by Aimée Thurlo
With a nod, she stayed where she was. Lori watched as Gene walked to Harrington’s home, then crossed over to the porch and knocked. After several moments he turned around and walked back to the pickup.
“What’s going on?” she asked as he climbed in.
“No one’s there now.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I listened for sounds and looked for any play of light inside, but there was nothing,” he said. “If he came by, he’s already gone. The only way to be one hundred percent sure of that is for me to break in, but that might land us both in jail.”
“Let’s pass on that.”
Soon afterward they left the neighborhood and Lori fell into a long silence.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I have to go to work tomorrow, but I’m no longer so convinced that I’m not posing a danger to the people there. Trouble seems to find me when I least expect it.”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about at the DMV,” Gene said, “but it won’t hurt to take a few added precautions.”
“Like what?”
“Your hair is a beautiful and distinctive color,” he said, admiring that mass of honey-brown hair that cascaded around her shoulders. “Maybe a short, dark wig, along with clothes that look more…matronly.”
“No bright colors, huh?” she said, looking down at her royal-blue blouse. She’d always loved jewel tones.
“Pick gray or white, something loose, too, that doesn’t call attention to you.”
“Doesn’t sound like anything in my closet. I don’t do bland, so I assume we’re going shopping, then?”
He considered it. Remaining among crowds offered its own level of protection, but he had an even better idea, one that would guarantee their safety for at least a few hours.
“I don’t want to go by your house if we can avoid it. We’ve been followed too much as it is. But I’ve got an idea. You’re about the same size as my brother’s wife, who wears more conservative clothing. I’m going to take you over to Dan’s place. You can borrow something from her.”
“Some women don’t like loaning their clothes.”
“If Holly objects, then we’ll think of something else.”
A short time later they arrived at the small, rectangular one-story warehouse. The metal structure was enclosed by a tall chain-link fence. Gene stopped at the gate, punched in a code on the lock, and the gate swung open.
“This is where he works?”
“And lives. They’re in the process of finding a home, but so far they haven’t seen anything that’s right for them.”
A moment later the warehouse door opened and Dan stepped outside, a lovely auburn-haired woman by his side.
As Lori looked at the other woman’s proportions, she knew Gene had been right. Though she wasn’t as curvy as Daniel’s wife, they probably wore the same size.
Gene made the introductions and Holly instantly gave her a hug. “I’ve been hearing all about your adventures from Paul. You must have been so scared!” she said, leading Lori inside and toward the kitchen area.
“Yes, but I’m also angry, which helps push back the fear a little,” she said.
“I just made some fresh cinnamon rolls and brewed some coffee. Let’s eat and talk. You can tell me all about it.”
AS THE WOMEN DISAPPEARED behind the partition that separated the kitchen from the rest of the small warehouse facility, Daniel gave Gene a long look. “Preston heard what you’ve been up to from Paul and told me to tell you to bail—now.”
Gene shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”
“Shut up and listen,” Gene growled.
Daniel forced himself to look serious, but a hint of a smile still tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’m here to help, bro. What do you need?”
Gene updated him. “I have to find a way to stop whoever’s behind these attacks on Lori, but I’m out of ideas.”
Dan exhaled in a hiss. “You’re out of your element, country boy. This isn’t your kind of fight.”
“I’m fighting it anyway.”
“She’s not for you, bro. You need to rethink your involvement.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“This one’s not safe and predictable. She’s a live wire and a visual distraction if there ever was one. That’s gonna drive a guy like you nuts.”
Gene’s stare was glacial.
Dan grinned. “Here’s my point. Where do you expect this all to lead, and are you sure she’s thinking along the same lines?”
“I’m not planning that far ahead,” he answered.
“Yeah, you are, ’cause that’s the way you’re wired,” Daniel said. “You’re in for a world of hurt, bro. She needs you now and she’ll be grateful later, but that’s not going to be enough for you, is it?”
He knew the truth when he heard it, but it was too late.
“Once this is over she might just go back to her life. Then where will that leave you? Have you thought all that out?”
“She’ll make her own choices.”
Before Daniel could answer, Lori came out looking much more conservative but absolutely gorgeous wearing Holly’s navy slacks and silk blouse.
“I know you wanted plain, but the ruffles around the V-neck make it look less austere,” Holly said.
“What do you think?” Lori asked Gene.
Dan looked at his brother, then bit back a grin.
“You look…beautiful and very classy,” Gene said in a strangled voice. “But we still need to do something with your hair. Do you have a wig, Holly?”
“Wig? I don’t use—”
“You’ve got one,” Daniel said, interrupting her. “Remember the one you bought last Halloween for the mayor’s special banquet? You decided to go as that reality show airhead. The heiress who’s famous for being famous.”
She smiled. “It was for a Health and Family Services fundraiser, and it was an easy costume.” She looked back at Lori and shrugged. “I’d always wondered how I’d look as a blonde.”
“Easy answer—you looked hot,” Daniel said.
“Not quite. I looked like a mutant,” she said and laughed. “Let me get it out and you can try it on. You’ve got very light brown hair, so it may not look as horrible on you as it did on me.”
“Just how blond are we talking about?” Lori asked.
“Very. Think platinum. It’ll give you a completely different look,” Holly said.
“Try it,” Gene said.
Lori returned several minutes later, followed by Holly, and as Gene saw her, he sucked in his breath. He usually hated short hair on women, but she looked amazing.
Gene couldn’t take his eyes off Lori. “No one will recognize you,” he said, swallowing to aid the dryness in his throat. “But you need to wear something less…attention gathering.”
“Okay, back to the drawing board,” Holly said, leading Lori back to the bedroom. “Let’s see if I’ve got any clothes that will make you look totally frumpy.”
“Now I understand how she got under your skin,” Dan said quietly as the two women disappeared.
Gene pinned him with a lethal glare. “Careful.”
“Hey, just saying,” Dan replied, stepping back and holding up his palms in mock surrender.
“Hey, guys, what do you think?” Lori said, coming back out several minutes later.
The wig was the same, but this time she was wearing black slacks, a pale blue T-shirt and a black jacket that hid her curves.
“Okay, that’s better,” Gene said. He could live with the austere business look. “You’re still gorgeous, that’ll never change, but dressed like this you’re not quite so…”
“I’d watch your next word, buddy,” Dan whispered from behind him.
“Yes?” Lori asked, waiting.
“Openly tempting?” Gene offered.
“Oh, thanks, I think,” Lori said. “There was
a compliment in there, right?”
“Absolutely,” Gene said, then glanced back at Dan. “Now that we have this part settled, how about helping me do a much more thorough background check on Harrington?”
“Fine with me,” Dan said. “Let’s leave the ladies and you and I can do some serious digging.”
“I’d like to help,” Lori said.
Daniel shook his head. “Bad idea. I’m going to be calling in favors and accessing some confidential databases that you really don’t need to know about. The fewer people involved, the better.”
As Gene and Dan stepped around the partition to where the computers were, Dan gave Gene a hard look.
“I want to do a full background on Lori, too. Objections?”
“Why do you think that’s necessary?” Gene shot back.
“Because the answer may be there.”
“You think she’s holding out on me?” Gene asked.
Dan shook his head. “Not necessarily. What worries me more is that you may both be missing something important because you’re too close to the case. Just because it may seem inconsequential to her, or you, doesn’t mean it’s not the answer to all that’s been going on. Sometimes, the more vested you are in a case, the less effective you are as an investigator. Too many preconceptions.”
Gene nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Go ahead.”
Daniel sat down in front of the computer on the left, then typed in two encrypted passwords. A new screen came up. “Okay, here we go.”
EVENING TURNED INTO NIGHT, and after a brief dinner, Dan and Gene went to the computer again.
Back in the living area, Holly offered Lori a seat. “I’ve seen that fixed look on Daniel’s face before. Did you see how he was at dinner? I asked him if he wanted more mashed potatoes, and he only heard me the third time. I could have served moist sand instead of potatoes and I don’t think he would have noticed the difference.”
Lori laughed. “They were both that way.”
“That means it’ll be an all-nighter for them. The brothers are always helping each other out. When Daniel and I had some problems not long ago, Gene was there for us one hundred percent. They’ll take catnaps and probably have at least two full pots of coffee before sunrise. You and I will need our sleep, though, so I’m going to get you set up in the study. The couch there converts into a full-size bed. It’s not fancy, but it’s comfortable, and you’ll be able to get some rest.”
“I appreciate you going to all this trouble,” Lori said, following her to the study.
“Gene’s hooked on you,” she said. “I’m glad to see it, too. I know Daniel worried that Gene would never really connect with anyone, outside of his brothers, that is.”
“They’re a very close-knit family, aren’t they?” Lori commented, helping pull out and make the bed.
“Oh, yeah. The guys are there for each other no matter what. I’ve never met a family quite like theirs. I think they’re even closer because they all went through hard times before going to live with Hosteen Silver.”
“So far, I’ve only met Paul and Dan, but they’re all good men.”
“And capable of amazing loyalty,” Holly said in a quiet voice. “They’re as different as can be from one another, but their ties were forged by choice, and I think that’s what makes them so strong.”
“Whenever Gene talks about his foster father,” Lori said, “he is always deeply respectful.”
“I never had the chance to meet him myself, but from everything I’ve heard, he was one in a million.”
They suddenly heard a loud crash, followed by raucous laughter.
Holly rolled her eyes. “There they go again.”
“Go where?”
Holly stepped out into the hall and waved toward Daniel’s office area. “That’s how they’ll stay awake and alert tonight.”
Lori came out and caught a glimpse of the men wrestling on the floor, well away from the computers. Daniel pinned Gene to the floor, but in a flash, Gene twisted and pinned Daniel.
“You’re still soft, city boy,” Gene said, chuckling.
“You cheated! I can’t fight you when you get me laughing like that,” Daniel said.
“Yeah, well, I also won. You get to fix breakfast for all of us tomorrow.”
They rose to their feet, Gene helping Daniel up, then they went to pick up the pieces of a ceramic mug.
“I really should buy metal cups,” Holly said, shaking her head. “Whenever these guys get together, the roughhousing starts up in a hurry.”
Lori smiled. “But they’re the best of friends.”
“Yeah, that they are. Before I met Daniel, I often wondered what it would have been like to grow up as part of a large family. Now I’m in one.” She smiled at Lori.
“You two love each other very much, and I hear you’re house hunting. You’ve a wonderful life together,” Lori said with a touch of envy.
Holly smiled. “I’ve seen the way you and Gene look at each other. There’s something very special going on between you guys, too.”
“It’s so…intense. Sometimes those feelings terrify me.” Lori dropped her voice to a whisper. “But I’m also afraid I’ll never feel this way again if we end up going our separate ways.”
“Don’t try looking so far into the future. If you do, you’ll miss today.”
“That’s good advice.” As Holly walked out of the room, Lori looked at Holly’s blue fluffy slippers and sighed.
Sometimes when she had time to think, like now, she found herself missing silly things, like having some apple chamomile tea before bedtime, or padding around in her favorite hot-pink fluffy slippers. Yet, above and beyond all that lay the lingering fear of what she stood to lose once she regained them.
Chapter Seventeen
Gene and Lori left the next morning at eight in Daniel’s sedan, just in case someone was watching for Gene’s truck.
Lori had slept soundly, but she knew that Gene and Dan had been up most of the night, if not all. “You didn’t get much sleep,” she said, shifting the weight of her laptop tote so she could face Gene more squarely.
“No, but my time with Dan was well spent.”
She heard the slight change in his voice and sat up even straighter. “You found out something really important, didn’t you? I can hear it in your voice. What was it?”
Gene paused before he answered. “I don’t know if this is good news or bad. Bud Harrington isn’t our guy. He never has been.”
“What? How can you be so sure?”
Gene pointed to the glove compartment. “There’s a printout in there of the newspaper article Dan found. Check it out.”
Lori reached for what appeared to be a section taken from the Hartley Messenger’s society column, and read quickly, noting that it was dated yesterday. “I never knew about this! Bud got married last week in Las Vegas to Melinda Vaughn. She’s the widow of Joseph Vaughn, the CEO of Hartley Mechanics—the oil services corporation. Melinda’s one of the wealthiest women in the state.”
“She’s also at least twenty years older than Harrington. That’s Harrington in the photo, right?” Gene asked.
“That’s Bud.” Then, as Lori read further, it hit her. “They didn’t return to town until the day I called him. His phone was probably forwarded to her home, that place on the hill above the golf course. Now it makes sense. He’s been staying with her, not on Pine Street.”
“It also means he wasn’t the man after you,” Gene said. “Dan checked the flight manifest of the local airline and the hotel records, and the story checks out. Bud and the former Mrs. Vaughn were in Vegas getting married when this all started.”
“No wonder Bud countered my accusation so quickly. He was afraid I’d screw up his sweet deal—marriage to a rich widow.” She bit her bottom lip, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “But where does that leave us?”
“I like the way you said ‘us,’ because I’m not going anywhere till we solve this and the man after you is behind bars.�
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Stunned, she leaned back in her seat. All her life she’d encouraged people to think she was a free spirit, hiding the truth even from herself. Yet, the truth was that she wasn’t ‘free’; she was just afraid of getting hurt. Having no expectations, she couldn’t possibly be disappointed by anyone or anything.
Now she was at a crossroads. If she surrendered her heart and things went wrong, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to put the pieces together again. Yet not taking a chance also would exact its own share of pain and, worse—a lifetime of what-ifs.
“Today at work, try hard to remember any incident that could have made someone angry enough to come after you,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “Will you do that?”
“Yes, of course,” she said.
As he pulled into the DMV’s parking lot, he saw it was already crowded. “Go in through the front like a customer. Don’t use the employee entrance.”
“Got it.”
Gene parked and watched her get out. “I’ve got your back. If there’s trouble, I’m only a phone call away.”
Gene waited until she walked inside the building, then drove off. Had the choice been his to make, he wouldn’t have let her out of his sight today. Learning that Harrington couldn’t have been the man stalking her had left him with a bad feeling.
He brushed those nagging thoughts aside. It was probably partly due to lack of sleep. All-nighters were harder on him these days than they’d been at one time.
Needing a jolt of caffeine, he stopped at the Chrome Dipstick, his favorite truck stop diner, and went inside. He’d have some of their world-class coffee in the big white mugs and maybe a sliver of their pecan pie, his favorite. If that didn’t reenergize him, nothing would.
Gene went straight to the counter, which was topped with plate glass over a collection of old license plates from every state and some Canadian provinces. A second or two after he sat down, a familiar face came out from behind the café’s double doors leading into the kitchen. Mrs. Nez was an elderly Navajo, a long-haul trucker’s widow who’d worked here as far back as he could remember.
“I see you’re still hard at work, Irene,” Gene said, greeting her.
