The Closer He Gets

by Janice Kay Johnson

  HAVING TESS HERE, in his house, felt right. He’d had women to dinner and occasionally even to spend the night wherever he was living before, but never thought of them as belonging.

  Sheer desperation gripped him. No bonds in his life had ever lasted, except for the one with his mother, and that was eroded by bitterness.

  His mother might have had nothing to do with Sheila’s death. And it was true that even solid marriages often ended after the death of a child. He and Bran, in their misery and stubbornness, had deepened the split.

  But Zach had tried again, with his first stepfather and a younger stepsister. Once Mom had announced she was leaving him, packed and taken Zach with her, he’d never seen either again. Her next husband, Lowell, had sensed a boy’s need and tried to be a father to him. Mom had taken care of that, too, leaving Zach...numb.

  I’ve been numb ever since, he thought bemusedly. He didn’t want to feel attachment for anyone. Inevitably, it resulted in hurt. Mom had been every bit as effective as that crap they gave alcoholics to make them puke when they took a drink.

  He shouldn’t have invited Tess over. She tugged at him and that made her dangerous. She could make him feel. But he didn’t have in him the ability to trust that what other people called love would last. And yet his need to be with her seemed to be more powerful than his fears.

  At least the last time she’d been here they’d been surrounded by other people. He hadn’t given her a personal tour, so that now a picture of her in every single room was burned into his brain.

  Upstairs he watched as she stopped in the middle of the larger room and turned slowly in place.

  “This is wonderful. I love all the interesting angles the ceiling forms.” She sent him a sly look. “It would be perfect for wallpaper.”

  It was when she stepped into the smaller room that her face lit with joy. “Oh, Zach! You added a skylight.”

  “Yep.” It was a hell of a lot easier to add a skylight during the roofing process than later.

  That’s not what he was thinking about now, though.

  Something about the late-afternoon light pouring down on her made her scattering of freckles stand out. Because of them, he noticed that small bump on the bridge of her nose, too. Most often, he was too aware of her sexy mouth and riveting eyes to see the girl-next-door quality of the rest of her face. Now, gazing upward, she looked...natural. Real. There was no artificial construct to her unlike—

  He frowned.

  Unlike his mother, an undeniably beautiful woman, but one who had always used a lot of makeup, hair coloring and styling, clothes, whatever tools she could find to enhance that beauty. Exercise wasn’t for its own sake or because it was good for her health. Nope, she saw it as body sculpting.

  His mother struck poses. She was beautifully made up before she came to the breakfast table.

  His mother didn’t let men spend the night until they married her. As he got older and more cynical, Zach had wondered how shocked those husbands were the first time they saw the woman behind the mask.

  Tess, he thought, never wore one. And yet she was beautiful.

  He’d been silent so long she turned her head in gentle inquiry.

  Talk. Distract her. Distract me.

  “I’m still debating between putting a large bathroom in here versus a small one and walk-in closet.”

  Seemingly oblivious to his turmoil, she said promptly, “The closet has my vote. Otherwise you’ll almost have to build one tucked under the eaves in the bedroom somehow, but I like the idea of bookcases and a window seat along that wall.” She pointed.

  The minute she said it, he was sold. He’d had in mind built-in bookcases somewhere, but hadn’t thought of a window seat.

  In fact, as they finished the tour, she gave Zach several good ideas. She had both an amazing eye and a practical bent. She knew what could be done and how much it would cost to do it. His invitation tonight might not have been so dumb, after all.

  This wouldn’t be the first time he’d liked a woman he slept with, Zach reflected. That didn’t mean anything lasting came of it.

  But along with a fervent hope they actually made it to bed, Zach was still edgy. The fact that spending time with her had even set him to analyzing his own emotional state wasn’t a good sign.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t buy an old house,” he commented as he started on dinner. Cooking gave him an excuse not to look at her—and chicken tacos didn’t take long.

  Of course, she insisted on helping and was chopping cilantro.

  “I thought about it, but I wouldn’t have been able to do as much of the work myself as you plan to. I added enough charm to my house to satisfy me.” She smirked. “Didn’t have to replace the roof or plumbing. Plus, there were no big surprises.”

  Zach grimaced at that. “My first one, the bathroom looked solid. I was going to replace the vanity, new vinyl flooring. You know, just spruce it up a little. And then I tore up the ancient linoleum to find major rot. Had to gut the whole room and replace most of the pipes in the house. Some poor sucker was lucky he and the toilet he was sitting on didn’t plummet into the basement one fine morning. Pretty undignified way to die.”

  Tess giggled. He loved the ripple of sound. His body tightened as he imagined feeling the vibration when she laughed.

  While they ate they talked about anything and everything except the way they’d met, Andrew Hayes and the mounting threats. Zach had yet to ask about her meeting with the Stimson detectives and DA, but he saved that, too.

  Instead they talked about the little stuff—what they liked to read, the kind of music they listened to, movies that interested them. College, sports they’d played.

  The stuff, he realized, that was usually filler for him, a stage required before he could get a woman in bed. He was disconcerted to discover how hungry he was to learn all that Tess was willing to tell him.

  Another bad sign.

  He failed to head her off before they segued into more personal information. She told him about her mother, who’d died of breast cancer, and he talked about how much, as a kid, he’d idolized his big brother, Bran.

  Her gaze softened and her forehead crinkled in perplexity. “Splitting two kids up like your parents did seems wrong. Maybe especially brothers.”

  “It was our choice.” He saw that his harshness had startled her. Damn. He shouldn’t have let himself get drawn into this. He didn’t talk about Sheila. Not to anyone.

  Yeah, but he was back in Clear Creek now.

  “There was more to it,” he said brusquely, making a decision. “Uh...can I pour you a cup of coffee?”

  Her expression suggested she knew he was stalling. “Not yet.”

  “We had a sister.” Had was such a powerful word in this context. “Sheila. She was three years younger than me. Bran’s three years older. We were evenly spaced.” As if that mattered. “When Sheila was six, she was raped and murdered.”

  Tess’s shock was quickly followed by compassion that softened her face. “Oh, Zach.”

  “I found her body.” He still had occasional nightmares about it. “Someone took her out of her bedroom in the middle of the night. She wasn’t ten feet from the back porch. Under—” he cleared his throat “—a big maple tree.”

  His head turned, allowing him to see the backyard through small-paned windows. To where another maple tree shaded the grass. If he’d had any intention of staying in this house, he’d cut the damn tree down.

  Haltingly at first, he told Tess the whole story. About the investigation, the obvious suspicion of his father, the angry voices from behind his parents’ bedroom door—the only thing that had broken the thick silence that otherwise enveloped their home.

  At some point Tess reached across the table and took his hand in hers. A minute later he looked down to see that he was hold
ing on as if that grip was all that kept him from plummeting. No matter how fine her build, she was strong enough to hold on.

  “They never made an arrest?”

  Tearing his gaze from their linked hands, he shook his head. “Over the years I’ve wondered how competent the investigation was. Supposedly they didn’t get anything useful from trace evidence, which is a little hard to believe.”

  “That’s really why you’re here, isn’t it?” she said suddenly.

  “Yeah. The twenty-five-year anniversary is coming up. It may be hopeless, but answers can sometimes be found even this long after the fact.”

  “Why did you wait so long?”

  Loaded question. He’d balked at directly confronting the possibility that either of his parents was guilty or bore some of the responsibility for something so terrible.

  Or maybe he’d only been clinging to the comfort of feeling numb. And no wonder. He wasn’t enjoying the reawakening of painful memories.

  “I always had the goal of becoming a detective,” he told her. That was true enough. “I wanted to know I had the skills to open a cold case.”

  “So...how are you going about it?”

  He made his answer vague, talking in general about investigative methods. Finally he shrugged. “I may hit a dead end, but I have to try.”

  Tess nodded, but still looked perplexed. “I can see why your sister’s murder created a wedge between your parents, but I don’t understand what it had to do with you and your brother.”

  “We were each angry at the other parent. And angry at each other for supporting the wrong parent. Contact just...dwindled.” He shrugged. “It happens.”

  “I suppose so,” she said slowly.

  “Finding Bran again was...” He finally settled for simple. “Really good. But our relationship isn’t easy. I don’t know if it ever will be. He gets mad if I even hint that Dad might have done it, and I have trouble understanding how he could have stayed in this area, become a cop and then a detective, and yet never seriously investigated. It’s like...” He hesitated.

  “He doesn’t want to find out what actually happened,” she finished for him.

  That was his guess, too.

  “It means, deep down, he’s afraid your dad did do it.”

  That would be it. And this conversation was over. He pushed back his chair. “I don’t know about you, but I could use that cup of coffee now.”

  She watched him steadily but didn’t comment on his retreat. Zach did hate having to let go of her hand. But, damn, as hard as he’d been squeezing, she was lucky he hadn’t crunched any bones.

  She rose and cleared the table while he started the coffee. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she put leftovers in what containers she could find. The gleam of the kitchen light off her glossy hair kept catching his eye. He’d like to feel it slipping between his fingers while he kissed her. One long step and he could tug her into his arms. Lean back against the counter, maybe, and pull her close. Her long body would align perfectly with—

  “There should be enough for your dinner tomorrow night,” she said.

  He blinked. Enough...? Oh.

  “You know you may never find out for sure, don’t you?” she said.

  Great. Did they have to circle back around to this? Even so, he made himself think about what she’d said. It was true that he’d tried to make himself accept the possibility—no, likelihood—of failure, but he wasn’t sure he really had. “I tend to be stubborn. You ask one question at a time and keep asking them.” He released a long breath, knowing he was being evasive. “But, yes. Of course, I know.”

  “If your father did it...”

  Her hesitation told him where she was going with this. “Then he took the truth with him to the grave. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  Her eyes were big and somber and so damn beautiful. “I suppose.”

  Best way to get her off the subject would be to kiss her.

  Yeah, but he needed to think long and hard about the consequences of starting anything more with her.

  “Bran and my father must have talked about it,” he argued. “If I can get Bran to open up...”

  “But surely he and your father wouldn’t have stayed close if he’d made any kind of admission.”

  “That’s true, but maybe Bran deliberately misunderstood something Dad said.”

  She frowned, thoughtful. “What do you think? Looking back, was there anything that bothers you in how he treated your sister?”

  He shifted irritably as they sat back down. “Who thinks that way as a kid? You take your parents for granted.” He didn’t want to answer, because if he’d had faith in his father then, his childhood would have been different. He wouldn’t have lost his brother. “No,” he said hoarsely. “If he hadn’t lied about being up during the night, I never would have thought it was possible he’d do something like that.”

  She nodded. “It would be a stranger who might need to kill her to keep her quiet, you know. Sad to say, plenty of parents sexually molest their kids and the kids don’t tell anyone. And fathers...have plenty of opportunities. Your dad wouldn’t have had to take her outside in the middle of the night.”

  Zach stared at her, stunned by her simple logic. As a kid, he wouldn’t have had any way of knowing that what she said was true. As an adult...had he still been letting himself think like that kid? Could he investigate with his emotions so tangled?

  After a minute Tess said tentatively, “Bran could be afraid you’re out to prove your dad did it. If you tell him what you just told me, it might help.”

  He gave a humorless laugh and shook his head. “I was the jerk the last time we talked about this. I like to think I’m a reasonably mature human being. But with him...”

  “You fall back to reacting like you did when you were both kids.”

  She saw a lot more clearly than he did these days. Or ever? And...should he worry about the fact that he’d never had this kind of talk with a woman before? Or anybody?

  Shaking off both thoughts for later consideration, he said ruefully, “Sad but true. We were good friends, but we fought a lot, too.” Because it felt necessary to hide the mess he was inside, he grinned crookedly. “No way was I going to let him be the boss of me.”

  Tess wrinkled her nose even as she laughed, letting him see her as a girl, freckled, almost plain, but...luminous.

  “It happens to all of us,” she said. “Every once in a while, Dad and I squabble and I realize I’m mad for no good reason at all. I have my triggers and he probably does, too. He has trouble accepting my independence, for one.”

  Zach nodded. If he ever had a little girl, he might be the same. No, would be the same. He’d be scared to death something would happen to her. A good reason not to have children.

  As much to divert himself as her, he said, “I guess Bran and I have a ways to go.”

  “But you have the chance now,” Tess said gently. “I’m sorry you’ve had to spend so much time protecting me. It’s probably kept you from getting as far as you’d hoped with your investigation.”

  “Sheila died twenty-five years ago. What’s a few more days or weeks at this point?”

  She looked worried but nodded her acceptance.

  “Back to your problem,” he said abruptly. It was past time to remember he was in this to protect her. She wouldn’t be here otherwise. “I have an idea, but I’ll need your permission.”

  “An idea?”

  “I’d like to install some hidden cameras around your house to try to catch one of these bastards in action.”

  Tess didn’t as much as blink for a minute. “How would you hide them?” she asked.

  “You’ve got a lot of shrubbery out there. Trellises that would be good camouflage. I’m thinking, if your neighbor gives us the okay, o
f hanging one on his eaves pointed at your bedroom window.”

  “But at night, would there be enough light to make anything out?”

  “They’ll have infrared. Wouldn’t hurt if you leave on more lights, too. They’d assume they’ve got you scared. Front and back porch lights, for starters, but maybe a bathroom light or hall light, too. Leave curtains or blinds open on any other windows on that side of the house.”

  He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to plan for another episode like the last one, but she took only a moment to decide before nodding.

  “It’s a good idea. But if they’re watching the house and see you doing the installation...”

  “I doubt they’re watching the house twenty-four-seven. Tomorrow is Sunday. I can head over to Mt. Vernon or Burlington to buy the cameras.”

  She nodded.

  “Unless you intend to work Monday, I might wait until Tuesday to install them. I can use my lunch break. With you at work, there’s no reason for them to be hanging around your place.”

  “I...was planning to take Monday off. Thank you,” she said, holding herself with a dignity that told him how much effort it was costing her. “And let me know what the cameras cost. As soon as I get home, I’ll call Chad next door. It might be just as well if I tell him what’s been happening, anyway.”

  “I agree.”

  “On that note—” she pushed back her chair “—it’s time for me to go home.”

  Zach wanted to beg her to stay. Partly because he hated the idea of her spending even one more night alone, waiting for her phone to ring or the scratch of a branch at her window. Or a whole lot worse.

  But, maybe even more, because he wanted to take her to bed.

  Except for holding her hand while he told her more than he’d ever told another person about his past, he had managed not to touch Tess. She’d made her feelings about it clear. He felt like a jerk when he caught himself thinking about how he could undermine her resolve.

  Besides, tonight was a whack upside the head. He’d peeled himself open for her. He felt raw enough without risking the possibility that sex with her would be as different from anything he’d experienced as tonight’s dinner-table conversation had been. Tess threatened his resolve never to fully trust anyone, to never give another person the ability to hurt him. To never even toy with the idea that he was in love.