Criminal Intent (MIRA) (16 page)

The last six months, her social life had revolved exclusively around her teenage daughter. Sophie was a great kid once you got past the belligerent adolescent act. Even so, their meeting of the minds was limited to a few obscure topics. They both thought the new retro-look Ford Mustang was destined to be a classic, and both of them adored steamer clams dripping with butter. But that was pretty much the extent of their overlapping interests. Annie’s tastes ran to 19th-century antiques and Led Zeppelin. Soph was into black nail polish and Marilyn Manson. There wasn’t a whole lot of common ground between those extremes.

She could really use somebody past the age of thirty to talk to.

Determined to put a good spin on the evening, whatever it brought, Annie
threw back her shoulders, plastered on a generic smile, and began scoping out the crowd in search of a mini-party to crash. She’d just about decided on hijacking two thirty-something women drinking wine coolers and talking animatedly while they lounged in deck chairs beside the pool when her attention was caught by a pair of blue eyes that were focused directly on her.

Davy Hunter stood on the deck next to the sliders, leaning against the cedar shingles, his gaze riveted on her face. His chambray shirt was the same shade of blue as his eyes, and his jeans hugged those lean hips like a lover’s embrace. This was the first time she’d seen him out of uniform. He wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes. Hunter wasn’t a handsome man. His edges were too rough for handsomeness. But there was something compelling about him just the same, an attractiveness that couldn’t be explained by something as superficial and transitory as perfect features or a nice smile. There was something primal and timeless about his appeal, something that grabbed at her heart and tugged for all it was worth. And right now, she was inordinately pleased to see him, a familiar face in a sea of strangers.

He raised his coffee cup in greeting, and soft feathers of pleasure tickled her insides. The wine cooler ladies totally forgotten, Annie moved straight toward him. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said.

“World’s just full of surprises, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she said. “Some of them more pleasant than others.” She tried to read those blue eyes, but found them impenetrable even when he wasn’t wearing the sunglasses. Glancing around the yard, she said, “Who are all these people?”

“I could introduce you around.”

Her attention swiftly returned to him. “Was that a threat, Hunter?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “Are you hungry?”

“Not
particularly, but I could go for a glass of iced tea, if you think you could scare one up for me.”

“Wait here.” He crossed the deck, knelt and rummaged around in a large cooler parked near the grill, pulling out a bottle of Snapple. “Success,” he said, returning to her with his bounty.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the ice-cold bottle from him. “Is this an example of my tax dollars at work?”

“I’m off duty.”

And he obviously hadn’t gotten the hang of light banter. “You’re the police chief,” she said, uncapping the bottle of iced tea and taking a sip. “I’d think that would mean you’re never off duty.”

“It’s a temporary position. And in a manner of speaking, you’re right.”

By unspoken mutual accord, they left the deck to slowly circle Jo Crowley’s backyard. Her roses were spectacular. Pausing before a particularly impressive specimen, Annie buried her face in a huge yellow blossom tinged with pink and inhaled its heavenly fragrance. “My mother used to grow roses,” she said wistfully. “This brings back wonderful memories. I’ve always found it intriguing, the way memory is so closely intertwined with our sense of smell. Did you know that psychologists still haven’t figured out why?” She glanced up, caught the indulgent look on his face, and grinned. “Sorry,” she said. “I tend to get carried away about the most esoteric things.”

“I don’t mind.”

“But I do. I’d rather talk about you anyway. So tell me, Davy Hunter, how you came to be the temporary police chief of Serenity.”

“I did it as a favor to a friend,” he said. “Except that I’m beginning to believe he’s the one who did me the favor.”

“Oh?”

“I’m
also beginning to believe that was his intention all along. He was trying to save me from myself.”

“I see. And do you need saving?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

She took his question seriously because it felt serious. Pausing to study him more closely, she said, “I suspect you have trust issues. There’s definitely a dark side to you.You’re a little enigmatic, a little secretive, a little remote. You don’t let people get too close. You’re probably also a perfectionist who’s far too hard on himself. But underneath it all, there’s a good, solid core of decency. All in all, I’d say you’re salvageable.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “What are you, a psychic?”

“Psychology major. I was a high school guidance counselor in a previous life.” She hadn’t meant to tell him anything about her past. It had simply slipped out, and it was too late now to take it back.

“And you left it behind,” he said. “Just like that. For what?”

“To be an entrepreneur, of course. Now I own a run-down motel and a video store that somebody trashed the other night.”

“Nice answer. You do elusive well. And you call me secretive?”

“There’s nothing secretive about it. My marriage ended, things happened, and I left that life behind and came here to start a new one. So far, it’s been interesting.”

“I hear you shingled your own roof.”

“I did. In case you decide to leave police work, I don’t recommend roofing as a profession. Although by the time I finished, I did have quite a feeling of accomplishment.”

“How’d it go with the insurance company?”

“It went. The adjuster came this morning, all the way from Portland, and he made sure I knew that his little trip out here to no-man’s-land was more than just a hop and a skip.”

“They
planning to take care of it?”

“It looks that way. He asked about a zillion questions, and he took pictures. Both video and still. I have to inventory the damage and give him a list of lost items and estimated replacement costs, and then they’ll write me a check. It was a little creepy. He kept staring at me through his Coke-bottle glasses as though he thought that if he stared hard enough, I’d admit to trashing the place myself for the insurance money. Hell, if I’d thought of it, I might have done that. Insurance fraud’s bound to be more profitable than the Twilight Video store ever will be.”

“Be careful what you say. You’re talking to a cop. You don’t want to incriminate yourself.”

Maybe she’d been wrong before. Maybe he did have the hang of light banter. Maybe he was just a little rusty. “I plead the Fifth.”

“Did you get any of the mess cleaned up?”

“Not really. By the time the insurance adjuster left, it was past noon. I still hadn’t finished the work on the roof. As far as lifting and bending, Estelle’s pretty much out of the picture. Sophie would’ve been willing to help out—which in itself is a miracle—but without guidance, I’m afraid she wouldn’t have made much progress.”

“I could probably give you a few hours tomorrow. It’s my day off. I bet Jessie’d be willing to come along and help, too.”

“Jessie?”

“My stepdaughter.” He nodded in the direction of the swimming pool. “Over there, in the blue bathing suit. She’s one of your part-time employees.”

“Is she? Eventually I’ll get to know everyone. And she’s your stepdaughter? But I thought—” She paused awkwardly, not sure how to word the question, then decided to hell with it. She had a right to know the truth before she so much as sniffed another rose with this man. “Jo told me you’re not married.”

“Oh? And
can I assume that information was shared during the same conversation in which you told her you thought I was grim?”

She felt a flush climb her face. “Damn the woman.”

“Welcome to Serenity. One of the first lessons you’ll learn is not to tell Jo Crowley anything you don’t want to see on the front page of the
River City Gazette.
She’s right. I’m not married. Chelsea and I were divorced a long time ago.” Casually, pretending interest in something on the distant horizon, he continued, “She died last year. Jessie’s spending the summer with me.”

Maybe that accounted for some of the darkness inside him. If he was still this close to his stepdaughter, maybe he and his ex-wife hadn’t yet put closure to their relationship. It would explain a lot. “If you and Jessie really would be willing to help out tomorrow,” she said, “it would mean the world to me. I really need to get the place back up and running. You wouldn’t believe how many customers I had to turn away today.”

“We’d love to. What time do you want us to show up?”

She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw relief on his face, relief because she hadn’t pushed it. “Ten o’clock?” she said. “I’ll spring for lunch. We can order a pizza or something.”

Three hours later, Davy was sitting in semidarkness in his tiny kitchen, eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream, when Jessie came in, her hair still damp from the swimming pool, her wet bathing suit, wrapped in a plastic bag, tucked under one arm. “Ice cream,” she said. “Excellent! Is there more where that came from?”

“Sure is. Want to join me?”

“You even have to ask? Let me hang up my bathing suit first.”

She
was back in a flash, bringing noise and movement to his kitchen, rattling bowls, clattering silverware, opening and closing the refrigerator door. While Davy watched, she spooned out an enormous serving of chocolate ice cream and topped it off with a river of Hershey’s syrup. She sat down across from him, dug into her ice cream, and closed her eyes in sheer bliss. “I love this stuff,” she said through a mouthful.

“Me, too.”

She crinkled her nose in an elfin smile and took another spoonful of chocolate on chocolate. He’d missed this kind of easy father-daughter intimacy, had missed so much of her growing up. The years he’d spent in D.C., he’d hardly seen her. He and Chelsea had spent so much time apart. After the divorce, even when they were together, Chels had kept him at arm’s length from her daughter when all he’d wanted was to be Jessie’s father. He’d never understood her reasoning, had never understood her refusal to name the man who’d sired her daughter.

It was supposed to be me,
he silently told Chelsea.
I was the one who changed her diapers and warmed her bottles. I was the one who took care of her when you were too hung over to get out of bed. I was the only father she ever knew, and you cheated me out of it, Chels. You cheated us both out of it, and I’m not sure I can ever forgive you for that.

“Do you remember when we lived together?” he asked Jessie. “When your mom and I were still married?”

She paused, spoon in hand, and gave his question some thought. “Not a lot,” she admitted. “Little bits and pieces. I remember that old dog we had.”

“Cody.”

“Right. Cody. He was my best friend. And I remember Disney World. You and I went on all the rides together.”

“You were four years old,” he said, “and fearless. I was in absolute
awe of you.” And he’d loved her in a way he’d never known he could love anyone. Utterly, selflessly, unconditionally.

Three months after that family trip to Florida, he’d come home one night to find the house empty. While he was at work, Chelsea had packed everything she and Jessie owned, leaving him nothing but a Dear John letter and a heart that had been ripped out of his chest. When the divorce papers arrived a few weeks later, he didn’t even bother to contest. He’d already lost everything that mattered. He just signed on the dotted line and moved on with his life.

It was two years before Chelsea called him out of the blue one day, two years before he climbed back on the merry-go-round. Two years before he saw Jessie again.

“When I was a kid,” she said, “when Mom was drinking a lot and times were rough, sometimes I’d get so scared. I used to pretend you were my dad.”

Me too,
he thought.
Me, too.
“I was your dad,” he said, his voice husky. “In every way that mattered.”

“I used to pretend you’d come and find us. That you’d rescue me. Sometimes things just got so bad. Don’t get me wrong, Mom was great. Really great. The best. But when the booze got the upper hand, things always fell apart.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I would’ve rescued you if I could. Your mom just wouldn’t—” He stopped, held out both hands, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness.

“I know.” Aimlessly, she stirred ice cream and chocolate syrup with her spoon. “When I was eight or nine years old, I used to bug her all the time about my father. I kept begging her to tell me his name. That was all I wanted, just a name. But she wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t even talk about it. It wasn’t until I got older that I understood.”

“Understood what?”

She turned wide, solemn gray eyes on him. “I don’t think
she knew. I don’t think she had any idea who my father was.”

His heart splintered. “Christ, Jessie,” he said.

“It’s okay now.” Sounding older than her sixteen years, she said, “It doesn’t matter so much anymore. I’ll probably never know. Mom’s gone now, so she can’t even give me the names of the likely candidates.”

“Ah, fuck.” If Chelsea hadn’t already been dead, he would have strangled her, right here, right now, for what she’d done to this beautiful child who should have been his.

“It’s okay, Davy. Really. It’s just that—” she set down her spoon and rested her chin in her hands “—I wish it could be you.”

“So do I, sweetheart,” he said brokenly. “So do I.”

Bobby Sarnacki had dogs. Big ones, with sharp teeth.

If there was one thing Louis Farley hated, it was dogs. Like Indiana Jones and his snakes, Louis had an irrational fear of all things canine. When he was twelve years old, he’d been attacked by his neighbor’s shepherd/collie mix, a big, hairy, ferocious brute that had nearly torn his arm off before the neighbor had subdued his evil monster. Louis still bore the scars, both physical and emotional. He’d received twenty stitches, and ever since that day, any dog bigger than ten pounds made him quiver in his boots. Sarnacki’s guard dogs were a difficulty Louis hadn’t prepared for. Generally, he loved a challenge. It was always so satisfying to beat the odds. But the pleasure he expected to receive from outsmarting Sarnacki was diluted by the knowledge that somewhere inside that ultramodern home, past the creeping phlox and the box hedge and the flowering crab trees, awaited The Enemy in the form of twin Dobermans trained to attack any and all uninvited visitors. After a great deal of thinking, Louis came to the conclusion that there was only one solution to his dilemma: He
had to find a way to enter Sarnacki’s home by invitation.