Single Father Sheriff (Target: Timberline), page 8
“I’m sorry, Coop.”
“Thanks.” He crumpled the paper towel and tossed it in his plate. “Do you need anything else before I take off?”
Had she driven him off with her questions? Her gaze darted to the back door. Of course, he had to leave at some point, but she wasn’t ready to be in this house alone.
“I’m okay. I’m going to call the cleaning crew Rebecca recommended and post the estate sale online. I might even get ambitious and make a few signs.”
“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. I’m going to swing by the station before I head home.” He stood up and took her dishes. “I know you’re only going to be here for another week or two, Kendall, but maybe you should set up a security system—at least some cameras on the property. It’ll be a good selling point for the house, even if you can’t take advantage of it for very long.”
“I like that idea. Where would I shop for something like that, a hardware store?”
“I’ll help you out with it. I may be able to get it done for free since it could be a police matter.”
“Free is good.” She joined him at the sink and cinched her fingers around his wrist. “Stop washing. You already cleaned up after the agents and made lunch.”
His strong hands stopped their busy work. “Then I’ll leave it for you.”
She handed him a dish towel to dry his hands. “Thanks for everything today, Coop, not just the cleanup and the lunch. I don’t know if I could’ve handled finding those crosses on my own.”
“Anytime.” He took her by the shoulders, his touch at once gentle and insistent. “Just promise me one thing, Kendall.”
When he looked at her with the intensity of those blue eyes, she’d promise him anything. Her lashes fluttered. “What?”
“If you ever feel scared or upset or...depressed, call me. Can you do that?”
Depressed? Despite the issues she carried with her from childhood, she rarely felt depressed. Had she presented as depressed? “I will. Thanks for the offer, but are you implying that a therapist shouldn’t try to heal herself? Because we don’t.”
“Do therapists really heal anyone?” He’d kept his tone light, but something flickered in his eyes.
“Heal isn’t the right word. I was just playing on the phrase ‘Doctor, heal thyself.’ As I told you before, a therapist isn’t necessarily in therapy because they have issues.”
“Do you? Have issues you need to work out, I mean?” He dropped his hands and stepped back. “I’m sorry. All I meant to say is if you need anything don’t hesitate to call me. You still have my card?”
“Right by the telephone.”
“Put it in your cell, also. Just in case.”
“Will do.”
He backed out of the small kitchen and threaded his way through the boxes in the living room to the front door. Lifting his jacket from the hook, he turned. “I’ll let you know if something comes from the mannequin or the pictures—if the FBI lets me know and it’s something we can share.”
“That’s a lot of ifs, but I’d appreciate it.”
She stood at the door watching him saunter to his SUV with his long stride. The attraction between them was undeniable, but did his interest spring from the belief that she could help him with this case?
She slammed the door. It didn’t matter anyway. In a few weeks, she’d be putting this case, this house, this town—and Sheriff Cooper Sloane in her rearview mirror.
* * *
ALMOST FOUR HOURS LATER, Kendall stepped into the hubbub of Sutter’s Restaurant. Standing at the door inhaling the smell of charbroiled burgers, she let the chatter bubble over her.
This was exactly what she needed. After calling the cleaning crew and setting up an appointment, listening to her voice mail, talking to her best friend back home, checking in on a client who was having a minicrisis, and composing an online ad announcing the estate sale, she couldn’t sit in that silent house one more minute. Aunt Cass hadn’t even had a TV at the end. Her aunt had been quirky, but she’d tried her best to fill in for Kendall’s missing-in-action parents, and Kendall had clung to her more than she had her own mother.
As her gaze traveled around the room, she had the distinct feeling people were avoiding her, looking away. Crud. Everyone must’ve already heard about the pictures buried on her property, and she’d become a walking black cloud. She didn’t even have Melissa and Daryl to fall back on since they’d taken off for Seattle for a few days.
Kendall scooped in a big breath and smiled at the hostess. “Table for one, please.”
“We have that one in the middle of the room or one by the kitchen.”
“I’ll take the one in the middle.” She had no intention of hiding out by the kitchen, so she followed the hostess to the table set for four, squeezed between a family with two kids and a couple poring over a laptop together. Sutter’s was known more for its food than its atmosphere anyway.
When her waitress showed up, Kendall ordered a beer and then snapped open the plastic menu.
“Mind if we join you?”
She edged down the menu and peered over the top at Coop, dressed in a pair of faded jeans and holding hands with an adorable girl with blond ringlets and big eyes as blue as her daddy’s.
“Unless you want a quiet dinner by yourself.” His mouth quirked into a smile. “But I think you picked the wrong place for that.”
“You didn’t want the table by the kitchen, either?” She smiled at Steffi. “Pull up a chair.”
Coop settled his daughter in her seat, and then took the one across from Kendall. “Steffi, this is Ms. Rush.”
Kendall waved. “Hi, Steffi. You can call me Kendall.”
The little girl tilted her head to one side. “That’s a funny name.”
“Steffi, that’s not polite,” Coop said firmly.
Kendall widened her smile until it hurt. “Well, I like your name.”
“It’s really Stephanie but Steffi is easier. So everyone calls me Steffi.”
“I like Stephanie, too. Are you in kindergarten?”
“Yes. My teacher is Mrs. Bryant and she has a long braid.” She eyed Kendall’s hair. “Longer than yours and we have a blue rug, but I told her I like pink better and we should have a pink rug instead of a blue rug, and then we read the book with the trains but I don’t like the train book because Colby likes the train book and he likes the blue rug.”
“Whew, I didn’t realize kindergarten was filled with such drama.”
Coop chuckled and rolled his eyes. “You had to ask.”
Steffi opened her menu and pressed her lips together, ending the conversation.
Kendall let out a long breath between puckered lips when the waitress arrived at the table, tapping her pencil against her order pad. She drew up when she saw Coop and Steffi. “Oh, can I get you something to drink?”
“I’ll have a beer.” He pointed to Kendall’s bottle. “What she’s having. And my daughter will have a lemonade.”
“Coffee, please.” Steffi looked up from her menu and batted her lashes at the waitress.
The waitress raised her brows at Coop.
He shook his head. “Lemonade.”
If Kendall had been expecting some shy, sad little girl missing her dead mother, Steffi had just blown that preconception out of the water. If she’d been expecting Coop’s daughter to lavish affection on her dad’s female friend, Steffi had blown that one out of the water, too.
“She’s a pistol, Coop.”
“Don’t I know it?” He tapped his menu on the table. “Did you get everything done this afternoon?”
“Cleaning crew is coming tomorrow, and I advertised my estate sale. I even managed a telephone session with one of my patients.”
“You do that?”
“If it’s an emergency.”
His eyes narrowed. “Was it an emergency?”
“A minor one.” She took a sip of beer through the foam and studied his face. Why did he seem so interested in emergency telephone sessions when he’d given her the impression that he didn’t put much stock in therapy? Maybe he could benefit from a little head shrinking.
He buried his un-shrunken head in the menu and gave Steffi some suggestions. “You don’t always have to eat chicken nuggets.”
“Have you had the hamburgers here yet, Steffi?”
“I like hamburgers, but no onions, no lettuce, no tomatoes, no pickles, no cheese.”
“We get it, Steffi.” Coop snapped his menu shut. “One burger, ketchup only.”
“And onion rings.” Kendall winked at Steffi. “We can share some onion rings.”
“I don’t like onions.” Steffi wrinkled her nose.
“You’ll like these. They’re sort of like chicken nuggets but with onions inside instead of chicken.”
Steffi screwed up her face and looked at the ceiling as if trying to picture onion nuggets.
The waitress returned with Coop’s and Steffi’s drinks and took their order. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the hostess stand. “Do you want me to bring some crayons and a coloring book menu?”
Coop answered, “That would be great, thanks.”
He clinked the neck of his bottle against her glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.” She took a sip of beer and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Have you heard anything yet from the FBI?”
“Had a conversation with Maxfield.” He took the menu and crayons from the waitress, thanked her and put them in front of Steffi. “The parents were both relieved to see the pictures and horrified by the manner in which they were found.”
“I can understand that.” Kendall took a gulp of beer. “I suppose they haven’t found any evidence on the boxes or pictures yet.”
“Not yet, and there were no fingerprints or fibers on the mannequin.”
Steffi looked up from her coloring. “What’s a mannequin?”
Kendall glanced at Coop and put a finger to her lips. Kids tuned in to adult conversations more than the adults realized—at least that’s what her clients told her.
Coop tweaked his daughter’s nose. “A mannequin is like a big doll. Stores use them to show clothes.”
“I know. They don’t have any eyes or hair.”
A little shiver crept across Kendall’s flesh.
They dropped the conversation about mannequins and evidence and Polaroid photos showing kidnapped children. Kendall wasn’t sure she could stomach her food if they hadn’t.
After several more minutes of talking about the weather, the food at the party last night and the couple that seemed glued to their laptops, the waitress showed up with their food.
“Onion rings for the table, a pepper-jack burger, a house charbroil and a plain with ketchup.” The waitress delivered their baskets of food with a flourish. “Anything else? Another round of beers?”
She and Coop both declined a second beer. Then Kendall shoved the basket of onion rings toward Steffi. “Do you want to try one?”
“I guess.” Steffi hooked her finger around a ring and dropped it on her plate.
While they fussed with condiments and napkins, Kendall watched the interaction between Coop and his daughter. He seemed to have a good relationship with Steffi—joking and tender with just the right amount of parental sternness.
And for her part, Steffi had dropped the chilly attitude toward the woman who had butted in on the father-daughter dinner, not that the girl had actually warmed toward her. Kendall had always shied away from children, had absolutely refused to see any families or children in therapy. So, the slight chill from Steffi suited her just fine.
After she’d crunched through a few onion rings and had eaten half of her burger, Steffi tugged on her father’s sleeve. “Look, Daddy. There’s Genevieve. Can I go see her?”
“We don’t want to disturb their meal.” Coop twisted in his seat and waved at a family of four, the little girl bouncing in her seat in the booth and pointing at Steffi.
The woman cupped her hand and gestured Steffi over.
“Genevieve’s mom says it’s okay, but as soon as they get their food you need to come back here.”
“Okay.” Steffi was gone in a flash, squeezing into the booth next to her friend, whispering and giggling.
“Are the children worried about the kidnappings?”
Coop dragged an onion ring through a puddle of ketchup on his plate. “They’re aware of the abductions, of course. One of the kids was a first-grader at their school. The other was homeschooled. We parents have warned them about stranger-danger and are much more diligent about keeping tabs on them. But you do know that both children were snatched from their homes, don’t you?”
“Yes, just like the Timberline Trio.”
He crunched the onion ring and swallowed. “So, the parents are definitely on edge. There was a little of that at the Rhodes party last night, although you might’ve missed it.”
“Yeah, because everyone immediately stops talking about the kidnappings whenever I show up.”
“They’re just being sensitive.”
“Do they have the same consideration for Wyatt?”
“Sort of, but it’s different. He still lives here, and he’s been doing some work at the police station so it’s been kind of unavoidable for him.”
“Has anyone started looking funny at Chuck Rawlings yet?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Has the FBI checked him out?”
“FBI checked him out just like the cops checked him out twenty-five years ago.”
“Well, he is the only registered sex offender in Timberline.”
“Not anymore.”
“Really?” She dropped her burger and wiped her hands on the nearest napkin. “Did Evergreen Software bring a few more pervs to town?”
“In an indirect way. The pervs in question don’t actually work for Evergreen, but the improved economy brought them here.”
“That’s just great. They all checked out?”
“Yep. Even old Chuck.”
“I can’t believe Chuck Rawlings had any alibis since he lives in that creepy, old cabin all by himself and rarely goes out. He was the same way when we were kids. We used to dare each other to play ding-dong ditch at his place.”
“There’s no evidence to connect Rawlings to the kidnappings—now or then.” Coop did a quick slice of his finger across his throat, and then smiled. “Hey, Britt, I hope Steffi didn’t disturb your family.”
“Not at all. Genevieve wouldn’t sit still until Steffi came over to the table.” The petite blonde put her hands on Steffi’s shoulders as her gaze kept shifting to Kendall. “And as soon as our food arrived, she told me she had to go back to your table.”
“Good job, kiddo.” Coop tugged on one of Steffi’s curls. “Britt Fletcher, this is Kendall Rush. Kendall, Britt.”
Kendall reached across the table and shook the other woman’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.” Britt acted as if she wanted to say more. In fact, she acted as if she wouldn’t mind conducting a thorough interrogation of her.
As if sensing Britt’s curiosity, Coop dismissed her. “Thanks for bringing her over. We’ll let you get back to your family and your dinner.”
Britt held up a hand, wiggled her fingers and returned to her table.
Instead of taking a seat, Steffi hung on the back of her chair. “Daddy, I’m tired. I wanna go home. I don’t feel good.”
“Really?” Coop’s hand shot out to feel Steffi’s forehead. “You’re a little warm.”
“My stomach hurts. I gotta leave now.”
Coop half rose out of his chair, throwing an apologetic look her way.
“Go.” Kendall flicked her hand in the air. “Get Steffi home.”
He tucked three twenty-dollar bills beneath the saltshaker on the table. “Dinner’s on me. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She waved at Steffi whose lips were turned down in a pout. She either really did have a stomachache or she didn’t like Daddy’s new friend. And that’s why Kendall never dated men with kids—one of many reasons.
The waitress returned to the table with the check. “Do you want to take any of this food with you?”
“No, thanks.” She handed the waitress the sixty bucks, which was more than enough to cover the bill and the tip, and finished her beer.
Kendall weaved her way through the tables in the dining area and donned her jacket at the hostess stand. She pushed out of the restaurant, flipping up her hood against the drizzle.
The restaurant had been crowded when she’d arrived and all the good parking spots in the front had been taken, but she didn’t mind the walk to her truck since it delayed her return to Aunt Cass’s house.
She couldn’t get the image out of her mind of some sick freak digging those holes by the side of the creek.
Pausing at a gift shop, she cupped her hand around her eyes and peered into the window. She grinned at the stuffed frog sitting on a shelf, its froggy legs dangling in space. Timberline had adopted the Pacific chorus frog as its town mascot years ago, and it appeared that even the high-tech vibe of Evergreen Software hadn’t torpedoed the little frog’s appeal.
She straightened up and walked past the corner of the shop. Two steps across the entrance of the alley, a whispering sound drew her attention. As she turned her head toward the sound, a strong arm grabbed her around the middle and yanked her into the alley.
Chapter Eight
Just as a scream gathered in her lungs, the vise around her middle dropped.
“Shh. Kendall, it’s me, Wyatt.”
She stumbled back, her fist pressed against her chest where her heart threatened to escape. “My God, Wyatt. Why did you do that? You scared me half to death.”
