I’d suggest you not underestimate this one.
Gavin recalled Quinn’s statement. Truer words had never been spoken, Gavin thought as he followed Katie’s car. As if he’d heard the thought, Cutter woofed softly. Gavin let out a slight sound of disbelief, shaking his head, wondering how he’d let himself get roped into taking the dog with him.
“Take Cutter,” Quinn had said cheerfully. “He’ll assess things for you.”
“Do bring him,” Katie had agreed, sounding happy about it. “Dogs love my dad. They have good judgment about people.”
“Right,” he’d muttered, trying not to notice that Cutter had gotten to his feet and was already headed for the door, as if he’d understood every word.
“Trust him,” Hayley had said softly as he stood up.
So now here he was, with the too clever dog opining from the back seat, wondering how it had happened. But the farther they went, the more he began to think perhaps it was a good thing. The dog would be a distraction, perhaps make Moore feel this was more of a social visit, friendly, so his guard wouldn’t be up.
Katie was driving rather sedately, not speeding or rolling through any stop signs despite the lack of traffic. After a final turn onto a small cul-de-sac, she pulled into the driveway of a tidy, bungalow-style house. The driveway was delineated by a row of metal sculptures, birds, fish and some more whimsical, like a curious-looking dragon. The hobby Katie had mentioned, he guessed. Next to the house was a wide carport, extended to provide shelter up to a side door of the house. A silver coupe sat in one spot. Katie pulled in next to it.
He stopped behind her bright blue sedan. A practical four-door, but a flashy color, he’d thought when he’d first seen it. He wondered how much of herself was reflected in the choice.
He watched her through the back window of the car. Katie Moore had proven more than once she could and would stand up to him. If she’d been an attorney, he would have relished taking her on in a courtroom. As it was, he was relishing the thought of taking her on in very different ways. And that rattled him. He hadn’t had a response like this to a woman in...forever? Or had it just been so long it seemed like forever?
He’d written off having any kind of permanent relationship. The kind of women he would want for that couldn’t—and wouldn’t—tolerate him for long. He didn’t blame them. His last attempt had been Jessica, who had left him after a mere three months, expressing the rueful hope that he one day find someone who could take his skeptical nature and hell-on-wheels, 24/7 brain.
At this point he doubted such a woman existed. He hadn’t been drawn enough to anyone to test the supposition.
Until now.
If thoughts really did come with hazard flags, this one would be big, bright and with a siren attached. It came from a different place than his instincts about people and liars, a place he hadn’t heard from any time in recent memory. And it was swift and personal, warning of a steep drop off a cliff and churning water below.
Cutter gave him a nudge with his nose, startling him out of his strange reverie. He put the rental car in Park, but didn’t immediately get out. Nor did Katie, and he wondered if she was having to gear herself up for this. He reminded himself that she and her father had been all each other had had for over two decades, so they were very likely to provide a united front. United in a kind of grief he’d never experienced.
Because you never let yourself get that close to anyone.
That little voice that often guided him in an interrogation or in a courtroom had recently taken to personal jibes he could do without. Besides, could he be blamed for finding it hard to trust when he’d spent years around people who lied without a thought?
Of course, all that had been before he’d learned his entire life was built on a lie.
A side door on the house opened. He stayed put, watching, wanting the chance to observe. Katie quickly got out of her car the moment a man stepped out onto the small landing two steps up from the driveway.
The man was smiling widely. No nerves there at an unexpected visit from his daughter. Assuming it was unexpected, of course, that she hadn’t called him while en route despite her promise.
A promise he’d believed.
...presumed honest until proven a liar.
He shook his head again, keeping his gaze focused on the pair, assessing as Steven Moore gave his daughter a hug. Her father was, likely by any standard, a handsome man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with the same sandy-blond hair as Katie’s, only his was just touched at the temples with gray. His good looks were more dramatic than Katie’s quiet attractiveness, and Gavin guessed he could have had more than his share of feminine attention if he’d wanted it.
Was it really possible to grieve so much and so hard that a man who could probably have his pick of attentive ladies would forego all that for so long? Was it even possible to love someone that much?
There was no doubt about the love between father and daughter; it fairly radiated from them. He knew that kind of parental love existed, had observed it often enough. And it put a furrow in his brow as he wondered if that kind of love could run to lying to that daughter’s face.
To protect her? Absolutely. To protect himself? To ensure her love for her father stayed unchanging? Because if he’d murdered her best friend, that would surely destroy what they had.
But he was, as were the police, hard aground on the lack of motive. And the man certainly did not look like a killer, but then they often didn’t. Who knew that better than he? But he also knew that when desperate to solve a case, it was human nature to start searching for evidence to prove your suspicions instead of continuing to search for an elusive truth. Cops had gut instincts they trusted just as he did. Only, theirs were aimed at a different goal—a conviction in court. Most of the time their two goals coincided, but sometimes...
Katie gestured toward him, and her father looked his way. Something wary came into his expression. Gavin noted it, but didn’t chalk it down in a column yet, because people were often wary upon meeting him, simply because his reputation so often preceded him.
And yet there was a touch of the excitement he also sometimes saw. Again human nature, meeting someone they’d read about or seen on TV was somehow different than meeting any other stranger.
He opened the car door and got out. He realized, far too belatedly, that he hadn’t really considered what approach to take. He’d been too busy dwelling on the man’s daughter and the weird effect she had on him.
And then Cutter was out of the car and trotting ahead, leaving him no time to ponder the matter. He was truly out of it, Gavin thought. To be honest, he’d been off stride ever since he’d opened the door to see a wet, bedraggled Katie Moore standing there. It was time he got over it and got back in the game.
The dog came to a halt in front of Steven Moore, and sat. He looked up at the man, head cocked at a quizzical angle, as if he couldn’t quite figure him out.
“Well, hello there,” Moore said, bending to pet the dog’s dark head.
Cutter allowed it, but he didn’t react with the instant warmth and affection he’d given Katie. Of course, he knew Katie from the neighborhood.
“This is Cutter,” Katie was explaining. “He belongs to the Foxworths. He’s quite the judge of character, so he’s here to show Mr. de Marco that you’re honest.”
She said it with obvious amusement. But watching her father’s face, Gavin was certain he’d seen a flicker of...something in his eyes. Worry? Nervousness?
Guilt?
Cutter had remained in place, sitting in front of the man. But now he was looking back over his shoulder at Gavin with the oddest expression. In a person he would have said it was a maybe, or a tentative yes, with reservations.
Trust him.
Hayley’s words echoed in his mind. And he found himself wishing the dog could explain those reservations.
Laughing at himself inwardly, he walked up to the trio.
“Mr. Moore,” he said, holding out a hand.
The man took it, and they shook. Good, solid handshake, not too weak, not overdone to impress him. One small box checked off.
“Mr. de Marco,” Moore said. “It’s an honor to meet you. I just wish my girl didn’t think it was necessary.”
“You don’t think it is?”
The older man—Gavin figured he had to be early to midfifties at least, although he looked much younger—let out an audible sigh.
“Since I didn’t do it, I don’t want to think it is,” he said, “but if it will make Katie feel better, I’ll go along.”
The denial was issued calmly, not an insistent declaration but merely as if it were a statement of fact. And Gavin found himself believing it. Which was odd, since he usually didn’t reach that stage so soon.
That had him wondering even more about what the dog’s apparent reservations were.
Which in turn made him think, ruefully, that he’d completely lost his mind.
Or, he added silently with a look at Katie, something else entirely.