Douglas kept pace beside her, his silence grating her nerves and making her want to speak into it, offer more explanations for her reluctance, try to convince him that she had nothing to hide.
Because she didn’t.
Not anything that had to do with Olivia, anyway.
Several officers stood outside the door that led into Olivia’s tiny apartment in the cottage. Just a few hundred square feet, it consisted of a small living room, a kitchenette, a bathroom and a bedroom. Nothing fancy, but Olivia had made it homey and comfortable. Still, Merry had only visited once, Tyler’s rambunctious and busy nature making it difficult to relax in the confined area.
Visited once, but she’d walked through the apartment less than an hour ago. Touched the door handles, fingered the teacup that sat at the small kitchen table. Left prints everywhere.
The thought sent ice racing through her blood.
“What are they doing?” She gestured to Keira and another officer. Both were bent over the apartment door handle.
“Dusting for prints,” Douglas responded as he opened the station wagon’s door.
She didn’t get in. Terror froze her in place. “But Olivia died at the cliffs.”
“We don’t know where she died. We only know where she was found.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Why would you?”
Good question. One she couldn’t answer, because she was too busy watching Keira dust the doorknob and door frame. Too busy wishing she could run over and wipe away the dusting powder, wipe off any prints she’d left. Wipe away the traces of who she’d once been.
Please, God, don’t let them find any of my fingerprints. Please.
But they would.
How could they not?
She swayed, and Douglas grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. This is all just upsetting.”
“Sit down. You’re pale as paper.” He urged her into the car, leaned in so they were eye to eye. “Are you going to be okay to drive home, or should I ask someone to take you?”
“I’ll be okay.” But her voice shook and tears she’d been denying since she’d seen Olivia lying at the base of the cliff spilled out.
“Will you?” He brushed a tear from her cheek, and she wanted to jerk away from the warmth of his palm, look away from the compassion in his eyes.
Dangerous.
So, dangerous to let him into her life.
“Of course I will be.” She wiped away more tears, shoved the key into the ignition and started the engine. She had to be okay. Tyler was depending on her.
Douglas studied her for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
He closed the door and walked away, but the feel of his palm on her cheek lingered as she drove toward home, offering her a glimpse of what might have been if she hadn’t had to push Douglas away.
Comfort.
Security.
Someone to lean on.
She wanted those things desperately, but she wanted the life she’d created more.
She had to remember that. Had to get a handle on her emotions before Douglas’s interview. If she didn’t, she might give away too much of herself.
Four years, and she’d been fine.
Four years, and she’d kept Tyler safe.
She’d do the same for another four years and another and another.
She would.
All she had to do was keep her head on straight, focus on answering Douglas’s questions about Olivia without giving away anything about herself or Tyler.
All she had to do was continue to keep her secrets.
Only hers weren’t the only secrets she carried.
She had Olivia’s secrets, too.
Keep this for me, Merry. Don’t tell anyone you have it.
The words whispered through Merry’s mind, as clear as they’d been the day Olivia had spoken them, her lilting Irish accent charming and warm. They mixed with other words, another time, another place, another accent. Thick Bostonian. The same as the one Merry had worked so hard to rid herself of.
Keep him safe. Please, promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll keep him safe. Promise me.
So many promises, so many secrets.
Too many secrets.
And, Douglas Fitzgerald coming over to her house to ask questions.
Douglas with his winning smile and caring nature.
Douglas, who had taken her to lunch, looked deep into her eyes and made her feel beautiful and special and cared for. She couldn’t stomach lying to him, but she couldn’t ever tell him the truth.
Please, God, don’t let him ask me questions I can’t answer.
But Douglas would.
He had a reputation for fairness and honesty and dogged determination, and he had a way of looking at people and into them that made Merry nervous.
He would know she had secrets.
He probably already knew.
If he thought those secrets had anything to do with Olivia’s death, he’d dig until he knew everything. Every secret. Every lie. Every bit of what Merry had kept hidden.
He’d dig until he destroyed everything she’d worked so hard to protect.
Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, and, this time, she didn’t bother wiping them away.
THREE
Forty years.
That’s how long it had been since someone had been murdered in Fitzgerald Bay.
Scratch that.
It had been twelve hours since someone had been murdered in Fitzgerald Bay. At least, that was the coroner’s assessment, but Douglas hoped he was wrong. His brother Charles had a foolproof alibi for the morning. He’d left his house at eight, been at their father’s place by eight-fifteen. The entire Fitzgerald clan and a few friends had seen him there.
A good alibi for the wrong time.
Which wasn’t a good alibi at all.
That worried Douglas. Not because he suspected his brother, but because other people might.
A divorced doctor with a pretty young woman living in an apartment attached to his house had given the gossip mongers plenty to talk about. Would romance bloom between the divorced doctor and the Irish nanny? Would they marry and live happily ever after?
Douglas had laughed at the whispered speculations.
He wasn’t laughing now.
As much as he loved the townspeople, he knew that they’d find plenty more to whisper about now that Olivia was gone. Had Charles murdered Olivia in a fit of rage because she’d rejected him? Had there been a lover’s spat? Had the handsome doctor killed the woman who cared for his children?
Olivia had been young and sweet and, seemingly, vulnerable. Where she’d lived, where she’d died, those things were circumstantial evidence that could make people eye Charles with suspicion.
Douglas couldn’t let that happen.
Charles had been through a lot, and it was time for him to have a little peace. Hopefully, Douglas’s visit with Merry would provide evidence, something, that would keep people from whispering and speculating. Evidence that would lead to a killer. That’s what Douglas needed, and it’s what he planned to find.
He pulled up in front of Merry’s house, eyeing the small yellow Cape Cod. White shutters. Small porch. Toys littering the front yard. Nothing unusual about that, but there’d been something in her eyes when she’d seen Keira dusting for prints. Not just grief. Fear. Stark and dark and shimmering in the depth of her chocolate brown eyes.
He opened the gate, walked into the yard. She’d cleaned things up in the year that she’d lived in the house. Cut back shrubs and trimmed the old crab apple tree. Painted the siding and trim.<
br />
Made the little house into a warm and cozy home.
But as far as Douglas knew, she never had anyone over to visit. No church socials hosted at the O’Leary place. No playgroups with mothers and kids hanging out in the little yard. Maybe she’d had Olivia over once or twice, but that seemed to be the extent of Merry’s desire to play hostess. As a matter of fact, she’d announced that things weren’t working out between them a few minutes after Douglas had suggested he pick her and Tyler up after work and take them for an evening picnic in the park.
Merry had seemed truly horrified by the idea.
Just as she’d seemed horrified by the idea of Douglas stopping by her place to conduct the interview.
Too bad.
He was about to step into her world, whether she liked it or not.
He knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again.
The door swung open. No strawberry-haired, soft-eyed woman, though. Instead, a dark-haired, black-eyed little boy looked up at him, his deeply tanned skin flushed with excitement.
“You the police?”
“I am, but you should have asked who I was before you opened the door, pal.”
“I’m not Pal. I’m Tyler.”
“Tyler William O’Leary! What have I told you about opening the door without permission?” Merry appeared behind her son, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow, her curls pulled up in a high ponytail.
“Not to.” Tyler shifted from foot to foot, nearly bouncing with energy.
“Then why did you?”
“I saw him out the window, Mommy. He has a cool car. Just like mine. Look.” Tyler held up a toy SUV.
“It doesn’t matter what his car looks like, you shouldn’t have opened the door. Go to your room. I want you to spend some time thinking about what you’ve done.”
“I already thought about it, Mo—”
“Go.” She pointed at a steep staircase to the right of the door, and Tyler dragged his feet as he slowly walked toward it, his gaze still on Douglas.
“Quickly, young man, or you won’t get any of the cookies we made.”
He shot up the stairs after that, racing to the landing and disappearing into a room.
“He’s a cute kid,” Douglas said, more to break the sudden silence than for anything else.
“He is, but he’s a little too smart for his own good.” She brushed what looked like cocoa off her apron. Faded jeans cupped round hips and long legs, and a pink sweater hugged her curves. As always, she looked pretty and soft and very, very lovely.
She also looked scared. Worried. Nervous.
“He’s four, right?”
“Yes. Next year, he’ll be in kindergarten but for now, he just goes to preschool three days a week. Mrs. Sanderson next door has him if I’m working the other two days. He runs her ragged. He’s just so busy, and I’m worried about what will happen when he goes to school. I’m sure…” She blushed. “Sorry. You’re here to talk about Olivia. Not Tyler. I tend to talk too much when I’m nervous.”
“What is there to be nervous about?” he asked, and she hesitated, her dark gaze skittering away.
“Olivia is dead. You said she was probably murdered. Her murderer is still on the loose. Shouldn’t I be nervous?”
Maybe, but not as nervous as she looked.
“More so if you know something about why she was killed.”
“I don’t, but I’m sure you have a lot of questions to ask, anyway. I have coffee going and homemade double-chocolate cookies if you’d like some. Why don’t we go in the kitchen to talk?”
She led him into a small kitchen, and he inhaled chocolate and sugar and a subtle berry scent that he thought might be Merry’s perfume.
He tried to ignore it as he sat at a round Formica table, but the berry scent was as difficult to ignore as the person wearing it.
As impossible to ignore.
He’d been on a year-long hiatus from dating when he’d seen Merry for the first time. Tired of being set up with friends of friends of friends, tired of searching for a woman who would complete him the way his mother had completed his father, tired of the games and the stress that went with every relationship he’d been in.
Tired of it all until he’d looked into Merry’s face, seen her smile. He’d tried to ignore her, because he hadn’t wanted all those things again. The games. The stress.
But ignoring her had been impossible and one lunch together had led to another and would have led to more if she’d let it.
She hadn’t, and maybe that was what her nerves and her tension were about.
“Would you rather someone else conduct the interview?” he asked as she set a plate of cookies on the table.
“Why would I?”
“Because we’re not strangers? Because we were heading toward being more than friends?”
“We went to lunch together. It’s not a big deal.”
“Not to me, but you seem bothered by the fact that I’m here. I thought maybe that was why.” He grabbed a cookie and bit into it, waiting for her response.
It came slowly.
Very slowly.
Maybe even too slowly.
She walked to the counter, grabbed a mug from a cupboard and poured coffee into it, her hands shaking so hard liquid sloshed over her hand.
“I’m not bothered by the fact that you’re here. It’s just been a tough day, and I’m…upset.” She handed him the mug, their fingers touching, heat arching between them, quicksilver and bright. He couldn’t ignore that, either.
He grabbed her hand before she moved away, his thumb running over the rapid pulse in her wrist. “You’re not just upset. You’re nervous. If I’m not causing that, then what is?”
“Everything.” She glanced at the doorway as if she expected someone to walk in and rescue her.
“Care to explain?”
“You’re here to ask me questions about Olivia. What do you want to know?”
“You’re avoiding my question.”
“Because I don’t want to explain.” She sat down across from him, grabbed a cookie from the plate.
He could keep pushing against a wall of resistance, or he could change tactics and come at things from a different angle, see if that would give him the answers he wanted.
“You’ve known Olivia for five months?” he asked, and she frowned.
“You know she’s only been in town for three months.”
“Right. I just wondered if you did. Where did you two meet?” He knew the answer to that, too, but the benign questions were doing exactly what he intended.
Merry relaxed, the tension in her face easing.
“We talked for a few minutes after story time at the Reading Nook. A few days later, we saw each other at church. She was a really nice girl. Very easy to spend time with.” She smiled sadly, and the sorrow Douglas had been tamping down since he’d stood over Olivia’s broken body reared up. Made his gut clench and his chest tighten. She’d been too young to die, too sweet to be killed so brutally.
“She was. I know Charles appreciated how good she was with the twins.” He kept his voice steady and his tone light. He needed to push the interview forward, not dwell in the emotions of the day.
“She was great with them. She’d have made a wonderful mother.” Merry swallowed hard and stood again, pacing across the room to stare out a window above the sink.
“How did she seem in the last few days? Happy? Upset? Anxious?”
“She was just her normal self.”
“So, she didn’t mention anything that was bothering her? Didn’t seem to have anything on her mind?” He asked the same question in a different way, hoping for a different answer. Wanting a different answer. They needed something to go o
n if they were going to find Olivia’s murderer.
Merry stiffened but didn’t turn from the window. “She didn’t mention anything that was bothering her.”
“Then what did she mention?”
“Nothing,” she responded too quickly, her voice tight. If he’d been looking in her eyes, he’d have seen the lie. He knew it, and he wanted to know what she was lying about.
“You’re a poor liar.”
“I’m not—”
“Save us both some time, okay? Don’t deny it. Olivia said something to you. What was it?”
“It was private. I don’t think she wanted me to share it,” Merry hedged, and he put a hand on her shoulder, urged her around so he could look into her face.
“Olivia is dead, Merry. Murdered. Keeping a secret for her can’t change that.”
“I know…it’s just…” She bit her lip.
“What?”
“She made me promise not to mention it to anyone.”
A promise, huh?
That might mean something important.
“I don’t think she would expect you to keep your promise under the circumstances.”
“Maybe not, and it really wasn’t a big deal. At least, it didn’t seem like one. Last week, Olivia brought the twins over. While she was here, she said her sweetheart might come looking for her one day. She’d never mentioned a sweetheart before, so it stuck in my mind.”
“A boyfriend?” His pulse jumped at the news. He’d needed a lead. It looked like he just might have one.
“I guess so, but she didn’t use that term. She just said, ‘sweetheart.’”
“And, you didn’t ask who her sweetheart was? Where he was?”
“Tyler spilled his juice, and I had to clean it up. By the time I finished, the moment had passed.” She shrugged, and he could almost feel her forcing each muscle to relax. The tension was still in her face though, the lie still in her eyes.
What was she hiding?
Why was she hiding it?
The Lawman's Legacy (Love Inspired Suspense) Page 3