MIND READER

by Hinze, Vicki

  “Some.” Caron stared at his back. He was reacting to her at gut level. Somehow she knew that—not by any image, but by emotion. And his emotions were as raw as hers. He rinsed his hands at the sink, stretching his shirt taut across his shoulders. A little fire sparked to life in her stomach.

  He looked back at her, his eyes probing. “Many?”

  “Many.” Her cheeks warm, she braced the cup between her forearms and lifted it to her mouth.

  A frown threatening his lips, he spooned the oatmeal into bowls. “Honey and cinnamon, butter, or milk and sugar?”

  “None of the above.” Her stomach rolled. “Just coffee, thanks.”

  “Caron, you can’t exist on coffee and Butterfingers.” He wiped his hands on his makeshift apron—a dishcloth tucked into the waist of his jeans. “You’ll be hypoglycemic.”

  “Hypo-whatever, I can’t eat that stuff.” She pointed a disgusted finger at the bowls.

  He tugged the dishcloth free from his pants. “What can you eat, then?”

  “There’s pizza in the fridge. I’ll have a slice.”

  Frowning his displeasure at that disclosure, Parker got the pizza out and lit the oven.

  “I like it cold.”

  “Good grief, Caron.” He gave her a look of sheer horror. “Cold?”

  “Cold.” She drank again from her cup. “Would you hand me the phone and dial Sandy?”

  Parker got the phone, dialed the number, then sat down across from her and started doctoring his oatmeal with honey.

  While listening to Sandy, Caron ran her fingertip around the honey jar, then licked her finger. When she hung up, she relayed the conversation to Parker. “There’s still been no missing-persons filed, and he doesn’t have anything new on Forrester or Cheramie.” Caron knew they were connected somehow; she felt it.

  “It really irks you that he won’t believe you without the report, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. We’ve worked together since I was seven years old. If the man doesn’t know me by now, he never will.”

  Parker agreed with a grunt, then added another dollop of honey to his oatmeal. “So why is he holding back?”

  “Because I screwed up last year.”

  “We all make mistakes, Caron.” And as the hours passed with them being together, he wondered if he hadn’t made the biggest, most unforgivable mistake of all.

  “I know.”

  She was sinking again; her shoulders were slumped. “Then accept it and get on with your life.” She hadn’t touched the pizza. Hoping to sidetrack her, he lifted the slice and pressed it against her lips. “But first, eat.”

  “You’re always shoving food in my face.” Caron glared at him, sighed and sank her teeth through the cheese and into the crust.

  When she licked at a drop of tomato sauce on her lower lip, he figured she’d realized she was hungry. And if he could keep her mind off Sarah, Caron might actually eat a decent—more or less decent—meal. “Do you feel up to checking out Cheramie this morning?”

  Still chewing, she grunted her opposition. “Forrester’s our man, Parker. I feel it.”

  “No, it’s Cheramie.” Parker slathered butter onto his toast. The light scraping sound filled the kitchen. “Did you see the rock on his finger?”

  “It’s a zircon.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He was flaunting it.” Seeing Parker’s perplexed look, she explained. “A man who owns a rock doesn’t flash it. Wearing the ring is second nature. He forgets he has it on.” She dipped her chin. “Another bite, please.”

  Parker put down his knife and lifted the pizza. “Okay, you have a point about the ring. But I still think—”

  Parker suddenly noticed that the top button on her nightgown had come undone, exposing the soft hollow at her throat.

  “So what were you thinking…what?”

  “Cheramie,” Parker said, staring at that soft hollow and grasping for cohesive thoughts. “We should start with him.”

  Caron drank from her cup before answering. “We’ll compromise.”

  Anything would be fine with him. Her eyes looked dull. Beautiful, but dull without their normal sparkle. Did she have any vitamins around here?

  “Parker, quit staring. You’re making me self-conscious.”

  He grabbed for his spoon, then noticed she was smiling. The tips of his ears burned.

  “You’re blushing.”

  “What?” he asked. “Real men can’t blush?” She pulled a face, and he slid her his best dastardly look.

  She laughed in his face.

  “Knock it off, Snow White. You’ve had your fun.”

  “Okay.” Threads of laughter lingered in her voice. “How about we check out Cheramie this morning, then switch to Forrester this afternoon?”

  “Sounds reasonable.” Gracious, she’d let it drop. And, for the umpteenth time, he wondered how her Mike and Greg could have willingly hurt her.

  The phone rang.

  Chewing a bite of toast, Parker lifted the receiver and tucked it against Caron’s ear. “Hello.”

  She lifted her chin. “It’s for you.”

  Parker took the phone. “Simms.”

  “Fred here, Mr. Simms. Millie just called from your office. She says she has the owners’ names on those two trucks at the Decker residence you asked about.”

  “Yes?”

  “Butch Decker owns the seventy-nine Ford. The other one belongs to a Keith Forrester.”

  “Thanks.” Parker dropped the receiver onto its cradle.

  “Did that phone call have anything to do with the case?”

  He nodded and folded his arms across his chest.

  “What? Misty?”

  “No. About the trucks.”

  She stepped to his side. “Who owns them?”

  He looked up at her looking down at him. Her hair swung forward, caressing her cheeks. “Eat another slice of pizza and I’ll tell you.”

  “That’s blackmail.”

  He grinned. “It sure is.”

  “I’ve been blackmailed before, Parker Simms. I didn’t care for the feeling.”

  “Who’s the culprit? I could use a good fight.”

  “My father, for one.”

  “Fathers are exempt,” he replied to suit his own purposes, telling himself that it didn’t matter. “We’re talking loves or lovers here.”

  “I didn’t get good at spotting a Judas until college.” She rubbed her wrist over Parker’s shoulder. “That’s when I clashed with Greg Cain.”

  “Uh-huh.” He watched closely for signs of distrust, but saw none.

  She cocked her head. “I should’ve known about him. Cain and Abel—remember?”

  “I remember.” The similarity between himself and Cain stung. “So what did the traitors do?”

  The shadows came back to her eyes. “Pretty much the same thing my father did. They made me care about them. And when I did, they used it against me to get what they wanted.”

  Her forearm stilled against his shoulder. He gave it a gentle pat. “We all make mistakes, Caron. I’ve been hustled into bed a time or two—”

  “Not my body, Parker.” She gave him a frown that could have felled a tree. “My gift. They used me to get to it.”

  There was a question in her eyes; she was asking if he was using her, too. He was, but not the way they had. He didn’t want material gain. He wanted peace.

  Because he couldn’t be totally honest, he said nothing.

  Caron realized he wasn’t going to answer, and she sighed. “I guess I’m still a slow learner, after all. I’ve got to risk it.” She stepped closer, bent at the waist and pecked a chaste kiss on his cheek.

  The man in him was elated that she thought he was worth the risk. When she would have pulled back, he looped an arm around her hips and tugged her closer. She fell across his chest. “Now, do it right, sweetheart,” he growled out in a sorry imitation of Bogey, “and I’ll spill the works.”

  Smiling, Caron kissed him. She was
getting too used to this, to sharing meals and spending time with Parker. He was getting too close, learning more about her than she’d ever exposed to any man. He was a good man. A slick charmer with a convenient code of ethics, but a good man. And if she wasn’t careful, she warned herself, she could find herself falling in love with him.

  He broke their kiss and nuzzled her neck. How she’d ended up in his lap, she hadn’t a clue. But the hardness at his hips, pressing against her bottom, told her that he was equally glad she had.

  Parker breathed against the hollow of her throat. “One of the trucks belongs to—”

  “Forrester.” She smiled and tweaked Parker’s nose. “I told you so.” Then she motioned for another slice of pizza.

  * * *

  “Twenty-four hours of intense research, and we still don’t know how they’re connected.” Parker ran his hands through his hair, pushed back from Caron’s kitchen table, stood and stretched.

  “It’s got to be easier than we’re making it. We’ve missed something simple, something basic.” She rubbed her temples. Her eyes felt as if someone wearing sandpaper-soled shoes had spent the night hiking across them. “Toss me Forrester’s dossier again.”

  “You’ve checked it a dozen times.”

  “Thirteen’s a baker’s dozen.” When Parker reached over several stacks and started looking through the wrong one, she added, “No, the one on the end.”

  He opened the file and spread it out before Caron. “You’re hung up on Forrester’s not listing a wife on his dossier. But that doesn’t make him guilty of abduction.”

  “No, it doesn’t. And, yes, I am hung up on that. A man shouldn’t deny he has a wife.”

  “Maybe when he completed the dossier he hadn’t married. Maybe he’s still not married.”

  “And maybe dead pigs fly. How many singles do you know who wear wedding bands?” Caron tossed back at him. “Would you?”

  “What?”

  “Deny having a wife on a dossier.”

  “I might.” Parker drank from his cup. “If I thought admitting it would hurt her.”

  Caron cocked her head. “Have you ever come close to getting married?”

  “Once.” That tilt curled his lip. “Peggy Shores.”

  “She dumped you!” How could he almost marry a woman who’d dumped him?

  “Yeah, she did. But I later inherited a trust fund from my maternal grandparents. Peggy tried coming back.”

  “Really?” That explained two things. One, how Parker’s family lived on an estate on a cop’s pay—it was Parker’s house; he’d said that he only lived there, but it was his—and why Parker was skittish when it came to trusting. Between Charley pushing Parker away to keep him from becoming too dependent and Peggy Shores coming back for the money, Parker had almost as much reason not to trust others as Caron did. “Did you let Peggy come back?” He’d said he’d almost married her.

  “Almost. But right before the invitations went out I came to my senses. I figured if she’d run out on me once, at the first sign of trouble she’d run again.”

  “Do you ever wish you had married her?” Why had she asked that? Did she really want to hear a man she was dopey about say he wished he’d married another woman?

  “No.” He blinked, then blinked again. “Maybe once in a while, when the nights get long, I wish I’d married someone.”

  “Me, too.” Caron rested her arms on the table. The refrigerator’s condenser kicked on. The wall clock near the stove hummed. “Trust is a fragile thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He stood up. “I’ve got to check in at my office.” Parker took his cup to the sink, drained it, then tossed a used tea bag into the trash. “Come with me.”

  The intimacy was gone, but his nonchalance wasn’t fooling her. Nor was his asking her to his office. He was afraid to leave her here alone. Feeling tender, she shook her head. “I’ve told you before, Parker, I don’t need a keeper.” She smiled to soften her refusal. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you forgetting—”

  “I’m not forgetting,” she said quickly, interrupting him, hoping he wouldn’t mention the message left on her door. Somehow thinking about it wasn’t as bad as hearing about it. When they spoke about it out loud, the incident became too real, too frightening.

  “I don’t want you alone. Until we tag whoever—”

  His worry brushed over her heart. “Tell you what. You can drop me at the cafe” by Forrester’s office.”

  “What for?” Parker leaned against the counter, folded his arms across his chest and set his expression in stone.

  He meant to be answered. “Ina said Lily Mae’s friend works there. Maybe she knows Forrester. Since it’s close, he might lunch there.”

  “Who’s Lily Mae?”

  “She lives on the other side of Decker.”

  “Why didn’t I know about her?”

  “Ina told us at her house the other night.” Amused, Caron pointed a finger to his chest. “But you were too busy stuffing your mouth with rolls to pay attention.”

  He lifted a hand. “Guilty.”

  “Yes, you are. Now, dial the phone, Parker.”

  He didn’t move a muscle. “Who are you calling?”

  “Ina.”

  “What’s Decker’s neighbor got to do—”

  “Humor me,” she told him. “I’ve got a...a hunch.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?” She’d expected, at the least, one of his grunts.

  “I have hunches, too.” He shrugged, then grabbed the phone and passed it to her.

  When Ina answered, Caron greeted her.

  “I was wondering what happened to you, child. You ain’t got pneumonia, have you?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Caron nudged the receiver Parker held at her ear. “Ina, what’s Decker’s sister’s name?”

  “Linda. I told you that when you and Parker—”

  “Linda what? Do you know?”

  “Oh, my. I’ve heard it, child, but this old mind ain’t what it used to be. I could ask Lily Mae. She’ll recall. Her mind’s like a steel trap, takes everything in and spits it out whenever she wants it.”

  Caron tensed. “Is it Linda Forrester?”

  “Yes, yes. It surely is.”

  “Good.” Caron smiled and nodded to Parker.

  “Did Linda ever have a little girl with her when she came to visit Decker?”

  “No. She’s not one for kids. I thought I’d told you that.”

  “You did, Ina. I was just double-checking.” Caron frowned. “I need to talk to someone about her. And I remembered you mentioning a friend of Lily Mae’s down at the diner.” Ina called the cafe a diner.

  “Mary Beth.”

  “Mary Beth,” Caron repeated, her heart thumping faster. “Yes, that’s it. Would you do me a huge favor?”

  “Depends on what it is. I don’t hold with giving my pledge till I know exactly what I’m pledging.”

  “Just a phone call. Would you call Mary Beth and ask her if she’ll talk to me?”

  “I ought to be asking why, but I’m thinking if your Parker is at all like his daddy, I’m better off not know-mg.

  Caron grazed her lip with her teeth. “That’s probably true, Ina.”

  “I’ll call. You go on down there. Mary Beth works the lunch shift, so she’ll be there. Get you a slab of her apple pie. It’s mighty fine.”

  “I will. And thanks, Ina. You’re a doll.”

  “Have you found the girl yet?”

  “Not yet.” Caron’s smile faded. They had a few more days. Misty had to be home by Christmas. Otherwise, it would be a day of mourning, not of joy. “Soon, we hope.”

  Parker whispered. “What’s her favorite color?”

  “Well, you just call if I can help.”

  “Thanks.” Caron said. “Ina, Parker wants to know your favorite color.”

  “Parker’s there? I’ve been meaning to talk to him about smooching you in the car. Mrs. Klein’s got a powerful crick in her n
eck from watching, and Mr. Klein’s miffed with her ‘cause he’s having to do all the cooking. You tell Parker Simms that smooching in the car with a lady ain’t proper now, you hear?” Without missing a beat, she rushed on. “And tell him pink’s my pick of the litter. Not them blue pinks, now. Can’t abide them blue pinks. I like the clear pinks.”

  “Okay. Clear pink.” Caron’s face burned. “I’ll tell Parker about the, er, smooching, too. Bye, Ina.”

  Parker tapped the hook button, grinning. “Smooching?”

  “It ain’t proper.” Caron mimicked Ina. “Mr. Mud Boots, alias Mr. Klein, is miffed with Mrs. Mud Boots, alias Mrs. Klein, because she’s got a powerful crick in her neck and he’s having to do all the cooking.”

  Parker laughed. “Did you tell her it didn’t count?”

  “What didn’t count?”

  “Our kisses.”

  “What?” Sometimes the man was as dense as a board.

  He shrugged. “We didn’t like them.”

  “Shut up, Parker.”

  Chuckling, he punched in a number. When Fred answered, Parker winked. “I need a favor, Fred. I want you to see to it that Ina Erickson has as many clear pink irises planted as her heart desires and her lawn will hold.”

  He tilted the receiver. “I need Ina’s address.”

  Caron reeled it off, unable to resist smiling at him.

  Parker repeated it, thanked Fred, then hung up.

  Caron stood up. “For a lousy kisser, you’re a soft touch, Simms.”

  “Who, me?”

  The warm look in his eyes had her breathless. “You.”

  He began tidying up the kitchen. “Come with me to the office, then we’ll go to the cafe together.”

  “I can’t.” She wished she could. Oh, how she wished she could.

  The bowls rinsed, he turned off the water. “Why not?”

  Her smile faded. “We’re running out of time.”

  The cafe was old-fashioned, in a charming sort of way. Wooden tables with little mason jars filled with white daisies, potted palms scattered here and there to give the diners an illusion of privacy, and a jukebox that had to be one of the first ever installed in the city of New Orleans.