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

  “Kendra’s murder? Reopening it? Why? Is there new information? Has there been a break in the case?”

  That would be the logical conclusion. Thom had asked the same thing.

  “No,” Eli said with a shake of his head. “Charlie and Dana simply want a second chance at getting to the truth. My firm is experienced in cold cases. That’s why we’re here.”

  Rubbing at his chin, Julian sat back in his chair. “Wow, well…I think it’s great. I mean, why not? Kendra deserves to rest in peace and all that.”

  “We’re talking to all the people that knew Kendra back then,” Eli went on. “We spoke with Thom this morning.”

  Julian’s smile widened. “Great guy. His sports bar is the most popular in town.”

  “He told Eli a few things I didn’t know about Kendra,” Charlie said, keeping her tone neutral. “Did you know the things she was trying to keep from me?”

  “Keep from you?” Julian repeated. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  It was far too late to mince words. As Eli had said, murder cases didn’t care a whit about her delicate feelings.

  “Apparently, Charlie was partying a great deal. Lots of men. She and Thom…”

  She couldn’t finish the statement but Julian seemed to get the idea. He shifted in his chair, his face turning a ruddy shade.

  “Shit, Charlie.” He grimaced and groaned out loud. “Thom told me a long time ago about him and Kendra. He told me it was a secret, and that she didn’t want you and Dana to know. She wanted you to think she was…well…frankly, something that she wasn’t.”

  “In your opinion, Julian, what was Kendra?” Eli asked.

  “In a word? Kendra was wild,” Julian said with a shake of his head. “And getting wilder with each passing day. She was always putting on a front for Charlie, but she was getting more and more out of control. I always wondered if she had some sort of sex addiction. She came on to me more than once.”

  It was like hearing about a stranger. Charlie had never thought Kendra was even remotely interested in Julian.

  “Did you—?”

  Charlie stopped abruptly, not sure she should ask. Would it be impolite? Did it even matter? Eli said that there were no secrets in a murder investigation, but hell, did she even want to know?

  “Fuck no,” Julian declared. “I was, and still am, in love with Sarah. And even if I wasn’t, she’d cut off my balls if I was unfaithful. But to be blunt, Kendra wasn’t my type. She’d been around and then some. She used to tell me stories about how she’d wait until you were out of town on a job and she’d party for days while you were gone. Then she’d rush to clean up your apartment before you got home so you’d never know. She’d always say, ‘Don’t tell Charlie. She wouldn’t understand.’”

  “Now I know why our neighbors hated us,” Charlie muttered under her breath. “I wondered why they used to glare at me in the hallway. Kendra was throwing wild parties and keeping them awake. Awesome.”

  Julian shrugged. “Kendra lived by her own rules and she didn’t give a furry rat’s ass about anyone’s sleep. Or anything else, for that matter. What mattered was her, first and foremost. Her needs, her wants, her desires. She was the center of her universe and she believed that she deserved to be the center of everyone else’s, too.”

  “You make her sound terrible,” Charlie said sadly. “Like she was an awful person.”

  “She wasn’t and I don’t mean to make her sound that way. In many ways, Kendra was like a child. It was almost as if she never grew up past thirteen or so. Her mind was still firmly in the teenage years where a person thinks that what they want is the most important thing in the world. She was this oblivious little girl, in the crazy make-believe world of modeling where she made tons of money and didn’t have to make all that many important decisions. Shit, she even had a money manager who paid her bills for her. She didn’t have to adult at all. I’m sure eventually it would have all caught up to her but she passed on too soon to find out. That’s why Cagney ended the relationship. He didn’t want to have to wait for her to finally grow up.”

  The day wasn’t getting any better.

  “Wait…she and Cagney had broken up? She told me that she thought he was going to propose.”

  Julian sighed and shook his head. “Just another one of her facades to hide what was really going on. She and Cagney had been apart about six months when she died. After they broke up she really went off the rails. She was partying harder than ever. I wasn’t all that shocked when she disappeared, to be honest.”

  “That’s exactly what Thom said.”

  “I have a feeling it’s what many people said, Char Char. Those that knew what she was really like.”

  A terrible thought occurred to her.

  “Did Dana know? Did she keep that secret from me, too?”

  “I don’t think she knew. Kendra wanted to keep certain relationships unsullied. You and Dana were two of those.”

  “What about Holly?”

  Holly had been a fourth roommate for about a year before she gave up on modeling and moved back home to marry her longtime boyfriend. She’d hated the modeling business from day one.

  “I don’t think Holly knew but I could be wrong. I don’t think Kendra spent much time around her. I always got the feeling that they didn’t get along that well.”

  That was sort of true. Holly had been openly derisive about being a model. Kendra hadn’t liked that so they purposefully didn’t talk business. But they had interacted. Charlie hadn’t ever seen either of them hostile to one another.

  Julian’s expression softened. “I can tell finding all of this out was tough for you. Kendra wasn’t a bad person, and I think she was a good friend. She was just kind of lost in a way, racing from one thing to another to try and fill some empty hole in her life. I don’t know why she was empty like that, but she was, and all the skydiving, drinking, and casual sex in the world couldn’t make her feel whole. I know you’re probably angry at her, Char, but honestly you should feel sorry for her. She was a little lost girl trying to find happiness. I don’t think she ever did.”

  “I would have helped her if she’d told me.”

  “She didn’t even know she needed help,” Julian replied softly. “She wouldn’t have known what to ask for or what she needed. She was walking around in the dark. I tried to talk to her a few times but she was deeply in denial. She didn’t want my help. She didn’t want anyone’s help, Charlie.”

  “Did you see Kendra the day she disappeared?” Eli asked. “Did Kendra seem different on that visit? Anything out of the norm?”

  “I can’t think of anything,” Julian replied. “I didn’t see her that day but I did talk to her the day before. She was talking about booking a holiday to the beach, and the job she’d just finished in Miami.”

  That had Charlie’s attention immediately.

  “Miami? I thought she’d come from Milan.”

  “She told me she’d flown in from Miami.”

  “That’s where Cagney supposedly was.”

  Julian appeared puzzled. “I’m not sure where you’re going here. She and Cagney had broken up months before. Miami is a big city.”

  But the modeling community was small.

  Why had Kendra lied? About Cagney…and Milan. It didn’t make any sense.

  None of it did.

  When Eli and Charlie returned to their rental house, she made some excuse about needing to make a few phone calls and then disappeared into her bedroom. She’d clearly been happy to see her old friends, but that hadn’t really made up for the fact that she’d learned a great deal about Kendra that had been purposefully kept from her back then. He’d watched as a riot of emotions ran over her features, from happiness to sadness to just plain anger. She deserved to be mad. He would be too in the same circumstances.

  She was, however, feeling guilty about that anger. He recognized all of the signs because he’d been there as well. Charlie was pissed off at a dead person, and she didn’t feel li
ke she had the right to be. After all…the person was dead. He remembered going through this and it wasn’t fun. The only good thing about it was now, all of these years later, he might be able to help Charlie deal with it a hell of a lot better than he ever had.

  The first thing he was going to do was make her a nice dinner. A good meal always seemed to make things better, at least for him. He didn’t know if Charlie was the same, but delicious food couldn’t hurt the situation. When they’d ordered the groceries, she’d been incredibly enthusiastic about all his suggestions of dishes that he could make. She’d told him that she was a terrible cook. And he’d let her know that was fine. He liked puttering around the kitchen after a day at work. It relaxed him. Cleaning up the dishes? Not so much, but he did it anyway. He lived alone so no one was going to do it for him. He’d found out quickly that the dish fairy was only a myth.

  Scanning the contents of the refrigerator, he decided on chicken parmesan with a side of spaghetti. Charlie’s face had literally lit up like a kid’s when he’d offered to put it on the meal list. He hoped she’d be just as happy when she actually sat down to dinner.

  He had just slid the breaded chicken cutlets into the oven to finish cooking, and had the pasta bubbling away on the stove when Charlie joined him in the kitchen. She hopped onto one of the stools at the island, looking far more relaxed than she had less than thirty minutes ago.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He gave the spaghetti a stir before answering. “What are you sorry for?”

  “You know why. For being a grump and maybe a bitch, retreating to my room, and leaving you to make dinner.”

  Eli reached into the cabinet and pulled down a wine glass. “First things first. How about a glass of wine? I can confirm that a nice cabernet with this meal is the perfect combination.”

  “Definitely. Thank you.”

  He poured her a glass and slid it across the smooth granite surface.

  “Now as to you being grumpy, don’t worry about it. Grumpy would be the least of things that I would be if I’d had a day like you. As for bitchy, I don’t think you were in the least. Retreating to your room didn’t bother me at all. You needed some time for yourself and I get that. No harm done. As for the final apology––not helping cook dinner? From what you’ve told me previously, that’s a good thing.”

  Charlie smiled at his attempt at humor. “Hey, I can boil water, you know. I can make scrambled eggs, too. They’re my specialty. I make them with cheese.”

  “I love cheesy scrambled eggs. And bacon. And toast.”

  “I can manage the toast. The bacon is beyond me. I tried once and the grease spattered on my arm. It hurt.”

  “I always cook my bacon in the oven. Try it. It’s life-changing.”

  “Bacon in the oven? I guess you really do learn something every day.” She sniffed the air and smiled. “It smells heavenly in here. I shouldn’t be hungry after a big lunch but I am. Chicken parmesan is my favorite.”

  “It’s one of mine, too. It was one of the first things I learned to cook.”

  Eli took a small spoon out of the cutlery drawer and dipped it in the marinara sauce. “Can you give this a taste? Does it need any seasoning?”

  “It’s perfect,” she said, licking her lips. “Don’t change a thing. You said that this was one of the first things you learned to cook. Did you go to culinary school or something?”

  “Not at all. I had to learn the hard way. After Debra passed on, I had to fend for myself or starve. And eating out every meal wasn’t really feasible on a small-town sheriff’s salary. So I got a few books, opened up the internet and found some videos, and taught myself to cook.”

  Charlie’s gaze dropped to her wine glass. “Did she do all of the cooking?”

  Eli was trying to cheer Charlie up, not bring the evening down again. A few years ago this conversation would have been a hell of a lot harder but he’d made progress.

  He still loved Debra. He always would. But now it felt nice to talk about her, not painful and sad.

  “Yes, Debra did the cooking. I’m fairly well housebroken so I can clean up after myself and do my own laundry but cooking was a whole other thing, so she ended up with all the cooking duties. She was good, too. Every now and then she’d experiment with a new recipe and sometimes it wouldn’t work out but mostly everything she made was delicious. Even after she got sick, she kept trying to cook even if she didn’t want to eat it. The treatments messed with her stomach. She lost a lot of weight that last year.”

  It had been painful to watch someone he loved suffer so much.

  “I shouldn’t have asked the question. It’s really none of my business.”

  Eli tried to give Charlie an encouraging smile. “I’m not upset that you asked. It’s okay. You can ask me anything that you want. If I don’t want to answer, I don’t have any problem saying so. I loved Debra very much. We were quite young when we got together, but we were very happy. I always assumed I was going to have a family and grow old with her but that wasn’t in the cards. For a long time I was angry about that, but now I just feel grateful for the time that we had together. I think she made me a better person so I’m glad that she was in my life even if it wasn’t forever.”

  Charlie smiled, her eyes shiny with tears. “That’s so sweet. She made you a better person. Did you make her a better person?”

  Eli laughed at the question. “I don’t know if I made her a better person, but I probably made her a more patient one. Damn, she was patient as hell with me when we first got married. I didn’t know shit about being a husband but she rarely lost her temper. She’d just tell me how I fucked up, and I’d promise to never do what stupid thing I did ever again.”

  “What stupid things did you do?”

  He almost didn’t want to admit what a bonehead he’d been back then.

  “I’d stay out with the guys all night and not call. Put everyone and everything first before her. I didn’t know what it meant to be a team, real partners. Debra had to teach me. She was good about that, though. She was a teacher, after all. Her students loved her, and she loved them.”

  “But she didn’t teach you to cook?”

  Eli chuckled at the memories of Debra trying. “She tried, but I wasn’t a very good student. I didn’t see why I needed to learn something she could do. I wasn’t a total asshole, though, in case you’re thinking that I was. I tried to do other things around the house. Debra said that I was a champion dishwasher, and I was pretty famous for the way I kept the floors scrubbed.”

  “Famous, huh?” It was Charlie’s turn to laugh. “What’s your secret to shiny tile?”

  “Vinegar and water.”

  “I’ll make a note of that.”

  Eli dipped a fork into the bubbling spaghetti. “It’s done. Are you ready to eat?”

  She stood and opened a cabinet, grabbing plates. “Starving. I’ll set the table.”

  First a nice dinner, then he’d see what else he could do to cheer Charlie up. She’d had a hard day today, and tomorrow probably wasn’t going to be any better.

  In fact, it might be worse. Only time would tell what they were going to find out about Kendra.

  Chapter Ten

  Dinner was delicious, and Charlie feared that she’d traumatized Eli for life by how much food she’d eaten. It was just so damn good, and she’d put away far more than she’d planned to. It was better than anything she could have scraped together. Hell, it was better than most of the restaurants she’d been to lately. If she ate like this every night, she’d have to run twenty miles a day to burn off the calories.

  Because he’d cooked, she insisted on doing the dishes, pushing him out of the kitchen. He’d protested a bit but had finally went into the living room, turning on the television to what looked like a travel program.

  When she was finished tidying up the kitchen, she joined him on the couch, sinking into the cushions with an audible sigh. It had been a long and emotional day.

  “What are you watchin
g?”

  “I have no idea.” Eli reached for the remote and flicked through the channels. “It wasn’t anything holding my attention. We need to do something to make this day better. We need to relax and have some fun.”

  Charlie was all for that idea, but she wasn’t sure what he had in mind. Did he want to go out somewhere? See a movie? Go have a drink at a bar? She’d already had more red wine than she should have.

  He turned off the television before standing, his hand out.

  “How about we go for a walk?”

  Charlie just stared at his outstretched arm for a moment, her brain still processing his question. It had come out of the blue.

  “You want to go for a walk?”

  “We’re both in our heads too much tonight. I thought doing something active would help. It’s a nice night and the sun won’t go down for awhile yet. What do you say?”

  What did she say?

  “I say yes.”

  A walk was just what she needed. He was right. They were thinking too much. Moving around would help. She couldn’t just sit in that house and mull all of her life’s choices. That was too depressing to contemplate.

  It was a beautiful evening, the air cooling slightly from the warm day. They didn’t have a clue where they were going, but they headed down the block at a brisk pace, taking in the scenery around them. This was pretty much suburbia with family homes lining the streets and SUVs in the driveways. Every now and then Charlie would hear the bark of a dog or the sound of someone’s television through the open windows.

  “I grew up in a neighborhood just like this,” Charlie said. “All families. It’s a strange place to put an Airbnb, though.”

  “Maybe they inherited the house or just bought it for an investment. It is a nice neighborhood, and I have to admit that it kind of reminds me of my childhood as well. My parents bought a house in a neighborhood of all young families. Halloween was the best, I swear. Every kid for miles was out trick or treating. I would come home with a bushel of candy. It was a great time to be a kid.”