The Shadow of Your Smile (14 page)

If he could, Kyle would rewind his week back to the sight of his mother in Kelsey’s bed and relive it without the eerie feeling that dogged him until he’d finally found someone home today at the rutted junkyard of the Nickel place. Just being inside the cabin had turned his stomach, from the putrid odor of a septic tank backing up somewhere, to the mangy dog eyeing him from where he chewed a deer leg in the middle of the dirty linoleum in the kitchen, to the sense that mice might be living in the ratty sofa that held down the shag carpet.

He had stopped home to shower before dressing up for the rehearsal this afternoon.

Still, his conversation with Billy Nickel ran through his head as he drove to Caribou Ridges.

Ryan hadn’t been home, but on the sofa sat a beanpole of a boy, greasy blond hair hanging tangled out of an orange hunting hat. He wore a pair of jeans smudged with grease, a flannel shirt. His hand rode the knee of a girl who nearly snarled at Kyle as he’d knocked on the door. Or perhaps it just looked like she snarled with the two tiny spikes protruding from her bottom lip, her shocking red hair, tied in two low pigtails, adding to the surly effect. She got up, propped the door open with her foot, and folded her arms over her chest.

Kyle flashed his badge. “I just need to talk to Ryan.”

“He doesn’t live here. That’s his brother, Billy.” She jerked her head to the rail on the sofa.

Billy looked stoned even as he lolled his head toward Kyle. “Hey.”

Kyle shot a look at the Dodge Dart parked in the snow and noticed a taillight had been smashed. Maybe from the skid into the ditch. With the blue paint job, the
State Champions
wording now flecking off the side, a giant helmet painted on the window, Kyle figured he’d tracked down the right vehicle. “That your car?”

“It’s my brother’s.”

“Are you driving it?”

Billy lifted a shoulder. “When it runs.”

“Were you driving it the other night, during the storm?” He tried to keep his voice friendly, no big deal. He looked at the girl for permission, and she pursed her lips as she stepped aside. He stood in the tiny kitchen, a grimy green sweatshirt jacket hanging over a chair at the round kitchen table. It reeked of fish and woodsmoke.

Billy sat up. Reached for a cigarette. Kyle pegged him at nineteen at the most. “Why?”

“A week ago, there was a shooting at the Harbor City Mocha Moose. Someone was killed.”

He watched the kid for a reaction, and there it was, the narrowing of the eyes, the way Billy looked away from him.

“There weren’t many cars on the highway that night, and Jason Backlund mentioned you were pushing yours out of the ditch.”

Billy blew out a stream of smoke. “Uh-huh. Real slippery.”

“Who was with you?”

His gaze shifted to his girlfriend and back. “No one.”

“Really? Because Jason said there were two—one at the wheel, someone else pushing.” He glanced at the girl. “Was it you?”

For a second, something like fear flashed across her face. Then she shook her head.

“Relax, Yvonne.” Billy crushed out his cigarette. Stood. “It was just a friend of mine, okay? What is this, a federal investigation?”

Kyle held up his hands. “No problem. I just wanted to know if you two might have seen anything as you passed through Harbor City. Maybe a car driving too fast up the highway—”

“I didn’t see nothing, okay?” He came up behind Yvonne and slipped grimy hands over her shoulders. He wore a class ring, bulky on his skinny finger, a ruby in the center. A ring that could hurt someone, leave a welt, or more. Fury boiled up inside Kyle, and he had to take a breath as Billy responded. “I was with my girl all day. I wasn’t even down in Harbor City. Right, babe?”

Babe glanced at him, back at Kyle, nodded.

Billy pulled Yvonne away from the door. “I think you should leave.”

Kyle kept his cool smile. “Thanks for your time. By the way, you’d better get the taillight fixed. You drive that around in town, you might get a ticket.”

Billy shut the door behind Kyle with more force than necessary.

As he climbed into his cruiser, a van drove up. Big man at the wheel, maybe in his late twenties. He wore a beard, his hair a chin-length mop. He got out of his vehicle, a white, dented Caravan that looked as if it might have been used off-road, and stared at Kyle as he rounded the back end and headed to the house.

Kyle drove away, watching him in the rearview mirror, the fine hairs rising on the back of his neck.

He couldn’t dislodge the pair from his brain, nor the feeling that they knew something.

He’d spent the rest of the day serving papers, although he’d answered one call for a disturbance and found Duane Hoglund breaking in to his own house after his wife locked the door.

“You should carry a key,” Kyle had said.

“No one carries a key in Deep Haven.”

Which, of course, might have been true for other families.

He stopped in at World’s Best, said hello to Joe and Jerry, who were exchanging football draft opinions with the new coach, Caleb Knight. He spotted Seb, one of the former Husky all-stars and current basketball coach, serving up red velvet cupcakes and nearly fell over when Lucy flashed him a ring.

Look at that—Lucy Maguire, tying the knot.

See, this was the town for happily ever after.

Which was exactly what he hoped to convince Emma Nelson, Miss I Hate Deep Haven, of this weekend.

Although perhaps he should have thought a bit harder about saying yes to playing an instrument he hadn’t touched in six years. He set up the drum kit in the reception hall of Caribou Ridges, a room with a view of the lake and a crackling fireplace. Jason and Nicole had clearly planned an intimate wedding, with only six round tables and a head table at the front of the room, adorned with pine boughs, red roses, and a hurricane candle. Twinkle lights hung on the pine tree decor and wound around the windows, and a nest of lights curled over the mantel, mixed in with more greens, more red roses.

Romantic.

He warmed up with flat flams, then paradiddles, then a number of sticking exercises he’d developed back when he was serious. He followed with single stroke rolls. In between he stretched his hands, arms, then his feet, working first with his heel down, then rolls, and finally in more vigorous toe-up positions.

He could easily break a sweat and more while drumming.

Long ago he’d learned how to read sheet music and chart out his own drum parts from the lead sheet notation. If Emma had a list of songs, he’d download them tonight and chart those out. He’d also learned a few of the standards and warmed up on a couple, his iPod playing in his ear.

He didn’t hear her come in, wrapped up in John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good,” the split track on his iPod allowing him to play the drums without competition.

Emma set her gear on a chair, propped her guitar on the table, and stood with her hands on her hips, not smiling.

He removed his earbuds. “Aw, c’mon. You have to be a little happy to see me.”

“What part of ‘I don’t think we should see each other’ did you not get?”

He did a drumroll. “I can tell when a girl is bluffing. I’m a cop—I know these things.”

She pinched her mouth a little at the edges as if trying not to smile, and it set off all sorts of crazy explosions inside his chest.

She looked good, too, in a pair of skinny jeans, a button-down shirt, a patterned pink-and-blue scarf around her neck. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, under a knit hat with an appliquéd pink flower on the side, her eyes so blue they had the power to make him forget his name.

He twirled a stick between his fingers. “Admit it—you’re glad to see me. You can’t get me off your mind. Your heart did a jig when you saw me.”

She rolled her eyes, but more of that smile appeared.

“In fact, you might even admit that you’re glad you’re back in Deep Haven.”

“Near Deep Haven, and let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“C’mon, we’re at a wedding, in a terribly romantic pocket of the earth. You have to admit that this is fate.”

“Fate? Fate would have been you noticing me years ago when I wore a ‘Vote for Kyle’ shirt for three days to get you elected homecoming king. This is not fate; it’s an ambush.”

“You really wore a ‘Vote for Kyle’ shirt?”

“Kelsey made me. And I should have never told you that.”

“But you did. Which means I owe you for your vote.”

“Absolutely. At the very least a sandwich.” She unzipped her guitar case. “Do you know anything about playing the drums, or are you just here to look cute?”

“You think I’m cute?”

“Listen, Your Highness, I need a real drum player.”

“I can play. Give me the lead sheets and I’ll chart them out. I promise.”

She raised an eyebrow. Then her smile vanished and she came near him, all tease gone. “Kyle Hueston, this gig means serious money for me. And maybe references later, so if you mess this up for me—”

He held up his hands. “Emma. Seriously. Protect and serve, right?”

There was that smile again.

“Okay, Deputy, let’s see what you got.”

Drummers are so hot.
Emma heard Kelsey’s voice in her head even as Kyle donned a pair of oven mitts and opened his oven to grab the pizza he’d made from scratch. He wore a pair of Levi’s, but he’d slid out of his boots and socks and was walking around barefoot in his cabin nestled in the woods. And it didn’t help that his thermal long-sleeved shirt outlined perfectly all those basketball muscles she remembered. Actually, he looked better than high school, his shoulders broader and confidence rather than swagger in his walk.

And he had drumming chops. She could hardly stop the swirl of joy inside when he’d charted out his beat to the songs she’d picked for the wedding reception, almost without effort. She’d handle the ceremony, located at the tiny harbor chapel, but his rhythm would add a festive vibe to the reception.

They’d ended with a jam session, something that had her wanting to sing, if she only knew the words. Kelsey would have made up something on the spot, taken the mic and added her bluesy voice in between their riffs.

Emma had so much fun, she forgot to be angry. And she even agreed to a late-night pizza at his place. Just this once.

She liked his house. Small, with one bedroom and a sparse amount of furniture, it had two Palladian windows—one in the bedroom, one in the family room—that overlooked the hamlet of Deep Haven. The pine floors appeared recently refinished, the smell of linden seed oil rising from their shiny surface. The kitchen looked like it’d been remodeled also—stainless steel oven and fridge, black granite counters.

She could live here. Sure, it needed a girl’s touch, but she could stand forever at the picture window, overlooking the night, with the starlight trickling onto the lake, the pine trees laden with snow.

“I love your cabin.”

He put the stone with the pizza on the counter, took a roller, and began to cut it into squares. The smell of garlic and chicken, the sweet scent of fresh basil, rose to make her stomach do curlicues. “Thanks. I bought it from Noah and Anne Standing Bear. They were hanging on to it in hopes they’d move back after Anne’s residency, but apparently they needed the cash for one of Noah’s inner-city initiatives. He’s setting up a youth center in Duluth. I know the cabin is small, but I loved it even back when Noah was building it. I was about twelve when he moved here and started the summer camp. I helped him roof the place and always secretly wanted it.”

She slid onto a rustic stool, made from stripped birch, and hooked her stocking feet around the bottom rung. “I can’t believe you made me homemade pizza.”

He slid a piece onto a plate. “Is this better than the sandwich I owe you?”

“Maybe.” She picked up the piece. The crust crunched in her mouth, the garlic and basil a perfect mix in the white sauce. He always fed her so well. “What about Pierre’s?”

“They don’t deliver. And they don’t make a decent thin crust.”

She caught a string of mozzarella cheese on her chin. “I used to go to Pierre’s every Wednesday for their lunch buffet. A bunch of us would pile into Kelsey’s car—”

“
My
car. I bequeathed it to her.”

“So
that
was the smell. Gym socks.” She grinned at him. “We’d head down there with bodies hanging out of windows, gobble down the buffet, and charge back up the hill before the bell rang for fifth hour.”

“Jason and I used to go to the taco place during lunch. They had those puffed shells that could make my mouth water just thinking about them.”

“It’s a Thai take-out place now.”

“About time they added Asian food to the repertoire here in Deep Haven.”

Emma took another square. “They make a cute couple—Jason and Nicole.”

“Yeah. Lucky bum.” Kyle put pizza on his own plate and came around to sit on the other stool.

But she got up. “Let’s eat outside.”

He frowned, but she ignored it and grabbed a quilt from his sofa before stepping out onto the deck overlooking the lake.

The brisk air seeped up under the quilt, but she wrapped it around herself and sat on the edge of the deck, conveniently under the overhang of the house.

“It’s cold out there.”

“Get out here, Heat Miser. I promise you won’t freeze to death.”

He’d slipped into his boots, pulled on his jacket, and now dusted off the deck before he sat down. “My pizza is cold.”

“But look at the stars.” They glistened against the night, and she reached out as if to grab one. “You can’t see stars like this in the Cities.”

“I guess I never noticed.”

“Never noticed the stars?” She shook her head, took a bite of pizza. Oh, even cold, his garlic chicken pizza could make her eyes roll back into her head. “Kelsey and I used to lay out in your yard on a warm July night and watch for shooting stars to make a wish.”

“What did you wish for?”

She glanced at him. “I’ll never tell.”

He narrowed his eyes, a smile tweaking his face. He had pretty whiskers—light but with flecks of red. “Playing gigs in the Cities?”

More like dating hometown basketball players, but—“Not really, no. Kelsey dreamed of doing something with our music; she had an entire future worked out for us. I . . . I used to like Deep Haven. I thought I would live here the rest of my life.”

He considered her a moment, then finished off his piece. Put his plate on the deck. “I never wanted to live here.”

This time, she was the one to frown. “I thought you loved Deep Haven.”

He tucked his strong hands between his knees. Okay, so maybe it had been a bit foolish—albeit romantically hopeful—for her to drag him outside into subzero temperatures.

“I did, but I thought maybe it was too small for me. I wanted to play basketball for the Timberwolves or, better, the Lakers or the Bulls. I only saw my future.”

“It was a good future. Sports cars, big houses. Cheerleaders.”

But he didn’t smile at her tease. “I was cut from the U of Minnesota, Duluth, Bulldogs after the first year.”

“Cut? How can that be?”

He looked away. “I took my fame too seriously. Started partying on campus, didn’t show up for a few practices. They benched me, and then I lost my scholarship.” He stared at his hands. “I was pretty selfish back then.”

Oh, Kyle. She had a feeling that he had just entrusted her with little-known information. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, Kelsey’s murder sort of woke me up to the fact that I was derailing my life. I transferred to Alexandria Technical College’s law enforcement program and decided to return to Deep Haven, keep it safe.”

Because he couldn’t do it for his sister. Suddenly his devotion to their small town made sense.

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Keeping it safe? How is your job going?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying. I stopped a raccoon from eating Mrs. Schultz’s garbage yesterday.”

“Had to use your weapon for that one?”

That nudged out a small smile.

“I’m also trying to solve the homicide in Harbor City.”

“What homicide?”

“You didn’t hear about it?”

She shook her head.

“It’s the same incident where my mother was hurt. A robbery at the Mocha Moose there. The clerk was murdered, but my mother escaped.”

“Oh, that’s terrible.”

“We have very few leads and there are no suspects yet.”

“Did your mother see them? Maybe she could identify them.”

He shivered, and she was just about to suggest they return inside when he said, “My mother hit her head, and now she doesn’t remember anything.”

“Nothing?” Her mother had mentioned something about Noelle falling.

He drew in a breath, blew it out like smoke in the air. “Actually, she’s forgotten the last twenty-five years.”

Emma stilled, no words in her.

“She doesn’t remember marrying my father, or any of us kids.”

“Kelsey.”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t remember her life or her death.”

Emma pressed a hand to her mouth. Stared out at the blackness. “I’m so sorry, Kyle. Your family must be devastated.”

“Of course, she doesn’t remember the accident either, which puts her at risk because we don’t know who the suspect is. If he figures out who she is, he might come after her, not realizing that she can’t identify him.”

He shivered again, and the action, along with his words, made her open the quilt to draw it around him. “You’ll find him, Kyle. I have no doubt.”

He caught her eyes for a moment. The high school hero had vanished, leaving someone she liked better. A real hero.

He scooted in next to her, his leg warm against hers. “During the daytime, you can see the entire town from here. The harbor, with the lighthouse along the break wall, and the Coast Guard station. The fish house—”

“I used to think all towns smelled like hickory smoke.”

He laughed. “The municipal campground, with all the motor homes, and even Artist’s Point.”

“Kelsey and I used to hang out there, compose songs. She said the water made her think better.”

“You’re an amazing guitar player,” he said. “I wish I’d known you back in high school.” He glanced at her, so close she could see the moonlight in his eyes. “I mean really known you. We would have had some fun jam sessions, you and me and Kelsey.”

“She always wanted to invite you, but I wouldn’t let her.”

“Why?”

She gave him a look.

And that’s when he kissed her. Sweetly, just like in the parking lot, his fingers against the line of her jaw, drawing her close. He tasted faintly of garlic and sweet basil and smelled like a man in jeans and cotton, strong and able to protect and serve, just as he claimed. She wove her fingers into his hair and kissed him back, just as sweetly.

Kyle pulled away, a smile tipping his lips, and bumped his forehead to hers.

“Because you were too tempting,” she whispered. “I would have stopped playing and simply started watching you play the drums.”

“Drummers are hot, you know.”

She opened her mouth, leaned back. “What?”

“Kelsey would stand in the doorway to my room, listening to me practice, and say that. Like it was an incentive to learn or something.”

“She always said guitarists were hot, too.”

“They are,” he said softly and kissed her again, this time letting his touch linger.

She’d stopped being cold but didn’t mind when he tucked her under his arm, drew her close to his chest. “Maybe Kelsey was trying to set us up, all those years ago.”

“Maybe,” he said quietly, “it finally worked.”