On Her Side

Jodi did love knowing everything that went on in the office.

Nerves jumped in Nora’s stomach. He was early. When she’d spoken with Mr. Hepfer that morning, he’d told her he probably wouldn’t make it to Mystic Point before six. She’d asked him to meet her at the office instead of her house or a local restaurant so she could claim he was just another potential client, should anyone ask.

“Thanks,” Nora said. “You can send him in.”

Setting the phone down, she hurried across the room and opened the door then raced back behind her desk and took the small mirror out of her top drawer. She freshened her lipstick, did a quick hair check then tossed the mirror back inside.

She sat. Stood. Sat again. Then jumped to her feet when she saw him round the corner. She froze, her polite smile sliding from her face.

Because the man walking toward her looked nothing like the picture of the balding, retirement-age man on Hepfer Investigation’s website. Trepidation filled her.

He was an older, harder version of Griffin.

Not the P.I. she’d hired, she realized numbly. Which was fine, as it seemed she no longer needed him to find her mother’s ex-lover.

Dale York had found her instead.

CHAPTER FOUR

NORA’S BREATH LOCKED in her chest, made each inhalation painful. Panic-inducing. She’d wanted this moment, wanted to face this man down but now that he was here, her body was frozen, her mind numb with terror.

She couldn’t take her eyes from Dale as he slowly crossed her office, his confident stride bordering on predatory. She’d only seen his face once—a grainy photo the Chronicle ran the day after her mother’s remains were found, but there was no mistaking him.

She’d spent the past eighteen years thinking about him. Wondering what kind of man he was. Hating him. She’d expected him to be taller. Her father was tall. Tall and kind and honorable. A good, decent man who’d worked hard to support his family, who’d always taken care of them.

But her mother had still chosen this man over her husband. Over her daughters.

She’d paid for it with her life.

As a kid, Nora had always imagined Dale as some sort of monster. Huge and dark and deadly. Now she saw he was just a man. Not so huge, but still dangerous.

Despite his age—he had to be closing in on sixty—his short hair was still thick, the dark strands threaded with silver. His shoulders were wide, his waist narrow. He was handsome, she was forced to admit. With his sharply angled face and smooth-shaven jaw.

It was easy, so pathetically easy, to see why her mother had been attracted to him.

What she didn’t get, what she’d never understand, was how her mother could love him.

He stopped in front of her desk, his expression hard, his brown eyes cold. Nora’s mouth dried. Fear coated her throat. Made it impossible for her to speak, to get any words out. Words that should’ve put him on the defensive, made him wonder and worry. Made him realize he faced a worthy and formidable opponent.

All she could do was stare. And wonder if Griffin had been right.

Trust me, the best thing that could happen for everyone is for Dale to remain missing. Leave the past alone.

“If it isn’t little Nora Sullivan,” Dale said, his deep voice tinged with some accent she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Her skin crawled as his gaze drifted lazily over her face, sexual and appreciative. “All grown up, I see. I’m Dale York.”

“I know who you are,” she said, barely above a whisper. Her scalp prickled, her breathing quickened. She gripped the edge of her desk, held on when her knees threatened to buckle. “You’re the man who killed my mother.”

“Now, is that any way to greet an old friend of Valerie’s?” He winked. “I never laid a hand on her. Not unless she wanted me to.”

Her stomach churned sickeningly. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

Why had he come back to Mystic Point now, risking arrest? What kind of game was he playing by seeking her out?

“I’m here to do my civic duty.” Hitching up his dark slacks, he sat in the chair across from her, looking like a successful salesman instead of a cold-blooded killer. “I would’ve come sooner but I was out of the country and didn’t hear about Valerie’s death—and that the local police department wanted to interview me—until a few days ago. But before I talk to the new police chief, I wanted to see you. Offer my condolences on your loss.”

“You want to talk to the police?”

“Of course. I want to do anything I can to help them find out who hurt Val.” He studied her, like a fox watching a rabbit. “I never would’ve pegged you for one of Valerie’s girls,” he murmured, reclining in the chair as he linked his hands behind his head. His arms were well muscled, his biceps flexing against the sleeves of his dress shirt. “Now your sister, the cop, I knew she belonged to Val the moment I saw her. But you’re as far from your mother as light is from dark. Guess you take after your daddy. Except you didn’t take after his career, did you? Followed your uncle’s footsteps there.”

All her nerves, her fears at having her mother’s killer sitting calmly across from her, flew out of her head. He’d seen Layne? He’d been watching them?

“What do you know about my sister?” she asked hotly. “Or me?”

He smiled slowly and those nerves spiked. “You’d be surprised,” he said softly.

She covered her cell phone with her palm, feeling somehow stronger, safer having it in her hand so that she could call the police in a second if he threatened her. When in reality, all she had to do was yell and a half a dozen people would come running. Including her uncle. “You really expect anyone to believe you’re here because you want to help in my mother’s murder investigation?”

“Why else would I come back?”

She didn’t know and that was what worried her. “You won’t get away with it.”

“That so?” he asked, watching her with his hooded gaze, his damn smirk.

Realizing her knuckles were white from gripping the desk and her phone so tightly, she let go and tucked her hands behind her back. Damn it, she should be the one in charge of this conversation. Should be controlling it and keeping him on edge.

Instead she felt off balance and inadequate. And that was unacceptable. She refused to let this man, with his flat eyes and cocky grin, get the best of her. He’d taken her mother away from her and her sisters. She’d do whatever she had to in order to make him pay for that.

Pressing her lips together, she inhaled deeply and held it for the count of five. When she spoke again, she was more composed. “Yes, that’s so. Because I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re brought to justice. I won’t rest until you’re convicted of my mother’s murder.”

He didn’t even blink. “Is that a threat, baby girl?”

Her blood ran cold. Baby girl. The nickname her mother used to call her. Bastard.

“It’s a promise,” she said, hating how her voice shook, how sick she felt at the reminder that her mother had shared so much of herself with this man. “One you’ll have plenty of time to think about when you’re serving a life sentence in state prison.”

Shaking his head, he sat up. “That’s a nice fantasy you’ve spun for yourself. But it’s going to be tough for anyone to get a conviction against me when there’s no evidence connecting me to Valerie’s murder.”

“There will be.” There had to be. They had to find something, anything that would help the case against him.

“You go right on believing that,” he said as he stood. “But it’s not going to happen.”

A lump formed in her throat. Oh, God, he was right. Unless new evidence surfaced, or he confessed, the police would have no reason to arrest him, to even hold him. He’d come back because he knew the chances of him being charged with murder were slim to none at this point.

For the first time since they’d discovered the truth about what happened to her mother, Nora was afraid. Terrified Dale would walk away a free man when it was all said and done. And that there would be nothing she could do to stop that from happening.

“You’re upset,” he said in a soothing tone that made bile rise in her throat. “That’s understandable. But I didn’t come here to argue with you. I came back, voluntarily, to give my statement to the police.” He stepped forward and though her desk separated them, she jerked back, bumping into her chair. “Since it looks like I’ll be in town for a little while, maybe we’ll see each other again.”

With another of those disturbing winks, he walked away. At the still-open door he faced her. “And, baby girl? Be sure and tell your father I dropped by to see you.”