Justine Davis - In His Sights

It was a lovely smile, Rand noted. And Kate seemed like a good person, a small-town success story of sorts, who had come home to give back to her grandparents and the community. By all Redstone reports she was dedicated and loyal—the sort of person Redstone drew, welcomed and fostered. She was efficient, productive, concerned about the people who worked for her. Exactly the kind of person Josh hunted for.

But she was also used to making a lot more money than she was earning now. Not that Redstone underpaid by any means, the opposite in fact, but she had to have been making very big money in her previous job at that investment firm.

Rand frowned as he dug at the root of what Dorothy had told him was a sprig of Scotch broom, which if left alone would soon overtake the entire garden. What had Kate done with all the money she’d made in that other job? Even if she’d done as many people did and spent it on cars and clothes and a fancy house, there still should have been some left to salvage out of the debris. He’d have to check into that.

The obvious thought hit him then, that her money had gone for another kind of entertainment, the kind that usually went up noses or into veins. He glanced at her now, to where she stood beside her grandmother as they surveyed the garden for the area to tackle next.

Drugs?

He didn’t think so. She was tall and toned, not skinny. Her eyes were clear, her nose was tilted sassily upward and not in the least red. And while he wasn’t naive enough to think you couldn’t find a supply of cocaine even up here in the rural Northwest woods, she didn’t have the look. He was no expert, but he’d seen a lot in his years within Redstone security, and she just didn’t have the look he’d come to associate with that particular problem.

He’d call Draven. He wouldn’t have to mention the possibility, he’d just say he needed to know what her financial situation was, where the big bucks she’d been making had gone. Draven, who said he had been born a cynic and had never found reason to change his mind, would do the rest. He would immediately catch all the possible implications, and if there was anything to be found in Kate Crawford’s big-city past, Draven would find it.

And then Rand would have to deal with it.

“He’s absolutely charming, and I don’t see why you have such a problem with him.”

Kate smothered a sigh. After all the weeding he’d done yesterday she decided it would be best not to say that the first thing she thought of—a snake—when her grandmother said yet again that Rand Singleton was charming. Of course, she was thinking of the man as the snake as well as the charmer, so that completely muddled that metaphor, and she ended up smiling wryly.

“I just worry about you and Gramps. I always have, so don’t expect me to stop now.”

Dorothy reached across the kitchen table and patted her granddaughter’s hand. “We worry about you, too. You really do spend far too much time with us, and not nearly enough living your own life.”

Kate sighed audibly this time, drawing a sideways look from her grandfather from behind his morning newspaper. “She’s right,” Walter said gruffly, and went back to the sports page, checking, no doubt, for scarce bits of rodeo news. Her grandfather had lived on a ranch in his teens, and had never quite gotten over it.

Kate took a long sip of the coffee her grandmother had poured. In this land of lattes, espresso and more coffee flavors than ice cream flavors, the Crawfords stubbornly stuck to their old, everyday blend. But to Kate it was part of being home.

Her grandmother’s worry was an old refrain she’d been hearing since the day she’d come home. It was even why her grandparents had refused to have her move back into this house with them. They insisted she needed her own space and her own life.

“We don’t need a keeper yet,” Gram had said, and Kate had realized she could easily insult them if she persisted, and that was something she didn’t ever want to do.

So she had her own place a couple of miles away, a two-bedroom cottage she had leased from a retired teacher who had moved into a condominium in Seattle. The large master bedroom looked out on a garden with a small pond, while the second bedroom had already been set up as a home office, which made it even more convenient for Kate.

The house sat amid a private stand of tall fir trees and gave her a glimpse of the sound below. She’d put a porch swing in the corner where the view was best, and sat there often regardless of the weather. In fact, one of her favorite things was to be wrapped up in a warm throw in the cold air, listening to the rain on the porch roof and feeling the moisture in the air.

She’d had very little time to do that lately, however. She’d been so distracted by what was happening at Redstone that she’d rarely gotten home before dark. She spent her time trying to solve a mystery, and was missing most of what was turning out to be an incredibly summerlike fall here in the Northwest. They’d barreled through September in the mid-seventies, and October was starting out the same way. She had the feeling they were going to go straight from summer to winter, probably overnight.

She should probably be glad, she thought glumly, that she had the mess at work as a diversion. Otherwise she’d be dwelling on the mess of her life. Obsessing about how badly she’d misjudged the man she’d married. Wondering if she’d ever trust a man again.

And most of all, missing her baby girl.

“Do I smell coffee? Can I beg some?”

Kate went still at the sound of the sleepy, masculine voice behind her. But her grandmother smiled and said a cheery “Good morning, Rand,” while her grandfather gestured to the pot and said “Help yourself.”

“Thanks.”

She didn’t turn to look at him. She didn’t have to; she could see him perfectly well, reflected in the black, glassy front of the refrigerator. He stretched, expansively, the movement lifting his T-shirt to expose a strip of flat, muscular abdomen above the waistband of his jeans. He ran a hand through his tousled blond hair, yawned, then finally set off toward the coffeemaker.

Kate noticed he knew right where to go for a mug, and for some reason that bothered her. But her feeling of probably selfish perturbation evaporated when he politely brought the carafe over and, when they nodded, refilled both her grandparents’ mugs. He then gestured at her with the still half-full pot, but she shook her head and he put it back on the heating plate.

She waited for him to open the fridge for milk, just to further show how at home he’d made himself. But apparently he drank his coffee black because he came back to the table, pulled out a chair and sat. And managed to accomplish it anyway—he did look completely at home.

Not only that, but her grandfather actually put his paper down. Folded it up and set it aside, something she couldn’t remember ever seeing while there were parts still unread. She glanced at her grandmother to see how she felt about the fact that this interloper could apparently accomplish with ease what she’d been trying to do for decades. Her grandmother was smiling, so obviously it didn’t bother her. Which made it bother Kate all the more.

“Why don’t I give you a hand with that gate before I head out, Walt?” the fair-haired boy said.

“I don’t want to hold you up,” her grandfather protested.

“No problem. I’m not on a set schedule.”

“Must be nice,” Kate muttered, goaded by his easy familiarity.

“I imagine you always have a set schedule,” he said. She tried not to flush; she hadn’t really meant to say that loudly enough for him to hear.

“Yes,” she said.

“Redstone keeps you busy?”

She gave him a wary, sideways look. “Yes.”

“You hear a lot about that company,” he said. “What do you think of them?”

“I work in a very small part of Redstone,” she said. “But if you mean are they as good to work for as you’ve heard, yes, they are.”

“What exactly is it you do?”

“Distribution.”

And that was enough Q and A for her. Her grandparents may have opened their life books for this man, but she wasn’t about to.

“Don’t you have pictures to take?” she asked abruptly.

He shifted his gaze to her. He looked at her for a moment, in a steady, assessing way that gave her the awful feeling he thought she was acting like a child. As perhaps she was, jealous of the way he’d beguiled the two people she loved most in the world.

“Eventually,” he said easily. “At the moment I’m still looking around.”

“Try going out to the lighthouse,” her grandfather suggested. “Some good views from there, if you can catch a clear enough day.”

“That’s the trick,” her grandmother put in. “But a clear day here is worth ten days anywhere else, so it’s worth waiting for.”

So, everybody’s delighted with this guy except me, Kate thought as he waved a cheerful goodbye and headed out. Perhaps if she hadn’t spent so much time in big cities, she’d be more trusting.

Or gullible, she amended silently.

Not that Gram or Gramps were stupid, not by any stretch. But they were trusting, like many small-town folks. Too trusting, she thought, remembering the boarder who had listened with every evidence of genuine interest and appreciation to her grandparents’ suggestions about photos and locations.

He was too good to be real, she thought. And didn’t it just figure that the most attractive man she’d seen in ages wasn’t just far too young, he was far too charming?

What’s she hiding?

Rand had lost count of how many times that question had popped into his mind yesterday in her grandmother’s garden. And again now, as he followed Kate Crawford. There was no doubting she was hiding something. Every time the subject of her work came up while he was around, she either dodged it or changed it immediately. And she did it with that edge that always seemed to appear in her voice and manner on those occasions.

If she was involved, he thought, she needed to work on her poker face.

Maybe that was it. She just acted guilty. But would somebody who had managed to pull off these rather clever thefts really be so awkward about hiding it?

He slowed the rental vehicle as she slowed her nondescript, mud-spattered coupe up ahead. If she was making any sudden and large sums of money, it hadn’t turned up in her lifestyle yet. At least, not in her transportation.

It was difficult, in this small town with minimal traffic, to maintain a proper tail. There weren’t lanes full of cars to hide among, and there were countless unmarked gravel roads that could be streets or simply driveways for a car you were trying to surreptitiously follow to turn down. And on the often curving roads lined with tall trees, it would be the easiest thing in the world to lose a pursuer, if that were the intent.

But it apparently wasn’t Kate’s intent, at least not today. Or else she didn’t even realize he was behind her. He wasn’t sure if that meant she was innocent, or just never expected to be followed. Just how much protection did she think this remote piece of country provided?

He had to swerve wide to avoid three bike riders who insisted on riding side by side, and who in fact cheerfully waved and smiled at him as he went around them, making his irritation seem a bit petty.

When he was safely back in his lane, he had barely enough time to glance down the Redstone driveway and assure himself that she had really made the left turn and gone to work. When he was past it he pulled over, let the bikes he’d just passed go by him again, then made a U-turn. The camera bag on the seat beside him shifted, and he pulled it back as he parked in a turnout behind some large trees a few yards back from the road to Redstone.