“You aren’t seriously playing matchmaker when Charlie’s life could be in danger.”
The judge scoffed at that. “I don’t play games. I chose you because I knew you would take this seriously. You care about Charlie and I have faith in your ability to get to the bottom of whatever is going on. You stick with what you start, have an inquisitive mind and you balance out Charlie. It’s just that simple. Good night, Mr. Shepherd.” The phone went dead.
Shep turned as Charlie came rushing out of the bedroom.
“I just saw Lindy!” she cried. “She’s right outside.”
CHAPTER NINE
BY THE TIME Shep reached the street, whoever Charlie had seen was gone.
“I swear I saw her,” she cried when he returned to the apartment. She’d been standing at the window looking out at the snowy night when she’d seen her.
“I’m not doubting you,” he said quickly. “But there was no one there by the time I got downstairs.” He could see how upset she was. It was clear that she’d been hoping she wouldn’t see the woman again.
He’d known better. Someone wanted her to believe that her stepsister was alive. Because they wanted Charlie to suffer? Or some other reason? Shep was more determined than ever to find out who was doing this and why—right after he put a stop to it.
“Why don’t I make us something to eat?” he suggested.
She nodded. “Let me help.”
“You cook?”
Charlie mugged a face at him. “You make it sound as if it’s hard to do.”
He was glad to see some of the color come back into her face. “What’s your favorite meal to cook?” He could see the wheels turning. He laughed. “Charlie, you can’t lie to save your life. You don’t cook.”
“I’ve made things before,” she stammered. “Okay, I can scramble an egg, make toast. I once made pancakes at my foster parents’ house.”
He shook his head. “Come on. I’m going to teach you a few tricks I’ve learned.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Cooking tricks.” Taking her shoulders, he steered her toward the kitchen. Fortunately, he’d picked up a variety of items at the store earlier, including two rib eyes, potatoes, onions and a bag of green beans.
He set her to work snapping the green beans while he fried up some bacon, then peeled and sliced the potatoes and onions. As he fried the potatoes and onions in the bacon grease, he helped her finish snapping the green beans.
“You’re making my stomach rumble,” she said as he put them on the stove to cook.
He made a salad and broke the crisp bacon over the top, then whipped up a simple vinaigrette dressing. “I thought we’d start with this.” He handed her a salad and a fork before sitting down at the table next to her.
“How did you learn to do this?” she asked, so impressed that he had to smile.
“I like food. If I wanted to eat, I had to cook. Once I started, I realized that I enjoyed it.” He shrugged.
“They don’t have restaurants where you live?” she joked. “Where do you live? I know nothing about you while you know everything about me.”
“Not quite. I live and teach in Stevensville, Montana. And I don’t know near enough about you. For starters...tell me what you know about your stepmother after she was found,” he said as he watched her dig into her salad.
* * *
CHARLIE SWALLOWED THE bite of salad as he got up from his chair to see to the fried potatoes. She had no idea her apartment could smell this good. Her neighbors would think someone new had moved into her unit. The thought amused her and for a moment, she forgot about what she’d seen out her bedroom window not thirty minutes ago.
“My stepmother? I only know what one of the cops told me,” she said, fiddling with her fork. She hated to even think about Kat, about any of it. “She was found downstream, half drowned and injured, and taken to the hospital. When she was told about her husband’s death and Lindy’s, she became hysterical and had to be sedated.”
He sat back down at the table. “Did you ever talk to her?”
“No. By the time she was released from the hospital, I was in foster care down in Billings.”
“She didn’t try to find you? She could have gotten you out. Legally she was your stepmother.”
Charlie shook her head. “She told social services that she wasn’t up to taking care of me. Anyway, I was fine. It wasn’t like she and I were ever close. With Lindy gone... I doubt she wanted to see me anyway. I’m sure she felt that I was the trouble in the house, not Lindy. Like with the haircut, Lindy told our parents that I begged her to cut it even when she kept saying she didn’t really know how.”
“I can’t imagine what you went through back then and in the years since she died. Even in foster care, you had to be better off without your stepmother.”
“I used to have dreams where I would wake up and Kat would be standing over my bed with a butcher knife saying, ‘I know what you did.’” She swallowed the lump growing in her throat and looked away for a moment, remembering how terrifying the nightmares were. In her dreams, Kat had known about the lie. She’d known why Lindy had been outside. “She’d plunge the knife into my chest, screaming, ‘You killed my baby girl!’ I woke up drenched in sweat every time, unable to breathe.”
When he said nothing, she looked over at him. “You think she might be involved in this?”
“It’s a thought.”
“My father hadn’t gotten around to changing his will so I inherited everything—not that I could touch it until I was twenty-one. But I used some of it to pay off my college tuition and other expenses. The lawyer who explained everything to me told me that Kat had made overtures to overturn the will but their marriage had been too short that she would have failed.”
Charlie thought of the woman who always left the house dressed to the nines on her new husband’s arm. “I got the feeling that money might have been one of the reasons she married my father. He wanted to give her whatever she desired. It’s why he sold the house where I grew up and rented the old Victorian. It was going to be temporary. My father was building Kat a new home. They’d already hired an architect and were just looking for the right lot.
“Kat didn’t like the neighborhood where we were renting. She thought it might be dangerous and wanted us out of there as quickly as possible. As it was, we were there only a few months. But she was right.”
* * *
“WHAT ABOUT YOU?” Charlie asked as they finished the meal he’d cooked. “What happened to you after Landusky’s boot camp?”