Roman opened the door and called, “We’re here.”
A connoisseur of interior design, she stopped to take in the foyer. White lap siding covered the walls, knotty wood the ceiling and slate tile the floor. A shell bowl was on a steel-and-white-ceramic-topped console table. Two paintings of starfish and seashells hung above.
“In here!” his mother called.
Kendra sniffed the air. “I smell spaghetti sauce.”
“My mother likes to make spaghetti pie for new guests. It’s her casual dish.”
“I love spaghetti.” She followed him into a living room with blue accents and big windows and a huge abstract painting of a girl in blue shorts leaning back on a tire swing, more blue washing the background in the sky.
A seating area was visible on one side of a partial wall and a kitchen island that could fit four on the other. Entering the kitchen, she spotted Abby and William Cooper standing at the stove along the partial wall. Steam billowed up from mildly boiling water. William held a spoonful of sauce up, ready for a taste. A tall man with gray hair and glasses, he looked up and saw them. He put the spoon onto a spoon dish and smiled.
Kendra made a quick round of inspecting the kitchen. Medium brown cabinets had brushed silver pulls. They rose to the trim of twelve-foot ceilings above gray stone counters. A table and seating area with a coffee table she’d seen from the living room was a different twist on dining. More social.
“We’re just about ready to get this in the oven,” Abby said.
Roman pulled out a stool for her at the island counter. “Something to drink?”
Seeing Abby and William each had a glass of wine, she said, “What they’re having.”
Abby took the boiling water to the sink and drained the noodles while William got out a shallow casserole dish.
Roman retrieved two wineglasses from the cabinet above a wine cooler. The bottle of red was already out on the counter. He poured them both a glass and brought them to the island. As he handed her the glass, she met his eyes. Their hands brushed in the transfer, warming the moment.
Kendra saw William notice as he poured the sauce into the casserole dish. Luckily, Abby appeared with the noodles and his attention had to go elsewhere.
“That’ll take about thirty minutes.” Abby straightened after putting the dish into the oven, and then wiped her hands on a towel. “Let’s go in here.” She walked to the dining table, which had been set for four.
Roman pulled out a chair for Kendra. She found the gesture odd, given his lack of desire to be here. Maybe he didn’t mind his parents drawing the wrong conclusion about them.
He sat next to her, his mom across from him and his dad across from her. His mother wore a very slight smile but her eyes smiled for her. She approved of them as a couple.
“How close are you to solving Kaelyn’s murder, son?” William asked.
“I just started. I’ve got another case I’m working, too.”
Kendra set her glass down and turned to him, not having expected him to work other cases while he was here. She wasn’t sure she liked that. What if his attention was drawn too far off her sister? Or did he still need convincing that she had, in fact, been murdered?
“What’s that one?” his mother asked.
“A doctor in Montana was murdered in his practice. His receptionist found him. He had a partner who recently lost his license because he carried on a sexual relationship with one of his patients. The victim’s daughter told me her father was the one who exposed him. I started checking the partner out. He had an alibi, but I noticed he withdrew ten thousand from his bank account the day before the murder. During questioning, he denied any involvement.”
“But you still suspected him?” William asked.
Kendra thought he must love talking about these cases with his son. Did they give him ideas for his stories?
“Yes, but his alibi checked out. He wasn’t the one who killed the victim. A witness said they saw a red SUV leaving the crime scene. They couldn’t get a good description of the driver. It took me a while but after searching through bank video surveillance, I found one of a red SUV matching the description of the witness. Another video showed a man making a deposit that I later found out was for ten thousand.”
“That was enough to make an arrest?” William asked.
“No, but the SUV was a rental and DNA on one of the knobs matched the man’s. He must have been sweating and wiped his skin before touching the knob. There was no DNA recovered from the crime scene. We also had a boot print in the victim’s blood. I’m waiting on testing, but I’m sure we have our guy. He’ll talk soon.”
“Do you have to travel to Montana?” Kendra asked.
“No. The rest I can handle remotely.”
She was glad he was close to wrapping that up. “Is that the case you nearly turned me down for to solve?”
He met her eyes. “But I didn’t turn you down.”
“No. Something did keep you here, didn’t it?” She didn’t mean to flirt; it just came out that way, a natural response to his gorgeous eyes, with their manly glow and answering attraction.
“Yes, something did.”
“You were going to refuse to investigate her case?” Abby asked.
“I didn’t think there was enough to show motive. But Kendra told me how she and her sister talked and how excited Kaelyn was to spend time together and that she had plans to move back to Chesterville.”
“And that’s what changed your mind?” Abby glanced at Kendra.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know, Roman. She’s awfully pretty. Are you sure you didn’t have other ideas?”
“He did,” Kendra said. “He coerced me to go out on a date with him.”
“That wasn’t a date.”
“Admit it. You used my case to get me to meet you.”
Roman sat back with a sexy grin. Kendra felt a rush of heat, so loving how unabashed he was about being caught going after her—as a woman and not a new case.
“Well...maybe a little.”
Kendra swatted his bicep, all in play, and felt the hardness of muscle. “That was the only reason. You didn’t believe I had a case.”
“Not at first, no. And I did enjoy our pool game.”
She had enjoyed it, too.
“This is a delightful surprise,” Abby said. “Roman works so much we were beginning to think he’d never find himself a girlfriend.”
“Oh, we aren’t...like that...yet.”
Roman met her eyes again and she couldn’t turn away. They weren’t like that yet, but they could be. She felt him think the same. What scared her is she might feel too much.
Clearing her throat, uncomfortable, she faced Abby and William. Abby made no attempt to hide her approval. She oozed joy in seeing her son attracted to a woman. William was a bit harder to read. He watched and wore a slight smile but that could just as easily be the delicious wine.
“Tell me how you got into writing,” Kendra said, desperate to change the subject.
William drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “A lot of readers ask me that question. I don’t know what made me write those first pages. I was always drawn to it. I was also an avid reader myself, and I loved English. But if there was one triggering event that drove me to pursue a career, I’d have to say it was my father being convicted of murdering my mother when I was fifteen.”
The unexpectedness of the revelation struck Kendra. She felt her head flinch backward ever so slightly. “Oh my...I’m so sorry.”
“Kendra’s parents were killed in a mass shooting,” Roman said.
“Yes, we knew about that. Kaelyn’s mother told us. So tragic. She never mentioned Kaelyn had a twin, though, or why the two of you were split up.”
“Kaelyn must not have been ready to tell anyone. Like I’ve told Roman, I believe she inte
nded to use me as her escape. She may have planned to come live with me for a while, before she could make it back to Chesterville.”
Abby nodded as she mulled this all over. “That makes sense.”
“How old were you?” William asked.
“When my parents were killed? Young. Six.”
Abby grimaced in sympathy.
“I was older but I still had to go to a foster home,” William said. “I know what it’s like to lose your parents to murder. Mass shooting. Domestic violence. Doesn’t matter how it happens. It’s all murder. I’d be fooling myself if I said it had nothing to do with what led me to writing. I think I like catching the killers.” He smiled and glanced at Roman. “Something my son here is good at in real life.”
“I’ve read some of your books,” Kendra said. “You’re really good. Not just the stories, the writing. You put the reader right in the scene. Like that one book, where the woman went missing and the husband claimed she ran off without taking things a person who was planning to leave for good wouldn’t leave behind. I felt like I really knew the victim and it was all through the eyes of the detective. I loved the detective, too. He had such a dry sense of humor.” She laughed a little, back in the story. “Are you like that?”
William chuckled. “No. People always ask me if I write based on real experiences. Stories wouldn’t be entertaining if they were based only on the experiences and the personality of the writer.”
“They aren’t real,” Roman said, an edge to his tone.
“Thank God for that,” his mother chimed in. “Why did you become a detective if it makes you so morose?”
Roman didn’t answer and Kendra could see why he perceived his parents didn’t think he measured up. But they did. They just knocked him for his pessimistic attitude.
“Well, I think you must be a very smart man, if your writing is any indication,” Kendra said.
“I doubt many leave Harvard who aren’t smart,” Roman said, sounding teasing. “My dad has lived a charmed life.”
“So has your mother, it seems,” Kendra said. As his mother and father smiled with his teasing, she realized they had no idea how much of an Eeyore their son had become.
“Yes, a real Hocus Pocus character.”
Abby laughed, clearly loving the analogy. She looked adoringly at her son, a look Roman missed as he turned to his father.
What was he thinking right now? Did he realize how much he idolized his parents? Was he jealous? Not maliciously. Kendra suspected he truly longed to generate the same hero worship as they did in others. And she bet he didn’t realize he already did. How could he miss the significance of working for Dark Alley Investigations? He didn’t get there by being an average detective.
Kendra felt herself gravitating closer to him. Her desire to know more of his inner workings intensified. She held back, though. Whenever she felt this way before, she always ended up either suppressed or heartbroken.
Chapter 9
“Are you sure about this?”
Roman didn’t glance back at Kendra, who had arrested his senses when she came out of her house dressed like a cat burglar. All in black, tight jeans, black T-shirt that stretched over her breasts and a fitted leather jacket that left her rear exposed. Sexy as hell. He’d drooled for a good sixty seconds and had to stare at her awhile after she sat in the passenger seat before driving away from the curb. He planned to break into Alex Johnston’s storage unit and she’d insisted on accompanying him.
He heard and felt the click of the lock as he picked it. The night was cloudless, quiet and cool. Bush crickets chanted their tune, sounding like they were saying Katy did... Katy didn’t.
“Yes.”
“But if we find anything, it won’t be admitted as evidence.”
He lifted the overhead door. “Only if we take it with us.” Anything they found he’d photograph and leave. Nobody had to know he’d either taken them or been in this unit.
“I’d never get a warrant without enough cause and we don’t have enough cause. Yet. I hope to find something to go on in here.”
“Something that will give us cause.”
“Yes.” He switched on the light on his hat and turned to Kendra to activate hers. That brought him up close and personal with her. The light showed him the soft, pretty lines of her face and her green eyes looking up at him, emitting the same heat he felt kindling inside him.
“Don’t look at me like that right now,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like you want me to kiss you.”
“Then stop looking at me like you want to kiss me.”
He chuckled and went to work, glad they didn’t have time to fool around even if he decided to take it to that level.
Alex didn’t have much. He must have gotten rid of lots of his things before going to prison, or maybe his criminal lifestyle had gradually diminished his belongings. Boxes stacked on the right side and furniture the left. A narrow row had been left down the middle. Whoever had packed the storage unit had been meticulously organized, which told Roman Alex hadn’t been the one to pack it. Criminals weren’t typically patient and organized unless they were the Bernie Madoff or Ted Bundy variety. Alex was more along the lines of a petty criminal. He stole when he needed money. He assaulted when he wanted his way.
The furniture would tell them nothing, so he started on the first box. Kendra went to work on another. They were labeled, which made quick work of going through them. A good thing since he’d broken into the storage unit.
“Office,” Kendra said.
Seeing her struggle to heft the box off the top of several others, he went to her. Standing behind her, he lifted the box. She went still, and then so did he, realizing how close he stood. His body pressed to hers, especially in the act of lifting the box and moving for more leverage.
Ducking under his arm, Kendra moved to his side, rubbing her arm and unable to look directly at him. He put the box down and sat on the other side with her. She opened the box, seeming glad to have something to do. He watched her dig through the contents of the box. She took out a stack of carbon copy checks, held together with a fat rubber band. Next came an old calculator, one of those big ones—ten keys with the paper roll.
Roman saw how her red hair fell in shiny strands along her face. What a face. She had smooth, olive-colored skin and a pretty, sloping nose. With her lips slightly parted, he imagined her breath warm on his mouth as he came in for a kiss.
The fantasy turned into a real possibility when she looked up. He barely registered that she held a cell phone. He felt the connection between them, hot and electrified.
Leaning toward her, he put one hand on the concrete floor and reached for her with the other. Sliding his fingers into her hair until he cupped the back of her head, he moved closer, until he touched her mouth with his. Just a taste. He pressed gently, smelled her, felt her warm breath as he had longed to. She moved her lips and he gave in, kissing her deeper.
He couldn’t believe he’d done this, didn’t understand what had driven him. Her beauty, but more. What about her drew him so irresistibly? She was nothing like the kind of woman he envisioned for himself. Another detective would be more suitable, not the dreamer who ran a Christmas shop.
With that dose of reality, he withdrew. Her eyes opened slowly, drugged with passion. He must look the same. It took all his willpower not to give in to the clamoring desire to lay her flat on the hard, cold concrete and take this to the next level.
He let out his held breath and released her. She breathed fast and looked stunned, staring at him and testing his control.
Now would be a time when he’d leave the storage unit and have a smoke. Instead, he forced himself to dig into the box. Finding the cord that went with the cell phone, and then checking the box for anything else that might be promising. There was nothing, so he took the phone from Ken
dra and stood.
Outside, he waited for her to join him at his rental. At last she did, finally coming out of the trance he’d put her in. He’d put himself in a trance kissing her. Had he ever felt a kiss so strongly before? Damn.
* * *
Kendra was still wrapped in the buzz of that kiss when Roman took her to his hotel suite. He plugged in the cell phone. They’d have to wait to see what it contained. He busied himself on his laptop, which he’d hooked up to three monitors that took up most of the space of the desk. He sat on the chair, facing her, his head above the tops of the monitors, the bedroom behind him.
She went into the kitchenette and took out a bottle of water from the refrigerator, then passed the table to go into the living room. Sitting on the sofa, she picked up the remote and turned on the television. She wasn’t much of a TV watcher, but she needed the distraction right now. Roman seemed so unaffected by their kiss. Why had he done it? She had been about to tell him she’d found a cell phone and the next thing she knew she was transported to fairyland.
“It’s charged enough,” Roman said.
Kendra stood and went to stand beside him, careful to keep plenty of distance between them and still see the screen of the phone.
He navigated through the call log.
Kendra quickly saw this wasn’t Alex’s phone. “This was Kaelyn’s phone. There are a lot of calls to her adoptive mother.”
Roman glanced up at her, and then checked the text messages. Nothing in the call log or the texts indicated anything unusual at first glance. The last call had been placed the morning of her death and there were a few incoming calls, none of the numbers recognizable. The last text had been the day before to a coworker, saying she wouldn’t be in the next day.
Had she made plans for the day? Why did she notify her work she wouldn’t be in? To kill herself?
No.
Kendra refused to believe that. “Alex kept her phone?”
Hometown Detective (Cold Case Detectives Book 6) Page 9
