“Really, Patrick? You mean you lost valuable time sleeping when you could have been reverse cyberstalking someone or internet troll hunting?”
He guffawed loudly, shocking himself, and she even cracked a smile, too. “Yeah, wasn’t too much sleep last night.” She tortured him in his dreams. In them, he replayed their kiss over and over and over, and never did it go any farther.
She quieted. “Me neither.”
He glanced over at her. He was just so goddamn lucky. Lucky even to be in her orbit. But a planet in orbit never touched its star.
The room fell silent, the only sounds the humming of the desktop, the faint whirr of a fan in the nearby studio.
He should go. The ancient Greeks’ knowledge of torture had nothing on Anita Goodman.
Instead, he felt the soft press of her lips against his cheek, tasted the salt from her tears. He glanced up, surprised.
“Thank you.” Her eyes were cast down. Her hands trembled. “For this computer stuff. For the security cameras. For everything.” Her eyes flicked up, and her gaze burrowed into him, a light in the tunnel.
“You matter to me.” His voice was hoarse and cracked.Please. Please.
“You—you matter to me, too.” She smiled shyly through her tears. “You always have, Patrick. Your friendship matters more to me than almost anything.”
The lightness in his heart deflated abruptly. Of course, friends. Friends. He could be her friend, right? He had a lot of practice at that. It wouldn’t be for much longer, at any rate. He nodded, trying to hide his discomfort. “I’ll always be your friend, Anita.”
“Let’s get back to this.” She gestured to the screen. “Who are the usual suspects?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Deputy John Flaherty sang along to Mumford and Sons while sipping from the black Japanese travel mug that his fiancée, Katie, had given him for his last birthday. She had made fancy coffee that morning, adding orange peel and cinnamon to the brew. He took cautious sips, disliking the bitterness and wishing she would just let him add the cream and sugar he actually preferred.
John pulled his cruiser into the long driveway leading up to a three-story red brick Tudor with wide, black window shutters and framed in the front with large hydrangea bushes just starting to bud. Around the rear of the house, there was the outline of a red barn with a white roof, and he spied the glimmer off the surface of a pool in the backyard. A gardener, busily planting bulbs at the base of an oak tree, eyed the police cruiser warily. John just nodded to him.
He knew Melanie Templeton’s husband worked for one of the pharmaceutical companies, but this house was practically palatial, even for Lewis. Rich people.Erecting nouveau plantations in the Pennsylvania woods.
He parked beside a paneled truck full of gardening tools and two white SUVs, one a slightly older version of the other. He made a note of the makes, models, license plates. He would check with Anita and Patrick later, see if either of them could identify the vehicle that had chased Anita. Privately, he doubted it. White SUVs were a dime a dozen in Lewis.
He made his way up the shingled path to the front door and pushed the buzzer beside the seemingly-freshly painted bright red door. A gargoyle-shaped door knocker?Jeez.
Melanie Templeton herself opened the door, in a thin, white cashmere Dolman tunic that hugged her narrow hips, expensive-looking black leggings, and three-inch heeled boots with metallicdetails. Her blonde hair was blown out in waves around her face. She smelled like gin and jasmine, and she held a new phone in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other. “Can I help you?” she slurred slightly.
“Hello, Mrs. Templeton. I’m Deputy John Flaherty of the Lewis Police Department. I have a few questions for you. May I come in?”
She didn’t move from the door, but her body seemed to tense slightly. “Is this about my husband?”
Her husband?He kept his expression bland. “I’ll explain inside, ma’am.”
“God, don’t ma’am me. Call me Melanie.” She appraised him quickly. “All right. Come in, but take off your shoes. I literally just had the floors waxed.”
He stepped inside, removed his shoes, and placed them next to the door. The foyer was spacious, dominated overhead by a large crystal chandelier. He followed the path of a fluffy white carpet runner along the highly polished wood floors.
Melanie led him into the kitchen, sipping from her wine glass. “My friend Kim is here, too.” At the island there were two high-backed bar stools, and in one of them was a muscular, short blonde woman wearing a slim white top and black jeans. The woman did not smile but eyed him with immediate suspicion.Interesting.
“Kim,” Melanie said. The other woman was all smiles for Melanie. “This is Deputy, I don’t know, something or other.”
“John Flaherty, Mrs. Templeton.” He resisted the urge to tap at his prominently displayed name tag. “And you are?”
The other woman glanced quickly at Melanie, then leveled her gaze at him. Her brown eyes narrowed. “Kim Smith,” she replied, her voice tight.
“Thank you.” He jotted down her name with a question mark next to it in his notepad. God, he fucking loved a spiral notepad. “Mrs. Templeton, would you prefer to speak in private?”
“I don’t see why we should bother. Kim knows practically everything.”
