Divorced, Desperate and Delicious

Zeke ran his palm over the gun in his shoulder strap and knocked again. Pressing closer, he heard a dog yapping. He hated dogs. Then he heard music. He leaned close to the door. Christmas music? Frowning, he punched the doorbell two or three more times. He was freaking tired of this game.

  In spite of dragging the lake, Kelly’s body still hadn’t been found. Exhaustion pulled at Zeke’s nerves, making him jittery. If he wasn’t careful, he would make a mistake, do something stupid, draw attention to himself.

  He needed to calm down, to get his head together. To find Kelly. To kill him and be done with it.

  • • •

  Lacy snatched up her shirt and slipped it over her head. “I’ll get rid of him.” The soft cotton brushed against her nose and chin as she wiggled into it.

  Chase grabbed her by the elbow, held tight. “No! Just stay here. He’ll leave.”

  “He’ll just come back later.” She pulled free.

  “Yeah, but I’ll be gone by then,” he said, raking a hand through his hair.

  The thought of him leaving smacked Lacy in the face. But why? Wasn’t she going to give him his running papers? Oh, mercy, maybe sex without sex was no different than sex with a bat. Was it starting already? One orgasm and she’d caved? Was she falling hard and heavy for this guy?

  The doorbell chimed again. Fabio’s bark grew intense. “I’ll answer the door and say I haven’t seen anything,” she said.

  “Lacy, you’re the world’s worst liar.” Chase raked a hand over his face. “Zeke will know that—”

  “I am not!” she snapped. And I’m not falling for him! I’m just concerned. “I can lie as well as the next girl.”

  “You can’t. You really suck at it.” He rolled his eyes as if exasperated.

  “Am I really so bad?” She took a deep breath.

  He nodded. The doorbell rang again, only this time it came with a loud rapping on the door. “Police,” called a voice.

  “Fine. I’ll treat him like my mom.” She took off out of the room, ignoring Chase’s objections, ignoring the reasons she wasn’t willing to let him do the talking. She stopped by her studio and collected her camera and hung it around her neck. Props, she thought, in case the man asked why she’d taken so long answering the door. But if she managed to pull this off right, the man wouldn’t get the opportunity to ask a question.

  The doorbell continued to ring. As she moved down the hall, she picked up Fabio, who still wore his reindeer horns. “Just a minute,” she called out as she pulled open the door.

  The man, wearing jeans and a black polo shirt, scowled at her. Then he caught sight of Fabio’s horns and appeared taken aback. Fabio immediately went into his serious growl. Lacy’s heart went into a spasm. It was the man’s gray eyes: cold, empty. Pure evil, she thought. He made Hannibal Lechter look like someone you’d invite over for dinner.

  “May I help you?” she finally managed to say, praying the man couldn’t see the fear in her eyes.

  He held out a badge. “Name’s Zeke Duncan, with the HPD. We’re looking—”

  “Oh, my.” She’d almost forgot her rules: ask questions before they do, answer the question before they can, and never shut up. “I’m not in danger, am I?” she blurted out.

  “Danger?” The man blinked. “No, not unless you—”

  “I’ll bet you’re here about that crooked cop who they think is dead?”

  He nodded. “Yes—”

  “You don’t think he’s around here, do you?” Fabio continued to growl. Lacy’s heart continued to tremble. Whatever she did, she couldn’t let Zeke take control of the conversation. She’d learned as a child that her mother could see right through her untruths. Back then, she’d just assumed it was her mother’s maternal intuition and not that she sucked at lying.

  “No. We’re just checking. Have you—”

  “Should I evacuate? I’d hate to have to leave, but if I’m in danger, I would.”

  “I’m sure you’re safe. But have you—”

  “Have you seen anything that would make you believe I’m in danger? I mean, the area is usually so safe. My grandmother lived here for years. Ten years, to be exact. She gave me the house. I’ve been here for almost two years and I haven’t once been afraid. Well, except for that time that I heard noises in my attic. Turned out to be just a raccoon. Can you imagine, I’m all panicked and all it turned out to be was a raccoon? Have you ever dealt with raccoons?” She paused, told herself to breathe but couldn’t manage it.

  The man shook his head, obviously annoyed at her constant chatter. “I was just checking to see if—”

  “Do you think I should get some friends to come and stay with me?” she asked. ‘‘Not for the raccoons, but for any other danger. I have friends who could come—”

  He held up his hand as if to silence her. “I—”

  “I’m so happy you stopped by. I feel so much safer knowing the police are in the area. I think I’ll go call someone and see if they won’t mind coming to stay here with me for a few days.” She grabbed the door as if to close it. Not enough to make him suspicious, but enough to give him the idea of leaving. Her throat knotted.

  “Why don’t you take my card in case you do see something?” He frowned at her. Fabio snapped at the man’s hand.

  Lacy took the card. “Thank you.”

  He backed up, scowling again at Fabio. “Are you sure you haven’t seen anything?”

  Lacy swallowed, faced with the question, faced with having to lie. She considered what he might do if he discovered Chase hidden in her bedroom. If he’d tried to kill Chase once, he’d probably try again. He probably wouldn’t stop with just Chase.

  She blinked, and decided that lying was too risky. She’d throw him a curveball. Heck, she’d just hit a home run without ever batting, so surely she could toss this no-good slime bucket a curveball. “You mean raccoons? I haven’t seen raccoons in over a year. But there were some squirrels hanging around.”

  He stared at her as if considering finding her a straightjacket. Then he turned and left.

  Lacy shut the door, set Fabio down and then slid down the wall until her butt hit the cold tile floor. Dropping her forehead onto her knees, she let out the breath she’d been holding since opening the door.

  • • •

  Zeke started back to his car. Damn woman was nuts. A freak. He opened his car door, got in, and shoved the keys into the ignition. Then he hesitated. “Was she really crazy, or was she hiding something?”

  He jangled the keys, trying to think. She hadn’t let him inside. Every one of the other locals had invited him inside. Why hadn’t she? He gazed back at the house, and suspicion started knifing at his empty stomach.

  • • •

  Knees still drawn to her chest, she inhaled and tried to work the knot out of her stomach. Fabio, sniffing around her feet, suddenly growled at the door again. The knock came less than a second later. Lacy jumped up, her heart pumping in her throat. She opened the door and faced Zeke Duncan. Again.

  “Yes?” To her own ears, her voice sounded terrified. Oh, Heaven help her.

  He held up his cell phone and studied her intently. The gray of his eyes had grown colder and suspicion lurked in his gaze. “I’m out of minutes. Do you mind if I come in and use the phone?”

  “Minutes? Out of minutes.” Lacy stared at Zeke and tried to sound normal, but her voice cracked and she just couldn’t do it. Fabio growled from around her feet, and Lacy heard his teeth snapping.

  She grabbed the dog before those teeth could snap a plug out of the man’s ankle. As she stood again, the coldness in Zeke’s eyes turned her blood to the consistency of a cherry slush. She could not let him inside her house. But if she didn’t, he would suspect her of hiding something, and then God only knew what he might do. He’d already shot Chase once. The taste of fear formed on the tip of her tongue as she eyed the loose fit of his shirt. Was that where he hid his gun?

  Blinking repeatedly, she could think of only one really good lie to keep hi
m at her threshold, but then she realized if she truly had a deadly and rare African disease, she’d probably have a quarantine sticker on her door. That left no options. Oh, heck, she hating being without options.

  “Sure. Come on in.” She prayed Chase could hear her. Prayed he wouldn’t do something stupid like storm out with his gun blazing. And she prayed harder that Zeke didn’t intend to search her house.

  Zeke’s gray gaze followed her as she took a back¬ward step. He pushed the door closed. “So, do you live—”

  “Don’t you just hate cell phones?” Swinging around on her heels, she took another step deeper into her entryway. “I mean, they run out of minutes at the most inopportune time. One time . . .” She kept talking, knowing that as her mouth moved he couldn’t ask questions. Fabio continued to growl. She continued to chatter and realized she was beginning to sound like Sue. Oh Lordie, this was bad.

  “And then there was that time I ran out of gas and minutes at the same time.” Her gaze shifted to the hall where her singing fish again hung. When all this was over, she was going to get herself a better weapon.

  Two steps away from moving into the living room, she paused. Would he see the blanket and pillow on the sofa and know someone had stayed here? What about the two plates on the kitchen table? Oh darn, she’d have been better off going with the African disease story.

  “Of course, I wasn’t as scared as I was with the raccoon. I mean . . . have you ever seen a rabid raccoon?” She crossed the threshold into the living room and relief unknotted her stomach when she saw that Chase had removed the bedding from the sofa. Her gaze darted beyond the living room and lit upon the clean kitchen table. Chase Kelly got points for being neat, though not quite as many points as he’d won in the bedroom. How many points did a home run count for anyway? The thought buzzed around her head like a bee on Ritalin. Lordie, how could she be thinking of home runs when she had a cold-blooded, gray-eyed killer a foot behind her?

  “I swear he was foaming at the mouth a little. His eyes were all . . .” With Fabio tucked up under one arm, she grabbed the phone from the counter with her free hand and handed it to Zeke. “And his claws, did you know that raccoons have sharp claws? I didn’t, but then . . .”

  He took the phone, glaring at the growling dog, then his calculating snake eyes scanned the room. He opened his mouth to speak.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked before he managed to get words out of those thin, unappealing lips. “I have soda or tea. Actually, I don’t have tea made, but it only takes a few minutes to make. Have you ever noticed how many types of tea there are? There’s raspberry tea, honey tea, herb tea, and then there’s—”

  “No, I don’t want any tea.” He held up a finger to silence her.

  But it was going to take more than a finger. “How about coffee? Do you drink coffee? I have decaf and flavored. I—”

  “No coffee!” he snapped and shook his head. “You know what? I think I can wait to call later.” He dropped the phone on the counter.

  “You sure you don’t want tea?” She followed him back through the living room.

  To the door. All the way to the door, she chanted in her mind. But he didn’t make it that far.

  He stopped before he got to the entryway and stared down her hall.

  Stared down the hall that led to her bedroom.

  That led to Chase Kelly.

  Chapter Sixteen