Читать книгу Killer Smile - Marilyn Pappano - Страница 11
ОглавлениеWhen Daniel Harper was a kid, he had decided on two career options for the future: he would become the President of the United States, and in his first term, with his great wisdom, foresight and people-pleasing skills, he would solve the country’s problems once and forevermore.
Or he would become a doctor—not the medical kind; he had an aversion to sick people and preferred to avoid their spores when at all possible—and by the time he was thirty, he would discover a little known gene that, with slight manipulation, would cure all of humanity’s ills.
Instead, he became a cop.
In Cedar Creek, Oklahoma, with a population of twenty-five thousand—comprised of farmers, ranchers, cattle people and horse people; country folk and city folk; sports fans, foodies and good ol’ boys; stubborn men, stubborner women and pretty young things; cowboys, Indians, oil people and church people; winemakers, meth makers and troublemakers.
And beset by the most diverse weather he’d ever experienced, everything from drought to flood to blistering heat and subzero freezes, windstorms, hailstorms, ice storms, tornados and, lately, earthquakes that made his home state of California look like a slacker.
Life in Los Angeles hadn’t prepared him for this.
A snort ahead of him drew his attention to his fellow detective, Ben Little Bear, standing on the first of the six broad steps that led into the Cedar Creek Police Department. “You gonna stand there and soak up a little more water? Isn’t stepping in the puddle enough for one day?”
Daniel scowled at Ben, then at the water that had collected in the low spot in front of the steps from the downpour that didn’t appear to plan on stopping anytime soon. He knew the low spot was there. Knew it filled with water with the lightest sprinkle. Knew because he’d worked there five years, and because he’d stepped in it on the way out two hours ago. The water had finally drained from his shoes and his feet had stopped squelching with every step, and now...
Still scowling, he climbed the first step, shook the excess water from his shoes and his trouser legs, pulled his raincoat closer and swore mildly. His father cussed like the proverbial sailor and had made him cringe more than a few times as an impressionable kid. Now, at thirty-one, he rarely said anything harsher than damn himself.
This rain deserved more than a damn.
Finished shaking, he trotted up the remaining steps and followed Ben inside the station. It had been a post office back in the day and was as stately a building as any he’d ever been inside. The floor was marble, and so were the panels that went four feet up the walls. Here in the lobby, the ceiling was fourteen feet high, with the original chandelier still in operation. Sound echoed out here, but as soon as he walked behind the tall counter and into the station proper, with its lower ceilings and ugly industrial rugs, the echoes faded.
A row of brass hooks mounted on a gleaming oak plank hung on the wall just inside the doorway. He hung his soppy coat there and picked up the towel he’d left earlier, making half an attempt to dry his face and hair.
“Dan’l, you had a visitor,” Cheryl called from her desk. She was the chief’s secretary, but she pretty much handled the entire office. Though taking messages and making notes on comings and goings wasn’t technically her job, what was the use of working for the police chief, she declared, if she didn’t get to poke her nose into everyone’s business?
“Daniel,” he muttered under his breath.
She looked over her glasses at him. “I thought you’d given up trying to correct me years ago.”
He had. The best way to deal with annoying people, his dad had taught him, was to ignore them. Once they saw that their actions were no longer annoying, they stopped.
The best way to deal with annoying people, his father had disagreed, was to knock the crap out of them every time they annoyed you. Eventually they learned to leave you alone.
Both of his fathers were right. Ignoring people worked fine sometimes. Body-slamming them to the ground was sometimes the better option. But Cheryl was on their side, more or less, and Chief Douglas wouldn’t take kindly to Daniel body-slamming her.
“Who was it?” he asked, hanging the towel back on its hook so it could dry.
“She didn’t say.”
Hmm. He knew an awful lot of shes, though most of them wouldn’t just drop in on him at work. “What did she want?”
“She didn’t say.” Cheryl slurped the last of her coffee from a giant mug that proclaimed her Queen of the World, and then wheeled her chair off the mat behind her desk and across the floor to what she called the beverage center. It was only fifteen feet. She could have walked with less effort.
“Was it about a case?”
“She didn’t say.”
He ground his teeth as he watched her fix her coffee. Wishing that someone else, even one of the inmates in the jail in the back, had talked to this visitor, he gritted out, “What did she look like?”
“She didn’t—Oh. She was pretty if you like size twos who look like they just strolled in off the beach, and what man doesn’t? I’m pretty sure she was wearing tinted contacts because I don’t believe anyone has eyes that shade naturally. Oh, and she was wearing the cutest dress, sleeveless, scooped neck, with a fitted bodice and a drop waist with a little pleating that gave it really nice movement when she walked. And her shoes! OMG.”
Bewilderment joined Daniel’s annoyance. All this talking, and had she actually said anything? He didn’t know what size two meant in women’s clothing. Small, he presumed. He would also presume the unnatural eye color was blue, green or some shade of purple. But scooped neck? Fitted bodice? Drop waist?
“So, she was a small woman in a cute dress?”
Cheryl scowled at him. “Isn’t that what I just said?”
From his desk in the back, Ben snorted again. Daniel was glad he provided entertainment for the guy. That could be his new purpose in life. Or he could just go ahead and strangle Cheryl like he’d wanted to since fifteen minutes after meeting her. He would even write up the inventory of his own personal possessions, take his own fingerprints and lock himself in the holding cell. No jury who’d ever met Cheryl would find him guilty.
“Next time someone comes in, get a name, would you?” he groused, heading past her desk to his own in the back.
“I asked, but—”
Everyone else in the room—three detectives, five uniformed officers preparing for shift change and two dispatchers in their alcove to the left—all chimed in together, “She didn’t say.”
Sometimes he hated this place.
No one in the department had a private office besides the chief and the assistant chief, who was out of town for training. The detectives had desks clustered in the rear of the large room and conducted interviews in the conference room off to the right. Normally, he was okay with that, but there were days when a person needed a little privacy and right now, as he kicked off his wet shoes and peeled away his dripping socks, was one of those times.
“She makes LA look better every day,” Ben said from his desk a few feet away.
“I thought you’d never been to LA.”
“I haven’t, but I don’t need to see it to know it beats working with Cheryl.”
Wringing first one sock, then the other, over the trash can, Daniel scowled at him. “She likes you.”
“No, she just has more fun with you.”
Ben turned back to his computer, where he was making one of his infamous lists. He had one for everything, probably even sex, and reviewed them regularly. It was the way he worked. Daniel preferred keeping information in his head and staring into space while letting his subconscious brain piece it together. It was the way he worked.
Though in his lifetime there had been no shortage of people pointing out that his way looked an awful lot like daydreaming. He didn’t care. He produced results. That was what mattered.
Footsteps echoed in the lobby, but he didn’t turn to look at the newcomer. They had a desk sergeant for that—and, of course, Cheryl. Plus Morwenna, one of the dispatchers, was nearly as nosy as the secretary, just in a much more pleasant manner.
Ben’s chair creaked as he swiveled to face Daniel. “Do you want to interview the suspect or the victim in the morning?”
“Victim.” It was an easy choice. Ben was more comfortable with suspects, and he’d handled far more domestic assault cases. Daniel had too much experience with bullies and related far better to the victims. It was odd that empathy was one of his better traits as a detective when most people thought he came down on the lacking side of the emotional scale.
“Deal. So...you don’t know any pretty size-two blondes with a fondness for black dresses with fitted bodices?”
“What do you know about fitted bodices?” Then Daniel stopped typing mid-word, and he looked up at Ben. “Cheryl didn’t say the dress was black.”
“That’s some good detecting there, son.” Ben nodded toward the front counter.
As Daniel slowly swiveled his chair, he realized the room had gone quiet and everyone was waiting expectantly, their gazes shifting from him to the counter and back again. When his own gaze got there, he saw why. There was the blonde, tall, pretty, not small—just a couple inches shorter than him—but slim and curvy and definitely looking like a California beach girl. Her hair was super short—last time he’d seen her, it was long enough to wrap his hands in—and to anyone who didn’t know her, she looked like a ray of sunshine on a dreary day.
But he knew her.
He’d been engaged to marry her.
Until she’d dumped him in front of every single friend and relative they’d had.
What in hell was she doing here?
Natasha Spencer would bet there wasn’t a person in the room who had any idea how much it was killing her to stand there and let them—let Daniel—stare at her. She used to have a lot of nerve—more then than now. Back then, she would have dared them to look their longest and hardest. She even would have done a few model-on-the-runway turns so they could form their impressions, back and front. Now she just stood, half a smile frozen on her face, and wished for a sudden case of amnesia. People always stared, but if she didn’t know why, she couldn’t care.
She’d hoped Daniel would come to the counter, maybe walk off to a distant corner or even outside with her. There was an overhang out there that provided protection from the rain. But he showed no inclination to even rise from his chair. He was leaving it to her.
She took a few more steps, until the counter blocked her way, and tried for a better smile. “Hello, Daniel. I was wondering if we could talk.”
Her words echoed off the high ceiling, followed immediately by the swivel of eight or ten heads to look at him. His silence was going to be even more booming and echoey, the kind they could get lost in and never find their way out of, and the hell of it was, he was entitled.
“We could always talk. Our problem was communicating.”
Funny. The words were in what she considered his usual tone of voice: even, cool, rational, calm. Growing up the way she did, she’d always loved even, cool, rational and calm. It had soothed her every time he’d said something as benign as, Do you want seafood or Thai for dinner?
But there was an edge to his voice that she’d heard so seldom she rarely remembered it, a sharp edge that passed for angry in his cool, calm world. It made her gut tighten. She lived with guilt all the time, and she hated it. Almost as much as she hated coming here.
She couldn’t think of anything to say to that, especially nothing she wanted to say in front of his coworkers. She didn’t turn and slink out, though. Unless he’d changed tremendously in the past few years, he wouldn’t shut her out. He was too courteous to leave any conversation hanging like that and too curious to leave this one hanging. No matter what he felt, there was one question he would have to ask: Why the hell are you here?
Yeah, this was a curse-inducing moment if he’d ever had one.
Water was pooling around her shoes, and the air-conditioning gave her chills where her dress was damp from blowing rain. She’d left an umbrella next to the door, but it hadn’t proven much help when the wind brought the rain in sideways. She thought longingly of returning to the room she’d rented, taking a warm bath, having a bottle or two of wine and coming up with a new plan, because apparently this one wasn’t working.
Then, with a heavy sigh, Daniel stood and walked toward the counter. His feet were bare, she realized, cute with his dark gray suit, white dress shirt and black tie. He looked more approachable barefooted...though that was just fantasy. Sometimes he was an easy man for mushiness and sentimentality. Other times, he was logic and pragmatism personified.
He stopped with ten feet still between them. “What?”
She caught a whiff of the cologne he’d worn since he was sixteen, when he’d filched a bottle from his dad’s bathroom. She never remembered the name, but she knew the bottle. She’d bought it often enough for him in their time together.
“Archer and Jeffrey send their love.”
His only response was a twitch in his jaw. He must have already figured out she’d located him with his fathers’ help. It wasn’t as if he and she still had any friends in common. With another man, she might have pleaded for him to not be angry with Archer and Jeffrey, but Daniel’s relationship with them was such that he would never blame them for giving him up to her.
No, he would save his blame for her.
“There’s a diner across the street from the courthouse. Could we go there for a cup of coffee?”
He glanced over his shoulder, but she couldn’t tell what he was looking at: his desk, the clock on the wall back there or the big dark-haired detective whose desk was nearest his. Asking for permission to go or an excuse not to?
After a moment, he said an ungracious, “All right,” and started to come around the counter. Halfway he turned back, went to his desk, pulled a pair of running shoes with socks stuffed inside from a drawer and tugged them both on. Running shoes with a suit. She would definitely have to tell Jeffrey about that.
Finally he met her in the lobby, shrugging into his raincoat, while she picked up her umbrella. She waited until she was outside, beneath that little overhang, to shake the water away and then open it. Without speaking, she offered to share it with him. Without speaking, he moved far enough away to make his answer clear.
She supposed the space between the police station and the courthouse qualified as a town square. A gazebo stood in pride of place, a grassy area around it, and a parking lot on the east side. She’d never heard of Cedar Creek until Archer had told her the name, and she hadn’t seen nearly enough, but it seemed a sweet town, with an old, well-preserved downtown, lots of stone and brick, a lovely mix of commercial and residential spreading about a mile along First Street.
Natasha couldn’t think of anything she wanted to say that he might want to hear, so she grabbed the anxious, antsy Tasha in her brain around the throat and kept her quiet. Soon enough, she would have to talk, and she wouldn’t get a sympathetic reception, and it was going to be hard enough without Tasha running her mouth.
Her legs were wet when they reached Judge Judie’s Diner. The woman who owned the hotel down the street had referred her there for lunch, and the coffee had been unusually good.
She and Daniel reached for the door at the same time. He backed off before their hands touched. She’d forgotten he liked doing little courtesies like that. She pulled the door open, closed her umbrella and set it in a galvanized bucket for that purpose just inside.
“Sit wherever you like, hon.” The waitress gave Daniel a warmer smile. “Good afternoon, Detective Harper.”
She chose the last booth along the wall and started to slide onto the back bench. Daniel shucked his coat, draped it over a chair at the next table and shooed her to the opposite side, so he faced the waitress, though she doubted that was his sole intent. These days she was more comfortable sitting where she could see the door and who came through it. According to popular legend, so were most police officers.
The flirty waitress came. Natasha ordered coffee. Daniel asked for pop and a piece of pecan pie. When the woman was back behind the counter, he folded his hands together in his lap and said, “Well?”
Something sad settled in her stomach. She’d thought he might give her a break. Five years had passed. He’d moved on, moved up. He’d had other relationships. He’d probably even fallen in love again. She’d thought, for old times’ sake, he might bury the hatchet, and not in her.
“How are you?” she asked hopefully.
Irritation flared in his dark eyes. “You want chitchat? I’m fine. I like Cedar Creek. I like my job. I like it so much that I suggested my fathers consider moving here when they retire. How are you? Why are you here? Just making rounds of the people-I’ve-screwed-over club? Are you going in order? Kyle, Eric, then me? Did I miss anyone?”
Heat warmed her face. The fact that it was well deserved didn’t make it any less embarrassing. And he did miss one. It was Kyle, Eric, Daniel and Zach. Opera had its Four Tenors, her mother teased, while Natasha had her Four Fiancés. Her older sister referred to Daniel as Runaway Bride, Third Edition.
The waitress returned, giving them curious looks as she set down drinks and a dish of pie that looked incredible. “Can I get you anything else, Daniel?”
He turned his attention to the waitress, and a sort of smile twitched into place. “No, thank you, Taryn.” The smile disappeared as soon as she walked away. He took a bite of pie and washed it down before scowling at Natasha. “Look, I have a body found in a burned-out car, an attempted murder where the victim’s still touch-and-go and a woman to interview in the morning whose husband just broke her jaw for the second time in two years, plus her arm and her shoulder and her eye socket and might have done enough damage to leave her blind, to say nothing about the rest of the cases piled on my desk, and it’s the second Thursday of the month. First responders’ league at the bowling alley, and the chief gets annoyed when his detectives don’t show up. Just say what you want to say, Natasha, then do your disappearing act again. Preferably for good this time.”
This had been a stupid idea. There were a dozen different better ways to do what she needed, ways that didn’t involve laying eyes on Daniel or having to feel his bitterness and know she was wholly responsible for it. She dug ten dollars from her purse, laid it on the table and slid to her feet. “I’m sorry. I’ll find another way.”
He didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t even watch her walk all the way to the door; she felt the instant his attention shifted elsewhere. When she stepped outside and turned to the right, toward her hotel down the block, she glanced back at the last possible second and saw Taryn sliding into the seat she’d vacated.
Though she had no right to care, somewhere deep inside, it hurt.
By the time Daniel returned to the station, the shift change was over and Cheryl had gone home. Thank God for small miracles. He was surprised she hadn’t hung around to ask questions about Natasha—important ones like, Where did she get that cute dress? and OMG, don’t you love those shoes? A person would think, working in a police station, Cheryl understood the concept of You have the right to remain silent, but it didn’t register with her.
He’d slid into his chair and started shutting down his laptop when Morwenna popped out of the dispatcher’s shack and zeroed in on him. She was a few years younger than him, had come to Oklahoma from a small village in Cornwall long enough ago that her British accent was hit or miss, and she had a rather unique fashion sense. She was the least annoying person in the office besides Ben and the chief, and she and Daniel had actually considered going out on a few occasions before deciding neither appealed to the other in the right way.
She nudged one of his shoes before perching on the edge of his desk. “That’s some fashion statement you’re making, Detective.”
“Don’t tell my dad. He’d be mortified.” When Natasha had seen his running shoes, she’d looked like telling Jeffrey was exactly what she had in mind. Of course, Jeffrey’s mortification would be feigned. It was the reaction people expected from a man in his business.
“Eh, my mum’s mortified all the time by my clothes. She says I’m trying to embarrass her into an early grave.”
“Yeah, didn’t I see your mum out on her twelve-mile run this morning in the rain? She didn’t look like she might drop dead anytime soon.”
“Not unless it’s from exhaustion. She says she can’t skip her training just because of the weather. She’s got an ultramarathon coming up next month.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Something extreme and excessive.” Morwenna stretched out one leg, flexing her muscles inside the pink tights, and sighed. “Do you know what’s it like when your mum has a better body than you do?”
Daniel frowned at her. “Remember Jeffrey? Been a model since before I was born?” A few of the people he worked with knew his fathers were gay, but only Morwenna knew much about them. She liked things that made people different. People who weren’t different, she sighed, were so much the same.
“Ooh, yes, I forgot. I saw that last ad he did for Migliora cologne. Whew. If I didn’t know... Yeah, I can see how you’d feel second-best compared to him.”
“I didn’t say I felt second-best,” Daniel protested. “He’s...”
“Something to aspire to.” She slid to her feet and started back across the room.
“Hey. I thought you were going to ask about...”
“Natasha? I’ll get to it, all in good time.”
“How do you know—I never told you her name.”
She smiled smugly. “That’s some good detecting there, Daniel. Bet a clue never gets past you, does it?”
Daniel scowled at her until she was out of sight, then began packing up his desk. If somebody offered him a nickel, he’d go home and to bed. But like he’d told Natasha, the chief didn’t like it when they skipped bowling night. With all his refined tastes, why couldn’t Jeffrey have insisted on teaching him to play polo or ride dressage or something like that?
He made it out of the station without talking to anyone else, slogged his way through puddles and streams and reached the car with his feet soaked again.
It was only a few blocks to the duplex he rented in one of Cedar Creek’s older neighborhoods. It was a nice house, built of deep-red brick and topped with green-clay roof tiles. The place had been built with a main entrance on the street it faced and a servants’ entrance on the street that sided its corner lot. Fifty-some years ago, the owner, with two spinster daughters, had made the servants’ entrance identical to the main one and divvied up the interior into two halves of a whole.
Sad to think all that exacting work was easier than finding husbands for the daughters.
He didn’t have to be at Thunder Lanes Bowling Alley until 6:30 p.m., so he showered, then sprawled on the couch to watch the news before heading out. When his cell phone signaled a text, he frowned. His parents had told Natasha where to find him. Had they also given her his cell phone number?
It wasn’t her. That was relief he was feeling. He was pretty sure, even if it felt kind of strange. It was Jeffrey.
Are you still speaking to us?
Of course.
Did you speak to her?
No more than I had to.
I hope you weren’t rude. Even if she deserved it.
Daniel scrubbed his face. Sometimes he had trouble telling the difference between plain speaking and rudeness. He’d often been accused of the latter when he simply wasn’t mincing words. Had he been rude to Natasha? Yeah, the people-you’ve-screwed-over bit had probably crossed the line. He certainly could have phrased it better.
Though he also could have phrased it the way Archer would have, with a few alphabets’ worth of f-words.
I might have been. A little.
Your father said we should ask you first, but it seemed really important to her.
Daniel responded with one of the lessons Archer had taught him that Jeffrey had always tried to unteach: it’s easier to apologize later than to ask permission first.
His dad prefaced his answer with a frowny face.
Are you okay?
He considered it. Yeah, he was feeling a little cranky, but he was always cranky. He leaned toward the serious-dour-cynical side on the best of days, and this day had already gone down the toilet before Natasha showed up.
I’m good. I get to go bowl tonight.
Hope you get nothing but strikes. Love you.
Daniel typed the same, then tossed the phone aside. What excuse had Natasha given Jeffrey and Archer to get his whereabouts from them? What could possibly be important about talking to him now, five years after she returned his engagement ring via her sister? The time for saying, Gee, Daniel, I’m having some doubts, was long past.
Or, Sorry I broke your heart.
Even, Sorry I didn’t have the nerve to humiliate you in person.
Funny that she’d come all this way to talk and, after they left the police station, she’d said a total of nine words to him. How are you? I’m sorry. I’ll find another way.
To do what? Clear her conscience? If she felt guilty about the way she’d ended their relationship, that was fine, but he had no absolution to offer. It was over and done with. He’d even learned something in the process: to not believe for a second that he could be the one to change her. She’d told him on their second date that she’d run out on two previous fiancés, but he’d been stupid enough to think this time would be different. He would be different. He would be the one who made her want to stay.
Over and done with.
He’d believed that for a long time, since he’d reached the point where he went entire weeks without thinking about her. Missing her. Wondering what he hadn’t given that made it so easy for her to leave. He’d believed it when he finally started dating again, when he’d thought he was falling in love again. It hadn’t happened—the falling in love—but he liked to think it would have if they had been at different stages in their lives.
But if it was over and done with, why was he so darn irate?
The Prairie Sun Hotel, located a few doors from Judge Judie’s, was a three-story building with a sandstone facade and leaded-glass double doors leading into the lobby. It had begun life as a mercantile, later became a JCPenney, then an indoor antiques mall and now was a boutique hotel. It had been an easy choice for Natasha after seeing the cookie-cutter motels on the highways leading to Tulsa. Parking in the tiny lot out back was the only downside, but she could live with that.
She could live with it easier if she wasn’t convinced both she and her car were going to sprout mushrooms if the rain didn’t stop soon.
Her room was on the second floor at the front and had wood floors and tall ceilings and a claw-foot tub in the bath. Instead of a closet, there was a scarred oak armoire, standing across from the vintage tubular steel bed. It was all so lovely that the only thing she would even think of changing was the line of small iron birds that danced along the top bar of both the headboard and the footboard. Not only were they just too much, as Jeffrey said about excessive decorations, their sharp beaks and wing tips looked a little dangerous for someone wandering to or from the bathroom in the middle of the night.
She sat at the small oak table that served as a desk, her tablet and keyboard in front of her. She intended to spend the rest of the evening the way she usually did—a few games of Candy Crush, then a few chapters of whichever book caught her fancy. Fantasy tonight, she thought, with dragons and knights and self-rescuing princesses. Something that would take her out of Cedar Creek and far, far away from Daniel’s dislike.
“You dumped him,” she muttered aloud. “Did you really expect him to be happy to see you?”
No. She’d never thought he would be happy. He took things so seriously. Sometimes she’d wondered how someone raised by two majorly passionate people could be so cool and unemotional. Maybe he was just a version of her: coming from such a chaotic family, she’d craved quiet and calm. Maybe he’d craved rationale and reason.
But he felt things. Felt them deeply. He’d trusted until he’d learned better. He’d been fiercely loyal until she’d showed him disloyalty. He would have done anything for her until she’d done everything to him. He was done with her. She understood that. Respected it. Accepted it.
But it still stung.
With the email icon on the tablet screen showing new mail, she raised one hand to swipe across it, then hesitated. The tiny hairs bristling on the back of her neck told her there would be an email from him. The reason she had made this trip. The reason she’d had to face Daniel. She wanted to indulge in childlike games: if she didn’t open the program, she wouldn’t see the email, and if she didn’t see the email, it didn’t exist. He didn’t exist.
But he did, and all the pretending in the world couldn’t change that.
She had the usual spam in her inbox, a funny message from her sister, Stacia, and a sweet how-did-it-go note from Archer. He was the gruffer, blunter of the two Harper men, but he had a soft spot for her, and she for him.
And yes, there was also an email from him.
RememberMe.
The sight of his screen name made her skin crawl and her hand tremble when she tapped on it. Her cell phone had been blissfully silent today, but Monday he’d texted her multiple times.
You’re late for work, Nat. Why?
Your office said you didn’t call in. Are you sick? I should call Stacia to find out.
Where are you, Nat?
On Tuesday, he’d opened with...
There’s no family emergency or Stacia would be gone, too. Where are you? What are you doing? Why are you making me worry?
Are you too sick to answer your phone? Should I ask the dispatcher for a welfare check?
Is this about Kyle’s accident?
Answer me, damn it.
His final text that night had made her shiver and hunker deeper into the covers of a cheap motel somewhere in Texas, along Interstate 40.
I went by your apartment tonight, and your car was gone. What are you up to, Nat? Why are you doing this to me?
What he was doing to her apparently counted for nothing, and what he’d done to Kyle...
Goose bumps everywhere, she finally focused on the tablet screen.
You shouldn’t have done this, Nat. But it’s okay. I’m not mad. I was, but I’m not anymore because I know I’ll find you. The connection between us is so deep and strong that I’ll always find you, and when I do—after all, Cedar Creek’s not that big—you’ll never want to leave me again.
Damn it, he knew where she was. Deep inside, though, she wasn’t surprised. Coming here had been on the spur of the moment; on Sunday night she’d called Archer and gotten Daniel’s information, told Stacia she was leaving, packed her bags and slipped out of the apartment before dawn Monday morning. But she’d known RememberMe would figure it out. He knew everything she did.
Swallowing hard, she pressed her hands together to stop their trembling. He made her feel so damn vulnerable. There had been times when his messages were almost sporadic, a few weeks when she hadn’t heard from him at all. She’d readjusted to life quickly, neglecting to be wary when she was out, to look over her shoulder or to search for familiar faces in unfamiliar places. Then, when she’d thought he’d moved on, that some other woman had caught his fancy, another email had found its way into her inbox, or a text to her cell phone, or a card to her mailbox.
RememberMe. When the first emails had come, she’d thought the name was cute, a friendly question without the question remark. Hey, remember me? After what had happened to Kyle, she knew there was nothing cute or friendly about him.
And she didn’t have a clue in hell who he was or what he wanted besides frightening her. She didn’t know why he was fixated on her, how he’d gotten her email address or her cell number or her home address. She didn’t know how he tracked her down every time she changed jobs, where he watched her from, what he wanted from her.
What was the point of his sick game?
Right now it didn’t matter. All she had to do was warn Daniel. Have that conversation he so clearly didn’t want to have. Give him one more reason to hate her. She would do the same with her other two exes—she was still searching for them—and then she would find herself a hiding place so far away that RememberMe would never find her.
She closed her email and stared at the screen a long time before opening the browser. Cedar Creek was a pretty little town, but she needed to put it in the rearview mirror as soon as possible. Vulnerable wasn’t a pleasant way to feel, and she wanted it done.
It wasn’t likely that a town the size of this one had more than one bowling alley, and a search showed that was true. She’d discarded her wet shoes when she came in from the diner and hadn’t brought another pair that went so well with the dress, so she changed into jeans and a button-down, put on chunky-soled boots that should keep out the worst of the water, grabbed a raspberry-colored slicker and her bag, and left the room.
Claire Baylor, proprietor, manager and housekeeper of the Prairie Sun, was sitting behind the grand oak counter, a book propped open on the desk. When she closed it, Natasha caught a view of the cover. The Unlucky Ones.
“I’ve heard that book will give you nightmares,” she commented.
Claire came to stand in front of her. “It makes me unbearably sad.”
“I haven’t read it. These days, if it doesn’t make me laugh or give me the thrill of adventure, I don’t read it.”
“It’s disturbing but hopeful. She survived horrible things and went on to live a good life.” Claire glanced past her to the wet street outside. “Are you heading out?”
“Yeah. I was wondering where to find Highway 97.”
“Main Street, a couple blocks west, becomes 97 when it leaves town. Anyplace in particular?”
“The bowling alley.”
The woman winced. “I had to take a physical education class in college, and I chose bowling because...well, let’s face it. I’m not a physical sort.” She patted her rounded hips. “Luckily, the instructor graded on effort, because I don’t think I threw a single ball all semester that didn’t go into someone else’s lane.”
“I’ve never tried the game. I just can’t see the point of heaving a twelve-pound ball at a bunch of pins that far away. Of course, I never got the point of golf or tennis, either. Hockey—that makes sense to me. Pounding people who get in your way.”
Claire’s laugh was hearty and easy, as if it was second nature. “I’m with you, sister. Anyway, just go up to Main, turn right and it’s a couple miles north on the right side of the road. Have fun.”
Claire left the desk and walked with Natasha to the rear door, where the hour and the weather kept the lot dimly lit. “Feel free to park on the street out front when you come back. Your key unlocks both front and back doors, and after talking about that book, the front’s just less creepy.”
“Thanks.” Natasha jogged to her car and locked the doors as soon as she was inside. There’d been a time when that had instantly made her feel safer. Not any longer. Even a thorough look around the vehicle didn’t inspire confidence. She didn’t know what skills RememberMe possessed. He’d found her new email address every time she’d changed it; within twenty-four hours of her changing her cell number, he was calling again. She’d moved from an apartment in her own name to one in her cousin’s name, and flowers had arrived at her doorstep the next morning. Was tampering with her car beyond him? Was anything beyond him?
The tears that had put a quaver into Kyle’s mother’s voice last weekend answered that question effectively.
But the car started fine, and when she turned on the heat to dispel the chill, nothing noxious poured from vents. This was one of the problems of a stalker: he frequently made her lose sight between reason and paranoia. At the moment, she wasn’t convinced there was a difference.
The gutters along First Street were overflowing, spreading into the street and sometimes bubbling onto the sidewalks. With no oncoming traffic, she drove, straddling the dividing line to stay out of the deepest water. It wasn’t seven thirty yet, but it seemed hours past her bedtime. The clouds, the constant flow and splash, the damp and the chill all combined to convince her winter was on its way in a place where it mattered. Not the mild few months they got at home but real cold, real snow, real ice.
Thunder Lanes couldn’t be missed. It sat in a mix of industrial and residential structures, the only business open now, its blacktop parking lot full. Natasha was lucky to find a space near the front as another car backed out. She swooped in, sat there gripping the steering wheel for a while and then forced herself to let go. Open the door. Take off her seat belt. Get out. Close the door. Walk to the main entrance and...and...
She actually decided to leave but got caught in the shuffle when two customers left and four more came in at the same time. Before she got untangled, she was on the other side of the doors, with escape behind her and loud music and loud voices ahead.
She wasn’t intending to talk to Daniel tonight. She would just walk inside, keep her distance from his group. How hard could it be to avoid a bunch of cops, deputies and firefighters? She would get a snack and find an out-of-the-way place to watch him for a bit. See how he interacted with the others. See if he was still angry.
See if he’d brought that girl, Taryn.
The lanes were busy. The food counters weren’t. She got a beer and a corn dog, a glob of mustard and napkins and scoped out the best place to go unnoticed. The arcade was mostly empty, and only a couple of kids played in the enclosed toddler playground next to it. A narrow counter and chairs lined one side of it so parents could keep watch.
Only one woman sat there, dark-haired, pretty, the messy remains of hot dogs and pop to one side, along with a mountain-sized pile of dirty napkins. She caught Natasha’s look and smiled drily. “Silly me. I thought it would be hard to create disaster with a bun, a wiener and a spurt of ketchup. Who knew?”
Natasha left two seats between them and sat to the woman’s left, where she would have an excuse for looking toward the first responders at their side-by-side lanes at the far end. “Your kids?”
“Oh, no. Samwell is my husband’s cousin’s child. He’s spoiled rotten, throws temper tantrums at least once an hour and thinks he will absolutely ‘diiiieeee’ if he doesn’t get his way every single time. The girl who ignores him and plays so politely is the daughter of one of the firefighters over there.”
“You don’t bowl?”
“I only come for the popcorn. Who are you with?”
Natasha’s face flushed. “I only came for the corn dog and the beer. I’ll have to try the popcorn next.”
Briefly taking her gaze from Samwell, the woman smiled. “I’m Mila.”
“Natasha.” She dipped the entire end of her corn dog in mustard and was taking a big bite when Mila made an interested sound.
“Are you the Natasha?”
Mustard went down her throat the wrong way, and bits of breading tried to work their way up and out her nose. She covered her face with a handful of napkins, spitting and wheezing at the vinegary burn, so lost in her little fit that she barely heard Mila say, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Followed by, “Ooh, I’ll take that as an even bigger yes.”
Natasha swiped the tears from her eyes and wiped her face clean before looking toward the lanes where all the good-looking guys were. Had been. One was weaving his way around benches and bowlers toward them.
And he didn’t look happy.
