Quinn Sterling’s father was murdered, and the Craven County sheriff—her uncle—botched the investigation. Now too many troubling questions remain for Quinn to walk away. Instead, she leaves her career at the FBI to take on her inheritance—a 3,000-acre pecan dynasty in the South Carolina Lowcountry. As the only heir she assumes the reins of the family business—while keeping an eye on her father’s cold case, and her toe in the old game as a private investigator.
With her two childhood friends, one now a caretaker of Sterling Banks, and the other a deputy sheriff, she managed to hold everything together until a blind client and a mentor from her early days pull her into a case that will jeopardize her friends, her farm, and her legacy, not to mention her life when her past meets her present.
Chapter 1
LATE. SHE NEVER did late.
Quinn slammed
her truck door and trotted across the gravel lot, the condition of her work
boots forgotten until she reached the entrance and noticed the crap. Brown
clumps of it, too, peeking out around the edges of her soles.
Rubbing her feet
across pine straw beside the cement landing of the bar, she gave up after
scraping off most of it. She ran hands over the red mess of hair she hadn’t had
time to tame back at the farm. Taking two clips out that she had shoved into
her pocket from the Ford’s cup holder, she blew the hay dust off them and did a
second once-over of the parking lot as she laid her hair flat and out of her
face.
Parked two
widths away from the nearest vehicle, a champagne- colored BMW shouted its
presence, as did the mid-to-late-forties man waiting behind the steering wheel.
No doubt her client’s driver, because nobody in her county had money to flaunt
like that.
She took a
breath and put on her interview face.
Once inside, her
eyes had to adjust from the blue-sky sun to the dark-paneled interior of
Jackson Hole. The bar functioned as a hometown diner midday, when the owner’s
infamous cayenne fried chicken aroma filled the air. Ringing an order, Lenore
Jackson looked up from her prepping behind the counter and snapped a tiny nod
to her right, to the back corner where the kitchen door opened and closed,
hiding the last booth. Quinn’s table of choice.
The meet was for
eleven thirty. It was ten past that. Quinn usually arrived early to watch her
clients come in. One could tell a lot about a person by how they approached a
private investigator, usually crossing into a world they had no clue about...
were scared to death of... or more rarely, felt they could
leverage for their own personal gain.
She’d had one of
the latter types in her early days, and it was the only one she ever intended
to have. The guy she’d been hired to run down got pummeled by her client over a
girl. Left the poor guy looking nothing like his driver’s license picture...
permanently.
The current
potential client presented as the age noted in Quinn’s research—thirty.
Birthday last month. Tinted glasses, slacks, and sharp- as-hell boots. Leather
jacket. Blond hair with a cut that appeared just unruly enough to seem natural
and probably cost a hundred dollars paid to a fancy stylist. She was nursing a
coffee.
A jet-black
German shepherd lay at her feet, head up, blending into the dark floor and shadows.
Lenore didn’t let animals in her place. Service dog? Guard dog? None of that
had come out in the background check.
As Quinn
approached, the lady half rose, held out her hand, and smiled. "Hey, Catherine
Renault. You must be Quinn Sterling.”
Quinn took the
offered hand. A moderate shake, neither inhibited nor assertive. "Yes. Sorry
I’m late. Emergency.”
With sufficient
dismay, Catherine sat. "Gracious, I hope nothing serious.”
The dog watched.
Eighty-five pounds of patience, especially with food pouring out of the
kitchen.
Quinn turned her
full attention from the dog to the woman. "A scare, but all’s fine. Thanks for
the concern.” She chose not to explain the details of a llama’s difficult birth
and the reason for the small blood spatter she just noticed on her right jean
leg.
Most folks
envisioned a PI as only a PI, like on TV. When not on cases, they holed up
drinking in a seedy apartment on the sleazy side of town or wore out the same
stool in their friend’s bar, commiserating over a dark discretion. Paying
penance for the rest of their lives. Living for investigations because they had
nothing else to live for. Or everything to atone for.
But with
twenty-seven hundred acres to her name on the south end of Craven County, Quinn
was happy to miss the stereotype by a mile. She was, to quote the bio last
reported by a local paper, "a thirty-four- year-old heiress of a working pecan
farm dating back to a 1709 British land grant to her ancestors.” In other
words, she was the last heir of the oldest family in the oldest county in the
state of South Carolina. The Sterling Banks Plantation was bordered by the
Edisto River on one side and the Ashepoo River to the southwest.
Definitely not
the stereotypical PI.
Not to say she
didn’t have a past with assorted regrets.
Quinn began the
meet. Breaking bread usually made people relax and show more of their hand.
"You want something to eat? I’m sure you caught a whiff of Ms. Lenore’s
chicken. My regular is a double side of the okra and a piece of cornbread.” She
waved at Lenore who held up a finger that she’d be there in a moment.
"Um, no thanks.”
Catherine gripped her cup. "Coffee’s fine.”
Hmm, no more
smile. Her problem apparently back to the front of her mind.
Lenore appeared,
placed iced tea in front of Quinn then wiped her hands on a deep-red apron.
"Okra?”
"See?” Quinn
said, tipping her chin at their waitress. "Yes’m. Just one helping.”
"You been
working outside?” Lenore asked.
Quinn touched
her hair, then her t-shirt, and pulled her denim jacket closer in front to cover
any stains. "Why?”
"Just means you
need two helpings, is all,” she said. "It’s spring. Guessing you’re dropping
babies on Sterling Banks.”
"You talked me
into it.”
The client’s
interest piqued. "Babies?”
"The family
farm.” Quinn hesitated letting folks know she owned a plantation. Like being
born into a legacy made her less of an investigator because she wasn’t broke
and desperate for money.
Lenore left with her all-knowing grin and hollered hello at two middle- aged guys in work khakis who’d just
come in. She motioned them to sit at a table conveniently distant from the
booth. Lenore was Quinn’s unofficial personal assistant and had known her from
the time she’d skinned her first knee.
Relaxing in
hopes of Catherine doing the same, Quinn took out a small notepad already with
two pages of scribble. Recorders came later, when a case was in full throttle.
Right now, this was about Miss Renault proving herself to the PI as much as the
PI proving herself to the client.
"Is your daddy
Ronald Renault, stockbroker with an office on Broad Street in Charleston?” The
family had multi-generational roots in the Holy City.
A big sigh.
"Yes. That’s me.”
Daddy’s address
said enough, but Quinn knew of him. He was loaded.
A glass fell, and Catherine turned, light catching the tanzanite
necklace that, along with
the three rings on her hands, could cost as much as the Beemer outside. Not
wise to flaunt such wealth, but then she came with a driver/bodyguard and a
beast of a dog.
Since Daddy
could afford the biggest, baddest investigative firm in the state, baby girl
wanted to keep something on the down low coming to Quinn. And Catherine’d had
to ask around to find Quinn, because she didn’t advertise.
The dog had
lowered his head. Only his eyes moved, working the room.
"Now,” Quinn
said, moving her tea aside. "What’s this all about?”
Catherine’s eyes
fell. Some embarrassment, maybe. "My partner is missing.”
Quinn waited.
Silence worked wonders with people afraid to talk. They filled in the emptiness
with words... and more information than they originally
planned to give.
Catherine took
little time to spill more. "We entered into this... business
arrangement.”
Quinn waited.
"He was to meet
potential investors in Savannah.”
Here we go.
"And he’s
missing,” she said, strong emphasis on the last word. "I need you to find him.
And I know how it sounds,” she threw in.
Quinn tried to
make eye contact again. "What do you mean when you say missing?”
Catherine looked
up, but Quinn saw no tears. "It means he hasn’t returned my calls for three
weeks, and I haven’t seen him in a month. He never came home from Savannah.”
Home. "Are you living together?”
A tiny flinch.
"Yes. He moved into my place two months ago. He’s quite intelligent and has an
idea for a series of phone apps that’s brilliant. He wanted to speak to Daddy
about the concept, but I told him no. My father would steal an idea like that.”
Looked funny for
a rich woman to snap fingers.
"Did you have
him checked out before you... got involved?” Rich people did
that.
"Of course.” She
pushed her hair back, and life returned to her voice. "He established two other
apps on his own and did well. Just didn’t have the financial backing to take
him where he could be.”
Quinn pretended
to scribble. "How did you meet him?”
"We ran into each other in Marion Square. Downtown Charleston?”
"I’m familiar,”
Quinn said. "You frequently stroll alone like that?”
"I had Nero,”
she said, lowering a hand to touch the dog’s head that had risen at the sound
of his name. "And my driver, of course. I’m sure you saw him in the car.”
Quinn nodded.
"What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
The girl sat
back. "I’d rather not say yet. Just call him Mitchell for now.”
Quinn sat back
as well. "Why are you here then if not for me to find Mitchell?”
"I’m checking
you out.”
"You did that
before you came here. I might be somewhat of a recluse, but I’m not a secret.
Like you, I can’t hide from my name either.”
"I’m feelingyou out, then.”
"Likewise, Miss
Renault. We have to trust each other for this to work.”
Catherine’s hand
still lay on the dog, rubbing as if for reassurance.
Quinn closed her
notepad and tucked it away. "Sounds like a situation for the police anyway. I
don’t take every case, and you don’t trust easily. Doesn’t feel like a fit.”
Lenore surely read the body language, because she tactfully appeared with the okra, piled hot and crispy in
a big soup bowl. She reached over Quinn, snared the hot sauce from a caddie,
and set it next to the bowl. "Made that new batch just for you, honey.” She
turned to the guest. "Now, sure I can’t get you something?”
Catherine shook
her head, giving a tight smile in afterthought. Lenore robotically refilled the
coffee before leaving, Catherine’s hands backing away suddenly from the cup.
Popping an okra
morsel in her mouth, Quinn watched the mental tug-of-war playing out across the
table. She ate another morsel. Then another. She’d let this play out until the
okra was gone, then she was done. Jule needed her back at the farm.
Quinn wiped her
mouth. "You’re avoiding your daddy, aren’t sure of Mitchell, and seem quite
reluctant to talk. This guy screwed you over, and you don’t know how to face
it. Cut your losses and move on, I say. He take much money?”
"Yes,” she said. "But I’ve already changed my bank accounts, stopped the two credit cards, and cut off funds,
because I was worried someone had taken advantage of him.”
In love with
serious blinders on.
Nope. This was
not a case to accept.
"He loves me for
who I am,” Catherine said, pleading. "That’s why I’m sure he’s hurt, kidnapped,
maybe even dead. He wouldn’t take advantage. That’s not who Mickey is.”
Quinn caught the
slip into the familiar. "Sounds like you really trust the guy.”
Her okra was
half gone.
Catherine’s
chest pressed against the table. "I do. To the core of my being, Ms. Sterling.”
Silence drifted
into a sniffle from across the table. Might be real.
Jackson Hole was
almost full, lunch at its peak, when a uniform walked in. "Hey, Ty,” echoed
across the room from assorted tables.
Sheriff’s
deputies wore khakis in Craven County. Too hot to wear black, navy, or dark
brown in the muggy South Carolina Lowcountry, with Jacksonboro only forty-five
minutes from Edisto Beach by road, twenty by boat on the Edisto River, with
decent horsepower. Being April, the department had already shifted to short
sleeves.
Quinn
nodded at the tall, dark-skinned, broad-shouldered uniform. He tipped his head
in return and bellied up to the bar. Unasked, Lenore poured him a Coke and
disappeared into the kitchen but not before drawing his head down and kissing
her son on the brow. Quinn smiled warmly at what was Lenore’s standard greeting
for Tyson Jackson and recalled how the gesture used to humiliate the hell out
of him.
Now
the humiliation was countywide. Jackson Hole sat a half-mile off the main highway,
but close enough for every kind of person to make the drive. Lenore had quite
the blended crowd in both occupation, social standing, and racial mix.
Quinn
popped another okra in her mouth. Only five bites to go.
"Catherine,”
she finally said, aiming to wrap up this meeting. "What’s your gut telling you?
Not your heart... your gut. Did Mitchell scam you, or is
something really wrong? If you think he’s been hurt, then why? Someone have a
grudge with him? With you? I take it there’s been no ransom demand.”
"No, nobody’s called, emailed, nothing.” Catherine seemed
to ponder for a second.
"And nobody’s mad at either of us that I’m aware of. I mean...
it’s phone apps.”
Money
was money, whether phone apps or gold ingots. It turned some people ugly. Quinn
studied her for a long second, seeing this chat as anything but transparent.
"Would your dad take steps against your choice of beau?”
A
lot of head shaking. "No, no, no. Daddy doesn’t even know about Mitchell.”
"Or
that’s what he wants you to think.”
More
head shaking. "Nope. Don’t believe Daddy’s involved. He has too much going on
in his own life.”
All
the answers too cut and dried.
"You’ve
cut Mitchell totally off?”
"Yes,”
she said, appearing to hang on to what Quinn might say next.
