Copper Lake Confidential

by Marilyn Pappano

  “Hey Doc,” the girl said. “Where’ve you been, sweetie?”

  There was no doubt the endearment was directed to the animal as the girl dropped to her knees, scratched behind his ears, then sat back so Scooter, on cue, could roll to his back for a belly rub.

  “Don’t worry. I always wash my hands before I touch you,” she crooned. “Humans are dirty, you know.”

  At the moment, Macy certainly understood her preference for four-legged creatures.

  “Macy, this is Jacy, Scooter’s favorite part-time vet assistant and restaurant hostess.” Stephen left the introduction at that—no last names—and Macy appreciated it.

  “Hello, Jacy.”

  The girl looked up at her. “Is your name really Macy? I broke up with a guy because his name was Casey. I couldn’t bear the idea of going all the way through high school with a boyfriend whose name rhymed with mine.”

  Despite the studs piercing her nose and eyebrow and the electric-yellow shade of her hair, Macy liked Jacy. Shared pain, she figured. “My friends in college set me up with a blind date because he was named Tracy and they thought it would be cute if we hit it off.”

  Jacy shuddered. “Those people weren’t friends. I’ll tell your waitress you’re out here. Nice to meet you, Macy. See you later, Doc. You, too, sweetie.”

  Stephen was smiling when Macy shifted her gaze from Jacy’s retreating figure back to him. “Macy and Tracy? You could have named your first daughter Stacy.”

  “Or Lacy.” She imitated Jacy’s shudder. After spreading a linen napkin on her lap, she asked, “What did you think of Fair Winds?”

  “Impressive place.” He said the words with sincerity, but she thought he hadn’t been impressed so much as taken by surprise. She appreciated that, too.

  “Really impressive,” he went on. “I was lucky to have my own bedroom all the time, and your three-year-old has her own mansion.”

  “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  “No,” he said at first, then dragged his hand through his hair, leaving it on end. “Well, yeah. A little. So what was the suggestion you had about it?”

  Did she want to discuss that now? Even want to think about it? Common sense said no, but when she opened her mouth, something else took control of her words. “I had a visit this afternoon from the president of the Fair Winds Preservation Society—an organization, mind you, that didn’t even exist until just recently. She suggested I give the property, the house and all of its contents to them so they could turn it into a proper memorial.”

  Stephen’s eyes widened behind the glasses and his jaw dropped. “You’re making that up.”

  Macy shook her head.

  “Just give it to them? Not sell, not lease, just ‘here’s the deed, and y’all have a nice day’?” His snort was both rude and comical. “Hell, why didn’t they ask for a few million dollars to maintain it and keep it running?”

  “They might have. I didn’t read the contract they’d had drawn up.”

  “Contract?” Astonishment echoed in his voice. “Who in the world could possibly think that was even remotely—”

  Something in her expression stopped him. She wasn’t sure even exactly what was on her face. A bit of a smile. Sarcasm. Finally, some little hint of amusement to go along with the dismay.

  “Louise Wetherby and her cronies. Wow. I didn’t think even they were that outrageous. You told her no, didn’t you?”

  “I did, which she interpreted as I needed more time before I fall in with her plans. I may have to have the lawyer tell her. Compared to me, he’s considered relatively s—”

  She clamped her jaw shut so quickly that her teeth collided with an audible click. What had she been about to say? Sane? Stable? She was sane. She was stable. She’d had a problem with depression—granted, a serious couldn’t-get-out-of-bed-in-the-morning, wouldn’t-have-cared-if-she-lived-or-died-if-not-for-Clary problem—but she’d just undergone severe emotional trauma. She’d lost her baby, for God’s sake.

  She still had some trouble with depression. Anxiety. Uncertainty. But she took her medication, and she stayed busy, and she was perfectly fine. Functional. Able to be an independent adult and a mother.

  Even though she had thought she’d seen someone in the guesthouse yesterday.

  Even though she imagined the faint smell of Mark’s cologne in the house.

  Even though going to Fair Winds this evening had totally creeped her out. She couldn’t have done it without Stephen.

  “I believe the word you’re looking for is stubborn,” he said, giving no sign he’d thought her behavior odd. “He is a lawyer, right? They’re not generally known for being soft touches.”

  “Yes,” she agreed with that breathiness in her voice again. “Stubborn. That’s exactly what I was going to say.”

  Chapter 5

  Darkness had fallen, their meals were pleasant memories and Scooter was snoring softly beside the table in the grass. With a cool breeze off the river and the faint sound of music from down the street, Stephen couldn’t think of anything that could improve the evening.

  Then his gaze settled on Macy, and he immediately amended that thought.

  She was more relaxed tonight than he’d ever seen her. Not saying much since they’d met for the first time yesterday, but it seemed a lot longer. A long time, but nowhere near long enough. He knew a lot about her but wanted to know more. Everything. Including how she felt. How she tasted.

  Slowly she stirred the straw in her tea, the few remaining ice cubes clinking against the sweaty glass. “Tell me again all the places you’ve lived.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m looking for a place, remember?”

  If she asked his opinion, he would put in his vote for staying in Copper Lake. He liked it. He’d come with the intention of spending four months and hadn’t found any reason yet to leave.

  Macy could be a damn good reason to stay if only she would, too.

  Ignoring the thought, he began ticking off names on his fingers. “Los Angeles and El Cajon, California. Tucson and Flagstaff, Arizona. Los Alamos and Roswell, New Mexico. Baton Rouge and Slidell, Louisiana. Austin and Plano, Texas. I went to college in Albuquerque and vet school in Stillwater, Oklahoma, then worked in Cheyenne, Wyoming, before coming here.”

  “Wow, you ran out of fingers. I feel like a slacker.” She held up her own slender, pink-tipped fingers. “Charleston, Columbia and Copper Lake.”

  “Did you ever want to live a lot of places?”

  Lowering her fingers, she began twisting the glass on its sodden napkin. “No. I always wanted...stability.” The way she said the word made it seem it wasn’t exactly the one she wanted. “I told you, four generations of Irelands have lived in the same house. I like that sense of home.”

  “So why not find a place in Charleston?”

  Her smile wavered as she sat back in the chair, hands folded in her lap. “Maybe I will. Not in Charleston itself, but Isle of Palms or Sullivan’s Island.”

  “You’re close to your family, so it’s not exactly them you want to get away from, is it?”

  “I love my family. I couldn’t have survived the last year and a half without them. They’ve done so much for me. But now I just need...want a little space.” Her head tilted to one side. “Does that sound awful?”

  “Not at all. I love my mom and dad, but you don’t see me settling in Alabama or California to be near them.”

  “But you did come to Copper Lake to be near your sister.” She gestured. “I’m assuming she was here first.”

  “Yep. She got a job here six or eight years ago. She’s a lab geek for the Copper Lake Police Department. Her name’s Marnie Robinson.”

  “Different last name. Married?”

  “Different fathers.”

  “What is she like?”

  He laughed, and Scooter twitched at the sound. Stretching to the side, Stephen rubbed his spine until he settled in again, then rested both hands on the table. “Marnie is different. Best olde
r sister I could ask for, but...she’s got bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and microbiology, a master’s in forensic sciences and forensic toxicology, and she’s getting a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology. She’s very logical, very rational, very unemotional.”

  Macy feigned surprise. “Your sister is Dr. Spock?”

  The comparison made him laugh, not because it was original but because it wasn’t. Marnie often put him in mind of Star Trek and Dr. Spock. “Yeah, that’s her. She doesn’t eat in restaurants because who knows what microscopic spores have been passed along in the handling of the food. She won’t eat birthday cake where someone’s blown out the candles because of all the germs in the human mouth. She handles body parts and fluids all day but doesn’t like to touch people. I’m pretty sure when she kisses, she sanitizes her mouth afterward, and of course, it’s got to be a minimal sharing of spit.”

  If she kissed. She hadn’t had a serious relationship that he could remember. She was socially awkward and emotionally stunted and truly never seemed to need the simple warmth of human companionship. And yet she had a date for Saturday night’s party. He really wasn’t insulting his sister when he couldn’t imagine the guy she would go out with and vice versa.

  He had a date for that party, too. Remembering that was enough to take the edge off his pleasure in this night. Kiki Isaacs was about as far from his type as was possible while staying within the same species. Call him crazy, but he didn’t date women who could break him in half, who carried a gun and who certainly had bigger balls than he did.

  Too bad he hadn’t somehow weaseled out of Marnie’s request. He’d known Macy two days and had spent both evenings with her, and she’d invited him over for dinner tomorrow. Odds were pretty good that he could have spent Saturday evening with her, too, without a suit, a tie and worrying about his physical safety as well as his virtue.

  Macy’s voice distracted him from dire thoughts of the future. “I’d like to meet her sometime.”

  “Marnie? Yeah, she doesn’t do well with the living.”

  “Neither do I sometimes. And truthfully, I wasn’t wild about birthday cake that someone had just blown little bits of ick over, either, not until Clary was born. Kids kind of desensitize you to all that germ stuff.”

  He tried to imagine how mini-Macy looked. Blue eyes, brown hair, chubby cheeks, that toddler sense of wonder in everything? Or did she resemble her father more? When Macy looked at her, did she see the dead husband she didn’t love?

  Then the obvious occurred to him. “Do you have a picture of her?”

  The smile that beamed across her face was practically enough to light the night. “Of course I do.” Pulling out her cell, she scrolled to the photographs, then handed it over.

  Yep, Clary Howard looked just like her mother, except for the chubby part. Macy didn’t carry a pound of extra weight, but Clary was nicely rounded in that adorable-little-girl sort of way. Her hair was the same shade as Macy’s, though finer, and she had the same serious air about her that Macy did.

  The photo was taken on the beach, and Clary, crouching in the sand, wore a one-piece ruffled swimsuit that made her look like a pumpkin with legs. A floppy white hat framed her face, and her lower lip was poked out as she focused entirely on the seashell in her hand. She looked sweet as cotton candy and could undoubtedly be as hardheaded as granite.

  “She’s a cutie.” Though he was tempted to see what other photos she kept, he handed the phone back without looking. “Three is a good age. Interested in everything, talking to everyone.”

  “Interested, yes. Talking...nonstop with people she knows but a little shy with strangers.” Macy gazed at the photograph for a moment, tenderness easing across her features along with yearning. She was always pretty, but the combination made her stunning.

  “It must be tough, being away from her even for a few days.”

  “Yeah, but she’ll be here Friday.”

  With Macy’s brother and sister-in-law, with whom she would do the things she’d done with him the past two days. So much for possibly spending Saturday evening with her. He might not see much of her after the family arrived.

  Might not see her at all.

  And though they hardly knew each other, he had no doubt that would be his loss.

  “Well...”

  Macy’s sigh floated on the air. Dinner was gone, dessert just a few crumbs on the plates and she’d long since paid the bill. Time to go home. He unhooked Scooter’s leash from the foot of his chair, stood and stretched, and the dog did the same.

  “Thank you for going out to Fair Winds with me.”

  “Thanks for dinner.” Their steps were muffled on the grass, then scuffed across concrete. “And for a look at how the other half live. Tell Clary she’s got excellent taste in inheritances.”

  “You can tell her yourself.” Macy glanced both ways, though traffic was allowed only one way, then stepped off the curb. After shooting him a glance, she added to that. “That is, if you’re not ready to dump me and my needs into Brent’s lap and run.”

  Warmth spread through him at the idea that he had a choice in the matter and, judging from Scooter’s happy look, it had transmitted down the leash. “I’m not ready to dump anything.”

  Except the date with Kiki Isaacs, and he couldn’t go back on that. But he could hope for her to find someone else.

  As they stepped into the shadows of the live oaks in the square, he thought he heard Macy murmur a firm “Good.”

  * * *

  “You’re sure about this?” Macy turned into her own driveway but didn’t shut off the engine. “I don’t mind taking you home.”

  “Yeah, but then we’d just have to come back to make sure you get in okay. Besides, Scooter and I walk a lot, including at night. From here to our place is nothing.”

  With a soft sigh, she turned off the ignition and opened the door. The house was safe. Lights on timers shone in the living room, the kitchen and over the stairs. The alarm was armed. Nothing looked out of place. But it was a definite plus that she didn’t have to walk inside by herself.

  They went up the walkway, Scooter’s nails clicking on the sidewalk behind them, and she opened the door and shut off the security system. The packed boxes were still in the hall. A pile of empty boxes and packing material were still visible in the kitchen. The lights in the backyard showed a tranquil, undisturbed scene.

  “Nine o’clock and all’s fine,” she said, and the grandfather clock down the hall chimed a moment later. Good timing.

  “The castle is secured. We’ll leave and you can pull up the drawbridge.”

  She laughed. She tended to think of the house as a mausoleum instead, which made her... Well, she’d rather not think about what lived in mausoleums. But a princess in a castle...she hadn’t felt like that since she and Mark first got engaged.

  “Dinner about six? But you can come over whenever you’re done for the day.”

  He nodded, hesitated, then leaned in and kissed her cheek. Before she could react, he flashed a grin, made coaxing sounds at the dog and left.

  Having her feet knocked out from under her had been a fairly common occurrence since the day Mark died. Having it done in an unexpectedly good way was enough to make her lean against the door for support after she closed it. It had been so long since someone new and interesting had kissed her. So long since she’d been kissed so sweetly. Since she’d given serious thought to wanting more.

  For a time she stood there, just feeling satisfied, until the green light on the alarm console caught her attention. She made sure she’d locked the door—for the first time in months, she couldn’t remember—then reset the alarm. Then she headed down the hall to the kitchen. After the time away, with a cup of coffee, she would have the energy to pack at least a few more boxes tonight before going to bed.

  The coffeemaker hummed as it brewed, and Macy found herself humming softly, too, a silly song about spiders and waterspouts. She’d already decided to leave packing the kitchen for h
er last job, but she could make a start on the family room. Hundreds of DVDs, even more books, small parts of Mark’s vast collections...

  She stacked the leather sofa with the smallest boxes she’d bought, recommended for books, and began packing without even glancing at titles. Some were old, bound in leather. A few had been published recently, but none of them were popular or fiction. Mark would have been the first to scoff at Stephen’s fantasy novels. Her husband had been as snobbish in his reading materials as everything else, while she thought she’d like to know more about the mysterious man in the mysterious place on Stephen’s cover.

  About its creator, as well.

  She took a break to fix her coffee the way she liked it, then, warming her hands on the hot mug, she strolled down the hall, turning right into the living room and making her way to the big window. The street outside was quiet, lights on in the houses across the street. There was too much room between houses to hear televisions or conversations. The Villains walked a fine line between wanting privacy while also flaunting all they had. Louise was the worst.

  But at least she came by her money honestly. Most of the fortunes in these few square miles had been handed down through generations, like Mark’s, or married into. Like Macy’s.

  Remembering Stephen’s incredulity about Louise’s proposal made Macy smile. Had the women asked for money, too, to fund their glorious memorial? All she had to do was check the contract, right there on the coffee table—

  Her hands trembled, and she barely managed to keep the coffee from sloshing all over the ancient Turkish rug. Her heart thudded so loudly she couldn’t hear the sounds of her own breathing, wasn’t sure she even was breathing until her lungs suddenly choked and she forced out a cough, then sucked in air audibly.

  The only thing on the coffee table was an arrangement of roses. There was no contract.

  “It has to be—” Carefully setting the coffee down, she paced around the couch, went to the chair where she’d sat during Louise’s visit, checked the entire area. Maybe she’d knocked it off when she’d left the room earlier. Maybe she’d set it somewhere besides the coffee table. Maybe—