“Do you miss Dallas?”
Juliet glanced at Martin. “I thought I would. I thought moving away would be terribly hard, that it would take months, maybe even years, to get over being homesick. And I was homesick in the beginning. I got into town early on a Saturday morning and spent the entire day unpacking, shopping and keeping busy. But at bedtime I’d never felt so lost and alone in my life, not even when my mother died. I knew I had made a terrible mistake, and I wanted nothing more than to jump into my car, rush back home to Dallas and beg for my old job and my old house back.”
“But?”
She shrugged. “I liked the town. My new jobs were challenging and interesting. This part of Colorado is certainly more impressive geographically than Dallas. And then I met you.” He had made such a difference in her life. His leaving would make such a difference, too. If he left. If he had someplace to go back to once he remembered.
They reached a corner and went where Hunter led. Juliet glanced up at the street sign. “This is Poplar Street.”
Martin’s response was little more than a grunt.
“Olivia lived on Poplar.”
Another grunt.
“Do you know where?”
He walked in silence for nearly a block before stopping to face a house. “Right here.”
It was a nice middle-class house in a nice middle-class neighborhood, two stories with a yard that needed mowing and a garage at the back of the property. It didn’t look any emptier than some of the other houses on the block, but it felt it. It felt…sad.
“I wonder why Eve and Hal haven’t put it up for sale.”
“There might be a problem with the will. Olivia left the house to all three children. Since no one knows where Roy Jr. is or if he’s even alive, they would have to go through some legal maneuvers to be able to sell it.”
The house was a nice accomplishment for a woman who’d spent her married life as a victim and hadn’t gotten an education until her husband was dead and her oldest kid practically grown. Olivia had matured into a strong, capable woman who had provided a comfortable, loving and safe home for her younger children. Too bad it’d been too late for Roy Jr.
Curiously, Juliet looked around. The houses on either side both had lights on, but the ones across the street were dark. It would be so easy to walk up the driveway, around to the back of the house. While the front door would require a key or a skilled lockpick, the back door might be a simpler prospect— “You’re not going in.”
She looked up. The nearest street lamp cast a yellow glow over Martin’s features, highlighting the warning in his expression. “Did I say I was?”
“No, but you have that look. You’re not breaking into a dead woman’s house. You know nothing about picking locks, and you don’t even have a flashlight.”
With a grin, she pulled her free hand from her jacket pocket. She’d grabbed the compact flashlight while changing into jeans and a dark T-shirt in her bedroom. “Just in case we wandered off onto any poorly lit streets. Do you know how to pick a lock?”
He was shaking his head, but more at her audacity, she suspected, than in response to her question. The question he intended to ignore. There were things about his past that he didn’t like to admit to because he didn’t like the obvious implication. Being skilled at breaking and entering was one of them.
“Just a quick look around.”
“No.”
“Look at those windows. The drapes are closed on every one, and they’re so heavy that there’s no way this little flashlight would show through.”
“Juliet—”
“Martin.” She grinned again. “We might find out who Jason Scott is.”
“The police have been through her house.”
“They went through all her papers, too, and they missed Jason Scott. Maybe they missed something in there.”
“Do you know what the penalty is for breaking and entering—and into the beloved Mayor Olivia Stuart’s house, no less? You wouldn’t have to worry about losing your job or finding another one because Hal Stuart would have us both strung up on the courthouse lawn.”
“Let’s just walk around back. Let’s see how easy it would be.”
“No.” He tightened his fingers around hers. “We’re getting out of here, and you’re not coming back alone. Do you understand?”
Hunter, traitor that he was, happily took off when Martin began walking again. Juliet had no choice but to move or be dragged along. They walked to the end of the block in silence, turned onto another street, then Martin stopped in the shade of a tall oak. “I’m waiting for an answer. You’re not going to break into Olivia Stuart’s house, right?” At her silent, mutinous look, he cupped both palms to her face and brushed his mouth across hers, then rephrased the question to one she couldn’t help but answer. “You’re not going to prove that I’m a bad influence who has no business in your life, are you?”
“No.”
“You won’t come back to Olivia’s without me.”
“No.”
He kissed her before reclaiming her hand and moving onto the sidewalk again. She was disappointed. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she was sure that they could find something of help in Olivia’s house. But she couldn’t blame him for being so insistent. In the past he’d forgotten, he had most likely been the breaking-and-entering kind, and he was convinced that he’d been the murdering kind. He was afraid that he might once again resort to such practices, to succumb once again to such a life-style.
So whatever clues might be hidden in Olivia’s house would have to remain hidden. And maybe he was right. Maybe there weren’t any clues. Maybe she would be risking her job, her reputation and her freedom for nothing.
As they walked, the houses grew shabbier. The streetlights came farther apart, the sidewalks gave way to paths in the grass, and the curbs disappeared from the street. At one time the houses had been decent—twenty, maybe thirty years ago—but they’d gone into a steady decline since. The yards were junky, the houses in need of regular maintenance. They had reached the part of town called the Downs. If she were alone with Hunter, she would have turned around at the last intersection. Even with Martin at her side, she would prefer to go back, but he showed no such interest. In fact, something about this sadly rundown part of town captured his attention.
They moved into the street, walking near the edge in the shadows of overgrown trees and distant street lamps. She clung a little tighter to his hand, but he didn’t notice. He didn’t seem to remember that she was even there.
His steps slowed until finally he stopped in front of a dilapidated house. It was abandoned now, with boards over the windows and the front door missing from its hinges. It was two stories, and the front had last been painted yellow, with the sides weathered gray.
Martin gestured to the overgrown lot next door. “There was a house there that burned down. This house used to be blue. And that stop sign was put in—” he gestured toward the corner ahead “—after an accident killed three people.”
She didn’t know whether to ask questions that might help him remember more or to remain silent so she wouldn’t disturb his concentration. She chose silence.
“There was a fence around this yard—little white pickets—and roses in that yard. The police came here—” his open arms encompassed the entire neighborhood “—a lot.”
Juliet looked for an address and found none, not on this house or the next. She made a mental note to stop by the courthouse and find out who owned these properties, then track down the police department’s old records. If the death in his dreams had really happened, maybe it had happened here on this street.
Suddenly he shivered and looked at her. His eyes were particularly vulnerable. “Let’s go home, Martin,” she suggested softly.
He nodded, and they started back. But all the way down the street, he kept looking over his shoulder as if to make sure that they weren’t being followed. They were, of course. By memories. By ghosts.
*
* *
After breakfast Saturday morning, Juliet dropped Martin off at the church. The pastor had asked him to come in for a few hours so at least one of the classrooms would be ready for Sunday services. Initially she’d welcomed the morning alone. She could clean house, do laundry, run to the grocery store—all the boring things she never got done while he was around—but it didn’t take long at all for her to start missing him. After all, there wasn’t that much cleaning or laundry or shopping to do. She didn’t want to pass the rest of the morning on the computer, wasn’t in the mood to answer E-mail or particularly curious about what was going on in the rest of the world. She only wanted to be with Martin.
In anticipation of a dusty job, she traded her dress for jeans and a T-shirt, then drove downtown and parked in her reserved space at the police department. Though she hadn’t expected to see Stone Richardson, she was pleased to see his car in his usual space.
She found him at his desk. When she sat down, he sprawled back in his chair. “What can I do for you?”
“I have a couple of questions. Is there any conceivable way a cop’s fingerprints wouldn’t be in the FBI’s database?”
“Nope.”
The swiftness and certainty of his answer deflated her hopes. She’d known it was a long shot, but there was so much about Martin that suggested some law enforcement experience. Of course, it could be twisted around to also suggest some criminal experience, but she’d hoped… “None at all? What if a federal agent were working undercover, trying to identify dirty cops? Would those cops be able to run his fingerprints and find out that he was an undercover agent?”
“No.”
“Then it’s possible—”
He held up one hand to stop her. “Say a DEA agent is working in deep cover. The DEA gives him a fake identity and all the documentation to support that identity—a driver’s license, birth certificate, automobile registration, et cetera. The place where he lives, the utilities, his credit cards and everything else will come back to that name. If, for the purpose of the investigation, he needs to have an arrest record, they’ll create that for him, too. If he gets arrested and his fingerprints are sent to the FBI, the bureau will know who this person really is. They’ll also know that his prints have been flagged or blocked, so the first thing they’ll do is notify the DEA. The DEA might contact the police department and find out what they want to know and why, or—in a situation such as you described—they would have the bureau verify the guy’s fake identity and then contact him directly to let him know that he’s making his subjects suspicious.” He gave her a curious look. “Is this about Martin?”
She shrugged.
“If he were a cop or a fed, even working undercover, they would have responded to the initial missing persons bulletin we sent out. I mean, it said in plain English that we were trying to identify a John Doe suffering from amnesia. Somebody would have been on the phone to us in an instant. So…now that I’ve shot down that theory, what’s your other question?”
“The old police records. Where are they stored?” That was the reason for her jeans and shirt. Old records tended to be dusty and musty and stored in old boxes. She’d wanted to be comfortable for her search through them.
“The department has a warehouse over on Third Street. Everything’s all boxed up and dated. What in particular are you interested in?”
“Any unsolved murders that happened longer than eighteen years ago but no longer than thirty-three.”
“Open homicides are in the files right here. I’ll get them.” He left his desk and returned a moment later with only a few slim folders. She’d expected a heftier stack, and the expression on her face must have indicated as much, because he grinned. “We’re good around here. We have about a ninety-five-percent solve rate.”
“Except for Olivia’s,” she said softly, and his grin disappeared.
“We’re still trying.”
She opened the files one at a time and scanned the reports inside. There was a man killed by his next-door neighbor in a feud over the property line; the neighbor had fled town immediately following the murder and never been located. The second was a woman found shot to death outside the company where she worked; her estranged husband was the only suspect, but he, too, had disappeared. There were three murders whose victims were also women, and that was all.
Martin was certain that the person he’d killed was a man. There was no question of that. If it had happened in Grand Springs, it had been ruled a suicide, an accident or self-defense. But maybe it hadn’t happened in Grand Springs.
Maybe it hadn’t happened anywhere, except in the dreams of a troubled man.
“Anything else I can do you?”
She smiled vaguely and shook her head. “Thanks for the help.” She was about ten feet from his desk when she abruptly turned back. “Stone, what do you think of Maxwell Brown?”
“What’s your interest in him?”
“I met him the other day,” she lied. “I don’t find him as likable as other people seem to. I was just curious about what you think.”
“I don’t like him much, either. He makes a lot of money, and he likes to flash it around.”
“He’s very generous with the local charities.”
“And he’s very public about it. It’s part of his showing off—his way of saying, ‘Hey, look, I have so much money that I can afford to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to you losers.’”
“Other than being condescending and flashy, you don’t think there’s anything a little off about him?”
He looked puzzled. “He’s never been in any trouble. From what I can tell, he never does anything but work and spend his fortune.”
With another vague smile and a thanks, she left the department. It was only eleven o’clock and Martin wasn’t scheduled to finish at the church until one, but she intended to show up, anyway. Maybe she could help out. If not, maybe she could just sit and watch him. That was always a pleasurable pastime.
* * *
Martin switched off the headlights, pulled onto the shoulder of the road, then eased onto the right-of-way before shutting off the engine. For a moment, he sat there, scowling so hard that his jaw ached. What the hell was he doing here yet again? How had he let Juliet talk him into another damn fool evening of tailing Maxwell Brown?
At least this time he’d come better prepared. He’d used heavy-duty duct tape to ensure that the interior light wouldn’t come on when the doors were opened. Juliet’s powerful little flashlight was in his pocket, and a hunting knife in a leather sheath was tucked in the small of his back. It wasn’t as comforting as the gun he usually wore there, but it was better than nothing. And he was good with a knife. He knew how to use one to protect himself, knew how to defend himself against one.
Better prepared or not, he would still rather be safe at home. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He was curious as hell about Maxwell Brown’s activities, and he wanted to see what was going on out here at the trucking company warehouse tonight. He wished Juliet was safe at home. Keeping himself safe and out of sight was problem enough. He didn’t want to worry about her, too.
She was dressed in black—jeans, shirt, windbreaker with a hood to cover her hair. He wore dark clothes, too, and a similar windbreaker, but where he looked sinister, the all-black get-up somehow merely emphasized her innocence. Not even the most suspicious person in the world could take one look at her and think that she was up to something. She looked so damn angelic.
“Are you ready?” she whispered, though they hadn’t left the car yet. He didn’t comment on it, but climbed out and slid the keys deep into his pocket.
The trip through the woods to the drainage ditch was no easier this time than the time before. They slipped and stumbled through the darkness. As he worked his way down the sloping sides of the ditch, Juliet lost her footing and slid into him. He reached back to steady her, then felt her hand at his waist.
“What is this?” she whispered, her mouth over his ear making him
shiver.
“Just a little protection.”
She groped the shape of the knife and recognized it. “Martin?”
He turned to face her. Moonlight showed the concern on her face. “You don’t go into a potentially dangerous situation unarmed. I normally carry a gun, but I don’t happen to have one.”
“You remembered that.”
“Last time we were here.” He held her gaze for a moment, then turned away.
The bottom of the ditch wasn’t much easier going. The ground wasn’t level, and the chunks of rock scattered across it shifted under their weight. All he needed was to fall and break an ankle out here behind Brown’s warehouse. Then they would be in a fine mess.
At about the same place they’d stopped before, he motioned for Juliet to wait, then inched up the slope. A tractor-trailer was parked parallel to the fence, but he had a perfect view between the wheels to the loading dock where all the activity was centered. Brown was there, as well as his second-in-command from the other night. In fact, from what he could tell, all the men who were here tonight had also been here Wednesday night. That made sense, of course. No doubt, part of Grand Springs Trucking’s business was strictly legitimate, and so were some of their employees. The illicit part of their business would be restricted to the same crew of trusted workers.
As the men unloaded wooden crates from one truck and took them inside, Brown paced back and forth, looking every few minutes at his watch.
“You think he’s in a hurry or expecting someone?”
Martin glanced at Juliet. She had moved into place beside him without making a sound. She was getting good at this covert stuff. Too good. He didn’t want her to develop a taste for excitement and danger. He wanted her to prefer a quiet evening home alone over sneaking around in the dark and risking her life.
He shrugged in response to her whisper, then turned his attention back to the warehouse. If he could get inside the fence, get up close enough to hear what was being said… It wasn’t impossible. He could cut the fence on the far side just wide enough to slip through, make his way through the shadows to the building and find cover among the pallets and crates stacked around the loading dock. But no matter how strenuously he insisted to Juliet that she had to wait behind, he had no doubt that he wouldn’t make it fifty feet before he found her tagging along like an overeager puppy.
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