Entitled to Murder (Hawg Heaven Cozy Mysteries Book 6) Read online

  The décor consisted of motorcycle logos: flames painted on the walls, motorcycle seat barstools, hand-scraped, reclaimed wood flooring, and other manly items. The focus of the menu was pork of every kind: bacon, sausage, chops, loin, ham, and of course barbeque, with plenty of luscious sides. The business had done so well that it had been featured on a television show hosted by a famous chef who traveled the world, finding the best food in out of the way places. The show had brought in such a tremendous amount of business that Rossalyn had hired Ashley and was looking at expanding the dining room.

  “Habañero and ham chili, topped with smoky gouda, chives and bacon,” José announced proudly, blushing a little bit when he glanced in Ashley’s direction. “You hungry, Ms. Rossalyn? I can whip up some of our new breakfast sausage with eggs and a side of fried cornbread,” he offered, noting his boss’s pallor.

  “Nah, I’ll just grab some coffee for now, thanks,” Rossie gave him a tender smile, realizing his concern. José and Garrett had become like family since coming to work for her, and she appreciated them more than words could say.

  “Once I start cooking and you smell it, you might change your mind,” he pointed his spatula at her, determined to make her laugh. It worked.

  “Maybe so,” she chuckled. “But for now, I’ll be in the back making phone calls to contractors.”

  “We have everything covered, Ms. Rossalyn,” a bright-eyed and caffeinated Ashley assured her. “Just do what you need to do.”

  “Thanks, Ash,” Rossie smiled.

  ***

  “I hate this,” Rossalyn muttered, after having spoken with three different contractors. “They know that I’m a woman, so they speak to me as though I couldn’t possibly understand anything about construction.”

  She dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her throbbing temples. She was tired, hungry, a bit dehydrated, and very much deflated after having spent the morning on the phone. All she wanted was to secure estimates for a dining room extension for the restaurant, but it was so tedious setting up the appointments and expressing her vision for the project. Ashley had come and gone several times, refreshing her coffee and bringing her little treats from José. The morsels were delicious, but she could only nibble; despite the groans from her midsection, her appetite had left when Will arrived, and food turned to sand in her mouth.

  Rossalyn was a bit surprised when Garrett came to the door of her office and knocked tentatively.

  “Ms. Rossalyn?” he asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yes, Garrett, what is it?” she smiled encouragingly at the shy young man.

  “There’s a police officer here to see you, ma’am.”

  Rossie’s heart leapt to her throat. “Why?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell us, but his face seemed really serious,” was the earnest reply.

  “Okay,” she nodded, standing. “Thank you, Garrett.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, then ducked out to get back to the kitchen, where the afternoon rush was being handled efficiently.

  Rossalyn sighed inwardly when she saw Sheriff Buckley Willis waiting for her, mouth pursed, thumbs hooked into his gun belt, clearly not pleased.

  “Good morning, Sheriff,” she pasted a smile on her face, determined to make the encounter a pleasant one if at all possible, despite the lawman’s irascible disposition. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “No, it ain’t a good morning, and all the dang coffee in the world ain’t gonna make it one,” he grumbled, dashing her hopes for a positive interaction.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked, all business now, hoping that whatever was stuck in his craw had nothing to do with her.

  “Got a kid missing,” he made a face and Rossie’s blood ran cold.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “Ryan…?”

  “Yeah, your kid is involved. Folks seen him around town and in the woods with the missing kid. Gotta talk to him, and since he’s a minor, we can’t do that without you there,” he gave her an accusatory glare, as if that particular law were somehow her fault.

  “Oh,” Rossie was ashamed at the flood of relief that rippled through her when she realized that it was someone else’s child who was missing, not her own. Her heart ached for the parents of the missing kid, but she thanked her lucky stars that Ryan was safe. “Of course, we’ll help in any way that we can. What do you need me to do?”

  “You can either bring the kid down to the Sheriff’s Department, or we can interview him at home. It’s up to you, but it needs to happen yesterday. The longer we take on the investigation, the less our chances are of finding the kid alive, if he ain’t already dead.”

  A chill ran up and down Rossalyn’s spine at the harsh words, and her stomach turned over.

  “Let’s do this at home. I’ll let my staff know what’s going on, and I’ll head there immediately.”

  “Make it quick,” Willis gave his parting order and strode briskly toward the door.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  *

  Will Channing, known in another life as covert operative Darryl Janssen, had a worse night than his wife, Rossalyn. She’d slept fitfully, for only a few hours at a time, and had awoken feeling drained and weary. He hadn’t slept a wink, his eyes stubbornly refusing to close as his heart broke. He hadn’t known what to expect from his wife, but it certainly hadn’t been a look of horror, then harsh, guttural sobbing, followed by a faint. His Rossie had never looked more beautiful when he found her, injured and alone. Her hair was tangled, and her face was smudged with dirt after he rescued her from the ravages of the tornado, but to him she looked like an angel. His angel.

  Rossalyn was Will Channing’s love in life. She was his reason for being and living and breathing, but he suddenly realized that he didn’t know her anymore. She’d moved forward in her life and was a successful businesswoman and capable single mother. It seemed as though she didn’t have room for him in her life, particularly after she’d ignored his calls and texts for the past several days. He didn’t know what to do, or how to reach his distant beloved, and was beginning to think that coming back had all been one big mistake.

  What had he been thinking? Clearly he wasn’t ready to assimilate back into normal family life, heck, probably not even normal human life. He’d been living alone, on the run for so long, that he didn’t even know how to act around people anymore. When he’d finished his last assignment for Command, he’d stayed in the shadows, trying to forget the horrors he’d seen, trying to erase the atrocities that he’d participated in, all in the name of freedom and justice. Command found him eventually, but rather than pressing him back into service, they released him, unconditionally, with the caveat that he might receive future requests for assignments, which he’d be free to turn down.

  While he’d been hiding from the government, he’d had a legitimate reason not to go back to Rossie and Ryan, since home would be the first place that Command would look for him. Then Command released him, and he no longer had to run or hide… from the government at least. Nightmares still haunted him regularly. He’d awake from slumber in a cold sweat, often with a barely suppressed scream on his lips. He looked for deception in the eyes of every stranger, and looked for obstacles and dangers in even the most common situations and circumstances. Convincing himself that he’d be more of a hindrance than a help to his family, he’d lived off the land, sometimes coming to the aid of fellow covert operatives, sometimes retreating from all human interaction for months on end.

  Will Channing was not the same man who had kissed his wife and son goodbye years ago to go on assignment. He’d been changed, profoundly, and he didn’t know if he was capable of functioning normally now. Rossie hadn’t known about his top secret missions; she and the rest of the world were under the impression that Will Channing was just another Marine Corps officer. They had no idea of the torture that covert operative Darryl Janssen had endured, and how it stayed with him even now that he was back in Will’s world.

  Nothing in hi
s education, indoctrination, or debriefing had prepared him even remotely for his present reality. Most covert ops guys stayed undercover, and most of them died young. Will had survived war and heinous acts, and was now uncertain as to how he’d fare as a civilian. Thoughts of his lovely, intelligent, and talented wife, and their perfect son, brought tears to his eyes. He wondered how they saw him now. He was scarred and torn, inside and out. Did they still see him as the Will that he had been, or the Janssen that he’d become?

  Sitting on the floor of his tiny rented house, a six-pack of craft beer at his side, Will uncapped one of the brews and took a long pull at it, relishing the cold burn of carbonation in his throat. He didn’t drink much, as he couldn’t allow himself to fall too far into the abyss of self-medication, but he enjoyed a good beer as much as the next guy, maybe even more now.

  Nothing made him forget what he’d been through. Not beer, not Rossie and Ryan, not the memories of what life used to be. There were vivid visions of hell on earth that flashed through his brain on a daily basis, and no matter what he did or didn’t do, they never went away.

  A rapping on the thin door to the shabby little home didn’t rattle him, didn’t even really startle him, it just brought all of his senses into an immediate laser-focused state of readiness. He looked at the doorknob, ready to spring if necessary. There were few people in the world capable of containing him, and as far as he knew, none of them were currently seeking him out.

  “Janssen,” a familiar voice muttered. “It’s Hundman, open the door. We’ve got a few things to talk about.”

  Will had served with Hundman, and knew that he was a quality human being, despite his rough manner and intimidating countenance. He also recognized his voice before he’d said his name. Some things you just don’t forget.

  He sighed, tipped his bottle upward and chugged down the last few sips of his beer, then headed for the door.

  “What?” he asked quietly when he saw the mountain of a man on his doorstep.

  “I’m coming in, Janssen. We gotta talk.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  *

  “Do you know this boy?” Sheriff Buckley Willis shoved a photo of Wentworth Brigman in front of Ryan.

  Ryan, rubbing gently on one of Barney’s soft ears, nodded slowly, eyes large.

  “Yeah, kinda,” he said softly.

  “Kinda? You can’t kinda know someone. Either you know him or you don’t, which is it?” the sheriff demanded.

  “I met him yesterday. We hung out, that’s all,” Ryan frowned, not wanting to be impolite, but feeling defensive.

  “I should say you did. We got witnesses that place the two of you at the ice cream shop, the video game store, and the woods,” Willis returned the frown, peering at Ryan over the top of his glasses.

  “Witnesses?” Ryan’s voice cracked. “But, we didn’t do anything wrong, I swear. Dubya didn’t have any money, so I bought us both some ice cream, that’s it.”

  “Dubya?” the sheriff stared hard at Ryan. “So you only ‘kinda’ knew him, but you called him by a nickname?”

  “His real name is long and lame. He doesn’t like it.”

  “I bet,” Willis made a face and sucked the spaces between his teeth.

  “It’s true,” Ryan protested, his voice rising.

  “Of course it’s true,” Rossalyn put a hand on her son’s knee as a signal to let her take over. “Did something happen, Sheriff? We’d both really like to help, but we have no idea what’s going on here,” she said as politely as she could, setting an example for her son, despite the fact that she was seething inside at the unusually harsh way the sheriff was behaving.

  Willis swung his gaze over to Rossie, clearly resenting her interjection into the interrogation.

  “Yes, something happened. This boy,” he shook the photo at her. “This boy disappeared yesterday. Your son was the last one who saw him, and we need to know everything this kid said and did while they were together. We need to know if anyone was following them, or if the kid called anyone, or if they saw anything suspicious at all. Until I get some answers here, I’m just gonna have to keep your family in mind as potential persons of interest in this case,” the sheriff threatened.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Rossalyn scolded Buckley Willis, unable to help herself. “He’s a teenager, for crying out loud. It’s not like he kidnapped someone and hid him away somewhere,” she frowned deeply.

  “Unless of course he had help,” the sheriff raised an eyebrow, accusing her without saying a word.

  “I have a concrete alibi. Lots of witnesses saw me working my fingers to the bone last night, and for you to imply otherwise is just malicious.” Rossalyn was furious.

  The sheriff turned back to Ryan, knowing that it would further fan the flames of Rossie’s ire.

  “Now, what kind of stuff did he say to you? I want word for word, as much as you can remember,” he instructed, taking out his phone and a stylus to take notes.

  “He said he was bored, and that he lived here, but he went to boarding school in New York. He didn’t like it because the other guys made fun of him. Guess that’s why we became friends,” Ryan murmured, lost in thought and now worried about Dubya.

  “Did he mention anyone, by name, that he had a problem with in school?” Willis probed.

  “Nope.”

  “Did he talk about his life at home?”

  “Yeah, he said his mom and dad are gone all the time, and when they’re not gone, they’re working. He doesn’t really know them that well. He has a housekeeper named Anna who’s more like a mom to him, and there’s a butler that’s always on his case about everything.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He reads a ton of books. He’s like the smartest kid I’ve ever met, and he really likes fudge brownie ice cream,” Ryan finished sounding wistful.

  The sheriff sighed and looked as though he was really trying hard to keep from rolling his eyes.

  “Did he say anything that seemed strange at all? Anything out of the ordinary?”

  “He doesn’t use money. That’s kinda weird. Oh, and his school has a swimming team, and he’s on it. I don’t even know how that would work,” the teenager shook his head.

  “Doesn’t use money?” the sheriff frowned, stylus in mid-air.

  “Yeah, he said he doesn’t need it. Stuff is just always taken care of.”

  “Had you ever seen him before yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “Did he borrow your cellphone at all?”

  “No.”

  “Were the two of you ever in separate locations during the afternoon?”

  “Nope.”

  “What time did you leave to come home after hanging out?”

  “Just before seven.”

  “Are you sure?” Willis leaned in, staring down at Ryan.

  “Positive.”

  “How can you be so sure?” the sheriff demanded, skeptical.

  “Because Mom usually gets home around eight, and I make sure I’m home just after seven so that I’m here when she comes in with leftovers from the restaurant. José is a really good cook.”

  “Did he try to contact you at any time since you left him?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see which direction he walked in when you left?”

  “Yes. He walked toward the water. He said he was going to take a short swim and get cooled off before he walked home.”

  “And you didn’t join him?”

  “I wouldn’t have been home at eight if I had joined him,” Ryan shrugged.

  “And you expect me to believe that you gave up a chance to swim on a hot summer evening with a friend, because you wanted to be home when your mommy got in with barbeque?” Willis mocked him.

  Rossalyn was about to tear into the sheriff, but Ryan beat her to the punch, making her proud.

  “The truth is true whether you believe it or not, Sheriff. And I haven’t called my mom ‘Mommy’ since pre-school,” the teenager’s gaze was
cool and unwavering.

  Shocked, Rossalyn had to work at not allowing her mouth to fall open in delight at the way that her son had handled this particular bully. Goodness knew he’d had enough practice at it.

  Buckley Willis’s jaw flexed as he considered how to handle the response. He went with dismissing it altogether.

  “Can you think of anything he said or did, that might be important for me to know?” the sheriff growled, an edge of frustration in his voice over having been bested by a thirteen-year-old.

  “Oh, yeah, his feet hurt. The shoes that he was wearing were too tight, and they weren’t the right shoes for walking around in the woods.”

  “And why do you think that that’s an important detail?”

  “I have no idea. I just thought that it was strange for him to being wearing church shoes outside in the summer time.”

  “Some people actually buy real shoes,” the sheriff commented, gazing down with distaste at Ryan’s duct-taped tennis shoes, which had clearly seen better days.

  “Some people can actually afford to,” Rossie snapped. “Is there anything else, Sheriff?” she gave him a pointed look.

  “Not right now, but boy, you need to be thinking long and hard about your day yesterday. We gotta find this kid,” he said grimly, the look on his face causing Rossie and Ryan grave concern for Wentworth’s well-being.

  CHAPTER SIX

  *

  It looked as though every citizen of Chatsworth had come out to help search for Wentworth Brigman the Third. Rossie, Tom, and Ryan were among them, as were José, Garrett, and Ashley. The mood was grim, and there was an eerie hush over the town as groups of people formed lines, walking slowly side by side, to search the woods and the Brigmans’ grounds. The worried parents had returned early from a trip to Switzerland, and had offered quite a large sum of money to anyone who provided information leading to the rescue of their son.

  “What if we don’t find him, Mom?” Ryan whispered, with a concerned frown.

  “Honey, with all these people looking, if there’s something to be found, there’s a good chance that someone will see it.”