Don't Go Home

by Janelle Taylor

  Without a word, he rolled up his shirtsleeves, dug noisily into the bag on his lap and pulled out the two cans of Coke and two submarine sandwiches they’d stopped for after leaving Justin’s house a half hour ago. He handed Mia a Coke and a sub without looking at her.

  Mia had learned a long time ago that being shut out didn’t mean she had to shut up. He was going to listen to her whether he liked it or not. “Margot received photos of herself with Robert, a note thanking her for a job well done, and a wad of cash. Who else but Robert’s wife would have a vested interest in finding out if he’d cheat or not?”

  Silence. Matthew unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite. She waited for him to chew and swallow. Still he said nothing.

  “Matthew?”

  He bit into his sandwich again and stared out at the ocean. Mia rolled her eyes, leaned back against the bench and took a sip of her soda. She would give him five minutes’ reprieve to eat in peace, and then she’d force the issue. Whether or not it gave him a stomachache.

  She raised her face to the now bright blue sky, glad the sun had come out while they’d been at Justin’s. It was almost noon, yet the temperature was in the low—instead of high—eighties for the first time this week, and the humidity was under fifty percent. The sun bounced off the gray-blue waters of the Atlantic and the mile-long promenade, which was packed with people enjoying a perfect summer Saturday afternoon: rollerbladers, dog walkers, couples walking hand in hand, families having picnics in the grassy area behind the benches. Mia wondered how many other couples out here were trying to solve a murder mystery. I’ll bet none, she thought wearily.

  Matthew and I are not a couple, she amended.

  “You’re missing a pretty good sub sandwich,” Matthew said.

  “I’m not hungry,” she replied.

  “Suit yourself.”

  I will, she responded mentally. I sure won’t be changing my opinions to suit you.

  Seems Margot didn’t change her opinions to suit a man, either, Mia thought, Justin’s words echoing again and again in her mind. Why would a woman give up a great guy who loved her for the life of a decoy?

  My sister is a decoy. A woman paid to entice men into cheating.

  Why would Margot do that? Mia wondered. The question had been plaguing her since they left Justin’s. Where could such cynicism come from? Margot and Mia’s parents had been happily married for twenty years before the car accident had claimed their lives. With the exception of a few typical clashes and teenage-provoked angst, their family life had been full of love. And Margot had had countless boyfriends, none of whom had cheated on her or even hurt her badly for that matter—at least as far as Mia knew. Had her sister been so scarred by their parents’ deaths that she’d lost her faith?

  “We should check out Justin’s alibi,” Matthew said suddenly. “Just because he’s a doctor—just because he says he’s a doctor—doesn’t mean he’s telling us the truth about anything.”

  Yes, we should, Mia realized. For the past half hour she’d been so focused on Robert’s wife as the suspicious spouse—and so annoyed by Matthew’s refusal to consider Laurie Gray as a suspect—that she hadn’t even considered that Justin had his own motive for killing Robert: jealousy. But that didn’t mean they shouldn’t check out Laurie Gray’s alibi, too.

  Matthew turned toward her. “Maybe Justin spotted Margot with Robert in Chumley’s, spied on them, flew into a jealous rage, and waited to ambush Robert in the parking lot.”

  “It’s definitely plausible,” Mia agreed, “but what about the pictures, the note, the cash? That proves Robert’s murder wasn’t random, but premeditated. He was set up.”

  “That’s a good point,” Matthew said. “And that would mean Justin, or whoever the killer is, chose Robert as a victim.”

  “Why?” they said in unison.

  Matthew sighed. “We’ve got a hell of a lot more questions than answers.”

  Which means we can’t rule out suspects just because you think they’re not involved, Mia thought. We’re going to investigate Laurie Gray. Whether you can deal with it or not, Matthew.

  She glanced at him in time to see his tongue flick over his lips to catch a drop of mustard. She darted her gaze to the sandwich on her lap; she unwrapped it and took a bite more to have something to do than because she was truly hungry.

  How could she be so aware of Matthew as a man? With all she had on her mind, with everything she would have to face and face up to, how could his very presence manage to have such an impact on her?

  He’s just a good-looking, masculine man, she told herself. Any woman would find him attractive.

  Even a woman who has absolutely no interest in dating or romance.

  Get your mind off Matthew and onto the case. Onto Margot.

  “Dollar for your thoughts,” Matthew said, turning to look at her.

  His dark blue eyes met hers, and for a second, she envisioned herself in his arms, underneath him... .

  She blinked, shocked at herself.

  “Um, I was just thinking about Margot,” Mia said, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. Focus, Mia. Focus on what’s important. And trust me, it’s not your sex life—or lack thereof. “I just can’t understand why she would want to do such a thing—be a decoy. It makes no sense to me. Our parents were so happily married. They loved each other and us so much. There was no cheating, no suspicion. Just love and trust.”

  So how did you end up with a guy like David Anderson, who didn’t understand the first thing about love or trust, let alone appreciate or respect those things? Don’t be so quick to judge Margot, she admonished herself.

  “You and I grew up in very different homes,” Matthew said.

  Mia glanced at him. “What was your—”

  He stared out at the ocean. “Let’s just stick to Margot’s psyche, okay?”

  “Okay, sorry,” she said, taking a sip of soda. But once again, the focus was Margot, when they could very well be examining Robert’s psyche, Robert’s life.

  “What’s Robert’s wife like?” Mia asked. “I gather that you think very highly of her.”

  Matthew nodded. “She’s a wonderful person. Very kind, generous. A great mom.”

  “And you’re one hundred percent sure that she couldn’t have—”

  “Forget it—” Matthew snapped. “Don’t even bother going there.”

  “Matthew, I’m going to throw your own words back at you. We have to get to the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear.”

  “My sister-in-law didn’t hire Margot.”

  “How do you know?” Mia asked, using his own tactics on him.

  He stared at her, then stood up and placed his hands on the promenade railing, his back to her. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’d bet just about anything on it.”

  “But, Matthew, your brother was clearly cheating on her,” Mia said. “Maybe Laurie suspected that he was and wanted to find out for sure, so she hired Margot.”

  Mia could see the muscles tense up in his back. “Laurie didn’t know and didn’t suspect,” Matthew said, turning around to face her. “Robert was sure of both.”

  Mia glanced at him. “So you knew your brother was cheating on his wife?”

  “Look, it’s complicated,” Matthew said, running a hand through his hair. “Was I supposed to tell her?”

  Mia let out a breath. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s what our fight was about,” Matthew said softly, his eyes downcast. “I was passing by Chumley’s last Saturday night, Robert’s favorite bar, and I had a feeling I’d find him in there. And there he was, with his arm around your sister, his mouth on her neck, sitting so close to her he might as well have been on top of her.”

  Mia’s heart went out to him. “Your last conversation with Robert was an argument?”

  Matthew nodded and closed his eyes. “I saw him there with her, and I dragged him up out of his chair and over by the jukebox and asked him how he could pull this crap, how he could cheat
on his wonderful wife, how he could cheat his own kid that way.”

  “What did he say?” Mia asked.

  “He told me to mind my own business. That was my father’s line, too,” Matthew added. “As though the way my dad treated my mother, treated us kids, wasn’t any of our concern.”

  “Oh, Matthew, I’m so sorry,” Mia said softly, going to him. “I—”

  “Forget it,” he said, turning back to the water. “I know Laurie very well, and she’s a very kind, sweet, trusting person. Robert told me he was sure she didn’t know about his cheating, and if that’s true, then she wouldn’t have hired a decoy to set him up. Besides, she’s very frugal. I highly doubt she’d spend fifteen hundred dollars on her suspicions.”

  Mia still wasn’t taking Laurie Gray off her list of suspects so fast. Especially when there were only two people with motives—Justin Graves and Laurie Gray.

  She sat back down on the bench and took a sip of her soda. “Well, then who else might have hired Margot to set up Robert?”

  Matthew joined Mia on the bench, and the two were silent in thought for a few moments. They both stared out at the ocean, as though the answers could be found in the murky depths.

  “I think we’d better search Margot’s apartment again,” Matthew said. “If she received that one folder, I’m sure there are others. Maybe there’s a hidden compartment in her desk where she keeps them.”

  “Maybe that ... job was her first one, her only one,” Mia said in a rush, “and that’s why she got so scared, because there she was, just paid to see if some married man would go for her, and he ends up murdered; so she got scared and ran ...” Mia trailed off, realizing how stupid it sounded and how awful she sounded. Some married man was Matthew’s brother, and she was talking about him as though he were a random stranger. She understood that Matthew wanted to think the best of his brother and his wife, despite the circumstances, just as she wanted to think the best of Margot.

  Matthew’s expression was stony. “From Justin’s letter and what he had to say, it’s clear that Robert wasn’t her first job. I think you need to face up to what she did for a living, Mia. Just as I’ve had to face up to the fact that Robert was a womanizing bastard.”

  Mia bit her lip. She did need to face the truth that she didn’t know her sister, just as she’d faced the truth about her husband, her marriage. There was nothing to be gained in life by hiding your head in the sand. She’d learned that the hard way.

  Womanizing bastard... . Those were harsh words. Mia wondered what Matthew’s relationship to his brother was—what their home life had been like. From what Matthew had said and had hinted at earlier, the Gray household had been the polar opposite of the Daniels house.

  She had so many questions for him, but she knew now wasn’t the time.

  “Why don’t we eat up, then head back to Margot’s and do a thorough search,” Matthew said.

  Mia nodded and glanced down at the practically uneaten submarine sandwich on her lap. She tried to imagine ever having an appetite again—or the stomach for what they might find hidden among Margot’s things.

  They drove back to Margot’s building in silence. Parked in silence. Rode the elevator in silence. And entered the apartment in silence.

  Never had silence been so loud—or so uncom-panionable.

  Even without a word between them, Matthew couldn’t remember ever being as aware of a woman as he was of Mia. Her presence. The smell of her shampoo. Her soap. Her—

  As he followed her into the bedroom, he forced that last thought away before it could even complete itself.

  Mia sat down on the edge of the bed, clasped her hands together, and stared at her shoes. A moment later, she sprung up and headed inside the walk-in closet near the windows.

  He could tell she was nervous.

  Because of what they’d find? Because she knew her sister was guilty and she was protecting Margot? Because she herself was “Candy”? Was Mia playing a role here?

  No. If he could trust his instincts, which he’d honed after his education in betrayal at the hands of Gwen Harriman, Mia was the real thing. He had definitely met Margot in the ice-cream parlor, been kicked by Margot in the street. The sisters might look exactly alike, save the makeup, but they were very different women.

  So different that Matthew was curious about Mia. Damned curious. There was so much he wanted to know about her, so much that didn’t seem to make sense. Weren’t identical twins supposed to be, well, identical? In character and personality as well as in looks? Granted, Matthew didn’t know much about Margot; in fact, he knew hardly anything about the woman, but he did know she was a paid decoy—not a pretty job.

  He got the sense that Mia couldn’t even imagine such a profession existed.

  But was anyone really that innocent? Perhaps a better word for it was naïve.

  Who was Mia Anderson?

  She was fiercely protective of her sister—that much he knew. Loyal. And yet at the same time, she certainly didn’t know much about her own twin’s life. Why? Perhaps because they were so different.

  Why are you surprised that siblings can be nothing alike? Matthew asked himself. You and Robert were always night and day, he realized.

  Not always, Matthew amended. After “the incident,” as the Gray family had always called it, Robert had changed.

  Just as Matthew had changed.

  “Looks like just a ton of clothes and shoes in here,” Mia said from inside the closet, and Matthew was grateful for the reprieve from his thoughts. “There are a lot of shelves with boxes. Probably just hats and shoes, but worth a look, I guess.”

  He nodded. “We shouldn’t rule anywhere out. Even the hamper makes a good hiding place. I’ll start with the desk. I’ll try not to bust up the wood while looking for hidden compartments.”

  She popped her head out of the closet and regarded him, then nodded.

  “Could you get me a butter knife or even a spoon?” he asked her. “Something I could use to jimmy open a compartment.”

  She nodded again and hurried out of the room.

  When she returned with the knife, he couldn’t help but notice how tired Mia looked, how vulnerable. Gentle shadows slightly darkened the area under her eyes, all the more noticeable because of her fair coloring.

  Stop thinking about Mia and start thinking about the investigation, he chided himself.

  She sat back down on the edge of the bed, and Matthew got to work on the desk. Anyone with such incriminating evidence had to have a hidden drawer, he thought as he knocked along the bottoms of the drawers for hollow areas. After all, you didn’t simply throw away notes and photos that implicated you as part of something dirty, legal or otherwise. And Matthew hadn’t found a paper shredder among Margot’s possessions.

  There had to be other notes, other photos. Other men whom Margot had been paid to entice.

  As he searched, he was uncomfortably aware of Mia sitting on the bed, staring at the floor, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t find anything else.

  But he would. He knew it. And she did, too.

  She pounced up again. “There’s a stepstool in the kitchen. I’ll just go get it and check the top shelves of the closet.”

  “Good idea,” he said, and watched her hurry from the room. A moment later, she returned and set up shop in the closet.

  A half hour later, though, Mia was looking a lot less nervous, and Matthew was feeling a lot less confident.

  He’d found nothing. No hidden compartments. No folders. Nothing to do with the work of a decoy. No more folders. No more photos or notes. Nothing.

  Dammit. He exhaled a breath.

  “Matthew, look what I found,” Mia called from inside the closet.

  He headed inside and found her trying to steady herself on the stepstool while lifting a large metal box from a top shelf.

  “Hey, careful,” he said, steadying the stool. He reached up a hand to help her down, and when her warm palm touched his, when her slender, delicate fingers s
lightly clutched his own, his breath quickened.

  Suddenly, all he could smell was traces of green apple shampoo and clean, fresh soap, and the scent that was uniquely Mia. He had an urge to pull her down into his arms, crush her against him... .

  He was sweating.

  “Matthew? Are you all right?” Mia asked. “You look a little flushed.”

  He blinked and shook his head. Concentrate, Gray.

  Concentrate.

  “I’m fine,” he told her. “Just a little stressed. Let’s get you down from there. Hand me the box.”

  She did and climbed down, her nearness winning in the fight against his desire for her.

  It’s just physical, he assured himself. Lust. Nothing more.

  “A locked metal box hidden away on a top closet shelf seems pretty promising,” Mia said, averting her gaze. She looked at the wall, the floor, back to the wall.

  Hmmm ... Interesting. He’d thought the situation was what was making her nervous, but now, he wondered if he, too, had an impact on her.

  If he made her sweat....

  She glanced up at him, those pale brown doe eyes full of so much, yet all of it unreadable. What was she thinking?

  “There’s a combination lock on the box,” she said slowly.

  He wondered if there was a combination to Mia. Something that would unlock her mystery.

  Don’t be a melodramatic idiot, he told himself. If you want to know something, just ask her.

  Are you divorced? Separated? Seeing anyone?

  “I have no idea what the combination could be,” Mia said, staring at the box.

  Neither do I, he thought, acutely aware of the rise and fall of her chest as she took each breath.

  What the hell? he wondered.

  Physical desire, he reminded himself. Simple lust. That was all.

  It had been a long time, after all.

  Forcing his attention away from the smooth, creamy expanse of skin the V of her T-shirt exposed, Matthew sat down on the bed and jiggled the lock. It was a steel combination lock built into the box, the kind you programmed yourself and the kind impossible to bust open.