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So much for being afraid he’d spook her. With a sigh, Myles stretched the taut muscles in his neck. “Sure. As long as it’s okay with her parents.”
“We’ll call,” she said, and they hurried into the kitchen.
Despite the opening and closing of various cupboards—Marley digging out a snack—Myles heard Elizabeth on the phone.
“You know that real-estate guy? The one with the fake hair and that old-fashioned jacket? He’s dead,” she told her parents. “Someone killed him.”
The horror in those words doused the last of the arousal burning inside Myles. He had no business obsessing about a woman who wouldn’t even go out with him, not when he had a murder to solve.
And yet he was still up, rambling around the house, long after the girls fell asleep. Never had he missed Amber Rose more. It’s not fair. She should still be here with us.
But life wasn’t fair. No doubt Pat Stueben would tell him that.
If he could…
Vivian woke angry at Myles. It was the only way to avoid the embarrassment that would set in otherwise. After he’d shown a great deal of interest in her over the past year, she’d been nice enough to offer him the physical intimacy he had to be missing—and it wasn’t going to cost him so much as a meal. But he’d refused her. She had no patience with a guy like that. What was he, some kind of saint?
“Of course he is,” she grumbled. She’d heard what everyone had to say about him—how hard he tried to be a good father, how tender he’d been with his wife. This town considered him their guardian angel, the answer to every problem. He was even more popular than the mayor. But she didn’t have the luxury of living in a world where she could welcome the possibility of love. Not without putting the person she loved in danger. Or taking the risk of being wrenched away from him. That was why, in some ways, Rex had been perfect for her. Falling for him hadn’t drawn him into her problems. As Virgil’s former cellie and an ex–Crew member himself, he’d been involved before they ever met.
Tightening her robe, she tossed both wine bottles in the recycle bin. Pat’s murder had sent her reeling, made her reach for an antidote to her pain and fear. But the fact that someone had been killed was all the more reason to keep her wits about her. Especially since Claire would be over soon, wanting to know if Vivian had heard any more about the murder, if the sheriff happened to mention it to her, if she could ask him whether it might have a connection, however remote, to her missing mother. When Myles first came to town, he’d reopened the case as a favor to Claire, but her sister, Leanne, didn’t want to be reminded of the past. She’d reacted so badly to the investigation that Claire had asked him to stop.
Movement next door drew Vivian’s attention to the kitchen window. Myles had emerged from his house.
Don’t look at him!
She didn’t want to, but couldn’t resist. Tall and commanding in his uniform, he was as gorgeous as ever. She knew Virgil and Rex wouldn’t approve of her fascination with a cop. After having spent so much time in prison, they didn’t care for the type of personality generally attracted to law enforcement. But, as Claire so often pointed out to her, Myles was different. He was real, warm, unaffected by the power his office gave him. That was because he had a natural sense of authority, and even if he wasn’t the sheriff, she felt pretty certain that people would expect him to take charge—
Wait! Was he looking back at her? Yes! Startled by the realization, she ducked out of sight and, a few seconds later, heard his car start.
“Thank God,” she whispered as he drove away.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Jake had come stumbling into the kitchen. Although he was dressed—in swim trunks, a T-shirt and flip-flops—his thick blond hair stood up on one side and his eyelids drooped with sleep.
A bit self-conscious about being discovered hiding behind the curtains, Vivian pasted a smile on her face. “Nothing, honey. What are you doing up so early?” She glanced at the clock. “It’s barely six.”
“Nana Vera is taking me fishing. She’ll be here any minute.”
A trickle of unease slid down Vivian’s spine. Last week, when she’d agreed to let Vera take Jake for the day, she’d had no idea they’d planned an activity so out of the ordinary. “What do you mean, you’re going fishing?”
“Nana Vera said I could do anything I want. Today is my half birthday.” He grinned at the idea of having a second birthday in one year. “So I picked fishing. I’ve never been fishing before.”
A twinge of guilt added yet another element to the chaos of Vivian’s emotions. Myles had invited her and the kids to go out on the lake a few weeks ago, had specifically mentioned how much her son would enjoy it, and she’d refused.
She didn’t feel comfortable with Jake being near the water today, either. She wasn’t as afraid of letting him grow attached to Vera as she was Myles. Vera seemed far safer in that regard. She needed Vera’s help too badly to avoid letting her have contact with the children, anyway. But she wasn’t sure their “nana” was completely reliable when it came to keeping Jake safe so close to the lake. Would she have the physical strength and agility to save him if he fell in?
Or was she being overprotective? He’d be wearing a life jacket, he knew how to swim and no doubt he’d be fishing from the wharf, where so many young men liked to go.
Because of everything that had happened—the release of her brother from prison, his and Rex’s attempt to leave The Crew and The Crew’s determination to stop them or make them pay—Vivian had a tendency to shield her children too much. That only made her son more determined to escape the strictures of her concern. She could sense him pulling away from her as he grew older, preferring to spend time with Myles and other men, to embrace life without fear or reservation.
But there was so much Jake didn’t know, so much she wouldn’t tell him for fear he’d have to carry the same burden she did…?.
“What about your sister?” she asked, stalling while she decided whether or not she’d go along with this.
He selected a box of cereal from the pantry. “It’s not her half birthday, so she doesn’t get to go.”
“Why not?” This came from Mia, who’d entered the kitchen behind him. Still in her nightgown, she looked as tired as Jake. But, in true Mia fashion, she wasn’t about to miss out on anything. She seemed to feel as if she should be able to trail after her brother 24/7.
“Because it’s not your half birthday,” he said with sufficient exasperation to tell them both that he was tired of repeating it. “You’ll get your turn. I was born first, so I get to go first. You heard Nana.”
Her bottom lip jutted out. “I want to catch a fish.”
Vivian handed Jake a bowl and a spoon, which he carried, together with his cereal, to the table. “Then ask Nana to take you fishing when it’s your turn,” he said.
“I’m calling her!” Mia started for the phone on the wall, but Vivian intercepted her by sweeping her into both arms for a hug. She was getting too big to carry, but Vivian couldn’t resist. Besides, this day meant a lot to Jake. Vivian felt she had to agree to it or risk driving an even bigger wedge between them.
“We’ll let Jake have his half birthday and plan yours, okay?” she said.
Mia opened her mouth to complain, but Vivian spoke before she could. “What are you going to do for yours?”
The furrows on her forehead disappeared. “Make a cake,” she announced. “And have a party!”
“That sounds like fun,” Vivian said. “Will I be invited?”
Her daughter gave her an impish grin. “Will you bring a present?”
Vivian laughed. “Of course.”
“What kind of present?”
“Aren’t presents supposed to be a surprise?”
As Mia tried to weasel an answer out of her, Jake wolfed down his cereal, set his bowl in the sink and went up to brush his hair and teeth.
Just as Vivian heard the faucet go off, a car horn sounded outside.
“Nana’s here!” she called up to him.
Rapid footsteps pounded the old wooden floor in the hallway above as he dashed for the stairs and jumped down them two at a time.
“Have fun!” Vivian said, but she almost couldn’t leave it at that. Wanting to warn Vera about all the dangers of the lake—and to make sure she’d heard about Pat Stueben’s murder so that she’d be extra cautious—she nearly followed him out of the house. But that was precisely the sort of thing that upset Jake.
Vera was careful with the kids. She’d take good care of him.
“I can’t wait till it’s my turn.” Mia’s wistful comment broke the silence that had rolled over them like a fog in the wake of Jake’s rushed departure.
Vivian smoothed her daughter’s hair off her forehead. “Your turn will come soon enough, sweetheart,” she promised. If they were able to stick around…
Where would they go if they had to leave? And how would she manage another relocation? She’d been on a rent-to-own plan and had recently signed the contract to purchase her house. She no longer had the government’s help and, expecting the coming fall to be her best year yet, she’d invested what money she hadn’t put into the house in her business.
Just when she’d stopped looking behind her…
Eager to send her brother an email, to get some reassurance that he, Peyton and Rex were okay in upstate New York and to keep him apprised of what was happening in Montana, she quickly prepared Mia’s breakfast. Then, sitting at the desk in one corner of the living room, she went online—and that was when her throat closed as if someone had tightened a noose around it.
It was Tuesday, not Sunday. This wasn’t the day she and Virgil usually communicated. But there was a message from him. And it was marked Urgent.
4
Myles went straight to the vacation rental where the murder had taken place. Now that the initial shock was over, and the forensic techs and the coroner were gone, he wanted to examine the scene by himself. He planned to look at it from all angles to see if he could get some impression of the events that’d led up to Pat’s death. He also wanted to see if he could figure out a possible motive.
But, early though it was, he wasn’t the first person at the cabin. An old dented Porsche 911 sat parked off the narrow road on a thick layer of pine needles. Myles recognized it as belonging to Jared Davis, the investigator he’d put in charge of this case.
“Who’d want Pat dead?” Jared called out as soon as Myles stepped over the yellow crime-scene tape. But he was nowhere to be seen. He must’ve heard the cruiser and glanced out the open door before Myles came up the walk.
“No one I know,” Myles replied to the disembodied voice.
“There’s his wife.”
“Gertie? She wouldn’t have the upper-body strength.” He found Jared in the dining room, crouching not far from the blood on the kitchen tiles, notepad in hand. It was cool outside, about sixty degrees, but the temperature would soon climb to eighty. Why Jared would be wearing a trench coat and wing-tipped shoes, Myles had no idea, but the investigator reminded him of the character on the TV show Columbo, which his mother used to watch. He even acted like him—a little disheveled and disorganized, often absorbed and seemingly inattentive, although he rarely missed a thing.
“She could’ve hired someone to do it.”
Myles was just as skeptical of that, but Jared continued before he could respond.
“She stands to collect half a million in life insurance. I checked.”
Because most murders were committed by family or friends, Jared had classified her as a “person of interest.” That was standard procedure, to look close to heart and home. But Myles didn’t believe Pat’s killer could be Gertie. “You’ve got to eliminate every possibility, right?”
Jared stood but at five foot eight he barely came to Myles’s shoulder. “You don’t think it’s her.”
Myles had made that clear yesterday. “Not a chance. I saw her after she found her husband. She was destroyed. Grief like that can’t be faked. Besides, they were happy, always together.”
“Maybe she’s a hell of an actress. Maybe, when I dig a little deeper, I’ll find out she’s been embezzling from her husband’s real-estate company and he was about to audit the books.”
The interior of the house contrasted sharply with the beautiful day dawning outside. Birds sang in the towering trees that shaded the property and the lake lapped gently at the shore only fifteen yards or so from the front entrance. It was a rustic paradise. Pine and moist earth overpowered every other scent, and the forest behind the house created a deep and resounding quiet. Everything about this crime seemed incongruent with its surroundings.
Trying not to let the disturbing sight get to him the way it had yesterday, Myles ordered himself to maintain some emotional distance. He’d grown soft since coming here, had gotten caught up in the idyllic life of a “safe” community. “You’re jaded, you know that?”
“I’m just saying. It wouldn’t be the first time a wife decided to off her hubby to avoid detection. With humiliation and divorce on the one hand and the answer to all her financial problems on the other…” He let his words fade away.
“She didn’t need to embezzle. Pat would’ve given her any amount. They’d been married for forty years.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Myles arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re jaded, like I said.”
“Yeah, well. You spend twenty years working for the LAPD and that’s what you get.” He shrugged. “You can take the cop out of L.A., but you can’t take L.A. out of the cop, not after that long. I plan to check her bank accounts and telephone records, just in case.”
“You do that. I’m relying on you to be thorough. Don’t waste a lot of time, though. I want to catch this bastard. And the longer you dick around with Gertie, the less chance we’ll have.”
“I don’t dick around when I’m on the job, Sheriff.” Jared sounded insulted. He had a tendency to take things literally and to carry logic to illogical extremes.
“I’m telling you not to pursue her exclusively, okay?”
“Of course I won’t. I’ll follow every lead.”
“Perfect.”
“You seem uptight,” he added. “Is there a reason?”
“Pat’s murder isn’t reason enough?” Myles retorted, but he knew his agitation had as much to do with Vivian as Pat. He couldn’t figure her out. He wanted to feel angry at her for being so unreasonable, but those marks on her arm, the ones put there by her ex-husband, made it impossible to hold her resistance against her. She probably didn’t want to give another man any control over her life, and yet her body craved what every healthy adult body craved.
Including his…
“We’ll get the guy who did this,” Jared promised.
Myles tilted his head as he studied the smeared blood on the tiles, the fingerprint dust, the partial footprints, the spatters on the wall, baseboards and cupboards. In some places, so much blood had been spilled that it hadn’t completely dried. Knowing it came from the man who’d sold him his house made Myles sick to his stomach. He’d seen death—car accidents and gang shootings when he worked for the police department in Phoenix—but never such a brutal slaying. And never anyone he knew. “What about Pat’s stepson?” he asked.
“Delbert’s on my list.”
Jared’s absolute reliance on logic was usually helpful in an investigation. At any rate, no one else had as much experience with murder. Since Myles had taken over as sheriff, his office hadn’t dealt with a crime worse than hunting without a license or holding up a liquor store with a Super Soaker. “Good.”
“You placing your bet on Delbert?” Jared asked.
Myles propped his hands on his hips. “I’m not placing any bets.”
“So why’d you bring him up?”
“Because he’s at least as likely to have killed Pat as Gertie is.”
“Except that he lives in Colorado.”
“Travel being what it is, maybe he came back.”
“I spoke to a few of Gertie’s neighbors last night. I guess she and Pat had some sort of falling-out with her son over a vehicle?”
That hadn’t been cleared up? Myles had all but forgotten it. “About a year ago, Pat and Gertie lent him the money to buy a new truck. He was supposed to pay them a couple thousand the moment he received his tax refund but he didn’t. I remember Pat complaining about it when he came to the station to deliver the calendar he gave out at Christmas, but…I haven’t heard about that since.”
“I’ll see what Delbert has to say,” Jared said. “If I can reach him.”
“You’ve tried?”
“Three times. Could be he’s on his way here.”
Myles walked over to the sliding glass door and found droplets of blood even there. Pat had put up a fight; he’d simply been overpowered. “I’m sure he is,” he said. “Especially if he expects to be included in the will. Delbert has always taken his parents for everything he can.”
Jared wrote a note about Delbert on his pad with a pencil that’d been broken in half and barely had any lead.
“Is that shitty pencil the best you can do?” Myles asked, momentarily distracted.
