Janice Johnson - In Hope's Shadow

“Calculated.”

“What crossed my mind was malice aforethought.”

“The definition of first degree.”

She shivered. “It happened about when the boys got home after school. Gavin drove—he has his own car—and Joel took the school bus.”

“Not a real friendly relationship there,” Ben mused.

“No. Not outwardly hostile, either, but—” She chose not to finish.

“The neighbor call the police?”

“Yes.” Eve looked even unhappier. “Officer Pruitt again. He confronted Joel instead of making any effort to knock on doors and find out whether anybody else had seen it happen.”

As far as Ben knew, Ed Pruitt was a competent police officer. Either he wasn’t ambitious, had scored poorly on the tests that led to advancement or liked being first responder. Whatever the reason, he had stayed in uniform through his career and had just passed his twenty-fifth year on the job.

“You sure he didn’t?” Ben asked. “Or is that what the boy told you?”

“Well...” She frowned at him. “You’re right. Pruitt is leaning hard on Joel for no other reason than because Mr. Rowe doesn’t like him, though.”

“Cops do get tunnel vision sometimes, just like anyone else,” Ben said mildly.

“Are you implying I have, too?”

He didn’t think she’d appreciate being told she looked cute when she bristled.

“Nope. Just saying we’re not perfect, hard as we try.” One side of his mouth quirked up. “Well, I might have achieved that exalted state, but...”

Eve’s laugh erased her wariness. “Right. A perfect detective would have arrested the guys who hit that jewelry store, wouldn’t he have?”

His smile turned into a grimace. “That’s a low blow.”

She laughed again. He liked the sound, a merry ripple that was almost a giggle.

He picked up the dessert menu, tucked behind the catsup and salt and pepper shakers. “Pie?” he asked, even though he also felt an itch to call Nic and find out what was up. He could make an excuse and go to the john....

“I couldn’t.” Eve looked down at her empty plate ruefully. “I missed lunch, so I was starved, but I still don’t know how I stuffed all that in.”

He’d kind of wondered that himself, but he’d noticed that Eve rarely completely relaxed. She fidgeted, she tapped her foot, she paid attention to everything going on around her. Energy hummed through her. He’d be willing to bet she burned more calories than average for her size and weight.

He’d also really like to find out how it felt to go to bed with a woman whose engine never idled. He doubted she’d be passive. The thought was enough to make him shift a little uncomfortably.

She noticed, but only said, “I’d love a cup of coffee, though. I’ll watch you eat. And maybe steal a bite or two, depending on what you order.”

Damn it, Nicole could wait.

Ben went for cherry pie a la mode, and she stole more than a couple of bites. Sharing with her was fun, and it gave him an excuse to prolong the evening. Since they’d met here, like last time, and Eve would be driving herself home, her inviting him in wasn’t going to happen. A good-night kiss would have to be hasty, given that it was raining, weather that was more common than not in western Washington at this time of year.

While they waited for the waitress to return with change, Ben braced himself for Eve to take offense, but had to say, “This is my weekend with Rachel.” That sounded kind of bald, so he added, “If you want to think about Sunday night after she’s gone...”

If her expression changed, he couldn’t tell. “Oh, I usually have Sunday dinner with Mom and Dad.” Her tone was pleasant. “Do you have any special plans?”

“Maybe a movie Saturday.” Rachel liked to bake, too, so he’d bought some shaped cookie cutters and sprinkles and what have you so they could have some fun with sugar cookies. He was a little embarrassed to admit that. Plus...damn it, he couldn’t help picturing Eve with them, that rippling laugh delighting Rachel as much as it did him.

But letting her get to know Rachel better implied something he didn’t intend. He didn’t want his daughter to become attached to one after another of the women in his life.

As Eve walked out of the café ahead of him, he tried to decide if she’d understood the signal he’d sent by not suggesting she join him and Rachel this weekend, or whether she just thought he was being cautious about jumping in too quickly.

If he were smart, he’d come right out and say, “I’m not looking for anything long-term,” but he couldn’t seem to make himself do that, and he knew why: he wanted Eve, and he’d never have her if he was that blunt.

What if he hurt her, a woman who’d been hurt by too many people?

The worry made shame curl in his belly.

He kissed her good-night anyway, even though cold rain ran down his neck while he was doing it.

But he dialed Nic’s number even as he walked to his own car.

* * *

“YOU THINK THEIR haul is stashed under one of their beds?” Seth asked, frustration adding an edge to his tone.

Frustration Ben shared. Neither of them knew where to go next with this, and new crimes were pulling them away. The amount of time they could give to investigating the jewelry store heist was diminishing.

“Why not?” he said. “They must know we’re not even close to getting a warrant.”

The frustration still simmering, he ran a background search on a guy he liked for a more conventional holdup at a corner grocery store and gas station. The perpetrator had kept his head down and his face shielded by a hoodie, but watching the footage from the surveillance camera, Ben kept thinking, I’ve seen this guy before . His stature, the way he moved, the dart of his hand as he snatched the money... The name had come to Ben in the middle of the night, a lightbulb bursting on.

“Oh, yeah,” he murmured now, when he saw that Henry James Whitmore—otherwise known as Whit—had been picked up a couple more times since Ben had last collared him. In fact, Whit had been released from a six-month lockup three weeks ago.

Ben shook his head. Some people never learned.

His phone rang and he reached for it absently. The number looked familiar, but didn’t belong to anyone he knew well.

“Detective Kemper, this is Julie Silveira from Child Protective Services. I heard from Michelle Baker.”

“Did you?” he said softly. Something in his voice had Seth swiveling his chair to look at him. “Thank you for calling.”

A minute later, he hung up, his grin triumphant. “Ken Hardison’s girlfriend just surfaced. She says she’ll talk to us.”

Seth was already rising to his feet. “Now?”

“Sounds like. I have an address.”

She’d been hiding out at a friend’s house in Everett, an hour’s drive away.

Michelle Baker turned out to be painfully thin, with lanky, dull hair and the physical mannerisms of someone who had become conditioned to try to appear deferential—or maybe she was going for invisible, if only subconsciously.

“He always said he’d never let me go,” she said after she’d looked nervously up and down the street before letting them in the front door of the run-down place a few blocks from the community college. “I’d have liked to stay with my sister, but—” her shrug had a defeated quality “—he’s been knocking on her door every day or two since I took off. I told her to be careful.”

He asked about her child, and Michelle said she was napping. “He never hit Courtney,” she said, “but that last time, she saw what he did to me and I just didn’t know what to tell her.”

They refused coffee and talked briefly about measures she could take to protect herself, but Ben could tell she wasn’t convinced, and he couldn’t blame her. Hardison’s history suggested he was just the kind of guy to be enraged by a restraining order.