by Mary Burton
Dropping to her mother’s side, Lindsay reached out to her mother but hesitated. She was afraid to touch her.
Afraid to touch the woman who’d loved her, cared for her, and refused to abandon her no matter what.
A honking horn wrenched Lindsay from the memory and brought her back to the present. She glanced up at the green light. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her hands trembled. Cursing, she punched the gas.
Twelve years and her hands still trembled when she remembered that day. Twelve years and she still had nightmares. Twelve years and she felt that if she didn’t have a white-knuckle grip on her life it would all slip away.
‘Stop it, Lindsay,’ she muttered. ‘It’s long over. Done.’
Purposefully, she shifted her mind from the past to her to-do list that she made certain never ended. The first thing she needed to do was call her boss Dana and apologize for missing their conference call. The second must-do job was to write the summation for the grant application, which, if they won, would pay the salary for a full-time counselor. Then there were the fund-raiser ideas, the notes for her talk to a local church group tonight, and the hospital intervention awareness seminar. …
A therapist had once called Lindsay’s jam-packed schedule an avoidance device. He’d said it was easier for her to stay busy than to think about her losses. Lindsay hadn’t argued, because she knew he was right. But she didn’t know how to slow down and keep the dark thoughts at bay.
When she turned into the quiet residential neighborhood where Sanctuary was located, she slowed to the twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit. She was so far behind schedule today that she’d be working late into the night just to break even.
She downshifted to first gear when she spotted the two police cars and the unmarked Impala parked in front of the shelter.
Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel and tension nearly choked her breath away. ‘Oh, God, what’s happened now?’
The last time the cops had been to the shelter’s secret location, one of the residents, Pam Rogers, had broken strict protocol and called her abusive husband. Pam had divulged the shelter’s location and asked him to come get her. He’d arrived fifteen minutes later. She’d run out to him, begging him to take her back. Instead of welcoming her, he’d hit her and then ordered her into his car. When the hysterical overnight volunteer had called Lindsay at home, Lindsay had immediately contacted the one brother Pam had mentioned. He didn’t know where his sister was so Lindsay had called in favors hoping to find Pam.
The woman was found dead the next day behind a convenience store. She’d been badly beaten and strangled. The cops had tracked down the husband two weeks later and arrested him. Jack Rogers had shown no remorse but had talked about his rights as a husband.
His rights. What about his wife’s right to live a life free of fear?
Lindsay pulled her Jeep into the paved driveway. She jerked the parking brake up, grabbed her satchel purse, and hurried up the concrete sidewalk to the glass front door.
Sanctuary was on a corner lot and wasn’t distinguished by signage but by a wide front porch furnished with weathered white rockers. A collection of planters that Lindsay had filled with red geraniums over the Fourth of July weekend added a splash of color. The yard was neatly cut and edged and the beds had been freshly mulched. It had been her experience that people in the neighborhood didn’t pay much attention to those who kept their yards in good shape. And going unnoticed was vital to Sanctuary’s success.
The shelter’s first floor had four main rooms that were divided by a center hallway. The first room on the right didn’t serve as a living room but her office. It was closed off by french doors and filled with stacks of files, manuals, and sacks of unsorted donations.
A conference room, a dining room in a conventional home, adjoined her office. In its core there was a circle of chairs that reminded her of the counseling meeting she’d missed that morning. The walls were decorated with posters that denounced domestic violence.
Across the hallway was a den furnished with a large television, a couple of secondhand couches covered with white sheets, and huge throw pillows on the floor. At the back of the house was a kitchen she’d painted yellow last month. Upstairs there were five rooms, each having two sets of twin beds. Often women moved here with their children and she tried to put the entire family in one room together. She even had a couple of cribs and a bassinet.
The house was normally teeming with the women and their children who made Sanctuary their temporary home. The chatter of women and children often mingled with the TV and ringing phone.
But now, the place was silent and it appeared deserted.
Silver bracelets jangled on Lindsay’s slim wrist as she pulled the rubber band from her blond hair and released the too tight ponytail that was already giving her a headache. Blunt, straight hair fell around her shoulders.
Lindsay started toward the kitchen, unable to suppress the growing panic as she searched for last night’s volunteer. ‘Ruby!’
A heavyset black woman rushed out of the kitchen, a phone in hand. Ruby Dillon, when she wasn’t working at the nursing home as an aid, volunteered nights at the shelter. About fifty, Ruby was a big woman who wore her hair short and her pants and shirts oversized. Her dead-on honesty about her own past mistakes, including time in prison and drug use, had earned the residents’ respect.
‘It’s about time you got here. I’ve been calling you for an hour,’ Ruby said, shaking the phone at her.
‘My power went out last night. The house phones didn’t work and my cell phone didn’t charge. What’s with the police? What’s going on?’
‘They came because of the body.’
Images of her mother lying dead in her backyard flashed in her mind. ‘Body? Please tell me it wasn’t one of ours.’
Ruby touched Lindsay gently on the arm. ‘No, no, honey. It wasn’t one of our residents. All our people are off to work or school.’
Relieved, Lindsay closed her eyes. She had to choke back a sudden rush of tears. ‘Who?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But the body is male. I found him when I was taking out the garbage this morning. He was propped up against the trash cans behind the toolshed, his suit buttoned up and his hair combed as if he were headed to Sunday church.’
Lindsay moved down the hallway into the kitchen and looked out the window over the sink. The backyard was filled with a half dozen cops gathered at the yellow tape. Most were uniformed but in the center stood a plainclothes detective. His back was to her.
The cops blocked Lindsay’s view of the corpse. ‘Did you recognize him?’
Ruby folded her arms over her chest. ‘Who? The dead guy? No, ma’am. And I didn’t look in his face either. The devil can steal your soul if you look the dead in the face.’
Lindsay dropped her purse on a well-worn kitchen table that was covered with nicks and flecks of paint from a child’s weekend craft project. ‘I’ve seen my share of death. Maybe the devil has stolen my soul.’
‘Don’t even kid about that.’
‘Do the police know who the dead guy is?’
‘If they do, they’re not telling me. A detective just arrived minutes ago. I told him everything I know, but he was pretty tight-lipped when I asked questions. He’s the one who said to stop what I was doing and track you down.’ Ruby’s sharp gaze traveled over Lindsay. ‘Are those the clothes you wore yesterday?’
Lindsay glanced down at the faded jeans and pink cotton top. She smoothed a wrinkle from her shirt. ‘Yes.’
Ruby cocked a dark eyebrow. ‘Where have you been? Lord, I hope you’ve been with a man.’
The idea made Lindsay blush. ‘Nope.’
‘Too bad. You certainly could use a man in your bed. That no-account husband of yours hasn’t paid you any attention this last year.’
‘We’re separated, remember?’
‘No man in his right mind would leave you.’
Lindsay was unwilling to get into anothe
r discussion about her failed marriage or her monastic, workaholic life. ‘I taught a yoga class yesterday afternoon and then went home to work on this grant. I fell asleep in my clothes on the couch. The power went out sometime last night and the alarm didn’t go off.’ If not for her roommate, Nicole, who’d been awakened by a barking dog, she could have slept a couple more hours.
Ruby grunted. ‘Well, if you ain’t got a man, I’m glad you at least got a good night’s sleep. You work too hard. You’re burning the candle at both ends, if you ask me.’
This last year, since she’d separated from her husband, she had stayed particularly busy, even by her own standards. ‘You’ll be glad to know that I slept like the dead.’
Ruby grimaced and glanced toward the heavens. ‘Don’t be making fun of the dead. The devil will come and get you.’
Lindsay pushed her hand through her hair. ‘Sorry. Morbid jokes are a holdover from having lived with a cop.’
Ruby frowned. ‘Your husband is a cop?’
‘Yeah.’ This was another topic she did not want to explore. ‘I’m going to talk to the police. I want to get those squad cars away from my house before everyone figures out we’re a shelter.’
Ruby’s heavy feet trailed behind Lindsay. ‘Don’t waste your breath. I tried a couple of times to talk to that “detective.” ’ The word detective sounded like an expletive. ‘He said to stay out of his crime scene. He even locked the back door and pocketed the key from the deadbolt so no one would go in or out that door.’
That ticked Lindsay off. Sanctuary was her creation. ‘This cop is on my turf now and he is going to tell me what’s going on?’
Grinning, Ruby shook her head. ‘Sometimes I think you’d rather fight than eat.’
She smiled. ‘Somebody’s got to lead the charge.’
Ruby snorted. ‘Honey, you’ve got too many causes. About time someone worried about you.’
‘I’m better off taking care of myself.’ She’d said those words so often in the last year that she almost believed them.
Lindsay headed out the front door and went around the side of the house to the loose slats in the privacy fence. She bent the slats back and slipped through unnoticed.
The closest cop to her was a patrolman. He stood at the lip of the yellow tape and faced the crime scene, his back to her. He was slender, a little gawky, and appeared fresh out of the academy. He couldn’t have been much more than twenty-one.
A humid breeze tunneled through the backyard’s still, hot air and carried with it a host of smells. Blood. Waste. Gunpowder. Death.
From this angle she couldn’t see the body beyond the circle of six cops who stood around it.
She approached the uniformed cop. She cleared her throat. ‘Do you know anything about the victim?’
The young cop whirled around and glared down at her. ‘Where’d you come from?’
‘That house.’ She crooked her head toward Sanctuary and then nodded to the crowd of cops. ‘Do you know who was murdered? I hear it was a man.’
The young cop started to answer, then caught himself. He puffed out his chest. ‘Ma’am, this is a police crime scene. You are not supposed to be here.’
His attempt to intimidate her barely registered on her radar. She’d stared down far scarier people than this kid. ‘Look, Officer …’ She glanced down at the bronze name badge on his chest. ‘Bennett. That house is Sanctuary Women’s Shelter and I’m the director.’
‘I don’t care who you are. You can’t be here.’
Her tone had sounded brittle and she was reminded of Ruby’s frequent advice to soften her delivery. She remembered something about catching more flies with honey than vinegar.
With a conscious effort, she smiled and relaxed her stance. ‘I really need to know who was killed in case it involves one of the women staying here. It’s my job to keep them safe.’
The cop’s frown deepened. ‘Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you.’
His attitude annoyed but didn’t deter her. ‘How’d the guy die?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Do you know the time of death?’ She edged around the cop. If she got a little closer she might find out more about the victim.
He shifted and blocked her path. ‘No one gets in that crime scene.’
She leaned around him. Even from this angle, most of the crime scene remained blocked by the broad shoulders of the detective, who had now removed his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and donned rubber gloves and booties. She couldn’t see his face but noted his military short black hair and crisp white shirt. His hands rested on his narrow hips.
He must be the bossy detective Ruby had mentioned. Lindsay summed him up in a nanosecond: an alpha male, a by-the-book tight-ass, and a bully.
She suddenly felt very weary. She’d been dealing with bullies far too long. But if he was the one she needed to talk to, then so be it.
Reading her thoughts, the officer said, ‘The detective in charge is going to talk to you when he’s ready.’
She pushed her hand through her hair. ‘This detective got a name?’
‘Detective Kier.’
She swallowed. ‘Zack Kier?’
A smug smile lifted the edge of the officer’s lip. ‘That’s right.’
Zack Kier was her estranged husband. They’d not spoken in almost a year.
She glanced toward the plainclothes detective again. Since when had Zack moved from undercover narcotics to homicide? When had he cut his hair, shaved the beard, and taken to wearing suits? Her Zack had worn his thick, long hair tied at the nape of his neck. He had preferred faded jeans, T-shirts, worn boots and a well-worn black leather jacket.
Everything about him had changed in the last year. And nothing had changed.
She should have recognized the rigid, controlled stance, which had always announced his unwavering commitment to police work. He also still tapped his index finger against his belt buckle when his hands rested on his hips.
Raw emotions she’d struggled to bury this last year enveloped her in a rush. Love. Hate. Fear. Betrayal. All ripped through her and for a moment left her speechless.
Lindsay’s knee-jerk reaction was to retreat. She’d have preferred avoiding this meeting with Zack and sidestep the messy tangle of emotions that were sure to follow.
Then she caught herself. Her therapist had pointed out that she had a habit of running from emotions that were personally painful. He had told her she had to learn to face her feelings for Zack. When she’d expressed her doubts, he’d reminded her that she’d risen above her father’s brutality and her mother’s death. Zack and their marriage should be no exception.
Still, Lindsay had to swallow before she could shout, ‘Zack!’
All the other cops turned first and stared at her while Zack’s body stiffened. For a moment he seemed frozen, but then he turned slowly and stared at her from behind aviator sunglasses.
Instinct screamed run. She stood her ground.
The sunglasses hid Zack’s sharp blue eyes, but she knew even without the shades his expression would have been unreadable. He’d always been so good at hiding his emotions. It’s why he’d made a great undercover cop and a lousy husband.
‘Zack, can you tell me who the body is?’ Her voice sounded surprisingly controlled – a minor, but appreciated miracle.
For a moment, Zack tensed and she expected him to walk toward her. Their relationship was unconventional and damaged, but they had a history and that had to be worth something.
He drew in a breath but didn’t move toward her. ‘I’m not ready to interview you yet, Lindsay. Go back inside and wait for me.’
Zack sounded so controlled. So together. He’d anticipated seeing her.
That realization angered her. He could have given her a heads-up and called her on her cell. Crap. She remembered her cell was dead and so was her home phone. Maybe he had tried to call.
Still, the insight didn’t soften the sharp emotions digging at her. ‘Well, I’d like to
talk to you now, detective.’ She’d laced the words with attitude, knowing he’d hate it.
Zack’s left hand flexed. She recognized the gesture. It signaled he was irritated. Good.
Speaking to the young cop, Zack said, ‘Officer Bennett, escort Ms O’Neil away from my crime scene now.’
The curt dismissal had her squaring her shoulders. ‘This is shelter property, Detective Kier. You can’t shut me out. Whoever was killed on my property affects my residents.’
Zack didn’t answer. Instead, he turned back toward the body.
Honey not vinegar. Honey not vinegar.
With effort, Lindsay drew in a breath and softened her tone. ‘Look, Zack, my assistant found the body and it’s in our backyard. Can’t you give me any information?’
‘Not now, Lindsay,’ Zack said. He crouched by the body, pulled off his sunglasses, and chewed the earpiece as he stared at the body.
Barely a few moments together and already it was clear that the emotional wall between them was as thick as it had been a year ago. It was hard now to believe that they’d ever been close.
Lindsay always felt most alone when she tried to connect with him and he shut her out. ‘Detective, can you at least move the marked police cars?’ she asked. ‘Sanctuary doesn’t need any more bad publicity.’
He didn’t respond.
Officer Bennett took Lindsay’s arm. ‘Ma’am, you need to leave this area.’
She snatched her arm free. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m going.’
Chapter Three
Monday, July 7, 9:25 A.M.
For the past two days, Detective Zack Kier had been running down leads on a suspicious murder in the county’s east end. He’d pieced together enough information to prove that the woman who had fallen to her death had committed suicide, and that it was not a murder. He had been ready to clock out and start a stretch of three days off when dispatch had reported a homicide at Sanctuary Women’s Shelter.
He’d taken the assignment without hesitating or clearing it with his supervisor. The action would no doubt come back to bite him in the ass but he didn’t care. He’d needed to make sure Lindsay was okay.
