Winter Winds (11 page)

She muttered under her breath and slouched to hide behind the steering wheel. If she slid any lower, she’d slide right off the seat. She lowered her window, hoping she could hear some of their conversation. The biting air swept in and froze her breath in her lungs.

For extra cover she grabbed the magazine Fleishman had been reading back at the airport and held it in front of her face. She blinked as she caught sight of the photo of a naked woman just inches from her nose. Not that she’d never seen such a magazine before. After all, she’d been a cop for several years now, and she knew more than she wanted to about real life. Rather, she never read such magazines herself, just like she never opened the porn sites that appeared regularly in her e-mail. She threw the magazine on the floor in disgust and went back to depending on the steering wheel for cover.

The preacher opened the side door of his van, and all the luggage went inside. The chalk streak on the side of the black bag was clear as it disappeared into the vehicle.

Then he opened the passenger door, holding out a hand to the woman.

As he did this, Phillip turned and looked directly at Maureen.
Directly
at her. He smiled slightly and raised an eyebrow as their gazes met through the steering wheel.

Maureen’s eyes widened. It was like he knew she was there, like he knew she was watching them. She forced herself to nod, just a slight incline of the head, then made herself look away. She was just a bored woman slouched in her seat, waiting for someone
she was supposed to pick up at the hospital, nothing more. She had just been watching them for something to do. That was all.

The girl said something, her voice drifting across the space between the cars but not her words. Phillip turned from Maureen to her, and Maureen sagged. Greg would have a fit if she was made. Surely Phillip’s glance—well, it was more than a glance; it was like a long stare—was just an accident. It meant nothing, impacted the case in no way.

She watched as Phillip took the girl in his arms and gave her a great hug and a kiss on the cheek. He turned to his brother and said something. The preacher gave a rueful smile. The woman climbed into the van; the preacher closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side, Phillip walking with him.

The preacher turned. “You’ve got my cell phone number. Call if anything happens. We can be back here in just a few minutes.”

Phillip extended his hand and the brothers shook. “Just go, Trev If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were stalling.”

The woman inside must have said something because both men looked into the van. Phillip laughed and Trev—for Trevelyan? Certainly no one would have named him Trevor Trevelyan—climbed into the van. Phillip stepped out of the way, and the van pulled from its parking place, then from the lot.

Maureen raised her window and turned the key in the ignition, preparing to follow. She slid into first gear and put her foot on the gas, only to slam on the brake.

Phillip Trevelyan stood directly in front of her, legs spread, arms akimbo.

She frowned at him. He stared impassively back.

Maybe she could back out and still have time to follow the preacher and the girl. She glanced behind her. Aside from a concrete parking buffer, a silver SUV sat with its nose to her back bumper. She wasn’t going anywhere that way.

Muttering to herself, she turned back to Phillip Trevelyan. Opening her window and leaning out, she called, “Excuse me. I was just leaving.” She began to inch forward.

He didn’t move.

Father God, please make him move!

She threw a desperate glance toward the green van, disappearing
down the highway. If she was ruthless and nuts like Riggs, the Mel Gibson character in the
Lethal Weapon
movies, she’d just gun the motor and force Phillip out of her way. In the movies everyone always jumped out of Riggs’s way. But what if Phillip Trevelyan didn’t know the rules? What if he didn’t move, and she ran over him?

She turned pleading eyes to him, but all he did was put one foot on her front bumper and drape his arm over his raised knee. He looked like he was posing for
GQ
, except for his nose turning red in the cold.

She closed her eyes and leaned back on the headrest, failure washing through her. It was too late to catch the green van now. There were too many roads, too many possibilities.

And it was all his fault!

She straightened. She should arrest him for impeding the progress of an investigation. Maybe that would teach him a lesson. Or for transporting stolen goods.

“What is your problem?” she shouted at him.

“I could ask you the same question,” he called back calmly.

“What?”

He lowered his foot. “If I come close so we don’t have to yell at each other, will you promise not to drive away when I step to the side?”

She looked again at the empty stretch of road that ran from the hospital and sighed. Like it mattered what he did now. She reached out and turned the car off. She had to hand it to him. He was good. He had effectively caused her to lose their best lead, their only lead, in the Matisse investigation.

Apparently taking her turning off the Camry’s engine as an affirmative, he walked to her open window. She pushed the lock button, though what good it would do with her window wide open was debatable. He heard the snick of the depressed locks and, grinning, nodded. He stopped beside the car and looked at her. Just looked. She in turn stared impassively back. Suddenly he blinked, shivered, and turned his collar up. “It’s cold out here.”

Maureen wiggled her frozen toes and silently agreed.

He leaned down, resting his arms on her window ledge, his hands dangling inches from her face. Eying him warily, she leaned
back. Hadn’t he ever heard of personal space?

“Want to let me in so I don’t freeze?” he asked, his voice halfway between a question and an order.

Right. Like she’d ask a strange man with ties to Jankowski into the car with her.

He nodded. “Didn’t think so. Smart girl.”

There was a power about him, an air of command that filled the car and made it hard for her to breathe. If she’d let him in, he’d probably asphyxiate her whether he meant to or not. Yet he didn’t seem overbearing or scary. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she’d never, ever imagine him to be the sort involved with the theft of such valuable property, not that criminals followed physical or personality stereotypes.

Of course, maybe he wasn’t a thief. Maybe it was just the girl. Maybe he was only the driver of a car she rode in.

And maybe the moon was made of green cheese.

“What’s so interesting about us Trevelyans?”

She feigned surprise. “Who are the Trevelyans?”

His look said he was disappointed in her. “As if you didn’t know.”

She merely stared at him. The silence didn’t bother her one bit. She’d outwaited many a petty troublemaker. She’d outwait him.

“Why did you follow us from the airport?”

She started. How did he know? She hoped that her surprise looked like disbelief at the accusation rather than distress at being found out. “Now why would I do something like that?”

“I might have been meeting Dori, but I always notice a pretty woman, especially one who seems more than a bit interested in Dori and me, even takes our picture, then runs like crazy to her own car when we start to drive away.”

“It sounds to me like you’re just a teensy bit paranoid.” She put everything she could into her sneer, though she was thrown that he’d noticed the pictures.

He gave a smile that was both beautiful and more than slightly condescending. “I might agree with you if I hadn’t watched you search my car.”

She stiffened. “I did not search your car.”

“Maybe you didn’t force any locks, but you walked around it long enough, peeking in the windows, studying the license plate, talking to your contact on the phone as you did all this.”

She glanced involuntarily at all the hospital windows and inwardly grimaced. She should have been more careful.

“Yeah,” he said. “I watched from that big window on the third floor.” He pointed.

“Maybe I just like the looks of your car. Maybe I just like the lighthouse license plate.”

He shook his head, not deigning to respond to such obvious cavils. “Maybe you’re planning to rob me.”

She sat up, stung by the charge. “What? Are you nuts?” She was a cop, for Pete’s sake, not that she could tell him.

He leaned closer, invading her personal space again, forcing her to back farther into the car. “Then why were you spying on me?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and met him steely look for steely look. She reminded herself to take slow, deep breaths. He wasn’t really taking up all the oxygen in the car; it just felt that way. “How well do you know the woman you drove here?”

She could tell he didn’t expect her question. He frowned, then pulled back a bit, and she could breathe again.

“She’s my sister.”

“Really?”

He gave a half smile. “You needn’t sound so skeptical. She’s my sister.”

“And the man who just left with her?” And the black suitcase.

“My brother.”

“And their names?”

“Paul Trevelyan and Dori MacAllister. And I’m Phil Trevelyan, as if you didn’t already know that.” He grew thoughtful. “Though I guess Dori’s name is really Dori Trevelyan now. And has been.”

“MacAllister was her married name, and she’s reverted after a divorce?” Clarification would help with tracing her.

“No, Trevelyan’s her married name.”

Maureen looked at him. “I think you’d better explain.”

For some reason he did. “Well, she’s not my blood sister, but the three of us were raised together. Then Trev married her.”

“Your brother married your sister.”

“But not my blood sister,” he repeated hastily. “Or Trev’s.”

“So your sister is now also your sister-in-law.”

Phillip stared at the place where the van had been, smiling vaguely. “I still can’t believe it.”

“Recent marriage, huh?”

He shook his head. “No, six years ago. I just didn’t know it until today.”

That surprised her. “I would have thought from the way you pounced on me that you didn’t miss much. How’d a marriage of six years get by you?”

“Simple. They don’t live together. Dori’s been in California ever since they married, and Trev’s been here.”

Maureen snorted. “Strange marriage.”

He gave her a decidedly unfriendly look. “You don’t know anything about it.”

She felt herself flush. He was right. “Sorry.”

He held up a hand. “Me, too. You’re right. It is a strange situation. Now they have to live together for six months.”

“Have to?”

Phil grinned. “Yeah. Have to. Because of Pop and Honey.”

And that was supposed to make sense? “I take it the three of you were visiting someone here?” She pointed at the hospital.

He nodded. “Pop. And I’ve got to get back. I need to be with Honey when the doctor tells her what he found.” He straightened, then hesitated. Bending to her again, he turned on that charming smile, this time without the condescension. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Maureen’s heart kicked.
Sweetheart?
The man was dangerous, thief or no. “Why should I tell you?”

He shrugged. “Because I want to know?”

A good reason if she ever heard one. “Maureen Galloway. What do you know about Matisse?”

He looked surprised at the question. “The artist?”

Maureen nodded.

“That’s what I know, all of it. He was an artist. I assume he painted in a particular school and lived somewhere—France?—
and had a first name and a family.” He spread his hands. “No clue. Why?”

She shook her head again. What else would she expect him to say? That he was somehow involved in the theft of two of the artist’s paintings?

“You’re an interesting one, Maureen. I still don’t know what your game is or why my car fascinated you so much or if you did indeed follow me from the airport. Or maybe it was Dori you followed. But you can find me in Seaside, New Jersey, at the Seaside Pharmacy.”

“And why would I want to find you?” Maureen retorted.

Phil studied her for a minute. “I have no idea. But I think that I’d like you to find me.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Because?”

On that note, he walked off. She watched him until he disappeared into the hospital. What game was he playing? What did he want from her? And why did the first man who had interested her even the slightest bit since Adam’s death have to be involved in one of her cases?

T
HE AIR IN THE
C
ARAVAN
was thick with tension. Dori felt it twining around her like the tendrils of the heavy fog in an English mystery movie.

Six months with Trev! Even the thought stole her breath. How could she survive? She’d barely escaped intact last time, and that had only been three days. She knew she’d never survive a hurt like he’d inflicted before if it happened a second time, at least not the parts of her that were truly her. Her spirit, her soul, her personality, all those intangibles that made her who she was.

A pillow over her face would be kinder, smothering the life from her body. Then she wouldn’t have to learn to live with the unbearable ache of rejection and betrayal again.

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she turned to look out her side window so Trev wouldn’t see. He must not know the power he had over her. To protect herself she would be polite but distant, pleasant but withdrawn. In other words, there but not there. Maybe then she could cope.

Trev finally spoke. “So how will Small Treasures survive without you for six months?” He gave her a wry smile.

She couldn’t help but return the smile in kind.
“Meg managed before I showed up. I’m sure she can manage again.” Polite but emotionally uninvolved.

“How did she get started in the business?”

“She’d always wanted a store of her own, so when her three sons were in high school, she opened Small Treasures with Ron’s financial help and blessing.”