Just Pretending

by Myrna Mackenzie

  “Jamie,” Gretchen drawled, her voice soft. “I’m sorry you feel that way, hon, but—” David reached out and touched her hand, almost imperceptibly, stopping her midword.

  “Same old stuff,” he agreed gruffly, trying not to notice the quick wounded look in Gretchen’s eyes. “Wonder why we keep nagging you about the same old things all the time. Day in. Day out. Year in. Year out.” David gave a loud yawn, covering his hand and pretended to fall asleep slumping down sideways against Gretchen.

  “David,” she yelped as the children laughed.

  He opened his eyes and gave her a big grin as he sat up. “Why do we keep coming here with the same thing year after year?” he asked. “Is it because we’ve forgotten what we said the year before? Is it because we just don’t know any better?”

  “But Gretchen does it differently every time she comes here,” another little boy said, bunching his forehead and his fists. “Last visit she put on a play and before that we went on a field trip around town looking for all the ways we could make our selves safer. She doesn’t make it all the same even if the rules don’t change.” And he would clearly like to punch David in the nose for seemingly criticizing his beloved Gretchen. David could have hugged the boy just for that.

  “Do you think that’s maybe because she knows that it’s not always the same? Ever. The rules don’t change, but the situations do. Like the rules about strangers. We ask you not to talk to strangers and sometimes we give examples.”

  “Like a man offers you candy,” the little red-haired girl said.

  “Exactly, sweet stuff,” David said. “But what if the stranger told you that he needed you to come help him find his lost puppy?”

  “You run away just the same as the man with the candy,” she said firmly.

  “I love the fact that you know that,” he confided. “Or what if he told you his little girl was sick and he needed your help.”

  “Oh,” a little girl with big blue eyes said. “We could help then, couldn’t we?”

  A freckle-faced boy groaned. “Elly, no. If his little girl was sick, he should be getting a grown-up to help.”

  The little girl turned pink and tried to slide backward. David smiled at her. “You’ve got a heart that glows with goodness, Elly. I’m glad you’d want to help, but the point is, and the rule is, that if a stranger needs help, he goes to the nearest grown-up. And if someone asks you for help, you run away to the nearest grown-up. If the person really needs help, they’ll get it that way. And if they were just trying to harm you in some way, an adult can help keep you safe.”

  He smiled at the little girl again.

  “He looks very nice when he smiles, doesn’t he, Gretchen?” the little red-haired girl asked.

  David raised one brow and grinned at Gretchen who was looking slightly flustered. Then Gretchen obviously collected herself. She raised one delicate brow and smiled teasingly.

  “He’s a looker, all right, Mary Kate.”

  All the boys groaned.

  The little boy who’d wanted to fight the bad guys stared at David. “So that’s why she keeps repeating the same rules every year. So we see that they stay the same even if everything else changes?”

  “That’s part of the reason,” David agreed. “And also just so you don’t forget. So you know them so well that you can remember them without thinking. For those times when your brain short-circuits.”

  The little boy looked confused. “I don’t get it.”

  Elly gave him a patient, motherly look. “You know, Jamie, like when you know you’re not supposed to pet a strange dog but then one comes up to you and it’s just so-oo happy to see you. Don’t you remember when you and I saw that lady walking her dog this summer and you—”

  Jamie slumped down a bit lower. “Okay, I remember. I get it now. Sometimes we do get so excited we forget the rules.”

  The little boy looked slightly defeated. He had obviously wanted, maybe even needed, to win something, David decided.

  “We all forget sometimes, Jamie,” he confided. “Even grown-ups. Even grown-ups who aren’t ever supposed to make mistakes make them.”

  The boy looked up. “Not you?” he asked in credulously.

  David tried to look abashed. “Me, too,” he said. “Especially where dogs are concerned. You can ask Detective Neal.”

  The lady nodded sadly. “He has a weakness,” she confessed.

  “I’m working on it,” David said, knowing that he really did have a weakness, but it wasn’t just for exuberant, irresistible puppies. He seemed to have developed an even greater weakness, for one lovely, courageous female detective who had a soft spot for kids.

  “You come back next year,” the little red-haired girl told him, patting him on the hand with her own small one. “Gretchen will keep reminding you and one day you’ll get past your weakness.”

  He hoped so, David thought as he and Gretchen said goodbye to the children later and left the school behind. He hoped he would be able to get past this abominable weakness. He’d gotten past his physical weakness as a child. Surely he’d be able to overcome his weakness for this woman, as well.

  “I don’t know how I missed this, Gretch,” the young woman at the lab was saying the next afternoon. “That shirt was gone over very thoroughly. Or so I thought.”

  Gretchen stared down at the small slip of paper Reba Peyton was indicating.

  “It was in his pocket?”

  “Wadded up tiny and shoved down deep,” Reba replied. “That’s the only excuse I can give. That it was over looked and once it had been over looked, the shirt hadn’t been moved.”

  Nodding, Gretchen studied the cryptic note. Very short. Very simple. Not much to it at all, and yet…

  “Thanks, Reba. This changes a few things. Maybe.”

  And maybe it changed nothing, she conceded as she drove away. But at least it gave her some direction, something to do. At least she wasn’t just twiddling her fingers and thinking of David Hannon, acting like a woman without a brain.

  She considered heading back to the station, but that would have been out of the way, and besides, David had mentioned that he had a few calls to make regarding a case he still had open in Atlanta. Surely he wouldn’t want her to interrupt him. This was, after all, just a preliminary questioning. Nothing too involved. Nothing she needed to consult with anyone on.

  “Should be a piece of cake compared to some things I’ve done lately,” she conceded, but she refused to dwell on what those things had been. Instead she concentrated on making sure that Lyle Brooks’s car was in the parking lot outside the expensive boxy condos where he lived.

  The car was there.

  Good. Finally something positive was happening.

  The housekeeper that had led her into Lyle’s office quietly slipped away, clicking the door shut behind her.

  Lyle looked up from some scribbling he was doing.

  “Detective Neal?” he said with some surprise. “Esther told me it was you, but I thought maybe she’d got it wrong.”

  “No, she wasn’t wrong,” Gretchen said in an even tone. Brooks was a small man, with dark hair and dark vacant eyes. His expensive suit fit him well but didn’t enhance his image. It was more like a costly wrapping on a slightly used present. The thought rose up. She brushed it aside. No fair prejudging the man even though he always made her uncomfortable and slightly tense.

  “Mr. Brooks,” she said as he tried out a smile that moved his mouth but otherwise made no difference in his appearance. “I have a few questions about Peter Cook and I’d like to ask your cooperation on several matters.”

  “Of course, Ms. Neal,” he said, leaving off her title. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can tell me why you wrote Peter Cook a note asking him to meet you at the site at ten o’clock the night he fell.”

  He shrugged. “No mystery here, Ms. Neal. Peter and I were close. He wanted to see this project finished as much as I do. I often included him in my planning sessions, and I often mad
e my plans for the next day after hours. It simplifies things, ensures that all of the day’s problems have been put away before we move on to the next day’s concerns. Anything else?”

  “Yes, Mr. Brooks. How long exactly did you and Peter spend together that night?”

  She gazed down at him unblinkingly. He still smiled up at her, but she noticed that he’d flattened the fingers of one hand against the desk’s edge. As if he wanted to keep from making a fist. Or curling his fingers around her neck. Not exactly a novel response. She’d seen it before, from the guilty and from the innocent. There were plenty of people, herself included, who didn’t enjoy having their actions questioned. She tried to remind herself that this wasn’t something she hadn’t experienced before, although it did feel different somehow. Off kilter. But then, she had been rather off kilter lately and her reactions hadn’t had much to do with her work.

  “Mr. Brooks?” she prompted.

  He shook his head. “It was a very brief meeting. We were simply discussing the next day’s continued excavation. We went over the plans and then I left to go to the country club. I assure you Peter was alive and happy when last I saw him. The work was going well. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about what happened to him after I departed, Ms. Neal. I’m sorry.”

  Yes, she was, too.

  “I understand that you can only tell me what you know, Mr. Brooks,” she agreed. “I hope that you’ll understand when I tell you that we’d like to obtain some hair, skin and blood samples from you.”

  The silence was enormous. Then the man slowly smiled. “Of course, Ms. Neal. I want to find out what happened and to help all of us to move on in time.”

  She tilted her head in agreement. “Then we have the same goals, Mr. Brooks.”

  “And what would life be like without goals?” he said with a cheerful smile. “Don’t worry, Ms. Neal. You’ll have your samples. I know you’re just doing your job.”

  He rose as she thanked him. He held out his hand, and she had no choice but to take it. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure why she would want to hesitate. His explanation seemed plausible, given the situation. She was probably just a bit jumpy. She’d been much too jumpy lately. That really wasn’t Lyle Brooks’s fault.

  But as she left Lyle’s condo, she had an itchy need to look back over her shoulder.

  The lady cop had very bad timing, Lyle Brooks thought after she left. His day had not gone well. He’d spent long hours trying to convince the leaders at the reservation that the Kincaid property that had been set aside for the resort/casino was the wrong piece of property. Two bodies. The land was undoubtedly bad luck. Cursed, one might even say, if a person believed in such things.

  He believed in curses, although not this one that he’d conveniently invented. His whole life he’d been cursed, but now he had a chance. All he had to do was convince those people, those undeserving partners of his, to use his property that skirted the reservation in lieu of the current tract of land they’d chosen. They’d be happy, he’d still be in charge, and no one would go nosing around those sapphires.

  Except for him, of course. He was the only one who even knew they existed now that Peter was gone. Convincing the Cheyenne to move to a different location was the perfect solution.

  If only they’d listen.

  But they weren’t listening. Something about destiny and dreams and this land being the perfect land.

  Lyle Brooks let out a growl. His fist came down hard on the desk, sending paper clips and pens and an expensive ashtray flying.

  He was just going to have to convince them. He didn’t want anyone nosing around that land and discovering those sapphires that, right now, were his for the taking.

  And he didn’t want Detective Neal nosing around his business, either. Not that she could prove a thing. He’d been careful. No prints. Not even much of a touch to send Cook over the edge. Peter hadn’t expected to be pushed. It had been easy to remove him as an obstacle.

  He intended for it to be easy to remove every other obstacle or anyone who tried to cross him, as well. Lyle flicked a paper clip with his finger. A short, simple painless movement, but the paper clip flew through the air and fell to the ground. If it had been something breakable, it would have broken.

  His laugh was low and strong as he thought how easy things were going to be.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gretchen opened the door a few hours later and unfastened the chain when she saw that it was David standing there. She gave him a smile.

  “You don’t have to keep coming to walk Goliath,” she said when the little dog came running.

  David absentmindedly reached down and gave the dog a quick pat, but he turned his attention back to Gretchen immediately. He wasn’t smiling.

  “I didn’t come to see Goliath,” he said.

  He still wasn’t smiling. His eyes were dark green and fierce. His face was set in sharp lines. He rested one hand on the door frame, making him seem even taller and broader of shoulder than usual.

  Gretchen looked up at him and she wanted nothing more than to slide her hands up to frame that starkly handsome face of his and to brush her thumbs across his lips. She wanted to press her lips to his and see if the light came back into his eyes. A slight tremor ran through her at just the thought, at just how much this man made her lose every drop of common sense she possessed.

  “Come inside, anyway,” she said softly, stepping back to let him in.

  He stepped in, letting the door fall shut behind him and then he kept coming.

  “Gretchen,” he said on a growl, moving into her space, gripping her arms lightly but firmly so that she was forced to look up at him. “What in hell were you doing today, lady?”

  She looked down at where he held her, trying to make her eyes disdainful and cool, to ignore the fact that his touch fired through her and made her want to move closer.

  “I was working,” she said, her voice coming out too soft for her own satisfaction. “I was doing my job. What are you talking about?”

  He shuffled forward one step, bringing his chest almost up against her own, moving his hands up to her shoulders, crowding her, a pained look on his face.

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  She did.

  “I was doing my job, Hannon.”

  “You went to see Lyle Brooks. You went alone.”

  She placed her hands on his chest and pushed lightly. He backed off.

  “I wasn’t making an arrest, David. I was only asking a few questions. Standard stuff. Nothing to get excited about. I’ve done it a million times.”

  “Not with Lyle Brooks. I don’t like the man.”

  “Neither do I, and he’s being way too complacent for a man who has a reputation for impatience. The excavation of his resort has been held up and he’s not screaming loudly enough, I think.”

  “I think you’re right. And when a man starts acting out of character, he isn’t a safe prospect.”

  He stared at her pointedly, the heat and frustration and anger rolling off him in long, slow waves. His jaw was like cold steel, his eyes like twin green flames.

  Gretchen let out a sigh. She gave a gentle shrug, shaking her head. “David, I didn’t need to tell you,” she emphasized. “You were otherwise occupied. Don’t try to tell me I wasn’t doing my job right.”

  “You weren’t.”

  Her chin came up. “That’s unfair. Furthermore, it’s not true. If you’re going to make those kinds of accusations, Hannon, you’d darn well better have a good reason for making them. I followed the letter of the law.”

  “I’m not talking about the law this time, Gretchen. I’m talking about common sense. You know that guy is slime. Even if he didn’t commit a crime here, he’s not the kind of man you go up to alone and ask for evidence that indicates you might be suspicious of him.”

  “I do.”

  “Not when you have a partner, you don’t. Let’s try for a little trust here.”

  “All right, let’s try
for a little trust,” she agreed. “If you had trusted me to do my job, you wouldn’t have insisted on being allowed on this case. So who doesn’t trust whom now? And for the record, David, my actions today had nothing to do with my lack of trust in you. You were working on something else. And it seems to me that I’ve trusted you quite a bit. I’ve shared my work with you. I’ve taken you to meet my friends when I’ve never done that with anyone else. But you just keep—”

  She took a long deep breath and closed her eyes.

  “But what, Gretchen? What is it I’ve done to upset you?”

  Gretchen leaned back and looked up into his eyes. “You keep pushing. You keep making me uncomfortable.” She breathed in again and the small action brought her chest up against his.

  His eyes turned dark and slumberous. “I make you uncomfortable, do I? In what way would that be?”

  But her eyelids drifted down. She didn’t want to give him his answer, and besides, darn it, he knew what way he made her uncomfortable. He knew it too well, she could tell, by the way his thumbs were rubbing slow circles upon the skin of her upper arms.

  He leaned in closer, dragging her against him. “In this way?” he whispered, covering her lips with his own, sweeping her against him, her hips against his so that she could feel every angry inch of him. So that she could know that she made him uncomfortable, as well.

  “No. In this way,” she said when they came back up for air, and she plunged her fingers into his hair. She rose on her toes and molded her body to his, sliding up against him as she took the heat of his mouth.

  Her lips chained him to her, held him still, made him moan. He was hers for the moment. He stood there and let her kiss him, his body tense and taut.

  And then he moved. His mouth roved over hers, lightly at first, exploring. He shifted, lingering longer over each taste of her. The kiss turned dark and deep and hungry. He fed on her, taking her under time and time again. His hands claimed her shoulders, his fingertips teased her breasts.