“I understand.” Bran didn’t let his frustration show. Warring knew enough to keep his mouth shut. “There has to be a reason you do remember a man who wasn’t doing anything but standing in the background.”
He earned a shrug. “If you’d stuck a picture of the woman in front of me, she might have looked familiar, too.”
“Maybe. But maybe there was an odd vibe. Could it have been a setup, and he was really the husband or boyfriend?”
Bran’s casual, let’s-think-about-it tone served its purpose. Ingebretsen frowned. “Unlikely. He was younger than they were.”
He remembered more than he knew. “So he seemed out of place?” Bran prodded. “Dressed differently than the husband and wife? Not young enough to be their kid, but you wondered in the back of your mind why he was there?”
“No, it wasn’t that. I see all types. You must, too.”
Bran dipped his head in concession, letting the silence draw out. Ingebretson’s frown had deepened, and his eyes had an unfocused look Bran found hopeful.
“He was smirking, like he thought it was funny I was there,” the deputy said suddenly. “Rubbed me the wrong way, but you can’t haul someone in for being a prick.”
“Unfortunately,” someone in the room muttered.
With an expression of regret, Ingebretsen said, “I wish I could tell you different, but I think that must be why he stuck out and the other two people didn’t.” He promised to skim his reports to see if anything rang a bell, but his lack of optimism was contagious. Bran let him go.
Zach lingered long enough to say, “I dragged him in here because he was so sure he didn’t know anything useful, he wasn’t going to come to you. But, if nothing else, he’s confirmed that this creep is either local or has friends or family here.”
“And more may come back to him now that he’s started thinking.” I wish. But it was possible, just as he was convinced Lina would remember more, too.
“Thanks,” he said.
Zach nodded and went on his way.
Bran and Charlie threw out a few useless ideas, after which Bran scowled at the wall and brooded. Was it a bad decision not to have put this guy’s face in every newspaper and newscast?
But his gut feeling hadn’t changed. This bastard had proved himself to be ruthless, violent and lacking a conscience. What would he do if he was surprised by his face on a telecast in a bar, when everyone turned to look at him? What if he was buying a six-pack at a 7-Eleven and saw the clerk looking at him funny, right before he discovered his picture staring up at him from the local paper?
The guy had to have a record. Somewhere, for something. If only the right cop would see the drawing.
If only. Not the most helpful words in the English language.
* * *
NO SWIMMING THAT EVENING, it being New Year’s Eve, or the next day, either, of course. Tess had invited Bran and Lina to join her to count down the New Year, since she’d otherwise be alone with just her father. Zach had to pull a double shift. As many deputies as possible would be on the road. Law-enforcement agencies did not love this particular holiday.
When Bran passed on the invitation to Lina, he seemed bemused, a reminder of how little family he had in his life. “A couple of friends have asked me to parties, too, if you’d rather,” he added. “They’re people you’d like, although...”
“They’re Paige’s friends, too?”
“It’s not that,” he said, not quite answering her.
Right now, she realized, his friends would either assume the baby wasn’t his, or they’d be counting on their fingers and come up with a date that was damn close to his non-wedding day. Nobody would come right out and ask her for an explanation, but she’d know what they were thinking. And they would, eventually, ask him.
If she and he didn’t become a couple—well, didn’t stay a couple—she wouldn’t have to deal with any of the whispers.
“I’d prefer Tess’s,” she admitted, “unless you’d really like to go to a party.”
“No. I’m not much for big groups.”
“Oh, good,” she said with relief.
On the drive over to his brother’s house, Lina asked when his father died. Getting him talking about their relationship was like opening a rusty umbrella, but he told her a little.
There was no question he had loved his father, Lina concluded, but it sounded as if the missing pieces of their family had a sort of ghostly presence that created long silences neither of them chose to fill. She was left to wonder if he missed his father, but she knew better than to ask.
She’d insisted they get there early so that she could help with dinner instead of leaving it all to poor Tess. Upon arrival, she discovered his quick agreement to aim for five o’clock instead of dinnertime didn’t represent any sacrifice on Bran’s part. Turned out there had been two earlier college football bowl games he’d missed because of work, but the Orange Bowl started at five.
“No, he doesn’t care which team wins,” Lina told Tess once they were alone in the kitchen, “but apparently that doesn’t matter—a game’s a game.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “You do know there are five bowl games tomorrow, don’t you?”
Lina set down the can opener. “You have to be kidding.”
“Nope. Two are at the same time. Since we don’t have a split screen, that means really the menfolk will only be able to watch four. Back to back.”
“Won’t Zach need to sleep?”
“You’d think,” his wife said drily.
“My dad and brothers watch some college football, but they save their obsession for the Vikings.”
“Live and learn.”
Except it turned out to be fun. Even Lina got sucked into the night’s game. Tess proved to be more enthusiastic than she’d sounded, too.
They ate at halftime, and saved dessert and coffee for post-game. Lina might have thought the four of them would run out of things to talk about, but that didn’t prove to be the case. For one thing, Tess and her dad were both readers, too. His politics were considerably more liberal than Bran’s, giving them the chance to have spirited debates that stayed civil. Lina’s were more liberal, too, but she began to see why working in law enforcement would skew someone to the right.
Jaded, cynical, sick of human failings, Bran seemed to have lost the ability to trust that people would do the right thing on their own—if he’d ever had it.
When midnight neared, Tess produced a bottle of champagne, and even Lina had a few sips. The television showed the countdown at the Space Needle in Seattle. At midnight, fireworks exploded into the night above the city.
At the first crack outside, Lina flinched and automatically turned her head in search of a hiding place. But then the racket continued throughout the neighborhood, and she closed her eyes. That hadn’t been a gunshot. Not a gunshot.
Bran put his arm around her. “Flashback?”
“Kind of,” she admitted quietly. “Except... I don’t think I heard the shot when Maya was killed, so I don’t know why—”
“Your mind knows that what you saw should have come with sound. It’s filled in any blanks. Plus, the guy shot at you, too.” He searched her face. “Hey. This is a celebration.” He bent his head and kissed her, not holding back. If Tess or her dad were watching...
Lina’s cheeks felt hot by the time Bran lifted his head. Before she could wonder whether he was establishing a public claim, he smiled, and she saw that his eyes were heavy-lidded. “Happy New Year,” he said softly, for her ears only, and he spread a hand over her stomach.
Tears formed in her eyes. Happy ones, because she wouldn’t have wanted to be with anyone else, but the tears stung, too. Hormones, she tried to convince herself, but she knew better.
However much she tried to believe they had a future together, her
fears stayed with her.
“Happy New Year,” she said, too, then hugged Tess and her father both.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE MOMENT SHE stepped foot in her apartment, Lina saw that the needles on her Christmas tree had turned brown and also littered the tree skirt. The ornaments Lina had hung seemed pathetic.
“Oh, no.” She hurried to it. “I forgot about it. The only thing sadder than a Christmas tree after the holidays is a dead one.”
“It was going to be thrown out sooner or later,” Bran reminded her.
Mr. Sentimental.
She made a face at him. “Let me put the ornaments away and then you can bag the tree and take it down to the Dumpster.”
“No, why don’t you pack and I’ll take down the ornaments?” he suggested.
That made sense, since she’d be back at work Monday. The casual clothes he’d grabbed for her wouldn’t be enough.
So she brought out the bright red box that had space for way more decorations than she owned yet. The ornaments she’d bought during her marriage had stayed with David, as had all the furniture and household goods.
“What are you thinking?” Bran surprised her by saying. He had proved to be unsettlingly good at sensing when her mood turned dark. Nice to know she gave him a chance to practice his interrogation skills. But there wasn’t any reason not to tell him.
“Oh, just remembering all the ornaments I started collecting when I got my first apartment. I bought the basics—you know, lights, and red and green and gold balls—then had fun every year buying a really special ornament or two. I had to start over this year, and then what did I do but abandon my poor little tree.”
He frowned. “If the ornaments were yours, why didn’t you take them?”
“I was fleeing to my childhood bedroom,” she said wryly. “What would I have done with a bunch of stuff? Fill my parents’ garage? I left almost everything with him, which is probably a good thing considering I then moved across the country. To tell you the truth, I never gave a thought to the ornaments until last Christmas at Mom and Dad’s, and by then my creep of a not-quite ex and his floozy had probably hung mine on their tree.”
“Contaminating them,” Bran said straight-faced. “Of course you wouldn’t want them after that.”
“No, I wouldn’t!” She eyed him in suspicion. “Are you laughing at me?”
His mouth was twitching, but he said promptly, “Wouldn’t think of it.”
She sniffed. “I just hope they did use my ornaments, and every single one of them makes her think of me.”
Bran lifted an eyebrow. “Doesn’t he deserve a guilt trip, too?”
Lina wrinkled her nose. “He totally does, but Christmas ornaments wouldn’t do it. I doubt he’d know one from another.”
Bran gently set the glass reindeer into one of the slots in the box, then patted her butt. “Go get what you need.”
Using her biggest suitcase, she began to lay out clothes. By the time she had enough to get through a couple weeks of classes, both the closet and her dresser looked empty. Even the few pairs of shoes left on the floor of the closet appeared forlorn. With most of her toiletries gone, the bathroom had reverted to rental basic.
Lina took one last scan for anything she might have forgotten, then stood just looking around for a minute. She’d taken pleasure in creating a home here. She’d been gone such a short time—only nine days. But this place didn’t feel like home anymore. Because Bran’s apartment did now?
But that wasn’t quite true. It was Bran, she realized with a small shock. Not a place, a man.
I have to be careful. He had a goal, and she wasn’t resisting his efforts to move her that way. It was hard to, when she had to stay with him. Her biggest trouble was that she was tempted to accept what he was offering, even if that wasn’t what she really needed from him.
She touched her stomach. We need more. She couldn’t let herself forget it.
She pulled the suitcase out to the living room. “I’m all set.”
* * *
NEITHER MAN MOVED to get out of the pickup, parked outside the trucking company where Rob Greaver worked. This south end of Seattle was entirely industrial.
Both gazed at the blank facade of the building broken only by a front entrance and, around the corner from it, a side door. At the back were a couple of maintenance bays for company-owned trucks. Otherwise, the fleet was parked in a gravel yard enclosed by a tall, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.
Bran was keeping an eye on his watch. Today had been Lina’s first back at the middle school. He hadn’t relaxed his guard despite the passing days with no second attack. He hated that he couldn’t protect her where she worked.
Since he had today off, he drove her to the school and walked her to the main doors.
“Like a father insisting on seeing his kid to the classroom door,” she’d mumbled. “This is almost as embarrassing.”
He resisted reminding her that she was a killer’s target.
Since she’d been stuck attending meetings after the last bell, the plan was for her friend Isabel to drop her off at Tess’s business. By now, she should be safe at Fabulous Interiors, where she would stay holed up until closing.
“You told Tess to keep an eye out driving home?” he said.
Zach looked exasperated. “You already asked me that. Yes.”
Bran rolled his shoulders in hopes of releasing the tension. “I don’t like her going back to work. If that piece of shit knows who she is, finding out she’s a teacher wouldn’t be hard.”
“There’s no reason to think he has sniper creds, and he’s not going to walk armed into the school.”
“It’s been known to happen.”
His brother conceded the point with a grimace, but said, “It would be really high-risk.”
“But he could lie in wait outside.”
Zach didn’t say anything, and for good reason, because that was the logical course for someone determined to kill Lina. Ambush her in the parking lot if he could, or follow her to wherever she was going. Bran’s shoulders and neck tightened again as he pictured the guy walking into the home store, maybe taking out Tess, too, then either escaping through the back or strolling out the front. If he had a silencer...
Bran tried hard not to let his thoughts show on his face. If Tess was killed, too, Zach would never forgive him.
His brother’s rage wouldn’t touch him, not if Lina was dead.
Shit. He should have stayed home to protect her, rather than wasting his time in this insane quest to find the monster who’d killed their sister. What were the odds, after all this time?
Zach stiffened. “That might be him.”
They’d watched several trucks return, the drivers, one by one, entering the building, then coming out a few minutes later to go to their cars.
Bran had seen Rob Greaver’s driver’s license photo. The face didn’t bear much resemblance to the boy he vaguely remembered. He didn’t get a good look until this guy wearing the tan company uniform emerged and headed straight for a pickup truck parked not far from Zach’s. Bran would have sworn his memory of Mr. Greaver was even hazier; parents just weren’t that interesting to a kid. But man, there he was, big and good-looking, striding across the parking lot toward them. Even the dark blond hair had come from his father, although the son’s was shaggier.
“Oh, yeah,” Zach murmured, and they both got out.
Greaver’s head turned when he saw the two of them approaching. “Well, if it ain’t the Murphy boys,” he said with a sneer. “I thought Mom was making it up.”
So Mom hadn’t cut her son off, after all.
“We just wanted to ask you a few questions,” Zach said, seemingly relaxed and even friendly.
Bran kept his mouth shut. He didn’t fee
l either relaxed or friendly.
Shaking his head, Greaver unlocked his truck and tossed a small, insulated container inside. Then he turned back. “You really do think you’re going to find out who killed your sister twenty-five years ago.”
“Why not?” Zach said. “Cold cases are closed all the time. DNA is magic, you know.”
Something flickered in Rob Greaver’s eyes. Alarm?
“You know, what happened was really lousy,” Rob said, sounding like he meant it. “I don’t blame you for wanting to see someone fry for doing that to a child. But I can’t tell you anything. I never even talked to your sister. She was just another little kid.”
“Your sister babysat her.”
“Then why aren’t you talking to her?” His mouth curled in an unpleasant facsimile of a smile. “My sister was known to have boyfriends hang around when she was babysitting. You might ask her about them.”
“You never dropped by when Mary was at our house?”
His expression hardened. “Mary and I were not friends.”
“There a reason for that?” Bran put in.
His gaze switched from Zach to Bran. “Yeah. She was a little princess and a bitch. Probably still is. Pity the idiot who married her.”
“I understand your nephew just enlisted in the air force,” Zach commented.
“So Mom says.” Rob couldn’t have sounded more indifferent. When another truck rumbled in, he lifted a hand in greeting, then looked back at the brothers. “Are we done?”
Still pleasantly, Zach said, “Your mother didn’t want to talk about other teenage boys in the neighborhood. Can you give us the names of any you remember?”
He scrutinized them, as if they were something peculiar he was about to scrape off his boot. “You were a teenager,” he said to Bran. “You know who was around.”
“I was a lot younger than you.”
“And why are you looking at teenagers? Are you trying to find a scapegoat besides dear old Dad?”
Bran’s hackles rose and he let Zach respond.
“It happens we have inside knowledge. That’s why we were interested in talking to you.” He laid just the slightest emphasis on the you.
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