Superstition (31 page)

“You know that coming back here was stupid, obviously, or you wouldn’t have asked me if I had a gun,” Joe said.

She’d been right. He was in a snit.

“Probably.”

The thing was,
she
no longer felt like quarreling. She was tired, still a little shaken from her first bona fide ghost-sighting, worried about her sister, worried about her job, and worried about dying—probably not exactly in that order. Plus, he was the first man in a while who had the ability to make her heart go pitter-pat, even while he was scowling at her. That, she decided, was something worth exploring. How long had it been since she’d had any kind of romance in her life? The short answer was, way too long.

“
Probably?
You think it’s
probably
stupid to put yourself within reach of a vicious killer who’s already tried to murder you once and seems to have you parked right at the top of his buddy list? What does it take to make stupid a certainty for you? Imminent death?”

Of course, sarcasm wasn’t her favorite male trait. It wasn’t even in her top ten.

“Look, it’s really none of your business, is it?”

“The hell it isn’t. I’m the Chief of Police, remember? It’s my job to keep people from getting murdered around here. Even criminally stupid ones. That being the case, I’m going to ask you very nicely to do us both a favor and go back to Chicago.”

He said it as though he actually expected her to do it just because he was telling her to. Oh, wait, he probably did.

“No.”

That shut him up for a moment. She could feel him fuming, see him scowling at her from the corner of her eye, but she didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she looked past him and out to sea. She could see, just faintly, the boxy, black outline of a trawler against the horizon and, farther away, the twinkly lights of what was either a large private yacht or a small cruise ship. They were walking close to the ocean’s edge, just beyond the place where the tide ebbed and flowed. She watched the frothing water curl and retreat, curl and retreat, just inches from his black-shod feet. The sand where they were walking was wet with spray and nearly as firm as asphalt. The breeze had died down to a whisper now, and stars were popping out all over the sky. Nicky had known the island in all its moods in every season, and May was one of her favorite months. Bright, hot days; warm, soft nights; and few tourists. Around here, it didn’t get much better than that.

Except for the fact that a killer was on the loose, of course.

“You can’t
want
to be here,” he said, clearly trying hard to sound reasonable. “You were smart enough and scared enough to call me when you got that e-mail—and smart enough and scared enough to practically collapse when you heard the message he left on your cell phone. Why would you even think about coming back here until he’s caught?”

Nicky didn’t like being reminded how scared she had been—and still was.

“You’re wasting your breath.” Her tone was short. “I’m not leaving. You can’t talk me into it, and you can’t make me, so why don’t we find something else to talk about?”

A beat passed in which he said nothing. The bald truth was, if she didn’t want to leave the island, there was nothing he could do about it. And they both knew it.

“Dammit, Nicky . . .”

She could hear the frustration in his voice, but that wasn’t what got to her. It was, she realized, the first time he had called her by name. The sound of that sexy Yankee voice of his saying “Nicky” made her go all soft and buttery inside. It also prompted her to at least try to make him understand her position.

“My producer was going to send someone else, all right? Another reporter to cover this story instead of me. But I talked him out of it because it’s
my
story. Yes, okay, I admit it: I’m a little bit afraid. And no, I’m not giving it up. It’s important to me.”

“I don’t have enough manpower to assign somebody to watch over you twenty-four-seven, you know.” He still sounded testy.

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Oh, so I’m just supposed to go on about my business while you cross your fingers and hope you won’t be attacked again?”

“I’m planning to be careful.”

He snorted. “Yeah, right. You’ve been on the island for—what? Maybe two, two and a half hours? And you’ve already been almost arrested for trespassing at the Old Taylor Place, which, under the circumstances, is the very last place you should have been. And right now you’re walking on the beach at night with an armed man you don’t know from Adam. How do you know
I’m
not the killer?”

“You’re a cop.”

“So? Believe me, that doesn’t mean a thing.”

“You ran down the driveway to rescue me while the killer was still under the trees. You couldn’t possibly have done it,” she pointed out triumphantly.

He paused. “Okay, I give you that. Say we stipulate that you’re safe with me. That just leaves you about another five hundred men on the island to worry about. To say nothing of the tens of thousands of men
off
the island. In Murrels Inlet, say, or Litchfield, or even Savannah.”

She slanted a look up at him. Despite the darkness, she could see that his jaw was tight and his eyes were intense. It was clear that he was truly worried about her safety, and that made her already-soft-and-buttery insides practically melt. They were walking so close together that their arms brushed. She could see the hard line of his mouth, the stubby silhouette of his lashes, the worried vee of his brows.

Her heart beat just a little faster as she again tried to explain.

“See, the thing is, in TV you’re either hot or you’re not. Lately I’ve been kind of on the
not
side. And I’m twenty-nine years old.”

“Well, hello there, Grandma.”

There he went with the sarcasm thing again. But he was smiling a little, and an answering smile quivered around the corners of her mouth.

“Believe me, that’s old for TV. If I don’t make it big soon, I won’t make it. If
Twenty-four Hours Investigates
is cancelled, my next gig probably won’t be as good. But if it does well, if
I
do well, I may have a shot at the co-host’s seat on
Live in the Morning
.”

Clearly, he wasn’t a TV person; he looked singularly unimpressed. “None of that is worth dying for.”

“But, see, I’m not planning on dying.”

“Nobody ever is.”

There was something in his voice—a faint bitterness, maybe—that made her cast a quick, questioning look up at him. Their eyes met, and he grimaced.

“Which brings me back to my original point: You need to leave the area until this guy is caught.”

“Which brings me back to my original answer: No.”

He studied her. “Are you always this stubborn, or am I just getting lucky here?”

“Is that one of those trick questions, like ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ ”

He laughed. “I take that as an ‘always.’ ”

“Feel free to take it any way you like.”

They had almost reached the yellow pool of light cast by the cluster of commercial buildings by this time. More people were on the beach now, most, from the look of them, early vacationers. An elderly man sat in a plastic beach chair drawn to the very edge of the surf. A couple in going-out-to-dinner clothes strolled across the circle of light and then moved on into the dark, clearly intent on taking their own private walk along the beach.

“You ever been here?” Joe gave a jerk of his head toward the buildings. Nicky identified with a glance one of the hammock shops for which the island was famous, a jewelry store, a dive shop, and a bakery—all of which formed part of the island’s premier tourist trap. It was anchored by what the glowing neon sign on one wall proclaimed was the Seaside Resort and Spa. This, Nicky knew, was the island’s newest hotel complex, built on the site of a former hotel that had been torn down to make way for it. The trio of four-story white stucco buildings had red tile roofs, Spanish arches, and dozens of wrought-iron balconies. A profusion of palmettos and yuccas and hibiscus and bright blue phlox crowded around the walkways and the patios and the swimming pool, making the area an enticing oasis of color against the sugar-white sand.

All the better to take your money with, my dear. . . .
Nicky shook her head. “My sister and I used to walk up here for ice cream when we were little girls, but there was nothing like this here then.”

“Want to try it?”

She frowned at him. “What?”

“For dinner,” he said. “I haven’t eaten. Have you?”

“No.”

“So, you want to have dinner with me?”

“Well . . .” Rather to her surprise, Nicky realized that the short answer was
yes
. She looked down at herself. Her clothes were fine—thank goodness for fabrics that didn’t wrinkle!—but there was sand on her low-heeled, boxy-toed, airport-friendly shoes, and probably, though she couldn’t be sure, on the hem of her pants. From the way her lips felt, she doubted that she had any lipstick left, and her hair was a windblown, tangled mess.

“You look beautiful,” he said, clearly having correctly interpreted her hesitation.

Their eyes met. At what she saw in his, her heart started beating just a little bit faster. They were dark and hot, and made her think of sex. And thinking of sex—with him—made her breathless.

She could if she wanted to. . . .

“Thank you,” she said, trying to sound more composed than she suddenly felt. “I’d love to have dinner with you.”

He grinned at her, a slow and charming grin that went a long way toward dazzling her. She smiled back. Then they walked through the circle of light into the hotel.

While Joe went to see about getting a table, Nicky made a quick stop in the gift shop, where she bought a few necessities with the twenty-dollar bill that she always kept tucked in her pocket for emergencies. Armed with those, she adjourned to the ladies’ room and made some badly needed repairs to her appearance. Feeling better with her hair restored to at least a semblance of its former style and her nose powdered and lipgloss in place, she headed for the dining room. It was lovely, small and intimate, with marble floors, smoked mirrors covering the walls, and candles flickering in the center of each table. Potted palm trees placed strategically about the room gave each table the illusion of privacy. The hostess was a girl—well, a woman now—who had gone to elementary school with Livvy. She greeted Nicky with delight, assured her that she watched
Twenty-four Hours Investigates
every week and couldn’t wait for the upcoming episode, then dropped her voice to commiserate with her over the awful thing that had happened (meaning Karen’s death), all as she showed Nicky to the small table in the corner where Joe was waiting. He stood up as she approached, and Nicky was impressed all over again by how handsome he looked in a coat and tie. Then he pulled her chair out for her. She had always been a sucker for a guy with good manners, Nicky reflected wryly as she sat, and a gorgeous guy with good manners was simply piling it on. The hostess was clearly impressed as well: As Joe returned to his seat, she gave him the kind of once-over that told Nicky that (a) she thought he was hot, and (b) the news of their “date” would be all over the island by this time tomorrow.Then she sent Nicky a wicked, congratulatory grin before leaving them to the waitress’s tender care.

“I hope you don’t mind being gossiped about,” Nicky said when the waitress, having finished taking their order, had left, too.

Joe shrugged. “I guess that’s what I get for having dinner with a woman who’s famous.”

Nicky made a face. “I’m not really very famous, believe me. In Chicago, I can go to the mall, to the movies, out to eat, anywhere, and people hardly ever recognize me. It’s just here, because of the whole hometown-girl-makes-good thing. Anyway, I think you’re the one she’s primarily going to be talking about. As in, ‘You know who I saw Chief Franconi having dinner with last night?
’ ”

“That’s the thing about the South.” Joe’s mouth quirked into a faint smile. “Everybody butts into everybody else’s business.”

“Hey,” Nicky said. “At least people talk to each other.”

Joe grinned. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

Nicky’s cell phone rang just then. Grimacing apologetically, she pulled it out of her pocket, glanced at the number, and sighed.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s my mother. If I don’t answer, she’ll go insane with worry.”

“Smart woman,” Joe said dryly.

Nicky narrowed her eyes at him as she said “Hello” into the phone.

“You’ve been gone forever. Where are you?” Leonora asked.

“We’re having dinner. At the new hotel down the beach.”

“You’re having dinner?” Leonora sounded taken aback. “With Joe Franconi? As in a
date
?”

“Yes,” Nicky said, smiling at the waitress as she arrived with their drinks and salads, set them down on the table, and left again. Fortunately, only two other tables were occupied, both at some distance from theirs, so as long as she kept her voice down, she didn’t have to worry about bothering the other diners.

“Oh, my. Well, that’s fine, I guess. I mean, he seems nice enough, and he’s certainly good-looking, but . . .” Leonora’s voice trailed off. Then, belatedly, she asked, “Is he right there with you? Can he hear me?”

“Can you hear her?” Nicky asked Joe.

“Don’t ask him that,” her mother hissed, while Joe, smiling, shook his head.

“No,” Nicky said into the phone. “At least, he says not. Did you want something in particular?”

“I just called to tell you Ben’s gone. You can come home anytime.” There was the briefest of pauses. “What time are you coming home?”

“I have no idea.”

“Oh.” Leonora absorbed that. A touch of anxiety crept into her voice. “He’s not married or anything, is he? I mean, we don’t know anything about him, except he’s from up north somewhere. He could be—”

Nicky interrupted ruthlessly. Joe was eating his salad, his expression totally innocent as their eyes met.
Too
innocent? She suddenly wasn’t sure he’d been telling the truth about not being able to hear. Anyway . . .