That meant a lot.
* * *
Conducting surveillance wasn’t a hopping party, Clarke told himself. It took a lot of patience and mind control to be able to sit for sometimes hours at a time, staring at not much, waiting for something to see.
Sitting there with a woman who was so captivating proved particularly challenging. How did you control your mind, keep from thinking about something that was slowly taking over your senses? The sound of her breathing, her fresh scent, memories of the kiss they’d shared the night before.
That one kiss had been better than some of the sex he’d had.
They were parked outside Brenda Nolton’s place—a little house on the corner of an intersection not far from downtown. He was a bit on edge out in the open. But so far had seen no evidence that they’d been followed at all that day. And if, as he was suspecting, Brenda turned out to be the culprit, he was on the offensive this time.
And keeping all four sides of them in view with the mirrors at his disposal. If anybody even so much as took a second glance at the car, he’d have Everleigh ducking.
“I didn’t cheat on my husband.” They’d been parked for fifteen minutes or so. She hadn’t said much since they’d left Muriel Bowe.
“I know.”
She’d been staring out the window at the house he’d pointed out as belonging to Brenda, but turned to look at him as she said, “But if I’d ever felt around anyone else like I felt last night when you kissed me, I might have.”
Her gaze held concern. Doubt. Maybe even a hint of fear.
Everything going on... It had to be getting to her.
“You did great with Muriel,” he said, figuring that was where her most recent train of thought had come from. And knowing that he needed to steer them away from what had happened outside her bedroom door. “I figured it might help, having you there, but it went better than I’d expected. She was on the defensive with us. But you made her feel understood. You got her to relate to you, to feel as though she wasn’t alone...having a husband doing things behind your back of which you were unaware. The way you told her that it was a matter of having faith that made you see what you saw and miss what you didn’t see, you need to remember that. It was so right.” He wasn’t usually so verbose, but the words kept coming. He had to keep talking.
To keep her from going in any deeper.
Suddenly, he didn’t just have to protect her from a killer somewhere outside the car. He had to protect her from a “them” that was like a time bomb ready to explode right there inside the vehicle in which they sat.
He pointed out how Muriel Bowe had barely looked at him and Troy. About how her tone of voice had changed when she’d been talking to Everleigh. Commented on the exact moment that Everleigh had taken over the interview. Mentioned that he’d noticed even his cousin had taken a step back and let Everleigh run the show.
Everything he said was true. He was in overkill mode, though.
And when he stopped, she sat silently, not commenting at all on her very successful interview skills. He wanted to tell her that her level of compassion for others was unusual...and captivating. Shied completely away from that dangerous territory. Too personal.
Figured she should know that her gentleness was a silent strength, far more powerful than loudmouthed bossiness. Again, that was not professional and case-based conversation.
About thirty seconds after he fell silent, she sighed. And said, “Are you ready to talk about it yet?”
“Talk about what?”
“We need to talk about that kiss, Clarke. It’s going to blow up on us if we don’t.”
Damn. She was the complete package. Couldn’t he catch a break anyplace?
“Why do women always want to talk about things?” he grumbled. Feeling a bit desperate as he sought to keep them from sinking in the quicksand into which they’d already stepped.
“I can’t speak for all women, nor do I think it’s fair to generalize me into a group based on my gender.”
He knew she was right, nor was he going to win this one. Failure was written all over it.
He glanced at her but didn’t linger. Not just because he’d get turned on if he did, but because he had to keep his gaze all around them. He wasn’t going to screw up the job, too.
Everleigh was not going to get hurt.
Not physically.
And that was all he’d been asked to do—keep her body safe.
“Do you want me to apologize?” he asked, with a bit of a tone, knowing he was being unfair. And yet...if he pissed her off...anger could defuse the situation. At least in the moment.
If nothing else, it might help them feel better to expel some of the tension that was building between them.
“Do you want me to?” She had an answer for everything now?
He glanced over at her again. And then turned his head away. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” He didn’t have the answers. Clearly.
“I don’t know, either. I just think we need to quit pretending it didn’t happen. It’s making my stomach hurt.”
“The fact that it happened? Or ignoring that it did?”
“I don’t know. Probably both.”
“I find you incredibly attractive,” he told her. Not wanting her in pain. “I’ve never known a woman like you. And I realize that us starting anything could only end in disaster. So, I’m choosing to try to keep my mind off sex and on the case.”
“How’s that working for you?” Her slightly sardonic tone didn’t help.
“About as well as you’d expect,” he shot back dryly.
“I don’t know if this hurts or helps, but I’m not having an easy time of it, either. But I agree a thousand percent that to try to make something of it would be disastrous.”
It hurt. A lot.
And somehow, her acknowledgment of their mutual struggle helped, too.
But before he could attempt to find a reply he wanted to let loose, the door to Brenda’s house opened and out she walked.
Bundled up in a blue thigh-length winter parka with the hood up, lining her face with faux fur, she didn’t seem to notice anything but the car in the driveway as she made a beeline to it and jumped inside. She started the engine, and he put his idling one in gear.
Showtime.
Chapter 15
Everleigh was distracted from thoughts of sex with Clarke as they trailed her husband’s ex-lover from her home through the streets of Grave Gulch. Everleigh was aware of Clarke’s hands on the wheel, of his upper arm muscles when he turned, but mostly her attention was glued to the blonde woman driving the car a few vehicles in front of them.
Clarke changed lanes more than Brenda did. He signaled and left the road, only to do a U-turn and return to the lane before he’d lost her. He turned once, sped up and rejoined traffic once, too. All, she quickly realized, to make certain that if Brenda was watching her rearview mirror, she wouldn’t see them there right behind her. She wouldn’t know she was being followed.
In those few minutes, Everleigh realized how very good Clarke was at what he did.
And was thankful all over again that he was not only on her side, but on her case. She never should have pushed him to talk about personal things. She’d known she was making him uncomfortable. She wasn’t even sure why she’d done so, other than because her stomach really was in knots with the whole thing and she just wanted to confront it. Deal with it.
But the talk...whatever she’d hoped to get out of it...had fallen flat.
“She’s going to the new gym,” she said aloud as Brenda signaled a turn and then slid her vehicle quite adeptly into a parallel parking space out front of Grave Gulch’s newest health spa. “I wonder if she switched before or after Fritz was killed,” she mused. Interested, but not overly so. She felt no fear watching this woman. She just didn’t think Brenda was the o
ne who’d killed Fritz. Or tried to kill her. Just didn’t get those vibes. The woman seemed too caught up in her own world to be attempting murder.
But Everleigh was a barmaid. Not a cop or an investigator of any kind. If Clarke thought following Brenda would help solve the case, she was willing to sit in that car for as many days as it took.
“Maybe she’s got a new guy to fawn over,” she added a couple of minutes later.
Clarke seemed more intent, now that Brenda was on the move. Watching everything around them, as though their suspect could suddenly spring out from behind a tree, instead of the door she’d entered through. Which was good. Kept them safe from touchy subjects.
Twenty minutes passed, and Everleigh was still thinking about getting touchy. With Clarke. An idea was forming. It was stupid, inappropriate, completely unlike her...
And yet something within her pushed the thought forward in her mind. She’d been so good for so long and it had landed her with imminent divorce papers; a dead, cheating husband; in prison; and then with her grandmother in jail, with someone still trying to kill her.
“I don’t want to die without knowing if sex can be as good as that kiss promised it would be.” She knew all about promises, though.
In her world, they rarely came true.
Not if they were good ones.
And yet...even with all that had gone on...hope sizzled inside her. For Gram. For her future.
“You aren’t going to die on my watch.”
He’d relaxed back a bit, but was still watching outside the car the entire time. On watch, not just watching, she amended as her mind replayed his last statement. But he hadn’t addressed her suggestion...
“I was thinking more about having sex on your watch. Later.” She almost cringed as the words slipped quietly out. But she didn’t take them back. Or even regret them.
His lack of response was not encouraging. And with his coat open, but covering his crotch, she couldn’t tell if there was any other reaction from him.
She couldn’t see his gun, either, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one.
She knew for a fact that it was strapped around his waist, right where it always was when she was around.
Muriel had cheated on her husband. Fritz had cheated on her. And Clarke was suspiciously silent...
Did being faithful in a past relationship mean that she wasn’t sexy anymore? To her former partner—or a future one?
“I’m free. It’s a new feeling. I’m not in any way looking for a relationship. I’m coming off from eighteen years of sex with only one man, and while I thought it was good, as good as it got, I’ve got this very nagging suspicion all of a sudden that it wasn’t all that great, as standards go.”
“If you want to have a no-commitment, onetime thing sex with me, just say so.” His words were a tad strangled sounding.
And she smiled to herself. He was strangling on his desire for her. She just knew that. And liked the sense of power that made her feel.
“I want to have sex with you tonight,” she said. They were in a safe zone. Trapped in a car, unable to rip each other’s clothes off. Or even kiss. “Just one and done.”
He nodded. Never took his eyes off the world around them, but he shifted and she saw the way his crotch filled out. “Fine. Tonight. One and done.”
Five words, spoken unemotionally, and her panties got wet.
* * *
Clarke knew he was a whole lot more versed in the sexual arena than Everleigh was. Worried that her innocence was part of what charmed him about her. Her fidelity.
He didn’t want to be the one who made sex just a physical occurrence, as opposed to the emotional commitment it seemed to have always been for her.
And figured she’d change her mind by the time they were back at his house, darkness had fallen and it was time for the deed.
The good man in him hoped she did. He couldn’t speak for his carnal side. Mostly because he was trying not to listen to that.
Troy called to let him know that there were no forensic-science conferences going on in New York or Chicago, but police from both cities had been alerted to be on the lookout for Randall Bowe. His photo was going up in all precincts in both places. Troy and the GGPD were in the process of trying to track down Baldwin Bowe.
Brenda Nolton apparently worked out for an hour, based on the time she entered and exited the gym. She got her nails done. And she went for coffee with three other women. Gal pals, not mere work associates, judging by the hugs and laughs, and four-headed huddles. And then she went home. Three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and she was already back at her place.
Didn’t seem at all like a woman out to kill another.
Or to find something she wanted badly enough to kill for it.
“I really don’t think she’s the one,” Everleigh said as they watched the younger woman let herself into her little house. They’d grabbed a sandwich from a drive-through while Brenda had been in the nail place, keeping Brenda’s car in sight the whole time.
He’d heard back from his relative in Grand Rapids. Annabelle Belinski had an alibi for the entire past week. She’d been skiing in Colorado.
He was back to having no suspects.
“Let’s head back to your place,” he said. “I want to go through Fritz’s things, one by one, read every ledger, if I have to. There’s got to be something there that will tell us who he was close enough to, what he was into, that had him winding up dead.”
“I’m fine to go back, but what if whoever it was really did find it last night? How will we know that it’s done?”
Done. As in, she was ready to go home? To get out of having sex with him that night? Was she having regrets already?
“We’ll know it’s done when we find Fritz’s killer,” he told her. He’d stay out of her bedroom, out of her pants for the time being, but no way was he sending her back to that house alone. Not with a killer on the loose. “Whoever it is, they weren’t just looking for something. They wanted you dead, too.”
She shuddered. “I was hoping that they only wanted me dead so they could have me out of the way to find what they needed. Before I found it,” she told him.
“Then why weren’t they looking when you were in prison?” he asked. “Why did it start two days after you got released?” He’d been asking the questions for two long days. Was frustrated as hell that he hadn’t come up with the answers yet. “The only thing that makes sense is that this is a crime of passion. Whoever killed Fritz had emotional ties to him. That’s pretty obvious by the rage with which he was killed. And the choice of weapon. It wasn’t a premeditated murder. And it wasn’t self-defense, either, based on the crime scene. There was no sign of a scuffle. Nothing on Fritz that made it look like he’d been in any kind of struggle or had hit anyone. And no other blood at the scene except his. And afterward, whoever it was had to have hung around for a bit, perhaps exhibiting remorse. The way the paperweight was wiped clean...” He was watching Brenda’s house, but knew that was a dead end, too.
Putting the car in gear, he headed down the street and turned toward Everleigh’s neighborhood. He was missing something. And every minute that passed without him figuring out what it was was another minute her life was in danger.
* * *
“When we get close to your house, I need you to lie low.” Clarke’s words were the first spoken in close to five minutes. She’d been sitting there thinking about his thighs, his groin, his chest without a shirt on. Keeping her mind on the thing she wanted and off what she didn’t want.
“With the car change, and you at my place, it’s possible that whoever is after you hasn’t been able to find you. They could be staking out your house.”
Fear went through her. And exited, too. Fine. “Let them come at me,” she said. “At this point, I’d rather ferret them out than be in hiding. No offense, I’m...um...k
ind of enjoying my little bit of time with you...” How could she not say that, when in just a few hours they were going to be naked? She really was starting to believe there might be something between them that was going to make her feel blissful. Just thinking about him naked was doing things to her that Fritz’s body had never done. Naked or otherwise...
“But this is also like being in prison.” She got around to finishing her statement. “A lot nicer prison, but still, imprisoned.”
Although, being locked up with him in the room, doing things to her, was a possibility she was eager to explore. For one night only.
“I have to get home,” she told him. “I have to figure out who I’m going to become. And how I’m going to get there. I’m thirty-eight, not twenty. I don’t have time to waste.” And she couldn’t get it wrong, either. She’d wasted a good part of eighteen years, building something that had been nothing.
He was taking a long route. Crossing back and forth across main thoroughfares. She knew what he was doing. Making sure they weren’t followed. And checking out the entire area before he actually took her to the one place the killer knew was associated with her.
Everything she owned was there. She had to go back sometime.
“Why not start a salon?” he asked, watching the area around them as he turned closer to her neighborhood. “You said you wanted to. You’ve already got the real estate. It’s in a great location. And you said you’re coming into some money...”
Way more than she’d need to remodel the gym. Some of the spa stuff she’d want—the tanning bed, the massage room—were already there. She was the one responsible for their presence, actually. They’d been her idea and she’d worked with the contractor to get it done.
The changing rooms were up front and could easily be renovated into stylist stations. The electric and plumbing were already there. The cement floor could be painted. She’d need padded floor mats for the stylists to stand on all day, to protect their legs and backs...
Colton's Killer Pursuit Page 15