Good Night, Gracie

He cocked the gun, then moved into the kitchen. Two voices, both male, emanated from the garage. Zach stopped when he heard a door open into the house and leaned back against a cupboard.

“Yeah, it sucks, but at least we get overtime,” said one of the men.

“Does overtime include the last four hours we spent at the bar watching the Red Sox?” asked the other.

“Hey, I’ll earn a lot more than that if the Sox can win that thing. I’ve got a couple hundred bucks on ’em.”

Zach holstered his gun. He recognized the voices and knew he wasn’t in any danger. They belonged to the department’s technicians, Shawn Foy and Jason Billings. Now he just had to find out what the hell they were doing here.

As the two men rounded the corner, the beam of a flashlight landed directly on Zach. They both jumped in surprise when they saw him.

“Damn,” Shawn exclaimed. “You scared the crap out of me, Maddox.”

“The lights were all off,” Jason said. “We thought the house was empty.”

“You were wrong.” Zach held one hand in front of his face to shadow it from the beam. “Turn that thing another direction before you blind me. Did you two shut off the electricity?”

“Sure did,” Shawn replied. “We’ve got orders from Brannigan to close up the house and pack up all the equipment—including the computer.”

Thomas Brannigan was Zach’s commanding officer and in charge of the Holloway case. Aveteran detective, he worked strictly by the book, which had caused more than a few skirmishes between the two of them. But he’d never done anything behind Zach’s back before.

“Do you always work in the dark?” Zach asked, looking between the two of them.

Jason scowled. “It’s not my fault. Shawn here thinks I’ll turn on the ball game and leave him to do all the work.”

“I don’t think it, I know it,” Shawn quipped. “That game was going into the fourteenth inning when I finally dragged him out of the bar. It’s not worth losing my job over.”

But Zach, once a rabid Red Sox fan, hadn’t cared much about baseball over the past three months. All he cared about right now was solving this case. “Brannigan didn’t say anything to me about moving the operation.”

“We’re not moving it,” Jason said. “We’re shutting it down.”

Zach stared at him. “Like hell.”

Shawn moved past him. “Sorry, Maddox, but we’ve got our orders. If you don’t like it, you’ll just have to talk to the boss. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can get back to the game.”

Zach followed them into the small office and watched them unplug all the cables from the computer. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Adding to his irritation was the fact that he hadn’t gotten a chance to reply to Gracie’s e-mail.

Certain there had to be a misunderstanding, Zach left the house and drove to Brannigan’s home. The trip from Holloway’s home on the south side of Boston took almost an hour. It was only when Brannigan answered his door wearing a robe and a scowl did Zach consider that he should have called first.

“Why the hell are you banging on my door at this time of night?” Thomas growled. “It sure as hell better be an emergency. My wife and kids are trying to sleep.”

“We need to talk.”

“Now?”

“It won’t take long.”

Brannigan’s scowl deepened, but he opened the door wider and waved Zach inside. “Make it quick.”

Zach crossed the threshold, almost tripping over a stuffed teddy bear in the foyer. Brannigan had four kids under the age of ten, a fact that was evident everywhere Zach looked. The toys littering the floor. The family pictures covering the wall. The cookie crumbs on the coffee table.

A sharp contrast to Zach’s place, which barely had any furniture. Just a sofa, a bed, and a thirteen-inch television set. Not that he minded the Spartan environment, since he didn’t spend much time there anyway.

“Well, get to it.” Thomas tossed a Barbie doll off the sofa cushion before taking a seat.

“I heard a rumor that you’re shutting down the Holloway case.”

“It’s no rumor,” Thomas replied. “You know as well as I do that this case has reached a dead end. We can’t afford to waste any more time on it.”

Waste time? Zach was certain he couldn’t be hearing him right. “So we just forget about it? Forget that Ray will never walk again? Forget that the scum who shot him is still out there somewhere?”

Brannigan’s face hardened. “I’ll never forget what happened to Ray. But you’ve been pushing the boundaries with this case ever since Ray got shot. I’ve given you some leeway, because he was your partner, but enough is enough. There are other cases to solve—other perps who need to be apprehended.”

Zach rifled a hand through his hair, grappling for a way to change Brannigan’s mind. His boss was a stubborn Irishman, but even he had to know this was a big mistake.

“You look like hell,” Thomas said, scowling at him. “When was the last time you shaved?”

“Why the hell does it matter? I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been obsessed,” his boss countered. “I tried to call you at home tonight to give you the news about the investigation, but I had to leave a message on your machine. You were sitting in front of that damn computer at the Holloway house again, weren’t you?”

“That’s my job,” Zach reminded him.

“Don’t give me that crap,” Thomas spit out. “You’re not on duty twenty-four hours a day. You’ve lost weight and look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Maybe if you worried as much about this investigation as you do about my appearance, we’d have found Gilbert Holloway by now.”

Thomas slowly rose to his feet. “I’ve about had it with your attitude, Maddox. Don’t push me.”

But Zach didn’t back off. “Hell, somebody’s got to do it if we’re ever going to find the bastard who shot Ray.”

Thomas stared at him, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “I think it’s time you took a vacation.”

“I don’t need a damn vacation. I just need to work this case.”

“That’s not going to happen. You’re off the case and off the force for the next thirty days. Effective immediately.”

His words were like a sucker punch to the gut. “You’re suspending me?”

“Call it a mandatory vacation,” Brannigan replied. “There’s more to life than the job, Zach. You’re going to burn out at this rate. You need to find yourself a beach somewhere in the Caribbean and start hunting for women instead of criminals.”

He recognized that obstinate glint in Brannigan’s green eyes. The man wasn’t going to change his mind. Zach had gone too far this time.

“Now go home,” Thomas ordered, ushering him to the door, “and get some sleep. I don’t want to see you for at least a month.”

Before he could say another word, Zach found himself standing outside, the door slammed in his face. He’d blown it. Standing on the front porch, he replayed their conversation over in his mind, wondering if there was something else he could have said to convince Brannigan to change his mind.

It was too late now. He was off the case. But he had no desire to play beach bum for the next four weeks. There was only one place he wanted to go—one person he wanted to see. And the reasons why he should stay away didn’t seem to matter anymore.

“Gracie Dawson, here I come.”

2

THE NIGHT OF HER HIGH SCHOOL reunion, Gracie stepped into Between the Covers wearing her borrowed black dress and matching stilettos, feeling a little like Cinderella. Only she didn’t intend to run away from her Prince Charming at midnight. Just the opposite, in fact.

She’d spent hours preparing for this night, grateful the reunion was in Kendall so she didn’t have to factor in travel time. Yet, there was something pathetic about the fact that she hadn’t left this place for the past ten years. Most of her classmates would be coming in from long distances.

“How do I look?” she asked her assistant store manager, turning in a slow circle.

“Sensational.” Trina Powers walked out from behind the counter, the prosthesis on her left leg visible beneath her denim miniskirt. A motorcycle accident eight years ago had led to an amputation just above Trina’s knee. Some days she used a wheelchair, but most of the time she wore the prosthesis, ignoring the stares of the customers and challenging anyone who tried to pity her.

Despite her disability, nothing ever stopped the thirty-two-year-old from performing her duties at the bookstore—or voicing her opinion.

“That’s a Let’s-Have-Sex outfit if I ever saw one,” Trina said with a smile.

Gracie looked down at the slinky halter dress she had on loan from Tess. The four-inch heels belonged to Cat, who never seemed to have any trouble attracting men. “That’s good because I’m definitely aiming for provocative.”

“I know what we should do,” Trina replied. “Let’s ask the expert. Hemingway’s around here somewhere.”

Paul Toscano, an aspiring writer whom Trina had nicknamed Hemingway, was a daily fixture at the bookstore. Every morning he arrived with his laptop and a sack lunch, then settled into his favorite nook to work on his book-in-progress until closing time.

“Hey, Ernest,” Trina bellowed, “come out here. We need your opinion on something.”

Paul emerged from between the bookcases, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose. His shirt and jeans fit loosely on his slight build and his auburn hair and beard were in need of a trim. His soulful brown eyes fixed on Trina and Gracie could see a blush form beneath his whiskers.

“You called?” he asked Trina.

“Gracie has a hot date tonight,” Trina began, “and we need someone with a Y chromosome to tell us if this outfit she’s wearing will trip his trigger.”

His blush deepened as he turned his gaze to Gracie. “It’s very nice.”

Gracie wasn’t going for nice. She wanted Gilbert’s eyes to pop when he saw her. She wanted him to drag her up to his hotel room at the Claremont and ravish her. On second thought, she’d do the ravishing. After reading all those romances in her aunt’s collection, she was ready to bring some of those erotic scenes to life.

“Nice?” Trina echoed, staring at Paul. “You’re a writer. A wordsmith. Is that really the best you can do? How about sexy? Stunning? Irresistible?”

“Maybe I should take you with me to the reunion,” Gracie said to her, “in case Gilbert needs some prodding.”

“He won’t,” Paul said. “You look lovely.”

Gracie wished she could be as confident. Gilbert hadn’t responded to her e-mail, which wasn’t like him. So she’d made a call to the reunion coordinator, who’d confirmed that he’d be there.

She took a deep breath, wondering what it would be like to see him again after all these years. Though there had been some gaps in his communications to her the past couple of years, he’d recently started e-mailing her more than ever.

Their exchanges seemed more personal somehow, with a sexual undercurrent that intrigued her, made her feel closer to him than ever. Maybe because they were both nearing thirty and still single. Whatever the reason, it was long past time to discover if their friendship could lead to something more.

“I looked Gilbert up in an old yearbook,” Trina said, pulling one off the shelf. Between the Covers had every yearbook from Kendall High School dating back to 1934. “He’s not exactly what I expected.”

Gracie looked over Trina’s shoulder as she paged to the senior picture section of the yearbook.

“There he is,” Trina said, her finger tapping on his photo.

A stout teenage boy with shaggy dark hair, chipmunk cheeks and Coke-bottle bottom glasses that magnified his brown eyes stared back at Gracie. He wore a frayed denim jacket and a sullen expression, neither of which made him appear very appealing.

“Gilbert was never photogenic,” Gracie said in his defense. “And he told me he lost a bunch of weight five years ago and had Lasik surgery, so the glasses are gone. Besides, I’ve gone out with plenty of guys who looked great on the outside but were jerks on the inside. At least I know Gilbert isn’t a jerk.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Trina closed the yearbook. “Besides, who am I to judge? It’s not like I have a Gilbert or any other man knocking down my door.”

Paul cleared his throat and started to say something, but before he could get the words out, Trina abruptly changed the subject.

“I found a couple of possibilities in the real estate section today.” She moved to the counter and swiped the newspaper off the green marble top. “Not the best locations, but we obviously don’t have time to be picky.”

Gracie looked at the two items circle in red ink, guilt welling up inside of her. She hadn’t given enough attention to their impending eviction, leaving all the work to Trina as she’d worked on the presentation to the historical society. That would change after this weekend. Then she’d make finding a new home for Between the Covers her first priority.

But right now all she could think about was Gilbert.

She wondered if he really had changed much physically since high school. Not that it mattered. He made her feel special and that was more important than a handsome face or a buff body. Still, a few doubts lingered in her seduction plan. What if the sparks simply weren’t there? A wild weekend of hot sex wasn’t worth ruining their friendship.

Was it?

The fact that she could even ponder such a question was proof that her long sex drought had taken its toll. Between running the bookstore and taking care of her sick aunt, Gracie hadn’t been able to find much time for a social life.

“Here,” Trina said, digging into her purse. “You’d better take these.”

Gracie looked up from the newspaper to see Trina pull out a handful of colorful condom packages. Paul made a strangled noise in his throat at the sight of them.

“What?” Trina challenged, looking up at him. “You think a gimp can’t get lucky?”

“You’re not a…I never said…” Paul sputtered.

“Thanks,” Gracie interjected, taking the condoms from her.

Why couldn’t Trina see that the guy was totally in love with her? Or maybe she did see and just chose to ignore it. Paul wasn’t exactly Mr. Exciting.

“Now go out and have fun,” Trina said, propelling her toward the door. “And don’t worry about the store. I can handle everything here.”

“I’ll help her,” Paul said, then added quickly, “not that she needs it.”

Trina laughed and Gracie was surprised by the pinprick of envy inside of her. She’d never had a man look at her the way Paul looked at Trina. The closest she’d come was in high school when Gilbert had asked her to the senior prom. She’d suggested they go out for pizza and bowling instead, fearing he’d only made the offer because she’d whined so much about not having a date. Now, ten years later, she was about to invite him to sleep with her.

She hoped it was an invitation he couldn’t refuse.

ZACH STOOD IN THE BALLROOM of the Claremont Hotel wondering how he ever thought he could pull this off. The class of 1995 milled around him, their excited chatter punctuated by occasional shouts of recognition and giddy laughter.

He’d skipped his own high school reunion last year, where he no doubt would have felt as alien as he did now. Those days were a blur to him, mixed with unhappy memories of his father’s abandonment when he was thirteen years old.

After he’d been made the man-of-the-house by default, Zach had given up sports and other school activities so he could go to work and help his mother keep their household afloat.

More than once, Zach had fallen asleep in class, exhausted from working double shifts at his job at the all-night delicatessen.

That was where he’d first considered a career in law enforcement, since it was a prime spot for the cruising patrolmen to take their breaks. He’d listened to their stories as he worked, enthralled by the excitement of it all. Compared to slicing salami and shredding lettuce, it had seemed like a dream job.

Now he knew that excitement came at a price. Like almost losing your partner. Or leaving a case unsolved. That still bothered him and he found himself scowling at the blond woman approaching him.

“Well, hey there,” she said with a slight Southern drawl, “you don’t look like you’re having a very good time. Maybe I can fix that.”

He pushed thoughts of the case out of his mind, forcing his face to relax into a smile. “I’m sure you can,” his gaze dropped to the name tag on her ample chest, “Sandra.”

She laughed. “You don’t remember me, do you? Nobody’s recognized me yet. I used to be a brunette back in high school. And a bit of a tomboy. Now, don’t tell me your name. Let me guess.”

He wondered how long it would take before she gave up, but he didn’t mind waiting. Gracie hadn’t shown up yet, so he had nothing better to do.

Sandra tilted her head to one side, looking him up and down. “You’re Gilbert Holloway, aren’t you?”

Zach blinked in surprise. He and Holloway were close to the same height and both had dark hair and eyes, but nobody would ever mistake them for twins. “How did you know?”

“Because I’m the official reunion greeter and the only two men who haven’t picked up their name tags yet are Gilbert Holloway and Mitch Putnam.” She laughed again. “But even with that Boston accent, I know you’re not Mitch.”

“Of course not,” he agreed, wondering how she made the distinction. But he didn’t want to blow his cover by asking. He was certain Gracie would realize he wasn’t Gilbert as soon as she saw him. He just hoped she’d give him a chance to explain before revealing him as a fraud to everyone in the room.

Zach realized now that he’d been crazy to come here. Gracie wanted to see Gilbert, not him. She didn’t even know him. Or realize that she’d been communicating with a complete stranger these past few months, telling him all her desires, spilling all her deepest secrets.

Making him fall in love with her.

Zach shook that unsettling thought from his head as soon as it appeared. He wasn’t in love with her, just intrigued, maybe even infatuated. But that’s as far as it went. That’s as far as he’d allow it to go.

Despite his second thoughts, he’d come too far to back out now. Once he met Gracie and satisfied his curiosity, he could put her behind him. It might not be easy, but he’d done it before. All he wanted now was this one weekend with her. One weekend to fulfill the fantasies he’d had about her since her very first e-mail had touched something inside his soul.

Sandra peeled back the adhesive on Gilbert’s name tag, then slapped it on his chest. “Can you believe how much everybody’s changed? I wouldn’t have recognized Stacie Winston if I’d passed her on the street and we started kindergarten together.”

“A lot can happen in ten years,” Zach replied, feeling more confident about pulling off this charade. Sandra didn’t hesitate in accepting him as Gilbert Holloway.

Of course, he’d picked up on a few of the guy’s mannerisms and speech patterns while acting as his bodyguard. Zach knew all Gilbert’s favorite foods and little idiosyncrasies. And he’d read his journal, as well as all the e-mails exchanged between Gilbert and Gracie for the past decade, which were saved in a special file on Holloway’s computer.

In some ways, he knew Gilbert better than he knew himself.

“I still can’t believe it’s been ten years since we graduated.” Sandra leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Did you know Andy Winkleman’s been married three times already? And Kendra Nebbles has four kids from four different men. I guess her parents shouldn’t have forbidden her from taking that sex education class.”

He knew all their names, having memorized them from the yearbook during his flight to Texas. Zach had treated this like any other undercover assignment, covering all his bases before he went into action. Only this assignment was personal and there was no set strategy—other than meeting Gracie.

He checked his watch, hoping he didn’t have to wait much longer. “Do you know if Gracie Dawson’s arrived yet?”

“Not yet.” Sandra gave him a sly smile. “So tell me, were you two really just friends back in high school or was there more going on?”

That was a question Zach couldn’t answer, so he hedged a little. “We’ve always been close.”

She laughed. “And you’ve always been so secretive. I never could get any juicy tidbits out of you.”

“I guess I’m just not a juicy kind of guy.”

“Maybe not back in high school,” she replied, her gaze roaming voraciously over his body. “But you have definitely improved with age.”

Zach sensed it was time to move on, but before he could make an excuse to end their conversation, Sandra sidled closer to him.

“Can you believe it?” she asked in a hushed whisper, her gaze fixed across the room. “I think that’s Allison Webb. Right over there, next to the punch bowl. Imagine her just showing up here like she graduated with all the rest of us! That certainly takes some nerve. Especially since I didn’t even send her an invitation.”

Zach followed her gaze and saw a tall blonde scoping out the room. “Did she drop out or something?”

Sandra looked up at him with a snort of disbelief. “How could you forget? It was the talk of the school for months. Allison just disappeared in the middle of our senior year. No warning. No explanation. Some people said she got pregnant. Others claimed she got busted for drugs and thrown in jail. But nobody ever knew for sure.”

Now it clicked. In the back of the yearbook had been a mock-up of a wanted poster with Allison’s picture on it and text underneath that read:

The senior class of Kendall High is offering a reward of one dollar for any information about AWOL classmate Allison Webb. She was last seen in the computer lab, wearing a pink sweater and white denim jeans.

“Well, it looks like the mystery will be solved tonight,” Zach said. “All we have to do is ask her where she went and why.”

Sandra smiled as she swept her arm in Allison’s direction. “Be my guest, Mr. Holloway. I’ll be waiting to soak up all your juicy tidbits.”

Zach walked across the room, driven more by a desire to escape Sandra than any curiosity about Allison. As he approached her, she caught sight of his name tag, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Gilbert Holloway?” she said, looking him up and down.

“That’s right,” he replied. “How are you, Allison?”

“You know how I am.” She moved closer to him and whispered, “The question is, what are you doing here?”

“Catching up with old friends,” he replied, caught off guard by her reaction.

“Are you nuts?” she hissed. “This isn’t the time to be playing games. There’s too much at stake.”

His instincts as a cop kicked into high gear at her words. It looked like there was more to the mystery of Allison than anyone here had imagined. There was something going on between her and Gilbert. Not a physical relationship, obviously, since she didn’t realize he was an imposter—which left another incriminating possibility.

“I guess I like to live dangerously.”

“I know why you’re here,” she accused, her gaze narrowing on him. “You want to see goody-two-shoes Gracie.”

The jealousy in her tone was unmistakable. But he still couldn’t be sure about her connection to Gilbert. He needed to draw her out and make her reveal something that would lead him in the right direction. “What makes you say that?”

“Maybe the fact that you’re compromising the entire plan by showing up here tonight. Why did you insist that I make contact with Walker Mullen if you were planning to be here?”

Walker Mullen? The name didn’t sound familiar. Just how many alumni from the class of ’95 were involved in this case?

“In case you’re interested, he bought my story about the stalker and is making the plans for us to travel incognito. I’m supposed to pick up the airline tickets at his agency on Monday.”

So Walker Mullen was a local travel agent—and a dupe. That answered one question but still didn’t get him any closer to finding Gilbert.