“Some. I have good memories, then the memories of her crying after Joe was taken.” Leigh motioned for him to go with her to the door. “What about you? Do you remember your mother?”
“Some,” he said, echoing her answer. And like Leigh, there were some good memories, but there’d been plenty of times when his mother had had way too much to drink. Something she’d done the night she died. As a child he couldn’t see it. Now he knew she’d been an alcoholic. A mostly out-of-control one who’d made a habit of drinking and driving.
“You blame Bowen for her death?” Leigh asked.
“No.” That was the truth. “But I love my father. Most of the time, anyway. So it’s not something I talk about with him. Mostly though, I just blame my mother for not getting the help she obviously needed. Then again, I should put some of that blame on my dad, too, because he had to have known that the drinking had gotten way out of hand.”
Leigh made a sound of agreement and added a genuine sounding “I’m sorry” as they went to his truck, and she reset the security system with her phone. She then gave him Jimbo’s address so he could put it in the GPS.
“How much grief would your father give you...” But Leigh stopped and waved that off.
“How much grief would he give me if I started seeing you again?” Cullen finished for her. “Plenty,” he readily admitted, “but that won’t stop me. At this point, I doubt there’s much of anything that’d stop us.”
She didn’t disagree with that, but the long breath she took let him know that she’d be getting plenty of grief as well.
“Your father approved of Alexa?” she asked.
Cullen nearly laughed when he recalled the many arguments Bowen and Alexa had had. “No. Not one little bit. He thought she had too much flash, too much temper.”
Which was true, but Cullen had been attracted to her. That attraction was a drop in the bucket though compared to what he felt for Leigh. And he knew it was best to keep that to himself. He could coax Leigh into having an affair with him, but she wouldn’t want to know how deep his feelings for her ran.
Cullen wasn’t surehewanted to know.
It had crushed him all the way to the bone, or rather the heart, the last time Leigh walked out of his life and he didn’t want another round of that. Still, he was going to have to take the risk.
The roads were mostly clear and there was almost no traffic, but Cullen kept watch as they made their way out of Dark River and to the farm road that led to Jimbo’s place. With each passing mile, Cullen’s concerns grew, and he forced his mind off Leigh and back on the danger hanging over them.
“If Jimbo killed Alexa and was the one driving that SUV, he might try to finish us off,” Cullen reminded her.
“Yes.” She said it so fast that it’d obviously been on her mind. “I think the best way for us to do this is for me to call Jimbo when we get to his house. I’ll insist that he come out so I can check him for weapons.”
That was a good start, but Cullen wanted to go one step further. “You could question him while we’re in the truck. That way, you’re not out in the open in case he has a partner in crime.”
She stayed quiet a moment. “Jimbo might not go for standing out in the cold while I talk to him.”
“He might if he thinks this could lead to a payoff,” Cullen quickly fired back.
Cullen gave her some time to work that around in her mind. Leigh finally nodded and took out her phone. She didn’t press Jimbo’s number though until Cullen took the final turn toward the farm.
And that’s when Cullen saw the smoke.
There were dark coils of it rising into the sky, but the winter wind was whipping away at it, scattering it almost as soon as it rose. Since it was way too much smoke for an ordinary fireplace, Cullen got a very bad feeling in his gut.
“Jimbo’s not answering,” Leigh said, her attention focused on the smoke.
It was less than thirty seconds before they reached the house. Or rather what was left of it. The structure was engulfed in flames.
THESIGHTOFthose flames sent Leigh’s stomach to her knees. In that instant, she knew the chances were very high that this wasn’t an accidental fire.
And that Jimbo might be dead.
Because she doubted the man had set this fire. Then again, maybe he had if he’d thought he was about to be arrested for murder. There was a problem with that theory because of the truck parked in front of the house, and she was betting the truck belonged to Jimbo. Still, she wanted to hold out hope that he’d caught a ride with someone and torched his house to conceal any evidence inside.
Even though she didn’t like the idea of a prime suspect being in the wind, it was better than the alternative of the man being dead. Dead men couldn’t give her answers about those meetings with Alexa.
Since Leigh already had her phone in her hand, she called 911 to get the fire department out to Jimbo’s house. But she could already see that they wouldn’t get there in time to save the place.
She glanced around the yard, at the rusted-out farm equipment, overgrown trees and piles of junk. No Jimbo. In fact, no sign of anyone, but if he’d been attacked, then maybe he’d managed to make it outside before he would have been overcome by the smoke and fire.