Harlequin Superromance November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Mary Brady

His phone rang and he reached for it quickly. Who else? “Jane,” he said.

  “The uncle isn’t a very nice guy,” she announced without preamble. “The first time I called he said, I quote, ‘Why would I have kept anything of his? I was done with him.’ He did grudgingly give me the name of the family dentist.”

  “And?”

  “We have confirmation, Captain. No question.”

  “Oh, hell,” he said, bowing his head. So much for any hope those bones had nothing to do with Maddie Dubeau.

  “Opens a can of worms,” she agreed. “Means he can’t be the one who attacked her and abducted her.”

  “No. It’s more likely he was protecting her.”

  “That seems to be the likeliest scenario.”

  Had to be, he thought, even knowing there were other possibilities. Maybe she’d shown up to meet him and he was already dead or she saw him killed. But why would anybody have wanted him dead? Because he was dealing...? Colin shook his head without finishing the thought. The Hales thought Beck was a great kid. Colin had seen the kind of student he was. Maddie had been shy and innocent, not the kind of girl to be attracted to a bad boy.

  And then there was her memory block to account for. The headaches confirmed Colin’s belief that they weren’t talking memory loss from the physical injury, even if it had contributed. She was afraid to remember, even now.

  He heard her say, I think it did happen. The look on her face, when she just...went away, that had scared him.

  What worried him was that there would be no answers until she did remember. And in the meantime she’d be in danger.

  Jane also reported having sent her trainee out to Arrow Lake to show the photo of mother and son around. He’d gotten only head shakes. The dentist in Eugene, though, remembered the family. Beck and his mother both looked Eastern European, pale, with dark hair and eyes.

  “It has to be them.”

  “There’s some connection to Arrow Lake, damn it. But what?” Colin growled.

  “Maddie,” she said tentatively.

  He only shook his head. In November, Maddie was in school full-time and unlikely to be going to work with her father much or at all. The weather would have been too cold for her to enjoy wandering at will the way she did in the summer.

  Except, it occurred to him with a jolt, the proximity of the resort to the Hales’ place was suggestive. If her father didn’t pay any attention to where she was or what she did all day, she could have gone with him on Saturdays or Sundays, then walked as far as the Hales’. Or Beck biked to meet her. She probably knew how to program key cards for a particular room. She could have chosen a vacant one and let herself and Beck in. Of course, she’d be risking an uproar if a maid walked in on them. Daddy Dubeau wouldn’t like his little girl being found in a lodge room or cabin with a seventeen-year-old boy.

  Where else could they have hung out for the day? he wondered. Did it matter? Even if they found out, would that tell them anything?

  Probably not, he thought, scowling, but he didn’t like loose ends.

  Right now, something else was on his mind. “Jane, you were on the Drug Enforcement Team.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Yes?” It sounded wary.

  “I want you to crop out Chief Bystrom from that picture and show it around. You don’t have to tell anyone the context. I don’t want to be thinking this, but I am. The combination of a private airfield, substantial, unaccounted-for payments and the photo of Bystrom talking to a man he doesn’t want to admit he knows...”

  She mumbled something he suspected was profane.

  “Go for people who were working drug enforcement then. They might remember the face.”

  “Do I tell the lieutenant?”

  Colin hesitated, feeling reluctant. “No reason not to,” he said at last. He trusted Duane, of all people. Duane wasn’t a gossip. “We don’t want word to spread, that’s all. You know how touchy this is,” he ventured. “If you’d rather, I’ll do it. You know there’s a risk here.”

  “Of finding myself unemployed?” Her brashness was part of what made her good at her job. “I console myself with knowing that if I am, you will be, too.”

  He laughed. “Misery loves company.”

  They ended the call with him thinking, If Bystrom fires my ass, there won’t be any reason not to move to Seattle.

  And he’d be close to Cait, too.

  He was making a big assumption. What if Nell wasn’t thinking beyond tomorrow, or next week?

  Trying to settle himself down, he checked email, responding to several messages that had nothing to do with the investigations that had him on edge.

  His thoughts spun in circles. The glory of making love to Maddie. Nell. His confusion. The gray cast to Gary Bystrom’s tanned face as he stared at his downfall, neatly highlighted in yellow. The picture of the dark-eyed boy with his mother. Maddie again—the knowledge of what she’d gone through, and the terror that had driven her to do anything at all to avoid authority in any form, because she would be sent back where she came from. The headaches, so far triggered by thoughts of Beck, and of the possibility she had been sexually molested. But not her parents, however unsatisfactory the relationship with them had been. Not her brother.

  He had a hell of a headache by the time he heard the soft sound of a door closing and then the toilet flushing. A minute later, Nell appeared, looking shy. Knowing he couldn’t let her see his doubts, he smiled and rose. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she responded.

  She came to him and he kissed her, sinking into the rightness of her in his arms. He had to figure out what held him back. He didn’t think he could bear to lose her. He hadn’t known how lonely he was until he saw Maddie in that television clip. From that moment on, he’d been waiting, hungry for those phone calls.

  And that took him back to Maddie. Because he couldn’t deny she had been Maddie to him, until she arrived in person and he got to know her better.

  Finally he held her away from him and studied her face. Despite the nap, purple shadows underlaid her brown eyes. Several tiny clots of dried blood decorated her cheek where she’d been struck by flying bits of glass. He could still see the healing trace of the scrape from the icy street on the same cheek.

  Whatever else he needed and wanted, seeing her happy, relaxed, contented, rose to the top. There was an ache at the realization of how protective he felt, because it hadn’t gone so well the last time he felt like this. He’d have done anything to keep his little sister safe, and instead he might have played a role in driving her away. He’d used violence to try to protect her, and had long since realized that probably wasn’t the best tactic. Maybe bringing Maddie home hadn’t been any smarter.

  “You look worried,” she said, and he realized she was studying him as thoroughly as he was her.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” he admitted.

  Her face went still. “Beck?”

  “We identified him. Detective Vahalik called the uncle, who gave her the name of the family dentist. She says there’s no question.”

  Nell sank into one of the chairs at the table. “I knew it was him,” she admitted in a small, tight voice. “Otherwise, wouldn’t you think he’d have come forward then? Told the police if I’d confided anything to him?”

  “He had reason not to.” But Colin had a feeling she was right. The young Maddie had loved, or at least liked, Beck Spencer, which said a lot about him. His choice of mementos, the fact that he kept the photo of his mother and the evidence of his father’s service and sacrifice in a war—that said something about his values. “Yeah,” he said, for Nell’s sake, “I think he would have come forward, too.”

  She nodded. “So we know something.”

  “Something that doesn’t seem to take us anywhere else.” He hesitated. “There’s
something I haven’t told you. I probably shouldn’t, but it might conceivably spark a memory for you.”

  Nell tilted her head and watched as he returned to his place at the table. “What’s that?”

  “We found one more thing in Beck’s backpack. A deposit slip.” He explained, and saw comprehension darken her eyes.

  “That must be a hard question to ask.”

  “We asked anyway. I don’t think the answers are anything Chief Bystrom wants to give us. I know damn well nobody in the department will like finding out what he was doing to earn those payments.”

  “Do you think this has anything to do with me?” She looked as bewildered as he felt.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “You were fifteen years old, damn it!”

  “But if I was getting nosy. If he realized he’d dropped the deposit slip but couldn’t find it and maybe remembered seeing me snapping pictures...”

  “That’s a possibility we have to consider. Jane told him where the deposit slip was recovered from, though, and I don’t think he had a clue who Beck was or how he came to be buried in the park. I could be wrong—but I hope I’m not.”

  She gave a smile that had a quirk to it. “Imagining the police chief you’ve been working for all these years doing something illegal is bad enough, but the idea of him murdering a kid must be worse.”

  “You’re right.” He detested Bystrom, had for years. But he’d despised him for his lack of work ethic, his choice of appearances over substance, his unwillingness to support his officers in favor of making nice with his buddies on the city council and in city hall. However bitter his dislike, Colin had never considered the possibility that the chief was crooked. He had such a bad taste in his mouth, he understood why he wasn’t rejoicing in circumstances that would inevitably mean Bystrom’s dismissal.

  Good riddance, yes; pleasure in the way it was happening, no.

  He had a feeling Nell wasn’t going to like what he had to say next. “I don’t want you wandering around on your own anymore.”

  She stiffened. “What do you suggest? That I stay in the apartment by myself?”

  Colin wanted to believe no one knew she was living here, but he couldn’t be sure. And no, he didn’t like the idea of her being alone.

  She wasn’t done. “Or here’s an idea. Maybe you have a free cell in the jail?”

  She suggested it so nicely, he had to grin. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

  “Of course, even there I might be vulnerable to someone who works for Angel Butte P.D.”

  He stared at her. Either she was being snippy—or she’d taken a jump he hadn’t wanted to.

  If Chief Gary Bystrom were on the take, how could he possibly be alone?

  “We’ll think of something,” he said, feeling unexpectedly grim for a man who’d only a couple of hours ago had the best sex of his life, and was hoping to have more as soon as bedtime arrived.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  COLIN FINALLY CONSENTED to release Nell into the custody of her brother the next morning. He drove her to her parents’ house and waited until Felix came to the door. After the briefest of introductions, he then issued instructions and extracted a promise from them both to meet him for lunch.

  In bemusement, her brother watched Colin stride back to his SUV. Shaking his head, he shut the door. “What’s got him hot and bothered? I know he’s the guy who found you, but why are you still hooked up with him?”

  She peered cautiously past him. “Is Mom home?”

  He looked troubled. “Yes, but she went back upstairs when I told her you were coming. Neither she nor Dad said a word about you last night. Does that have anything to do with what’s got your cop stirred up?”

  “Uh...no.” She sighed. “Yesterday was eventful.”

  “Well, I haven’t had breakfast. Why don’t we go out?”

  “Please,” she begged, stealing another furtive look up the stairs at the still-empty hall.

  He took her to a Pancake Haus and wolfed down a truly enormous breakfast while she nibbled on toast and sipped coffee. He listened, his expression still worried, as she told him about her talk with their parents.

  “Mom is excellent at denial” was his only comment.

  He reacted with predictable alarm to the rest of her story. “Maybe you should buy a gun.” He shook his head. “No, you don’t have to say it. Dumb idea. Maddie...maybe what you should do is leave. Go back to Seattle.”

  He was the one person besides Colin she had told about her life in the past twelve years. If nothing else good came out of this journey back in time, finding her brother made the trip worth it. Now she had family. He’d even talked about job hunting in Seattle once he completed law school. Her flicker of pleasure at the idea of having Felix near had been drowned by grief at what she’d lose when she went back.

  But...maybe that wouldn’t happen. Colin hadn’t said he loved her, but he had implied.

  What we’re going to do, though, Nell, it’s making love.

  Unless he were only trying to make her feel good about it. Distinguish between the act that shamed her and an honest sharing with a man who cared.

  The look on his face yesterday when he walked toward her at the Hales’ had stunned her. She had good friends, but no one had ever looked at her like that, as if his world would end if she died. That was more than caring, wasn’t it?

  Now, she told Felix what Colin had pointed out—that if he could find her, so could other people. It would be easier now. The publicity about her return might well have reached Seattle. Chances were good she’d find herself a minicelebrity when she went back to work at the library. Too many people would know plain Nell Smith was also Maddie Dubeau.

  “That makes sense,” Felix agreed, his forehead still creased. “What if you come home with me for a little while?”

  She smiled tremulously at him. “Thank you, but I’d have to resume my life at some point, and then what would happen? I’m here to try to remember what happened.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  Nell didn’t answer. Somebody wanted her dead. Recovering her memory and finding out who might be her only hope.

  * * *

  HIS PHONE RANG and Colin glanced at it impatiently. Considering he planned to take a whack out of his day for Nell... And then he saw the name of the caller.

  He picked the phone up. “Cait?” he answered in disbelief.

  “It’s me,” his sister said. “I, um, just called to say hi.”

  “To say hi,” he repeated. It had been years since she’d called for any reason, never mind to chat.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t get more time when you were in Seattle. Blake wanted to come with me, and then you and I didn’t get much chance to talk.”

  “No, we didn’t,” he said.

  “I shouldn’t have told him I was meeting you.”

  She couldn’t have simply told the guy she was getting together with her brother and she’d rather go on her own?

  “He wanted to meet you,” she added, as if reading his mind.

  “I see.” He frowned. “Cait, are you okay?”

  “Of course I am,” she said hastily, but for the first time he realized how soft and uncertain she sounded. Not okay at all.

  To get her to open up, he asked how her Ph.D. dissertation was going, and her voice gained some animation. She hoped to have it done by summer, which meant she’d be job-hunting in the not-too-distant future. She asked about his work, and they talked superficially about their lives for maybe five minutes. Colin relaxed some, but didn’t lose his worry that something was wrong. Whatever that something was, it became apparent she hadn’t called to tell him.

  “I’d better go,” she said finally, even though neither had said anything very important. “I love you, Colin.”


  A stab of emotion made his voice gruff. “I love you, too, Cait. You know, I’m here if you need me.”

  “I do know.” She said that so quietly, he barely heard. “Goodbye.”

  She was gone, leaving him to continue brooding about why she’d called. My sister, the stranger, he thought.

  All he could think was, Cait had felt lonely. She’d needed a connection, and he’d gotten elected. Maybe she’d had a fight with their mother. Or with the boyfriend. Or both.

  He didn’t like to think of her lonely, but didn’t see what else he could have said.

  Disconcerted, he realized that a month ago he’d have been as lonely as she sounded. Now he wasn’t.

  He looked at the clock, wishing it was time to meet Nell.

  * * *

  “THE KID BROTHER,” Hailey said with a grin when Nell and Felix arrived at the bistro. “And so much better-looking than you were back then.”

  He snorted. “You were the fat girl then.”

  She only laughed. “Now I’m the fat chef.”

  “Nah.” One eyebrow rose as he appraised her. “Now you’re pleasingly plump. A peach.”

  Watching the flirtatious byplay, Nell found herself laughing, too. Her brother must have women lined up. As if she’d ever see him if he did move to Seattle.

  “As it happens, I have a lovely peach tart available today. I think you’ve earned a freebie,” Hailey told Felix. “In a manner of speaking. Ah. Here comes Captain Sexy.”

  Nell turned as she heard the creak of the door and felt a rush of cold air. He appraised the room in one sweep, as he always did new surroundings, then had eyes only for her. She suspected that, despite the brevity of that survey, he could have described every single person in the room down to the color of nail polish or the tattoo peeking out of one shirt collar. Her heart drummed at the sight of him, tall and strong in one of his well-cut suits, today’s a dark gray.

  “Safe and sound,” she informed him.

  Menus in her hands, Hailey was already heading for a table at the back, Felix following. Nell basked in Colin’s smile as the two of them trailed behind.