“More than that. Greaver had a telescope. Rob saw him stop Sheila the day before when she was riding her bike. He thought it was strange, so he sneaked up on them and heard him telling Sheila he’d let her look through his telescope some night so she could see all the stars. Greaver was kind of a grump, not that friendly to neighborhood kids.” Bran was speaking in a near monotone. “Then that night, Rob heard the front door open and close, and he looked out to see his father carrying the telescope across the street. He says he thought maybe our dad had given permission for us all to get up and look through it.”
Bran had to stop to collect himself.
“The next day, Rob heard. He got his father alone and said, ‘I know you were there. Did you talk her into coming out alone to meet you?’”
Fingers pressed to her mouth, Lina listened in horror. She could see it so easily—a little girl who didn’t know bad things could happen, tempted into an adventure that was supposed to be a secret. Seeing the stars up close would have sounded exciting. She could keep herself awake until after everyone else was asleep, then tiptoe to the back door and let herself out to meet the nice neighbor who had brought his telescope. It was awfully dark out there, but he’d said not to turn on a light, and there he was, just as he’d promised. The telescope was set up on a tripod, pointing at the clear night sky...
And, oh, Lina wished she couldn’t picture it so clearly.
“He told Rob he just wanted to make her feel good,” Bran said dully. “She was such a pretty girl.”
Lina shuddered.
“Only she fought and she said she’d tell her daddy, and things got out of hand. He didn’t mean to hurt her, he claimed.”
“How could Rob stay silent?”
“His father said his mother wouldn’t be able to get by without him. Think about what would happen to their family. Rob might end up in foster care. Greaver said Sheila was already dead. Telling wouldn’t make anything better. He promised never to put himself in a position for anything like that to happen again. He said, ‘I love you, son.’”
Bran’s chest heaved with something close to a sob.
“Rob was fourteen. Scared. He says he told his mother anyway and she slapped him. He was making up stories. How could he do that to his own father?”
Lina shook her head. She remembered when it came out that a girl she’d taught had been molested by her father for years, and the mother had refused to believe her. Instead of standing for her daughter, she’d chosen her husband. And Rob...he’d been a boy, faced with a terrible dilemma.
In that horribly expressionless voice, Bran said, “Rob thinks his father molested his sister, too, although Mary would never admit to it. Odds are, there’ve been other girls.”
“But he didn’t kill them.”
He rubbed his cheek against her head. “No,” he said tiredly. “Maybe Sheila was his first after his daughter and he hadn’t yet figured out how to ease her into believing what he was doing was normal. It takes practice to terrorize a kid into silence, I suppose. Maybe if Sheila had kept her mouth shut, he’d have let her live. I don’t know.”
A lump in her throat, she nuzzled his neck. “Your parents would have believed her, wouldn’t they?”
“Damn straight.”
“You’re sure this Rob wasn’t lying?”
“If he was, he should move to Hollywood. He’d win an Academy Award with his first movie.” Bran was silent for a moment. “He knows we have the nightgown. I didn’t tell him there’s any doubt about whether that stain is semen or not. If his dad’s doesn’t match up, Rob has to know we’ll be back to ask him for his.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I wish it had never happened. I wish—”
“Thank you for the thought.”
“I mean it,” she said passionately, starting to push away from him again.
The smile he gave her was crooked but real. “I know. But maybe things are meant to happen the way they happen. At least Zach and I found each other again.” He paused and searched her face. “I found you.”
Lina felt an odd unfurling of warmth inside her. She’d been an idiot. Bran might never be able to tell her he loved her. He probably didn’t know what he felt. But tonight, he had demonstrated that he could change. In his anguish and confusion, he’d come to her. He had opened himself to her in a way she couldn’t imagine he’d ever done before, for anyone. He’d wanted her arms around him, her comfort, her understanding.
Yes, there would be times he’d hurt and exasperate her when he closed himself off. But, in so many ways, he had proved that he put her first in his life. What more could a woman ask from a man?
It came to her that the lesson she should have taken from her ex-husband was that words alone meant nothing, however passionate or romantic they were. Promises could be empty, but actions weren’t. And from the minute Bran crouched beside her in the manager’s office at Walgreens, he’d showed her she could depend on him.
“You did find me,” she told him, her own voice shaking.
He went still. “Lina?”
She took a deep breath for courage. “If you’re sure it’s what you want, I’ll marry you.”
“God.” He snatched her even closer and his mouth found hers. His stubble scratched her, their teeth bumped, she thought he was shaking, but none of it mattered. Eager, frantic, clumsy, he gave her everything she needed.
Despite her ungainly body, she scrambled to straddle him, using her hands and lips and tongue to give him everything he needed.
He had to lift her off him to work her pants down her legs, but didn’t bother with her shirt or socks. Her eager hands dealt with the fly of his jeans. Their joining felt so unbelievably good, they both went still for a minute, only looking deep into each other’s eyes. And then her inner muscles tightened and he gripped her hips, lifting her, pulling her down hard, setting a rhythm that had her whimpering and him groaning. They exploded together.
Lina melted against him, feeling boneless. She might never move again. Bran’s heart hammered against her breast. He buried his face in her hair.
And then her stomach lurched.
He jolted. “God, I hope she doesn’t know what we were doing,” he said, clearly horrified.
Rubbing a hand gently over her stomach, Lina giggled. “I think she’s complaining because we quit doing it. She likes to rock.”
“I like to rock,” he murmured, voice husky, sexy.
Of all times, now she had tears in her eyes when she smiled at him. “Me, too.”
* * *
BRAN WOKE BEFORE his alarm in the morning. After he and Lina had dinner, they’d gone to bed to make love again. However ridiculously early the hour, he’d fallen asleep fast and hard. Since his body was still spooned around hers, he wasn’t sure he had moved all night long. The nightmares he’d anticipated hadn’t materialized.
Lying still for a minute, he wrapped his mind around everything Rob had told them. Bran had wanted to be enraged, to punish Rob for the damage his silence had done all of them, but had only felt pity. Rob, too, had been living a nightmare. In every meaningful way, he’d lost his parents that day. Yeah, if he’d had the guts to speak up, Bran’s life would have been different. How different, he wasn’t sure. It was Mom’s sexual promiscuity more than Sheila’s murder that had doomed his parents’ marriage. Maybe the outcome wouldn’t have changed, him believing in Dad, Zach in their mother. And...Bran and Zach both had reason to understand why a teenage boy would have felt he’d be betraying his father to tell what he knew.
Trying not to wake Lina, Bran reached over her to silence the alarm, then eased out of bed. He’d hardly slept the previous night, and he doubted she had, either. The nap she’d taken hadn’t made up the deficit. He wished he didn’t have to wake her up.
Struck suddenly by how quiet it was, Bran went to
the sliding door and parted the blinds to see out. He laughed quietly. He’d turn on the radio for confirmation, but felt sure school had been canceled. The snow had to be a foot deep, and it was still coming down. Lina would be able to stay, cozy, in bed.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the same luxury. Cops didn’t get snow days. He was only glad he wasn’t still on patrol. This would be a bitch of a day out there on the roads.
In the kitchen, he turned on the radio at low volume while he poured himself a bowl of cereal. Fortunately, Clear Creek wasn’t too far down the alphabetical list of school districts in the Puget Sound region that were closing today. After turning the radio off, Bran ate his cereal where he was, leaning against the cabinet. The coffee still wasn’t quite ready, so he picked up his phone while he waited.
“Charlie? Any chance you could give me a lift today?”
His fellow detective said with good humor, “Don’t trust your fancy little car out in the snow?”
“I think it would be headlamps deep today,” Bran admitted, not minding his friend giving him a hard time.
“Yeah, I’ll be there in fifteen,” he said, and was gone.
Bran poured his coffee, then went down the hall. As much as he’d like to kiss Lina goodbye, it would be kinder just to leave her a note.
But when he reached the bedroom, she rolled over and said sleepily, “Bran?”
“Hey.” He sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed her hair back from her face. He loved the high arch of her forehead. This was what he’d really wanted—just to touch her. Kiss her before he left. Have her drowsy smile to picture all day.
She said she’d marry him. His relief felt bottomless. To go from the devastation of the night before to her surrendering completely was still almost more than he could let himself believe. It made him a little nervous that he wasn’t 100 percent sure what he’d said or done that had led to her capitulation, but rumor had it men never entirely understood the women in their lives.
Her lips curved now. “Time to get up?”
“Nope.” He leaned over and kissed her gently, lingering for a moment. “Snow day.”
“Really?”
He laughed. “There has to be a foot or more out there. Go back to sleep, sweetheart. Think of me struggling through the drifts.”
“Oh, no! I’ll bet your Camaro doesn’t handle very well in snow, does it?”
“I’m afraid not. Charlie Warring is picking me up. He has four-wheel drive.”
“Oh, good.” She sighed. “Sad to say, I have to go to the bathroom, but then I think I will go back to sleep.”
“Damn, I wish I could get back in bed with you.”
She disentangled one arm from the covers and slid her hand over his thigh to the ridge beneath his zipper. “Mmm. Because you’re so sleepy.”
Bran laughed ruefully. “No. But, unfortunately, I have to go. Charlie will be here any minute. You take care. I’ll call later.”
He kissed her again. Their lips clung long enough to raise his temperature, but he finally tore himself away.
The snowfall had slowed, flakes drifting down to land softly on the white blanket on the ground. Given the covered parking, he was able to get in Charlie’s Subaru without wading through a foot of the stuff, but the drive was slow going. He saw signs that the snowplows had been out working all night, but what they’d cleared had begun to fill in again. Side streets remained pristine except for a few tracks where hardy folks had managed to drive out. The snowplows might reach them by late afternoon—if the residents were lucky.
“Hell,” he said, “maybe we should have both worked from home today.”
“I thought about it,” Charlie admitted. Then he grinned. “I could have worked from a ski hill, too. This may not be powder snow, but it’s lighter than we usually get around here.”
“I’ve never skied or snowboarded.”
“Seriously?”
“Nope. My father didn’t make that kind of money.”
Charlie grunted. “Who does? Do you know what ticket prices are these days? Almost seventy bucks for a weekend day at both Stevens Pass and Crystal Mountain. Then there’s the gas to get there and the equipment.” He shook his head.
“Not that much worse than an evening out in Seattle,” Bran observed. “Although if you get hooked and want to go every weekend...”
He was cheered to see that the parking lot outside the sheriff’s department and courthouse had been plowed, and not that long ago. The current shift of deputies on patrol had already gone out, Zach presumably included. He knew from experience that they’d spend the day untangling fender-benders, calling for tow trucks to pull vehicles out of ditches and rescuing stranded motorists who invariably hadn’t dressed warmly enough for the day.
His phone rang even before he’d sat down behind his desk. Novinski.
“Count your blessings,” she grumbled. “Most of your county is flat. Downtown Seattle might as well be a demolition derby this morning. A metro bus skidded down a hill and took out half a dozen parked cars. Why won’t people stay home?” she asked plaintively.
“Because they’re in essential jobs. Because their bosses expect them to show up.” He grinned. “Because they’re convinced they’re so important, the city will slow to a stop without them.”
“It’s because of them this city has slowed to a stop.” She huffed out a breath. “My lead on the Cobbs took me nowhere. They’re either using a false identity or are just staying off the radar.”
“My bet is that they’re staying off the radar,” he said slowly. “They’re not sophisticated people. Chances are good they wouldn’t know where to go to buy forged identity papers. They could have friends they’re staying with, who maybe are even letting them borrow driver’s licenses in case they get pulled over.”
She didn’t argue. “You know they’re narrowing down their choice of the next bank to hit by now.”
“Cobb may be.”
“Because he’s the decision maker.”
“And because Jones is otherwise occupied.”
“You really think he knows where you’re keeping Lina and is watching.” Damned if she didn’t still sound doubtful. She still thought he was shying at shadows.
And...nothing had happened, so maybe she was right.
Yeah, but if she was wrong and he eased up? If Lina died? A hole opened in his gut. Nope, he wasn’t backing down.
“Unless he’s stupider than I think he is, yeah. We might have had a chance if she hadn’t insisted on going back to work, but I can’t blame her.”
“It has dragged on.”
“Four weeks yesterday.”
“I’ll keep on it,” she said. “I assume you’ll do the same.”
“Oh, yeah.” He ended the call wondering if she had guessed the baby that Lina carried was his.
That got him to thinking about whether Lina would like to be surprised with an engagement ring, or pick out her own.
Charlie and he had been the first two arrivals among detectives, but the lieutenant had appeared while Bran was on the phone, and now Delancy and Sperling walked in, both looking as if they’d traipsed from the North Pole.
“It’s coming down harder again,” Sperling said, unnecessarily since his head and shoulders were dusted. He pulled off a fleece scarf and shook snow off before hanging it on the rack by the door. It was a surprise he hadn’t found an excuse not to come in. Talking about taking his retirement, Sperling didn’t do much but go through the motions. Bran suspected he wasn’t the only one to hope he’d just do it. A unit as small as theirs didn’t need dead wood.
Delancy had unzipped his parka when his phone rang. “Shit,” he mumbled before he answered.
Engaged in a computer search, Bran quit paying attention until he saw Delancy zipping up again. He had been next up in the r
oster, Bran remembered.
Typical of the jackass, he was complaining loudly. “Who’d go out and kill someone in this weather? Why freeze your ass off and risk ending up stuck in a drift with the cops surrounding you?”
For once, he’d asked an intelligent question. Crime did usually nose-dive during blizzards. Hand still on the computer mouse, Bran looked up. “Not a domestic?”
“Doesn’t sound like it.” He looked around. “Sperling, you want to come with me?”
Lieutenant Arnold stepped out of his office. “You’re still here?”
“We’re going.” Delancy pulled on gloves as an unhappy Sperling reached for his scarf.
Warring had swiveled in his chair, too. “Who’s dead?”
“Woman named Andrea Young.”
Bran expelled what air he’d had in his lungs as if he’d been slammed by a 2x4. Warring turned to look at him.
Delancy opened the door.
“Wait.” Bran pushed himself to his feet. His heart had taken up an irregular rhythm. “I know her. Who’s the responding officer? What did he say?”
Everyone had turned to stare.
“Josh Orr. Dispatch says this Andrea cleans houses. A customer called her this morning to find out if she was coming. In the middle of their conversation, she heard the housecleaner say something like, ‘Who are you? How’d you get in?’ And then she heard a gunshot. After that, nothing. She hung up and called 911.”
“Jesus.” Bran ran for the door. At the last second, Delancy stepped aside to let him by.
“Murphy!” his lieutenant snapped. “What are you thinking?”
He turned, wild with fear. “She cleans my place. She has a key to my apartment. She...labels them.” He swallowed. “Lina’s home because of the snow.” Sleeping in. God. She wouldn’t even hear that bastard coming.
Compassion transforming his homely face, Lt. Arnold said sharply, “Put on a vest. Take someone with you. I’ll call the CCPD and have them send the nearest patrol unit.”
Charlie had already grabbed his coat. “I’m driving.”
God. He’d forgotten he hadn’t driven today. Terror swelled in him as they took the time to pick up department-issued Kevlar vests and ran out to Charlie’s SUV and jumped in. Charlie put it in Reverse and backed out fast enough to send them into a skid, then accelerated. They rocketed forward.
Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set Page 24
