Dead Right

The phone rang again. She almost dropped the handset but eventually brought it to her ear.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded throaty and low.

“Ms. Barker?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Hunter Solozano.”

She jumped up, then teetered on her feet for a moment. “What do you want, Mr. Solozano?”

“What airport should I use?”

“For…You’re coming? Here?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes, but—” nerves made her scalp tingle “—we haven’t discussed any of the logistics.”

“I charge a thousand dollars a day, plus expenses.”

A thousand dollars a day! She clapped a hand over her mouth. But he didn’t pause.

“You said you had no worries about paying me. Is that still true?”

He cost a fortune. Even more than she’d expected. But she wasn’t about to admit she had any doubts. Not after what he’d said to her before. I think it’s the accent. Maybe she lived in the boondocks by his standards, but she was no uneducated, backward hick. “Sure. No problem,” she lied.

“Fine. I’ll need the first five thousand as a retainer.”

She bit her lip. That alone would wipe out her checking account and leave her short on next month’s bills. The paper was a labor of love but hardly a fabulous living. “How long do you think the…investigation will take?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “How committed are you to finding your father?”

She winced at the staggering financial implications. If Mr. Solozano stayed for a month, it’d cost her upward of $20,000. And that was taking weekends off.

But she’d tried everything else. This felt like her only hope. “More committed than I’ve ever been to anything.”

“Fine. I’ll be there on Thursday.”

She gulped. “So soon?”

“You’re in luck. I was planning a vacation that fell through.”

In luck? At one thousand dollars a day, plus expenses? “Um…just to clarify, your expenses would include what exactly? Airfare and hotel?”

“As well as a rental car, meals, any specialized tests we might need to run on the evidence I find, stuff like that.”

“I see.” The list could get long. And with his salary, the incidental expenses would be the least of her problems. But he sounded so confident when he mentioned evidence.

“Will you be making my hotel reservations or shall I?” he asked.

Transferring the phone from one hand to the other, Madeline wiped her palms, which had grown clammy, on her sweatpants. “I was thinking…I mean I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

She scowled at the impatience in his voice. “Is there any way we could cut corners a bit?”

“Cut corners?” he repeated suspiciously.

“I have a guesthouse. I thought maybe you could stay there. It’d be quiet,” she added. “I live alone.”

“And what will I drive?”

“My car.”

“And you’ll drive…”

“My stepbrother will let me borrow a truck from the farm. It might not look like much after hauling dirt and feed and who knows what else, but he’s always got an extra.”

Hunter didn’t seem to mind staying in her guesthouse and driving her car, because he agreed right away. “That’s fine. Does that mean you’re picking me up at the airport?”

If she played chauffeur, they’d be able to talk while she drove. Then he could start his investigation the moment he reached Stillwater. Saving whatever money she could seemed prudent, especially since she wasn’t sure hiring him would make any difference in the end. Would he find evidence everyone else had missed? Or would he be as ineffectual as the police?

Maybe she was bankrupting herself for nothing, for a hunger that could never be satisfied…

“Ms. Barker?”

She swallowed to ease a particularly dry mouth. “I’ll pick you up. Fly into Nashville, okay?”

“It’s closer than Jackson?”

“By two hours.”

“Okay. I’ll make my travel arrangements over the Internet and call you in the morning.”

“Fine.” She pretended to be as businesslike as he was. But when she hung up, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the phone.

“What have I done?” she breathed.

Chapter Three

“You’ve done what?” Grace asked.

Madeline held the phone to her shoulder as she rinsed her coffee cup and placed it in the dishwasher. Morning had come too soon. After a restless night, her eyes stung with fatigue. It didn’t help that the coffee she’d drunk to get her going churned sourly in her otherwise empty stomach. “I hired a private investigator.”

There was a momentary silence. “You’re kidding.”

“No.”