Right then, he knew what the flower’s scent reminded him of. Red’s perfume.
All day, his mind had teased him with images of her: her smile when she’d first woken up from passing out, the pattern of the freckles across her nose. And, oh yeah, the one he’d enjoyed the most, her standing frozen, staring wide-eyed at the enormous vibrator in her hands. Yup! Definitely his favorite.
“Can I help you, sir?” a female voice asked.
Carl turned around and chased the image of Red from his head. “Yes. I wanted to speak with the owner. Jack Edwards?”
At first, Carl had decided to wait and get the background checks before doing the face-to-face interviews, but patience had never been his game. Who knew how long it would be before his brother got the information back? Especially with two more crime scenes to comb through.
“Mr. Edwards went to make some deliveries. I don’t think he’s planning on returning today. Is there something I can do?”
“No.” Carl frowned. “But if you could have him give me a call at his earliest convenience, I’d be grateful.” This made the third name on his list of four that he’d visited who hadn’t been around: the cake maker, the DJ, and now the florist.
He handed the woman his card and turned to leave. Three down and one to go. He planned to stop by the photographer and—
“Private investigator?” the woman’s voice piped up.
Carl glanced back. “Yes, ma’am.”
From her expression, he could see she was more than a little curious. “And what is this about?”
He smiled. “A wedding.”
“Then I should be able to help you. I’m the one who sets up Mr. Edwards’s weddings. He hates doing them.”
And why would that be? “I appreciate it, but I’d rather speak to Mr. Edwards myself.”
Joe fumbled around the closet until he found the light switch. He stared at Katie standing by the door. Her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her blue eyes honest, caring.
“Please cut it off,” she whispered.
He had the word no on the tip of his tongue, but then he met her gaze. So pleading.
So sweet.
So Katie.
Why couldn’t he love her as she deserved to be loved? What the hell was wrong with him?
She reached over and hit the switch.
“Leave it off, Joe.”
His question changed. What the hell was wrong with her? Why did she have him in the closet with the lights off?
The darkness pooled around him. “Katie, what’s going on?”
“Sit down, Joe.”
“There’s shoes everywhere,” he said, and wondered if she was suffering from some kind of postpanic attack.
“Just push them away and sit down.”
He shoved the shoes aside and found a spot. “Are you going to explain what we’re doing in here?”
“We need to talk,” she said.
“Talking is fine, but you do know you brought me into a closet, right?”
“I know.” She paused. “Last night when I was locked in the dark, I discovered you’re forced to listen when you can’t see. I need you to listen, Joe. Really listen.”
“Are you saying I don’t listen?” Of course she was. He’d avoided listening and speaking to her for weeks.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. But it may not be just you.”
“I’m so sorry, Katie.” He heard the guilt in his voice.
“For what?” she asked, as if she heard more in his statement.
For not loving you enough, for lusting after your best friend, for having to call off the wedding. “For not listening.”
Coward.
He had to tell her. “I’m sorry for everything.” The silence hung in the dark like the clothes hanging over his head. The tiny room smelled like Katie’s perfume.
“What are you not telling me, Joe?”
He’d spent all morning searching for the right words, but there wasn’t a good way. “I don’t know how to say this. You’re so damn perfect, Katie. Google the Internet for the perfect wife and I swear, your picture will come up. You’re sweet, caring, sexy, but…”
“But what, Joe?” she asked.
Leaving the florist, Carl noticed the temperature had risen nearly twenty degrees. Houston was back to feeling like Houston. Carl looked up at the blue sky as he hit the clicker and unlocked his car. He’d just gotten behind the wheel when his phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“Carl Hades?” the voice asked.
“You got him.”
“This is Will Reed, with Reed’s DJ. Your card and a note was taped to my door. You needed something?”
The man sounded nervous. “Yes. I was hoping to meet with you to discuss a wedding.” There was silence. “Mr. Reed?”
“I’m sorry. Your card said ‘private investigator.’ I thought it was about something else.”
“I get that a lot.” Carl focused on the man’s voice, hoping he might recognize it as being the man who’d tried to burn him and Red alive. “Everyone has something to hide.” He tried to sound light.
“I guess,” Reed said, still sounding cautious. Too cautious.
“Are you home now? Can I swing by?”
“I’m busy cutting CDs. Why don’t you check out my Web site? If you’re interested, we can talk later.”
In the background, Carl heard music, wedding music. If he pushed Mr. Reed for answers too quickly, the guy might get suspicious. Maybe even as suspicious as Carl felt. “I’d really like to talk to you today.”
“Can’t do it. But tomorrow would be fine. Around three?”
Maybe by then Carl would have his background info, but damn, he didn’t like waiting. “I guess I’ll have to be patient.”
“And feel free to bring your bride with you. Brides are generally the ones with the most input on music.”
Carl’s suspicion deepened. “She’s working out of town, so I’m stuck doing all the women’s work.”
“Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“I’ll be there.” Carl hung up and grabbed a note pad from his glove box. He wrote down the time beside Mr. Will Reed’s number and address. Then he dialed his brother.
“Hades,” his brother answered.
“How soon can you get background checks?”
“Maybe by tomorrow. Maybe next year,” Ben said.
“That bad, huh?”
“He’s a sick bastard. Visits the bodies. Leaves flowers.”
Carl glanced up at the florist’s shop. “I really need those background checks, Ben.”
“But what?” Katie asked when Joe stopped talking. Waiting for him to answer, she tried to lean back, only to feel something in her way. She reached around and realized what it was. Her old paintings. She’d forgotten they were in here.
“I love you. I do.”
Joe’s words brought her head up. Then she recognized a hesitation in his tone. “But?”
“You’re perfect. But I can’t marry you.”
He couldn’t? Had he really said that?
He continued, “I know this creates huge problems. And it’s embarrassing as hell. And I’ll take all the blame, Katie.”
He would? She envisioned her parents glancing down from the afterlife saying Thank you, God. The Ray name is saved. Relief trickled over her. She could hold her head high. It was easier being the victim of a canceled wedding than the villain.
She could hear Joe breathing and sensed the guilt he felt. She finally spoke. “I’m not perfect.” She could almost hear her parents gasp. “I’m a lousy cook, remember?”
He chuckled. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”
The silence returned. “And I can’t paint.”
She ran her fingers over one of the canvases, over the thick smears of acrylic. She felt the loss of her dreams in the brush strokes, just as she felt the loss of her dream of making her own family to replace the one that had been so unjustly yanked away from her. Alone sucks. Alone
hurts.
Tears threatened. She stiffened her spine. She’d survive.
“I didn’t know you painted,” Joe said.
It seemed odd she’d told Carl Hades, a stranger, something about herself that she hadn’t told Joe. “I suck at it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and she knew he wasn’t talking about her lack of artistic talent.
“I’m really not perfect, Joe.” Her parents had wanted her to be, but she wasn’t.
“You’re close enough,” he said.
“No.” She took a deep breath. “I’m so imperfect that I’m sitting here wondering if I can live with myself if I let you take all the blame for canceling the wedding. The truth is that I brought you in here to tell you the same thing. I love you, but I don’t love you in the right way.” The darkness went silent.
“How did you figure it out?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he prompted, “Katie?”
“Do you really want to know?” She didn’t think he would. After her talk with Les, she realized what her first clue had been.
“Yes?”
“The sex well, it…”
“It what?”
“Sucked. Well, not that I…” How was she going to get out of this one?
“Okay, that hurt.” There was a bit of tease in his voice.
“It’s not your fault. There just wasn’t any pizzazz.”
“And that doesn’t help.” He shuffled around, then let go a deep gulp of air. “But I know what you mean. I sort of kept waiting for it to get better, too. Not that it was your fault.”
She got quiet, glad he understood. “I’d started questioning my feelings earlier, then Les picked up on my doubt. She’s always been good at that. Seeing things in me. But last night…” She didn’t know why she felt the need to confess, but she did. “When I was with Carl Hades. I felt pizzazz with him.”
A hush fell on them. “What are you saying, Katie?”
“Nothing happened,” she clarified. “But I felt things. And now I feel terrible.” She shut up, and the silence thickened again.
“You shouldn’t feel bad,” he finally said. “We’re human.”
“We?” The word meant something. “It happened to you, too?”
His pause answered before he did. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. And like with you, nothing really happened.”
“But you wanted it to?” she asked, feeling her guilt ease.
“Yeah,” he confessed.
“Some girl at your office?” she asked, not really knowing why, but wanting to know.
“No.”
“Someone I know?”
“Is it important?” he asked, his tone edgy.
“No, but I told you.” She remembered his neighbor. The woman was always flirting with Joe. “Oh, gawd! It’s—”
“Katie, I swear. Les didn’t have a thing to do with it.”
Carl continued to talk to Ben while staring at the florist’s shop. “Did you see Red?”
“Ahh, now there’s an interesting topic,” Ben answered.
“Why?” Carl started his car and pulled into traffic.
“She literally threw herself at me.”
Carl’s grip on the phone tightened. “She did not.”
“I haven’t held a woman, other than Tami, that close in years. She’s a nice package.”
“Don’t shit me. She’s not that kind of girl,” Carl snarled.
“Who’s shitting you? She was all over me,” Ben said.
“You’re lying,” Carl accused. “She’s engaged. And even if she wasn’t, she’s not the type to—”
Ben’s laughter spilled out of the phone. “I knew it. You fell for her. My no-good sorry-ass brother finally fell for a good girl. That’s why you won’t go to see her, isn’t it? You’re scared shitless, aren’t you?”
“You’re talking out your ass.” He pulled out onto the street, ready to hang up when Ben continued.
“Truth is—Red did throw herself at me. But only because she thought I was you.”
His brother obviously wasn’t finished having fun. “Right.”
“Seriously. She threw herself in my arms. When she realized her mistake, she got this nice shade of red. About the same color as her hair. You always had a thing for redheads. Nevertheless, I think she’s missing your ass something terribly.”
Just like that, Carl was hit with an aching need to see Katie Ray. And damn it, he missed her, too.
“You should go see her, Carl. No kidding,” Ben said.
Carl inhaled. “Maybe I will.” Maybe?
It was Les? Katie couldn’t believe…“I was thinking it
was your neighbor.”
“Nothing happened,” Joe said with urgency in his tone. “We met briefly at the bar. Then I came here. I thought it was you in the shower.”
Katie digested what he said and remembered…“No! You didn’t climb naked into the shower with her, did you?”
“She beat the shit out of me. Called 911.”
Part of her wanted to laugh. Part of her still couldn’t believe it. More silence crawled into the closet while she absorbed the facts. Why hadn’t Les told her?
“Nothing happened.” His voice vibrated with frustration.
“I believe you.” Katie rested her head on her knees and found herself reaching for one of the paintings.
“How do we do this?” he finally spoke.
“Do what?” It wasn’t like Les to keep things from her.
“Call off the wedding. Maybe your wedding planner could help…Oh. Never mind.”
“Don’t worry; I forget every few minutes, too.” She paused. “I guess we need to get our wedding RSVPs and call everyone.”
“This sucks,” he mumbled.
“Majorly,” she said. “We have the gifts to return, too.”
“I’m really sorry, Katie.”
She knew he meant it. Joe wouldn’t hurt anyone intentionally. And then the thought of never again seeing sweet, handsome, good Joe brought a pain to her chest.
“Joe, this sounds totally cliché, but do you think we could remain friends?”
“I’d like that.” The dark silence no longer felt so wrong.
Katie traced her fingers again over one of the paintings and wondered which it was. The ocean scene? The flowers?
“Ah, shit,” he said. “I just realized I gotta tell my mom.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Katie liked Joe’s mom. Yeah, she was a tad domineering with Joe, but compared to her own parents, Joe’s mom didn’t really seem so bad.
“Nah, I’ll handle it. Do you think tomorrow night is soon enough to start calling people?”
“Yes. At lunch tomorrow I’ll contact everyone I hired to help with the wedding.” Of course, Katie didn’t know whom she’d hired, since Tabitha had changed things.
“I know this is difficult,” Joe said.
“On both of us.” Her thoughts shot back to how embarrassed her parents would have been if they’d been alive. Rays didn’t back out of things at the last minute.
“We’ll live through this,” Joe said, as if reading her mind.
Live through it. Live? The image of Tabitha falling to the carpet hit again. Katie’s breath hitched. She dropped her head on her knees. “I sure as heck hope so.”
Joe must have read her mind, because he spoke all too fast. “Why don’t you come stay at my place?”
Katie let the thought run around her head. Then she remembered Ben Hades saying, We don’t have a reason to believe you are in immediate danger. Logic chased away the beginning spasms of fear.
Plus, staying with Joe would be awkward to the max.
“Les is here. And we might go stay at a hotel. We’ll be fine,” she said.
Now, all she had to do was believe it.
Chapter Nineteen
Carl had run his three miles, showered, and had just finished shaving when he heard his dad.
“Son?”
He frowned at his image in the mirror. He r
eally needed to get his key back. “In here.”
His dad appeared at the door of the bathroom. “Morning.”
“Morning.” Splashing on aftershave, he grimaced when the liquid hit the scratches. He eyed the marks. Red had got him good, not that he blamed her.
“You made coffee?” his dad asked as he headed down the hall.
“Yup.” Wearing only boxers, Carl went to stand in front of the open closet. What did one wear to an art gallery?
A pair of khaki pants caught his eye. He tossed them on the bed. His light blue oxford shirt would work. Then he spotted another shirt tucked in the back. Way back. The shirt Tami had given him last year for Christmas. She’d sworn it would look great on him. Oh, what the hell.
Five minutes later, he stepped out of his bedroom, clean, combed, and ready. His dad sat at the kitchen table, his nose in the business section of the Houston Chronicle.
The newspaper lowered. “Why are you fancied up?”
“Paying a visit to the suspects in the Jones case.”
“And you gotta dress up to do that?”
“I thought I’d stop by the gallery where Red works.” Carl had told himself it meant nothing. Common courtesy.
His dad continued to stare. “Since when do you fancy pink?”
“It’s light red.” Carl grabbed his cup and went to fill it.
“Which is another way of saying pink.”
“Tami gave it to me.” Moving back to the table, Carl settled into a chair. “Besides, women aren’t into macho anymore.” He had that from a good source. A source that had kept him awake half the night fighting his own stiffy while his dog got lucky. That was just plain wrong.
“What are women into now?”
“Metro men.” Carl picked up the sports section.
“A man who takes the bus?”
“No. It’s a man who’s not afraid to wear…light red.”
His dad laughed. “You gonna take her out to lunch?”
“No. I’m just popping in to check on her.”
“Take her some flowers,” his old man said.
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