The turn lane for Northern General appeared, and he flipped on his signal and eased over. Ever since she’d married Bart, he’d tried like hell not to let her get to him. Not to remember how it had been with her.
Of course, it hadn’t worked, and though over the years he’d forced himself to keep his distance, these past few days it had proved impossible.
Even now his favorite radio station was playing a song from that summer when they’d had their fling.
“Shitfire,” he muttered and snapped the damned thing off. He’d tried to get her out of his blood, oh, hell yeah. Not only had he made a conscious effort to avoid her over the years, he’d also been with more than his share of women since the last time they’d been together, nearly a decade ago. However, none of those one-night stands and short relationships had cut into his soul the way she had. He’d told himself it was because she was off-limits, forbidden fruit, so to speak, and that the very notion of her being taboo had ignited that rebellious in-your-face attitude that had cursed him since the day he was born.
Or maybe it’s something deeper.
He yanked his keys from the ignition and cut the engine. He didn’t believe in soul-deep love and all that other for-the-movies crap that Hollywood fed the American public, and he wasn’t going to start now. Jamming his keys into the pocket of his jacket, he climbed out of his truck and started jogging toward the wide doors of the hospital. He was a fool, there was just no two ways about it, and he’d be damned if he’d fall for Hattie all over again.
Striding through the vestibule, he remembered he’d argued with her right between these glass doors. She seemed to think it was her mission to see to Dan. As she’d seen to Bart. As she’d seen to him, for Christ’s sakes! That was the trouble with Hattie, she couldn’t leave the Grayson men alone.
Just like you can’t seem to leave her alone.
His mind taunted him as he crossed the reception area. Just before she married Bart, remember? You knew she was engaged, but you couldn’t leave it alone. And no doubt Bart figured it out or she told him. Doesn’t matter how it happened, but he knew, Cade. Your brother knew you were sleeping with his fiancée just weeks before she finally broke it off.
If she hadn’t, you’d probably still be trying to get her into your bed. No wonder Bart was depressed. No wonder he decided to climb that ladder and toss a rope over the cross timbers of the barn.
It served you right to find him there.
He didn’t believe for a minute that he was to blame for his brother’s death, but he knew he wasn’t completely innocent. Nor was Hattie.
His jaw so tight it ached, Cade pounded on the elevator keypad and strode inside as the doors opened.
He wasn’t alone. The car was already occupied with a beleaguered-looking couple and their children. A boy of five or six was holding a smiley-face balloon that said, “Get well,” and a girl who was a couple of years older was balancing a tray of homemade cookies that looked leftover from Christmas, judging from the shapes and colors.
“Can we just go home?” the little boy, tugging on his mother’s coat, asked.
“Not yet, Andy. First we have to visit Grandpa.”
“But I don’t like it here,” the kid complained petulantly as he leaned against the back of the car and did his best to look miserable. “I hate the hospital!”
You and me both, Cade thought as the car stopped on his floor and he strode off the elevator.
Winston Piquard didn’t look a thing like his mother.
While she’d been big-boned and fair, with fiery red hair and sharp blue eyes that missed nothing in her courtroom, he was dark, tall, and thin, his eyes a deep brown, maybe accented with contact lenses.
Her tongue had been razor sharp, her demeanor all business, and no matter how much taller you were than she, Samuels-Piquard had been able to somehow look down her nose at you. But this man, a junior accountant with a small firm in Missoula, Pescoli knew, was a little hunched, his demeanor defeated despite the fact that he was in his early thirties. Then again, it hadn’t been a good day for him.
Standing in the doorway of his house in his stockinged feet, he blocked Pescoli’s entrance as well as any view inside. Wearing khakis, a pressed dress shirt, and down vest, he was more than a little perturbed to find the officers at his door.
“I already got the bad news,” he said, after Pescoli and Alvarez had introduced themselves. He stood beneath the overhang of the porch where a Christmas tree, needles drying, one forgotten ornament winking between the branches, had already been propped outside against the house.
“We’re sorry for your loss, Mr. Piquard,” Alvarez said. “We don’t want to intrude, but we do have some questions.”
“I figured.” A muscle worked at his temple. “I just don’t know what I can tell you.”
“You have no idea who could be behind this?”
“It could be anyone, couldn’t it? She didn’t make a lot of friends on the bench.” He ran both his hands through his close-cropped hair. “I told her to retire. But did she listen? She never listens . . . listened to anyone. Man, I just can’t believe . . .” His voice trailed off and for a second, he looked at the step, down at his feet, shaking his head as he remembered something. “She didn’t have to work, you know. She was set, but . . .” He lifted his shoulders and glared down at the welcome mat. “She loved it.” When he glanced up again, his eyes shone. Clearing his throat, he added, “I’m sorry. We’ve . . . My wife and I have been worried sick ever since she didn’t come back to town or return our calls.” He closed his eyes for a second, gathering himself.
“If we could come in,” Alvarez suggested when he seemed to have pulled himself together. “It won’t take too long.”
He was shifting from one foot to the other. “I don’t know. My wife is pregnant and . . .”
“We just want to find whoever did this to your mother and put him away forever,” Pescoli told him.