Nothing about Nick Archer was quite what it seemed. If he hadn’t been a cop, he’d have made a damn good criminal.
Chapter Seven
Nick wished he’d never met Susie Cooper.
She stood beside him, her teeth chattering while he followed this phony line of inquiry. But if he didn’t ask the questions, someone else would and he didn’t want to become a suspect in a murder he hadn’t committed or get thrown off the case. Not for a lousy walk-through that had got him no closer to solving Chrissie’s murder than he had been twelve years ago.
Other officers were canvassing Albany Park for information on the victim and any possible witnesses last night. He wanted to make sure the woodentops stayed as far away from Susie Cooper as possible.
He’d burned the keycard that morning, along with his running shoes. Watched them melt into a mass of congealed plastic. Then he’d dumped the trash in a skip, careful not to leave even a fingerprint. Call him paranoid, but something about this case felt rotten.
He hadn’t gotten any sleep and now he was so tired he could just curl up on the side of the road and close his eyes. Blinking, he used the cold outline of Susie’s body to keep him awake.
Ding dong.
Being distracted by his dick in the middle of a murder inquiry wasn’t a good idea either. Nick took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders and wished he’d left her out of this. Everything about her turned him on. Her body, her accent, even the way she folded her arms in that defensive pose that plumped her breasts and made his blood head south. He didn’t want to want her. The woman was uptight, prissy and vulnerable. Not even close to his type. But he did want her in the worst possible way.
She sent him a polite smile, which he returned just as civilly, and they continued toward her cottage as if they were strolling through some Jane Austin flick.
He needed to get back to the station. Ewan was due to pick him up in five minutes. This investigation would wreak havoc on his colleague’s carefully balanced family life. Christ knew it was already a disaster zone.
Rocket dropped the ball at his feet and Nick kicked it along the gravel path, the dog skidding in its wake. Amy McKnight’s life was Nick’s worst nightmare, her body wasting around an astute mind, knowing she was a burden, knowing she was never going to get better. And not being able to do a damn thing about it.
Christ. He’d have topped himself years ago.
He rubbed a hand over his face. Come on, Archer. Do the job. Concentrate on the one thing you can do and catch Tracy Good’s killer.
“Did you know her? Tracy?” he asked Susie.
She shook her head. “I’d seen her around, but never spoke to her.” She scrunched up her nose. “I can’t believe she was murdered. I mean, St. Andrews seems so safe compared to the U.S.”
“It is safe.” This was his town and he intended to keep it safe. “Just watch your back.”
“Me?” her voice came out as a squeak.
“Tracy Good didn’t have much going on in her life except work. And despite the popular idea of faceless strangers popping up out of the ether, the majority of people are killed by someone they know.” He let the facts sink in.
“So you think someone in the Gatty murdered her?” Her bottom lip wobbled as she drew in a shallow breath. He didn’t like the effect her lips had on his professionalism, or maybe it was the guilt eating away at his insides for wanting her the same way he’d wanted Chrissie.
Look how well that had turned out…
Defying the urge to put an arm around her shoulders, he shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Someone from the Gatty or someone from Albany Park probably killed her.” Either way, both were too close to Susie and Lily for comfort. He wasn’t sure when Susie’s safety had become a concern for him, but he’d involved her in this mess and he’d be damned if he’d let her get hurt.
They were almost at her door when he spotted Ewan trundling along the lane in his white Ford Escort. Susie huddled deeper into his coat as she climbed the steps and entered her cottage.
Shame ate at him. The fact she hadn’t locked the door when she’d gone out this morning had saved him from his second breaking-and-entering spree in twenty-four hours. He’d put her wallet back before heading up to Emily’s house.
“I’ll find my wallet and purse.” She hooked a tendril of hair behind her ear. He left the door open, letting the cool breeze into the room as Rocket lay panting on the stoop.
The décor was plain white with hardwood floors and pale cream furniture. It was nice, neat. A big colorful Scottish landscape dominated the wall above the fireplace, but apart from that it was hard to tell anything regarding the cottage’s owner. Was Susie’s personality more like the splashes of color on the landscape or the cold white on the walls?
It was too late to find out.
Susie brought her jacket to the kitchen doorway, rifling through its pockets.
“It’s here.” She fished out her wallet and flipped through the contents. “Cash, credit cards, everything except the keycard. I must have dropped it.” Worry put lines on her face that weren’t there before.
Nick paced the hallway that divided the kitchen and living room. He spotted an office full of boxes, computers, air cylinders, a nice regulator/octopus rig and a drysuit hanging on the wall.
“You’re a diver?” His background check had thrown that up, but he’d forgotten.
“I used to be.” Her expression closed up and she turned away. “There was an accident, I got bent and I don’t dive anymore.”
He wanted to ask what had happened, but there was a knock on the door and Ewan poked his head in.
“Sorry to intrude, but the door was open.” He nodded to Susie who smiled back at him. “I’m Detective Sergeant Ewan McKnight and you must be Dr. Cooper.”
It didn’t matter who Ewan was talking to, criminals, church ministers or delinquents, he treated them all with the same quiet respect that made him a favorite on the force and drew confessions out of the innocent as well as the guilty.
Nick watched Susie immediately relax, and jealousy seeped inside his mind. It didn’t help that Ewan would be a good-looking guy if he dropped thirty pounds.
Jealous of Ewan? How the mighty had sunk. But Ewan was a better person than Nick would ever be.
“As we suspected, Ewan, Dr. Cooper’s keycard is missing.” Christ. He rolled his eyes at himself. He sounded like a total wanker.
“Do you think it’s related?” Ewan gave Nick a funny look, clearly wondering what was going on.
Nick shrugged. Ewan’s gaze narrowed on him like the focusing of a laser and Nick turned away. “I doubt it, but we can’t rule anything out at this point.”
Susie hovered anxiously but he didn’t have time to provide reassurance or comfort. He had work to do, including an autopsy to attend. Dammit. He’d figured he was done with pathologists when he’d moved from the Met’s Homicide Unit. It was a pity the sick bastard who’d murdered Tracy Good hadn’t read Nick’s plan for a cushier life.
“I haven’t traced next of kin.” Ewan was unashamedly snooping around Susie’s house, craning his head to peek into the kitchen. “Nice place you’ve got here, Dr. Cooper, if you don’t mind me saying.” He smiled politely. “My wife always wanted to live near the beach.”
Nick’s stomach clenched.
“Would you like something to drink, Sergeant?” Susie asked.
Nick turned away. She hadn’t offered him a drink, but then it wasn’t a drink he was after and they both knew it.
Ewan slanted Nick a glance, knowing him better than anyone. “We’re out of time, and I think the boss is ready to go. Thanks anyway, Dr. Cooper.” His wedding ring glinted as he shook Susie’s hand.
“Call me Susie.” She had a sweet smile that squeezed Nick’s throat like a hand-fitted noose.
“Ah, Susie Q.” Ewan grinned at her.
“Detective Inspector Archer called me that.” A frown tugged the skin between her brows.
/> She hadn’t called him Nick yet.
“It’s a song,” Ewan explained.
“Oh.”
She obviously had no clue and Nick was happy to keep it that way.
“I love the way—” Ewan, the bastard, began to sing off-key but loud.
“Let’s go.” Nick shoved his colleague toward the door and stood in front of Susie, wanting to say something significant but coming up blank. This was goodbye. They were done. He put his hand on her shoulder and watched trepidation enter her blue-gray eyes. He slipped his fingers beneath the warm leather of his jacket and slid it from her shoulders. She looked confused for a moment and then an embarrassed flush rose up the column of her throat.
She’d forgotten she was wearing his coat.
Her scent mingled with his, the soft leather heated by beautiful woman and pure Scottish sunshine.
“Be careful, okay?” he told her.
Her eyes narrowed with an argumentative glint. “I can’t treat everyone I work with as a potential murderer.”
“No. But I can. Especially Professor Jake Sizemore.”
Irritation darkened her eyes. “He’s my boss.” There was a mutinous tilt to her chin, which pissed him off.
“Two women who worked for Sizemore are dead. Even if you have to work with him, don’t do anything stupid like be alone with him.” He pulled his business card from his pocket, took her hand and pressed it into her resistive palm. “Call me if you need me.”
Walking away, Nick wished murder hadn’t found him in this safe haven. He turned on the stoop and Susie bumped into him, blinking in the bright sunlight. Trees swayed and hedges rustled in the breeze coming off the North Sea.
Nick pressed a tender kiss to her lips, taking them both by surprise. It was so brief his body complained as he strode away. He climbed into the passenger seat beside Ewan, not looking as Rocket hung his head out the back window, drooling. Nick knew exactly how he felt.
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” played on Ewan’s stereo, but his colleague didn’t comment. What just happened was monumental and they both knew it. Neither spoke until they were back at the station.
Susie went over to Leanne’s after lunch. It was that or drive herself nuts reliving the events of the morning. Her insides already felt like yarn in the claws of a kitten.
“Susie! Come on in.” Leanne grinned and threw a hug around her shoulders. “I still can’t believe you live close enough to drop by.”
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” Susie looked for Dougie but couldn’t see him.
Leanne waved her inside. “Don’t be silly. The only time you might be interrupting, we wouldn’t be answering the door.” Her snort was the other side of dirty and Susie laughed. “Dougie’s gone to pick up Nick’s dog, who’s coming to stay with us for a few days.”
“How come?”
“Nick asked us to watch him while this murder investigation is in full swing. Isn’t it terrible? Did you know the girl?” Leanne’s hair stood on end, making her look as cute as Betty Boop. “There hasn’t been a murder in St. Andrews for over a decade.” Her mouth worked so fast it was hard to keep up.
Susie got gooseflesh just thinking about the murder. She grabbed Leanne’s hand. “Someone used my keycard to get into the Gatty last night and it might have been the killer.”
“Holy shit! How’d they get it?”
“I don’t know.” Susie slumped into a chair at the kitchen table and rested her forehead in her fingers. “I must have dropped it.” She felt violated, and as stupid as a cement block.
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up.” Leanne smoothed a hand over her shoulders and then went to fill the coffeemaker. “Mistakes happen.”
That was for damn sure. “That rat you sent me home with last night kissed me.”
Scoop in hand, Leanne twisted to face her, eyes gleeful. “Was it fabulous? I bet he’s an amazing kisser.” Dimples flashed. “And don’t tell Dougie I said that.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Susie groaned then started laughing. “I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“Why not?” Leanne looked baffled.
“Because I finally figured out what I was doing wrong with all my past relationships.”
“You were dating losers because subconsciously that’s what you figured you deserved.”
Susie looked up across the bright kitchen space and shook her head. “I hate you, you know that, don’t you?”
Leanne snorted. “I’m a psychologist. You think I didn’t work this out years ago?”
“And what? You couldn’t fill me in?”
Leanne came over and sat beside her at the table. She took Susie’s hands, which had somehow become twisted together like pretzels, and prized them apart. “Sometimes we have to work it out for ourselves. You told me you’d done years of therapy after the rape…”
Susie flinched and shifted in her chair. “It wasn’t rape.”
“You were fifteen.”
“It still wasn’t rape. I led him on.”
The memories were distinct. Her tinkling laugh and flirtatious suggestion to take a walk by the lake. His eyes unable to look away from the skimpy skirt she’d worn to tempt him, because her breasts were non-existent. She looked down. They were still non-existent.
Leanne squeezed her fingers a little too hard. “He was forty-two,” she stated quietly. “Old enough to know a kid like you was off limits.”
Susie closed her eyes against the light of reason in her friend’s eyes because Susie knew the truth. She’d been there, she’d led him on and everything that happened had been her fault. And now it was impossible to make it up to Clayton because he was dead.
“I thought I loved him,” she admitted. A laugh came out like a sob. “I thought if I gave him what I’d heard men wanted, he’d love me back.”
“For the love of God, he was forty-two years old, Susie!” Leanne planted her hand on her hip and raised her voice. “Would you seduce a teenager?”
“Of course not,” said Susie.
“You’re only in your thirties, yet you know it would be taking advantage and downright wrong to have sex with an underage kid, right?”
Susie nodded but she could never fully shrug off the responsibility, because everything had gotten so screwed up after that day.
“He knew what he was doing with a child whose parents were too busy to notice.” Leanne stroked her hair. “You never dealt with it because your mother let the bastard get off.”
“You can’t blame her for that.” Susie wiped her eyes, pulling away. She hadn’t come to rehash the past. “I told her if she reported it I’d kill myself.”
The memory wasn’t funny, but right now it made Susie laugh.
“Oh, the drama of being a teen.” Leanne rolled her eyes and Susie knew her friend understood.
“Stupid, huh?”
“Dumb as a rock,” Leanne agreed. “But she could have reported him without your name being made public, she knew that.”
Susie shuddered, remembering her despair during that awful time. Her brother had discovered them in the boatshed and he’d beaten the crap out of Clayton. Weeks later, when she’d realized she was pregnant, humiliation had morphed into a defiance that had gone nowhere and spiraled into depression.
“Your mother used what happened to gain political power.” The passion in Leanne’s voice undid Susie, and even though she tried to hold them inside, tears fell on their joined hands. “She squeezed every bit of political blood she could out of your pain. I know she’s your mom, but I wouldn’t vote for her if she were running against Paris Hilton.”
Leanne and Darcy Cooper had despised each other on sight. And it felt good to have someone standing so firmly on Susie’s side, even if Leanne didn’t know the whole story.
“I’m over it. Really I am. And that’s precisely why I’m not getting involved with Nick Archer.” Susie pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m looking for something serious, so
mething like you and Dougie share.”
“Nick is a good man,” Leanne said quietly.
“Pah—”
“But he was a fabulous kisser, wasn’t he?” Leanne’s eyes sparkled. “And I spoke to Patricia on the phone this morning and it seemed you weren’t the only one who got a goodnight kiss. Although I think Patty got the extended version.” Her eyebrows bobbled and Susie laughed.
“Aren’t you the little matchmaker?” Susie stood to pour the coffee.
Leanne went over and pulled a bottle of whisky out of the cabinet. “This is Dougie’s best stuff.” She held up a Bowmore single malt. “Don’t tell him we put it in the coffee.”
There was a pause as they stared at each other, sadness tightening the edges of Leanne’s eyes. “I’m not pregnant. I took a test,” she explained. “I must have bought out the entire drugstore over the last six months.”
“I’m sorry.” Susie didn’t know what else to say. “I didn’t know you guys were trying for a baby.”
“I didn’t want to say anything, I was afraid of jinxing it. But now I think there might be something wrong with me.” The petite brunette caught her lip in her teeth. She looked tired and pale. “My old sins catching up with me.”
Susie boosted her smile. “Now who’s holding on to adolescent drama?”
Leanne smiled but her eyes remained far away.
“Have you talked to a doctor?” Susie threw a spoonful of sugar into each mug before carrying them over to the table, where Leanne added a shot of whisky.
“Not yet, but it’s been six months.” Anxiety tugged at the corners of Leanne’s lips.
“Six months isn’t that long to try for a baby.”
“But some people get pregnant the first time they have sex. It is so unfair.”
Susie’s hands shook. Her best friend, the super-smart psychologist, didn’t even notice.
“Just give it time.” Susie was surprised at the strength in her voice. The control. She’d never told anyone she’d given up her baby, signed him away without even holding him. The secret was like a vacuum sucking up her self-worth, and she didn’t know if she’d ever get it back. “Have you tried taking your temperature and pinpointing the exact day of ovulation?”
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