Dead Right. Brenda Novak
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like an idiot when you’re finished with this tantrum.”
“Tantrum? I’ve never thrown a tantrum in my life.”
Hunter told himself to ignore her until she could come to grips with her roiling emotions. He’d been where she was—pushed beyond his normal ability to cope, desperately searching for a way to avoid the pain of his situation. He’d created his own problems while, as far as he could tell, she’d done little to deserve hers. But these days his own temper lurked too close to the surface.
“What do you call this?” he asked. “Good old-fashioned Southern hospitality?”
“Try abject despair,” she replied. “Do you know how many people think I’m foolish for bringing you to town? Only my cousins approve, which is reason enough for concern. When Clay and Grace see you—” She threw up one hand while keeping the other on the wheel.
“Maybe those who are least happy about my involvement are the very people who have something to hide,” he retorted. He was taking a big leap. But he wanted to provoke her, to find or create reasons to dislike her so he wouldn’t have to worry about keeping an appropriate distance between them. He’d already found one reason: he’d expected her to be grateful he’d relented and taken her on as a client. Instead, she acted as if she’d made a big mistake in hiring him.
“Whose side are you on?” she asked.
“My own,” he said. “That’s the way it has to be.”
She didn’t say anything for nearly twenty minutes, wouldn’t even look at him. Finally, he broke the silence. “Is this going to continue, or are you ready to tell me what you know about how and why your father disappeared?”
She lowered the volume on the radio. “I owe you an apology,” she said stiffly. “I’ve been trying to formulate it for the past fifteen miles, but I’m not really myself right now. And I have no explanation for my poor behavior except—there’s a lot riding on this for me, you know?”
He didn’t want her to apologize. Then he couldn’t hold her comments against her. “Not the best apology I’ve ever received,” he said, although it’d sounded sincere.
“So you won’t forgive me?”
The entreaty in her voice made him feel something he hadn’t felt in a long time—genuine compassion. She was so exhausted. He could hear it in the way she talked, see it in the way she moved. Still, he didn’t want to experience her pain; he had enough of his own.
“Give me some background on your father,” he said instead of addressing the question.
“Where should I start?”
“What was his name?”
“Lee Barker.”
“What did he do for a living?”
“He was a pastor, very devout, but also popular.”
“When and where was he last seen?”
Lightning flashed, illuminating the silvery glow of the rain-slicked hood as well as Madeline’s classic profile. “It’ll be twenty years on October fourth. He went to church to meet with a couple of ladies who were planning a youth activity, and he never came home.”
He refused to consider the emotional consequences of what she’d been through. Distance—that was his first priority. Solving this case came second. “Has someone checked out these ladies?” He knew it was probably a stupid question, but he had to begin at the beginning. Being methodical kept his focus where he wanted it to be—on the facts.
“Of course. Nora Young and Rachel Cook would never hurt anyone, least of all my father. They idolized him. Imagine Aunt Bea on the Andy Griffith Show and you’ll have some idea of what these ladies are like.”
“You mentioned a stepmother on the phone. Where was your real mother when this occurred?” he asked. When one spouse went missing, the other, or an ex, was frequently to blame. Before he started investigating the stepmom, he needed to rule out the first Mrs. Barker.
But that was easier than he’d expected.
“Dead,” Madeline said.
He watched her closely, trying to gauge her reaction. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She didn’t respond.
“What happened?”
“She shot herself with my father’s gun.”
“When?”
“I was ten.”
He flinched in spite of himself. “Who found her?”
Madeline’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “I did.”
Shit…He didn’t know what to say. She’d been through so much.
But sad as her story was, her pain didn’t have to be his pain, he reminded himself. She didn’t need him to save her. She was just a client—a beautiful client, but a client nonetheless.
“I’d come home from school and wanted to show her my report card,” she went on in a monotone. “My father sent me in to wake her from a nap and—” her voice quavered “—and there she was.”
Distance, remember? “Your father hadn’t heard the shot?” he prompted softly. Maybe it was insensitive to ask, but he had to learn all he could about Madeline Barker and her history. It was the best way to solve her father’s murder, which he intended to do as quickly as possible—before he could find too many things to like about her. Besides her looks, of course.
“No. She did it while he was out working on the farm. He saw me get off the bus and followed me to the house.”
“How long after your mother’s death did your father go missing?” he asked.
“Six years. We managed on our own for three. Then my father met a woman named Irene Montgomery.”
“You didn’t know her?”
The rain pounded harder, but Madeline didn’t slow down. “No. They met at a regional singles dance. She was living in Booneville, which isn’t too far from Stillwater. He was forty-three and she was only thirty-two, but she needed an older man in her life.”
Was it possible she’d needed a few other things, as well? Some creature comforts she could better enjoy without him? “Why older?” he asked.
“She’d dropped out of school, pregnant at sixteen. She married the father of her baby, but after they’d had two more children, he abandoned her. She didn’t have a lot of options, and was looking for some stability.”
“And your father offered that.”
She turned the knob for the windshield wipers until they were swishing back and forth at a frenetic pace. He guessed they were keeping time with her heart. But outwardly she remained calm. “Sure. He had the farm my stepbrother now owns, a good job, modest savings. And he was well-respected in the community.”
Hunter leaned forward to see around the silky fall of her hair. “I thought your stepmother inherited the farm.” He’d made a note of it when they talked on the phone the first time she’d called because the farm might’ve provided the stepmother with a motive for murder.
“She did. But when Molly, my youngest sister, graduated from high school, my stepmother moved to town and my brother took over.”
“Is it a nice piece of property?”
The look she shot him said she’d heard the suspicion in his voice. “Don’t jump to that conclusion.”
“What conclusion? It’s a logical question.”
“I told you on the phone, my stepmother didn’t kill my father.”
“You were with her when your father