Dangerous Secrets

by Lyn Cote

  “Is the door unlocked?” the sheriff asked.

  Before Sylvie could answer him, Deputy Lawson had arrived and come up behind them. “Trish,” the sheriff said, turning to her, “I’d like you to drive Sylvie back to her home. And then talk with her briefly about last night when she closed and this morning when she opened up. Then please come back here to work the scene with us. I’ll be calling Josh in on it, too.”

  Ridge experienced conflicting emotions over this crime scene. He was eager to find something the perp had left behind but had the lingering doubt that this scene might also yield no usable clues. But if there were any clue here, he would find it.

  “Please,” Sylvie spoke up, “I’d like to go to my aunt Shirley’s house instead. My dad is gone to Ashford for the day. Ben’s at school. I just don’t feel like being alone.”

  Keir assented to this with a nod. He waved the women away.

  Trying to keep his focus on the crime scene, not Sylvie’s pain, Ridge followed the sheriff into the foyer and confronted the mess. The sheriff rumbled low in his throat, making his anger audible. Ridge let go a sound of disgust.

  “Well, let’s get started,” Keir declared harshly.

  “Yes, let’s,” Ridge agreed, wishing he could get his hands on the person who had done this. Soon.

  After Trish’s brief questioning and departure, Sylvie sat at the kitchen table with Aunt Shirley and Rae-Jean. Mugs of cooling coffee sat in front of them, untouched. In an olive-green sweater and slacks, Shirley settled the baby in her infant seat on the kitchen table. The little girl in a pink one-piece sleeper was nearly bald except for a few wisps of strawberry-blond hair.

  Shirley slid her index finger under the baby’s tiny hand and the baby gripped it. “I’m so sorry for you, Sylvie. All of this is like something that happens on one of those TV crime shows,” Shirley murmured. “It doesn’t happen to people like us.”

  Sylvie ached for her aunt. After her mother died, Aunt Shirley had been so good to her. And now Shirley had lost Ginger. And so had Sylvie. And someone was still looking for something. Something so valuable or incriminating that they were willing to tear her shop apart to find it.

  Her long blond hair uncombed, Rae-Jean wrapped her arms around herself. Wearing ragged jeans and an old Packers sweatshirt, she looked as if she had endured several sleepless nights. “I wish it would just end. Why can’t the sheriff find out who is doing this?”

  Neither Sylvie, nor evidently Shirley, had an answer to this. Silence except for Hope’s burbling filled the kitchen. “Rae-Jean, how are you feeling?” Sylvie asked, trying to turn the conversation away from the stress of another break-in.

  “You don’t want to know how I’m feeling,” Rae-Jean mumbled, looking away.

  “Yes,” Aunt Shirley said, “we do want to know how you’re feeling.”

  “Most mornings I wake up wanting to kill myself,” Rae-Jean muttered.

  Ridge had donned thin plastic gloves. The task before him was a daunting one. Every shelf in the bookstore was empty. Every book had been pulled from the shelf and riffled through.

  Keir stood in the doorway to the onetime parlor just off the foyer looking disgusted. “Well, at least we have two more facts to add to our measly total.”

  Ridge snorted. “I’ve been so disgusted by this that—pardon me—I haven’t come up with even one new fact. Except the obvious, that Sylvie’s shop has been torn apart.”

  Keir held up one finger. “First of all, our murderer-burglar has not yet found what he’s looking for.”

  “Yes,” Ridge agreed, “and I suppose you notice that Sylvie’s computer has been taken, too.” Sylvie’s desk at the rear of the foyer had been decimated—drawers pulled out and contents scattered. The computer tower and monitor had been removed.

  Keir nodded glumly. “Number two, he’s looking for something that could be hidden on a computer or within the pages of a book or behind a book.”

  “Are we going to have to fingerprint every one of these books?” Just thinking of the task weighed Ridge down.

  “If this were just a simple burglary, I probably wouldn’t bother with every book. I’d just dust a selection from all the different areas of the shop,” Keir replied, glancing around. “But I’m sure you agree that this is connected to Ginger’s murder somehow, right?”

  “I don’t know how we can see it any other way,” Ridge grumbled, knowing that they would have to examine each book.

  Keir did not say anything more but turned back to the large parlor where he began going through the routine of taking fingerprints. Soon he’d be setting each fingerprinted book back on one of the shelves, too.

  Ridge picked his way through the scattered books to the back of the foyer where he’d set up a small collapsible tray-table with fingerprinting materials on it. He bent down and picked up a book to dust it for prints.

  The image of Sylvie outside, sitting alone on the top step weeping haunted him. She didn’t deserve this. But then neither did Shirley and Tom. Then unbidden came the memory of his lips brushing Sylvie’s soft mouth the night before. What had he been thinking of?

  Rae-Jean wanted to kill herself? The idea terrified Sylvie. Yet she hadn’t been able to come up with a single response to Rae-Jean’s dreadful statement. Suicide? Was it that bad?

  Shirley rose and went and put her arms around Rae-Jean. “Sweetheart, we didn’t know. I thought you’d be happier at home—even with everything that has been going on. What’s upsetting you?”

  Rae-Jean gasped with what sounded like despair. She bent her head into one hand as though to hide her tears from them. “You have no idea what it’s like.”

  Sylvie rose also and came and stood beside Rae-Jean’s chair. “Rae-Jean, tell us. Please.”

  For several moments, Rae-Jean continued to swallow tears. Finally she looked up and wiped her face with her hands. “I still want to do meth. Every day I have to fight the urge to go back to it.”

  “I thought you’d gone through withdrawal,” Shirley murmured. “Got it out of your system.”

  “It’s not that easy with meth. It’s the worst addiction, I think. They told me it actually altered my brain waves. It gives the highest highs, lowest lows.”

  Sylvie did not know what to say to this.

  “What can we do to help you through this?” Shirley asked.

  Rae-Jean jumped up. “You are doing everything you can! I shouldn’t be laying this on you. You’ve lost Ginger. And now Sylvie’s store has been trashed. I’m being totally selfish.”

  Ridge continued, picking up book after book, dusting each for fingerprints and then transferring the prints to slides and labeling them. It was tedious, exacting, mind-numbing work. And unfortunately, it left his memory free to go over and over last evening with Sylvie. He recalled her little pearl earrings that had made him want to test the softness of her earlobes. And then he’d kissed her. Why?

  No answer came to him except that if given the same circumstances, he would do it again. An unwelcome thought. Also unbidden came the pretty face of Ben’s mother on her wedding day. And beside her was his best friend, the groom, and Ridge there as his best man.

  Ridge grabbed the next book and dusted it with a vengeance.

  “Rae-Jean, asking others for help,” Shirley said, “isn’t being selfish.” With the knuckles of one hand, she rubbed the back of Rae-Jean’s faded green sweatshirt up and down, up and down. “You’re right. I am grieving over the loss of my daughter,” Shirley admitted. “But your being here with your baby girl gives me a reason to get up every morning. You’re helping me go on with my life. And you are here, Rae-Jean, alive. And if you need our help, we will give it.”

  “Yes,” Sylvie agreed, grateful for Aunt Shirley showing her the way. “You’re my cousin, too. I love you as much as I loved Ginger. Don’t you know that?” She glanced at the baby whose eyes were drifting shut. “And you have this precious little girl. And we love her already, too.”

  “But I’ve caused so much p
ain and suffering,” Rae-Jean said, looking up with tear-filled eyes. “Look what I put my little boy and Chaney through when I left them last year. And then I was unfaithful. I think I’ve must’ve lost my mind for a while. I don’t know how Chaney can even look me in the face without spitting on me.”

  “Many women,” Shirley said in a serious tone and with a gentle hug, “never have a chance to see what their husbands are really made of until the worst happens. I don’t recommend it for any marriage. But now you see the kind of man you married very clearly, don’t you?”

  Rae-Jean nodded, tears pouring from her eyes. “Chaney’s been amazing. But how can I ever make it up to him? Little Hope might not even be his baby. Do you know how cheap that makes me feel? I loathe myself.”

  Long hours passed and Ridge and Keir, along with Josh and Trish, finally took a break and went to lunch at Trina’s Good Eats, an institution in Winfield. The original 1927 bell above Trina’s door jingled as the three of them entered. They grabbed a booth by the window. Choosing Trina’s specialty, a pasty, for lunch, Ridge tried not to growl his order at the blond owner.

  “It’s all over town that Sylvie’s shop got hit last night,” Trina said, after taking their orders.

  “Then you know all you need to know.” Keir looked as if he’d swallowed something sour. “We’ve been working the crime scene all day.”

  “When are you going to catch this guy?” Trina persisted.

  “As soon as we figure out who it is,” Keir said, sounding nettled.

  Ridge felt the same aggravation. And more. Was there any way he could speed up this investigation? Was there anything that he was missing? What could Ginger’s murderer possibly be looking for? And—a fear that he now recognized and hated to face—how was he going to protect Sylvie?

  Sipping his steaming coffee, he put on a calm front. But the truth was he was anything but calm. He clutched his mug and blew on his coffee while it was still much too hot to drink. So far the criminal had been content to merely search places. Did the murderer know that Ginger had spent that last evening with Sylvie? The thought sent chills through Ridge. Would Sylvie herself become the next target? How could he stop that?

  SEVEN

  March 16

  On the morning two days after the break-in at Sylvie’s shop, Ridge waited in his idling SUV along the curb in front of Sylvie’s bookshop. Both agitated and restless, he’d come in hopes of easing her shock when she reentered her store for the first time. After a break-in, people often felt violated. This feeling was intensified when their home or business had also been searched as a crime scene.

  But he had another more important reason for coming. He must speak to her alone. She’ll fight me, but this is one argument I’m going to win.

  Then he saw her come around the corner, her head down. She limped across the street, up the walk and steps to her door. Watching her slow progress jabbed him. It wasn’t right that most private insurance companies wouldn’t insure her because of a preexisting condition. He climbed out of his SUV and hailed her, “Sylvie, wait for me!”

  Not appearing nervous at all, she turned and waited for him to reach her. “You didn’t have to come this morning, Ridge.” She gave him what looked like a forced smile. “I’m all right. My dad offered to come with me, too, today. But I’m all right. Really.” Her repetition revealed to him that she was putting up a good front.

  “There’s something I want to discuss with you.” He nodded toward the door and waited while she unlocked it. The two of them walked into the foyer.

  Apprehensively he watched as she glanced around. He knew her well enough to expect her reaction to be subtle. After all, she’d barely screamed when she’d seen that Ginger was dead. She wouldn’t make a scene today.

  “I didn’t expect you to put the books back on the shelves,” she said, looking around as if everything were new to her.

  He wished he could have done more for her.

  “That was very thoughtful,” she continued. “Having to bend over to gather up all the books would have been hard on me.”

  This was the first time she’d ever mentioned her damaged hip to him on her own. It gave him courage. He helped her off with her coat and hung it on the hall tree in the foyer.

  “Come into the kitchen with me,” she invited. “I’ll make coffee.” She led him past her ravaged desk and into the kitchen at the rear. She wore a rose cashmere sweater and matching wool slacks, a single pearl pendant at her throat. As usual, well dressed even for a day of putting her plundered shop right again.

  “If I ever decided to move out of my dad’s place,” she said conversationally, “I could easily move in here. I can change the stockroom into a small bedroom. And add a shower to the bath.”

  He stood in the doorway. The prospect of Sylvie, this lovely and intelligent woman, having to live in such cramped quarters behind her bookshop depressed him. She was too fine, too special to live like that. And this thought gave him the impetus to say what he had come to say. “Sylvie, I want you to take a vacation.”

  She swung around. “What? What brought that on?”

  “I want you to take a vacation now,” he repeated. And I’m not taking no for an answer.

  She stood gazing at him, her hand resting on the kitchen counter. Her large eyes examined his. “Why would you suggest such a thing?”

  He made himself stay where he was. “I’m not going to beat around the bush, Sylvie. You’re in a very dangerous position.”

  “Dangerous?” She leaned back against the white-tiled counter and folded her arms in front of herself. “What are you talking about?”

  He took one step toward her. She would listen to him. Or else. “Sylvie, you were the last person to see Ginger alive. So far our murderer-burglar has only searched places. What if he decides to search…your mind?”

  “My mind?” She frowned, one corner of her soft mouth twisted downward.

  “Yes, the sheriff and I discussed it last night. When the murderer runs out of places to search, he will come looking for you because you were here to greet Ginger while Tom and Shirley were still in Arizona. You were the one who spent Ginger’s last night with her.” Ridge took another step nearer, but he held his arms at his sides, elbows locked straight.

  “How can you be sure of that?” She glanced away as if he were getting too close to her. Or was he getting too close to the fear she was suppressing?

  “The sheriff and I agree that the murderer has so far stayed away from you because he doesn’t want any witnesses able to testify against him. But we don’t know what he’s searching for. He could become desperate, Sylvie. Desperate enough to attack you. And if he does, he won’t leave you alive to testify against him.”

  “But I don’t know anything about what he’s looking for.”

  “Yes, and he knows that. Because if you knew what he was looking for, you would have already found it. But you were the person closest to Ginger and you knew things about her that this person doesn’t know.”

  Concentration creasing her forehead, Sylvie gazed at the floor. “You mean he’d think that I knew where Ginger had hidden whatever he’s looking for?”

  “Exactly.” She sounded as if she were going to be sensible about this. Ridge gripped the back of a straight-back chair in the narrow kitchen, still keeping his distance from her. “The sheriff and I think that both you and Milo should take a trip until we have this solved.”

  Sylvie turned and began to make coffee. “I appreciate your concern. But I can’t go on vacation indefinitely. Neither can my dad.”

  He didn’t appreciate her dismissal of his concern. “It wouldn’t be indefinite,” Ridge insisted, his tension increasing. He clenched his jaw. “The murderer is bound to give himself away. He can’t go on breaking and entering and ransacking without someone seeing him, hearing him, or surprising him in the act. Then we’ll nab him.”

  “Ridge, you know you can’t guarantee finding out who’s doing this within a certain time frame—”
r />   He tried to interrupt.

  She went on talking. “And even if I could afford to get away,” she said, not looking in his direction, “I wouldn’t leave.”

  “I knew you would say that—” irritation bit him hard “—but I’m not taking no for an answer. You and Milo are going away until it is safe again for you two here.”

  “It’s not for you to decide, Ridge,” she replied, her voice calm on the surface but undergirded with steel. “We couldn’t leave Shirley and Tom and Rae-Jean and Chaney at a time like this. And what about Ben? We couldn’t leave him alone.”

  “I’d move into your dad’s apartment with Ben.” Ridge’s hands itched to turn her around to face him. To take him seriously.

  “No.” Her refusal was serene but firm.

  It sparked his temper. Why wouldn’t she see sense? He moved up right behind her. “Sylvie, you must—”

  “No.”

  His frustration intensifying with her every word, his reserve melted. He grasped her slender shoulders from behind, his fingers pressing down. “This is a matter of life and death. Your life and death. Perhaps your father’s. Or even Ben’s because he lives with you.”

  “I hadn’t thought of Ben’s safety,” she responded. “Perhaps he should move in with someone else—”

  Ridge spun her around, his face hot with anger right in front of hers. “Why won’t you listen to me?” he demanded.

  She moved slightly within his grip, but did not pull away. “It’s not a matter for discussion, Ridge. I know you want to protect me. But no one in Winfield is safe until we find Ginger’s murderer. No one. Are you going to try to persuade anyone else to leave? Like Shirley and Tom?”

  “They don’t stand in the personal danger that you do.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know that.”

  Her obstinacy snapped the last thread of his restraint. He gripped her delicate shoulders tighter. “I don’t want you dead.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “You’re not responsible for me, Ridge. You weren’t responsible for Dan, either.”