She let out a deep breath and heard Damian do the same.
“Well,” the special agent said. “Thanks again, and please let me know if you need anything or if I can do anything to help.”
Matty heard Charlotte murmur a thank you, then Damian’s footsteps heading to the kitchen where he started talking with one of the other four agents that had arrived from Albany. For a moment Matty was frozen in indecision, unable to decide whether to run or stay with Dash in the hall for another long while. As if sensing her indecision, Dash stepped away and, still holding her hand, pulled her into the office.
Charlotte swung around from her spot at the desk. Her eyes dropped to Matty’s hand entwined with Dash’s before coming back to her face.
“You okay?” Charlotte asked.
She nodded. “I just need my computer and then we’ll go.”
“This is Brad’s though, right?” Charlotte asked, pointing to the computer now sitting on the desk in front of her.
She nodded again, then frowned as a memory floated into her mind.
“Matty?” Charlotte asked.
Matty pursed her lips for a moment, and as the thought took full form her frown deepened. “It could be nothing,” she said.
“What could be nothing?” Damian asked, reappearing in the doorway between the kitchen and the office.
“There was a day,” she paused and her brow creased in thought. Because now that she was thinking about it, there were two incidences.
“Matty?” Damian prompted.
“A few weeks ago, Bob, the Lab,” she added, pointing as the animal himself walked in, looked at them, then walked out. “Well, someone cut his toe off.”
“Excuse me?” Charlotte said. Damian’s response was a bit more colorful.
Matty looked at Dash who was studying her. She swallowed. “Well, of course I rushed him to the vet, to Dash, with my neighbor’s help. But when I got back, I remember thinking that Brad’s computer was in a different place than where I’d first seen it.”
“Charlotte,” Damian said in warning, but Charlotte was already backing away from the device. “Tell me what happened that day and when it was,” he ordered.
“There’s not much to add,” she said after Dash had given the exact date of the event. “It was in the morning. I think I was at the clinic just before noon, maybe?”
Dash nodded in agreement.
“And then back home probably three hours later,” Matty added. Damian had already called in two of the other agents to take the computer away and barked an order for them to fingerprint it.
“My prints will be all over it,” Matty said quietly, suddenly feeling a little ashamed of her solo, and somewhat sneaky, investigations.
“Say that again?” Damian asked.
Matty pursed her lips. Damian crossed his arms over his chest and leveled a look at her. Dash’s arm came around her shoulders.
“I wanted to see if I could find anything on his computer. I, uh, I figured out the password and spent several hours on it. My prints will be everywhere.”
Whatever Damian was thinking, it didn’t show on his face. Matty cast a glance at Charlotte who was also studying her, her head cocked.
“What?” Matty finally said. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t have done the same thing,” she said to her friend.
One side of Charlotte’s lips tipped into a grin. “Of course I would have, but I’m nosy and sneaky. You aren’t usually the sneaky one.”
“I sneak,” Matty retorted, though why she was offended she didn’t really know. It must have been some knee-jerk, childish reaction.
“Honey, you’re about as good a sneak as a fat man hiding behind a sapling. But I love you anyway,” Charlotte retorted.
Matty narrowed her eyes at her friend.
“Anyway,” Damian cut in. “That’s good to know, we already have your prints on file, Matty. We can eliminate those. Is there anything else we should know about? Anything else you remember?”
“What about the day we went out to take care of Kristen’s horse,” Dash said, reminding her of the second incident.
“What happened that day, and who is Kristen?” Damian asked.
And so Matty told him. She told him about Bogey getting tangled in the fence. Dash interjected, adding information about the conversation he’d had with Ian after Ian had come out to look at the fence where Kristen’s horse had been caught—an event neither man thought was an accident.
“Okay, so you have two suspicious incidences involving animals. What made you think of the horse incident?” Damian pressed.
“Because when we came back, Matty thought things in the office looked different,” Dash supplied.
Damian frowned.
“Different how?” Charlotte asked, taking a few steps toward the door to the kitchen, away from the desk.
“I couldn’t find my computer when I came in to look for it. But then we had a lot of people stop over that day to pay their condolences when news got out that the body was Brad’s. The next day, I went into the office and my computer was there but there were a number of small things that looked out of place, like cords that didn’t look like they were in the same position as when I’d last noticed them, paper edges sticking out from the file cabinet. But we’ve had a lot going on the last two weeks. It’s possible I was just imagining it,” Matty said.
“Or not,” Damian countered, calling in the other two agents. His eyes swept the room and he let out a long sigh. “Sorry, Ms. Lareaux,” he said. Charlotte seemed to know what he was referring to because she lifted a shoulder and stepped closer to Matty.
“Pearson, Anderson,” Damian directed the two agents. “This room needs to be dusted, too. And as soon as the computer is done, please ensure it gets to Ms. Lareaux.” He gestured the rest of them out of the office, leaving just the two agents inside.
“Do you have something you can do for an hour or so?” Damian asked Charlotte.
“I’ll go check into a bed and breakfast or something,” Charlotte answered, unperturbed by the change in schedule.
Matty, on the other hand, felt ill at the thought that someone might have been in the house while she and Dash were out. If it had happened once, or maybe even twice, how many other times had it happened? Dash squeezed her hand and whispered in her ear, “You’re okay.”
Bob came up and poked his wet nose against her other hand. She glanced down at the dog and realized that at least she could be fairly certain no one had been in the house while she was home or Bob and the other canines would have barked up a holy racket. Which is why, if it was true that someone had been inside, it had only been when they’d known she would be away, likely because they’d orchestrated it that way.
“You can stay with us,” Dash was saying to Charlotte as he led Matty through the kitchen toward the patio. Both Charlotte and Damian followed.
“Thanks, but I like my own space and I’m allergic to dogs. It’s not bad and a few hours around them isn’t anything a Benadryl can’t handle, but any more than that and I’ll be a mess. And I’d rather not be doped up going through the files later. Any suggestions on where to stay?”
Dash let go of Matty’s hand as they stepped out onto the patio. He hung back with Damian as she and Charlotte walked to his truck. Opening the truck cab’s rear door, Matty called to the dogs and let them pile in, one by one, as she and Charlotte spoke.
“There are a few places to stay, but the best is probably The Tavern because it has a restaurant and bar downstairs. We’ve eaten there a few times, and Rob, the owner, is handling the beverage service for Vivi and Ian’s wedding in October. Why don’t you try that? If he has a room, we can meet there for dinner tonight once you’re done here, so you don’t have to be around dogs, or dog hair, for the rest of the day.”
Charlotte agreed and Matty gave her directions to The Tavern. When she finished, she was struck again at how strange her life had become in the past few weeks. She could almost understand Charlotte’s hesitancy when it ca
me to her new situation. Matty was a city girl through and through. Or so she’d always thought. And now, here she was—wearing a sundress and flip flops, her hair pulled back into a low ponytail, giving Charlotte directions to a small-town inn—acting like she’d lived here her whole life.
As if reading her thoughts, Charlotte smiled. “Who would have thought we’d ever find ourselves in this kind of situation? Out here in the middle of nowhere, actually helping law enforcement.”
Matty cocked her head then gave a short nod to Dash. “Yeah, the situation is unusual in more ways than one,” she said with her own smile.
“It’s a long way from the Bronx, isn’t it,” Charlotte added.
Matty nodded. “Again, in more ways than one.”
“He seems like a good guy,” Charlotte said, turning her gaze to where Dash and Damian were talking.
“He is. But you’re reserving final judgment and I’m okay with that,” she responded.
Charlotte’s eyes came back to hers and in them Matty saw all their years together. All the tears and the pain, but also the laughter, the love, and the joy they’d shared. “Thank you for coming, Charlotte. And not just because you’re helping to sort through the mess I’ve managed to find myself in. Thanks, well, just thanks for coming. For checking on me. For caring.” She cut herself off and cleared her throat.
“Because whatever else happens, we’ll always have each other,” Charlotte said.
Matty inclined her head. “We always will,” she agreed.
Then Charlotte grinned and added, “Even when you’re like ten-months pregnant and huge as an elephant and hating your life and Dash for getting you that way. You’ll still have me.”
Matty laughed, making both Damian and Dash look up. “I will not be huge as an elephant, you twig. And even if I am, you better not mention it or I’ll have your mom zap you with some gris-gris.”
Charlotte laughed too, especially at the reference to her mother’s creole past. “Yeah, and if you’re carrying the first grandbaby between us, she’d probably do it, too.”
CHAPTER 25
“WERE YOU AND CHARLOTTE TALKING about kids?” Dash asked much later that afternoon. They’d been asked not to discuss the case with anyone so had pretty much kept to themselves all day. Currently, they were camped out on his porch swing enjoying the pleasant weather. He’d been reading and Matty had been mostly quiet, lying on the swing with her head in his lap. Her quiet wasn’t pensive or worried though; she looked more like she was just enjoying the lack of activity.
Her eyes swiveled to him at his question. “Kind of,” she said, her hair spilling across his thighs.
He studied her eyes for a moment then shrugged. “Okay, thought so.”
After a minute or two, she spoke again. “Does that freak you out?”
He looked down at her again and though the thought of kids hadn’t really been on the forefront of his mind, he found he was far from freaked out by it. He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t freak me out. My parents will be happy about more grandkids. Does it freak you out?”
After a moment, Dash realized he’d been holding his breath and he willed himself to breath. Slowly, he let his lungs empty as Matty seemed to mull the question over.
“Not really,” she said, sounding more confused by her answer than anything else.
“Good.” He glanced at his book again, more in an effort to hide his surprise at the topic of conversation than because he was all that interested in the book. “Ever thought of how many you’d like?” he asked without moving his eyes from the words he held not ten inches from his face—though, if asked, he wouldn’t have been able to recall a single one of them.
He felt her shoulders shrug against his thigh. “Not really, but maybe two?”
A heartbeat passed before he let himself answer. “Two’s good.”
Matty was silent for a long while after that and he wasn’t at all sure what she was thinking. Was this idle conversation for her? Was she thinking about having kids with him? And if she was, at some point they’d have to figure out their living situation. He had never really lived in a city, not for any length of time, and didn’t really want to. But he knew he would for her. She had a big life and a history and her mom in DC. If she wanted to be in DC, he could understand that. He figured he’d have to do more small animal work; it wasn’t his favorite but he could deal with that. He was about to mention that to her, to tell her he would move to DC to be with her if that was what she wanted, when she spoke again, rendering him almost speechless.
“You’ll have to fence that swimming pond, though,” she said, waving toward the pond in question about a hundred feet from the house. “I’d worry too much about the kids if it wasn’t fenced in.”
“Um, okay,” he said. Not a problem. He and his dad could have it safely fenced in a weekend if that was what Matty wanted. She didn’t seem interested in saying any more; she just dropped her foot down to the porch and gave the swing a gentle nudge. They rocked slowly for a long moment before Dash spoke again.
“Not to push or anything, but I’m assuming this means you’re okay with the whole Kent family tradition of quick marriages.”
She made a noncommittal sound that brought his eyebrows up and his book down. He looked down at her; she looked up at him. “I know not everyone needs a piece of paper to be committed to each other,” he said, “but call me a traditionalist, because I do. We will get married Matty.”
She smiled at him. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Are you laying down the law, Dr. Kent?”
“Yes.”
Her smile broadened, though she was saved from responding by her phone ringing. Given everything that was going on, neither of them were ignoring any calls these days. She looked at the number and rose from her reclined position.
“It’s Charlotte,” she mouthed, before rising from the swing altogether and walking toward the end of the porch. He didn’t take offense that she’d moved away, rather he smiled at the fact that she’d quickly realized that the best location for cell reception in his little valley was the east end of the house.
When she ended the call, she came back to his end of the porch looking a little bit like the cat who found the cream.
“Charlotte said she’s done for the rest of the afternoon. She’s heading back to The Tavern and asked if we wanted to meet her there for dinner and a drink. Of course, I said yes.”
“Of course you did,” he responded. She held out her hand to him and he let her pull him up. When he stood in front of her, she wrapped her arms around him and started nibbling his neck in the way that always got to him.
“We are getting married, Matty,” he said. She tilted her head back and grinned then took his hand and started leading him toward his bedroom.
“In a church. We’re both Catholic, so that will be easy. With our families,” he elaborated as she led him upstairs.
“Now?” she asked as she pulled him to a stop at the foot of his bed and moved her hands to the top button on his jeans.
“What?” he asked, distracted.
“Are we getting married now? Right this minute?” she asked, sliding her hands down along his hips.
“What? No, of course, not.” His hands were slowly tugging the straps of her dress down over her shoulders.
“Then can I make a suggestion?” she asked, leaning into him.
He looked down at her.
She grinned again then went up on her tiptoes, her lips a hairs-breadth away from his. “I think we should stop talking.”
***
Matty was still smiling and still not saying much of anything when they walked into The Tavern a few hours later. Charlotte, who’d been sitting at the bar nursing a glass of wine, turned when they walked in, took one look at them, and rolled her eyes even as she laughed.
“Guess I don’t have to guess how some people spent the afternoon while I was slaving away over computer files,” she said as she walked toward them. She was wearing jeans and a sleevele
ss silk top that fit her figure perfectly. But then again, Charlotte had been wearing nothing but things that fit her perfectly since the day she could afford to. It also helped that she had the kind of body clothes just sat well on. She wasn’t skinny per se, but she was nowhere near voluptuous and had none of the curves that Matty had. Charlotte always said she had a body that was neither here nor there—not small enough to be called petite but not quite full enough to have assets to flaunt either. But whatever her body was, clothes definitely liked it.
Matty laughed then glanced at Dash, who was trying not to look too embarrassed. “She’s just jealous,” she said, giving her friend a kiss on the cheek and then a big hug.
They were about to make their way to a table when Damian Rodriguez trotted down the stairs. Earlier, in his suit, Matty had thought he was a handsome man; now, in jeans, a t-shirt, and even a pair of flip-flops, she thought he looked better yet.
“You’re gawking,” Dash teased, nudging her as Damian came to a stop in front of them and graced them all with a killer grin.
“I’m just surprised by how different he looks out of his suit,” she shot back innocently. Dash rolled his eyes but didn’t seem truly concerned.
“Agent Rodriguez,” Charlotte said.
“Damian,” he reminded her.
“I didn’t realize you were staying here, too,” Charlotte continued.
“I heard you guys talking about it, then Ian and Vivi recommended it too. They are actually joining me for dinner. Maybe we should make it a sixsome?” he asked as the couple in question walked in. Vivi must have said something funny because Ian was laughing and shaking his head.
These Sorrows We See Page 34
