MIND READER (9 page)

“Unusual?”

“Anything odd—for Decker,” Parker clarified.

Ina clicked her tongue. “Tuesday night, I did. Struck me
more than odd, I don’t mind saying.”

Caron tensed. “What?”

“Well, I was sound asleep on the sofa. Dozed off
watching the Tonight Show—after the monologue. It just
ain’t the same without Johnny. Anyway, I heard a cat
mewing. More like screeching, truth to tell. It woke me up.
The Kleins, across the street, have a Persian, Fluffy. I figured she’d gotten stuck in Decker’s yard again. Fluffy and
Killer don’t exactly get along. He trees her on the shed roof
pretty often. Anyway, I looked out my living room win
dow, and I saw Decker outside. He was getting something
out of the trunk of his car.”

Parker leaned forward, over the table. “What was it?”

“Well, it didn’t make sense then, and it don’t now.
Decker don’t have a wife or kids, just Linda—his sister who lives in town—but he was getting a lavender bicycle out of
that trunk.”

Caron’s stomach sank to her knees. Tuesday was the day she’d first imaged the little girl being abducted—off a lav
ender bike.

Parker poured hot coffee over the cold in his cup and
reached for a second roll. “Could the bike belong to one of
Linda’s kids?”

“Shoot, Linda don’t have any children, boy. She
wouldn’t ruin her figure. Married herself a highfalutin man
from downtown.” Ina dropped her voice to a conspirato
rial whisper. “They say he’s richer than that Trump
fellow, but I can’t say that for sure. Don’t see him much. Linda comes around every Tuesday, though, regular as
clockwork and dressed up fancy.”

“Was Linda there this past Tuesday?” Caron gave
Parker an I-told-you-so glare that clearly annoyed him.

“Sure was,” Ina said. “I was out working in my flower
bed, getting it ready for planting, when she drove up.
Smiled and talked real friendly, like usual. But when she left, she sure wasn’t smiling. She was fighting mad, and yelling at Decker that he must have lost his mind.”

“About what?” Parker asked. “Do you know?”

“No, I didn’t hear it. But Lily Mae—she lives on the
other side of Decker—says she bets it’s got something to do
with Linda’s husband. Lily Mae’s seldom wrong about
things like that. She’s got this friend, Mary Beth, who
works down at the diner near the man’s office. We drop by
for lunch sometimes, and from what I’ve overheard, he’d make a fine snake-oil salesman.” She winked and dipped her chin to confirm what she’d said. “Slick tongue.”

Caron passed the woman a second card. “Here’s my phone number, Ina. If you think of anything else, or see
anything odd, will you call?”

“Sure will. As long as you don’t tell Decker. I don’t need any more trouble with him. Last time we had a run-in, he
stomped my irises. Ain’t much of a man who stomps a
woman’s irises, if you ask me.”

Caron agreed.

Parker smiled, and when Ina escorted them out, then shut the door, he said, “I think Ina Erickson can hold her
own.”

Caron would’ve answered. But she couldn’t get her voice
to work. She’d never seen Parker relaxed and at ease. His
smile touched his eyes, and the accusing gray glints had
softened to soft gray glimmers.

“Caron?”

His amused tone had her snapping to; he was holding the door open. She avoided his eyes and slid into the car, flatly refusing to accept what was happening. She
couldn’t
be at
tracted to him. Not to Parker Simms. The man was insulting and rude—and he didn’t even think there was a case!

He folded himself into the car, and the smell of his co
logne and rain mingled with the scent of leather. Her throat
felt thick. Parker Simms was guilty on all counts. But he
was also the first man in a long time who had her hor
mones humming louder than a swarm of droning bees.

She didn’t care for the feeling; actually, she hated it. But
only a fool would deny it. And only a fool would fail to accept that under the circumstances being at
tracted to Parker Simms was stupid
and crazy.

Knowing that, she must have misjudged her reactions to
him. Checking to make sure, she gave him another look. The flutters came back to her stomach, and that little tin
gle of anticipation danced along her nerves. He smiled, and
her hormones zipped into overdrive. There was no mis
take; she was attracted.

And stupid and crazy.

Chapter 3

Caron shivered.

Sitting in her parked Chevy about three houses down from Decker’s, she pulled her raincoat closer around her
and looked up at the streetlight. Through the rain, it glowed
hazy. The lights inside the houses did, too. But the street
itself was eerily dark between the amber lamps, and quiet.

Caron locked the car door with her elbow, then reached for the box of tissues. Her breath had the window fogging,
blocking her view. The temperature must have dropped ten
degrees since dark.

A tap sounded on her window. Caron gasped.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Parker.” She relaxed. He’d gone to get them some
thing to eat. She reached over and unlatched the passenger
door. “Go around.”

He did. Caron watched him through the smeared wind
shield. He was holding a paper bag.

Parker cracked the door open, mashed the button to keep
the dome light off, then slid in. “It’s really coming down.”

Rain slicked his hair and ran in rivulets down his face to
his throat and disappeared inside his jacket. Watching it, Caron
felt her throat muscles tighten and heard her stom
ach growl.

“Good.” Parker slid her a grin. “You
are
hungry.” He
dug inside a crackling sack, then held out something wrapped in white paper. “Hamburger.”

Caron’s mouth watered. She could smell the still-sizzling
meat, the mustard and dill pickles. She loved dill pickles.
“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He pulled a cup from the bag and
passed it, too. “Coffee. Black coffee.”

“Observant.” Caron set the cup on the dash and lifted
the top. Steam rose from it and fogged the windshield
again. She unwrapped the crinkling white paper from the
burger and took a bite. Mmm, it was good. Hot and juicy, just the way she liked. The Butterfinger she’d had for lunch had worn off a long time ago, and it was already after 9:00
p.m.

Parker pulled a carton from the sack. “Egg fu young,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d like it. So I got you the
burger.”

He’d made the right decision; she wouldn’t have liked it.
“I hate vegetables.”

She took another bite. It didn’t want to go down. There
was something too intimate about sharing a meal in a dark
car on a rainy night with Parker Simms.

Parker opened the carton and stabbed his fork into his
egg fu young. He splashed brown gravy onto his finger and
licked it off.

Great hands. Long, competent fingers. She stopped
eating long enough to sip the coffee. It warmed her throat, and she stopped shivering. But the overall temperature seemed to have spiked fifty degrees, and, she admitted, it had nothing to do with the coffee or with Mother Nature’s whims. Caron gave Parker a wary look. “You’re a health
food nut, then? Only vegetables?” It fit. He was a big man,
powerfully built.

“Not really. I just don’t dump chocolate into my body twenty-four hours a day.” He shifted and pulled a candy
wrapper from the seat beneath him. “Do you ever eat any
thing besides Butterfingers?”

“Not if I can help it.” Despite an explicit decision not to,
she smiled. Inwardly groaning at her weakness, she swung her gaze to Decker’s front door, determined to keep it there
and her mind off Parker Simms’s attack on her senses.

“I guess I owe you an apology, don’t I?”

Caron turned back to Parker. “An apology?”

“I’m sorry I clammed up about Charley.”

She waited, but he didn’t say any more. “And I’m sorry
you lost your dad, Parker.” Maybe his pain was worse than her own. He had a lifetime of memories of his father to re
call. She had only seven years.

“He was a good man. I admired him.”

She wanted to say something, but feared that if she did
Parker would stop talking.

“He was shot,” Parker said softly. “You asked how he
died.”

“That must have been hard. No time for goodbyes.”

Parker frowned, his gaze on his food. “My mother had a really hard time accepting it. So did my sister, Megan.”

So had he. Caron brushed a raindrop off his neck. “How
old were you?”

“Twenty. Megan was fifteen.”

There was bitterness here, deep-rooted and blinding.
“What happened?”

Parker’s shrug brushed their shoulders. “Megan had just started dating. Her first boyfriend came around to pick her
up. They were going to the movies.”

He paused for a second. Caron didn’t push.

“Charley recognized the guy and refused to let Megan go. He was a hood, Caron. Charley wouldn’t have inter
fered if he’d been a decent guy.”

“He was protecting his daughter.”

“Yes.” Parker put the carton on the dash. “Megan was angry and upset. Charley tried to calm her down. So did Mom. But she wasn’t ready to be calmed.”

“At fifteen, a girl holds a lot of righteous indignation
when people get into her love life.”

“Exactly,” he said, sounding relieved. “Anyway, when
Charley left for work, Megan still wasn’t speaking to him.

And about four the next morning, the officers came to tell
us that Charley had been shot.”

Caron could only imagine the horrible shock and pain of that visit. She reached out and touched Parker’s sleeve. “It
was Megan’s date, wasn’t it? He shot Charley.”

Parker nodded, and for an instant she saw pain flash in his eyes. It was gone so quickly, at first she thought she’d imagined it. But she felt him tremble under her hand and
she knew that she hadn’t. Parker had been very close to his father, and she would have bet her life that he hadn’t shared
his grief or loss with many others.

She’d been wrong about him, thinking he was cold and lacked compassion. He wasn’t. He was one of those men who lived close to the bone, kept things that mattered pri
vate.
 
Boy, did she relate.

A porch light across the street from Decker’s flicked on.
Parker grunted. “That’s the third time.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“You’ve been watching me and not seeing anything else.
Tunnel vision.”

Caron wished that weren’t true. Then she wouldn’t have glimpsed inside Parker Simms and become even more attracted to him. But she had. “Not guilty,” she lied. “I’ve
been fixed on Decker’s.”

“Right.”

Knowing she’d never swallow another bite after telling that whopper and having it disputed, she wrapped the uneaten half of the burger and put it on the dash. “What
have I missed?”

“Two doors back, left side of the street. There’s a cou
ple in the car, arguing.”

Caron looked back. The car was parked directly under the streetlamp, and she could see the outlines of two peo
ple inside.

“That dog,” Parker went on, pointing half a block up the street, “is making hash of somebody’s garbage. He’s strewing it all over the place.”

“What dog?”

Parker leaned closer. “That one.”

His body heat flowed to her, seeping deep inside her. She
moved away. “Okay, so I’ve been fixed on Decker’s,” she said defensively, and not honestly. “But that’s why we’re
here.”

Parker gave her a look she couldn’t see well in the dim light, though she sure could feel it. “You’ve got to learn to expand, Caron. Not to fixate on one thing at a time.”