Silent Scream

Chapter Eleven

Tuesday, September 21, 12:55 a.m.

Knock again,” Kane said when Mrs. Tomlinson didn’t answer the door.

Olivia raised her fist to knock again when the door opened, revealing a very tall, statuesque woman wearing a silk robe. Even without makeup, she was very beautiful and not at all what Olivia had expected a woman named Weezie to look like.

“Yes?” the woman asked.

“We’re looking for Mrs. Louise Tomlinson,” Olivia said.

“Well, I’m Louise, but not Mrs. Tomlinson for much longer,” she said.

“I’m Detective Sutherland and this is my partner, Detective Kane. We’re here to talk to you about your husband.”

Louise’s perfectly tweezed brows lifted. “What has he done now?”

“He’s dead, ma’am,” Olivia said. “He was murdered tonight.”

Quite unexpectedly, Louise Tomlinson’s haughty expression slid away. Growing pale, her mouth dropped open. “He’s dead? Barney’s dead? No.” Not waiting for an answer, she began to weep. She lowered her chin to her chest, hugged herself as she stood in the doorway and wept her heart out.

“Can we come in, ma’am?” Olivia asked.

Louise allowed herself to be led to a sofa in an ornately decorated living room, where she sank into the cushions, her face in her hands. “How did this happen?”

“He was shot while he was in his warehouse.”

Louise looked up, her eyes wild. “He didn’t kill himself, did he?”

“It doesn’t appear so, ma’am,” she answered. “Why?”

“He was so angry with me. Very upset. I’d had our assets frozen.”

“We heard that you two were going through a messy divorce,” Olivia said quietly.

“We were. He cheated on me.”

“That had to make you angry,” Kane said smoothly.

Louise’s wet eyes flashed. “Of course it did. We’d been married for almost thirty years. I wanted him alive to suffer, not dead. Am I a suspect?”

“Right now we’re just talking to people who knew your husband,” Olivia said. “But just so we can check you off our list, where were you tonight?”

“Here. Alone.”

“Was Mr. Tomlinson living here?”

“No. He had an apartment downtown near the university. Our son is a student there and lives in the dorm. Oh God, I have to tell him his father’s dead.”

Olivia put a gentle hand on the woman’s wrist. “We’d like to tell him.”

Louise turned stark white. “You think my son had something to do with this?”

“I think it would be best if you’d come with us, until we can get this all sorted out.” Olivia stood. “I’ll go up with you while you change your clothes.”

Tuesday, September 21, 2:35 a.m.

“Well?” Abbott asked.

Olivia stood at the window looking into Interview Two and shook her head. Louise Tomlinson sat at the table, numb. Her lawyer patted her hand from time to time.

“She was angry with her husband and she stands to benefit financially from his death and the fire,” Olivia said. “But unless she paid somebody to kill him, I don’t think she was involved. No gunshot residue on her hands. The neighbors we talked to didn’t see her leave her house. The engine of her car was cold. None of that is definitive innocence, but at this moment we can’t place her at the scene.”

“The son’s in Interview One,” Kane added. “He was at a party all night. At least fifty people saw him. No GSR on his hands either.”

“Then cut them loose,” Abbott said. “Find out who had cause to kill Tomlinson, besides his wife and son. Find out how they connect to the condo. See you at oh-eight.”

Olivia shot Abbott’s back a baleful look. “Why is it always oh-eight?”

“Go home, Liv,” Kane said kindly. “Get some sleep.”

“I will, after we talk to the Tomlinsons. I’m hoping if I talk sweetly enough, she’ll hand over the copy she made of her husband’s hard drive. Otherwise we have to go to the IT guy, and he’ll want a warrant.”

“You think you can sweet-talk her after hauling her ass downtown?” Kane asked.

Olivia raised a brow. “I got ten that says I can.”

Kane smiled sharply, sensing an easy win. “You’re on.”

Olivia took a minute, putting herself in the mind of the older woman. Her grief had been real, as had her rage. She’d been entitled to both. Unless of course she paid someone to do her dirty work for her, but if that was the case, they’d find a money trail.

“Mrs. Tomlinson,” Olivia said when she’d closed the door behind her.

Tomlinson’s lawyer jumped to his feet. “How long will you keep her here?”

“Not much longer,” Olivia said. “Your son is coming. I’d like to talk to you both.”

Louise glared. “I don’t want to talk to you. You treated me like a criminal.”

Olivia sat across from her. “No, ma’am. I was doing my job, as respectfully as I knew how. I’m so sorry that your husband is dead. I can’t pretend to know how you’re feeling right now, but I work homicide. My responsibility is to your husband. I have to find who killed him. I hope you and your son want the same thing.”

Louise swallowed, her lips thin. “You fingerprinted me. You fingerprinted my son.”

“So we could tell your prints from anyone else’s in his office or his apartment. It’s standard procedure. Again, I’m sorry this had to happen tonight, but every hour that passes is an hour his killer goes free.”

Still pale, Louise closed her eyes. “Someone shot him.”

“Yes, ma’am. It looks like he was at his desk, working. He was shot from behind.”

Louise flinched, then snapped her gaze to the door when her son entered. He looked even angrier than his mother had. He folded his mother in his arms and she began to cry again. Seth Tomlinson glared at Olivia. “How dare you?”

“Please,” Olivia said. “Please sit down.”

Still furious, Seth did, taking his mother’s hand protectively. “It’s bad enough we have to go through this.”

“You’re right,” Olivia said and Seth narrowed his eyes.

“You’re the good cop. Where’s the bad cop?”

Olivia returned his furious gaze with a sympathetic one. “Right here in this chair. I can be either or both, depending on who’s sitting in your chair. I need your help.”

“No,” Seth said. “I’m not helping you.”

“You’re entitled to your anger and your frustration. Right now, I need you to be angry at the person who put a bullet in the back of your father’s head. The fire destroyed a lot of the things we’d normally look for-signs of a struggle, for example. Signs that someone forced their way into his office. Did he know his killer? Or was he simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did he keep money in his office?”

Louise shook her head. “No. None of our sales transactions were cash. All of our customers paid by check or bank transfer. Anything Barney had in the office was strictly for personal use, and he was running short. I’d made sure of that.”

“Mom,” Seth said in a low voice, but she patted his arm.

“She’s doing her job, Seth. I imagine she’ll look at my finances to be sure I didn’t hire a hit man.” Louise looked Olivia dead in the eye. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t know how.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Olivia said. “You still loved him.”

“Yes. He hurt me, so badly. But I never could have taken his life.”

“Who could have?”

Louise looked lost. “I don’t know. You’d need to talk to Lloyd Hart, our manager. He knew all the customers.”

“I did talk to him, for just a little while. He was pretty worried about his dog.”

“Bruno,” Louise murmured. “Did they hurt the dog, too?”

“Drugged him. There’s a chance he’ll make it. Mr. Hart said that the employees didn’t care for your husband.”

“That’s not true,” Seth bit out, but once again his mother patted his hand.

“Yes, it is.” She turned to Olivia. “It wasn’t always like that. Barney used to know everyone’s name. He made sure everyone had benefits, pensions. As he got more successful, he changed. We had warehouses in three states and he started to travel. Buy fancy cars.” She lifted her chin. “Fancy women, too, even though I didn’t know it then. He wasn’t the man I married anymore. Then business started to go down and Barney got scared. And mean. We were fighting all the time.”

“No, you weren’t,” Seth protested. “Mom.”

“We didn’t fight in front of you. We didn’t want you to know.” She turned to Olivia. “I hadn’t paid attention to the business in a long time. When I found out about Barney’s affair, I made copies of all his files. I wanted my lawyer to have as much ammunition as possible.”

“Do you still have the copied files?” Olivia asked.

“On a couple of CDs, yes.”

“The fire destroyed so much. We could get started so much faster if we knew who to investigate.”

Louise looked at her attorney who gave a little shrug. “It’s up to you, Weez. I’ve seen the files. There isn’t anything on them that you haven’t already told them.”

“They’re in my fire box at home.” Louise’s lips twisted. “Ironic, no?”

Olivia sighed. “We get a lot of sad irony in this business. I know you’re tired, but a few more questions, please. How did you find out about your husband’s infidelity?”

“I hired a private investigator. One of my friends had gone through something similar, so I met her for lunch and somehow found the courage to ask for the name of her PI, and I hired her. She had incriminating photos in less than a week. I was devastated.” She swallowed hard. “I went into Barney’s office the next day when I knew he’d be out playing golf and copied the files. Then I filed for divorce that afternoon.”

Seth was studying his mother’s worn profile. “Can we go now? She’s helped you.”

“Yes, she has and yes, you can go. Mrs. Tomlinson, thank you. I’ll personally keep you updated on the investigation. Can I take you home?”

“I’ll take care of them,” the lawyer said. “You’ll want those CDs tonight, I take it?”

Olivia flicked a glance at the clock on the wall. It was almost three a.m. Surely the warehouse had cooled enough for her and Kane to see Barney in his office now. “That would be ideal. My partner and I will follow you home.” Then she and Kane could double back to the crime scene.

Olivia found Kane in the observation room, a ten-dollar bill in his hand. “Nice.”

“Keep it. She was going to help us all along. You ready to roll?”

“Yep. I’ll drive. You can nap on the way.”

Tuesday, September 21, 3:58 a.m.

The three of them sat in Eric’s living room, watching the muted television. It was tuned to the local twenty-four-hour news station, as it had been for the last day. Mary sat curled in the corner of the sofa, her expression like stone. Albert sat in an armchair, looking like the very angry captain of a starship.

Eric straddled a dining room chair backward, his chin propped on the chair’s carved back, having just been snapped at by Albert to stop pacing and sit his ass down.

“Turn it up,” Mary said flatly and Albert grabbed the remote.

“Top of the news this hour is another fire, this time in a warehouse north of the city,” the anchor said. “News 8 has just learned that not only is it another arson fire, but also police have found another body inside.”

Shock had Eric surging to his feet. “What the fuck?” he yelled.

Albert leaned forward, waving his arm. “Shut up.”

Mary sat up straighter, her expression gone flatter, if that was possible.

“The body has been identified as Barney Tomlinson, the owner of the warehouse,” the anchor said, and a photo of a middle-aged man with a comb-over appeared on screen. “We have Joseph Bradshaw live at the scene. Joseph, what are you hearing?”

The screen switched to the reporter, a fire truck in the background. “The fire is out, but the activity here at the fire site has not slowed. Homicide detectives and medical examiners went into the building twenty minutes ago and have not yet come out. No one is giving any details of the circumstances surrounding Barney Tomlinson’s death, but the presence of Homicide suggests the owner of this warehouse met with foul play.”

“Joseph,” the anchor said, “is anyone indicating a link to the condo fire?”

“Not yet, but the homicide detectives who just went in are the same ones who were on the condo scene-Kane and Sutherland.”

Albert muted the television. “So this is his game,” he said darkly. “He murders and sets us up to take the fall.”

“We destroyed the tape,” Eric said. “We wore masks. Nobody will know it was us.”

Albert’s chuckle was without mirth. “Do you truly think so, mon ami? I give him five minutes, perhaps ten. He’ll send you another text with another link to another video.”

It was less than two minutes. Eric’s personal cell phone buzzed. He checked the text and flicked a glance at Albert. “It says ‘welcome to my employ.’”

“And the video?” Mary asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Eric clicked the link. “It’s us,” he said when the video began playing. “We’re wearing masks.” He watched as the texter’s camera closed in on Mary as she looked back to check on the drugged dog. Then the screen filled with a still shot of Mary’s face, covered by the mask. Successive shots closed in on Mary’s right eye until her iris was all that could be seen, then the video cut to a picture of Mary at the condo. Again the camera closed in, again the close-up of her iris.

Eric didn’t even blink when he saw himself pause to snap a photo of the burning warehouse. “He was there,” he said woodenly and passed the phone to Albert. “He’s basically saying he can put Mary at both scenes through her eyes.”

Albert replayed the video, his jaw going taut. “Where was he? Goddammit.”

“He got Mary when she stopped to see the dog, so he had to have been hiding to our left.” Eric sank onto the sofa, opposite Mary. “This is unbelievable.”

“This isn’t what I planned,” Mary said thinly. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us, Eric. You had no right to keep this from us.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t help. If you had any idea…” She closed her eyes. “Damn you.”

“Another text,” Albert said, then drew a sharp breath. “It’s Tomlinson. Or what’s left of him.” He passed the phone back and Eric flinched.

Tomlinson lay facedown on his desk. There was a helluva lot of blood.

Eric passed his phone to Mary and waited for her to watch the video. “So now what?”

“We draw him out,” Mary said coldly. “And then we kill the sonofabitch.”

Albert raised a sarcastic brow. “I thought you said you couldn’t kill anyone.”

“I was wrong,” she said. “The game just changed.”

“That’s all well and good,” Eric said, “but as I said before, now what?”

“He had to have had some beef with Tomlinson,” Albert said. “Who knows, maybe he was blackmailing him, too.” Albert got up and paced. “Somehow he found out about us. I can’t figure out how. We never met together, except for here. Never in public. So how did he find out? How did he know Tomlinson? What’s the connection?”

Eric felt an icy chill slink down his back. “Could he have this place bugged?”

Albert stopped pacing, his expression grim. “As crazy as that sounds, maybe.”

“But he still had to know about us,” Mary insisted. “He’s not going to just pick out rich boys at random and bug their apartments.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “Hear that, asshole? We’re talkin’ about you!”

“Sshh,” Albert hissed. “You’ll wake the neighbors.” Then he stilled, his gaze swinging around to collide with Eric’s. “Eric.”

Eric had the same thought in the same instant. “The neighbors. These walls are thin. Somebody heard us talking. Which one?”

“The walls aren’t that thin,” Mary scoffed, but Albert looked away, rolling his eyes.

“One of the neighbors complained one night when we were…” Eric felt his cheeks heating. “You know.”

“Oh.” Mary shrugged. “Same thing happened to us. Joel and I…” She stopped suddenly, her lips pressing tight as tears filled her eyes. “Dammit,” she whispered. “For just a second I forgot. How could I forget?”

“It’s part of grief,” Albert said quietly. “You live in the dorm. A quad, right?”

“Yes. We all get our own rooms.”

“Did you and Joel discuss this in your room?” he asked.

Mary shook her head, hard, then slowed. “Maybe, once or twice. But softly.”

“Those walls are thinner than these,” Eric said. “That’s why we never did anything in Albert’s dorm room. Your roommates could have heard. But how do they connect to Tomlinson?”

“We need to find out more about Tomlinson.” Albert pointed to Eric’s laptop. “You got into his company server. What did you find?”

“Only what I was looking for-the maintenance files on the alarm system.”

“I Googled him while you were trying to hack into his server,” Albert said. “I found a few general things. Tomlinson played golf in a charity tournament last year, but his business was bad-lots of layoffs. His wife is divorcing him. You’re better at the computer, so dig deeper. Find out everything you can.” Albert grabbed his jacket.

“Where are you going?” Eric asked.

“Back to my dorm. It’ll be daylight soon. I’m going to change and shave and then go have a talk with Mrs. Tomlinson and find out what her husband was up to.”

Mary stood up. “You can’t just waltz into her house and talk to her.”

“As a reporter, I can.”

Eric rose slowly. “Albert, wait. What if she checks up on you? You don’t exactly fade into the woodwork. Especially with your accent.”

Albert’s smile was grim. “What accent?” he asked in a perfect Minnesotan tone.

Eric stared, his mouth open. “You… Which is real?”

Albert met his eyes, his gaze cold. “Does it matter anymore?” he asked. “Start digging on Tomlinson. We need everything we can get.”

Well. As always, they were an interesting bunch. So Mary wants to kill me? Right back atcha, girl. And Albert, not really French? Say it isn’t so. He’d seen that one coming a mile away. For a nerd, Eric was really very stupid.

He sat back in his easy chair and frowned. But Albert going to talk to Louise Tomlinson? He needed to think about that one. Louise didn’t know anything to tell. He’d made sure of that. What harm could Albert do?

Conversely, how can I use this to dig their graves a little deeper? And how long can I keep the leash tethered so tightly? He didn’t plan on watching them so closely forever. When their useful life was over… their lives would be over.

Besides, he might have a bigger worry at the moment. He rewound the recording he’d made of the nine o’clock news. It was a grainy video, taken by a cell phone. A search-and-rescue dog and its handler stood on the bank of the lake, a few hundred yards from the dock at the condo. He knew that shoreline like the back of his hand. The only way to that patch of open beach was by boat, but he saw no boat in the video.

He might have assumed that patch of beach was how the girl had come to be in the burning building to start with, but if so, the boat would still be there, would it not? Which could mean someone had been with her, someone who had not died in the condo.

Which could mean trouble for me. He needed to know what the police knew. If a witness existed, that person needed to die.

Tuesday, September 21, 5:30 a.m.

Austin Dent sat on his bed hugging his knees to his chest. His mom would be coming home from her job soon. She worked hard, his mom. He hated the worry he’d put in her eyes.

He hated that he couldn’t forget the fear in Tracey’s eyes when they’d both smelled smoke. Or the look on that guard’s face when he’d been shot, the way he’d crumpled to the ground. But mostly he hated that somewhere out there a killer walked free.

Austin’s hands clenched into fists. I have to do something. But he was afraid.

I owe it to Tracey. I promised I’d protect her. She was there because of me.

But what did he owe his mother? If he told, he’d put both their lives in danger. That man shot that guard in cold blood. He couldn’t lead the guy straight to their lives.

But I can’t do nothing. I can’t live this way, wondering if he’s going to shoot me, too.

If he called from a phone nearby, the cops would trace it. Everybody in town knew he went to school down in Minneapolis. A smart cop would connect the dots in no time.

So he’d have to contact the cops from Minneapolis. Kenny will help me. He’d text Kenny, tell him what to write in the letter and Kenny could mail it from downtown. That way the cops would know about the shooter, but nobody would know he’d told.

It could work. It would have to.

Tuesday, September 21, 5:45 a.m.

Olivia blinked hard as she drove the road to her house. The last forty-eight were catching up to her. She was going to walk Mojo, then fall into bed…

She slowed as her front porch came into view. A familiar form slowly rose from her front steps and her tired brain wanted to scream foul. Carefully she pulled around the red pickup truck he’d parked on her curb and drove into her garage. For a moment she just sat in her car, her forehead resting on the steering wheel.

Then her door opened and she could feel the warmth of his body as he crouched next to her. “Olivia?”

“I’m all right, David,” she said, not looking at him. “You promised not to bother me.”

“I know. I lied.”

“What do you want from me?”

“A chance to explain. Please.” His hand dipped under her braid, closing over her neck. His palm was warm, his fingers strong as they began massaging her skull.

A little whimper escaped her throat. She was so tired and his hand felt so good. Focus, girl. She grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away. “What’s to explain?”

“A lot. Come on.” He urged her from the car, pulling her to her feet. “You’re about to fall flat on your face.”

“I was about to go to sleep.”

“Then I won’t take long.” She let him lead her to her front door, not complaining when he took the keys from her hand and unlocked her front door. Mojo came bounding, crouching into a snarl when he saw David.

“Down,” Olivia commanded and Mojo instantly dropped to his stomach, eyeing David suspiciously. Smart dog. Good dog.

David closed the door behind them, walking around the dog as if he weren’t there. Mojo craned his neck, watching. Cursing her own weakness, Olivia did the same. David looked as good going as coming. She followed him into her kitchen, Mojo at her heels.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Standing in front of her open fridge, he looked over his shoulder. “Making us breakfast. Your eggs are about to expire.”

“Sorry?” she said, shaking her head, then tilting it sideways on a silent sigh when he bent over to check out her vegetable bin. Too nice. Way too nice. And so not fair that all the sexy ones are jerks.

Abruptly he straightened, pointing to the bar stools at her counter. “Sit, please.”

Mojo sat obediently, wagging his tail, looking up at David adoringly.

“Traitor,” she muttered to the dog. “I want you to leave, David.”

He deposited all the cooking materials on her counter, ignoring her.

“I’m not hungry. Stop that,” she snapped when he broke eggs into her mixing bowl with the finesse of a chef. “What the hell are you doing?”

His jaw clenched. “I cook when I’m tense.”

“You’re tense.” She made a scoffing sound. “Please.”

“No, I’m actually scared to death.” He looked up, met her eyes. “I’m not lying.”

He looked utterly serious and she felt her resolve weakening. “Hell of a line,” she said. “I must be the most gullible woman alive. Come on, Mojo.”

Her dog hesitated, staring up at David. Biting back a really vile oath, she tugged on Mojo’s collar. “I said, come.” Finally he followed, looking back over his shoulder as if to ask why the new guy wasn’t coming. Olivia stood on her patio, tapping her foot impatiently. Finally Mojo padded back and she let him into the house. David was still there, inspecting a clear carton of mushrooms with a grimace.

“It’s been a while since you shopped,” he said.

“I’ve been busy.” She slid onto a bar stool. “Say your piece and then leave.”

He dropped his gaze to the cutting board, chopping the few vegetables that hadn’t gone bad. “I said someone else’s name that night. I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry. But I need to know if I did anything else.”

She frowned at him, Brie’s and Paige’s words coming back. I wonder what he thought he’d said. Or done. “Like what?”

“Like, get rough. Or ask for something you didn’t want to do.”

And? So it really hadn’t been a statement of disregard. “No,” she said softly. “What did you think you did, David?”

He gripped the edge of the counter with both hands, bowing his head. “I didn’t know. At first I thought you were just embarrassed, but you never called and months went by. I wondered if I’d done something to… turn you off.”

“You did. You said another woman’s name when I was giving you a great orgasm.”

He lifted his face, his eyes tense. “Other than that.”

“That was enough. But to set your mind at ease, no, you didn’t push me or try to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.”

His shoulders sagged. “Good.” He turned from her, pouring the eggs into a pan.

He was still nervous, she realized. Unbelievable, but apparently true. She made coffee, then turned to watch him cook. “Why didn’t you call?”

He shrugged. “I’d go from fear of what I’d done to fear that you had someone else back home to fear that what I had done hadn’t been… good enough.”

“You’re kidding,” she said and thought she saw a glimmer of a smile curve his lips.

“Okay, maybe not that last part. But I did worry.” He did something with his wrist and the omelet in the pan slid and flipped. “And I did try to forget about you.”

“You did?”

“You were here, I was there. Then Evie called, asking for help with her leaky roof.”

Seven months ago. “She said you dropped everything and came to help.”

“She thinks I’m some white knight, so don’t tarnish my armor. The truth is, I dropped everything and came right away because it was what I’d been waiting for.”

She frowned slightly. “What you’d been waiting for? What does that mean?”

He wasn’t looking at her and she suddenly wished he would, that she could see his eyes. “Do you believe in signs, Olivia? Fate? Miracles?”

“Once, I’d have said no. But now, yes, I do.”

His glance was sharp. “What changed your mind?”

Olivia’s answer took no thought at all. She knew the moment she’d begun believing in miracles. “Meeting Mia when I did. I needed her and she needed me. I’d just come out of a bad relationship and a week later found out that our father, the father I’d never known, was dead. Mia was already in love with Reed. I was so jealous. She asked me if I was involved with anyone and I told her no. I didn’t want to admit I was a failure.”

“I can understand that feeling,” he said ruefully.

She thought of the name he’d groaned, knew that Dana was happily married to someone else. If there had ever been a relationship between Dana and David, there wasn’t now. “I guess you can. Anyway, you remember when Mia was shot by that guy?”

“He was an arsonist,” David said, slanting her another glance. “Ironic, huh?”

Or fate. “Yes, very. The guy shot her just a few days after I met her, took out her kidney. She’d only had one.”

“And nobody was a match. I remember. We all got tested.” David turned to stare at her, his eyes narrowed. “Then all of the sudden, Mia got a mystery donor. She never told us who it was. We all thought it was anonymous.” He leaned closer until he was inches from her face. “It was you, wasn’t it? You saved her life.”

Olivia’s cheeks warmed. “Your omelet’s burning.”

He turned back to the stove. “It was a damn nice thing to do, Olivia. You should be proud of yourself.”

“I didn’t do it to be proud. I did it because she needed me. Nobody ever really had before. So to answer your question, yes, I believe in fate.”

He shut off the burner. “Evie needed me, too. I wanted to help her, of course, but I’d been looking for some kind of sign. I’d told myself it was just one weekend, that you’d probably found someone else, but I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Evie’s leaky roof was the sign I’d been hoping for. ‘Go to Minnesota,’ in blinking neon. I wanted to see you again, and find out if you did have someone else. And to find out what I’d done.”

“And then you got in a killer’s way and ended up in the hospital.” She put plates on the table and looked back to find him staring at her, his eyes no longer unreadable. They were hungry and hot and for a moment she had to concentrate on breathing.

“I knew it was you the moment you walked into my hospital room,” he said fiercely. “I could barely see a thing, but I could smell you, just like I’d smelled you on my pillow, and I wanted you then. But it was the wrong time.”

She swallowed hard. “And?”

“And… after that it never seemed like the right time. Evie got taken and everything was crazy. Then you and Noah found her.”

“And the body pit,” she murmured.

“Then you were busy, stressed. Pulling bones out of that damn pit. I didn’t want to make it worse, but I guess I did.” He brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek, a fleeting touch that made her want more. “I couldn’t let another day go by with you thinking I didn’t want you, that you didn’t matter. That you were just a substitute for someone else. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

She held his eyes, hoping she wasn’t a total fool for believing him. “I could have called, too. I should have.”

He smiled and her heart rolled over in her chest. “Sit down. You need to eat.”

She did, not realizing how hungry she’d been. She thought about what Paige had said the morning before, about taking a risk. What’s the worst that could happen? Dana. He’d said her name. There had to be a reason. There had to be some feelings still. A man didn’t love for that long and just turn it off because he met someone else.

You did. It was true, she admitted. When she met David, all thoughts of Doug had fled, as if he’d never been. But I said David’s name. He said Dana’s. And if at some point his lost love was free? Been there, done that. She was gullible, but she hoped she wasn’t a fool.

She looked up to find him staring at her expectantly. He looked like he wanted to say something but didn’t, rising to clear the table. Mojo stuck to his heels, hoping for a handout, but all David gave him was a scratch behind the ears. “He’s a nice dog.”

“Not as smart as the average bear, but he’s mine. He keeps this place from getting too lonely.” She wanted to look away, but wouldn’t let herself. “So. Now what?”

“Now, I believe you said you were going to sleep.” His words were mild, but his eyes were still hot. Shivers danced across her skin.

“That had been my plan, yes.”

“Then come on.” He led her to her sofa and pulled her down in his lap. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up in time for your meeting.”

It was surreal, sitting there cradled in his arms, but it felt natural to rest her head on his shoulder, so she did. “I have to leave early, take Mojo to day care,” she mumbled.

“I’ll take him.”

“Okay. I need to be downtown at oh-nine. Was oh-eight, but CSU needed more time to process Tomlinson’s office.” She yawned. “It was a nasty scene.”

“I know,” he said quietly and she knew that he did.

“Maybe Tomlinson was the target all along. Maybe the condo fire was just a red herring, to distract us from Tomlinson’s murder.”

“Maybe. Except they weren’t trying to hide his murder.” His fingers gently unwound her braid, combing through her hair.

She pulled back to see his face. “They weren’t?”

“No. Barlow and I went back in to look at the office again. There were no signs of gas around or on the walls of the office. If they’d meant the fire to hide Tomlinson’s murder, they’d have destroyed his body to destroy the evidence of his gunshot, right?”

“Right.”

“They should have dumped gas on his body, his desk, his papers. But they didn’t.”

“You’re right. Why didn’t they?”

He pulled her head to his shoulder. “You’ll figure it out after you’ve had some rest.”

“You’re tired, too. How will you wake up?”

“I set my cell phone alarm.”

“When did you do that?”

“When I was sitting on your front porch waiting for you.”

So he’d planned this. She wanted to be annoyed, but his hand was massaging her scalp again. She closed her eyes, drifting. “That should be illegal. Feels too good.”

He kissed the top of her head. “There is no such thing as feeling too good, Olivia.”

She wanted to know what that meant, but fatigue dragged her down. “Promise?”

“Oh yes.” His words rumbled against her ear. “I definitely promise. Now sleep.”