Killer Smile

by Marilyn Pappano

  Ben was waiting, and Daniel knew it wasn’t just the detective in him that was asking. They were friends. Not bare-your-soul-share-all-your-secrets friends—Daniel had only ever had that sort of relationship with his fathers and, he grudgingly admitted, Natasha. But still friends. And if there was any real threat from her stalker...

  “Long story short,” he began, scratching that bit of hair on his jaw again, “we were engaged. She changed her mind a week before the wedding. Ended it at a pre-wedding party with all of our friends and families there.” A pause as Ben grimaced. “By proxy. She sent her sister to give me back the ring.”

  “Damn.” One word, a lot of sympathy. “I’m guessing that happened about five years ago.”

  Daniel nodded.

  “Why is she here now? Did she change her mind?”

  A snort escaped him. “Oh, she’s good at that. I’m the third of four jilted fiancés.”

  This time it was Ben who snorted. “Did you know she’d dumped two other guys before you?”

  Daniel grudgingly nodded. “I did, but...it’s complicated.”

  “Women always are.”

  The waitress appeared, delivering eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy to Ben and the biggest omelet Daniel had ever seen. She grinned at his wide-eyed look. “Cheese, bacon, sausage, ham, chorizo—oh, and veggies and avocado for our California boy. Miz LB says that’ll give you the energy to get through the day. Eat up.”

  “Or die trying,” Ben added.

  “That’s a distinct possibility.” Daniel took his first bite. The omelet was hot and steamy and meaty; the seasoning perfectly balanced; the cheese melted and smooth; the tender-crisp vegetables just the way he liked them. “Man, your mom can cook.”

  “Good thing, too. This restaurant supports our whole family, except Great-Aunt Weezer.”

  Weezer might be the only member of the extended Little Bear family that Daniel hadn’t met. She hadn’t been particularly sociable before she won half a million dollars in the lottery, and she was even less so afterward, afraid people wanted her money.

  Daniel didn’t have to worry about that. He would never make the kind of money his fathers did, but he got by. The cost of living in Cedar Creek was nothing compared to LA, and generous people like Ben’s mother gave discounts or free meals to officers. It helped a so-so salary go further.

  They were finished eating and Daniel had half of his omelet in a box when the sound of a Federal siren winding up caught his attention. He and Ben both looked toward the fire station across the street, where one engine was pulling out of the station and a second, lights flashing, its own siren engaging, waited to follow.

  “As wet as it’s been, you’ve got to be determined to burn something,” Ben remarked as they walked out to his car.

  “Determination might be the number one character trait of criminals.”

  “Or stupidity. It’s funny how often you hear the phrase ‘criminal mastermind,’ but in all my years on the job, I’ve never met one. I think Mila’s stalker came closest.”

  Daniel agreed with him there. Though Sam had passed on information to various police departments, the number of murders that one had committed was still unknown. There had been three in Cedar Creek alone, plus two attempts on Mila and one on Sam.

  Mila’s stalker had been deadly. Was Natasha’s?

  A black plume of smoke rose to the west above downtown. Ben’s expression went grim as he turned onto First. They would have headed in that direction anyway, but to the police station, not a fire. Daniel hoped it was just a small fire and nothing that required their presence.

  The smoke grew thicker, dimming the emergency lights on the engines parked half a block from the courthouse. Ben set the siren to yelp, easing past cars stopped in the street, parking sideways to block the nearest intersection.

  “Looks like a car fire,” he said, shutting off the engine. “Damn, and the rain’s starting again.”

  Daniel pulled his slicker closer as he got out. A sedan parked across from the courthouse was engulfed in flames, patches of its bright red paint blistering and peeling off, a Dodgers sticker on the rear bumper melting from the intense heat.

  He stared at the ruins of the sticker. He knew that sticker—had seen it just last night. Firefighters wielding a powerful line blocked his view of the license tag, but he didn’t need to see it to know it was white with blue numbers and the state’s name in red script across the top.

  Natasha’s stalker had set her car on fire.

  Now where the hell was she?

  * * *

  When the first raindrop splashed on the tip of Natasha’s nose, she wasn’t surprised. She didn’t even stifle a groan. The dreariness seemed fitting. Her life was figuratively pretty dark. Why shouldn’t it be literally dark, as well?

  Grumbling, the people around her started moving away, going on about their day or seeking shelter. Most of the buildings farther down the street had awnings that would keep them dry, but the closest ones were beyond the firefighters’ barrier. Here by the courthouse, there was nothing but sidewalk and grass, and her feet had rooted themselves there. She didn’t like being in the open, but at least no one could approach her stealthily. No one could sneak up and scare her. No one could observe her fear closely.

  Not no one. RememberMe. He couldn’t sneak up.

  But he’d already scared her.

  She wore her slicker, zipped to her chin, and hugged the purse tucked underneath with both arms, her gaze locked on the flames with macabre fascination. Firefighters called to each other and to the police officers who had arrived to assist, and the engines’ sirens droned in a low hum, matched by a toneless numbing hum inside her.

  He was here. Maybe in one of the groups of gawkers, maybe down the block or in one of the nearby buildings. Maybe he’d driven away after starting the fire, but he wouldn’t have gone far. He could be parked on a side street, watching his handiwork. Watching her.

  She didn’t glance around. It was too damn hard to look at strangers’ faces and wonder, Is it him? Is it that man wearing the suit that looks like a lawyer? Is it the mechanic-looking guy with the grease rag hanging out from his back pocket? Could it be that firefighter in all that gear? Is one of them capable of doing this? Are all of them capable?

  Was it even a man? She had assumed, and Stacia and Felicia Martin, but none of the communications made that certain.

  Hey, RememberMe? How about a new name? I’m thinking ScrewYou.

  Yeah, she liked the sound of that. It made her sound brave and bold, even though she was quaking inside.

  She saw two figures approaching in her peripheral vision, but she couldn’t make herself look their way. Strange that, even after five years, she needed to see no more than that dark blur to know the shorter of the two was Daniel. She needed no more than to remember the way he’d left last night to know his expression was going to be as dark as the smoke, that he was going to be wound as tight as she was and more ready to explode.

  He stopped directly in front of her, too close, invading her space. She wanted to step back, but her feet wouldn’t move, so she slowed her breathing and dragged her gaze slowly to his face.

  Dark. Angry. Hostile. Very tightly controlled.

  “Are you all right?”

  The question startled her, making her blink slowly. The unexpectedness of it struck her at the same time the ridiculousness of it did. She was standing there unharmed, wasn’t she? The firefighters weren’t offering her medical care, were they? Of course she was all right. Though how the hell could she possibly be all right when her stalker had just set her damn car on fire?

  She wanted to laugh and to cry, but instead clenched her jaw tightly and nodded.

  “Do you know what happened?”

  Before she could remind herself to maintain her control, an answer slipped out. “Well, it didn’t spontaneously combust.
I’m guessing he did it.”

  “Who?” That came from the second man, a few feet behind and to the side of Daniel. He’d been at the desk beyond Daniel’s yesterday afternoon when she returned to the police station, and seeing him now confirmed her first impressions: he was big, dark and gave off a calm, solid sense that nothing ever got past him.

  How much did he know? Had Daniel told him anything? Everything?

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Natasha wished herself someplace else. It didn’t work, of course. When she opened them again, the big man was waiting for an answer. Daniel was looking hard at the people who watched the firefighters working.

  “Someone’s been harassing me,” she said stiffly.

  He politely reworded it for her. “Someone’s stalking you.”

  She nodded.

  “And you think he followed you here from California?”

  Yes, Daniel had told him something. She couldn’t tell by the man’s impassive expression how much he’d confided, how much of his hostility he’d passed on.

  Wishing for a deep breath that would erase the tension contracting every muscle in her body, she nodded. “He sent me an email saying that he would find me. After all, Cedar Creek isn’t very big.”

  The other detective’s expression didn’t change. “When did you get here?”

  “Yesterday, around noon.”

  “Who knew you were coming?”

  “My sister.” She hesitated, glancing at Daniel, still intensely observing the bystanders as if she and his friend didn’t exist, then added, “Daniel’s parents.”

  “Who would they tell?”

  “Nobody.” Stacia was scared to death for her and viewed anyone who even casually mentioned Natasha with suspicion and wariness. Archer and Jeffrey didn’t know about the stalker, but she’d asked them not to tell anyone about her visit. They hadn’t even told Daniel, so they certainly wouldn’t have confided in anyone else.

  Abruptly, Daniel turned back to her. “You should get inside.”

  “The fire department evacuated the hotel. Besides, the chief said the fire marshal would want to speak to me. He told me to wait here.”

  “I’ll go find Jamey and tell him she’ll be at the station.” The other detective walked away before either Natasha or Daniel could protest.

  Though the flames were apparently out, the firefighters continued to spray the wreckage. As if the clouds had decided to help, the scattered raindrops multiplied into a deluge. Water running over her scalp and pouring down her neck, Natasha gave her car one last woeful look then turned toward the police station. She didn’t want to go there, but where else could she go?

  Daniel walked beside her, turning several times to study the people scurrying behind them, before he spoke. “So you weren’t wrong.”

  The last thing in the world she expected was a smile, but a wry one pulled at her mouth. “Some people might say I was actually right.” God help her, she wished she hadn’t been.

  His only response was a grunt.

  They passed the gazebo, pretty and invitingly dry underneath its roof, then approached the steps to the police station. Still hugging her purse, she was thinking of her ruined plans for the day—heading out of town—and wondering if RememberMe was Karma’s way of repaying her for her fickleness in love and dreading having to replace the car, which she’d just paid off six months ago, when a short, sharp curse from Daniel drew her out of her gloom.

  She’d gone a few strides past him and turned back to see him lifting one foot from a puddle at the base of the steps. His pants leg was drenched to the calf, and water streamed from his boot.

  “That’s a word Archer would say,” she commented mildly. How had he not seen the puddle? This was only her third visit here, and she’d noticed it.

  “Where do you think I learned it?” Grimacing, he shook his foot to dislodge the excess wet then looked back toward the courthouse. “You don’t need to mention that to Ben. Forgetting it’s there three times in two days isn’t a very detective-ly thing to do.”

  Her smile came back, this time without the wryness. “So that’s why you were barefoot yesterday.”

  He shrugged before climbing the rest of the steps, holding open one of the tall doors, then following her inside. This time, instead of stopping at the counter, she walked behind him around the end, down a hall and into a conference room. Silently he extended one hand, and she slipped out of her jacket and gave it to him, then he left again.

  After going to the far end of the table, she sat in the single chair there to survey her surroundings. The room was about as dull as any she’d ever seen. It looked like the place office furniture went to die: a table that had clearly seen better years, file cabinets with broken drawers, mismatched desk chairs—not wooden ones that got better with age but the cheap kind with five wheels and ugly vinyl or fabric seats—and lamps of varying sizes and styles.

  Ironically, the bones of the room were beautiful. The walls needed something more imaginative than drab white paint that looked as if it had come out of the can already dirty, and the ceiling could definitely benefit from a new coat of paint as well, but the vintage black-and-white floor tile and the elaborate trims around the doors and windows were lovely, and the eighteen-inch-wide crown molding was incredible. She should take a picture to send her brother, Nick, a finish carpenter, who complained he’d been born in the wrong century to do really beautiful work.

  It was nice to let her mind wander from her current problems, but voices at the door snatched her back to the seriousness of the moment. Daniel came in first, carrying a couple of fat white bath towels and a space heater. The other detective, Ben, was behind him, improvising a clipboard as a serving tray.

  No one said anything. Daniel handed the towels to her then plugged the heater in nearby, turned it toward her and flipped the switch on. Ben set a cup of coffee in front of her, along with packets of sugar and tubs of cream, then took a seat on her right. He turned toward her and began writing on the clipboard’s legal pad, adding to the stuff that already filled half of the page.

  Daniel sat down on her left, sipped his coffee then leaned back in his chair. He didn’t speak. Ben didn’t. Natasha felt oddly as if she shouldn’t, at least not until the coffee, the towel wrapped around her shoulders and the warm air of the heater chased away her chills.

  Rain lashed the windows behind her. She turned to glance out. Second Street wasn’t nearly as busy as First, but there was an occasional vehicle passing and cars were parked across the street. Someone was waiting in one of those cars, visible only as a vague shape through the side-to-side swipe of the windshield wipers. Goose bumps appeared on Natasha’s arms. The car’s engine was running, sending little puffs of exhaust into the chilly air, and the headlights were on. Could that be him? Could he have seen her and Daniel come to the police station? Could he have known they would wind up in the conference room and which windows looked into it?

  Suddenly a small blur of energy raced out of the building where the car was parked. Between the rain hat, slicker and boots, it was impossible to see anything about the child, though the pink of the clothing suggested a girl. She ran through puddles instead of over them, pulled the car door open and flung herself into the front seat.

  You’re paranoid. Are you going to start cringing from old people and their canes next?

  She hated paranoia.

  The door opened once more to admit a woman in uniform, a smile wreathing her face and blond hair showing gray roots, and a man dressed in the same uniform as Daniel and Ben. He couldn’t be much older than them, but Natasha assumed he was their boss. His quiet, confident demeanor just said so.

  He sat next to Daniel, the woman next to Ben. Natasha regretted picking the seat at the head of the table. It put her at the center of their focus and gave her an instinctive me-against-them response. She should have chosen a chair along the side, where so
meone would have been forced to sit next to her.

  “Close those blinds, will you, Daniel?”

  Natasha hadn’t thought to do it herself or to ask, but the instant the gloom deepened in the room, she felt better. Safer. “Thank you.”

  “I’m Chief Douglas. This is Officer Gideon, you’ve met Detective Little Bear, and of course you know Detective Harper.”

  Daniel’s jaw tightened in her peripheral vision, so she shifted her gaze the other way, to Detective Little Bear. The bear part suited him well; being fierce would be no stretch for him. But at six foot four and all broad shoulders and muscles, he’d surpassed the little part a long time ago.

  “Let’s start with the car,” the chief said, “since that’s our immediate issue. We were waiting for the fire marshal to join us, but he’s tied up elsewhere. Tell us what you know, Ms. Spencer.”

  She took a long drink of coffee then wrapped her fingers around the edges of the towel around her shoulders and held it tightly as she began to talk.

  Chapter 3

  Daniel fixed his gaze on the coffee cup in front of him. It was made of sturdy cardboard, not as good a choice as reusable mugs, not as bad as the foam cups they’d used when he first came here—and safer to look at than his ex-fiancée.

  Natasha’s voice was soft, level. She didn’t sound hurt or angry, but the stress came through. So did bewilderment and fear. She was entitled to all of it, and he hadn’t done anything to ease any of it. Leaving her alone at the restaurant last night... He should have followed her back to the hotel, should have looked at more of the emails, should have checked security on the building and the car. Instead, he’d been a jerk.

  But the car had been parked street side, downtown, right in front of the hotel. How much safer could it have been?

  “I was getting dressed,” she was saying when he tuned back in, “when Claire Baylor screamed up the stairs that there was a fire. I put on my shoes, grabbed my purse and jacket and left with the other guests. It was too hot to go out the front doors, so we used the rear entrance, went down the alley and crossed to the courthouse lawn. The firefighters moved us farther away when they arrived.”