Don't Go Home

by Janelle Taylor

  Matthew was silent. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe we should look at the note writer as one of the widows,” Mia said carefully. “A widow makes the most sense as a suspect, given that the person writing the note is hiring a decoy.”

  “But let’s say Mrs. A wants to find out if her husband is cheating. She hires Margot, finds out the answer is yes because of the photos, flips out, and kills her husband, end of story. Why do three other men get killed?”

  Mia shook her head. “This is making less sense the more we try to figure it out.”

  “Okay. Let’s take the last note. Margot’s supposed to show up at MacDougal’s on July tenth at ten P.M. And do what? Meet who? Whoever chooses to pick her up?”

  “That seems awfully random,” Mia said.

  “I know.” Matthew shook his head.

  “Well, we know the murders weren’t random, drunken brawls because of the Margot connection,” Mia said, “yet suddenly, the victims themselves seem to be chosen completely at random.”

  “Makes no sense.” Matthew stared out the window, clearly frustrated.

  “Let’s both read the accounts of the victims’ deaths,” Mia suggested, “then compare thoughts. Maybe something will trigger an idea, somewhere to begin.”

  “Good idea.” Matthew printed out two copies of each report and any additional information he could find on the victims.

  Even with the information superhighway, there wasn’t much information on the victims themselves. They seemed to be four regular Joes, four regular citizens. Two were businessmen, one owned a body shop, and one was an electrician. They were in their thirties and early forties. All were married and left behind widows; two of the men had children.

  “Nothing seems to link the men together,” Mia said.

  “Just their marital status,” Matthew commented, flipping a page. “They all lived in different towns, had different professions.”

  They both went back to the reports, reading them again and again, asking each other questions, dismissing this, discussing that.

  Mia yawned and looked at her watch. Three hours had passed since they’d arrived at Matthew’s. She closed her eyes, just needing to rest them for a few seconds.

  But when she woke up, it was pitch-dark, save the illuminated computer screen. Mia had somehow kicked off her sneakers and curled up on Matthew’s bed. Tired as she was, she wanted to burrow farther into the warm bed, get under the covers. But the sound of a man’s breathing startled her and her eyes flew open.

  Matthew was fast asleep in his desk chair.

  God, but he was beautiful. The computer screen slightly lit up half his chiseled face and shone highlights on his dark, thick hair. His rolled-up shirtsleeves revealed tanned, strong forearms, lightly covered with dark hair.

  He was tall and lean and muscular. And he had to be uncomfortable in that position.

  Suddenly, he lurched out of the chair and practically flung himself on the bed, his eyes closed.

  He was still asleep.

  And he was lying down right next to her.

  He turned toward her and burrowed his face in the crook of her neck, his warm breath dancing along her collarbone. She could smell his soap, his musky aftershave, the masculinity of him. An arm snaked around her waist, then inched up, dangerously close to her breast.

  Mia held her breath.

  And then a thigh, a heavy, muscular thigh, clamped over hers as he inched even closer to her.

  They were so close they could be making love.

  What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

  She tried to gently wriggle her thigh out from under his, but it was no use. The same went for her waist, which was under his arm.

  His eyes opened.

  And then opened wide.

  He bolted up, and so did she.

  “How—” he began, two spots of color forming on his hard cheeks.

  “I don’t know,” she said, her face flaming. “I guess we both fell asleep.” Mia grabbed her sneakers and slipped her feet into them. “I’ll just call a cab.”

  “Stay,” Matthew said. “I mean, you can have the bed, and I’ll take the couch.”

  “I—”

  “It’s”—he glanced at his watch—“three in the morning.” He walked to his dresser and rummaged around in a drawer. “Here. A pair of sweats and a T-shirt that shrunk pretty bad the last time I tried to do my own laundry. They’ll make comfortable pj’s.”

  So I guess I’m staying, Mia thought.

  Mia was in his bed.

  That was Matthew’s last thought when he’d bunked down on his uncomfortable sofa in the living room, and it was his first thought when he woke up a moment ago.

  Mia, beautiful, sweet, headstrong Mia was in his bed.

  No—she wasn’t. Unless the sudden smell of bacon wafting from his kitchen could be attributed to a dream. The same dream that had found him lying in his bed next to her last night, so close that he could see himself reflected in the pupils of her eyes.

  So close that all he’d had to do was move a quarter of an inch, and he’d be inside her.

  He closed his eyes and savored the thought, until the sound of eggs cracking against a bowl assured him he wasn’t dreaming.

  Or maybe he was, since Mia was clearly in the kitchen, making breakfast. The last time a woman had cooked him breakfast in his own home was four presidents of the United States ago. Matthew smiled, fondly remembering his mother’s cooking.

  “Scrambled okay?” Mia asked, appearing in the doorway of the kitchen. She wore his apron around her waist and held a spatula in one hand and a frying pan in the other.

  She looked absolutely beautiful in her jeans and T-shirt, her feet bare, her hair in a ponytail, her face fresh-scrubbed. She reminded him of sunshine.

  “Scrambled’s my favorite,” he said, sitting up on the sofa and stretching. “Is that coffee I smell? I could really go for a strong cup.”

  “Coming right up,” she said with a bright smile and disappeared back inside the kitchen.

  Interesting. She was almost too friendly, too cheerful.

  Matthew knew forced cheer when he saw it.

  Ah. She was probably embarrassed about last night, about the compromising position they’d found themselves in. Matthew wondered how long they’d lain that way, their arms and legs and breath entwined. All he knew for sure was that he’d been comfortable.

  Which in itself was cause for alarm. Usually, unless there was sex involved, Matthew was always uncomfortable about lying in bed with a woman. Snuggling was a word that made him break out into hives. But last night, when he’d been in that delicious state between sleep and wakefulness, he’d been very, very comfortable.

  He’d known that having her in his apartment would be trouble.

  He’d been right.

  “I’m going to take a quick shower,” he called out.

  “Okay. Breakfast will be ready in five minutes.”

  How domestic, he thought, wincing.

  He shook his head to clear it, stood up and stretched, then headed into the bathroom. A hot shower was exactly what he needed. Add a cup of strong coffee, and he’d be fortified against Mia Anderson.

  He stripped down and stood under the pulsing, hot water, his thoughts immediately turning erotic.

  Mia, sleepy and naked under the hot spray of water.

  Mia, her soft breasts pressed against his bare chest, her legs wrapped around his waist as he held her to him.

  And buried himself inside her.

  “Your eggs are getting cold,” she called through the door with that same forced cheer.

  It had the same effect as the water going cold.

  “Be right out,” he called back, quickly lathering up and shampooing his hair.

  He hoped she wasn’t a mind reader.

  In a minute, he had a towel wrapped around his waist. But was he supposed to just waltz out of his bathroom this way? Was she in the living room, waiting for him to ap
pear? Was he supposed to call out a warning that he was coming out?

  What a gentleman would do aside, this was his apartment, and making Mia comfortable with him as a man wasn’t one of his priorities. The less comfortable she was, in fact, the more comfortable he would be.

  Towel wrapped around his waist, Matthew opened the bathroom door and headed out. Mia, walking from the kitchen to the dining room table set along the windows, a platter of scrambled eggs in one hand and bacon in the other, froze.

  And stared.

  He stared back.

  For a moment, neither of them moved, and it was so quiet in the room that he could hear both their shallow breaths.

  He could see the faintest outline of her nipples through the thin, white material of her T-shirt. And he was sure she could see the sudden effect that had on him, even through the thick towel.

  “I ... I’ll just go get the coffee,” she said haltingly. She quickly slid the two platters on the table and then rushed back into the kitchen.

  Matthew couldn’t help smiling.

  Yeah, she was uncomfortable.

  As Mia sipped her coffee and bit into her toast, she couldn’t stop herself from seeing Matthew Gray naked. Well, next to naked. Matthew Gray in that small towel, his hard, muscular chest damp, his thick brown hair glistening, his intense blue eyes dark with ... With what? Desire? Lust?

  Mia knew all too well what a man’s desire looked like. And she knew what it felt like to be the object of that desire.

  She also knew what it felt like to be desired and not loved.

  Desired and not even liked.

  Desired for nothing more than the paint on her face and the revealing clothes on her body.

  Her appetite gone, Mia turned to look out the window, at the amazing view onto Center City.

  Her sister was out there somewhere, and what was she doing? Fantasizing about a man who had absolutely no idea who she was. Nor, she was sure, would he be interested in who she was.

  Oh, Margot. Where are you? Are you hiding out close to home? Have you caught a bus or train somewhere?

  Where are you, Margot?

  “These eggs are delicious,” Matthew said. “Thanks for cooking.”

  He’d completely cleaned his plate, which he’d loaded with eggs, bacon, and two helpings of toast. Her ex-husband had been a health fanatic who’d eat nothing but egg-white omelets and organic whole wheat cereal for breakfast; Mia had to admit that it gave her some pleasure to watch a man eat a hearty, manly breakfast.

  “Thanks,” she said. “So, I’ve been thinking about where to start today, and I suggest we check out Justin’s alibi. Make sure he really was on shift at the hospital the night Robert was killed.”

  “Good plan,” Matthew said, sipping his coffee. “And if he clears, I think we should do some checking into the widows, especially the first in the time line.”

  Mia nodded. “How about if I head home, shower and change, and then meet you at the coffee lounge in”—she glanced at her watch—“an hour?”

  “An hour, it is,” Matthew said. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I’d really like to walk. I could use some fresh air.”

  And some distance from you. Right away.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  She nodded, and he led the way to the door. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

  He opened the door, his gaze lingering on her face, and it was all she could do not to raise up on her toes and sink into a long, sexually charged kiss.

  Oh, God. She really needed to get out of there.

  Chapter Eight

  When Mia realized she was sitting in the same spot at the coffee lounge as she had the night she’d met Matthew, it was too late to move.

  He’d arrived.

  He didn’t look like a man who’d spent the night on a sofa too small for his six-foot two-inch muscular frame. He looked good. Too good. He wore faded jeans and a dark blue knit polo shirt that was almost the exact color of his eyes. To the morning crowd at the coffee lounge, he must have appeared just like anyone else, a good-looking guy out for some java and the paper on a Sunday morning. It was amazing how easy it was to make judgments about other people based on appearance—judgments that were as far from the truth as could be.

  Mia was sure she appeared the same way to those who might have noticed her. She’d tried on just about everything in Margot’s closet, hoping for one outfit that wasn’t quite so snug fitting, but unless she wanted to wear a bathrobe, a pair of white Capri pants and a small, pale blue, V-necked T-shirt were her next best choices. Margot’s collection of tiny tank tops, cropped T-shirts, and midriff-baring shirts and barely there miniskirts could win her a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked, his expression unreadable. “I could use a shot of espresso.”

  “No, I’m fine, thanks,” Mia said.

  He looked into her eyes for a long moment as if to make sure she was telling the truth, then headed over to the counter.

  A few moments later, he returned with a large take-out container, and they headed outside.

  The day was warm and sunny. According to the radio in the coffee lounge, it was already eighty degrees and seventy percent humidity, and it was only nine-thirty in the morning.

  Mia squinted up at Matthew in the sunlight. “So do we just walk into Center City General and ask if Justin Graves was working the night of June nineteenth?” she asked.

  Matthew considered that. “Maybe we should call instead. I’ve got an idea that might work.” He reached into his pants’ pocket and pulled out a small cell phone. After getting the number of the hospital from information, he punched some digits on the phone and waited. “Hello, I’m calling from the law offices of Brown and Andrews, doing some fact checking. I’d like to find out if a certain resident was working the night of June nineteenth of this year. Can I get that information? Great—thanks. His name is Justin Graves. Yes, I’ll hold.” Matthew winked at Mia. The ruse was working. “He was on shift from six P.M. until two in the morning. Yes, thank you very much.”

  “Well, that rules Justin out,” Mia said, staring at the ground.

  “Mia, just because we’re ruling people out doesn’t make Margot any guiltier,” he said, placing the phone back inside his pocket. “We don’t know what happened that night.”

  He seemed as surprised by what he’d just said as she looked.

  And he was right. Margot wasn’t “guilty until proven otherwise”; there was a mystery to solve, and if he and Mia put their heads together, they could get to the bottom of it. They both had very high stakes in finding out what happened to Robert.

  “Now what?” she asked. “Should we start investigating the widows?”

  Matthew nodded. “I think that’s our best starting place. I have the information from the web in my knapsack.”

  As he propped his knapsack on his knee and unzipped it, Mia found herself riveted by his thigh. The very thigh that had been clamped over hers last night.

  “The first murder ... ,” he began, snapping her out of her inappropriate thoughts as he scanned the pages, “occurred on February twenty-first, in the parking lot of Good Times, a small nightclub in Bridgeville. That’s a small city about a half hour away from here.”

  “Yes, I know it. I live next door in Baywater.”

  “Pretty town,” he said. “Lived there long?”

  Too long, Mia thought. “I moved there when I got married five years ago. I won the house in the divorce settlement, so ...”

  He nodded. “Well, if you need anything from home, today would be a great day to get it since we’ll be so close by. According to this obituary for James Cole, he and his widow, Lisa Ann Cole, lived in Baywater.”

  “The names aren’t familiar, but it is a big town,” Mia said. “And yes, I would love to pack a bag from home. Get into my own clothes.”

  “Let’s go, then,” he said. “My car’s parked just across the s
treet.”

  He led her to the silver BMW, and in moments, they were on the highway, headed south toward Baywater.

  “Why don’t we head over to my house first,” Mia suggested. “I can check the phone book for a listing for Lisa Ann Cole.”

  “Sounds good,” he said. “And it’ll give us a place to map out a strategy for how to approach her. How to approach all the widows.”

  “Including Laurie Gray?” she asked softly.

  He took his eyes off the road for just a moment to glance at her. “Yes,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “Including Laurie Gray.”

  She wondered if he had any idea how much his acquiescence meant to her. It assured her that they were on even ground, that all bets were on. That everyone, no matter how hard it was for either of them to believe or accept, could be a suspect.

  As they drove in silence, Mia had the feeling he did know—and that he was adjusting to it himself.

  More relaxed, Mia looked out the window at the passing scenery, at each landmark that brought her closer to home.

  Home. Baywater, New York, was hardly that. The large, suburban town had never quite felt like home, not after a lifetime spent in idyllic, rural Peach Haven, a forty-minute drive east from Baywater. The sleepy little town was full of white picket fences and azalea bushes and kind people who knew each other and helped each other. And it was where Mia and Margot and the Daniels had lived and loved until tragedy had intervened.

  Until Margot had left for the city, and Mia had been taken in by David Anderson and his desire for a too modern house on an unfriendly block in a town she’d never felt comfortable in.

  Baywater was a town where neighbors snooped and gossiped about each other, where keeping up with the Joneses was of paramount importance.

  You’re divorced now, she reminded herself. The school year is over. You don’t have to live in Baywater anymore. You can go anywhere you want.

  But where? Sometimes, it seemed to Mia that when you could go anywhere and do anything, you stayed exactly where you were. You got paralyzed by the choices.