Forgotten (Shattered Sisters Book 2) (9 page)

"No danger of that with you, though, is there, Ash? You were a frog to begin with." She turned away, reached for the door handle. "By the way, we're having dinner with my sister and Ted tonight. I hope you'll try and fake a few princely qualities while we're there."

Dinner.

Pot roast with baby potatoes and tiny carrots and whole onions cooked right with the meat. Thick, creamy gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet peas, homemade rolls, still so warm the real butter melted when you spread it on.

Damn, it was too bad Caroline was already taken. She was the type of woman Ash had been looking for. The kind who'd have babies and not go all to pieces because she'd put on a few pounds. The kind who would adore her life, not go looking for excitement elsewhere.

But there was something wrong with the picture. Because no matter how hard he tried to make Caroline's image fit the one in his mind, just to remind himself of what he wanted—what he'd
always
wanted—he found himself looking toward Joey, instead.

All right, he might as well cut to the heart of the matter. He wanted Joey...in a purely physical way. But lust wasn't everything. Just because it had hit him between the eyes like it had never hit him before didn't mean he had to rethink his priorities. And to be perfectly frank about it, he probably wouldn't want her so badly if she wasn't holding out on him so well.

"I had no idea you two even knew each other, and then you stand there and tell me you're married," Caroline was saying.

Ted's laugh was low and contained. "I wish I could have seen the look on your face."

Ash frowned. He couldn't remember the look on Caroline's face. Only the devastation and panic on Joey's. "I'd have married her sooner if I'd known your dinners were a fringe benefit, Caroline." He made an effort to keep up the conversation, to appear the polite, friendly new brother-in-law trying to get to know his wife's family.

"What blows me away," Ted went on, "is that you two were able to put it together at all, after the accident and everything." His brown hair was sprinkled with gray, and his face was too lean—like a weasel's face.

"Ted, maybe Ash would rather not talk about that," Caroline put in.

"No, it's okay." Ash reached out and grabbed the glass of milk Bethany had just set on the table's edge just before it tipped into her lap, sent her a wink and kept on talking. "Truth is, I don't remember a thing about Joey and me. It's like that day she showed up at the hospital was the first time I'd ever met her."

Ted's gaze narrowed, and he sent Joey a probing glance. She ignored it.

"Where
did
you meet, Joey?" Caroline asked her sister.

Ash speared a succulent piece of meat and relaxed in his seat to listen to her answer. Ought to be entertaining.

"I'll bet it was something to do with that Slasher case, wasn't it?"

Ash frowned, his brain instantly going on alert. He swallowed his food and sat straighter. "Why would you think that, Ted?"

Ted shrugged. "Well, you were investigating it. She's been obsessed with it since the first—"

"I haven't been obsessed. You're exaggerating."

"Interested is probably a better term," Caroline put in quickly, as if she was jumping to her sister's defense. "But no more than most of the people who live around here."

Ted frowned hard at his wife, and she sent him a silent message, a powerful one. A puzzled expression settled over his face, but he shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

"I certainly understand her interest in the murders better now. She was seeing you, Ash, and you were investigating them. It's only natural she'd want to know all she could."

Ash nodded, but kept glancing at Joey's face. She looked as if she were sitting on a pile of thumbtacks.

"There was another one last night, you know," Ted put in, and when Ash glanced at him it was to see him watching Joey's face, as well.

"Another what, Daddy?"

"Another of the great ice-cream robberies," Ash said quickly, not missing a beat. "Three gallons of Heavenly Hash. Someone's going to have a whale of a belly ache this morning."

Brittany giggled, and Caroline shot Ash a grateful glance. Ash felt something warm press against his calf and looked down. A black-and-white cat the size of a small cow looked back, purring loudly. "Well, now. Who's this?" Ash stroked the cat's head and fed it a bit of his meat

"Felix," the girls chimed in unison.

"He likes you, Uncle Ash."

"I think he likes everybody who feeds him."

The cat moved on to the next seat, panhandling for scraps, and Ted picked up the conversation. "Where
did
you two meet?"

Joey shifted in her seat. "At the theater...the one at Destiny, USA. We were both there to see the same movie and we ended up sitting together."

It wasn't bad, as far as lies went. Wasn't good, either, but it wasn't bad. "And the next thing she knew, I'd spirited her off to Vegas and married her,” he said. “Right, Joey?"

She bit her lip, nodded and applied herself to her dinner.

"You ever been there?" His question was directed to Ted. He couldn’t quite get a read on the man. There was sheer adoration in his eyes when he looked at his girls. He fed the cat a scrap every few seconds. Those things seemed to lend credence to him being a decent guy and a family man. But when he met his wife’s eyes, there was something decidedly uncomfortable there, and he was watching Joey with a depth of scrutiny probably similar to Ash’s own. As if he knew or suspected she was hiding something.

"I used to live there," Ted said, glancing away from his sister-in-law for once.

"You miss it much?" Ash asked.

"Not really."

"Oh, yes, you do, Ted." Caroline smiled in Ash's direction. "You ought to hear him in the winter."

"Well, who wouldn't miss the sun when there's three feet of snow outside the door?" Ted chuckled, but it seemed strained.

Ash nodded, smiling. "You get back there often?"

Ted paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

It was Caroline who piped in with the answer to Ash's question. "We used to take vacations there, but it's really not much fun for little girls. They were toddlers last time, remember, Joey? It took all three of us just to keep up with them."

Ash's stomach clenched. "Joey went with you on vacation?"

Caroline nodded. "To help with the girls. These days, we opt for places with theme parks nearby."

Ash was itching to ask if that trip happened to occur during the summer of the Slasher’s Vegas killing spree. But he couldn't just come right out with it. These people were not stupid. They'd know he suspected something, even if they might not know what.

"Time for dessert?" Bethany asked.

"It's Aunt Joey's favorite," Brittany sang.

"Caro, you didn't—"

"Of course I did.” Caroline rose and began clearing away dishes. Joey got up to help, and Ash automatically stood as well.

They accomplished the cleanup within a few minutes, then sat around the living room with luscious cheesecake and wonderful coffee, groaning almost in unison that they couldn't hold another bite.

"You play pool, Ash?"

Ash almost answered yes, then caught himself. "Damned if I know." He tapped his head with a forefinger by way of explanation.

Ted laughed. "I have a new table downstairs. What do you say we find out?"

“I’m game...if you’ll show me around your shop first.”

Ted frowned. “It’s pretty boring.”

“It’s your business. I’m fascinated by sole proprietors.” And curious to see if the shop held any clues to whatever Ted was hiding.

Ted Dryer was an electrician. TD Electric had its "headquarters" in a shoe box of a building he'd put up beside the house. He had a professionally crafted sign over the door, and a company pickup with magnetized signs stuck to its doors in the driveway. Ted walked Ash outside to show him around. The pickup was less than two years old, the building freshly painted. From all appearances, business was good. Ted unlocked the door to the shop and ushered Ash into the office portion. It consisted mostly of a desk and chair, a phone, a file cabinet and a little rack to hang keys on tacked to the wall just inside the door. The pickup keys dangled there on a key ring that read, My Other Car's a Mercedes. There was a computer on the desk. It was turned on. Ash was dying for a moment alone with it.

“What’s through there?” he asked, pointing at a door in the back.

“Workshop area.” Ted unlocked and opened the door, led Ash into a room about the same size as the office, with a workbench and tools and lots of small electronic items with their guts exposed. “Hell, I shouldn’t have left that out,” Ted said, and began picking up a set of tools and replacing them in a box.

Ash grabbed his phone from his pocket, looked at the screen and then at Ted. “My boss texts me at the damnedest times. I’ll just be a sec.” Then he walked back into the office while tapping on his phone’s screen. The second he was out of Ted’s sight, he leaned behind the desk, grabbed the mouse and clicked on HISTORY. A list of recently visited websites came up and he flipped up his cell phone, snapped a photo of the screen, then paced back into the workshop barely missing a beat, tapping the phone as if he’d never stopped. He paced out and back in again once more for good measure.

Ted finished putting his tools away and then they returned to the house and knocked balls around on a green felt pool table in the finished basement. Joey’s brother-in-law seemed friendly, but maybe just a little too curious.

"So tell me about you and Joey," he said at one point during the game. "I can't quite picture her settling down to be someone's little wife."

"Me neither." Ash met Ted's glance and they both laughed. "Hell, Ted, you can probably tell me more about her than I could tell you." He shrugged. "I must have known her so well once, but now..." He let his voice trail off, hoping Ted would take the bait.

"She's pretty up-front," Ted said. "I mean, she's not the kind with hidden agendas and plots. She's just about what she seems. Calls 'em like she sees 'em, says what she means...most of the time."

"Most of the time?"

Ted shrugged and bent over the table, drawing the cue stick back slowly, aiming its tip at the white ball. "We all have our hang-ups." He struck the cue ball. It struck two others, one of which rolled neatly into a corner pocket. Ted straightened and walked around the table, reaching for the chalk.

"And what's Joey's?"

Ted's brows raised. “Damned if i know. I thought I had her figured out. Thought she hated anything male and always would." He laughed and shook his head.

But Ash didn't feel like smiling. "Why'd you think that?"

Ted chalked the cue. "Always assumed it was because of her father. Fathers, I should say. The one who raised her cheated on the girls’ mother through most of their marriage. Not that she didn’t cheat right back with Joey’s birth father. But the daughters don’t seem to consider that anything but payback. From what I hear, Joey’s birth father was even worse. Has kids by several different women. Course, Joey didn’t know that until recently. She’s only met one of them, a semi-famous crime writer, Toni Rio." He looked up to see if Ash recognized the name, but he didn’t. "They really seem to have bonded. I think Caroline’s a little bit jealous. Up until a year or so ago, she was Joey’s only sibling.” Then he frowned. “Hasn't she talked to you about any of this?"

Ash shook his head, sensing Ted was volunteering a lot in hopes Ash would reciprocate. “No, she hasn’t. At least, not that I can recall.”

"Well, she ought to. The girls’ relationship with their father has left scars. And in Joey’s case, finding out the man who raised her wasn’t her father at all, probably left a few more more.

"Ted, telephone," Caroline called from upstairs.

Ted sighed, set the stick down and went up the stairs. Ash followed. They joined Joey and Caroline, who were standing in the living room, close to each other. He found his gaze drawn to Joey's face. She seemed worried, and watched Ted as he spoke quietly and hung up.

"Well, I'm afraid I have to go out."

"But, Ted—"

"It's an emergency, hon,” he told his wife. “Mrs. Peterson's power is out, and she says the box smells hot. I really have to go check it out." He gripped Caroline's shoulders, drew her forward and kissed her quickly. Ash didn’t miss the way she turned her head so his lips fell on her cheek instead of her mouth. Then Ted turned to pump Ash's hand. "Good meeting you, Ash,"

"Same here," he replied.

Ted faced Joey. His jaw tightened as he looked at her. "Take care, Joey." The words were heavy with meaning. And then he was hurrying out the door.