The Unrelenting Tide (Islands of Intrigue: San Juans - Christian Romantic Suspense) (4 page)

She shook her head. “N-no. I’m fine. Thanks.” Still rubbing her arms she preceded him and sank onto the sofa.

He walked over and opened the blinds on the sliding door and then lowered himself next to her, turned on his digital recorder, and set it on the coffee table. Resting his elbows on his knees, he folded his hands and glanced over at her. This was going to be hard for her, but he needed to get her talking now, while all this was fresh in her mind. “Tell me everything you remember about today. Starting from when I left this morning till now.”

Devynne shook her head, still unable to comprehend the event. “I’m sure it was just a random break-in. I probably surprised him.” The lie tasted bitter on her tongue.

It was her fault Kent died. If she told Carcen the whole story she’d be endangering his life too.

“Dev—”

“Sheriff Lang.” The young male officer stepped into the room. “I think you should see upstairs now.”

Carcen gave her another assessing look that said he wasn’t buying her story for a minute, then stood, clicked off the recorder and stuffed it into his pocket as he followed the officer up the stairs.

She trembled like a newborn foal taking its first steps as she followed them into her room. Past the bed and into her bathroom.

A long-stemmed red rose tied with a yellow satin ribbon lay on the marble vanity top between the two sinks. But it was the “All my love, forever!” painted across the mirror in her favorite bright pink fingernail polish that made Devynne gasp. “He’s really back.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Carcen pivoted toward her with a hard look. The muscle in his jaw pulsed, but he didn’t say anything.

She stared at the handwriting on the mirror. Nausea washed over her. He had been in her room. Here in the bathroom. Just now and earlier this morning while she
showered
! And with Marissa in the next room.
Oh God, please
… She felt lightheaded and forced a calming breath. The thought of Marissa in the hands of this madman nearly launched her over the edge of panic. “Carcen, we need to get Marissa. We need to go get her right now!”

“Dev,” Carcen stepped over and gripped her shoulders. “She’s fine. The perp’s in jail. I promise she’s alright. We’ll call Mom and Dad in just a minute, but for right now she’s safer with them than she is here.” He stepped back but tilted his head blocking her view of the mirror and forcing her to meet his gaze. “I need you to check your room. See if anything else is out of place, or missing.”

Despite everything in her that screamed she needed to run out the door right now and get her daughter, her chin dipped in acknowledgment. He was right. Marissa was probably safer elsewhere. Pain stabbed at that thought. She couldn’t even protect her own daughter.

She folded her arms and rubbed at the goose bumps. Had he been in the house all day?

Carcen still studied her, concern etching his features as he worked his lower lip. She looked away and willed her legs to hold her upright.

He turned to the officer and gestured to the bathroom trash can. “I’ll send Shannon up when she’s done in the kitchen. Looks like he used gloves to write the message. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a print from inside one of those. More corroboration.”

Devynne glanced over. Inside the garbage can lay two blue gloves. Both appeared to be mostly inside out. Splotches of polish darkened the pads of the first two fingers on one of the gloves. The pink nail polish bottle lay clearly visible to one side.

Carcen touched her shoulder and turned her out of the bathroom, then stood by while she scanned her room for anything out of place. The nightstand drawer was still locked, so she stepped back into the bathroom for the key. It was hanging in its usual spot and when she unlocked the drawer, the Airweight still lay inside where she’d put it this morning. Nothing else seemed to have been touched.

Carcen led her back down to the living room and asked her to wait while he spoke with the other officers outside.

Devynne sank down onto the couch feeling numb and terrified all at the same time. Yet they had caught the man. And that brought the first hint of relief she’d felt in many years.

Could her long days of constantly looking over her shoulder really be through?

Chapter 5

Carcen tapped his fist against Sanchez’s lowered window. “Thanks guys for all your work here today. I really appreciate it. I’ll come in to interrogate this guy, but I think I’m going to take a few of my vacation days so I can be available for Devynne awhile.”

Donnie folded his arms with a curt nod.

Shannon leaned over and peered up at him. “So it’s like that, is it? You’re going to break a lot of hearts if you keep this up, Sheriff.”

Carcen allowed a small smile. Shannon had been dropping hints off and on for months now. But he’d always carefully kept his distance. “‘Night.” He jogged back down the stairs and when he stepped inside, Devynne was pacing from one side of the living room to the other.

She spun toward him. “Can we go get Marissa now?”

“Let’s give them a call, but I’m sure she’s fine. I think she should spend the night with Mom and Dad.” Outwardly, he held his face to a calculated calm but inwardly he cringed, waiting for her protest to begin.

She shook her head, “The last thing your parents need is to be saddled with the care of a four-year-old. And I’ve told her a million times she can’t invite herself over to other people’s houses.” Her hand trembled as she brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and on impulse he reached out and clasped it, wanting to soothe her as much as he could.

“It wasn’t her idea. It was mine.”
Or maybe divine intervention
. He let his thumb rub across the smooth skin of her hand. “And you know as well as I do that Mom and Dad won’t consider it being saddled with anything.”

She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. She snapped it shut and then opened it again. “She doesn’t have anything to sleep in.”

He could almost hear the begging in her tone. She was terrified for Marissa’s safety and trying not to appear so. There was more to this story than he knew… yet.

Reluctantly dropping her hand, he pulled his phone from its holster and clicked on Mom’s name. He listened to the phone ring as he said, “I took her pajamas off her bed upstairs when I was here this morning.”

“You
planned
this?”

“For her to stay the night with them? Yes. I wanted to—”

“Hello?”

He held up a finger toward Devynne. “Hey Mom, it’s Carcen. How’s Marissa?”

“She’s just fine, honey. She and your dad are lounging in the family room eating scandalous amounts of sweets and watching a Scooby-Doo marathon.”

He smiled. “Good. Listen, Devynne would like to talk to her. Can you get her?”

“Sure.”

He handed the phone to Devynne and listened to her side of the conversation as she assured herself that Marissa was indeed safe and having the time of her life. Now, to get her to tell him what had happened.

She hung up and handed him the Blackberry.

He took it and shoved it into his belt clip. Nothing for it but to plunge right in. “Tell me what happened, Dev.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You said you planned for Rissa to stay with your mom and dad, but it wasn’t because of this…,” her hand gestured around the house. “So why?”

He sighed. Alright, they could go there first. “I wanted to talk to you about…Kent…moving on…your life.” He left out the “us” that he really wanted to say because he had no right to say it.

She whirled away from him. “I’m exhausted. I’m going upstairs.”

“So you don’t have to talk to me? You don’t have to talk about Kent, but I do need you to answer some questions about what happened today.”

She paused at the base of the stairs and he saw a dull flush creep up her neck, but she refused to look at him.

“Can we just drop it, Carcen? Life goes on.”

Was she talking about Kent? Or the man who’d assaulted her today? “For everyone but you?”

Quick as lightning she turned on him. Her eyes flashed. “I’m going on! What does this look like to you?” She gestured around the house.

Ah, so it was Kent, then. “It looks like a house, Devynne. A house that you haven’t left for more than three hours at a time for the past four years.”
A house you’ve turned into a tomb
.

“What do you expect of me after my husband was brutally murdered? Should I have run out the next day and thrown a big party?” She tossed her hands in the air. “Why are we even talking about this right now?”

His heart went out to her. He kept his voice soft. “It’s been four years, Devynne. You can’t hide from fun and pleasure for the rest of your life.”

“I do not hide from pleasure. I am a single mother with a full time job. I don’t have time for pleasure.”

He snorted.
Of all the stubborn—
“That’s a bunch of bull and you know it!”

She stalked past him, doing her level best to keep him from seeing the tears that once again formed in her eyes, but he took her arm, turning her so she had to face him.
Calm down, Lang.
He tilted her chin up, dipping down until she met his gaze.

Her face hardened and she raised her chin a fraction higher as she refused to allow the tears to fall. He sighed. He had known this would be hard, but it would be so much easier if she would quit hiding behind her stony self-possession. In frustration, he rubbed a hand across his jaw. His day old stubble scraped against his fingers.

He glanced down at her again. What could he say to help her understand? When she bit her trembling lower lip, trying to keep control on her fragile emotions he reached out and slowly pulled her into his arms.

“I’m sorry, Dev,” he whispered raggedly. “I’ve gone over and over and
over
that day, trying to see if I could have done something different. And I always come up with, ‘no.’ Nobody knows when it’s their time to go. And for some reason that was Kent’s day. Neither you nor I can change that. I’m just glad today wasn’t yours. And I want Marissa to know you for the fun loving person you are, not…”

She began to sob and he closed his eyes knowing that her facade of control had finally shattered. “I can’t do this, Carcen. I can’t… There are things I never told you. Kent’s death was my fault.”

Carcen felt the air leave his lungs as quickly as it had the time he took a bullet to his flak jacket.

“Devynne,” he leaned back and tipped up her chin. “Kent’s death was
not
your fault!”

Her face crumpled and she leaned into his shoulder with a broken sob. “Carcen I don’t know…. I just don’t know.”

He eased his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. He thought for a moment. “This has something to do with that scum who was in here today, doesn’t it?”

She stiffened and her fist clenched around a handful of his shirt.

“Upstairs, when you saw the mirror, you said, ‘He’s really back.’ What did you mean?”

She stood still for so long he thought she wasn’t going to answer the question, but finally she stepped away from him. She swiped her fingers under her eyes, pulled a Kleenex from the box on the coffee table, and blew her nose. She glanced toward the kitchen. “Why don’t you grab us a couple of drinks from the fridge. There’s something I need to show you.”

So many questions clamored for an answer, but he held them in check. “Alright.”

When he returned from the kitchen, Devynne was holding the remote control and the opening credits of a movie were flipping by at sixteen speed. She wanted to show him a movie? He frowned and set her can on the coffee table in front of her, sinking into his own end of the couch as he studied her intent expression.

She paused the movie and glanced over at him.

He arched a brow and raised a questioning hand.

She pointed to the TV and he turned to study the screen. The motion was frozen on the image of a young blonde wearing camouflage and a safari hat. She stood in the middle of a jungle and in the background a snake slithered through the trees, forked tongue dangerously close to the nape of the oblivious woman’s neck. But it was the burn marring the actress’s cheek that triggered his memory. He turned to Devynne. “I’ve seen this one.” He scrunched up his face trying to remember the title. “
Genesis
… something or other. About scientists who go into South America to search for the fountain of youth, only to find a tribe who’d already discovered it and how evil they were because they lived for so long. Good movie.”

She nodded. “
Genesis Expedition
. It was my first big break.” She cocked her head toward the TV.

Her first—? The bottom dropped out of his stomach and he snapped his attention to the woman on the screen. Blonde. His gaze skittered over to Devynne’s brunette curls. The onscreen actress had half her face marred by the burn she’d received at the hands of the evil tribesmen in the movie. But that was where the differences ended. The same small upturned nose. The same wide set blue eyes. The same smooth arched brows. His jaw went slack as he looked back at her. “You’re…?”

She nodded. “Shania Hane.” She set the remote down and rested her elbows on her knees. “I lived in Los Angeles with my sister. She was hoping for a big break, too. We’d both dreamed of acting all our lives.”

Carcen closed his eyes. Devynne had told them she was an only child, born and raised in Colorado. “So…Colorado…?”

She shook her head, tears springing into her eyes. She snatched another Kleenex from the box on the table beside her. “We grew up in California. Our parents were killed in a car crash when I was eighteen and my sister was twenty-one. A year later my agent John Halstead landed me that part.” Her head tilted toward the screen. “It was my dream come true. Until a stalker started leaving me notes and presents at the studio.”

He wanted to be angry. All this time she’d been lying to him! Yet the thought of a stalker going after her knocked any shred of anger to its knees. She’d just been trying to protect herself. “Dev, I’m so sorry.” He’d heard the story. He’d also heard that actress Shania Hane had been killed in a plane crash at sea.