She shivered. Was that killer Martin Dowell?
Typing fast, she sent a short message back:
Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?
This time, a reply came almost instantly. It was even briefer than her own:
I’m telling you now.
She stared at the phone for a long time before replying again:
Is Dowell still in prison?
The reply was succinct:
No.
Harper swallowed hard before typing the next question:
Did he kill my mother?
The long pause that followed was excruciating. Finally, her phone buzzed. A message filled the screen:
You already know the answer to that.
Harper drew in a sharp breath. Her hands had started to shake and she squeezed the phone to hold it steady as she typed the next question:
How? He was in jail.
There was no response. She waited five minutes before sending the message again.
Still, nothing.
Desperate, she dialed the number. As she’d known it would, it rang out without going to voice mail.
Swearing, she threw the phone down so hard it bounced.
It was always like this. The man appeared when she didn’t expect him. He always gave her just enough information to string her along. But not enough to do any good.
Why should she trust him? Every word he said could be a lie. He could be one of Dowell’s goons. For all she knew, he could be the one hunting her.
And yet, her instincts told her to believe him.
Something had happened between Martin Dowell and her father. Something about the case that sent Dowell to prison. It was all connected to her mother’s murder. She could sense it. Smell it in the air like blood.
Whatever happened—whatever the man on the phone told her or didn’t tell her—she was going to get to the truth. She was going to investigate this case right down to the bone.
12
When she finally left the paper it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. Only a few hours had passed since she’d sat on the veranda at Xavier Rayne’s house—it felt like days.
The air was warm and humid but Harper found herself shivering as she unlocked the Camaro. She barely noticed that the security guard had followed her out. “Safe night,” he called.
She made a U-turn on the empty street. Her hands navigated the car while her mind worked through all the questions she needed answers to.
Why hadn’t her father told the police about Martin Dowell after his wife was murdered? Why would he have kept that information secret when it might have helped find a murderer?
Harper had investigated criminals all her adult life and she knew there was only one logical reason. Her father was protecting Dowell.
Her heart felt like a stone in her chest.
Sixteen years of pain. Sixteen years of not understanding why anyone would kill her mother—a free spirit with strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes, who loved being barefoot on sunny days, who hummed while she painted. Who never in her life hurt a soul. Who was stabbed to death, stripped of her clothes, and left on the cold kitchen floor like a piece of meat.
She’d had no enemies. No drug problem or crazy ex with an axe to grind. Her murder had never made any sense.
Now, though, Harper was beginning to see how it might have worked. Her father had represented Dowell and lost the case that sent him to prison for a long time. The man had lost everything. He must have been furious.
She didn’t know how he’d done it from inside jail, but when it came to organized crime, nothing was impossible. He would have had connections on the outside willing to do jobs for him.
She wondered distantly why he hadn’t killed her, too. It would have been easy the day her mother died. She was only twelve and all alone. Or any day after that. She’d never known to watch her back. To be afraid.
Harper let out a choked breath, and the sound of it startled her back to awareness.
For a disorienting second, she didn’t know where she was. Ahead, a dark stretch of road unfurled in the cold glow of her headlights. Her scanner, which had been burbling a steady stream of information a moment ago, was silent.
She was on the highway heading across the saltwater marshes. The lights of Savannah were far behind.
Isolated and gloomy during the day, the wetlands were worse at night. The flat landscape seemed to absorb light, creating a thick, inky blackness that sprawled in all directions—devoid of any sign of humanity.
Harper tensed, her hands tightening reflexively on the wheel.
How could she be so foolish? She hadn’t taken a circuitous route—hadn’t made certain no one followed her. For the first time in months she’d just … driven. Without thinking about who was behind her.
When she’d first talked to Luke and Blazer about how to live anonymously, they’d both identified this as the obvious weak point. Her home was off the books, and the office was protected by guards with guns and panic buttons and CCTV.
This journey—the one she made every night—this was the chink in her armor. The moment when she was completely alone and cut off.
The lieutenant had been blunt. “If I was going to kill you, that’s where I’d do it.”
She tried to focus on the road ahead, but her eyes kept straying to the rearview mirror.
It was all too easy to imagine a light that started small and far away, but grew closer and closer. A car driven by someone who wanted her dead, all because her dad had gotten mixed up with the mob back when she was eleven years old.
The sole set of headlights behind her were tiny in the distance, visible only because the land was so flat. Still, a trickle of nervous sweat ran down her spine.
She put her foot down. The Camaro responded, powering forward with a growl.
The lights behind her did not close in. Eventually, as she sped away, they disappeared completely. But she didn’t lift her foot from the gas until she reached the bridge onto the island.
Gradually, her heart rate returned to normal. The little town’s lights glowed reassuringly ahead. There was even a car, passing her the other way. She was safe.
She’d just reached the first red light when her phone rang.
Assuming it was Miles, she answered it on hands-free. “McClain.”
“Harper. It’s Luke.”
She was too tired to hide how glad she was to hear from him, and there was a breathless edge to her voice when she replied. “Hey. What’s up?”
“This is going to sound weird but I think I just passed your car. Are you driving into Tybee right now?”
“Just crossed the bridge,” she said. “Wait. Was that you going the other way?”
“Pull over,” he said. “I’m turning around.”
She drove onto the shoulder and put the car in park. As she waited, she hastily checked her face in the mirror, smoothing the tangles from her russet hair.
A minute later, Luke pulled up behind her and killed the engine.
She got out of the car to meet him.
He strode toward her like he was walking across a crime scene. At some point he’d ditched the jacket and tie. The top two buttons of his white shirt were open.
“You just heading home?” she asked.
“Yeah. You too?”
She nodded.
“Guess it’s been a hell of a day for both of us.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, I know it’s late. But do you want to grab a drink? I could use one.”