Silent Night Shadows

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“There’s no way to tell.”

A tear ran down Claire’s cheek. Nate moved closer, not sure what he could do to help, but feeling like he should at least try. More than one tear. Several.

She sniffed and brushed at her cheek. “I just don’t understand.”

Was she more upset about the painting or the home invasion? He didn’t feel like he could fix it, at least try to fix it, until he knew. “Don’t understand...” he prompted her.

“What does your case or the woman who was killed have to do with my painting? Even if she overheard me talking about it, why would she care?”

“Can you tell me more about the painting?”

Claire was staring at the painting table, seeming lost in thought. After a minute, she looked back at him. Met his eyes.

“Now that I know why you’re here in town...” She shook her head, brushed another tear away. “I’m afraid I did something stupid.”

“On purpose?”

“Completely accidentally. But that doesn’t put me in any less danger, does it?” Claire let out a breath, pushed herself up from the couch and started to pace. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately.”

“Something wrong?”

“Just a lot on my mind. Watching the ocean usually calms me down, so I often go out onto the deck and just watch it, listen to the waves. With the rest of this area mostly abandoned at night, it’s quiet. Peaceful.”

“So what did you do that was stupid?”

Claire exhaled. “One night, very late, I saw lights from where I stood on the deck, lights on the ocean like they belonged to a boat. But it’s not normal in this area for people to have boats out on the water in the middle of the night, so I’d never seen the way the lights reflect off the waves and mix with the moonlight before. I wanted to paint it.”

“So that was the subject of your painting?”

Claire gave a nod. “Yes.”

“You potentially painted a drug smuggling run, or a drug meet-up. I’m guessing with both of those, but I think it makes sense, Claire.”

“It does, now that you’ve told me drug smuggling is happening in the area. At the time, I didn’t have a reason to think there was anything sinister about it. It’s Treasure Point, and while we have had our share of crime lately, drug smuggling being a problem had never crossed my mind.”

Claire looked sick, and Nate couldn’t blame her. Her decision to paint some lights on the ocean, something seemingly innocuous, had put her life at risk.

All they could do now was damage control. It was too late to change the past.

Just then one of the officers strode out of the bedroom, looked over at Claire. “Matt is helping Shiloh process the scene. But I’m supposed to tell you that you’ll be staying at Matt and Gemma’s house tomorrow—well, today, technically. It’s Matt’s scheduled day off, and that will give you some protection.”

Claire nodded, glanced over at Nate.

“If it’s okay, I’d like to ask you a few more questions myself,” he said. “Dinner?”

She nodded. “I can do dinner. Since I’m assuming you’re armed...” Her eyes moved to his hip, and while Nate knew his .40 was completely concealed, he was impressed that she’d guessed correctly right where it was. “Maybe you could bring me back over here to clean up some of this mess after we eat? I’m not going to be staying here anytime soon, but I’d feel better knowing there wasn’t a huge mess. Or we could come here and I’ll cook—it’ll mean we’re not out at a restaurant somewhere we might be easy to attack.”

“If that works for the chief.” Nate looked back at the chief.

He nodded. “Sounds like a good plan. I’ll have officers here processing the scene for the next few hours, but we’ll lock it up after we’re done. There shouldn’t be any need for you to stay out or leave things as they are once evidence has been logged. We should be able to get everything we need before noon, I would guess.”

“Thank you.” Claire shook her head. “I can’t believe this is all happening. And wait, what about my shop? I can’t just close for the duration of...whatever this is.”

“We understand that.” Nate thought he spoke for all of them. “But tomorrow is rather critical. Both attacks on you have been so close together that the chances of another one goes down with every hour that passes tomorrow, if that makes sense. Basically, someone wanted you taken out tonight. So either they’re going to hit hard again as soon as they can to get rid of you as quickly as possible, or they’ve decided to step back and regroup before targeting you any further. We won’t know which strategy they’ve chosen until we see how it plays out. So for tomorrow, we want someone with you one hundred percent of the time.”

There was a hint of the old Claire in the way she physically cringed at the idea of full-time protection. She’d been so independent in college—that clearly hadn’t changed. But she’d also been such a free spirit, confident and adventurous. How she’d gone from that to running a coffee shop and living the life of someone much older, he had no idea.

FIVE (#u092a2346-4cd4-5da8-ac23-2c6cd239252f)

Claire had anticipated a much more awkward day, considering that she wasn’t allowed to leave Matt and Gemma’s house. Not only that, she was only allowed to leave her brother-in-law’s sight for five minutes at a time, and that was only to use the restroom. But Matt and Gemma made the day fun. They played multiple rounds of a board game they all liked, Claire helped Gemma organize some of her kitchen cabinets, and then they watched a movie in the afternoon.

Nate picked her up in her car just before five and drove her back to her apartment. Surprisingly, Claire hadn’t felt any signs of fear at being back. No, the only fear she was feeling right now stemmed from anxiety about this evening itself, about what it would be like to be alone with Nate, someone who knew the old Claire. What did he think of her now that she’d come running back to her hometown, back to the “safe” life she’d claimed to be trying to escape back in her college days?

She reminded herself that it didn’t matter what he thought. All that mattered was the fact that his presence meant she could be here, cleaning up this mess after she fed them both something, and that he might give her a clearer picture of how the events of yesterday affected her life, at least temporarily. Her safety was at stake here. That was far more important than her pride, no matter how much it smarted to have him see how much she’d changed.

Claire unlocked the door, and Nate followed her inside. She found it ironic that though she made her living with hospitality downstairs at the coffee shop, she rarely had people over to her apartment. She’d had friends over more often before she’d sold her house. The apartment just wasn’t very conducive to having guests. But her options for people to entertain were dwindling, anyway, unless she wanted to be the third wheel—the only person not part of a couple. She had friends in town from high school, but most of them were married by now, and several of them had kids. She knew, theoretically, that she should still maintain relationships with them, but tell that to the feeling of loneliness and overwhelming awareness of her table-for-one relationship status any time she’d tried in the past to have a couple over.

Lately it hadn’t been worth it to her. She’d had her parents over, and Gemma and Matt, but that was it.

“You’re sure you don’t mind having dinner with me and talking about the case? I should have asked you in the car, I guess,” Nate said as they walked inside, giving her an out she was all too tempted to take.

Honestly? No, Claire wasn’t sure. But she still didn’t feel like she understood what she was up against. Maybe she just needed Nate to rehash what he’d said last night, let her have a chance to process it when she wasn’t sleep-deprived and pumped full of adrenaline from waking up to find someone in her apartment. Something still didn’t make sense to her, and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

Besides, there was that elusive feeling of safety that had been missing since yesterday when she was attacked in town. Something about Nate nearby brought that back, logical or not. Was it the fact that he was someone she had a history with? That didn’t make much sense—she had a history of some type or another with almost everyone in this town, including just about everyone on the police force. She was surrounded by people who had known her forever.

So why did Nate affect her this way? Claire didn’t know. But he did. She’d felt his absence all day—she wanted to feel safe now.

Which is why she said, “I’m sure,” and put as much confidence into her voice as she could.

“All right. At least let me help make dinner, then. What are we having?”

And with that, Nate was in her kitchen, moving toward the sink, then washing his hands and standing ready to help like he belonged there. Anything Claire was lacking in confidence tonight she could borrow from Nate, because he had more than enough.

“I was thinking something simple. Okra and tomatoes with Cajun sausage and rice sound okay?”

Nate smiled. Had she seen him smile like that before? If she had, it had been a very long time ago—which was a shame. Because as attractive as he was when he looked serious and thoughtful—which was most of the time—he was at least as handsome when he smiled. “Sounds great.”

Claire swallowed hard and looked away from him. “You can cut up the okra if you want. It’s in the fridge, and cutting boards are in the second drawer to the left of the stove.”

They worked together in silence for a little while, which went more smoothly than Claire would have expected. The only person who’d ever tried to cook in this kitchen with her was Gemma. She loved her sister, but she and Gemma had realized that they weren’t meant to share the same kitchen. They ran into each other, reached over each other and got in the way so thoroughly that it took twice as long to cook anything. She and Nate moved through dinner prep like it was some kind of dance they’d both done before.

Dance? Really? Claire shook her head. Nate Torres was the last man on earth she should have such thoughts about. Dating Justin back in college had been a bad enough idea, and she’d sworn off anyone resembling that type ever since.