Maxwell Brown’s house sat on the highest hill in Grand Springs, a monument to money, ego and the determination to succeed. With its Mediterranean styling, lush grounds and elaborate security fence, it would have looked more at home in the Caribbean or on one of the tiny exclusive islands between Miami and Miami Beach, but even high in the Rockies, it was beautiful. Both the house and the grounds were brightly lit in the night. No one would ever slip in there unnoticed. No doubt, there were perimeter alarms, motion-sensitive detectors and burglar alarms all over the place.
“What a great place to live.”
Martin glanced at Juliet, who was staring up at the house from their place on the dark street. Frankly, he couldn’t imagine her in a place like this, maybe because he identified her so strongly with her neat little green house. Oddly enough, though, he could see himself living in a place like this. Maybe…
Damn, how he hated that word.
She smiled at his fierce look. “Feeling cranky? You should have taken me up on my offer.”
Tension born of frustration was immediately replaced by tension of a sexual nature. Back in his apartment, once she’d found the strength to lift her head from his shoulder, once she’d been able to speak coherently, she had made him several offers—to take off her clothes, to take him to bed, to do things to him that he might never have had done to him before. She’d offered earthy, lusty promises, made all the more indecent by her utterly innocent face, and he had been tempted, heaven help him, more than ever before. But the condoms were at her house. She hadn’t minded, but he had. No matter how urgent the desire, he couldn’t risk her future, maybe even her life, not even for the most incredible lovemaking that existed.
So he had torn himself away from her, dragged on clothes that she’d kept trying to remove and made himself a promise. Later. He could have her later. The prospect was enough to give him some measure of control.
“Exactly what kind of business is Maxwell Brown in?”
He looked back at the house. “He used to be a stockbroker. Now he’s into a little of everything. He owns both residential and commercial rental property. He has a construction company, a trucking company and a couple of car dealerships. He owns an interest in the mall, one of the banks and in the commuter airline out at the airport. He’s also part-owner of the Squaw Creek Lodge.”
“So he’s a respectable businessman whose interests are diversified. But you still have this feeling.”
“I know it sounds silly—”
“Not at all. I work three days a week with people who get paid for heeding their ‘feelings’—only they call them hunches. Instincts.”
He gestured toward the endless wrought-iron fence that circled the property. “I know there’s money in business, but look at that house. There’s no mortgage on it. The fence alone cost more than most houses in town. Grand Springs is a small city. Just how much money can one man make here legitimately?”
“Do you have any theories?”
He looked at the house, then closed his eyes and saw similar houses in south Florida. He thought of the trucking company, the airplanes, the auto dealerships where nondescript cars could be easily brought in or disposed of, and the bank. “A wild guess? I’d say drugs. If I didn’t know he was a respectable businessman.”
Juliet’s voice was soft in the darkness. “I think of drug lords as South Americans who have no heart or soul, who live surrounded by armed men and kill anyone who gets in their way.”
“They come in all nationalities, darlin’, including upper-class American. And not all of them are heartless. Some of them love their families very much. They’re generous with the people around them. They’re protective, almost fatherly. The drug business is just that—business.”
“Dangerous business.”
“Extremely so. The cops either want to stop you or bleed you dry, and the competition wants you dead—” Abruptly he stopped. Why was he speaking with such authority? Because he’d lived that life before? Was that why someone had tried to kill him? Why he spoke Spanish fluently for an apple-pie American? Why the pictures of Miami had seemed so familiar? Why he knew that there were little islands in Biscayne Bay where houses like Maxwell Brown’s were abundant? Was that why Juliet heard trucking company, airline, car dealers and bank, and thought business, while he heard them and thought drugs?
Was that why he dreamed of killing men?
“What is it?”
Ignoring her question, he stared away from her. Maybe Maxwell Brown was nothing more than a legitimate businessman. Maybe the only person involved in the drug trade around here was him. And maybe that was why no one had tried to find him after his disappearance: they simply assumed that he was dead, that whoever had wanted to kill him had succeeded.
Juliet wrapped her fingers around his hand, squeezing tightly enough to make him wince. “Not you, Martin. Maybe someone you knew, but not you.”
She sounded so sure, but she could be kidding herself. She wanted to believe the best of him, but he had to face the fact that there might not have been any “best” in him. He might have been the worst sort of person imaginable.
In the silence that followed her assertion, headlights appeared at the top of the hill as Brown’s Lexus came into sight. “Duck,” he commanded, sliding Juliet half under the steering wheel, bending low over her. The lights bounced across Juliet’s car as the Lexus turned toward town. Martin waited a moment, then another before lifting his head in time to see the taillights disappear around a curve.
Juliet started the engine and swung the car into a tight U-turn.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see where he’s going.”
He smiled faintly. Prim, shy Juliet, tailing the most influential man in the county. Who ever would have believed it? Then he thought of last night in her bed and this evening in his apartment. Prim and shy, yes, but also sensual, sexy, uninhibited, wild, tempting and seductive. “I think I’ve been a bad influence on you.”
She flashed him a smile. “If you’ve been bad, I don’t think I could survive good.”
They came out of a curve into a straightaway just as, several blocks ahead, Brown made a right turn onto the main road. “Slow down,” Martin instructed. “Wait until he’s almost out of sight.”
“But what if we lose him?”
“We won’t.” He watched the Lexus for a moment, then nodded. “Now. You know, one-car surveillance is damned hard to pull off. Ideally, you should have at least two cars and radios or cell phones to stay in touch. Then if your guy gets suspicious, you can turn off and let your partner take over.”
She was giving him a curious look. “Spoken like a cop.”
“Or the subject of too much surveillance.”
Brown’s car was several blocks ahead as they entered the main part of town. When his brake lights and turn signal flashed, Martin instructed Juliet to pull over and shut off her lights. She obeyed, stopping behind a delivery van that blocked them from sight, and he slipped from the car and moved to the side of the van to watch.
Brown pulled into the parking lot beside the Monroe Building, took a quick look around, then headed for the alley entrance to the building. He was carrying a briefcase and looked as if he were just starting his business day, not ending it.
Martin returned to the car. “He went to his office.”
“Oh, wow, that’s exciting.”
“Who ever told you that surveillance was supposed to be exciting?”
“So now what?”
“Want some dinner?”
“What if he leaves while we’re gone?”
“Then we go home.”
“Aren’t you curious about what he’s doing in there?”
“Yes, but we’re not going to find out from here.” He looked at her for a moment, then relented. “All right. Let’s find a better place to park.”
She backed up, went around the block and parked near the corner on a side street. Their position gave them a good view of the parking lot, part of the alley and the front entrance to the building without being too noticeable. As soon as she shut off the engine, Martin unfastened his seat belt. “I’m going down the block to the Saloon to get some burgers. Don’t go anywhere. If he leaves, let him go and wait for me. Don’t get out of the car for any reason. Don’t do anything.”
“I’m not a child, Martin, and I’m not going to do something foolish.”
“I know. Just don’t get carried away. If anything happened to you…” He stopped, unwilling to finish the statement, unwilling to admit the truth aloud—if anything happened to her, it would destroy him.
“I’ll stay here. I’ll lock the doors, and I’ll be good.”
He got out quickly so the dome light wasn’t on one second longer than necessary. Sticking close to the building, he backtracked half a block to the alley, then made his way to the Saloon, placing their order at the bar, waiting impatiently. Maybe he shouldn’t have left her. Maybe he should have forgotten about dinner or insisted that they go home. Maybe—
“Hey, Martin, Stone and the chief and a couple of the guys are over there in the corner. Come join us.”
He glanced at Jack Stryker, then at the long table of cops before shaking his head. “Thanks, but not tonight.”
“Haven’t seen you around the department lately, though I hear you met Juliet there for lunch today.”
Martin let that slide. “Anything new on the Stuart case?”
“Dean Springer has gone to ground, and he might never come back up. We reinterviewed everyone in town who knew him, and we still can’t connect him to anyone with reason to want Olivia dead. Of course, part of the problem is we can’t find anyone with reason to want her dead. And it’s easy for someone like Springer to hide. He’s one of those forgettable sorts. Hell, he lived here for twenty years, and only a few people knew him.”
Martin was one of those forgettable sorts, too. He’d been missing for more than ten months, and no one had missed him yet.
“Sure you won’t join us?”
“Thanks, but Juliet’s waiting.” He pulled some money from his pocket as the waitress brought his order. He was across the bar and on his way out when he met a crowd coming in. One of them bumped into him, then released the woman with him and stuck out his arm to block Martin’s way.
“Hey, why don’t you watch where you’re going?” the man demanded, his tone belligerent, his manner blustery, posturing for his girlfriend.
Martin switched the paper bag to his left hand, then tilted the cowboy’s hat back so they could see eye to eye. “Jimmy Ray,” he said softly. “Haven’t we danced this dance before?”
The cowboy’s eyes widened, and he swallowed hard. “Man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean— I didn’t know—”
“That’s right. You didn’t know. That’s why you need to be nice to everybody, because you never know.” He leaned closer to emphasize the last words. “The next time you bump into somebody, you handle it right. You say, ‘Excuse me. I didn’t mean to do that.’ Try it now.”
“Ex-excuse me. I didn’t mean to—to…” Jimmy Ray’s Adam’s apple bulged as he swallowed again.
“Close enough. Nice seeing you again.” He stepped around the cowboy and left the bar. A glance down the street showed the lights were still on in Brown’s office. A closer glance showed just the front end of Juliet’s car on the next street over. It wasn’t attention grabbing, since there were other cars parked nearby. Of course, Maxwell Brown hadn’t seen any of those other cars parked outside his house a short while ago.
He returned down the side street and through the alley, tapping on the window so she could unlock the door. He handed her a burger, Coke and napkins and unwrapped his own burger before speaking. “I ran into a friend of yours at the Saloon.”
“Really? Who?”
“Jimmy Ray.”
“Jimmy— Oh, the cowboy.”
“You say that as if it’s something special,” he teased. He could afford to tease because, in fact, she’d said it as if the other man was totally inconsequential. “Of course, being Texas born and bred, I imagine cowboys do carry some significance for you.”
“Not in the least, though if you put on a pair of boots and a Stetson, I imagine it might raise my temperature a degree or two.”
“I could do more than that, darlin’. In my apartment this evening you were steaming.”
She blushed in the dim light and picked for a moment at her hamburger before asking, “You don’t think anyone could see…do you?”
The window was set high enough that his hand underneath her skirt had been hidden from view. But anyone with any imagination whatsoever would have known what he’d been doing to her, where he’d been touching her, what she’d been feeling. The look on her face, the taut line of her body and the arch of her back had all but shouted pure sexual delight.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m sure no one saw a thing.”
For the next hour, they talked, sat in silence and listened to music. Martin was about to suggest that they call it a night and head home when finally something happened. The lights went off in Maxwell Brown’s office, and a moment later he came out of the building and climbed into his car. If he turned toward home, they would let him go, Martin decided. If he didn’t, they would follow.
When Brown turned the other way, Martin opened the door. “Let me drive, Juliet.” They switched places, then he pulled to the corner. As soon as the Lexus was out of sight, he turned.
Once the road left town, it wound through valleys and over passes. Eventually, it reached the interstate, and from there it was easy going to anyplace in the country. Brown didn’t go that far, though. Only a couple of miles out of town, he turned into a broad driveway, slowed at the security gate, then went inside. Martin drove past, pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine and the lights. “Wait here—”
“No way. I’m going with you.”
“You’re not dressed for a nighttime walk through the woods.” Her skirt was full and would snag on bushes, and her shoes, while sensible flats, weren’t designed with hiking in mind.
“I’ll be fine.”
“That dress will reflect every bit of light in the sky.”
She reached in back and came up with a black trench coat. Her smile was smug. “I like to be prepared. I don’t trust Colorado weather.”
He wanted to argue with her, but he didn’t have time. If there was anything to see inside the fenced-in compound, he needed to get close enough. “You do what I say without question. Stay behind me. And if I tell you to run, you run like hell and don’t look back. Understand?”
Her only response was to shrug into the coat, then climb out of the car. With the coat covering her to the ankles and its hood drawn tight around her face, she was less visible than he was, making him wish once more for a knitted black cap to cover his blond hair.
What little light the moon gave disappeared as they moved deeper into the woods. They followed the concertina-topped fence, keeping to the shelter of the trees, around to the back of the compound. There, a drainage ditch that ran the length of the fence provided them cover. Martin found a good vantage point and eased onto his stomach, his feet braced on chunks of granite in the bottom. With a rustle of nylon, Juliet joined him.
The back of the warehouse was brightly lit, and there was a good deal of activity going on. Three tractor-trailers marked Grand Springs Trucking were backed up to the loading dock, and another three sat off to one side, motors running, awaiting their turns. On the dock Brown stood out in his suit. Everyone around him wore jeans or work clothes.
“How’s your neck?”
Juliet’s whisper tickled his ear, but he didn’t twitch. “Itchy as hell,” he whispered back.
“It’s not really unusual for deliveries to come in at night, is it?”
“I don’t know. But do you think Brown comes out to personally oversee the unloading of every nighttime shipment?”
“Probably not.” She wriggled around, then came up with a small rock that had been somewhere underneath her. She was about to toss it aside when Martin grabbed both it and her hand. With a weak smile, she gave him the rock, which he laid silently in front of them.
As he watched the men work, he made up a mental wish list: electronic equipment for listening in on Brown’s conversation, binoculars for closer examination of the crates being unloaded, and a gun, a nice little SIG-Sauer. He felt damn near naked without the comfortingly familiar press of the pistol in the small of his back.
He became still, his thoughts distracting him from the activity at the loading dock. He’d carried a gun. His subconscious must have been aware of that—after all, guns were the weapon of choice for killing, and he knew he’d killed—but it was still a disconcerting idea. A lot of people carried guns. Cops. Burglars. Thieves. Rapists. Murderers. Drug dealers.
Maybe his business in Grand Springs had had something to do with Maxwell Brown. Maybe he’d been looking for work. Maybe he’d been checking out the competition.
“Martin.”
Maybe he had come here to make a deal…or a hit or—
“Martin!” Juliet whispered his name and tugged his jacket even as she slid further down into the ditch. A big, burly guy was coming their way, and he didn’t look particularly friendly.
Snapping out of whatever bleak possibilities he’d been contemplating, Martin moved quickly, silently, to the bottom of the ditch, pulling her with him. For a long time they lay motionless, listening as the footsteps came closer. Just when it seemed as if the man must be walking right up to the fence, a truck door opened, then closed. A moment later the engine rumbled to life, the gears ground and the truck pulled away.
With her face pressed against Martin’s thigh, Juliet let her breath out in a whoosh. She was scared to death—and exhilarated beyond belief. Never in her life had she done anything the least bit daring or dangerous. It was fun. It was exciting. It turned her on.
He wriggled free of her and worked his way back up the sloping side of the ditch. She followed, but this time there was no sign of Maxwell Brown. Men continued to unload the trucks, but Brown and the person who appeared to be his right-hand man had disappeared.
“Let’s go,” Martin mouthed, and gestured for her to lead. She picked her way carefully over the rocks until they reached the woods. Once the darkness swallowed them, she loosened the hood, unbuttoned the coat, then turned, stopping so abruptly that Martin ran into her. Before he could react, she kissed him long and hard, thrusting her tongue into his mouth while her hands roamed restlessly, greedily, over his body.
Once the shock passed, he grabbed her hands, then pushed her back. “Juliet!” he whispered.
“That was fun. It was neat.”
“It was dangerous, not fun.”
“Fun. Exciting. Arousing.” She tried to free her hands but couldn’t, so she satisfied herself with rubbing sensuously against him. “I want to make love to you. Now. Right now.”
“Here? In the forest? On the ground? Right next to Brown’s place? I don’t think so.”
“I need you.” She got one hand loose and slid it down the front of his body, over hard belly and soft denim to the beginnings of an impressive erection. “Now, Martin, please.”
Choking back a laugh, he trapped her hand again. “Not here. At home, darlin’.”
“Oh, please… Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“You’re the only adventure I can handle, Juliet. At home. Come on.” Still holding her hands, he pulled her behind him through the woods, and she followed docilely.
It was no surprise that he’d been shocked. Heavens, she had shocked herself. She had never behaved so brazenly in her life, but then, she’d never done anything so risky in her life. No wonder people liked to live dangerously. It was a potent feeling—a rush of power, of fear, of being incredibly alive.
They reached her car and drove home in silence. She stripped off the trench coat and returned it to the back seat. When they pulled into the driveway, she held out her hand for the keys, walked up the sidewalk and let herself into the house, all without saying a word.
The screen door banged behind her. She didn’t stop, didn’t turn on any lights, but walked down the hall and into her bedroom. She was standing beside the bed, a condom in hand, when Martin walked in. He came straight to her, sliding his hands under her skirt, kissing her as if his survival depended on it. She fumbled with his zipper as he carefully, deliberately ripped her lace panties. She wrapped her fingers around him, and he groaned. She freed him from his jeans, rolled the condom into place, and he cupped his hands to her bottom, lifting her, bringing her down hard so that she gloved him.
It was fast, greedy, raw need. He offered no tenderness, but she wanted none. Rough, hard, deep, purely physical, he drove into her and she rode him, giving, demanding. Her release hit her first, her body clenching around his, giving his the last push before he exploded, too.
Moments passed—hours—then he slowly lifted her away, letting her slide down his body until her feet reached the floor. He brushed her hair back and gave her a faint, sexy smile. “You could kill a man before his time.”
She smiled, too. Her breasts were soft and achy. The heat was still building, cooled for only an instant by their play. Her muscles were trembling, her nerves quivering, her heart thudding. “You’re amazing.”
“Amazing, huh. I don’t have a past, I may not have much of a future, I can’t remember my own name, but I can make you weak.”
“Amazing.” Her gaze locked with his, she began unbuttoning her dress. When she reached the buttons below her waist, she pulled the straps off her shoulders and let the dress fall to the floor.
Still looking at her, he raised his hand to her breast and flicked his fingertips across her nipple. “You’re greedy.”
“I never was before.” She had enjoyed sex and had always had a healthy regard for it, but she hadn’t indulged often, and she hadn’t really missed it when it was absent from her life. Of course, she’d never been in love before.
Now, that was a scary thought. Granted, love never came with guarantees, but she had even fewer than usual. All she could say for certain was that Martin would never deliberately hurt her. But so much was beyond his control. Someday he would remember, and when he did…
She wouldn’t think about it. Not when he was standing in front of her, fully clothed, fully aroused and effortlessly arousing her while she was naked. Not when he was looking at her as if he could never get enough of her, as if he would never stop wanting her, as if… As if he might love her, too.
She helped him undress, then drew him down on the bed, pushing him onto his back, shifting to sit astride him. It was an intimate position, their bodies snugly joined, and yet she was able to look at him, to appreciate everything about him. He was so incredibly handsome, his body nothing less than beautiful despite the scars. Handsome, sexy, charming, powerful, intense—he was exactly the sort of man who never paid attention to her, who never looked twice at her.
But he was doing a whole lot more than looking, she marveled as he moved deeper inside her. It was incredible. If, by some chance, fate gave them that future he wasn’t sure he had, if they grew old and gray together, she would always be amazed.
Their lovemaking was as slow and lazy as the first had been quick and frantic. They played with each other, spent long minutes doing nothing but stroking, touching, kissing. The fever built so slowly, so gradually, that the release that followed was little more than a warm, shivery, pleasure-filled moment. Once, then again, then he pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his slick skin.
“So,” he murmured after a sleepy, soothing kiss. “You’re not a virgin anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
His chuckle tickled her ear. “We’re in bed naked. We just had sex once and made love twice. I don’t think you have to be quite so polite.”
The fact that he recognized the difference between the acts pleased her inordinately, but she remained focused on the conversation. “I haven’t been a virgin since—well, a long time.” Since she’d met a fellow computer geek her sophomore year in college and let him coax her away from the machine long enough for a vaguely disappointing introduction to the physical side of life. Over the next four years, the sex had gotten better, of course, but it had never been a major part of their relationship. It had become a non-existent part once Jerry met Veronica, with her big hair, drop-dead-gorgeous body, big baby blues and IQ equal to her bust size.
“You successfully completed your first surveillance tonight.”
“How successful could it be? We didn’t learn anything.”
He patted her reassuringly. “We’re alive, babe, and that counts as successful in anyone’s book.”
Long after his breathing slowed and evened out, she lay awake, her mind too active to sleep. Finally she got up, dressed in a faded old T-shirt and let Hunter in from the yard. He sniffed her hand, accepted a cookie, then trotted off to the bedroom. She headed for the dining room.
Her computer had never been so neglected. Before meeting Martin, if she was home and awake, she was staring into a monitor. Since meeting him, she’d spent precious few hours online. She was behind in her mail, she hadn’t caught up on any of the online discussions that she subscribed to, and she hadn’t read the Washington Post or the New York Times in days. No, instead of living vicariously through the computer, since meeting Martin, she’d been really living. It was so much more fun.
She read and answered her E-mail, browsed through a few news stories, checked the weather maps, then called up a search engine. She typed in Maxwell Brown and methodically worked her way through the entries that popped up, usually able to tell from the opening lines whether it might be their Maxwell Brown and ignoring the news articles she’s read earlier at the library. As she tried Hal Stuart’s name, Hunter wandered in, circled the room twice, then curled up directly behind her chair. In less than two minutes, he was snoring.
A search for drugs yielded millions of hits, drug smuggling a few million less. Even narrowing the search to drug smuggling in Colorado showed more hits than she could ever comb through. Swallowing a yawn, she paged back to the screen that displayed the first ten hits on drug smuggling, then drew her feet into the chair and rested her chin on her knees.
Personally, she never would have suspected Maxwell Brown of any wrongdoing, but then, she wasn’t a suspicious person by nature. She could look at his incredible house and all his holdings and see nothing more than a very smart—and lucky—businessman. But Martin saw more, and she trusted his instincts.
So how did they prove that Brown was up to no good? And how did they prove that Hal Stuart was or was not involved? And what would it mean regarding Olivia Stuart’s murder? Would it prove that Martin had nothing to do with it?
So many questions, so few answers. If they were cops, if this were an official investigation, it would be much easier. They would have access to bank and tax records. They could find out exactly how much money Maxwell Brown made legally and whether it was enough to support his life-style. If it was obvious that his outgo substantially exceeded his legitimate income, that would be enough to justify a closer look into all of his business enterprises.
But they weren’t cops, and if they got a closer look, they might not like what they saw, especially Martin.
Her eyes were tired and gritty, making it difficult to focus on the screen. She wasn’t accomplishing anything here, and she was sleepy, and Martin was down the hall in her bed, where she should be.
After shutting down the computer, she started to roll back, but her chair wouldn’t budge. “Let me up, Hunter.” She poked the dog with one foot, which stopped his snoring and prompted him to give her a narrow-eyed look. It didn’t make him move. “Come on, Hunter, it’s bedtime. Want to go to bed?”
The mutt yawned, opening his mouth wide enough to accommodate a person’s head, then lumbered to his feet and out of the room. Juliet was smiling as she followed him. A month ago she’d been alone, restless and lonely in Dallas. Now she was living in Colorado with a smelly, none-too-trusting dog and in love with a handsome, mysterious man with a questionable past.
How life had changed.
* * *
Martin and Juliet were talking over the remains of their lunch at the deli Friday afternoon when Eve Redtree joined them. She slid into the empty chair between them and greeted them both with a smile. After a moment’s small talk, she came quickly to the point of her visit. “Have you learned anything from my mother’s papers?”
Juliet gave Martin a look, but left it to him to answer, and he did so carelessly. “No, I’m afraid not.” Only that Olivia had been bailing Hal out of money trouble and that even at a very young age, Roy Jr. had been terrified of his father, but there was no way he was going to discuss those things with their sister. “There were just those calls to Jason Scott in Miami Beach. I don’t suppose you’ve remembered him.”
Eve shook her head. “I asked Hal about him. I told him I was looking through the condolence cards we got after Mom’s death and came across one with his name. Hal didn’t recognize it, either. What is it about the calls that interests you so much?”
“Your mother called him every week—”
“Every Saturday evening,” Juliet clarified.
“For the three months before her death. She made the calls between seven and eight, and they lasted at least an hour.”
“Saturday evening…” Eve looked puzzled, as if trying to remember something. Martin waited silently, giving her time. “When I lived away, Mom and I talked for a couple of hours every week. Usually she called me on Sunday afternoon, but once last spring I called her on a Saturday night because Molly and I had plans for Sunday. Mom was kind of distracted, and after twenty minutes or so, she insisted that she needed to get off the phone. I thought it was odd—I mean, she hadn’t even said hello to Molly. I let her go, then called back a while later so Molly could tell her good-night, but it just went to voice mail for the rest of the evening.”
So Olivia’s weekend conversations with Jason Scott had been important to her, important enough to brush off her daughter and granddaughter. Why?
“Have you been able to locate this Scott person?”
Martin shook his head. “We tried calling the number, but it’s been disconnected. Juliet tried every Jason Scott in the Miami area, but none of them ever lived at his address.”
“Maybe…” Eve’s smile was faint. “Maybe he was a long-distance boyfriend. Maybe they met while he was passing through the state or on one of her business trips. Or maybe…” The smile faded, and she offered the same theory Juliet had come up with last week. “Maybe he’s my brother. Maybe he changed his name.”
Martin gently discouraged her. “If she’d finally located the brother who disappeared twenty years ago, don’t you think she would have told you and Hal?”
“Probably. That was her fondest wish—that Roy Jr. would come back, alive and well. Everyone thought he was probably dead, but she never accepted that. She always believed, always hoped… She always regretted that she hadn’t protected him. She was convinced that someday he would come walking back into her life.” Her smile this time was bittersweet. “It was kind of like living with a ghost. Mom very seldom talked about him, but we always knew he was an important part of our family, even years after he disappeared. When we moved into the house on Poplar, she had a room set aside for him. She called it a guest room but we knew it was really Roy’s room. She bought cards for him on his birthday. We’d be driving along the highway, and she’d say, ‘Cole likes to go camping right up that road,’ or she’d see a leather jacket and say, ‘Cole has a jacket just like that.’ Always in the present tense, as if she knew in her heart that he was still alive. Maybe she did.”
“Your mother called your brother Cole?” Juliet asked.
At Eve’s nod, Martin gave a shake of his head. That explained Olivia’s dying word easily enough. It had had nothing to do with strip mining, after all. Just a mother’s dying wish for her son.
“I doubt that Jason Scott has any connection to your brother,” Martin said quietly. “If he did, don’t you think he would have contacted someone when the calls from Olivia suddenly stopped?”
“Probably. It would be nice to know who he was, though, and why she talked to him every week but never mentioned him to us.” Eve gave a sigh, then made a move as if to stand. “I wanted to tell you that I need Mom’s stuff back before tomorrow afternoon. Hal needs some papers regarding the house for the insurance company, and he’s coming over tomorrow to pick them up.”
“No problem,” Juliet answered. “We’ll pack everything up and bring it by your house this evening.”
“I appreciate it. I wish I could have—”
“What the hell’s going on here?”
Speak of the devil, Martin thought as Hal Stuart advanced on them. The man looked seriously annoyed with his sister and way beyond that with him and Juliet.
“What are you doing, Eve?”
She gave her brother a cool glance that should have put him in his place. “Talking to friends. What are you doing?”
“I came in to get some lunch and find you—” Breaking off, he turned his gaze on first Martin, then Juliet. “I thought I warned you two to mind your own business. I won’t tolerate your interference in my family business. If Chief Sanderson can’t make you back off and leave us alone, then maybe Judge Walters can. Eve, come with me.”
She refused to be hurried away. Instead, she shrugged free of his hand, stood up and gave them a warm smile. “Juliet, Martin, it was nice seeing you.” As they walked away, the warmth left her voice. “You may be my older brother, Hal, but you do not run my life. Don’t you ever interfere…”
Her voice trailed away, and a moment later, the door swung shut behind them. Martin looked at Juliet. “She may be only half his size, but I’d put my money on her any day.”
“I hope we haven’t caused any trouble for her.”
“She’ll deal with him.” Thinking of Hal’s last comment to them, he said, “I hope we haven’t caused trouble for you. If he goes to the chief again—”
“What can they do?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Fire you?”
“Then maybe you and I can go into business together. Smith and Crandall, Private Investigators.”
Or Smith and Smith. Or Whoever-the-hell-he-was and Whoever-the-hell-she-would-be-if-she-married-him. He didn’t allow himself to dwell on such a possibility, though. Instead, he shook his head. “No P.I. work. Not for you. It’s too dangerous.”
“But it’s not dangerous for you?”
“I’m better equipped to deal with it. I’m a man. I’m able to take care of myself.”
“‘I’m a man.’ Now there’s a chauvinistic answer if ever I’ve heard one. News flash, Mr. Smith—women are quite capable, too.”
“I’m not talking about women. I’m talking about you. Every other woman in the world can go out and risk her life every day if it’s what she wants, but you… I want you safe.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, didn’t come close to touching on how he really felt, but it was the most he could offer. He could tell her that he wanted her, that he wanted her to always be safe, maybe even that he needed her, but he couldn’t tell her that he loved her. Not yet. Not until he knew everything he’d forgotten. Not until he knew he was a man deserving of her love.
Maybe never.
Juliet stood up, slung her purse over her shoulder, then fluttered her eyelashes. “My goodness gracious, it’s time for me to go back to work, but I surely do hate to walk those mean old streets all by my helpless, feminine self. I would feel so much safer with a big, strong man like you by my side to protect me from whatever evil might await.”
He grinned. “You’re a smart ass, Juliet.”
“Thank you.” She led the way out, then walked beside him on a leisurely stroll back to the police department. “After we return Olivia’s papers to Eve, want to find out what Maxwell Brown is up to this evening?”
“I’d rather stay home and spend a little quiet time with you and Hunter.”
“Aw, come on. If he does something exciting, I’ll ravish you when we get home.”
“If we stay home, I’ll do something exciting. I’ll ravish you.”
She walked a block in silence, then settled her blue gaze on him. “You think I’m getting carried away, but I’m not. It’s just that you’re the most fun I’ve ever had. In Dallas, my idea of daring was downloading a file that might possibly have a virus in it. It was leaving the house without my umbrella when the forecast called for rain or making eye contact with a stranger. Last night was exciting. It was a totally new experience, and it was fun.”
“It would have stopped being fun real quick if they had caught us out there at the trucking company.”
“I know. They would have called the sheriff—”
“Only if everything going on out there is on the up-and-up. If it’s not, if they’re involved in something illegal and they suspected that we’d seen something, they would have killed us.” Saying it aloud made him realize how incredibly stupid he had been to take her along when he’d left the car last night. He should have ordered her to wait, and if she had refused—when she had refused—he should have forgotten about Brown and driven her back to her house.
For a moment she looked subdued and chastened, and he thought he’d made his point. Then she grinned. “But they didn’t catch us, and they didn’t kill us, and that’s a success in anybody’s book. So let’s do it again. Let’s tempt fate.”
“No. The only thing you’re going to tempt is me. If I have to spend all my free time making love to you to keep you out of trouble, well, I guess I can make the sacrifice.”
She stopped, only a few yards from the doors of the police station, and faced him. “That’s so generous of you.”
Before he could agree, the glass door swung open and Hal Stuart came out, scowling as if he had a grudge against the world. His expression turned scornful and smug when he saw them. “The chief’s looking for you, Ms. Crandall,” he said as he walked past.
“Hey, Mr. Stuart?” As he turned, she raised one hand, obviously intending to give him further cause for anger, but Martin grabbed her hand and forced it to her side. Instead, she offered her sweetest smile. “So nice to see you again.”
Shaking his head in disgust, Hal walked away.
“Oh, Juliet, what am I going to do with you?”
She shifted the smile to him, and its innocence stirred the ever-present ache inside him. “You can have your way with me. Tonight. After we return Olivia’s papers to Eve. After we see what Maxwell’s doing.”
He gave her a long up-and-down look and brought to life the same sort of ache in her. He saw it in the sudden softening of her eyes, the relaxing of her mouth, the purely sensual look that claimed her. “I reserve the right to try to change your mind about that last.”
With a brush of her gentle fingers across his cheek, she walked to the door, then looked back. “I reserve the right to let you.”