by Lisa Childs
“I called 911,” Lindsey said from behind him. He admired the evenness of her voice while her face was stark with fear. He pulled her under his arm and absorbed her trembling.
“Did anybody see anything?” he asked, as he pulled his badge from his wallet with his free hand. “I’m a deputy with the Winter Falls Police Department.”
“A big car just tore out of here.”
Someone walking up from the lot added, “I think it was white.”
An image rolled through his head. A white Lincoln in Hutchins’s driveway.
“Anybody see the shooter?”
“Too scared to look out.”
He nodded, glad they’d stayed safe. He’d hate to endanger anyone else with his investigation. Before the Traverse police pulled into the lot with their lights bouncing around the fog, he’d discovered all there was to learn.
“IT’S NOT MARGE’S DINER,” Dylan said as he slid back into the booth across from Lindsey.
The diner didn’t impress her, either. But at least its windows were intact. No sleep and too much coffee had made her cranky. She smacked the table in front of his plate of congealed eggs.
“Damn it, Dylan, why can’t you see it? Someone’s trying to kill us—either one of us or both of us. These are not accidents. That gun didn’t accidentally shoot out the motel room window.”
He stuck his fork into the yolk of his eggs, and she thought yellow dust came out. “I’m not saying it was an accident. I’m saying we have no proof to make accusations. Those shots could have been intended for the couple next door to our room. They were married but not to each other.”
Lindsey ran her fingers through her wild hair and wished she’d taken a shower before they’d left the crime scene. “And the fire?”
“Mr. Smithers admitted—”
“Admitted to pouring gasoline all around your house to start his leaves burning the night before? I don’t think so. Why are you being so stupid?”
A flash of anger glinted in his red-rimmed eyes. “Why are you being so paranoid? What’s the motive for killing either of us?”
“Revenge,” she instantly supplied. She remembered the irrational rage that had twisted Sarah Hutchins’s face when the woman had glared at Dylan.
He sighed heavily and pushed his plate to the end of the table. “Proof, Lindsey. You go making accusations to a man like Robert Hutchins, and you’ll be the defendant in a court room.”
“You’re scared of him, of his power?” she taunted.
“Leery. You’re a reporter. You know what power buys.” He dropped his gaze to the cup of coffee in front of him.
Lindsey jumped up and grabbed the pot from behind the counter. The waitress slept on a magazine at the other end of it. Lindsey splashed some more thick black brew in both their cups.
“I’m mad,” she said when she slid back into the booth. “I don’t like this. I didn’t come home to be burned up or shot at. I came home to get away from all that. I wanted the peace and quiet we always had in Winter Falls.”
Dylan laughed. He laughed so hard, he bent over on his booth and held his stomach. “Yeah, me too. Peace and quiet. God, I’m tired.”
Lindsey leaned against the wall of the diner and propped her feet on the torn vinyl booth. A few tears slipped down her cheeks, too, but they weren’t from laughter.
“Peace and quiet,” she repeated into the eerie silence of the all-night diner.
“Yeah. So you think I’m stupid?” he asked over the rim of his coffee cup.
She glimpsed tenderness in his eyes just before he reached over and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Yeah, you’re stupid,” she said on a tremulous breath.
His smile just managed to tug up the corners of his mouth. “I don’t want you involved in this anymore, Lindsey. Let me handle this alone.”
“I can help you, Dylan.” The zing of discovery whipped through her, energizing her. “We’re close to finding out who killed Chet.”
Dylan shook his head and rumpled his blond hair with agitated hands. She envied him the shower he’d taken earlier. “I don’t want your help, Lindsey.”
Lindsey growled out her frustration. “What is your problem?” She smacked the scratched table again. A glance at the waitress confirmed the woman didn’t even stir from her slumber.
Dylan sprawled in his booth, his arm along the back of it. “I told you. I don’t trust reporters.”
She scrutinized him care fully. His jaw tensed, a muscle jumped in his cheek, and rage simmered in his deep blue eyes.
She laughed now. “You’re protecting me? Oh, my, you’re protecting me!”
“I’m no good at protecting people, Lindsey. That’s why I can’t have you around.”
She sprang up from her seat, grabbed his handsome face in both hands and dropped a smacking kiss on his tight mouth. “You saved my life twice now, Dylan. You are my hero!” She settled back onto the creaking plastic.
“Leave it alone, Lindsey,” he ground out. His blue irises gleamed within the red veins running through his eyes.
“I love it! You’re protecting me. So who do you suspect? Tell me, tell me.”
Dylan snorted. “Some professional inter view. Tell me. Tell me,” he mocked. He tossed some bills on the table and stood up. He shrugged into the leather bomber jacket he’d earlier dropped onto the empty seat behind him.
“So tell me,” she insisted, and sidled out of the booth and into the crook of his arm. She loved how naturally he closed his arm around her. She sighed and fought the urge to swoon. She had to say it again, “You were protecting me. Nobody’s ever done that but Dad.”
“I know why.” He groaned. “Come on. Dawn’s burning off the fog.”
“Don’t mention burning.” She shivered as she matched his long stride to the Expedition parked outside.
He opened her door, leaned her against it and took her mouth. She offered it freely and then hungrily demanded more. He tasted of stale coffee and charred toast, and she’d never enjoyed a flavor more.
His lips slid over hers, and his tongue penetrated with long, sensuous strokes. Under his thin veneer of gentleness, she could feel the passion simmering in him. Hers rose to match his. Her fingers twined into his soft hair and pulled him closer.
“I want more, Dylan,” she whispered. “I don’t want just talk anymore.”
His mouth trailed across her cheek to her ear. “You pick a fine time to tell me that. We have no motel room, and we have to get home. Come on.” Effortlessly he lifted her into the passenger’s seat.
Lindsey’s backbone dissolved as she melted into the soft leather. “Dylan.”
“Later. We will. I promised myself there’d be a later for us.”
Her lips curved into what she was sure was an idiotic smile. “Later, then.”
ON THEIR WAY OUT OF TOWN, Dylan drove past the Hutchinses’ estate. If only he could see his nephew again….
He slowed the SUV and stared at the wrought-iron gate. Without trying the security intercom, he knew he’d not be getting through those gates again without a search warrant.
Lindsey’s cold fingers pressed his over the steering wheel and squeezed.
“Your hands are always so cold.” He turned his hand over to entwine his fingers with hers. “So that’s one true rumor—cold hands, warm heart.”
She snorted. “Not at all. Don’t you know? Most rumors aren’t true. Some times I wonder if I have a heart anymore.”
She smiled over her lightly spoken words, but he glimpsed sadness in her dark eyes.
“You have a heart, Lindsey.”
She shook her head, tossing the curls around her slumped shoulders. “You don’t know me.”
Although she tried to pull her hand away, he held tight. “That was true ten years ago, Lindsey. But not now. We’ve been through a couple of tough situations. I know you now.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a light kiss against her knuckles.
She closed her eyes.
“Let me take you h
ome,” he said. “You’re already half asleep.”
“We have to talk to them, find out if they were behind last night’s shooting.”
Dylan gestured to the Traverse City police cruiser parked in a neighbor’s driveway. “This isn’t my jurisdiction, nor your concern. It’s being checked out.”
“Someone’s trying to kill me.” Her dark eyes burned in her ashen face. “That makes it my concern.”
“No, that’s the company you’re keeping.” And he had to put some distance between them. For her safety…
Later would have to be much, much later.
Chapter Seven
LINDSEY had abandoned her search for gossip. All she sought at Marge’s Diner that late morning was caffeine and sugar.
“You look like hell, sweetie,” the blonde proprietress told her as she flipped over Lindsey’s cup and filled it with dark coffee.
“Cinnamon roll,” Lindsey croaked, her voice rusty.
Dylan had dropped her at Marge’s and continued on to the police station. He’d wanted to drop her home, but she’d left her substitute vehicle in Marge’s lot.
As uneasy as driving her mother’s car made her, she had to have the freedom of her own transportation. Despite his orders to stay out of it, Lindsey had an investigation to conduct.
“Sure thing.” But the petite Marge didn’t hustle off to fill her order. She propped a hand on her trim hip and stared down at Lindsey.
Lindsey stared back. She was aware her hair looked as if she’d styled it with an egg beater. Her eyes blurred from lack of sleep. But she suspected Marge looked deeper.
“What?” Lindsey snapped.
“Did you get what you wanted?” the older woman finally asked.
Lindsey squeezed her eyes shut and could actually hear the rasp of her swollen eyelids against her dry eyeballs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She blinked her eyes open to witness Marge sliding into the seat across from her. The diner owner lowered her voice to a whisper. “Dylan?”
Lindsey chortled and reached for her cup. “Subtle, Marge. Are you my best girl friend now? You think I’m giving you any details?”
“You really hate me.” Marge sighed and tucked a strand of bleached hair behind her ear.
Lindsey studied the fine lines in the other woman’s face. They fanned from her eyes and her mouth. Laugh lines. She didn’t remember her mother ever laughing.
“No, not now. Maybe when I was a teenager and found out about you and my dad. Yeah, I did then. But that feels like a hundred years ago.”
“So you’re saying your feelings have changed?” Marge pursued.
Lindsey hoped the older woman hadn’t woven dreams around her father. In all the unhappy years of his marriage, William Warner had never considered divorcing Retha. That Lindsey knew was true. But there wasn’t much else of which she could be certain.
She actually reached across the table and squeezed Marge’s hand. Then she stared at her append age as if it had acted of its own accord. Shaking her head, she said, “Yeah, I guess they have.”
“I’m glad,” Marge whispered, and Lindsey could hear the emotion behind her words.
“And for Dylan? Did your feelings change for him, too?” The older woman’s eyes widened with the question.
Lindsey shrugged. “I don’t trust my feelings any more, Marge.”
“You went so far from home to get your heart broken, Lindsey.”
“Chicago isn’t so far, but my heart was broken before I ever left home.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lindsey nodded, but Marge’s sympathy made her edgy. She took a quick swallow of coffee. “You had the wanderlust once, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Rumor has it, you were a foreign-exchange student your last year of high school. That’s the reason for the crepes on the menu, right?”
Marge laughed as she slid out of the booth and rose to her feet. “That’s ancient history.”
“Must have been quite an adventure. But you came home, too.”
“There’s no place like home.” Marge chuckled as she walked away.
Since she’d been home, there’d been a murder, her mother had escaped the sanatorium, and a fire and shooting had nearly taken her life.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “There’s no place like home.”
She’d just finished her enormous cinnamon roll when Dylan and the sheriff stepped into the diner. Dylan had showered again, damn him, and changed into his uniform. But she could see him so clearly without it.
She nearly choked on her sip of coffee.
“Lindsey,” the two men greeted her.
She narrowed her eyes at the way they stood before her booth. At Marge’s nobody stayed on their feet unless there wasn’t a free seat. The sheriff couldn’t meet her eyes, and Dylan wore his dark glasses.
“What!” she gasped. Her head pounded and her eyes burned from lack of sleep. “I really can’t handle anything else right now.”
“The sanatorium just notified us, Lindsey. Your mother’s been missing since sometime last night.”
She squeezed shut her tired eyes and cursed away the sting of threatening tears. “They just notified you? Does my dad know?”
Dylan cleared his throat. “They were hoping they’d find her them selves this time. There’s some question of security.”
“I guess so.” She blew out a ragged breath.
“You kids are dead on your feet.” The sheriff awkwardly patted her shoulder. “Why don’t you both get some rest? I have other people on this. Your father knows, Lindsey. He’s staying at the house, but your mother hasn’t shown there yet.”
A cold autumn evening had just passed. The fog had dampened the earth. “She’s out there alone. Cold. Scared.” She shivered as she thought of her mother wandering around, lost in more ways than one.
Dylan slid into the seat beside her and wrapped his arm around her.
“Why now, Dylan?” she asked. All she saw in his eyes were twin reflections of her own bedraggled self.
He shook his head.
“Marge,” Lindsey called out, but she didn’t have to call far.
Marge hovered behind the sheriff.
“She’s been in there nine years. Has she ever escaped before?”
Marge shook her head. “She always seemed content there.”
“You visited her?” Lindsey gasped over the pressure of guilt lying heavy on her heart.
Marge nodded. “At least once a month. She seemed fine, honey.”
Lindsey hadn’t seen her mother in so long, but her father’s mistress had visited her once a month. The cinnamon roll tangled around her guts and tried to rise with the guilt. “Yeah. Okay. Thank you.”
She pushed against Dylan’s side, making him slide back across the vinyl until he stood and helped her from the booth. “I have to—”
“You’re asleep on your feet.”
“I slept on the way home.”
“Twenty minutes, and I doubt that. You complained about my driving enough to indicate you weren’t sleeping at all.” Dylan slid a gentle finger down her cheek.
She fought a laugh, knowing it would become hysterical.
The sheriff’s bellow of advice echoed in the nearly empty diner. “Take her to my house, Dylan. She—”
“No, I’m going home,” she argued.
“I’ll drop you off,” Dylan insisted. Before she could open her mouth with her protest, he finished, “Someone will bring your car by later.”
“What car?” Marge asked. “Your Jeep burned.”
“My mother’s car. The old white Bonneville,” Lindsey said, waving a hand in the general direction of the parking lot. The effort made her dizzy.
Marge shook her head. “If you left it there yesterday, it’s gone. The lot was empty this morning.”
“Oh, okay. Now my car’s been stolen.” Her knees threatened to give, but she locked them.
The sheriff rubbed his stubbled chin. “
I can’t believe it. What’s happening to this town?”
In Lindsey’s tired mind, he acted more concerned about a stolen vehicle than a murder. What had he done to find Chet Oliver’s killer? Whatever she and Dylan had done, and she wasn’t sure what they’d accomplished, they’d brought on a vicious attack.
Lindsey threw the back door of the diner open then staggered out. She reeled under the glare of the mid-morning sun, glinting off the metal of some vehicles in the parking lot. The Bonneville wasn’t parked among them.
“It’s not there.” Feverishly she retraced her steps of the previous, interminably long day. “I can’t believe it.”
Dylan’s arm came around her again. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
DYLAN CLOSED THE DOOR of the office of the director of the Arborview Sanatorium. Not only was Mrs. Warner lost, so were the adoption records from when Arborview operated as a home for unwed mothers.
As he stepped into the hall, he casually noted a man and a woman standing at the end of the corridor. He looked again.
Lindsey. He’d left her with her father. Exhaustion had weakened her arguments and she’d gone calmly into her room while Dylan had talked with William Warner.
She must have sensed his stare because she glanced in his direction. She flashed him an impudent grin. Lying, little tease.
The male nurse’s aide gave her one last, longing glance before he returned to his duties.
Dylan turned around and headed out the door, giving a cursory nod to the security guard on duty. He strode over to his patrol car, sorely tempted to kick a tire.
The woman drove him insane. She always had, even when she’d been just a girl.
“If I show you mine, will you show me yours?” she called out to him.
He sputtered out a laugh before he could stop it. “All talk, Lindsey. You’re all talk.”
“My talking got some information. How about yours?”
He turned toward her. Dark circles under lined her big eyes. She had showered. Her curls were still damp and unruly. Her face was pale but for two bright spots of color on her cheek bones.
He caught himself reaching out, brushing a knuckle along her jaw. “You’re dead on your feet, and you keep pushing yourself.”