Multiples Mystery

Shame immediately followed the anger. What if he really was lying hurt and battered somewhere? What if he’d tried to come? What if someone had attacked him, robbed him, left him to die—what kind of beast was she?

The door opened again and both women tensed, but it wasn’t Anthony who walked into the room. Zachary Bishop, Faith’s brother, looked from one anxious face to the other and stopped dead in his tracks. “If this isn’t a good time—”

“Come on in, Zac,” Faith said as she slipped off the bed. His smile of greeting for his sister faded as his gaze sought out and held Olivia’s.

Unlike petite Faith, Zac was tall and rangy, with straight brown hair cut shorter than usual, intense blue eyes and a broken nose that had healed crooked in an interesting way. A faded scar ran diagonally across his chin and another bisected his left eyebrow, both remnants of a drunken brawl he broke up his first year as a Deputy Sheriff back in Westerly.

But he wasn’t a deputy anymore. He was a Seattle cop, a position he had taken while she and Anthony had been on their honeymoon. Still, she’d be willing to bet he was the same old Zac underneath the fancy new suit, a man of swift action and few words.

“How’s the new mother?” he asked, and to her relief, his voice sounded the way it always had. Maybe they could put the past behind them and be friends again.

“The truth? I’m going a little stir-crazy.”

He produced a quartet of pink roses from behind his back and handed them to her.

The simple message of the flowers touched her more than the huge bouquets that lined the shelf, sent by everyone she knew and some people she didn’t. “One for each baby,” she said softly, fingering the blushed petals. Meeting his gaze again, she said, “Thank you, Zac.”

He nodded.

“Have you seen them?”

“Briefly. I had to wave a badge to get into the place. Security is tight. They’re cute but kind of tiny, aren’t they?”

“They’ll grow,” Faith said.

Zac nodded. No one spoke for several seconds. In the past, the three of them had talked over the top of each other half the time. To fill the void, Olivia said, “How do you like your new job?”

“It keeps me busy,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, jingling keys or loose change.

“How about living in Seattle?”

He shrugged. “It has its moments.”

Faith said, “My brother, the big talker.”

“Well I think it must be very exciting,” Olivia said. “Lots more happening here than in Westerly. Are you on a big case?”

“Actually, things are in flux.”

“What does that mean?” Faith asked.

“It means things are in flux.”

“Zac!”

A fond smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he stared at Faith. “You haven’t changed a bit since you were ten years old.” With a shift of gaze to Olivia, he added, “Neither have you. You’ve both always been too nosey for your own good.”

“You’re one to talk,” Olivia said softly, but he apparently heard her and again their eyes met.

“Touché,” he said. “Okay, you guys win. I’ll talk on the condition that what I say stays in this room for now.”

Zac groaned as Faith mimed zipping her lips. He stared them each in the eye and said, “Sheriff Knotts got caught stealing marijuana from the evidence room.”

Both women blinked before Olivia said, “Our Sheriff Knotts? Bobby Knotts of Westerly?”

“The very one.”

“How does a crooked sheriff in Westerly tie in to your job in Seattle?” Faith demanded.

“Knotts has been asked to resign immediately pending criminal investigation. Half the sheriff’s department is implicated. Since I left some time ago, it’s been decided I’m the one guy who knows the ropes and isn’t tainted by Knotts.”

“Dad is going to be dancing in the streets,” Faith said. “You’re moving back to Westerly!”

Zac nodded.

“That’s great,” Faith gushed.

He held up one hand. “I haven’t accepted yet. I don’t know if I want to be interim sheriff. I’m not sure I want to move back to Westerly.” He glanced at the flowers in Olivia’s hands and turned to his sister. “Would you mind finding a vase for the flowers?”

“You’re getting rid of me. No, I don’t mind. Back in a moment.”

“Don’t forget to steal a wheelchair,” Olivia called after her.

Faith nodded, then cast her brother a quick look. “I need to talk to you before you leave.”

Olivia looked Zac over as he stared after his sister. At thirty-five, he appeared to be in his prime, the boyish mannerisms gone, replaced with easy sophistication. However, under that big-city gray suit she knew beat the heart of a small-town lawman, a man who knew his place in the scheme of the universe. Not for the first time, she wondered what had driven him to leave Westerly.

It couldn’t have been their fight. Something like that wasn’t important enough to drive a man away from his family and friends and his career.

As if attuned to the direction of her thoughts, he looked down at his feet, then into her eyes. “I wanted a minute alone to apologize to you, Olivia.”

No need to ask for what.

“I shouldn’t have spoken to you like I did. I had no right.”

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “And on my wedding day, too, Zac. That was just plain mean.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I’ve always thought of you as a little sister, like Faith, but you aren’t.”

“No, I’m not. You telling me I absolutely could not marry Anthony Capri was totally out of place. Frankly, even if you’d been my brother it would have been going too far.”

“I know that now.”

“You really upset me.”

“I’m sorry. Am I forgiven?”

She stared at him a second, then smiled. “Of course you’re forgiven.” She’d missed him. She was ready to let that unfortunate day go. Like Faith, Zac was as good as family, and family had to forgive and forget, otherwise there’d be no one to spend holidays with. “Are you really thinking about taking the sheriff’s job and coming back to Westerly?”