Seattle after Midnight

That was true. But also not. To some extent living in a major city changed people. Living in a poor neighborhood rife with gangs, small-time criminals and prostitutes on every corner changed people, too.

“You disagree?” she said, reading his expression correctly.

“My experience is that people are influenced by their environment. Some more than others.”

“Did you grow up in Seattle?”

“New York City.” But he didn’t want to talk about that. “This stew is really good. What are these yellow vegetables? They don’t taste like potatoes.”

“Turnips,” she said, not taking her eyes off him. “When did you leave New York?”

“I was little more than a kid.” He’d been sixteen and he’d had a plan. He’d saved for a car and the day he qualified for his license, he’d driven off, not stopping until he reached the ocean.

“So tell me more about your life in South Dakota. Did you leave behind a sweetheart when you moved to Seattle?”

Georgia’s pink cheeks grew rosier. “How did you know?”

“Women like you always leave behind a sweetheart when they move to the big city. Was he a farmer?”

She laughed. “You know the script, don’t you? Craig’s family owns a dairy farm two miles from ours. We grew up together. He really is the nicest guy.”

“Do you think he’s still waiting for you?”

“I hope not. I told him our relationship was over. That I didn’t plan on ever coming back.”

Pierce heaped his spoon with stew, then paused, eyebrows raised. “Did he offer to move to Seattle with you?”

“Craig could never be happy anywhere but on the farm.”

She hadn’t answered the question. Did she miss her farmer more than she was willing to admit? To him her smile looked a little sad. “Are you sure you made the right decision? Maybe life in South Dakota had everything you really need. Everything you really want.”

Georgia set down her fork, then took a long drink from her beer. When she was done, she wiped her damp mouth with her napkin and fixed him with an uncompromising look. “What are you saying? That I don’t belong in a city like Seattle?”

“No—”

“I’ve got news for you. I’m good on the radio and I intend to have a syndicated program of my own one day. People all across America are going to listen to me and my show won’t be called Seattle after Midnight then, it’ll be Georgia after Midnight.”

Her passion surprised him. Then he thought about the siren who drew him to the radio every weeknight and realized he shouldn’t have been surprised at all.

“I never meant to question your talent.”

“What did you mean to question? You know, you’re a cynical man, Pierce Harding. I wonder what made you that way.” With her elbows on the table, she folded her hands together and rested her chin on the perch. Gazed at his hands. “I see you don’t wear a wedding band. Was it a nasty divorce that gave you this bleak view of the world?”

He blinked with surprise. Turned his head very slightly away from her.

“I’m not divorced.” He was suddenly very regretful that he hadn’t just driven off when he had the chance. “I’m a widower. My wife died two years ago.”

GEORGIA COULD HAVE kicked herself for being so thoughtless. “I’m sorry.” The apology sprang immediately to her lips. “How tragic. Was she ill?”

She guessed he didn’t want to talk about it. Pierce had sidestepped every one of her personal questions last night and today, too. But she felt it would be callous to just let his statement pass without comment.

“She was killed in a car accident.”

Pierce’s face settled into grim lines that made him look a good five years older than he had earlier that afternoon. That his emotions regarding his wife ran deep, Georgia had no doubt. But she suspected there was more than grief at play.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

Pierce added nothing to that, and she used the pause in their conversation as an opportunity to clear the dishes. A few minutes later when she offered pie and coffee, she wasn’t surprised that Pierce declined.

He glanced at his watch. “I really should be getting to work.”

“Same surveillance job as last night?”

He nodded.

She watched him shrug into his leather jacket and put on his shoes. What was it like to have a job like his? She imagined sitting in a car late at night, alone, watching other people live their lives, witnessing the very worst that human behavior had to offer.

“Your work must be very lonely.”

“At times. On late-night surveillance jobs the hardest part is staying alert.”

Yes, she could see how that would be a challenge. “How do you keep from falling asleep?”

At first it seemed he wasn’t going to answer. He pulled his car keys from his jacket pocket. Stared at them for a moment as if he wasn’t sure what to do with them. Just before he left, he glanced over his shoulder at her.

“I listen to you,” he said. And then he was gone.

AS SOON AS he’d driven away from Georgia’s, Pierce powered on his cell phone and called Will Livingstone, currently working the afternoon shift on the Calder job. Pierce’s stint wasn’t scheduled to begin for another half hour. But he was sure Will wouldn’t object if he spelled him early.

“How’s it going, Will?”

“The lady went out shopping for a few hours this afternoon. The rest of the time she’s been in that room without any visitors that I can tell.” Will sounded mystified by this.

“Still no man on the scene?”

“Not that I can tell. I’m sorry, Pierce. We’re not coming up with any answers here.”

“This is a strange one, all right.”

Will yawned loudly. “You on your way?”

“Be there in fifteen.” Water splashed to the sidewalk as Pierce drove through a puddle in the middle of the road. He stopped at a red light where his eyes were drawn to a thirty-foot spruce tree across the street. The owners had strung colored lights about halfway around the tree, then given up. Must have run out of ladder or lights. Whatever the reason, the result looked ridiculous rather than festive. Waste of bloody electricity.

There was hardly any traffic and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. He drove as if on autopilot and tried not to think about the house he’d just left, the meal he’d eaten, the woman whose company he’d shared—and enjoyed. A smart man wouldn’t have turned back the way he had. After all, he’d made a clean getaway after installing the security system. Who cared if she used it? He’d done his part by putting it in. His conscience was clear.

Five minutes earlier than he’d said on the phone, Pierce steered into the service station across from the hotel and parked next to Will Livingstone’s Toyota. He acknowledged Will’s presence with a nod, then dashed into the small convenience store attached to the gas station. He poured himself an extra-large coffee and grabbed a bag of sunflower seeds and a new package of gum.

The kid behind the counter eyed him curiously. “Still staking out that hotel?”

“Another forty-eight hours.”

The kid nodded, trying to look as if this were no big deal to him.

Pierce pocketed the seeds, his gum and the change, then carried his coffee outside. Will unrolled his driver-side window.

“Seems like she’s here for the night again,” Will said. “You could probably go home for a few hours shut-eye and come back in the morning.”

“Probably,” Pierce acknowledged. But he wouldn’t. Will passed him the log they used to record Jodi’s movements.

“Thanks.” Pierce returned to his car and settled in. He tore open the tab on his coffee and took a sip of the bitter brew. Levering his seat back about ten degrees, he stretched out his legs.

Across the street the Charleston’s fairy lights sparkled. He wondered what Jodi was up to right now. Doing drugs? Getting loaded? What? He couldn’t imagine anything so bad that a middle-aged woman would leave her comfortable home and book into a hotel all by herself.

He shifted in his seat and thought about the husband. Steven Calder had left a phone message earlier in the afternoon, then again around five, while Pierce had been at Georgia’s. Unsurprisingly, Calder had been unable to contact his wife at home.

Pierce knew he should phone the man, but thoughts of Georgia kept distracting him.

Damn that woman. He couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the clock on the dashboard and calculating the hours until her program would begin. He wondered if he would feel the same magic now that he’d met her.

He opened the log and reviewed the entries that had been made by Jake, then Will. Jodi Calder’s movements while shopping that afternoon had been carefully tracked. She’d gone to a quick-stop grocer, a bookstore and an office supply shop.

Nothing suspicious in any of that.

In fact, there was nothing suspicious about anything Jodi Calder had done since her husband left town. Except for booking into this hotel room.

After an hour of waiting and watching while nothing happened, Pierce decided to do something he’d never tried in a case like this. He was going to knock on her hotel room door and ask her.

I LISTEN TO YOU, Pierce had said. I LISTEN TO YOU. As she prepared for that evening’s show in her studio, Georgia couldn’t stop the soundtrack in her head from repeating that line. Something in his delivery, in the heat of his eyes when he’d said it, made her knees feel weak and her insides tingle. She had to keep reminding herself that it was her program he was interested in. Not her body.

She pushed away from the desk where she’d been outlining a script and looked up from her control board through the window to the producer’s room. Larry Sizemore sat with his back to her, busy with his last-minute preparations, too. They’d had their preshow meeting half an hour ago. As usual, he’d met all her suggestions and ideas with stony acceptance.

She sighed and turned to the computer on her right. She had some phone calls to edit. Only very rarely did she air calls live as she had last night. Usually she worked prerecorded, edited calls carefully into her program.

Looking into her computer screen, a trick of lighting reflected her own image back at her. What she saw made her sigh.

She knew the image she presented on the air differed from the reality. Though she was twenty-eight, she looked at least five years younger. That might be a benefit to her in ten years, but right now she felt hampered, not only by her appearance, but by her background, her inexperience, her small-town naiveté.

She wanted Pierce to act on the attraction she was almost sure he felt. Not hold himself back the way he’d done tonight.

I listen to you. To you, Georgia, to you.

She wanted him to hold her in his arms and say those words. Then kiss her. And touch her… Eyes closed, she imagined how it would feel, how his arms would circle her waist, how he’d lift her chin with his finger then…

The phone rang, her private line, zapping fantasy into cold reality. Her first hope was that it was Pierce.

“Yes?”

But it was just Monty from the security desk. There’d been a delivery for her—did she want him to bring it up?

“No, I’ll be right there.” She ran down the double flight of stairs that led to the main foyer. Monty’s desk was to the left of the two revolving doors and the regular set of glass doors that led to the street.

Monty Greenfield, in his fifties and a little portly, straightened in his chair, pulling back his shoulders to better fill his stiffly pressed navy uniform. They usually had a couple of short conversations during the course of an evening. He was new here too, having started his job just weeks before she began hers. He’d needed a change of scene after his wife’s death, he’d told her. Apparently Nancy had been sick for a long time.

“Here you go, Georgia. Looks like you have an admirer.” He held up a loosely wrapped package, obviously flowers.

Flowers. Georgia hesitated, then stepped forward. Maybe this would turn out to be something else. From someone else.

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