Natural-Born Protector

Chapter Two

Melody grabbed her coffee cup and took another sip. Maybe after two or three cups she’d start feeling alive. She sat at the kitchen table listing everything that needed to be done.

She had three lists started. One detailed what needed to be done to get the place ready for resale. The second had notes she’d made about what to do with Lainie’s personal items and the last one simply had the word Investigation across the top.

It was just after eight and the morning sun was pouring in through the window, warming her back as she worked. She’d been up far too late the night before, searching Lainie’s bedroom for a diary, a notepad, anything that might yield a clue as to whom she’d had a date with on the night of her death.

She’d found nothing. If anything had once been there, then the sheriff and his men had probably removed it when they’d searched the place as a crime scene.

It had been after two when she’d finally fallen into bed, exhausted both mentally and physically. She took another sip of her coffee and stared down at the sheet of paper headed Investigation.

There had been no sign of forced entry. That meant that Lainie knew her attacker, that she’d either opened the door to him or he’d had a key.

Hank Tyler had a key. He’d used it to come in and clean up the blood. And any incriminating evidence he feared might remain? She found it hard to believe that the handsome man who had held her while she wept after the funeral was also a cold-blooded killer.

However, she also knew that to trust anyone right now would be foolish. Just because Hank Tyler was easy on the eyes and seemed to have compassion didn’t mean that he wasn’t a viable suspect.

There hadn’t been anything missing. Whoever had come in hadn’t been bent on robbing the place. That meant he’d entered with the specific purpose of harming Lainie.

She picked up her cup once again but, before she could bring it to her lips, she froze. Had she just heard a door open? Her heartbeat quickened, and she thought she heard a furtive movement in the living room.

Had the killer come back?

Sliding out of her seat at the table, she fought the icy chill of fear that threatened to overwhelm her. As quietly as possible, she moved to the drawer that she knew held the knives and grabbed one in her hand.

If she was wrong and nobody was in the condo, then she would chalk it up to an overactive imagination. But if somebody were in the next room, she wouldn’t go in unarmed.

Gripping the knife tightly in her fist, she eased out of the kitchen and into the living room to see a dark-haired, blue-eyed little girl sitting on the sofa.

She swallowed a gasp of surprise and dropped the hand that held the knife to her side. “You must be Maddie,” she said, remembering that Hank had mentioned his daughter.

The little girl nodded, eyeing Melody as if measuring her worth. “My real name is Madeline Renee Tyler. My friends call me Maddie, but I think you should call me Madeline ‘cause I don’t know if we’re going to be friends or not.” She paused a moment. “You aren’t as pretty as Lainie.”

Melody nodded and surreptitiously placed the knife on one of the end tables. “Lainie was beautiful.”

Maddie frowned, her gaze not leaving Melody. “I loved Lainie, but I’m not sure I’m even gonna like you.”

An unexpected burst of laughter welled up inside Melody at the little girl’s brutal honesty. She managed to swallow it. “I’m not at all sure I’ll like you, either.”

“You have to like me.” Maddie lifted her chin a notch. “It’s not polite for grown-ups to dislike little girls.”

Again laughter bubbled to Melody’s lips. “Maybe when we get to know each other a little better we’ll discover that we like each other very much.”

Maddie looked at her dubiously. “Do you like chocolate?”

“I love chocolate.” Melody sat on the opposite end of the sofa.

“Well then, that’s a start,” Maddie replied in a voice very grown-up for her age.

“Does your father know you’re here?” Melody asked.

“He was in the shower and I was supposed to be watching cartoons, but I decided I wanted to come and meet you. He won’t miss me. Lainie used to let me drink soda in the morning.” She cast Melody a glance that indicated that this might just be a tiny fib.

“Really? That’s strange. Lainie always liked a tall glass of orange juice first thing in the morning,” Melody replied. Maddie offered her a sly grin, as if she knew she’d been caught. “Maybe we should call your father and let him know you’re here?”

“He’ll know as soon as he sees that I’m gone. Whenever I disappear he always knows I’m here or at Grandma’s. Besides, I’m mad at him.”

Before Melody could ask why the little girl was mad at her daddy, she heard a rapid knock on the door.

Melody got up and opened the door to see Hank. “Hi, is my…” He gazed over her shoulder and spied his daughter. “I’m so sorry,” he said to Melody.

“It’s all right. Come on in, we were just getting to know each other.”

Hank swept past Melody, bringing with him the scent of minty soap and shaving cream. Clad in a pair of navy slacks and a crisp white shirt, he looked in control and amazingly handsome, but definitely irritated with his daughter.

“Give me the key,” he said as he stood in front of Maddie.

Her chin thrust out and she grabbed the key that Melody now saw hanging on a chain around her neck. “But Lainie gave it to me,” she protested, a hint of moisture shining in her eyes.

“I know, sweetie.” Hank crouched down in front of her. “But Lainie isn’t here anymore and Melody is going to sell this place to somebody else, so you can’t have a key anymore.”

Maddie stood up, removed the chain from her neck and handed it to her father as tears filled her eyes. “Why did she have to die?” She glared at Melody. “I don’t want you here. I want Lainie.” She burst into tears and ran for the door.

“Maddie!” Hank turned to Melody, apology written all over his face. “I’m so sorry.”

Melody held up a hand. “Please, don’t apologize.”

He headed for the door. “Look, she has a birthday party to attend later today. You said you wanted to talk to me about your sister. Would two this afternoon work for you?”

“Okay,” she replied.

With another apologetic glance, he hurried after his daughter, and at that moment the phone rang. Melody reached across to the end table and picked up the cordless.

“Have you come to your senses yet? Are you ready to come back here and stay?” Rita said without preamble.

“I never lost my senses, and no, Mom, I’m not ready to come back there. How are you doing this morning?”

“A little better, I think. All the relatives have gone and Fred wanted me to ask you if you’re joining us for lunch. He thought it would be nice for me to get out of the house and he’s offered to take us to Raymond’s. They have wonderful steaks there.”

“Thanks, but I’m going to pass,” Melody replied. “I want to start boxing up some of the things here.” And she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to talk with Hank. She needed to find out if he knew who her sister had been seeing, who might have had a motive to want her dead.

“It shouldn’t take you too long to get things done there. You need to get back to your own life in Chicago,” Rita said. “I’ll feel better knowing that you’re building your own life. Melody, honey, you gave enough to Lainie.”

Yes, she’d given a lot to Lainie, but when her sister had needed her most, she’d been too tired to pick up the phone. “I’ll get back to my life when it’s time, Mom. Don’t worry about me.” She decided now wasn’t the time to tell her mother that she had no intention of going back to her own life until she found out who had taken her sister’s life.

“I’ve never had to worry about you, Melody. You’ve always been wonderfully self-sufficient. And you were always so good with Lainie, much better than I was.”

It was true. Rita had been at a loss when it came to her eldest daughter. She’d done what she could for Lainie, but usually fell apart at the first sign of trouble. Fred had comforted Rita while most often it had been Melody who stepped in to clean up whatever mess Lainie had made.

There would be no more messes, no more scandals, at least none that involved Lainie because she was gone forever. A feeling of loss nearly took Melody’s breath away.

She and her mother small-talked for a few more minutes, then after Melody had promised to have lunch with her mother the next day, they hung up.

Melody wandered back into the kitchen and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, then sat down and stared at the lists in front of her.

She’d spend the time between now and when Hank arrived packing up Lainie’s clothes. Even though the two sisters had been close in size, they couldn’t be further apart in styles. Lainie had been flamboyant and Melody much more staid. Melody would donate Lainie’s clothes to a local charity.

She’d also donate the furniture. She had no use for it, nor did her mother. There was no point in paying to have it stored.

There were a few personal items she’d keep, like the Guardian Angel picture that had always hung on the wall opposite Lainie’s bed and a collection of fairy figurines that had been collected over the years. The fairies had been Lainie’s favorite possession and Melody couldn’t imagine anyone appreciating them as she would.

She turned her attention to the list that had been on her mind every moment since she’d arrived in town. Staring at the word Investigation that she’d written across the top of the page, she wished she would have listened more carefully to Lainie’s phone calls in recent weeks.

Most of the time when Lainie called it had been late and Melody had been tired. She’d often listened to her sister’s stream-of-consciousness chatter with only half an ear.

She wished she could go back a week or two and really listen to what Lainie had been saying, listen to whom she’d been seeing and where she’d been going. Somewhere in those conversations there might have been a clue to the killer’s identity.

Drawing a deep sigh, she started a final list and at the top of the sheet of paper she wrote the word Suspects. She needed to stop by the bar where Lainie had worked as a bartender off and on for the past five years. Maybe one of the waitresses or some of the customers would know whom she’d been seeing at the time of her death.

She took a sip of her coffee, her thoughts lingering on one particular man. She’d been charmed by Hank’s daughter. Maddie was outspoken and obviously sharp as a knife—and her grief over Lainie’s death had been heartbreaking.

And Hank Tyler had all the characteristics of a heartbreaker. Handsome as sin with an underlying simmering energy and—at least on the surface—a sensitive man. Under different circumstances she might have been interested in him.

But Melody had one rule in life. She never dated men who had dated her sister. She now had a new rule to add to the first. She didn’t date men who were potential murder suspects.

She stared at the list titled Suspects and added the first name. Hank Tyler.

Hank knocked on Lainie’s door at precisely two o’clock. Melody answered with her purse slung over her shoulder and her car keys in her hand.

“I thought we could talk over coffee out,” she said and stepped out of the town house. She firmly pulled the door shut behind her.

“Okay,” he said with a touch of surprise. “Anyplace in particular you want to go?”

“Is the café still there on Main Street?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s still there.” There was only one.

She nodded. “Then if you don’t mind, we’ll go there.”

He shrugged. “All right by me. It would probably be best if I take my own car because I need to pick up Maddie from the birthday party in two hours.”

Hank followed Melody’s rental car to the popular café. While he was driving, he realized the reason she’d wanted to speak with him out in public. She thought he might be Lainie’s killer.

And why wouldn’t she regard him with suspicion? Somebody Lainie knew, somebody she had either let into her condo or who had used a key to enter, had killed her. Melody knew he had a key and he’d told her he’d been close to Lainie. She’d be a fool not to suspect him.

Maybe over coffee he could convince her that he had no reason to kill Lainie, that it had been Lainie who had brought laughter back to his life after it had been missing for too long.

Even though the lunch rush was over, there were few empty tables and booths in the café, which was a popular place for women to share tea and retired men to sip coffee and pass the time.

As he walked in the door, he spied Melody already seated at a booth in the back. The coral blouse she wore brought out the color in her cheeks and made her eyes appear impossibly blue.

He headed toward the booth and couldn’t help but remember how she’d felt in his arms the day before, so warm and for just a moment so yielding.

He mentally shoved the image away as he slid into the seat opposite her. He’d just settled in when the waitress arrived to take their order.

“Coffee,” Melody said.

“Make it two, and I’ll take a piece of apple pie,” Hank said to the waitress, then smiled at Melody. “Sure you don’t want a piece of pie or something?”

She shook her head. “No, thanks. I just had lunch a little while ago.”

The waitress left and she pulled a small notepad and pen from her purse and set them on the table before her. He eyed them curiously. “I feel like I’m about to be deposed by a lawyer.”

A tinge of red danced into her cheeks. “For the last couple of days I’ve been so frazzled, I think it’s important I take notes so I won’t forget anything you say.”

“I’m not sure what it is you want from me,” he replied.

The waitress arrived at their table and served their coffee and his pie. When the waitress left, Melody wrapped her fingers around her cup as if seeking warmth to chase away some inner chill.

“Lainie and I had kind of an unspoken agreement. Even though she told me when she was going out with somebody, she didn’t give me all the details. She knew I disapproved of her dating habits.” Melody laughed suddenly, a short but musical burst she instantly stifled. “I sound like a prude and I’m not, but I knew Lainie was promiscuous.” She said the last word with a wince, as if it hurt coming out of her mouth.

Hank knew he had two choices. He could either protest her assessment of her sister or he could be completely truthful. He opted for truth. “Lainie was obviously looking for something she couldn’t find.”

“Lainie was mentally ill.” Again there was a wealth of pain lacing her words. “She was never officially diagnosed with anything, refused to see a doctor. But I truly believe she was bipolar or something like that.”

“We talked about that,” he said. She looked at him in surprise. “Lainie knew she was out of sync with the world, but she was afraid of taking medication, of somehow losing herself to drugs in an effort to be normal.”

Melody stared at him for a long moment, her blue eyes thoughtful. “You must have been very close to her.”

“I didn’t kill her, Melody.” He leaned forward slightly, wanting to take away any doubt that might linger in her head. “I had no reason to kill your sister. You saw how my daughter loved Lainie. Aside from the fact that I’m not capable of beating a woman to death, I’d never hurt my daughter by harming somebody she loved. She’s had enough loss in her life. I cared about Lainie. She was like a little sister to me.”

There was no way to explain to her that when he’d arrived in Cotter Creek he’d still been deep in a grieving process that had lasted for far too long. It had been Lainie’s irrepressible sense of humor and warmth that had chipped away at the emotional shell he’d built around himself.

Instead of taking away the faint frown that stretched across her forehead, his words deepened it. “You weren’t her lover?”

“Never.” He leaned back against the booth. “Lainie had plenty of lovers. What she needed was a good friend, and that’s what I tried to be to her.” And that’s what he’d needed in his life as well.

She picked up her coffee and took a sip, her gaze not wavering from his. He felt as if he were on trial and the jury was still out.

She placed her cup back on the table, then picked up her pen. “Do you know the names of some of the men Lainie had been seeing just before that night?”

That night. It was as if she found it impossible to say the word killed or murdered. “I know she was off and on with a man named Dean Lucas. He’s a mechanic. Works at Hall’s Car Haven.” He watched as she wrote the information down on her pad. Her long dark hair fell forward, looking shiny and soft, and he was surprised by his impulse to reach out and touch it.

Throughout his relationship with Lainie, he’d learned a lot about Melody Thompson. He knew she had just turned twenty-six, that she’d been the one person Lainie had depended on and that, according to Lainie, Melody had never had a serious romantic relationship.

He found the last hard to believe. She was gorgeous, and bright, with an underlying sensuality that was more than a little appealing. Not that he was interested. When he’d buried his wife, he’d made a vow that there would be no other woman in his life on a permanent basis…ever.

“Who else?” she asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

“She had problems with a guy named James O’Donnell a couple of months ago. I don’t think they were dating, but she thought he was obsessed with her. I think Lainie called the cops on him because she thought he was stalking her.”

She wrote down that information as well, then took another sip of her coffee. “You’d better eat your pie before it gets cold.”

He picked up his fork and cut into the pie, but the last thing on his mind was food. “Why do you want that information? I’ve already told the sheriff everything I know.”

“Sheriff Ramsey is an idiot who couldn’t find a criminal if one came up and introduced himself,” she exclaimed, her voice rich with derision.

“Ramsey isn’t the sheriff anymore,” Hank replied. “Zack West is sheriff now.”

She raised one of her dark, perfectly arched brows. “Really? I didn’t know. I haven’t talked to anyone but family members since I’ve been back in town.”

For a moment they were silent. He ate his pie and she stared down at the short list of names he’d given her.

Lainie had been incredibly easy to read. She’d worn her emotions on her face where everyone could see them. Melody gave away little of what she was thinking or feeling. It was an easy guess that she was a far more complicated woman than her sister had been.

“Your daughter is a little charmer,” she said, finally breaking the silence that had grown between them.

“She’s far too smart and too outspoken for her own good. Which reminds me…” He dug into his pocket and pulled out two keys. “Here are the keys that Lainie gave us to her apartment.” He placed them on the table between them. “I don’t know who else she might have given a key to, so it might be a good idea to change the locks.”

She nodded. “I’ll have somebody come out first thing in the morning. Is there anything else you can tell me about what was going on with Lainie around the time of her death? Anything unusual?”

He hesitated a long moment, unsure about revealing the confidences of a woman now dead. “What?” she asked as she leaned forward.

“Did you know she wanted a baby? That she was trying to get pregnant?” He could tell by the shocked look on her face that Lainie hadn’t shared that with her.

A spasm of grief twisted her features and he bit his tongue, sorry that he’d told her. “That’s the last thing she needed. She couldn’t even take care of herself, let alone a baby,” she said.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you,” he said, fighting the impulse to reach out and take her hand, offer some sort of physical support. She looked so sad, so lost.

“No, I want you to tell me everything. If I’m going to find the person who killed her then I need to know everything.”

He stared at her in surprise. “Don’t you think it would be best to leave the investigation to the sheriff and his men?”

She leaned back, looking stronger than she had moments before. “I’ll let the sheriff run his investigation but I intend to run my own. If I know my sister, she liked to run with people who had at least as many problems as she did, people with attitudes and criminal records, not the kind of people who will likely cooperate with anyone in law enforcement. They’ll talk to me.”

Hank thought about the blood he’d cleaned up. So much blood. Whoever had killed Lainie had been enraged. The violence that had taken place in that bathroom sickened him.

He wanted to talk Melody out of whatever it was she intended to do, but he could tell by the fervent glow in her eyes that she was determined.

“That could be dangerous. Do you have a plan?” he asked.

“The first place I’m going to start asking questions is at the Edge,” she replied. “Maybe Lainie’s boss or one of her coworkers will know something.”

Hank scowled. “That bar is no place for a woman to go by herself. Why don’t I tag along with you?”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” she replied.

“You didn’t ask. I offered.”

Once again she stared at him for a long moment. He’d thought her eyes were a clear, sharp blue like Lainie’s, but he realized now they were deeper, darker and far more enigmatic than her sister’s.

“I was planning on going tonight,” she finally said.

He nodded. “Maddie can stay at my mother’s.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” she asked. Some of the fervor left her eyes and she suddenly looked small and vulnerable.

“You know any of the West family?” he asked.

“I know them on sight and by reputation. I know they work in the bodyguard business. Why?”

“Dalton West is an old friend of mine. One of the reasons I decided to make the move from Texas to Cotter Creek was so I could go to work for them. At the moment I’m waiting to be assigned to my first job with them.”

Maybe four months of boredom was getting to him, or maybe he was jumping into her drama because he had genuinely grown to care for Lainie. “Maybe we could help each other,” he continued. “It sounds to me like you intend to talk to people and go places that might put a single, attractive woman at risk. You could use a bodyguard, and I could use some practice at being a bodyguard.”

“So, you want to be my bodyguard in training?” A small smile curved her lips.

He returned her smile. “Something like that.”

Once again she wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup and eyed him soberly. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally.

He nodded and told himself it really didn’t matter to him whether she took his offer of help or not. Eventually the killer would be caught and Melody Thompson would return to her life in Chicago.

And he’d keep putting one foot in front of the other and try to figure out how to keep going when the only woman he’d ever loved was gone.

Chapter Three

Melody stared at her reflection in the bedroom mirror. She scarcely recognized the woman who looked back at her. Tight jeans molded to her and the bright turquoise blouse fit her like a second skin, the plunging neckline revealing far more flesh than she was used to showing.

If she was going to hang out at the Edge, then it was important for her to blend in with the clientele that frequented the bar on the edge of town. Her conservative clothes would set her apart, draw attention that she didn’t want, so she’d raided Lainie’s closet for something appropriate.

Her hand trembled slightly as she raised it to smooth an errant strand of hair away from her face. She knew that she might be asking questions tonight that could make somebody nervous.