“What’s that mean?”
“I go for a younger crowd. This is where the matrons lunch.” He shrugged. “Sure, some of the tourists try it because of the historic designation, but the next night they want something more casual.” A smile lurked in his eyes as he took the keys from the ignition. “The food’s better at my place, too.”
He was right. It was. More imaginative, too. This menu ran to steaks, a few chicken dishes, a nod to vegetarians and a variety of salads. Cait went with one of them and found the dressing to be bland and the romaine damp.
Noah sawed unenthusiastically at his filet mignon. Michael Kalitovic was too busy expounding on his passion to seem to notice what he was putting in his mouth, and Beverly seemed to be occupied trying to figure out why Noah had accompanied Cait. She did wax rhapsodic to the idea of a bypass route into town. Next thing they knew, she’d whipped out her smartphone and pulled up a local map, which to her frustration repeatedly whisked out of sight as she tried to draw new lines.
“I do believe in affordable housing,” Cait kept having to say to Michael. “But you’ll have to interest a developer in a project.”
By the time Noah announced brusquely that he and Cait had to leave, she was so grateful she didn’t object to his high-handedness.
“You weren’t kidding about his hobbyhorse,” she muttered as they cut through the dark parking lot.
She loved his low, rough laugh. “No, I wasn’t. I’ve been known to hide in a janitor’s closet when I see him coming.”
Cait giggled. “Beverly is almost as bad. Nice, but I’m kind of sorry I threw out the bypass idea. I may have created a monster.”
He unlocked his SUV. “Yeah, until now Beverly was thinking in terms of a ten-foot-high hedge of yew to hide Target and Home Depot from passing traffic.”
The image of the highway into town tunneling through high walls of greenery made her laugh again. “Well, making the approach slightly more appealing is still an alternative, and a less costly one.”
Noah’s craggy face was a lot more attractive when he was smiling, like now. “Too late to suggest it without crushing Beverly.”
Back at city hall, he pulled in right behind her small car, set the brake and got out with her. Somehow she wasn’t at all surprised when he circled to examine her little Mazda, even ducking down once to peer beneath.
She crossed her arms and watched. “Looking for a bomb?”
He didn’t appear amused. “I’ll follow you home.”
“You really don’t have to.”
“It’s not far out of my way.”
That got her wondering where he did live and what his home was like. Was he a condo kind of guy? She tried to picture him mowing a lawn on Saturday morning, but that seemed too domestic. Not that he was the slick kind—it wasn’t hard to imagine him, say, building a house single-handedly. He could be sweaty and physical.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh, and got into her car.
His headlights stayed in her rearview mirror the entire way; he went so far as to pull into the driveway behind her, reversing to leave only when he saw that Colin had stepped out onto the porch to see her safely into the house.
“Chandler?” her brother asked with a scowl.
“Yes.”
“I thought you were having dinner with that Buhl woman.”
“I was.” She watched as he locked the door once they were inside. “Her and a Michael Kalitovic—do you know him?—and Noah.”
“I know Kalitovic. He has a teenage son who is a little wild.”
She blinked, picturing the earnest guy with the receding hairline, which he tried to disguise by shaving his head. “Really.”
“Oh, yeah. Dad and son both have become familiar faces at the station.” His mouth twitched. “That’s small-town life, you know. No secrets.”
“That could be good,” she said doubtfully.
“And bad,” he agreed. “You get used to it.”
Angel Butte, Cait reflected after she’d said good-night to him and was getting ready for bed, had been even smaller when she’d lived here as a child. Her mother had had a secret. Had she somehow kept it? And if not, who had known?
CHAPTER FIVE
A RAP ON his half-open door brought Colin’s head up from the equipment request he’d been considering when he wasn’t brooding about the fact that Cait had had dinner with Chandler last night. Sure, with two other people also, but what if the bastard had his eye on her?
“Captain?” It was Jane Vahalik, the detective he’d promoted to lieutenant last fall after he’d had to shoot and kill her predecessor, who in turn had been trying to kill Nell. Vahalik was young for the job of supervising the detective unit, but, despite a few missteps, he thought she was going to be up to it.
Jane was thirty-four, average height, no beauty but with an interesting face, an unruly mass of dark chestnut hair she usually wore in a ponytail and hazel eyes. He knew she was a swimmer, which kept her more fit than three-quarters of the other officers in the Angel Butte force.
He waved her in. “What’s up?”
“Thought you’d want to know we have a murder.”
He raised his eyebrows. Their murder rate was low for a town this size. The statistic was one he took pride in. “A visitor or a local?”
“Local.” She sat without waiting for an invitation. “He still had his wallet, or we might be floundering for an ID. He’s not the kind of guy who’s likely to have prints in the system.”
“Anybody I’d know?” His patience was wearing thin.
“Maybe. He’s the airport manager. We’re pretty sure he is,” she corrected herself. “He’s not married, so we’ve asked a maintenance supervisor out at the airport to give a positive ID.”
What the hell? “Not Jerry Hegland?” he asked.
“You do know him.”
He shook his head. “I know of him. Not sure I’ve ever come face-to-face with him.” That was true enough, as far as it went.
What were the odds, he had to ask himself, that Cait would mention him in such a context and the man would turn up dead ten days later? Chance, of course, but one that unsettled him.
“Tell me about it,” he ordered.
The body had been found on the shoulder of a rural road. A home owner on her way to work early that morning had spotted it. She’d assumed the man to have been the victim of a hit-and-run. The medical examiner had immediately determined that the victim had been shot.
“Two shots, back of the head. Classic execution. Only one exit wound, though, so we ought to be able to recover a bullet in the autopsy.”
“Jesus. Is his face recognizable?”
“Yeah, from one side.” She grimaced. “He’s a mess.”
“Killed there?”
“Sanchez says no. There wasn’t much blood. He likely hadn’t been dead long when he was dumped, though. Best guess so far, he was killed something like eight to ten hours before the body was found.”
“All right. Keep me informed.”
She nodded and left. Somewhat reluctantly, he went down the hall to Raynor’s office.
The office that should have been his.
“Your boss in?” he asked the assistant.
“He just got off the phone. Go on in.”
Having to knock rankled, as did the sight of another man behind that desk. He tried not to hold getting screwed out of the job against Raynor, but he couldn’t always help himself.
He shared the details he knew, shook his head when Raynor asked if he’d known the victim and left as soon as possible. As he strode back down the hall to his own office, he was thinking about Cait. He’d have to tell her before she heard from someone else.
* * *
“JERRY HEGLAND WAS found dead today.”
Cait was di
shing up asparagus when Colin’s words sank in. She carefully set the serving spoon back in the bowl and looked at him.
“Dead?”
He had set down his own fork. Nell, across the table from Cait, looked from one of them to the other.
“He was murdered, Cait.”
“But...” Her brain was foundering. “I just saw him.”
A nerve ticked beneath one of his eyes. “I know.”
She could not tell what he was thinking. Her own brother.
“How?” she asked, her voice high and breathless.
“Shot. He was dumped next to a road out past Thunder Creek.”
“You didn’t go talk to him, did you?” she blurted.
His expression changed. “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing.” She shouldn’t have said that. But remembering Colin’s rage when she’d told him about their mother’s affair, she couldn’t help thinking it. “I just wondered—”
“Whether I killed him.” He said it slowly. “You’re asking me if I killed a man because I don’t like that he slept with my mother damn near twenty years ago.”
“No.” She still didn’t sound like herself. “Of course I didn’t mean that. Only that...maybe you’d talked to him. Know more about him than you did.”
He pushed away from the table although his plate was still full. “What kind of man do you think I am?”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “I don’t know you very well.”
Nell seemed to be frozen in place, only her eyes vividly alive as she watched the scene unfold.
Colin rose, looked at Cait for a long moment and walked away. The bedroom door closed quietly.
At last, Nell shot to her feet. “He’s a good man. For you to imply—” She shook her head and hurried after her husband.
Cait looked down at her plate, not seeing the food she’d dished up. Instead, her head was filled with a kaleidoscope of memories: the brother she had loved so much pitching a softball to her and laughing when she swung hard and missed entirely. Lifting the bike from her after she had fallen, insisting she’d done great; she’d get it. Kicking the coffee table over and launching himself at their father, his face suffused with red. She was screaming and she thought her mother was, too. Both shrank into a corner. Snarled obscenities as the two men’s bodies crashed against the sofa and then the wall. Fists flying.
I don’t know him.
But she’d run to him for safety.
Feeling sick, she scraped her untouched food back into serving dishes, then did the same for her brother’s and sister-in-law’s plates. Carried them to the kitchen, covered them with plastic and put them away in the refrigerator. Rinsed dishes, filled the dishwasher, started it running, all the while wondering, shell-shocked, what she had just done.
He wasn’t a murderer. She didn’t believe that. She didn’t.
But...she remembered how furious he’d been when she had told him about Jerry Hegland. And now, so soon, their mother’s lover had been found dead. How could she help but wonder?
Was there anything more horrible she could have said to her brother?
She stole down the hall to the guest bedroom, hearing the murmur of voices through the door to Colin and Nell’s room. Cait didn’t want to think about what they were saying.
I can’t stay here.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth on a broken laugh. All she had to do was close her eyes and see the way he looked at her. The way Nell had looked at her. It was safe to say she’d worn out her welcome.
But she wouldn’t flee into the night. Colin deserved an apology. Tomorrow morning, she’d go look at the town houses Noah had recommended and any other rentals she could find online. She might even be able to move tomorrow.
No, she couldn’t stay here under Colin’s protection, not even in the apartment over the garage, not after what she’d said. Implied.
She huddled in bed, not sleeping, shriveling from the memory of Colin’s shock. Remembering Jerry Hegland’s face when he recognized her, remembering his kindness to her when she was a little girl, imagining that face drained of life.
And then she thought, Oh, God, should I tell Mom? Who still didn’t know that her daughter had moved to Angel Butte, the town from which they’d fled with little more than their clothes?
She might have slept finally, although she saw gray dawn creeping around the slats of the blinds. Cait got up when she heard somebody come out of the bedroom across the hall.
She found Colin in the kitchen, adding water to the coffeemaker. He glanced at her, then back to what he was doing. He looked as if he’d aged ten years overnight. Cait had a bad feeling she did, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had a flash of remembering how angry you looked. I opened my mouth too soon and said something stupid. That’s all it was.”
He nodded.
She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. “I’ll leave today.”
“Now you are being stupid.” His voice was completely devoid of emotion. “Of course you’re not going anywhere. Not when that creep’s after you.”
She only shook her head. She couldn’t stay. She didn’t deserve his protection. “I have to get dressed.”
“When you’re ready, I’ll follow you into work.” He still sounded like a stranger.
Deep breath. “Thank you” was all she could manage.
She didn’t cry until she stood in the shower, hot water washing away her tears.
* * *
WAITING FOR THE elevator Friday morning, Noah glanced over his shoulder when he heard the squeal of a vehicle turning sharply. Every sound was magnified down there. He tensed when he saw the blue of Cait’s car. The elevator doors opened, and he was torn between escaping and waiting. While he hesitated, the elevator lost patience with him, closed and went on its way.
She walked hurriedly from her car, although there was a hitch in her step when she saw him. “Noah.”
Today’s garb was more subdued than her usual—black slacks and a three-quarter-sleeve V-neck camel-colored sweater. Stood to reason not everything in her wardrobe was bright and cheerful. But, seeing her face, he suspected her clothes reflected her mood.
Then she got closer, and his eyes narrowed. She looked like hell.
“Cait,” he greeted her.
“Caught coming to work late.” She might have been trying to make light of it, but her voice was subdued, too. “I was looking at rentals. I know I should have waited until tomorrow, but I’ll make up the time.”
“You’re not on the clock,” he said impatiently. “I know you have to find a place to live. I thought you’d stay at your brother’s for now, though.”
“No, I—” She gave an awkward shrug, bumping a heavy messenger bag against her hip. “Actually, I put down first and last month’s on one of the town houses you told me about. I can move in today.”
“But they’re not furnished.” What was going on?
“No, I’ll send for my furniture from Seattle. But I needed a new bed anyway. That was my second stop this morning, at Larson’s.”
Fred Larson, who owned the furniture store, was one of the local businessmen who’d served on the city council for far too long, in Noah’s opinion.
“I picked out a bed and a couch. Oh, and stools the right height for the breakfast bar. The manager promised they’d deliver at five, so I’ll need to cut out a little early, too.”
“You know that’s not a problem.” Her living for a week or more in a two-bedroom, two-bath town house furnished only with a bed, sofa and bar stools, that was a problem. He still hadn’t punched the button to summon the elevator, and he didn’t now. “Cait, what’s going on? You know you shouldn’t be alone until this Ralston guy gets picked up.”
Noah had looked up Blake Ralston online
, and although he wasn’t 100 percent sure he’d found the right guy, he thought he had. The one he’d found was some kind of water system engineer, which made sense—Cait would have reason to meet him in the course of her work. He’d been displeased to see that her ex-boyfriend—if this was him—was model-handsome in a dark-eyed, intense way. Given the education and qualifications the company website listed, he seemed an unlikely stalker, but Noah had long since learned that crazy came in all shapes and sizes.
“It’s been three days. The police haven’t been able to locate him, and I haven’t heard a peep from him. You know he’s probably back in Seattle. His flying visit was a...a jab.” She was trying to sound like she believed herself. Failing, of course. “That’s all,” she concluded.
“Bullshit,” he said bluntly, earning a shocked stare. “How did he find you in his ‘flying visit’? Tell me that.”
“Remember he’s met Colin. All he’d have to do was stake out Colin’s house and follow me.”
“You wouldn’t have noticed a car on the side of the road?”
“It was dusk. Besides, he could have been half a mile away!” She was getting mad that he wasn’t buying her little fantasy. “Using binoculars.”
It was possible, Noah could concede. But he didn’t believe for a minute that someone as obsessed as this guy would be satisfied with one nasty little trick.
“Did Colin check to find out if Ralston has been at work?”
Her eyes fell away from Noah’s. “He’s taking some vacation. Um.” She looked past him at the elevator. “Shouldn’t we...?”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
“What makes you think anything’s wrong?” she fired back, that square chin thrust out. “Colin and Nell are still newlyweds. They don’t need a never-ending guest. It was time for me to find a place to live. I did.”
He shook his head. “That’s not it.” He touched his forefinger to the puffy, bruised skin beneath one of her eyes, ignoring her flinch. “Did you sleep at all last night?”
“I can do my job!”
“I’m not worried about your job. I’m worried about you.”
Suddenly there was a sheen of tears in her eyes. Cait turned her face away from him. Bothered at his own powerful reaction, he let her take a minute to recover her dignity.
Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She GoesA Promise for the BabyThat Summer at the Shore Page 8