Leslie Parrish - Fade To Black

“I know the inn looks bad from the outside, but I promise the place is very clean. The owners can’t afford to renovate, but they make sure the rooms are spick-and-span.”

His hopes rose. But he still intended to reserve judgment until he actually had a chance to check out the inside of his room for himself.

About to tell her that, he was startled by the sound of glass breaking nearby. He and Stacey both jerked their heads reflexively, though he imagined they’d see nothing more than a waitress standing in the middle of diner plate wreckage.

Instead, he saw a man, pale and wiry, standing in the midst of the broken dishes on the floor. No waitress was in sight, and the glass and plate, complete with half-eaten sandwich, seemed to have slipped off his own table.

“Oh, great,” Stacey muttered, her voice soaked in dislike.

That tone, accompanied by the flash of anger that appeared in the stranger’s eyes when he met Dean’s, made him wonder if the dishes had slipped after all. When the man cast a glare of barely disguised anger at Stacey, he wondered even more. “Problem?”

“Not on my part.”

Dean sat up straighter, assessing the dish-killing stranger.With curly, dingy brown hair, and his tall, skinny, pale form, he most resembled a used Q-tip. The man, realizing Dean was staring, finally tugged his attention off Stacey. Grabbing some cash out of his pocket, he thrust it at the waitress, who’d come running to clean up. Then he stalked across the broken glass, beelining toward the door, not casting another look in their direction.

“Please don’t tell me he’s your ex,” Dean murmured, knowing the unusual exchange had been a personal, not a professional, one.

“He’d like to have been,” she acknowledged. “His name’s Rob Monroe. I had to let him down hard when he didn’t take the hint that I wasn’t interested.”

“Gee, can’t imagine what’s not to like.”

She snickered a little. A cute snicker. “Aside from the fact that I think his mommy still makes his bed and his daddy the mayor tells him what time to be home every night? I can’t imagine.”

Dean groaned at the very thought, even while tempted to ask her what did interest her. He was so not the smooth type who played those kinds of games with women, however, and didn’t know the language. He had no clue how to find out if she was feeling the intrinsic pull that he had since the moment they’d met. He only knew that when she’d laughed a few moments ago and her eyes had twinkled with genuine good humor, his heart had skipped a beat. Or ten.

“I saw you scoping out the town.”

Back to business. She obviously didn’t want to talk about her unwanted admirer, ignoring him just as she’d ignored the altercation with her brother earlier.

He wondered how a man might react to being so easily put out of this beautiful woman’s mind. And suddenly he felt the tiniest hint of sympathy for the angry Mr. Monroe.

“Didn’t take long to explore all of Hope Valley, did it?” she asked.

“No.”

“Two-stoplight heaven-that’s us.” She lifted her glass and sipped what appeared to be strong iced tea. Not exactly the beer he’d like to have at the end of a long, shitty day, but it looked refreshing.

A polyester-uniformed waitress approached and mumbled, “Getcha somethin’?” After Dean pointed to Stacey’s glass and asked for the same, she stuck her pencil behind her ear and ambled away.

Once they were again alone, Stacey continued. “I watched you from my office window. It’s dinnertime, and I figured if you were looking for a place to eat, you’d eventually end up here. There are a few restaurants on the outskirts-a pretty good steak place and a Waffle House. But they’re not walkable, and this is.” She shrugged and sipped again. “So I decided to come over here and wait for you to show up.”

He glanced at his watch. Dinnertime at six o’clock? Only in small-town USA. Most nights, like every other worker in D.C., he didn’t get home before seven. “I was just taking stock, picking someplace to eat while Wyatt makes his calls.”

“Whatever the reason, I’m glad you came.”

Her tone told him she had more to say, and that it wasn’t personal. While Dean had seen the guarded looks she’d sent his way earlier, and knew his interest in her was returned, he also knew she wanted to talk business. She might have loosened her uniform jacket and taken her hair out of its bun to hang down her back in a long ponytail, but she was still on the job. He doubted there was ever a time somebody in her position wasn’t .

“I’ve been doing some thinking.”

“I’m not surprised.” In the brief time since he and Wyatt had left her office, he imagined a whole slew of questions had entered her thoughts. Earlier, hit with such shocking news, she’d gone along with them, had let them take the lead. She hadn’t had a chance to think of the ramifications.

Now she’d thought about them.

He imagined the vivid pictures in her head would haunt her for a long time, each one raising a thousand questions. They certainly did for him.

How such things could happen, how he could watch such things happening on the same day he could find himself warmed by the laughter of a near-stranger, was beyond him. But he thanked God for the laughter, for the simple pleasure of bidding his son good night, arguing baseball with his brother, or hearing the latest news about his sister’s kids. Simple pleasures were the only things that kept anyone in his line of work sane.

“This case is a lot bigger than what you’ve let on so far.”

Oh, she had most definitely been thinking. “Yes.”

“How much haven’t you told me?”

Mindful of the chattering customers all around them, Dean leaned over the table, keeping an eye out for the return of their waitress. The last thing he wanted was for the rumor mill to get started any sooner than it had to. And while their waitress had been a mumbler, he had no doubt her jaw would move a lot faster if she had good gossip to relate. “As it pertains to Lisa? Not a lot.”

The intuitive professional across from him wasn’t put off. “And that which does not pertain to Lisa?”

He met her eye. “More than any sane person would ever want to know.”

She held his stare, unblinking, for a long moment, processing his words. Finally, Stacey glanced away, studying her own hand, which was wrapped around her drink. Good thing the diner was the old-fashioned type and used thick, heavy glasses. Were she clutching a foam cup, that tight grip would easily have crushed it.

“More videos?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve watched them all?”

“Unfortunately.”

She continued staring toward the table. “All the same?”

He could have downplayed it, but didn’t. “Most are worse.”

“My God.” She lifted her eyes again. They were bright, moist, not necessarily with tears, but definitely with emotion.

They fell silent, hardly noticing the clink of tarnished silverware against chipped white plates and diner-issue coffee mugs. The chatter continued at tables all around them, waitresses greeting newcomers each time the door opened, someone calling out, “More coffee, please?” every few seconds. Meat loaf specials were consumed out of congealing platefuls of gravy, and every person at the lunch counter grumbled about the heat. The world continued to turn for everyone else in the place.

But not for her. Not for them.

“How can you stand it?” she finally whispered.

“I can stand it because I know that I’m going to catch the bastard who’s doing it.”

She crossed her arms, rubbing her hands up and down against them as if she was cold, despite the warmth of the day. That didn’t surprise him. This was some cold shit they were dealing with.