Heart of Gold

by B. J Daniels

  He felt as if he was clutching at straws.

  He realized he had a lot more investigating to do. Christmas was almost here and he had to get back to teaching after the first of the year. Even if he found the killer—unlikely after all this time—it didn’t explain why Charlie was seeing Lindy in someone who looked like this girl had fifteen years ago.

  But at least he did know something. Lindy hadn’t come back from the grave. Though it did give him a chill to think that if she had, would it be to torment Charlie—or demand that someone find her killer?

  The door to the apartment flew open and quickly slammed shut. He turned to look at Charlie standing there madder than an old wet hen, as his grandmother used to say. “He thinks I’m avoiding him.”

  “You are.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “He’s just annoyed that you don’t drop everything for him when he snaps his fingers. You can do better.”

  “I should have known you would be understanding,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I don’t want to fight with him. He thinks I’m breaking up with him, avoiding him, ghosting him.”

  He met her shiny gaze. “Would that be so terrible?”

  She stared him as if in shock. “This is really none of your business.”

  Like that was going to stop him. “Charlie, tell him what’s really going on. That’s all you have to do. I’m sure he’ll be understanding since he knows that you’re being stalked by someone.” She shook her head. “What are you so afraid of? What’s so special about this guy anyway?”

  “He’s...nice looking, easygoing and he likes me.”

  “You could be describing a golden retriever.”

  “We’re in a relationship. If you’d ever been in one—”

  “I was in a relationship for three years.”

  * * *

  CHARLIE STARED AT him in surprise. Three years? She always thought of Shep as the love-em-and-leave-em type—even though she’d been the one to leave him all those years ago. “Three years? The same woman?”

  “That is how a relationship works, isn’t it?” He turned back to the kitchen table and the papers on it.

  She stepped in and pulled out a chair. Curling her feet under her, she sat. “Tell me about her.”

  He gave her an are-you-serious expression. “She was nice.”

  “Three years is a long time.” She swallowed the lump in her throat at the thought before she asked, “Were you serious about her?”

  “I thought I was.” He went back to his papers.

  “Did you...did you ask her to marry you?” She felt an ugly twist of jealousy turn in her stomach. Even though she’d been the one to break things off, she always thought of Shep as being hers. That he’d never forgotten her, maybe had even yearned for her over the years. That their connection had been so strong, that he’d not found her in anyone he dated and that’s why he was still single. He was single now, wasn’t he?

  He didn’t look up. “I did.”

  “You asked her to marry you? Did you buy her a ring?”

  He dropped the handful of articles he’d been looking through to give her his full attention. “I asked. It was kind of spur of the moment. I didn’t have a ring yet.”

  “Did she...say yes?”

  He seemed to study her for a long moment. “She said yes.”

  Charlie felt her eyebrows shoot up. “Did you—”

  “We didn’t get married. End of story.” He started to turn away.

  “She dumped you.” She felt guilty because that make her feel a little better.

  “She didn’t dump me. I realized it wasn’t going to work. All right?”

  “Oh, Shep, I’m so sorry.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t look sorry.”

  “Wait. How long ago? Did you meet her right after me?”

  Sighing, he said, “Charlie, you and I were kids when we met, just like you said.”

  “Not kids exactly. Teenagers.”

  “I met JoAnn at college and no, I didn’t go from you right to her. In fact, after you, I didn’t date at all for a while.”

  Her heart floated up. “You didn’t?”

  He smiled. “No, I didn’t. I knew I’d never meet anyone like you again.”

  She felt her lips turn up in a smile of their own accord. “That is so sweet.”

  He laughed. “Sweet, right. You dumped me without a word after boot camp, left me with a huge hole in my heart and made me compare every woman I dated with this troubled teenage girl I met at a court-required boot camp.”

  “Oh, that is even sweeter when you put it like that.”

  “I’m serious, Charlie. You broke my heart.”

  She could see that he wished he hadn’t shared that with her. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I had my reasons for taking off the way I did.”

  He seemed to be waiting to hear them.

  “We were too young. Who believes you can find true love at that age?”

  “I did.”

  She stared at him. So had she. “The truth is... I couldn’t bear the thought of you breaking my heart.” There, she said it.

  “I wouldn’t have broken your heart.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know that. Charlie, I was serious about you.”

  Her throat had gone dry even as her eyes burned with tears. She tried to swallow. “You never said—”

  “That I was crazy in love with you? That I knew a love like that came around only once in a lifetime? That I had this insane idea that you and I could figure out a way to stay together against the odds?”

  She was seldom speechless.

  “It was a pipe dream, Charlie. I realized that after you left. How could we have made it without money or an education?” He shook his head. “It was best that you left the way you did because I would have never been able to let you go otherwise.” He brightened. “But look how it turned out. I got my GED in the military, went to college, became a math teacher and you became a graphic artist. I remember how much talent you had even back then. Now you have a job you love and...and Daniel.”

  She nodded numbly. Clearing her throat, she said, “I do have all of that.”

  “Your boyfriend will get over it, but if you’re serious about him, you really should tell him what’s going on,” Shep said and turned back to what he was doing.

  “I will,” she said, wondering if she would. Rising, she mumbled that she was going to change clothes.

  She felt off-kilter. She’d been so content with her life. Then she’d seen Lindy and now, like a line of dominoes, one thing after another was happening as if leading to total destruction.

  * * *

  THE MOMENT SHE left the room, Shep glanced at her closed bedroom door and swore under his breath. He’d never planned to tell her that she broke his heart all those years ago. He’d thought he would take the hurt to his grave. Then again, he never thought he’d see Charlie again.

  He smiled at the memory of the girl he’d pulled out of the mud that day on the boot camp obstacle course. What was it about her that made it so he couldn’t have left her that day any more than he could now? She’d made him want to do something important with his life—all because of her, he thought with a chuckle. Maybe being a teacher wasn’t the be-all or end-all, but he loved what he did. He loved his students. He believed that what he was doing mattered.

  And yet his teenage self still ached for Charlie. Why hadn’t he told the judge that he couldn’t do this? Clearly, he had no idea what he was doing. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the judge to hire a private detective to dig into this?

  Even as he thought it, he knew why the judge had chosen him, and it wasn’t for his logical reasoning abilities. The judge had to have known about the way he and Charlie felt about each other at boot camp. And yet
the crusty old man hadn’t kicked them out. Instead, he’d shoved them together years later.

  Shep pulled out his phone. “I need to know why you picked me for this job,” he said the moment the judge answered.

  “Nice to hear from you, too, Shep. Why do you think I chose you?”

  “You aren’t seriously playing matchmaker when Charlie’s life could be in danger.”

  The judge scoffed at that. “I don’t play games. I chose you because I knew you would take this seriously. You care about Charlie and I have faith in your ability to get to the bottom of whatever is going on. You stick with what you start, have an inquisitive mind and you balance out Charlie. It’s just that simple. Good night, Mr. Shepherd.” The phone went dead.

  Shep turned as Charlie came rushing out of the bedroom.

  “I just saw Lindy!” she cried. “She’s right outside.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  BY THE TIME Shep reached the street, whoever Charlie had seen was gone.

  “I swear I saw her,” she cried when he returned to the apartment. She’d been standing at the window looking out at the snowy night when she’d seen her.

  “I’m not doubting you,” he said quickly. “But there was no one there by the time I got downstairs.” He could see how upset she was. It was clear that she’d been hoping she wouldn’t see the woman again.

  He’d known better. Someone wanted her to believe that her stepsister was alive. Because they wanted Charlie to suffer? Or some other reason? Shep was more determined than ever to find out who was doing this and why—right after he put a stop to it.

  “Why don’t I make us something to eat?” he suggested.

  She nodded. “Let me help.”

  “You cook?”

  Charlie mugged a face at him. “You make it sound as if it’s hard to do.”

  He was glad to see some of the color come back into her face. “What’s your favorite meal to cook?” He could see the wheels turning. He laughed. “Charlie, you can’t lie to save your life. You don’t cook.”

  “I’ve made things before,” she stammered. “Okay, I can scramble an egg, make toast. I once made pancakes at my foster parents’ house.”

  He shook his head. “Come on. I’m going to teach you a few tricks I’ve learned.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Cooking tricks.” Taking her shoulders, he steered her toward the kitchen. Fortunately, he’d picked up a variety of items at the store earlier, including two rib eyes, potatoes, onions and a bag of green beans.

  He set her to work snapping the green beans while he fried up some bacon, then peeled and sliced the potatoes and onions. As he fried the potatoes and onions in the bacon grease, he helped her finish snapping the green beans.

  “You’re making my stomach rumble,” she said as he put them on the stove to cook.

  He made a salad and broke the crisp bacon over the top, then whipped up a simple vinaigrette dressing. “I thought we’d start with this.” He handed her a salad and a fork before sitting down at the table next to her.

  “How did you learn to do this?” she asked, so impressed that he had to smile.

  “I like food. If I wanted to eat, I had to cook. Once I started, I realized that I enjoyed it.” He shrugged.

  “They don’t have restaurants where you live?” she joked. “Where do you live? I know nothing about you while you know everything about me.”

  “Not quite. I live and teach in Stevensville, Montana. And I don’t know near enough about you. For starters...tell me what you know about your stepmother after she was found,” he said as he watched her dig into her salad.

  * * *

  CHARLIE SWALLOWED THE bite of salad as he got up from his chair to see to the fried potatoes. She had no idea her apartment could smell this good. Her neighbors would think someone new had moved into her unit. The thought amused her and for a moment, she forgot about what she’d seen out her bedroom window not thirty minutes ago.

  “My stepmother? I only know what one of the cops told me,” she said, fiddling with her fork. She hated to even think about Kat, about any of it. “She was found downstream, half drowned and injured, and taken to the hospital. When she was told about her husband’s death and Lindy’s, she became hysterical and had to be sedated.”

  He sat back down at the table. “Did you ever talk to her?”

  “No. By the time she was released from the hospital, I was in foster care down in Billings.”

  “She didn’t try to find you? She could have gotten you out. Legally she was your stepmother.”

  Charlie shook her head. “She told social services that she wasn’t up to taking care of me. Anyway, I was fine. It wasn’t like she and I were ever close. With Lindy gone... I doubt she wanted to see me anyway. I’m sure she felt that I was the trouble in the house, not Lindy. Like with the haircut, Lindy told our parents that I begged her to cut it even when she kept saying she didn’t really know how.”

  “I can’t imagine what you went through back then and in the years since she died. Even in foster care, you had to be better off without your stepmother.”

  “I used to have dreams where I would wake up and Kat would be standing over my bed with a butcher knife saying, ‘I know what you did.’” She swallowed the lump growing in her throat and looked away for a moment, remembering how terrifying the nightmares were. In her dreams, Kat had known about the lie. She’d known why Lindy had been outside. “She’d plunge the knife into my chest, screaming, ‘You killed my baby girl!’ I woke up drenched in sweat every time, unable to breathe.”

  When he said nothing, she looked over at him. “You think she might be involved in this?”

  “It’s a thought.”

  “My father hadn’t gotten around to changing his will so I inherited everything—not that I could touch it until I was twenty-one. But I used some of it to pay off my college tuition and other expenses. The lawyer who explained everything to me told me that Kat had made overtures to overturn the will but their marriage had been too short that she would have failed.”

  Charlie thought of the woman who always left the house dressed to the nines on her new husband’s arm. “I got the feeling that money might have been one of the reasons she married my father. He wanted to give her whatever she desired. It’s why he sold the house where I grew up and rented the old Victorian. It was going to be temporary. My father was building Kat a new home. They’d already hired an architect and were just looking for the right lot.

  “Kat didn’t like the neighborhood where we were renting. She thought it might be dangerous and wanted us out of there as quickly as possible. As it was, we were there only a few months. But she was right.”

  * * *

  “WHAT ABOUT YOU?” Charlie asked as they finished the meal he’d cooked. “What happened to you after Landusky’s boot camp?”

  “I got my GED, enlisted in the army, put in my time, came back and went to college. I realized while in the army that I had a talent for math and teaching.” He got up to take their dishes to the sink. “Pretty dull, huh?”

  “I can’t imagine you ever being dull.” She rose to join him at the sink. “I might not cook, but I can handle dishes. I’ll wash.”

  “I guess I’ll dry then,” he said. He turned on the old-fashioned radio she had on a shelf in the kitchen. It looked like an antique and he marveled at this young woman who still got a printed newspaper delivered to her door. She had the radio turned to a country station, and a slow song came on. “But first, do me the honor of a dance.”

  She laughed as he pulled her into his arms. “I didn’t know you danced.”

  He met her gaze. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, but you know everything that’s important.” He pulled her close and she relaxed into him and the song.

  When the song was over, they cleaned up the kitchen and he challenged her to a game
of gin rummy as he pulled a well-used deck from his backpack.

  “I knew you were a card shark the moment I saw that worn deck you carry around with you,” she said hours later. Tossing in her hand, she yawned.

  “I’m just lucky at cards and unlucky at love,” he said, putting the cards away. She looked exhausted. “Tomorrow’s another day. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  She smiled as she rose from the table, but it never reached her eyes. He could see that she was afraid her luck had run out. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. I’ll be happy to beat you at any card game you pick.”

  “Thank you for being here.”

  He saw how hard that was for her to say. He was messing up her relationship with Daniel. He’d also forced her to relive the worst time of her life. “I’m glad to be here. Don’t worry, I’m going to get to the bottom of all this if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Don’t get crazy,” she said. “Seriously, be careful.”

  “Always.” He watched her head for her bedroom.

  She hesitated at the door and turned back to him. “You’re going to look for Kat, aren’t you?”

  He nodded and thought about telling her that he already knew where she was. He would talk to Kat Parker Farmington Ramsey tomorrow if he could catch her at home. He wasn’t sure she was going to want to talk to him though. “Don’t worry,” he said, although he could see that just the thought of Kat made Charlie uneasy.

  “She hates me. Just like her daughter did. Not even knowing the truth about what I did, I’m sure she blames me for Lindy’s death—as she should.”

  “You need to stop blaming yourself. You were fourteen. Lindy was tormenting you. I shouldn’t have to tell you that teenagers sometimes make bad decisions. You could have just as easily died that night at the hands of the killer.”