A Deadly Reunion (19 page)

Denver’s already dark expression became a
whole lot darker. “Which mechanic?”

“Hold on,” I looked up hesitantly, “you
don’t think—”

“Answer the question,” he snapped back.

“The one next to the bakery.”

“Right. When are you heading out of town
now?” he rounded on me again.

I shrugged my shoulders one more time,
feeling every inch the apathetic teenager. “I guess I’ll be going
when they fix the car. It’s not like I have another one, and you
certainly can’t hire anything around here. I suppose I’m stuck
here, for now,” I swallowed as I spoke, probably giving away every
indication to the trained Federal Agent that I was stupendously
nervous. I wasn’t nervous because I’d done anything dodgy; I was
simply quaking in the face of Denver’s justifiable rage.

“Where are you going to be staying?”

Though my gaze had drifted down to my hands
as I rubbed my thumbs quickly over my knuckles, I looked up
carefully now.

His expression had changed, hadn’t it? Yes,
it was still as hard as diamond, but there was a flickering unease
in that stiff frown of his.

“Denver,” I tried to say softly, realizing
that even though I hadn’t done anything with Thorne last night, I
should still apologize.

“Where will you be staying?” he snapped
again.

“Nothing happened between me and Thorne. He
just offered me somewhere to stay, and I was tired and hysterical
enough to say yes. No, hold on, that sounds bad. He was being
genuinely nice. I slept on his couch. Nothing happened.”

“Do you think I care? I want to know where
you’re staying for the purposes of our investigation.”

I usually wasn’t the kind of girl to get
emotional, but I found myself closing down at that. I crunched my
arms hard against my middle, turned my face to the side, and hoped
that the hot tingling feeling in my cheeks wasn’t a prelude to
tears. Though I was usually emotionally stable, these were not
usual circumstances. “Annabelle has offered for me to stay at her
house,” I answered quietly. “I’m sure absolutely everybody in this
town has the address.”

“Right.” Denver reached into his pocket and
drew something out of his wallet. He handed it to me in the
roughest way he could.

“What’s this?”

“It’s my card,” he said stiffly, “now my
number is on the back. Charge your phone the first chance you get,
understand?”

I nodded mutely.

“And don’t do this again,” he said, his
voice pregnant with warning.

Though I was trying to act genuinely
sorry, I had to narrow my gaze at that. “Look, I’ve just been
stressed out. I know I should have gone straight to the police
station when I got back to town, but... I forgot. I didn’t do it on
purpose.”

“I have to get back to the investigation.”
He turned sharply on his foot.

“Denver,” I called out to him.

He walked back to his car. He got in, he
turned on the ignition, and he drove away without so much as a
wave.

Oh crap. Way to go Patti Smith. I hadn’t
just ruined it with Denver; I had turned him from a valuable ally
into a simmering, bubbling cauldron of rage.

Feeling guilty and ashamed, I found myself
walking around town until I spied a handy wooden bench.

Sitting down, I drew my arms around my
middle as I kicked my feet over the cool, long grass.

Looking up, I could see the glorious
mountain ranges that pulled up behind the town.

Staring at the way the sun glinted across
those ragged rocks could take your breath away.

Wetlake had always been startlingly
beautiful, but like anything else worthwhile, you had to sit down
and take the time to truly appreciate it.

Well right now I had the time, but my mind
wasn’t there. It wasn’t on the murders; it wasn’t on what I’d found
out about Nancy; it was solidly circling around the topic of
Denver.

Though I spent a great deal of energy
pretending I wasn’t attracted to the guy and didn’t care what he
thought, now that I’d spectacularly lost him, I couldn’t deny how I
felt any longer.

He was rough around the edges, very rough,
but he had a certain charm about him.

Swearing to myself occasionally and
realizing there was no way I could fix this, I sat there and waited
for the hours to tick on by.

I wanted to head up to Annabelle’s. I wanted
wine and popcorn too, and I wanted a bed that wasn’t a couch and
that wasn’t in the creepiest motel around.

Once it hit half past four, I figured I had
time for a short walk before Annabelle was scheduled to pick me
up.

As I traveled through the pleasant,
picturesque streets of Wetlake, a slight peace descended on me, but
it was only slight. There was only so much peace I could have until
I left this town and both its Scott brothers far, far behind
me.

As I walked through a particularly hilly
section of town that had enormous, old, beautiful houses
resplendent with giant oak trees and white picket fences, I heard a
car pull up gently behind me.

I didn’t turn around until somebody called
out my name.

“Hey, Patti, it’s Thorne.”

I twisted my neck, and sure enough, there
was Thorne getting out of his squad car.

“I just wanted to double check you’re okay.
We were quite worried there for a bit when you disappeared between
my house and town.” He shot me a small, slightly disapproving
smile, but one that was nonetheless friendly.

Instantly I started to blush, and I pushed
my hair out of my face. “I am so sorry for wasting everybody’s
time.”

He brought his hands up quickly at the
strength of my sudden reaction. “I’m not going to shout at you,
Patti. I’m just here to say I’m glad you’re safe and to check to
see if you need a hand.”

What a difference.

One Scott brother would rake you across the
coals, while the other would offer his hand in help.

“Thank you, thank you for letting me stay at
your house, and thank you for being so goddamn nice,” I added,
being unashamedly honest.

Was it just me, or did Thorne glance at his
feet to hide a blush? “That’s what country boys are meant to do,
right?”

I snorted. “Well you’re doing a very good
job of being the quintessential, charming, rural man.”

He didn’t so much as blush again as get a
certain kind of look in his eye. The kind of look that sent a
certain kind of shiver down my spine.

Oh Christ, I was doing it again. I’d spent
the entire afternoon thinking about Denver, yet one look at Thorne
and that alluring good-boy nature, and I was melting once
again.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I wanted to
kick myself.

“
Your brother seemed kind of... mad,” I
brought up Denver, even though I shouldn’t have; at the mention of
his brother’s name, that light in Thorne’s eyes extinguished in a
flash.

“When is my brother anything but an
irascible jerk?”

“He kind of had a point this time. Sorry, I
just didn’t think. My car broke down, my phone wasn’t charged, and
even though it sounds pathetically paranoid, I was going nuts
thinking someone would drive up behind me and kill me in the
woods.”

Thorne managed a commiserating smile. “It’s
not nuts. And I understand. When the brain gets stressed, it does
strange things. I’ve seen it before, and there’s no point in
getting angry with people. That’s why we train police officers; to
make sure they can control their natural instincts in times of
danger. So there’s no point beating yourself up, Patti, even if
Denver Scott tells you you should,” he added, lips moving stiffly
around his brother’s name.

I’d spent the entire afternoon feeling
extremely sorry for myself, but a few sentences exchanged with the
dreamy Thorne and suddenly that weight was lifting from my
shoulders.

People did do dumb things when they were
stressed, right? And I had been extremely stressed.

“I heard about your car, and Denver
mentioned you are staying at Annabelle’s. I hope everything will
get sorted out for you soon.” He nodded at me.

I gave a small, awkward nod in return.

So Denver and Thorne obviously got on well
enough to share information, or at least about me.

I didn’t know how I felt about that.

Still, I couldn’t deny that my short talk
with Thorne was making me feel one million times better.

“Look, a couple of the folks still in town
for the reunion are going to meet up at one of the pubs later. Just
something informal. A memorial, of sorts,” as Thorne spoke, he did
so respectfully. He had his hands clutched before him, and he made
eye contact only with the pavement, glancing up slowly as he
finished and offering the slightest of smiles.

“Annabelle is kind of picking me up at five,
and I’m not sure if I can ask for a lift back into town and then
back to her house again,” I pointed out awkwardly.

“I’m more than happy to give you a
lift.”

A part of me wanted to say yes, and yet
another part, the sensible part, understood I needed to stay away
from both Scott brothers.

“I’m sure Annabelle will come anyway,” he
added, “once she finds out. She does love her social functions,”
his voice became weak at the end, as he no doubt remembered that
this wasn’t a social function. This was a memorial for the two
people who had been brutally murdered in the space of two days.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, looking
powerfully awkward, a little of that rugged-woodsman look
fracturing to reveal an ordinary, shocked man underneath. “This is
a small town; things like this don’t happen here. And we don’t
really know how to deal with them.”

I nodded.

I doubted anyone knew how to deal with
things like this, except for maybe Denver. But he managed to deal
with it by being completely and totally closed off from the world.
He maintained the same hard, glacial countenance wherever he went.
It meant he couldn’t get hurt and likely couldn’t get surprised by
dead bodies in the rose bushes either.

“It must be horrible,” I suddenly pointed
out, “I can’t even begin to imagine how you try to deal with
something like this.”

“By the book. These aren’t the first violent
crimes that have ever been committed, and as horrible as it sounds,
each time someone winds up murdered, you learn something new.”

It was such an uncomfortable topic that I
found myself curling my fingernails into my sides as I tapped my
hands on my legs.

I wanted to offer Thorne an ear and a bit of
solace, but everything he said just drove home how dreadful this
situation was.

Two people had died.

Brutally.

“You look a little pale, Patti. Sorry to
bringing this all up again. How about I leave you to your walk?
Don’t forget to drop into the police station when you’re ready to
give your statement, sooner rather than later, if that’s okay,” he
added hesitantly.

He was about to drive away and leave me to
my thoughts, wasn’t he? He wasn’t going to mention the memorial
again; he was just going to back off respectfully.

You didn’t come across men like Denver too
often, but you sure as hell didn’t come across men like Thorne any
more frequently.

Pushing my hair off my forehead again, I
suddenly nodded. “What time did you say the drinks were?”

“Nine,” he gave the slightest, slightest of
smiles. While still being respectful, he showed his interest at the
same time.

Seriously, you didn’t come across men like
Thorne Scott often.

“I’ll ask Annabelle if she’s going. I don’t
want to be an imposition on anyone.”

“Patti, you sure as hell aren’t an
imposition; you’re a breath of fresh air.” With that, Thorne waved
at me and got back into his car. With another short wave, he pulled
out from the curb and drove off slowly.

I stared at his car as it turned around a
corner and drove out of sight.

What was I doing?

Murders and romance didn’t mix... or maybe
they did.

And I really didn’t mean that in a nasty,
smutty kind of way, but when people were stressed out, and faced
with the brutal side of life, they often reached out for
comfort.

I could spend the rest of my short stay in
Wetlake berating myself for thinking about the likes of Denver and
Thorne while terrible things were happening, or I could try to
accept the fundamental need for human connection in times of
horror.

Walking back to where Annabelle would pick
me up, I was peacefully thoughtful.

Thoughtful, however, wouldn’t last.

Neither would the peace.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Annabelle said as
she rolled down her window and gave me a short wave.

I stood up from the park bench I was sitting
on and returned the wave. “That’s fine,” I replied honestly.

“I’ve had to pick up a few things from the
store,” she leaned over and opened the passenger door for me.

Getting in, I repeated that it was totally
fine. Annabelle was being kind enough to give me a lift here, and I
wasn’t about to snap at her for being all of five minutes late.

“
Hey, Annabelle, I know you have your heart
set on wine and popcorn tonight, but apparently they’re having some
kind of memorial drinks at the pub, and I thought...” I trailed
off. I didn’t want to be cheeky and ask for another
lift.

She glanced across at me. Briefly, a
calculating expression stiffened her features – but it was gone in
the flicker of an eye. Shrugging her shoulders, she tutted. “No one
told me about that. Sheesh, sometimes I think I’m so over the top
that people hide parties from me just so I won’t come, take photos,
and send scrapbooks to everyone afterwards.”

I smiled at her joke, but I didn’t
laugh.

This wasn’t a party.

For Christ’s sake, it was memorial drinks
for two people who had been murdered.