Heart of Gold

by B. J Daniels

  Jones looked away for a moment toward the empty fireplace before he answered. “If you’re asking if I saw Lindy bullying her stepsister...yes. I also tried to talk to the mother about that with even worse results. The mother didn’t want to hear it, refused to believe that her daughter would do anything like that. You get the picture.”

  He did. But now there was no doubt that Kat had known how Lindy was treating Charlie. He felt his anger at her building again.

  “She was very protective of Lindy,” Fred said. “I saw that often with parents who knew there was something not quite right about their child. Denial is a difficult bridge to cross—until it is too late.”

  “I’m sure you followed the murder case at the time,” Shep said. “Who did you think killed her?”

  Jones raised a brow. “If you’re asking who might have hated her enough to murder her, I think you know the answer to that. Do I think Charlie was capable? Aren’t we all, if pushed far enough? You have to remember...only a child herself, Charlie was dealing with a teenager whose personality changed with the flip of a switch. She couldn’t depend on her stepmother’s help or apparently her own father’s. How terrifying to live in that house with her stepsister being as cruel and manipulative as she was. That young girl had no idea what Lindy was going to do to her next. I can’t even imagine that kind of mental torture over days, let alone months.”

  Shep could see that Lindy had scared Fred Jones when he’d witnessed her cruelty toward Charlie. He couldn’t imagine either what Charlie had gone through.

  But the teacher was wrong. Shep knew Charlie. She wasn’t capable of murder. He’d stake his life on it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHARLIE STEPPED OUT of her office building to find Shep waiting for her with a recently harvested full-size Christmas tree and a bulging shopping bag. “What are you doing?”

  “Your apartment needs some holiday spirit,” he said, handing her the shopping bag.

  She glanced inside and saw decorations and a tree stand. “My apartment needs it? Or you do?” she asked as they began to walk the few blocks to her apartment with him dragging the huge tree.

  “I thought it would brighten up the place,” he said, grinning at her. “How was your day?”

  “I got my official directions to the hotel for Amanda and Greg’s wedding. It’s at Big Sky right after Christmas. I assume you want to go?”

  “You assume correctly.”

  She thought he would say that and smiled to herself, glad she wasn’t going to have to do this alone. “Amanda is counting on it.”

  Tara had said she would try to make the wedding but with the new baby... In other words, she had an excuse. Charlie didn’t.

  “The invite comes with free lift tickets along with rooms in a hotel on the mountain. Hopefully it’s large enough that we won’t see either Amanda or Greg.”

  “Sounds cozy,” he said as they reached her apartment.

  Once inside, he leaned the tree against a wall and handed her what appeared to be Christmas cookies.

  “If you tell me you baked these—”

  He laughed. “Sorry. They’re compliments of your teacher Mac. Larry McCormick. Remember him?”

  “He was my favorite teacher.”

  “How did I know that?” He grinned. “Was it his dimples?”

  “He was adorable.” She laughed as she put down the bag of decorations and tore into the cookies. She took a bite before offering him the other one.

  “They’re all yours,” he said. He dug out the stand and went to grab the tree. “I might need some help with this.”

  She put down the cookies and steadied the tree as he slipped it into the stand.

  “I thought it could go in this corner,” Shep said. “What do you think?”

  “You’ve given this some thought, have you?” She couldn’t help grinning at him as she picked up her cookie and took another bite. “Pretty tree.”

  “I got a deal on it since it’s so close to Christmas. Lodgepole pine. Smells good, huh?”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. You have to help me decorate,” he said. “I’m thinking we should put on some Christmas music. Maybe have a little spiked hot chocolate.”

  Charlie felt rather than saw that Shep was trying too hard. “You talked to Mac about Lindy? What did he say?”

  “Just that Lindy didn’t apply herself. That he was worried about your relationship with her.” He stepped away from the tree to face her, his expression suddenly solemn. “I also spoke to your math teacher, Fred Jones.”

  She felt a jolt, something in his expression warning her.

  “He said he saw things about Lindy that bothered him and he tried to talk to Kat about them. She wasn’t open to him telling her that Lindy was bullying you and not living up to her potential in his class. He thought Lindy might have had some kind of mental condition, but Kat was determined that she was fine.”

  “So other people saw what Lindy was doing to me,” Charlie said. “That’s...embarrassing.”

  Shep stepped to her, taking both of her shoulders in his large warm hands. “You have no reason to feel that way. Lindy was the problem, not you.”

  “Then why...” She met his gaze as her voice broke. “What did Mr. Jones say to you that upset you? Shep, tell me the truth.”

  “Wasn’t that enough?” He let go of her and started to turn away, but she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and forced him back around to face her. His shirt felt soft and warm in her fist. She could smell his male scent mixed with her bath gel.

  She breathed him in, suddenly wanting his arms around her—afraid she would need them when he told her what else he’d found out. “Tell me.”

  He met her gaze and she felt tears fill her eyes even before he spoke. “He was worried about you living with someone he suspected was so unpredictable and dangerous. He worried what that kind of situation might have done to you.”

  Charlie let go of his shirt. “He thinks I killed her.”

  “He doesn’t know you like I do,” Shep said quickly.

  She started to turn away, but he pulled her into his arms. “You didn’t do it.”

  She fought the embrace, but only for a moment, before she settled into his protective hold. She’d been here a lot lately. She was getting used to it. Definitely a mistake.

  But still she pressed her face against the warm softness of his shirt and breathed him in again, filling her lungs with his scent. His body felt so strong—like his arms around her.

  They stayed like that for a long while. Charlie never wanted to move. She felt safe, sheltered, loved. Shep believed in her, always had. She was the one who’d had her doubts. Just like that day on the boot camp obstacle course.

  She slowly lifted her face to look up at him.

  The kiss was the most natural thing in the world at that moment. He lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips parted in response, her arms going around his neck, pulling him down as the kiss deepened.

  She felt her heart soar as his arms tightened around her and he lifted her off her feet. Need was in every muscle of his body just as she felt her own need for this man she’d once loved with all her heart.

  Shep slowly broke off the kiss and lowered her to the floor. His gaze locked with hers. There was that question again in his eyes. She felt it in her core. It would take only a matter of seconds to discard their clothing... The thought of their naked bodies melded together in her big bed...

  He let go of her and stepped back, breaking eye contact. “This tree is not going to decorate itself.” He turned away, saying over his shoulder, “Think you can find us some Christmas music?” Then he opened the shopping bag and began taking out lights and ornaments.

  Charlie stared at his back, knowing that if she took only a few steps, if she placed her palm on his warm, strong back...

>   But her feet refused to move. She couldn’t hurt this man again. She wouldn’t. Until she knew the truth about what had happened that night and what she might have done...

  “Christmas music and wine,” she said. She headed first for her phone to play Christmas music, then for the refrigerator and then the cupboard for glasses. Her fingers trembled as she took down the flutes for the wine. Why had he stopped kissing her? Why had he backed off? She knew he wanted her as much as she wanted him. What had he seen in her eyes that made him pull away?

  Fear. Fear that he was wrong about her. It was why she hadn’t gone to him, touched him, told him that she was falling for him all over again. She had to know the truth about who killed Lindy. Why someone was determined to make her think her stepsister and nemesis was alive.

  Someone knew the truth about the murder. The same person who’d “brought Lindy back” to remind Charlie of what she’d done all those years ago?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  SHEP THOUGHT HE’D blown it with that kiss. Not that he was sorry. He’d wanted to kiss her from the moment he looked up and saw her walking through the falling snow toward him days ago. But then he’d found out about Daniel.

  Well, Daniel was gone. Hopefully. Still, Shep had to tread carefully with Charlie. And watch out for his own heart as well. Not that he took horoscopes seriously. He didn’t need the stars to tell him he was in dangerous territory when it came to her. She’d left him once, broken his heart without looking back. He wasn’t sure he could take her doing that to him again.

  With Christmas music playing, they began to decorate the tree. He’d gotten the corniest ornaments he could find, knowing Charlie would appreciate them. Just hearing her laughter as she dug in the bag made him smile. For a little while, Lindy was forgotten.

  When they finished, he had her plug in the tree and they clinked wineglasses, surveying their work, both pleased with the job they’d done. “Here’s wishing you the best Christmas ever,” he said in the glow of the twinkling multicolored lights.

  “You, too.” She watched him over the rim of her glass. “Don’t you think we should talk about it?”

  He didn’t have to guess. “I thought the kiss kind of said it all.”

  “Really? I kind of thought it lacked clarity.”

  Shep took a step closer. “Maybe if I tried again...”

  “Seriously, Shep, what’s going on?” she asked, putting down her empty wineglass.

  “Okay, let’s talk. I suppose you want me to go first. Let’s see... Here it is, Charlie. I thought I got over you all those years ago.” His gaze met hers and held it. “Seeing you again, I realized I was only kidding myself.”

  She shook her head. “We were just teenagers.”

  He couldn’t help the hurt and pain in his voice when he answered. “Is that why you left me the way you did?”

  * * *

  CHARLIE FELT AS if a cold wind had blown though the apartment. “We were too young. The timing was wrong.”

  “All things you’ve obviously told yourself over the years. What were you really thinking when you left that day?”

  She didn’t have to try to recall, but still she hesitated. “That I’d never meet anyone like you ever again.”

  His eyes filled with such sadness that she felt a knot form in her chest. “Why didn’t you come back then? Or at least tell me how you felt?”

  “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to leave you and what good would it have done? We couldn’t have stayed together.”

  Shep sighed. “You had so little faith in me? I would have taken care of you.”

  “We were both headed for college, jobs and the volunteer work assigned by the courts. There wasn’t time for us back then.”

  “You think we wouldn’t have made time for us?” he asked, sounding disbelieving.

  Charlie turned away, unable to see the disappointment in his handsome face. “I did what I thought was best back then.”

  “And now?” He was so close, she felt his breath on her neck even before she felt his hand on her shoulder. He slowly turned her to face him. “What about now, Charlie?”

  “How can you even ask that, given what you now know about me?”

  He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Shep, anyone who knew about the bullying believes that I killed Lindy. I can’t be sure what happened that night. Maybe I did this. At first I thought it was guilt bringing Lindy back—a figment of my imagination. But what if someone knows the truth about what I did and now they just want me to admit it?”

  “You didn’t kill her.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?” she cried.

  “Because I know what’s in your heart.”

  She shook her head, remembering how her heart had filled to overflowing with that terrifying, malevolent, dark hatred as she stood at the locked door, listening to her stepsister’s screams. “And if you’re wrong?” She pulled away. “Until I know—”

  “All right,” Shep said, turning her again to face him. “I’m going to prove it to you and then...” His gaze softened.

  “And then...” she whispered as he pulled her into his arms. She leaned into him, wanting to believe he could see into her heart. Wanting to believe that guilt wasn’t the reason her past had come back to haunt her.

  * * *

  CHRISTMAS EVE, CHARLIE announced she was going into work. “I want to get everything in order before the new year. The office should be empty, so it’ll be quiet.”

  Shep understood. He liked to get into his classroom early before any of the students began arriving and prepare himself for the day.

  But after walking her to work, he found himself at loose ends. He felt stuck. The murder had been too long ago. He’d talked to everyone he could think of. Now he just felt confused. He couldn’t understand what the Lindy sightings were about any more than he could understand the destroyed doll. What did whoever was doing this hope to accomplish? The Lindy look-alike could be acting alone, but who was behind it all and why? It made no sense.

  As he walked back to the apartment along the busy snowy Main Street, he stuffed his hands into his coat pocket and felt a crumpled-up piece of paper.

  Pulling it out, he stared at the scribbled writing. It took him a moment to recognize what it was. The list Wagner had given him with phone numbers for his stepsons. He could barely make out the names: Patrick, Frank and Allen.

  Back at the apartment, Shep tried the phone number for Patrick. He got voice mail. He left his name and number and asked Patrick to give him a call, saying it was about Lindy Parker. Disconnecting, he wondered if any of three stepsons would even remember the name.

  He called Frank next. A woman answered and told him Frank was at work. He left a message for the man to call him, saying it was about a family who lived near Frank’s stepfather and a tragedy fifteen years ago.

  Allen answered on the fourth ring. “Lindy Parker? Sure, I remember the murder. It’s all the old man talked about for months. You’d have thought he knew her.”

  “Did you know her?” Shep asked.

  The man scoffed. “Those girls were kids. I was almost thirty.”

  “So you didn’t have any contact with them?”

  “I saw them a couple of times coming out of the house headed wherever.”

  “Did you ever wave at them?”

  “Seriously? In the first place, I was happily married. In the second, like I said, they were kids. No, I didn’t wave at them. Is that all?”

  “What about your brothers. They’re younger, right?”

  “You’d have to ask them but to my knowledge they didn’t have any more contact with that family than I did.”

  Shep disconnected. Another dead end. He called the judge to ask if they had DNA back on the scarf. He was anxious since it was going to take a strange woman’s DNA on the scarf t
o prove to Charlie that she hadn’t seen the long-dead Lindy Parker.

  “Not yet. Tell me what you have so far,” Landusky said in his no-nonsense voice. But the judge sounded less gruff than usual.

  Shep ran through all of it, which didn’t seem like much, and waited for the judge’s reaction. When he said nothing, Shep added, “I was thinking I would try to track down Lindy’s father.”

  “I’m afraid that could be a problem. Apparently Kathryn never married him so there is no record of a husband. Nor is his name on the birth certificate. Lindy’s birth certificate says it was a home birth in Brazil.”

  “Another dead end,” Shep mumbled.

  “I take it there haven’t been any more Lindy sightings?”

  “Not since Charlie literally ran into the woman and ended up with her scarf. But the apartment was broken into. We suspect the Lindy look-alike was searching for her scarf.”

  “Interesting. She doesn’t want us having her DNA.”

  Shep knew he had to voice Charlie’s concerns. “Charlie is worried that she might have killed her stepsister.” He thought the judge would be shocked.

  Instead Landusky asked, “What do you think?”

  “No way. I know Charlie.”

  “For a short while years ago,” Landusky pointed out but kindly.

  “I know her,” Shep said adamantly. “She didn’t do it.”

  He heard a soft chuckle. “So I was right to ask you to see to this.”

  Shep didn’t know what to say. He thought the judge disconnected, and so was surprised when he spoke again.

  “I just got a text that the DNA report from the blond hair on the scarf has come back.”

  * * *

  AMANDA WAS IN great spirits when she showed up unexpectedly—and unwelcome—at Charlie’s cubicle. “What do you think?” she asked, turning in a circle so Charlie could assess her ski outfit.

  “I think you shouldn’t be here,” Charlie said. “I mean, I thought you were taking the day off like everyone else.”