Extreme Exposure (12 page)

“Good, that’s settled.” Mona stood up. “I was hoping you could help in the kitchen. Most of the planning is done, but we could use an extra hand. It’s going to be very low key, nothing formal.”

He stiffened, a retort on the tip of his tongue but a look from Emily silenced him. She said, “Saturday? That’s the day after tomorrow, isn’t it? It’s not very much time to prepare.”

“Really, if it’s too much to ask, just say so.” Mona pressed her lips together. “I just thought we needed some happiness after what has happened to this family. Should I try to look for someone else?”

“That’s okay.” Emily’s tone was remote, as if she was thinking about something else. “I can be an extra set of hands.”

Mona’s lips lifted into just a suggestion of a smile. “Good, we’ll see you this weekend.”

*  *  *

Emily grabbed a small plastic bag of clothes from the backseat of the rental car and followed Matt into a ground-floor room at the Prince Inn, the motel Matt had checked them into earlier. Five blocks north of the downtown core, it was sandwiched between a service station and an empty parking lot. Across the street stood a large grocery store.

Inside, a peculiar smell, as if somebody had tried to mask cigarette smoke with a heavy-duty odor remover, greeted her. Two double beds hogged the floor space. Emily walked to the farthest bed, tossed the bag on the flowery satin bedspread, and sat down.

“You didn’t want more clothes?”

“That’s all there was, aside from a winter coat.” She shifted back on the bed, leaned against the headboard. “My mother must have gotten rid of the rest. She told me she was going to do it. She hates clutter.”

“So I noticed.” Smiling, he sat down on the other bed, facing her.

An attempt to return the smile failed. Her mind was full of an image of herself as a terrified little kid locked in a closet. It was an actual memory, not something she’d conjured up. She said, “I get so angry at her. Does that make me a bad person?”

“I think you have remarkable restraint.”

A chuckle escaped her lips. “That’s the sort of thing Amber would have said. She called me a world-class expert at tiptoeing around my mother. Amber said my mother gave me a role in our family. I was the misfit. As long as attention focused on what I did wrong, the real issues didn’t have to be faced.”

“And those issues were?”

“They’ve changed over the years, but I know she’s very lonely. Which brings me to another point. She told me that she and the judge are getting married, although it’s all very hush-hush.”

He raised his eyebrows. “When is this happening?”

“She said she’s waiting for this business with Amber to be over.” Closing her eyes, she massaged her temples. “In other words, her happiness is being delayed because of me.”

“That’s pretty unfair.”

“It’s funny, I know she wants desperately to get married, but it’s not a subject we could ever discuss. So in a way today was progress.”

He watched her closely, eyes attentive. “The story your mother told about the closet, that was the first you’d heard of it?”

A big lump in her throat made it hard to speak. After a minute, she said, “When she said that, it all made sense. But I still don’t know how I got in there.” Looking straight ahead, aware of Matt in her peripheral vision, she said, “I’m not sure I really want to know, or that it even matters. But in a way, she had a point. I shouldn’t have been screaming.”

“You were three years old.”

“Well, I should have gotten over it by now.” She wiped a tear, waited a moment before she continued. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m really angry at my mother. But I love her. I love her a lot.”

“I can see that.”

“I guess I’ve been stuck between being angry at her and loving her for a long time. You get numb after a while.” He nodded and she continued. “I used to get angry and upset a lot. But it’s safer when she doesn’t know I’m mad. She can’t mess with my head if she doesn’t know what’s going on inside it.”

Matt opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. She really liked him for that, for not launching into a vicious attack on her mother. It felt good that he understood, and that he had defended her. That hadn’t happened a lot. Everyone seemed to love her mother. They just saw the charming businesswoman. Amber was the other exception. Sometimes Emily thought she never would have survived her childhood intact if it hadn’t been for Amber.

He said, “Do you want to cancel your kitchen duties for Saturday?”

“It’s her birthday. If I have to go, I’d just as soon be in the kitchen. Her parties aren’t my kind of thing, but I agreed because I thought we might be able to find something out. It’ll give us another chance to talk to Celia.”

“I can be your personal security detail, if that’s all right.”

She smiled. “I would feel a lot better.”

“Better as in safer, or would you like to have me around?” A smile softened the question but his eyes smoldered with intensity and there seemed to be heat radiating off his body.

She let herself look at him for a long moment, her heart fluttering in her chest. “I’m not used to having anybody around, as you call it.”

“You sound proud of that, like you’re ‘uncatchable.’”

“Shouldn’t I be?” She put her head down, not sure she could control herself if she looked at him, and picked at a loose thread on the bedspread.

“Are you kidding me? It’s not a crime, you know, to have someone.”

“I know. I’m just used to taking care of myself. I’ve had to do it for a long time.” Swallowing hard, she looked up. “And everything is so mixed up right now. It’s hard to see past that.”

Especially when it came to him. He wasn’t even her type, but that calm, confident way he had about him, together with those rugged good looks, made her heart beat like a drum. When he touched her, kissed her, even held her hand, her body came alive. And the way he looked at her, with raw heat, as if nothing else mattered, he couldn’t be faking that, could he?

He didn’t say anything to that, just nodded. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry. But you go ahead.” What she really wanted was to have a shower, then crawl in bed.

Preferably with you.

Feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, she looked away, thankful she hadn’t said that out loud. “But you go ahead. I’ll be fine here.” If he left, she could try to get her raging feelings under control before it was too late.

“How about take-out?” When she nodded, he said, “I almost forgot. The pictures look too dark and far away to give us anything useful, but the guy said he’d see what he could do. He’s got some sort of computer program that he’ll run them through.”

Emily frowned. “So where do we go from here?”

“You don’t give up, do you?” He smiled. “Tomorrow, we’ll go see the boyfriend. I don’t want to call him to set something up. He might refuse to see us.”

“We just show up?”

He nodded. “I found out where he lives. We’ll see if we can get a feel for whether he’s lying about that alibi.”

“One other thing.” Emily ran both hands through her hair. “My mother was right about my hair. I have to do something about it. I’ll let the color grow out, but maybe the cut can be tidied up.”

“Do you have somebody you normally go to?”

“I’d rather go somewhere they don’t know me, where I won’t get too many questions.”

“We’ll find something first thing in the morning. After that, we’ll go see Jason.”

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she stood up. “I’m going to take a shower.” Matt got to his feet at the same time and she found herself staring at his chest. Leaning forward, she rested the top of her head against him. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close. Turning her head to the side, she heard his heart thumping against his chest. Warm hands caressed her back and she felt herself get light-headed.

Releasing her, he picked up the car keys. “Pizza okay?”

When he’d gone, she walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. There was naked need in the flushed face, the shining eyes. But something else was imprinted there, an awareness that her feelings for Matt were much deeper than physical need. She shivered. It was almost as if she was looking at a stranger, someone who looked terribly exposed and vulnerable.

Like somebody who wasn’t in control at all.

CHAPTER TEN

A
t ten the next morning, Matt was finishing up a cell phone call to his company in Boston when Emily came out of the hair salon. The ultrashort cut was one only a woman with her delicate features could pull off. He wanted to lean over, kiss her, but held back. She seemed to have put a wall between them.

“It suits you,” he said, pulling away from the curb. Murmuring thanks, she looked ahead, not meeting his eyes. Earlier, at her bank, she’d withdrawn a wad of cash, insisting she would be paying for everything from here on in.

A few minutes later, they reached the street of postwar bungalows where Jason Hatt lived. A gray sports car was parked in the driveway beside his house. Matt drove by, parked down the street and they walked back.

“Nicky, my friend, grew up on this street, about two blocks down. I used to hang out there a lot. Her sister made a mean tuna casserole.”

“Did your mother cook?”

“Never. She had a housekeeper for that and we ate at the hotel a lot.”

Her tone was flat. He wanted to ask her about that but let it go. Now didn’t seem the time to push it.

They got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to Jason Hatt’s house. He said, “You sound pretty tight with this Nicky.”

She smiled. “She’s a great friend. We’re like night and day. I didn’t talk to her much about this. I didn’t want to drag her into it.”

They reached the front step and she rang the doorbell. Seconds later, the door opened just wide enough for a man to put his head out.

Emily introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Emily Blackstock, Amber’s cousin. Can we talk to you?”

He was easily six foot two, in his late thirties, with angry eyebrows that gave him permanent frown lines. “I’ve got nothing to say. Go away.”

Emily stepped forward before he could shut the door. “We want to help.”

The door opened farther. Scowling, he shot Matt a glance. “Help? How could you possibly help me?”

Emily didn’t flinch, but Matt stepped closer. She said, “We want to find out who really killed Amber.”

Jason’s expression softened a degree, from outright menacing to merely surly. “I don’t know anything.”

She said, “Just talk to us. Any little thing that you could tell us might be useful.”

Jason gestured to him. “Who’s he?”

“He’s a friend, Matt Herrington. He’s helping me.”

“Ten minutes, that’s it.” Jason opened the door and they stepped into a small foyer off the living room. He was wearing a navy-blue bathrobe and told them to sit in the living room while he got dressed. Jason returned in a couple of minutes, wearing jeans and a navy-blue polo shirt. He lowered his big frame into a swivel chair opposite the sofa where they were sitting and looked at Emily. “How can you possibly help me?”

“Do you think Amber killed herself?”

“Of course not. She had plans. She talked about going back to school with some of the money from her insurance payout. I don’t believe it for a minute.”

“Was she on drugs?”

“I know she wasn’t—and I’m trained to look for that kind of thing.”

“Did she tell you she was scared?”

He twirled a chunky gold ring with a red stone around his middle finger. “She was getting paranoid, making comments about the legal system, how corrupt it was.” After a silence, he added, “We had a fight about it. I mean, it was like it was really personal. It was like an attack on all of us.”

Emily said, “Us?”

“She said the whole system was corrupt.” His anger seemed to have deflated, like air from a balloon, although he was still edgy, bouncing one of his knees up and down.

Emily sat forward. “What did she mean? The police?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Look, I don’t know anything. I already told you that. It maybe had something to do with the insurance thing. It kept getting delayed, but I don’t know.” Jason got up quickly. “You want anything to drink? Water?”

When they said no, he went off to the kitchen, came back a moment later with a bottle of water for himself.

Matt said, “What about your alibi? You were with another woman?”

Jason crossed his arms over his chest. “It was a woman, but not a girlfriend, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Emily said, “Who is she?”

“It doesn’t matter. The police won’t believe her. But I didn’t kill Amber. I would never have done that.” Matt said, “So who did?”

“I have no idea. But I think they’re trying to set me up for it. They’ve got no evidence, but it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s buying it. You’re the first people who’ve come here since the news about me broke. It’s like I have a disease.” He chugged back the water. “The funny thing is I could have avoided it.”

Emily perked up. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you think they reopened the case?”

“It sounded like they wanted to cover all the bases and they found a problem with your alibi.”

“Is that what they told you?” He shook his head in disgust. “I was the one who got it reopened.” Matt sat forward, waited for Jason to explain.

“I was at court one day, ran into a reporter I know. We were talking about it. I told her it was fishy. She checked it out and got some pushback. The story went nowhere. Don’t look so surprised. In a town like this, it happens all the time.” He finished the water. “Listen, I don’t know anything more. But there was nothing wrong with my alibi.”

Emily said, “So why won’t they accept it?”

He lowered his voice. “Because the woman who gave my alibi is an addict, that’s why. She actually introduced me to Amber at a meeting. She hasn’t done as well with staying clean and she’s got a record for possession.” He stood up. “I don’t want to talk any more about her. I’ve said all I can say.”

He walked them to the door, stood in the doorway as they stepped outside. “Talk to Celia.”

Emily raised her eyebrows. “About what?”