The Whisperers: A Three Book Box Set Page 22

  “But what about Deidre?”

  “Herbert will implicate her.”

  “Maybe but what if he doesn’t?”

  “He will if he wants the crack legal team we’re going to provide for his defense.”

  Dalton smiled. “Is there anything you don’t think of?”

  Henrietta returned his smile. “I certainly hope not. Now, let’s have one of these delicious muffins and then you can get ready and we’ll take a drive to the police station. I predict this is going to be an exciting day.”

  Chapter Ten

  Teddy parked her car and got out. The closest parking deck she’d found was a block from where she worked. Fortunately, it was a nice day so she didn’t really mind the walk. It was the job she hated.

  Dalton Manning had been kind enough to give her an extension on the lease of her house after her shop closed, but Teddy hadn’t wanted to stay there anymore. Already it had too many memories of Jake associated with it. She’d found a job in Charlotte and a small, run-down apartment.

  She hadn’t spoken with Jake in a several weeks and didn’t intend to. His brother was responsible for what had happened to Alex and she’d never forgive him. Nor could she forgive Jake for defending him. So, she’d walked away. She had cut him and his entire family from her life.

  Sadly, that included Mik. Mik had made it clear that she didn’t believe Jesse was responsible and she wouldn’t turn her back on him or Jed. Maybe it was over-reactive on her behalf, but Teddy couldn’t help the way she felt, so she cut Mik out of her life, too.

  Now she was alone. Truly alone. And it sucked.

  She made the walk to work lost in thought. When she arrived, she stood outside for a few moments, watching the people inside through the window.

  Despite the shop being trendy and busy from opening until closing, she hated it. The patrons were wealthy and didn’t mind spending but tended to look down their noses at the people who worked there.

  It wasn’t the first time in her life Teddy had been looked down upon by people more affluent, but it was the first time she’d resented it. Then again, her attitude the last month had been pretty horrible. Even she could admit that.

  Nothing had gone right since she and Jake went to Arizona. Alex had survived but was in a coma and no matter how many new doctors Teddy consulted, no one had a guess if or when she would waken.

  Teddy could barely stand to visit Alex anymore. It was like looking at a breathing shell. Alex just wasn’t there. In Teddy’s mind, it was worse than death. It was limbo and not just for Alex, but for her as well.

  Her phone rang and startled her. She didn’t get many calls these days. She pulled it from her purse to see who was calling. Mik. She hit ignore, shoved the phone back into her purse and went inside the store.

  Her phone rang again. Again she hit ignore. It rang twice more before she made her way through the store to the employee lounge. Unease pricked her. Mik had left her alone as Teddy had demanded. Why was she calling now?

  Alex! Unease turned to fear and she quickly answered.

  “What?”

  “Don’t hang up, Teddy.”

  “Alex?”

  “It has to do with Alex. I need to tell you something and I need you to listen. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesse’s been cleared of any wrong doing in Alex and Manning’s shootings.”

  “What?”

  “Rob – Dalton Manning discovered that Alex’s apartment was bugged and there was video footage of what happened. It shows Jesse and Manning getting into a fight. Jesse knocked Manning out and then two men dressed in black appeared, knocked Jesse out, shot Alex and Manning and put the gun in Jesse’s hand and fired it.”

  “That can’t be.” Teddy sat down hard in a chair at one of the small tables in the break room. “Jesse shot her. They found the gun in his hand.”

  “In his left hand. Jake’s the one who figured it out. Jesse’s right-handed. The police wouldn’t listen to Jake but once Manning came forward with the video footage and identified the man who actually did the shooting, Jesse was cleared.”

  Teddy was stunned, on several levels. First, that Jesse was innocent and second that she’d been so stubborn to cling to the idea of his guilt and had put Mik, Jake and his family though hell.

  Jake. Regret and grief swelled like a sudden thunderstorm inside her, the pressure forcing tears from her eyes. God, the way she’d treated Jake.

  “Oh my god,” she sobbed. “Mik… I …. Jake.”

  “I know, honey. Listen, I think you need to come home—I mean to the ranch. Talk to Jake and set things right.”

  “I can’t. I can’t.” Teddy didn’t think there were enough words in the English language to make right the treatment she’d given Jake. “I have to go.”

  She ended the call before Mik could say anymore and sat there, crying. If only she’d listened to Mik, to Jake. Why had she clung so tightly to the idea that Jesse was guilty? What was wrong with her that she would have treated Jake as she did? He’d loved her and she’d treated him like he was a criminal, along with his entire family. And even her sister.

  Teddy wanted to crawl into a hole. She’d screwed up her entire life and turned her back on the only man who’d ever really loved her. Suddenly she wished she could trade places with Alex because right now, she didn’t want to feel the guilt and regret, the pain of loss.

  She just wanted to turn the world off. And she couldn’t do that at work. She snatched up her purse and hurried back through the store, ignoring her manager and the other sales clerk on duty. Let them fire her. Right now she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything. Her life was ruined.

  Teddy didn’t even remember the drive to her apartment. When she arrived, she just sat in the car, staring blindly through the windshield, her mind mired in misery. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when a tap on her side window had her jumping. Robert Dalton Manning stood beside her car. Teddy rolled down the window.

  “Miss Morgan? Can I speak with you? It’s very important.”

  Teddy couldn’t imagine what he’d want to talk to her about. Alex maybe? She knew Alex had been seeing him, working on some kind of plan to help Jake’s family. “Ok, sure.”

  She got out of the car but made no move toward the apartment. Manning looked around. “Could we go inside, or even in the car – just somewhere private?”

  “Oh, ok.” Teddy led the way to her apartment door. She hated for anyone to see the place. It was clean, but she’d done little unpacking. Boxes were stacked everywhere.

  “Sorry for the mess.” She put her purse down on a box and gesture toward the sofa.

  Manning took a seat and waited for her to be seated. “I don’t know if you’ve spoken with your sister about what happened?”

  “Yes, she told me this morning.”

  “Ah, yes. Good. I wanted to say personally that I’m quite relieved the truth came to light. Despite all that has happened, I don’t harbor any ill will toward the Nash family. In fact, your sister Alex and I were trying to gather information that might prove beneficial to them when … well, you know.”

  “And did you?”

  “Sadly, no. But she told me something once. About you. That you have psychometric ability?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s another reason I wanted to see you. I believe that my step-mother, Deidre, is not only behind what happened to your sister, but all of the trouble the Nash family has suffered.”

  “Seems that you had a hand in that as well.” Teddy hadn’t forgotten about Manning buying the old deed and all the Nash family had gone through to try and buy it back.

  “And for that I am sorry. I fully intend to make recompense for that, Ms. Morgan. But I do need your help and it’s not just for me but the Nash family as well.”

  “What kind of help?”

  Manning stood and paced a few steps, jamming his hands into his pants’ pocket. “Did Alex ever tell you anything about my
family?”

  “No.”

  “Well, in a nutshell, my mother died when I was young. My father married Deidre and I am convinced that she killed him.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because the night he died, they were supposedly making love and traces of nitroglycerine were discovered in the wine he consumed. Combine that with a double dose of Viagra and a man who had a history of coronary problems and … “

  “And you think she poisoned him?”

  “I do. After his death, I discovered that a mere two weeks prior, his will had been changed. Until that point, I was his sole heir. It was changed to divide his assets between Deidre and myself.”

  “So you think she killed him for his money?”

  “Yes. Since that time she’s systematically taken more power from me within the company and recently had me removed from the CEO position.”

  “I’m sorry but I don’t know how I can possibly…”

  “With this.” He pulled a necklace from his pocket. It was a gold chain with an elaborate diamond pendant. “She was wearing this the night my father died.”

  “And you want me to see what I can get from it.”

  “Yes. Please. I know you have no reason to want to help me, but I swear to you that I would never have caused problems for your family or the Nash’s had it not been for the pressure I was under from Deidre. I do want to make things right. I swear that on my father’s grave.

  “And,” he added. “I believe the man who shot your sister worked for Deidre and was under orders from her to do what he did.”

  Until that moment, Teddy had been reluctant to help him. But if Deidre Manning was responsible for stealing Alex from her then she was more than willing to help. She wanted whoever was responsible to rot in prison.

  She held out her hand and Dalton placed the necklace in it. Teddy closed her hand around it and then closed her eyes. Colors and lights swam in her mind, slowly taking shape. She felt her fingers tighten as she was carried into the past.

  Deidre Manning peeled the nearly transparent robe off her shoulders, turning slowly where she stood in front of the bed. The man on the bed, a good deal older with white hair cut almost military short and skin tone that bore a grayish hue watched with the ghost of a smile on his face. He lifted the glass of wine in his hand and slugged down half of it.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were trying to give me a heart attack.”

  “If you mean hard attack then you’d be right, lover.” She let the robe drop and turned again, displaying her voluptuous nude body.

  “Hard isn’t as easy as it used to be.”

  “That’s why God invented these,” she sashayed to the nightstand and picked up the prescription bottle of Viagra. “You did take one, didn’t you lover?”

  The man frowned. “I…I can’t remember. Let me think. You brought in the wine and poured me a glass and …”

  “And I don’t think you did,” she finished his sentence. He had taken the pill, but the combination of wine and the sedative he’d taken earlier were clouding his mind. “So why don’t you take one now and while we’re waiting for it to kick in I’ll whet your appetite.”

  He grinned and accepted the pill she offered, popped it in his mouth and washed it down with the remainder of the wine in his glass. Deidre smiled, picked up the wine bottle from the nightstand and held it aloft. “Oops, all gone. Let me run get another. Be right back!”

  She hurried to the kitchen where an opened bottle of wine sat on the center island. Beside it sat a plastic container that contained his nitroglycerine. She’d already dissolved four of the tablets in the wine. Deidre lifted the bottle, shook it and looked carefully to make sure the nitroglycerine dissolved. Satisfied, she picked up the plastic container and carried it and the wine back to the bedroom.

  “I’m back,” she said cheerily. She refilled his glass, and as she placed the wine bottle on the nightstand, put the pill container beside it.’

  “Now, you just lie there and watch, lover.”

  She climbed onto the bed with her head at the foot of the bed, propped on a mound of pillows. Spreading her legs, she began to pleasure herself, all the while watching him.

  Time passed and he polished off the last of the wine, tossed the glass aside and moved his hand on top of the bedcovers to his groin. “I think we have liftoff.”

  “Then all aboard,” she replied and stripped back the covers to climb on top of him.

  She was no more seated, with him fully inside before she started to ride him, hard and fast. He kept up for a minute, his hands gripping her hips and then his hands spread wide and tense.

  His face paled and his breath became labored, fast and shallow. “Stop,” he gasped, his hands moving to clutch at his chest. “Stop, I…”

  She laughed and kept at it, bouncing on him, moving her hands to his chest and bearing down so that her weight pressed on him.

  “Stop.” His voice was weaker. “You’re –going to…”

  His eyes went wide and his mouth flew open, his hands flapping weakly on his chest. And then all movement stopped. She stopped as well and sat back, watching. Several minutes passed before she moved.

  Deidre got off him, slid off the bed and retrieved her robe. After putting it on she picked up the phone and dialed 911

  “Hurry! Oh please, help. He’s not moving. I don’t think he’s breathing. Help me, please! Oh god!!!”

  She let the phone fall and sat down on the edge of the bed, smiling.

  Teddy opened her eyes for a moment and then was sucked back into visions, scenes of Deidre and her ghostly accomplice, Sara. The visions rushed at her, showing her the evil Deidre had done and how insane she truly was. Teddy saw Deidre on the phone, telling someone to watch for Jesse Nash and if he showed up at Alex’s to kill Dalton and Alex and make it look like Jesse did it.

  Her heart sank with the knowledge. Mik was right. Jesse was innocent and she’d condemned him and lost Jake with her unwillingness to listen to reason. Deidre Manning had to be stopped. She was true evil.

  Teddy opened her eyes. “Oh my god.” She looked at Dalton. “She’s insane. And evil. You’re right. She killed him.”

  “And she tried to kill me and your sister. I have to stop her.”

  “But how?”

  “The video of the men shooting Alex and me, the police have it. And I recognized one of the men. He’s worked for Deidre for years. If the police can find him and he confesses to being under orders by her, maybe that will be enough. If not … I don’t know. I know she killed my father but I have no physical proof.”

  “I know she did it.” Teddy handed him the necklace. “She’s evil and you’re right, she has to be stopped but it won’t do any good for me to say what I saw. The law doesn’t accept psychic testimony.”

  “I know. And I wish I knew how to get proof. But maybe if we can find that man who shot us…”

  Teddy suddenly broke free of the “poor me” ropes that had her wrapped so tightly. If they could find the man who shot Alex at least he could be brought to justice. And maybe he would testify again Deidre. Not only would that give her family justice, but maybe it would give Dalton Manning justice as well. He’d lost his father to that witch and had spent years under her thumb.

  Teddy couldn’t imagine how miserable that must have been for him. But she did know how miserable that woman had made her and her family. Deidre Manning had cost Teddy her relationship with Jake, Mik and had stolen life from Alex. She had to pay and maybe it was time for everyone who’d been hurt by her to team up against her.

  “Would you do something for me?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Would you go with me to the Nash ranch? They need to know all this and I think they need to hear from you that you’re not involved and that you’ve suffered just as much. Maybe if we all work together we can see that she gets what she deserves.”

  “I don’t know that I’d be welcome there.”

&
nbsp; “Leave that to me,” she said with more conviction than she felt. She had a lot of bridges to mend and now was as good a time as any to start.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake finished grooming the horse he’d worked with that day and headed to the house. Not taking time for breakfast had his stomach feeling like it was gnawing on his backbone.

  But then something was always gnawing inside him these days. Anger, hurt, regret – those seemed to be constants in his life now. He still didn’t understand why Teddy had turned her back on him. She’d tossed him aside like yesterday’s news.

  It hurt and he wished it would stop. He’d never known this kind of hurt and he wanted it to go away. It colored his every waking moment and troubled his sleep and he wasn’t sure he could go on like this indefinitely.

  He wished he could just put her out of his mind, stop thinking about her. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t want to hate her or forget her. He wanted her back. Crazy as some might think that was, it was all he wanted.

  Just as he exited the barn, he saw the cars pull up. When the first car stopped and Teddy climbed out it stopped him dead in his tracks. When he saw the man who got out of the second car, he saw red. How dare Manning show up at his home?

  He was in motion before he realized it, his fist clenched as tight as his jaw. “Get off my land,” he barked at Manning.

  “Jake, no!” Teddy ran up in front of him.

  He sidestepped and kept heading toward Manning who had his hands raised. “Please, I don’t mean any harm.”

  “Get. The. Hell. Off. My. Land.”

  “Jake!” Teddy grabbed his arm.

  He shook her off. “No! You’ve got no say in this. No say in a damn thing that I can see, so shut the hell up.”

  “Jake please!”

  “Jake!” Jed’s voice caused an immediate silence.

  Jake turned his head to see Jed marching toward him with Mik and Jesse two steps behind.