To build a completely new life.
She no longer fit the old one.
Feeling completely alone, more than she’d have ever thought possible, she pasted a smile on her face and made her way slowly through the throng of people in the living room, stopping to talk on Gram’s behalf several times, encouraging people to write to her, to help keep her spirits up. Having just come from two months behind bars, she knew how important it was to have contact with loved ones. To feel like there was still a life for you on the outside.
Clarke kept her in his sights. She looked up a few times to see him just feet away, in conversation, but watching her, too. And warmed up a tad. They weren’t a couple. The relationship they were presenting at the party was fake. But he was real. And in her life at the moment.
The bridge to get her from who she was into a safe place to become the woman whose skin she was growing into.
“Everleigh!” Turning, she saw a bright spot in the room, opening her arms for Larissa and returning the tight hug. The blonde, a little taller than Everleigh with blue eyes and perfect skin, had been out of town taking care of her sick mother since Everleigh’s release.
“God, girl, it’s so good to see you,” Larissa said, giving her another quick hug before looking her over from head to toe. “I told you those boots would do it.”
Smiling, Everleigh nodded. “How’s your mom?” Larissa’s mother refused to leave the house in Grand Rapids where her daughter had grown up. And so Larissa made regular treks back now that her mother was widowed.
“Good. Better. Turned out it was just a bladder infection. I told you I’d make it back in time for the party.”
Yeah, well, she’d been told a lot of things, and found herself not counting on any of them until they happened.
Finding a somewhat quiet space along the wall by the television, she pulled Larissa with her and caught up on everything that had been going on at Howlin’ Eddie’s in the past two months. And heard about Larissa’s married younger sister and her seemingly perfect husband, too. The pair, who both had high-powered jobs in DC, were expecting their first child. Larissa couldn’t wait to be an aunt.
And Everleigh knew that being the older sister working in a bar, not married and without children hurt Larissa, too. Like Everleigh, Larissa had married the wrong man. But unlike her, Larissa had divorced him years ago.
“So tell me about your hunky boyfriend,” Larissa said, grinning as she glanced at Clarke and poked Everleigh in the shoulder. “You’ve been holding out on me!”
Everleigh shook her head. Was not going to give any misconceptions that could lead people to think that she really had been cheating on Fritz. Fixing the damage he’d done to her reputation was on her...even as she had to pretend that she and Clarke were together.
“I just met him while I was in prison,” she said, managing to look her friend in the eye while she lied. Hating that she managed to pull it off. She wasn’t a liar.
Or a cheater, either. Looking at Clarke, she found a resurgence of strength, a reminder of why she was there, doing what she was doing. There was a murderer on the loose—and she was helping to catch them.
She had to stick to her story. To keep Clarke safe, as well as herself.
“He’s like no man I’ve ever known,” she said, the words pouring out of her because they had to. “He touches me and it’s like you read in books... I physically melt. I never knew such a thing was possible...”
She was telling a story to save her life. And his.
She needed people to believe her.
And to remind herself that no matter what truth might seep through, no matter how relieved she suddenly felt saying something out loud that she’d been avoiding admitting, there was no truth in her being Clarke Colton’s girlfriend. Or in him being her man.
“I heard about the break-in at your house, the ransacking,” Larissa said, her voice lowered, as though she also thought someone in the room could be the perpetrator of the crime. “Does he have anything to do with finding out who did it?”
Everleigh shook her head. It wasn’t the first time that night she’d heard the question. Apparently, everyone knew about the break-in.
But no one had mentioned the near murder in the grocery-store parking lot.
“He’s a private investigator, not a cop,” she told Larissa. That part was just fact. And easy. “He’d been helping me with my case even before Gram’s kidnapping. Which was why he was able to help find the discrepancy in evidence so quickly when the police asked him to look into my stuff.” The lie rolled off her tongue. For him. He was risking his life for her.
Yeah, it was his job. Yeah, if he wasn’t working on her case, he could be on another that put his life at risk, but she’d given him her word. And he was trusting his life to her keeping her word.
“So, what’s he think about the break-in?”
Larissa’s concern was so sweet. Real. Which made lying to her so hard. She shook her head. “The police are working the case still,” she said. “From what I’ve been told, they have no idea who’s behind it.” There. She’d found a way to be truthful. And felt better.
“Have you been back in the house?” Larissa asked.
She nodded. “As soon as the police were done with it. I couldn’t leave it a mess,” she said and grinned. “You know me. I need my space orderly.” They’d joked about the fact that Everleigh was one barmaid who’d always kept their shared station clean and tidy.
“Aren’t you nervous about staying there?”
She shrugged. Didn’t look at Clarke that time. She’d failed to factor in how difficult it would be to lie to a real friend when she’d walked into the plan with Clarke that evening. And didn’t know how much about her current living situation she could divulge.
“So, come stay with me,” Larissa said, giving her hand a squeeze. “Seriously, I’d love having you. I’ve got the spare room just sitting there empty...
“You can bring Forester,” her friend added.
For a second there, a long second, Everleigh was tempted. Most particularly because she was still stinging from Clarke’s need to tell her to give him space. Whether she’d been coming on too strong or not, his words had been a reminder to her. Because while she’d been hanging on him, she knew she hadn’t just been acting.
The realization scared her in a way far different from someone making attempts on her life. Her attraction to Clarke could carry a much longer-lasting danger.
And yet the immediate peril...it was also real. And deadly serious. She couldn’t expose Larissa to that.
“I’m fine where I am,” she said. “But you have no idea how much it means that you offered.” She looked her friend in the eye, appreciating Larissa’s support. “But I have to take back my life, one way or the other...”
Larissa nodded, seemed a bit teary-eyed as she leaned forward and brushed a light kiss against Everleigh’s cheek. “You know I’m always here for you,” she said softly before she pulled back.
Everleigh did know. Larissa had had her back since the first day Everleigh had walked into Howlin’ Eddie’s dressed in her skimpy barmaid’s outfit.
And she was grateful.
Chapter 12
Clarke had underestimated how many people would be at Everleigh’s party. And how eager they’d be to talk to him—her new boyfriend—about her deceased husband. Seemed, now that the man was gone, they all had things to say about him. Many of them hadn’t liked how he’d treated Everleigh, and he couldn’t help but wonder if any of them had really stepped forward at any point during the past eighteen years to see if she needed help.
He admired Everleigh while she worked the room as though she owned it. She’d moved on past her friend from the bar almost two hours before, and even though many people had left and the party was dying down, she was still calling up enough smiles to make her seem at ease and hap
py enough to be there. She might be quiet. Gentle. But she had an iron rod for a backbone and took everything that came at her standing up. And with grace.
He’d heard too many people tell him about Fritz being seen with other women. Had just received a third name to check out when he saw Everleigh pull her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and answer it.
Who’d be calling her at that hour? Most particularly, who’d be calling her at that hour if just about everyone she knew was in the house then?
Since he was there at the behest of the police department, any official calls could go through him...
When her brow tightened and her lips thinned, he went for their coats. Already had hers in hand, holding it out to her when she came toward him—and saw Amie and Andrew coming at them, too.
“That was my neighbor,” Everleigh said before her parents reached them, taking her jacket from him. He’d moved quietly enough that most people in the room remained engaged in their conversations, seemingly unaware of what was going on around them. He wanted them to stay that way. “The one who has Forester. She saw someone snooping around the back windows of my house.”
Her parents came up just as she said that last part, and Clarke, who already had on his coat, pulled out his phone. “I’ve got the police on speed dial,” he told them. “And I’ll keep her safe.”
He didn’t let them know he had a gun under his sweater.
With a hurried and obviously concerned request from the McPhersons to keep them posted of any possible developments, Clarke hurried Everleigh out to the car. He already had his sister on the line before he’d pulled away.
He stayed on the phone with Melissa until they were turning onto Everleigh’s street.
Three police cars were already at the house by the time they pulled up. Though Clarke was itching to run, not walk, to the house to get inside, he parked between two patrol cars and stayed put. His job was to protect Everleigh first. To figure out who was out to get her, second.
“I guess this means it wasn’t someone I know well,” she said, her gaze never leaving her house as lights could be seen going on and off and officers searched every room.
“Unless it is. They could have an accomplice,” he told her. She wouldn’t want to hear what he was thinking, but he knew she’d want the truth. “Over half the people who were there had already left by the time you got the call. And they all knew you were going to be occupied for the rest of the night.”
“I didn’t get any vibes from anyone that they were after me. Or even resenting me.”
He hadn’t, either, to be honest.
He could tell her about what he had discovered, but held his tongue for the moment. Evidence of Fritz’s philandering might prove crucial information, but at the moment, they needed to deal with what was going on at her house.
It wasn’t long before Grace Colton, his rookie cop cousin, was tapping on his car window. With her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and in her dress blues, he could almost begin to believe the twenty-five-year-old wasn’t a kid anymore.
“It’s all clear,” Grace said, after a brief serious glance at him—almost as though daring him to smile at her. “Chief says you’re free to go in, but asks that you don’t touch anything until CSI can get here in the morning. Perp entered through the back door. There’s some disarray, but we’ve searched the place, under beds, in closets... No one is there. The guess is that your neighbor saw the person leaving, not arriving.”
He nodded. Thanked her. And absolutely did not crack a smile. He might remember when Grace had been in diapers, might even have changed her a time or two, but she’d earned her stripes since and deserved his respect.
Turning to Everleigh, he wanted to suggest that they head to his home—save whatever faced her at her house for the morning—but asked instead, “What do you want to do?”
Whoever was after her wasn’t going away. And wasn’t backing off.
He wanted her safely up in his condo, not out on a dark street, or in a home that had just been broken into.
“I want to go in.”
“It might be easier in the light of day.”
“I want to go in now.”
Of course she did. She’d take it on and deal with it. Didn’t matter if it was scary. Or dangerous. “You’re sure?”
Her nod didn’t surprise him.
The depth of his fear for her did.
* * *
She didn’t plan to stay long. Had no desire to hang out at a house she was beginning to think she was going to sell rather than ever live in again for any length of time. But she had to see the damage for herself, assess what had happened so that she could factor it in with everything else as she tried to assimilate and figure out her new world. She had to step inside the space to reclaim her home from whoever had vandalized it.
Clarke was there to protect her as she did so, she knew.
She didn’t kid herself about that one.
She’d still have gone inside, even if he wasn’t. But without him, she’d have waited until it was light outside, and everything seemed less creepy.
As it was, Clarke seemed more inclined to linger than she was. A quick check through every room was all she’d wanted. He was checking out Fritz’s den as though he was cataloging everything in sight.
“This room got most of the attention this time,” he said, studying the place intently.
She’d noticed the same. The kitchen hadn’t been touched at all, it seemed. Nor had most of the other rooms. Her bedroom drawers had taken another tumble. The mattress was pushed off the bed.
All was fixable in less than an hour.
There was no reason for tears to be pushing for release. Things had been much, much worse the day before.
“We have to figure out what his killer would be after. What got Fritz murdered.” He shook his head.
“He owned a failing small health club and personal-training business. He had no partners and no enemies that I know of. We’ve been over this already,” she told him, wanting the answers as badly as he did. Worse.
“I heard basically that same information echoed several times tonight.” He was frowning, looking around, his gaze landing on the cabinet where she’d replaced the fishing tackle boxes.
And she was mentally swept back to the day before. On the floor. Moving her lips against his. Needing him. Wanting so much more. Wanting the touch of his hands.
Wanting to know where the kiss would lead, if culmination would be even half as good as that kiss had felt...
Shaking her head against the assault, she forced her focus back to his last words. He’d heard “basically” the same information.
Which implied that some information had been a little different.
“What else did you hear?” she asked him.
“Enough to know that my instincts are probably right on this one. My gut has been telling me all along that this is mistress related.”
“So why kill him? Why does she want me dead? And what would she want here?”
His glance was direct. Personal. “Once I have those answers, this will be over.”
She didn’t want this over.
The thought ran contrary to everything she knew. Of course, she wanted it over. She wanted to be free. To live without constant fear. To have her life back. To start her new future.
She just wasn’t ready for her time with Clarke to end.
He’d lit a spark within her that she hadn’t known was there. Made her feel things she truly hadn’t thought possible. She’d been telling the complete truth when she’d described her feelings to Larissa earlier.
She had to know more about how Clarke’s kiss had made her feel.
Didn’t want to go forward until she knew where it led. Physically. Because other than that, she already knew it led nowhere. And had no intention of heading back into nowhe
re ever again.
Besides, if she couldn’t trust herself to know whom she could put her faith in, any kind of a relationship beyond the physical was pretty much moot.
Didn’t really matter, in any case. It wasn’t like she’d go have sex just to see if it was as great as she’d thought it might be. To find out if she’d been missing out. If her lack of fire with Fritz hadn’t been because of that floundering relationship.
Some women liked having flings. She wasn’t one of them. Not even with a man like Clarke Colton, who seemed only too willing to just have fun with a woman.
* * *
Everleigh went upstairs the second they got home, not even stopping to hang her coat on the rack by the front door.
Figuring her choice to distance herself was for the best, considering that he’d spent the majority of the past several hours pretending to be in serious like with her, he dropped his coat on its normal hook, grabbed his little notebook out of the pocket and went straight to his office.
He’d never gotten around to making notes for himself that evening, but the night wasn’t done, and neither was he.
At his desk, the first thing he did was write down the three names he’d been given that evening—all women that were known to have had sexual relationships with Everleigh’s husband. It wasn’t the first infidelity case he’d ever worked. Not by a long shot. As a PI, those jobs were about as common as butter on bread, but this one... It was kicking his gut.
That someone as kind and loyal as Everleigh had been treated so badly, so disrespectfully...
Watching her that night, he’d gained a whole new level of respect for her. He knew she was hurting still, and yet...there she’d been, for hours, smiling, being gracious, accepting congratulations without bitterness...all to fight for her grandmother’s cause. Asking others to write to Hannah McPherson, to keep her spirits up, to visit her, he understood. But writing to the GGPD... All it was going to do was cause a mail-room clerk to process useless paperwork. Even if they wrote to the DA, the law was the law. People couldn’t just let someone go because she was sweet and old and had committed a crime for a good cause. Law enforcement couldn’t let someone off the hook because they were well liked.
Colton's Killer Pursuit Page 12