Killer Smile

by Marilyn Pappano

  “Your room...is it at the front or back of the hotel?”

  “Front. Second floor. But I didn’t look out. I didn’t hear anything.”

  “How many guests did you notice?” Ben asked.

  “Um, there’s an older husband and wife down the hall from me. Four women on a road trip who had adjoining rooms in the back. There’s a businessman on the third floor, and a military family visiting relatives on their way to his new assignment.”

  “That’s John Weaver’s oldest,” Lois said. The databases in her head rivaled any law enforcement database. No matter how many times she snatched some detail out of thin air, Daniel was still impressed. “The road trippers—they come through here every fall. Their husbands think they’re nature nuts, following the autumn color, but what they’re really doing is taking the scenic route to hit every winery in this part of the country. The businessman—he’s really cute. He checked in Tuesday and is from California. Somewhere around San Francisco. He’s been here the second week of every month for the past three months. Computers.”

  “Okay, come on,” Ben said. “Did you already know this stuff, or have you been talking to Claire this morning?”

  Lois gave him a chastising look. “I know all...except about the older couple. I will, of course, find out the scoop on them when we’re done here.”

  “Did you see all of them outside this morning?” Sam asked.

  Natasha thought before nodding. “Yes, I think so. The winery women went off for breakfast, the older couple were in their pajamas and taken in by some store owner down the street, the family was going to his parents’ house and he was arguing that they should have stayed there in the first place, and the business guy left for an appointment.”

  “Can we just get to the point?” It was the first time Daniel had spoken since returning with the towels. His voice sounded thick, and his teeth hurt from clenching his jaw. There was a reason for routine questions, but that didn’t make them any less intolerable. He wanted to discuss the real ones, the who and why and how did they stop this guy.

  “What is the point, Daniel?” Lois asked in her motherly, understanding tone.

  “She’s got a stalker. He’s sent her thousands of emails, texts, cards and gifts. He knows she’s in Cedar Creek. He’s here, and he’s sending a pretty clear message.”

  “He’s here because you’re here, not me.” Natasha let go of her towel long enough to lift her coffee and take a long drink. She liked her coffee lukewarm; all she wanted to do when it was hot was breathe in the steam. Daniel kept an electric warmer on his desk because he couldn’t stomach it if it dropped much below scalding.

  He spent a moment wishing he didn’t remember that about her—that he didn’t remember anything. Like how she put pepper on watermelon and preferred long drives without the chatter of the radio and how she wore summer clothes no matter how chilly the weather might get and how her snores were more of a quiet hum that lulled him to sleep. But he remembered all that and way too much more.

  Including that damnable moment when Stacia had approached him at the party, pale and stunned and shaking as she offered him the ring. I’m so sorry, she’d whispered, but his heart had been pounding so hard that he’d barely heard her. The moment, the shock, the disbelief, the hurt, were branded into his mind with an intensity as fierce as the ice that had spread through him that night.

  He heard words, just a rush in his ears, saw a flush creep into Natasha’s face, giving her some color for the first time this morning, then felt a small foot thud against his shin. His gaze jerked to Lois, who was giving him a none-too-subtle pay-attention-to-the-boss look. Sam’s expression wasn’t stern, but there was a new interest in it.

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  “I asked how you figure into this.”

  He couldn’t believe Lois hadn’t absorbed the information from the molecules in the air or that Ben hadn’t passed it on. But Sam wouldn’t be asking if he already knew. “Uh...we were...”

  When he didn’t continue, Natasha picked up. “We were engaged. I think my stalker is holding a grudge against my former fiancés. All...” She grimaced. “All four of them.”

  A laugh burst from Lois, followed by a grin. “Honey, are you that impulsive or that slow to learn?”

  Daniel thought the glance the chief sent her way might have translated to Don’t insult the victim, please. He didn’t know whether Natasha was embarrassed by her runaway-bride status, but he was embarrassed by his left-behind-groom status. For a long time, he’d been so humiliated that he couldn’t look anyone in the eye—tough when everyone in your life witnessed your jilting. Moving to a place where no one knew anything but what he chose to tell them had saved his sanity. And now they got to hear about it anyway.

  Daniel folded his arms over his chest while Natasha told them about Kyle’s accident, RememberMe’s email and her interpretation of that as a threat. Last night, he hadn’t given it much weight—bad on him—because he’d been ticked off about seeing her, having to deal with her, finding out there’d been another engagement after him. Even he would have taken a third failed engagement as a warning and kept his distance from her. Two he could overlook, but three was a pattern. Only a fool would try to disrupt a pattern.

  “Do you have that email?” Ben asked.

  Natasha pulled her tablet from her oversize purse and called up the mail program. She selected the specific message then handed the tablet to Ben, who read aloud:

  “‘How was your Saturday, Nat? Lunch and a movie with your sister. So predictable...you need to get out more. I had a great visit with Kyle...gorgeous view. Did you choose those great colors when you were together? I’m looking forward to meeting Eric, Daniel and Zach, too, and hoping those visits will be just as satisfying. Don’t let the Monday blues get you down. RM.’”

  Something nagging settled in Daniel’s gut. Being told about the email hadn’t had much impact. Hearing it in the guy’s own words raised several issues suggestive of his danger. Calling her Nat, a nickname she hated and refused to answer to, letting her know that he didn’t care what she wanted. The comment on her and Stacia’s day, showing he’d been keeping tabs on her. The remarks about Kyle’s house, implying that he’d been inside and knew whereof he spoke. The satisfaction he’d spoken of and naming the fiancés by name.

  “The RM is short for RememberMe, his email address,” Ben added before turning to Natasha. “And Kyle’s accident happened that day at his house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it have a gorgeous view? Are the colors great?”

  “Yes.” The word was little more than a whisper.

  “Are you feeling a little threatened, Daniel?” Sam asked.

  He didn’t want to admit it. Didn’t want to believe that Natasha could actually be right. Especially didn’t want to believe that she truly was in danger. But no stalker went around trying to kill the people in his target’s life, then suddenly decided to leave her in peace. He would try to win her in his own warped way, and when he failed, he would kill himself because he couldn’t have her, or would kill her because if he couldn’t have her, no one else would, either.

  “Maybe I am, Chief.” Not by the fact that RememberMe had put Daniel on his must-die list, but by the fact that the arson this morning put this whole mess squarely in their laps. There would be no quick exit from Oklahoma by Natasha. There would be no timely start to purging himself of all the emotions she’d brought back to life. I listened to you, now go, wasn’t going to fly anymore, because she was the victim of a crime in their jurisdiction. Neither the chief nor Ben nor Daniel himself could overlook that, even if Natasha asked nicely. Overlooking criminal activity wasn’t a cop-ly thing to do.

  She would stay. They would work the case. They would keep her safe, and they would find and lock up her stalker.

  And once again, she would blast his life all to hell.

&n
bsp; He hoped surviving the second time was easier than the first.

  * * *

  By the time Natasha was free to leave the police station, the fire chief had allowed staff and guests back into the hotel. The assistant fire marshal, Jamey Moran, who’d surprised her with his youth, his New York accent and the pistol on his belt, offered to walk her to the hotel, and she gladly accepted. He was a quiet man, comfortable with silences, she suspected because his brain was working on a dozen subjects at once.

  The meeting with Daniel and the others had seemed endless. She’d been dreaming of begging a bottle of wine from the women down the hall, getting out of her damp clothes and into a warm bath and sipping her cares away. But cares weren’t so easy to banish these days.

  “We took your car for examination,” Jamey said when they stopped at the curb to cross First Street. The rain was doing its best to wash away the signs and smells of the ugly scene, but there were scorched marks on the pavement and soot on the hotel windows, and singed odors still hung in the heavy air. He gestured toward the buildings across the street. “It would have been a shame if those windows broke. They’re original to the building, you know.”

  “I would have hated that.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and sighed. “It would have been easier for everyone if I hadn’t come to town.”

  “It’s not your fault some crazy guy set your car on fire.”

  “It is when the crazy guy followed me here.”

  “Nope, not even then.” They trotted across the street once there was a break in the traffic. “You okay with staying here?”

  Jamey had been part of the conversation about that in the conference room. She had suggested a move one town over. There were bigger, more anonymous hotels in Tulsa. Anything Jamey or the detectives needed from her, they could get by phone. She could hide there until their investigation went nowhere, and then she could leave. Go. Hide someplace else for a while.

  She’d thought Daniel, at least, would have supported her. After all, if she moved temporarily to Tulsa, she would be out of his way. No accidental meetings, not even distant glimpses. But he’d remained tight-jawed, silently agreeing with the others. They wanted her to stay in their jurisdiction, Chief Douglas had said, and that had been that. She’d looked at Daniel’s face for disappointment or satisfaction or some hint of anything, but his features had been as blank as a wax doll’s.

  She and Jamey stepped around a cleaning crew that was scrubbing the hotel’s large windows, and he opened the door for her. Behind the desk, Claire’s color was slowly returning. She sighed heavily as she stood.

  “Natasha, I’m so sorry! I feel so bad that I told you to park out front last night. Your car would have been so much safer in the back lot. None of the cars back there had any vandalism at all.”

  Jamey tilted his head to one side. “You think it was random? Her car was the only one on the block and that’s why the guy chose it?”

  Claire’s eyes widened. “What else could it be? You know how kids are. Used to be, they’d drive down the road at night and bash mailboxes. Now they bash car windows or store windows. Sometimes they start fires. You’ve investigated enough of them, Jamey. And she hasn’t even been in town twenty-four hours. No one could have made an enemy that quick.”

  The fire marshal looked as if he was giving her remarks some thought, and a tiny bit of hope sparked inside Natasha. Could this have been totally random? It wasn’t RememberMe targeting her but kids with enough booze to impair their reasoning abilities, a firebomb that needed testing and the lone vehicle on the block? They might not even have realized that Prairie Sun was a hotel. They would have thought all the businesses were closed for the night; there would be danger only to property, not people.

  “We have to look at all the possibilities,” Jamey said. “It just might be as simple as that.”

  Claire didn’t seem to hear the unsaid part that rang in Natasha’s mind: But I doubt it.

  “Don’t worry about it, Claire,” she said with the best smile she could summon. “You suggested parking out front, but it was my choice to actually do it. Insurance will take care of it.” At least, part of it. She turned to thank Jamey for the escort, but he moved to the foot of the stairs, gesturing for her to go first. It had been a long time since a man had walked her to her door. Daniel had been the last, in fact. Zach hadn’t really registered on the gentlemanly or protective scale.

  Weariness washed over her as she climbed the stairs. She felt as if she’d been running all day, but it wasn’t even noon yet. But she hadn’t slept well, hadn’t had breakfast, had been chilled and scared and damp all morning. She was tired, hungry and blue.

  Don’t let the Monday blues get you down, RememberMe had written. The bastard had turned every day into blues day.

  “I notice you carry a gun,” she remarked as she dug her key from her bag.

  “I’ve been through both the fire academy and the police academy. Fire marshals have powers of arrest.”

  “So you could be a cop if you wanted.” She swung the door open just in time to be startled by a heavy blast of water against her windows. She didn’t realize she’d gasped until Jamey touched her arm.

  “It’s the cleaning crew.” He pointed across the room, where sudsy high-pressure streams sprayed across first one window, then the other. He didn’t remark on her jumpiness, but he did step past her into the room, look around, open the bathroom door and look inside. “I could be a cop,” he said laconically, “but a lot of people don’t like cops. Everyone likes firefighters.”

  “And women go weak for them.” Her smile was faint but genuine. Jamey was no taller than her, compact and muscular, with his head shaved and his eyes blue, and she imagined a lot of women went weak for him. Stacia would drool over him, given the chance.

  His grin was compelling. “Good thing, too, because I certainly go weak for them.” That sharp gaze connected with hers. “You gonna be okay? Do you need anything?”

  Her mouth compressed into a line she hoped passed for a smile, and she shook her head. “Thanks a lot, Jamey.”

  When he closed the door behind him, the room suddenly grew small and quiet. The only sounds were the rain and the water spray still sweeping across the front of the building. Tiredly she stripped off her slicker, shoes and jeans, pulled on a pair of cotton shorts then sank onto the bed. There were things she needed to do—call Stacia, unpack the suitcases she’d packed late last night, get some food before her stomach turned rebellious, forget everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours—but first she needed rest. Just a quick nap, if sleep would come.

  It seemed as though she’d just lain down, but when she rolled over to face the clock, nearly an hour had passed. She didn’t feel any better—something vaguely uneasy had settled over her, as if her dreams had been bad—but the immediate rumble of her stomach suggested that nap time was over. Eyes closed, she lay there a moment, listening, wondering what had awoken her. The rain continued, but the sounds of water directed at the building were gone. Everything was still and should have been peaceful, but she felt...

  The knock at the door startled her into a sitting position. Tasha chastised her with too much snark, You think ScrewYou’s gonna come here in the middle of the day and knock politely at the door?

  “Natasha?”

  It was Daniel. The knowledge calmed her and, at the same time, disturbed her even more. On the one hand, she’d always felt safe with him—and liked spending time with him—and found such pleasure in him. But on the other, he wasn’t dealing with this whole stalker thing the way she’d expected. His anger bothered her, stirred up her guilt, made her remember such better times, and there were those occasional moments that made her wish...

  “Natasha.” His voice was louder now, his tone more urgent.

  “Yeah, just a minute.” She scrambled from the bed, glanced in the dresser mirror to make sure she di
dn’t look too much the worse for wear then padded to the door. Without bothering to check the peephole, she unlocked the door, stepping back as she opened it wide.

  He didn’t look much drier than he had when he’d left the courthouse while she talked to Jamey. His pants legs were wet to the knees, his hair was slicked back from his face and the plastic bag he carried was splattered with raindrops. He made no move to enter the room until she gestured.

  “I’d feel more comfortable with the door closed.” And not just because she wore only a T-shirt and snug-fitting shorts.

  He stepped in, waited until she closed and locked the door, then glanced around before going through the open bathroom door. The bag crinkled as he set it on the counter. He then deftly untied the knots that secured it. No point in tearing up a perfectly good bag, she thought, suppressing a grin that unexpectedly raised her spirits a mile or two.

  He came back out holding a paper-wrapped deli sandwich in each hand. After laying them on the desk, he added two bottles—one water, one her favorite pop—then pulled napkins from a pocket. “I brought lunch,” he said unnecessarily when he finally looked at her.

  Her stomach roared happily. “I was wondering if a run to Judge Judie’s would be okay.”

  He scratched subconsciously at a place on his cheek. “Probably, but it would be wiser not to go out alone. Taryn would probably be happy to deliver something.”

  Taryn, whose face had lit up and whose voice had gone husky when she’d seen him yesterday? Natasha wasn’t sure she was hungry enough to trust her.

  She pulled a chair to one end of the desk and chose the smaller of the sandwiches. Though there really wasn’t a huge difference between her and Daniel as far as size, her appetite was normal while his had always been... Healthy, Archer said. Enormous, Jeffrey disagreed. Daniel claimed he burned a lot of calories just thinking.