Dead Right by Brenda Novak

precisely why she wouldn’t leave. She couldn’t risk missing something that would final y unravel the mystery.
    “You’re going to force me to say it, aren’t you?” Elaine murmured.
    Madeline put the skier inside her drawer. Things were difficult enough these days without such a vivid reminder of Kirk and how much more comfortable her life had been with him in it. She’d thought she might get a cal from him once he heard the news about her father’s car. Lord knows everyone else had cal ed. But he was obviously as determined as she was to make the split permanent. “Say what?” she replied.
    “That I think you might be right about the Montgomerys.”
    Madeline forgot about Kirk and the skier. “In what way?”
    “Maybe they aren’t to blame for…whatever happened.”
    Last summer, when the district attorney had dropped the charges against Clay, the Vincel is hadn’t hol ered as loudly as Madeline had expected them to, but this was a complete reversal. “Are you serious?”
    “Would I joke about something like that?”
    Definitely not. Elaine Vincel i didn’t joke about anything.
    “Joe and Roger stil think Clay’s guilty,” Madeline said.
    “Have they been causing trouble?”
    The ominous note in her aunt’s voice suggested there’d be repercussions for Joe and Roger if they had—and Elaine could definitely make good on such a threat.
    Although both men were in their early thirties, Roger lived at home, and Joe, divorced twice from the same woman, lived in a house near Stil water Sand & Gravel, the business owned by his parents. Joe and Roger worked for mom and pop, too. Madeline doubted anyone else would hire them.
    They spent too much time drinking, gambling, fighting and chasing women.
    “They were pretty adamant at the quarry,” Madeline said.
    “I’l talk to them,” she promised. “But I, for one, hate to see you disrupt your life yet again with al this business about your father. I’m your aunt.” She waved imperiously.
    “You should al ow me to advise you. And I think it’s time we al moved on.”
    Now? When the Cadil ac had just been found? This was the first break they’d had. “What about the things in his trunk?” Madeline asked. “We can’t shrug our shoulders and walk away.”
    “Let it go!” Elaine nearly shook a finger in Madeline’s face.
    “Why?” Madeline asked.
    Her aunt wrapped her coat tighter around her and headed for the door. “Just listen to me, for a change.”

    headed for the door. “Just listen to me, for a change.”

    Let it go…
    Madeline tried to throw off the foreboding caused by her aunt’s words as she stood at the airport in Nashvil e, waiting for Hunter Solozano. She was late but, fortunately, so was his plane. The storm had been responsible for a lot of delays. She was surrounded by crowds of people, many of whom shifted restlessly, shook off their wet umbrel as or held up signs designating the name of the person or party they’d come to meet.
    She wished she’d taken the time to make a sign. She had no idea what Hunter looked like. From his grouchy voice, she imagined an overweight middle-aged man with a receding hairline, saggy jowls and thick, sausagelike fingers. But when Hunter’s plane final y arrived and the passengers streamed into the baggage claim area, the only person she saw who even remotely resembled that mental picture was immediately approached by someone else.
    As the passengers found their baggage and drifted away, Madeline began to worry that Hunter had missed his flight.
    It wasn’t a pleasant thought after driving three hours in the pouring rain.

    She got her cel phone from her purse, checked her signal strength and punched in his number. Who needed a cardboard sign in this day and age? She’d simply cal him.
    If he’d actual y arrived, she’d tel him to meet her at the fifth carousel. And if he hadn’t—
    For al her aunt’s dire warnings, she didn’t want to even think about the fact that he might not