so. The nightstand had an empty dish that might have held a midnight snack. The dresser’s top had barely a patch of mahogany visible through all the clutter—an uncoiled belt, a paperback novel, a jewelry box.
Mitch had told Emily that he and Mandy had not had any guests. There’d been no one to their home in the past month—a cue that the only fingerprints the techs might find would be theirs and theirs alone.
Emily thought of the bleach once more. She remembered how incredibly ordered things had been in Mitch Crawford’s office at the dealership. Not a slip of paper was askew. Even the paperclips had been lined up in order—reds next to reds, blacks next to blacks. No jumble of unsorted paperclips for Mitch Crawford.
“He’s a neat freak,” Darla Montague had said. “That’s just the way it is around here.”
And, at home, too.
“So if Mitch was such a neat freak at home, how was it that the guest bedroom was such a lived-in mess?” Chris asked.
Emily mulled it over as she worked the tight muscles in her neck by rolling her head backward, then side to side. Then it came to her. She looked over at Chris.
“The guest in the guest bedroom had to be Mandy,” she said.
Chris swallowed the last of his wine. “Maybe she’d banished herself to the guest room because she wanted to get away from him?”
She looked at the photo again. “That’s right. She left the master bedroom on her own. Most women would send their husband to the sofa and keep the bedroom for themselves. I know I did that to David a time or two.”
She was sorry that she mentioned David’s name. But Chris didn’t seem to mind.
“Angry at him? Annoyed by him? Sickened by his touch?” he asked. “Seems strange.”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “It is curious, I’ll give you that. Why would a woman leave her husband’s bed, and camp out in the bedroom down the hall? Why didn’t she just leave him? Go to her mother’s in Spokane, for example?”
“You know women better than I do,” Chris said.
“She was waiting for something. She didn’t think she had to leave. And learning more about Mitch Crawford, I can bet he didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t want to look like a loser.”
“Waiting for what?” Chris asked.
Emily tilted her head slightly as she thought it through. She stared deeply into the photograph, like some miniscule text would give her the answer. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
It was late and there was only one thing more that had to be addressed, and it wasn’t the saga of the missing mother to be.
Chris got up and put his arm on her shoulders and held her. He’d practiced what he’d say, his final plea, on the way over to Cherrystone. He’d make the dinner, help her with her case, then ask her.
He pulled a small black box from his pocket.
“Oh, Chris,” she said. “I don’t know.”
“I haven’t even asked you. But seeing you’re a detective you’ve figured me out. I love you, Emily. I always have.”
Emily could feel tears threaten to spill from her eyes. “I love you, too.”
He opened the box. It was a platinum band with a row of emeralds, Emily’s favorite stone.
“Will you be my wife?” He took the ring from the box and held it out to her.
She pushed back a little. She was surprised that she hadn’t seen it coming. Not then. Not that night. “I think so, but not now. Let’s wait until this case is over.”
Chris looked a little hurt. He’d given it his best shot. She didn’t give the answer he imagined, but she hadn’t said no yet, either.
“All right,” he said, “but I can’t wait forever.”
There were times when Emily suspected that she was the biggest fool in Cherrystone, maybe even on the planet. She studied her reflection in the mirror as she undressed for bed. It was as if by looking into her own eyes she could have some kind of a silent conversation with herself. She loved Chris.
Why can’t I just give in to what I know is right? She thought.
Her answer came as she brushed out her thick, wavy hair. She and Jenna had been alone for years, forging a life together in the town where she’d grown up. She’d dated a few locals. She’d wanted—desired—the kind of solid relationship that her own parents had enjoyed. David had been the man of her dreams when she was young. She foolishly thought that they were a team, destined for great things together.
But all he’d wanted was a pretty woman on his arm—a woman he could control.
Chris was nothing like that. He loved her for who she was. He sought a life with her because he knew that the two of them together was some kind of magic, which it was. He’d also been good with Jenna, though he had his own children and knew that he was no replacement for a Seattle doctor who’d carelessly discarded the best things he’d ever had.
Emily studied her face in the mirror. She wondered if she was looking at a woman who had built a wall around herself under the guise of protecting her child. The excuse that she didn’t want to disrupt Jenna’s life was an empty one. Jenna was grown. A college graduate. Preparing for law school. She was no longer a little girl who needed protection from the world.
Emily could not have known how wrong she was as she slipped into the bed next to her lover. Her sense of safety was a vapor. She had no idea that a malevolent force of evil had come to Cherrystone already…and that it would return.
Chapter Ten
The Cannery was Cherrystone’s stab at being hip. The restaurant occupied the entire floor of the old Fruitland Packing Company’s first processing plant, two blocks west of the Courthouse. The building had been gutted by the new owners, leaving exposed brick walls, a ceiling lattice of duct-work, and a salad bar converted out of the steel juicing unit that, in Cherrystone’s glory days, had provided apple and pear juice to moms and kids in a seven-state region. The food was mostly vegetarian and the presentation was more New York than Spokane. Everything was pretty. And pretty expensive.
At least for Cherrystone.
Camille Hazelton and Emily Kenyon met there at least once a month to visit, discuss county and city government, and any cases that were on the docket that warranted a once-over before trial or pleading. This time, however, Mandy was on the menu.
While Camille ordered a tomato basil soup with pancetta confetti, Emily went to the salad bar. She put a layer of a chiffanade of romaine on a pale yellow plate and moved her tongs toward a marinated heart of palm.
That looks interesting, she thought, with a wry smile. I’d rather be sitting under a palm tree than eating one.
“Cary, great to see you,” a voice called from the other side of the salad bar.
Her smile faded. Emily’s heart sank to the floor. There was only one Cary in town. It took an extra breath to regain her composure, although she did so without so much as flutter of an eyelash. Few names and few people brought that kind of reaction. The ones who usually did were already in prison or, in the best of all worlds, six feet under in a grave dug in the Potter’s Field section of a cemetery. But not this one.
She looked over and there he was. His eyes caught hers and locked.
“This is old home week,” Cary McConnell said, with his perfect smile in place. “Hi, Emily Kenyon, lady sheriff.”
She swallowed. “Hello, Cary.”
He was a handsome figure, in a nearly black suit cut to fit a lean, athletic frame. His dark hair showed no signs of receding. He combed it back in a tousled look that Emily was sure