Fool Me Once (Codie Snow #1): A Romantic Suspense Series (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

BEFORE CODIE AND Pete could make real plans for lunch
or
dinner, he was called away by his employers…more specifically, by that annoying dispatch woman who managed to steal his attention away from her “gorgeous tits.”  She’d never admit it, but Pete’s rejection—yes, that was what it was—hurt more than she would like to admit.  Yeah, sure, they were friends, but she’d been under the impression the last few days that it was developing into more.

Stupid—because Pete had never said that or even indicated it, not once.  Sex, yes.  Relationship?  Never said a word.  It had just been her own damn fantasy.

Codie let out a long sigh after she closed the door behind him and tried to decide if she wanted to dig out a bottle of something—a drink she could take a shot of that would help her go to sleep—or if she’d rather let a few tears fall and then watch some TV until she drifted off.  Whatever the case, sleep should have been her priority (should have been all along, but she’d allowed her heart to rule), because she had to work the next morning.  Hell, the rockin’ orgasm she’d experienced thanks to Pete should have made her sleepy—but her emotions trumped anything her endorphins could offer.

She knew she was being silly and so she decided to go straight to bed, without the assistance of an alcoholic beverage and denying herself any girlish tears that might be lurking, but before she could even make it out of the kitchen, Matthew slid across the linoleum, wearing nothing but black ankle socks and navy blue boxer briefs.  “I have a big hug for you, girlfriend!”  He nearly crashed into Codie, sweeping her into his arms and lifting her up off the floor while squeezing her around the ribs.

When he let her go, she said, “Thanks, Matthew.”  It was then that she figured out he must have heard asshole Pete’s
Dear Jane
speech.

“You know I love you.”

She grinned.  “Back at ya.”

Matthew’s eyes lit up and he dropped his voice, his hands holding Codie’s shoulders.  “Oh, my God.  I have a
beast
in my room.”

Codie felt her eyebrows furrow.  “A
beast
?  What do you mean?”

Matthew’s eyes got bigger and he put a finger to his lips.  “Shh.  He’ll hear you.”

She lowered her voice to a loud whisper, echoing Matthew.  “
He?
”

“Holy God in heaven!  He’s a bouncer—well,
the
bouncer—at My Cousin’s Place.  I’ve been flirting with him for weeks now, and tonight he finally came home with me.”  Codie smiled, but before she could offer words of congratulation, Matthew added, “Boy, did he come all right.  I think I’m gonna need to have the carpet cleaned.”

“TMI, Matthew.”  One thing Codie knew for certain was that her bestie was never going to change.  He liked sex and burly men, and oversharing was part of his makeup.  The day Matthew didn’t tell her way too much would be the day Codie would know he was in love and possibly ready to be married.

“Not even.  I have lots more to tell you this weekend.  In the meantime, the big lug probably needs some cuddles.  But…I didn’t hear all of what happened with you, but it sounded like Mr. Numb Nuts Police Guy was giving you the brush off, and I wanted to offer my shoulder.”

“I’ll be okay.  I think…I think Pete’s just in a weird place.”

“Um,
yeah
.  It’s called
Assholeville
.  Only jerks live there.”  Codie laughed.  “I can’t believe you gave him a second chance after high school, Codie.  He didn’t deserve you then and he definitely doesn’t deserve you now.”

“That’s not fair, Matthew.”

Her friend’s face took on the look of a mother gently encouraging her children to wise up.  “It’s
totally
fair.  You’re just infatuated—probably from seeing his macho policeman act and his moderately sized dick—and, with a little distance, you’ll see what I mean.  The cops in this town act like this is a high-crime area like Denver or Colorado Springs or something, and they love to throw their weight around—and they don’t care what breaks when they do.”

Codie wrapped her arms around Matthew.  She didn’t want to debate it with him.  Hell, she wasn’t even ready to talk about it yet.  It was still too fresh, too raw.  No, she didn’t love Pete now like she thought she had in high school, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have wounds to nurse.  Whether or not she was in the right place to discuss it, though, she appreciated the sentiment.  “Love you, buddy.”

“Love you too, sis.  Now get some sleep.”  Almost as an afterthought, he added, “I have a boss who’s still pretty damned fond of you.”

She shook her head.  Nope.  She wasn’t ready for Slade’s brand of heartache either.  Maybe she needed to find a way to relish being single…because it was starting to look like she was going to be that way for a while.

* * *

After work the next day, Codie was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but the one thing that had kept her going was thinking about what Pete had told her the night before—not the
let’s be friends
bullshit, but the information about the woman who hadn’t actually been murdered.  For some reason, Codie was fixated on it, probably because it felt like she’d been personally involved because she’d been observing the initial investigation.  She definitely hadn’t had training on how to keep one’s emotions out of police work, because she’d felt a range of feelings while on the ride-along.  If she ever would decide to enter law enforcement, she’d have to learn how to turn that part of herself off—or at least subdue it while working.  It wouldn’t help a victim’s family if Codie was crying and carrying on that a lovely human being was found dead.  She suspected that was why some cops seemed like assholes—because they used it as a shield to protect their psyche.

For now, though, she was no cop, not by a long shot.  She was merely a concerned citizen who was curious as hell and wanted to find out more.  She didn’t know if Pete had been giving her the runaround or if there really was no more information available, so she decided to take matters into her own hands.

She went to the police station.

Codie had actually been there quite a bit recently, mainly because she’d been setting up the ride-along in the first place, so she knew a few people there by name.  She lucked out, because the receptionist who’d helped her the few times she’d come in to do something related to the ride-along spied her as she approached the front desk.  As the receptionist stood, though, the large woman Codie thought was the office manager approached.  Codie had never dealt directly with the woman before; she’d only seen her before when the receptionist had processed Codie’s ride-along paperwork.

Through the glass, Codie saw the receptionist shrug and wave before sitting down and returning her eyes to her computer monitor.  The pale office manager asked, in a voice so monotone she could put zombies to sleep, “Can I help you?”

“Hi.  I’m Codie Snow.  I don’t know if you remember me…” Codie paused, waiting for some type of acknowledgement, but the woman’s brow barely budged a millimeter.  Codie felt her breath pause in her lungs, and she wondered why she found this woman intimidating.  Sure, she was a large gal, but she didn’t seem physically aggressive.  It certainly couldn’t have been her penciled-in brows or long fake fuchsia nails.

And then it dawned on Codie—it was because the woman was a gatekeeper.  But she pulled the rest of the air in her lungs and reminded herself that it didn’t matter.  If the woman said no, Codie would just move on.  It wasn’t like she had a personal stake in the matter.  So…deep breath and then forging ahead.  “I, uh, went on a ride-along with Pete Olsen earlier in the week and we were at a crime scene.  Only we didn’t know all the facts at the time.  They thought the woman had been murdered, only now they think maybe it was a suicide?”

The woman’s face didn’t crack.

Her eyes didn’t light up.

She didn’t even acknowledge that she had any frigging clue what Codie was talking about.

But Codie chose to plow forward just the same.  “So I was wondering—as a concerned citizen, of course—what information I could get about that.”

Monotone again.  Delivered like a parrot.  About as much warmth as a glacier.  “I’m not at liberty to divulge any information while an investigation is ongoing.”

“Oh.”

Codie took that as a signal to leave and got ready to wave goodbye to the receptionist if she’d even be able to grab her attention.  Before she could do that, though, Ms. Warm and Friendly added one last little nugget.  “There’s going to be something in the paper tomorrow about it.”

Maybe this gal wasn’t so bad after all.  “Great.  Thanks!”  Codie felt a huge smile emerge on her face.  “Have a good one.”

But the woman had the last word—or grunt.  “Hah.”  As Codie walked away, she kept her spirits up by imagining that the poor woman running the front office probably just needed to get laid…

Chapter Fifteen

THE NEXT DAY, Codie was at work, thinking off and on about the newspaper article she hadn’t had the opportunity to read yet.  She knew several copies of the paper floated around the center each day, and she just had to wait until she found one.  She was so busy throughout the day, though, that she didn’t have much of a chance to look for a copy.  So, when she left at the end of her shift, she snagged one off one off a table in the lobby.

It would never be missed.

When she got to her car, she unfolded the paper.  Typical of Dalton, it was on the front page—because most crime, instigated by the local MC, was brushed under the rug.  What had been thought a murder, discovered to be a suicide, was enough to warrant a sidebar on the front.  As depressing as Dalton could be, suicides were rare—they just didn’t happen that often in Codie’s small town.

She quickly scanned the article about the suspected suicide of Michelle Dinsmoor, a former CNA and nursing student at the local community college, and then started up her car, intending to run to the grocery store for a few fresh veggies, and planning to read the small article in more detail once she got home—but, as she drove down the main highway through town, her mind started connecting dots.  While her car idled at a red light, she picked the paper up off the passenger seat so she could stare at the grainy wallet-sized color photo next to the article.

Holy shit.
  Did she know this woman?

She was pretty sure she did, but she wanted to ask Matthew’s opinion.  Instead of going to the store, she parked her car in front of Slade’s office without even thinking and didn’t even question her judgment until she was walking up to the tinted glass door, seeing in the reflection that she was still wearing her scrubs.

She didn’t give a crap.

When she walked in Slade’s law office, she noticed a couple of things.  Not having been there since last Christmas, she was surprised at how much had changed in that short time, but it had.  Matthew, normally attending to the front, was nowhere to be seen, but a cute girl who’d probably just graduated high school the year before sat at the front desk and beamed at Codie as her eyes adjusted to the indoor light.

It was then that the rest of the details surfaced.  The entire place had been renovated.  That in itself wasn’t a huge deal, but the fact that Matthew had never said a word about it seemed strange.  Or maybe he had and she’d just missed it because she’d been intentionally tuning out anything having to do with her ex…but she was beginning to wonder if she’d walked in the right place.  Before she could ask, the young lady said, “How can I help you this afternoon?”

Ah…an employer’s wet dream.  Attentive, proactive, friendly without being overly so, asking an open question to a client.  And, from what Codie could see, the girl wore a sharp suit to boot.  Codie took a deep breath to ease herself out of the disoriented feeling and then said, “I’m looking for Matthew.”

The girl’s brow moved ever so slightly but her smile remained in place.  “I don’t have him down for any appointments…”  She turned to the computer screen and began tapping.

“I don’t have an appointment.  I’m his roommate and just wondered if he had a minute or two.”

“Oh.”  The girl looked up again, smile cemented back on her too-cheery face.  “Of course.  He’s in with Mr. Sheppard at the moment, but let me see if he’ll be available momentarily.”  She pressed a button on her phone and in seconds was speaking through the headset she was wearing.  “Matthew has a visitor.  A—”  She paused and looked up at Codie.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t catch your name.”

Codie felt her lungs deflate.  If the girl’s voice was coming through the speakerphone in Slade’s office—and Codie would have bet a thousand to one that she was—then her ex would also know she was there…and she knew he probably wouldn’t resist the opportunity to say hello.

Especially after tucking her in a couple of nights earlier.

But she was already committed.  It wasn’t like she could just walk out now—not without drawing attention.  “Codie.”  The girl raised her eyebrows and Codie stifled a sigh as she added, “Snow.” 
Had the girl not heard a second ago that Codie was Matthew’s roommate?
  Sheesh.

The young woman repeated Codie’s name into the mike on her headset and, after a moment, looked up at Codie.  “He’ll be out in a few minutes.  If you’d like to take a seat,” she added, pointing to the small waiting area that Codie noticed had also been rehabbed with plush stuffed gray chairs and accessories of highly polished wood—but not so polished that potential clients couldn’t appreciate the natural grain.

Definitely felt like Slade with a side of Matthew.

But Codie didn’t even have a chance to plop her butt into one of the comfy-looking chairs before Matthew was rushing into the lobby.  “Codie!”  His voice was just shy of a yell and, as Codie turned around to greet him, he swept her off her feet and into a bear hug.

Yep.  A typical Matthew greeting.  How could she not love this guy?

She grinned, hugging him back as much as her trapped arms would allow.  He set her down and said, “What are you doing here, girlfriend?”  He took a second to assess her before saying, “You’re still wearing your work clothes.  What’s going on?”

Well…maybe to Matthew, wearing work clothes when not at work might have been a cardinal fashion sin, but he knew Codie didn’t give a shit.  It still didn’t stop the guy from trying.  She swallowed and took his cue as he started walking back toward the room from where he’d come.  But as soon as they were out of the receptionist’s earshot, she started talking.  “Do you remember Michelle Clark?”

Her roommate blinked a couple of times, his lips pursed as he slowed his gait, sensing the seriousness of Codie’s inquiry.  “She was a grade younger than us, right?”

Codie struggled for a moment, trying to remember the girl in school and answered, “Maybe,” but Matthew was already forming his next question.

“Went through CNA training with you?”

She nodded.  “Yes.”  As they paused in the doorway, she asked, “Do you know if she got married?”

“I don’t know.  We could find out in two shakes, though.”

Before she could form her next question, she noticed someone approaching her as she and Matthew walked through the door.  She knew, before she even turned her eyes to him, that it was her charismatic ex, because for some reason, she could sense his raw sexuality today more intensely than she had in a long time.

Probably thanks to her recent rejection.

No matter.  Slade had often affected her female parts in strange ways.  Today would be no different.  “Good to see you, Codie,” he said, a slight smirk on his face.

Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.  Only time would tell.

Slade stood aside, waving Codie into the room but keeping his hands to himself.  He offered her a black leather chair and she sat, taking in the room as she figured out exactly where she was.

This must be Matthew’s new office.  Yes.  That would explain why he was no longer at the front desk and why there was a young girl greeting clientele.  She knew from the looks of it that it was
not
Slade’s office.  There were no law books in here and no cherry wood desk inherited from his dad.  No mirrors.  No bar.

But as Matthew had been acquiring more duties, becoming more valuable to his boss, Slade had given him a budget to redecorate.

The office was definitely Matthew.  Accents of black here and there, two pieces of abstract art on the walls, and a three-foot vase in the corner, but the centerpiece was his desk.  What was striking was that the desk looked more like a dining room table than a workspace, save the computer and phone on one side and the paper tray in the other corner.  But, typical of her bestie roommate, what struck her most about the room was its simplicity and cleanness.

Oh…and feeling of money.  Lots and lots of money.

She had no idea how much Slade had let Matthew spend on making the room his own, but it felt like a buttload.  And that was when Codie figured out that Matthew would likely continue working for Slade as long as her ex would let him.

By all accounts, Slade was a good employer.  He was lax with time when he could be (like if Matthew wanted to leave early once in a while or take a long lunch), but that was probably because Matthew didn’t abuse the privilege—and he earned it.  Matthew had started with Slade when the attorney had been fresh out of law school, and he’d pretty much been Slade’s Girl Friday—his everything and everyone.  But, as his practice grew and his wallet fattened, he’d begun having Matthew take online courses (all paid by Slade) and had been giving him more and more duties.  Matthew had told Codie all this, but she hadn’t realized her roommate had all but become Slade’s right-hand man—until just this moment.  From what she could tell, her ex now had four or five more employees.

Now
she felt underdressed.

Slade and Codie sat in the leather chairs across from Matthew while her roommate tapped on his computer keyboard.  She could feel Slade’s eyes on her and it made her feel uncomfortable and hot all at once.  She knew how to handle her ex, though, and that was to keep him off balance—if she could.  Often, that involved either doing or saying something completely inappropriate or broaching an unexpected subject.

She wished she could do both in one fell swoop, but she was grasping at straws.  And she was feeling emotional and overwhelmed.

So she blurted out what was on her mind.  “Looks like you’ve moved up into the big leagues, Slade.  I didn’t know Dalton had this kind of money floating around.”

If she’d jostled Slade, there was no telling from his dark eyes.  As always, the man looked cool and collected.  “Codie, I’ve told you more than once that anywhere you go, there will always be someone holding some fat purse strings.  Even shit holes have kings who are collecting taxes.”

Yes, she
had
heard that one from him before.

“Okay.  Fair enough.  I just didn’t realize the kings had hired
you
.”

A slight smirk moved Slade’s lips, but it felt calculated, as if he were holding back.  “Let’s just say that I’ve acquired as clientele some big Dalton players.”  Yeah, it showed.  Not that Slade
looked
any different.  The man had always played the part, and having a rich father hadn’t hurt at all.  “Remember, anyone accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty, and everyone has a right to be represented by an attorney.”

Codie was trying to prepare a smart ass comment when Matthew interrupted them. “Aha!  Yep.  Michelle Clark married a guy named Caleb Dinsmoor almost three years ago.”

“So that was her?”

“Yes.”  Matthew turned his monitor so that she could see the screen.  Somehow, he’d found the wedding announcement that had been printed in Dalton’s daily back when it had happened.  She imagined Matthew had access to more information than she’d ever need.  “You gonna be okay, girlfriend?”

God, Matthew knew how she was going to feel even before she’d figured it out.  Yes, this upset her.  Greatly.  Michelle had never been a best friend to Codie, but they’d had a lunch or two together, and Codie remembered the young woman as vibrant and caring—a real sweetheart.  In fact, at their pinning ceremony after two months of intense classes and clinicals, one of their instructors had said Michelle embodied the spirit of Clara Barton more than any other student she’d ever had the honor to teach.  Codie swallowed and gathered her thoughts.  “Yes, I’ll be all right.  I just…”  She shook her head.  “It’s so hard to believe that Michelle would commit suicide—and in such a strange way.”  She couldn’t get the scene out of her head—the plastic bags strapped around the woman’s head, the strong odor of urine.  Codie regretted not having kept in touch with the woman, not that she could have helped her, but she couldn’t stop that thought from crossing her mind.

“Stop it right now, Codie.  You couldn’t have done anything.”

Matthew, always spot on.  “Get out of my head, weirdo.”

A big grin crossed her roommate’s face.  “I love you!”

“Love you back.”

Slade had always tolerated the way the two of them interacted, not that they would have cared what he thought.  Codie was getting ready to bring the subject back to Michelle when Matthew’s phone started talking.

Well, it was actually the receptionist out front talking
through
his phone.  “Matthew?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a Mr. Strong here to see you.”

Slade sat up, but there was nothing urgent about it.  “You need the two of us to clear out of here?”  Why did that sound to Codie like Slade was talking about them as a couple again?

“No, I can just take him into one of the interview rooms.”

Matthew said into the phone.  “I’ll be right there.”  He looked at Codie.  “Don’t make dinner tonight.  I have a new recipe I want to try out.”

“Okay, bossy.”

Matthew grinned and looked at Slade.  “I love this girl.”

Why Codie had never figured out before that Matthew had been part of why Slade probably continued to pursue her, she’d never know.  Of course, though, it all made sense.  It was all a big matchmaking game for her friend.  That was why she’d been at dinner with the two of them the other night and—