The Girl Who Cried Murder

by Paula Graves

“So they could do what?”

  “Take fingerprints?”

  “The guy was wearing gloves.” Mike’s brow creased suddenly, the movement apparently pulling at the cut on his forehead, for he winced immediately afterward. “I didn’t remember that until just now.”

  She opened the first aid kit, pulled out an antiseptic wipe packet and tore it open. “Do you remember anything else?”

  “There was a scar. On the inside of his wrist. It looked kind of like a half-moon. Just below his thumb pad, I think.”

  “That’s a lot to suddenly remember.” There was no good way to get close to his injured head without stepping between his legs. But she could put aside her attraction to him long enough to nurse his injury, couldn’t she? Of course she could.

  He watched her approach, his green eyes smoldering as promised. He spread his legs open, daring her to come closer. “Come on, Charlie. You’re the one who wanted to play nurse. Chickening out?”

  She lifted her chin a notch. “Not on your life.”

  With a deep breath, she crossed the room and settled her hips between his thighs, forcing herself to concentrate on his oozing head wound. “Fair warning. This is probably going to hurt.”

  “Not if you do it right,” he whispered.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mike cocked his head to the side to give her a better angle, slanting his gaze to hold hers. She stared back at him, her eyes shimmering like a mirror pool, hiding her thoughts. She was nothing less than a tantalizing mystery, begging to be solved.

  And he wanted to be the one who uncovered all her deepest, darkest secrets, one by one.

  “Come on, Charlie,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You can do this.”

  She let out a slow breath, bathing his cheek with warmth. With a gentle touch, she applied the antiseptic wipe to the open cut, wincing in sympathy at his hiss of pain. “Sorry.”

  “What do you think? Will I live?”

  She finished cleaning the rest of the blood from the wound and took a closer look. “It’s not too deep. I think you’re right about not needing stitches. I guess you’re probably up-to-date on your tetanus shot, since you were in the military.”

  “Yep,” he drawled, intentionally smoldering at her again.

  She cleared her throat. “Are you sure you didn’t lose consciousness?”

  “I saw stars, but I didn’t really black out.”

  “Because you’re remembering things you didn’t remember before.”

  “Just that thing about the gloves. And the guy’s scar.”

  She started to back away from him, but her feet tangled up with each other, and she started to fall backward.

  Mike grabbed her, tugging her back between his legs again. He settled his hands over her hips, his thumbs drawing circles over her hip bones. “I’ve got you.”

  This was crazy. He was crazy.

  But she felt so good beneath his hands, all interesting angles and surprising softness. She was beautiful like a mountain spring, calmly pretty on the surface but full of surprises beneath, cool currents and warm eddies, with lots of hidden dangers and delights. He wondered if she could see that beauty in herself when she looked in the mirror. He hoped she did.

  She gazed back at him, her expression shifting from emotion to emotion, too fast for him to read them as they flashed across her mobile features.

  So he asked. “What are you thinking?”

  For a long moment, she was silent. He lifted one hand to take the hand she still had pressed against his shoulder to keep her balance, sliding his thumb over her palm.

  “I was...” Her voice cracked, making him smile with satisfaction. Whatever else she was thinking, apparently she wasn’t as immune to seduction as her cool exterior might suggest.

  She started again. “I was wondering if there was anything else you could remember about the guy. Since you saw his wrist, could you tell if he was white or Hispanic or African American?”

  “White,” he said, still not letting her hand go. He held it out in front of him, his thumb slowly tracing over the angles of her knuckles. “I’d say he’s probably relatively young. No older than forty or so. Or else he’s in amazing shape for a man that age. He was fast getting away.”

  “Height? Weight?” She kept dropping her gaze to his hand, watching his fingers join his thumb in the slow exploration of her fingers.

  “About as tall as I am. Maybe an inch or two shorter. A little heavier, though not much.”

  Her breathing had quickened, and her hazel eyes had darkened, as if reflecting storm clouds. He was getting to her. Breaking down her reserves, touching a place of pure want inside her.

  The problem was, he was breaking down his own walls, the ones he’d learned to build over the years, designed to keep the rest of the world at a safe distance. A life of war had destroyed his faith in a whole lot of humanity. Even now, working at Campbell Cove Security Services, he had no illusions about his job. He wasn’t a savior. He couldn’t protect the innocent. There weren’t many innocents left anyway. After the things he’d seen, he was pretty sure this world was doomed to be swallowed by its own darkness, sooner or later.

  He was just holding back the night as long as he could.

  He felt her other hand slide gently across his jaw, tugging his chin up until he had to look at her. Her gaze was intense, inescapable. He felt as if she had reached inside his head and started to rifle around, searching the scattered contents for some meaning or illumination.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked in a raspy drawl.

  He curled his hand behind her neck and pulled her closer. “How much I want to kiss you,” he said, before he slanted his mouth over hers.

  Something inside him let go as she curled her fingers around his shoulders and leaned into his embrace, her softer curves fitting snug against the harder edges of his own body.

  Oh, hadn’t he known she’d feel like this? Lush and hard and utterly right.

  When he felt her tongue brush across his lips, he was lost. He opened himself to her kiss, deepened the caress until his heart was beating against his ribs like a caged animal, wild to be free. She let her hands roam up his neck to tangle in his hair, taking control with a thrilling show of confidence.

  And when his cell phone started buzzing on the table beside them, it was Charlie who dragged her mouth away from his and took a step back, breaking the magic.

  “Get it,” she said hoarsely, moving several steps away.

  He checked the display and sighed. “Hi, Mom,” he answered.

  “I just wanted to let you know I’m all settled in at the B and B.”

  “Good.” He checked his watch and saw, to his dismay, that it was almost two o’clock. He was supposed to have met with Randall Feeney at two. In the chaos of the blitz attack at Charlie’s place, and the false alarm of his mother’s unexpected arrival, he’d forgotten all about it. “Mom, I’ve got to make a work call. Can I call you back later?”

  “Of course. Talk to you soon.”

  “You were supposed to go see Randall Feeney,” Charlie said after he’d hung up the phone. “What time?”

  “About five minutes from now.”

  She tugged down her shirt, which he’d managed to displace during their kiss, and gave him a cool look. “Better get on the move. I know where to hide if the perimeter alarm goes off again.”

  He didn’t want to go see Randall Feeney. He wanted to pull Charlie back into his arms and finish what they’d started.

  But she had put up all her walls again, and maybe he’d do well to shore up his own, also. No matter how attracted he was to Charlie, he’d be a fool to forget the hidden dangers beneath her mirror surface.

  And depending on what Randall Feeney had to say today, he just might learn a few things a
bout Charlie he wasn’t going to like.

  * * *

  WHEN MIKE STRONG laid on the smolder, he was downright lethal.

  Charlie leaned her head back against the side of the guest room bed and looked at Nellie, who had ventured out from under the bed after Mike left and was sitting in front of Charlie, gazing back at her with solemn green eyes.

  “He’s a handful, Nels. A big, hunky handful.”

  Nearby, His Highness had curled into a ball and lay halfway between waking and slumber, his blue eyes blinking slowly at her.

  “Don’t judge me,” she muttered. “A few hours ago, you had a cone on your head.”

  She definitely needed to cultivate a few human friends, she thought. Back during their teen years, she’d had Alice to share all her relationship troubles with, but Alice was gone. Had been gone for almost ten years now, and Charlie had never even tried to find a new best friend to whom she could tell her secrets.

  Losing Alice had hurt too much for her to ever want to get that close to anyone else again.

  Funny thing was, Charlie had always suspected that she was a lot more open with her thoughts and feelings with Alice than Alice ever had been with her. Alice had been far more worldly than Charlie, perhaps a result of growing up with money and social position, going to expensive adventure and learning camps in far-off places every summer while Charlie had been stuck in Bagwell, babysitting her cousin’s brats for a little spending money and trying to steer clear of her brothers’ latest crime sprees.

  What was Randall Feeney going to tell Mike about her? she wondered. She couldn’t imagine he’d have much good to say. The Beardens had been kind enough to her, from their safe position of social acceptability and comfortable wealth. Charitable, even.

  No, Charlie thought with a shake of her head. That wasn’t really fair, was it? Craig Bearden and his wife, Diana, had been genuinely kind and accepting of her.

  At least, while Alice was alive.

  But afterward...

  Afterward, a lot of things had changed.

  As for Randall Feeney, Charlie doubted he’d given much thought to her one way or another. He was Bearden’s right-hand man, had been since Bearden had taken over the family law practice after his father’s death. Feeney had been a young law clerk, and he’d become fast friends with Craig Bearden and even Diana, according to Alice.

  She hadn’t liked Feeney that much, Charlie remembered. Sometimes called him a toady, but Alice could be like that sometimes. Sharp-tongued when someone rubbed her the wrong way.

  Feeney had apparently rubbed her the wrong way, though she hadn’t really talked about him that much that Charlie could recall. Most of their conversations had been about the guys they’d crushed on in high school.

  Alice had been the one who’d insisted on going to the public schools, headstrong from childhood. And as it had suited her father’s political career to be seen as a man of the people rather than another rich fat cat, he’d agreed, though he might have come to regret that decision after Alice had become fast friends with a girl like Charlie.

  Charlie pushed to her feet, the sudden movement sending Nellie scrambling for the space under the bed. She left the bedroom and headed into Mike’s office, where her laptop was still plugged in, and checked her work email in hopes of a new project to tackle. But apparently nobody else wanted to work that weekend. All she found were a few spam emails and a couple of digests from one of the writing lists she subscribed to.

  One of the messages was headed “What am I waiting for?” It was another member’s rant at herself for putting off starting a new book. She’d received a rejection from an agent a few days before on a book that she’d sent just about everywhere in search of representation or publication. Now she was finding it hard to start something new rather than dwelling on her recent failures.

  Which was still better than what Charlie was doing, which was avoiding starting anything at all.

  For as long as she could remember, she had been a storyteller. Sometimes the stories had been crafted to stay out of trouble or to make her not-very-perfect life a little more palatable. Sometimes, her imagination just ran away with her, turning the ordinary into the fanciful because it entertained her and made her feel hopeful about the world.

  But what she hadn’t done in a long, long time was write a story down. Not since her college English teacher had told her she’d be smarter to focus on technical writing, where she’d be much more likely to find employment.

  And she’d followed the advice, with good results. For the past six years, she’d managed to become a damn good technical writer.

  But there were still stories running around in her brain, screaming to be heard.

  When was she going to give them voice?

  “What am I waiting for?” she murmured, staring at the laptop screen.

  She switched programs, opening her word processor. The most recent file, besides the work-related documents, was titled “Alice.”

  She opened the Alice file and read the first line.

  Two days before Christmas, nearly ten years ago, my friend Alice Bearden died.

  She read the rest of the way through what she’d written, then she lifted her hands to the keyboard and continued.

  Since that time, someone tampered with my brakes. Someone broke into my house and left a vivid message of destruction. A warning, perhaps, of what might happen if I keep trying to remember what happened the night of Alice’s death?

  Or is there someone else who might have a reason to want me dead?

  Charlie sat back from the keyboard and stared at what she’d just written. She had a vivid imagination, it was true. But even she couldn’t buy that she had some nameless, faceless tormentor out there, determined to terrorize her for no apparent reason.

  Whatever was happening to her had to be about Alice’s death. She wasn’t high enough in the hierarchy at Ordnance Solutions to show up on the radar of anyone who might want to do harm to the company. She had very few friends or even acquaintances these days, much less enemies who would find her important enough to terrorize.

  Everything went back to Alice and that night.

  She erased the final line of her document, replacing it with a new sentence.

  The only way to find out why someone has targeted me now is to return to the night Alice died. The memories of that night can’t be gone completely. I’m remembering things now that, while I can’t prove they’re real, feel right to me. They make sense. They have a familiarity that tells me they’re true.

  So that’s why tonight I’m going back to the place it all began.

  The Headhunter Bar.

  * * *

  IT WASN’T RANDALL FEENEY who met Mike at the front door of the campaign office but the man himself, Craig Bearden. He looked remarkably like his head shots on the billboards and signs Mike had seen around Kentucky, from the white-toothed smile to the perfectly styled brown hair with just a touch of silver on the sideburns. His blue-eyed gaze was direct, and his handshake when he welcomed Mike into the office was dry-palmed and firm.

  “I’m sorry you’ve gotten the runaround, Mr. Strong. May I call you Mike?”

  “Certainly.” Mike followed the man into a smaller office and discovered they were not alone. A tall, slim woman with tawny hair and sharp blue eyes was sitting on a small sofa in the corner of the room. She gave a nod as Mike entered.

  “Mike, this is my wife, Diana. Diana, this is Mike Strong. He works at that new security agency in Campbell Cove.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Diana said, extending one long-fingered hand.

  Mike shook her hand, then sat where Bearden indicated while the other man closed the door, shutting out the chatter of the busy campaign office.

  “Mike, as you can imagine, Diana and I have had to deal with all sorts of people
over the years interested in an emotional postmortem of my daughter’s death. Some people can be vultures, I’ve learned, so I tend to be very cautious about whom I agree to talk to.” Bearden took his seat behind his desk and folded his hands on the blotter in front of him. “But Becky Cameron assured me you’re not one of those people and said I should hear you out. So. Talk.”

  “I was expecting to meet with Randall Feeney,” Mike began. “I wasn’t expecting to speak directly with you and your wife.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Of course it mattered. With Feeney, anything Mike asked wouldn’t be a potential land mine the way it would be with Alice Bearden’s parents. “I don’t want to resurrect sad memories.”

  “They’re not dead,” Bearden said bluntly. “Grief doesn’t die. It remains with you until you die.”

  “I’m sorry. Of course.”

  Diana Bearden waved her hand impatiently. “Don’t feel you have to censor yourself. Ask what you want to know.”

  “Charlotte Winters is one of my students at Campbell Cove Academy.” Mike watched Craig for any change of expression.

  He was rewarded with a slight narrowing of Bearden’s eyes. “Interesting. What kind of course?”

  “Self-defense.”

  Diana Bearden’s eyebrows lifted. “Charlotte Winters is quite able to take care of herself.”

  “She has good self-protective instincts,” Mike said carefully.

  “What about Charlotte directed you to me?” Bearden sounded curious. “Did she mention me to you?”

  “No. We do background checks on students. To be certain their motives for taking part in our classes are what they say they are.” That wasn’t the truth, exactly—most of the students underwent a cursory check upon registration to make sure they didn’t have outstanding warrants, but the kind of check he’d had Heller run on Charlie was out of the ordinary.

  But the Beardens didn’t need to know that.

  “And our daughter’s name came up.” Bearden nodded slowly. “Alice and Charlotte were close. Perhaps too close.”

  “What do you mean?”