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“Hello, Ms. Peel. I was looking for accommodations for the evening. Do you have an empty room?” Of course, Vera did. People might stay at the boardinghouse once, but most never returned.
“No.”
“You don’t?” Surprised, Jodie paused on the porch stairs.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“But I thought—”
“It doesn’t matter what you thought, Jodie Gilmore, I don’t have a room.” Vera’s lips were tight with impatience, her eyes flashing with anger. If she remembered Jodie, she also remembered the trouble Jodie had so often been in.
“Ms. Peel, I know I was a troublemaker when I was a kid, but I’ve grown up. I’m with the FBI now, and—”
“You think I didn’t already know that. It’s all your dad talks about. His daughter, the big shot FBI agent.”
Jodie’s father talked about her job? Maybe she’d finally given him something to claim bragging rights over, not that it would matter when she finally saw him face-to-face. Richard Gilmore didn’t believe in praising his daughter for anything. As a matter of fact, the only thing he’s said when she’d called to tell him she’d been hired by the FBI was, “Don’t blow it.”
“Then maybe you’ll see fit to let me stay for a few days.”
“I’ve got another guest coming. A man.” She emphasized the last word, her beady eyes gleaming with heated fervor.
“And the rest of your rooms are full?”
“My handyman Chuck stays here, too.”
“That’s two rooms that are booked. Your house must have several more that are empty.”
“What does that have to do with anything? Both of my guests are men. You are a woman. It wouldn’t be seemly to have you stay here.”
“But, Vera, you run a boardinghouse. You must have had other times when you’ve had both male and female guests.” Jodie rubbed the tight muscles in her neck and tried not to let her impatience show. She needed aspirin for her aching head, she needed a bed to lie down in, and getting upset with Vera Peel wouldn’t get her either of those.
“I’m sure I have, but I know who you are, Jodie, and I know where you came from. Who you came from.” She nearly spat the words, and Jodie took a step back, almost falling off the step.
“I hope you aren’t implying that I can’t be trusted around men because of what my mother did.”
“Your mother ran away with another man. Left your father and you alone. And you know what the Bible says…”
No, but Jodie was sure she was about to find out.
“…the sins of the father are passed down through the third and fourth generation.”
“I don’t think that God meant a child should be judged by her mother’s actions.”
“I’m sorry, but I really can’t let you stay here.” Vera gazed past Jodie, her eyes glittering oddly. “It looks like my guest has arrived. You’d best be on your way now.”
Jodie clenched her teeth to keep from arguing further. Insisting that she wasn’t her mother’s daughter wouldn’t change Vera’s opinion. People in Loomis had decided long ago that Amelia Pershing Gilmore’s daughter was the spitting image of her mother. Not just in looks but in temperament. Had Jodie really expected anything more than what Vera had given her?
She turned away from the older woman, hurrying down the steps as another car pulled in beside hers. A black Jeep with tinted windows and a glossy exterior. She tried not to resent the fact that its owner, a complete stranger to Vera, would get a warmer welcome than she had.
And not just from the owner of the boardinghouse, but also from almost everyone in town.
She pulled open her car door, started to get in and paused as the Jeep’s window slid open.
“Gilmore? You’re staying here, too?” Harrison peered out at her, his chiseled face cast in shadows, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. Handsome in a rugged, outdoorsy way. Not the kind of man Jodie usually found attractive. But then, the kind of men she usually went for were too smooth and charming to be trusted.
“No. I…” Couldn’t get a room because my mother was an adulteress? Of course, she couldn’t say that. “I’m staying at my father’s.”
“Too bad. We could have had a bite to eat together after I unpacked.”
“A bite to eat?” Vera’s voice was as shrill as a screaming parrot’s, her head bobbing as she spoke. “I hope you’re not expecting me to feed you, young man. That’s not part of what I offer.”
“No worries, ma’am, I thought I’d find a place in town.”
“And don’t think there’s coffee at all hours, either. I can’t be expected to keep the pot percolating. If you want coffee, you can go to Pershing Provisions for it.”
“Understood.” Harrison’s lips twitched, his eyes dancing with what could only be humor, and Jodie felt her tension draining away. Vera was annoying but harmless. Finding amusement in her antics was a lot better than getting upset about them.
“And no music late at night. No loud phone conversations. No women friends in. Ever.” Her gaze cut to Jodie and she scowled, her eyes hard and filled with malice.
“Seems like a lot of rules for a boardinghouse.” Harrison pulled a duffel out of his Jeep and started up the steps.
“Follow them or find another place to stay. I’ve kicked people out of my house before, you know. I won’t hesitate to do it again. And I can already tell you that the Loomis Hotel is booked solid. Come in and get the key. I’ve got other things to do with my time besides chitchatting.” She walked inside, and Harrison turned to Jodie.
“This should be an interesting stay.”
“Looks that way.” But she doubted it would be as interesting as her stay with her father. She hadn’t seen the man in ten years and was going to show up on his doorstep and beg for a room. That should be more than interesting.
“It’ll be even more interesting if you agree to have dinner with me tonight.”
“Have dinner with you? You’re kidding, right?” Jodie nearly laughed in surprise.
“Why would I be? I’m hungry. I don’t want to eat alone.”
“You told me earlier that rookies made you nervous. I wouldn’t want to ruin your appetite.”
“It takes an awful lot to do that.” He smiled, and Jodie’s breath caught. No man should look that good when he smiled.
“Your appetite might not be affected, but mine would. There is no way can I enjoy a meal when someone is giving me the third degree.”
He smiled again, shrugging his shoulders, the soft cotton of his shirt pulling tight against well-muscled shoulders. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some more questions for you.”
“And I’d be lying if I said I’d answer them.”
Harrison laughed and pushed open Vera’s front door. “That shouldn’t be a reason for us not to have dinner, should it?”
She should say yes, but doing so would mean having to face what she’d much rather avoid—her father. “If we go to dinner, don’t expect to get the answers you’re looking for.”
“Just as long as you don’t expect me not to ask them. How about we meet at that Italian restaurtant on Main Street.”
“Vincetta’s?”
“Right. See you there.” He stepped inside and closed the door, the evening silence almost eerie in his absence.
Dinner with Harrison Cahill? Probably not the best idea she’d ever had, but that wasn’t surprising. Loomis had a way of muddling her thinking. Maybe it was the air—thick with the bayou. Or maybe it was the memories that were always just a whisper away. Either way, the dark and ugly place was already working its magic on her.
She sighed, getting into her car and deciding to make a quick stop at the store to pick up an economy-sized bottle of Tylenol. She had a feeling she was going to need it over the next few days or weeks.
Or months.
Please, God, don’t let it be months.
The prayer slipped out, surprising Jodie. It had been a while since she’d thought to ask God for anything. A while since He’d seen fit to answer.
Maybe this time would be different.
Somehow, though, she doubted it.
FOUR
Harrison stood in the large foyer of Vera Peel’s boardinghouse and glanced around, looking for the proprietress. The FBI had arranged for his stay in the place. He’d have to remember to thank Sam for that.
After he asked him what he’d been thinking.
Harrison had stayed in a lot of small-town bed-and-breakfasts and boardinghouses over the years, but Vera’s won the prize for creepiest. Dark. Shadowed. Clean, but grim. Not a restful place, but he’d deal with it.
“I see you finally decided to come in.” Vera stepped through a doorway at the end of the hall. Tall and thin, her long dark dress hanging limply from skeletal shoulders, she was as creepy as the house. Maybe more so.
“Sorry I took so long, Mrs. Peel.” He smiled and attempted to make nice. After all, he might be staying with the woman for a while.
“I’m sure you’re not, but that is not something we need to discuss.” She scowled, and Harrison wondered what had happened in her life to make her so prickly. A tough childhood? A bad marriage? Whatever it was, the woman cornered the market on dour.
“Right. If you’ll just show me to my room, I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Here is your key.” She thrust an old-fashioned skeleton key at him, and Harrison grabbed it. “Your room is in here.” She shoved open a door to the right, flicking on a light. “My other guest is on the second floor, and my room is in the attic. I keep the door locked.”
Did she think he’d try to invade her private quarters? The idea would have been laughable if Vera hadn’t looked so serious. “Are there any other house rules I should know about? Besides no women and no loud music?”
“Are you mocking me, Mr. Cahill?” She frowned, and Harrison decided the less he saw of his hostess, the better.
“Not at all.”
She looked him up and down, her eyes as cold and bleak as the winter sky. “There’s a phone in your room. You make longdistance calls, you pay for them.”
“Understood.”
“Breakfast is at seven. Muffins. Juice. Coffee. You need more than that, you’ll have to go elsewhere. Good night, Mr. Cahill.” She disappeared down the hall, and Harrison walked into the room, dropping his duffel on the bed. He thought about unpacking but didn’t think Jodie would wait at the restaurant for long. There were questions he needed to ask before he continued his investigation. Questions only she could answer.
Like how she’d known that the woman’s charm bracelet had angels on it and how she’d known about the mother–child charm.
It took less than ten minutes to drive to the restaurant, and Harrison spotted Jodie’s car immediately. A red sports car, it wasn’t something he would have picked as hers if he hadn’t seen it at Vera’s house. Something understated and elegant seemed more her style. Her dark suit, soft makeup and pulled-back hair seemed to reflect a quiet personality.
Of course, Harrison had been wrong about women before. Allison was just the most recent example of that. Thankfully, he’d come to his senses before he made a lifetime commitment to her. A schoolteacher who was as needy as the first graders she taught, she had expected Harrison to give up his freelance work to make time for her. He’d been willing to make time, but not to give up his work. Too bad it had taken him so long to realize that wouldn’t be enough.
He frowned, irritated with his train of thought. Allison had broken up with him two years ago, and he hadn’t spent much time thinking about her since. He didn’t plan to start now. Not when he had a job to do. Two victims. A man and a woman. Dead for more than two decades. Somewhere, people were missing their loved ones. It was Harrison’s job to make sure the families would finally have closure.
He pushed open the door to Vincetta’s Italian Restaurant and walked inside. The place looked a little fancy for Harrison’s taste, but a plate of pasta would fill him just as much as a burger and fries, and Vincetta’s was the only decent restaurant he could find in town.
Jodie was already seated in a booth near the far wall, her attention focused on a menu that lay open on the table. Long strands of blond hair had escaped her ponytail and fell across smooth pale skin. Harrison’s fingers suddenly itched to brush the strands away, to linger on warm, soft flesh.
He pulled his thoughts up short, surprised by the direction they’d taken. Jodie was a decade younger than he was. Maybe more. He shouldn’t be thinking about anything but getting the information he wanted from her. “You look lost in thought,” he said as he approached the booth and slid into it, across from her.
She glanced up from the menu, her eyes wide and deep blue, her expression guarded. “Just trying to decide what to eat. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten good Italian.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve eaten at all. Seems the last meal I had was sometime before the sun went down last night.” He smiled at her, doing his best to seem unthreatening and benign. Jodie was already on guard. If he could get her to relax, he might have a chance at getting the answers he wanted.
“You don’t have to make small talk, Cahill. Just cut to the chase, ask your questions and we’ll get my refusal to answer them out of the way.”
“I’m not sure why you would plan not to answer when what you have to say could help my investigation. Would you care to explain it to me?” He glanced at the menu, then ordered a soda from the waiter who stopped at the table.
“How could anything I have to say help with the investigation?”
“Answering a question with a question. Good tactic, but it’s not going to work with me. Something was bothering you today, and it wasn’t the crime-scene photos.”
“I told you it wasn’t.”
“But you didn’t tell me what it was. If you have information that might help with the investigation, I’d appreciate hearing it.”
“I don’t.” She gestured for the waiter to return for their orders. Obviously she was anxious to get dinner over with.
Harrison wasn’t quite as concerned about ending their meal together, and he was honest enough with himself to admit that it wasn’t only because he wanted answers. There was something about Jodie that made him want to look and keep looking. Something that made him want to find out more about the young FBI agent.
The very young FBI agent.
He’d do well to keep that in mind. “I think you’re lying.”
“You can think whatever you want, Cahill. It won’t change anything.” She had the decency to look uncomfortable, her soft lips turned down, her cheeks pink.
“You think you know the victims, don’t you?”
“How could I? I moved away from Loomis ten years ago. I barely remember my high-school friends, let alone anyone else from town.”
“You remembered Vera. And she remembered you.”
“Do you think anyone could forget a woman like Vera?”
“I don’t think I ever will.” He chuckled.
“She’s definitely the kind of person who sticks in your brain.” Her lips curved, softening her features, making her looking even younger than she had earlier and tempting him to ask just how old she was. He didn’t ask, though. The last thing he needed was to put her on the defensive again.
“So she’s always been uptight?”
“Ever since her husband left her. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I was too young when he left town to remember what Vera was like before. And, like I said, I haven’t seen her in ten years. It’s possible she’s even worse than she used to be.”
“Ten years ago. And you were what? Eleven or twelve?” He couldn’t help himself, the comment just slipped out.
“Go ahead. Ask.” This time Jodie smiled full-out, her eyes dancing with humor, her face relaxed and open and so breathtakingly beautiful Harrison wanted to take out his camera and capture the moment.
“Ask what?”
“How old I am. I know you’re dying to.”
“I’ll admit to mild curiosity.”
“Twenty-eight. Not nearly as young as you thought, right?”
She was right and probably thought she’d accomplished exactly what she’d planned to—refocusing the direction of the conversation.
Unfortunately for Jodie, Harrison was as tenacious as a bulldog when he got something in his mind. He wouldn’t forget her reaction to the photos he showed her or her question about the bracelet, and he wouldn’t stop asking about it until he got answers. “Right.”
The waiter appeared, setting plates of food down in front of them, then fading back into the restaurant.
Harrison turned his attention back to Jodie.
Despite her effort to appear relaxed, her hands were clenched in fists, her lips tight. She looked anxious. Nervous even. “Of course, I might have been wrong about your age, but I wasn’t wrong in thinking that you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not hiding anything. I’m just…wondering.”
“About?”
“How everything is connected. A missing woman. Three recent homicides. The remains of two people left in a boarded-up room for decades.”
“Maybe they aren’t.”
“Do you really think that?”
“The more recent ones probably are, but Jane and John Doe have been dead for at least twenty years. I’m leaning toward thinking their murder is not connected to Loomis’s recent crime wave.”
“How do you know when they were killed?”
“I recognize the watch we found. It was only made in the 1980s. And it displayed days and months. It gave us a pretty accurate date. It stopped on the eleventh of June.”
“It could have stopped years after the murders. I’ve had watch batteries that run forever.”
“It had a windup movement. Probably wound down a couple of days after the murder.”
At his words, Jodie blanched, the stark paleness of her face making her eyes glow vivid blue in contrast.
His words had struck a chord with her, and it wasn’t a good one.
“June. That’s pretty specific.” She spoke quietly, her eyes on the plate of pasta she’d barely touched.
“I’m hoping knowing that will give us a quick answer as to who our victims are.”
“Quick answers usually aren’t easy to come by in our business.” They were never easy to come by in Loomis, either. Jodie didn’t bother telling Harrison that. Instead, she pushed her plate away, dropped a twenty on the table and stood, more anxious than ever to speak with her father. She wanted to know the day and month her mother had left. A woman with long blond hair and an angel bracelet had been murdered around the same time Jodie’s mother had walked away. That didn’t mean the two things were connected. It also didn’t mean they weren’t.
“Running away again, Gilmore?” Harrison rose with her, throwing a twenty down next to his empty plate.
“I’m not running. I’m going to get some sleep so I can tackle all the evidence from a fresh perspective tomorrow.”
“Where are you staying?”
“I’m heading to my father’s place. Whether or not he’ll let me stay remains to be seen.”
“I’d think your father would be happy to have you.”
“That’s because you’ve never met my father.” They stepped outside together, the deep black night barely lit by the restaurant’s lights. Rain was in the air, heavy and thick, the chill of it seeping through Jodie’s thin suit jacket and cotton shirt. She needed a hot shower, a few hours of sleep. But more than that, she needed answers.
“Just so you know, you’re not doing a very good job of making me less curious, Jodie.”
“I’m not concerned about your curiosity. I’m concerned about finding the truth.” She opened her car door, slid in behind the wheel and said goodbye to Harrison, nervous, on edge and unsure.
She’d been in Loomis for less than twelve hours, and already it was doing its work on her. The woman she’d worked so hard to become, the confident one who never backed down from a challenge seemed to have disappeared. In her place was the insecure teen Jodie had once been, the frightened child, the young kid who’d wanted desperately to believe that someone, somewhere cared about her, praying desperately that she could be good enough to make her father love her.
She shook her head. She’d given up on having her father’s love years ago, and she’d given up on God’s help long before then. God might answer prayers for other people, but not for Jodie.
Fortunately, she’d learned that going it alone wasn’t nearly as difficult as she’d thought it would be.
Sometimes, though, it was awfully lonely.
The thought followed her onto the winding lane that led to her father’s house, and it didn’t leave as she knocked on the front door of the old colonial and waited for Richard Gilmore to answer.
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