“Yeah. From guilt. He shouldn’t be able to live with himself.” She scrunched up her face.
“I don’t believe he killed her.” Nick turned around and chewed on a pea. The taste just made him wish he had hummus nearby, but his stomach was happy to have any food.
“I’ll ask you again. What makes you so sure?”
He couldn’t help but smile. “I know I get argumentative when I’m hungry, but you...”
Her shoulders dropped a bit. “I admit I can get carried away.”
“It’s what makes you a good lawyer.”
Her eyes lifted to meet his. “Made me a good lawyer.”
He tilted his head. “There has to be a story behind that.” He’d learned over the years that if he waited long enough, both people and animals would show him what they were hiding. Judging by her stance, Alexis was hiding something.
She pursed her lips. “Back to Gerald.”
Clearly he hadn’t earned her trust yet. He sighed. “Gerald struck me as a man who was genuinely in love.”
Her eyes widened, and she took a step back. “Have you ever been in love?”
* * *
Alexis fought the urge to cover her mouth with her hand. The question came out before she could stop it. She’d lost control. Her emotions were more wild and rampant than they’d ever been, even when she’d been disbarred.
She wanted justice. She wanted truth. And she couldn’t make herself take back the question to Nick, for some reason.
His raised eyebrows dropped and his lips formed a slanted smile. “Seems like kind of a personal question.”
“We’re on the run together. I don’t see how you can get any more personal.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. There have been plenty of times I wondered if I was falling in love, but in the end...no. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. Romantic love, anyway.” He held out his hands. “So, I guess you’re right not to trust my opinion of Gerald.” His smile warmed her core, and she wished they’d stayed outside in the cool air. He stepped closer. “So now that I’ve answered your question, I would like you to answer mine.”
She’d walked right into that one. It’s what happened when she let emotions rule her mind instead of pure logic. “You want to know why I haven’t been practicing law.”
He shrugged. “When you’re ready to tell me.”
Oh, he was good. She found herself really wanting to open up at that very moment.
“Right now,” he said, “I want to know if you have a history with Jeremy.”
A snort threatened to escape. That was the last thing she ever expected him to ask. “I guess you could say we have a history. I changed his diapers when I was eight years old. I was a mother’s helper. I worked for a couple dollars an hour and the occasional basket of free homemade cookies. Jeremy comes from a big family.”
Nick looked pleased. “Just like you,” he said.
She blinked, unable to process her feelings because she was too busy having to correct him. “I’m an only child.”
“Seems like most of this town is your family.”
At one time, she would’ve heartily agreed and been proud of it. Now she felt like an outsider. It was her own doing, but she couldn’t focus on that. She looked toward the door. “I think we have a couple of hours before they’ll be back from the festival. We could wait here to make sure the police caught the gunmen.”
“Then what?” He stepped closer. His hand rested on the countertop, near hers.
Her index finger twitched. It’d helped when he had grabbed her hand back at Theresa’s house. It’d grounded her emotions and kept her mind on the present. But most of all, it had comforted her. She closed her eyes. “I need time to process, to focus, to pray.” While it was true, wasn’t that what she’d been saying the entire past year about the Seattle incident?
Before she could change the subject, Nick’s hand slid on top of hers, his fingertips squeezing ever so slightly. “Lord, we need Your wisdom. Help us see and find the truth and comfort Alexis while—”
“In Jesus’s name, Amen.” She finished for him before he could pray any more. She opened her eyes. “I love that you prayed, but if I think any more about Theresa—” Her voice broke.
He rubbed the outside of her arms as if she was cold. “You’re trying to keep it together,” he said softly. “I understand.”
Raven pressed her warm torso against the back of Alexis’s legs. She reached down to pat the dog’s head. “I think she’s having a hard time keeping it together, too.”
Nick released Alexis. “Are you up for calling the chief again, or would you like me to? He needs to know about the mayor.”
“No, I know him. I will. His reaction when I tell him about Gerald will help me figure out the next step.”
“Us.” He winked. “Help us figure out the next step.”
He said it so softly she almost missed the inflection. She’d been so used to navigating life and her problems alone lately that she had a hard time accepting that someone else was in this with her. She didn’t know what to say, so she merely nodded and picked up the phone.
The chief answered on the third ring. “You’d better be calling to tell me you are on the way over to my station.”
She cringed. Chief had been a presence in her life since she was a little girl, when her dad had been the mayor. It went against every fiber of her being to disappoint him, but she didn’t see any way around it. “You need to bring Gerald in for questioning,” she said. “He’s connected to everything. Theresa was his girlfriend—”
“You know, I’ve had a pretty crummy weekend thus far,” Chief interrupted. “Have you still got that dog with you?” Chief’s voice crackled with such emotion it caught her off guard.
“Yes,” she said tentatively.
“Well, I hope you’re taking good care of her.” He cleared his throat. “Joe passed away. So we need to figure out who he willed the dog to.”
She sat herself down on the metal stool next to the countertop. The dog’s owner had passed away? Raven looked up at her as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Tears pricked Alexis’s eyes. “I thought he was stable.”
“He was until someone gave him some of that blasted elephant tranquilizer.”
She gasped. What would be the motive for killing Joe? Had it come from the same bottle that had been planted in Nick’s hotel room? If she asked, the chief would just tell her to come in again.
Joe had been at the hospital in Boise. Her eyes met Nick’s as she tried to piece things together. The back of her mind nagged for attention. Her head hurt from concentrating so hard until it clicked. “The mayor. Theresa said she went out of town with the mayor.”
“I’ve already got Gerald here, Alexis. He practically climbed into a cruiser of his own accord when we were busy trying to get the gunmen rounded up.”
“Did you?”
He grunted. “Most of them, but not all. And none of them are talking, so why don’t you come in before you get yourselves killed? We can keep you safe here and you can answer a few questions.”
“What did Gerald say?” she pressed. “Did he admit to killing Theresa?”
He sighed. “I don’t have to tell you a thing, Lexi.”
“Chief, you’ve known me since forever. It’s why you can’t seem to get my name right.” She couldn’t resist the dig. “I want justice as much as you do, but I think I have a better chance of getting that outside your station.”
He let out a grumble. “Gerald’s not talking. He’s waiting for his lawyer. The only thing I have to hold him on is a charge of trespassing. I’ve got a whole lot more that I can charge you with, if we’re being honest. So do me a favor and make it easier on the both of us. Come in, and let’s figure this out together.”
Maybe he was right, a
nd it was time to give up the fight. “Will I be behind bars when we do this figuring?”
Silence answered for a moment before he sighed. “We have witnesses, Alexis.”
Cold seeped into her veins. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“Someone in housekeeping at the hotel reported seeing you with the drugs. And management confirmed you left the hotel and returned within an hour in the middle of the night.”
“But we didn’t!” His words implied more than simple drug possession.
Nick’s head and shoulders dropped as he overheard.
“I want to believe you,” the chief said, “but the longer you avoid coming in, the worse it looks.”
“What about the security camera at the medical clinic?” There had to be something there.
“Nothing. We can’t see the door to the employment agency, only the parking lot behind the clinic. Not so much as a stray cat showed up on the footage.”
Her heart plummeted. She’d known it was a possibility that the camera wouldn’t show the area all the way down to the employment agency, but she’d thought for sure it’d at least show a vehicle driving past. “Do you have a warrant out for me, Chief?”
His two seconds of silence were all the encouragement she needed. He hadn’t issued a warrant for their arrest.
“I’m tempted to call your parents,” he said, as if she were a teenager instead of a grown woman.
“You go ahead and do that, then.” Sarcasm dripped over her words. “You know they’ll rush back up here, and it’ll be on your head that they’ll be put in unnecessary danger.” She sighed, knowing she was pushing the boundaries of respectful disagreement. Her parents and the chief were still close friends so she could understand his inclination, but he had to know it would be far worse for them to be there. What if the drug runners put a hit out on them? “I’ll think about what you’ve said and be in touch.” She ended the call and stared at her phone as if the solution rested there.
It would be so nice to erase the log of recent calls and pretend it removed the entire day’s events, like nothing ever happened.
“I don’t have any idea of what we can do next,” she said. “If they can’t make Gerald talk, then where does that leave us? They have fake witnesses against us, Nick. I don’t know how we can win.” Her voice rose in pitch despite her effort to remain calm.
The only reason the chief hesitated on the warrant was probably that he didn’t want to bother a judge on a holiday weekend, especially because deep down the chief had to know they were innocent. At least, that was her hope. Her hands shook as she dropped her head into them. “We have no proof.”
Nick sucked in a sharp breath and tapped the table. “Something’s been bothering me. If you’re right, and Gerald was the one who killed Joe and broke the glass to kill Theresa, then why wouldn’t she tell you that on the message? If I suspected that my mystery girlfriend killed someone and was about to kill me, I would stop keeping secrets. It’d be the first thing on my message. But instead...”
She lifted her head. “It’s as if she was still trying to protect him. Or she was hoping that if she kept his secret, then maybe he wouldn’t kill her.” She swiped on her phone until she came to voice mail and steeled herself to listen to Theresa’s message again.
“We need to talk immediately. In person. I got your message. I think you might be in danger, honey. Where are my stupid time cards?”
Nick stood and put his hand on her shoulder before she even realized her eyes were filling with tears. It seemed so ironic that Theresa thought Alexis was in danger when in reality her murderer was a mere step away. She blinked back the tears. “You were right. She didn’t mention him at all. Odd, but maybe she loved him so much she didn’t want to face it.”
“Possible,” he answered slowly. “But it’s worth thinking about other possibilities. What about the time cards? Doesn’t it seem odd that it was so important for her to find the time cards in the middle of the night?”
Alexis stared at him without really seeing him. The phone call had come in the middle of the night, which was why she’d missed it in the first place. Theresa wasn’t the most organized person on the planet, but she always got the job done.
None of the small business owners Alexis worked for had ever bad-mouthed Theresa. Her employees had a high turnover rate, but that was to be expected at a temp agency. Most employees came and went without much notice, except Deborah, who was a sixty-five-year-old retired teacher. She just did odd jobs to stay busy.
Alexis actually had taken most of the work for the past six months. After two weeks of crying and moping, her mother had told her she had to go do something for someone else for her mental health. So Alexis had volunteered at the food bank, where she’d met Theresa, who had asked what she was doing with her time while she was in town. And before she knew it, Alexis had her very own rut that she was stuck in. But the worry about the time cards didn’t make sense.
“I don’t know why they would matter so much,” she admitted. “But I know somewhere we can find copies.”
He exhaled. “Is it going to involve sneaking around town and ending up surrounded by gunmen again?”
As much as she hated to admit it, she needed him. “If I agree that’s a possibility, will I be on my own?”
He handed Raven an apple he’d found in a basket on the counter. The dog seemed to inhale it within three crunches. “Come on, girl,” he said as his way of answering. “You’re the only one of us trained to track secrets and face danger.”
TEN
The temperature of the night air had dropped by several degrees. A chill settled through the flannel shirt Nick wore. He tried to stop the repeated loop playing in his mind: You’re a wanted man.
He’d done everything by the book to become a respected, valuable member of the community, and for what? If any of this made the news in Seattle, or worse, if he had to call Mom from jail, she would no doubt suffer a heart attack like she had the night his brother passed away. He didn’t know if her heart could handle another shock.
He held the leash, but Raven ran ahead and heeled at Alexis’s feet instead of his own. He didn’t bother correcting the action, though he tried to tell himself it wasn’t because he was hoping Alexis would grow to be a dog person.
Alexis opened the side gate and led them to the closest sidewalk. “People might start to come home from the celebration soon, so it shouldn’t look too odd to see a couple out for a walk with our dog.”
He liked the sound of a moonlit stroll as a couple with their dog. “There’s just one problem. Most everyone in town seems to know who you are.”
She pointed at a sign in the front yard that said Vote Kendrick for Mayor. “I don’t think I’m the only one with that problem.”
If they hadn’t been on the run, he would have taken it as a compliment. He loved the idea that the town might embrace him. “So, we just keep our heads down when a car passes.”
“Wrong. That’s big city thinking. Small-town residents always take a moment to look and see if they know the person on the side of the road.” She shrugged. “Then they roll down the window and say hello.”
He grinned at the thought. “I guess I haven’t been living the small-town way. If we ever get out of this, that sounds nice.”
She asked him to stay put for a second as she returned the house key underneath the doormat where she’d found it. She pointed to the left. “Let’s turn here. This street doesn’t get as much traffic. If we stay behind the tree line, we should be able to get back to my house without being spotted. If you see a car, though—”
“Make like a tree and leave?”
She glared at him, but her lips fought and lost. A laugh escaped and she rolled her eyes. “Well, you got the ‘make like a tree’ part right.”
They were going back to her house. He assumed tha
t meant her parents’ house. “Why are we going to your place? Do you have the time cards?”
She tilted her hand at diagonal angles as if debating it in her head before answering. “Yes and no. All the temp agency time cards were hard copies.”
“As in pen and paper? That’s rare in this day and age.”
“Exactly. I thought it was odd, too, but Theresa said that a lot of her clients preferred it that way. To be fair, many of the small business owners are getting up there in age and haven’t quite embraced technology. At least, that was her explanation. Now, I wonder.”
“You don’t think Theresa was involved in the drug operation?”
Her eyes widened in the moonlight. “No! She told me it was Barry’s preference, as well—he took care of all the bookkeeping and payroll. He said pen and paper couldn’t be hacked.”
“Barry is the mayor’s brother. The one with the investment firm?”
She nodded. “And the reason Gerald struck it big on the stock market. Seems like everyone invested with him after that. Did you?”
Nick had been tempted. Barry came highly recommended, but when Nick had gone in to discuss it, he came away concerned with Barry’s antiquated system. After some research, he decided he could manage his practice’s finances himself with the help of some expensive software. He might feel different after rebuilding the practice. His fingers itched to call his insurance company, even if they were closed over the holiday weekend.
“So the only reason people invested was that Gerald had some impressive dividends?”
She frowned. “No. Other older folks made out pretty well.” She pursed her lips. “Given the drug angle, it sounds suspicious, doesn’t it? I worked for him, temped for him and never even blinked an eye.”
“So you didn’t suspect anything odd, then?”
“No, but I mainly filed paperwork, entered numbers in spreadsheets—”
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