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Suddenly realizing what he wanted to do, Lindsay whirled from the window and shook her head emphatically. “No. Absolutely not. My mother is well now. Dredging it all up again could—”
“Don’t you want to know?”
“Of course I want to know!” she shot back, her tears close now. “But she’s already had one heart attack. She was lucky that it was mild, but I won’t put her at risk, even on the outside chance that you’re right about this. Just—just stay out of it. Ricky is still dead, and nothing has changed. If the police aren’t interested in reopening the case, let it go. And who says this Decker kid even knew what he was talking about anyway? Ike, you know what happened the last time you decided to do someone else’s job.”
It was a low blow, but he was so set on getting what he wanted, he seemed impervious to it. “Yes, I do. And if I need a reminder, I get one every time I walk into my apartment and you’re not there.”
Before Lindsay could reply, Ike released a ragged blast of air, ambled a few steps away, then came back to her. His gaze passed over her T-shirt and cutoffs again, then returned to her face, his eyes betraying the gentler emotions he kept hidden from the dark and dangerous people he did business with.
“I failed Ricky,” he said quietly. “I tried from the time we met to straighten him out, and I couldn’t do it. If by returning him to jail, I delivered him to a killer, I need to know, and the person behind it has to pay.” He paused. “Talk to your mother. Ask her if I can look through his things. I swear I’ll leave everything exactly as I found it.”
God, he made her ache. “How can you ask me to do this? You know how she feels. She’s never gotten past the sight of you handcuffing Ricky in her backyard.”
“I tried talking first. Your mother knows that. And so do you.”
But when talking hadn’t worked, her mother had expected Ike to look the other way. She hadn’t cared about losing the bail money— She’d expected him to let his brother-in-law go.
“Lindsay, he was twenty-three years old. It was time for him to grow up and take some responsibility for the lousy choices he’d made—not run to his mother like he always did, hitting her up for traveling money—and worse, making her an accessory to a crime. Skipping out on a drug possession charge was just plain stupid. Ricky knew the narc who nailed him was interested in bigger fish—and the narc knew Rick had some useful information. It was a foregone conclusion that they’d offer him a deal. He wasn’t going to spend any time in jail.”
“Exactly,” she said, leveling her gaze on him. “Just like the dead skip from yesterday.”
For a moment, Ike didn’t move a muscle, guilt and bad memories overtaking him again. As always, Lindsay’s words cut to the bone. Then he nodded slowly. “At least think about it.” If he knew anything about her at all, he knew they’d taken this discussion as far as they could tonight. “If you change your mind, I’ll be at the Drifter.”
Ike saw her eyes grow wary and uncertain. “You’re staying in town? It’s only a forty-five minute drive back to Portland.”
“Just overnight.” He hesitated, wondering if he should push for what he wanted using a different approach, then did. “I hoped you might want some justice for your brother so I booked a room with the intention of looking through his things in the morning.” He ascended the landing steps. “Apparently, I was wrong.”
Lindsay stormed up the steps after him. “Don’t you dare dump this on me! My refusal has nothing to do with my lack of caring, and you know it. So stop trying to manipulate me. I won’t put my mother at risk.”
“She can stand right there while I search.”
“And have all her pain dredged up again? No.”
“All right. I’ll find another way to get it done.”
Furious, Ike started to leave, then stopped. He was entitled to his bitterness, but Lindsay had adored her brother from infancy, no matter what kind of trouble he’d dragged home, and she was hurting now—because of him. He couldn’t leave her like this.
“I smelled varnish when I came in,” he said quietly. “I guess you’ve started another project.”
Even during their short time together, she’d always been working on something. If it hadn’t been refinishing a table or chest of drawers, it had been creating beautiful pinecone wreaths for Christmas gifts. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” she’d laughed a million years ago, and tugging her into his arms, he’d chuckled that there were at least a dozen other uses for idle hands.
She took a deep breath, appearing to have noticed his change in demeanor. “I got a good price on the house because there was a lot to do. I’m refinishing the original woodwork—tackling one room at a time to keep my sanity. I have an enclosed back porch that works pretty well as a work space.”
“It’s a big house.”
Nodding, she sent him a wan smile, making Ike think that she, too, wanted to end the night on a decent note. “I’ll be on Social Security before I’m through, but it’ll be worth it.”
“Nah,” he answered, feeling a funny clutching in his chest. “It’s only June. You’ll have everything shipshape before Christmas so you can bake cookies and deck the halls and do all that other stuff you and your mom get involved in during the holidays.”
“Maybe so,” she murmured.
Ike could tell that she, too, was remembering that their one-and-only Christmas together had been cozy and warm, and Ike could almost smell the homey fragrances of pine boughs and cookies baking in the oven. Then the emotional silence stretched out too long, and things got awkward.
“Better leave a window open tonight,” he said gruffly as he stepped onto the porch. “You shouldn’t be breathing in those fumes.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Of course she would, he thought as she followed him out, the screen door creaking shut behind them. She was a paramedic. She knew the dangers better than most people did.
As he moved to the top of the steps, Ike scanned her peaceful neighborhood. Night was on its way. The air had cooled a little, and the crickets were already ringing out a cadence, the vast, open sky filling with stars. Some distance away, the turret atop the Spindrift light began to glow and turn.
He met her soft green eyes again, and damn if that clutching in his chest didn’t come back. “If you change your mind—”
“I won’t. I’m all she has left. Dad’s gone. Ricky’s gone. I can’t let her think—”
“What? That you’ve thrown in with the enemy again?”
“Ike, that’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not,” he replied grimly. “It never was.” Then without looking back, he descended the stairs, crossed her lawn to the driveway and climbed into his SUV.
Lindsay watched until his taillights disappeared and he headed toward town. Then, feeling her heart sink and her tears begin to flow, she went back inside.
Eighteen months. Heaven help her, she’d thought she was cured, settled, finally free of those clawing regrets and the blame she’d never wanted to place on him, but had—and still did. She couldn’t help herself. Love between a man and woman was a powerful thing, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d ignored all the pleading and warnings and now her brother was dead.
Once again, memories rushed forward, poignant then wonderful, then terrible and bittersweet. And though she tried her best to push those images aside, they just kept coming. But every warm, laughing, touching scene with Ike was always superimposed over Ricky’s trapped expression the day Ike took him away. And it hurt. Heaven help her, it hurt so much.
Thoroughly frustrated with herself for backsliding, Lindsay wiped her tears and strode quickly into the hallway off her living room, through her kitchen and to her back porch. There was work to be done, and she would do it. But within minutes, she was sealing the varnish can, cleaning her paintbrush in the mudroom and sobbing so hard she could barely see what she was doing.
Damn him. How could she let him do this to her? How could she long for his arms and his warmth so desperately, and at the same time, resent him for bringing back memories she didn’t want to face? If he’d just let Tank take Ricky in, if he’d just listened to her, and respected that family was a tender, fragile thing, maybe she’d be varnishing woodwork for their home, not hers. Maybe Ricky would have arrived at the jail hours later, and the man who’d taken his life would already have been processed and sent to another facility.
Except…now Ike believed that Ricky’s murder wasn’t a random killing. He believed her brother’s death was inevitable.
Suddenly something Ike had said came back to her, and Lindsay’s thoughts sped off in a new direction. He’d said he’d find another way to accomplish his search. What had he meant by that? Would he go to her mother on his own? Get her all churned up again, too? More than he had already?
That thought sparked a related one and Lindsay’s heart shot into her throat. Dropping the brush in the sink and wiping her hands on the front of her shorts, she rushed to her empty dining room where her computer was set up. Her mother hadn’t called to warn her that Ike was on the way—and she would have phoned if she was able.
Seconds later, she sighed in relief when she heard the monotonous beeping coming from the phone on the hutch and saw the receiver tilted in the cradle. Earlier, a telemarketer had called, and in her eagerness to get back to work, she’d been careless hanging it up.
She’d scarcely bumped the receiver back into position, when the phone shrilled. Wiping her eyes again, then noisily clearing the tears from her throat, she picked it up and said hello.
Arlene Hollis’s usually loving voice was irritated when she replied, but Lindsay was still glad to hear it because she knew her mother wasn’t ill.
“Lindsay?”
“Yes, Mom, it’s me.”
“Oh. You sound funny.” Suddenly, concern entered her voice and she murmured, “Honey, are you crying?”
Holding back a sigh, Lindsay sent her gaze skyward and prayed for help from above. She didn’t want to get into any of this with her mother. Not tonight. Not anytime. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“I hope so. Because I’ve been speed-dialing you for the past fifteen minutes, and all I’ve been getting is a busy signal.”
“I’m sorry. My phone was off the hook. I just now hung it back up.”
A heavy silence stretched between them, then continued for so long, Lindsay wondered what was going on. She got her answer when her mother spoke again in a suspicious, far-from-gracious tone.
“Why was your phone off the hook?” she asked. “And whose idea was that?”
Chapter 2
Ike walked in the darkness to his courtyard room, and in the glow of a moth-covered porch light, let himself in. After clicking on the lamps, he shut the door and tossed his duffel on a nearby chair.
His head was pounding like a freaking kettledrum. Digging some aspirin from his pack, he strode into the tiny bathroom for water to wash them down, bending to drink directly from the tap. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Now he had other images banging around in his head—not just Ricky and a boatload of hope and guilt. Now…now she was there, and she was there with a vengeance, strangling him with memories that were best shoved aside.
Dammit, he should have phoned her instead of driving up here. Even if she’d wanted to, she wouldn’t have hung up. She had too much class for that. But the little pot-stirring troublemaker in his head had insisted that his chances for success would be better eye-to-eye, and idiot that he was, he’d listened.
Ike yanked off his cowboy boots and let them clunk to the floor, then stripped off his shirt, jeans and socks and added them to the pile. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of himself in the mirror, and he stilled. He took a tentative step closer and stared gravely at his reflection.
Did he look older than his thirty-six years? Or just…grimmer? His hair was still dark brown—no gray ones yet—and the sun creases beside his eyes were barely noticeable in his tanned face.
Still, he hadn’t had a decent haircut in months, his beard stubble had reappeared and his dark eyes looked as haunted as some of the skips he picked up. Add the bumpy scar on his hip from an old bullet wound, he decided sarcastically, and he made one hell of an appealing package.
So why did he even give a damn how he looked tonight?
You know the answer to that one, hotshot.
Ike yanked his gaze from the mirror, bristling defensively and telling himself that he didn’t give a damn. He hadn’t driven up here to impress her. His “beauty” regimen was as simple as it got. No frills, no thrills. He showered, shaved and wore clean socks. That was it. Anyone who expected more could stuff it.
Cursing beneath his breath, he shed his underwear, then turned on the shower spray and snatched up the soap and tiny bottle of shampoo that housekeeping had placed on the vanity.
He was grateful for the amenities. He hadn’t packed much more than a change of clothes, his laptop, files and a razor, and the last thing he wanted to do was shop for the things he’d left behind.
Stepping inside the shower, he yanked the curtain closed, shut his eyes and let the water beat his face and shoulders. Let it pound his chest. These days he was thankful for the little things.
Because if there was one thing he’d learned in the last two years, it was that the big things—the important things—had gotten away from him.
Lindsay had barely said goodbye to her mother and returned to the mudroom to finish cleaning her paintbrush when the phone rang again. She sighed. She couldn’t take another bitter dissertation on the evils of Ike Walker, not tonight. Not with Ike’s troubling request still nagging at her. Not with her heavy heart still aching after seeing him again.
Quickly wiping her hands on a paper towel, she returned to the dining room. It was a relief when she checked the phone’s caller ID window and saw a local, though unfamiliar number. After her mother’s tirade, even another phone solicitor would be a welcome break tonight.
But it wasn’t a telemarketer looking to sell her more magazines.
John Fielding’s mellow voice had a smile in it when he identified himself. The bookstore’s courtly new owner was a recent arrival from Boothbay, and a decade older than Lindsay’s thirty-two years. When she’d met him at his shop’s grand reopening, she’d liked him on the spot, and it must have been mutual because he’d asked her out the very next day. She’d had her first date with him last weekend when they’d driven to Portland for dinner and the theater, then afterward, lingered over lattes and biscotti at a cute little coffee shop to discuss their love of books.
“Hello, John,” she said, glad for a reminder that she was making some changes in her pitifully out-of-balance life. Since she and Ike had parted, she’d filled her days with work, time with her mother and the occasional outing with friends. “How are you?”
“I’m well, thanks,” he said, a little hesitantly. “But forgive me, you sound tired. I hope I’m not calling too late.”
It was barely eight-fifteen. Lindsay let his comment about fatigue slide, though she did feel drained—and she knew exactly who to blame for the condition. “Of course it’s not too late. What’s up?”
“Well,” he said, happily warming to his topic, “last week you mentioned that you’d scheduled some vacation time to work on your home. I was hoping you’d set aside one of those days for me. Even a few hours would be wonderful.”
Lindsay waited through his chuckle.
“I don’t mean to be unkind,” he went on, “but my predecessor’s tastes were a bit pedestrian. How would you like to help me plan a store layout with a little more panache? Possibly help me move some books around and collaborate on a window display? It would give us time to get better acquainted, and later, I’d be delighted to take you to dinner at any place you name.”
“Sure,” she replied, wishing the prospect excited her more—and knowing where to place the blame for that, too. “When would you like to do it? I work tomorrow—Friday—then I’m free for two weeks.”
“A week from Sunday? I’m anxious to begin, but I’d rather not be all torn up during the week, especially since I just opened, and I’m closed on Sundays anyhow. Besides, waiting would give me time to make some of the preliminary moves. Would that work for you?”
Lindsay mustered some enthusiasm for him. “Next Sunday will be fine. By then, I’ll probably be glad to leave the sandpaper and varnish behind.”
But as she hung up a few minutes later, a hollow spot opened in her chest as she recalled something Ike had said when they’d just begun dating…when their hormones were in overdrive and she’d felt her pulse race just hearing his voice. When she’d asked him what was up, Ike had answered very differently.
“What’s up?” he’d murmured, making her knees go weak and her tummy float. “My temperature, thinking about you. When can I see you again?”
Sighing, determined to put Ike and the evening’s events out of her mind, Lindsay prepared to leave the room. Then her gaze caught the family photo of herself, Ricky and their mother atop her computer hutch. It had been taken two years after her father’s death, when she was sixteen and Ricky was eleven. Her heart lurched painfully as she reached for the beloved photograph.
What a darling little boy he’d been—her parents’ miracle child after doctors had informed her mom and dad that there would be no more babies. Then Ricky had shown up, all pink and wrinkled, and the three of them had showered him with love—especially Lindsay. She was his big sister, his doting protector. Then one afternoon as her dad was driving Ricky to a Little League game, a drunk driver hit their car head-on, and in an instant, Richard Hollis was gone. Her father’s death had devastated the whole family, especially nine-year-old Ricky, who was left with a pile of survivor’s guilt. After that, he’d struggled to find his place in the world.
Lindsay stroked her baby brother’s face through the glass, tears filling her eyes again, feeling the pain and helplessness again. Feeling the big-sisterly guilt. She’d failed Ricky, too. She’d promised to take care of him, and she hadn’t.
Releasing a trembling breath, she replaced the photograph and wiped her eyes before the tears could gain a foothold. Ike was right. They needed to know if Ricky’s death was connected to yesterday’s shooting. They needed to know if it was a random act of violence, or a cold, calculated murder.
Ten minutes later, she’d changed into faded jeans and a navy sweatshirt, and was striding down the dark, sloping road toward the harbor. Krafty Millie’s Café came into view first, the white-sided building brightly lit. Music and chatter filtered into the night as patrons left through the plate glass door and walked to their cars…and next door, sharing the same spacious parking lot, The Spindrifter Motel’s flashing neon sign said they had a vacancy.
Lindsay’s heartbeat quickened. Ike’s black Explorer was parked outside a room where light seeped under the closed drapes on the wide window, and a porch light attracted a squadron of moths. It was the only room near his SUV that appeared to be occupied.
Inhaling deeply, she crossed the gritty asphalt lot, walked up to the door and shooed away a few little fliers.
Suddenly it flew open, and she was tugged, gasping, inside.
“Sorry if I startled you,” Ike grumbled, quickly shutting the door and flicking the wall switch beside it. “I heard you walk up, and I’d rather the moths found another place to crash for the night. I should’ve turned off the porch light earlier.”
“No problem,” she said shakily. Her hand tingled from his touch, disturbing little sparks zipping up her arm. That tingling quickly moved to other places when she focused on his face and realized he’d just showered. His hair was wet, and the fresh hunter-green shirt he’d pulled on hung open, showing a tapering mat of chest hair. For a second her gaze followed that soft hairy trail downward where it disappeared behind the brass button on his jeans, then she jerked her attention back up to his face.
A heady awareness flowed between them, and in that moment of silent appraisal, Lindsay knew she shouldn’t have come. The earthy chemistry they’d never been able to ignore was revving up again, bumping her nerve endings. Giving her tightening stomach ideas. And the close, heavy humidity from his shower wasn’t helping.
She glanced away as he buttoned his shirt, taking in the generic decor, flickering television screen and the nautical prints on the walls.
“I hope you’re here to say you’ve changed your mind,” Ike said. There was a white towel slung over his shoulder. Taking it off, he tossed it on the back of the only chair in the room. The seat held his duffel bag, a bulging file folder and the black valise containing his laptop, one of the tools of the trade that was always at his fingertips.
On the rare occasions that he wasn’t chasing a bail jumper or doing legwork for a Portland private investigator, he was tracing skips online. He’d once joked that he could work naked from their bed. All he needed was a phone and an Internet connection.
“I’m not happy about it,” Lindsay replied, “but yes, I’ve changed my mind. You were right. If someone arranged for Ricky’s death, that person has to pay.”
