Worst Laid Plans (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 1) (25 page)

A lump formed in my throat. “I’m so sorry, Mrs Biggenhill.”

She shook her head. “I never could make up my mind, but now that I do know…” Tears stung her eyes, but she smiled through them, a tight, small smile. “I’m grateful for the truth. Look after yourself, Maddox, and if ever you need anything, you know where to find me.”

After she’d gone, Jenna nudged me. “You were right, she is really nice.”

“It must have been terrible for her, being from out of town and then her husband going missing before she’d had much chance to settle in,” I mused. “Plus the shadow of suspicion that Ms Daggon kept casting over her.”

Jenna nodded in agreement. “I always wondered why she never sold up and went back to where she came from. She seemed quite miserable here in Silver Firs.”

“Oh my God,” I exclaimed as the thought occurred. “You don’t think she was waiting for him, in case he ever returned?”

“How awful, to be stuck like that.”

We sat back, staring out over the garden as we contemplated yet another life that Principal Limly had wasted. I wasn’t a blood-lust kind of person, but in this instance, I had no problem with a public execution.

Which is why I might have been slightly grumpy when Nate stopped by to inform us that Adrian Limly had made a deal in exchange for a full confession.

“Once I told him we’d found you,” Nate said, “he knew he was done for. We had him on two counts of murder as well as kidnapping and attempted murder. He took the deal and sang like a canary for us.”

“He doesn’t deserve leniency,” I muttered. “Whose half-boiled idea was that?”

“He’ll die in prison, just not in a maximum security facility.” Nate cocked his head, studying me for a long moment. “I pushed hard for the deal, Maddox, and I’d do it again. That’s a small price to pay for keeping you off the stand. You don’t have to face Limly across a courtroom, relive the day over and over while his defense lawyer picks you and your story apart.”

“You can start to put this behind you,” Jenna said, giving me a warning look to play nice.

I smiled at Nate and gestured at the pitcher on the table. “Would you like a glass of lemonade?”

“Thanks, but I’m not staying.” He scrubbed his jaw, looking at me, not going anywhere either. “I just wanted to let you know, so you could stop worrying.”

“That was kind of you,” I said, my tone warming with appreciation and maybe something more. Nate was still watching out for me, protecting me, even after his job was done.

He held my gaze, those smoky gray eyes drinking me in. “Well, I guess I’ll be on my way.”

“Okay, then,” I said, feeling his gaze wash over me like hot honey. “Bye.”

He was gone before I realized that had been kind of a lame sendoff. In all fairness, I’d gotten a little lost there in his eyes, so I wasn’t wholly responsible for my actions.

Jenna blew out a disgruntled sigh.

“What?”

She slid me a look. “Nothing.”

It clearly wasn’t nothing, but I decided I’d rather not know.

SEVENTEEN

Nate returned the following afternoon.

I answered the door and there he stood, bristled jaw, sunglasses shoved up into his hair, charcoal suit tailored to those broad shoulders, looking all kinds of granite-chiseled and harshly beautiful.

And yes, my pulse blipped liked a homing beacon, but I wasn’t going there. “Hey, there.”

“How are you feeling today?” he said, smoky grays searching me.

“Almost normal.” I backed up into the hallway to let him in and saw the see-through evidence bags he held in one hand. “What’s that?”

“We found your cell phone in Limly’s tool shed.” He swung the larger bag out to me. “This was in the trunk of your car.”

My lungs pinched as I recognized the faded blue denim and pair of beaded flip-flops. “Those are my clothes. I was wearing the flip-flops, but the jeans and…”
Good God, was that my bra?
“He must have taken the rest from my bedroom.”

“Did Limly say why he’d do that?”

He hadn’t, but I had a fairly good idea and it disgusted me.

I set the bags down on the hallway table and led Nate through to the back garden. Mom was in the kitchen, Dad was somewhere in the house, and they were both upset enough without having to hear this.

“He planned to make it look like I’d killed myself,” I said once we were outside. “I suppose in his mind, no sane—or insane—person would leave home on their own accord wearing pajamas. He was going to come back at a later date to set the scene and I’m guessing…” I shuddered at the thought of his hands on my naked skin. “Once I was dead, he probably intended to dress me in those clothes.”

“Hey…” Nate stopped and turned to me. His knuckles came beneath my chin, lifting my gaze to him.

There was a hardness in his eyes, a darkness I hadn’t seen before.

“He can’t touch you, Maddox.” Nate’s thumb stroked lightly as his hand drifted from my chin to my shoulder. “He’ll never get near you again, do you hear me?”

I swallowed. “I hear you.”

I also knew that my favorite pair of jeans was going into the trash. Limly’s paws had been all over them.

Nate took his hand back and reached into his jacket to pull out a small pad and pen. “Are you ready to give that statement?”

“I was ready yesterday,” I reminded him.

“I wasn’t ready to hear it,” he admitted, his mouth flattening into a grimace. “I would have gone into that interrogation room and beaten him to a bloody pulp, and that would only have worked in the bastard’s favor.”

“You say the sweetest things in the weirdest way.”

His grimace hitched into a slow grin. “I’ve never been called sweet before.”

“Now why does that not surprise me?” I laughed, the edge shaved off my morbid mood as we continued walking and sat down on the bench beneath the crabapple tree at the bottom of the garden.

I went through the events of my ordeal as succinctly as I could without leaving out any pertinent details—which did not include my pajamas wrapped around my ears, in case you were wondering. Some secrets are a girl’s best friend and should never be shared.

Nate scribbled away, his expression darkening by the word.

He didn’t interrupt or ask me to elaborate at any point. Maybe I was just that good at recapping, or maybe he wanted to get this over with as quickly as I did.

“People like Adrian Limly are the most dangerous of all predators,” he said as he slid his notepad back into his inner jacket pocket. “Normal, docile, upstanding citizens for the most part, until the moment they snap. You never see it coming.”

“If you’d asked me two days ago, I would have sworn he didn’t have it in him to swat a fly.” I stood to stretch. “Do you know how he got the poison into Ms Daggon’s tea?”

“She kept a packet in the staffroom.” Nate swung his thighs out and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. “The perfect murder. Limly contaminated only one teabag, ensuring the date and time of her murder was completely random. He struck it lucky on top of that. It’s not every day a victim packs the murder weapon into their purse and carries it off. We had nothing to place him at the scene.”

“I hate to think how easily he could have gotten away with it,” I said.

“But he didn’t, thanks to you.” Nate glanced up at me. “Seems we had our own lucky charm.”

“I didn’t feel particularly lucky yesterday.”

“That was clever thinking, by the way,” he drawled. “Shooting a hole in that tank to flood the road.”

“That was a fortunate happenstance,” I admitted. “I’d actually intended the tank to blow up to attract the attention of a passing car.”

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. “You do know that tank held rainwater and not propane gas, right?”

That’s what I got for not taking credit where it was due.

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just go with your story and how clever I am.”

He chuckled harder, giving a slow shake of his head as he looked at me.

I looked straight back and got a little stuck there. Again. He wore that look of thorough bemusement well. It softened the angles of his face, creased into the hollows of his jaw, lit behind his smoky eyes.

A sigh swept along my veins, leaving a trail of toasty warmth. Jenna kept going on about how seriously hot Nate was, and sure, he certainly was all kinds of sexy gorgeous. But it wasn’t that—okay, it wasn’t
only
his magnetic ruggedness that tugged at me. Nate made me feel safe. He made me feel cared for, protected beyond the line of duty.

Stupid, right?

We hadn’t known each other very long. And most of that time, I’d been mad at him for one thing or the other. But still, if I were ever in any kind of serious trouble, Nate would be the one I’d call.

Or think of calling, since I didn’t actually have his number.

“I guess that’s it, then.” Nate rolled his shoulders back and stood. “We’re done.”

A sudden cluster of panic flurried in my throat.

We
were
done, which meant he was leaving, going back to Auburn.

“Forensics should release your car in the next few days,” he said. “Officer Skinner will keep you informed.”

“Okay.” I bit my lower lip, frantically trying to decide what I wanted. Within reason, which meant I had to discard the first thought that came to mind: leashing him to the tree like a dog so he couldn’t roam too far.

Finally, I settled for an overdue truth.

“Before you go, there’s one more thing,” I told him. “Something I maybe should have mentioned sooner.”

That look of endless patience crossed his face and by now I knew how to read it. He thought he wasn’t going to like what he heard, but he wanted to hear it anyway. I was pretty sure that look wasn’t special just for me, and that was okay, another part of what made him kind of wonderful.

“I am married,” I told him. “To Joe, obviously. But we’re also in the process of getting a divorce.”

Nate looked at me.

That was it, just looked at me.

“I don’t know if you care,” I rambled on, “but I wanted to clear that up.”

“I care,” he said.

“Oh.”

He scrubbed his jaw. “What does that mean, exactly, Maddox?”

For once, I didn’t spit out the first snarky retort that entered my head. I knew what he was asking.

“I’m not ready for anything,” I said after a pause. “I’m not ready to even start thinking about anything. But I hope it means we can be friends.”

“Hmm…” He pushed a hand through his hair, snagged his sunglasses and had to catch them.

A smile curled into my toes. “You know, they sell a great range of croakies for your sunglasses at the Treasure Chest in town.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He cocked his head, a slow grin coming on. “Take care, Maddox.”

Take care?

I threw my hands up in the air, my mouth dropped wide open, but he never saw. He’d already turned to stroll up the garden path and, apparently, see himself out.

Seriously, sometimes I didn’t know why I bothered!

∞∞∞

It was another week before my life returned to its new version of semi-normal. My little yellow bug was parked beneath the shade of the papery birch outside and I was once again ensconced at Hollow House with nothing much to do.

I wasn’t totally idle, though. I shot a couple of quick photos of the house with my phone camera. And one perfect long angle view that clipped the terrace in with the sun setting over the lake.

Amazingly, the HollowHouse domain was still available and I snapped it up in Mr Hollow’s name. And okay, the domain name was probably the best thing about the crappy blog I put together, but anything was better than nothing at all.

Once Mr Hollow got over the shock of being radically exposed to every loony goon and misbegotten thud on the planet (his words, not mine), I’d broach the subject of hiring a professional.

Burns helpfully supplied a descriptive list of our guest suites and accommodations.

Mr Hollow had, somewhat less helpfully, looked over my shoulder at the final result and prodded a finger at the screen. “I don’t like that.”

I looked at where he was pointing and rolled my eyes before looking up over my shoulder. “That’s our address. How else are people supposed to find us?”

“I don’t like it.” He harrumphed. “We’ll have all sorts descending on us out of the blue.”

“So long as they’re willing to pay the going rate,” I declared with a stubborn edge to my tone, “let them descend.”

“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said with a scowl that read,
You have no idea what you’re doing, young missy.

I shrugged for lack of a better argument.

Of course I had no idea what I was doing.

I was sitting out on the porch steps the next day, tweaking the blog and attempting to guess the distance to the start of the nearest hiking trail in the foothills across the valley road, when Joe rocked up on my doorstep with his bags.