What indeed? Jackson thought as he told his partner to have someone do the preliminary work and promised to fly back to Manhattan for a day or two later in the week. Maybe he needed a little time and space away from Gold Creek to put his reasons for coming here into fine focus. Ever since seeing Rachelle again, he seemed to have lost his sense of purpose. Instead, his purpose had shifted to her.
He needed to get out of Dodge, so to speak. He’d personally visit the investigator he’d hired in San Francisco. The man hadn’t returned any of his calls for four days, and Jackson wondered if he’d skipped out with his two-thousand-dollar retainer.
As for what he found so fascinating in Gold Creek, the answer to his partner’s question was simple: Rachelle Tremont and an old murder case that had never been solved.
He decided he couldn’t sit around and wait for the phone to ring any longer. He was going out of his mind. He had to keep moving, start making things happen.
First things first, he decided, snagging his leather jacket by the collar. Thomas Fitzpatrick was back in town, and Jackson figured it was time they met. He had only one stop to make on the way and that was at a motorcycle dealership on the outskirts of town. The rental car bored him, and he felt the yen of a bike. He’d lost something in Manhattan—something of himself. A part of him that had been wild and free and wanted to race with the wind. The edge.
In New York he didn’t drive often; he only did when he left the city. And the Mercedes that sat in his garage for days on end was a symbol—a symbol he’d grown to hate.
With a grim smile he walked outside and climbed into the rental. He drove to the agency, handed over the keys and paid his bill. Then, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, he started walking. The motorcycle showroom was a mile away, but the day was warm and he needed the fresh air to clear his head.
* * *
THE MOTORCYCLE DEALERSHIP was small, with black bars across the windows and eight bikes displayed side by side. He picked out his machine without a second glance at the other cycles. He bought the big, black Harley—a newer model of the bike he’d left in Gold Creek years before.
For the next half hour, he toured the town and surrounding hills, putting the bike through its paces, getting used to the machine and feeling the long-lost exhilaration of the wind against his face.
Satisfied that he’d mastered the beast, he took off. In a roar of exhaust, he ripped through the gears and drove straight to the Fitzpatrick home, a brick-and-stucco Tudor set upon a hill on the outskirts of the town.
Fortunately, the wrought-iron gates were open and Jackson drove up the lighted brick drive for the first time in his life. The Fitzpatricks had lived here for years, but never before had he been on the grounds. The lawn was lush and trimmed and a rose garden was just beginning to bloom. A tiered fountain sprayed water to a series of man-made ponds that were the home for schools of orange-and-black fish that swam beneath the surface, their scales glinting in the sunlight as they moved between spreading lily pads.
The grounds were trimmed meticulously, shade trees planted in strategic locations, flowers blooming profusely in wide terra-cotta planters on the front porch.
All in all, the estate looked like what it was: a castle fit for the king of Gold Creek. Jackson didn’t hesitate. He parked on the circular drive and walked swiftly to the front door. He expected a liveried butler or a maid dressed in traditional black-and-white to answer the bell, but as the door swung open, he found himself standing face-to-face with Thomas Fitzpatrick.
The old man hadn’t changed much. A little older, of course. The salt-and-pepper hair was now pure silver, but Thomas Fitzpatrick was still trim and athletic, his features strong, his stare as cold as Jackson remembered.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Thomas whispered tightly. Stepping outside, he closed the door softly but firmly behind him. He saw the bike, and his lips pinched at the corners. “Still the rebel, are you?”
“This town just seems to bring out the best in me,” Jackson quipped sarcastically.
Frosty blue eyes assessed him with refined repugnance, but Jackson didn’t flinch. In his line of work in Manhattan, he’d met more than a dozen men and women who could’ve bought and sold Thomas Fitzpatrick.
“You have no right to be here,” Thomas said sternly.
“I think I do.”
“After what you did—”
“Look, Fitzpatrick, I didn’t kill Roy,” Jackson said, standing toe-to-toe with the man who had been his nemesis for years. Beneath his tan, Thomas paled slightly, and deep in his eyes there was more than rage and indignation brewing. Other emotions stirred, emotions Jackson couldn’t begin to name. But the old man was made up of more layers than Jackson would have ever thought.
“Look, Jackson, just because there wasn’t enough evidence—”
Jackson snapped. All the years of being the whipping boy for the Fitzpatrick clan got the better of him. He grabbed hold of Fitzpatrick’s shirtfront and crumpled the smooth silk in his fingers. “I didn’t do it, okay? There wasn’t enough evidence because I didn’t do it. If you would have spent a fraction of the energy you’ve spent on hating me on looking for the truth, you probably could’ve nailed the real killer and saved us all a lot of trouble.”
Thomas’s lips curled and he shoved Jackson away. “You impertinent pup. You weren’t satisfied with getting off scot-free. You had to come back, didn’t you? I’d thought—no, I’d hoped—that you were smarter than that.”
“The way I see it, I’ve still got a black mark or two to erase.”
“But why?” For the first time, Thomas’s anger seemed to lessen a bit, turning into frustration and even exasperation. “There’s no reason.”
“Not if you don’t care who killed your son.” Jackson watched the old man, noticed the change in his emotions. He’d dealt with enough liars in his profession to smell when someone wasn’t telling the truth and dear old Thomas was hiding something—something that affected them both. “What is it, Fitzpatrick? Something’s bothering you.”
“You’re bothering me.”
“But there’s something else, isn’t there? Something about Roy’s death that doesn’t sit well with you.”
“Nothing about it ‘sits well.’”
Jackson wouldn’t give up. Like a dog after a bone, he just kept digging. “You want to blame me, have me hauled away to jail and hope that the sheriff will throw away the key. You wanted to get rid of me.”
“You killed my son,” Fitzpatrick replied stoically, but he didn’t meet Jackson’s gaze—almost as if he didn’t believe the charges he’d leveled at Jackson. The old man was a puzzle, and Jackson intended to take him apart, piece by crooked piece.
“If I’d killed Roy, why would I come back? Why would I want to dig everything up again? If there were a chance that I could be convicted, don’t you think I’d be taking one helluva risk coming back to Gold Creek and inviting the police to open up the case again? I may be a lot of things, Fitzpatrick, but I’m not stupid and I’m not a murderer. Now, the way I see it, if you really want to find the person who killed Roy, you could work with me on this, or, if you’re satisfied with things the way they are, you can butt the hell out. But if you fight me, then I’ll start to wonder why. What is it you’ve got to hide?”
Thomas’s spine was stiff as an iron spike. His voice was low, but rang with an authority honed by years of being in charge, an authority few dared challenge. His stony blue gaze collided with Jackson’s. “I just don’t want my family hurt anymore,” he said slowly. “My wife’s not in the best of health and my other children…they’ve all suffered because of this. It’s better to let it die, Jackson. Leave it alone.”
Jackson studied Fitzpatrick’s face—perfect and patrician, the rough edges smoothed by money and power. “I can’t leave it alone,??
? Jackson finally said, remembering how June Fitzpatrick had sworn to see justice done and that “justice” was to destroy him. “It’s my life we’re talking about. My reputation. And as for your family, I would think that they would be glad to settle this matter once and for all.” He inched his face closer to the older man’s. “Just what is it that scares you so much?”
A vein throbbed in Thomas’s forehead, but the old man didn’t respond.
“I’ll find out, you know.”
“Go to hell.”
“’Fraid I can’t,” Jackson replied. “I’m already there. Have been for twelve years.” He sauntered back to his bike and swung one leg over the black leather saddle. As he cocked his wrist, he kick-started that monster of a machine. The bike’s engine raced with a powerful roar and Jackson rode off, the gears winding as he screeched out of the drive.
* * *
HE’D PROBABLY KILL HIMSELF, Thomas thought with a jab of guilt.
Thomas stared after him, a bad taste in his mouth. The boy was a wild card, that was for sure. And Thomas was the first to recognize and applaud an independent and rebellious nature, as long as that independence and rebellion could be turned to his own good use. Many of the men he’d hired had come to him as insubordinates who had experienced their share of difficulties with the law. Thomas had spent a lot of time and a good deal of money molding those very men into loyal, innovative workers.
Jackson Moore could have been one of those men. Except for his innate hatred of the Fitzpatricks and the fact that now, Jackson was a rich man in his own right. A pity. He probably couldn’t be bought, and therefore couldn’t be manipulated. With grudging admiration for a man who had started with less than nothing and made himself a visible, if slightly notorious, lawyer with a fat bank account, Thomas walked along a shaded path and through a garden fragrant with early summer flowers.
Jackson Moore. He had to be handled. Some way. Somehow. But not by the usual methods. There were just too many painful memories that were connected with Sandra Moore, her son and Roy. What a mess. Thomas should have cleaned up the whole affair years ago—suffered the consequences and started fresh. But he hadn’t. Because he’d been weak. A coward.
The back of the house was already in shadows as the sun settled behind the mountains to the west. Thomas felt older than his fifty-seven years and the burden of his youth seemed heavy. He’d made mistakes in his life—too many mistakes to count, most of them when he was younger, and they lingered. Some of his past errors in judgment haunted him every day of his life—like shadows that were invisibly attached to him and couldn’t be shaken off.
The soft leather soles of his shoes scraped against the bricks of the sun porch.
His wife was there. Reclining in a chaise longue, her eyes closed, her fingers absently stroking the back of a Persian cat who had settled on her lap, she said softly, “What is he doing back here?”
Thomas felt the thickness in the air. Over the scent of lilacs and the drone of insects, he sensed the change in atmosphere that his wife, through her bitterness, brought with her. Though in repose, June was ready to fight and he knew, from a marriage of over thirty years, that there was nothing he could do to avoid the confrontation. He walked to the portable bar and poured himself a straight shot of Scotch. “He’s poking around. Claims he wants to clear his name.”
June sighed loudly. “He can’t. He’s guilty.”
“I suppose.”
Her eyes flew open. “You know he did it, Tom.” She moved quickly on the chaise, and the cat, startled from his nap, leapt onto a table and, sending glossy magazines flying, scrambled off the porch to slink through the shrubbery.
“It was never proven that Jackson did it.”
“Because he’s slick. Like oil on water.” She shuddered, and her pale skin grew whiter still. “He single-handedly took Roy’s life. Maybe it wasn’t premeditated, I’ll give him that. But he killed him, sure as I’m sitting here. That miserable bastard killed my boy! Our son, Tom! Our firstborn.” Tossing a sweater over her shoulders, she stood, walked to the bar and poured herself a healthy glass of gin. She fiddled with the bottles and added a sniff of vermouth before plopping an olive into her glass. The air in the porch was as cold as an Alaska wind, and the old pain of betrayal and death hung between them, just as it always had.
Thomas took a long swallow of his drink, feeling the liquor splash against the back of his throat and warm his stomach. This was a no-win argument. “I miss Roy as much as you do,” he said, conviction deep in his throat.
“But not enough to see that the man who killed him paid for his mistake.”
“I hired the best attorneys, the most highly recommended private detectives and Lord knows the D.A. went after Jackson with everything he had. It just wasn’t enough.”
June turned accusing, icy eyes up at him before taking a long sip of her martini. She licked a drop from her lips and measured her words. “You didn’t try hard enough, Tom. That was the problem. Because, deep down, you didn’t want Jackson to hang for our son’s murder!”
* * *
RACHELLE WALKED INTO THE post office on Main Street. A few people were waiting to buy stamps and to mail packages or just chat with the postal workers who had manned the counter for years. The floor was worn near the counter and the small warehouse smelled of paper, dust and ink. Pressing the stamps firmly on her manila envelope, she mailed her second article—a column about changing attitudes in Gold Creek. She focused the article on the issue of company towns that had lost their natural resources, and the desperation of families who had grown dependent upon the timber industry for their livelihoods. She felt the article would have merit in other parts of the country where jobs were dependent upon the auto industry or the oil industry or even the farming industry, wherever small towns across America counted on one main source of revenue to keep their citizens in jobs.
Next week she’d tackle the environmental issue and compare how people in town felt about the environment now to how they’d felt about it twelve years ago. The next article would deal with people who had lived in Gold Creek for generations, how they expected to stay and live in this small town, marrying within the community and having no dreams of moving on.
She thought of some of her classmates, and Laura Chandler came to mind. Laura had only wanted to marry the richest boy in Gold Creek, if not Roy Fitzpatrick, then his younger brother, Brian. Rachelle snorted and slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. She doubted she’d ever get to talk to any of the Fitzpatrick clan again. Every time she’d called the offices of Fitzpatrick, Incorporated and tried to set up an appointment with Thomas Fitzpatrick, she’d been told icily that Mr. Fitzpatrick was “out of town on business.” The receptionist had promised to call her when Mr. Fitzpatrick returned.
Rachelle didn’t believe the faceless woman on the other end of the line; being a reporter, she’d been put off enough times to recognize a stall job when she was on the receiving end. She’d give Fitzpatrick a couple more days, then she’d start really digging.
In the meantime she’d help her mother sort out her life without Harold. There were bills to pay, credit to establish, a job to find…but at least Rachelle could help her, and Ellen, for once, wasn’t fighting her elder daughter.
Rachelle planned to start another article, this time about people who had moved from Gold Creek to make their mark on the world. People like herself. People like Carlie. People like Jackson Moore.
She wondered about Carlie. Where was she? After speaking with Mr. Surrett, Rachelle had called Carlie’s folks a couple of times, but the line had always been busy or unanswered. No machine had picked up, so she hadn’t been able to leave a message.
As for Jackson, she’d managed to avoid him for a few days, but she hadn’t stopped thinking about him. She wondered if they would ever be able to talk civilly or if there would a
lways be anger between them, passion that eroded common sense?
She walked outside and started toward her car.
“Rachelle?” The voice, a woman’s, was unfamiliar. Turning, she found a pretty redhead standing beside a beat-up old hatchback filled with mops, cleaning supplies and two blond boys who were wrestling in the backseat. “You’re Rachelle Tremont, aren’t you?” The woman’s nose was dusted with freckles and her eyes were a deep, vibrant green. “I thought I saw you near the lake the other morning.”
“Yes…yes, I was there,” Rachelle replied, recognizing Nadine Powell.
“I live on the south side,” Nadine explained, then turned to the car and the back window, which was barely open a crack, “Knock it off, you two.”
“We’re gonna be late, Mom,” one of the boys said.
Nadine checked her watch and rolled her eyes. “The story of my life,” she said. “Look, I heard you were back in town and writing some articles about Gold Creek, which beats me. I can’t believe anyone would be interested in what’s been happening here. But if you’d like to talk to someone who’s lived here all her life, give me a call. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
Rachelle grinned. “I will—”
“Mom! Come on! Mrs. Zalinski is gonna kill me if I’m late again!”
Rachelle’s heart nearly stopped. Zalinski. Zalinski. The deputy who had arrested Jackson!
“Hold your horses, I’m coming!” Nadine shook her head. “Gotta run.” She slid into the Chevy and eased out of the lot, and Rachelle wondered if Nadine, a girl she’d barely known in high school, a girl rumored to have run with the fast-and-loose crowd, would turn out to be her only friend in Gold Creek.
* * *
HOURS LATER, RACHELLE SHOVED back her library chair in frustration. She glanced out the large windows, noticed that the afternoon sunlight had faded and wished she could find something, anything, about the Fitzpatrick murder that she didn’t already know. But the articles she read were filled with the same worn-out phrases that she’d read a thousand times years ago. Why was she even dredging it up again? Probably because Jackson had told her that Roy’s death was off-limits. And because the night of Roy’s death had marred her forever. Until she dealt with her own old, hidden feelings regarding that night, she’d never be able to look to her future—a future with David.