for a man who’d so long preferred distance from life—especially about a woman so emotionally entwined with multiple suspects on his list. “We’ll talk when I get home.”
Her voice remained curt when she answered. “Drive safe.”
Hanging up, Will headed out. As he drove, he put aside Tom Taufa and Peter Jacobs, and considered two other men. Men who’d loved the same woman.
And he considered the puppy whose head had been bashed in with a rock.
55
Anahera had stayed by Matilda’s side until the karakia—at that point, she’d been shooed away by an older woman who’d traveled from some distance outside town. That woman, like the other friends who’d gone with Matilda, had seen Miriama grow up, had helped mother the child she’d been, and now they would mourn with Matilda.
Eyelids swollen and nose red, new lines etched permanently into her face, Matilda had said, “I see her every time I close my eyes.” A hoarse whisper, her throat ragged from crying. “My pretty, kind Miriama with so much aroha in her heart.”
Twenty minutes later, when Matilda’s friend and her husband began to lead Matilda out to their car, which would follow the liaison officer’s vehicle, Matilda had looked back at Anahera. “Will you be all right, Ana?”
Humbled by the generosity of this woman who had suffered the loss of a cherished child, Anahera had nodded and told Matilda her intention to overnight at Josie’s.
Now, as the last of the gathered began to leave, she saw that Tom had already gone home. Relief was a weight off her shoulders. At least she didn’t have to come up with some excuse to not go with him.
Her stomach ached with the ugliness of feeling any kind of suspicion toward Josie’s husband. But there was no reason to believe she’d be in any danger in the family home—and she could get a firsthand look at Josie and Tom together.
“Do you need a ride, Ana, dear?” asked a subdued Evelyn Triskell, her hands on the handles of her husband’s wheelchair.
“I’m okay, thank you,” she said. “Nikau brought his truck—I’ll catch a ride with him.” She didn’t have her Jeep because Raewyn had driven them to the beach, then to the fire station.
As the Triskells nodded and continued on to their car, Anahera decided she’d organize better security for the cabin tomorrow so that she could return home. She wasn’t planning to be stupid, but neither did she intend to let fear drive her decisions. “Nik?” she said, walking over to him. “Can you run me over to Josie’s?” Her best friend hadn’t attended the gathering, too far along in her pregnancy to be around this much stress and pain. Anahera would’ve sent her home if she had turned up.
Nikau, still sporting a heavy five-o’clock shadow that was turning into a beard, nodded. It wasn’t until they were in his truck that he said, “When’s your cop getting back?”
Anahera shot him a hard look. “What the hell is up with you?” It wasn’t the first edgy comment he’d made about her and Will tonight. “I know you’re not jealous.”
He didn’t speak again the entire drive, finally bringing his truck to a stop in front of Tom and Josie’s place. Sitting in the vehicle with him, his mood dark and turbulent, Anahera realized she might’ve made a stupid mistake after all. Because this Nikau wasn’t the man she’d once known, was angry inside in a way that verged on frightening. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine him taking out his anger on a vulnerable woman. Punishing her in place of—
Oh, God.
She, Josie, Matilda, they’d all made a mistake: Anahera wasn’t the only person in town who fit the summer killer’s preference. Keira had been dyeing her hair to a light brown shade with blonde streaks since she turned eighteen, and often wore gray or green contacts. Strip away the artifice, however, and she was brown eyed, black haired, with skin and bone structure like Anahera’s.
Her mouth went dry.
“It’s got nothing to do with you, or with Will,” Nikau said suddenly. “I’m just being a bastard because Keira is pregnant.” He spit out the last word. “She’s going to have that asshole’s baby.”
“Who told you?”
She expected to hear that it had been a gloating Daniel.
“Keira.” His pain was too big for the truck, a suffocating pressure. “She came to see me, told me she didn’t want this kind of anger between us during her pregnancy. Asked me to chill it. Said we should be friends.”