Twenty years. Her gaze went automatically to the waterski jump out in the middle of the lake, and a pain she’d thought long buried jolted through her. It wasn’t the same ramp, of course. The accident had destroyed that one, and there’d been one other before the present jump.
It would be strange, she thought, if the murder had happened exactly twenty years ago. She hadn’t come out to the island at all after the accident—not even after she’d recovered from her injuries, because it had taken much longer for her to recover from her grief.
Then, just as she was about to turn back to Jerry, she caught sight of a red cigarette boat knifing through the water, swinging in a wide arc to avoid a wet-suited skier. Her nerve endings skittered with awareness of Michael, and a flock of butterflies suddenly took up residence in her stomach. So much for getting over her obsession.
“Here comes Michael now,” Jerry said unnecessarily. “I figured he’d show up sooner or later. And he’s going to want answers yesterday.”
Amanda managed a laugh. “One could say that he’s just a bit impatient.”
“That and a few other things—including that he’s a damn fine cop. If anyone can find justice for that poor kid, he can.”
Jerry removed his baseball cap, then reset it on his graying head as he watched Michael’s boat streak toward the dock. “The way I figure it, the killer probably brought her body over by boat to the dock, then just carried her up here and buried her.” He waved an arm around them.
“If you look at the lay of the land, coming up here made the most sense—especially if you’re carrying or dragging a body. The slope is steeper everywhere else.
“Still, why come here at all? Seems like there are plenty of other places a lot easier to get to—including the lake itself. He could have just weighted her down and dropped her in.”
“Maybe it was winter and the lake was frozen,” Amanda suggested, her eyes following Michael as he nosed up to the dock, then leaped out with the ease of a born athlete. “Most winters, the lake is frozen solid.”
“Yeah, but then he’d have had to bring her out in a snowmobile—and they’re damn noisy.”
“In all likelihood, even if there was anyone around to hear it, they wouldn’t have paid any attention. There’d have been no one at all on the island, and the lake is always overrun with snowmobiles when it’s frozen,” she commented as Michael approached them.
“Probable cause of death a skull fracture. Most likely a teenage female. Possibly about twenty years ago. Does that answer your questions, Quinn?” Jerry said by way of greeting Michael as he jogged up the slope.
Michael laughed. Amanda barely noticed Jerry’s dry humor as Michael’s eyes met hers briefly, then swiveled back to the CSS chief. The boat ride had ruffled his thick black hair. A pair of worn and faded jeans hugged his trim waist and muscled thighs. Beneath his dark blue windbreaker, he wore a polo shirt the same color as his boat. She could see a few dark chest hairs curling out of the open neck and was tormented by a vision of her own golden hair spilling over them. How could nine years seem like just last night.
“I don’t know, Jer,” Michael said, grinning. “Sounds like a lot of probables, most likelys and possibles there. Could be a record—even for you.”
Amanda had tuned out the men’s good-natured banter. She was lost in her memories of that night: a night when she’d done things and felt things that seemed impossible. When Michael’s gaze once more fell upon her briefly, she screamed silently, No! My body belongs to me!
And yet, she knew that for that one night, it hadn’t.
Michael and Jerry moved off to talk with the state-police forensics expert. She started to follow them, then stopped. This was police business—not the D.A.’s business yet. Lewis Brogan, her predecessor, had often irritated the police by meddling in their investigations, and Amanda was determined not to make that same mistake. She had no intention of making what could already be a prickly relationship any worse, even if she did have a personal interest in this investigation.
She started to turn to go back to the cottage, but stopped as her gaze fell once again on the ski jump. Twenty years. Almost exactly twenty years. Early spring, just like now. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she turned away from the lake. And as always when she thought about that night, they were tears both of grief and of frustration.
Chapter Two
The phone began to ring just as Amanda reached the cottage. Since there was no answering machine, she hurried to the phone, assuming that it would be Jesse returning her call. By now, her sister probably knew about the discovery of the body, since it had been in the morning paper and on the local radio news.
“I just heard about the body,” Jesse said without preamble. “How long has it been there? Do they know anything yet?”
Amanda thought her sister’s voice sounded a bit strange: the result of a hangover, perhaps? She couldn’t tell. So she told Jesse what they knew thus far. “And they’re guessing that it’s been there about twenty years, though they won’t know for sure until some tests are run.” She explained about the shoe that had been found.
When she had finished, Jesse was quiet for so long that Amanda finally asked if she was still there.
“I’m here. I was just thinking.”
“About what?” Amanda asked in surprise. “Don’t tell me that you know something about it?”
“No, of course not. But if it was twenty years ago, then it was around the time of the accident with Trish and you.”
“Yes, I thought about that, too, even though there’s obviously no connection.”
“Is Michael handling the case?”
“Yes. He’s here now—at the site, I mean.”
“Will they be able to figure out exactly when it happened?”
“I’m not sure. Probably they can pin it down to within a few years, anyway. And by the way, Michael’s already suggesting that one of us could have been the killer.”
Jesse laughed, but it didn’t sound quite natural to Amanda. She began to wonder if her sister might be drinking at the moment. Strangely enough, she couldn’t always tell that easily.
“That sounds like Michael,” Jesse said, laughing again.
Maybe it was the way she said his name, or maybe it was that laugh. Amanda would never know. But suddenly it struck her that Michael could be her sister’s new lover! Or had that thought been lingering there at the back of her mind ever since last night, when Michael had brought up the subject—perhaps probing to see if she knew anything?
She felt sick, but she knew she had to consider that possibility. It would certainly explain why Jesse, who was forever trying to fix her up with any single man she ran across, had never once suggested Michael.
No, she told herself as Jesse went on about the unpleasantness of having such a thing happen on the island—despite the fact that she herself rarely came out here.
Surely Michael wouldn’t do such a thing. Jesse’s husband, Steve, was his friend. And yet she knew that it had happened before. Jesse had had an affair with the brother of one former husband. And anyway, what made her think that Michael would resist her sister’s charms, when no other men could? Jesse was beautiful and she had a sexy wildness to her. And she was also relentless when she wanted something or someone.
“Does Father know yet?” Jesse asked.
“Yes.” She told her what their father had said.
Then suddenly there was a loud rapping at the front door, followed by Michael’s voice calling her name. She said goodbye to Jesse quickly and hurried to the door.
“Am I interrupting something?” Michael asked when she opened the door. “I thought you were here alone.”
“I am. I was talking to Jesse. Come in.”
“She doesn’t know anything, does she?” he asked, though seemingly without much interest. Could that be because he’d already talked to her last night? She shook her head.
She thought about last night, when he’d left abruptly, saying that he had to see his
informants. And she thought, too, about the fact that Jesse hadn’t been home when she’d called her right after Michael left.
Stop it! she ordered herself. If anyone came to you with “evidence” like that, you’d laugh them right out of your office.
She saw Michael’s gaze take in the large living room to the left and the dining room to the right, and she knew exactly what was going through his mind. She’d seen that look before on the faces of first-time visitors. But Michael, not surprisingly, was the first to give voice to that surprise.
“This isn’t what I expected.”
Amanda smiled. “We’re not exactly into luxury out here. Serviceable is the word.”
Most visitors expected a rustic version of the luxury they had seen in her family home. But instead, the cottage was furnished with sturdy, simple things not very different from most summer homes. The bare wood floors were covered in spots with bright, washable rag rugs, and the walls were filled not with art, but with photos of family summers from the past.
“The Sturdevant version of slumming it,” Michael said as he studied one of the photographs, which she noted was one that showed her at her gawkiest, next to her gorgeous sister.
“Something like that,” she replied. That Michael resented her family’s wealth she took as a given. Certainly that was behind his suggestion that someone from one of the families could be the murderer.
He continued to peer at the photo, and she was sure that it must be Jesse who had captured his attention. Both of them were wearing swimsuits. She looked like the proverbial beanpole, while Jesse looked like a budding starlet He tapped the photo and turned back to her.
“That brings to mind the old story about the ugly duckling that turned into a swan.”
She was confused, given her thoughts at the moment, and her face must have shown that.
“Okay, so you weren’t really an ugly duckling,” he said with a grin.
“I prefer ‘late bloomer,”’ she replied dryly, wondering if it really could have been her picture that he was interested in. More likely, Michael had just inherited a touch of the blarney.
“Would you like some lemonade?” she asked. “I’m afraid that’s all I have to offer. We’re not stocked up for the summer yet.”
He accepted her offer and they were soon seated in the big old Adirondack chairs on the porch. He gestured to her open, well-stuffed briefcase. “Working on weekends?”
She nodded. “There’s a lot to catch up on. Until we hire a new assistant D.A., I’ve been doing both my old job and my new one.”
“Are you going to run in the next election?”
“Yes. I’ll be making my announcement on Wednesday.”
“Rumor has it that Neal Hadden wants the job,” he observed neutrally.
She wondered if he knew about her past relationship with Neal. Probably he did. She nodded. “I’ve heard that, too. He could be a tough opponent.”
“He’s a tough guy—or thinks he is, anyway.”
“You don’t like him?”
Michael shrugged. “He likes to grandstand, but so did Brogan.”
“And me? Do you think I grandstand?” She hated herself for asking the question, for seeming to care what he thought of her. But she did care—very much.
“No, you don’t—at least not that I’m aware of. And you’re as tough as you can be.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, bristling.
Michael smiled, letting her know that he’d heard her slightly querulous tone. “Women have to walk a fine line, whether it’s in the police department or the D.A.’s office. They can’t be too tough, but they have to be tough enough. So far, you seem to have found that balance.”
“Thank you,” she replied, trying to ignore that warm glow inside. His shrewd observation didn’t really surprise her, though. On several occasions recently, when he’d been in her office to discuss cases, she’d discovered that Michael was a keen observer of nearly everything.
“And you have my vote, too.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Of course, you could be getting it just because I think I can push you around easier than I could Neal Hadden.”
“You haven’t so far,” she reminded him.
“No, but I’ll keep trying—just so you know.”
He grinned at her, and silver lights danced in his dark eyes as the silence between them grew heavy and deep. Amanda knew that she was good at reading people—very good, in fact. But she could not read Michael Quinn most of the time. What was she to him? A challenge? Merely an old conquest? The clueless sister of his current lover? A source of amusement because he knew she was still attracted to him?
She got up quickly, using the excuse that she had to look for the dog. He’d wandered off on his own before she’d reached the construction site.
“We ran into each other in the woods,” Michael said. “He was headed in the other direction.”
“He’s probably looking for Misty, the Blauveldts’ dog,” she replied, turning back to him, relieved that she’d succeeded in changing the conversation.
“I came here mainly to let you know that I’m going to camp out on the island tonight.”
“You are? Why?” And she thought, This island isn’t big enough for us to share. I should go home.
“The news about the discovery of the body just might bring out the killer—assuming he’s still alive and in the area.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked doubtfully. She’d heard that old saw about criminals returning to the scene of the crime, but she’d never seen any evidence of it.
He shrugged. “I’ll admit that it’s a real long shot. But I told the media that we’ll be back tomorrow, since we haven’t finished searching the area, and that we’re hoping to find something that would help to identify her. If the killer is still around, that could make him nervous enough to want to search himself. Besides, I’m not exactly overwhelmed with evidence at the moment.
“Anyway, it’s a nice weekend and I don’t have any plans. I’ll set up camp somewhere near the Verhoevens’ place. They have a good view of both the dock and the area where the body was found.”
“That won’t be necessary. I can let you into their cottage. I’m sure they won’t mind.”
“You have a key?”
She nodded. “We all have keys to all the cottages. But what about the boats? If the killer does come, he’ll know someone’s on the island.”
“Right. That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about How about if you take your launch back to the marina and I’ll follow you? Then we can go have some dinner over at Mann’s Landing and I’ll get someone there to bring us both back.”
His tone was casual, but his eyes gleamed with challenge. And in the brief silence, Amanda became nearly certain that his decision to stay on the island was only a ruse.
“I owe you dinner anyway,” he went on, “since you fed me last night.”
He got up and stretched his lean, hard body. She averted her gaze. “I wish there was a spot where I could see all of the island, in case someone does come and lands someplace other than the dock.”
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he really did believe the killer might come. With that thought, she doused the fire that had been building up inside her.
“There is a place,” she told him. “I haven’t been up there in years, but I think it’s still in good shape. Come on.”
She led him off into the woods at one side of the house, foolishly eager to show him this special place from her childhood. There was a delicious sort of danger, and a poignancy, as well, to taking him there. It had been her place for daydreaming, and she knew that some of those daydreams must have included fantasies about an older boy who was far beyond her reach and not of her world.
She stopped at the crest of the hill several hundred yards from the cottage, and pointed. “Up there.”
“This is great!” he said enthusiastically as he stared up at the old tree house. “How long has
it been there?”
“This particular one has been here about twenty-five years. My father had it built for us, after we tried to climb the old one he’d had as a boy. Jesse fell and broke her ankle when a step gave way.
“And it’s a perfect spot to see the whole island,” she told him. “It’s nearly invisible from the water. You have to know where to look.”
Michael was already testing the wooden steps nailed into the thick trunk of a huge old oak. “They seem okay,” he said as he started to climb.
“I’m sure it’s safe. Father had some work done on it last summer when the DeGroot grandchildren discovered it and wanted to play up there.”
“Perfect,” Michael pronounced as he reached the big square platform at the top, which rested on a thick limb and was surrounded by a railing.
“There’s a full moon tonight, too, so even if a boat approached without lights, I should be able to see them.” He surveyed the scene with satisfaction, then turned to her. “Did you spend a lot of time up here?”
She nodded, caught in the uniqueness of the moment, of his presence here. “I used to pretend I was a princess in a tower, the ruler of the whole island.”
Michael chuckled. “And did your prince ever come?”
“I wasn’t really looking for a prince. I wanted the place to myself.” But she wasn’t sure that had been the case; it could be revisionist history.
And a voice whispered to her, he has come, after all. But there’s no happily ever after.
“WHY ARE WE GOING to Mann’s Landing?” she asked, shouting over the roar of his boat at full throttle. They were streaking across the nearly deserted lake after dropping her launch at the marina.
“Because if anyone’s watching the island, they’d be most likely to come from the other side. The marina at Mann’s Landing is a lot smaller. I’ll have us dropped off on that side of the island, too, so we can’t be seen from Walters’ Marina.”
Lawman Lover Page 4
