Killer Smile. Marilyn Pappano

Stacia was scared to death for her and viewed anyone who even casually mentioned Natasha with suspicion and wariness. Archer and Jeffrey didn’t know about the stalker, but she’d asked them not to tell anyone about her visit. They hadn’t even told Daniel, so they certainly wouldn’t have confided in anyone else.

      Abruptly, Daniel turned back to her. “You should get inside.”

      “The fire department evacuated the hotel. Besides, the chief said the fire marshal would want to speak to me. He told me to wait here.”

      “I’ll go find Jamey and tell him she’ll be at the station.” The other detective walked away before either Natasha or Daniel could protest.

      Though the flames were apparently out, the firefighters continued to spray the wreckage. As if the clouds had decided to help, the scattered raindrops multiplied into a deluge. Water running over her scalp and pouring down her neck, Natasha gave her car one last woeful look then turned toward the police station. She didn’t want to go there, but where else could she go?

      Daniel walked beside her, turning several times to study the people scurrying behind them, before he spoke. “So you weren’t wrong.”

      The last thing in the world she expected was a smile, but a wry one pulled at her mouth. “Some people might say I was actually right.” God help her, she wished she hadn’t been.

      His only response was a grunt.

      They passed the gazebo, pretty and invitingly dry underneath its roof, then approached the steps to the police station. Still hugging her purse, she was thinking of her ruined plans for the day—heading out of town—and wondering if RememberMe was Karma’s way of repaying her for her fickleness in love and dreading having to replace the car, which she’d just paid off six months ago, when a short, sharp curse from Daniel drew her out of her gloom.

      She’d gone a few strides past him and turned back to see him lifting one foot from a puddle at the base of the steps. His pants leg was drenched to the calf, and water streamed from his boot.

      “That’s a word Archer would say,” she commented mildly. How had he not seen the puddle? This was only her third visit here, and she’d noticed it.

      “Where do you think I learned it?” Grimacing, he shook his foot to dislodge the excess wet then looked back toward the courthouse. “You don’t need to mention that to Ben. Forgetting it’s there three times in two days isn’t a very detective-ly thing to do.”

      Her smile came back, this time without the wryness. “So that’s why you were barefoot yesterday.”

      He shrugged before climbing the rest of the steps, holding open one of the tall doors, then following her inside. This time, instead of stopping at the counter, she walked behind him around the end, down a hall and into a conference room. Silently he extended one hand, and she slipped out of her jacket and gave it to him, then he left again.

      After going to the far end of the table, she sat in the single chair there to survey her surroundings. The room was about as dull as any she’d ever seen. It looked like the place office furniture went to die: a table that had clearly seen better years, file cabinets with broken drawers, mismatched desk chairs—not wooden ones that got better with age but the cheap kind with five wheels and ugly vinyl or fabric seats—and lamps of varying sizes and styles.

      Ironically, the bones of the room were beautiful. The walls needed something more imaginative than drab white paint that looked as if it had come out of the can already dirty, and the ceiling could definitely benefit from a new coat of paint as well, but the vintage black-and-white floor tile and the elaborate trims around the doors and windows were lovely, and the eighteen-inch-wide crown molding was incredible. She should take a picture to send her brother, Nick, a finish carpenter, who complained he’d been born in the wrong century to do really beautiful work.

      It was nice to let her mind wander from her current problems, but voices at the door snatched her back to the seriousness of the moment. Daniel came in first, carrying a couple of fat white bath towels and a space heater. The other detective, Ben, was behind him, improvising a clipboard as a serving tray.

      No one said anything. Daniel handed the towels to her then plugged the heater in nearby, turned it toward her and flipped the switch on. Ben set a cup of coffee in front of her, along with packets of sugar and tubs of cream, then took a seat on her right. He turned toward her and began writing on the clipboard’s legal pad, adding to the stuff that already filled half of the page.

      Daniel sat down on her left, sipped his coffee then leaned back in his chair. He didn’t speak. Ben didn’t. Natasha felt oddly as if she shouldn’t, at least not until the coffee, the towel wrapped around her shoulders and the warm air of the heater chased away her chills.

      Rain lashed the windows behind her. She turned to glance out. Second Street wasn’t nearly as busy as First, but there was an occasional vehicle passing and cars were parked across the street. Someone was waiting in one of those cars, visible only as a vague shape through the side-to-side swipe of the windshield wipers. Goose bumps appeared on Natasha’s arms. The car’s engine was running, sending little puffs of exhaust into the chilly air, and the headlights were on. Could that be him? Could he have seen her and Daniel come to the police station? Could he have known they would wind up in the conference room and which windows looked into it?

      Suddenly a small blur of energy raced out of the building where the car was parked. Between the rain hat, slicker and boots, it was impossible to see anything about the child, though the pink of the clothing suggested a girl. She ran through puddles instead of over them, pulled the car door open and flung herself into the front seat.

       You’re paranoid. Are you going to start cringing from old people and their canes next?

      She hated paranoia.

      The door opened once more to admit a woman in uniform, a smile wreathing her face and blond hair showing gray roots, and a man dressed in the same uniform as Daniel and Ben. He couldn’t be much older than them, but Natasha assumed he was their boss. His quiet, confident demeanor just said so.

      He sat next to Daniel, the woman next to Ben. Natasha regretted picking the seat at the head of the table. It put her at the center of their focus and gave her an instinctive me-against-them response. She should have chosen a chair along the side, where someone would have been forced to sit next to her.

      “Close those blinds, will you, Daniel?”

      Natasha hadn’t thought to do it herself or to ask, but the instant the gloom deepened in the room, she felt better. Safer. “Thank you.”

      “I’m Chief Douglas. This is Officer Gideon, you’ve met Detective Little Bear, and of course you know Detective Harper.”

      Daniel’s jaw tightened in her peripheral vision, so she shifted her gaze the other way, to Detective Little Bear. The bear part suited him well; being fierce would be no stretch for him. But at six foot four and all broad shoulders and muscles, he’d surpassed the little part a long time ago.

      “Let’s start with the car,” the chief said, “since that’s our immediate issue. We were waiting for the fire marshal to join us, but he’s tied up elsewhere. Tell us what you know, Ms. Spencer.”

      She took a long drink of coffee then wrapped her fingers around the edges of the towel around her shoulders and held it tightly as she began to talk.