River Road(16)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

The bottom line was that Mason Fletcher had been a treasured memory of her youth, but she certainly had not obsessed over him. She was an adult now. She no longer viewed him from the perspective of a shy teen with a crush on an older boy. Now she saw him as an equal. The age difference between them was no longer an obstacle. And she found him even more fascinating than he had been all those years ago.

“How long do you plan to stay in Summer River?” she asked.

Mason used a small hammer to tap the end of a chisel. Another tile fell free. He caught it and placed it on top of the growing stack.

“Depends,” he said.

She let it go. Mason would talk only when he was ready, and that might be never.

“You know, I never would have envisioned you working in a hardware store,” she said.

“Why not? I like selling hardware. Hardware is real. Hammers, saws, drills, screwdrivers—they’re useful. When you think about it, civilization as we know it depends on stuff like that.”

“I hadn’t considered screwdrivers and hammers from that perspective, but I see what you mean. Personally, I’ve always considered good indoor plumbing the basis of civilization. It’s the reason I never saw the appeal of camping.”

“You can’t put a toilet or a shower together without good tools.”

“Good point.”

“What happened to your engagement?”

The question came out of nowhere, catching her off guard.

“It ended after about a year when I found him in bed with his administrative assistant,” she said.

Belatedly, she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

“You were engaged for nearly a year?” Mason gave her a severe look. “That should have told you something was seriously wrong.”

Now he had put her on the defensive.

“Why do you say that?” she asked, going for a little chill in her tone. “A lot of engagements last a year or longer. A long engagement gives two people an opportunity to make sure they are right for each other.”

Mason looked unconvinced. “I say if it takes you a year to decide whether or not you can make a commitment, something is missing.”

“Yes, well, turns out something was missing in the case of my engagement.”

He pried off another tile. “What?”

“Me, I think.”

He raised his brows. “Meaning?”

“I have commitment issues, according to my therapist. Something to do with being a child of divorce—all that shuttling back and forth between two feuding parents. Add in the fact that I didn’t like my mom’s second husband or my father’s second wife and they didn’t like me, and things get complicated.”

He smiled. “No shit?”

She smiled, too. “No shit.”

“Got a plan?”

“Absolutely. I finally decided to go the scientific route to finding the right partner. I registered at a very reputable, very expensive online matchmaking site. I’ve had thirty dates in the past few months. All of them were excellent matches, at least according to the computer algorithms that matched us.”

“But?”

She exhaled slowly. “But I’ve still got those darn commitment issues. What about you? Made any progress on the relationship front since your divorce?”

“Well, I probably still have communication problems.” He dropped another tile onto the stack. “But tonight I had dinner with a very interesting woman who has commitment issues, so things are definitely looking up.”

She laughed. “You’re right. You really are a glass-half-full kind of guy.”

“You miss your ex-fiancé?”

She stopped laughing and went with the truth. “Nope. The dirty little secret is that I was relieved when it was all over. Miss your ex-wife?”

“Nope. I was relieved, too, when I came home one day and discovered that she had walked out. It meant I could stop trying to fix myself. Lucky for me, she left before Fletcher Consulting started to make some money.”

He removed the last of the tiles and studied the wooden frame and backing for a moment. Then he reached for another tool.

A few minutes later, he eased the fame and backing out of the fireplace, revealing the dark opening.

“Looks like there is something inside,” he said.

Lucy uncoiled and sat forward on the sofa, trying to peer into the darkness. She could make out a large lumpy shape.

“Why on earth would Aunt Sara—” She stopped.

“Got a flashlight?” Mason asked. “If you don’t, I can get one from my truck.”

“Sara kept one in the kitchen. I’ll get it.”

“I think I’m going to need a clean towel, too.”

Lucy jumped up and went into the kitchen. When she returned, Mason took the towel and used it to remove a poker that had been lodged inside the fireplace.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I can’t be positive yet, but I’ve got a feeling that this is not going to be good.”

He set the poker aside and took the flashlight from her. He aimed the beam through the opening. She moved closer and looked into the deep fireplace.

“Looks like a copy of an old newspaper,” she said. “It’s sealed in a plastic bag.”

“Look closer.”

A cold chill iced her blood. “Is that a black garbage bag? Don’t tell me Sara stuffed the fireplace with trash before she covered it with tiles. That would be just too weird.”

“Garbage bags don’t have zippers,” Mason said. “It’s a body bag.”

“Good grief.” Lucy stepped back reflexively. “I can’t believe it.”

Mason used the towel again to reach into the fireplace. He removed the bag containing the newspaper. Lucy glanced at the banner.

“It’s a San Francisco paper,” she said. She glanced at the date and did the math. “Oh, crap. It was published in August, thirteen years ago. That’s the summer when Brinker was in town. Someone circled the headline, Scorecard Rapist Strikes Again.”

Mason turned the plastic bag over to view the other side of the newspaper. “There’s a driver’s license in here.”

Lucy stared at the photo of the young, astonishingly good-looking man. He was blond and blue-eyed, with a charismatic smile that promised dark thrills.

“Tristan Brinker,” she said.

10

She killed him because of what he had planned to do to me, didn’t she?” Lucy said.

“There are still a lot of questions to be answered here, but yes, I think that scenario is the most likely one,” Mason said.