Whisper of Revenge (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 4)

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Unsurprised by Campbell’s priorities, Elias wasn’t even sure what he said in reply. Fortunately, Campbell immediately presented Elias with his back. The antipathy was definitely mutual.

  Sipping his coffee, Elias hovered even though there wasn’t a chance of Hannah breaking away. He felt foolish, lingering like this when he’d be seeing her tonight anyway. About to leave, he let curiousity make him pause. Even as she waited on customers in here, she was keeping a close eye on someone in the bookstore. A suspected shoplifter?

  Elias took a few steps to see what she did, and felt a jolt. Her boy sat at the low table in the kids’ section, coloring or scribbling. She usually brought him with her only on weekends. Elias rarely stopped by on Saturdays and Sundays. With increased tourist business, she’d be too busy for him, he’d told himself, but now realized there was another component. He knew nothing about kids. The fact that she had one made him uncomfortable.

  Now, looking at the bent head the same color as hers, he faced an unalterable truth. If he got involved with her, he couldn’t entirely avoid her son.

  So he dropped his almost empty cup in the trash and strolled into the bookstore, aware of glances from a couple of browsers. When he got close enough, the boy heard him coming and looked up. Hannah must drill him on manners, because he immediately offered a polite, “Hello, Mr. Burton.”

  “Hi, Ian. Got stuck coming to work with your mom today, did you?” He hoped that didn’t sound as inane to the kid as it did to him.

  But the boy’s forehead wrinkled. “Mom made me come ’cuz Mrs. Voight told all the parents Dustin and Polly and Natalie have lice. Mom had to spend ages checking my hair this morning. She says I don’t have any, and I’m not going back to school ’til it’s safe.” He tipped his head to one side, eyes a darker brown than his mother’s studying Elias. “Did you ever have lice?”

  He laughed, pulled out one of the child-size chairs, and lowered himself gingerly onto it. “Yeah, actually I did. A couple times. Once when I wasn’t much older than you. The stuff they put in your hair to kill the lice didn’t work very well, and Mom had to do it over and over. She got pretty grumpy.”

  Ian giggled.

  “Then I got them again later, when I was playing youth football. We traded helmets around. I guess that’s how we shared bugs. That time my mother shaved my head. I barely had a stubble left.” He ran a hand over his hair, remembering how naked he’d felt. “Did the trick, though.”

  The little boy rolled his eyes upward, as if trying to see his own head. “My hair isn’t very long. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get lice.” His tone suggested he wasn’t altogether sure what lice were and was almost sorry he hadn’t had any. “Dustin’s hair is almost as long as the girls’.”

  Elias laughed again, finding himself disarmed by this kid, who didn’t seem to have a shy bone in his body. “What are you up to?” he asked.

  “I’m drawing,” Ian said, very seriously. “I’m not that good, but I like to do it a lot.”

  “May I?” At the boy’s shy nod, Elias turned what proved to be a pad of decent artist’s paper to take a look at what Ian had been concentrating so intently on. What he saw took him aback. The kid had an eye. Probably his hand wouldn’t do what he wanted it to yet. Elias remembered his own frustration. It would be – what? – another couple years before Ian would be able to write at all neatly. That’s when, if he was still drawing, he’d find his ability taking an astronomical leap forward. But this…

  It wasn’t flat the way young children’s drawings usually were. In a crude way, he had achieved more than a single dimension. Rather than mindlessly drawing the usual house, stick figures, sun and maybe clouds in the sky, he was attempting to put on paper what he saw in front of him, and from his low-to-the-floor perspective. The bookcase in front of him loomed. Two heads barely appeared above it on the other side. One was a white-haired woman with a perm, depicted with fluffy lines. He had been carefully adding straight lines to show the books on the shelves.

  Elias flipped pages and continued to be impressed. The puppy wasn’t half bad. Mischief and energy shone through despite the static nature of the sketch. Hannah’s smile was as wide as it was in real life. Apparently frustrated he hadn’t accomplished his objective, Ian had added a sun right above her head. Good image, even though Elias had been picturing her as a toasty fire instead.

  Flipping back to the current drawing, he handed the pad to Ian. “I think you’re wrong. For your age, you are a very fine artist. I couldn’t have done any better when I was five.”

  The freckled face lit with endearing hope. “Really?”

  “Really.” Elias didn’t touch other people often or easily, but he squeezed the boy’s thin shoulder.

  Ian looked past him, bouncing in his chair. “Mom! Mr. Burton says I’m a real good artist!”

  Only inches from Elias, she bent to kiss the top of her son’s head. “I keep telling you that. And I know Miss Alvarez does, too. Isn’t our refrigerator covered with your drawings and paintings?”

  “Yeah, but he’s not my mom or my teacher.”

  Elias found himself grinning. Kid was smart.

  Hannah chuckled, her eyes meeting Elias’s. “Poor Ian is stuck here all day. Apparently his daycare is having an outbreak—”

  “Of lice. So he told me.”

  “Mr. Burton says he got lice twice. It made his mom grumpy.”

  She laughed out loud. “Can’t imagine why.”

  “She got mad ’cuz she couldn’t get rid of them,” he continued earnestly. “Even with that special shampoo. So when he got ’em again, she practically shaved all his hair off.”

  Again she smoothed a hand over his head. “That’s a plan.”

  “You’re not going to now, are you?” He sounded worried. “You said I don’t have any.”

  “You don’t. And no, I won’t. We’ll just wait a few days before you go back to daycare. By then, everybody should have been treated, and Mrs. Voight will have had a chance to do an especially good job of cleaning.”

  “Yeah! So there won’t be any bugs at all.”

  “Right.”

  Elias said, “It was nice talking to you, Ian, but I need to get back to work myself,” and stood.

  The boy looked crestfallen, but said gamely, “Okay. I liked talking to you.”

  Elias surprised himself with the realization that he’d liked talking to Ian, too.

  Hannah walked Elias to the front door.

  “Thank you for visiting with him. I’m sure he’s bored to death.”

  “He’s probably striking up conversations with everyone who passes by. You’ve raised a good kid, Hannah.” He kissed her cheek, allowing himself a tiny nuzzle he hoped she didn’t notice, and left.

  He paused on the street with his hand on his car door, looking back at Sweet Ideas. He usually lost himself easily in his painting. Something told him he’d be counting the hours instead.

  *****

  Hannah nudged her empty salad plate away as Elias was finishing his soup. It had taken her a full course at this bistro in Pacific City to work up the nerve to ask anything personal. She liked knowing what books and movies he enjoyed, and seeing that he was as curious about her. But…she wanted to know whether he’d ever been married. Whether he’d had his heart broken. She assumed he’d have said if he had any children…but the man was in his late thirties. He must have a history.

  She took a sip of water instead of the wine that went to her head and decided to ask straight out. “Have you ever been married?”

  He went momentarily still, his gaze lifting to hers. “Nope.”

  If he minded her asking, it didn’t show. Even as a waiter refilled his water, his attention stayed unwaveringly on her. Once they were alone again, he said, “I assume you were married to Ian’s father.”

  “Yes.” Hearing how bald her one word answer sounded, she realized she almost had to elaborate. “We didn’t even last three years.”

  “Mistake from the beginning
?”

  “I didn’t think so.” Oh, boy – she hadn’t meant to say that. At least not with that degree of tartness. She was far from ready to tell Elias what had happened to her marriage. It made her feel both dumb and devalued.

  “Jackass, huh?” He spoke mildly, but there was nothing mild in his intense scrutiny.

  “You could say that.”

  “He see Ian often?”

  She shook her head. “He calls about once a month, sends birthday cards, pays his child support. Ian hasn’t seen him in, oh, probably a year.” She hesitated. “Grady remarried, has a daughter, and his wife is expecting again.”

  “Out with the old?” His tone held an edge of anger.

  “Seems that way.” She kept to herself the suspicion that Grady would have stayed more interested if Ian hadn’t looked so much like her. “The way I see it, he’s the idiot and I’m the lucky one.”

  Elias’s crooked smile made her breath hitch.

  Their entrees arrived then, looking and smelling divine. She’d been amused when he ordered a side of mac and cheese to go with his rib eye steak, but now she peeked covetously at a dish that didn’t much resemble the everyday version out of a box. Elias offered her a bite, and held it out on his fork. She sighed in pleasure at the melding of unusual cheeses.

  “You could still order some,” he suggested.

  “No, I couldn’t. I’ll probably gain a pound from this one bite.”

  His brow creased. “You don’t diet, do you?”

  Heartened by his tone, she said, “I should, but it’s hard when I cook so much. I have to sample those peppermint crunch truffles before I risk selling them, don’t I?”

  She loved what a smile did to his usually austere face. And then he said, “Forget dieting. It would be a crime.”

  “I am deeply in love with you,” she told him with mock seriousness – hoping the joke hadn’t slipped out because it was so close to the truth.

  He only laughed.

  When he asked, she told him her ex worked for a venture capital firm in Portland. Elias wanted to know if she’d taken her husband’s last name and, if so, kept it.

  She shook her head. “Never took it. He pretended to understand but I could tell he was annoyed.”

  “Ego.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Hannah sighed. “I didn’t argue about Ian being a Cline, although now I wish he wasn’t.”

  A few minutes later, she said, “You know most people assume you and Monica are a couple.”

  He only shook his head. “She sells my work. We’re friendly. That’s all.”

  Monica had slipped a few times when she and Hannah were talking, betraying that she felt more than friendly. Thinking about it, Hannah said, “I like Monica.”

  His brows climbed. “You’re not stepping on her toes, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  She supposed it was. Partly. “I guess I’d like to know more about you,” she admitted. “I mean, I’ve only lived in Cape Trouble two years. That still makes me a newcomer. Everyone else probably knows who you’ve had wild flings with, but I’m in the dark.”

  The lines on his face deepened, increasing his brooding air, and momentarily she thought he wouldn’t answer. But after a minute, he said with what she suspected was deliberate lightness, “I think I’m most famous for a mad crush I had on an older woman when I was seventeen. I worked that summer over at Misty River Resort for old man Billington. I trailed Michelle Thomsen around all summer, drew her, painted her. She was nice to me, but I knew my deep passion would never be returned.” He took a bite, his gaze turning for a moment to a window overlooking a cottage garden. Then he shrugged and met Hannah’s eyes again. “I’d just arrived for work one foggy morning when I heard screaming. Michelle’s little girl had found her shot to death in the dunes.”

  Hannah had known where this story was going, although she’d never heard Elias’s part in it. “Sophie’s mother.”

  “Yes. Most boys probably fall for an older woman at some point. If she hadn’t died, that summer wouldn’t have had such a big impact on me.”

  “You mean, if she hadn’t been murdered.”

  “We thought she’d committed suicide, which was worse, in a way. I can only imagine how tough that was on Sophie, but even for me… It was hard not to keep asking myself why. She was beautiful, vital, friendly.” He shook his head. “She obviously loved Sophie, who was a kid. The idea that she’d not only abandon her daughter, but chance Sophie finding her…”

  “You still think about her.”

  “Do you know how many years ago that was? Having it all come out last summer brought it back, that’s all.”

  After Billington had been arrested, the local newspaper had published Michelle Thomsen’s photo beside a row of others, women the same man had murdered. The picture hadn’t suggested the woman Elias described. “Does Sophie look like her mother?”

  “She does,” he said without any particular inflection.

  Sophie was a beautiful woman, in Hannah’s opinion. Slender, blonde, fine-boned. Even though they’d become close friends, Hannah still had an occasional outbreak of feeling large and clumsy next to her. Which, of course, had everything to do with self-image and nothing to do with reality. She wasn’t sure she’d ever adjusted her self-image since elementary school when she’d always been bigger than all the other girls and most of the boys.

  And…she refused to let herself get hung up on how Elias had felt about a gorgeous woman who died tragically twenty – no, now twenty-one – years ago.

  “So that’s it?” she challenged. “You never lost your heart again?”

  His mouth curved. “I don’t know about my heart. But, come on, I was a hormone-ridden teenage boy. I had a girlfriend my senior year, and I’ve had relationships since. Just none that got as far as thinking about marriage.”

  She was dying to ask why, but figured she’d pushed it enough for a first date. Or maybe this was their second, if she counted yesterday’s lunch.

  “I assume Colburn didn’t find prints on the book?” he asked abruptly, making plain he’d had enough of the ‘prior relationship’ talk. She’d been surprised he hadn’t asked earlier what if anything the police chief had found.

  “Lots of them, but smudged. Who knows how many people picked up the book at some point? My computer records say I’ve had it on the shelf for eight months.”

  “Do you usually let your stock sit that long?” he asked.

  She decided she could risk a little more wine, a rare indulgence for her. “I try to cover a wide span of topics with nonfiction, so I’m more likely to let a book sit. This one had really good reviews. My guess is, people have looked at it, gone home and ordered it online. You know what small towns are like. Buying it openly could start talk if anyone sees. I could be a gossip, for all anyone knows.”

  He grimaced. “Good point. If you’re trying to repair a marriage after one of you cheated, you wouldn’t want the world to know.”

  “No.” An involuntary shiver prickled her skin. “It’s so weird that even though I don’t even know who he is, this guy thinks because he’s given me flowers and candy, I shouldn’t even talk to another man.”

  She didn’t want to think about the not-so-veiled threat, but it hung over them no matter what. When they arrived, she’d seen Elias sweep the dining room with the same cool assessment of a cop. Looking for people he knew, one of whom might conceivably be her secret admirer?

  She might have wondered if he had other reasons to prefer no one knew he was seeing her, except for his willingness to hold her hand at lunch yesterday in full view of other diners.

  “It’s weird, all right.” Elias looked and sounded grim. “Hannah…you need to think about who he could be. He believes you two have a connection. Maybe you refused to go out with him, but in a way that leaves him convinced you will. He could have interpreted whatever you said to mean you’re teasing him, or that you want to be courted.”

  Her frustration flared. “Or he could be p
sycho!”

  “You could definitely say that. I won’t deny it’s possible this guy is someone you’ve never exchanged a word with. I went online and did some reading about stalkers.”

  She set down her fork. “I did, too.”

  Elias’s gaze appeared more stern now than anything else. “But you need to go with the odds, which say you know him.”

  It was awful to feel sulky, but she’d wanted tonight to be an escape, and here he was refusing to let her hide her head in the sand.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “You want a list of everyone who has ever asked me out?”

  His silver eyes riveted her. “No.” His voice was rougher than usual. “I can’t say I do.”

  She had such a hard time believing he was jealous, but…why else would he sound like that? “I’ve said no to all of them.”

  His eyes never left hers. “Why did you?”

  “At first, I was off men.” Being completely honest scared her, but how could she not be? “None of them interested me,” she admitted, more quietly.

  The flicker in his eyes told her he understood. After a moment, he said, “You should make a list for Colburn.”

  “They’re customers. Friends of friends. Men who are well known in town.”

  “There are that many?”

  “I’ve been here over two years!”

  Sounding a little cautious, he said, “I asked Monica. You were right. She admitted that men hit on her all the time.”

  “She’s beautiful.” The minute the words were out, with that telling emphasis, Hannah wanted to whack herself. Way to go. Lay her insecurity right out there.

  Elias looked stunned. “You don’t think you are.”

  She made herself meet his gaze, tipping her chin up. “Men sometimes find me attractive. But beautiful? Of course I’m not.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. She braced herself for platitudes. Only then he said, “I almost never paint portraits, but I’ve been thinking for weeks about how I’m going to paint you. Did you see Ian’s sketch of you?”