Mask of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  He studied the chalkboard menu. “I’m eating breakfast before I go to work. So’s most of this crowd. Ease up on the starch, sweetheart. It’s bad for your arteries.”

  “You can’t cook for yourself.” Rory snagged the knife out of Hannah’s reach and distracting her with two more Cheerios.

  “I can take care of myself.” He added a container of half and half to his coffee. “Sleep okay?”

  “You are checking up on me.”

  “It’s my job, remember.” Taking a swallow of coffee, he seemed to take apart her face, recording each tired line, the twin half moons bruising the skin beneath her eyes, the matte sallowness of her skin for a memo regarding her inadequacies.

  Why that look managed to both unhinge her and make her feel guilty she had no clue, but she refused to squirm under his scrutiny. Having her here was not his idea, and having to deal with him was not hers. They’d both have to get over it. She beamed her most sugary smile at him. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Here you go.” Heidi jammed a wooden high chair at the edge of the table. Then she looked at Ace. “The usual?”

  He nodded.

  As Rory slipped Hannah into the high chair, she raised a brow in question.

  “See and be seen,” he said in a low voice that barely exercised his lips.

  “You eat out every day?”

  “Most.”

  “Part of the job.”

  His mouth curved up. “You catch on quick.”

  Soon both their orders arrived. Even though Hannah had already had breakfast, she cooed at the sight of the French toast, so Rory cut her a finger-sized slice and let her gum away at it.

  Ace dug into his lumberjack special. “What are your plans for today?”

  “See and be seen.”

  He chuckled. “You’ve already made an impression.”

  “On who?” The French toast practically melted in her mouth. Her stomach appreciated that she finally fed it.

  “Mike.”

  She sniggered. Her opinion of Mike didn’t rank too high. She couldn’t care less what he thought of her.

  Ace spread strawberry jelly on his toast. “You should care.”

  “What are you?” She pointed a fork at him. “A mind reader?”

  “Your every thought is a billboard.”

  God, I hope not, she thought, as she concentrated on cutting another finger of French toast for Hannah. The last thing she needed was for him to know how uncomfortable he made her. “Why should I care?”

  “Because even though there’s a board of selectmen who runs the town, what Mike wants pretty much goes.” His face was a mask of joviality, and when he spoke, the noise of the diner nearly cloaked his voice.

  She cocked her head and tried to read the granite set of his face. “And if I don’t play nice—”

  “You don’t get any of your questions answered.”

  “Noted.”

  He paused over his eggs. “Rory—”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “I never said you were. Just determined.”

  “I need to find her.”

  “I know. But you digging might make things harder for Felicia.”

  She stopped her fork midway to her mouth. “What do you mean?”

  He handed Hannah the corner of toast she was reaching for. His voice was low, barely above a whisper. “There’s more than Felicia at stake here. Can you understand that?”

  She stirred a bite of French toast in the lake of maple syrup at the bottom of her plate and sighed. She could understand how stopping the traffic of drugs was just as important, but it seemed a whole lot less real than Felicia’s disappearance. “Yes.”

  “Good girl.”

  She shot him a killing look he chose to ignore. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t do everything I can to find her.”

  “Couldn’t stop the avalanche if I wanted to. Just don’t go stepping on any toes, okay? Determined could get you killed, and that really wouldn’t look good on my record.”

  Of course not. “I’m not a toe-stepper by nature.”

  He pushed away his plate. “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “Who did Felicia hang out with? Besides Mike.” Rory pushed Cheerios one by one toward Hannah who thought it was hilarious to drop them on the floor.

  Ace leaned back in the red vinyl seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “They’re not going to talk to you.”

  Rory shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

  “Heidi, Meg and Terra are motorcycle mamas.”

  She lifted both her eyebrows. “Motorcycle mamas?”

  “They belong to the club.”

  “‘Belong’ as in members?”

  “‘Belong’ as in belong to every member.”

  The French toast that had seemed fluffy moments ago now felt like lead. “Felicia’s a mama?”

  He shook his head. “Felicia’s an old lady. She belongs to Mike.”

  Rory tried to digest the information, but it only managed to burn into indigestion. “Is Terra a waitress, too?”

  “No, she works for the phone company.”

  Rory turned her cup of coffee in slow circles, studying the black tide for answers. “Did Felicia have any regular friends?”

  “Just Candace and Penny, as far as I know. The only reason I know that much is because she belongs to Mike.”

  And he was investigating Mike. Felicia was important to him only because of her relationship to Mike. There was so much, she now realized, she didn’t know about her own sister. She should have… Pursing her lips, she waved the thought away. Making a relationship work took two, and Felicia had made her feelings clear a long time ago.

  Ace rose and dropped enough cash on the table to cover both their breakfasts. She started to protest, but he gave her a look so sharp it silenced her. Then his face transformed as he bent toward Hannah and tweaked her nose. He was no longer the hard-edged pirate, but a man a woman could melt for before she realized it had quite happened. Rory rubbed her temple. Ugh, I need to get some sleep.

  “Bye, Hannah-banana,” Ace said.

  Like every other female in the place, Hannah turned her sweet face up at him and glowed with pleasure. The man could turn heads, but that didn’t mean he knew everything. She would find Felicia and that would put him in his place.

  HEIDI AND MEG proved harder to corner than rats in a sewer. Rory had gotten nowhere with Meg, who’d told her to back off and threatened bodily harm when Rory insisted on having a couple of questions answered.

  When Rory finally caught up with Heidi outside the café, Heidi promptly pushed herself off the budding oak tree, crushed her cigarette beneath her sneaker and started for the kitchen.

  “Wait!” Rory shoved herself, along with Hannah in her stroller, between the waitress and the door. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I don’t know anything, okay?” Heidi fisted her hands and leaned forward as if she would charge to get through Rory.

  Rory tried to make eye contact with Heidi with no luck. “You know she’s gone.”

  Heidi dropped her head to her chest, sighed, but made no attempt to acknowledge or deny anything.

  “Do you know where she is?” Rory pressed.

  “No.”

  “Take a guess.”

  Heidi twirled her disposable lighter in one hand and twisted the end of her blond ponytail with the index finger of her other. “I don’t know.”

  “Try. Please. This is important.” Hannah dropped her purple bear and screamed for it. Rory bent down to pick it up and lost her strategic position.

  Heidi scooted by her and grabbed the doorknob. “Look, I really don’t know anything.”

  Rory handed the bear to Hannah. “Then why are you so nervous?”

  Heidi’s gaze dropped to Hannah. “All I know is that she loves that baby. She would never leave her for this long.”

  “You think something happened to her.” Rory swallowed hard, hoping to calm the gallop of her pulse.
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  Heidi shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope not. I just don’t know, okay? I’ve got to go back inside.”

  “You were close—”

  “Not really.”

  Desperately, she reached for Heidi’s arm. “You worked together.”

  Heidi yanked her arm free. “That doesn’t mean we were close.”

  “You belonged to the same gang.”

  “Club. It’s a motorcycle club.” Heidi’s eyes widened like that of a puppy who knew it was in trouble. “I’ll lose my job if I don’t go back in.”

  “Who are you afraid of?”

  Heidi’s face drooped as she jerked on the handle and the door squeaked open. “Nobody.”

  But Heidi said it so softly there was no mistaking the fear warbling beneath her assertion.

  And as the door slapped shut, Rory was beginning to think that Ace was right. Finding someone who wasn’t afraid to talk without having to ask Mike for permission might prove tougher than she thought. If the gang was a closed unit, then she had to find a way in.

  The roar of a motorcycle caught Rory’s attention. A blur of black-and-chrome sped by. Mike. Rory pushed the stroller toward the sidewalk and reached it in time to see the motorcycle turn onto the road where Mike’s garage was located. Ace worked there.

  “I think we’ll take a drive to the grocery store, Hannah.” Rory headed to the lot behind Felicia’s apartment building where she’d parked her rental. “Your mother provided for you, but the fridge is bare. I have a feeling Ace wouldn’t go for junior meat sticks.”

  The sinking anchor of defeat weighed her shoulders as she strapped Hannah in the car seat of the rental car. Then Hannah babbled a stream of nonsense at her, and in her niece’s open face, Rory recognized Felicia’s free spirit.

  These were singular circumstances. There wasn’t time to braid the usual strands of trust. Finding Felicia had to come before pride.

  Turkey, she decided as she started the car, a thick turkey sandwich. By the time Ace finished lunch he’d be sleepy with turkey-induced tryptophan and possibly a tad more malleable.

  HERE COMES TROUBLE, Ace thought as he watched Rory approach the shop, pushing Hannah in her stroller. With her dark-red jacket and no-nonsense stride, she reminded him again of a stick of dynamite. Even with her hair tied back into a severe bun, the escaping frizz gave enough hint of the potential energy stored in the compact package to cause a mess he didn’t need.

  Operation Hog offered a potentially large return for a small investment of his time. But not if his loyalties ended up split.

  She stuck her head through the door, looked around and wrinkled her nose at the smell of gasoline, oil and stale coffee that permeated the area despite the open doors. He tried to see the place through her eyes. The shop was small—about the size of a three-car garage. The walls hadn’t seen white in at least a decade. Classic rock blared from a boom box duct-taped to the wall. Three chassis were up on hydraulic lifts. Tools were spread out over every available surface. Everything appeared messy, and he was sure she was used to neat and organized. She fitted into this arena about as well as a racehorse at a demolition derby.

  What ever happened to her I’ll-pretend-you-don’t-exist promise?

  Ace wiped his oily hands on a clean rag, then threw it in the open rolling toolbox at this side. She’d probably managed to tick someone off already and needed bailing out. Might as well get this over with.

  “Hi, there, Hannah-banana.” Hannah cooed and gurgled a reply. Nine months was a nice age—post complete helplessness, pre talkback. Everything about the world was still enchanting. Ace took hold of the stroller handles and redirected Rory outside. This business was legitimate. Mike didn’t hire gang members to work for him. But that didn’t mean the walls didn’t have ears.

  “What’s up?” He fed quarters into the vending machine by the front door outside the office. A bottle of water tumbled out. Then he led her to a picnic table that butted against the brick wall at the back of the ice-cream parlor.

  “I, uh, brought you lunch.” She dug into the tapestry tote bag hanging from her shoulder and brought out a thick sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. Who used waxed paper anymore?

  “Thanks.” He peeked inside and saw the whole-wheat roll, the half-pound of turkey, lettuce and tomatoes. When was the last time he’d had anything homemade? She wanted something. He wasn’t sure what—only that he wouldn’t like it. “To what do I owe this peace offering?”

  “No reason.” She shrugged, and he chuckled at the guilty blush flaming her cheeks. “I thought you might be hungry, that’s all.”

  “Have I told you you’re transparent?”

  She tucked a stray strand of frizz behind her ear. Not that it did any good. The curl sprang back free, framing her face with copper question marks. “I do believe you’ve mentioned it.”

  “So?” He hiked a foot to the picnic table’s bench, then peeled back the wax paper and bit into the sandwich.

  Bent over the stroller, she fiddled with Hannah’s purple fleece jacket. “You may be right.”

  He cupped a hand to his ear. “I don’t think I heard you. What did you say?”

  She righted her spine until it was broom-handle stiff. Her face was set with the cool disapproving lines he imagined she used on too-loud patrons at the library. “I said I think you may be right.”

  “No luck, huh?”

  Lips compressed into a thin line, she swiveled her head toward the center of town, barely visible between the ice-cream parlor and antique store. “Everyone I’ve talked to is playing mute. The one thing they’re willing to say is that Felicia loves Hannah and that it’s odd she would leave her behind.”

  “Unless it was to protect her.”

  “Maybe.” She peered at him, and the sad look in her eyes tugged a string he thought he’d cut long ago. He attacked the sandwich with gusto, waiting for her to get to the point.

  “I saw pictures of Felicia in an album in her apartment.” Rory toyed with the leather handle of her tapestry tote. “She’s on a motorcycle.”

  “Yeah, she rides a Vulcan. Metallic red with flames painted on the gas tank.” And a damn fine job he’d done keeping the thing in tune, considering the girl rode the hell out of the machine.

  “She didn’t take Hannah on it, did she?”

  Ah, propriety. “No, Mike gave her a big old Chrysler to cart Hannah around.”

  Rory’s frown deepened until it formed waves on her forehead. “Where is it?”

  Where was she going with this? “Haven’t seen it since she left.”

  “What about her motorcycle?”

  She handed him a napkin, and he wiped a run of tomato and mayonnaise that was dripping down his wrist. “Her bike’s been up on blocks all winter.”

  “Where?”

  “In the warehouse.” With his chin he pointed at the beige metal building behind the shop.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can check.” He popped the last of the sandwich into his mouth.

  “Please.”

  He scrunched the wax paper and napkin and lobbed them into the trash can by the ice-cream parlor’s back door. “Rory?”

  Looking away, she shrugged. “She loves Hannah. If she was running, she’d take the motorcycle and leave the car for Hannah. Penny doesn’t have a car.”

  “Listen.” He angled her toward him and wished to hell he could shake off the odd feeling that was crawling through him like a ghost. “It doesn’t mean anything. I hadn’t gotten around to doing the spring service on her bike yet. With Hannah around, there wasn’t any hurry.”

  Rory nodded, but her eyes reflected a gut-wrenching stew of fear and sorrow. A silent oath scraped the back of his throat. He didn’t need this. Reality was that finding Felicia alive wasn’t too likely. Reality was that finding Felicia dead would seal his case—especially if he could tie Mike to her death. But Rory wasn’t ready to hear the possibility of her sister’s demise. Not yet. Not that he blamed her. If it was
his sister, he’d hold on to hope. So he gave her a lifeline. “Mike’s hanging by a thread right now. And Felicia’s holding the scissors. If she’s smart, she’s just lying low until they can arrest Mike.”

  “What if he hurt her?”

  The amber of her eyes swirled with the stress she was working so hard to cap.

  “There’s no evidence of foul play.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and let his fingers juggle the loose change. “She didn’t strike me as stupid, just confused.”

  Rory nodded again and rolled the stroller back and forth. “I’d better get going. I need to do a few more things today.”

  “Don’t get yourself into any trouble.”

  She barked a dry laugh. “Kind of hard when no one is cooperating.”

  Her uppitiness dug into his skin like a swarm of black flies. “Maybe if you stopped looking down your nose at everyone.”

  Her chin jacked up. “I’m not looking down on anyone. I’m just asking questions.”

  “People usually need a little softening before you crack the whip on them.”

  “Ha, now look who’s passing judgment.”

  “It’s all a game of appearances, sweetheart.”

  She shook her head. The noon sun flamed through her hair, rippling through the question mark curls. “It’s not a game at all.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. The stakes are high, but it’s still a game.”

  “What kind of sick game uses people as pawns?”

  “Life, sweetheart, life.” He stabbed a hand to the brick wall, effectively caging her between it and his body. His arm hid her outrage at his breach of her personal bubble, but anyone watching would think he’d scored a point. He lowered his head to inches from hers. Her cinnamon scent swirled in eddies toward him, tightening his gut. “Can you act at all?”

  “With my transparent face?” she scoffed. But his gaze fixed on the mad beating of pulse at her neck. “Not likely.”

  “Well, start practicing, sweetheart.” He kissed her then, hard and fast. Not because he wanted her, but because he was making a point to anyone who cared to watch. Except he’d miscalculated. Touching her was like striking a lit match against a gas-soaked rag. Unexpected heat ripped through him like wildfire, fast and frantic.