Chapter 6: Let's Get On With It
For a woman on her lunch hour, Dolores was chatty to Grace. They stood on the driveway in front of Grace’s Mustang, loaded to beyond full. Not many clothes, but boxes of memories she just couldn’t leave behind. Last place she lived she rented a storage unit.
Grace hoped she’d be here long enough to do that again.
The day had dawned overcast with a forecast for possible showers. She wished it held off until she finished. Listening to Dolores, she shifted from foot to foot.
“I cleaned the furniture last week, right after I put the ad in the paper.”
Dolores looked around as she spoke as if waiting for someone. The next moment a battered Escort came into view. The driver parked the vehicle on the street behind Dolores’ car.
Maybe an inspector, but Grace’s cop radar pinged when he stepped out of his vehicle. He reeked of the self-assurance borne of fighting bad guys. And winning.
Not a bad sight to look at either. Something in her stirred, but she tamped it down. Until her birthday she’d be alone. After that she’d no longer have to explain her gift.
Relationships didn’t last when you time slipped. You didn’t forget, but your lovers did.
Damn.
He surveyed the area before walking to the women. Confidence colored his steps. Shoulders a mile wide sat atop a fit body. She couldn’t see the muscles under his clothing, but she knew they were there.
His slicked back, black hair crowded at the base of his neck in a mob of curls.
His movements reminded her of a cat, despite his bulk. Was he just as predatory? He hid his eyes behind mirrored sunglasses, but his gaze still went through Grace.
She swallowed hard and clenched her fists behind her back. Something about him awakened her as if she were a female panther reunited with her mate. She swallowed, her mouth dry.
The man in the gray suit with a perfectly pressed, white shirt leaned down to kiss Dolores on the cheek. Not a friendly kiss, but a rather intimate one without being on the lips.
The father of Dolores’ child? Suspect number one even if he was a cop.
“Grace, this is my . . .” She stopped as if unsure how to introduce him. “This is Zach. He’s my overprotective ex-husband.”
Graced nodded and held out her hand. “You wanted to check me out before I moved in.”
“Yes.”
His firm grip didn’t hurt or intimidate her. But the fleeting touch sent a ripple of sensation down her spine. Had she ever met this man? A sense of déjà vu swept through her, different than when a corpse touched her.
She resisted the urge to step back and rub her hand on her jeans. The electricity he caused dulled enough that she wasn’t completely sure she had even felt it.
Her gaze never left him, never letting on about her emotions. “So you’ve met me. Am I an axe murderer?”
He tilted his head and his gray eyes bored into her over his sunglasses. “I’ve never met one of those.”
She cocked her head. “Use your imagination. What would an axe murderer look like?”
What was she thinking? Flirting with this guy in front of Dolores?
His tongue came out and did a slow trail across his lips. “Probably not like you. You’re much too petite to wield such a bulky weapon.”
As he spoke his gaze swept over her and she might as well have been naked. Or a steak dinner with all the trimmings for the intensity of his look. His eyes went back to her face, a sly smile tilting his lips.
“Good. May I move in?”
“He doesn’t have a say in that,” Dolores said.
Grace moved her gaze to her new landlord. The woman didn’t act like she noticed that something had passed between her ex and her new tenant.
“I have a few questions for Grace.”
Bet he ran a background check. “Oh? Is your name on the lease?”
His jaw tightened around his already chiseled face. “No, but I have a vested interest in you being the right tenant.”
Grace looked at Dolores who said, “Just humor him. I have to get back to work. You need anything else? All the utilities are turned on. I took the liberty of putting them in your name, you just have to call the companies with the rest of the information.” She backed away toward her Toyota parked on the street. “The numbers are on the table by the door.”
“Thanks, Dolores.”
She waved a hand at Grace and slid into her car. Zach watched her drive away as Grace watched him. When he turned his gaze back to her, she handed him a box.
“I’m not a moving company,” he said.
“You want to interrogate me, you have to work. I only have today to move in and get settled. I work the next four days.”
He looked at the box in his hands as if it were an alien, then shrugged. “Fine.”
Grace didn’t look back to see if he followed her. She assumed he intended to extract information about her last residence and that last case. With a deep breath and a heavy suitcase, she braced herself for the onslaught.
“Tell me about Ridge Oaks,” he said when they reached the apartment above the garage.
“What specifically?”
So he had done his homework. Her name appeared in the database since she’d initially been charged with murder. A shiver moved her spine when she thought about those days.
“Tell me about the murder of your boyfriend’s mother.”
Zach dropped the box on the floor and leaned on the wall, his arms crossed. He waited as she collected herself. This could be a Pulitzer Prize winner. Or an Oscar-worthy performance. Either way he braced himself a lie.
They all lied.
Grace placed one box on top of another then wiped her hands on her jeans. “I don’t really know anything about the murder.” Her voice came out scratchy and smooth all at once, like whiskey pouring over sandpaper.
His ears tingled with the vibrations of it.
In any other situation the sound would have been sexy. He was too far in investigator mode for her to more than blip on his sexual radar. At least that’s what he wanted her to be.
She glanced at him then back down at her sneakered feet. Her pink tongue came out to lick her lips.
“I talked to the lead detective. He said you knew too much, but had an alibi. Sounds suspicious to me.”
Her gaze met his. She didn’t flinch when he hardened his. Her stress-tinged eyes didn’t blink. She had something to hide, every fiber of his being knew it. He disliked liars. They deserved their own circle of Hell in his book.
“I guess it would.”
“You’re not going to elaborate?”
She ran a hand through her white blond hair. His gaze traveled with it. He’d felt some weird static electricity when he’d shaken that hand. She’d even flirted with him. He couldn’t trust her.
It took balls to do that in front of his ex-wife.
Blowing out a breath, she sat on the couch, her one leg curled underneath her. “No, I don’t see that I have to. Dolores is satisfied with me.”
“Well, Dolores is not always a good judge of character.”
A chuckle erupted from Grace. “Guess that’s why you’re an ex and not a current husband.”
Her jab bounced off of him. “That’s not any of your business.”