“Wait, Mattie. Tell me what you’re going to say to the police.”
I gaze straight into his face, straight into his eyes. I see worry there—not surprising since I have proof he has lied to the police—but no malice.
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I guess I’ll figure it out when the time comes.”
Chapter 10
As I pull into my driveway, I realize the time is here. Hurley is parked outside the cottage. I consider turning my car around and making an escape, but I know I’ll only be stalling the inevitable. So I park instead and watch as Hurley gets out of his car, trying to get a read on his face. It is utterly placid, giving away nothing, so I shift my gaze to his butt instead, watching as he leans back into the car to grab a cell phone from the front seat.
I finally get out of my own car and walk over to greet him, flashing him my best smile. “Good to see you again, Detective.”
“We need to talk.” So much for the niceties.
“Sure,” I say with a shrug, hoping he won’t see how badly my hands are shaking. “Come on in.”
I lead the way into the cottage, and as I step inside Hurley says, “Don’t you lock your door?”
“At night I do,” I tell him, ignoring the fact that I’d forgotten to do so last night. “But I leave it open during the day. Izzy’s partner, Dom, is usually around to keep an eye on things, and besides, it’s not like I have a whole lot here that anyone would want.”
“Did Karen Owenby have something that someone would want?”
Good point. “Jewels?” I offer weakly.
He shakes his head.
“Stocks, bonds, securities?”
Another shake.
“Drugs?”
His eyebrows rise at that. “Why did you mention drugs?”
“She’s a nurse. She works in a hospital where she has access to lots of narcotics. It happens.”
A strangled mewling sound emanates from the vicinity of the bedroom and Hurley spins around. “What the hell is that?” he asks.
“A kitten. I rescued him from a garbage Dumpster this afternoon.”
“I don’t like cats,” Hurley says, curling his lip in a way that makes me want to bite it.
“He’s not a cat, he’s a kitten. Tiny. Harmless. Helpless. You know, the sort of thing those big, brave firemen rescue from trees.” I say this last part with just a hint of breathlessness and am amused to see Hurley straighten up and puff out his chest. Men are so easy.
Hurley turns back to face me. “You told me earlier that your husband was seeing this Karen Owenby, yet he tells me he broke it off a couple of months ago, right after the…um…indiscretion you apparently witnessed.”
Indiscretion? Is that the going term for it these days?
“He’s my ex-husband,” I say, feeling churlish.
“I thought you said the divorce isn’t final.”
“Fine. Be picky. It’s not technically final. But it will be.” I whirl away from him and head for the bedroom. Rubbish is sitting on the floor near the edge of the bed and beside him are the mangled remains of a tampon, sans wrapper. I scoop Rubbish up with one hand and grab the tampon with the other, stuffing the latter into my pocket. Holding the kitten close to my chest, I stroke him until he starts to purr.
Hurley has followed me, and when I turn and see him standing in the doorway to my bedroom—tall, straight, blue-eyed, and one fine specimen of testosterone-ridden flesh—my face flushes hot.
“See?” I say, swallowing hard and grasping at conversational straws. I thrust the kitten toward him. “Not real ferocious.”
“Just wait until it grows up,” Hurley says, backing up a step and frowning. “Cats are like the devil reincarnated.”
I can see his fear is real, and find it both endearing and amusing. A smile teases my lips at the thought of this big burly guy being frightened by a tiny one-pound ball of vibrating fur.
“So why did you tell me your husband…ex-husband…was still seeing Karen Owenby?” he asks, finally taking his eyes off the kitten and focusing them on me instead. “What made you think that?”
“I assumed they were still seeing each other. Maybe I was wrong.” I enunciate each word carefully, keeping my tone neutral. I am keenly aware of the fact that we are standing in my bedroom with my unmade bed right behind me, and my hormones are flaring like a sunspot. I sense that Hurley is very aware of it as well. For a long second we share one of those innuendo-laden moments that has the lifespan of an eye blink, though at the time it seems to last forever.
“I’m curious about something,” Hurley says. “This place…” He gestures about the room. “How did you come to be here?”
“Izzy is a good friend of mine. He had the place, no one was staying here, so he let me move in. Why?”
“It seems a bit, oh, I don’t know…masochistic. I mean, being this close to a beautiful home you once called your own, a husband I assume you once loved. Why so close?” He’s fishing. I know it, and I suspect he knows I know it.
I give him a shrug. “It’s comfortable. It suits me. And since a lot of my stuff is still in the old house, I consider it conveniently located.”
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out my brown scarf. “Does this look familiar to you?”
He is watching me very closely. I bend over to set the kitten on the floor, momentarily hiding my face in case my surprise at seeing the scarf shows. I pet Rubbish a few times, stalling so I can collect myself. When I feel certain my expression is sufficiently neutral, I straighten, walk over to him, and take the scarf in hand. My brain whirrs, clanks, clangs, and steams, weighing the consequences. Lie…truth…lie…truth. What to do, what to do.
Finally, I look up at him with what I hope is angelic innocence.
“It looks like one of mine,” I say, handing the scarf back to him. “Though I can’t be sure. Where’d you get it?”
“Over in front of your hus—ex-husband’s house. Found it on the ground beneath a window, beside a wheelbarrow with some mulch in it.” He gives me a questioning arch of his brow. I come back at him with my best “Is there a point to this?” look and say nothing. For several seconds we stare at one another in silence, but there is no unspoken innuendo this time. It’s a pure contest of wills, one I sense I am about to lose. I know I’m not going to be able to gaze into the incredible blue of those eyes for very long before I start to either pant or drool…maybe both. Fortunately, Hurley gives way first, glancing down nervously at the kitten, which has chosen this moment to saunter over near his feet.
Good kitty! I make myself a mental note to give Rubbish a treat as soon as Hurley leaves.
“About this, uh, wheelbarrow,” Hurley goes on, doing a two-step away from the kitten. “It looks like it was placed beneath the window so someone could stand in it and look inside the house. I noticed there’s a small space at the bottom of the blinds where someone could look in.”
I continue to stare at him, smiling and wearing the same cautiously bemused expression I used years ago on Ethan when he showed me his first collected bug.
“If one so chose,” he adds pointedly.
Look. Smile. Say nothing. Don’t react.
“And it looks as if the wheelbarrow might have tipped over, because it was on its side with most of the mulch spilled out of it.” His gaze remains fixed on the floor, watching warily as the kitten flops, jumps, and pretends to attack something. When I see Hurley’s eyes widen, I look down myself, sucking in a breath of panic when I realize what the kitten is playing with—a piece of pine bark mulch.