ROBERT TELLMASTER SAT in a rocker on his porch when Oscar pulled up in front of the house. Shelley sucked in a breath. Never, not once during the pregnancy, had she felt this bad. Oscar had offered to go back to his aunt’s and substitute the motorcycle for the SUV, and she’d reluctantly agreed to the ride home.
Oscar nodded at Robert and then turned to help Shelley from the vehicle.
“You okay?” he asked.
She put her hand over her mouth, and when he moved to help her, she waved him away.
“You’re turning green. Should I call somebody?”
She shook her head, but immediately stopped as another wave of nausea swept over her. She’d had motion sickness a couple of times just descending the steps of the apartment. Her doctor had told her to be careful.
Robert stepped down onto the front walkway and said, “Where’s your car? You getting it fixed? I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“It should be delivered today,” Oscar answered for her. She reached out and clutched at his upper arm, her fingers digging into his uniform as she dragged herself forward. She wanted inside. She wanted air-conditioning. She wanted to lie down unmoving in total darkness.
Oscar leaned toward her, and his arm went around her gently.
It wasn’t fair that the guy whose face was taking over her dreams had to see her like this.
Robert peered around Oscar, trying to get a look at Shelley. “I hope she’s all right?”
“She’s going to be,” Oscar promised, guiding his other hand under her arm. She managed to take a few steps and stay on her feet. He eyed the stairs. “I can carry you if you want.”
“No,” she hissed.
“Did you find out what’s wrong with her car?” Robert asked.
“Someone messed with it.” Oscar took one step with Shelley holding on, and then he took another. She tugged at his arm, sagged against him, until he looked at her and she begged, “Stop moving.”
He visibly swallowed, and she wanted to tell him it would be all right as soon as the town of Sarasota Falls quit tilting, and her stomach left her throat and returned to the vicinity of her belly button.
“You didn’t by any chance see anything?” Oscar was asking Robert. “I’ve been meaning to stop by and talk to you.”
“My gosh, no. I’d have told you. I rented to her even though...even though...”
“Even though what?” Oscar asked patiently.
“Even though her ex-husband scares me.”
“Oscar,” Shelley said, “I’m going to be—”
“Your door unlocked?” Oscar asked Robert.
“Yes, but—”
Her feet barely touched the ground as he guided her up Robert’s front stairs and through the door. The house was icy cold and spotless. Instead of a typical living room, it held about five computers all connected and only one chair. A huge television took up one wall.
“Here you go.” Oscar helped her through a door and to the bathroom sink. “Are these towels clean?” he hollered behind him.
“Yes.” Robert had followed them.
“Just give me a minute.” Shelley managed to shut the door before bending over the sink, splashing water on her face and fighting off more nausea. She gripped the edge of the sink, liking the cool feeling, liking that her feet were in one spot and if she melted, it would be onto a floor.
She’d rather it be the garage apartment bathroom, though. But quite honestly, this might have been the cleanest bathroom she’d ever seen.
The door opened. She should have locked it. Oscar held out a glass of water and a wet washrag.
“I’ll be fine,” she told him.
“You get like this often?”
She took the water and made herself drink, slowly. Oscar dabbed at her forehead with the washrag.
“Once or twice.” The bathroom was a whole lot smaller now that he was in it. She closed the toilet lid, sat down and held the washcloth against her forehead.
“From stress?”
The room stopped swaying, and she no longer felt like she was going to throw up. She held on to the washrag a minute longer. It felt good. “You’ve read my file, right?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Then, if you do the math, you’ll figure out that I was probably several weeks pregnant the day my ex-husband disappeared.”
“I didn’t do that much math.”
“Well,” she said, “that day back in December, after a couple of phone calls and realizing that he’d packed up the few belongings he had, I threw up. I threw up for five days straight, and then I stopped. It was a month before I figured out I was pregnant. You tell me. Was it pregnancy or stress?”
“Both.” He helped her up, and she liked this part of him, the part that wanted to serve and protect. Maybe she could pretend that he was doing it because he liked her, not because he was getting paid for it. He guided her from the bathroom and into the living room, where Robert stood nervously waiting.
“You okay?” Robert asked.
It occurred to her not only that she’d never been in his house but also that she’d never seen anyone else going in or out. “I am okay. Thank you for letting me use your restroom.”
“No problem.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Hmm, your state-of-the-art computer equipment is better than what we have at the station,” Oscar observed.
“Probably,” Robert agreed, looking proud. “It’s amazing what a single chip of silicon can provide. I’ve got speech recognition, voice synthesis and my user interface...”
Robert must have noticed her eyes glaze over as she studied all the wires tangled across the floor and leading to five desktop computers. Two laptops were open. One looked like Robert had been doing something with a webpage. The other had a Simpsons screen saver.
“What do you do for a living?” Oscar asked. “Anything besides handle a few of the town’s websites?”
He shrugged. “I design websites, battle viruses, help companies with security. I’m a survey taker and website tester. Things I can do from home.”
“Could you locate private phone numbers?” Oscar asked.
Robert blinked. “What? Of course not. That’s illegal. What made you ask that?”
“I’m not accusing, but I want to know. Do you, or could a computer guru, find private phone numbers?”
Robert slowly nodded. “They’d need only a smartphone. Hacking’s easy.”
“So,” Oscar continued, “if Shelley kept changing cell phone numbers, how quickly could a good hacker get her new information?”
“Minutes.”
Oscar heard Shelley’s intake of breath. She was already on edge. He changed the subject. “What else do you do?”
Robert looked relieved at the question. “Well, I collect rent not only from Shelley but also from two other properties. I sold one of my properties last year. That really put me in the black.”
Ever the cop, Oscar asked, “Where are your rentals?”
“The Duponts down the street. I’m amazed how long they’ve stayed, but then, I’ve not raised their rent since they moved in. Trying to give them a bit of a break.”
It seemed to get colder in the room, but Shelley didn’t complain. She just moved closer to Oscar. He was hot enough for both of them, but that might be pregnancy hormones acting up.
“That’s nice of you,” she said.
“I know. First I rent to them, and the husband’s a real piece of work. He’s actually tried paying late, making it a little later each time, until he pays a month late, on the date the next payment is due, and then pretends he’s up to date.”
“What did you do?” Oscar asked.
“I told his wife. She straightened it out right away.”
“Who else do you rent to?”
Robert named a family on the next street. Shelley vaguely knew them.
“And you say you sold a property?” Oscar encouraged him.
“Yes, but I wish I hadn’t. I sold the Livingstons their house.”
Shelley shivered, and this time it wasn’t from the cold.
Oscar didn’t so much as pause. “Did you keep a spare key to their house?”
“Of course not,” Robert sputtered.
“Do you know how to break in?”
Robert shifted uncomfortably. If he said no, he’d be lying. She just knew it. She switched her gaze to Oscar. Okay, she was getting good at reading him, too. His gaze dared Robert to lie.
Robert sighed. “About Christmastime, Cody locked himself out. He came over here asking if I had a spare key. I showed him how to get in through his garage door. He never gave back the clothes hanger.”
“That easy, eh?” Oscar said.
Robert shrugged. “The chain on the back door is unusually long, too. If one of them forgot to turn the lock, it would be easy to break in.”
Oscar shook his head.
“Hey,” Robert said, “you won’t find my fingerprints inside. I just pay attention to things.”
“If you pay attention to things, why didn’t you notice someone messing with Shelley’s car a few days ago?”
“I avoid watching her. If I see something I shouldn’t see, it could mean trouble.”
“From the police?” Oscar asked.
“No. I’ve dealt with her ex-husband.”
Surprised, Shelley asked, “When?”
“Almost a year ago, right before Thanksgiving. I drove to Albuquerque to pick up a semiconductor and was driving back when I saw your husband on the side of the road. He had a flat.”
“So you helped him?”
“Yes. I can’t drive by someone I know without helping.”
Robert Tellmaster seemed a strange, aloof man, but piece by piece, a softer side was appearing. He rented to her even though he didn’t want to—all because of her mom. He’d never raised the rent on the Duponts, even though Mr. Dupont was a jerk, and now he was talking about helping her ex-husband.
“That was before he took advantage of half the town,” Robert reminded her.
Okay, she thought, Robert wasn’t that soft.
“Did you tell the police?” Oscar asked.
“Nothing to tell. He didn’t have a spare, and we were driving the same kind of car, so I lent him mine from my trunk. He gave it back later.”
“Where were you when you saw him?”
“About twenty miles past Runyan.”
Oscar straightened. “Really? Had you seen him on the road earlier, coming back from Albuquerque, or do you think he’d been in Runyan?”
“Oh, he was going to Runyan. Not leaving it.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, the woman with—” Robert stopped, looking at Shelley apologetically.
“Go on,” she said. “You’re not telling me something I don’t know.”
“The woman with him said she needed to be home by eight, and if I remember, it was a quarter to.”
“What did she look like?” Oscar asked.
Robert made a face. “It’s been almost a year!”
“Try,” Oscar pushed, his voice stern.
“She had blond hair, down to her shoulders, shimmery, so probably a dye job.”
“Go on,” Oscar urged.
“I’d say she was between twenty-five and thirty and had work done. She had that plastic smile. She was thin and dressed flashy. I remember that. And she giggled a lot.”
“Was there anything in the car that you could see?” Oscar now had his notebook out.
Shelley took a seat in front of one of the computers. The world no longer spun, but she felt like she could sleep a week. What she didn’t feel like was going up the stairs. For the next twenty minutes, Oscar pulled details from Robert, who, after a few minutes, really got into answering. Shelley thought he felt important.
“I didn’t want to tell you,” he said to her.
“Don’t worry about it,” Shelley said. Actually, except for the fact that her husband was with another woman, there wasn’t much to tell. There’d been no suitcases in the backseat, no belongings that Robert saw, just two people out together. Before he took advantage of Sarasota Falls, she’d have assumed he was with a client. Maybe he had been. Maybe there was some blonde somewhere who was thousands of dollars poorer. Maybe the blonde was one of the many female voices who’d called Shelley hoping to get reimbursement.
Or Larry might have been cheating on Shelley.
She pushed aside a keyboard and balanced her head on her hand before closing her eyes. A dull headache ebbed and flowed. She welcomed the darkness. She was just drifting off when the conversation moved back to how Robert knew to break into the Livingstons’ house.
“If I didn’t have a key to the Duponts’, I could still get into their place. They’ve got a window on the second floor that doesn’t latch. The tree might be tricky at my age, but I could do it, especially with a ladder.”
Oscar advised against it.
“And,” Robert continued, “the garage apartment Shelley’s renting isn’t that tricky, either. There’s a trapdoor going into the closet. If you can get the garage door open, then all you have to do is climb.”
Shelley sat up, glaring at Robert. Oscar didn’t look too happy, either.
“Don’t worry,” Robert said. “No one knows about the trapdoor but me. And I’d never break in.”
“I’m feeling better.” Shelley stood, afraid to stick around because in her mood, she might just throttle Robert. “I need to do some things upstairs.”
To her relief, Oscar came over and helped her up. Together they left Robert’s and headed to her apartment in the back. “You learn a lot?” she asked Oscar.
“I’m not surprised that he knows how to break into your place, the Duponts’ or Livingstons’. Like he said, he pays attention.”
Shelley held tight to the banister and started pulling herself up. Her back protested, but she didn’t care. Twelve steps were between her and the couch.
Oscar came up behind her, his body cushioning her. Gently he guided her up the stairs. Before they got to the door, she turned to look at him. He had a dimple. How had she missed that? And one of his eyebrows had a tiny scar running through it. She reached out without thinking and traced it with her finger.
“How did this happen?”
“Airport in Afghanistan. Angry mob. They weren’t angry at me.”
“I can’t imagine anyone being angry at you.” She smiled at him, letting him know she was teasing.
He smoothed her hair away from her forehead. “If you get angry at me, I’d enjoy the making-up part.”
Warmth spread across her cheeks. Yes, making up would be fun. She thought about the kiss earlier, how she’d felt in his arms, how she wanted to feel that way again.
As if sensing her thoughts, he leaned in and kissed her. It was even better than the one in front of the preschool.
She could get used to this.