The Damsel in This Dress

by Marianne Stillings

  For the next few minutes the brothers discussed the pros and cons of each person Soldier had interviewed. Snapping his notebook closed, Soldier said, “This is probably all making your head hurt. I’ll take it from here, little brother.”

  Taylor laughed. “Hey, that reminds me. The lovely Dr. Claire decided to release me tomorrow morning. Can you pick me up?”

  “Well, if she’s that lovely, maybe she’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Naw,” he snorted. “I want my big brother. Besides, she’s one of those what you’d call cool and aloof beauties.”

  Soldier paused for a moment, honing in on his brother’s tone of voice. Interesting, he thought. Very interesting. “So, Taylor. You gonna go for it?”

  Silence. Then, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you like her. I think you should do something about it. Hell, she’s a doctor. Mom would be so proud.”

  Taylor made a rude sound with his lips. “Shut up,” he chided. “I’ve sworn off women. You know that.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. You like her, and I think she likes you. Not all females are like the former ex-Mrs. McKennitt.”

  Taylor grunted. “Yeah? Well what about you and the adorable Miss Betsy? You put the moves on her yet? Don’t wait too long, big brother. One of these days she’s going to get over all that shit her mother handed her, and she’s going to realize she’s cute, and some guy is going to luck out right about then. You want it to be you, or not?”

  Leaning back in his chair, Solider ran his fingers through his hair. “Doesn’t matter. You’re the marrying kind and I’m not. Besides, Betsy is made to be a wife and mother. She’s not the kind for casual affairs, and that’s all I’m interested in.”

  “Now who’s full of bull?”

  Soldier had told Betsy that Denial was a river in Egypt. Yeah, well it still was. “What time are they springing you?”

  Taylor didn’t answer right away, and Soldier knew his brother was gauging whether to pursue their conversation. Finally, “Eleven.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there. In the meantime, I’m going to do some checking on this Linda Mattson.”

  “Who?”

  “She was the woman who left a few months back to get married. Betsy replaced her as managing editor.”

  “So, you’re thinking somebody else wanted that job badly enough to become obsessed with it.”

  “Not bad, Mr. McKennitt. You ever thought of becoming a detective?”

  Taylor laughed while Soldier stood and began stacking his papers with his free hand. “My gut tells me something was too convenient about Linda Mattson’s sudden departure and the fact that she was never heard from again. I asked several people about her today—people who knew her well—and the picture I’m getting is not good. In fact, my instincts tell me her disappearance is very much connected with this whole thing.”

  “Like, maybe she’s been in hiding and maybe she’s behind this whole thing?”

  “No. More like, maybe she’s dead.”

  Chapter 16

  Betsy locked her desk and covered her keyboard just as Soldier finished up his interviews in the conference room.

  Walking to her desk, he stood near her. Very near her. So near, she could feel the heat from his body, and it excited her to the point where she knew she couldn’t be relied upon to produce coherent speech. So she said nothing, just looked up at him and smiled. Like an idiot.

  “Hungry?” he said.

  Oh, baby, am I, she thought. Tucking her purse under her arm, she nodded.

  “Where can we get a bite?”

  Pick your spot and dig in. I’m all yours. “You want Italian? Mexican? Um, sushi? Port Henry’s got them all.”

  He looked down at her, his eyes probing hers. “You tell me. What are you hungry for?”

  You! “I can cook tonight. Let’s stop by the store on our way home.”

  An hour later they were in Betsy’s kitchen. The aroma of bubbling spaghetti sauce filled the room, mingling with the scent of freshly chopped basil, oregano, and Parmesan cheese. Soldier had changed into jeans and a sweater, while Betsy still wore her work clothes, over which she’d tied an apron printed with pumpkins and autumn leaves. They were both nursing glasses of burgundy.

  Betsy tried not to think about how right this all felt, she cooking while Soldier sat at the table reading the paper. She tried to pretend she didn’t wonder what the sound of children’s laughter coming from the living room would be like, or how it would feel to have a chubby-cheeked toddler with blue, blue eyes smiling up at her. She tried not to imagine finishing up and heading for bed upstairs with Soldier, his long, lean, strong body ready for hers, warming her, filling her up with love and passion. She tried not to think of any of those things, and failed miserably.

  After all, this whole mess would get cleared up eventually, and when it was, Soldier would get on his horse and ride on out of Dodge and back to his regular life. He hadn’t said a word to her about the long term, seeing her again when this was done. Sure, he liked her well enough, probably, but he obviously wasn’t looking for any kind of permanence. At least, not with her.

  As she attended to the pasta, stirring the boiling water, she said, “Can you tell me about anything you found out today?”

  He took a sip of wine, then studied the translucent red liquid in his glass. “No, not really. I have some things I need to check on, plus a ton of paperwork, so I’ll be working a few more hours after dinner. Also, Winslow e-mailed me the list of things thought to be missing on that breaking and entering the other night at the dry cleaner’s, and I need to do a follow-up on that.”

  He took another sip of wine. “Just so you’ll know, I need to touch base with Stewart. He’s doing the legwork on the Spangler murder, and I may have to go down to Seattle myself for a few days. You’ll have to come with me.”

  “I can’t. I have a job.” She emptied the boiled pasta into a strainer. Steam fogged the kitchen windows as she slid the noodles onto a platter and set it on the table next to the bowl of sauce. Soldier filled his plate as though he hadn’t eaten in twenty years and added some sauce.

  Without looking up, he said, “I have a job, too. It’s called keeping you alive.” Rolling some pasta onto his fork, he said, “This looks good. Where’d you learn how to cook?”

  Betsy stood with her back against the sink and watched him virtually devour her dinner. Fall in love with me and you can eat like this every night, pal. And the dessert . . . ooh-la-la.

  “I learned to cook by cooking,” she said, taking a seat and filling her own plate. “My mother decided when I was about nine or ten that cooking was a skill I should acquire and one she should relinquish, so she taught me the basics, and the rest I got from cookbooks.”

  Soldier looked up from his plate, a satisfied glint in his eyes. “You have learned well, young Jedi.”

  Betsy poured herself more wine just as Soldier said, “Tell me everything you remember about Linda Mattson.”

  “Linda? You’re not thinking—”

  He raised his hand in a hold-it-right-there gesture. “Don’t draw any conclusions from my questions. Just tell me.”

  “I’ve already told you everything I know. She was a nice woman, she worked hard, she got married and moved to Minnesota, and I miss her.”

  “How close were you?”

  “We were friends.”

  “Friends enough for her to e-mail you or write to you from Minnesota?”

  “Well, I thought so, but she never did.”

  Lifting his glass to his lips, he said, “Didn’t that bother you? Make you wonder a little, how she could be your friend then just vanish like that, with hardly a word?”

  Betsy folded her arms across her stomach. “I told you days ago, yes, it seemed odd, but there was nothing we could do about it.”

  “Okay. So, tell me about Carla.”

  “Carla? But you don’t think . . . Carla?” Betsy scoffed. “What, like Carla is clawing her way to the top of the
Port Henry Ledger publishing empire, circulation twenty thousand? That she would stalk and murder all the way to my job? Or is it Ryan’s job she’s after?” Betsy giggled. “That’s too silly to even think about. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “But crazy people do crazy things for crazy reasons. It doesn’t make sense to us, as long as it makes sense to her.”

  Betsy took a few bites of dinner, letting Soldier’s words simmer inside her head. She was coming to grips with the fact that her stalker probably was somebody she knew, and the idea scared the hell out of her.

  Somebody she knew, but didn’t know well at all. Who could that possibly be? One of the faces she saw every day was false, a lie. How could she ever trust her own judgment again if she wasn’t with it enough to spot a stalker-murderer among her acquaintances?

  Soldier polished off his dinner and was spooning the last of the sauce over the remaining spaghetti.

  Betsy dear, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Betsy sighed. Oh, Loretta, if only.

  Soldier looked up at her. Gosh, his eyes were blue. Betsy felt the pull of his attraction more powerfully each time she was near him. She didn’t think she could take much more of being around him and keeping her hands off him, or of him keeping his off her.

  “Port Henry’s a nice place,” he said, oblivious to her lustful thoughts. “I like the small town feel of it, and yet it’s close to the city.”

  “When I was a little girl, on Saturdays, Daddy would take me down to the ice cream place. He would always have a hot fudge sundae and I would always have a banana split.”

  “Never varied?”

  “Nope.”

  “Creatures of habit?”

  “Yep. When I find something I like, I stick with it. Forever.”

  He sat back, shoving his empty plate away. “Are we still talking about banana splits?”

  Betsy lifted a shoulder. “Is it safer that way, Mr. Isolationist Policy?”

  “Yep.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-three.”

  “Ever been married?”

  He stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. “It has always been my plan to stay single.”

  Betsy clasped her hands in front of her and smiled knowingly. “That’s probably a good plan, considering how arrogant and dictatorial you are. But you make it sound as though it’s always been your choice. Maybe the women you’ve known have taken one look and run for the hills.”

  He smirked at her. “Hey, I’m very easy to live with. Just ask my horse.”

  “You live in a stable environment, do you?”

  He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. She leaned forward and looked into his.

  “You like me, don’t you?” he said.

  “What?” she laughed. “You’re not going to trot out any horse puns? Not going to saddle me with any more of your bad humor? Just say neigh?”

  “You do like me, don’t you?”

  “No,” she replied softly. “I think you are a self-involved, self-centered, self-absorbed know-it-all, and I’m sick of your trying to run my life under the guise of police protection.”

  He grinned that killer grin. “I knew you liked me.”

  She pulled back. Yes, she liked him. She liked him way too much.

  “So what if I do like you?” she challenged quietly. “What does that even mean? Am I supposed to allow myself to get involved with you for a brief affair, then smile as you walk out the door when you’ve decided you don’t like me anymore, or that you like me too much and it’s time to hit the road before Betsy starts hearing wedding bells?”

  “Betsy—”

  “Don’t you Betsy me, Inspector Clouseau.” She pushed herself away from the table and began clearing it. With plates in hand, she moved to the sink and kept her back to him.

  “I know all about men like you,” she said to the dinner plates. “You love ’em and leave ’em. Oh sure, I’m good enough to sleep with, to have around for a while, share a few home-cooked meals, laugh a little, do a bit of shopping, maybe pick out new drapes for the living room, go away for the weekend and maybe do some antiquing, find something adorable that would look great in the bedroom so that every time I looked at it, I’d think of you. We’d share moonlight strolls or walks in the rain or take long hot bubble baths together, look at other people’s babies and think they’re cute, but no thanks, catch a blockbuster movie and go out for a late dinner afterward where we’d have a bottle of wine and some long, hot kisses before we’d come back and you’d peel my clothes off me and touch me everywhere and make passionate love to me for hours.”

  “Betsy, wait, you—”

  “Oh, sure,” she interrupted. “And then one day you’d say, ‘I’ll call you,’ but you’d never call me because men who say ‘I’ll call you’ never call you, but women never, ever know why, but we sit by the stupid phone and look out the stupid window and wait and hope, but the bastard never calls and never shows up, and then you see him months later walking down Main Street with a bag from a trendy boutique and you know it’s got a lace teddy in it, but it’s not for you, and when he sees you, he ducks into a shop really fast but you walk right on by like you didn’t even notice because, well, why humiliate yourself further with some stupid confrontation with some stupid guy who—”

  Soldier flew out of his chair, grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “I am not like those other guys,” he growled, then silenced her protests with his mouth.

  Oh, his mouth. On hers. His tongue, sliding in, tangling with her own, tasting of wine. His teeth, nipping at her lips, down her neck, across her collarbone.

  Oh, his hands. On her. Shoving up her sweater, exposing her to his intense gaze. His fingers, unfastening her bra, sliding under the lace, caressing her nipples.

  Oh, his lips. On her. Everywhere. Devouring her flesh as his hands held her breasts to his mouth. His tongue licking, teasing, sending trills of heat all through her body.

  Soldier pulled her hips to his groin and ran his open palms down to grasp her bottom, yanking her closer, and she felt how hard he was and it excited her even more. Rubbing against her, he panted against her open mouth, “I . . . want to . . . make love to you. I have to. God, I can’t . . . stand it. Do you know what you do to me?”

  “M-Make your heart pound?”

  “Yes, oh yes,” he mumbled as he lowered his head and took one moist nipple into his mouth.

  “Wow, your heart is pounding really loud,” she whispered. “Or . . . or is that my front door?”

  Soldier stopped and lifted his head. They heard it again, pounding, doubled fists on wood.

  “No!” he choked. “Not now for chrissakes . . .”

  At that moment they both realized that the walls of Betsy’s kitchen were bathed with flashing red and blue lights.

  Cursing under his breath, Soldier helped Betsy fasten her bra. He pulled her sweater down and gave her one last, hot, wet, thorough kiss. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I’ll make this up to you, I swear it.”

  “This had better not be some Girl Scout selling cookies,” Betsy murmured, frustration nearly choking her. “Because I won’t buy any if it is. Well, maybe the mint ones.”

  Grabbing her hand, Soldier moved with Betsy swiftly through the kitchen to the living room. When he opened the front door, a Port Henry police officer stood there, looking very, very grim.

  Ryan Finlay had been killed at his desk. An aid unit with its red lights spinning was parked just outside the Ledger’s office where Soldier had spent most of the day interviewing the staff.

  One of them had done this. Which one, which one, which one? he goaded himself. Could I have protected Finlay? Why didn’t I see this coming? Was there something I missed today, something that should have warned me?

  He had failed again. Failed. He’d failed to protect Ryan Finlay because he’d missed something. What in the hell did I miss?

  And here he’d been fool eno
ugh to think he and Betsy might have a chance. He’d almost made love to her less than an hour ago. He was an idiot. He didn’t deserve someone like her.

  He’d let Marc down, and then Taylor, and now Ryan Finlay. Fuck.

  What in the hell had he missed?

  He had to clear his head of the anger, the frustration, the doubts, or he wouldn’t be able to carry on. Impelling thoughts of his failures into the darkest recesses of his soul, he took Betsy’s arm and walked her into the building. She was trembling, but didn’t falter once.

  When they entered, the officer at the scene had already secured the area. Sam Winslow was there, along with a couple of others from the PHPD.

  “Sit here, Betsy,” Soldier said, indicating a chair near the door that was far enough from Finlay’s office so she wouldn’t be able to see anything. Gunshot wounds were either very neat or very messy, and he wasn’t sure which it would be until he got a closer look.

  She was pale and quiet. Her gaze moved slowly around the office as though she’d never seen the place before.

  Winslow motioned him over.

  “I’ll be right back, Betsy. If you need anything, have one of these officers come and get me. Whatever you do, stay away from Finlay’s office.”

  She looked up at him with trusting puppy eyes. She had placed a faith in him he didn’t deserve. When she nodded, he was suddenly filled with renewed resolve. He’d find the bastard who did this, because if he didn’t, this was all leading to a place he didn’t want to go, where he didn’t want Betsy to go.

  As always, Winslow was strapping, handsome, spit-and-polish, a brand new Ken doll, right out of the box. Gesturing toward Finlay’s office, he said, “Nothing’s been touched. Coroner’s on his way.”

  “Good. Thanks. Who called it in?”

  “Got the call from his wife. She was hysterical. Said she’d been talking on the phone with him when she heard three shots. She screamed his name, no response. Called 911. Aid car arrived on scene within seven minutes, but he was dead. Forensics is already in there.”