Until Dark (20 page)

“What else is in those bags?” Kendra looked over her shoulder into the backseat, where the plastic bags had morphed into shapeless white heaps on the floor.

“Cookies . . .” Miranda looked sheepish as if she’d been caught with her hand in the jar.

“What kind?”

“Pepperidge Farm. Chantilly.”

“The kind with the raspberry filling and the powdered sugar?” Kendra’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, wait! Of course!” Miranda grinned. “You were the fries. The rare burger and the onion rings! I’d forgotten—I just figured that since Adam was such a stick about what he eats, that any woman he was interested in would be the same way. I’m so sorry for having misjudged you. Damn. I should have gotten that extra pint of Ben and Jerry’s after all.”

“There’s always tomorrow.” Kendra was poking in the bags. “Oh, my God! Krispy Kreme doughnuts! Yes! And a bag of Hershey’s kisses!”

Miranda’s outlook brightened. The next few days might not be so bad after all.

“You do have good deadbolt locks, don’t you?” Miranda had just finished a very businesslike inspection of Smith House.

“Yes. I had them installed when I moved back here last fall. There are latches on all the windows as well.”

“No security system, though,” Miranda noted.

“We never needed one here. Frankly, no one around here even locked their doors up until a few years ago. I still know people in Smith’s Forge who go to sleep at night without locking up.”

“Dangerous business these days, but we’re locked up tight as a drum here, so we should be fine.” Miranda leaned against the kitchen counter. “Do you want to talk about it? I mean, everything that’s going on?”

“You mean all these women who have died? You mean the bastard who’s been killing them? And the possibility that the man who was convicted of murdering my brother and cousin may not have committed the crime after all? Not to mention the fact that the killer may now be watching me?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe Webster is innocent. He’s the most despicable, evil person I’ve ever met.”

“I know his history. He’s despicable, yes, indeed he is. Evil? Probably that, too.” Miranda nodded. “But that does not necessarily mean that he killed your brother. He may have done a lot of other terrible things, but killing your brother and your cousin may not be among his crimes.”

“I can’t stand to think that all these years, the person responsible for Ian’s death has been out there, and we didn’t know.” Her voice quivered. “That my mother didn’t know. That maybe he’s been watching me for a long time and I didn’t know.”

Kendra shook her head.

“Actually, no, on second thought, I don’t want to think about him or why he’s trying to get me to notice him. Would it be crass and insensitive of me to say that, just for tonight, I’d like to
not
talk about him?”

“No, not at all. We’ve both been totally immersed in this for the past few weeks. Me, I don’t mind at all. It’s my job. But it isn’t yours, not this part of it, anyway. I think a night away from thinking about it isn’t a bad idea at all.” Miranda had watched the tension build in Kendra’s face, knew the woman needed a break. “So I say it’s time to break out the pizza and whip up a few milk shakes and find something to watch on TV.”

“Milk shakes?” Kendra raised a curious brow. “Wouldn’t you rather have wine? Or a beer?”

“Yes, I would. But I’m packing.”

“Excuse me?”

Miranda patted herself in the area over her right kidney. Beneath the bulky red cardigan, there was a bulge.

“I don’t drink when I have it on.” Miranda tried to appear matter of fact, but her gaiety of just moments before was gone, reminding Kendra that Miranda was no ordinary house guest.

It seemed to Kendra that Miranda was deliberately avoiding the use of the word
gun
. Which was okay, Kendra supposed as she took the frozen pizza out of the freezer.

“Milk shakes it is,” Kendra said. “The blender is in the cabinet right behind you.”

The evening had turned chilly—record cold, the television weatherman had announced—so Kendra lit a fire in the living room fireplace and pulled out two afghans that her mother had crocheted when she was first married. The women curled up at either end of the sofa, watched an “I Love Lucy” marathon, and polished off two small pizzas, a blenderful of milk shakes, and a bag of cookies.

When the eleven o’clock news came on, Kendra asked, “You want a bedtime snack?”

“Sure,” Miranda said.

“How ’bout the strawberries? They look pretty good.”

“Good idea. After everything else we ate tonight, a little fruit should help balance out all the calories.”

“I’ll get them,” Kendra said when Miranda started to get up. “You throw another log on the fire.”

Kendra returned in minutes with a plate loaded with berries.

“Oh, my God,” Miranda exclaimed. “You dipped them in chocolate! When did you do that?”

“When the marathon went on break.” Kendra passed the plate to Miranda. “I melted some of the Hershey kisses in the microwave. You know, of course, that if you eat chocolate with fruit, the vitamin C cancels out the calories?”

“I’d heard that. Oh, yum, I haven’t had these in ages.” Miranda took a bite and groaned with pleasure. “Oh, man, that is good.”

She reached for another and nibbled it more slowly than she had the first.

“You know, Kendra, you really are quite all right,” Miranda nodded. “I wasn’t sure when I first met you, that you’d be, you know, quite right for him, but . . .”

“What are you talking about?” Kendra frowned.

“Adam. You know he’s nuts about you.”

“He is?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t even try to deny that there’s nothing going on with you two.”

“Well, at first I wasn’t sure he wasn’t just, you know, flirting.”

“Adam doesn’t flirt.” Miranda wiped a bit of chocolate from the corners of her mouth. “He even took you home to meet his family, for crying out loud.”

“I thought that was because he didn’t want to leave me alone because he thought I was at risk.”

“Ummm, Kendra, forgive me for stating the obvious, but you’re at risk now, too. He didn’t take you to Quantico today. He took you home with him because he wanted to try you out on his family. You met his grandma, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but . . .”

“That’s really key with him.” Miranda inspected the plate of berries, hesitated for a second, then said, “Oh, what the hell. After all I ate tonight, one more won’t hurt.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’ve known him for seven years now. I’ve never seen him really fall for anyone.” She grinned. “Not even me, and God knows I tried.”

“You did? I thought Portia said she had dated him.”

“She did. Well, we both did, only he didn’t realize it for a while. He had asked her out, but I was the one who was interested.”

“He asked your sister out, she said yes, but you went in her place?”

“After the first couple of dates, when she realized that I was more interested in him than she was, yes.”

“And he’s still speaking to you?”

“He was actually quite a good sport about it. I finally told him the truth when it occurred to me that he and I could be great best friends but terrible lovers. And we are best friends. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had, after Portia.” Miranda sipped at her water. “And for the record, we never went that other route.”

“I wasn’t going to ask. It’s none of my business.”

“But you were wondering.”

“Ummmm, maybe . . .” Kendra said, then laughed. “You seem to be so close, you and he. I admit I had wondered.”

“We are close. But not that way.”

“What did you mean, about his grandma?”

“Well, she is one of the most important people in his life. He wouldn’t take you to meet her if he didn’t have something long term in mind.”

“He does seem to dote on her,” Kendra mused. “They really seem to have a special bond.”

“Did he tell you what they do on his mother’s birthday, he and his grandmother?”

“No.” Kendra reached for another berry. “What?”

“They spend the day together, Adam and his grandma. His mother is buried in one of those old cemeteries where you can still plant things on the graves? So every year on her birthday, they go there together and clean up the grave site and plant her favorite flowers.”

“Wow. Who’d have thought?” Kendra said softly. “Big tough FBI man . . .”

“When I said he was a special guy, I wasn’t kidding.” Miranda took a deep breath, and said, “Which is my way of saying, please don’t mess with him if you’re not serious about, well, if you’re not looking for a real relationship.” She held up one hand as if to ward off protest. “I know it’s none of my business, but I’d really hate to see him hurt. If you’re really interested in him, that’s fine. That’s great. Wonderful. Go for it. Just don’t mess with him.”

“I’m interested,” Kendra admitted. “I’m more than interested. It’s just been a weird couple of weeks, you know? All of those dead women . . . well, circumstances haven’t been conducive to romance, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” Miranda said dryly. “It’s the story of my life. It’s hard to separate it all sometimes. You work on a case and if you’re doing the job right, it dominates your life. And it has to. You can’t do this job nine to five. You drop the ball and someone could die.”

She took another sip of water, then added, “It’s hard to keep a relationship going forward when you’re distracted by something else, sometimes for weeks at a time. You really have to be committed to making it work.”

“Are you involved with anyone now?”

“No, not now,” Miranda replied.

“I’m sorry.” Kendra sensed the unspoken “not anymore.”

“Well, it was one of those things that would never have worked out anyway. We weren’t right for each other.” She patted Kendra on the foot that rested on the sofa cushion between them. “But you and Adam, you could be right. And those circumstances that aren’t conducive to romance that you talked about? Sometimes you just have to move them out of the way, even if it’s only for a night, or a weekend at a time. Otherwise, you’ll never get to know what could be. If you wait until there are no other ‘circumstances,’ you’ll lose any chance you might have to find out what the relationship could be. He’s not going to give up what he is . . . and neither are you. If you want him, you’re just going to have to work around it.”

Miranda stood up, then began to gather up the rumpled napkins and empty glasses from the table.

“And those were my unsolicited two cents on the subject. I won’t say another word.” She started toward the kitchen, her arms laden. “I’ll get rid of this stuff, then you can point me in the direction of my bed. You promised me a canoe trip tomorrow morning and I’m holding you to it.”

Kendra lay in her bed staring at the ceiling, trying to sort it all out. Her life had taken on the appearance of a canvas onto which the artist had crowded far too many images. Taken as a whole, it overwhelmed. Viewed separately, the components might begin to make sense.

Though she’d initially bristled at having been forced to bring Miranda home with her, she was grateful now that Adam had insisted. Besides the fact that she did feel safer having an armed FBI agent sleeping in the room across the hall—should there in fact be any danger, though she wasn’t convinced there was—Kendra couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent an evening with a friend eating and watching television and talking about men and laughing and talking and just being, well, just being
girls
. Maybe college, she frowned. Could that be right? She hadn’t had a roommate since graduation, and her job had consumed her for years. Come to think of it, the only close friend she had was Selena, and since she started seeing patients at night, there was little time for evening socializing outside of their dinners at the Mission.

She recognized in Miranda a friend in waiting. She’d make certain that she followed through.

Interesting, Kendra thought as she turned over, that Miranda was right on target about her and Adam. They seemed to be in a holding pattern. Maybe, once this case was solved, they could take a few steps forward, instead of the side steps they’d been taking for the past week.

Then, there was the matter of her brother’s killer maybe not being behind bars after all, maybe being on her trail at this very minute. Maybe being the same person who seemed to be fixated on her. She pulled the blanket up over her shoulders against a sudden chill. None of the possibilities made any sense to her. Maybe when Adam got back from his meeting he’d have some insights.

At the thought of Adam, she smiled and closed her eyes. So much better to think about him than the man whose face she’d sketched.

Holding on to the image of Adam as he had stood next to his car earlier that day, one hand raised in a half-wave, she finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

It was almost two when Miranda stole a look at the clock on the table next to the bed in the guest room across the hall from Kendra’s bedroom. By nature a light sleeper, every little sound caused her eyes to open and her brain to seek the source of the noise and its possible causes. She’d earlier identified the sound of a log falling onto the hearth in the living room below and a little creaking of the hot water pipes that fed the radiators.

But the sound that she was hearing now . . . she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

Instinct caused her to slide her hand underneath her pillow. Fingers sought then closed around the handgun, drew it surely and brought it under the covers, all in the matter of seconds. She lay in the dark, stifling her own breathing while she tracked the sound.

Downstairs. Near the bottom of the steps.

She strained her ears until they ached.

On the steps now, footfalls soft as snow.

Inch by silent inch, she raised herself from a prone position, then slowly moved her feet to the edge of the bed. The door was slightly ajar, and by the night-light’s glow in the hall, she could see Kendra’s door. It, too, stood open by several inches. Miranda held her breath, watching through the opening, until the first hint of shadow fell. In one smooth, quiet motion, she was on her feet and opening the door.