Questioning the Heiress. Delores Fossen

happened nine months earlier on the night of a high-society Christmas party at Cantara Hills. The now-dead Vincent Montoya was responsible for that incident, in which a young woman had died. In fact, everyone directly connected to the hit-and-run was dead.

      Except for Caroline.

      She’d been driving the vintage sports car that Vincent Montoya had slammed into.

      Caroline had been injured, too, and supposedly lost her memory of not only the accident but that entire fateful night. The so-called amnesia bothered the hell out of Egan. Was she faking it to save one of her rich friends who might have caused the hit-and-run? Or was she covering for herself because she’d been negligent in some way? Egan didn’t know which, but he was almost positive she was covering something.

       Almost.

      “The police will come inside any minute,” Egan told her. He moved her back into the doorway so that she’d be away from the windows. “Then, I can question you and have them check for trace and prints. We might be able to get something off those shoe impressions and the doorknobs.”

      He didn’t want to get too engrossed in processing the crime scene just in case the cops flushed out the intruder and the SOB came running back into the house. That’s the reason Egan kept his service pistol aimed and ready.

      “You’re sure you had your security system turned on?” he asked her.

      “Of course. Since the murders, I always make sure it’s set. But as I said, it wasn’t working when I came home.” She looked around. “At least nothing appears to have been ransacked. And besides, there wasn’t much to steal since I don’t keep money or expensive jewelry in the house.”

      “This person might not have been after stuff,” Egan grumbled.

      She touched the highly polished dresser, which was dotted with perfectly aligned silver-framed photos of what appeared to be family members. “Do you think the intruder could have been the person who murdered Vincent Montoya?”

      “It’s possible.” More than possible. Likely. Especially since the ritzy neighborhood of Cantara Hills had been virtually crime-free prior to the hit-and-run. But afterward…Well, that was a whole different story.

      “Why isn’t Lt. McQuade here?” she asked a moment later. “I figured he’d be the one to come.”

      Brody McQuade, the Ranger lieutenant in charge of the Cantara Hills murders. “He’s in California trying to track down a person of interest.”

      “Oh. Then what about the other Ranger—Sgt. Keller?” She spoke in a regular voice. Not whispers. And Egan didn’t have to listen hard to that shiny accent to know that she didn’t seem to care for his presence. “He was at the country club earlier. Why didn’t he come?”

      “Hayes is in Austin at the crime lab. And before you ask, I’m in charge of this investigation right now, and you’re stuck with me.”

      “Stuck with the surly one,” she mumbled. Her chin came up when he glared back at her. “That’s what people around here call you. Brody’s the intense one. Hayes is the chip-on-the-shoulder one.”

      Egan’s glare morphed into a frown. “And I got named ‘the surly one’? That’s the best you people could do?”

      She nodded as if his you-people insult didn’t bother her in the least. “It suits you.”

      Yeah. It did. But for some reason it riled him, coming from her. “You’re the richer one.”

      “Excuse me?” She blinked.

      Egan tried not to smile at her obvious indignation. “There are three young Cantara Hills socialites involved in this investigation. The ‘rich’ one is your lawyer friend, Victoria Kirkland. You’re the ‘richer’ one. And Taylor Landis, the third socialite, who hosted that infamous Christmas party, is the ‘richest of them all.’”

      She gave him a flat look. “How original. That must have required lots of time and mental energy to come up with those.”

      “About as much time and energy as it took you and your pals to come up with surly.”

      They stared at each other.

      There was a sharp rap at the front door, causing both Egan and her to jump a little. But even a little jump for Egan was an embarrassing annoyance and more proof that Caroline Stallings was a distraction he didn’t need or want.

      “SAPD,” the man said from outside the door. “We can’t find anyone on the grounds.”

      Egan didn’t even bother with profanity—he was past that point. He went to the door and let the two uniformed officers in. Both were drenched from the rain, as were the two security guards behind them. That same drenching rain would likely wash away any tracks or evidence that the intruder had left in the yard.

      “There are shoe prints in the bedroom,” Egan informed them, and he hitched his thumb in that direction. “It looks as if that’s the point of entry and escape. I want that entire area processed.”

      The taller Hispanic cop nodded. “I’ll get our CSI guys out here right away.” He paused and looked at Caroline. “What about her? Does she need medical attention?”

      “I’m fine,” she insisted.

      Egan slipped his pistol back into his leather shoulder holster. “Secure the crime scene,” he instructed the officer. “Check for signs of forcible entry and a cut phone line. Someone probably tampered with the security system, too. And let me know the minute the CSI guys arrive. Ms. Stallings has to show me a thing she found in her car, and I’ll question her about the intruder while I’m doing that.”

      “Oh, yes. The thing,” Caroline said as if she’d forgotten all about it. “My car’s in the garage. This way.” She led him through the foyer and back into the kitchen—all thirty to forty feet of it. She slid the knife back into the empty slot of a granite butcher’s block.

      “You’re sure you didn’t see this person in your house?” Egan proceeded.

      “No. Not even a shadow.”

      Egan kept at it. “But you heard a sound. Footsteps, maybe?”

      “I’m not sure what I heard. Movement, yes. But not footsteps per se.”

      Too bad. The sound of footsteps could have given him possible information about the size of the intruder. Since they were nearing the solarium and the garage, Egan shifted his focus a little. “What exactly is this thing you found in your car?”

      “A little black plastic box about the size of a man’s wallet. It fell out from beneath my dash while I was driving home tonight.”

      That didn’t immediately alarm him. “And you don’t think it’s part of the car?” Though he couldn’t imagine what part of the car that would be, exactly.

      She lifted her shoulder. “I guess it could be. But it’d been secured with duct tape.”

      Now, the alarms came. She wasn’t the sort of woman to buy anything that required the use of duct tape. “Did you open this box?”

      “No. It fell as I was pulling into my garage so I let it stay put and went inside. I’d left my cell phone at the restaurant in the country club, and I was going to use my house phone to call someone about the box, but then I heard the intruder.”

      So, she’d had two surprises in one night. Were they connected? “What do you think this box could be?”

      “Maybe some kind of eavesdropping equipment,” she readily supplied. “My family and I are in the antiques business. Competition is a lot more aggressive than you’d think, and I’m within days of closing a multimilliondollar deal.”

      That silenced some of those alarms in Egan’s head. “So you think your competition could have planted a listening device to get insider