Saving Thea

by Melissa Schroeder

  “Knew from the beginning Johnson was dead.” He sighed.

  Thea knew he regretted something. Ignoring her mother? Not catching the killer?

  “His blood on the front seat of his car and leaving his wife behind. He loved that woman more than life. He’d never have run off. And the letters.” He shook his head in resignation and then grabbed his cane.

  “No, I’ll get it,” Thea offered and his eyes narrowed as he studied her.

  “I’m not an invalid.”

  She remembered how to handle cranky old men. Her grandfather had been one.

  “I never said you were. I need to stretch my legs after the trip. Besides, I’m sure you like yours black and I like mine doctored. I’d just have to get up anyway.” She stood and without allowing for further argument, hastened to the coffeepot. She thought she heard a rusty chuckle but she wasn’t sure.

  “Just like your mama. Cups are in the cupboard next to the fridge.”

  She retrieved the coffee cups and her hands shook. Ping-pong balls bounced in her stomach and every nerve in her body was pulled tight. After all these years, she was close to finding the answers. Fear of the unknown had paralyzed her for years, but now apprehension weighed her down. She didn’t know if finding out the truth would be much better. She took a deep breath, allowing her nerves to calm.

  As she poured the coffee, the two men continued their conversation.

  “So, knowing you, you had a list of suspects when Margie was killed but you didn’t tell anyone,” Duncan said.

  “Couldn’t tell anyone. You know how that town is. One peep out of me, and it would have been all over Crocker. I also had a problem with the townspeople. If I didn’t let the rumors go on like they did, there would have been mass hysteria.”

  “And you could’ve been voted out of office,” Duncan said, his voice flat. The air crackled with tension. Hoping to ease it, Thea brought the two men their coffees, then grabbed hers and returned to her seat.

  “Margie had a lot of admirers.” He shrugged. “Not much you could do about that.”

  Her blood boiled with anger. She couldn’t help the sharp tone in her voice. “Are you saying my mother deserved what she got?”

  “I never said that, Miss Johnson.”

  “So, just what are you saying?” she asked, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms.

  “What I’m saying is your mother had an easy-going nature. A bit motherly to most men except your daddy. Hell, she even brought me Christmas cookies. Someone might have taken the attention the wrong way.” Her muscles relaxed and she uncrossed her arms. His attention shifted to Duncan again.

  “I don’t envy you your life. Tangling with wildcats can leave a few scratches.”

  Duncan glanced quickly at her and then back to Dailey. “Let it go. Now, let’s get back to your list of suspects. A lot of the file was missing. What I want to know is where it is.”

  Dailey’s lips curved slightly. “They hired them a good sheriff. All the rest of the report is in a box in the living room. I’ve been waiting for you since the murders started up again a few months ago.”

  “Murders?” Thea and Duncan asked at the same time.

  “Yes, murders.” Dailey released a disgusted sigh. “With all those newfangled gadgets you have in your office, you mean you haven’t been getting reports about the women around here?”

  A light of recognition entered Duncan’s eyes. “The faxes. There’s been two or three murders of women in the past few weeks.”

  “More like the past few months. All dark-haired, green-eyed, and average in height.”

  A chill slithered into her stomach cooling the warmth the coffee had produced.

  “Women…” She cleared her throat. “Women who look like me?”

  “Haven’t seen any pictures of them, but the description is pretty close to your features.”

  “What about around the time of Margie’s murder?” Duncan asked, his voice deep and concerned. She glanced at him but he wasn’t looking in her direction. He was fully concentrating on Sheriff Dailey.

  “Well, now there is the question. There were a few I could find, but I’m sure with all of your resources, you could probably find out more than I could then.”

  “Women who looked like Margie and Thea? How many do you think?”

  “Over the years, I’ve counted about ten. Probably more. They were all in surrounding counties, mostly living on the streets.”

  “Ages?”

  “Various ages. Not one of them over forty-five. One was young as sixteen.”

  Sixteen. Thea’s stomach threatened to rebel.

  “You think this person is killing women who look like me. Why?”

  “I’ll leave that up to the hoity-toity FBI to figure out. Unless you can make the connection, they won’t help you. Even with all of the evidence I collected over the years, I know they’d ignore it and say small-town law don’t know what they’re doing.”

  She studied his craggy face, littered with lines and stray hairs he’d missed the last time he shaved. “You tried to get them to investigate my mother’s murder.”

  He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “And your father’s,” he murmured.

  Guilt assaulted her, as she remembered all the years she’d blamed him for the fact her parents’ murderer roamed free.

  “So, you want to tell me who you think did it?” Duncan asked.

  “Tell you what. I’ll let you take the box home with you today. You go over it and then we’ll talk.”

  Duncan nodded and Dailey slowly got to his feet. They followed him into a dark room. One tableside light was on, casting shadows in the dismal room. The dark brown couch sagged a little in the middle, and blended into the paneling behind it. Dust littered the surfaces, and not one picture graced the walls. A massive file box sat on a battered coffee table.

  Duncan picked up the box and headed for the door. Dailey touched her arm as she turned to follow him.

  “Thea, you need to be very careful and listen to that Perry boy. He knows what he’s doing and he’ll make sure you’re safe. This man…if I’m right…has gotten away with more than one murder.” She nodded and he smiled. “Now, I expect an invite.”

  “An invite to what?”

  “Thea, come on!” Duncan yelled from outside.

  She rolled her eyes and Dailey laughed.

  “He has a tendency to think he’s in charge. Thank you so much for everything.”

  His expression turned serious. “You just stay safe. I don’t want to attend another Johnson funeral.”

  The box safely nestled between them, Duncan and Thea headed back to Crocker. The rain-slicked roads made the trip longer as Duncan had to drive a tad slower around some of the curves.

  Duncan knew it was killing her not to look and see what was in the files but she’d been silent as a tomb since they left Dailey’s ranch fifteen minutes earlier. She just stared out the window and chewed on her thumbnail.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  She turned and looked at him, her eyes taking a moment to come back to the present. With a sigh, she said, “Oh, just feeling guilty.”

  He slowed as he drove around a curve. “Guilty? Thea, there’s nothing you could have done to save your parents.”

  “No. I felt guilty because of Dailey. I thought he was a jerk before I met him again.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Other than your parents’ murder investigation, do you have another reason?”

  She didn’t say anything and he glanced at her. Her brow was wrinkled in a little frown.

  “Another reason?”

  “Could there be something in your dealings with Dailey that made you uncomfortable?”

  “Uncomfortable?” She was silent for a moment. “You mean like he could be the one? But I thought you liked him?”

  “I do like him.”

  “Oh, well…no, I think it was just the handling of my parents’ murder. It might also stem from that night. He
was the one who answered the call.”

  He sensed she was studying him, but he kept his eyes on the road. Truth was, he was uneasy with the feeling he got from Dailey. To have kept all the files at his house. And, from the size of the files, Duncan assumed he continued his investigation into the murders. He knew he would continue on with the investigation, never wanting to let anything go. But to take it to such an extreme? To obsess about it for close to twenty years?

  “You think he had something to do with it?”

  He broke away from his thoughts. “No. Just made me a little uneasy that the man had such extensive files. Hell, he even knew you were in town.”

  “Duncan, he can’t get around that well. There is no way he got to my house and back, sneaking up the stairs to leave messages. With that bum hip of his, he wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”

  Duncan knew she was right but still something niggled at the back of his neck, the kind of feeling he got when something else was going on. It had saved him more than once in the field.

  He hesitated, then said, “I think he was holding something back. There’s something he’s not telling us.”

  He came to a stoplight and waited for an eighteen-wheeler to pass. He glanced at Thea and she nodded.

  “Yes. I agree on that one.” She sat with one leg beneath her as she worried her lip. As she dragged it through her teeth, memories of their lovemaking the night before flooded his mind, startling him with their intensity. He looked away and licked his lips, trying to bring his thoughts back to the present. He needed to focus. If his mind was on getting her in bed, he couldn’t protect her. Not since high school had he’d been turned on so easily. He shifted trying to ease the tightness of his pants.

  “But what could it be? He even said one of the suspects worked for him.”

  “Yeah. But there was something.”

  Why this crazy attraction and why to this woman? Since Jessica, he had kept the job separate, made sure there was never a chance anyone or anything could intervene in his work…and vice versa. But now with this woman, all he had to do was think about her, and he was walking around half-aroused.

  She sighed. “Well, first thing to do is to go through these files.”

  “Yeah.” Right, the files. “Maybe we can find something in there that will explain this feeling I have.”

  Duncan sat at the kitchen table, going over the initial report of the investigation while Thea cooked dinner. He’d offered to help and she shooed him to the table and said to stay out of her way. He decided not to argue and had planned on working. The problem was Thea was in the vicinity and when she was, his concentration was shot.

  Watching her move about the kitchen, he realized she was in her element. She was chopping some tomatoes, garlic and onion for the sauce, the spaghetti boiling in a pot of water. The heat from the stove added an attractive flush to her face.

  “Anything interesting?” she asked, as she searched one of her cabinets. She rose up on her tiptoes trying to find something and her shirt rose above the waistline of her jeans, exposing the small of her back to him. Her skin was so smooth and soft. He wanted to roll her onto her stomach, and place a kiss right there. She would taste of apples and cinnamon, of sin and innocence.

  He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the business at hand. “Not much. Just preliminary reports. Anonymous call to the police. Dailey figured it was you.”

  She shrugged and as she moved back to the stove, set a spice jar on the counter. “I really don’t remember anything from that night. I easily could’ve called it in.”

  With the garlic in the skillet, the aroma filled the kitchen. She opened a can of anchovies and a can of olives and began chopping again.

  “Anyway, I haven’t gotten anything out of it so far but I can’t seem to concentrate with the smell of that sauce. What are you making?”

  She flashed him a smile over her shoulder. “Puttanesca sauce. Easy to make. A little spicy, but I usually have everything I need in the pantry.”

  “Never had it.”

  “Well, the story goes that the streetwalkers in Naples would make this dish after a long night of work. Probably because it was fast and easy. No pun intended. Its nickname is the streetwalker’s sauce. If you want some wine, I have a great Chianti if you’d like to uncork it.” She nodded her head in the direction of a corkscrew on the counter and he retrieved the wine.

  Within a few minutes, they were seated at the table, eating pasta and drinking wine.

  “You enjoy cooking.”

  She laughed. “Of course. I’d never do something I hated.”

  “A lot of people do.”

  She sipped her wine. “But you like yours. You enjoy it.”

  “Thank God I do because I would have gone insane trying to run the business.”

  “You don’t miss the Rangers?”

  He shook his head. “It’s odd, because it had been the one thing I had wanted from the time I graduated from college. But…after the shooting, I just didn’t want to go back. And Crocker needed a new sheriff.”

  “But…” She hesitated, then shook her head.

  “What?”

  “I just realized we don’t know each other that well.”

  “We’ve known each other for most our lives.” He smiled and gave her a knowing look. “We know each other a lot better after last night.”

  She blushed prettily. “It’s just that for our adult lives, we really didn’t know each other, not like if I had stayed here.”

  He nodded. “What do you want to know?”

  Thea studied him, her eyes grave. Then she asked, “Who was Jessica?”

  He felt as he’d been punched in the gut. It must have shown on his face because she shook her head. “Never mind.”

  Normally, he would have been relieved that she retreated. But something made him want to tell her.

  “I guess you heard her name from Jed?” She nodded and he sighed. “Jessica was another Ranger. The bust that went wrong, the one I got shot up in…she died.”

  Her face paled and he pushed forward.

  “We were working the case together, practically living together. I made a miscalculation.” He shook his head. “No, I fucked up. Then when that scumbag got a hold of her, I froze. I couldn’t do anything.” The memory of that, of the shame, rose up and choked him. He had to swallow to clear the knot in his throat. “So, I came back here because I wasn’t cut out for that.”

  “You blame yourself.” Not a question but he nodded. “You were injured?”

  “I’d been beaten after they captured me. I didn’t know she followed me.”

  “And so she broke with protocol and you were injured, she got caught and you are not a superhuman and made a mistake?”

  He opened his mouth, but she shook her head. “No. I shouldn’t have said that. I definitely wouldn’t want anyone judging me or my mess of a marriage.” She sighed.

  There was a few moments of awkward silence, and wanting…needing to talk, Duncan said, “And I like it here. I feel like I am actually contributing. Less paperwork, more time out of the office.”

  “Yeah, you really like being out and about. I could see where office work would not be your thing. Same with me. I hated the work I had to do behind the desk as owner of the restaurant. A smaller place probably wouldn’t have been so bad but as big as Jason wanted Al’s to be…” She shrugged.

  “Your mother loved to cook.”

  Her smile turned wistful. “Yes. In fact, she taught me to make this sauce.”

  He didn’t know if it was the wine, or the cozy atmosphere of the kitchen but he needed to touch her, to feel her skin against his. So he leaned into her and gently kissed her. At first, she didn’t respond. But with a muffled exclamation, she leaned into the kiss, opening her mouth to him.

  He tasted the wine and the sauce, so sweet and spicy. Cradling her face in his hands, he drew her closer, tangling his tongue in her mouth and losing himself to the kiss.

  As he w
as contemplating the sturdiness of the table, lights flashed through the window. He drew away and she protested, her eyes still closed and her lips reddened from his kiss.

  “Thea, hon, there’s someone coming up the drive.”

  Her eyes slowly opened. The barely restrained passion simmering in them vanished and he silently cursed.

  “Who could it be?”

  She went to the door and he thought he heard her cuss when she looked through the peephole. He stood and moved in her direction. But before he reached her, she grabbed the doorknob and yanked it open.

  A blond-haired man, impeccably dressed, stood on the doorstep. A broad smile creased his tanned face, his bleached teeth almost blinding Duncan. The man’s smile faded as he looked from Thea to Duncan and back to Thea again.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Jason?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Thea couldn’t believe Jason was actually standing on her doorstep. His eyes widened at the sight of Duncan and his mouth opened and closed twice. Duncan stood silently behind her, but he’d moved so close the heat of his body warmed her.

  “Thea, I thought we could have a talk,” Jason said. She hated that phrase. He’d used it often during their marriage. It always preceded a discussion on how she’d failed him or the restaurant. Then it occurred to her that he’d called from Atlanta earlier that day.

  “Jason, I talked to you this morning and you were in Atlanta.”

  “I hopped on a plane as soon as I realized I would have to appeal to you in person. I thought you might put me up for the night.”

  Disbelief held her mute. Even in the weak porch light, she could see his eyes narrow when she didn’t readily agree with him.

  “I’m a little busy at the moment.”

  His eyes moved to Duncan, a flash of intense anger darkened them but he controlled it. “I can see you wasted no time in getting busy with the local yokels but this is important. It’s about our restaurant, Allie.”

  Rage surged through her. God, she hated that name. He’d never paid attention to her when she told him not to call her by it. How many times did she tell him? Too many to recall.