Scene of the Crime: Widow Creek

“Now you can answer some more of my questions,” she said as she eased down into the chair opposite him.

“There’s no need for your gun,” he replied easily. “I’m on your side.”

“I don’t know that yet,” she countered. “What are you doing here and how did you get inside?”

“Lauren and I exchanged keys to our homes about a month after she moved in here. Since neither of us have family here, we thought it would be a good idea in case of emergency. I let myself in when I saw the unfamiliar car out front and I knew that Lauren wasn’t home.”

Lexie stared at him unblinking. Under normal circumstances the length of time of the eye contact would have bordered on inappropriate, but he told himself these weren’t normal circumstances. “Where is she?” There was a faint whisper of fear in her voice.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since Tuesday. She’s been working with my dog and I came here late afternoon on Wednesday for my usual session and she wasn’t here.”

He tried not to notice the scent of her, a clean fresh smell coupled with a hint of sweet, blooming flowers. God, he didn’t remember the last time he’d noticed the scent of a woman.

He consciously focused back on the issue at hand. “I realized that it didn’t look like the dogs in the yard had been fed and watered, so I took care of them and then left. Same thing happened yesterday. I was worried that maybe she was sick, so I used my key to come inside. I fed and watered Zeus and the dogs outside and then went back home.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I haven’t known your sister for very long, but this felt out of character for her. I was worried, and then tonight when I realized somebody was in the house, I decided to come in and investigate.”

He didn’t feel it was necessary to tell her that when he’d seen that pink streak in her hair before she’d completely turned around to face him, he’d thought she was one of the teenagers of the town taking advantage of Lauren’s absence for an opportunity for a little party or a bit of theft.

“This is definitely out of character for Lauren,” she said and finally laid her gun down on the table next to her. “What’s your relationship with her? Romantic?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “Over the last couple of months Lauren and I have become good friends, but nothing more than that.”

“Her truck is in the garage.”

It took him a second to adjust to the leap in topic and her words sent a vague sense of uneasiness through him. “I didn’t know that.”

She nodded. “I checked out the property. Zeus and I walked it looking for her, but needless to say we didn’t find her.” She stood abruptly. “Thank you for looking out for things here.”

It was an obvious dismissal and Nick stood and grabbed his shotgun as she started out of the kitchen. He followed just behind her and tried not to notice the cute shape of her butt in her tight jeans.

What was wrong with him? He was far too conscious of Lexie Forbes’s attractiveness and it made him more than a little bit uncomfortable.

Maybe part of the problem was even though he knew Lauren and Lexie were identical twins, the woman in front of him seemed more vibrant and much prettier than her sister.

“So, what’s your next move?” he asked as they reached the front door.

She frowned. “First thing in the morning if she doesn’t come home or I don’t hear from her, I’ll head into town and file a missing persons report at the police station.”

“Don’t expect much from the local authorities,” he replied, remembering a time when he’d filed his own missing person’s report and nothing had been done until it was too late.

She looked at him sharply. “Why? Is there a problem?”

“I went to high school with Gary Wendall, the chief of police. He tends toward big talk and little action.” Nick’s stomach knotted at thoughts of Wendall, who had been damned little help when Nick had needed him most.

“I’ll file the report and then I’m going to ask questions and see if I can find out who might have last seen Lauren and when. I spoke to her Tuesday night so I know she was here and fine then.”

She looked up at him and in the depths of her pretty green eyes he saw fear. “She’s all I have. I have to find her,” she said, her voice husky with emotion.

He had a crazy sudden impulse to pull her into his arms, to assure her that everything was going to be just fine. Instead he opened up the door, flipped on the outside porch light and then stepped out.

She followed him, her gaze automatically scanning the area as if hoping her sister would suddenly appear in the illuminated spill of the high-powered beam of light.

“I’d like it if you’d keep me informed,” he said and then frowned. “I should have given you my cell phone number.”

“Give it to me now,” she replied.

“You don’t have any place to write it down,” he protested.

“I’ll remember it.”

Although dubious, he rattled off the number. When he was finished she nodded. “I’ll let you know if I find out anything or if she turns up here.”

“I’d appreciate it. I guess I’ll talk to you soon.” He stepped off the porch, and as she murmured a goodbye he headed for his pickup in the driveway.

When he got into the truck, he gazed at her once again. Lexie Forbes affected him like no other woman had in a very long time.

Despite the circumstances of their meeting he was surprised to realize what he’d felt for her was a momentary flare of desire.

He shook his head and started his truck, focusing his thoughts back on the missing Lauren. There was no question that mutual loneliness had forged their friendship over the last couple of months. She’d been new in town, hadn’t known anyone, and he’d been mired in grief for so long he’d become isolated from everyone else.

Lauren had been easy to talk to, pleasant to be around, but he’d told Lexie the truth when he’d said there had been nothing romantic between them.

There would never be romance in Nick’s life again. He’d had his one great love with tragic results. His heart would forever remain unavailable to any other woman on the face of the earth.

He headed down the road to the farmhouse that no longer felt like home, but was rather just a place to sleep and eat, a place to exist.

That’s all he’d been doing for a long time—existing and marking time. Lauren had definitely helped pass the time, especially the evening hours after dinner and before bedtime.

Still, as he thought of Lauren he was filled with a sense of dread, that somehow history was repeating itself. He couldn’t stop thinking that the last time a woman had disappeared for a couple of days she’d wound up dead in a motel room.

Chapter Two

The night had been endless.

Before going to bed Lexie had found a local phone book and called the hospital and the clinics in the area, but none of them would admit to having Lauren as a patient. Surely if she was in the hospital somebody would have called Lexie by now. Lexie was listed as Lauren’s emergency contact.

The only thing that made Lexie feel a little bit better was that she couldn’t find Lauren’s purse or her cell phone in the house. She could only assume Lauren had those items with her wherever she was.

Still, by the time morning had come Lexie’s eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep. She had tried to rest in the guest room, but had finally ended up on the sofa with Zeus on the floor next to her.

Every sound the house had made through the night, every creak and whisper shot her up with the hope that it might be Lauren returning home. At 5:00 a.m. she finally gave up any pretense of sleep and went into the spare bedroom that Lauren used as an office.

She powered up the computer on the desk. Knowing that Lauren used Zeus20 as a password, she checked the email to see if there was anything that might explain her sister’s absence.

Most of the correspondence was business related, emails from potential customers asking about her dogs and her training. Others were from past customers catching Lauren up on news of some of the dogs she’d trained.

She also checked the history to see where Lauren might have gone on the internet, but found nothing that might yield a clue as to what had happened to her.