Rules of Attraction

“We can take it from here,” the man told Quinn.

Peter Santos was the D.A. investigator Jennifer had spotted tailing her, the reason why Quinn, a private not public investigator, had been hired. Quinn noted the edge in his voice. Santos should relax. Jenn had spotted Quinn, too—another reason why Quinn figured she was guilty. She wouldn’t have been that alert if she hadn’t been looking for someone watching her.

“I believe I’ll stay,” Quinn said. “This is Claire Winston.”

“Ms. Winston, I’m Peter Santos from the district attorney’s office. Could we go inside, please?”

“Do I have a choice?” she asked, but led them up the stairs, not waiting for Santos’s answer to her rhetorical question. When everyone was gathered in her foyer, Santos held out a piece of paper. Rase whined.

“I’ll be right back,” Claire said, not accepting the document. “I’m going to shut the dog in the kitchen.”

Good. She would handle the situation on her own terms. Had she figured out why Santos was there?

When she returned she looked calm. She’d also put her sweatshirt back on.

Santos passed her the paper. “I have a warrant, Ms. Winston.”

“For what?”

“Requiring that you turn over the note that your sister, Jennifer Winston, wrote you.”

Claire’s gaze shifted to Quinn. Hurt radiated from her like a furnace blast. Because of him the note would no longer be private but would be seen by the D.A. and others. “It takes three of you to bring me one piece of paper and pick one up?” she asked. “You all must’ve heard about my black belt in karate, I guess.”

The joke went over Santos’s head. Quinn cleared his throat. It really was pretty funny, the three of them confronting one slender schoolteacher with a spotless reputation. Claire took her time reading the warrant. Santos shifted from foot to foot. A grandfather clock by the front door ticktocked, ticktocked.

“Ms. Winston,” Santos said after a while. “All it says is—”

“I can read.” She opened the drawer of her entry table, removed a piece of paper and gave it to him.

Santos looked it over. Quinn held out his hand and was handed the note, probably because Santos didn’t want to argue in front of her.

“Dear Claire,” it read. “I’m doing what you asked. I’ll be in touch. Love, Jenn.”

“What does this mean?” Santos asked. “That she’s doing what you asked?”

“Night before last I gave her a deadline to find somewhere else to live.”

“Why?”

“She’d lived here long enough.”

“Her car is in your garage.”

“I don’t have an explanation for that. I assume she will be back for it.”

Santos took the note from Quinn. “You bleached your hair.”

She raised her brows. Quinn thought she looked magnificent, all haughty and cool. Mild-mannered schoolteacher—ha!

“So?” she asked.

“So, you look a lot like her now. Did you pretend to be your sister, Ms. Winston, so that she could get away?”

“I don’t believe your warrant covers anything beyond me giving you the note. I already answered questions I didn’t have to. It’s time for you to go.” The front door still stood wide open. She gestured for them to leave.

Quinn stepped aside as the two investigators exited.

“You, too, Mr. Gerard,” she said, not looking at him but at the men headed toward their car.

He saw a break in her composure, a fragility she hadn’t shown Santos. “I’d like to talk to you,” Quinn said.

“I have nothing to say.”

“I have things to say. I’ll stand right here, with the door open. Or we could go outside, if you prefer.” He pulled a business card from a leather holder and passed it to her. “I’m not a D.A. investigator. I’m in private practice. My job for them was over when your sister left. This is personal now, just between you and me.” The betrayal he’d endured years ago whirled inside him until he tamped it down. He knew how she felt. That’s all he wanted to tell her. He had little doubt she was an innocent victim swept into her sister’s game.

“You knew they would be waiting for us after the run,” she said, her tone accusatory.

“I knew they would be here sometime today.”

“You told them about the note.”

“I had no choice.”

“You had a choice.”

“No, I didn’t. Ms. Winston, are you worried about your sister?”

“Worried?”

“After you got home yesterday you never turned on your lights downstairs. That’s how I knew something was wrong and why I knocked. If she’d only been doing what you asked her to do—move out—you would’ve turned on your lights and gone about life as usual.”

Her shoulders drooped slightly. She closed her eyes for a second too long.

“What you say will stay between us,” he said, hoping she would talk to him, unburden herself. He’d been in her shoes. He understood.

“She didn’t take her stuff,” she said, meeting his gaze, confusion in her eyes but no weakness.

“Nothing?”

“Her jewelry, but not her clothes, or at least not many. And her car! She loves that car.”

“What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did.”

He hesitated in offering a possibility. “Could we sit down?”

She nodded. After they sat on her sofa he watched her finger his business card. “What does the ARC stand for?” she asked.