by Nora Roberts
“Sex as exorcism?”
“Worked for me.” He moved to the refrigerator, got her out a bottle of water. “Let me know if you want to try it.”
“I’ll do that.” Sheer reflex had her catching the bottle he lobbed lightly to her. But she nearly bobbled it, and her shoulders went to stone again with the brisk knock on the front door.
“That’ll be the sheriff. Michael Myers doesn’t knock. Want to do this in here?”
She looked at the manhole cover–sized kitchen table. “Here’s good.”
“Hang on a minute.”
When he went to answer, she twisted the top off the bottle and gulped down cold, cold water. She heard the low murmurs, the heavy tread of men’s boots. Calm, she reminded herself. Calm, concise and clear.
Rick came in, nodded at her with his eyes level and unreadable. “Reece. Got some trouble, I hear.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s sit down here, so you can tell me about it.”
She sat, and she began, struggling to relay the details without bogging it down, without skimming over anything relevant. In silence, Brody poured coffee, set a mug in front of Rick.
As she spoke she ran a hand up and down the bottle of water, up and down, while the sheriff took notes, watched her. And Brody leaned back against the gray counter, drinking coffee, saying nothing.
“Okay, tell me, you think you could identify either one of them?”
“Her, maybe. Maybe. But I didn’t see him. His face, I mean. His back was to me, and he had a hat. I think they both had on sunglasses. She did, at first. She had brown hair, or black. But brown, I think. Long brown hair. Wavy. And she had on a red jacket and a hat. Cap.”
Rick swiveled to look back at Brody. “What did you see?”
“Reece.” Brody moved back to the pot, topped off his mug. “She was about a quarter mile up the trail from me when she stopped. Couldn’t have seen the spot where this happened from where I was sitting if I’d been looking that way.”
Mardson pulled on his lower lip. “You weren’t together.”
“No. Like Reece said, she went by where I was working, we had a couple of words, and she kept going. I headed up maybe close to an hour after, ran into her running back. She told me what happened, and I hiked back up to where she’d been.”
“You see anything then?”
“No. You want to know the spot, I’ll get a map, show you where.”
“Appreciate that, Brody. Reece,” Rick continued when Brody walked out, “did you see any boat, car, truck? Anything like that?”
“I didn’t. I guess I looked for a boat, sort of, but I didn’t see one. I thought they must’ve been camping, but I didn’t see any equipment or a tent. I just saw them. I just saw him choking her.”
“Tell me everything you can about him. Just whatever comes to your mind,” he prompted. “You never know what you’re going to pick up, what you’re going to remember.”
“I wasn’t paying attention, not really. He was white—I’m pretty sure. I saw his hands, but he had gloves on. Black or brown. But his profile…I’m sure he was white. I suppose he might’ve been Hispanic, or Native American. It was so far away, even with the binoculars, and at first I was just passing the time. Then she slapped him. Slapped him twice. The second time she did, he shoved her, or hit her. She went down. It all happened so fast. He had a black jacket. A dark jacket and one of those orange, reddish-orangeish hunting caps.”
“Okay, that’s a good start. How about his hair?”
“I don’t think I noticed.” She wanted to shiver. It had been like this before. The questions she simply couldn’t answer. “The hat would’ve covered it, I guess, and his coat. I don’t think it was long. I yelled, screamed maybe. But they couldn’t hear. I had my camera, right in my pack, but I never thought of it. I just froze, then I just ran.”
“I guess you could’ve jumped into the river, tried to swim across it, then dragged him off to the authorities with the power of your will.” Brody’s comment was careless as he came back in with a map of the area. Brody laid the map on the table, pointed with his finger. “Here.”
“You sure about that?”
“I am.”
“Okay, then.” Rick nodded, pushed to his feet. “I’m going out there right now, see what there is to see. Don’t you worry, Reece, we’re going to take care of this. I’ll get back to you. Meanwhile, I want you to think back through it. Anything comes to you, anything at all, even if it doesn’t seem important, I want to hear about it. Okay now?”
“Yes. Yes, okay. Thanks.”
After nodding to Brody, Rick picked up his hat and headed out.
“Well.” Reece let out a long sigh. “Do you think he can…Is he capable?”
“I haven’t seen anything to make me think otherwise. It’s mostly drunk and disorderlies around here, a few domestic disputes, kids shoplifting, scuffles. But he handles them. And there’s lost or injured hikers or boaters, rock climbers, traffic crap and so on when the tourists come in. He seems to do the job. He’s…dedicated, would be the term.”
“But murder. Murder’s different.”
“Maybe, but he’s the guy in charge here. And since it happened outside town limits, he’ll have to call in the county or state. You saw what you saw, you reported it, gave your statement. Nothing else for you to do.”
“No, nothing else.” Like before, she thought, nothing else to do. “I guess I’ll go. Thanks for…all of it,” she said as she got up from the table.
“Nothing else for me to do, either. I’ll drive you home.”
“You don’t have to bother. I can walk.”
“Don’t be stupid.” He hauled up her backpack and headed out of the kitchen toward the front.
Because she felt stupid, Reece dragged on her jacket and followed. He strode straight out, not giving her the time she might have liked to study and gauge his home. She had a quick impression of simplicity, casual disorder and what she thought of as the habitat of the single male.
No flowers, tchotchkes, throw pillows or softening touches in the living area she passed through. A couch, a single chair, a couple tables and what she saw was a cozy stone-faced fireplace dominating the far wall.
There was an impression of earthy tones, straight lines and no nonsense before she was out the door.
“I’ve put you to a lot of trouble today,” she began.
“Damn right you have. Get in.”
She stopped, and gratitude warred with insult, outrage and exhaustion. Gratitude lost. “You’re a rude, insensitive, insulting son of a bitch.”
He leaned back on his car. “And your point is?”
“A woman was murdered today. Strangled to death. Do youget that? She was alive, now she’s dead, and no one could help her. I couldn’t help her. I just had to stand there and watch. Do nothing, just like before. I watched him kill her, and you were the only one I could tell. Instead of being outraged and upset and sympathetic, you’ve been short and snippy and dismissive. So go to hell. I’d rather walk back up that trail for six miles than ride two miles with you in your stupid, macho SUV. Give me my goddamn backpack.”
He stayed just as he was, but he no longer looked bored. “About time. I wondered if you had anything approaching a normal temper in there. Feel better?”
She hated that she did. Was infuriated that his carelessness had revved her up until she’d spewed out a great deal of her anxiety and dread. “You can still go to hell.”
“I’m hoping for a reserved seat. But meanwhile, get in. You’ve had a crappy day.” He pulled the door open. “And, just FYI. Guys can’t be snippy. We’re physiologically incapable of snippiness. Next time usecallous. That works.”
“You’re an irritating, confusing man.” But she climbed into the car.
“That works, too.”
He slammed the door, then strode around to the driver’s side. After tossing her pack in the backseat, he got behind the wheel. “Did you have any friends in Chicago?” she
asked him. “Or just people who found you irritating, confusing and callous?”
“Some of both, I guess.”
“Aren’t reporters supposed to be sort of personable, so they can get people to tell them things?”
“Couldn’t say, but then I’m not a reporter anymore.”
“And fiction writers are allowed to be surly and solitary and eccentric.”
“Maybe. Suits me anyway.”
“To the ground,” she replied, and made him laugh.
The sound surprised her enough to have her look over. He was still grinning as they rounded the lake. “There you go, Slim. Already know you’ve got spine. Nice to know you’ve got teeth to go with it.”
But when he pulled up in front of Angel Food, and she glanced up at her own window, she felt her spine loosen, and her teeth wanted to chatter. Still, she got out, and would have reached for her backpack if he hadn’t pulled it out from his side first.
So she stood on the sidewalk wavering between pride and panic.
“Problem?”
“No. Yes. Goddamn it. Look, you’ve come this far. Could you just walk up with me, for a minute?”
“To make sure Michael Myers isn’t waiting for you?”
“Close enough. Feel free to take back the compliment—if that’s what it was—about me having a spine.”
He only tossed the backpack over his shoulder and started around the building to her steps. Once she’d dug out her key and unlocked the door, he opened it himself to walk in ahead of her.
She lowered his insensitivity quotient. He hadn’t sneered, he hadn’t spoken, he’d just gone in first.
“What the hell do you do in here?”
“What? Excuse me?”
“No TV,” he pointed out, “no stereo.”
“I just moved in, really. I don’t spend a lot of time here.”
He poked around, and she didn’t stop him. There wasn’t that much to see.
The neatly made daybed, the couch, the bar stools. But it smelled, female, he noticed. But he didn’t see any sign of the nest building he expected from a woman. No pretty and useless things sitting around, no mementos from home or from her travels.
“Nice laptop.” He tapped a finger on it.
“You said you were hungry.”
He glanced up from her computer, and it struck him how the nearly empty room made her seem so alone. “Did I?”
“Before. If you are, I could make you a meal. Payback. We could call it payback for today, and be even.”
She said it lightly, but he was good at reading people and this one wasn’t ready to be alone. Anyway, he was hungry, and had firsthand knowledge she could cook.
“What kind of meal?”
“Ah.” She pushed a hand through her hair, glanced toward the kitchen. He could almost see her doing a mental inventory of her stock. “I could do some chicken and rice quickly. Twenty minutes?”
“Fine. Got beer?”
“No. Sorry. I have wine.” She turned toward the kitchen. “A nice white. It’s chilled.”
“Good enough. Are you cold?”
“Cold?”
“If you’re not, take off your coat.”
She got out the wine first, and a corkscrew. Then took a pack of two skinless chicken breasts out of the tiny freezer. She’d have to thaw them, at least partially, in the equally tiny microwave, but it couldn’t be helped.
While she took her coat, and the one he’d tossed over a stool, to lay on the daybed, Brody opened the wine.
“I only have regular tumblers.” She crossed back to open a cupboard. “Actually, the wine was mostly for cooking.”
“You’re serving me cooking wine. Well,sláinte. ”
“It’s a good wine,” she said with some aggravation. “I wouldn’t cook with anything I wouldn’t drink. It’s a very nice Pinot Grigio. Sosalute is more appropriate.”
He poured some into the tumbler he gave her, then reached over her head for a second one and added wine to it. He sampled, nodded. “Okay, we’ll add you know wine to your résumé. Where’d you study cooking?”
She turned away and got to work. “A couple of places.”
“One being Paris.”
She took out garlic, green onion. “Why ask if Doc Wallace already told you?”
“Actually, it was Mac, who got it from Doc. You haven’t picked up the small-town rhythm yet.”
“I guess not.” She took out a pot to boil water for the rice.
Brody took his wine, settled on a stool and watched her.
Competence, he thought. Control with a dash of poetry. The nerves that seemed to hum around her otherwise didn’t sound or show when she was in this element.
What she needed was to eat more of what she prepared until she put on a solid ten pounds, minimum. Pounds he was speculating she lost after whatever had sent her running from Boston.
Again, he wondered who she’d seen killed. And why. And how.
She did something, quick and easy, with some crackers, cream cheese and olives, and a sprinkle of what he thought might be paprika. Then arranged them on a saucer in front of him.
“First course.” She offered him a hint of a smile before she started slicing chicken, mincing garlic.
He’d polished off half the crackers—nice bite to them—by the time she had the rice going. The air was pungent with garlic.
While he sat, quiet, she handled three pans—the chicken deal, the rice and another in which she stir-fried slices of peppers and mushrooms, small trees of broccoli.
“How do you know how to cook it all and have it ready at the same time?”
She glanced back, and her face was relaxed, a little rosy from the heat. “How do you know when to end a chapter and go on to the next?”
“Good point. You look good when you cook.”
“I cook better than I look.” She gave the vegetables a toss, shook the skillet holding the chicken.
As if to prove it, she shut down the heat, then began to plate the meal. She set his in front of him, had him lifting a brow. “Twenty minutes. And it smells a hell of a lot better than the can of soup I’d figured to open tonight.”
“You earned it.” She fixed her own plate—with considerably smaller portions than his—before she came around the counter to sit beside him. And for the first time, picked up her wine.
She half toasted him, sipped. “Well? How is it?”
He took his first bite, sat back as if to consider. “You’ve got a face on you,” he began. “Fascinating in its way, and a lot of it’s about those big, dark eyes. Suck a man right in and drown him if he isn’t careful. But,” he continued as she seemed to draw back from him, just a little, “maybe you do cook better than you look.”
The way her grin flashed in appreciation made him think otherwise, but he continued to eat and to enjoy the meal, and her company more than he’d expected.
“So, you know what’s buzzing around downstairs about now?” he asked her.
“In Joanie’s?”
“That’s right. People see my car out front, don’t see me in there. Somebody says something, somebody else says, ‘I saw him go up with Reece’—or Joanie’s new cook. ‘Been up there some time now.’”
“Oh.” She blew out a breath. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter.” Then she sat up a little straighter. “Does it? Does it matter to you what they say?”
“Couldn’t care less. You don’t care what people think or say about you?”
“Sometimes I do, too much. Sometimes I don’t care at all. I sure as hell don’t care that you lost a bet with Mac Drubber over me diving into bed with Lo.”
His eyes lit with amusement as he continued to eat. “Overestimated Lo, underestimated you.”
“Apparently. And maybe if people think we’re having something going for a while, Lo will stop trying to charm me into going out with him.”
“He hassling you?”
“No, not like that. And it’s been better since I made myself clear. But this won’t h
urt. So I guess I owe you another one.”
“I guess you do. Do I get another dinner out of it?”
“I…well, I suppose.” Her brows drew together in confusion. “If you want.”
“When’s your next night off?”
“Ah…” God, how’d she managed to box herself in so neatly? “Tuesday. I have the early shift, off at three.”
“Great. I’ll come by at seven. That work for you?”
“Seven. Sure. Sure. Well, is there anything you don’t eat, don’t like, have an allergy to?”
“Don’t fix up internal organs and expect me to chow down.”
“Nix the sweetbreads, got it.”
Now what? she wondered. She just couldn’t think of any small talk, conversational gambits. Once she’d been good at this, she thought. She’d enjoyed dating, liked sitting with a man over a meal talking, laughing. But her brain just wouldn’t walk down that road.
“He’ll be here when he gets here.”
She met Brody’s eyes. “If I’m that transparent, I’m going to have to install some shades.”
“It’s only natural to have it stuck in your head. You let it go some while you were cooking.”
“He must’ve found her by now. Whoever did it couldn’t have taken her far, and if he buried her…”
“Easier to weigh her down with rocks, throw her in the river.”
“Oh God! Thanks very much for that image, sure to dance in my head later.”
“Of course, the body probably wouldn’t stay down, not with the current. It’d end up surfacing downriver somewhere. Some guy going down to fish is going to stumble over her, or some hiker, paddler, tourist from Omaha, whatever you like. Someone’s going to get a big surprise when they find her.”
“Would youstop that.” But she frowned. “Even if he did something like that, there’d be some sign, some evidence of what happened. Blood. He rapped her head pretty hard, or where the brush got trampled, or…footprints. Wouldn’t there?”
“Probably. He didn’t know anyone saw him, so why bother to cover tracks at that spot? Seems to me he’d be most concerned about getting rid of the body and getting away.”
