The Pretender

by HelenKay Dimon

  With a hard swallow, she got the cracker down then dumped the rest on the bench between them. “How exactly does one become an art appraiser?”

  That sexy smile of his came roaring back. “We’re changing the subject?”

  She nodded. “Without even an ounce of subtlety.”

  The rich sound of his laugh floated through the dark night. “Then the answer is easy—misspent youth.”

  “What are you talking about? Art appraising sounds like something wealthy people would be into. Like, I’m looking at you and thinking private-school boy.” She studied his face and hummed as she tried to pin him down, figure out his untold story. “Maybe even a boarding school.”

  He snorted. “Your people-reading skills are way off tonight.”

  That answer . . . it had her wanting to know more. She beat back the urge to pepper him with questions. If she took a turn, he would want one. No way.

  She pointed at the gooey s’more oozing between his fingers. “Blame the marshmallow.”

  “They’re growing on you.”

  “Not really.” She’d never been a fan. “The sticky thing . . . it’s annoying.”

  He held up a hand and wore a look of fake outrage. “Honestly, you keep talking like that and I’ll have to leave the island.”

  “I wish I had that option.” She hadn’t meant to say that, but the words were out there now.

  His head snapped back as he looked at her. “Do you really have to be here?”

  “I owe it to Tabitha.” And it was a debt Gabby took seriously. Her sweet, loving sister deserved so much more than the end she got. The idea of her dying alone and afraid twisted Gabby’s insides into knots. She had faint memories of a man and footsteps that horrible afternoon, but Tabitha was gone by the time Gabby reached her. “Someone needs to care about what really happened to her.”

  “No theories?”

  “Too many, actually.” Someone looking for cash. Some jerk hoping to find a woman alone. Every option centered on the hazy figure she saw leaving the house. The one she’d almost convinced herself she’d dreamed up.

  “Are you really not going to sleep inside tonight?” he asked.

  “I might sleep on the porch.” That was the plan. There or the boathouse, where there’d be some protection from the wind.

  She’d thought about knocking on Kramer’s door, but his son was on the island, trying to catch up on maintenance that had been limited when the police shut down the island to everyone to conduct an investigation. Poor Kramer got displaced for a few months. Once he came back the police limited the work he could do. So did the wrangling over the estate because Tabitha’s trust fund had been frozen. But now that Kramer was back, he was behind on all but the most routine work. She knew because he’d grumbled about that while they shared breakfast at his house this morning.

  “It’s freezing out here.” Harris rubbed his hands together in front of the fire as if to prove his point.

  “I’ll be fine.” When he started to say something, she talked over him. “I’m serious, Harris. I can’t be in the house. Not yet. Tomorrow, maybe. In the light.”

  “Have you been in there since . . .”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence because she knew where he was going. “Since I found her body? No.”

  He let out a long, loud breath as he wrapped up the chocolate bar again. “Take the guesthouse.”

  The idea sounded so much better than any other option. She’d stayed there on and off with Tabitha since their parents died. Her sister loved the solitude of the island but Gabby always worried the lack of companionship would prove to be too much. She stopped in. She swung through. She came up with excuses to be there for days at a time with her sister before jumping off again.

  “Where would you sleep?” A not entirely unwelcome idea formed in her brain. “Or was that a really sloppy pass?”

  “Sloppy?” He shook his head. “Woman, come on. It takes skill to look debonair while having your fingers stuck together with marshmallow.”

  He held up his fingers to show her.

  “You’re right,” she said, ignoring the fact he pulled off the look just fine.

  He picked up the chocolate bar then dropped it again. “Melting chocolate. I mean, I’m balancing a lot over here.”

  He really was adorable. Sexy and hot in a want-to-climb-him way, but kind of sweet, too.

  Too bad she thought it was all a very calculated act.

  “You’re very impressive,” she said in the most condescending voice she could muster.

  “Thanks for noticing.” He wiped his hands on a paper towel and put the rest of the s’mores ingredients away. “But the offer still stands. The guesthouse has a couch and a floor. I can sleep on one of those.”

  So tempting.

  “No.” The offer should have been easy to resist but she had to force the denial out. She stood up, thinking leaving might be the only way she could win this round. “I’ll be fine.”

  He glanced up at her. “I get the impression you’re always fine, Gabby.”

  “Then you’re not looking very closely.”

  Chapter 5

  Harris stood there for a second, watching Gabby sleep. An unwanted mix of guilt and interest slammed into him. He needed to ignore his attraction and focus on fixing the mess his ill-timed visit to this island fourteen months ago cost her. If he hadn’t corrupted the crime scene, Gabby might have her answers about Tabitha. Gabby might have been able to move on instead of hovering in this holding pattern and sleeping outside.

  It was a little past midnight. At some point she’d curled up on the porch swing around the corner from the front door of the main house and drifted off. He could see her thanks to the recessed lights in the porch ceiling.

  During the day the seat had a perfect view of the inground pool and open water of the Bay beyond. Not that she’d notice that now since she lay on her side with her eyes closed. The edge of a paperback peeked out from under her elbow and a jacket fell over her as if she’d tugged it on as a blanket then it slipped as she moved around.

  Haunting memories or not, the temperature had dipped low. There was no way she should be out here.

  He walked up two steps, thinking to wake her but then stopped. Something about her, about all she’d endured and survived, pulled at him. He appreciated strong women. The stamina and the smarts. In some ways Gabby reminded him of his mother . . . maybe too much. His mother had pushed through life and overcome the unimaginable. She also wallowed in secrets until they almost drowned her.

  That was how he saw Gabby. So many doubts swirled around her. He knew it was all nonsense. He didn’t buy the theories about her parents and he was eyewitness to the fact she didn’t kill her sister. When she spoke of her sister a wistful, pained tone moved into her voice as if it was hard for her to breathe through it. Maybe Stephen saw that as an admission of guilt. Harris saw genuine emotion.

  But that didn’t absolve her of every crime. He’d read over the police reports from around the time of the kidnapping more than a decade ago. Gabby gave partial answers and her story bounced around from interview to interview. The two classmates implicated in the kidnapping insisted it was all a joke gone wrong and received probation. Gabby’s parents put her in a protective bubble and insisted in public that she was innocent, only to disinherit her and move her out of the house less than a year later.

  Then there was the shovel. Stephen had made a big deal about her “sneaking” onto the island with a shovel in hand just a few days ago. Even Harris had to admit that was an odd tool to carry around with her. He wanted an explanation but he couldn’t exactly ask for one. Not in his role as appraiser.

  She shifted her arm and the book fell to the porch. It landed with a soft thud but she didn’t wake up.

  “Gabby,” he whispered as he moved closer.

  That was all it took. The soft call of her name and she jumped up. Her legs whipped over the side of the swing and her jacket drifted down on top of her book.<
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  She looked around, eyes wide in panic. “What’s wrong?”

  “Whoa.” He put up his hands but shouldn’t have bothered because she wasn’t looking at him. He didn’t think her eyes had even focused. “You’re literally asleep on the porch.”

  She gulped in deep breaths. Her chest rose and fell as her fingers wrapped around the edge of the chair in a white-knuckle grip. “I was reading and—”

  “I thought we had an agreement.” He walked the final few steps and stopped in front of her.

  She glanced up at him and her eyes cleared. “What do you mean?”

  “About not playing lying games. So, can we skip over the part where you make up excuses?” When she didn’t say anything, he closed the rest of the distance between them and sat down next to her. Scooped her jacket off the floor and balanced it over her shoulders, letting his fingers linger just long enough to feel the brush of her soft hair against the back of his hand.

  Attraction kicked him in the nuts. He couldn’t remember wanting a woman this hard and this fast. He didn’t go in for commitment or even dating, really. He was too involved with his legitimate job and the one he did on the side, moving art back to its rightful owners whether the people holding it agreed or not.

  But none of that mattered right now. She did, so he continued to stay quiet. There was no reason to rush this conversation. She’d talk if she wanted to. If not, they could sit here, gently swaying on the swing.

  “Every time I try to walk through that door I see her.” Her voice sounded flat, almost monotone, as she stared off in the distance.

  “I can imagine.”

  “You really can’t.” She exhaled as she turned to face him. “I’m not trying to be a jerk, but nothing . . . There are no words to describe it.”

  She looked small huddled there in her coat. She’d kicked her shoes off and wore only socks. Now she curled her toes and raised her feet off the porch floor, likely to evade the cold wood.

  Maybe to provide comfort or to stop his memories from that day from squeaking through, he reached down and lifted her legs. Balanced them on his lap and propped her calves up on his knees. She didn’t squirm or shift. She settled in, leaning her body against his.

  He rested his hand on her legs. Not really holding them there, more like hoping she’d find the gesture soothing. That wouldn’t ease his guilt but it might ease her suffering. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t even know you.” But she sounded resigned not angry.

  “I’m thinking that might make it easier.” He gave in to the urge to really touch her then. His fingers slipped through her hair and skimmed her cool cheek.

  It took another full minute before she spoke. In the silence, he used his foot to send the swing into a gentle back and forth. Ignored the cold slicing through him.

  “She was my baby sister. This beautiful, amazing, sweet person with an air of innocence. My parents coddled her, in general, then went into hyperspeed after what happened with me. The behavior stuck Tabitha in this odd state of arrested social development.”

  That was the part people whispered about, but no one seemed to know the extent of her issues. Now he had an idea. “Was she afraid of people?”

  “That’s just it, no. But they had to be here, on her turf. She got nervous in crowds and hated gossip. Her way of dealing was to hide from it. She craved this insular life on the island, attached to her laptop doing true crime research.”

  He’d never heard that fact before. “Wait, what kind of—”

  “Losing her . . .” Gabby’s face crumpled but she quickly got it under control before any tears fell. “At first I felt this screaming pain. It echoed in my head all the time, dragged me down, swamped me in migraines and made it impossible to get out of bed.” She shook her head. “Now I don’t feel anything. Literally, there is nothing left inside. It’s this blank space. Dark and thick and suffocating in its stillness.”

  He’d never battled depression but he’d fought off nothingness. Years ago, watching his mother go and listening to his father’s rampage. His loss didn’t compare to Gabby’s. He actually had no idea how she managed at all. He could barely handle what he’d seen that day on the island and he’d been emotionally detached. But she lived it, every second of it, alone.

  He had Wren and the other guys. Those few friends scattered here and there. She had this trail behind her and in front of her, and neither seemed to lead anywhere.

  “You need time.” It was an empty platitude, but Harris thought it held a ring of truth. Time didn’t heal but distance did make some things tolerable. Maybe that was as good as it got for some people.

  “To what?”

  It was a damn good question. One he didn’t really know how to answer, but he tried anyway. “Deal with it? Grieve? Figure out how to move forward even though your brain screams for you to stop? I’m not even sure, but it seems to me not that many months have passed. What little time you’ve had has been bound up with accusations and fighting your uncle and the press.”

  She balanced her head against the back of the swing. “Why can I talk with you about this when I can’t talk to my friends . . . the few I have left?”

  “We’re not trying to impress each other or look the best we can.” Which was weird. He was wildly attracted to her, felt this odd sense of protectiveness whenever he saw her. At least one of those usually led him to turn on the charm. It was second nature to him. But with her, he wanted to throw off the costume and just be. “I’m guessing you don’t care what I think of you.”

  “It’s part of the numbness. I no longer see the stares or hear the whispers. I walk through life and everything around me blends into white noise.” She skimmed the back of her hand down his arm.

  “Sounds like a solid mental health self-defense strategy.”

  Her hand dropped to the bench between them. “I assume most people think I’m a killer.”

  Almost everyone he knew fell into that category. People who’d never met her and relied only on news reports. People who didn’t hear her scream that night months ago. “I don’t.”

  She stared at him, unblinking. “You don’t believe the hype?”

  He toyed with underplaying his response. But this close he could smell the scent of flowers in her hair and on her skin. Hear the small tremor in her voice as she talked about who she was now and the beloved sister she’d lost.

  The truth. She deserved the truth, at least about this. “I don’t think someone who is this paralyzed with pain could be a killer.”

  This time when she lowered her head she rested it on his shoulder. “My uncle thinks I’m struggling with guilt.”

  “Your uncle’s kind of an ass.”

  “Oh, he’s definitely that. Always was.”

  “You didn’t get along with him before?” This part intrigued Harris. He’d been raised in a modest house with very little in the way of possessions. His parents fought and when the police came for his mother the world exploded.

  Even though he pretended to run in their circles and had amassed a fortune of his own, Harris really had no idea how rich people were supposed to act. His friends had accumulated wealth but none of them acted like it, outside of living in alarm-controlled houses.

  “He thought Tabitha and I were spoiled. He and his wife couldn’t have kids, so he spent a lot of time telling my parents how to raise us.” She sighed. “He was the elder brother, so my dad listened. Listened then ignored.”

  “Sounds like a good call.” Harris planned to ignore most of what Stephen said, too.

  “Then the kidnapping happened and my uncle never looked back. He tagged me as a threat to the family. He watched me as if he was waiting for me to rip the family apart.”

  Questions bombarded Harris. That piece of the puzzle didn’t fit with the woman in front of him now. Faking her own kidnapping for cash? It was so mercenary. So desperate when nothing about the way she lived from the small studio apartment to the entry-level job suggested she insisted on an entitlemen
t to a lush lifestyle.

  He went with the safest question. “Wasn’t that a decade ago?”

  “More than that. I was nineteen. I’m thirty now.”

  That was it. She didn’t offer up another fact. Didn’t provide any glimpse into what happened then or why.

  He weighed his options and decided knowing more about what really happened back then could wait. Building the bond with her about Tabitha’s death and her uncle’s revenge was the better call. “The man can hold a grudge.”

  “Don’t make me into a martyr, Harris. My uncle was right about some of it. I wasn’t the perfect child.”

  “Something else we have in common.” Since she sounded so beaten down, he tried for a little humor. “Clearly we should sleep together.”

  The comment sat there. Neither of them laughed. The idea suddenly didn’t strike him as funny.

  She slowly lifted her head. “I think you’re skipping a few steps in getting to know each other.”

  She didn’t say no.

  Sweet Jesus, he needed her to say no.

  “You in the bed. Me on the floor.” He forced out the last part. “No touching.”

  She sat up and the color returned to her cheeks. Not a blush, but the deathly paleness disappeared. “You don’t mix business with pleasure?”

  Every word she said tempted him. That high road was starting to get pretty damn steep. No wonder he usually didn’t take it.

  “Are you familiar with the concept of mixed messages?” he asked.

  “Sorry.” She smiled as she shook her head. “I’m tired and emotionally wrung out.”

  There, now she’d said the phrase guaranteed to stop any action tonight. He might act like an ass sometimes but he was not taking advantage of her. Not like this.

  He shifted her legs off his lap and stood up. With his hand extended down to her, he closed this out for the night. “Then let’s go to bed.”

  Her gaze shifted from his hand to his face. It traveled to his mouth and hesitated there before she nodded and took his hand. “You wore me down.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”