Page 40 of In the Dead of Night

Sara’s voice snapped him back to the present. He glanced at her, saw terrible knowledge in his eyes. He felt that same awful knowing in his own heart.

“I’ll bet the farm that B.S. is Blaine Stocker,” Nick said.

“We need to find out who he is.”

Sara rose on legs that weren’t quite steady and paced to the kitchen window. Outside, the rain had stopped, but a thick fog had rolled in from the cape.

Absently, she touched the burgeoning bruise on her forehead. “I think your father and my parents were working on a book.”

“Or a documentary.”

She turned to him. “Is there a possibility the manuscript could be packed away with your father’s belongings? Maybe at your mother’s house?”

“Mom went through all of my father’s things when he was killed. She was angry. Most of it went to charity. The rest went into the trash.”

“Is there any way you can get into her house and check?”

“I’ve got a key,” he said. “Maybe I can duck in while my mother’s at the shop.”

“Thank you.”

He joined her at the window, his expression troubled. Beyond the glass, fog swirled around the juniper and rock. “In the interim, you can’t stay here alone.”

“Maybe there’s a motel off the highway.”

He remained silent for so long that for a moment, Sara thought he wouldn’t respond. Finally, he turned to her, his eyes seeking hers, holding them with such intensity that she needed to look away, but couldn’t. “Your things are already at my bungalow. Stay with me. You’ll be safe. We can work on this thing together.”

It was the logical thing to do. Practical. But, a refusal teetered on her lips. Maybe because of the way he was looking at her. As if she were the only woman in the world and he was the loneliest man on earth.

“All right,” she said.

Something she didn’t understand flashed in his eyes. “Bring everything you’ve found so far,” he said. “Notes. Photos. The journal. Anything you can think of.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to get into some dry clothes. Then we’re going to sit down and figure this thing out, starting with the name Blaine Stocker.”

* * *

NICK HAD ALWAYS prided himself on his level-headedness. His ability to keep his cool under pressure. On taking the high road over the low. On doing the right thing even when the right thing wasn’t necessarily the easiest.

Until tonight, anyway.

Inviting Sara to stay with him was a train wreck waiting to happen. He was too attracted to her. Too willing to let down his guard. And far too willing to set aside his reservations for the promise of a touch or the taste of her lips. A hell of a dilemma for a man who’d sworn he was going to be smart about this and steadfast in his convictions.

The fog thickened on the drive from the mansion to his bungalow. Visibility dwindled to less than twenty feet. As his cruiser crept along at a snail’s pace, he knew neither of them would be going anywhere the rest of the night.

Inside, Nick locked all the doors, then headed for the second bedroom, which he’d turned into a sort of home office. He picked up his laptop and carried it to the kitchen table and turned it on.

“Nick, you should put on some dry clothes.”

He glanced at her as the laptop booted. “In a minute.”

“What are you doing?”

“Checking on the status of my inquiry with the Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit.” Taking a chair, he sat. “And seeing what we can find on Blaine Stocker.”

His hands danced across the keyboard as he brought up the Department of Justice database. “Here it is,” he said, leaning forward.