Cold feet (6 page)

Was she okay? His natural reluctance to intrude on her privacy warred with the desire to capitalize on a golden opportunity. After all, he'd moved in to get close to her.

Hurrying to the cottage house, he scribbled down the license plate number, put on a T-shirt and a pair of shoes and jogged back.

It took several seconds for her to answer his knock. When she finally came to the door, her cheeks were dry, but her eyes were red and damp.

Caleb studied her for a moment, wishing she were middle-aged and frumpy. That she was single and attractive only complicated matters. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

There was an insincere smile on her face and, when she spoke, her voice carried the high pitch of false cheer. "No, of course not. Why?"

He jerked his head toward the drive. "Those guys who were here. They didn't look very reputable. I thought maybe I should check on you."

"Oh." Her smile faltered. "That was just my brother Johnny."

Johnny Purcell. Caleb had come across that name years ago while he was researching Ellis. As a matter of fact, he'd interviewed Johnny once, in prison. But Johnny must have lost a lot of weight since then. Caleb hadn't recognized him.

"I know he doesn't look like much," she said. "But he's basically harmless. Fortunately, he doesn't come around very often. I'm sorry if he woke you."

"It's no problem. I wasn't sleeping. Is he in some sort of trouble?"

"No."

An awkward silence ensued, during which Caleb racked his brain for some other way to learn more about Johnny's visit.

Madison spoke first. "Did you get settled?"

"For the most part." He grinned, hoping to charm her. "I loaded up on the important things--peanut butter and bread."

"Well, if there's anything you need, a cup of sugar or an egg or whatever, feel free to ask."

"I appreciate that." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, wishing she'd invite him in for a cup of coffee. Other than moving onto the property, he hadn't considered
how
he was going to get close to Madison. Especially when she seemed so remote.

"Is Brianna asleep?" he asked.

"She's in bed. I don't know that she's asleep."

"I realize she feels I'm encroaching on her space, but with any luck she'll get used to having me around, don't you think?"

"I hope so," Madison said. "I know space shouldn't be an issue. She's got plenty of space. Especially at her father's. He lives in an eight-thousand-square-foot house, complete with a giant water fountain worthy of a casino."

"Sounds...ostentatious."

"It is." She finally gave him a genuine smile. "I hated living there. It felt like a mausoleum." She folded her arms, unwittingly revealing a fair amount of cleavage.

Caleb wished again that she was older, or significantly younger, or considerably overweight...

"Brianna's had a rough year," she was saying. "I'm guessing this is some sort of delayed reaction."

He pulled his attention away from the smooth skin of her breasts. "How long have you been divorced?"

"A little less than a year."

"It'll get easier."

"You sound as though you speak from experience."

"I went through a divorce two years ago." He didn't mention the first divorce. There'd been no one in between so it didn't count.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Things are better now."

"They are for me, too," she said, but he didn't get the impression she really believed it.

Caleb considered being direct and simply asking if he could join her for a cup of coffee. With Susan missing, he felt the clock ticking. But he didn't dare come on too strong. If he frightened Madison or made her leery of him in any way, he'd only defeat his purpose.

"Well, thanks for checking on me," she said, and started backing up to close the door.

Caleb had no choice but to step off the porch. "Have a good night."

"You, too."

Reluctantly, he walked down the stone path that led to his new home, frustrated that he hadn't managed to wrangle any type of invitation out of her. Then he caught sight of her car. A nice car was important in the real estate business. He had no doubt that if she could afford it, she'd be driving a Mercedes instead of a Camry. "By the way," he said before she could close the door.

"Yes?"

"I'd like to hire someone to do my laundry and make me a few meals. I was wondering if you'd be interested."

"You're going to hire someone to cook and clean for you?"

He was if he could get her to take the job. "I'll be coming and going a lot."

"How much are you willing to pay?"

Caleb had always taken care of himself. He had no idea what such services should rightfully cost. But he wasn't afraid of being generous. He thought that helping her out financially might ease his conscience about having ulterior motives in befriending her. "Six hundred dollars a month sound fair?"

She coughed. "That's almost as much as you're paying in rent."

Evidently he'd been a little too generous. "That would include the price of groceries, of course."

Her teeth sank into the soft flesh of her bottom lip, distracting him again. "What constitutes 'a few meals'?"

"Dinner every night, unless you have other plans, and breakfast on the weekends." For a moment, he thought she'd refuse, and wished he'd asked her for less of a time commitment. She was trying to run a business and already seemed harried. But he needed to gain her confidence quickly. "I'm flexible, though. So if you think that's too much..."

"What kind of menu?" she asked.

"You can choose."

"Do you want me to bring it over to you?"

"If you'd prefer. But if you're open to company, I'd rather not eat alone."

She hesitated for another moment. "All right," she said at last. "I'm already cooking for Brianna and me. It won't take long to add an extra plate for dinner and do a few more loads of laundry each week. I think it might help Brianna adjust to having you here if she gets to know you a little."

"My laundry isn't difficult," he told her. "Mostly jeans and T-shirts."

"Sounds as though you live a pretty easy life, Mr. Trovato," she said.

"Call me Caleb."

"When would you like me to start, Caleb?"

He smiled as he moved away, feeling a sense of victory. It was only a matter of time before he knew everything Madison did. "How about tomorrow?"

CHAPTER FIVE

"C
ALEB, WHERE
have you been? I've been calling your cell for the past hour."

Holly. Again. Between Caleb's run to his folks' house for his things that morning, and his trip to the grocery store in the afternoon, he'd met her at the university and helped pass out flyers with Susan's picture and description. Every time his ex-wife had called since then, he'd jumped for the phone, thinking she'd heard from someone who'd seen Susan. Shortly before Johnny had pulled up outside, Caleb had finally realized she was just stressed and worried and wanted to go over the same things she'd been saying all day. Only he'd already done everything he could until morning and didn't want to hold her hand anymore. He was comfortable in bed, once again flipping through satellite channels on television and enjoying the solitude.

"It's after midnight, Holly," he said. "Can't this wait until we get together in the morning?"

"No, it can't," she replied. "Someone called me about the flyer a little while ago."

At last! Caleb hit the off button and sat up, giving Holly his full attention. "Who was it?"

"I'll tell you all about it when I get there. I have something to show you."

"
Show
me?"

"I'm on my way."

"Wait, I'm not staying at my folks' place," he said before she could hang up.

"You're not?"

"No, I rented a small house."

Silence. Eventually she asked, "Why would you rent a place? You could've stayed here for free."

"Holly, we're divorced."

"I know that, Caleb. It isn't as though I'm asking you to sleep with me. I only offered to put you up for a few weeks. You're helping me, after all. I feel it's the least I can do."

"There's no need," he said. "I'm fine where I am."

"And where is that?"

"Whidbey Island."

"Whidbey! What made you move there?"

"It's closer to the mainland."

"If you wanted to be close to the mainland, why didn't you rent an apartment
on
the mainland?"

Caleb considered telling Holly that he was renting from Ellis Purcell's daughter, but decided not to. He didn't want her badgering him for information until he was ready to share it. Just because he
might
come across answers no one else had been able to glean didn't necessarily mean he would. It was possible that Madison was too secretive to let anything slip. It was also possible that she didn't know anything. But he was willing to bet against both of those possibilities. She'd been living with Ellis during his killing spree. At a minimum, she should be able to tell Caleb bits and pieces of conversation she'd overheard between her parents, whether her father was really at home when he'd claimed to be, whether she sometimes heard things go bump in the night, whether she ever saw him move something heavy that just might have resembled a dead body....

"This place is nice," he said instead.

"How much is it costing you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Waste your money, then. I don't care," she said. "You're so stubborn. I don't know why I married you once, let alone twice."

He thought she might hang up in a huff, but she didn't. "Are you going to give me directions?" she asked after an extended silence.

A quick glance at the clock told him it was even later than he'd realized. But she'd said she had something to show him. "What do you have?" he asked.

"You'll see."

If she had a lead, he needed to know about it as soon as possible. He told her how to find him. Then he got up, dressed and put on some coffee.

Across the yard, he could see that the lights were still on in Madison's house, and he wondered what she was doing. Earlier, it had looked as though she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders....

Guilt about masquerading as a random renter flickered inside him. He could already tell Madison wasn't the ice princess he'd assumed from her television interviews and that one strongly worded letter. Her behavior wasn't strange, either, like her father's. Actually, she seemed pretty...normal. And there was no question she'd been through a lot.

Leaning against the wall, he stared out the window at her light. She might be nice. She might even be one of the most attractive women he'd ever met--but being nice and attractive didn't change the fact that the truth had to be told.

M
ADISON COULDN'T SLEEP
.
She was tired yet wound up, and didn't dare take a sleeping pill, for several reasons. Brianna could wake up in the night. Johnny, or whoever had been with him, could come back. And she wasn't yet comfortable with having a stranger living on her property. Especially one who knew she and Brianna were alone. Caleb Trovato's credit references had checked out; he seemed like a pretty solid citizen. But still...

Pulling out her sketchpad, she sat at the kitchen table and began to draw. She had tons of paperwork to take care of. She needed to review the purchase offers her agents had generated in the past week. As their broker, she was liable for any legal repercussions if they made a mistake. She also needed to revise the independent contractor agreement she was having her agents sign when they came to work for her, decide whether or not she was going to hire the young woman she'd interviewed this afternoon, and review the lease for the new copier she was buying for the office. But she was too tense to delve into work-related matters tonight.

Because she couldn't forget Johnny, she drew his eyes. Because she was worried about Brianna, she drew her daughter's full lips. She even sketched Danny's angry brow--something that had come to symbolize their relationship. The scratch of her pencil and her intense focus usually eased the stress knotting the muscles in her back and neck. But nothing seemed to help tonight. She still felt as though she were walking a tightrope with the ground frighteningly far below.

Her eyes slid to her briefcase. The urgency to make her business successful was part of the problem. Sales weren't going nearly as well as she'd hoped when she'd purchased South Whidbey Realty. She knew she was crazy to be wasting time while Brianna was sleeping, but Madison simply couldn't face the work she'd brought home with her.

Flipping to a new page, she considered drawing her mother's hands. But anything to do with her mother reminded Madison of her father, and she didn't want to confront her doubts about him. Not right now. Not in the middle of the night with the clock on the wall ticking and the rest of the house so silent.

She sorted through the faces she'd seen lately: an obese woman with beautiful blond hair she'd met at Brianna's school; a wiry, angular man who'd just started doing the janitorial work at the office building where she leased space; a baby she'd seen at the mall. None interested her enough to attempt them. But the gruff old man who worked on the ferry seemed to have potential--

A car pulled into the drive, and Madison's heart began to race. Was Johnny back? What could he possibly want now?

Dropping her pencil, she went to the window, but the car that parked behind Caleb's Mustang didn't look anything like the one Johnny had been riding in earlier. This car was a late-model Honda. And the person getting out of it was a woman--a tall woman who wasn't approaching her house.

A moment later, Caleb Trovato's door opened and he stepped out under the eaves. His broad shoulders blocked most of the light spilling from the cottage behind him, but Madison could see that his visitor was blond and most likely very pretty. Was she a friend? A lover? Coming this late she could even be a call girl.

No, Caleb would have no need to hire a prostitute, Madison decided. He probably had more female attention than he knew what to do with. He was ruggedly handsome. More than that, he carried himself with the sort of beguiling indifference most women found so appealing.

Most women, but not Madison. She'd trusted her father. She'd trusted Danny. She would have trusted Johnny and Tye, except they'd never let her get close enough. For some reason, when it came to men, she wasn't a very good judge of character. Which meant she was better off alone.

Even if she
wanted
a new love interest, how could she get close to anyone while guarding her father's terrible secret?

"T
HIS IS A CUTE PLACE
,"
Holly said.

Caleb stretched out on the couch and flipped on the television. "Thanks."

"How did you find it?"

"I stumbled across the For Rent sign."

"So you leased it?" She snapped her fingers. "Like that?"

"Pretty much." He waved to the chair at the end of the couch. "Sit down and show me what you've got."

She didn't move toward the chair. "If you didn't want to stay with your mother or me, why not get a hotel? That's what most people do."

"Does it matter?" he asked, trying to head her off. She'd brought up the Sandpoint Strangler a number of times and was already frightened that Susan's disappearance might be connected. He didn't want to fuel her fears by admitting he suspected the same thing. At least until he had more to go on than gut instinct and a few wild coincidences.

She shook her head as she gazed around. "I just never expected it."

He buzzed past a commercial for dandruff shampoo. "Don't make a big deal out of it, Holly. Now I have a place of my own while I'm here. That's it."

"And the downside is you're paying by the week?"

"
Forget
the cottage."

At the irritation in his voice, she propped her hands on her hips and faced him. "Why'd I have to fall in love with you?"

Caleb had asked himself the same question about her, many times. She'd just been so...lost when he met her. And he'd always been a sucker for a woman down on her luck. He liked feeling needed, liked taking care of others. Unfortunately, she'd exploited that tendency to its fullest. "I wish I knew."

"I'll never understand you or what happened between us--"

"That's the beauty of being divorced," he interrupted. "We no longer have to analyze what's wrong with us. No more teary talks that carry on through the night. No more debilitating guilt. Surely you're as relieved as I am."

"But we loved each other."

Caleb scrubbed a hand over his jaw. "We just hated each other more."

"I never hated you," she said.

"God, Hol, would you let it go?" He blew out a sigh, hoping some of his frustration would go with it. "We couldn't be together for more than two days in a row. Now, do you have something on Susan or not?"

It took her a moment to regain control. But she managed to do so, for a change, and Caleb relaxed.

Leaving the remote control on the arm of the couch, he went to the refrigerator to get a beer. "Well?" he said when he'd popped the top and drunk almost half of it.

She finally sat down and stared at the television, probably so she wouldn't have to look at him. "I'm not sure if it'll tell us much in the end, but a woman named Jennifer Allred saw Susan the day after she and I had our nails done."

"Where?" He leaned one hip against the kitchen counter, enjoying the smooth taste of his Michelob Light and letting it siphon off some of the tension he'd been feeling only moments earlier.

"At a vegetarian pizza place not far from the university."

"She's sure it was Susan?"

Holly reached into her purse and withdrew a photograph. "She gave me this."

Surprised, Caleb left his beer on the counter and walked over to get a better look. "
How
did she give you this?" he asked. "I thought you said she
called
you."

"She did. Then she asked me to meet her on campus because she had some proof to give me."

"And you did it? Don't tell me you went there alone, Holly."

"What else was I supposed to do? Drag someone out of bed and coerce him or her into going with me? You weren't picking up."

He'd been outside creeping around, trying to figure out what was going on at Madison's--not the type of errand on which he wanted to carry a cell phone. "Twelve women, if you count Susan, have been snatched from that campus or the surrounding area! What were you thinking, meeting someone so late?"

"Oh, don't pretend you care about me," she said, coming right back at him. "If you cared, you never would've given up on me."

"Damn it, Holly, would you quit twisting the knife? I wanted to be there for you. I married you twice, remember? We aren't a good fit. I don't know how much more proof you need!" He hadn't planned on shouting, but she always managed to snap the control that was sufficient for every other situation and relationship.

She stared at him for several seconds, her glare challenging enough to make him believe they were going to end up in another of their famous rows. She was probably going to start in on the miscarriage. She always used that as some sort of trump card, as if he hadn't felt the loss of their baby just as deeply.

Instead, she covered her eyes and shook her head, obviously backing down. "Look at the picture, okay?"

Caleb felt the anger drain out of him. No one made him as crazy as Holly did. But this wasn't about their marriages or their divorces. This was about Susan, he reminded himself, gazing down at the picture. "I don't recognize any of these people," he said.

"That's because you've probably never seen them before. That's Jennifer and her two roommates. They're celebrating because the guy on the left just won an art grant."

"So what does this have to do with Susan?"

"Look behind them, in the background."

Caleb held the picture closer to the light, trying to make out the slightly blurred figure beyond the open door of the pizza place. It could have been any woman of Susan's general size, shape and coloring. But then he saw a slice of leopard print halter beneath a short black jacket and knew it was her.

"She's wearing just what I thought she was wearing," he said in amazement.

"Notice anything else?"

Caleb's blood ran cold. Next to Susan, parked at the curb, was a blue Ford pickup with a white camper shell. He cut his gaze to Holly. "Purcell's truck?"