“It seems to me,” Taylor finally said, “that you’re overlooking one thing.”
“And what would that be?”
“That I nearly died, or so the doctors tell me, out there on that dirt road.”
“We’re not overlooking that,” the Detective replied, affecting a smug tone. “We haven’t yet figured out how it fits with everything else, that’s all. But we will, you can be assured of that. You can also be assured that we will find out what you’re holding back, and it’ll go hard for you when we do because you had your chance to come clean about it. Oh, yeah, one more thing. I think it’d be a wise move for me to check into your pretty little office manager. You two just seemed so cozy in here together.”
Oh, yeah, I bet that did hit very close to a nerve, didn’t it, Taylor? Detective Jarvis had to smile as Taylor stared daggers at her.
“Tell me, Taylor…would you by chance be willing to take a polygraph test?”
“You just name the time and place, lady,” he replied in a flat monotone.
The Detective flipped her notebook closed. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Taylor. You have yourself a good day now.”
Chapter Nineteen
Janice Milles locked the door to the Taylor home and, as she was getting into her dark green Chevy Cobalt, decided she needed to stop at her place before returning to the hospital. She needed to freshen up, change her clothes, do something with her hair, and put on a little makeup. That would make her feel a little better, anyway.
Yet she knew that what she needed more than all of those other things put together was some sleep. Jeff was all too right about that. Not just a few restless hours sprawled in a hard recliner in the hospital waiting room, but the kind of sleep she could only get in her own bed.
The cool and dreary rainy weather wasn’t helping, either. As she drove away from the Taylor home, she was yawning, one hand over her mouth. She had to force her mind away from the tantalizing thoughts of lingering under a steaming shower and then pulling her hand-made quilt out of the closet and wrapping up in it.
Mmm, God, talk about a little slice of Heaven.
But all of that had to wait; right now Jeff needed her. She was finally getting a chance to do something for him that came from the heart.
Janice often wondered if he knew or even suspected what a favor he did for her when he hired her to run his office. She was coming off a divorce, out of work, out of money, nowhere to go and scared to death. He took a chance hiring her; she had never done office work before. The closest she had ever come to it was adding up bar-tabs and keeping up with the inventory in the various watering-holes where she had labored as a bartender or a waitress. It took several weeks before she began to get the hang of it, but Jeff was so wonderful about it. He told her what he wanted, how he wanted it done, and often walked her through it and kept on doing it until she had it. He never pushed or hurried her, never criticized her if she got something wrong, and she couldn’t remember a time when he seemed to even run low on patience with her.
In return she busted her tail every minute she was on the clock. She could still remember days when she was so weary and foot-sore that it was all she could do to walk from her car to her own front door. She it did for the check, of course, but also because she knew that Jeff was catching a lot of flak because of her. A lot of it and from every direction—at work and at home. The end of her second week one of the guys on the crew had suddenly quit, complaining that his check was late for the second time and that it was going to make him late getting home again. Jeff had asked him into his office to talk about it; she clearly heard the remark the guy made about “That goddamned dizzy-headed blonde bitch out there you hired.” The words had cut, deep, and it hurt, and yet she knew it wasn’t the real reason. She wasn’t so empty-headed that she couldn’t figure out what it was really all about.
The guy’s girlfriend had made him quit. Janice had watched the girlfriend turn a diseased shade of green the first time she walked in the place and saw her. Janice had gotten that kind of reaction from women too many times in her twenty-eight years to fail to recognize it. What had really hurt the most about it was that it had happened again at the worst possible time. She had gone to Jeff and apologized, even offered to quit if it would bring the guy back, but Jeff wouldn’t hear of it. He told her flatly that losing the guy was no big deal and then praised her and the good work she was doing.
He never stopped praising her; even now it left her with a warm and wonderful feeling. He had promised her a chance; he kept his word and stood by her. One of few people who had ever done that and who had taken her seriously. Who had bothered to look beyond the pretty face and the long legs and nice tits she was blessed with. Or cursed with, as she often thought.
And for all of that she would forever be grateful to him. Yet what she truly felt for him went beyond mere gratitude. That had been her little secret on the matter for several months. Not once had she ever let on to him about it, or given him any reason to suspect. The closest she had ever dared was earlier at the hospital when she said what she did about giving him a kiss. She had meant nothing by it, of course. A purely harmless and innocent way of telling him how much his sweet thought and words had touched her; that was the way he seemed to take it. So it was all good.
For the bottom line was that he was, after all, a married man; she had learned a very hard lesson about stepping out with such a man. It was the one time in her life that she had tried to use her looks to gain an advantage; the whole thing blew up in her face, leaving her crushed and heartbroken. She never talked about it, rarely thought about it, but she swore that she would never again put herself in that same position.
So Jeff Taylor was out. And him with those big brown puppy-dog eyes than can almost melt my heart.
Even if she was so inclined, Janice had never believed that she had much of a chance. The man loved his wife; was completely devoted to her. That only proved to Janice what a truly good man he was. A rare man, indeed, who had never seemed to be even tempted to stray, as far as she could tell. It wasn’t often that she found herself the envious, rather than the envied, but she had envied Angela Taylor almost from the start. She often wondered if the woman knew just what a great catch she had.
And now the woman was missing and Jeff was devastated. And it was both of those things that made Janice so damned mad over the way the police were conducting their investigation. It was all she could do to make herself believe some of the things Jeff had told her, and yet she had seen it for herself. Seen the way that lady cop had stormed into his room and ordered her to leave, all the time looking at Jeff like she was about to tackle him in bed and put the cuffs on him. It was a good thing the bitch had ordered her to leave; another minute and she would have been the one in cuffs. She had been that tempted to speak her mind. To rip the skin right off that bitch’s back with the slash of her tongue.
The very idea that Jeff could do something terrible and unspeakable to his wife was absolutely insane. The only thing that she could see that was more insane was that anyone would take the time and trouble to even consider the possibility. All the cops or anyone else had to do to know the truth about that was to see Jeff come jarring awake and yelling his wife’s name from one of the nightmares he was having.
***
Janice lived at the far west end of Baseline Road, not far from the point where it crossed I-30 and not far from the Pulaski/Saline county line. It was a cozy and snug little house, only four rooms, but perfect for her. It was just off Baseline, the last house at the end of a dead-end street and off a little to itself amid a stand of pines. She loved the scent of the pines and loved walking barefoot over the blanket of needles that covered the ground. She pulled into her short driveway and parked at one end of the house.
As she was getting out of her car, she noticed that the door to the storage shed in back stood open. I hope that open door means that Ray’s out there again and no one has broken into the shed, or worse, the house. There had been a
rash of break-ins lately in the area; that was one of the reasons why she had so readily moved the current man in her life in with her. It was, indeed, a load off her mind to know that someone was there to keep an eye on the place, especially during the day while she was at work.
Her man should be there; he told her he would be and, so far, he had done a good job of keeping his word to her. How long that would last she could only guess. But she could hope.
She had no more than closed the car’s door when the man in question walked out of the shed and waved to her. Why are you so spending so much time out there? Seems that, lately, every time I come home from somewhere, that’s where I find you. She reminded herself that some of his belongings, which she had helped him retrieve from a mini-storage on the north side of the river, were stored in that shed: a couple of boxes, an old suitcase, and an old and faded green Army duffel bag. She waved back and smiled, though she was still wondering about it.
“Hey, Jan,” he called out after he closed and locked the shed’s door.
“Hey, yourself, hon.” She met him about half-way between the house and the shed and walked straight into his open and waiting arms. “Sorry I didn’t make it home last night,” she told him after giving him a long and slow kiss.
“Hey, no problem. You called and told me about it, and I get what you’re doing, babe, and I’m good with it. So tell me, how’s your boss doing today?”
“Better.” Janice thought about that, and scowled. “He’d be doing a lot better if he didn’t have the cops on his back, though.”
“What, the cops are hassling him about something?”
Janice nodded. “About what happened with his wife. They’ve got some crazy ideas about things and, well, they’re giving him a hard time.”
“Damn, that’s rough.”
“Anyway,” Janice said, changing the subject, “he’s supposed to be going home today, so I won’t be here very long. I just stopped by to fix up a little. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone, so I hope you didn’t need the car for anything.”
“Well,” the man said, rubbing at one cheek, “I did find a couple of job prospects in the paper I wanted to check out, but that can wait a little while. What you’ve got to do is a little more important right now.”
“Thank you, Ray. That means a lot. I’ll try to get back here as soon as I can.”
“Hey, take your time and do what you need to do. Listen, I assume you’re going to work in the morning, right?”
“Most likely. No telling what kind of mess the place is in by this time. Why?”
“If I don’t get to it today, I’ll take you to work in the morning and then I’ll go take care of my business. How’s that?”
“Works for me.” Janice gave him another kiss, then frowned at the look that suddenly appeared on his face. “I hope that doesn’t mean my breath is that bad.”
“No, Jan, it’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it, Ray?”
She had only known him just short of a month; they met at her favorite sports bar. An almost fanatical football fan, Janice had gone to the bar on a Monday night to watch her team, the Panthers, in action. As the game was nearing half-time, she noticed the guy sitting two stools down. He seemed just as engrossed in the game as she was, he was clearly behind the Panthers and, best of all, she really liked the look of him. He was a good-looking devil, tall and lean of build with broad shoulders. He had a square and craggy face that could break into a wide and infectious smile in the blink of an eye. As the teams on the big-screens were filing off the field at the half-time, she managed to make eye contact with him. That was when she got the full effect of his smile; it made her feel a little breathless. Definitely the type that turned her crank.
“Hey, my name is Ray Walker, and I’d love to buy you a long-neck Corona and watch the rest of the game with you.”
They talked through half-time and saw very little of the second half of the game. He told her that he was from the area originally, but had been away for a time. That he had lost his job a while back and had come home to look for new opportunities and to get back on his feet again. The game was long over when they left the bar together. They drove around town for a while, and wound up at her place.
She barely made it in to work on time the next morning; he kept her up most of the night. He was fantastic in bed. It had been so long for her—back before her divorce, not quite a year ago—and this guy was easily the best she’d ever had. He had such a deft and thorough way with her body, doing this just so, doing that just the way she like it, that left her gasping for breath and wanting more.
She had left him in bed asleep; all day she had worried a little that she hadn’t sent him on his way before she left. The truth was that she didn’t want him to leave. As soon as she walked in that afternoon, saw that smile of his and the meal he had put together for them, she was glad she had left him there. Once they finished the meal (a tasty concoction made from a bowl of day old potatoes in the fridge, a pound of hamburger from the freezer, some Colby-Jack cheese and paprika), he asked a favor of her. That was when she took him across the river and retrieved his possessions from the mini-storage.
He had been there ever since. It wasn’t just the great sex, either, or that he was so good at keeping an eye on things. She felt that she was doing what she could to give him the same kind of chance that Jeff had given her. In a lot of ways that made her feel just as good, if not more so, than the other advantages that came from having him around. She knew he appreciated what she was trying to do for him; she could tell by the way he always seemed willing to pitch in and lend a hand: fixing them a meal several nights a week; doing up the laundry; giving her most, if not all the money he picked up doing odd jobs to help with the bills. And, perhaps, the best part was his wonderful attitude. He was always upbeat and confident, never down and brooding, and she had never seen him angry. Not even a little ticked off about something, and that smile of his was never far from his face.
Which was what made the expression he now wore seem so odd and out of place.
“Come on, Ray, tell me,” Janice urged. “Why are you suddenly looking like the saddest man on the planet?”
He shrugged, but his expression didn’t change.
“I just got to thinking,” he began. “You say your boss is supposed to go home today, but after what happened to his wife Friday night and what you said about the cops giving him a hard time, doesn’t seem like he’s got a whole lot to go home to.”
Janice was moved. This was a side to the man that she had never seen or even suspected. “No,” she agreed quietly, hoping that she didn’t start crying, “when you think about it, I guess he really doesn’t.” She kissed Ray again, hugged him hard, then sighed. “I’ve got to get inside and get ready to go. Are you coming?”
“Right with you.”
In the bathroom, Janice stripped off her old clothes and washed up at the sink. She had untied her hair and was brushing it out as she padded naked into the bedroom. She thought about leaving her hair down, thought about it some more and the rain, and put it up in a French knot. Satisfied with that, she set to work with her makeup, keeping it to a quick but presentable minimum. Then she pulled on fresh underwear, a pair of pale blue sweats and a dark blue long-sleeved top; slipped her bare feet into a pair of old running shoes that were comfortable. She was ready to go in under thirty minutes.
“Hon, is there anything I need to bring home?” she asked Ray, who was reclined on the sofa in front of the TV, an open bottle of Corona between his legs.
“Nothing I can think of,” he replied, not looking up at her, his eyes on the TV.
Janice saw that he was watching the noon news on one of the local stations. On the screen was a picture of a very pretty young woman with long honey blonde hair and huge smiling eyes that looked to be a deep green. The faceless news anchor was speaking about what police knew and suspected regarding the woman’s apparent disappearance Friday night.
“Tanya
Harris,” Janice murmured, and she thought of Jeff and her heart filled with emotion for him and for both the women whom fate had chosen to treat so cruelly.
“Two in one night,” Ray said quietly, shaking his head as if it was more than he could believe. “Makes you wonder if the whole world’s gone crazy.”
“I only hope and pray they’re both still alive,” Janice whispered. Not only for the sake of the two women, but for Jeff’s as well. He was just barely holding it together as it was, she could tell. She didn’t think he could deal with any more guilt and shame. She realized that Ray was looking at her; she glanced away from the TV and found his eyes.
“I was thinking I might fire up the grill after while if this rain lets up a little.”
“Have we got anything to grill?” She didn’t have a clue what was in the fridge.
“Yeah, I picked up some beer-brats and buns yesterday. If the rain won’t let me grill, I’ll fix them on the stove. I might run down to that store on the corner and see if I can find some potato salad or something else to go with them.”
“Sounds good. Listen, though, if it’s late before I get back and you get hungry, don’t wait for me. Just save me something, okay?” Janice leaned down for a kiss, then put a hand to the bottle between his legs. “And save me one of these, too.”
“Which one of these are you talking about?” he smirked, teasing her.
Janice scowled, but without rancor. “Don’t you start,” she warned. “And don’t give me that smile, either; you know what that does to me. I’ve got things to do.”
“See you later, Jan.”
And with that she was out the door. As she was backing out of the driveway, her eyes fell on the shed in the backyard. What is it out there that he finds so damn fascinating? The more she thought about it, the more her feminine curiosity grew. She began to wonder if it had something to do with old girlfriends. Pictures or, maybe, other little keepsakes?
The Evil Returned Page 8
