“I have a tendency to get really caught up in things. But that doesn’t matter right now.” He got back on topic. “So the meetings over for the day?”

  She nodded, then informed him, “Actually, the meetings are over for the week. I don’t have to come in until two days before the students come back to start the school year. That leaves me free to help you,” she announced, pleased.

  “Help me?” he questioned.

  “Yes. With the investigation. I just figured that two minds are better than one.”

  He got that she was eager to be part of the investigation, but right now, until he knew who Jordana and her team had found, he didn’t think that having Gwen joining in on this investigation in any way was such a good idea.

  “Well, that’s not always the case,” Brooks told her cautiously.

  She looked at him, confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She wasn’t being belligerent, she was honestly asking a question.

  He grasped at the first thing that came to his mind. “I’m used to working alone. You might get in my way.”

  “I don’t want to get in your way, I want to help you,” she said in all sincerity. After all, it was her mother they were looking for, she thought. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

  She was doing it again, he thought. She was making a perfectly innocent statement sound incredibly suggestive and stimulating.

  His new closeness with this woman was causing all sorts of thoughts to run amok in his brain.

  “Um, Brooks?” she began, shifting in her seat and turning toward him.

  When she looked at him that way, he was afraid that he would wind up baring his soul to her. That would mean saying things to her that he didn’t know quite how to say or break to her.

  “Yes?” he finally asked, telling himself he was ready for anything when in fact he knew that he wasn’t. That was because he was experiencing this overwhelming desire to shelter her, to keep her heart from breaking at all costs. Unfortunately, at the same time he was feeling totally inadequate for the job.

  “All right, I’m no expert,” Gwen began, but got no further.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take that into account,” he told her. Right at this moment he was desperately trying to stall, or even better than that, to divert her from asking the one question he didn’t want to be faced with answering. “Unless the question you’re about to ask makes you too uncomfortable, in which case it’s all right if you want to take your time in asking it—or come back to it at a later time.”

  “No,” she said. “I really think I should ask this now.”

  “All right,” he replied, bracing himself.

  “Well, like I said, I’m no expert when it comes to things like this, but, well—” she nodded at the front of his car “—you’ve got your key in the ignition and I was just wondering, wouldn’t the car make better time if you actually turned the key in the ignition and have the car actually go?”

  Brooks found himself breathing a sigh of relief, at least doing it in his head if not physically.

  “Right again,” he told her as he started up his car. The next moment, he was driving them out of the school parking lot and toward his home.

  Chapter 18

  Gwen promised herself that yesterday’s lovemaking was not going to be a repeat performance tonight. What happened last night had been wonderful, but there was nothing to suggest to her that this was anything but a onetime thing. The last thing she wanted was to have Brooks thinking that she was some sort of a clingy, needy creature who once she wrapped her tentacles around someone held on for dear life.

  That wasn’t her. She knew very well that coming across as if she was trying to hang on to a man was a surefire recipe for disaster, not to mention the very best way to lose that man completely. Look at what had happened to her mother. Olivia had gone looking to have it out with her ex-lover and she was subsequently never heard from again.

  Gwen kept hoping that they would find her missing mother, or, barring that, some clue as to what happened to her. But worst-case scenario might just lead her to a conclusion she didn’t want to acknowledge: that loving a man, be it her father or in her own case, Brooks, was asking for disappointment, pain—and perhaps even worse.

  * * *

  Despite all her best intentions and resolutions, by the time the end of the day had come around—a day filled with running less than successful errands that led nowhere—Gwen wasn’t feeling quite as noble as she had been when she’d first started out this morning.

  This morning, she thought. That felt like it had been a million years ago.

  Gwen had almost succeeded in convincing herself that nothing was going on between her and Brooks.

  Almost.

  She was busy putting dishes away in the dishwasher and he was coming over, carrying a second pile of plates and silverware. His intent was to rinse everything off and then stack them in the dishwasher. But somehow, she found herself the main focus of his attention rather than the plates he was stacking.

  Brooks blamed his reaction to her on the lighting.

  Gwen was dressed simply and the light seemed to hit her just right. It seemed to almost be making love to her. The way he wanted to.

  Brooks gave up trying to be strong.

  Looking into her eyes, he thought that Gwen literally looked like the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

  His eyes caressing her, Brooks replied softly, “Not a thing.”

  Taking the dish out of her hand, Brooks placed it on the counter, then took her face in his hands and brought his mouth down to hers.

  That one simple action was all it took. His fate was sealed right then and there because he not only wasn’t strong enough to fight what was happening between them, he didn’t want to be.

  Flashing red lights went off in his head, warning him that he was on a very slippery slope, trying to find his way to safety.

  He ignored the lights. All he wanted to do was be with Gwen for one more night. To lose himself in her and pretend, just for a little while, that he wasn’t a Colton, that he didn’t have a reputation to uphold. And that he was free to make love with someone without worrying about what tomorrow would bring.

  * * *

  “Guess I’d better cross out stacking dishes in the dishwasher as being a safe activity,” Brooks commented, when the lovemaking was over and he was holding Gwen in his arms.

  He heard her laugh softly to herself. “Who knew?”

  She traced the outline of his lips with her fingertip. Pulling herself up into an almost semi-sitting position, she kissed him quickly. “You make me feel happy.”

  Guilt filled him instantly. Here he was, making love with her and she had no idea he was keeping a secret from her. No idea that that there was a body lying in the morgue this very instant that could very possibly be her mother.

  He needed to get this off his chest and let her know.

  “Gwen?” he began, turning into her, ready to stumble through a narrative and tell her about the call he had gotten from his sister.

  The words died in his throat without ever being uttered.

  Gwen had fallen asleep.

  He released the breath he’d drawn in order to make a full disclosure.

  He stroked her hair from her face, feeling warm affection stirring within him. “Guess it’ll keep until the morning,” he told her softly.

  * * *

  But the morning brought its own set of circumstances.

  Brooks was in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher when he heard his cell phone ringing. The ringtone belonged to Ty.

  “Did you manage to find out who that car belonged to?” Brooks asked as he answered his phone.

  “Well, hello to you, too, little brother,” Ty said to him.

  “Sorry,” Brooks apologized, starting over. “Hello. Did you manage to find out who that car belonged to?” He nodded a greeting to Gwen as she walked into the kitchen.

  “I said I would,” Ty reminded him. Like the rest of his close-knit family, Ty prided himself on always keeping his word. “I just got a little sidetracked by my paying job,” he explained to Brooks. “There was a slight hiccup there, but to answer the only question in your mind, yes, I managed to track down the car that almost ran your friend over.”

  He was about to correct Ty and tell him that Gwen was just his client, not his friend in the actual sense of the word, but that would have left him open to fielding questions on two sides—from Ty, who would have questioned the truth behind that statement, and from Gwen who, after making love with him two nights in a row, might be hurt by the fact that he was hiding what he was feeling behind a professional relationship.

  So Brooks found it safer to say nothing, other than “And?” as he attempted to coax the rest of the information out of his brother.

  “And you were right,” Ty said. “The car does belong to Daniel Shelton. It’s one of three silver cars that are registered in his name. Do you want to file charges against him?” his brother asked. “I can get you the proper forms to fill out, but in the absence of any surveillance camera records—I checked, by the way and there weren’t any—it’s just a matter of he said/he said,” Ty warned his brother.

  “This is all I wanted for now,” Brooks told him. “Thanks for getting back to me so soon.”

  “Hey, don’t mention it,” Ty replied. And the very next second, he’d hung up.

  The moment he did, he saw Gwen looking at him. “That driver, it was Daniel, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “It was.” He tried not to frighten her too much. There was nothing to be gained by that. “Shelton’s either stepped up his game, or he just wanted to scare you. Listen, I can get a few off-duty police officers to hang around outside my house if you’re worried about Shelton. We can also get a restraining order in place.”

  She considered the latter for a moment. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take out a restraining order,” she told him. “But between the two of us, I don’t think he’s the kind of person that a restraining order would stop from doing what he intended on doing.”

  “I think you’re right,” he agreed.

  Again, it was on the tip of his tongue to tell Gwen about the second body that had been discovered at his father’s construction site, but then his phone rang again.

  This time it was Yvette calling him.

  Gwen’s mouth curved. “You certainly are popular.”

  “At least with my own family,” he responded, his eyes on hers. Brooks pressed the on button and immediately began talking. “This is a rare surprise, Yvette. I’m the one who usually has to try tracking you down to talk. What’s up?”

  He expected her to say something cryptic. He wasn’t ready for what she told him.

  “I think you should come down to the lab, Brooks,” Yvette said. “You’re going to want to see this.”

  “See what?” Brooks asked, but the call had already terminated.

  Putting his phone into his back pocket, he noticed Gwen looking at him, an unspoken question in her eyes.

  “Yvette wants to show us something,” he told Gwen.

  He was extrapolating on what Yvette had just said. He was well aware that she hadn’t included Gwen in the invitation, but since he was certain that this was somehow connected to the case he was handling for Gwen, he wasn’t going to let this be yet something else that he wound up keeping a secret.

  “Now?” she asked, thinking it was still rather early.

  Brooks nodded. “She certainly made it sound that way.”

  “All right,” Gwen responded. “Let’s go.” Grabbing her purse as they approached the front door, Gwen had a confession of her own to make. The words weren’t easy for her to say. “I don’t know whether to be excited or scared.”

  He really felt for her, but that wasn’t going to help her get through this. He gave her what advice he could. “How about you put both emotions on the back burner until we find out why Yvette wants to see us,” Brooks suggested to her.

  “How do you do it?” she asked as she got into his car a beat after he did.

  “Do what?” he asked, not quite clear what she was asking him about. He put on his seat belt.

  “How do you stay so removed from everything? You act as if you’re just going out for a leisurely drive.”

  He gave her an honest answer. “Someone once told me that if I was going to get into this game, I was going to have to learn how to keep a cool head—or at least look like I’m keeping a cool head.”

  “So this cool head you’re projecting right now, it’s just a facade?” she asked Brooks, reading between the lines.

  He smiled at her, his eyes sparkling just a little. “I’m not about to give away any trade secrets,” Brooks told her.

  Finding out that he wasn’t just going through the motions, that he actually might be feeling at least a little of what she was feeling, made her feel better about things, Gwen thought as she settled back in her seat.

  * * *

  Yvette had just finished photographing pages in small notebooks and loading those images into her computer when Brooks walked in with Gwen.

  A fleeting look of surprise passed over the lab technician’s face before it faded away again.

  “I didn’t realize you were bringing company,” she told her brother, then smiled and nodded at Gwen. “Nice to see you again, Gwen.”

  Gwen returned the smile. “You, too, Yvette.”

  The air was pregnant with things unsaid, Brooks thought. He could feel it. He just hoped that it wouldn’t be too devastating for Gwen.

  “What did you want to show me, Yvette?” he asked, trying to get this interaction between them back on track. Then, before his sister could answer him, he pointed to the image she had just pulled up on the computer screen. “What is that?”

  “What you see before you are the very faint notes—if you can actually call them that—made by the late private investigator Felton Crane. This,” Yvette said, switching to a close-up of what looked like a tiny, very faded notebook, “was found in the lining of a torn breast pocket in his sports jacket. I presume we’re looking at an old-fashioned notebook. Mr. Crane obviously took notes to help him stay on top of things. As near as I can make out, this page was the last entry that he made,” she added.

  “What does it say?” Brooks asked, squinting at the faded, small writing.

  “I’m not really sure,” Yvette confessed. “My best guess is that it says ‘Meeting suspect MD at site noon’ which I take to mean that our dead man was meeting someone somewhere at noon,” she concluded with a shrug.

  “The suspect he was meeting was a doctor?” Gwen questioned, referring to the two initials the private investigator had used.

  “I’d say that it looks that way. Were any of Crane’s clients doctors?” she asked her brother.

  “Not that I know of. Besides, the man had a reputation of only handling one case at a time. From what we know, he was supposed to be tracking down what had happened to Gwen’s mother.” He looked at Gwen. “Do you remember your grandmother mentioning any doctors in connection to your mother’s case?”

  Gwen shook her head. “No. She never mentioned anything to me about a doctor.”

  She looked at the photographs on the screen. It almost appeared as if the private investigator had written using invisible ink. Either that, or he’d used that old kid trick she’d once read about where notes were written with a pen dipped in lemon juice.

  “Can I have the notebook?” she asked.

  “No, I’m afraid not. That’s still part of evidence, so I can’t let you have it. I shouldn’t even be showing it to you,” Yvette said—and then she reconsidered what was happening. “But I can give you copies of the pages I photographed. I took photos of practically all the pages that were in the notebook. Will that do?”

  “That would be wonderful,” Gwen cried with genuine enthusiasm.

  There was the very real possibility that the notes the murdered private investigator had made could wind up being a bridge across time and they would finally have some clues as to what happened to her mother.

  “All right, just give me a minute,” Yvette told Gwen as well as her brother as she stepped away from her work area.

  Gwen could feel her fingertips tingling. She glanced at Brooks. “We’re getting closer, Brooks. I can feel it,” she said. She was so excited, she found that she was having trouble keeping her voice under control.

  “Don’t get carried away just yet,” Brooks cautioned. “You still don’t know how this is going to wind up turning out.”

  Just looking at the hope on her face was making his heart ache for her.

  “I know, I know,” she said, realizing that he was only trying to shield her, to prepare her for what could be a bad outcome. “But, Brooks, you have to understand. This is the first positive turn this whole long, drawn-out investigation has taken in literally years,” she cried. And then she beamed at him. “And it is all because of you.”

  Impulsively, Gwen threw her arms around Brooks, pressing her face against his chest as she hugged him. “Everything good that’s happening right now is all because of you.”

  He carefully stripped her arms away from him. “Gwen, don’t.”

  If this whole thing went the way he was afraid it was going to go, Gwen would be so terribly disappointed in the end that she might not be able to rally. He didn’t want that for her. Didn’t want to see the light go out of her eyes.

  “Don’t what?” she questioned. “Don’t thank you for casting some light into that very dark world I’ve been living in? Don’t ask me to do that. Don’t ask me to ignore the first ray of sunshine that actually penetrated my world since I was a little child. Smile, Brooks,” she coaxed, silently begging him not to make her have to face something terrible. “I just said a nice thing to you. Why don’t we just leave it at that for now?”