Killer Smile

Natasha coughed to clear her throat. “I heard the popcorn here is the best around.”

His gaze flickered at the corn dog on its paper sleeve. The popcorn was good. The corn dogs were like every other corn dog found in the freezer case at the market. “Why are you following me?”

“Judging by all the writing on your screen over there, you’ve been here a while. I just came...” A tiny hesitation, an offer of a smile. A sure indication she was about to lie. “For the food.”

“You need to leave.” His voice wobbled before he got it under control. “You need to leave the bowling alley, the hotel, the town and the entire damn state, and you need to go now.”

Mila was keeping an eye on the kids while discreetly following the conversation, and Daniel knew without turning that they had an audience back on the lanes. He didn’t often give them anything to talk about, other than how often he got hit on by the females he came across on the job. He didn’t want them talking about this, either, not even if he had to bodily eject Natasha from the bowling alley.

Which he had zero grounds for doing, especially with more than half of the county’s law enforcement officers looking on.

Natasha’s discomfort was palpable as she pushed back her chair. “Talk to me—listen to me—and then I’ll go.”

He clenched his jaw, though he managed to keep his hands flat and loose at his sides. He hated being outmanipulated, outwitted or outgunned. It wasn’t anything his fathers had drummed into him, though they both had competitive streaks a mile wide. It was just something he expected of himself. And he especially hated being undone by Natasha. Mila, Morwenna, Taryn—they were okay. Cheryl and Lois, the first-ever and still-serving female officer in Cedar Creek—it was a given they could undo him without even trying.

But Natasha? The idea made his stomach turn sour.

He glanced at Mila, whose attention was still on the kids, but a faint smile touched her face. She was his boss Sam’s wife, survivor of several assaults and murder attempts a year ago. In the beginning, he hadn’t cared a thing about her other than her ties to the case, but since then, they’d become...distant friends, maybe, or close acquaintances. He liked her, respected her, and when she gave him a tiny nod, he struggled not to grouse.

If listening to Natasha was the only way to get rid of her, he would listen.

“Fine.” He directed the response to Mila—he didn’t want to see the triumph on Natasha’s face—then pivoted and returned to the lane to change into his boots and get his slicker.

“Jeez, he even gets hit on twelve lanes away by the prettiest woman in the place,” Cullen Simpson muttered, then shot a look at Sam. “No offense, Chief.”

“None taken,” Sam said before pointing his beer at Simpson. “If I thought you were spending your time thinking about how pretty my wife is, I’d have to pound you into the ground.” Before Simpson could stumble over a denial that could only get him in hot water, Sam turned to Daniel. “I’m guessing you won’t be back.”

“Probably not.”

“You’re awful damn close to a perfect game.”

“I’ve had plenty of perfect games.”

Ben clapped him on the shoulder, practically knocking him off balance. “You gotta love the boy’s modesty, don’t you?”

“Just stating a fact. I’ll see you in the morning.” As he stalked back toward the play area, Daniel pulled on his slicker, making sure to cover his pistol and badge, then waited in the broad corridor for Natasha to dump her corn dog and beer in the trash.

She walked toward him with the long, fluid strides that had always seemed more than just a form of locomotion to him. Her jeans clung snugly to her thighs, and her shirt did the same with her upper body. She had gained a few pounds since he’d last seen her. They gave her body a softer, more womanly look.

Not that he cared. He was just appreciating a fine form. Jeffrey had always encouraged him to appreciate beauty.

Archer had taught him that sometimes it could be deadly.

When they reached the vestibule, they both stopped. He supposed it was best to decide their destination before stepping out into the deluge. There were plenty of places open, just none that he wanted to go to with Natasha. Her hotel was out of the question, and so was his house. There was no way he could let her in there.

“There’s a McDonald’s on South Main,” he said shortly. The micro-change in her expression showed that she remembered he wasn’t a McDonald’s fan—all those kids and all their oblivious parents with their cell phones. Better to go someplace other than usual, right?

“I’ll follow you.”

His car was parked in the row nearest the highway. Hers was twenty feet from the door. He jogged to his vehicle, the hood of his slicker down, cold rain running down his neck. By the time he got inside and started the engine, Natasha was waiting near the exit.

There wasn’t any traffic to speak of, nothing to delay the moment they would reach the restaurant. As he crossed the street that would lead to his house, he sent a mournful look that way but continued south.

Daniel waited for her in the parking lot—it was the polite thing to do—and held the door for her. They both ordered black coffees, each paying for their own, and carried them silently to the table farthest from other customers. It was a bench, actually, with stools for chairs. He felt like he was hunkered at the kids’ table, like his knees might bump his chin.

Natasha looked as if she perched on the most elegant chair ever imagined.

She sweetened her coffee, stirred it, then gazed out of the streaky window at a scene so saturated with water that everything overflowed: the street, the gutters, the sky itself. “Is the weather often like this?”

Irritation flared at the pointlessness of her comment. “No. Sometimes it rains really hard.”

Her gaze jerked back to him, her lips turning up in a startled smile before it faded beneath his scowl. “Sometimes I forget you have a sense of humor.”

Her comment gave him the same fleeting startle. Sometimes he forgot, too. He hadn’t laughed at anything lately. There was nothing lighthearted about his job. Usually the grimness of cases rolled off him—he’d learned coping mechanisms when he was a little Harper—but the past few days, they’d seemed a little harder to shake.

Maybe a portent of the shake-up to come.

Man, was he shaken.

“What do you want?” he asked before that admission had time to unsettle him even more.

She opened her mouth, closed it and wrapped her fingers tightly around her coffee. Her nails were polished pale pink with tiny flecks of hot-pink glitter. She’d always been such a girly-girl, no matter what she wore. Even in one of his dress shirts and nothing else, she’d looked like a princess ready for the ball. Now, when he felt like a drained rat, she was beautiful.

After a minute, she eased her grip on the cup and raised her gaze to him. “I’m sorry about the way things went.”

For a moment, he thought that was just a start, that she would go on with some crappy explanation, but when she didn’t, he stared at her. “That’s it? That’s what you came all this way to say?”

“No. I came to tell you...”

He knew how to conduct interviews, how to get a reluctant person to talk, how to sort through everything a talkative person said to get to the important details, how to get his instincts at work on determining truth versus lies versus obfuscation. He knew the best action was to be silent and still; soon enough, she would talk just to fill the void.

He knew all that and ignored it. Instead he stood up, reached into his pocket and slapped a business card down on the table. “There’s my office number and my email address. If you ever decide to actually say what you came to say, you can leave a message. Once that’s taken care of, I assume you’ll be getting the hell out because that’s what you do, isn’t it?”

He hadn’t managed a single step when she spoke. “I think you might be in danger, Daniel.”

Saying the words out loud was hard. Hadn’t she already provided enough upheaval in his life? But she couldn’t have not said them, not if she wanted to live with herself. She felt so bad about what had happened to Kyle, and she’d had no advance warning. Finding out that one of the others had been injured or even killed when she’d made no effort to stop it would have been too much to bear.

The incredulous look he was giving her wasn’t easy to bear, either. It made her face hot, made her want to squirm on the ridiculous stool where she loomed like a giant over a doll’s table. Slowly, he sank back onto his own stool, his hands gripping the table in front of him, his fingers pressing tightly like he was imagining them around her throat. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Those were his first outward symptoms of frustration, a habit she’d rarely seen directed her way but was still familiar with. Did he know he’d picked it up from Jeffrey? Except Jeffrey didn’t pinch. He just pressed two knuckles to that spot between his eyes.

When Daniel spoke, his voice would seem calm to most people, but she heard the stress, the tight control. “Would you say that again?”

She thought about repeating it verbatim, just to tweak his frustration a little tighter, because she knew he didn’t want a repeat. He wanted an explanation.

Deserved an explanation.

After drawing a deep breath, she exhaled, hoping to blow out some of her own stress, but it didn’t work. “I have a stalker,” she said flatly. “I got him about a year ago, right around Halloween.” That was Stacia’s birthday. Her sister had even joked about how bad her luck was: her birthday, and Natasha got a secret admirer. “Last weekend, he sent me a message that he had enjoyed his visit with Kyle on Saturday. You remember—”

Daniel growled. Of course he remembered her first fiancé.

“I still run into Kyle occasionally, so I called to see what he could tell me about this guy, and... I talked to his mother. He had a bad accident that day. He fell down the stairs at his house. He’s in a coma, and they don’t know whether he’ll survive.” She closed her eyes briefly, and an image of her first fiancé came to mind: boyish, auburn-haired, bearing a strong resemblance to Britain’s Prince Harry. The idea that he might die broke her heart.

“RememberMe said—”

“What?” Daniel interrupted, still looking flummoxed.

“RememberMe. It’s his email address. It’s the only name I have for him.”

“You don’t know who he is?”

“If I knew, I would call him by name.” She mimicked his dry, stating-the-obvious tone almost perfectly. “I have no idea. Stacia and I considered every guy I ever met and came up with nothing.” It was hard, looking critically at people she’d been friends with, had dated, kissed or more, and wondering if they could be dangerous. Could one of them be the one so determined to terrorize her? Was anyone she knew actually capable of that?

Dear God, she hoped not.

“What do you know?”

The memory of her first contact with the man was clearer now than the day it happened. At the time, it had been no big deal, just one more email from a stranger in an inbox that got plenty of those every day. His was friendly, lighthearted. It had made her smile, and she’d needed the smile, and she truly hadn’t found anything intrusive about it. She’d always had the option of deleting the email and, in that case, would likely never hear from him again.

Instead, she’d chosen to answer. What would have happened if she hadn’t?

“He sent me an email, just a short note. It had been a gray and dreary day, and he said it reminded him of the day we’d met. He said, of course, I probably didn’t remember because I had been surrounded by admirers. He said—” She broke off, pulled out her cell and scrolled through her email. She hadn’t known in the beginning why she kept his messages. It certainly wasn’t foreboding, and she hadn’t had any idea that they might be important someday. Maybe she’d just liked the picture attached to the first one, or the cartoon embedded in the second, or the link to a funny video in the third one. But she had kept them. Every one.

She offered the phone to Daniel, and he took it. It was big enough that there was no chance of an accidental touch. His touch had always been simple. No-nonsense. Comforting. It had made her feel safe and protected and loved and aroused and so very lucky. And afraid. She’d wanted to love him and adore him and never, ever hurt him, and she’d done it all—the loving, the adoring and the hurting.

He wouldn’t let her hurt him again. She knew that. He wouldn’t let anything the least bit sweet enter into his thoughts or his actions, because he had to protect himself from her, and that hurt her.

Daniel read the note, then gave the photo a cursory glance, unimpressed by it. It had taken her breath away the first time: sunset that very day over the ocean, the sun’s rays bursting out of dark clouds to form a halo of gold and deep pink and dark blue and luscious purples. She’d thought about having it enlarged, printed and framed to hang on her wall, and Daniel gave it just a look. Huh. A sunset.

He went on to read the second mail, the third, on down the list. After four minutes, according to the bank sign across the street, he looked up. “These aren’t exactly what comes to mind when I think ‘stalker.’”

“I didn’t think of him that way, either. I honestly thought it was someone I knew who was being coy. Seeing how long it would take me to figure out who it was. That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before the number of emails passed five hundred in the first four months. Now it’s around two thousand. Plus he’s sent me nine hundred plus texts, twenty-eight cards, a half dozen flower deliveries and four personal deliveries. The ones you’ve read, he was still being charming and fun and not creepy.”

He stared at her a long time, his dark gaze steady. He could make a person squirm with that gaze, in both good ways and bad. She could easily imagine him in an interrogation room with a suspect across the table, getting a confession without saying a word. That look just compelled a person to talk.

“Did you contact the police?”

“Yes. Apparently, stalkers aren’t a big deal these days. Just about everyone in Los Angeles has one.” Then she sighed. “I talked to a detective, asked for advice. She looked into it and agreed it was probably just someone I knew playing games. He hadn’t actually done anything. She suggested I change my email address and my cell number. I’d already done both a half dozen times. She said moving couldn’t hurt. I’d already done that. She said let her know if he escalated.

“I called again after Kyle’s accident. She looked into it again. He was home alone. He was carrying some boxes down the stairs and apparently misjudged a step. His parents believed it was an accident. His girlfriend believed it. No one had a reason to hurt him.”

Her conversations with the detective had all sounded so logical over the phone in her tightly secured apartment or sitting at the woman’s desk in a building filled with armed people. She was overreacting. Hypersensitive. Reading more into the emails than was there.

But there’d been one small issue that prevented Natasha from taking the detective at her word.

“Who did you talk to?” Daniel asked.

“Felicia Martin.”

His face tightened. He’d gone through the academy with Felicia. They’d called her Flea because she was nearly a foot shorter than most of them, wiry and compact, constantly in motion and tough as hell to get rid of. He and Flea had liked and respected each other. It had seemed only natural to Natasha that, after the way she’d ended their engagement, Flea neither liked nor respected her.

“She’s a good cop.”

Natasha didn’t respond. Cops were also people, and people were influenced by a lot of things. Was Felicia a good cop? Probably. Would she have taken more interest in Natasha’s complaint if they were strangers? Maybe. But that wouldn’t have changed the bottom line: that Natasha was being haunted by a phantom who didn’t leave the slightest trace and Felicia didn’t have the resources to discover who he was.

Daniel set her phone carefully on the table between them. “So, how did you make the leap from Kyle falling down the stairs to thinking that I’m in danger?”

“The same message where he mentioned Kyle. He said he was looking forward to meeting with you, Eric and—” Her mouth froze, and it took her a moment to get it working again. “And Zach. He said he hoped the visits would be as satisfying.”

“Zach.” Daniel’s voice was hollow, his mouth quirking in a sardonic twist, his gaze rolling skyward in a grimace of distaste. “There’s four of us now? Is that all, or did RememberMe miss one?”

“That’s all.” She barely managed a whisper. Four men. Four loves. Five broken hearts. And all the blame lay on her.

He was silent a moment longer, until a gust of wind rattled the window beside them. Rain hit it so hard that it sounded like pebbles hitting the glass. She knew the sound, because once when she’d teased that no boyfriend had ever tossed pebbles at her bedroom window when she was growing up, Daniel had done just that the next night with a handful of aquarium gravel.

“Have you talked to Eric and Zach?”

She shook her head. “I’m looking for them.”

His shoulders straightened, his expression going blank, as he gathered the empty sugar and creamer packets he’d used. “Okay, so now I know. There wasn’t any need to come here. You could have called. You could have just given the message to my parents and let them pass it on. But I appreciate the heads-up. Don’t feel like you need to stick around any longer.”

With that, he stood and walked away. Natasha turned to watch him throw his coffee and litter into the trash, then go out the door and into the rain. He didn’t look over his shoulder until he was inside his car and then only to check traffic before backing out of the parking space.

A lump rose in her throat as he drove away. It had gone better than she’d had any right to expect, she told herself as she threw her own coffee away, then exited the restaurant. He was probably right. She should have just told Jeffrey and Archer and let them handle it. But she’d needed to get out of LA, and she’d found it hard enough talking to him. She didn’t think she could have borne the anger that his fathers surely would have felt finding out that he was in danger because of her.

“And you wanted to see Daniel,” Tasha whispered, filling all the corners of her brain with malicious glee.

All right. Yes, somewhere deep, deep inside, she’d wanted to see Daniel.

Stumbling to a stop in the drive-through lane, Natasha tilted her face to the sky and let the rain wash over her. It ran down her cheeks, caught on her eyelashes and dripped from her chin. It didn’t make her feel better, didn’t wash away her hurts or regrets.

But if a tear or two happened to seep from her eyes, no one would suspect. It’s just rain, she could say.

She could even pretend she believed it.

The rain had stopped sometime during the night, giving the waterlogged city a chance to drain and catch its breath. Daniel needed to catch his breath, but it was going to take a lot more than a break in the clouds to do that. He didn’t even have a chance until he knew for sure that Natasha had left Cedar Creek and Oklahoma far behind. He figured he would be able to feel it in his bones when it happened.

The police station was quiet and dimly lit. He’d dressed down today—black tactical pants, a gray polo shirt embroidered with the department’s badge and boots—only very slightly in deference to the fact that it was Friday and everyone else always dressed down on Friday. Mostly it was because of the weather and his desire to keep his feet dry but also because of the trouble he’d had with his tie this morning. The agitation that hummed through his nerves all night long would have made self-strangulation far too tempting if he’d had to give the silk noose one more effort.

He checked the time and grimaced. It was a little after six, so shortly after 4:00 a.m. in Los Angeles. Flea would kill him if he called now. He wondered if Natasha had shared her danger theory and Flea had found it without merit. She obviously hadn’t felt the urge to pass on the information to Daniel. But if she wasn’t taking the stalking seriously, why would she take the stalker’s remark as a threat?

He was tired from a night of restless sleep, he had a headache and when he’d tried to drink a cup of coffee while getting dressed, it had gone down so poorly that he’d thought he might throw up. Thank God the weekend was here. Maybe he would retreat into his bedroom until Monday morning, or maybe Morwenna still wanted a weekend trip to Eureka Springs. Surely her company, the Arkansas town, the tourists and the hundred and fifty miles’ distance would allow him to get his mental balance back.

“Why are you in so early?”

Blearily Daniel glanced up as Ben dumped a half dozen spiral notebooks on his desk. They were wrapped in a plastic trash bag to keep them from getting wet even though two empty attaches resided in the other detective’s bottom desk drawer. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Because of Size-Two Fitted Bodice?” Ben shrugged out of his slicker and tossed it on an unused desk. “What’s the story?”

Daniel scratched his jaw and felt the stubble of hair where he’d missed a swipe with the razor. He grimaced. Now he would be aware all day long that that thin line of whiskers was there and it would drive him crazy. “No story.”

Ben snorted. He unpacked the notebooks from the trash bag—probably containing lists of his interminable lists—then threw the bag next to the slicker. “Everybody in the department knows there’s a story. And the sheriff’s office. And the fire department. A man doesn’t leave first responders’ night two-thirds through a perfect game without a story.”

Daniel looked over his shoulder. There was a nighttime desk officer on, but they had so few walk-ins that he spent most of his night in the dispatcher shack chatting. All he’d done this morning was stick his head out the door when he heard Daniel come in, wave and settle back in.

“We’re both early,” Ben said. “Let’s get breakfast at Mom’s.” He left the rest unsaid—we can talk there—but it was implied.

“Yeah, sure.” Not that Daniel particularly wanted to eat breakfast or talk, but since the time difference kept him from doing what he did want, he might as well do something besides brood.

Mom’s, known as Creek Café outside the Little Bear family, was eight blocks east of the police station. They could have run it easily, could have walked it even more easily, but they took Ben’s car. Even though neither of them was on duty yet, if they did get a call, the chief would be annoyed if they got caught without transportation.

The café was located just west of the bridge that spanned the creek, the building high enough above the stream that it couldn’t really take advantage of the view. Instead, when a customer looked out, he saw the rocks that lined the creek bed twenty feet above the water’s surface. When Ben told him it was because of occasional floods, Daniel hadn’t quite gotten it. Sitting now at a table against the side windows, he glanced over the water, swirling and splashing fifteen feet higher than usual, and he got it.

Mrs. Little Bear came from the kitchen when she heard Ben was there. She hugged him, combed her fingers through his hair then turned her attention to Daniel. “You look pale,” she said, catching his chin in her fingers and studying his face. “You didn’t get enough sleep last night. You young people think you can get by on coffee and your good looks, but take my word for it—you need a good night’s sleep every single night.”

“It wasn’t for lack of trying, Mrs. Little Bear,” he said drily.

She gave him another appraising look. “I’ll fix you something special. You’ll feel better in no time.”