Thread of Fear (8 page)

Jack watched her standing there looking limp and deflated in his oversize shirt. Being alone with her in this motel room was starting to get to him, too. He suddenly had a vision of her wearing just his shirt and nothing else.

“Are you hungry?” he asked abruptly.

Her eyebrows arched with surprise. “I’m…no, actually. I already ate.”

Jack spied the M&M’s wrapper on the bedside table next to a bottle of Evian. Evidently, she was a real health nut.

“You mean you ate something real, or you gobbled down gas station crap?”

She looked wary now, and he realized he wasn’t making much of an impression here. His dating skills were a little out of practice.

He stood up and stepped closer, and her tension picked up. “May I take you out to dinner, Fiona? To a real restaurant, with all the food groups?”

She had a smudge of charcoal on her cheekbone. He reached out to rub it with the pad of his thumb, and there it was again—that little zing of electricity.

She stepped back. “Thank you. But I don’t date cops.”

He laughed and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Is that a fact?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged. “Okay, don’t call it a date, then. How about a meal? You do eat, don’t you?”

He could see her wheels turning, trying to come up with an excuse. “I thought you had your hands full with the investigation—”

“We all need fuel. And I’ve been running on empty for about”—he looked at his watch—“fourteen hours now. There’s actually a fairly decent restaurant right next door.”

She bit her lip, looked around.

“Come on.” He smiled. “Just a quick bite. I’ll have you in bed by ten.”

She tipped her head to the side, clearly not liking the innuendo. Then he saw the faintest trace of a smile and felt a warm shot of lust. She was definitely getting to him—those
pink lips and that smooth, pale skin. But since when did he have to work this hard to get a woman to say yes?

He stepped closer. “That was a joke,” he lied.

She looked up at him, still wary. “A
quick
bite. I have to get up early tomorrow to drive home.”

“I promise,” he said. “I would never keep a girl out past curfew.”

F
iona’s mouth started watering the second she stepped into Becker’s. The place was dark and warm and smelled like frying onions.

Jack didn’t wait at the hostess stand, but steered her directly to a booth at the back of the dining room. Fiona slid into the polished wooden seat, relieved to be off her feet after so many hours standing in front of an easel.

She heard a crack, and a shout came up from the back room.

“It’s a pool hall, too?” she asked.

“Food, drinks, pool. They’ve got a beer garden outside, although it’s closed now. Live music on Saturdays in the summer.”

“Sounds nice,” Fiona said. She hated beer, but the food and the music sounded pleasant. It was fairly crowded tonight, and she took that as a good recommendation.

A waitress stopped by and asked for their drink orders. Jack had arrived at Fiona’s motel room wearing jeans and a faded black sweatshirt, so she guessed he was off the clock for the evening.

“White wine, please,” Fiona said.

The waitress lifted a brow. “I’ll see what we got.”

Jack flashed the woman an apologetic smile and ordered a Budweiser.

When she disappeared, Fiona gave him a quizzical look. “White wine? I thought that was pretty basic.”

“Round here basic means beer.”

She shuddered. “I hate beer.”

He shook his head and opened his menu. “Well, please don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian, or we’re flat out of luck.”

Fiona skimmed the list of food. Lots of sausage and potatoes, chicken fried steak, hamburgers. The popular vegetable seemed to be sauerkraut. When the waitress reappeared, Fiona ordered the Fried Chic-N-Salad, hold the Chic-N.

“That’s it?” Jack asked, after she left. “You come all the way down here, and you won’t even let us feed you some cholesterol?”

“I like salad.”

He clinked his beer bottle against her wineglass. “Guess you can take the girl out of California, but you can’t take the California out of the girl.”

She smiled, thinking about how her grandfather also liked to tease her about being from the Left Coast. She wondered what Jack would say if she told him she’d actually spent the first seven years of her life in Wimberley, Texas, a town a third the size of this one, which locals touted as “a little bit of heaven.”

She took a sip and looked at him over the rim of her glass. He was staring at her with those intense gray-blue eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He frowned down at his beer. “I was just
feeling bad about earlier. You know, misleading you. I’m sorry.”

She leaned back against the booth and folded her arms over her chest.

“What?”

“You’re not sorry,” she said. “You wanted me to help you with your case, and I helped you with your case. You just feel guilty now because you’re getting to know me, and I’m not some anonymous person you can manipulate anymore.”

His eyebrows tipped up. “Damn. All that in two days. You a psychiatrist, too?”

“No.”

He watched her for a moment. “Okay, you’re right, I’m not sorry. I’m glad I got you down here, but not for the reason you think.”

He gave her a warm, lingering look, and Fiona felt a rush of heat. How long had it been since a man looked at her that way?

She sipped her wine, gathered her courage.

“So. What’s between you and Lucy?”

The warmth disappeared. He flicked a glance over her shoulder, then met her gaze. “Nothing.”

The lie hung there in the air, and Fiona felt something sink inside her. She looked away from him. This was one reason she didn’t date cops. They lied far too easily.

An elderly man walked up to their table. His belly hung over the top of his jeans, and he wore a western-style shirt and a John Deere cap.

“Evening.” He nodded at Jack and cast a curious glance Fiona’s way. “Y’all probably want to eat in peace, but I told
the wife I’d stop over and complain about those teenagers been vandalizing cars over at the theater.”

“This the Dough Boys again?” Jack asked.

“They’re a buncha hoodlums. I spent nearly all morning cleaning biscuit dough off my truck. You need to get on this, Jack, or I’m gonna have to take my Winchester along next time.”

“Take it easy, now,” Jack said. “I’ll have a talk with them.”

“I’m serious. Folks got a right to go to the show without getting their cars pelted.”

When the man left, Jack cast a glance at Fiona, and she thought he looked embarrassed.

“Is it my imagination, or did he just threaten those kids with a rifle?” she asked.

“Ah, he’s just blowing hot air. He doesn’t really care that much, but his wife’s hell on wheels. She was watching his performance from a few booths up.”

Fiona glanced over her shoulder and saw a woman seated across from the John Deere guy. Hell on Wheels had big hair and a blue rinse. She eyed Fiona suspiciously, perhaps wondering where Jack had picked up an outsider.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Fiona said. “I’d go crazy in a small town.”

“It’s not that bad.”

But Fiona thought he had to get tired of it, or at least annoyed. Here he was trying to run a murder investigation, and the citizenry was more concerned about teen pranksters.

“So, you were saying?” she asked. “About you and Lucy?”

“There’s nothing to say.”

A low buzz sounded, and he reached for his hip. “Damn,” he muttered, checking his phone. “I’ve got to get this.”

Saved by the cell.

She pretended to enjoy her wine as he took a call from someone named Carlos. As soon as he disconnected, she knew dinner was over. Yet another reason she didn’t date cops.

“I have to go see about something,” he said, signaling the waitress. “We can get this to go.”

Fiona nodded and collected her blazer and purse off the seat beside her. She’d returned Jack’s shirt when they’d left the motel. She didn’t owe him anything now except an invoice, and she planned to e-mail it to him.

“It’s okay,” she said, sliding from the booth.

And it was, too. The last thing she needed was another dead-end relationship with a man who didn’t know what honesty was. She was finished being lied to.

Jack stood up and spoke briefly with the server before returning his attention to Fiona. “We’ll do a rain check.”

She slipped her arms into her blazer and pulled the lapels together protectively. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

His eyes narrowed. Clearly, he wasn’t used to getting the brush-off.

“I’ve got too much going on right now, and so do you.”

For a moment, he just stared at her. “Let me walk you back.”

“Not necessary, it’s just next door.” And she didn’t want him to pick up on her disappointment.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” She plastered a smile on her face and thrust
her hand out. “Thanks for the drink, Jack. It was nice working with you.”

The disappointment was still lodged in her stomach the next morning as she rode up the elevator to her apartment. She’d been willing it away all morning, trying to focus on all the things she needed to do besides brood over her nonexistent love life, but the feeling remained. She’d genuinely liked Jack. He was an attractive man, in more than just the physical sense, and it had felt good to be around someone who understood about her work.

The elevator doors dinged open, and she trudged down the hallway, telling herself she needed to quit being so optimistic. Given that she’d been raised by a woman who went through men like other women went through shoes, it was pretty mind-boggling for Fiona to realize that deep down somewhere, she was a romantic, that deep down she actually believed she might meet a man someday who would fit with her for the long haul. She needed to wise up.

Fiona neared the end of her hallway, flipping through her keys and silently cursing her neighbor’s tastes in music. Who listened to Usher at 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday?

As she approached her door, she realized the noise was coming from 4A. Fiona jammed her key in the lock and felt her stress level climbing even before she stepped over the threshold.

A pizza box sat on her coffee table, surrounded by empty beer bottles. A half-eaten bag of Oreos lay abandoned on the sofa beside a balled-up throw. On the end table sat one of her favorite sculptures, a hollowed-out egg that harkened back to art school and Fiona’s Barbara Hepworth stage.
The glossy ceramic creation had been transformed into an ashtray.

Fiona dropped her attaché and purse beside the door and stalked over to the stereo to switch off the power. Then she snatched up the sculpture, took it into the kitchen, and dumped the stinky contents into the trash can.

“Hey, I was listening to that.”

Fiona glanced up to see Courtney slouched against the doorway to her bathroom. She wore a black satin blouse—one of her nightclubbing outfits—that she hadn’t bothered to button over a red bra and panties.

“A little loud for Sunday morning, don’t you think?”

Courtney rolled her eyes. She turned to face the bathroom mirror and pulled a brush through her long auburn mane. When she reached for the straightening iron, Fiona’s eyes widened.

“You brought your stuff?” she asked, alarmed. Courtney occasionally crashed on the sofa when she was too drunk to make it home from downtown, but if she’d packed, then this was a premeditated visit.

Her sister released a lock of hair from the iron and admired the way it fanned out, straight and shiny, across her shoulder.

“I’m thinking of going for some color again. What about raspberry?”

A classic evasion tactic. “Courtney? Are you moving
in
?”

She lifted a shoulder casually, never taking her eyes off the mirror.

“Please don’t tell me you got evicted.”

Her sister turned and planted a hand on her hip, as if this were totally implausible. “You’re such a drama queen. God.”

Fiona tried not to bite a hole in her tongue. She walked over to the bathroom and took note of the three matching cosmetics bags sitting on the lid of her toilet. Courtney was here for an extended stay.

Fiona took a deep, cleansing breath, and didn’t feel cleansed at all. “What happened?”

Her sister leaned toward the mirror and darkened her golden lashes with mascara. “Fucking Texas Gas Service. They cut off my
heat
. Do you believe that? In the dead of
winter
.”

Fiona absolutely believed it. They probably hadn’t received payment in months.

“Anyway, it’s just for a few days. Just until this freeze lets up.” Courtney pulled open a drawer and helped herself to a pair of earrings. “Hey, can I borrow these? I’m having brunch with David.”

“Who’s David?”

She removed her gold dangles and replaced them with Fiona’s pearl studs. “You met him the other night. Trial attorney from Dallas?”

“He was an attorney?” Fiona conjured up an image of the leather jacket–wearing heartthrob from the Continental Club. The only lawyerly thing about him had been his gold Rolex, which Fiona had assumed was fake.

“His conference ends this morning. We’re having brunch at the Randolph Hotel.”

“The Randolph.” Not Courtney’s usual stomping grounds.

She breezed past Fiona into the bedroom corner of the loft. “You have anything conservative I can borrow? A sweater set or something?”

Fiona watched as her sister rifled through her closet. She shrugged out of the black satin blouse and selected a gray cashmere cardigan.

Fiona eyed her rumpled sheets, cringing inwardly. “Did you bring him back here last night?”

“
No.
He had to meet a client for drinks after dinner.” Courtney buttoned up the sweater, leaving open two more buttons than Fiona would have. Any man with a pulse would notice the sliver of red lace visible between Courtney’s breasts. She snagged her black miniskirt off the floor and shimmied it over her hips. Then she strode past Fiona into the living area.

“You seen my shoes?” She snatched up the throw and tossed it over a chair. After retrieving a pair of black heels from beneath the coffee table, she turned to face Fiona.

“I know you’re pissed,” she said. “But it’s just for a few days. I promise.”

Fiona resigned herself to at least a week of chaos and distractions. She had three canvases to complete before her art show. And the tranquil mind-set she needed for painting would be impossible to achieve with Courtney kicking around.

“Three days,” she said firmly. “That’s
it,
Court.”

Courtney gave her a dazzling smile and pulled her into a hug. “Thanks. You won’t even know I’m here, I swear.”

Fiona looked over her sister’s shoulder and counted the beer bottles on the coffee table.

“Who was here with you last night?”

Courtney pulled back and whirled around, avoiding eye contact. “Have you seen my purse?” She traipsed across the
room, showing off the legs that attracted men like David at bars. “It was
just
here. I saw it—”

“Courtney?”

She stepped into the kitchen and looked at Fiona across the counter. “Aaron was here for a little while.”

“Courtney!”

She rolled her eyes. “What was I supposed to do? Kick him to the curb?”

“Yes! That’s exactly what you should have done!”

“Well, I tried to, okay? But he’s persistent. He says he misses you and he wants to apologize.”

“I can’t believe you let him in here.”

“I didn’t. He still has a key.”

Fiona’s cell phone started ringing, and she pulled it out of her purse, which was on the floor. She didn’t recognize the number—not a good sign.

She flipped it open. “Fiona Glass.”

“Fiona, it’s Garrett.”

She paused, trying to place the name.

“Garrett Sullivan? FBI?”

“Of course! Sorry, I just—” She watched Courtney rummage through the junk drawer in the kitchen. “What?”

“I need a nail file,” Courtney whispered.

“Top of my dresser.”

“Excuse me?” Sullivan asked.

“Not you. Sorry.” She took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts. Special Agent Sullivan. This would be bad news. “Did you find her?” Her chest tightened as she asked the question.