he’d claimed, had been riddled with incompetence and downright corruption. Aubrey’s brother had been only a small part of it but Beau’s superiors were unwilling to go after the big fish. Beau had quit in protest.
“And where were you when all this happened?” the cop asked.
“He wasn’t here,” Aubrey said.
“I can answer for myself,” Beau said evenly. He handed the cop a card that read First Strike Bounty Hunters. It featured a logo of a coiled snake and the motto, Code of the Cobra.
“Beau Maddox,” the cop read aloud. “I know who you are. You’re the one who brought in Gavin Schuyler.” He glanced down at his notepad, then at Aubrey, then back at Beau. “Schuyler?”
“Gavin’s my brother.”
“And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll drop the subject before she gets started,” Beau said, as if she were the one who’d done something wrong.
“Okay, that’s it.” She pointed toward the street. “Go.”
The cop shrugged as if to say, Women. “Better do what she says. She might bite you, too.” The two men shared a look that infuriated Aubrey further. Men were such jerks sometimes.
An unmarked car pulled into Aubrey’s driveway behind the squad car, and a detective with reddish-brown hair got out. He wore a long-sleeved shirt despite the oppressive heat, his tie neatly knotted.
Then she realized she knew him, which wasn’t all that surprising. She’d met lots of men and women from the force when she hung out with her brother and his friends, including Beau, once his very best friend. That seemed a lifetime ago.
The detective was Lyle Palmer. He’d been one of the regulars, along with Beau and Gavin, who hung out at Dudley’s Blue Note after hours. Dudley’s was a cop bar that hadn’t changed one square foot of Formica since the fifties. The cops liked the no-frills atmosphere and the cheap, strong drinks.
Aubrey had spent quite a few hours there, too, during grad school, always hoping Beau would finally notice her. Looking back on it, she found her previous crush on him pathetic. She’d brought Patti with her a couple of times, hoping to get her interested in a higher caliber man than she normally dated. Lyle had taken an instant shine to Patti, but she’d rebuffed his flirtation—rather rudely, Aubrey recalled. Later she’d said there was no way she was dating a cop, especially one that reminded her of Howdy Doody.
“Aubrey.” Lyle treated her to a warm smile. “When I heard your name, I volunteered—” His gaze flickered to Beau, then fixed on him. “Maddox? Might have known I’d find you in the thick of trouble.”
Aubrey recall that the two men hadn’t liked each other, but the specifics eluded her.
“When did you make detective?” Beau asked mildly, not rising to the bait.
Lyle puffed up a bit. “Around the first of the year.”
“Yeah? Whose ass did you have to lick to get the promotion?”
Lyle’s eyes narrowed. “I could make your life miserable, you know.”
Aubrey cleared her throat. “This isn’t helping.”
Lyle returned his attention to her, looking contrite. “Sorry. What the hell happened here?”
So she told her story again, adding little bits as she remembered them, and the patrolman added his two cents before taking off.
“Listen, Lyle, I’m really worried about my cousin Patti. You remember her, right?” She tensed, waiting for a negative reaction. But Lyle remained ultraprofessional.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“I was in a meeting when she called me on my cell phone sounding terribly upset. And when I got here, she and the baby were gone, and some guy was in my house.”
“But you say her car wasn’t here when you arrived home?” Lyle asked.
“That’s right.”
“Maybe she knew bad news was on the way and she cleared out ahead of it. She’s, um, been in a bit of trouble in the past.”
Aubrey glanced at Beau, who was still here just to drive her crazy, she was sure. She pleaded with her eyes for him to keep quiet. “Patti has kept her nose clean for over a year, ever since she found out she was pregnant.”
“Is it possible someone from her past has come back to bother her?” Lyle asked, jotting a few notes.
“I suppose. Oh, wait, maybe that’s it! There’s Charlie Soffit, Sara’s father. He’s a low-life biker. He kicked her out when Patti told him she was pregnant, but then he keeps coming around to harass her. But he’s never been violent. I think…well, Patti’s father is rich.”
“I know who Patti’s father is,” Lyle said, which wasn’t surprising. Wayne Clarendon was one of Payton’s most prominent citizens, a descendant of the town’s founder.
“I think Charlie wants a piece of that,” Aubrey continued, “and he thinks he can get it by using Sara.”
“Does he have any visitation rights?” Beau asked.
Lyle shot him a nasty look. “This isn’t your investigation, Maddox.”
Beau shrugged, unperturbed. “Someone has to ask the right questions.”
“Patti got him to sign away parental rights,” Aubrey answered, hoping to distract the two snarling dogs from each other. “But maybe he wishes he hadn’t done that.”
“Sounds like a suspect to me,” Beau said.
Aubrey pointed toward Beau’s Mustang. “Leave!”
Beau held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, fine. Can’t blame a guy for showing a little concern for an old friend.”
“Make no mistake, that is not what I blame you for.”
It suddenly got very quiet, and Aubrey wished she’d kept her mouth shut. But the words were out now. The ones she hadn’t spoken were especially loud. I blame you for shooting my brother.
Beau’s gaze narrowed. “I saved Gavin’s life. But you’ll never understand that because you don’t want to. You’d rather hold on to that tunnel vision that lets you believe your precious brother could do no wrong.”
Beau turned and stomped off the porch and out to his car. He backed up the Mustang, then drove through her yard as the patrolman had, nearly crashing into the crime scene van as it pulled up.
“You’re not really friends with him anymore, are you?” Lyle asked.
She shook her head. “We’ve hardly talked since he left the force. I don’t even know what brought him here today, unless it was morbid curiosity.” She mentally shook herself. She had more important things to worry about than the lingering animosity between her and Beau Maddox. “So you’ll check out Charlie Soffit?”
“Yeah. It’s possible he’s involved.” Lyle flipped his notebook closed and stuck it in his back pocket. “It could be any number of things, including a random crime. Maybe we’ll find some usable prints in the house, or the stolen merchandise will turn up. I’ll need you to make a list of everything that’s missing.”
“I don’t care about that stuff. It’s Patti I’m worried about.”
“I’ll issue a Be-On-the-Lookout for her car. If you don’t hear from her in a day or two, we can start getting worried.”
Aubrey didn’t like that answer. In fact, she thought Lyle was a little cavalier about the whole thing. But he probably saw burglaries and assaults day in and day out. And people were always getting worried for nothing when their loved ones went missing, then turned up unharmed. She’d heard enough cop talk over the years to know that.
In