“Know what?” Adam asked.
Kendra glanced up and back as Adam came to a stop at the table.
“Nothing,” Raelyn said, turning her attention to the table. “Where’s the food?”
She must suddenly be in a hurry to get this event over with. No more talk of abusive dads and death.
Picking up on the same feeling, Kendra got up and went about preparing their lunch, going slow as though letting the serious talk fade before they all sat down together and had lunch. She kept glancing over at Raelyn, smiling when her niece saw her.
It was the beginning of a new relationship. Kendra could feel it. This picnic would be the trigger, the icebreaker.
* * *
After sharing a wonderful picnic with Raelyn—she would try to forget her boyfriend was there—Kendra hugged her niece and whispered into her ear, “Come by the shop tomorrow.”
Raelyn leaned back with a smile. “I will.”
Then Kendra watched her walk away, Adam far ahead and already opening the car door. He obviously couldn’t wait to get away from Raelyn’s family.
“Charming fellow,” Roman said.
She’d noticed his scrutiny of the young man. She’d also noticed how he’d kept his interaction to a minimum, as though he sensed Kendra’s need to bond with her niece. Nothing felt better than that, the bonding. Never mind what Roman did to her.
As she began gathering everything from the table, Roman’s phone rang. He took it and talked to someone he obviously knew.
“How’s Reese? Handling life on flatter ground?” he asked. “Has she dragged you back to her mountains yet?” After a pause, he said, “With a father like Kadin Tandy, that doesn’t surprise me.”
Roman listened a while longer, responding occasionally but not with enough information for her to decipher what was said. All Kendra could gather was he must be talking to someone at DAI. She finished putting what was left of the food into the cooler.
“Can you get medical records and the coroner’s report?” Roman finally asked.
Kendra waited as he finished the call and disconnected.
“Kadin has a daughter?” she asked.
“Yes, Reese. Jamie Knox’s new wife. Knox is DAI’s head of security. Apparently she likes helping her dad run the agency.”
Given Kadin’s tragic past and the thing that had driven him to open such an agency, Kendra was happy for him to have discovered he had another daughter.
“He ran a background on Glenn Franklin and your sister’s husband, Alex.”
She stopped putting trash into a bag to turn toward him.
“Alex was arrested for an assault on a police officer after he was pulled over for drunk driving. Your sister never pressed charges for abuse, but his previous wife did. I doubt Kaelyn ever knew that.”
It came as no surprise that Alex had a rap sheet. Kendra gazed off across the sea of green grass and a play area where kids slid down a winding slide and floated back and forth on swings.
How she wished her sister could have escaped her husband. At least she had good and loving parents. That was something Kendra couldn’t say about her own childhood and teen years.
“Other than that, he’s gone delinquent on credit cards and car loans. Never had a mortgage. Had two previous DUIs before the last that landed him in jail for three years. He was arrested two months ago.” Roman went on. “Kaelyn did have a life insurance policy.”
Kendra jerked her gaze back to him. “How much?”
“A hundred thousand. Insurance didn’t pay because it was suicide and there was a clause stating death wasn’t covered by suicide unless the policy had been in place for two years. It has been in place for a year and nine months.”
“Ha,” she scoffed. “So if he killed her, he didn’t get what he wanted.”
“Glenn’s background is squeaky clean,” he said. “Financially, he’s sound. No criminal record. Not even a speeding ticket.”
“He has rich parents.”
“That wouldn’t erase a criminal record.”
She folded her arms and walked toward him. “So it looks like if anyone killed my sister, it had to be Alex.”
“Maybe. Did you know Glenn was married before his current wife?”
“Kaelyn never mentioned it.”
“She became sick and died. Rather suddenly, I might add.”
“Sick with what?”
“I’ve got DAI fishing for her medical records and the coroner’s report. From what I’ve been able to glean, she developed a severe case of the flu and had a heart attack.”
“You’re suspicious?”
“Not yet.” He sounded so confident. It gave her a flashing spark. Sexy.
He was only checking every possible lead. Even sexier. He didn’t presume guilt or innocence. He remained neutral until all his questions were answered.
“It is peculiar that both his first wife and now his lover died,” she said.
“Especially since his first wife was in her early twenties and was a track star in high school and college.”
Too healthy to succumb to a flu bug? What really caused her heart attack?
Maybe Roman was more suspicious than he let on.
Chapter 7
“Adam and I had a fight after we left the park yesterday.” Raelyn helped Kendra set up a Memorial Day display near the front entrance. American flag ornaments and everything one would need for a day at the park or backyard barbecue.
Kendra perked up, both from what Raelyn said and also that she felt comfortable enough to say it. “About what?”
“He thinks I shouldn’t be around you. Like you’re a bad influence.”
A bad influence? Kendra had to stop herself from laughing. Instead, she glanced down at Raelyn’s black skinny jeans and tight black tank top with four or five necklaces hanging down, the black bands ringing her wrists and all the piercings in her ear and one in her nose.
“Maybe he’d like you to stay where you are and not progress into something more, something better.”
She considered that awhile before she said, “He thinks my mom killed herself.”
Did she see, then, that this boy, whether intentionally or not, wanted her to stay behind with him?
“And you don’t anymore?” she asked.
“I don’t want to think she did.” She stopped hanging ornaments on the display tree. “I think you’re right. It’s like he doesn’t want me to have anything good happen, like he’d lose that connection we have.”
“Both wallowing in misfortune?”
Raelyn thought a moment. “Yeah.” She resumed hanging ornaments. “I broke up with him.”
Kendra smiled. “Did you?”
“Yes, after he said he didn’t like you and Roman, and he didn’t want to spend any more time with you.”
“How did he take that?”
“He got really mad. He threw his bottle of beer and it broke against the wall and made a mess. I left his house with him yelling at me until I got into my car and drove off.” She turned to look at Kendra. “He reminded me of my dad.”
“I’m so glad you ended it with him. You’re such a beautiful girl and you’re so young. You have a college degree. Your whole life is ahead of you. You don’t need to settle down with a man yet. That’s something everyone should be absolutely sure of before they commit to anything serious. Adam didn’t seem right for you when I met him.”
Raelyn shook her head. “He was fun for a while, but I’m done with him.”
“Add strong to my list of accolades.”
Raelyn seemed awkward with the compliment. She looked down and sat on the edge of the display window. “What about you? Have you ever been married?”
Kendra hung another ornament. “No. I didn’t learn much about what a good family is. I don’t remember my parents much. What
I do remember is they were good, hardworking people and they loved me and Kaelyn. My adoptive parents were terrible. Like your dad.” Kendra had let Roman work in her office and wondered if he could hear this. It was just in the back behind the checkout counter. The soft patter of fingers tapping away on a keyboard drifted out into the store. He was busy doing something.
“Really?”
“Yes. I know exactly what it’s like to grow up with awful people.”
Raelyn’s eyes blinked as she looked up at her and a poignant moment passed. Now Raelyn understood she wasn’t alone and in Kendra she had a family member who could relate.
“So you don’t want to be with a man?” Raelyn asked as though not wanting to talk further about her dad.
“I wouldn’t say that. I like being in charge of my own life. No one can make me unhappy that way.”
“Have you ever been with someone who made you unhappy?”
Kendra scoffed with a short breath. “More than one.”
“What happened?”
“I met a guy in college and we were a couple for a few years. We lived together after graduation. I caught him cheating on me. About a year after that, I met a guy who seemed nice. We went on a few dates until I discovered he had an arrest record. He told me he graduated from college and had a job, but all that was a lie. He had a high school equivalency and still lived with his parents. He also spent some time in jail. Needless to say, I stopped answering his calls. The third guy I dated who seemed promising started trying to control what I did when we weren’t together. That’s when I decided to concentrate on me. No more men.” At least for a while.
Raelyn looked up at her thoughtfully. “If you meet the right man, you would change your mind.”
Picturing herself with a man, living together or married, contemplating whether or not to have kids, Kendra felt sick to her stomach. She could not imagine herself happy that way. What about her freedom? Trusting a man with her life threatened that. She feared what a man might take from her.
“The only thing I’m sure of is I never want to feel the way I did after our parents were killed, and even more so in my foster home and later when they adopted me. I was trapped and always felt in danger and like I had no control over anything.” She stopped arranging fake bottles of soda in a bucket cooler and looked at Raelyn. “I might as well have been adrift on a raft in the middle of Lake Michigan, unable to jump off and unable to paddle to shore. Going nowhere, just stuck and scared.”
“That’s how I felt after mom died, but I still like boys.” Raelyn smiled almost sheepishly, as though revealing her youthful attraction to males was a secret she didn’t trust many with.
“I didn’t say I don’t like boys. I just don’t want them permanently.”
“Unless you find one who doesn’t control you.” Raelyn looked toward the back office.
“You...” Surely Raelyn didn’t mean Roman and her...
She realized the soft tapping had stopped.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And he doesn’t crowd you at all.”
Kendra wondered about Roman’s past. All she knew about him was he was a detective, had worldly parents and—amazingly and out of character for such a strong, intelligent man—insecurity over his direction in life. Roman might have that insecurity, but she saw none in his interaction with women—with her. He was not shy. He did not lack confidence as a man that way. He did not lack confidence as a detective, either. His baggage with his parents intrigued her all the more. Obviously he needed to measure up and felt he didn’t. That said, he had a great amount of respect for his parents. How could he not, growing up so idyllically? Kendra and Kaelyn would have had childhoods like that if their parents hadn’t been gunned down.
“You like him.”
Jarred from thought, Kendra saw Raelyn’s smile and hurriedly finished the display. “Roman is here to help solve your mother’s murder, nothing more.”
Raelyn looked away but her smile said all that needed to be said. She knew Roman was here for more than that and Kendra welcomed it, albeit deep in her heart.
Deciding to capitalize on this loving moment, Kendra reached over and brushed her niece’s red hair back from her face. Then she ran her forefinger down her nose, touching the ring through one nostril and looked at her eyes, rimmed with dark eye shadow and liner and a thick application of mascara. The black lipstick added to the Picasso effect.
“You don’t need all that.” She gently flicked the nose ring. “Why the dark makeup?”
Raelyn shrugged and averted her eyes.
“You have beautiful green eyes, just like your mother’s.”
“And yours.” Raelyn flashed a brief smile.
Kendra’s and Kaelyn’s eyes had been very similar. “You don’t need so much makeup.” She touched the black bands around her wrist. Or that. “Do you know how pretty you are?”
“Aunt Kendra,” she protested.
But Kendra wasn’t finished. She went to a shelf not far from the window and found a vanity mirror, one that stood daintily on a small pedestal and swiveled between a normal and magnified side. Taking it over to Raelyn, she sat beside her and held the mirror so they could see both their faces. Their eyes looked strikingly similar, almost hauntingly, which gave Kendra a momentary pang of loss. But that quickly vanished as she gazed at her pretty niece. “I bet if you wore less makeup you’d see how pretty you are. So would everyone else. And your clothes don’t have to make such a dark statement. Are there any other styles that catch your eye?”
Raelyn moved away and stood, and Kendra could see she’d pushed too hard, too soon.
Her niece rounded on her. “Are you saying you think I’m a slob?”
Putting the mirror down, Kendra stood. “No. The opposite.”
Raelyn spread her arms out and looked down at herself. “What’s the matter with the way I look?”
It’s a stamp, Kendra wanted to say. “It...makes you seem harder than you are. Tough.”
“I am tough.”
“Yes, you are, but not in a hoodlum kind of way.”
“Now you’re saying I’m a druggie?” Raelyn’s voice rose with insult and anger.
“No.” This was quickly going down the drain. Kendra didn’t claim to be an expert on kids or young adults. She only called things the way she saw them. Now she’d upset her niece.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come here.” Raelyn snatched up her purse and started for the door.
“Raelyn, wait.” Kendra followed her to the door, which Raelyn swung open hard.
“Leave me alone!”
“Wait.” Kendra stood in the open doorway, watching her niece march down the sidewalk toward her car.
“Give her time to cool off.”
Kendra jumped with Roman’s voice so close behind her. She hadn’t heard him approach.
Turning and letting the door close, she first had a breathless look at his handsome face, and then said, “What are you, a cat burglar? Do you always sneak up on people?”
“It’s the shoes.”
She looked down at the black leather shoes. “Stealth shoes?”
He just grinned.
“I was going to offer to take her shopping,” she said.
“That might have set her off more.”
She may have assumed Kendra intended to change her wardrobe. Although that may have been partly true, she meant no insult. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Don’t force her. You planted a seed. Let it take root awhile. She’ll come around.”
“How do you know so much about kids her age?” Did he have kids of his own? A flash of alarm zapped her. She didn’t know if she could handle that. And then she wondered why she thought she’d have to. Was she anticipating them starting something?
“I was with a woman who had a daughter. She was a teenager when I knew her.�
� He went to one of two chairs Kendra had set up as a seating area in front of one of the Christmas trees to promote sales.
He sat, his big body taking up the delicate chair.
Kendra sat on the chair next to him. “You must have been with them awhile.” Otherwise he wouldn’t have learned so much insight into the minds of young women.
“Yeah. About six years.”
“Were you married?”
He shook his head. “I was never convinced she was the one.”
“Why not?” Kendra felt starved for information about him. She wanted to know everything and couldn’t explain why.
“I met her at a farmers market. I was with another girl and she was with another man. We bumped into each other in a chili peppers tent. The people we were with were in other tents. We talked awhile and hit it off. I gave her my card. About a week later, I broke up with my girlfriend and about a month later I received a call from her. She seemed so down-to-earth at first.”
He must have discovered the woman hadn’t been so down-to-earth after all.
“Her daughter never liked me,” he said. “But I learned how to handle her. We sort of had a tolerant relationship. She liked to tease me. She kept calling me Harry because she said I had the same dry and boring personality as Harry Bosch.” Roman chuckled. “I never thought Bosch was dry and boring.”
“Dry sense of humor, maybe. Not boring.” And neither was Roman. “Did you end the relationship or did she?”
“I did. She was the chief executive officer for a tech company. She worked a lot.”
“That was a bad thing? She sounds successful.”
“She was, and that was most important to her. I don’t think she ever really had strong feelings for me. She liked that I worked a lot, too. I think she thought we made a good couple because of that, like I fit into her world.”
“Problem was she didn’t fit into yours?”
He shook his head. “Her world was too fabricated.”
Right, because he lived in reality. Depressed reality. Reminded of how different they were, how he clashed with her positive nature, she curbed her curiosity. Why get to know him, why let herself start to like him too much, when they would eventually fizzle out and go their separate ways?
Hometown Detective (Cold Case Detectives Book 6) Page 7