Harlequin Intrigue May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  Jack looked into the hall bathroom and saw that the medicine cabinet door was open a crack and one drawer on the vanity had been dropped on the floor.

  “He wanted to know whether you had a houseguest,” Jack said slowly.

  “That’s my take.” Ric looked grim. “Now he knows I don’t.”

  The two men stared at each other.

  “This is crazy thinking,” Jack said after a minute. “She testified at the time. Why would she be a threat to him?”

  “I don’t know. He’s afraid she saw his face?”

  “So what if she did? She was four years old. If she’d recognized the man, she’d have said so then. Now what can she say? He had brown eyes and he looked mad?”

  Ric shoved his fingers through his hair. “Do I tell her?”

  Crap. Jack thought fast. Did he have to admit that he’d already reopened the investigation into Colleen Ortiz’s murder? Ric would be glad he had, in one way, but he’d also immediately understand how Jack had used him.

  And then there was Gabby.

  His instinct still said to put it off. Be a friend, not an investigator. Jack could see her clamming up right away. But...

  Reluctant, he said, “I think we have to. She needs to be careful.”

  “What if she just decides to leave town?” Ric sounded frustrated and helpless, both feelings Jack shared.

  He tried to be honest with himself. Would she be safer if she did go? Or now that she’d appeared and possibly scared the killer, would he figure it was worth the cost of a round-trip airline ticket to shut her up permanently?

  “I’d rather she stay where we can keep an eye on her,” he said at last. “But she may not see it that way.”

  Ric suddenly swore. “What time is it?”

  “Ah...” Jack checked his phone. “Just after six.”

  “I’m supposed to meet her for dinner. I’ve got to go.”

  Jack swallowed what he really wanted to say. “Have you boarded over the broken window?”

  “Why bother, when the horse is long gone?” Ric grimaced. “No, but I can do it quick. I have some lumber scraps in the garage.”

  Jack waited in the kitchen while Gabby’s brother disappeared into the garage. The kitchen door had a glass pane, something that was all but an invitation to robbers, in Jack’s opinion. The dead bolt lock would be useless.

  Not that he could say much, given that he’d replaced the original French doors at his place with ones that still suited the age of the house but were double-paned. Security-wise, they weren’t a good choice, though.

  Once Ric had positioned a small piece of plywood over the broken window, Jack handed over nails for Ric to tap in.

  “Might want to consider replacing this door,” he suggested mildly. “Steel might be good, no glass.”

  “That has crossed my mind.” Ric cleaned up and they went through the house to the front door. “Listen, I don’t know if you have plans. If not, you’re welcome to join us for dinner.”

  “If you’re sure, I’d like that.” He hoped his eagerness wasn’t too apparent. “She told me you’re going back to the same place.”

  “Yeah, I’m picking her up.” Ric pulled out a key fob and unlocked his car. “See you there?”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Ric was already backing out of the driveway when Jack got into his own vehicle. He started it up, but didn’t touch the gearshift right away. Instead, he studied the house, trapped in a time warp. He agreed wholeheartedly with Gabby.

  It was creepy.

  And he had to wonder what Ric was thinking—and why it hadn’t occurred to him how his little sister would feel about it. This being the little sister who’d actually seen her mother slaughtered, right there in the kitchen that appeared unchanged from that day to this one.

  * * *

  “BUT...IT’S RIDICULOUS to think someone breaking into your house has anything to do with me!” Gabby exclaimed. She suppressed the flicker of fear but not that anxiety that had flared when she heard how the house had been searched.

  She and the two men claimed the same booth at the restaurant, except this time Jack had achieved what she guessed was his preference for having his back to the wall. He’d slid into that seat fast enough, and she’d seen the way he scanned the restaurant before he grimly studied the abrasion on her jaw. Even now, his gaze kept flicking from her eyes to that scrape.

  “Did Jack put this into your head?” she demanded of her brother, sitting beside her. “I can understand why he’d be paranoid.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Jack said, with a hint of amusement.

  Ric glared at her. “Because I’m so easily influenced?”

  “Well...you know what I mean.”

  “I do, and no. I’d have had to be an idiot not to realize that whoever searched the house was more interested in the guest bedrooms and bath than he was in my room or downstairs. Yeah, he picked up a few small electronics that can be sold, but he’d have found more if he’d looked. What could he have imagined would be stowed in the hall bathroom?”

  “Prescription drugs?”

  “In a bathroom I obviously don’t use?” Her brother shook his head. “I hate to say it, but I’m glad you didn’t agree to stay with me.”

  The anxiety was growing. Gabby nibbled on her lower lip. “Who even knows I’m in town?”

  Ric gave her a list that kept growing. “I thought people who remembered you would be glad to know you’re visiting.”

  He sounded defensive, she couldn’t help noticing.

  She turned her gaze to Jack, a solid presence she’d have thought to be reassuring if it weren’t for the way he watched her. Assessing her reaction, she guessed. To see if she was faking it?

  She’d already had a really crappy day and more aches and pains than she’d expected. She didn’t need this.

  Suddenly mad, she said, “Mom was killed twenty-five years ago. I was four. Four years old!”

  “Almost five,” Jack murmured.

  “Do you remember much from the year before you started kindergarten?”

  “A few things that made an impression.”

  “Like?”

  His eyebrows rose at her challenge. “I saw big kids jumping from swings at the playground and decided to try it. Came down hard on my back. I vividly remember that moment, lying there, looking up at the sky, not able to breathe, pain just starting to roll over me.”

  Silenced, she didn’t say anything.

  “There was another time. Dad had taken us sledding. On the way back, a deer ran in front of the car. He had to slam on the brakes and we spun in a full circle before coming to a stop. It stunned me.”

  Gabby closed her eyes. He had made his point. Yes, she could summon the scene when her mother was stabbed, but—

  “I think I closed my eyes some of the time,” she mumbled. “I remember whimpering and then being so scared he’d hear me.”

  Jack reached his hand across the table, and she laid hers in that now-familiar, reassuring clasp, uncaring what Ric would think.

  “It...none of it made sense to me. An adult might have been thinking, I have to notice details so the police can catch him. But I just tried not to move and hoped it would be over before I got so scared I had to run, because I knew he could catch me.”

  Jack gently loosened her hand and she saw that her fingernails had bitten into his flesh.

  She also realized she’d hunched into herself as if she was a little girl again—squeezed into the corner, rounded her shoulders, pressed her knees together. She hadn’t quite pulled her feet up to the seat so she could wrap herself into an even tinier ball, but it was close.

  She hated that. It hadn’t happened in a long time. Gabby swallowed and looked from Jack’s face to her brother’s and back again. She didn’t like their expressions. She hadn’t bee
n asking for her brother’s pity—or for Jack’s unnerving, narrow-eyed interest.

  It took some effort, but she loosened her body, lifted her chin and snatched her hand back from his grip. “You know, several police officers had me tell them what I saw. Enough that I started getting muddled.” Now she glared at Ric, whose oft-expressed anger and contempt at her failure to point a finger at the killer had hurt her. Undermined her self-esteem, she had realized in recent years.

  “Maybe I should take out an ad in the Courier? ‘Child Witness No Help to Police.’ How does that sound?”

  Jack was either frowning or...bothered. “I half wish we could.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” She looked down to see that she’d barely touched her salad, and a beaming waitress had arrived with their entrées. With a churning stomach, Gabby wasn’t sure she could do any more justice to her bean ragout than she’d done to the salad.

  Both men picked up their forks the minute the waitress walked away. Their appetites were apparently intact. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised that Jack had ordered a more traditional entrée, lasagna alla Bolognese. Ric always had been an adventurer where food went. He’d ordered a pasta with mushrooms and white truffle oil.

  With a sigh, she picked up her fork, too.

  “Maybe we are being paranoid,” Jack said suddenly. “I’ll check out the hotel’s security measures. We just want you to be careful. Be sure not to get caught alone. And be wary if someone you might or might not remember pops up, excited to see you again.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Sit in my room all day? Watch soaps?” Although at the moment she wasn’t all that enthusiastic about going out on her own.

  He flashed that infuriatingly sexy grin. “How about working on your dissertation?”

  That really silenced her.

  * * *

  JACK PARTED RELUCTANTLY from Gabby and her brother out front of the restaurant. He trusted Ric to see her safely to her room, especially since he’d seized the opportunity when she went to the restroom to suggest Ric do a quick walk-through that included her bathroom.

  He’d given a short laugh. “Peek behind the shower curtain, you mean? Bet she’ll love that.”

  “Tell her you’ll feel better.”

  “I will.”

  So would Jack, but he didn’t say that. He hadn’t kissed Gabby good-night, either, even lightly. Best not to introduce any more awkwardness between the three of them. Ric hadn’t looked thrilled when Jack and Gabby had held hands. He wanted Ric to keep calling him with any worries or other strange events. And Gabby...he’d call her first thing tomorrow. Maybe from downstairs in the hotel he fully intended to assess for security weaknesses.

  Noticing that the snow had stopped falling but wouldn’t melt unless the temperature decided to rise tomorrow, Jack finally drove home. That was a word he used automatically, but despite the pleasure he’d taken in remodeling the house, he hadn’t done much with furniture or decor. He still ate at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, leaving the dining area empty. Art was nonexistent. A few family pictures hung on the wall in the office. Those pictures motivated him. Every time he glanced at them, he could see what he’d have had if Colleen Ortiz hadn’t been murdered—and if the police hadn’t failed to identify and arrest the killer.

  The sight of those happy family moments used to work better. As an adult, he’d become cynical enough to suspect that whatever love—for want of a better word—had cemented his parents hadn’t been very strong. He hadn’t understood then, and still didn’t, why his mother hadn’t believed in his father. Why she’d let whispers influence her to doubt his fidelity and, worse, come to believe he was capable of committing a crime so brutal.

  All in the absence of any actual facts beyond him having been seen knocking on the door at the Ortiz house the day before the murder.

  The police believed Dad’s explanation. Mom didn’t.

  After everything went down, Jack’s father had been closemouthed about his mother, however broken he was when she left him not long after. He wouldn’t criticize her, which Jack respected.

  In the past few years, his cynicism deepened. Had Dad cheated on Mom at some point in the past? Was that why her trust had been so shaky?

  Jack had trouble seeing it, though, and the possibility still didn’t shake his belief in his father. Anyway, why wouldn’t Mom have told him, once he was an adult? But she wouldn’t defend herself; she just got mulish and pouty when he tried to get her to talk to him.

  It had been several years since he’d bothered calling her at all. He talked a little more often with his sister, and regretted not getting to know her kids. But once Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, there was no putting the pieces back together again.

  Prowling through the house, he thought back to the day. Had somebody tried to kill Gabby, or was it pure happenstance she’d been in the way of a drunken or foolish driver? And then there was the break-in at the Ortiz house.

  What surprised him was to discover that exhilaration had him feeling wired.

  Gabby was opening up, whether she knew it or not. Twice now, she’d revealed memories so vivid, she’d reverted physically in small ways to the child she’d been. Over time, people’s memories tended to blur; sometimes they altered. Who wanted to remember being a victim? It was better to convince yourself you’d really been heroic, or at least smart. She was smart to hide—but he doubted she’d think of it that way. If he’d sat down with Gabby in an interview room and insisted she tell him what she remembered, the narrative she offered wouldn’t have convinced him. When she was flung back to being that child, he could almost see through her eyes.

  Her small flashback tonight fully justified his somewhat underhanded tactics. If he’d taken the straightforward route, he’d have gotten nowhere.

  The entire reel, beginning to end, was in Gabby Ortiz’s head. If he could coax her into playing it, he’d finally catch the son of a bitch who’d killed her mother. He had closed a lot of cases since he became a detective, but this one would mean the most.

  It was personal.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The hot tub had felt fabulous this afternoon, but, sad to say, the therapeutic effect had worn off. A dip in the pool would feel good now.

  On the other hand, Ric and Jack had combined to awaken uneasiness that made Gabby decide to wait until Jack—how had he put it?—assessed hotel security. If there weren’t cameras in the pool area, she could be really isolated in the evening once families with children returned to their rooms.

  And what if she wasn’t alone? A guy on his own might wander in. If he was young enough, she wouldn’t have to worry, but what if he was in his forties, say? Fifties? She wouldn’t recognize anyone her parents had once known.

  She’d already had an eventful day and didn’t need to add any more stress. Digging out the ibuprofen she carried in her handbag, she took two with water. She could brew a cup of coffee, but that seemed like too much effort. She grabbed the two books she’d bought today, determined to start one of them. Worry was clearly going to make it hard to concentrate, though.

  Now that she’d gotten together with Ric a few times, maybe she should give up and go home. Except, the apartment in Concord she’d probably be giving up soon wasn’t home, and she’d sold Aunt Isabel’s house to pay off student loans as well as grad school tuition.

  Face it—she didn’t have anything approaching a true home. Which was probably the most deep-seated reason, she admitted ruefully to herself, she was here in Leclaire. It had called to her. It was once home, and Ric was her only family. He even lived in the family home.

  Too bad she wished that it had burned down to the foundation at some point in the past twenty-five years.

  Knowing she’d really lost it at dinner humiliated her. Would Jack bother to call again after seeing her childish display?

  Sure he would, Gabby thought, depressed; he’d
promised to do that security check, and he would. He’d feel obligated to report on it, too. To offer further advice, probably.

  And if he didn’t suggest dinner or lunch...well, she should be glad. No, Leclaire didn’t feel like home, either, and she wouldn’t be staying. Why start something with a guy she’d never see again once she left town?

  Knock, knock.

  She jerked. A quick glance toward the digital alarm clock on the bedside table told her it was 9:05. Who could possibly be here?

  For some reason, she tiptoed to the door. Thank goodness she’d not only locked it, she’d put on that latch doohickey, too. “Who is it?” she called.

  “Room service, ma’am.” The voice was a man’s.

  “I didn’t order anything.”

  She couldn’t entirely make out what he said, but the word complimentary was in there. That wasn’t impossible. This was a classy hotel. She actually reached for the knob before she thought better of it.

  You need to be sure not to get caught alone.

  There might be security cameras in the hallways, but there wouldn’t be in the rooms. There’d better not be, anyway.

  “Thank you, but I don’t want anything,” she called back. “I’ll let room service know I refused you.”

  Then she listened hard.

  The man didn’t say anything. No Very well, ma’am.

  She didn’t hear footsteps, either, although with the plush carpet in the hall, she probably wouldn’t. But if he’d knocked on any neighboring doors, she’d probably hear that, if only faintly. And if she was being offered some complimentary goodies, wouldn’t you think other people staying here would be, too?

  Nothing. The hush was so complete, it scared her even more.

  She backed away from the door. Hurried to the slider that led out to a balcony and checked that lock, too.

  Then, heart pounding, she sat back down. She was okay. The waiter was probably legit—but she’d tell Jack about him.

  * * *

  GALVANIZED, JACK TURNED back to the security office even before he ended the midmorning call to Gabby. He didn’t fool himself that it could be this easy. He had too much experience watching endless security footage, only to find it too grainy to make out the needed detail, or to learn that the camera pointed the wrong way. His favorite was being told that a particular camera hadn’t been operative for weeks or months. Business owners invariably thought that the existence of a visible camera was good enough.