CHAPTER NINE
Shae dropped the curtain back into place when a knock came at the door. She was expecting Brynn later, who’d offered her a ride back to Jace’s house. She’d left her vehicle behind and currently had no other transportation. It didn’t matter, though. She was fine with having a front row seat to Main Street where the police station was only a block away from the bar.
Did Kyle Foster have something to do with Emma’s disappearance? She didn’t believe so. She had dismissed his comment that night as ordinary concern and later as a statement that she thought only stood out because of its context after the abduction. Kyle hadn’t meant anything by it.
“Coming,” Shae called out, frowning in disappointment that she hadn’t seen Detective Kendrick leave the Cavern. What was keeping him from walking over to the police station? “Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep…”
Jace Kendall.
Shae couldn’t stop the flush that flooded her cheeks. The day’s events had wound down with her answering Detective Kendrick’s questions, but nothing could wipe away her confession to Jace when they’d been sitting at the edge of his pond. She’d done so in order for him to understand why being in his presence hurt like a physical injury, but now his knowledge was like sprinkling salt over a raw, bleeding wound.
“May I come in?”
Said the spider to the fly. Shae only had herself to blame. She’d put herself in this position. She’d made herself vulnerable by being honest, but she was no longer that teenage girl with a crush. Then again, she’d thought she’d finally worked her way through the guilt of taking the car that fateful night. Maybe she could give him a break.
Memories could be a bitch.
“Let me guess,” Shae said wryly, stepping back to give Jace room to cross the threshold. She could play another game of questions and answers. “Detective Kendrick asked if you saw Kyle Foster that night and you’re wondering why I didn’t say anything earlier. Is that about it?”
“I didn’t see him, but that’s not why I’m here.” Jace waited for Shae to close the door before continuing. Obviously, she wasn’t so sure she should have let him in after that response. His warm gaze intimated that there was something more. Her presence here was about closure, nothing else. “I’m worried about you, Shae. From my understanding, there have been some people upset by the finger pointing going on around town. Some unfortunate things have happened where certain people could have gotten very badly hurt. I don’t want to see you in the crosshairs of that type of idiotic behavior.”
“I’m fine, Jace. Really.” Shae’s reply didn’t seem to be good enough. What did he want from her? She gestured toward the couch, making sure she took the chair. “Look, I wasn’t the one pointing fingers at anyone. Detective Kendrick started asking me questions about the night Emma went missing, going over and over those hours before she was taken. I’d honestly forgotten my conversation with Kyle, because I was thinking back to the party itself. Remember, I took the car and Stephanie drove separate. I didn’t want to enter the party alone, so I waited out on the porch for Steph. Besides, we were in the city. It shouldn’t have mattered who was there at that time.”
“It matters if Kyle had time to drive back to Blyth Lake…if he’s the guilty party.”
Shae understood that Jace was afraid Kyle would come after her, but Detective Kendrick would surely forewarn her if he thought that was a possibility. She sat on the edge of the chair so she could easily rest her elbows on her knees. Jace was close enough that he reached for her hand and held it in his, just as he’d done earlier today.
His gesture was innocent, yet his touch took her back to a time when she’d thought of only herself instead of her sister’s needs. It was an endless cycle she wasn’t sure could be broken.
“It’s doubtful that it means anything,” Shae replied, slipping her hand from his as she sat back in her chair. She curled her fingers into her palm to keep his warmth without thinking through the reason why. It was better to talk about the investigation. It was why she’d returned to Blyth Lake in the first place. “Kyle was at your party, Jace. He warned me that he overheard some girls say that Emma had a crush on Billy Stanton. I’d already known that, so it wasn’t a big deal. No one ever asked me who was at Nick’s that night until Detective Kendrick called me a couple of months ago. I listed the names of those I’d remembered and never gave it a second thought.”
“Until today,” Jace corrected, leaning back and pulling his cell phone from the front pocket of his jeans. He began scrolling through his contacts. “I’ll try to touch base with Nick. I haven’t talked to him in years and don’t even know if the number I have is current, but it’s worth a shot.”
Shae figured Nick was on Detective Kendrick’s list of people to talk to today, but she’d like to have the answers sooner, if possible. Jace was making the call, and he was the one who Kendrick would blame if this was screwed up. Kyle had always been nice to her, and he’d done nothing that night to suggest he was a cold-blooded killer out to murder her sister.
She pushed herself out of the chair while Jace placed the call. Making them two cups of tea would give her something to do and hopefully stem the urge to look out the window. It wasn’t as if she expected some type of riot in the street, anyway.
“Nick? This is Jace Kendall. It’s good to hear your voice, man.”
She listened closely to the one-sided conversation as she used the microwave to heat two cups of water. Brynn didn’t own a kettle. At least, she hadn’t left it here if she did, so it was the best Shae could do in the interim of her stay.
“Yes, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I appreciate you coming to Mom’s service. It meant a lot.”
She winced in shame that she hadn’t made it back to Blyth Lake for Mary Kendall’s funeral. Shae and her parents had sent flowers, all of them knowing it wasn’t nearly enough for a family they’d known most of their lives. It didn’t matter that the Irwins had been away from town for nine years at that point. They still should have paid their respects in person.
“Um, I actually called for a specific reason. You see…”
Shae slowly unwrapped two tea bags and began soaking them in each cup as she listened to Jace’s side of the conversation. She didn’t take him for the sweetener type, so she waited until the tea had steeped enough before removing the small bag of pressed leaves. She added a teaspoon of sugar to hers before carrying both cups into the living room.
“Really?” The surprise evident in Jace’s tone told Shae he’d uncovered something useful. She set his tea on the coffee table as he continued talking. He’d stood from the couch and was walking slowly back and forth on the area rug while listening carefully to what Nick had to say about Kyle Foster. “No, I didn’t. I appreciate this information, though. I’ll pass it on to the state police detective in charge, but I can pretty much guarantee he’ll want to hear this from you personally.”
“Well?” Shae couldn’t stand not knowing what was said on the other end of the line. She sat back down on the chair while he picked up his tea. “What did Nick say?”
“There’s a valid reason Kyle was at Nick’s house that night. Foster was the one who supplied Nick with the keg,” Jace shared, giving the tea an odd look. Did he take his tea with milk? He continued before she could throw out the question. “Remember how most of us used Byron Warner to buy us alcohol back in the day? Well, apparently he said he couldn’t drive into the city that night, so Nick paid Kyle fifty bucks to make the delivery himself.”
Jace took a drink of his tea and promptly spit the hot liquid back into the cup, but not before he’d inhaled some of the beverage. She sprang from her seat when he began coughing uncontrollably, doing her best to try to take the cup from his hands before he burned himself.
“Are you okay?” Shae realized that was a foolish question as Jace’s face became red from lack of oxygen. He was still coughing, but eventually he was able to inhale a bit of air. She took the small gift of his breathing to run over to the counter, thankful that this was a studio apartment. She grabbed a dishtowel and raced back to him so that he could wipe his face and hands. “Jace?”
“Jesus.” Jace managed to wheeze out the name, but it sure sounded like criticism to her. He struggled once more to clear his throat before trying to talk. “I think that’s the worst coffee I ever drank.”
Shae could only stare at him as she allowed his meaning to finally sink in. Her lone response was to laugh, because his dramatic reaction to her favorite beverage was on par as if she’d fed him a plateful of liver. His face was still beet red from straining to inhale. To make matters worse, he went into another coughing fit trying to clear the liquid from his airway.
She wrapped an arm around her abdomen as her muscles clenched from uncontrollable laughter. It was too much, and the more he looked at her in disbelief, the harder she laughed.
“I could have died,” Jace exclaimed, most of his words coming out clear now that he could breathe. Well, she couldn’t. Shae wiped away her tears as she tried to relax her stomach muscles, but another incredulous glance from Jace made her attempt futile. “You’re mean. Downright mean. What the hell was that crap?”
Shae tried to tell him that she’d made him green tea, but she couldn’t get the words out. She needed to sit down before she fell, because at this rate, he’d be taking her to the hospital.
“Stop.” Shae held up a hand to prevent him from saying anything else. He was just making her fit of laughter worse by his drawn-out reaction. “Please. I need to breathe.”
“You?” Jace asked as he used the towel to swipe away the remaining droplets on his shirt. She thought she heard another wheeze coming from his direction, but she was still attempting to control herself. “I thought the color looked pretty weak. Tea, huh?”
“Green tea,” Shae managed to say, using both hands to run her fingers across her cheeks. She might have succeeded in controlling her fits of laughter. “It’s one my favorites.”
“Of course, it is,” Jace said dryly, though his wink told her that he wasn’t being mean. She cocked her head to the side in curiosity as she finally sank back in her chair. She didn’t know when the last time was that she laughed so hard. “That stuff is beyond bad. You always were the odd duck, Shae.”
“Odd duck?” Shae didn’t have the energy to take offense and his crooked smile told her she didn’t have to. “I’m perfectly normal, thank you.”
“Did a psychiatrist just use the term normal?” Jace lifted the cup from the coffee table she’d taken from his hands, wiping away the excess moisture. She noticed that when he set the cup back down, it was right next to hers. He was definitely a dedicated coffee drinker. “I usually wouldn’t consider going to a head shrinker, but I might make an exception with you.”
“And have me know all your deep, dark secrets?” Shae teased, remembering back to when the two of them got locked in the chemistry lab by Andrea their senior year of high school. It was the week before he came down with mono. “Which reminds me. Did Mr. Chandler ever figure out that you switched Lynn’s class assignment with yours?”
Jace dropped the dishtowel on the coffee table and reclaimed his spot on the couch. He shot her a look of warning about the secret he’d told her in private.
“No, and you’ve made your point.” Jace smiled as the memory must have come back to him as well. He shook his head in bewilderment. “I never did find out who locked us in that lab.”
Shae reached forward for her tea, covering up her embarrassment. Andrea had known of Shae’s crush on Jace and thought it had been a good idea to lock them inside a classroom together. There was no need to give Jace any more ammunition than he already had.
“Can we rewind to approximately forty seconds ago when you were smiling?”
“What do you mean?” Shae took a sip of her tea, wishing the calming properties would kick in soon. She blamed herself for the turn this lighthearted conversation had taken, and now she needed to find a way out. “I smile all the time. You must not be looking.”
“Trust me, I was looking.”