Killing Me Softly (4 page)

She thought about saying so, then realized she'd been standing there with her hand on his biceps for a good minute and a half, in silence.

“I want to help you get through this,” she said. “I want to help however I can.”

“There's nothing you can do.”

“You know better.” She lowered her hand, reluctantly, but her eyes replaced it. Damn, he'd beefed up. “God, don't you remember what a kick-ass pair of amateur detectives we were?” she asked, forcing her eyes to move upward and lock with his.

“I thought we weren't going to talk about the past.”

She sighed deeply. “I don't care how difficult you try to make this, Bryan. I'm staying, and I'm going to try to help.”

“That's kind of a switch from ‘Beth wouldn't take no for an answer,' isn't it?”

“Oh, come on. I would have come whether she asked me to or not, once I knew what was going on with you.
Don't pretend you don't know me well enough to know that.”

“I'm not sure I know you at all anymore.”

She probed his eyes, looking for the emotion behind the words. Was it just anger, or was there also hurt, frustration, even worry? Or maybe a combination of all of the above? He must be going out of his mind with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. And yet she resented him snapping at the friend who had come all the way across the country to help him. “You going to be an asshole the whole time I'm here, then?”

“Probably.”

“Well, just so I know up front. Look, I want to take a shower before dinner, so—”

“Right. Go for it. I'm out of here.”

He turned to go, but she went after him, grabbed his shoulder to turn him around, and then jerked her hand away as if the contact burned. Because it had. His shoulder was even more changed than his biceps. Big and hard, and so very different from her memories of him.

“What do you mean, you're out of here? You're staying for dinner, aren't you?”

He met her eyes, and his face, harsh before, softened just a little. She had to wonder if that touch, no matter how brief, had hit him the way it had hit her. Like a fingertip to bathwater that was way too hot, making you pull it back fast and hiss through your teeth. Making
your nerves jump from lazy complacence to screaming awareness.

He sighed and said, “Yeah, I'm staying. And I'll try not to be an asshole the
entire
time.”

He almost smiled.

She almost returned it.

“That's good,” she said. “Because I want to know everything, Bryan. Everything that happened, everything you can remember, including the stuff you haven't told Josh or the police or your best friend.” She tightened her lips, thinking that
she
used to be his best friend. Wondering who filled that role today. And why the very thought was like a knife in her chest.

He studied her for a long moment, and slowly something changed in his face. It was as if he were thinking of something troubling, something he hadn't thought of before. He reached out, and to her utter surprise, he ran his fingertips from the crown of her head down over her hair, to where it hit her shoulder. “Dawn, I don't know how safe it is for you to get too close to this. Or to me. Hell, I don't know if it's even safe for you to be here right now.”

She frowned. “Why?”

Beth called his name from downstairs, and he hesitated, then nodded as if making a decision. “There's a lot to this you don't know. But I'll fill you in after dinner, okay?”

“Okay.” She could have sagged in relief just then. Because for that moment he had seemed like the old Bryan. It had felt as if nothing had changed between
them. But only for a moment. As soon as she smiled up at him, she saw the door behind his eyes slam closed. The moment was gone, and he was tense and defensive again.

Beth called again, saying, “Nick's on the phone, Bryan.”

“Coming,” he called. Then he lifted a hand, a half wave that might have started out as something else—a touch, maybe—before morphing into the kind of halfhearted wave strangers offered one another. “See you at dinner, Dawn.”

She nodded and watched him go, then closed her bedroom door, leaned her head briefly against it and wondered why her heart was contracting into a tiny stonelike lump in her chest and her throat had tightened to the point where it was hard even to breathe.

She was feeling too much.
Way
too much. And way too soon. But at least she'd forgotten to worry about the dead.

Odd that they hadn't bothered her yet. She wondered why, then decided it was best to just count her blessings, as she headed for the shower.

 

Bryan really hadn't intended to be a jerk. But damn, there was something infuriating about being in the same room with Dawn, and he didn't think it was due to stress over being a murder suspect.

Now she sat across the dining room table from him, nibbling halfheartedly on her pot roast. She seemed to be ignoring the mouthwatering scent wafting from her
plate to her nose. She barely touched the gravy-soaked vegetables and potatoes. She looked as if her mind were entirely elsewhere.

For the first time Bryan wondered if she was seeing someone back on the West Coast. God, what if she was so touchy simply because she missed her lover?

Suddenly he couldn't stand the smell of the food, much less eat it. He started to push himself away from the table.

“It's just us here now, Bryan,” Josh said, finally breaking the tense silence that filled the dining room as surely as the aroma of Beth's continuously simmering potpourri. “You can tell us everything. It's not going any further.”

Bryan felt the bottom fall out of his stomach at his father's words. “Tell you everything? What, exactly, is it you think I'm not telling you?”

Josh's eyes widened, and he shook his head hard. “No, no—”

“God, Dad, tell me you don't think—”

“I
don't
think you did it! I know you didn't do it, son. That's not even within the realm of possibility. Come on, Bryan. I
know
you.”

Bryan felt the sudden weight leave his shoulders a little as he let himself believe his father's passionate declaration.

“I just meant,” Josh went on, “that you can tell us everything that happened. Everything you remember. Things your lawyer wouldn't let you tell your colleagues.”

Bryan lifted a brow. “Are you wearing a wire or something?”

Dead silence fell on them like a shroud. Around the table, every eye was glued to Bryan, every expression mortified, especially Dawn's. Then Bryan shook his head, sighed and said, “I was kidding, Dad.”

“Damn, Bry, this is no time for humor.” But Josh sighed his relief all the same.

“Guess not. But you're all so damn glum.” Bryan looked around the table, including Dawn in the observation. “Look, I haven't been convicted yet. Hell, I haven't even been charged. And I'm not going to be. I have faith in the system.”

Josh stabbed a chunk of meat with his fork. “Yeah, well, I've spent most of my life in the system, and I'm not so confident in it that I'm willing to trust my son to it.” He set the fork down, meat still attached, and tossed his cloth napkin onto the table in front of him. “Look, Bry, the only way to ensure you don't end up being arrested and charged is for us to find out who did this ourselves. And to do that, we need a place to start. The more you can remember, the better off we'll be.”

Bryan nodded slowly. His father knew his shit. He'd spent years as an agent with the DEA. “I know, I know. But that's just it. I don't remember a damn thing. There was the party the night before. Things were getting…a little rowdy, I guess. But everyone seemed to be having a good time. I drank. A lot. More than I normally would have, though I didn't think I was going overboard all that much.”

Josh's head came up. “Did they ask you for a blood sample when they questioned you?”

“Yeah. Freaking lawyer didn't want me to agree to it. But I overruled him. Hell, I'd already admitted to being drunk, so it wasn't going to hurt to have them know the blood alcohol level. And as for DNA, it was my house. My DNA's all over it. So I gave it.”

“Good,” Josh said with a firm nod. “So there was the party. And you were drinking. And…?”

“And that's it. I woke up on the bathroom floor. The house was empty, but I didn't remember when everyone left. I felt like hell, decided to go back to bed to sleep it off, dragged my ass into the bedroom and found Bettelying there, already cold.”

“I'm so sorry, Bryan,” Dawn whispered.

It wasn't her words that hit home in his brain. It was the way she reached across the table and gripped his forearm. He looked up fast, met her eyes as his skin sizzled beneath her palm.

“I've been so focused on the fact that you're a suspect in this, I haven't told you how sorry I am that you lost someone you cared about.”

Her eyes backed up every word. She really meant it. He could only nod and grunt his thanks. She took her hand away, and he wanted it back. Touching her—being touched by her—was something he'd missed more than he'd realized until now.

“I mean it,” she said.

“I know you do,” he replied.

“Nick tell you what he told me on the phone?” Josh asked.

“There was whiskey in Bette's throat, and in her lungs,” Bryan said softly. “Glasgow Gold, he said.”

“Yeah. Maybe you don't know what that means, but—”

“I know what it means,” Bryan said, and he met his father's eyes.

Josh's face fell.

“What does it mean?” Dawn asked.

“
How
do you know?” Josh whispered, as if she hadn't even spoken.

Bryan knew she was confused, but he had to get this out to his father now. There was no point in doing less than laying his cards on the table where his family was concerned. He didn't want tidbits of information surfacing later on and shaking their belief in him. With a deep sigh, he said, “Two weeks ago, I signed out all the files on the Nightcap Strangler case.”

Dawn dropped her fork. “
Nightcap Strangler?
Bryan, that sounds like the name of some kind of…of a serial killer or something.”

“It is,” he said. “Or was.”

She blinked. “What the hell is going on?”

Bryan set down his silverware. “There's a lot you don't know.”

“Like that Bette was killed by a serial killer, you mean? And that now they think it might be you? A
serial killer?
God, Bryan!”

“It's even more complicated than that. The Nightcap
Strangler was a man named Johnny Lee Jackson. He was arrested sixteen years ago, and there hasn't been a killing fitting his M.O. since. He died in prison just last month. I think this has to be a copycat crime.”

“But why?” Dawn asked. “Why would this…this copycat want to kill
your
girlfriend, in
your
bed, while you were sleeping in the next room?”

“I don't know why.”

“Yes, you do,” she accused. “Bryan, what were you doing with those files? The timing of this, of you going through those old files, that can't be a coincidence. The police certainly aren't going to see it as one. What aren't you telling me?”

“Nothing.”

Dawn noted, though, that Beth and Josh were looking at him with the very same questions in their eyes. Oh, none of them believed Bryan was capable of murder, but there was clearly some kind of link between him and those crimes—or this criminal.

And Dawn had the feeling he knew what it was.

“I think this is all about Nick,” he said, confirming her belief.

Josh nodded as if he understood, while Beth kept staring at him, waiting for further clarification.

“Nick?” Dawn asked. “
The
Nick?”

“Nick Di Marco,” Bryan said. “He was one of my professors back in college, my mentor. We're tight. Hell, I trust him more than anyone in the world, except maybe my dad. Anyway, he's the cop who solved the Nightcap
Strangler case sixteen years ago, before he retired from the force and took up teaching.”

“I know,” Dawn said. “I'd forgotten what they called the killer, is all.” She'd heard all about Nick the supercop, and his book and his movie deal, from Beth. If she'd ever actually lived in Blackberry, she would probably have heard about him far sooner. He was the nearby town of Shadow Falls's version of a living legend.

“I think Bette was chosen because of her connection to me and
my
connection to Nick,” Bryan said. “Someone is trying to set me up, but I think they're also trying to get to him, somehow, through me. But whoever it is, it's not the Nightcap Strangler. Probably just some lunatic with an obsession or a bad case of hero worship. A wannabe.”

“A wannabe who somehow got information only known by the police?” Josh asked.

“And by Nightcap himself,” Bryan said.

“He could have told someone, a friend, a relative—even a cell mate.”

“Do you think this copycat will kill again?” Beth asked softly.

“Oh, he'll kill again,” said a new voice from just beyond the screen door off the foyer. They all turned, and the man standing there went on. “I just hope Bryan here is safely behind bars or surrounded by cops when he does.” He grinned, and every part of his face joined in on the smile. “Can't get a better alibi than that now, can you?”

D
awn was startled, probably because of the dark feeling that had crept over her entire soul as the dinner conversation had unfolded. Nightcap Strangler. Serial killer. Copycat crime. A dead girlfriend. And all of it tied up with Bryan. What the
hell?

“Hey, Nick,” Bryan said, his expression lightening. “Dawn, come meet Nick.” Bryan got up, and she followed him out of the dining room, across the living room and into the foyer. Beth and Josh remained at the table, and Dawn could hear them speaking softly, probably trying to reassure each other that everything would be all right.

Nick, who looked as if he'd been buff once but now had the proverbial muffin top spilling over his belt, pushed the screen door open and entered, still smiling. He had blue eyes that won you over with a single glance. His hair looked like onyx in a snowstorm. And when his warm smile landed on Dawn, it somehow managed to broaden.

“You've gotta be Beth's little girl, Dawnie. I've been hearing about you for years. It's good to finally meet you. I'm Nick Di Marco, an old friend of Bryan's.”

Dawn couldn't help but return the infectious smile. Somehow his demeanor made the tension she'd been feeling a few moments ago fade away.

“Hello, Nick. I've been hearing about
you
for years, too. Bryan tells me you're the man he trusts most in the world, after his dad, and that's saying something.” She extended a hand, and Nick took it. His was big and very warm, but she felt the strength beneath the friendliness.

“Sorry we're meeting under such dire circumstances,” he said, and then he shifted his gaze to Bryan. “You didn't tell me how closely she fit.”

Bryan frowned hard, but nodded at his mentor. “I didn't even think about it myself until she got here.”

“She can't set foot in Shadow Falls, Bryan. She might not even be safe here in Blackberry, even though it's almost an hour away. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Bryan agreed.

“Whoa, wait a minute.” Dawn was shifting her curious blue eyes from one of them to the other. “Fit what?”

“She's got the look,” Nick said. But he said it quietly, as if he didn't want Beth and Josh, who were still in the other room, to hear.

Bryan ignored her question and said, “I
know,
Nick,” he said. “I was going to get to that.”

“Get to what?” Dawn frowned at Bryan, puzzled and irritated at being ignored.

He quickly covered her hand with his and gave it a squeeze that made her heart beat faster, despite the situation.

“Nick, go on in and have something to eat. I'll be back.” Then, finally, Bryan met Dawn's probing stare. “Come for a walk with me?”

She looked down at his hand still holding hers and felt such a rush of confused emotions that her eyes started to burn. She blinked against the feeling and nodded once, not quite trusting herself to speak, be cause her throat was so tight. Bryan was in more trouble than she had begun to imagine, and it seemed she cared a whole lot more than she had allowed herself to acknowledge.

Bryan walked Nick to the dining room and waved him into a seat as Beth invited him to join them for the meal. “Dawn and I are going for a short walk. We'll be back soon,” Bryan told them.

“Don't parade her all over the neighborhood, Bryan,” Nick said. “The more people who see her, the greater the risk.”

Risk?
Dawn shot Bryan a “what the hell is he talking about” look as he returned to her. But he just took her hand and gave it another squeeze, then walked with her to the door. The screen door creaked, and as they stepped outside and let it close behind them, she felt the warm kiss of a summer night and heard the crickets
chirping in a way she hadn't heard in five long years. God, she'd missed Vermont.

They walked down the porch steps, and Bryan seemed to be avoiding looking at her, even though she was staring at him as she kept in step at his side.

He released her hand as they walked, and hers felt cold without it, despite the warmth of the evening.

“Why am I…at risk, Bryan?” she asked.

He sighed, coming to a stop. They'd followed a walk-way that wound through a garden that hadn't been there when she'd left. It took up the entire side lawn, and was dotted with statues and benches. The air was almost thick with perfume, and even though it was already dark, there were still bees bumbling from blossom to fragrant blossom.

Bryan sank onto a bench, and she sat down beside him. “Dawn,” he said, “Bette looked…similar to you.”

“She did?” She tipped her head to one side, and for some reason her mind went in the opposite direction from murders and death and serial killers. It went straight to him—to
them.
“You were dating someone who looked like me? What's that mean, Bryan? Are you saying you never—”

“It wasn't like that with Bette and me. We were friends.”

Dawn lifted her brows. “Some friends.”

“I'm not telling you this to make you think I still—Dawn, that's not what this is about. You're blonde, slen
der, taller than average. You have blue eyes, and you're between nineteen and twenty-five.”

“That's an odd way to put it. You know perfectly well I'm twenty-four.”

“Bette was twenty-three.”

She nodded. “So we were close in age. And we looked kind of alike. But it was just coincidence that you were dating her, right? It had nothing to do with her resemblance to me.”

“Right.”

“So why bring it up, then?”

“Because…that description—the age range, the body type, the long straight hair, light brown to blond—it also fits all the original victims of the Nightcap Strangler.”

An ice-cold finger slid down Dawn's spine, and she sucked in a breath, suddenly very clear as to what he was getting at.

“All of them? And how many would that be, Bryan?”

“Seventeen original victims that we know of. Eighteen, if you add Bette. The thing is, whether this is a copycat or Nick arrested the wrong guy, you won't be safe in Shadow Falls. And Nick's right, you might not even be safe here in Blackberry, Dawn.”

She nodded three times, slowly, firmly, while her mind raced. But even before her brain reached a practical conclusion, her lips were moving. Her emotions were doing the talking tonight, it seemed.

“I'm not leaving,” she told him.

“Dawn, look, I can't let you risk your life—”

“It sounded like you don't think this guy will kill again.”

“Nick thinks he will. And believe me, Dawn, Nick knows this case a whole lot better than I do.”

“I can take precautions,” she said quickly. “I can color my hair. Slouch when I walk so I look shorter. Get some tinted contacts.”

Bryan sighed, shaking his head and, she sensed, constructing logical arguments in his mind. But then she closed her hand around his, and he went very still. She'd been hoping her touch still had the same effect on him as his did on her. And it seemed that maybe it did.

“I'm
not
leaving you, Bryan.”

He stared into her eyes for a long moment. She tried not to start arguing with herself as to whether what she was feeling for him now was friendship or something more. It wasn't the same emotion she'd felt for him before. She'd been a girl then. Barely out of school.

What she felt now was different, and it was too soon to know exactly how. Besides, figuring that out wasn't the most important thing right now. What was important now was getting through this. “I mean it,” she said, feeling the need to drive the point home. “I won't leave you.”

“Sure you will,” he said. “It's only a matter of time.”

She frowned, because that had sounded bitter, and as if it had nothing to do with the subject at hand. But before she had a chance to defend herself, she heard the
distinct sound of carefully placed footsteps on the path behind them. She swung her head around startled.

Bryan surged to his feet and stepped in front of her so fast that it shocked her. She sat there staring up at the back of his T-shirt, noticing how his wide shoulders offset his narrow hips. God, he was built. This was not the lean, lanky nineteen-year-old she'd left behind. His arms were cut, probably all flexed out like that because of the way he was clenching his fists at his sides, as if ready to take on all comers in her defense. It made her belly clench up and her heart beat faster.

“Wow,” she whispered.

“Who the hell is there?” Bryan demanded.

“Hey, Kendall, is that you?” The steps came closer.

“Rico?” Bryan's fists unclenched, and she heard his breath flowing out all at once, like a mini-windstorm. Glancing over his shoulder at her, he said, “It's okay. It's my partner, Rico Chavez. We call him Rico Suave—he's pretty smooth with the women.”

By the time he finished his explanation, Rico was coming toward them along the garden path. He was a relatively short bronze-skinned hunk with black curly hair cut close to his head, and when he saw Dawn, he hesitated. “Sorry, man. I hope I'm not—”

“It's fine,” Bryan said. “Rico, this is Dawn Jones.”

“Oh.” Rico's thick brows went up as he stared at her a little too intently. And then he asked, “
The
Dawn?” And Bryan groaned and nodded.

Rico came closer, better to check her out. He smiled,
a bright white smile in that copper-skinned face, and offered her a hand, then sent a not-so-subtle nod of approval Bryan's way.

So apparently Bryan had told his partner about her. That warmed her way more than it probably ought to.

“Don't you believe anything they say about my man, here,” Rico said. Then he looked at Bryan, and his smile turned serious. “I got your back, Bry. I hope you know it. No question. I don't doubt you.”

Bryan nodded. “Thanks, Rico. That means a lot to me.”

“I think they're close to, uh…” He shifted his eyes to Dawn and then back to Bryan again.

“Arresting me?”

Dawn felt her blood run cold, not even believing the words had crossed Bryan's lips. “No,” she whispered. “No, that can't be.”

“Sorry, man,” Rico said. “I don't think it'll be tonight. Maybe tomorrow, though. She's got your skin under her nails, your hairs on her pillow—” He bit his lip. “Sorry.”

“That's bullshit,” Dawn blurted. “He was
sleeping
with her. Naturally his DNA would be all over her.”

Then she pressed a hand to her suddenly queasy stomach and turned her back on both of them. She realized she wasn't just sick at the thought of Bryan going to jail, but at the thought of him making love to another woman. God, why would it hit her this powerfully? And why right now? Had she really thought he'd been celibate all this time, just because
she
had?

“There's no sign of anyone else, man. Not in the bed or on the body,” Rico explained.

“Why is that so strange?” Dawn demanded. They both looked at her, questioningly, so she went on. “You didn't say anything about the Nightcap Strangler raping his victims.”

“You're right,” Bryan told her. “He didn't rape any of them.”

“So, whether this is him or a copycat, he won't be raping them, either. Right? So why expect to find his—”

Bryan held up a hand to stop her words. But Rico was nodding hard. “Yeah. Yeah, she's right. I said the same thing to the chief not two hours ago, but damn, it's like talking to a brick wall.” He sighed, sounding angry. “I figured you'd need time to decide how to make bail. Listen, man, I got a few grand stashed away, if you need it.”

“Thanks.” Bryan put a hand on his shoulder, lowering his own head. “For the warning
and
the offer. But mostly for believing me. I appreciate it more than you know.”

Rico nodded. “
De nada,
partner. Good to finally meet you, Dawn.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Rico,” she said. And then Rico turned and headed back toward the house.

Dawn turned to blink up into Bryan's eyes. Hers were wet, but she hoped he wouldn't see that in the growing darkness. “They're going to arrest you.”

“I'll make bail. And we'll find out who did this and—”

“Maybe…maybe I can help,” she told him. “
Really
help, I mean.”

Bryan seemed blank only for a moment; then he apparently got what she was saying and shook his head, backing away a step as he did. “You mean…you mean by trying to revive the ability you've spent the past five years trying to get rid of? No. No way, Dawn.”

“Just listen. How better to find out who killed Bette than to ask her? And who else are you going to get to do that for you?”

He continued shaking his head. “Do you hear what you're saying?” he demanded. “You've been hiding out from this gift you call a curse for five years. You threw away everything we had because of it. Now you're just going to welcome it back with open arms?”

“To save you from life in prison? Yeah, Bry, with open arms.
Wide
open.”

He pushed a hand through his hair and tipped his head up toward the glittering stars above them. “You left home over this,” he said. Then he lowered his head and stabbed her eyes with his. “You left
me
over this.”

“We're not going to talk about that. We're not going to waste our time and attention on what's gone by, Bryan. There's nothing we can do about it, anyway. It's in the past. We need to focus on finding out who murdered that poor girl.”

“It's not in the past. Not for me. You destroyed me, Dawn.” He drew a breath, still holding her eyes.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, not liking what she saw in his eyes just then. Anger. Unexpressed until now, so it had festered. She'd really ruined things with him, and done it in spades. She hadn't left any room to fix it now.