Harlequin Intrigue July 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  “The whole thing doesn’t make much sense,” Foster said when he was satisfied with his phone.

  He turned to where they had been sitting the night before. The place where both of their memories had run out.

  “We decided on a plan with Reiner where you told him that I was your new neighbor and asked you for an introduction since I was the new lead detective at the department,” he continued. “Then we went to his table, drinks in hand.”

  He walked over to where Reiner had been seated. Daylight from the front door streamed in, dust motes visible in the air. Daytime pulled off the mask that Rosewater wore at night. There were no colored lights. No patron chatter mingled with music from the overhead speakers. The bartender was gone, as were any and all staff. Instead of the smell of fries and alcohol, the place stunk of cleaning supplies.

  During the day, Rosewater lost all its charm.

  It certainly didn’t help her overall opinion of the bar that the last time Millie had been inside she’d been drugged.

  “I don’t remember talking to him,” she added, coming up to his elbow, careful to tuck her purse against her side. “I just remember walking. Do you think the drugs had already taken effect that fast? We were only seated for—what?—ten minutes?”

  Foster was scanning the area around the table. He shrugged.

  “The doc said that those meds can sometimes block out the time before they were even ingested, which makes figuring out a timeline a bit trickier.” Foster bent down, inspecting the floor beneath the table. Millie leaned in, curious.

  “See anything?”

  Foster shook his head. Then his eyes were off to the door behind them, which led to the kitchen.

  “After we were reported to have been taken by the Good Samaritan, two deputies were dispatched to question everyone here who had seen us.” He was still crouched. It reminded Millie of an umpire about to be asked to make a call. The concentration made her own brow furrow as she tried to picture the bar the night before the best she could. “One couple was sure that we never went to the bathrooms since they were seated near them.”

  He pointed to the table closest to the bathroom doors but didn’t pull his gaze from the kitchen.

  “Two different patrons saw William Reiner leave through the front door while we were still inside,” he continued. “But of all the people in here, staff included, no one saw us leave through the same doors.”

  Millie stepped back as Foster stood and, without any more of an explanation, seemed to follow his invisible line of thought. She followed him wordlessly to the kitchen door, where he stopped so quickly that Millie ran into him.

  A blush burned its way up her neck and singed her cheeks.

  “Oops, sorry.”

  Foster didn’t flinch as he looked to the bar.

  “Deputy Lawrence said that everyone in here confirmed everyone stayed in here except for Reiner.”

  “Well, drugged or not, I’m pretty sure we didn’t just disappear into thin air,” Millie pointed out. Though she knew he wasn’t implying that they had.

  Foster Lovett was in his element.

  And he was building up to something.

  “You’re right. Someone would have seen us if we left through the front door. There were too many people for everyone who had been interviewed to be sure we hadn’t gone out that way. So—” he pointed to the kitchen door in front of him but kept his gaze on the bar “—the only other way to leave would have been to go through the kitchen door, and only one person had direct sight line to that at all times.”

  “June Meeks, the bartender,” Millie finished. “But wasn’t she questioned extensively while we were missing and in the hospital?”

  He nodded. “After they realized we’d been drugged, she was brought in for more questioning. The sheriff himself headed it up. He said he didn’t think she had anything to do with it, but I also haven’t had a chance to ask her myself. Until then I’m going to trust his call.”

  Millie thought that was absurd, but she didn’t say as much. They were drugged through their drinks, and yet the bartender wasn’t suspect because the sheriff said so? And now Foster thought June had seen them leave through the back but lied about it?

  Then again, why in the world would June Meeks drug and lie about them?

  It made no sense.

  Not that much made sense recently.

  “So you think June saw us go through the back and then the cook didn’t see us?”

  Foster shook his head and pushed into the kitchen in question.

  “The cook left right after we got here. I remember seeing him when we were at our table. Apparently, his wife had car trouble so he ran out to help and didn’t get back until deputies were here.”

  Millie had never been in the kitchen of Rosewater before, at least not when she remembered it. It wasn’t that big of a room but it had three doors. One had a scratched plaque that read Office, the other had an exit sign, and in between them was a freezer door.

  “So let’s say we did come in here, with or without June knowing.” Millie motioned to the doors and shrugged. “Why? You said earlier the owner wasn’t here at all and now neither was the cook. So why did we sneak back here?”

  For the first time since Deputy Park had dropped them off, a look that wasn’t wholly professional crossed his expression.

  He glanced down at her lips.

  All at once the kitchen felt like it had shrunk to the size of a shoebox. In it, the space between Millie and the detective became nearly nonexistent. She was still so close to him that she could feel the heat from his arm radiating toward her own.

  So close.

  And Millie was feeling the urge to get closer.

  There was no denying the attraction between them. Not anymore. Not for her.

  Millie had been struggling with it since she’d sat down in his office, even after she’d left, angry at him.

  She was attracted to him.

  Plain and simple.

  But did he feel the same? Or was he simply following every avenue of thought about the night before?

  Millie and Foster in the kitchen with an unspoken attraction instead of a candlestick?

  The blush from earlier flared back to life but, regardless, Millie had to set the man straight.

  “Listen, if I wanted to sneak around with you there would be a lot easier ways and a lot better places to do it.” She caught herself with a stammer. “I—I mean not ‘do it’ but, you know, seek privacy with you. I’d pick your truck, if anything. Especially over the Rosewater kitchen, and that’s assuming you somehow sweet-talked me into not worrying about the gossip if we got caught.”

  Foster’s lips turned up at the corners. He was trying not to laugh. Which made it only slightly adorable when he finally did. It was a deep, rumbling sound.

  He held up his hands in defense and was still chuckling a little as he continued.

  “Okay, okay so if we weren’t back here for personal reasons, then the only other reason I can think of would be because of maybe something Reiner said to us before he left. Or maybe we came in to look for something?”

  They lapsed into silence as they split up and searched through the kitchen. Foster went into the office and Millie into the freezer. She didn’t know what they might be looking for, but there wasn’t anything but food and containers inside. She backtracked and shut the door behind her. She let Foster finish his own search solo and turned her attention to the door leading to the exit.

  There was no fire alarm warning attached to it, so she took her chances and pushed it open.

  No alarm went off but heat, wrapped tightly in humidity, hit her as hard as the noise would have. Millie growled at it as she walked out onto the concrete pad. A dumpster for the bar sat against the wall, and trees from the overgrown lot that bordered the old motel was opposite, blocking the back lane fr
om being visible to patrons and the parking lot.

  Millie went to the edge of the concrete pad and looked down at the ground that continued on from its edge to the back of the middle section of the building. Cigarette butts and footprints were pressed into the damp dirt. They looked relatively new, probably belonging to deputies in the department who were asked to comb the area.

  Still, Millie followed, she thought, two different sets of footprints until she was behind the rooms that had been used as storage since the bed-and-breakfast had shut down. Since all the doors to enter the rooms were positioned on the front of the building, she started to look in the windows. They’d been put in during the renovation but looked as worn and stained as the old rooms had been. One of the windows was even missing a screen altogether. Whoever owned the middle section of the building sure hadn’t been around to maintain or clean it in a while, Millie decided.

  She looked back down the narrow lane toward the bar’s back door and then past it to a patch of grass just before it transitioned to the street.

  “Why were we out here?” she asked herself out loud.

  According to the Good Samaritan, and then according to Foster who heard it from the sheriff, Millie and Foster had been put in a truck in the parking lot in front of the business offices side of the building.

  What had happened between the time they had gone into the kitchen to when they’d gotten into the truck?

  Why had they been taken in the first place?

  Who had Foster fought?

  And, with a resounding frustration, Millie came back to the general why of it all.

  “Millie?” Foster’s voice carried to her, along with its worry.

  It was touching.

  When she met his gaze, he visibly calmed.

  “Did you find anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Nothing remotely out of place or interesting. You?”

  Millie motioned to the window closest to them.

  “Nothing other than the thought that whoever owns this part of the old motel should probably invest in some Windex.”

  Foster agreed.

  They walked the rest of the length of the building and rounded the corners until they were in the parking lot in front of the business offices.

  Nothing popped out and yelled a clue at them.

  Which was probably why Foster had gone more tense than when they’d first walked into the bar.

  “At least we have our things back,” Millie said as they stopped between two yellow painted lines. He was surveying the lot; Millie was surveying him.

  Even in profile the man was a sight.

  His jaw hardened. Then it was all cool green eyes on her.

  “Millie, I need to tell you something about when we—”

  “Foster Lovett, I swear to everything holy!”

  A woman’s voice shrieked through the air behind them. Millie jumped. On instinct she grabbed Foster’s arm. The detective, however, looked less startled.

  He turned so they were both looking at a woman coming out of one of the offices. He groaned.

  “Why is Mrs. Zamboni charging over here at us?” Millie asked. “And why is she so angry?”

  Foster made a noise. She couldn’t place its emotion.

  “Because she’s my former sister-in-law and likes being a pain.” He lowered his voice and finished in a rush. “And she’s like The Hulk. She’s always angry.”

  * * *

  “I HAVE SPENT almost sixteen years of my life not giving a dog’s behind about you, Foster Lovett, and I’d prefer you’d keep it that way.”

  Helen wasn’t wearing her crown of flowers like the day before, but her stomach seemed even more round in her flower-print dress. Her eyes, though, were wide. Foster hadn’t seen her so grumpy since she’d turned sixteen and failed her driver’s test. Twice.

  “Well, how do you do too, there, Helen,” he replied.

  Millie let go of his arm. Foster wondered if they already knew each other. Being a palm reader in small-town Alabama was pretty close to celebrity status.

  But Foster wasn’t going to take his chances on not being polite, so he went ahead with introductions before getting to the current root of Helen Mercer’s problem with him.

  “Millie Dean, meet Helen Mercer. Helen, this is Millie.”

  Helen stopped with a huff but nodded to Millie. Then she was quickly back on him.

  “I do not like feeling anything for you other than some good ole dislike, so you better watch your back around here because I certainly can’t keep doing it.”

  Foster’s eyebrow rose.

  Helen wasn’t her usual mad.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about being eight months pregnant and trying to chase you two down after you were taken! Philip nearly had a hay day when he saw the damage I made to the car after popping the curb trying to speed after y’all.”

  Foster put his hand up to slow the woman’s rate of words per millisecond.

  “Wait.” Then it dawned on him. “You’re the Good Samaritan who saw us get taken?”

  Helen gave him a well, duh look.

  “Not only did I see it and call the department, I chased after that dang truck until it lost me in the back roads! Nearly went into labor over how stressful it was.”

  Foster could barely believe it.

  Helen had saved them, and now? Now she was upset.

  She cared.

  “Helen, if it wasn’t for you, no one would have known we were missing until the next day most likely,” he told her. “You saved us.”

  Foster would have extended a hug had it been anyone else, but he didn’t want to invade her personal space, especially her pregnant, personal space. They’d never had that relationship.

  But Millie took it into her own hands.

  She wrapped her arms around Helen within the span of a blink.

  “Thank you,” Millie said into Helen’s silver hair. “I don’t know what would have happened had Deputy Park not gotten to us when he did.”

  Foster agreed.

  Helen’s look of grumpiness softened. Discounting her interactions with him, she was a polite, well-liked woman in the town. She patted Millie’s back and nodded to her when the embrace was finished.

  “Well, I can’t very well go on disliking Foster if he’s not around to tick me off.” Her words had gone softer too. “Plus it looked to me like he was the one doing all the heavy lifting.” She glanced down at his hands. They were still bruised and scabbed from his fight.

  “You saw me fighting?”

  She nodded. “Or trying.” Helen pointed to the corner behind them. “The streetlight blew months back and it was dark. Plus you two were on the other side of the truck. Like I told the sheriff, I couldn’t make out who you were tussling with, but I could hear, and vaguely see you, hitting him. You seemed slow, though. It didn’t look like it took too much to put you in the truck too.”

  Foster looked down at Millie.

  “So then that’s definitely our guy,” she said, guessing at his thoughts. “The one you bloodied your knuckles on.”

  The one who might be Fallon.

  That’s what he’d been about to tell Millie before Helen had interrupted.

  The truck they’d been taken in? Fallon’s.

  Which meant one of two things and neither of them good for Millie.

  That’s why he kept quiet now.

  He wasn’t about to give her those two theories in front of Helen.

  Despite it being his job, it felt like something he should do in private. Something to talk about with just the two of them.

  Helen cleared her throat. Her hand went over her stomach in what must have been a soothing motion. She met Foster’s eye with a severe expression and tone.

&nb
sp; “You might not be family anymore, but I’ve grown used to disliking you. If you go up and get killed on me, then I won’t have someone to complain about anymore,” she said. “Whatever is going on, I need you to figure it out and get it settled. Without getting kidnapped again. Okay? I need this town to go back to normal.”

  Foster had thought the last week had already been strange enough, but it took another turn as Helen waited for him to confirm he would, essentially, try to stay safe.

  “I’ll try my best.”

  Helen nodded. Then she went back to her shop.

  They watched as she walked away. Millie was the first to speak. There was no humor in her words.

  “I don’t think this town has been normal since Annie McHale went missing.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The water was warm, a gentle hand against the skin of someone who needed to relax. To reflect. To heal.

  To try to feel an emotion that wasn’t so complicated that she’d pushed away the only man who had been helping her.

  Millie slid farther down in the tub, a sigh escaping as she went. Her shower cap crinkled. Water lapped against the back of her neck. The bubbles had already started to dwindle, though their scents of vanilla and lavender had long since coated her skin.

  If she closed her eyes and tried to the best of her abilities, she could almost forget about the last week. The last six months too.

  Almost.

  But that was putting too much pressure on a bubble bath.

  Millie opened her eyes and looked at the tile wall opposite her. It wasn’t intentional and it certainly wasn’t hard to do, but she imagined the house on the other side of that wall.

  She sighed again.

  Foster had taken them from the parking lot of Rosewater to her front porch, all while staying as quiet as a mouse. Millie had known he was gearing up to say something, something she probably wasn’t going to like. It was only after he’d made sure her house was empty and that the deputy at the road was alert, did he circle back to her standing on the front porch and finally said what was on his mind.