Darkling I Listen (5 page)

Alyson smiled and reached for a jalapeno-flavored potato chip. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but I'm perfectly capable of talking to Carlyle myself. Unlike a lot of people, I'm not intimidated by him or his tantrums."

"Naw, you don't look like the sort who'd be intimidated by much."

She smiled and made her voice a little sultry. "Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?"

He shrugged and grinned. "You got an air of confidence about you, is
all.
" He leaned back against the wall. "You married?"

"Not anymore." She bit the end off the pickle spear and regarded the flushed officer. He was working up the courage to flirt, she could tell. "Are you married, Officer Cornwall?"

"Nope. Never met the right girl, I guess. Course there's not a lot to choose from in Ticky Creek. Most girls graduate high school and leave for Dallas or Houston. You know, they got aspirations of going to college or landing them a well-off husband. Can't say as I blame them. This town's idea of excitement is Friday nights at the high school football games and Saturday nights at the River Road Saloon—that's a honky-tonk 'bout ten miles out of town. Between here and White Sands. I suppose a woman like you wouldn't like a place like that."

"I grew up in a two-room apartment over a truck stop out by Seven Pines, near
Longview
. I've seen a honky-tonk or two in my time. My mother waitressed at the Pussy Cat Bar outside of Kilgore."

"Yeah?" His eyes brightened and his grin widened. "You don't sound like an
East Texas
gal. Don't look like one either."

"An
East Texas
gal gotta walk around wearing an old tow sack and have hay in her hair?"

"Naw." He shook his head and laughed. "That's not what I meant…
Anybody ever tell you you look like that actress … now don't tell me. Let me think a minute." He snapped his fingers. "Charlize Theron. Maybe it's the big eyes. And your mouth. You got a … nice mouth."

"Yeah?" She winked and slid her tongue along the pickle spear. "Your's isn't so bad either."

His jaw dropped, and he sank a little harder against the wall.

"I take it people 'round here don't give much thought to a movie star like Brandon Carlyle living among them."

He shook his head, attention still focused on the pickle.

"Does he behave himself?"

"Who?"

"Carlyle."

"Oh."
Cornwall
took a deep breath and slowly released it. "He stays to himself. Comes into town now and again and eats at Dime
A
Cup. Mostly when he brings his uncle in to the doctor. Henry and Bernice took care of Brandon and his daddy after Cara up and left Ticky Creek for
Hollywood
. When
Brandon
's daddy was killed down at the mill, Cara come back and took
Brandon
. Said no way in hell was she gonna let her little boy be brought up by a lot of backwoods hicks.
Brandon
was four, I think. 'Bout killed Bernice and Henry. Broke their hearts. They could never have kids, and looked at
Brandon
like he was their own."

"Obviously
Brandon
stayed close to Bernice and Henry."

"Real close. He come back to Ticky Creek ever' chance he got. At least Cara gave him that.
Brandon
was always a nice guy. Fit right in with the rest of us while he was here—or tried to. After a while it got pretty tough to treat him like he was just one of the fellas. Girls got all spoony over him, and that pissed the guys off. Then the guys didn't want him coming around, at least not while the girls were with them. Sometimes we'd all go off to the quarry and drink."

"
Brandon
could belt it back, huh?"

Cornwall
rubbed the back of his neck, his expression bothered as he forced himself to shift his attention away from Alyson. No doubt he realized he was talking way too freely about Carlyle.

"It's not as if his drinking isn't public knowledge," she assured him.

"Right."

Time to steer him down another road until he relaxed again. "I suppose Bernice and Henry are glad to have him home again."

"Oh, yeah."
Cornwall
laughed. "Henry is beside himself. He sure needed the help after Bernice's stroke. Brandon's stepping in and taking over most of the farm chores lets Henry spend as much time as possible with Bernice. Not that Henry's able to do a lot to help her; he's got that home nurse to do all that. Betty, I think her name is. Betty Wilson."

The woman with red hair and white shoes. That one could be trouble.

"Was Henry aware of
Brandon
's drinking problem?" she asked nonchalantly as she took another bite of tuna sandwich.

Cornwall
frowned and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Can't imagine he couldn't have seen it. We all did. Hell, once we all watched him kick back a pint of Jack Daniels in less than an hour. He couldn't have been more than fourteen, maybe fifteen at the time."

"What about drugs? Ever see him take any?"

"Nope." He shook his head, and his eyes narrowed in speculation as he focused on her again. "He
don't
drink anymore, either. Stays clean as a whistle. Part of his parole. He gets caught intoxicated, and he gets shipped back to Corcoran to serve out the rest of his sentence."

A door opened someplace, snapping
Cornwall
to attention. He moved to the door and looked out, made a noise in his throat, and muttered, "Ah, hell, I was hoping to get all this over with before Jack got back." He glanced over his shoulder at Alyson, his expression tense. "I'll be back. Just eat your sandwich and keep quiet."

"Something wrong?" She tossed down the pickle and pushed back the chair. Nothing like the scent of worry and anticipation to stimulate her need to poke her nose where it shouldn't be.

"Just that Sheriff Dillman and Brandon don't exactly see eye to eye, if you get my drift. Air gets a little thick when they're together." He cleared his throat. "Hey, Jack, you finished up in
Nacogdoches
already?"

Cornwall
closed the door behind him, muffling the conversation between him and the sheriff. Alyson pressed her ear to the door, doing her best to catch any tidbits of information,
then
jumped back as the door swung open and the threshold filled with something that looked like he should be starring in the WWF. He glared at her with squinted eyes, his square jaw clenched and working. One hand rested on his gun. The other was hooked on his belt.

"This here is Ms. Alyson James,"
Cornwall
explained.

Looking her up and down, Dillman allowed a smirk to cross his lips, or what Alyson could see of them under his mustache. He reached around behind him;
Cornwall
slapped a paper in his hand. Dillman studied it a few seconds before raising his gaze to hers.

"Trespassin' on the Carlyle place, huh?" He didn't give her time to respond before saying, "Wondered how long it would take before the lot of you busybodies and news vultures got wind of his livin' here. How many of you are there?"

She shrugged and gave him an innocent smile. "Just lil' ol' me, Sheriff."

"Just you." He snorted. "And don't patronize me, Mizz James. I ain't in the mood to be patronized. Anythin' relatin' to Carlyle puts me in a real foul disposition, so if you don't want to spend the rest of the day and night downstairs with a pair of drunks and a possible child molester, you better tell me real quick what your business is and just when the hell you plan on gettin' out of my town."

"She's a writer,"
Cornwall
offered.

"Freelance," she added, putting a chair between her and the sheriff. She was damn good at figuring out what buttons to push on a person to tweak their more amenable attributes—a talent one developed quickly if one held any hope of squeezing information out of reluctant interviewees. Take
Cornwall
: five minutes in his company and she had assessed that he was happiest kicking back at the River Road Honky Tonk and schmoozing with lumber mill river rats over a pitcher of cold Budweiser. He probably pinched the waitresses' butts every chance he got because it made him feel like one of the guys. Her story of living over a truck stop with a mother who waited tables at the Pussy Cat in Kilgore had won him over in a heartbeat. It put them on a level playing field.

But two minutes in Dillman's company told her that she was going to be hard-pressed to find so much as a splinter of amenability in him. Looking into his hard, whisky-colored eyes was like attempting to stare down a cottonmouth.

"I'm alone, Sheriff. I hoped to discuss a possible book deal with Carlyle. That is, if I can ever get close enough to him without his having my butt hauled to jail."

"Alone, huh?" His mouth worked, causing his yellow mustache to move up and down and from side to side. His gaze slid over her Texas Aggies T-shirt, hesitated, then back up to her face. "Where you stayin'?"

"Pine Tree Lodge. Just out of town."

A door opened and closed.
Cornwall
looked around, his expression becoming
more tense
, if that were possible. "Hey,
Brandon
, how's it goin'?"

Dillman left the room, sucking the air out with him as he went. Alyson leaned against the chair and tried to breathe. First Dillman and now Carlyle. Drawing back her shoulders, she prepared for a second onslaught of insults, and thought she might be safer tossed to the drunks and molester in the basement. No doubt they would be friendlier company.

She moved cautiously to the door and peered out. Dillman stood aside, arms crossed over his big chest, glaring at Carlyle, who didn't so much as acknowledge his existence, though how anyone could ignore a man the size of a Mack truck Alyson couldn't guess.
Cornwall
stood behind his desk, presenting papers to Carlyle, who stood with his back to her. His blue chambray shirt was tucked into his blue jeans, and the blue jeans cupped his buttocks so perfectly that the sight made her mouth a little dry. The man had never needed a body double. He had the best tush in
Hollywood
; women packed the theaters by the thousands in anticipation of even the briefest glimpse of his naked buns. Sighing, she looked longingly at her camera on
Cornwall
's desk.

"Her story checks out,"
Cornwall
said. "She told me she got into town two days ago. I checked with the car rental folks in
Dallas
, and she picked up the car Thursday morning at ten-thirty. She checked into the Pine Tree Lodge on Thursday around four in the afternoon. She's got an open-ended American Airlines ticket originating in
San Francisco
. I ran a check on her through the guys out there, and she's clean. Not even a traffic violation. Says she's a freelance writer and wants to talk to you about a book deal."
Cornwall
glanced her way and cleared his throat. "She
don't
act like a crazy, but I guess you've seen more of them than I have."

Thanks a lot,
she mouthed at him, causing his face to flush.

Carlyle withdrew something from his back pocket and tossed it on the desk. "Got that in the mail today," he said. "Third one in as many months. A little coincidental that it showed up in my mailbox about the same time she shows up in Ticky Creek."

Both Dillman and
Cornwall
looked around at her. Carlyle
turned,
eyes as blue and cold as chips of ice spearing her where she stood in the doorway. There wasn't a smidgeon of sympathy in his expression.

Squaring her shoulders, she sauntered toward the threesome. "Sounds like I'm about to be accused of something other than falling out of a tree on the wrong side of a fence. Mind telling me exactly what other crime I'm supposed to have committed in the last forty-eight hours?"

Cornwall
retrieved a paper from the desk and held it out to her. She sidled up next to Carlyle, her arm brushing his as she took the crumpled letter and casually perused it. Or tried to. Standing so close to the Sexiest Man Alive somehow diminished her ability to focus on anything other than the intensity of his stare, which made her skin feel as if she'd fallen in a bed of fire ants. She couldn't breathe the electrified air.

Clearing her throat, she finally managed to raise her eyes back to his and force a tight smile to her lips. "Sorry, Carlyle. If I've got sweet talk on my mind, I'll say it to a man's face. Or whisper it in his ear. I'm not shy about seduction. When I want a man, I'm about as subtle as a heart attack."

Cornwall
coughed and reached for the can of warm Dr Pepper on his desk. Dillman snatched the letter from Alyson's hand and shoved it at Carlyle.

"There ain't nothin' in this letter that is remotely threatenin', Carlyle.
Just some horny woman who ain't got the news yet that you're a pervert." With a smug grin, he lowered his voice. "'Course, after spendin' three years in the pen, pretty boy that you are, maybe that letter ain't from a woman. Maybe after gettin' a taste of life on your knees, you've gone queer on us." Throwing back his head, Dillman laughed so loud that the sound echoed off the walls. Then, as quickly, his humor evaporated, leaving him glaring at Carlyle through a haze of contempt "If you're gonna press charges against this woman, let's get to it. I got better things to do than waste my time on your stupid paranoia."