Deadly Force (7 page)

“It’s because we’re Generation Y,” Tom said from somewhere behind him.

Tom
made it sound like Sam was Generation Old.

“Can we please just call it a night?” Sam asked.

Claire nodded.

“Hope to see you again, Claire,” Tom called out.

“Sure. That would be great,” Claire said, finally stepping inside.

Yeah
.
Great
. Sam shut the door harder than he needed to.

“Nice guy,” Claire said.

“If you like the nose-in-the-book type,” Sam said. He did
not want to talk about Tom. “It’s late,” he said.

“Why was he driving you?”

“I’d had a couple of beers. Didn’t want to take a chance.”

“Oh.” She walked into the kitchen and got herself a glass of water. She stood at the sink, drinking it. “You know it’s been just recently,” she said, “that I’ve started to say no. That I wasn’t going to do exactly what I was told.” She gave him a
small smile. “Trust me on this one, that’s a good thing, but I went a little overboard tonight. I caused you a problem and I shouldn’t have. I really am sorry.”

Could she make him feel any more miserable? “Forget it,” Sam said. “You’re okay and that’s all that matters.”

She nodded. “Did you get any dinner?”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. His stomach was still in knots. He wouldn’t
be eating anytime soon.

She chewed on one fingernail. “Well, then, I guess I’ll go to bed.” She walked down the hallway and Nightmare fell in step next to her. She had her hand on the doorknob to the spare room when his cell phone rang.

Sam snagged it. “Hello,” he said.

“Sam, honey.”

“My mother,” he whispered and when Claire smiled, his knees felt a little weak. He leaned back
against the kitchen counter, grateful for the support. It was crazy, but he really didn’t want her to be mad at him.

“Sam, we have the best news.”

His mother was practically screaming. Sam held the phone a couple inches away from his ear. “I bet you’re a grandma.”

“Yes. At four this morning.” His mother’s voice returned to almost normal. “And she’s perfect. Ten toes, ten fingers.
We went to the hospital to see her tonight. She has the most wonderful strawberry-blond hair.”

A baby girl. Damn. Jake had a daughter. “How’s Joanna?”

“Fine, but tired. She was in labor most of the night.”

“And Jake?”

“He’s a wreck. Your father was the same way. I swear, big, tough men are the worst. Can’t handle childbirth. It’s a good thing the Vernelli men marry strong women.
Remember that when it’s your turn.”

His turn?
He swallowed and looked at Claire.

“Something wrong?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “What’s our baby girl’s name?”

“Maggie. Jake picked it. It was Joanna’s mother’s name.”

“Sounds perfect. Thanks for calling, Mom.”

“She’s coming home tomorrow. Can you believe that? They keep them only twenty-four hours now. Joanna
and Jake said they’d stop by here on their way back to Wyattville. We’ll have a late lunch together, a little welcome-home party for Maggie. Can you come, Sam? I know it’s a long drive and you’d have to take off work, but it would mean so much to Jake and Joanna.”

He could hardly wait to kiss Joanna and smoke a cigar with his brother. But could he leave Claire alone?

No doubt she wouldn’t
be alone for long. Pete watch-her-brush-off-her-ass Mission would probably be glad to get in the game. Tom Ames could be the backup quarterback.

Sam had always hated sitting on the sidelines.

“Hang on, Mom,” he said. He held the receiver to his chest.

“Claire,” he said, “my sister-in-law had her baby today and my mom wants to do some kind of family thing. I usually stay the night.
It’s short notice, but I’d want you to come, too. Do you think you could get off work tomorrow? We’d be back early enough Thursday for you to work a half day. Sound okay?”

“I...I guess. I have some personal days.”

He lifted the receiver, readying himself for a modified Spanish Inquisition. “Mom, I can come, but I need to bring a friend.”

“A friend?”

He could hear the little
wheels in his mother’s head start to turn. “Don’t get excited, Mom. It’s just Claire Fontaine. She had a little trouble at her apartment, so she’s staying with me for a few days.”

“Claire Fontaine.” The wheels sounded as if they’d come to a grinding halt. His parents hadn’t been happy when the Fontaines had thrown him to the wolves.

“It’s no big deal. I’ll tell you all about it when
I get there,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

Sam hung up the phone. Claire remained at the end of the hall, staring at him.

“So we’re set?” he said.

She shook her head, suddenly looking very weary. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

Chapter Seven

“Don’t get excited, Mom. It’s just Claire Fontaine. No big deal.”

Like water dripping on a stone, his words battered her soul. She was just Claire. Which meant she was nothing to Sam Vernelli and she’d be well served to remember that.

Wait. That wasn’t exactly true. She wasn’t nothing. She was Tessa’s sister.

Which was worse than being nothing.

She flopped down on the futon. And the tears, the ones she hadn’t shed when her apartment had been burglarized or when there’d been a dead woman on her couch, they came with a vengeance, making her eyes burn and her head ache. She buried her face in her arms and pulled the pillow over her head.

Crying wasn’t horrible. Having Sam Vernelli hear her crying was. He’d demand to know why and he
wouldn’t stop poking and prodding at her until she told him. And what could she say?

For some stupid reason, when you asked if I could go, I got excited about the idea that you wanted to spend time with me. Claire Fontaine. Just because I’m me. Not because I’m Tessa’s little sister.

He’d think she was a nut. She wasn’t sure he’d be wrong.

Not for the first time, Claire wondered
if it would have all been different if Tessa had lived. Would there have been Sunday dinners and late-night movies and family vacations? Would there have been joy? Would there have been love?

Would she have been able to pick up the phone, call up her mom and spill about how darn excited she was to be a finalist in the competition? Would she have been able to tease her dad that she actually
had been listening all those years at the dinner table and had already enrolled in the retirement plan?

Would she send them a quick text, letting them know she’d eaten at a great restaurant, or seen a cool play or ridden the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier?

Would they have been more than polite acquaintances living in the same house?

Claire punched her pillow. What good did it do to wonder,
to try to remember a time when there had been sunshine instead of shadows, warmth instead of cold, interest instead of apathy?

She couldn’t change the past no matter how much she wanted to. All she could focus on was the future and what she could control. She closed her eyes and started making plans.

Three hours later, she woke up with a stiff neck, a dry throat and firm resolve. She
had a list. One, move back to her apartment. Two, focus on the advertising competition. Three, forget the horrible telephone message, the dead woman on her couch and Sam Vernelli.

Simple.

In a month, this would be a dim memory. A you’ll-never-believe-what-happened-to-me kind of story she could tell at her next cocktail party.

Like she ever went to cocktail parties.

She might,
she reasoned, as she sat up and stretched her head from side to side, if she won the competition.

Right now, however, a thirty-dollar bottle of wine didn’t interest her. She wanted water. She swung her legs off the futon, careful to avoid Nightmare, who dreamed happy dog-dreams at the end of the bed. She opened the bedroom door and silently walked to the kitchen. Fortunately for her, Sam
had left one dim light burning above his sink.

She ran the water for a moment, letting it get cold. Then she filled a glass and drank it, not bothering to breathe between gulps. Then she refilled it and took the glass over to the table. Quietly, mindful that Sam slept, she unzipped her shoulder bag and pulled out a stack of unopened mail. The day had been so crazy that she’d taken her overflowing
in-box and dumped it in her bag.

She was halfway through the pile when she opened a large white envelope and stuck her hand inside. She pulled out one sheet of plain paper, neatly folded. She flipped the paper open and bold, black slashes of pen jumped at her.

You’re nothing special. But I do especially want to see you pay.

She jerked back, her knees bumped the table and her mostly
empty plastic water glass hit the floor and rolled. She ignored it and stared at the paper.

Nightmare, evidently startled by the sudden noise in his kitchen, barked and Claire heard the unmistakable squeak of Sam’s door. She knew she had mere seconds and she desperately wanted to pick up the paper, to rip it to shreds, to pretend that she’d never seen it.

“Claire?” Sam asked, his voice
quiet. He stood in the doorway, his hair rumpled, wearing nothing but pajama pants low on his hips.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she said, trying hard to keep the fear, the rage, the cacophony of emotions that the words caused out of her voice.

She evidently wasn’t successful because his glance flicked around the room, taking in the still-bolted door, the spilled water, the stack of mail.
He crossed the small space in four strides and squatted next to her.

“Claire, what’s wrong?” he asked.

She pointed at the paper.

He stood up to read it. He was close enough that she could hear the quick intake of breath, could see the ripple of taut stomach muscle and could feel the instantaneous rage that consumed him.

“Where did this come from?” he demanded. He was pale and
his eyes were wide and unfocused.

“I don’t know,” she said, insanely trying to defuse his tension and maybe even her own. She reached for the envelope and he grabbed her arm, his hand firm around her wrist.

“Don’t touch it,” he said.

His hand was warm and she swore that she could feel his energy radiating through the tips of his fingers. “Too late,” she said. “I already touched
it when I opened it.”

He released her wrist and with the end of a pencil, he flipped the ten-by-thirteen envelope over. In the middle of it, Claire’s first and last name was scrawled in black marker. The rest of the envelope was bare. There were no stamps on it, no post office markings.

“When did this come?” Sam asked.

“Today, I think.”

He ran his hands through his thick hair,
making it even messier than before. He sat down on the chair, his movements clumsy. She reached out to touch his arm. He jerked and stood up so suddenly that his chair went skidding behind him. Nightmare, lying in front of the refrigerator, barked in protest. Sam pointed to the paper, his movements sharp, abrupt.

“I’ve got to get this to the evidence techs. There might be prints, something,
that will help us.”

“Sam,” she said, wrapping her arms around her middle. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“I know what time it is,” he said, his voice sharp. He took three steps, yanked open the drawer next to the stove and pulled out two gallon-sized plastic bags. He grabbed a pair of tongs out of the white jar on the counter. He returned to the table and carefully, picking up just
the edge of the letter and the envelope, put each into a separate bag.

He didn’t look at her. She had the feeling that he’d prefer it if he never had to look at her again.

“Now what?” she asked, nodding her head at the plastic bags.

“We work the case.” A look of real pain crossed his face. “Somebody wants to see you pay. For what, Claire?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.
Honest to goodness, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just some creep who heard about what happened and is trying to scare me? Maybe it’s the landlord’s crazy brother?”

Sam’s head snapped up. “The landlord has a crazy brother?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just trying to make a point.

“There’s no stamp, nothing to indicate the post office handled it. This is interoffice mail.”

She’d come
to the same conclusion and it was a chilling thought. She thought her coworkers liked her. Everybody was nice. She’d worked with the group for only four months. It was staggering to think that someone might hate her and even more appalling that they would come to that conclusion in such a short amount of time. “Do you think that everything is connected? That the robbery, Sandy Bird, that awful
telephone call and now this are all tangled up?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Do people at your work know about the burglary and about Sandy Bird?”

“Hannah knows. Her cousin lives in my building. It’s hard to know who she may have told.”

“So, we have to assume that some people know. But what doesn’t fit is that the caller knew something about Tessa’s death that wasn’t public
information. How could anyone at your work have that knowledge?”

“I don’t think they could.”

“Me either. We have to consider that it might not be connected at all. Maybe it’s somebody at work, who has heard about your troubles and decided that your lemons are his or her lemonade.”

“Huh?”

“It’s the equivalent of the playground pile-on. One of your coworkers isn’t a fan and has
been secretly celebrating your misfortune. It gives him or her courage to express his own thoughts. It’s the little kid taunting the other kid,
See, nobody likes you.
”

“Who would do that?”

“I don’t know. But you’re not going to work today. You’re going to my parents’ house with me,” Sam said. “Tell your boss you need the day off.”

“I’m busy at work.”

“Bring it with you.” He
pointed to the stack of mail. “Looks like you’re pretty used to that.”

She wanted to argue, wanted to pretend that she had better things to do. But truth be told, the letter, on top of the phone message, on top of everything else that had happened, had her freaked out.

She might not like being told what to do, but she wasn’t stupid. “What time do we leave?” she asked.

“Early morning.
I should be back in plenty of time.”

“Back?”

“Yeah. I’m taking this in. Right now. We’re running out of time to find answers.”

* * *

S
AM
AND
C
LAIRE
LEFT
the apartment shortly after seven the next morning. Sam was dressed in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt and he carried a thermos of coffee and a whole lot of attitude. Claire wore a gray midcalf corduroy skirt, black boots and
a raspberry-colored lightweight sweater. She wanted the coffee and had more than enough of her own attitude.

Sam had had less than three hours of sleep. She knew that because she’d been awake when he’d come home. It had been another hour before she’d managed to shut down. Even Nightmare had looked a little cross with her tossing-and-turning routine.

When she’d stumbled into the kitchen
shortly after six, Sam had been sitting at the table. He’d mumbled “Good morning” and shoved a box of cereal in her direction, before taking off for the shower. He’d never once looked at her.

She’d managed to push a few bites down, all the time wondering what the heck she was doing. She didn’t have to go to Sam’s parents’ house. She didn’t have to spend the day trying to ignore the furtive
whispers or the wondering looks as his family searched for but found no resemblance to Tessa. She’d met the Vernellis just once, at Tessa’s funeral. She remembered them as quiet, polite people who were shocked by Tessa’s death. She remembered Sam standing over Tessa’s grave, long after the service had ended. Everyone else was making their way back to their cars. His mother had turned, walked back
to her son, wrapped an arm around his shoulders and led him away from the grave.

Now, as he pulled his shiny red SUV up to the curb, she willed her legs to run. But just then, the bright morning sun bounced off the hood of the vehicle, crossed his strong features and caught the hint of pain in his dark eyes. And she knew she couldn’t do it.

She pulled open the door and slid in, noting
that Nightmare, in the backseat, wedged between Sam’s duffel bag and her suitcase, looked the happiest.

She shoved her laptop case onto the floor and rested her feet on it. “Nice day,” she said, determined to try.

He didn’t answer.

“Perfect day for a high school football game.”

He looked at her. “You had plans to go to a football game?”

“No,” she said, her face feeling
hot. “Just making conversation.”

He turned, facing forward again. “Right.”

Yeah, right.
She stayed silent while he navigated the city streets, but traffic was light and soon they were flying along on the highway headed for Minnesota.

An hour out of the city, lulled into sleepiness by the warmth of the sun on her face, she drifted off. Later, she didn’t know if it was ten minutes
or two hours, Sam gently shook her shoulder.

“Claire,” he said, his tone soft, like he didn’t want to scare her. “You need to wake up.”

She opened her eyes, blinking them fast. “We’re here?” she asked, stretching her aching neck.

“No,” he said. He stared at her, not smiling, but his tone seemed gentler than before. “I need to let Nightmare out to do his thing. I didn’t want to leave
you alone in the car asleep.”

Of course not. Careful Detective Vernelli would want her awake and aware. While she’d thought she might enjoy sleeping for another couple hours, she appreciated the fact that he seemed determined to keep her safe.

“No problem,” she said. Sam had pulled into a highway rest stop. There was a large, grassy area and a small, neat brick building that she assumed
offered restrooms. “I think I’ll go inside myself,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

Sam looked around the parking lot. She did the same. Five cars and two semis. Looked safe enough to her. Must have to him as well because he nodded. “Okay. I’ll meet you inside in a few minutes.”

She grabbed her purse, pushed open the door and headed inside. The restrooms were surprisingly neat
and when she finished, she drifted over to the brochure rack that covered one side of the lobby wall. She’d skimmed most of them by the time Sam came inside.

She saw him, flashed a quick smile, and stuffed one of the brochures in her purse. Not quick enough, however, to avoid Sam’s eagle eye.

“What’s that?” he asked.

She pulled it out and handed it to him.

“Canoeing?” he asked,
cocking his head to one side. “You like to canoe?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it.”

He frowned at her. “Never?”

“My parents weren’t crazy about my trying anything that had any potential for danger.”