“Yeah. She also said it was my fault her son was ‘dead to her,’ unquote. But I didn’t start the trouble between them.”
“What did, do you know?”
“He wouldn’t talk about it. When I’d ask, he’d just say she was crazy and change the subject.”
“I’ll bet she gave Olsen an earful.”
“Probably.” She rolled her eyes.
Mike looked back at her like a man who knows he’s doomed to fail. “I don’t think you should go back home today. The story was on TV last night—all the local channels and Northwest Cable News.”
“I need to get back to my office. I have to notify my clients, and I need to bite the proverbial bullet and talk to Julia again. She keeps leaving me messages on my voice mail, asking about a funeral.”
“Work from my house. Can’t your clients send you copies of whatever you need? You have all of their contact information in your phone, right? I know you use Drop Box.”
“Thanks, Mike, but I need to be home. I need to be there for the locksmith, and the alarm company is going to reset the codes. I forgot all that yesterday. Besides, I can think better there. I’ll just see where the day takes me. I’ll be back for dinner.”
“If I can’t talk you out of it, take the dog with you. She’ll be good company. And, um...I’ve asked Brady to stay close the next couple of days.”
Gemma opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.
“Until they get some leads on Ned’s death, nobody gets near you. Got it? Don’t pout.”
“I’m not pouting.”
“Don’t sulk.”
“You’re the one who sulks. I pout, but I’m not pouting. I understand what you’re saying. I just hate it. You’re thinking about whoever messed with my computer.”
“Yeah. That did cross my mind. Tell you what, your choice—Brady, or I hire someone else. Those are the options right now.”
“I hate that I don’t feel safe there, any more. It’s my home. It’s not the house of my heart, or anything like that, but it’s where I live. My nest. And now it’s not the same, because someone’s been there—” she broke off. “Okay. Okay. Brady. I can live with that, for a little while.”
* * *
Gemma could see the tops of the television vans before she was halfway around the corner from her house. Rats! Mike had been right about vultures swarming. Her front yard was overflowing with overdressed people staring earnestly at cameras as they babbled into microphones. A few were leaning desultorily against their cars or the network vans, and a cluster of three was taking advantage of the shade under the flowering cherry.
They all came to their feet or turned toward her as she neared the edges of the crowd, for all the world like a school of predatory fish swiveling in unison toward a single prey. Following Mike’s advice, Gemma pretended she didn’t see them, but drove at a crawl through the crowd. When the first reporter neared the car, Nikki clearly decided she’d suffered all the importunities she was required to tolerate, and began snarling and doing her very best rottweiler imitation. As she was a sled dog, the result was a high, piercing bark that reverberated inside the car and threatened to crack the windshield. Gemma lowered the rear windows. Nikki rose to the challenge, and her barking grew louder, higher, more frantic.
Gemma grinned as reporters and crews ditched their sound equipment and began to back away from the racket. Opening the garage door at the last possible minute, she flipped the crowd a happy little wave as she pulled inside and closed the door.
When she was safely inside, she let out a long, relieved sigh and set her purse down on the countertop.
“Home,” she breathed. Her own kitchen. Nikki headed straight to her dish and began a short, hopeful exploration.
Immediately the doorbell started ringing. Someone—several someones, by the sound of it—knocked and pounded on the door and rapped on the living room windows.
Nikki ran back and forth for a few minutes, barking occasionally, but gave up pretty quickly and dropped with a sigh onto the cool flagstone floor, her duty done.
Gemma stooped for an ear-scratch, and then stood at the sink, looking at nothing in particular. “Okay, Nikk,” she said, grabbing a pitcher of orange juice and a big glass, “let’s get to work.” And let’s stop thinking about Tall, Dark and Yummy. A cop, eh?
She needed to finish packing up the rest of Ned’s stuff, including all the Sub-Saharan art pieces neither of them had much cared for, but seemed to impress his friends. She supposed that was the point. Now she no longer had to worry about his bouts of rage and his spitefulness. She was free to get rid of them, and she had intended to do just that, as soon as she could. She’d looked forward to the special guilty pleasure of putting his junk into salvaged containers from the liquor store and the Safeway loading dock. Not even boxes printed with classy brand names such as Stolichnaya and Guinness—just some cartons with the names of toilet paper and the inexpensive wines he always sneered at. Now, though, the memories of her plans for petty revenge made her feel like cringing.
The CDs would be a good place to start. When did he have time to listen to all of them, she wondered as she plunked down on the floor next to the CD shelves and pulled out as many as she could manage at one time. They didn’t seem to be in any particular order, which made her a little crazy.
She kept her own section of the CD bookcase organized by genre and by artist. The classical ones were sorted by composer. Ned’s jumble of easy listening, acid jazz and show tunes—whatever his friends were into at the moment—had always made her itch to organize them, but he swore he knew where everything was.
Well, she would know where they all were now—out of her house. Still, she couldn’t resist stacking them in the box in some sort of order.
She was partway through the third shelf when one of the CDs rattled loudly. “Favorite Classical Hits,” she read, rolling her eyes. She opened the case and found a key on top of the disk. When she had it in her hand, lying across her palm, the short archaic shape reminded her of a safety deposit key, or the kind of bike lock—oh, right. The lock went to a trunk Ned had bought for their one and only camping trip. Someone had told him it would keep out bears. The salesman was probably still laughing about that one.
That whole camping thing had been such a disaster. Ned fumbling around, nearly setting the tent on fire—once they had gotten it up, which had taken forever because he seemed to get off on not being able to manage it. “Why aren’t you helping?” he had snarled at her as she clipped the tent cover to the frame. “You’re so fucking knowledgeable about all this. It can’t be that complicated. Look at the kind of people who are out here, for God’s sake. If they can do this, we certainly should be able to.”
She shook her head to clear out the memory.
She’d need the key, at some point, to get at that stuff and sort it. With her stress levels rising, she knew she needed to put it someplace deliberate and pay attention. Focusing was the only way she had ever found to keep things she couldn’t actually wear from disappearing into wherever they went when she filed them. It seemed to anchor them, somehow.
She looked around the room, and decided on the drawer of the antique roll top desk her mother had left her. But the drawer was too far to reach from where she sat. She’d have to either stand up—too much hassle—or else make an uncomfortable shift across an ankle to get to it, so she stuck the key into her back jeans pocket, with an extra weight of attention, to keep it there. It was a tighter squeeze than it should have been. Back to Zumba, she vowed, as soon as this is all settled down.
Her phone rang. The caller ID read “Unknown.” She flinched at the thought of the unknown intruder and “tsk’ed” at herself. That will be Julia, she thought, and answered with heavy reluctance.
“Gemma, it’s Mike. I guess you got through the press okay.”
�
�The press of the press? Yeah. That was good advice. And Nikki was actually a lot of help. She started snarling whenever anyone came close to the car. It was easy to ignore them, because she was making so much noise they couldn’t have heard me if I had said anything. I always forget how big her teeth look, if you don’t know her. Where are you calling from?”
“Sam Dawkins’s office. I’ve got court in about thirty,” Mike said, laughing. “Brady should be there soon—he had some stuff to finish off this morning. Are you going to be all right until then?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll be fine. Hey, Mike? I found a key in a CD case.”
“What kind of key?”
“One of those flat, funny ones. I’m pretty sure it’s for the camping trunk. But why would he hide it?”
“No telling. What’s in the trunk?”
“Camping gear. Tent, lantern, axe—that kind of thing.”
“Have you looked?”
“Not yet. The garage is way down my list at this point. There’s so much else to do.”
He paused, and she could almost hear the gears in his head turning. “Listen, Gemma, do me a favor and don’t mention the key to anybody. Not even Brady, okay? I’ll talk to him about it myself. But meantime, let’s just keep this between us.”
“Sure, Mike. No problem. Um, you’re still going to barbecue tonight?” She couldn’t think of a way to ask him whether Brady would be there. She swiveled the chair back and forth. Easy, girl. One thing at a time.
“Of course I am. I’ve got Hawaiian shirts you haven’t even seen yet, and M-K’s been marinating turkey legs all day. I can rip into one of those like Henry the Eighth.”
Gemma heard the smile in Mike’s voice and had the uncomfortable feeling he could see right through her. Well, and what else was new? “I don’t think ol’ Hank wore Hawaiian shirts.”
“He would have if he’d shopped in the right stores,” he said. “Later.”
She’d barely hung up when her phone rang again. Sheesh! It’s like Grand Central switchboard around here! She flipped the cover up to answer the call.
“Gemma? Brady McGrath. I’m about three blocks from your house. Can you be ready to let me in? I can see the vultures swarming from here.”
Gemma laughed. Heat washed through her, and her nipples hardened at the thought of being here alone with him. “Sure.”
How would he ever get through the reporters? She hurried up the stairs to the landing, where she could watch from behind the curtains.
She spotted him as he came through the crowd, and couldn’t suppress a giggle. He was dressed in tan shorts and a loose T-shirt and running shoes, but to her surprise, he was wearing what she could swear was a police-issue earpiece and cord, and very dark wraparound sun glasses. He strolled down her walk with an intimidating, no-nonsense bearing, his head turning a fraction from side to side as if he were quartering the area, the way a policeman would. The reporters let him through with what looked like no more than an occasional question. Even that stopped when he lifted his arm to his mouth and appeared to speak into an oversized watch.
She opened the door at his first knock.
His hair was damp and curling over his forehead, as if he’d dashed over right from the shower. A flash of pure lust shot through her at the sight of the tanned skin on his legs showing through a light covering of black hair.
“That’s really clever,” she said, deliberately fixing her eyes on the door.
He grinned. “Bodyguards are pretty much invisible,” he said, and removed the almost-transparent earpiece.
She watched him slip it into his pocket. “Does that thing work?”
“Probably. I haven’t used it in a while.”
Gemma felt heat rush to her face. Was he talking about the earpiece? Was she? Rats!
He saved the moment. “The reporters may figure it out, but I doubt they’ll even think about it. Did you call the security company?”
“Not yet.” The details of the day had overwhelmed her, but she wasn’t going to make excuses.
“Let’s get that done. And the locksmith. I know a couple, if you don’t have one already.”
“I don’t. Thanks.”
“I’m going to secure your computer. There wasn’t time yesterday before the cops came.”
He turned abruptly and took the stairs two at a time. As he moved, his T-shirt billowed out to expose a semiautomatic pistol tucked into the small of his back
* * *
When Brady came back into the kitchen, Gemma had set out cups and plates with two toasted English muffins. The tea she was pouring into a big green Starbuck’s mug looked strong enough to bend a spoon, and he watched with a hitch of relief as she took a plastic jug of milk from the fridge and set it beside a small jar of homemade jam.
“That was quick,” she said.
“I’m waiting for some downloads. It’ll be a little while yet.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Yeah. They were careless,” he said. “Whoever did this either doesn’t know much about computers, or doesn’t think things through. They should have logged you back on, and you never would have known they were in there.”
“I changed my password.” Her voice was thread thin. “Ned picked my old one, so I changed it as soon as he moved out. The same day I sold the bed.” She caught a quick breath and flushed. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
Brady tried to suppress a grin and failed. “Good thing you did.” He paused a beat. “Change the password. I’m guessing it surprised them. I’ve set up a new one.” He rattled off a fifteen-digit sequence of upper-and lowercase letters interspersed with numbers and symbols. “Don’t write it down.”
She goggled at him. “I’ll never remember all that.”
“Sure you will, the same way I do. We’ll create a mnemonic for it. After I leave, you’re going to change it, and build yourself another one, okay?”
“Sure,” she said faintly and swallowed.
Brady started to spread the jam on a muffin half, and realized the dog was drooling a stream down into a small puddle on the floor. “It’s too bad Nikki wasn’t here night before last.”
“It probably wouldn’t have made any difference. Malamutes don’t have a strong sense of property. They’re famous for showing the burglars where the silver is kept.”
He chuckled and cut his eyes over to Nikki, who was still staring at his muffin with single-minded devotion.
“She’s beautiful, though.” He hunkered down to rub the dog’s ruff, and got dainty kisses for his good behavior, then a slap from Nikki’s front paw that knocked him over backward.
“Whoa!” he said, laughing, as she continued to mug him. To Nikki’s delight, he grabbed her neck on each side and wrestled with her. She tossed her head, mouth open, paw flailing.
Gemma looked over at them. “She likes you.”
“I’m really glad,” he said, rubbing his arm where Nikki had pawed him. “She’s strong.”
“She’s a clown.”
Nikki rolled onto her back, asking for a belly-scratch. Brady complied.
“Still,” Gemma said, “she looks fierce, and she can be. Problem is, she doesn’t have a very high opinion of people’s judgment. Unless someone was doing something that she saw as a threat, they could probably walk right up to her and tie her up, or shove her in a closet. Or worse.”
Brady rose from the floor and stared straight into her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me, Gemma?”
She turned away, a brief retreat.
“And don’t try to distract me with dog stories. What else do I need to know?”
“It’s stupid. I just feel so—violated, I guess.”
He lifted his head, but before he could say anything, she went on.
“What if it wasn’t an intruder? What if it’s Ned?”
“It can’t be Ned.”
“It could be,” she insisted.
“Gemma, he’s dead. He was cut to pieces. Yeah, there was enough for a positive—oh, shit.”
Her face had lost all color, and her eyes went out of focus. Brady grabbed her arm and helped her back onto the stool, and then pushed her head down to her knees. “I’m sorry. Mike didn’t tell you. I didn’t realize—sorry,” he said again. He reached for her cup and was relieved to see there was still an inch or so of the strong tea left. “Have a sip—it’ll help.” He opened the refrigerator and broke a lump off the piece of ginger on the top shelf. “Here,” he told her, peeling it rapidly with his fingernails, “put this in your mouth. Christ, you’re white as a ghost yourself.”
“Damned Irish skin,” she mumbled. “It shows everything.” She sat up slowly and put a cautious hand to her head.
Her color was still bad, but her eyes at least had snapped back into focus. “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t here,” she said, pushing the hunk of ginger out with her tongue. “The Departed used to visit my Grandmother Eileen from time to time.”
He looked her squarely in the eye. “It was an intruder, Gemma, someone flesh-and-blood. I promise.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Besides,” he said, grasping for something to reassure her, “a ghost wouldn’t need a password to access information. The energy should interface without any barriers.” He didn’t know much about ghosts, but thought that sounded authoritative enough to work until she was calmer. The Ghost Talker on their Team had said something similar once. Tom Long Time Sleeping and his dead relatives used to handle short-range intel during ops. Having invisible eyes on the immediate area had saved their butts more than once.
Mike had been a terrific communications coordinator for their unorthodox and über-secret Team of gifted specialists. From Brady’s observations, extra abilities tended to run in families. So maybe Gemma communicated with spirits. Didn’t sound like it, though. And he was pretty sure this wasn’t the best time to bring it up.
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