Quinn offered me some and I rubbed it between my palms, inhaling it deeply.
“Oh my God. I’m in Heaven.”
He read the label aloud. “Lemon, cloves, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary.”
“Isn’t eucalyptus good for your breathing, too?” I asked.
“Let me look it up.”
We sat studying the booklet for the next hour until hunger drove us to the kitchen.
“Starving ourselves isn’t going to help Callie,” Quinn said. He pulled back his long, shaggy hair with a handmade braided string made with thin strips of leather and turquoise beads. I’d given it to him for Christmas last year, and it had set off the color of his thick lashed eyes exactly as I’d hoped. It made him look even more deliciously savage, which I loved. I watched him set to work. His jeans had slipped low on his hips, and his blue denim shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his chest and stomach. His long morning swim took place at the same time as my daily run, and by doing so we managed to keep fit.
But as much as I loved my dear husband, even he couldn’t distract me from my worries. I chopped fresh zucchini with my eyes blank and my mind turning furiously. Halfway through the job, I stopped and slammed my hand on the counter.
Quinn gently took the knife from me. “Why don’t you talk about it, babe. It’ll make you feel better.”
I walked to the fridge, opened it, and stared inside. “I can’t help it. I have a feeling she’s in really bad trouble, and I want to do something.” I turned to him and searched his eyes. “It has to have something to do with Sky. Don’t you think? Someone was after him, and they came to shake down his sisters to find out where he was, or where the emeralds were. They had to be after the gems. They were probably worth millions.”
Quinn finished chopping the zucchini without missing a beat. “But honey, if they found the emeralds and took them, why would they take Callie?”
I frowned. “Maybe they didn’t get them. Maybe Callie hid them someplace.”
“Was her house tossed? Did it look like they searched it?”
I leaned down to grab a saucepan from the cupboard. “No. It was neat as a pin. Except for the broken screen door to the sun room and the upended bag, it looked normal.”
“So, they probably got the emeralds when they got Callie. That means they’re still looking for more. Something more. Or someone more. Maybe it’s Sky they want, and they’re gonna use her for bait.”
I blanched. “Maybe. But why kill Willow?”
He stared at the pan I’d handed him, and without a word, rewashed it. After it met his inspection, he slid the squash into it and added water from the tap. His black eyebrows lowered a fraction of an inch. “I’m thinking Willow caught them searching her house. Or even Callie’s house. She saw them go in while Callie was still at our place, then marched over and challenged them. You know how antagonistic she is.” His words trailed off as if he’d seen her ghost. “Er, how antagonistic she was. Anyway, when she realized they didn’t belong there, she ran back to her own house, tried to call the cops. They followed and strangled her to stop her.”
I took the chicken breasts out of the fridge and lay them in a frying pan. In all the craziness of the day, I’d forgotten to put dinner in the crock-pot. “Or maybe they went to her house first, looking for Sky. They asked her about him, she got mad. And when she gets mad, she’s insufferable. We all know that.” I paused to think, my eyes welling with unshed tears. “She might have even told them about Callie’s house if they hadn’t gone there yet.”
“Wait a minute.” He reached over to the yellow pages we kept on the shelf by the kitchen phone. I rarely used them, since Switchboard.com was so handy and I always had my laptop open beside me. But Quinn liked to have it there, so I let him have his way. “Look. All they had to do was look up Sky’s last name. See? Right here in plain sight. ‘C. Lissoneau, 5454 East Lake Road. And W. Lissoneau, 5458 East Lake Road.’”
“Geez. Anyone could find them. Um, maybe we should go unlisted.”
Quinn took down a box of pine nut couscous from the cabinet. “I’ll second that. And maybe we should go back to Callie’s house and look some more. The cops might have missed something.” He grabbed a bottle of spray cleaner and spritzed the shelf where I’d dribbled chicken juice.
An idea formed. “They searched it while I was there. But I know the place; I even know some of her old hidey-holes from when we were kids. We could also see who called her the night before. She said it was the home phone. If we hit star-six-nine, maybe we can get the number.”
Quinn leaned forward with a fresh gleam in his eyes. “Yeah. And find out if Sky’s alive.”
This time, he seemed sincere. No elements of “I hope to God that bastard is dead” lurked there. Just an earnest desire to help. On impulse, I pulled him toward me and kissed him deeply. Breathless, I pulled back and my eyes searched his. “God, I love you. Now hand me the paprika.”
Chapter 7
After dinner, I walked Beau up and down Sunset Drive, our single-lane road. I passed a few kids on bikes, who almost fell over from gawking at me with a dog. Two sets of elderly walkers I recognized nodded politely, but couldn’t hide the surprise in their eyes. Beau’s massive size and majestic presence were a real draw. And normally, they all saw me in my running gear, ready to tackle the climb up Cratsley Hill Road.
With a sense of pride, I stooped to make a fuss over Beau, scrubbing behind his ears with vigor. He tried to look happy, but behind those big, dopey eyes I sensed loneliness for his owner. He’d been with Callie every single day since he was a puppy. Five years of living in that house with her. The only time they’d been apart was when the little girl next door took him for fifteen-minute walks twice a day, or when Callie let him out in her fenced yard. I hugged him impulsively, and got a tail wag in return. “It’s gonna be okay, big fella. We’ll find her for you. I promise.”
He seemed to perk up after that, and half-pranced beside me all the way home. I settled him on his bed of old quilts in our room, then put on dark jeans and a sweatshirt, pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and joined Quinn at the dock. He’d already started the motor and was at the stern with his hand on the outboard’s tiller.
“Ready?” he asked. He wore dark clothes, too, with his own hair pulled back like mine, and suddenly he reminded me of a slightly darker-skinned Tybalt in Franco Zefferelli’s version of Romeo and Juliet. I remembered thinking Michael York was incredibly sexy in that flick. My heart throbbed a little at the sight of my man, six-foot-one and all dressed in black to go spying.
“Remember,” I said. “If they’re guarding the place, we’re just coming over for Beau’s leash, the retractable one. I really did forget it, and it’s easier to walk him that way.”
“Right.” He held up the binoculars that hung from his neck. “But we’ll stop halfway and see if we can tell who’s there before we barge in. Here.” He handed me my fishing pole. “Makes us look less suspicious.”
“Good idea.” I took the pole, and while Quinn steered us toward the east side, I fastened a silver spinner to the line.
He stopped halfway to Callie’s and let the boat rock in the wake of the Jet Ski that screamed by us. I cast the rod a few times, nodded to some passing fisherman, and when it seemed clear, Quinn took out the glasses and peered toward Callie’s.
“See anything?” I whispered, even though there was no one around.
“Not yet. Hold on a second, I want to check Willow’s place.”
“You can’t see the road from here. There might be a car out front.”
“I know. But if we sneak in the front door, they might not notice.”
I patted my pocket where I’d inadvertently kept the door key. I knew it worked for front and back doors, too, so we’d be all set. Callie had bought a matched set when she inherited the house. She’d redone all the locks and had installed locks on the windows, too.
I actually caught two big perch while we were drifting southward. Each time, I unhooked them
and threw them back. Quinn played birdwatcher for ten more minutes, then started up the engine.
“Let’s go.” He revved it and we circled in a big arc south of Callie’s, slowly trolling back north again while I cast in among the docks and overhanging trees.
Quinn kept us within a few yards of shore, chugging closer to the yellow cottage. All seemed quiet. He cut the motor and let it drift in toward Sky’s dock. It wasn’t in as bad shape as the house, and only had a few planks missing. In case they were watching Callie’s dock, we might have a slight advantage by docking one over.
I tied the boat to the post and jumped lightly onto wooden planks, followed closely by Quinn.
The sky had darkened now to a dusty violet. A few stars sparkled on the horizon. We hurried up the dock, over Callie’s picket fence, and up her front steps to the kitchen door. The police had locked it again, so I dug out my key and let us in.
“No lights,” Quinn said.
I hit his arm. “I know.” I moved forward to the living room to check out front. Standing in the shadows, I peered out the side window and caught the flare of a match in a dark sedan parked across from Willow’s house. “They’re out there, Quinn. Watching.”
“Better make this fast, then. Check her hiding spots, and I’ll look for the leash and check for that phone number.”
I stole over to the fireplace and pulled out a row of books we’d both read as kids: Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, and a host of dog stories by Alfred Payson Terhune, Lad a Dog, Wolf, and Lockinvar Luck. I remembered them all fondly, and how I’d begged my mother for a collie from the time I was seven. She’d never given in, but had let me have a few cats and gerbils along the way to try to placate me.
When this is all over, damn it, I’m getting myself a dog.
I didn’t know where the intense feelings came from, and even though I realized Quinn would have a fit if we had a permanent canine resident, because of the hairs and mess it might cause, I decided I’d fight this battle. Maybe I’d get a Bernese Mountain Dog, just like Beau.
I reached behind to the wall and pressed a tiny catch. A small door sprang open, and I risked turning on my mini-mag light to inspect the dark hole behind it.
Cobwebs guarded the outside, and my heart sank when I realized she couldn’t have put anything in there recently. With shivery insides, I reached through the webs and felt around the cavity. My fingers closed around a matchbox and I drew it out. I slid open the cover. Inside was a mood ring. I picked it up and slid it onto my pinky finger. I recognized it instantly. It was the one I’d thought I’d lost when Callie’s parents took us to the state fair. Callie and I had been sixteen. Sky was seventeen.
The memories rushed at me. Callie, Sky, and I had ridden all the rides except the roller coaster. I couldn’t bear the heights, and they didn’t push me. We’d tilt-a-whirled and Ferris-wheeled until we were giddy. We’d gorged on cotton candy and fudge and fry cakes all afternoon. Most of the day, Callie had clung to my one arm and Sky to the other. We’d had a ball, but when I got home, I’d noticed my ring was missing.
Who had kept it? Sky? Was it a memento of our day together, of our first kiss?
He’d dragged me behind a popcorn vendor’s cart when Callie stood in line for a hot dog, and pulled me against him in a sudden passionate embrace. He’d kissed me so long and softly; I thought I’d pass out from the intensity of the feelings it stirred in me. I fell for him. Hard. And we’d rocketed toward the dangerous world of unprotected wild sex in any place we could manage.
I knew now why that risky behavior hadn’t ended in pregnancy. I’d been infertile, even then. The familiar sadness sank over me, but I pushed it away. No time for that now.
I turned the ring on my finger, listening to Quinn’s footsteps overhead in the room that used to belong to Callie’s parents. A sense of nostalgia washed over me. I missed the days when Callie, Sky, and I would go places together with our folks, and later in Sky’s baby blue Thunderbird. Shortly after Callie had dropped out of school, her mother had passed away from a brain aneurism, and Callie had settled into the yellow house. Willow, fifteen years her senior, had already moved into her current cottage with a blue-haired guy who smoked pot all day and lay around on the dock watching the female water skiers with his big, pink tongue hanging out. I cringed when I remembered the way he used to size me up. Thankfully, he hadn’t lasted the summer, and Willow had a long succession of losers after that. When she lost her looks due to an early stroke, she stopped bringing men home. She’d suddenly wizened into an old maid. I shuddered. She’d been only three years older than me when the stroke hit her. I’m forty-two, and she’d been forty-five when she got sick. So strange.
Now, at fifty-seven, she lay on a slab in the morgue.
“Marcella.” Quinn whispered from the kitchen. “I got the number, and I found the leash. Where else do you want to look?”
I hurried over to him. “Upstairs. She used to hide stuff in her closet in the corner of the ceiling.”
“Come on.” He led the way up the stairs, and I followed close behind. In her bedroom, we moved the sturdy little nightstand into the closet, just like Callie used to do. I climbed up on it and pushed on the white ceiling tile in the corner. Suspended on a metal grid, it lifted easily. I slid it over to the side and rested it on its neighbor.
With one foot on the narrow dresser, I clicked on my light again and boosted myself up to see into the space. There, on a thin plank Callie and I had settled over the grid, were her treasures. No velvet bag of gems beckoned, but I took out a small pink book and wooden case with mother of pearl inlaid on the top. I slid the book into my pocket and lifted the wooden cover, playing my light over the contents. Callie’s mother’s pearls, ruby earrings, and her parents’ wedding rings glistened inside. Pushed into the corner, the hemp necklace beckoned. I drew it out and hung it around my neck, fingering the little glass vial that was attached. I put the cover back on and slid the box back to safety.
Quinn helped me hop down. “Nothing?” he asked.
“This necklace and some special jewelry. I didn’t touch the jewelry, it’s safer there than anywhere else.” I don’t know why I didn’t tell him I’d slipped the diary into my sweatshirt pocket, but I think I was afraid Callie might have spilled more secrets about my amorous past than I wanted Quinn to know. It was okay for him to speculate, but he didn’t need to know the dirty details.
We carried the nightstand back to its spot and headed downstairs.
I smelled Old Spice just before a strong arm clamped around me and pinned me against the wall. “Hey!” I fought like hell and jabbed him in the ribs a few times, but when the lights came on, I stared into the triumphant face of a young cop, Runyon’s partner.
He pointed his gun at Quinn, whose hands slowly rose over his head. Motioning us into the living room, he forced us onto the couch. He took out his cell phone and made a call. Before it connected, he waved his gun before us. “Don’t move.” He leaned against the tall wingback chair just in front of us, and spoke into his phone. “Yeah. It’s me. I’ve got them.” He listened for a second, then hung up and shook out two sets of handcuffs. “You first, lady.”
“Listen!” I said, pulling away from him. “You know me. I was here earlier. I spoke with your partner.”
“Sure you were.” He hushed me up when he jerked me to my feet and pinned my arms none too gently behind my back, clicking the cuffs together. “Come on now, it’s your turn.” Quinn stood and put his hands behind his back, locking eyes with me. He didn’t look scared. He looked as pissed off as I felt.
The officer pushed us back onto the couch and took out a little notebook. “Names?”
“I told you! We’re Callie’s friends. We just came by to get her dog leash.”
Quinn nodded toward the leash he’d thrown on the table.
Boy cop didn’t buy it. “Names?”
Quinn answered this time. “Quinn and Marcella Hollister.”
Eager now, the fresh-faced kid looked fro
m me to Quinn and back again. “Quinn and Marcella Hollister, I’m arresting you for trespassing on a crime scene.”
Chapter 8
Before the young cop could finish reading our rights, Officer Runyon burst in the front door.
“Holy Saint Peter, Montello. Let them go.” Her tight, controlled expression told me he’d goofed before, maybe often, and that she was ready to chew him up and spit him out. Again.
“I told you.” I turned around, wiggling my fingers to make him hurry up. “Undo me.”
Montello blushed. “What? I just caught these two breaking in—”
“You’ve just arrested one of our witnesses. I questioned her earlier. Didn’t you see her when she came in the side door? And that, I presume, is her husband, Quinn.”
Quinn nodded as if he’d been introduced at a party. “Pleased to meet you, officer.”
Pride washed over me. Quinn stayed so cool.
“Montello! Unlock them, damn it.”
“She looked different this morning,” Montello murmured.
I heard his keys clink and felt him fumbling with the cuffs. It took him forever, and his hands seemed to be shaking. A stab of empathy went through me. “Well, he’s right. My hair was down this morning, and I had on summery clothes.”
Runyon looked at my black attire. “Uh huh. Looks like you two are ready for a mission.”
Montello chuckled. “Mission Impossible.” When Runyon stabbed him with her stare, he shuffled over to Quinn and freed his hands.
Quinn rubbed his wrists and flashed a half-smile at me. “We came in the front door. Maybe we should have walked around by the road and made a bigger show of it. Then again, we didn’t know Callie’s place was under surveillance.”
I turned to Runyon and noticed for the first time a faint glint of amusement in her eyes. She really was striking, with high cheekbones and lovely full lips. I pictured her in a soft chiffon dress with makeup and earrings, and realized she’d be a knockout. I put my hand on her arm. “Officer? Just so you know, we were out fishing,” I pointed to our boat with my pole prominently sticking up on the bow, “and remembered Beau’s leash.”
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