by EC Sheedy
Cade had offered to teach her how to read. It was perfect. If he passed Toby's check, she could use her disability—or whatever the heck it was—to get to know him better. Trusting anyone was a terrible risk, but she had to trust someone, and better an ex-cop than one on the job—who'd be bound to turn them all in, ask questions later. The thing was, if her friends wouldn't listen to reason, she'd need backup, and she didn't have a lake full of choices.
You really want something from a guy, Wart? Sleep with him. It's foolproof. A guy will do anything if sex is the payoff.
Addy felt her face heat, her body chill. Beauty's words came at her like a sudden hot gust of wind, making her weak-kneed and dizzy. She pushed them back. That was Beauty's style, not hers. Addy didn't have a style, couldn't believe she'd even remembered the comment.
"You okay?" Toby eyed her, waited.
"Yeah, fine. I was just thinking about the reading thing. You're right. It's never too late."
Toby stared at her, didn't say anything for a long moment. "You sure you're not in some kind of trouble, Addy girl, maybe with that Harding fellow?"
"Nothing I can't handle." She rubbed her hands down her thighs and forced a smile. "Just do the background check, will you, Toby?"
He pinched his mouth, appeared to think on it. "Okay, but if you need me, you know where to find me."
She nodded. "I'm going to start work on Cabin Twelve now." She couldn't wait to start pounding nails and slapping paint around. She always thought more clearly when she was doing something physical, and she had lots to think about, considering she might be about to take the biggest risk of her life. "Let me know what you find out about Harding as soon as you get any info, okay?"
"Okay." He turned back to his computer as if their strange conversation had never happened. Addy wondered if prison was some kind of permanent cure for curiosity.
She hoped she—or Beauty and Gus—would never have to find out.
Stan Brenton entered Susan Moore's bedroom, and said, "Damn, but I'm clever."
She looked up from her newspaper and over the top of her reading glasses. "What?"
He threw back the quilt and got in the bed beside her, the smile on his face Grand-Canyon wide. "You remember when you first came up with the idea of contacting Cade? You asked me to find him?"
"Uh-huh."
Stan shook his head. "I figured that girl had a thing for your nephew."
Susan flattened the paper across her lap, gave him an impatient look. "Is there a middle and an end to this story, or merely a beginning?"
Stan chuckled and patted her knee. Leaving his hand covering it, he gave it a squeeze. "When I tracked him down at WSU, I checked him out, ended up talking to one of his colleagues, very helpful at the time, a woman named Justine Clark—"
"You never told me you went to the university. I asked you to find him, Stan, not investigate him. He's family, for heaven's sake."
"Exactly, and that made you vulnerable, likely to take one of those risky leaps of faith with nothing to back it up. I didn't want that." His expression not in the least apologetic, he added, "You, my dear, are a rich widow and ripe for the picking."
"And more than capable of making my own judgments, thank you very much. I'd say you overstepped the boundaries of our agreement."
He patted the narrow strip of bed between them. "I'd say my 'overstepping' is what got us to where we are today." He grinned. "That and my amazing sexual prowess, of course."
"Not to mention your overripe ego." Her lips twisted to contain a smile.
Stan laughed outright, plumped the pillow behind his head.
"So? What about this Justine... whoever?" Susan asked.
"She works in faculty admin or some such, which I take involves the care, feeding, and endless paperwork generated by the teaching staff in the criminalistics department—which of course, until a few weeks ago, Cade headed up." He paused.
Susan shook out her paper, took her reading glasses off, and gave him her full attention.
"Apparently someone is poking around WSU asking questions about him," Stan said.
Susan's brows knitted to worry. "Who could that be?"
"No idea, but she wants me to tell Cade about it, or better yet have him call her. She's called his place in Seattle several times, but he hasn't returned her calls. She called me because she knew my connection to his family—that being you."
"What do you think it means?"
"My guess? He's getting close to something or someone that isn't good for his health."
"God, don't say that. I never intended to put him in danger."
"I'm sure you didn't, my darling. You're always so focused on finding Josh." Stan's look was knowing and thoughtful. "You tend to forget the murder, a murder Cade has to walk through to find your boy. Danger is a given."
"I didn't think—"
He took her hand in his. "But Cade did. You can be sure of that, so don't worry. He knows what he's doing."
"If only he'd left a number, told us where he could be reached, we could warn him."
Stan leaned over her, kissed her forehead, and turned out her reading light. "I'll call him tomorrow, let him know."
The light was immediately flicked back on. "You know where he is? And you didn't tell me?" Her expression was irate and incredulous in equal measure.
"I knew where he was within three hours of his call."
"How?"
Stan again reached over her to turn off the lamp. "I had a computer search done on his credit card. And to answer your next question, no, I'm not going to tell you where he is. For now, we'll do it Cade's way."
Silence, a wall of it.
Stan smiled in the dark. "From that tomblike response, I assume any attempt to activate my vaunted sexual prowess would be wasted tonight?"
"Good night, Stan."
"Good night, my love."
* * *
The next morning, shortly after nine, Cade hung up the phone, more impressed than angry. Brenton was good, and he found it vaguely surprising that after his years on the case, he'd never come up with a substantive lead on Josh Moore.
He sure as hell had no trouble finding Cade.
Cade had spent the last three years getting himself up to scratch on the increasing role the Internet played in crime solving—yet the technology, and the abilities of the people who used it, continued to leapfrog over his current store of information. Not that a computer search on credit cards was new, but the ease with which a hacker could pull it off these days was daunting.
He shook his head, his mind turning to the substance of Stan Brenton's call. Cade had a pretty good idea who was checking up on him, and he took it for a good sign. Fortunately, he hadn't burdened himself with more lies than he could handle.
The knock on his cabin door surprised him. Redge went into bark mode, and he quieted him on his way to the door.
Addy was on the other side, a pugnacious expression settled on her clean, unmade-up face. Her hair, catching some shine from the morning sun, was its usual tornado of spikes and curls. Wearing jeans and a pale blue denim shirt, she managed to look ordinary and remarkable at the same time.
She stuck out a hand. It held Zero Intolerance, his book. "I've decided to take you up on your teaching offer. It's pretty slow right now, probably will be for a few days." She walked into his cabin as if she owned it, which of course she did.
"A few days?" Cade's amazement at her casual demand overtook his surprise at her being here. "Not enough, Addy."
"It's all I have." She looked around the room, and her expression changed to one of surprise. "You're really neat."
"Most of the time."
"You should see some of the cabins when people move out." She gave him a disgusted look. "A sty of pigs would be cleaner."
"I'll bet." He put out his hand, and she put the book in it. "What made you change your mind?" he asked.
"Didn't change it. Made it up." She moved around the room as if she were on an inspection tour—or
jumpy as hell.
"Okay." He decided not to go into the business of splitting hairs, or thinking how good that argumentative mouth of hers looked. "But tell me this. Was it before or after you checked up on me?"
Her eyes shot to his, but she didn't look in the least chastened. "How'd you know?"
"A friend... at WSU." Again, not exactly a lie, considering it was Justine who called Stan.
"Are you mad?" If she cared, it didn't show.
"No. Surprised maybe. An offer to tutor for a few hours usually isn't reason enough to call in the FBI."
"I'm careful, what can I say?" She stopped in the middle of the room, stuck her hands in her jeans' back pockets. "You want to teach me or not?"
I want to teach you all right, but I'm not sure it's anything you want to learn.
He killed the thought. "Yes, I want to teach you—whatever the hell I can in 'two or three days.' Let's go."
"Go?"
"It's a great day, we might as well make use of it—and one of those rowboats of yours. There's no law saying you can't learn outside." He expected an argument. Instead, she looked relieved, like a caged bird faced with an open door.
"Good idea. I'll get the boat ready." She looked at his feet. "While you get your shoes on." At the door, she looked back, gestured to his book. "Let's start with that, okay?" For the first time, she looked ill at ease. "I actually managed a few words of it last night." She met his gaze, gave him a quick lopsided smile. "It was really... interesting."
"Okay, we'll start with Zero," he said, not that he had much choice. He hadn't come to Star Lake equipped to run an early reading program.
Addy left, and he pulled on his Nikes, shook off the feeling his book had been anointed by God with those two innocuous words—"really interesting." Damned stupid of him, considering they'd come from a woman who'd never read a book in her life.
He put it down to writer idiocy—or ego—grabbed the quilt from his bed, and headed for the dock.
Cade planned to row to the other side of the lake and get settled under a large chestnut tree he'd spotted on his runs. Addy had other ideas.
"I'll row, you read," she said.
"That's not what I had in mind."
"Cut me some slack, will you? I'm not in a hurry to show off my stupidity."
Standing on the dock, he looked down at her. She was more nervous than she let on. "Your not reading has nothing to do with stupidity, Addy."
"Maybe not, but if you don't mind, I'd like to ease into the embarrassing phase of this experiment, Professor Harding. That handle is kind of intimidating, you know."
"Fair enough. Head for that tree." He pointed to the chestnut. "We can work there."
"Start on page twelve," she instructed, when they'd settled in the boat, her on the rowing seat, him in the aft. "That's where I left off last night." Using an oar, she pushed off from the dock.
"Are you always so damned take-charge or am I getting special treatment?"
She glanced at him, tilted her head. "Will you please start on page twelve, Professor?"
Half irritated, half amused, he said, "Drop the professor tag, okay?"
"Now who's giving orders?" Cade caught the smile she tried to hide by looking over her shoulder and decided he was in a no-win situation, which meant it was time to shut up. The lady liked to be on top. He'd remember that. On that pleasant thought, he settled back in the seat of the sturdy rowboat and opened Zero to page twelve. "Take us away, Captain," he ordered before starting to read.
Cade read his way across the lake, at first vaguely uncomfortable about using his own words as hooks into Addy's trust, but when he glanced at her from time to time over the spine of the book and saw her avid interest in the story, his unease dissipated—then he realized she was rowing in circles.
He'd put a stop to that. He read:
Zero stood in front of the new girl, his heart banging in his skinny chest.
He couldn't take his eyes off the knife in Slam's hand. Long and serrated, it glowed wickedly under the dim light of the lamp above the alley door of Harper's Deli.
"Take off, Slam," he said, sounding harder and tougher than he felt. "Leave her alone."
Slam laughed, lifted the knife, and—
Cade closed the book and put it beside him on the seat.
"Hey, you can't stop there."
"Just did." He gestured with his head toward the chestnut tree, raised a brow.
She stopped rowing and eyed him. "I'll bet your students called you names behind your back."
"No doubt."
She eyed the book, made a couple of dips with the left oar, and redirected the tiny craft to the shore near the tree.
When they were sitting on the quilt, him with his back against the tree trunk, Addy in a semi-relaxed lotus position, he pulled out Zero Intolerance, held it out to her. "You said you'd made it through to page twelve, so how about rereading it for me?"
"Okay." She took the book. "But I'm warning you, it took me all night to get that far." She looked seriously edgy now, and he saw her swallow.
"I'm in no hurry. Read what you can and skip the rest."
She turned the book over, opened it up, then slammed it closed again. "Toby says a person can learn anything if they set their minds to it. You agree with that?"
"Uh-huh. Just takes practice and courage."
"Courage?"
"To look stupid, take the knocks, fail, and keep going anyway. That takes guts." He leaned toward her, put a hand on her knee. "So, unless you're short on same, I suggest"—he nodded at the book now in her lap—"you get on with it."
She nodded, straightened her shoulders as if he'd ordered her to lead a frontline artillery charge without ammunition, took a deep breath, and opened to the first page.
Chapter 13
Addy stumbled through the first six pages before stopping abruptly. She felt like an idiot. If this reading business took practice and courage, she was in trouble, because all she had was frustration and embarrassment.
She wanted to bash something, and what really ticked her off was she'd read these same pages last night and done okay. But today, with Cade watching her from under those lowered lids of his, every stumble felt like a face planted on cement. Add to that the warm autumn sun, the shade of the chestnut tree, and the light of Cade's undivided attention, and she'd completely forgotten she wasn't here to learn to read, she was here to pick Cade's ex-cop-professor-of-criminology brain and decide if he could be useful.
"Why'd you stop?" he asked.
"Because I'm hurtling toward thirty years old, and I read like... like a windup toy with a broken spring." She didn't add she was tense as a drum, either because of her strained effort to read or her inability to forget the worry circling her mind like a robot sentry armed to the teeth.
Cade's thoughtful expression gave way to a smile that so warmed his face she couldn't help but smile back. He said, "You were doing great. To be honest, I expected worse. Taking a totally unscientific guess, I'd say you're reading at a fairly decent grade-three level. Another guess? With some serious practice, you could be reading smoothly—well beyond that level—in a few weeks."
Reading smoothly in a few weeks...
The idea excited her mind, engaged her normally optimistic nature, even, momentarily at least, immobilized her robot sentry—but not for long. When the muscles in her stomach quivered, and her thinking darkened, she tightened her grip on Zero, and entered reality therapy.
In a few weeks, if she didn't stop Gus and Beauty from killing Frank Bliss, she'd be reading Run, Spot, Run under the gray light of a jail cell—and they'd be right beside her. "And you'll help?" she added lamely, forced to keep up the pretense until she could be sure she trusted him enough to help her save Frank Bliss's miserable excuse for a life.
"Sure, why not?" He reached over and took the book from her hand, tucked the cover flap inside, and closed it. "But for now, let's give it a rest, soak up some of this sunshine." He tossed the book to his side. "Then t
onight, we'll drive into town and I'll buy you dinner." He put his head back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes, looking as bonelessly at ease as Lund's old bloodhound did when he passed out on the couch.
She fixated on his breathing, watched his chest rise and fall with the flow of oxygen in and out of his lungs, then studied his mouth, die relaxed, easy line of it above his firm jaw. When her own breath became untrustworthy, she swallowed and turned away.
"What's with you and the food thing?" she asked, sounding unreasonably irritated. She shifted to claim part of the tree trunk for her own tense back.
He smiled with his eyes still closed. "I generally use the 'food thing' to lure attractive women into compromising situations." He peered down at her. "As a starter, it's generally foolproof." He paused, closed his eyes again, and rested his head back against the tree trunk. "Except with diehard nukers like you, of course."
Addy's lips twitched, and she couldn't think of a comeback, so she opted to match his position, head against the tree with eyes closed.
She could count on one hand the number of times she'd eaten out or even been off the Star Lake property for other than the necessary trips into Lynden for supplies. And since she'd turned seventeen, the once-a-year visit to her mother's grave that was such a nerve-racking experience, she couldn't sleep for days before going.
From the day she and Beauty arrived, Lund told them to stay out of town, keep to themselves. Beauty, tired of being "stifled," she said, ran off when she couldn't take it anymore. But Addy was okay with playing it safe. Now, away from here—her home, the calm waters of her lake—she was jumpy and ill-at-ease. But not here, now, with Cade beside her.
"Cade?" she said, suddenly curious about something.
"Uh-huh." He didn't move.
"Have you traveled much? Like to Europe, maybe Italy?" If he said he'd been to Venice, she'd be green with envy.
He didn't speak for a time. "Yes, my... wife and I went for several weeks. Spent a month in Siena."
She sensed his mood lowering, her curiosity rising. "I thought you weren't married." She was disappointed, and it shocked her. Dear God, given the situation she was in, whether Cade Harding was married or single was a piece of news that should rank up there with the report of a clogged drain in Cabin One. Her illogical reaction scared her, reminded her how emotional her thinking was these days, and when you had a problem as big as hers, emotional thinking was worse than useless—it was dangerous.
