by Donna Fasano
He didn’t start the car. Instead, he turned to her.
His gaze carried nothing but kindness as it held hers, the blue deepening as he watched her. “If you need a ride anywhere while the PD has your car, I’d like you to call me. I’d like you to think of me as a friend.”
“You don’t even like me,” she blurted, stunned at the unexpected offer.
He drew back. Waited a beat. “Why would you think that?”
She could feel heat creep up her face. Oh God. Did they really have to talk about the past? Deep breath. Fine. “I started that rumor. I’m sorry. I was a stupid teenager.”
She didn’t want him to hate her. He was investigating the case. But even beyond that, the apology felt right—the only thing that felt right in her crazy, confusing morning—and she realized she should have said those words years ago.
His lips twisted. “I’d like to think I’ve moved on since high school. I don’t hold a grudge like that, Luanne.”
Huh. “You barely said two words to me ever since.”
He shrugged. “You always avoided me, so I gave you space.”
She stared. Had she avoided him?
She had.
“Water under the bridge,” he said with a sure, slow smile after a moment, then turned the key in the ignition and backed up the cruiser. “Anyway, what I was saying… We were friends before. If you need help, I hope you’ll let me know.”
Because he knew that she was lying?
Cold panic spread through her chest. She didn’t let it show on her face. She couldn’t let on. Chase could not find out what she’d done. Ever. She thought of the twins and forced a smile as she fastened her seat belt. “Yeah. Thanks. Sure.” Look calm. Don’t look criminal. “How soon do you think I can get my car back?”
“Tomorrow the earliest. Possibly not until Monday.”
Her heart sank. What was she going to do all weekend without a car? She was not going to ask Chase for rides, no way.
He drove her to Jen’s, lost in thought, stayed in the cruiser, on the phone, while she went in.
“What happened? Why are you getting a police escort?” Jen asked as soon as she opened the door.
“Crashed the Mustang into the fire hydrant this morning.” Luanne stepped inside.
The kids were in the living room, piled on the carpet, watching cartoons. They were happy and safe, and she was going to keep them that way. Smile.
“Hey ya, chipmunks. Had a fun night?”
“Not ready yet. Five more minutes. Pleease!” Mia begged, and Daisy’s quieter, more polite, “Please,” echoed her.
“Jeez. It’s nice to feel missed.” Luanne shook her head at the girls, wanting to scoop them up, hold them tight, and never let go, but it was better not to act over-the-top strange.
“What’s with Chase?” Jen whispered, rubbernecking to see him from the front window.
“He offered to give me a ride home. Just being helpful.”
Jen’s perfectly plucked left eyebrow lifted slightly, the thoughtful look in her eyes saying she wasn’t entirely buying that. “You haven’t talked to him in what, since high school?”
Luanne began gathering the twins’ bags. “I guess.”
“And he just offers you a ride?”
“I crashed my car.” She didn’t want to go into the whole thing about the car getting towed by the police for lab testing. She didn’t want Jen to ask if she’d had anything to do with Earl’s murder. Because to keep the twins, Luanne would have to lie.
The weight of that hit her, the sudden realization that she would have to lie, for the rest of her life, to people who loved and cared about her. Her knees folded, and she dropped to the couch.
“Are you okay?”
Luanne rubbed her hands over her face, then dropped them. “It’s been a crazy morning.”
Jen turned into the kitchen and brought her a glass of water and a bag of vanilla cookies, looking lost in thought for a moment.
“Thanks.” Luanne’s stomach was nowhere ready for food, but she drank the water, then set the glass on the side table. “Is everything okay with you?” Jen seemed preoccupied.
“Got back some lab results. One hormone level fixed, now another goes out of balance. It’s a never-ending story.” She shook her head ruefully.
Luanne reached over to squeeze her hand. “They’ll get it right one of these days.”
Everybody had tragedies in their lives. Everybody had heartaches. She couldn’t dump her problems on Jen. She had to solve them herself.
She filled her lungs and looked at the kids, all focused on the TV and ignoring the adults. “All right girls, who’s ready to come home?”
Two sets of identical begging eyes and pouty lips turned toward her. “Can we finish? Pleeease?” Mia entreated, and her sister chimed in with “Five more minutes. Pleeease?”
They had no sense of time. Everything was five minutes to them at this stage.
“Hey, we’re going to ride home in a police car,” Luanne said with exaggerated excitement, eyebrows up, her voice high-pitched, trying hard to sell it.
The kids all ran to the front window. Bobby stared wide-eyed, vibrating with excitement, every part of his little body moving. “Can I go too, Mom? Pleeeeease?”
Jen shot Luanne a see-what-you-started look. Then she shrugged. “I suppose we can go out and see if Detective Chase will let you sit in the backseat for a minute.”
The kids screamed in excitement like a pack of wild monkeys.
The pounding in Luanne’s head intensified, and she squinted, as if somehow that could hold back the noise. “All right. Shoes first,” she ordered, hoping that getting the kids busy with something would turn the volume down a little.
She wasn’t sure how Chase would react to three toddlers storming him, but he let them climb all over his backseat.
“Can we turn on the siren?” Bobby batted his long eyelashes, hope shining from his face, the expression downright angelic.
“Siren, siren, siren,” the girls chanted.
“Not the siren,” Chase told them firmly. “That’s for official police business.”
He was friendly about it, but his tone carried enough authority so the kids didn’t protest.
“How’s Billy?” he asked Jen, in between helping the kids in and out of the car.
“Back to shift work now that his back is healed,” Jen said. “Better pay, but I hate the night shift. Being home alone.”
Chase nodded. “It’s a pretty good neighborhood. You’ll be fine. I’ll make sure to drive by when I’m on duty.”
Okay, watching Chase with Jen was a revelation. Since he’d been avoiding Luanne—apparently in response to her avoidance of him—she’d begun to think of him as standoffish. But maybe he was right and she was the one who’d put that distance between them all along, staying out of his way, sending out signals that told him to stay away from her. He was plenty friendly with Jen and the kids, chatting easily.
Luanne cleared her throat. “I should get home. You probably need to get back to work.”
Chase looked at her, nodded, flashed a parting smile at Jen. “I probably should. Say hi to Billy for me.”
“Will do.” Jen lifted a protesting Bobby out of the car, then turned back to Luanne. “We’ll be by later for the girls’ birthday party. Do you need me to pick up anything?”
Right. No Mustang. “Can I call you later? I need to sit down for a second and figure out what I’m doing. I have pretty much everything but dessert.”
“Sure.” Jen dragged Bobby toward the house with promises of popsicles and setting up the sprinkler in the back. She was at the front door before she turned back. “How are you going to get to work?”
“I already cleaned the library yesterday morning before it opened, so I can be home all day for the birthday festivities today. I can walk to work at the motel. That’s no big deal.”
They had guests in the rooms. They couldn’t close down, not even temporarily until things got sorted out.
For the time being, they had to manage without Earl, until the owners hired a new manager.
Jen’s forehead furrowed. “Do you think they’ll close the motel?”
Cold spread through Luanne’s chest. With everything going on, she hadn’t thought about that yet. “God, I hope not.” Or they’d all be out of a job, which none of them could afford.
The owners, Mildred and Harold Cosgrove, were retired, had moved to Rising Sun, Maryland, a year before to be closer to their grandkids. Without Earl, a distant nephew, here to manage the motel for them, they might just sell, deciding it was one less worry for their old age.
Luanne was still worrying about that on the drive home with Chase, until Mia interrupted with “Did you get the ladybug cake?”
Oh, how small yesterday’s problems seemed when compared to today’s.
Deep breath. “I didn’t. I’m sorry, honey. But we’ll make dessert together. That way, you’ll get to lick all the leftover frosting.” She tried to put a positive spin on it and was grateful when the girls responded to the promise of extra sugar with huge grins in the backseat.
Then they were distracted from further questions about the party by the view when Chase turned down their street.
One of the smaller fire trucks parked in front of their house, plus the fire chief’s car, three men working on the hydrant, Chief Kendall supervising.
He came right over, a handsome man in his fifties, milk-chocolate skin, tall, fit, just beginning to gray at the temples. “Are you all right, Luanne?”
“Better than my car. And the hydrant.” Luanne winced, guilt flooding her. “I’m really sorry.” She was, sorrier than anyone would ever know.
Chase let the girls out from the back of the cruiser. Of course, they immediately began jumping in the water, splashing each other.
Luanne looked toward the men repairing the hydrant. “How bad is it?”
“Nothing these boys can’t fix. Chase.” The chief nodded at him. “I heard about Earl. Anything?”
Chase shook his head. “It’s pretty early in the game.”
Mia hopped across the biggest puddle and stopped in front of the chief. Daisy followed, stopping one step behind her.
“We rode in the police car,” Mia announced proudly.
The chief played right along, bending to them and narrowing his eyes. “Did you rob a candy store?”
Daisy blinked, glanced at Luanne as if to ask are we in trouble? But Mia said with an impish grin, “We did!”
“Where is all the candy?” the chief wanted to know.
Mia giggled. “We ated it!”
And that got Daisy smiling. She was the shy one, even anxious at times. Mia brazened things out, game for anything. She was the one Luanne would have to watch like a hawk when the twins became teenagers. Hopefully, she’d still be here with them at that stage and not sitting in prison for murder.
“I need to get the girls inside before they’re totally soaked,” she told the men, then scooped up Mia and Daisy and carried them off as they protested. She needed to get behind closed doors, where she could stop pretending that all was well in her world.
Well, could almost stop pretending. She couldn’t fall apart even at home. The girls needed her.
“Happy birthday, chipmunks.” She set them down inside. God, it was good to be home. “Let’s take off our shoes and clean up this place a little, then we’ll set up the food for later. Who wants to frost graham crackers for dessert?”
“Me!” Mia and Daisy jumped up and down.
“All right. But first, cleaning.” The house was small, but plenty enough for them, the furniture they inherited after their mother’s death old but functional. They were used to the lumps in the frumpy brown sofa and the scratches in the pine coffee table. Luanne had grown up with the furniture, the only thing of her childhood that still remained. “Who wants to put away all the shoes?”
The girls moaned dramatically. “Do we have to?”
Right. Luanne felt like a wicked stepmother, making them clean on their birthday. “Or, you can use your birthday passes and play, as long as you don’t make a big mess.”
That cheered them right up. “Play! Me too!” They bounced around her.
Her head spun from all the movement and energy. She had to steady herself for a second before the dizzy spell passed. Okay, all right, take it easy. Lot’s to do. She had no time today for frivolities like passing out.
Since she had no car, the playground visit planned for this morning was canceled, and so was The Wizard of Oz later. She’d just have to make the most of the party.
She made herself a cup of coffee that actually helped her headache a little, then, while the girls played in their room with their plastic dolls and horses, she began vacuuming, which made the headache worse.
She sucked up dirt from the tan living room carpet first, then lifted the green sofa cushions one by one and sucked up all the fuzz-covered cheese puffs. Which visiting kids would find and eat, if past experience was anything to go by.
The couch done, she turned and jumped a foot. Chase was standing behind her, inside the front door, watching her. She turned off the vacuum cleaner, her heart racing.
“Sorry.” He took another step in and looked around. “I knocked. You probably didn’t hear me.”
Having him in her home felt weird beyond weird. She found it impossible to look at anything but him. He definitely had a strong presence, a certain energy that drew the eye. Not that his well-built body didn’t do that already.
He’d never been skinny, not even in his youth, but he’d packed on serious muscle since Luanne had last seen him up close and personal. And since she’d seen him naked before, her mind ever so helpfully provided an image of what he would look like now without his clothes, all grown up with the aforementioned muscles.
She choked on her own spit. Squeezed her eyes closed for a second. What was wrong with her? She could not think about a naked Chase Merritt. Did she still have alcohol in her system from last night? Okay. Just get through this. She opened her eyes and smiled.
“Did you need to ask me anything else?” She held her breath, willing him to say no, to tell her that he was just leaving.
He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to her.
The plain white card had the Broslin PD’s logo on top, his name below, then the word detective and a phone number. “In case you need me.”
Meaning in case you want to confess? She kept smiling so he wouldn’t think she was nervous. She was probably being paranoid. He couldn’t have guessed what she’d done. She’d covered it up. She’d fixed the problem with the car. Nobody had to find out. Ever. “Thanks. And thanks for the ride.”
He watched her for a long moment, the expression on his face unfathomable. He looked as if he was preparing to say something, but, in the end, he turned and walked away, stepping over a rag doll and a toy tiara in his path.
Her shoulders deflated when the door closed behind him.
That relief lasted about a second. As she turned back to work, she caught her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. She looked…almost normal. She patted down her hair and straightened her shirt, her hands freezing in midmotion.
The dazed shock that had carried her through the morning abated, the pounding in her head stopped long enough for her to have her first clear thought of the day.
She was a murderer.
As that word popped into her mind, her entire body began shaking.
I ran over Earl.
Killed him.
She’d killed, and she’d covered up the evidence. Her knees gave out, and she folded onto the couch. Filled with enough guilt, disappointment, and regret to drown in, she shook her head at her mirror self, then she crumpled completely, burying her face in her hands as she tried to just breathe.
She couldn’t do this.
Who was she kidding? She was never going to get away with murder.
The girls’ laughter reached her from their bedroom
.
She had to get away with it.
But she couldn’t live with the guilt for the rest of her life. At one point, she’d have to make this right. She could… She let her hands drop and straightened her back a little. Okay. Once the girls reached eighteen and could manage without her, she was going to turn herself in.
In the meanwhile… She sighed. At least nobody suspected anything.
Chapter 4
Luanne looked guilty as sin. Sexy as hell too, but that wasn’t something Chase had to address at this very moment, so he was willing to table it.
The Mustang was in rough shape, he thought as he walked up to it behind the police station where Arnie had dropped off the car. The front was smashed. Of course, she had hit a fire hydrant.
He’d been damned relieved to see the chief and the boys out there working on that. He’d hated to think that Luanne might have hit something else entirely.
Not that Earl didn’t have it coming, judging by what the employees had said in their interviews. The stories they told spoke of him pushing Maria up against the wall in the supply room, grabbing Jackie in an empty guest room, pressuring employees to “work” at his house. Hundreds of dollars held back in wages. That the women hadn’t liked him was an understatement.
But none of the employees had a car with a big dent in the front, except Luanne.
The thought of Earl putting his hands on her, pressuring her, forcing her… Chase rolled his neck to ease his tightening muscles.
His phone rang just as he set his evidence kit on the ground. He glanced at the display and took the call. “Hey, Mom.”
“I ran into Cindy Jenners at the store today.”
“No.”
“She’s such a nice young woman.”
“Not interested.”
“Your sisters abandoned me.”
“They didn’t abandon you. They got married.”
“They moved to other states. I don’t have a single grandchild within driving distance. How can they be so cruel?” She gave a guilt-laden pause. “Mrs. Ottmann said she saw you talking to some blonde with Massachusetts license plates by the feed store yesterday.”
