14
Poor Adam.
He looked . . . awful.
“Dude. Did someone run over your cat?” Gabe frowned at Adam.
So it wasn’t her imagination.
“I’m fine.” He eased into the seat beside her with a small grunt as he tried to find a comfortable position.
The three homicide investigators were staring at Adam. What were they looking for? And what did they see that made all three of them—Anissa first, then Gabe, then Ryan—return their attention to the wall where photos of the victim, crime scene, and evidence were lined up in rough chronological order?
What made them decide Adam was okay? Or was it that they decided he didn’t want to talk about it? Whatever it was?
Sabrina still hadn’t figured it out when Gabe dove in.
“I realize it’s late, and three of us got blown up yesterday, and we’re not feeling awesome today. So I’m going to hit this hard and fast. Once we have a strategy, we’ll call it for the night and reconvene tomorrow.”
Nods all around.
He began with the timeline of events. Lisa Palmer coming to the sheriff’s office to see Adam. Dropping the briefcase of photos into the lake. Returning home or somewhere near it based on the GPS in her car and phone.
“The ME thinks the time of death is a few hours before Lisa Palmer went into the lake on Saturday night/Sunday morning,” Gabe said.
“I thought you said she drowned,” Anissa said.
“She did. But Dr. Oliver is certain it was earlier in the evening. She was already dead before her car went into the water. Sharon’s running some tests on the water in Lisa Palmer’s lungs, but unless we get a confession we’ll probably never know exactly where she was drowned.”
Adam leaned forward. “Just to be sure I’m following you, Lisa Palmer did drown, but not in the lake. And if she hadn’t written that note on her abdomen . . .”
Gabe’s nod was grim. “Dr. Oliver says we might never have realized it was anything other than an accident or a suicide. There would have been no evidentiary reason to suspect foul play.”
Wow. This woman was actually helping them solve her murder from beyond the grave.
Sabrina wasn’t sure if that was cool or creepy.
“There has to be something significant about the photographs. She had that briefcase with her when she came to the office to see Adam,” Gabe said. “This is conjecture, of course, but it would make sense to me that she wouldn’t have been comfortable driving around with incriminating evidence. She would have wanted something she could use to prove her point, but only if she was telling the story. If anyone else saw the contents of her briefcase, it would be meaningless to them.”
Sabrina looked at the photographs again. “We need to find out what they have in common,” she said. “It could be anything from a single employee who has worked at all of those places to a paper supplier or a loan officer.”
“And I still think it would help if we could get a list of her clients and see who she’s worked for,” Adam said. “We need to be careful not to assume anything, but given that she was coming to see me, it makes sense that she was planning to report some type of economic crime.”
“There’s a team of forensic accountants going through the files I recovered from the hard drive,” Sabrina said. “And Mike—Dr. Bledsoe—is looking to see if he can find another level of encryption or some backdoor stuff.”
“Any idea when he’ll be done?” Gabe asked.
“I talked to him this afternoon. He said Wednesday late. Maybe Thursday before he can get you anything. And your forensic accountants said it could be next week for the first round of information. It will take months for them to get through it all.”
Gabe pretended to pound his head on the wall. “We don’t have until next week, much less next month.”
“I . . .” Sabrina turned to Adam. She needed some help here. “I don’t think there’s any way to get this sooner, Gabe. Mike’s the best. And he’s working hard on it.”
“Gabe knows that, Bri. He’s just tired. And frustrated. We all are. We have a lot of hunches and almost no hard facts. It’s—”
“Awful,” Gabe said.
They discussed every angle of the case for the next thirty minutes before Gabe threw up his hands. “I give up. We have a whole lot of nothing.”
“We have the potential for a whole lot of something,” Anissa said. “I’m still working through everything we found in and around the car as well as what we found under the bridge. You’ll just have to be patient.”
“I don’t do patient.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Gabe ignored Anissa’s comment. “Okay, tomorrow our number one priority is figuring out the unifying factor behind these photographs. There has to be one. Let’s meet around ten. And let’s not forget these people have already tried to take Sabrina out twice. And almost got Adam and me as well in their quest to destroy evidence. They’ve been quiet today, but I’m afraid the closer we get to the truth, the more dangerous they’ll be.”
More nods. Chairs scraped as everyone stood.
“Leigh said you’re all welcome for dinner.” Ryan looked at Gabe and Anissa, both of whom nodded and said “I’m in” at the same time.
“Great.” Ryan turned in her direction. “Sabrina? Adam?”
Adam looked like he’d swallowed an ice cube. Would he lie? Or maybe leave out a few key parts of the story?
“Can we get in on dessert later? My, um, my parents want us to come for dinner tonight.”
“We? Us?” A grin flashed across Gabe’s face.
“Sabrina and I.”
“Wow. You move fast.”
Adam gave Gabe a grin so fake even she could tell he didn’t mean it. Did he not want her to go to his parents’? Or did he not want the others to know he’d asked her out?
An emotion she couldn’t name flashed through her.
“Ignore them,” Anissa said, waving between Gabe and Adam. “Gabe’s being a smart aleck and Adam’s trying to be polite when what he wants to do is tell Gabe off.” She grinned at Sabrina. “The Campbells are lovely. I’m sure dinner will be fantastic. And I’ll be sure we save some of whatever dessert Leigh makes.”
“You’re planning to stay at Leigh’s, right?” Ryan asked.
“Yes,” Adam said. “Like Gabe said, there’s no way we can risk having Sabrina unprotected. Too many unknowns.”
“Agreed. I’m going to be sure we have a couple of deputies at the house tonight.” Ryan made it sound like it was perfectly normal to need a few deputies parked outside the house at night.
“Sounds good.” Adam could have been agreeing about the weather. When had this all become commonplace?
After a chorus of “See you later,” Adam’s hand closed over her arm so gently it was more a caress than a hold. “I need to stop by my desk for a second,” he said. “And then we can go. Are you okay with that plan?”
“Sure.”
They walked to Adam’s desk, and true to his word, he paused just long enough to grab a jacket and a notebook before returning to her side and directing them to the elevator.
It wasn’t until they were outside that he turned to her. “Bri, I want you to know you don’t have to do this. Taking you to my parents’ for dinner was not even in the same galaxy as what I’d had in mind for a first date. My mom, she can’t help herself. But she’ll totally understand. I can tell her you were tired. Or needed to work.”
She was pretty sure he was just trying to give her an out. She could guess, or she could just ask him to be sure. “Do you want me to come with you?”
He tilted his head toward hers. “Always.”
For a three-second count, she forgot how to breathe.
“But,” he continued, “that doesn’t mean my mom gets to decide how we spend our evenings. You never have to do something, or go somewhere, just because she asked.”
She found her lungs again and took a deep breath. She hoped she wouldn’t regret this. “I want to come.”
“Why?”
Could she tell him? Could she risk that kind of vulnerability? “Because you’ll be there, and honestly, even though I think I’m horrible for you, I’d rather be with you than anywhere else.”
Adam did that thing again where he tilted his head and leaned toward her. It wasn’t something she’d ever seen him do with anyone else. Like he was giving her his full attention and also maybe like he might be thinking about kissing her.
“Okay.” His voice had a huskiness that hadn’t been there before. “Let’s go.”
Two hours later, Adam leaned back in a chair in the breakfast room.
Sabrina and his mom were chatting like long-lost friends. His dad was resting his elbows on the table—Grandmother would never approve—and laughing.
Was he having an out-of-body experience?
This . . . his parents and his . . . well, could he call her his girlfriend? Probably not. A bit presumptuous. His date? No.
His friend?
Yes, but . . . so much more.
Sabrina took a sip of her tea and made eye contact with Adam over the rim of her glass.
He was fairly confident she wasn’t miserable, but he didn’t want to press his luck any further. “Mom, Dad, this has been great, but—”
“Oh, goodness. Look at the time.” His mom’s face was a mask of worry. “You’ve had such a traumatic couple of days and here we are keeping you from your rest. Which you need.”
His dad yawned on cue. “They need? We”—he waved his hands between them—“need.”
“True,” she said. “Sabrina, dear, if you’ll come with me, I’ll get your coat for you.”
Uh-oh. This had the markings of sabotage.
As soon as they were out of earshot, his dad tapped the table. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay.”
“Those photographs in the office today—”
“Dad, I can’t talk to you about an ongoing investigation. You know that. Honestly, the captain never should have let you in there.”
“But you do need to talk to me. More than you realize.” His dad rubbed his face with his hands and sighed. “I know what the connection is.”
He did? “What?”
“Barclay Campbell.” There was no equivocation in his dad’s voice. He was as certain that his cousin was involved as he was that the sky was blue or that Grandmother would be wearing her pearls on Sunday.
But Adam couldn’t stop himself from asking. “Are you sure?”
His dad nodded.
“I still don’t see it.”
Sabrina’s voice carried down the hall. They were coming back.
“Look for it,” his dad said. “You’ll find it. And Adam?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Be very careful. And keep that girl close. He’s always been mean. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
The worried expression on his dad’s face melted into a genuine smile when Sabrina reentered the room, her coat draped over her arm and his mom beaming at them.
“Adam, dear. I know you’re both tired, but Vanessa left us a note. They finished the lights this afternoon. I’m sure it would be a lovely way to end your evening.”
His mom was brilliant. He’d owe her forever.
They said their good nights, and his parents retired to their room. Instead of leading Sabrina to the front door, he directed her to the back.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
It didn’t take long to find the remotes. The staff had left everything lined up the way they did every year. He flipped a couple of switches and then took Sabrina’s hand. “Come on.”
They stepped out onto the back patio and Sabrina gasped. “What is this?” She spun in a circle, her mouth in a perfect little O as she took in the glittering scene.
“Most people have backyards,” he said, “but not Campbells. We have gardens.”
Sabrina laughed.
“Every year at Christmas, Mom and Dad would take us to see the lights at the park by the lake. We’d drive through and ooh and ahh at all the displays. It was a tradition we all loved. But one year . . . I’m not exactly sure how old I was. Six? Seven? Anyway, I got chicken pox. We couldn’t go anywhere. I was miserable. I gave it to Alexander. We were covered in spots, and the fact that we were missing our Christmas festivities made it even worse. This was before Aaron came along.”
“Anyway, as we were in our rooms moping, Dad cleaned out every store in town of Christmas lights and decorations. He worked for three days out here. The gardener, the housekeeper, everyone chipped in. They still talk about how much fun it was for them that first year—they were keeping it a secret from us. When they were done, they brought us out here in our pajamas and flipped on the lights, like we were in some kind of movie.”
“There have never been movie Christmas lights as elegant as these.” Her voice was hushed but playful.
“Well, I think Mom drew the line at some of Dad’s suggestions. Anyway, you can imagine how much we loved it. Of course they had to do it again the next year, and we got to help.”
“Do you still help?”
“Every year.”
He’d tried to refuse the year after Aaron died. Aaron, his baby brother, had loved the lights and to put them up without him had seemed like it would dishonor his memory. Adam had been so angry that the car had hit Aaron’s side instead of his. So burdened by the guilt that came from knowing that he’d insisted Aaron switch seats with him. He’d been so mad when his dad insisted they all get out there and set up the lights. But somehow stringing the lights had given them a way to talk about Aaron without crying for the first time in months. It had a healing effect none of them had expected and had made the lights even more special than before.
Adam shook away the somber direction his thoughts had taken.
“I’m usually here for the entire setup, but I got busy with this case, so I haven’t been here the past few days.”
“I’d say you had a good excuse.”
Sabrina wandered through the flower beds and bushes, the trees and fountains. In the glow of the twinkling lights, she looked like an angel. After a few minutes, she settled on a bench with a perfect view of the entire garden and Adam joined her.
“Your parents aren’t what I was expecting.”
“What were you expecting?”
“I guess I thought they’d be more like your aunt Margaret.”
“That’s understandable.”
“When your mom said dinner would be casual, I was expecting at least three courses, but she really did mean casual. When she pulled out the paper plates and the chicken salad . . .”
“Were you disappointed?”
“No. I was delighted. I realize she may have done it on purpose to put me at ease, but I like her even more for it.”
“I like her a lot too.”
They sat in silence, the water falling through the fountains, the wind rustling the trees, the lights throwing shadows on the ground.
“You’re a lot like your dad.” There was something in Sabrina’s whispered words that rattled Adam. “He’s a man of conviction, I think. I’m not good at reading people, but I feel . . .”
Feel? Sabrina didn’t talk much about feelings.
“I don’t know how to describe it, but I feel something similar around you and your dad. You make me feel safe. And so does he. Like he’s the kind of man who wouldn’t let you down.”
Ah.
“Bri, I would never—”
“I know.” She rested her head on his shoulder and if it had been ten degrees warmer, he would have gladly sat there until dawn. But a shiver rippled through her and he knew it was time to go.
“Can we come back?” she asked as they walked toward the gate that would take them to the driveway.
“Any time you want,” he said.
He opened the gate for her to go through, but she turned back to him. “I had a lovely evening, Adam. Thank you. And thank you for sharing your lights with me. They’re so beautiful.”
“I wouldn’t want to share them with anyone else.”
“Really?”
She looked up and he reached for her face. Her arms slid around his waist and the space between them evaporated as he pressed his lips to hers. Gentle. Soft. Her mouth quivered beneath his for a brief moment before he pulled away.
He’d never been a kiss-on-the-first-date kind of guy.
But then again, he’d never had a first date quite like this one. And never with a woman as extraordinary as Sabrina Fleming.
The reflection of hundreds of twinkling lights shone in her eyes. And something else. Something that scared him more than Lisa Palmer’s killers or Barclay Campbell’s evil schemes.
Trust.
Her trust was hard-earned and could be far too easily lost.
She stepped onto her toes and kissed him. It was over much too soon. She stepped back but took hold of his hand before walking through the gate, pulling him along with her. There was a chance he’d forgotten how to breathe. Or talk. Or do both at the same time.
Sabrina Fleming had kissed him.
He would never be able to walk through the garden Christmas decorations again without remembering this night.
Father, please let her be the one with me in the years ahead.