He wanted her. He liked her. He admired her. He respected her.
Why on earth would he even think about being with anyone else?
It would be just sex, no question about that. Neither one of them was up for anything else, and they both damn well knew it. But sex between two people who liked and respected each other… what was wrong with that?
After dressing and calling his son to say good night, he shoved the address and directions Stacey had given him in the pocket of his jeans. A quick stop at the liquor store on the corner-if she was supplying the steaks, he could show up with an extra six-pack-and he headed out of the main section of town.
Unable to keep the smile from his face as he drove, he had to acknowledge that for the first time in months, he felt genuinely good about something that did not involve Jared. He hadn’t felt that way about anything else in his personal life since he’d realized just how far he and his wife had drifted apart. That had been about a month before he’d found out she was cheating.
All that, however, was in the past. And, when he thought about it, he had to acknowledge a certain relief that she’d handed him an easy out of their cold marriage.
Surprised by that self-realization, Dean almost drove right by Stacey’s house as he turned into her neighborhood. Spying the number on the mailbox, he swung into the driveway, parking right behind her dusty cruiser.
He sat there for a moment, wondering whether he was losing it. Because coming to that kind of conclusion about his breakup after more than a year of feeling like the wounded party was both shocking and a little freeing. And it made him wonder if he would have arrived at it now if he hadn’t met a woman who’d driven him crazy with lust since the first time he’d shaken her hand.
Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, he was looking forward to seeing just what else he figured out about himself and about Sheriff Stacey Rhodes. Starting tonight.
Smiling in anticipation, he grabbed the beer and walked toward the house, up the curving sidewalk lined by tall, ragged hedges. He came around the corner, intent on avoiding the sharp thorns on the ivy bushes. So intent he didn’t at first notice what was happening just a few feet in front of him.
Then he saw it: the front porch stained red.The woman kneeling on it.
The woman covered in blood.
And he stopped smiling.
Wyatt didn’t generally watch television. He had one, of course, and occasionally flipped on the news when he was making dinner or waiting for his coffee in the morning. But as for regular programming, he’d rather read a book. If, that was, he had time to read anything other than case files and reports.
Considering the last work of fiction he’d read had been that da Vinci book everyone had been raving about, he supposed some would say he was bringing a little too much of his work home with him. Including tonight.
For some reason, though, as he warmed up the meal his housekeeper had left for him, he flipped on the television, barely listening to it. Having it on, hearing the low murmur of other voices in the background, helped remind him that a normal world existed out there. Everyday people lived and laughed, completely unaware of just how cruel and capricious life could be. While he buried himself in these quiet, still places, drenched in horror as he tried to make sense of the crimes committed by the Reaper, the earth continued to spin.
The antique dining room table he’d inherited along with this house in Alexandria was covered with files and photographs. Autopsy reports, interviews, and investigator’s notes competed for space. Additional boxes full of files sat on the chairs. Every piece of information currently available on each Reaper case was scattered across his elegant home, which had once belonged to his grandparents. With it came a wealth of darkness, entirely at odds with the serenity and calmness that had defined the lives of that kindly couple.
“I’m glad you never saw anything like this,” he murmured as he spread out the brutal crime scene photos from the third murder and examined them yet again. Because there had to be something in them that would help them break this case. Like rereading a book, though, the more he studied them, the more his mind filled in what his eyes tried to skim over as too familiar. So he took out a small magnifying glass, going over each inch.
Nothing.
Hearing the beeping of the timer, he put the photograph down, wondering how normal people would react to consuming a nice pasta marinara on a table covered with proof of human suffering and cruelty. The job had hardened him to it, but it hadn’t immunized him. So he took the plate to the couch, sat down, and put his feet on the coffee table, leaving the photographs in the dining room.
He’d taken two bites when a news story came on that captured his attention. A photograph filled the screen, the headline scrolling across the bottom. Reaching for the remote control, Wyatt punched up the volume.
He barely even noticed a moment later when his plate of pasta marinara slid off his lap onto the floor.
At first, when she’d arrived at her house and seen the horror on her front porch and door, Stacey thought a teenager she’d busted had gone crazy with a can of spray paint. But she’d quickly realized the awful truth: The saucer-size circles and long, thin smears had not been made from paint.
It had been blood.
Thick blood, congealing into brownish pools and drawing flies in the hot summer evening. The coppery scent filled every breath she took. Overwhelmed by the smell-and by those awful, vivid memories that scent and the feel of the slick fluid inspired-she had just stood there, gasping for untainted air.
And then she’d spotted the body, recognizing her immediately. The sad, lean corpse was mangled and broken, the once soft fur matted and sticky. But there had been no mistaking those gentle brown eyes, now blank and glazed with sudden, shocking death.
Dad would be heartbroken, utterly devastated, and Stacey already dreaded telling him. For there had been no doubt the poor, pathetic creature was Lady, the freewheeling stray who’d adopted her father and made him her own.
“He loved you, girl,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “You did have a home and a family, whether you wanted them or not.”
Those were the first words she’d been able to manage in the half hour since she’d arrived home. Before that, she had been too shocked to speak. She’d felt as thoroughly assaulted as if someone had beaten her. Just as whoever had left this vicious surprise here had intended.
Someone really had killed a sweet, lovable old dog whose only fault was occasionally sleeping on a porch step and allowing herself to be tripped over.
Stacey had paused for a second to pray that Lady had been killed by accident. She’d seen animals struck by cars plenty of times; those kinds of emergencies usually generated a 911 call here in Hope Valley. Especially on the winding country road where her father lived. She and Tim had lost more than one pet to that road during their childhood, each of them looking in death much like Lady did now.
But she couldn’t comfort herself for long. Because Lady hadn’t limped several miles here to Stacey’s house. She hadn’t smeared her own blood all over the porch and door.
And she absolutely hadn’t scrawled the word bitch in spiky letters across the cheery WELCOME HOME mat lying in front of the door.
Jesus. Sweet Jesus.
If Lady’s death had been accidental, her disposal most certainly had not been.
Stacey had spent ten minutes on her knees, with the dog’s head cradled in her lap. Those dark, betrayed eyes had stared up at her as if to ask how such a thing could happen. Finally, thinking of one of the neighborhood kids riding past on a bike and catching sight of the horror, she had gotten some supplies and gone to work cleaning things up.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she murmured as she worked around the body, rinsing the pink-tinged rag in the pink-tinged water bucket. She’d already changed the water once.