Read Online Nowhere to Hide by Nancy Bush - Free Book Online

do.”
    “Yeah . . .” September said, though she had no intention of doing so at all.
    “If Dalton tries to do a little two-step, we might have to meet this deputy face-to-face and discover his level of incompetence firsthand.”
    “Dempsey didn’t tell him about Westerly or much of anything else,” September reminded her.
    “Dalton didn’t do shit,” Gretchen retorted. Then, “Maybe it is better if you talk to him.”
    Ya think? September wisely kept that to herself as well.
    As soon as she got back to the station she put in a call to the deputy, who wasn’t in at the moment, so September was invited to leave a message. She told Dalton’s voice mail who she was and that she was following up on Sheila Dempsey’s homicide. After leaving her cell number, she hung up.
    Next, she checked for Jake Westerly through her own computer and came up with an address not all that far from her apartment complex, and a number that, by the exchange, was clearly his cell.
    Should she call him? Stop by? She didn’t even know what the hell he was doing any longer, and wondered if she should revive her Facebook account and see if she could find him that way. She’d deactivated the account, which she only sporadically looked at anyway, after she’d received the artwork.
    The artwork . . . Jake Westerly. He’d been a classmate of hers in second grade and pretty much every grade since. But there were a lot of kids who’d gone all the way through elementary school and high school with September. Jake was just the one who’d made the biggest impression on her. She, Auggie, and May had been enrolled in public school after their father had gotten in a furious wrangle with the administration of the exclusive private school that March and July had attended. According to family legend, Braden had bellowed that they were a bunch of arrogant hypocrites with too much power for their paltry little lives, or something like that. So, September had gone kindergarten through sixth grade to Sunset Elementary, then moved on to Sunset Junior High, and finally Valley Sunset High. Jake Westerly had done the same.
    Sheila Schenk Dempsey had attended Twin Oaks, but the family had moved and September had never known her, though they were the exact same age. But Sheila had been Jake’s hairdresser, so it was possible that Jake Westerly had known her before her parents moved from Laurelton to Portland. Could be random. Gretchen was right about making too many connections, too soon.
    All September needed to do was ask him.
    What did she know about him today?
    Nigel had started his own winery shortly after Kathryn’s death, his fight with Braden, and his subsequent dismissal from Rafferty Enterprises. September had asked her sister July about the Westerly winery at July’s birthday party, which had taken place at The Willows. She’d learned that Nigel’s sons, Jake and Colin, had taken over the business, which was known as Westerly Vale Vineyard. Though September had pressed for more details, July hadn’t seemed to be interested in anything but her “date,” Dashiell Vogt, who stood on the fringes of the outdoor party, a glass of wine in hand, surveying the crowd but not really a part of it. Though July’s attention seemed riveted on him, September didn’t get the same hit from him. He was too aloof, his attention more often on Braden and March than July or any of the other women invitees. But September hadn’t seen July since and didn’t know what the current status was between them.
    Another trip to The Willows might be in order, she decided now. And maybe one to nearby Westerly Vale Vineyard. Maybe that was the way to contact Jake.
    Jake Westerly. Good God. Her mind wanted to slip to their time together, but she wouldn’t let it. With a sound of frustration, she dragged it back to the present. It was an effort to put thoughts of Jake aside, but she managed.
    She put in a call to Detective Wes “Weasel” Pelligree and, after chatting with