an invitation as Michelle stepped across the threshold, still talking.
“You should be proud of those trophies. Heck, if the school gave trophies for academic excellence, I wouldn’t mind a few of those scattered around with my name on them.”
Colin laughed, rubbing the last of the kinks out of his neck. “You were a brain, weren’t you?”
She stuck out her tongue. “Go ahead. You can say it. I was a nerd, complete with glasses and braces and bony chest.”
As if pulled by a magnetic force, his gaze dropped to the gentle curve of her breasts beneath her cotton T-shirt. By the time he’d trained his eyes back to her face, a rosy blush had claimed her cheeks.
“The years have been kind.”
She giggled and spun around. The compliment had made her uncomfortable. A truth smacked against his forehead and made its way to his lips. “You played up the nerd persona in high school, didn’t you? Because of your mom.”
She froze and her back stiffened. “That’s ridiculous. Why would you think any high school girl would want to be a geek?”
“Any high school girl who had a hootchie-cootchie mama.”
Her eyes flashed fire as she turned on him. “You’re… you’re…”
“Despicable.” He’d been so excited to discover something about Michelle, so intrigued to have chipped through her cool exterior, he’d lost all sense of social etiquette. “I’m sorry, Michelle. I had no right.”
She blew out a breath and dragged a hand through her thick hair. “No. You’re right. I wanted to put as much distance as possible between me and my mom. I didn’t want people thinking I was anything like her.”
Her dark eyes pooled. He preferred the fire. In two strides, he was at her side. He slid a knuckle beneath her chin and a tear dangled on the end of her long lashes. “I’m an idiot.”
Her lush lips trembled into a smile. “You’re an astute idiot. The only person I’d ever admitted that to was Amanda.”
The tear dripped onto her cheek, and he halted its downward path with his thumb. “I’m going to find this guy, Michelle. And he’s not some whistling homeless dude.”
Sniffling, she pulled back her shoulders. “I—I might have another clue.”
“Something you remembered?” He stepped back from her warmth, squashing his desire, shelving it…for later.
“Emails.”
“Emails?”
She ducked around him and headed for her kitchen table. “It actually occurred to me before, but I was too embarrassed to tell you about it. But now that my pathetic insecurities are out in the open, I may as well lay it all out there.”
She didn’t have the corner on pathetic insecurities.
“Has someone been threatening you?” That’s why she was calling in the help of the bicycle geek. The fact that she’d planned to open up to Alec before him irritated the hell out of him.
“Sort of… I don’t know.” She hovered over her laptop, clicking keys on the keyboard. “Darn. I should’ve been saving them.”
He joined her at the table as she scrolled through her inbox. “What did the emails say?”
“I was too chicken to open them.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “But the subject line said, Like mother, like daughter?”
“That sounds like a threat to me. Or at least harassment.” He sat in front of the computer and opened her Deleted Items.
“Don’t bother. I did a hard delete and sent them to cyberspace oblivion.”
“Do you think Bicycle Boy can help?”
She huffed and punched him in the arm. “He’s a good guy.”
“I hope he knows how to retrieve those messages.” He rubbed his biceps where her delicate hand had nailed him. “Do you know if Amanda had been receiving any emails? Any threats?”
“She didn’t mention anything to me.” She hugged herself and wedged a hip against the kitchen table. “Amanda didn’t have any enemies.”
“Had she been on any dates since the separation from her husband?”
“No. She talked a good game, but she missed Ryan.” Michelle’s face tightened and she pursed her lips. If she was going to burst into tears, he had a strong shoulder.
Her cell phone played some hip-hop song and Colin raised his brows.
“I like to keep current with the kids.” She answered the phone and moved to the window.
Colin clicked around Michelle’s computer as she talked in a low voice across the room. He’d have to give over to Alec’s computer skills and hope the guy knew what he was doing and could retrieve those messages. Maybe someone was trying to scare Michelle, put her on edge. Killers played games, especially the smart ones.
“That was Chief Evans. He wants to see me this afternoon. You, too.”
“Is he still convinced he has his man?”
“He wouldn’t go into it with me.
“Any luck?” She pointed at the laptop screen.
“No. I’m going to have to defer to Alec. Dammit.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know why you took an instant dislike to Alec. He’s harmless.”
Harmless is not the way Colin would describe the way Alec had looked at Michelle. Did the woman have no clue how sexy she was? She’d probably be uneasy to hear herself described as sexy…thanks to that mother of hers. Hootchie-cootchie mama. What had he been thinking?
“I hope Mr. Harmless can get those emails.”
“They may be nothing, Colin, totally unrelated to Amanda’s…death.”
“Anything out of the ordinary needs to be examined.” He smacked his forehead. “I completely forgot.”
“What?”
He shoved his hand into his pocket to dig out the chain he’d found in the basement at Columbella House. He dangled it from his finger. It was a bracelet.
“I found this in the basement right before you screamed bloody murder. Do you recognize it? Is it Amanda’s?”
Michelle fingered the bracelet and the charms hanging from it. She plucked one charm out from the rest and squinted at it. Then she dropped her hand as if the charm had scorched her.
CHAPTER SIX
MICHELLE RUBBED THE tips
