The Secrets She Kept

by Brenda Novak

  “I’ll have to. I need to look good. I just accepted a date for Friday.”

  Keith frowned as he stood up. She’d inserted that information for a reason—to keep him from getting too close. “Who with?”

  “Some guy I met online.”

  “On a dating site?”

  “Living in such a small town, that’s pretty much what I’ve been reduced to. It’s sort of pathetic, but there you have it.”

  “It’s not pathetic. A lot of people meet that way. But...you can do better than whoever he is.”

  She laughed. “You haven’t met him.”

  “If he’s anything like the last one. Are you sure you shouldn’t just hang out with me until I leave?”

  “Are you suggesting I put my life on hold?”

  He grimaced. Was he? No, he wanted her to be happy. He just wished she could be happy in a casual relationship with him until he went back to California. “When you put it that way...”

  A beep signaled that he had a call coming through. “Chief Underwood’s trying to reach me.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you go.”

  “You’re coming, though, right?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there soon.”

  He gave her the entrance code but was still thinking about that date she had on Friday when he switched over. “What’s the latest?” he asked.

  “Are you ready for this?” Underwood replied.

  “I’m not sure. Am I?”

  “That hair isn’t a hair at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a synthetic fiber—from a wig.”

  “So whoever killed my mother was in some sort of disguise?”

  “That’s one possibility. Unless she was wearing a wig herself that day and one of the fibers clung to her body. Have you ever known her to own a wig?”

  “No. But I can’t speak for the past five years.”

  “I didn’t see anything like that in her closets. What about Rocki?”

  He hated that Rocki’s name even had to come up. “No. Her own hair’s great. Why would she wear a wig?” Unless she was trying to disguise her appearance...

  “Well, if we can find the wig that fiber came from, we might have something to work with. I’m going to talk to the ferry captain again, see if he noticed anyone who might’ve been wearing a wig coming or going around the time of your mother’s death.”

  “Would the ferry captain even notice, especially with the kind of weather we’ve been having? Whoever was wearing it could easily have worn a hat or a hood—or used an umbrella. That person could also have taken off the wig after leaving Coldiron House.”

  “It’s worth asking—him and others. I need to do everything I can. Look everywhere. Now that the autopsy’s been completed, the fact that your mother’s death wasn’t a suicide will hit the press—and you won’t be the only one demanding answers.”

  The pressure to solve the case had just gone up. He hated to think of all the attention that would focus on his sister. “It wasn’t Rocki,” he said. “Just so you know.”

  “I’d like to believe you. Can you tell me anything that would exclude her?”

  Nothing Chief Underwood would be able to accept. Just his love for his sister and his faith in her. And then there was that intruder... As far as Keith was concerned, that had to be related. Who was the woman on the side of the road who’d stopped Tyrone’s son? And why? “No. Not yet.”

  “That’s the problem. Until I have proof that she’s not our culprit, I can’t show her any special consideration. But I’m hoping something will turn up. I don’t want it to be Rocki any more than you do.”

  “We need to ask the ferry captain if he noticed anything unusual the night I found those wet footprints in the kitchen. That’s what we need to ask him. We also need to check with Nancy’s sister over at the Drift Inn to see who was staying there that night. And we should ask the gas station attendants in town if they saw a woman in a trench coat and scarf, like the woman who stopped Marcus Coleman. If we could figure out what kind of car she was driving, maybe we could track her down.”

  “We?” she challenged. “I’ve been open and honest with you, shared more than I should—”

  “You held out on that hair.”

  “I’ve still shared more than I should. But don’t stretch my courtesy too far, Keith. Now that things have...gone the way they’ve gone, I need you to stay out of it and let me do my job.”

  “I’m just telling you that incident has to be related to my mother’s murder, and I know that the woman who stopped Marcus wasn’t my sister. If Rocki couldn’t afford a cheap motel room when she came the first time, she wouldn’t have had the money to fly back only a few days later.”

  “I’m not ignoring Wednesday night. I’ve already established that your sister was in Lafitte and can’t be related to what happened when dispatch got that call. Her cell phone records confirm it. I also spoke to her son’s schoolteacher, Mr. Pembroke, who saw her drop him off on Thursday morning. If she was here late Wednesday, she wouldn’t have been able to get off the island until the first ferry the next morning, which was when she was at her son’s school. So we can exclude her from the list of possibilities for Wednesday night.”

  Thank God. That might be the thing that saved Rocki. “We have to find that mystery woman,” he said. “She’s the answer to everything.”

  “I’ll find her,” Underwood responded. “You just sit tight until I do.”

  * * *

  Nancy slipped her phone into her purse. She’d done well. She was supporting Keith without getting too close. And she was continuing to live her own life while she was doing it. She’d spent a good hour on that dating site earlier in the afternoon. She wasn’t going to let Keith’s coming home turn her world upside down.

  Before she closed the shop, she called her sister. Jade had left a message earlier, when Nancy was helping a customer. “How’re things at the motel?” she asked.

  “Not bad,” Jade replied. “It’s quiet tonight.”

  “It’s quiet all winter,” she joked.

  “True. What are you up to? Any chance you’d be willing to bring me a sandwich for dinner?”

  “You didn’t pack anything?”

  “I did, but it’s leftovers that aren’t my favorite.”

  “Not what I made last night...”

  “No, from before. Besides, I thought you could keep me company for a little while—tell me what happened after you left with Keith.”

  Sometimes she went over to help Jade at night, when business was slow and the ferry wasn’t running. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t come over right now,” she said. “I’m going to Coldiron House for dinner.”

  “Whoa!” Her sister’s voice warmed with interest. “Last night must’ve gone well then.”

  “Not according to your criteria. We didn’t have sex. We played some pool and watched a movie.” She didn’t add that they’d slept curled up with each other. That wouldn’t have happened if Keith hadn’t fallen asleep before the movie was over.

  “No clothes came off?”

  Her disappointment rang through loud and clear. “None,” Nancy confirmed.

  “Damn! Even after I got him all hot and bothered with that blow job bit?”

  Just remembering what her sister had said made Nancy groan. “I can’t believe you embarrassed me like that. I almost died when that came out of your mouth.”

  “Why? He took it well.”

  “He’s a guy! And he likes you.”

  “I like him, too—although I don’t know why. Everyone here’s so sure he’s a spoiled brat with more money than morals. But...I see something in him. I think he’s grown up, matured.”

  Did Jade’s opinion matter? She wasn’t a good judge of character. She w
as far too forgiving.

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky tonight. You do have birth control, don’t you?”

  “Are you joking? I haven’t had sex with anyone in five years, so it’s not like I’ve had any reason to visit a doctor to get an IUD or go on the pill.”

  “Then buy some condoms,” her sister said. “You need those for safe sex.”

  “Oh, that would tell him I’m not interested!”

  Her sarcasm didn’t faze Jade one bit. “You’re forgetting the fact that you are interested.”

  “Okay, maybe I am,” she admitted. “But I’d be embarrassed to whip out a box of condoms.”

  “It’s a brave new world, Nance. Women don’t have to be shy and retiring about sex anymore. Anything goes. We’re all freethinkers now.”

  “Forget it. There’s nothing to worry about, because I won’t be sleeping with him. Anyway...I didn’t call to talk about Keith. I called to tell you I have a date on Friday.”

  This took her sister aback. “Who with?”

  “That Warren guy I told you about a couple of weeks ago.”

  “The one whose profile you liked? He got in touch?”

  Technically she’d initiated the contact; it was her second attempt since he hadn’t responded to her first message. But after Keith left the flower shop, she’d needed something to get her mind off him, and she felt Warren might be the one guy who could distract her.

  Fortunately, it’d worked. He’d responded with an apology for not getting back to her the first time, said he’d been out of town. And now that she had another possible contender, she felt she’d be less likely to get in too deep with Keith.

  “I sort of prodded him a bit, but yeah. He invited me to dinner.”

  “Nice! I’m proud of you!”

  “At least I’m not moping around over Keith anymore.”

  There was a momentary hesitation.

  “What?” Nancy said.

  “Are you sure that isn’t because he’s back in your life? Why would you mope if you’ve got him?”

  “We’re just friends, Jade!”

  “Okay, but I’ll bet you fifty bucks you won’t be singing that tune in the morning. Going over there tonight is like walking into a lion’s den. You realize that.”

  “I spent last night there and nothing happened.” Nothing on the scale of what Jade was expecting, anyway.

  “Because he’s biding his time, waiting for the right opportunity. Listen, there’s a condom machine here at the motel. Will you swing by and pick up a couple? Who knows who he’s slept with since he left here. The women in LA get a lot more action than you do—I can promise you that.”

  “I’m hanging up now,” Nancy said, and she did.

  * * *

  When he answered the door, Keith was wearing black pants and a lightweight, fitted sweater. With his thick, dark hair, a broad smile on his full lips and those thick-lashed eyes, he was beautiful—not a term Nancy generally applied to men, but in his case it was true. He’d always been beautiful. He and his mother had simply been blessed, more than other people, when it came to physical beauty.

  “Took you long enough,” he grumbled.

  She could tell he was teasing, but she came back at him, anyway. “What are you talking about? I didn’t even go home to change.” She was still wearing the black leather skirt and sheer black blouse, with a lacy camisole underneath, that she’d worn to work. And now she was glad. She would’ve been woefully underdressed if she’d pulled on a pair of jeans. Apparently, even without Josephine, dinner was a formal affair at Coldiron House. She supposed that came with living in a mansion and having a housekeeper who did the cooking.

  “You didn’t need to change,” he said. “You look great in that.”

  “You look great, too,” she said and immediately cursed the excess enthusiasm that oozed through that statement. She’d meant to act indifferent to his appeal in the hope that she’d eventually become indifferent. How would she get past her romantic attraction to him if she was constantly admiring his physical assets?

  Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice the longing in her voice. “Pippa took Simba out to go potty. They’ll be back any second.”

  “Great.”

  “I hope you’re hungry.”

  She held out the wine she’d brought. As far as she was concerned, that bottle was what, more or less, kept this evening from being a date. Contributing to the meal was something a friend would do. “I picked this up on the way.”

  He lifted up the bottle to study the label. “I’ve never tried this brand but it looks good.”

  “I hope it will be.”

  The tingle that went through her when he looked at her—as if he was just biding his time until she succumbed, as Jade had said—told her she didn’t have the willpower she would need to maintain platonic.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked when he started toward the dining room and she hesitated.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, after all,” she replied, and tried to reclaim her coat.

  He held it away from her. “Whoa, hang on. Everything went according to plan last night, didn’t it? You seemed happy enough when you left this morning.”

  Last night had been wonderful. She’d enjoyed every second of it—talking and laughing with him, but especially being free to touch him again after so long. She’d listened to him breathe for what seemed like hours, because she hadn’t wanted to miss a single second of being with him. But he’d been asleep and couldn’t respond. She doubted that would happen tonight. “Last night went well,” she admitted.

  “So what are you worried about?”

  She looked around the vaulted entry hall with that winding, Gone With the Wind staircase, the giant flower arrangement and all the expensive paintings and furnishings. “I’ve never been invited to Coldiron House for dinner before.” His mother would roll over in her grave if she knew—except she wasn’t in a grave yet, so that cliché didn’t quite work. “It feels...odd.” As if she was trying to climb too high and would only fall and land on her ass again...

  “That’s because you haven’t had a glass of wine. Come on. You need to wait for Simba, anyway.”

  She could grab her dog on the way out. He had to be on the grounds somewhere. She knew better than to agree to wine with Keith. Who had she been kidding? She was still madly in love with him. All her efforts to fight what she felt, to be satisfied with the friendship he offered, amounted to nothing. So what if she had a date with the “best profile” on her dating site? If she stayed, she’d share Keith’s bed. At this point, she wanted him so badly she no longer cared what it would cost. Which meant she was backsliding, exactly as she’d feared she would...

  “Nance?” He could sense her uncertainty, could tell she was hovering on the brink of flight.

  She raised her eyes to his.

  “Don’t go. I really want you to stay,” he murmured. And the fact that he seemed so sincere was all it took to get her to accept the hand he extended.

  “What’s one night?” she said.

  Although he seemed a little uncertain as to what that might mean, he didn’t question it. Maybe he would have, but at that moment Simba came bounding toward her from the kitchen and she let go of Keith to kneel down and embrace her dog.

  23

  DELICIOUS AS PIPPA’S dinner probably was, Keith didn’t enjoy it as much as he’d anticipated. He could hardly taste his food—he was too eager for the meal to be over. Something had changed with Nancy soon after she arrived. He could sense the difference in her. She was no longer resisting the attraction they felt. She didn’t glance away when he studied her, didn’t bring up her date on Friday. And there was no reticence or hesitation in her manner. She looked boldly back at him as if she was imagining the same kind of after-dinner entertainment
he was, as if she was finally going to take what she wanted and make no apologies. The promise of what he saw in her eyes had him so aroused he couldn’t even think of anything to say.

  Fortunately, conversation didn’t seem necessary. She didn’t say more than a few words herself. Didn’t eat much, either. As the minutes ticked by, the tension grew, until Keith wondered if Pippa could hear his heart pounding whenever she brought them a new course.

  “Now that you’ve finished dinner, would you like a cup of coffee with your dessert?”

  Keith tore his gaze away from Nancy in order to respond to Pippa, who was standing dutifully at the entrance to the dining room. “No, thank you.” He had no intention of dawdling over coffee...

  “I’ll pass on coffee, too,” Nancy said, more proof that she felt the same.

  Their desserts arrived a few minutes later. They were beautiful creations—a molten lava cake with a fancy lattice-like chocolate swirl on top. They both complimented Pippa, but ate only one or two bites.

  “Leave our desserts here. We’ll finish them later,” he told Pippa. Then he suggested she clean up in the morning and gave her the rest of the night off. He wanted Nancy to feel comfortable and he was willing to bet she’d feel much more comfortable if they were alone in the house.

  “Yes, sir. I already handled most of it, anyway.” Pippa smiled as her eyes flicked toward Nancy. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  Keith wasn’t sure he or Nancy even answered. They stayed at the table, staring across at each other until they heard Pippa leave. Then he stood up. “Did you have enough to eat?”

  “I did,” she replied. “It was a wonderful meal.”

  He walked around to tug out her chair and took her hand as she got to her feet. “You’re not going to back out on me, are you?” he murmured, searching her eyes for any sign of the reluctance that had been there before.

  She didn’t ask what he was talking about. She didn’t need to. “No. But I didn’t bring the lingerie. If you want that to be part of tonight, we’ll have to go pick it up.”

  Obviously, she had no idea how eager he was. He had no patience for driving over to her place. He couldn’t wait a moment longer. “We’ll save the lingerie for next time.”