Grace walked down the well-lit Main Street of Mill Hall to where she parked her car. Footsteps echoed across the deserted town.
Not just hers.
She whirled to face the guy she’d talked to this afternoon. Was Ed stalking her?
He put up his hands as if in surrender. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I didn’t realize when we spoke earlier that coincidentally I was looking for you.”
She pulled her purse closer to her even though the guy held himself like a cop. “Why?”
His manner was deferential. “Miss, I just want to talk to you about a fire.”
Grace’s blood went cold. It had all ended with a fire in her last town.
“You moved out of the Grey Arms, correct?”
She stopped and looked at him, her curiosity getting the best of her. “Why?”
There’s been a fire. And it was set in your apartment.”
“Old apartment.”
“Right. Could we go somewhere to talk? Other than the middle of Main Street Mill Hall?”
“I’m tired. Just ask what you want so I can go.”
“Okay. When exactly did you move out?”
She thought back to when she’d rewound this time. Had it been Thursday or Friday. “Uh, Monday. The day after I signed the lease with the new place.”
“And did you go back?”
“No reason to. The place was a dump. No fond memories.”
The cop grimaced as if he knew what she was talking about. “So you were nowhere near the Gray Arms two nights ago?”
“No. Are you finished?”
“Can anyone corroborate your story?”
“I went to bed alone.”
She turned away from him ready to be done with the conversation. His next words stopped her. “You were investigated in a murder by arson in Pennsylvania.”
“And they decided I wasn’t the person they wanted.” Would that haunt her forever?
“The detectives haven’t arrested anyone, yet.”
“And I moved here, proof that they didn’t need me to stay in town. Goodnight Detective.”
She left her blood on its way to boiling.
Zach Holten’s apartment was in a high rise at one end of Main Street Glen Hills. Most of the town Grace had settled in was rural, with the hospital being the biggest employer, so the high rise stood out. Literally.
As she trudged up the stairs to the third floor, the weight of her task slowed her steps. She only had two more days to solve this thing. At least she’d be close to Dolores. She’d taken the day off already and planned to invite her landlord out for lunch and shopping.
New age music filtered through the red apartment door which sported a three seventeen. Grace stood with her hand poised to knock. What if he was in the shower? What if he had a woman over?
She’d be mortified to interrupt a date or a rendezvous.
She’d be jealous, too. Oh, God. She’d never felt this way about anyone. Why now?
She swallowed her hesitance and rapped on the door. Zach opened it a bit then when recognition dawned on his face he opened it fully. “What are you doing here?”
“I have some questions for you. I didn’t think you’d mind being invaded on your home turf to be interrogated.”
He leaned on the door dressed in loose pants and no shirt. A sheen of sweat covered his hairy chest. “Turnabout is fair play, I guess. You’ll have to wait until I’m done. Or better yet, join me.”
She walked through the doorway into a true bachelor’s pad. Except for the art on the walls. No race car posters, here. Instead he had pictures of religious icons and prints by contemporary artists.
“What are you doing?”
“Yoga. I don’t have another mat, but if you take off your socks you won’t slide on the carpeting,” he said as he closed the door behind him.
She looked at him making sure he didn’t have two heads. “Yoga? I thought only women vegetarians did that.”
He laughed, the muscles on his chest rippling with the effort. “Nope. Homicide detectives that have seen too much do it to keep their sanity.”
That had been the most he said to her about himself ever. She eyed his mat then her jeans. “I’m not sure I’m dressed for it.”
“I can lend you some loose shorts.”
“I doubt they’d fit me.”
“They come from someone your size.”
Clothes from an ex-girlfriend. Just what she wanted to wear when she was talking to him. “I don’t think so. I can come back when you’re done.”
“No, I only have a few more minutes. Make yourself at home. There’s beer in the fridge.”
He turned away from her as if dismissing her. She stood not sure what to do, then went to the kitchen for a beer. The amber liquid slid down her throat like a log on a flume ride. She expected to splash herself.
Zach appeared in the doorway when she was halfway through the green bottle of imported beer. “So what brings you here?” His permanent scowl had returned.
She hesitated. “I want to know if you’re the father of Dolores’ baby.”
His laugh spurt out of him as if he had lost control of it. “Why would I tell you that?”
“Are you?”
He turned away from her and filled a glass with water. She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he downed the whole lot of it. “I could be.” His ego said that.
Did feelings for Dolores still occupy his body? Grace took note and squelched her hormones screaming for her to touch him. He smelled like a man, an enticing one at that. She read somewhere that if you liked how a man’s sweat smelled he was your soul mate.
Her mind streaked back to her dreams. All moisture left her mouth. She dragged herself back to the present. “Oh? And who else?”
“No one else.”
She bit her lip. A debate raged inside of her. Did he not realize what other people thought of her Dolores? If only one person had told her of Dolores’ hijinks she might not have believed him, but Hank had no reason to lie to her.
“You think so?”
His stare tried to bore a hole through her as if daring her to refute him. “I hear Dolores has been with a lot of people.”
She regretted the words when the pain pierced across his steel eyes, making them closer to flint than anything that could hold up a building.
His jaw clenched and a muscle worked in his cheek. “Those are lies.”
“Zach,” Grace said in her “calm the patient” voice.
His shoulders slumped. “Okay, I know about Dolores. That’s why we’re divorced. She ran around on me.”
He turned away from her. She obeyed her instincts and moved to him, touching his back. The pain must be raw and still near the surface for him. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault and I should be done with it by now.” He turned back to her, shifting her close to him. “For some reason I want to trust you, but I can’t.”
His head tipped and moved closer to her. His hand warmed the side of her face. Colors danced on the border of her vision as desire shot through her.
If of their own accord, her head leaned into him, her lips parting. Her brain screamed that she couldn’t do this. The last time she gave into an attraction she’d wound up arrested for a murder she didn’t commit. “No.”
Her self-control did not reach her feet so she was unable to move.
He stopped, his eyes on fire, his breath ragged across her cheek. “No?”
“We can’t. I have a job to do.”
He brushed past her. “And what is that? Protecting Dolores?”
“Yes in a way. She asked me to help her.”
“Yeah, you said that. Her corpse talked to her. You got those cops in Pennsy so stymied they speak highly of you.”
Her back stiffened this time. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I helped them.”
“That Detective wouldn’t get specific about how you helped. Something about an arson. Why don’t you tell me the details.”
Every fiber of her being wanted to spill the whole story. She took a deep breath, but knew she couldn’t tell him the truth. The one thing he wanted, she didn’t feel he could handle.
Shaking her head she backed away out of the kitchen. “Trust me. You don’t really want to know the truth.”
He followed her grabbing her arm. Electricity seared its way through her.
“Try me.”
“No. You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Are you attracted to me?”
She swallowed hard and crossed fingers behind her back. “No.”
“Then why were you as eager to kiss me as I was to kiss you?”
“You misread my body language.” She tugged herself loose. “I have to go. I still want the answer to my question.”
“So do I Grace. So do I.”