Serena Mckee's Back In Town Read online

  “That’s my choice, wouldn’t you say? I can do this. Alone, if I have to.” Serena turned her back on him and began to walk away. “Close the gate when you leave, please.”

  He watched her go, knowing that the smartest thing he could do was get in his car and drive away. If he hurried, he could still get to the precinct for those papers.

  He wasn’t going away.

  Damn it, anyway. There had to be a special subclass for fools like him.

  “Serena,” he called out to her.

  She continued walking, giving no indication that she heard.

  She’d heard him, all right. Heard him and ignored him. Just as she had when he sent those letters. Damn, he had better things to do than stand here, calling to her.

  Like having his head examined.

  “You’re not alone,” he called, just as she passed the fountain at the garden’s center.

  Serena stopped walking.

  Chapter 4

  Serena slowly turned around. Blue eyes met green across the lawn. Eyes so green she’d once thought of them as her garden. She remembered looking into them then and feeling herself blooming with so many things, so many emotions.

  Nothing bloomed within her anymore.

  Cameron’s words could have been interpreted in a number of ways, but there was only one that mattered to her. “You mean you’ll help me?”

  Cameron moved his shoulders in a half shrug. He didn’t know if help was the right word. How did you help someone become disappointed?

  “I’ll do what I can,” he promised her. That much was true.

  Serena retraced her steps, allowing herself to nurture the tiniest bit of hope, if only for an unguarded moment. She stopped less than a foot away from Cameron, her eyes searching his face. If he was lying to her, she’d know.

  “You could review the old records,” she said, prodding him. “You have access.”

  He could hear enthusiasm building in her voice, and he felt guilty. Whether or not she gained access, her search wasn’t going to lead her anywhere.

  The case had been closed before computers became an indispensable part of day-to-day life in the precinct. He doubted information about the old case had been fed into any viable program. The file was probably in storage somewhere, buried with other files that no one really cared about.

  No one, he thought, looking at Serena, except the people who’d been involved.

  “Yeah, I have access. Of a sort.” Cameron wondered who he’d have to talk to in order to spend one of his afternoons off digging through boxes that were hopefully labeled correctly, but probably weren’t. “But I wouldn’t hold out too much hope, if I were you. Dan Olson headed that investigation a few years before he was promoted to police chief. He wouldn’t have let anything get by him.”

  She knew that as well as he did, Cameron thought. Olson had been her father’s best friend, and her godfather, as well. He’d had a personal stake in the case, so much so that Miller, the police chief at the time, asked him if he wanted to take himself off the investigation. Talk was that Olson’s answer had been a fierce, resounding “Hell, no.”

  “If there was a third party, he would have known about it.” Cameron didn’t have to be told that was what Serena was hoping for, that someone else had broken in. That someone else had killed her parents. But it just wasn’t so.

  There was pity in his eyes. It offended her. Serena braced her shoulders. “You just get access to the files,” she told him. “I’ll take care of the hope.”

  “Can you?” he asked, watching the morning sun flirt with her hair, bringing out golden lights amid the auburn fire. Would it still feel the same way it once had between his fingers? He bridled the desire to find out. “Can you still hope?”

  “Yes.” Her answer was quiet, unshakable. There was a stoic glint in her eyes as she looked at him. “About some things.”

  They hovered on the brink of a conversation that was far more intimate than the one they were sharing. And then, mutually, though neither one gave the other any indication, they backed away from the words, from the questions.

  From the accusations that hurt too much to even say aloud.

  Cameron was the first to physically withdraw. “I’ll be in touch.” He pulled a card from his wallet. “If you need me, if anything’s wrong, call.” He tapped the bottom of the card as he handed it to her.

  She glanced at the card. It had his number at the station. He was speaking to her as a police detective, not as Cameron.

  She hadn’t expected anything else.

  With a nod, Serena tucked the card away in her pocket, then turned toward the house and started walking again.

  Who was she kidding? She’d expected more. A whole lot more. Which was why she knew she still wasn’t over Cameron, despite the bill of goods she was trying to sell herself.

  But she would be. Someday, Serena promised herself, she would be.

  She had no other choice.

  The phone in his car was ringing as he got to it. Cameron muttered a curse under his breath. He was in no mood to talk to anyone.

  Hell of a witness he was going to make today, he thought moodily, struggling to cover the cauldron of emotions swirling within him.

  Cameron yanked up the receiver as he slid in behind the wheel. Holding it against his shoulder and ear, he pushed the key into the ignition and started the car. The clock on the dashboard lit up, flashing the time at him. He was running late.

  “Reed,” he barked into the phone. Backing up the car as he veered to the left, he straightened the wheel and then went forward.

  “’Bout time you answered,” Tina Rollins commented in his ear.

  An image of the policewoman at the switchboard crossed his mind. Sleek, with skin the color of warm chocolate, Officer Tina Rollins was as short as the legal limit allowed, bordering on petite.

  The volume of her voice more than made up for it.

  “No matter what you might think to the contrary, Detective Reed, God did not put me down on this earth to be your personal answering service.”

  The breath he blew out was impatient. “Not that I don’t like talking to you, Tina, but I’m in a hurry. What’s your point?”

  Amusement laced her voice. “Our fine young detective is testy today, I see. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you your sister called. You’ll just bite her head off, too. What’s the matter, stakeout with Martinez making you grumpy?” she guessed, knowing how much Cameron hated inactivity. “Any time you want to trade jobs, just let me know. Me, I’d love a chance to spend the morning and afternoon pressed up against Martinez and his bulging biceps.”

  Now wouldn’t that make a pretty picture? “Sitting next to, Tina, sitting next to, not pressed up against,” he corrected. “And no, but thanks for the offer.”

  He laughed, knowing the woman was all talk. Her oldest child had just made Tina the youngest grandmother Cameron knew of. And she was also, quite possibly—other than Rachel—the most happily married woman he knew.

  “Always glad to do my part. Okay.” Tina got down to business. “Now call your sister. She said it was important.”

  “Will do.”

  When it rained, it poured, he thought, disconnecting himself from the station. Rachel wouldn’t call him at the station unless she thought it was pressing. He tapped out her number.

  Rachel answered on the first ring. He wondered if she’d been sitting by the telephone, waiting for him. “What’s up?”

  “Cameron? Boy, can’t say our police force isn’t efficient. I just got off the phone with Tina less than three minutes ago.”

  Cameron heard the touch of nerves in Rachel’s voice. Was something wrong? “We aim to please. Tina said you told her it was urgent.”

  Maybe she shouldn’t have phrased it that way. “Well, maybe not urgent, exactly. I tried to reach you at home first, but you’d already left....”

  Rachel trailed off for a moment, not knowing if Cameron would view this as an intrusion or not. But, damn it, he was her br
other, and she cared about him. She wanted him to be forewarned. More than anything, she didn’t want to risk having him hurt again.

  If Rachel was hesitating, then it didn’t have anything to do with the kids. He forced himself to calm down. Seeing Serena had played havoc with his nerves, setting him up on a tightwire. He wasn’t good to anyone like that.

  “Spit it out, Rach,” he ordered. “I’m supposed to be doing three things at once, and right now I’m just spinning my wheels.”

  Literally, Cameron thought, as he got off the back road that led to McKee Hill. Where had all that mud come from? It hadn’t rained in a week, and then only a quick, annoying drizzle.

  Taking a chance, Rachel plunged in. “There’s a rumor that Serena McKee’s back in town.”

  Well, that hadn’t taken long to make the rounds. Must be some kind of new record. “I know.”

  “You know?” she cried incredulously. Rachel had been wrestling with her conscience and her good intentions ever since Kirk told her that Judith Merry-weather, the town gossip, had sworn on a stack of Bibles that she saw Serena McKee driving past her house yesterday afternoon. A long time ago, Miss Judith had made it her vowed avocation to know a little about everything and everyone in Bedford. It both pleased and frustrated her to see the town growing up so fast. She was getting older, Miss Judith had complained, and it was getting harder for her to keep up than it used to be.

  “Who told you?”

  Cameron dodged the question by lobbing it back at her. “Who told you?”

  “Kirk. He went out to Miss Judith’s house yesterday at twilight to take photographs for the centennial magazine the city council wants to put together for Bedford’s one hundredth birthday.” Miss Judith’s house, built by her great-great-grandfather, was one of the first in Bedford, and the only building from that era still standing.

  “Kirk’s sidelining again?” His brother-in-law had been a photojournalist of international renown, until the events he was preserving for posterity succeeded in leaving him burned out. He’d returned to his roots. Not to his family, who were gone, but to Cameron and Rachel, his friends, and they had helped him heal.

  Eventually, he’d agreed to take a position at the local university, teaching others to see life through the eye of a camera. A happier life than he had viewed. Now, in his off hours, he occupied himself with capturing a baby’s first smile, not its first tears.

  “He’s doing it as a favor to the editor,” Rachel explained quickly, then frowned. “Cameron, I didn’t call to talk about Kirk.”

  “You didn’t call,” he reminded her. “I did.”

  “How did you know?” she asked again.

  There was no reason not to tell her. Besides, if he knew Rachel, she wouldn’t rest until she wheedled it out of him, anyway. “I saw her.”

  “You saw her,” she repeated in disbelief.

  Why hadn’t he said anything, then? Why hadn’t he called her with the news instead of the other way around?

  “And?” Rachel pressed.

  Coming to a fork in the road, Cameron turned to the right. The left path would take him past Bedford’s remaining farmland. Much as he would have preferred that to traffic this morning, the precinct was in the other direction.

  “And,” he continued patiently, “she asked me to look into some things for her.”

  “Into ‘things’? Like what?” Rachel began raising her voice. “Real estate? The sewer drain? A bag of flour? Talk to me, Cameron. Why is Serena back, and what does she want from you?”

  Irritation flared at her probing questions, but he managed to shrug it away. He knew Rachel was concerned and was just trying to watch out for him, but he didn’t need his little sister interfering in this.

  “She doesn’t want anything from me.” Not anything that might have mattered, anyway, he thought. “She’s back because she wants to clear her father’s name.”

  Rachel’s disbelief was evident in her tone. “And how is she going to do that?”

  “That, little sister, is the million-dollar question.”

  A car in the next lane sped up, crossing the line to the intersection a second before the light turned red. Technically, the man should have stopped, but it wasn’t in Cameron to give chase. He felt too edgy. He didn’t want to take a chance on taking out what he was feeling right now on some poor, unsuspecting working stiff just trying to beat the clock to the office:

  Impatience grew. “Look, I don’t have time to discuss this with you right now. I’m heading into traffic on Main and you know how I feel about drivers on the phone in heavy traffic.”

  “Yes, I know.” She also knew when he was being evasive. Serena’s sudden appearance had really unsettled him. “One more question.” She heard him sigh his assent into the receiver. “Are you going to see her again?”

  He wasn’t about to lie to Rachel, although maybe, in the long run, that probably would be easier. “Yes, I’m going to see her again. But it’s not what you’re thinking—”

  “You have no idea what I’m thinking, Cameron. If you’re going to see Serena again, you might as well bring her around for dinner.”

  How had they made that leap, from exchanging a few words to breaking bread? The last thing he wanted was to bring Serena together with his family. She might misunderstand the reasons for it.

  “Rachel—”

  “Look, she has to eat, doesn’t she? You always say I make enough food to feed an army. Besides,” she said, her voice softening, “maybe she needs someone to talk to.”

  Cameron sincerely doubted it. The Serena McKee he’d seen last night and then again this morning didn’t appear to need anything, other than to accomplish an impossible mission.

  But arguing the point with Rachel was like trying to knock down a wall with his head. He knew better. “I’ll ask her when I see her. If I remember.”

  “Remember,” Rachel instructed him.

  “Yeah.”

  Cameron rung off. That was just the trouble, he thought as he replaced the receiver in its cradle. He did. He remembered everything, as clearly as if it had all happened yesterday, instead of eleven years ago. Remembered and ached.

  Sometimes total recall was a real bitch.

  “You want what?” Dan Olson narrowed pale ginger brows over eyes so light a blue that at a certain angle they almost looked opaque. With his wide hands splayed against his scarred metal desk, the chief rocked back in his swivel chair as he looked up at Cameron.

  Cameron decided that maybe it was better for all concerned if he closed the door to Olson’s glass office before continuing. It had taken him several hours before he got his first opportunity to keep his promise to Serena. Court had dragged on longer than he’d estimated, and his testimony hadn’t been called for until after the recess for lunch. Right now, he had less than half an hour before he had to report for stakeout duty, and he was supposed to be completing his overdue paperwork.

  But he’d seen Olson walking into his office, and his conscience had gotten the better of him.

  “The file on the McKee murder-suicide,” Cameron repeated. In his opinion, the chief didn’t look very pleased about the request.

  “Why?”

  The truth was the easiest thing to say, but Cameron had a hunch it might not be the most expedient, in this case. He thought of his conversation with Rachel and did a little sleight of hand with his explanation. A good cop was always creative if the situation called for it, he thought defensively. Something told him that the enigmatic look on Olson’s face would turn to one of annoyance if he knew the real reason Cameron wanted the file. Garnering the chiefs disapproval wasn’t the way to advance in the department.

  Neither was lying, but he decided to take his chances. Who knew, maybe it wouldn’t turn out to be a lie in the long run.

  “My brother-in-law’s helping out with the centennial magazine the city council is having published. They want a feature of all the city’s major milestones. The McKee case was Bedford’s first major crime.”


  Olson shook his head, not in denial but in wonder. “The public’s fascination with the macabre never ceases to amaze me, Reed. They want to be protected, to know that they can sleep safe in their beds at night, yet they devour every scrap of lurid sensationalism they can get their hands on, like sharks in a feeding frenzy.”

  Olson turned the request over in his mind, then shrugged. “Sure, why not? Go ahead, give it to him. It’s in the storage area in the old civic center.”

  The town had moved its key offices, including the police station, to brand-new buildings a little over five years ago. The old civic center comprised three interconnecting one-story buildings. If the whole area had been pressed into use for storage, the search could stretch from an afternoon to a week. Maybe longer.

  “Could you be a little more specific than that?” Cameron asked.

  “Yeah.” The chief laughed. “It’s located on Barlow Street.”

  Pushing against his desk, Olson rose. Taller than Cameron by almost seven inches, the chief was a lanky man who’d once been the star of Bedford’s lone high school’s basketball team. Scouts had come to watch him play and tear up the court.

  According to Miss Judith, Olson had made all-state and there was talk of his turning professional, but an injury to his knees had changed all that. Basketball’s loss had turned out to be Bedford’s gain when Olson, philosophical about the turn of events, joined the police force after his recovery. The township was grateful. They slept better at night, knowing he was guarding them and their homes.

  Sometimes, Olson thought, he missed that cozy, small-town feeling he used to have, patrolling around here. But it didn’t hurt things much to be the police chief in a model city like Bedford. A well-planned, according to some, community, it was the hub of ongoing activity and had captured the national eye for more reasons than one. Crime was still at a minimum here, and he meant to keep it that way.

  He hooked his thumbs on his belt, eyeing Cameron. In many ways, he thought of Cameron as the son he’d never had. But things just hadn’t gone that way. He knew better than to buck fate.