He was losing his edge. And he knew better. Heath had seen it happen too many times. A cop fell for the wrong woman and she took him down.
But try as he might, he couldn’t keep Cassie out of his head. The snap of green eyes, the slash of bright red lips curved in a mischievous grin, the sweet and sassy depth of personality. A man who claimed Cassie as his woman would know a partner and friend, as well as a love. And oh, how she loved. He’d seen her with her family, her customers, her friends, her church. He knew her loyalty to her husband’s memory. Cassie loved them all with a passion as warm as an Ozark summer.
After sleeping most of Sunday away, Heath had given in to the urge and called her. He’d asked about the baby, kept it light, and never mentioned the devastating kiss. Neither had Cassie.
He’d phoned his mother, too, and then made two more calls to hassle Holt and Heston awhile. Granted, Heath was restless, troubled by circumstances of his own creation.
Now, late Monday morning, he drove the streets of Whisper Falls, combing the residential areas for an eighty-seven-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who’d wandered away from his daughter’s home.
On the dash, his father’s badge glinted in the bright sunlight, an ever-present reminder of his calling. Yet he couldn’t believe Cassie was involved with Louis Carmichael’s drug business. Or maybe he didn’t want to believe it. That was the trouble with relationships. They skewed a man’s focus.
As he turned a corner onto Oak Street, he spotted an elderly man sitting beneath a tree across the street from the school. Children played on the playground, their voices carrying to him like a cheerful wind. Heath’s chest tightened, both with relief at having found the man and at the poignancy of his location. That Elmer would come here, near a school, made perfect sense. The old gentleman had been a science teacher for many years.
After a confirmation glance at the photo on the seat beside him, Heath radioed the news to cancel the silver alert and whipped in next to the curb and got out, approaching the man.
“Elmer, are you okay?” Heath knelt on one knee next to the thin, withered old man. His clothes were smudged with dirt as if he’d fallen, and he smelled of arthritis rub. Compassion thickened Heath’s throat. Someday, he or his loved ones might be in this position. “Sharon is worried about you.”
“Sharon?” Elmer asked in a frightened voice. “What is this place? Everything looks different.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I’m a police officer. I’ll take you home.”
“That’s nice of you, son.” Though his rheumy eyes were clouded, Elmer’s entire body sagged in helpless, hopeless relief. “Marjorie made a carrot cake this morning and I’m hungry. My wife is a fine, fine cook.”
“Yes, sir.” Heath helped the elderly man to his feet, keeping the sadness from his expression. Marjorie, he knew from the daughter’s information, was his long-dead wife. “Let’s get you home.”
Within fifteen minutes, he’d returned Elmer to a greatly relieved daughter, feeling good about the outcome, but pity for the situation. Elmer was fortunate to have a loving daughter to care for him. Her role couldn’t be easy.
Who would be there for him if Alzheimer’s came calling someday?
As he sat inside his truck on a tree-lined street aching for a confused old man, his mind returned to the bone he’d been gnawing for days. Cassie Blackwell and her husband.
Holt had no news to share yet. Too early. He had a case to finish before he could leave for Mexico. Even then, a private investigator might not discover anything that wasn’t already known. Nonetheless, Heath’s instincts were strong and they told him something was hinky. The question was, did Cassie know? Was her professed cooperation and the file full of information a ruse? His instincts said no. But maybe his emotions were getting in the way again.
He never should have started this crazy thing with her. If she knew of his suspicions, that he’d begun seeing her as means to gather evidence, she’d hate him. In a way, that might be the best thing. Kick him to the curb and get it over with before more damage was done.
But Saturday had meant something special. In those moments when they’d watched the newborn boy together, he’d discovered a hole in his life, the missing link, so to speak. Family. Oh, he had Mom and the brothers and their terrific broods, but no one of his own. No one to make plans with. No one to dream dreams and build a life and have kids. No one to take care of him when he was old and frail.
He was thirty-six years old and he’d never wanted any of that. All he’d ever cared about was taking out the bad guy, honoring Dad’s memory, making the world a better place. He wasn’t even sure he wanted it now, but those stunning minutes at the hospital and again on Cassie’s front porch when she’d kissed him had Heath wondering if perhaps he was missing something important.
“Lord, I don’t ask for much, but I could use some guidance.”
Maybe he should turn the investigation over to the DEA and forget about it. No, too soon. Too little evidence, and in his arrogance, he wanted to solve the case for himself while protecting Cassie. The effort seemed on the verge of backfiring in his face.
Better call Holt again tonight and see if his brother could jumpstart things from Texas.
His radio crackled and he took a call from dispatch. A domestic dispute. Not his favorite call, but he radioed back and headed that direction.
“Isn’t he the cutest baby ever?” Cassie stood above Tara Wilkin’s head, painting highlights into her shoulder-length brown hair. Tara held a dozen photographs of Austin’s new baby.
“A darling for certain. What did they name him?”
“Levi Austin. Annalisa insisted on naming him after his daddy, and I just love it.”
“Adorable and very cowboy.”
“Austin says Levi will be a bull rider. Annalisa says no way her baby is getting on a bull.” Cassie smiled, remembering the cute argument the pair had had at the hospital.
“I think Annalisa will win that one,” Tara said. “I can’t imagine letting my son on a two-thousand-pound bull.”
“Me, either!” Not that she had a son.
“Tell her who took you to the hospital and stayed until the baby arrived.” This from Louise whose rust-red hair looked electric-plug wild today.
“It’s not a big deal, Louise. I didn’t have my car.”
“You could have gotten it.”
“I was in a hurry.”
“So apparently was your handsome hero in uniform who remained by your side all night.”
A titter of excitement swept through the shop, a wave of speculation.
“Wait a minute,” Cassie insisted, pointing the paint brush. “That sounds bad, but it wasn’t. We were at the hospital all night waiting for the baby to arrive. Nothing happened.”
Well, not exactly nothing, but not the kind of thing they were tittering about.
“Why is your face turning red?”
“It is not!” She spun toward the mirror. Sure enough, her cheeks glowed like a traffic light. “Y’all are embarrassing me. Heath and I are pals.”
“Fiddlesticks,” Miss Evelyn said, her fingertips deep in a soaking bowl. “Uncle Digger said the pair of you were giggling like teenagers at the Iron Horse the other day. Looked cozy and romantic over Cokes and fries.”
Cassie groaned. She and Heath had been laughing about one of his dumbest criminal stories. He had a gazillion and they made her laugh like a loon. There was nothing romantic about it. Except when he’d touched her hair and told her she smelled good.
“You’ve been a widow long enough, Cassie,” Tara said. “And if I had a hot-looking officer of the law in pursuit of me, I’d slam on my brakes and let him catch me.”
The shop ladies howled with laughter. All Cassie wanted to do was slink away.
Louise lifted Miss Evelyn’s hand from the soak solution. “I’m here with you all day, Cassie, sugar. I know how you light up when Heath Monroe comes through that door. At least admit you like him for more than a friend. That old ‘pals’ story is getting stale.”
“I do not light up.”
“Do, too. Now, confess. We’re your friends. We have a duty to know.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “If I do, will all of you stop badgering me?”
“No. We’ll want details.”
Another chorus of laughter. This time, Cassie clamped her mouth shut and concentrated on Tara’s hair. Okay, so they were right. She had a thing for the new assistant police chief and it didn’t feel a bit like friendship. Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning at sunrise, had pretty much sealed her fate. The frozen places had started to thaw. The numbness was giving way to feeling, something she’d never expected to happen. But her friends didn’t understand the dilemma, didn’t realize how risky and terrifying it was to step out of her comfort zone and cross the lines of friendship. The thought of giving her heart, maybe to lose it again, was scarier than climbing Whisper Falls during an ice storm. She didn’t, however, say that to her friends.
After work Cassie walked out of the salon without so much as a glance toward the courthouse. She didn’t look on the streets for Heath’s big black Expedition, either.
She drove to Resthaven, a tidy, cedar-lined cemetery situated on the eastern edge of town. Her little Nissan probably knew the way by itself, she’d driven here so many times over the last three years. The gates never closed and the place was usually deserted and blessedly peaceful, especially at night with the stars overhead. Cassie knew because she had spent a few nights beside Darrell’s gravesite in those early, pain-filled days.
A hearty wind whipped her hair as she approached the red granite headstone carved with Darrell’s name. The wind carried the scent of cedar and newly mowed grass across the bright flowers and silent graves.
At the gravesite next to Darrell’s, a small American flag whap-whapped in the breeze. At the foot, a bronze WWII marker proclaimed the dead to be a veteran like many others buried here in this peaceful vale. To her knowledge Darrell had never served, but she wasn’t positive. They’d had so little time together. There were too many things she didn’t know about her late husband. Would never know now. She’d never even met his family—if he’d had one other than Louis Carmichael.
She stroked her hand across the bumpy name carved in sun-warmed granite. “Why didn’t I know more about your life? Was it because everything happened so fast? Or did you have secrets?”
Shame was an instant and sharp rebuke. She didn’t want to believe the love of her life could have been involved in criminal activity, and yet Heath had made her doubt. She was ashamed of that. Ashamed of lost loyalty.
As she’d done dozens of times, she sat down on the cool grass and leaned against the headstone. In times past, she’d wept for all that had been lost. Today, she contemplated...and prayed.
A cardinal fluttered to the ground, a flash of color, like her favorite red lipstick. Darrell had bought it for her. He’d loved her in red, his favorite color.
“I still wear it,” she told him, though only the cardinal heard.
Something niggled in the back of her mind. A faint memory she couldn’t quite bring to the fore.
She had the sudden urge to drive out to Louis’s trailer house. Darrell had lived there until the wedding. Some of his things were likely left behind in the rubble, though Louis had claimed the opposite and refused to let her look. She didn’t know why the cousin had disliked her so much. But according to Heath, Louis had left, apparently before the storm, and hadn’t been heard from since.
Maybe she’d find something her beloved had left behind, something to reassure her that Darrell had been the man she’d believed him to be.
The winding road grew narrower and less traveled with each passing mile as Cassie guided her car deep into the lush Ozark woods. Clouds of redbud trees lined the roadsides, sprinkling their lavender-red blossoms on her windshield. The only person on the remote ribbon of dirt, Cassie rolled down her window and breathed in the spring. A sweet, floral scent, higher pitched than peach but every bit as luscious, filled the interior of the car. Dogwood, perhaps?
When she approached a fork from which one way ambled off to the left like a cow path, Cassie knew the trailer site was near. Though she’d been to Louis’s mobile home only once, she remembered the way because she and Darrell had lingered at this fork, had gotten out of the car and walked a ways holding hands, a romantic stroll.
Today she didn’t stop the car, but the memory swamped her for a moment and moistened her eyes. Those had been good days, happy moments when the future seemed impossibly rosy. And indeed, it had been impossible. Only she hadn’t known it then.
With a regretful sigh, she blinked away the moisture and followed the winding trail deeper into the trees until it dead-ended at the wreckage of a mobile home. She supposed she should have come sooner, when Heath had first told her about the tornado damage, but she’d been afraid of Louis.
The thought gave her pause as she stopped at the end of the rough-cut driveway. Louis had made her nervous, but until now, she’d never acknowledged the fear. He’d never been nice to her and had accused Darrell of selling out when they’d married. She still didn’t understand what he’d meant by that.
As Cassie exited the car, an eerie silence hung over the abandoned place. It was as if the trees had eyes and knew the secrets hidden among the rubble. The trailer had been in bad shape before the storm, but now only sheet metal and the remains of Louis’s life—and Darrell’s—covered a long swath of ground. Even the well house had collapsed. The tank was gone, too, but not ripped away by the storm. The remaining pipes were too neatly cut.
Someone had taken the tank, probably to recycle or use it as their own. Hill families were often poor enough to scavenge, and she wondered what else had disappeared at the hands of looters.
The yellow police tape still surrounded a small area at the center, though a piece of tape would not deter treasure seekers. The wind in her hair, she gazed thoughtfully toward the place where Chief Farnsworth had found evidence that Darrell and Louis sold drugs. She still couldn’t believe Darrell had known what his cousin was doing. When she’d been here that one time, she’d seen nothing out of the ordinary, other than a man who clearly did not want her there.
Careful to be on the lookout for copperheads and shards of glass and metal, Cassie moved through the debris. Here, the ground remained soggy from the heavy spring rains and repeated thunderstorms. They’d had more than their share this spring, so much that anything worth salvaging from Louis’s trailer was likely ruined.
A cottontail bolted out from beneath a stuffed, upturned chair. Cassie yelped, throwing her hands out to the sides in alarm. The rabbit, as startled as she, rocketed into the overgrown grass and weeds. Cassie laughed at her skittishness, though several minutes passed before her pulse returned to normal.
She wasn’t exactly afraid to be here, but the place gave her the creeps just as its owner had done.
“Why did I bother?” she muttered as she looked around and toed the rubble. There was nothing here. Nothing left that mattered. Heath and Chief Farnsworth would have removed anything of value, wouldn’t they? Or was that not in the line of police work?
She stepped over a downed tree, disheartened and yet not ready to give up the search for some small bit of encouragement. A shiny object caught her eye, probably a gum wrapper or pop tab, but she walked toward it, wishing she’d changed her shoes before making this trip. Her heels stabbed holes in the soft ground. Given her respectful fear of snakes, she used a stick to push aside wet leaves and paper. A small gold-colored lid appeared. Cassie stared in bewildered surprise. Discovering the lid was as unsettling as finding a snake. She picked it up, growing more and more puzzled, for indeed she recognized the tube-shaped object...because it was hers.
“What is this doing here?” She turned the familiar tube over in her hands. This was the top to one of her lipsticks. She must have dropped it that one time Darrell had brought her here and argued with Louis.
She turned the lid over in her palm. Sun glinted off the metal. It was only a lipstick cover. There was nothing sinister about that, and yet she had the weirdest disquiet. Thanks to Heath’s insinuations, she was tilting at windmills, imagining misdeed where none existed.
More focused now, she poked at the decaying leaves, turning them up along with bits of paper, broken shingles, and miscellaneous trash in search of the remaining lipstick case. With effort, she muscled a busted chest onto its side, spilling the contents from the drawers.
Why hadn’t Louis salvaged any of his belongings before he’d left? Or had he left before the storm struck? Did he even know his house was in ruins? Where was he? Where would he have gone? Did he know the police wanted to question him?
Frustrated, she wished she’d known more about Darrell and his family. He’d always been vague. He was from out west and his parents were dead. That’s all he’d ever said.
She pilfered through the chest, aware of the invasion of privacy. Cassie didn’t care. If Darrell had left anything behind, it belonged to her, not Louis. If she could only find one little hint to prove Darrell was not involved in Louis’s illegal activities.
A troubling thought appeared like a gnat in her ear, insisting on attention. She let it in, turning it over for examination. Why had Darrell come to a tiny rural community in the Ozarks in the first place? Was his cousin the only reason? He certainly hadn’t come to claim a job opportunity as Heath had done. But hadn’t she likewise wondered why a man of Heath’s training would give up a federal agent position to play second banana in a small town police department?
Most of the chest held nothing but clothing items, most likely the reason Chief Farnsworth and Heath had left the chest and its contents behind. In the bottom drawer, beneath a T-shirt, she spied a small, folded piece of paper. Cassie opened the page...and her knees went weak.
“I love you,” the note read in Darrell’s tidy print. “Forever and always. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. Tonight is too far away.”
Below the sweet words, her handwriting responded, “You are my breath, my every heartbeat. I can’t believe I finally found you. Thank you for loving me.”
Sinking to the side of the rickety, broken chest, weak as water, Cassie recalled the evening, after a busy day’s work, when she’d found the note on her windshield beneath a wiper blade. Joy had burst inside her to be completely loved, to be the beloved focus of this one, wonderful man. That evening, she’d returned the note hidden inside a candy bar she’d slipped into his pocket. It was the first of many “secret” love notes they’d written to each other.
“But you kept the first one,” she whispered, not caring that moisture once again clouded her vision.
Regardless of what else he’d done, Darrell Chapman had loved her. Of that one thing she was convinced.
When the wave of bittersweet memory passed, Cassie continued her search though she had no idea what she was after other than a lipstick tube which had no meaning. Seeing more papers stuck beneath a rumpled pile of rags, she pulled them out and began sorting through. Clearly this had been Darrell’s dresser, or at least his drawer. Notes, old bills and even a few maps of Mexico. Not unusual, given Darrell’s love for the country’s perfect diving beaches. She had so little left that had belonged to him. Though the papers were of no value to anyone else, these were things Cassie wanted to keep.
She smoothed one of the maps open on her lap, recalling the day they’d discussed their honeymoon and he’d showed her where they would go, exciting her with stories of Mexico’s beauty, of the sea and the fish, the beach and the sun.
Her finger went to the spot he’d circled in red. Playa Del Carmen. Awash in memory of those three perfect days, she hardly looked up when a big black SUV, glinting in the fading sun, rumbled down the driveway.
Heath’s boots crunched on debris as he exited the Expedition, his attention on the woman sitting amidst the chaos, a handful of papers in her lap.
“Hi,” he said, not wanting to startle her though she’d surely heard his approach.
She lifted her face then and his stomach dipped, that roller coaster drop he was starting to equate with each initial glance of Cassie. Memory of Saturday night, of the sweet companionship, the shared birth, and those troublesome kisses gripped him. His gaze, that misbehaving reaction, shot to her mouth before he could bring it under control.
“What are you doing out here?” Was that a blush on her cheekbones? Was she remembering, too?
“I was about to ask you the same thing.” He stepped over a dirty, soggy pillow to reach her. Tears glistened on her lashes. He reached out, touched her cheek with only the tips of his fingers. Her skin was warm and moist. “Have you been crying?”
Her hand followed his, expression puzzled. “Have I?”
“Something’s wrong. Tell me.” His chest filled with the painful need to make things better and the sharp realization that by being himself, who he was called to be, who he must be, Heath could only make things worse for her. Wanting to hold her more than he should, Heath perched a hip on the sideways chest, found it sturdy enough, and settled next to her. They connected shoulder to knee, though not enough when he really wanted her in his arms. “What’s upset you? Did you remember something?”
“If you mean pertinent to your case against Darrell, no. But I was remembering.”
Ah, yes, of course. Remembering her late husband, that impossible competitor. Darrell had lived here. Maybe they’d even met here and spent time together in this place.
Then, the agent in him took charge and dropped an ugly suspicion into his brain. Why was Cassie here now? Had she driven to the trailer in an attempt to hide evidence he and Chief Farnsworth might have missed? He started to ask but didn’t, not sure he wanted the answers. Not today with Saturday night as fresh in his mind as the scent of dogwood blossoms from the nearby woods. “You look sad. Am I intruding?”
“I’m okay. Just trying to sort through my thoughts. How did you know I was here?”
“A guess. I saw you drive out of town earlier but you never came back. Chief said you visited the cemetery often but you weren’t there.”
“I was there earlier. Then I got this wild idea to come here.”
“What for?”
“I wanted to find something to make you understand. I needed to look.”
A breath of fragrant breeze lifted a lock of her hair and set it dancing. Heath smoothed it down again. He loved her hair, sleek and black and as shiny as his new truck.
“And did you find anything?” He leaned over her shoulder, caught the scent of her hair salon and wished he wasn’t suspicious of her coming here. He also wished they were two people who’d met outside of his job, away from the deceit and danger of the drug world that would not let him go. A map was spread on her lap and someone had made notations, circled places along the water’s edge.
She shrugged. “A few clothes and papers that belonged to Darrell. They were in this chest. I guess you didn’t take them as evidence because they weren’t important.”
“Chief searched the chest.” She’d not mentioned anything of importance. “I see you found a map.”
“Yes. A map of Mexico.”
Heath’s instincts went on police alert. “Darrell’s or Louis’s?”
She angled her face in his direction. Her clear green eyes were flecked with yellow, like pots of gold hidden in spring grass. He wanted to take her in his arms and forget all about the investigation, but the map could be important. The chief must have missed it somehow during her search, a fact that would infuriate her. But at one point, they’d experienced a cloudburst that had sent them running for their vehicles. It was the only reason he could imagine for the chief’s misstep. She would never have intentionally disregarded anything related to Mexico.
“Darrell’s. He showed it to me before our honeymoon.” She tapped a spot. “See? Where he circled the city?”
He saw more than that on the map and wondered if she knew. Frustrated to have missed this piece of evidence, he suppressed the desire to snatch the map from her fingers.
“I found some other things, too,” Cassie went on, her voice soft. “A note he sent me. It’s kind of personal.”
“You don’t have to show it to me.” Truth was he didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want to read another’s man personal notes to this woman.
“I’d like for you to see it. Then maybe you’ll believe what I do, that Darrell would never have done anything to hurt me.”
“I never said he would have.”
“You implied that our trip to Mexico was more than a honeymoon.”
He had, and he still believed his assumption was correct. Cassie knew it, too. He could see the hurt lurking in those fascinating eyes and was sorry. Sorry she’d married Darrell. Sorry he’d gotten personally involved with a suspect’s widow. Sorry if this turned out to be more heartache for both of them.
“All right. What do you have?”
Heath hoped she had proof of her husband’s innocence...and hers. It would make his sleep much more restful.
Cassie handed him an ordinary sheet of paper, and the cop in him immediately wondered if the document contained useable prints. He’d found no Darrell Chapman in the database but fingerprints might resolve that.
“Go ahead. Read it.”
He skimmed what was essentially a love note between the two of them, nothing useful in an investigation, but painfully romantic to read. “I’m not sure how this proves anything, Cassie.”
“Don’t you see? Darrell loved me. I was his everything.”
“And he was yours,” he said. What was happening that he was jealous of a dead man?
Cassie said nothing, but continued to stare at him, willing him to accept what evidence denied. He couldn’t.
“Anything else?” he asked quietly and saw her disappointment. It was there in the drop of her shoulders, the downward curve of her enchanting red mouth, the cool retreat in her eyes. He’d dashed her hope, a terrible thing to do.
“Just this.” Her reply was despondent as she turned a palm up and parted her fingers. A bronze/gold tube flashed in the sunlight.
Heath’s radar started to whirr. Proceeding with caution, careful not to touch the tube, he said, “What’s this about?”
“A lid to my lipstick. I found it over there.” She pointed to a pile of rubble similar to dozens of other piles. “I must have left it here the one time Darrell brought me out to meet Louis.”
“Do you have one missing?”
“I’m not sure.” She frowned, pursed her lips. Ah, those distracting lips. “Not that I recall but I have several of this brand.”
“Would you object to my keeping it for a while, along with the maps?”
Cassie recoiled, closing her fingers around the tube. “Why?”
“Police business.” Fingerprints, drug residue, to study what I see on that map. “In an investigation, we like to look at everything.”
“These are personal, Heath. There is nothing to investigate. Chief Farnsworth would have taken them if they were pertinent.”
“Will you trust me on this, Cassie?” He held out an upturned palm. “I promise to get them back to you as soon as possible.”
She hesitated so long he thought he might have to demand them, something he didn’t want to do. He was walking a tightrope in this case already, that fine line between caring for Cassie and his code of ethics. In fifteen years in law enforcement, he’d never been this personally involved with a potential suspect, never been this close to walking away from what he believed in, what he’d lived for since he was twelve years old.
His father’s badge burned against his thigh, a symbol of dedication and honor. Was Heath Monroe about to become a bad cop, because of a woman?
“Cassie,” he urged. “Please.”
She gnawed at her lip, eyes worried. “I’ll get them back?”
“You will.”
She placed the map, the tube, and the letter in his hand. “I’m trusting you.”
“I know.” And that was the crux of the matter. He was secretly investigating her. And she trusted him.