UNEXPECTED TEARS FLOODED Lana’s eyes when Chip rushed forward to embrace his mother in the stark hospital waiting room. Other visitors glanced up at the commotion and then quickly looked away.
Lana had never seen Mrs. Peterson look anything but crisp and ready to handle whatever life threw at her, but this afternoon she appeared wrung out. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs as she embraced her son.
When she released him, his sister, Jan, stepped forward for her own hug. Afterward Mrs. Peterson began speaking softly to Chip, holding his hand. He stared at his mom, listening intently. Lana couldn’t hear, but assumed his mom was informing Chip on what had happened to his father. Not wanting to intrude during such a private family moment, she hung back. What could she do to help?
Maybe she should leave.
But Mrs. Peterson’s watery gaze settled on Lana. She had the same vivid blue eyes as Chip.
“Thank you for finding him for me, Lana,” Mrs. Peterson said, her voice catching.
Lana stepped forward. “How is Mr. Peterson?”
“In surgery,” Mrs. Peterson said. “We won’t know anything for hours.”
“The surgeon said he’d update us when he could,” Jan said.
“I don’t know what I’ll do without Bob,” Mrs. Peterson said, on another sob. “What if he doesn’t make it?”
“Don’t talk like that, Mom,” Jan said soothingly.
Lana wondered where Chip’s nieces were. Probably home with Jan’s husband. Waiting for the results of bypass surgery was not appropriate for children.
“He’d been out of breath lately, but dismissed it as the heat or his age,” Mrs. Peterson said. “I should have made him go to his physician, to a cardiologist.”
“It’s not your fault, Mom,” Chip said. “This isn’t anybody’s fault.”
Lana bit her bottom lip, again wondering what she ought to do. Chip looked lost, but so did his mother and sister. She’d always loved his family. If only she could do something to make them feel better. But of course there was nothing. Only Mr. Peterson’s surgeon could reassure them at this point.
“Is there anything I can do?” Lana asked. “Would you like me to get some coffee from the cafeteria?”
“Thank you, Lana,” Mrs. Peterson responded absently. “That would be nice.”
“Of course,” Lana murmured, with another glance at Chip. He met her gaze but said nothing. He stared right through her, as if she were invisible.
Lana released a breath. She had so much she wanted to say to him, but now wasn’t the time. Anything she wanted to tell him had to wait.
And maybe it was too late.
Because their horrible argument occurred the same day as his father’s heart attack, one disaster would forever be tangled up in his mind with the other. Chip might really be done with her.
On her way out, she shot a final look at Mrs. Peterson, who had collapsed onto a seat and buried her head in her hands. Lana ached for Chip’s mom, could only imagine the pain she felt. She was a wonderful lady, terrified of losing the love of her life. The Petersons were the perfect, happy couple. Her own mother had envied their marital bliss. And Mr. Peterson had been Mom’s hero during the divorce.
Maybe it was better to never allow yourself to care too deeply about anyone. Who had that ever worked out for? No one she knew. Not for Dan and Cindy. No question her mom had always picked the wrong guy. And even if you found the right guy, that rare good guy like Mr. Peterson, you still could end up losing him.
If Chip had been her Mr. Right, she’d already blown it big-time.
THE NEXT SATURDAY night after her shift, Lana arrived home to an empty house. Her breath caught when she didn’t see Chip’s truck in the driveway. She’d been hoping to see him, that he’d be awake. So far he’d slept here each night.
She’d barely spoken to him during the preceding week. When not in class, he spent all of his time at the hospital or helping his mom do chores around the Peterson home.
Had he moved out? Lana had worried about that all week. If he moved out, they might never get a chance to talk.
But could they smooth over their differences? A simple conversation wouldn’t solve their problems. Not when he insisted she stop the search for her brother’s murderer. Chip wasn’t in charge of her life, and he knew how important justice was to her, to her mother.
She pushed open the front door and hurried toward his room. The living room was dark, but as usual Chip had left a light on for her.
She whooshed out a breath when she spotted his laptop on the desk. All of his belongings remained where they belonged.
The relief flooding her made her lean against the doorjamb. She hadn’t realized how much she needed him to still live here as her gaze floated over his possessions. She liked living with Chip.
No, that wasn’t what caused this strong reaction. She’d fallen in love with Chip.
What was she going to do about that? What could she do?
Tell him. That’s what.
He’d probably decided to stay the night at his parents’ after working late to prepare a room for his father’s homecoming. The family had decided Mr. Peterson should do his cardiac rehab at home and could afford the cost of therapists coming to the house. In one of their few brief conversations, Chip had related the excellent news that if his dad completed the prescribed rehabilitation, he should recover, although it would be months before he could return to work.
A beam of light from next door flashed across the living room. Lana turned to watch a car pull into Gary’s driveway. Out of habit, she glanced at the time. Almost 1:00 a.m., so he had a late customer. Should she bother to record the license plate?
She’d finally heard from a Detective Randy Clark at Vice, but the news wasn’t good. They needed something more concrete in order to set up formal surveillance. They were swamped with cases. Gary looked like small potatoes. They had to be careful because of the recent corruption charges. Blah, blah.
Had all of her efforts been for nothing?
She still switched cars and changed out of her uniform every night at her old apartment before driving here. If she drove her police unit home, Gary would learn she was a cop, which would mean she had zero chance of proving he was a murderer.
Needing to unwind before she collapsed into bed, Lana boiled water for chamomile tea. By the time she’d settled in her usual spot before the side window, Gary’s customer had left. Late for another one to arrive, but she didn’t have anything better to do. Why not keep an eye out for druggies looking to score?
But maybe it was time to give up. Her cold case had frozen into blue ice.
She had no more leads. No threads to pull. She’d even managed to alienate Chip.
Was she feeling this way because Chip had demanded she stop? Or perhaps because of his father’s heart attack?
The unexpected medical crisis had spooked her. Shaken her up. Made her realize her own life ticked away while she remained focused on a murder that had occurred eight years ago. How long should she keep at it?
Should she give up? Walk away without ever learning who had murdered her brother? Could she do that to her mother? To herself? Maybe she had to.
She’d done her best but had failed. Just like her mother.
She hated the idea of failure, that despite everything she’d done, Danny’s murderer would never be found, never be punished. She didn’t want to be that person, that kind of cop.
As she sipped her warm, sweet tea, Gary’s porch light came on. A moment later, her neighbor hurried out his front door, jumped into his car and peeled away.
What was the rush at 1:30 a.m.?
And where the hell was he jetting off to? Was he high and going out to party? Her department knew only too well about rowdy clubs that remained open this late in South Beach or downtown Miami. Clubs full of illegal drug use. The police responded to at least one fatal overdose a week.
Or maybe Gary was making a delivery to a special customer.
Wherever he was going, he would likely be gone for a while. She took a deep breath. She’d been itching to search his house. Maybe she could find that concrete evidence Detective Clark demanded.
It was now or never.
Lana jumped to her feet and entered the kitchen. She dumped her tea in the sink and found a flashlight in a drawer. She flicked the switch to make sure it worked and jammed it in her jeans pocket. She snapped on vinyl gloves and passed through the laundry room, into the garage, where she rummaged through a box of gimme hats, swag from Chip’s various competitions. She selected a dark one and stuffed her hair inside. Next she grabbed her small ladder and a hammer and exited the side door.
Outside, Gary’s backyard was shrouded in shadows, with streetlights out front providing the only illumination. She listened. Nothing but a few crickets and a distant roar of traffic.
She’d mentally rehearsed how she could enter Gary’s residence a hundred times in her head. She knew which window she’d break, confident the shattering glass was far enough away that it wouldn’t alert another neighbor. Gary didn’t have an alarm system—obviously he didn’t want the police to respond to a break-in and find his stash—so she could just climb in undetected.
She’d make sure she got in and out in less than sixty minutes.
This would be an illegal search. Nothing she found would have any evidentiary value. She wouldn’t take anything, but hoped to find a clue, stumble across something that would lead to admissible evidence.
If she found Danny’s ring, she’d leave it and return later with a warrant.
Her heart hammered inside her chest as she approached the window she’d selected. Moisture from damp grass seeped into her shoes. Could she—should she—do this? If she entered Gary’s home without his permission or knowledge, she’d be crossing a line no one should ever breach. Much less a cop. If she got caught, she would end her career.
Worse, she’d become one of the bad guys. She’d be as corrupt as the criminals she’d sworn to hunt down. Breaking and entering was a felony.
But so was murder.
She reached for the hammer in her pocket, gripped the smooth wooden shaft and hesitated. Was she out for justice or revenge? Had she become some rogue vigilante who was willing to do anything to achieve her own ends?
No, that’s not me.
She lowered the hammer and backed away from the window. What the hell am I doing?
Making another bad decision, that’s what, one that could destroy her life forever. B and E was worse than anything her mother had ever done or didn’t do.
Lana couldn’t do this. She wouldn’t become a criminal in order to punish one. Talk about bad choices.
She’d have to find another way.
THE NEXT MORNING, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, Lana pushed open the glass doors of South Miami Fitness and entered a large open space with a dozen ceiling fans circling overhead. She winced at the distinctive sound of a heavy weight colliding with the floor.
She moved toward the reception desk, where a young, fit female clerk, with her blond hair tied back in a ponytail, spoke on the phone. Her name tag read Heather.
Heather smiled at Lana and raised a finger as a signal to wait.
Lana nodded and surveyed the room, finding a clientele both old and young, both male and female. The facility contained a dizzying abundance of step machines, treadmills, stationary bicycles and gleaming stainless steel apparatuses with varying weights for strength training.
But the patrons on this equipment weren’t who she needed to talk to.
She needed to locate the hard-core gym rats, men and some women with oversize biceps looking to make their muscles even larger. Stronger. Every gym had them. In her experience, they clustered around the free weights.
She focused on the far side of the huge room, where the walls were covered with mirrors. Sure enough, a multitude of weights were racked against the wall. That was where she’d find Gary’s friends.
And his customers.
“May I help you?” Heather inquired.
“Yes, thank you,” Lana said. “My name is Karen, and I’m interested in your free week membership to check out this gym.”
“Certainly. Let me arrange for a tour for you, Karen.”
The clerk summoned an equally fit young man of about twenty-eight named Glenn. Maintaining a steady sales pitch about the wonders of South Miami Fitness, Glenn led Lana around the facility and demonstrated how to use the various strength machines. Lana kept shifting her gaze toward the free-weight zone but knew Gary wasn’t pumping iron today. When she’d left home, his car had been in his driveway. He hadn’t returned home by the time she’d finally fallen asleep last night, so most likely he’d had a late night.
“Do you prefer free weights?” Glenn asked, following her focus. “I can tell you already work out.”
Lana shrugged. “When I have time.” Which isn’t often with my new shift.
After the tour, Glenn paused outside the women’s locker room and motioned for her to go inside. “You’ll find showers and lockers, a sauna and steam room for women only. Continue on back and you’ll find our four-lane lap pool and a hot tub. Those are coed.”
“Sounds great,” Lana said.
“We have aquatic aerobics three days a week. On your way out, be sure to pick up a schedule of all our classes. We have over ten a day.”
The guy was a great pitchman, and despite the fact she had access to a free police gym, Lana found herself intrigued by all this fitness center had to offer. Certainly a much larger variety of equipment than the police facility.
“Do you want to begin your free week today?” Glenn asked.
“Yeah, I thought I would.”
“Great.” Glenn handed her his business card and shook her hand. “Come see me when you make a decision. Enjoy your workout.”
Lana wandered over to the free-weight section and immediately felt out of place amid the giants and their pumped-up muscles. Only one other woman used this section—and, wow, she had some serious biceps—but Lana refused to feel intimidated. She had every right to be here.
She picked up a ten-pound weight, lifted it overhead and initiated a lift for her triceps, pretending to observe her form in the mirror, but actually surveilling the other patrons.
The musclemen ignored her. These guys weren’t here to hook up like the patrons in other sections of the gym. During her tour she’d felt like a slab of new meat on display as men checked her out. But here the guys were serious about bodybuilding. Some looked as if they could be genuine competitors in a Mr. Whoever contest and resented an obvious wimp like her invading their testosterone-laced territory.
But did these guys use anabolic steroids to achieve their muscle-mag-cover-worthy bodies. And did they purchase their goodies from her neighbor? That was what she was here to find out.
She didn’t smile at anyone, didn’t make eye contact and didn’t initiate any conversation while she went through an upper-body routine, wanting to project the appearance of a serious athlete. Her new schedule would allow her to visit this gym every day before her shift. She’d do a lower-body workout tomorrow.
Considering Gary’s late nights, she doubted he worked out in the mornings. But if he did, so much the better. She’d watch how he interacted with the bodybuilders. See if he negotiated any business.
Detective Clark had said she needed better evidence of dealing, and what better place to find it than right here?
She’d dismissed Chip’s worry about Gary thinking it strange if she showed up at his gym. Gary knew she was looking for a place to work out, and this gym was the closest to their address.
But she’d wait until the end of her trial period to ask any questions. Let the regulars get used to her face and body, and then she’d inquire if anyone knew where she could purchase something to speed up the process.
If her inquiries directed her to Gary, then she’d have the evidence Detective Clark required. Yeah, Gary might be shocked, but so what? In his eyes, she’d just morph into another paying customer, looking to get jacked.
He didn’t know she was a cop. Not yet, anyway.
AFTER CLASS ON MONDAY, as he’d done every day since his father’s heart attack, Chip visited his father in the hospital and then drove to his parents’ home to help prepare for Dad’s homecoming. A huge medical-supply delivery truck rumbled away as he parked in the driveway. Chip entered the house and stared inside the bedroom he’d slept in for most of his life.
With an adjustable hospital bed, oxygen tank and bedside table, this once-familiar space now resembled a bleak medical center.
Over the past week, he’d picked through his childhood mementos and youthful belongings. Everything was now stored in the garage, in his car or in a pile for delivery to a charity for the homeless. Or the garbage.
Chip shut the door. He had no use for nostalgia. He needed to shake off this ridiculous sense of loss, the sense that he no longer belonged in this house.
His father was coming home. His old man had survived open-heart triple-bypass surgery. He regained more strength every day. If Dad put in the work at rehab—and Chip knew he would—he’d make a full recovery. That was all that mattered right now.
Chip went in search of his sister. Maybe this was no longer his home, but so what? He had a new place to lay his head at night. His thoughts drifted to Lana, and he immediately pulled them back. No point in going there.
He found Jan in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
“Mom just called,” she said. “Dad’s in the wheelchair and they’re on their way.”
Chip nodded. “Everything is ready here.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea for Dad to convalesce at home?” Jan asked as she chopped green peppers for a salad.
“There’ll be nurses here 24/7,” Chip said. “We’ve rented all the equipment that would be in a room at a rehab center.”
“But what if there’s an emergency?”
“Like what?”
Jan shot him a look. “Another heart attack.”
“That won’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
“If it does, we’ll call 911. That’s what they’d do at the rehab center.”
Jan shook her head, but remained silent as she sliced a tomato.
“What are you really worried about?” Chip asked.
Jan sighed. “I guess I’m worried it’ll be too much for Mom. She hasn’t left the hospital since he was admitted.”
“Recovering at home was her idea.”
“I know.” Jan cleaned her hands on a paper towel and faced Chip. “I’m going to get over here as much as I can to relieve her, encourage her to get out of the house. You need to do the same.”
“Okay, but why? We’re paying for professional caregivers,” Chip said.
“She won’t trust them to watch over Dad. Remember how she didn’t trust the nurses in the hospital?”
“But you think she’d trust one of us?”
“Family, yes. Look, I understand you have a rough schedule, so I’m going to ask Lana to come over one day a week to help Mom.”
Chip sucked in a quick breath. “Lana isn’t family.”
Jan smiled. “Oh, I think she qualifies. You guys are living together and we’ve known her forever.”
“She’s my roommate,” Chip said. “That’s all.”
“Yeah, right,” Jan said, shaking her head.
“And she’s already got a job,” Chip said. “Lana is searching for a murderer. She’s not interested in nursing Dad or babysitting Mom.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Jan said as she tossed her salad. “I remember Lana well. She was a sweet kid who wanted to save every injured creature in the neighborhood.”
“Not anymore. She’s a cop now.”
Jan rolled her eyes. “I know she’s a police officer.”
“And she’s got a rough schedule, too.”
“When I spoke to her at the hospital, she offered to help however she could. She told me she doesn’t go on duty until three, so she’s available in the mornings.”
“I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
Jan whirled to face him. “And why not?”
Chip blinked. Why not indeed?
“Mom is on board,” Jan continued. “She’s looking forward to getting reacquainted with Lana. Before Dad got sick, she asked me several times if it was too soon to have you guys over for a family dinner.”
Chip swallowed. Mom wanted to ask Lana over for a meal? Man, was his mother going to be disappointed. Great.
His parents’ home had become a refuge during the past week, a haven away from Lana, where he didn’t have to think about her dangerous activities and his insane need to protect a trained cop who didn’t need or want his protection.
But how was he supposed to stop worrying about her? He loved her. He’d loved her since that funeral for her parakeet in the fourth grade. Of course he didn’t want anything to happen to her.
He needed to forget about her, but if she came here to help out—and he had no doubt Lana would be happy to do whatever she could—his emotional ties to her would dig in that much deeper, would be that much harder to sever. She was like a benign virus he couldn’t get rid of.
Jeez. Apparently his entire family believed that he and Lana would be announcing their engagement any day now. Jan had likely already started planning a wedding shower. Or maybe even the wedding. He couldn’t burst their bubble in the middle of a much more serious family crisis. The Peterson clan needed good news, not bad.
“I guess it would be okay,” Chip muttered.
“Good.” Jan turned back to her salad. “Maybe Tuesdays would work out. I know she’s off Monday, so she wouldn’t be up late working the night before.”
At a noise in the front room, Jan said, “Oh, there’s Brian and the girls.” She checked the time. “Mom and Dad should arrive any minute. You can set the table.”
Chip reached into the cabinet for plates but withdrew his arm. “Should I set a place for Dad?”
His gaze locked with his sister. She bit her bottom lip.
“I guess not,” Jan said softly, her voice catching. “He’ll be too weak to sit at the table.”
Chip hurried over to hug her. “We’ll get through this.”
“I know,” Jan said as her daughters rushed into the kitchen, demanding something cold to drink.
When his nieces stampeded out of the kitchen with their mother, Chip selected tableware and moved to the dining room to set the table. He ought to be grateful that Lana was on duty tonight so Jan couldn’t invite her over for dinner.
He couldn’t disappoint his family right now. When his father had recovered, he’d announce something glib like, hey, it just hadn’t worked out with Lana. She’d have moved back to her apartment by then.
If she hadn’t already.
Her cold case was going nowhere, but she’d never give up. He admired her determination even if that bulldog attitude meant they had no future together. She’d chosen her investigation over him.
Every time he entered their home, he expected to find a note and her clothing gone. Sooner or later he would.