Storm Surge (12 page)

His grin felt like it began in his stomach. He wanted to put his arms around her and laugh into that curly, wild hair of hers. He didn’t deserve her kindness, her understanding. God knew, he didn’t. But he wanted it. Oh yeah, he would have given anything to deserve what she offered.

Paige grabbed a band off the counter and wrapped it around her hair, bringing it into questionable submission. She hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder, looking at him with raised brows.

“Oh,” he said in comprehension. “Leaving right now. Thanks for the sandwich.”

Outside, he watched her turn the key in the deadbolt lock and then walked her to her car out front, where he gave the back seat the onceover before opening the door for her. “You keep your eyes open in town, all right? And call if you need anything. Because despite your threats to kick my ass—which I’d like to see you try, since I think it would be pretty entertaining—I will be there in a heartbeat if you call.”

Although her eyes had become a narrow, honey gleam at his comment, her mouth twisted into a smile. “I don’t have your number, Liam.”

“How about a pen?”

In silence, she plucked one from the front pocket of her bag. He grabbed her hand, pulling her arm straight. Beneath his fingers, he felt the pulse in her wrist, rapid and light, like a bird’s tiny heart. In swift strokes, he wrote his number on her forearm and handed the pen back.

“Blood poisoning? I’m flattered.”

“It’ll be right where you can see it. No hunting for a piece of paper.”

She nodded. He saw the reason for immediacy sink in as she glanced again at the phone number he’d inked onto her skin. “Thank you,” she said. “911 is easier to remember, though. Hopefully I won’t need either.”

As she climbed into the driver’s seat, her gaze went to his house and widened. She quickly turned her attention to inserting the key into the ignition. He looked over his shoulder, wondering aloud what had caught her eye.

“It’s nothing,” she said, swinging the door shut. “I thought I saw movement in the end bedroom. Is that your office? Used to be my room.”

Without further comment, she pulled out and headed down the road with a wave. He waited until her car had disappeared over the rise in the road before hurrying over to his house and up the stairs to the second floor. He found the doorstop wedged between the office door and the jamb. Pushing the door open, he stepped into the room and halted. “Where have you been?”

With a chirp, Shadow crossed the floor to leap into his arms. Holding the cat against his chest, Liam walked to the window, looking to the weathered cottage roof next door. There were no ghosts here today.

Not today.

“Thanks for coming in, Paige. How are you doing?” Dan spoke as he walked away from her, moving with a rapid stride down the hallway. Paige loped to keep up. Her stomach felt as if a fish were flopping around inside.

“In here.”

He paused outside a door before shoving it open. With a jerk of his head he indicated she should enter. Dan followed her inside. He set the folder he’d been carrying onto the laminate table top. Sitting in the nearest chair, Paige clutched her purse on her knees.

Dan dropped into another chair and scooted it over the gray institutional carpet and nearer to the table. He flipped open the folder to withdraw a photograph, which he slid across the table toward her. “This the guy?”

The agile fish jumped into her esophagus. She swallowed it back down as she leaned forward for a better look at the photo. Closer examination didn’t help. The photo was pixelated and ill-focused. She lifted the printout for a different angle. “It could be. The build looks right. Possibly the clothes, too. This photo is from what? A security camera?”

Dan nodded. “I know the image quality isn’t there. We got it from a bank down the block and tried to pull the details in. Not much luck.”

Paige narrowed her eyes in an attempt to find definition in the face. She glanced up at Dan. “Do you think you might know who this is?”

“Have you noticed anyone following you, anything suspicious, since your initial run-in last week?”

The fact that he’d avoided an answer with a question of his own wasn’t lost on her. She supposed, as an officer of the law, speculation would be frowned upon. “Nothing,” she said. “Funny, though, I think the night you were at the cottage wasn’t the first time someone had been in there. The night before, I found Liam’s cat inside and couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten in. If someone had entered the cottage and left the door open for a time, Shadow might have wandered in then.”

Dan tapped his fingers on the tabletop, considering, then snapped the photo up and returned it to the folder. “You stay in the cottage?”

“I did.” He didn’t need to know about last night. She would be in the cottage tonight and every night thereafter until she left. Returning to stay with Liam would be a mistake. He’d become skittish and she’d developed a premature affection, and those things together were not a compatible combination.

Dan rubbed his eyes. “I would feel better if—”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’m fine.”

Dan subsided with a scowl. “Anything happens, you call. Anything you remember, you call.”

“I will.” She stood up, assuming the interview finished.

“Do you remember anything about your father’s associates?”

Paige sat again. “Associates” was a strange term to use. “No. Not really. Why?”

“Did this guy look familiar to you at all?”

“A bit, but not like I knew him. I only saw him for a few seconds from the front, and then he walked away. Why on earth would someone my father had known be stalking me? Besides, he looked too young to have been a friend of my dad’s.”

Dan spun the folder with his fingertip. “I said associate, not friend, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just trying to get a handle on why someone would zero in on you right after your arrival. You’ve been gone for quite some time.”

“Look, Dan, I don’t know much about my father, but obviously you have some inkling. Why else would you be thinking a man who’d commit burglary—even if he only stole an object of no value—might be someone my father associated himself with?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Yes, it is. At least from where I’m sitting it is. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“No. There isn’t.”

She eyed his bland expression with distrust, yet to accuse him of outright lying seemed out of hand and, well, a teensy bit paranoid. He was a cop, after all, trying to help her. This whole business was making her anxious. With good reason. “You’d tell me if you found out something, wouldn’t you?”

Dan shifted his body, his vest creaking beneath his shirt. “Paige, why would you think I wouldn’t?”

“You know, you men in this town have an irritating habit of answering questions with questions.”

His lip curled, a small puff of air escaping his nose in amusement. “How old do you think this fellow was?”

Paige thought a moment. “I don’t know. It’s difficult to tell. Not even fifty? Looked like he had a rough life, as though he got into a lot of fights or something. I guess if I’d had my wits about me, I would have taken his picture with my cell phone.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Take his picture?”

“Blame yourself for not thinking of something in the moment. Your head doesn’t go there. You’re not trained to it. And also, yes, don’t take his picture. Not if he’s standing right in front of you. An action like that could provoke an attack.”

“You’re right, of course,” she said. The guy hadn’t been physically threatening, but she could understand how her snapping something as damning as a photo could cause a switch to flip. The guy had some serious psychological issues. He’d entered the cottage not to rob her of valuables, but to steal a memento, trail her, and then confront her with it. “Anything else you need to tell me? Did they find fingerprints on the bookmark?”

Dan slid the folder off the table and tucked it close against his chest. “Nothing worth a damn. Yours, of course, and some smudges that couldn’t be lifted. Real investigations aren’t like the crime shows. There are more unsolved cases than you’d believe.” He rose. “Are you going to the fireworks Saturday night?”

The abrupt change to chit-chat threw her for a second. Preceding him to the door, she answered as she passed him. “I’d forgotten about the Fourth, actually, but yes, I think I might.”

“Alone?”

She hesitated, wondering where he might be headed with the question. “If I go, that’s the likely scenario. As you pointed out, I don’t really know anyone around here anymore.”

He reached past her to turn the doorknob. “Be careful, then. It’ll be dark, and there will be crowds. If you stay at the cottage, since you insist, and watch from the windows, you might be safer.”

“Thanks for the warning. I can always hope the guy was a random sicko and he’s gone far away.” For good measure, she rapped her knuckles against the wooden doorframe as she passed.

“Maybe,” she heard him say behind her in dubious agreement. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually work that way.”

He didn’t walk her out, leaving her to find her way to the front of the building and outside. She descended the steps to her car, looking to either side as she did. She’d been careful to check the traffic on the road behind her and hadn’t noted anything suspicious, but she eyed the interior of her car before sliding behind the wheel.

She sat a few minutes, contemplating all that Dan Stauffer had told her and, more importantly, what he did not. She had no real reason to suspect he hid anything. After all, if an officer of the law intended to safeguard somebody, wanted someone to be able to protect themselves, he’d arm them with the facts, plain and simple. She knew that.

By the time she put the car into gear, she had considered the headway she’d made in her search for information about her father’s life. She hadn’t gotten far, that was for sure. She’d discovered more about her mother, and even that was limited. Paige didn’t like mysteries outside of a novel. She’d come to Alcina Cove with a purpose and had not only been unsuccessful in moving toward her goal, she’d been sidetracked by a lunatic with a fixation. Why
was he obsessed with her?

Unless he’d mistaken her for someone else. She wouldn’t wish this affliction on anyone, but if his behavior was meant for another, she wished he’d recognize his error and move on.

Paige decided to continue her day with a visit to Mrs. Hunt. Although she stood to gain nothing from further conversation with Bea, she had promised to come back, and the poor lady did give the impression she was quite lonely. Paige could stop by for a quick tea and possibly get names of friends her mother had when she’d lived here—women her mother’s age and not Mrs. Hunt’s—thereby killing two birds with one stone.

Beatrice Hunt, however, was not answering the door. Hearing a noise inside, Paige leaned over a bush and peered in through the lace-covered window. She found the woman standing behind the sofa, staring right back at her. Subduing her initial astonishment, Paige tapped on the glass.

“Mrs. Hunt. Bea! It’s Paige. Paige Waters.”

Paige wondered if the woman had experienced a medical trauma. Her eyes remained on Paige as if unseeing. Paige drummed the glass again.

“Bea! May I come in?” Paige straightened. She yanked the screen door open again and applied her fist to the wood panel. “Mrs. Hunt, are you all right? Open the door so I can be sure.”

After a minute she heard Bea’s shuffling steps on the other side, saw the doorknob wiggle as the woman fumbled with the lock. Bea opened the door a couple of inches. “Paige, dear, what is it? What do you want?”

“I came to see if we could have our tea, but now I’m worried about you. Don’t you feel well?” Paige tried to peek around her and into the house.

“I’m fine, dear,” the woman said breathlessly. “I’m just not up to company today.”

A cold suspicion entered Paige’s mind and proceeded across her skin with a soft, glacial tread. “Bea, is someone in the house with you?” She reached for her cell phone as she asked the question, her other hand moving to the knob.

“No. I’m alone, like I always am.”

“Do you mind if I check?”

“What? I don’t—”

Careful not to knock the elderly woman over, Paige pushed the door open and stepped inside. She grabbed a heavy ceramic duck off a nearby table. With enough of a swing, an object like that could yield some serious damage.

“Paige, what are you doing with Charlie? My neighbor’s daughter made that for me.”

Holding Charlie and her phone at the ready, Paige hurried through the house, announcing her intention to call the police. She realized she shouldn’t be broadcasting her objective, but performing it. By that time, though, she had determined the house was empty with the exception of herself and Beatrice Hunt. She returned to the living room and placed the duck back on the table. Bea watched her, thin arms folded.

“Bea, why wouldn’t you answer the door?”

“What is wrong with you, Paige?” The woman’s wheezing tones had taken on strength in her indignation. “How dare you burst in here?”

“I’m sorry. I thought…I thought something was wrong. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Positive.”

Paige sat in the nearest chair, the vanished rush of adrenaline leaving her drained. Bea eased over to the sofa and perched on a cushion. “I don’t really want to talk to you.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t say.”

“You can’t say?” Paige thought about the manner in which their last discussion had gone so awry.

“You have no intention of taking me seriously.”

Paige briefly closed her eyes. Not this again. “Maybe we don’t talk about things like that. We can talk about the flowers lining the walkway. I’m rather envious of them, you know. Perhaps you can tell me your secret.”

Bea bestowed a stony glare on her, lips tight.

“So, no tea?” Paige said.

“No tea.”

Paige wondered at the absence of courtesy. Normally, women her age held decorum above hurt feelings. “Okay, then, if you don’t want me to visit, could I ask you a quick question? And then I’ll go.”