Deadly Intent

by Camy Tang

  “Oh.” She’d almost forgotten, after having him around so much the past few days.

  “I had to sign some papers, so I wasn’t intending to drive back to Sonoma. But then I remembered this box in my storage shed. I’d been intending to give it back to Jessica.” He laid a dusty high school yearbook on her desk. “I thought this was interesting. Jessica’s family wasn’t always wealthy. She came from a small town in Central Valley…I think it was called Glory.”

  Naomi eagerly flipped through the pages, a few sticking together from water damage and age. “There she is.” Jessica’s wide eyes and even wider smile practically dazzled her from the black-and-white page. “She didn’t change much, did she?”

  Devon grew still, and Naomi glanced up at him. His face had closed, and his mouth was a grim line.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He stared down at the photo for a long moment. “Nothing.”

  He looked sad and angry at the same time. Naomi traced Jessica’s blond curls with a finger. “Did she change…while she was married to you?” It was a guess, but something in her told her she was close to the mark.

  He looked away.

  She remained silent, leaving him to this thoughts, but she reached out and touched the back of his hand where it rested against her desk.

  He glanced down at where her fingers touched his skin, but he didn’t pull away.

  She wanted to run her finger across the worry lines in his brow, down the lines framing his mouth. Maybe soothe away the bad memories. How tragic to love someone and then have that love die slowly. Or maybe he hadn’t loved her when he married her. No, she couldn’t believe that—Devon would love fiercely, wholeheartedly.

  She wondered what it would feel like to be loved like that. She wondered what it would feel like for him to love her like that.

  Her spine melted and the pulse in her neck flipped. His skin burned her fingertips.

  She pulled her hand away.

  Naomi turned another page in the yearbook. “Aunt Becca would love looking through this.” Her voice was thin and reedy in her throat.

  “She already has.” His voice was calm, sure.

  She sighed inwardly. Her heart had turned over while he’d only felt the reassurance she wanted to give him. Well, that was probably for the best. “Has she? When?”

  “She was in the entrance foyer when I came in, and she and a few of the other staff were picking through the box and looking at the yearbook for a few minutes.”

  “They must have gotten a kick out of it.”

  He smiled, and her stomach did another somersault. She put her hand to her belly to keep it in place.

  “They were comparing hairstyles with what they’d had in high school.”

  She laughed, but it was higher-pitched than normal.

  “When I found this, I thought Detective Carter might want it. But I wanted to give you a chance to look through it before I give it to him, just in case…” He shrugged.

  She might as well look through it. She had no true connection to Jessica, and she didn’t know why anyone would want to frame her for her murder. Something in the box caught her eye, and she peered inside. A pair of cheap women’s heels with a broken rhinestone strap. There was also a glittery clutch made of cheap sequins, a dented prom tiara from some nameless accessories store, drugstore lipstick. She fingered a pair of long evening gloves—cheap polyester, if she wasn’t mistaken. “Why did she keep these things?”

  “Jessica was a pack rat. This was the most interesting box out of all the ones in the storage shed. There were seven boxes of old People magazines and five boxes of old clothes.”

  A knock at the door interrupted them and Detective Carter stepped inside the office. “Dr. Knightley, the receptionists said you were here.”

  Devon gave her a quick glance, full of meaning, and she instantly knew what he was trying so silently to tell her. She casually closed the book and slipped it under a few papers on her desk as Devon turned to the detective, his broad back shielding her actions.

  “Did you need to speak to me?”

  “Out in the hallway?”

  When they left, Naomi picked up her phone to check her messages. Just one, from a San Francisco number she didn’t recognize.

  “Hi Naomi, this is Rayna Knightley, Devon’s sister. I hope you remember meeting me. Anyway, forgive me for calling you, but I’ve been trying to reach Devon all day today, and for some reason his cell phone goes straight to voice mail. I know he was going to your spa this week to see Jessica Ortiz, and so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to call you, just in case. If you do see him, could you please give him a message for me? I’ve been talking with my fiancé today, and while we were hoping I’d wear Mom’s Tiffany necklace for my wedding, I’ve decided it’s just not worth the trouble. I know he’s still hoping to somehow get it back from Jessica, since it does belong to Mom after all, but he’s been trying to get it back for months and she’s just not being cooperative. So I’m going to wear my fiancé’s mother’s pendant…”

  The rest of Rayna’s message faded into white noise. Devon’s mother had a Tiffany necklace? The same Tiffany necklace Jessica had been wearing when she came to the spa? Didn’t Rayna know Jessica was dead? Hadn’t Devon told her?

  Was this Devon’s big secret? Why wouldn’t he have simply told her he was trying to get his mother’s necklace back from Jessica? Why all the evasiveness, talking about “things from the divorce”?

  The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. She needed answers.

  She saved the message and marched out of the office. The hallway was empty, but she heard some commotion from the direction of the entrance foyer. What was going on?

  “You’re getting it all wrong.” Devon’s voice. She’d never heard it so strained before.

  “Why don’t you come down to the station with me so you can explain it?” Detective Carter said.

  “You have the surveillance videos. You know I didn’t enter the spa that morning to attack Jessica,” Devon said, voice rising.

  “I’d rather not discuss this here, Dr. Knightley.”

  “This is ridiculous. I didn’t even know she’d been wearing the necklace.”

  Naomi entered the entrance hall, looking for Devon. There he was, glaring at Detective Carter. The detective’s eyes were cool but steely.

  “Devon—” she started to say.

  He broke eye contact with the detective. The look he gave Naomi was intense, pleading. It frightened her. Her previous anger at him melted away.

  Abruptly, Devon whirled and marched out of the spa, followed by the detective and a couple of policemen in dark uniforms.

  Escorted like a criminal.

  What had Devon done that made Detective Carter take him in for questioning? Naomi had stayed late, doing more paperwork, hoping to somehow erase the image from her mind and drown out the questions crowding her head.

  She tossed down her pen. She should go home. She’d read the same job application twice now and couldn’t have said what the person’s credentials were to save her life.

  Her cell phone rang as she headed out the back entrance. It was probably her father. “I’m on my way home—”

  “Naomi.”

  It was Devon. “What do you want?” she croaked.

  “We need to talk.”

  How dare he call her now to explain. He could have explained everything to her several times in the past few days and he hadn’t. “Talk? Finally? Now that you’ve been arrested?”

  “I wasn’t arrested. I was just brought in to the police station.”

  She fumbled at the knob to the back door. “You’ve got some nerve. I know about the necklace.” The cool night air swept through the doorway as she exited the building. She wove her way through the shrubbery to the staff parking lot. “Why didn’t you just tell me about it?”

  “I was ashamed.”

  “Ashamed? I’d have to see it to believe it.”

  “Well, you can see it right now
.”

  His voice hadn’t come from her phone.

  It came from a few feet ahead of her.

  He stood in the pathway, blocking the entrance to the parking lot. He clicked his phone shut as she halted.

  Her hand flew to her chest, trying to calm the hurricane inside. “What are you doing here?”

  “Talking to you.” The exterior floodlights crossed his face, making his eyes gleam. His mouth was soft but firm. “Naomi, just give me a few minutes.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the exterior cameras, clearly visible from where they covered the staff parking lot.

  His mouth pulled grimly to one side. “I suppose I deserve that. I called Martin and let him know I was here and that I wanted to talk to you. He’s watching us closely.”

  While it reassured her, she also felt faintly guilty for her action.

  He gestured to the side, to the entrance to the ornamental gardens surrounding the spa building. “Walk with me?”

  They strolled along the paved walkway, the air thick with the scent of the rose trees. But even then, she caught faint whispers of his sandalwood cologne, and it mingled with the sweet flowers to make her think of warm beaches, warm water, warm embraces.

  They reached a fork in the path, and he paused at the trickling fountain. He didn’t look at her. He reached out to catch the water dripping from the naiad’s stone urn. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t know Jessica had worn a necklace to the spa—much less my mother’s necklace—until we talked to Marissa Paige.”

  “Marissa was mistaken about the type of necklace, but I didn’t correct her,” Naomi said, turning her head away from him. “I knew you were hiding something and I didn’t trust you the way my aunt did.”

  He sighed. She turned to look at him and saw him studying the water running through his fingers. “You had every right not to trust me.” He pulled his hand back and rubbed his wet fingers together. “The reason Detective Carter brought me in is because they recovered some acidic voice-mail messages I left for Jessica a few days before she died.”

  “Messages?”

  “I’d been trying to talk to Jessica for weeks. She kept ignoring my calls. Rayna’s wedding was getting closer, and I was aggravated that Jessica wouldn’t return a necklace that wasn’t hers. It was as if she wanted to punish Rayna as well as me. My messages grew angrier the more she ignored me. I threatened to hurt her.”

  That’s why he’d been brought in, Naomi realized.

  She turned to lean against the rim of the fountain and gazed at the lighted bulk of the spa, its gothic molding throwing strange shadows against the stone walls. “That doesn’t explain why you were so evasive with me.”

  “After Jessica died, I realized how those messages would look. I figured Jessica had already erased them—I left them weeks ago—but I didn’t want anyone to know about them. I didn’t want anyone to know why I’d followed her to Sonoma.” He sighed again. “And once she was gone, a part of me felt it would be disrespectful to let people know she’d stolen my mother’s necklace. What was the point in muddying her name?”

  He suddenly grasped her upper arms and angled her to face him. “Maybe I just wasn’t thinking clearly after watching her die. Maybe with everything else that happened to me, my head was somewhere else. I’m sorry.”

  He was too close to her. His hands weren’t tight on her arms, but his fingers burned into her skin. His eyes burned, too—straight into her, drying her throat, fueling a heat that rose up her neck.

  His hands slid upwards. Paused at the pulse in her neck. Fingered her jawbone. Cupped her face.

  Then his head descended, and his lips were on hers.

  Cool. She had expected him to be warm. Hot. Burning. But he was sweet—gentle, almost tentative. Asking forgiveness with his kiss as well as his words. It curled in her stomach, made her reach out to him, try to convey the feelings she had for him that she couldn’t voice. Couldn’t ever voice.

  He rested his forehead against hers. “Naomi.”

  She breathed him in, sandalwood and musk. And roses.

  “I don’t know where this is going. And after my divorce…”

  He didn’t need to say it. She could sense his fear. “It’s too soon.” Too soon for him. Too soon for them both to figure out what was happening between them. Too soon after everything happening at the spa.

  “It’s not. But it’s…” He searched for words, but never found them.

  “Someone’s trying to kill you. Someone’s trying to frame me,” she said.

  The piercing ring of her cell phone pulled them apart. She fumbled in her purse and checked the caller ID. “It’s Dad.”

  “We’ll talk when this is over.”

  But her vision of the future was too murky for her to contemplate.

  Kissing her had made him feel complete.

  Devon stared at his nightstand, images of last night flashing in front of him. She had forgiven him when he hadn’t deserved to be forgiven. She had been peace in the midst of all these terrible events, even with the shadowy threat against her.

  Devon was being drawn into her, and into her family circle because they were so inseparably a part of her. They were a family unit like he’d never known. And he wanted to be with them, as one of them.

  He’d never felt that way about Jessica or her family. He’d never felt for Jessica what he felt for Naomi. Just one kiss, and his entire world had tilted.

  True, Jessica had hurt him, and he still worried that Naomi could hurt him, as well. But something about her made the fear start to lessen.

  He stretched, about to get out of his hotel bed to start the day, when his cell phone rang. It was Naomi. He couldn’t stop the smile on his face as he answered. “Good morning, beautiful.”

  “G-good morning.” Her voice sounded both surprised and tentative.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I…I wasn’t sure if I should call you.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “I have the morning free, and…I’m going to go through Sonoma with a picture of the stranger who appeared the night Jessica was killed. I thought you might want to come along.”

  An entire morning with her. Maybe he’d be able to steal another kiss or two. “I’d love to.”

  “I also need to return that box and Jessica’s yearbook to you. I looked through it, but there wasn’t anything that popped out at me. You should give it to Detective Carter.”

  “Are you at home?”

  “I’m about to leave. I’ll meet you at your hotel.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Oh, I forgot to ask you. Did you ever talk to the hotel porters about the note?”

  “I did, yesterday morning before I went back to San Francisco. No one was asked to deliver a note to me. I’m thinking that despite what the note said, whoever wrote it walked up and slipped it under the door personally.” That way no one would be able to trace a delivery to a porter, and none of the hotel staff would pay attention to someone who entered and left the hotel within a few minutes.

  “Did you also hear back about your car?”

  He wasn’t sure he ought to tell her. He felt a fierce desire to shield her from the truth, to keep her from worrying. But he was done with deception. “The brake lines were tampered with to cause a slow leak.”

  Silence. He could imagine her worrying her bottom lip. “That’s not good.”

  “I didn’t get hurt. That’s what matters. Let’s just forget about it for now and enjoy our day.”

  “We’re not on vacation. I want to try to identify this man.”

  “We will.” But could they really do so when the police hadn’t yet found him?

  ELEVEN

  He did manage to steal a kiss.

  He arrived at the spa early and parked in the staff parking lot. When she pulled in, he was there to open her car door for her. As soon as she stood up, he clasped her around her waist and tenderly kissed her.

  Her voice was
breathless as she said, “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?” His lips traveled down the column of her throat. That scent again—fresh, exotic, comforting. “What’s your perfume?”

  “I’m not wearing any.”

  “What am I smelling?”

  “Oh. My soap—lavender, citrus and a little eucalyptus.”

  Comforting and fresh at the same time. “So answer my question. Why shouldn’t I kiss you?” He raised his head to look at her.

  Her irises were large and dark, and pink tinted her cheeks. “Because…with everything being so alarming and serious…” She swallowed. “I shouldn’t be so happy.”

  He laughed, and held her close. “Everything will work out. I’ll make sure of it.”

  He drove them into downtown Sonoma. He walked patiently beside her as she visited shop after shop, restaurant after restaurant. She talked to clerks, to managers, to waiters, to maître d’s.

  However, no one remembered seeing the nervous stranger.

  But they did see Marissa Paige.

  “Naomi!”

  A frantic fluttering caught his eye just as his ear registered the familiar voice. Marissa sat at an outside table at a coffee shop, sipping coffee with her husband. As they approached, Mr. Paige glanced up from his newspaper and nodded to Naomi and Devon, then sank back in his seat to flip to the Sports section.

  Devon blinked as he looked at the odd couple. Marissa’s energy seemed to make her husband look only more calm and lethargic.

  “Thank you so much for upgrading my facial yesterday, Naomi.”

  “My pleasure, Mrs. Paige.”

  “Would you be able to squeeze me in for a massage tomorrow?”

  Naomi pulled out her cell phone. “I think my morning is booked, but if you wanted to arrive later, I could squeeze you in. Is seven o’clock too late?”

  Marissa grimaced, but smiled. “Serves me right for not booking you sooner. That would be fine.”

  Naomi called the spa to set up Marissa’s appointment, said their goodbyes, and continued down the sidewalk. However, Naomi seemed to be in a bigger hurry than before.