Fatal Hearts (9 page)

Bradley whistled. “You called it right for me, at least. I’m Blueline all the way. But how do you
notice
these things?”

“Blame it on my husband. It started as an exercise to improve my observation skills, but now it’s an ongoing challenge. I’m almost as good as he is, though he’d never admit it.”

Boyd’s ears perked up at that. “So, you’ve been honing your observation skills here at work?”

“Everywhere. And once you start noticing everything, you can’t turn it off.”

“Amen to that,” he said. “No taking a holiday, is there?”

“Not even when you want to. It’s useful and a blessing, I guess, but there are days when I notice things I wish I hadn’t.”

“Can you tell me if you noticed anything different about Josh the day he died? Or in the days leading up to his death?”

“I thought we might be headed there.” She smiled sympathetically. “The thing I remember is what a great mood he seemed to be in that morning. I mean, he was always upbeat, energetic, enthusiastic, and all that. But he seemed especially . . . happy. Maybe even a little smug. That usually meant he’d found a new story and was really digging in. I even made a note of it.” She lifted her shoulders in a half-embarrassed shrug. “I like to keep track of these things, so I can see how often my intuition steers me right. I wrote that I thought he was onto his next big story.”

Boyd had to swallow before he could speak. “I think you were right again, Mrs. Morgan.” And Boyd would lay odds what that story was. Proof of the identities of one or both of their birth parents.

Dave Bradley cleared his throat. “So, is there anything else we can do for you, Boyd? Grace and I are due in a meeting in a few minutes.”

Boyd shook his head. “No, I think I’ve learned all I’m going to learn here. Thank you both.”

And he had learned quite a bit, he reflected as he headed for his car with Josh’s boxful of personal effects. As disappointed as he was at not finding the notebook, at least he now knew for certain that it existed and what it looked like.

He also knew his being there, searching the cubicle, and talking to Grace Morgan had unnerved Dave Bradley. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that Boyd was a cop. God knew the straightest, most stand-up citizen could get paranoid as fuck when they found themselves being followed by a marked squad car. Maybe Dave Bradley was that sort of guy.

Or maybe Mr. Bradley had something to be nervous about.

CHAPTER 8

Hayden found herself pacing—again—and planted herself on the couch with a huff of exasperation. God, what was wrong with her? You’d think this was a date, for God’s sake. It was so not a date.

Despite the tough self-talk, she wanted to jump up and check her hair. With a grimace, she restrained the urge. Her hair was fine. She’d taken it down and shook it out like she did every night. And she’d never checked her hair for Josh.

Of course, she’d never put on her best Seven jeans and the dangly sea jasper earrings she’d scored at the market or slicked on a tinted lip gloss for Josh either.

Oh, crap!
She needed to lose the earrings and the lip gloss. It sent the wrong message.

She leapt up to do just that, but the doorbell sounded.
Dammit. Too late.

She opened the door with a quip ready on her lips about the veggie pizza and his macho image, but the words didn’t come out. Instead, her breath caught. She’d been steeling herself against the man’s sex appeal, but she’d forgotten to prepare herself for the shock of the similarities. He stood outside her apartment door dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, with a pizza in one hand and a six-pack of beer dangling from the other. God, he could be Josh, right down to the brand of beer—Molson Canadian in cans.

He caught her staring, and his eyes darkened. “We don’t have to do this. It was probably a bad idea anyway.”

Before he could leave, she grabbed his arm. “No, don’t be silly. It was just the beer.”

“Um . . . okay.”

“Josh used to bring beer too. Same brand, always cans, never bottles. I had a little flashback is all.” She stepped back. “Come on in.”

He moved past her, and she caught the smell of some masculine grooming product. Not aftershave, judging by the slight stubble that darkened his face. Probably body wash. Before she could form any mental pictures, she closed the door.

“Is the pizza still hot or does it need to go into the oven for a while?”

“I guess that depends on how you like it.”

She caught herself before she could say, “I like it hot.” Instead she took the box from him, led him up the three steps to her kitchen, and plunked it on the counter. Then she popped the lid and checked the temperature.

“Still hot,” she declared. “That means you must have made the beer run before the pizza run. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome. And I made a few other stops between the beer and the pizza, so the beer isn’t as frosty as it should be. Maybe we could slide a couple in the freezer for a few minutes.”

“Go ahead.” She nodded to the refrigerator. “And put the others in the fridge. I’m good for two of them.”

“I’ll also be limiting it to two,” he said. “The whole driving thing.”

She was pretty sure a big guy like him could safely metabolize more than two alcoholic beverages over the course of a whole evening, especially with a pizza thrown in there, but she was glad to know he exercised moderation in that area. Like Josh. In all the months she’d known him, she’d rarely seen him have more than a couple of drinks.

He moved around her to stow the beer while she reached up into the cupboard for plates. Having him in her kitchen was
nothing
like having Josh there. She was too completely aware of him.

“Okay, if we’re going to wait for the beer to cool, maybe I should stick this in the oven to keep it hot.” She glanced up at him.

“Good by me,” he said agreeably.

She turned the oven on, popped the pizza in, then leaned back against the counter. He did the same, several feet to her left. Her gaze slid sideways beneath her lashes, taking in the way his arms, which were folded across his chest, strained the sleeves of his T-shirt.

“So what are we watching again?” he asked. “A UFC match?”

Her head came up in horror. “No!”

He chuckled. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Burn Notice
, right?”

She smiled. “Very funny.”

“It’s a good show. I watch it sometimes myself.” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his low-riding jeans, an action that drew Hayden’s attention to those long denim-clad legs. “I gather Josh liked it?”

“Liked it?” Hayden lifted her gaze. “That’s an understatement. He just hated to see it end. We’d been rewatching season seven. You know, sometimes he used to narrate whole evenings, à la Michael Westen.”

That drew a bark of laughter. “Really?”

“Really. He had the voice down pat. He used to crack me up with it.” Heavy as her heart was, she couldn’t help but smile remembering. There was something freeing about being able to talk about Josh. No one in Fredericton knew him like she did. His death had left her in such a state of shock, she couldn’t talk about him. But now . . .

She understood why Boyd wanted to hear more about his brother’s life here. It was a way to feel closer to him now that he was gone.

Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she continued. “And you never knew when Josh would whip the Westen voice out. ‘The key to cutting up a cantaloupe is to cut it lengthwise first. Decisively.’ ” She gave her best imitation of Josh imitating the master spy character. “As with any job, you need the right tool if you want to come away clean. A carving knife, for instance. A cleaver will do in a pinch.”

Boyd laughed. “You know, I can just hear him saying that.”

Her smile trembled. “God, it’s hard, him not being here. Sometimes I still reach for my phone when something funny happens or when I want to vent, but then I remember.”

“I know.” His voice dropped. “His death . . . it hasn’t had time to integrate completely with that whole jumble of stuff that makes up my reality. I still wake up in the morning and have to remember it all again.”

They stood there in silence for a few moments, apart but strangely together in this grief.

Hayden’s throat ached with unshed tears. She swallowed a few times and cleared her throat. “So, how about that beer? Do you suppose it’s cold enough now?”

“Definitely.”

“I’ll get the pizza.”

She pulled the pie from the oven, dished a couple of slices onto each of the plates she’d laid out, grabbed a couple of paper towels for napkins, then led him to the living room.

“Nice,” he said, taking a seat on the couch where she indicated.

She glanced around, trying to see her little apartment through his eyes. The furniture had actually been rented from one of those insta-home rental places so she wouldn’t be stuck trying to sell it or move it when her residency was over. It was nice enough, she supposed. Very well coordinated and matchy and tasteful. Not at all what she’d do when she finally settled in one place.

“Thanks. It’s rented.”

“I kinda thought so, but I’m glad to hear you confirm it. It strikes me as a little . . . generic for you.”

“Yeah. Home Decor 101.” She plunked their plates down on the glass-topped coffee table. “So, Mr. Smart Guy Detective, what’s my style, then?”

He shrugged, putting her beer down beside her plate of pizza. “I figure when you finally get where you want to be, you’ll feather your permanent nest very carefully, very deliberately, with individual pieces. Some antiques, maybe. Some modern pieces. Stuff that speaks to you.” He popped the top on his beer. “How’d I do?”

“Pretty damned good,” she responded honestly. “And I can’t
wait
. I’ve lived in dorms and rented rooms and apartments like this for so long, when I finally get a place of my own, I’m going to make it completely mine. It’s going to have color and energy and joy, and it probably won’t flow seamlessly, and there won’t be a lick of beige anywhere. There’ll be peaceful places too—the bathroom and the bedroom have to be tranquil. And, yes, I’ll pick each piece of furniture, each lamp, each rug and faucet and fixture with a view to how happy it makes me to look at it.” She picked up her own beer, snapped the tab, and took a sip.

His expression was slightly smug. And okay, he’d nailed it. But all that took was a little insight into human psychology.

“Shall I take a guess at what your place looks like?”

She put her beer down while he picked up a piece of pizza.

“Condo, I’m guessing, since Josh mentioned you’d been at this job quite a few years.”

He nodded.

“Not totally Spartan but efficient. Militarily efficient. And nothing messy.” She kept her eyes on his face, gauging his reaction, but he gave nothing away.
Great poker face.
“Big furniture,” she continued. “Big flat-screen TV with theater-quality stereo sound. No houseplants, but maybe some art? Something really strong.”

His brow furrowed momentarily, then relaxed. “Josh told you about it.”

She grinned. “Nope. But he did talk about you a lot.” She picked up her pizza and took a bite. “Mmm, this is so good. Thank you. Isn’t that crust awesome?”

“It’s good,” he acknowledged.

“Told you.”

“But it’d still taste better with some Italian sausage.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, next time you can have sausage on your half.”

Something stirred in those golden eyes, but then was gone before she could analyze it. Was it the mention of next time?

She cleared her throat. “So, what’s this strong piece of art you figured Josh told me about?”

His expression was curious now. “He really didn’t tell you about the Sam Shea?”

“What’s a Sam Shea?”

“It’s a giant photographic landscape of ominous darks clouds over a marsh. The photographer printed it out in huge panels, and the panels fit together to make a massive mural.”

She shook her head. “That’s a freaking gallery installation. I bet it’s lovely.”

“I like it.” Having finished up his first slice of pizza, he picked up a second one. “So, what time’s the show on?”

“Oh, it’s DVR’d, not live. It’s ready when we are.” She glanced at him. “Are we ready?”

He shrugged. “What would you and Josh do?”

“We’d talk about our respective days.”

“So you’d tell him about stuff that happened at the ER, and he’d talk about his investigations?”

“Pretty much, insofar as we could without naming names or breaching anyone’s privacy.”

“But not his personal investigation?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He didn’t talk too much about it, except maybe to say things were going well or certain avenues hadn’t panned out. Just generalities. Sometimes he’d tell me stuff about you.”

His left eyebrow lifted. “What kind of stuff?”

“You know, if you’d been involved in a particularly big or media-worthy bust. That kind of thing.” She smiled. “He talked about some of the stuff you guys pulled as identical twins.”

He actually blushed. “Oh, God, the hockey game.”

She laughed. “The one on TV that you didn’t want to leave, so you sent Josh to meet your girlfriend at the bar and keep her occupied until you could get there?”

“In my defense, it looked like the Leafs might actually make the play-offs. And how was I to know she’d pick that night to decide we should finally do it?”

“Poor Josh.”

“Poor
Josh
? Thanks to his impassioned we-should-wait-for-our-three-month-anniversary speech, I had to wait. Two. More. Months.”

She dissolved in a fit of giggling. “I’m sorry,” she said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “You got what you deserved, buster. Sending a stand-in.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I never did that again. But I did threaten to mess things up with his girlfriend-of-the-day. You know, committing to taking them jewelry shopping or something. He told me not to bother, because they had a code word she would ask him to say if she thought he was acting strange.”

“Omigod! Is that true?”

“Probably, but I never tested it.”

Her face sobered. “He told me about what happened when you guys were in grade two.”

Boyd’s smile disappeared. “Yeah?”

“He said it was really hard on you.”

“Not just me.” He raked a hand through his hair. “When I couldn’t find him on the playground after school—we were in different classes, but we always met up to walk home together—I was sick. I didn’t know enough to run into the school and tell the principal. Instead, I ran home and told our mother. She called the school, who confirmed he wasn’t there, and then called my father’s employer. Dad rushed home from the construction site. I’d never seen him look like that.”

“You must have been terrified.”

“Scared shitless.” He turned the now empty beer can round and round in his hand. “Of course, the police were called, and they started a neighborhood search. They finally found him on a door-to-door canvass, but it wasn’t until the following morning. I think my parents aged ten years in those sixteen hours.”

“And all along, he was with the old lady with Alzheimer’s, just a few blocks from the school.”

“Yeah. She was confused. When she saw him outside the school waiting for me, she thought he was her son and took him home. Never mind that her son was then a forty-eight-year-old career officer in the Canadian army, stationed in Alberta.”

“Josh said he was never really scared, even when he couldn’t find a phone. He knew she was just confused and missed her son. And because she made him do his lessons, he knew she’d send him back to school in the morning. But the cops got there first, right?”

“Yeah. And Josh was so upset with them for arresting the old lady. But they were heroes to me. Those officers saved the day, saved my brother from a kidnapper.”

“Is that why you went into law enforcement?”

He nodded. “Absolutely. From that day forward, that’s pretty much all I wanted to do.”

“Wow, one event, and it inspired two identical twins to go down two very different paths.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Josh says that experience taught him that things aren’t always as they seem. That lady wasn’t a criminal, but a confused person suffering from dementia. He said that was probably the first event in his life that made him think about the story behind the story.”

“He never told me that.” Boyd looked down at his empty beer can. “I guess I probably should have figured it out for myself.”

“Well, it’s not as obvious as your epiphany. What boy wouldn’t want to become a policeman after that?”