"Nothing's wrong," she interrupted, disgusted at herself for giving him reason to ask. If he could be blasé about them sleeping together, so could she.
He cocked his dark head and didn't move. "You sure you're okay?"
"I'm sure," she said, then figured she had to say something to explain her shortness. "It's just that I'm getting wet and I need to know whether you're coming with me."
The rain fell in fat drops now. In another few minutes they’d be seriously drenched. He continued staring at her, as though that fact hadn't registered. "I need a minute to call the office and get my stuff together," he finally said.
"I'll wait in the car," she said abruptly and turned away to dash to the Mazda.
"I'll bring you coffee," he called after her.
If the wind and the rain hadn't swirled together to make further conversation difficult, she might have replied that she didn't want anything from him.
In her heart, she knew that wasn't true.
She wanted a hell of a lot more from Gray DeBerg than he was prepared to give.
Gray let his head drop back against the car's head rest as rain pounded the windshield and Cara silently navigated the wet highway leading to Sunnyvale.
Things weren’t going his way.
After his fight with Tyler last night, he’d driven straight to Karen Rhett’s house to question her but learned she was out of town for a two-day conference in St. Petersburg.
By the time Gray arrived home, it had been eleven o’clock. His desire to pour out his problems and then lose himself in Cara had been so sharp his whole body had ached with the wanting.
He hadn’t gone to her even though the bedroom light in the garage apartment had still been on.
Cara seemed to accept their relationship couldn't go much deeper than the physical, and he had to leave it at that.
"How well do you know Chief McKay?" she asked into the silence.
Glad for something to talk about that would help pass the hours-long drive to Sunnyvale, he started at the beginning, telling her about his childhood before the chief had come into his life. He gave her a rundown of his childhood sins, which included truancy, assault and battery, public drunkenness and theft.
"If Chief McKay hadn’t caught me at the high school after hours with a can of red spray paint, who knows where I would have ended up,” Gray said. “Jail, probably."
She glanced away from the road, meeting his eyes for just an instant. "What were you doing with the paint?"
"Defacing the property, what else?” he said. “The chief should have sent me to juvenile hall. Instead he made me do community service. I picked up trash along the roadside, served food to the homeless, pulled weeds at the police station and decided I wanted to become a cop."
"He sounds like somebody worth driving two hours to see," she said.
What seemed like a short time later, she pulled her car to a stop in front of a small white house with powder-blue awnings. Once they'd started talking, the time had flown.
The rain had temporarily stopped. Even though heavy gray clouds cluttered the sky, the flower beds rimming Bob McKay’s house and circling his trees brightened the day with splashes of red, pink and yellow.
"Why didn’t you just get the chief to talk to you over the phone?” Gray asked a question that should have occurred to him before now.
"Ruth, that’s the name of his caretaker, said Mr. McKay doesn't like talking on the phone,” she said.
Gray remembered the aborted conversations he’d had with the chief when the other man had first left Secret Sound.
"Besides,” she continued, “all the reporters I’ve ever known say a face-to-face interview yields better results.”
She got out of the car and he followed suit, automatically reaching for her elbow when she joined him on the sidewalk. His fingers clung for a moment. She shrugged off his touch and walked ahead of him.
Gray tried not to let the snub bother him as they walked past a row of red and pink impatiens to the front door. If there were distance between them, he'd put it there.
"What I can’t figure out is how I lost touch with the old man," he said. "I wrote to him for years before the post office started returning the letters."
She didn’t respond. She was probably anxious, and rightly so. Chief McKay might very well unlock the mystery tethering her to Secret Sound and a boy who had been dead for longer than she’d been alive.
He reached across her and rang the doorbell. A small, dark-haired woman with watchful eyes and stooped shoulders opened the door, introduced herself as Ruth and ushered them into the modest house. Gray had an impression of well-used furniture and well-worn rugs as she directed them to a sun room at the back of the house.
Bob McKay looked up from the newspaper he was reading. A smile split a face that was still unlined and his sky-blue eyes danced with pleasure. Emotion choked off Gray’s vocal chords as the chief dropped the paper and got up.
McKay enfolded him in a hearty embrace when they met in the center of the room, reminding Gray that the chief had never done anything halfway.
"Gray DeBerg," he said when he drew back. He still held Gray by the shoulders and he smelled of soap and coffee. He gave him an affectionate shake. "Why the hell didn't you visit me sooner?"
Gray grinned. He’d feared the old man had cut off contact because he was too proud to let an old friend see him in ill health. The chief’s complexion was ruddy, his eyes clear. His hair was graying but still thick. Time had been so good to him that the muscles on his compact, burly physique hadn’t turned to fat.
"It’s been too long, chief," Gray said. "Way too long. Is this where you’ve been hiding yourself?"
"I haven’t been hiding, son. You haven’t been visiting." Before Gray could dispute that, the chief spotted the badge on his chest. His eyes widened. "You son of a gun. You got my old job, and you didn’t tell me."
"I would have if—."
"Imagine that," the chief interrupted, clapped him one more time on the shoulder and released him. "I always knew you had it in you, son. You were a good boy even when you weren’t."
"Thanks," Gray said. "I think."
The chief’s gaze shifted to where Cara stood a couple of paces behind them. "Isn’t this my day for surprises," he exclaimed. "Is this the latest lady in your life?"
"This is Cara Donnelly." Gray turned to include her in their circle. "She’s, uh, a friend."
Cara glanced at him before offering her hand to the chief, but he couldn't read her eyes. "I hope Ruth told you that I want to ask about one of your old cases," she said as the chief clasped her hand. "I didn’t know until the last minute that Gray was coming with me."
The chief’s smile turned uncertain. Gray wondered if Ruth had failed to pass on the message. From what Gray could see, the chief didn’t need a caretaker, let alone an incompetent one. Perhaps Cara had been mistaken. Maybe Ruth was his housekeeper.
"I’m glad you’re here, both of you. Why don’t you young people join me in the sun room, and I’ll tell you what I can." He called past them to Ruth, who hovered in the doorway, that he wouldn't need her while he visited with his friends. After a long pause, Ruth disappeared into another part of the house.
Since the chief wanted to be updated on what was happening in Secret Sound, fifteen minutes passed before Cara had an opening to bring up Skippy Rhett’s death. When she did, the chief looked at her blankly until Gray reminded him of the details of the case.
Gray had checked the case file himself before the trip but thought it unnecessary to ask the chief why the information was so sketchy. Chief McKay had abhorred paperwork, preferring to keep most details in his head.
"Of course, of course," the chief said. "A strange case, that one."
"Did you have any theories on why Skippy was alone when he died?" Cara leaned forward, her eyes intent. "It seems obvious he got away from the kidnapper. There has to be more to it than that, though."
Chief McKay crossed his arms over his
chest and rocked back in his chair. "I'm afraid that's as far as I got, too."
"You must have had suspects,” Cara said.
Gray’s stomach muscles clenched in awful anticipation of hearing Curtis Rhett’s name. The old man merely stroked his chin, as though trying to remember who his suspects had been.
"I bet Sam Peckenbush was at the top of your list," Cara prodded.
"Sam Peckenbush?"
"The gas-station owner," Gray added to spark the chief's memory. "The guy driving the car that hit Skippy."
"I know who Sam is. I was surprised you mentioned his name, is all.” The chief sat up straighter. Once again, his blue eyes gleamed with intelligence. "We didn't consider Sam a suspect, not after he phoned in the accident."
"Then who?" Cara asked.
Gray braced himself again. The chief twisted his lips and tapped his index finger on his knee, lengthening Gray's agony.
"The nanny?" Cara suggested. "Was the nanny a suspect?"
"Come to think of it, she was," the chief said.
The air left Gray's lungs in a whoosh of relief. He sat forward in his chair. His knee bumped the glass coffee table, nearly spilling his glass of iced tea before he caught it and set it right again. "You thought Rosa Martinez did it?"
"Rosa Martinez?"
"That's the nanny's name," Gray said.
"Oh, yes. Rosa Martinez." The chief nodded, and the words tumbled from him. "She was in the park with the kids so she couldn’t have done the kidnapping. She was saving money to bring her twin sons to the States so I thought maybe she collaborated with somebody.”
"Did you have any evidence?" Cara asked.
Before the old man could answer, Ruth slipped into the room and hovered, like a bird watching over an egg in a nest.
"Mr. McKay needs his rest." Ruth nodded once for emphasis. "That's enough talking for one day."
The chief leaned back in his chair and smiled absently. Wind chimes hung above his head, and he reached up and touched the tingling strands.
"We’re not finished," Cara said.
Ruth set her already thin lips in a grim, nonsensical line. “You’re finished.”
"Don’t bully the guests, Ruth," the chief said. "Karen won’t come back if you do."
"It’s Cara," she corrected.
The chief smiled at her, shaking his head as though she were confused."You were such a pretty child, Karen. Tailing after your brother like he hung the moon."
"Excuse me?" Shock replaced the determination in Cara’s expression. Ruth bustled around them, gathering iced-tea glasses, preparing for them to leave.
"I'm sorry I didn’t find out what happened to your brother." Tears sprang to the chief's eyes. "I always felt bad about that."
"You need to leave," Ruth said in a much firmer tone.
Gray ignored her, rising from his chair and crossing to where the retired chief sat. Thick clouds hid the sun, casting the room entirely in shadows.
"Chief McKay." He gently put his hand on the older man’s arm. "Are you okay?"
The blue eyes that gazed up at Gray no longer seemed as clear as a cloudless, blue sky.
"Who," he asked, "are you?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"I’m sorry about Chief McKay."
Cara finally broke the oppressive silence when they were ten miles outside Sunnyvale. She’d surrendered her car keys after they’d said their goodbyes to the chief, figuring driving might give Gray something to do besides think about the old man’s predicament. Judging by the silence and the stony set of his rugged profile, it hadn’t helped much.
"It’s hard when someone you love doesn’t recognize you." She leaned back against the seat, staring at the rain but seeing her mother’s vacant expression. She’d been lost to Cara long before she died. "My mother had Alzheimer’s, too. Most days she didn’t know she had a husband, much less a daughter."
Gray briefly turned his attention from the road to her, and his eyes were kind. "Do you miss your parents very much?"
"A part of me always will, but it gets a little easier as each day passes. I’m starting to let go of the bad times and remember how much they loved me. They were far too protective and far too strict, but I always knew they loved me." Cara paused. "I could tell, despite it all, how much Chief McKay loves you."
"I wondered how I lost contact with him," Gray said after a moment, his voice husky. "Now I know. Even if he got my letters, chances are he looked at the signature and didn’t know who they were from." He swallowed. "We can't trust anything he told us."
Cara nodded. "That was pretty clear the moment he called me Karen. Alzheimer’s is cruel. Fact and fiction get mixed up in the brain, and you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. He seemed pretty lucid about some things, though. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check out the nanny."
"I agree,” Gray said. “Rosa Martinez will be hard to find, though. Her last name is extremely common.
"Could you ask Karen for a phone number where her parents can be reached? Maybe they’ll know. Or maybe there’s paperwork in the house with Rosa's forwarding address."
"I’ll ask her," he said, "but don’t count on her being too eager to help."
Gray didn’t say anything for long minutes, and to Cara it seemed as though he were debating something with himself. She closed her eyes to combat the headache gnawing at her skull.
"There’s something you should know,” he said. “Karen made the call telling you to leave town."
Cara’s eyes snapped open. She digested the knowledge and discovered she wasn’t surprised. Karen obviously believed Cara's presence hampered her in her pursuit of Gray. She wasn't the sort of woman who would take kindly to that.
"Has she admitted to any of the other things?" she asked.
"She didn’t even admit to that. I got it second-hand," Gray said. "As for the other things, she’s out of town on newspaper business so I haven’t gotten a chance to question her yet."
"What kind of car does she drive?"
He paused a beat before answering. "A Lincoln Continental. A black one. But that doesn’t prove she tried to hurt you."
Cara's momentary hope that Gray had trusted her enough to tell her who he was protecting faded, because she was suddenly quite sure that person wasn’t Karen.
"You don’t think Karen did anything more than make that phone call," she stated flatly.
He didn’t answer for a long time, and the atmosphere inside the car grew oppressive. It was raining again, and the wipers moved rhythmically against the windshield, cutting her and Gray off from everything but each other. When they’d made love, she had thought their minds had connected as surely as their hearts. Now she feared she had been mistaken.
"You’re right. I don’t think Karen is trying to hurt you," he confirmed. "I’ll talk to her. I’ll be surprised if anything comes out of it."
They drove another five miles before Cara spoke again. "You’re still not going to tell me who you think is doing these things."
It was a statement rather than a question. He’d denied her the knowledge so many times already she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond.
Cara turned her head to gaze sightlessly out the glass of the passenger window, letting the anger course through her and dissolve. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t force Gray to trust her. She couldn’t force him to love her.
She had an inkling of how Richard must have felt this past year, waiting for her to accept his proposal when all the while he must have known the love was one-sided.
She hadn’t realized her warm, fuzzy feeling for Richard was a dispassionate imitation of love until she’d experienced the real thing.
Love wasn’t gentle. It was hot, desperate need; exhilarating highs and frightening lows. It was wanting somebody so badly the very marrow inside your bones ached with it.
Love was what she felt for Gray.
Her breath caught. She choked back a sob, feeling as sorry for Richard as she did for herself. She could no mor
e marry him than she could stop loving Gray.
She pressed her nose against the window, thinking it ironic that she had been courageous in love for the first time in her life and all it would get her was a busted heart.
Rays of sunlight sliced through the gray sky and dried the damp earth by the time they got back to Secret Sound. Relieved to be out of the car and away from Gray’s overwhelming presence, Cara hurried toward the stairs leading to the garage apartment.
"Cara." Gray’s voice stopped her before she could make a clean getaway, and she reluctantly turned around. He walked toward her with his rhythmic, athletic gait, stopping about six paces away. A dull ache squeezed her heart. How long would it be, she wondered, before she stopped wanting him? "What are you planning to do with the rest of your day?"
She crossed her arms protectively over her chest. "I haven’t decided yet."
"I should tell you that last night I contacted a buddy of mine who used to be on the police force. His name’s Miles Dunleavy. If I call him now, he could be here in a few minutes." His eyes met hers and held. "I can’t take more time away from my job so I asked him to make sure you stay safe."
The clear light of day had chased away some of Cara's fear. She didn't want a bodyguard. Not, she admitted wryly, if Gray weren't volunteering for the duty himself.
"How about if I promise to be home by dark?" she asked.
"I'm probably overreacting, but I don't want to take any chances." The seriousness of Gray's tone told her he didn't believe for a second that he was reacting excessively. "I'd feel better if somebody I trust has you in his sights."
Cara swallowed, fairly certain Gray would get Miles Dunleavy to tail her even if she refused to cooperate.
"Okay," she said, surrendering to the inevitable.
Trying not to let herself read too much into the relief that crossed his face, she pivoted and hurried up the stairs to her apartment.
Two hours later, her stomach full from the BLT and French fries that had made up her late lunch, she walked out of a Main Street deli with Miles Dunleavy. She'd thought it pointless and more than a little rude to leave him waiting in his car outside the restaurant while she ate.
Sound of Secrets Page 20
