by P. G. Forte
“Uh, thanks. Yeah, I recognize her. But what do I need a picture of her dog for?”
“Oh, it’s not her dog.” Marsha chuckled. “It sort of belongs to Scout here. But we think Robyn might have been walking the dog when she disappeared. It’s missing too. Or is that too much like a cat stuck in a tree, do you think? Should we have called the Fire Department, also?”
Scout groaned. One look told Nick that she was regaining consciousness. Once again, he was quicker than the others.
Ignoring Lucy’s glare, and the amused smirk on Marsha’s face, he bent over the couch and called the name he must now get used to using. “Scout? You back with us?”
Nick’s voice came from someplace in the darkness above her. Scout shivered in response. She was lying on the couch, she realized, and Nick was leaning over her. So close. Too close. Not close enough. She didn’t even have to open her eyes to know exactly where he was. It was as if he were taking up all the space, all the oxygen, all the energy in the room. She groaned again, and covered her face with her hands in an attempt to hide the intense irritation she felt within herself. She was frantic to get away from him, to back up, back away, get off of the couch – or even out of the room, altogether.
I should have never come back here. What was I thinking?
She wanted to scream. She wanted to push him away. And at the same time, irregardless of her sudden inability to breathe, she wanted nothing more than to grab hold of him and pull him down on top of her, to feel his body against her own, his weight crushing her beneath him. Nick.
“I’m fine,” Scout muttered thickly, as another shudder ran through her.
Goddamn it, she screamed silently at herself. Get a grip! What the hell was she doing, acting like some Victorian heroine? Fainting? Having trouble breathing? Feeling nauseous? Jeez, was she out of her friggin’ mind?
But oh God, who would have guessed he would still be wearing the same cologne?
She took a deep, greedy breath and then another, thinking somewhat sheepishly of the bottle of scent that she had bought once, many years ago, in a moment of great weakness. All by itself it had the power to bring back hazy, bittersweet memories, and fuel even sweeter fantasies of what might have been, what should have been. Oh, if only things had been different.
But the scent coming to her now, mixed with the all but forgotten fragrances of his hair and his skin and his breath, was infinitely more devastating. It brought everything to life at once. All her memories, alive and vivid. All the fantasies she had cherished over twenty long, lonely years; more alluring, more compelling than imagination alone had ever made them.
“Scout? You in there?”
“Mmm?” Reining in her emotions, she pushed herself upright. “No. I mean, yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
And maybe she would be. It had been a long time, after all. He could have changed... enough. She opened her eyes and cautiously looked up into his face. Damn. Not enough. Not even close.
He was as handsome as he’d ever been. The same full lips. That strong, straight nose. If anything, the years had only added to the rugged masculine beauty that still haunted her dreams. And they’d done nothing whatever to dim the luster of those beautiful eyes. Delicious, caramel-colored eyes that had always been able to melt her with a glance. Except that... well, here was a difference. Twenty years ago they hadn’t ever looked at her with such a cold, disinterested gaze.
It did the trick, though. She felt her own eyes narrow as she returned Nick’s icy stare. She was fully conscious now.
“I’m fine, damn it. Just give me some space, huh?”
“All right, all right. Take it easy,” Nick answered, not moving an inch.
“I said—” she began, but his jaw was clenched, and he was looking so suddenly fierce that she couldn’t help but look away. Another mistake. His body was a little heavier, a little more powerful than she had remembered it. Solid and strong. And, if he were to lean just a little closer...
Her tongue slipped nervously over her lips. Damn, but her mouth was dry. She’d just fainted, hadn’t she? You’d think someone would have thought to offer her a drink. Water. Or something wet.
Pulling her mind away from thoughts of Nick’s mouth on hers, she forced herself to meet his eyes again. This time, it was his gaze that faltered. She felt him take a long, deep breath and let it out again, very slowly, before speaking.
“Think you could tell me what this is all about?” His voice was dangerously soft; she felt her heart speed up again. He nodded toward the others. “I’m not sure I’m getting a clear picture from your friends here.”
“Robyn. My, my housemate. I’m not... I don’t know where she is,” she heard herself stammer. “I th-think something’s m-maybe happened to her.”
“Something, huh? Okay. Like what, for example?” He backed off a little then, just far enough to sit on the edge of the coffee table, his knees only inches from her elbow.
Scout shrugged and tried again for control. “Well, that’s the thing; I don’t know. An accident, maybe?”
“An accident? A car accident? They just said she was missing. What kind of accident do you think she might have had?”
“I don’t know.” Scout was momentarily diverted. Another accident? That would be a little hard to swallow, wouldn’t it? “Maybe not an accident. But something had to have happened to her.”
“Because?”
“Because she’s missing, of course!” She shot him an exasperated glance. Jeez. He wasn’t stupid. How hard was this to comprehend? “Two nights ago, she took my dog out for a walk. Or, maybe it wasn’t a walk. Maybe she said something about going out somewhere. I don’t remember, exactly. It was pretty late, and I was… preoccupied. All I know was they were still here when I went to bed. And when I got up next morning, they were gone. I haven’t seen either of them since.”
“And she didn’t show up for work at the nursery. Either yesterday or today, like we already told you.” Lucy cut in.
“How did she seem – when did you last see her? Monday night?”
“Yeah, Monday. I don’t know. Fine, I guess. I wasn’t really paying attention. I uh, had some other things on my mind.”
“Well, she definitely was not fine Monday morning,” Lucy interrupted again. “Although, what I’m thinking now is, maybe she just decided to find another place to live and she’s just been too busy to call in. She was pretty upset. And she’d probably figure I’d understand if she missed work because of it. That is,” she paused to glare at Scout. “If you’re sure nothing else happened Monday night.”
Scout glared back. “I said I was, didn’t I?”
“Scout was with me Monday night,” Glenn cut in, much to Scout’s irritation.
Nick glanced at him briefly, his eyes narrowing. “What exactly is your role in all of this?”
“I’m acting as Ms. Patterson’s attorney. And I don’t think she should be answering any more questions right now.”
Scout shuddered at the fury that blazed in Nick’s eyes when he turned back to look at her. “Is that so?”
Had he recognized Glenn? No, that wasn’t possible. They’d never even met. And even if he did recognize him, what could it possibly matter, after all this time? What did any of it matter?
She took a deep breath. “Glenn is helping me sort some things out with my stepmother’s will. And I don’t have any problem answering your questions.”
Boy, wasn’t that the understatement of the century! She knew she was blushing. She didn’t dare meet Lucy’s gaze now. How ironic is this? She and Nick had picked things up right where they’d been forced to leave off the very last time they saw each other. He was still asking questions, she was still giving answers, and they were both pretending to be strangers. Doesn’t life just suck?
What would happen, she wondered, if she dropped the pretense? If she said hello, asked him how he’d been? How would he react? Given the look in his eyes, probably not the way she hoped he would.
She sighed. “Glenn and I had dinner
Monday night. That’s all. When I came home, Robyn said she was going out and could she take the dog with her and I said yes, and that’s all I can tell you.” She gazed at Nick defiantly. “Why are you so interested? You can’t think it has any bearing on Robyn’s being gone?”
“Just trying to get the facts straight.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “If it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to your friend, it makes no difference to me what you did Monday.”
“No, I can’t imagine any reason why it would,” Scout answered, stung once again by his indifference.
“Of course it doesn’t!” Lucy snapped. “I don’t know why you’re wasting your time like this, Nick. Can’t you just go back to the station now and put out a bulletin, or file a missing person report or something?”
In the sudden silence that followed Lucy’s outburst, a phone rang.
“Oops. That’s me.” Marsha grabbed her bag. “Sorry. I’ll uh... I’ll just take it in the other room.”
Nick scowled at his cousin. “I really don’t think I need you telling me how to do my job, Lucy. Don’t you have someplace else you need to be?”
“No. Don’t you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He got to his feet. His next words were addressed to Scout, although he didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m going to leave now. But I’ll be in touch if I find out anything.” He gave Lucy another wry grin as he left. “Bye, cuz. Try to stay out of trouble.”
“Oh, and you’re a fine one to give advice, aren’t you?” Lucy grumbled.
Nick chuckled in response and swaggered from the room, pointedly taking no notice of Glenn, who had shrunk back against the wall.
Marsha was speaking into her cell phone as he passed through the front hall. “Calm down, Celeste. What are you talking about? Murder? Here? No, honey. Everybody here is fine.” She looked up and met Nick’s eyes. He raised his brows in a quizzical expression, but didn’t pause.
“Somebody whose name begins with a G?” he heard her say, just before the door closed behind him. “Is that a first name or a last name? No, damn it, Celeste, I know a lot of people whose names begin with G. What? Well, you for example. Yeah, well...”
Marsha’s eyes slid over the painting that hung next to the doorway. Lisa and Scout, as painted by Scout’s father, smiled back at her in dreamy serenity. Jeez, she’d forgotten how much alike in looks the two girls had been, almost as if they actually had been related. Lisa had been the more classically beautiful, but Scout had always had a sort of untamed exotic quality that the artist had captured perfectly. In the corner of the painting, she could just make out the signature. Gil Patterson. Great. Just fabulous. “I’m telling you Celeste, we’ve got G’s coming out of the woodwork around here.”
But enough was enough. Celeste’s agitation poured through the phone until Marsha thought her head might explode from the pressure. She took a deep breath. “Okay, Celeste, I got it. And as soon as I make sure that Scout is okay, I’ll leave. I promise. And then tomorrow we can – What?” she broke off when Celeste abruptly segued into a new topic. Paige Delaney. What was the reporter up to, nosing around her shop? Nothing good, that much was certain.
“Okay, Celeste. Look, there’s no sense in worrying about it now. Just close up and go on home. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
Celeste’s frustrated sigh vibrated in her ear. “You’re forgetting. I have tomorrow off.”
Oops. Marsha sighed as well and rubbed her temple. Right. She should have remembered that. “Well, Friday morning, then. Now, don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”
Marsha hung up the phone and stared at it distractedly. It wasn’t like Celeste to get this worked up. It especially wasn’t like Celeste to let down her guard in front of Marsha like that. She knew how hard it was for her to screen out other people’s emotions. Damn. She needed a drink and some mindless entertainment. She needed to calm herself down. They were on the brink of disaster; she could feel it. And she was useless to anyone like this.
A sudden motion made her turn. Glenn was staring at her curiously. A shudder ran through her. She hadn’t even felt him come up. She forced a smile to her face and rolled her eyes. “Everyone’s a psychic,” she joked.
“I think we should leave.” Glenn said quietly. “Scout doesn’t seem to need anything else now. Except maybe to rest. I think we should—”
You should go now, Marsha thought, trying to focus on his aura. It looked awful. She wondered if he was sick. Go. Now, she thought again, with more force than before.
She tried the smile again, too. This time, putting a little more reassurance into it. “I’m sure she’s fine. Really. Nothing to worry about.”
She could feel his thoughts, like a dark, encroaching cloud, attempting to wend their way into her mind, but she closed herself off to them. She had enough to think about at the moment; she couldn’t take on his pain, too.
“That... person on the phone just now. Were they with the police? I thought you said something about a murder?”
Had he been listening to the whole conversation? Marsha shook her head. “Oh, no. It was just my partner.” She shrugged. “Celeste tends to get a little carried away sometimes. She did a reading at the festival this weekend that still has her a little upset, is all.”
Glenn frowned uncertainly. “At the festival? But that cop, the one who was just here—”
“Nick? He’s okay.” Marsha smiled, again. “He’s Lucy’s cousin, you know. It makes him a little overprotective at times.”
“He’s dangerous,” Glenn whispered, still oozing darkness like a black, bitter mist. “He threatens people.”
Not now! Marsha pushed the thoughts away once more. “Well, I know he can appear pretty intimidating when he wants to be, but I’d guess that, most of the time, his bark is worse than his bite.” Go home. Leave. Now.
“He’s dangerous.” Glenn repeated, more firmly, as he turned to go. “I have to go now. I need to think.”
Marsha shook her head as she watched him leave. Was he always this weird? What the hell had they all seen in him back in high school?
Back in the living room, Scout was still lying on the couch with her eyes closed and Lucy was still sitting across the room glaring at her. Marsha took a look at the two of them and quickly reached a decision.
“Okay,” she announced briskly. “It’s getting late and there’s nothing else we can do about Robyn today, and Scout, you have nothing in the house to eat. So, what I think is... the three of us should go out to dinner. Make a night of it.”
“Well, count me out of that,” Lucy said, folding her arms across her chest and glaring at her now, too.
But Marsha could handle Lucy. “No, I won’t either. I was thinking of going to that Brewery Place, out on the coast. You know the one I mean. And you’re the only one I know who remembers exactly where the turn-off is. Besides, you know my night vision is terrible, and even if Scout had her car, she’s too banged up to drive that distance. So you have to come. You two are both adults, and I’m sure you can manage to be civil to each other for one night. Maybe a couple of beers will help. Now, let’s go.” She smiled at them both. “It’ll be fun.”
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* * * *
Chapter Eighteen
* * * *
Nick slammed his car into gear and sped off down the street. For as far back as he could remember, the only thing that seemed to help him let off steam, or deal with any of the bad things life threw at him, was speed. Before it was cars, it had been dirt bikes, bicycles, skate boards – the pattern went all the way back to one of the most vivid of his early memories:
Tears blurred his vision as he raced down the driveway on his tricycle. His hands clutched the handles as if they were the only things solid in the whole world. His feet pushed the pedals harder, faster. Down the driveway and around and around the block he sped for hours that day.
The day they had told him his father was dead...
There wasn’t really any place
he needed to get to right now. He’d go back to his office later and see what he could learn about the missing woman. But he hadn’t been lying when he said he had to leave. He couldn’t have stayed in that room any longer. He couldn’t have stayed and not said or done something he would regret.
He turned away from town, headed for the narrow, winding highway that stretched along the coast. With its unexpected dips and rises, its relentless, irregular curves, and its unobstructed view – straight out and down – of the endless, blue Pacific, it was the kind of road that made tourists quail. But Nick had lived all his life in Oberon and these roads held no terror for him. The real terror in his life was in that house he had just run away from.
He’d put his lights on, and now, all along the road in front of him, slowly moving cars pulled over to the side to let him pass. He felt a small flare of amusement. This had to be one of his favorite job perks. Everybody falling all over themselves to get out of the cop’s way. He stomped down harder on the gas as he fished around in the side pocket for the pack of cigarettes he’d remembered leaving there after the last time he’d quit.
Kate missed this one. He felt a tiny stab of guilt as he punched the cigarette lighter in. His daughter hated his smoking and had already convinced him to quit three times. But Kate was vacationing with her mother. And Scout was back in town. This was no time to be worried about something as innocuous as tobacco. His other addiction had always been far more hazardous to his health.
Nick knew trouble when it stared him in the face. Growing up, he’d been nothing but trouble. He’d been an almost constant source of worry for his mother, his aunt, his uncle, the sisters at St. Dominic Elementary school, and later for the brothers at Navarre County Catholic High School. He had barely avoided expulsion countless times solely – and he had this on the best authority – due to the grace of God. Not that he’d ever done anything that was too illegal, but he liked trouble, he liked to fight and he never could resist the chance to pull a prank or take a dare.
