No River Too Wide (48 page)

Tonight he looked as attractive and approachable as always in a soft camel-colored sweater. She wondered if he had ever, in his entire life, worn a pair of pants that weren’t perfectly creased.

“Nate, we need to have a conversation,” she said, after she had made sure her mother seemed happily occupied. “Let’s try the patio for a few minutes.”

He filled a plate with desserts for both of them, and she took their wineglasses. They threaded through the hall, squeezing their way past other partyers. Outside, stars twinkled above them, but the air was definitely turning colder. They were dressed warmly enough for now, but in a few minutes they would need to go back inside.

The temperature and a stiff breeze made it easier to get right to the point, as did the fact that nobody else had been brave enough to come outside, so they were alone.

“You’re a great guy,” she said, launching in after a mocha truffle. “I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but I think we need to stop seeing each other.”

He smiled, unperturbed. “You mean the romance is over? This is our Dear John conversation?”

She hadn’t quite expected that. “Sort of. Yeah.”

“Harmony, our romance never got off the ground. I know it, too, so don’t worry. What’s the expression? We’re just not into each other?”

Relief filled her. Then as his words sank in she narrowed her eyes. “You’re not into me, either?”

“Come on, you don’t really want me to be.”

She studied him a moment. “I mean, what’s wrong with both of us? I’m beginning to think I’ll never find a guy I can both like
and
hook up with. What’s your story?”

“I’ve met somebody else.”

“Oh....” She realized she wasn’t surprised. Nate was the catch of the century, and it seemed sad she hadn’t had the desire to reel him in herself.

“I went to her condo to measure for new cabinets, and I got blindsided. She teaches first grade. Turns out we go to the same church, have a lot of the same friends. Her brother was in the armed services, too.”

Now she had to smile. “Wasn’t that what you wanted? Somebody you clicked with on every level?”

“I don’t know. A lot of my friends have made mistakes. I wasn’t in any hurry to make one, too.”

“That’s why you liked hanging with me. You knew this wasn’t going to happen.”

“Knew it right away. So did you.”

“I thought, well, you know, I could
make
it happen.”

“For the record, I like everything about you.”

“Likewise.” They both laughed. Then she sobered. “Is that why you came tonight? You were going to break this off?”

“No, I came because I want to introduce you to somebody. I’m not sure, but I think he’ll be coming.”

“You know, that’s how
this
happened, don’t you? Taylor set us up.”

“And it’s been fun, hasn’t it? I’ve got a new friend for life. Nothing ventured...” He gestured and nearly spilled his wine.

“Who am I supposed to meet?”

He put his glass down on a table and held out his hand. “Let’s see if he’s here.”

She took his hand and squeezed in thanks, although she wasn’t looking forward to meeting anybody new. She still had too much to figure out, and besides, she had just failed at another relationship.

Inside they were met with a wall of heat. She didn’t know how many people Taylor had invited, but the buzz of conversation and laughter was louder than the trio in the lobby. Evolution was rocking.

“Come on.” Nate searched the room, then pulled her through the crowd into the lobby, toward the front door.

He stopped. “Timing is everything. Hey, Kieran.” He didn’t shout, but a man who was just coming in stopped in place. Then he saw Nate and ambled toward them. He wore faded jeans, a T-shirt with paint smears, a gold hoop in one ear and a three-day growth of beard. His hair was nearly black, wildly curling to his collar, and he smiled at Harmony before he flicked his gaze to Nate.

“Hey, bro.”

The two men hugged quickly, then stepped back. “When I mentioned this party you didn’t tell me you were coming,” Kieran told Nate.

“Harmony’s a friend of Taylor’s.” Nate turned to introduce her. “She invited me yesterday, so I stopped by to see what the fuss was about.”

“Taylor and I were friends at the academy,” Kieran told Harmony. “I haven’t seen her since I came home from California. Nice place she’s got.”

Harmony was still processing the word
bro.
“Tell me about
bro,
” she said. “Bro as in, we’re homies, or bro as in, brother.”

“Real as it gets,” Kieran said. “Next brother down in the Winchester lineup.”

“Kieran’s been studying in San Francisco, but he’s about to open a studio on Depot,” Nate said. “His place missed the flood, so he’s an imposter here.” He looked at his watch. “Gotta run. Great seeing you both. Harmony, give me a call someday, and we’ll have lunch.” He lifted a hand in farewell and strode out the door.

“Have
lunch?
” Kieran asked.

She wondered how Nate could have made the nature of their relationship clearer. She smiled in appreciation and maybe in gratitude. Then suddenly she was smiling at Kieran, and he was smiling back, his dark eyes dancing. She felt that slightly wicked curve of his lips all the way to her toenails.

“A studio, huh? What kind of art?” she asked.

“Eclectic. Lots of mosaics. Right now I’m making shrines out of found objects. Whatever inspires me at the moment.”

“Cool. I’d like to see it sometime.”

“It looks pretty crowded in here. Would you like to take a walk over there now?”

She did not want another disappointment. Not this time, and not with this man. “Just so you know. I’m a single mom, and I work on a farm. My daughter’s not even a year old.”

“I’m a struggling artist who happens to like kids.” He held out his hand to draw her outside, and she took it. This time the evening breeze felt exactly right against her skin.

Chapter 38

What little was left of the Stoddard house had been roped off and ringed with yellow police tape. The site itself looked like the set of a low-budget apocalyptic film. Five days after leaving North Carolina, Adam stood silently and imagined a dystopian nightmare in which life had nearly come to an end and a pitiful handful of survivors were wandering the world to find each other and restart the human race.

Of course, if they did connect, no one would be interested in starting
anything
here. Even the trees at the far edge of the explosion site were charred skeletons, and debris that hadn’t been burned to ash had melted into twisted, panicked shapes.

He knew how different everything must have looked before fire had obliterated Rex Stoddard’s world. Jan had said Stoddard always kept a photo of the house on his desk at work, one without human beings inside the silver frame. Clearly the house had been a symbol of success to him, and he’d kept the sentimental family photos at home to taunt his wife.

“That last part didn’t work out too well, did it, Rex?” He said the words out loud, although nobody was there to hear him.

Adam didn’t believe that Jan had killed her husband. But the more he learned about the man, the more surprised he was that somewhere along the way she hadn’t poisoned his meat loaf or dropped her hair dryer into the tub when Rex was having a relaxing bath.

His cell phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket and read the number on the screen before he answered.

“Jan?”

“I got your message. Is everything all right?”

“I’m standing here staring at what’s left of your house.”

“Not something I ever hope to see.”

“You plan to sell it?”

“When everything’s straightened out.”

“Do you have anybody who can clear the remains after your insurance company completes its findings? There’s no point in digging through what little is left. Nothing can be salvaged. Everything just needs to be hauled to a landfill. I can make the arrangements while I’m here, if you like. If somebody takes care of that much this winter, you can have fill brought in and the ground seeded in spring. Nobody’s going to buy the property and rebuild the way it is.”

“That sounds like the thing to do. I guess the house will be mine to deal with?”

From the conversations he’d had since his arrival, Adam knew that despite extensive testing and examination, none of the investigators had found any reason to believe the fire and resulting explosion had been the outcome of arson. As much as the insurance company had hoped to prove it, they hadn’t been able to. At this point closing the investigation was a formality.

“I’ve looked into it a little,” Adam told her. “Your husband never made a will, but your name is on the deed to the property, so you’ll get everything connected to it outright, as well as life insurance, if you’re the beneficiary. But you and Harmony will probably share everything else.”

“And if I’m found guilty of murder?”

“That would change things.”

Her sigh was loud enough to be audible. “My attorney is getting a lot of pressure from Shawnee County. The sheriff’s department told him if we don’t cooperate, I’ll probably be arrested.”

“Just hang in there, okay? Right now I’ve got a couple of questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did your husband keep a journal or make notes in an appointment book? Is there any place you can think of where he might have left evidence he was meeting another woman?”

For a moment all he could hear was the faint hum of their connection as she tried to remember. He knew how badly she wanted to help.

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “He kept a calendar on his computer, but he was paranoid about the internet, so he was careful not to put information online if he didn’t have to.”

“Which was probably a good call, but I’m almost sure whoever pulled off the fraud had access to his computer. I’m sure the auditors are going over it with a fine-tooth comb.”

“For years he used my name and our wedding date as his password, and our wedding photo was the first thing he saw whenever he turned it on. He used to open his computer and show me so I’d be properly grateful he loved me so much.”

“Names and dates are the first things I would try if I wanted to break into a computer.”

“I doubt that’s the password Rex was using at the end. He hadn’t said anything about it for a long time.”

Adam’s mind was drifting as she spoke. Then it hit shore with a thud. Jan had made a point of saying she’d only rarely been to Rex’s office. “Jan, you said open his computer. Are you talking about his computer at work? Or a personal laptop?”

“His laptop.”

“Where did he keep it?”

“With him. Always. It was like an arm or a leg. He carried it back and forth to work.”

“So it probably wasn’t destroyed in the fire?”

“He never left it at home when he wasn’t there.”

Adam was thinking out loud. “And he didn’t come home the night you escaped.”

She completed the thought. “So he probably had it with him.”

“Let’s say he was meeting somebody that night. He’s in his car, and he has the laptop.” Adam was searching for a mental picture. “Where would he keep it? On the seat beside him? In the trunk? Under a seat?”

“No, he used to go on and on about fools who made it easy to steal things from their cars, then expected to get reimbursed for their stupidity.”

“You listened to a lot of rants, didn’t you?”

“This one got him moving. He had a special locker installed under the backseat of his car, where nobody would detect it. He said he needed complete security when he was transporting his guns. A guy he met at a gun show made a new one every time Rex traded up. He used it for anything he wanted to keep safe, including his laptop. That way if he stopped for coffee or anything else on the way into work, nobody who broke into his car would find anything valuable.”

“This locker, it needed a key?”

“No, the mechanism to open it was wired into the electrical system, so even if somebody stole the car
and
his keys they still wouldn’t be able to get into it. He had to complete a sequence of moves before the seat popped up. Hit the door locks twice, hit the power windows, hit the door locks twice. Something like that. He was so proud of himself he used to show me how clever he was. He would pop the seat before he got out of the car, walk around to the rear door and get whatever he needed, then push it down again.”

Adam thought this might be extraordinarily helpful if Stoddard’s Toyota Camry ever surfaced. The car had disappeared along with the man, but finding Rex’s body hadn’t led the police any closer to finding his car.

And what else had he stowed in that convenient secret compartment?

“I’ve got another reason for calling,” he said. “Do you remember that lake vacation Rex canceled at the last minute?”

She was already ahead of him. “He took somebody else, didn’t he? I started thinking about everything you’d said, and the fact that he was gone most of that weekend.”

“When this is all behind you, we’ll go into business together.”

She gave a small laugh, which reassured him she wasn’t going to be upset at what he’d found.

“I got photos of all the women working at the agency in the past five years, and I took them with me to talk to the rental agent this morning. I asked if she remembered your husband, and she did. Then I asked if she remembered the woman who was with him. Turns out she’s the same agent who’d checked you in the past four or five years—”

“Daisy.”

“Exactly. So when she saw a different woman with your husband, she was disgusted enough that she paid close attention. She was able to identify her from my photographs. It
was
Liz Major, who has been conveniently out of the office for several days and never at home when I try to speak to her.”

Jan didn’t respond. He waited a moment. “I’m sorry. Does this upset you?”

“No, but I’m picking myself up off the floor. I told you how much Rex despised her. He wanted to fire her, but he said she was the kind of woman who would take him to court and scream about her civil rights.”

“Didn’t Shakespeare say something about protesting too much?”