Cold Feet

What the hell, he decided. The truth was the truth. “Lance is engaged to be married,” he said. “He’s been living with his fiancée and seeing Susan on the side.”

“What?” Holly scrambled to her feet. “Susan told me he was living with his sister.”

“If it makes you feel any better, his fiancée didn’t know about Susan, either. She kicked him out as soon as she learned. But she maintains that he was home by six o’clock both Monday and Tuesday nights. She works evenings and needed him to sit with her mother, who just had surgery to replace a knee. The mother confirmed that she and Lance watched television together for several hours both nights.”

“I can’t believe it,” Holly cried. “What scum! Men are all alike!”

“Hey, I never cheated on you,” he said.

“You quit loving me. That’s even worse.” Burying her face in her hands, she dissolved into tears.

Her crying tugged at Caleb’s heart, but he told himself not to feel any sympathy. He couldn’t afford sympathy. Where Holly was concerned, the softer emotions always got him into trouble. But he couldn’t stand to see her, or any woman, cry.

Leaving his beer on the counter, he went to see if he could get her to settle down. “Holly, you’ll meet someone else,” he told her.

She slipped her arms around his neck. His immediate impulse was to pull away, but she looked so crestfallen he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Someone who’s more compatible with you than I am,” he added, patting her awkwardly. “And we’ll find Susan, okay? Don’t give up hope. Not yet. She needs us to believe.”

Holly clung to him, nestling her face into his neck. “What if we don’t find her? I’ll live my whole life never knowing what happened to my own sister. I’ve lost you already, Caleb. I can’t bear to lose her, too. She’s all I’ve got left.”

Caleb thought of the other families suffering through the same kind of loss. He didn’t relish the idea of lying to Madison Lieberman, but it seemed a small price to pay to resolve the mystery that had affected so many lives.

“I’m going to help you find Susan,” he said. “Have some faith.”

Holly shifted slightly in his arms, fitting her body more snugly to his. “If we don’t find her, you’ll eventually have to give up.”

“We’ll find her.” He got the impression she was making her body accessible on purpose, and decided he’d given her all the comfort he could.

But when he tried to release her, she held on tight.

“Caleb?”

“What?”

“Is it really over between us? Because sometimes it doesn’t feel like it is.”

It had been more than two years since he’d made love to Holly. After his second divorce, he’d gone on a brief womanizing rampage, trying to repair what his failed marriage had done to his ego, he supposed. But he’d soon found the lifestyle too empty to bother with and had thrown himself back into his work. Now it had been ten months since he’d made love to any woman.

He had to admit he was beginning to feel his body’s long neglect, but Caleb wasn’t about to make another mistake with Holly. After their first divorce, a moment’s weakness had left her pregnant and, for the baby’s sake, he’d married her again. He certainly didn’t want a repeat performance.

“It’s really over,” he said, putting her firmly away from him.

“Is there someone else?” she asked.

After tolerating Holly for so many years, Caleb suspected he wasn’t naive enough to ever fall in love again. “No.”

“You came back here to help me, even though we’re through?”

He nodded. He had come to help her, and Susan. And because of Madison, he just might get lucky enough to solve the murders that had obsessed him for years.

CHAPTER SIX

M ADISON WAS ON THE PHONE with Tye when Caleb knocked at her door for breakfast the following morning. Propping the receiver against her shoulder, she yelled for Brianna to let him in while she flipped the pancakes on the griddle.

“I can’t believe Johnny’s out,” Tye said. “When did they release him?”

“He couldn’t really tell me. I think he was on something.”

Tye sighed. “That comes as no surprise.”

Caleb knocked again. Evidently Brianna wasn’t getting the door as she’d asked. Covering the phone a second time, Madison prompted her daughter to hurry.

Once she heard the patter of Brianna’s feet finally heading down the hallway, she returned to their conversation. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d want to know,” she said. “He tried stopping by your place before coming here. I guess you weren’t home, but I’m sure he’ll try again.”

“Did he hit you up for money?”

Madison didn’t want to admit that Johnny had asked for money, because she probably shouldn’t have given him any. But letting him have what he wanted was the easiest way to deal with her conscience over everything that had happened—or not happened—in his life.

“He asked for a few bucks,” she said.

“Did you give it to him?”

“What do you think?”

“Madison, we’ve talked about this before.”

“I know.” The emotions that made her give Johnny the money were so complex she couldn’t have explained them if she’d tried. Especially because she felt some of the same guilt about Tye. He’d certainly turned out a lot better than Johnny, but he’d endured the same kind of childhood, and it had taken her years to get to know him well enough to feel comfortable calling him occasionally. “I won’t give him any more,” she said.

She could hear Brianna at the door, greeting Caleb with a chilly, “Oh, it’s you. ” Momentarily distracted, Madison covered the phone to tell Brianna to mind her manners. But she was trying to get the pancakes off the griddle at the same time Tye was asking where she’d moved their father’s coffin. She decided to have a talk with Brianna later. “He’s at the Green Hill Cemetery in Renton,” she told Tye.

Caleb’s footsteps came down the hall and into the kitchen. She turned to wave a welcome, and ended up letting her gaze slide quickly over him instead. Not many men looked so good in a simple rugby shirt and a pair of faded jeans.

No wonder he had beautiful blond women visiting him in the middle of the night. The only mystery was that the woman hadn’t stayed until morning and made him breakfast herself.

He gave her a devastating smile. “Smells great.”

Madison told herself not to burn the food. “I hope you like pancakes.”

“I like everything.”

Suddenly remembering that she had Tye on the phone, she cleared her throat and told Caleb to have a seat. “I’ll be with you in a second,” she said. “I’m talking to my brother. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No problem.” He removed the newspaper he’d been carrying under one arm and spread it out on the table.

Brianna sat directly across from him, twirling the fork at her place setting and glaring at him.

Madison threw her daughter a warning glance. Then she turned her attention back to Tye, because there was something she still wanted to ask him. Johnny had told her that Tye and Sharon were having problems, but Tye acted as though nothing had changed.

“Would you and Sharon like to drive over and have breakfast with us today?” she asked, trying to introduce the subject of Sharon as naturally as possible. Madison hoped, if he needed to talk, he might feel safe opening up to her. “It’s nearly ready, but you don’t live far. We could wait.”