He closed his fist around the iced tea, brought it up and guzzled it, rising to his feet as he drained the glass. “I think your first idea was best, though,” he said. “A hands-off policy while we work together. And if we can’t make that work, then I’ll go back on the road.” He set the glass on the table and started for the door.
She rose, too. “You’re out of your mind. I’m a grown-ass woman.”
“Family’s too important,” he said, his back to her. “This…us, if it went bad, it would drive a wedge through our families. Between me and Harry, between me and Maria, between your dad and the whole clan.” He shook his head. “No, I can’t. We can’t.”
He’d said it all without turning to look back at her. But at the very end, he did. And when he saw the tears on her cheeks, he reacted as if the sight pained him. “I’m so sorry, Lil.”
She shouldn’t have stayed on the sofa. Dammit.
“There’ll be a deputy watchin’ your place all night. But if Angus Silver’s not in the hospital, he’ll be in a jail cell, Garrett’ll see to that. You’ll be safe here the rest of the afternoon and overnight. Might be best if you don’t go out the rest of the day.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
He opened his mouth, closed it again, then said, “I hope you can come to the cantina tomorrow,” he said. “I have a contractor comin’ at noon to discuss the addition. I need you there to help me flesh out my vision with your ideas.”
She rose and moved closer, so she was standing right in front of him, and raised her hand to his cheek, and stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. He shuddered all the way to his toes, and just when his hands touched her waist, she stopped and stood flat-footed again. She was pretty sure that if she kissed him one more time, he’d scoop her up and carry her into the bedroom…and maybe never forgive her. So she sighed, and said, “Okay, fine. We’ll do this your way. See you tomorrow, boss.” Then she reached past him and opened the door.
He stepped through, looked back, and she closed the door gently in his beloved, bewildered face.
Chapter Nine
“We had a blowout,” the driver told Willow.
He was a shaken-up young fellow trying hard to pretend he wasn’t. His name was Terrence Clay. “We lost control. I was thrown clear before the car went over. But no, I never saw any other vehicle.”
Willow was in her Quinn County Deputy’s uniform at the top of a ravine. The car at the bottom of the ravine matched the description of the one they were looking for, but this guy wasn’t Angus Silver. A couple of deputies were scrambling down the stony face toward the car.
“Who was your passenger, today?” she asked.
Her uncle the sheriff stood beside and a half-step behind her, a six-foot-four-inch reason to take her seriously.
“My boss, Angus Silver,” the driver said. He was a short guy who spent too much time in the gym. “But actually, I was the passenger.”
She hadn’t seen that coming. “Your boss was driving?” Willow glanced over at Garrett, but his expression never changed, so she kept hers stoic, too, and focused on the witness. “That’s weird, isn’t it?”
“Not for him. He gets in the mood to drive sometimes.” He thinned his lips, shook his head slightly. “Frankly, he’s not a very good driver.”
He was holding his right arm with his left hand. His suit jacket and matching pants were scuffed at the elbows and knees, and there was a tear in his white shirt right under the collar.
She shot a look at her uncle, and he nodded at her to go on. “We had a report your employer made threats against a local business owner earlier tonight. You know anything about that?”
“No, ma’am,” he said, rubbing his elbow. “Mr. Silver keeps his business matters private.”
“Why don’t you take me through your time in Quinn? You think you can do that?”
“Yes, ma’am, I sure can. I drove him to a cantina that looked to be closed. He talked to somebody there for five minutes or so…big guy, dark hair. Then we left.”
“And who was drivin’ at that point?”
He nodded. “He wanted to drive, so I hopped in the back before we left the cantina. Then we headed home.”
“And where is home, Mister Clay?”
“El Paso,” he said. “I have one of Mr. Silver’s cards…” He reached around for his wallet, then winced and continued more slowly. Eventually he extracted a business card. It was black with silver foil letters that spelled out the last name. SILVER. It had a cell number on the reverse. A lot of space for a little information.
She heard a shout and looked down over the drop to where her uncle Lash, the chief deputy, was pulling a limp form from the vehicle, which had landed upside down in the creek. He looked up at her, shook his head side to side.
Angus Silver was dead.
