Brenda Novak - Body Heat

Rod muttered a curse. This was his own fault for driving out to the ranch this morning. But it didn’t matter. His father would’ve learned of his presence sooner or later. Bordertown was too small for anyone to remain anonymous for long. “Will you go away if I do?”

There was a slight pause. “If that’s what you want.”

Kicking off the sheet, he rolled out of bed and yanked on a pair of shorts. “What now?” he demanded as he jerked open the door.

Bruce handed him a stack of newspapers. “These have articles about the killings. I thought you might like to read them. They’ll give you a feel for what’s happened and what’s been done about it so far.”

This was the one thing Bruce could’ve brought that Rod wouldn’t be angry about. “Fine. Great. Thank you.”

“And I wanted to tell you there’s no need to pay for a motel. You can stay out at the ranch, if you like.”

Rod leaned against the doorjamb. “What did you say?”

“I said you’re welcome at the ranch.”

“What—one of the shacks is available?”

Color rose in his father’s cheeks. “No. There’s plenty of room at the house.”

His house? The rambling two-story pueblo-style structure with the red roof and the fountain out front? What Rod wouldn’t have given just to see inside it as a child. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not at all. It’s a big house, and it’s mostly empty now that the boys have moved out.”

But Jorge had said Patrick and Stuart were still at the ranch. “Where are ‘the boys’?”

“Patrick is married and living in a house of his own at the other end of the property. Stuart has his own place, too, next door to his brother.”

“Stuart’s not married?”

“Nope. I’m hoping he’ll be ready for that soon. I’d like grandkids someday and Patrick’s wife doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. She owns the nail salon in town and says she’s too busy.”

Rod had seen the shop. “So he married a business-woman.”

Although Bruce didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed, Rod doubted Edna would approve of having a lowly cosmetologist for a daughter-in-law, even if she was a hardworking one. “More or less, I guess. Anyway, the house is available, as I said, and it’s comfortable, roomy.”

Bruce was trying too hard, which made the situation even more awkward than it already was.

Determined not to succumb to his bitterness, Rod bit back the harsh retort that sprang to his lips. “No, thank you. I’m fine here.”

The flatness of his response, and what it indicated, didn’t seem to register. Bruce maintained his cordial cheer. “Well, keep it in mind. If this mess drags on, living in a motel might get old. And we’d love to have you.”

Again, Rod was tempted to ask if he’d forgotten the past, when Bruce couldn’t stay far enough away from him and his mother. But revealing his anger would make it look as if he cared. Why give Bruce, Edna and their sons the satisfaction of knowing they’d been so successful at making him feel inferior and unwanted?

For the second time, he managed to reel in a scathing comment, but only by ignoring his father’s rejoinder. “Thanks for the papers.”

Applauding himself for his courteous veneer, he started to close the door—then jerked it open again. “By the way…”

Obviously eager to prolong the conversation, his father stepped back to the door. “Yes?”

“Is it true that Sophia St. Claire is the chief of police?”

“Sure, why? You know her?”

He knew her, all right. He’d had a terrible crush on her when they were in high school and had screwed up the courage to ask her to Homecoming for their sophomore year. Elated when she accepted, he’d thought maybe he’d been wrong about Bordertown, about his chances of succeeding in this place. It was only a school dance, but it’d seemed like a promise of hope. Never had he been so excited about life, about change. He’d spent everything he had on a suit and flowers, and eagerly counted the days until the big dance. When he found out that she’d stood him up and gone with a more popular boy, he’d felt as if she’d made a joke out of the belief that he could be more than he was. It felt like the most personal of rejections. Somehow that had cut deeper than almost anything else he’d experienced, probably because he’d been young and vulnerable back then in a way he hadn’t been since. He’d made sure of that. “We were in the same class. When I went to school, of course.”

Unwilling to address the negative aspects of the past—or, it seemed, to even remember them—Bruce skimmed over Rod’s reference to dropping out. “She’s a beauty.” He added a whistle. “Stuart talks about her all the time.”

“His wife doesn’t mind?”

“It’s Patrick who’s married, not Stuart. Chief St. Claire is single, too. For now, anyway. There’re about a dozen men who’d like to change that.”

Including Stuart, apparently. “Who’s she dating?”

“She goes out with Stuart now and then, but I don’t get the impression she’s all that serious about him. She used to see Dick Callahan, the pastor over at First Calvary Church, but that didn’t go anywhere, either.”

What, he’d figured out that her soul wasn’t worth saving? “Why not?”

“Got some young girl pregnant. It was a big scandal, as you can imagine—a church man sleeping with an underage member of his flock. To save face, and his job, he claimed to love her. And maybe he really does. Who knows? He married her. The baby’s due anytime.”

“Poor Sophia.” Rod couldn’t think of anyone who deserved to be jilted more but he tried to cloak the sarcasm in those two words. Not because he cared whether or not others found out he wasn’t all that impressed with Sophia St. Claire—he didn’t want to give his father an excuse to hang around by asking questions. “She any good at her job?” He wanted to know what he had to work with, whether or not she’d be a competent and cooperative partner in the investigation.

“Seems to be,” Bruce replied. “But she’s had a rough few months. First, she had to deal with the people in town who were opposed to seeing a woman take charge, a young woman at that. If not for Paul Fedorko and a couple others on the city council who were adamantly opposed to her main competitor, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity. But she did. And she braved the backlash. Then these killings started. If she can’t solve them in a relatively short period of time, it’ll give her opponents the leverage they need to get her fired.”

Hearing this, Roderick had half a mind to sit back and do nothing, to wait and see if she could rescue herself. He certainly wasn’t inclined to do her any favors. But he couldn’t risk the lives of innocent people just to feed an old grudge. She didn’t matter. Maybe he’d once had feelings for Sophia, but he hadn’t thought of her in years.

Well, not in the past few months, anyway…. For whatever reason, no other woman had ever affected him in the same way.

“Do you think she’ll be willing to work with me on this?”

“I don’t see why she wouldn’t. Someone with your reputation. I’m sure she can use all the help she can get. Last I heard, the sheriff had assigned a detective to the case, but he should’ve assigned two or three.”

“She’s got a lot going against her.”

“Exactly.”

Rod remembered what she’d done to him well enough that this news didn’t make him entirely unhappy. He’d been so thrilled, as that naive teenager who thought he finally had a chance with the girl he’d always wanted. But she’d set him up, probably so she and her friends could have a good laugh. “I’ll pay her a visit.”

“It’ll relieve the city council to have you involved in the investigation.”