There had been so much life and laughter between those walls… at least until Rayne had been murdered. Her death had bleached the laughter from the rooms. Strangled that sunny, comfy home with heavy silence and angry outbursts.
Maybe that was the point of this place. It was so different from the house he’d grown up in it wouldn’t launch memories.
“—Reasonably priced, close to the station and small enough to maintain.”
He was well into his explanation when she tuned back into the conversation. How much had she missed? She could hardly ask him to repeat what he’d said because she hadn’t been paying attention.
Yeah, that would go over really well.
She followed him up the two shallow front steps, onto a cement miniporch, and waited for him to unlock the door. The front entrance opened into a surprisingly roomy foyer and from there into an even roomier living room. She would never have guessed from the outside that this place boasted this kind of space.
She was impressed.
“Okay,” she admitted, rubbernecking so much as she followed him through the living room that she just knew her neck was going to be stiff as hell the next morning. “I can see why you picked it. It’s a lot bigger inside than I expected.”
“Everyone who makes it through the door says that.” He sent her a reserved smile over his shoulder that carefully avoided her lips.
The kitchen was off the living room and stuffed full of counters and cupboards. A center island took up most of the open space. Rhys reached up and took down a skillet from the rack of pots and pans hanging above the island.
“One batch of french toast coming up,” he said with another careful smile and a glance that avoided her face altogether.
His avoidance of her mouth was so obvious it was almost uncomfortable.
“Anything I can do to help?” They’d cooked together in college. If you could call it cooking. They both been so busy—he with his football and she with her watching him play football—most of their meals had come from a take-out bag or a cardboard box.
“Yeah,” he said.
An actual honest-to-God—real—smile warmed his eyes this time, and Ariel relaxed.
“You can tell me how you ended up as an author,” he continued. You were never interested in writing or stories back in high school or college.”
In order to keep the peace between them, she bit back a snarky rejoinder about their tit for tat—or in this case, their question-for-question arrangement. For the first time since their reunion, the tension between them had evaporated. They were having an actual civil conversation. Besides, he was right. She hadn’t been interested in writing when they’d been together. Hell, she hadn’t even liked English, or composition or reading.
It still surprised her to find out she had an affinity for language and sentence construction.
“I’m not sure how it happened,” she offered with a rueful laugh. “I guess it started because of curiosity. Only at some point the curiosity turned to obsession.”
He opened the blazingly white refrigerator and took out a carton of eggs. “How so?”
She took a moment to frame her reply, watching as he cracked the eggs into a ceramic bowl, beat them with a whisk, and added some milk and cinnamon followed by more beating.
“I read this article,” she finally said. “About these two women who killed their boss. They dismembered him… while he was alive. The level of cruelty there. The hatred. It fascinated me. I wanted to know why. Why they’d tortured him like that. What had he done, at least in their minds, to deserve such treatment.”
She suspected part of her obsession with the two secretaries had been because of her father. Because of what he’d been accused of doing. Because of all the questions she’d had surrounding his trial and conviction. Why had the X Factor Killer chosen to frame him? There had been thousands of men in Dark Falls, plenty of others to pick from, so why had he gone after her dad?
There had to be some personal reason behind the frame job. Some reason the bastard had picked her father. If she could figure out what that reason was, then she could figure out who had done it and find the real killer—prove her father’s innocence.
“That was your first book? A Legacy of Heartbreak?” he asked as he poured the egg-and-milk mixture into a square pan and dropped two slices of bread in to soak.
So, he’d checked her books out. When? Before she’d returned to town or after. Did it even matter?
She nodded. “Alice Hardwick and Christine Jimson. The press dubbed the case the Secretary Slaughter.”
“The press…” His snort held derision. “They try to outdo each other with their damn nicknames these days.” He transferred the saturated bread to the skillet heating on the stove. “Did you find out the whys of the case?”
“Excuse me?” She pressed a palm to her belly as it rumbled in appreciation of the rich, delicious scent filling the kitchen.
Rhys dropped two more slices of bread into the egg mixture.
“The motive,” Rhys elaborated, turning to face her. He propped a hip against the counter. “Why did they kill him? Why did they kill him in that particular way? Once you pin the motive down, the rest generally falls into place.”
So he hadn’t actually read the book; if he had, he’d know the whys of that particular case.
“It was revenge. Forty years earlier the two women had lost their families to a drunk driver named Pete Denison. He was behind the wheel of a car flying down the wrong side of the highway. He plowed into Alice Hardwick’s sedan, and then both cars collided with Christine Jimson’s station wagon. Christine’s three children and husband died on impact, as did Alice’s two children. Pete Denison sustained superficial injuries, but before he could be arrested for his part in the accident, he up and disappeared from the hospital. Emptied his bank account, packed some of his belongings, and vanished.”
Rhys frowned. “I take it the man they killed was Pete Denison?”
He effortlessly scooped two slices of puffy, golden-brown toast onto a plate and refilled the hot skillet.
“Christine was sure of it,” Ariel said absently, hungrily eyeing the plate in front of her. Would it be bad manners to dive into that plate now, without an invitation? Probably. She sighed, reining her hunger in. “He was going by a different name, but Christine knew it was him the instant she saw him. She’d applied for a job at the company he worked for and had been assigned to his office. She contacted Alice, who applied for a job there as well. They wanted to make sure they had the right man. The rest… well—” She shrugged and offered him a dry smile. “The rest is in my book.”
He laughed. “Satisfy my curiosity on one thing. Was it Denison? Did they kill the right guy?”
“That’s what the DNA said.” She paused. “So how about you? How did you go from NFL hopeful to Dark Falls police detective?”
Although she suspected she knew the reason. Rayne.
Rhys’s house was conspicuously empty of family pictures. She’d seen none as she crossed the living room. None in the kitchen. Did he keep any in his house at all? Maybe in his bedroom? Or hanging along the hall.
“I don’t know.” His face darkened, his eyes turning blue gray and stormy. “I guess I lost focus. Football just wasn’t the attraction it had been before.”
He meant before Rayne’s murder. Ariel’s chest tightened in sympathy.
“I wanted to do something that would have an impact on people’s lives. Football wouldn’t make a difference to anyone. Not really.”
So he’d gone into law enforcement to help people. Had it been in the hopes of preventing what had happened to his sister, to his family, from happening to anyone else?”
“Any regrets?” she asked him quietly.
He’d exchanged the possibility of fame and fortune for sleepless nights and constant exposure to the ugliest parts of human nature.
“No.” Certainty rang in his voice. “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
Why in t
he world that would sting, was something Ariel didn’t want to examine too closely. But she suspected it had something to do with their former relationship and how she’d been so certain back then that they were supposed to be together. Meant for each other.
Soul mates.
What a foolish child she’d been.
Chapter Ten
Rhys took a slow sip of his iced tea, set the glass back on the table, and watched Ariel pick at what was left of her breakfast. “You’re sure you don’t want something else to drink? I’ve got iced tea… apple cider… orange juice.”
Her stated beverage of choice had been a glass of ice water, which she’d fixed for herself and carried to the table along with a plate of French toast. After carrying his own food to the table, along with a dish of butter and a small ceramic pitcher of maple syrup he’d warmed up in the microwave, he’d seated himself across from her.
From there, as they ate, it had become increasingly apparent that something had changed between them within the past few minutes. They’d gone from easy conversation as they caught up on each other’s lives to moody silence. At least on Ariel’s part.
What the hell had he said to shut her down like that?
In the past, the easiest way to bring her out of one of her “moods” was with his mouth and his fingers. Ariel had always been incredibly responsive, switching to hot and heady within seconds.
Which reminded him of something else he’d used to love about her. When they’d fought, which they had—quite often—she’d never punished him by withholding sex. Oh, she’d found other ways to punish him, like stirring salt instead of sugar in his coffee or taking the batteries out of the remote. But she’d never withheld her affection. Never dialed back her hot, smooth touch or moist, silky mouth.
She’d always been open and honest about her feelings for him.
Not that the memory did much good now.
He could hardly tease her back into a good mood with nibbles and nips.
“Unless you want to take this reunion into your bedroom, you should probably stop looking at me like that,” she said out of the blue.
Which was when he realized his gaze had dropped back to her mouth and heat was building in his veins and pressure in his crotch.
He felt like a bottle under pressure, its cork about to pop.
Hell…
Her heavy, deliberate, put-upon sigh rolled across the table to him. “You invited me over to ask questions about my dad, remember? What did you want to know?”
Right…
It was a damn good thing at least one of them was focused on the subject at hand, even if it wasn’t him.
His mind shifted back to the damn letter he’d received that afternoon, and he frowned. “Slightly before or around the time that Osborn and Patel first started looking into your father as a viable suspect, was there anyone hanging around your dad that seemed a little too interested in you? Or me? Or maybe us, as a couple?”
Her head lifted, and a startled look sank into her eyes. She stared back with a quizzical expression. “What do you mean?”
Hell, he wasn’t even sure himself. It was just an unformed instinct he had—a feeling.
There was a reason that letter had been sent.
There was a reason the author of that letter had reached out to him. Was the letter writer the killer? Maybe. Maybe not. But if he could figure out why the letter had landed on his desk, he might be able to identify who’d sent it, which might lead them to who’d dumped the blond, blue-eyed X Factor look-alike victim on their doorstep.
Every instinct whispered that their new vic and the letter were connected. The body dump had been the bastard’s calling card. The arrival of the letter his invitation to whatever game he was playing.
“Rhys?” Her voice grew more insistent. “Why are you asking that?”
He couldn’t tell her that. The damn letter was under wraps. He needed to come up with another excuse—a realistic spin. Something she would believe.
“Because if you’re right, if your dad was set up. If he was framed. There had to be a reason someone chose him, right?” He hoped there was enough veracity in his response to make it sound realistic. “So maybe they picked him because of us, and Rayne because of me.”
He scowled as something clicked in his head. A distant chime, like he’d instinctively stumbled onto something and rung some sort of bell in his brain.
Jesus, the spin he’d come up with to convince her to talk was fucking with his own mind.
Hell—that damn letter was fucking with him—as it was meant to, no doubt.
“It’s funny you should mention that.” She held his gaze, a thoughtful look wrinkling her brow. “I was wondering that a few minutes earlier. Wondering why he’d been chosen. I mean, there must be a reason, right?”
The fact he’d just instinctively spouted off something she’d apparently been thinking about moments earlier didn’t help with the sudden overwhelming sense of fatalism that was overtaking him.
Fuck—he felt like he’d unwittingly stumbled onto something. Something he didn’t want to acknowledge.
There was no concrete evidence that Osborn and Patel had fingered the wrong guy. The letter wasn’t evidence, dammit.
It was a fucking red herring.
“Rhys?” Her voice climbed, sharpened with insistence, as though she sensed he wasn’t telling her everything. Ariel had always had good instincts.
“It’s just a feeling, okay?” he finally said on a sigh, and damned if he wasn’t actually telling her the truth for a change. “I don’t have anything concrete to base it on. Like I said. It’s just a feeling.”
“All right.” She nodded as though accepting his explanation. “You always had great instincts.” She paused to offer him a slight smile. “Remember that time we were headed back home after that Green Day concert? It was dark, and all of a sudden you slowed way down, like way down—”
“And a herd of deer ran across the highway—”
“You barely stopped before hitting that doe and fawn. If you’d been going even five miles faster, they wouldn’t have made it across the road alive.”
“You said I’d saved Bambi and his mother.” He smiled at the memory, heat engulfing him as it continued to play out in his mind.
She’d rewarded him handsomely when they’d gotten home… showing him with every sliding, stroking touch and long, lingering kiss how much she’d appreciated his instincts.
“Like I said. Great instincts.”
Her voice deepened, throbbed with desire.
She wasn’t thinking about the deer or Bambi and his mother. She was remembering what had happened afterward. How they’d lost themselves in each other’s touch… each other’s taste… each other’s arms.
“We barely made it out of bed and into our clothes before your mom and dad got home.” She laughed, her flushed face thick with desire and memories.
“Yeah—” His grin was wry. His cock hard as a pipe. His balls aching to hell and back. “They weren’t fooled in the slightest. Maybe because your shirt was on inside out.”
“Or because your jeans buttons were one slot off.” Her eyebrows were arched, but her dark eyes had darkened even further, sultry with desire.
Their voices fell silent and hunger flared, sizzling between them. He could actually feel the electricity in the air. The way it lifted the hair on his arms and pulsed through his lungs.
Before things go too out of control, he cleared his throat and shoved his chair back. “I better take you home.”
“But you haven’t asked your questions,” she protested. But her eyes were hot, wild.
It was clear she didn’t give a damn about the questions.
Neither did he. Which was the problem. A big problem.
He couldn’t hook back up with her. He couldn’t. It would be career and emotional suicide. No matter how much his dick and mind were trying to convince him otherwise.
“The questions can wait,” he said, his voice much raspi
er than normal. What couldn’t wait was getting them the hell out of the house.
His legs tried to mutiny on him as he rose to his feet. He wanted so fucking bad to walk her to his bedroom, tumble her onto the mattress, and spend the whole fucking afternoon pounding into her, filling himself with her, feeling again.
He shook his head to dislodge the dazed urgency and forced his rebellious body to herd her toward the door. Her perfume trailed behind her—some kind of breezy, light scent that carried a zip of sass. Different than she’d worn before but tantalizing for that very difference.
The trip out of the house and down to his car went excruciatingly slow and whirlwind fast. How the hell it could be both at the same time, well fuck—that was just the topsy-turvy world she’d dumped on him when she arrived back in town.
The silence in the car as he drove her back to town was so dense he could feel it pressing against his skin, so pervasive he could taste it.
It tasted like regret.
It was two a.m., far later than he’d expected, when he arrived at his destination. He paused in the shadows of an arborvitae hedge and drew a strangled, pained breath. The moon’s silver glow glazed the grass in front of him an eerie platinum but missed him entirely. He shrank deeper into the shrubbery and let the shadows swallow him. A move that allowed him to rest in relative safety and survey his target at the same time.
As he struggled to regulate his breathing, he scanned the backside of the condo she’d rented. It was small, modern, and came with a full complement of amenities and shared lawns. According to the discreet signs posted in various yards, the development was wired too, although they’d chosen a third-rate security company for the job. No matter. Alarms ran on electricity, and electrical currents were easy to interrupt. A snip here, a snip there, and the whole house would go dark. He’d just have to find the electrical box.
The whole damn development looked preppy—neatly manicured and whitewashed. Every house looked the same. Two-story boxes with windows and doors. Even the recycle bins where identical—wheeled, red, parked on the patios.
Dark Legacy: (Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller Book 3) Page 9