by Deirdre Dore
Tyler didn’t know what it meant, but he needed to check with Ryan to find out if anyone had notified Brent about his sister. He hoped so; he didn’t like to give anyone that news.
He checked the rest of his emails, answering them as quickly as possible, and then started work on the forms he needed to fill out for the Sanders case.
He couldn’t help but think of Tavey as he worked. He wondered if he’d be able to see her alone tonight.
He mistyped the same sentence three times and a scene from Bull Durham popped into his head. Crash at the plate, thinking about Annie. “Get the broad outta your head.”
Tyler grimaced and gamely continued working. He’d never been able to put Tavey Collins out of his head.
33
ONCE TAVEY HAD the girls in the Range Rover, she called Atohi and asked him to get Penny ready to meet them.
She put her phone away and looked in the backseat. Huge smiles covered the girls’ faces, making Tavey laugh.
“All right, I guess the secret is out. I found a dog for you. Her name is Penny.”
“We can take her today?” Ro’s face was flushed with excitement.
“Maybe,” Tavey temporized. “I want your aunt’s permission first, but if we can’t get hold of her, we’ll ask Ninny. She said you were staying with her.”
Their faces fell a little, but they nodded. “Okay, but her dogs aren’t very friendly.”
Tavey vaguely remembered that Ninny had German shepherds.
“We’ll come up with something,” Tavey said with confidence. “Now tell me what you meant by what you said to Chris. What do you mean trouble is going to find me?”
“You don’t want to hear it, Ms. Collins.”
“Call me Tavey.”
“Okay, Tavey.”
“Try me. I was good friends with your aunt Summer. Trust me, I’ve heard everything.”
“You were a child then.”
Tavey’s lips quirked a little at that. She felt certain that several people, Tyler among them, would have retorted to that logic with an emphatic, “Prove it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Ro heaved a deep sigh and nodded. “Okay, you asked for it. We’re different. We aren’t witches like people think, or the way Jane wants people to think. We’re just different. Sometimes we see a person’s fate, but only when it’s close, only when it isn’t going to change very much. Other times we just see the connections between people, who they care about, who they love, who they hate. Sometimes we can see the past, but not always.”
Tavey struggled with disbelief for a moment, then set it aside. She didn’t have to believe them. They believed in their abilities, that much was clear, and Tavey had no solid evidence to disagree with them.
“So you see trouble headed in my direction. How do I handle it?”
Ro looked confused. “You handle it the way you handle everything. You’re Tavey Collins.”
Tavey shook her head. “No, I mean, do I come out of it okay?”
Ro considered that, her face grave. “There’s a chance you won’t come out of it at all.”
Now they’d crossed the threshold into the unbelievable. Tavey couldn’t believe that her life was in danger. She didn’t have any enemies, certainly none who would actually kill her. “So what is this trouble? Can you tell me that?”
Ro seemed to realize that Tavey didn’t believe her. “We could,” she said sourly, “but we’re not supposed to mess with your fate too much.”
“Mess with my . . . my fate?” She pushed away her incredulity once more. “Okay, why not?”
Ro looked out the window, her face sad. “Usually, it just makes things worse,” she said simply.
Tavey, realizing that her doubt had hurt the girl’s feelings, dropped the subject for the time being.
When they arrived at the house, Tavey sent the girls into the kitchen to see Thomas and get a snack, while Tavey said hi to the beagles and let them out to play in the yard. The rain had slacked off some, and the afternoon sun peaked through the clouds to light the raindrops on the grass. Her beagles stepped out on the patio and stared at her as if she were crazy. You want us to play in the rain?
“Come on, babies. Time to potty.” She clapped her hands, and they reluctantly moved off the patio and picked their way through the grass to their favorite spots.
Tavey watched them, her eyes ranging over the rose garden to her left, the woods ahead, and off into the distance, in the direction of the old paper mill. She felt a nagging curiosity tugging at her every time she thought about it, or about her dream from the cemetery.
What had it meant?
She opened the French doors that opened to her bedroom and quickly changed out of her blue blouse and tailored pants and into jeans, boots, and an ancient button-down shirt. She rolled up the sleeves, tied her hair back with a band, and removed her jewelry.
She let the beagles back inside and headed down the hall to the kitchen. She wanted to tell Thomas to expect five more people for dinner. When she walked in, Thomas was chopping onions while Beyoncé’s “Heaven” played on his iPad. Sylvia was polishing the silver on the breakfast table. The room smelled like a bakery. Walking over to Sylvia, Tavey glanced out the window to see the girls waiting outside, standing together in a circle and eating some kind of muffins. The dogs went to greet Thomas, their favorite person in the universe when there was food involved.
“Bessie still in town?”
Sylvia nodded. “She should be back soon.”
“Hmm. She said she had something to tell me.”
Sylvia nodded. “Something seems to be bothering her.”
Tavey rubbed her knuckles with her opposite hand. “Can you call me when she gets back? Tyler and his stepdaughter are coming over.”
“How many people will be at dinner?” Thomas sounded resigned.
Tavey winced. “Sorry, Thomas. Five more at last count. We won’t be finished at the kennels for almost two hours. Will that be enough time?”
“Oui. We are having spaghetti Bolognese. Very simple—”
“That’s fine,” Tavey agreed.
“I wasn’t finished,” the young man complained. “I was going to say, ‘Very simple, but it will be excellent.’ ”
Tavey rolled her eyes as she turned to leave. “Of course it will. I appreciate it. See y’all later.”
She went out the back door and down the path to the drive where the girls were waiting.
“Okay, ladies, let’s go see your girl.”
The three sisters grinned and ran down the path past the porte cochere, heading toward the stables. Tavey followed behind them more slowly.
Her phone rang as she walked; she fished it out of her pocket and felt her face split into a grin—Tyler.
“Hi,” Tavey answered, and winced. She sounded like a fourteen-year-old. It wasn’t like she’d never been on a date, or in a relationship with a man, but none of them had been Tyler.
“Hey,” he replied, sounding equally happy and just as uncomfortable.
Tavey chuckled, for no other reason than that she was happy and that this felt a little silly.
“Yeah.” Tyler chuckled a little. “We’re on our way.”
Tavey’s heart was jumping around in her chest. “Okay, good. I actually have the Triplets with me—” She took a quick breath and released it slowly. “I brought them over to meet Penny”—she paused—“the dog I was working with the other day . . .” she finished haltingly. She hadn’t wanted to remind him of the incident in the woods.
“Ahh,” he said finally. “Okay. That’ll be fun. I’ll be at Christie’s in a few minutes so we should be there in about half an hour. I can take the girls home. I wanted to stop by my uncle’s. They might want to say hi.”
Tavey winced automatically but stopped herself before she could say anything. She still
wanted to talk to Abraham herself, still wanted to find out what else he might know. She thought of Bessie, of what she intended to say about Tavey’s father, but she wanted to spend time with Tyler.
“Why don’t you come over and we’ll all eat dinner?” she suggested, thinking she could talk to Bessie later.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Tavey agreed, her voice too high, too chirpy. She deliberately lowered it. “We’ll see you then.”
“Okay, see you,” Tyler replied, and hung up.
Tavey clutched the phone to her chest, chewing a little on her lower lip.
Filled with sudden energy, Tavey hurried up the flagstones after the girls. She felt lighter somehow, as if she’d been filled with sudden light.
The girls were already in the enclosure when Tavey came to the gate, exclaiming happily over Penny, whose eyes were wide with excitement, her whip of a tail lashing the shins of anyone unlucky enough to be standing behind her.
Atohi was still holding the lead, allowing the girls to pet the dog while they peppered him with questions.
“How old is she?”
“Does she like peanut butter?”
“Can she fetch?”
Tavey whistled to get their attention, and everyone turned to look at her.
“Penny, sit,” Tavey ordered, and the dog planted her rump on the grass.
The girls smiled, delighted.
“Okay, ladies. If Penny is going to be a tracking dog, she has to learn how to obey you, which means that all three of you will have to help in the training. Are you going to be okay with that?”
“Yes!” they agreed, and for once their simultaneous response wasn’t entirely creepy.
“Okay, why don’t we take turns practicing sit for now. Tyler’s on the way with his stepdaughter, Christie. Do you know her?”
The three girls looked at each other and then at Tavey. Ro shrugged. “Not in the way you mean.”
Tavey sighed. “Never mind.”
TAVEY WORKED WITH the girls and Penny for forty-five minutes, constantly checking her phone to see if Tyler had arrived. It was getting dark by the time she received a text.
“We’re here.”
“Come to the kennels. Up the path.”
Penny was the first one to spot Tyler and Christie. She barked at the newcomers. Tyler was tall and fair, long legs encased in his usual jeans and a polo shirt. Christie looked tiny next to him, her jeans ripped in several places, her hair caught in a messy ponytail. Grumbles trotted happily by her side.
Tavey smiled, enjoying the sight of Tyler walking up the path toward her, and the girl, smiling, at his side.
“Hi there,” Tavey said, opening the gate for the three of them.
Christie smiled. “I’m so glad to meet you, Miss Collins.” The girl held out her hand to shake, dropping Grumbles’s leash. She blushed, embarrassed, and immediately bent to pick it up.
Tavey waited until she stood and shook the girl’s opposite hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Christie. Why don’t you go introduce Grumbles to everyone?” Tavey gestured over to where the Triplets were standing with Atohi, Penny sitting obediently at their feet.
While the dogs and teenagers greeted each other, Tavey turned back to Tyler.
“I’m glad you could bring her tonight,” she said simply, looking into his blue, blue eyes. I’m glad you came, she told him silently.
“I’m glad you’re willing to help her out,” he replied, but his eyes drifted down her jeans-clad body.
Tavey smiled. “Anytime.”
34
RAQUEL TAPPED ONE of the hands around her waist and Brent slowly lowered her to the ground.
The rain had begun again, in earnest this time. Her grandmother had left and Belle had gone silent, presumably because she’d shot herself up with something. There was male laughter from somewhere else in the house and the sound of coughing.
“Charlie was alive,” Raquel whispered.
Brent was close behind her, trying to block the rain from her face. “Charlie Collins?”
Raquel nodded. “We need to tell Tavey.”
“Sounds like your grandma is going to. We should talk to Gloria Belle, see what else she might say.”
Raquel’s first loyalty was to Tavey, but if her mother knew something about what happened to Summer, Raquel wanted to know it.
“Okay—” The sound of a door crashing inward made Raquel’s head jerk back toward the house. The sound of gunfire had her reaching for the gun on her hip.
“Stay back,” she ordered Brent, running between the two row houses, heading for the front door. More gunfire, and glass from a window above her head rained down on her. Brent grabbed her from behind when she was within feet of turning the corner to the front of the house. He ignored the elbow she sent into his gut and held on.
There was the tromp of feet on the stairs, a screech, and the sound of tires peeling out on the pavement.
Raquel struggled free, shoving Brent away and running to the corner of the house. She paused, checking quickly with her gun drawn, before stalking alertly toward the house. She climbed the stairs with gun ready, pushing the door open sharply and checking the corner. A thin Hispanic girl with stringy dyed-blond hair looked up from a couch, her eyes as slumberous as the blood that slowly dripped from a gunshot wound to her arm.
Belle was nowhere to be found.
“Shit.” Raquel backed out of the room, swinging her gun around when she heard heavy footsteps.
Brent raised his hands immediately. One of them held a cell phone. “I called the police.”
Raquel pulled her badge off her belt and glared at him. “I told you to stay.”
Brent lowered his arms, handing her the phone. “I didn’t listen.”
35
TYLER WATCHED TAVEY as she and Atohi instructed the girls in the basics of training. He’d never seen her train before. Her manner was direct but friendly as she explained how the dogs’ noses worked, some of the training they would be learning, and what she wanted them to be able to do by the end of the week. She looked tall, slender, and capable in her jeans and boots, her smooth brown hair gathered in a tail. Only a slight hesitation indicated that she was favoring her ankle at all. He was glad she hadn’t been more hurt.
By the time they finished an hour later, all four girls seemed tired and hungry—and happy, their expressions light as they talked to each other about their dogs. It was the only time he’d seen the three identical sisters talking like normal teenagers. Penny and Grumbles followed dutifully alongside them.
They walked down the flagstone path together, chattering, as he and Tavey followed. Atohi had stayed behind to feed the rest of the dogs and pack up Penny’s things for transfer to the girls.
Tyler took Tavey’s arm, feeling her soft skin, the impossible perfect feel of her. “I wanted to talk to you about a couple things I found out today. Walk with me for a second?”
She sent him a curious look, but nodded.
“Girls,” she called out, “you go ahead. Tell Thomas we’ll be right there.”
The girls looked back, then at each other. They giggled as they walked down to the house.
Tyler let Tavey pull him on to another path, one that led to her mother’s rose garden. It took several minutes, as it was on the other side of the house, but the smell announced where they were going well ahead of time.
The sweet scent of roses in bloom floated to them on the red-gold evening air.
“What’s this?” He looked around.
Tavey shrugged. “My mother’s rose garden.”
She led him to a small wrought iron bench set between two of her favorite rosebushes. She sat, indicating he could join her.
He sat, feeling the warmth of her along his side, thinking she smelled like soap and sunshine. He leaned a little closer
and smiled to himself, with a liberal dose of dog.
She turned to look at him, her dark eyes glowing in the light. “What news?”
For a moment Tyler forgot what he’d wanted to tell her, forgot everything in the soft, hungry look she gave him. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to kiss her, so he did, bending forward and taking her lips, tasting her breath.
It was and wasn’t like the last time he’d kissed her. That had been all fire and anger, passion and loss mixed together in a combustion that had felt like dying. This was softer, slower, desire running beneath their skin like the steady pulse of lava from a volcano.
He slid his hands into her hair, thinking that she tasted the same, like cocoa and something tart, spicy. She tasted like Tavey.
She gripped his hair in return, kissing him back, urging him to pull her up and onto his lap.
He did, repositioning her so that she was sitting over him, her knees on either side of his hips. He slid his hands up to her waist and felt the tension of her firm muscles. Sliding them even farther, he molded his fingers around the full, soft curves of her breasts.
“God,” she gasped quietly. “Tyler.”
He knew. He felt it, too, this insane, inescapable, inexplicable need to touch her, feel her, smell her, whisper her name.
“Tavey.”
Both their phones rang at the same time.
Tavey let out a moan of protest and Tyler cursed.
For a moment, neither one of them moved, holding each other in a tight, pulsing hug.
Their phones rang again, sounding more demanding, ominous that they were both ringing at exactly the same time.
“Something’s wrong,” Tavey whispered.
Tyler cursed again and shifted her off him.
Tavey stood on wobbly legs and tugged her phone out of her back pocket. “H—” She cleared her throat. “Hello.”
Tyler answered his own phone, half tempted to throw the damn thing in the woods. “Downs,” he growled.
