“I wish.” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m Facebook friends with Summer, a former Muskrats cheerleader. She has a cool 50’s convertible. When I drooled over her car, she mentioned knowing someone who had the Mustang in a barn. It’s very rough but it was love at first sight. My grandmother left me a small inheritance and I got a loan for the rest. I cleaned it out, got a friend to get her running for me, and planned to someday make restorations. Now the car is worse off than when I bought it.”
The hitch in her throat was impossible to ignore.
“It sounds great.” He didn’t know what to say to make anything that she’d gone through better. Her life was on a downhill slide.
“So, unless you have an extra car sitting around,” she added, “Harvey is mine for the near future.”
“Harvey?”
They both turned to the car. She exhaled loudly. “I thought if I talk to him nicely and named him, he’d to his best not to die and leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere.”
He was sure no amount of sweet-talk would keep the wreck running. “We’ll take my truck.” At least the Chevy had an engine that could take them to Mars and back.
Her jaw tightened. “No. Harvey is mine. I’m paying for him and I’m driving him.”
Deep down, he suspected that she wanted to give in and let him chauffer her around. Pride kept her from that admission. Harper had been the princess of stubborn as a teen; she’d had eleven years to move up to queen.
Figuring she’d ditch Harvey after she’d had a day of driving the rent-a-wreck around, he turned and leaned against the car. The hatch popped open. She quickly slammed it closed.
“I give,” he said. Some of her tension eased. “Let’s get to the case.” He filled her in on what he’d learned. It wasn’t much. Still, what the police had was circumstantial.
“Me and my big mouth.”
“You certainly didn’t help yourself,” he agreed. “Let’s hope they don’t find your fingerprints on the knife.”
“Not funny.” Her shoulders slumped. “I hate orange jumpsuits. They’ll make me look sickly. I should turn myself in and save the county some cash for the investigation. They’ll find me guilty anyway.”
Noah’s spine tingled. Now he was pissed off. He reached into his pocket for his keys. Without a word, he turned and headed for his truck.
“Hey!” she called and rushed after him. “Where are you going? Noah!”
He paused and looked back. “Your defeatist attitude is grating on my nerves. I hate whiners.” Her eyes widened with the verbal slap. Good. “Call me when you’re prepared to fight.”
* * * *
Outrage burned her belly. How dare he talk to her that way? She had a right to feel down, didn’t she?
He jerked open the truck door when she got clarity.
Damn. He was right, even if she wanted to punch him in the nose. Whining wouldn’t help. Whimpering in the corner with her thumb in her mouth wouldn’t help either. She had to put on her big girl skivvies and kick butt.
“Wait!” she said in her best authoritative voice. He stopped with one foot inside the truck. “Okay. I’m done whining.” He looked skeptical. “Really. Come back. Please.”
Noah seemed torn, scanned her face, and dropped his foot. With a door slam, he walked back over and pocketed his keys.
Instead of a scowl, a smile tugged his mouth. His Jedi mind game had worked. “That’s my girl.”
She wanted to remind him that she wasn’t a girl, or his for that matter, but let it go. If the big sexy hunk of a man helped save her from prison, he could call her whatever he wanted, within reason, of course. Anything said in a baby talk voice was out. That was just creepy.
“Thank you.” She smiled back. “Where do we start?”
Noah gave her a breakdown of the plan for the day. “Since Covington had so many enemies, I thought we should start with his family. They knew him before he was a world class ass.”
“I suspect he came out of the chute an ass,” she joked. “I’m surprised his mother didn’t switch him at the hospital with a nice baby. I would have.”
“Try not to go off track please.”
She sobered. “Right. Sorry. You are correct.” Time to behave. “Many murders are perpetrated by family members,” she offered. “Even if his parents didn’t kill him, they may have an idea of who would.”
“I agree.” Their investigation was off to a good start. At least they weren’t arguing and she wasn’t imagining him naked.
Shoot. She just imagined him naked.
Focus! What were the steps to solving a case? She’d watched enough murder shows that she should be able to break it down.
Harper also loved playing Clue as a kid. However, Colonel Mustard rarely bashed the victim to death with the candlestick in real life. Nor were the clues on cards.
“Gerald didn’t die in a conservatory, but the killer did use the knife.” She didn’t realize she’d said that aloud until he spoke.
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing.” Her face went warm. “Starting with his parents is an excellent plan. Do you have the address to the Covington farm?”
Staring at her like she was an unsolvable riddle, he nodded. “I do.”
“Then let’s go.” Harper heard him groan as she walked over and climbed into her rental. If nothing else, seeing Noah folded into the junker was enough to bring some satisfaction to the hurt teenage girl still lingering in Harper. It took a notch out of her desire for retribution for his past evil deeds.
Revenge was best served in a junky, messed-up rental.
The farm was about a half hour from Ann Arbor and tucked back on the property, but not far enough that the large yellow house couldn’t be seen from the road. From a distance, the house was cute. Gerald had told everyone his family came from the rich and fictitious New York Covingtons. Up close, it needed a new layer of paint and the shutters replaced. It wasn’t as if his family was living under a tarp over a manhole. The farm was quite nice.
“It’s a big spread,” Noah said as he looked out over several hundred acres of corn. Harper checked out the big red barn at the end of the driveway, just behind the house. She rarely saw barns like that anymore, still in good condition.
Most fell to ruin, replaced by metal monstrosities.
A flash of movement in front of the car caught the corner of her eye. She cried out and jammed the brakes. Noah jerked like a crash test dummy against his seat belt.
“What the hell?” he said once his teeth stopped clattering.
“Something ran in front of the car.” She unsnapped her seatbelt and hurried out. Lying on the driveway about a foot from her bumper was a plump black and white goat. Its skinny legs stood straight up in the air and its eyes were closed.
Her heart stopped. “Oh, no.”
Noah rounded the car and looked down. He tugged on one of its hooves. The animal didn’t move. “I think you killed him.” He leaned closer. “Her.”
The goat did look dead. Harper had once accidently taken out a rabbit that ran in front of her car and she had cried for an hour. This was much worse.
“Noah, I swear I didn’t hit her.” She swallowed a lump. “Wouldn’t we have felt the bump?”
“I don’t think she died of heart failure.” He shook his head sadly. “First Gerald, then his goat. When will