by Brenda Novak
“Les is still working on that.”
“I’ll get Hugh’s number when you return my mother’s phone and computer, anyway. I behaved myself at the morgue, didn’t I?”
“You told the coroner’s technician that the coroner doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You call that behaving?”
“I said he was human. Anyone can make a mistake.”
He got the impression she found his interaction with Dean Gillespie amusing, wasn’t really put out by it. “Fine. Give me your number. I’ll text you in the morning when I get to the office.”
“Thanks.” He did as she asked, watching as she added him to her contacts.
“What are you doing?” he asked when she proceeded to key in a text.
She didn’t answer, so he assumed she was letting dispatch know she hadn’t found an intruder. Or maybe she was sending Les Scott a message, telling him to get Pointer’s number in addition to copying that darn file.
When she finished, she slid her phone into the pocket of her uniform. “Have a good night, Mr. Lazarow.”
“You, too, Chief.” He stepped out on the porch until she could get into her squad car. Then he shut and locked the door. It wasn’t until he reached his bedroom and saw his phone on the nightstand that he realized she’d been texting him. Only she didn’t mention Pointer. He supposed that information was still coming in the morning.
I probably wouldn’t refuse if you asked me out. Harper Underwood
He had her first name now, which seemed like a victory in itself. And that “probably” made him eager to test her. He hadn’t planned to date while he was on Fairham, but he figured befriending the chief of police couldn’t be a bad thing. Perhaps once they got to know each other, he could convince her that his mother hadn’t committed suicide.
Dinner Friday night? he wrote.
Pick me up at six.
He smiled as he sank onto the edge of the bed. He’d never dated a cop before.
I hope you’re not texting while driving—and in the rain, no less.
My phone takes voice commands. Why, were you considering a citizen’s arrest?
I wouldn’t dare.
Do I detect sarcasm? Forget protecting you from an intruder. I might shoot you myself.
No sarcasm on my part. I’m impressed that you came out to defend me. So impressed that I’m not sure you’ll ever be able to top that.
Do I have to?
It could make Friday more interesting...
Then I’ll see what I can do.
Sounds promising.
Don’t get your hopes up too high. It won’t entail removing my clothes.
Then I won’t remove mine, either.
Turning the tables on me?
I already pegged you as a Goody Two-shoes.
Someone has to tell you no.
Chuckling at her response, he put his phone back on the nightstand and went downstairs to dig through the refrigerator. He was halfway through a turkey-and-Swiss sandwich when he noticed wet footprints on the floor, coming from the back entry. He and Chief Underwood had turned on the light and looked around the kitchen, but because they could see that the back door was locked, they hadn’t walked all the way over.
They should have. Where the hell had those footprints come from?
His heart pounded as he followed them into the pantry. Once he checked it more thoroughly than the cursory glance they’d given it before, he found a dish towel on one shelf. The fact that it was wadded up and damp made him think someone had come in out of the rain and used it to wipe off.
So where was that someone now?
10
CHIEF UNDERWOOD, AND not Les Scott, had sent Hugh Pointer’s number first thing. The buzz of his phone, signaling that message, woke Keith. The fact that she was already at the station told him she was serious about figuring out what was going on. She couldn’t have gotten much sleep last night. She’d come back the second he called to tell her about the footprints, collected the towel he’d found and wiped up the water with a sterile cloth she could have evaluated for DNA or other forensic evidence, if necessary.
After seeing her in action, Keith was no longer chuckling at the idea of such a small woman trying to protect him; he respected her knowledge and ability and was glad to have her on his side. He wanted to call her right now, to see if she’d been able to track down the person who’d sent her to Coldiron House in the first place, but she probably hadn’t had a chance to do anything other than text him Pointer’s number.
After a yawn and a long stretch to compensate for another short night, he sat against the headboard and used the internet on his phone to calculate the time in Australia. Perth was thirteen hours ahead of South Carolina, so...it would be nine o’clock. Keith wasn’t sure midevening was the best time to call, when Pointer’s wife was likely to be with him. He didn’t care about protecting the guy’s marriage; he figured Pointer deserved whatever he got. Keith was more concerned with reaching his mother’s boyfriend when he’d be willing to talk.
Then he remembered that Pointer’s wife was supposed to be in Europe with their daughter for three weeks and couldn’t imagine she’d changed her plans. Why would she? Chances were she didn’t know Josephine Lazarow had ever existed, let alone that she was dead.
After kicking off the covers, he climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of boxers. Walking around helped siphon off some of the anxiety that was zipping through him at the prospect of speaking to his mother’s married lover. He had to deal with what Pippa had told him, too—but whenever that entered his mind, he pushed it away, telling himself it couldn’t possibly be related to his mother’s death. This issue was much easier to confront.
The phone rang three times before Pointer picked up. He sounded wide awake, so Keith doubted he’d caught him in bed.
Was he alone—or had he already found another woman to entertain him while his wife was gone?
“Mr. Pointer?”
“Yes?”
“This is Keith Lazarow.”
He probably wouldn’t recognize Keith’s first name, but he’d have to recognize his last.
“I’m Josephine’s son,” Keith added, since his mother might not have mentioned him.
“I know who you are.”
His voice was deep and resonant, like that of a radio host. He sounded handsome, well-polished, but given his mother’s taste, Keith had expected nothing less.
“I’m terribly sorry about your mother.”
Keith pivoted at the window and started back across the room. The weather had cleared—not that he was paying much attention. “Are you?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Then maybe you can tell me what happened to her.”
There was a slight pause before he said, “I wish I could. But I don’t know any more than what the police told me the morning she was...er...found.”
“And what did they say?”
“That she...that she took her own life. I’m sure, by now, they’ve told you the same thing?”
As Pointer spoke, Keith listened for signs of pain or grief. He couldn’t detect any, and yet Pointer came across as sincere. “Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” he replied. “Do you believe it?”
“Not for a second.”
“What else could’ve happened?”
Keith headed back to the window and that ray of sunshine he’d noticed before. “Someone killed her.”
This declaration was met with silence.
“How do you know?” he asked at length.
Now Keith detected some alarm. But was Hugh Pointer alarmed for the right reasons? “Because she didn’t commit suicide. The autopsy hasn’t been done yet, but the coroner doesn’t believe it was a heart attack, a stroke or an ac
cident. If he’s right, that leaves only one other option.”
“Murder.”
“Yes. And I’m going to find out who did it and make that bastard pay.”
Another long silence. Then he said, “I hope you’re not intimating that I might be that bastard. I’m as shocked and upset as you are. I would never hurt your mother.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” Keith didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Did she know about your wife?”
Hugh cleared his throat. “I won’t pretend that what I did was right. We should never have gotten involved. But it wasn’t as if I was actively looking for opportunities to cheat. Other than the...relationship I had with Josephine, I’ve been faithful to my wife. It’s just that, when I met your mother...well, you know what she was like. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
“Does your wife know about the affair?”
“No. And I hope she doesn’t have to find out.”
“You’re not going to tell her?”
“Considering my actions, you may not believe this, but I can’t stand the thought of hurting her. I get why you’d want to see me punished, however. You view me as the bad guy in all of this. But I didn’t harm your mother. She was taken from me, the same as she was taken from you. Don’t you think that’s punishment enough?”
“I think it gets you out of a tight spot. It’s got to be hard, juggling someone as demanding and used to attention as my mother when you already have a wife and family.”
“That’s true, but I couldn’t have killed her even if I’d wanted to. I lived for every moment we were together.”
Oddly enough, Keith’s anger was beginning to ebb. The emotion he hadn’t been able to detect at first was now apparent in Hugh’s voice, and he couldn’t believe the man was faking. “You loved her,” Keith said, voicing the realization the second it dawned on him.
“With all my heart,” he admitted. “Besides, I was here in Perth, waiting for her to join me, and I can prove it. If someone killed her, it wasn’t me.”
Keith raked his fingers through his hair. It’d been so much easier to villainize this man, who was cheating on his wife and misleading Josephine—something not many people could pull off—when he’d only been a name and not a real person with feelings. “Did she love you?” Keith asked.
“Yes.”
That was convincing, too—the way he stated it without reservation. Hugh felt confident with Josephine; very few men had ever felt like that.
So had his mother finally fallen in love? Had she met someone who could gain her respect as well as her heart? Someone who could even out the balance of power?
Although Keith hadn’t expected it, this man seemed capable of that. “Were you aware of her financial difficulties?”
Keith had been trying to shock him, to get under his skin so he could elicit a reaction. But he was the one who turned out to be surprised.
“I was,” he replied. “I helped her as much as I could, without alerting Lana. My wife is no fool. She’s always been a big part of my business. She handles most of the money.”
Keith pulled out his desk chair and slumped into it. His mother had been up-front with Hugh. That, right there, changed Keith’s opinion of the relationship. She hadn’t been using her beauty and her charm to trick him into marrying her so she could exploit his fortune, as they’d assumed. “Shit,” he muttered.
Hugh didn’t respond immediately. He gave Keith time to absorb what he’d learned. And to his credit, when he did speak, it wasn’t to make further denials or protestations of innocence. His voice was soft, beseeching. “She spoke of you often, you know.”
Keith sat up. He really didn’t want to hear what Hugh had to say on this subject. “I’m sure she did. She had more than a few complaints. And I won’t lie. A lot of them were legitimate.” He had some complaints of his own, also legitimate. But he wouldn’t share them with the one person she seemed to care about, especially since she could no longer defend herself.
“It wasn’t like that,” Hugh said. “In the end, she went over and over the mistakes she made with you. Blamed herself for the majority of your troubles. She loved you a great deal.”
A fresh wave of guilt crashed over him. He’d had to get away. He wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t.
But could he have come back? Should he have? Tried to make amends once he was on his feet?
The answer to that question wasn’t quite so clear, and that was where the bulk of his guilt came in. He feared that at some point, anger and resentment, rather than the survival instinct that’d taken him away, were what had stopped him.
“She didn’t blame you for anything,” he added, as if he could guess Keith’s thoughts. “That’s important for you to understand. I’m glad you called me. I considered calling you. I wanted to tell you that, since she wasn’t the type to say it herself. But I wasn’t sure you even knew I existed.”
A baseball-sized lump rose in Keith’s throat, making it impossible for him to speak.
“She was proud of you,” Hugh said and hung up.
Tears dripped from Keith’s chin as he sat staring at the phone. He’d called a total stranger, full of indignation and judgment—and Hugh had done all he could to mitigate Josephine’s mistakes and ease Keith’s conscience at the same time. That, more than anything, convinced him Hugh Pointer was telling the truth. He really had loved Josephine, and he’d known her well, probably better than anyone else. Keith couldn’t name a single other person she’d ever confided in like that.
But the fact that Hugh hadn’t had anything to do with Josephine’s death only made what Pippa had told Keith that much more disconcerting.
* * *
Nancy had just finished a bridal bouquet and was starting on the smaller bouquets for the bridesmaids when she heard the bell over the door. “Coming!”
After taking a few seconds to add some white roses, she abandoned her worktable—only to bump into Keith, who came striding confidently around the corner.
She put up her palms to avoid a total face-plant into his chest, and he grabbed hold of her shoulders to steady her. She dropped her hands as soon as she touched him, but he didn’t let go of her. He gazed down at her, wearing an intense expression—one that made it seem as if he’d missed her, as if he was tempted to pull her the rest of the way into his arms.
Telling herself she had to be crazy to attribute emotions he couldn’t possibly feel to him, since he’d never cared about her to begin with, she stepped out of reach. “Sorry. I had no idea you...that you... What are you doing here?” She looked behind him, thinking she might see Maisey, but he appeared to be alone.
He blinked at her question. “I’m pretty sure I own this place now, so I’m checking in. You doing okay with the store?”
So he was going to inherit Love’s in Bloom and not Maisey?
Nancy couldn’t help being disappointed by that. She doubted he’d be as easy to work with—or as amenable to her plans. “I’m doing fine. Thank you. Maisey already checked.”
“That’s good. I don’t want you to feel you’ve been abandoned in all of this.”
“Don’t worry. I can handle the shop. Unless... Are there any immediate changes you’d like me to make?” She’d assumed it would be business as usual, at least until whoever inherited had a chance to take over. But maybe Keith had other ideas. He was enough like his mother that she could see him diving right in. They always had to be in charge...
“No, not at this time,” he said.
She was glad she’d worn her nice black slacks with her gray sweater. This outfit made the most of her more slender figure, so she looked better than she had yesterday when he’d seen her carrying Simba home. It was a relief to not be at that kind of disadvantage again. “Okay. If you think of anything you’d like me to do differently, just let me
know.”
He nodded as he glanced around. If he were Josephine, she’d be about to get a long list of “change this and change that.” But she sensed that he wasn’t paying close attention to the shop. He just wasn’t ready to leave—was obviously searching for something else to say.
“Is there more?” she asked.
“No.” With a frown of disappointment, he turned to go. But then he swung around to face her again—and reversed his answer. “Yes.”
She took another step back, just because she liked—a little too much—the way he smelled. “What is it?” Had he learned what really happened to his mother? Was she about to hear the shocking or not-so-shocking details?
“I said I was sorry, Nancy. I’ll apologize again, if it’ll help.”
So this wasn’t about Josephine. He was referring to their personal history. “No, one apology is enough. I said everything was fine between us, and it is.”
“It’s not,” he argued. “I can feel the chill. You haven’t forgiven me.”
Because she couldn’t forgive him. She needed to finish getting over him first, or she’d only end up as miserable as she was before, wanting something she couldn’t have.
But he probably didn’t understand what having him back in her life could do. She felt sure he’d never been so head over heels in love with anyone that it would require months, let alone years, to cope with a breakup. “I don’t get why it matters one way or the other,” she said. “As long as we’re cordial to each other, and I continue to do my job until you...you sell this place or whatever else you’re going to do with it, we should be good.”
“It matters because I care about you,” he said. “You took me in when I was at the lowest point in my life. That means a lot to me. I’m grateful.”
She brushed a few clinging leaves from her work apron. “Don’t bother with any gratitude where I’m concerned. You don’t owe me anything. We had a...a short fling, that’s all. Nothing serious.” At least on his part; she would’ve given anything to spend the rest of her life with him, despite his problems at the time. “Anyway, I’m happy you’ve turned your life around. Not many people have the strength or the courage to do that. I don’t mean this to sound condescending, but I’m proud of you.”
