by Beth Andrews
“Mom didn’t leave.” But although Nora stood her ground, she sounded uncertain. “She was killed.”
“She left first. What happened afterward doesn’t change the fact that she chose Dale over her husband. Over us.” Her hands were shaking, her breathing rapid. “It’s not unfeeling or heartless to do my job and help Chief Taylor get some answers about what happened to her that night. But I won’t pretend to mourn a woman who almost ripped our family apart. Not when she’s been dead to me for the past eighteen years.”
* * *
LAYNE’S VOICE, ROSS NOTED, like her expression, was hard. Bitter. But her lower lip trembled.
Nora, on the other hand, had tears falling freely, her arms wrapped around her middle. “Whatever she did, whatever her mistakes, she was still our mother. It’s only right to mourn her now. To feel sadness. Regret.”
Layne’s hazel eyes flashed. “She didn’t deserve my sympathy when she was alive. I’m sure as hell not going to give it to her now.” When she stepped closer to her sister, he moved as well, making sure to be within easy reach in case he had to hold her back from doing bodily harm to the baby-faced blonde. “And how I do, or do not, react or act, and my feelings are none of your goddamn business.”
She stalked out, her long legs eating up the distance to the front door in a matter of moments. Unlike her nephew and sister, when she shut the door, she did so with the barest of sounds.
Leaving him alone with her now openly weeping sister.
Nora, her head down, her long ponytail brushing her shoulder, sniffed, her body shaking. In his line of work, he dealt with more than his fair share of tears. There were plenty of times when he’d been a shoulder to lean on, a steady presence in a time of complete upheaval in someone’s life. He’d commiserated and consoled, counseled and, at times, got information about a case by letting someone whose guard was down talk about their loved one.
Gaining trust and listening were all in a day’s work. But part of being a detective, of what he liked to think made him good at his job, was knowing when to press forward for that information and when to ease back.
It was definitely easing back time. Nora Sullivan wouldn’t give him anything valuable. Not tonight. And she didn’t need him to help her through her shock and grief. She needed the people out back—Tori and her aunt and uncle.
And, perhaps, most of all, she needed Layne.
“I’ll see myself out,” he said.
She lifted her head, her face tear-streaked. “Oh, no.” She sounded horrified, as if he’d said he’d decided to bunk down there and planned on taking a bubble bath in her sister’s tub before calling it a night. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she sucked in a deep breath. Seemed calmer after she exhaled. “I’ll walk you out.”
At the door, he paused. “Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.” She nodded and he stepped out onto the porch. “Good night.”
The door shut behind him. But he didn’t take the few steps necessary to cross the small porch. Just stood there, his hands loose by his sides, as the night surrounded him. Stars dotted the sky; the air was warm and sticky, heavy with humidity and the cloying scent from the large, flowering bush hiding half the porch from view of the road.
He did a few slow neck rolls but the tension pinching his shoulders remained. The weight of expectations, of what he had to do pressed down on him. He was dealing with a crime that happened eighteen years ago, a crime they hadn’t even known about until today. Unless someone came forward as a witness—or to confess—he was going to have one hell of a time finding enough evidence not only to arrest someone, but for a conviction.
Something moved to his right, made a creaking sound. Squinting, he noticed a slight figure on a long wooden swing. Layne sat forward, her elbows on her knees, the light throwing shadows across her features.
But he didn’t miss how her gaze flicked to his hand hovering over his gun then back up to his eyes.
“Easy there, Quick Draw,” she said sounding weary, “it’s just me.”
He flexed and straightened his fingers. “Sorry. Habit.”
She hummed, a soft, contemplative sound. “My fault. I shouldn’t have startled a cop. We’re a jumpy breed.”
“I prefer to think of it as being alert.”
“I’m sure you do.” The swing creaked as she sat back. His sight adjusted to the dark enough to see her tip her head up to look at him. “Sorry about dragging you into our sibling misery.”
“Do you mean sibling rivalry?”
She thought that over for a moment. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s just pure misery at this point.” She grimaced. “Guess it’s my day for making a fool out of myself in front of you, huh?”
He stepped closer, the movement blocking the light. He shifted to the side. “That a habit? Making a fool out of yourself?”
Her lips twitched in self-depreciating humor. “Not sure it’s a habit yet. But today wasn’t the first time and it probably won’t be the last.”
“Warning heeded.”
She brought her legs up, set her feet on the swing and laid her head on her bent knees, much the same way Jess had done last night. Layne’s hair swung forward, covering her face like a silk curtain.
His palms itched to reach out and brush her hair back, to let the strands slide through his fingers. To see if it was as soft as it looked.
He swallowed hard. Linked his hands behind his back.
“You probably have to get going,” she said, glancing up at him, her head still on her knees.
He did. He needed to get home, check on Jess, see if he could make a dent in the paperwork that went along with running a small-town police station. He shouldn’t be out here in the near-dark. Not with her. Shouldn’t want to mend the rift between her and her family.
It wasn’t up to him to fix this.
But, if it’d been Meade or Campbell or any other male officer under his command, he wouldn’t be having any of those thoughts. Would have no problem helping them through a difficult time, all while maintaining his professional distance.
He was making his attraction to Layne bigger than it was, more important than it had any right to be, and that pinched his pride. And his ego.
He glanced toward his parked car. “I’m not in any hurry.”
Relief crossed her face. She set her bare feet on the wooden floor and scooted over on the swing. Making room for him. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. And then he stepped forward. What else could he do? She seemed so alone. And she obviously needed someone. Needed him. He couldn’t leave her. Not yet.
He sat and the swing moved, arcing backward. As soon as it settled he realized he’d made a mistake. A big one. Their arms brushed, their thighs touched. Her warmth and fresh scent wrapped around him like the night itself. It was too dark. Too intimate. Too tempting.
He shifted until the arm of the swing dug into his side, until a good three inches of space separated them.
“Was I wrong?” she asked with a soft exhalation. “Not to tell them about the necklace, about my suspicions earlier?”
Getting in the middle of a family argument wasn’t his first choice of activities for the evening. “I couldn’t say.”
He felt her watching him. Kept his own eyes straight ahead. “Can’t?” she asked. “Or won’t?”
“How about don’t want to?”
She laughed, a small burst of sound, and he couldn’t stop himself from turning toward her. “Good answer. No wonder you’re the chief.”
And I’m not.
The words, left unspoken, were there, though. In every conversation they had, every time they butted heads. She resented him taking what she perceived—rightly or wrongly so—as her position. He resented how she challenged his authority. And that he thought of her.
Dreamed of her.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that if I was in your shoes, I would’ve done the same thing.”
Her eyebrows winged up. “Except not speaking up about the necklace sooner.”
“Except that. You let your personal feelings get the best of you in that situation. Which proves emotions have no place in a police investigation.”
“Another of those no-shades-of-gray areas?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Emotions can cloud a person’s judgment, make them lose perspective. Which is why you can’t be involved, in any way, in this investigation. And no matter how many times you try to deny it—to me, to your sisters, even to yourself—this isn’t another case. Not to you.”
“Ah, but I don’t have to deal with such untidy things such as emotions,” she said, her light tone not hiding the hurt in her voice. “Haven’t you heard? I’m heartless.”
“Everybody reacts to news like this in their own way. Grieves in their time.”
“That’s just it. I don’t want to grieve my mother. I’m not even sure if I can. I don’t…” She tucked her hair behind her ear, kept her gaze on her lap. “My mother is dead and I don’t feel anything,” she said so quietly, he had to strain to hear her. “I’m…numb.”
She wasn’t but she was in denial. He’d seen it plenty of times in his career, had experienced it himself with his sister when he hadn’t wanted to admit how bad her addiction had gotten. But he’d witnessed how Layne had fought to hold herself together when he told her they’d identified the remains. She wasn’t ready to deal with whatever was going on inside her, wasn’t strong enough to deal with it yet.
“Jess didn’t cry,” he heard himself saying, “when her mom—my sister—was sent away.”
“Sent away? As in…sent away, sent away?”
He nodded. “She’s had some…legal problems that finally came to a head this past winter. We were all in the courtroom—me, my parents, Jess—and when the judge handed down the sentence, Mom and Dad both broke down. Heather, too.” He stabbed a hand through his hair remembering how powerless he’d felt. How guilty having let Heather spiral so far out of control. “But Jess…she just sat there. Completely blank, like none of it affected her.”
“Seems to me,” Layne said, compassion lacing her tone, “it affected her the most.”
“Exactly.” The sound of canned laughter from a television show floated through an open window from the house next door, the sound incongruous with his memories. “I couldn’t understand it. Here’s a kid who cries at the drop of a hat. When she’s frustrated or angry or, as you noticed last night, drunk, the waterworks start. But she didn’t shed one tear that day. Or, as far as I know, one yet over her mom.”
“So,” Layne said, dragging the word out, “you’re saying I’m acting like a teenager?”
“I’m saying there’s no timeline for a situation like this, or what Jess went through. And Jess will mourn what happened to her mother when she’s ready.”
Silence. He glanced at Layne to make sure she hadn’t stopped breathing. She was staring at him, her brow furrowed, but then, as if wiped clean, her expression cleared.
“Wow,” she said, bending one leg and tugging it under the other, causing the swing to sway. “I never would’ve pegged you for a Dr. Phil fan.”
“I’m a man of varied and eclectic taste in television shows,” he assured her solemnly.
“All sarcastic comments aside—”
“Is that even possible for you?”
“—I appreciate you coming out here to tell me first about Mom.”
“You’re a colleague,” he pointed out, not wanting her—not wanting anyone—to think he’d given her special treatment because she was a woman. Because he was attracted to her. “I would’ve done the same for any of the other officers in my squad.”
She smiled…a soft, sad smile that made his breath catch. “I’m sure you would. But you didn’t do it for someone else, you did it for me—despite our…personality conflict.”
He opened his mouth to brush it off, to downplay it but she leaned toward him, the material of her top pulling taut against her breasts, and the words dried in his throat.
“And,” she continued, laying her hand on his knee, “I wanted to thank you.”
His muscles contracted under her fingers, her warmth seeped through the material to heat his skin. He couldn’t stop himself from looking at that hand, then at her face. Couldn’t stop his gaze from settling on her mouth for two heavy beats of his heart.
Her lips parted on a soft inhale and he jerked his gaze up. Her eyes darkened even as her fingers tightened on his leg. The night air seemed to still. To thicken with awareness and need.
An awareness that was out of bounds. A need he couldn’t fill.
He stood. Took a step back. “I’d do it for anyone who worked for me.”
“Yeah, you already said that.”
So he had. He thrust his hands into his front pockets. “Good night, Captain.”
“Tori was right,” Layne called when Ross was halfway down the front walk. “You’re not nearly the asshole I said you were.”
Lifting a hand in acknowledgment he kept walking. Only when he was safely in his car a block away did he let himself grin.
You’re not nearly the asshole I said you were.
Coming from Layne, that was high praise indeed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ON ANY GIVEN DAY, the Ludlow Street Café’s kitchen was busy. But on a weekend morning when tourists and locals alike waited in a line that wound around the block? Chaos. Utter and complete chaos.
And Layne was right smack-dab in the middle of it. Cutting home fries, no less.
She hated cutting home fries.
“You don’t have to do that,” Celeste told Layne. She set an order under the warming lights on the window that opened into an alcove between the kitchen and dining room. A wide, black headband held her curly hair from her face and food and grease stained the white apron covering her black capri pants and T-shirt. She tapped the bell twice—the cheerful ding, ding getting on Layne’s last nerve. “Sandy. Pick up,” Celeste called then turned back to her workstation.
Layne scooped cut potatoes into a bowl. “I don’t mind pitching in. Seems you need it since Tori isn’t here.”
Plus, keeping her hands busy, her mind occupied by being surrounded by so much noise and all these people didn’t give her much chance to think, to worry and chew over the decisions she’d made. To wonder what she should’ve done differently.
To relive that charged moment between her and Chief Taylor last night.
She fumbled the large chef’s knife, almost cutting off the tips of a few fingers.
“Careful,” Celeste admonished gently, adding chopped peppers, onions and mushrooms to a veggie-lover’s omelet. “You shouldn’t be here. You should be with your sisters.”
Layne’s throat closed. They didn’t want her.
“I’ll see them at the station in—” she checked the large Coke clock on the wall “—just over an hour.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“They’re still angry with me,” she said with a casual shrug. “So some space will do us good.”
Which was why she’d chosen to go back to her own house last night instead of spending the night at Tori’s as Nora had.
Sprinkling a generous amount of shredded cheese onto the omelet, Celeste glanced at her. “And sometimes, too much space creates a bigger rift.”
True. But it was easier to be alone. Safer.
Less chance of getting hurt. Or, as she so often seemed to do, hurting others.
“Tori and Nora need you now,” Celeste said, her dark eyes serious, her tone somber. “And, I think, you need them. You don’t have to do everything on your own,” she added quietly, giving Layne’s forearm a quick squeeze before folding the omelet. “You’re not alone in this. You’re never alone. But you need to learn to let people in, let them help you. That’s what family is for.”
Her jaw tight, her eyes burning, Layne could only nod. Keeping her gaze down, she carefully cut yet another parboiled potato as Celeste transferred the omelet onto a plate, added home fries and toast and carri
ed it to the window.
Layne set aside the knife. Yes, that was what family was for. And Layne had always been there for hers. Had always done what was best for them and put them first. She didn’t know how to let them do the same for her.
Didn’t trust them to be there when she needed them.
Picking up the knife again, Layne laid another potato on the wooden cutting board and split it in half with one, swift swing.
Coming here had not been the best idea she’d ever had. All she’d wanted was some noise, and possibly a mindless task to keep her busy until she had to go to the station. Instead she got one of Celeste’s thoughtful and yes, damn it, correct assessments of what was currently wrong with her life.
She could’ve stayed home. But she hadn’t been able to spend one more minute in her big, rambling house, her only company the lovable, dopey mutt she’d adopted from the shelter a few months back. But Bobby O—a lab-rottie mix with more heart than brains—wasn’t much of a talker. On the other hand, there were no judgments from Bobby. No recriminations or hurt feelings.
As long as she fed him, rubbed his stomach each night and played Frisbee with him until it felt like her arm was going to fall off, she had his unconditional love.
If only all her relationships could be that easy.
“I wish I could be there with you girls this morning,” Celeste said when she returned. “I don’t like the idea of the three of you going there alone.”
“How can we be alone if we’re there together? And we’re going to the police station,” Layne pointed out, “which also happens to be where I work. Not a third world country overrun with terrorists.”
Celeste set her hands on her nonexistent hips—the woman was so thin, she disappeared when she turned sideways. “I worry. You’re my girls.”
Layne sighed and slid off her stool and wrapped her arm around the older woman’s shoulders. “I know you do.”
“Maybe I should go anyway. Joe can cover—”
“No, he can’t.”
No one, not even Joe Bernhardi, the cook who’d been with the café since Celeste opened it sixteen years ago, could handle a Saturday breakfast rush on his own. Usually it took Celeste, Joe and Tori—who pitched in on cooking duty one day of the weekend—to make it through.