In Her Sights (21 page)

He shook his head. “I have nothing but dead ends there. My—”
He cleared his throat, nearly calling Shane what he was. “The person I picked
up the case for kept poor notes. I have nothing prior to the mailing list. My
options are to fly out to California and try to question everyone, or see if
the department would share information with me.”

“Which attaches your name to the dagger.”

“Yes.” He sighed. Aside from the case being odd, if it was
known he had the dagger and he had to present something to the courts, he would
be forced to show Shane’s notes. Clayton just wasn’t sure how legal all of
Shane’s information was.

“We’ll just work with what we have until we run out of
leads. Now that we know Arnold’s at the bottom of all this mailing around for
the last few months, I don’t see how the Sidewinders got involved, or even know
about the dagger.”

He shook his head. “Me, either. Hopefully, we can find out
why Arnold had the dagger mailed around like he did and then skipped town.”

“It’s already mid-morning.” She pushed away from the table. “If
you tell me I have to be ready in forty-five minutes again, I’m going to have
someone cut all your tires to give me extra time.”

“I thought you were lovely yesterday in that short time.” He
smiled as she walked past. The robe was belted, but parted at the front
revealing simple cotton shorts as he expected. “How about ninety minutes? That’ll
give me time to do another walkthrough of everything we installed. Check the
feeds and test alarms.”

“Doable.”

It wasn’t really what he had in mind. The feeds and alarms
had been checked thoroughly since their installation. To pass the time, he
walked through it all again. Called into the offices and moved along the back
wall to make sure he was seen at every angle—aside from the pool area. Once the
iron railing was installed around the top of her stone perimeter wall and the
new gates he’d ordered came in, this place was going to be locked down.

With a bit of time until ninety minutes were up and she
still wasn’t back down yet, he headed up. He hadn’t been on the third floor as
much. When they had searched the house for the dagger, Russells had taken the
top floor. Clayton had stayed on the lower level.

At the top of the landing, he headed to the left, away from
her room. The hallway was long and narrow. A few doors were along the sides.
Still in view from where she’d come from her room, he turned down a corner and
looked in the first door he came to. A bedroom. Across the hall was another
bedroom. She could probably house an apartment complex in her home. He made
another turn, and this hallway was long and empty. At the end of the hallway was
another door much like Lexie’s, but instead of just a set of double white
doors, two lions flanked a single wooden door with a brass knob.

He checked the directions he’d taken against the lay of the
house he knew. He’d turned from the center of the house and knew this must be
the room with the big balcony that wrapped all the way around one end. Russells
had combed this floor during their unsuccessful search for the dagger. According
to Russells, there was nothing exciting in there except a bedroom set, a closet
bigger than most living rooms, and a bathroom he wanted to live in. A single chest
in the closet contained some mementos and a small safe that wasn’t big enough
for the dagger’s dimensions.

He started toward the room, but the clicking of another door
from the other end drew him back. He sprinted around the corner and made it
down the length by the stairs before she came out. He slowed his step and
continued on, taking another right toward the hall her room was located on. Her
door was parted, but she was still inside. He started toward her, but a glare
on the wall near her room pulled his attention.

A huge painting of a poem or song hung on the wall. It was
as wide as his chest and four foot tall with dark red ribbon painted around the
edges. The paper was some sort of brown, old-timey-looking, faded stuff. He
leaned close and read the lines.

She arrives among new modes of behavior and manners,

And needs prophetic power, unless she has learnt at home,

How best to manage him who share the bed with her.

And if we work out all this well and carefully,

And the husband lives with us and lightly bears his yoke,

Then life is enviable. If not, I’d rather die.

-Medea by Euripides

Sheesh. He stepped away from the frame. Could she have found
something a little more depressing to hang on her wall?

The door eased opened, and she paused with a foot out. “What
are you doing?”

He turned. The poem left his memory as he took in the sight
of her. The woman knew how to dress to show herself off in a pink skirt tight
against her hips and legs. A sleeveless button-up shirt that covered, but the
fit was just perfect. A necklace so long that the pendant disappeared under the
shirt, and little silver earrings peeked out from hair that she had left down. Her
brows raised, lips pursed.

He cleared his throat. “Coming to get you. Did you think I
was going to honk from my car?”

She shook her head and pulled her door closed. “This is not
my front door.”

“Big enough to pass for one.”

She shook her head. “I hope this means you’re ready.”

“I was born ready.”

He knew he was flirting with her. Or trying to. It’d been
awhile and rusty probably didn’t even describe his attempt. He knew that wasn’t
what they were about. He still couldn’t stop himself.

The drive to Claremont was a quick one, and they grabbed
sandwiches to eat on one of the many park benches next to the Trina River. He
considered a big, nice restaurant, but something about a bench in the shade
during spring had called to him. He still didn’t think she got out for stuff
like this often, and he wanted to do it.

She kicked her shoes off and tucked her feet under her
bottom. Wind played with her hair, and she faced him, an elbow rested on the
back of the bench. “Have you always lived in Melville?”

He shook his head and refused to let the memories creep up. “Moved
in about seven-and-a-half to eight years ago. Needed a change of scenery.”

“And the security company? Why not just private
investigation? You do bodyguard and home security also?”

To always be there, looking over.
If he’d been
smarter in the way he’d started investigating the vice cops, things would be
different today. He’d allowed his anger to drive him as he’d asked men he’d
admired for years about their dirty work. If he’d had a home security on his
house like Addison’s Security now offered, his wife and daughter would be alive.
There would be images of the killer who started the fire. He picked at his
sandwich. “I, uh. Why not? Why do you donate so much to charity?”

She swallowed down her bite with a shrug. “Because they need
the money. Most of my money goes to children’s funds. Government funding can
only do so much.”

“You’re a good person, Lexie.”

Her cheeks colored. “It’s not like I can’t afford it.”

“There’s a lot of people in this town who can afford it but
don’t.”

She wadded her sandwich wrapper. “Yeah, well, I probably
sleep better than they do.”

She tucked hair behind her ear and looked up. She smacked
him with one of those blinding smiles that caught his breath. He wanted to lean
against her. Just see how she fit to the front of him if he were to wrap his
arms around her. Feel the way her hands would slide up his shoulders.

For just a moment, he wanted to forget what had brought them
together, count himself lucky and see how the shape of her mouth would crush to
his. Know how her jaw would feel in his palm, and the sweeping curve of her
neck to his fingers.

Her lips parted, air whispered over his cheeks. “It’s okay
to kiss me.”

Was it okay? He wished to hell he knew. Thinking about it
seemed wrong, but he really wanted to know if she tasted as sweet as she smelled.
He dipped his head, unable to resist. His mouth found hers and a gasp filled
her before she softened to him. Her slender hand touched the center of his
chest, then dropped down to wrap under his arm. Her fingers held tight, pulled
at him, and he eased closer. Slid the backs of his hands against her cheeks and
turned his palm over until he had her jaw in his hands.

The skin there was every bit as soft he imagined—and more.
The threading of her speeding pulse beat under his fingers. Throbbing and
pounding through. Racing faster. That couldn’t be faked, could it? Her kissing
him, the way her hand pulled him close, had to be the real woman and not some
act.

He pulled away, and a sigh eased out of him. Not because it
was bad, but it was good. So very good. It was just all too fast.

“Clayton?”

He stood and tossed his trash away. Instead of looking right
back at her, he took a breath. Studied the trees in the park and closed his
eyes as the breeze cooled the heat from his body. He turned back, and her head
was tipped to the side as she searched him. Hand flat on the bench where he’d
been sitting. He shook his head. “You ready?”

“Let me put my shoes on.” She unfolded her legs and worked
her feet into her strappy shoes. Foot wiggled side-to-side, tip of her finger
pulled the strap up first over one heel, then she did the same for her other
foot. Was she teasing him on purpose by doing that so…teasingly?

He shook his head and bent for a napkin that had fallen
under the bench. A small purple flower grew next to the wad of paper. Without
thought, he picked it and placed the little flower on her knee. She froze. Breath
caught. Slightly bent with her finger still in her second shoe as she stared at
that damn purple flower he should have never picked.

He turned away and tossed the trash in the can. “We need to
be on our way.”

Movement shuffled next to him and she was at his side. Her
hand fell into his, and the other carried that small little flower. She twirled
it between her fingers and brought it to her nose like it was something special.
It was probably a weed. He shouldn’t have picked it.

He was not a goofy flower picker. He was a call-the-florist-at-the-last-minute-and-let-them-sign-the-card
kind of man. But the color had been right for her.

He set his teeth and looked away. This was messed up. In so
many ways. Not even a week and he was picking flowers. Except, the softness of
her hand in his didn’t feel so bad. Or the way her fingers just fit between
his. He shook. He hadn’t just held hands with a girl like that since Kate.

He glanced over, and her head tilted in a way that he could
just barely see the happy contentment on her face. A fullness soaked his
insides. He’d made her that way. He’d put that smile on her face. He hadn’t
felt like this in…eight years, two months, and six days. That familiar
emptiness he’d known for a long time, settled back into his chest.

He dropped her hand and tucked his behind his back.
Confusion flashed in her squinted eyes. Great. He looked around for something
to talk about before that awkward silence filled in, but it was too late.

He opened his mouth three times before something finally
flew out of it. “You have an interesting picture hanging by your bedroom.”

She nodded but didn’t look at him. “Excerpt from a Greek
tragedy.
Medea
.”

He stroked over his face and calmed his temper. It wasn’t
even a temper. It was something else. It was the way she affected him. None of
this was her fault. It was all on him. “Does it mean anything special?”

She chuckled. “My full name is Lexus Medea Olympia. I’m
named after the woman. It was my mother’s favorite story.”

“Bit rough of a story to fall in love with from that piece.”
He grimaced. “The woman in the poem sounded like a—” He cleared his throat. “Sounded
like something else.”

“Medea is the heroine of the story. Her husband leaves her
to marry into wealth and power. She got creative and sought revenge.” Lexie
lifted the tiny flower to her nose and inhaled.

“She kills the man?”

She laughed. Her cheeks were pink and looked like everything
was perfect in her world. It was contagious and nearly foreign.

She twisted and walked a bit sideways, dodging other people
on the sidewalk. The move brought her close to him. Her hand fell on his chest
and all his muscles tightened. The people moved past, and she was back next to
him, not touching. Seemed unaffected while he was reeling. “Actually, no. To
get her revenge, she kills their kids, poisons the bride’s dress that kills the
bride and the bride’s father. She leaves him alive to mourn. She actually takes
the dead bodies of their children so he’ll never be able to grieve over them or
learn where she put them to rest. She took everything away because just killing
him would have been too easy on him.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to catch his
racing heart. Too close. Too close to home. A knot tightened around his heart. While
the punishment was extreme, Clayton knew all too well the pain of not having a
grave to grieve over. “Why would your mother like that story?”

She turned that smile back on him again. “My father had a
problem keeping it zipped. It was my mother’s revenge. I don’t think my father
ever learned the meaning behind my middle name. I had her favorite part
designed into art so I’d never fall into that.”

Chapter Twenty

Three hours later, Lexie walked with Clayton across Nate
Bronson’s yard. The air smelled of something roasting on a grill. Three little
blonde girls ran around the yard. One in pink, one in yellow, and another dressed
in purple. It was when the girls ran past them that Lexie realized they were
triplets.

She laughed as they giggled and screamed. “Cute little
girls.”