Page 16 of Whispers

Claire let out a tiny, disbelieving gasp, and Tessa, always the cynic, rolled her eyes. “You never stop, do you?” Tessa demanded. “Jesus, Dad, you bribed the police?”

“I did what I had to do,” he snapped as he walked across the room, his pace evening out as he reached the French doors and opened them, letting in a warm breeze. “I figured this was probably the single most important moment of all our lives and I thought—hell, I hoped I was saving you girls, your mother, yes, and me, a pile of grief.”

“You didn’t believe us.” Miranda felt empty inside. Drained. The truth was sure to come out, every last painful and ugly detail.

“I couldn’t and I wasn’t about to take the risk that one of you would be exposed as that Taggert boy’s killer.”

Miranda’s insides shook.

“His name was Harley,” Claire said, lifting her chin. “It’s been sixteen years, Dad. You don’t have to refer to him as ‘that boy’ anymore.” Standing proudly, she stared at her father, then her gaze moved past him, through the open door to the lake, and focused on whatever she saw in the distance, on the opposite shore.

“All I wanted to do was save your skins.”

“And your reputation,” Tessa said. “That’s about the time Stone Illahee was opening the second phase, wasn’t it? You couldn’t risk that your new resort would be tainted with some sort of scandal. New golf course, indoor tennis courts, Olympic-size pool, gorgeous views, and major debt. What would happen if the word got out that Benedict Holland’s, the owner’s, daughters were involved in—”

“In an accident,” Miranda said quickly. “You had so little faith that you bought off the investigation.”

“That’s right.” Dutch was defensive, his bushy gray eyebrows pulling together. “Paid the sheriff’s department to downplay the whole incident.”

“Not smart,” Styles observed.

“Hey, look, I wasn’t planning on running for office then.”

“But now you are and you want to dredge all this up again.” Claire rubbed one temple with her fingers as she tried and failed to stave off a headache. “Why?”

“To beat Moran to the punch and divert him if I have to.” He walked to the bar and motioned to the full bottles. “How about a drink?”

“Another time.” Denver eyed Tessa. “You want to elaborate?”

“How?”

“See anyone you know at the movies?” His tone wasn’t the least bit imperious, and yet Miranda felt an underlying challenge in his words.

“While you’re pouring, Dad,” Tessa said, as if sensing trouble, “I’ll have a drink. Vodka straight up.”

“I already told you,” Miranda said, standing and crossing the room so that she could meet Styles’s gaze more evenly. “You don’t have to try and trip us up by pitting one of us against the other.”

“Is that what I was doing?”

“You tell me.”

“I just thought I should hear your sisters’ sides of the story even though you’ve already primed them.”

Claire, too, was on her feet. “Look, I don’t really have time for this. I’ve got kids waiting for me. Miranda told you the truth, I don’t have anything else to add.”

“Oh, hell, Claire,” Dutch growled. “Tell the man about Taggert. You ran around here mooning over the guy and had just announced that you were going to marry him. You’ve got a helluva lot more to say.” He handed a drink to Tessa, who, a stubborn set to her jaw, walked to the window and rested her head against the glass.

Claire’s stomach clenched. “It’s true. I had hoped to marry Harley, though . . . it . . . it wasn’t working out.” She rubbed the back of one of her hands with the thumb of the other. “Everyone was against it because of a feud that existed between our families.”

“He knows about the damned feud.” Frowning darkly, Dutch fell into his chair again, raised the leg support, and took a sip from his glass.

Claire felt a chill even though it was still warm. Through the open door she noticed the sun was beginning to set, fiery pink-and-orange beams fractured against the underbelly of a few high clouds. She knew that Miranda had spoken first to remind her younger sisters of the lie they’d concocted, the altering of the facts to protect them all, but suddenly it seemed that their secret, woven tightly by each woman’s determination to put that dark, ugly night behind them, was beginning to unravel and fray. “When I first met Harley, I mean, I’d known him all my life, but when I realized I was attracted to him, it was at the lake. He was going with another girl, Kendall Forsythe, at the time.”

“The bitch,” Tessa interjected, and received a harsh, warning glare from Miranda.

“Kendall—as in Weston Taggert’s wife.”

“Yes.” Claire nodded. She wasn’t going to let anyone, either her father or her older sister, dictate how she felt or what she said. Things had changed over the last decade and a half, and if she’d learned anything, it was that she had to speak up for herself and rely on her own judgment. For too many years she’d trusted other people—first her mother, then Harley, eventu