His only response was a shrug. “I get by doing as little as I can—I use the last week of the month to catch up on what I can, but that’s about it. There hasn’t been any regular office work done around here since I took over. I’ve hired people in—they last a few weeks and that’s it. One lady lasted six months and that was bliss. But a month in she found out she was pregnant. Didn’t want to come back after the baby was born.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he studied the piles a little closer. “What are these for?”
“Invoices. Some are paid.” She moved around him and tapped the pile that was the largest by far. “The majority, however, aren’t. You might want to look through them and make sure they aren’t a mistake. You’ve got an awful lot of money floating around out there if all of these are unpaid, you know.”
He sighed and circled the desk, flopping behind it and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I mostly kept up with them. My accountant kind of hates me.”
“I can’t imagine why.” Trinity tried hard not to let anything show in her voice as he shot her a glance. She just smiled politely.
Noah quirked a brow at her but shifted his attention back to the desk, muttering under his breath as he flipped through the stacks of paper.
“Some of those invoices are several years old,” she said. “I’m hoping it’s an error, but there are a few dating back to 2007. I have the oldest ones on top.”
He grunted. “Maggie Robbins lost her husband not long after the remodeling was done on her house. I was giving her time to get back on her feet.”
How much longer are you going to wait? The question burned in the back of Trinity’s throat, but she kept her mouth shut. It was his business. He was the one swallowing the three-thousand-dollar expense, not her.
A sheepish expression settled on his face. “You probably think I’m a pushover.”
“No.” Her response surprised her a little. He actually didn’t strike her as a pushover at all. He was nice. Maybe a bit too nice, but that didn’t make him a pushover. “I think you’re probably one of the kindest men I’ve ever met.”
A grin tugged at his lips. “Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a compliment.”
Trinity laughed. “Trust me, it is. Hey, I can’t complain about it. It helped me get a job and I’m saving a bundle on the house, right?” She grinned at him as she moved over to the empty chair in front of his desk. A few hours ago, nobody would have been able to sit in it. “It’s not a bad thing to be a nice guy, Noah. I wish I knew a few more nice people in my life.” Then she looked down, staring at a smudge on her skirt. “Actually … well. He doesn’t run the kind of business you do, but some of this is the sort of thing my dad would do. Maybe not quite on this scale.”
Noah flicked a look at her.
Self-conscious, she shrugged. “He’s the kind of man who’d give you the shirt off his back. Usually, he ends up okay in spite of himself, but he’s been burned a few times.”
“Sounds like my dad.”
She laughed. “Considering how his son is, that doesn’t surprise me. Is he proud of you?”
Noah looked away. “I think he was, mostly. He died a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Trinity looked down.
“It’s okay. You didn’t know. I inherited this business from him. Fortunately for me, my mother had a better head for business than both of us and it’s in good enough shape, for the most part, that I can occasionally let things slide, like Maggie.” He reached for the invoice lying on top and sighed. “But I need to go ahead and send this out. I might take it out personally, talk to her. She’s got a job teaching over at the high school and she’s seeing somebody. She’s on steady ground now. I’ll set up payment arrangements.”
He flipped through a few more, made a note on one. “We can get all of these sent out.” He paused over one, sighed. Then he looked up at her. “Have you called the police department, talked to Jeb?”
“Jeb?”
“Detective Sims. The detective you talked to yesterday.” He glanced over at the little room off to the side and then looked back at her. “He said he’d be releasing the house today. He’s handling the … ah … situation.”
“The situation,” she echoed. Such a mild word. It didn’t seem to exactly describe what had happened—they’d found a body hidden under her house. That was a little more than a situation. “Yes, I spoke with him. Yes, they did release the scene, or that’s how he phrased it. But he also told me there was no way I could move back in yet.” Her neck felt hot as she recalled the way he’d told her. He’d been a bit of an ass about it, really. Did he honestly think she’d do anything to jeopardize her son? “Until the floor is repaired, the place is something of a hazard. He didn’t outright say it, but he was sort of dancing around the edges that if I tried to go home before the damages were reassessed, repaired…”
She stopped, looking away. “Never mind. But I need to have the floor taken care of before I can go back. It needs to be safe for Micah.”
Noah nodded. “I’ve already got everything needed to get it fixed,” he said softly. “It’s all lined up. It won’t take much time.”
“Thank you.” She fixed a smile on her face, determined not to think about the house, or the jerk-off detective, or the body or anything that didn’t have to do with the job. Nodding toward the desk, she lifted a brow at Noah. “So did I pass the test?”
“Oh, you passed the test. You got the job. I’m buying you and the kid dinner. I might even spring for dessert,” he murmured, pausing over another invoice. “I’m writing that one off. Leslie Mayer—her husband ran off with the babysitter and she ended up declaring bankruptcy. There’s no way I’m going to be collecting the eight hundred and seventy-three dollars she owes me. Not worth the hassle at this point. But she called earlier this week wanting me to come out and do some more work. I’ll make it clear I won’t be doing any more work unless she puts down a deposit and sets up payment arrangements for the rest.”
He looked up at Trinity. “She’ll probably call while I’m out of the office, and if she gets you on the phone she might try to work you. Don’t let her.”
“Another test?”
“Just saying it how it is.” He shrugged. “Leslie usually doesn’t mean any harm, but life keeps kicking her and her only way to kick back is to try and work people the only way she knows how. Unfortunately, that often means playing those around her, whether it’s the men she comes in contact with or any female she thinks might be a sympathetic ear.” A sad look crossed his face and he reached for another invoice. “Don’t worry. You can handle her.”
He studied the next invoice. “Elsie Darby. Eh, I’ll talk to her. I shouldn’t have let her slide so long, but it would be better if I handled that one.”
Darby. Trinity was glad he wasn’t going to write that one off. She owed him nearly fifteen thousand dollars. “Exactly what did you do on that one?”
“She owns a B and B a few miles outside of town. I helped remodel some of the rooms. My dad did a major overhaul a couple of years before he died and I helped with that—she likes sticking to people she knows. The first time around was a major job. She put down a big deposit and did a loan through the bank, but this time around she didn’t want to go through the bank so she paid me the deposit, asked me to do most of the work instead of contracting it out.” He shrugged. “Doing business with her is good business for me because it sends people my way. But she gets behind on the accounts and she was a friend of my dad’s—”
“You’re letting personal feelings get in the way.” Trinity stood up and reached for the invoice, plucking it off the desk. “It might be better if you let me handle it.”
He scowled at her.
“I can send a nice little letter. I can be courteous, polite and diplomatic.” She folded it into thirds and laid it across her lap, smiling at him. “You can sign off on it if it makes you happy. But if you go out there and she pulls a guilt trip or whatever, are you going to ask for the money she owes you, or
shuffle your feet and walk away and give her more time?”
“She doesn’t pull guilt trips.”
Noah stared at a point past Trinity’s shoulder, feeling the tips of his ears burn red. Elsie didn’t pull guilt trips. She just talked about how nice the town used to be, and how she missed it, and how expensive things were and how she was just trying to preserve a piece of the past … and wouldn’t he just love a piece of lemon pie? Absolutely, she’d send some money on and she’d give him a check right now, although she certainly was tight for money considering how the economy was down.
He’d leave feeling like he’d just robbed the offering plate even though she’d never given him more than five hundred at a time and he knew for a fact there wasn’t a week when her B and B wasn’t at almost near capacity. Some people talked like she put crack in her waffles or something, because she just couldn’t keep people away.
Trinity laughed and Noah shot her a narrow look.
“What?” he asked defensively, although the sound of her laugh had something inside him drawing tight. Tight, hungry. He wanted to fist his hand in her hair, pull her up against him, one hand low on the curve of her hip just so he could start to learn the feel of her, and then he’d kiss her, soft and slow.
Stop it. Don’t think about that. But it was too late. His blood was already pulsing heavy and slow through his veins, pressure building in his cock. Dropping into a chair, he slumped in an effort to hide it while Trinity just smiled at him.
“Here you are,” she said, laughter in her voice. “Warning me about that Leslie chick and you’re over there getting worked by what sounds like a con woman in an apron.”
“Elsie Darby doesn’t wear an apron.” He skimmed a hand back over his close-cropped hair and muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
He glared at her. “She probably still wears a crinoline, though. She dresses like June Cleaver. Pearls and all.”
“So, basically, you’re being conned by June Cleaver.”
“I said she dresses like June Cleaver.”
Trinity snickered. “I take it back. Maybe you are a pushover.”
“Yeah, well, you haven’t met Elsie Darby.”
CHAPTER NINE
That damn house was cursed.
He knew all about the pantry, but he hadn’t ever thought there might be something hidden away inside it. In truth, he tried to avoid thinking about it all, although the nightmares still slid in
Nightmares of the times he’d been trapped there.
Hours spent in that little pit of hell, hard, greedy hands grasping at him, while his screams were silenced by a gag.
You go in there a boy.
Eventually, you’ll leave a man.
Then it will be your turn.
He’d been told those words so many times; even now, he heard them in his sleep. He could have happily cut the memories from his head with a rusty knife if it would have done any good.
It wouldn’t, though. Nothing dulled those memories. Nothing eased that horror.
Nothing erased the image of light flashing on pale skin or a startled, shocked gasp as she turned and their gazes locked. Right before she—
Stop.
He closed his eyes, shoved it all back. That wasn’t why he was here. Not now.
He was just waiting. Waiting. Watching.
But he didn’t know what he waited for.
Why he watched.
He just knew he couldn’t pull himself away.
* * *
“I can’t do that.”
“You will do it, Lee. I need this from you. You’re one of us. You’re obligated to help us.” The voice was low, polite and firm.
I’m not one of you! He wanted to scream it. Wanted to sob it. It had been years since he’d escaped that hell. But deep down, in some dark, small place, he didn’t believe it. Swallowing, he huddled against the wall. If he could have disappeared inside it, he would have.
“Sir, they … People are watching that house. Really close. I can’t risk going in there and somebody seeing me.”
“You’ll just have to go at night. Tonight. Because it won’t be long before it’s released back to the owner. We have to make sure there are no signs left.”
“But…” He licked his lips. “Even if there were, the cops would have already taken anything.”
There was a low, soft laugh. “The cops wouldn’t even know what they were looking at. Come on now, Lee. Do this. For me. You’re one of us … don’t ever forget.”
You’re one of us.
Those words, just like that, put him back there.
“Yes, sir,” he whispered, feeling like all the years had faded away and he was trapped. Once more.
As he hung up the phone, Lee Brevard asked himself for the millionth time why he stayed here. He should have left. Should have run, far and hard and fast; that was what David had done, he bet. Some people talked like he was dead, but if Lee was going to run away he’d make people think he was dead, too.
Somehow.
David had been a lot smarter than Lee.
In the silence of his little apartment, Lee slid down to the floor and started to cry.
* * *
“Hank … are you okay?”
Leaning against the doorway, Hank Redding glanced over his shoulder at his wife. Tina didn’t know just how much he loved her, and he knew that was his own fault. He’d been trying the past few months to do a better job of showing her. He’d stopped running around on her more than a year ago, and he’d stopped gambling down over at Belterra.
The woman had no idea the mess she’d taken on when she married him. Part of him wished he’d never pulled her into the disaster that was his life, but if he hadn’t, well, he wouldn’t have Esme.
Even as much as he hated the fact that he’d cheated on his wife, he had two other children he loved. Two more kids he was responsible for. It had all but broken her heart when he’d told her but Tina had given him another chance. She hadn’t walked out. Tina, God love the woman, she showed those children all the love she had in her heart, and she insisted he stand by them, be a father to those kids.
A good woman.
Too good for the likes of him, a fact that he knew all too well. But he was trying. Trying to be a better husband and a good dad, to all three of his kids, Esme and the twins.
Right now, he stood in the doorway, watching as Esme slept, tangled in a bright yellow blanket, a stuffed bear clutched in one hand. “She’s a beauty,” he said, keeping his voice low as Tina came to stand by him.
She smiled and leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. The toddler in bed looked more like Tina than him and he thanked God Almighty for that fact. Esme was precocious and smarter than he could ever hope to be. The only thing he wanted in life was for his kids to grow up and be better than he was. Of course, that wouldn’t take much.
“She is. The preschool teacher heard her reading today,” Tina murmured.
Hank swung his head around, staring at his wife. “Reading?” Gaping, he shook his head. “She’s not even three. How can she be reading?”
“I don’t know, baby. But it was a new book … they’d just gotten it in. None of the kids had a chance to have it read to them before and we hadn’t ever read it to her, either. She sat over in the corner sounding out the words. I listened to her myself. She’s teaching herself to read.”
“Wow.” He rubbed the growth of beard coming in on his chin and muttered to himself. “Teaching herself to read. Man, Tina. I was almost in second grade before I could read more than a few words. She gets that from you, you know.”
She jabbed him with her elbow. “She gets her stubbornness from you.”
“I hope that’s the only thing she gets from me.”
A few moments of silence passed while the edgy, antsy tension that had nagged him all day boiled higher and higher. It had been building for the past couple of days, but today it was worse. Worse than it had been in years, if he was hone
st with himself.
He needed to do something to let it out before he exploded, before he went and did something he’d regret, before he turned into somebody he just wasn’t anymore.
Hank turned and caged Tina up against the wall, dipping his head to nuzzle her neck. “I was thinking I might run over to Shakers for a while. I need a drink. Need to clear my head.”
She stiffened and slowly he pulled back, watching as she looked up at him through her lashes.
“I just want a beer,” he said softly, understanding the doubt in her eyes. “I … shit.”
He’d tried to tell. His parents … and they hadn’t believed him, not entirely. They couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. Part of him understood, now. It had to hurt, especially his mother. How could she believe that of her father? How could anybody want to believe that about their parent?
Hank’s grandfather, the fine, upstanding Luis Sims, elder at the First Christian, banker, all-around good guy, surely wasn’t that kind of monster. Even after all of this time, Hank remembered how much it had to hurt to try to tell them. They had stared at him, in horror, in shock. He’d mentioned just the one name, hadn’t dared mentioned the other man, although he’d wanted to. For years, seeing that man in town had made Hank’s skin crawl. When he’d disappeared, it had been a blessing.
It just hadn’t come soon enough.
Hank’s parents had understood, even though they hadn’t believed him, that something was wrong. They’d tried to get him help—help. That had just made things worse. He’d almost ended up killing himself over that help. That was what had made his parents really take action, but the hell had lasted for another four months.
After that, he’d promised himself he’d never tell another.
Then Tina had come along. He’d loved her, so much. From the very beginning. He hurt her, emotionally, time and again, and he knew it, hated it. Finally, he made himself tell her, stripped himself bare and told her everything.
He made himself tell her what kind of man she’d fallen in love with. Then he waited for her to leave him.
Instead, she’d wrapped her arms around him and cried with him.
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