Killer Smile

by Marilyn Pappano

  When Daniel spoke, his voice would seem calm to most people, but she heard the stress, the tight control. “Would you say that again?”

  She thought about repeating it verbatim, just to tweak his frustration a little tighter, because she knew he didn’t want a repeat. He wanted an explanation.

  Deserved an explanation.

  After drawing a deep breath, she exhaled, hoping to blow out some of her own stress, but it didn’t work. “I have a stalker,” she said flatly. “I got him about a year ago, right around Halloween.” That was Stacia’s birthday. Her sister had even joked about how bad her luck was: her birthday, and Natasha got a secret admirer. “Last weekend, he sent me a message that he had enjoyed his visit with Kyle on Saturday. You remember—”

  Daniel growled. Of course he remembered her first fiancé.

  “I still run into Kyle occasionally, so I called to see what he could tell me about this guy, and... I talked to his mother. He had a bad accident that day. He fell down the stairs at his house. He’s in a coma, and they don’t know whether he’ll survive.” She closed her eyes briefly, and an image of her first fiancé came to mind: boyish, auburn-haired, bearing a strong resemblance to Britain’s Prince Harry. The idea that he might die broke her heart.

  “RememberMe said—”

  “What?” Daniel interrupted, still looking flummoxed.

  “RememberMe. It’s his email address. It’s the only name I have for him.”

  “You don’t know who he is?”

  “If I knew, I would call him by name.” She mimicked his dry, stating-the-obvious tone almost perfectly. “I have no idea. Stacia and I considered every guy I ever met and came up with nothing.” It was hard, looking critically at people she’d been friends with, had dated, kissed or more, and wondering if they could be dangerous. Could one of them be the one so determined to terrorize her? Was anyone she knew actually capable of that?

  Dear God, she hoped not.

  “What do you know?”

  The memory of her first contact with the man was clearer now than the day it happened. At the time, it had been no big deal, just one more email from a stranger in an inbox that got plenty of those every day. His was friendly, lighthearted. It had made her smile, and she’d needed the smile, and she truly hadn’t found anything intrusive about it. She’d always had the option of deleting the email and, in that case, would likely never hear from him again.

  Instead, she’d chosen to answer. What would have happened if she hadn’t?

  “He sent me an email, just a short note. It had been a gray and dreary day, and he said it reminded him of the day we’d met. He said, of course, I probably didn’t remember because I had been surrounded by admirers. He said—” She broke off, pulled out her cell and scrolled through her email. She hadn’t known in the beginning why she kept his messages. It certainly wasn’t foreboding, and she hadn’t had any idea that they might be important someday. Maybe she’d just liked the picture attached to the first one, or the cartoon embedded in the second, or the link to a funny video in the third one. But she had kept them. Every one.

  She offered the phone to Daniel, and he took it. It was big enough that there was no chance of an accidental touch. His touch had always been simple. No-nonsense. Comforting. It had made her feel safe and protected and loved and aroused and so very lucky. And afraid. She’d wanted to love him and adore him and never, ever hurt him, and she’d done it all—the loving, the adoring and the hurting.

  He wouldn’t let her hurt him again. She knew that. He wouldn’t let anything the least bit sweet enter into his thoughts or his actions, because he had to protect himself from her, and that hurt her.

  Daniel read the note, then gave the photo a cursory glance, unimpressed by it. It had taken her breath away the first time: sunset that very day over the ocean, the sun’s rays bursting out of dark clouds to form a halo of gold and deep pink and dark blue and luscious purples. She’d thought about having it enlarged, printed and framed to hang on her wall, and Daniel gave it just a look. Huh. A sunset.

  He went on to read the second mail, the third, on down the list. After four minutes, according to the bank sign across the street, he looked up. “These aren’t exactly what comes to mind when I think ‘stalker.’”

  “I didn’t think of him that way, either. I honestly thought it was someone I knew who was being coy. Seeing how long it would take me to figure out who it was. That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before the number of emails passed five hundred in the first four months. Now it’s around two thousand. Plus he’s sent me nine hundred plus texts, twenty-eight cards, a half dozen flower deliveries and four personal deliveries. The ones you’ve read, he was still being charming and fun and not creepy.”

  He stared at her a long time, his dark gaze steady. He could make a person squirm with that gaze, in both good ways and bad. She could easily imagine him in an interrogation room with a suspect across the table, getting a confession without saying a word. That look just compelled a person to talk.

  “Did you contact the police?”

  “Yes. Apparently, stalkers aren’t a big deal these days. Just about everyone in Los Angeles has one.” Then she sighed. “I talked to a detective, asked for advice. She looked into it and agreed it was probably just someone I knew playing games. He hadn’t actually done anything. She suggested I change my email address and my cell number. I’d already done both a half dozen times. She said moving couldn’t hurt. I’d already done that. She said let her know if he escalated.

  “I called again after Kyle’s accident. She looked into it again. He was home alone. He was carrying some boxes down the stairs and apparently misjudged a step. His parents believed it was an accident. His girlfriend believed it. No one had a reason to hurt him.”

  Her conversations with the detective had all sounded so logical over the phone in her tightly secured apartment or sitting at the woman’s desk in a building filled with armed people. She was overreacting. Hypersensitive. Reading more into the emails than was there.

  But there’d been one small issue that prevented Natasha from taking the detective at her word.

  “Who did you talk to?” Daniel asked.

  “Felicia Martin.”

  His face tightened. He’d gone through the academy with Felicia. They’d called her Flea because she was nearly a foot shorter than most of them, wiry and compact, constantly in motion and tough as hell to get rid of. He and Flea had liked and respected each other. It had seemed only natural to Natasha that, after the way she’d ended their engagement, Flea neither liked nor respected her.

  “She’s a good cop.”

  Natasha didn’t respond. Cops were also people, and people were influenced by a lot of things. Was Felicia a good cop? Probably. Would she have taken more interest in Natasha’s complaint if they were strangers? Maybe. But that wouldn’t have changed the bottom line: that Natasha was being haunted by a phantom who didn’t leave the slightest trace and Felicia didn’t have the resources to discover who he was.

  Daniel set her phone carefully on the table between them. “So, how did you make the leap from Kyle falling down the stairs to thinking that I’m in danger?”

  “The same message where he mentioned Kyle. He said he was looking forward to meeting with you, Eric and—” Her mouth froze, and it took her a moment to get it working again. “And Zach. He said he hoped the visits would be as satisfying.”

  “Zach.” Daniel’s voice was hollow, his mouth quirking in a sardonic twist, his gaze rolling skyward in a grimace of distaste. “There’s four of us now? Is that all, or did RememberMe miss one?”

  “That’s all.” She barely managed a whisper. Four men. Four loves. Five broken hearts. And all the blame lay on her.

  He was silent a moment longer, until a gust of wind rattled the window beside them. Rain hit it so hard that it soun
ded like pebbles hitting the glass. She knew the sound, because once when she’d teased that no boyfriend had ever tossed pebbles at her bedroom window when she was growing up, Daniel had done just that the next night with a handful of aquarium gravel.

  “Have you talked to Eric and Zach?”

  She shook her head. “I’m looking for them.”

  His shoulders straightened, his expression going blank, as he gathered the empty sugar and creamer packets he’d used. “Okay, so now I know. There wasn’t any need to come here. You could have called. You could have just given the message to my parents and let them pass it on. But I appreciate the heads-up. Don’t feel like you need to stick around any longer.”

  With that, he stood and walked away. Natasha turned to watch him throw his coffee and litter into the trash, then go out the door and into the rain. He didn’t look over his shoulder until he was inside his car and then only to check traffic before backing out of the parking space.

  A lump rose in her throat as he drove away. It had gone better than she’d had any right to expect, she told herself as she threw her own coffee away, then exited the restaurant. He was probably right. She should have just told Jeffrey and Archer and let them handle it. But she’d needed to get out of LA, and she’d found it hard enough talking to him. She didn’t think she could have borne the anger that his fathers surely would have felt finding out that he was in danger because of her.

  “And you wanted to see Daniel,” Tasha whispered, filling all the corners of her brain with malicious glee.

  All right. Yes, somewhere deep, deep inside, she’d wanted to see Daniel.

  Stumbling to a stop in the drive-through lane, Natasha tilted her face to the sky and let the rain wash over her. It ran down her cheeks, caught on her eyelashes and dripped from her chin. It didn’t make her feel better, didn’t wash away her hurts or regrets.

  But if a tear or two happened to seep from her eyes, no one would suspect. It’s just rain, she could say.

  She could even pretend she believed it.

  * * *

  The rain had stopped sometime during the night, giving the waterlogged city a chance to drain and catch its breath. Daniel needed to catch his breath, but it was going to take a lot more than a break in the clouds to do that. He didn’t even have a chance until he knew for sure that Natasha had left Cedar Creek and Oklahoma far behind. He figured he would be able to feel it in his bones when it happened.

  The police station was quiet and dimly lit. He’d dressed down today—black tactical pants, a gray polo shirt embroidered with the department’s badge and boots—only very slightly in deference to the fact that it was Friday and everyone else always dressed down on Friday. Mostly it was because of the weather and his desire to keep his feet dry but also because of the trouble he’d had with his tie this morning. The agitation that hummed through his nerves all night long would have made self-strangulation far too tempting if he’d had to give the silk noose one more effort.

  He checked the time and grimaced. It was a little after six, so shortly after 4:00 a.m. in Los Angeles. Flea would kill him if he called now. He wondered if Natasha had shared her danger theory and Flea had found it without merit. She obviously hadn’t felt the urge to pass on the information to Daniel. But if she wasn’t taking the stalking seriously, why would she take the stalker’s remark as a threat?

  He was tired from a night of restless sleep, he had a headache and when he’d tried to drink a cup of coffee while getting dressed, it had gone down so poorly that he’d thought he might throw up. Thank God the weekend was here. Maybe he would retreat into his bedroom until Monday morning, or maybe Morwenna still wanted a weekend trip to Eureka Springs. Surely her company, the Arkansas town, the tourists and the hundred and fifty miles’ distance would allow him to get his mental balance back.

  “Why are you in so early?”

  Blearily Daniel glanced up as Ben dumped a half dozen spiral notebooks on his desk. They were wrapped in a plastic trash bag to keep them from getting wet even though two empty attaches resided in the other detective’s bottom desk drawer. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Because of Size-Two Fitted Bodice?” Ben shrugged out of his slicker and tossed it on an unused desk. “What’s the story?”

  Daniel scratched his jaw and felt the stubble of hair where he’d missed a swipe with the razor. He grimaced. Now he would be aware all day long that that thin line of whiskers was there and it would drive him crazy. “No story.”

  Ben snorted. He unpacked the notebooks from the trash bag—probably containing lists of his interminable lists—then threw the bag next to the slicker. “Everybody in the department knows there’s a story. And the sheriff’s office. And the fire department. A man doesn’t leave first responders’ night two-thirds through a perfect game without a story.”

  Daniel looked over his shoulder. There was a nighttime desk officer on, but they had so few walk-ins that he spent most of his night in the dispatcher shack chatting. All he’d done this morning was stick his head out the door when he heard Daniel come in, wave and settle back in.

  “We’re both early,” Ben said. “Let’s get breakfast at Mom’s.” He left the rest unsaid—we can talk there—but it was implied.

  “Yeah, sure.” Not that Daniel particularly wanted to eat breakfast or talk, but since the time difference kept him from doing what he did want, he might as well do something besides brood.

  Mom’s, known as Creek Café outside the Little Bear family, was eight blocks east of the police station. They could have run it easily, could have walked it even more easily, but they took Ben’s car. Even though neither of them was on duty yet, if they did get a call, the chief would be annoyed if they got caught without transportation.

  The café was located just west of the bridge that spanned the creek, the building high enough above the stream that it couldn’t really take advantage of the view. Instead, when a customer looked out, he saw the rocks that lined the creek bed twenty feet above the water’s surface. When Ben told him it was because of occasional floods, Daniel hadn’t quite gotten it. Sitting now at a table against the side windows, he glanced over the water, swirling and splashing fifteen feet higher than usual, and he got it.

  Mrs. Little Bear came from the kitchen when she heard Ben was there. She hugged him, combed her fingers through his hair then turned her attention to Daniel. “You look pale,” she said, catching his chin in her fingers and studying his face. “You didn’t get enough sleep last night. You young people think you can get by on coffee and your good looks, but take my word for it—you need a good night’s sleep every single night.”

  “It wasn’t for lack of trying, Mrs. Little Bear,” he said drily.

  She gave him another appraising look. “I’ll fix you something special. You’ll feel better in no time.”

  She left without taking their orders. The first couple of times that had happened, Daniel had been openmouthed, trying to say, Wait, you don’t know what I want. He’d learned that it didn’t matter much what he wanted, because everything Mrs. Little Bear and her kitchen staff made was excellent, and she always chose well for him.

  “Am I getting chicken soup for breakfast?” he asked as a waitress filled Ben’s coffee cup. She didn’t offer him any. Her boss had probably told her not to.

  “Could be. Or maybe her special grits. They have healing powers. So do her breakfast casseroles. And her sticky buns. With Mom, you never can tell.” Ben sipped his coffee, no cream, no sugar, then fixed his attention on Daniel. It was rather an unsettling experience. “The fire department won last night. It would have been different if you hadn’t run out on us.”

  Daniel shrugged. The first responders’ competition was just for bragging rights. No one took it too seriously, but it did keep the three departments in touch with each other.

  “So, what’s the story?”

  The waitress provided a brief res
pite by bringing Daniel a glass of pulpy orange juice poured over ice. He didn’t have to ask to know it was freshly squeezed. Archer wouldn’t drink it any other way, and so, beyond a one-time try in middle school, Daniel never had, either.

  After a long, sweet drink, he set the glass down and shrugged. “Nothing much. Old girlfriend. Wanted to talk.”

  “So, your old girlfriend from Los Angeles just happened to show up in Cedar Creek, Oklahoma, and tracked you down not once, not twice, but three times, and it was nothing much?” Ben gave a sorrowful shake of his head. “You’re a cop, Daniel. People lie to you every single day. Surely you can do better than that.”

  He wished he was more comfortable with lying, because he really would rather not talk about Natasha. Or think about her. Or remember. Or wonder...

  Nope, he wasn’t going there. He’d spent half the night wondering. How good things had been. How bad they’d become. How they could have turned out differently. How much happier he’d been with her. How she’d shattered his hard-won contentment simply by walking through the police station door.

  Whether he was in danger.

  Whether she was in danger.

  The man in him wanted her to go away, to leave his memories as well as his life this time. The detective in him was curious about the events she’d described, and the cop in him felt an undeniable need to do what he’d always done: protect people. Not her specifically, just people. That was why he wore a badge and carried a gun, why he’d become a cop, why he’d committed so much of himself to the job.

  That was what he’d been telling himself the past ten hours.