sat, too, and for a minute they were silent, just watching the afternoon sunlight play on the water. It bounced off and danced against the walls of the porch, too. It would be a challenge, she thought, to capture this living light on a canvas.
It probably had been a happy place, once. Mike and Gavin had probably spent hours out here, watching the breeze ripple the blue lake. But it was clear that they had pretty much forgotten what happiness tasted like.
God only knew what they saw when they looked out at the water now. Somewhere on the other side of that lake was Justine’s mansion. And the muddy spot where her body had been buried.
She glanced at Mike, and she realized he was smiling at her, a hint of that old smile. She couldn’t quite meet it. It was still strong stuff, and even after all this time she wasn’t completely immune.
“God, Suzie-freaka, it’s good to see you. It’s been a long, long time.”
His voice, and his smile, were strangely unsettling, like haunted echoes from the past, from way back when she hated herself almost as much as she hated him. Suddenly the air felt tight, even though the breeze was cool and fresh, fingering her hair and ruffling the sleeves of her dress.
She was irked with herself for reacting like this. The past wasn’t the issue, damn it. She wasn’t here to reminisce about the bad old days. She was only here out of common humanity. She was here to give an old friend—no, an old acquaintance—a heads-up.
Mike held out the cookies. “So, want to tell me what’s happening?” He pulled in one corner of his mouth, creating that annoyingly attractive dimple. “Somehow I don’t think you just woke up this morning and said, ‘hey, I wonder how that obnoxious boy I hated in high school is doing?’”
The boy she hated in high school… He must have read her mind. But was that all he was? Maybe. She had definitely hated him. Even when she…didn’t.
“No,” she said, waving away the cookies, which were hard and sandy, typical grocery store pseudo food. “It’s something more serious, I’m afraid. It’s about Justine. Well, about Justine’s father, anyhow.”
Mike set the container down slowly. “What about him?”
“He asked me to visit him this morning, at Justine’s house.”
She watched Mike’s face, wondering how he could stay so impassive. Where had all those quicksilver emotions gone? The easy laughter, the twitching frown, the worried squint, the sarcastic eyebrow? The restless, young-animal body.
The zing.
He was so still now. So controlled. It was like looking at a picture of Mike instead of the real thing.
“Oh, yeah?” Mike flipped a cookie between his fingers, keeping his eyes on the water. “What did he want?”
She took a breath. This was it.
“He wants me to help him pin Justine’s murder on you.”
That got his attention. But it didn’t completely surprise him. As he slowly faced Suzie, she saw anger but not shock behind his dark brown eyes.
“Pin it…how would you be able to do that?”
“He hoped I might have seen something while I was painting Gavin’s portrait. Something between you and Justine. An argument, maybe.”
“But you couldn’t have. I was never at the house when you were there.”
“I know.” She chewed on her lower lip, wishing she could stop herself from asking the next question but knowing she probably couldn’t. She’d never had very good impulse control. “I always thought I might run into you, but I never did. Was that deliberate? Were you avoiding me on purpose?”
“Yes.”
She frowned. “Well, that’s a hell of a note,” she said. “Just ‘yes’?”
“Well, what do you want me to say? Yes, it was deliberate. Yes, I was avoiding you on purpose.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, and it, too, held the echo of the old days. He always did have a large, infuriating repertoire of smug-jock mannerisms. “I thought you’d prefer it that way.”
“You thought I…” She frowned for a few seconds, feeling herself heating up, though she wasn’t sure why. Mike Frome had always been able to confuse her in world-record time, which inevitably ticked her off. “Why?”
“I thought seeing me might make you…” He seemed to search for a word. “Uncomfortable.”
Uncomfortable? Her temperature rose even higher. What the heck was that a euphemism for? Did he think she was still a geeky, untouched virgin who would blush at the memory of the night he’d copped a feel?
“Know what, Frome? That’s BS, and you know it. I haven’t got anything to be uncomfortable about where you’re concerned. Sixteen seconds of touchy-feely ten years ago doesn’t exactly require me to wear the scarlet letter for the rest of my life.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean that. I meant that seeing me might make you unhappy. You know, you might—”
Unhappy? Oh, this was even worse. Did he think she’d actually spent the past ten years carrying a torch for Mr. Most-Likely-To-Succeed? Oh, brother.
“Might what? Might turn to stone just from looking at your irresistible bod? Sorry, but that’s baloney, too. You may have been the king of the sandbox in Firefly Glen, but it’s a pretty small sandbox. Out in the real world, where I’ve been living for the past ten years—”
To her surprise, Mike began to laugh. He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Easy, Fang. You’re getting it all wrong.”
She forced herself to take a deep breath. Man, was she regressing. She didn’t do this anymore, didn’t fly off the handle, didn’t read insults into perfectly innocent comments. Her tendency toward irrational ferocity had disappeared the minute she left Firefly Glen, which in her opinion proved that Mike Frome must have been the problem all along.
However, there was such a thing as protesting too much. She inhaled one more time, just for good measure.
“Or maybe,” he said, “I’m putting it all wrong.”
“Probably both,” she said tightly. “We never did really communicate all that well. But, look, we’re getting off topic. This is serious. I’m trying to tell you that your ex-father-in-law wants to see you spend the rest of your life in jail.”
“Okay.” He gazed at her, the poker face returning. “So what did you tell him?”
“I told him I hadn’t laid eyes on you in ten years. That frustrated him, but it didn’t really slow him down much. He made it clear that if I’d just say I saw you shove Justine around or something he’d make it worth my while.”
The smile remained on Mike’s lips, but it was as if he’d simply forgotten to put it away. He still had hold of her hand, so she knew how tight his fingers were.
“And what did you say
