“What? That’s ridiculous. Why would you do that?”
“I’m suspicious. That parking lot wasn’t exactly littered with big chunks of granite. And if someone picked up a rock and hit your dad in the head, that’s assault with a deadly weapon. And now that he’s gone, maybe manslaughter or…”
Murder. He didn’t say it, but Lori heard it anyway. Shaking her head in slow denial, she moved into the kitchen and put her hands carefully on the counter. The cupcakes she’d made yesterday glowed bright pink in the afternoon light, mocking the slow, bad turn her day had taken.
Ben continued, and the hesitation cleared from his voice as he took on his chief of police mien. “If he had died at the time of the injury, there would’ve been an examination, an autopsy. Careful evidence collection. But the focus was on saving your dad’s life. Still, the scene photos don’t show any other rocks around. The only object that could’ve caused the skull fracture is that one piece of granite and we already know it had his blood on it. It seems a bit too pat to me to think he just happened to have fallen square onto that rock.
“There were no defensive wounds on his hands, no evidence of a fistfight. And he wasn’t found near his truck or even near the door of the bar. The back of the parking lot is an odd place to have a fistfight. Usually people just stumble out the front door and go at it.”
“I suppose,” she muttered, but she shook her head all the same.
“His autopsy reports are a bit of a mess with the healed fractures and surgical scar tissue, but I’m going to send the report off to Denver to get a second opinion. Just to see if there’s any confirmation of my thoughts.”
Lori tried to clear the sudden tears from her throat. “What is it you think happened?”
“I’m not sure.” Ben sighed. “But there’s a good possibility that someone attacked your dad from behind. Maybe when he was turning away from an argument, or maybe he didn’t even know someone was there. But that’s not much to go on. No one at the bar admitted to seeing anything after your dad left. He didn’t argue with anyone while he was there, at least not according to the notes. I’m going to have to conduct new interviews, but I’d like to keep it quiet as long as possible.”
“I…Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing,” Ben answered quickly. “You don’t need to do anything right now. Like I said, I want to keep this quiet. I’ll just be making some inquiries, trying to fit the pieces together. But I didn’t want you in the dark about my suspicions.”
“He’s dead now,” Lori murmured. “It doesn’t matter.”
But of course it did.
L ORI COULDN’T SLEEP that night. She tossed and turned for hours. By four-thirty she felt as if she might implode, as if all the thoughts swirling through her head would finally pull her in on herself and—poof!—she’d be gone. Her father, her life, the things she’d wanted for herself…
She couldn’t take it anymore, so she got up, showered and headed for the garage to change out the fuel pump on Mr. Larsen’s Chevy.
The air outside was perfect and crisp, but Lori only cracked open the garage door a few inches. She didn’t want to take any chances with curious bears. Especially if they were looking for breakfast.
As she worked at wrestling the old pump out, her thoughts became clearer and slightly more painful.
What if Ben Lawson was right? What if her father had been deliberately hurt? His skull fractured, his brain damaged, his life taken away long before he’d died…What if someone had done that on purpose?
She grabbed a rag and wiped sweat—or tears—off her face, then bent back to her task.
She hadn’t complained about the turn her life had taken. Accidents happened. She’d given up on college and travel and dating, but she’d done it for her father, willingly. He would have done as much or more for her. So, no, she hadn’t complained about what she’d given up.
But giving up something was very different than having it taken away.
Her teen years had been filled with books and hopes and a steely-eyed determination to get into the college of her dreams. And she’d done it. She’d gone off to Boston College, and her father had been so proud. Then he’d been hurt, and she’d left that behind, but she was beginning to realize she’d left behind a lot more than her education.
Her twenties had revolved around caring for her dad and keeping his business going to pay for it. Her life had been spent in coveralls and boots, T-shirts and jeans. Any love affairs had been brief and unexciting.
But lately, even before Ben’s news, she’d been restless. She couldn’t just leave Tumble Creek. Couldn’t hop on a plane and start college again. There were simply too many bills that had piled up over the years. Caring for a semivegetative relative wasn’t cheap.
So she couldn’t simply walk away and start over. But she could change her life in smaller ways, and something inside her was calling on her to take action. Perhaps this was just a natural consequence of nearing thirty. But that restless feeling had rapidly grown more intense since Ben had dropped by.
Noticing that the sunlight was now bright yellow instead of pale pink, Lori glanced up at the clock. Seven-thirty. When she raised the garage door the rest of the way, the spectacular clatter echoed through the high-ceilinged garage. She strolled out into the sun and bright birdsong, but the gravel of the lot crunched and popped beneath her boots, distracting her from the beauty of the morning. She thought mournfully of the red polish she’d painted onto her toenails the night before and sighed.
Maybe she should try another fling.
Or maybe she should just order another box of books from Molly’s publisher.
Either way, after she stopped by Quinn’s lot tonight, she’d come home to take a bath and read a dirty story. Then maybe she’d think about going shopping for a pair of open-toed heels that would click against the ground instead of thud. She jogged back in to call Molly.
As she grabbed the phone, her thoughts were interrupted by a startling chirp from the receiver in her hand. She nearly dropped it, which would have pissed her off immensely. As it was, she’d had to replace two phones already this year. One had fallen victim to the big, clumsy hands of her least-favorite plow driver. The other had somehow gotten itself mixed up with a big tub of lube, which wasn’t nearly as fun as it sounded. Not for a phone anyway.
“Love’s Garage,” she snapped into the phone.
“Ms. Love?”
“Yes.”
“Hello! This is Christopher Tipton!” Chris always announced his name as if she’d won a prize.
Lori slumped onto a stool. “Hey, Chris.” She’d known him since grade school, but she had a feeling he wasn’t calling to reminisce. “What’s going on?”
“I was just wondering if you’ve had time to think over selling that parcel of land we discussed in February.”
That parcel of land, he said, as if it hadn’t been everything her dad had ever dreamed of. “Look,
