“Yeah, the only problem with that is,” Alan said, reaching to turn on the ignition, “the Nebraska town where Richard Merrill supposedly did all those things was wiped off the map by a tornado in the nineteen-fifties.”
He didn’t look at her, and in the dashboard light his profile appeared grim, even menacing. She told herself it was only the way the shadows played across his rather sharp features, but she was shaking again, hugging herself inside the warm-up jacket to try to make herself stop it. “So?”
He swept her with a glance as he backed out of the parking space. “So, there’s no way to verify any of it, except maybe to try to track down some of the town’s former residents and see if any of them remember Richard Merrill and his family. I’m thinking there’s a pretty slim chance of that, after more than half a century.”
“I don’t believe this,” Lindsey muttered, staring out at the palm trees and pricey ocean-view houses slipping past the car window. It was beginning to seem to her like a bad dream. Her mother’s delusions, the Alzheimer’s- that had been hard to take. But this didn’t even seem real. “Look-I know my dad didn’t do this thing-whatever it is my mother thinks he did. He’s just not-he
He nodded. “I am going to need to talk to him.” He heard the sharp intake of breath and glanced over at her. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes. Just…please not yet. Okay? Not…yet.”
He swore silently to himself. Wished he wasn’t driving. Wished for better light. Wanted-needed to see her face, to see if the fear he was hearing in her voice was reflected there, too. Was it just the fear of a daddy’s girl afraid of hurting or disappointing the parent she adored, or something else? Being a cop, he knew he was programmed by experience to expect the darkest. The ugliest. The worst.
“Why not?” he asked gently.
She exhaled again, slowly this time. “It’s just that…I haven’t told him about…um, that I’ve talked to the police about this. And I don’t want to, not until I have something I can tell him, some kind of explanation for my mother’s dreams, some reason for the way she’s been behaving. I don’t want him to think I-” She stopped there and half turned in her seat to look at him. “Do you understand?”
Alan put one hand over his mouth and shook his head. But he knew better than to press her; she already felt bad enough, he could tell. She was a people-pleaser by nature. Even without looking directly at her he could feel her eyes on his face, begging him to understand. He did, of course-probably better than she knew.
“Oh-this is my street. Left here…” And her voice sounded diffident, as if she knew she’d disappointed him and was unsure where she stood with him now.
The turn took him into the entry driveway of a gated town-house complex-although the low picket fence appeared to be more for decoration than security. Lindsey pulled a key attached to a chain around her neck out of the front of her tank top. Also on the chain was a small remote control. She aimed it at the gate, which promptly swung inward to admit them. He drove through into a park-like area landscaped with eucalyptus and other evergreen shrubs and trees he couldn’t identify in the dark. The buildings, lit by sidewalk lamps and sconces mounted on the walls, were two-story and modern in style, with stuccoed chimneys and fake-wood shingle roofs made of something no doubt impervious to fire.
He gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Ocean view. Must be nice.”
She seemed to take that as a criticism of some kind, and replied with an edge of defensiveness, “I bought it after my divorce. I had no husband, no children, nobody to please but myself. Since I love the ocean, why not live close to it?” She threw him a look and a wry smile. “My dad helped me finance it, naturally. And of course this was before the big real estate boom. Right now, after the crash, I figure it’s probably worth fairly close to what I originally paid for it. That’s mine right there. You can pull into the driveway, if you-” She gave a sharp gasp, having just noticed, as Alan had, that the driveway in question was already occupied by a light-colored luxury sedan.
She uttered a sibilant swear word that both surprised and delighted him. Up to that point, she’d seemed almost too “good,” in the moralistic sense, to be true, little Miss Goody Two-shoes determined to be on her best behavior, minding all her p’s and q’s. That one word banished the illusion and made her more
“It’s my
“I think it’s too late,” Alan said. He was watching a man coming down the driveway, dressed in khakis, hands in the pockets of his unzipped windbreaker. He’d halted when he saw Alan’s car slow at the foot of the driveway; now he pulled a hand from a pocket to shade his eyes from the headlights, then broke into a smile. “I think he’s made you.”
As far as Alan was concerned, the chance meeting couldn’t have been better. Save him some time and trouble, it seemed to him. Obviously, Lindsey wasn’t of the same mind. The face she turned to him wore an expression of dread.
“What am I going to do? How am I going to explain this? How do I explain
Part of him was getting tired of having to tiptoe around Daddy-dear in this investigation; as far as Alan was concerned, the guy was a possible suspect in a very old possible homicide, and the sooner he was able to get a fix on the man, the better. But there was another part of him-small, but developing an alarmingly loud voice-that seemed to want to protect this woman from pain and anguish if he possibly could.
The man in the driveway-Richard Merrill-had given them a friendly wave and was now standing with hands once more shoved into the pockets of his windbreaker, obviously waiting for them-or his daughter, at least-to get out of the car. Alan pulled past the driveway and parked, then produced a big smile and a friendly wave back.
“Follow my lead,” he said to Lindsey from behind the smile, without moving his lips. He put his hand on her shoulder and felt her flinch nervously at his touch. “Don’t freak out. I’m just going to kiss you.”
Her face jerked toward him. He saw her eyes widen, glistening in the light from the sidewalk lamps. He heard her sip in a breath as he leaned across the center console, and then her lips were warm and soft against his. He was prepared for that. What he wasn’t prepared for was the thump inside his chest, and the power surge that went zinging through all the nerves and muscles in his body.
It took all the willpower he had not to slide his hand along her shoulder and up under her hair, then hold her head still and press into the kiss until she got over the shock of it and began to kiss him back. Instead, he pulled away just far enough to whisper, “You okay with this?”
She nodded-just barely. He could feel her body trembling under his hand. He could feel his own heart pounding as he murmured, “You get where I’m going?”
This time she managed a firmer nod, along with a shaky laugh.
“Okay, then.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze, then turned and opened the car door. He got out, calling a friendly, “Hello there!” to Richard Merrill.
He made his way around to the passenger side, where Lindsey was in the process of exiting the vehicle. As soon as she’d cleared the door and shut it behind her, he reached out and put his arm around her. “Busted,” he said to her with wry good humor, as he pulled her in close to his side. “Looks like I’m finally going to get to meet your dad.”
Lindsey angled a look at him, then gave an uneasy-sounding laugh. “Uh, Dad…this is Alan Cameron. Alan, meet Richard Merrill-my dad.”
Alan stepped forward, bringing Lindsey with him. Since she was snuggled in next to his body, he could feel she was still trembling-or vibrating with tension-as he leaned and held out his hand. Smiling with teeth showing, he said, “It’s good to finally meet you, sir. Lindsey’s told me so much about you.”
Richard Merrill shook his hand but his smile was more cautious than friendly, and his voice was not warm. “I wish I could say the same. Lindsey?”
“Dad, I’m sorry, I was going to tell you, I just…” She looked at Alan again, clearly unsure where she was supposed to go now. He gazed back at her, smiling reassuringly. “Uh…the thing is, you see…”
“The thing is, Mr. Merrill,” he said, taking the reins from her again, “I’m a police detective.”
“Really.” Merrill did a little startled pullback, which didn’t mean all that much to Alan; he got that sort of reaction a lot.
“Quite frankly,” Alan went on, “Linz didn’t know how you’d feel about your daughter dating a cop.”
Merrill rubbed at the back of his neck. “Quite frankly, I’m not sure how I feel about that, myself. How long have
