“Idiot,” Chase admonished himself. “I could have walked Dusty back to the museum, maybe held her hand the whole way. Maybe asked her out.” A couple of weeks ago that might have felt like a strange thing to want to do: date his best friend’s sister. Not today.
What had changed?
When had he begun to love her as more than his best friend’s sister?
He knew the instant. After nearly a year of treatment and isolation, the doctors declared Dusty cured. But her parents, and Dick, had the ingrained habit of obsessive hygiene and natural diet. Chase was allowed into the house, but only after removing shoes and washing his hands thoroughly. His sisters had given up trying to meet Mrs. Carrick’s exacting specifications. Chase still tried. He and Dick were in the living room… excuse me, parlor… horsing around, practicing wrestling moves.
Dusty sat in the bowed window seat beneath the turret. She stared emptily out the rain-streaked panes of glass holding a pink jewelry box with a ballerina that twirled to a tinny and repetitive bit of music. She wound it up again and again until the noise grated on Chase’s nerves and made him angry.
He grabbed the box from her. She lunged to regain it, lost her balance, and fell.
Chase dropped the box to catch her. His stockinged feet slid on the hardwood floor, and he missed. A bruise appeared on her knees almost immediately. Guilt flashed through him. Tenderly he picked her up and carried her to the kitchen so that Dick could apply ice and treat her like a precious jewel.
That’s what she was, a precious jewel who needed protection.
But, dammit, she also needed to learn to stand up for herself. If she’d yelled at him or cried that he’d destroyed her treasured music box, he’d have gotten over it. But no, she forgave him and tucked the box away beneath the window seat, never to be taken out again.
Chase paced the police department offices, avoiding the ubiquitous paperwork and the ache in his chest for depriving Dusty of something special.
Through the high window of his own cubicle, he caught a glimpse of Haywood Wheatland. The blond stranger walked rapidly away from the City Hall portion of the antique courthouse building along Main Street toward First Avenue, all the while talking into a cell phone. Phelma Jo, his boss, had her offices on the river side of First near the Amtrak station. A big glass-andsteel, ostentatiously modern building shaped like the prow of a ship thrusting its nose, or snubbing it, into downtown. The first four floors of the monstrosity held offices for a dozen or more high- end businesses. Phelma Jo had the entire fifth floor. Then four floors of pricey condos with Phelma Jo’s penthouse on the tenth.
Her errand boy undoubtedly ran back and forth between the office and the courthouse a dozen times a day, keenly observing everything for Phelma Jo. Gathering gossip like Mabel’s Pixies?
Jealousy raged in Chase’s chest, as if a vacuum sucked all the air out of him and left the heavy machine pressing against his rib cage.
“You’re why I’m suddenly obsessed with Dusty. I always thought she’d be there waiting for me when she was ready to notice me. Now I’m not so sure.”
Chase dropped so heavily into his swivel chair it spun around to face the whiteboard covered in notes and profiles of recent unsolved crimes. The only thing that caught his attention was a checklist of places he’d looked at to determine ownership of Pixel Industries, Ltd.
In the hasty scrawl he liked to call handwriting, the word Pixel looked like a misspelling of Pixie.
A vivid image of Haywood Wheatland calling a pink bug “sweetheart” and “beloved” flashed before his mind’s eye.
Haywood Wheatland worked for Phelma Jo.
Phelma Jo had a reputation for underhanded, borderline illegal real estate transactions. Chase had never dug up evidence of blackmail when people sold prime properties to her at about half market value and hightailed it out of town. Lack of evidence didn’t mean she was innocent. Lack of evidence didn’t remove suspicion.
He logged on to the Internet and started searching some databases. He had three days to get a court order to stop the logging. He hoped it was enough time.
Phelma Jo tapped her foot, waiting for Haywood Wheatland to return from the courthouse. He’d dashed back there seconds after Ms. Boland left with her donation check. Something about following up with the mayor…?
Damn, the man couldn’t sit still. He flitted about with an intense urgency that left Phelma Jo unsettled and irritated.
Why couldn’t she control him? She’d already divorced two men who slipped through her net of seduction, lies, and manipulation designed to keep them firmly under her thumb. If Hay continued on this course of independence, she’d have to fire him.
Never again would she allow any man to hurt her like her mother’s boyfriend had. He was bigger and stronger than Phelma Jo. She was just a child. Automatic obedience was expected of her. Disobedience was met with punishment: either the back of her mother’s hand across her face, or the boyfriend touching her in ways no adult man should touch a child.
The day the school counselor had called the police and children’s services, she’d vowed that never again would any man of her acquaintance do anything she did not dictate.
“Well?” she asked when Haywood finally returned during the lunch hour. He happily whistled a tune she almost remembered.
Damn. Now she’d have an earworm of that tune until she figured out where she’d heard it before.
“Well what?” he returned, acting surprised she had questions about the morning’s proceedings.
“What happened at the City Council meeting?” She hadn’t dared show up.
“The mayor dismissed the challenge to his authority to sign work orders.”
“Sit down and stop pacing. I’m getting whiplash trying to follow you.”
He perched on the edge of a chair, ready to bounce up again as soon as he could. “Dick and Dusty had prepared statements. Thistle said something meaningless. That policeman was hanging around. I need to spend more time with Dusty to counter his influence.” He looked entirely too happy.
“You are supposed to break Dusty’s heart, not fall in love with her.” Phelma Jo narrowed her focus, watching for any telltale signs that her new employee defied her.
“The only way for me to get to Thistle is through Dusty,” he said nonchalantly while surreptitiously checking his watch. His glance barely lingered on the timepiece long enough to register the numbers on the display. He bounced up and began circling the room like a demented collie trying to herd her into the center.
“As long as we get what
“You want to run for mayor in November. Don’t worry. I’ll put you in a favorable position.”
“I hired you because you guaranteed me I’d win the election.”
“I guaranteed I’d remove your primary opposition, Dick and Dusty Carrick. If they campaign against you, you don’t have a chance. Don’t worry, they won’t be able to say a word against you come November.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
“The demise of my enemies. Same as you.”
Twenty-three
DUSTY STARED AT HER computer screen until her vision blurred and doubled. Without really thinking about it, she closed her eyes and dropped her head onto her crossed arms.
Suddenly she was ten years old again and bouncing around the backyard, running from rose to dahlia to lavender, smelling deeply of their fresh fragrance. Her legs stretched and her feet landed lightly. She pushed herself harder, taking longer strides, twirling with joy. She panted and a stitch grabbed her side. She didn’t care.
She danced outside for the glory of dancing again.
