7

“I think Kate’s in danger,” the woman on the other end of the phone blurted before Tom had a chance to say hello.

Pressing the phone to his ear, he strode to the bedroom to grab his car keys and gun. “Danger, how? Where is she?”

“She followed Edward to Daisy’s place.”

The news coupled with the warble in Julie’s voice breached the barrier between his job and his emotions—the barrier he prided himself on, the barrier he needed to maintain if he wanted to be an effective cop. He fumbled with the lock on his gun locker.

“You’ve got to find her. Edward claimed he found Daisy’s journal, but I don’t trust him, and Kate’s not answering her cell phone.”

The lock released and Tom snatched out his gun. “Okay, I’m on my way. Let me know if you hear from her.” He pocketed his phone, strapped on his shoulder holster, and headed for the door.

Dad had taken over Tom’s spot in front of the laptop at the dining room table and was typing in search parameters from the reams of notes they’d compiled on Jim Crump, aka Edward Smythe.

“I’ve got to go. Jim’s got Kate.”

Dad’s sharp inhalation bumped up his fears that Jim had raised the stakes on his little con game. Dad caught the door as Tom rushed out. “Be careful.”

“I will. Find me something I can stick to this guy.”

“I’m on it.”

Tom sped out of the driveway, wheels squealing.

Dark clouds bruised the sky. Houses passed in a blur, but not fast enough to spare him from imagining horrible possibilities. No, he refused to let his thoughts go there. If Edward killed Daisy, he couldn’t have known his real name was in her will, because the inclusion guaranteed he’d be the prime suspect in the event of a suspicious death.

Except . . . if he found out that Leacock knew about his cons, he had to be worried that it was only a matter of time before Kate stumbled onto the truth with her relentless digging.

In his mind, she’d have to be silenced.

Not tonight, though. Not when her roommate knew of his invitation to meet at Daisy’s house. Too big a risk.

Tom mentally scrolled through a contingency plan in the event he was wrong, and this call went south. He veered his car onto Leacock’s street and slowed to a crawl.

Edward’s Boxster sat in the driveway, but not Kate’s VW Bug. Relief flooded Tom’s chest, swamped promptly by alarm. Edward might’ve taken Kate for a drive in her car to make her death look like a traffic accident.

Tom parked on the street, blocking the end of the driveway, and reached for the radio to request a BOLO—Be On Look Out—for Kate’s yellow VW.

Edward appeared at the garage door, lugging a body bag–sized duffle.

Tom forced down a rise of bile as his finger hovered over the call button.

Edward heaved the bag over the lip of his trunk.

Hand itching to grab his gun, Tom stepped out of his car as casually as his racing heart permitted. “Planning a trip?”

Edward’s arms jerked at the sound of Tom’s voice, but he immediately resumed what he was doing. “No, this stuff is for Kate,” he said, seemingly unfazed by Tom’s arrival. Edward’s smudged polo shirt told another story.

“Are you all right?” Tom asked, his hands poised at his side, ready to draw his gun if necessary.

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

Tom motioned to his chest. “You have blood on your shirt.”

Without so much as glancing toward his shirt, Edward reached into his pocket.

Tom went for his gun.

Edward pulled a paper towel from his pocket and pressed it against his palm. “I cut my hand on a broken mirror in the basement.”

Tom let his gun settle back into its holster and cautiously made his way toward Edward’s car. “Let me give you a hand with that bag.” Tom helped Edward stuff the bag into the trunk, all the while feeling along its sides. Whatever was in the bag, it wasn’t a body.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Looking for Kate. Do you know where she is? Her roommate told me I’d find her here.”

“You just missed her. Said she was late for a meeting.”

“At the research station?”

Perspiration beaded Edward’s upper lip. Whether from nerves or exertion, Tom couldn’t be sure.

“Don’t know.” Edward wheezed as he struggled to wedge the duffle deeper into his miniscule trunk. “She ran out of here like a bat out of you-know-where.”

Tom schooled his reaction. He knew better than to ask questions that might prompt the man to demand his lawyer, but neither was he ready to take Jim—aka Edward—at his word. The man’s act was slicker than his car.

“Why?” Edward gave the bag one last shove. “Has Kate convinced you to reopen the case?”

“Not officially, no. Unofficially, there are a few loose ends I’d like to see tied up.”

Edward slammed the trunk closed and fingered his keys with a little too much interest.

Oh yes, this man knew exactly what some of those loose ends might be.

When Edward spoke again, the bravado in his voice sounded forced. “Glad to hear it. Because my aunt was too smart to drink the wrong tea.”

Nope, Edward wasn’t as cool as he’d like Tom to believe. Of course, now wasn’t the time for Tom to tip his hand. Not with one suspicious death, and Kate, still unaccounted for. One mention of Edward’s true identity and he’d be lawyered up before nightfall.

Mrs. C tootled her fingers from her vantage point on the other side of the picket fence. From the look of the pile of weeds in her bucket, she’d been on patrol for a while, which boded well for Kate’s safety. Julie’s overactive imagination had gotten them both a little too keyed up.

Tom’s cell phone rang. That was probably her now. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” Confident Edward wouldn’t try to leave while Tom’s car blocked the drive, he put some distance between them before answering.

“Edward killed Daisy,” the panicked voice on the other end of the phone shrilled.

“Kate?” Tom pinned his gaze on Crump, who’d gone back into the garage and started rummaging through a box along the wall. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Listen to me.”

Her rattled response had Tom on the verge of ripping into Crump, demanding to know what he’d done to her.

“Edward burned Daisy’s journal. It must’ve had something incriminating. You have to arrest him.”

Tom could just imagine the incriminating details Daisy might have written about Crump in her diary, but without the evidence he had no grounds for an arrest. “Where are you?”

“I can’t believe we trusted him.” Tires squealed and Kate’s next words sounded breathless. “Daisy loved him like her own son.”

Tom’s chest tightened at the sound of Kate careening through traffic. “Where are you?” he all but shouted, digging his keys from his pocket as he jogged toward the car.

“I got out of there as fast as I could. I was so scared. What if he finds out I know?”

“Know what?”

“Aren’t you listening? He killed Daisy.”

Edward’s gaze snapped to Tom’s.

Tom covered the mouthpiece. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.” He climbed into his car and closed the door. “Tell me where you are.”

“On Chestnut, coming up to Oakland Avenue.”

“Okay, go on home. I’ll meet you there, and you can show me what you’ve found.”

“But I think someone’s following me. They’ll find out where I live.”

“Someone who?” If she was right and Edward killed Daisy, the tail was likely a product of her overactive imagination.

Or Edward had alerted a fellow conspirator.

“I don’t know. Someone!” she screamed, bypassing panic and taking the one-way straight to hysteria.

“Okay,” he said calmly. “Here’s what I want you to do. Turn left, then right, and tell me if the car follows.” He pulled onto the street and headed toward Oakland.

For a moment the phone remained silent, then Kate’s thin voice crackled over the airwaves. “Yes. The car’s still behind me.”

Tom turned the corner in time to see a red LeSabre slow behind Kate’s car. The driver glanced Tom’s way, then sped past. Not her imagination. “Kate, I’m coming toward you. Pull over.”

Tom drove past, did a U-turn, and parked behind her car. He let his head drop back against the seat and took a moment to steady his breathing.

After a quick call to her roommate to let her know Kate was safe, he approached Kate’s car. “Was the LeSabre the vehicle you saw following you?” he asked through her open window.

“Yes.” White-fingered, Kate clamped the steering wheel as if she were mere seconds away from careening over a cliff.

Alarmed by how her fear dug into all his raw places, Tom dropped his gaze to the pavement. He cleared his throat. “The license plate was distinctive—T42. I won’t have any trouble tracking down the owner.”

“Tea for two?” Surprise and a hint of relief replaced the wild look in Kate’s eyes. “That’s Beth’s car.”

“Who’s Beth?”

“My supervisor’s wife. She owns A Cup or Two.”

“Shoulder-length hair? Dark? Straight?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“Why would she follow you?”

Kate ducked her head. “I must’ve been mistaken. Edward had me pretty rattled.”

Tom wasn’t convinced. The driver had seemed pretty intent on Kate until she caught sight of him rounding the corner. And as Tom recalled, Kate’s supervisor had been less than enthusiastic about the news that Kate would take over for Daisy.

What if they had it wrong? What if Darryl—not Edward—killed Daisy?

With a wife in the herbal tea business, Darryl had access to every imaginable brew he’d care to concoct to dispose of someone, and as Daisy’s boss, he had plenty of opportunity. But why would he kill her?

Tom plowed his hand through his hair. Oh, man. He was jumping from theory to theory like a rookie, or worse, like a man thinking with his emotions instead of his brain. He should’ve known from the way he’d pounced on Julie’s call that he’d lost his perspective on this one.

Kate peered at Tom through her open car window, wondering what he must think of her.

“Follow me,” he said, his brow creased in concern.

Or was that annoyance?

“Where?” Fear might have driven her to call him about Edward, but that didn’t mean she could trust him any more than she trusted Hank Brewster, even if Brewster didn’t kill Daisy. Except . . . given the way she ran out of Daisy’s house, leaving the fire poker strewn on the floor, Edward had to know she’d seen what was left of the journal he’d burned. So until she convinced Tom to arrest Edward, she wouldn’t be safe.

A car turned onto the street and Tom faced the driver, shielding Kate with his body. Not that there’d ever been a drive-by shooting in Port Aster. Of course, until Daisy’s death, there hadn’t been a murder in as long as Kate could remember either. Clearly, Tom wasn’t taking any chances.

The car sped by without slowing.

Kate let out a breath. Maybe she could trust Tom. Anyone who’d stand in the line of fire for her deserved a second chance, even if he was a cop. Not to mention she was fresh out of options.

Edward knew where she lived.

Tom rested his hand on the door frame and hunkered down to her eye level. If she didn’t know better, she might have mistaken the concern—definitely concern—in his eyes for something more than duty. “I want to introduce you to my dad. He’s a retired police officer and might see something we’re missing. You can tell us what you’ve found, and we can decide what to do from there.”

“You’re going to reopen the case?” she practically squealed.

A muscle in Tom’s jaw flinched. “We’ll see.”

His lukewarm response cooled her hopes, but she followed Tom to his dad’s house. Edward wouldn’t come after her as long as Tom was close by.

His dad lived in a cheery, yellow-sided bungalow on a tree-lined street. The masses of purple phlox, hyacinths, and forget-me-nots amid a variety of other yet-to-bloom perennials suggested he shared her love of gardening, although the bed was in need of some serious weeding.

Tom opened her car door. “Please excuse the mess when we get inside. My dad hasn’t been the same since Mom died.”

“Of course, I understand.” Too well.

Tom’s gentle touch at the small of her back plucked her from the edge of an emotional cliff. He steered her toward the front door, and she reminded herself that he too was grieving.

The strong perfume of the hyacinths whisked her back to the many happy hours she’d spent with Gramps weeding flower beds. Her friends had thought she was crazy, but she’d loved to linger over the chore, talking with Gramps. He’d given her a love of flowers—especially perennials, something that could be depended on to come back year after year.

A slightly gray-haired version of Tom, bearing the same distinctive blue eyes and chiseled chin, opened the screen door. “You must be Kate.”

“Yes.” She smiled, pleased that Tom had talked about her with his dad. Perhaps Tom hadn’t completely dropped Daisy’s case.

“Call me Keith,” Tom’s dad said, pushing the door wide so she could walk past him.

The aroma of baked apple pie greeted her. “Mmm, it smells like Saturday afternoons at my grandparents’ in here.”

“Don’t let your mouth water,” Tom said, stepping in behind her. “The smell is from an air freshener.”

Keith let the screen door bang shut. “Always a critic in every crowd.”

The hall opened into a bright sitting room that by the looks of the worn leather recliner served mainly as a TV room. Family photos graced every shelf and tabletop to the point of looking cluttered, but not messy. “You have a beautiful home, Keith. I love your flower bed by the front porch.”

“Gardening was my wife’s passion.” He motioned for Kate to take a seat in the TV room. “I’m afraid I haven’t given the garden the attention it deserves since she passed on.”

The affection in his mellow bass voice made Kate miss not only Daisy but Mom and Gran and Gramps too. “I was so sorry to hear of your loss.”

He gave her a vacant nod. A nod she understood all too well. The kind of nod she’d been guilty of dispensing herself when on the receiving end of too many empty condolences.

“I’d love to help you with the garden,” she said, “if you like.”

His eyes brightened. “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

She sat on the sofa and found herself relaxing. The quiet tick of a miniature grandfather clock made of foam puzzle pieces reminded her of quiet afternoons reading in Gran’s living room. How strange that she should feel so at home here.

She shook the notion from her head and frowned at the potted dracaena in the middle of the coffee table. The tips of its leaves had turned brown, a symptom of salt damage. She rotated the pot and found the culprits—fertilizer sticks. Plucking them out, she said, “You don’t want to use fertilizer sticks. They’re notorious for burning the roots.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Keith said to Tom.

Tom lifted his hands and shrugged. “The plant looked like it was dying, and that’s what the lady at the store told me to use.”

Kate let out a frustrated sigh. “Obviously not someone who knows anything about plants. The pot is too crowded. All you need to do is flush the soil and give the poor thing a bigger pot.”

Keith laughed, a roaring belly laugh. “I guess she put you in your place, son.”

Rather than look annoyed by his dad’s burst of laughter at his own expense, Tom smiled as if he relished the sound.

One of Kate’s co-workers had said that he moved back to town to keep his dad company following his mom’s death. Seeing Tom’s eyes crinkle with pleasure at the sound of his dad’s laughter confirmed how deeply Tom cared for him—the kind of selfless affection she’d cherish in a relationship.

Whoa. Where had that thought come from?

Julie’s silly romantic notions must have found a patch of fertile ground in her heart, and Kate needed to weed them out. Now. Before she made a fool of herself. Never mind that Tom’s muscular shoulders were broad enough to handle her worries. Dad’s fateful scrape with the law had long ago squelched any childish fantasies of finding her happily ever after with a man in uniform.

“Kate?”

Kate looked from Keith to Tom. “I’m sorry. My mind went somewhere else for a minute. What did you ask?”

Tom drew his chair closer, which didn’t help her concentration one bit. “Did Edward threaten you?”

Edward, right. Maybe her mind had wandered into daydreams about Detective Parker because daydreaming beat thinking about the danger she’d gotten herself into. “No. Edward gave me a stack of Daisy’s journals. I’m sure he thought I wouldn’t realize one was missing. But after the way I ran out of there, he’s got to know I figured it out. He wouldn’t burn her books unless he had something to hide.”

Tom caught her hands and held them still. “Most people do.” A tremor rippled his jaw as if perhaps he too harbored such a secret. “That doesn’t make them killers. I can’t arrest Edward without proof.”

“When Daisy’s sister gave birth to Edward out of wedlock, Daisy’s parents compelled her to give him up for adoption. Even all these years later, with Daisy trying to make amends, he never tried to mask his bitterness over being rejected by his biological mother and grandparents. Isn’t revenge a prime motive for murder?”

“Motive is not proof.”

Kate yanked her hands from Tom’s hold. “What does he have to do for you to act? Come after me?”

“Absolutely not. But we have to be discreet. The chief told me in no uncertain terms that this case is closed.”

The chief. She fought to suppress the throb of raw uncertainty. If she shared her suspicions about Brewster on top of her accusations against Edward, Tom might accuse her of crying wolf about every person who had the remotest connection to Daisy.

Keith cleared his throat. “What Tom is trying to say is that you can’t do anything that will draw attention to the fact that he’s still treating your friend’s death as a possible homicide.”

“Possible?” Kate seethed, squaring her shoulders.

“Yes.” Keith’s tone brooked no argument.

Kate let her shoulders droop. The last thing she wanted to do was alienate the only two people, besides Julie, who believed there might be something to her theories.

“You’ve presented us with probable cause,” Keith continued, “but we can’t alert Edward or the department to our suspicions before we have enough evidence to haul him in. Guilty suspects are set free every day because the court disallows the use of improperly obtained evidence.”

“But I didn’t take the stuff out of the fireplace.” She gasped. “Edward has probably destroyed it by now.” Kate gripped the edge of the sofa cushion to keep her hands from fluttering in her frustration.

“It’ll be okay,” Tom said, his voice soothing. “If Edward’s guilty, we’ll get the evidence somehow. For now, if you run into him, it’s imperative you treat him exactly the same as you have in the past. Pretend you are following up on some other lead, if you must. Whatever it takes so he won’t think you suspect him.”

Just the thought of being anywhere near Edward made her insides shake. “I . . . I don’t think I can.”

Tom squeezed her hand. “You can do this.”

She wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t escape the horrible scenarios looming in her mind. “What if he comes to my apartment or . . . or . . . ?”

“You have to trust us.” Keith’s no-nonsense tone reminded her of Gramps—a man she’d trusted implicitly. “We won’t let Edward hurt you. But . . . trust no one else. Don’t share your suspicions about Edward with another soul. Otherwise, he may hear about them. Do you understand?”

Now she knew where Tom came by his people are rarely what they seem attitude. Trouble was, she’d started to agree. “I understand, yes.”

Except if Julie was right and Kate couldn’t tell a Boy Scout from a purse snatcher, how could she be sure Tom and Keith weren’t part of an elaborate cover-up?

After all, a few hours ago she’d been certain Chief Brewster was behind Daisy’s death. What if Tom’s help turned out to be like the apple pie baking in his dad’s kitchen?

An illusion.