Remember When by Nora Roberts, J. D. Robb Read Free Book Online Page B

very personal.
    It was after one in the morning before she was alone again. Vince offered to leave an officer outside, but she'd refused. Though she'd gratefully accepted his offer to board up the broken window.
    She checked, then double-checked the locks, with Henry keeping close on her heels as she moved around the house. Anger was trickling back, wiping away the fatigue that had begun to drag at her while the police worked. She used it, and the resulting energy, to set her kitchen to rights.
    She filled a waste can with broken crockery and glassware, and tried not to mourn the lost pieces of colorful Fiestaware she'd collected so carefully. She swept sugar, coffee, flour, salt, loose tea, then mopped the biscuit-colored tiles.
    Energy was leaking out of her system by the time she trudged upstairs. One look at her bed-the mattress stripped and dragged onto the floor, the turned-out drawers of her lovely mahogany bureau, the gaping holes in the old apothecary chest she'd used as a jewelry case, brought the grief back.
    But she wouldn't be driven out of her own room, out of her own home. Gritting her teeth, she hauled the mattress back into place. Then got out fresh sheets, made the bed. She rehung clothes that had been pulled out of her closet, folded more and tucked them neatly into drawers.
    It was after three before she crawled into bed, and breaking her own rule, she patted the mattress and called Henry up to sleep beside her.
    She reached for the light but hesitated, then drew her hand away. If it was cowardice and a foolish security blanket to sleep with a light on, she could live with that.
    She was insured, she reminded herself. Nothing had been taken, or broken, that couldn't be replaced. They were just things-and she made her living, didn't she, buying and selling things?
    She burrowed under the blankets with the dog staring soulfully into her eyes. "Just things, Henry.
    Things don't matter all that much."
    She closed her eyes, let out a long sigh. She was just drifting off when Willy's face floated into her mind.
    He knows where you are now.
    She sat straight up in bed, her breath coming in short pants. What did it mean? Who did it mean?
    Willy shows up one day, out of the blue, after nearly twenty years, and ends up dead on the doorstep of her shop. Then her house is burgled and vandalized.
    It had to be connected. How could it not be? she asked herself. But who was looking for what?
    She didn't have anything.

4
    Half-dressed, his hair still dripping from his morning shower, Max answered the knock on his hotel room door with one and only one thought on his mind: coffee.
    The disappointment was one thing. A man learned to live with disappointments. Hadn't he slept alone? Finding a cop at his door was another. It meant nimbling up the brain without the God-given and inalienable right of caffeine.
    He sized up the local heat-big, fit, suspicious-and tried on a cooperative if puzzled smile.
    "Morning. That doesn't look like a room service uniform, so I'm guessing you're not here to deliver my coffee and eggs."
    "I'm Chief Burger, Mr. Gannon. Can I have a minute of your time?"
    "Sure." He stepped back, glanced at the room. The bed was unmade, and steam from the shower was still drifting into the room through the open bathroom door.
    The desk looked like the hotel room desk of a busy businessman-laptop, file folders and disks, his PDA, his cell phone-and that was fine. He'd taken the precaution, as he always did, of closing down all files and stashing any questionable paperwork.
    "Ah..." Max gestured vaguely to the chair. "Have a seat," he invited and walked to the closet to pull out a shirt. "Is there some problem?"
    Vince didn't sit; he didn't smile. "You're acquainted with Laine Tavish."
    "Yeah." A lot of little warning bells went off and echoed with questions, but Max just pulled on the shirt. "Remember When. I bought a present for my mother at her place yesterday." He put a shadow of concern in his voice.