
“Put me down!” Now she cried, but not from pain. He knew the sound of guilty pain. She hated herself more for having to depend on the man who’d caused her brother’s death.
“You have no choice but to let me help you now, Ms. Phillips. You’re on my family’s property.” He turned the knob to the double front doors and kicked them wide. “That makes me responsible for you, and there’s no way I’m letting another person die because of me.”
TWO
A woman who had a few years on Lacey’s twenty-seven and a lot more fashion sense rushed down a long foyer. A green silk scarf wrapped around her neck fluttered behind her along with her flowing red hair. Lacey saw glitz and glamour racing toward her, or maybe it was the crystal chandelier sparkling down on the lady. Either way, Lacey didn’t care who she was as long as she wasn’t Wade Spencer.
Lacey pushed at the man still holding her in his arms. She moaned through the burn at her shoulder but kept her face averted, unwilling to give him even a glint of attention.
“Roni,” he called over her head. “She took a bullet. I need to lay her down.”
Surprise quickly washed away to efficiency on the fancy lady’s face. “It’ll be faster to use Cora’s room down here than to take her upstairs. Follow me.”
They stormed through two living rooms and entered a huge dining room with more crystal bling. An older woman was setting the table with white-and-gold china. Her maid outfit said she wasn’t the mother of the house. She nearly dropped the plate when they stormed through.
“Cora, we’re using your room,” Roni said as she passed down the long table. “Call 911 and tell them someone’s been shot.”
A shocked Cora put the plate down and reached for her phone in her apron pocket. As Lacey was carried past her, she said, “God bless you, my dear.” Lacey could hear her talking to the dispatcher before they hit an enormous stainless-steel kitchen. She wondered where the bedrooms were if they deemed this course faster. The immensity of the place didn’t constitute a house but a mansion.
It would appear her brother’s killer wasn’t hurting.
“What’s her name?” Roni called over her shoulder.
“Ms. Phillips,” Wade said.
“Lacey,” Lacey answered in unison. “And I don’t need him speaking for me.”
“Whoa.” The woman shot a glance over her shoulder, the arches of her red sculpted eyebrows nearly reaching the twelve-foot-high ceilings. “Did you shoot this woman, Wade?”
“Of course not,” he answered.
With a look of doubt, Roni led them to the next room. “Lay her on the bed. Gently. Good. Now, where’s your gun?”
“I said I didn’t shoot her,” Wade retorted over Lacey.
“And I said, where’s your gun?” Roni spoke clearly and forcefully right back at him from the other side.
Wade clamped his jaw tight, but in the next second he reached behind his back and withdrew a .38 caliber from the waistband. He dropped it into the bedside-table drawer with an “are you happy now?” look.
Lacey sensed the argument going on above her was a common one between the two of them. For some reason, Roni didn’t want Wade carrying. Did Roni know about Wade’s past offenses?
Before Lacey could ask, pain exploded from her arm. Roni brought Lacey’s coat down the injured arm.
Lacey hissed in response, then through gritted teeth said, “It doesn’t matter if he carries or not, you know. He goes for a more secretive and calculated way of bumping people off.” She sneered at the man on her right and got her first real glimpse of him in full light.
Jet-black hair in a military cut, electric-blue eyes in a well-shaven face, a dimple on the right cheek even without a smile.
“He knows it’s not other people I’m worried about,” Roni said, pulling Lacey’s attention back to her.
Lacey grew quiet at her remark. If not other people, then who?
Himself?
She took in the six-foot-tall man. His face gave nothing away, but his muscles beneath his black T-shirt tensed and shook. Was it from more than adrenaline?
Snip...snip...
Lacey shot a look back at Roni. She was cutting the sleeve of Lacey’s cotton sweater, starting from the wrist up.
“Hey! Can you make him leave first?”
Roni cast her matching blue eyes over to Wade. “I’ve bandaged enough wounds. Why don’t you check on Cora.”
“Not a bullet wound, you haven’t. I know what to do. You don’t. I’m not going anywhere until I’ve assessed the injury.”
Lacey cut in, “Except I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
He crossed his strong arms at his chest as his reply. His stolid face expressed no emotion as flawlessly as a Westminster guard on duty. The idea of the wolf guarding the henhouse nearly made her laugh. Then Lacey screamed out in pain as Roni’s fingers met wounded flesh on her upper arm.
As Wade leaned across Lacey to inspect the area, his woodsy aftershave lingered in her face. She inhaled, then held her breath, partly to not smell any more of him, partly to keep in what she already had. She cringed at her softness. So what if he smelled good. It didn’t change the fact that he had blood on his hands.
After a quick nod, Wade’s gaze dropped down from above her. Mere inches away, he said, “You’ll live.”
“Don’t look so happy about it.”
He didn’t even blink at her remark, but he did slowly pull away. “You said someone had been following you. When did you notice them?”
Lacey sobered as she remembered her drive in. Roni’s opening of the first-aid kit became a focal point. “When I entered Norcastle. It was when they took the turnoff to come up here with me that I thought it strange two people would be traveling this far out at the same time. But they didn’t try to kill me until...” Lacey glanced at Wade. Maybe the incident had something to do with this man, and that was why he was so concerned. He was trying to cover his tracks.
“Continue.”
Lacey hesitated sharing any more while being unprotected in the man’s house. “Can’t this wait for the police?”
“I’ll need to give them as many details as I can. They’ll need to know how to proceed.”
“What other information would they possibly need other than someone took shots at me?”
“Like why you think they took shots at you. Now tell me, they didn’t try to kill you until when?”
Lacey lifted her chin. Since when did she hold back? “Fine. They plowed into me when I put my blinker on to turn into your driveway. Are you sure they weren’t friends of yours? Or rather, enemies? You must have a long list of them. I know I’m on it.”
“Our driveway?” Roni piped up. “And what enemies? What is she talking about, Wade?”
Wade raised a hand to silence Roni. “Just get her cleaned up. We’ll talk later.” He walked to the window and peered out.
Or perhaps he was looking for those enemies he refused to talk about.
He closed the blinds and stepped back against the wall. His folded arms at his chest exposed the strong, lean muscles that had lifted her with ease moments before, but now walled him off from everyone in the room.
The man was hiding something.
A stinging pain pulled Lacey’s attention back to her arm with a sharp inhale.
Roni swabbed her wound with an alcohol wipe. “It’s a bad graze. It’ll most likely leave a scar. But I’ve always said there’s nothing wrong with scars.” She reached up with one hand in a latex glove that Lacey hadn’t even seen her put on. Blood covered the fingers.
Her blood.
As Lacey’s stomach dropped at the sight, Roni reached for the scarf at her neck without thought to soiling it. She pulled it free to reveal what lay beneath it.
Scars.
Puckered and mutilated skin gave way to a fiery incident that took Lacey’s mind off her own wound to question Roni’s.
“What happened?”
“A car accident when we were kids.”
“That’s enough, Roni.” Wade gave a single shake of his head to end their conversation. A dare to defy him went out.
The heavy feeling of secrecy filled the room. It seemed Wade Spencer’s life revolved around more than one. But then when one of them was murder, it was only natural to have a lifetime of other cover-ups.
“More secrets, Mr.—” She stopped because her attention was pulled from the granitelike man against the wall down to his legs.
He literally shook in his combat boots. The man may think he stood impassive, but his own body turned traitor on him and gave his guilty secrets away. Before she could call him out on his guilt, the dog placed her paw on his thigh and pressed her head into his arm, nudging harder and harder until his hand reached to pet her head. He moved over her fur, first slowly, then with more purpose. When Lacey looked back at his legs, they had returned to a state of stability.
The dog wasn’t a typical pet, she realized.
“How’d she do that?” Lacey asked, not pretending what she saw didn’t really happen. Her mother would say she was being rude for speaking out of turn, but Lacey didn’t feel like being proper at the moment. She’d just escaped death and was looking at the man responsible for her brother’s.
“You ask too many questions,” Wade replied. “That’s probably what got you into this mess.”
“Wade, knock it off,” Roni cut in. “Promise is a service dog. The army is experimenting with trained dogs to help soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. They sent my brother home with her to help him—”
“I said, that’s enough!” Wade retreated from the room on a pivot. His tense, muscled back turned the corner of the kitchen and disappeared.
Now Lacey understood Roni’s concern about Wade carrying a weapon.
And she was pushing him too far with her questions.
Lacey watched Roni’s eyelashes fall over her eyes in sadness. “I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds. My mother has tried to teach me to be a lady, but I’ve yet to live up to any of her ideals, all ten thousand of them. But it’s not for lack of trying. I really am sorry.”
Roni smiled weakly but accepted Lacey’s apology.
“So Wade is your brother?”
“Yes.” The fashionable woman taped the bandage up like a pro, not a bit of queasiness or whining like some sissy girl. Proof never to judge a book by its cover. Roni approached a dresser and pulled out an oversize blouse with tiny yellow flowers.
Lacey cringed. “Cora’s?”
“She won’t mind, and it’ll be loose enough to put on with ease.”
“I suppose, but I don’t do clothes with flowers.”
“What’s wrong with flowers?” Roni asked as she removed the rest of Lacey’s trashed sweater and carefully inserted her arms through the sleeves.
“Nothing’s wrong with flowers for some girls, like my mother. And maybe you, but the guys at the racetrack would never let me live it down.”
Roni’s hands stilled with her task. “You race?”
“Sometimes. It can be hard to be taken seriously as a girl behind the wheel.”
“Tell me about it,” Roni agreed with a smirk. “I’m co-owner of a track and it can be tough. What do you race?”
“I’m in the process of reconstructing a Beat roadster for my next car. Or I was up until I smashed at the end of your driveway. I’m more of a spotter for my brother...” Lacey’s voice caught at the mention of Jeffrey. “It was easier when he was home. Without him to vouch for me, I spend most of my days in the shop working on the cars instead. He was my biggest supporter. And now he’s...gone.”
“Where’d he go?” Roni fitted the buttons up the front.
“Army.”
Her hands stilled. “When does he come home next?”
“He’s not coming home. Ever.” Lacey felt her lips tremble as Roni put the words together.
She dropped back. “Oh, Lacey, I’m so sorry.”
Roni sat on the side of the bed, her eyes filled. She gave a quick look toward the door. Lacey knew thoughts of her own brother filled her mind. As much as Lacey wanted to hate the woman for being grateful for not losing Wade when Jeff was gone forever, especially since Wade had a part in Jeff’s death, as he’d admitted to, she couldn’t hate Roni.
“It’s okay if you want to thank God for bringing your brother home. It won’t upset me. From one sister to another, I get it. If Jeffrey had survived, I would be jumping for joy, no matter who watched.” She looked at her injured arm. “And I definitely wouldn’t have been here getting shot at on Christmas Eve. I guess I shouldn’t have come. Once again, my mother was right, and I failed to heed her wise teachings. Why is thinking things through so hard?”
“I don’t understand.” Roni tilted her head.
Lacey shrugged. “I disappoint my mama pretty much every day. I’ll never be like her and think like her.”
“No. I mean, how would your brother coming home from the army have prevented you from being shot?”
“Oh, easy. Because I wouldn’t have come here looking for his killer.”
Roni’s long lashes lifted high. “His killer is here?”
Wade appeared in the doorway with an older man, halting Lacey from explaining further about Wade’s involvement.
Lacey considered blurting out the truth anyway. She looked at the men, but before she opened her mouth, her mother’s annoying voice filled her mind. Think before you speak, Lacey, dear. Her thick Southern drawl with its inflection of disappointment came through loud and clear.
Lacey held her tongue and looked at Wade. His searing eyes said he waited for her to make her decision, too. Would she take the opportunity to spill his secret in front of his sister and whoever the older man beside him was? Their dad, probably.
Seconds ticked by as the three people stared at the poor wounded girl.
Poor being the operative word. Wade Spencer was loaded. Which meant he could buy his way out of any case brought against him. She didn’t stand a chance of getting her answers from Mr. Secrets the legit way.
Her hand went to her neck and fiddled with the key clasped there beneath the flowered blouse. She’d put it on her chain when she removed it from her brother’s envelope yesterday. This key would unlock the answers she came for.
And Wade Spencer would be the one to give them to her.
Lacey turned away from Wade to answer Roni. “Jeff’s killer is around somewhere. He can’t hide forever.”
* * *
“What a way to spend Christmas Eve, wouldn’t you say, Miss Phillips?” The older gentleman Lacey had thought was Wade’s father, but turned out to be an uncle, entered the room again. Wade and Roni were seeing the lawmen out, so that left her alone for the time being.
“It’s Lacey, and I’m sorry I messed up your holiday. You must think I’m so rude coming here tonight.”
When the police had questioned her earlier, Wade’s uncle had leaned against the wall and heard why she’d made this trip. She’d left out the part of Wade’s confession, but told them about her brother’s so-called accident in the army and how she’d come to talk to her brother’s friend.
The uncle stepped up to where Lacey sat on the edge of the bed. He offered his hand for a warm shake. “Clay Spencer. The kids’ dad, Bobby, was my little brother. And don’t you worry about what we think. You’re hurting. We all feel your pain and frustration, especially with your car being taken in to be processed as evidence. You probably won’t make it back for Christmas dinner with your family.”
The realization lifted her chin. The older man offered a sweet, supportive smile as though he understood her dilemma, but he also wore a very nice suit with a festive holiday tie and a red silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. He’d come here tonight to spend Christmas Eve with his family, and she had intruded.
Lacey cringed at her impulsiveness to jump into her car and head north without any thought to what day she would be arriving on Wade Spencer’s doorstep. What had she thought he would do? Welcome her in to celebrate with his family?
No. The fact was she didn’t think at all. At least nothing but what she’d come for.
“You stay as long as you need to,” the uncle invited warmly.
Lacey gave a weak laugh. “You seem to have a better grasp at this hospitality thing than this Southern girl does.”
The man smiled big. “I do love a good party, and the more the merrier. But seriously, the kids have plenty of room. Plus, I don’t think Wade’s going to let you go anywhere tonight. He told the chief of police he would take care of getting you home. He feels responsible for you since this incident happened on his family’s property.”
“This gigantic place is his family’s?”
“Technically his and Veronica’s, Roni’s, now. They lost their parents years ago. Only Roni lives here, though. Wade lives on base in Virginia. He’s only home for the holidays. I used to live here after their parents died, but once Veronica was of age, I moved to the empty caretaker’s house on the pond, a little ways into the property, then eventually I moved into town. Let’s just say Veronica and I don’t always get along, even in ten thousand square feet. Even on thousands of acres. Moving off the property was best. Besides, I like it better in town. Great house for social gatherings with my friends. And speaking of friends, I have a few in influential places who might be able to help you uncover some information about your brother.”
“What kind of friends?”
“Lawyers, politicians, PIs, you name it. One can never have too many circles, I say. I’m sure one of them could look into the possibility of a cover-up.”
A spark of excitement ignited but quickly died out. What if those people were Wade’s friends? Who would they be loyal to then? “No, I’ve talked to enough official people to know they’re not much help to me, but thank you.”
“Just let me know if you change your mind and want to talk privately with someone. I can make it happen.”
“For now, I just want to talk to Wade. I’ll wait here for him. I don’t dare try to find him in this place. I’m directionally challenged and might get lost.”
Clay laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. Bobby married well, but his wife, Meredith, was also a bit paranoid. When I moved in after the accident to care for the kids, I found all these secret passages she had built. Creepy, for sure.”
Lacey checked the adjoining room and saw no one approached. She was really only looking for Mr. Secrets before she asked for more pieces about his past. She would need all the details she could round up. “Roni’s scars. She mentioned something about an accident causing them. Is that how their parents died, too?”
“Yes, it was a horrifying accident. Just a horrible accident. Bobby and Meredith perished, as well as their eighteen-month-old son Luke.”
Lacey frowned at the thought of the baby dying, too.
“Veronica was scarred in the fire and would have died as well if Wade hadn’t pulled her out and away from the car before it fully exploded. They’d gone over the ledge on the road out front.”
“Ledge?” Now Lacey sounded the way Wade had when she’d told him she’d nearly gone over it. All snooping came to a halt. What was left of her blood ran cold. Wade and his family had gone over the same ledge she had just brushed death with. “When?” was all she could ask.
“It’s been twenty-eight years now. Hard to believe, but Wade was eight and Veronica was three. He got her to safety, but being this far out from town and so far from the house, there was nothing else he could do for the rest of his family.”
“Of course not. I doubt an adult could, never mind a child.” Lacey thought this was possibly why Wade had told her to go home when she said she’d nearly gone over the ledge. It had probably brought back horrible memories of his accident. Had that been why he’d told her he killed Jeff? To get rid of her before she saw him fall apart? His bouncing legs could have been an indication that the crash affected his PTSD just as much as his years in combat did. “And you stepped in to raise them.”