Dead Man District

by Julie Miller

“I saw an unfamiliar vehicle in the neighborhood earlier. It followed us from Grandma’s place.”

  “Followed?” Corie stopped, yanking her arm from his. Futile thrills and chivalry and logical explanations be damned. There was something wrong. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  Matt turned. He cupped her elbows and ran his hands up and down her arms. “My brothers who are cops are looking into it. The van didn’t come to our building or parking garage. I lost it by taking the scenic route home.”

  She didn’t want reassurances. She wanted facts. She knew better than to dismiss the suspicion in his words and posture. “The van was following you? You’re certain? Did you see the driver? Is Evan okay? Was he scared?” The last time she’d felt like the world was falling apart around her, it had been. She didn’t intend to dismiss the things that struck her as odd and be caught off guard and forced into doing something she regretted again. “I need to see Evan. Right now.”

  This time, Matt draped his arm around her shoulders and tucked her to his side. His stride seemed to be longer now, forcing her to hurry her pace. “As far as I could tell, he spent the whole time playing with my watch on the drive home. I doubt he noticed the van.”

  Corie shook her head, feeling equally doubtful. “He notices everything.”

  “He does. I crashed through a wall tonight, made a lot of noise. He came running to make sure I was okay.” She paused and glanced up at him. “I was,” he answered her unspoken question, pulling her back into a quick step beside him. “Evan is, too. My brother Mark is with him. My brothers Pike and Alex are working on tracking down the van, although I only got a partial plate. Chances are the guy was scoping out my truck to see if he could steal it. I was more worried about you being out here by yourself.”

  “I’m fine. I’m going to be fine,” she amended. “I’ve handled worse than a couple of drunks on the bus. Evan is my only concern.”

  Matt’s arm tightened around her, partially lifting her to keep pace with his stride as they climbed the granite steps to their building. He swiped his key card and led her inside. Even being in the lobby, cut off from the cold, windy night, she felt chilled. Seven years ago, when the trouble began with Kenny—the worst year of her life—the terror had all started with someone following her and her son.

  Matt punched the elevator call button. “You won’t do him any good if something happens to you.”

  Corie hurried inside and pressed the button for the seventh floor. “I’m a grown-up. I can take care of myself. He just turned eight. He’s trusting and curious and all I have that’s worth anything.” She was clearly rattled by the incident or she wouldn’t still be clinging to Matt. Once she realized her fingers were clutched in the side of his coat, she tried to release him. But her grip seemed to be locked in place, and, damn it, her eyes were stinging with tears.

  “Hey.” As the elevator doors closed, Matt framed her jaw between his big hands, tilting her face up to his. “Next time you work late, let me know. I will pick you up. And if I’m on shift, I’ll send one of my brothers or my dad.”

  She shook her head between his hands. “We’ve been riding the bus for months. We’re not your responsibility. I can’t ask you to—”

  “You’re not coming home on your own after dark again.” He emphasized his resolute pronouncement by tightening his fingers against her hair and the sides of her neck, gently preventing another shake of her head. A soft huff that could be a wry laugh stirred the bangs on her forehead. “It’s bad for my blood pressure.”

  “Your blood pressure?” She reached up to wind her fingers around his wrists. “I’m the one who’s freaking out.”

  He stroked his thumb across her cheek. His leather glove was cool against her skin, but his firm touch and deep voice swept aside the world long enough for her to take a deep breath. “Let me do this small thing. Please.”

  She needed to think, not react. She needed to use her brain, not her emotions. And most importantly, she needed to get her mental stuff together so she wouldn’t frighten Evan. Matt’s patience and no-nonsense caring gave her enough of a break from her maternal panic to dial it back a notch. She believed him when he said Evan was safe. For that, she was grateful. But she didn’t intend to become a burden to him. Besides, if these odd events did have anything to do with Kenny Norwell, anyone who got involved with her would be in danger. “We’re already an imposition. It shouldn’t be your problem.”

  He didn’t try to lie and say she and the recent events surrounding her and Evan weren’t an upheaval in his life. He didn’t tell her not to worry. He didn’t wheel and deal and promise to take care of her problems for her in exchange for her silence or a roll in the hay or custody of her son the way Kenny would have.

  Instead, Matt planted himself in front of her like the unbending oak he was and held out his hand. “Give me your phone.” He tugged his gloves off with his teeth and held them there while he typed his number into her phone and handed it back to her. “This is faster than pulling my card out of your bag.” The boyish move and garbled sentence were as endearing as that unexpected response to her kiss had been intoxicating. She plucked his gloves from between his lips and held them for him while he pulled out his cell and typed in her number. Now that he could talk clearly, he added, “If you prefer the bus, one of us will ride with you. Offering you a lift doesn’t mean you owe me anything. Just promise you’ll call.”

  When he was done, she tucked each glove into the appropriate pocket of his jacket, just as she did with Evan almost every day when they got home from school. But instead of sending him on to his room to play, as she would a child, Corie wound her arms around Matt’s waist and hugged him tightly, taking note of every hard plane and solid muscle pressed against her. Even though she was of average height, she scarcely reached his shoulders. Still, it felt like a perfect fit when his arms folded around her and he lowered his head to rest his chin against the crown of her hair. Corie nestled in, oddly sad that the elevator was slowing to a stop. “You’re a better friend than I deserve, Matt. But you may not want to get involved with me.”

  “Maybe I do. Maybe I already am.” The elevator doors opened, and he released her to walk side by side down the hallway together. “Have a little faith in me, okay?”

  Corie reached for his hand and laced their fingers together. “Trusting you is the easy part.”

  Chapter Eight

  Corie pushed open the door the moment Matt unlocked it, anxious to see Evan after hearing Matt’s suspicion about the white van.

  As he ushered her inside the shadowed living room, they were greeted by a slightly shorter, equally broad version of Matt. Although his eyes were blue to Matt’s warm brown color, there was no mistaking that this was his brother. Mark Taylor pressed a finger against his lips, urging them to whisper as he nodded toward the couch where Evan was fast asleep with his arm thrown around his dragon and Matt’s watch strapped to his wrist. A statuesque redhead in a paint-stained sweatshirt entered from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. She smiled a greeting to Corie and Matt without saying a word.

  “My brother Mark,” Matt whispered behind her. “His fiancée, Amy Hall. This is Corie, Evan’s mom.”

  Although her eyes barely left her sleeping child, and the relief flooding through her made it difficult to speak, Corie managed to thank the couple before hurrying across the room. She peeled off her gloves and knelt beside the couch to peer into Evan’s sweetly innocent face as he snored softly atop a throw pillow. She brushed a lock of shaggy brown hair off his freckled cheek and cupped the back of his head. He was perfectly fine—exhausted from what had no doubt been an exciting evening for him, but fine. Kenny hadn’t found them. Kenny hadn’t taken her son from her again. Exhaling a sigh of relief that echoed through the room, she pushed to her feet, adjusted the afghan covering him and kissed his cheek.

  “Better?” Matt asked. He must have followed right behind h
er.

  She looked up at him and nodded. “You were right. He’s okay. It’s just...a mother has to know.” She turned Matt’s watch on Evan’s slender wrist to unbuckle it. “You’d better take this now or you may never see it again.”

  Matt stopped her fingers and slipped it back down Evan’s slender wrist. “Let him keep it for tonight. I think it makes him feel safe, like he can cope with anything that stresses him.”

  She wasn’t sure it was the watch so much as whom the watch represented. There were a lot of things about this man that made a person feel safe. Corie squeezed her hand around Matt’s forearm, thanking him for the consideration. “I’ll make sure we return it in the morning.”

  Corie felt a tug from the opposite side as Amy linked arms with her and pulled her toward the bright lights of the kitchen. “Come with me. Let’s go where we don’t have to whisper. I made some hot chocolate to warm us all up. And I want to show you the drawing Evan made.” Her voice grew louder and more exuberant as they left Evan snoozing in the living room. “I’m going to turn it into one of my garden aliens, a miniature one he can keep in his room. If that’s okay. He said he had a spot for it.”

  Amy handed Corie the colored pencil drawing sitting on the table and hurried to the stove to fill a couple of mugs with hot chocolate. “Garden aliens?”

  “Unbutton your coat and sit for a few minutes.” Clearly, Amy felt at home here in Matt’s apartment, as she gestured to a chair at the rustic wood farm table. With Matt’s penchant for working with his hands, she wondered if he had restored, or even built it himself. She didn’t get time to ask as Amy pointed out the whorls of purple, red and yellow on Evan’s drawing. “I see dragon overtones, which will be fun to incorporate. Evan is certainly bold with his color choices. I find that inspiring.”

  Should she be worried about the ever-expanding army of dragons guarding Evan’s room?

  Mark strolled into the kitchen, picking up a half-empty mug from the table and carrying it to his fiancée for seconds as she tore open pouches of instant cocoa and poured hot water from the kettle into each mug. “Amy’s an artist. She works mostly in metals. She’s set up shop in my garage.”

  “Only because mine burned down this past summer.” She handed Corie and Matt each a steaming mug of cocoa before sitting in the chair next to Corie’s. She thrust out her left hand. “Here’s an example of my handiwork. My engagement ring.”

  Corie was left with little choice but to examine the twisted filigree work around the diamond solitaire. It was certainly one of a kind...as she suspected Amy was, too. “What a unique, beautiful ring.”

  Mark squeezed his hands around Amy’s shoulders, and she leaned back into him, holding her hand up to admire the jewelry. “Mark gave me the diamond on a plain white-gold band when he proposed, with his blessing to turn it into whatever I wanted. I melted it down and created the two hearts knotted together around the diamond. The wedding bands I’m making will be plainer because of Mark’s work.”

  Corie cradled the steaming mug in her hands and shrugged. “Wow. You’re making your own wedding jewelry, and I don’t even have a hobby.”

  Matt stood at the counter next to the stove, stirring his hot chocolate. “Because you’re working or studying all the time. Or doing stuff with Evan. Not everybody could handle all that on their plate as well as you do.”

  She smiled at him across the room, silently thanking him for the shout-out of praise. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, that slight tilt at the corner of his firm mouth meant he was smiling back.

  Finally feeling herself warming up, Corie shed her coat while Matt and Mark joined them at the table. She’d had every intention of walking Evan across the hall and getting out of Matt’s hair so that they wouldn’t be any more of an imposition on their evening. But the Taylor brothers and Amy were making her feel like a welcome guest. No, they were making her feel like a friend. Corie couldn’t recall the last time she’d sat down with people her own age and talked about things not related to teaching, classes, work or legal matters. They chatted for another thirty minutes or so while they sipped their cocoa. She got the gist of the wedding Mark and Amy were planning for the summer on the grounds of her grandmother’s farm. She heard a couple of stories about the Lucky 13 crew at the firehouse where the brothers both worked. Matt didn’t add much more than a shrug to Mark’s assertion that Matt had pulled him not once, but twice, from a fire. Even though Mark and Amy dominated the conversation, there was no mistaking the way they included both her and Matt with teasing gibes, complimentary observations about Evan and interesting questions that helped them get to know Corie while she got to know them.

  She imagined the conversation would have gone on a good deal longer until the moment she failed to mask a yawn. She quickly pressed her hand over her mouth. “Sorry about that. It’s not the company, I promise.”

  Mark pushed his chair away from the table as Amy squeezed Corie’s hand and offered her a rueful smile. “My bad. I ramble whenever I start talking about marrying this guy. Matt’s learned to put up with me.” She glanced across the table and winked at the man beside Corie. “I think he might even like me.”

  “He does,” Matt replied. “I said I’d be in the wedding, didn’t I?”

  Amy rose from the table and circled around to hug Matt from behind. “You did.”

  “Come on, Red.” Mark tugged on Amy’s hand. “Let’s let these guys get some sleep. Corie put in a long day, and I’ve got a long one tomorrow.” Matt pulled out Corie’s chair in a sweetly old-fashioned gesture, and they all went into the living room, automatically dropping their voices as they got closer to Evan. After helping Amy into her coat, Mark shook hands with Matt and the two men bumped shoulders in a manly hug. “See you at work, bro.”

  “Thanks for helping out tonight.”

  “Like you haven’t done the same for me.”

  Amy hugged Matt and then reached for Corie, her hug turning into a secretive whisper. “Matt’s a good guy. The best there is. A bit of an odd duck—”

  “Red?” Mark chided, pulling his fiancée away from Corie. “What did we say about matchmaking?”

  Amy’s conspiratorial whisper included Mark now. “That he’s slow as molasses and might need a little nudge?”

  “And on that note, we’ll be going.” Mark opened the door and ushered his fiancée into the hallway ahead of him. “Nice to meet you, Corie.” But apparently, he wasn’t immune to the matchmaking bug, either. He looked beyond her to Matt and winked. “Good night, Molasses.”

  Matt palmed his brother’s face and shoved him out the door. Mark laughed, reached for Amy’s hand, and the engaged couple headed for the elevator as Matt closed the door behind them. When he faced her, she thought she detected the faintest tinge of a blush peeking through his shadow of beard stubble. “Sorry about that. Those two can be...aggressively friendly.”

  Corie turned to hide the blush she was certain was staining her own cheeks and hurried back to the kitchen, where she carried the mugs to the sink and rinsed them out. “It’s obvious they love you very much. It must be nice to have family you can depend on, even on short notice like this.”

  Moving with surprising stealth for a man his size, Matt appeared at the counter beside her and opened the dishwasher to place the mugs she handed him inside. “You don’t have family? I suspected not here in Kansas City because you and Ev are always alone. You never have any company. But no family anywhere? You mentioned St. Louis earlier.”

  “That’s where I grew up. Only child. I have a mother and a stepdad. He was pretty decent. But Mom and I severed ties. I miss the idea of having a mom and a grandmother for Evan, but I don’t miss her.” She could read the unspoken why? in his eyes. Corie shrugged and wet the dishcloth to wipe down the stove and countertop. It wasn’t hard to talk about anymore. She’d made her peace with her choices when she’d changed her name and left St. Louis. “I told you my ex
hurt a lot of people. But he also had a lot of money. Most of it made illegally, I discovered, doing jobs for other criminals. But Mom was willing to overlook that little detail as long as he showered her with gifts and kept me in a beautiful house that was way too big for the three of us.”

  “Kept you?”

  Corie met a wall of Matt Taylor demanding answers and returned to the sink without meeting his probing gaze. He seemed to intuit that the irony of her word choices was more literal that most people might suspect. “He kidnapped Evan when I separated from him. The police didn’t call it kidnapping since he was still a custodial parent. But if I wanted to be with my son, I had to be with Kenny.”

  “You could have divorced him, sued for full custody.”

  Corie shook her head. She’d been a young, vulnerable mess, isolated from any support system and afraid for her life. “The woman I was back then couldn’t have.”

  “But you got stronger. Norwell’s no longer in your life. You do have full custody, right?”

  Corie nodded. “I legally changed our names and moved away from that nightmare. Started life over on my terms.”

  “Is that why the call from your attorney’s office upset you? Do you think your mother or your ex was trying to locate who and where you are now?”

  “My attorney does have that information. But Heath’s office isn’t even sure if anything is missing. They were calling all of his clients to tell us about the break-in, just to cover themselves legally, I suppose.” She’d been so careful for so long, as had her attorney. As far as the world knew, Katie Norwell and her son, Danny, had disappeared from the face of the earth. “Kenny stayed in Jefferson City after he was released from prison. And my mother wouldn’t know the first thing about break-ins and fires.”

  Matt started the dishwasher, perhaps giving her a few moments to tamp down her emotions. “It takes an unusually strong character to start over without any family or friends to help you.”