Shoving that thought away, he tried to concentrate on her story. Pulling out his phone, he typed in Lindy Parker murder.
The murder had made the front page of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Charlie and her family had been living in the old Drummond house on the north edge of town not far from the tracks only a few months, according to the article.
It wasn’t the first tragedy at that house apparently. Jonathan Drummond had the Victorian house built in the late 1800s for his wife to be, Mary Margaret White. The two moved in after their marriage in 1901.
Tragedy struck four years later when their oldest daughter died after falling down the stairs. A few years after that they lost their two-year-old son to an accident in the yard involving a wild dog. Six months later, Mary Margaret was found hanging from the rafters in the basement.
According to the article, Jonathan lived the rest of his life in the house alone as a recluse. After his death, the house went to a nephew who sold it. Occupancy changed over the years, with no one staying long. It had become a rental back in the 1960s.
Shep stared at the headshot of the victim, the young blonde he’d seen in the photograph in Charlie’s album. He knew he was biased and passing judgment after hearing the whole story from Charlie, but she looked spoiled, entitled, a little too sure of herself and certainly not as pretty as Charlie.
He hated that Lindy had been unhappy and had taken it out on her. He felt angry and a little sick to his stomach. Charlie had been so alone in a situation where she was being bullied until one day she refused to take it anymore.
For fifteen years, she’d lived with the consequences of her actions the night Lindy had died. He read through the newspaper article and the ones following. The killer had never been caught. The police speculated that she might have been murdered by a vagrant passing through town because of the closeness of the railroad tracks to the house and the abandoned buildings.
What nagged at him was why now? Why fifteen years later was Charlie seeing a woman she believed to be Lindy? Maybe the killer got picked up on some other criminal charge and had been locked away for fifteen years. But why come after Charlie? Did the killer think she knew more than she did?
Which brought up the question of where the killer would have found someone who resembled Lindy Parker so closely to terrify Charlie all over again. What was the purpose? To push her mentally over the edge? Charlie had always been a little bit eccentric—but in a good way, he thought, smiling.
He couldn’t help but question what she’d seen. Not Lindy Parker, that much was certain. But someone who looked so much like her that Charlie was running scared.
* * *
CHARLIE WOKE WITH a start to see daylight peeking through her curtains. She sat up, surprised that she’d fallen asleep in her clothes. Picking up her phone, she saw that it was still early. For a moment, she lay back on the bed and closed her eyes again. Just before she awakened, she’d had this tantalizing dream...
She tried to get the dream back, wanting to finish it. Remnants of it teased her memory. A man. The two of them lying naked on a blanket beside a small creek. She could still feel the warm breeze on her bare skin. The man was kissing her, caressing her. She felt a sharp stab of desire at the memory. She wanted this man desperately, wanted equally as desperately to finish this dream. So why had she awakened the way she had from the dream?
The reason came to her with a start. Her eyes flew open. The man wasn’t Daniel. Nor was it a stranger. It was Shep.
She flung her legs over the side of the bed and rose, trying to shake off the dream and the ache still burning at her center. In the bathroom, she shed her clothing and stepped into the shower. But the dream had followed her. She could still feel an aching need. Still feel Shep’s hands on her body. Still feel his mouth on hers, his tongue moving over her bare skin.
Holding her head under the spray, she tried to wash the emotions away until the water grew cold.
After getting dressed for work, she fiddled with her hair until she couldn’t put it off any longer. She would have to face Shep sooner or later. It wasn’t like he’d really been in her dream last night. Still she felt as if she’d cheated on Daniel. Or worse, had wanted to.
Shep was right about one thing. She hadn’t dealt with her past. She hadn’t dealt with Lindy. But she also hadn’t dealt with Shep himself. When boot camp was over, she’d been the one to hightail it. He’d tried to contact her once, but she hadn’t returned his call. She wanted no part of that slice of her life. They’d been too young. Not that she hadn’t thought about him more times than she wanted to remember.
Groaning at the path her thoughts had taken her, she pushed open her bedroom door and put on a brave face. It was bad enough that she’d confessed her worst secret to Shep last night, that she’d let him hold her in his arms, that she might have even flirted with him, but that darn dream. Her cheeks felt flushed still.
When she stepped out of her bedroom though, she saw that the couch was empty. Shep and his backpack were gone. She looked in the kitchen, not quite believing it. Had he bailed on her after hearing her story?
Just then, her apartment door opened and Shep came through carrying two large, bulging grocery bags and his backpack looked full as well. He leaned down and picked up the morning newspaper before entering the apartment and closing the door behind him.
“Good morning,” he said, appearing to do a double take of her before heading into the kitchen.
She looked down to see what she was wearing, confused at his reaction. Then she remembered she’d had a sweater in this same style and almost same color when he knew her before.
In the kitchen, he put down the bags and backpack, tossing the newspaper onto the table. “I bought a few things since you didn’t seem to have any food on hand.”
She bristled, wanting to tell him she’d been fine before he’d showed up. But then that wasn’t entirely true, was it? “Thank you. That was thoughtful of you, but Shep—”
“Don’t worry. I’m only here temporarily. You made it clear years ago how you felt about me.”
Had she? “I need to get to work.” But first she had to read her horoscope. She moved into the kitchen and pretended to glance at the front page of the paper before flipping to the horoscope section and moving to the window.
Just as she feared, Shep joined her at the window to look out.
“She’s not out there,” he said and went back to putting away the groceries. But she could still feel his breath on her neck. “I checked first thing this morning and again on my way back.”
Charlie felt a wave of relief at that news. After last night’s confession, the last person she wanted to see was the Lindy doppelgänger again. If that’s what she was. Charlie looked over her shoulder. Shep had his back to her. She quickly scanned for her sign.