Nobody's Hero Read online

  Contents

  Front Matter

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Other Liz Lee books

  Nobody’s Hero

  By Liz Lee

  ©Liz Lee 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication: To the ladies of Red River Romance Writers. You kept me writing through the years. Much love to you all. To Belinda Wilson, my cheerleader. And, as always, to Brian. You are my hero.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Riley Sorenson was tired of chasing dead end leads.

  Tired of hearing his boss tell him he was losing his touch.

  Tired of watching breaking news on twenty-four hour networks that pretended what they reported made any kind of difference.

  Good investigative reporters studied life and death. They knew the questions to ask and where to get answers. But those answers didn’t amount to a hell of a lot of anything.

  Yet here he was still sitting in this newsroom, surrounded by people who wanted to change the world. Pretending to be one of them.

  Pretending he cared about the unmarked package sitting on his desk precariously close to his coffee cup. The cup his sister had brought him from Disneyland. God bless America and Mickey Mouse.

  Back in the olden days his pulse would’ve thrummed in triple time at the secrecy, the unknown contents, the possible danger of what might lie inside a brown packing envelope sent to him with his own address typed on a plain white label and affixed to the top corner.

  No tracing this source. Someone knew what he was doing. He picked up his coffee, took a sip and winced at the grainy, lukewarm mixture. He thought about nuking it, changed his mind and grabbed the package instead.

  “Yo Sorenson. You get that story yet?”

  Riley knew which story his editor was talking about. “Nah. The Princess isn’t talking. But I filed a great piece on the city council voting to arrest citizens with library fines over a year old. You ought to go front page with that one.”

  Mack laughed and poured himself a cup of the same nasty coffee Riley was drinking. In the olden days he’d have offered Riley a shot of the whiskey he poured in his own. Riley’s mouth watered and his throat ached at the memory. Two years and he still craved the smooth, sweet burn.

  “CNN, FOX, MSNBC. They’ve all got her. ET did a two and a half minute clip of the divorce and the ex’s funeral.”

  Yeah. He’d seen the stories. “And did you notice, she never talked to the reporters? She never even looked at them? She’s not taking my calls, and I’m not turning into some sort of paparazzi.”

  “She lives here. You knew her back in the day. There was a time you’d do anything for a story. Don’t go soft on me now. Use that killer charm you used to be known for.”

  Riley thought about reminding Mack of all the other things he used to be known for, too. But it didn’t matter because Mack wanted the story. Callah Crenshaw was hot news and for some reason she’d come back to Burkette, Texas. No one knew why, but everyone sure was wondering.

  “I’ve tried calling every day, Mack. You want me to ambush her in the damn grocery store?”

  His boss laughed. “I want you to do whatever it takes. If it’s no comment, fine. I can live with that and a few pictures.”

  Nice. But he couldn’t live with that. A couple years ago, hell, six months ago, maybe he could’ve. But not now.

  “You got some sort of new lead?” Mack pointed to the brown package on Riley’s desk.

  “I guess we’ll see. If it’s bigger than Callah Crenshaw maybe you’ll cut me some slack.”

  “Bigger than Callah Crenshaw. Right. Like anything’s going to be bigger since NTSB said the plane crash that killed her ex-husband might not have been an accident.”

  “Operative words being might and ex.”

  “She’s Hollywood and Hollywood means readers. Get me the story.” Mack pointed to the package on the desk again. “If that’s any good, hand it off to Jackson. She’s looking for something big. Better yet, you don’t get me something soon, I’ll toss Crenshaw to her.”

  He didn’t have to say what they both knew. Jackson was new and hungry and she didn’t have a problem ambushing people at home or in the grocery store or even at a funeral.

  As Mack walked away, Riley pinched the skin between his eyes. He knew his boss was right. Local readers deserved something. The reason Mack was trusting him with the story was because Callah Crenshaw was a hometown girl. And he was a hometown boy. His boss was giving this a chance to be about the person Callah Crenshaw really was and not about the Hollywood headlines making the media rounds.

  Maybe he should toss it to Amber Jackson on his own. Say go for it and then walk away. Disappear somewhere for a few months. Prove everyone right who’d said he was a good for nothing son of a bitch all those years ago. Who cared?

  Across the newsroom Jackson followed Mack into the editor’s office and closed the door. It didn’t take finely honed investigative skills to figure that one out. Ol’ Amber had one fine ass in those jeans she wore and Mack had always been a T&A kind of guy. Jackson was smart enough to know how to use her assets to her advantage.

  She’d crucify Callah Crenshaw in a heartbeat if she was given the chance.

  Damn.

  He picked up the phone and dialed the number he knew by heart. And once again, Callah’s answering machine clicked on. Her low, smooth voice sounded the same as it had yesterday and the day before and the one before that.

  The machine beeped and he left the same message he had untold times before. “Callah, it’s Riley Sorenson again. I’ll try back later.”

  He hung up the phone and looked back at Mack’s closed door. His boss was going to force this issue soon. For now there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot he could do. He took a sip of his now cold coffee and grabbed the brown envelope from his desk. Might as well see what some enterprising person with secrets to share had sent.

  He dumped the contents on his desk. Two sealed photo packets and a plain manila folder. Someone liked mysteries. Someone who knew once upon a time, he’d lived to solve them. Back when he’d tried to believe in something.

  He flicked the packet open, dumped the contents on his desk and then sat back in surprise. Dead ex, Hollywood runaway, hometown hermit Callah Crenshaw.
Her blonde hair glistened just like it had when they were teenagers. She smiled and the world smiled back. All these years and she still looked like an innocent kid afraid of what she really wanted.

  So why was the police cruiser across from her in the first photo circled in red?

  He picked up the second photo. In this one she walked side by side with her father, the good retired Colonel now working some Pentagon job, away from her mother’s funeral. Even in grief she appeared too good to be true. Too perfect.

  Anonymous sources didn’t generally send photos to a reporter if there wasn’t some bit of nastiness lurking. Sweet ol’ Callah Crenshaw must have a slew of secrets. Something a little more serious than the ones he knew about. He shook off those memories and focused on the photo. It had been taken outside her front door. And in the background, a man with a dog stood watching.

  A guy simply out walking his pet? Riley wondered as he took in the outline of the man’s jacket.

  A jacket in the middle of a Burkette summer. Right. Definitely packing. Bodyguard? No one local, that was for sure. Riley’d never seen him before. And Burkette was no metropolis. A man like that stood out in a crowd. This man wasn’t simply admiring Callah’s ample curves.

  Riley picked up the third photo. Callah checking out at the local grocery store. And in the parking lot the stranger and local PD sharing an afternoon tête-à-tête. An envelope passing from the dog walker to local lawmen.

  The alarms sounding in Riley’s mind warred with his common sense. Burkette’s major crime sprees centered on drug trade, crooked lawyers and small-time gangs. Big time criminals didn’t bother with small town life or small town law enforcement. But then Callah wasn’t small town anymore. She might live here again, but she wasn’t Burkette. She hadn’t been in a long time.

  So why was she here? What was she hiding? Maybe those news reports about her husband’s death were more than speculation.

  Something was up, that was for damn sure. He looked at the photos again, then at the envelope they’d been sent in. What agenda was driving this? And why send it to him? Riley knew he should pick up the phone and call the freakin’ chief of police. He had the number. But he couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not until he knew more.

  He looked around the office, saw Mack’s still closed door and imagined just what Jackson would do to get assigned to cover Callah.

  He slid the manila folder off his desk and let the contents fall.

  Another photo, this one yellowed with age, and a birth certificate. Callah’s birth certificate. And on the back, a message.

  Secrets can be dangerous. She’s not who she thinks she is.

  What the hell? He flipped the old photo over and narrowed his eyes. Callah Crenshaw smiling in an ugly wedding gown and big hair, holding hands with a mustached man in a suit showing off a plain, gold wedding band.

  For a moment he was confused. But then he realized the woman in the photo wasn’t Callah Crenshaw. She must be related to Callah in some way, but she was at least twenty years older judging by the Magnum PI look-a-like in the suit standing by her side.

  That’s all it took. His heart started the old triple time thrumming as silent questions pinged in adrenaline-induced anticipation.

  He grabbed his notebook and the contents of the package then started for the door. He didn’t have the answers, and answers might not make a difference, but someone had found a way to interest him for the first time in years. They might have an agenda, but who cared?

  If they’d bothered with him, they’d bother with some other reporter soon enough. He could just imagine what Jackson would do with this information.

  Ambushing Callah might go against everything he’d said to his boss, but if he didn’t do it, someone else would. He owed it to Callah to find some answers. And the answers started with her whether she wanted to talk or not.

  “Come home, Callah. You don’t need to spend time in Texas to find yourself.”

  Jennifer Danelley was the only friend Callah had left. The only one who’d stood by her after the divorce. The only one who knew all the sordid details of the mess Charlie had left behind when he’d decided Happily Ever After was a temporary state of mind. But Jennifer couldn’t understand the need Callah had to be alone in Burkette where most people would just let her be.

  Where she could forget and maybe move on. Find herself.

  “Come on, Jen. Admit it. You just want me to come back so we can be caught out on the town by paparazzi.”

  “You know me better than that. I want you to introduce me to some of those fine Hollywood hotties you know.”

  “Knew. Sort of. A long time ago.” And not really anyway. Those were Charlie’s friends. He’d partied with the best of them. Partied and financed and slept with them. Men, women, turned out good old Charlie hadn’t been all that discriminating.

  She left those words unspoken. She and Jen had been down that road often enough. Somehow, even though they were on the phone, Jennifer picked up on her sinking mood.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Callah looked at the blinking message light on her machine. As soon as this call was over, she was unplugging the damn thing.

  “Yeah. I just thought it would be different out here.”

  “That reporter’s still calling?”

  Why wouldn’t Riley just leave her alone? “He’s persistent. I’ll give him that.”

  “At least it’s not the SOB who kept calling asking for your mom.”

  Callah had to agree. Those calls had been unnerving to say the least. But it had been months since the last one. Months since she’d buried her mother. Since she’d seen her father. Since she’d even bothered with a no comment for the Hollywood press corps.

  “Maybe you should talk to Riley. How much damage could a small town reporter do anyway?”

  Obviously Jen hadn’t figured out the simple truth that all reporters were hell bent on one thing and it wasn’t protecting the people. Nope. They were about bylines and exclusives. Ad sales and circulation and guest appearances on whatever Hollywood gossip show was featuring the story du jour.

  Riley was no different. Their past connection was nothing but a footnote in the history of Burkette bad ideas. No way could she talk to him. No way.

  Besides, if she did answer his calls, what was she supposed to say? I’m glad the bastard who left me high and dry is dead, and I don’t give a flying flip if it was murder.

  Yeah. That’d go over real well.

  “Reporters are reporters. No matter where they live. They’re vultures, and I’m not talking to any of them.”

  Especially not him.

  “Listen doll, I’ve got a million and twelve things to do today before I leave the office. You sure you don’t want to come back for a while? I’m worried about that sound in your voice. And I have an extra room. You’re welcome to it.”

  Callah closed her eyes and envisioned the crowded LA highways, the busy sidewalks, the palm trees and even the graffiti. For a moment she could feel the soft breeze, the warm sunshine, smell the almost citrus scent that permeated the air on clear days after a good rain washed away the smog.

  She loved LA, but it wasn’t home. It never really had been. “Thanks for asking Jen, but I’ve got to do this on my own. I’ll be fine. Really. Keep everyone out there in line. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  She hit the end button and sagged onto her couch, determined to make her words to her friend the truth.

  She was fine, and she wasn’t going to worry about how her ex-husband had drained their bank accounts before he’d died. Or about Mr. Investigative Reporter Riley Sorenson who was nothing but one mortifying memory after another. Especially not about him.

  She hit the erase button on her answering machine before she was tempted to listen to his deep voice again.

  Maybe coming back here was a mistake. Maybe this quest to find herself was just a bunch of craziness brought on by too much Dr. Phil and Deepak Chopra.

  Or maybe it was just some in
sane way she was trying to reconnect with her mother. She’d loved Burkette more than any other place they’d lived over the years. Callah could still see her mom laughing, smiling, picking tomatoes in their old back yard. Belinda Crenshaw had been an amazing woman. A woman so sure of herself and her place in the world.

  God, she missed her. This would all be so much easier if she were still alive. If she could just pick up the phone and say Momma, I hurt so bad, and this sucks, and how did I let all this happen? How did I lose me?

  Callah closed her eyes and swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat, but she couldn’t stop the tears. Once they started, she decided she didn’t want to stop them. Jen’s phone call, the mess of her finances, the stupid reporters, she hated all of it. All of it, dammit. She needed a good cry.

  Beside her, the house phone rang and she brushed away the tears hoping it was her father. He had an almost scary ability to sense when she needed to hear his voice.

  She groaned when she saw the caller ID.

  Riley. Again. Dammit.

  Visions of their last conversation played through her mind. Twelve years later, his words and actions still had the power to embarrass the heck out of her.

  She picked up the receiver and slammed it down.

  God, that felt good. Almost as good as Godiva tasted and a whole lot better than crying. Maybe she’d take up slamming phones down as a hobby. A new kind of stress relief. She could write a book. Go on Oprah. Pay the stupid electric bill without eating all the ice cream in the house afterwards.

  When the phone rang again, she slammed it down once more. This time envisioning every jerk reporter who’d harassed her over the last six months. Every cruel caller who’d used her mother’s death to keep her on the phone.