Cold Midnight (3 page)

“They couldn’t agree on your favorite,” Trisha said, “so they had me pick up Singapore rice noodles and Mongolian beef. So which is it?”

“Singapore rice noodles, hold the shrimp.”

Trisha grinned and held out one of the boxes and a plastic fork. “Quinn wins.”

Kylie grinned back. “He usually does.”

They both plopped down on the court with their backs to the fence and tore open their respective containers.

Trisha already had a mouthful when she said, “It’s so nice out here. Quiet and peaceful.”

Kylie nodded as she glanced around at the private tennis court. A short walk away, through a small forest of palm and pine trees, sat the home she’d rented when she returned to the area. The house itself—a modest fifteen hundred square feet with two bedrooms, two baths and an open layout—was nothing special. But it sat on the beach, surrounded by thick, green vegetation that provided the kind of privacy rarely seen in newer beachfront property.

She’d furnished it with some of her father’s belongings, but living with his things, without him, had been difficult the past six months. Everything still smelled like Irish Spring . . . and the past. In fact, everything about Kendall Falls, from the salty gulf air to Chase’s sunscreen, smelled like the past. And it wasn’t all good.

“I hope you plan to share,” Trisha said, eyeing Kylie’s takeout container. “I love me some Mongolian beef, but I’m a sucker for the noodles.”

Kylie nodded as she swirled her fork among the thin curried noodles. “Always happy to share.”

“Except when it comes to feelings,” Trisha pointed out before launching into a mournful, off-key version of the old standard. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, feelinnnnngs.”

Kylie laughed. “Please stop, I’ll talk. I’ll talk!”

Trisha quieted, expectant eyebrows arched as she forked up a large piece of beef and chewed.

Kylie captured some noodles and savored the silence. And missed Los Angeles, where she did her job and lived quite happily in the present and never had to talk about the past. Every once in a while, a new friend would ask, but after a couple of vague answers and deliberate changes of subject, she always managed to wiggle off the hook. Not so here in Kendall Falls, where the world still seemed to revolve around the blackest day of her life.

“You’re not talking,” Trisha said, her words muffled by food.

Kylie smiled. Trisha hadn’t paid much attention to manners as a teenager, and the years hadn’t changed that about her. She’d changed in other ways, though. She no longer skirted the tough topics. Her blunt questions drilled right to the heart of the matter without fear of offense or hurt or stirring up bad memories. Kylie hadn’t quite figured out how to duck and dodge this new aspect of her friend when they were face to face. On the phone long-distance, it was easy enough to say she had to go and end the conversation. E-mail was even easier: She just didn’t respond to the parts she didn’t want to.

“How about I get you started,” Trisha said. “I’ll start a statement, and you can finish it. Ready?”

“I don’t—”

“I really hate, or love, reality TV because . . .”

Kylie was too relieved by the reprieve to laugh. “It’s addictive.”

“Hate it or love it?”

“Both, for the same reason.”

“Fair enough. Here’s another: If I could rule the world, I’d ...”

Grinning, Kylie drank some Gatorade before answering. “Make daily naps in the workplace mandatory.”

“Good one,” Trisha said, nodding. She held out her Chinese container. “Trade?”

Kylie made the swap and dug into the Mongolian beef. Maybe she could handle this little game after all.

Trisha cleared her throat. “When I saw that baseball bat this afternoon, I wanted to . . .”

Damn. Damn. Damn it.

“Take your time,” Trisha said, casual as she sucked a twirl of noodles off her fork.

The beef that tasted fabulous a moment ago became flavorless in Kylie’s mouth, and she had to force herself to swallow it. No longer hungry, she set aside the takeout box and rolled her shoulders in the night air. Humidity made everything feel sticky and thick and uncomfortable, and she thought for the millionth time of standing in front of Chase Manning while he’d stared at the bat, his face flushing red. The air had been sticky and thick and uncomfortable then, too. And it had taken every instant of competitive training over the years to stand there, shoulders squared and face still, while her world shifted off its foundation.

When Trisha cleared her throat, calling attention to the lengthening silence, Kylie felt she had no choice but to say
something
. “It might not be the bat.”

“What if it is?”

Shrugging, Kylie retrieved the box of noodles from Trisha’s hand and dug back in. “I’ll deal.”

“Too easy. What if it is?”

“I’d rather jump off that bridge when I come to it.”

“Hmm, I wonder what Dr. Jane would say about talk of bridge-jumping.”

Kylie grinned at her. “Nothing. Psychiatrists aren’t allowed to treat family members.”

Trisha, for once, didn’t grin back, her expression dead serious. “Quit dodging and talk to me. This thing, this bat being found . . . it’s huge.”

“It isn’t huge until they prove it’s the weapon.”

“You know it is or you wouldn’t be out here alone at ten at night smacking the stuffing out of tennis balls.”

“Tennis balls don’t have stuffing.”

Trisha’s reddish brown eyes narrowed. “Now you’re starting to irk me.”

“I’m not trying to. I just . . .” Frustrated, she set aside the container. “I just can’t, okay?”

Trisha turned her attention to hunting around in the other takeout box for any beef she’d missed. “You know I had to try, right? It’s my duty as your best friend.”

“I appreciate it. I really do. And I’m fine. I promise.”

Trisha cast her the sure-you-are eye, but before she could dive into another touchy subject, Kylie asked, “So how’s Roger?”

Trisha gave a little shrug. “Eh.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“He really isn’t my type, anyway. Hey, I heard Chase Manning is on the reopened investigation.”

Damn. Cornered again. Kylie managed a casual nod. “He’s one of the detectives on the case. I think we went to school with his partner, Sam Hawkins. He seems familiar.”

Trisha nodded. “He was a year behind us. He asked Patti out once. Remember?”

Kylie didn’t, but whatever. She’d managed to change the subject. “Do you still talk to Patti?” When she’d left, she’d lost touch with all of her friends except Trisha.

“Occasionally. She’s a nurse in Tampa now. Last time she came to Kendall Falls, we got together, but it wasn’t the same without the rest of the gang. We should plan something now that you’re back.”

Kylie gave a noncommittal nod, but before she could respond, Trisha said, “Maybe you and Chase will, you know, work out your differences.”

Kylie had to force herself not to stiffen. “We don’t have any differences to work out. He became a father nine months after I left. There’s not a much more decisive way to say he got over me in record time.”

With that, she pushed to her feet and started gathering the trash from their dinner. “Shall we go in before Jane and Quinn come looking for us?”

Trisha rose, too, and brushed at the seat of her khakis. “Interesting. You’d rather face the hovercrafts than talk about Chase.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. It was a teen romance that ended the instant I went away to college. End of story.”

“A gross oversimplification if I ever heard one. You’d still be together if—”

“How about some Rocky Road? Jane said she picked some up on the way over. She thinks it’s my favorite, but I’m sure Quinn could tell her it’s Moose Tracks.”

Trisha sighed as she fell into step beside her. “Okay, okay. Hint taken. You win.”

Kylie draped an arm around Trisha’s shoulders and hugged her. “Finally!”

3

CHASE SAT WITH THE SPORTS SECTION SPREAD BE
FORE him on the kitchen table, his coffee cooling near his right hand. The scores didn’t have his attention, though. No, that was focused on Kylie McKay. The woman was so very different from the girl he remembered. The attack changed the warm, outgoing, fun-loving girl he’d adored into a guarded, contained woman bent on not feeling anything—or at least pretending she didn’t feel anything. Somewhere along the way, she’d begun applying the strategies of the game to life. Don’t show emotion. Out-thinking opponents is as important as out-playing them.

And he’d somehow become an opponent. Probably around the time he tried to get her to open up and talk to him about what happened to her on that path. He’d expected tears and anger. He’d thought maybe she’d rage around, maybe throw a few things, hopefully not at his head. Instead, she’d packed her bags and took off, using college as an excuse to break it off with him. She hadn’t wanted a “long-distance relationship.” Like hell. She hadn’t wanted a
relationship
, period. That would have required feeling and wanting and coping—all the things she’d stopped doing the moment her doctors said she could no longer play competitive tennis. Frustrating as hell, but what could he have done then except let her go to find her new way?

Not that he’d had a choice. He’d begged to go with her, shameful as that was. But he’d been a kid then, a teenage boy struck dumb by the grace and beauty of a girl he’d seen for the first time across a net. Pussy that he’d been, he would have chucked everything for her. Though a crappy childhood—with a mother who wussed out on her only child and a father who punctuated his every irrational point with brutal fists—wasn’t much to chuck, really. But still.

And when he’d pleaded, she’d crushed him with one simple word: No.

She needed time, she’d said, completely dry-eyed and stone-faced as she’d spouted her bullshit. She needed time to find her “new identity.” That one still made him wince. Amazing, really, after all this time. She’d wanted a new identity, separate from him, separate from everything they’d shared. As if he’d somehow become a third assailant.

Not fair. So
incredibly
not fair.

Well, he wasn’t going to let her twist him into knots again. Unlike her, he’d dealt with his demons, left them dead and buried shortly after she walked out on him. No way in hell did he plan to get caught up in her drama, or lack of it, again. If she wanted to dry up into an emotionless husk of a woman, that was her problem.

He did, by God, plan to find out who tried to cripple her so long ago.

First, though, he needed to focus on the escalating vandalism at the construction site. Someone didn’t want Kylie building that tennis center, and she’d made it clear that sabotage wouldn’t chase her away. So far, the incidents had been directed at stalling the actual work, but it wouldn’t take long for the perp, or perps, to realize that to make an impression they needed to get personal. On top of all that, the sabotage and the bat could be related—probably
were
related, considering their concurrence. Which raised the possibility that one or both of her attackers from ten years ago were messing with her now.

He’d already asked for an unmarked car outside her house, especially at night when she was home alone. She’d hate that, but she didn’t have to know. She was most likely safe while at work, considering other people were around and no one had made any overt threats toward her.

Pushing back from the table, he got up and carried his coffee cup to the sink. He desperately needed a pick-me-up, so he reached for the phone and called his daughter.

“Hi, Dad.”

At the sound of Maddy’s voice, his smile felt like it would split his face. “Hey. You’ve got that caller ID thing down, huh?”

Maddy giggled in her nine-year-old way. “That’s what Mom does. Then sometimes she answers like she doesn’t know who it is. Not when you call, though.”

He chuckled. “Are you ready for school yet?”

“I’m eating scrambled eggs. Scott made them, with cheese and bacon.”

“Hey, save some for me.”

Chase liked the man who’d married his ex-wife. Scott was totally devoted to Rhonda, and he was good to Maddy. Maybe that made Chase a dork, but he didn’t care. He wanted his ex-wife and daughter to be happy, and Rhonda had decided long ago that he wasn’t up to the task. He hadn’t been able to argue with her, not when he’d married her because he’d knocked her up rather than because he’d fallen for her. And, frankly, a divorce relieved him of the fear that he would become like his father, trapped in a loveless marriage and so angry about it that he brutalized those closest to him.

When Maddy stopped giggling, he said, “I was thinking we could do some mini-putting next week.”

“Oh, you know what I want to do?”

“Hit me,” he said, grinning like a clown. She made his heart so full.

“There’s this new go-kart place.”

“Oh, sure. Over on Lakewood. I busted some kids for speeding over there last night.”

Her laugh was sweet and innocent and the best thing he’d heard in days. “Really?”

“Yeah, they must have been doing ten, fifteen miles an hour on the track. Way over the limit.”

“That doesn’t sound very fast.”

“Trust me, it was way too fast. So I was thinking I’d swing by and give you a ride to school this morning.”

“Cool.”

“Think your mom would mind?”

“She never minds.”

“Want to check with her for me?”

While Maddy covered the mouthpiece and carried on a muffled conversation, Chase dumped the contents of his cold coffee into the sink. Everyone should have a kid to call when shit got them down.

4

KYLIE, COFFEE CUP GRIPPED IN BOTH HANDS AND
the morning newspaper on her lap, sat on the deck and watched the gently rolling waves of the Gulf of Mexico as they slid ashore and retreated. A haze of humidity hung thick over the water, seemed to cling to everything with a cloying determination that made her long for California. Especially now that the bat had turned up.