Obsession & Eyewitness: Obsession / Eyewitness

“Yeah, sure.” Alec blushed as red as his bike. “Give me a call. I’d be happy to help.”

Of course he would. The guy had a crush on Michelle as far as he could stretch his stretchy pants.

“Nice meeting you.” Colin jerked his thumb toward Michelle’s house. “We gotta…”

“Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. I’m glad you’re okay, Michelle. Sorry about Amanda.” He clambered onto his bike and headed toward the coast highway.

Colin squinted after him. “Didn’t sound sorry about Amanda.”

“He and Amanda never got along.” She dug her hands into her hips. “What is wrong with you? Did you take an instant dislike to Alec or something? He’s a nice guy and a good teacher.”

“I didn’t like his bicycle shorts.”

Her chocolate-drop eyes studied his face. “You didn’t like that he mentioned your trophies—yours and Kieran’s.”

He didn’t like that he’d mentioned Kieran, period.

He shrugged. “Don’t know why they keep those things around.”

They’d been walking and talking and had wound up at Michelle’s front door. She unlocked the door and shoved it open. Colin didn’t even wait for an invitation as Michelle stepped across the threshold, still talking.

“You should be proud of those trophies. Heck, if the school gave trophies for academic excellence, I wouldn’t mind a few of those scattered around with my name on them.”

Colin laughed, rubbing the last of the kinks out of his neck. “You were a brain, weren’t you?”

She stuck out her tongue. “Go ahead. You can say it. I was a nerd, complete with glasses and braces and bony chest.”

As if pulled by a magnetic force, his gaze dropped to the gentle curve of her breasts beneath her cotton T-shirt. By the time he’d trained his eyes back to her face, a rosy blush had claimed her cheeks.

“The years have been kind.”

She giggled and spun around. The compliment had made her uncomfortable. A truth smacked against his forehead and made its way to his lips. “You played up the nerd persona in high school, didn’t you? Because of your mom.”

She froze and her back stiffened. “That’s ridiculous. Why would you think any high school girl would want to be a geek?”

“Any high school girl who had a hootchie-cootchie mama.”

Her eyes flashed fire as she turned on him. “You’re… you’re…”

“Despicable.” He’d been so excited to discover something about Michelle, so intrigued to have chipped through her cool exterior, he’d lost all sense of social etiquette. “I’m sorry, Michelle. I had no right.”

She blew out a breath and dragged a hand through her thick hair. “No. You’re right. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between me and my mom. I didn’t want people thinking I was anything like her.”

Her dark eyes pooled. He preferred the fire. In two strides, he was at her side. He slid a knuckle beneath her chin and a tear dangled on the end of her long lashes. “I’m an idiot.”

Her lush lips trembled into a smile. “You’re an astute idiot. The only person I’d ever admitted that to was Amanda.”

The tear dripped onto her cheek, and he halted its downward path with his thumb. “I’m going to find this guy, Michelle. And he’s not some whistling homeless dude.”

Sniffling, she pulled back her shoulders. “I—I might have another clue.”

“Something you remembered?” He stepped back from her warmth, squashing his desire, shelving it…for later.

“Emails.”

“Emails?”

She ducked around him and headed for her kitchen table. “It actually occurred to me before, but I was too embarrassed to tell you about it. But now that my pathetic insecurities are out in the open, I may as well lay it all out there.”

She didn’t have the corner on pathetic insecurities.

“Has someone been threatening you?” That’s why she was calling in the help of the bicycle geek. The fact that she’d planned to open up to Alec before him irritated the hell out of him.

“Sort of… I don’t know.” She hovered over her laptop, clicking keys on the keyboard. “Darn. I should’ve been saving them.”

He joined her at the table as she scrolled through her inbox. “What did the emails say?”

“I was too chicken to open them.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “But the subject line said, Like mother, like daughter?”

“That sounds like a threat to me. Or at least harassment.” He sat in front of the computer and opened her Deleted Items.

“Don’t bother. I did a hard delete and sent them to cyberspace oblivion.”

“Do you think Bicycle Boy can help?”

She huffed and punched him in the arm. “He’s a good guy.”

“I hope he knows how to retrieve those messages.” He rubbed his biceps where her delicate hand had nailed him. “Do you know if Amanda had been receiving any emails? Any threats?”

“She didn’t mention anything to me.” She hugged herself and wedged a hip against the kitchen table. “Amanda didn’t have any enemies.”

“Had she been on any dates since the separation from her husband?”

“No. She talked a good game, but she missed Ryan.” Michelle’s face tightened and she pursed her lips. If she was going to burst into tears, he had a strong shoulder.

Her cell phone played some hip-hop song and Colin raised his brows.

“I like to keep current with the kids.” She answered the phone and moved to the window.

Colin clicked around Michelle’s computer as she talked in a low voice across the room. He’d have to give over to Alec’s computer skills and hope the guy knew what he was doing and could retrieve those messages. Maybe someone was trying to scare Michelle, put her on edge. Killers played games, especially the smart ones.

“That was Chief Evans. He wants to see me this afternoon. You, too.”

“Is he still convinced he has his man?”

“He wouldn’t go into it with me.

“Any luck?” She pointed at the laptop screen.

“No. I’m going to have to defer to Alec. Dammit.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know why you took an instant dislike to Alec. He’s harmless.”

Harmless is not the way Colin would describe the way Alec had looked at Michelle. Did the woman have no clue how sexy she was? She’d probably be uneasy to hear herself described as sexy…thanks to that mother of hers. Hootchie-cootchie mama. What had he been thinking?

“I hope Mr. Harmless can get those emails.”

“They may be nothing, Colin, totally unrelated to Amanda’s…death.”

“Anything out of the ordinary needs to be examined.” He smacked his forehead. “I completely forgot.”

“What?”

He shoved his hand into his pocket to dig out the chain he’d found in the basement at Columbella House. He dangled it from his finger. It was a bracelet.

“I found this in the basement right before you screamed bloody murder. Do you recognize it? Is it Amanda’s?”

Michelle fingered the bracelet and the charms hanging from it. She plucked one charm out from the rest and squinted at it. Then she dropped her hand as if the charm had scorched her.

CHAPTER SIX

MICHELLE RUBBED THE tips of her tingling fingers against the leg of her shorts, trying to erase memories.

“Is it Amanda’s?” Colin cupped the charm bracelet in the palm of his hand.

“N-no.”

“But you know the owner?”

Warmth flared in Michelle’s cheeks. It’s like the woman had come back to haunt her this summer. “It’s my mom’s.”

“This is your mom’s bracelet?” Colin hooked his index finger around the chain and dangled it in front of his face.

“It didn’t belong to my mom. She made it.”

“Oh.” He dropped the bracelet next to the laptop, where it coiled like a snake. “She made jewelry?”

“Yeah. No big deal. She crafted the pieces at home and sold them to her friends and some of the teenaged girls.”

“But it didn’t belong to Amanda.”

Michelle poked at the bracelet, a bit tarnished and forlorn. “There’s a charm with the initials MS. I’m assuming it belongs to one of the St. Regis twins since they were both in and out of the house when they were last here.”

“Mystery solved. I won’t bother turning it over to the police today.” He glanced at his watch. “Do you want to head to the police station now?”

“Sure. Do you have a car or do you want me to drive?” She swept the bracelet into her hand and stuffed it into her pocket.

“I have a rental.”

She hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her shorts where the bracelet burned against her leg. Maybe she should leave it here. She didn’t need the constant reminder of her mother gouging her thigh. “You know, I never even asked you where you live now. Are you in San Francisco?”

“L.A., although I’ve been thinking of requesting a transfer to San Francisco. One of my buddies is with the Bureau up there. He’s the one who first told me about Tiffany Gunderson’s murder.”

“The local cops realize now that you’re not here in any official capacity.”

“I know, but I still feel obliged to share my opinions with them—that the Gunderson and Frank murders are related, and I believe Amanda’s death is tied to theirs. This is the same guy.”

“But why? Does he plan to work his way through the entire Coral Cove class that graduated ten years ago? Does he have something against those particular women…or me?” She couldn’t stop the goose pimples that rushed across her arms.

Colin must’ve noticed her shiver because he took a step forward and rubbed his knuckles along her skin. “That’s what I’m here to find out, whether the local cops like it or not. My parents were friends with the Gundersons. I at least owe it to them.”

Michelle practically purred at his touch. If the local cops didn’t like Colin’s presence in Coral Cove…she did.

Two hours later, Colin stepped onto the sidewalk outside the Coral Cove Police Station and squinted at the sky. The sun was staging a valiant attack against the stubborn marine layer, hurriedly pricking through the gray muck before it was time to sink into the ocean.

Settling his shoulders against the brick facade of the building, Colin crossed his arms and dug his heels into the sidewalk. The small-town cops hadn’t appreciated his meddling. They’d found a smear of blood on the transient’s sleeve and had closed the case before the blood analysis had come back from the lab.

They hadn’t been interested in rose petals, class connections or class reunions. The summer tourist season loomed less than two weeks away, and the chief and the mayor wanted to make sure nothing more than the haze from the ocean was hanging over Coral Cove by the time the crowds staggered in from L.A. and San Francisco.

Michelle rounded the corner, accompanied by a pumped-up guy in jeans and a Coral Cove High School sweatshirt, and waved. After she’d had her turn with the police, she’d gone to the high school to collect an answer key for some quizzes she had to grade. Looked like she’d brought the mascot with her.

Colin pushed off the wall of the police station. Michelle had been holding up well under the shock of her friend’s murder and her proximity to the killer. But Colin had sensed her busywork and interest in helping him investigate sprang from a desire to keep her sadness at bay. Whatever worked. God knows, he’d employed a million devices to hold his own sorrow at arm’s length.

“That didn’t take long.” Her eyes sparkled above flushed cheeks. “Colin Roarke, this is Larry Brunswick. He’s head of the math department.”

Colin shook the man’s hand. Brunswick looked familiar. Must’ve been teaching when he’d attended CCHS. “I don’t think I had you for any classes, but I think you were teaching when I was in high school.”

“I started at Coral Cove the year your brother, Kieran, was a senior. So I had the thrill of watching him play. Helluva quarterback.”

Colin schooled his face into a bland smile. If he went off on Brunswick like he had with that other teacher, Michelle would have him pegged as a loose cannon. And her opinion of him mattered more than he cared to admit.

“Yeah, he was.”

“Not that you weren’t an amazing player yourself.”

Colin held up his hands and twisted his lips into a grin. “I’m not looking for kudos. Kieran was the better athlete.”

The better man.

Brunswick’s eyes clouded as he drew his brows together. “They still haven’t… I mean, is he still considered missing?”

“Yeah.” Colin felt Michelle’s sharp glance like a needle poking his flesh. He kept his gaze pinned to Brunswick’s sympathetic face.

“That’s rough.” Brunswick adjusted the satchel on his shoulder. “And now this in Coral Cove, Amanda’s murder, I mean. And practically on Michelle’s doorstep. I hear they got the guy.”

“Maybe.” His training had taught him never to give away too much information…to anyone.

“I hope so. My wife, Nancy, is nervous.” Brunswick clicked his tongue. “Glad I decided to clean out my desk today and ran into you at school, Michelle, and had that answer key you needed.”

“You’re a lifesaver. I didn’t want to do all those quadratic equations myself to grade the quizzes.”

“Anytime.” He rolled his wrist and checked his watch. “I’d better hurry or I’m going to be late picking up my wife. Good to see you, Colin.”

One quick wave and Brunswick was practically jogging down the sidewalk. “Does his wife keep him on a short leash or what?”

“She’s a judge’s daughter, kind of a diva.” Michelle studied his face, and he smiled to avoid her scrutiny, to mask any residual pain that might be marking his features. “Do you want to grab a late lunch, compare notes?”

“Yeah, let’s compare notes.”

He steered her toward his buddy’s restaurant, Burgers and Brews, but she shook her head.

“I just can’t, I just…that’s where Amanda and I had dinner last night.”

“I’m sorry. Stupid of me to suggest it.”

“I know Bryan Sotelo’s your friend. I hope the macabre association doesn’t hurt his business.”

“In my experience, it tends to help a business—curiosity seekers.”

“Ugh. I don’t get that.” She pointed across the street. “The Great Earth is pretty good.”

He grabbed his throat and stuck out his tongue. “I don’t do vegetarian.”

“They have burgers and brews over there, too. Don’t worry. I won’t force you to eat alfalfa sprouts.”

Five minutes later they were ensconced at a corner table, and Colin was running his fingers down a short list of burgers. “The sweet potato fries sound good.”

“They are.” Michelle’s menu covered her entire face and she had a white-knuckled grip on its edges.

Colin tapped a finger on the top of the plastic menu. “Are you okay in there?”

She inched the menu down so that her big, brown eyes appeared over the top. “Everyone’s talking about the murder. I keep catching snippets of conversation, and people keep throwing me sidelong glances. Maybe I shouldn’t be out.”

“Stop.” He clapped the menu closed with his hands and she flinched. “Of course everyone’s gossiping about the murder. It’s a big deal for a small town. Remember when that girl disappeared a few years ago from the music festival? I even heard about that and I wasn’t living here.”

“I hate it.” She dropped her lashes, where they created dark crescents on her cheeks. “The gossip.”

“It’s a small town. And you have every right to be out for lunch. It doesn’t mean you mourn your friend any less.”

She grabbed a napkin and bunched it up at her nose. “I’m going to miss Amanda. You have to catch her killer, Colin. Amanda needs justice. She deserves justice.”

“Maybe the Coral Cove P.D. has already caught him.”

She snorted and then blew her nose. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“Did the chief tell you about the blood on Chris’s shirt?”

“Huh?”

The waitress interrupted to take their orders, and as she scribbled her shorthand on her pad, she glanced up at Michelle. “I’m really sorry about Amanda. I know you two were friends and you were right there when it happened.”

“Thanks.”

“You take care of yourself.”

“See?” Colin touched the rim of his water glass to hers. “Nobody is blaming you or thinking you’re weird because you’re eating lunch.”

She blew out a breath and took a sip of water. “Who’s Chris?”

“Chief Evans didn’t tell you?” The cops who’d questioned him hadn’t exactly told him to keep mum about anything. He didn’t owe them, anyway. He owed Michelle. “Chris Jeffers is the name of the transient. He had a smear of blood on his sleeve.”

“Amanda’s?” Her eyes widened.

“They don’t know yet. They sent it out for testing and depending on how backed up the lab is, it could take a while for them to get the results.”

“But it’s something. Maybe you’re wrong, Colin.” She shot him an apologetic look from beneath her lashes. “Maybe Amanda’s murder was just a random act. I’m not saying the other two murders, Tiffany’s and Belinda’s, are random, but maybe Amanda’s death has nothing to do with those other women.”

His gut rebelled against her reasoning. Three women from the same high school class? Two with slit throats and all with rose petals? But his heart softened when he saw the hope shining in Michelle’s eyes.

She wanted to believe Amanda’s murder was a random act of violence. She wanted to believe she had nothing to fear from the same killer. And he didn’t want to dash that belief. Not now.

“Maybe.” He shoved their water glasses aside as the waitress brought their plates. “Now let me see if they snuck any alfalfa sprouts on my burger.”

Pointing to her salad, she said, “You can toss them on here if you find any.”

They ate in silence for several minutes, and then Michelle started shoving lettuce leaves around her plate.

“What’s wrong? Tired of rabbit food?”

“How’s the burger? Not too healthy for you?”

Chewing, he raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Just the right amount of grease. And these sweet potato fries are great. Have one.”

She picked a fry from his plate and twirled it around. “Colin. What happened to your brother in Afghanistan?”

He nearly choked on his water. Damn. He thought he’d escaped the inquisition. He blotted his mouth with a napkin, stalling for time. Of course he could take his usual route—stare down the questioner and grunt. But Michelle wasn’t some random nosy person on the street. She’d opened up to him about her past hurts and now she’d volleyed the ball into his court.

Isn’t that how relationships worked? Give and take. Not that he and Michelle had a relationship. They had more like a partnership. He’d keep her safe and she’d feed him information about her graduating class at CCHS.

Did he have to open up to a partner?

“Of course, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She dropped the sweet potato fry onto her half-eaten salad and brushed her fingers together.

His eyes met hers. Tiny creases marred the smooth skin between her dark, sculpted eyebrows. She looked worried…worried about him.

He scooped in a breath and twisted the napkin in his lap. “My brother and I were both on the same intelligence-gathering team. We’d been watching a particular bunch outside of Kandahar. We made our move, but someone had betrayed us. They were ready for us.”

“What happened?”

“The Taliban killed a few of the team members and captured the rest of us, including me and Kieran.”

“I—I had heard something about that, later when you escaped.”

Colin’s heart hammered in his chest. He could never get past this part of the story with anyone, not even in his own mind. “I escaped. But Kieran didn’t. We’d planned our escape, but our captors chose that night to take Kieran away for questioning. I wanted to stay, but they had talked about moving us to a different location. The others convinced me, but I should’ve held out. I should’ve stayed with my brother.”

“Of course you couldn’t have stayed.” Her hand inched closer to his and then froze as his fingers curled into a fist.

“Is he dead?”

“No.” Colin smacked his clenched hand on to the table. “After we escaped, we went back for him, but, of course, the Taliban had pulled up stakes and moved on.”

“And you never…” Her fingers nervously pleated the tablecloth.

“We never found Kieran’s body. That’s why I still hold out hope that he’s alive somewhere.”

“You blame yourself.”

That about summed it up. His lips twisted into a grimace. “Kieran never would’ve left me behind, Michelle.”

“You don’t know that.” She skimmed her fingers along the scars on his wrists. “He would’ve done what was best for the whole team, right? Just as you did.”

Her light touch calmed the blood thrumming through his veins. He felt…unburdened. And that wasn’t fair. Michelle had her own turmoil to deal with right now.

“I’m sorry.” Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Don’t be. I asked. I wanted to know. If we’re going to work together on this thing, I want you to trust me.”

He opened one eye. “We’re working together in the loosest sense of that term. I ask you questions about your classmates and you provide the answers. No more traipsing around haunted houses.”

She flipped her hair over her shoulder in a sassy move that made his stomach flip with it. “That haunted house may have given up Amanda’s killer. I’m not giving up hope that Chris is our guy. I guess we’ll know when the blood test comes back.”

“Maybe our partnership will come to an end sooner rather than later, which would be a good thing.” Good for Michelle’s safety, anyway.

She nodded. “Absolutely. Of course, if this guy Chris is arrested for Amanda’s murder, it doesn’t solve the other two murders.”

“We’ll let the FBI agents assigned to those cases worry about that.” He signaled to the waitress. “You probably have to get home and grade those quizzes.”

“Yeah, just another exciting Saturday night.”

She made a grab for the check, but he beat her to it. “Are you looking for excitement? I would’ve thought you’d had your fill.”

Her cheeks burned red. “I didn’t mean that. Amanda’s been dead for less than twenty-four hours. The last thing I need is excitement.”

Colin grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t feel guilty for surviving.”

“Like you do?”

“That’s…different.”

“If you say so.” She tilted her chin at the check on the table. “How much do I owe?”

“It’s on me. You can get the next one.” Because he really wanted there to be a next one.

The sun had made its brief appearance. Now the marine layer was staging a comeback. Michelle peered at the sky through the windshield of her car.

“It’s going to be another one of those nights.” Her fingers white-knuckled the steering wheel.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Sure. The chief said he’d send a patrol car by the house a few times tonight.”

“And I’m right down the street.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but unless you remember quadratic equations, I think I can handle things.”

If she asked him to stay he’d accept in a heartbeat, but Michelle had an independent streak and he had to respect that. Who knows? Maybe after he’d told her how he’d left Kieran to fend for himself, she didn’t trust him to protect her. Hell, he wouldn’t.

She slowed the car as she approached her house. “Do you want a lift to your place?”

“I can walk.”

She swung into her driveway, avoiding the bedraggled yellow tape from the crime scene, and Colin reached into his pocket for a card.

“Do you still have my card from last night?”

“I think it’s in my purse.”

He pressed another one into her palm. “Here it is again, just in case. My cell phone number is on there. Call me if…if you need anything.”

Her doe eyes searched his face, and he relaxed the muscles and even managed a smile. He didn’t want to scare her.

“Thanks, Colin. I think I’ll be okay. After grading, I’m going to bed early. I didn’t sleep well last night.”