Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [82]
“You’ve got a lot on your mind. It drags you down.”
He was matter-of-fact in his sincerity. Nora said nothing and followed him as he led her through the trees, moving with an assurance and familiarity with the difficult terrain that she didn’t have.
“Devin,” she said behind him, “have you ever considered if Drew’s death wasn’t just an awful accident?”
He glanced back at her. He was wearing only a sweatshirt, vest and jeans, but he didn’t look cold at all. “Don’t start thinking like that.”
He wasn’t one to jump from A to Z without going carefully through all the letters in between. She’d seen that in how he was helping her look into Melanie’s background.
So far they’d found out that she came from a middle-class Long Island family and had a degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She’d worked for several different high-end furniture stores in New York before moving to Washington, D.C., two years ago to set up her own one-woman interior-decorating firm.
They’d checked out her Web site, which she hadn’t updated lately, and had filled out the form for more information, but never got anything back. Devin was figuring out how to approach her as a would-be client and ask for references. Nora had written down all the different places she could think of that Melanie had traveled to since April. She hadn’t liked Melanie from the beginning, but she’d kept hoping her father would dump her.
Now they were engaged.
Nora ducked under the sharp, dead lower branches of a pine.
“It’s almost dark, Dev,” she said. “We need to figure out where to camp soon.”
“Not a problem.”
“I don’t know if I want to sleep right on top of where a man died.”
“Yeah.” He stopped next to a huge boulder and turned to her, a light breeze floating almost peacefully through the trees. He seemed quiet, as if he’d gone into some deep part of himself. “I don’t, either.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound callous.”
“You don’t. It’s okay.” He tilted his head back at the darkening sky. “Drew was my friend is all.”
Nora slipped off her pack. “It’ll be cathartic for you to be back up here again, but if you don’t want to go to the exact spot, I’ll understand.”
He dropped his gaze back to her. “No. I’ll go. It’s not a big deal.”
“How much farther is it? It’s getting dark.”
“Not far.”
She hoisted up her pack again. “I keep thinking about Alex,” she said, hating herself for how meek she sounded.
Devin nodded. “I know.”
“You do, don’t you?”
He’d already started back through the woods and didn’t hear her. Nora tripped along behind him. Her legs were rubbery and her back ached from her heavy pack, but she didn’t have any blisters. “What if Melanie’s some kind of madam?” she called to him almost cheerfully. “Maybe she’s running high-class call girls to Washington politicians.”
“Whoa, Nora.” Devin glanced back at her with a grin. “I’m lost. Call girls? How’d you come up with call girls?”
It made her feel good to see him smile. “I’m just saying what if Melanie has secrets that she doesn’t want anyone to discover, and she knows we’re after those secrets?”
“What if she really loves your father?”
“And has secrets?”
“Yeah.”
Nora was thoughtful a moment. “She has to be honest with him.”
“Maybe he knows already and doesn’t care.”
“You could be a cop, Devin. You don’t jump ahead. But right now, I need you to jump ahead just a little. Okay? Because I’m really tired, and I’m scared, and I hate this woman. It’s not all drama. Melanie doesn’t love my father. I know she doesn’t. She just wants him because of his status.”
Devin stopped suddenly and removed his pack, leaning it against a boulder. They were on the flat top of a knoll, but it sloped downward sharply just ahead. “I guess I’ll never be so important I’ll have to worry about women falling for me because of my status.”
His tone was self-deprecating, but the humor was underlined with a touch of bitterness that irritated Nora. “You shouldn’t put yourself down.”
“What? I wasn’t.”
He seemed oblivious, which didn’t surprise her really. “When this is over,” she said, “I can talk to my dad—or