Last First Kiss, page 10
The identity of the victim had not been released to the press yet, but because of his high-profile family connections that information would be difficult to keep under wraps for much longer. Parker leaned back in her chair and ran both hands through her hair. She had a briefing with Colonel Williams scheduled first thing in the morning and she needed to show a clear direction of where the case was headed. She pulled on her jacket and slid her case files into her bag. It had already been a long day, and Giada’s espresso was the only thing that was going to clear the fog from her head.
Parker drove off base and into town, the setting sun gilding the windshield with slick molten gold. She turned off the air conditioning and lowered the window, breathing in the scent of the blossoming lime trees. It was delicate, more like honey than citrus. In a week’s time, the blossoms would be gone, replaced by the earthy scent of rosemary and oregano fields, stretched out over the rolling Italian countryside like rumpled patchwork blankets. The rosemary was her favorite. The smell of it intensified in the evening sun, the scent warmed and strengthened by the fading rays, a contrast to the cool, dark scent of soil beneath that clung to it.
As she rounded a sharp curve, she remembered suddenly what Maeve had said about the ski trip. Of course Emma had been Maeve’s sister. She had enough experience to know that the whole encounter had gone a bit too smoothly to not snap back and bite her in the ass.
Parker had been given leave the previous Christmas and she’d spent a few days at Garmish, a ski resort reserved for military members and their families in Germany. She’d gone with Petra and a few of their friends, and they’d all rented a cabin at the base of the mountain between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. On their last night there, after a few rounds at the bar in the lodge, Parker had decided to head back to the cabin and pack for the flight back to Italy the next morning. The trail to the log cabins was up the hill from the lodge and carefully groomed, with deep banks of glittering snow to either side. The air was brittle, but somewhat warmed by the scent of burning evergreen from the cabin fireplaces, smoke curling up from every brick chimney on the same path toward the stars.
Parker pulled her jacket tighter around her and zipped it up to her chin, digging her wool beanie out of the pocket and pulling it over her hair, which seemed to resist, wild with static from the cold. She tucked her hair behind her ears and trudged up the path, lit on both sides with streetlights, casting a frozen glow onto the icy bricks. Her cabin was still a good fifteen-minute walk from where she was.
“Shit!”
The word shot out of the silence and startled Parker, who stopped in her tracks. She cautiously rounded the corner to see a petite younger woman in long thermal underwear and a wool cardigan standing outside one of the cabin doors. She was turning the door handle, one way and then the other, barefoot in the snow, wild waves of copper hair falling across her shoulders and down her back.
“Ma’am?”
Parker said the words softly, trying not to startle her. It was pitch dark unless you were directly under one of the lights, and Parker knew it might seem to the woman that she’d jumped out of the woods like a big bad wolf with an Alabama accent. But she hadn’t even seen her yet, she was just hopping from foot to foot and turning the door handle with all her strength, cursing not quite under her breath.
“Ma’am,” Parker said, stepping off the path and walking over to her. “Can I help you?”
The woman whipped her head around and took an unsteady step back, falling into the snowbank beside the cabin. Parker stepped over to her and held out her hand. She didn’t take it.
“Who the hell are you?”
She had a soft British accent and deep blue eyes, framed by the fiery copper waves of hair that made her look like an unfortunate mermaid stuck in a frozen ocean wave.
“I’m Captain Parker Haven,” Parker said, her arm still outstretched. “I’m staying in one of the cabins just up the hill.”
She looked Parker up and down, then took her hand. As she stood, Parker noticed her bare feet were soaking wet and bright red from the cold.
“Here,” she said, shrugging off her jacket and laying it on the ground. “Stand on this while we figure out how to get that door unlocked.”
She reluctantly stepped onto the jacket, her eyes moving across Parker’s shoulders and down her arms. Parker smiled, then met her eyes.
“What’s your name?”
She looked at Parker for a moment before she spoke. “Emma.”
“Just stand there for a minute, Emma, okay?”
Parker knelt in front of the door until her eyes were level with the lock, then unclipped the Leatherman from her belt.
“There’s no way to get it open without the key. I’ve already tried,” Emma said, her voice choking up with frustration, words tumbling over each other in a rush. “My sister left me a key because her flight got delayed in Paris and she won’t be here until morning and it’s the only one but I left it inside and it’s way too late for the office to be open to let me in, so—”
Parker clicked the lock free and swung open the door. She held her hand out to Emma, who now looked reluctant to step off the jacket she hadn’t wanted to step onto in the first place. Parker watched her put her toe back in the snow for a single second, then place it firmly back onto the down jacket. Parker shook her head, smiling.
“You don’t make things easy, do you?”
She turned and stood in front of Emma while she hopped onto her back. She walked her into the cabin and put her down on the hearth in front of the fire, then went back and retrieved her jacket and shook it out in the doorway.
“It’s soaked,” Emma said, peering at it from the hearth. “You can’t walk back up the hill like that, you’ll freeze.” She looked at the open front door. “But it will dry in like five minutes by the fire.”
Parker hesitated, but Emma got up and took the jacket from her and draped it over the back of the chair closest to the fire, then padded into the small kitchen. Parker looked around the small cabin that was much like her own, cozy couches with fringed cashmere throws facing the enormous stone hearth, the night pitch black and silent against the windows. The snow had started falling again and the flakes shimmered as they floated past the panes.
Emma walked back into the main room and handed Parker a glass.
“What’s this?”
“Don’t get excited,” she said, wrinkling up her nose and winding handfuls of unruly waves into a quick bun at the base of her neck, securing them with an elastic she pulled off her wrist. “It’s just American bourbon. It’s absolute swill, but it’s my sister’s favorite so I brought her a bottle.”
“And why am I the only one drinking the swill?” Parker said, one eyebrow raised. “Despite your charming disposition, you could be trying to poison me for all I know.”
“Well,” Emma said, smoothing her hand over her belly. “I’d join you but I think the baby might not appreciate it.”
Parker’s eyes dropped to Emma’s tummy where she saw just the beginning of a baby bump. “Congrats. How far along are you?”
“Four months,” she said. “But it already feels like twelve.”
Emma plopped down on the couch and pulled the throw over her legs. Her eyes were the deepest blue, almost violet, and as Parker sat at the other end of the couch she had to suppress a sudden ridiculous urge to kiss her.
“Are you excited?” Parker said, glancing quickly at Emma’s mouth and pulling her eyes away. She wore no makeup but her full lips were the palest shade of pink, outlined at the edges by faint freckles the color of honey.
“Certainly not.” Emma laughed, her hand around her belly. “But she’s kind of growing on me, so you never know, I may be before it’s over.”
“What does the father think?”
Parker realized as she said it that it was none of her business, but Emma just shrugged.
“He doesn’t know.”
Parker met her eyes, phrasing her next question carefully. “And do you want it to stay that way?”
“I guess, although I wouldn’t even know how to track him down at this point, so it doesn’t matter.”
She picked at a loose thread at the end of her sleeve and wound it around her thumb. Parker watched Emma’s thoughts flash across her face as the wood crackled in the fireplace, shapeshifting into coals that glowed red and dense in the bed of velvet grey ash.
“It sounds stupid, but I was too old to be a virgin, and I guess I just got sick of waiting. So I slept with some French backpacker I met at the pub one night. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
She looked up and smiled, her eyes dropping to Parker’s mouth. “I have no idea why I’m telling you all this, by the way.”
They both turned to look at the window as the wind picked up suddenly and scraped itself across the panes hard enough to make them rattle.
Parker smiled, picking up her glass. “I tend to have that effect on women.”
Emma glanced down at Parker’s glass and pulled herself up from the sofa before Parker could protest, returning with the bottle of Evan Williams Reserve. She poured a bit into Parker’s glass and set it on the coffee table in front of them.
“What did you think after it finally happened?” Parker’s eyes dropped to the curves of Emma’s breasts before she caught herself. She was bare underneath her soft yellow cardigan with a deep V-neck. Parker’s eyes traced the soft swell of her nipples and she made herself look away.
Clearly the girl is straight, she reminded herself as she took a sip of the bourbon and glanced over at the fire. Get a grip.
“What did I think about what?” Emma said, raising an eyebrow. “The sex?”
Parker held her eyes and smiled until Emma laughed.
“I think I still don’t know what all the fuss is about,” she said. “I’m not even sure I want to do it again.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” Parker said, then paused, looking into her glass as she spoke. “Then he wasn’t doing it right.”
“That’s almost certainly true,” she said, pulling the elastic out of her hair and letting it spill over her shoulders. “But I didn’t know what I was doing, either. I’ve never even been on an actual date.”
Emma looked at the fire as a burning log split suddenly fell through the grate, the center cracking open to show a fiery orange middle with blue flames licking at the edges. It was a long moment before she spoke again.
“After what happened when we were in primary school, our parents brought in tutors to teach us at home. They literally didn’t let us out of their sight until we went to university.”
The second the words were out she slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m talking too much and I’m not even the one drinking.”
“Lightweight,” Parker teased. She paused, catching Emma’s eye. “Or maybe it’s something you need to say.”
The fire had finally managed to chase the chill from the air, so Parker pulled her navy wool sweater over her head, leaving just her white T-shirt and sports bra. Emma’s eyes dropped from Parker’s shoulders to her abs before she looked away.
“Besides,” Parker continued. “That snow just turned to ice, so you might as well spill it. It doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere soon.”
Just then a hailstone hit the window and Emma jumped, covering her heart with her hand until her breathing finally slowed. She smiled but was quiet for a while, staring into the fire. Parker waited in silence, swirling the ice in her glass. The bourbon was warming her from the inside out, and the situation was starting to get interesting. There was something mysterious about Emma, something simmering just below the surface.
Emma started to say something, then stopped and looked back to the fire. Her eyes were still there a few moments later, watching sparks chase each other up the chimney, when she spoke again.
“It was my fault,” she said, her voice different than it had been before, a melded swirl of half voice, half memory. “I was supposed to walk home from school with her that day, but I skipped my last class and just went off with my friends. I was the reason she had to walk home alone.”
Parker got up and tossed another log on the fire, then sank back down on her end of the sofa, facing Emma.
Parker leaned up and laid her hand over Emma’s when she saw her blink back sudden tears. “What happened?”
“She just never came home.” Emma bit her lip, pausing twice before she allowed the words to fill the space between them. “It happened when I was nine and she was eleven. We didn’t see her again for nine months.”
“God,” Parker said finally, her voice low and dense in the silence. “I’m so sorry.”
Parker reached out and caught the tear on Emma’s cheek. She didn’t turn her head, just closed her eyes as another tear dropped from her lashes.
Parker’s voice was soft. “How did the police finally find her?”
Emma rubbed her eyes slowly with her fingers, then took a deep breath, as if trying to clear the memory from her mind.
“They didn’t,” she said, finally. “She found them.”
She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and smiled for the first time, making a halfhearted play for the bourbon before Parker lifted it swiftly out of her reach. She laughed, a sound like tinkling bells that Parker instantly wanted to hear again.
“So, what happened?”
“The man who’d kidnapped her stopped to get petrol one day but the card reader on the pump was broken, so he left her in the back of his car while he went inside to pay. She was looking out the window and watched a guy in a military uniform get out of another car and walk into the store behind him. It was an older one, with no power locks. There was no one else around, so she ran to his car, climbed into his trunk, and shut herself in.”
“Holy shit,” Parker said slowly. “That took some guts. She sounds like a badass.”
“Yeah.” Emma laughed, then picked the bottle up and topped up Parker’s glass. “You have no idea.”
“What happened after that?”
“The poor guy had some explaining to do, because when he went back to base and stopped at the gate checkpoint, she started raising hell in the trunk, screaming and kicking the trunk lid. Long story short, he was arrested and held until they figured out why he had some random girl in his trunk. She told me years later that she’d seen his military uniform and knew she’d be safe with him.”
“Good god.” Parker sat back on the sofa and watched the reflection of the firelight in her glass for a moment before she spoke. “What was it like when she got home?”
“She didn’t speak for over a year,” Emma said softly. “Not one word.”
They sat in silence, listening to the sharp crack of green sap in a chunk of firewood. It sizzled down the side of the log, filling the air with the scent of charred evergreen. Thick pine branches, heavy with snow, cast charcoal shadows on the wall beside the hearth.
“The next summer our parents took us on holiday to the beach in Cornwall. It was our last afternoon there and I was just wading around in the shallows, looking for shells.” Emma glanced up as a branch grazed the window, scraping the frost into an intricate pattern on the glass. “Mum and Dad were on chairs farther up the beach, but for once they weren’t really paying attention to us.”
“What was your sister doing?”
“She was going way too deep into the water. I called out her name, but she didn’t turn around. She walked until she was into the water up to her shoulders.”
“Did you tell your parents?”
“No, they’d told us not to wade in past our knees, so I knew she’d get into trouble.” Emma bit her lip, as if she was watching the scene in her mind before she spoke again. “The water was really calm, and the sun was just starting to set. I remember the way it glittered on the dark surface of the waves.” She paused and smiled, as if awash in the memory. “And then I saw them.”
Parker realized she was holding her breath and let it out slowly. “Who?”
“The dolphins.” Emma’s voice was soft, almost a whisper, as if the words were a secret. “There were three of them, just swimming around her. It was surreal to watch; even now I still just have flashes of that memory, I think I just couldn’t take it all in at the time.”
Emma brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
“I remember how she slid her hand over their backs, and how gentle they were with her. I don’t know how to describe it, they seemed…protective, almost.” She shook her head. “I know it sounds strange, but it’s like they were talking to her, only with no sound.”
Emma sat with the memory for a moment, staring into the fire. Parker tangled her fingers into Emma’s, and they watched the flames turn to embers until she was ready to go on.
“It seemed like they were out there forever, but it was only a few minutes. I remember one of them holding its face to hers for a long time, and then they were gone. She stood there until she couldn’t see them anymore and then just walked back to the shore and sat down beside me.”
Parker glanced over at Emma. “What happened then?”
“She stood up after a few minutes and held out her hand, and said, ‘Let’s go.’ It was the first time she’d spoken in over a year.”
Parker shook her head, then got up and walked into the kitchen, filling the electric kettle and switching it on.
“What do you take in your tea?”
“How did you know I wanted tea?” Emma said from the living room, peering over the back of the sofa at her.
“Because you’re British.” Parker flashed her a smile as she retrieved a pint of milk out of the refrigerator. “And I’ve been here for almost an hour and I have yet to see a teacup in your hand, so you’re overdue.”
“I’m impressed. You must know someone from home,” Emma said with a laugh. “Milk and two sugars, please.”
Parker brought the tea into the living room and set it on the coffee table in front of them.
“Are you not having any tea?” Emma asked. “Although I’d be having a real drink, too, if I could.” She looked longingly at the rocks glass. “I’d even drink whatever that is.”
