Appalachian Prey

She turned and headed down the hallway, leaving him no choice but to follow. Lilah opened the front door wide and waved a hand in dismissal. “Goodbye, Harlan.”

He nodded, but as he brushed past Lilah, he couldn’t resist placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry for everything. And for your loss. Your dad might have been on the other side of the law, but he was a decent man. I liked him, and he didn’t deserve what happened. I’ll do everything I can to find who shot him.”

The anger and hostility fled, and her lips trembled the slightest bit. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

She shook her head.

“If you think of something, you have my number.”

Before she could object, he planted a light kiss on her cheek and stepped out onto the porch. The sun was sinking low in the green mountains, casting a coral and purple hue on the clouds. Damn, he hated leaving her with night approaching.

“Wait. There is one thing you can do.”

He swung around, eager to help. “Name it.”

Lilah lingered in the doorway, rubbing her arm. “I—I found some money today while I was cleaning up the place. In light of what happened to Dad, well, it makes me nervous. It’s too late for me to go to the bank, but maybe you could keep it safe for me tonight? I’ll come pick it up in the morning and deposit it.”

“No problem.”

He returned to the inside of her cabin. How crafty of Chauncey to keep a hidden stash of dough. He hoped for Lilah’s sake that it was at least a thousand dollars or so. She could use the cash. Working as a teacher’s aide and going to college didn’t leave her much in the way of money.

“I told Darla ’bout finding a wad of cash up under the mattress, and she wanted us to go on and split it, but I told her it didn’t sit right with me. That much money should be reported.”

He gave an indulgent smile. “No one would be the wiser if you didn’t turn it in. There’s no need to worry. I agree with Darla, just keep the money.”

“But it’s a lot of money. I’ll need to talk to the bank manager. Don’t they investigate if you deposit more than ten thousand dollars at a time?”

The hell. “Excuse me? How much money are we talking about?”

“About thirty thousand.”

Thirty. Thousand. Dollars. Ill-gotten dollars, no doubt. The rumors must be true. Chauncey, and probably his partner-in-crime brother as well, had graduated from moonshine to marijuana—or even harder drugs.

“Get it,” he said tightly. Small wonder the Tedder reputation stank.

And she’d planned on sleeping on that load of cash tonight? Some folks ’round these parts would kill for thirty grand. Even if Lilah knew how to use that shotgun, she’d have been putting herself in jeopardy staying here overnight with that much money. If anyone else knew about it, she could have ended up with bullets riddling her body—the same fate as her father.

She scampered away, seemingly eager to be rid of the cash. Hard to believe, but at some level, Lilah must still trust him. Damn, he would have to tell J.D. about this. No way he could just let her waltz into a bank and get flagged as a possible drug dealer.

He sat on the sofa and ran a hand through his hair. “What the hell did you get mixed up in, Chauncey?” he muttered under his breath. He kicked back on the cushions and sighed.

Sure was taking her a long time. Harlan drummed his fingers on the wooden arm of the old couch, waiting.

And waiting.

“Everything all right, Lilah?” he called out.

She staggered back into the den, face pale and fiddling with the gold cross chain around her neck.

He stood, dread prickling his scalp. “What’s wrong?”

She drew an unsteady breath. “The money...it’s gone.”

Chapter Two (#u072b5b70-9af4-50a1-9d9e-d6ec7fafadd7)

Gone.

Harlan rubbed his temples and sat back down on the sofa. He pointed to the rocker, and Lilah settled across from him. How to tell her?

“Was your dad in the habit of keeping large amounts of money around the cabin?” he finally asked.

“No.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “At least, not that I’m aware of.”

“Any idea how he might have come into this money?”

Her lips pinched together. “No.”

“Moonshining can be pretty profitable for a few folks.”

The muscles in her jaw worked, and she lifted a hand and waved it in the air. “Not for us. Does this look like a mansion or something? If Dad made much money at it, he sure didn’t believe in spreading the wealth.”

Harlan knew her financial struggle. She’d been working for six years as a teacher’s aide, paying for college tuition and books as she could on her salary.

“Sure, he wasn’t known for having an extravagant lifestyle,” Harlan agreed. “But you told me yourself that he acted different when you visited in March.”

“Lots of shady characters hanging around. A younger crowd, people I’d never seen before.” She sighed and stared down at her hands. “Lots of long talks with Uncle Thad, too. Whenever I entered the room, they would stop talking. But that wasn’t so unusual. In the past, they would come up with some pretty harebrained get-rich schemes that never worked. Part of the reason Mom cut out years ago.”

Lilah lifted her head and faced him dead on. “But you already know most of this. I confided a lot to you when—” she hesitated a heartbeat “—when we were seeing each other.”

Seeing each other. Images of her flashed through his mind—Lilah lying on his bed, her hair spread against the sheets, the play of moonlight on her skin, the feel of her hand gliding down his abs and lower still... Best not to dwell on that. He cleared his throat.

“Can’t help wondering if your dad might have changed his, er, business model. He wouldn’t be the first to switch from moonshine to marijuana. That’s where the real money is these days.”

Gray eyes flashed. “You asking if Dad was a dope dealer? No way.”

There was no kind way to have her face the possibility. Might as well be honest. “There’s been rumors. We know for a fact that there’s a huge drug-running operation that passes through our mountains. We just haven’t been able to make a major bust yet.”

“Rumors?” She stood and paced, temper sparking in her clipped movements. “Figures. Anything criminal happening in Elmore County and people are going to bring up Dad’s name. It’s so unfair. He never hurt anybody. And he never sold liquor to the teenagers that came around. Said moonshine was a grown man’s drink.”

Harlan bit the inside of his mouth to keep from blurting his thoughts. He’d liked Chauncey, but Lilah had either forgotten her dad’s more violent tendencies or she’d shoved them to the back of her mind. She hadn’t been especially close to her dad, but his death was so recent, so fresh in her heart, and Chauncey was her father, after all.

“I’m not judging him,” Harlan said, treading lightly. “He had plenty of good qualities—a loyal friend, always minded his own business and generous to a fault. But he had a dark side, too. Chauncey spent many a night as a guest of the Elmore County jail for assault.”

She shrugged. “Drunken bar fights.”

Fierce fights that had resulted in serious injuries to the unlucky, foolhardy men who crossed him. But he let that pass without comment. “You’ve never seen anything else suspicious?”