After Caroline (38 page)

“No, go ahead,” he replied. Then, with sudden briskness, he turned away from the fire and headed for the door. “I’ll leave you with it.”

Lyssa didn’t get a chance to say good-bye or even “Okay”; abruptly, she was alone in his office. “So long to you too,” she muttered.

It required only a few minutes to start the computer downloading the information she had brought, and while the machine hummed it left Lyssa with nothing to do. She brooded for a short time, then swore under her breath and left the desk, and the office.

She was deviating from the accepted script again and knew it, but she didn’t care. She’d never seen Scott so unsettled, and she was determined to find out what was going on. She went upstairs, being quiet because the house was quiet and because she was very aware of trespassing in a way he would certainly not appreciate.

She turned down the hallway leading to Scott’s bedroom, but halted in surprise when she realized that the door to Caroline’s bedroom was ajar. That door had been locked since Caroline’s death, the room undisturbed.

Lyssa crept closer until she could peer inside, and what she saw wrenched at her heart. Scott was sitting on the bed in the ultrafeminine room, one of Caroline’s filmy nightgowns in his hands. His head was bowed, and as she watched, he lifted the pale green material to his face, obviously breathing in the ghostly scent of his wife. Abruptly, his broad shoulders began to jerk, and a low, harsh sound of pain escaped him.

Lyssa drew back away from the door and went back down the hall almost blindly. She paused at the top of the stairs, staring at nothing through hot eyes, and whispered, “Damn you, Caroline.”

“
W
HAT THE
HELL
were you thinking of?”

Joanna sat in Griffin’s visitor’s chair, nodding with perfect understanding of and commiseration with his anger. “I know, it was stupid.”

“Then why did you do it? Joanna, Scott is still a suspect as far as I’m concerned, and for you to just waltz over there
alone
and talk to him—let alone tell him every damn thing we’ve considered as possible—”

“I know,” she repeated. “I knew at the time you wouldn’t like it. But Griffin—”

He held up a hand to cut her off and almost visibly counted silently to ten. Or twenty. Then he settled back in his chair and took a deep breath. “All I can say is that you’d better have a damned good reason. I’m not kidding, Joanna. Because if Scott had anything to do with Amber’s death, you could have just wrecked the case against him.”

“He didn’t.”

“Oh? He told you that, I suppose?”

“He didn’t have to.” Joanna smiled. “Griffin, I know it’ll madden you to hear this, but I know Scott didn’t have anything to do with Caroline’s death, or Amber’s. I have no proof to offer you. I just
feel
it.”

Griffin closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “I’d like to see the judge’s face if you offered that as evidence,” he said.

Joanna felt a bit cheered, because his voice was definitely milder than it had been these last few minutes. “Look, I have to follow my instincts, and they say he didn’t do it. Of course, I wasn’t sure of that until I actually sat there in his office and talked to him, but I knew I had to talk to him sooner or later, and I felt sooner was better. I just … I had to
do
something, and that seemed at the time to be the best thing.”

Griffin sighed. “Did he tell you anything that might help us?”

“Not really.” She thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. “I think I understand his relationship with his wife a little better now, but he doesn’t know why—or even if—Caroline was upset before she was killed. And I’ll swear he was completely surprised by the knowledge that her death might have been something other than an accident.”

“He doesn’t have a good alibi for either of the deaths,” Griffin reminded her.

“Maybe not, but yesterday when my car was tampered with, he was in Portland. All day, on business. With witnesses.”

Griffin frowned, but said, “He could have hired someone to do it.”

Joanna smiled. “In Atlanta and other big cities, you could practically look up Thugs-R-Us in the Yellow Pages, but here? Who could Scott hire to do that kind of job? Putting aside the fact that it’d have to be somebody he trusted enough, who’d be willing to do it?”

“You have a point,” Griffin admitted.

“And that’s not all. Why would Scott want me dead?
Because I’ve been asking questions about Caroline? As far as I could tell, nothing I found out about Caroline would surprise him—or particularly disturb him. He knew her awfully well, Griffin.”

“Okay,” Griffin said slowly. “I admit, the thought of Scott of all people waiting outside The Inn in the rain for you to come out boggled my mind. And nobody saw him anywhere around the hotel on Sunday. So consider him off my list, at least unless we find some evidence pointing his way.”

“Good. Have you talked to Cain yet?”

“No, dammit, he’s made himself scarce.”

“Holly said he often goes off painting, sometimes for days,” Joanna said.

“Yeah, it’s a habit of his. But I’ve had one of my deputies out all morning looking for him, and there hasn’t been a sign.”

“You realize a number of the people around here are convinced he killed Amber?”

Griffin nodded. “Another hazard of small towns; once gossip spreads, people tend to make up their minds quickly. I’m trying not to make the situation worse; my deputy isn’t asking anyone if they’ve seen Cain, he’s just cruising around town keeping his eyes open.”

“So you’re stuck until he shows up?”

“Or until I get desperate enough to put out an all points bulletin for him.”

Joanna eyed him. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh yes I would. The mechanic’s reported in, Joanna—somebody did a fine job sabotaging your car. And Cain could have done it with his eyes closed; he spends as much time working on the engine of that little car of his as he does painting. I want to know where he was yesterday afternoon. I want to know where he was Sunday night when he claimed to be home alone. And I’m not going to wait much longer for those answers. Not with your life at stake.”

“Somebody would have to be awfully dumb to try to
kill me again,” she said reasonably. “Yesterday, okay; there was a strong possibility nobody suspected Amber was mistaken for me, so an attempt on my life might not have been connected. But yesterday’s attempt failed, and he can’t be sure you don’t suspect sabotage—which might logically make you wonder if somebody had wanted to kill me instead of Amber. Why would he risk another attempt, right away at least?”

“You’re the one who said we’re running out of time,” Griffin reminded her. “Maybe he has some kind of deadline. Or maybe he’s just plain scared that you’ll discover his secret.”

Joanna sighed and glanced down at the ragged fingernails that were clear evidence of nerves rather than effectiveness. “He shouldn’t worry. I don’t seem to be getting any closer to finding it.” She brooded for a moment while he watched her. “Without knowing who she was involved with when she died, I don’t even know where to
begin
looking for that secret.”

“Well, in the meantime,” he said, “I’m following a different track. You said you believed our dead tourist last spring could have been the beginning of all this, so I’m having my people dig into his background. I told them to pay special attention to any connection, however tenuous, between Robert Butler and anyone here in Cliffside.” “That sounds like a good idea. Any luck yet?” “No. It’ll probably take at least a day or two, and I may even have to send someone down to San Francisco. But if there’s a connection there, I intend to know about it.” Nodding, Joanna said, “Maybe that’ll give us the key.” “Maybe.” He smiled at her. “But for now—are you ready for lunch?”

“Definitely. As long as you aren’t still mad at me?” “Of course I’m still mad at you,” he said, rising from his chair and coming around the desk to pull her up from hers. “If you don’t stop risking your neck the way you did this morning, I’m going to lock you in my jail.” He surrounded her face with his hands and kissed her.

When she could breathe again, Joanna murmured, “How’re the beds in there?”

“Lousy. And we’d shock my deputies. So don’t make me do that, okay?”

She smiled at him. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“Your idea of careful and mine,” he said, “appear to be miles and miles apart.”

“We’ll argue about it over lunch,” she suggested.

She ended up spending the remainder of the afternoon with Griffin in his office, mostly because she felt contrite about having upset him earlier. There was plenty to do. For the first time, he let her see all the paperwork on the Butler investigation, as well as Caroline’s death, and she was surprised at the amount of paper produced by a police investigation.

The papers themselves, unfortunately, produced no surprises, at least not for her. As Griffin had told her, both deaths appeared to have been accidents, with absolutely no evidence pointing any other way.

Information about Robert Butler began to come in toward the end of the day, but this first stuff at least didn’t seem to be useful to them. It was culled from public records, detailing where and when he was born, who his parents had been, where he had gone to school. There was nothing odd in the information, and definitely no connection to anyone in Cliffside.

By five o’clock, Griffin called a halt and suggested to Joanna that they go back to his place. But Joanna said that since they weren’t being discreet, her hotel had certain amenities they would both appreciate. Like room service. If, that is, he thought he could walk across the lobby with his dignity intact.

“Let’s go,” Griffin said.

His bravery was wasted, since the lobby was deserted when they arrived, except for a desk clerk who didn’t even look up as they passed.

“The room service waiter will spread the news,” Joanna told him as they rode up in the elevator.

“I,” he said, “don’t care. In fact, I think I’ll answer the door wearing a towel, and
really
heat up the gossip.”

“You wouldn’t,” she said.

He would. He did. And he made her stay out of sight in the bedroom, presumably not dressed for a hotel waiter’s eyes, while he signed for their supper, tipped the waiter outrageously, and then hustled the young man out in a clearly impatient manner.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she said, laughing as she rejoined him in the living room of her suite.

Smiling, he caught her around the waist and pulled her against him. “I told you I was feeling ridiculous these days.”

Joanna put her hands on his chest, enjoying the feeling of hard muscles and unconsciously stroking the pelt of black hair covering them. “Yes, but I had no idea what lengths you’d go to.” Still unwilling to think about her own feelings or question his, she said, “I’m just beginning to get to know Griffin as a lover, you know.”

“Griffin as
your
lover,” he said, bending his head to kiss her.

She thought it was almost a crime how quickly and easily he could reduce her to a creature of tingling nerves and empty want, but she didn’t fight to control how he made her feel. Her arms slid up around his neck, and she rose on tiptoe to fit herself more closely to him, her mouth opening eagerly beneath his.

His hands moved down to cup her buttocks and hold her even tighter against his swelling loins. Against her lips, he muttered, “You’re still dressed.”

“Mmm. Well, do something about it,” she invited huskily. Then she tilted her head back and looked at him. “Our supper’s going to get cold.”

“To hell with it. We’ll send it back to the kitchen to be reheated. The waiter expects it anyway.”

Joanna laughed, but she didn’t protest when he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom.