“Where’d you build the camp?”
“We didn’t. She died before we found any land.”
A wince flitted across Taylor’s face. “That . . . must have been hard.”
“It’s taken a year to get back on track with the camp.” And everything else in his life except writing.
“You must have loved your wife very much.”
“I did.” Her blue eyes pierced the layers of his heart, and Nick looked away. A man two rows up tucked a blanket around the woman beside him, a gesture too intimate for anyone other than a girlfriend or wife. It was something Nick would have done for Angie. But never again.
“It’s okay, Nick, you don’t have to talk about it. It must have been terrible, losing her like you did.”
The warmth in her voice wrapped around him like a comforter. He wanted to tell her. “We . . . were mugged coming out of a restaurant in Memphis. The Midtown area. It happened so fast. We were walking to the car, and next thing I know, a guy shoves a gun in Angie’s face and demands our money. I tried to keep him calm, handed over my billfold and told Angie to do the same thing with her purse. I don’t know if she was confused, or just frozen, but she wouldn’t give it to him. Then she shoved him, and the gun went off.”
He swallowed, not wanting to remember what came next. “Angie bled out in my arms in that dark parking lot. The ambulance came, and they took her to surgery, but it was too late.”
“Nick, I’m so sorry.”
“I keep replaying that night, thinking if she’d just given him her purse.” His voice cracked.
“You don’t know if it would have changed anything.”
“If only she’d listened to me . . .”
Taylor had never met a man like him before. The kind of man who stood by those he loved. She didn’t think she’d ever experienced that kind of love. Certainly not from Michael, who’d only wanted a clone of himself, and most certainly not from her father. Not even her uncle, who’d tried to take his place.
She struggled with something to say, but in spite of all her training, she came up empty. Probably why she hadn’t gone into counseling.
“Beating yourself up won’t help.” It was the best she could offer, and his subdued smile almost broke her heart.
“It’s hard not to, but thanks for listening.”
Taylor reached into her bag and pulled out his book. “I got this in the airport.”
Nick’s eyes widened, and she almost laughed, glad she’d distracted him from his grief.
“You bought my book?”
“Actually two.” She pulled out another one. “One’s for my mom, the other for a friend—they like murder mysteries. Although since I’ve gotten to know you, I might read it.”
“Wow, you know how to keep a guy humble.”
She handed him the books. “Would you autograph them?”
“Sure.”
“My mom’s name is Allison and my friend is Olivia, but you better make it Livy.”
Nick inscribed the title pages and handed the books to her.
“Thanks.” She tucked them back into her bag.
A question crossed his face, and she waited for him to put it into words. But the query didn’t come.
“What?” she finally asked.
“I wondered something, just not sure how to ask.”
“How about straight out?”
“How did you crack the Coleman case?”
Taylor hesitated. The case was closed and the kidnapper was dead. “Off the record?”
He nodded.
“Let me give you a little background first. With most crimes, victims have a link to their killer, so I start looking at the victim’s past, trying to find where they’ve crossed paths with the perpetrator.”
“Something like Criminal Minds?” Nick asked.
She laughed. “Not at all like the TV show. First of all, I don’t usually work on murders in Newton. There just aren’t that many, and I don’t work on serial killings anymore.”
“Why not?”
Her hands closed in tight fists, and she glanced out the plane window. They were above the clouds, and the white cotton-candy floor reminded her of a time before she learned just how sick the mind could get. The things that man did to those women . . . She turned back to Nick. “After Atlanta, I don’t have the stomach for it.”
He covered her fist with his hand, his touch warm, reassuring. “I can see how that could happen.”
She shook her head to clear it of the memories and reclaimed her hand. “What I do is look for links between the criminal and the victim.”
“So what was the link in the Coleman case?”
She steepled her fingers. “Off the record again, Jim Coleman had been involved in an accident when he was a teenager. And while he wasn’t hurt, and it wasn’t his fault, all four passengers in the other vehicle died—Ralph Jenkins’s family. Evidently Jenkins brooded for years until one day he kidnapped the now-grown teenager’s wife and child. And then kills himself at the scene . . .” Everything fit together perfectly. Maybe a little too perfectly.
“So you’ll never know exactly why he did what he did?”
She nodded. That was one of the things that bothered her about this case. It was like the solution had been wrapped in a pretty box and bow and handed to her, but the box was empty. Sometimes she wished profiling was like television and she could see the script.
Nick whistled. “Wow. How did you find out about the wreck?”
“By asking the right questions . . . of the right people. Sometimes you get lucky—and the only person you can ask is where the link happens to be.”
“Are there any other cases you can tell me about? Off the record, of course.”
She cocked her head. “Are you picking my brain for one of your books?”
He gave her a thumbs-up. “Nailed me. I can see writing about a heroine much like you.”
Taylor didn’t know how to respond.
His gaze held hers, then his chiseled lips spread into a heart-stopping smile. For five heartbeats, Taylor forgot to breathe as she imagined his lips on hers. Like that would ever happen. Men like Nick didn’t fall in love with women like her. She was a loser. With a capital L.
7
Two in the afternoon and downtown traffic in Memphis worked like ants on the trail of bread crumbs. Taylor braked the rented Rav4 for a construction worker as he directed traffic. The pungent scent of asphalt seeped through the floorboard, burning her eyes.
At a stoplight she flipped on the radio, seeking one of the hard-rock stations she’d listened to as a teenager. Elevator music streamed through the speakers. Just her luck. She massaged the back of her neck. It’d taken half an hour to claim her bags. Then Nick, ever the Southern gentleman, had driven her to the rental agency and waited with her until she was in the car. She wasn’t used to being looked after. It was kind of nice, and made her feel bad, considering she had Livy out beating the bushes for his brother.
Remembering the intensity of his gaze even now sent a shiver through her chest.
It was fruitless to go there. But he’d changed seats just to sit with her. No, only so he could change her mind about his brother. The argument raged in her head. No matter. He’d been a nice diversion on the plane. Nick Sinclair was a complex man, and it surprised her how they’d clicked.
Writer, humanitarian, man of his word, blues player. The last one she could do without, although she’d loved going with her dad when he played his sax with his friends. They played slow blues, and the pull of that lonesome sound had drawn her in, made her one with the music. As a teenager, she’d even learned to play the piano, trying to recapture those days. Then she decided he was never coming back and quit the lessons. Now, the first ragged notes of a blues tune brought her dad fresh to her mind. So she didn’t listen anymore.
Nick was a nice guy—too bad she’d sworn off relationships. But then, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Even if she weren’t trying to put his brother in jail, his heart bel
onged to his dead wife. Taylor wasn’t about to compete with a ghost.
Maybe that’s what attracted her—she couldn’t win his heart, so she didn’t have to risk her own.
Taylor turned onto Washington Avenue and whipped the SUV into an empty space, the hour left on the meter enough for her meeting with Livy. She entered the doors of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center and crossed the slate floor to the elevators. Taylor had called Livy from the airport and left her friend a voice message that she was on her way. When the doors opened, she crowded into the elevator with a dozen others. “Eleven, please.”
A uniformed officer obliged, and Taylor took a breath for the upward ascent. She hated being closed in, but ten floors were a bit too much to climb. And who knew what she’d encounter in the stairwell of the Shelby County CJC.
She couldn’t hold her breath all the way up either, although it would have been preferable to the body odor permeating the elevator. Taylor caught a whiff of another scent, heavy and sickly sweet. Marijuana.
More than likely it belonged to the barefoot kid in handcuffs with the silly grin pasted on his face. The doors opened to the second floor, and the kid and arresting officer got off. Most of the scent left with them.
Nine stops later, Taylor escaped the elevator. A sign pointed left for the homicide division, and she followed the hall to the double doors.
The receptionist looked up from her computer. “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Detective Olivia Reynolds. I was supposed to be here half an hour ago.”
“Are you Taylor Martin? Everybody’s in a meeting, but Livy left a message for you to wait at her desk. Said you’d know which one is hers.”
Taylor surveyed the room. All six desks were empty, but she easily picked out Livy’s. Only the desk in the corner had no papers or folders littering the work space or pencils strewn about . . . and no Styrofoam cup. She walked toward the desk, and a brass nameplate engraved with “Dt. Olivia Reynolds” verified her deduction.
A door opened to her right. Livy lingered behind the stream of colleagues exiting it. When she spied Taylor, her face lit up with a welcoming grin, and she hurried across the room. “You made it!” She gave her a quick hug.
Taylor returned Livy’s hug. “Sorry I’m late, but my bags were the very last ones off, and then it took forever at the car rental agency.”
Only the Glock at her waist gave a clue the petite, tanned blonde was a cop. “You look great as a blonde,” Taylor said. “I like the pixie cut.”
Livy ran her hand through the wispy haircut that flattered her heart-shaped face. She grinned, and dimples popped in her cheeks. “Still trying to get used to the shorter layers.”
She gave Taylor the once-over. “You look tired. What’s going on?”
Like a Gatling gun, a flashback of the assault shot through her mind. Darkness. Metal crunching on bone, gunpowder stinging her nose, Dale Atkins on the floor. She struggled to breathe and shuddered, blinking back unexpected tears.
“Hey, are you okay?”
What was wrong with her? Taylor’s emotions had never nosedived like that. And why the sense of doom circling like a vulture?
Livy pulled up a chair. “Sit. Tell me what’s going on.”
Taylor took a shaky breath and sank in the straight-back chair. Get a grip. “I didn’t tell you everything about Scott Sinclair.”
In fact, she’d told her friend little, only that she needed her help in locating him. She filled Livy in on the details.
“You’re sure Scott purchased the bracelet?”
“It was on a prepaid credit card that has been traced back . . .” The words died on her lips. If Scott was stalking her, why would he purchase the bracelet with a credit card that could be traced to him? A chill shivered down her spine. The bigger question was why it had taken her this long to figure it out. She glanced at Livy and realized her friend hadn’t been as slow as she. “A stalker wouldn’t do that, would he?”
Livy tapped her fingers together. “My thoughts exactly.”
Taylor stretched her neck and massaged the knotted muscles. “I’ve got to rethink this, but I’m not ruling Scott out. Not yet, anyway. The bracelet came in a package postmarked in Memphis, and Scott’s debit card has a trip to Memphis on it. That’s too many coincidences, and I don’t like coincidences. Scott’s involved somehow.”
“I have a few more coincidences for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just got a new murder case, and guess who’s a person of interest.”
“Not Scott?”
Livy nodded. “One and the same.”
Taylor caught her breath. Even though she’d warned Nick his brother’s violence could escalate, she’d hoped it wouldn’t happen. Nick would be devastated when he found out. “Is Scott your only suspect?”
“Oh no.” Livy grimaced. “The victim was a heroin junky, ex-con—we have a big pond to fish from. Sinclair floated to the top because he had words with the victim last night. That and your history with him.”
“Do you have Scott in custody?” Taylor asked.
“Don’t have enough for that,” Livy said. “Besides, we haven’t been able to find him. Hoping you might help with that part.”
Taylor was familiar with that scenario.
“At this point, we only want to question him.” Livy opened a thin folder on her desk. “What information I have is sketchy—no autopsy report yet, no crime scene photos either, except these on my phone.” She took out her iPhone, tapped the screen, and handed the phone to Taylor. “Here. Shots of the crime scene.”
“Should I be seeing these?”
Livy pressed her lips together, and the dimples popped up again. “I haven’t gone through the formalities yet, but I asked Mac—that’s my partner—if I could add you as a consultant on this case. He okayed it, providing you’d work cheap, so I kind of volunteered your services.”
“What?”
Livy lifted a shoulder and palmed her hands up. “Come on, you won’t have to do much. Just a profile. From what I read in the newspapers, you can do that in your sleep.”
“Livy Reynolds! I didn’t come home to work on one of your murder cases. I came home to look for Dad’s records, and maybe find Scott.”
Livy leaned across her desk. “And maybe to help Chase convince Jonathan not to sell the sixty-five acres behind the house?” Her friend snorted. “Like that’s going to happen. Your uncle isn’t about to let a million dollars get away.”
“You’ve heard?” Taylor stared at a crack in the institutional-gray walls. If Livy had heard about the land deal, then probably everyone in Logan Point had heard.
“Kate told me Sunday.”
Maybe not everyone. Kate was Chase’s mother-in-law and Livy’s aunt. “What are you not telling me?”
“I heard not only is someone offering a lot of money for the land, but that your uncle needs cash. It’s no secret he and Chase can’t get along. If Jonathan hadn’t moved Chase from the Memphis office to the one in Logan Point, they would have already parted company.”
Neither her uncle nor her brother was easy to get along with. Chase especially since his wife left. Her shoulders sagged. Could she simply stay in Memphis and avoid going home altogether? Her nerves were too shot to deal with her family and their problems, particularly the land deal. “It is a lot of money. How often do you see my family?”
“Whenever I make it to church in Logan Point. I really hurt for Chase and Abby. Abby especially. I mean, your brother is doing a good job of raising her, but he’s a man, and let’s face it, he doesn’t have a clue about the finer points of raising a daughter.”
“At least he has a few years before she reaches her teen years.”
“Thank goodness,” Livy said. “I get so mad at Robyn sometimes I could throttle her, even if she is my cousin. Abby asked me about her mom last weekend.”
Oh, Robyn, why did you leave? Taylor’s excitement over her best friend marrying her brother had
always been shadowed by the fear they were too young, but Abby was already on the way . . .
“What did you tell her?”
“That we were the three musketeers.”
“Yeah, that was us.” Taylor said the words very softly as unspoken thoughts of Robyn hung in the air.
Livy blew out a breath that wavered between a sigh and a groan. “We were tight. Ma chère.”
“Which one of us came up with that code?”
“I think it was Robyn. And it wasn’t always about some boring guy one of us needed rescuing from, either. How about the time that nasty Susan Palmer was going off on you because you beat her out as class president in the seventh grade?”
Heat flushed Taylor’s cheeks as Susie’s words echoed in her head. “You may have won this time, but it was a fluke. You’re a loser, Taylor Martin. Everyone knows it. Even your own daddy couldn’t stand you. Else he wouldn’t have run off.”
“Robyn and I locked her in the bathroom.”
And pretended not to see Taylor’s tears. “We were so close back then. What happened?”
“Life.” Livy’s lips quirked down. “You went off to college, I came to Memphis, and Robyn ran away. No warning, either. Thing is, I know she loves Chase and Abby. I think about it sometimes, trying to figure it out until my head wants to explode. She’s left virtually no trail except for a phone call to Chase a few days after she left, saying she was okay, that she wanted to find herself. Said the same thing a few months later in a letter to Kate. If she’s working, it’s not under her Social Security number. No hits on her credit history. I check.”
Taylor didn’t like the look in her friend’s eyes. “Do you think she’s dead?”
“If I didn’t see so many similar cases here in Memphis of a mother or father just walking away, I would.” Livy’s lips formed a tight line. “I just never thought Robyn would do something so selfish.”
Taylor’s background kicked it. “Did anything traumatic happen before she left?”
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