River Road (20 page)

“Sorry. I don’t usually—”
Too much information, woman.

But it was too late. Mason had already figured it out.

“You don’t usually spend the night?” he said.

“No. It just feels too—” She broke off, again, sensing that she was digging the hole deeper and deeper.

“Too intimate?” Mason finished for her.

“Maybe. Sleeping with someone, sharing a bathroom, having breakfast together. It’s just too weird.”

“Weird,” he repeated neutrally.

She sat up, holding the sheet to her chin to cover herself. “I’m not doing a very good job of explaining this. Probably be best if I just stopped talking.”

His mouth curved in a wicked smile. “Ah, but can you stop talking? That is the question.”

She picked up the nearest pillow and tossed it at his head. He warded it off with one hand, got to his feet and disappeared into the bathroom.

“If it matters,” he said, “I think I know what you mean.”

“About what?”

The toilet flushed. Water ran in the sink. Mason reappeared in the doorway.

“About the weirdness factor,” he said. “Since my marriage ended, I’ve developed a thing about spending the night, too. You’re right. Feels weird.”

Her heart sank. All of the bouncy energy that had animated her a moment earlier evaporated. Was Mason hinting that he wanted to leave now that they had had sex?

“Do you want to drive back to Summer River tonight?” she asked.

“Hell, no. I’m not having a problem with the weird factor tonight.” He watched her steadily. “What about you?”

She smiled, relief washing through her.

“I’m not having a problem with the weird factor, either,” she said. “That’s what I was trying to explain.”

He smiled slowly. “That makes it easy, then. We stay until morning.”

He went to the dresser and took out a couple more foil packets. When he returned to the bed, she saw that he was already half aroused. He tossed the packets onto the nightstand, where they would be conveniently at hand. Then he turned out the light, climbed back into bed and pulled her down beside him. She resisted.

“What now?” he asked.

“There’s something else I want to tell you,” she said quickly. “Tonight was different for me.”

He touched her cheek. “Me, too.”

“I mean, very different.”

“Yeah? How so?”

The darkness made her feel bolder and seriously more reckless. She put her hand on his thigh, stroking him with her palm. “You didn’t get the opportunity to applaud my acting talents.”

He kissed her shoulder. “You mean I didn’t give you a chance to impress me with an Academy Award–winning fake orgasm?”

She sat up so quickly she almost clipped him on the chin. “You knew?”

“After all that chatter about your commitment issues, I figured that’s probably what you had in mind. I thought it would be good to get the issue out of the way before you screwed things up by going onstage at the wrong time.”

For a few seconds, she was speechless.

“Why, you arrogant—”

That was as far as she got, because she was suddenly giggling too hard to continue the harangue. She grabbed the pillow and began to pummel him with it. He was laughing, too.

He ripped the pillow out of her hand and pulled her down across his chest. He wrapped one hand around the back of her head and brought her mouth closer to his.

“Tonight is different,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

He kissed her. She went with him once again into the night.

M
ason savored his second cup of coffee, along with the morning coastal fog, the last bite of a waffle doused in butter and syrup and the sight of Lucy sitting on the other side of the breakfast table. He could get used to mornings like this one.

Every time he looked at Lucy, which was pretty much all the time, hot memories of the night stirred his blood. It felt good to be here with her in the small café, looking forward to another day together. More than anything else at the moment, he wanted to be able to look forward to another night together. But he knew that wasn’t going to be possible, at least not immediately. The situation in Summer River had to be cleaned up before he and Lucy could figure out their relationship.

Her phone rang just as he was about to polish off the waffle. At least it wasn’t another one of the damned chirps that indicated a message from the matchmaking agency. But Lucy frowned when she glanced at the screen, and he knew the prospect of a really good day had just gone south.

“Yes, this is Lucy Sheridan. . . . No, I’m out of town. . . . Yes, I plan to return to Summer River today. . . . I see. . . . Good heavens, are they sure? . . . I understand. . . . Yes, of course, but I’m afraid I have absolutely no idea what is going on.” She glanced at her watch. “We should be there by noon. . . . Yes, Mr. Fletcher is with me. . . . Where? We’re over on the coast. . . . Yes, all night. . . . One o’clock today. Fine. We’ll both come down to the station.”

She ended the call and looked at Mason. “That was Chief Whitaker. The fire investigators went to Sara’s house this morning. They found a body in the ashes.”

“Damn.” Mason felt the old familiar chill. The past had come back to haunt someone in Summer River. That was the way it always was with cold cases. They never really went away. They shadowed the living until they were closed. Methodically, he finished the bite of waffle and put down his fork. “Do they have an ID?”

“No.” Lucy hesitated, her eyes darkening with anxiety. “The body was badly burned, but there are some indications that it’s Nolan Kelly. Chief Whitaker says no one has seen him since he left his office late yesterday afternoon. They found his car parked in the woods about a quarter of a mile away.”

“Huh.”

“It’s horrible to think about. I was talking to him there in my kitchen yesterday morning, and now he’s dead. What a ghastly way to die.”

“Assuming he was killed by the fire.”

She blinked. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know yet. Just asking questions. Do the investigators believe that Kelly set the fire and got caught in the blaze?”

“Whitaker didn’t say. There’s going to be an autopsy.”

“It may not tell them much if the body was badly burned.”

“What on earth was he doing in my house in the middle of the night?”

“No way to know yet, but I can think of one possible theory.” Mason raised his hand to signal for the check. “Kelly may have been the intruder who searched the house the previous night. He didn’t find what he was looking for, so he went back a second time to try to destroy any evidence that might have been hidden inside.”

“Evidence that would have proven that he was the photographer who helped Brinker?”

“Maybe. But there are other possibilities.”

“Such as?”

The waiter approached with the check. Mason reached for his wallet. “Kelly was in sales his whole life. He started out dealing pot in high school. According to the rumors, Brinker made some kind of hallucinogen available to his inner circle. And if he was the Scorecard Rapist, we know he used drugs to subdue his victims.”

“Do you think Nolan was supplying Brinker with the drugs?”

“Brinker was getting those pricey designer pharmaceuticals from someone. He was probably too smart to make the deals himself, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he convinced Kelly to get the drugs for him, assuming Kelly had the connections.”

A visible shiver went through Lucy. “Kelly was only eighteen at the time, just a couple years older than me.”

“Brinker was in the business of attracting and manipulating young people.” Mason put some money down on the table. “When you think about it, he was running a kind of cult, preaching a religion that featured sex, drugs and rock music. All the simple pleasures of youth.”

L
eonard Whitaker was in his early sixties. He had left a mid-sized police department in Southern California to take over the Summer River department five years earlier, and he made no secret of the fact that he was looking forward to retirement in another year. He wanted what he called the Sheridan situation cleaned up before he stepped down.

These days, everyone was concerned about the legacy thing, Lucy thought.

Whitaker asked a lot of questions, which she dutifully answered while Mason stood behind her, one shoulder propped against the wall, arms folded. He did not interfere in the questioning, but he made his presence felt. Like a bodyguard, she thought.

She did her best to answer Whitaker’s questions, but most of her responses were variations on
I don’t know.

At the end of the interview, Whitaker lounged back in his chair and studied Lucy over the rims of his reading glasses. “One more time, Miss Sheridan. Are you absolutely certain you have no idea why Kelly wanted to torch your house?”

“I told you, all I can give you are speculations,” she said quietly. “I suppose it’s possible that he thought there was something in the house that connected him to Brinker and the past, but I have no proof.”

“We’re looking into that angle,” Whitaker said. “What about the house itself? You say he was determined to get the listing.”

“Yes,” she said. “He was very insistent. He said he had a client in Silicon Valley who wanted to open a winery and that the property was ideal.”

“But you were stalling. Were you planning to try to do the deal yourself and cut him out? The agent’s commission on that property would be substantial.”

She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. “I am dealing with some other estate issues at the moment.”

Whitaker elevated his brows. “The other issues being those shares of Colfax Inc. that you inherited?”

“I see you’ve heard about them,” Lucy said.

Whitaker snorted. “Everyone in town knows about them. They also know that the Colfax family is tearing itself apart over a merger offer. I don’t have an MBA and I don’t know squat about mergers, but if I were you, I’d sell Warner Colfax the shares and get out of that dogfight before you get bitten.”

“I appreciate your views on the matter,” Lucy said.

Mason stirred and straightened away from the wall. “There is one other angle here that might be worth considering.”

Lucy and Whitaker looked at him.

“What’s that?” Whitaker asked.

“The orchard land is valuable, but the house itself may not have been important to the buyer that Kelly had lined up. The place was a nice example of the Craftsman style, but it’s small. You know how it is with the folks who come here to start wineries. They tend to build big houses and large compounds. At most, Sara’s place would have made a nice little guest house or a residence for a property manager.”

“So burning it down wouldn’t have done much damage to the overall value of the property,” Whitaker said.

“Right,” Mason said. “Kelly would still have made a big commission on the sale of the land.”

“But that doesn’t explain why he torched the house,” Whitaker concluded.

“Maybe he thought it would force Lucy’s hand,” Mason said. “With the house out of the way, she no longer had any reason to stall on the listing.”

“Huh.” Whitaker did not appear convinced.

“Yeah, I don’t like it, either,” Mason said. “But the only thing that explains the arson is just what Lucy suggested to you. Kelly must have been afraid there was something in the house that might incriminate him. Lucy was getting ready to start packing up all of her aunt’s belongings and papers.”

“And Kelly was worried that she might come across something that could hurt him,” Whitaker finished.

“Whatever it was, it has to be connected to the past and to the discovery of Brinker’s body,” Mason said. “There’s no indication that Kelly was concerned about the house as anything other than a real estate listing until that point.”

Whitaker sat silently for a moment. Then he made a note on the pad of paper in front of him.

“That’s it for now,” he said. “Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Sheridan.”

“Of course.” Lucy got to her feet and picked up her tote. She started to turn toward the door, but she paused to look at Whitaker.

“I’m not in law enforcement, but I have had some experience with investigations that involve complicated family relationships,” she said.

“Right.” Whitaker glanced at his notes. “You work for a genealogy firm. Quite a business. I’ve got an uncle who paid a hefty amount of money to have one of those family trees drawn up, and guess what? We’re all descended from royalty. Who knew? Got a genuine family crest, and my uncle is now sporting a seal ring on his pinkie.”

“Chief Whitaker, what I’m trying to say—”

“I have to tell you I got a little suspicious when I checked out the family tree that my uncle commissioned. Couldn’t help but notice that the so-called investigative genealogist Uncle Bud hired had overlooked one of my brothers who happens to be still alive and kicking, by the way. The so-called expert genealogist also managed to get the middle name of my father and at least two other relatives wrong. I didn’t bother to go back any farther on the family tree.”

“As I was saying,” Lucy continued, “I am a forensic genealogist. In my experience, the answers to the kinds of questions we are all asking at the moment usually lie somewhere in the family dynamics.”

“If you’re talking about Brinker,” Whitaker said, “he didn’t have much in the way of family. No one has even come forward to claim the body. That case is closed as far as I’m concerned. For reasons we will never know for certain, but most likely because he attacked her, your aunt crushed his skull with a poker. If I was a betting man, I’d say the original theory of the crime was correct. It probably was a drug deal gone bad.”

“Now, just one damn minute.” Lucy stormed back toward the desk. “Are you saying my aunt was involved in drugs? That’s an outrageous lie.”

“Whether or not it’s true doesn’t matter to me. I just told you, that case is closed. Kelly’s death is what interests me now, and I don’t think you’re going to find any answers in his family dynamics, either. His father died a few years ago. His mother remarried and moved to Florida. As far as I can tell, there is no one else.”

Mason looked at him. “What’s your theory of the case?”

Whitaker exhaled slowly. “When I come up with one, I’ll be sure to let you know.”