Cold Case, Hot Accomplice

She’d always found the rather austere, impersonal aura of her private quarters comforting and peaceful, but this morning was definitely an exception.

She rarely cooked up here, given the industrial kitchen in the restaurant, where she usually nibbled and picked her way through the day from whatever was on the menu.

The last thing on her mind was food, either for herself or her customers. What she really wanted to know was what time Detective Kincaid began his day at work, or if he was off on Saturdays.

Since the three detectives usually had their first meal at the restaurant around seven and were always on their way out the door within forty-five minutes, she assumed their daily schedule began at eight.

Steve Kincaid didn’t strike her as a man who would be on time. He probably lollygagged to his desk sometime between eight-fifteen and eight-thirty. Roxy had never been late for anything in her life, and she wouldn’t have a hard time believing that Steve Kincaid had never been on time for anything in his life. His laid-back aura was in direct opposition to her driving energy.

She frowned and got up to pour herself a second cup of coffee, her mind still filled with the shaggy-haired, blue-eyed detective, who for some reason irritated her by his mere existence whenever she saw him.

It was, for the most part, an irrational reaction, and that’s what made it all the more irritating. Despite his outrageous flirting with her, he would never mean anything to her in life. No man ever would. Besides, she knew his stupid flirting was just for show.

But she was aware of the fact that she needed him right now, that she was depending on him to fix her world and make it right. She just wasn’t used to needing anyone.

She also realized that in all their talk about Aunt Liz and her friends and acquaintances the day before, they hadn’t mentioned Ramona and the potential that Liz might have run off to meet her young sister somewhere. In fact, Roxy thought perhaps they’d given Steve the impression that their mother was dead, and as much as she hated it, she needed to be clear about the woman who was their mother.

After finishing her second cup of coffee, she left the kitchen and headed for the bathroom, where she took a long, hot shower and then dressed in a pair of jeans and a navy T-shirt that advertised the Dollhouse in bold pink letters.

By that time she knew Josie had arrived in the kitchen downstairs, for the scent of boiling chicken and simmering roast drifted up the stairway as Roxy headed downstairs.

When she entered the kitchen, Josie stood in front of the stove, her feet moving and arms flailing to the music coming in from her earbuds.

She nearly jumped out of her shoes when Roxy tapped her on the shoulder. Roxy might have laughed on any other day, but today there was no laughter to be found anyplace inside her.

Josie yanked out her earbuds, her cute features instantly transforming into concern. “Roxy, how are you doing?”

It took a moment for Roxy to reply. How was she doing? “I think I’m kind of numb right now,” she finally said.

“So there wasn’t any word overnight?”

Roxy shook her head. “No, nothing. Are you going to be okay here without me today?”

“I’ve got it covered.” Josie stepped back to the stove and turned down the flames beneath the boiling chicken that would later be deboned and prepared as chicken salad for the lunch fare. “I’ve called in Allie and Nancy to waitress. Greg will help me out here in the kitchen, and Gus said he’d try to show up a little early this afternoon to help with anything we need and with closing up.”

She moved closer to Roxy, her brown eyes soft with sympathy. “We have this, Roxy. For as long as you need us, we’ll all pull together and keep this place running just as if you were here snapping the whip.”

Roxy smiled faintly, knowing that she was, indeed, a tough taskmaster. She was first and foremost a businesswoman, driven and determined to succeed.

“You know I have full confidence in you to keep the standards high and service impeccable,” Roxy said. “Besides, I’m hoping we’ll figure things out this morning, or at least by the end of the day, and Aunt Liz will be home and I’ll be back in the kitchen in the morning.”

“Are you meeting up with your sisters?”

“No, I insisted they open the store today as usual. There’s no point in all three of us running amok trying to find answers. Besides, Marlene hasn’t been herself since her divorce, and Sheri would be too shy and polite to demand things get done unless somebody threatened one of her woodland creatures.”

Josie shot her a wry grin. “And we know you don’t have that problem. Actually, Marlene called me a little while ago and said she’d been up all night and had baked some pies and pastries to bring in this morning.”

Roxy looked at her in surprise, although she supposed she shouldn’t be startled. Marlene had always been at Aunt Liz’s side when she baked goodies and had at one time dreamed of opening her own bakery, a dream that had seemed to die along with her marriage.

“She said she’ll bring in the baked goodies every morning until your aunt can do it again,” Josie said.

Roxy’s heart expanded with love for her sister, who had probably been up all night worrying and had used that time to make sure Roxy had what she needed for her business.

Josie looked at the large clock on the kitchen wall. “Actually, she should be here anytime.”

It was just after six-thirty, and so Roxy sat at the prep table to wait for her sister and tried not to focus on how wrong everything felt.

She should be cooking, waiting for Aunt Liz to arrive, while Marlene should be in bed, snoozing until heading into the roadside shop at noon. Roxy should be cutting up vegetables or adding a secret herb to a soup or planning new specialties.

Sheri was probably already outside, filling squirrel and bird feeders and taking care of all the other woodland creatures that brought her far more comfort than people ever had.

Sheri had been a stutterer for the first twelve years of her life, and Roxy couldn’t count the number of times she’d beaten up some ignorant bully for making fun of her kid sister. The stutter had gradually gone away and now only appeared when she was particularly stressed or excited.

A knock on the back door signaled Marlene’s arrival. Roxy hurried to let her sister in, as her arms were filled with pie carriers and boxed pastries.

“Let me take those from you,” Roxy said, noting that Marlene looked utterly exhausted. Dark circles shadowed the porcelain skin beneath her eyes, although the long blond hair that fell to her shoulders was clean and silky. Her lips quivered slightly as she attempted a smile.

“You didn’t need to do this, Marlene,” Roxy said as she and her sister placed the baked goods on a nearby table.

“I know, but I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t just do nothing, so I drove to Aunt Liz’s and used her kitchen to bake. I can do this for you, Roxy, at least until Aunt Liz comes back. It will make me feel useful, and I don’t mind at all.”

“But you can’t get up early in the morning and bake for me and then be at the store all day,” Roxy said.

“Sheri and I have already figured it all out so that I can bake in the morning and work the evening shift at the store. All you have to know is that you can depend on me for the baked goods every morning until things are back to normal.” Marlene’s eyes deepened to a midnight blue and shimmered with a hint of unshed tears. “Things will get back to normal, won’t they, Roxy?”

Roxy grabbed her sister into a tight embrace. “I’ll find her, Marlene. One way or another, I’ll see that she gets home. Don’t I always fix everything? I swear I’m going to fix this, and everything will be back to normal,” Roxy exclaimed fervently.

She released her hold on her sister. “Now go home and try to get some sleep. I’ll check in at the store later this evening, and if I find out something before then, I’ll call either you or Sheri.”

She and Marlene shared a final hug, and then Marlene left through the back door. Roxy forced a smile at Josie. “I’m going to take off, too.”

It was close to seven, and she wanted to be sitting in the police station waiting room when Steve decided to show up for work. There was no way she intended for him to take this slow and easy. She wanted action, and sooner rather than later.

* * *

Steve had awakened long before dawn with thoughts of Liz Marcoli racing through his brain. Thank God it wasn’t winter. The weather in Wolf Creek could be brutal in those months, and she wouldn’t have lasted a night out on the streets or wandering in the woods.

Maybe she had haunted his dreams because she was the same age as Steve’s mother, and he was very close to his mom. Most Sundays he ate lunch at the condo she’d moved into a couple of months before. There had been so much grief in the past two years that he knew his mother worried about him as he did her.

The unexpected death of his father eight months ago from a heart attack had hopefully been the last in a string of tragedies for what was left of the Kincaid family.

At six he rolled out of bed, downed two cups of coffee and then showered and dressed for the day. First thing this morning he intended to talk to Chief Krause and get the okay to pursue the Marcoli case.

He had nothing pressing on his desk, and once he had the chief’s okay, the day would be spent interviewing anyone and everyone who knew Liz Marcoli. What he hoped was that somebody he spoke to today might know something that the three sisters Liz had raised didn’t know about her.

Normally he wasn’t due into his office until eight, but it was just after seven when he pulled up and parked, eager to get the day started.

As he walked in the front door, a rivulet of dismayed shock rode up his back at the sight of Roxy seated in one of the plastic chairs in the outer area.

She jumped to her feet, looking as surprised to see him as he was to see her. “You’re early,” she said.

“And you’re earlier,” he replied with an inward sigh. He’d hoped to get some plan in place, some action taken before he saw her or spoke to her again.

She followed him through the door that led to the inner sanctum and planted herself in the chair in front of his desk. “So the night has passed, and we still don’t have any answers. What’s your plan?”

“The first thing on my agenda is to get a cup of coffee. Would you like one?”

He was unsurprised by the slight flare of irritation that sparked in her eyes, and he wondered if she had any idea how sexy she looked with her T-shirt stretched across her full breasts, a faint pink flush filling her cheeks and her dark hair a curly halo around her head.

She sat back in the chair, and the hint of irritation disappeared. “Sure. A cup of coffee sounds fine. It will help to fortify us as we organize the search party.”

He nodded and got up from his chair to go into the small break room where the coffeepot was located. He hated to give her the news, but he knew there would be no search party. The woods around the small town were too thick and massive and the resources of the department far too small to warrant an official search party in a case where they couldn’t even be sure at this point that any foul play had actually occurred.

He hadn’t asked her how she drank her coffee, so he grabbed the two foam cups, a packet of fake sugar and another of powdered creamer and then returned to the desk. The day had only just begun, and already he knew it was going to be a long one.

“I didn’t know how you drank it, so I brought some cream and sugar,” he said as he placed a cup in front of her.

“Thanks,” she said grudgingly. “Black is fine.”

“Just give me a minute to check in with my chief, and I’ll be right back.”

She half rose from the chair, as if expecting that he intended to pull a disappearing act on her. “I’ll be right back,” he repeated and then headed for the chief’s office.

It took him only a few minutes of conversation with his boss to get the okay to conduct an investigation into Liz Marcoli’s disappearance.

He returned to his chair and Roxy looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to wave a magic wand and fix her world.

It was only on closer examination of her lovely features that he saw the shadows beneath her eyes and the overall exhaustion that had her shoulders slumped slightly forward. Despite the obvious weariness, a white-hot energy emanated from her, an energy that warned him to tread carefully.

At least she appeared relatively calm at the moment, but Roxy’s temper was legendary and he didn’t want to be the one who stirred it up. It would do neither of them any good for her to get angry.

“Did you sleep last night?” he asked.

Her dark, well-shaped eyebrows lifted as if she was surprised by his question. “I fell asleep for about two hours sometime during the early morning.” She spoke the words as if disgusted with herself, as though maybe if she hadn’t slept, Liz Marcoli would be where she belonged this morning.

“You need to sleep and you need to eat during this ordeal. No matter how hard it is, you need to try to keep to your normal routine as much as possible. You won’t be any help to me or anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.”

She eyed him as if expecting a trick and then leaned forward, bringing with her the scent he always noticed around her—a whisper of spring flowers topped with a dash of exotic spices. “Speaking of being helpful, I think maybe we gave you the impression yesterday that our mother is dead.”

“She’s not?”

Roxy shook her head. “She’s very much alive, and probably the only person on the face of the earth who might call and have Aunt Liz running off someplace to her rescue.”

This time it was Steve who looked at her in surprise. “I just assumed by what you told me about your aunt raising you all that your mother was dead.” He pulled out a notepad. “What’s her name?”

“Ramona Marcoli, although who knows at this time what her last name might be.”

“Marcoli? I thought your aunt had been married.”

“She was, but when her husband died she took back her maiden name.” Softness swept into her eyes. It was there only a moment and then gone. “Her husband’s name was Joe Arnoni, and he was the love of her life. When he died she couldn’t stand to hear his name. It hurt too badly, so she went back to being Liz Marcoli.”

“Do you know where your mother lives?”

“The last time I saw or spoke to my mother was when I was nine and she dropped off Sheri, who was a newborn, for Aunt Liz to take care of. Stop by, drop off the unwanted garbage and then get on with your life—that was apparently Ramona’s motto.” She didn’t try to hide her bitterness.

“Do you have any idea where she was living the last time you saw her?” Steve asked.

“At that time I think she was living someplace in Harrisburg, but it’s anyone’s guess where she might be now.”

“And you think that if your mother needed her, your aunt Liz would drop everything and go to wherever your mother might be?” Steve asked, a touch of relief flooding through him as this new scenario came to light.

“Yes, but if that had happened, Aunt Liz would have somehow managed to call one of us by now to let us know she was okay.” Once again Roxy’s eyes simmered with fresh panic. “She would have taken her purse and driven her car. I think we definitely need to get together a search party as quickly as possible.”

So far she’d been relatively calm and reasonable, but Steve knew his next words would probably change all that. “Roxy, there isn’t going to be a search party.”

She stared at him as if he’d suddenly spoken an ancient language she didn’t understand. “What are you talking about? Of course we need to get together a search party. We need to find Aunt Liz.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Roxy.” He drew in a breath as he saw the narrowing of her eyes, and she sat back in the chair as if gathering her strength to throttle him.

He continued at his own peril. “At this point we can’t even confirm that a crime has taken place. The first thing we need to do is locate your mother and see if perhaps your aunt is with her.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” she asked.

“I’ll get Frank on it. He’s the magic man when it comes to finding people through the internet. Do you know if she has any kind of a criminal record?”

“I have no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“If she has a record, then we’ll find her fairly easily. In the meantime, today I plan to speak in person with all of your aunt’s friends to see if maybe they know some information about her personal life that might explain this absence. Finally, I’d like to take another look around inside your aunt’s house. You said she had a cell phone that was probably in her purse. What about a computer?”

“She doesn’t own one.”

“I need to get her cell phone and see if maybe there’s something on it that will help us.”

Roxy’s eyes blazed with the anger and helplessness he’d expected. “I don’t know how you’ll find my mother, but I’ll take you back to Aunt Liz’s house and you can see what we might have missed yesterday that might help figure this all out.”

He nodded and started to speak, but she didn’t give him a chance. “And if you’re planning on interviewing Aunt Liz’s friends, then I’m going with you.”

“I already have two partners,” Steve said.

She leaned forward, getting right in his face. “And now you have a third,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

Chapter 4

Despite Roxy’s desire for immediate action, it was almost nine by the time they finally left the police station. Frank had arrived and agreed to work on hunting up an address for Ramona, and he also planned to upload Liz’s information into the missing-persons database.

The thought of Aunt Liz officially being part of a national missing-persons pool made everything more frightening and real than it already had been.

She opened the door to the passenger side of Steve’s car to return to her aunt’s house, and tossed the fast-food wrappers that were on the seat to the floor. “I should have figured you for a messy man,” she said, at the same time trying to swallow against a newfound terror.

“Actually, you caught me on a good day. Usually there’s at least five times more trash in the car than there is now. That’s the evidence of my dinner last night.” He slid behind the steering wheel and cranked the engine while she tried to find a place for her feet amid the wrappers.

“You know that kind of food will eventually kill you,” she said.

He cast her a quick smile. “Ah, Foxy Roxy, I didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t. And stop calling me that.”

“It’s just a little pet name,” he said.

She glared at him. “Do you have pet names for all your girlfriends? Let me guess...there’s Lucky Lucy and Boobsie Betty.”

“And don’t forget Willing Wendy,” he supplied, and as he smiled at her again she realized exactly what he’d done. He’d taken her terror and transformed it into an aggravation toward him, an emotion that felt safer and far more familiar than the stifling fear.

She rolled down her window and for a moment they rode in silence. “Thank you,” she finally said.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, apparently not needing an explanation for her gratitude. “I know it’s tough, Roxy,” he added softly.

She didn’t reply. There was no way he could know all the feelings that she was experiencing at the moment. Aunt Liz had been missing for an entire day and night.

Even Marlene and Sheri wouldn’t be feeling the full ache of emptiness, the utter horror that continuously tried to crawl up her throat. Sure, they’d be worried and afraid, but they weren’t as emotionally tied to Aunt Liz as Roxy was. They didn’t have the memories of what life had been like before Aunt Liz.

Horrific memories.

A childhood that no kid should have to suffer.

Roxy had spent her entire life making sure that Sheri and Marlene had only happiness in their lives. She had made caretaking for her sisters her number one priority, and she’d always known that while she was her sisters’ emotional support, Aunt Liz was hers.

There was no way surfer dude knew the ache of absence, the fear of the unknown that had Roxy’s emotions simmering with anxiety and terror. Probably the worst thing he’d ever suffered was a painful hangnail.

Still, as she gazed out the window she couldn’t help but smell him, the scent of minty soap and shaving cream and a whisper of sandalwood cologne.

She shot him a surreptitious glance and then looked back out the window. There was no question that she found him more than a little bit attractive, as did most of the single and married women in town, although she’d never heard any gossip about him with any married woman.

That perpetually mussed, sun-streaked hair of his begged for fingers to dance through the shaggy length, and his eyes were the blue of Caribbean waters. He had a sensual mouth with a fuller lower lip that held the promise of kisses that could buckle a woman’s knees.

With a new flash of irritation, she nibbled on her thumbnail until they pulled into Aunt Liz’s driveway. Roxy dug a set of keys from her purse, and then together they got out of the car and approached the house.

Roxy unlocked the front door and shoved it open; the absence of sweet baking scents shot a stabbing pain through her center.

When they had been here the day before, they had only done a cursory search, looking for her aunt. She knew that today Steve would be looking for other things or the lack of items that might provide a clue as to what had happened yesterday morning that had kept Aunt Liz from her usual schedule.

He stopped her before she walked from the entry into the living room. “I want you to stand here and look around. See if anything looks out of place or is missing,” he said.

She nodded and studied the living room as if seeing it for the first time. The sofa was a floral print, slightly worn and matching the overstuffed chair nearby. Behind the chair, a floor lamp sat to provide Liz additional light as she quilted or embroidered in neat little stitches. Her quilting material was all in a blue-flowered tote next to the chair, an embroidery hoop visible with a pattern half-completed by colorful threads.

The bookshelves that lined one wall held a variety of items, including photos of her and her sisters, mementoes from the time Liz had worked in Hershey at the Hershey factory and plenty of books.

“Nothing missing and nothing out of place,” she announced. Nothing except her aunt, who wasn’t in her chair with her quilting in her lap and her glasses propped down on the lower end of her nose.

“Okay, let’s move into the kitchen.” He placed a hand at the small of her back as they walked through the living room. Roxy wanted to protest the touch, but she found it oddly comforting.

When they reached the kitchen it was just as they’d left it the day before, the baked goods still on the countertop along with Liz’s purse and car keys.

After looking around and seeing nothing else amiss, Roxy opened the pie containers. Lemon meringue and chocolate silk. “These need to be thrown out,” she said, and he watched as she tossed the pies into the trash container. She opened the cake pan to see a black forest cake. “I can’t serve this at the restaurant, but it’s still good. Do you want to take it home with you?”

He looked at her suspiciously, as if perhaps she might be offering him a poisoned apple. “Why can’t you serve it in the restaurant?”

“Because it’s a day old. I promise you it’s perfectly good. I just won’t allow day-old desserts to be served at the Dollhouse.”

“Okay, then I’ll take it to Sunday lunch tomorrow at my mom’s.”

“Oh, your mother lives around here?”

“Yes, and I have lunch with her every Sunday. My father passed away eight months ago from a heart attack. Where did you think I came from? Under a rock?”