“Okay.” She unlocked her door and jumped out onto the stones and followed him to the front door. A soft rain had just begun to fall, and the sky continued to darken. Large fat clouds gathered overhead at a steady clip.
The house was small and brick with white shutters and no front porch. Three concrete steps led directly to the front door. There was no name on the black metal mailbox affixed to the front of the house, no shrubs or flowers, nothing to lend even a trace of warmth to the property. Scruffy grass ran right up to the foundation, and all of the wood trim—windows, shutters, door—looked like their next paint job was already several years overdue.
Sean unlocked the door and swung it open, stepped aside to let Amanda enter the narrow foyer.
“I’ll just be a minute.” He moved past her to turn on a lamp in the living room.
“I guess I’ll just wait here. . . .” she said, even though he’d already left the room on his way to the stairwell.
She looked around the living room, marveling at the sparseness of the furnishings.
Sparse? She almost laughed out loud. This was beyond sparse. The living room held one dark brown leather chair and an ottoman, both of indeterminable age, and a table painted white upon which sat the lamp he’d turned on. There were stacks of books on the floor on either side of the chair, hardbacks and paperbacks in small haphazard towers, one of which had slumped over to spread out under the table. There was nothing else in the room. No television. No pictures on the wall. Nothing. The walls were all stark white.
She stepped forward through what she assumed was intended to have been the dining room. What might have served as a dining table under other circumstances held an open laptop and piles of paper, files with their contents partly exposed, and stacks of newspaper articles. The lone wooden chair sat pushed up to the table.
Into the kitchen, where counters stood empty and the sink held nothing but a coffee mug. The one surprise was the color on the walls.
“Admiring the decor?” he asked dryly from the doorway.
“Sorry. I was just wandering. Sorry.”
“Now you and Greer will have something else to talk about.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She frowned.
“She’s always on my back about not having any furniture. She says I live like a hermit.”
“Well, you have to admit that you have a lot of empty space just waiting to be filled here.” She chose her words carefully, and it made him laugh.
“I’ll have to remember that next time Greer starts in on me. She thinks it’s cold as a tomb. I’ll just tell her it’s empty space waiting to be filled.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what she thinks I ought to do. I’m just renting here.”
“Lots of people rent, but they still find ways to make the place their home.”
When he didn’t respond, she said, “I like the dark red walls in the kitchen.”
“Greer did it. Said the place needed some color.”
Actually, what Greer had said was that the dark red suited his moody personality, but he felt no need to go into that.
She followed him into the dining room. “You know what they say, there’s no place like home.”
“Well, maybe that’s it then.” He turned off the lights, giving her no choice but to head for the front door. “I’ve never really had one.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, well.” He turned on the outside light, avoiding her eyes.
“Sean, I—”
“It’s okay, Amanda.” He locked the door. “Let’s just forget about it, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to his back as she trudged across the uneven lawn to the Jeep, dodging the rain that had begun to fall in earnest. “I’m so sorry. . . .”
After a few long minutes of the windshield wipers’ monotonous swish slap, swish slap, swish slap, Sean turned on the radio. Ten nonstop minutes of classic rock followed but neither sang along. It was a less than comfortable silence and lasted until Sean pulled into his sister’s driveway and peered up toward the garage.
“Looks like Greer’s not back yet.” He frowned and sat tapping the wheel, as if debating with himself. Finally, he said, “Oh, hell. What’s the difference? I’ll move her car in the morning.”
“Move her car?” Amanda looked behind them toward the end of the drive.
“Yeah, when I leave in the morning.” He got out of the Jeep and opened the back door, took out his duffel bag.
“You’re staying here?” She got out, too, and immediately hunched against the rain.
“Yeah. Come on, it’s really starting to come down now.” He ran ahead to the back of the house and paused at the edge of the walk, then opened the door to the screened porch for her, let her proceed in first.
She brushed against him and made the mistake of looking up into his eyes. As if having a mind of their own, his hands reached for her shoulders and turned her around so that she was in his arms. She smelled of lemons and late summer rain. He kissed her, because he couldn’t not.
He’d expected her to move away, push him away, and when she didn’t, when she raised her arms to wrap them around his neck, he kissed her again, mesmerized by the way she felt in his arms and the way her mouth felt against his. She seemed to melt into him, every bit of her.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since the first time I saw you there in your shop,” he heard himself say.
“What stopped you?”
“Well, the thought that maybe you were capable of cold-blooded murder . . . I don’t know, that kind of thing has always been a real turnoff for me.”
She smiled in the darkness, and he bent his head to kiss her again, his tongue tracing the outline of her mouth.
“And I saw myself maybe having to slip handcuffs on these pretty wrists and dragging your admirable butt off to my jail. Now, I realize that some men like that whole bondage thing, but to tell you the truth, I’ve put too many women into cuffs to get off on it. And just thinking about you in one of those ugly orange jumpsuits . . .”
“Can’t blame you there.” She shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone who looks good in orange.”
“Well, there you go then.” He leaned back against the doorway and pulled her with him. He was all set to kiss her again, when she asked, “Did you really believe, in your heart, that I’d killed Derek?”
“My heart has no place in a homicide investigation. The only thing that matters is the evidence.” He rested his chin on the top of her head.
“Haven’t you ever been tempted to say the hell with it and let your heart sneak in a comment or two?”
“No.” He looked at her as if she were speaking an unfamiliar language. “No. That’s not why you wear the badge.”
“Why do you wear the badge?”
He looked surprised by the question. “Because it’s the only thing I know how to do.” He took her hand and led her to the door, which he unlocked and opened.
“You got out of school and set out immediately to become a cop?” Amanda dropped her purse onto the counter.
“I joined the army right out of high school and just went from there.” He walked through the downstairs to the front door, where he checked to make sure that the lock was still set. On his way back to the kitchen, he turned on a lamp in the hallway.
“Why the army?”
“I got out of foster care a month before my eighteenth birthday. My foster parents had made it pretty clear they expected me out the door after I graduated from high school. So I enlisted. Two weeks after graduation, I left for basic.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It all worked out for me. It’s been okay. More than okay. I liked the army, liked the structure of it, liked that every man there started out on a level playing field. It didn’t matter who you were or where you came from. The only thing that put you out ahead of the others—or behind them—was your own actions. It was all in your hands. For the first time in my life, I was on equal f
ooting with everyone else. I could sink to the bottom, or I could rise to the top. And that’s just what I did. I rose above. After I’d gone as far as I could go, I left.”
“You went right into law enforcement?”
“I had a buddy who had gotten out a few months before me. He had gone home to the small West Virginia town he’d grown up in and became a cop. They had an opening for another rookie. I applied. My record in the service was good.” He shrugged. “It all worked out.”
“And then you came here.”
“Greer tell you any of this?” He raised a suspicious eyebrow.
“Just that she’d found you and wanted you to come here when the chief’s job opened up.”
“Greer does not know how to tell half a story.”
“She did tell me she’d been looking for you for years.”
“Then she told you about how our mother dumped us on our grandmother, and how when our grandmother died, social services sent us on our way through the system. Unfortunately, the system could only place pretty kids who were well mannered and who never caused trouble.”
“She told me you two were separated, yes.”
“Then you know the whole story.”
“I doubt I do.”
“Just as well. Not a very pretty one.” His eyes went hollow.
“It must have been wonderful to be reunited with Greer again, though. After all those years.”
“I didn’t remember her. Not really. I remembered her absence more than her presence. Remembered what it felt like after we’d been sent to different places. Remembered waking up in the night and wondering if I’d dreamed her, because it had been so long since I’d seen her face.”
“How old were you then?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, pretty young. Four, maybe five.”
“When did they stop?”
“The dreams? About six months ago.”
“That’s when you—” The words when you came here to Broeder stuck in her throat.
“Yes.”
“That’s a long time to hurt,” she said softly. “A long time to be sad.”
“You’re thinking of Ramona,” he said flatly. “Well, don’t. She didn’t even know about us when she was a kid. So she never missed us.”
He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. He wanted to kiss Amanda.
“Are you afraid you’ll get to know her—maybe even like her—and then she’ll disappear?”
“I just don’t have time right now for more people who will complicate my life.”
“Oh. I see.” She nodded slowly. “People that you care about, who care about you, complicate your life. Has Greer complicated your life?”
“You’re kidding, right? Greer has done everything she can to take over my life.”
“And another sister—if you had one—might try to do the same. Put her two cents in.”
“Probably.” His eyes narrowed. “Some women just can’t help themselves.”
“Ha ha. I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that. And I’m not going to let you bait me into walking away from you so that you don’t have to deal with me. Nice try, though.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
He laughed and reached for her.
“Well, I have to say that I like you a lot more when you’re not trying to lock me up.” She slid into his arms, her eyes and mouth inviting his kiss. “I like you a lot more just like this.”
“Ummmm,” he said, leaning down to meet her lips halfway.
The sound of the front door opening startled them both.
“Sean?” Greer called from the front of the house.
He sighed into Amanda’s hair and reluctantly moved from her to the doorway. “In the kitchen.”
“Is Amanda with you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m here, Greer.” Amanda stepped into the hall.
Greer stopped, looking puzzled.
“What is it?” Sean asked.
“It must be my imagination.” Greer shook her head as if to clear it, and took off her wet sweater. “Believe how fast this storm came up? It’s teeming out there now. Terrible.”
“What was your imagination?” Sean took a towel from the drawer and handed it to his sister.
“Oh, thank you, honey. I am soaked to the skin and chilled right through.” She draped the towel around her neck as she went toward the patio, holding out the dripping sweater.
“What was your imagination, Greer?” Sean repeated.
“Amanda, honey, check and see if there is any water in that teakettle? I could use a nice hot cup of tea.”
“Greer, I asked you—”
“Oh, I’m sure it was nothing.” She waved her hand absently. “I mean, Amanda is here, so it couldn’t have been.”
“Greer.” Sean closed his eyes and counted to ten.
“When I pulled up, it looked like someone—a woman—was running up the drive, but since Amanda is here and no one in their right mind would be out in this . . .” She draped the sweater over the back of a chair. “I’m sure it was just a shadow from all that lightning. I’m sure that was it.”
Sean and Amanda exchanged a long look.
He pushed past Greer and opened the door leading out to the yard.
“Sean, where are you . . .” Greer shook her head and turned back to Amanda. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Now he’s going to run around the neighborhood in this storm, get soaking wet, and come down with pneumonia.”
She went to the door and called out into the dark. “Sean? Come back in here.” She stood at the door and scanned the yard each time lightning flashed.
Finally she came back inside, shaking her head. “Cops. He’s not going to be satisfied until he’s gone through every yard on the street.”
The teakettle began to whistle.
“I know I need some nice hot tea right now, and I’m sure Sean will, too, by the time he’s done scouting the neighborhood for prowlers.” Greer dried her arms with the towel. “Amanda, would you get three mugs down?”
“Better make that four,” Sean told her as he came back inside, ushering a shrouded figure. “We have company.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
“Want to tell me what you were doing hiding in the garage?” Sean turned the wet shrouded figure around.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, it was pouring buckets out there.” Ramona pulled down the hood of her rain jacket and shook out a mass of wet red curls. Her gaze went from Sean to the two women, who stood speechless nearby.
“Ramona, honey, why didn’t you just knock on the door?” Greer asked.
“There weren’t any lights on when I got here, so I just assumed no one was at home.”
“So you decided to break into the garage.” Sean nodded. “Sure. That makes sense.”
“I hadn’t planned on . . . well, on anything. I just wanted to see . . . Oh, hi.” She seemed to notice Amanda for the first time. “We met at the diner earlier.”
“We did,” Amanda said, then smiled weakly. “Nice to see you again.”
Ramona laughed. “I’ll bet.”
“I want to know what you’re doing here.” Sean reached for the roll of paper towels and tore off a few sheets to dry his arms and face.
“I could use a few of those paper towels, too.” Ramona put her hand out for the roll, which Sean passed to her. She dried her face, then rolled the paper towel into a tight ball. “Greer, I was in the area, and I wanted . . . I wanted to see the house, that’s all.”
“I don’t think I belong here. I really shouldn’t be part of this.” Amanda backed toward the door. “So if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to turn in.”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Sean said as if nothing extraordinary was going on. “Try to get some sleep tonight.”
“Look, I just wanted to see where you lived. And once I saw how cute the house was, I just wanted to see it a little c
loser. I parked the car and got out and was just going to walk up the drive a little, but then it started pouring buckets and I ran for the first cover I could find, which happened to be the garage. I thought the storm would blow over real fast the way they do sometimes when they come on all of a sudden like this one did. I figured I’d be here and gone and no one would even know. But then you all came home in the interim. Look, I didn’t mean to upset anyone.” She looked at Sean, then at Greer. “I’m so sorry.”
“Well, honey, you don’t have to apologize. You haven’t done anything wrong.” Greer turned on Sean. “You’re making too much out of this, Sean. She has every right to stop here if she wants to. I don’t understand what your problem is.”
“I think you—we—need to take this just a little slower, that’s all.”
“Sean thinks I’m probably the daughter of some other Veronica Mercer who was born on the first of May in 1948 and who just happens to have the same social security number that your mother had,” Ramona said.
“It’s a possibility.” Sean nodded. “We don’t know anything about you—”
“And I didn’t know anything about you, either, mister, when I pulled into that little town down there in West Virginia to look for you, did I?” Greer’s temper was starting to flare. She turned to Ramona. “Tell him. Tell him what you told me. Show him the pictures.”
Ramona opened her bag and slid open the zipper on an inside pocket. She took out a battered plastic sandwich bag in which several photographs lay trapped. She opened it and laid the first one on the table.
“This was my mother.” She looked directly at Sean. “She look familiar to you?”
Sean studied the photo for a long time, then looked up at Greer questioningly.
“This is the same picture you showed me,” Sean said. “Did you give her a copy?”
“No. That’s hers. She brought it with her to show me, the first time we met.” Greer smiled at Ramona. “I brought the same picture to show her.”
“Couldn’t she have found them . . . ?” Sean asked, his protest sounding silly and weak, even to himself.
Ramona demanded, “To what end, Mr. Chief of Police? What reason could I possibly have to pretend to be this woman’s daughter?” She tapped an angry finger on the photo. “What would I have to gain? Speeding tickets fixed for life? There is nothing that you have that I want, okay? Nothing that you can do for me. Except maybe help me to understand who I am, and why she . . . why . . .”
Dead Certain Page 20
