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Her wallet still rested on the desktop. He picked it up. Maybe it was curiosity, maybe instinct, but instead of returning the wallet to the purse, he flipped it open. Plastic sheaths of photos, including her ID, separated the two halves. One side was lined with credit cards, gold and platinum. The other side held her checkbook.
He thumbed through the photos, a knot forming in his chest as his mind registered what he saw. There was a picture of Kate in a white wedding dress standing beside a tall, blond man. There was a photo of an older woman who he guessed to be her mother. Another picture of an older man in military uniform. Another less formal picture of the blond man. Brody slipped the picture out of the plastic. On the back, someone, Kate he presumed, had written the name Paul and the date of when the photo had been taken.
Brody tucked the picture into his shirt pocket. One question had been answered, but now he had others. He wondered how much Kate knew. And if she didn’t know? Dread crept up his spine. He didn’t want to be the one to tell her. But it looked like he had no choice.
Stepping out into the morning sunshine, Brody found Kate waiting on the sidewalk, her arms akimbo and one Italian-loafer-clad foot tapping. His mouth twisted. She was doing a bang-up job of looking like a woman used to getting what she wanted, when she wanted it, but the effort she was putting into the display made him think it wasn’t her usual M.O.
The brief summer storm left the air with a crisp freshness. But the telltale signs of raindrops still beading on his car reminded Brody of the night before and of what Kate would find when she went back to the house. He stopped in his tracks.
“Kate?”
She looked over her shoulder at him, her steps slowing to a halt and her brows drawn together. “Now what?”
“Did you get everything?”
Her brows rose. “I didn’t bring anything.”
“This, maybe?” He held up her purse.
She snatched it from him. “Thanks,” she mumbled.
She wouldn’t be thanking him when he told her what he’d discovered. With a pleasureless twist of his lips, he followed her to his cruiser and held open the passenger-side door. She gave him a tight smile and slid in.
As he headed the car down Main Street, he tried to formulate the best way of saying what needed to be said. But every time he tried to tell her, he couldn’t get the words to form.
“Okay, out with it.”
“Excuse me?”
Kate sighed. “You obviously have something on your mind. You’ve looked like a fish out of water ever since we got in the car.”
He slanted her a glance. “And how is that, exactly?”
“You keep opening your mouth to say something, then shutting it tight.” Kate demonstrated with exaggerated movements.
Brody’s rich laughter filled the cab of the car. Kate sucked in a breath. She liked the sound of his laugh: deep and warm…and inviting. She forced the thought away. She couldn’t let down her guard no matter how pleasing she found the sheriff.
“So, what is it?”
Brody sobered, his expression turning grim. A sense of impending doom filled Kate. What could he possibly have to say that would warrant such a reaction? Nothing, she decided, now that they’d determined she wasn’t going to be arrested.
“How long were you married to your…late husband?”
She frowned. “Four years.”
“How do you know Pete Kinsey was his business partner?”
That seemed like an odd question. “Paul told me after I found an invoice for a piece of office equipment. It had Kinsey’s name on it.”
He slanted her a quick glance. “You never met Pete Kinsey?”
She hated the pinprick of hurt needling her. “No. I didn’t even know about him until a year ago. Paul hadn’t invited anyone he worked with to our wedding.”
He didn’t comment, as his hands gripped and re-gripped the steering wheel.
“Why?”
He shrugged, then asked, “How well did you know Paul?”
An even odder question.
“As well as one could, I suppose. Paul wasn’t your open and friendly type.” Thinking back over the course of their relationship, she wondered how she’d missed his coldness in the beginning. Or had he been just that good at hiding it?
“He changed from when you first met him?”
Unnerved that he’d practically read her thoughts, she replied, “Yes, he did.”
“He traveled a lot.”
It wasn’t a question. “Yes. How did you know?”
Without answering, Brody slowed the vehicle and turned down the narrow dirt drive leading to the house.
In the bright morning sun, the cottage-style home and surrounding area held a charming appeal. A far cry from her impression last night. The blue-gray shingles, quaint dormer windows edged in white, and the wraparound porch were very welcoming. The shrubs and foliage of the yard held a certain rustic charm. And beyond the bungalow, the beach and frothy waves of the Atlantic Ocean gleamed in the sunlight. It was very picturesque and soothing.
Kate wished she’d been able to arrive in the light of day rather than the dead of a stormy night. The late flight out of L.A. and the subsequent drive to Havensport had made her arrival untimely.
She regretted she hadn’t rented a car instead of arranging for ground transportation. But at the time it seemed the best thing since she hadn’t a clue where she was going. Last night, the driver had dropped her off without so much as waiting to see if she’d made it in the house okay, leaving her stranded without any way to get around.
Brody parked and got out. Just as Kate opened the door, he was there offering her his help. She laid her hand in his. Warmth spread up her arm and around her heart. She hadn’t felt anything but coldness in so long.
Quickly, she disengaged from him and stepped away. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“And what question was that?”
She put her hands on her hips. “How did you know Paul traveled?”
Brody ran a hand through his dark hair. She watched the motion with a good dose of curiosity. How would his hair feel beneath her hand? Uncomfortable with the course of her thoughts, she averted her gaze and concentrated on the unseen bird singing from high in the large birch tree to the right of the house.
“I knew your husband.”
Snapping to attention, she frowned. “You did?” Wariness coiled tight in her chest. She looked at the house and tried to rationalize how they could have met. “He did own the house even if Pete Kinsey lived here. They were business partners, after all.”
“Not partners, exactly.”
Apprehension chilled her skin like a cold wind. “Meaning?”
Brody shifted his feet in a restless gesture before saying, “You see, your husband and Pete Kinsey were, well…”
“Yes?”
“Man.” His hard jaw tensed. “I’m botching this up.”
The wind turned into a full-blown hurricane. Could he have the answers she sought? “What? What should I know?”
Locking his gaze with hers, Brody stated, “They were the same man.”
FOUR
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t something as ridiculous as that. Relief and disappointment made her laugh. “Excuse me?”
“Paul Wheeler and Pete Kinsey were the same person.”
She couldn’t see any humor in his expression, any mirth glinting in his dark eyes, but she couldn’t believe he was serious. “What kind of joke are you trying to play on me, Sheriff?”
“It’s no joke.”
“Oh, come on.” She gave a nervous laugh. “You can’t expect me to believe…that…my husband led some sort of…double life.”
Brody shrugged. “Believe what you will. The facts speak for themselves.”
“What facts?”
Shifting his weight to his left leg, Brody asked, “Was Paul tall, about six feet, with gray eyes and blond hair?”
Mutely, she nodded.
“So was Pete Kinsey.”
She scoffed. “Those are your facts?”
Brody’s mouth tightened. “Pete Kinsey had a tattoo.”
Kate’s eyes narrowed. “So?”
“Did Paul?”
“A lot of people have tattoos”
“On their left shoulder?”
Her mouth went dry. “Maybe.”
“Shall I describe it to you, Kate?” he asked, gently.
She shrugged and turned away, not liking what she was hearing, what he was insinuating.
“A small broken match.”
Her stomach churned. “Tattoos aren’t trademarked, Sheriff.” She glanced at him and his look told her he thought she was grasping at straws and soon the whole haystack was going to collapse.
“Did you ever go with your husband when he traveled?”
“No. I have my own career to think about.”
She almost groaned as the words left her mouth. The bank. This trip put her job, her career, in jeopardy, but she’d needed to take a leave of absence to find the answers to Paul’s death. The not knowing was driving her nuts.
And standing here arguing about something this farfetched wasn’t helping her accomplish anything. “Really, Sheriff. I think you should go. Your job here’s done.”
“Do you know where he went, Kate?”
She rolled her eyes. “His work took him all over the globe.”
“And what work was that?”
“He was a financial consultant.”
Brody nodded. “He came to the Cape every Fourth of July.”
She couldn’t say where Paul had gone for sure, and she’d always wondered why he’d work over that holiday. But what the sheriff was saying couldn’t be true. Paul was cold, selfish maybe, but he wasn’t…
She was about to say he wasn’t dishonest, but she knew in her heart that whatever Paul had been mixed up in, it hadn’t had anything to do with honesty. But could he have led a double life? No. She would have known, sensed something. Wouldn’t she have?
“Goodbye, Sheriff.”
He held out a photo. “This is the man I know as Pete Kinsey.”
She took the photo, instantly recognizing it. “You must be mistaken.”
“I’m not.”
She looked up into his eyes and noticed the way a thin, lighter blue ring circled the near-black irises, reminding her of the wind-tossed ocean off the Pacific Northwest coast. The sheriff had no reason to lie to her. But this just couldn’t be, her mind insisted. Paul was many things, but was he capable of this kind of deceit?
And if what the sheriff said was true, what did that say about her and her judgment? Could she have been that blind? How could she have been married to a man for four years and not know him?
Somewhere inside the house lay the answers. “This doesn’t prove anything.”
If it were true that Paul had had another existence, then that made her pretty stupid. Stupid for trusting, for believing in her husband. Stupid for trying so hard to save her marriage even after he’d moved out.
“I…it’s just not true.”
The look of understanding, of pity, that stole over the sheriff’s handsome face made her blood boil.
She crumbled the photo into her fist. “You can go now. I don’t need or want you here.”
His hand closed over hers. Her gaze was drawn to the way his larger, masculine hand enveloped her smaller, more delicate fingers in a protective grip. Her gaze lifted and met his intense look.
His dark eyes simmered. She could easily fall into the blaze that beckoned and allow herself the luxury of soothing warmth.
