Deadly Devotion (8 page)

Kate slapped the fire screen closed and whirled toward the door. In her hurry, she knocked over the poker stand. The brass implements clattered onto the brick hearth.

“What happened?” Edward shouted up the stairs. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes. I’m fine. I . . . I just remembered I have a meeting and I’m late.”

Footfalls bounded up the stairs. “Wait!”

Kate fumbled with the deadbolt. She just bet he wanted her to wait. Clutching the journals under her arm, she used both hands to twist the latch.
Come on. Open.
She glanced over her shoulder as Edward hit the main floor at a run.

His gaze skittered over the toppled fire poker and skewered into her.

With Julie’s you-could-be-next warning blasting in her ears, Kate wrenched on the door with one last heave.

“I think Kate’s in danger,” the woman on the other end of the phone blurted before Tom had a chance to say hello.

Pressing the phone to his ear, he strode to the bedroom to grab his car keys and gun. “Danger, how? Where is she?”

“She followed Edward to Daisy’s place.”

The news coupled with the warble in Julie’s voice breached the barrier between his job and his emotions—the barrier he prided himself on, the barrier he needed to maintain if he wanted to be an effective cop. He fumbled with the lock on his gun locker.

“You’ve got to find her. Edward claimed he found Daisy’s journal, but I don’t trust him, and Kate’s not answering her cell phone.”

The lock released and Tom snatched out his gun. “Okay, I’m on my way. Let me know if you hear from her.” He pocketed his phone, strapped on his shoulder holster, and headed for the door.

Dad had taken over Tom’s spot in front of the laptop at
the dining room table and was typing in search parameters from the reams of notes they’d compiled on Jim Crump, aka Edward Smythe.

“I’ve got to go. Jim’s got Kate.”

Dad’s sharp inhalation bumped up his fears that Jim had raised the stakes on his little con game. Dad caught the door as Tom rushed out. “Be careful.”

“I will. Find me something I can stick to this guy.”

“I’m on it.”

Tom sped out of the driveway, wheels squealing.

Dark clouds bruised the sky. Houses passed in a blur, but not fast enough to spare him from imagining horrible possibilities. No, he refused to let his thoughts go there. If Edward killed Daisy, he couldn’t have known his real name was in her will, because the inclusion guaranteed he’d be the prime suspect in the event of a suspicious death.

Except . . . if he found out that Leacock knew about his cons, he had to be worried that it was only a matter of time before Kate stumbled onto the truth with her relentless digging.

In his mind, she’d have to be silenced.

Not tonight, though. Not when her roommate knew of his invitation to meet at Daisy’s house. Too big a risk.

Tom mentally scrolled through a contingency plan in the event he was wrong, and this call went south. He veered his car onto Leacock’s street and slowed to a crawl.

Edward’s Boxster sat in the driveway, but not Kate’s VW Bug. Relief flooded Tom’s chest, swamped promptly by alarm. Edward might’ve taken Kate for a drive in her car to make her death look like a traffic accident.

Tom parked on the street, blocking the end of the driveway,
and reached for the radio to request a BOLO—Be On Look Out—for Kate’s yellow VW.

Edward appeared at the garage door, lugging a body bag–sized duffle.

Tom forced down a rise of bile as his finger hovered over the call button.

Edward heaved the bag over the lip of his trunk.

Hand itching to grab his gun, Tom stepped out of his car as casually as his racing heart permitted. “Planning a trip?”

Edward’s arms jerked at the sound of Tom’s voice, but he immediately resumed what he was doing. “No, this stuff is for Kate,” he said, seemingly unfazed by Tom’s arrival. Edward’s smudged polo shirt told another story.

“Are you all right?” Tom asked, his hands poised at his side, ready to draw his gun if necessary.

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

Tom motioned to his chest. “You have blood on your shirt.”

Without so much as glancing toward his shirt, Edward reached into his pocket.

Tom went for his gun.

Edward pulled a paper towel from his pocket and pressed it against his palm. “I cut my hand on a broken mirror in the basement.”

Tom let his gun settle back into its holster and cautiously made his way toward Edward’s car. “Let me give you a hand with that bag.” Tom helped Edward stuff the bag into the trunk, all the while feeling along its sides. Whatever was in the bag, it wasn’t a body.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Looking for Kate. Do you know where she is? Her roommate told me I’d find her here.”

“You just missed her. Said she was late for a meeting.”

“At the research station?”

Perspiration beaded Edward’s upper lip. Whether from nerves or exertion, Tom couldn’t be sure.

“Don’t know.” Edward wheezed as he struggled to wedge the duffle deeper into his miniscule trunk. “She ran out of here like a bat out of you-know-where.”

Tom schooled his reaction. He knew better than to ask questions that might prompt the man to demand his lawyer, but neither was he ready to take Jim—aka Edward—at his word. The man’s act was slicker than his car.

“Why?” Edward gave the bag one last shove. “Has Kate convinced you to reopen the case?”

“Not officially, no. Unofficially, there are a few loose ends I’d like to see tied up.”

Edward slammed the trunk closed and fingered his keys with a little too much interest.

Oh yes, this man knew exactly what some of those loose ends might be.

When Edward spoke again, the bravado in his voice sounded forced. “Glad to hear it. Because my aunt was too smart to drink the wrong tea.”

Nope, Edward wasn’t as cool as he’d like Tom to believe. Of course, now wasn’t the time for Tom to tip his hand. Not with one suspicious death, and Kate, still unaccounted for. One mention of Edward’s true identity and he’d be lawyered up before nightfall.

Mrs. C tootled her fingers from her vantage point on the other side of the picket fence. From the look of the pile of weeds in her bucket, she’d been on patrol for a while, which
boded well for Kate’s safety. Julie’s overactive imagination had gotten them both a little too keyed up.

Tom’s cell phone rang. That was probably her now. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” Confident Edward wouldn’t try to leave while Tom’s car blocked the drive, he put some distance between them before answering.

“Edward killed Daisy,” the panicked voice on the other end of the phone shrilled.

“Kate?” Tom pinned his gaze on Crump, who’d gone back into the garage and started rummaging through a box along the wall. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Listen to me.”

Her rattled response had Tom on the verge of ripping into Crump, demanding to know what he’d done to her.

“Edward burned Daisy’s journal. It must’ve had something incriminating. You have to arrest him.”

Tom could just imagine the incriminating details Daisy might have written about Crump in her diary, but without the evidence he had no grounds for an arrest. “Where are you?”

“I can’t believe we trusted him.” Tires squealed and Kate’s next words sounded breathless. “Daisy loved him like her own son.”

Tom’s chest tightened at the sound of Kate careening through traffic. “Where are you?” he all but shouted, digging his keys from his pocket as he jogged toward the car.

“I got out of there as fast as I could. I was so scared. What if he finds out I know?”

“Know what?”

“Aren’t you listening? He killed Daisy.”

Edward’s gaze snapped to Tom’s.

Tom covered the mouthpiece. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.” He
climbed into his car and closed the door. “Tell me where you are.”

“On Chestnut, coming up to Oakland Avenue.”

“Okay, go on home. I’ll meet you there, and you can show me what you’ve found.”

“But I think someone’s following me. They’ll find out where I live.”

“Someone who?” If she was right and Edward killed Daisy, the tail was likely a product of her overactive imagination.

Or Edward had alerted a fellow conspirator.

“I don’t know. Someone!” she screamed, bypassing panic and taking the one-way straight to hysteria.

“Okay,” he said calmly. “Here’s what I want you to do. Turn left, then right, and tell me if the car follows.” He pulled onto the street and headed toward Oakland.

For a moment the phone remained silent, then Kate’s thin voice crackled over the airwaves. “Yes. The car’s still behind me.”

Tom turned the corner in time to see a red LeSabre slow behind Kate’s car. The driver glanced Tom’s way, then sped past.
Not her imagination.
“Kate, I’m coming toward you. Pull over.”

Tom drove past, did a U-turn, and parked behind her car. He let his head drop back against the seat and took a moment to steady his breathing.

After a quick call to her roommate to let her know Kate was safe, he approached Kate’s car. “Was the LeSabre the vehicle you saw following you?” he asked through her open window.

“Yes.” White-fingered, Kate clamped the steering wheel as if she were mere seconds away from careening over a cliff.

Alarmed by how her fear dug into all his raw places, Tom
dropped his gaze to the pavement. He cleared his throat. “The license plate was distinctive—
T42
. I won’t have any trouble tracking down the owner.”

“Tea for two?” Surprise and a hint of relief replaced the wild look in Kate’s eyes. “That’s Beth’s car.”

“Who’s Beth?”

“My supervisor’s wife. She owns A Cup or Two.”

“Shoulder-length hair? Dark? Straight?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“Why would she follow you?”

Kate ducked her head. “I must’ve been mistaken. Edward had me pretty rattled.”

Tom wasn’t convinced. The driver had seemed pretty intent on Kate until she caught sight of him rounding the corner. And as Tom recalled, Kate’s supervisor had been less than enthusiastic about the news that Kate would take over for Daisy.

What if they had it wrong? What if Darryl—not Edward—killed Daisy?

With a wife in the herbal tea business, Darryl had access to every imaginable brew he’d care to concoct to dispose of someone, and as Daisy’s boss, he had plenty of opportunity. But why would he kill her?

Tom plowed his hand through his hair. Oh, man. He was jumping from theory to theory like a rookie, or worse, like a man thinking with his emotions instead of his brain. He should’ve known from the way he’d pounced on Julie’s call that he’d lost his perspective on this one.

Kate peered at Tom through her open car window, wondering what he must think of her.

“Follow me,” he said, his brow creased in concern.

Or was that annoyance?

“Where?” Fear might have driven her to call him about Edward, but that didn’t mean she could trust him any more than she trusted Hank Brewster, even if Brewster didn’t kill Daisy. Except . . . given the way she ran out of Daisy’s house, leaving the fire poker strewn on the floor, Edward had to know she’d seen what was left of the journal he’d burned. So until she convinced Tom to arrest Edward, she wouldn’t be safe.

A car turned onto the street and Tom faced the driver, shielding Kate with his body. Not that there’d ever been a drive-by shooting in Port Aster. Of course, until Daisy’s death, there hadn’t been a murder in as long as Kate could remember either. Clearly, Tom wasn’t taking any chances.

The car sped by without slowing.

Kate let out a breath. Maybe she could trust Tom. Anyone who’d stand in the line of fire for her deserved a second chance, even if he was a cop. Not to mention she was fresh out of options.

Edward knew where she lived.

Tom rested his hand on the door frame and hunkered down to her eye level. If she didn’t know better, she might have mistaken the concern—definitely concern—in his eyes for something more than duty. “I want to introduce you to my dad. He’s a retired police officer and might see something we’re missing. You can tell us what you’ve found, and we can decide what to do from there.”

“You’re going to reopen the case?” she practically squealed.

A muscle in Tom’s jaw flinched. “We’ll see.”

His lukewarm response cooled her hopes, but she followed Tom to his dad’s house. Edward wouldn’t come after her as long as Tom was close by.

His dad lived in a cheery, yellow-sided bungalow on a tree-lined street. The masses of purple phlox, hyacinths, and forget-me-nots amid a variety of other yet-to-bloom perennials suggested he shared her love of gardening, although the bed was in need of some serious weeding.

Tom opened her car door. “Please excuse the mess when we get inside. My dad hasn’t been the same since Mom died.”

“Of course, I understand.” Too well.

Tom’s gentle touch at the small of her back plucked her from the edge of an emotional cliff. He steered her toward the front door, and she reminded herself that he too was grieving.