Authors: Marta Perry
“I didn't.” Kate sounded as exasperated as he felt. “I was in the storeroom of the bookshop in the middle of the day. And Emily was right in the next room. Why would I think that dangerous?”
Mac knew perfectly well why he was so irritated. It was because she was right. And because she should have been safe in his town.
“You wouldn't,” he admitted. “But when you saw Larry, why didn't you walk right out into the shop?”
Kate just stared at him for a moment, and then a smile teased her lips. “And ask him about supplying my brother with drugs in Emily's presence?”
He threw up his hand in a gesture of surrender. “All right, you win. So, did you learn anything from all of that?”
“Not much. Except thatâwell, I did get the sense that he wasn't telling me everything. He did say, or imply anyway, that he'd offered Jason pot, and Jason refused.”
Mac nodded. “I'm not surprised. There's too much of it around to suit me. As soon as we stop one channel, another one pops up.” He zeroed in on her face, trying to penetrate the barrier she put up whenever the conversation turned to her brother. “You said you thought Larry was hiding something. Any idea what?”
“I can't be sure,” she said slowly, as if she thought back over the conversation, trying to tease out any further meaning. “When I pushed him about where Jason might have gotten the drugs, it seemed to me that he panicked.”
He considered. “If that's so, it sounds as if he knew.”
“And didn't want to say. Or was afraid to say.” She finished the thought for him, and her gaze met his. “So Larry knows where Jason got the drugs that killed him.” Her voice shook just a little. “We have to make him tell us.”
“Not we,” he corrected quickly. “This is a job for the police. I'll lean on Larry.” After he'd gone back and questioned people at the bar more closely, he'd been convinced that Larry hadn't been around at all that night. Obviously he shouldn't have accepted that. Maybe he'd become too confident that he knew his town and its people.
Mac expected an argument and was surprised when he didn't get one. Instead, Kate gave a rueful smile.
“Much as I hate to admit it, I don't think I'll get anything more from him. I'm sure you'll be a lot more impressive.”
He masked his surprise with a smile. “It's the uniform that does it.”
“And the man who wears it,” Kate added.
Coming from anyone else that would have been a compliment. Kate made it sound more like an insult. Obviously her relationship with her stepfather hadn't been a good one. Maybe she was transferring those feelings to anyone else in uniform.
Well, there wasn't much he could do about it. His job was clear. If any doubt existed about Jason Reilley's death, he had to clear it up. And if he had any chance of finding the person who'd supplied the drugs, he'd never let go.
He studied Kate's averted face for a moment and decided it was time to change the subject if he could. “I've arranged for us to meet with Russ Sheldon tomorrow at eleven. I hope that works for you.”
That news kindled enthusiasm that made her golden-brown eyes sparkle. “Great. That'll be fine. I'm not working until the afternoon tomorrow, anyway. I'll meet you there.”
“I'll pick you up,” he said firmly. “I'll be here about ten to eleven.”
As anticipated, that raised an instant objection. “I know where he lives. I can walk.”
He let his lips quirk just a little. “You walk beautifully, but I'm still picking you up.”
His compliment hung in the balance for a moment, but then she smiled. “Okay, have it your way. I'll see you then.”
The words were a prelude to dismissal, and he didn't want to go, at least not yet. He nodded toward the scrap of paper he'd carried in with him. It lay on the corner of the desk where she'd tossed it.
“Was that trash, or has someone been leaving you love notes?”
“Hardly that, I think,” she said, unfolding it. She glanced at it, then stared, the warm color draining from her face.
“Kate?” He'd reached her in an instant, putting his arm around her waist. She looked pale enough to pass out. “What's wrong?”
In answer, she shoved the paper into his hand. He frowned, staring at it. A dragon, crudely drawn in pencil, the lines a bit smudged from lying on the step. No words. It seemed meaningless, but obviously it wasn't.
“Come on, Kate. Snap out of it.” His grasp tightened. He was suddenly, inappropriately, aware of the slim body brushing his. “What does it mean?”
She took a deep breath, then another, seeming to force her emotion back under control. But it was a precarious controlâhe could sense that in the tremors that passed through her.
“This is something connected with your brother.” Obviously. Jason was the only one who could make her expose her feelings. “Why? What is there about a dragon that upsets you?”
Kate put up a hand to rub the crease between her brows. “Sorry. It just...it shook me. I'm all right.” But she didn't move out of the circle of his arm.
He waited. She'd tell him now. She couldn't help it.
Another quick glance at the paper, and then she met his gaze. “Jason had a silver dragon charm. It was like a mascot. It always hung on his key ring. But it apparently wasn't with his keys when they were returned to his father.” She stopped, and a thought seemed to strike her. “Unless Tom got rid of it. I suppose he might...”
He shook his head, even while wondering why she'd think her stepfather would do that. “No. I've been through all the reports I wrote at the time, trying to refresh my memory.” Not that it needed much refreshing. “There wasn't anything like that on Jason's key ring or on his person. Or in his belongings, for that matter.”
She drew away from him, and he suppressed the urge to pull her back. Reaching into her bag that lay open on the desk, Kate pulled out her own keys. She fingered them, singling out a silver object, and handed it to him.
“It was exactly like this. He... Jason bought matching ones with his first paycheck. One for himself and one for me.”
He turned it over in his hand, noting the weight of it and the sterling mark on the underside. Not cheap, was his first thought. “It wasn't here, so it wasn't returned to your...to his father.”
Kate stared at him blankly for a moment. “But it's impossible. I know he had it on his key ring. It was his lucky charm. If he'd lost it, he would have told me.”
She might be overestimating the object's importance to her brotherâa young man, busy with life and on his own for the first time, could easily have shed some of the things that tied him to his younger self.
“You don't think it was important to him.” Kate seemed to read his thoughts without difficulty. “You're wrong. He often mentioned it. On the rare occasion that he sent something to me in writing, he signed it with a drawing a lot like this one.” She gestured to the note. “Someone who knew how important it was left that for me.”
“Kate, you can't know that...”
“Don't you believe me? You can even see his key ring with the charm in some of the diary entries. He'd have mentioned it if he'd lost it.” Her voice was ragged, and she threw the words at him like a challenge.
“Okay, I believe you. But I'm still sure that it wasn't here to be collected with his effects.”
“It was on his key ring,” she repeated stubbornly.
He shook his head, taking a step to erase the space between them. Clasping her hand, he put the dragon charm into it. “I'm sorry, Kate. When we found him, his key ring was lying on the grass about a foot from the...from his hand. There was nothing on it but his car keys and a couple of door keys.” It showed up plainly enough in the photographs of the body, but he didn't want to show her those.
“Then someone took it.” She said the words defiantly.
Mac had no desire to reply in kind. This was hurting her too much. “That would mean someone had taken it before I reached the scene. If so, I'd think they'd have cleaned out his wallet, too, and it appeared to be untouched.”
Kate's hand lay passive in his, and then her fingers tightened around his. “Don't you see? That means someone was there when he died. Someone who knew the dragon had sentimental value to him. And to me. What if that person set up the whole thing? Gave him the drugs and left him to die.”
“Kate.” He held her hand between both of his, trying not to let pity show in his tone. She was jumping to conclusions, wasn't she? Reading something into the absence of the dragon from Jason's keys.
Still, here was the drawing, right in front of him. His skeptical cop's mind toyed with the thought that she'd put it there herself for him to find. But what could she hope to gain from it? He tabled the thought for future consideration.
“I'm sorry. Tell me why it was so important to you.” And still is, he added silently.
She took a shaky breath, the muscles in her neck working. “Jason... Jason was different. From the time he was small, he wasn't like other kids.” Her lips twisted wryly. “He certainly wasn't the outgoing, athletic son his father expected. Tom never understood Jason.”
“Your mother...” he ventured, and she shook her head sharply.
“My mother was an alcoholic, not that I knew the word when I was small. After my father left, she couldn't handle being alone. The drinking got worse. When she met Tom, she saw in him all the strength she needed. But she couldn't handle the hours when he was gone, imagining all sorts of things happening to him. She killed herself driving under the influence when Jason was only five. Killed herself, like Jason did.” She winced. “Jason was devastated, and Tom didn't help.”
He could hear the anger at her stepfather in her voice, and he knew this wasn't the time to suggest that the man might not have known how, struggling with his own grief as he must have been.
“How old were you?” he asked.
“Eleven. Jason... Jason turned to me. We felt as if all we had was each other.”
Mac tried to imagine himself in that situation and failed. His folks had always been such a solid, loving influence in his life. He and Nick were close, but not the way Kate had been with her brother. She'd been more of a mother to him.
He moved his fingers over the backs of her hands, soothing and comforting. “Why the dragon? What did it mean?”
Kate actually smiled, tilting her head to meet his gaze. “Silly, I guess. But I used to read to Jason. He was what the teachers called a reluctant reader, right up until the time I read him a fantasy book. He was fascinated. He begged for those stories every night, and then he started reading them on his own.”
“So you tried to keep up with his interests.” It wasn't hard to guess that his devoted sister would do anything to stay close to Jason.
She chuckled. “I can't say I enjoyed all of them, but I tried to steer him to the better booksâC. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander. Eventually he drifted into playing fantasy games and that sort of thing. Well, you must know that from the little bits of the diary you've seen.”
“Definitely.” It would have been helpful if Jason had left a little of the fantasy behind when recording his diary, but he couldn't have everything. “You said he bought the matching dragons with his first paycheck.”
“Yes.” Her fingers, still enclosed in his, moved over the charm. “There had been a silver dragon on the cover of one of those early books. Every time I touch it, it reminds me of Jason.” Her voice broke on the name. “I should have been here for him. He was desperate enough to take his own life, and I wasn't here.”
That jolted him. He'd tried to be careful not to hint at suicide, and apparently she'd been thinking it all along.
“You believe it was deliberate,” he said softly.
“I don't want to, but I can't believe...”
“I'm sorry.” The words were inadequate, especially when the tears she'd been holding back spilled over.
Kate made an inarticulate sound, her hands trembling in his. His heart twisted in sympathy, and he drew her into his arms, unsure whether she'd welcome it or not. But she didn't pull away.
Mac murmured whatever soothing words came to his mind. Probably the words didn't matter at all. Right now, Kate's proud self-sufficiency had broken down, and she just needed another human being to hold her.
Not necessarily him, he told himself. And the stirring of his own senses he felt with Kate in his arms was completely selfish.
She leaned into him, clutching him as if he were the only stable thing in a suddenly rocky world. He stroked her hair, curling against his fingers, and then the long curve of her back, wishing he could do more and knowing the only thing he could possibly do for her was find out the truth of Jason's deathâalways assuming there was anything left to learn.
After a long moment she drew away, averting her face. Embarrassed, he supposed, both that she'd let her control slip and that she'd turned to him. He wanted to tell her he understood. He knew what it was like to feel you'd failed someone. His own guilt stabbed at his heart.
He almost spoke. But then her head lifted, and she managed a slight smile.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to fall apart on you.”
“Anytime.” He tried to keep it light.
She shook her head. “It won't happen again. Let's just get on with what has to be done.” Kate glanced toward the door, and it was a clear invitation for him to leave. “I'll see you tomorrow, then.”
Mac couldn't blame her for wanting to be alone with her grief. After all, he was the same way, wasn't he?
He had the door open and was halfway out when he knew he couldn't leave it at that. He turned, saw the pain in her eyes and leaned forward to kiss her lightly.
Her lips were cool. Unresponsive. And maybe he just imagined that they warmed and softened for an instant before he drew away.