Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel)

by Johnson, Janice Kay

  “The quality is godawful,” he said. “I’d have a time recognizing anyone. I suspect you’ll do a lot better than I can.”

  Grissom looked pleased. The two men disappeared, Daniel promising to return with another load for her. Their voices became fainter, and she was left wondering if he’d had things to say he hadn’t wanted her to hear.

  That got her worrying. Why was he here, and apparently to hang around rather than just stopping by as he’d said he might do? Oh, lord – had he found something at Doreen’s house? No – that was ridiculous. What could possibly be there to be found? A note saying, I’m meeting Joe Smith at the storage unit at nine, and if I don’t come out, you’ll know who to blame? Sure.

  Daniel returned hefting a giant plastic tote that appeared to weigh a great deal. “Don’t open it until I get back,” he said – no, ordered - and disappeared again without waiting for a response.

  He hauled half a dozen boxes and another shelving unit before he seemed satisfied.

  In the meantime, Sophie had finished going through the contents of the box she’d been working on and had set aside half a dozen things she meant to take back to the cottage with her.

  Instead of reaching for the lid of the tote, she looked at Daniel. “Was everything okay at Doreen’s?”

  “Nothing seemed disturbed to me.” Some lines had deepened between his dark slash of eyebrows. “Although I’m not sure I’d have been able to tell if somebody had done a quick search. I might take you over to walk through with me. It’s possible you’d see something I wouldn’t.”

  “Yes. Okay.” Sophie hesitated. “I guess you noticed Aunt Doreen wasn’t very well organized.” Messy, was what she meant. “She always thought there was something better to do than clean house,” she added apologetically.

  His smile showed in his eyes before it reached his mouth. “I can identify with that.”

  She made a face at him. “I can, too. Blame her influence. My stepmother – her sister – is a neat freak. Leaving my bed unmade was a safe form of rebellion.”

  Daniel laughed. Blast it, she could not seem to make herself think of him as Chief Colburn, however hard she tried. He was too much of a man, one who drew her despite her refusal to get involved with anyone tied to Cape Trouble. Which reminded her—

  “Benjamin Billington stopped by.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Did he? What’d he have to say?”

  She told him about the short visit, then, hesitantly, about the reserve she’d sensed in Officer Grissom.

  “Yeah, I was thinking about Grissom earlier,” Daniel said slowly. “He’s been a cop here for going on thirty years. It occurred to me that he might be as good a source of information as Elaine or even Louella Shoup.” He grimaced. “And, damn, I shouldn’t have said what I did about them.”

  A smile tugged at Sophie’s mouth. “Prone to gossiping, are you, Chief Colburn?”

  He returned her grin. “Seems so.” He looked around. “Anything I can do?”

  She set him to resealing boxes and writing on them with permanent marker while she opened the tub and began inventorying the contents, which seemed to consist primarily of fragile pieces that weren’t nearly well enough wrapped, in her opinion.

  “I’ve got to get my hands on boxes,” she said.

  “Big ones? The grocery store—”

  “No, I need a variety of sizes. Each item should be packed individually. I can order jewelry boxes online—” she made a note to herself while she was thinking about it, then continued, “but I need to visit businesses that get a lot of shipments and usually discard the boxes stuff came in.”

  He made some suggestions, then offered to help her ask around.

  “Benjamin Billington insisted twice that I should call if there was anything he could do to help.” She didn’t realize until now how odd that seemed. “I wonder if it was just one of those things you say. Otherwise, what did he have in mind?”

  Daniel’s gaze sharpened. “He didn’t get specific? Say, offer to help you go through the donations?”

  “No, and except for expressing surprise that we didn’t have more, he didn’t especially even seem curious about what I was working on.” She paused. “He and his wife made some donations, you know. Did I say that?”

  “No, I don’t think you did. What did they give?”

  “According to the list, mostly furniture that belonged to his uncle. A couple of really nice pieces. I remember one.” She told him about the enormous oak buffet that had held brochures and the like in the lobby of the old resort lodge. “I hope it hasn’t gotten battered over the years.”

  “Or damp. From what I hear, old Billington didn’t do much to keep the place up. He quit taking in guests years ago. God knows whether he kept the place heated.”

  “But he lived there, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but huddled in a back bedroom and the kitchen toward the end, or so people say. I guess Billington the younger and his wife have opened it up some, so maybe it’s not in as bad shape as it looks from the outside.” Seeing her surprise, he said, “I have to break up keggers and ticket trespassers over there all the time. It’s within the city limits, you know.”

  “Actually, I’d forgotten.” She supposed the resort had been thriving when Cape Trouble was officially incorporated, and city officials would have wanted any tax revenue. “Do you have regular patrols over there?”

  “Unfortunately. Mostly a waste of our time, but we have to do it. After old Billington died, I had a barricade put up, but people just move it aside. Only the property owner can erect a permanent gate. Sometimes I’m tempted to stick a severed head on a pike over the No Trespassing signs in hopes of achieving compliance.” His mouth quirked. “Haven’t figured out whose head I want on the pike, though.”

  Sophie couldn’t help laughing again. She forced herself then to pay attention to what she was supposed to be doing for a few minutes, but her gaze kept sliding sideways to where he was wielding packing tape with a competent hand or writing what she told him in a bold, confident scrawl.

  “Oh, shoot,” she said finally. “It’s almost six. I think I’ll hang it up. Would you mind if I take this whole tub of stuff with me? These, too.” She indicated the pieces she’d earlier set aside, mostly jewelry she felt confident would be modestly priced.

  Daniel poked in the tub for a minute then said, “I’ll carry it to your car.”

  By the time she had her laptop closed and unplugged, he’d put everything she intended to take away with her in the trunk of her Prius.

  He waited as she turned off the bare overhead light bulb, then lowered the door for her.

  “Why don’t I take you to dinner?” he suggested, once she’d locked “I’m hoping you can tell me more about your aunt.”

  Sophie hesitated. Was that really all he wanted? A few times she’d caught a glint in his eyes that made her wonder if he was as aware of her as she was of him, but…she might be mistaken.

  “What if I cook?” she suggested. “We wouldn’t have an audience that way.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, but you’d have to cook. Why don’t I pick something up instead and bring it? If you can contribute a salad and drinks, I’ll let you do that much.”

  “Deal,” she said promptly. She was tired, she had realized about the time she stood up. The work today hadn’t been physical enough for that to be an excuse. Her emotions seemed to be in constant turmoil, though. Trying so hard not to think about her mother, or Doreen, or those long-ago summers was a strain.

  If anyone else had suggested dinner, she’d have said no. Even friends, if one had chanced to show up unexpectedly in Cape Trouble. When she was with Daniel Colburn, though, she felt…comforted. Safe.

  On a flash of alarm, she thought, That means I’m not safe at all where he’s concerned.

  But the idea of spending a couple of hours with him in the quiet of the rented cottage was still irresistible.

  After he promised to appear with food within the hour, she drove away
, his marked police car right on her bumper as they exited through the big iron gate.

  He stuck close until she was almost back to the cottage, when he finally turned off.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Daniel waited until they were well into dinner before he gave into his curiosity about Sophie.

  “You said you knew the Billingtons a long time ago,” he said casually, setting down his wineglass. “Did you grow up here?”

  She made an involuntary movement that he would swear was a shudder. “No. My family rented a cabin summers at the resort. Mom and I would spend the whole summer here, and Dad would drive over weekends. I’m not sure when we started doing that. I must have been four or five the first time.”

  “Sounds idyllic, unless you missed your friends.”

  “No, there were usually some other kids staying with their families. I loved it here then.”

  But not now, he diagnosed. “You must have known Doreen back then,” Daniel realized. How else had her father met Doreen’s sister? Had a divorce happened in there? No, he knew right away. He’d seen the pain and complications she suppressed. He was willing to bet something bad had happened to her mother.

  “No, actually I didn’t.” There was something careful in the way she was choosing her words – or choosing what what not to say. “I’m not sure even Dad had met her. I mean, my parents didn’t have any reason to shop at a plant nursery over here on the coast. Julie, my stepmother, worked at the pharmacy, so they had met.”

  He tried and failed to think of any way to ask if her father had had an affair during those summers. Tough to pull off, though, if he was only here a couple days a week and had a wife and daughter waiting eagerly for him to show up.

  Sophie hadn’t taken a bite in a while. Her eyes met his, and there it was, the pain not veiled at all. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away from her stricken green-gold eyes.

  “Somebody will tell you,” she said abruptly. “The summer I was ten, my mother killed herself. It was here in Cape Trouble. I’m the one who found her.”

  “God. I’m so sorry.” He should have known. Hadn’t he recognized from the beginning that they had something in common? It might explain why she’d had such an impact on him. He reached across the table and covered her hand with his, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  Her eyes never left his, though. He wasn’t sure she was even blinking.

  “It was horrible. I can still see her, the way she looked. And I didn’t believe it when people talked about how she must have been sad to do that. She wasn’t! She wasn’t,” Sophie repeated more softly. “I was so sure she wouldn’t have left me like that.”

  Suicide was hard for any kid to accept. At ten, you tended to take your parents at face value. What an adult would recognize as depression might seem normal to a child. Were those summers at the beach supposed to be therapeutic for Sophie’s mother?

  “Tell me what happened.”

  As if she didn’t know she was doing it, she turned her hand in his and grabbed on. Her gaze still riveted him, but he had the sense she wasn’t seeing him anymore.

  “I woke up one morning and Mom wasn’t there. Usually she waited to go out until I was up, too. Plus, she’d promised she would make waffles.” A child’s indignation sounded in her voice. “So I got dressed really fast and went looking for her. It was foggy. I remember that.”

  Man, she sounded dreamy, and not in a good way. Twice he’d sat in when someone was hypnotized. That’s what this reminded him of.

  “I walked past the other cabins, but I didn’t see her, so I ran toward the beach. That’s when I heard voices.” Momentarily she seemed to focus on him. “You know how it is in the fog. It’s hard to tell where sound is coming from.”

  He nodded his understanding.

  “Later, they said I’d heard someone else, not Mom. Because she had to have been by herself.”

  He tensed, but she didn’t seem to notice that, either.

  “I started calling for her. I don’t know why I was scared. The fog was creepy, that’s all. But I kept calling, ‘Mommy, where are you?’ And then there was this crack of sound, like the ground splitting open. I found her between some dunes, lying sprawled on her side. It was…she’d been shot in the temple. The gun was lying there, a few inches from her fingers as if she’d just let it go.”

  Tears leaked from her eyes, and Daniel couldn’t stand it for another minute. He swore, circled the table and squatted beside her chair, taking both her hands in his now. “That’s a hell of a thing to have seen.”

  She gave a twisted smile that hurt to look at. “I…hardly remember what happened after that. Except I can hear myself screaming.”

  He pictured her, a big-eyed, skinny kid screaming and screaming until someone finally heard and came running. Sand soaking up the blood, the sound of the ocean like the last beats of her mother’s heart. Gray tendrils of mist curling around the body and the terrified little girl.

  “Come here,” he said roughly, rising to his feet and drawing her up and into his arms.

  She came without protest, leaning against him as if she couldn’t do anything else, clamping her own arms around his waist. He held her tight and ran one hand up and down her back, kneading and soothing. She wasn’t sobbing, just breathing quietly, so much tension in her body she quivered with it.

  At last she exhaled deeply and went lax.

  “That’s it,” he murmured. “What a memory to have to live with. Damn, I’m sorry, Sophie.”

  She pulled back then, her gaze shying from his as she said, “Thank you. I mean, for…” She lifted her hand in an abbreviated gesture, her fingertips almost touching his chest before curling into a fist and returning to her side.

  “My dad died when I was a kid,” he heard himself say, voice hoarse. Not something he usually told people.

  Sophie did look at him then. “You, too?” Damp streaks on her cheeks betrayed the tears that were no longer falling. Now compassion filled those beautiful eyes.

  “I didn’t see it. Or him. He was just…gone. I was five, a few weeks into kindergarten.”

  “What happened?” she asked softly.

  “Motorcycle accident.” He swallowed, shocked at how long-forgotten emotions had risen to choke him. “He had a Harley. He used to give me rides on the back. Around the block, that kind of thing. He was probably going really slow, but I remember—” Daniel couldn’t finish.

  Her arms closed around him again and gave one hard squeeze. When she started to retreat, he didn’t let her. It was easier to talk when she couldn’t see his face. He bent his head and laid his cheek against her head.

  “I hardly remember him. Only flashes. Mostly now when I envision his face, I know what I’m really seeing are pictures. My mother never remarried. Dad kept pride of place on the mantle.”

  “So you had no father.”

  A little startled at how unerringly she’d zeroed in on what he’d come to realize had shaped his life in ways he didn’t yet understand, Daniel felt himself wanting to retreat. He eased back, his hands on her upper arms.

  “Maybe you were lucky your father remarried,” he said abruptly, wanting to deflect her but also…wanting her to hear what he was really saying. Yes. I needed a father to show me who a man should be.

  “I never let myself care about my stepmother, and she wasn’t very interested in me. I don’t think she wanted children. She and Dad didn’t have anymore, I know that. But I was lucky because I did have Aunt Doreen,” she said simply. “Nobody else saw my grief or how lonely I was. She just kind of adopted me.”

  He’d already known Doreen Stedmann was a good woman. He hadn’t known how good.

  His jaw muscles flexed. “And now you’ve lost her.”

  “Yes.” She was retreating, too, stepping back, regaining her dignity. “I will miss her terribly.”

  And she knew loss, as only someone who’d been hit by it as a kid did. It disturbed him, how easily he saw her essential aloneness.

  The
intensity of his attraction to this woman with her complicated mix of strength and fragility had set off his internal alarms. If she’d been a weekend visitor…. But given a month with her in his bed, with them sharing life stories, he could get in too deep. He wasn’t prepared to take that chance, even if she was interested, too.

  With only a nod, he returned to his place and picked up his fork, although any remaining appetite had disappeared.

  Sophie seemed to feel the same, because she said, “I’ll put coffee on,” and carried her plate the few steps into the kitchen. Through the doorway, he saw her scraping leftovers into the trash can beneath the sink.

  Instead of continuing to watch her, he frowned at the painting of a cottage garden scene that hung on the wall, and thought back to what she’d told him about her mother’s death.

  She hadn’t said, I don’t believe she killed herself, but he’d heard it anyway. Even if the doubt hadn’t clung to her voice, his alarms had gone off.

  That’s when I heard voices.

  They said I’d heard someone else, not Mom. Because she had to have been by herself.

  Who was they? Had the then-chief of the Cape Trouble P.D. bothered to bring in a detective from the county? Or had it seemed open and shut? Why believe a kid, who was probably hysterical anyway?

  But I kept calling, ‘Mommy, where are you?’ And then there was this crack of sound.

  People who committed suicide could be damn selfish. Quite often they chose to kill themselves when a loved one was near, as if the knowledge was a comfort. Never a thought given to the fact that the wife or father or son would be confronted with the horror of the death. But a child as young as Sophie had been…that was something else again. Especially when the father wasn’t there and Sophie had been entirely dependent on her mother. Would she have listened to her daughter calling frantically, “Mommy, where are you?” and shot herself anyway?

  Daniel found himself shaking his head. His every instinct told him too much was wrong with the scenario.

  Had the mother owned a handgun? Otherwise, where had it come from?