Deadly Notions (17 page)

She flipped her phone shut then opened it once again, her fingers finding Milo’s position on her speed dial in short order.

One ring morphed to two and then three.

A woman’s sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”

Pulling the phone from her ear, she checked the screen to confirm whose number she had, in fact, dialed. Sure enough, Milo’s name was scrawled across the top.

“Um, hi.” She felt her stomach churn and tried her best to ignore it. “Um, is Milo Wentworth there?”

A giggle tickled her ear. “Oh, silly me. I must have picked his phone up off the nightstand instead of my own.”

Her mouth gaped open as the woman’s voice filtered through her ears and conjured up a face to match.

Beth Samuelson.

“His nightstand?” she echoed.

“Which is beside his bed . . .” The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper as she continued. “He’s sleeping right now. He’s totally spent after . . . well, you know.”

She blinked against the burning in her eyes, willed her mind to focus on the realities she knew to be true.

Milo was a good man.

Milo was not Jeff.

Milo wouldn’t hurt her this way.

Gripping the phone still tighter she considered her various options. She could demand that Beth wake him and put him on the phone. She could get in her car and drive over to his house and see whatever was going on with her own two eyes. Or she could wait until morning when she could ask him face to face. Sans Beth.

“Tell him Tori called, would you? And that I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

“Tori? Oh, I didn’t know that was you. I could roll over and give him a little poke if you’d like.”

She closed her eyes against the image of them lying side by side in his bed. Swallowing against the bile that rose in her throat, she forced her voice to remain even. The last thing she wanted was to give the woman on the other end of the line reason to gloat. She was stronger than that. “No, that’s fine. I’ll speak with him in the morning.”

“I’ll let him know when he wakes up. Unless . . .” Beth’s voice trailed off only to return in the wake of one of her infuriating giggles. “Well, unless we get sidetracked.”

With a heavy heart she flipped the phone shut, her mind at war with her emotions. While there was a part of her that wanted to cut Milo off right then and there, there was another part that wanted to believe she hadn’t been wrong about another man. Especially a man who had taken the time to get to know her—her thoughts, her dreams, her likes, her dislikes.

Men like that were rare.

And men like that didn’t change their feelings for a person with the flip of a switch or upon the arrival of a woman who had walked out on them well over a decade earlier.

Or did they?

She refused to speculate. For as painful as Jeff’s indiscretion had been, it had left no room for misunderstanding or second-guessing. She’d known, by the time she’d left the engagement party, that they were over. And if things were to go the same way with Milo, she needed to know the how and the why. Even if the answers to those questions shattered her heart once again.

Uncertainty and fear drove her from bed long before dawn, her stomach a nauseous mess. Try as she might, she simply couldn’t get the image of Milo and Beth lying side by side from her brain. And even when she tried to come up with some perfectly innocent explanation to make it all easier, reality came knocking.

There was no reason under the sun the two should have been in the same house overnight, let alone the same bed. Which meant the explanation she wanted desperately to hear from the horse’s mouth was not likely to happen.

Padding softly across the hardwood floor that led from her bedroom to the kitchen, she willed herself to find the happy place that had been hers since moving to Sweet Briar. The place that had her living her dream job, surrounding herself with the kind of friends people searched for their whole lives, and finding the perfect companion.

“Milo.” She waited for the sound of his name on her lips to make her smile, yet it didn’t. A sure sign she’d shrouded her heart for the inevitable hurt daylight was sure to bring.

As she rounded the corner into the kitchen, her gaze fell on the open notepad she’d tossed onto the table when she returned from Melissa’s, the various scenarios they’d concocted covering every square inch of the top page.

She managed a laugh in spite of everything, the ludicrous parentheticals they’d insisted on including relieving some of the tension she felt in every fiber of her being.

Determined to convince herself of those thoughts, she uttered them aloud. “It’ll be okay. I don’t need Milo.”

“Hmmm . . . that’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to hear when you show up at your girlfriend’s house bearing a surprise breakfast.”

She whirled around to see Milo standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, his left hand clutching a bag from Debbie’s Bakery. “What are you doing here?”

His smile failed to reach his eyes. “I wanted to surprise you but, well, I think I’m the one who just got surprised.”

Resisting the urge to hug him like she normally would, she dropped into one of the kitchen chairs and shoved the notebook to the side. “I’m betting what you just overheard isn’t even close to the surprise I got when I called your phone last night.”

“You called?” His face brightened. “I didn’t hear it ring.”

She inhaled slowly in an attempt to keep too much emotion from her voice. The last thing she wanted was for him to see just how much he’d hurt her. He didn’t deserve to know he’d meant so much.

“I suspect you didn’t hear it ring because you were sleeping.”

With furrowed brows he pulled his cell phone from his pocket with his free hand and stared at the screen. “There’s no sign of a missed call.”

“That’s because it wasn’t missed.”

He met her eyes. “Then I don’t understand.”

“It wasn’t missed because it was answered. By Beth.”

All sign of color drained from his face as his phone-holding hand dropped to his side. “Tori, I can explain. It’s not what you think.”

“It’s not? You mean sleeping side by side in your bed with your old college sweetheart is perfectly normal?”

“Sleeping side by side? What are you talking about? We didn’t sleep side by side in my bed. She slept in my bed. I slept on the couch.”

She steeled herself against the relief that flooded her being. “That’s not what Beth said.”

“Beth told you we were sleeping in the same bed?” A flash of pain flickered across his eyes. “C’mon, Tori, isn’t that going a little overboard? Beth knows darn well what our sleeping arrangements were.”

She swallowed as she focused on the woman’s exact words rather than their implication. Everything Beth had said could fit with what Milo was describing, but still . . .

“Okay. Then can I ask why she was sleeping in your house at all?”

He dropped the bag and cell phone onto the table beside her notebook and walked around to her side. Squatting down beside her, he took her hands in his and held them tight. “I got a call from Beth last evening as I was out walking. She was in a panic, convinced someone was out to get her. So I went to check on her, to make sure she was okay.”

“And?” She knew her voice sounded curt, maybe even a little harsh, but she couldn’t help it.

“When I got there, I saw the soaped threat on her windshield. It was just one word but it was unmistakable.”

“What was it?”

She stared at Milo. “Are you serious? What did the police say?”

He pulled his left hand from hers and held it to the side of her face. “Beth wouldn’t let me call them. She said she doesn’t want anything taking away from the announcement about her company.”

Tori rolled her eyes. “Her company is more important than her safety?”

“Apparently. I tried to argue, to insist she call, but she was hysterical. And that’s not all.”

“Tell me.”

“The owner of the inn told me someone had called repeatedly that day trying to find out what room Beth was staying in. When he and his employees refused to give that information, they were met with angry hang-ups.”

“Was it a man or a woman who was calling?”

“They said it was hard to tell, that the voice was garbled and unnatural.” He let his hand drop back down to join hers. “So I did what I felt I had to do to ensure her safety. I brought her home with me.”

“You couldn’t have sent her to another—” She stopped mid-sentence as the reality that was Sweet Briar dawned. “Okay, I get it. She was scared, there was nowhere else for her to go, and you wanted to make sure she was safe. Is that right?”

He nodded. “I guess I should have called and warned you. I’m sorry.”

She said nothing for a moment, her mind trying desperately to accept everything Milo had said against the memories that belonged to Jeff’s betrayal.

“I’m sorry if I caused you any hurt, Tori. I really am.” He stood, tugging her off her chair and into his arms. “Please tell me you understand.”

Did she? Did she really understand why he’d bring Beth to his home?

She did. Because he was Milo Wentworth, a rare breath of fresh air as far as chivalry and compassion went. He’d displayed it to her again and again since they’d met, supporting her through Tiffany Ann Gilbert’s murder investigation, her need to stick her nose into the disappearance of Colby Calhoun, and the unfair murder charges against Rose Winter’s mentally challenged former student.

Finally she was able to say the words he sought, her voice raspy from the reality she not only wanted but needed as well. “I understand.”

The second the words left her lips, his shoulders slumped in relief. “Talk about scaring a person half to death.”

“I’m sorry but you have to understand what I heard.”

“I do, and I’m sorry. I should have called you and told you. I realize that now. But after I got her situated in my room, I went out to the couch and absolutely crashed.”

“At least one of us slept,” she teased.

“What? You didn’t sleep?” He released her from his arms to study her closely. “Why?”

“Because I thought I’d lost you, for starters.”

“You didn’t.”

“I’m glad.” She pointed toward the notebook on the table. “And secondly, I guess the weight of being considered in yet another murder investigation is taking its toll more than I realized.”

“Chief Dallas is still sniffing around?”

She sat back down in her chair and motioned toward the one across from hers. “He showed up at the library yesterday for a chat.”

“A chat?”

“That’s what he called it when he suggested we retire to my office. However, after an hour of this so-called chat, I have to say it leaned much closer to an interrogation.”

“I’m sorry.”

She tugged the notebook in front of her then spun it around to face him. “I am, too. And for Melissa, and Beatrice, and Leona,”

“How so?” he asked as he leaned forward to examine the notes she and Melissa had made.

“They experienced a chat with the chief yesterday as well. I imagine Margaret Louise, Debbie, Rose, Dixie, and those two other mothers did as well, but I haven’t heard confirmation of that just yet.”

Milo shook his head as his eyes skimmed the various possibilities and asides they’d drafted out of frustration. “You think the husband could have done it?”

Tori shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him. Neither does Melissa. But shouldn’t he be considered? Isn’t the spouse or the parent always a suspect?”

“I imagine. It’s certainly more likely than a failed magic trick or suicide by strangulation.”

She felt her face warm. “You must think we’re awful writing that stuff.”

“We?”

“Me and Melissa.”

He reached across the table to cover her hand with his. “Awful? Never. I think the two of you just needed a way to relieve some unnecessary tension. Who wouldn’t in your shoes?”

She met his gaze before looking back down at the notebook. “We did take a few minutes to jot down some possible suspects.”

“Possible suspects?”

“People to investigate.”

A smile crept across his face, carving knee-weakening dimples in his cheeks. “People for
who
to investigate?”