Partners

by Nora Roberts

  done it.”

  Laurel opened her mouth and closed it again. Absentminded, Marion had said. He’d been absentminded, angry, bitter. She didn’t like the picture it was drawing in her mind.

  Laurel remained silent as he drove through downtown traffic. No man forgot he’d left his wife alone and lost. No sane man. Matt swung over to the curb and stopped. “Where are we going?”

  “To see Nathan Brewster.”

  Laurel glanced up at Trulane’s, one of the oldest, most prestigious buildings in the city. Perhaps they’d find something in there that would shift the focus from Louis. “Marion didn’t want to talk about Nathan Brewster.”

  “I noticed.” Matt stepped out of the car. “Let’s find out why.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she murmured as they walked toward the front doors.

  “Mmmm. That could be embarrassing.”

  She shot him a look as they walked inside. “Anne was attracted to Nathan Brewster, acted on it and Louis found out. Rather than dealing with it or divorcing her, he drags her into the swamp in the middle of the night and dumps her.”

  Matt checked the board on the wall and located Accounting. “It crossed my mind,” he agreed.

  “You’ve got your own prejudices against Louis.”

  “You’re damned right,” he muttered, and took her hand to pull her to the elevator. “Look,” Matt began before she could retort. “Let’s talk to the man and see what happens. Maybe he’s just been embezzling or having an affair with Marion.”

  “Your ideas get more and more ludicrous.” She stepped into the elevator and crossed her arms.

  “You’re sulking.”

  “I am not!” Letting out an exasperated breath, she glared at him. “I don’t agree with your theory, that’s all.”

  “Give me yours,” Matt suggested.

  She watched the numbers flash over the elevator door. “After we talk to Brewster.”

  They stepped out on carpet, thick and plush. Without giving Matt a glance, Laurel crossed to the receptionist. “Laurel Armand, Matthew Bates, with the Herald,” she said briskly. “We’d like to see Nathan Brewster.”

  The receptionist flicked open her book. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. Tell Mr. Brewster we’d like to speak with him about Anne Trulane.”

  “If you’ll have a seat, I’ll see if Mr. Brewster’s available.”

  “Nice touch, Laurellie,” Matt told her as they crossed the reception area. “Ever think about the military?”

  “It’s gotten me into a lot of city officials.” She took a seat under a potted palm and crossed her legs.

  He grinned down at her. There wasn’t a trace of the sad, vulnerable woman who’d rested her head on his shoulder. “You’ve got style,” he decided, then let his gaze sweep down. “And great legs.”

  Laurel slanted him a look. “Yeah.”

  “Mr. Brewster will see you now.” The receptionist led them down a hallway, past an army of doors. After opening one, she went silently back to her desk.

  Laurel’s first impression of Nathan Brewster was of sex. He exuded it, ripe, physical. He was dark, and though he wasn’t tall, he had a blatant virility no woman could miss. Good looks, though he had them, didn’t matter. It was his primitive masculinity that would either draw or repel.

  “Ms. Armand, Mr. Bates.” He gestured toward two small leather chairs before taking a seat behind his desk. “You wanted to talk to me about Anne Trulane.”

  “That’s right.” Laurel settled herself beside Matt as she tried to reason out what kind of reaction a woman like Anne would have had to Nathan Brewster.

  “She’s dead,” Brewster said flatly. “What does the press have to do with it?”

  “You met Anne at Heritage Oak,” Laurel began. “Not many people did.”

  “I went there on business.” He picked up a pencil and ran it through his fingers.

  “Could you give us your impression of her?”

  “She was young, shy. My business was with Mr. Trulane; I barely spoke to her.”

  “Strange.” Matt watched Brewster pull the pencil through his fingers again and again. “Yours was one of the few names that came up in Anne’s letters.” The pencil broke with a quiet snap.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Anne wrote to her sister about you.” Matt kept his eyes on Brewster’s now, waiting, measuring. “Her sister doesn’t believe Anne’s death was an accident.”

  Matt watched the little ripple of Brewster’s throat as he swallowed. “She died of a snakebite.”

  “In the swamp,” Laurel put in, fascinated by the waves of frustration and passion pouring out of him. “Did you know she was frightened of the swamp, Mr. Brewster?”

  He shot Laurel a look, molten, enraged. Matt’s muscles tensed. “How would I?” he demanded. “How would I know?”

  “Why would you suppose she’d go into a place that terrified her?”

  “Maybe she couldn’t stand being locked up anymore!” he exploded. “Maybe she had to get out, no matter where, or how.”

  “Locked up?” Laurel repeated, ignoring the tremor in her stomach. “Are you saying Louis kept her a prisoner?”

  “What else can you call it?” he shot back at her. His hands clenched and unclenched on the two jagged pieces of pencil. “Day after day, month after month, never seeing anyone but servants and a man who watched every move she made. She never did anything without asking him first. She never stepped a foot beyond the gates of that place without him.”

  “Was she unhappy?” Laurel asked. “Did she tell you she was unhappy?”

  “She should’ve been,” Nathan tossed back. “Trulane treated her more like a daughter than a wife. She needed someone who’d treat her like a woman.”

  “You?” Matt said softly. Laurel swallowed.

  Brewster’s breathing was labored. The temper Matt had been told of was fighting to get free. He’d have to struggle to control it. And, Matt mused, he wouldn’t often win.

  “I wanted her,” Brewster said roughly. “From the first time I saw her out on the lawn, in the sunlight. She belonged in the sunlight. I wanted her, loved her, in a way Trulane couldn’t possibly understand.”

  “Was she in love with you?”

  Matt’s quiet question drew the blood to Brewster’s cheeks. “She would have left him. She wouldn’t have stayed in that—monument forever.”

  “And come to you?” Laurel murmured.

  “Sooner or later.” The eyes he turned on Laurel were penetrating, filled with passion and feeling. “I told her she didn’t have to stay locked up there, I’d help her get away. I told her she’d be better off dead than—”

  “Better off dead than living with Louis,” Laurel finished as his harsh breathing filled the room.

  “It must’ve been frustrating,” Matt continued when Brewster didn’t answer. “Loving your employer’s wife, rarely being able to see her or tell her how you felt.”

  “Anne knew how I felt,” Brewster bit off. “What difference does it make now? She’s dead. That place killed her. He killed her.” Brewster sent them both a heated look. “Print that in your paper.”

  “You believe Louis Trulane killed his wife?” Matt watched Brewster sweep the remains of the pencil from his desk.

  “He might as well have held a gun to her head. She got away,” he murmured as he stared down at his empty hands. “She finally got away, but she didn’t come to me.” The hands curled into fists again. “Now leave me alone.”

  Laurel’s muscles didn’t relax until they’d walked out into the sunlight. “That was a sad, bitter man,” she murmured.

  “And one who takes little trouble to hide it.”

  She shivered, then leaned against the side of his car. “I can understand why he made Anne nervous.”

  Matt cupped his hands around a match as he lit a cigarette. “Give me a basic feminine reaction.”

  “Passion, virility, primitive
enough to fascinate.” She shook her head as she stared up at the ribbons of windows. “For some women, that would be irresistible simply because it’s rather frightening. A woman like Anne Trulane would’ve seen him as one of her dark closets and stayed away.” With a short laugh, she dragged a hand through her hair. “I’m not a psychiatrist, Matthew, but I think a certain kind of woman would be drawn to a man like Brewster. I don’t believe Anne Trulane would’ve been.”

  Letting out a long breath, she turned to him. “It’s my turn to write a scenario.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Brewster’s in love with her—or thinks he is, it wouldn’t matter with a man like him. He tells Anne, asks her to leave Louis for him. How would she feel? Frightened, appalled. A little flattered perhaps.”

  He cocked a brow, intrigued. “Flattered?”

  “She was a woman,” Laurel said flatly. “Young, unsophisticated.” She glanced back up at the windows, thinking of Brewster. “Yes, I believe she might have felt all three emotions. It confuses her, he pressures her. He’s very intense, dramatic. She loves her husband, but this is something she doesn’t know how to cope with. She can’t even write her sister about it.”

  Matt nodded, watching her. “Go on.”

  “Suppose Brewster contacts her, demands to see her. Maybe he even threatens to confront Louis. She wouldn’t have wanted that. Louis’s approval and trust are important to her. Anne had to know about his first wife. So . . .”

  Laurel’s eyes narrowed as she tried to picture it. “She agrees to see him, meets him outside, late, while Louis is working. They argue because she won’t leave Louis. He’s a physical man.” She remembered his strong fingers on the pencil. “He’s convinced himself she wants him but is afraid to leave. He drags her away from the house, away from the light. She’s terrified now, of him, of the dark. She breaks away and runs, but it’s dark and she’s in the swamp before she realizes it. She’s lost. Brewster either can’t find her or doesn’t try. And then . . .”

  “Interesting,” Matt murmured before he flicked his cigarette away. “And, I suppose, as plausible as anything else. I wish we had those damn letters,” he said suddenly. “There must be something there or they wouldn’t’ve been taken.”

  “Whatever it was, we won’t find it there now.”

  Matt nodded, staring past her. “I want to get into that swamp, look around.”

  Laurel felt the shudder and repressed it. “Tonight?”

  “Mmmm.”

  She supposed she’d known it was bound to come down to this. Resigned, she blew the hair out of her eyes. “Let’s go get some mosquito repellent.”

  He grinned and ran a finger down her nose. “Only one of us has to go. You stay home and keep a light burning in the window.”

  The brow went up, arrogant, haughty. “My story, Bates. I’m going; you can tag along if you want.”

  “Our story,” he corrected. “God knows if there’ll be anything in there but a bunch of filthy insects and soggy ground.”

  And snakes, Laurel thought. She swallowed, tasting copper. “We’ll have to see, won’t we? Matthew, we’re running out of angles.”

  They stared at each other, frowning. Dead end—for now.

  “Let’s get some lunch,” Laurel suggested as she swung around to get into the car. “And get back to the paper before we’re both out of a job.”

  Chapter 7

  Laurel spent over an hour with Matt in the newspaper morgue, going through files and crosschecking until her neck ached. With luck, the Herald would be on computers within the year. Laurel might miss the ambience of the cavernous morgue with the smell of dust and old paper, but she wouldn’t miss the inconvenience. Some of the staff might grumble about having to learn the tricks of a terminal, the codes, the ways and means of putting in and taking out information at the punch of a button. She promised herself, as she rubbed at a crick in the back of her neck, she wouldn’t be one of them.

  “Brewster made page two with his fists,” Laurel murmured as she scanned the story. “Two years ago last April.” She glanced up briefly. “No one’s memory’s quite like Grandma’s.”

  “She mentioned a sister.”

  “That’s right. His sister’d been seeing a man who apparently liked his bourbon a bit too well. He’d seen her in a bar with another man and made a scene—tried to drag her out. Brewster was there. It took roughly ten men to pull him off, and before they did, he’d broken a couple of tables, a mirror, three of the guy’s ribs, his nose and jaw and his own hand.”

  Matt lifted a brow at her cool recital of the violence. “Charged?”

  “Assault headed the list,” Laurel told him. “Ended up paying a fine when his . . . ah . . . opponent wouldn’t press charges.” She scrawled a note on her pad. “Apparently once Brewster’s temper is lost, it’s lost. I think I’ll see if I can trace the sister. He might have talked to her about Anne.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  She glanced over to see Matt scribbling quickly in his own book. “What’ve you got?”

  “Speculation,” he murmured, then rose. “I have a few calls to make myself.”

  “Matthew,” Laurel began as they started down the corridor, “weren’t you the one who had all the big talk about sharing?”

  He smiled at her, then pushed the button for the elevator. “After I make the calls.”

  “Make up your own rules as you go along?” she muttered when they stepped inside the car.

  He looked down at her, remembering her passion in his arms, the vulnerability in her eyes. Her innocence. “I might just have to.”

  Laurel felt the quick chill race up her spine and stared straight ahead. “Let’s stick with the story, Bates.”

  “Absolutely.” Grinning, he took her arm as the elevator opened. They walked into the city room and separated.

  Reporters have to get used to rude replies, no replies, runarounds. Laurel dealt with all three as she dialed number after number in an attempt to trace Kate Brewster. When she finally reached her, Laurel had to deal with all three again.

  Brewster’s sister flatly refused to discuss the barroom brawl and had little to say about her brother. At the mention of Anne Trulane, Laurel sensed a hesitation and caught a slight inflection—fear?—in Kate’s voice as she claimed she didn’t know anyone by that name.

  Laurel found herself dealing with another hazard reporter’s face. An abrupt dial tone in the ear. Glancing up, she saw Matt cradling his own phone between his shoulder and ear as he made notes. At least one of us is getting somewhere, she thought in disgust as she rose to perch on the corner of his desk. Though she tried, it wasn’t possible to read his peculiar type of shorthand upside down. Idly, she picked up the foam cup that held his cooling coffee and sipped. When she heard him mention the name Elise Trulane, she frowned.

  What the hell’s he up to? Laurel wondered as he easily ignored her and continued to take notes. Checking up on Elise . . . he’s hung up on the similarity in looks, she decided. What does a runaway first wife have to do with a dead second one? As an uncomfortable thought raced into her mind, Laurel’s eyes darted to Matt’s. Revenge? But that would be madness. Louis wasn’t—Louis couldn’t . . . From the way he returned the look, she realized Matt read her thoughts while she wasn’t able to penetrate his. Deliberately, she turned away to stare into Don Ballinger’s office. The information they’d given their editor might have been sketchy, but it had been enough to give them the go-ahead.

  Matt hung up and tapped his pencil on the edge of his desk. “What’d you get?”

  “Zero, unless you count the impression that Anne Trulane’s name made Brewster’s sister very nervous. And another impression that she treads very carefully where her brother’s concerned. What’re you up to, Matthew?”

  He ran the pencil through his hands, but the gesture had none of the nervous passion and energy that Brewster’s had. His hands were lean, not elegant like Louis’s, she thought, or violent like Brewster’s. They were capa
ble and clever and strong—just as he was. Disturbed, she shifted her gaze to his face. It was becoming a habit for thoughts of him to get in the way of what they had to do.

  “Matthew?” she repeated as he looked beyond her.

  “It seems the two Mrs. Trulanes had one or two things more in common than looks,” he began. He dropped the pencil on his desk and drew out a cigarette. “They each had only one relative. In Elise’s case, it’s an aunt. I just spoke with her.”