by Joyce Lamb
One of Charlie’s eyebrows ticked up slightly, and he realized she waited for him to get this show on the road.
“I know you’ve already gone through this with the police, but I’d like to hear your answers for myself.”
“Okay.”
“Can you describe what happened?”
“Miss Atkins walked into the crosswalk, and a white Sebring convertible hit her.”
He blinked, surprised at her precision. “You heard it accelerate?”
“Yes.”
“See the driver?”
“No.”
“License plate?”
“It happened too fast.”
“Did she say anything before she died?”
Charlie hesitated.
Here we go, he thought, and sat forward. She stiffened at his sudden move, tipping him off to her nerves. She appeared calm on the surface, but the tension in her shoulders and the turbulence simmering in her eyes bothered him more than they should have. He rarely met relaxed people in his line of work, yet something about this one’s coiled anxiety made him wish his people skills were better.
When she still said nothing, he tried another tack. “What if I reminded you that I saved your life last night?”
Her eyes widened at first, then narrowed. “So I owe you.”
“If you want to look at it like that, yes. And, like I said, Laurette was my friend. I would think that you would want to do everything you could to help find the person who ran down your cousin.”
Her eyebrows arched sharply. “Cousin? She wasn’t my cousin.”
Huh? “You are Charlotte Trudeau, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I don’t have any cousins.”
Ah, fuck, he’d stumbled headlong into a family secret. Jewel had said her mother and Charlie’s mother had been estranged for many years. Their offspring had never met, and now it appeared Charlie hadn’t known she had an aunt, let alone two cousins. Great. That meant Charlie didn’t know she’d watched her own cousin die.
Okay, how to do this. Ease into it or just blurt it out? She’d already proved with her concise answers that she had no tolerance for pussyfooting. He took a breath, held it. Here goes.
“Laurette came to Lake Avalon about a matter involving her mother’s estranged sister. Your mother.”
Her eyes flickered, as though a memory had nudged her. “I don’t know what you want me to say. My mother doesn’t have a sister.”
But he could tell he’d struck a nerve. Her fingers threaded together and squeezed, released, squeezed, and her shoulders had tightened further. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share your mother’s contact information with me.”
“I don’t think I would be, no.”
He almost smiled. So cool, so composed, except for those busy, nervous hands. “All I want to do is confirm her only-child status.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with Laurette’s hit-and-run.”
“Perhaps someone didn’t want Laurette meeting with cousins who know nothing about her and the rest of her family.”
“Which might be a valid theory if my mother had a sister, but she doesn’t. In fact, her parents died before I was born.”
“So you know every last detail about your mother.”
A glint of anger showed in her narrowing eyes. “That wasn’t a question.”
Another nerve struck. Damn—he suddenly realized he enjoyed provoking her, watching the sparks fly out of her eyes. Pushed to the wall, she’d be fiery. Maybe out of control. Exciting. He was a bad, bad man. “I can find the information I need without your help, so why delay the inevitable?”
“The inevitable would be you finding out that you wasted your time.”
“I don’t doubt that you believe that, but I’m beginning to suspect I might know more about your family than you do.”
She got to her feet, all graceful composure and unflappable cool. “We’re done here. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
He pushed himself up out of the sofa’s grasping cushions, trying not to be distracted by the flush in her cheeks. But he couldn’t help it. He wanted to crank her anger up a notch, just to see what she’d do. “Perhaps you’d like to talk to someone in Laurette’s family before you close the book on this. You look quite a bit like her.”
She faltered, and her fingers brushed the tiny beauty mark on her cheek. Ah, so she’d noticed the resemblance.
He dropped the hook with the last of his bait. “I have her sister’s number.” He paused a beat. “If you’re interested.”
Her jaw clenched, a muscle working at her temple. “Or perhaps I’ll just wait for her to contact me.”
Damn, but the woman could think on her feet. “I wouldn’t count on that. She and Laurette weren’t on the same page about meeting with you. Seems there’s a good deal of dissension throughout your family tree. Any idea why?”
“Charlie?”
The appearance of the woman in the arched doorway between the living room and kitchen startled Charlie as much as it did him. She flinched at the sound of her name, her gaze flying away from him almost guiltily. Her surprise faded quickly, though, and she smiled at the other woman.
“Oh, hey, Alex,” Charlie said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Logan let me in. He said Mac called.”
Charlie’s features clouded before she nodded an acknowledgment then gestured at Noah. “This is Detective Noah Lassiter. He’s a friend of the woman who died in the accident yesterday. Detective, my sister Alex.”
He stepped forward to shake the hand of the other woman, who wore white cropped pants and a red-and-white-striped shirt. She had the same ivory complexion as Charlie, but her hair, more auburn than reddish brown, was shorter and curlier. Her eyes were much darker, more curious than suspicious, and not nearly as mesmerizing. No beauty mark, either. The differences weren’t particularly striking, and it surprised Noah that he’d managed to identify so many so quickly. He reminded himself that that’s what he did. He was a cop. Nothing to do with Charlie Trudeau and the way she made his blood flow faster. Nuh-uh.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Alex said.
Noah nodded his gratitude, feeling like a dick for lusting after Charlie Trudeau when Laurette was dead.
Alex’s gaze shifted to Charlie and seemed to carefully assess her sister’s mood. “What’s going on?”
Charlie shook her head, and even Noah could tell she forced her smile. “Nothing to worry about. The detective was simply asking me about the accident.”
So she didn’t want her sister to know about the cousin angle. Either she was protective or she knew something she didn’t want her sister to know.
Figuring he’d gotten as much from Charlie as he was going to for now, he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and slipped out a business card. “If you remember anything more about the hit-and-run or . . . anything else we talked about, please call my cell. I’m staying at the Royal Palm. Room number’s written on the back.”
She took the card and gazed down at it.
As he watched the top of her head, he silently inhaled her scent and decided coconut might be the sexiest fragrance on the planet. She glanced up at him, catching his scrutiny, and his breath stopped briefly. Christ, this woman. If she’d been the one doing the questioning, he would have told her whatever she wanted, as long as she wet her lips like that again, with just the tip of her tongue.
“Is there anything else?” she asked.
Her voice had dropped an octave, and his hopes soared. She felt the pull, too, that deep-down, sexual tug that made the air seem thinner, the head feel lighter and the blood in certain, down-there areas feel thicker.
“Detective Lassiter?”
He forced his gaze up to her eyes, realizing he’d focused on her full, moist lips for far too long. Again. Thinking about sex. Again. Inappropriate behavior for a detective? Uh, yeah.
He smiled awkwardly. A total, horny dickhead. “Nothing. For now.”
&n
bsp; CHAPTER TEN
While Alex whipped up pancakes and bantered with Logan in the kitchen, Charlie took the phone and unopened newspaper and stepped out onto the concrete slab that served as her patio. The banyan tree that arched overhead provided shade that would last all day, and she turned her face into the fresh morning breeze that flowed over her, breathing it in, letting it slow the rapid beat of her heart.
Green grass stretched back several dozen feet, dotted with squat royal palms and ficus bushes. The thick grass needed mowing, and weeds had gleefully taken over the garden that occupied one corner of the yard. She’d promised to maintain the garden after Nana died but hadn’t found the time. Or, made the time.
Before the regret could take hold—she was so sick of regret—she settled onto a black wrought-iron chair that still held a slight chill from the evening and opened the newspaper.
Her heart jumped. There it was, stripped across the top just like she and David had talked about. The headline blared “CAR BUYERS SAY AUTO DEALER PULLS CONTRACT SWITCHEROO” by Charlie Trudeau, Lake Avalon Gazette staff writer.
She’d done it. She’d made her point. No going back now. If she still had a job, she could fill the next week’s worth of papers with even more headline-worthy stories. Sex scandals and kickbacks and secret lives, oh my. The kind of stuff that would make papers fly out of the racks. Well, it was good to dream.
Sighing, she dialed Mac at work. Time to face the consequences. At least she could count on Mac to understand that she’d been making a statement and that she’d deliberately kept him out of the loop to protect him.
“Mac Hunter.”
“Hey.”
Silence.
“Mac?” Her heart started to race faster.
“Congratulations,” he said.
Confusion. “What?”
“Your dad’s been raging around the newsroom, out for blood. So, good job. Did you do it to get back at me?”
“What are you talking about? Get back at you for what?”
“I never thought you were that vindictive.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with you. I was—”
“It has everything to do with me! I didn’t think it did at first, but then I called and Logan answered your phone and it all clicked. You’re pissed at me because I took the job over you.”
“Wait, what does Logan answering my phone have to do with this?”
“Jesus, Charlie, I’m not that stupid. You acted like everything was fine, like it was A-okay, with the good wishes and way-to-gos, but, really, you were ticked that I was more concerned about my sister’s future than fucking you.”
She winced. Okay, well, ow, that hurt. A lot. “Uh, I didn’t—”
“Well, you can do a little dance of celebration. You won. The paper’s going down, and I’m going down with it. We all are.”
Her already aching head began to spin in earnest. “Would you just slow down? What do you mean the paper’s—”
“Advertisers are pulling their ads. Your dad said it’s going to kill us. And, hell, maybe that’s what you had in mind when you engineered this stunt. Take down the two men in your life you hate.”
“I don’t hate—”
“Wait, make that three. Your dad canned Lew. That means no retirement benefits. It’s a Charlie Trudeau trifecta.”
The air left her lungs, and everything snapped into crystal perspective. “Lew was fired? He didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Somebody’s got to take the fall.”
“But I’m taking the fall. I’m the one—” The rest of what he’d said hit her. No retirement benefits for Lew. That meant no health insurance. Oh, no. No, no, no. “Lew is sick,” she said. “He needs his health insurance.”
“Do you think it matters to your father what happens to Lew while we’re hemorrhaging advertising revenue?”
“But that doesn’t make sense. I can see Dick’s pulling their ads, but the others—”
“They’re sticking together.”
“But the story is true. Every word of it. That’s got to count for—”
“It doesn’t matter, Charlie! That’s what I’m telling you.”
She struggled to think, to sort through it all. Mac’s anger rattled her. No benefit of the doubt. He believed the worst—she was vengeful. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to focus on what was more important right now. “Lew needs his insurance, Mac.”
“There are bigger problems than that.”
“You’re not listening. Lew is sick.”
“Whatever. Your dad wants to see you at the house when you’re done fucking around with Logan.”
He hung up on her before she could respond.
Lowering the phone, she stared out at Nana’s backyard. This isn’t happening, she thought. One story, one true story, couldn’t possibly destroy the newspaper. And Logan? Mac thought she and Logan . . . Which didn’t even make sense. Mac had made his choice.
Frustration and hurt and confusion twisted and turned inside her chest. She had to do something or she was going to explode.
Shoving up out of the chair, she strode out to Nana’s garden, conscious of the thick blades of grass crunching under her bare feet, the sun hot on the top of her head. The thick and unruly mass of weeds in the twelve-by-twelve square seemed to taunt her: Look at the promise you broke. For shame, for shame.
Charlie lowered herself to her knees and began pulling at them, unearthing wads of sandy dirt that she tossed aside. As she tore at the weeds, hot tears brimmed in her eyes, but she refused to blink, refused to let them fall. Crying was pointless.
“Charlie!”
She glanced over her shoulder to see Alex with her hands on her hips and her dark brown eyes narrowed with concern.
“Hey,” Charlie said, sitting back on her heels. She hoped her eyes didn’t give away the emotion churning through her. A show of sympathy might undo her.
“What the hell are you doing?” Alex asked.
Charlie squinted at the two-foot-square patch of dirt that her furious activity had revealed. “I’m weeding.”
“Why?”
“I promised Nana I would keep up her garden, and I haven’t.”
“So naturally now is the time to start. What’s going on with you?”
Charlie pushed to her feet. Mac was wrong, she thought. He had to be. He was overreacting. That auto dealer story couldn’t possibly sink the entire newspaper.
Alex folded her arms under her breasts. “I think it’s time you tell me what the hot detective said that’s got you so bothered.”
“I’m not bothered.” Which wasn’t true. She was bothered on so many levels, not to mention by what she’d learned from Mac. Noah’s suggestion that her mother had a sister she’d never acknowledged didn’t surprise Charlie. She’d known for quite some time that her mother had a secret, would never forget the day she’d stumbled onto the evidence by accident.
And there was the fact that Laurette Atkins had called her Charlotte. Only her mother called her that. Until Charlie knew more, though, she didn’t plan to involve Alex. She knew from experience that poking around where their mother was sensitive didn’t lead to hugs and kisses.
“Okay, not bothered, but what about hot?” Alex pressed. “Because I would be if that guy had been looking at me as intensely as he was looking at you. In fact, you were giving it right back to him. It was an interesting thing to watch.”
Charlie forced herself to focus on her sister. “How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough to soak up the vibe.”
“We were talking about a woman’s death. Of course it was intense.”
“I don’t know, but there was something about the way you were looking at each other. Something . . . I don’t know. Sweaty.”
“That sounds . . . ick.”
“I don’t mean gross sweaty. I mean sexy sweaty. Rip-his-clothes-off sweaty.”
Charlie had to laugh. She couldn’t argue with that, actually. Her head had de
finitely taken a side-trip down that road about the time he’d started staring at her mouth like she was a tall glass of lemonade and he was a dehydrated man. Her heart stumbled a bit at the memory.
“Ah, so you thought about it.”
Charlie glanced at her sister, having lost the thread of their conversation amid images of Noah slipping big, warm hands under her shirt and sliding them up. “What?”
“Sex and Noah Lassiter. You thought about it. You’re thinking about it right now.”
Yep, she was, but she also had bigger things to think about. Much bigger things. She tried to smile to reassure Alex. She’d spent a lifetime working on that smile, but it didn’t come as easily this time. “I have to go talk to Dad.”
Surprise arched Alex’s brows. “Now? But the pancakes are ready.”
“You and Logan can eat them.” Charlie reached out on impulse and hugged her sister. In the next instant, she was holding on to the counter in Alex’s kitchen, rubbing the top of her head while white dots danced before her eyes. Damn, that hurt.
“Charlie?”
She blinked, surprised to see they were in her backyard, not next to the open dishwasher in Alex’s kitchen. Yet, the fresh, bleachy scent of Cascade still teased her nose, and she swore she could still feel the heat of steam rising off of freshly washed dishes. Her head throbbed from where it had smacked into the cupboard door.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked.
Charlie nodded. Another damn . . . what to call it? Flash? Vision? It happened every time she made skin-on-skin contact with someone. Damn it, she had to stop touching people.
“Charlie, come on. You’re really freaking me out here.”
“I’m fine. Honest.”
But Alex wasn’t the only one feeling freaked out. Somehow, Charlie was going to have to get a handle on what was happening to her. But, first, she had to see her father.
