by Lisa Jackson
“No, thanks. I’m okay.”
“I can’t believe it,” she went on as she folded the towel. “I know I said that before, but it’s just so damned hard to accept.” Her heartbeat was slowing but she was still stunned beyond belief. “I mean…we just talked the other night.” She remembered the fight about her getting rid of Luke’s things, and her face, which she was certain had drained of all color, suddenly flushed hot. A stab of regret cut through her at the thought that their final words had been accusing and spat in anger. She refolded the towel automatically.
“What did you talk about?” From out of nowhere it seemed he had extracted a notepad.
“Oh…” She let out her breath and shook her head, remembering. “We fought. Of course. We always did. Couldn’t ever seem to get past the divorce. This time it was about the things he’d left here after he moved out. He was pissed that I got rid of them.” She looked away, not wanting to stare into those knowing eyes. She realized then that she should be careful about what she said to this intense man. He wasn’t a friend or a preacher, or even an acquaintance. He was a cop. In her hands was the dish towel. How many times had she folded and refolded it? Four? Five? She hadn’t been aware of her actions. “Anyway, it’s been impossible to get along.”
“Do you have children?”
She shook her head and tried not to show any sign of regret as she dabbed at the sweat that had collected on the back of her neck. She’d wanted kids, had thought, fleetingly, that they could be a happy family. Two miscarriages had devastated her, but as her marriage had unraveled, she’d decided her inability to carry a child past the third month of pregnancy had been a blessing in disguise. “Just a cat and a dog,” she said, shaking off the bitter memory. “When we split up, I got Ansel, the tabby, and Luke ended up with Hershey, our chocolate Lab. Losing the dog was bad enough; I can’t imagine what would have happened if we’d had children.” At the thought of the dog, panic swept through her. “What about Hershey?” she demanded. “Where is she?”
“We’ve got people at Gierman’s town house now.”
“I want my dog back,” she said emphatically.
“A big dog for an apartment.”
“I know, I know. I wanted to keep both the animals, but Luke wouldn’t hear of it. He was supposed to be moving into a bigger place, a house with a yard…soon, I think.” Her eyebrows slammed together as she tried to remember. “How do I get my dog back? I’ll drive over there now.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Gierman’s place is still being processed.”
“What? But Hershey—”
“I’ll see to it.”
“Would you?”
“Yeah. It’ll be later today.”
Something inside her sagged. The single act of kindness by this hard-edged policeman got to her. “Thank you,” she whispered, shoving a hand over her damp, pulled-back hair. She blinked and sniffed before she shed any tears. The shock of it all was settling in.
“Are there people at the town house now? Can you call and find out that Hershey’s okay?”
“I was there earlier. The dog’s fine.” His eyes held hers. “Someone from the department took her outside and walked her, then put her in a kennel, but she’s fine.” When she started to protest, he added, “Really.”
“Okay, okay. This is all just so…weird. Disturbing. Do you have any idea who did this?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“So where was he, you said you were processing his apartment, did someone break in?”
Her head was pounding with a million questions and she felt disengaged from her body, as if this were a bad dream, and through it all, she sensed the detective scrutinizing her; as if she had something to hide. His eyes never left her face. Well, let him look all he wanted. “Let’s sit down.”
She nodded, and though her legs were rubbery, she managed to lead him the few steps to the living room, where she sank into her favorite chair, a rocker her grandmother had left her. Abby had positioned the chair in the corner near the window and often retreated to it whenever she wanted to think. She would rock for hours, staring out the window at the wildlife, or into the blackness of the night.
Now, though, the rocker remained motionless. She bit her lip and observed the detective with his jaded, I’ve-seen-it-all eyes; tense, razor-sharp lips; and straight white teeth. His nose was long, a little crooked, and she guessed it had been broken at least once, probably a couple of times. His hands were big, like an athlete’s, his shirtsleeves pushed up over his elbows to show off golden skin with a dusting of black hair.
He was handsome, no doubt about it, and he probably knew it. There was something about him that suggested he used that innate sexiness to his advantage, as a tool.
Not your typical detective in pushed-up sleeves, jeans, and an earring.
Not on a typical mission.
So why would she even notice?
“Could I get you a glass of water or something,” he offered and she shook her head.
“I’ll be fine.” That was a lie and they both knew it, but she added, “Now, tell me, Detective, what happened to Luke?”
He took a seat in the corner of her couch and sketched out a story of finding Luke in an isolated cabin in a swamp about ten miles from Abby’s house. Some fisherman had noticed that the place wasn’t locked properly, went in to investigate, and found Luke dead.
“…the thing is,” Montoya went on, hands clasped between his knees, “your husband wasn’t—”
“Ex-husband,” she clarified quickly, though the scene was surreal, Montoya’s words sounding far away, as if she were in a cave.
Montoya cleared his throat, and if anything, his gaze became more intense, more focused. “Your ex wasn’t alone. There was another body in the cabin.”
“What?” she asked, staring at him. “Two people were killed?”
“Yes.” He nodded curtly.
Her insides froze. More bad news was on the way. “Another person was murdered, too?”
He hesitated. “It looks that way.”
“How?”
“We’re not exactly certain how it went down. Still working on it. The scene was staged, we think, made to look like a murder-suicide. At this point it appears to be a double murder, that the victims were taken to a small cabin in the woods about fifteen miles out of town.”
“You don’t know?”
“Not yet, no. Until we go through all the evidence, we’ll be exploring all possibilities.”
She was floored. “So…what do you think happened?”
“As I said, we’re not completely cer—”
“I know what you said, Detective, but you’ve got a gut feeling, don’t you? Isn’t that what everyone talks about? Hunches? A policeman who’s been around a lot of crime scenes and murder investigations usually has some idea of what went down.”
“We’ll know soon.”
“This is unbelievable,” she whispered, feeling a chill run through her bones despite the warm temperature. Bracing herself, she asked, “Who was the other person?” Was she about to hear that someone else she knew, someone she was close to, had been murdered as well? Her fingers gripped the arms of the rocker so hard her knuckles showed white.
“An eighteen-year-old woman by the name of Courtney LaBelle.” He paused a second, near-black eyes searching her face for some kind of reaction. “She was a student, a freshman, at All Saints College in Baton Rouge.”
Courtney LaBelle? Had she heard the name before? Something about it teased her mind, but she couldn’t remember why.
“Do you know her?”
“No.” Abby shook her head slowly, rolling the name around in her brain and coming up with nothing. Eighteen? The girl was barely an adult? Oh, Luke…You stupid idiot!
“Did she know your ex-husband?”
“I don’t know.” Abby was thinking hard, trying to come up with a name and face that matched, a girl they’d both known, or she’d been introduced at parties,
but that was impossible…the girl was just too young. “I’m sorry. Luke and I have been divorced for over a year. I don’t keep up with whom he’s dating…or…or even seeing as a friend or acquaintance. He has a girlfriend, Nia Something-or-other.”
“Nia Penne,” he responded without checking his notes. “She appears to be an ex-girlfriend. She’s in Toronto. Has been for the last week.”
She thought back to the phone call from Maury. So that’s what he’d been going to say to her. Luke and Nia had broken up. She grimaced, remembering the panic in Luke’s friend’s voice and how she’d blown him off, certain Luke was involved in some kind of sick publicity stunt.
Abby shook her head, trying to make sense of it. “Maury didn’t tell me when he called yesterday. Maury Taylor works with Luke. He was looking for him.”
“Any particular reason he thought Luke would contact you?”
“I have no idea. He must’ve already talked to all of Luke’s friends…but I’m not sure of that. You’ll have to ask him.”
“I will.”
Abby didn’t doubt it. From the glint of determination in Montoya’s eyes, she was certain he was going to get to the bottom of Luke’s death.
“Did your ex-husband have any enemies?” he asked, and she looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns.
She almost laughed. “He made enemies for a living, Detective. You know that. I’m sure if you check with the station manager or producer of the show, they’ll have a list a mile long of people who have complained about him.”
“What about personal enemies?”
She shrugged and tried to concentrate, but the fact that Luke was dead, that someone had killed him, made it impossible to think. “Probably. I…I can’t think of anyone in particular. Not now.” And even if she had, she wasn’t certain that she would tell him. There was something about Montoya that put her on edge; something that seemed relentless and suspicious; something slightly dangerous, that suggested he knew what it meant to be on both sides of the law; and something sensual and dark, as if he might be able to guess just what made her tick. As a woman. As a suspect. And she didn’t kid herself. Ex-wives made damned good suspects. She warned herself to tread gently, say the truth, but be careful.
It was almost as if staring at her so intently, he was searching for signs of deception, and in the pauses in the conversation, she thought he expected her to fill the space, to say something she might later regret.
Or was she just imagining things? Had the shock of Luke’s death put her over the edge?
“I really think we should call someone to be with you. A friend? Relative? Maybe a neighbor.”
She thought of Vanessa Pomeroy next door, or her sister in Seattle, or Alicia on the West Coast, or her father, or Tanisha, the student who worked part-time in Abby’s studio in the city. “No. I’ll be fine. Really. It’s not as if I was still in love with him.”
One of his dark eyebrows quirked and she regretted her words immediately. She felt compelled to explain herself. “Listen, Detective, just because he left me for another woman, one quite a bit younger, doesn’t mean that I’m still pining for him or that I’ll break into a million pieces once you leave. What I’d felt for Luke died a long time ago. Sad, but true.” She looked down at her hands and gnawed at her lower lip a second. The lag in the conversation made the sounds of the house, the creaking timbers, a squirrel scampering across the roof, the steady gurgle of rain washing through the gutters, more noticeable. “The marriage was probably over before we moved here from Seattle. We were trying to make a second stab at it, but we failed.” She nodded as if to herself and the confession of her true feelings felt good. “Nonetheless, I just can’t believe he’s dead.” It was her turn to stare at him. “You’re certain of this, right? When I first heard he was missing, I thought it was a publicity stunt.”
“If it is, it went seriously wrong. Luke Gierman is dead. Trust me.”
A deep sadness welled inside her. As much as she and Luke had been at odds, she hated the thought that he’d been killed, his life snuffed before he reached forty.
Montoya rose and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. She watched his movement, noticed how his jeans hugged his butt, then looked quickly away. Geez, what was wrong with her? Yeah, the guy’s hips were right in her line of vision, but so what? Had Luke’s violent death kicked in her libido? How sick was that? What was she thinking, looking at the detective’s buttocks?
That was the problem, she wasn’t thinking. Hadn’t been. Despite all her protests of being okay with the news of her ex-husband’s death, she was still in shock.
So she’d noticed the detective was sexy. So what? It wasn’t a big deal. She also knew that she couldn’t trust him within an inch of her life.
He scribbled something on the back of a card, and if he’d caught her checking him out, he had the decency not to show it. “My cell phone number,” he explained. “If you think of anything else, contact me.”
“You, too.” She stood and took the white business card he handed her before a horrifying thought struck her. “Please tell me I don’t have to go to the morgue and identify the body,” she asked, suddenly weak in the knees again.
“No. His parents are coming into town.”
She nodded, didn’t want to think about her former in-laws and the grief they were enduring.
“So…I saw the FOR SALE sign out front. Are you getting ready to move?”
“After I sell this, yes,” she said and wondered why she felt defensive about it, as if the question was one he might ask a suspect. She half expected him to wink at her and advise her not to leave town, but he dropped the subject, only asking once again if he could call someone to be with her and, when she declined, promising to return with her dog.
She walked him to the door. The rain had stopped, leaving puddles in the drive and only a few drops still dripping from the trees. From the porch she watched as he folded his muscular frame behind the steering wheel of his cruiser, his black hair shining like ebony in the dismal rays from a cloud-covered sun. He backed the vehicle out of her long drive, his tires splashing in the water that had collected, then he nosed the cruiser onto the road.
As he drove out of sight, she collapsed onto the porch, dissolving into tears that streaked down her face. It was stupid, really, she didn’t love Luke, hadn’t for a long, long time, but still, knowing that he’d been murdered, that he was gone forever, left a hole in her life.
Who had murdered him? Had he known his attacker? Had the woman pulled the trigger? Or had someone decided to kill them both?
Montoya had been a little vague about the details of the slayings, and now, after some of the shock had dissipated, she had questions, lots of them. Who had killed Luke? Granted he had dozens, maybe hundreds, of enemies, but who had been so outraged, so deadly furious, as to have shot him?
And why the girl?
Unless they were involved romantically. Sexually.
Sick as it was, she could imagine Luke being fascinated by a coed with her bright, innocent smile and young, supple body. He’d always had a thing for young women and now it may have cost him his life. How had someone overpowered him? Where had he been abducted? And why?
Slapping the stupid tears away, she forced herself to her feet and into the house. Get a grip, Abby. Pull yourself together! He was no longer your husband, and face it, sometimes you didn’t even like the guy!
With a twist of the deadbolt, she locked the front door and headed for the shower. She had to focus. There was nothing more she could do. She checked her watch. She had just enough time to clean up, swab out the tub, then face the single guy who had expressed an interest in seeing her house.
Peeling off her clothes, she headed for the bathroom. Her heart was heavy, but she gritted her teeth and told herself life went on. As bad as she felt, she wasn’t going to change her plans.
Not this time.
Her father’s mantra started all over again. When the going gets tough…
&n
bsp; “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said as she twisted on the faucets and the shower spat and coughed before thin needles of hot water started spraying over her body, washing away the sweat, the tears, the shock. Adjusting the temperature, she let the water pour over her body and reached for the bottle of shampoo. For the moment she would push all thoughts about Luke and his murder out of her head.
CHAPTER 5
There was something about Abby Chastain that didn’t ring true, Montoya thought as he drove into the city. Worse yet, she was sexy as hell and didn’t seem to know it. Even without a trace of makeup, her hair scraped away from her face, exertion evidenced in the sweat that had stained her T-shirt, she pulled at his senses.
He hadn’t liked the awareness that had built within him as he’d watched raindrops shimmer in her hair, then plaster her shirt against her body. He’d caught a glimpse of her cleavage in the V-necked T-shirt, seen a raindrop drizzle its way between her breasts, noticed how her wet hair, slick and pulled back, framed a heart-shaped face, and he’d thought, stupidly and dangerously, of what she might look like coming out of a shower.
Shit.
His thoughts, though fleeting, had been totally unprofessional.
Completely out of line.
He’d been too long without a woman, that was it. Ever since Marta’s death…Instantly his gut clenched and his fingers curled around the steering wheel. Flipping on his siren and lights, he stomped on the accelerator, as if he could outrun his thoughts, his grief.
It had been nearly two years since Marta had been killed and it was time to get over it. Maybe his interest in the ex–Mrs. Gierman was a good thing, a signal that he was back to his old self.
And yet, he had to watch his step.
Abby Chastain Gierman was off-limits. Way off-limits. Even though the evidence pointed to a man being at the scene of the crime, that didn’t mean she couldn’t be involved; if not actually having set up the crime, then a behind-the-scenes player. It didn’t seem that way, but until all the evidence was in, he wasn’t crossing anyone off the suspect list. Especially an ex-wife.