Raintree Read online

  And she was pissed.

  “So what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I just wanted a salad,” she said softly.

  “In Wilmington,” he clarified. “This is a relatively small department. I know the detectives from the other divisions, and I know the uniforms. You’re not one of them, so how did you end up with this ill-advised and temporary assignment as my partner?”

  She didn’t take the bait. “I transferred in from Raleigh. I worked vice there for the past two years.”

  He was surprised. She looked too young to have been a detective for two years. “How old are you?”

  She didn’t seem to be offended by the question, as some women might have been. “Twenty-nine.”

  So she was on the fast track. Ambitious, smart, maybe even a little bit greedy. “Why the move?”

  “My mother lives here in Wilmington. She needs family close by, so I decided it was time to come back home.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “No.” Malory squirmed a little, obviously getting uncomfortable with the personal nature of the discussion. “She fell last year. It wasn’t anything serious. She sprained her ankle and hobbled for a couple of weeks.”

  “But it worried you,” he said. Of course it did. Malory was so earnest, so relentlessly dedicated and serious. If anything had happened to her mother, she would see it as somehow being her fault. And so here she was.

  “It worried me a little,” she confessed. “What about you?” she asked quickly, turning the subject of the conversation around. “Do you have family close by? Other than Echo, that is.”

  People who asked too many questions always made him nervous. Why did she need to know about his family? Of course, he had started this personal discussion. Turnabout was fair play, he supposed. “I have a sister and a niece who live in the western part of the state, a few hours away, a brother in Nevada and cousins everywhere I turn.”

  That last bit got a small smile out of her. Nice. Maybe she wasn’t entirely earnest, after all.

  “What about your parents?” she asked.

  “They’re dead.”

  Her smile faded quickly. “Sorry.”

  “They were murdered when I was seventeen,” he said without emotion. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Of course she hadn’t, but his blunt answer had killed the conversation, just as he had hoped. This woman could play hell with his life on so many levels if she made even half an effort. Scary notion.

  Tanya placed two very full plates on the table, along with two tall glasses of iced tea.

  “Raintree,” Malory said in a lowered voice, after Tanya walked away. “Everything on my plate but the turnip greens is fried.”

  “Yep,” he answered as he dug in. “Good stuff.”

  They both turned their attention to eating, Hope slightly less enthusiastic than Gideon about the fare, though after a few bites she relaxed and started to enjoy the meal. Gideon was glad for the silence, but it also made him nervous, because there was a level of comfort in it.

  He didn’t need or want a partner. He’d tolerated Leon for three and a half years, and in the end they’d made a pretty good team. Gideon solved the cases; Leon did the paper work and handled the bullshit. At the end of the day they both looked good and everyone was happy. Hope Malory did not look like a happy person.

  “I think she’s killed before,” a soft voice called.

  Gideon turned his head to glance into the unoccupied booth behind him. Well, it had been unoccupied—until Sherry Bishop arrived. She looked less solid than she had back at the apartment, but it was definitely her. “What?” he asked softly.

  “Raintree,” Malory began, “are you all…”

  He silenced his new partner with a lifted hand but never took his eyes from Sherry.

  “The woman who killed me,” the ghost said. “She wasn’t at all afraid or even nervous, just anxious. Wound up, the way Echo and I always were before a gig. I think she liked it. I think she enjoyed killing me.”

  “Raintree,” Malory said again, her voice sharper than before.

  Gideon lifted his hand once more, this time with a raised finger to indicate silence.

  “Shake that finger at me again and I’ll break it off.”

  Sherry Bishop disappeared, and Gideon turned around to face an angry and confused Detective Malory.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking.”

  “You have an odd way of thinking.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  Something in her expression changed. Her eyes grew softer, her lips fuller, and something worse than anger appeared. Curiosity. “But apparently it works,” she said. “How do you do it?”

  “Think?” He knew what she was asking; he just didn’t want to go there.

  “I’ve never known a detective with a record like yours. Except for that one case last year, your record is flawless.”

  “I know Stiles did it, I just can’t prove it. Yet.”

  “How?” she whispered. “How do you know?”

  It was easiest to pretend that he was like everyone else when the question came up. He had a gift for seeing small things that others missed; he had an eye for detail; he saw patterns; he was dedicated to solving each and every case. All those things were true, but they weren’t the reason for his almost flawless record.

  “I talk to dead people.”

  Malory’s response was immediate and not at all unexpected. She laughed out loud. The laugh did great things to her face. Her eyes sparkled; her cheeks grew pink; her lips turned up at the corners. It struck Gideon sharply that he felt much too comfortable with Hope Malory. That laugh was nicely familiar. He could get used to this…and he couldn’t allow that to happen.

  Hope drove slowly past Raintree’s house, and the sight of his house didn’t allay her suspicions at all.

  The three-story pale gray Carolina-style house right on Wrightsville Beach hadn’t been bought on a cop’s salary, that was for sure. This was one of the nicest areas along the strip, and he owned one of the nicest houses. She’d already done some investigating, and she knew what he’d paid for the place when he’d moved in four years ago.

  There was a three-car garage at the end of a short paved driveway. She knew, even though the garage doors were down, that every bay was filled. Raintree owned a black ’66 Mustang, the convertible he’d driven today; a ’57 Chevy Bel Air, turquoise and cream; and a ’74 Dodge Challenger in rally-red, whatever that was.

  Money aside, no one was as good a cop as Gideon Raintree seemed to be. Most of the murders he’d solved were drug related, which meant he could very well be connected to someone in the community of dealers. Someone high enough up to be able to buy his own cop. Was her new partner involved with the criminal element in Wilmington?

  I talk to dead people my ass.

  The houses on this strip of the beach were impressive, but space was at a premium, and they had been built very close together. One colorful house after another lined this street, and Raintree’s tastefully painted gray was one of the finest. Why hadn’t anyone ever questioned his lifestyle?

  Every detective she knew wanted to work homicide. It was high-profile; it was important. And yet five months after his partner’s retirement, Raintree was still working alone—or had been, until she’d come along. The new chief had told her the other detectives weren’t interested in working with Raintree. They didn’t want to get lost in the shuffle, always being second man on the team, or else they knew Raintree liked to work alone and didn’t want to be the one to rock the boat. In other words, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

  Hope had never minded rocking the boat.

  Maybe there were completely reasonable answers to all her questions about Raintree, but then again, maybe not. She had to know, before she got herself in too deep. Before she trusted him, before she accepted him.

  She knew in her gut that Raintree was a liar. Of course h