DEFENGING THE EYEWITNESS (15 page)

“I’m sorry I made you mad.”

“Actually, I think I got afraid. I never did get that completely sorted out. Nuts? Topping?”

He wanted everything and helped as much as he could. Soon they both had big bowls at the table.

“This is one of humankind’s greatest inventions,” he remarked as he lifted the spoon to his mouth.

“Did you know the Earl of Sandwich invented chocolate ice cream?”

That raised both his dark brows. “I thought it was sandwiches.”

“That was his descendant. No, I read recently that the first Earl of Sandwich invented chocolate ice cream.”

“Well, I’ve been known to take cocoa powder and sprinkle it over a bowl of vanilla ice cream. It’s great. The Earl of Sandwich, huh? Those guys must have really been into food.”

“Actually, I gather he was on some board of trade that was trying to find uses for things from the colonies. And what he made was more of a frozen drink than what we think of as ice cream.”

“Who cares? I’m sure it was a great idea. Chocolate wasn’t always eaten sweetened. It still isn’t in some places.”

“You’re neat,” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“How many men will discuss recipes? You’re neat.”

He laughed, shaking his head.

“Actually,” she said after a few more mouthfuls, “I bet humans have been making iced drinks and other stuff ever since we noticed snow and ice could be useful.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. How did your day go?”

“Very busy. It was nice.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry I walked out on you like that. I got too upset.”

“I’m not blaming you. It probably did seem like a cockeyed statement.”

“It wasn’t that it was cockeyed.” She nibbled on her lower lip, looking down into her bowl. Had she really eaten that much? “It’s that I don’t think we’ll ever know. Unless...”

“Unless what?” he prompted finally.

“Unless the guy who’s sending these notes is the man who murdered my mother.”

* * *

There it lay, Austin thought. The heart of the question, a live grenade between them. The only question was whether he should pull the pin or conceal his concerns from her.

The urge to protect her warred in him because there were two routes to follow. He could shield her from his suspicions, or he could guard her by warning her about the danger. Either one might not save her from whatever her tormentor planned. But which would make her safer?

On the face of it, it seemed like a stupid question. Knowledge was always a better shield than ignorance. But after what this woman had been through, he didn’t want to terrify her again. Hadn’t she been through enough?

Of course she had, but it apparently wasn’t over yet. It was always possible some sick twist just thought this was funny, but the lack of evidence on those notes combined with the lack of evidence at the original crime scene made that important. Too important to ignore. Humans just left detritus wherever they went, from hairs to skin cells, from clothing fibers to the stuff they tracked on their shoes. A clean crime scene was a feat, and now those notes were too clean. A definite link.

Corey broke the silence. “You think this guy wants to kill me, too.”

She had pulled the pin on the grenade. Had she done it because she wanted him to deny it? He met her gaze, found it steady, and anyway, he didn’t want to lie to her. As far as he was concerned, if he never told another lie in his life, he’d feel pretty good about it.

“It’s crossed my mind and Gage’s.”

Those brilliant blue eyes of hers closed. She dropped her spoon into the bowl where it began to sink into softening ice cream. “I knew it,” she whispered.

“Knew what?”

“I’m really good at denial,” she said, her voice thin. “But at some level, I knew it, anyway. One note I could dismiss, but not quite. Before Gage brought you here, I actually got the shakes from just reading it. I tried to tell myself a friend was pulling a prank, but I couldn’t believe it. Something about it didn’t seem like a joke. That’s why I didn’t throw it away. I knew.”

He wanted to reach for her, to scoop her into his arms and try to hide her within his strength, but he figured that wouldn’t work at all. Just more denial, and she had clearly moved beyond that.

Nor did he know exactly what to say. Any words of comfort that occurred to him sounded hollow even inside his own head.

Then her eyes opened and he glimpsed the steely resolve that had gotten her through an incredible lifetime of pain and fear. “Okay. I guess nobody knows why, but this guy wants to kill me. That’s the reason for that bit about
like mother, like daughter.
He wants to do the same thing to me. I just wish I knew why.”

“Knowing might help us identify him.”

“What else do you know that I don’t? What made you and Gage think this was possible?”

“Lack of evidence.” He explained about how clean the Denver crime scene was, how difficult it was to achieve that, and linked it to the notes that were every bit as clean.

Her faced had paled, but she nodded. “It does seem unlikely that they’d get that way by accident. But that doesn’t give us any way to find out who’s writing the notes. What are we going to do? Stake out every mail drop in town looking for someone to mail something to me? Assuming there’s even another one.”

“I’m going to reread the Denver police file. Sometimes a pair of fresh eyes can catch something.”

For an instant, he thought he saw panic flutter over her face. “You’re going to Denver?”

He shook his head quickly. “No, Gage is going to get a copy of the full file if he can.”

“And in the meantime?”

“I’m honestly not sure this guy is ready to act. He’s leading you toward something, but I’m not sure he’s there yet. The notes have been amazingly vague.”

“Not vague enough,” she muttered.

“Only when combined with the absolute lack of evidence. Like Gage said, he’d have been happy to find a cat hair.”

“It’s really that rare to leave nothing behind?”

“Have you ever seen a clean room? Maybe on TV or in a movie? They cover up completely for a reason. It’s almost impossible for people not to leave some kind of residue behind. Skin constantly flakes, hair is always falling out. When we talk we spray sputum, even if only minuscule amounts. This guy has gone to extreme lengths to leave nothing in his wake.”

“Except my dead mother.”

Austin felt a shaft of pain pierce his heart. “Except for her,” he agreed quietly. “I’m so sorry, Corey.”

“Yeah, well. It’s too late for sorry.” Then she paused. “I’m not blaming you. It’s just that...” She paused again. “I wonder if my mother got notes, too. If that’s why she left for Denver.”

“Did anyone ever say why?”

“My grandmother said she wanted more opportunity than this town could provide. She didn’t want to go into the family business. My aunt...” Corey hesitated.

Austin forced himself to wait patiently. Under no circumstances was he going to beat on Corey’s memory. That was the last thing she needed.

“Just before she died, my aunt told me something. She said my mom went to Denver because she couldn’t be herself here.”

“Did she say why not?” But he already knew, or at least suspected, the answer. Somehow he didn’t think the rumors about Olivia had been entirely wrong.

“My aunt said my mother was a lesbian. That she could never have the kind of life she wanted in a small town. Apparently having me had quieted the talk about her, but my aunt said my mother could never have a girlfriend here. Never live the way she wanted to.”

“What did you think about that?”

“Frankly?” Corey’s eyes seemed to burn. “That it’s nobody else’s business how someone chooses to live unless they’re hurting someone else. Nobody should have to feel unwelcome for loving who they want. Nobody should have to move hundreds of miles away just to be themselves.” Her statements were practically a challenge.

“I agree with you,” he said quietly.

“Anyway, I don’t know if it’s true. She
did
have me. I look a lot like her, so I know I’m not adopted. But...I don’t know. My aunt was on some pretty strong medication at that point, just trying to survive her days. She might have been telling the truth, or she might have been guessing. Either way, I don’t care. My mother was who she was, and nobody had a right to kill her for any reason.”

Ice cream sat melting in bowls, the house had grown extraordinarily quiet, and Austin sat there wishing he knew how to handle the situation. He was great at some things, but dealing with a woman who was looking down the dark path of her past...hell, he couldn’t even tell if she was upset or just remembering. She didn’t look very well, but he suspected that the time for comfort had passed years ago. Now she was at the just-dealing-with-it part.

“‘Like mother, like daughter,’” she said. “How alike could we possibly be? I barely remember her. Does he have it in for blue eyes?”

He didn’t want to say the thing at the top of his mind. There was no way to know for sure about Olivia at this late stage, but if that had been some kind of hate crime, why would the guy want to take out Corey now? Because she didn’t date? Because...

Well, of course. Not only did she not date, but she rented rooms to women only, which most people would think to be perfectly sensible for a woman living alone. But this guy...

Damn.

He wondered if he should drag Corey out of here now, hold her hand as they walked down the street, give her a passionate kiss in the middle of the courthouse square, and hope that he could deflect this guy completely.

Except for one thing. It would leave Olivia’s murder unsolved and leave Corey wondering for the rest of her life if her mother’s murderer was still out there. The shadow would never be gone. She’d never be fully free of the nightmare.

No, that wasn’t going to work unless he thought that leaving Corey in the same hellish prison of fear would be okay. He didn’t think it would be okay at all.

So what now?

“Would it help,” he asked carefully, “to know that your mother’s murderer was behind bars?”

After a moment of thought, she nodded. “You see how I live. Sheesh, Austin, you painted it pretty clearly. I’m living in a prison myself. Afraid. Trusting almost no one, at least when it comes to men. It’s not something I can turn off like a switch, obviously.”

“But would catching him do it?”

“How can I know? But it would sure help.”

He nodded, thinking. “How much of your fear comes from what you can’t remember? How much comes from the fact that the culprit could still be out there? Do you have any reason at all to think he would want to come after you?”

“Well, now I do,” she said irritably.

“I meant before. All these years. Think about it. Have you been afraid that he might have a reason to come after you?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I might remember, and if I remembered I could identify him.”

That made a whole bunch of sense to him. Remembering that night would not only be horrific, but remembering might put her at risk. This was starting to make a whole lot of sense, at least with regard to Corey. The reason her mother was murdered didn’t worry her as much as being able to identify the killer.

So in some way she had chosen to go through life afraid of all men, rather than risk herself by remembering the one man, the murderer.

A brilliant move on the part of a small child’s mind. Truly brilliant. Her amnesia protected her twice over. But it had also crippled her in important ways she couldn’t have imagined when she began taking this self-protective path.

After all his talk about how she was in a prison of her own making, he sat there stymied, with absolutely no idea what would be best for Corey. Talking about getting her out of her shell was easy. Actually facing the reason for it made it a whole lot more difficult.

“I’m sorry for the way I talked about you hiding,” he offered finally. “Cheap psychology. I should just keep my mouth shut.”

She gave him a wan smile. “You were right. It wasn’t cheap psychology, it was something I needed to face. It comes in bits and pieces, Austin. It’s not like it can all be handled or identified at once. How else do you think I learned how to get out of visiting that therapist? Learning bits and pieces of telling her what she wanted to hear to convince herself I was okay. Everybody wanted to believe it.”

“I’m sure they did.”

“But I’m not, am I? I even deluded myself after a while. I wanted nothing but my shop, the women I’ve made friends with and a safe little home to come back to every night.” She froze and for an instant looked like a frightened rabbit.

“Corey?”

“It just occurred to me. If this guy wanted to kill me because he was afraid I’d remember him, he should have done it a long time ago. Besides, like you said, he was probably covered from head to foot.”

“The Denver cops were pretty sure of it.”

“So I couldn’t have recognized him, anyway, even if I remembered. There’s got to be another reason...”

He let his suspicions lie. He didn’t want to add any more to her already huge concerns. Bad enough that she knew now she was probably being stalked by her mother’s killer.

“Why?” she whispered.

She jumped up suddenly and began to pace the kitchen rapidly. “Oh, I get it. I really get it.”

“Get what?”

“My mom’s decision to move. It was just a few months before she was killed. I’ll bet you anything that having me didn’t put this monster off her trail. Why would it? There was never a father in the picture, and you can get pregnant lots of ways. I bet she was getting these notes, too. I bet she figured the only way she could shake the guy was to leave town. My God!”

“Corey...” But what could he say? He shut his mouth and waited, wondering where she would go.

She looked at him, her eyes sparking with anger, but something else, as well. “Maybe she was a lesbian. She sure never told anyone a thing about where I came from. She went away for a month or so and came back pregnant. Why would she do that? To quiet the talk?”

“Maybe,” he said gently, “she really, really wanted a child.”

She paused midstride and finally nodded. “She did. Both my grandmother and aunt were definite about that. But how odd, to go away and come back pregnant. Almost nobody does that. So let’s just say for the sake of argument that having me quieted the gossip, but this creep wasn’t buying it. Maybe when she didn’t date after that, he decided he was right. Something sure made her up and take off quickly. My aunt said she was gone a week or so after she explained the move. Just gone.”