Passion to Die For

His hands clenched inside his pockets. “You okay?”

“Of course.”

Of course. During all the rough patches they’d gone through, she’d never cried, pouted or moped. She’d never pleaded with him or shown a moment’s weakness. She’d always been stronger, less affected, than he. He admired her strength, but would it have killed her to need him even half as much as he’d needed her?

“What are you doing out here?”

“Enjoying the lovely evening. What are you doing?”

“I was at Sophy’s.”

If that news bothered her, she didn’t let it show. Was she the least bit jealous? He wished. Did she miss him? Maybe. Would she ever marry him? Doubtful. If she hadn’t loved him enough after five years, why should a sixth or eighth or tenth year make a difference?

“How is Sophy?” she asked.

“You could have come to the table and seen for yourself this evening.” He’d waited through the appetizers and the salads for her to do just that. By the time the main course had arrived, he’d accepted that she wasn’t going to.

“I was busy.”

“You’re always busy. Running things. Talking to customers.” Was it a good thing that she’d avoided his table? Had she not wanted to acknowledge him with Sophy?

He took another step up. “I saw you talking to that woman on the porch.” Stupid comment. Of course he’d seen them and she knew it; he’d passed within a few feet of them. “I didn’t recognize her.”

The thin light from the streetlamps showed her shrug, stiff and awkward. “She doesn’t live here.”

“An old friend?”

“No.”

“A relative?”

She was stiffer, more awkward. “Just someone who wanted something.”

He thought back to the woman. If asked, he would have said he hadn’t really paid much attention to her; he’d been too busy not paying attention to Ellie. But he’d seen enough. The woman had looked to be in her sixties, average height and weight. Gray hair, sallow complexion, a heavy smoker and on edge. Even when standing still, she hadn’t been still. Shifting her weight, her gaze darting about, her attention honed.

What had she wanted from Ellie? A handout? A favor? And why Ellie?

Because they shared a connection somewhere in their past? In the five years Ellie had lived in Copper Lake, she’d had little to say about her twenty-five years elsewhere. She was an only child, her parents were dead, and her only relatives were distant, figuratively and literally. He knew she’d had some unhappy times, but she’d never been open to discussing them.

A woman should be willing to discuss her hurts and disappointments with the man she’d been seeing for the better part of five years.

The wind gusted, scattering sodden dead leaves across the square, and it sent a chill through him. His jeans and leather jacket weren’t enough to stand up to the cold, but Ellie didn’t seem to notice the temperature. Granted, she wore a long wool coat, but there was an air of detachment about her. Anamaria would probably say her aura was the translucent shade of blue ice.

“Why don’t you go home?” he suggested, wanting very much to do the same.

“Are you going to continue harassing me if I don’t, Detective?”

“Come on, Ellie.” He wasn’t comfortable leaving her, or any other woman, alone in the gazebo with midnight approaching. Copper Lake’s crime rate was nothing compared to the big cities, but bad things still happened to innocent people.

She opened her mouth as if to argue, then closed it again and stood, arms still folded across her middle. There was another papery crackle. From something hidden beneath her coat?

She passed without touching him, and when he fell into step beside her, she scowled. “I can make it to my car alone.”

“It’s on my way.”

Those were the last words either of them said until they reached the small parking lot that opened off the alley behind the deli. Her lime-green VW Beetle was the only car in the lot, parked under the lone streetlight, its lights flashing when she clicked the remote. She would have gotten in and driven away without a word, but he laid his hand on her arm, stopping her.

“Ellie, if you need to talk—”

Even through the bulk of the coat, he felt her muscles clench. She looked at him, then at his hand, and he withdrew it. The night chill had nothing on her gaze. “Thank you for the escort.”

Her polite words were as bogus as his response. “You’re welcome.” Pushing his hand into his pocket, Tommy stepped back and watched as she slid behind the wheel, started the engine, then drove away. He stood motionless long after her taillights disappeared down the alley, until another blast of wind hit him, this time dampened with more rain moving in.

Damn, she was cold. Damn, she was distant.

And damned if he didn’t still love her.

Ellie’s house was located at the end of Cypress Creek Road, just before it made a sharp right turn and became Magnolia Drive. It wasn’t a trendy part of town; her neighbors were mostly as old as her house, on the downhill side of sixty. The house was small, but the floors were hardwood, it had an attached garage and the price had been reasonable. Besides, most of her waking hours were spent at the restaurant. The house was used mostly for sleeping and doing laundry.

And, off and on until last spring, for having great sex with Tommy.

She would have been touched by his stopping at the gazebo and walking her to her car if she didn’t know him so well. He would have stopped for anyone, ex-lover, acquaintance or total stranger. He was a protector from the inside out. Ensuring other people’s safety wasn’t just his job; it was who he was.

She’d desperately needed someone like that fifteen years ago. She hadn’t had him then, and she couldn’t have him now. Didn’t deserve him now.

She let herself into the house from the garage, leaving her coat in the utility room and walking through the dimly lit kitchen into the living room. None of the furniture was anything special, and the dishes and linens had been chosen by an accommodating clerk at the housewares shop at the mall. Ellie could walk away from it all and never miss a thing.

Except, possibly, the four-inch heels she admired before kicking them off her feet.

Once she was settled comfortably on the couch, she reached for the large envelope Martha had given her, sure what was inside before she opened it. Police reports, complaints, convictions, photographs. It hurt to see herself at fifteen—still young and naive—and then at sixteen and seventeen. Like Martha, she had aged far more than the months could account for. By the age of eighteen, there’d been a hollowness about her, in her face and her eyes and her soul. She’d wanted to end it all—the pain, the shame. She’d had only one reason to live, and even that had been short-term.

Ellie went to the fireplace, put a sheet of paper on the grate and struck a match to it. As the edges curled with flame, she added another page, then another, report after photo after complaint. When the last piece was burning, she held the envelope over it, feeling the heat from the fire, holding it until she risked a burn. It dropped to the ashes on the grate, and the flames consumed it with a final wisp of smoke and a lingering, sooty fragrance. She stirred the ashes with the fireplace poker, breaking them into smaller pieces that fell through the grate, grinding them to powder until she was satisfied they’d been destroyed.

All those years ago, she hadn’t thought she would live to see thirty. And here she was, not only alive but reasonably well. She had a house and a business. She had the friendship and respect of the people she did business with. She was a success by anyone’s standards.

Would she still be a success if she refused Martha’s blackmail?

She wanted to believe the answer was yes, that her friends would remain her friends, that who she’d become would be more important to them than who she’d been. She wanted to believe that she was good enough, changed enough, to rise above her past.

She wanted to believe that she’d earned the life she had now, that she deserved it.

But the truth was, she didn’t know. She was a fraud, masquerading as someone no different from anyone else in Copper Lake. She’d lied to them about her background and her family. Ellie Chase was someone they could relate to. Bethany Dempsey wasn’t.

She was no stranger to disappointment and rejection. Her mother and father hadn’t been the first to turn away from her, nor had they been the last. And if her own parents hadn’t been able to accept and forgive her, how could she count on people like the Calloways to do so?

How could she ever expect Tommy—the protector, the cop, the good guy—to do so?

She could leave. Disappear. Put the restaurant and house up for sale. Only her lawyer would need to know how to contact her, and Jamie Munroe-Calloway wouldn’t share that information with anyone, especially Martha.

Let the mother who’d abandoned her bleed her dry, give up everything that mattered and run away like a coward, or stand up to Martha and risk the loss of everything—and everyone—that mattered.

It was a hell of a choice.

Chapter 2

“I hate rain.”

Tommy leaned his head against the Charger’s headrest and watched the house down the street through slitted eyes. He was partnered with Katherine Isaacs this week and wondering whether it was because he was good at what he did or if the lieutenant was punishing him for something.

Kiki might be the department’s newest detective, but she was also its biggest whiner. She bitched about everything: rain, sun, heat, cold, driving, not driving, having to arrest someone, not getting to arrest someone.

“Piss off, Kiki,” he muttered, shifting in the seat.

She scowled at him. “I hate that nickname.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whine to someone who cares.” It was warm inside the car, so he switched the engine on long enough to crack the windows an inch or two. Fresh air blew in, the raindrops it carried a small price to pay for its cooling effect. They’d been parked under the trees down the road from a drug dealer’s house for hours now, the black Dodge practically disappearing in the gloomy overcast, and so far they hadn’t seen anything more interesting than a dog taking a leak on the dealer’s steps.

“Are you always this pleasant on surveillance?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“You’re supposed to be teaching me.”

She stabbed at the button to roll up the window, but he’d turned off the car again. The rain wasn’t coming in on her side, but the humidity was. Before long, her hair would frizz out like a ’70s Afro. He knew, because she’d whined about it the first time he’d rolled down the windows.

Sprawled in the driver’s seat, head tilted back, he said, “Okay, listen up. This is me teaching. When you do surveillance, you park someplace where you’re not real noticeable, you settle in and you watch your target. If you’re real lucky, you’ll actually see something. Most of the time, you sit until your butt goes numb and you get nada. You don’t eat anything that smells offensive. You don’t get crumbs or wrappers in my car. You don’t drink more than your bladder will hold. You don’t fall asleep. And you don’t complain.” He turned his head so he could see her. “Oh, wait, I forgot who I was talking to. Kiki Isaacs, queen of complainers.”

“That’s Detective Queen of Complainers to you.” She fluffed her brown hair, starting its inevitable frizz. “I don’t complain. I make my opinions known. Keeping things inside is bad for your health.”

“Then you must be the healthiest person I’ve ever met. Be quiet now. You’re fogging up my windows.” He used a napkin to wipe the windshield, then leaned back again.

The house they were watching sat isolated from its neighbors. A fire had taken out the house to the west, and the one to the east had been leveled by a tornado. That probably suited Steve Terrell just fine. His own lot was overgrown, and junk filled the yard. The screens on the windows were torn and rusted, patches of shingles were missing from the roof and the paint was a truly ugly shade of purple.

An informant had told them that Terrell was expecting a shipment around nine that morning, but it was now one in the afternoon and there hadn’t been any movement on the street at all. Even the neighbors were either gone or staying home.

Drifting on the damp air came the scent of wood smoke and Tommy breathed deeply. He’d given up smoking more than a year ago. It had taken him six months to get from five cigarettes a day to none. He’d think it was completely out of his system, and then he’d catch a whiff of smoke—even the sour stench of burning leaves—and want a cigarette so badly he could taste it. Kiki’s slow intake of breath, a signal that she was about to speak again, doubled the desire.

“How long do we wait?”

“The guy might have had car trouble. He might have gotten a late start, or the weather might have slowed him down.”

“Or your informant might have given you bad information. He might have just liked the idea of us sitting out here in the rain waiting for something that was never going to happen in the first place.”

“Maybe.”

She repeated her question. “So how long do we wait?”

“As long as it takes.” She was probably right. This bust was a bust. But just to keep her from thinking she’d nagged him into giving up, he waited another half hour before finally starting the engine. The Dodge Charger turned with a powerful rumble, and he pulled out of the trees and drove away from Terrell’s house.

Kiki gave an exaggerated sigh of relief, then looked slyly at him. “I saw you at Ellie’s last night with Sophy.”

“Yeah.” Tommy resisted the urge to fidget. His dating Sophy wasn’t a secret. He’d been seeing her for a month, though he’d never taken her to the deli. Though he’d been a regular since the doors opened, taking his current girlfriend to his ex-girlfriend’s restaurant seemed a really lousy idea. Last night the choice hadn’t been his. Anamaria had been craving prime rib, and Ellie’s was the best in town.

He missed the food there. Almost as much as he missed Ellie.

“Sophy and I are friends. If you break her heart, I’ll have to shoot you.”

After turning onto Carolina Avenue, he gave Kiki a sharp look, then deliberately changed the subject. “I’m taking you back to the station. Then I’m going looking for my informant.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, thanks.”

“Come on, Maricci—”

“He’s called a confidential informant for a reason. Besides, you wouldn’t like the places he hangs out.”

“Tommy—”

He pulled to a stop in front of the Copper Lake Police Department and waited pointedly for her to get out of the car. When she didn’t move, he said, “Go inside, Kiki. Do your nails or fix your hair or something. I’ll swing back after I’m done.”

With a scowl, she climbed out, muttering something about macho jerks and pissants. Grinning, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed back downtown. He did intend to go looking for his informant, but not until he’d gotten something to eat, along with a strong cup of coffee.

He circled halfway around the square before finding a parking space near A Cuppa Joe. As he got out of the Charger, a figure crossing the street caught his attention. She wore a long coat that was too big, the hood pulled up over gray hair and a lined face, and trudged through the crosswalk with a plastic shopping bag clutched in each hand.

It was the woman Ellie had been talking to on the porch last night, the out-of-towner who wanted something from her. Ellie hadn’t been happy to see her or to talk about her with him in the square…though these days she wasn’t happy talking about anything with him.

On impulse, he met the woman as she stepped onto the curb. “Can I help you with your bags?”

She drew up short and fixed a suspicious stare on him. “Do I look like I need help?”

“No, ma’am. I just thought—”

“Who are you?”

“Tommy Maricci.” He gestured to the gold shield clipped onto his belt, and her gaze dropped, then returned to his face.

“I haven’t done nothin’ wrong.”

“I didn’t say you had. I just thought you might like some help. Maybe a ride to get out of this rain.” A blast of wind kicked up behind her, bringing with it the smell of stale smoke and liquor.

Shifting the bags to one hand, she raised the other to tug her hood back enough to see him better. “You always offer innocent strangers rides?”

“More often than you’d think.”

“Huh. All right. I’ll take your ride.” She handed both bags to him, then shoved her hands into her coat pockets. “It is a bit chilly for this time of year. And I’m not going far. Just to the Jasmine.”

Her blue eyes narrowed, clearly expecting some response from him, but he was good at hiding surprise. The Jasmine was a restored three-storied brick-and-plaster post-Civil War beauty on two prime acres east of downtown. Now a bed-and-breakfast, it was by far the most expensive place to stay in Copper Lake. Not what he would have expected for this woman.

Though his job had taught him to expect the unexpected.

“My car’s over there.” He gestured toward the Charger, and they’d walked a few yards when she inhaled deeply.

“Nothing smells as good on a chilly day as a cup of strong coffee.”

Especially with a little something extra in it to help warm a body, he thought, catching another whiff of alcohol. “I was just heading for a cup. Do you have time?”

Her laughter was throaty and grating. “I have nothin’ but time. Are you treating?”

“Sure.”

“Well, then, why don’t you put them bags up and I’ll wait inside out of the cold?” Without pausing for his agreement, she pivoted and walked into A Cuppa Joe.

Tommy unlocked the car door and set the bags in the back. As the plastic sides sagged, he saw two cartons of cigarettes, a six-pack of beer, chips and three large bags of candy. Tucked between the beer and the Enquirer was a slim brown bag, the kind used at the local liquor stores. Booze, chocolate and a gossip rag…the basic requirements of life.

After closing and locking the door, he strode down the sidewalk and into the coffee shop. The woman was standing at the counter, head tilted back, studying the menu on the wall. She’d pushed the hood off her head, leaving her hair sticking out like tufts of straw, and, like the night before, she gave off an air of watchfulness. “Does that offer go for plain coffee or the grande-mocha-latte-chino good stuff?”

“Whatever you want.”

A twenty-something girl with bottled black hair and deep purple lips waited idly for their order, tapping an orange fingernail on the counter. A person could be forgiven for thinking she was already in the Halloween spirit, but she looked like that every day of the year. After the woman ordered a caramel-hazelnut something-or-other, Tommy asked for his usual—high-octane Brazilian blend with a slice of cream-cheese-filled pumpkin bread.

“Make that two slices,” the woman said with a sly smile. “I’ll find a table.”

Midafternoon, with only a couple of other customers, that was no hardship. She chose one near the front window but away from the draft of the door. By the time Tommy set down the tray with their food, she’d removed her coat and sat, legs crossed, hands clasped on the tabletop. Her fingers were short, stubby and nicotine stained, her nails blunt and unpolished. The skin on her hands, like on her face, was weathered and worn. Not by work, he suspected. She didn’t strike him as a woman who indulged in hard work.

And she didn’t strike him as a woman who would have even the vaguest connection to Ellie. Ellie was so elegant and polished and…just different.

“I didn’t get your name,” he said as he set a tall foamy cup and a saucer with bread in front of her.

“I didn’t offer it.” She swiped a finger in the whipped cream that topped her drink, licked it clean, then shrugged. “Martha Dempsey.”

“Are you here on vacation? Visiting friends? Just passing through?”

Picking up her fork, she wagged it in his direction. “That’s the bad thing about cops. They’re always asking questions.”

“We’re just curious people.” And he wasn’t asking even a fraction of the questions running through his mind. Who are you? Why are you here? How do you know Ellie? What do you want from her?

“I seen you last night. At the restaurant down the street. With that pregnant black girl. Is she your girl?” There was an undertone of something—disapproval, bigotry—that made her voice coarse, ugly.

“I like to think she could have been if my buddy hadn’t met her first.” He’d liked Anamaria from the first time they’d met, but Robbie, she insisted, had been her destiny. God knows, she’d certainly turned him around. The shallow Calloway brother, the irresponsible one, had taken to marriage and impending fatherhood as well as or better than any of his more responsible brothers.

“She’s not your kind,” Martha said dismissively.

Before he could ask just how she meant that, she shifted her gaze outside to a temporary sign in the square, announcing the date and time of the annual Halloween celebration. “This isn’t a bad little town. I’m thinking I could live out my last days here.”

And what would Ellie think of that? “I’ve lived all my days here, except for four years in college. I like it.” He stirred sugar into his coffee, then took a careful sip before asking, “Where do you live now?”

“Atlanta. Big place. You can stay twenty years in the same house and still not know your neighbor’s name.” She gave him another of those sly looks. “I bet you know pretty much everything about everyone in town. Or, at least, you think you do.”

“I’m not sure you can ever know everything about a person.” He was probably the only one in town who didn’t have much in the way of secrets. The only major events in his life—his mother’s alcoholism, her leaving when he was five and abandoning him, his falling in love with Ellie and her not loving him back—were common knowledge. He had nothing to hide.

“What do you know about Ellie Chase?”

He stilled in the act of reaching for another bite of pumpkin bread. Laying his fork carefully on the plate, he folded his hands around his coffee cup instead. “She’s got the best restaurant in town. Everyone likes her. She’s good to work for. She’s active in the community.” He paused. “I know you know her.”

Ellie hadn’t actually said that. Martha Dempsey was just someone who wanted something, she’d said. Someone from the past she never talked about, he’d inferred.

Martha’s smile was crooked. “A long time ago,” she said. “I hadn’t seen her since she was a teenager.”

“Is she the reason you came here?”

She studied him a moment, then took a drink of coffee, slurping to get whipped cream, as well. With a drop clinging to her upper lip, she said, “What you call curiosity, Mr. Police Detective, some people consider plain old nosiness.”

“Is she?”

After another drink, she shook her head. “Her being here is just a happy coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence.” And Ellie certainly hadn’t seemed happy.

That earned a sharp laugh from her. “I don’t believe in little green men from Mars, neither, but that don’t mean they aren’t out there. Now…tell me about this Halloween festival.”

A shrill whistle startled Ellie, who’d been staring off into the distance. She shifted her gaze to the door of her office where Sherry, one of the waitresses, stood, a takeout bag in hand.

“I called your name three times. You imagining yourself on some Caribbean beach with a hot cabana boy?”

If only her mind had wandered someplace so pleasant…But no, she’d been distant in years, not so much in mileage. “You bet,” she lied, forcing a smile. “The sun was warm, the sand was endless and the rum never stopped flowing.”

“Well, come back to reality, where the sky is gray, the temperature is cold and the rain hasn’t stopped falling.” Sherry held up the bag. “Joe’s order is ready.”