Match Made in Court. Janice Kay Johnson
able to get a first-class seat on either leg of the flight, and he was too big a man to ever feel comfortable in coach. He’d reached a point where his mind seemed to be slogging through heavy mud. It didn’t want to be diverted, didn’t want to think about anything new. Trudge, trudge. See Hanna, go home, drop onto a bed until he felt human again.
As human as he could feel, considering the man his sister had loved had murdered her.
God. He rubbed his face hard, scrubbing away the snarl that had drawn his lips back from his teeth.
The trouble was, home had been Tess’s house these past few years. Whenever he was in the States long enough, he’d stayed there. Had his own bedroom. It gave him a chance to spend time with her and stay close to Hanna.
Home was currently a crime scene.
Okay. Check in to a hotel, see Hanna. Tomorrow he’d look into renting a place, somewhere she would feel at home. He knew for the moment she was safe enough with Finn’s mousy sister, but by God Tess’s daughter wasn’t staying long term with anyone related to her killer.
He got in the car and took out his cell phone and the slip of paper where he’d written the cop’s phone number. He reached Delaney, who agreed to meet with him the next morning. Then he drove to Seattle, trying to recall any particular hotel from memory. He didn’t want to be downtown. Where did Finn’s sister live? Matt couldn’t remember and didn’t really care; she was a nonplayer as far as he was concerned. Oh, Hanna was fond of her; she often mentioned her aunt Linnie when they spoke on the phone and recently when she’d learned to write well enough to e-mail. The sister was probably the best of a bad lot. Matt didn’t like Finn’s mother, either. The father was too quiet to have made much impression on Matt.
He finally settled on the Silver Cloud Inn on Lake Union. Once in a room, he called directory assistance for Linnea Sorensen’s phone number. There were three L. Sorensens, he discovered. He took down all three numbers, then dialed until he recognized her voice on the message.
“You’ve reached Linnea and Safe at Home Petsitting. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
“Matthew Laughlin. I’m in Seattle. I’d like to see Hanna.” He gave his cell-phone number, then sat down heavily and stared blankly at the wall.
He finally stripped to his boxers, set his cell phone on the bedside table and crawled under the covers.
NOT SURE IF SHE WAS DOING the right thing, Linnea had decided to keep Hanna out of school the rest of the week. Fortunately, she had the two days after Tess’s death off from work, so she and Hanna went to the library, to the beach and playground at Lincoln Park and to the several petsitting jobs she currently had.
The Miller dogs had a little girl of their own, so they were thrilled to see Hanna. When their long pink tongues slopped over her face, Hanna actually giggled, the first sound of genuine happiness Linnea had heard from her since that awful night.
Mostly, she remained painfully subdued. She watched TV or played a game when Linnea suggested it, and she tried to pretend she cared what they had for dinner, but she only picked at the food. Linnea sat with her every night, gently rubbing her back, until she fell asleep.
Hanna didn’t once ask when her daddy was coming to get her or if she’d be able to go home. Linnea was glad, because, although Finn was out on bail, he hadn’t even called to find out how Hanna was doing. Linnea wouldn’t have known he was out of jail at all if her mother hadn’t told her.
Charges had not been dropped.
“They can’t possibly believe a man like Finn killed his wife,” Linnea’s mother had said incredulously during one of their phone conversations. “Why on earth would they pursue something so ridiculous and put all of us through this?”
What kind of man did her mother imagine Finn was like? Was she referring to his success?
Linnea wished she could share the belief there was no way on earth her brother had killed Tess. But, unlike her mother, she’d been aware of how much anger Finn harbored. Linnea had always been a little afraid of her brother. It wouldn’t surprise her if he was arrogant enough to believe that, as a prominent attorney at a major law firm, he was immune to police suspicion.
Well, he’d been wrong. He might not be convicted, of course; she could imagine a jury refusing to believe that a man that compelling, that handsome and charming and successful, would have committed such a crime.
“He says she fell and hit her head on the coffee table,” her mother reported with bewilderment. “I don’t know if they think he pushed her. But even that’s hardly murder!”
No, it wasn’t. But they had charged him with second-degree murder, not negligent homicide or battery or whatever they normally charged men whose wives died during an argument that had become physical with.
They clearly thought he’d done something much worse than push Tess.
What Linnea did know was that she was going to argue if he tried to reclaim Hanna too soon. There was no way he could give a child the reassurance and routine and gentle affection she needed right now. Especially when he was caught up in the fight against this charge. No, she would do more than argue, Linnea decided despite some inner quavering; she would simply refuse to let him take his daughter.
After coming home from walking the pair of Irish setters, she saw the red light on her answering machine blinking. People seeking a petsitter didn’t usually call so late in the evening. She sent Hanna to brush her teeth and get ready for bed, in case the message was from Finn or even from her mother, who didn’t always think to watch what she said in case her granddaughter was listening. Not until Linnea heard water running in the bathroom did she push the play button.
The voice was terse and hard. “Matthew Laughlin. I’m in Seattle. I’d like to see Hanna.” Except for the phone number he added on at the end, that was all he said.
Her heart sank. Wasn’t Tess’s brother supposed to be in Saudi Arabia or Dubai or Kuwait or somewhere far away? He was a civil engineer for a major international construction company that built everything from offshore structures to transit facilities and dams. She hadn’t met him more than half a dozen times in all the years since Finn married Tess because he was so rarely in Seattle. He had been present for a few holiday celebrations, but otherwise Finn hadn’t gone out of his way to include his parents and sister at dinner parties when Matthew was in town. Linnea suspected the two men didn’t like each other very well.
She hadn’t liked Matthew Laughlin.
No surprise. He was too much like Finn.
Not angry, necessarily. She sat looking at the phone number she’d written on a notepad, analyzing her reaction to him. No, she’d never heard him raise his voice or even make the kind of slashing gesture Finn used so powerfully to convey his impatience and disdain. Tess’s brother was much more … contained than Finn. Almost, she thought, more unnerving because of the lack of bluster. But, like her brother, when Matthew Laughlin spoke, he expected everyone to listen. She could imagine that he was used to giving orders and being obeyed. Tonight’s message was typical. He probably didn’t even want her to call; it was Hanna he expected to hear from.
And that, she admitted, was another of the reasons she didn’t like him. From the first time he’d set eyes on her, he’d dismissed her. She wasn’t worthy of his time. Linnea doubted they had exchanged ten words with each other. His gaze seemed to skate over her. And, okay, she knew she wasn’t beautiful. But she wasn’t nothing, either, of so little consequence his behavior was acceptable.
It bothered her how well she could picture him. He was nearly as tall as Finn and broader in the shoulders, more powerfully built, as though he did actual physical labor rather than computer-aided design. He wasn’t beautiful like his sister, or like Finn for that matter. Matthew Laughlin’s features were blunt, pure male. He kept his dark hair short, as if he didn’t want to be bothered with it, and his eyes were dark gray, rather like the steel girders on the projects he designed. Whenever