Fixing Perfect (2 page)

And there she was, homemade backpack over her shoulders, painted denim jacket flapping with each swing of her crutches, and a hand-knit cap that matched her Pacific-under-a-brilliant-sun eyes. She looked up and something in those eyes caught at his heart. Those eyes had been doing that a lot, lately, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. Sometimes he wanted to explore the message he found there; most times he shied away from how she made him feel, made him question. Although why he should question forming more of a relationship, he didn't know. Nothing wrong with one. He blinked, shoving that thought away for the moment.

When Robin eased onto the bench, she used one crutch for an extra balance point. He watched, but didn't reach out to help. Only if she started to fall would he offer. Better not to offend her. He'd done that once and didn't want to brave her wrath again. Although her spirit made him grin.

Once settled, she shrugged out of the backpack and dropped it between them. “Sandwiches.” She sounded a tad more breathless than usual, but one look at her face convinced him that was another subject he'd better not bring up.

He held out a brown paper bag. “Sodas.” Italian cherry cream, kind of expensive but Robin's favorite. He liked to treat her once in a while. Or more often than that. And that made him uncomfortable, as well. But it didn't stop him from doing it.

“Perfect.” She unfastened the pack and handed him a paper towel and a plastic-wrapped sandwich. It would be an entire meal, taste like ambrosia, and she wouldn't give him a list of ingredients even if he begged.

“If I tell you, you'll be able to make your own and then who will I have to eat lunch with?” she'd ask.

He always thought she was joking. “I'm too lazy to make my own lunch,” he'd answer, but that never changed anything. Not that he minded. He just liked teasing her about it. Now, he said, “I'll say grace, OK?”

“Sure.” She folded her hands and bowed her head, waiting for him to finish. She always said the same little poem she'd learned as a child, but he liked to put more variety into his thanks, sort of the way she treated her food creations.

“God of infinity, we thank You for our food, for the brilliant, talented hands that make it every day, for the beautiful weather, and for friendship. Be with us, guide us, and bless us as we finish our day.” He almost added something about Lehanie Haro but stopped himself.

God knew about her death, may have already welcomed her to heaven, but Robin might not have heard. He didn't want to add shock value to his prayers.

“Amen.” She unwrapped her food, but slowly, as though she had more on her mind than eating. Maybe the news had reached the co-op.

He hadn't listened to the latest broadcasts.

Leaves spun down and littered the cracked cement walkway. Robin bent and swept a few together with one foot, but the breeze scattered them. She laughed and brushed several more out of her hair.

“You gonna eat?” He took a huge bite. She'd made his favorite, chicken salad with a yummy avocado dressing. He smiled around chewing. She liked to treat him just as often as he liked to treat her.

Sometimes he really liked what he thought that meant. Sometimes it scared him. Most of the time, he tried to ignore the questions that bubbled in his heart any time he thought of her. He wished they'd go away, but the thought of not seeing her, which was the only way he could think of to eradicate those questions, made his stomach hurt. So he just put up with the thoughts when he had to.

“Oh yeah.” She took a much smaller bite, before she put the food back on the wrapper while she unscrewed the soda bottle. After that, she looked straight into his eyes, like she could read every thought he had. “Everything all right?”

He sighed. “You're going to hear about this soon enough. I thought you might have already. A jogger found the missing babysitter.”

Despair filled her face. “Not Becca?”

He shook his head and knew before she opened her mouth that she understood the implication. “So Lehanie is dead.” Robin's lips pinched on the pain. “And she wasn't...she didn't have anything to do with kidnapping little Becca, did she?”

“She can't have. If she'd just turned up dead, the police might have still suspected her, but the way she was killed...” Murder and food did not mix. When was he going to learn that? He put down his sandwich.

Robin bent her head, her fingers worrying the beaded fringe of the scarf that peeked out from under the jacket. “So what does it mean?”

“It means there's someone really sick out there who still has a little girl.” He remembered the way Becca looked in her pictures—soft, wispy blond curls, wide brown eyes, dimples on either side of her round chin. The pictures were everywhere, on posters and taped to plastic jars begging for donations, on the news and in the papers.

“She's so little.” Her jaw clenched, biting off the words. “Just a baby.”

“Yeah. I can't tell you any more details until I know for sure what the police will release to the media.”

She nodded. “Does her family know?” She stumbled over her words. “Both families. They'll all have to hear. I can't imagine how Becca's parents will feel.”

“By now, probably everyone has been told, yes. We got her out of there a couple hours ago.” He finally managed to swallow bread sucked dry by sorrow. “Look, let's talk about something else, or we won't be able to eat.”

She nodded again, her eyes distant and shadowed. “I hope you don't have nightmares.”

So much for changing the subject. “I'll be all right. It's been months.”

“I know, but when I first saw you just now I thought—” She didn't tell him what was on her mind, didn't really have to.

The first few months after Henry's death, his murder had been all Sam talked about to her—the murder, the nightmares, his fears. And she'd listened. Over and over, to the same—or what probably sounded the same to her—details and guilt. And now he hadn't mentioned Henry or guns or dreams in a couple months. No wonder she worried.

“I'll be OK. It was ugly, really ugly, but I've seen stuff like it before.” Not exactly like it, not even close. But he couldn't tell her that yet. “I'll be OK,” he repeated.

“If you say so.” Her wide blue eyes fastened on him, full of doubt.

“I do.” He nudged her sandwich. “Come on, finish eating. I've got to walk you home pretty soon, and then get to bed. Two AM comes a little too early these days.”

Her smile wavered and then strengthened. Good. Like all the other locals would be, she had to be devastated over Lehanie's death, but he didn't want it to bring her down. Didn't she have enough to worry about?

 

 

 

 

2

 

Late Friday afternoon Robin again sat behind the co-op gift shop counter, swinging one foot while she watched a few customers wander through the store. She tried hard to be glad any time anything sold, but she couldn't help the little thrill when it was something she'd made that someone picked up and, after deliberation, brought to the sales counter. The profit was nice; the satisfaction of having created something joyful was priceless.

Today, that thrill would be hard to come by, though not for lack of sales.

The store was made to entice women and children. Toys, hand-dyed blouses, hand-stitched purses, painted wood, and beaded ornaments crowded the shelves. A display of orange and purple Halloween items filled the narrow walkway leading from the front door to the belly of the shop, just begging kids to pop in and explore the offerings.

A couple with three little girls strolled inside.

Robin smiled at the woman and grinned outright when the oldest child went straight to the display of brightly dressed mermaids. She'd been making those dolls for more than a year, tweaking the design each time she put one together, and they were always a big seller.

“I've got matching paper dolls, too, right beside those.”

The two older girls squealed while the youngest hugged a mermaid with a pink and orange tail.

The man stepped farther into the shop, glancing at the items for sale, but the mother hovered near the girls. When she saw Robin watching, she grimaced. “We just heard about that poor little girl and her babysitter. I mean, how they didn't find the little one.” Her fist clenched over the youngest child's arm. “I'm not letting any of mine more than a foot away from me.”

“I don't blame you.” Robin half rose from the stool, but settled back down. “It doesn't make for a very relaxing vacation, though, I'll bet.”

“It sure doesn't. You get so scared that some monster's gonna nab your baby. And don't even ask me about getting a babysitter.”

The way the woman growled the words sent chills along Robin's neck. She didn't have kids, but she understood the fear.

The woman moved a step closer and lowered her voice. “They were locals, though, weren't they?”

Robin opened her mouth, at first resenting this woman's implication. But understanding took over. If those were her three little girls, wouldn't she grasp any hint of hope, no matter how small or how much it might hurt someone else, that they'd be just a little bit safer, because they didn't live on the island?

“They were. They are, I mean.” She couldn't consign Becca to death without hope putting up a frantic fight, even if it was only over words. She rang up the family's sales and gave them a huge smile. “Stay safe.”

“You bet.”

A customer she'd been only marginally aware of before wandered closer and leaned on the counter. She looked up into clear, pale blue eyes and started. Not a customer, then, but the photographer. She remembered the name from his paperwork. “Donovan, right?”

“You got it. You always here?”

“Me? No. Everyone does their share. I'm only here two days a week for three hours. If you get your photographs in, you'll have to do your time, too.”

He grinned and nodded toward her display of dolls. “Those are yours?”

“The mermaids are, yes.”

“They're cute. No wonder those kids couldn't leave without them.”

“Oh, did you see that? The littlest one was so sweet.” She let out a tiny breath.

He turned to stare out the door, his upper lip curling. “The mom was a little paranoid, though.”

“I don't think so. She's a mother—and anyway, no one wants any little girls getting hurt. Much less what that—that
thing
did to the babysitter.” She shuddered, remembering the few details Sam had been able to tell her. And even without specifics, dead was dead. No one wanted murder and kidnapping on the island. Lehanie had just gotten married and was probably planning her own family. “And who knows what he's doing to Becca.”

He glanced at her, his eyes wide, at first, and then narrowed. “Right, yeah. Because she's still missing. I hadn't thought of that.” Donovan scratched the back of his head. “But the way she acted, like they'd get snatched here in the store or even just because they're on the island. Overprotective.”

Robin pinched her lips together. This guy just didn't get it. “But she might save her children's lives, and that's all that matters.”

Donovan frowned. “But I was here. She saw me. It's not like I'd let anything happen to her kids and not do something.”

She held out her hands. “People worry. It's not logical all the time.”

“I getcha.” He glanced around and leaned closer. “This is a really nice place. Did you give all my stuff to Missy yet?”

“Last night. She said she'd get back to you sometime today.” She smiled, enjoying his movie-star perfection looks. “I really don't think it's going to be a problem. She's always looking for new talent.”

“Great, thanks.” He winked at her and strolled out.

She turned to the next customer, glad enough to make another sale, even if it wasn't one of her creations. But her heart was full of thoughts of Becca—five years old and who knew where.

 



 

Alan Bricker stopped on the other side of the table from Sam, slapping his food onto the laminate as if it were responsible for the sickness of the murder. He yanked a leg over the bench and plopped down, running one hand over his haggard face, trying to disguise his horror with a show of bonhomie. “Sammy, boy, how you doing?”

“I'm all right. You?” Sam studied his friend. The older man, going gray and often complaining about the grim nature of police work, had become Sam's mentor the day he'd started working for the tiny Catalina Island ambulance service. He wasn't a paramedic, but he'd seen something in Sam that needed a father figure.

Bricker shrugged. “They put me on the dead girl's case. I like Macias, but…”

“Should I congratulate you or sympathize?”

Because it would be a great coup for the detective if he helped to solve it but a tremendous emotional drain, whether he did or not.

Bricker shook his head. “Who can tell? It's not gonna be good, no matter what happens.” Again, he rubbed his face and stomach before glaring at the food. “I gotta get an easier job, but first I've got to take care of this pervert. You were one of the first responders, weren't you?”

Blinking at the change of subject, Sam said, “Yeah.”

“What did you notice? Anything odd?”

“What? Like the fact that the killer dyed her hair? Painted eyes a different color from hers on her eyelids? Or the fact that he'd posed her and tied her down to keep her that way—like he thought she could still move?”

“Eh.” Bricker leaned over his meal. “You saw all that?”

“Kind of hard to miss.”

“We're dealing with a real sicko.”

“I think the whole town knows that.”

“Except the sicko.”