“You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Mike took a tentative step toward her and then halted when she was within arm’s reach. It would be so easy to pull her into his arms, to hold her against his body, to brush his lips over her temple, to tell her he’d die before he would let anyone harm her. “You’ve got twenty-four/seven protection with Ms. Gilbert, and between her and the patrol car I’ve assigned to keep watch shortly before and after midnight every night, you’re relatively safe. As for that damn reporter—everybody in Dunmore already knows about the Playboy spread and the porno movie.”
Lorie swallowed. “My illicit past has come back and bitten me in the ass big-time. No matter what I do, how hard I try to be a good person, how much penance I pay, I can’t obtain a pardon.”
“Don’t.” He reached out to her, his hand hovering over her shoulder. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“What’s the matter, Sheriff, don’t have the stomach for watching my self-flagellation?”
His hand fell away, down to his side, as he kept his gaze focused on the agony he saw in her eyes. “I don’t know what to say. Tell me how I can help you.”
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me! I don’t want your pity.”
“Damn it, Lorie, don’t be so stubborn.”
She threw up her hands in an I-give-up gesture. “Why did I ever think this town would allow me to live down my past when the man who once professed he would love me forever, no matter what, can’t forgive me?”
“Lorie, please…”
“Please what? Understand why you feel the way you do? Do you have any idea what it’s like to look into the eyes of the man you’ve loved since you were sixteen and see nothing but disgust and pity?”
He stared at her, momentarily unable to speak or move, while her words soaked into his brain. Her words—the man you’ve loved since you were sixteen—played over and over in his head. Surely she didn’t mean that she still loved him. How could she love him after the way he had treated her all these years?
“Please leave,” Lorie told him. “I appreciate everything the sheriff’s department is doing to help me, but from now on I don’t see any reason for you to stay personally involved.”
“I…uh…I’ll let Ms. Gilbert know that I’m leaving,” Mike said, unable to think of anything else to say.
Lorie rushed past him and down the hall toward her bedroom. Mike clenched his jaw tightly. He had handled that all wrong. But then him doing that with Lorie wasn’t something new. He had been handling his feelings for her in the wrong way ever since she returned to Dunmore.
Why hadn’t he listened to his mother and to Molly years ago when they had both encouraged him to forgive Lorie?
“She ruined her life and practically destroyed herself in the process,” Molly had told him. “And she lost you.” His wife had caressed his cheek. “How horrible for her. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose you.”
“You’ll never lose me, sweetheart.”
She had smiled at him, that beautiful smile that he still saw every day whenever he looked at his son.
“You should be kind to her,” Molly had said. “Go to her, tell her that you forgive her, that you’ll be her friend.”
His Molly had been kind and generous. Despite the fact that in the beginning, she had felt threatened by Lorie’s return, she had overcome her fears and found it in her big, loving heart to plead with him to forgive Lorie.
He would have done anything for Molly, especially during the final year of her life, but that one thing—forgive Lorie. Molly had to have known what it had taken him years to figure out, that his inability to forgive Lorie had as much to do with him still loving her as it did with him hating her.
Molly, Molly. I’m sorry, sweetheart, if I ever gave you any reason to doubt how much you meant to me. I loved you. I miss you every day.
“You’re still here?” Shelley Gilbert asked as she walked into the living room. “Lorie said you were leaving.”
“I was just going,” he replied.
Shelley nodded.
“Is she all right?” He glanced down the hallway.
“Not really. She was crying, but doing her best not to.”
“Take care of her.”
“That’s my job.”
“There will be someone outside for the rest of the night,” Mike said.
“Thanks. I think we’ll be okay.”
Mike let himself out, went to his truck, and got in. He sat there behind the wheel for several minutes, then finally started the engine and backed out of the driveway.
Lorie came awake abruptly, her body trembling, her thoughts in utter chaos. The nightmare had seemed so real. A masked figure in a black cape had chased her through downtown Dunmore in broad daylight. She had been completely naked. Exposed. Ridiculed by the outraged citizens, led by the ladies from the WCM. And Mike had stood on the corner, his arms crossed over his chest, a condemning glare in his dark eyes, and done absolutely nothing to help her. She screamed, pleading with him to save her. The masked stalker had grown larger and larger until his form blocked out the sun, leaving her hovering in a shadowed corner, weeping, frightened, and waiting for death.
Allowing herself a few minutes to shift from the horror of her nightmare to the safety of reality, Lorie sat up, tossed back the covers, and slid to the edge of the bed. She sat there, her bare feet on the floor, and considered the meaning of her dream. It made a weird kind of sense. The masked stalker was the unknown killer who posed a danger to her life. Mike’s disregard for her was no mystery. And the utter fear that she had felt was perfectly normal, considering she was marked for death.
After getting out of bed and slipping into her house shoes, she found her robe at the foot of the bed and put it on. The bedside clock read 3:50 A.M. The last time she had noted the time, it had been shortly after midnight.
She had cried herself to sleep.
If she were alone in the house, she’d go to the kitchen and make coffee. But she didn’t want to wake Shelley.
Moonlight streamed in through the windows, casting a soft, creamy glow across the floor. She followed the moonlit path to the windows and looked outside at the front yard. Her heart caught in her throat when she saw the familiar truck parked in her driveway. Mike’s Ford pickup. What was he doing there? Had he been there all night?
She didn’t want him there, didn’t want him standing guard over her house, over her. Damn him, why couldn’t he just go away and leave her alone? She didn’t need him. Didn’t want him.
Liar!
Securing the tie belt of her robe around her waist, Lorie opened her bedroom door and tiptoed down the hall. Before she reached the living room, Shelley called to her.
“Lorie? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just restless. Go back to sleep.”
“If you’re up, I’m up.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and an oversized Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt, Shelley walked toward Lorie.
“Mike’s outside,” Lorie said.
“He’s been there all night.”
“I’m going out there to tell him to go home.”
“I can do that for you.”
“No. I want to talk to him.”
Shelley nodded. “I’ll disarm the alarm system and watch you until you reach his truck.”
“Thanks.”
For a few seconds, Mike thought he was hallucinating. He had been thinking about Lorie, remembering how it had once been between them, worrying about the danger she was now in, wishing he could erase every bad thing that had ever happened to her. And now here she was walking down the sidewalk, coming straight toward his truck. As she approached, he debated whether to open the door and step outside to meet her or just wait for her.
He waited.
She pecked on the window. He rolled down the window and looked at her.
“What are you doing here?” she ask
ed, her tone none too friendly.
“It’s not even four o’clock yet.” He answered her with a question. “What are you doing up at this time of the morning?”
“We need to talk.”
“Do we?”
“Unlock the passenger-side door,” she told him.
“Okay.”
She rounded the truck’s hood, opened the door, and climbed into the cab. Turning sideways, she faced him. He laid his arm across the back of the seat, his hand almost touching her shoulder.
“Shelley told me that you’ve been parked out here all night.”
“She’s right. I have.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” he asked.
“I have a private bodyguard. I don’t need you hovering over me.”
“I’m not hovering. You were inside. I was outside. Plenty of distance between us. You’re the one who knocked on my door and invaded my space.”
“Don’t do this,” she told him. “Don’t blow hot and cold. It’s not fair to me. It took me a long, long time to accept the fact that we could never be anything to each other ever again, not even friends. Your concern for me now is sending me mixed signals. I can’t handle that.”
“I’m sorry. It was never my intention to—”
“To feel sorry for me, to show me a little human kindness.”
“To confuse you,” he corrected.
“Well, I am confused. Not just about you, but about me, and about this whole damn mess that my life has become.”
Unable to stop himself, he moved his hand a couple of inches until he touched her shoulder. Apparently taken off guard, she jumped and then went rigid. Their gazes met there in the semidark interior of the truck cab, which was illuminated only by the moonlight.
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” he said. “I keep hurting you even though I don’t mean to…not anymore. I—I guess if I’m completely honest, I have to admit that I’m confused, too. I’ve hated you for such a long time. Now…”
“Now?”
“Now I don’t know for sure, except I know I want to keep you safe. I want to protect you from the person who’s threatened to kill you, from guys like Ryan Bonner, from the censor of every narrow-minded prude in Dunmore.”
She sat there staring at him, her eyes wide with wonder, her mouth slightly parted. “You have a hero complex, you know that, don’t you?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I do. I used to be your hero, didn’t I?”
When he squeezed her shoulder, she scooted closer and reached up to lay her hand over his.
“Once upon a time…” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “You were everything to me, my hero, my lover…my life.”
“My mother told me that the reason I hated you so much was because a part of me still loved you,” Mike admitted.
Lorie remained completely silent.
“I think Molly agreed with Mom.”
“Oh, Mike.”
“Molly knew I loved her, that I’d never betray her. We had a good life together. She gave me two fantastic kids. If she were still alive…I wish you could have known her. You two would have liked each other. It’s my fault that you never got the chance to…” He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Lorie, sorry for so much.”
She brought his hand to her lips, turned it palm side up, and kissed the center of his open hand. Her kiss burned like fire. He closed his eyes for a second and prayed for strength.
Easing his hand from her gentle grasp, he said, “No more mixed signals, no more confusion.”
She looked at him with hope in her eyes. His next words erased that hope.
“A part of me does still care,” he admitted. “And I’d be lying if I said that as a normal, red-blooded man, I didn’t want you. But…we can’t…I can’t…I have to think about Hannah and M.J. and what’s best for them. They have to come first.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“My sordid past makes me unsuitable stepmother material.”
“God, Lorie, I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
She pulled away from him, opened the door, and jumped out of the truck. He sat there and watched her hurry up the sidewalk and back into her house.
“Damn, damn!” He beat his clenched fists against the steering wheel.
Chapter 14
After the unsettling night before, Lorie had decided not to open the shop until eleven, so she was still at home when the phone rang at ten fifteen that morning. She looked down at the portable phone on the kitchen counter and checked the caller ID. She didn’t recognize the caller’s name. Anthony Johnson.
Shelley glanced at her and then at the phone.
“Let the answering machine get it,” Lorie said.
After the fourth ring, the answering machine clicked on, with Lorie’s voice reciting her number and asking the caller to leave a message.
“Lorie, if you’re there, please pick up,” a female voice said. “It’s Shontee, Shontee Thomas.”
Lorie grabbed the phone off the base. “Shontee?”
“Thank the Good Lord you’re there. I can’t tell you how much I need to talk to you. I’m about half out of my mind and know you must be, too. Somebody from the Powell Agency called me this morning, asking me if I’d gotten any threatening letters, telling me that somebody sent Dean, Hilary, and Charlie letters and then killed them.”
Lorie remembered Shontee as a bubbly, fun-loving girl with huge brown eyes and an infectious laugh. They hadn’t known each other very long—they met during the filming of the one movie they’d made together.
“Then you’ve received the letters, too?” Lorie asked.
“Yeah, four of them,” Shontee replied. “My fiancé hid them and didn’t show them to me until yesterday. Good thing he did or when the Powell Agency called this morning, I wouldn’t have known what they were talking about. They said that they’re contacting everyone who was involved with Midnight Masquerade.”
“Did whoever you spoke to tell you that I’ve hired the Powell Agency and so have Dean’s brother and Hilary’s husband? We’ve hired them to do an independent investigation to find out who sent the letters and killed Dean, Hilary, and Charlie.”
“That’s one of the reasons I’m calling—Tony, my fiancé, wants us to be part of this deal. He says we need to be in the loop on all the info.”
“I agree with your Tony. The more we all know, the better off we are. It’s too late to save Dean and Hilary and Charlie, but the rest of us can band together and help one another. The Powell Agency should be working for all of us.”
“Do you have a bodyguard?” Shontee asked.
“Yes, I have someone from the agency with me twenty-four/seven. I’m sure they can provide a bodyguard for you.”
“Tony’s already taken care of that. He keeps several bodyguards on his payroll. He’s a nightclub owner, and rich men like him need protection. Oh, Lorie, I wish you could meet my Tony. He’s a great guy and I’m crazy about him.”
“It sounds like you’ve really turned your life around. I’m happy that you found someone special. You deserve to be happy.”
“So do you. Whatever happened with that old boyfriend? Did you two get back together? I figured you were married by now and had a couple of kids.”
“It didn’t happen,” Lorie said. “I’m still single.”
“What about the guy?”
“He married someone else.”
“Ah, that’s too bad.”
“Shontee, be careful, will you? The letter writer has killed three people already. The FBI will probably become involved. They’re looking at this guy as a serial killer.”
“I will, and you take care, too, you hear me? And when this is all over and they’ve put him behind bars, you’ll get an invite to my wedding. We’re based in Atlanta, so we’re not that far from you there in Alabama, a five-hour drive at most.”
“I’ll be there,” Lorie said. “Nothing will keep me away.”
/> After her conversation with Shontee ended, she turned to Shelley. “Have you heard anything from Maleah and Derek? Maleah promised to keep me updated, but I haven’t heard from her yet.”
“I haven’t heard from her personally. But then they wouldn’t call me directly with any information they uncover. They would contact the agency and probably speak to Mr. or Mrs. Powell.”
“Did you know that the agency is getting in touch with everyone connected to Midnight Masquerade? That was Shontee Thomas. She got a call this morning.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” Shelley said. “Yes, I knew Powell’s intended to try to contact everyone involved with the movie. I believe they’re starting with the actors, since so far the ones killed were actors.”
“So they think all the actors may have received letters and are in danger?”
“That’s what we need to know.”
“Why would the killer warn us? It doesn’t make sense.”
“The killer warning his victims in advance shows a great deal of either stupidity or monumental ego or possibly both.”
Suddenly a thought occurred to Lorie, a reason why the killer might forewarn them. “He wants to frighten us, doesn’t he?”
“Most definitely. He probably derives a great deal of satisfaction from knowing everyone will now take his threats seriously.”
“He’s killed one person each month this year, in January, February, and March. It’s April now, so that means he’ll kill again, doesn’t it?”
“Unless he’s found and stopped, yes, he’ll kill again.”
Maleah and Derek crossed the border into Mexico a little after noon that Wednesday. They had flown into Laredo, grabbed a quick bite of lunch, and rented a Jeep. An hour later, they entered the town of San Pedro, little more than a large village rich in colonial character. The town square consisted of a fountain and a statue of what appeared to be a Catholic priest wearing a hooded robe. A block off the main street that ran through town east to west, they saw men hawking hats and trinkets and boys offering to shine shoes.
“In a town this size, finding the hotel where Kyle Richey works shouldn’t be a problem,” Maleah said as she maneuvered their rental onto a back street.
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