“Where’s your cane?” she asked.
He scowled. “I don’t need a cane.”
“That’s not what the doctor says.”
“My slippers are older than that doctor.” He leaned a shoulder on the wall and crossed his arms, signaling an end to the topic.
Morgan gave up, for the moment. As much as she hated to admit her grandfather was aging, he absolutely refused to act his age. “Anyway. It doesn’t sound like something Tessa would do.”
Her grandfather shrugged. “No. It doesn’t. But the best teens can be a handful. You have to raise them with a healthy dose of suspicion.”
Morgan remembered coming home from parties to his scrutiny. She could still picture him sitting in his leather chair, a book in his lap, his sharp gaze sizing her up over his reading glasses. He had had no qualms about giving her breath a not so subtle sniff. The retired homicide detective had guided three of the four Dane siblings into adulthood after their father had been killed in the line of duty and their mother had moved them from the city to upstate New York when Morgan was in high school. Her mom had had a heart attack a few years later.
“Her car could have broken down somewhere out of cell range.” Standing, Morgan grabbed her denim jacket from the back of the kitchen chair. “She could have hit a tree or a deer.”
Her grandfather followed her down the short hall to the foyer. “Let me know what you’re doing, all right?”
He was living proof that parenting—and grandparenting—was a lifelong commitment.
“I will. I’m just going to drive over to the Palmers’ house and see if I can help.”
“You know that one night out isn’t unusual for a teenager,” Grandpa said. “Almost all of them show up within twenty-four hours. Plus, she’s legally an adult. She hasn’t committed a crime.”
“I know.” But Morgan’s concern wouldn’t ease. Then again, Morgan had lost both her parents and her husband. She often held her loved ones closer than was entirely healthy. But grief had wrapped barbed wire around her heart. The slightest touch made it bleed.
“Do you want me to call Stella?” Grandpa asked.
Morgan’s younger sister was a detective with the Scarlet Falls PD.
“Not yet. She works too much as it is. Let me see what’s going on. Tessa will probably turn up soon, and Mrs. Palmer already called the police. I’m sure the responding officer can handle the call. Like you said, Tessa hasn’t done anything illegal.”
Just completely out of character.
“All right. Be careful. I love you,” Grandpa called. “Do you have a flashlight?”
“I do.” Morgan patted her tote bag and left the house.
Outside, the darkness loomed. But as she walked down the driveway, motion sensing security lights lit up the front yard like a runway. She glanced up at the camera affixed under the eaves of the house.
Grandpa had installed it with the security system almost as a joke to catch a neighbor who didn’t clean up after her dog. But now Morgan was glad for the extra surveillance.
Years ago, none of them had ever dreamed they’d need a security system in Scarlet Falls, let alone in their rural development. But these days, there seemed to be no escaping crime.
Chapter Four
Lance Kruger hunkered down in the front seat of his Jeep and stared at the one-story motel across the street. In the center of the long building, the curtains of room twelve were drawn tight. The camera on his passenger seat, complete with telephoto lens, waited.
His phone vibrated, shimmying across his dashboard. The display read SHARP. His boss.
Lance answered the call, “Yeah.”
“Catch them yet?” Former Scarlet Falls detective Lincoln Sharp had retired after putting in his full twenty-five and had spent the last five years as a P.I.
“Got individual photos of each of them entering the motel room. They haven’t come out yet.” Photos of a lusty good-bye in the parking lot would solidify Mrs. Brown’s claim of adultery.
“They’re still in there?” Sharp whistled. “Impressive. I wouldn’t expect Brown to have that much stamina.”
“He probably fell asleep.”
Sharp snorted.
“If you can’t sleep, you can always take over tonight’s surveillance.” Lance shifted in the seat, trying to get comfortable.
“I’m too damned old and creaky to sit in a car all night long,” Sharp said. “Why do you think I hired you?”
“You’re fifty-three, not ninety-three, and since when do we take divorce cases?”
“Family favor.”
Mrs. Brown lived next door to Sharp’s cousin. Since Mr. Brown had already been reported for sexual harassment, Mrs. Brown was hoping he wouldn’t want the affair with his coworker made public. Full-color glossies would provide excellent leverage when it came time to divide marital assets and settle on alimony.
But the whole business left Lance with a foul taste in his mouth. “We’re bottom-feeding.”
“At times.” A teakettle whistled on Sharp’s end of the line. “Let me know if anything goes down. I’ll be up.”
Sharp ended the call. Lance set down his phone, stared at the motel room door and willed it to open so he could go home. But nothing happened.
Whatever he’d expected when he left the Scarlet Falls PD three months before, this wasn’t it. Through the fabric of his tactical cargo pants, Lance rubbed the thick scar tissue on his thigh where a bullet had ended his police career. His leg was almost healed. But almost wasn’t good enough. As much as he wanted to be on the force, he would not be responsible for another officer getting hurt because he couldn’t keep up.
After the first four weeks of unemployed boredom had nearly driven him insane, he’d latched onto Sharp’s offer to join his PI firm like a K-9 on a bite sleeve. For the last two months, he’d been Skywalker to Sharp’s Obi-Wan.
Lance shifted position, stretching his leg. If he was going to spend this many hours sitting in his vehicle, he was going to have to trade up to a larger model.
Headlights swept across the pavement, and a familiar Cadillac slid crookedly into a slot in front of the motel room. Lance’s spine jerked straight.
Was that Mrs. Brown?
The door of the Cadillac flew open and bounced on its hinges. Mrs. Brown slid from the vehicle and stood on wobbly legs. She staggered toward the door of the motel.
Oh, shit. Alcohol had never helped anyone make better decisions.
Lance bolted from his Jeep, but he was too far away to intercept her.
Mrs. Brown stopped ten feet in front of the door. She dug a handgun out of her purse, leveled it at the door of the motel, and pulled the trigger.
Boom. The gun jerked in her hand. Wood splintered. Lights turned on in windows across the low building.
And Lance’s heart did its best impression of a cardiac event. He skidded to a halt as Mrs. Brown fired again. Lance flinched, his body pouring sweat as he remembered last November’s shooting.
Get it together.