The Secrets on Forest Bend Read online

The voice was right. He was stupid. His mother had told him so almost every day of his life until she’d finally given up and kicked him out. Now she seldom spoke to him at all, and if she did, it was more likely about Jillian.

  “I don’t know why that woman puts up with you,” his mother told him. “You’re just another one of her pity projects. She thinks if she does enough good deeds, she can overcome her past and get into heaven. Not likely.”

  A mosquito landed on Billy’s nose. He didn’t have the heart to slap it.

  Friday was Jillian’s day to open the store. She’d slept soundly once she made her decision and woke feeling better than she expected. After a quick shower and a bowl of cereal, she made her bed and switched on the dishwasher. As soon as she got downstairs, she put the first pot of coffee on to brew. By 10:00 a.m., everything had been dusted, swept, turned on, booted up, unlocked, and generally made ready for the day.

  The thought of Billy trying to clean made her chuckle. He left more fingerprints than he wiped off and took twice as long to do it. His shift began at 11:00, so she didn’t start looking for him until 11:30. Even then, she was only irritated, not worried.

  At 12:00, she called his apartment. She relaxed when he didn’t answer. He must be on his way. By 1:00 she was peeved. She wanted to go upstairs and fix a sandwich, but there were customers in the store and she couldn’t leave. To make matters worse, she needed to use the bathroom, big time.

  Business picked up, and she didn’t have time to think about food or anything else, although she did leave a message on her Little Sister’s cell phone. She wouldn’t be able to make the volleyball game.

  Jillian glanced up when the door opened at 2:15. She grinned as two deputy sheriffs entered. “Larry, Mike, I’ve never been so glad to see you guys in my life. Help yourself to coffee. You know where it is.” She waved in the direction of the pot as she took a step toward the bathroom. The lunchtime rush had passed and even Larry ought to be able to stand in an empty store for three minutes without causing any damage.

  They didn’t move, so she studied them. Her heart started pounding when she saw their serious expressions.

  Mike’s words sent a chill up her spine. “We need to talk to you about Billy.”

  “Ah, shit.” She leaned her head back and looked at the ceiling. “What kind of trouble has he gotten into this time? Please, please, guys. Take it as easy on him as you can. I honestly don’t believe he’s back on drugs. I keep a close eye on him, and I think I’d know.”

  “It’s not that.” Larry shifted his substantial weight from one foot to the other.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” As senior officer, Mike took over the questioning.

  “Close of business yesterday. Just like any other day. What’s going on?”

  “He was found dead this morning. It looks like suicide. Was he depressed? Had he been acting strangely?”

  Jillian’s legs turned to rubber and she grabbed the counter for support. Her heart, which had been racing a moment before, now stopped cold. “I don’t know. He’s always a little depressed, but no more than usual. Are you sure it was suicide, because he’s sort of frail. I always worried that the drugs had ruined his liver or kidneys. Could it be from natural causes?”

  Mike ignored her question. “Did anything happen yesterday? Anything that might have upset him?”

  “He screwed up the cash register, but I didn’t make a fuss. It happens too often to get mad.” She tried to remember what she’d said. He took every little thing to heart. She had to watch each word. A moan built up in her throat, but she forced it back.

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Y’all are Harris County. Billy’s apartment is in Conroe. That’s Montgomery County. What are you doing here?”

  “He wasn’t in his apartment. He was at that pocket park about a mile from here. The one with two picnic tables and a small hiking trail. We wouldn’t have found him for days if Mike hadn’t spotted the buzzards.” Mike elbowed Larry, but Larry didn’t take the hint. He kept talking. “Another few hours and it would have been a mess. His head was mostly gone as it was.”

  Tears began building behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She wouldn’t cry in front of that fat fool.

  “Do you know if he had a gun? Did you sell him one, or did he take one from the store?” Mike took his hat off and wiped a sleeve across his bald head.

  “Of course I didn’t sell him one, or lend him one, or give him one. He’s got a record and he’s a recovering drug addict. I suppose he could have taken one without my knowledge, but I don’t think so. What kind was it?” Her voice rose with each word.

  “It was a beat-up old Saturday Night Special, all rusty and falling apart.”

  “I don’t carry that type of gun, and you know it.” How dare they come into her store and make accusations like that?

  She slammed her hands on the counter, jarring the glass. Two handprints faded slowly. Was it only this morning she’d laughed about Billie’s nonexistent cleaning abilities? Now she’d give anything to have him smudge up the glass cases. Her heart shattered into little pieces.

  “I know you don’t, but we had to ask. Check your inventory and let us know if anything’s missing.” Mike’s eyes were sad and his shoulders slumped, but he didn’t move any closer.

  “Okay, I will.” The words were hoarse. Something had happened to her voice. “Would you flip the sign to ‘Closed’ on your way out?”

  As soon as the two deputies left, Jillian’s legs buckled and she sank to the floor. With the deputies gone, there was no reason to hold back the tears.

  Her sister, her mother, her father, Billy. Each death took a hole out of her soul until soon there wouldn’t be anything left. At least this time, she didn’t have to worry about Heather’s involvement.

  Heather might retaliate against anyone she thought had ignored or insulted her, but she didn’t even know Billy . . . did she?

  After a day spent doing paper work and checking out leads on three homicides, Adam was running late. Three-fifteen. He hoped Jillian hadn’t already left for her ball game. The Closed sign was on the door, but it was unlocked so he pushed it open. He didn’t see anyone as he crossed toward the back of the store, but a whiff of burnt coffee put him on high alert.

  Should he go up to her apartment and knock on the door? He didn’t want to surprise her if she was changing clothes.

  Of course that’s what he wanted. Otherwise he wouldn’t have thought of it.

  He stopped abruptly when he saw her sitting on the floor, unsure what his eyes were telling him. Her face was ashen and she’d obviously been crying.

  “Jillian? Jillian, what happened?” He knelt beside her and ran his hands down her back and arms. He was looking for injuries, but he didn’t fail to notice the softness of her skin.

  “Billy, are you here?” His words echoed, telling him the store was empty.

  “He’s not going to answer.” Her voice was so soft he wasn’t sure if he heard it or imagined it.

  “Did you have a robbery? Did someone hurt you?”

  She shook her head so slightly he almost missed it.

  He cupped her chin gently with one hand and lifted it until he could look into her eyes. His voice was low and soft. “You have to talk to me. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “Billy’s gone. He killed himself this morning. Or maybe it was last night, I don’t know.”

  “Did he OD?” He bit off the words, angry with himself for disregarding his own rules and trusting a reformed addict simply because Jillian appeared to.

  “No. He shot himself at a park about a mile from here.”

  Shit. That put her uncomfortably close to another mysterious death. He wasn’t even finished investigating the last two, and now he’d have to look into this one.

  If Hard Luck thought he had too many open cases now, wait till he heard about this. No point trying to keep it from him. Hard Luck didn’t get where he was without knowing ever
ything that went on in his department. Something was about to hit the fan, and it wouldn’t be roses.

  “Come on. Let’s get you upstairs. You can’t sit here on the floor all day.” He pulled her up and she started slowly for the stairs, almost shuffling. He poured them each a cup of coffee and followed.

  The coffee was over-brewed and bitter, but Adam had drunk worse. He sat both cups on the table and Jillian sipped hers absently. She never raised her eyes from the old Formica.

  It was start and stop, but eventually he got all the information, including the names of the investigating officers. He’d call them later and check out the facts, but he couldn’t see how it involved her in any way. Just another tragic accident.

  “I keep going over and over things. I was so sure it would be okay. Was it my ego? Did trying to help Billy myself instead of sending him to a professional cause this?”

  He’d heard the same thing from the families of every suicide he investigated. Finally she started to pull herself together. He glanced at his watch—almost five o’clock. He didn’t realize they’d talked so long. “Go wash your face. Do whatever you have to do. We need to get moving,” he said.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She looked down at herself as if her body were a pair of shoes she wasn’t sure she wanted to put on.

  “Yes, you are. I have to be somewhere in an hour, and I’m not leaving you alone.” He wasn’t sure if she agreed or if she didn’t have the strength to argue, but she stood and headed for the back room.

  When she reappeared, her hair was freshly spiked, her face washed, and she had on a simple black shirt. Not a tank top. She led the way through her apartment, then closed and locked the door. In the store, she switched off most of the lights and set the alarm.

  Once in the car, she faced him. “Now will you tell me where we’re going?”

  “We’re having dinner with a friend of mine and his mother.”

  “You can’t just bring an extra person to dinner. Don’t you have any manners?”

  “Not many.” He knew the rules all right——his father’s belt had made sure of that——he just chose not to worry about them anymore. “She won’t mind. She always cooks enough for an army.”

  “I don’t care. You have to warn her. I won’t just show up.”

  Adam called Ruben and let him know an extra person was coming. He didn’t give any details.

  He liked the idea of Ruben wondering what was going on.

  Jillian remained silent on the drive to Ruben’s, but she seemed calm. Adam didn’t know what to think of her. He still hadn’t questioned her about the two murders, and now he wouldn’t be able to for a while. He needed to as soon as possible. Tonight he’d have to be satisfied with learning more about her.

  Ruben’s mother lived in the same small, frame house where she’d raised her family. It was in a Hispanic neighborhood where light, music, kids, and delicious aromas spilled out onto the street through open doors.

  As they reached the first step, Jillian inhaled deeply. “I didn’t know I was hungry until this minute.”

  “You’d better be hungry. You don’t want to insult Mamacita by not eating.”

  The screen door flew open as they stepped onto the porch. Ruben stood in the doorway, blocking most of the light. He wasn’t fat, far from it, but he was big. His shoulders brushed both sides of the doorframe. A quarter inch of light showed at the top of his head. He slapped Adam on the back with a blow that would have flattened a lesser man.

  “’Bout time you got here. That woman’s driving me crazy. She wants me to eat twenty-four hours a day. She thinks I need to build up my strength.”

  He spotted Jillian and came to an abrupt halt. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? How do you do, ma’am? Ruben Marquez, at your service.” He gave a courtly bow. “Now if this useless tub-of-lard gives you any trouble, you just let me know and I’ll straighten him out.”

  Adam smiled. Surprising Ruben wasn’t easy. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s my partner, skylarking on sick leave while I do all the work. Ruben, this is Jillian Whitmeyer,” he paused, unsure how to describe her. Calling her ‘a suspect in my latest case,’ seemed a poor choice. “A friend of mine.”

  “That’s interesting, because I’m almost certain she wasn’t a friend of yours when I got sick last week.”

  Jillian stepped into the living room, and Ruben gave her a thorough once-over as the light hit her. His eyes grew big and a grin spread across his face. “Mamacita, come in here. You need to meet Adam’s new friend.”

  Mrs. Marquez bustled in, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She was beaming from ear to ear. As tiny as Ruben was large, she had graying hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her head. When she got a good look at Jillian, she froze in place and her face fell. Almost immediately she put on a polite smile. “How do you do, my dear? Any friend of Adam’s is a friend of ours.”

  Adam wasn’t worried. If Mamacita could warm to a no-good degenerate like himself, she’d warm to Jillian. Spiky hair, tattoos, and all.

  Jillian looked overwhelmed. “Oh, we’re not really friends.” Adam’s brows shot up. She didn’t know what they were any more than he did. “I mean, we’re friends but...I had a bad day, a friend of mine died, and Detective Campbell was kind enough to worry that I shouldn’t be left alone.”

  Mrs. Marquez’s smile warmed, but only a little. “Of course you shouldn’t be alone. Bad news needs friends to share it with. Adam is always thinking of others.” She gave him a look that was indecipherable.

  Mrs. Marquez shivered and marched to the open door, looking out, as if she saw something standing on the steps. Finally she closed the door with a solid thump.

  “Come, come, let’s eat. Dinner is ready.” Mrs. Marquez led the way into the dining room, and a table that groaned under the weight of food.

  Ruben placed a huge hand on Adam’s shoulder, holding him back. “Where did she come from? How did you ever find such a beautiful, sexy, and completely inappropriate-looking woman? She looks like a biker. Please tell me she rides a Hog.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen one. But she does have a tat.”

  It didn’t seem possible, but Ruben’s grin got even bigger. “Where is it? Will Mamacita see it?”

  “Not with that blouse on. But there’s one thing even better.” Adam hurried on before Ruben asked how he knew what was under her blouse. “She owns a gun store.”

  Ruben leaned his head back, looking at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and put his hands together. “Thank you, Lord,” he said. When he looked back at Adam, his grin returned. “Never in the history of the world has one man made such a sacrifice for a friend. I will remember this forever. No matter what I do from now on, no matter whom I bring home, anything less than a hooker and I’m golden. She’ll never complain about my girlfriends again.”

  Adam waited for a growl to build in the back of his throat, but surprisingly, nothing came. What was wrong with him tonight? He was too young to start mellowing.

  “After dinner we need to talk,” Adam said. “I have a problem.”

  “You mean in addition to the fact that you just brought a gun-toting, tattooed biker chick into Mamacita’s house? I can’t wait to hear it.” Ruben limped into the dining room and sat heavily, as if the short trek exhausted him.

  Mrs. Marquez began serving the plates, but stopped when she reached Jillian’s. “You’re not allergic to peanuts, are you?”

  “No, Ma’am,” said Jillian.

  “These days you have to ask. Everyone’s allergic to everything. You can’t make a good chicken mole without peanut butter.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t have any allergies, and I eat everything. I love chicken mole. My mouth started watering when I stepped in the door. You didn’t make the sauce yourself, did you?”

  Mrs. Marquez sniffed as if the idea of buying sauce in a jar wasn’t worth answering. She continued putting generous helpings of food on each plate, but when she reached Ruben’s
, she filled it to overflowing. “Was this a surprise, your friend’s death, or had he been sick?”

  “It was quite a shock, although maybe it shouldn’t have been. He was a recovering drug addict so you always know something could happen, but he’d been working for me for two years and was doing well. I never expected him to kill himself.”

  “Suicide. Such a sin.” Mrs. Marquez crossed herself quickly. “How could you hire a man like that? It would be so dangerous.”

  “He wasn’t dangerous, just sad and broken. It’s hard for recovering addicts to find a job and without a job, they can’t get better.”

  This was Adam’s chance to get an insight into her thinking. “Still, you said it was difficult to know for sure what one might do.”

  “I know that. Do I look like a pushover?”

  Even Ruben stopped eating to smile at that comment.

  “I didn’t take my eyes off him at first. I found him an apartment in Conroe, close to his mother. I thought she would help, but I was wrong. She threw him out of the house at sixteen, when he first started using. She held herself up as a pillar of the church, but cut him off and hardly spoke to him again.” Jillian’s tone made clear her opinion of a mother who would renounce a troubled child.

  “I never let him have any money,” Jillian added. “I paid his rent, his utilities, bought his food, and his clothes. For six months the only cash he had was a few quarters for laundry.”

  The room was silent, except for the sound of cutlery on dishes and music coming through the open windows. Mrs. Marquez looked somewhat mollified. “How did you know what to do?” she asked.

  “I understood exactly what he was going through. I was pretty heavy into the drug scene myself at one time.” Her chin tilted upward.

  Adam nodded to himself. That explained a lot. It also put her on his Do Not Trust list.

  “When I told my father I wanted to get clean, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. He put down his glass, sobered up—at least temporarily—and took care of me until I got myself straightened out. It was probably the last time in his life he was completely sober, but it didn’t matter. He came through for me when I needed him. I couldn’t have done it alone.” Jillian’s voice cracked, but she kept going.