The Art of Love and Murder (33 page)

“Lacy, you’re awake.” His smile barely moved his lips, but his eyes said more.

Or so she thought, but now couldn’t trust it.

Her daughter started to pull her hand away, but Lacy held tight. Phoebe didn’t look like she intended on going anywhere.

“Can we talk?”

“Of course, Sheriff. Come in.”

“I’m not here on official business.” His brow wrinkled and his eyes took on the deep bronze she’d come to recognize as broiling emotion.

She had a little emotion herself. She’d not succumb and wilt under his soul-deep contemplation this time. “I think now, I mean after all that’s happened...or not happened.”
Damn
. “What I mean to say is that official business is the only avenue we have. So, unless you’re here to take a statement or something?”

“I wanted to
make
a statement, Lacy.”

“Oh, no need. I saw it loud and clear.” She gestured toward the hall.

“Lacy—”

“It’s fine, Chance. Really.”

His chest heaved with a deep sigh as if to regain his momentum. “I can only imagine how you feel with the revelations of the last twenty-four hours. I want you to know...to know...” He shuffled his boots, looked at the women on each side of her and rubbed at his chin. “Lacy—”

“Yes, I
am
dealing with a lot.” She swallowed back the tremor creeping into her voice. “And now I need to go home, recuperate and get back to normal.”

He took a step toward her, and she raised a hand. He didn’t need to heap any more guilt on himself. Not because of her.

“I’ll be eternally grateful for what you did yesterday. I want you to know that. You were...wonderful.”

As always, his face remained almost neutral, but she didn’t miss the sadness in his eyes. The events of the last few days dredged up the hurt of losing his beloved wife, and she was the one who led him down that sad path. Maybe he’d never be able to separate her from those hurtful events. Maybe he’d never get over his wife. Kitty could handle that.

“Thank you. Goodbye, Chance.” She looked away, listened for his footsteps retreating and waited to hear the door close behind him. Sheriff Chance Meadowlark now became another ghost in her past.

Chapter Twenty

Lacy’s hands rested flat on the table, fingers splayed on each side of her tea mug. Her thoughts wandered to her mother, the picture she’d seen at the professor’s of her dancing on the table. The happiness of the picture made the memory that much sadder. Youthful joy extinguished. She inhaled through her nose, breaths so shallow her chest moved more from the beat of her heart gently rocking her body than the air going in and out of her lungs. The tips of her fingers padded on the table, and she stared at the photos of her mother and father spread near her hands. Or whom she’d believed was her father.

“How are you doing, Lacy?” Phoebe’s soft voice floated through the air and reached the top of the stairs before she did.

“I’m...kind of blue this morning.” She looked from her musing and smiled at her friend.

“Actually, that’s a good sign.” Phoebe set her computer case on the floor and sat in the seat across from her. “Better than the standard
okay
with the blank look you’ve been giving me for the last three days.”

Voices drifted up from the main floor of the Lacy Latte, baristas preparing for the early morning customers.

“Have I been that bad?” She lifted a tendril of hair from her shoulder, brushing the black lock across her chin. Over the last few days, she’d traveled through stages of shock, anger and disbelief until a sense of sorrow greeted her when she’d opened her eyes this morning.

“I’ve been worried about you, Lace. But today you’ve got color in your cheeks. You don’t look half-bad.”

“Thanks...I guess.”

Her heart pattered, uneven and achy. The sorrow bubbled inside her. She needed to let it out. Her friend would listen. By the tapping of Phoebe’s fingers on the tabletop as if her ever-present laptop sat beneath her hands, she was obviously dying to listen.

“I’ve had so much to process, to come to grips with and I think...”

“Yes?”

She took a deep breath and slapped the table. “You need coffee.”

“Lacy!”

She ignored Phoebe’s protest, stood and walked to the railing of the loft. She glanced over the main floor of the Lacy Latte, her business and home away from home. The doors wouldn’t open for another fifteen minutes. Below, her staff readied the coffee shop for morning traffic.

“Hey, Hazel,” she called to her chief barista who fluffed pillows in the overstuffed armchairs on each side of the stone fireplace. “Would you bring Phoebe her usual and me another chai, extra hot.”

She turned, leaning against the waist-high railing, amused with her friend’s less than patient expression. Early morning sun from the floor to ceiling window lit half her face, glinting off a silver earring dangling above the collar of her bright turquoise tunic.

“You haven’t changed out of your running clothes and into jeans and a pair of your expensive shoes. That’s not like you.” Phoebe tipped her head and gave her a sideways, worried glance. “You didn’t actually go running, did you?”

“A walk. I’m healing nicely, but not that good yet.” Better on the outside than the inside.

“And?”

She stretched her arms out from her sides, gingerly testing the still bandaged arm then clasped the smooth oak of the railing. She took a deep breath. “The shooting, mine and I guess even of Myles, has haunted me since I’ve been home. The whole scene...”

“Oh, Lace, I’m so sorry.”

“I know that’s not all of it.” Her chest tightened with the admission of the emotions she’d been ignoring for the last few days. “The whole horrific scene, the moments after I felt the pain, well, that’s a visual I’ll learn to live with. When I think about my mother who must have been a vibrant, creative person, I...I would’ve loved to have met her.” She glanced at the photo of her mother on the table. “Makes me feel so melancholy. And Hartmut. She loved him so much.” Could she have loved Chance that much, if given the opportunity? The melancholy deepened.

Her friend jumped up and strode over. A half-dozen silver bracelets tinkled around each wrist as she tightly hugged her. “I wish I could do more for you.”

“You’ve been here every morning. Just your presence has been helpful.” She hugged her back.

“Here you go, gals.” Hazel reached the top step with their hot drinks. She handed the mug of chai to Lacy, set the scone she juggled on top of the cups on the table for Phoebe and set down a caramel latte next to it. “Got a girlfriend love fest going on?”

“Something like that,” Lacy said. “Your scone.” She turned Phoebe toward the table. “Sit.”

“Maybe you should call the handsome lawyer and have him come back to the café to help. He made such an early morning visit, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind returning.” Hazel winked in Phoebe’s direction at the remark made to her boss.

“Oh, Hazel...” Lacy smiled.

“I would if I was ten years younger and looked like you,” her round, elderly barista offered with a grin.

“Lacy has no idea how beautiful she is.” Phoebe waved a hand through the air, dismissing the woman’s comment.

“Well, that man knows. They were standing toe to toe, eye to eye. Mark ran his hand up and down her arm, and if it’d been me, I’d have felt the heat right through my blouse.”

“They’re just friends.” Phoebe took a healthy bite of the scone. “Not her type.”

“A good looking man like that? Wears a suit better than most, graying temples, dazzling smile. How’s any woman with warm blood and a bed not going to find him her type?”

Lacy stood away from the railing, hands on hips and said in her most exasperated tone, “Excuse me, you two. If you’re done talking about
my
love life...”

“Hmph.” Hazel turned toward the stairs. “Or lack thereof.”

The two friends smiled at each other as she disappeared down the steps.

Phoebe’s grin faded, and she motioned for Lacy to join her at the table. “Are you okay?”

She unzipped her hoodie as if to release the lingering tightness in her chest and swallowed the emotion bubbling up. The flap of the shades being raised on windows downstairs caught her attention. She looked through the slats below the railing to the burgundy walls and lace topped windows below. The doors of the Lacy Latte opened on a sunny Sunday morning. A normal conversation with friends hadn’t dispelled the sense of loss.

“I’ll be okay.” She shuffled to the table and sat across from her friend.

“Why was Mark here so early?”

“I hadn’t returned his calls. He wanted to discuss the land and estate in Austria, but I can’t think about that yet.”

She scanned the photographs of Scottsdale on the wall behind her friend, photos her parents helped her hang, photos of Conrad’s favorite city sites. They reminded her of her once upon a time present and future. Now, the past.

More had been added to her past.

“Do you want to talk about him?”

“Which him?”

“Which?”

“Hartmut, Myles or Chance?”

“You choose.”

She picked the photo of Hartmut from the table.

“What a handsome man,” Phoebe blurted. “Judas Priest, Lacy. Those are your eyes.”

“Maybe.”

“Go on.”

“Professor Myles Sheffield had green eyes, too.” She flicked her hair from her face and met her friend’s questioning gaze. For the first time since she’d uttered her suspicion to Chance, she spoke of her fear. She didn’t want the professor to be her father, but the timing and his damnable green eyes cast a heavy doubt. “I may never know. I should’ve told Mark to stop pursuing the Austrian connections.”

“Is that why you’re so sad?”

“No. You’d think it would be, huh? But I feel the same as I felt when I woke up in the hospital. It doesn’t matter.”

“Then?”

She sipped her tea, and the tightness in her chest came back. She recognized the sense of loss had everything to do with Chance and what might have been, not with her elusive heritage.

“What happened with the sheriff?” Her voice spoke gently, not Phoebe’s usual method of inquisitiveness.

Lacy shrugged and took a deep breath. Maybe it would be better to get it out. “You know, I’d almost like to rail on the unreliability of the male species. Would you mind if I used a few four-letter words?”

Phoebe’s eyes lit up, the old mischievous grin spreading across her face. She swallowed a bite of scone. “Rail on, I’m all ears. Judas, Lacy, this is the part of the tale I’ve been waiting to hear.” She waved the scone in the air.

“It’s my own fault.” The admission deflated any idea of verbally abusing the male gender. “I knew about his other woman, even though he more or less said she didn’t mean anything to him.”

“It did appear differently at the hospital.”

“Yes.” She sniffed. “At least I had one gloriously sexy night.”

Phoebe’s eyes grew round.

“I thought it meant more, meant as much to him as it did to me.” Regardless of her saddened state, she felt a ripple of remembered pleasure.

“Now, that’s an age old story.”

“He did try to warn me off. I thought I could be all casual—like you.”

“Fat chance.”

“Hmm. Right. I tried, it didn’t work. He disappointed me. Pretty much end of story.”

“Are you sure you shouldn’t speak to him again?”

“Yes.” Tears came to her eyes. “I guess I’m just a very poor judge of character where men are concerned.”

“Aw, honey.” Phoebe reached across the table and patted her hand.

“I’m not sure when I’ll get the sketches back.” She wiped a hand across her eyes and nose. “I should call, but I haven’t wanted to talk about anything connected to those days in Flagstaff.” She gathered the pictures in a pile.

“I wonder why the cops bothered sending your photos back.”

“I’m not sure.” She hadn’t thought about it.

“They didn’t. I did.”

The familiar, deep voice made her jump, shaking her hand loose from her friend’s. The quiver that tickled deep, below her breastbone, caught her breath.

Phoebe’s mouth dropped open as her eyes focused over Lacy’s head. She didn’t need to see at whom her friend gawked. She nearly laughed from the obvious appraisal. Phoebe’s expression changed from admiration of a good-looking man to recognition of who stood behind her. “Looks like you have company, Lace.”

Chance stepped up beside her. “Hello, Lacy.”

It took a great deal of effort to raise her chin, look into those copper eyes and speak. Her tongue had thickened and gone dry. “Hi.” Involuntarily, her stomach muscles clenched and her breathing labored. She felt her nostrils flare in an effort to take in oxygen.

His smile, warm and sympathetic, showered her for a moment before turning his attention to her friend.

“How are you, Phoebe?”

“If it isn’t the handsome Paul Bunyan in the flesh.” She held a hand out to him. “Sheriff Meadowlark.”

He chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“And I’ll scoot out of here.”

A rush of fear put Lacy into motion. “No, don’t go.”

“Oh, yes, lady. I have a book to finish. No time to pass pleasantries.” She batted her lashes at Chance. “No matter how great the scenery is.” Her eyes narrowed at Lacy with a different message. “I’ll be right downstairs if you need anything. Working on chapter eighteen.”

A sudden case of nerves stirred her at the thought of being alone with Chance. “If you must.”

“I must.” She gathered her laptop and purse, paused, then moved extremely close to Chance.

Lacy’s face grew hot. Judging from Phoebe’s stance, she wasn’t sure what would come out of her mouth.

“She’s been through enough.” Her friend’s voice lowered, but she heard the seriousness in her words.

Chance met her glare with a wilting gaze, copper eyes smiling under a cocked brow. At least it would’ve wilted her if she’d been in her friend’s shoes.

“I’m in total agreement. You’re a good friend.”

Taken aback, Phoebe, for once in her life, appeared lost for words. But only for a moment. “You have any brothers, Sheriff?”

He laughed. “As a matter of fact, I do. A twin brother named Mason.”