She looked at his balcony door. "Was it open last night when you went out there?"
"I don't remember. But if they came through your balcony, we had the adjoining doors open."
She felt marginally better with the idea that the break-in had occurred when they were out of the hotel and not while they were sleeping. "We should call the front desk."
"Yes, but I don't think we're going to get too far. Is anything of yours missing?"
"I don't think so. I didn't bring much with me, and I had my purse with me the whole time." Her gaze drifted over to the bedside table. "The red light is lit on your phone. You have a message. I didn't notice that last night, either."
He frowned and walked over to the phone. He picked up the receiver, pushed the button and listened for a moment. Straightening, he looked at her with a far more energized gleam in his eyes. "There's a package for me at the front desk. Let's get dressed. In fact, why don't you pack up your suitcase? I don't think we should stay here another night."
"Where will we go?"
"We'll figure that out later."
"Okay."
He gave her an apologetic smile. "Alicia, this isn't exactly how I saw the morning going. I had a lot of other ideas, all of them starting with waking up to you in my bed."
"I know. We got off track last night."
"Wonderfully off track," he agreed. "You don't have regrets, do you?"
"No," she said, seeing the question in his eyes. "I had a good time."
"It was better than good," he said, giving her a quick kiss. "I'm going to jump in the shower. I'd invite you, but then we'll never get out of this room."
She smiled. "Go."
* * *
Two hours later, they'd reported the break-in to hotel security, waited while the head of security went through their room, then checked out and retrieved a thick envelope from the front desk, which they took to a café.
Before digging into the file they ordered coffee and breakfast, mutually deciding they'd start off on a better note if they ate first.
After a delicious vegetable omelet, Alicia sat back in her seat, feeling more ready to take on the day.
Michael popped the last piece of bacon into his mouth and gave her a smile that was quickly becoming a usual occurrence. She preferred it so much more to the frown he'd worn their first few days together. She wanted to believe that she was responsible for the change in his mood, especially after last night.
"What are you thinking about, Alicia?" he asked, his gaze searching her face.
"That I like your smile, and I'm getting to see it more often now," she said honestly.
"That's in large part due to your presence. I'm starting to feel more like myself again."
"I'm glad, Michael."
"Not that we've solved anything yet, but taking action has been a lot better than standing still." He picked up the envelope from the seat beside him. "Ready to dig in?"
"I think they might want our table. There's a line. Why don't we go somewhere else?"
"Where did you have in mind?"
She thought for a moment. "There's a park not far from here. I used to go there all the time with my dad. They have lots of picnic tables and since it's…" She paused to check her watch. "Just after ten o'clock on a Tuesday morning, I doubt there will be anyone else there."
"Sounds good." He grabbed the check. "Looks like we pay up front."
She slid out of the booth and followed him up to the cash register. While Michael was paying the bill, she wandered out to the parking lot. Her gaze caught on a man sitting in a car in front of the café. For a split second, she thought he was looking at her. Then he pulled out his phone and made a call.
"Ready?" Michael asked.
"Uh, sure."
"What's wrong?"
"That guy in the silver Honda," she said as they walked toward their rental car. "I thought he was looking at me. But he's just making a call. I'm getting paranoid."
Michael glanced over his shoulder. "Considering what just happened at our hotel, I don't think you're paranoid. Maybe I should talk to him."
"No, don't," she said, instinctively putting a hand on his arm. "Wait, look. He's leaving."
The man had set down his phone and was backing out of the space.
"It was nothing," she added.
"Well, we'll keep an eye out," Michael said, a hard note in his voice. He put an arm around her shoulder as they walked to the car.
She liked his arm around her—a little too much, she thought. She was used to being independent and on her own, but it was nice to have a protective man by her side for a change.
After getting in the car, they drove toward the park, which was only a few miles away. She'd always liked coming to this particular park because it had a large pond with lots of ducks, a huge play area with ladders and tunnels and slides, and even a climbing wall, which had been one of her favorite things to do. It also had several picnic areas where they'd celebrated more than a few birthdays.
"It's quiet here," Michael commented as he parked in the lot. There were a couple of other cars, one of which probably belonged to an older couple who were strolling the path toward the pond.
"It's busier on the weekends."
"So you used to come here a lot as a kid?" he asked as they got out of the car.
"All the time. It seemed like every other weekend someone in the neighborhood was celebrating their birthday here, and I had at least three parties with all my classmates in this park."
He smiled. "What were you like as a little kid?"
"I was active. I liked to play sports, chase balls and climb trees. I used to follow Jake and his friends around, which they hated. I would have followed Danielle, but she was better at ditching me, and frankly, I wasn't that interested in whatever she was doing." She paused. "Let's go to the picnic area. We can spread out at a table and dig into whatever Lieutenant Hodges has sent us."
"Good idea."
She sat down on one side of a table while Michael took the opposite bench. As he sat down, her gaze swept the area, her nerves still on edge after the break-in at the hotel and the man she'd seen in the parking lot. The deserted area should have made her feel safer, but instead it reminded her that they were alone, possibly being watched at this very moment.
Michael suddenly got up and came around the table. He straddled the bench so he was facing her. She turned toward him, and he put his hands on her shoulders, kneading her tight, tense muscles. "If this is too much, Alicia, we can go back to Miami right now."
It was a tempting offer, but she couldn't take it. "No. If someone searched our rooms, then we must be on to something, right?"
"Probably."
"Maybe it was Detective Kellerman sending someone to check out what we were doing."
"I don't think he'd send someone to search our hotel on the sly. He would have just had the police here in town come and talk to us."
"But he knows we're here, and the only way he could know that is if he's following you or watching your movements."
"Don't worry about him, Alicia. He's not going to harm us."
"I know, but someone else might. Who else knows we're here?"
"Well, Lieutenant Hodges and anyone else at JAG that she might have spoken to, your mom and brother."
"And Mrs. Barrett, but she was so out of it, she might not even remember I was there." She frowned. "We have both a short list and a long list, because we don’t know who Lieutenant Hodges talked to about our meeting."
"Maybe you should go home, Alicia. This has never been your fight and I don't want anything to happen to you. I promised your mother I would make sure that you were safe, and I don't want to break that promise."
"I can take care of myself. I've been doing it for a long time."
"That doesn't mean your family doesn't worry about you, or that I don't worry about you. I've put you in the middle of a bad situation." Guilt flittered through his gaze. "I knew I was doing it, but I was so happy to have someone
on my side, I didn't want to look too closely at how involved you were getting."
"Stop. I put myself in the middle of this, Michael. I saw the lightning. I found the tag. I went to the police. And I went back to the park and met you. Everything I've done has been my decision."
"But things are changing. After what happened last night, maybe you should reconsider your involvement. I'm okay with you calling it quits. I wouldn't think less of you, Alicia."
"I'm not a quitter. I don't give up. It's not what Monroes do."
He smiled. "Is that your father or your mother you're quoting?"
She was about to say it was her dad, then realized, somewhat surprisingly, that those words had usually come from her mother's mouth. "I was thinking it was my dad, but it was my mom. She used to buck us up when Dad was deployed for months at a time. We'd get discouraged or be unhappy because we were missing him, and we wouldn't want to do stuff, because he wasn't going to be there; he wasn't going to see us play soccer or perform in the school play. Mom would say that Monroes were not quitters and when things got difficult, we just needed to try harder. It's weird—I don't think I remembered that until just now."
"Coming home can illuminate memories that got twisted over time."
"Did that happen to you in Miami?"
"A little. I'm starting to see that painting my dad as an uncaring, coldhearted father might have been a little extreme."
She met his gaze. "How could anyone who cooks with so much heat be coldhearted?"
"I think it was easier to deal with his rejection when I thought of him as a monster. Turns out, he really wasn't that at all. But we were talking about you. Your recollections of your mother are softening it seems. What about your father?"
"I don't know that I would ever change the way I feel about him. Obviously, I can't talk to him again or rewrite history. He's frozen in time. My mom can change and our relationship can get better or worse, but the way I think of my dad is always going to be the same. I just wish I knew what had happened to him in the final minutes of his life. I hate that I'll never know if he was scared, if he had any warning, if he had any thought that we would rescue him."
"You'll make yourself crazy if you go down that road too many times."
"I've already worn out the soles of my shoes going down that road. I know I have to accept that I'll just never know, that it was a tragic accident, that there are no explanations. I'm just not there yet."
He nodded, understanding in his eyes. "Do you want to take a walk?"
"No, we have to get to work."
"Let's walk around the pond. Clear our heads. I missed my run this morning."
She got to her feet as he stood up and when he extended his hand, she took it. "Do you run a lot?"
"Five to six times a week."
"That's almost every day."
"It keeps me from overheating," he said with a smile. "Some days the job can be one problem after another, subcontractors not showing up, someone putting a wall where it's not supposed to go, a delay in getting a permit. I have to run a sizeable team and when the team doesn't work well, I've found that I get better results when I'm calm and decisive and not pissed off and stressed out."
"And a run a day does that for you?" she asked doubtfully. "I guess I've never run far enough or fast enough to get those endorphins everyone raves about. I usually find running to be somewhat dull, but then I mostly do it on a treadmill."
"You have to get out in nature. Did you bring any sneakers with you? We could go out later."
"Sorry, no sneakers. I wasn't planning on a workout."
"Too bad. We could always get you some."
"I'd just hold you back. I'm sure you would be a lot faster than me."
"I can go slow—when it matters." He gave her a look that took her right back to the night before when he had been painstakingly slow and attentive as he'd kissed his way across every inch of her body.
"Yes, you can," she murmured as his fingers curled around hers. "You know, I can't remember the last time I held hands with anyone and just took a walk. I might have been twelve."
"So do you like it?" He lifted their locked hands and brought hers to his mouth where he gave her knuckles a quick kiss.
A tingle shot through her body. "It's not bad."
"It's better than not bad."
"Maybe."
"So tell me about your friends, Alicia. Who do you hang with in Miami?"
"Well, there's Jeff—he's the weather guy at Channel 2 News."
Michael laughed. "So he's like your dealer. He gives you your weather fix."
She made a face at him. "It's not like that, well, not exactly like that. He does tell me when there's lightning headed my way. I also spend time with some of the women at the paper. One of the reporters is a good friend, and I had a roommate when I first moved to Miami who I still see. She got married last year, so her life has gone in a different direction." As she spoke, she realized she could count her good friends on probably one hand.
Turning to Michael, she said, "What about you? Who are your friends?"
"I have some college friends that I spend time with. There's often a bar or a sporting event involved."
"But you live alone?"
"For the last five years yes. Before that, I had some roommates, but I got tired of the keg scene. I prefer being on my own."
"So do I. I can just be myself."
He gave her a funny look.
"What?" she asked warily.
"Just thinking how often you feel like you can't be yourself when other people are around."
"Well, that's probably because I have a hobby most people think is ridiculous. I get judged a lot."
"Or maybe you're judging yourself."
His suggestion hit a little too close to home.
"If you like what you do, then own it," he said. "Be whoever you want to be. The worst thing is trying to be someone you're not."
"I think that's easier to say than to do."
He stopped walking, his pause drawing her gaze to his. "You're not a woman who's afraid of difficult challenges, Alicia."
"I'm not as brave as you think I am."
"Yes, you are."
"How do you know that?"
"For one thing, you'd probably be on a plane home right now if you were the kind of person to get scared off. But you're not. You just have to believe in what I already see."
His words touched her deeply. He seemed to believe in her more than anyone else in her life. "Thanks."
"Just speaking the truth, babe."
They finished walking around the pond and then made their way into the picnic area about twenty minutes later. Alicia was glad they'd taken the time to walk off some of the tension of the day. She felt more ready to dive into the pile of information.
They sat down across from each other. Michael opened the large envelope and pulled out two folders that were filled with papers. He handed one to her and kept the other for himself.
"These look like court transcripts," she said.
He nodded. "Yeah, and I've also got notes from counsel in my batch."
She felt energized by the thick stack of papers, each one of which could serve up a potential clue. They'd been operating on so little information, she felt like she'd just gotten a huge gift. "There has to be something in here," she said excitedly.
"Let's hope so. But remember, Alicia, the police have already looked at this information. It's not likely we're going to find a clue they missed."
"You never know."
Eighteen
For over an hour, they read through the files that Lieutenant Hodges had sent over. Alicia jotted down notes on her phone as she was going through the papers so she wouldn't forget what she wanted to talk to Michael about. By the time she'd finished the file, she had a much better feel for the facts of the double homicide, the witness testimony, and the grounds for appeal.
What she didn't have was a clearer picture of who might have been the murderer if Bryer's wif
e was indeed innocent.
Michael had been silent during his read-through, although his expression had gotten more serious with each flip of the page.
"Should we compare notes?" she asked when he looked up from his file.
"All right. You go first. What have you got?"
"More questions than answers. In no particular order, here goes: I think we should talk to Melissa Bryer's sister, Cheryl Alton. In her trial testimony, she spoke out quite vehemently about the fact that her brother-in-law was not having an affair. It's possible she lied because she felt that was the best strategy to protect her sister, but my gut tells me she believed what she was saying."
"But she had no proof that he wasn't having an affair," Michael returned. "She might have believed it because she needed to believe it. That said, I agree that we should talk to her. She has the best knowledge of the key players, which would be Melissa and the professor."
"She works at Bella Beauty Salon downtown as a hairstylist. Maybe she's there today. We should check that out next."
"Okay, what else?"
"I thought it was interesting how little information there was on Connie Randolph, otherwise known as the other woman. While there was extensive background on the Bryers and their personal and work lives, Connie's bio was sketchy. She worked as an engineer at MDT. She was an attractive, thirty-two-year-old woman who divorced her husband about a year before she was killed. Her coworkers said she was hardworking and dedicated to her job and often worked late into the night, but no one socialized with her. She lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in a building that housed thirty-two units. Her neighbor said they'd never exchanged more than a word or two in greeting in the year that Connie had lived there."
She paused for a moment, thinking that she'd been living a life very similar to Connie's for the past few years. She wondered if something had happened to her if anyone would be able to piece together the real story of her life.
Her frown drew Michael's attention. "What?" he asked.
"Just thinking that I live my life very much like Connie did. You asked me about friends earlier, and I could only come up with a couple. I'm a friendly person. I don't know how I became so isolated." Actually, that wasn't completely true. She'd started distancing herself from people after her father died and somewhere along the way it had just become a habit to keep to herself, to not get too involved, to not put her heart on the line.
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