Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) (14 page)

Dragging her gaze from his, she finished putting on her
shoes and socks and stood, making a face.  “Ugh.  Sand is impossible to get rid
of.”

“I bet when you were a kid, you didn’t care.”

“No.  Mom made me take shower every night before I went to
bed, though.  She said I wouldn’t like sand in my sheets.”

He laughed.

This time they took the direct route back through the dunes,
following the imprints of all the feet that had come this way since the last
winter storm had driven the tide this high.

“You don’t think Mr. Billington would mind us coming over
here?” she asked.

“He might wonder why the police car was parked here so long,
but he wants us running patrols.”

“Oh, right.”  She’d forgotten they had come in the marked
car.  “He was here that summer.”

“What?”  Daniel turned to look at her.

“He was…I don’t know, in his early twenties?  He might have
still been a college student.  At least that last couple of summers, he worked
for his uncle.  He cleaned cabins, dropped off firewood, that kind of thing.”

“Did he have any kind of relationship with your mother?” 
His attempt to sound casual didn’t disguise a cop’s interest.

“I don’t think so,” she said uncertainly.  “I mean, they
talked when he came and went.  Mom was…really pretty, so I guess it’s possible
he had a thing for her, but I’m not sure I’d have noticed.  And there were
other people working here, too, mostly older teens or young twenties.  I mean,
old Mr. Billington must have had some year-around help, but the resort would
have been a lot busier in the summer and he’d have added help.  He rented out
rooms in the lodge, too, not just the cabins.  He stayed pretty full up.”

They emerged onto the paved road and started back to the
car.  “If I thought I could get anywhere, I’d track down the employees I could
find,” Daniel said.  His regret was obvious.  “But cold cases are usually only
worth opening when you have something to go on.  Usually DNA these days, given
the advances in technology.”

She stopped and waited for him to unlock.  “I understand.”

“I’m sorry.”  He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then
went around to his side.

Not until they were out on the highway did he say, “I’ll get
an address on this Burton guy.  Shall we drop in on him this evening?”

“Yes.  Thank you.”

“Good.”

He took her to her car, told her he’d let Officer Slawinski
know to be waiting for her at the storage facility, and drove away without
having said anything personal at all.  His expression was preoccupied, she
thought, unable to tell whether he’d dismissed her from his mind or whether he
was making a deliberate attempt to distance himself.

Either way, she suspected she had her answer.  Yes, he
regretted having kissed her.

Ignoring the jab of hurt, Sophie reminded herself she hadn’t
wanted to get involved with him anyway.  She started her car, waited for a
break in traffic to pull away from the curb, and followed what was now a
familiar route inland toward the storage facility.

*****

It had been after six before he called, suggesting he pick
her up at seven to go see Elias Burton.  No dinner invitation tonight.

“We’re taking the chance he won’t be home,” Daniel said,
“but I’d as soon catch him by surprise if we can.”

Now, as he drove a winding stretch of Highway 101 leading
north from Cape Trouble, she said, “Why do you want to talk to him?  I mean,
even if he was around when Mom was killed, as you’ve pointed out it was a long
time ago.”

Daniel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel then
loosened.  “I don’t know,” he said finally.  “No, that’s not true.  Because I
want to know why he chose that particular place to paint for the auction
poster.  Was it chance, or not?  And if not, why does it hold enough meaning
for him that he wanted everyone to see it?  Your mother’s death happened a long
time ago, but Doreen’s didn’t.  It may turn out to have nothing to do with her
campaign to raise money to buy the old Misty Beach Resort, but I think it did. 
Which means that everyone and everything having to do with the campaign
interests me.”

That’s why
I
interest him.

But then she felt more of a chill at the possibility that
there could be a connection between the deaths of the two people she’d loved
most.  Two people, she reminded herself, who had likely never even met.

Maybe.  She had never come straight out and asked Aunt
Doreen.  Not whether she’d known Sophie’s mother, or whether she knew how her
sister had gotten to know Sophie’s father well enough to have become his wife
so quickly.

I didn’t want to know
, Sophie thought ruefully.  It
had been so much easier to go on without thinking about whether her father
might have betrayed her mother.  She’d resented having to accept a stepmother
enough as it was.

If Doreen hadn’t died, Sophie knew, she never would have
asked any of the questions that now crowded her mind.

The click of the turn signal brought her back to the
present.  Daniel left the highway for a narrow, two-lane road that climbed away
from the ocean.  The land was forested, looking as primeval as if it had never
been logged.  They passed a few driveways and caught glimpses of rooftops
through the trees.  The road narrowed, lost the stripe down the middle, and
finally turned to gravel, ending in what was obviously a driveway that took a
couple more turns before emerging in a clearing where a house stood.

Not a big house, it had a steep-pitched cedar shake roof,
and was sided in shingles stained to a natural wood shade.  Only the trim was
painted, and that a dark green.  A vast expanse of windows must flood the
interior with light, compensating for the surrounding forest.

Daniel brought his Honda Pilot to a stop in front of a
detached double car garage, sided in the same shingles and with a matching
roofline.

“He’s not doing too bad financially,” he commented.

She told him what Naomi said about the prices Elias Burton’s
paintings earned, and saw Daniel’s eyebrows climb.

They both got out.  The front door opened before they
reached it.  No surprise, given the isolation of this house, that the owner
would pay attention to the sound of a vehicle.

By the time they crossed the yard, he had come out and stood
on the front porch, watching their approach.  A tall, lean man, mid- to late
thirties, at a guess, he had shaggy blonde hair streaked even paler by the
sun.  He was handsome, even beautiful, with high, sharp cheekbones and deep
lines scoring his cheeks between nose and mouth.  Even the gold glint of
stubble on his jaw couldn’t make him look scruffy.

Sophie was ten feet away when she stopped.  “I know you,”
she blurted, feeling a shock even though she had suspected on some level that
she’d recognize him.

Eyes that were a pale, crystalline shade of gray studied her
somberly.  “I’d heard you were in town.  You’re Michelle Thomsen’s daughter.”

“Yes.”  She was very aware of the brush of Daniel’s
shoulder.  He was watching them both, not drawing attention, but by the lightest
of touches letting her know he was there if she needed him.

The man studied her with a peculiar intensity.  He hadn’t
once shifted his gaze to Daniel.  “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve taken over Doreen Stedmann’s campaign to raise the
money to buy the old resort.”  She felt a faint shock, hearing herself.  She
had agreed to do the auction.  Had her commitment shifted, grown, until she was
willing to do more?  Whatever it took to fulfill Doreen’s dream?

“So I’ve heard.”

“Thank you for doing the artwork.”

He dipped his head, his caution obvious.

“Do you know Chief Daniel Colburn?”

Finally, those cool, wary eyes turned to the man with her. 
“By sight.”

Daniel nodded and stepped forward, holding out his hand. 
“Elias.”

The artist leaned down without leaving the porch and the two
men shook.  She couldn’t tell what either of them thought of the other.

“It’s a beautiful painting,” she said.  She’d taken time
that afternoon to look at the damaged piece in storage and been relieved to see
that, while it too was an original, it was far less skillful than Elias
Burton’s work.

“Thank you.”

“Had you already painted it when Ms. Kendrick asked you to
donate something to serve as the artwork for the cause?”

Oh, yes, he was definitely wary.  “No,” he said after a
moment.  “I painted it specifically for the purpose.”

She somehow didn’t want to get any closer to him.  “Why?” 
Her voice came out too loud.  “Why that particular spot?”

He only looked at her for a minute, then sighed and scrubbed
a hand over his jaw.  Even from this distance, she heard a faint rasp.  “Nobody
else recognized it.”

She kept her mouth stubbornly closed.

“I worked for Billington that summer.”  A muscle in his
cheek twitched.  “If you recognized me, you must know that.”

“Yes.”

“I was seventeen.  Your mother was nice to me.  It…hit me
hard, when she died that way.”

“You were in love with her.”

“I thought I was,” he corrected her.  “I was a kid.”

After a minute, she nodded.  “I remember you drawing.  And…”
her voice slowed, “we came on you once when you had an easel set up and were
painting.”  Why hadn’t she remembered that?

“Yeah.  I was already drawing and painting whenever I
could.”

“You didn’t really answer my question.”

“I thought I had.”

She only realized how very contained he’d been now that he looked
uncomfortable.  He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked
slightly.  His mouth twisted.

“I kept on with the job for the rest of the summer because I
needed the money, but I worked construction the next year.  A few years back, I
started feeling this tug toward the resort.  Now I work over there often. 
Nothing I had seemed quite right for the auction, though.”  He shrugged.  “I
guess you could say that painting was my tribute to your mother.”

“Even if no one but you knew it.”

He gave another shrug.  They stared at each other in a sort
of challenge that neither would win.

“All right,” she said abruptly.  “It bothered me a lot, when
I saw the painting.”

He was the one to nod now, acknowledging the pain he’d dealt
to her.  “I’m sorry.  It never occurred to me that you’d see it.”  His jaw
flexed.  “You found her.  That was…rough.”

She knew they were talking about her mother, not Doreen. 
“It was.”  She had to look away, turning naturally to Daniel, who had stayed
remarkably silent.  He wasn’t nearly as handsome as Elias, she thought, but to
her he was a whole lot sexier.  In response to that look, he returned to her
side, close enough his arm touched hers again.

“Were you at work when Ms. Thomsen’s body was found?” he
asked.

“I’d just arrived.  I was getting out of my car when I
heard…”  His gaze touched Sophie in apology.

“Me screaming.”

“Yeah.  At first, it was hard to tell where it was coming
from.  Old Billington had just come outside.  He set off…well, not running. 
More like hobbling.  Benjamin must have been around, because he was suddenly
there, too.  He and I got to you first.”

“I don’t remember you there.”

His mouth tightened momentarily.  “I think you’d gone away
in your head.  Do you remember anyone from that morning?”

After a minute, she shook her head.  “Not until…  I was
taken to some nice woman’s house.  She stayed with me until my father came.”

He didn’t say anything.  What was there to say?

She backed up a couple of steps.  “I just needed to know.”

For the first time, she saw some deeper emotion on his
face.  “I only met Ms. Stedmann a couple of times.  I was sorry to hear what
happened, and even sorrier you’re the one who had to find her, too.”

“Thank you.”  She looked again at Daniel.  “I should get
back.”

“Okay.”  He nodded at the artist.  “Burton.”

“Chief.”

By the time she got in Daniel’s Honda and glanced back at
the house, Elias Burton had disappeared inside and the door was shut.  She
shivered without even knowing why.

Daniel rubbed a circle clear on his steam-clouded bathroom
mirror and grunted at the sight of his face.  He hadn’t slept well last night,
and it showed.  A day’s growth of beard didn’t help.  He looked like someone he
ought to be arresting.

He tossed the damp towel in the hamper and went out into the
bedroom to get dressed before he shaved.  He’d gotten pants on when his phone
rang.  He had to circle the bed to grab it.

“Yeah?”

“Chief?”  It was another of his young officers, Tony Diaz,
and he sounded excited.  “I walked around back of Ms. Stedmann’s house, the way
you asked us to.  I think someone’s broken in.”

“You
think
?”

“You know how the back door has glass in it?  A pane is
broken.”

“All right.  I’ll be there in ten.”

Well, shit.  He’d expected this, and wished there was more
he could have done more to prevent it.  Sophie had followed his suggestion and
paid a locksmith to add a couple of decent deadbolts.  He’d been having
frequent patrols go by Doreen’s house, and asked officers to regularly do a
walk-around.  But all someone who wanted to break in would have had to do was
wait until a patrol came and went, knowing he’d have an undisturbed hour or
more.  And, damn it, the best deadbolt in the world didn’t prevent someone from
breaking a window. 

He finished dressing, poured coffee into a travel cup, and
reached for his phone again, dialing Sophie’s.

He was disconcerted by how eager he was to hear her voice.

“Daniel?”

“Someone broke into your aunt’s place last night.  I’m on my
way over there right now.”

“Oh, no.”  Pause.  “Do you want me to come, too?”

He hesitated.  Yeah, he wanted to see her.  But what if the
intruder hadn’t just been looking for something?  What if he’d expressed his
rage in destruction?  Daniel had seen plenty of scenes that would make any
normal human being sick.  It would be worse for Sophie, damaged by her mother’s
death, and now having lost someone else she loved.

Given that she was now the owner of her aunt’s house,
though, how could he protect her from whatever had been done to it?

“All right,” he said finally, unhappy but resigned.  “I’ll
check it out first.  Get there when you can.”

She agreed and they signed off, Daniel going out the door.

Diaz, a stocky kid who was yet a year younger than Ron
Slawinski, was sitting in his parked patrol car in front of Doreen’s bungalow. 
At least he didn’t blush when he had to deal with attractive women the way Ron
did.

He got out to meet his chief, bluster in his walk.  “You
think someone could still be in there?”

“No.  Who was on last night?”  Damn it, he should know—  Oh,
yeah.  “Kreiger.  I’ll check with him later, find out when he last came by.” 
Assuming he’d gotten his ass out of his car and walked around the house
checking windows and doors the way he’d been told to.

Although he had the keys with him, Daniel made the decision
to follow in the intruder’s footsteps and, after telling his officer to wait
out front for Ms. Thomsen’s arrival, went around back.  Sure enough, a single
pane had been knocked out.  The back yard was surrounded with a six-foot, solid
board fence, which had probably helped contain the sound of breaking glass. 
Daniel snapped on a pair of latex gloves and tried the knob, finding it
unlocked.

Glass crunched beneath his feet when he stepped in.  He
ignored it, his first reaction relief.  The laundry room and then kitchen
looked untouched.  Somebody might have looked in cupboards and drawers, but
hadn’t dumped out canisters or done any damage.

Probably hadn’t bothered with even a cursory search in here,
he suspected.  Doreen was unlikely to have stowed auction items in a cupboard
with her pots and pans.

Heck, she hadn’t even stowed all the pots and pans in
cupboards.  The countertops were cluttered with groceries that had never been
put away, a scattering of pan lids beside the stove, an open box of recipes
with several taken out as if she hadn’t made up her mind which to cook,
post-its and scraps of paper with names and phone numbers or indecipherable
notes to herself in a chicken scratch, and a few things that looked like she
might have set them down and quit noticing they were still there, like…  Well,
it was a plastic dolphin.  Maybe a child’s toy, he wasn’t sure.

He’d already jotted down all those names and phone numbers. 
It looked to him as if every scrap of paper was in the same place as when he’d
last seen them.  Not touching anything, he walked on through to the living
room, where the search finally became apparent.  He’d left some of the blinds
and drapes drawn, but not all.  Now they were, which had allowed the intruder
to use a flashlight unseen.  This room, too, had been messy, but in a
comfortable way.  Doreen didn’t leave food out to rot or dirty dishes to
attract ants, nothing like that.  She just hadn’t seen any necessity for
reshelving books or putting coats or shoes in a closet.  DVDs were stacked
precariously atop the player, a remote control lay on the sofa cushion atop a
scattering of newspapers, and a matronly white bra hung off the edge of the
coffee table.  She’d maybe stripped it off when she got in the door and tossed
it aside.  Doreen had been buxom.

Or the mysterious lover had stripped it off her and tossed
it aside, it occurred to Daniel, except if that were the case he’d expect some
panties and other clothes to be similarly discarded.

What he could see was that drawers had been dumped and
everything pulled out of an antique buffet.  China and glass was shattered on
the hardwood floor.

He heard a car pull up right then, and went to open the
front door.  Sophie had leapt out and was hurrying up the walkway, Diaz
trotting behind her saying, “Ms. Thomsen!  You can’t go in until the Chief
says—”

Daniel held up a hand.  “It’s okay.  Hey,” he said, looking
at Sophie.  “It’s not that bad.”

Her face was almost as tense as it had been that first day,
when she’d greeted him after finding Doreen dead.  “It makes me sick to think
of someone touching her stuff.”

“I understand.”  He stepped aside to let her enter,
indulging himself by just looking at her as she stared around in dismay.

She wore jeans again, but this time they were a bright royal
blue with a skinny cut that reminded him what gorgeous long legs she had and
did a nice job of outlining the curve of her ass, too.  She wore a sweatshirt
over a thin T-shirt, the hem of which he could see.  She’d be ready if the day
got warmer.

Her hair, the color of old gold, was bundled carelessly at
the back of her head.  Yesterday, the breeze off the ocean had pulled tendrils
loose until she’d finally stuffed the elastic that held it up in her pocket and
let the mass fall over her shoulders.  The texture had surprised him when he
drove his fingers into it.  Blondes so often had fine hair, but hers was strong
and thick.

And, damn it, his body was hardening just because he was
looking at her.  Yeah, and remembering how it felt to kiss her, to feel her softening
against him.  Her hands kneading, her tongue meeting his.

She hadn’t seemed to want to talk about that kiss any more
than he had.  Then he’d been grateful.  Now, he found himself feeling
irritated.  Maybe it had been casual to her, nothing that deserved a second
thought.

He wanted her, and, deep reservations or no, he was afraid
he wasn’t going to be able to resist starting something with her if she was
willing.

He pulled his thoughts from below his belt when he saw how
stricken she suddenly appeared, staring at that bra.  After an instant, her
hand snaked out and she bundled it up, clutching it to her as if to hide it. 
No, what she was doing was shielding her aunt from what must seem unbearable
nakedness.

“Whoever it was must have been looking for auction items,”
she said, swinging around suddenly to pin him with those big, green-gold eyes. 
“But that doesn’t make sense.”

Hoping she didn’t notice the fit of his chinos, he raised
his eyebrows.  “Why do you say that?”

“We’re agreed that half the town had a key to the unit.”

That was a slight exaggeration, but he nodded provisional
agreement.

“Borrowing one, with permission or not, wouldn’t have been
that hard.”

Again, he couldn’t argue.  It could have happened that way,
Doreen surprising him – only he’d brought a replacement lock, which suggested
he’d cut off the original.

“If somebody wanted something back he’d given,” she
continued, “all he had to do was ask.”

So that thought had crossed her mind, too.  “But that would
have drawn attention to whatever it was.”

She frowned.  “Well, that’s true, but…what could it possibly
be that’s so important?  And what would it matter if she said something?”

“That’s the question.”

“You must have ideas.”

All he could do was speculate, but sometimes throwing out
ideas clarified his own thinking – or he might get her thinking.  This break-in
suggested the killer hadn’t found what he was looking for that day at the
storage unit.  That meant Sophie would come across it sooner or later.

The more thought they’d given to it, the more likely she was
to have an ah-ha moment when she saw whatever it was.

“It could still be that simple theft is the goal.”  He threw
that out, because you never knew.  He’d seen murders committed for the most
trivial of reasons.  “Somebody really wants that Dale Chihuly glass piece, or
some of the more valuable jewelry you told me about.”

Which, as far as he knew, she had yet to find.

“Whoever he is killed to get it,” he continued, “and by God
he’s determined not to have done it for nothing.”

She didn’t look any more satisfied than he felt by that
explanation.

“He or she needs something back that wasn’t meant to be
given.”  This struck him as a hell of a lot more likely.  “You’re right, Doreen
probably – no, undoubtedly - would have returned it, and graciously, but, like
I said, she might also have mentioned that she had to other people.  It could
be something he isn’t supposed to have.  Maybe the fact he ever had it in his
possession threatens his marriage or his job.  Or it belonged to someone else who
is demanding it back.  Could be he stole it in the first place, and doesn’t
dare let word get out he ever had it.  Maybe somebody else donated it, our guy
heard about it and he’s angry.”

“It has to be something with real meaning to Aunt Doreen’s
killer.”  Sophie looked around the living room again, as if expecting to see
whatever it was.  “Not just, I don’t know, something he covets.”

“That’s what I think.”  He followed her gaze.  “It’s got to
be fairly small, given the places he searched.”

“That gives us something to go on.”

“Yeah, but it makes me even more uneasy about you bringing
the small stuff back to the cottage with you at night.”  Seeing her startled
expression, he realized he’d damn near growled.  To divert her, he said, “I
haven’t been upstairs yet.  You want me to take a look first?”

He let her follow him, even though he was still a little
uneasy at what they’d find.  If there’d been the kind of vicious destruction
he’d originally feared, though, it likely would have started downstairs.

Unless this all had to do with Doreen Stedmann’s mystery
lover – assuming he existed at all – and he’d channeled his rage at her
bedroom.

Tucked up under the roof and dormers were only two rooms and
a bathroom.  One of the two was a combination guest room and home office.  In
both it and the bedroom, closet doors stood open and contents had been rifled. 
The kind of big plastic drawers that slid under a bed had been pulled out and
dumped.  Ditto the drawers on the dresser and bedside stand.

Daniel left Sophie exclaiming over the mess in her aunt’s
bedroom and went back to the office to take a closer look at the desk and
computer.  He gave mouse a nudge and the monitor slowly lit.  The surge
protector, he saw, was turned on, which suggested the computer had been left on. 
By Doreen, or the intruder?  He’d like to see what files had been opened, but
he wanted the mouse and maybe keyboard to be fingerprinted first.

“What are you thinking?” Sophie asked from behind him.

He told her.

“Well, whoever he is, he wouldn’t have found anything
interesting on Aunt Doreen’s computer,” she said with certainty.  “I showed you
her list of donations.”

Incomplete and with items in seemingly random order.  He
remembered.

“So far as I know, nobody kept any better records. 
Certainly nothing that offered convenient information on what was stored
where.  The software I use actually has some provision for that, probably
because smaller organizations may keep stuff at various volunteers’ houses, but
Doreen just plunked everything into that same unit.”

“Or let everyone and her sister have a key so
they
could plunk things in there,” he grumbled.

“Right.  Um…why are you still staring at the computer?”

“Just wondering what she does have on there.”

“She bragged about how she’d started paying bills online, so
there’d be some financial information.  She’d gotten really addicted to a
couple of computer games, too.  And she used it to write letters since she
started developing some arthritis in her hands.”  Sadness infused her voice,
and he turned to look at her, guessing this was one of the moments when the
reality of Doreen’s death was hitting her. 

In fact, she turned pain-filled eyes on him.  “Can I start
cleaning up?”

He shook his head.  “I’m going to get someone in to
fingerprint first.  I’m sorry.  It’ll make a bigger mess.”

Despite a slight flinch, she said, “That’s okay.  It’s
just…  Doesn’t everybody know to wear gloves these days?”

Daniel grimaced.  “Unfortunately.  But people do get
careless.  If he was wearing something heavier than these—” he lifted a hand in
the thin latex, “he might have had to take them off to use the computer.”