Virtue Falls (31 page)

“But they brag about their fierce independence and survivalist instincts.”

“They’re fiercely independent as long as they have clean running water. Cut that off and they’re nothing but a bunch of stinky, pissed-off citizens demanding their rights.”

She didn’t understand why he was so cynical. But she didn’t care. His lovemaking, however cut short, had released some of her anxiety.

Garik, on the other hand, seemed more tense.

“Do you not like the town?” she asked.

“I like the town fine.”

“You don’t
sound
as if you like it.”

“I sure as hell don’t like the sheriff.” If possible, Garik sounded even more savage than he had when they were interrupted.

“He was certainly in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She arranged her skirt hem primly on her knees.

He watched out of the corners of his eyes.

“So it’s not the town that makes you grumpy, it’s—”

“I’m
horny
.” He was very loud, and the windows were down. “Okay? I’m
horny
. And likely to stay that way, which makes me grumpy, as you put it.”

She half-smiled. “We could drive out to the other side of town and—”

“And have the perverted bastard Foster follow us? I don’t think so.” Garik took an exasperated breath. “I’ve got stuff to do in town. It looks like the Oceanview Café is open.”

It was. As she watched, one of the regulars opened the door and walked in.

Of course, the door was nothing but a metal frame with a handle. The window that had made up the primary door panel had been swept into a dust pan and tossed into the restaurant’s overflowing trash can.

“Drop me there. I’ll grab lunch, then I’ll walk out to Virtue Falls Canyon and check on some of the markers I placed.” She thought she was talking sweet reason. “I suspect the aftershocks will have moved them.”

Garik’s head whipped around. His face turned an odd puce.

“I want … to … document … the, er…” She faltered to a halt.

“Like hell you will,” he snapped.

Being horny really unbalanced the guy. “Why not?” she asked gently.

“You found your mother’s body yesterday. We discussed the fact Foster did a lousy job investigating her death, and we speculated that your father was innocent—which makes someone else guilty and possibly vengeful. Foster just proved himself to be the major asshole in the state. Dr. Frownfelter is one weird guy. Rainbow is here somewhere. I don’t know where the other possible suspects are, but I do know your phone battery barely got charged this morning.”

She pulled the phone out of her bag, and made a face. “It’s dead,” she said.

“And you want to go out alone and work in the field?” Garik double-parked next to a battered white pickup, and turned to her. “Not even, sweetheart.”

His tone put her back up. “I hardly think you’re in charge of how I spend my time.”

“Elizabeth, I don’t know jackshit about rocks, but when it comes to killing people”—he tapped his chest—“I’m the expert. And I’m right. You know I am.”

She wanted to disagree—except he was the expert. He had the creds; he was an FBI agent. She would be stupid to argue. She wasn’t stupid. She might be resentful. But she wasn’t stupid. “Since you put it that way … okay.”

He watched her cautiously. “Really? You’ll stay in town?”

“We both agree that I am an eminently logical person, and doing as you wish in this case is logical.” But she was curious, too. “What are
you
going to do?”

“I’ve got a friend I need to visit. School friend. Name of Mike Sun. I’ll introduce you someday.” Leaning across her, Garik opened her door. “Can you plant yourself at the Oceanview and catch up on paperwork until I finish?”

“Sure.” She gathered her bag. “How long will you be?”

“A couple of hours. I’ll be back for you.” He turned his face to hers and kissed her hard. “Wait for me.”

She kissed him back, and for one swift and glorious moment, she forgot about Virtue Falls and the earthquake and her father and the onlookers, and fell deeply and beautifully in lust with Garik. When she was breathless, he let her go, and they stared at each other. “I will wait for you,” she said. “But I wish…”

“I do, too, but there’s not a damned thing we can do about it now.” He slid his hand under her hip. “Hurry up and get out while I remember that.”

She slipped out of the truck and slammed the door.

He yelled out the window, “Stay out of trouble,” and drove off toward the courthouse.

She turned toward the Oceanview, and muttered, “What possible trouble can I get into here?”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

For the first time since the earthquake, Elizabeth stepped inside the Oceanview Café.

Customers were eating at the tables, chatting as if they didn’t notice that the windows beside them were blown out, the floors were catawampus, the tables were tilted, and the food consisted of coffee brewing on a camping cook stove and sandwiches served on paper towels.

“Hey, hon, grab a seat and I’ll be with you in a minute.” Rainbow sounded cheerful as she bustled past. “But be careful! We’ve cleaned and swept three times, and we’re still finding glass in the damnedest places.” She shook her fanny suggestively.

Elizabeth stared, then put that resolutely out of her mind, and went to the table in the far back corner where she’d be out of the way and have plenty of sun. She pulled out her chair and checked the seat, then sat down, placed her bag on the chair beside her, and heaved a sigh of relief. This was the most normal she’d felt since she’d seen the dog sit down in the middle of the street and brace himself.

She heard someone at the counter say, not quietly enough, “That’s the girl who saw her father kill her mother with the scissors.”

That was normal, too.

What wasn’t normal was a guy calling, “Miss Banner, can I buy you a drink?”

She stared at the young blond firefighter who sat at a table full of firefighters, holding up his coffee cup. He was smiling, but tentatively, as if he wasn’t quite sure she would smile back.

Everyone in the café got quiet.

So she did smile. “Peyton Bailey, thank you for saving my album. I’ve been showing it to my father, and it means so much to both of us.”

His smile became a grin.

The customers went back to their conversations.

She felt as if she’d passed some test and was suddenly part of the group.

Peyton called to Rainbow, “I’ll buy this young woman a drink!”

“Yes, Peyton. I got it. You’re the BMOC.” But when Rainbow stepped up to the table, she winked at Elizabeth and recited, “I can offer you coffee or a soft drink, and a sandwich on white or wheat, with baloney or cheese. You can have mustard, no problem. If I were you, I wouldn’t touch the mayo. If you take the coffee, it’ll be hot. That’s all that’ll be hot. The soft drink will be tepid, because everybody’s using their ice to keep their meat cold and we can’t get any more.”

“Half a cheese sandwich on wheat, and do you have a bottle of water?”

Rainbow looked around. “For you, I do.”

“Any word on when the electricity will be back on?” Elizabeth asked.

“The highway’s a mess. The DOT is working on it, but it’ll be a couple more days before trucks can get through. The mayor decided to ration water and gas. That caused a tizzy. We can’t get anything into the harbor because it’s so torn up and there are boats scattered everywhere on dry land, including the Coast Guard cutter, which no one is allowed near because it’s government property.” Rainbow put her hand on one hip. “Thank God lots of folks here have generators—with the winter storms we get, it makes good sense, but most of them run on propane and sooner or later, everybody’s going to run out. Then there’ll be trouble. No one will give us any update on Kateri’s condition, which has me scared to death. So short answer—we don’t know anything.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I’m staying at the resort.”

“I heard.” Rainbow cleared her throat. “I heard you found your mother’s body yesterday.”

Of course. The sheriff and his deputies ate in here. “Who else knows?”

“Everybody.” Rainbow put her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “I knew Misty. I knew her really well. She was my … friend. I am sorry.”

“Thank you.” It felt weird to be offered condolences. When she was a kid, no one said
I’m sorry
at all. They merely gossiped and speculated. Rainbow’s words took Elizabeth into a different place, one where she could handle the situation maturely.

Of course, if Rainbow was the one who had killed her mother, that put a whole different light on the situation.

“Are you okay? I mean, finding any body is going to be tough, but this…” Rainbow shook her head as if at a loss for words.

“I am okay. Thank you. It helped to know where she is.”

“Good.” Rainbow patted Elizabeth’s shoulder again, then spoke to the next table. “Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on, I’ll get your coffee.” She walked off.

Elizabeth pulled out her notebook and her laptop, and looked through her notes, trying to appear well-balanced and pleasant when she now knew the whole town was gossiping about her and the murder … again.

Rainbow deposited the dry cheese sandwich and bottle of water on Elizabeth’s table, which started a kerfuffle from customers demanding their bottle of water, and Rainbow announcing that if they wanted special treatment, they should have tipped better before the earthquake.

Elizabeth listened, smiled, and ate, her eyes on her work. In only a few minutes, she was involved enough in creating a spreadsheet for slippage caused by aftershocks, she didn’t notice when the firefighters pushed back their chairs, nor did she notice that as Peyton left, he sighed morosely.

Then a shadow fell across her table.

Absorbed in her work, she paid no attention.

Someone cleared his throat.

She paid no attention.

“For God’s sake, Elizabeth,” a man’s voice snapped, “do you ever notice anything?”

She looked up in surprise. “Andrew. You’re back!” One look at his scowling face, and her heart sank. He was irritated with her already.

“I’ve been back for over three hours.” He said that as if she should have sensed his return by a lightening in the atmosphere. “The earthquake made a mess of my house. The sites are completely overwhelmed by the tsunami. All our work has been swept away.”

“Yes.” She beamed. “Exactly as we predicted.”

With the exaggerated patience he so often showed with her, he pulled out the chair opposite and seated himself. “Yes. Unfortunately, only you were here to experience the earthquake.”

“I’m so glad you left me on site!” She thought he should be, too. After all, after so many years of constant monitoring, if no geologist had been here, that would have been a great tragedy.

He seemed unimpressed. “Rainbow says you witnessed the tsunami.”

As if on cue, Rainbow showed up with a cup and a pot of coffee, and poured it for Andrew.

He didn’t even acknowledge her presence, or her kindness.

Elizabeth tried to subdue her enthusiasm, and spoke in a quieter tone, but her fervor bubbled over with her choice of words. “The tsunami was magnificent.”

“I’m sure it was.” Leaning forward, he stared at her, and sniffed. His brown eyes narrowed. “You’ve had a bath. And your clothes are clean. How have you had a bath?”

She leaned back, away from him and his weird question. “I’m staying at Virtue Falls Resort. About the tsunami—”

He straightened up so fast his spine cracked. “They’re letting people stay at Virtue Falls Resort?”

She shouldn’t have said anything. She could see where this was going. But if she lied, Andrew would find out, so what were her options? “No, not exactly.” She tore little bits off her paper towel. “I’m sort of … related.”

He took a sip of his coffee. “I can afford to pay.”

That surprised her, considering how, when the dinner check arrived, he was always in the men’s room. “I don’t think Mrs. Smith is interested in payment. The earthquake shattered the windows and created a lot of hazards inside and out, so she’s only offering hospitality to people who are—”

“Sort of related? It’s that marriage of yours, isn’t it?” Andrew hitched his chair forward. “Listen, you can swear for me. I won’t sue her, but I need someplace where I can get a hot shower and wash my clothes.”

Elizabeth squirmed with discomfort. “I don’t have any influence in this case. Mrs. Smith has been quite firm that she won’t take guests.”

“I wouldn’t be a guest. I’d be like a ghost, hardly there except to bathe. And eat.” His brown eyes lit up. “She has food, doesn’t she?”

Elizabeth looked down at the half sandwich on her paper towel, and slowly pushed it toward him. “Do you want this?”

“No, I don’t want
that.”
He pushed it back. “I want a real meal!”

“Was your house destroyed? If it was, I might be able to plead—”

“There’s no water or sewer or gas. There’s stuff knocked out of the cupboards and off the shelves, and half of the furniture is overturned.” He nursed his coffee. “My project helps support this town twenty-four/seven, winter months, too. Margaret Smith knows that. Use your influence. Persuade her.”

“I really don’t think I can.” Nor did Elizabeth want to. When she thought of last night’s dinner, and how Garik, Margaret, and she had talked about the past, explored the possibility that her father might not be guilty … putting Andrew into the mix would ruin everything. They couldn’t discuss anything personal, because he talked about himself all the time.

“Do it,” Andrew said. “It would be good if you could get the whole team in there, but if you can’t—make sure it’s me.”

Under the table, Elizabeth clenched her fists.

When she didn’t reply Andrew’s color rose in his cheeks. “Just do it, Elizabeth.” It was clearly a threat. He wanted to be at the resort, and he would make her miserable if she failed.

Rainbow appeared again with the coffee pot. “Warm that up for you, Andrew?”

“Yes.” He didn’t look at her.

She poured coffee to the brim.

He took a sip. “Now, Elizabeth—you documented the tsunami?”