His Partner's Wife (18 page)

The moment she turned onto Meadow Drive, she saw that she
wouldn't be alone anyway. A dark sedan sat in the driveway. She knew an
unmarked police car when she saw one.

Natalie parked beside it and let herself in the front door.
The foyer was empty and quiet.

A little nervous for the first time, she made sure to leave
the front door open and only took a few steps inside before she called,
"Geoff? Are you here?"

A door opened and closed and the middle-aged detective came
from the direction of the kitchen. He'd been in the garage, she realized.
Seeming annoyed, he said, "Natalie. What are you doing here?"

"It is my house." She sounded almost apologetic.

"Is John with you?" He looked past her.

"No, he's in Bremerton with the kids. Didn't you know
this was his Sunday? I just thought I'd pick up some more clothes."
Confidence returning, she added, "Why are
you
here?"

Something shifted on his face, making him for a
disconcerting moment into a stranger. The next second, she realized she'd
imagined it when he grumbled with familiar irritability, "We shouldn't
have laid off today. Damn it, the place could be cleaned out in the middle of
the night! Stuart had something here, and if we don't figure out what, you
won't be safe."

She stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm, feeling
muscles rock hard. "Geoff, relax. You can take a day off. Think about it.
I'll be safe either way. If … if the killer finds what he wanted, he won't be
back. I know that would be frustrating for you—all of you take such pride in solving
every case, and this one must hit hard. But whether you or our bad guy finds
whatever is here, he won't be interested in me."

He gripped her hand, gaze intense. "Unless neither of
us can find whatever it is. Then he's going to think
you
might
know something. That you might have hidden it somewhere else."

The chilling thought had occurred to her, along with a
corollary. "What if Stuart didn't
have
anything? What if this guy is looking for something that
doesn't exist?"

Geoff Baxter's face hardened. "You'd better hope that's
not the case."

She searched his eyes. "But you knew Stuart. You don't
really think he … oh, turned crooked? Because that's the only way he'd have
something so valuable hidden here, isn't it? Something he never told me
about."

For a moment that stranger looked at her and his hand
tightened until her bones creaked. Then he muttered a profanity, released her
abruptly and let out a sigh that left his shoulders slumped.

"I don't know." He sounded reluctantly honest. His
face was haggard below the receding hairline. "He was my friend, but there
were times…" Geoff swallowed. "I don't know, Natalie. He took the
easy way sometimes. Didn't you see that?"

She shook her head, then wasn't sure she was telling the
truth. Stuart had seemed to love his job, but she had begun to suspect it was
the adrenaline rushes and seeing his name in the newspaper that satisfied him,
not the mundane work that made up a cop's day-to-day life. And it was true that
he hadn't really liked working around the house, or working, for that matter,
on his marriage. None of which meant he'd steal …
something
—a
something so valuable men would kill to get their hands on it.

And if he'd had such a thing, why hadn't he cashed it in?
Told her about it? Even lied to her about it?
Honey, this great-aunt I've never mentioned died up in Pittsburgh and left me a whole shit-load of money. Easy Street, here we come.

Because he never had anything.

She stared unseeing at Geoff and made herself face a
niggling fear.

Had Stuart not told her because he hadn't stolen anything?
Or could it have been because he never intended to tell her about it?

It was true that he'd become increasingly distant with her.
They'd had sex less often those last months, and too many of those times at her
initiation. Was it her fault he was losing interest? she'd wondered, ashamed.
But he did respond to her in bed, so she had convinced herself he was just
going through a bad patch. Midlife crisis, with his fortieth birthday
approaching. Or maybe the romance went out of every marriage unless the two
people involved really worked at staying connected. If work was what it took,
and she was the one who had to do it all, well, so be it, Natalie had believed.

Now she gave voice to a thought she hadn't wanted to
acknowledge.

"Was he going to leave me?"

Geoff reared back his head, eyes rolling like a spooked
horse's. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Her jaw and voice firmed. "You were friends. Tell me.
Was he planning to leave me?" Better to know.

He swore. "Don't be ridiculous. Stuart never said any
crap like that. You two hadn't been married three years! You're a beautiful
woman, Natalie. Why in God's name would he leave you?"

Her mouth quirked in a smile whose sadness she could feel.
"Thank you for the compliment, Det. Baxter. But you and I both know that
my beauty—or lack," she added wryly, "has nothing to do with whether
Stuart was happy married to me." When she saw that he was about to argue,
she said, "Would you leave Linda if she put on weight or was scarred in an
accident?"

He shook his head in exasperation. "Damn it, you know I
wouldn't, but we've been married for twenty years. What I'm saying is, a man
doesn't get tired of a woman like you in less than three."

Uncomfortable with his insistence on her beauty, something
she knew darn well she didn't possess, Natalie gave up the argument, saying
only, quietly, "Geoff, I'd rather know what he was thinking. Don't try to
spare me." She shook her head when he started to speak too quickly.
"Think about it. That's all. Moving on might almost be easier if I
knew…" She stopped, pressed her lips together, then managed a rueful
smile. "I'm going to go pack. You need to go home and take your wife out
to dinner. Appreciate what you have."

"After twenty years, that isn't a hell of a lot,"
he growled, but she thought he was pretending disgruntlement. He and Linda
didn't have children, and she guessed that he regretted it, but they had a nice
house and traveled often. Cops didn't go into their line of work for riches.

He waited while she packed and then did leave, the dark
sedan following her compact until she turned off the highway toward Old Town. Geoff and Linda owned a modern three-bedroom ranch house with half an acre and a
view of the strait. He often gave John a hard time about his ninety-year-old
restored cottage.

"What is it this week? The furnace?" His brow
would crease in exaggerated thought. "No, you bought a new one last year.
Let's see. Termites? Roof caving in? Does the wiring still have those little
glass transformers, or whatever the hell they are?"

"Hey, come on," John would say. "The place
wasn't wired until the Depression. Modern. Nothing to worry about."

Smiling, Natalie parked to one side of the packed-gravel
driveway, noting that he wasn't home yet. The house was actually a charmer,
with all the character her inherited split-level lacked. The deep front porch
had the kind of swing where you sat on summer nights and visited with your
neighbors, or necked with your boyfriend if you were young and the porch light
was off. The exterior was painted a pale sea-foam green with the fancy trim
typical of the era picked out in white and deep teal. Arbors framed a brick
patio in back and a secret garden surrounded by boxwood hedges that John
grumbled about but kept impeccably trimmed. Inside, the house was comfortable
with oak floors and high ceilings and wonderful woodwork. Natalie envied John
his house.

She remembered the first time she'd seen it, when John and
his wife had her and Stuart over for dinner right after their honeymoon. She'd
felt an acute, nearly painful pang. Both men were detectives; they'd both grown
up in Port Dare. Why had Stuart settled for a characterless, 1980s split-level
house decorated only with big-screen TV and stereo system when he could have
created a home like this?

At the time, she'd suppressed the disloyal thought. John was
married. Stuart's house was typical for a bachelor. They'd create a real home
together.

Shaking off the memory and the regrets, Natalie unlocked the
back door and carried her extra suitcase into the guest bedroom. Cautiously
Sasha emerged from under the bed for a visit. As Natalie hung clothes in the
closet, part of her was listening for the sound of a car in the driveway.

The rush of pleasure she felt when she heard it disconcerted
her. He was a friend. No more. And today, of all days, he probably wished she
wasn't here.

The back door rattled and Evan shouted, "Natalie's
here!"

Sasha shot back under the bed.

"Evan!" his sister protested. "I can go say
hello, too, if I want!"

"But I said I wanted to see her first!"

"Guys!" came their father's deeper, exasperated
voice. "You're not dogs, and she's not a bone."

With a faint laugh, Natalie wondered if they'd even heard
him. The kids were already jostling at her door for the right to enter first.

"Hey," she said mildly. "Don't hurt
yourselves."

Evan gave his sister a look of dislike. "I just wanted
to see you."

"We
wanted
to see you." His blond sister cast a quick glance at the suitcase.
"Are you leaving?"

"Settling in a little more, I'm afraid," Natalie
admitted. "I needed more clothes than I had."

"Oh." She sounded unaccountably relieved.

"Did you have a good visit with your mother?"

Maddie shrugged. "It was okay."

"I beat her at rummy. I'm a good rummy player,"
Evan declared.

"Well,
I
beat you.
And
Mom,"
his sister said with a sniff.

"You're bigger," he said simply.

Behind them, John filled the bedroom doorway. His searching
gaze took in the suitcase, too. "You stopped by your house?"

"Geoff was there," she told him, feeling absurdly
self-conscious to be folding a nightgown and laying it in a drawer. As though
she hadn't paraded around his house already in her gown and bathrobe. And then
there was the night she'd launched herself into his arms wearing one. She'd
seen the way he carefully kept his eyes trained on her face as he gently
suggested she don a robe before the rest of the Port Dare P.D. came into her
bedroom.

John frowned. "At your house? Did you ask him to go
with you?"

"No, he was there. He admitted that he hadn't wanted to
take today off." Aware of Maddie and Evan, she said lightly, "He's
sure the two of you are having a race with time and the bad guy to find the
holy grail."

John's jaw muscles tightened. "He had no business there
by himself."

Remembering that momentary, queasy impression that she
didn't really know Geoff Baxter, Natalie couldn't help asking, "Don't you
trust him?"

His look was frankly astounded. "Don't be ridiculous.
He's my partner. What are you suggesting?"

"I'm
not
suggesting anything," she pointed out. "You're the one who doesn't
want him in my house without an escort."

The lines from mouth to nose deepened. "We don't run
off half-cocked on our own. He knows that."

"Talk to him." She smiled at the kids. "Have
you guys had dinner? Did your dad buy you fast food all day?"

Evan climbed onto the bed and wrinkled his nose. "He
packed a lunch and made us eat at the park. I wanted McDonald's."

"Egg-salad sandwiches," his sister agreed
gloomily. "And
carrot
sticks."

"Don't forget the apples," their father reminded
them with a quirk of his mouth.

"We didn't even get cookies," Evan concluded.

John's smile was gone. "The point of these Sundays is
visiting your mother, not stuffing yourself with junk food."

Evan made the mistake of whining, "But usually…"