Natural-Born Protector / Saved by the Monarch (13 page)

I know that you’re a cowboy…a rancher.
Melody’s voice once again whispered in his head.

“I don’t know,” he answered Maddie truthfully. “I need to think about a lot of things before I make any decisions.”

“I’m gonna make me a bowl of cereal, and while I eat I could help you make the decisions,” Maddie replied.

Hank laughed. “Unfortunately, this is a decision I need to make on my own.” He was surprised to discover that the idea of another ranch filled him with excitement instead of the grief he’d once felt when contemplating life on a ranch.

Melody had been right about several things. He didn’t want to be a bodyguard. He wanted to get back to the land where he belonged.

He had been punishing himself in some kind of crazy survivor-guilt way by selling off the ranch and choosing a job that would never make him truly happy. And he wasn’t the only one who had been paying for his bad decisions. Maddie had paid as well.

“How was Melody this morning?” he asked. The anger that had driven him out of Lainie’s place the day before was gone, replaced by a wistful sense of loss.

“She was good. She was leaving to go have breakfast with Fred. He’s gonna be her new stepdaddy.” Maddie carefully poured a mound of cereal into a bowl.

She should be safe going to Fred’s, Hank thought. It
was daytime and there would be people out and about. There was no reason for him to be concerned. He reached for the morning paper and pulled off the plastic wrap.

“Daddy?” Maddie sidled up next to him. “Someday maybe could you get me a stepmommy?”

Instantly a vision of Melody filled his head. He saw her brushing Maddie’s hair and laughing in delight at something Maddie had said. She would be a good mother someday, but she’d told him from the very beginning she was just in Cotter Creek long enough to find her sister’s killer.

She had no interest in a long-term relationship. He’d been nothing more to her than a summer fling, a salve against the wound of loss that Lainie’s murder had left behind.

“Daddy?”

Maddie’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he forced a smile as he realized she was waiting for an answer to her question. “I don’t know. Maybe someday,” he replied and was pleased that she seemed satisfied with that.

As Maddie focused on her cereal, Hank pulled the paper in front of him and opened it. Splashed across the front page was a huge photo of Fred Morrison and a construction worker in a hard hat. The headline read: Strip Mall Grand Opening in a Week.

“I’ve seen him before,” Maddie said as she looked at the picture.

“Who?”

She stabbed a little finger at Fred’s face. “I’ve seen him before.”

Hank frowned. “That’s the man who’s going to be Melody’s stepdaddy. Where have you seen him?”

“At Lainie’s.”

Hank stared at his daughter in confusion. “You must be mistaken. Fred has never been to Lainie’s place.”

“Yes, he has,” Maddie contradicted. “I saw him one night when I was coming here from Grandma’s. He knocked on her door and she let him in.”

Hank stared at her, his mind racing. He was sure Melody had told him Fred had never been inside Lainie’s place. A faint chill strolled up his spine. Why would Fred lie about something like that?

F
red Morrison’s home was located at the north edge of Cotter Creek on ten acres of prime pasture, but there was nothing remotely farmlike about the house itself.

It was a huge three-story house that shouted money and success. It had always intrigued Melody that a single man could live alone in such opulence.

There was a part of her that admired the fact that her mother hadn’t been seduced by the financial aspects of marrying Fred. It would have been easy for the single mother of two young girls to give in to Fred and have financial security, but Rita hadn’t succumbed to the easy route.

Melody pulled her car around the circle drive and parked in front of the massive double doors. She hoped Fred wasn’t planning anything elaborate for her mother’s
birthday. Rita wasn’t one for grandiose gestures and would prefer a quiet dinner as a celebration.

The storm clouds that had been in the distance earlier had moved overhead, hanging low and dark and ominous.

Fred answered her knock. Clad in a white apron he offered her a bright smile as he gestured her inside. “Hope you brought your appetite,” he said. “I’ve been working in the kitchen since dawn.”

“And something smells wonderful,” she exclaimed. “But you really didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“Nonsense, I love to cook whenever I get the opportunity. I keep telling your mother if she marries me she’ll never have to cook again.” Together they walked toward the back of the house where the kitchen was located.

As they passed one of the rooms, Mike the painter poked his head out and waved with a friendly smile. “Hey, Melody, how you doing?”

“Mike is working in my office,” Fred explained. “After we eat I’ll show you what’s being done in there.”

The kitchen was a large room with a cozy eat-in alcove. He motioned her to the table, which was set with attractive blue-patterned plates. Orange juice was already in the glasses and Melody sat down and took a sip.

“What happened to your cheek?” he asked as he headed toward the oven.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I just scraped it when I was moving some things.” She reached up self-consciously and touched the nearly healed wound.

“I realized after I spoke to you that it was Lainie who loved my apple crepes and you preferred my applecinnamon muffins, so I changed my menu plan.” Fred
opened the oven door and bent to look inside, then closed it with a frown. “And it’s going to be a few minutes still before the muffins are done.”

“You mentioned you were planning something for Mom’s birthday? We could talk about that while we wait,” she suggested.

He joined her at the table and she noticed his sleek silver cane was nowhere to be seen. She’d never known for sure why he used it, suspected that it was more for ornament than need.

“I was thinking maybe something in the back garden here.” He pointed out the window to the gardens in the distance. “We could have it catered, something simple but elegant. Perhaps about fifty or seventy-five guests.”

Melody laughed. “Fred, my mother doesn’t know that many people.” She sobered. “And given what’s happened in the past couple of weeks I don’t really think she’ll be up for a big party.”

Fred frowned. “Given what’s happened, I think a big party is exactly what she needs,” he countered. “She’s spent a lifetime worrying about Lainie and now she doesn’t have to worry anymore.”

Melody sat back in her seat and stared at him. She’d never known Fred to be so insensitive before. He smiled apologetically, as if reading her thoughts. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. But you know how trying Lainie could be and all she was talking about before her death was having a baby. God, what a nightmare that would have been.”

A faint alarm of apprehension went off in Melody’s head. She told herself not to be ridiculous, that this was
Fred…Fred! The man who had been in their lives for years, the man who loved her mother to distraction.

“Come on, let me show you what Mike’s doing in my office. We have a few more minutes before the muffins are finished.”

She shoved away the crazy disquiet and stood to follow him out of the room. She was just on edge, spooked because this was the first time she’d been out since her attack.

Fred’s office was a large room with a stone fireplace at one end and an ornate mahogany desk in front of it. The floor was covered with drop cloths and Mike lowered a paintbrush as they entered.

“As you can see, I’m having that beige wall painted a deep burgundy. Then I’ve ordered two wingback chairs to go in front of the fireplace, and we’ll move the desk over there.” He pointed to the other side of the room. “I wanted to pretty up the room a bit for when your mother moves in.”

Melody nodded, although she found it odd that Mike would have drop cloths covering the entire floor for painting a single wall. Mike set his paintbrush down and wiped his hands on his apron and exchanged a look with Fred.

Fred looked at Melody, and in the depths of his eyes she thought she saw regret. Regret for what? Her heart banged against her bruised ribs as a sudden fear overtook her. Stop it, she told herself and drew a deep breath. There was nothing to be afraid of here.

“Melody, Melody, Melody,” Fred said in a singsong
fashion. “You’ve become as big a problem as your sister was.”

It was then she noticed the knife Mike was holding in his hand.

He was overreacting. Once again Hank stood at the window overlooking the parking lot from where Melody’s car was gone. She’ll be fine at Fred’s, he told himself. There was absolutely no reason for his gut to be churning with anxiety.

Why had Fred told Melody he’d never been inside Lainie’s place? What possible motive could he have to lie about such a simple thing?

He’d spent several minutes trying to pin down Maddie on when she’d seen Fred, but all she knew was that it was around the time that Lainie had died. Had it been on the night that Lainie had been murdered?

Why would Fred have gone to Lainie’s and why would he lie about it? It just didn’t make sense, and what didn’t make sense made him nervous.

He jerked away from the window and slid a hand through his hair as if the gesture would help him make sense of things. Why would Fred want to hurt Lainie? The man had been like a father to her. Lainie had loved Fred. It just didn’t make sense to suspect Fred of any wrongdoing.

Still, no amount of rationalization vanquished the bad feeling he had in his gut. He paced the living room, his mind racing in a million directions. Why had Fred lied?

He glanced at his watch. Ten-thirty. How long could it take Melody to eat breakfast and come back home?
He suddenly had a need to see her, to make sure she was all right.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed his mother’s phone. “Mom, I know you didn’t intend to keep Maddie today, but is it possible you could watch her right now for a little while?”

“What’s wrong?” Susan asked.

“What makes you think anything is wrong?” he asked.

“I’m your mother, Hank. I can hear it in your voice. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

He sighed. “Probably nothing, but I need to find Melody. She went to have breakfast with Fred Morrison. I don’t know why, but I just need to check on her and make sure she’s all right.”

“I’ll be right there.” Susan clicked off before Hank had fully finished speaking.

What had begun as a little whisper of worry now quickly became an urgent scream inside his head. Once his mother arrived, he grabbed his keys and headed for his car, telling himself that he was probably playing the fool, but not caring. It was at that moment that he recognized the depths of his love for Melody Thompson.

“Fred? What’s going on?” Melody asked, her voice sounding tinny and small, drowned out by the banging of her heart.

“If you’d just come back for the funeral then left again nothing would have happened, but you had to dig and dig and put your nose where it didn’t belong. I tried to warn you with the phone call and the brick. I told you to go back to Chicago.”

She stared at him as if seeing him for the very first time. His neatly cut salt-and-pepper hair looked the same way it always had, but his handsome features were suddenly alien as his eyes radiated a weary resignation. “You?” The single word escaped her lips on a faint sigh.

“I even had Mike here rough you up, figuring that would be enough to send you packing, but it didn’t.” Fred walked over to the corner and grabbed the solid silver cane with the ornate head. When he looked at Melody again, his eyes were hard pellets. “She was going to get pregnant. If that happened, your mother would have never married me. She would have been saddled with raising a kid because we all know Lainie wasn’t capable of being a real mother.”

“You killed her?” Melody’s world tilted and a new grief for her sister welled up inside her. It was bad enough for Lainie to have been killed by a stranger, but she’d loved Fred and she’d thought Fred loved her.

“I didn’t intend to kill her. I went over there to try to talk some sense into her. I wanted her to get a hysterectomy so she wouldn’t have any babies.” Fred’s eyes flashed with anger. “If she’d just done what I asked there wouldn’t have been any problems, but instead she laughed at me, told me that I couldn’t do anything to stop her from having a kid or two.”

Melody listened in horror. She shot a glance at Mike, who stood nearby as if awaiting orders. He didn’t look shocked by Fred’s words. He looked bored.

“She went into the bathroom and I followed her.” Fred’s fingers tightened on the top of his cane. “I was in love with your mother long before your father died.
When he had his heart attack and died, I was determined that she’d be mine. I built my company for her. I built this house for her and I waited for her to finally agree to marry me. But over and over again she put me off, telling me we’d have time for our life when Lainie got settled. Lainie was never going to get settled,” he screamed.

Melody took a step backward, still reeling from what she was hearing. She’d thought that the killer was James O’Donnell because he had a sick obsession for Lainie, but instead it had been Fred because of his sick obsession with her mother.

Even as she listened to him and kept Mike in her peripheral vision, she frantically looked for a way to escape. But Fred was standing by the door to the room and Mike was on her right side, in front of the windows.

“It was a tragic accident,” Fred continued. “When she laughed at me I struck her—” he raised his cane and slashed it through the air and at the same time a low rumble of thunder rattled the windows “—she fell and laughed and I hit her again…and again…and again.”

“And you lost the stone out from your ring,” Melody said with horror.

“A trip to a jeweler in Oklahoma City took care of that problem, and I thought everything was fine, but you keep digging and digging.”

“I’ll stop. I’ll go home and never tell anyone what you’ve told me,” she lied.

Fred shook his head and every muscle in her body tightened as Mike took a step toward her. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. I’ve been a patient man, Melody, but my
patience has finally run out. Mike is going to see to it that you never tell anyone anything. You’re going to disappear. Your mother will go through a grieving process, but then there will be nothing more keeping her from me.”

“You’ll never get away with this,” Melody exclaimed. “Several people knew where I was going this morning.”

“And you arrived and we had a lovely breakfast together and planned your mother’s birthday party, and then you left. Mike will make sure your car isn’t found for months and you’ll become part of the concrete foundation of a new building we’re working on. People will search for you and your disappearance will remain a mystery for years to come.”

He stepped backward toward the door to leave and nodded to Mike. Melody suddenly realized why the floor was covered with drop cloths. It was so there wouldn’t be any mess when Mike killed her. Her bloody, dead body would be wrapped in one of those cloths and she’d be dropped into a hole and covered with concrete.

“Please,” she said to Mike as Fred left the room. “How can you do this for him?”

“He pays me well for helping him out,” Mike said as he advanced on her. Lightning flashed and thunder exploded. Melody raced for the door that Fred had just exited, but when she twisted the knob, it was locked.

She whirled back around and grabbed a lamp from a nearby table and held it out in front of her in an attempt to keep Mike away.

All she could think about was Hank and Maddie and her mother. They would never know what happened to her. Maddie would never get a letter from Chicago and
her mother would marry the man who had murdered her two children. And Hank…he would never know that she’d loved him. He would never know that for her, he’d been magic.

The rain slowed him down. It fell in torrents, the windshield wipers barely able to keep up. Lightning split the skies and thunder boomed almost instantaneously.

But the storm outside had nothing on the tornado of emotions that was whirling through Hank. As he drove he kept telling himself that he was overreacting, that he was going to arrive at Fred’s place and find Melody eating a bowl of fruit and a muffin. Hank would be embarrassed by intruding, but at least he’d have the peace of mind to know Melody was okay.

As he pulled up in the driveway, he saw her rental car in front of the door, but even the familiar sight couldn’t stanch the feeling that she might be in danger.

Thankfully the rain had eased off to a mist as he got out of his car. He started for the front door, then paused and changed his mind. With the faint alarm of danger ringing in his ears, he went around the side of the house, deciding to see what he could find by peering into windows.

The alarm that had been faintly ringing in his ears became more shrill as he saw a covered pickup truck parked in the grass by a back door. Why would a worker park back here instead of in the driveway?

He crouched down and went to the first window. A peek in showed him the kitchen, but there was nobody inside. The table was set but it didn’t appear that anyone
had eaten yet. He frowned. She’d been here long enough to eat a three-course meal and be on her way back home.