Whirlwind - Janet Dailey Page 0,91
lace-edged handkerchief, a small gold ring with a tiny, twinkling star of a diamond.
“I can’t believe it!” Lexie replaced the contents in the box and fell back onto the bed, gazing up at the ceiling fan. “What do you suppose happened?”
“I can guess,” Val said. “Dad happened. Bert Champion was tall, dark, handsome, and charming enough to turn any girl’s head. But what I can’t believe is that, in spite of everything, Aaron came home and stayed.”
“His parents owned the land. Maybe they needed him. Or maybe he had nowhere else to go,” Lexie said.
“Hey! What’s going on here?” Tess stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “How can I sleep with all the chatter you two are making?”
Val rose and held out the box. “Sit down, Tess,” she said. “We’ve got something to show you.”
Tess shuffled through the pictures without comment, but the expressions that moved like shadows across her face betrayed her emotions. After she’d finished looking, she put the pictures in the box, closed the lid, and handed it back to Val. “I always wondered why Aaron never married,” she said. “Our mother must’ve broken his heart.”
“I always thought he kind of liked Callie,” Lexie said. “He came over a lot more after Dad was gone. And he seemed pretty broken up when she died.”
“Speaking of Callie,” Tess said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you—things I learned from the sheriff.”
Stunned and perplexed, Lexie listened as Tess described the findings of the medical examiner and the crime lab.
“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Val demanded. “We aren’t children. We don’t need to be protected from the truth.”
“I know.” Tess sighed wearily. “At first I just wanted to bury her ashes and move on. But then I decided it wouldn’t be fair to the two of you. You have a right to know.”
“So you have even more reasons to believe that Callie might’ve been killed,” Lexie said.
“Not reasons, just questions. It’s not only that she was found on her back. The smoke in her hair, the smear on her shoe, and the missing bra—it all smacks of suspicious circumstances. Where did she go before she died? Who was she with, and why?”
Val shrugged. “The list is pretty short. Unless somebody we don’t know about was on the property, it could’ve been one of the boys, or Aaron, or Ruben, or even Pedro. We may never find out. But we’ll be more likely to see or hear something if we keep this to ourselves. Agreed?”
Her sisters nodded.
“I have another thought,” Lexie said. “What action will we take if we do find out?”
There was a beat of silence. “I suppose that would depend on what happened,” Tess said. “If a crime was committed, we’d have to notify the sheriff.”
“And if it was just Callie sneaking out to meet someone?” Val asked.
Lexie shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about that. I mean . . . she was like our mother.”
“Hey, she was an attractive, sexy woman with practically no social life,” Val said. “We can’t rule that out.”
“Whatever Callie was involved in, she ended up dead,” Tess said. “If she didn’t fall or jump into that arroyo, then somebody put her there. I was hoping we could put her death behind us and move on. But I was wrong. No matter how long it takes, we owe it to Callie, and to our family, to learn the truth.”
* * *
Aaron arrived the next morning, the Kubota loaded with tools and plumbing parts. Lexie had ordered some grab bar kits and picked them up in town, but the frame on both sides of the toilet would have to be built from scratch with pieces of metal pipe cut to size and joined with elbows. Aaron had offered to do the job for free, but Lexie had insisted on paying him for time and materials. He hadn’t objected. With the sale of his property still in limbo, he could probably use the money.
With Val on her way to town and Tess helping drive the bulls to fresh pasture, Lexie and Aaron had the house to themselves. As they worked together, Lexie showing him what she had in mind, handing him tools, and holding things in place, she found herself looking at him in a different light, seeing him as the young soldier who had loved and lost—and perhaps never recovered from his broken heart.
She’d spent enough time with Aaron to be comfortable talking. Why not ask him