The Silent Witness
The Silent Witness
Dani Sinclair
Mysterious, secretive…and sexier than ever!Good girl Nicki Michaels once had a steamy affair with wild, sexy Alex Coughlin–but he'd left town without a word. When he returned and kept his distance, Nicki hid her broken heart and held her head high. Then she became a witness to murder…and Alex came to protect her.Alex stayed away to keep Nicki safe from his undercover investigation–now she was in the middle of it. The fiery beauty rekindled passion Alex thought he could control, until he tasted her lips once more. With a killer trying to silence Nicki, love was a distraction Alex couldn't afford–and one he could no longer deny…
A midnight visitor
“Alex?” Nicki sat up, all too aware that she was naked beneath her sheet. “What do you mean, coming in here scaring me half to death in the middle of the night? Who do you think you are?”
“Your first lover?” He sat down on the bed, much too close to her. She could feel the heat of him against her hip right through the sheet. “Talk to me, Nicki. Tell me what you saw last night.”
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? Why now, when you’ve been in town for months?”
“You knew that?”
“That you were back?” She hoped he didn’t hear the pain she tried to bury deep in her heart. “Have you been gone so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a small town?”
His hand stroked her cheek. The caress made her shiver. “You’re still soft as midnight.”
She didn’t want to respond to his touch, but it would have been easier to stop breathing. She stared into his eyes and tried not to want him anymore. “We aren’t the same people, Alex.”
His mouth descended, covering hers. Firm lips demanded a response. This wasn’t the kiss of her dreams, or her memories. This was an assault of raw passion.
He broke away. “Yes, we are.”
Dear Reader,
I’ve been fascinated by Alex Coughlin since he appeared in For His Daughter. The man just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Since he insists on popping up, I decided he’d better explain why he walks so close to the edge with his dangerous, dark good looks and his collection of less-than-savory friends.
And as soon as I started writing, I discovered I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t forget him. Nicki Michaels is about to watch her peaceful, uneventful life blow sky-high when she tries to help a friend and finds herself on the wrong side of a two-way mirror, staring at the one man she’s never been able to forget.
Nothing is ever what it seems in Fools Point. I hope you’ll enjoy The Silent Witness.
Happy Reading!
Dani Sinclair
The Silent Witness
Dani Sinclair
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Mary McGowan and Karin and Rita Shaughnessy with thanks. A special thanks to Kelsey Roberts. And always for Roger, Chip, Dan and Barb.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With the premiere of Mystery Baby for Harlequin Intrigue in 1996, Dani Sinclair launched her dream career. An avid reader, she never took her own writing seriously until her only sister caught her between career moves and asked her to write a romance novel. Dani quickly discovered she could combine her love of action/adventure with a dash of humor while creating characters who find love together despite the odds. Dani lives in a Maryland suburb outside of Washington, D.C., a place she’s found to be a great source for both intrigue and humor!
Books by Dani Sinclair
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
371—MYSTERY BABY
401—MAN WITHOUT A BADGE
448—BETTER WATCH OUT
481—MARRIED IN HASTE
507—THE MAN SHE MARRIED
539—FOR HIS DAUGHTER* (#litres_trial_promo)
551—MY BABY, MY LOVE* (#litres_trial_promo)
565—THE SILENT WITNESS* (#litres_trial_promo)
HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION
690—THE NAKED TRUTH
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Nicki Michaels—Her favor to a friend made her a target for murder. Now she must put her trust in the man who loved her and left her.
Alex Coughlin—The town bad boy is back—but this time, his reputation hides a bigger secret.
Thorton Biggs—His death was premeditated—was it also a setup?
Bernie Michaels—Nicki’s father knows more about Alex than he’s ever admitted.
Hope Michaels—Is Nicki’s sister a pawn, or a player?
Thad Osher—He has a bad attitude, but does that make him a crooked cop?
Ilona Toskov—What did she see in the alley, and who is she trying to protect?
Pavel Toskov—Ilona’s brother is handy with his fists.
Vic Unsdorf—Will silence cost him his life?
Matt Williams—The precocious teen knows more than he’s saying.
Contents
Prologue (#uac0379b0-12f5-54c6-8485-f85c5f062441)
Chapter One (#u2ec9661d-d068-5cfe-b779-0528428880fd)
Chapter Two (#uc0c60ebf-cd65-5197-a3ac-6a2db4e6edbc)
Chapter Three (#u63fa1cad-d9a2-5df6-906b-0a48a829bdbc)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
“He knows where you are!”
The five words on the other end of the phone caused her stomach muscles to contort violently. She continued peering out the window at the street below straining to see. Was someone lurking in the doorway of the small appliance store across the street? His words made it more than likely. The darkened shop made it impossible to tell for sure.
“He can’t know.”
“I’m telling you, he knows. It’s all coming unraveled. We have to talk, right away!”
Her mind twisted, looking for a way out. A movement caught her attention. Someone was watching from the shadows across the street. She was pretty sure she knew who that someone was. She turned from the window, bumping her already bruised arm and nearly stepping on Nicki’s cat. She ignored the pain and the animal. If he was right, she was no longer safe. Not here. Not anywhere.
“How soon can you meet me behind the craft store on Main Street?”
“Two minutes,” he said, sounding surprised. “I’m at the restaurant.”
“Hurry.”
She disconnected but continued to clutch the phone’s portable handset like a lifeline. Reaching for her purse, she almost knocked the bowl of fresh flowers off the coffee table. The heavy weight of the gun inside the soft leather bag reassured her. She pulled out the weapon, staring at the dull, ugly metal. No matter. Ugly, but deadly. No one would add new bruises to her body with this in her hand.
She blocked the cat when it tried to escape into the night. Shutting the door, she hurried as she descended the back stairs over the shop as quietly as possible. It was nearly nine o’clock. Nicki would be closing the craft store any minute now. She must be gone before Nicki headed upstairs to the apartment for the night.
She reached the darkness of the alley and the parking lot behind the shops and stopped. Her lips formed a curse. She held Nicki’s telephone. Her own cell phone sat on the hall table by the door. She’d have to go back for it.
A car engine shattered the silence of the moonless night. The vehicle swung around the corner and entered the alley. There was no time to go back for her telephone now. Yet, even as she hurried forward, instinct screamed that she wasn’t alone. Someone else shared the darkness of the alley.
The car stopped in front of her only a few feet away. Now or never. It was too late for second thoughts. She really had no options left at all.
She stepped from the deep shadows.
The explosive sound of the barrage of gunshots seemed to echo off the walls of the old brick buildings. She turned to run. Her fingers punched 911 into the phone she still held.
“Emergency operator. Do you need police, fire or medical assistance?”
She reached the stairs. A figure rose from between two parked cars. She fired the gun in her hand at the shape, and knew she had missed. He ducked, but she had seen him—just as he had seen her. She fled up the stairs and back inside the apartment. The handset dropped from her fingers, bouncing across the carpeting. She grabbed her cell phone and plunged through the front door. Her heart hammered in her throat as her fingers pressed the now familiar number.
Chapter One
“Nicki? What’s the matter? You sound funny.”
Nicki locked the front door and turned off the main light. There were no customers inside the craft shop so it didn’t matter if she closed early. What did matter was the man leaning almost negligently against the brick wall near the mouth of the alley across the street.
“Nothing’s wrong.” She told herself he wasn’t staring at her windows, he was just waiting for someone. The second feature at the movie theater started at nine. He was probably waiting to meet someone and go inside. He could even be waiting for someone to come out from the last show. It was silly to feel so uneasy. “Everything’s fine. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you could go out and check your car after you close tonight. I can’t find my gold bracelet and I think I might have lost it in your car the other day.”
Nicki called on patience. Her much younger half-sister wasn’t generally careless, but the request didn’t surprise Nicki. If it didn’t involve a horse, Hope seldom paid a lot of attention to details.
Nicki’s gaze flicked to the street. The man was in deep shadows, but he was still there.
“Uh, Hope, I’ll let you know if I find it.”
“Okay. Did Ilona find you okay the other day?”
Shocked, Nicki forgot about the man and focused on her sister. Ilona Toskov had been her roommate at the University of Maryland more than eight years ago. Nicki had run into her at a Frederick shopping center a few weeks ago and they’d decided to meet for lunch the following month. Two days ago, Ilona arrived on Nicki’s doorstop, scared, bruised, and seeking a haven.
“What are you talking about?”
Hope hesitated. “Is something wrong, Nicki? She called here trying to find you and I gave her your number and told her where you lived. That was okay, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Of course. It’s just that Ilona is having some, uh…personal problems. I didn’t know she’d spoken with you.”
“Oh. She didn’t say anything about that to me.”
Nicki wasn’t surprised. Ilona had seemed horribly embarrassed. An abusive boyfriend who turned out to be married wasn’t something most women would want to discuss with anyone.
“Look, Hope, I’d rather you wouldn’t mention her name to anyone else right now, all right?” Especially not with Ilona hiding in Nicki’s apartment over the store at this very moment.
“No problem. So you’ll go out back right after you close and check for my bracelet?”
“I’ll check.”
“Thanks, Nicki. Talk to you later.”
Nicki replaced the receiver and stared out the window of her shop. The man was still there.
Nervously, she checked the lock on the front door, flipped the sign to Closed, removed the cash drawer and headed for her minuscule office. A car barreled down the alley leading to the parking area behind the building. Nicki tensed.
Good grief. If she kept jumping at every sound she’d need tranquilizers. Someone probably wanted to reach one of the stores before it closed. Despite her own slow evening, she hoped the store they wanted to reach wasn’t hers.
Nicki sighed as she opened the safe. Fools Point didn’t have much crime as a rule, but lately, things had been changing. There was that unsolved car bombing several months ago in which a man had died a terrible death. The police believed it was gang related. That struck a nerve locally, occurring so close to town. Then the rash of car thefts in the area was increasing, and Fay Garvey’s murder and the destruction of the Bide Awhile Motel had shocked everyone. Only a month later Jerome Inglewood had been killed in a bank robbery in D.C. Local men had been involved. They’d gone after Jerome’s pregnant wife because she was a witness to the murder.
Nicki sighed again. There was no such thing as a safe place anymore. Ilona had brought that home when she sought refuge in Nicki’s apartment two nights ago.
Ilona refused to go to the police. The bruises and threats her boyfriend had made had given both women good reason to be nervous.
Nicki closed the safe and spun the lock. She hefted the awkwardly shaped box of new supplies and tried to plan the next window display in her mind. But her mind wouldn’t cooperate. She was far too edgy.
A car engine idled behind the store. She needed to get a grip. There was nothing sinister in that. Three days ago, she wouldn’t have thought a thing of it.
Three days ago, her life had been a whole lot simpler.
Telling herself to stop acting so jumpy, she carried the box out front. The car suddenly backfired several times. The noise reminded her of firecrackers going off.
Nicki hesitated. She set the box down and listened hard. Gunshots could sound like firecrackers.
Heart in her throat, Nicki ran to check the lock on the rear entrance. That lock was the only thing that stood between her and whoever was in the alley outside. Thankfully, the dead bolt was in place. The rear door was secure and there were no windows back here to worry about. She was safe.
So was Ilona, as long as she didn’t unbolt the apartment door upstairs.
Nicki peered through the peephole. All she could see in the darkness was the hood of the running car. Nicki hesitated, unwilling to telephone the police until she was sure of what she’d heard. She strained to listen over the sound of blood pounding through her veins. The car continued to idle harmlessly.
Shots? Or backfires like she’d first thought? Ilona wouldn’t thank her for calling the police and drawing attention to the shop needlessly.
Nicki practically jumped three feet in the air when the telephone sliced through the silence. She hurried to the office, shutting down lights as she went. She didn’t want to draw attention to the store from the outside. Everything was okay, she told herself. Ilona’s boyfriend could not have found her. Ilona was safe.
But she had to be terrified.
As Nicki reached for the receiver, she saw both phone lines were lit. The business line flashed with the incoming call. Ilona? Calling from the apartment phone? Nicki lifted the receiver. A click filled her ear. She frowned, her pulses racing.
The house line was no longer lit. But why would Ilona hang up? She wouldn’t have.
Unless she didn’t have a choice.
Nicki snatched her purse from the bottom desk drawer. In her rush to get upstairs, she tripped over the edge of the large box she’d left sitting out. Stumbling sideways, she knocked into a cardboard display and nearly fell. With an oath, she shoved the box to one side.
She wasn’t usually clumsy, but a sense of urgency practically overwhelmed her. Nicki couldn’t explain why, but she needed to get to Ilona. She had to be certain her friend was all right.
Nicki fumbled for her keys, dropping them, then stepping on them in her frantic hurry. As she locked the shop door, a figure dashed out of the alley and raced across the street. For a second, her breath caught in her throat.
Was it the same man who’d been watching her shop? Though she’d never had a clear view of his face, there was something hauntingly familiar about the form that sprinted out of sight.
With an impatient shake of her head, she opened the communal door leading up to her apartment and the one across the landing.
Her apartment door gaped open, showering the steep staircase with light. She scooped up her cat, who’d taken the opportunity to try to sneak outside, and rushed up the stairs.
“Ilona!”
Silence met her call.
Nicki set Ginger down inside and closed the door. She didn’t have to search her small apartment to know Ilona was gone. The emptiness struck her immediately.
She nearly tripped over the handset of her portable telephone that lay on the carpet. Had Ilona dropped it as she fled? But why had she run? Nicki picked it up, trying to stem the apprehension hammering in her throat. There were no signs of struggle.
The telephone in her hand shattered the silence. Jolted by surprise, Nicki answered cautiously as if the instrument itself presented some danger.
“Hello?”
“Nicki!” Ilona’s usually sultry voice came over the line as if she was out of breath.
“Ilona! Where are you?”
“He found me!”
Fear welded the handset to Nicki’s fingers.
“I tried to go out the back but a man started shooting!”
“Your boyfriend shot at you?” The bruises and threats made that a frightening possibility.
“No! The other man.”
“What other man?” Ilona’s rush of words weren’t making any sense. “Slow down, Ilona.”
“Oh, God, Nicki, I just saw a man get killed. Right in front of me!”
For a second, fear nearly made Nicki deaf. “What?”
“A man walked up to the car and shot the driver. I saw the whole thing.”
Gunshots. Not backfires.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course not! I’m terrified! Don’t you understand? A car pulled up and a man walked up to it and opened fire. I was standing right there! I’ve never been so scared.”
“But you aren’t hurt?”
Ilona didn’t seem to hear her. “I can’t believe it! It was so incredible! Then I did something really stupid, Nicki. I called the police!”
“That’s not stupid. You—”
“No! It is stupid! They’ll have a record of the call! They’ll know there was a witness!”
Nicki tried to stay calm. “It’s okay.”
“No! It’s not okay! I can’t be a witness!”
“Take it easy, Ilona. Who was the man?”
“Which man? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’ve never seen either of those men before.”
“But you said your boyfriend found you.”
“I’m rattled, Nicki. Will you just listen a minute?” Almost calmly, Ilona began to describe the man in the car. Nicki thought about the man she’d seen run across the street.
“Nicki, I can’t tell the police what I saw!” Ilona concluded.
“Of course you can. You have to. A man is dead. You have to tell them—”
“No! You’ll have to tell them.”
Nicki stared at the flowers on her coffee table. The cut crystal bowl rested precariously near the edge of the table. “Ilona, I didn’t see the murder, you did.”
“I know that, but the police don’t. You have to pretend to be me. You can tell the police what I saw. I’ll describe everything to you.”
Nicki sank down on the couch and shoved the flowers back into place. “You can’t be serious.”
“You have to! Please, Nicki! They’re going to think the caller was you anyhow. I didn’t give them my name.”
“But—”
“Is that sirens in the background?”
Only then did Nicki process the sound of the siren turning down the alley. The police were here already.
“Promise me, Nicki! You have to promise me!”
“Ilona, this is crazy. Just come back and tell them what you saw.”
“I won’t. I can’t! If you don’t give them the description then the murderer will get away free. Is that what you want? Because I’m not coming back, Nicki.”
Nicki gripped the telephone even more tightly. Ginger jumped up beside her on the couch, her feline eyes staring with unwinking intelligence. Nicki reached out to stroke the comforting fur.
“Look, Ilona, I know you’re scared, but be reasonable. All you have to do is tell the police what you saw. They’ll protect you. I keep telling you they’ll protect you from the man who hurt you too.”
Silence.
Finally, in a stilted voice Ilona said, “The man who hurt me is a policeman, Nicki.”
The words filled her ear like a tidal wave of destruction. No wonder Ilona had refused to discuss going to the police. No wonder she was so frightened. Who do you turn to when the protectors turn on you?
“I didn’t want to tell you,” Ilona continued. “I was afraid you wouldn’t let me stay if you knew.”
“Of course I would have let you stay,” Nicki said automatically. But she realized she would have been even more nervous if she had known the truth. “Look, Ilona—”
“Don’t tell me I should report him. I’m not going to and that’s all there is to it. Now, are you going to cover for me or not?”
“But I can’t be a witness when I wasn’t even there.”
“All you have to do is describe what I saw. No one will know it wasn’t you in the alley. Please, Nicki. I’m so scared. I don’t want that man’s murderer to walk free just because I’m afraid.”
“Then come back and—”
“Nicki!”
Nicki realized her options were down to two. She could refuse, but then she’d have to explain the phone call. And that might put Ilona in harm’s way if her boyfriend found out. Only, to agree to this preposterous plan…Nicki envisioned the figure running across the street and hesitated. Maybe she had seen the killer after all.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Nicki listened closely this time. The general description could fit a dozen men right here in Fools Point. The dark jeans, T-shirt and wavy black hair also fit the man Nicki had seen standing across the street. The man who had looked so hauntingly familiar.
But it couldn’t be Alex. He’d been in town for months now and he hadn’t once come to see her. She shelved the tiny seed of hurt. Rumor had it that he’d taken up with Vic Unsdorf and some other unsavory friends. The men were nothing but trouble. In fact, Alex had already been questioned in several incidents lately. Her stomach clenched.
“Give me that description again,” she demanded.
Jeans, dark shirt, dark wavy hair, six feet, muscular.
Alex.
“Ilona, I can’t!”
She heard Ilona sigh. “Then you can’t. Take care of yourself, Nicki.”
“Wait! What about you? Where are you going to go?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll find another place to stay.”
Nicki gripped the portable phone more tightly. “Are you absolutely sure about what you saw?”
“I was standing right there!”
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
“I’ve got to go before he finds me. Thanks for everything, Nicki.”
“Wait!”
Ilona hung up before Nicki’s common sense could offer more of a protest. She shut her eyes trying desperately to think. An authoritative pounding sounded on her back door. Nicki quivered in reaction. Time was up. She had a choice—betray her old friend or her first lover.
Taking a deep breath, Nicki slowly stood and went to admit the police.
“ON YOUR FEET, Coughlin.”
Alex stared at Sergeant Thad Osher’s boyishly round face and thought about how good it would feel to plant his fist in that smugly satisfied expression. Keys jingled in the lock. The cell door parted. Alex came off the cot in one unhurried motion. The fast movement was enough to make Osher take a quick step back. His hand automatically went to the weapon at his side.
“Planning to shoot me, Thaddie?”
Red-faced, Osher glared at him. “Just give me a reason. Turn around.”
“Restraints?” He tried not to let the other man see how angry he was. “You really are afraid of me, aren’t you? My lawyer’s going to have a field day with this one. I don’t imagine Chief Hepplewhite’s going to be any too pleased either. He cares about things like a prisoner’s rights.”
“Shut up.”
Osher clamped the handcuffs around his wrists tight enough to pinch. Alex didn’t make a sound, not even when he was given a shove forward that caused him to crash against the far wall.
Down the hall, a cluster of men waited outside a room. Alex recognized Jake Collins right away. Collins had recently converted the old Perry place into a local bar and restaurant. There were a lot of wild rumors circulating about the newcomer and where he’d earned the money to pull off such a feat. But Alex knew that was mostly because Collins tended to keep to himself.
Alex’s gaze shifted. Another man was Officer Derek Jackstone, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He almost hadn’t recognized the man. Jackstone would do well if he ever tried undercover work. Put him in different clothing and he tended to blend in.
One of the other two men also looked vaguely familiar, but Alex couldn’t place him or the fourth man immediately.
The room they waited outside of served as the interrogation room. Alex had graced the insides before. He didn’t have to wonder why they were all being herded in there now.
“I’m going to take these cuffs off in a minute for the lineup, Coughlin, but just remember, one false move—”
“What lineup?”
“Shut up.”
Osher gave him another shove. All four men looked up. Jackstone took a quick step in their direction. He was a good cop. “Problem, Thad?”
“No problem. Right, Coughlin?”
Alex met Jackstone’s eyes. “Osher arrested me, but he won’t tell me the specific charge. He also won’t let me call my lawyer.”
Derek’s frown deepened. Osher scowled. “Plenty of time for that after the lineup.”
Alex spun around fast enough to make Osher back up again. “What lineup? I want to know why I’m being held.”
“You read him his rights, Thad?”
“Of course I did.”
“Osher’s never heard of illegal harassment,” Alex told Jackstone. “I think my lawyer is going to have to instruct him.”
“Take the cuffs off, Thad,” Derek said. “Mr. Coughlin isn’t going to cause us any trouble. Isn’t that right?”
“Not at all,” Alex told him pleasantly. “I plan to cause Osher here a great deal of trouble, but all of it will be legal, I promise.”
When Osher would have shoved him again, Jackstone quickly stepped between them.
“Back off, Derek,” Osher demanded.
“You’re letting him bait you, Thad. Let him go.”
“No way. I’m personally going to see this smart-mouthed punk is put away until he’s too old to hold a fork.”
Alex stared hard at Osher’s ruddy complexion. “Even if it means you have to manufacture evidence?”
Osher shoved Jackstone aside. He gripped Alex’s shirt-front. Coffee foully laced his breath. “I don’t have to manufacture anything, Coughlin. We’ve got an eyewitness to that shooting last night. That should put you away for a very long time.”
“That’s enough, Thad,” Jackstone said quickly. “Let him go and get those cuffs off him. We’ve got an audience, in case you forgot. The chief isn’t going to like this.”
Osher muttered a vicious oath, but he released the cuffs. Alex rubbed his chafed wrists openly, while trying to think back to the events of the night before. Eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable, but what if this one did pick him out?
“Come on, Coughlin,” Jackstone said quietly. “Let’s get this over with.” He opened the door to the interrogation room.
“This is your idea of an official lineup?”
“We aren’t equipped with all the bells and whistles, but this will do,” the young officer replied.
“My lawyer’s going to be rubbing his hands with glee.”
Osher cursed again, but allowed Jackstone to lead Alex into the room. Alex heard the lock click on the door behind them. The room was empty except for a table and three chairs. One wall had a two-way mirror. Alex resisted the urge to make a childishly rude gesture in that direction. Instead, he sauntered over to perch on the edge of the tabletop.
He stared directly into his own face, careful to keep his features as expressionless as possible, while mentally reviewing his actions the night before. Who was their witness? And exactly what had the person seen?
The witness could be one of the shop owners who’d stepped out back, or a customer in the parking lot, or even someone in one of the apartments over the shops. None of the stores had rear-facing windows. Fortunately, that meant the witness couldn’t be Nicki. She’d been inside her shop all night, right up until the gunshots had sounded.
Alex frowned. Once he’d learned about her craft shop, he’d deliberately stayed away from that part of town. The last thing he could afford was the complication of running into Nicki Michaels again after all this time. But everything had changed last night with a single phone call. All his good intentions dissolved. He’d stood across the street and watched her move around inside her store while he remembered things that were better left forgotten.
“Stand up, Coughlin.” Osher’s voice came from a speaker on the wall in the corner. “Everyone needs to stand against the rear wall and face the mirror.”
Jake Collins frowned. So did one of the other two men Alex didn’t know. In fact, that man looked decidedly nervous. Alex paid him a little more attention, especially when he found himself sandwiched between Collins and the stranger. The man’s jeans were crusted with dirt and greasy stains. He smelled of motor oil and sweat and stale cigarettes. He had a working man’s hands. Dirt was caked under the split and broken fingernails. Alex wondered who he was and what he was doing here in Fools Point. A drifter? They didn’t get many of those here in town.
One at a time, Osher had the men take a step forward and stand in profile. Despite the fact that all of them had dark hair and were of a similar build, if someone had seen Alex in the alley last night, they weren’t going to be fooled by this charade. Most police forces didn’t bother with lineups any more. They showed victims or witnesses pictures instead, but Osher was making it blatantly clear who he wanted this witness to point out. Chief Hepplewhite had picked a bad week to take his wife into D.C. for medical evaluation.
Hepplewhite was a good cop. Smart, thorough, with no axes to grind. Osher, on the other hand, couldn’t find a clue if he was stepping on one. Alex stepped back and waited to be denounced. Minutes later, Osher’s voice filled the room again. This time, he sounded disgusted.
“Okay, let’s do it one more time.”
Alex breathed a sigh of relief. The witness hadn’t picked him out. But then, what had the witness seen last night? He was going to have to find the person and have a little talk.
“TAKE ANOTHER LOOK, Ms. Michaels. A good look this time.”
Nicki couldn’t do anything else. Her insides had twisted the moment the four men had walked into the room. Alex Coughlin, big as life and twice as sexy, had strolled over to perch on the edge of the table. He stared straight into her eyes. Suddenly, she was sixteen again and desperately in love.
He had to be almost thirty-four by now. And he still needed a haircut and a shave. She almost smiled. Then she realized her fingers were half-raised as if to stroke that cheek. She clutched her hands together as Sergeant Osher spoke to the men.
Nicki shook her head to rid it of the wash of bittersweet memories. This was hardly the time or the place.
“Ms. Michaels, you aren’t even trying,” Osher protested. “You don’t have to be afraid. We’ll protect you.”
She pulled her arm away from his annoying touch. “I’m not the least bit afraid, Sergeant Osher. But, like I told you, it all happened fast. It was very dark outside. I’ve complained to city hall about that broken streetlight behind the store several times. No one does anything.”
“Ms. Michaels, I know it was dark, but you were right there. You saw the murder.”
Stubbornly, she shook her head. “I can’t point a finger at anyone, I told you that. I never got a clear look at his face.”
At least she could say that and speak the truth. She had never seen the murder let alone the murderer’s face. In her heart, she knew it was Alex she’d seen running across the street. But that didn’t mean he’d pulled the trigger, despite what Ilona had said.
Nicki would go to jail herself before she’d make a positive identification of anyone. She’d given the police the description Ilona had passed on to her. That was as far as she was willing to go. Her mind refused to reconcile the Alex she had known with a man who could walk up to a car and kill someone in cold blood.
Her Alex had been tough. Ready to defend himself—or anyone weaker if it came to that. But he had never sought trouble. Of course, he hadn’t needed to. It always came looking for him.
She shrugged off that memory. She was now certain Alex had been across the street right before the shooting. If she was right, he would have had to run across the street the minute she started back to her office with the cash drawer in order to be in position to fire those shots.
Okay, it was possible. Barely. She didn’t want to believe it. Nicki chewed on her bottom lip. Anyone witnessing a murder would run away. That didn’t make Alex a killer.
Did it?
“Try, Ms. Michaels. Try real hard.”
She glared at the policeman and decided even if she had seen the murder with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have said so to this bully. Thad Osher made her skin crawl. She didn’t like the way he almost leered whenever their paths crossed. He seemed to think he was irresistible to women, but he made her feel dirty and undressed.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t say for sure.”
She stared at Alex. A pang of loss held her transfixed. She’d thought him unbearably sexy at nineteen. Cocky. Sure of himself. Running all over town on that secondhand motorcycle he’d bought. Refusing to let the scandal surrounding his father’s death touch him, despite all the whispers and pointed fingers. Alex had been bitter and angry as a teenager, but he’d never been anything but kind to her.
She’d never forgotten the day he’d picked wildflowers for her down by Trouble Lake. He’d talked about his dreams for the future. A future that hadn’t included a sixteen-year-old girlfriend, she’d finally realized. Back then, she’d been so sure he’d return for her one day. But he never had.
Osher brought his fist down on his thigh in a gesture of frustration. “Did you see the guy or not?”
She looked into his glittering eyes and wanted to run. Instead she squared her shoulders defiantly. “Badgering me isn’t going to change a thing, Sergeant. I told you what I saw. I’ve looked at your suspects. Now, I need to open my shop.”
He stood too close. Nicki decided he had mean eyes. She fought down an instinctive need to back away and held her ground. Sergeant Osher was the type to take advantage of any perceived weakness.
“You know, Ms. Michaels, once the word gets out there was a witness, that shop might not be a safe place for a woman like you.”
A trace of fear mixed with her loathing. “Are you threatening me, Sergeant?”
His eyes flickered. “Not at all. Call it a friendly warning. You’ll be a lot safer once the murderer is behind bars.”
“Then I suggest you find him.”
She half expected him to grab her arm as she stalked from the room, but he didn’t. She could feel twin spots of color on her cheeks as she strode quickly past Carolyn. The pretty receptionist, who also served as the police dispatcher, watched with a frowning expression of concern. Another time Nicki would have stopped to chat. Now, she just wanted to escape.
Nicki hung on to her haughty pose as she left the building and stepped into the wilting heat and humidity of the August sunshine. She was trembling with reaction, so furious she couldn’t think straight.
How dare he threaten her? Because no matter what he said, Osher’s words had been a threat. He was supposed to be a police officer. One of the men who protected the people. But he was the kind of man who gave policemen a bad reputation. How could his wife stand to be around him?
Nicki clung to her anger as she crossed the street and walked briskly past the General Store. Bianca Tooley waved to her from inside the post office a minute later. Nicki didn’t pause to talk with the lonely woman as she often did. All she wanted was the sanctuary of her safe little store.
Seeing Alex again had brought back all sorts of memories. Hot nights and even hotter kisses. He’d been the town’s bad boy and her first lover. And she’d cried enough tears to overflow Trouble Lake when he left. But Alex had never once looked back, just as he’d sworn. As far as she knew, this was the first time in all those years that he’d ever returned to town. He hadn’t even come home for his mother’s funeral. Was he here now because of his sister?
Ironically, Kayla was engaged to marry a D.C. police officer. And according to Mildred Kitteridge over at the General Store, the town council had approved Chief Hepplewhite’s request to hire more help. Alex’s soon-to-be brother-in-law was about to become the second in command of the Fools Point police force.
Could Alex really have killed a man in cold blood?
The question plagued her all day long as she taught a decoupage class, a knitting class, and two ceramic classes between waiting on customers. By the time the last brush had been cleaned, the last jar of glaze put away, and the large kiln loaded and turned on, Nicki was more than ready for an early night.
She ate dinner without tasting a bite. She was too edgy to settle down with her needlepoint project. Her cat stropped her leg in sympathy.
“Thanks, Ginger. If only Ilona would call so I could be sure she’s okay.” But the telephone remained obstinately silent.
Ginger parrumphed and butted her lightly. Nicki scratched behind the cat’s ears, then went to check the locks. She drew a tub of steamy water and added the new bath oil she’d been meaning to try. The scent really did remind her of gardenias.
Lighting several fat candles, she piled her hair on top of her head, selected a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and picked up her novel. She would read and soak and dispel these useless memories that had haunted her all day.
Less than twenty minutes later, she knew it was no use. She simply couldn’t keep her mind on the printed pages. The story deserved her attention, but thoughts of Alex kept intruding. He was a mature man now. Still cocky and full of swaggering confidence, and still irresistibly attractive.
Maybe Hope was right. Nicki was turning into a spinster. She’d even started talking to her cat. Smiling, she patted herself dry and pulled on her long satin robe.
“I wonder if other single women like satin lingerie and sleep in the nude, Ginger.” The cat raised her head inquiringly from the rug. Seeing no food in the offing, she curled again and closed her eyes. Cats had their priorities straight.
Nicki refilled her glass and settled down to watch the news. When she found herself almost nodding off, she turned off the TV and the light. Going to the front window that looked out over Main Street, she paused. Her heart began to pound. Was there someone standing in the shadows beside the appliance store once again?
Nicki stared so hard her eyes began to burn, but no one and nothing moved. It must have been her imagination. There wasn’t anyone there. Still, she remained standing for several more minutes just watching to be certain.
Feeling a bit foolish, she rechecked her door locks and headed for the bedroom. Maybe she and Ginger should get a dog. A large dog, like Spider, the Labrador retriever Bianca Tooley always kept at her side.
Good grief. Hope was more right than she knew. Nicki was turning into Miss Tooley.
Nicki tossed her robe over the nightstand and climbed into bed. Was Ilona safe? Had Alex Coughlin really walked up to a car in the alley and shot a man in cold blood?
Her last thought was that she hoped not.
The dream began with a memory. Alex’s soft kisses slowly awakened her passion. His arms held her, the way only his arms ever had. But now they were a man’s arms. Hard. Protective.
She was dreaming and she knew it, but she clung to the dream, not wanting to wake. She was on the brink of something wonderful. She tried to ignore the sense of wrongness that disturbed the dream and tugged at her half-conscious brain.
The creak of the floorboard next to her bed snapped her eyes open. Too late, she felt the presence inside the room. A hand came out of the darkness to clamp over her mouth.
“Don’t scream.”
Chapter Two
Terror gripped her. Nicki struggled, but she was pinned beneath the weight of her attacker, tangled in her sheet.
“Nicki, stop it!”
The low growl brought an instant halt to her struggles. Though she tried to make out his features in the darkness, she couldn’t. But never in a million years would she forget that voice. She stopped moving. Stopped breathing.
“Alex?”
“I think you broke my nose.”
The adrenaline seeped from her body. Badly shaken, she lay beneath him while a myriad of remembered emotions assaulted her. She selected anger and drew it on like a cloak.
How dare he scare her like this?
“Get off me!”
She shoved as hard as she could. Alex rolled away from her in the darkness. When she would have reached for the light switch, he stopped her, gripping her hand firmly.
“No lights.”
“Why not? What do you mean coming in here scaring me half to death in the middle of the night? Who do you think you are?”
“Your first lover?”
The words charged the silence with an arc of electricity that should have been visible to the naked eye.
“You bastard,” she said quietly.
“Not technically.” He stood up and sighed. “I’m sorry, Nicki. That was uncalled for.”
“Yes. It was.” She braced herself on her hands, halfway to a sitting position. “What are you doing here, Alex?”
In the darkness of the room, she sensed him rocking back on his heels. “Tonight? I need to know why Osher thinks you are an eyewitness to the murder last night.”
Hurt primed her anger, pushing aside all the other emotions. Even though it was too dark to make out more than shapes and shadows in the room, she covered her bare breasts with the sheet and sat up, suddenly all too aware that she was naked beneath the thin bit of linen.
“Why don’t you go ask him? He has my statement.”
The whistle of Alex’s pent-up breath was loud in the silent room.
“I’ve done all the talking with Osher that I plan to do. Talk to me, Nicki,” he coaxed. “Tell me what you saw last night.”
There had been a time when she would have told him anything. Everything. A time when she would have cheerfully lied for him or worse. But she wasn’t sixteen any more and he wasn’t the brash young Alex Coughlin she’d loved so desperately.
No. Now he was the brash mature Alex Coughlin. And that made him twice as dangerous.
“Get out of my house, Alex.”
“I can’t do that, Nicki. You were in your shop last night. You would have had to break speed records to get upstairs to your apartment before those shots were fired. That means you didn’t see the crime. Unless you opened the back door. Is that what you did, Nicki?”
“How do you know what I was doing last night?”
“You know the answer to that,” he said after a moment.
“I want to hear your version.”
He sat down on the bed, much too close to her. She could feel the heat of him against her hip right through the sheet. A heat she would have welcomed with open arms once upon a time.
“No games, Nic. This is too important.”
“I’d say so. A man died last night.”
“Yes. Now exactly what did you see?”
Nervously, she tugged on the sheet, aware that his eyes tracked the movement despite the darkness of the room.
“Why don’t you tell me what you were doing here last night. Tell me why you were watching my shop. Why last night when you’ve been in town for months?”
“You knew that?”
“That you were back?” She hoped he didn’t hear the pain she tried to bury deep in her heart. “Have you been gone so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a small town, Alex? I knew you were back an hour after you breezed in on that motorcycle, acting like the world owed you big time. I can’t believe you’re still thumbing your nose at the police. I would have thought you’d have outgrown that phase years ago. Think your father would be proud?”
The carefully chosen barb struck its target. She heard his indrawn hiss. He reached forward suddenly and grabbed her forearms in a grip she couldn’t break.
The moment his rough palms touched her skin, her body seemed to go wild. The rush of sensual memories mixed with an undercurrent of new fear. Why had she pushed him? Ilona had described the murderer clearly. Alex fit the killer’s description right down to the clothes he’d been wearing.
“You always did have more guts than brains,” he said softly. “Let’s leave my father out of this. I haven’t got a lot of time right now. Tell me what you saw.”
Fear raised the hair on her forearms. Alex could kill her right here and no one would know. There wasn’t a thing she could do to stop him. The implacable hardness she sensed in him went deeper than she would have thought. Where was the young man she had loved so desperately? Didn’t any of him remain?
“I’m not telling you anything.” She refused to be cowed by Alex. Part of her didn’t believe he would harm her no matter how much he’d changed. But there was another part that wasn’t quite so certain.
“Stubborn. My God, you’re stubborn.” His hand stroked her cheek. The caress made her shiver. “But you’re still as soft as midnight.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
She didn’t want to respond to his touch, but it would have been easier to stop breathing. She stared into the darkness of his eyes and tried not to want him anymore.
“We aren’t the same people, Alex.” But the remembered feel of his hands on her was erasing time and stirring forgotten yearnings to life.
“Yes we are.”
His mouth descended, covering hers. Firm, hard lips demanded a response. For an instant, she yielded. Only, this wasn’t the kiss of her dreams, or even the kiss of her memory. This was an assault of raw, hard passion.
Nicki went still, even though her body clamored in instant recognition.
Alex broke away the moment he realized she wasn’t reciprocating. Rife with self-loathing, he leaned back, running a hand through hair that was already tangled and windblown from his ride over here.
What was he doing? For one crazed second, the exotic scent of her had driven him over some edge. He’d lost control in a way he hadn’t done since that summer all those years ago. One taste. One incredible taste, and it was fifteen years ago all over again. He wanted her with a longing that stunned him.
Alex stood and stepped away from the bed. Now he was the one who was shaking. He slicked his hands down his jeans, trying to still the crazy waves of desire that demanded more.
He’d always had excellent night vision, so despite the darkness, he saw how wide her eyes were. Wide and accusing. The sheet had slipped to reveal most of one rounded breast. She’d wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. She was still shaking as well, he realized.
“What do you want, Alex?”
The soft question lashed him with the barbs of her fear. He’d scared her.
Alex cursed. He felt dirty—like he’d never be clean again. The months of rough living were taking their toll. He was so tired of it all. Staring at her, he couldn’t help but feel he’d just soiled something important. The thought wouldn’t go away. He couldn’t afford to care, but he did.
“Thad Osher wants my neck in a noose, Nicki,” he said quietly. “He doesn’t care what he has to do to put it there.”
“Was it something you said?”
A tremor lay beneath her sweetly mocking voice. He hated knowing he had put it there. But he was secretly relieved that she wasn’t backing down. She had spunk. He should have remembered that about her. She never had backed away from anything. Not even when running with “that Coughlin boy” was the sort of reputation a nice girl didn’t want.
“Nicki, I’m sorry. I know you won’t believe this, but I’ve stayed away for good reason. In fact, I wouldn’t have come to see you at all if—”
“Gee thanks, that’s just what a woman wants to hear.”
“—you hadn’t begged me.”
He’d hurt her again, and he hadn’t meant to.
“What did you say?!” she demanded.
She yanked on the sheet, holding it beneath her chin as she sat up straighter. The action only drew his attention to the womanly shape of her. He’d wanted her when she was jailbait. Pure poison for a boy whose father was labeled a thief and a murderer. And he wanted her now when he was perilously close to being branded himself.
“Why did you call, Nicki? What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t call you in a million years.”
He wished he dared turn on a light. Her words sounded so sincere. What was she trying to pull?
A possibility exploded in his mind. He hated the very idea. But. Was there the slightest chance Nicki had been trying to set him up?
His Nicki? No. She’d never do that. But she wasn’t his anymore. Hadn’t been his for a very long time. She’d been in love with him once. And what did they say about a woman scorned?
For crying out loud! Nicki wasn’t like that. Was he going to start seeing bogeymen around every corner?
But what did he really know about her anymore?
He couldn’t turn loose of that thought. Maybe she’d known Thorton Biggs. They could even have been lovers for all he knew. Hadn’t he wondered why the man had driven into that alley last night? So much would be explained if Biggs had come there to see her.
The truth was, for all Alex knew, she’d killed Biggs herself and set Alex in place to take the fall. He might not like the idea, but he couldn’t dismiss it on the basis of what had happened between them fifteen years ago.
“So you wouldn’t call me in a million years, huh?” Her taunt rankled. “Well, I’m sure the feeling is mutual, but the fact is, you did call, Nicki. You said we had to talk, and like a fool, I agreed.”
Tired from too little sleep and the stress of the last few months, he was suddenly angry. Nicki had been the only good thing he could remember about Fools Point, and she’d used their relationship to set him up.
“You asked me to meet you at five minutes after nine behind your shop,” he snapped. “In fact, you pleaded—quite fetchingly. Ring any bells?”
“No!”
He ignored her protest, warming to his theme. The memory of that phone call was sharp and clear. She had called him.
“I came early. Don’t pretend you didn’t see me standing across the street.”
He’d known the moment that she saw him. He’d leaned back against the rough bricks and simply watched her. Anticipation had brought him there early. Caution had kept him waiting. He should have paid more attention to the caution.
“The way you kept watching me, I figured you couldn’t wait for a trip down memory lane,” he said, waiting to see how she’d react.
“In your dreams!”
“Fantasies.” He lowered his voice. “You were always part of my fantasies, remember, Nic? I never forgot. I almost walked across the street early, but you said to meet outside. I figured it was shades of yesterday. You wanted to see me, but you didn’t want anyone in town to know it was me you were seeing.” And that still stung.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never called you. And if you’ll recall, it was you who insisted we keep our relationship quiet fifteen years ago. I didn’t care who knew about us.”
Her voice sounded wounded, but he knew she was lying about the phone call. What he needed to discover was why.
“Except your father.”
Nicki winced.
“You’ve really perfected that innocent act, Nic. Only it won’t work. We both know just how innocent you aren’t.”
Her fist bunched on the sheet. “Yes, we do.”
Were those tears in her eyes? Anger drained away. What was he doing? This was all wrong. They shouldn’t be wounding each other like this.
“Get out of here, Alex,” she said with quiet dignity. “I never want to see you again.”
The calm words nicked his heart with another barb of guilt. He clenched his jaw and unballed his own fists. This was no good. They were dicing each other to ribbons. What if things weren’t what they seemed? Come to that, what in his world was what it seemed anymore?
“Don’t lie to me, Nicki.”
She stared at him in silence.
Alex ran a hand through his hair again. He wasn’t sure when he’d started hating his life, but he was damn sure things had to change soon.
“Did you know Thorton Biggs?”
She didn’t respond.
“Did you kill him, Nic?” That at least provoked a reaction.
“How dare you! I covered for you today. I was such a fool that I told them I couldn’t identify anyone. I should have told them the truth. I should have told them how you came running out of that alley. But I didn’t. I’m so stupid, I didn’t.”
Tears were thick in her voice. He reached for her, but she drew back against the headboard. With an oath, he walked over to her bedroom window, disgusted with himself. He pushed the hair back from his face and stared out at the night.
“I didn’t kill Thorton, Nicki. We were…acquaintances.”
“Fellow gang members?”
He didn’t look toward her. “Call it what you like. I ran behind your shop when I heard the shots. Someone had climbed over the fence right before I got there. He was disappearing into the trees when I saw him. I tried to go after him, but I got caught on the fence and he had too much of a head start, so I went to check Thorton. It was obvious he was beyond help. I knew what would happen if they caught me there, so I ran in the opposite direction.”
“Why tell me? Tell Sergeant Osher.”
Alex snorted. “Think he’d listen, let alone believe? Look, I’m sorry Nicki.” For so many things. “I don’t want to believe you set me up—”
“How nice of you.”
“—but you asked me to come or I never would have set foot anywhere near you.”
“You mentioned that fact.”
He cursed under his breath. She didn’t understand, and he was in no position to explain.
“Look, are you going tell me why you called me or not?”
“I did not call you.”
Nicki crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. The sheet slipped dangerously low. Distracted, he stared at her in the darkness.
“What the devil are you wearing?” he growled. He knew quite well that the large expanse of skin was angel soft to the touch. There was nothing wrong with his memory—or his imagination.
“Nothing.”
Alex cursed again. She knew just how to bait him. Her virginal body had been so softly lush, rounded in gentle curves that made a young man’s hands itch to explore. The last vestiges of baby fat had been starting to disappear. Those vestiges were completely gone now, but the curves were still there, honed and slimmed to a more mature, but no less desirable look. He had watched her figure last night, even when he told himself he was being a fool. Watched and wanted, when it was the last thing he should have been doing.
But any man would look at Nicki. The smart ones would go back for a second look.
“Go away Alex. I don’t want you here.”
Her words snapped his mind back to business. This was no time to let the past intrude. “Thank you for not telling Osher you saw me. If you had, I’d still be in jail.”
“He arrested you?” She snapped her mouth shut as if regretting that he’d provoked a response.
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, Nicki, but Thad Osher isn’t a real nice guy. He’s got a chip on his shoulder a mile wide. And that chip has my name on it.”
“Why?”
Alex paused. “Now, that’s a real good question.”
He hadn’t really considered it before. He and Osher had clashed from day one, but it hadn’t really occurred to Alex to wonder why. Now he thought about that. He was going to have to take a much closer look at Thad Osher.
Obviously, Nicki wasn’t going to tell him why she’d called. Maybe he was a fool, but he couldn’t believe that her purpose had been to set him up. She wasn’t that good an actress, and there’d be no reason. Just lousy timing all around. He’d better find Vic Unsdorf and see if Thorton’s murder was rumored to be a gang hit for some infraction.
Something brushed his leg in the darkness. Alex kicked out and spun, his hand going for a weapon.
“Don’t you dare hurt my cat!”
The small animal had sidestepped quickly. Alex was instantly relieved that he hadn’t injured the little thing. Undaunted, the cat came forward and stropped his legs a second time. He bent and lifted the animal, whose white furred areas stood out even in the dark. Eyes glowed from some reflected light source.
“Sorry, kitty. You startled me.” He scratched its head and it began to purr in his arms. “You always did want a cat. What’s its name?”
“Ginger.” Nicki said it as if she was reluctant to tell him even that much.
“Hello, Ginger.” He stroked its silky fur, reminded of Nicki’s soft hair. That thought sent him walking over to set the animal on Nicki’s bed.
Time to get out of here.
“I’m sorry, Nic. I never wanted to hurt you, but it seems that’s all I’ve ever done. Your dad was right about us all those years ago. We were way too young. And now it’s much too late. Have a good life.”
He strode from the room without waiting for a response. Funny how much regret was eating at his soul. The past should never be allowed to haunt a man like this.
Nicki bit her lip to keep from calling him back. She’d never felt more confused in all her life. Why did Alex insist she’d called him? And what did he mean about her father? The two of them had never even met.
What difference did any of it make now? Alex wasn’t the boy of her dreams or the man she’d hoped he’d turn into. He was a bitter, angry man who probably regretted ever giving her a second look.
Ginger butted her hand, mewing softly in a bid for attention. Nicki stroked her absently while she wondered how Alex had gotten inside her apartment. The question nagged her out of bed. She reached for her robe and went from room to room checking doors and even the small windows. All were still locked, yet Alex was gone. Had he materialized from her dream?
She lay down again, but it was a long time before she fell asleep. Her dreams had turned to nightmares.
IN THE EARLY morning hours, Nicki drove out to her father’s horse farm. The property lay just beyond the much larger, wealthier Huntington Horse Farm. For years, the Huntingtons had been trying to get her father to sell out to them, but Bernie Michaels had a streak of stubborn that ran all the way to the core of his being. Despite the heart ailment that had caused him to cut way back on his activities, he still managed the farm and his family with a will of iron.
Nicki found her sister, Hope, in the kitchen clearing away the remains of breakfast.
“Hey!” Hope greeted. “Did you find my bracelet?”
“Good morning to you, too. I forgot to look. The car’s out front if you want to check.”
“You forgot to look?” Hope’s eyes danced merrily.
“In case you haven’t heard, a man was shot and killed behind my store. The police had the area sealed off until yesterday afternoon.”
Hope gaped at her. “What man?”
“Someone named Thorton Biggs.” Nicki walked over and closed the forgotten dishwasher.
“I haven’t heard a newscast in days, Nicki. Do they know who killed him?”
“Thad Osher thinks it was Alex Coughlin. Osher arrested him for questioning.”
Her sister gripped the edge of the table. “Oh, no! He couldn’t have! Osher’s wrong. Alex wouldn’t kill anyone.”
Nicki eyed her sister. “Funny, that’s what Alex says. But why would you say that? You don’t even know Alex.”
“No, but you used to like him.” Hope wouldn’t meet her eyes. “So you did get to talk to him?”
“Briefly.” She wasn’t about to tell her sister about her discussion with Alex. While puzzled by Hope’s initial reaction, she didn’t have a lot of time this morning for prying answers from her sister. Hope took after her father when it came to sheer cussed stubbornness.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Getting Big Man ready to take over to the Huntingtons. He’s going to cover one of their mares. What about Alex?”
“What about Alex?”
Her sister shifted, looking uncomfortable.
“Why all the concern about Alex?”
Her sister wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You used to be in love with him. Remember when you’d sneak out and meet him?”
“Some things are best forgotten,” Nicki said firmly. “Alex is one of them.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes. I do.”
Hope started to say something else, but ended up staring at her with a bewildered expression.
“You want to tell me what’s going on, Hope?”
“Nothing! Nothing’s going on.”
Her sister was lying, but why? “You didn’t try to set me up the other night by any chance, did you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Nicki recognized the stubborn set to her sister’s lips. She wouldn’t get anywhere with the direct approach.
“Hope, we need to discuss this.”
“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I’ve got to get going.”
She’d get nothing further out of her sister right now, Nicki realized, so she changed tactics before her sister could escape. “Hold on a minute. Why is Dad working with the Huntingtons?”
“You know Dad,” Hope said vacantly. “He doesn’t let personal issues get in the way of business.”
“But working with the Huntingtons?”
“Jeff Huntington wanted to buy Big Man. Dad and I argued for days, but he finally agreed not to sell. Big Man is going to turn this place around, Nicki. I told Dad he was a winner. Since Jeff couldn’t buy him, Mr. Huntington offered us a lot of stud money to cover some of his mares.”
“Oh.”
“Look, I’ve got to get outside and bring the rig around.”
“Dad lets you do that now?”
Hope nodded. They shared a look of sad understanding. “He’s letting me do a lot of the stuff now.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“Sure. I love this place and the business. It’s what I’ve always wanted. You know that.”
Nicki did. “I’m glad Dad’s finally accepted your abilities. What about your bracelet?”
“Huh? Oh. I’ll look for it later.”
“While you’re at it, how about returning those earrings of mine you borrowed a couple of weeks ago.”
“Huh? Oh. Right. I’ll give them back. Here comes Dad. I need to use the bathroom before I go to the barn.”
Nicki watched her sister skitter away. Hope was acting weird even for her, but Nicki would have to investigate the cause later. She wanted to know what Alex had meant last night when he said her father had been right about them. It had been her first thought on waking this morning.
“Thought that was your car I heard,” Bernie greeted her. “You in trouble?”
Nicki sighed. Some things never changed. “No, Dad. I’m not in trouble.”
Her father strode to the sink and washed his hands. He’d lost more weight that he couldn’t afford to lose and his surly expression was more pinched than usual. Was it just the light, or did his skin have a gray cast to it this morning? He didn’t like questions about his health, especially since he’d been diagnosed with that heart condition last year. If he’d just go and have the recommended surgery they could all breathe easier.
“Thought maybe that murder out back of your store was a problem for you. Heard they arrested that Coughlin boy.”
Nicki seized on the unexpected opening. “They let him go. But Alex said something that made me wonder. Did you know I was…sort of seeing him in high school?”
Her father studied her, his expression unreadable. “You and I have never been close, Nicki. My fault, I guess. We’re too much alike, you and me. Besides, you always reminded me of your mother.”
Nicki fought a sudden lump of emotion. Her father never spoke of his emotions. And he never spoke of her mother, who’d died in a car crash shortly after Nicki’s birth.
“But you’re my daughter and I’ve always done the best I could for you.”
“I know that Dad. I love you too. I—”
“You were barely sixteen. Alex Coughlin would have ruined your life. I told him as much. Knew you wouldn’t see it, but I made him promise to leave you alone. I’d do the same thing all over again if I had to and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter. Where’s your sister?”
“But Dad—”
“Here I am.” Hope came around the corner a little too conveniently. No doubt she’d been standing out of sight in the dining room listening. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah. Move the rig and we’ll get him loaded. It would have been easier just to sell him.”
“Maybe so, but we’ll make more money this way, trust me, Dad.”
Their father harrumphed and stomped toward the door.
“Hold it, Dad,” Nicki demanded. “Our conversation isn’t over. You can’t tell me you had a hand in an event that affected my entire life and just walk away.”
“Nothing more to say. It’s over and done, girl.”
“Well I have plenty more to say!”
“Naturally, but I don’t have time right now. We’ll talk later.” He opened the door and stepped outside.
“You’re darn right we will,” she called after him. “This conversation isn’t over.”
“We really do have to go, Nicki,” Hope said. “If you’re going to stick around, Brent’s coming out here today.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say. Are you going to wait for him?”
“If he comes before I have to get back and open the shop.” Three years older than Hope, Brent’s MBA had landed him a prestigious job at a firm in D.C. that kept him constantly busy. Both of Nicki’s younger brothers had turned into fine young men with solid careers.
She waited as long as she dared for Brent, occupying her time by preparing a casserole for supper and running a mop over the kitchen floor. Hope never complained, but Nicki knew taking care of the horses and their father left her younger sister little free time. There were times when Nicki felt guilty for finally walking away, even though she knew she had nothing to feel guilty about. Her father had basically forced her out once Hope was old enough not to need her constant support. He’d wanted Nicki to resume her own life and she suspected he’d felt guilty himself for needing her all those years.
She drove back through town, her thoughts more muddled than when she’d left. She hated that she couldn’t stop thinking about Alex. Or the past. Her lips still tingled from his kiss this morning. Why had he been so angry? If anyone should have been upset, it was her.
What had her father done?
As she drove through the sleepy little town of Fools Point, she tried to eye it from a stranger’s viewpoint. Small, quaint, almost picturesque with Sugarloaf Mountain for a backdrop. Still, this wasn’t exactly a tourist mecca. What would have drawn a stranger behind her store? Why her place? And why last night in particular?
Could the man have had something to do with Ilona?
No, Ilona said she’d never seen him before. But it suddenly occurred to Nicki to wonder what Ilona had been doing outside in the first place. She’d been too scared to venture out of Nicki’s apartment since she’d arrived. Had she tried to leave because she’d seen Alex loitering across the street? That could be why she’d described him so well. Maybe in the trauma of seeing the shooting, her mind had become confused. Her memory might have substituted Alex for the real killer.
Okay it was a stretch. Nicki was still trying to make excuses for Alex.
If only Ilona would call her again. She needed to know her friend was all right.
Nicki decided to concentrate on Hope’s skittish behavior. She and her sister sounded a lot alike. Alex could easily have mistaken Hope’s voice for her own. And Hope had been insistent about Nicki going out to look for that bracelet right away. But why would her sister try to set them up?
Nicki pulled into the alley to park in her usual spot behind her store. The lot was mostly empty. The only cars around at this hour belonged to the people living over the stores. She knew everyone, of course, but this was the first time she’d ever paid attention to the cars parked around her. Strangely uneasy, she decided the lot had a deserted, spooky feel to it this morning.
Small wonder. A man had died here. The knowledge seemed unreal. Everything looked so normal. The tall chain-link fence separated the parking spaces from the woods behind the alley that ran the length of the block. She’d always known this area was isolated, but it had never been scary before.
Her imagination was running wild, that was all. There was nothing to feel nervous about today. Now if she could just convince her heart to stop fluttering so wildly.
As she started toward the store, a sudden movement caught the corner of her eye. Nicki whirled. A figure stepped from behind the large trash bin.
“Ms. Michaels!”
The fear-charged adrenaline dissipated quickly, leaving her feeling spent and foolish. Matt Williams, a local boy, ran up to her.
“You scared me, Matt. What are you doing out here at this hour?”
The youth gazed around nervously. He was rumpled and dirty. In fact, he looked like he’d spent the night in the dumpster. There were circles under his young eyes and she saw several old and not-so-old scratches on his arms.
“Are you okay, Matt?”
His head bobbed agreement. Only then did she realize how tall he’d grown. He had to be close to six feet already, though he hadn’t yet grown into that gangly body. His features belonged to a youth. A trace of hair was barely visible across his upper lip. He was going to be a big, good-looking man one day. In fact, he reminded her of her oldest brother, Gavin.
“Can I talk to you, Ms. Michaels?”
“Of course, Matt. You want to come in and have something to eat?”
“No. Thank you.” His eyes slid back and forth, scanning the area. The very alertness of his stance was making her edgy all over again. Matt had a hunted look about him.
“Is something wrong, Matt?”
“It’s all over town that you saw the shooting.”
Nicki grimaced. Why had she let Ilona talk her into that foolish admission? She wasn’t surprised that gossip was all over town, but hearing a reference to it made her feel increasingly guilty. She should have stuck to her instincts and refused to let Ilona put her in such a vulnerable position.
“Is it true? Did you see what happened too?”
Her heart jumped into her throat. “Too? You mean you saw the shooting, Matt?”
The youth looked poised for flight. Fear lit eyes that were much too old for his fifteen years. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“No way! I’m not gonna end up like him.”
“Him who? You mean Thorton Biggs?”
Matt didn’t seem to hear her questions. “You were smart not to tell them everything. The cops can’t protect us, you know.”
She thought of Thad Osher and understood immediately. The man was a cop, but he was also a jerk. She laid a hand on Matt’s arm and he jumped like a startled deer.
“It’s okay, Matt.”
“No. That’s why I came to warn you. We aren’t safe anymore. You have to go away. Someplace safe.”
“Matt, it’s okay.” But his fear had communicated itself just fine. She felt suddenly exposed, standing in the middle of the alley like this. “Let’s go inside and—”
The crack of the gun was shockingly loud. The shot must have passed between her head and Matt’s because it shattered the corner brick right behind them.
“Run!”
The boy was already taking his own advice. He sprinted to the dumpster with impressive speed.
Nicki heard the second and third shots ricochet before she followed his example and ran. She headed for the steps leading up to her apartment. Her fingers fumbled with the keys in her hand, searching for the one that would open the door. Another shot. Louder. Closer.
She reached the steps. Running footsteps pounded toward her. Too scared to scream, she started to climb. The keys slipped through her fingers.
“Nicki!”
She whirled.
Alex stood behind her, a gun in his right hand. It was pointed directly at her chest.
Chapter Three
Her gaze riveted on the gun in his hand. Without taking time to explain, Alex spun around sweeping the alley with his eyes. Nothing and no one moved.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“That depends. Are you planning to shoot me?”
Her voice was tremulous and her face was pale, but Nicki stared at him without flinching. The alley was deathly quiet.
He bent to retrieve her keys. “Come down from there and let’s get inside.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is shooting out here!”
“I noticed.”
Still, she hesitated. Alex realized he’d scared her. Did she think he’d been the one doing the shooting?
“For crying out loud, Nic. Will you come down here and get inside? You’re a sitting duck on those steps. He may still be out here.”
“You’re just full of compliments these days, aren’t you?” But she wasted no more time coming down the steps. Her gaze swept the parking lot and worry lined her forehead. He handed her the keys and waited while she unlocked the back door to her shop. For an instant, he sensed her mental debate, but she didn’t slam the door in his face. He entered behind her and shoved the gun in his waistband.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Don’t you know?”
She flicked on an overhead light. The room was neatly organized with worktables and shelves. A bank of kilns stood against the outside wall.
“Did you think I was the one firing at you?” he asked.
She turned to regard him. “Were you?”
Alex sighed. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead, Nicki.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Nicki!”
“You’re the only one around here I’ve seen holding a gun, Alex.”
“What about the person you saw the other night?”
Her eyes darted away.
“Tell me what’s going on, Nicki.”
“You tell me. You’re the one with the gun.”
“Forget the gun, will you?” Exasperated, he glared at her.
The scream of an approaching siren halted her response. Alex swore softly. If Osher caught him in here with a weapon, he wouldn’t be given a chance to explain.
“Here.” He pulled the gun from his waistband and tried to hand it to Nicki. She backed right into a shelving unit filled with bisque. One piece fell to the ground and shattered.
“I don’t want it!”
“Hide it for me. If Osher catches me with it, he’ll throw me in jail and toss away the key. I don’t have time for that right now.”
“Of course not. How inconvenient. But as it happens, I don’t want to go to jail either.”
“Nic…”
The police car came to a stop out back.
“Are you going to help me or not?”
For a second, he thought she was going to refuse. Then she took the gun gingerly, holding it by the barrel. With a glance around, she walked over to a kiln and lifted the lid. Without ceremony, set the gun inside.
“Try to remember to pull it out before you fire that kiln,” he warned. “It’ll make a heck of an explosion otherwise.”
A loud rap on the door made them both jump.
Nicki stared in consternation.
“Take it easy. Answer it,” he whispered, “but don’t mention me, okay?”
“No. It is not okay.”
He kissed her forehead. “Thanks, Nic. I owe you.” He moved past her office and into the large bathroom. Leaving the door mostly open.
“Officer Jackstone!” she greeted.
Alex relaxed. He liked Derek Jackstone. The man was a good cop.
“We got a report of more gunshots here in the alley.”
“Oh no!”
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“I just came down. I must have been in the bathroom.”
Why did he keep forgetting how spunky she was, Alex mused.
“So you didn’t see anything?” Jackstone asked.
“I’m sorry. No.”
“Okay. Stay inside, Ms. Michaels. Away from the windows. I’m going to check around. Hold off opening the store for a few minutes, all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Lock the door behind me.”
“I will.”
Alex heard the sound of the deadbolt being turned in place. He stepped out to meet her. “Thanks, Nicki. You okay?”
“No!” She glared at him. “What are you doing here, Alex? Why are you carrying a gun? Who was firing at me? And why?”
“I wish I knew, Nicki.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the best I can do right now. I heard the shots, but I didn’t see who was doing the shooting.”
He rubbed his eyes, more tired than he could remember being in a long time. He was getting too old to stay up all night.
“Officer Jackstone wants me to wait before I open the store.”
“I heard.”
“That means he’ll be coming back.”
“Are you worried about me, Nicki?” He took a step closer, liking the sudden nervous awareness in her eyes.
“Take your gun and go, Alex.”
He reached out to stroke a tendril of hair. Her lashes fluttered closed in reaction. Such long, pretty lashes.
“I can’t do that, Nicki. They’ll arrest me.”
She stared at him, her concern palpable. She moistened her lips, reminding him of how sweet they could taste. He could smell the faintest hint of gardenias on her skin and he took another step closer, wanting to inhale the scent of her.
Remembered passion shimmered in her eyes, stirring to life each exciting memory of how it felt to hold her, to kiss her, to touch all those hidden—
“What sort of trouble are you in, Alex?”
She stepped to one side, opening the distance between them. A distance that should be a chasm, he thought ruefully.
“Nothing that concerns you. Go ahead and get your store ready to open. Pretend I’m not here.”
“My pleasure.”
He realized his curt answer had hurt her again. He didn’t want her hurt.
Nicki swallowed hard and managed a glare. How dare he send out such mixed signals? One minute he was devouring her with his eyes and the next he acted like she didn’t mean a thing to him and never had.
“I must have been really stupid at sixteen.” It would have made a terrific exit line. Too bad she couldn’t fade to black. Instead, she walked up front where he couldn’t follow without the risk of being seen by someone outside.
Alex made a sound of frustration. Good. Did he think she’d stand by and let him toy with her emotions? She hadn’t been pining all these years for Alex Coughlin.
“Why a craft store, Nicki?” he called softly from the shadows of the hall.
“Why not a craft store?” She picked up a duster and pretended to be busy. She did not want him to know how badly she’d wanted to taste his kiss again.
“I thought you wanted to go to college and become a teacher.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we want in life, do we, Alex.”
“What happened?”
She thought about telling him it was none of his business, but decided that was childish.
“My stepmother died in a car crash. I had to leave school and come home and help Dad. Hope was only fourteen and Brent and Gavin were still in high school. Someone had to run the house while Dad ran the business.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So was I, at the time. But things worked out okay. There was a financial settlement from the accident and Dad gave each of us a share. Mine was enough to buy into Millie’s Craft Shop before Millie retired. Millie taught me what I needed to know about running the store and eventually I bought her out. So I teach crafts instead of reading. How come you didn’t go to college like you planned?”
“Who says I didn’t?”
She turned and regarded him, letting her slow perusal express what she wanted to say. Nicki would have sworn he blushed.
He crossed his legs at the ankles and leaned against the wall. It bothered her that he could look so sexy and so at ease when she was so desperately aware of him on every level.
“Life may not have turned out like either of us thought it would,” he said, “but you could still go to school now.”
“So could you.”
“Nicki…” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
Alex had great hair. She remembered how much she’d liked running her fingers through his thick waves.
“You’re still very beautiful,” he told her.
The unexpected compliment left her speechless. Especially since he sounded so sincere. His eyes watched her with a hooded expression as he tucked a thumb into the waistband of his jeans.
“Do you ever think about us?”
The slow drawl of his voice sent remembered shivers of awareness skittering along her nerves.
“No.” The lie tripped off her tongue. He tipped his head to the side in an expression that clearly said he didn’t believe her.
“I have. More than once. You were the only good memory I took with me when I left Fools Point.”
Before she could reply, someone hammered on the rear door. Alex slipped inside the bathroom without a word.
Nicki opened the back door, expecting Officer Jackstone, and came face to face with Thad Osher.
“Ms. Michaels.”
Nicki squelched a shudder of distaste.
“Are you going to let me come in?”
If only she could say no. She stepped aside and Osher entered, sweeping the room with a hard look. The look he gave her was just short of a leer.
“Nice.”
Nicki swallowed a retort. She wouldn’t achieve anything by baiting him. Sergeant Osher lived for conflict. She gave him silence.
Osher scowled. “Tell me what happened out back.”
“I have no idea.”
“You telling me you didn’t hear the shots?” His eyes narrowed.
“I am if you’re asking.”
“Ms. Michaels, someone fired several rounds into your building. Be hard not to hear the shots when one of ’em struck right outside your door.”
“Not if I was in the bathroom with the water running and the door closed.”
“Is that right?”
He moved closer, deliberately violating her space. His eyes dared her to move away. Though he repelled her, she lifted her chin defiantly. “Yes, that’s right. And if you put that hand on me, you’d better be preparing to take me to jail.”
Osher hesitated, his hand raised in midreach.
“Because I guarantee you, I’m going to scream bloody murder.”
He dropped his hand to his side. “Now why would you want to go and do a thing like that, Ms. Michaels?”
“Because I don’t like being touched, Sergeant.”
He squinted at her. Anger added tight lines around his mouth and eyes. He wasn’t going to take this rebuke any better than the others she’d given him on those rare occasions when their paths had crossed. Nicki only prayed that Officer Jackstone was still outside and near enough to hear her if she had to make good on her threat.
“Really? You don’t like being touched, huh?”
“I don’t like her being touched either.”
Alex’s low drawl sent her spinning around. He leaned against the wall in another negligent pose, but Nicki knew him well enough to know that Alex seethed with controlled tension.
“I especially don’t like her being touched by you,” Alex added.
“Well, well, well. Isn’t this cozy?” Osher gave her an evil glare and then turned his entire focus on Alex. “We’ve been looking for you, Coughlin.”
“Looks like you found me.”
“Yeah.” Osher drew his weapon.
Nicki’s mouth dropped open in stunned shock. “What are you doing?”
Osher didn’t look at her. “You’re under arrest, Coughlin.”
“What for?” Nicki demanded. “He didn’t do anything.”
“Suspicion of murder.” He spared Nicki another glare. “I knew there was a reason you didn’t pick him out of the lineup.”
“There was. I couldn’t identify him.”
Osher sneered. “Right. We’ve got hard evidence this time.”
“That’s not possible,” Alex said calmly.
“You shoulda’ been more careful, Coughlin. You tore your shirt on the fence the other night. We matched the fibers.”
“Even if you matched fibers, which I doubt, I could have torn my shirt at any time.” But he had started to go over the fence after the figure running away and his shirt had snagged.
“Tell it to your lawyer. That gave us enough to get a warrant to search your place today.” Osher smiled triumphantly. “And your car, which has been impounded along with your motorcycle. Bet you’ll never guess what we found.”
“Dust bunnies?”
“A gun, smart guy. One with several rounds fired. One that is the same caliber as the one used to kill Thorton Biggs. Want to take bets this will turn out to be the murder weapon?”
Alex straightened. “Not unless you planted it yourself.”
“Turn around and put your hands on the wall,” Osher snapped, suddenly all business. “You know the drill by now, Coughlin.”
Slowly, Alex turned around. Nicki watched in horror as Thad Osher walked toward him. “But, Alex didn’t do anything!” she protested.
Osher shot her a look of scorn. “I’ll deal with you later, Ms. Michaels. Aiding and abetting is—”
In that moment, Alex erupted in a blur of action. He spun around so fast, Nicki barely saw the foot that caught Osher in the chest. She flattened herself against a shelving unit as the two men grappled. It was quickly apparent that Thad Osher was outmatched. Alex brought his hand down in a blow that sent the gun spinning across the floor, almost at Nicki’s feet. Without hesitation, she kicked the weapon under the shelving unit.
The fight was over in seconds. Osher lay doubled on her floor dry-heaving while Alex ran out the front door.
Nicki hesitated. Osher groaned. A trickle of blood ran from his nose. She ran to the back door and flung it open. Officer Jackstone was talking to the woman who ran the beauty shop two doors down. Nicki motioned him urgently.
“Ms. Michaels?”
“Alex just decked Sergeant Osher.”
“What?” He pushed past her. She followed more slowly, trying to get her emotions under control. She needed to be calm while she decided what to tell them.
Osher was pushing himself to his feet and cursing loudly when she got inside.
“The bastard took my gun,” he told Derek Jackstone.
“He did not!” Immediate anger pushed caution aside. “Your gun went under that shelf over there after you dropped it. And Alex wouldn’t have touched you in the first place if you hadn’t been threatening me.”
Officer Jackstone whipped around. “Thad threatened you?”
“He was leering at me. I warned him if he touched me I’d scream. That’s when Alex came to my rescue.”
“Why you lyin’ little—”
“Shut up, Thad,” Jackstone told him.
“He pulled out his gun and said Alex was under arrest. Then he threatened me so Alex hit him.”
“He threatened you?”
“I did not!”
She glared at Osher. “You said you’d take care of me later. I took that as a threat. So did Alex.” She turned to Jackstone. “I want to press charges of illegal harassment against Sergeant Osher. I’ve had enough of his threats and sexual innuendos.”
Osher swore and took a step in her direction. Derek Jack-stone stepped between them. “Cool it, Thad.”
“She’s lying!”
“Ms. Michaels, what was Alex Coughlin doing here?”
“He came to ask me if I saw or heard anything the night of the murder. He was under the correct impression that Sergeant Osher was trying to pin the crime on him. I think Alex planned to talk to all the shopkeepers along here.”
“Probably to find out who else saw him commit the murder,” Osher said.
Nicki scowled at him. “You appear to have some sort of grudge against Alex. Alex told me he was afraid of being railroaded into jail. The way you act, I can believe it.”
“Why you little tramp.”
“Be quiet, Thad.”
“You kept pushing me to identify him in that farce of a lineup. Don’t you dare deny it,” she insisted.
Derek looked like he wanted to curse. Osher did. Volubly. “Knock it off, Thad. This is a mess.”
“She’s lying. We’ll take her in and get her to tell the truth.”
“No. We won’t.”
Osher turned on him. “In case you forgot, I outrank you.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything, but I think you have. Let’s go outside and discuss this. Now!” Jackstone bent and fished Osher’s gun out from under the shelving unit.
“What about her?”
“Ms. Michaels, I have to ask that you remain here in town.”
“I have a business to run. I’m not going anywhere. But I meant what I said about pressing charges. I’m tired of being harassed by this man.”
Osher started to say something nasty, but Jackstone held up both hands. “Okay. Both of you calm down. I’ll return and take your statement later, Ms. Michaels. Let’s go outside, Thad.”
Thad did, cursing all the way. The glower he cast her way sent alarm racing through her. She’d just made a deadly enemy.
Nicki locked the door behind them, then collapsed in a chair, suddenly so cold she shivered. Maybe she’d made matters worse for herself, but at least she’d given Alex time to get away.
Was it the past, raging hormones, or sheer stupidity that made her want to believe Alex had nothing to do with the murder? Maybe it was just that she disliked Thad Osher so much she found it easy to believe the opposite of anything he said.
Osher could have planted the murder weapon in Alex’s car as Alex alleged, but that would make Osher the murderer. While Nicki could well believe the hotheaded officer might shoot someone, it seemed to her that if he did, he’d pretend it happened in the line of duty.
Still, there was a curious kind of logic if she assumed Thad Osher had killed Thorton Biggs for some reason known only to the two of them. Did she dare suggest this to Officer Jackstone?
No. She couldn’t. She’d told them that she’d seen the murder. Thad Osher was blond, not dark haired. To tell the truth now, she’d have to admit she lied earlier about witnessing the crime. That meant she’d have to tell Officer Jackstone about Ilona.
Oh, why had she agreed to cover for her friend? Stupid. Look where it had gotten her. Ilona was someplace hiding from her boyfriend and as a result, a murderer might go free.
Nicki suddenly sat up straighter. Ilona had said her boyfriend was a cop. A married cop. Thad Osher was married. And even though Nicki thought he was a creep, he wasn’t a bad-looking creep. What if he was Ilona’s cop? And what if Ilona had seen Thad Osher kill Thorton Biggs? That would explain her fear and her refusal to come forward with what she’d seen.
The more Nicki thought about the idea, the more she liked it. But that still left her with a major problem. How could she tell anyone what she suspected?
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Dani Sinclair
Mysterious, secretive…and sexier than ever!Good girl Nicki Michaels once had a steamy affair with wild, sexy Alex Coughlin–but he'd left town without a word. When he returned and kept his distance, Nicki hid her broken heart and held her head high. Then she became a witness to murder…and Alex came to protect her.Alex stayed away to keep Nicki safe from his undercover investigation–now she was in the middle of it. The fiery beauty rekindled passion Alex thought he could control, until he tasted her lips once more. With a killer trying to silence Nicki, love was a distraction Alex couldn't afford–and one he could no longer deny…
A midnight visitor
“Alex?” Nicki sat up, all too aware that she was naked beneath her sheet. “What do you mean, coming in here scaring me half to death in the middle of the night? Who do you think you are?”
“Your first lover?” He sat down on the bed, much too close to her. She could feel the heat of him against her hip right through the sheet. “Talk to me, Nicki. Tell me what you saw last night.”
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? Why now, when you’ve been in town for months?”
“You knew that?”
“That you were back?” She hoped he didn’t hear the pain she tried to bury deep in her heart. “Have you been gone so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a small town?”
His hand stroked her cheek. The caress made her shiver. “You’re still soft as midnight.”
She didn’t want to respond to his touch, but it would have been easier to stop breathing. She stared into his eyes and tried not to want him anymore. “We aren’t the same people, Alex.”
His mouth descended, covering hers. Firm lips demanded a response. This wasn’t the kiss of her dreams, or her memories. This was an assault of raw passion.
He broke away. “Yes, we are.”
Dear Reader,
I’ve been fascinated by Alex Coughlin since he appeared in For His Daughter. The man just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Since he insists on popping up, I decided he’d better explain why he walks so close to the edge with his dangerous, dark good looks and his collection of less-than-savory friends.
And as soon as I started writing, I discovered I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t forget him. Nicki Michaels is about to watch her peaceful, uneventful life blow sky-high when she tries to help a friend and finds herself on the wrong side of a two-way mirror, staring at the one man she’s never been able to forget.
Nothing is ever what it seems in Fools Point. I hope you’ll enjoy The Silent Witness.
Happy Reading!
Dani Sinclair
The Silent Witness
Dani Sinclair
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Mary McGowan and Karin and Rita Shaughnessy with thanks. A special thanks to Kelsey Roberts. And always for Roger, Chip, Dan and Barb.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With the premiere of Mystery Baby for Harlequin Intrigue in 1996, Dani Sinclair launched her dream career. An avid reader, she never took her own writing seriously until her only sister caught her between career moves and asked her to write a romance novel. Dani quickly discovered she could combine her love of action/adventure with a dash of humor while creating characters who find love together despite the odds. Dani lives in a Maryland suburb outside of Washington, D.C., a place she’s found to be a great source for both intrigue and humor!
Books by Dani Sinclair
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
371—MYSTERY BABY
401—MAN WITHOUT A BADGE
448—BETTER WATCH OUT
481—MARRIED IN HASTE
507—THE MAN SHE MARRIED
539—FOR HIS DAUGHTER* (#litres_trial_promo)
551—MY BABY, MY LOVE* (#litres_trial_promo)
565—THE SILENT WITNESS* (#litres_trial_promo)
HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION
690—THE NAKED TRUTH
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Nicki Michaels—Her favor to a friend made her a target for murder. Now she must put her trust in the man who loved her and left her.
Alex Coughlin—The town bad boy is back—but this time, his reputation hides a bigger secret.
Thorton Biggs—His death was premeditated—was it also a setup?
Bernie Michaels—Nicki’s father knows more about Alex than he’s ever admitted.
Hope Michaels—Is Nicki’s sister a pawn, or a player?
Thad Osher—He has a bad attitude, but does that make him a crooked cop?
Ilona Toskov—What did she see in the alley, and who is she trying to protect?
Pavel Toskov—Ilona’s brother is handy with his fists.
Vic Unsdorf—Will silence cost him his life?
Matt Williams—The precocious teen knows more than he’s saying.
Contents
Prologue (#uac0379b0-12f5-54c6-8485-f85c5f062441)
Chapter One (#u2ec9661d-d068-5cfe-b779-0528428880fd)
Chapter Two (#uc0c60ebf-cd65-5197-a3ac-6a2db4e6edbc)
Chapter Three (#u63fa1cad-d9a2-5df6-906b-0a48a829bdbc)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
“He knows where you are!”
The five words on the other end of the phone caused her stomach muscles to contort violently. She continued peering out the window at the street below straining to see. Was someone lurking in the doorway of the small appliance store across the street? His words made it more than likely. The darkened shop made it impossible to tell for sure.
“He can’t know.”
“I’m telling you, he knows. It’s all coming unraveled. We have to talk, right away!”
Her mind twisted, looking for a way out. A movement caught her attention. Someone was watching from the shadows across the street. She was pretty sure she knew who that someone was. She turned from the window, bumping her already bruised arm and nearly stepping on Nicki’s cat. She ignored the pain and the animal. If he was right, she was no longer safe. Not here. Not anywhere.
“How soon can you meet me behind the craft store on Main Street?”
“Two minutes,” he said, sounding surprised. “I’m at the restaurant.”
“Hurry.”
She disconnected but continued to clutch the phone’s portable handset like a lifeline. Reaching for her purse, she almost knocked the bowl of fresh flowers off the coffee table. The heavy weight of the gun inside the soft leather bag reassured her. She pulled out the weapon, staring at the dull, ugly metal. No matter. Ugly, but deadly. No one would add new bruises to her body with this in her hand.
She blocked the cat when it tried to escape into the night. Shutting the door, she hurried as she descended the back stairs over the shop as quietly as possible. It was nearly nine o’clock. Nicki would be closing the craft store any minute now. She must be gone before Nicki headed upstairs to the apartment for the night.
She reached the darkness of the alley and the parking lot behind the shops and stopped. Her lips formed a curse. She held Nicki’s telephone. Her own cell phone sat on the hall table by the door. She’d have to go back for it.
A car engine shattered the silence of the moonless night. The vehicle swung around the corner and entered the alley. There was no time to go back for her telephone now. Yet, even as she hurried forward, instinct screamed that she wasn’t alone. Someone else shared the darkness of the alley.
The car stopped in front of her only a few feet away. Now or never. It was too late for second thoughts. She really had no options left at all.
She stepped from the deep shadows.
The explosive sound of the barrage of gunshots seemed to echo off the walls of the old brick buildings. She turned to run. Her fingers punched 911 into the phone she still held.
“Emergency operator. Do you need police, fire or medical assistance?”
She reached the stairs. A figure rose from between two parked cars. She fired the gun in her hand at the shape, and knew she had missed. He ducked, but she had seen him—just as he had seen her. She fled up the stairs and back inside the apartment. The handset dropped from her fingers, bouncing across the carpeting. She grabbed her cell phone and plunged through the front door. Her heart hammered in her throat as her fingers pressed the now familiar number.
Chapter One
“Nicki? What’s the matter? You sound funny.”
Nicki locked the front door and turned off the main light. There were no customers inside the craft shop so it didn’t matter if she closed early. What did matter was the man leaning almost negligently against the brick wall near the mouth of the alley across the street.
“Nothing’s wrong.” She told herself he wasn’t staring at her windows, he was just waiting for someone. The second feature at the movie theater started at nine. He was probably waiting to meet someone and go inside. He could even be waiting for someone to come out from the last show. It was silly to feel so uneasy. “Everything’s fine. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you could go out and check your car after you close tonight. I can’t find my gold bracelet and I think I might have lost it in your car the other day.”
Nicki called on patience. Her much younger half-sister wasn’t generally careless, but the request didn’t surprise Nicki. If it didn’t involve a horse, Hope seldom paid a lot of attention to details.
Nicki’s gaze flicked to the street. The man was in deep shadows, but he was still there.
“Uh, Hope, I’ll let you know if I find it.”
“Okay. Did Ilona find you okay the other day?”
Shocked, Nicki forgot about the man and focused on her sister. Ilona Toskov had been her roommate at the University of Maryland more than eight years ago. Nicki had run into her at a Frederick shopping center a few weeks ago and they’d decided to meet for lunch the following month. Two days ago, Ilona arrived on Nicki’s doorstop, scared, bruised, and seeking a haven.
“What are you talking about?”
Hope hesitated. “Is something wrong, Nicki? She called here trying to find you and I gave her your number and told her where you lived. That was okay, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Of course. It’s just that Ilona is having some, uh…personal problems. I didn’t know she’d spoken with you.”
“Oh. She didn’t say anything about that to me.”
Nicki wasn’t surprised. Ilona had seemed horribly embarrassed. An abusive boyfriend who turned out to be married wasn’t something most women would want to discuss with anyone.
“Look, Hope, I’d rather you wouldn’t mention her name to anyone else right now, all right?” Especially not with Ilona hiding in Nicki’s apartment over the store at this very moment.
“No problem. So you’ll go out back right after you close and check for my bracelet?”
“I’ll check.”
“Thanks, Nicki. Talk to you later.”
Nicki replaced the receiver and stared out the window of her shop. The man was still there.
Nervously, she checked the lock on the front door, flipped the sign to Closed, removed the cash drawer and headed for her minuscule office. A car barreled down the alley leading to the parking area behind the building. Nicki tensed.
Good grief. If she kept jumping at every sound she’d need tranquilizers. Someone probably wanted to reach one of the stores before it closed. Despite her own slow evening, she hoped the store they wanted to reach wasn’t hers.
Nicki sighed as she opened the safe. Fools Point didn’t have much crime as a rule, but lately, things had been changing. There was that unsolved car bombing several months ago in which a man had died a terrible death. The police believed it was gang related. That struck a nerve locally, occurring so close to town. Then the rash of car thefts in the area was increasing, and Fay Garvey’s murder and the destruction of the Bide Awhile Motel had shocked everyone. Only a month later Jerome Inglewood had been killed in a bank robbery in D.C. Local men had been involved. They’d gone after Jerome’s pregnant wife because she was a witness to the murder.
Nicki sighed again. There was no such thing as a safe place anymore. Ilona had brought that home when she sought refuge in Nicki’s apartment two nights ago.
Ilona refused to go to the police. The bruises and threats her boyfriend had made had given both women good reason to be nervous.
Nicki closed the safe and spun the lock. She hefted the awkwardly shaped box of new supplies and tried to plan the next window display in her mind. But her mind wouldn’t cooperate. She was far too edgy.
A car engine idled behind the store. She needed to get a grip. There was nothing sinister in that. Three days ago, she wouldn’t have thought a thing of it.
Three days ago, her life had been a whole lot simpler.
Telling herself to stop acting so jumpy, she carried the box out front. The car suddenly backfired several times. The noise reminded her of firecrackers going off.
Nicki hesitated. She set the box down and listened hard. Gunshots could sound like firecrackers.
Heart in her throat, Nicki ran to check the lock on the rear entrance. That lock was the only thing that stood between her and whoever was in the alley outside. Thankfully, the dead bolt was in place. The rear door was secure and there were no windows back here to worry about. She was safe.
So was Ilona, as long as she didn’t unbolt the apartment door upstairs.
Nicki peered through the peephole. All she could see in the darkness was the hood of the running car. Nicki hesitated, unwilling to telephone the police until she was sure of what she’d heard. She strained to listen over the sound of blood pounding through her veins. The car continued to idle harmlessly.
Shots? Or backfires like she’d first thought? Ilona wouldn’t thank her for calling the police and drawing attention to the shop needlessly.
Nicki practically jumped three feet in the air when the telephone sliced through the silence. She hurried to the office, shutting down lights as she went. She didn’t want to draw attention to the store from the outside. Everything was okay, she told herself. Ilona’s boyfriend could not have found her. Ilona was safe.
But she had to be terrified.
As Nicki reached for the receiver, she saw both phone lines were lit. The business line flashed with the incoming call. Ilona? Calling from the apartment phone? Nicki lifted the receiver. A click filled her ear. She frowned, her pulses racing.
The house line was no longer lit. But why would Ilona hang up? She wouldn’t have.
Unless she didn’t have a choice.
Nicki snatched her purse from the bottom desk drawer. In her rush to get upstairs, she tripped over the edge of the large box she’d left sitting out. Stumbling sideways, she knocked into a cardboard display and nearly fell. With an oath, she shoved the box to one side.
She wasn’t usually clumsy, but a sense of urgency practically overwhelmed her. Nicki couldn’t explain why, but she needed to get to Ilona. She had to be certain her friend was all right.
Nicki fumbled for her keys, dropping them, then stepping on them in her frantic hurry. As she locked the shop door, a figure dashed out of the alley and raced across the street. For a second, her breath caught in her throat.
Was it the same man who’d been watching her shop? Though she’d never had a clear view of his face, there was something hauntingly familiar about the form that sprinted out of sight.
With an impatient shake of her head, she opened the communal door leading up to her apartment and the one across the landing.
Her apartment door gaped open, showering the steep staircase with light. She scooped up her cat, who’d taken the opportunity to try to sneak outside, and rushed up the stairs.
“Ilona!”
Silence met her call.
Nicki set Ginger down inside and closed the door. She didn’t have to search her small apartment to know Ilona was gone. The emptiness struck her immediately.
She nearly tripped over the handset of her portable telephone that lay on the carpet. Had Ilona dropped it as she fled? But why had she run? Nicki picked it up, trying to stem the apprehension hammering in her throat. There were no signs of struggle.
The telephone in her hand shattered the silence. Jolted by surprise, Nicki answered cautiously as if the instrument itself presented some danger.
“Hello?”
“Nicki!” Ilona’s usually sultry voice came over the line as if she was out of breath.
“Ilona! Where are you?”
“He found me!”
Fear welded the handset to Nicki’s fingers.
“I tried to go out the back but a man started shooting!”
“Your boyfriend shot at you?” The bruises and threats made that a frightening possibility.
“No! The other man.”
“What other man?” Ilona’s rush of words weren’t making any sense. “Slow down, Ilona.”
“Oh, God, Nicki, I just saw a man get killed. Right in front of me!”
For a second, fear nearly made Nicki deaf. “What?”
“A man walked up to the car and shot the driver. I saw the whole thing.”
Gunshots. Not backfires.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course not! I’m terrified! Don’t you understand? A car pulled up and a man walked up to it and opened fire. I was standing right there! I’ve never been so scared.”
“But you aren’t hurt?”
Ilona didn’t seem to hear her. “I can’t believe it! It was so incredible! Then I did something really stupid, Nicki. I called the police!”
“That’s not stupid. You—”
“No! It is stupid! They’ll have a record of the call! They’ll know there was a witness!”
Nicki tried to stay calm. “It’s okay.”
“No! It’s not okay! I can’t be a witness!”
“Take it easy, Ilona. Who was the man?”
“Which man? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’ve never seen either of those men before.”
“But you said your boyfriend found you.”
“I’m rattled, Nicki. Will you just listen a minute?” Almost calmly, Ilona began to describe the man in the car. Nicki thought about the man she’d seen run across the street.
“Nicki, I can’t tell the police what I saw!” Ilona concluded.
“Of course you can. You have to. A man is dead. You have to tell them—”
“No! You’ll have to tell them.”
Nicki stared at the flowers on her coffee table. The cut crystal bowl rested precariously near the edge of the table. “Ilona, I didn’t see the murder, you did.”
“I know that, but the police don’t. You have to pretend to be me. You can tell the police what I saw. I’ll describe everything to you.”
Nicki sank down on the couch and shoved the flowers back into place. “You can’t be serious.”
“You have to! Please, Nicki! They’re going to think the caller was you anyhow. I didn’t give them my name.”
“But—”
“Is that sirens in the background?”
Only then did Nicki process the sound of the siren turning down the alley. The police were here already.
“Promise me, Nicki! You have to promise me!”
“Ilona, this is crazy. Just come back and tell them what you saw.”
“I won’t. I can’t! If you don’t give them the description then the murderer will get away free. Is that what you want? Because I’m not coming back, Nicki.”
Nicki gripped the telephone even more tightly. Ginger jumped up beside her on the couch, her feline eyes staring with unwinking intelligence. Nicki reached out to stroke the comforting fur.
“Look, Ilona, I know you’re scared, but be reasonable. All you have to do is tell the police what you saw. They’ll protect you. I keep telling you they’ll protect you from the man who hurt you too.”
Silence.
Finally, in a stilted voice Ilona said, “The man who hurt me is a policeman, Nicki.”
The words filled her ear like a tidal wave of destruction. No wonder Ilona had refused to discuss going to the police. No wonder she was so frightened. Who do you turn to when the protectors turn on you?
“I didn’t want to tell you,” Ilona continued. “I was afraid you wouldn’t let me stay if you knew.”
“Of course I would have let you stay,” Nicki said automatically. But she realized she would have been even more nervous if she had known the truth. “Look, Ilona—”
“Don’t tell me I should report him. I’m not going to and that’s all there is to it. Now, are you going to cover for me or not?”
“But I can’t be a witness when I wasn’t even there.”
“All you have to do is describe what I saw. No one will know it wasn’t you in the alley. Please, Nicki. I’m so scared. I don’t want that man’s murderer to walk free just because I’m afraid.”
“Then come back and—”
“Nicki!”
Nicki realized her options were down to two. She could refuse, but then she’d have to explain the phone call. And that might put Ilona in harm’s way if her boyfriend found out. Only, to agree to this preposterous plan…Nicki envisioned the figure running across the street and hesitated. Maybe she had seen the killer after all.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Nicki listened closely this time. The general description could fit a dozen men right here in Fools Point. The dark jeans, T-shirt and wavy black hair also fit the man Nicki had seen standing across the street. The man who had looked so hauntingly familiar.
But it couldn’t be Alex. He’d been in town for months now and he hadn’t once come to see her. She shelved the tiny seed of hurt. Rumor had it that he’d taken up with Vic Unsdorf and some other unsavory friends. The men were nothing but trouble. In fact, Alex had already been questioned in several incidents lately. Her stomach clenched.
“Give me that description again,” she demanded.
Jeans, dark shirt, dark wavy hair, six feet, muscular.
Alex.
“Ilona, I can’t!”
She heard Ilona sigh. “Then you can’t. Take care of yourself, Nicki.”
“Wait! What about you? Where are you going to go?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll find another place to stay.”
Nicki gripped the portable phone more tightly. “Are you absolutely sure about what you saw?”
“I was standing right there!”
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
“I’ve got to go before he finds me. Thanks for everything, Nicki.”
“Wait!”
Ilona hung up before Nicki’s common sense could offer more of a protest. She shut her eyes trying desperately to think. An authoritative pounding sounded on her back door. Nicki quivered in reaction. Time was up. She had a choice—betray her old friend or her first lover.
Taking a deep breath, Nicki slowly stood and went to admit the police.
“ON YOUR FEET, Coughlin.”
Alex stared at Sergeant Thad Osher’s boyishly round face and thought about how good it would feel to plant his fist in that smugly satisfied expression. Keys jingled in the lock. The cell door parted. Alex came off the cot in one unhurried motion. The fast movement was enough to make Osher take a quick step back. His hand automatically went to the weapon at his side.
“Planning to shoot me, Thaddie?”
Red-faced, Osher glared at him. “Just give me a reason. Turn around.”
“Restraints?” He tried not to let the other man see how angry he was. “You really are afraid of me, aren’t you? My lawyer’s going to have a field day with this one. I don’t imagine Chief Hepplewhite’s going to be any too pleased either. He cares about things like a prisoner’s rights.”
“Shut up.”
Osher clamped the handcuffs around his wrists tight enough to pinch. Alex didn’t make a sound, not even when he was given a shove forward that caused him to crash against the far wall.
Down the hall, a cluster of men waited outside a room. Alex recognized Jake Collins right away. Collins had recently converted the old Perry place into a local bar and restaurant. There were a lot of wild rumors circulating about the newcomer and where he’d earned the money to pull off such a feat. But Alex knew that was mostly because Collins tended to keep to himself.
Alex’s gaze shifted. Another man was Officer Derek Jackstone, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He almost hadn’t recognized the man. Jackstone would do well if he ever tried undercover work. Put him in different clothing and he tended to blend in.
One of the other two men also looked vaguely familiar, but Alex couldn’t place him or the fourth man immediately.
The room they waited outside of served as the interrogation room. Alex had graced the insides before. He didn’t have to wonder why they were all being herded in there now.
“I’m going to take these cuffs off in a minute for the lineup, Coughlin, but just remember, one false move—”
“What lineup?”
“Shut up.”
Osher gave him another shove. All four men looked up. Jackstone took a quick step in their direction. He was a good cop. “Problem, Thad?”
“No problem. Right, Coughlin?”
Alex met Jackstone’s eyes. “Osher arrested me, but he won’t tell me the specific charge. He also won’t let me call my lawyer.”
Derek’s frown deepened. Osher scowled. “Plenty of time for that after the lineup.”
Alex spun around fast enough to make Osher back up again. “What lineup? I want to know why I’m being held.”
“You read him his rights, Thad?”
“Of course I did.”
“Osher’s never heard of illegal harassment,” Alex told Jackstone. “I think my lawyer is going to have to instruct him.”
“Take the cuffs off, Thad,” Derek said. “Mr. Coughlin isn’t going to cause us any trouble. Isn’t that right?”
“Not at all,” Alex told him pleasantly. “I plan to cause Osher here a great deal of trouble, but all of it will be legal, I promise.”
When Osher would have shoved him again, Jackstone quickly stepped between them.
“Back off, Derek,” Osher demanded.
“You’re letting him bait you, Thad. Let him go.”
“No way. I’m personally going to see this smart-mouthed punk is put away until he’s too old to hold a fork.”
Alex stared hard at Osher’s ruddy complexion. “Even if it means you have to manufacture evidence?”
Osher shoved Jackstone aside. He gripped Alex’s shirt-front. Coffee foully laced his breath. “I don’t have to manufacture anything, Coughlin. We’ve got an eyewitness to that shooting last night. That should put you away for a very long time.”
“That’s enough, Thad,” Jackstone said quickly. “Let him go and get those cuffs off him. We’ve got an audience, in case you forgot. The chief isn’t going to like this.”
Osher muttered a vicious oath, but he released the cuffs. Alex rubbed his chafed wrists openly, while trying to think back to the events of the night before. Eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable, but what if this one did pick him out?
“Come on, Coughlin,” Jackstone said quietly. “Let’s get this over with.” He opened the door to the interrogation room.
“This is your idea of an official lineup?”
“We aren’t equipped with all the bells and whistles, but this will do,” the young officer replied.
“My lawyer’s going to be rubbing his hands with glee.”
Osher cursed again, but allowed Jackstone to lead Alex into the room. Alex heard the lock click on the door behind them. The room was empty except for a table and three chairs. One wall had a two-way mirror. Alex resisted the urge to make a childishly rude gesture in that direction. Instead, he sauntered over to perch on the edge of the tabletop.
He stared directly into his own face, careful to keep his features as expressionless as possible, while mentally reviewing his actions the night before. Who was their witness? And exactly what had the person seen?
The witness could be one of the shop owners who’d stepped out back, or a customer in the parking lot, or even someone in one of the apartments over the shops. None of the stores had rear-facing windows. Fortunately, that meant the witness couldn’t be Nicki. She’d been inside her shop all night, right up until the gunshots had sounded.
Alex frowned. Once he’d learned about her craft shop, he’d deliberately stayed away from that part of town. The last thing he could afford was the complication of running into Nicki Michaels again after all this time. But everything had changed last night with a single phone call. All his good intentions dissolved. He’d stood across the street and watched her move around inside her store while he remembered things that were better left forgotten.
“Stand up, Coughlin.” Osher’s voice came from a speaker on the wall in the corner. “Everyone needs to stand against the rear wall and face the mirror.”
Jake Collins frowned. So did one of the other two men Alex didn’t know. In fact, that man looked decidedly nervous. Alex paid him a little more attention, especially when he found himself sandwiched between Collins and the stranger. The man’s jeans were crusted with dirt and greasy stains. He smelled of motor oil and sweat and stale cigarettes. He had a working man’s hands. Dirt was caked under the split and broken fingernails. Alex wondered who he was and what he was doing here in Fools Point. A drifter? They didn’t get many of those here in town.
One at a time, Osher had the men take a step forward and stand in profile. Despite the fact that all of them had dark hair and were of a similar build, if someone had seen Alex in the alley last night, they weren’t going to be fooled by this charade. Most police forces didn’t bother with lineups any more. They showed victims or witnesses pictures instead, but Osher was making it blatantly clear who he wanted this witness to point out. Chief Hepplewhite had picked a bad week to take his wife into D.C. for medical evaluation.
Hepplewhite was a good cop. Smart, thorough, with no axes to grind. Osher, on the other hand, couldn’t find a clue if he was stepping on one. Alex stepped back and waited to be denounced. Minutes later, Osher’s voice filled the room again. This time, he sounded disgusted.
“Okay, let’s do it one more time.”
Alex breathed a sigh of relief. The witness hadn’t picked him out. But then, what had the witness seen last night? He was going to have to find the person and have a little talk.
“TAKE ANOTHER LOOK, Ms. Michaels. A good look this time.”
Nicki couldn’t do anything else. Her insides had twisted the moment the four men had walked into the room. Alex Coughlin, big as life and twice as sexy, had strolled over to perch on the edge of the table. He stared straight into her eyes. Suddenly, she was sixteen again and desperately in love.
He had to be almost thirty-four by now. And he still needed a haircut and a shave. She almost smiled. Then she realized her fingers were half-raised as if to stroke that cheek. She clutched her hands together as Sergeant Osher spoke to the men.
Nicki shook her head to rid it of the wash of bittersweet memories. This was hardly the time or the place.
“Ms. Michaels, you aren’t even trying,” Osher protested. “You don’t have to be afraid. We’ll protect you.”
She pulled her arm away from his annoying touch. “I’m not the least bit afraid, Sergeant Osher. But, like I told you, it all happened fast. It was very dark outside. I’ve complained to city hall about that broken streetlight behind the store several times. No one does anything.”
“Ms. Michaels, I know it was dark, but you were right there. You saw the murder.”
Stubbornly, she shook her head. “I can’t point a finger at anyone, I told you that. I never got a clear look at his face.”
At least she could say that and speak the truth. She had never seen the murder let alone the murderer’s face. In her heart, she knew it was Alex she’d seen running across the street. But that didn’t mean he’d pulled the trigger, despite what Ilona had said.
Nicki would go to jail herself before she’d make a positive identification of anyone. She’d given the police the description Ilona had passed on to her. That was as far as she was willing to go. Her mind refused to reconcile the Alex she had known with a man who could walk up to a car and kill someone in cold blood.
Her Alex had been tough. Ready to defend himself—or anyone weaker if it came to that. But he had never sought trouble. Of course, he hadn’t needed to. It always came looking for him.
She shrugged off that memory. She was now certain Alex had been across the street right before the shooting. If she was right, he would have had to run across the street the minute she started back to her office with the cash drawer in order to be in position to fire those shots.
Okay, it was possible. Barely. She didn’t want to believe it. Nicki chewed on her bottom lip. Anyone witnessing a murder would run away. That didn’t make Alex a killer.
Did it?
“Try, Ms. Michaels. Try real hard.”
She glared at the policeman and decided even if she had seen the murder with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have said so to this bully. Thad Osher made her skin crawl. She didn’t like the way he almost leered whenever their paths crossed. He seemed to think he was irresistible to women, but he made her feel dirty and undressed.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t say for sure.”
She stared at Alex. A pang of loss held her transfixed. She’d thought him unbearably sexy at nineteen. Cocky. Sure of himself. Running all over town on that secondhand motorcycle he’d bought. Refusing to let the scandal surrounding his father’s death touch him, despite all the whispers and pointed fingers. Alex had been bitter and angry as a teenager, but he’d never been anything but kind to her.
She’d never forgotten the day he’d picked wildflowers for her down by Trouble Lake. He’d talked about his dreams for the future. A future that hadn’t included a sixteen-year-old girlfriend, she’d finally realized. Back then, she’d been so sure he’d return for her one day. But he never had.
Osher brought his fist down on his thigh in a gesture of frustration. “Did you see the guy or not?”
She looked into his glittering eyes and wanted to run. Instead she squared her shoulders defiantly. “Badgering me isn’t going to change a thing, Sergeant. I told you what I saw. I’ve looked at your suspects. Now, I need to open my shop.”
He stood too close. Nicki decided he had mean eyes. She fought down an instinctive need to back away and held her ground. Sergeant Osher was the type to take advantage of any perceived weakness.
“You know, Ms. Michaels, once the word gets out there was a witness, that shop might not be a safe place for a woman like you.”
A trace of fear mixed with her loathing. “Are you threatening me, Sergeant?”
His eyes flickered. “Not at all. Call it a friendly warning. You’ll be a lot safer once the murderer is behind bars.”
“Then I suggest you find him.”
She half expected him to grab her arm as she stalked from the room, but he didn’t. She could feel twin spots of color on her cheeks as she strode quickly past Carolyn. The pretty receptionist, who also served as the police dispatcher, watched with a frowning expression of concern. Another time Nicki would have stopped to chat. Now, she just wanted to escape.
Nicki hung on to her haughty pose as she left the building and stepped into the wilting heat and humidity of the August sunshine. She was trembling with reaction, so furious she couldn’t think straight.
How dare he threaten her? Because no matter what he said, Osher’s words had been a threat. He was supposed to be a police officer. One of the men who protected the people. But he was the kind of man who gave policemen a bad reputation. How could his wife stand to be around him?
Nicki clung to her anger as she crossed the street and walked briskly past the General Store. Bianca Tooley waved to her from inside the post office a minute later. Nicki didn’t pause to talk with the lonely woman as she often did. All she wanted was the sanctuary of her safe little store.
Seeing Alex again had brought back all sorts of memories. Hot nights and even hotter kisses. He’d been the town’s bad boy and her first lover. And she’d cried enough tears to overflow Trouble Lake when he left. But Alex had never once looked back, just as he’d sworn. As far as she knew, this was the first time in all those years that he’d ever returned to town. He hadn’t even come home for his mother’s funeral. Was he here now because of his sister?
Ironically, Kayla was engaged to marry a D.C. police officer. And according to Mildred Kitteridge over at the General Store, the town council had approved Chief Hepplewhite’s request to hire more help. Alex’s soon-to-be brother-in-law was about to become the second in command of the Fools Point police force.
Could Alex really have killed a man in cold blood?
The question plagued her all day long as she taught a decoupage class, a knitting class, and two ceramic classes between waiting on customers. By the time the last brush had been cleaned, the last jar of glaze put away, and the large kiln loaded and turned on, Nicki was more than ready for an early night.
She ate dinner without tasting a bite. She was too edgy to settle down with her needlepoint project. Her cat stropped her leg in sympathy.
“Thanks, Ginger. If only Ilona would call so I could be sure she’s okay.” But the telephone remained obstinately silent.
Ginger parrumphed and butted her lightly. Nicki scratched behind the cat’s ears, then went to check the locks. She drew a tub of steamy water and added the new bath oil she’d been meaning to try. The scent really did remind her of gardenias.
Lighting several fat candles, she piled her hair on top of her head, selected a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and picked up her novel. She would read and soak and dispel these useless memories that had haunted her all day.
Less than twenty minutes later, she knew it was no use. She simply couldn’t keep her mind on the printed pages. The story deserved her attention, but thoughts of Alex kept intruding. He was a mature man now. Still cocky and full of swaggering confidence, and still irresistibly attractive.
Maybe Hope was right. Nicki was turning into a spinster. She’d even started talking to her cat. Smiling, she patted herself dry and pulled on her long satin robe.
“I wonder if other single women like satin lingerie and sleep in the nude, Ginger.” The cat raised her head inquiringly from the rug. Seeing no food in the offing, she curled again and closed her eyes. Cats had their priorities straight.
Nicki refilled her glass and settled down to watch the news. When she found herself almost nodding off, she turned off the TV and the light. Going to the front window that looked out over Main Street, she paused. Her heart began to pound. Was there someone standing in the shadows beside the appliance store once again?
Nicki stared so hard her eyes began to burn, but no one and nothing moved. It must have been her imagination. There wasn’t anyone there. Still, she remained standing for several more minutes just watching to be certain.
Feeling a bit foolish, she rechecked her door locks and headed for the bedroom. Maybe she and Ginger should get a dog. A large dog, like Spider, the Labrador retriever Bianca Tooley always kept at her side.
Good grief. Hope was more right than she knew. Nicki was turning into Miss Tooley.
Nicki tossed her robe over the nightstand and climbed into bed. Was Ilona safe? Had Alex Coughlin really walked up to a car in the alley and shot a man in cold blood?
Her last thought was that she hoped not.
The dream began with a memory. Alex’s soft kisses slowly awakened her passion. His arms held her, the way only his arms ever had. But now they were a man’s arms. Hard. Protective.
She was dreaming and she knew it, but she clung to the dream, not wanting to wake. She was on the brink of something wonderful. She tried to ignore the sense of wrongness that disturbed the dream and tugged at her half-conscious brain.
The creak of the floorboard next to her bed snapped her eyes open. Too late, she felt the presence inside the room. A hand came out of the darkness to clamp over her mouth.
“Don’t scream.”
Chapter Two
Terror gripped her. Nicki struggled, but she was pinned beneath the weight of her attacker, tangled in her sheet.
“Nicki, stop it!”
The low growl brought an instant halt to her struggles. Though she tried to make out his features in the darkness, she couldn’t. But never in a million years would she forget that voice. She stopped moving. Stopped breathing.
“Alex?”
“I think you broke my nose.”
The adrenaline seeped from her body. Badly shaken, she lay beneath him while a myriad of remembered emotions assaulted her. She selected anger and drew it on like a cloak.
How dare he scare her like this?
“Get off me!”
She shoved as hard as she could. Alex rolled away from her in the darkness. When she would have reached for the light switch, he stopped her, gripping her hand firmly.
“No lights.”
“Why not? What do you mean coming in here scaring me half to death in the middle of the night? Who do you think you are?”
“Your first lover?”
The words charged the silence with an arc of electricity that should have been visible to the naked eye.
“You bastard,” she said quietly.
“Not technically.” He stood up and sighed. “I’m sorry, Nicki. That was uncalled for.”
“Yes. It was.” She braced herself on her hands, halfway to a sitting position. “What are you doing here, Alex?”
In the darkness of the room, she sensed him rocking back on his heels. “Tonight? I need to know why Osher thinks you are an eyewitness to the murder last night.”
Hurt primed her anger, pushing aside all the other emotions. Even though it was too dark to make out more than shapes and shadows in the room, she covered her bare breasts with the sheet and sat up, suddenly all too aware that she was naked beneath the thin bit of linen.
“Why don’t you go ask him? He has my statement.”
The whistle of Alex’s pent-up breath was loud in the silent room.
“I’ve done all the talking with Osher that I plan to do. Talk to me, Nicki,” he coaxed. “Tell me what you saw last night.”
There had been a time when she would have told him anything. Everything. A time when she would have cheerfully lied for him or worse. But she wasn’t sixteen any more and he wasn’t the brash young Alex Coughlin she’d loved so desperately.
No. Now he was the brash mature Alex Coughlin. And that made him twice as dangerous.
“Get out of my house, Alex.”
“I can’t do that, Nicki. You were in your shop last night. You would have had to break speed records to get upstairs to your apartment before those shots were fired. That means you didn’t see the crime. Unless you opened the back door. Is that what you did, Nicki?”
“How do you know what I was doing last night?”
“You know the answer to that,” he said after a moment.
“I want to hear your version.”
He sat down on the bed, much too close to her. She could feel the heat of him against her hip right through the sheet. A heat she would have welcomed with open arms once upon a time.
“No games, Nic. This is too important.”
“I’d say so. A man died last night.”
“Yes. Now exactly what did you see?”
Nervously, she tugged on the sheet, aware that his eyes tracked the movement despite the darkness of the room.
“Why don’t you tell me what you were doing here last night. Tell me why you were watching my shop. Why last night when you’ve been in town for months?”
“You knew that?”
“That you were back?” She hoped he didn’t hear the pain she tried to bury deep in her heart. “Have you been gone so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a small town, Alex? I knew you were back an hour after you breezed in on that motorcycle, acting like the world owed you big time. I can’t believe you’re still thumbing your nose at the police. I would have thought you’d have outgrown that phase years ago. Think your father would be proud?”
The carefully chosen barb struck its target. She heard his indrawn hiss. He reached forward suddenly and grabbed her forearms in a grip she couldn’t break.
The moment his rough palms touched her skin, her body seemed to go wild. The rush of sensual memories mixed with an undercurrent of new fear. Why had she pushed him? Ilona had described the murderer clearly. Alex fit the killer’s description right down to the clothes he’d been wearing.
“You always did have more guts than brains,” he said softly. “Let’s leave my father out of this. I haven’t got a lot of time right now. Tell me what you saw.”
Fear raised the hair on her forearms. Alex could kill her right here and no one would know. There wasn’t a thing she could do to stop him. The implacable hardness she sensed in him went deeper than she would have thought. Where was the young man she had loved so desperately? Didn’t any of him remain?
“I’m not telling you anything.” She refused to be cowed by Alex. Part of her didn’t believe he would harm her no matter how much he’d changed. But there was another part that wasn’t quite so certain.
“Stubborn. My God, you’re stubborn.” His hand stroked her cheek. The caress made her shiver. “But you’re still as soft as midnight.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
She didn’t want to respond to his touch, but it would have been easier to stop breathing. She stared into the darkness of his eyes and tried not to want him anymore.
“We aren’t the same people, Alex.” But the remembered feel of his hands on her was erasing time and stirring forgotten yearnings to life.
“Yes we are.”
His mouth descended, covering hers. Firm, hard lips demanded a response. For an instant, she yielded. Only, this wasn’t the kiss of her dreams, or even the kiss of her memory. This was an assault of raw, hard passion.
Nicki went still, even though her body clamored in instant recognition.
Alex broke away the moment he realized she wasn’t reciprocating. Rife with self-loathing, he leaned back, running a hand through hair that was already tangled and windblown from his ride over here.
What was he doing? For one crazed second, the exotic scent of her had driven him over some edge. He’d lost control in a way he hadn’t done since that summer all those years ago. One taste. One incredible taste, and it was fifteen years ago all over again. He wanted her with a longing that stunned him.
Alex stood and stepped away from the bed. Now he was the one who was shaking. He slicked his hands down his jeans, trying to still the crazy waves of desire that demanded more.
He’d always had excellent night vision, so despite the darkness, he saw how wide her eyes were. Wide and accusing. The sheet had slipped to reveal most of one rounded breast. She’d wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. She was still shaking as well, he realized.
“What do you want, Alex?”
The soft question lashed him with the barbs of her fear. He’d scared her.
Alex cursed. He felt dirty—like he’d never be clean again. The months of rough living were taking their toll. He was so tired of it all. Staring at her, he couldn’t help but feel he’d just soiled something important. The thought wouldn’t go away. He couldn’t afford to care, but he did.
“Thad Osher wants my neck in a noose, Nicki,” he said quietly. “He doesn’t care what he has to do to put it there.”
“Was it something you said?”
A tremor lay beneath her sweetly mocking voice. He hated knowing he had put it there. But he was secretly relieved that she wasn’t backing down. She had spunk. He should have remembered that about her. She never had backed away from anything. Not even when running with “that Coughlin boy” was the sort of reputation a nice girl didn’t want.
“Nicki, I’m sorry. I know you won’t believe this, but I’ve stayed away for good reason. In fact, I wouldn’t have come to see you at all if—”
“Gee thanks, that’s just what a woman wants to hear.”
“—you hadn’t begged me.”
He’d hurt her again, and he hadn’t meant to.
“What did you say?!” she demanded.
She yanked on the sheet, holding it beneath her chin as she sat up straighter. The action only drew his attention to the womanly shape of her. He’d wanted her when she was jailbait. Pure poison for a boy whose father was labeled a thief and a murderer. And he wanted her now when he was perilously close to being branded himself.
“Why did you call, Nicki? What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t call you in a million years.”
He wished he dared turn on a light. Her words sounded so sincere. What was she trying to pull?
A possibility exploded in his mind. He hated the very idea. But. Was there the slightest chance Nicki had been trying to set him up?
His Nicki? No. She’d never do that. But she wasn’t his anymore. Hadn’t been his for a very long time. She’d been in love with him once. And what did they say about a woman scorned?
For crying out loud! Nicki wasn’t like that. Was he going to start seeing bogeymen around every corner?
But what did he really know about her anymore?
He couldn’t turn loose of that thought. Maybe she’d known Thorton Biggs. They could even have been lovers for all he knew. Hadn’t he wondered why the man had driven into that alley last night? So much would be explained if Biggs had come there to see her.
The truth was, for all Alex knew, she’d killed Biggs herself and set Alex in place to take the fall. He might not like the idea, but he couldn’t dismiss it on the basis of what had happened between them fifteen years ago.
“So you wouldn’t call me in a million years, huh?” Her taunt rankled. “Well, I’m sure the feeling is mutual, but the fact is, you did call, Nicki. You said we had to talk, and like a fool, I agreed.”
Tired from too little sleep and the stress of the last few months, he was suddenly angry. Nicki had been the only good thing he could remember about Fools Point, and she’d used their relationship to set him up.
“You asked me to meet you at five minutes after nine behind your shop,” he snapped. “In fact, you pleaded—quite fetchingly. Ring any bells?”
“No!”
He ignored her protest, warming to his theme. The memory of that phone call was sharp and clear. She had called him.
“I came early. Don’t pretend you didn’t see me standing across the street.”
He’d known the moment that she saw him. He’d leaned back against the rough bricks and simply watched her. Anticipation had brought him there early. Caution had kept him waiting. He should have paid more attention to the caution.
“The way you kept watching me, I figured you couldn’t wait for a trip down memory lane,” he said, waiting to see how she’d react.
“In your dreams!”
“Fantasies.” He lowered his voice. “You were always part of my fantasies, remember, Nic? I never forgot. I almost walked across the street early, but you said to meet outside. I figured it was shades of yesterday. You wanted to see me, but you didn’t want anyone in town to know it was me you were seeing.” And that still stung.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never called you. And if you’ll recall, it was you who insisted we keep our relationship quiet fifteen years ago. I didn’t care who knew about us.”
Her voice sounded wounded, but he knew she was lying about the phone call. What he needed to discover was why.
“Except your father.”
Nicki winced.
“You’ve really perfected that innocent act, Nic. Only it won’t work. We both know just how innocent you aren’t.”
Her fist bunched on the sheet. “Yes, we do.”
Were those tears in her eyes? Anger drained away. What was he doing? This was all wrong. They shouldn’t be wounding each other like this.
“Get out of here, Alex,” she said with quiet dignity. “I never want to see you again.”
The calm words nicked his heart with another barb of guilt. He clenched his jaw and unballed his own fists. This was no good. They were dicing each other to ribbons. What if things weren’t what they seemed? Come to that, what in his world was what it seemed anymore?
“Don’t lie to me, Nicki.”
She stared at him in silence.
Alex ran a hand through his hair again. He wasn’t sure when he’d started hating his life, but he was damn sure things had to change soon.
“Did you know Thorton Biggs?”
She didn’t respond.
“Did you kill him, Nic?” That at least provoked a reaction.
“How dare you! I covered for you today. I was such a fool that I told them I couldn’t identify anyone. I should have told them the truth. I should have told them how you came running out of that alley. But I didn’t. I’m so stupid, I didn’t.”
Tears were thick in her voice. He reached for her, but she drew back against the headboard. With an oath, he walked over to her bedroom window, disgusted with himself. He pushed the hair back from his face and stared out at the night.
“I didn’t kill Thorton, Nicki. We were…acquaintances.”
“Fellow gang members?”
He didn’t look toward her. “Call it what you like. I ran behind your shop when I heard the shots. Someone had climbed over the fence right before I got there. He was disappearing into the trees when I saw him. I tried to go after him, but I got caught on the fence and he had too much of a head start, so I went to check Thorton. It was obvious he was beyond help. I knew what would happen if they caught me there, so I ran in the opposite direction.”
“Why tell me? Tell Sergeant Osher.”
Alex snorted. “Think he’d listen, let alone believe? Look, I’m sorry Nicki.” For so many things. “I don’t want to believe you set me up—”
“How nice of you.”
“—but you asked me to come or I never would have set foot anywhere near you.”
“You mentioned that fact.”
He cursed under his breath. She didn’t understand, and he was in no position to explain.
“Look, are you going tell me why you called me or not?”
“I did not call you.”
Nicki crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. The sheet slipped dangerously low. Distracted, he stared at her in the darkness.
“What the devil are you wearing?” he growled. He knew quite well that the large expanse of skin was angel soft to the touch. There was nothing wrong with his memory—or his imagination.
“Nothing.”
Alex cursed again. She knew just how to bait him. Her virginal body had been so softly lush, rounded in gentle curves that made a young man’s hands itch to explore. The last vestiges of baby fat had been starting to disappear. Those vestiges were completely gone now, but the curves were still there, honed and slimmed to a more mature, but no less desirable look. He had watched her figure last night, even when he told himself he was being a fool. Watched and wanted, when it was the last thing he should have been doing.
But any man would look at Nicki. The smart ones would go back for a second look.
“Go away Alex. I don’t want you here.”
Her words snapped his mind back to business. This was no time to let the past intrude. “Thank you for not telling Osher you saw me. If you had, I’d still be in jail.”
“He arrested you?” She snapped her mouth shut as if regretting that he’d provoked a response.
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, Nicki, but Thad Osher isn’t a real nice guy. He’s got a chip on his shoulder a mile wide. And that chip has my name on it.”
“Why?”
Alex paused. “Now, that’s a real good question.”
He hadn’t really considered it before. He and Osher had clashed from day one, but it hadn’t really occurred to Alex to wonder why. Now he thought about that. He was going to have to take a much closer look at Thad Osher.
Obviously, Nicki wasn’t going to tell him why she’d called. Maybe he was a fool, but he couldn’t believe that her purpose had been to set him up. She wasn’t that good an actress, and there’d be no reason. Just lousy timing all around. He’d better find Vic Unsdorf and see if Thorton’s murder was rumored to be a gang hit for some infraction.
Something brushed his leg in the darkness. Alex kicked out and spun, his hand going for a weapon.
“Don’t you dare hurt my cat!”
The small animal had sidestepped quickly. Alex was instantly relieved that he hadn’t injured the little thing. Undaunted, the cat came forward and stropped his legs a second time. He bent and lifted the animal, whose white furred areas stood out even in the dark. Eyes glowed from some reflected light source.
“Sorry, kitty. You startled me.” He scratched its head and it began to purr in his arms. “You always did want a cat. What’s its name?”
“Ginger.” Nicki said it as if she was reluctant to tell him even that much.
“Hello, Ginger.” He stroked its silky fur, reminded of Nicki’s soft hair. That thought sent him walking over to set the animal on Nicki’s bed.
Time to get out of here.
“I’m sorry, Nic. I never wanted to hurt you, but it seems that’s all I’ve ever done. Your dad was right about us all those years ago. We were way too young. And now it’s much too late. Have a good life.”
He strode from the room without waiting for a response. Funny how much regret was eating at his soul. The past should never be allowed to haunt a man like this.
Nicki bit her lip to keep from calling him back. She’d never felt more confused in all her life. Why did Alex insist she’d called him? And what did he mean about her father? The two of them had never even met.
What difference did any of it make now? Alex wasn’t the boy of her dreams or the man she’d hoped he’d turn into. He was a bitter, angry man who probably regretted ever giving her a second look.
Ginger butted her hand, mewing softly in a bid for attention. Nicki stroked her absently while she wondered how Alex had gotten inside her apartment. The question nagged her out of bed. She reached for her robe and went from room to room checking doors and even the small windows. All were still locked, yet Alex was gone. Had he materialized from her dream?
She lay down again, but it was a long time before she fell asleep. Her dreams had turned to nightmares.
IN THE EARLY morning hours, Nicki drove out to her father’s horse farm. The property lay just beyond the much larger, wealthier Huntington Horse Farm. For years, the Huntingtons had been trying to get her father to sell out to them, but Bernie Michaels had a streak of stubborn that ran all the way to the core of his being. Despite the heart ailment that had caused him to cut way back on his activities, he still managed the farm and his family with a will of iron.
Nicki found her sister, Hope, in the kitchen clearing away the remains of breakfast.
“Hey!” Hope greeted. “Did you find my bracelet?”
“Good morning to you, too. I forgot to look. The car’s out front if you want to check.”
“You forgot to look?” Hope’s eyes danced merrily.
“In case you haven’t heard, a man was shot and killed behind my store. The police had the area sealed off until yesterday afternoon.”
Hope gaped at her. “What man?”
“Someone named Thorton Biggs.” Nicki walked over and closed the forgotten dishwasher.
“I haven’t heard a newscast in days, Nicki. Do they know who killed him?”
“Thad Osher thinks it was Alex Coughlin. Osher arrested him for questioning.”
Her sister gripped the edge of the table. “Oh, no! He couldn’t have! Osher’s wrong. Alex wouldn’t kill anyone.”
Nicki eyed her sister. “Funny, that’s what Alex says. But why would you say that? You don’t even know Alex.”
“No, but you used to like him.” Hope wouldn’t meet her eyes. “So you did get to talk to him?”
“Briefly.” She wasn’t about to tell her sister about her discussion with Alex. While puzzled by Hope’s initial reaction, she didn’t have a lot of time this morning for prying answers from her sister. Hope took after her father when it came to sheer cussed stubbornness.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Getting Big Man ready to take over to the Huntingtons. He’s going to cover one of their mares. What about Alex?”
“What about Alex?”
Her sister shifted, looking uncomfortable.
“Why all the concern about Alex?”
Her sister wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You used to be in love with him. Remember when you’d sneak out and meet him?”
“Some things are best forgotten,” Nicki said firmly. “Alex is one of them.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes. I do.”
Hope started to say something else, but ended up staring at her with a bewildered expression.
“You want to tell me what’s going on, Hope?”
“Nothing! Nothing’s going on.”
Her sister was lying, but why? “You didn’t try to set me up the other night by any chance, did you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Nicki recognized the stubborn set to her sister’s lips. She wouldn’t get anywhere with the direct approach.
“Hope, we need to discuss this.”
“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about and I’ve got to get going.”
She’d get nothing further out of her sister right now, Nicki realized, so she changed tactics before her sister could escape. “Hold on a minute. Why is Dad working with the Huntingtons?”
“You know Dad,” Hope said vacantly. “He doesn’t let personal issues get in the way of business.”
“But working with the Huntingtons?”
“Jeff Huntington wanted to buy Big Man. Dad and I argued for days, but he finally agreed not to sell. Big Man is going to turn this place around, Nicki. I told Dad he was a winner. Since Jeff couldn’t buy him, Mr. Huntington offered us a lot of stud money to cover some of his mares.”
“Oh.”
“Look, I’ve got to get outside and bring the rig around.”
“Dad lets you do that now?”
Hope nodded. They shared a look of sad understanding. “He’s letting me do a lot of the stuff now.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“Sure. I love this place and the business. It’s what I’ve always wanted. You know that.”
Nicki did. “I’m glad Dad’s finally accepted your abilities. What about your bracelet?”
“Huh? Oh. I’ll look for it later.”
“While you’re at it, how about returning those earrings of mine you borrowed a couple of weeks ago.”
“Huh? Oh. Right. I’ll give them back. Here comes Dad. I need to use the bathroom before I go to the barn.”
Nicki watched her sister skitter away. Hope was acting weird even for her, but Nicki would have to investigate the cause later. She wanted to know what Alex had meant last night when he said her father had been right about them. It had been her first thought on waking this morning.
“Thought that was your car I heard,” Bernie greeted her. “You in trouble?”
Nicki sighed. Some things never changed. “No, Dad. I’m not in trouble.”
Her father strode to the sink and washed his hands. He’d lost more weight that he couldn’t afford to lose and his surly expression was more pinched than usual. Was it just the light, or did his skin have a gray cast to it this morning? He didn’t like questions about his health, especially since he’d been diagnosed with that heart condition last year. If he’d just go and have the recommended surgery they could all breathe easier.
“Thought maybe that murder out back of your store was a problem for you. Heard they arrested that Coughlin boy.”
Nicki seized on the unexpected opening. “They let him go. But Alex said something that made me wonder. Did you know I was…sort of seeing him in high school?”
Her father studied her, his expression unreadable. “You and I have never been close, Nicki. My fault, I guess. We’re too much alike, you and me. Besides, you always reminded me of your mother.”
Nicki fought a sudden lump of emotion. Her father never spoke of his emotions. And he never spoke of her mother, who’d died in a car crash shortly after Nicki’s birth.
“But you’re my daughter and I’ve always done the best I could for you.”
“I know that Dad. I love you too. I—”
“You were barely sixteen. Alex Coughlin would have ruined your life. I told him as much. Knew you wouldn’t see it, but I made him promise to leave you alone. I’d do the same thing all over again if I had to and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter. Where’s your sister?”
“But Dad—”
“Here I am.” Hope came around the corner a little too conveniently. No doubt she’d been standing out of sight in the dining room listening. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah. Move the rig and we’ll get him loaded. It would have been easier just to sell him.”
“Maybe so, but we’ll make more money this way, trust me, Dad.”
Their father harrumphed and stomped toward the door.
“Hold it, Dad,” Nicki demanded. “Our conversation isn’t over. You can’t tell me you had a hand in an event that affected my entire life and just walk away.”
“Nothing more to say. It’s over and done, girl.”
“Well I have plenty more to say!”
“Naturally, but I don’t have time right now. We’ll talk later.” He opened the door and stepped outside.
“You’re darn right we will,” she called after him. “This conversation isn’t over.”
“We really do have to go, Nicki,” Hope said. “If you’re going to stick around, Brent’s coming out here today.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say. Are you going to wait for him?”
“If he comes before I have to get back and open the shop.” Three years older than Hope, Brent’s MBA had landed him a prestigious job at a firm in D.C. that kept him constantly busy. Both of Nicki’s younger brothers had turned into fine young men with solid careers.
She waited as long as she dared for Brent, occupying her time by preparing a casserole for supper and running a mop over the kitchen floor. Hope never complained, but Nicki knew taking care of the horses and their father left her younger sister little free time. There were times when Nicki felt guilty for finally walking away, even though she knew she had nothing to feel guilty about. Her father had basically forced her out once Hope was old enough not to need her constant support. He’d wanted Nicki to resume her own life and she suspected he’d felt guilty himself for needing her all those years.
She drove back through town, her thoughts more muddled than when she’d left. She hated that she couldn’t stop thinking about Alex. Or the past. Her lips still tingled from his kiss this morning. Why had he been so angry? If anyone should have been upset, it was her.
What had her father done?
As she drove through the sleepy little town of Fools Point, she tried to eye it from a stranger’s viewpoint. Small, quaint, almost picturesque with Sugarloaf Mountain for a backdrop. Still, this wasn’t exactly a tourist mecca. What would have drawn a stranger behind her store? Why her place? And why last night in particular?
Could the man have had something to do with Ilona?
No, Ilona said she’d never seen him before. But it suddenly occurred to Nicki to wonder what Ilona had been doing outside in the first place. She’d been too scared to venture out of Nicki’s apartment since she’d arrived. Had she tried to leave because she’d seen Alex loitering across the street? That could be why she’d described him so well. Maybe in the trauma of seeing the shooting, her mind had become confused. Her memory might have substituted Alex for the real killer.
Okay it was a stretch. Nicki was still trying to make excuses for Alex.
If only Ilona would call her again. She needed to know her friend was all right.
Nicki decided to concentrate on Hope’s skittish behavior. She and her sister sounded a lot alike. Alex could easily have mistaken Hope’s voice for her own. And Hope had been insistent about Nicki going out to look for that bracelet right away. But why would her sister try to set them up?
Nicki pulled into the alley to park in her usual spot behind her store. The lot was mostly empty. The only cars around at this hour belonged to the people living over the stores. She knew everyone, of course, but this was the first time she’d ever paid attention to the cars parked around her. Strangely uneasy, she decided the lot had a deserted, spooky feel to it this morning.
Small wonder. A man had died here. The knowledge seemed unreal. Everything looked so normal. The tall chain-link fence separated the parking spaces from the woods behind the alley that ran the length of the block. She’d always known this area was isolated, but it had never been scary before.
Her imagination was running wild, that was all. There was nothing to feel nervous about today. Now if she could just convince her heart to stop fluttering so wildly.
As she started toward the store, a sudden movement caught the corner of her eye. Nicki whirled. A figure stepped from behind the large trash bin.
“Ms. Michaels!”
The fear-charged adrenaline dissipated quickly, leaving her feeling spent and foolish. Matt Williams, a local boy, ran up to her.
“You scared me, Matt. What are you doing out here at this hour?”
The youth gazed around nervously. He was rumpled and dirty. In fact, he looked like he’d spent the night in the dumpster. There were circles under his young eyes and she saw several old and not-so-old scratches on his arms.
“Are you okay, Matt?”
His head bobbed agreement. Only then did she realize how tall he’d grown. He had to be close to six feet already, though he hadn’t yet grown into that gangly body. His features belonged to a youth. A trace of hair was barely visible across his upper lip. He was going to be a big, good-looking man one day. In fact, he reminded her of her oldest brother, Gavin.
“Can I talk to you, Ms. Michaels?”
“Of course, Matt. You want to come in and have something to eat?”
“No. Thank you.” His eyes slid back and forth, scanning the area. The very alertness of his stance was making her edgy all over again. Matt had a hunted look about him.
“Is something wrong, Matt?”
“It’s all over town that you saw the shooting.”
Nicki grimaced. Why had she let Ilona talk her into that foolish admission? She wasn’t surprised that gossip was all over town, but hearing a reference to it made her feel increasingly guilty. She should have stuck to her instincts and refused to let Ilona put her in such a vulnerable position.
“Is it true? Did you see what happened too?”
Her heart jumped into her throat. “Too? You mean you saw the shooting, Matt?”
The youth looked poised for flight. Fear lit eyes that were much too old for his fifteen years. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“No way! I’m not gonna end up like him.”
“Him who? You mean Thorton Biggs?”
Matt didn’t seem to hear her questions. “You were smart not to tell them everything. The cops can’t protect us, you know.”
She thought of Thad Osher and understood immediately. The man was a cop, but he was also a jerk. She laid a hand on Matt’s arm and he jumped like a startled deer.
“It’s okay, Matt.”
“No. That’s why I came to warn you. We aren’t safe anymore. You have to go away. Someplace safe.”
“Matt, it’s okay.” But his fear had communicated itself just fine. She felt suddenly exposed, standing in the middle of the alley like this. “Let’s go inside and—”
The crack of the gun was shockingly loud. The shot must have passed between her head and Matt’s because it shattered the corner brick right behind them.
“Run!”
The boy was already taking his own advice. He sprinted to the dumpster with impressive speed.
Nicki heard the second and third shots ricochet before she followed his example and ran. She headed for the steps leading up to her apartment. Her fingers fumbled with the keys in her hand, searching for the one that would open the door. Another shot. Louder. Closer.
She reached the steps. Running footsteps pounded toward her. Too scared to scream, she started to climb. The keys slipped through her fingers.
“Nicki!”
She whirled.
Alex stood behind her, a gun in his right hand. It was pointed directly at her chest.
Chapter Three
Her gaze riveted on the gun in his hand. Without taking time to explain, Alex spun around sweeping the alley with his eyes. Nothing and no one moved.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“That depends. Are you planning to shoot me?”
Her voice was tremulous and her face was pale, but Nicki stared at him without flinching. The alley was deathly quiet.
He bent to retrieve her keys. “Come down from there and let’s get inside.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is shooting out here!”
“I noticed.”
Still, she hesitated. Alex realized he’d scared her. Did she think he’d been the one doing the shooting?
“For crying out loud, Nic. Will you come down here and get inside? You’re a sitting duck on those steps. He may still be out here.”
“You’re just full of compliments these days, aren’t you?” But she wasted no more time coming down the steps. Her gaze swept the parking lot and worry lined her forehead. He handed her the keys and waited while she unlocked the back door to her shop. For an instant, he sensed her mental debate, but she didn’t slam the door in his face. He entered behind her and shoved the gun in his waistband.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Don’t you know?”
She flicked on an overhead light. The room was neatly organized with worktables and shelves. A bank of kilns stood against the outside wall.
“Did you think I was the one firing at you?” he asked.
She turned to regard him. “Were you?”
Alex sighed. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead, Nicki.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Nicki!”
“You’re the only one around here I’ve seen holding a gun, Alex.”
“What about the person you saw the other night?”
Her eyes darted away.
“Tell me what’s going on, Nicki.”
“You tell me. You’re the one with the gun.”
“Forget the gun, will you?” Exasperated, he glared at her.
The scream of an approaching siren halted her response. Alex swore softly. If Osher caught him in here with a weapon, he wouldn’t be given a chance to explain.
“Here.” He pulled the gun from his waistband and tried to hand it to Nicki. She backed right into a shelving unit filled with bisque. One piece fell to the ground and shattered.
“I don’t want it!”
“Hide it for me. If Osher catches me with it, he’ll throw me in jail and toss away the key. I don’t have time for that right now.”
“Of course not. How inconvenient. But as it happens, I don’t want to go to jail either.”
“Nic…”
The police car came to a stop out back.
“Are you going to help me or not?”
For a second, he thought she was going to refuse. Then she took the gun gingerly, holding it by the barrel. With a glance around, she walked over to a kiln and lifted the lid. Without ceremony, set the gun inside.
“Try to remember to pull it out before you fire that kiln,” he warned. “It’ll make a heck of an explosion otherwise.”
A loud rap on the door made them both jump.
Nicki stared in consternation.
“Take it easy. Answer it,” he whispered, “but don’t mention me, okay?”
“No. It is not okay.”
He kissed her forehead. “Thanks, Nic. I owe you.” He moved past her office and into the large bathroom. Leaving the door mostly open.
“Officer Jackstone!” she greeted.
Alex relaxed. He liked Derek Jackstone. The man was a good cop.
“We got a report of more gunshots here in the alley.”
“Oh no!”
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“I just came down. I must have been in the bathroom.”
Why did he keep forgetting how spunky she was, Alex mused.
“So you didn’t see anything?” Jackstone asked.
“I’m sorry. No.”
“Okay. Stay inside, Ms. Michaels. Away from the windows. I’m going to check around. Hold off opening the store for a few minutes, all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Lock the door behind me.”
“I will.”
Alex heard the sound of the deadbolt being turned in place. He stepped out to meet her. “Thanks, Nicki. You okay?”
“No!” She glared at him. “What are you doing here, Alex? Why are you carrying a gun? Who was firing at me? And why?”
“I wish I knew, Nicki.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the best I can do right now. I heard the shots, but I didn’t see who was doing the shooting.”
He rubbed his eyes, more tired than he could remember being in a long time. He was getting too old to stay up all night.
“Officer Jackstone wants me to wait before I open the store.”
“I heard.”
“That means he’ll be coming back.”
“Are you worried about me, Nicki?” He took a step closer, liking the sudden nervous awareness in her eyes.
“Take your gun and go, Alex.”
He reached out to stroke a tendril of hair. Her lashes fluttered closed in reaction. Such long, pretty lashes.
“I can’t do that, Nicki. They’ll arrest me.”
She stared at him, her concern palpable. She moistened her lips, reminding him of how sweet they could taste. He could smell the faintest hint of gardenias on her skin and he took another step closer, wanting to inhale the scent of her.
Remembered passion shimmered in her eyes, stirring to life each exciting memory of how it felt to hold her, to kiss her, to touch all those hidden—
“What sort of trouble are you in, Alex?”
She stepped to one side, opening the distance between them. A distance that should be a chasm, he thought ruefully.
“Nothing that concerns you. Go ahead and get your store ready to open. Pretend I’m not here.”
“My pleasure.”
He realized his curt answer had hurt her again. He didn’t want her hurt.
Nicki swallowed hard and managed a glare. How dare he send out such mixed signals? One minute he was devouring her with his eyes and the next he acted like she didn’t mean a thing to him and never had.
“I must have been really stupid at sixteen.” It would have made a terrific exit line. Too bad she couldn’t fade to black. Instead, she walked up front where he couldn’t follow without the risk of being seen by someone outside.
Alex made a sound of frustration. Good. Did he think she’d stand by and let him toy with her emotions? She hadn’t been pining all these years for Alex Coughlin.
“Why a craft store, Nicki?” he called softly from the shadows of the hall.
“Why not a craft store?” She picked up a duster and pretended to be busy. She did not want him to know how badly she’d wanted to taste his kiss again.
“I thought you wanted to go to college and become a teacher.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we want in life, do we, Alex.”
“What happened?”
She thought about telling him it was none of his business, but decided that was childish.
“My stepmother died in a car crash. I had to leave school and come home and help Dad. Hope was only fourteen and Brent and Gavin were still in high school. Someone had to run the house while Dad ran the business.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So was I, at the time. But things worked out okay. There was a financial settlement from the accident and Dad gave each of us a share. Mine was enough to buy into Millie’s Craft Shop before Millie retired. Millie taught me what I needed to know about running the store and eventually I bought her out. So I teach crafts instead of reading. How come you didn’t go to college like you planned?”
“Who says I didn’t?”
She turned and regarded him, letting her slow perusal express what she wanted to say. Nicki would have sworn he blushed.
He crossed his legs at the ankles and leaned against the wall. It bothered her that he could look so sexy and so at ease when she was so desperately aware of him on every level.
“Life may not have turned out like either of us thought it would,” he said, “but you could still go to school now.”
“So could you.”
“Nicki…” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
Alex had great hair. She remembered how much she’d liked running her fingers through his thick waves.
“You’re still very beautiful,” he told her.
The unexpected compliment left her speechless. Especially since he sounded so sincere. His eyes watched her with a hooded expression as he tucked a thumb into the waistband of his jeans.
“Do you ever think about us?”
The slow drawl of his voice sent remembered shivers of awareness skittering along her nerves.
“No.” The lie tripped off her tongue. He tipped his head to the side in an expression that clearly said he didn’t believe her.
“I have. More than once. You were the only good memory I took with me when I left Fools Point.”
Before she could reply, someone hammered on the rear door. Alex slipped inside the bathroom without a word.
Nicki opened the back door, expecting Officer Jackstone, and came face to face with Thad Osher.
“Ms. Michaels.”
Nicki squelched a shudder of distaste.
“Are you going to let me come in?”
If only she could say no. She stepped aside and Osher entered, sweeping the room with a hard look. The look he gave her was just short of a leer.
“Nice.”
Nicki swallowed a retort. She wouldn’t achieve anything by baiting him. Sergeant Osher lived for conflict. She gave him silence.
Osher scowled. “Tell me what happened out back.”
“I have no idea.”
“You telling me you didn’t hear the shots?” His eyes narrowed.
“I am if you’re asking.”
“Ms. Michaels, someone fired several rounds into your building. Be hard not to hear the shots when one of ’em struck right outside your door.”
“Not if I was in the bathroom with the water running and the door closed.”
“Is that right?”
He moved closer, deliberately violating her space. His eyes dared her to move away. Though he repelled her, she lifted her chin defiantly. “Yes, that’s right. And if you put that hand on me, you’d better be preparing to take me to jail.”
Osher hesitated, his hand raised in midreach.
“Because I guarantee you, I’m going to scream bloody murder.”
He dropped his hand to his side. “Now why would you want to go and do a thing like that, Ms. Michaels?”
“Because I don’t like being touched, Sergeant.”
He squinted at her. Anger added tight lines around his mouth and eyes. He wasn’t going to take this rebuke any better than the others she’d given him on those rare occasions when their paths had crossed. Nicki only prayed that Officer Jackstone was still outside and near enough to hear her if she had to make good on her threat.
“Really? You don’t like being touched, huh?”
“I don’t like her being touched either.”
Alex’s low drawl sent her spinning around. He leaned against the wall in another negligent pose, but Nicki knew him well enough to know that Alex seethed with controlled tension.
“I especially don’t like her being touched by you,” Alex added.
“Well, well, well. Isn’t this cozy?” Osher gave her an evil glare and then turned his entire focus on Alex. “We’ve been looking for you, Coughlin.”
“Looks like you found me.”
“Yeah.” Osher drew his weapon.
Nicki’s mouth dropped open in stunned shock. “What are you doing?”
Osher didn’t look at her. “You’re under arrest, Coughlin.”
“What for?” Nicki demanded. “He didn’t do anything.”
“Suspicion of murder.” He spared Nicki another glare. “I knew there was a reason you didn’t pick him out of the lineup.”
“There was. I couldn’t identify him.”
Osher sneered. “Right. We’ve got hard evidence this time.”
“That’s not possible,” Alex said calmly.
“You shoulda’ been more careful, Coughlin. You tore your shirt on the fence the other night. We matched the fibers.”
“Even if you matched fibers, which I doubt, I could have torn my shirt at any time.” But he had started to go over the fence after the figure running away and his shirt had snagged.
“Tell it to your lawyer. That gave us enough to get a warrant to search your place today.” Osher smiled triumphantly. “And your car, which has been impounded along with your motorcycle. Bet you’ll never guess what we found.”
“Dust bunnies?”
“A gun, smart guy. One with several rounds fired. One that is the same caliber as the one used to kill Thorton Biggs. Want to take bets this will turn out to be the murder weapon?”
Alex straightened. “Not unless you planted it yourself.”
“Turn around and put your hands on the wall,” Osher snapped, suddenly all business. “You know the drill by now, Coughlin.”
Slowly, Alex turned around. Nicki watched in horror as Thad Osher walked toward him. “But, Alex didn’t do anything!” she protested.
Osher shot her a look of scorn. “I’ll deal with you later, Ms. Michaels. Aiding and abetting is—”
In that moment, Alex erupted in a blur of action. He spun around so fast, Nicki barely saw the foot that caught Osher in the chest. She flattened herself against a shelving unit as the two men grappled. It was quickly apparent that Thad Osher was outmatched. Alex brought his hand down in a blow that sent the gun spinning across the floor, almost at Nicki’s feet. Without hesitation, she kicked the weapon under the shelving unit.
The fight was over in seconds. Osher lay doubled on her floor dry-heaving while Alex ran out the front door.
Nicki hesitated. Osher groaned. A trickle of blood ran from his nose. She ran to the back door and flung it open. Officer Jackstone was talking to the woman who ran the beauty shop two doors down. Nicki motioned him urgently.
“Ms. Michaels?”
“Alex just decked Sergeant Osher.”
“What?” He pushed past her. She followed more slowly, trying to get her emotions under control. She needed to be calm while she decided what to tell them.
Osher was pushing himself to his feet and cursing loudly when she got inside.
“The bastard took my gun,” he told Derek Jackstone.
“He did not!” Immediate anger pushed caution aside. “Your gun went under that shelf over there after you dropped it. And Alex wouldn’t have touched you in the first place if you hadn’t been threatening me.”
Officer Jackstone whipped around. “Thad threatened you?”
“He was leering at me. I warned him if he touched me I’d scream. That’s when Alex came to my rescue.”
“Why you lyin’ little—”
“Shut up, Thad,” Jackstone told him.
“He pulled out his gun and said Alex was under arrest. Then he threatened me so Alex hit him.”
“He threatened you?”
“I did not!”
She glared at Osher. “You said you’d take care of me later. I took that as a threat. So did Alex.” She turned to Jackstone. “I want to press charges of illegal harassment against Sergeant Osher. I’ve had enough of his threats and sexual innuendos.”
Osher swore and took a step in her direction. Derek Jack-stone stepped between them. “Cool it, Thad.”
“She’s lying!”
“Ms. Michaels, what was Alex Coughlin doing here?”
“He came to ask me if I saw or heard anything the night of the murder. He was under the correct impression that Sergeant Osher was trying to pin the crime on him. I think Alex planned to talk to all the shopkeepers along here.”
“Probably to find out who else saw him commit the murder,” Osher said.
Nicki scowled at him. “You appear to have some sort of grudge against Alex. Alex told me he was afraid of being railroaded into jail. The way you act, I can believe it.”
“Why you little tramp.”
“Be quiet, Thad.”
“You kept pushing me to identify him in that farce of a lineup. Don’t you dare deny it,” she insisted.
Derek looked like he wanted to curse. Osher did. Volubly. “Knock it off, Thad. This is a mess.”
“She’s lying. We’ll take her in and get her to tell the truth.”
“No. We won’t.”
Osher turned on him. “In case you forgot, I outrank you.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything, but I think you have. Let’s go outside and discuss this. Now!” Jackstone bent and fished Osher’s gun out from under the shelving unit.
“What about her?”
“Ms. Michaels, I have to ask that you remain here in town.”
“I have a business to run. I’m not going anywhere. But I meant what I said about pressing charges. I’m tired of being harassed by this man.”
Osher started to say something nasty, but Jackstone held up both hands. “Okay. Both of you calm down. I’ll return and take your statement later, Ms. Michaels. Let’s go outside, Thad.”
Thad did, cursing all the way. The glower he cast her way sent alarm racing through her. She’d just made a deadly enemy.
Nicki locked the door behind them, then collapsed in a chair, suddenly so cold she shivered. Maybe she’d made matters worse for herself, but at least she’d given Alex time to get away.
Was it the past, raging hormones, or sheer stupidity that made her want to believe Alex had nothing to do with the murder? Maybe it was just that she disliked Thad Osher so much she found it easy to believe the opposite of anything he said.
Osher could have planted the murder weapon in Alex’s car as Alex alleged, but that would make Osher the murderer. While Nicki could well believe the hotheaded officer might shoot someone, it seemed to her that if he did, he’d pretend it happened in the line of duty.
Still, there was a curious kind of logic if she assumed Thad Osher had killed Thorton Biggs for some reason known only to the two of them. Did she dare suggest this to Officer Jackstone?
No. She couldn’t. She’d told them that she’d seen the murder. Thad Osher was blond, not dark haired. To tell the truth now, she’d have to admit she lied earlier about witnessing the crime. That meant she’d have to tell Officer Jackstone about Ilona.
Oh, why had she agreed to cover for her friend? Stupid. Look where it had gotten her. Ilona was someplace hiding from her boyfriend and as a result, a murderer might go free.
Nicki suddenly sat up straighter. Ilona had said her boyfriend was a cop. A married cop. Thad Osher was married. And even though Nicki thought he was a creep, he wasn’t a bad-looking creep. What if he was Ilona’s cop? And what if Ilona had seen Thad Osher kill Thorton Biggs? That would explain her fear and her refusal to come forward with what she’d seen.
The more Nicki thought about the idea, the more she liked it. But that still left her with a major problem. How could she tell anyone what she suspected?
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Dani Sinclair
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Mysterious, secretive…and sexier than ever!Good girl Nicki Michaels once had a steamy affair with wild, sexy Alex Coughlin–but he′d left town without a word. When he returned and kept his distance, Nicki hid her broken heart and held her head high. Then she became a witness to murder…and Alex came to protect her.Alex stayed away to keep Nicki safe from his undercover investigation–now she was in the middle of it. The fiery beauty rekindled passion Alex thought he could control, until he tasted her lips once more. With a killer trying to silence Nicki, love was a distraction Alex couldn′t afford–and one he could no longer deny…