by Alicia Scott
“He didn’t tell me otherwise.”
“Then, why are we having this conversation? What crime did I commit—other than a violation of common sense—by going on a date with Don Matthews?”
“Why did you go out with him, Josie?”
She stared at him a moment, then abruptly she shook her head. “You just don’t get it, do you, Stryker? I went out with Don because he asked. He didn’t appear to have a contagious disease or a hidden wedding band, so what the hell, I decided to spend one night doing something other than watching the late show. Lord have mercy on my soul.”
He was quiet, his hand still above her head. Her diatribe had left her exhausted. She just stood there, feeling his gaze upon her cheeks. It lowered slowly. She closed her eyes and felt his look caressing her throat.
“Why don’t you make this easy on us both,” he whispered. “Why don’t you just tell me what it is you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“Now you’re lying.”
“You have an overactive imagination. I’m just an accountant, Jack, not the missing link. I work too hard. I go home late at night to a house with dying plants and dust so thick that a single sneeze starts sandstorms in three rooms. It’s a glamorous life, but someone’s got to lead it.”
“Tell me about your parents.”
Her eyes opened. She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Because it hurts, Jack. Because it’s no one’s business but mine. Just like your brother Tom’s death is no one’s business but yours.”
He flinched, then quickly lowered his head. “Ben,” he said at last, his gaze on the floor. “Ben told you.”
“He mentioned it, yes. He said he’d had a son Tom. But Tom had had a motorcycle. And Tom had liked to drink beer.”
“It was such a stupid thing to do,” Jack muttered. He still wouldn’t look at her. She wished he would. She could hear the emotion in the thickness of his voice.
“How old was he?”
“Eighteen.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Just old enough to idolize him.”
“He was something. Grand Springs’s rebel without a clue.” Jack abruptly cleared his throat. His eyes narrowed and she could see him pulling himself together. “I’m not here to talk about Tom.”
“No, you’re here at a social fund-raiser interrogating the woman who helped put it together. Straight Arrow Stryker, always on the job. Well, that’s impressive. I hope you sleep well at night. As for me, I can see that the punch is running low. Goodbye.”
She pushed in earnest this time, catching him off guard and managing to break free. He didn’t try to stop her. She suppressed the tiny desire for him to do so and kept walking.
In front of her, the band played loudly and people stomped to the beat. Strobe lights flickered across the gymnasium floor and laughing dancers. From the outskirts, Josie watched a young couple scoot into a quick embrace. She was unbearably aware of the feel of her lace teddy against her skin and Jack’s gaze on her back.
Dammit, there was so much more to life than what she had, but she didn’t know how to find it. Her breathing was still uneven from speaking to Jack, but for him it had been only business. Why couldn’t he see beyond his own suspicions? Why couldn’t he let his work ethic go for just one moment and dance with her because he wanted her in his arms, not because he was thinking of her behind bars?
And why was she so foolish as to want such things with him? And how could she be so traitorous as to admire his work ethic and be impressed by his sense of duty?
She stood amid laughing, stomping people, Jack’s gaze still on her.
She refused to turn around.
* * *
For the rest of the evening, Jack roamed the gymnasium restlessly. It occurred to him that over the last four months, a lot of things in Grand Springs had changed and he’d been working too hard to consider any of them. Generally, he hung out with Stone at social functions. But Stone was now married and out on the dance floor with Jessie. Jack had also spent a lot of time with Rio. Now Rio played bingo with his Eve and their daughter Molly.
Jack walked alone and his gaze kept returning to Josie. She was easy to spot. The strobe lighting made the white backdrop of her dress glow, until she moved around the dim outskirts of the gym like a firefly. She mingled effortlessly, constantly greeting and exchanging pleasantries with most of the people present. She seemed to know everyone, and yet none of the conversations were long. She said hello, exchanged a few laughs and moved on.
She gave him a wide berth. Stone, as well. In fact, of the six police officers present, he never saw her say hi to any of them. Once, when he finally had a chance to talk to Stone and Jessie, he thought he felt someone watching him and pivoted just in time to catch her turning away.
He couldn’t keep from seeking her with his gaze again. He wanted to talk to her. He couldn’t think of anything more to say. He hadn’t felt this nervous and wound up since he’d walked past a downtown beauty parlor and seen Marjorie working in the window. It had taken him two weeks to work up the courage to ask her out.
Six months later, he’d rubbed his sweating palms against his pant legs as he prepared to ask her to be his wife. She’d looked so beautiful that night. Dark hair cascading down to her waist, sultry eyes, heavy-lidded and twinkling with a secret smile…
Jack shook the thoughts away. He didn’t want to remember Marjorie or the life he’d thought they would have together, because then he’d have to remember her flashing brown limbs as she scrambled out of their bed and young Officer Horrock’s embrace.
He’d have to remember standing in the doorway, his face expressionless and his gut cold as he realized that it was over. His marriage had failed. He had failed.
By eleven o’clock, Jack had had enough of the fund-raiser. He was tired. His shoulders were tight. He was worried about the Olivia Stuart case, plus he had a lot of work to do on the other eight files sitting on his desk. He was thinking he would go into work first thing tomorrow morning, then he was thinking maybe he’d go in tonight.
It seemed easier to go to work than to lie in his shadowed bedroom, staring at the ceiling at 4:00 a.m. and worrying about all the things he needed to get done. Josie had been right last night. The rebuilding of Grand Springs was just beginning. And Jack felt the enormous pressure of the work ahead.
He sought out his father, finding him by the bake sale area. Sure enough, Ben was polishing off a pecan pie.
“Ready to go?”
“I feel sick.”
“You just ate a whole pecan pie, Dad.”
“Yeah. And boy was it good.” Ben’s smile was completely without regret. Jack shook his head while his father scrubbed his sticky cheeks with a napkin.
They headed across the gym together, Jack still trying to pick out Josie. For a change, she was nowhere to be seen. His restlessness grew. It bothered him to leave without at least seeing her again.
What would you say to her, Jack? What would you say?
“I saw her leave,” his father commented.
“Who?”
“The person you’re not looking for,” his father said sagely.
Jack drove with his jaw tight and the muscles knotted in his back.
“Nice night,” his father remarked at last.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Did you enjoy the dance?”
“It was fine.”
“Nice girl, Josie. I thought you told your mother you weren’t interested in her? From the way I saw you leaning over her in the corner, I’d say you were kinda interested.”
“I was just asking her some questions.”
“Uh-huh.”
They drifted back into silence. There weren’t many cars on the road. The night whizzed by, inky black.
“You okay?” Ben asked at last.
“Just got a lot on my mind.”
“Work?”
“Yes.
”
“The Olivia Stuart case?”
“Yes.”
Ben looked out the window. “Your mother’s worried about you.”
“Mom’s always worried about me.”
“Yes, but for a change, I agree with her.”
Jack was honestly startled. He looked over at his father. “I’m fine, Dad. Really. I just have a lot of work to do. Crime rate’s up, we’re short-staffed, and we have a couple of major cases on our plate. Plus, we’ve got a temporary mayor. Things’ll slow back down eventually.”
“You were always very intense, Jack.”
Jack shrugged. He felt cornered and he didn’t know why. He and his father rarely had conversations like this.
“You were a very intent little boy,” his father continued after a moment. “Tom was a happy child, always laughing and getting into trouble. You were serious from the day you were born. I still remember you sitting on the carpet, couldn’t have been more than one or two, picking out all the debris and arranging it in perfect geometric patterns. Your mom was so embarrassed she started vacuuming every two days.”
“I’m just a little overworked, Dad. That’s all.”
“Then Tom started getting into trouble, staying out late, building the motorcycle. There was just something wild in that boy. I never did get it. He reminded me a bit of my older brother. Maybe that was it. Tom got into trouble. You got more serious.”
Jack fell silent. He didn’t know what to say.
“I remember the night the call came,” Ben said abruptly. “I remember having to tell your mom that Tom was dead. She cried so hard her whole body shook. I couldn’t get her to stop shaking. You walked into the living room then. It was two in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“I told you that Tom had been in an accident. That Tom was dead. Do you know what you said?”
“No,” Jack whispered.
“You looked over at your mother, who was still crying, and you said, ‘Will she be all right?’ I said, ‘In a bit.’ You nodded and went back to bed. I never saw you cry, Jack. Even at the funeral, you stood there like a solider, holding your mother’s hand while she wailed and wailed and wailed. I had to take her to the hospital soon after that.”
Jack nodded. He remembered what had happened next. His mother had been in the hospital for six months. It had been just him and his father in the house, and the pall of the son and brother that was no more. They had moved in silence. That’s all Jack really recalled from that period of time. The eerie silence.
Then his mother had returned and the silence became a persistent undercurrent. The need to not talk too loud, not walk too loud, not be too loud. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and his mother would be standing in his room, watching him sleep as if she needed to reassure herself that he, at least, was still there. Once, when he was ten minutes late coming home from football practice, he found her collapsed in the living room, crying so hard she hiccuped uncontrollably. How could he put her through that? she yelled hysterically when he brushed her shoulder. How could he scare her like that?
He was very careful never to be late again. He became very careful of a lot of things, moving through life as if he were wading through cotton, each movement slow and deliberate so he wouldn’t disturb his mother and her fragile nerves. It had felt like that ever since.
“Do you still love her?” he asked his father quietly. He’d never asked before, but this seemed to be the night for it.
“Yes,” his father said without hesitation. “Of course I love your mother. I remember the girl she was, how she would toss her hair over her shoulder when she sipped her cherry Coke. That used to drive me wild. I remember the look on her face when she held out each of you kids to me in the hospital, her face all shiny with sweat, her expression bursting with pride. She was quite a woman, Jack. She still is. You have a lot of your mother in you, you know?”
Jack automatically shook his head. Ben abruptly twisted in the passenger’s seat to face him.
“I’m muddling this,” his father said. “But in my own way, this is what I’m trying to tell you—you’re too intense. You bottle things up too much. Look at yourself these days, Jack. You’ve got shadows under your eyes. You’ve lost weight. You don’t smile anymore. When was the last time you went out? When was the last time you let yourself go a little?
“You try too hard to control everything, to be too perfect. You’re like your mother that way, you both want everything to go just so. It doesn’t work, Jack. Life is messy. Floods wipe out farms. Children turn eighteen, drink beer and get killed on motorcycles.” His voice gentled. “And beautiful first wives turn out to be lying, conniving women who cheat on their husbands.”
Jack’s hands tightened on the wheel. “I don’t understand—”
“Of course you don’t.” Ben turned back to the window, his mood still expansive. “I hit you out of the blue with all this, I know that. I was just sitting there tonight, eating my pecan pie, watching the people dance, and I thought, I’m a happy man. I love my wife. I love my son. I love my town. I am happy, Jack. That’s what nights like tonight are all about. That life is messy, but it’s okay because we can all clean up together. I don’t think you and your mother get that. You think you have to keep everything just in place. Then when it falls and breaks, you think only you can put it back together again. And when you can’t, you shoulder the failure like a permanent burden. Your mom eats staring at an empty chair. You work yourself into the ground, not even able to say her name. This family has too many ghosts.”
“All that sugar’s gone to your head, Dad.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Next time, I’ll make you eat a pie, too.”
Jack flexed his fingers on the car wheel. They were nearing his parents’ house. He began to slow.
“Relax a little,” Ben said softly. “Sleep a little. Put back on some weight. And for God’s sake, ask Josie Reynolds out on a date. She’s nothing like Marjorie—your mom was right about her. Now, Josie, I know. Josie’s a good girl.”
Jack just nodded as he pulled into the driveway and his father opened the door. He didn’t know how to tell his exuberant father that Josie might be beautiful, and Josie might be sweet, but she was also the number one suspect in a murder investigation.
He waited until his father had gone into the house, then he pulled out again.
The night was still silent, thick. Suddenly, it stifled him. He drove, but he was no longer heading toward his one-bedroom bachelor pad with the brown carpet he’d never liked and the stiff, Spartan furniture that had never been comfortable. He’d never liked being a bachelor, not in his teens and not in his thirties. When he came home at night and looked around him, he just saw too much silence again.
He wanted noise. He wanted to build a family to be how his family had once been—rowdy, laughing and fighting. He missed the days when Tom had been alive. The boisterousness. The raw, uninhibited energy.
The honesty.
He found himself pulling into a small suburban enclave of Grand Springs. At this time of night, most of the houses were dark, just porch lights illuminating the way for wayward children or spouses to return home.
The driveway he pulled into didn’t have any lights visible at all. The small house was completely still, completely dark.
He sat in the driveway one last moment, thinking he should just drive away. Go home. Go to work.
He got out of the car.
And knocked on the door of Josie’s place.
Chapter Five
“What are you doing here?” Josie answered his second knock. Her blond hair was still clipped back at the nape of her neck, but she was now wearing a red silk kimono bathrobe and her face was dewy soft, as if it had just been scrubbed. Damp tendrils of hair curled around her temples.
He stared at her, the delicate arch of her pale eyebrows, the slant of her porcelain blue eyes. The light flush of color slowly seeping up her cheeks from her neck.
“Stryker?
”
His gaze settled on her lips. They parted abruptly. “This is not a good idea,” she said.
“I agree.” He walked into her house. The lights were off in the living room, but a pale glow down the hall indicated where her bedroom must be. He veered away sharply, pacing a small circle and waiting for common sense to slap him back to reality.
Stryker, what are you doing? His hands were trembling.
Josie stood in front of the closed door, her eyes locked on his face.
“You still think I’m a suspect, don’t you, Jack?”
“Yes.” He took a step toward her.
“You’re still wondering if you can trust me.”
“Yes.” He took another step.
“You’re not even sure if you like me.”
“Yes.” He trapped her against the closed door. “But I want you, Josie.”
Her breath left her in a rush. Her jaw worked several times, but no words came out. Her gaze was transfixed on his face, then slowly, it settled onto his lips.
“I know I shouldn’t,” he whispered. “I know. Only I think I’m going to do it, anyway.” He planted his hands on either side of her head. He searched her gaze with his. Then slowly, he reached back, found the barrette holding her hair and unclipped it. The silky strands slid forward with a sigh, like water finally overflowing a dam. Even in the darkness, her hair glowed like spun gold.
“Smells like apples and strawberries,” he murmured, picking up a fistful, then letting it drop.
“Shampoo,” Josie muttered weakly. Her eyes had gone pleading. “You don’t really want to do this, Jack. I know your type. Military haircuts, razor-pressed suits. I don’t even make my bed in the morning.”
“I figured as much.” He ran his fingertips down her cheek, catching a last drop of water and rolling it between his forefinger and thumb. He was fascinated by the feel of the water, the softness of her skin.
“Look around. I haven’t cleaned this place in months. Dead plants, dishes in the sink, dust over everything, I swear to God. And laundry? Don’t even ask about laundry. If it wasn’t for my very patient dry cleaner who can turn around a blouse in an hour, I wouldn’t be fit to show up in an office.”