Cruel Grace: Cowboy Justice Association (Serials and Stalkers Book 5) Read online

  She was still lost in thought and daydreams when his eyes popped open.

  Caught red-handed. I was staring and he knows.

  She pointed awkwardly to her watch. “We should be there soon.”

  He stretched his arms over his head and groaned. “I didn’t think I would sleep so long. I guess I was tired, too. Did you sleep?”

  Did he think she’d spent the last three and a half hours staring at him? That was a cringe and a half.

  “I just woke up a few minutes ago.”

  “That’s good. The firm reserved a car for us and a place to stay. A three-bedroom house. It looks pretty nice and in a good neighborhood.”

  They’d need the third bedroom when someone came out to help Eli later. But it did feel…intimate. Sharing a home that is, even if they weren’t sharing a bed. They’d see each other in the morning before coffee and maybe a shower. It was a closeness she hadn’t had in quite awhile. She hadn’t dated much in the past few years, content to work and have time to herself. Now she was going to be sharing a home with a man she found incredibly attractive.

  What could possibly happen?

  Charlie had been aware that Eli traveled a great deal, and she had as well in her past. After the plane landed at a small private airport just outside of town, he quickly and efficiently picked up their rental car and headed straight for the Airbnb.

  “That airport is new,” she said, her gaze trained on the landscape around them. “In fact, this whole area is new. None of these homes were here when I was at school.”

  “I looked into the history of the area. The town is really growing and spreading out. It’s rather controversial apparently because this all used to be farmland.”

  It had. She remembered the corn and the cows, not to mention the soybeans. She hadn’t been back here in years. After Kendra was murdered, Charlie had transferred to another university as far away as she could get - the state of Washington. She’d had a friend there who had urged her to move. That friend had actually moved to California after graduation, but Charlie had loved the area and stayed.

  “You looked into the history of the town?”

  It seemed a strange thing for someone to do. Unless they were really into small university towns surrounded by farm country.

  “I wanted to get an idea of the place where your friend’s murder happened. I also wanted to see if the same police chief was in charge, and the same mayor or town council.”

  That…made sense.

  “Are they?”

  She braced herself for the answer, not that it would matter one way or the other. They were here now and they were reopening this investigation.

  “No, there’s a new police chief. The detective that worked the case has also moved to another town. Our firm always reaches out to the local law enforcement if we’re going into a place that hasn’t specifically invited us. Jared talked to them this morning and they were quite welcoming and open to us pursuing this investigation. They’ve pledged their cooperation, although they don’t have many resources to lend us. But that’s not unusual. We’re used to doing it on our own.”

  Relief. That’s what flooded through her system when she heard that the detective wasn’t on the case any longer. She wouldn’t have to talk to him again or see the look of scorn in his eyes when she answered his questions. He’d never believed her, always thinking that she wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  “I’m surprised that they’re okay with this, but I’m glad.”

  “Unsolved cases don’t make any cops look good. I think they want it solved as much as we do. It doesn’t hurt that we’ll let them take most of the credit.”

  “Even if they don’t deserve it?”

  “I don’t do this for the glory.”

  No, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t the type. There had been a time in her life when all the people around her would have loved to get their name in the paper. And they didn’t care what for - good or bad.

  As Eli drove through the town, Charlie recognized several landmarks but so much had changed. It was strange how in her memories time had stood still, but the town had moved on. As it should, of course. But it was weird, nonetheless. So many images flooded back to her - some good and some awful. Until that fateful day that Kendra had disappeared, Charlie had loved her time here.

  He pulled into the driveway of a lovely Craftsman-style home, quickly grabbing the bags from the trunk. She wanted to protest and tell him she could carry her own luggage but she also didn’t want to be rude. An older woman was sitting on the front porch scrolling through her phone but she jumped up when they arrived.

  “You must be Eli,” she said with a smile. “I’m Marion, the rental owner. I’ll let you in and show you around.”

  The nickel tour didn’t take long and soon Eli and Charlie were alone in the house. Time was rapidly running out for her. Soon she was going to have to tell him her story. Would he blame her the way Kendra’s parents had? Would he not believe her like the detective? She’d braced herself for it, but it was one thing to think about Kendra, and a complete other to actually talk about her. It wasn’t going to be easy. Coming back to this town hadn’t been easy either, but so far she’d survived just fine.

  Eli pulled out his laptop. “I’ll order groceries and while we’re waiting we can talk privately. Are you ready to do that? I know you’ve been dreading it, and I’m sorry that we have to put you through it.”

  I can do this.

  “Are you going to talk to Dana, too?”

  Dana was in New York City currently, but she’d cheered loudly when Charlie had called her with the news that she’d hired Eli’s firm. Dana had promised to wire half the money for doing it. Charlie had replied that she had this but her old friend had insisted. She wanted to be a part of this, too.

  “Of course. I’m going to talk to a lot of people, but one at a time. But I need to start with you. You’re the client, after all.”

  “It’s fine. I want to find the truth. I want this to work.”

  Eli settled onto the couch, patting the cushion next to him. “Why don’t you tell me about you and Kendra? Start from the very beginning. How did you meet?”

  She sat next to him, picking up a throw pillow and clutching it to her chest protectively as if the story might somehow stick a knife in her heart.

  This is going to hurt.

  “I’ll need to start farther back than that to really explain it,” Charlie replied, her mind already drifting back all of those years to the memories she’d purposefully blocked out. So much happiness and so much tragedy. She and Kendra had been so young. “I was a teenage model.”

  She wasn’t sure what reaction she was going to get to that statement. Most of her friends in Seattle had no idea what she’d done in her youth, especially as she’d left that life so many years ago.

  Eli’s gaze quickly ran over her long legs, currently encased in worn denim. “I already knew that. The file, remember?”

  Right. He wasn’t surprised. He’d seen photos.

  “That’s how all of this started. I was a freshman in high school and a friend’s mom was putting together this fashion show at the local department store. They needed models and I was tall and skinny and could fit into a lot of the clothes. Trust me, I wasn’t the fancy fashion type. I was kind of a tomboy, to be honest, but I was starting to get interested in more traditional girly things like doing my hair and wearing a bit of makeup. Anyway, my friend talked me into doing this fashion show so I said yes. The big draw was that we would get to keep one of the outfits if we participated. My parents weren’t poor or anything but they sure as hell weren’t rich, either. I didn’t get designer clothes. No one in our family did. We were more Target than Macy’s, if you know what I mean.”

  Chuckling, Eli nodded his head. “Got it. Go on.”

  “I guess the mother of my friend knew that there was going to be a model scout in the audience that day. We had no idea. The mother wanted my friend to be a model. She was pretty tall like me a
nd she was pretty. Like really pretty. But for some reason the scout picked me out of all the girls there that day. He pulled my parents aside and told them that I could be really successful and make a bunch of money for college later. Those were the magic words for Mom and Dad - college fund. Next thing I knew I was modeling for department stores in Chicago and soon for print magazines. Two days after my sixteenth birthday I was on a plane to New York City for Fashion Week.”

  His lips quirked up. “That’s impressive. You must have been good at it.”

  She had been, and for awhile it had been fun and exciting. But ultimately it wasn’t what she’d wanted to do her whole life.

  “That’s where I met Kendra. We were both in the same runway shows that week. I saw her everywhere and we just sort of hit it off. She was outgoing and bubbly, and easy to talk to. She was also more experienced than I was. She’d been modeling for a few years at that point. Kendra seemed so smart and sophisticated to me. She knew the ropes and helped me so much.”

  Charlie had been in awe of Kendra’s cool facade. Nothing seemed to faze her, and she seemed to take it all in stride as if she was born to be a model. Kendra hadn’t chosen the profession for herself; her mother had done that, but she’d taken to it like a duck to water. She adored the travel and meeting new people all the time. Charlie was a little more shy and reticent, although she too had learned to talk to strangers and work a cocktail party on the Upper East Side.

  “Long story short, we became best friends. We worked for the same modeling agency and eventually we ended up being roommates with Dana in an apartment on the West Side. We were young and having the time of our lives. We made good money, went to parties, and met loads of people.”

  Eli rubbed at his stubbly chin. “I hear a but at the end of that sentence.”

  Charlie laughed nervously, her hands twisting together tightly. “You’re right. We were living the high life but ultimately I didn’t want to be a model long-term. I wanted to go to school and have a more normal life like my friends back home.”

  He leaned closer, slowly reaching out with his hand, placing it on top of hers. But lightly, letting her know that she could pull away if she wanted to.

  I don’t want to.

  “You answered my question but you sounded sort of sad when you said it. Why? Did you not like school? Did you regret giving up modeling?”

  Charlie shook her head, the tears burning the backs of her eyes. “No, I loved school. I adored it and I didn’t miss modeling. It’s just that my decision was what got Kendra killed. It’s really my fault that she’s dead. I didn’t kill her but I’m to blame.”

  There. She’d said it out loud.

  Chapter Six

  Eli had been in law enforcement a damn long time. Some might say too long. He’d heard some strange shit over the years. For certain, he’d heard people blame themselves when bad things happened. Very rarely, however, were they truly to blame. He was sure this was the case here as well.

  “Did you ask someone to kill her? Did you hire anyone to do the job?”

  Charlie frowned, her brows pinched together. “Of course not.”

  “Did you drop her off on a deserted road in the middle of the night?”

  “No.”

  “Did you accidentally run her down with a vehicle?”

  Her eyes narrowed and her lips twisted. “No, Eli. That did not happen.”

  “Then I cannot see how this could be your fault. Help me understand.”

  Charlie jumped up from the couch and began pacing in the small space between the coffee table and an overstuffed chair.

  “Can’t you see it? If I had never quit modeling, I wouldn’t have been in school. Then Kendra wouldn’t have come to visit me between jobs.”

  Ah, someone had done a real number on Charlie. He had a crappy feeling that it was the victim’s parents and perhaps the cops, too.

  “Then she wouldn’t have been murdered, right? Because she would have stayed in New York City? And we all know that location is an oasis of personal safety. Nothing bad ever happens there.”

  Charlie threw up her hands in frustration. “You aren’t taking me seriously.”

  “I am. Really. I’m simply following your logic and then pointing out some holes in it. You think that Kendra would still be alive if she hadn’t come visit you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m guessing it’s because someone said that to you. Maybe multiple someones. Did it go something like this? ‘Gosh, Charlie. It’s tragic that Kendra came to visit you and this terrible thing happened to her. If only she’d stayed at home.’ Does that sound familiar?”

  Charlie had stopped pacing and was staring at him. “Yes.”

  Sighing, he shook his head. “Those someones don’t know shit. Honey, Kendra could have been murdered anywhere. Even in her own home.”

  “But the person that killed her was from here.”

  Eli’s brows rose. “How do you know that?”

  She appeared confused by the question. “Well…it happened here.”

  “Doesn’t mean that the killer was from here. Someone from New York City could have flown here and murdered her. We flew here today, too. Anyone could have traveled from another location to murder your friend, Charlie. They may have thought that a small-town police force wouldn’t have much experience with murders so they had less of a chance to be caught. They’d be right, too. They could have known Kendra was visiting you and came here from anywhere and then left right after. The murderer doesn’t have to be a local. If someone was determined to do harm to Kendra, distance wouldn’t stop them. Nothing would stop them.”

  Charlie opened her mouth and then snapped it shut.

  “You seem angry with me. It’s okay to say whatever is on your mind.”

  She scraped her fingers through her long hair, pushing it back from her face. “Fine, the police said that it was a crime of opportunity.”

  “And it could be. But we don’t know that yet. What looks like a crime of opportunity, a spur of the moment action, could actually be long planned out and executed. I’m keeping an open mind, and maybe if the cops had too, they might have had better luck finding the perpetrator.”

  Charlie fell down into the chair, burying her face in her hands. “You think that someone planned to kill her?”

  “I don’t know yet. I will say that statistically women are generally killed by the men in their life. A lover or ex. That’s some of what I need to know from you, Charlie. Was Kendra seeing anyone? Did she have exes that wouldn’t let go? Scorned suitors? She was a successful model. Did she have any stalkers that wouldn’t take no for an answer? Did she have rivals that she’d pissed off? All of those questions are important. Everyone she knew, that she came into contact with, are suspects until we can clear them.”

  Charlie looked up, tears shining in her eyes. “That includes me.”

  “You should be easy to clear. You have an alibi, right? Even the cops couldn’t shake it.”

  “I do.”

  “We’re going to see if everyone else does as well.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do?”

  “No, that’s what we’re going to do. You wanted to be a part of this.”

  Dashing away a few tears from her cheek, Charlie nodded. “I want the truth once and for all. Kendra deserves it.”

  “Then tell me more about Kendra. No detail is too small.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “I’ve got no place to go.”

  He’d start with a list of suspects and move from there.

  Charlie wasn’t even sure what to tell Eli and what to leave out. She didn’t know what was important. Was everything important? He said he wasn’t going anywhere and frankly, neither was she. This was why they were here.

  “Why don’t you start by telling me about Kendra?” he asked, seeming to pick up on her quandary. “What was she like? What did she like to do? Who were her friends? How did she spend her time? You’ve told me a little bit but I�
��d like to hear more.”

  “Kendra was an extrovert,” Charlie began, her mind winging back to those crazy days when life seemed to move at the speed of light. “She loved to be around people and go out and have fun. She was always the life of the party, if you know what I mean.”

  “She was a party girl,” Eli said with a nod. “So she knew a lot of people?”

  “It seemed like she knew everyone in New York City,” Charlie replied with a laugh. “That city had millions of people in it and somehow everywhere we went we would see someone she knew. It was amazing. She sort of attracted people, becoming friends with everyone around us. Photographers, agents, designers, other people in the business. Even our neighbors or the guy at the cash register at the local market. She was a happy person, always smiling. People liked being around her.”

  Eli was scratching some notes into a spiral notebook as Charlie spoke.

  “You say she was a happy person. All the time? Did she ever get angry or upset? Maybe frustrated with anyone?”

  “Not really. I don’t think so.”

  Eli looked up from his notes. “She was never mad or frustrated? Ever? That in and of itself seems strange to me, especially as you say that you lived together. How long did you live together? A short time?”

  “We lived together for four years.”

  His brows shot up. “And you never saw her anything but happy?”

  Now that he had pointed it out, it did seem sort of weird. Surely, there had been a moment when Kendra had been sad or angry, but Charlie couldn’t think of it.

  “I don’t remember anything like that. Kendra was always a positive person even when things weren’t going exactly right.”

  “Okay, then let’s move on to her social life. Tell me about the people she liked to hang out with, and also the men she dated. Did any of them have a problem understanding the word no?”

  Sighing, Charlie rolled her eyes. “We were models, Eli. Young women shoved out into the cutthroat world of fashion with barely any adult supervision. There were always men around that didn’t like to hear the word no. I distinctly remember a time when I had to take off my stiletto and use it as a weapon to get a guy off of me at a party one night. He’d cornered me out on the balcony overlooking Central Park West.”