“Not true,” he snapped.
She considered and discarded several things to say. Apparently silence worked better on him, because he set down his fork and started talking.
“Mostly, I was mad when I realized what’s going on, and he was still keeping it to himself. Even before Chad was killed, Grant had to suspect—”
“It was a possibility, that’s all,” Cassie interrupted, before thinking, Wait. No. She was supposed to be sympathizing with Scott, worming herself into his confidence, not leaping to Grant’s defense. Stupid. Yep, and also too late. “I’ve interviewed him several times,” she said. “You know that.”
Scott nodded.
“The first two victims were ranchers. That seemed a likelier tie. I mean, the football team’s winning season was nineteen years ago. Who holds onto a grievance from high school this long? I don’t remember that much from my senior year, and I was five years behind you and Grant. It’s just…bizarre.”
Scott grunted and scrubbed his already disheveled, sandy hair with one hand. “Okay, you’re right,” he agreed, voice gravelly. “Maybe I was carrying a little irritation from high school. Which is dumb. You don’t have to tell me.”
“What did he do to annoy you?”
“Me? Nothing in particular. He just strutted around like he was God’s gift to the school, the town, the girls. Grant was never actively an asshole, just…arrogant. Yesterday, when I called that meeting, it seemed to me he’s still making arrogant decisions.”
Cassie opened her mouth to say, He is in charge, but closed it. She was glad she had when he suddenly grinned, that ugly-appealing face lit with humor.
“If I’d been the quarterback and got all the girls, I’d have been arrogant, too. I was jealous because I wanted to be top dog. Not really his fault.”
“I’ve heard him say he was an ass in high school. Or something to that effect.”
Scott laughed. “I believe it. I get that he’s changed. You can tell he’s seen some serious shit. It sobers a man, you know?”
Cassie nodded her understanding. She’d certainly never been the same after witnessing her mother committing suicide. A career firefighter like Scott must see some serious shit on occasion, too. The thought clicked her journalist brain into gear.
“Hey, I’m thinking people would be interested in an article about the fire department. I’ve studied statistics on crimes in the county over the past twenty years, but I have no idea how many home fires there’ve been in that period, never mind serious injuries or deaths from smoke inhalation or burns. And do you ever deal with arson?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Barns. Brush fires…and have any of those been politically motivated? Is there one fire district, or several?”
“Arsons would probably be reported by one of the police agencies,” he pointed out. “Crime, you know. One fire district, multiple stations. For the rest, I can get you started and suggest people for you to talk to. But not right now. I have stuff to do before I report for my next shift.”
He insisted on paying for both their breakfasts, even though she’d invited him. Cassie rolled her eyes behind his back. It seemed men from these parts hadn’t fully accepted gender equality. That made her curious. Crossing the parking lot, she asked how many female firefighters he knew of within Hayes County, and he eyed her warily.
“Ah…one?”
Her feet quit moving. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, afraid so.”
Wow, she so didn’t belong here.
Her phone rang, and Scott made his escape, but walking backwards.
“You want to go out one of these nights?”
“I’m…seeing someone,” she admitted.
He groaned theatrically. “Just tell me it isn’t Holcomb.”
“Um…”
Scott mimed stabbing himself in the chest.
Cassie was laughing when she answered her phone. And feeling hideously guilty, too, because how could she laugh so soon after finding Paul’s body and spending an hour yesterday evening with his widow?
*****
“So, what was so funny?” Rick Oberg asked.
After making a pit stop, Cassie had just sat down across the small, round table with him in the Java Club, an actual coffee shop that hadn’t been here when she left for college. There were a couple of drive-through coffee stands in town, too. A cup of black coffee, with or without cream, now had competition, even in this dot on the map.
And if she drank coffee all day while she met with Grant’s classmates, she’d better hope her bladder held up.
“Funny?” she asked.
“When you answered the phone.”
No, she wasn’t going to tell Rick she was seeing Grant. Belatedly, it had occurred to her that she shouldn’t have told Scott, either. Defending Grant had been bad enough. Anyone knowing her relationship with him wasn’t the usual mix of professional and adversarial, given their respective jobs, would clam up instead of talking openly to her.
“I had breakfast with Scott Mathison. An interview over waffles,” she said. “He can be kind of a clown.”
“Yeah, I remember that from high school.”
Did everyone remember their high school years better than she did? Cassie had had her eyes fixed on the future, when she would not live in a small town surrounded by barren land that didn’t grow much but sagebrush, so finishing school here was nothing more than a tiresome means to an end to her. She’d had one amazing English teacher, Mrs. Rushner, who’d encouraged her to keep writing. Cassie’s only extracurricular activity was newspaper, naturally, but it was a joke as was the faculty advisor.
“Apparently your graduating class was more interesting than mine,” she told him, cautiously sipping the froth atop her latte.
“Except for us winning the championship that year, my class wasn’t very interesting, either.”
“No?”
He shrugged. “It was standard issue. Jocks, a few geeks, and the rest of us.”
“You were on the football team, weren’t you? Doesn’t that make you a jock by definition?”
Rick laughed like that was truly hilarious. “Come on, look at me! I stood in the shadow of the guys like Holcomb and Travis Burke and Scott, for that matter. Do you know what it’s like to feel like you need to jump up and down waving your hands to get anyone to notice you?”
A little bitter, are you?
“Actually, yes. Look at me,” Cassie invited. “I’m five foot three when I stretch. Gazes go right over my head if I don’t make people notice me.”
He blinked, brown eyes friendly. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
She smiled. “I don’t think of you as that short. Everyone looks tall to me.”
“I guess I can see that. In high school, though, being short is a handicap for dudes. You know?”
“I can imagine, but most of the guys on the football team can’t have been that big. I mean, small town here. Unless there was something in the water the year you were born…”
Laughing, he spread his arms wide. “If so, my mother didn’t drink it.”
Funny, her editor at the Oregonian wasn’t any taller than Rick Oberg, and he had an outsize personality that more than compensated. On the other hand, most people hated something about themselves, from gigantic, clown feet to squinty eyes, limp hair, miniscule tits – or boobs that were too big for a petite body. She wasn’t immune from dwelling on her own shortcomings, so she could hardly blame him.
Of course, he’d just shared real resentment felt for the three victims – and Grant.
“How is it going with your parents’ house?” she asked, figuring she could work her way back to talking about high school friends and enemies. “And selling the business? You ticking items off your list?”
“Slowly.” Rick took a swallow of his coffee. “No interest at all in the business so far, but I’m told that can take a long time. The house…well, there’s so much I have to make decisions about. It can take hours to go through a couple drawers o
r a cabinet or two.”
Cassie winced, reminded again by him of her house. Her father’s house. “Sad to say, I can imagine,” she said.
He could obviously tell what she’d been thinking, because he asked, “Is your dad going to recover?”
“I’d like to think so.”
Jolted by what she’d said, Cassie knew she’d been honest for the first time. She hadn’t even been honest with herself. She wanted her father to get better because she loved him, she did, but also because until he did, she was stuck living his life. But wanting and believing…those were two different things.
“I’m sorry,” Rick said. “Ah, listen, what did you want to ask me about?”
“Oh, I’m just trying to get everyone to reminisce. Were Curt, Travis and Chad liked? Disliked? What kind of undercurrents do you remember? Were there cliques? Scandals I wouldn’t have heard about because I was too young?”
“You know, I wasn’t much into that kind of thing. I’m more of a loner.”
“You weren’t trading girlfriends around with all the other senior boys?”
He gave her a quick, sly grin that didn’t have the effect he probably intended. She suspected that Rick Oberg, still below average height but now lean, wiry-strong, and not bad looking, had been not only short but also really scrawny when he was in high school. That boy might not have worked up the nerve to make a move on any girls.
She asked some questions. He made her think of an attorney, slick enough to have an answer for everything that would later leave her blinking at her notes, thinking, Wait, I don’t get this. He wouldn’t be the only one, Cassie knew; she’d made a bunch of calls yesterday evening after getting home from the Lawseths’, and in contrast to all the people overflowing with eagerness to tell her whatever she wanted to know only days ago, everyone now seemed squirrely. Rick had just had confidence that he could appear cooperative without giving her anything good.
Or maybe, her better self suggested, he was actually a good guy who shied from bad-mouthing his high school classmates. She suppressed a sigh.
The two of them parted without him asking if she wanted to get together again.
Cassie wondered if Rick, nonetheless, was now examining his conscience. And what about all the other members of that football team? Had they been cruel to anyone back then? Publicly ditched someone who wanted to be a friend? Talked behind people’s backs? Had sex with another guy’s girlfriend? Made a fool of somebody for the laughs? Except…people tended to justify their own behavior. Cruelty had been a joke; the butt of it was too sensitive. The girlfriend? If Fred couldn’t keep her interest, he was the one who’d screwed up. Or maybe her. But I wasn’t the one violating any promises.
No, it wasn’t hard to understand why talking to her would be uncomfortable, Cassie thought wryly. What if she pricked someone’s balloon of self-satisfaction, leaving him wondering if he had done something wrong – and if that something meant he now had a target painted on his back?
Or his head, she thought with a shudder.
And how many men, especially, would be inclined to make an honest admission to anyone, far less her? Yeah, I could be a real bastard and there are probably a few people who’d have good reason to hate my guts. Or, Yeah, I had plenty of reason to hate half my teammates.
She shivered on an unpleasant thought. Would the killer stay away from her for fear she’d recognize his voice…or would he be brazen enough to enjoy spending time with her, taking secret pleasure in fooling her?
Grant must have spent the day interviewing his teammates, too, although he and she hadn’t crossed paths today the way they had when tracking down the members of Curt’s militia. They hadn’t gotten together yesterday evening, either. Cassie felt this hollow beneath her sternum, an ache for Grant, and oh she hated being needy. She wanted desperately to talk to him, to see him. What she ought to do was end this thing with him – now would be good, before they had sex – but Cassie also knew she wouldn’t be doing it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A gleam in his eyes, Grant stepped across the threshold. Cassie flung herself into his arms despite the icy cold that came with him, never mind that he still wore a parka and heavy gloves.
As he bent his head and kissed her, he kicked the door shut. She melted from the inside out as his lips explored hers, as he nipped her lip and drove his tongue in deep. That was all it took to have her squirming against him, wishing there weren’t so many layers between them, wishing...that they weren’t in her father’s house.
Grant groaned and backed off before she had to summon the willpower to retreat. “Your father still up?” he asked, as he unzipped his parka and shrugged out of it.
“No, thank goodness. Sound asleep. I checked on him just before you called.” At ten o’clock, she’d almost given up hearing from Grant tonight and had been thinking about going to bed herself. She wouldn’t have admitted to a soul how ridiculously disappointed she’d been. She nodded toward the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s just keep our voices low.”
“I didn’t call in hopes you’d feed me.”
As conflicted as she felt, Cassie smiled at him over her shoulder. “I didn’t think you had. You did get here fast, though.” She lifted the lid of the pan on the stove and stuck a fork in the green beans. Done.
“I hit the three stoplights in downtown just right, and the roads were mostly empty. You know how early this town shuts down.”
“It’s a big change from Portland, that’s for sure.” She rose on tiptoe to take a plate down from the cupboard.
Turning, she surprised an expression of tenderness on his weary face. “What?” she asked.
“Just thinking I wouldn’t mind having to get the high things down for you,” he said, voice husky.
The moment caught her. While the green beans boiled unheeded behind her, Cassie couldn’t look away from Grant. Was he suggesting…?
And then one corner of his mouth twitched, although his eyes stayed warm. “Maybe this explains your personality. Being short is hassle enough to keep aggravation at a constant simmer.”
He was trying to turn this to the light side. Cooperating, she blew a raspberry. “Thank you.” A stray thought disturbed her, though; being short might have something to do with her give-no-quarter personality, but she knew what she’d spent her lifetime fighting was the creeping feeling that she didn’t matter. Mom had left her, Dad treated her as if she was lacking. How else could she become someone who did matter, if only in her own eyes, but by coming out fighting, making people notice her, setting high goals and meeting them?
Oblivious to her brooding, Grant said, “Man, I’m beat. You mind if I pour myself some milk?”
“Of course not. I can—”
He’d already taken a glass from the cupboard and gone to the refrigerator. Cassie hastily dished up the green beans, and took the leftover lasagna from the microwave.
Grant sat down at what she already thought of as his place and breathed in appreciatively as she set the meal in front of him.
“You didn’t have to come,” she said. But, oh, how grateful she’d been for that phone call.
His eyes met hers. “Yes, I did.”
Cassie bit her lip and nodded. “I thought about you all day.”
“I kept worrying about what you were up to.”
“What completely stupid thing is it that you thought I must be doing?” she asked tartly.
Completely serious, he said, “Chatting over a cup of coffee with a serial killer? That occur to you?”
The smile playing at the corners of her mouth went away. “I kept wondering. I’d be joking with some guy and think, What if…?”
Grant let out a long breath and reached his left hand across the table for hers. The contact settled her.
“I kept thinking the same thing,” he said bleakly. “Damn it, these were friends.”
“I’m…not so sure.”
He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“I heard a lot of resentment t
oday.” He needed to know this, or she’d have kept it to herself. “Even Scott Mathison had this mini-flash of anger.”
“Aimed at me? Or the victims?”
“In his case, you. He did laugh at the end and admit that if he’d been the star you were, and got all the girls, he’d have been arrogant, too. He also conceded that he has the impression you aren’t so much these days.”
“I didn’t feel a lot of warmth from him at that damn meeting. I wondered if the plan was to set me up.”
“He was mad you hadn’t contacted everyone who might be on the killer’s hit list a lot sooner than you did.”
“I heard that loud and clear,” he said with a sigh, before taking a big bite.
Cassie let him eat in peace for a couple minutes. He was the one to pause and ask, “Who else?”
“Rob Fullerton. I don’t think he liked you or Travis at all.” She thought. “Or Chad, come to think of it. He didn’t mention Curt.”
“I didn’t like Chad. He could be a real prick. We had this guy on the team, big, played offensive and defensive line, but he wasn’t very smart. Not in special ed, but not much above that level. Chad made fun of him. Most of the rest of us took turns shutting Chad down.”
“Most?”
He shrugged. “There were the guys who thought it was funny.”
“You don’t think…”
“No. He wasn’t intellectually capable of doing these killings without leaving evidence behind. Besides, he was really good-hearted.”
“Is he still local?”
“Don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to do a search for him yet.”
“I could—”
Even with his mouth full, he could deliver a repressive look.
To prove herself irrepressible, Cassie asked, “Can you tell me if you made any progress today?”
“This on the record, or off?”
“Well…” She watched him take a bite of green beans. “Let’s start with on.”
“On the record, we’re now working with the FBI. The agent I met with today offered help in several forms, including the services of a profiler and expediting any request for federal records.”
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