Natural-Born Protector. Carla Cassidy
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afternoon work for you?”
“Okay,” she replied.
With another apologetic glance, he hurried after his daughter, and at that moment the phone rang. Melody reached across to the end table and picked up the cordless.
“Have you come to your senses yet? Are you ready to come back here and stay?” Rita said without preamble.
“I never lost my senses, and no, Mom, I’m not ready to come back there. How are you doing this morning?”
“A little better, I think. All the relatives have gone and Fred wanted me to ask you if you’re joining us for lunch. He thought it would be nice for me to get out of the house and he’s offered to take us to Raymond’s. They have wonderful steaks there.”
“Thanks, but I’m going to pass,” Melody replied. “I want to start boxing up some of the things here.” And she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to talk with Hank. She needed to find out if he knew who her sister had been seeing, who might have had a motive to want her dead.
“It shouldn’t take you too long to get things done there. You need to get back to your own life in Chicago,” Rita said. “I’ll feel better knowing that you’re building your own life. Melody, honey, you gave enough to Lainie.”
Yes, she’d given a lot to Lainie, but when her sister had needed her most, she’d been too tired to pick up the phone. “I’ll get back to my life when it’s time, Mom. Don’t worry about me.” She decided now wasn’t the time to tell her mother that she had no intention of going back to her own life until she found out who had taken her sister’s life.
“I’ve never had to worry about you, Melody. You’ve always been wonderfully self-sufficient. And you were always so good with Lainie, much better than I was.”
It was true. Rita had been at a loss when it came to her eldest daughter. She’d done what she could for Lainie, but usually fell apart at the first sign of trouble. Fred had comforted Rita while most often it had been Melody who stepped in to clean up whatever mess Lainie had made.
There would be no more messes, no more scandals, at least none that involved Lainie because she was gone forever. A feeling of loss nearly took Melody’s breath away.
She and her mother small-talked for a few more minutes, then after Melody had promised to have lunch with her mother the next day, they hung up.
Melody wandered back into the kitchen and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, then sat down and stared at the lists in front of her.
She’d spend the time between now and when Hank arrived packing up Lainie’s clothes. Even though the two sisters had been close in size, they couldn’t be further apart in styles. Lainie had been flamboyant and Melody much more staid. Melody would donate Lainie’s clothes to a local charity.
She’d also donate the furniture. She had no use for it, nor did her mother. There was no point in paying to have it stored.
There were a few personal items she’d keep, like the Guardian Angel picture that had always hung on the wall opposite Lainie’s bed and a collection of fairy figurines that had been collected over the years. The fairies had been Lainie’s favorite possession and Melody couldn’t imagine anyone appreciating them as she would.
She turned her attention to the list that had been on her mind every moment since she’d arrived in town. Staring at the word Investigation that she’d written across the top of the page, she wished she would have listened more carefully to Lainie’s phone calls in recent weeks.
Most of the time when Lainie called it had been late and Melody had been tired. She’d often listened to her sister’s stream-of-consciousness chatter with only half an ear.
She wished she could go back a week or two and really listen to what Lainie had been saying, listen to whom she’d been seeing and where she’d been going. Somewhere in those conversations there might have been a clue to the killer’s identity.
Drawing a deep sigh, she started a final list and at the top of the sheet of paper she wrote the word Suspects. She needed to stop by the bar where Lainie had worked as a bartender off and on for the past five years. Maybe one of the waitresses or some of the customers would know whom she’d been seeing at the time of her death.
She took a sip of her coffee, her thoughts lingering on one particular man. She’d been charmed by Hank’s daughter. Maddie was outspoken and obviously sharp as a knife—and her grief over Lainie’s death had been heartbreaking.
And Hank Tyler had all the characteristics of a heartbreaker. Handsome as sin with an underlying simmering energy and—at least on the surface—a sensitive man. Under different circumstances she might have been interested in him.
But Melody had one rule in life. She never dated men who had dated her sister. She now had a new rule to add to the first. She didn’t date men who were potential murder suspects.
She stared at the list titled Suspects and added the first name. Hank Tyler.
Hank knocked on Lainie’s door at precisely two o’clock. Melody answered with her purse slung over her shoulder and her car keys in her hand.
“I thought we could talk over coffee out,” she said and stepped out of the town house. She firmly pulled the door shut behind her.
“Okay,” he said with a touch of surprise. “Anyplace in particular you want to go?”
“Is the café still there on Main Street?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s still there.” There was only one.
She nodded. “Then if you don’t mind, we’ll go there.”
He shrugged. “All right by me. It would probably be best if I take my own car because I need to pick up Maddie from the birthday party in two hours.”
Hank followed Melody’s rental car to the popular café. While he was driving, he realized the reason she’d wanted to speak with him out in public. She thought he might be Lainie’s killer.
And why wouldn’t she regard him with suspicion? Somebody Lainie knew, somebody she had either let into her condo or who had used a key to enter, had killed her. Melody knew he had a key and he’d told her he’d been close to Lainie. She’d be a fool not to suspect him.
Maybe over coffee he could convince her that he had no reason to kill Lainie, that it had been Lainie who had brought laughter back to his life after it had been missing for too long.
Even though the lunch rush was over, there were few empty tables and booths in the café, which was a popular place for women to share tea and retired men to sip coffee and pass the time.
As he walked in the door, he spied Melody already seated at a booth in the back. The coral blouse she wore brought out the color in her cheeks and made her eyes appear impossibly blue.
He headed toward the booth and couldn’t help but remember how she’d felt in his arms the day before, so warm and for just a moment so yielding.
He mentally shoved the image away as he slid into the seat opposite her. He’d just settled in when the waitress arrived to take their order.
“Coffee,” Melody said.
“Make it two, and I’ll take a piece of apple pie,” Hank said to the waitress, then smiled at Melody. “Sure you don’t want a piece of pie or something?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. I just had lunch a little while ago.”
The waitress left and she pulled a small notepad and pen from her purse and set them on the table before her. He eyed them curiously. “I feel like I’m about to be deposed by a lawyer.”
A tinge of red danced into her cheeks. “For the last couple of days I’ve been so frazzled, I think it’s important I take notes so I won’t forget anything you say.”
“I’m not sure