background over to Tate himself? He’d come damned close to blowing everything. For a man who prided himself on not crossing lines, he was virtually doing a hundred-yard dash across this one.
Distracted by his dark thoughts, he was halfway up the walk at home before he realized that someone was waiting in the shadows. Regretting that he didn’t have his gun, he was preparing to launch himself at the intruder, when Harlan Patrick stepped into the light cast by the streetlight on the corner.
“Hey, Justin. You’re late getting home.”
“Damn you, do you know how close you came to getting tackled?” Justin muttered as he brushed past his cousin and unlocked his door. “You have a key. Why didn’t you go inside to wait for me?”
“Because I just got here,” he explained with exaggerated patience. “I saw you coming and waited out here. What the devil’s wrong with you, anyway? Why are you so jumpy? This is Los Piños, not Dallas. How many criminals wait in shadows around here? For that matter, how many bad guys have you arrested lately, not counting those sickos who dared to let their parking meters run out?”
Harlan Patrick gave Justin a knowing look. “Wait. Forget I asked that. You let the last genuine lawbreaker go free, didn’t you, and it’s still stuck in your craw. This does have something to do with the mysterious stranger, doesn’t it?”
“It’s none of your business.” Justin pushed past him and went into the kitchen, where he grabbed a soda from the almost barren refrigerator. “Want one?”
“Sure.”
He tossed that can to his cousin, then grabbed another and popped the top. A long, cold drink did nothing to soothe his frayed temper.
“Justin?”
“Yeah.”
“Is there a problem?”
“I wish to hell I knew for sure.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means every instinct tells me there is, but I can’t get a handle on it.”
“Or do you just not like the answers you’re coming up with?”
He sighed. “That, too,” he admitted.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not especially.”
“I have tremendous insight into the female mind,” Harlan Patrick claimed.
Justin hooted at that. “If playing the field counts for anything, I’m sure that’s true. I’m just not so sure I want to take advice from a man who doesn’t know the meaning of settling down.”
“I am settling down. I haven’t dated anyone but Laurie for months now.”
“Really? Months? That must be some kind of record.”
“I’d make it permanent if she’d hear of it, but she still has this crazy idea about going to Nashville as soon as she gets some money together.”
“Maybe you ought to loan her the money,” Justin suggested. “Let her get it out of her system.”
“No way,” Harlan Patrick said. “I’m not going to help set her up for heartache.”
“She’ll do it on her own, then. You know she will. And in the meantime, you’ll be waiting around.”
Harlan Patrick shook his head. “No way. She’ll wake up one of these days and realize that it’s only a foolish dream. Then we’ll get married and raise a family out at White Pines. She’ll switch from singing country to lullabies.”
Justin had only spent a few evenings with Laurie Jensen, but even he could see that his cousin had a blind spot when it came to Laurie’s commitment to her music. “If you believe that, then you don’t know your lady half as well as you think you do,” he warned. “Where is she tonight?”
“Over in Garden City, singing at a club.”
“And what’s she doing tomorrow?”
Harlan Patrick scowled. “Singing here in town.”
“And you don’t think that means anything?”
“Sure, it does. I don’t object if she wants to sing every once in a while around here.”
“That’s mighty big of you. When was the last time Laurie asked your permission?”
Harlan Patrick’s disgruntled expression was answer enough. “Never mind,” Justin said. “Wake up, cousin. The woman has the voice of an angel, a way with words and the ambition it takes to make her dream come true. Either help her or get out of her way.”
“Who asked for your advice?”
“Consider it a gift from someone who’s older and wiser.”
“You can’t be that wise, if you can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on with the town’s newest resident. I thought cops had all sorts of ways to get answers if they wanted them badly enough.”
That was the trouble, of course. Justin wasn’t one bit sure he was ready to hear the answers, not from that computer down at the station, not even from Patsy’s own lips.
* * *
Billy’s cheeks were flushed, his