She laid her fork back down. “If finding him with Adrianne wasn’t bad enough, he really sealed it with that Lance comment.”
That was another memory permanently etched in her brain—Chris staring at her, eyes pained and haunted, and making that ridiculous accusation: I know about Lance. “Lance was nothing but a brief mistake. Long before I met Chris, I figured out Lance’s greatest love was himself. But Chris was convinced I was fooling around with him.”
BethAnn shook her head. “Chris didn’t seem like the jealous type.”
“He wasn’t normally. Just with Lance. About a year after I graduated, Lance started trying to get me back. I was dating Chris by then and wasn’t interested. But Chris still felt threatened.”
BethAnn laid down the slice of pizza she held and wiped her hand on the paper napkin in her lap. Her appetite was obviously still intact. She was currently polishing off her third slice. “You know, Adrianne always was jealous of you.”
“Jealous of me?” She eyed BethAnn with raised brows. “How? She was the one who got anything she wanted.”
“You got the good grades without even trying. Everybody liked you, your dry wit, your sarcastic sense of humor. And you had Chris. She never came out and said it, but I could read between the lines.” BethAnn had come back for regular weekend visits, so she had kept in contact with Adrianne, too. “But I have to admit, this totally caught me off guard.”
“You and me both. I knew she was a flirt, but I somehow thought my man would be off-limits. Pretty naive, I guess.”
BethAnn stared into the distance and worked her wedding band around her finger with her thumb. “You know, you were both pretty young then.”
“He was twenty-four, I was twenty. What are you getting at?”
BethAnn shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he turned to Adrianne on impulse, and he’s learned his lesson.”
Melissa gave her a wry smile. If anyone saw the world through rose-colored glasses, it was BethAnn. But there was no sugarcoating what Chris did. “Three months is hardly on impulse.”
“Did Chris tell you it had been going on for three months?”
“No, Adrianne did.”
“And you believed her?”
“Why not? I mean, Chris didn’t jump in with any defense. Just his stupid accusations about Lance.”
“Well, he still cares about you, or he wouldn’t have been over there giving Alan a hard time. You ought to just call him and ask about the flowers.”
“I don’t have his number.”
“Jamison Marine. I’m sure it’s in the phone book. If he admits to leaving the flowers, you can stop worrying about Eugene.”
“You’ve got a point.”
Except it would take a lot more than a call to Chris to stop worrying about Eugene.
* * *
“Since when do we put dock lines with fishing tackle?”
Chris’s hand stopped midair as he looked at Derrick, his assistant manager. He didn’t have a good answer. Three weeks ago, he could have claimed ignorance. By now he knew his way around his father’s marine store so well he could draw it in his sleep.
“Good question. Preoccupied, I guess.” He carried the packages to the end of the rack and hung them from a metal peg.
“I bet it’s a woman.”
Chris snickered. “Just because you’re madly in love doesn’t mean everyone else has lost touch with reality.”
A goofy grin took over Derrick’s face. A week and a half from his wedding date, he had some concentration issues of his own.
But Derrick’s assessment was dead-on. It was a woman, all right. A woman with delicate features and haunted eyes. A woman who was afraid and trying her hardest not to show it. Five days had passed since he’d talked to Ron, and he still didn’t know anything. His anxiety was growing with each passing hour.
Monday’s broken window didn’t help. Melissa was satisfied with the branch explanation. He couldn’t brush it off so easily. Just because nothing was taken didn’t mean someone hadn’t gone inside. But without prints, there was no way of knowing.
For the eighty-ninth time that day, he pushed her from his mind and dragged his thoughts back to his work. The cardboard box he had been unpacking was now empty—Derrick removed the last three items some time ago. He picked up the box and, on his way to the back of the store, stopped at one of the two offices behind the counter. “How are you coming with the books?”
“Just about there,” Donna answered without looking up. Stacks of checks and different denominations of bills dotted her desk. “I’ll be ready to run financial statements shortly.”
It was about time. He couldn’t believe it when he took over the store and found dozens of handwritten ledgers. His father was in the Dark Ages. So was his bookkeeper. How was he supposed to sell the store with no legitimate financial statements?
“Great. I’d like to sit down with you Friday and go over what you have.” A deadline wouldn’t hurt, given her history. He’d purchased a user-friendly accounting program and had been prodding her since day one to get the bookkeeping computerized.
Donna looked up from the deposit slip she was filling out but didn’t make eye contact. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
“Let’s start with balance sheets, operating statements and bank reconciliations for the first quarter. Then we’ll go from there.”
“I’ll do my best.” She sat straight and stiff, as if ready to bolt at any moment.
“Donna?”
Her eyes darted away the instant they met his.
“Relax. It’s not an IRS audit. It’s not even a performance review.”
All he got for his efforts was a tentative smile.
She was such a mousy woman. Accountant types weren’t the life of the party, but Donna made keeping to herself an art form. He had worked with her three days a week for the past few weeks, and all he knew was that she was thirty-five, married, lived in Winter Haven and was a U.S. citizen. And that much he owed to her W-4 and I-9. But she apparently knew her stuff. For over eight years, his father had trusted her totally.
At the thought of his father, grief pressed down on him. If only he’d known his dad’s time was so short. He would have come back more often. Or maybe he would have never left.
He trudged to the office next door and sank into the worn-out swivel chair that sat behind an equally well-used desk. His dad’s office. What was supposed to eventually be his own.
When he decided to go into police work instead of taking over the store, his father had understood. But his leaving Florida had been hard on the old man. They had always been close. Ever since he was six years old and his mother decided she couldn’t cope with the responsibility of a husband and child, it had been just the two of them.
He never saw his mother again. At the time, he was too young to understand. In fact, he still didn’t. She should have loved him enough to hang in there. Instead, she calmly extricated herself from the little body entwined around her legs, strode quickly to her car and drove away. And that was that.
His cell phone rang, and when he glanced at the number on the screen, energy surged through him. He had waited five days for this call. “Hey, Ron. Have you got something for me?”
“Sorry it took me a while to get back to you.” His partner’s bass voice boomed through the phone. “It looks like your lady filed a restraining order against a Eugene Holmes for stalking. Seems he took quite an unhealthy liking to her and wouldn’t leave her alone. So she got the restraining order. That’s when things got scary. He’s one of those if-I-can’t-have-her-nobody-can guys. There are several police reports. The last one she filed, the perp had a knife to her throat, when someone walked up, and he took off. He’s apparently pretty slick, because they’ve never caught him.”
As Ron talked, dr
ead trickled over him. He knew the type. Some guys just didn’t give up until they were behind bars. If everyone was lucky, that happened before anyone got hurt. Too often it didn’t.
He rubbed his eyelids with a thumb and index finger, then put his head in his hand. This was what he was afraid of. “Well, thanks for checking it out.”
At least now he had an idea of what he was up against. He shook his head. No, he wasn’t up against anything. Protecting her wasn’t his responsibility. She was a citizen of Harmony Grove. That’s what the Harmony Grove Police Department was there for—to protect its citizens. Let them see to her safety.
Somehow that wasn’t very reassuring. Alan was a nice enough guy and probably took his job seriously. But he was so green, he blended with the shrubbery. Then there was Chief Branch, with boatloads more experience but a fraction of the concern, especially when Melissa was involved. Unless things had changed in the past five years, Branch had it in for both Langston women, over some perceived wrong that nobody quite understood.
“There’s a call for you on line one,” Derrick announced from the front counter. “A Melissa Morris.”
Melissa? What would she be calling about? He walked up front and put the phone to his ear.
“This is going to sound pretty off-the-wall,” she began, “but...you didn’t send me flowers, did you?”
For several moments, he sat in dumb silence, feeling like someone who had walked into the middle of a movie and missed all the important scenes. “What?”
“Flowers showed up on my doorstep yesterday afternoon. You didn’t send them, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.” Uneasiness nibbled at the edges of his mind. Flowers were hardly a threatening gesture. But for a woman in Melissa’s position, everything took on grave meaning. “Was there a card?”
“It said, ‘Just to let you know I’m thinking about you.’ No signature or anything.” She paused and gave a short laugh, but there was no humor in the sound. “I guess I have a secret admirer.”
“Have you checked with Flanagan Florist? If they came from there, Sandy could probably tell you who ordered them.” He wanted to warn her of the danger she was in. But if she knew he had used his connections to check on her, she would be furious. Judging from the tension in her tone and the apprehension that seemed to always cling to her, though, the warnings were probably unnecessary.
“Sandy’s cards say ‘Flanagan Florist.’ This one doesn’t.”
He picked up a pen and began to tap it against the wood surface of the desk. Harmony Grove P.D. needed to have the history Ron had just given him. But knowing Melissa, she hadn’t told them a thing. If he could just get her to talk... “You sound like this is really bugging you, more than just curiosity.”
“You know me—can’t stand an unsolved mystery.” She forced another one of those uncomfortable laughs.
“Well, frankly, it’s bugging me. The whole situation makes me uneasy. I’m going to give you my cell number, and I want you to program it into your phone.”
“I’m fine, really. I don’t need—”
“Just humor me. Please?”
A heavy sigh came through the phone. “All right. What is it?”
He gave her the number. “Now program it in and call me back.”
“I’ll do it later. Look, everything’s fine. I don’t need your help.”
“I know you don’t. You can handle everything on your own.” He tried to keep the sarcasm from his tone but wasn’t quite successful. Her stubbornness was downright exasperating. “You’re humoring me, remember? Just go ahead and program it and call me back.”
“When did you turn into such a worrywart?” She cut the connection without waiting for an answer. Two minutes later she dialed him back. “You happy now?”
“I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.”
She had his number, and it was easily accessible. Now it was time to pay Alan a visit.
* * *
Something awoke her.
Melissa pulled the comforter to her chin and lay stock-still in the darkness, listening. Waiting.
A series of dull flickers filled the room. The muted rumble didn’t come until almost a half minute later. The storm couldn’t be what woke her up. It was too far away. The thunder was so faint, she had to be listening for it to even notice, and the light passing through the sheers didn’t provide much more illumination than the total darkness it briefly replaced.
The rumble faded to silence, and uneasiness enveloped her. Every sense shot to full alert. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it.
A distinct creak shattered the silence, and a chill passed over her. After more than four months, she should be used to the sounds of the old wood-frame house. But each creak and groan sent apprehension spiraling through her. Especially in the middle of the night.
She clutched the comforter more tightly and listened. A gust of wind swept through, a precursor to the storm, and a low-hanging branch scraped the roof. Maybe that was what had awoken her. She would see about having someone trim the branches away from the house. That was one bump in the night she could control.
Another creak sounded, sending icy tendrils of fear slithering up her spine. She recognized that creak. It was the same sound a few of the steps made under her weight.
Was someone in the house?
For several moments, she lay paralyzed, ears cocked and eyes riveted on the open door. But the only sound besides the howling of the wind was her own pounding heart. And she couldn’t see anything in the near blackness.
Lightning flashed in the distance, casting its eerie pulsating glow.
And a fresh wave of terror crashed down on her.
Someone stood in the open doorway of her room.
FOUR
A bloodcurdling scream was wrenched from her throat, and panic careened through her body. Frantic prayers circled her mind, chopped pleas for help.
Where was he? Had her scream scared him away? Or was he in the room with her?
Another series of flashes sifted through the sheer panels. Her gaze darted a jagged path around the room. She was alone. Even the doorway was empty. She thrust the comforter aside and sprinted for the door, slamming it shut and turning the lock in one swift motion.
For several moments, she stood frozen. Her mind screamed unintelligible commands, and her heart hammered against her rib cage. She needed to do something.
Call someone. BethAnn. No, she could get hurt. Chris. His number would be at the top of her recent calls.
She snatched her phone from the nightstand and flipped it open. The first beep sounded amplified, even against the backdrop of the storm building outside. Another bolt of panic shot through her. Lord, please help me. If her intruder knew she was calling for help, he might break down the door.
She took a steadying breath. God could protect her. She knew that. Was it showing a lack of faith to wish for more? If only she had a weapon—a bat, a knife, anything. But a mental inventory of her closet produced nothing more intimidating than some high-heeled shoes and her scantily stocked purse. She pressed the call key once more and stood straight and stiff, eyes riveted on the locked door, praying with all her might that it stay closed and wondering what she would do if it didn’t.
One ring sounded, and she snapped her phone shut. What was she doing? She needed to call the police. They would be there in minutes and were armed and trained to handle her prowler. Chris was, too—trained at least, and probably even armed. But she didn’t want his help.
She dialed nine-one-one, put in her request and disconnected the call, heart still pounding out its erratic rhythm. When the phone suddenly began to vibrate, it almost fell from her hand. She jerked it open before the ringtone could begin.
“Melissa, did you try to call?”
She groaned inwardly. No, not Chris
. His phone couldn’t have rung for more than a second or two. But even as she groused, she couldn’t deny the sense of relief that tumbled through her the instant she heard his voice. “I changed my mind,” she whispered. “Sorry I disturbed you.”
“Okay. Tell me what’s going on. And this time you’re not brushing me off.”
She closed her eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath. She shouldn’t tell him. If he thought she was in danger, he would never leave her alone.
But the words spilled out anyway.
“Someone’s in my house.”
An audible “umph” announced Chris’s springing from his bed. “Lock your bedroom door and call the police.”
Funny, he figured out in five seconds what took her five minutes. Of course, he wasn’t scared out of his mind. “I already have.”
“Then stay put. I’ll be right there. And I’m not hanging up.”
The wind picked up, releasing its rage in intermittent howls. Soon rain began to pelt the windows. She sat back on the bed and pulled the comforter around her, suddenly chilled. In fact, she couldn’t stop shivering.
“Are you still with me?” The scrape of opening and closing drawers punctuated his words.
“I’m here,” she whispered, willing him to hurry. Moments later, flashing lights turned the lacy curtains red-and-blue, and relief washed over her. “The police are here.”
“Don’t hang up until you let them inside.”
That sense of security fled almost immediately. She had to make it to the front door. For several moments she stood, phone pressed to her ear and her other hand resting on the bedroom doorknob. Where was her intruder?
A heavy knock reverberated through the house. If she didn’t get downstairs soon, the police would kick their way in. With her pulse pounding in her ears, she unlocked the bedroom door and slowly pulled it open. The hinges responded with a protesting squeak. Another flash offered brief illumination, then once again plunged everything into blackness. If she could just get to the front door...
Midnight Shadows (Love Inspired Suspense) Page 4
