That was a death threat in Dylan’s book.
And now Sam Whittleson was properly dead.
The first shooting had never gone to trial, a fact that irked the hell out of local cops, including him. Louisa Fairchild with her overpriced lawyers and swanky PR team had claimed self-defense, wangling a deal with Whittleson’s legal counsel that saw Whittleson dropping charges against Louisa for fear of being prosecuted for trespassing and assault himself.
But the homicide team now had witnesses who’d seen Louisa Fairchild’s dark-gray Holden fleeing Lochlain the night of the blaze and murder. The soil in the tires of her truck confirmed she had been there.
And the fire-damaged murder weapon had finally been recovered from the crime-scene rubble—a Smith & Wesson .38. The gun was currently being processed by forensics techs, and a serial number should be legible before the day was out, which meant the weapon could be traced.
Quite possibly right back to Louisa Fairchild.
Dylan would have been happier to have known for a fact the murder weapon belonged to Louisa.
Instead he’d been sent in prematurely. To squeeze her, bring her in for questioning, rattle her cage, find anything that would allow the NSW police enough to hold her for trial while they built their case.
Right. And who was going to take the fall if the weapon wasn’t hers, if the charges didn’t stick?
Dylan pinched the bridge of his nose.
He could see himself going down as the scapegoat on this one. Once those APEC stories started dying back from national headlines, this was going to be the news.
A small fist of tension curled in his gut as he caught sight of the bronze-and-red Fairchild logo emblazoned on massive stone pillars flanking the entrance to the estate. Dylan’s jaw tightened as he signaled to the guard his intent to enter and swung into a driveway lined for almost a mile with mature jacarandas that knitted branches in a canopy over the hardpacked dirt.
On either side of him white fencing trailed across acres of dry grassland that was being cut to the quick for fear of bushfire, the tractors boiling soft clouds of dust that blew like spindrift. But as he neared the manor house and saw sprinklers shooting long white staccato arcs over lush emeraldgreen lawns and vibrant flower beds, Dylan’s acrimony bit deeper.
Louisa Fairchild defied even the drought.
There were severe irrigation restrictions on the river. She was likely pumping water from Lake Dingo which belonged, allegedly, to a dead man.
A man she might have killed. For this very water. For the stud farm she was still trying to snatch out from under his family.
Dylan reminded himself to bury his personal hatred of Louisa Fairchild. It could cost him down the road if his animosity got in the way of her arrest.
The mobile phone on his belt buzzed as he pulled into the circular gravel driveway.
He reached for it, checked caller ID. Heidi. Probably calling to pester him about that party she was desperate to go to tonight. Or the private art school in Sydney she suddenly so passionately wanted to attend.
Dylan let the call flip to voice mail, feeling the tension in his gut wind tighter as he pulled to a stop.
His kid might be as fickle as the wind, but she’d also had a rough ride lately, nearly losing her own horse in the Lochlain fire. Yet no matter how Dylan tried to help, Heidi was throwing up barriers, acting out, making additional demands. She’d just have to wait until he got home tonight, because right now he had a potential career-breaker on his hands.
And Heidi wasn’t going to have a future if this case ended up taking him down.
He got out of the squad car, adjusted his gun belt, and put on his hat. It was unusually hot for an autumn evening. He squinted into the haze, waiting for backup from the neighboring Scone station to arrive.
He’d asked for a female cop to help him execute the warrant. What he’d gotten was Ron Peebles, a probationary constable on the job for all of three weeks.
Already things were going sideways, Dylan thought as he watched a plume of dust rise behind the squad car approaching in the distance.
Constable Peebles drew up alongside Dylan’s vehicle, got out, his movements taut. It was the young rookie’s first arrest and it showed.
“Ready?” Dylan said.
Dry gum leaves clattered suddenly in a gust of hot wind, and a flock of lorikeets burst from the branches in an explosion of color as they took flight and darted through the sprinklers.
Peebles tensed, cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m ready,” he said, looking everything but.
Boots crunching over the gravel driveway, they made their way to the entrance of the massive stone-and-stucco mansion, built ten years ago. Dylan still remembered the old house. He’d played on this farm as a kid with his brother Liam and their friend Henry. That was many years back, before Liam had been murdered.
He climbed the stairs to the door, chest tightening. He glanced at Peebles standing slightly to the side of the door, feet planted square, hand near his weapon. Peebles nodded.
Dylan rang the bell.
A great booming clang resounded inside the house, and the door swung open, two blue heelers barreling out.
“Officer Hastings?” Louisa’s housekeeper, Geraldine Lipton, regarded them with a frown.
“G’day, Mrs. Lipton,” he said. “Is Miss Fairchild in?”
Her eyes darted to Peebles, then back to Dylan, hand tightening on the brass doorknob as she pulled the door slightly closed. “Miss Fairchild is busy riding,” she said tersely. “And then she’ll be busy packing. She leaves for London tomorrow.”
Dylan flashed Peebles a look—a definite flight risk. “It’s important we speak to her immediately, ma’am,” he said.
The pinkness of irritability reached up Mrs. Lipton’s neck and into her cheeks. “Why don’t you wait in the library, officers?” she said curtly. “I’ll see if Miss Fairchild can meet with you.”
Dylan removed his hat as they followed the stout housekeeper in her starched navy-and-white uniform through a vaulted hallway decorated with broad-leafed plants, sleek sculptures and breezy rattan furniture. The decor had been redone since Dylan had been here last winter. It looked cold to him. But then they didn’t pay him to pick out color swatches and match drapes. That was his ex’s department.
The thought of Sally shot a familiar jolt of annoyance through him that compounded his feeling of ill will toward Louisa, the past suddenly crowding in on him.
Mrs. Lipton threw open a set of solid old jarrah-wood doors, ushering the two men into the library of polished wood, leather furniture, antique tomes, old art and a general aura of established wealth.
Dylan immediately eyed the elaborate, glassed-in gun collection beyond the fireplace. If Louisa’s Smith & Wesson was in that cabinet he was going to have a problem. It would mean the pistol they had in the lab belonged to someone else.
Again, he cursed that he’d been forced to move prematurely. He needed the serial number on that murder weapon.
“Can I send for some tea while you wait?” The housekeeper’s voice remained tight.
“No. Thank you,” Dylan said, striding into the vast room where Sam Whittleson had come damn near to getting himself shot to death the first time.
Late-afternoon sunlight streamed in through French doors open to the patio, the water in the pool outside