Better Late Than Never

by Jenn McKinlay

  “I think he’s over me and besotted with Emma,” she said. “Which is why I left him at Harwood’s house with her while she investigates.”

  “Clever,” he said. “Encourage the romance and have him in the loop to report back to you.”

  “Am I that obvious?”

  “Only because I know you,” he said. He reached across the counter and took her hand in his. He pulled her gently around the counter until she was standing in front of him. A small smile lifted the corners of his lips as his gaze held hers and he said, “And because I love you.”

  Lindsey felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. Then it pounded double-time to catch up, making her lightheaded and a little woozy in the best possible way. So this was the moment, the moment when the “L” word arrived in their relationship and changed everything.

  “I have loved you since the day I first saw you riding your bike through town on your way to your new job as the librarian,” he said. “I will forever remember the way the sun shone on your hair and how you smiled at everyone you passed, including me, with a nervous, hopeful look that sucker punched me right in the heart.”

  Lindsey opened her mouth to speak but no words came out, which was fine, as Sully, her quiet one, had more to say.

  “I’ve wanted to tell you how I feel for a long time, but we always seem to have one big drama or another happening, and I didn’t want to say it after a near-death experience or some other traumatic event and have you thinking that I was saying it because of an emotional fallout. I wanted to wait until it was just you and me and things were calm—well, relatively calm—so that you would know that I mean—”

  “I love you, too.” The words burst out of her.

  “—it,” he said.

  They stared at each other for a moment and then they both laughed. Lindsey knew it was a relieved sort of laugh, the kind that celebrated the fact that they both felt the same way and that no one was going to get their heart shredded by their confession.

  The humor in Sully’s eyes was quickly replaced by an intensity that made her toes curl. Then he kissed her. The kiss was as hot as the look in his eyes and Lindsey knew, once again, that everything between them was different.

  This kiss staked a claim. It was thorough and possessive and let her know with no doubts or second-guesses that if their relationship didn’t work out this time, they would not be parting as friends. It was an all-or-nothing situation now.

  She twined her arms about his neck, pulled him close and kissed him back with the same vulnerability, the same commitment, the same heat.

  When they broke apart for air, Lindsey was surprised to find they weren’t fused together permanently and she was a little disappointed. At the very least she had expected some sort of magical moonbeam keeping them bound together. Then again, maybe she’d been reading too many fairy tales lately.

  “It’s different between us now, isn’t it?” he asked.

  He laced his fingers between hers and she felt it, the connection between them. It was as tangible as the feelings she had for him. Maybe the magical moonbeam existed after all.

  “Yes,” she said. She squeezed his fingers.

  He blew out a pent-up breath. “Good. I feel as if I’ve been holding a lid on all of that for a very long time.”

  “Me, too,” she said. She leaned against him, and he wrapped an arm around her, pulled her close and kissed her head.

  “But now we’re in a dilemma,” he said.

  “What dilemma?” she asked. She tried to think of what could be wrong. Robbie had clearly accepted things and she knew that their friends would be happy with the outcome. What could be wrong?

  “The dilemma is that if we don’t leave here soon, I’m going to get distracted.” He turned her to face him and took the opportunity to kiss her. “See? Distracted. And if I get distracted, I’m going to do my best to distract you, and then we’ll both be . . . distracted, and we’ll miss our first official date in public, which I think is overdue.”

  “I’m not sure that I really care,” she said. She leaned against him and hugged him close. “Then again, I know our friends well enough to know they’d have no problem showing up here to find out what happened to us, which would be embarrassing.”

  “Mostly for them because we’ll be, you know, distracted.” His grin was wicked and made Lindsey reconsider their dinner plans.

  “Oh, my,” she said. Her brain was beginning to flatline and she shook her head, trying to jostle her common sense into functioning again. “Clearly, before we get distracted, we should fortify, because I plan on distracting you for a very long time.”

  “Mercy!” Sully said. He shook his head, too, and Lindsey laughed when she realized he was suffering from the same fuzzy-headedness that she was.

  “That’s it!” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. “Any more talk like that and I may never let you leave this apartment, and I have waited entirely too long to show you off as my girl to let the opportunity pass. Let’s go.”

  Lindsey let him pull her out the door to begin their date, knowing that after this evening her world would be altered. She would be a part of an official couple and not two people who met covertly when they thought no one was looking. As she led Heathcliff out the door to go to Nancy, who was dog-sitting him for the evening, she couldn’t stop smiling.

  • • •

  The unfamiliar weight of an arm across her side woke Lindsey up in the early hours of the morning. The gentle rise and fall of the chest at her back was comforting. Sully. She rolled over carefully and glanced at his face.

  Reddish brown curls fell over his forehead. His dark lashes fanned out across his cheeks and his lips were slack with sleep. He looked as peaceful as she’d ever seen him. She wanted to hug him, but she resisted. Knowing he had a full schedule at work that day, she didn’t want to wake him.

  Instead she was content just to watch him sleep. Was that love, then? When just being near the person that you loved was enough? It sure felt like it.

  What if when Sully had told her that he loved her, she hadn’t returned the sentiment? How would he have handled it? It was Sully, so she knew he would have been gracious. Being the quiet man that he was, she imagined he would have closed up his protective shell and disappeared into his work on his boats, and she would rarely, if ever, see him again.

  The thought made her insides clench in mild panic. Thankfully, that had not been the case. She flipped it around.

  What if she had been the one to say “I love you” first and Sully hadn’t returned the feeling? Oh, horror. What if he had thanked her and then ignored her feelings as if they were a big gassy elephant in the room that he was hoping would go away? The mere idea of having her feelings not be returned by Sully was the stuff of nightmares.

  Unrequited love—was there anything more devastating or painful? Again, the urge to hug Sully was almost more than she could resist. Lindsey pushed aside her covers and slid out from under his arm and out of the bed.

  She grabbed her cotton robe from the foot of the bed and slipped it on over her tank top and pajama bottoms. The early-morning air was chilly and even Heathcliff didn’t rouse from his spot at the foot of the bed when she slipped out of the room to go make herself a cup of tea in the kitchen.

  Once she had her tea, she went to the table where she’d tossed the file folder of pictures that Hannah had copied from the high school archives for her. She had looked at these pictures so often she had memorized the expressions on the subjects’ faces. Mostly, they were happy or distracted. A few were candid, caught when the person was talking or listening.

  When she looked at Matthew Mercer’s picture, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized Brian Kelly sooner. They had the same stubborn chin and sardonic smile. And his eyes, the twinkle in his eyes that she’d seen when he finished reciting his own poem, was very much in evidence in the hig
h school pictures.

  She held the picture out at arm’s length. She studied his face. Was this the face of a killer? Had he strangled Candice because she didn’t return his romantic feelings? Was Matthew Mercer a murderer?

  Lindsey shook her head. She didn’t believe it. It made no sense. Why was he here? Why had he let her know that he was Matthew Mercer? Surely, he had to know that if he blew his cover to her, she was going to go to the police. Why would he do that?

  Unless he was a stone-cold sociopath who enjoyed playing with all of them, the only conclusion Lindsey could make was that he was innocent. Then why was he here? The only thing Lindsey could think was that something had made him come back to confront his past. But what?

  She glanced back at his picture. Maybe it wasn’t a significant event so much as it was just being tired of having everyone in his hometown think he was a killer. She couldn’t imagine living with that for twenty years. Perhaps Matthew Mercer was innocent and he wanted everyone to know it and the only way to prove it was to come home.

  Four houses had been robbed but nothing of any real value had been taken. Why those four families? Why the four that had the closest connections to Candice outside of her own family? But Lindsey knew. It was the book. It was no coincidence that the book had been returned on amnesty day just after all four robberies had been committed. Whoever had been robbing those houses, they had been looking for the book. But why return it to the library, unless they had wanted someone to notice it and make the connection?

  A chill rippled through her and she took a long sip from her mug and let it warm her from the inside out. They still had weeks to wait until Detective Trimble and the state police could test the book for evidence. In the meantime, there had to be something in the pile of pictures in front of Lindsey that could offer her a clue.

  She sifted through the old photographs. There was nothing—just regular people doing regular things, having no idea that one among their number would be strangled to death.

  Lindsey studied the picture of Judy and Candice during play rehearsals. At the time of the photo, they were both in their midtwenties and they looked so serious in their conversation, with both of them clutching the rolled-up pages of the play they were casting.

  Judy was listening to her friend with an interested look on her face while she absently played with the top button on her sweater. Lindsey looked at the sweater. The black-and-white photo made it impossible to determine the color, but it had pearl buttons. Not that cardigans were that unusual, but Lindsey couldn’t help thinking about what Daniels had said when he described finding Candice.

  He had said she was lying perfectly still with her hands clasped and her blue sweater buttoned all the way to the collar, as if she’d been taking a nap. What if the sweater Judy was wearing in the photograph was the blue sweater? Just like Ann Marie had thought Beth was Lindsey when she caught sight of her purple vest through the stacks, maybe someone had thought Candice was Judy—that is, if the sweater belonged to Judy, which meant Candice had never been the target at all.

  Lindsey knew it was a long shot but Candice and Judy had been best friends, much like she and Beth. If she loaned Beth her favorite vest, wouldn’t Judy and Candice do the same? She had to talk to Judy and ask her. Of course, if it turned out that the sweater in the photo was purple or red then the whole thing was a bust, but if it was the blue sweater, maybe, just maybe, the reason they had never found Candice’s killer was because they’d been looking for the wrong person. Maybe it hadn’t been someone in Candice’s life but rather someone in Judy’s. Lindsey felt her heart thump hard in her chest. If it was someone after Judy, was that why the book had reappeared? Was that why Matthew Mercer was back? Had Judy been his target all along? Or was Lindsey just being paranoid? Probably.

  Lindsey rinsed her cup and put it in the sink. She tucked the picture into her purse and decided she’d have to pay Hannah a visit at the high school. And if she ran into Judy, all the better, even if she had to stake out Judy’s classroom to do it.

  She slid into bed beside Sully, noting that he took up more than half of the surface area. As she curled herself up against him and he pulled her in close without waking up, she realized she didn’t mind. Not a bit.

  • • •

  Sully was gone when she woke up but had left her a love note and a fresh pot of coffee. At first she was hard-pressed to decide which gesture she appreciated more, but then she read the note. Always a man of few words, he got right to the heart of it, committing to paper the words he’d spoken the night before, making the note the hands down winner.

  Lindsey tucked it away in her jewelry box, grinning like an idiot as she did so. She had to admit, she really liked this new level of affection in their relationship.

  She wasn’t due at the library until later in the morning, so she took Heathcliff out for an early jog on the beach before turning him over to Nancy to keep her company for the day. Then she headed over to the high school to see if she could talk to Judy before she started her classes.

  She arrived twenty minutes before school began. Having retrieved her bike from the library the night before while on her date with Sully, she locked it onto the main bike rack in front of the school and strode into the office.

  “Hi, Michelle,” she greeted the receptionist. “I’m here to see Hannah.”

  “She just signed in,” Michelle said. “You can probably catch her on the stairs if you hurry.”

  “Thanks,” Lindsey said. She signed the book and then hurried upstairs, turning in the opposite direction of the library when she got to the top.

  Most of the doors to the classrooms were still closed as the teachers were still arriving. She hurried to the English wing, hoping that Judy was an early riser. Sure enough, the door to her classroom was open.

  Lindsey knocked on the doorframe and heard Judy call, “Come in.”

  When she entered the room, Judy was standing in front of the window, looking out at the football field. It was the same position she had been in the last time Lindsey had found her. She wondered how often she stood there, staring out at the place where her best friend had been found dead.

  “Morning, Judy,” she said. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “No, it’s all right,” Judy said. “I’m already prepped for my day. I was just fortifying with my favorite vitamin, caffeine.”

  She raised her coffee cup and then took a long sip.

  “I understand,” Lindsey said. “I doubled up on my vitamin today already.”

  “What can I do for you?” Judy asked. She gave her a wary look and Lindsey remembered the last time they spoke she had told her that she thought Candice’s killer was at large.

  How had Judy processed that over the past few days? It couldn’t have given her any peace.

  Lindsey figured it was best to get it over with. She opened her purse and pulled out the black-and-white photo of Judy and Candice. She held it out to Judy, who took it reluctantly with a puzzled look on her face.

  When she glanced at the picture, Judy gasped. “Oh, wow, I haven’t seen this picture in years.”

  “From the date on the back of the original, I’m guessing it was taken a few weeks before Candice died,” Lindsey said.

  “We were working on the school play,” Judy said. Her fingers were shaking as she ran the tips of her fingers over Candice’s face as if she could reach into the photo and touch her friend. “Where did you get this?”

  “The school archives,” she said. “I know this sounds crazy, but do you remember the sweater you’re wearing in the photograph?”

  Judy glanced at the picture. She tipped her head to the side. “Yes, it was blue, one of my favorites actually, until . . .”

  “Until?” Lindsey asked.

  A tear leaked out of the corner of Judy’s eye. She brushed it away with the back of her hand.

  “I lost track of it,” she
said. She glanced away and Lindsey knew she was hiding something.

  “Judy, I don’t want to alarm you, but do you know if you loaned that sweater to Candice?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It would have been over twenty years ago. Although come to think of it, I don’t think I ever saw it after she died. Huh. I thought I lost it somewhere . . .”

  Her voice trailed off and Lindsey studied her face. What was she thinking? Judy wore such a closed expression that Lindsey couldn’t hazard a guess.

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” Judy asked. Her chin jutted out and Lindsey knew her guard was up. She was going to have to explain it very carefully so as not to antagonize her.

  “When former police chief Daniels described the scene of Candice’s murder to me, one of the things he mentioned was her blue sweater with pearl buttons being buttoned up to her throat without a snag or a tear, nothing that showed a struggle on it.”

  “So what?”

  “When I saw the picture of the two of you and saw you in a cardigan with pearl buttons, I thought maybe it was blue and that the sweater Candice was found wearing was really yours,” Lindsey said.

  “Maybe it was,” Judy said. “We were best friends. We shared clothes all the time. So what if the sweater was mine?”

  “Because maybe the person who murdered Candice didn’t mean to murder Candice at all,” Lindsey said. “Maybe they saw the blue sweater and thought it was you. Maybe whoever murdered Candice was really out to get you.”

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?” Judy asked. She looked furious. “How can you come into my classroom and say such a horrible thing? Candice was my best friend. How could I live with myself if someone harmed her because they thought she was me?”

  “Which I am guessing is why you left town,” Lindsey said.

  Judy paled and Lindsey knew she was right.

  “You know who killed Candice, don’t you?” she asked.

  “No!” Judy shook her head.