Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Easley reappeared and pushed through the swinging door. “Let me walk you out.”

  Zach stiffened, but Bran laid a hand on his shoulder.

  His first breath of the cold air burned his lungs. Dusk had fallen, he realized, and the temperature with it. Where was their usual Northwest winter weather? It should be rainy and forty degrees, not clear and arctic.

  Easley waited until the door closed behind them to say, “Detective Wiegand has agreed to make me his liaison to you.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t around when your sister was killed, but I’ve seen Scott work. You may not want to believe it, but he’s thorough.”

  Sure. Bran’s frustration rose again. “There’s a manila envelope on the counter in there that says otherwise. We were told it was everything on Sheila’s murder. Take a look, Easley, and see how thorough you find it.”

  “The record-keeping here hasn’t always been the best.” Easley jerked his head toward the granite block building behind him. “The place hasn’t been remodeled since I came to work here. The town grows, money goes to adding patrol officers, not a more efficient evidence room or a new records clerk. You should understand that.”

  “I understand,” Bran said grudgingly. Zach grimaced his agreement.

  “Here’s the deal. I’ll dig in Evidence and find whatever we kept. Scott says your sister’s nightgown is there. He’s...felt threatened for no good reason, or he would have told you that much. I’ll let you know what I find. I won’t hesitate to send the nightgown off to the state lab for DNA testing.” His voice hardened. “In return, once you have a viable suspect, you need to share whatever you know with us. The arrest will be ours, not yours.”

  Bran exchanged a glance with Zach, who nodded slightly.

  “We always wanted to work with your department. We’re well aware neither of us has jurisdiction to make the arrest. We have a couple of strong possibilities right now.” He hesitated. “One of them is dead, but his wife is still in the same house, and I doubt if she got rid of everything of her husband’s.” Which meant, with a warrant they could probably come up with DNA to check for a match.

  The detective sighed. “What’s your next step?”

  “A second interview with the son,” Zach said.

  “Any chance you want to include me or Detective Wiegand in that?”

  Bran shook his head. “I knew him when we were kids. He’s torn right now, but this is an old secret he needs to unload. He understands why this matters to us. With one of you there, it becomes a police interrogation.”

  Easley grunted unhappily, but said, “Okay. I can buy that.” He looked the two of them over. “I’ll hold you to your word.”

  Unmoving, Zach stood with his arms crossed. “And we’ll be waiting to hear what you find.”

  The standoff ended with nods all around.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WHEN BRAN CALLED to say tersely that he’d be home in a minute, Lina was caught off guard. “You decided not to go to Seattle?”

  After a moment of silence, he said, “We put it off.”

  Seconds later, the key turned in the lock. He walked in the door with a stony expression that failed to hide his weariness. The lines on his face aged him.

  Her heart stilled. “Is something wrong?”

  He looked at her as if she were a stranger, said, “No,” and walked right past her into the bedroom.

  She gaped after him, dismissed. She felt unimportant, small.

  Between classes today, when the students were writing, even when someone was talking and she should have been listening, Lina hadn’t been able to stop herself from reliving too many terrifying moments. The moment when she’d seen Maya murdered. The car accident, in color and detail sharpened by the morning’s near miss. The boy on the bicycle looking over his shoulder when he heard the clashing metal, nothing in his expression suggesting he knew how close he’d come to getting hit.

  And then, fresh again, the man in the autobody shop looking at her, assessing her with what she suspected now was sexual intent. It was her discomfort that had embedded that otherwise meaningless moment in her memory.

  After Bran told her what he’d learned that day while he drove her home, it got worse. She’d been alone in the silent apartment now for over two hours, waiting for him to come home.

  She knew he was already dealing with the pressure of keeping her safe and investigating one of the worst crimes ever to happen in this county. This had to be the worst timing for him to confront a man who might possibly have raped and strangled his little sister, but she understood why he couldn’t hold off. The crime had haunted him since he was a boy, and now answers were tantalizingly close.

  What scared her was imagining the impact on him, no matter what he learned. What would it do to him if he struck out and eventually had to give up? But if he was able to arrest this Rob Greaver for a murder he committed as a boy not much older than Bran had been then, would the resolution change anything meaningful for Bran and Zach? They’d lost so much besides their sister. She ached with the fear that they both hoped for too much.

  But...they hadn’t gone to Seattle after all? Then what had he been doing for the last two hours, to make him lock down like that?

  Staring at the empty hall, unable to hear a sound from the bedroom, Lina tried to draw her knees up to hug them. With the baby in the way, she had to give up. Her knees weren’t getting anywhere near her chest.

  As she put her feet back on the floor, her rare temper flared. Was that all the answer she deserved?

  Her jaw set. He had damn well better be in there pulling himself together, calming himself so he could talk to her.

  The baby cartwheeled in excitement. Guiltily, she wondered if adrenaline made it through the umbilical cord.

  Now it felt more as if she was jumping up and down on a trampoline that happened to be her mommy’s bladder. Lina really had to pee, but no way was she going to be in the bathroom when Bran emerged from seclusion.

  And there he was, having shed his jacket and the shoulder holster. She doubted he’d locked up his handgun, however; increasingly, he seemed to keep it within reach. And, yes, as he walked past her as if she was invisible, she saw a lump in the waffle knit of his henley shirt at the small of his back.

  He went around the wall into the kitchen, where he opened and closed the refrigerator. “Have you eaten?” he called.

  “No.”

  Silence. “I can order a pizza.”

  “Do whatever you want. I’ll make myself a salad.”

  “Fine.” A moment later, he was talking to someone, presumably putting in his order. Then he reappeared, a beer in his hand, his blue eyes trained on her. “You feeling okay?”

  She rubbed her belly in a futile effort to soothe her energetic baby. “Peachy. Until you walked in the door with a dark cloud hanging over you.”

  He looked at her as if she was crazy. “What are you talking about?”

  “You might as well have come from your brother’s deathbed. But is anything wrong?” She imitated his flinty delivery. “‘No.’”

  His eyes narrowed. “Nothing’s wrong. I have things to think about, that’s all.”

  “Think away,” she snapped, unable to decide if the burning in her chest was emotional or pregnancy-related heartburn. After struggling up from the couch, which seemed way more difficult than it had been only a few weeks ago, she went to the bathroom, taking pleasure in stabbing the stupid little button that locked him out.

  She stayed long enough to pee, then had to pee again, before deciding she needed to be grown-up enough to try to talk to him.

  He had his feet up in his recliner and seemed absorbed in what some talking heads had to say about the upcoming Super Bowl, which if she wasn’t mistaken was still weeks away. And since the Seahawks hadn’t made it through th
e playoffs, she doubted he cared that much about the preparations for the game anyway.

  Lina stopped in the middle of the living room. “I take it you’d rather be alone.”

  He turned that maddeningly unemotional gaze on her. “Did I say that? But is a play-by-play going to be a requirement when I walk in the door every day?”

  This was what it felt like to have her hopes crushed. Now her sinuses were on fire along with her heart or her esophagus or whatever it was.

  “I’d call it sharing,” she said, proud of how cool she sounded. “But if I have to demand anything from you, it’s not worth having.”

  Determined not to let him see how hurt she was, she marched past him to the kitchen and pulled all the vegetables she could find out of the refrigerator. She had no appetite whatsoever, but putting a salad together gave her something to do. She could poke at it for a few minutes, then dump it in the garbage. He’d never notice.

  The cucumber looked suspect, but maybe—

  Bran mumbled something that was probably obscene. Lina started peeling, watching curls of cucumber skin drop to the cutting board.

  He stalked around the corner. “If that’s how you feel about it, maybe you should have tried waiting instead of jumping right in with a demand.”

  The nasty edge to his voice stiffened her back. “Asking if something had upset you seemed innocent enough to me.”

  “Things are getting to me, okay? Is that what you want to know?”

  Her back to him, Lina closed her eyes. “I don’t expect anything of you, Bran. I never did. That’s why—”

  “You had no intention of telling me you were pregnant?”

  “You really want to fight, don’t you?” And she knew suddenly that she couldn’t stand it. Did he care about her a little too much? Was that what precipitated this? Pushing her away was the only way he could prove to himself that she didn’t mean anything to him? Amazing how well it worked.

  “All I wanted was to come home to some peace and quiet,” he said tightly.

  “But here I am.”

  He swore again. “Lina, you’re overreacting.”

  Her laugh sounded like shards of glass to her ears. “I’m overreacting.” She shook her head, gathered herself and turned to face him. “Bran, your intentions were good. You’ve been as...kind as you know how. But you don’t want to live with anyone else, unless she makes no demands on you whatsoever.”

  “No demands?” His blue eyes were thundercloud dark. “You’ve consumed my life since you barely missed taking a bullet! Or haven’t you noticed?”

  She could not let him see her tears. Sucking in a deep breath, she spun to face the salad-makings spread out on the counter. Her hands shook until she curled them into fists, her nails biting into her palms. She had to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

  “Damn it, Lina!” he said behind her, in a completely different voice.

  She had to look at him to say this. His mouth was twisted with what might be regret, and he held out a hand to her. She ignored it.

  “I need to finish out the week. But tomorrow I’m going to give my notice. The district can find a substitute now instead of in March. Going home is the right thing for me to do. It’ll remove a distraction you don’t need right now. I’ll be safe there.”

  You’ll have your life back.

  “Later...” She faltered. “We can talk about what contact you want to have with your daughter.”

  Shock registered on his rough-hewn face and his hand dropped to his side. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do.”

  “Lina.” He made an indescribable sound. “I was in a bad mood. That’s all. And you’re going to give up on me?”

  She didn’t know how it was she hadn’t crumpled to a ball in the corner. How she held on to her dignity. “You are a really good man. I have no doubt about that. But all you ever share is what’s on the surface. You don’t trust me. Maybe you can’t. I don’t know. I’ve tried. I thought—” She swallowed. Oh, God, maybe she couldn’t finish this. Her voice emerged as a whisper. “I thought—”

  “You thought?” he repeated, with unmistakable urgency.

  Lina found the strength to say what had to be said. “That someday you might love me. But that isn’t going to happen, is it?”

  Clearly thunderstruck, he backed up a step, seemingly unaware when he bumped the wall. “You know how hard that is for me.”

  “You mean, impossible,” she said softly.

  She should put away the vegetables, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Instead, she pushed by him, not stopping until she was in the middle of the living room where she said, “I’m asking you to sleep on the couch.” Then she rushed for the bedroom, closing the door and wishing it had a lock even if he wouldn’t have any trouble picking it.

  But it didn’t matter. Because he wouldn’t be opening that bedroom door.

  * * *

  BRAN HADN’T MOVED from where he’d stood, not quite in the kitchen. He wanted to slam his fist into the wall, but he knew what that felt like. After Mom and Zach left, after he’d watched their car disappear down the street, he’d gone up to the attic bedroom he’d shared with his brother and punched the wall, over and over and over, until he hit a stud and broke half the bones in his hand.

  Dad had had to take him to the ER. He’d worn a cast for almost six weeks.

  The holes in the wall were there until he’d renovated to sell the house after Dad’s death. Those holes had served as a reminder. Symbolic of losing everything, and how poorly he’d handled the loss.

  This time, he had a hole in his chest. The pain was excruciating, the hollow sensation almost worse.

  What had he done?

  He’d asked for it, that was what, and he had no idea why. It was as if he’d wanted Lina mad at him. So he didn’t have to talk to her, tell her how complicated everything had become, how confused he was, how tangled in the past.

  Well, good going, dude; you got what you wanted.

  Except he hadn’t wanted anything like this. He’d wanted...space.

  Easily achieved. He could have gone over to Zach’s instead of coming home. Lina hadn’t even been expecting him yet. Tess was good about giving him and Zach time alone when they needed to talk.

  Except you didn’t want to talk, right?

  His muscles ached, forcing him to realize he was as tense as if he was gearing up to confront a violent offender. He groaned and stumbled a couple of steps, flattening his hands against the wall beside the door, leaning his forehead on it.

  She was crying in his bedroom. He knew she was, even though he couldn’t hear a thing. He could go after her right now. Except...she couldn’t have been any clearer. And...he didn’t know if he could make anything better, not when he didn’t know what to say.

  I’m sorry?

  That wasn’t even close to good enough.

  The pressure had been building inside him for days. Weeks. He’d called it fear for her, but was driven now to admit it had always been more than that.

  He remembered that strange moment after she’d been shot, when she was sitting on the bumper of the ambulance, hands wrapped, shivering because they’d taken away her coat. Wearing the gold pendant he’d given her, after being distraught when she thought she’d lost it. He’d known the medics would take good care of her, that she had to get checked out at the hospital. But for that moment, he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes from hers.

  In a way, it was as if she’d stripped bare for him. The unsettling part was that he’d felt as naked.

  That was when it started, he thought, a deep down terror he had refused to acknowledge because it took him back to a time he hated to remember.

  It was as if he was a little boy again, instead of the nearly thirteen years old he’d actually been. Mommy, don�
�t go! Zach!

  To this day, he could close his eyes and see Zach’s face pressed to the car window, the shock and grief as he looked back as great as Bran’s own. Did either parent have a clue what they’d done to their two boys?

  Of course not. Even Dad, for all his regrets, for the hurt that never left him, didn’t seem to notice what happened to the son who stayed with him. They just...didn’t talk about any of it. Dad held up his head and pretended he didn’t notice what people were saying. Bran came home from school with raw knuckles and black eyes, and Dad never asked what the fights had been about.

  Even later, when Bran became a detective and told his father he was thinking of reopening the investigation, all his father would say was, “No.” The second time Bran raised the subject, Dad looked him in the eye and said, “I’m asking you. Your sister is gone. Let it lie.”

  So easily, Bran thought, I learned to keep it all inside.

  A knock on the door made him lurch back from the wall and reach for his weapon until he remembered the damn pizza. He scraped a hand over his face and composed himself enough to face the delivery kid. Fortunately, he had enough bucks in his wallet. He put the pizza straight in the refrigerator. Eating had become a foreign concept.

  Eventually, he used the bathroom, brushed his teeth and turned out the lights. He grabbed the pillow and blankets he’d stowed in the linen closet and sprawled on the sofa, one knee bent, one foot on the floor. And then he stared at the dark ceiling, waiting for the tiny sounds Lina would make as she sneaked out to the bathroom, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  Inside his gut, it all kept churning. And all he could think was, I’m not the man I thought I was.

  * * *

  BRAN LOOKED WORSE than she felt, which was really something. Lina had winced at the sight of herself in the mirror before she got in the shower. Her eyes were red and puffy, but otherwise she was colorless. It was as if some of her life force had leached out of her during the sleepless night.

  She did the best she could with the hair dryer and makeup, but the result wasn’t good.

  It ceased to matter when she saw the misery and exhaustion on Bran’s face. His hair stuck up every which way, and he looked gaunt, as if he’d dropped twenty pounds overnight.