Cold feet (30 page)

"Not quite a year."

"Since your divorce from Danny, the engineer?"

Madison was about to fill the coffeemaker with fresh grounds, but turned to stare at Holly instead. "How do you know anything about Danny? Or my divorce?"

"You're Ellis Purcell's daughter, aren't you?"

Madison curled her fingernails into her palms, feeling doubly betrayed that Caleb hadn't even bothered to keep quiet about the fact that he was playing her for a fool. "Did Caleb tell you that?"

"Of course. We're still
very
close." She took a picture off the refrigerator. "Is this your daughter?"

Holly held a photo of Brianna at the zoo. "Yes."

"What a cute little girl."

Her words were nice enough, but they were spoken almost tonelessly. And the way Holly stared at the picture made Madison want to yank it away. "She's a good girl. Most of the time, anyway," she said, watching Holly closely.

"I've always wanted a child."

Madison remembered Caleb telling her that he and Holly had lost a baby due to miscarriage. She would have felt sympathy except that Holly seemed so emotionally detached. Her comment had sounded like a casual observation.

"What is it you came to tell me, Holly?" Madison asked, anxious to bring their "little talk" to a close.

Holly tacked the picture back onto the fridge and turned. "Caleb's only interested in you because of who are you are," she said. "He thinks if he can solve this case, he'll finally reel in the one that got away. The big one. You know what I mean? That's all it is. It isn't you or--" she waved at the pictures of Brianna "--or your little girl that he likes."

Madison hated hearing what Holly was saying, but she couldn't argue with it because Holly was right. Caleb had only moved into the cottage because she was Ellis Purcell's daughter. But common sense told her that Holly wouldn't have shown up at her door unless she was feeling threatened in some way. "Holly, since you've been so candid with me, I think I'll do you the same favor," she said.

Holly's eyebrows shot up and she straightened, giving Madison the impression that she was surprised her revelation hadn't reduced Madison to tears. "What?"

"Caleb's over you. If you're smart, you'll forget him and move on with your life."

Which is exactly what I plan to do.
But she knew forgetting Caleb was going to be much easier said than done. Especially when she heard a car turn in at the drive and her heart leaped into her throat at the thought that it was probably him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T
HE IMPATIENCE
C
ALEB FELT
whenever Holly contacted him lately returned with a vengeance the moment he saw her car. Since it was Sunday, the ferry had been moving more quickly than usual. He'd made the drive from south Seattle in less than forty minutes, yet she'd beaten him here. Even after he'd told her to give him an hour. No wonder he'd moved to San Francisco.

Scowling, he put the Mustang in Park and cut the engine. He needed a few minutes alone with Madison, but he had to get rid of Holly first--wherever she was. He was fairly certain he'd locked the door to the cottage, so she couldn't be inside. And she wasn't sitting in her car.

He got out and started across the drive. When he'd cleared the arbor, he could see more of the cottage, where he expected to find Holly hunched against the rain, waiting for him under the eaves. But he saw no one until he was just a few feet away from Madison's house. Then the door opened and Holly dashed out, nearly running into him.

"Whoa, take it easy," he said, dodging her.

She glanced from him to Madison, who was standing in the doorway behind her. "You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me, Caleb," she said, her face full of fury.

"Holly--"

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, and marched to her car.

"What about your purse?" he called after her, but she'd already slammed her door and started the engine. Throwing the transmission in reverse, she gave it far more gas than necessary and tore out of the drive.

"T
HANKS FOR DETAILING
my identity and your plans for me to your ex-wife," Madison said as the echo of Holly's squealing tires died away. "I guess I was the only one who didn't know, huh?"

"It wasn't like that," Caleb said.

"What was it like?"

"Would it make a difference if I told you?"

"Should it?"

He raked a hand through his hair. "I don't know," he said with a sigh. "But we need to talk." His somber expression and his tone told Madison that he wanted to discuss more than just their relationship.

Prickles of fear raced down her spine. Had he found something? Something she wouldn't like?

"Okay," she said, and held open the door, steeling herself for whatever would follow. But then Danny's Jaguar pulled into the drive, and Brianna got out.

"Hi, Caleb," she called and ran over the lawn to give him a big hug. "I'm home early!"

Madison waited her turn for a hug from Brianna, then crossed the wet lawn to collect Brianna's bag from Danny. "It's only ten o'clock," she said when he handed it to her. "What's going on?"

"I decided I'd better go in to the office today. I'm behind at work."

"You couldn't have called to let me know you were bringing Brianna home now?"

"You
asked
me to bring her home early," he said.

Madison sighed. "It would have been nice if you'd arranged it."

He shrugged and got back in his car. "I knew you'd be here," he said simply, and drove off.

Madison turned, trudging back to Caleb and Brianna. Caleb had lifted Brianna into his arms, and she was busy telling him all about the new fish her father had bought this weekend to add to her aquarium.

"Let's get out of the rain," Madison suggested, and felt the pressure of Caleb's hand on her back as they hurried inside. He pulled away to close the door, but not before she recognized that, no matter what he'd done, she still longed for his touch.

Evidently she was an even bigger fool than she'd thought.

"Well?" she said as he put Brianna down.

Caleb gave a subtle nod that let Madison know he was concerned about Brianna overhearing what he had to say. "Is there someplace we could be alone?"

"Johnny's here, too," she said.

"Then maybe I should go home. We can talk on the phone." But he didn't turn to leave right away. He stood there staring at her, making her feel self-conscious about her damp, tangled hair and hastily donned robe, even though he was mostly looking at her lips.

"Why's everyone up so early?" Johnny asked, stumbling into the living room with a yawn.

Grateful for the interruption, Madison broke eye contact with Caleb. "Brianna's home," she told him.

C
ALEB PEELED OFF
his clothes on the way to his bedroom, planning to climb beneath the sheets and pass out for a few hours. But he still had to call Madison, prepare her for the fact that Tye would probably be arrested. He knew she'd have divided feelings. Horror that her own half brother could be capable of such violence. Sympathy for the way it was going to affect his wife and children. Vindication that she'd been right about her father all along.

Kicking off his jeans, he tossed them aside without caring where they landed, scooped the cordless phone off the nightstand and sank into bed in his boxers. Never had a mattress felt so good....

But he didn't have long to relax. Madison answered almost immediately. "Hello?"

He stared at the ceiling, picturing her almond-shaped eyes gazing up at him and her mouth curved into the same seductive smile as the night they'd gone dancing. "It's me."

She was silent for a moment, a silence fraught with tension. "What's happened?" she asked.

Closing his eyes, Caleb tried to separate what he felt for Madison from what he felt in general. "I'm afraid I have some news you might not want to hear."

"What is it?"

He could tell by the sound of her voice that she was bracing for the worst. "Tye might have a connection to my sister-in-law's murder."

His statement was met with silence. "I was afraid of that," she finally whispered. There was another long pause before she continued. "How did you find out?"

"I have a picture of Susan the night she disappeared. A blue Ford truck just like your father's is parked right next to her."

"There are a lot of trucks like my father's."

"Not with the same license plate. Tye's neighbor saw him driving your father's truck the night Susan disappeared. He said Tye brought it home and parked it out front for a while."

"Driving my dad's truck doesn't prove he hurt anyone," she said, but her voice held no conviction, and because of the locket and other things that had disappeared from under the house, Caleb knew she believed Tye was involved.

"We'll learn more later. I'll call you as soon as I hear anything."

"Does that mean he killed those other women, too?" she asked.

"Nothing's definite, yet. But it's possible."

He heard her sigh. "If so, he got away with it because of my father," she said. "Why would he kill again?"

"Sometimes there's no good explanation for homicidal behavior. To a psychopath, killing becomes a craving, an addiction. Serial killers feed on the power. Maybe the compulsion overcame him."

"Would he go to prison or..."

She let her words drift away, and Caleb knew she was thinking about the death penalty. "I won't lie to you. If the lab is able to come up with the DNA profile they've been working on, and it happens to match Tye's DNA, the district attorney will have a pretty strong case. And there'll probably be other evidence." He punched his pillow and rolled over. "I've called Gibbons. The police will be heading over to your brother's place as soon as they can procure a search warrant."

"I suspected Tye and yet...I can't believe it," she said. "When will we find out for sure?"

"Depends on the lab, but it shouldn't take more than another few days, maybe a week."

"Poor Sharon."

"Are
you
going to be okay?" he asked.

"I don't know. I'm relieved no one else will be hurt. And I'm numb enough right now that I just want it all to end. It's been part of my life, in one way or another, for far too long."

"I hope it'll be over soon."

"So you can write another book?" she said, her voice caustic.

"So I can go home," he said truthfully. He didn't need the headache of trying to sort out his feelings for her. He was torn between wanting to pursue a relationship and, now that things had turned sour, wanting to back away entirely. Holly had been a big mistake. He had no desire to make another.

"When will you leave?" Madison asked.

"Sometime soon."

Caleb sensed that she was softening toward him, and couldn't help taking advantage of it. "Madison, I want you to know that I didn't intend for what happened between us to--"

"Don't," she said. "I know. When we made love it was too honest for either of us to be pretending. But it's all too much right now. I--I don't know what to think about anything anymore."

He bit back the rest of what he wanted to say. He needed to give her time. She'd just learned that her brother might be going to prison--or worse. "What happened with Holly?" he asked when several seconds had passed in silence. "She was supposed to pick up her purse, but it's still here."

His call-waiting beeped, and he pulled the phone away to see who was trying to get through. He was eager to hear from Gibbons, to find out for sure that Tye was their man. But it was Holly.

"Speak of the devil," he said. "Holly's calling me on the other line."

"Then I'll let her explain."

"Okay."

He felt a nagging reluctance to let Madison go, even though there was nothing left to say. "I'll call you when I hear from Detective Gibbons," he said, forcing some finality into his voice.

"Caleb?"

"Yes?"

"Will you do me one favor?"

"What's that?"

"Don't leave without saying goodbye. After my father...Well, I hate that. I hate that I never got to say goodbye."

He closed his eyes. Despite his best efforts to push the memory away, he could still feel her body beneath his the night they'd made love. "I won't leave without saying goodbye," he said, although he knew it wouldn't be an easy moment.

She hung up and Caleb switched lines. "You never got your purse," he told Holly.

"I couldn't. I couldn't stand being around that woman another minute."

Caleb used one hand to rub both temples while he talked. "You mean Madison?"

"Who else?"

"There's nothing wrong with Madison, Holly."

"She thinks she has some sort of hold on you, Caleb. Can you believe she had the nerve to tell me you don't love me anymore, that I should move on?"

She laughed incredulously, but that only annoyed Caleb further. He'd told Holly the same thing in a million different ways. The fact that he'd divorced her for the second time and moved to another state wasn't enough? What he'd said in the cottage, when he'd told her they were over for good--that wasn't enough?

Maybe he'd been too gentle. Obviously, Holly didn't get it.

He gave up rubbing his temples. He was never going to relieve the tension humming through his body as long as he was talking to his ex-wife. "Holly, Madison's right," he said frankly.

"What?"

"We've talked about this before. We're finished. For good. Do you understand?"

"No, Caleb, I don't. You...you don't mean it. You came back to me last time."

"Last time there were--" he thought of the baby, dared not mention it "--other issues involved."

"I don't care. You came all the way back here, just because I needed you."

"Holly, I came back to help you out as a
friend.
I'll be going home in the next few days."

"You can't leave! What about finding Susan's killer?"

"I think we might have done that today."