Chapter 41

“I’ll do the talking,”Ash said as he and Kayla approached Linda Collier’s front door.

“Okay.”

He looked at her for what seemed like the hundredth time since she’d stepped out of her car. On the drive here, he’d gone through a battery of emotions, not the least of which were frustration, fear, shame, and jealousy.

His nerves felt like a too-tight bowstring, ready to snap if handled without care. He’d expected Kayla to be walking the edge, too. Filled with righteous anger and eager to deliver more verbal lashes. Instead, she seemed hesitant, unable to look him in the eye. Beta to his alpha.

It was unnerving.

He took another shot at reviving the lobbyist. “You’re here to reassure Ms. Collier.”

She nodded.

“Not to play investigator.”

A muscle in her jaw twitched, restoring some of his equilibrium.

“Got it.”

He bounded up the two steps leading to Collier’s front porch and depressed the doorbell. Linda and her husband Gene lived in the quaint town of Black Mountain, situated due east of Asheville. Her two-story white wood-framed house sat in the midst of an eclectic mix of homes. Not a cookie cutter in sight. The neighborhood was within walking distance of a bustling tourist mecca as well as the town’s popular Tailgate Market, where local artisans and farmers hawked their wares.

A pretty brown-haired woman, heavy with child, opened the door. She wore a long-sleeved floral maxi dress, revealing bare feet and slightly swollen ankles. Her wary gaze snapped from him to Kayla, who stood to his right.

The woman’s eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. Either she had bad allergies—a good possibility in a region with millions of pine trees blooming at once—or she’d been crying. Also a distinct possibility, given she’d lost her mom.

“Kayla?”

“Hi, Linda,” she said, “Sorry to show up unannounced.” Kayla stepped forward and gave her friend a hug. “This is Special Agent Cameron Blackwell, with the FBI. He’d like to ask you some questions about Aunt Vicky.”

He held up his creds before shaking her hand. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

“I already spoke to APD and State, when they notified me about M-mom.” Her voice broke on the last word.

Kayla wrapped a comforting arm around the woman’s shoulders and guided her inside. “Come on. Let’s have a seat.”

The Colliers’ living area had an upscale farmhouse motif like something Joanna Gaines would design. Neutral tones with a pop of yellow here and there. A natural stone fireplace propped up a corner of the living room and one of the Colliers had a definite green thumb. A variety of plants, some he recognized, some new and bizarre, were stationed around the room, adding another level of warmth.

“Can I make you a cup of herbal tea?” Kayla asked the woman as she helped her get settled on a plush ivory sofa.

“No, thank you, but please make one for yourself and Mr. Blackwell.”

Kayla glanced at him, and Ash shook his head. She took up a spot on the sofa, and he sat on an adjacent chair.

“First,” Ash said, “allow me to extend my condolences on your loss. I’m aware of how difficult it is to lose a parent.”

“Thank you.” Linda looked at Kayla. “I’m sorry I haven’t returned your calls. I just needed some time to process things.”

“No worries. Do you need help making any of the arrangements?”

Linda’s features turned stony. “The State is taking care of everything. Even down to the flowers draping Mama’s coffin.” Her eyes welled. “Shouldn’t a daughter be able to do at least that much to honor her mother?”

Kayla shot him a confused look while she rubbed circles on the other woman’s back.

Based on what little he knew about Linda Collier, most of it from Kayla, he hadn’t expected the governor’s estranged daughter to be quite so grief-stricken. Evidently, Kayla hadn’t either.

Hate didn’t always negate love.

“Seems like a reasonable expectation,” Kayla said.

“Don’t handle me, Kayla. You know as well as I do that ever since Mama became governor the State has owned her. I can’t even get a clear answer as to what happened the night she was murdered.” She turned pleading eyes on her friend. “I want to know, yet I’m so afraid. I can’t count the number of times I’ve picked up the phone to reach out to you, only to set it back down.”

Kayla folded a hand over her friend’s. Her chest rose on what could have only been a fortifying breath. “I’ll tell you as much as you feel comfortable hearing.”

Ash’s pulse snapped to attention and he fought the urge to remind her of their agreement that he’d do the talking. But he sensed both women needed this moment. He would trust Kayla to know what she should and shouldn’t share and pray his faith wasn’t misplaced.

“Did she suffer?”

“No, it was over quickly.” Although her tone was empathetic, Kayla had tapped into her lobbyist persona for the strength to deliver the words.

Tears tumbled onto Linda’s cheeks. “What was she doing in the gazebo by herself? Where was her security detail?”

“She wanted to speak with me privately, so she sent her guards away.”

“What did she need to talk to you about?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“She sent me a text, requesting to meet. I showed up, and—” Kayla struggled to finish or find the gentlest words; either way, Ash couldn’t stand watching her suffer.

“And that’s when the assassin shot your mother.” Ash’s contribution didn’t appear to have any impact on the woman.

She kept her focus on Kayla. “You have to have some idea.”

“We were working on several projects together, including her reelection. There’s no way to pinpoint which one she wanted to discuss.”

“Why don’t you pinpoint it down to the one where she was willing to put her life at risk.”

Kayla grew still, as if Linda’s words had cut through her, clear to her backbone and hovered there, ready to make the final slice.

When the lobbyist spoke again, her voice was low, raw. “I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried. But I can’t even be sure Vicky wanted to discuss one of our ongoing campaigns. It could have been something completely unrelated to our working relationship.”

“Like what?”

A brief hesitation. “You.”

Linda pressed deeper into the sofa’s cushions. “Me?”

“I understand the two of you had a falling-out,” Ash said, reinserting himself into the conversation.

“Falling out? Who told you we’d had a falling-out?”

Her head swiveled Exorcist-style toward Kayla. “You?”

When Kayla said nothing, the pregnant woman shot up from the sofa. Well, more like hoisted herself to a standing position.

Ash kept his attention square on Linda. He couldn’t think of any reason why Kayla would lie to him about the governor’s relationship with her daughter.

Unless it was to cover for someone else.

“Ms. Krowne is here to offer you support, while I spoke to you, knowing your husband would likely be at work.”

He hoped his comment would direct her attention away from Kayla. When the woman continued to stare down her childhood friend, Ash decided to try a different tactic. But first, he needed to get the mother-to-be to sit or they’d all be standing in an awkward circle. Lynette Blackwell would’ve rapped the back of his head if she found him sitting in the presence of a pregnant woman.

He gestured to her spot on the sofa. “Please sit down, Ms. Collier.”

She placed a hand over her baby boulder before reluctantly doing as he requested.

“Are you disputing an estrangement with Governor Stokes prior to her death?”

“You mean murder, don’t you, Agent Blackwell?”

He said nothing. Simply stared at her. Most people were uncomfortable with silence. Conversation voids tended to be an investigator’s promised land. Interviewees attempted to fill them with chatter, which often turned up the best morsels of information.

“Look,” Linda said a few seconds later, proving him right. “I might not have agreed with all of my mother’s policies, especially her more recent ones, but I loved her and she loved me.”

“No one’s questioning your affection for your mother,” Ash said. “But your relationship with Governor Stokes changed after your father’s untimely death, correct?”

Her pale blue eyes narrowed on him. “Why exactly did you come here today?”

“My job is to help the police track down the governor’s murderer. We have to search beneath every stone, no matter how unlikely.”

Her wariness turned to shock. “You think I had something to do with her murder?” She turned on Kayla again. “Is this what you told him? That I hated my mother enough to kill her?”

“No!” Kayla reached for her friend’s hands. “It’s just . . . you’ve been so angry of late.”

She batted Kayla’s hands away and lurched to her feet again. “Leave now.”

“We’re only trying to get answers,” Kayla said, rising.

Ash followed suit. “Who told you about your parents’ argument?”

“What argument?”

“The one that sent your father to their home on Lake James.”

Linda closed her eyes. “Get out.”

“I’m sorry to upset you, Ms. Collier, but the more I know, the better able I am to do my job.”

“Someone who cared enough to tell me the truth.” She turned on Kayla. “I suppose Mom told you about Daddy’s diagnosis.”

Kayla swallowed. “It was necessary in order for me to form a strategy around?—”

“I don’t want to hear about her damn political maneuverings.” Linda swiped away a stray tear. “He was my father!” She slapped a hand over her chest as if stopping her heart from exploding out of her ribcage. “Go.”

He placed a business card on the coffee table. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Collier. If you think of anything that could help with our investigation, please give me a call.”

“Yeah, I’ll be sure and do that. Now, get out of my house.”

“Linda, please understand—” Kayla began, but Ash cut her off, motioning her toward the door.

They’d just reached the sidewalk leading to their vehicles when Linda wrenched open the front door.

Kayla turned back to her friend, hope in her eyes.

“Don’t ever, ever come back here, Kayla. We’re done.”

The door slammed shut, and Kayla closed her eyes for a moment. When they reopened, moisture glistened at the edges, but no tears fell.

Ash followed in the lobbyist’s wake, placing himself between her and the anger pulsing from within the house. Regret clamped around his chest.

He should never have brought her here. Kayla was strong, but the human body could only take so much trauma before it either broke apart or shut down.

In the span of five days, Kayla had experienced a lifetime of shock and heartbreak. Much of it because of him and his need to keep her close—and his evident inability to say no to the woman.

Both of which, he must change.