Chapter 20
L
acy parked across the street, as far from the street-lamp as possible. She sat in the darkness and watched the home of Wes Rossman.
It had to be him—it made perfect sense. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized that before. Bent Thompson wouldn’t be dead now if he’d been Charles’s killer. He’d have taken the money and never returned to town. Canton, well, she couldn’t be sure why he’d ended up dead. Unless he’d come to the same conclusion as her.
Her friends were dead because of Renae’s need for revenge. The calls had come from Renae. Rick had confirmed she’d used a cloned cell phone.
But that didn’t explain who had killed Charles.
It had to be Wes Rossman.
If Wes had discovered his wife’s long-running indiscretion he would have wanted to end it. A man of his age and position, married to such a beautiful woman, might very well want to hang on to that trophy wife instead of killing her too. So he took care of things the way a businessman of his caliber always did—discreetly.
Lacy rubbed at her forehead with her left hand. She scowled at the irritation of having her right arm in a sling.
She had to do something. She couldn’t just hang around outside Rossman’s house hoping he would make a move or a mistake of some sort. She had to prompt one. This man could not get away with murder. Not even the murder of a scumbag like Charles.
She dug around in her purse for her cell phone, then realized she didn’t know the number. “Damn.” A quick call to information and she had what she needed. She entered the number and waited through three rings.
“Hello.”
Lacy tried her best to analyze that one word, but it sounded so cold, so empty, she simply couldn’t.
“I know what you did, Mr. Rossman,” she said, deciding to try his recently deceased wife’s chosen method. Only Lacy intended to let him know just who had his number, literally. “This is Lacy Oliver and I’m going to the D.A. with what I know. You should never have gone that far to protect the senator. He won’t do the same for you. Now you’re going down.” She ended the call before he could respond.
Then she waited, her heart pounding, for him to react.
The garage door lifted slowly, the light pushing out from under it like a convict lunging toward escape.
“Come on, you bastard,” she murmured, wanting this over once and for all.
The elegant Cadillac backed out of the garage and then rolled to the end of the driveway.
Lacy held her breath and prayed he wouldn’t notice her car parked behind a neighbor’s on the opposite side of the street.
He drove away without hesitation.
She waited as long as she dared and then eased out onto the street and headed in the same direction.
The fingers of her left hand clenched around the steering wheel. She told herself over and over she was doing the right thing. This couldn’t wait another week or month for Rick or his ABI buddies to decide her theories held merit. Rossman might get nervous and flee the country. He had the kind of money to do that in a heartbeat.
Her pulse fluttered when he took the street that led to the senator’s estate.
“Bingo,” she muttered as he stopped at the gate. She parked a half a block away, again on the opposite side of the street, and turned off the engine and lights.
He sat at the gate for more than a minute. She wondered what was taking so long. It wasn’t that late. The senator wasn’t likely in bed.
Then a cold, hard reality broadsided her. How the hell would she follow him from here?
Her stomach lurched.
Her full attention shifted back to the Cadillac. The massive iron gates had started to slowly open to allow the vehicle’s entrance to the property.
She licked her lips and tried to catch her breath.
If she didn’t get in behind him she wouldn’t be getting in at all. Climbing over the wall or the gate would set off a perimeter alarm.
She was out of the car before the thought had fully formed. She crossed the street in a dead run. Keeping as close to the shadows as possible, she lunged through the gate just before it reached the halfway point of closing.
She was in.
Taking a moment to catch her breath, Lacy told herself to calm. She could do this. All she had to do was observe. Anything she heard or saw might be useful to the investigation Rick didn’t want to talk to her about. She didn’t care about technicalities and search warrants.
Maybe it was a mistake, but it was one she had to make or she would always regret it.
She thanked her lucky stars that the Ashlands hadn’t added any dogs to their security as she ran across the lush landscape, staying in the shadows of massive trees. Since the press had left for the next big story, the extra security personnel had been let go, as well.
When she reached the looming mansion, Rossman had already gone inside. His Cadillac sat in the circle driveway in front of the grand steps leading to the front door.
She concentrated hard to visualize the layout of the house. She’d only been there a couple of times—the first on the day of Melinda’s wedding to Charles and then for a Christmas party celebrating the imminent birth of Melinda’s first child.
Moving around the side of the house, she went to the windows that, as best she recalled, were located in the senator’s study. The first set she chose was the wrong one.
She told herself to calm and think.
A rustle of brush somewhere behind her sent her heart knocking against her sternum. A rabbit hopped off into the darkness. Ten seconds passed before she could breathe easy again.
The next windows she chose were the right ones.
Rossman and the senator were in there all right.
She had to bend her knees and hunker down just a little to see through the partially open shutters. The two men were yelling. She could hear their muffled voices but couldn’t make out the words.
Rossman abruptly crossed his hands over each other in front of him in a scissoring motion and shouted something that sounded like, “This is finished.” But Lacy couldn’t be certain that was what he said.
The senator tried to stop him, but Rossman shrugged off his hand and stormed out.
Lacy hurried to the front corner of the house and watched Rossman get into his car and drive away.
What did she do now?
Her pulse started to trip again and the burn of adrenaline urged her to act.
She had to do this.
The senator was primed for this moment. Rossman had reacted to her call. Now she had to see what the senator had to say about his old friend.
Did he realize yet that his right-hand man, his best friend all these years, was likely the man who had killed his son?
Taking a steadying breath, she walked around to the senator’s front door and knocked. She firmed her resolve, squared her shoulders and prepared to state her case. He would surely listen to her despite her role in disposing of Charles’s body. She hadn’t killed his son. The senator had to want the whole truth.
When he opened the door, Lacy almost lost her nerve. “Hello…ah…I’m sorry to intrude, but I…”
Her train of through trailed off as the impact of his cold stare penetrated the buzz of adrenaline no doubt clouding her good sense. What the hell had she been thinking? What if Rossman told him about her call? She should have anticipated that. But then, wouldn’t that have risked exposing his own guilt?
“Senator,” she began again, but he cut her off.
“If you’re looking for Gloria, she’s over with Melinda and the children.” His tone was every bit as cold as his stare. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”
Lacy supposed she couldn’t blame him. No matter what a low-life bastard Charles had been, this was his father. He wasn’t going to forgive her, no matter her motivation for what she’d done. He wouldn’t forgive her any more than she would forgive him for looking the other way while his son abused his wife for five years.
“It’s you I need to speak with, Senator. Is it possible for us to speak privately for a moment?”
He looked confused, then suspicious. “I imagine you won’t leave until you’ve had your say.”
She shook her head. “It’s too important.”
He stepped back and opened the door wider. Lacy walked inside. She felt a chill rush over her skin as he closed the door solidly behind her. Summoning her courage, she followed him to the richly paneled study where just moments ago she’d watched Rossman and him arguing.
Massive wood furnishings. Leather chairs. Nothing but the best for an Ashland. Her stomach roiled.
“What do you want, Miss Oliver?” he asked when he had stationed himself behind his desk. He didn’t sit, he simply used the desk as a boundary. Perhaps it made him feel superior.
She took off, didn’t even slow to take a breath. “Senator, I believe you should go to the D.A. and insist he pursue another aspect of the investigation into your son’s death. The murderer could be someone close to you. Someone who benefits from your political career.” Like Wes Rossman, she didn’t say. “Someone you consider a friend.”
Lacy had spent most of her adult life despising the Ashlands. She couldn’t help seeing the irony in the fact that she stood in the senator’s study now warning him about a possible danger to his family. Maybe she had already gone mad and no one had noticed yet.
The senator simply stared at her with that same cold glare for several endless seconds. “Whatever you hope to gain by reopening those painful wounds, Miss Oliver, I can assure you I will not tolerate your telling tales. What you propose is nothing more that conjecture and is quite preposterous. My family has endured quite enough. Renae Rossman killed my son and you and your
friends
disposed of his body like so much trash. I’m certain we have nothing further to discuss.”
Lacy blinked at the harsh words. But she took them in stride. He was right. What she, Kira and Cassidy had done was wrong. She’d faced that after ten long years of torturing herself with that hidden secret. She deserved his scorn for that. But he had sins of his own to answer to, like allowing Melinda to be abused.
“You’re right. We were wrong. We had no right to do what we did.” She swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat. “Your son was a cruel, selfish man.” Before the senator could object, she added, “Still he didn’t deserve to be murdered. No one does.” Tears burned her eyes as she thought of her two dear friends.
“That’s why you must believe me when I say, Renae did not kill your son,” she went on. “She loved Charles. I am absolutely certain it wasn’t her.”
The senator’s face tightened with outrage. “I want this over, Miss Oliver. As you well know, my family is irrevocably fractured. I would prefer you never speak of this again.”
Ice slid through Lacy’s veins.
We won’t speak of this again. The vow.
She would not do that again. No way.
Lacy shook her head slowly from side to side. “I’m sorry, Senator. I can’t do that. I’ll go to District Attorney Alton myself first thing in the morning. This won’t be over until the whole truth comes out.”
The senator thrust his hand into his desk drawer and snatched out a weapon. He leveled the business end on Lacy. “You should have left it alone.”
Confusion roared through her, stunned her. Had the discovery of his son’s remains and the subsequent murders pushed him over the edge?
“Senator, I wish you’d put that gun away. I know this has been difficult but—”
“You don’t know anything!” His face distorted with rage or something on that order. “You don’t know how it is to have only one son. To put all your hopes and dreams in him and then to watch him not only destroy his own life but also to try and destroy yours as well. I had no choice but to put an end to it. Especially after that trollop Pamela started blackmailing the both of us.”
“Pamela was pregnant,” Lacy said before she could stop herself. She felt…baffled by his words and the gun. Had he slipped over some edge? He had been under a lot of stress. She choked down a breath. The question was, did she run or keep him talking?
“I know,” he ground out. “She’d threatened to go to the press with all she knew about Charles, including his illegitimate child she carried, unless he gave her the money she wanted. After she’d taken his money, the whore came and tried to get more from me.”
Lacy felt herself go utterly still inside. This wasn’t possible…how could… “So you killed her?”
The question echoed in the room, the sound and implication of it surreal.
“What choice did I have? She wasn’t going to stop! She just wanted more and more!”
His nostrils flared with the oxygen intake required to fuel his escalating emotions. Lacy told herself to stop right there, to try and calm him, but she couldn’t…she needed to hear it all.
“You took the money.” She filled in the blanks, her entire body shaking at this point. “The money Charles had given her…the hundred grand he withdrew.”
“It was my son’s, why wouldn’t I?”
The idea of what might have happened next sent denial surging through her. “You confronted Charles.” She held her breath.
“The fool couldn’t pull himself together. He’d put his wife in the hospital, had gotten another woman pregnant, and still he sought out more mistresses. He was sick. I couldn’t have my son behaving in such a way…I had a future to protect.”
Lacy didn’t dare say more…she just let him talk.
“After I took care of Pamela—” he squared his shoulders, lifted his chin challengingly “—I went to him, told him what would happen if he got himself into trouble again. He’d been drinking. His mousy wife had shot him in the shoulder.” He shook his head in distaste. “He’d managed to get up and get himself into the shower.” The senator looked disgusted. “And even then, he had the unmitigated gall to laugh in my face.” His expression took on a sudden, faraway look. “I didn’t mean to shoot…the weapon just went off.” He frowned. “It happened in an instant.”
The impact of his words rumbled through Lacy. “You killed him.”
“It was an accident,” he screamed, his face twisting with hatred or anger, maybe both. “I rushed out of the house. Got down the street and realized I might have left something incriminating. I couldn’t think. I had to go back and be sure. Only this time I parked away from his house. It was almost dark anyway. I did what I had to do, but before I could get out of the house the three of you came in. I did the only thing I could. I hid in the closet.”