“I’m surprised you didn’t buy an old house,” he commented as he started on dinner. Cooking gave him an excuse not to look at her—and chicken tacos didn’t take long.
Of course, she insisted on helping and was chopping cilantro.
“I thought about it, but I wouldn’t have been able to do as much of the work myself as you plan to. I added enough charm to my house to satisfy me.” She smirked. “Didn’t have to replace the roof or plumbing. Plus, there were no big surprises.”
Zach grimaced at that. “My first one, the bathroom looked solid. I was going to replace the vanity, new vinyl flooring. You know, just spruce it up a little. And then I tore up the ancient linoleum to find major rot. Had to gut the whole room and replace most of the pipes in the house. Some poor sucker was lucky he and the toilet he was sitting on didn’t plummet into the basement one fine morning. Pretty undignified way to die.”
Tess giggled. He loved the ripple of sound. His body tightened as he imagined feeling the vibration when she laughed.
While they ate they talked about anything and everything except the way they’d met, Andrew Hayes and the mounting threats. Zach had yet to ask about her meeting with the Stimson detectives and DA, but he saved that, too.
Instead they talked about the little stuff—what they liked to read, the kind of music they listened to, movies that interested them. College, sports they’d played.
The stuff, he realized, that was usually filler for him, a stage required before he could get a woman in bed. He was disconcerted to discover how hungry he was to learn all that Tess was willing to tell him.
Another bad sign.
He failed to head her off before they segued into more personal information. She told him about her mother, who’d died of breast cancer, and he talked about how much, as a kid, he’d idolized his big brother, Bran.
Her gaze softened and her forehead crinkled in perplexity. “Splitting two kids up like your parents did seems wrong. Maybe especially brothers.”
“It was our choice.” He saw that his harshness had startled her. Damn. He shouldn’t have let himself get drawn into this. He didn’t talk about Sheila. Not to anyone.
Yeah, but he was back in Clear Creek now.
“There was more to it,” he said brusquely, making a decision. “Uh...can I pour you a cup of coffee?”
Her expression suggested she knew he was stalling. “Not yet.”
“We had a sister.” Had was such a powerful word in this context. “Sheila. She was three years younger than me. Bran’s three years older. We were evenly spaced.” As if that mattered. “When Sheila was six, she was raped and murdered.”
Tess’s shock was quickly followed by compassion that softened her face. “Oh, Zach.”
“I found her body.” He still had occasional nightmares about it. “Someone took her out of her bedroom in the middle of the night. She wasn’t ten feet from the back porch. Under—” he cleared his throat “—a big maple tree.”
His head turned, allowing him to see the backyard through small-paned windows. To where another maple tree shaded the grass. If he’d had any intention of staying in this house, he’d cut the damn tree down.
Haltingly at first, he told Tess the whole story. About the investigation, the obvious suspicion of his father, the angry voices from behind his parents’ bedroom door—the only thing that had broken the thick silence that otherwise enveloped their home.
At some point Tess reached across the table and took his hand in hers. A minute later he looked down to see that he was holding on as if that grip was all that kept him from plummeting. No matter how fine her build, she was strong enough to hold on.
“They never made an arrest?”
Tearing his gaze from their linked hands, he shook his head. “Over the years I’ve wondered how competent the investigation was. Supposedly they didn’t get anything useful from trace evidence, which is a little hard to believe.”
“That’s really why you’re here, isn’t it?” she said suddenly.
“Yeah. The twenty-five-year anniversary is coming up. It may be hopeless, but answers can sometimes be found even this long after the fact.”