Guaranteed to Bleed

by Mulhern, Julie

  My hands shook so much the phone receiver stuttered against my earring.

  “Amy…” What had she done? God save me from good intentions. They really did pave the way to hell. “I have to go.” I touched the receiver to the cradle before she could object, then I lifted it again and dialed the farm.

  Mrs. Smith answered.

  She barely had time to say hello. “You need to pack up the girls and get out of there. Donna’s stepfather is on his way.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Just go. Now!”

  “Are you su—”

  “I’m positive. Please get the girls out of there.”

  She must have heard the urgency in my voice. She didn’t argue or ask any more questions. “I’ll do it now.”

  I hung up the phone with fingers rendered clumsy by too much adrenaline. Where was my purse? I had to go. I spotted it, yanked it off the counter, fished for keys and came up with a handful of loose change, the second set of keys to the car Grace left at the hunting cabin and a tampon. I dropped the lot on the counter, lowered my gaze to the handbag’s depths and searched in earnest. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn.”

  Where the hell were they?

  In the tote.

  I tossed the purse onto the counter, reached for the tote bag and searched. The keys were in there. They had to be. I dug deeper. I opened it wide and peered into its depths. I stepped toward the door to the hallway and thumped into a solid chest jacketed in navy blue summer-weight wool.

  “Watch out, Ellison.”

  I looked up into Hunter’s face just as his hands closed around my upper arms.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Aggie called. She told me you found the girls.”

  Aggie might be worth her weight in gold, but she had to stop sharing my secrets with Hunter Tafft. “Where is Aggie?”

  “She’s getting something out of her car. I offered to help but she sent me in to check on you.”

  I nodded—well, my chin stuttered. “I have to go.”

  His grip on my arms tightened. “Where?”

  “The girls are in trouble.”

  “Aggie said they were safe.”

  “Old news. Thanks to Amy McCreary’s big mouth, Jonathan Hess knows where they are.”

  In fairness, Grace’s big mouth started the problem. She should know by now that we lived in the smallest of small towns hidden within a city. Secrets were hard to keep.

  Hunter stiffened. “Where are they now?”

  “Mrs. Smith is getting them away from the farm.” The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other.

  “Taking them where?”

  “I’m not sure.” I tugged to loosen his grip on my arms. I had to go!

  “So where exactly are you going?”

  An excellent question. I didn’t know where to go.

  “Just wait a minute. Listen to me. There are some things you should know about Hess.”

  “What?” That he kept unsavory company? That I knew. “It doesn’t matter. I have to go to the farm.” From there I could find out where the Smiths had taken Grace.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do.” I jerked free of his grasp and pushed through the door.

  He followed me into the hallway.

  “Ellison, wait.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Why? So you can have a confrontation with Hess? The Smiths will get Donna and Grace to a safe place. If you go up there, you’ll make things worse. Please, Ellison, take a few deep breaths before you get in the car.”

  I drew one deep breath then another. Then a third. Every molecule of my being urged me to the car, to lead-foot it north, to fight for Grace.

  But Hunter was right. The Smiths were well capable of hiding Grace and Donna. Between the two of them, the couple had a passel of sisters and brothers and cousins—all with homes Jonathan Hess would never find.

  “I can’t just sit here.”

  “The girls will be fine. If you go up there, you could run into Hess. That’s the last thing anyone wants.” Hunter’s hand closed on my elbow and he halted my progress toward the front door. “I don’t want you to put yourself in danger.”

  He admitted Hess was dangerous.

  “I—”

  “Adrenaline and emotion are doing your thinking for you. Please, Ellison, calm down.”

  Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his daughter.

  Again I pulled loose of Hunter’s grip. I pushed through the front door.

  Aggie stood on the other side with an enormous overnight bag looped over her arm.

  Hunter smiled at her. “I asked Aggie to stay until Grace is safely home.”

  The righteous anger I should feel over Hunter’s meddling in my life refused to get out of its comfy chair. Instead it sank lower and stuck its nose into a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

  Maybe because I liked having Aggie around. She was as comfy as my righteous anger’s chair. Maybe because I was more worried about my daughter than his interference.

  “You shouldn’t go,” Hunter insisted. “Tell her, Aggie. Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

  “What happened?” Aggie asked.

  I quickly recounted Grace’s phone call, then Amy’s. I told her about Mrs. Smith’s promise to get the girls away from the farm. I explained my need to be there.

  Aggie shook her head. Her dangly earrings swung like a hangman’s noose. “Mr. Tafft is right. You should stay here. There’s nothing you can do until you hear from Mrs. Smith.”

  Aggie was a muumuu-wearing Judas. And she was probably right.

  “I’ll take you to dinner,” said Hunter.

  No way could I eat. I needed to sit by the phone and drum my fingers through a table waiting for a call from the Smiths. “I’m not hungry.”

  His lips quirked. “I am. You can watch me eat.”

  That sounded marginally better than staring at a silent phone knowing I was powerless to do anything.

  He loaded me into his Mercedes and drove me to a restaurant paneled with dark wood. Its chairs were upholstered in hunter green wool. Its tables didn’t need matchbooks to remain steady.

  He ordered a martini.

  I ordered a club soda. Hunter Tafft could lead me to a bar but he couldn’t make me drink.

  “I looked into Jonathan Hess.” Hunter wore an I-know-something-you-don’t-know expression—a superior lift of his left brow coupled with a knowing tilt of his strong chin. The expression was as annoying as hell.

  “Oh?” My promise of silence to Anarchy chafed. Just once I’d like to prove to the high-handed man sitting across from me that I was capable of learning things without him.

  “Hess is a bad guy.”

  Duh. “We knew that.”

  “He has a history.”

  “Of what?” Had he done something to his own daughter? Had he killed his first wife? Jonathan Hess seemed the type. “Did you find out anything about his first wife and child?”

  Hunter raised a brow. “No. I found a Ponzi scheme.”

  Damn it. Hunter did know things I didn’t.

  “Back East?” Maybe that was why people were trying to run him down in the streets.

  He shook his head. “Here.”

  “Here?” My voice was an octave or two too high.

  “He’s already talked some pretty smart people into investing.” Hunter sipped his martini then popped an olive into his mouth.

  “Who?”

  “John Ballew, Howard Standish and John McCreary, for starters.”

  Lord love a duck.

  I waved at the waiter.

  He hurried to the table.

  I pointed toward Hunter’s drink. “I’ll have one of those.”

  “How did you find out?” I asked.r />
  “I was looking for malfeasance.”

  Malfeasance. A five-dollar attorney word that meant Jonathan Hess was more than just a monster. He was a monster who defrauded investors. Where was my drink?

  Hunter lifted his and sipped. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  “Happy?”

  He nodded. “Jonathan Hess goes to jail for fraud. India divorces him. Donna is safe.”

  “That seems simple.” Too simple. Things were never that easy.

  The waiter put the martini in front of me. It barely touched the table before I lifted it to my lips. “I don’t believe in simple.”

  Twenty-Three

  Hunter saw me home. He closed his hand on my elbow and escorted me up the front steps. It was time to dig for keys. I dug. Peering into the depths of my bag seemed much safer than looking into Hunter’s eyes. Safer than looking at the sky where the moon danced a rhumba, spinning romantic beams.

  Aha! Success. I pulled my keys out of the depths and held them up.

  “Ellison.” His voice brushed against me, soft and warm and as full of promise as a breeze in springtime.

  I dropped the damn keys.

  I crouched and my fingers scrabbled on the bricks.

  He crouched but his fingers didn’t scrabble. They effortlessly found mine. Held them.

  With his free hand, he brushed a stand of hair off my cheek.

  My insides went all warm and melty. My lips might have parted.

  He kissed me.

  Warm lips. Firm lips. Delectable lips. They made me tingle.

  Tingling was bad. Tingling led to bed. Bed led to marriage. Marriage led to infidelity.

  I pulled away.

  “Ellison.” That voice again. It was too seductive.

  “I should say goodnight.” I snatched the keys off the bricks and stood.

  Hunter stood as well. “If Henry weren’t dead, I might kill him for what he did to you.”

  Hunter didn’t see my retreat as a rejection. The damned man saw straight into my soul, saw my inability to trust, saw my fear.

  I scowled. Hunter Tafft ought not peer into my hidden corners.

  “Goodnight, Hunter. Thank you for dinner.” I inserted the key in the lock, turned it, and slipped inside. I leaned against the closed door. My heart beat as if I’d just faced a lion.

  I drew a shaky breath.

  “Oh, good! You’re home.” Aggie emerged from the kitchen. “Mrs. Smith called. The girls are safe at her sister’s house. She says not to worry.”

  “Thank you, Aggie.”

  “Did you have a nice dinner?” she asked.

  I manufactured a smile, nodded, walked into the family room, and burrowed into the corner of the couch.

  My gaze fixed on the flickering images on the television screen. My mind pinballed between Mrs. Smith’s sister’s house and the remembrance of Hunter’s lips.

  The Smiths told me I was not to worry about a thing. Yeah, right.

  Brinng.

  Again with the phone? I glanced at the clock on the bookshelf. A quarter after ten. Grace was under strict orders to contact no one. Not even me. It was too late for anyone else to call.

  I didn’t move. Whoever was on the other end of the line could call back tomorrow.

  Brin—

  Or Aggie could answer.

  A moment later she poked her head into the family room.

  My shoulders tensed and Max lifted his head. “Who was it?”

  “My sister, Sophia.”

  My shoulders relaxed.

  “My niece, Rosie, is in labor and Sophia asked if I’d go take care of Rosie’s two year-old so she can go to the hospital.”

  “Go.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” It was nice having her around, but I’d managed for years without her. I lifted my hands and shooed. “Go be with your family.”

  “I could come back…”

  “Don’t be silly. Go.”

  I didn’t have to tell her a third time.

  I watched images flicker for another hour then I let Max out. He sniffed around the backyard, chased some small night creature through my hostas, ignored my scolding and finally agreed to come inside in exchange for a dog biscuit. I turned out the lights and climbed the stairs. My bed never looked so welcoming. I climbed in it, closed my eyes, and drifted to sleep.

  Grrrrrr.

  I opened one eye and squinted at the clock in the darkness. It was barely after midnight. Max couldn’t possibly have to go out again already.

  Grrrrrrrrrr. Longer. Lower. More menacing.

  I opened the second eye. Max stood at the closed door to the hallway. His growl rumbled in his throat. The sound gave me shivers. Was there someone in the house?

  I reached into my bedside table, closed my fingers around the gun I kept there and swung my feet to the floor.

  Across the room, Max paced.

  I opened the bedroom door and Max crept into the hallway—a silent hunter.

  I followed him down the stairs, through the front hall, and into the kitchen, where moonlight reflected off the broken glass from a pane in the back door.

  My hand, the one holding the gun, slicked with sweat.

  My nerve endings tingled. With my free hand, I fumbled for the phone.

  A glove reached through the broken pane and closed around the doorknob.

  My heart beat fast enough to explode. I tightened my grip on the gun and abandoned the phone. Instead, I stepped into the shadows and wished—fervently—I wasn’t wearing a white nightgown. The damn thing seemed to glow. I raised the gun. I’d shoot as soon as the intruder crossed my threshold.

  Max still lingered in the light. The hair on his back stood on end. Shards of light glinted off his bared teeth.

  Bang!

  I jumped. Gasped. My gaze flew to the unfired gun clenched in my hand. Someone else was shooting. In my backyard. The glove invading my kitchen jerked backward.

  Bang!

  Max barked. Deep warning barks that told whoever was pulling the trigger that there existed nearby a dog ready to tear out their throats.

  His bark was the only sound I could hear in the silence lingering after the gun’s retort. “Shhh.”

  He rolled his doggy eyes but quieted.

  I listened. Heard nothing. An eternity passed—or maybe it was just a few seconds. I tiptoed through broken glass to a window that gave me a view of the backyard and peeked through the curtains.

  A figure—a shadow, really—climbed the back fence. Had the shadow stuck its gloved hand into my kitchen? If so, who’d done the shooting?

  I scanned the patio. Someone had been shooting at something—or someone. There! Legs protruded from my hostas.

  Damn.

  I stepped backward, sliced open my foot on a piece of glass and yelped. Drat! I lowered my chin to my chest, bit my lip until I tasted blood, counted to ten and called Anarchy Jones.

  “There’s a man in my hostas.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “He’s not moving.”

  Anarchy’s silence lasted the length of a few heartbeats. “Does he have a pulse?” He seemed insultingly unsurprised that yet another man lay dead in my yard.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I didn’t go outside.”

  That was met with a longer silence.

  I swallowed the urge to fill the silence by offering my services as a prodder of potentially dead bodies. I didn’t want the job.

  I had a sneaking suspicion I knew who was lying in my hostas. Although the leaves hid the upper half of the body, the out-of-season madras pants looked all too familiar. I wanted nothing to do with him.

  “Is someone on their way?” I asked.

  “I am.”

  I wrapped my foot in
a towel, gimped up the stairs and exchanged my nightgown for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The gun I kept.

  Experience told me the police wouldn’t take long to arrive. They knew the way. After all, it was just a few months ago they came to investigate Henry’s death.

  I’d been down this road before and I knew where it led—nowhere good. No way was I traveling it in a white lace negligee.

  I limped to the kitchen and rested the weight of my exhausted self against the center island. Max rubbed his head against my leg.

  I rubbed his ears then scratched under his chin. “You’re a big, brave doggy.”

  He grinned.

  Now I had to be brave. I sighed, picked up the phone, and dialed. “Mother, it’s Ellison.”

  She mumbled something about time.

  “Yes, I know what time it is.”

  Mother mumbled something slightly more coherent about Grace.

  “She’s fine.”

  “Then why are you calling? Is someone dead in your front yard?”

  “Backyard.”

  “That joke is in poor taste, Ellison.”

  “Not a joke, Mother. I just called so you wouldn’t hear about it from the neighbors first.”

  The muffled sounds of her waking up Daddy carried down the phone lines. “We’re on our way.”

  “There’s no need for you to come. I’m fine. Grace is safe.”

  “Are you sure?” Her doubts in my ability to handle the situation carried down the phone lines far more clearly than her attempts to wake up my father.

  “Yes.” I was more than sure. I was adamant. Mother’s stony mien would only lend a sense of déjà vu to the proceedings. The comfort of Daddy’s arms might bring me to tears.

  Mother sighed. My sigh had been resigned, the sigh of a man walking to the gallows. Mother’s sigh communicated deep disappointment, untold annoyance and the heavy weight of being mother to a daughter who found bodies in her hostas. “I suppose this means you’re missing the committee meeting tomorrow morning?”

  “I imagine so.” I’d take my blessings where I could find them.

  “I wanted you to be there. This gala is important to me.”

  I had a body—another body—in my hostas. The importance of yet another committee meeting paled in comparison. What was on the agenda? The color of the napkins? Over-sauced beef or rubber chicken for dinner? “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”