Sour Layer (Bennett Dynasty Book 5) Read online

  Sour Layer

  BENNETT DYNASTY

  BOOK 5

  Kate Allenton

  Copyright © 2019 Kate Allenton

  All rights reserved.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or use fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Published by Coastal Escape Publishing

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  Chapter 1

  The cool breeze in the night air competed with the heat coursing through my body. I stepped out of the shadows in front of a man dressed from head to toe in black. The ski mask covered his face, his hazel eyes a stark contrast to the darkness. I didn’t need to see his entire face to know who he was or what he was here to do.

  The petite woman tucked away inside her house across the street must have been too much temptation. Choking the life out of her would have been simple for the killer standing in front of me. All the anger in the world didn’t justify what he had planned.

  I’d do everything in my power to ensure his ex-wife wasn’t dying tonight.

  “Carl, you don’t want to do this,” I said, firming my stance between him and his estranged wife in their once-shared Italianate-styled home. It was a beautiful home looked like all others on this street. One might think a suburban blue-collar family lived inside. The manicured lawn, the trimmed shrubs, and the red bike propped up at the garage were deceiving. I’d seen the bruises on his wife’s arm that told a different tale.

  “How do you know my name?” he growled, pulling out a knife and waving it wildly, as if to scare me.

  I wasn’t immune to death. Death was my childhood friend. But I knew I wasn’t dying tonight. Kind of like how I knew Carl would be hiding in this alley looking for an opportune time to strike.

  “Does it really matter how I know your name? Personally, I wouldn’t have believed you were a violent guy. Just misguided with the loss of your wife and child. I almost felt sorry for you.”

  His hazel eyes narrowed.

  “Killing her won’t get you anything but jail time.”

  “You don’t know shit, lady,” he sneered through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t I?” I lifted my hands and motioned to our surroundings. “I knew I’d find you here. I knew you were going to try to kill her. I know you believe you deserve sole custody, and I know you beat the tar out of your wife. If she dies, you’ll be the prime suspect. You can’t be that naïve to think that you’d get away with it.”

  “How the hell do you know what I have planned?”

  “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you aren’t going to hurt them tonight. Or any night.”

  He advanced on me. His fingers latched around my throat, and he shoved me against the brick house. Anger flashed in his eyes. “You can’t stop me.”

  I pulled at his fingers and lifted my knee, connecting with his family jewels just as lightning sparked in the night sky.

  Spotlights landed on us, and Carl dropped to the ground, clutching his junk while I bent at the waist, sucking in air. “Nice of you to join us.”

  “Mercy, are you okay?” Officer Granger called out.

  I held up a finger and gasped in more air while I nodded.

  “Carl, hands behind your head,” Officer Granger said as he approached, his gun firmly trained on the man who’d been contemplating murderer.

  Carl laced his hands on his head and sat back on his haunches as Granger cuffed him.

  “Mercy, you started without me.”

  “He was early,” I choked out while Granger yanked Carl to his feet.

  “Carl, it looks like you’ll only be going away for conspiracy to commit murder and assault,” I said, tipping my head toward his bag, which was probably filled with rope and other essentials to pull off what he had planned.

  “How the hell did you know?” Carl growled as Granger yanked him toward the car.

  It always came down to that one question. How could I have known what they had planned? One touch of a person was all I ever needed to see how they were going to die.

  When the wife touched me, I knew. Just like when Carl was choking me, I’d seen his too.

  Chapter 2

  The warmth from the Styrofoam coffee cup seeped into my gloved hands. Lifting it to my mouth, I sipped in the warm brew before breathing out and watching my breath in the freezing air. This landscape was as frozen as my heart. The snow-plowed streets were empty of residents. The once white snow now mixed with dirt in the ditches. The Mountain View airport was small. A one-room building serviced one airline whose fleet consisted of the small pond-jumping plane I’d arrived on.

  I might have picked Mountain View, Colorado, as a tourist for the privacy and lack of residents, if not for the frigid temperatures. The empty streets and sidewalks were a dream to a girl like me. No one to accidentally bump into while out and about. No contact meant no death to deal with. No worries of seeing the how my neighbors would die with a single touch, and definitely no worries of accidently electrocuting anyone.

  Snow covered the mountaintops jutting up into the bright blue sky behind the town. My winter jacket wasn’t big enough. The fur around the hood did little to keep me warm, neither did the wool leggings beneath my jeans. I was a southern girl out of my comfort zone.

  The cold reached all the way down to my bones. I shivered uncontrollably wishing I’d thought to wear even more layers.

  Still, I was in the right place, no matter how wrong it was for me.

  My phone vibrated, and I struggled to reach it beneath my layers. I pulled it out and swiped several times in an attempt to answer with my glove-tipped finger until it connected.

  “Yeah,” I said by way of hello.

  “Mercy Bennett, we haven’t met, but I’m Paisley Monroe, a realtor in town. I understand you’re in the market to sell your house.”

  I glanced at the caller ID. “No. I’m not.”

  “There’s a for-sale sign in your yard.”

  Who in the hell had put a sign in my yard? I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut. The sound of thunder rolling i
n the distance had me snapping my eyes open again. I inhaled a calming breath.

  “This is just a misunderstanding. A minor annoyance,” I whispered to myself. There was a fine line between annoyance and anger. In my case, that line might as well be buried underground like a fault line ready to shift. Only, the danger I produced was visible to anyone checking out the sky. The last thing I needed was lightning to hit the mountain and cause an avalanche. The snow would bury us all, and my sister would kill me for missing her wedding. Nope, not happening during this trip. Keep my hands to myself and my emotions in check.

  “How did you know the sign was there? Did you just drive by?” I didn’t live on a main street in town. Quite the opposite. I lived on a cul-de-sac just outside of town. I owned my place, but I was hardly ever home.

  “No, actually your neighbors pointed it out. They thought you might need help. I apologize, we must have gotten our wires crossed.”

  You think? Someone got their wires crossed, but it wasn’t the realtor. “Thanks for calling. I’ll deal with that when I get home.”

  I hung up. That explained the fifteen calls and emails I’d gotten about listing and selling my house in the last two days I’d been out of town.

  I didn’t have time to deal with it. Not until I finished this freezing mission trip for my sisters. I’d drawn the short stick, and for once, I didn’t mind leaving the others to deal with Faith’s wedding preparations.

  A truck pulled up beside me. A handsome guy got out and smiled in that way that reminded me they didn’t have many women in these parts. “You must be Mercy Bennett.”

  “I am.”

  “Great.” He grabbed my bags and tossed them into the back of the truck before thrusting out his hand. “I’m Clark Weller.”

  I glanced at his outstretched hand. Not wanting to tempt fate that I’d get a death notice even though I was wearing gloves. “No offense, but I’m a germaphobe,” I lied.

  It was the easier this way. To most people, it made me weird, and I was okay with that. The less touching, I had to do, the lighter my conscience. I’d found that people didn’t actually want to know how or when they were going to die, and one touch would produce that secret as if I were tapped into the Grim Reaper’s playbook.

  “I’m confused. I thought I was meeting Jerimiah Weller,” I said.

  “That’s my dad. He liked to greet all the tourists, but you’ll have to settle for me.” Clark dropped his hand and rounded the truck, opening the door. I slid inside the heated interior and held my gloved hands over the vents as he climbed in the other side.

  “So, tell me, Mercy, what brings you to these parts?”

  “A family mystery. I’m looking for someone.”

  “Oh well, I can help you with that. There are only 800 residents in a fifty-mile radius, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting them all.”

  “You know all your neighbors?” I asked, wondering why he would bother when I knew exactly two of mine, and one was apparently trying to run me out of my hood.

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  I chuckled. “No.”

  “That’s sad,” Clark said as if meaning it.

  He was sexy in a rugged, manly kind of way where cold and living in the wild required it. His dark wavy hair and tanned face made his sea-glass green-colored eyes look like contacts.

  “So, who are you looking for?”

  “Descendants of Maxine Bennett,” I said.

  He tsked. “I wish I’d have known that. I could have saved you a trip.”

  “Why is that?”

  He glanced my way for a second, taking his eyes off the road. “The local Bennetts died years ago. I’m afraid you came all of this way for nothing.”

  He was lying. I didn’t have to have my cousin Mike’s ability as a human lie detector to know it. My intuition told me as much. It was written in the heated air between us like an unspoken word. The only question was, why?

  Electricity danced beneath my skin, heating through my warming veins. My aggravation was rearing its head. The thunder was louder and deep, like it rattled my bones. “Is that right?”

  “Afraid so,” he said. His jaw was set in a fine line, and he kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. “All the flights are done for the day, but if you want, I can pick you up in the morning and carry you back to the airport.”

  I shrugged off his offer. I wouldn’t be convinced until I saw every single one of the graves and checked with the local historians. My sisters would only send me back if I wasn’t thorough.

  “No, I think I’ll take in the sights and see what this town has to offer. I’m sure there has to be some kind of pull for the Bennetts to have settled here.” I raised a brow and grinned. “There always is.”

  The rest of the truck ride was spent in heated silence. I stared at the blanket of white snow covering most of the greenery. I didn’t know how people enjoyed living in the cold. Not when sunshine, margaritas, and pools were an option several states away.

  Main Street consisted of a few mom-and-pop-type shops, a local diner, a coffee shop, and the Mountain View Inn, which I’d be calling home for the next week. Color was gone on the weathered sign. A painted outline of the mountain I’d been staring at was next to the name.

  “Well, here we are.” He climbed out of the truck and rounded the hood to open my door before he hefted my luggage out of the truck bed.

  His jacket shifted, giving me a glimpse of the shiny badge attached to his belt.

  “You’re a cop?” I asked, taking my luggage.

  “I’m the sheriff and sometimes taxi driver in order to get to know the strangers coming to town,” Clark said as a sly smile slid onto his face showcasing his sexy deep dimples. “Getting an unbiased opinion of newcomers helps me stay on my toes in the event I need to run off trouble.”

  My lips twisted into a grin. He’d fooled me, and my trouble was sitting online for everyone to see. One internet search with my name and he’d know one of my secrets, even if he didn’t understand that I was working with the Reaper’s playbook.

  “You think I’m trouble?” I asked as I headed toward the inn.

  “I don’t know yet. Mercy Abbigail Bennett. Age thirty-four. Survivor of a lightning strike that took the life of another person.”

  He’d done a bit of research but not nearly enough.

  I pulled the door open and glanced back with a grin. “And here I was worried you might know more. Thanks for the lift, Sheriff.”

  Clark Weller

  Chapter 3

  Clark dropped the woman off at the inn and headed back to the office. When he’d gotten the airline notice about a tourist making arrangements for a taxi, he hadn’t believed it. Strangers didn’t come to this town. There was nothing here to see in the dead of winter. Not even any good skiing. So, Clark had checked the flight manifest and started digging into the stranger who would be gracing his town until either the cold ran her off or he did it personally.

  Clark yanked open the door to the Sheriff’s Department. The small office consisted of two desks that had seen better days, a coffee pot that produced coffee that tasted like tar, and his office. It was the only room with a door, although it barely closed. Mavis, Brandon, and Clark were the only department employees. Theirs was a group effort keeping things running smooth.

  “So, did she make it to town?” Mavis asked as he walked in.

  She handled the paperwork in the office, but she’d been an exceptional officer twenty years prior. Clark was lucky to convince her to stay on the payroll when she could have retired.

  “Mercy Bennett has arrived,” Clark answered, walking into his office and grabbing his hat off the hook. He didn’t bother taking off his jacket. Not with where he had to go next.

  “Any idea what she’s doing here?” Mavis asked.

  “Who cares why she’s here. She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she? With a name like that, she has to be,” Brandon said.

  “She’s pretty, but a bit weird. She wouldn’t shake my
hand, something about germs.”

  Marvis chuckled. “Can’t say I blame her with everything going around nowadays. So, did she tell you why she was here?”

  “Yep,” Clark answered and headed toward the door. “She’s looking for her ancestors, and let’s hope to hell she never finds them. The last thing we need is a dead tourist in our town. News like that will scare away all the pretty girls from Brandon, and he’ll stay a virgin until he’s dead.”

  “Hey now,” Brandon called out.

  Mavis chuckled a full belly laugh. “Now we both know he isn’t no virgin. You remember when Kelsie’s husband chased him with a shotgun. Good thing he was drunk and couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

  Clark chuckled on his way out the door. He slipped inside his still toasty truck and turned the ignition, second-guessing his need to grab his bulletproof vest.

  He drove forty minutes over snow-covered roads into the next town. This inquiry wasn’t one that could be handled over the phone. He pulled up in front of the only hospital in a fifty-mile radius and killed the ignition.

  Dexter wasn’t going to be happy Clark was here. Last time he’d paid Dexter a visit, Clark had left with a black eye, and the Bennett man needed stitches.

  Clark got out of the truck and cursed beneath his breath the entire way to the automatic doors. They slid open as he approached, sucking a winter breeze into the emergency room lobby. Clark stomped his feet on the mat to kick the snow off and stepped inside.

  The lobby was only partially full. A few people sat in the row of chairs. Beyond was a check-in counter where a nurse sat typing at a computer. The muted yellow of the walls could use a fresh coat of paint. Bright florescent lights hanging from the ceiling highlighted the old linoleum beneath his feet. The hospital wasn’t big or state of the art, but it was efficient and needed.

  Clark clomped down the hallway. A nurse checking in a patient glanced up, frowning as he walked by. It was as though her psyche could feel there was about to be a disturbance in the force.