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“I was. So was the coroner, the sheriff, some detectives and forensic techs from the county. Boy, were they were a grim bunch. The sheriff was downright stone-faced.”
For good reason…
Heedless of the hair clippings that remained on the floor, Claire set her broom aside. “Is he the one who told you about Pat?”
“No, C. C. Larsen did. When Gertie found him, she ran to C.C.’s to use the phone.”
“But C.C.’s house is a quarter of a mile from those rentals,” Claire said. Having lived here her whole life, she knew every street, every alley, every empty field and rental cabin. She’d searched them all, at some point, for her mother.
He adjusted his bag to redistribute the weight. “She didn’t want to go to another rental for fear of who might be there. You can understand.” Wrinkling his nose, he added, “C.C. and I watched ’em cart out the body.”
“This is terrible,” Vivian muttered, but she wasn’t really thinking about what she was saying. She was wondering if the panic intensifying her sadness over Pat’s death was justified or simply an echo of an earlier time.
“I tried to get a few more details from the sheriff, but…it was useless,” George said. “He told me he’s ‘investigating the incident’ and that he’ll know more later. He also said everything will be okay. But I don’t see how it can ever be okay for Gertie.”
The sheriff had answered without really answering. Vivian recognized his “cop-speak” because she’d heard it before. When her stepfather had been shot and killed, the investigators wouldn’t tell her or her family anything. Not knowing what was really going on had been almost as agonizing as learning that they were placing the blame on Virgil, her older brother, and prosecuting him, at eighteen, for murder.
“We’ve got a right to more information than that,” Claire complained. “It’s our community, too.”
George nodded. “I see those shows on TV. I know what can happen when a serial killer gets started. Psychopaths don’t quit till someone stops ’em. And this sounds like a psychopath to me. Who else would beat a man to death for no reason?”
“Do you think maybe some drug addict wanted Pat’s wallet and he wouldn’t give it up?” Vivian grasped at any feasible explanation, hoping the truth wasn’t what she feared.
“It’s possible, I suppose,” George replied. “C.C. told me that Gertie said his wallet was missing. But there was only about fifty bucks inside. Still, a bungled robbery would be better than a serial killer. Imagine someone like that Zodiac fella or—or BTK setting up shop here in the Chain of Lakes.”
Vivian couldn’t imagine it. That was the problem. Claire’s mother disappearing fifteen years ago was the only blemish on this town, and most folks believed she’d run off. Pineview, nestled so close to Crystal Lake, was picture-perfect. Safe. Close-knit. Stunningly beautiful. Untouched by the rest of the world. Apart from it, too. As George had said, Pineview didn’t even have cell-phone reception.
It did, however, have its first modern-day murder.
“The FBI would descend on us. The media, too.” George was expanding on his psychopath theory.
Claire checked the street, probably hoping to see her sister, Leanne, roll toward them in her motorized wheelchair. Crippled in a sledding accident when she was thirteen, Leanne drove it everywhere, even through the ruts on their road. “Maybe Chester over at the paper will get a letter from the killer, taunting Sheriff King.”
George staggered under the weight of his bag. “Or someone else will die.”
A real-estate agent beaten to death inside his own vacation rental spoke more of rage than a stalking type of murder, but Vivian didn’t say so. She preferred to fade into the background, didn’t want Claire or George to think she knew anything about the subject. No one here had any idea that her stepfather had been murdered, or that her brother had served fourteen years in prison before being exonerated. They had no idea of the problems that had started upon his release, either. Because all of that had happened to Laurel Hodges, not Vivian Stewart.
“If there’s a serial killer running around, the danger is far from over,” Claire said, but Vivian wasn’t so sure this perpetrator had killed just for the thrill of it. If the violent gang her brother had joined while he was in prison had caught up with her yet again, it could be that Pat had merely gotten in the way. Like that U.S. marshal in one of the places she’d been before. The Crew had slit his throat and left him bleeding out on the floor. They would’ve killed her, too, if not for—
She couldn’t even think of what had almost happened, because it involved her children. The men who belonged to The Crew were ruthless. They’d proven that, hadn’t they? They’d also proven that they could get hold of whatever information they wanted. Vivian was convinced that someone in the very agency charged with their protection had been talking. That was the only way The Crew could’ve found them before, when they were all living in D.C. So they’d left the witness protection program, assumed new identities yet again and separated. Other than Virgil, his wife, Peyton, and Rex, who lived in Buffalo, New York, no one knew where she was, not even their handler from WitSec who’d helped them relocate the first time. After all that, what more could she possibly do to keep her small family safe?
Should she have changed her children’s names, too? Because children were so difficult to trace—they didn’t sign up for credit cards or get jobs or do any of the other things that left a trail—she’d opted to keep their first names. They had a different last name, though, which they understood was because of her divorce. Her new first name, she’d told them, was because she liked it better. Even that had taken them a while to get used to.
“We need to look out for each other, report any strangers we see,” Claire said.
“But it’s tourist season,” George responded. “There’re always strangers this time of year, most of ’em young guys who’ve come to hunt or fish or canoe. And you know how rough some of ’em can look, with all their tattoos and body piercings.”
“Then we’ll have to keep an eye on all of them.” Claire glanced at Vivian, anticipating her full agreement, and did a double take. “Oh, my God! We’ve got to get you rinsed!”
She’d changed her hair. Drastically. Myles King noticed that right off. For one thing, she was now blonde. That suited her, but he didn’t know if he liked the cut; he couldn’t see Vivian clearly enough to tell. His neighbor waited just outside the dim yellow glow of his porch light as if she feared he might press her to come inside if she moved any closer. She always approached him as warily as she might a bear or some other dangerous animal.
Why was she so skittish?
He might’ve guessed that he intimidated her. Police officers got that reaction sometimes. It came with the uniform. But at six foot two, he was only four inches taller. And maybe she was slender, but she was fit. She didn’t seem like the type to feel easily threatened.
Besides, he’d been so nice to her! He rolled her garbage can to the curb if she forgot to set it out, mowed her lawn when he mowed his, bought enough fresh strawberries to share (he’d once overheard her telling her son that she loved fresh strawberries). He couched it all as an attempt to be neighborly, and it was—being neighborly to the beautiful brunette, who was no longer a brunette, next door. But nothing he did seemed to break down her defenses. Her kids were always excited to see him, but other than those strawberries or something as small as that, she politely declined every gift or invitation.
His instincts told him he was better off not getting involved with her. But he could sense the chemistry between them, and that was what confused him. He’d never forget the time he was working in the yard without a shirt and caught her watching him from where she was weeding her garden. It was as if a lightning bolt had gone through them both, incinerating them on the spot.
He knew desire when he saw it; she was as attracted to him as he was to her. So why wouldn’t she let him take her to dinner?
“Can I help you?” Determined not to try any harder than he already had, Myles kept one hand on the door. It’d been a hell of a day. The last thing he needed was to top it off with another dose of sexual frustration.
“Um, yes…maybe you can.” She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid my fridge has gone out.”
The images of blood and death he’d seen earlier still filled his head, making it difficult to immediately comprehend her words. He’d returned from the scene of Pat Stueben’s murder more than an hour ago, but he’d carried the grisly sight home with him. The fact that anyone would beat a good man, a friend to everyone, in Myles’s own backyard, so to speak, made him so angry he couldn’t think of anything else. “Did you say your fridge?” he clarified.
“Yes.”
He felt his eyebrows go up. “Okay…”
“It went on the blink a couple of hours ago and… Claire told me you’re a better handyman than Byron Jacobs.” She flashed him a quick smile. “She said he had to call you when he couldn’t fix her stove last month.”
She was here for a favor? She never darkened his door, except to drag her son away. Jake slipped over whenever he could. The kid liked to follow him around, even help with the yard work, so Myles had been training him to use the weeder, the edger and the pruning shears.
But he wasn’t in the business of fixing other people’s broken appliances. He’d done Claire a favor. He wouldn’t mind lending Vivian a hand, too, but it’d taken him three days to screw up the nerve to ask her if she’d go out on the lake with him two weeks ago. And her response? She had to clean her house—an excuse that was almost as bad as telling him she had to wash her hair.
He opened his mouth to turn her away. He was about to say the food would last until Byron could get to it in the morning. But he couldn’t make himself go through with it, which just proved how obsessed with her he’d become. His wife had died of cancer only three years ago—but thirty-six months of celibacy felt a lot longer to his body than his heart. Not only that, this was the first time Vivian had invited him inside her home. From what he could tell, she didn’t ask anyone in. Except maybe Claire and Vera Soblasky, who occasionally watched Jake and Mia for her.
Curious to see how she lived, he heard himself accept. “Sure. I can come over right now, if you want.”
“Marley won’t mind?” she asked.
His daughter had a friend over; they were watching a movie upstairs on the big screen in his room. They wouldn’t miss him if he stepped out for a few minutes. “No. She’ll be fine.”
Vivian’s face lit up. “Great. Thank you so much.”
When that rare smile shot like an arrow to his groin, Myles cursed the testosterone that made him so…male. He had single women coming on to him all the time, but he wasn’t interested in them. Instead, he wanted this complicated neighbor who’d let him know in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t welcome him even as a friend.
But tonight she needed help. And he was planning to make sure she got it. Apparently even the gruesome murder of an upstanding Pineview citizen couldn’t lessen her impact on him. “I’ll grab my toolbox and come over.”
2
Vivian sat at the kitchen table while the sheriff unplugged her fridge and tore apart the motor. She hadn’t been sure he’d agree to help, but now that he had, she hoped he wouldn’t be able to tell she’d sabotaged it herself. She also hoped the job would take long enough to strike up more than a superficial conversation with him. It hadn’t required much effort to cripple her fridge. She’d yanked out a few wires and was afraid he’d simply reconnect them before she could learn anything about Pat Stueben’s murder, see if he had any idea who might be responsible.
“Kids in bed already?” he asked as he worked.
“Yeah. They’re usually out by nine.” He looked better in a pair of jeans than any man had a right to. She tried not to let her gaze drop to the assets those jeans displayed, but it wasn’t easy. She hadn’t allowed herself to get this close to a man in the two years she’d been living in Pineview—especially a man who made her so aware that she’d soon be heading to bed alone. Just like every other night.
“What do you do after they’re asleep?”
A screw fell to the floor. She bent to pick it up so he wouldn’t see the warm blush that’d infused her cheeks. “Work. The hours from nine to one are my most productive.”
“You must not get much sleep. Not with kids who wake up at…what, eight?”
“Or earlier.” She rolled her eyes for emphasis.
“Where’s Jake and Mia’s father?”
He’d spoken conversationally but this was information he and almost everyone in town had been dying to get out of her since she’d moved here. They didn’t like how closed off she was; they weren’t used to it. But she hadn’t revealed any details about her ex so far, and she wasn’t starting now. If she didn’t give Pineview’s good citizens a loose thread to tug on, they couldn’t unravel the whole ball. “He’s no longer part of our lives.” And that’s all I’ve got to say on the subject. She didn’t add that, but her tone implied it.
“I see.” If he was offended by her clipped response, he didn’t show it. His fingers brushed hers as he took the screw and her stomach did an inconvenient little somersault. “So once they go to bed, you design purses?”
He smelled like soap. She wondered if he’d come home and showered. Probably. Anybody would want to wash after seeing what he’d seen. She knew because she’d watched two men gunned down four years ago. In some ways, it seemed as if eons had passed since that night. She’d come so far since then, had changed so much. In other ways, it felt like only yesterday, as if the horrifying sights and sounds of those murders were forever etched onto her brain and would stay there, as vivid and constant as the moment it happened.
Myles had stopped to look at her; she hadn’t answered. “I do some designing, yes. I also handle orders, do the accounting, check out my competition or look at the photographs for my new catalog.” Or, occasionally, Claire talked her into taking the night off and watching a movie. “I’ve got more than enough to stay busy.”
“Your job is unusual for someone living in the wilds of Montana.” He put the screw she’d picked up in his back pocket and she had to fight to keep her gaze from lowering to his ass. “How’d you get into designing?”
Although they’d never discussed this—they typically exchanged nothing beyond a few pleasantries—she was fairly sure he’d heard the story through the grapevine. That much of her past she’d already divulged. But if he wanted to make small talk while she waited for an opening to bring up the murder, she had no objections. He didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about what had happened to the fridge, thank God. “I entered a contest sponsored by Coach purses and Vogue magazine while I was living on the East Coast and—” she shrugged “—my design won.”
The interest in his green, brown-flecked eyes felt as good as a long massage. Maybe it was the two glasses of wine she’d drunk to get up the nerve to go next door, but a warm tingle swept through her whenever he looked up or smiled. She missed having a man in her life. She hadn’t realized how much.
“Were you surprised?” he asked.
“Shocked.” Even that was an understatement. Other than the births of her children, winning that contest was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
“To what do you attribute your success?”
To an intense fascination with fashion and design. To watching every show there was on the topic. To reading all the beauty magazines. To trial and error. She was self-educated, but careful not to miss the tiniest detail. She had too many handicaps to overcome, she couldn’t afford to be halfhearted or sloppy. But exposing the desperation that had fueled her dream seemed too personal. “Luck,” she said to make it simple.
“That contest must’ve opened the right doors.”
“It did. Coach asked me for other samples of my work, so I quickly came up with a few.”
“They liked those, too?”
“Even more than the one that was selected as the winner.”
“You must have natural talent.”
With the kids asleep, the clock ticking rhythmically above the sink and the wine circulating in her blood, it was easy to let down her guard enough to enjoy his company. “That’s what my boss at Coach said when he offered me a job. Before I went out on my own.”
“Had you been to fashion school?”
She laughed out loud. There’d been no time or money for that. “No.”
“Where did you go to college?”
Her levity vanished. Inevitably one question led to another. And so much of her past was too painful to talk about, or would be too dangerous to reveal. That isolated her from others, kept her from being able to connect…?. “I didn’t.”
Once again, he paused. “You didn’t have the opportunity?”
“No.” She jerked her head toward the fridge. “That looks pretty complicated. Have you ever fixed one before?”
Taking the hint, he continued working. “Actually, I have.”
“Did they teach you that at the police academy?” She grinned to make up for her coolness. Prickly wasn’t her true nature. It was a learned response, the only way she could create the space and privacy necessary to function somewhat normally.
He changed the head on his electric screwdriver. “Not quite. My father was an attorney, but he was raised by the most frugal individual on earth. Fortunately, he didn’t turn out to be quite as tightfisted as his old man, but he refused to hire anyone to fix what we could learn to fix for him. He believed boys should grow up to be self-reliant. And there were four of us, so he had a lot of ready labor.” He raised his voice to compensate for the hum of the screwdriver. “He’d find broken garbage disposals, toasters, fans—you name it—at the dump and haul them home just to make us fix them.”
“What’d you do with those things after you got them working? Four boys could potentially fix quite a few toasters.”
“We’d sell some.”
She could picture him in a household of rough-and-tumble brothers. With his charm and energy, she guessed he’d be right in the thick of trouble. “And the others?”
“We’d give them to the poor. Until I got into college, anyway. Then I was ‘the poor,’” he said with a chuckle. “I survived and paid my tuition by fixing various appliances. And cars. When I turned sixteen, my dad had a tow truck deliver an old clunker for me to rebuild. That was my birthday present.” He gave her the crooked smile that had half the women in Pineview swooning over him. “Now I love to tinker.”
Trying not to be taken in by that smile, Vivian leaned against the edge of the table. “Is that what you do in your garage late at night?”
She’d often seen the light seeping out from under his garage door. When she stepped onto the screened-in porch in the middle of a dark and silent night, she sometimes heard the whine of his power tools—even though quite a bit of space separated her home from his. Enough for two old sheds and a large garden, and that was just on her side. On his property, an expansive deck and party-type barbecue area took up most of the back and side yards. She’d never known him to use it, though—and she would’ve noticed since there was no fence. She was pretty sure he’d built it as a gift to his wife. She’d heard from Claire and the other women who liked to discuss the handsome sheriff that he’d finished it shortly before Amber Rose passed away, and then couldn’t bear to see it once she was gone.
“I’m restoring an old Ducati,” he explained.
“A Ducati’s a…car?” When he glanced at her, she couldn’t help wondering whether he liked her new haircut. He hadn’t mentioned it, despite the fact that it was now as short as his.
“Motorcycle.”
Briefly it occurred to her that Jake might have seen it. Was this one of the marvels that drew him next door?
She didn’t ask, didn’t want to acknowledge her neighbor’s massive appeal to her nine-year-old, or all the manly activities and shared interests Myles could offer Jake that she could not. “How long does a project like that take?”
“Depends. I’ve been at it for six months, but it should’ve been done already.” A dimple appeared in his cheek. “I haven’t made a concerted effort.”
Maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe he was afraid to finish for fear there’d be nothing left to distract him during those lonely hours. Sometimes she’d slip out, hoping to hear him working so she’d know she wasn’t the only one walking the floor while the rest of the world slept. If he wasn’t in the garage, she’d occasionally spot him sitting on his porch, drinking a cup of coffee or tea. He’d stay there for some time, even in the dead of winter, staring into the inky blackness. She’d stay, too, until he went inside. She could feel the hole his wife’s death had left in his life, knew he missed Amber Rose. But Vivian was too attracted to him, and too afraid of where it might lead, to lend him more support than these secret vigils.
“Are you almost done with it?” she asked.
“Getting close.”
“Will you keep it or sell it?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Vivian was about to bring up the murder, but he spoke before she could. “Are you glad you branched out on your own?”
Cursing herself for not jumping in sooner, she forced a smile. “Definitely.”
