Scarlet Nights

by Jude Deveraux

  But in spite of what she thought of his methods, Sara had to admit that under Greg’s expertise, the shop was making money. As he’d predicted, they had customers coming in from Richmond, and even a few women from D.C. had shown up. Their selection was extensive, and their free alterations were a hit. They had women buying a size six dress and asking if Sara could please “let out the seams a tiny bit.” In other words, make it two sizes larger. Every time, Greg said, “Of course she can.” His trick was that he kept the larger sizes in the back. After Sara took the big dress apart and shortened sleeves and hems and drew in the shoulders, Greg would—with a flourish and great charm—present the customer with a dress with a size six label in the back.

  The only problem with this scheme—besides the deception, which Sara hated—was that she was the only seamstress.

  “Just until we get established,” Greg said. “Then we’ll buy that house in the country you’ve always wanted. We’ll have a dozen kids and you won’t even own a sewing machine.”

  It was a wonderful dream, one that Sara clung to with all her might, especially now when Greg had left town so abruptly and mysteriously, and Sara was stuck with about twenty-five pieces of clothing to rebuild. At least the wedding was all arranged, she thought, thanks to Greg’s splendid planning abilities. In fact, she’d had nothing to do but choose her dress—and that was an heirloom. Greg said, “Leave everything to me. I know exactly what you like.” Sara’d had so much work to do for the shop that all she could say was, “Thank you.”

  But the truth was, the possibility of his absence during next week’s Scottish Fair was a bit of a relief. That she’d wanted to go and he didn’t had been one of their few serious arguments. He’d told her she was welcome to stay in Edilean for it, but he was going to New York and he had tickets for a Broadway play that he knew Sara wanted to see. When she’d said it was almost as though he’d arranged the trip to keep her from going to the yearly event, he got angry.

  “Of course I did!” Greg yelled. “I want to be with you all the time, but how can I go to some rural hoedown in this town? All your friends and relatives hate me. And you know why? Because I’ve taken their precious little workhorse away from them!”

  “I’m not—” Sara began, but she’d said it all before. Sometimes she felt torn between the man she loved and the town she adored. Which was, of course, absurd. But it was true that in her hometown of Edilean, people didn’t like the man she was going to marry. Out of town, people loved him. Their customers asked his advice, laughed at his jokes, and soaked up his compliments like rum on sponge cake. But in Edilean…

  So Sara had agreed to go to New York with Greg and miss the fair for the first time in her twenty-six years. She wouldn’t be sewing the Scottish costumes for her many cousins, wouldn’t help her mother bake bannocks and tattie scones. She wouldn’t help run Luke’s booth full of herbal wreaths, and she wouldn’t have a day of laughter at seeing the knees of all the men in town when they wore their kilts. She wouldn’t get to—

  She broke off her thoughts because to her astonishment, part of the bedroom floor seemed to be lifting upward. She put the dress she was working on down on the bed and rubbed her weary eyes. She was in Tess’s apartment, on the opposite side of Edilean Manor from her own apartment, so maybe it was normal for the floor to start to lift. Or maybe she needed a whole lot of sleep.

  Silently, Sara got off the bed and stood on bare feet by Tess’s dresser. It was dim in the room, with only the light from the floor lamp she’d put by the foot of the bed so she could see to work.

  As she stared at the floor, she realized there was a trapdoor under the little rug. She’d not seen it before, but then, until today when her cousin Luke had run her out of her own apartment with his nasty termite spray, she’d never been in Tess’s bedroom.

  As the door in the floor rose a couple more inches, Sara’s first instinct was to get out of the apartment, and grab her cell phone off the kitchen counter as she ran. She’d call the police, then go over to Luke’s.

  But the bedroom door was facing the front of the trapdoor. Whoever was sneaking into her room would see her—and be able to reach her—before she could get out. She decided to risk it and try to escape. In one quick gesture, she switched off the light and made a leap across the trapdoor, meaning to hit the floor on the other side running.

  But to her utter disbelief, a man tossed the lid back just as Sara leaped, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t shot up through the floor and caught her. Instinctively, she fought as they went down together. She tried to use her nails on the back of his neck and to bring her knee up between his legs, but he blocked her. She would have pulled his hair, but it was cut so short she couldn’t get hold of it.

  “Damnation!” he said in a deep, raspy voice that sounded as though it had come off a horror movie.

  The voice and the fact that they were now on the floor wrapped about each other made Sara fight harder. He was half on top of her as she twisted and kicked to get him off.

  “Would you stop it!” he said in his odd voice. “I’m already in pain. You don’t need to add to it.”

  “Get off of me!”

  “Gladly,” the man said and rolled to one side, his back on the floor.

  Instantly, Sara stood up. The only way out of the room was to step across him, but she had one foot in the air when he grabbed her ankle, paralyzing her in place.

  “Not so fast,” he said. “I think you should explain to the police what you’re doing in here at this time of night.”

  What he’d said was so preposterous that Sara stopped moving and stared down at him—even as he was holding her ankle above his chest. It was too dark in the room to see clearly, but he had on a white shirt that she knew cost quite a bit. It was not the normal dress of a thief. “Police?” she whispered. “You want to call the police on me?”

  He let go of her ankle and in an easy move stood up in front of her. “All right then, tell me what you’re doing in here.”

  “Tell you?” Sara felt that she’d entered some comedy act. “I live here.”

  The man leaned to one side to switch on the floor lamp, and when Sara started to move toward the bedroom door, he caught her wrist. He didn’t hold it tightly, but she knew she couldn’t break his grip. “I know that’s not the truth,” he said as he pulled her forward, then deftly set her in the only chair in the room. “Now, young lady, start talking.”

  Sara looked up at him. He wasn’t an especially large man, certainly not as tall as her cousins Luke and Ramsey, but he was quite handsome—in a street thug sort of way. For all that his hairline was halfway back on his head, he had a heavy growth of very black whiskers. All in all, she did not like being alone in a poorly lit room with him.

  Her very ordinary life in a small town hadn’t prepared her for such an encounter as this, but then she, like everyone else, had seen a lot of movies. She put her shoulders back and took a breath—and wished she weren’t wearing a nightgown of semitransparent Irish linen. And it was too bad her hair was down about her shoulders. She would have liked to look more “tough.”

  “The question,” she said as calmly as she could manage, “is who are you?”

  He bent down to close the open door in the floor, and when Sara shifted in the chair, he looked back at her. “I’m the brother of the renter of this apartment and you are trespassing.”

  Sara’s mouth came open in astonishment. “Tess? You’re Tess’s brother? You don’t look like her.”

  The harsh expression left his face, and when he gave a little smile that showed a dimple in his left cheek, he no longer looked frightening. “She got the beauty, but I got the brains.”

  Sara had to work not to smile at that. His insinuation was that Tess was a brainless beauty, but Tess was one of the smartest people Sara’d ever met. She wasn’t going to let him make her overlook the issues. “Until I see some proof, I don’t believe you.”

  He reached into the pocket of what she could tell were qu
ite expensive trousers, removed a thin wallet, and flipped it open to a driver’s license.

  Sara didn’t look at it. “I would only trust Tess.”

  “Sure. Let’s call her.” He pulled a cell phone from his front pocket and pushed a button.

  “She won’t answer,” Sara said. “In case you don’t know, she happens to be on her honeymoon with my cousin.” If he didn’t know that, he couldn’t be Tess’s brother. Everyone knew that Tess talked to her brother every Sunday afternoon, and she readily admitted that she told him everything.

  When it rang once with no pickup, Sara glanced toward the doorway. Could she make it? If she screamed really loud, would Luke hear her through the walls? Could she scream loud enough to wake him up?

  She glanced at the man, and he had such a smug look on his face that Sara wanted to hit him.

  Tess picked up in the middle of the second ring and with an annoying little smile, he handed the phone to Sara.

  “Hey big brother!” Tess’s unmistakable voice said, but she was clearly upset. “Are you all right? Has anything happened?”

  “Tess, it’s me, Sara.”

  “Sara?” Tess’s voice rose. “Why are you on my brother’s phone? Oh God! Has he been injured? I’ll be there—”

  “No!” Sara said. “I just need to know if this man who broke into my … I mean, your apartment is actually your brother. It’s obvious he has his phone, but he’s not how I pictured your brother to look.”

  “Oh?” Tess said, and her usual calm was restored. “What does your intruder look like?”

  Sara couldn’t stand the man’s I-told-you-so look, so she lied. “He’s short, skinny, half bald, hasn’t shaved in a week, and he has a voice like a toad with a bad attitude.”

  “Then I take it he has his clothes on,” Tess said.

  That confusing statement made Sara’s fear return. Tess had always been vague about exactly what her brother did for a living. “What do you mean, that he has his clothes on? Tess, I don’t think—”

  The man took the phone from her. “Baby sister, whatever you said, you’re scaring her.” He paused. “Why didn’t you tell me someone else had moved in here while you were away?” He smiled, again showing that dimple. “I see. You’re so busy with your honeymoon duties that you forgot all about me. Yeah, yeah, I understand.” He glanced back at Sara. “So what do I do with her?”

  Sara glared at him.

  He laughed at whatever Tess said. “I’m more than willing, but, somehow, I don’t think she would like that. By the way, who is she?” As he looked at Sara, his eyes widened. “Sara Shaw? The one who makes that apple bread you send me? The one who repaired my leather jacket? The girl you said was the best friend you’d ever had in your life? That Sara Shaw?”

  Sara was flattered by his words, but at the same time, she didn’t believe him. She got out of the chair, put on a blue silk robe she’d just repaired, and went to the kitchen. She filled the electric kettle with water and got the box of loose black tea out of the cabinet. Someone had given the tea to Tess for Christmas and now, months later, it hadn’t been opened. She could hear the man in the bedroom quietly talking on the phone.

  What was his name? she wondered as she tried to remember. Something ordinary. William or James. No. It was Mike. Mostly, Tess called him “my brother.” As in: “My brother can run up mountains and lasso the moon whenever he wants to.” Or thereabouts. Sara and Joce used to tease her when she’d run to the telephone if she heard Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out for a Hero, which was the song she’d set for her brother.

  One time when they had a girls’ night out, Tess’s phone rang and it was Ramsey, her fiancé, but she ignored it. A few minutes later when it was her brother, she took the call. She mostly murmured “yes,” then hung up. When Sara and Joce burst out laughing, Tess didn’t get the joke.

  “What is it about your brother that makes you drop everything when he calls?” Joce asked.

  “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.”

  “You mean he sent you to Edilean?” Sara asked.

  “No, I mean I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for my brother.”

  Sara and Joce didn’t move so much as an eyelash. Tess never talked about her childhood. They held their breaths as they waited for her to tell more, and when she didn’t readily share, they kept up a determined stare.

  Finally, Tess shrugged. “What can I say? He’s a good man, through and through, inside and out. He helps people.”

  “Doing what?” Sara asked.

  Tess seemed about to speak, but then she buried her face in a menu. “So who wants a pizza?”

  Another time, they asked her why he never came to visit. She told them that Mike saved all his vacation time to go places and study, and that when she was in college, she went with him. Joce and Sara thought that “study” referred to a university, but that’s not what Tess meant. In her freshman year, they went to Japan so Mike could study kendo. Sophomore year it was China for kung fu, then the next year to Thailand for Muay Thai. For her senior graduation, they went to Brazil where they both did a course in jujitsu. “Of course Mike was a bit better than I was,” Tess said, her eyes laughing.

  So her brother was a jock. That still didn’t explain what Tess’s mysterious brother did for a living. They tried to get information out of Rams, but he was as closemouthed as the woman he loved. “If she wants you to know about her brother, she’ll tell you.”

  But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t find out. All they knew was that he was a police detective in Fort Lauderdale and he “traveled a lot.”

  So, now, Sara was in an apartment alone with Tess’s elusive brother.

  “I think apologies are due,” Mike said from the doorway.

  “If you think I’m going to—”

  “No, me,” Mike said quickly. “I need to apologize to you. My only excuse is that I was driving for ten hours, I’m tired, and all I wanted to do was sleep. I didn’t expect anyone to be in Tess’s apartment. Here, let me do that.” He took the electric kettle from her, poured water into the pretty ceramic teapot—another Christmas gift—sloshed it around to warm the china, then poured it out. He put three heaping scoops of loose black tea in the pot and filled it with boiling water.

  Sara watched as he opened cabinet doors until he found the cups and saucers. Since he didn’t know where things were, she guessed he’d never been in the apartment before. She knew no one in town had ever met him, but he could have come through the tunnel and secretly visited and—

  “Milk?” he asked as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton. Her eyes widened when he poured the milk into a little pitcher that matched the other china, and set it all on the oak table Ramsey had recently bought. Mike put cookies on a plate. When he finished, the table looked ready to entertain a duchess.

  He pulled out a chair for her, and when Sara was seated, he sat down across from her and held out the plate of cookies. “I’m sure they’re not as good as your apple bread.”

  Sara knew he meant it as a compliment, but she wasn’t appeased. “What are you doing here? And why didn’t Tess warn me about you? And how did you know about that … Is it a tunnel?”

  “Are you saying that you live here but don’t know about that tunnel?”

  “I know nothing about it.”

  “Then I doubly apologize. Tess told me about it some time ago. She even drew a map showing where the entrance is. Your cousin Luke found it while he was gardening, and he said it was for the Underground Railroad. Tess told me he’s kept it in good repair for years now.” He sipped his tea. “I forgot to ask if you wanted sugar.”

  Sara shook her head. “So where are you planning on spending the night?”

  Mike glanced toward the hallway that led to the two little bedrooms.

  “No,” Sara said as calmly as she could muster. “You aren’t going to spend the night with me.”

  He looked at her over his cup.

  “You know what I mean! I k
now you’re a cop in a big city, but this is a small town, so you can’t …” She trailed off because he yawned.

  “Sorry. Long day. Mind if I take the bathroom first? Unless you … uh …”

  “No,” Sara said, “I don’t have to ‘uh’ anything. I was just saying—”

  Mike stood up. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” He put his empty teacup in the sink. “Just leave the dishes and I’ll take care of them in the morning. Sleep well, Miss Shaw.” With that, he went into the one bathroom, which was between the two bedrooms, and shut the door.

  Absolutely not! Sara thought. Under no circumstances was she going to spend the night in the same apartment with him. As she thought of the rampant gossip that would spread if she did, she got up, grabbed her phone off the counter, and started to call her mother. She would spend the rest of the night at her parents’ house. If she did that, maybe the town wouldn’t even find out she’d been alone with this stranger for the last hour. And if they didn’t know, then no one would tell Greg.

  It was at the thought of Greg that she quit punching buttons. Yet again, she remembered the abrupt way he’d left her just two nights before. They’d been in her apartment—the lease was up on Greg’s place, and he’d said there was no need to pay for two residences, so he’d moved in with her. His cell had rung just before midnight, waking both of them, and Sara had watched him fumble for the phone. When he saw the name in the ID, he sat up straight, instantly wide awake, and said, “What is it?” He had listened in silence for what had to have been five minutes, then he’d said, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” and hung up.

  He flung back the covers, got out of bed, and began to dress.

  “What’s wrong?” Sara asked, blinking sleepily.

  “Nothing. I have to go away for a while, that’s all. Go back to sleep.”

  “A while? How long does that mean? The wedding—”

  “Damn it, Sara, you’re not going to start nagging me again, are you? I know when the wedding is. How could I forget when I was the one who got stuck with all the work for it? Something’s come up and I have to go. I’ll be back for the wedding.” He grabbed his wallet and car keys off the dresser and left. Just like that, with no explanation.