Kitabı oku: «Obsession & Eyewitness», sayfa 6

CHAPTER EIGHT

PINPRICKS OF SHOCK raced along Michelle’s flesh. And then she laughed. “A camera? That little thing?”

But Colin didn’t get the joke.

He opened his hand and the black device in the middle of his palm stared at her, like an evil eye.

Her smile collapsed. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“It’s a spy camera, but you don’t have to be James Bond to get one. Anyone can order one of these off the internet.”

“And what’s it doing on the ground outside my bedroom window?” She pressed her hand over her heart as if she could rein in its wild gallop.

Colin flipped the button over with his thumbnail. “It’s sticky on this side, just like the adhesive from your windowpane. Someone stuck this—” he held it up “—onto your window.”

Michelle tried to swallow, but her dry throat wouldn’t cooperate. “D-do you think that’s what he was trying to do last night? Place the camera?”

“Place it or retrieve it.”

“Once in place, why would he try to take it back?”

“The chips in these cameras are set to record for only so many hours.” He slipped the camera into the pocket of his sweatshirt. “Once the time is up, you have to retrieve them to download your recording.”

“Recording? Like a video camera?” The hair on the back of her neck stood at attention, and she had to grind her teeth to keep them from chattering.

“Yeah, it’s a video camera, Michelle.” They’d been squatting in the sand, and now Colin rose, hooking his hand beneath her arm.

Her knees quaked and she wedged her shoulder against the stucco wall of her house. Someone had been spying on her. Before she examined the why, she wanted to know the how. The how would make her feel more in control, make her take a detour from the land of feelings to the land of reason…and action.

“How does it work? How can something so small do so much work?”

The harsh lines around Colin’s mouth softened. “It’s those tiny computer chips. The device is remotely controlled. You can hook it up to your computer and download the video. This one looks like it needs a special attachment and maybe some special software.”

“That’s amazing.” And knowledge was power. She pushed off the wall and squared her shoulders.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about cases where these spy cameras were installed in women’s dressing rooms or bathrooms. The women don’t even notice them.”

“Do you know how to download the video?”

“If I had the right stuff on my PC, I could figure it out. But I have a better idea.”

“The police?” The wobblies came back in full force as Michelle thought about the cops on the Coral Cove P.D. watching video of her coming and going from her bedroom to her bathroom.

“Too slow. Too much bureaucracy.” He took her hand and pulled her away from the side of the house. “I have a buddy in the county sheriff’s department. Played football with him in high school. He does this sort of thing all the time.”

“How soon could he find out what’s on that thing?”

“I made him look really good on the football field. If I get the camera to him this morning, he might be able to get us a read by the end of the day.”

Michelle stumbled as she rounded the corner to her front yard and Colin caught her just as he’d done every time since he’d entered her life two days ago.

“Will your friend be able to tell anything about the person who planted the camera?”

“Before I realized what it was, I had my fingers all over the surfaces. Even if the perpetrator had left any prints, which I doubt he did, I pretty much destroyed them. If we can nail down the make and model, we could start tracing that way, but there are a lot of these things around.”

“Do you think it’s him, Colin? Do you think it was the killer who planted the camera and then returned to my house to retrieve it?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart, but it would be really interesting to find out if Amanda had one of these stuck to her window.”

“We’ll have to find out, won’t we?” She charged up the front steps and held open the door for him.

He stopped and wedged a knuckle beneath her chin. “Feel okay now?”

“I’ll feel a lot better when we nail this sicko.”

Colin grinned and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “That’s my girl.”

Despite the ball of fear lodged in her gut, Michelle floated into the house on wisps of hope. Had Colin Roarke just called her sweetheart and his girl in the space of two minutes?

She felt like a high school girl who’d just gotten a letterman’s jacket from the star football player. Only she’d gotten something much more important than a jacket from this star football player—she’d gotten consideration and admiration. And that was better than being a cheerleader and homecoming queen all wrapped up in one.

* * *

COLIN LANDED ON her doorstep five hours later with good news. “I dropped off the camera with my buddy Jake Powell. He’s working a case today, but he thinks he can get to our little project by the end of the day.”

“Jake Powell.” Michelle bit her lower lip. “That name sounds familiar.”

“I told you he went to CCHS. Since he’s a year older than I am, he was already out of school when you were a freshman.”

“Did you tell him it was me? That I might be starring in those images?”

“Of course. He knows you were the last one to see Amanda alive, and that the murder took place on the street in front of your house.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry. Jake’s totally professional.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “If he’s so professional, did he ask you why you were using him instead of turning the device over to the Coral Cove P.D. or someone in his department working on the case?”

“Touché.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “In our line of work, we know when to ask questions and when to zip it.”

She dragged her gaze away from the way his jeans tightened when he had his hands bunched in his pockets. She’d spent most of this Sunday afternoon cleaning house and trying to sweep away thoughts of Colin from her mind. She understood her attraction to him. Schoolgirl crushes died hard. But she’d had a harder time figuring out why his blue eyes smoldered when he looked at her or why his hands always reached for her.

Must be that protective instinct.

She cleared her throat. “Are we going to Amanda’s house now?”

“Good, you waited for me. I was afraid you’d traipse over there on your own.”

“Me, poke around a house that someone may be watching? The same someone who’s been watching me? No, thanks.”

“I knew you were smart.” He touched his finger to her nose.

She grabbed a sweatshirt from the hook by the door because from the look of things, the sun wouldn’t be out much longer.

As she pulled the door closed, Colin snapped his fingers. “Amanda’s husband might have moved back into the house. Didn’t you tell me he moved out during the separation?”

“He’s staying at his parents’ place.” She dangled her keys. “The house is on the other side of town in that new development.”

On the drive to Amanda’s house, Michelle asked about the case against the transient. She was still holding out hope that the police had caught the killer, but she shared Colin’s gut instinct that the cops had the wrong guy.

“Did the P.D. get anything more on Chris the homeless guy?”

“Nope. I think old Chris is enjoying his three hots and a cot right now. I don’t think he’s too concerned, since he knows he’s innocent…unless the cops try to railroad him.”

“They wouldn’t do that. I know Chief Evans wants Amanda’s murder solved before the summer tourist season, but he doesn’t have anything to prove. I heard he’s applying to a few big-city departments, so he probably won’t be around much longer, anyway.”

After driving through downtown Coral Cove, Michelle took a street that wound into the low-lying hills tucked against Coral Cove’s eastern border.

Colin whistled. “These are some nice houses up here, but I still like our side of town better.”

“They definitely get more sunshine up here.” Her car rolled along newish streets that formed a neat crisscross pattern. When she rounded the corner of Amanda’s street, she swallowed hard.

How many times had she visited Amanda up here? That night Amanda should’ve reconciled with Ryan, and the two of them would’ve come back here to make up.

She suppressed a shiver. Amanda had never suspected a thing. Or had she? Had someone been sending her faintly disturbing emails? Had someone left rose petals for her? Had she been hearing noises outside her window?

If so, she’d never mentioned anything to Michelle.

She pulled alongside a curb several houses down from Amanda’s. She pointed. “That’s her house, seven twenty-two.”

“Why are we parked here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to look suspicious.” Her cheeks heated up under Colin’s eyes shining with humor. “You know. Maybe someone’s watching.”

He nodded briskly. “Good idea.”

A couple of kids riding scooters in the street stopped to stare at them, but beyond that audience, Michelle and Colin slipped through the gate leading to Amanda’s backyard unnoticed.

“Do you know which one is her bedroom window?”

“It’s at the end.”

They crossed the small yard, a little overgrown since Ryan’s absence from the house. Michelle stopped in front of the last set of windows. “There’s another window around the corner of the house.”

“Okay. Let’s check here first.” Colin wiped his hands across the soft cotton covering his stomach. Then he trailed his fingers along the glass of the window, carefully outlining a grid pattern like he had done on her window.

“I don’t feel anything. You want to check around on the ground?”

“I don’t think we’re going to get lucky twice.” She crouched down and scanned the ground below Amanda’s window. An object like that little camera would jump right out at her on this light-colored cement.

“Nothing. You?” Colin brushed his long fingers together with a frown creasing his forehead.

“No. Let’s try the other window.”

They turned the corner to the side of the house. “This is another bedroom window and the small one farther down is the bathroom.”

She gritted her teeth against the sour taste that rose from her belly when she thought about someone recording her every move in her own bedroom.

Colin rubbed his hands together before continuing his examination of the surface of the window, like a blind man reading Braille.

Michelle couldn’t help the thought that slammed into her brain—what would those fingers feel like trailing along the bare skin of her body?

She dropped to her knees and combed through the dirt in the flower bed beneath the window. No roses here, just neglected impatiens. Ryan had been the one with the green thumb.

Now Amanda was as dead as those flowers.

“There’s nothing here, Michelle. No trace evidence of any adhesive on these windows, no camera.”

She flicked a dried leaf from a drooping flower. “If this is the same guy, why would he change his mode of operation? Why watch me when he never watched Amanda?”

“We don’t know that he never watched Amanda. We can’t find any evidence he did, but that doesn’t mean much.”

“Nothing means much, including that transient hiding out at Columbella House.”

He grazed the top of her head with his knuckles, and then dropped to his haunches beside her. “I thought you were halfway to believing the cops had their man.”

“I was hoping…until we found that camera at my place. No way a guy like Chris would have the means to buy a device like that.”

“Maybe the camera is unrelated to the murder.”

She puffed at a strand of hair sticking to the lip balm on her lips. “Not likely.”

“Who knows?” He took her arm and pulled her up as he straightened to his full height. “Maybe it’s a horny student hoping to catch a glimpse of his hot algebra teacher.”

Michelle stiffened. Like mother, like daughter?

Colin swore under his breath. “I’m an idiot, Michelle. I didn’t mean…”

She held up a dirt-smudged hand. “It’s okay. My mom wasn’t even a teacher.”

He placed his palm against hers, dwarfing her hand. “Enough sleuthing for the day. While we’re waiting around for Jake’s call, I’m going to take you out to dinner…after you wash your hands.”

She slid her hand from his and wiped it on the seat of her denim shorts. “You took me out to dinner last night.”

“Technically, that was lunch. I haven’t been to Neptune’s Catch since I’ve been back.” He nudged her toward the front of Amanda’s house, and she didn’t resist.

“Neptune’s Catch is an overpriced tourist trap.”

“Yeah, but it has great calamari, the best view in town—and my friend’s family owns it.”

“Oops, no offence to your friend’s family.” She stopped on the sidewalk and clicked the remote for the car. “Are you personal friends with all the restaurateurs in town?”

“Not the owners of that vegetarian place yesterday.” He came around and opened the driver’s-side door for her. “So what do you say? Neptune’s at six o’clock so we can get a good table for the sunset?”

She leaned against the car. Did he think he had to babysit her? Should she let him? She chewed her lip, fighting back her old insecurities.

“If I hear from Jake before then, I’ll let you know.”

Is that what he thought she was worried about? It was probably what she should be worried about instead of trying to second-guess Colin’s motives.

“Okay. I finished grading all the quizzes yesterday, so I’m free.”

“Great.” He slammed the car door.

Michelle watched him going around to the passenger side of the car in the rearview mirror. She wanted to be with Colin. Wanted to spend every minute he had left in town with him.

And her desire had nothing to do with fear…and everything to do with making good on her hot teenage crush.

* * *

COLIN STEERED AROUND the crime scene in front of Michelle’s house. The cops hadn’t been out here all day, so they must be done with it. Soon they’d remove the barriers and the yellow tape, and the only reminder of Amanda’s murder would be a stain on the road.

And the hole it had carved in Michelle’s belly.

He checked his cell phone for about the tenth time in the past hour. He’d left two messages for Jake, but he hadn’t gotten back to him yet. Maybe there had been nothing to download from the camera. The guy could’ve been trying to hook it up when Michelle interrupted him.

He swung through the little gate that offered no protection to Michelle’s house and knocked on her door. She opened the door a sliver and then swung it open.

He swallowed. A flowery dress skimmed Michelle’s long, lean lines. She had on low heels, but it didn’t matter. Even if she’d worn sky-high stilettos, she still couldn’t match his height. Her light brown hair, the color of caramel or peanut brittle, something definitely sweet, brushed her shoulders, catching the light from the porch bulb above.

“You look pretty.”

She got prettier when a hint of rose brushed her cheeks. “Thanks. It’s just about the dressiest place in Coral Cove, so I figured I’d better at least wash the dirt from my hands and knees.”

“Looks like you did a lot more than that.” He gestured to his car parked behind hers in the driveway. “Are you ready?”

“Let me grab my purse and sweater,” she called back over her shoulder. “Have you heard anything from Jake yet?”

“Not a word. I left him a message and told him to text me if he had anything.”

They drove down the coast to the more touristy area of Coral Cove. Jagged rocks and rugged coastline punctuated the ocean on their end of town, which smoothed into wide, sandy beaches on the south end. Hotels and rental cottages dotted the road winding past the beaches, and several chain restaurants had sprung up in his absence.

Neptune’s Catch had a prime spot situated on a hill overlooking the beach with a gentle path down to the sand. They took advantage of their position with an outdoor patio with several heat lamps to warm the chilly nights.

Michelle opted for a table on the half-empty patio. In a few weeks, this place would be packed. As they followed the hostess to their table, they almost collided with another couple coming from the bar.

“Excuse us.” Colin placed his hand on Michelle’s back to steer her around the other people. He felt her muscles tighten beneath his touch.

“Hello, Michelle.” The slightly stooped man stretched his lips into a smile as if afraid a bigger one might split his face.

“Hello, Bob.” She nodded to the woman beside him. “Marybeth.”

Marybeth looked about ready to blow a gasket. She sniffed, her patrician nose flaring at the nostrils. Then, without a word to Michelle, she grabbed her milquetoast husband’s arm and yanked him in her wake. To his credit, he managed a weak wave without his wife’s noticing.

Their hostess turned, her vapid smile not registering anything other than a desire to return to the hostess stand. “Here’s your table. Your waiter will be with you shortly. Enjoy your dinner.”

Colin pulled out Michelle’s chair, and she sat down stiffly. He dropped in the chair across from her and tilted his chin toward the bar. “What was that all about? Who were those lovely people?”

“That was Bob and Marybeth Hastings.”

He raised his eyebrows. The names meant nothing to him, but obviously they meant a lot to Michelle, since she’d pronounced the names like an oracle of doom. “And they are…the local tax collectors? The overseers of all math teachers?”

She grimaced, not quite getting into the spirit of his humor. “They are the parents of Eric Hastings.”

The lightbulb went on. “Ah, the young man who fell under your mother’s spell.”

“Yep.”

A busboy dropped off a couple of glasses of water, and Michelle downed half of hers in one gulp.

“Well, Mr. Hastings doesn’t seem to despise you, anyway.”

She tracked squiggles on the sweating glass of ice water. “He’s gotten over it, but she never will.”

“She can’t seriously blame you for your mom’s actions?”

“I don’t think she blames me. I’m just a reminder.”

“Do you mind if I ask you whatever became of that… relationship?”

“I think they actually stayed together for a few years, probably felt they had to after devastating so many lives. Then they went their separate ways.”

“You’re not in touch with your mom?”

“No.”

Her no shut the door on further questioning, and he didn’t blame her. When people probed him about Kieran, he felt like punching them in the face. Except Michelle. Somehow he hadn’t minded telling her about what had happened.

Their waiter introduced himself like he was their best friend and reeled off the evening’s specials. Since Michelle didn’t drink, Colin ordered an iced tea and they ordered the famous calamari as an appetizer.

“Did you ever get a chance to ask the computer guy about your emails?”

“Alec? I’ll ask him tomorrow at school. Do you think the same guy who’s sending the emails is the one who tried to set up the camera?”

“I don’t know. It would be interesting to find out if the other murdered women were getting strange emails.”

“Can you find out?” She tugged her sweater around her body.

“I intend to.” He’d also intended this to be a relaxing dinner, not one loaded like a minefield with her mother’s indiscretions and the threats against Michelle. Because he did see the emails and camera as threats.

He steered the conversation toward her teaching and discovered she’d spent a year in France. The rest of the meal passed quickly and Michelle’s face lost its tightness, her body lost its rigidity.

He’d planned this dinner to soothe her and found that her company acted like a balm on him, as well. Her laugh gurgled and flowed over him, wearing down some of the rough edges he’d worn as a barrier since his escape from the Taliban.

A slow pulse beat in the base of his throat when he touched her hand. And he wasn’t thinking about relaxing anymore.

The waiter placed a plate heaped with some kind of pie smothered in vanilla ice cream in the center of the table. “Compliments of the owner, Mr. Barbosa.”

“I guess it pays to have friends in high places.” Michelle dug her fork in the pie.

As Colin reached for his fork, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He rested the fork against the plate and pulled out the phone, showing it to Michelle. “It’s Jake,” he said, and answered.

“Jake, whaddya got?”

“Sorry I’m so late, man. I was working on a case, but it was no problem downloading this chip when I got back to the office.”

“And?”

“Is the woman in question your girlfriend?”

Colin’s gaze shifted to Michelle’s huge brown eyes. “No.”

“Friend?”

“Yeah. Get to it, Jake.”

“Well, if she’s your friend, you’d better keep an eye on her.”

“Why is that?” Colin licked his lips, his eyes never leaving Michelle’s.

“Because your lady friend has one serious stalker.”