21


After we finished, Donovan and I lay in the back of the sedan in a loose tangle of bare arms and legs. The imitation leather felt stiff and sticky against my skin. The windows had steamed over, and the smell of sex permeated the car. Beside me, above me, next to me, the detective’s breaths came in sharp, raspy puffs. The sounds of a man who’d exerted himself to his full, glorious potential. But Donovan made no move to pull away from me or put some clothes on.

“Well, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind as far as warming up goes, but I’ll take it,” I quipped. “Even if it’s going to hurt like hell peeling myself off this seat.”

Donovan didn’t say anything, but the corners of his lips lifted into a half smile. “You’re not the only one. I’m sure my back will be screaming at me tomorrow. Not to mention the burns I have on my knees.”

“Worth it?”

He cocked one black eyebrow. “Do you even have to ask?”

No, I didn’t. Because I’d been moaning just as loud as he had.

After we caught our breath, Donovan eased up into a sitting position. I followed suit. He reached into the front seat and handed me some clean clothes — a pair of khakis several sizes too big and a T-shirt that hung almost to my knees. The detective was a bit taller than I was. Donovan pulled on a matching set of clothes. When that was done, we turned and faced each other in the back seat.

“So here we are again,” I said.

“Yeah,” Donovan replied. “Here we are again.”

He didn’t look happy at the thought. The detective let out a long breath and ran his hands through his black hair — lean, strong hands that had just done marvelous things to my body. I hesitated, then reached over, put my hand on top of his, and gave a gentle squeeze with my fingers. I wasn’t sure what prompted the reaction, other than this warmth in my chest I felt for the detective. Or maybe it was the simple fact I didn’t want things to end between us like they had the last time we’d slept together.

Which had been altogether badly.

Donovan flinched at my touch and slid his hand out from under mine. “We should get back.”

I stared at his rugged features. Black hair, bronze skin, golden eyes. But heat and desire no longer brightened his gaze. Instead, the detective looked tired, weary, heartsick.

As though all the pleasure he’d just experienced came with a weight that was just too much to bear, even for him.

“All right,” I said in a quiet voice, not wanting to push him anymore tonight.

——

It was after ten by the time we returned to Country Daze. The traffic of the day had long since ceased, and the stop sign at the crossroads looked like a dull red ghost in the drizzling rain. Donovan didn’t have an extra pair of the shoes in the trunk, so I had to stick my feet back into my muddy boots. First though, I wiped as much of the grime off them as I could with a towel.

Sometime while we’d been gone, Sophia’s black convertible had been pulled off to one side of the store so that the classic car rested in the grass. So had Finn’s Cadillac.

The store itself was dark, the front doors closed and locked.

“Come on,” I said. “Finn said they were in the house around back.”

The detective and I walked through the gap between Sophia’s convertible and the store. Warren T. Fox’s house lay about five hundred feet behind the store in back of a copse of maple and oak trees. A creek ribboned around one side of the house. The rain had made it fat and swollen, like a snake that had swallowed more than it could comfortably hold. The rush of water drowned out the sound of the rain slapping against the tin roof.

I’d come back here this afternoon to check out the structure, but I was once again struck by how much the clapboard building resembled Fletcher Lane’s house.

Both featured the same white boards, the same kind of shutters, the same sloping tin roof. And it wasn’t just the house that reminded me of Fletcher — it was everything about Warren T. Fox. The blue work clothes he wore, his grumpy nature, the old-fashioned store he ran. It was almost like Fletcher and Warren were identical twins separated at birth. The kind you read about who built separate, but almost identical, lives for themselves. Once again, I felt that faint softness stir in my chest. Because everything about Warren made me remember Fletcher and the love I’d had for him.

Lights blazed in several of the first-floor windows. I stepped up onto the porch and knocked on the front door.

“Hmph?” Sophia grunted through the heavy wood.

“It’s Gin.”

A lock clicked, and the Goth dwarf opened the door.

Sophia clenched an aluminum baseball bat in one hand.

Her black eyes flicked over my oversize clothes, and she stepped back to let us inside. Sophia crooked her finger at us, and we followed her deeper into the house. For a moment, I felt like I was coming home to Fletcher’s after a long day at the Pork Pit. Because the inside of Warren T. Fox’s house could have been an exact duplicate of Fletcher Lane’s. Same sort of well-worn, overstuffed furniture, same clutter of knickknacks, same piles of odds and ends that made a house a home. I blinked, and the illusion vanished.

The others were in a large den. Violet huddled on the sofa, a heavy textbook in her lap, a notepad and pen by her side. Studying. Jo-Jo perched on the other end of the sofa and flipped through a beauty magazine. Several more sat stacked at her bare feet. The dwarf had come prepared.

Warren rocked back and forth in an oversize recliner that made him seem older and more frail than he really was. The television was tuned to the Weather Channel.

Warren’s brown eyes focused intently on the storm-front graphics on the flickering screen. Finn relaxed in a similar chair, which he’d reclined all the way back. His laptop drowsed on his lap. Finn was doing the same in the chair itself. Soft snores drifted out of his open mouth.

I went over, put my hand into Finn’s broad shoulder, and shook him awake.

“What? What?” he mumbled in a sleepy voice. “I didn’t touch her, I swear.”

“Relax, Casanova,” I said.

Finn blinked a few times before his green eyes focused on me. “Oh, Gin, it’s you.” He frowned. “Why are you wearing a T-shirt that says Ashland Police Department on it?”

I sighed. “It’s a long story.”

Once Finn was more or less awake, I filled the others in on what Donovan Caine and I had found in Tobias Dawson’s office. The detective e-mailed the cell phone photos he’d taken to Finn, who started pulling them up on his laptop and going through them.

“Anything happen on this end?” I asked Sophia.

“Quiet,” she rasped.

“A couple of folks came in for sodas and cigarettes, but that was it,” Jo-Jo agreed.

“Usual customers,” Warren cut in. “Even Dawson can’t scare off folks when they need their tobacco.”

“Those papers you found inside the safe,” Jo-Jo said.

“What did they say? Anything interesting?”

I shrugged. “Ask Donovan. It was dark. I didn’t really see them.”

All eyes turned to the detective, who also shrugged.

“Like Gin said, it was dark. We only used flashlights inside. They mostly looked like schematics to me. We’ll have to wait and see what Finn says.”

“You’re going to have to give me a few minutes,” Finn said, typing on his laptop. “I’ve got to sort through and read some of this. It doesn’t make much sense to me either. Not to mention that the photo quality isn’t the best I’ve ever seen.”

“Sorry,” Donovan sniped. “I was a little more worried about flashing too much light around and getting caught than taking perfect pictures for you.”

We lapsed into silence while we waited for Finn to read and decipher the documents. But I had a pretty good idea of what they’d say. So I leaned against the wall and started thinking about what came next — getting close enough to Tobias Dawson to kill him. Because that was the only way this thing was going to end, if my suspicions were correct.

Sophia stood beside me and twirled the baseball bat in her hand like it was a metal baton.

After about ten minutes of reading and clicking, Finn frowned. “That’s weird.” He looked over at Warren. “Did you know Tobias Dawson has recently started construction on a new, separate mine shaft?”

Warren nodded. “That’s the rumor the miners have been spouting. There’s been more activity at the mine lately too.”

“What kind of activity?” Donovan asked.

Warren shrugged. “More blasting, more drilling. Sometimes, we can feel the tremors down here. Once they were so strong, they knocked over some sodas in the store. Made a big mess.”

“They feel sort of like small earthquakes,” Violet added. “They’ve been going on a couple of months now.”

“Well, according to this, Dawson is pouring most of his money and manpower into the new shaft these days,” Finn said.

“Why would he do that?” Violet asked.

Finn read some more. His frown deepened. “That can’t be right,” he muttered. “It’s not possible.”

“What?” Jo-Jo asked. “What’s not possible?”

“What Dawson is drilling for,” Finn said. “According to this, it looks like that shaft isn’t to get more coal out of the mountain. It’s for—”

“Diamonds,” I said in a soft voice. “He’s found diamonds in the mountain.”

Silence. For a moment, everyone looked at me. Then they all started talking at once.

“Diamonds?” Sophia rasped in surprise.

“That’s not possible,” Violet Fox said.

“Darling, anything’s possible,” Jo-Jo replied.

“So that’s why Dawson wants the land so badly.” Donovan shook his head.

“I wonder how big they are,” Finn said in a speculative tone.

Warren T. Fox was the only one who didn’t say anything.

Instead, the old coot stared at me, his eyes dark, pinched, and worried in his brown, wrinkled face. He knew what the diamond find meant as well as I did. Disaster.

For him and the mountain.

If the diamond I’d found in the safe was any indication of the size and quality of the others Tobias Dawson had discovered, the dwarf would tear the whole mountain apart to get every last gemstone out of the ground.

And it wouldn’t end there. Word would eventually leak out about the diamond find, and then, well, it would be worse than the California Gold Rush around here. Everyone would be bulldozing and blasting the area, hoping to find diamonds on their own land and get rich themselves.

They’d destroy the whole mountain in their hasty greed — and Warren T. Fox’s house and store lay at the epicenter. He’d go under first. The knowledge flashed in his eyes, steady, weary, certain.

Unless I did something to stop it.

I’d never considered myself to be any sort of environmentalist, but these mountains were as much a part of me as they were of Warren Fox. I took the same sort of pride in their beauty he did. If Tobias Dawson’s current mine was any indication of things to come, it would be a public service to stop this now. And there was only one way to do that — by killing Tobias Dawson.

Oh, I had no doubt that the dwarf had told a few of his most trusted men what he had found, like those two giants who’d come to the office to investigate the robbery tonight. But without Dawson around, without his mining expertise and know-how, it would be that much harder for his flunkies to do anything about the diamonds.

Even if they did make a move later on, I could always take them out too. No, killing Dawson was the key here. Eliminate the dwarf and the rest of the monster would more than likely die along with him.

Besides, the store, the land, the house. They were all that Warren and Violet had ever known. They were simply home. I knew Fletcher Lane would have done whatever he could to help his friend. The old man wasn’t here, but I was. And I was going to protect the Foxes — no matter what.

Warren raised his dark eyes to mine, asking a silent question. I nodded. Question asked and answered. Jo-Jo Deveraux saw the exchange. An emotion flickered in her pale gaze. It looked like relief — mixed with a spark of anticipation.

About what, I couldn’t imagine. But it was there.

After about three minutes, the babble of voices and conversation wound down.

“I just don’t see how it’s possible,” Donovan Caine said. “Diamonds? Here?”

I nodded. “They have them over in Arkansas, why not here in Ashland? Tobias Dawson’s found plenty of coal in the mountain. That’s all a diamond really is — coal put under pressure long and hard enough to evolve into something else.”

“How do you know that?” the detective asked.

“I know a little bit about stones, especially precious ones.” I didn’t mention the fact I could hear their vibrations, tap into them, and get them to do anything I wanted. I never flaunted my magic, and I wasn’t about to do it now.

“But if Dawson’s already started drilling this other shaft to get to the diamonds, why is he still threatening us?”

Violet asked, confusion flashing in her eyes. “Why even bother? Why not just take the diamonds out on the sly?”

“Because the dwarf doesn’t own the mineral rights to the land,” Warren rumbled. “I do. So legally, they aren’t his diamonds. They’re ours.”

“And people might realize that, if he started mining them,” Jo-Jo finished. “Word would get around. It always does. And then Warren could cause problems for him. Legal problems.”

Warren nodded. “Or try to at least.”

We all fell silent. I gave the others a few minutes to think, but my decision had already been made.

“Finn?” I asked in a low voice.

“Yeah?”

“What else did you find out about Dawson today?”

He stared at me with his green eyes. “All the usual info. Finances, business interests, hobbies, homes, social connections.”

“Anything we can use?”

Finn stared at me. His gaze cut to Warren. He saw the resolution in the other man’s face and realized it matched mine. “Yeah, there are a few angles. Nothing too easy, of course, but I’m sure we can find something. There’s always a way in.”

That’s what Fletcher Lane always used to tell me. I smiled.

The detective stared at me, his gold eyes dark. “Surely there’s another way besides killing Dawson.”

“And what way would that be, detective? Turn Tobias Dawson into the cops? For what, making threats? It wouldn’t take, and you know it. Besides, the police usually require a pesky little thing called proof. And I’m betting there is none. Dawson’s too smart for that. Am I right?” I looked at Warren.

Warren shook his head. “It’s just my word against his. Dawson’s men are the ones who’ve been harassing my customers, never him directly. But his men would never speak out against him. He pays them too well for that.”

“But you own the land, Warren, the mineral rights,” Donovan said. “Dawson just can’t do whatever he wants with your property. You could take him to court to get him to stop. We have the files from his office. We can prove what he’s doing.”

Finn snorted. “Yeah, files which you and Gin got by breaking into Dawson’s office. No judge would ever allow them in court. And I don’t think Dawson would be eager to cough up any more information. Besides, look at it from the money angle. A court case would drag on for years, and Dawson’s pockets are a lot deeper than Warren’s are.”

“Even then,” I said, “Dawson could probably buy the verdict he wanted. And while everything was getting settled the wrong way in court, Dawson could continue his reign of terror in the meantime. Make another play for Violet in the meantime. Face it, detective, the dwarf isn’t going to walk away from a mountain full of diamonds. Nobody would. There’s only one way to get him to stop. My way.”

Our eyes met and held, gold on gray. After a moment, Donovan Caine looked away, but not before I caught the weary resignation in his gaze, the sag in his shoulders, the deep lines of defeat in his face. He knew what I said was true. He didn’t like it, but the detective was going to let me do it. He knew I was going after Tobias Dawson, and he wasn’t going to try to stop me. Not anymore. I hadn’t expected the detective to come around so easily.

I wondered what had caused the quick turnaround. His friendship with Warren Fox? Me? Something else?

But I didn’t feel like celebrating my victory in making the detective agree to my plan. Something was bothering Donovan. Me, most likely, and what had happened between us in the backseat of his sedan. But the detective’s anger over my assassinating Cliff Ingles, his corrupt partner, seemed to have faded away, for whatever reason.

Donovan hadn’t mentioned it once all day. So what had I done now that was so terrible besides give him a couple of orgasms? I couldn’t help but wonder.

But now wasn’t the time to focus on Donovan Caine and this curious warmth I felt for him. Things needed to be done tonight before I made any kind of move against Tobias Dawson. So I pushed thoughts of the detective away and looked at the others.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said.


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