“All the info on paper can’t tell the deeper facts about a person. I especially wanted to hear how you felt about your dad.”
“What did you find out?”
“That maybe you love the guy as much as I do my dad.”
“Yeah, I do,” Scully said softly.
“Think there’s any chance of him getting together with Abby’s mom?”
Scully smiled. “That would be great, wouldn’t it? Then Abby and I would be together and . . .” He shrugged. “Don’t tell her about that idea, would you?”
“Only if you don’t tell Chelsea my secrets.”
They looked at each other and grinned in agreement.
11
When Chelsea got back to the house it was nearly four and all she could think about was how to distract Eli. Above all, she couldn’t give him time to look in her eyes and see that she was hiding something from him.
In these last days she’d come to remember the good and bad of being with someone who knew her so well. With her past boyfriends, all she’d had to do was look good and that was enough. If she was upset about something, they never even noticed.
But Eli wasn’t like that. He knew that under her woman’s body was the girl he’d known since they were kids.
After she’d dropped Abby off at her house—and Chelsea had taken care not to be seen—her mother called her. Since Chelsea was going to be late to her meeting with Pilar, she didn’t want to pick up, but she knew her mother wouldn’t send the dress if she didn’t explain.
“Hi, Mom,” Chelsea said in her most cheerful, nothing-is-wrong voice. “I’m sure you want to know about the dress. Well, you see, this kid I met through friends doesn’t have anything to wear to her school prom, so I thought—”
“Screw the dress,” her mom said. “I want to know about you and Eli.”
Chelsea rolled her eyes. Trust her mother to go for the throat. “We’re fine. Great. Couldn’t be better. We’re getting married next month because I’m three months pregnant with Eli’s child. It’s going fast because he did it all through some genetic hocus-pocus he’s experimenting on for the government. I’d explain it but it’s Top Secret. He—”
“Chelsea!” her mother said sternly.
“Sorry,” she said. “Eli is fine and so am I. I have to go.”
“Why? What’s so urgent?”
Chelsea grit her teeth as she looked at the dashboard clock. She didn’t have time to concoct some polite lie. “We think there may have been a murder connected to something Eli and I are looking into it.” Instantly, she knew she shouldn’t have said that! Her mother would probably call the police and—
“That’s wonderful,” her mom said. “Really great. Fabulous.”
“Mom,” Chelsea said in disbelief, “Eli and I are sticking our noses into what could be a murder!”
“I heard you, dearest. It’s just like when you and Eli were children. You’re helping some deserving girl go to a party, and there’s someone else who I’m sure is a victim of a great injustice. Oh, yes! It all sounds very good. It’s so much better than hearing you talk about what Clive and Nigel said to make you cry. I have to tell your father about this. I think we’ll break open a bottle of champagne. Give my love to Eli, and I do mean that. Love. Bye, my darling child.” She hung up.
As Chelsea tossed her phone onto the passenger seat, she shook her head in bewilderment. Were her parents normal? Shouldn’t her mother have been worried at the mention of murder? And what was all that about her past miseries? Didn’t they care about what those men had put their daughter through? Infidelities. Emotional cruelties. Such profound insensitivities to her needs that they were like knife wounds. Didn’t her parents—
Chelsea looked at the clock. She didn’t have time to ponder her past problems. Pilar had asked to talk to her and to keep it secret from Eli, and that’s what Chelsea was doing.
As Chelsea drove back to the house, she was thinking about her meeting with Pilar and all they’d talked about. Chelsea had been given a great deal to think about. Maybe there could be a future that didn’t involve how she looked. They’d met at a little restaurant, sitting across from each other and keeping their voices down so they wouldn’t be overheard.
“I was wondering about something,” Pilar said. “We all knew that Eli’s heart was already taken—and broken. Are you going to put it back together?”
“I might,” Chelsea said, smiling. “So tell me your ideas for our future.”
“When Eli finds out what you and I are thinking about doing . . .” Pilar shook her head.
“Let me handle him,” Chelsea said. “Now tell me how you think I can change my life.”
When Chelsea entered the house and heard the shower running, she straightened her body and her face. The last thing she wanted was for Eli to ask her questions about what she’d been doing for the last few hours. But then, she knew exactly how to distract him.
As she went through the bedroom she flung her clothes off so that by the time she reached the bath she was nude. She opened the steamy shower door and stepped inside.
Eli picked her up, her long legs going around his waist, and instantly entered her. “I thought about you all afternoon. I wanted to finish what we started.”
“Me too,” she said, his lips on her neck.
The hot water beat down on them as Eli’s long, slow strokes began. Chelsea leaned back against the wall, her body slanted to give him better access. His lips touched her body, his hands running over her.
Their lovemaking was intensified by a yearning from having been started and then interrupted.
Afterward, they held on to each other, the water still coming down, the shower even more steamy.
“I missed you,” Eli whispered, his bare chest against hers.
She was too busy kissing him to answer.
He set her down, then soaped his hands and began washing her. “What did you find out?” he asked.
“About what?” There was a tiny bit of a high pitch to her voice and she knew she needed to cover it. “I told my mom you and I were involved in something dangerous, and she was happy about it. It really annoyed me.” She was glad she was facing the shower wall so Eli couldn’t see her face.
“She knows I’ll protect you.”
“From guns?”
He turned her around to lather the front of her. “What makes you think guns will be involved?”
“I don’t. It’s just a possibility. Did you meet Scully’s dad?”
“Yeah, and I found out that the two kids met through their parents. Scully’s father, Nolan, went to Frazier Motors to put in a new computer system. It’s not what I would have installed but—”
“They met then?” Chelsea took the soap from him and began to lather his body.
“They did. Scully said his dad hadn’t been interested in any woman since his wife died, but that he liked Abby’s mom very much.”
“Let me guess,” Chelsea said as she ran her hands over Eli’s bare, muscular chest. Then did it again. And again. “Grace broke it off. She said she had too much in her past to go forward.”
“That’s exactly right.” He put one of Chelsea’s legs on his hip and stroked it with soapy hands. “I remember how annoyed I was when you outgrew your bike. I thought the length of your legs was totally unnecessary.”
“What do you think now?”
“I need every inch of them.”
“I need lots of inches too,” she said, her mouth by his ear, her hand between his legs.
Smiling, Eli turned her back around. “Do you know that—”
“Grace blames herself for her husband’s death? Beats herself up for not knowing he was so miserable that he wanted out of life?”
“That’s what Nolan said.” Eli was looking at her in awe.
“How’d you get him to talk to you
so intimately?”
“My persuasive personality,” Eli said. When Chelsea looked over her shoulder at him, her face skeptical, he laughed. “I asked him.”
“Just flat out asked him?”
He ignored her meaning, turned her back around, then with as much full body touching as he could manage, he stepped out and grabbed a towel. “I asked if he’d be interested if I got him and Grace back together, and his story came out.”
“Since when are you a matchmaker?’
“I am whenever you are in my life. I’ve come to realize that people shouldn’t live their lives alone. Both Pilar and Jeff are going in different directions, and you’re going back to some dull-brained jock, and—”
Chelsea pulled the shower door closed and put her head under the water. She’d heard it—or a version of it—too many times before. The truth was that right now she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but her meeting with Pilar was making her see possibilities for the future.
In the bedroom, Eli was smiling. He’d already told Jeff and Melissa that he couldn’t make dinner but would they please take Chelsea out. Eli wanted to make sure she was occupied for the evening while he was, well, busy. He’d traded favors with an FBI friend to get Peterson, Abby, and Grace out of the house for the evening so Eli could look around.
Now all he had to do was come up with an excuse to go out for the evening. He thought it would be better if he told Chelsea he was doing something Top Secret for the government. Maybe he’d name-drop. She’d seemed impressed by the president, so maybe he’d use him. If he was going to lie, he might as well make it a big one.
Chelsea was silently walking around inside Grace’s house. It was nearly dark outside but she didn’t dare turn on the lights for fear someone would see her. Earlier, when she’d told Pilar what she planned to do as soon as she got Eli out of the house, Pilar had lent her a tiny flashlight that had a pinpoint beam.
“People are less likely to see it than a regular flashlight.”
Chelsea was glad to find out that Pilar knew so many tricks.
“I listen,” Pilar said with a shrug. “It wasn’t as though anyone ever gave me any real responsibility.”
“Not even Eli?”
“Especially not him,” Pilar said.
That had been hours ago, and now Chelsea was looking around Abby’s bedroom and trying to imagine what Orin Peterson was looking for. A photo? A document? But wouldn’t Abby know that she had either of those?
Unless someone else had hidden it, Chelsea thought. Maybe it was Abby’s dad who’d secreted whatever it was away.
Furniture! she thought. Since both Orin and Abby’s father sold furniture, maybe they knew of some secret compartment.
She turned the light toward Abby’s bed. It was plain wood, painted white, and looked old enough that her father would have seen it. There were round knobs on the four corners, but when she twisted them, they didn’t move. She felt down the square posts, feeling for anything that could conceal a hidden compartment. There was nothing.
Next she’d have to get down and look up under the bed. She had just bent down when a hand went over her mouth.
For a few seconds she struggled and tried to bite the hand.
“It’s me,” Eli said, and removed his hand.
“So all that about going to dinner with Melissa and Jeff was a lie? No government work?”
“I don’t have time to argue with you now. Peterson just parked his car down the road.” He put his hand tightly on her arm and began pulling her toward the back door.
“Damn!” Chelsea said. “He must have sneaked out of the restaurant.” In spite of Eli’s pulling, she didn’t move.
When Eli looked at her in the dim light, he gave a sigh of exasperation. He knew her look of stubbornness so well. She wasn’t leaving. “Oh, hell!” he muttered, then flung the closet door open and practically shoved her inside. He got in beside her and pulled the door closed. “Did you set this up?” he growled through clenched teeth.
“Of course,” she said, unconcerned about his anger. “While you were playing video games with Scully, I arranged with Abby for her to take her mother and ol’ Orin out to dinner on money Abby said she’d saved from her allowance. But then, I thought that tonight you were busy doing something for the president. Something that was so secret that you couldn’t tell me about it.” Her expression told him what she thought of that lie.
As she looked back toward the room, she was glad the closet doors had fixed louvers. They’d be able to see what Peterson did when he got here. She wasn’t worried about his finding her and Eli because she had Abby’s permission to be here. “How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t at first. But when Jeff texted me that my FBI friend found an empty house, and that you said you couldn’t go to dinner, then Peterson, Abby, and Grace showed up at an expensive restuarant, it didn’t take much to see what you were up to.” They were in the back of the closet, close together in the narrow space. “What do you have on?”
“A black silk shirt,” she said. “Silk against skin is one of the great wonders of the earth.”
“Bet I could get it off,” he said. “And my hands might feel even better than silk.”
They started to kiss but the soft sound of a door opening took them back to why they were here.
When Orin turned on a bedside lamp, they could see him clearly. Just as Chelsea had done, he ran his hands along the bedposts.
The light inside the closet was dim but they could see each other well enough for Chelsea to shake her head no. She’d already looked there.
Orin left the bed and went to the far wall to Abby’s desk. It too was old. He pulled out a drawer, didn’t so much as glance at the contents, but held it up to look at the bottom, the sides, and the back. He examined the front of the drawer, seeming to search for a hidden compartment.
Chelsea made a face at Eli to say that the man was certainly thorough.
Just as Orin slid the drawer back into its slot, the doorbell rang. Instantly, Orin reached under his jacket and pulled out a gun.
Chelsea had to bite her lips to suppress a gasp. It was one thing to be hiding from a man who was trespassing, but another to be caught by a man wielding a gun.
With a look of I-told-you-so, Eli pulled Abby’s heavy winter coat over his head—and Chelsea went under with him.
Eli had his phone in his hand, the wool coat covering the light, and he tapped out a message to Jeff. DIVERSION NEEDED. ABBY’S HOUSE. NH4.
As soon as he sent the message, he lifted the coat from them and looked back at the room. Orin was looking out the window at whoever had rung the doorbell. It rang again, but he made no move to answer it.
After a few minutes they could hear voices and footsteps outside. Whoever had been there was leaving. Orin stepped away from the window, put the gun back in his pants, and started on the second drawer.
In the pretty little restaurant, Jeff and Melissa were having dinner. Since their first meeting they’d rarely been apart. Jeff was staying in the dreary apartment above the sheriff’s office, and Melissa had come up with every excuse possible to be there with him.
For the last couple of years Jeff had felt restless, as though he wanted more in life. For a while it had been a dream come true to get to follow Eli around the world, even to get calls in the middle of the night. It had even been exciting to visit Eli in a hospital.
But somewhere in there the extreme excitement had become boring. When he visited his kid sister, he found that he envied her her two kids. He wished he could know where he was going to be next month. Hell, he’d like to be sure where he’d be spending the night. At any minute, Eli might call, and Jeff would have to leave.
Right now, for all that Jeff seemed to be on the outs with Eli, he knew their friendship was strong enough to withstand whatever Jeff decided his future would be. But no
w was not the time for that discussion, for Eli was totally absorbed with Chelsea. After years of seeing his boss ignore women, it was startling to see him so fascinated with one.
Melissa had seen it too. “What will Eli do if Chelsea leaves him?” she asked as the waiter poured the wine.
“Bury himself in work,” Jeff said. “And I do mean that literally. My worry is that when he goes into the field again, he won’t be . . . careful. He takes too many risks as it is.”
“I don’t mean to be negative,” Melissa said, “but I can’t imagine someone like Chelsea settling down and making cupcakes for the school fund-raiser.”
“What about you?” Jeff asked. “You like cupcakes?”
“I’m rather good at baking,” she said, smiling.
“I’m beginning to think that you’re good at everything.”
“I’m—” She broke off because Jeff’s phone buzzed. She knew he had two cell phones, one that he often turned off, but the one with the black cover was always on, always with him. Right now it was on the table beside him.
Jeff didn’t hesitate in picking up the phone and looking at the message. “I have to go,” he said as he stood up, dropped a fifty-dollar bill on the table, and hurried out of the restaurant.
Melissa caught up with him when he reached the valet stand.
Jeff turned to her. “Where does Grace Ridgeway live?”
“I’ll drive you there.”
“No!” he said. “It’s Eli and it’s NH4.”
Melissa glared at him.
“It’s our own code. It means Need Help, Level Four. That’s the top. There might be firearms involved.”
“Oh?” She opened her handbag to pull out a .45. “Like this one?”
Jeff looked at the weapon, then at her. “I think maybe this tells too much about me, but I’m so hot for you right now that if I didn’t have to go save Eli, I’d pull you into the bushes.”
The valet arrived with Melissa’s car. “I have lots of shrubs around my house, and when we finish this, I’ll show them to you. Get in. I’m driving.”