“Don’t tell me you had a favor to call in in Worcester, too,” Laurel said.
“As luck would have it.” Scott had always been lucky when it came to his job. Another reason to make his life nothing but work.
They’d stopped at a twenty-four-hour superstore earlier that morning and picked up some essentials plus a change of clothes for each of them. Laurel had put on her new jeans and white blouse in the dressing room at the store.
“Hey,” she said.
He looked up. “What?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For making sure things weren’t weird this morning.”
Oh, but they were. So weird. No matter how badly she needed his friendship, Scott knew for certain he was going to have to tell her the truth.
“No problem,” he told her. They had a case to solve. Three people to find.
And then he was going to tell her.
He had a strong suspicion that every moment until then was going to be torture. And he didn’t want to think what it would be like once he lost her for good.
* * *
“SCOTT, IT’S GREAT TO finally meet you,” Officer Murphy said as he ushered Scott and Laurel into an interrogation room at the police station, closing the door behind them.
Laurel was silent as Scott, shaking the other man’s hand, returned the compliment.
The two men talked briefly about their mutual acquaintance, an officer Scott had known in the academy who’d asked Scott to pick up Murphy’s runaway niece from a truck stop outside New Ashford the previous year.
“How’s she doing?” Scott asked Murphy now.
“Good, thank goodness,” Murphy said, his face serious. “Every once in a while a kid gets scared straight. Kaitlin’s been the model daughter and student ever since she got back. I think it helped that instead of ranting at her and slapping her with some stringent punishment my sister and her husband listened to the kid and addressed the problems that had led to Kaitlin’s running away in the first place.”
Scott introduced Laurel then, telling Murphy that she was an investigative reporter helping him with this unofficial investigation.
The three of them sat down on hard plastic chairs at the small table in the center of the room, an open file in front of them. Murphy gave Laurel permission to tape their session.
“So far Arnett’s been a model parolee,” Murphy was saying. “He checks in like clockwork. Has a job. Really seems to be sincere in his attempts to take advantage of this second chance and make a new life for himself.”
“Where’s he working?” Scott asked, his notebook in one hand, a pen in the other.
“For a car dealership selling new trucks, which is perfect for him. He’s got the gift of gab, that man.”
“The type of salesman you want to watch out for?” Laurel asked.
“That’s putting it lightly.” Murphy sat back in his chair, his hands in the pockets of his workday blues. “Dennis Arnett could charm the meat off a cow.”
Looking at Scott, Laurel wondered if he was remembering, as she was, Katy Miller’s description of Leslie Renwick’s new boyfriend. Too charming. At first, it was a long-enough stretch to seem incredible, but considering the Renwicks had been one of Dennis’s sister’s largest clients, the idea didn’t seem quite so fantastic.
Of course, if she and Scott were correct in thinking that Cecilia was Leslie’s mother, that would mean Dennis Arnett was dating his own niece.
Not a pretty thought. Judging by the grim look on Scott’s face he was traveling in the same negative direction as well.
“In spite of some very prominent strikes against him, I have high hopes for Arnett,” Murphy was saying. “He settled right down as soon as he came to town. Even has a girlfriend. As far as I can tell, he’s been with the same woman for the entire time he’s been here.”
Scott pulled out a picture Katy Miller had given them. Laurel’s chest filled with dread.
“This isn’t her, is it?” he asked, his gaze intense as he watched for the other man’s reaction.
“That’s her, all right,” Murphy said, leaning forward with a frown. “What does she have to do with you?”
“We think she’s missing.”
As Scott filled Officer Murphy in on what they’d found out so far, starting from the call he’d received to investigate a possible missing person, Laurel wondered how much longer they were going to be able to keep kidding themselves that William was going to be fine.
Something was very, very wrong.
“You said earlier that Arnett had some prominent strikes against him,” Scott stated minutes later. “What did you mean by that?”
Murphy was still frowning. “He’s a repeat offender for one, though this last stint was the first time he’d ever spent any real length of time behind bars. First time to actually make it to prison.”
“Let me guess, his family was able to buy his way out of trouble before that.”
“From what I can ascertain.” Murphy nodded.
“So what else?” Scott persisted. “You said strikes as in plural.”
Sliding a sideways glance at Laurel, Murphy hesitated, but only for a moment. “There was some...uh...trouble when he first got to prison....”
“Trouble that he created? Or the ‘virgin blood meets hardened criminal’ variety?”
“The latter. Arnett was in a spot of trouble one night, but before anything happened, one of the other guys was there. Saved his ass, from what I understand.”
“No pun intended?”
Murphy shrugged.
“So why is this a bad thing?”
“Arnett and the guy were seen together a lot after that. And Carl Nevil is not a man anyone’s mama would pick to be her kid’s friend. Too much time spent with him would lead anyone astray. He’s one of New York’s more famous crime giants—been in and out of prison more times than I’ve changed shoes. I hear he was just sent up for murder last year. And this time it should be for good.”
“Did you say Carl Nevil?”
Laurel glanced sharply at Scott. He’d sounded odd. Like he was trying not to choke.
“Yeah, you know of him?”
“Maybe.” Scott’s answer was vague, but there was nothing vague about his response to this interview. He was really bothered.
And that bothered Laurel most of all.
* * *
THERE WAS NO JOKE-TELLING that afternoon. And no more leads, either. Officer Murphy had given them the address of Dennis’s apartment—an old house he was renting, or half a house, to be precise. Dennis’s apartment had been renovated, while the other side of the house stood in vacant disrepair, waiting its turn.
No one answered Arnett’s door when they knocked, so they made a quick tour of the yard.
“At least Leslie’s car isn’t in the garage,” Laurel said as they stood on the front lawn, which needed a good mowing, and looked up at the vacant house. There was no sign of life anywhere. No junk mail. No newspapers.
They went to the car dealership next. Laurel wasn’t really surprised to hear that Dennis Arnett wasn’t there. The people she and Scott looked for were never where they were supposed to be.
“He worked on Saturday morning,” the sales manager told them. “We traditionally run a big sale this time of year and the entire front end of the dealership is required to work. He’s been off the last few days but he’s scheduled for the three to nine o’clock shift today. You folks friends of his?”
“Friends of the family,” Scott said, his jaw tense. “We’ll stop in later.”
“Can I give him a message?” The manager followed them out to the parking lot.
Thanking him for his offer, Scott explained that they were from out of town and it would be easier if they ch
ecked back in themselves. When they did, they found that Dennis hadn’t shown up for work that day.
Scott called Murphy to report the news. While Arnett was not required to let his parole officer know if he was going to miss a day’s work, he was required to stay in town. And to let Murphy know where he was staying.
“It looks like Arnett might be violating his parole,” he told Laurel as he dropped the cell phone into the console between them. He sat in the parking lot at the dealership, staring straight ahead. “Why does this not surprise me?”
Laurel wished there was something she could do to make things better for him. They paid another visit to Leslie’s after they left the dealership, but it proved to be equally futile.
They’d reached a standstill. If Arnett didn’t return, they were going to have to wait for his next meeting with Murphy two days later to question him.
If he showed up.
All in all, it had been a tough day.
* * *
AS SHE AND SCOTT finished dinner in a diner close to the motel, Laurel really started to lose hope. She just couldn’t come up with a good reason for William Byrd not to have at least called Twin Oaks to say he’d been delayed somewhere.
Or to explain why his car was at Cecilia’s, but he wasn’t; and Cecilia’s car was at Leslie’s, but she wasn’t.
“There was a park just a couple blocks from the motel,” she said as they exited the restaurant. “Would you mind taking a walk with me?”
As tired as she was, she knew the fatigue was more mental than physical. The thought of sitting alone in the motel room with nothing to do was not the least bit appealing.
And inviting Scott in was out of the question.
“Lead the way,” he said. “I’d be glad for the exercise.”
Moonlight lit the park better than streetlights could have, but it wasn’t a place Laurel would have wanted to be alone that late at night. Yet with Scott she felt perfectly safe. Energized, even.
“You have days like today fairly regularly, don’t you?” she asked him.
“Afraid so.”
“How do you keep it from getting to you? I keep thinking about William and Cecilia, what might be happening to them—or what’s already happened—and I get a sick feeling in my stomach.”
“It gets to me, but I’ve learned to channel my thoughts.”
His voice was strong in the darkness. Reassuring.
“To what?”
“I just focus on finding the answers. The sooner I do, the sooner the suffering stops, one way or the other.”
It was what Laurel had been trying to do most of the afternoon. Unfortunately she couldn’t control her thoughts the way Scott did. She envied him that.
They walked silently for a bit. The park was deserted except for the two of them, making Laurel feel that they were all alone in the world—a feeling she didn’t mind at all. Swing sets, monkey bars, a sandbox were all just shadowy shapes in the night.
“I saw you making a phone call when we stopped for gas this afternoon.” Scott’s voice, though soft, consumed her in the darkness.
“Yeah.” She’d thought he was in the men’s room.
“Were you calling the station?”
“No.”
“Who, then?’
She felt guilty as hell. “A friend.”
“Someone you know well?”
“Fairly well.”
“Someone you spend a lot of time with?”
“A fair amount.” Fair. Fairly. She needed to find another word. There was nothing fair about any of this.
A light breeze swept over them and Laurel shivered.
“A man?”
She didn’t want to do this and felt incredibly disloyal. “Yes.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Shane.”
“You’re dating him?” She couldn’t tell if the odd note in Scott’s voice was her own paranoid imagination or really there.
“Not really.”
“How do you not really date someone?”
Darting off the sidewalk, Laurel ran across the grass. “Let’s swing,” she called to Scott, sitting down in one of the black leather straps, grabbing hold of the chains with both hands and pushing off.
Instead of joining her, racing to see who could get the highest as he might have done in their other life, Scott stood behind her, gently pushing her.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said after a time.
“We spend most of our free time together,” she said slowly, trying to explain something she didn’t really understand herself. “Go to movies, to the theater, to dinner.”
“Sounds like dating to me.”
She shook her head. “It’s mostly platonic.”
“He’s gay?” Scott sounded so serious, Laurel laughed.
And was ridiculously flattered, too. As though a man couldn’t be with her and not want her in a romantic sense.
“No, he’s not gay,” she said.
“And he’s never tried anything?” He sounded as if such a thing weren’t even possible.
And Laurel liked that implication so much it scared her.
“He’s tried,” she said, struggling to think about Shane, not Scott. She knew what this thing with Scott was all about. They’d figured it out the night before. She was looking for solace. That was all.
“He’s even succeeded some.”
“And he wants more,” Scott guessed.
Laurel sailed higher, peaking for a second before coming down.
“It’s part of the reason I’m here,” she told him, once again being more open with him than was her way.
Things were changing. Within her. Around her. Nothing was making sense.
He pushed her a couple of times but said nothing. Each time she felt his hands on her back, she tingled with awareness. And was too needy to make him stop.
“Shane wants me to sleep with him.”
“That’s bold for a man you aren’t even dating.”
Even if she’d missed the sarcasm in his remark, Laurel couldn’t ignore the much harder push against her back. Scott disapproved.
Because of Paul?
Because Shane had asked her to sleep with him, not marry him?
She was grateful for the breeze that cooled her heated skin.
“It’s been more than three years,” she said, defending her actions—to herself as much as to him. “If I’m going to have any kind of life, I have to get over Paul. Move on.”
“That’s not reason enough to start sleeping with someone.”
That’s exactly what she’d been telling herself, but...
“Unless Paul is the only reason I’m hesitating.”
The swing was slowing as Scott’s pushes grew gentler. “Is he?”
“I don’t know.”
The swing had all but stopped. Scott sat down next to her.
“Do you think he is?”
She drew an arc in the sand with her foot. The rough grains filled her sandal, sliding uncomfortably between her toes. “I did.”
“Past tense?”
“I really like Shane a lot, admire him, respect him,” she said. “I enjoy our time together. The fact that he’s great looking doesn’t hurt, either.”
“So what’s the problem?”
She hesitated a moment before answering. “Anytime I think about going to bed with him, anytime he tries to get closer...physically...than we already have been, I feel trapped. I thought it was because of guilt over Paul.”
“So what changed?”
Safe in the darkness, Laurel couldn’t hold back the truth. Only Scott could help her put it in its right place—help her understand. “I didn’t feel trapped last night.”
>
“You were horrified.”
“You’re Paul’s brother.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“I’m deathly afraid I’m transferring my feelings for him onto you.”
“Were you thinking of Paul when you kissed me?”
Heat flooded her face, her body. “No.”
“How about when I kissed you back?”
He twisted her swing around to face him, holding her steady with his legs outside hers. “To tell you the truth,” he said, emphasizing each word with a squeeze on the outside of her thighs, “I’m flattered.”
Desire curled inside her so fiercely she didn’t have time to slow it down. To control it.
Leaning forward, Laurel touched his lips with hers, just like she’d been thinking about doing since she’d tasted him the night before.
This wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.
But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Wanting Scott was the first bit of powerful feeling she’d had since Paul was killed.
His lips were soft against hers. Undemanding—and yet responsive, too. He didn’t take over this time...wasn’t the least bit aggressive.
And yet, as her lips played over his, her hands resting on his thighs, he was right there with her all the way. Letting her coax him. Kissing her back.
With a boldness she’d never known before, her tongue played with Scott, running lightly along his lips, pushing between them, teasing his tongue.
He let her play, answering every move, instigating none. Turning her on, driving her crazy, making her want him more and more.
One hand slid higher on his thigh as she slipped in the swing. And then it moved higher because she wanted it to. Her fingers were at the juncture of his thigh, resting next to his groin.
This was Scott. Strong, confident Scott. And she wanted more.
Deepening the kiss from playful to serious, Laurel lost herself in the desire she’d built. Fire burned all through her as she left her hand just shy of complete intimacy on his thigh. His jeans were stretched taut and she was pretty sure her finger was resting against an erection. For her.
She literally ached with wanting him, but he didn’t move. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t touch her back.
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