On Pins and Needles

by Victoria Pade

  What was between them had to be strictly business and nothing more.

  Of course what was between them being anything more was quite possibly only in her imagination anyway. Which made her reaction to him even worse.

  It chafed that she’d been ready to let him kiss her the evening before and he hadn’t. But it was a sign she needed to pay attention to, she told herself for the gazillionth time since hearing his car drive off last night. Yes, it had seemed as if he might have been going to kiss her but even if that was the case, he’d stopped himself. Probably because, despite a little temptation, he wasn’t interested in her as anything more than the daughter of his prime suspects. And that was some thing she’d better not forget.

  Not that she was any more interested in him than he was in her, because she wasn’t. She didn’t know what had gotten into her these last two evenings as he was leaving but now that she knew those bizarre musings about kissing sneaked up on her, she was going to be on guard against them and make sure that it never happened again.

  She really, really had learned her lesson with Noel. Opposites might attract but even when they did, it didn’t work out in the long run. It was the things people had in common that bound them together. Differences only tore them apart.

  And Megan couldn’t go through that again. Not even for a big, strap ping, exception ally handsome guy like Josh Brimley.

  No, she’d been down that road and at the inevitable end of it was too much pain. Pain she’d never put herself through again.

  And that was all there was to it.

  So it was good that he hadn’t kissed her. It was good that he probably wasn’t interested in her. It was good that she could head off whatever unwanted thoughts and images came into her own head from here on.

  Because she and Josh Brimley were just not meant to be. She was sure of it.

  She was going to make sure of it.

  If it was the last thing she ever did.

  That’s how determined she was.

  At the stroke of nine o’clock Megan was ready and waiting to do Josh’s acupuncture.

  But Josh didn’t show.

  He still wasn’t there at nine-fifteen. Or at nine-thirty. Or nine-forty-five.

  By ten she was convinced he wasn’t coming at all and she began to think his agreeing to do the acupuncture before the two of them went out to talk to her neighbors about the skeleton had been a ruse. That he’d agreed to it exactly for this purpose—to get her to sit there and wait for him while he went on his inter views alone.

  She was working up a full head of steam about being duped when the phone rang and Josh’s voice came in answer to her, “Bailey Holistic Center.”

  “Megan? It’s Josh. Look, I’m sorry I missed our appointment but there’s been a change of plans for today.”

  “Oh?” she said icily, certain he was on the verge of telling her he’d had second thoughts about her over seeing his investigation and had gone out alone.

  “I’m stuck at the office. Apparently word got around over the weekend about the grave in your backyard and I have a whole slew of folks already lined up to tell me what they think they know about it. It looks like I’ll have to stay here all day and hear ’em out just in case there’s some thing to what some of them have to say.”

  “Are you just making this up to get out of the acupuncture again?”

  “You’re welcome to keep the rest of our date today and come over to see for yourself. You can sit in on this stuff if you want to. But no, I’m not just pulling your leg to get out of the acupuncture. I’m swamped.”

  Megan’s head of steam diffused and she fought the ridiculous skitter of some thing sensual that went through her at the thought of Josh pulling her leg in a more literal sense.

  “So that’s where you are? At your office? You haven’t been out talking to people without me?”

  “I haven’t been out at all. I stopped in here on my way to your office to check on things, see if I had any messages, and there was already a whole group of people waiting for me. More have shown up since then and I’ve given up thinking I’m getting out of here any time today.”

  “And I can sit in on the inter views?”

  “Be my guest. Millie is trying to get some kind of order going right now and then she’ll start bringing them in. Come on over if you want.”

  “I’ll be right there,” she said without hesitation. “Don’t talk to anybody else until I am.”

  She heard him laugh slightly. “Yes, ma’am,” he said facetiously.

  But Megan was in too much of a hurry to make amends for her tactless command. She was anxious to get to his office before he inter viewed more people than it seemed like he already had.

  So, rather than addressing her lack of tact, she merely hung up and charged out of her office.

  Of course even as she did she didn’t admit to herself that a large part of her eagerness and excitement was due to the fact that she was about to get to see Josh again.

  But some where around the peripheries of her mind she knew it anyway.

  Center Street was lined on both sides by picturesque old buildings that housed shops and small businesses. Some were clap board, some brick. Some were one story, some two, and a few three. All were lovingly kept up and adorned with personal touches like bright blue awnings or gingham curtains in the windows or flower pots on the sills.

  These quaint establishments ran the length of Elk Creek’s long main thorough fare until it turned into a circle drive around the town square. Then the buildings were larger and more austere—the tall steepled church, the red brick Molner Mansion that was now the town’s medical facility, and the court house.

  Like the Molner Mansion, the court house, too, was a red brick building. It stood a stately four stories high and was the site of the public works department, the post office, the mayor’s office, the court, the city council meeting place, the sheriff’s office and the jail—all two cells of it.

  As Megan cut across the town square to get to the court house she could already see people standing in clusters around the entrance. It was as if the discovery in her backyard had prompted a social event.

  Her approach caused a ripple of whispers—most of them about who she was—followed by silence as all eyes turned toward her.

  Megan ignored her on lookers and went straight to the court house door. When she reached it one man opened it for her and she murmured a thank-you before going inside.

  There were even more people filling the building’s lobby, nearly surrounding the central information desk, standing around like reporters waiting for a news-break.

  Their reaction to her was much the same as their outside counter parts and again Megan paid them little attention as she went to the sheriff’s office—the first door on the left.

  The small, stark office was also jammed from the door to the reception counter that cut the room in half. Behind the counter an extremely short, chubby woman with pewter-gray hair was shouting over the voices.

  “Josh’ll see you all in time. Just take one of these numbers I’m writin’ on these pieces of paper and wait your turn.”

  “Are you Millie?” Megan asked when the older woman at tempted to give her a number.

  “’Course,” the woman answered as if it were a silly question.

  “I’m Megan Bailey,” Megan said, hoping she wouldn’t have to insist on seeing Josh out of turn.

  She didn’t. Millie did a double take, then said, “You can go on in.”

  “Thanks.”

  Megan squeezed through the crowd to get around the counter, into the clear space that ran from the back side of it to a gray metal desk she assumed was Millie’s. The desk stood directly in front of a door where Sheriff was lettered on the glazed glass in the upper half. Megan knocked on the wooden frame that surrounded it.

  “Yeah,” came the impatient call from inside.

  Megan opened the door only enough to slide through it before closing it again behind her.

 
; “Be with you in a minute,” Josh said from where he was standing at a file cabinet in the far corner of the room, looking through the top drawer.

  His back was to her and since he didn’t so much as glance over his shoulder to see who had entered his office, Megan was left with the rear view of him. Which meant impressively broad shoulders encased in another crisp uniform shirt, a torso that narrowed in a sharp V to his waist where his shirt was tucked into tight jeans, and that Greek god derriere that she suddenly imagined naked.

  If anything was worse than imagining him kissing her, it was imagining his bare rear end, and Megan shuddered slightly at her own impropriety, yanking her gaze away and forcing herself to study the spare office instead.

  His desk was an old wooden schoolteacher’s desk with a plain, functional vinyl chair behind it. There was that sole gray metal filing cabinet he was still rifling through, two visitor’s chairs in front of the desk, and an over stuffed tan sofa against the opposite wall. And that was about it. There weren’t any pictures to corrupt the eggshell paint and the floor was covered by a serviceable indoor-outdoor carpet of industrial blue.

  He did have a big window, though, that Megan guessed would look out onto Center Street if the blinds hadn’t been pulled—probably to keep the gathering of towns folk from watching what was going on in the office today.

  Josh finally turned away from the filing cabinet.

  He was freshly shaved and Megan caught a whiff of his after shave. But she tried not to notice how nice it smelled. Just as she tried to stick to her guns about so many other things when it came to him. Like how exception ally well put-together were the sharp angles and planes of his face. Like how tall and straight he stood. Like the fact that his eyes were piercing, and that merely being in that small room with him—even for the reason she was in that small room with him—made her feel more alive, more centered, more content, more complete…

  Back to being crazy, she thought, working hard at regaining some semblance of her sanity.

  “Good morning,” she said in belated greeting then, her tone business like.

  “Is it still only morning? Feels like I’ve already been here for hours.”

  “Have you seen that many people?” Without me, she wanted to add but she didn’t.

  “Half a dozen or so.”

  “Have they told you anything I should know?”

  “Most of them were more interested in what they could get out of me in the way of gossip than in telling me anything.”

  “And the ones who had some thing to say?” Megan persisted.

  He gave her a sly smile and answered with a question of his own, “Are you sure your parents are alive and well and the same people they were before you left Elk Creek?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “So far some of the theories I’ve heard are that your mother did in your father and ran off with another man, and that your father did in your mother and ran off with another woman.”

  “No, they’re definitely alive and well and the same people they’ve always been.”

  “And seeing as how the skeleton is human we can rule out Merle Sutter’s claim that your folks stole his blue-ribbon-winning horse Matilda, killed her in some heathen ritual—his words—and buried the bones in the yard.” Josh scrunched up his handsome face, scratched the nape of his neck and said, “You can see how my day’s gone so far.”

  “And there are so many more waiting to talk to you.”

  “Don’t remind me. I think somebody declared today a holiday and forgot to tell me. Half the town seems to have taken the day off just to come in and solve this mystery for me.”

  “Only half?” Megan joked.

  “Maybe two-thirds.”

  Josh seemed to actually see her for the first time then, giving her the once-over from top to toe to top again. “But you’re looking like a little ray of sunshine,” he said with a note of appreciation in his tone.

  Okay, maybe she had paid particular attention to her appearance today. But not because of Josh, she’d assured herself. She’d opted for the bright yellow jumper that went over a white, long-sleeved under-dress because she hadn’t wanted to meet her neighbors for the first time in so many years not looking cheery and put-together. And yes, she’d coiled her hair into a knot on the back of her head and jabbed two ornate chop stick-like skewers through it because she thought it gave her a somewhat more professional look. It hadn’t had anything to do with Josh.

  Even if he had popped into her mind a time or two—or three or four—along the way…

  “I didn’t want to look sloppy,” she said in answer to his ray of sunshine comment.

  “You definitely don’t look sloppy. You look nice.”

  “Thanks,” she said, wishing that didn’t please her as much as it did. “Shouldn’t we get started?” she asked when he went on studying her as if he’d for got ten that he was here to do a job and there were a lot of people waiting to see him.

  “Sure,” he said with what seemed to be a jolt out of some sort of reverie. Then he nodded toward the visitor’s chairs. “Why don’t you pull one of those around to the corner back here so you can see who I’m talking to. And I think we’d better set some ground rules.”

  “For who?”

  “For you. My letting you be in on this is not by-the-book.”

  “If my parents were here they’d have the right to face their accusers.”

  “In court. Not in the initial inter view. You’re here just to satisfy yourself that I’m not overlooking anything that leads away from your parents. Period. And if it seems to me that someone is holding some thing back because you’re here, I’m going to ask you to wait outside. And I want you to go without an argument. Is that clear?”

  “What if I think you aren’t delving deeply enough into some thing or that you’re leaving an important question unasked?”

  “I think I know how to do my job. But if there’s some thing really important—and I mean really important—that you think I’m neglecting, I suppose you can pipe up a little. But what I don’t want is for this to become some kind of campaign to convince anyone that your folks are innocent or to defend them against any remarks you might take offense to. If you get into any of that I’ll do today’s inter views—and the rest of the investigation—alone.”

  “You expect me to sit by and not defend my parents if they’re being slandered and defamed?”

  “I expect you to sit by and let me handle it. You have to know going in that there’s likely to be some things said about your folks that won’t make you happy. From what I’ve heard, they didn’t really fit in around here and Elk Creek is just conservative enough to be automatically suspicious of things and people who are different than they are. Now, with a body turning up in your backyard, those suspicions are all going to come to the surface and seem to be legitimized. If you can’t listen to what might be said about your family without debating it, you can’t stay. You’ll have to leave it to me to wade through what’s just bias and what might be evidence.”

  “And you will be looking for leads in other directions,” Megan said with a note of warning in her tone.

  “I’ll be looking for anything that seems pertinent. No matter who it’s about or what it is. If you don’t think you can handle that—”

  “I know, I know, I can’t stay,” she said, letting him know she’d heard that edict enough. “Don’t worry, I can handle it.”

  Josh stared at her another moment. But this time, rather than appreciation for how she looked, she read doubt in his expression.

  “I’ll be fine,” she asserted, holding her head high.

  He still didn’t seem convinced but he finally took those midnight-blue eyes off her, pushed a button on the intercom on his desk, and said, “Okay, Millie, you can start sending ’em in.” Then he released the button and those blue eyes returned to Megan. “Here we go. Come on back and make yourself comfortable.”

  Megan did just that, doing as he’d suggested and pulling one
of his visitor’s chairs to the corner behind Josh’s desk and chair. From that position she could see the other visitor’s chair that faced the desk and the back of Josh again as he also sat down.

  It was either an opportune spot or a dangerous one and she had to remind herself to keep her focus off of the nape of his thick, strong neck where his hair was cut short and very precisely, as well as off his broad shoulders where they rose above his chair back.

  After all, she lectured herself, she was, in essence, her parents’ representative and she needed to pay attention to every detail of what went on in that room. Not to every detail of the town sheriff.

  Then in came the first of the number holders and from that moment on even Josh was less of a distraction as one story or suspicion wilder than the next was woven.

  It was no surprise that, as Josh had predicted, her family was what most people wanted to talk about. The fact that she was there to listen to it tempered some of what was said but it didn’t stop it.

  “All that peace, love and don’t-hurt-the-animals was just a cover-up,” was one claim. “Those Baileys were environmental terrorists hidin’ from the authorities and that body in their yard was an FBI or a CIA agent that caught up with them.”

  “A cult,” came another report. “It was a cult they ran out there. Keep diggin’ and you’ll probably find hundreds more bodies buried from a mass suicide.”

  “Free love ain’t never as free as it sounds,” one sanctimonious man informed them. “That’s what was goin’ on out there. Free love gone bad.”

  “They were fanatics about not eatin’ meat,” a local rancher’s wife pointed out. “They acted like we were all heathens because we did. Every body knew they tore up the slaughter house and that poor person buried at the Bailey place was likely a hunter they took care of the same way.”

  Yet another opinion was, “It wasn’t only pottery they were craftin’, if you ask me. Look into the evil arts. Witchcraft’s what they were probably practicin’ and this has some thing to do with that. Mark my words.”