Storm Season
Charlotte Douglas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 1

Violet Lassiter passed me the heavy blue-willow plate with a remarkably steady hand for a one-hundred-year-old. “Have a cookie, Miss Skerritt.”

She didn’t have to twist my arm. Fresh from the oven, the cookies smelled heavenly.

“They’re better with nuts,” she added in apology, “but Bessie can’t have ’em, so the rest of us have to suffer.”

“You eat too many sweets, anyway,” her eighty-four-year-old sibling, Bessie, countered.

“What do you think—” Violet accused her with a roll of her eyes “—that I’m going to shorten my life?”

Taking a cookie, I sat on the screened back porch of the modest cement-block home with the two elderly women, who were apparently unfazed by the ninety-degree heat and suffocating humidity of the September morning. Violet, tall and gangly with thick white braids wrapped around her head like a crown, wore a heavy sweater over her cotton housedress. Bessie, short and lean, was also dressed in a cotton shift and a cardigan, plus bright-pink sneakers and heavy flesh-toned nylons rolled just below her knees.

I’d first encountered the Lassiter sisters last June when Bill Malcolm, my fiancé and partner in Pelican Bay Investigations, had done background checks on volunteers for the local historical society. To his dismay, he’d discovered that Bessie had an arrest record for shoplifting. Further digging revealed she’d been stealing food for Violet after their Social Security money had run out before the end of the month. The judge had given Bessie probation, but his lenient ruling hadn’t solved the elderly women’s subsistence problem.

Bill and I had arranged for meals-on-wheels for the pair and had put together a gift basket to tide them over until deliveries began. To save the Lassiters’ pride, we’d fabricated a story that Bessie had won the basket in a grand opening raffle we’d held at our business. We’d presented them the basket of staples and goodies, along with our business card and instructions to call on us if they needed a private investigator, a request we never expected to receive.

Their call came yesterday.

I’d solved many cases during my twenty-three years as a cop and more recently for Pelican Bay Investigations, but I couldn’t guess what dilemma had prompted these elderly sisters to contact me. And I couldn’t get them to stop sniping at one another long enough to find out.

“Get Miss Skerritt more ice,” Violet ordered her sister in a drill-sergeant tone. “Her tea’s getting warm.”

“Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you can boss me around,” Bessie shot back.

“My tea is fine, really,” I said. “Now what—”

“You need to be bossed,” Violet said, ignoring me, “because you act like a child. I hope I live long enough to see you grow up.”

“Ladies.” I spoke loudly and firmly. The situation was spiraling out of control, sweat was soaking through the back of my blouse and all I could think of was how great air-conditioning would feel about now. “Why exactly did you want to see me?”

“We have a man,” Bessie announced with a gleeful expression.

I nodded but didn’t comment, not sure where this was going.

“A tenant,” Violet corrected.

“But he’s not a paying tenant,” Bessie added. “More like a guest.”

I gazed into the tiny house through the open back door but couldn’t spot anyone inside, and I was beginning to wonder if this mysterious tenant wasn’t senility’s equivalent of an imaginary friend.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Over there.” Bessie pointed to a toolshed at the rear of the yard that backed up to the Pinellas Trail, a linear park built on an old railroad bed that ran the length of the county.

I narrowed my eyes, but the shed door was shut, and I caught no flicker of movement inside. With the windows closed and the Florida sun beating on the roof, the interior temperature had to be over a hundred degrees. If their “guest” was in there, he was well done by now.

“Oh…kay,” I said, not wanting to call her crazy to her face.

“He’s not there now, Bessie.” Violet’s condescending older sister voice reminded me of my own sibling, Caroline. “He’s gone out.”

“You have a man living in your garden shed?” I felt like Alice who’d tumbled down the rabbit hole.

Bessie nodded.

“What’s his name?” The investigator in me couldn’t help asking, while the saner part of my nature chided me for encouraging their delusions.

“He doesn’t have a name,” Violet said, “so we call him J.D.”

Curiouser and curiouser. The ladies had obviously lost it.

“J.D. for John Doe,” Bessie said. “He’s a lovely man.”

“Who doesn’t have a name.” An incipient ache flared behind my eyes.

“Well, he had a name at one time—” Violet began.

“—but he can’t remember it,” Bessie finished. “Can’t remember anything. Who he is, where he came from, not even his age, although I’d put him in his early sixties, if I had to guess.” She chomped the last bite of her third cookie, sans nuts.

“He has the nicest manners,” Violet said, “or we wouldn’t tolerate him. Why, for the longest time, we didn’t even know he was there.”

“We wouldn’t have known at all,” Bessie agreed, “if it hadn’t been for the Turk’s Cap bush.”

Violet nodded.

I was beginning to wonder if I were the one losing it. Nothing either of them said made any sense.

“That bush grew so high during the summer rains,” Bessie explained, “that it blocked the view from my bedroom window. So I went to the shed for the clippers.”

“We don’t use the shed much any longer,” Violet said, “since that nice young neighbor—”

“Mr. Moore,” Bessie said.

“Don’t interrupt,” her sister snapped.

“But you’d forgotten his name.”

“I didn’t forget. I hadn’t gotten to it yet.”

“So you don’t use the shed…” I prompted Violet in hopes of ending the bickering.

Bessie answered. “Mr. Moore mows our grass when he does his yard. He’s very thoughtful.”

“Thoughtful, my eye,” Violet said. “He got sick of looking at the jungle over here.”

While Bessie searched for a suitable comeback, I plunged into the void. “What did you find in the shed, Bessie?”

“Come and see for yourself.”

I set aside my glass of tea, pushed to my feet from the ancient metal glider and followed Bessie out the screen door. Violet, amazingly agile for a centenarian, dogged our steps as if afraid she’d miss something.

We followed a path of popcorn stone, set in thick St. Augustine grass, to the shed, constructed of the same concrete block as the house and apparently built at the same time, around 1940. The wooden door showed signs of rot, and several asphalt shingles were missing from the roof. A square of cardboard replaced a missing pane in one of two sash windows visible on the side of the shed that faced the house.

Bessie knocked on the door. “J.D., you home?”

When no one answered, she tugged open the warped door, reached inside and flipped a switch. Light from the bare bulb, which extended from a cord in the center of the ceiling, illuminated the opposite of what I’d expected.

Instead of a jumble of old tools, broken pots and other junk covered in dust and spiderwebs, the space was immaculate. The concrete floor had been recently swept, every surface dusted, the windowpanes sparkled in the sun and tools and garden implements hung in an orderly array on makeshift wall pegs. On an ancient wooden workbench in front of the east window sat rows of healthy green herbs in small pots. Next to the herbs were a single-burner electric hot plate, a battered but clean saucepan and a few cans of beans and franks. Beneath the bench stood a jug of drinking water and an old but sturdy Igloo cooler.

On the opposite side of the shed, under the west windows, a rough bed frame had been constructed from scraps of plywood and old lumber. Several ragged and faded blankets, neatly folded, lay beside a stained pillow. On a peg above the bed hung a heavy army jacket.

Either the Lassiter sisters had staged an elaborate set for their delusion, or the mysterious J.D. wasn’t a figment of their imagination but real flesh and blood.

My concern for the frail and elderly ladies skyrocketed. “Have you called the sheriff’s office?”

“Oh, no,” Bessie said in a horrified tone.

“We wanted to,” Violet said, “but police make J.D. nervous, poor man.”

“So you want me to evict him?” I thought I’d finally gotten a handle on why the sisters had summoned me.

“Evict him?” Bessie’s eyes widened with alarm. “Of course not. That would be inhospitable.”

“We want you to find out who he is,” Violet explained in the same exasperated voice she used on her sister. “He’s such a dear man, we’re sure he has a family somewhere who love him and miss him. In the meantime, we’re happy to have him stay with us.”

“We even offered to share our meals,” Bessie added, “but he didn’t want to impose.”

“How does he support himself?” I asked.

“He doesn’t beg, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Violet said sharply.

The old lady was quick. That J.D. was a panhandler, at best, was exactly what I’d been thinking.

“He’s too proud,” Bessie said. “He’d never take charity. He insists on doing odd jobs around our house to pay his rent. He stopped our faucet from dripping, planed a closet door that always stuck and mended a window screen. He also trims the shrubbery and weeds the flower beds. And as soon as we can afford a new pane, he’s going to repair the shed window.”

“He has an old bicycle,” Violet added. “He rides around town and collects aluminum cans. Then he takes them to the recycling center and sells them.”

“I’m sure J.D. is very…nice.” I was trying to be tactful. “But are you sure he’s not dangerous?”

Violet drew herself to her full height, very imposing since it included six inches of braided coronet.

“Young lady, I didn’t get to be a hundred years old without learning a few things. I am an excellent judge of character. J.D. may have forgotten who he is, but he hasn’t forgotten what he is.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“A kind and gentle man who’s temporarily lost his way,” Violet said. “We asked you here to help him find it.”

“Will you?” Bessie asked. “As much as we like having J.D., we do want him to find his family.”

Faced with the Lassiters’ sincere concern, I didn’t have the heart to tell them that J.D. was most likely one of a vast army of homeless, many of whom, due to mental illness, had chosen life on the streets rather than deal with the strains and stresses of a normal life. I only hoped he wasn’t also the type who suffered bouts of violence because he wasn’t on medication.

“I’ll have to meet J.D. and talk with him,” I said. “Then I’ll see what I can do. Can you call me when he’s here?”

Bessie looked embarrassed.

Violet squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “We had the phone taken out. Never used it, except to answer calls from telemarketers.”

I knew better. The Lassiters’ fixed income hadn’t stretched to include the monthly phone bill.

“Maybe your neighbor, Mr. Moore, will call me?” I suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” Bessie said. “He’s already volunteered to call 9-1-1 if we ever need help. I’m sure he won’t mind calling you.”

I said goodbye, hurried to my ancient Volvo and cranked up the air-conditioning. I hoped J.D. returned soon, so I could meet him and decide whether to call the police, despite the sisters’ objections, for their own safety.

As I drove away, I knew I wouldn’t bill them for my time. As Bill always said, pro bono work was good for the soul.

Especially if it kept two lively old ladies out of harm’s way.

CHAPTER 2

Darcy Wilkins, our receptionist and secretary, greeted me with a distracted wave when I returned to the office. She was eating lunch at her desk and watching the noon news on the small television in the waiting area. Roger, my three-year-old pug, showed more enthusiasm at my arrival and followed me toward my office.

“Look,” Darcy said around a mouthful of yogurt, pointing to the TV with her spoon, “there’s Adler.”

Dave Adler had been my partner during my final months with the Pelican Bay Police Department. When the city had disbanded the PD and the sheriff’s office had taken over, Adler had gone to work as a detective with the Clearwater Department.

I stopped midstride, pivoted and almost tripped over Roger in my haste to view the screen. Young enough to be my son, but already a stellar detective, Adler always evoked a certain maternal pride. Gazing at the screen where the Clearwater PD spokesperson was being interviewed, I could see Adler and his current partner, Ralph Porter, in the background, carrying evidence bags to their car, just as the news segment ended.

“Did you hear what was going on?” I asked Darcy.

“Murder on Sand Key. Some woman was shot when she got out of her car inside the gated lot at her condo.”

My skin prickled at her words. But this homicide was Adler’s problem, not mine, so the hives that usually erupted at the mention of murder remained dormant.

“It’s too soon for the police to announce the victim’s identity,” I said. “Not until next of kin are notified.”

Darcy scraped the bottom of her yogurt cup with her plastic spoon, gave the drooling Roger a lick and tossed the spoon and container into the trash. “No motive yet, either.”

“Anyone see the shooter?”

“Not according to the newscast.”

At one time, the killing would have led the news in Tampa Bay. But with growth in population had come a corresponding increase in crime. Murders were commonplace, and the report of this homicide had been delayed until right before the weather.

I glanced toward Bill’s office and spotted his empty desk through the open door. I hadn’t talked with him since the previous evening. “Any word from Bill?”

Darcy nodded. “He called right after you left for the Lassiters. Said he wouldn’t be in this morning and asked that you meet him at the boat at three this afternoon.”

When we’d parted last night, Bill had said he’d see me at the office this morning, so apparently something had come up. “Did he say where he was?”

Darcy shook her head.

“What he was doing?”

She shrugged. “He seemed distracted, in a hurry. That’s all I know. I’m just the hired help. Nobody tells me anything.”

I suppressed a smile. We usually didn’t have to tell Darcy what was going on. She had the uncanny ability to hear whatever happened in the office, even behind closed doors.

“Any other calls?” I asked.

“No. It’s been like the quiet before the storm.”

“Bite your tongue. That’s a word I don’t want to hear until December.” The first day of that month would mark the end of hurricane season.

I took a seat on the chair nearest Darcy’s desk, faced the television and waited for the weather forecast. Early September is the peak of hurricane season, and for residents of Florida, that meant all eyes were on the tropics, and chief meteorologists Paul Dellegatto of FOX 13 and Steve Jerve of Channel 8 had become our best friends and constant companions.

So far this season, South Florida and the panhandle had been hit hard. Tampa Bay residents were holding their collective breath, wondering if this would be the year of the Big One, when a storm the equivalent of Ivan or Katrina would wreak havoc on an area that had been spared destruction since 1921.

Bill and I always remained alert to the changing weather. Living aboard his cabin cruiser at the Pelican Bay Marina, Bill needed plenty of lead time to secure his boat before evacuating. And my waterfront condo was in a mandatory evacuation zone. Before the multiple hits Florida took in 2004, I’d been more casual about leaving when a storm was forecast. But after viewing pictures of houses near the water that Ivan and Katrina had obliterated, except for the concrete slab foundations, I’d developed a healthier respect for the storms’ potential for damage. Every June when hurricane season began, I packed a large plastic bin with important papers, canned goods, bottled water, battery-powered lanterns, a first aid kit and kibble for Roger and stored it in the hall closet, ready to set in the car and evacuate at a moment’s notice.

On the little TV, the commercial ended and the weather forecast began.

“Damn,” I said.

The icon for a tropical storm had popped up on the weather map south of Jamaica in the Caribbean. The cone of probability for Tropical Storm Harriet stretched five days out and indicated the storm would strengthen in intensity and, pushed by upper air currents, a shifting jet stream and meandering Bermuda High, curve back toward Florida. For now, the state’s west coast, from the Dry Tortugas all the way to Cedar Key, was on alert.

Darcy sighed. “Now we’ll be glued to the television for days.”

“Yeah, praying it misses us and feeling guilty for wishing it on some other part of the country.” I stood up and headed for my office. “Come on, Roger, we have work to do.”

By work, I meant reading the Times and the Tribune and finishing the crossword puzzles, because, except for eventually identifying the Lassiter sisters’ tenant, I had no active cases at the moment. The hiatus didn’t disturb me. I had my police pension and a small trust fund from my father. Bill also had his police pension and a small fortune in real estate in the orange groves his father had left him. Pelican Bay Investigations was more a venture to keep us both busy and sane rather than a needed source of income.

A LITTLE BEFORE THREE, I set aside the completed puzzles, put a leash on Roger, told Darcy I wouldn’t be in again until the next morning and drove a few blocks to the marina. Anvil-shaped clouds towered in the eastern sky and portended evening thunderstorms. In spite of the threatening weather, many of the slips at the marina were empty due to sailors enjoying pleasure cruises and charter boat captains fulfilling the fishing fantasies of tourists in the deep waters of the Gulf.

Bill’s thirty-eight-foot cabin cruiser, Ten-Ninety-Eight, police code for “mission accomplished,” was docked at the end of one of several piers. It appeared closed and deserted, but as Roger and I approached, I could hear the hum of air-conditioning. I’d already spotted Bill’s SUV in the parking lot, so I knew he was aboard. I stepped from the dock to the rear deck and tapped on the sliders that opened onto the lounge, Bill’s tiny but efficient living area.

When he opened the glass door, my heart did a little flip-flop at the sight of him, making me feel like a teenager again instead of a forty-nine-year-old. Even at sixty, Bill was a man who turned women’s heads. Tall, tan and in terrific shape, with thick white hair and blue eyes, he grew more handsome with age. But today those baby blues had no twinkle when they greeted me, and his usual grin had gone AWOL.

“You okay?” I asked.

He pulled me inside, closed the door behind Roger and grabbed me in a brief but fierce hug.

“We have to talk.” His tone was as serious as his expression.

Fear threatened to close my throat. For years, Bill had been pressuring me to marry him. Set in my single ways and commitment-shy, I’d dragged my feet until recently. Last Christmas, we’d set our wedding date for Valentine’s Day, still five months away, to give me time to get used to the idea of marriage, but after we’d solved our last case, I’d recognized my delaying tactics as senseless. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Bill, and we weren’t getting any younger, so what was I waiting for? We’d agreed then that we’d marry as soon as we finished furnishing the house we’d bought together a few months earlier.

Except for a few odds and ends, the house was now move-in ready. Judging by his expression, I worried now that Bill was the one getting cold feet.

I sank onto the love seat on one side of the lounge, and Bill took one of the folding director’s chairs across the room from me. Not a good sign.

“I’m listening,” I said.

Roger curled onto the sofa next to me and placed his head on my lap, as if sensing I needed comfort.

Bill’s face looked pained. “I don’t know how to say this.”

In spite of his tan, his skin had a strange pallor. I prayed he wasn’t ill. I snapped my mind shut against a dozen dire possibilities.

“Just tell me.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled, like a diver getting ready to take a header off the tower. “It’s Trish.”

The years fell away, and I was once again a rookie, fresh out of the academy, with Bill Malcolm as my first partner with the Tampa Police Department. He had a wife the other male officers envied, a gorgeous woman with magnificent red hair, exotic green eyes, a curvaceous figure and a sense of humor that kept everyone around her smiling. Bill and Trish also had a six-year-old daughter, Melanie. The perfect family.

Until the strain of having a husband who put his life on the line every day finally broke Trish’s nerves and their marriage. The end came right after I’d saved Bill from being hacked to death by a machete-wielding wife abuser. I’d had to put three rounds in the guy’s chest to stop him, the only time in my career I’d ever fired my weapon. Bill was safe, but the what-might-have-been had sent Trish over the edge. She filed for divorce, moved to Seattle and took their daughter Melanie with her.

And she’d broken Bill’s heart. He had still loved her and eventually had come to realize that she’d loved him, too, and the only way she could end the marriage that was destroying her emotionally had been to put a continent between them.

At first, Melanie had returned to Tampa for summer visits with her dad, but as she reached adolescence, she had wanted to remain in Seattle with her friends—and her stepfather. Trish’s new husband, an accountant, had a nice safe job where no one would try to kill him, unless he was caught cooking the books by a client with a temper and the means for murder—highly unlikely for the straight-arrow Harvey in his safe suburban practice.

So over the twenty-three years since the divorce, Bill had lost touch with both Trish and Melanie and, to my amazement and delight, had fallen in love with me. Even when Melanie had married and had had children, she hadn’t encouraged her father to participate in their lives, a crying shame since Bill would have been a first-class grandfather.

“What about Trish?” I asked.

My first thought had been that she’d died. She was Bill’s contemporary, after all, and not everyone lived to the ripe old age of the Lassiter sisters.

He spread his hands in a gesture of either appeal or frustration. I couldn’t tell. “She’s back.”

“Back in Tampa?”

He shook his head, looking more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen him.

Roger, sensing the tension crackling in the tiny cabin, sat up and looked from me to Bill and back and whined softly.

A devastating second thought hit me. “Trish is back with you?”

“God, no,” Bill said immediately and with such emphasis, I exhaled in relief. “But it’s complicated.”

“Apparently,” I said with too much sarcasm, “or I’d have some clue what the hell is going on. You said Trish is back. Exactly where is she?”

The pained expression returned to Bill’s face, but he raised his chin and looked me in the eye. “She’s living in our house.”

CHAPTER 3

“What?” I shook my head, thinking I’d heard wrong.

“I left her there until I could talk with you.”

“You left your ex-wife in our house?” I couldn’t believe it. The entire exchange sounded like the script for a bad soap opera. “Why?”

“Harvey dumped her for a younger model.”

“So she’s come running back to you?” Insecurity gripped me. Bill had loved Trish, she was the mother of his only child, and now she wasn’t just a distant memory three thousand miles away. She was right here in Pelican Bay.

In our house.

“She called late last night, hysterical,” he explained. “Not only did Harvey leave her for a younger woman, but he’d planned every detail of his escape before Trish had a hint that anything was wrong. The creep cleaned out their joint accounts and canceled her credit cards. The deed to their house was already in Harvey’s name only, and he demanded that she move out. What could I do? Trish had nowhere to go.”

“She has a daughter.”

Bill pushed his fingers through his hair and frowned. “Trish called Melanie, but Melanie sided with Harvey. Said if Trish had been a better wife, Harvey wouldn’t have left her. Trish asked Melanie if she could stay with her until she can get back on her feet, but Melanie told her that in her present emotional state, Trish would upset the children.”

Years ago, Bill and I had often discussed how Trish had spoiled Melanie, as if trying to make up to her daughter for the divorce. Now Melanie’s resulting self-centeredness was coming back to bite her mother.

“Trish was desperate, or she wouldn’t have called me,” Bill said. “And she is the mother of my only child. What else could I do?” he repeated.

He could have hung up on her, I thought, like I would have. But Bill was a better person than I’d ever be, another of the reasons I loved him so much.

“I wired her money for a plane ticket,” he continued, “picked her up at the Tampa Airport at noon and left her at the house until I could talk to you.”

“You could have taken her to a motel.”

“I tried, but Labor Day weekend’s coming up. Every decent motel or hotel in the area is booked solid.”

“How long do you intend for her to stay at our place?” I tried but couldn’t keep the hostility from my voice.

Bill rose from his chair, crossed the cabin, sat next to me, and took both my hands in his. “I love you, Margaret. Whatever there was between Trish and me is over and done. Dead. I’m not the same man I was all those years ago.”

But he’d loved Trish before, a nagging little voice in my head insisted. And if he’s around her long enough, he might love her again.

“If you don’t want her in our house,” he said, “say the word. I’ll find someplace else, even if I have to rent Abe Mackley’s guest room.”

Abe, now retired, had been a detective with us in Tampa. I doubted his wife wanted Trish around any more than I did.

“What’s your plan?” I knew Bill wouldn’t have brought Trish all the way across the country without some thought of what to do with her once she arrived.

“First, find her another place to stay. Our house is only temporary until she can locate an apartment. I’ll loan her some funds until she can get a job and pay me back.”

“What kind of job?” Breaking into the workforce at sixty was no easy feat.

“Trish was a secretary in a law firm before we married,” Bill said.

“Typewriters ruled in those days.” I shook my head. “She’ll need training, unless she’s already learned computer skills and the necessary programs.”

“Then she can sign up for courses at the Clearwater campus of St. Petersburg College.”

Knowing Bill, he’d pay for that, too. Here I was, figuratively rubbing my hands with glee over what-goes-around-comes-around, while he, the person Trish had hurt the most, was bending over backward to bail her out of deep doo-doo. I should have been ashamed.

But I wasn’t.

“It’s up to you, Margaret,” he said.

“Why me? She’s your ex-wife.”

“Because you’re the most important person in my life, and I won’t do anything that would hurt you or make you uncomfortable.”

Great. All I had to do was say the word. Bill would leave Trish to fend for herself, and I’d spend the rest of my days feeling like the world’s most selfish bitch.

I tried to shove emotion aside and let reason reign. What harm would it do to let Trish stay in our house a few days until she could find her own place? Bill and I hadn’t planned to move in for a few more weeks. And just because Trish had been heartless all those years ago didn’t mean I had to follow her example. If Bill could forgive her and show compassion, so could I.

“You’re right,” I said, feeling magnanimous. “We’d be cruel not to help her.”

He enveloped me in his arms, and his lips brushed my ear. “I knew you’d understand. You’re a good woman, and I’m a damned lucky man to have you. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”

I wished I shared his optimism. I saw potential disaster no matter what decision I made, and I wouldn’t rest easy until the glamorous Trish was once again out of our lives and, preferably, at least three thousand miles away again.

Bill released me. “We’ll take Trish to dinner tonight to try to cheer her up.”

I stifled a groan. Talk about a rock and a hard place. I didn’t want to socialize with Bill’s ex, but I didn’t want him alone with her, either. I was mulling over which was the lesser of two evils when Bill’s cell phone rang.

He answered and handed it to me. “It’s Darcy.”

“I’ve got a hysterical woman on the other line,” Darcy said.

My first thought was that Trish had called the office.

“She says somebody’s trying to kill her,” Darcy added.

“Tell her to call 9-1-1.”

“I already did. She claims she’s talked to the police and there’s nothing they can do. She wants to talk to you.”

“Make her an appointment for first thing in the morning.”

“Tried that. She wants to see you now. Says she needs a bodyguard.” Darcy paused. “She’s either a total weirdo or really scared out of her mind, Maggie. I can’t tell which over the phone.”

“Give me her address,” I said with a sigh. One dilemma, at least, was solved. If I was interviewing Darcy’s caller, I wouldn’t have to go to dinner with Bill and Trish.

“Her name’s Kimberly Ross,” Darcy said, “and she lives in the penthouse at Sun and Sea condos on Sand Key.”

“Tell Ms. Ross I’m on my way.” I pushed End and gave Bill his phone and a summary of Darcy’s message. “I’ll have to pass on dinner. Can you take care of Roger? I don’t know how long this will take.”

“Of course.” He grasped my chin and tipped my face to look into my eyes. “You sure you’re okay with this Trish thing?”

“No,” I answered honestly, “and I need time to think about it. But the woman has to eat, so I have no objection to your taking her to dinner.”

Okay, so that second part wasn’t so honest, but with Trish back in the picture, the last thing I wanted was to come across as an insensitive jerk or rabidly jealous. I’d wait, assess the situation and then, if I thought Trish posed the slightest threat to our relationship, I’d scratch her gorgeous green eyes out.

“You’re the best, Margaret.” Bill kissed me to back up his words.

Leaving Roger with Bill and heading for my car, I could only hope, with Trish back in town, that I maintained that ranking.

GOING-HOME TRAFFIC was heavy on Edgewater Drive all the way through downtown Clearwater and across the arching bridge that led to the causeway and the beach. I crossed the causeway, navigated the roundabout and headed south on Gulf Boulevard. Beach real estate was in a state of flux. Where mom-and-pop motels and restaurants had once stood, land had been cleared for multistory luxury condos. In the coming years, families that now swarmed the area for a last fling before going back to school would find no affordable places to vacation. Only the rich and richer would be able to afford living on the beach. That famous white sugar sand might as well be gold dust.

I crossed the Clearwater Pass Bridge onto Sand Key and watched for the sign for Sun and Sea among the towers of condos on the Gulf side. I found the complex south of the Sheraton and turned into the drive. When I pulled up to the entrance, yellow crime scene tape flapped in the onshore breeze just inside the gate.

Although I’d never been here, the parking lot seemed vaguely familiar. Then recognition clicked.

No wonder the woman who’d called the office was scared. Sun and Sea had been the location of the shooting Darcy and I had seen reported on the noon news. I waited while the security guard buzzed Ms. Ross for permission to admit me, drove through after he opened the gate and searched for a parking place.

A Clearwater police cruiser was parked in front of the visitor spaces and a uniformed officer stood outside his car, leaning against the hood. I recognized Rudy Beaton, a former Pelican Bay cop, and rolled down my window.

“How about moving that heap of junk so a lady can park?” I called to him.

“Maggie? Is that you?” Beaton pushed away from his vehicle and approached mine.

“I’m here to call on a client,” I said. “Good to see you. How’s the job treating you?”

He grinned. “You know how it is. I’m counting the days till retirement.”

I jerked my thumb toward the yellow tape. “Did you respond to the shooting?”

Beaton shook his head. “That was before my shift. I’m here to keep an eye on the scene until CSU has finished up.”

I glanced around. “Looks like they’ve already left.”

He pointed to a hotel south of the condo. “They’re processing a room over there. Fifth floor.”

“That’s where the sniper fired from?”

“Doc Cline and Adler are working that theory,” Beaton said.

Doc Cline was the medical examiner. She and Adler must have calculated the trajectory of the bullet that killed the woman earlier today.

“Did the vic live here?” I asked.

Beaton shook his head. “She was from out of town, here to visit relatives for the weekend.”

I looked from the hotel window to the parking lot where the woman had died. “Guess that put a crimp in their holiday plans.”

“You ever see any of the guys from Pelican Bay…” he asked with a hint of nostalgia “…other than Adler and Darcy?”

“Not lately. Seems as if they’ve scattered to the four winds.” Political maneuvering under the guise of saving money had shut down the Pelican Bay Police Department earlier in the year and had left everyone from uniformed officers and detectives to support personnel scrambling for new jobs.

“Me, either. Except for Adler.” Beaton’s face reflected the sadness I felt over the breakup, like a family that had suffered through a nasty divorce. “I’ll move my cruiser,” he said, “so you can park.”

Rudy returned to his car, drove it away from the visitor parking and I pulled into a space.

Within minutes, I was exiting the condo’s elevator onto the penthouse floor, twenty stories above the narrow strip of beach that edged the Gulf of Mexico.

At my knock, a woman with frizzy blond hair, wide gray eyes, stylish gold-framed glasses and tear-splotched cheeks, opened the door.

“Thank God you’re here,” she said. “I’ve been going out of my mind.”

“You told my secretary someone’s trying to kill you?” I glanced past her into the spacious living area and saw no other occupants. “Is everything okay here?”

As a former cop, I’d made my share of calls to sort out domestic disputes, and I didn’t want to be surprised by a Mr. Kimberly Ross jumping out of the woodwork with blood in his eyes.

“No, everything isn’t okay.” Her voice shook with emotion. “The woman who was killed in the parking lot this morning wasn’t the real target. That was supposed to be me.”

CHAPTER 4

Kimberly Ross appeared to be in her early forties, but with her face puffy from crying, I couldn’t accurately judge. She wore designer jeans that revealed her tendency toward pudginess and a gauzy tunic top. Her feet were bare. If she’d applied makeup earlier, her tears had obliterated every trace. Her square jaw and wide brow gave her a somewhat masculine appearance and, under different circumstances, her face could have been pleasant, but fear contorted her features and rolled off her in palpable waves.

“I came as fast as I could,” I assured her in my most soothing tone, hoping to help the woman pull herself together before she lost it completely, because she was teetering on the edge of hysteria. “Why don’t you fill me in on the details?”

“Come in.” Kimberly stepped aside in the marble foyer for me to enter.

I followed her into the expansive living room with a soaring vaulted ceiling and was blown away by the view. Her condo filled the twentieth story, and floor-to-ceiling glass on both ends of the living area presented endless views of the Gulf on the west and a panorama of Clearwater Harbor on the east. The walls and plush carpet were pale lavender, the same tone as the modern upholstered furniture. Throw pillows in pastel pinks, yellows and blues and an oversize oil painting in matching hues above the pink marble fireplace were the only visual relief from the unrelenting lavender. I felt as if I had stepped into a gigantic Easter basket. The only things missing were fake grass and chocolate bunnies.

Kimberly waved me to a chair and curled into the corner of the sofa nearest me. My presence must have eased some of her fears, because she’d calmed somewhat, even though her hands still trembled. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

I nodded. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

“Detective Adler recommended you.”

“You spoke with him?”

“I didn’t know about the murder in the parking lot until he knocked at my door. He said they were questioning everyone in the building, but I hadn’t seen or heard anything.”

“Did you know the victim?”

The muscles of her face flinched, and her lower lip quivered, threatening fresh tears. She nodded. “Sister Mary Theresa, such a sweet woman.”

“Somebody shot a nun?”

Kimberly nodded again and hooked strands of kinky hair behind her ears. “Her parents, Dennis and Eileen Moynihan, live on the second floor. Their daughter was here from Boston for her annual visit. Now they’ll be taking her back to Massachusetts to bury her.”

If Doc Cline and Adler’s theory was correct, the killer had waited in a hotel room next door for his victim. The shooting appeared planned, not random.

“Who’d want to kill a nun?” I asked.

“Nobody. They wanted to kill me, but poor Mary Theresa died instead.”

Hoping to nip her waterworks in the bud, I asked, “Why are you so certain you were the target?”

Kimberly took a deep, shuddering breath. “Mary Theresa and I look enough alike to be twins. Dennis and Eileen were struck by the resemblance the first time I met them when I moved in three years ago. In fact, they call me their other daughter and fuss over me as if we really are related. And, like you said, who’d want to kill a nun?”

“The better question, then, is who would want to kill you?”

She unfolded her legs from beneath her and stood. “Come with me.”

I followed her through the lavender and pastel haze to a set of frosted-glass double doors. She threw them open and motioned me inside the large but windowless room, illuminated by a huge skylight. A customized maple workstation curved around one corner and was topped by a computer, fax machine, printer, scanner and multiline telephone. Bulletin boards above the work area bristled with papers and notes of every size and color, held in place by pushpins. A set of ceiling-high shelves, crammed with books, filled the opposite wall, and tall file cabinets flanked both sides of the workstation.

I was the detective, but I didn’t have a clue. “Someone wants to kill you because you work at home?”

Kimberly brushed past me, picked up a newspaper clipping from the desktop and handed it to me. It was the latest copy of “Ask Wynona Wisdom,” a syndicated advice column that ran in newspapers all over the country. More than simply advice to the lovelorn, the column fielded questions on every aspect of life, from decorating and pet problems to etiquette and family relationships. Wynona Wisdom was an expert on everything, and the reading public had devoured her opinions for more than fifteen years. I’d felt moved on several occasions to write to her concerning my overbearing mother but, so far, had resisted the temptation. A few words on a page couldn’t do justice to the complexity of my maternal parent, a travel agent for guilt trips.

I glanced at the column again, and Wynona’s picture, a thumb-sized cut, stared back at me.

“That’s you,” I said.

“I’m Wynona,” she admitted. “And along with hundreds of letters every day asking for advice, I also receive death threats. I bet Sister Mary Theresa never had a death threat. Hell, she probably never had anyone raise a voice to her. So which one of us do you think is the likeliest candidate to be murdered?”

The woman had a point. “Did you explain all this to Detective Adler?”

Kimberly nodded. “And I told him I needed round-the-clock protection. That’s when he suggested I call you. As soon as the media get hold of Mary Theresa’s identity, the killer will know he missed his target and will come back after me.”

She left her office, closed the doors, and I followed her into the living room. By now the sun was dipping lower in the west, casting blinding light straight through the penthouse. Kimberly pressed a remote control on the table beside the sofa, and sheer lavender draperies swished closed against the glare.

I returned to my chair. “You can’t rule out completely that the nun was the target. Or that the killing was random. Remember the snipers in the Maryland area a few years back? Or, more recently, in Phoenix? They didn’t know their victims. They just shot whoever was handy for the sheer terror it caused.”

“I know.” Kimberly plopped onto the sofa. “But while the police are sorting this out, I don’t want to take a chance.”

“Understood,” I said. “Our firm can arrange to have someone with you 24-7.”

With other clients, I would have mentioned how costly that level of protection would be, but judging from Kimberly’s lucrative profession and lavish penthouse, I figured she could afford it.

“Starting now?” she asked.

“Starting now. Can I use your phone?”

She pointed toward her office. “It’s in there.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER after completing my calls, I found Kimberly in the kitchen.

“You hungry?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Mainly I was being sociable. Thinking about Bill and Trish heading out to dinner together right about now had taken the edge off my appetite. I only hoped he wasn’t planning on sitting with his ex-wife in our special booth at the Dock of the Bay. It was bad enough that the woman was living in our house.

I’d called Darcy and asked her to go by my condo and pack me a bag. She had a key for emergencies such as this and, happy to log in the overtime, would deliver the clothes and toiletries I’d requested to the penthouse later. I’d also instructed her to tell Bill where I was and that I’d be here overnight. I could have called Bill myself but hadn’t wanted to interrupt his dinner plans with Trish. Call me crazy, but I’d rather not know where they were and what they were doing.

I climbed onto a high stool at the breakfast bar and watched Kimberly remove food from the refrigerator and pantry. She piled cold cuts onto thick slices of bread, smeared them with mayonnaise, heaped the plates high with chips and pickles and opened a bag of chocolate chip cookies and another of oatmeal-raisin.

She set one of the gargantuan sandwiches and potato chip mountains in front of me. “Iced tea or soda?”

“Diet Coke or water’s fine.”

She must have seen me eyeing the feast that would have fed four linebackers.

“When I’m anxious, I eat,” she explained.

“I’d be the same way, but there’s usually no food in my house. I hate to shop.”

She sat across the bar from me and dug into her sandwich. If how much she consumed was a true sign of anxiety, Kimberly was almost ready for the psych ward. Between bites, she asked, “Do you carry a gun?”

I nodded.

“Where is it?”

“In the holster at the back of my waist. Don’t worry. I can reach it in a hurry if I need it. But you have three levels of protection before anyone can get to me: the security officer at the gate, the private elevator that needs your personal code to activate it and the double deadlocks on your front doors. Unless some guy swoops onto your balcony from a helicopter, I won’t be needing my weapon.”

Her faced paled. She set her sandwich down and gazed toward the windows, covered with lavender fabric, as if she expected an assassin to crash through the glass sliders at any moment.

“Relax,” I said. “Helicopter assaults happen only in the movies. Unless Bruce Willis or Steven Seagal is your hit man, you’re perfectly safe.”

I couldn’t tell if my witty assurances made her feel more secure, since she returned to eating with renewed gusto.

I slid off the bar stool.

“Where are you going?” she asked in a panic. “You’re not leaving?”

“I’m checking the locks.”

I’d already stated how unlikely an attack was at twenty stories up, but she’d hired me for protection, so I went through the motions, if for no other reason than to make her feel better. After securing every glass slider and double-checking the dead bolts on the double front doors, I returned to the breakfast bar and my sandwich.

I didn’t mention that, if her assailant had formerly served in special forces, twenty stories would be no deterrent, but how many SEALs, recon Marines or Army rangers had time to read “Ask Wynona Wisdom,” much less work themselves into a killing lather over her advice?

My sweep of the room apparently reassured Kimberly, because she visibly relaxed. The only residual sign of anxiety was the rapidly disappearing cache of cookies.

She finished off an oatmeal-raisin in two bites. “I’ve never met a private eye before. Your job must be exciting.”

“It’s mostly paperwork. Background checks, tracking down lost relatives.” After finally calming her down, I didn’t want to ruin the result by sharing some of my more harrowing cases.

“Was this job, being an investigator, something you always wanted to do?”

At the rate she was paying me, talk wasn’t cheap, but if conversation kept her mind off her worries, I’d humor her. “I started out as a librarian.”

“Really? Why the major shift in careers?”

The passing years had eased the pain to a dull ache, so I could talk about Greg without feeling as if someone had ripped out my heart. “After I graduated from college and started working at the library, my fiancé, a doctor, was killed in the E.R. by a crack addict.”

“How awful.” My story momentarily distracted Kimberly from the cookies.

I nodded. “I was so angry about such a senseless waste, I had to do something, so I quit my library job and entered the police academy.”

“You were a cop?”

“For over twenty-three years. Detective Adler was my last partner before I retired from the Pelican Bay Department. Then Bill Malcolm and I opened our agency earlier this year. What about you?”

“Me?”

“How did you become Wynona Wisdom?”

She made a face, as if the memories were unpleasant. “I got my PhD in psychology and opened my own counseling practice. But I couldn’t stand the continual misery, day after day of listening to people pour out their problems. Guess you and I are alike in that sense. People don’t come to counselors or cops unless they’re in trouble.”

She had that right. “But as Wynona Wisdom, you still deal with their misery every day, at least on paper.”

She flashed a rueful smile. “I provide insight or give advice, but I don’t have to watch people self-destruct by ignoring it.”

I understood. Having clients unable to grasp, and therefore change, the circumstances that caused their problems was probably as frustrating for psychologists as recidivism was for cops, who often arrested people only to have them commit the same crimes again as soon as their sentences had been served.

“You must get a ton of mail,” I said. “How do you keep up with it?”

“I have a staff of seven in Omaha. That’s where I’m from, originally. They maintain the office there, sift through the letters, discard questions similar to ones I’ve answered before and send me the queries that are the most timely or interesting. They also help with research, if I need it.”

“And the death threats?”

“They keep a file of those, just in case.”

“You never read them?”

Kimberly shook her head and reached for another cookie. “I used to, but they were too upsetting. So upsetting, in fact, that I decided to relocate here, become more anonymous.”

“No one’s ever bothered you here?”

She shook her head. “Not until today. I guess you cops would say my cover’s blown.”

“That’s only if the shooter was really after you. We haven’t established that yet.” I took a bite of sandwich, chewed and swallowed. “The death threats, the ones you used to read, what was the basis for them?”

She laughed without humor. “Most of the psychos didn’t need a basis. One said my picture gave her the evil eye, staring out of her newspaper every morning. Another said he’d followed my advice about not letting his cat roam outdoors, and the feline had died of a broken heart and boredom. And there are always the wackos who say I should roast in hell for getting rich off of other people’s misery.”

“Did you save those letters?”

“My staff saves them.”

“And the envelopes?”

She nodded.

I checked my watch. Six-thirty. It would be five-thirty in Omaha, and FedEx didn’t close until after seven. “Can you call your office, have them box up all the threatening letters and overnight them?”

“Sure, my chief assistant will take care of it. Damn.” She shook her head. “I keep forgetting Steve’s on vacation, but Cindy can handle it. She’s not as efficient as Steve, but this she can manage. But I don’t know what good having the letters will do. Most of them are anonymous.”

“You say someone wants to kill you. Part of my job is to find out who and, for now, those letters are the only clues we have.” A thought struck me. “Unless you’re involved in a family dispute. Or have relatives in your will who are overeager to inherit.”

Kimberly shook her head. “My parents are dead, I have no siblings and my only living relative is a great-aunt with dementia who lives in a nursing home in Des Moines.”

I waved my arm, encompassing the penthouse in my gesture. “You’re obviously a wealthy woman. Who gets all this when you’re gone?”

I could see the hackles rising on her neck. “That’s a bit personal, isn’t it?”

“Having me or another of my investigators sticking to you like a second skin to keep you alive and well is about as personal as it gets,” I said. “You can hire bodyguards to live in your pocket the rest of your life, or we can try to figure out—if you really were the killer’s target—who had a reason to take a shot at you. Then we find him and free you to live normally.”

Or as normal as life could be if you were Wynona Wisdom.

She groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t like to think about him, much less talk about him.”

“Him, who?”

“My ex.”

“Ex-husband?”

She lifted her head and grimaced. “We never got that far, thank God.”

“I take it your parting wasn’t amicable?”

“Amicable? It wasn’t even civil.”

“How uncivil was it?”

Kimberly’s gray eyes widened. “He threatened to kill me.”

CHAPTER 5

One of the ironies of interrogation that I’d discovered over the years was that people seldom tell you what you need to know up front. Often only after endless hours of careful probing does the blooming obvious finally surface.

“Tell me about your ex.”

Kimberly made a face. “Like I said, I don’t like to talk about him.”

“A disgruntled partner from a former relationship should top our list of suspects.”

“But Simon wasn’t serious about killing me. He was just angry because I’d broken our engagement. And that was three years ago, right before I left Omaha. He’s moved on by now.”

“You’re sure?” I wondered how much her broken relationship had factored into her move to Florida.

Kimberly shrugged and reached for another cookie. If Adler and Porter didn’t collar Sister Mary Theresa’s shooter soon, Kimberly was going to need a new set of clothes in a larger size.

“What’s Simon’s last name and where does he live?” I asked.

“Anderson. And the last I knew, he was still living in Omaha and working as an investment counselor.”

“Let me guess. You met him when you were looking for someone to manage the bundles you were earning as Wynona Wisdom.”

Kimberly dusted cookie crumbs from her hands. “You want some coffee?”

“Thanks, and the more caffeine, the better.” At the slow and painful rate that I was extracting needed information, it was going to be a long night.

Kimberly abandoned the rapidly diminishing supply of cookies, scooped coffee grounds into a filtered basket and filled the reservoir with water. With brewed coffee trickling into the glass carafe, she puttered around the kitchen, clearing plates, putting mayonnaise and leftover cold cuts into the fridge and placing the half-empty bag of chips in the pantry. I didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know she was stalling. Obviously, Simon was a sore point.

When the coffee had brewed, Kimberly filled two large ceramic mugs, also lavender, and offered cream and sugar. I heaped three spoonfuls of the sweetener into my coffee, then followed her into the living room. I took the chair I’d used earlier, and she settled once again into the corner of the sofa. She cradled the huge mug in both hands and sipped slowly. Sensing she wouldn’t talk until she was ready, I waited.

“I met Simon at Starbucks,” she finally said, “around the corner from my office in Omaha. We used to run into each other every morning on our way to work.”

Her expression turned dreamy with memory. “He was so good-looking, I never thought he’d be interested in me, but one morning I dropped my purse. The contents scattered everywhere, and Simon got down on his hands and knees to help retrieve them.” She smiled, but not at me. Her expression was distant, as if she was lost in the past, reliving the experience.

“I thanked him and apologized for being such a klutz. He said he was glad it had happened, that he’d been waiting for a chance to meet me. He’d recognized me from my picture in the paper.” She looked at me and blushed. “He said he could tell from my columns that I was a fascinating woman.”

“So he had no ulterior motive?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“He never asked to handle your investments?”

Her flush deepened. “Well, yes, but only after we’d gone out together a few times.”

Poor Wynona Wisdom, I thought. All that sage advice for others, and she’d walked straight into the arms of a disaster she hadn’t seen coming. “And I bet you were one of his biggest accounts.”

She nodded. “He was so grateful. If it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t have been promoted so quickly.”

“And when you realized he was after you for your money, you dropped him?”

Her face reflected sadness, embarrassment and remorse. “I didn’t recognize the financial implications of his interest in me until after the breakup. Funny, isn’t it, how much easier it is to recognize other people’s problems than your own?”

I dipped my head in agreement and thought about Bill and Trish. Did I really have a problem or, in a few days, as soon as Bill found his ex-wife a place to live, would she be out of our lives again with Bill and me back to making wedding plans?

“If you didn’t think Simon was gold-digging,” I said, “why did you break off your engagement?”

Kimberly stared into her coffee mug as if looking for answers. “At first, I was flattered by how attentive he was. You’d think that I, who’d advised so many women to run for their lives from controlling, abusive men, would have recognized the danger signals, but I was as blinded by love and denial as the next woman. It wasn’t until Simon blew up at me for not replacing the two young men on my staff with female employees that I became aware of what he really was.”

“That must have been a scary realization.”

“A reality check. How he could be jealous of Steve and Gerry, I couldn’t figure. Steve is a terrific employee. Several years ago, when I was hospitalized with an emergency appendectomy and a post-op infection, Steve stepped in and wrote my column for six weeks. A nice guy, but he’s years younger than me and not particularly attractive. And Gerry’s obviously and flamboyantly gay. The fact that Simon was jealous of those two was a real wake-up call.”

This time her smile was sly. “I made my moves before he knew what hit him. Within twenty-four hours, I’d switched my investments to another firm, changed all the locks on my office and apartment doors, arranged for new, unlisted phone numbers and booked a flight to Tampa to look for a place to live.”

“And avoided the Starbucks around the corner?”

“Absolutely. I returned Simon’s ring by messenger. The only contact I had with him after that was outside my apartment when I was getting into the cab for the drive to the airport. Simon was waiting. He grabbed me, called me every name in the book and threatened to kill me if I didn’t marry him.”

“Did you call the police?”

Kimberly shook her head and smiled. “Didn’t have to. The cab driver was the size of a sumo wrestler. He told Simon if he didn’t back off his fare, he’d mop the street with him. Simon was enraged, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he was no match for the cabbie.”

“And you never heard from Simon again?”

“I just added his threatening letters to the pile with those from other wackos.” She frowned. “What I’m telling you is confidential, you know?”

I crossed my heart. “Like attorney-client privilege. Our agency is discreet. But we should tell Detective Adler about Simon Anderson so he can check him out.”

Kimberly thought for a moment. “Okay, but I don’t think Simon shot Sister Mary Theresa.”

“Because he knew she wasn’t you?”

“Because if Simon is twisted enough to really want to hurt me, his type would want it up close and personal. Like any control freak, he feeds off fear. He’d want to see my terror, witness my suffering. Then he’d kill me. No, he wouldn’t take a shot from a distance.”

Sometimes knowing too much about what makes people tick could scare the daylights out of you. I attempted to lighten the conversation. “You called Simon a control freak. Is that a clinical diagnosis?”

She smiled. “It’s God’s honest truth.”

“With your permission, I’ll tell Adler.”

“It’s probably a waste of time. Simon’s moved on to another victim by now.”

Kimberly was already rattled, so I kept my theories about cold revenge to myself.

BEFORE EIGHT THE NEXT morning, I was headed back to my office. I’d called Abe Mackley from the penthouse the night before. Since Abe’s retirement, he’d been happy to supplement his pension by working occasional assignments for our agency. Today he’d agreed to guard Kimberly at the penthouse while I did some digging into the nun’s murder and Simon Anderson’s background.

When I entered the office, Roger greeted me with a howl of delight. It was nice to know that someone had missed me. I scooped him into my arms.

“Is Bill here?” I asked Darcy.

She shook her head. “You just missed him. He brought Roger for me to keep while he runs errands.”

“Was he alone?” As soon as I asked, I wished I could snatch the question back. I was acting like a jealous harpy. And with no reason. At least, I hoped I had no reason.

“He was by himself,” Darcy said with a puzzled look. “And he didn’t say where he was going.”

I tried to act nonchalant. “Anything else going on?”

She handed me a pink slip. “A Mr. Moore called a few minutes ago.”

I read the message written in Darcy’s neat script. J.D. was currently at the Lassiters. I checked my watch. I could stop by the sisters’ house on my way into Clearwater to talk to Adler, but confronting J.D. was a task I dreaded. I didn’t know what I’d do if he was mentally ill, as I feared. If he presented a definite threat to himself or the Lassiter women, I could arrange to have him committed under the Baker Act. But I’d need some kind of proof, and too often that evidence didn’t arise until a subject had hurt someone. Otherwise, as long as the Lassiters refused to file trespassing charges, my hands were tied. My only other recourse would be to track down J.D.’s family, as the Lassiters wished, and ask that a relative take charge and see that he received proper medical assessment and care.

I took Roger into my office, removed a bone marrow treat from the box I kept in my desk drawer and offered it as compensation for abandoning him, which I was about to do again.

I returned to reception and told Darcy my itinerary.

“Any message for Bill?” She was watching me closely as if aware of the tension I’d been trying to hide.

On days like these, I was almost tempted to give in and get a cell phone, but I have an aversion to technology, especially computers and cell phones. Darcy handled my computer work, which took care of one problem, but carrying a cell phone would create an intrusion into my life that I didn’t want. The only good thing about no longer being a cop was not being electronically connected to the world with a radio and beeper. So far, that disconnect hadn’t been a problem. I could usually find a landline if I needed one, and I checked in with the office often in case of emergencies. But sometimes, like today, I wished for that instant connection with Bill.

“When Bill comes back, give him Kimberly Ross’s phone number. He can reach me there after five o’clock. I’ll be pulling the night shift.”

With a pat for Roger, whose forlorn look nipped at my conscience, I headed out the door.

I FOUND J.D. in the front yard of the Lassiter house, trimming shrubbery. He wasn’t the wild-eyed, aging hippie with long oily hair pulled back in a ponytail, dirty ragged clothes and a body covered with bizarre tattoos that I’d expected. The man, who appeared only a handful of years older than Bill, had the gentle demeanor and clean-scrubbed look of an old-fashioned country doctor or a favorite parish priest.

His gray hair was neatly trimmed in a short, military cut, and his clothes were worn and mended but clean, except for the perspiration that soaked them from his exertion in the humid morning air. His smooth, tanned cheeks were testament to a recent shave and his brown eyes were clear and smiling.

“If you’re looking for Violet and Bessie,” he called when I got out of my car in their driveway, “they’ve gone for their walk.”

I gazed up and down the sidewalk but saw no sign of the elderly sisters.

“On the trail,” J.D. added. “They walk two miles every morning. That must be what keeps them young.”

I crossed the lawn, still wet with dew in the shade. “Actually, I came to see you.”

His friendly smile faded.

“The Lassiters asked me to,” I added quickly. “They’re concerned about you.”

He sighed, hunched one shoulder and wiped his perspiring face on his sleeve. “Are you a social worker?”

“I’m a private investigator. Violet and Bessie want me to find your family.”

J.D. turned his back on me and took a couple of angry whacks at the Turk’s Cap hedge beneath the front windows. “I don’t want to find my family,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Wouldn’t you like to know who you really are?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

J.D. dropped the loppers to his side and pivoted to face me. His eyes were pools of misery and fear. “Because I have dreams. If they’re from my former life, it’s better for everyone if that man stays dead and buried.”

CHAPTER 6

“What kind of dreams?” I asked J.D., thinking his sleeping visions might be a window into his state of mental health.

“Blood. Death. Killing.” He grimaced and shook his head. “I don’t understand the nightmares. I’m not that kind of man. Not now, at least. I can’t stand the thought of hurting anyone. That’s why I want to leave the past behind. Things could be buried there I don’t want to unearth.”

Everyone had nightmares at one time or another. Bad dreams didn’t automatically brand a person as crazy or homicidal, and J.D. appeared calm and caring. But I’d feel a lot better about the Lassiter sisters’ safety if I knew more about J.D.’s past.

“How long have you been like this,” I asked, “without your memories?”

The air was thick with moisture and mosquitoes and no breeze to alleviate, either. My blouse stuck to my skin, and sweat trickled into my eyes. I swatted mosquitoes with one hand and wiped my face with the other. Maybe J.D., who hadn’t responded, thought I’d become uncomfortable enough to leave him alone, but, if so, he underestimated my persistence.

“How far back do you remember?” I said.

“You have no right to pry into my past.” His voice held more frustration than belligerence. “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

“Yes, you do, because I’m concerned about two elderly sisters who have opened their home to a man they know nothing about. I need to be convinced that they’re safe, that you’re no threat to them. Either you deal with me, or I take my concerns to the sheriff’s office. Which will it be?”

“I’d never hurt Violet or Bessie,” he insisted with a stricken expression.

“Are you sure?”

“They’ve been good to me. Why would I hurt them?”

“Do you ever have blackouts? Hear voices?”

He shook his head and regarded me with a kindly smile that reminded me of my late father. “And I don’t drink or do drugs, either. Believe me, Miss—”

“Skerritt. But you can call me Maggie.” I felt drawn to J.D. in spite of my intention to remain objective.

He nodded. “Except for loss of memory and occasional night terrors, I’m as sane as you are. If I thought I was a danger to Violet and Bessie or anyone else, I’d turn myself in.”

“Then what’s the harm in letting me run your prints to find out who you are?”

J.D. sighed. “My memory goes back only as far as July. One morning I awoke and found myself on the Pinellas Trail in Palm Harbor with no money, no identification, a blinding headache and no recollection of anything before that.”

“Why didn’t you go to the authorities?”

“I know it sounds foolish, but I’d had those dreams before I came to, and I was afraid I’d…done something I shouldn’t have.”

He was warming to his topic, so I didn’t interrupt.

“For days, weeks, I scrounged old newspapers, looking for stories about missing persons. Or some horrible crime. If I had family worried about me, wouldn’t they have contacted the press?”

“Maybe. Did you come to the Lassiters then?”

“Not at first. I stayed in homeless shelters in Tarpon Springs and Clearwater, but the people who ran them asked too many questions. Eventually I found an old bike someone had left as garbage on a curb. I fixed the chain and appropriated it for transportation. Between collecting cans and doing odd jobs, I earned enough money to buy food. I shopped in thrift stores for clothes. All I needed was a place to stay. That’s when I discovered the toolshed out back, here. It’s handy for my bike, being next to the Trail, and I worked out an exchange with Violet and Bessie, odd jobs in place of rent.”

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