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“Camden?” Bea said as she shuffled out the automatic door, her walker tapping on the concrete sidewalk. “Is that the jerk who dropped you like a hot potato?”
“He didn’t drop me, Bea. I broke things off with him. Remember?” she responded, trying not to notice the way Lucas was watching her.
“Here’s our ride.” He gestured to a black four-door sedan parked in the loading zone. Not what she’d have expected from him. When they were kids, he’d loved old cars and trucks. The older, the better, according to Lucas. He’d spend hours taking apart old motors and putting them back together.
She wanted to ask him how he’d ended up with such a modern and boring vehicle, but that was another question she didn’t need to know the answer to.
He opened the front and back passenger doors, gesturing for Emma to climb in as he helped Bea get settled. “Go ahead and get in, Emma. The less time you spend out in the open, the happier I’ll be.”
His words got her moving, and she slid into the passenger seat, slamming the door closed.
Lucas wanted to hurry Emma’s great-aunt into the car, but there was no hurrying a woman in her eighties. Especially not one who was recovering from a broken hip. She held on to his arm as he helped lower her into the car he’d borrowed from his grandmother. His personal vehicle was an old Ford truck, and he hadn’t thought either woman in good enough condition to climb into it.
He’d had no intention of letting Emma and Bea find their way home on their own. The evidence team was working to collect DNA from the ski mask he’d found, and they were looking through security camera footage from businesses near the bus stop where he and Henry had lost the scent trail. So far there was little to go on. No leads. No witnesses. Nothing but the nagging feeling that money wasn’t the only thing the perpetrator had been looking for.
He glanced at Emma as he pulled away from the hospital.
Aside from the bruise on her cheek and a smaller one on her jaw, she was colorless, her dark hair scraped back from her face and held in place by a pink rubber band.
She looked scared.
She should be.
She’d been accosted and beaten. Only the fact that he’d shown up had kept worse from happening. The need to protect her mixed with the desperate fear that he wouldn’t be able to save her any more than he’d been able to save Sarah.
His fist tightened on the steering wheel, and he glanced in the rearview mirror. Traffic was light, and the afternoon sun reflected off the cars and trucks that were behind him. No sign that they were being followed and no reason to believe anyone would bother. Unless there was something Emma wasn’t telling him.
“You didn’t ask me what else Camden had to say,” he mentioned casually, wondering if there was more to the ex-boyfriend than she wanted him to know.
“Because I don’t really care what he had to say. He’s not part of my life anymore,” she responded.
Lucas had been a police officer for seven years, and he knew the truth when he heard it. She was telling the truth. At least, her version of the truth. It was possible Camden’s version of the truth was different. “He might like to be.”
“I told you last night, Camden had nothing to do with what happened. He enjoys his job, his reputation and his money too much to risk it. Besides, he wasn’t sorry to see me go. He’s already dating someone else. As a matter of fact, he’ll probably get engaged to her on Christmas Eve and give her the ring he planned to give me.”
The guy sounded like a real winner. Lucas kept the thought to himself. “You’ve been back in Sagebrush for how long?”
“Two months.”
“He had a pretty quick recovery time if he’s already planning to marry someone else.”
“Exactly my point,” she said. “I wasn’t all that important in the grand scheme of his life. Certainly not important enough for him to follow me or send someone else after me.” She sounded unaffected, but her hands were fisted in her lap, her knuckles white.
He lifted one, running his thumb over the deep grooves her nails had gouged into her palm.
“He’s not worth it,” he said quietly. “You know that, right?”
“Worth what?” she murmured, pulling her hand away and rubbing it against her thigh.
“Any time or energy you might spend wishing that things had worked out.”
“I don’t wish that. I just...”
“What?”
“Thought I was going to have the dream. The house and the white picket fence. The career. The kids. The husband who adored me.”
“You still might have all those things.”
“I’m nearly thirty.”
“Ancient,” he joked, and she rewarded him with a smile.
“You’re six months older than me,” she pointed out.
“Some people might argue that that makes me six months wiser.” He turned onto Oak Street, the sound of her soft laughter ringing in his ears. It pleased him more than it probably should have, but he couldn’t make himself care. It felt good to be around Emma again. In some strange way, it felt like coming home.
He frowned, pulling into Bea’s driveway and parking the car. Her little house sat neat and tidy in the center of a perfectly manicured lawn. Two large mature trees stood at the edge of the yard. Years ago a tire swing had hung from one of the branches.
He got out of the car, scanning the yard and the street. No sign of danger, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t trouble lurking nearby.
“Ready?” he asked as he opened Bea’s door.
“I’ve been ready, son.” She let him help her out of the car, smiling as Emma handed her the walker that he’d stored in the trunk. “You come on in and have some coffee. If you play your cards right, Emma might even make you a snack.”
“Sounds good.” He followed the two women up the porch stairs, nearly walking into Emma’s back when she stopped short.
“The door’s open,” she whispered, stepping back so quickly that she bumped into Lucas. His arm wrapped around her automatically, his fingers resting against velvety skin as he looked over her head, saw that she was right.
The door was open. Just a crack. Barely enough to let light through.
“Go back to the car,” he ordered, nudging Emma out of the way.
“What do you thi—?” she started, but he cut her off.
“Take Bea and go. Lock yourself in the car. Don’t get out until I tell you different.”
She looked as if she was going to argue, but she glanced at her aunt, her expression tightening for just a moment.
Finally she nodded. “Okay.”
She helped Bea maneuver back down the porch stairs.
He waited until they were in the car, then pulled his service revolver from its holster and opened the door.
SIX
The door swung open easily. Just as Emma had known it would. She watched as Lucas disappeared into the house.
“What’s going on, Emma?” Bea asked. “Why are we back in the car?”
“The front door was open. Lucas wanted to...” What? Make sure a killer wasn’t lurking inside? She couldn’t say that to Bea. “Do you think you forgot to close the door last night?”
That was the easiest explanation, the most palatable one.
“Of course not!” Bea exclaimed. “I’d have been afraid that Fluffy would get out. You know how she is. Always wanting to wander the neighborhood.”
Actually, Bea’s dog was more likely to curl up on the couch and sleep, but Emma didn’t point that out. She was too busy staring at the open front door.
“Maybe it just didn’t close tightly,” Emma said. “It was damp and cold yesterday. That door is always tricky in the winter.”
True. All of it. But Emma still couldn’t shake her fear.
“Not so tricky that I can’t manage it. Besides, I locked the door when I left. I remember that clear as day,” Bea insisted. That didn’t mean she actually had locked the door or even shut it. Bea’s memory was about as reliable as the old car she used to drive.
Lucas appeared in the open doorway, a squirming white dog in his arms.
“There he is! Stay here, Bea.” Emma jumped out of the car, her head throbbing with the sudden movement.
“Slow down, Em,” Lucas jogged toward her, grabbing her arm when she would have sprinted up the porch steps. “You just got out of the hospital.”
“Was someone in there? Were we robbed?” She tried to pull away, but his fingers were like silken vises.
“How about you let me get rid of this dog before we discuss the open door, okay?” He walked her back to the car, passed Fluffy to Bea.
“Can you hold her for a few minutes, Bea? I want to bring Emma in the house, make sure nothing has been moved or touched.”
“Of course,” Bea murmured. “You’re such a kind and responsible young man, Lucas.” She glanced at Emma and smiled. “Isn’t he kind and responsible?”
“Sure,” she muttered, and Lucas laughed.
“Thanks, Em. I’m glad you think so.” He closed the car door and led her back to the house. “I checked all the rooms. It doesn’t look like anyone has been inside the house, but I thought I’d get your take on it.”
“Bea said that she thought she closed and locked the door when she left the house last night.” Emma hesitated in the threshold. The place looked the same—dusty wood floor that Emma really needed to dry mop, peach-colored walls that she was determined to paint as soon as she got Bea’s permission, big bulky furniture.
“It’s okay,” Lucas murmured near her ear. “I’ve checked every room. You’re not in any danger.”
She forced herself to walk inside. The living room was untouched, the book Bea had been reading sitting on the coffee table. The kitchen was spotless, the new appliances Emma had had installed gleaming in the sunlight that streamed through the back window. The dining room table had been set for two, the old sideboard Emma had found in the diner matching Bea’s eclectic style. The bedrooms were empty and silent, untouched as far as Emma could tell.
She opened the door that led to the attic conversion that Bea and her husband had made years before Emma was born. Narrow steps led to a spacious room that had once been the master bedroom. Bea couldn’t use it anymore. Emma had moved her into one of the main-level bedrooms so that she wouldn’t have to navigate up and down the stairs. Bea thought she’d move back into the room eventually. Emma hadn’t had the heart to tell her it wasn’t going to happen.
“You okay?” Lucas asked as he followed her up the stairs.
“Fine.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“Because I always am.” She glanced around the room, swallowing down a lump of sadness. She’d spent a lot of time in this room when she was a girl, lying on Bea’s queen-size bed and staring out the small dormer windows. Bea had always been there, bustling around the room, ironing shirts or skirts, talking about everything and nothing. More of a mother than Emma’s mother had ever been.
She walked to the rolltop desk she’d found in the diner’s office, touched the smooth old wood. When she’d brought it to the house, she’d imagined it lined with old photographs, imagined Bea sitting at the desk, writing letters to all her choir friends. It wouldn’t fit in Bea’s room downstairs, though, and there was no room for it in the rest of the house. Emma was going to move it back to the diner, put it back in the office where she’d found it. Forget the idea of Bea enjoying it.
“Em?” Lucas turned her so that they were face-to-face, his hands warm on her shoulders.
“Everything looks just the way we left it,” she said, her gaze on the old desk, the floor, the dormer windows. She didn’t want to look into Lucas’s eyes. She was afraid he’d see all the sadness and fear she was trying to hide, but she couldn’t not look. She met his gaze, felt the hot hard knot of grief pulsing behind her eyes.
He touched her uninjured cheek, his fingers lingering as he studied her face.
“It’s going to be okay,’ he said, his breath ruffling her hair.
“How do you know?” she said, her hands moving of their own accord, sliding around his waist and settling on the small of his back. She felt taut muscle and warm skin and the strange feeling that she was finally where she should have been all along.
She would have stepped back, but he wrapped her in a gentle hug.
“Faith. I believe God is in control and that He’s going to work everything out the way it should be,” he said simply.
“Faith is easy, Lucas. It’s trust that’s hard.”
Lucas eased back and looked into Emma’s face. She was the same Emma. Striking rather than beautiful, her cheekbones high, her eyes large and tip-tilted at the corners, her dark hair contrasting sharply with her fair skin. The same but different, too. No more colorful streaks in her dark hair. No more nose ring or multiple ear piercings. She looked grown-up, mature. Breathtaking. “I guess that depends on who you’re putting your trust in,” he said.
She nodded, stepping away, running her hand over a large rolltop desk. “I trust God. It’s people that I struggle with.”
“That’s not surprising. Your parents weren’t overly concerned about you or your well-being. I don’t think your boyfriend was any better.” He was blunt because that was the way it had always been between the two of them.
She stiffened.
“How about we change the subject?” she asked coolly.
“Sure. Let’s talk about the diner while we go get Bea,” he responded, and she finally met his gaze, her eyes the deep blue-purple of the sky at sunset. He’d forgotten what a dark blue they were. Forgotten how easily a guy could get lost in them if he let himself.
“What do you want to know?”
“You’re opening next week, right?” He pressed a hand to her lower back, urging to the stairs.
“Yes. Two days before Christmas. Bea chose the date. It would have been her sixtieth wedding anniversary.”
“Is there anyone who would want to keep that from happening?”
“No.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “The community has been really supportive. The local paper even did a feature article on the diner reopening.”
“When was that?”
“Last weekend. It ran in the Saturday edition of the paper,” she said as she walked down the stairs and into the hallway.
Lucas filed the information away, his mind racing with possibilities. Anyone who’d read the article would have known when the diner was set to reopen. Any predator looking for an easy victim might have kept watch, waiting for an opportunity to attack Emma when she was alone.
“You’re looking at me like I’m a bug under a microscope,” she muttered, swiping at a stray lock of hair that fell across her cheek as she led the way into the living room.
“You’re an attractive woman. It’s possible someone saw your picture in the paper—”
